Emerging Horizons: 21st Century Approaches to the Study of Midrash: Proceedings of the Midrash Section, Society of Biblical Literature, Volume 9 9781463243654, 1463243650

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Emerging Horizons: 21st-Century Approaches to the Study of Midrash

Judaism in Context

26 Series Editors Rivka Ulmer Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman Elisheva Carlebach Jonathan Jacobs Naomi Koltun-Fromm David Nelson Lieve Teugels

Judaism in Context provides a platform for scholarly research focusing on the relations between Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture and other peoples, religions, and cultures among whom Jews have lived and flourished, from ancient times through the 21st century. The series includes monographs as well as edited collections.

Emerging Horizons: 21st-Century Approaches to the Study of Midrash

Proceedings of the Midrash Section, Society of Biblical Literature, volume 9

Edited by

W. David Nelson Rivka Ulmer

gp 2021

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com 2021 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܝܐ‬

1

2021

ISBN 978-1-4632-4365-4

ISSN 1935-6978

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to the Memory of

Rabbi Dr. Div. h.c. Moshe Ulmer, J.D., ‫זצ"ל‬

‫הרב משה בן שאול ולאה‬

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Contributors .................................................................. ix Introduction............................................................................. xi 1. Midrash as Masorah: God’s Gematria Lesson for Moses and the Scribes who Transmitted It .......................................... 1 ROBERT VANHOFF 2. The Red Cow: The Qurʾan and the Midrash ......................... 13 ABDULLA GALADARI 3. The Rabbinization of the Enemy: Villains in the Service of the Pharisees ......................................................................... 51 GILAD ELBOM 4. The Death of Moses, and the Understanding of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 ......................................... 59 JONATHAN SCHOFER 5. Emotional Discourse in Rabbinic Literature............................ 85 RONIT NIKOLSKY 6. A Yelammedenu Unit in Pesiqta Rabbati and Midrash Tanḥuma: A Text Linguistic Analysis .................................................... 109 RIVKA ULMER

vii

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Gilad Elbom Oregon State University Corvallis, OR [email protected] Abdulla Galadari Khalifa University of Science & Technology Dubai, United Arab Emirates [email protected] Ronit Nikolsky Rijksuniversiteit Groningen The Netherlands [email protected] Jonathan Schofer Department of Religious Studies University of Texas, Austin [email protected] Rivka Ulmer Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA [email protected] Robert Vanhoff TorahResource Institute Tacoma, WA [email protected] ix

INTRODUCTION JOHN T. TOWNSEND IN M EMORIAM

The Rev. Dr. John T. Townsend passed away in Boston, Mass., on April 22, 2020. John T. Townsend (born 1927) received his education at the Harvard Divinity School; additionally, he studied at Ulpan Etzion and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. Townsend was Professor of Judaism and Biblical Languages at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Following his retirement in 1994, he taught Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School until 2009. Among Townsend’s publications is a translation of a rabbinic homiletic work, Midrash Tanhuma. Translated into English in Three Volumes (Ktav Publishing). John Townsend was among the twelve scholars who supported the creation of a SBL Midrash unit leading to a first session in Toronto in 2002. He always attended the SBL midrash sessions and he was involved in discussions and programming efforts. The midrash section lost a great scholar, mentor, and friend.

CHAPTERS

Nestled within the vast masorah notes of two medieval Torah codices Robert Vanhoff discovered one short midrashic gem. Instead of a record of the precise number of occurrences of a word, a strange spelling, or other peculiar feature of interest to the medieval scribes, there is a story about how the Holy One encouraged Moses by revealing to him certain numerological connections between the name Ehyeh, the Patriarchs, and the Torah itself. Not only was this “masorah note” unexpected, but it is also unlike anything Vanhoff encountered in rabbinic literature; its xi

xii

EMERGING HORIZONS

attestation in two different but likely contemporaneous manuscripts is even more intriguing. The text is preserved within the upper and lower marginal masorah notes at Exodus 3, where Moses nervously asks the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The divine response, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, prompted the copyist-scribes to insert a gematria lesson which Vanhoff classifies as midrash.Though it contains the distinctly rabbinic tropes hakadosh baruch hu, davar acher, and gematria, this midrash seems to have emerged exclusively within a scribal tradition whose primary focus was transmitting masorah. Abdulla Galadari examines the Qurʾanic narrative of the red cow, which appears to combine elements from Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21. However, it also included elements from rabbinic commentary, such as the debate on the age of the cow and the importance of having a homogenous color, in which the rabbis disqualified the cow if there were even as much as two hairs that are of a different color. Also, the Qurʾan states that the Israelites called this precept “ḥaqq,” which parallels the rabbinic tradition stating that this is a “ḥoq.” While no one understands its paradoxical rationale, where impurity is used to purify and everyone involved in the ritual becomes impure with the same elements that eventually purify, it is a “ḥoq,” because they are to obey it due to its divine edict, as it is also echoed in Midrash Tanḥuma and Bamidbar Rabbah. While the context of the Qurʾan appears to be on resurrection instead of purification, it is argued that the Qurʾan understands resurrection in the cow narrative as purification from “ṭumʾah” or death. Yet, this death does not necessarily have to be even physical death. It holds its similarity with Adam’s sin, who lost his opportunity to immortality, and became spiritually dead. Similarly, as the Talmud states that the Israelites became immortal for accepting the Torah, but lost this immortality due to the sin of the golden calf. As such, perhaps the Qurʾan understands this as spiritual death, with which the red cow is undoing the sin of the golden calf that caused such spiritual death, which later Jewish midrashim also emphasize. Gilad Elbom examines several midrashic narratives that offer a rabbinization of the enemies of Israel, most notably Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; Zeresh, wife of (and, according to

INTRODUCTION

xiii

rabbinic literature, advisor to) Haman; and Jezebel, the archetype of the evil queen. Surprisingly, these vilified figures show remarkable proficiency not only in the Hebrew Bible but also, and more importantly, in rabbinic literature itself. The ingenuous recruitment of otherwise irredeemable villains in the service of the rabbis promotes a clear Pharisaic agenda, especially in the context of the political rivalry with the Sadducees. As a statement about the supreme importance and wide acceptance of rabbinic literature, the fact that despicable biblical characters are familiar with the hermeneutic tradition of the rabbis implies that even the worst enemies of Israel, if knowledgeable in the Oral Law, are better than the Sadducees, who reject it. Jonathan Schofer focuses on the death of Moses, which according to Judah Goldin, brings two responses from midrashic interpreters: first, the need to defend or justify God’s sentence that Moses must die, and second, the need to express protestation that this “fate of Moses” was disturbing to later generations. This chapter examines the long and highly refined treatment of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, a source whose redaction is the eighth century CE or later, with consideration of parallel sources. Schofer shows that two conflicting sets of concerns that run through the Pentateuch—God’s intimacy with Moses, and the recurring statement that Moses cannot “cross” the Jordan River with the Israelites and will die first. These concerns are integrated in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 in a narrative that portrays emotional expression of Moses in a prayer so powerful that it terrifies God Himself. More foundationally, this study argues that this text presenting the death of Moses reveals both key features of the changing genre of midrash in this period, and the understanding of the Book of Deuteronomy as scripture in late canonical homiletic midrash. In addition, the portrayal of Moses in Deuteronomy Rabbah reveals dynamic considerations of emotion as treated in rabbinic midrash. Ronit Nikolsky studies emotions in rabbinic literature by looking into three words from rabbinic literature that are suspected as referring to emotions. While engaging with other scholars, Nikolsky utilizes a cognitive approach to emotions. Two issues are acknowledged by most if not all cultural scholars of

xiv

EMERGING HORIZONS

emotions: first, that emotions are cultural, and this was recognized by scholars of culture before it was recognized by biologists, and second, that they are embodied, that is, they have a strong bodily component. The bodily component is not transparent in the study of past cultures, as references to bodily gestures are not always understood, and in many cases they are collocated. But as recent cognitive study of emotions shows, the bodily aspects are less instructive than previously thought even in modern emotions. She also describes recent cognitive studies of emotions, which serve to explain what she is searching in the study of rabbinic emotions. Rivka Ulmer presents a text linguistic analysis of a yelammedenu unit in the Tanḥuma (printed edition, Naso 29-30) and in Pesiqta Rabbati 3 (On the eighth day). The rabbinic homiletic unit referred to as “yelammedenu” (“Let our rabbi teach us”) is a major characteristic of the so-called “Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu” literature. Several features of this literature are present in the midrashic work Pesiqta Rabbati, which is a unique rabbinic work based on an annual liturgical calendar in its presentation of homilies for festivals and special Sabbaths, whereas Midrash Tanḥuma follows a triennial cycle of the weekly Torah readings. Both midrashic works lend themselves to “form-analytical,” text-linguistic and post-modern literary theories, because the texts contain recurrent elements of midrash, as well as comprehensive religious messages. The respective homilies in both works are written in a series of symbols constituting a Sigma, which renders the texts comparable. This suggested methodology may assist scholars in their production of editions and in their “decoding” and defining of ancient texts beyond the more superficial level of “contents” and narratives. 6th of Av, 5781 W. David Nelson Rivka Ulmer

1. MIDRASH AS MASORAH: GOD’S GEMATRIA LESSON FOR MOSES AND THE SCRIBES WHO TRANSMITTED IT ROBERT VANHOFF Even in our best earliest witness of the Tiberian scribal tradition we find midrash transmitted within a sea of masorah.1 But such a phenomenon is rare. Given the dry, statistical nature of the massive body of scribal knowledge, one does not immediately picture those responsible –the meticulous text-accountants and calligraphers we call soferim– as storytellers. Yet medieval Jewish scribes enjoyed their own style of lore, independent from that which would be considered rabbinic.2 Over time, particularly in the wake of Rashi’s Torah commentary, the rabbinic-midrashic and the scribal-masoretic worlds began to coalesce in the minds of commentators. Subsequent Torah scholarship increasingly acknowledged and engaged the masoretic tradition. On the other hand, as scribes continued to copy and transmit the text of Tanakh

Robert Vanhoff, “A Necessary Yod: How Masorah and Midrash Helped to Clarify the Canon,” in Torah is a Hidden Treasure, W. David Nelson, Rivka Ulmer, eds. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2019), pp. 175-185. By “best earliest witness” I mean the famous Keter, the Aleppo Codex produced in early 10th century Tiberias. 2 David Marcus, Scribal Wit (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2013). 1

1

2

ROBERT VANHOFF

along with its traditional vowel points and masorah notes, they would occasionally include something midrashic in nature. Nestled within the vast masorah notes of two medieval Torah codices I discovered one such short but clever midrashic gem. Instead of a record of the precise number of occurrences of a word, a strange spelling, or other peculiar feature of interest to the medieval scribes, there is a story about how the Holy One encouraged Moses by revealing to him certain numerological connections between the name Ehyeh, the Patriarchs, and the Torah itself. Not only was this “masorah note” unexpected, but it is also unlike anything I have encountered in rabbinic literature; its attestation in two different but likely contemporaneous manuscripts even more intriguing. The text is preserved within the upper and lower marginal masorah notes at Exodus 3, where Moses nervously asks the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The divine response, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, prompted the copyist-scribes to insert a gematria lesson which I classify as midrash.3 I have been unable to identify any earlier versions or even possible literary ancestors for this story. Though it contains the distinctly rabbinic tropes ha-kadosh baruch hu, davar acher, and gematria, this midrash seems to have emerged exclusively within a scribal tradition whose primary focus was transmitting masorah. In what follows I provide a brief description of the two manuscripts and offer parallel transcriptions of the midrash, followed by a translation. I then explore three subsequent–and quite different–expressions of the core tradition: a late 13th century parallel in Sefer HaGematriot attributed to Judah the Pious, the 14th century Torah commentary of Jacob ben Asher (the Ba‘al HaTurim), and three 13th century Targum manuscripts. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on the merging of midrash and masorah in the world of medieval Jewish scribes and scholars. Here I follow Martin S. Jaffee’s simple definition, a “halakhic or aggadic tradition transmitted as an explanation of a biblical verse.” J. Corrigan, F. Denny, C. Eire, and M. Jaffee, Jews, Christians, Muslims: A Comparative Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1998), p. 21. 3

MIDRASH AS MASORAH

Figure 1. British Library, MS Or. 2363 (f. 54v-55r), Exodus 3

Figure 2. National Library of Israel, MS Jer Ben Zvi Ms. 1383 (68/268), Exodus 3

3

4

ROBERT VANHOFF

Figure 1 is an 11th or 12th century manuscript from the British Library collection, catalogued as Or. 2363. The library describes the unique Hebrew script as “Persian” and its place of origin as “Iran or Iraq.” It contains the text of the Torah with inline Targum Onkelos and accompanying masorah. The second manuscript is Jer Ben Zvi Ms. 1383 at the National Library of Israel. It is a medieval Pentateuch with masorah notes, yet the library marks no place of origin, and the date stamp is .+-, *# “unknown” [Fig. 2]. Since both manuscripts contain the same midrash at the scene of the burning bush, the question arises whether a single copyist was responsible for both. Additionally, both feature a two-column layout with some lines of masorah notes written at an angle for decorative effect. Though I lack training in hand-writing analysis, my impression is that it could very well be the same scribe, but perhaps years apart [see Fig. 3-4]. If this were to be the case, it would explain the presence of the midrash in each. These manuscripts would then have proximate dates and locations, and the “unknown” tag on Ms. 1383 could be corrected to 11th-12th century Iran or Iraq.

Figure 3. Handwriting comparison (Ms 2363 above)

$”&4$ +# %'* * ,%3',2& * 1 10 $,$* ) ,/'

Figure 4. Handwriting comparison (Ms 2363 above)

$#' #0 ( ,% 5+ &* #( 5+ ,5+* &(65(0

MIDRASH AS MASORAH

5

TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION

Figure 5 contains the parallel transcriptions. In both manuscripts the midrash begins in the upper margin, on the heels of traditional masoretic content, and is concluded in the lower, at which point the topic returns to standard masorah. Here I have isolated and transcribed only the midrash. The three dots “. . .” signify the break between upper and lower notes, and the text is presented in logical comparative units. I retain the alef-lamed ligature (‫ )ﭏ‬where employed by the scribes and represent the super-linear dot (variously shaped in the manuscripts) with a simple holem. The underlined text in Ms. 2363 indicates the most notable differences from Ms. 1383. Targum BL Or 2363

Jer Ben Zvi Ms. 1383

‫א בגימטריא‬ ֹ ‫מנין אהיה ֹכ‬

‫א בגימטריא‬ ֹ ‫מנין אהיה ֹכ‬

‫ה‬ ֹ ‫אמר לו הקֹב‬

‫ה‬ ֹ ‫קֹב‬ ֹ ‫אמר לו ה‬

‫ק אהיה עמך‬ ֹ ‫ח ויע‬ ֹ ‫ה יצ‬ ֹ ‫אני כמו שהייתי עם אברהם יצחק ויעקב אהיה עמך אני כמו שהייתי עם אבר‬ ‫כש‬

‫כשתחשב‬

...

...

‫כשתחשב אותיות של אבות‬

‫כשתחשב אותיות של אבות‬

‫ה יוד מיצחק ויוד‬ ֹ ‫ריש כל מלה כמו ﭏף מאבר‬

‫ריש כל מלה כמו ﭏף מאברהם יוד מיצחק ויוד‬

‫א‬ ֹ ‫ק נמצא מנין אהיה ֹכ‬ ֹ ‫מיע‬

‫א‬ ֹ ‫מיעקב מנין אהיה ֹכ‬

‫א‬ ֹ ‫ֹד‬

‫א‬ ֹ ‫דבר‬

‫שתתן להם חמשה חומשי תורה‬

‫שאתן להם חמשה חומשי תורה‬

‫ש ווו מﭏה שמות ווו ויקרא ווו מדבר‬ ֹ ‫כשתקח בי ברא‬

‫כשתקח בי בראשית וו מאלה שמות ווו דויקרא ווו‬

‫סיני וﭏף ﭏה הדברים‬

‫דמדבר סיני וﭏף דﭏה הדברים‬

‫א מֹנ אהיה‬ ֹ ‫יבוא הכל ֹכ‬

‫א מנין אהיה‬ ֹ ‫יבוא הכל ֹכ‬

Figure 5. Transcriptions arranged for comparison Ms. 2363 contains more abbreviations than 1383, and both feature the ligature. Ms. 2363 is unique in using ‫ נמצא‬and voices the first verb of the davar acher in the second person, whereas Ms. 1383 uses the first person. In Ms. 1383 we see the Aramaic proclitic dalet marking the genitive for the titles of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, whereas Ms. 2363 has the simple Hebrew construct form. Of all these differences, this last point would perhaps most strongly suggest a different scribe recording

6

ROBERT VANHOFF

the same tradition. On the other hand, the same scribe could simply be using creative variation in different performances.4 The count of Ehyeh is twenty-one in gematria. Said the Blessed Holy One to him, “I, just as I was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will be with you (Ex 3:12). When you calculate the letters of the patriarchs, the first (letter) of each word, like so: the alef from Abraham, the yod from Isaac, and the yod from Jacob, the count of Ehyeh is found: twentyone.” Another word: “When you (Ms. 1383 “I”) give to them the five fifths of the Torah, when you take the bet from Bereshit, the vav from Eleh Sh’mot, the vav from Vayikra, the vav from Midbar Sinai, and the alef from Eleh HaDevarim, the whole will come to twentyone, the count of Ehyeh.”

The point of this story, which I have designated as the core tradition, is clear: the initial letters of the names of the Patriarchs, as with the initial letters of each book of the Pentateuch, add up to the numerical value of the name Ehyeh, which is twenty-one. Strange as it might sound, the davar acher must be read as a second statement from the Holy One to Moses, rather than a comment directed toward the reader. Both versions support this claim. Ms 2362 reads “When you give to them...” and Ms 1383 “When I give to them...” In either case, the only plausible explanation is that this is a continuation of the Holy One’s message for Moses: the Every scribal product can be described in terms of performance. Philip Alexander offers a convincing rationale to think of rabbinic manuscripts as scribal performances: “...many rabbinic texts show high levels of textual fluidity and instability, and the more we probe into the manuscripts and medieval quotations, the more obvious this becomes. . . . those who copied and recopied these texts did not feel obligated to preserve them precisely as they received them. They were happy to recreate them to meet their own needs, or the perceived needs of their time. . . To them, the texts were living and developing. Each recopying was a re-performance.” Philip Alexander, “Using Rabbinic Literature as a Source for the History of Late-Roman Palestine: Problems and Issues,” in M. Goodman and P. Alexander, eds, Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine (Oxford, 2010) p. 12. 4

MIDRASH AS MASORAH

7

mathematics of these Hebrew letters demonstrate not only assurance for Moses’ confidence concerning his commission, but also the unity of and full continuity between this mysterious name of God, the Patriarchs, and the Five Books of the Torah.5 The eighty-year-old Moses is only now at the burning bush, yet he is told the first letters and the first words of each of the five books he has yet to write, along with their secret significance! With the deliberate placement of this midrash within the notes of traditional masorah the scribes of these two manuscripts make two important affirmations. The first is that the Tiberian masorah and rabbinic midrash are different threads within a larger, authoritative fabric of Jewish textual knowledge and tradition. The second is that this special revelation to Moses preserved in the written Torah included additional, hidden numerological connections which prove the inseparable nature of the creator God, His covenant people, and their Scripture. While the Talmud mentions twelve, forty-two, and even seventy-two lettered names of God, there is nothing there or in the classic midrash about the significance of the number twenty-one in this regard.6 The scribes alone are the keepers of this secret.

JUDAH BEN SAMUEL

A late 13th century manuscript of Sefer HaGematriot (hereafter, SG), presumed to be a copy of a work by the leader of German Hasidism Judah ben Samuel the Pious (1150-1217), contains a curious parallel to our present midrash.7 ‫אֹך אלהים טוב לישֹר‬ ֹ ‫הו‬ ֹ ֹ‫הי‬ ֹ ‫א‬ ֹ ‫אברהם יֹצחק יֹעקב וכמיניין‬ ֹ ‫ייי אלהינו ייי ֹ התחלתו כנגד‬

The Hasmonean-era Paleo-Hebrew Exodus found at Qumran (4Q11) appears to begin with ‫ אלה‬rather than the masoretic ‫ואלה‬, which would of course upset the gematria. The standard LXX text likewise begins with Ταυτα, rather than Και ταυτα, as would be expected. 6 Sifre Devarim at Deuteronomy 32:3 explains why Moses spoke twentyone words of the Ha-azinu before uttering the Holy name. See Martin Jaffee’s online English translation: https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/book/sifre-devarim/chapter/pisqa318/ 7 National Library of Israel Ms. Heb. 28°7234 (~1300), p. 11. The script is described as Ashkenazit. 5

8

ROBERT VANHOFF YYY Eloheinu YYY (Deut 6:4): its beginning corresponds to Abraham Isaac Jacob, and is like the count of EHYH and Surely (‫ )אך‬Elohim is good to Israel (Ps. 73:1).

This tradition is to be differentiated from our midrash on several fronts. Though the rabbinic terms ha-kadosh baruch hu, davar acher, and gematria are used throughout this manuscript of SG, none of these are employed here. The number twenty-one is explicitly mentioned three times in our midrash, but not here at all, even though numbers pepper every page of SG. Furthermore, we find here nothing about Moses, and nothing about the beginning letters of the five books. Our Pentateuch “masorah” midrash cites neither the Shema nor any Psalm. What we have in SG is an equivalency expressed with the phrase “like the count of,” connecting the beginning of the divine names from the Shema with the name Ehyeh and with the beginnings of the names of the patriarchs. Only these last two connections are paralleled within the midrash found in the two Torah manuscripts. Thus, our candidate for the smallest unit of the shared numerical tradition is therefore: EHYH = Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Did this gematria lesson, absent from the texts of Talmud and midrash, originate in the Middle East and travel to Europe along with these codices? Was it shared by word of mouth? How did Judah the Pious come upon this tradition? In a book devoted entirely to gematria, why did he not mention the rest of this clever midrash? I conclude that all he learned or observed was the basic equivalency expressed in this smallest unit. At the time of writing SG, he knew nothing of the traditions we find displayed in the margins of our Torah codices. Overall, this small textual unit appears almost as a passing, minor tradition within SG when one considers the bulk of numerological material in that work.

J ACOB BEN A SHER

The famous codifier of Jewish law Jacob ben Asher, known as the Ba‘al HaTurim after his encyclopaedic work on halakhah, was obsessed with gematria. His Torah commentary is full of calculations of the values of words and their imagined connections, and his computations at Exodus 3 do not disappoint. Ben Asher is clearly aware of the tradition contained in the Torah manuscripts,

MIDRASH AS MASORAH

9

but he employs different language for his performance. His comments are also to be distinguished from the tradition in SG, since he mentions neither the Shema nor Psalm 73. Below is an image from the printed edition of 1514 (Constantinople), with my translation.8

And they will say to me, “What is His name? What...” (Ex 3:13) The ends of the words are the Name of Four Letters which He transmitted to him there. And it is written afterwards, And you will gather the elders of Israel (Ex 3:16), because it is not transmitted to anyone except to the elders of the generation. Three times Ehyeh, corresponding to the three Patriarchs, and they are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham: And you be (ve’heyeh) a blessing (Gen 12:2). Isaac: Dwell in this land and I will be (ehyeh) with you (Gen 26:3). Jacob: Return to the land of your fathers and I will (ehyeh) be with you (Gen 31:3). Ehyeh makes twenty and one. And so the beginning of the three names of the Thirteen Attributes, YY’ YY’ El (Ex 34:6). And so the first letters of the words Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And so the beginning of the five books of the Torah, bet, vav, vav, vav, alef. Two times Ehyeh amounts in calculation to forty-two. Because He transmitted to him the Name of Forty-two Letters. Three times Ehyeh makes sixty-three. And they are twelve letters. This corresponds to the twelve tribes, which are fifty letters. Combine with them the thirteen letters of the names of the Patriarchs and the calculation will be sixty-three. This Transcribed and translated from the digital version available at www.hebrewbooks.org/44423, p. 39/143.

8

10

ROBERT VANHOFF is My name forever (Ex 3:15). This (zayin, heh) makes the number twelve, teaching that He transmitted to him the Name of Twelve Letters.

Ben Asher has compiled quite a list of fantastic numerical equivalencies here, the content of which extends well beyond the scope of this paper. My focus is limited to what his commentary repeats of the midrash discovered in the Torah manuscripts; it is certainly a more substantive connection than what is shared with SG. The basic unit identified above, EHYH = Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, is clearly present. Unlike SG, Jacob ben Asher includes the number twenty-one as well as the initial letters of the books of the Pentateuch. He offers no narrative midrash wherein the Holy One speaks to Moses, only third-person statements that “he transmitted it to him.” The tone is rather distant, focused mainly upon the intricate calculations. One element that ben Asher shares with SG is a connection to the first letters of a passage wherein the Tetragrammaton is given twice along with Elohim. But while SG cites the Shema, YYY Eloheinu YYY, ben Asher accomplishes the same value by citing Exodus 34:6, YY’ YY’ El.9 Was he aware of SG, yet wanted to showcase his clever virtuosity by substituting an alternative proof text? I think this is very likely. But if he was aware of the tradition expressed in our masorah notes, he stripped it of its specific importance for the insecure Moses; namely, the Holy One’s personal assurance to be with him during his coming trials. In its place ben Asher writes a blanket apologetic for the techniques of gematria (although here he refers to it as cheshbon) as an integral part of divine revelation. Having received this insight directly from the Holy One, Moses is now the sole transmitter to the elders of Israel all the secrets of the mysterious names of God.

Both the manuscript of SG and the printed edition of Baal HaTurim employ a multiple-yod circumlocution for the Tetragrammaton.

9

MIDRASH AS MASORAH

11

TARGUM M ANUSCRIPTS - VISUAL M IDRASH

The last expression of the midrash is unlike that found in SG and the Ba‘al HaTurim. Instead of a creative textual expansion of the basic gematria equivalencies, we see a purely visual connection between the Ehyeh and the names of the three Patriarchs in some Targum manuscripts at Exodus 3. Rather than written comments and calculations, we find careful calligraphy. By employing both the alef-lamed ligature and the third-person masculine singular anticipatory suffix, the Hebrew construct form Elohei $#"! “God of...” is both translated and transformed into the Aramaic #$#%, looking nearly identical to #$#!. Neither the ligature nor the suffix is necessary for the Targum; the simple Aramaic construct would be spelled just like the Hebrew, albeit with different vocalization. The scribes are clearly capturing something beyond translation. The best example is found in a 13th century manuscript [Fig. 6].

Figure 6. British Library, Ms 9400, at Exodus 4:5 (73v) This visual pun in Ms 9400, &4.,- $,$7+ 46",- $,$7 8$%&*- $,$7 can be understood as a scribal play on our midrash, simultaneously translating the Hebrew text and encoding an additional meaning for informed readers: Eyheh of Abraham, Ehyeh of Isaac, and Eyheh of Jacob. At Exodus 3:16 in the same manuscript (72v-73r) we find: &4.,+ 46", 8$%&*- $,$7 ,# ,#25* )+05$&*- $,$7 ,,, )+$# %',5+ And you will say to them, YYY Ehyeh of your fathers appeared to me, Ehyeh of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Other Targum manuscripts reflect this same convention. At Exodus 3:15, the 13th century Ms. Berlin Qu. 306 contains: 8$%&*- $,$7

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ROBERT VANHOFF

,ֹ‫ ﭏהיה דיצחק וﭏהיה דיעק‬and a contemporary manuscript Cod. Parm. 2680 has ‫ ﭏהיה דאבוך ﭏהיה דאברהם ﭏהיה דיצחק וﭏהי דיעקב‬at Exodus 3:6, Ehyeh of your fathers, Ehyeh of Abraham, Ehyeh of Isaac, and Elahei of Jacob. In this last instance, it seems the scribe switched back to ‫ ﭏהי‬purposefully, having already written ‫ ﭏהיה‬three times.

CONCLUSION

The manuscript evidence surveyed herein tracks an instance of the merging of masorah and midrash in the imagination of Jewish scribes and sages between the 11th and 14th centuries. While the means of transmission among and between these various sources is not clear, we can identify in this period the increased popularity of gematria generally, stretching geographically between the Middle East and Western Europe, with specific emphasis on the numerological secrets concerning God’s name and the assertion that Moses himself had received them directly from the Holy One and handed them down to the elders of Israel. Would the scribes of these manuscripts therefore consider themselves innovators, or as faithful tradents of ancient knowledge going back to Moses? Were they simply cloaking their various calculations in traditional rabbinic garb? The two Persian “performances” of our midrash reflect only a slight creative difference, while in the European sources – Judah the Pious and Jacob ben Asher – subjective editorial choice and arrangement are clearly at play. Finally, we learn that midrash did not always require words. We have seen how the fundamental secret, namely, the core equivalency of the name Ehyeh with the initial letters of the names of the Patriarchs, was also conveyed silently through clever scribal art.

2. THE RED COW: THE QURʾAN AND THE MIDRASH ABDULLA GALADARI1 A BSTRACT The Qurʾanic narrative of the red cow appears to combine elements from Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21. However, it also included elements from rabbinic commentary, such as the debate on the age of the cow and the importance of having a homogenous colour, in which the rabbis disqualified the cow if there were even as much as two hairs that are of a different colour. Also, the Qurʾan states that the Israelites called this precept “ḥaqq,” which parallels the rabbinic tradition stating that this is a “ḥoq.” While no one understands its paradoxical rationale, where impurity is used to purify and everyone involved in the ritual becomes impure with the same elements that eventually purify, it is a “ḥoq,” because they are to obey it due to its divine edict, as it is also echoed in Midrash Tanḥuma and Bamidbar Rabbah. Although the Qurʾan shows full awareness of the Jewish tradition, there is one major difference in that the Qurʾan puts the narrative in the context of resurrection or bringing life out of the dead, while in Jewish tradition it is a purification ritual. Yet, the paradox is similar, in which the red cow’s ritual brings purity from impurity is understood from Bamidbar Rabbah just like Abraham (pure) coming out from This chapter is an edited version primarily based on Galadari, Abdulla (2021) Metaphors of Death and Resurrection in the Qur’an: An Intertextual Approach with Biblical and Rabbinic Literature, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 127–146. 1

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ABDULLA GALADARI Terah (impure), Hezekiah (pure) from Ahaz (impure), Israel (pure) from the nations of the world (impure), and the world to come (pure) from this world (impure). After the cow’s narrative, the Qurʾan speaks of the event in Meribah, similar to Numbers 20. The Qurʾan explains that the Israelites’ hearts were like stone or harder, which holds similarity to how Bamidbar Rabbah explains as one of the meanings of “mōrîm” as disobediently stubborn. As such, the Qurʾan appears to be aware of the rabbinic tradition pertaining to the red cow and directly engaging with it. While the context of the Qurʾan appears to be on resurrection instead of purification, it is argued that the Qurʾan understands resurrection in the cow narrative as purification from “ṭumʾah” or death. Yet, this death does not necessarily have to be even physical death. It holds its similarity with Adam’s sin, who lost his opportunity to immortality, and became spiritually dead. Similarly, as the Talmud states that the Israelites became immortal for accepting the Torah, but lost this immortality due to the sin of the golden calf. As such, perhaps the Qurʾan understands this as spiritual death, with which the red cow is undoing the sin of the golden calf that caused such spiritual death, as later Jewish midrashim also emphasize.

I NTRODUCTION

The Qurʾan is not short of allusions to the midrash, which is acknowledged in Western scholarship ever since Abraham Geiger (d. 1874) wrote Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen.2 The Qiblah passages in the Qurʾan (Qurʾan 2:149–150), for example, make arguments to a Jewish community by utilizing midrashic and haggadic traditions to emphasize the supremacy of the Shemaʿ.3 The Qurʾan also uses language and terms in those passages that would resonate to their biblical and haggadic use when formulating its arguments.4 Another example is Qurʾan 5:32, which states that God has written to them (referring to the Jews) that whoever destroys a soul is as if they destroyed the whole world and Geiger, Abraham (1833) Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? Bonn: F. Baaden. 3 Galadari, Abdulla (2013) “The Qibla: An Allusion to the Shemaʿ,” Comparative Islamic Studies, 9(1): 165–193. 4 Ibid. 2

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whoever saves a soul is as if they saved the whole world. The Qurʾan makes such a statement after narrating the story of Cain and Abel. The Mishnah makes a very similar statement also after narrating the story of Cain and Abel.5 The interesting issue is that Qurʾan 5:32 makes it clear that this tradition is not even attributed to the rabbis, but that God is the one who enacted such a precept to the Jews. As such, the Qurʾan elevates the authority of the Jewish oral tradition, at least in this specific example. Many recent scholars, such as Gordon Newby,6 Reuven Firestone,7 Michael Pregill,8 Holger Zellentin,9 Haggai Mazuz,10 and Michael Graves11 discuss how the Qurʾan and later Muslim literature are aware of rabbinic traditions. This chapter investigates the Qurʾan’s relationship with the Midrash pertaining to the red cow m. Sanhedrin 4:5 Newby, Gordon D. (1988) A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to Their Eclipse Under Islam, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. 7 Firestone, Reuven (2008) An Introduction to Islam for Jews, Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society. 8 Pregill, Michael E. (2007) “The Hebrew Bible and the Quran: The Problem of the Jewish ‘Influence’ on Islam,” Religion Compass, 1(6): 643–659; Pregill, Michael E. (2008) “Isra’iliyyat, Myth and Pseudepigrapha: Wahb b. Munabbih and the Early Islamic Versions of the Fall of Adam and Eve,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 34: 215–284. 9 Zellentin, Holger M. (2016) “Aḥbār and Ruhbān: Religious Leaders in the Qurʾān in Dialogue with Christian and Rabbinic Literature,” in Qurʾānic Studies Today, eds. Angelika Neuwirth and Michael A. Sells, 262–293, Abingdon: Routledge. 10 Mazuz, Haggai (2012) “Menstruation and Differentiation: How Muslims Differentiated Themselves from Jews regarding the Laws of Menstruation,” Der Islam, 87: 204–223; Mazuz, Haggai (2013) “Menstruation Influence on Islamic Folklore: The Case of Menstruation,” Studia Islamica, 108: 189–201; Mazuz, Haggai (2014) The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina, Leiden: Brill; Mazuz, Haggai (2016) “Possible Midrashic Sources in Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s Tafsīr,” Journal of Semitic Studies, 61(2): 497–505; Mazuz, Haggai (2016) “The Midrashic Sources of Saʿīd b. Ḥasan,” Revue des études juives, 175(1–2): 67–81; Mazuz, Haggai (2017) “Ibn Ḥazm and Midrash,” Journal of Semitic Studies, 62(1): 137–152. 11 Graves, Michael W. (2015) “The Upraised Mountain and Israel’s Election in the Qurʾan and Talmud,” Comparative Islamic Studies, 11(2): 141– 177. 5 6

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ritual. Ali Aghaei has studied this issue on how Muslim exegetes used Jewish sources in the midrash and haggadah to interpret the red cow passages in the Qurʾan.12 In this chapter, the Qurʾan’s awareness of certain Jewish traditions and sources is studied, instead of only looking at later Muslim exegetes in their attempt to fill the gap. Most importantly, since the Qurʾan appears to be aware of many details pertaining to the red cow ritual from the biblical and rabbinic traditions, the context still appears to be distinct, where the biblical and rabbinic traditions contextualize the ritual as a purification from the dead, the Qurʾan contextualizes it to bringing life back to the dead. The study in this chapter also recognizes the possibility that some late Jewish midrash, typically dated post-Qurʾanic might have, at least existed in some oral form during the time of the Qurʾan. This might allow us to re-examine the dating of these midrash and their various editing layers by looking at the possible reception of these traditions within the Qurʾan. The biblical account of the ritual of the red cow is a paradox par excellence.13 Its absurdity has perplexed Jewish communities throughout history. The ritual is for purification, where those defiled by a dead corpse would be purified. However, the priests and everyone who perform the ritual, themselves being pure, become defiled in the process. The same water that defiled the pure is also used to purify the defiled. While the defilement occurs on account of a corpse, another corpse (the sacrificed red cow) reinstates purity. Therefore, if the Qurʾan suggests that the Israelites asked Moses if he is mocking them, could they truly be blamed? Qurʾan 2:67 states, “And when Moses said to his people, ‘God commands you to slaughter a cow (baqarah),’ they said, ‘Do you take us in mockery?’ He said, ‘I seek refuge in God from being among the ignorant.’”

Aghaei, Ali (2017) “The Morphology of the Narrative Exegesis of the Qur’an: The Case of the Cow of the Banū Isrāʾīl (Q2:67–74),” in Reading the Bible in Islamic Context: Qur’anic Conversations, eds. Daniel J. Crowther, Shirin Shafaie, Ida Glaser, and Shabbir Akhtar, 167-194, Abingdon: Routledge. 13 Baumgarten, Albert I. (1993) “The Paradox of the Red Heifer,” Vetus Testamentum, 43(4): 442–451. 12

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Accordingly, this chapter looks closely into how the Qurʾan understands this ritual paradox, especially in the context of resurrection, in which the Qurʾan apparently situates this ritual. The Qurʾan frequently uses antithesis as a rhetorical style, including something and its opposite arising from one another. For example, God brings out the dead from the living and the living from the dead (e.g., Qurʾan 6:95, 10:31, 30:19). Other examples include bringing the night from the day and the day from the night (e.g., Qurʾan 22:61, 31:29, 35:13, 57:6) and God is described in the same verse as severe in punishment, but yet the most merciful (e.g., Qurʾan 5:98). In Arabic rhetoric, this is known as muqābalah or ṭibāq (antithesis). It appears that much of the logic and reasoning used by Jewish communities has been highly influenced by Greek philosophy, especially in Hellenistic Judaism,14 after which much rabbinic literature was styled. The same may be said from the flourishing field of Qurʾanic rhetorical studies. 15 Classical Muslims also used Greek philosophy in their theological discourses.16 Of course, that does not mean that Jewish philosophy is Greek, but that the Hellenistic influence has played a role in reshaping Jewish philosophy throughout history; the Talmudic context has become an amalgamation of both.17 Nonetheless, Jewish logic and rationale maintained its distinction from Greek logic,18 but traces do appear and, as Rivka Ulmer describes it, “This influence may have been so significant that the phenoWinston, David (1997) “Hellenistic Jewish Philosophy,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 30–48, London: Routledge. 15 Zebiri, Kate (2003) “Towards a Rhetoric Criticism of the Qurʾan,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, 5(2): 95–120. 16 Peters, F. E. (1996) “The Greek and Syriac Background,” in History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 1: 40– 51, London: Routledge; Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2006) Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. 17 Novak, David (1997) “The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 49–71, London: Routledge. 18 Maccoby, Hyam (2002) The Philosophy of the Talmud, Abingdon: Routledge, esp. 191–202. 14

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menon of evolving rabbinic Judaism found its distinctive expression only after it had come into contact with Hellenistic culture.”19 The reason that the influence of Greek logic might have been a problem for understanding apparent paradoxes, whether in the Hebrew Bible, like the ritual of the red cow, or in the Qurʾan, is that when and where a particular ritual was instituted, Greek logic played no role. Hence, the apparent paradoxes surface when applying Hellenistic methods. There is a possibility that a different kind of logic existed in the Near East, in which these paradoxes would make rational sense. For example, Indian and Buddhist logic, contain a concept known as the “catuṣkoṭi,” granting a statement four possibilities: it can be true, it can be false, it can be true and false simultaneously, or it can be neither true nor false concurrently20— and, in some variants of this logic in Buddhism, another possibility is none of the above.21 The Chinese logic of uniting the opposites, as found in Taoism, is also another philosophical alternative.22 The assumption cannot be that early Judaism or Qurʾanic philosophy during the time of Muḥammad used these specific types of oriental philosophies, but Near Eastern logic could easily have been very different from Hellenistic. Greek logic would not have been and should not be the default logic either tradition had used. Actually, Ulmer, Rivka (1997) “The Advancement of Arguments in Exegetical Midrash Compared to that of the Greek ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period, 28(1): 48–91, 48. 20 Gunaratne, R. D. (1980) “The Logical Form of Catuṣkoṭi: A New Solution,” Philosophy East and West, 30(2): 211–239. 21 Bharadwaja, V.K. (1984) “Rationality, Argumentation and Embarrassment: A Study of Four Logical Alternatives (catuṣkoṭi) in Buddhist Logic,” Philosophy East and West, 34(3): 303–319; Gunaratne, R.D. (1986) “Understanding Nāgārjuna’s Catuṣkoṭi,” Philosophy East and West, 36(3): 213–234; Priest, Graham (2015) “None of the Above: The Catuṣkoṭi in Indian Buddhist Logic,” in New Directions in Paraconsistent Logic, eds. Jean-Yves Beziau, Mihir Chakraborty, and Soma Dutta, 517–527, New Delhi: Springer. 22 Cua, Antonio S. (1981) “Opposites as Complements: Reflections on the Significance of Tao,” Philosophy East and West, 31(2): 123–140. Compare with Járos, György G. (2000) “Synergy of Complements and the Exclusivity of Opposites,” World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research, 56(1): 1–19. 19

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Ernest Horton Jr. has pointed out how Qoheleth’s use of opposites and their union is distinct in its logic, being neither Greek nor Far Eastern.23 Consequently, the apparent paradox in these texts might not have been paradoxical at all in the philosophical logic and reasoning initially intended and applied.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE RED COW

In describing the red cow, the Qurʾan etches its description from apparently various sources, both biblical and rabbinic. Some of those sources appear to be early and contemporary to the time of the Qurʾan, yet other rabbinic sources appear to be post-Qurʾanic, at least in literary form. While it would seem less likely that those rabbinic sources used the Qurʾan as a basis, then it is more likely that those post-Qurʾanic sources to have existed in the seventh century, at least as oral rabbinic traditions. Yet, the context of the Qurʾan appears strikingly different from the biblical and rabbinic traditions. While the biblical and rabbinic traditions consider the context to be a purity ritual, the Qurʾan puts it in the context of resurrection. The Qurʾanic narrative on the cow appears to have similarities to the red cow in Numbers 19 and the cow whose neck is broken (i.e., Deuteronomy 21:1–9). This, however, should not be too surprising, as Midrash Tanḥuma also discusses both together, along with the red cow’s relationship to the golden calf, which the Qurʾan discusses before and after the cow narrative.24 The term ʿeglâ is used in Deuteronomy 21:1–9 for the atonement of an unsolved murder, a narrative possibly referenced in the Qurʾan by some interpretations. Deuteronomy’s narrative is mainly a ritual for the atonement of an unsolved murder,25 while the Qurʾan’s narrative appears to be somewhat unspecific: Horton, Ernest, Jr. (1972) “Koheleth’s Concept of Opposites: As Compared to Samples of Greek Philosophy and Near and Far Eastern Wisdom Classics,” Numen, 19(1): 1–21. 24 Midrash Tanḥuma, Ḥuqqat 6–8. 25 For a detailed study, see Willis, Timothy M. (2001) The Elders of the City: A Study of the Elders-Laws in Deuteronomy, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press. Also see Blech, Benjamin (1988) “Thematic Linkage in Understanding Halakhah,” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox 23

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ABDULLA GALADARI And when Moses said to his people, “God commands you to slaughter a cow (baqarah),” they said, “Do you take us in mockery?” He said, “I seek refuge in God from being among the ignorant.” 68 They said, “Call upon your Lord for us, that He may clarify for us what she is.” He said, “He says she is a cow (baqarah) neither old nor young,26 middling between them: so do what you are commanded.” 69 They said, “Call upon your Lord for us, that He may clarify for us what her colour is.” He said, “He says she is a yellow cow (baqarah). Bright is her colour, pleasing the onlookers.” 70 They said, “Pray for us to your Lord, that He may clarify for us what she is. Cows (al-baqar) are much alike to us, and if God will we will surely be guided.” 71 He said, “He says she is a cow (baqarah) not broken to plow the earth or to water the tillage, sound and without blemish.” They said, “Now you have brought al-ḥaqq.” So they slaughtered her, but they almost did not. 72 And when you slew a soul and cast the blame upon one another regarding it – and God is the discloser of what you were concealing – 73 We said, “Strike him with part of it.” Thus does God give life to the dead and show you His signs, that haply you may understand. [Qurʾan 2:67–73]27 67

Although Deuteronomy’s narrative typically uses “ʿeglâ” for the cow upon first description, it elsewhere uses the term “ʿeglat bāqār,” while the Qurʾan uses only “baqarah.” Its root “b-q-r” has various meanings, including: to investigate or to seek,28 which is also attested in Ezekiel 34:12:

Jewish Thought, 24(1): 59–68; Robinson, A. G. (2016) Deuteronomy 21:1– 9 a Programmatic Anamoly? A Thematic and Programmatic Analysis of Deuteronomy 21:1–9 within the Context of the Deutereonomist’s Agenda, MTh Thesis, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University. 26 TSQ translates “wa-lā bikr” as without calf. However, it could also be understood as not firstborn or not young [Ibn Manẓūr (d. 711/1311) (1994) Lisān al-ʿarab, Beirut: Ṣādir, 7: 203–204, on “f-r-ḍ”; henceforth, Lisān al-ʿarab]. 27 All Qurʾanic translations use Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (ed.) (2015) The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, New York, NY: HarperOne; henceforth TSQ. 28 Brown, Francis, Samuel R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs (2000) Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, 133–134; henceforth, BDB.

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As a shepherd seeks out (baqqārat) his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out (ăbaqqēr) my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. [Ezekiel 34:12]

From the same root, the meaning to inquire or to meditate is also attested in other parts of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Leviticus 13:36, 27:33, Psalms 27:4, 2 Kings 16:15). The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) suggests that this root is distinct from the root that means cattle or herd.29 Nonetheless, the Arabic root “b-q-r” also has instances where it means to investigate and to seek, such as with knowledge.30 This meaning gives the fifth Shīʿī imām his nickname al-Imām Muḥammad al-Bāqir (the knowledgeable).31 The Arabic term also means to dig deep,32 which perhaps evolved from the root to investigate. Furthermore, the meaning of cattle or herd, not necessarily specific to a cow, is also used in Hebrew, Aramaic,33 and Arabic.34 Although Deuteronomy 21:1–9 speaks of a cow to be sacrificed as atonement for an unsolved murder, another cow of a specific red colour is found in the purification laws in Numbers 19:1–22. The descriptions of the cow in Numbers’s purification laws and in Deuteronomy’s unsolved murder are similar enough to put them in conversation but different enough to note. Numbers adds the colour of the cow as “ʾădummâ” (red), while the Qurʾan uses the term “ṣafrāʾ.” Although the term “ṣafrāʾ” is typically understood as yellow, it is not necessarily so. The Arabic term “ṣafrāʾ” is somewhat ambiguous, as it could also mean black.35 Nonetheless, the

Botterweck, Gerhard J. and Helmer Ringgren (eds.), J. T. Willis (trans.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) (Revised Edition), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2: 209; henceforth TDOT. 30 Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 74, on “b-q-r.” 31 Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 74, on “b-q-r.” 32 Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 74, on “b-q-r.” 33 BDB, 133–134. 34 Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 73–74, on “b-q-r.” 35 Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 460, on “ṣ-f-r.” 29

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colour of gold and saffron is also described as “ṣafrāʾ,”36 which can be yellowish or reddish for saffron—keep in mind that the etymology of saffron is related to that of the colour, “ṣafrāʾ.” The term “ṣāpār” in Aramaic is also the early morning light,37 which would be reddish-yellow. Therefore, the colour descriptions of the cow in Numbers and the Qurʾan should not necessarily be seen as distinct from one another.38 In Saadia Gaon’s (d. 942) Arabic translation of the Bible, he uses the Qurʾanic term “ṣafrāʾ” in his translation of the red cow’s colour. Assuming that Saadia should have been able to distinguish between the yellow and red colours in Arabic, David Friedenreich considers his biblical translation to have been influenced by the Qurʾanic narrative.39 Freidenreich quotes Joseph Qafiḥ’s argument that Saadia understood the word “ṣafrāʾ” as the yellowish-brown colour of cows that occurs naturally, as a blood-like red colour is unnatural, and Saadia assumes that biblical commands can only be for naturally occurring things.40 Freidenreich argues that Saadia’s choice of the Arabic term is due to how Muslims understood this term in the Qurʾan, putting it on the spectrum between yellowness and blackness, and that the intended meaning that Saadia understood is black,41 although I find it very unlikely, as it would go against the Mishnaic requirement that if it has as many as two black hairs, it would be rendered unfit.42 I think it is more likely that Saadia might have understood ṣafrāʾ as brown, instead. If Freidenreich argues that the Arabic terms for yellow and red should be distinct, then the same can be said for yellow and black. The Qurʾan uses the root “ḥ-m-r” to mean red only once (i.e., Qurʾan 35:27), but the root “ṣ-f-r” appears several times, and is mostly not typically

Lisān al-ʿarab, 4: 460, on “ṣ-f-r.” Its relationship with Persian “zarr” meaning gold, yellow, or to shine is also possible, itself associated with saffron. 37 BDB, 861. 38 Reynolds (2018) The Qurʾān and the Bible, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 52. 39 Freidenreich, David M. (2003) “The Use of Islamic Sources in Saadiah Gaon’s Tafsir of the Torah,” The Jewish Quarterly Reviw, 93(3–4): 353–395. 40 Ibid., 390–392. 41 Ibid., 392. 42 m. Ṭahorot, Parah. 36

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understood as only purely yellow, but also brownish, as it describes dead plants (e.g. Qurʾan 39:21, 57:20). Therefore, the Arabic root “ṣ-f-r,” indeed, describes a variation of colours within the yellowness and blackness spectrum, including reddish and brownish. There was no distinct word for brown in the earliest Arabic literature, and the Arabic term later used derives from Ethiopic (bun), as a reference to the colour of coffee.43 Accordingly, I feel that the argument over how different the Qurʾanic “ṣafrāʾ” is from the biblical reddish when it comes to the red cow is unnecessary, even though Abraham Geiger considered it a Qurʾanic error.44 In fact, the Hebrew ʾădummâ shares the same root as the term for earth, which is also brownish. The following table summarizes the cow descriptions among the texts. Numbers

Deuteronomy

Qurʾan

cow (ha-pārâ)

cow (ʿeglat bāqār— female calf of the cattle)

cow (baqarah)

red

without defect / without blemish never yoked

never yoked / never worked

valley with running water, neither ploughed nor sown

reddish/yellow

without defect / without blemish

never ploughed / never irrigated not old

not young

Table 1: Descriptions of the Cow

The reason I am suggesting possibly an Ethiopic influence in the Arabic term for brown, is that though the root (b-n) is Semitic and attested even in Arabic to mean seed or nut, it is usually a speicifc reference to coffee bean in Ethiopic, and from it the Ethiopic reference to brown. 44 Heschel, Susannah (2018) “The Philological Uncanny: Nineteenth-Century Jewish Readings of the Qurʾan,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies, 20(3): 193–213. 43

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The cow of Numbers 19 is used for purification purposes,45 in situations outlined as follows: after touching a dead “nepeš,” for anyone inside a tent where a person dies, for every uncovered vessel, for anyone in the open field who touches a person killed by a sword or touches a dead person, a human bone, or a grave. The purification appears to be highly connected with the dead.46 The topic of Deuteronomy 21 is atonement for an unsolved murder, which is also evidently related to death.47 The cow needs to be without defect or blemish, according to both the Numbers and Qurʾanic narratives. This specificity might mean that such a cow is acceptable for sacrifice (e.g., Leviticus 22:20–25),48 a practice that appears to have been generally closely followed for sacrificial animals.49 However, some Qumran scrolls and rabbinic discourses suggest that a controversy existed during the Second Temple period over whether the red cow was to be considered a sacrifice.50 The implication is that if it were not considered a sacrifice, laypeople would be able to take part in the ritual.51

Blau, Joseph L. (1967) “The Red Heifer: A Biblical Purification Rite in Rabbinic Literature,” Numen, 14(1): 70–78. 46 Junker, Sandra (2011) “The Disorderly Body: Considerations of the Book of Numbers, 19 and Ritual Impurity after Contact with a Corpse,” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 23(1): 197–205; Belnap, Daniel L. (2017) “Defining the Ambiguous, the Unknown, and the Dangerous: The Significance of the Ritual Process in Deuteronomy 21:1–9,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, 23: 209–221. 47 MacDonald, Nathan (2012) “The Hermeneutics and Genesis of the Red Cow Ritual,” Harvard Theological Review, 105(3): 351–371. 48 Nolland, John (2015) “Sin, Purity and the ‫ חטּאת‬Offering,” Vetus Testamentum, 65(4): 606–620. 49 Greer, Jonathan S. (2017) “‘Cursed Be the Cheat Who Offers a Blemished Animal!’ A Broken Tibia from a Sacrificial Deposit at Tel Dan and Its Implications for Understanding Israelite Religious Practice,” in The Wide Lans of Archaeology: Honoring Brian Hesse’s Contributions to Anthropological Archaeology, eds. Justin Lev-Tov, and Paula Hesse, and Allan Gilbert, 193–201, Atlanta, GA: Lockwood Press. 50 Birenboim, Hannan (2009) “Tevul Yom and the Red Heifer: Pharisaic and Sadducean Halakah,” Dead Sea Discoveries, 16(2): 254–273. 51 Ibid. 45

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Only at the end of the Qurʾanic narrative does it address the issue of murder, which possibly contextualizes it with Deuteronomy 21. However, the Qurʾanic verse immediately after the cow narrative describes rocks that gush forth with water (i.e., Qurʾan 2:74), which Numbers 20 also describes immediately after the description of the red cow ritual. Some scholars believe that the Qurʾan appears to link both Numbers and Deuteronomy’s narratives together and aware of both.52 However, the Qurʾan also appears to portray some kind of discussion between Moses and his people on the cow’s description, which appears in neither Numbers 19 nor Deuteronomy 21. According to the Qurʾan’s formulation of the narrative, Moses tells his people that God commanded them to kill a cow. They are not amused by such a request and think that Moses is making fun of them. He responds that this is not at all his intention. His people appear to continue to ask questions to specify the attributes of the cow. Once satisfied, they tell him, “Now you have brought al-ḥaqq” [Qurʾan 2:71] and slaughter the cow. The Qurʾan continues to narrate that they were about not to slaughter it (Muslim exegetes presumed that it was due to the Israelites’ insistence on the cow’s attributes, but the Qurʾan might have intended it to mean that it was due to the rarity of performing this ritual). I argue that the term “al-ḥaqq,” in Qurʾan 2:71, should not necessarily be understood as “truth,” which is how it is typically rendered. A cognate to the Hebrew “ḥuqqâ” or the plural “ḥuqqîm,” “al-ḥaqq” may be understood here as a statute, as it is also with the Qiblah passages within the same Qurʾanic chapter.53 Numbers 19 calls the red cow ritual a statute (ḥuqqâ) three times (i.e., Numbers 19:2, 19:10, 19:21), and rabbinic law also makes inferences based on its designation as a statute (ḥuqqâ). For example, on the debate whether the ritual of the red cow needs to be done by the High Priest in future generations after Eleazar the priest in Numbers 19:3, the hermeneutical marker in the Babylonian Talmud is “ḥoqâ ḥoqâ”: the use of “statute” in Aghaei, “The Morphology of the Narrative Exegesis”; Reynolds, The Qurʾān and the Bible, 52–53. 53 See my argument on the term in Galadari (2013) “The Qibla.” 52

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Numbers 19:2 and “statute” in Leveticus 16:34, suggesting that as the service of Yom Kippur is performed by the High Priest, so is the red cow ritual.54 The Talmudic hermeneutics used here to derive this is the concept of “gezerah shawah” (equal or similar rule),55 which uses analogical reasoning that parallels the concept of “qiyās” in Islamic jurisprudence. Therefore, as it is with the Qiblah passages, the term “alḥaqq” in the Qurʾan pertaining to the cow in question is more likely to mean a statute instead of truth, moving in parallel with the term used for the red cow in Numbers and the Talmud, such that it would resonate with the Jewish Qurʾanic audience. The Qurʾan shows that the Israelites felt that they are being mocked by Moses. When they say that you (Moses) have now come with “al-ḥaqq,” it is very likely that the Qurʾan is using the rabbinic interpretation of this term pertaining to the red cow, which simply means that you (Moses) have now come with a suprarational command, which human rationality does not understand, but which is followed because it is divinely ordained. The description of the cow in the Qurʾan is not much different from that found in Numbers and Deuteronomy. However, the Qurʾan appears to show that the Israelites were trying to get very detailed descriptions of the cow, which Moses did not initially provide. The Mishnah devotes a whole tractate with the rabbis describing the ritual of the red cow, and the majority of the rules, which are extremely stringent, and not fully mentioned in Numbers.56 As if the detailed rules described by the rabbis in the Mishnah were not enough, the Tosefta continues with rabbis explaining these Mishnaic rules.57 Due to the rarity of this red cow, especially since having as many as two black hairs would render it unfit, the Mishnah writes that the ritual involving a red cow had

b. Yoma 42b. For more information, see Chernick, Michael (1994) Gezarah Shavah: It Various Forms in Midrashic and Talmudic Sources. Lod: Haberman Institute for Literary Research. 56 m. Ṭahorot, Parah. 57 t. Ṭahorot, Parah. 54 55

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been performed only nine times at most—first by Moses, next by Ezra, and either five or seven times after Ezra.58 Is it possible that the Qurʾan is arguing about the stringent rabbinic rulings regarding the red cow ritual that are not specifically mentioned in Numbers 19? There is some evidence in the Qurʾanic narrative that suggest the Qurʾan’s possible awareness of the rabbinic rulings concerning the red cow. Neither Numbers nor Deuteronomy gives any detail concerning the age of the cow. Numbers uses the term “pārâ” for the cow, while Deuteronomy uses the terms “ʿeglâ” and “bāqār.” The age of this heifer or cow is difficult to determine since the terms used to refer to it include almost all ages. However, the Qurʾan appears to add the description that the cow should be neither too young nor too old, but somewhere in between. Though the description of the cow’s age cannot be determined in either Numbers or Deuteronomy, the first Mishnaic rule concerning the red cow features a debate among the rabbis over the suitable age of the cow: the issue being whether it should be not less than a year old, not less than two years old, or as old as five years.59 While they quibble, R. Yehoshua suggests three years of age, but uses the unusual term “shelashit.” When asked as to his meaning, he responds that he simply received the tradition as such without explanation,60 as the rationale behind the red cow ritual is also transmitted through tradition without any real reasoning.61 The usage of numbers has been argued to be a rhetorical device used in ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and rabbinic literature,62 but its usage in the

m. Ṭahorot, Parah. m. Ṭahorot, Parah. 60 m. Parah, 1:1. 61 Yadin-Israel, Azzan (2015) “‘For Mark Was Peter’s Tannaʾ’: Tradition and Transmission in Papias and the Early Rabbis,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 23(3): 337–362, 359. 62 Pasternak, Ariel R. and Yona, Shamir (2016) “Numerical Sayings in the Literature of the Ancient Near East, in the Bible, in the Book of Ben-Sira and in Rabbinic Literature,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 19(2): 202–244. 58 59

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Mishnah about the age of the red cow might have been an editing device, which is rarely used in the Hebrew Bible.63 Additionally, since the Mishnah describes how rabbis disqualified a cow that has as much as two hairs that are not red, Qurʾan 2:69 uses the phrase “He said, ‘He says she is a yellow cow (baqarah). Bright is her colour, pleasing (tasurru) the onlookers.’ ” The term “tasurru” is understood to mean pleasing. Nonetheless, the root “s-r-r” or “sh-r-r” has various meanings. Among the meanings of this term in Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Ethiopic is “to ascertain,” “to authenticate,” and to establish firmly.”64 The Sumerian sír- also has the same meaning.65 With such a definition found in a wide range of geographical locations surrounding Arabia in all directions, it would not be surprising if it were also understood in Arabia. The Qurʾan’s use of the term should not be unexpected because it is understood by the rabbinic Jewish community— much as ḥaqq is possibly used for statute instead of truth in the cow passage. Thus, the colour of the cow being “tasurru al-nāẓirīn” is more likely to mean ascertained or authenticated by the onlookers. This would align with the rule in the Mishnah that the cow should have no more than one hair of a different colour to qualify for the ritual. To ascertain or to authenticate the colour with such a stringent ruling appears in neither Numbers nor Deuteronomy but it does appear in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Talmuds. Accordingly, the Qurʾan, just like the Qiblah passages,66 is fully aware of such rulings from rabbinic literature, and not only from the Hebrew Bible.67 Pasternak, Ariel R. and Yona, Shamir (2017) “The Use of Numbers as an Editing Device in Rabbinic Literature,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 20(2): 193–234. 64 TDOT, 15: 482–483. 65 Parpola, Sima (2016) Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 312. 66 Galadari (2013) “The Qibla.” 67 The interaction of the Qurʾanic community with Jews who were possible precursors of the rabbinic tradition is very much possible. Compare with Newby (1988) A History of the Jews, 57–59; Firestone (2002) Jewish Culture; Hoyland (2011) “The Jews of the Hijaz;” Galadari (2013) “The Qibla;” Mazuz (2014) The Religious and Spiritual; Graves (2015) “The Upraised Mountain.” 63

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Many of the rules on the red cow in the Mishnah were incorporated within the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. Since the text about the rules of the red cow does not include any discussion by later rabbis (Amoraim) between the third and sixth centuries CE, it has been suggested that the rituals of the red cow were no longer performed during that period.68 This is natural, since the rituals required priestly functions, which were suspended after the destruction of the Second Temple.69 Nonetheless, the Babylonian Talmud refers to the red cow in many other discussions, which means that although the ritual was no longer performed, it still came up in the minds of the Amoraim rabbis, scattered throughout various Talmudic tractates.70 It appears that rabbinic thought during the time of the Qurʾan continued to keep the ritual of the red cow in mind, requiring the Qurʾan to engage with it even though it was no longer performed. It has been suggested that the Amoraim rabbis continued to bring up the red cow in their discussions in the Talmud because it was an ambiguous puzzle.71 Since the Talmudic rabbis are fond of logical deliberations on jurisprudence, the red cow paradox makes a wonderful intellectual exercise to discuss.

THE RED COW PARADOX

The ritual concerning the red cow seems to be one of the most bizarre to Jewish communities, as many midrashim attest. The source of its absurdity lies in the irrationality of purifying someone who has been defiled due to contact with a dead corpse by sprinkling them with the ashes of a red cow (itself a dead corpse) mixed with living (running) waters. The absurdity does not stop Blau (1967) “The Red Heifer.” For some debates on the rabbinic rendition of the purity laws becoming obsolete after the destruction of the Second Temple, see Poirier, John C. (2003) “Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 122(2): 247–265; Balberg, Mira (2014) Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 70 Poirier (2003) “Purity beyond the Temple;” Balberg (2014) Purity, Body, and Self. 71 Poirier (2003) “Purity beyond the Temple;” Balberg (2014) Purity, Body, and Self. 68 69

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there: the priests and everyone involved in the process of preparing the red cow ritual are themselves defiled in the ritual. In other words, to prepare the purification material, pure individuals will be defiled so that defiled individuals can become pure. The same water that purifies the defiled is what defiles the pure. Many scholars have attempted to explain the paradox. Suggesting that the key to unlocking the mystery is the fact that it is a sin offering (ḥaṭṭāʾt) (i.e., Numbers 19:9).72 Jacob Milgrom and other recent scholars located the ritual’s roots in pre-Israelite rites to purify from corpse-contamination.73 As a purifying rite, the preIsraelite ritual absorbs the contamination of what it attempts to purify.74 Albert Baumgarten identifies this as the main flaw in Milgrom’s analysis:75 purification offerings are contaminated after they have been used in the purification process, while the red cow’s ritual contaminates those involved in it even before it is used in the purification process.76 Consequently, Baumgarten argues for a different hypothesis, in that those who are involved in the preparation of the red cow become overly sanctified and need to return to normalcy.77 One pillar of support Baumgarten marshals is that as the High Priest needs to bathe before entering the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, he needs to do so again after completing the sacred ritual and leaving his garments aside (i.e., Leviticus 16:23–24).78 Baumgarten explains that as the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies and performs the ritual, he becomes overly sanctified and, therefore, cannot return to normalcy and face the people in that state. Baumgarten cites Ezekiel 44:19, which states that the priests need to take off their garments after serving in the Holy of

Milgrom, Jacob (1981) “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num. XIX),” Vetus Testamentum, 31(1): 62–72. 73 Ibid.; Lev, Ephraim and Lev-Yadun, Simcha (2016) “The Probable Pagan Origin of an Ancient Jewish Custom: Purification with Red Heifer’s Ashes,” Advances in Anthropology, 6(4): 122–126. 74 Milgrom, Jacob (1981) “The Paradox.” 75 Baumgarten (1993) “The Paradox.” 76 Ibid. Emphasis is Baumgarten’s. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 72

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Holies so as not to transmit sacredness to (yěqadděšû) the laity.79 While the analogy to the Day of Atonement ritual may work, it is a major flaw to assume the same occurs in the ritual of the red cow for a very simple reason: the text of Numbers 19 is very explicit that those involved in the ritual become impure (ṭamēʾ). Neither Leviticus nor Ezekiel uses this description for a priest after entering the Holy of Holies. Ezekiel is explicit that they are sanctified, using the root “q-d-š,” and not impure. Accordingly, Numbers 19 would not use the term that everyone involved in the red cow’s ritual would become impure (ṭamēʾ) simply to mean that one has become overly sanctified. Therefore, while Baumgarten is justified to find Milgrom’s explanation flawed, his own explanation is equally problematic. Other interpretations have been floated: William Gilder suggests that perhaps the red cow’s ritual conveys a symbolic meaning instead of the effectiveness of its actual act, but that this symbolic meaning itself is absent from the text.80 Dominic Rudman argues that the ritual has a weak polluting agent purifying a greater impurity,81 but that still does not solve the paradox. Numbers (Bamidbar) Rabbah, a midrash dated sometime in the eleventh or twelfth century CE—but from a portion essentially identical to Midrash Tanḥuma, dated around the eighth century— states the following concerning the rabbinic commentary on Numbers 19 about the red cow concerning how the pure come out of the impure and calling it a statute (ḥuqqat) attempting to make sense of the ritual: This is the statute (ḥuqqat) – As it is said verse (Job 14:4): Who gave (brought forth) purity to one who is impure?, such as Abraham from Terah, Hezekiah from Aḥaz, etc., Israel from the nations of the world, the world to come from this world. … There we learned (Parah 4:4): those who occupy themselves Ibid., 448. Gilders, William K. (2006) “Why Does Eleazar Sprinkle the Red Cow Blood? Making Sense of a Biblical Ritual,” The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 6(9): 1–16. 81 Rudman, Dominic (2003) “Water for Impurity or Water of Impurity? The Red Cow of Numbers 19 Revisited,” Old Testament Essays, 16(1): 73– 78. 79 80

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ABDULLA GALADARI with the Parah from beginning to end, impurify their clothes, but it makes clothes Pure. God said: I carved a law (into the fabric of creation), a decree I made, you have no ability to transgress (override) My law! This is the statute (ḥuqqat) of the Torah – (Psalms 12:6). The sayings of God are pure (i.e., they purify). … as it is said: And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, This is the ordinance (ḥuqqat) of the Torah: … The Holy One blessed be he said to Moses: “to you I will reveal the reason for the red cow, but for others it will be a decree (ḥuqqat) (without reason),” … A gentile asked Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, “These rituals you do, they seem like witchcraft! You bring a heifer, burn it, crush it up, and take its ashes. [If] one of you is impure by the dead [the highest type of impurity], two or three drops are sprinkled on him, and you declare him pure?!” He said to him, “Has a restless spirit ever entered you?” He said to him, “No!” “Have you ever seen a man where a restless spirit entered him?” He said to him, “Yes!” [Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai] said to him, “And what did you do for him?” He said to him, “We brought roots and made them smoke beneath him, and pour water and it flees.” He said to him, “Your ears should hear what leaves from your mouth! The same thing is true for this spirit, the spirit of impurity, as it is written, (Zachariah 13:2) ‘Even the prophets and the spirit of impurity will I remove from the land.’ They sprinkle upon him purifying waters, and it [the spirit of impurity] flees.” After he left, our rabbi’s students said, “You pushed him off with a reed. What will you say to us?” He said to them, “By your lives, a dead person doesn’t make things impure, and the water doesn’t make things pure. Rather, God said, ‘I have instated a statute, I have decreed a decree (ḥuqqat ḥaqaqti gezera gazarti), and you have no permission to transgress what I decreed,’ as it says ‘This is a statute (ḥuqqat) of the Torah.’”82

The Qurʾanic narrative of the cow speaks of hitting the parts of the cow against itself and it is thus that God resurrects the dead. Although the narrative of the red cow in Numbers or the cow 82

Numbers Rabbah, 19.

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whose neck is broken in Deuteronomy is an issue of impurity due to death or atoning for an unsolved murder, it does not specifically raise the topic of resurrection. In the aforementioned midrash, however, a question from Job 14:4 arises: “who gave purity to the impure?” Then, the midrash gives examples of Abraham (pure) coming out of Terah (impure), Hezekiah (pure) from Ahaz (impure), Israel (pure) from the nations of the world (impure), and the world to come (pure) from this world (impure). The midrash is more specific about how the pure emerges from the impure. This is further exemplified in Numbers Rabbah 19:4, which in turn is also elaborated upon by the rabbis in Qoheleth Rabbah 8:1.5: R. Mana of Shaab in Galilee said in the name of R. Joshua b. Levi: In connection with every law which the Holy One, blessed be He, communicated to Moses, He expounded to him its uncleanness and purification; but when he reached the chapter, Speak unto the priests (Leviticus 21), he [Moses] spoke before Him, “Lord of the universe, if these [the priests] are defiled wherewith do they regain their state of purity?” He gave no answer, and at that time the face of Moses changed. When, however, He reached the chapter of the Red Heifer, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, “Moses, when I made to you the statement ‘Speak unto the priests,’ and you asked Me, ‘If they are defiled wherewith do they regain their purity?’ I gave you no answer. This is their method of purification, ‘And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the purification from sin (Numbers 19:7).’ ” He [Moses] spoke before Him, “Lord of the universe, is this purification [i.e., Moses asked of the Lord the very question that kept puzzling the rabbis through the generations, how can ashes, themselves defiling, remove the defilement caused by contact with the dead]?” And the Holy One, blessed be He, replied, “Moses, it is a statute (ḥoq), and I have made a decree, and nobody can fathom my decree.”83

Noticeably, it is as though God brings the pure out of the impure. The Qurʾanic narrative, which is not explicit about how the pure comes out of the impure, perhaps instead uses the metaphor of 83

Blau (1967) “The Red Heifer,” 77–78.

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the living coming out of the dead, where the pure is symbolic of the living and the impure symbolic of the dead (as itself is the cause of impurity in Numbers 19). This symbolism is explicit in Qurʾan 91:7–10, where a pure soul (zakiyyah) is contrasted with a buried soul: “7 by the soul and the One Who fashioned it 8 and inspired it as to what makes it iniquitous or reverent! 9 Indeed, he prospers who purifies it (zakkāhā). 10 And indeed he fails who buries it (dassāhā)”84 [Qurʾan 91:7–10]. Therefore, the pure vis-àvis impure imagery of the red cow ritual in the midrash parallels how the Qurʾan sometimes contrasts purity with death instead. Given the context, the Qurʾanic narrative concerning the cow perhaps is not literally about the physical resurrection of the dead, but a metaphor for how those who are spiritually alive come out of those who are spiritually dead. Note also that the aforementioned midrash relates the rabbinic understanding of the term ḥoq—as a suprarational decree that is not understood by human reason—with the Qurʾanic use of al-ḥaqq in the cow narrative, as discussed earlier. The Qurʾan seems to be aware of its rabbinic interpretation and for that reason shows that the Israelites ultimately tell Moses after his description of the cow that he has brought them al-ḥaqq, because his explanation of God’s commandment makes no rational sense. The Qurʾanic narrative of the cow is further connected with the red cow of Numbers 19, because immediately after the narrative, the Qurʾan discusses the rock that brings forth water, which is itself mentioned in Numbers 20. Then your hearts hardened thereafter, being like stones or harder still. For indeed among stones are those from which streams gush forth, and indeed among them are those that split and water issues from them, and indeed among them are those that crash down from the fear of God. And God is not heedless of what you do. [Qurʾan 2:74]

This Qurʾanic passage that comes immediately after the cow’s narrative seems to engage with the waters of Meribah, immediately after the red cow’s narrative in Numbers:

84

TSQ translates “dassāhā” as “obscures it.”

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and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 8 “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” 9 And Moses took the staff from before the LORD, as he commanded him. 10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. [Numbers 20:7–11] 7

Numbers Rabbah provides the following commentary on this narrative, which is echoed in the Qurʾan’s accusation of the Israelite stubbornness when discussing the rock that gushes with water: They began to say “Moses knows the statute (ḥoq) of the rock. If he asks, it will bring forth water.” So Moses was uncertain – “If I listen to them I nullify the words of the Allpresent, and the Holy One (Job 5:13) ‘takes the wise in their craftiness.’ ” But Moses had been careful for 40 years not to get angry at them, because he was terrified of the oath the Holy One swore: “Not one of these men will see [the land]…” They said to him: “Here is a rock; just as you want to bring forth water from another rock, bring it forth from this one.” He shouted at them “Hear now, you rebels (ha-morîm)!” “Rebels (ha-morîm shyṭîn)” has many meanings: (1) “stubborn ones” (ha-morîm sarbānîm) (2) “fools” – in the sea villages they call fools “morîm.” (3) “those who teach their teachers.” (4) “archers” (In 1 Sam 30:3 the word “morîm” is used to mean “archers.”) … Even so, Moses only used the rock that the Holy One told him [to use].85

This midrash essentially provides several meanings for the term “mōrîm,” one of which is “sarbānîm,” meaning disobediently stubborn. When the Qurʾanic passage explains that their hearts were like stone or harder still, it appears also to understand “mōrîm” in the Numbers narrative as stubborn. This might suggest that the Qurʾan is aware of some midrashic traditions that were later compiled in Numbers Rabbah. 85

Numbers Rabbah 19.9.

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Ali Aghaei argues that the Qurʾanic narrative might be engaging with the Haftarah reading on the Parashat of the Sabbath of Parah,86 which includes a reading from Ezekiel 36:16–36(38).87 That passage in Ezekiel discusses how God would purify the Israelites, who had been scattered. God would replace their hearts of stone with a heart of flesh (i.e., Ezekiel 36:26), which perhaps is the accusation in Qurʾan 2:74: that their hearts are as hard as stone or even harder. Ezekiel 36:33–38 shows how God will bring back to life the desolate cities, which has echoes in Qurʾan 2:259; however, what is more significant on the issue of resurrection is that these passages in Ezekiel immediately precede the resurrection imagery of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Since this image of resurrection is understood metaphorically, then the same may be said about the Qurʾan, in which its narrative of the cow is related to bringing the dead back to life. The purification of Israel in Ezekiel 36–37 depicts their resurrection by reviving desolate cities and bringing the exile back. Perhaps the Qurʾan is not even specifically talking about God’s ability to return the exiled Israelites historically, but is also addressing the Jewish Diaspora and, thus, in conversation with Jewish liturgy. Qoheleth Rabbah, a haggadic commentary to the book of Qoheleth, dated between the sixth and eighth centuries CE,88 fits well into the period of the Qurʾanic composition. According to Qoheleth Rabbah, King Solomon had the wisdom to understand the various statutes of the Torah, but even after seeking more wisdom, he could not comprehend the red cow ritual.89 The author of Qoheleth Rabbah appears to be saying that though Solomon was a wiser man than Moses, even he was unable to understand the logic of the red cow ritual. Midrash Tanḥuma shares this Aghaei, Ali (2020) “Qur’anic Intertextuality with Jewish-Rabbinic Tradition: the Case of ‘the Cow’ in Q 2:67-74.” The Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, 19 May. 87 Some traditions read Ezekiel 36:16–36, while others read Ezekiel 36:16–38. 88 Kiperwasser, Reuven (2010) “Toward a Redaction History of Kohelet Rabbah: A Study in the Composition and Redaction of Kohelet Rabbah 7:7.” Journal of Jewish Studies, 61(2): 257–277. 89 Qoheleth Rabbah, 7:23.4. 86

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assessment: “Solomon said, ‘All this I have stood, and I have questioned a red cow, and I have asked and searched, and I have said wisdom, and it is far from me’.”90 The paradox of the red cow ritual seems to have been completely incomprehensible, as seen by the Jewish attitudes at least at the time of the midrash. Alfred Edersheim stated, “Without some deeper symbolical meaning attaching to them, the peculiarities of the sin-offering of the red heifer would indeed be well-nigh unintelligible.”91 It is perhaps such an attitude that the Qurʾan is engaging with when stating that the Jews felt they were being mocked by Moses, And when Moses said to his people, “God commands you to slaughter a cow (baqarah),” they said, “Do you take us in mockery?” He said, “I seek refuge in God from being among the ignorant.” [Qurʾan 2:67]

The Qurʾan appears to affirm that this “ḥaqq” is not meant as a mockery just because it appears to make no sense. The Qurʾan justifies this statute and gives a reason behind it, “Thus does God give life to the dead and show you His signs, that haply you may understand” [Qurʾan 2:73]. The purpose of this puzzle, according to the Qurʾan, is that God wants to show how the living indeed come out of the dead, or perhaps in the Jewish understanding, the pure come out of the impure. The notion of God bringing the living out of the dead is reiterated in several passages in the Qurʾan. Some of these appear to have inner-Qurʾanic allusions to one another. For example, And among humankind are those who dispute concerning God, without knowledge, and follow every rebellious satan (shayṭānin marīd), 4 for whom it is decreed that, should anyone take him as a protector, he will cause him to go astray and guide him unto the punishment of the Blaze. 5 O humankind! If you are in doubt (rayb) concerning the Resurrection, [remember] We created you from dust, then from a drop, then from a blood clot, then from a lump of flesh, formed and 3

Midrash Tanḥuma, Ḥuqqat, 6. Edersheim, Alfred (1959) The Temple: Its Ministry and Services as They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ, London: James Clarke & Co, 351–352. 90 91

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ABDULLA GALADARI unformed, that We may make clear for you. And We cause what We will to remain in the wombs for a term appointed. Then We bring you forth as an infant, then that you may reach maturity. And some are taken in death, and some are consigned to the most abject life, so that after having known they may know nothing. And thou seest the earth desiccated, but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and produces every delightful kind. 6 That is because God is “alḥaqq,”92 and because He gives life to the dead, and because He is Powerful over all things, 7 and because the Hour is coming, in which there is no doubt (lā rayb), and because God will resurrect whosoever is in the graves. 8 And among humankind are those who dispute concerning God without knowledge, without guidance, and without an illuminating Book. [Qurʾan 22:3–8]

There are five points of intertextuality between these passages and those about the red cow.93 The first point of intertextuality concerns those who dispute God without knowledge, recalling the Israelites in the waters of Meribah, according to Numbers 20. The second point of intertextuality is the Qurʾanic passage calling anyone who disputes God without knowledge a rebellious satan (shayṭānin marīd) or, in Numbers Rabbah “ha-morîm shyṭîn.” The third point of intertextuality is the Qurʾanic use—twice in the preceding passage—of the term “rayb,” which is also used in Numbers 20:3 in the narrative of the waters gushing out of the rock in Meribah, and is, in fact, the reason the place is called Meribah, according to Numbers 20:13. The fourth point of intertextuality is the use of the term “ḥaqq” in Qurʾan 22:6, which the red cow of Numbers 19 and its Jewish commentary also frequently use, and which is also used in the narrative of the cow in Qurʾan 2:71. The fifth point of intertextuality is the passage’s concern with resurrecting the dead, just as the narrative of the cow in the Qurʾan. Moving along the previous definition of “al-ḥaqq,” I keep the original term here instead of translating it to “truth,” as used by the TSQ. 93 I have argued elsewhere the importance of “intertextual polysemy” in Qurʾanic hermeneutics; see Galadari, Abdulla (2013) “The Role of Intertextual Polysemy in Qur’anic Exegesis,” International Journal on Quranic Research, 3(4): 35–56; Galadari, Abdulla (2018) Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Between Science, History, and the Bible, London: Bloomsbury Academic. 92

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With these five intertextualities, it seems that the passage above is an inner-Qurʾanic allusion to the cow narrative in the Qurʾan. Accordingly, the resurrection of the dead in these passages might also be metaphorical, meaning to bring forth the pure from the impure. Another passage in the Qurʾan that also discusses the resurrection of the dead also appears to have an inner-Qurʾanic allusion with the cow narrative and the waters of Meribah: They will call unto them, “Were we not with you?” They reply, “Indeed! But you tempted yourselves, bided your time, and doubted (irtabtum); and false hopes deluded you till the Command of God came, and the Deluder deluded you concerning God. 15 So this day no ransom shall be taken from you, or from those who disbelieved.” Your refuge shall be the Fire; it shall be your master. What an evil journey’s end! 16 Has not the time come for those who believe for their hearts to be humbled to the remembrance of God and “al-ḥaqq”94 that has come down, and to be not like those who were given the Book aforetime? But the span of time was too long for them, such that their hearts hardened and many of them are iniquitous. 17 Know that God revives the earth after its death. We have indeed made the signs clear for you, that haply you may understand. [Qurʾan 57:14–17] 14

The consequence of such inner-Qurʾanic allusion is that if the resurrection in the cow narrative is understood metaphorically, then this passage, which is typically understood eschatologically, might also be metaphorical. The first point of intertextuality is the use of the term “irtabtum,” from the root “rayb,” as used in Qurʾan 22:5 and 22:7 and used in Numbers 20, as discussed earlier. The second point of intertextuality is the above passage’s discussion of a ransom, which can be understood as a sacrifice. The sacrifice of the red cow seems a likely interpretation, especially when placed within the context of the remaining intertextualities. The third point of intertextuality is the use of the term “ḥaqq,” as used in the Qurʾanic narrative of the cow and the red cow of

Moving along the previous definition of “al-ḥaqq,” I keep the original term here instead of translating it to “truth,” as used by the TSQ. 94

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Numbers 19 and its commentary. The fourth point of intertextuality is the hardening of hearts like those of the People of the Book, which appears to be an inner-Qurʾanic allusion to Qurʾan 2:74’s narration of the waters of Meribah. The resurrection of the dead, as also seen in the Qurʾanic narrative of the cow (i.e., Qurʾan 2:73) is the fifth point of intertextuality, and the sixth point of intertextuality is the statement, “qad bayyannā lakum alāyāt laʿallakum taʿqilūn (We have indeed made the signs clear for you, that haply you may understand)” [Qurʾan 57:17], which parallels “wa-yurīkum āyātihi laʿallakum taʿqilūn (and He shows you His signs, that haply you may understand)” [Qurʾan 2:73]. Given these six points of intertextuality, it seems likely that the resurrection of the dead in Qurʾan 57:14–17 is metaphorical.

THE RED COW AS AN A LLUSION TO THE GOLDEN CALF

Some rabbinic traditions link the red cow ritual with the golden calf narrative.95 The Qurʾanic narrative of the reddish/yellowish cow is preceded by that narrative as well (i.e., Qurʾan 2:51–54). According to the Talmud, the rabbis suggest that the Israelites were supposed to have everlasting life, because they accepted the Torah, and the angel of death would have no authority over them.96 However, the Israelites were re-subjected to mortality because of the sin of the golden calf.97 According to Rashi, the reason the red cow ritual was entrusted to Eleazar instead of his father, Aaron, is due to the latter’s role in the golden calf; Aaron essentially became unworthy of performing the role.98 Rashi interprets the three types of yarn—cedarwood, hyssop, and scarlet—in the ritual to symbolize the three thousand men who fell by the edge of the sword due to the golden calf.99 He also explains symbolically, the cedar is lofty while the hyssop is lowly, so that a person who prides themselves on a high position is a sinner, and so to receive atonement, they need to Newman, Stephen (2015) “Understanding the Mystery of the Red Heifer Ritual,” Jewish Bible Quarterly, 43(2): 1061–08. 96 b. ʿAbodah Zarah, 5a. 97 b. ʿAbodah Zarah, 5a. 98 Rashi on Numbers 19:22. 99 Rashi on Numbers 19:22. 95

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make themselves as lowly as the hyssop and the worm (in Hebrew, a play on words with scarlet yarn).100 Rashi also states that, as the golden calf made everyone who took part in it impure, so are those who take part in the ritual of the red cow made impure.101 Because the Israelites became morally blemished and defective on account of the golden calf, the unblemished and without defect red cow would be the cause for their atonement—to regain their perfection.102 Additionally, the red cow symbolizes the mother of the golden calf, which takes away the sin caused by its child.103 While Rashi is a medieval commentator, he drew from various prior sources.104 After all, the relationship between the red cow and the golden calf appears in Midrash Tanḥuma, which states, “Let a heifer come and atone for the incident of the [golden] calf.”105 While Midrash Tanḥuma and Rashi are postQurʾanic, the relationship between the red cow and the golden calf have traces to earlier traditions of the Amoraic period (around third through fifth century CE).106 David Wright argues that Numbers 31:19–24 is connected to the red cow ritual in Numbers 19.107 However, one noteworthy difference in Numbers 31:23 is that anything that can go through fire, such as gold, needs to be placed first into the fire and then into the water to be purified. If Numbers 31:19–24 is connected with the red cow of Numbers 19, as David Wright argues,108 then it might connect to the golden calf, which also went through fire, Rashi on Numbers 19:22. Rashi on Numbers 19:22. 102 Rashi on Numbers 19:22. 103 Rashi on Numbers 19:22. 104 Newman, “Understanding the Mystery”; Schoenfeld, Devorah (2013) Isaac on Jewish and Christian Altars: Polemic and Exegesis in Rashi and the Glossa Ordinaria. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 31–60. 105 Midrash Tanḥuma, Ḥuqqat 8 106 From homiletic material found in Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana. See Pregill, Michael (2020) The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 131–132, 258. 107 Wright, David W. (1985) “Purification from Corpse-Contamination in Numbers XXXI 19–24,” Vetus Testamentum, 35(2): 213–223. 108 Ibid. 100 101

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before being mixed with water and given to the Israelites to drink, as some sort of atonement or, arguably, purification. The golden calf was melted in fire, smashed into fine dust, mixed with streaming water (something that is also necessary with the red cow), and then the Israelites were made to drink it (i.e., Exodus 32:20). All of these features link the golden calf with the red cow ritual in rabbinic literature. On the scenario of drinking in the golden calf, Philippe Guillaume writes, “What the Israelites drunk and why is entirely unexplained.”109 Though not itself a paradox, it still is a puzzle in its own right. While the Levites only killed three thousand of the guilty Israelites, Moses apparently had everyone drink the calf, and Exodus 32:3 explicitly states that all the people were, in fact, guilty of bringing gold to Aaron for the golden calf. Guillaume suggests that perhaps drinking the calf allowed the Levites to determine who was guilty of the sin and who was not, as it is apparent that not everyone was necessarily guilty, especially if the Levites killed only three thousand and spared the rest.110 Otherwise, Guillaume remarks that if the Levites were the only ones not guilty, they would have killed all other non-Levites, but that did not happen.111 Other scholars, such as Christopher Begg, also argued alongside Guillaume that drinking the calf separated the guilty from the non-guilty.112 While Begg and Guillaume make solid observations about the golden calf narrative, Mark O’Brien is correct that there still is no evidence that the real purpose for everyone to drink the calf was to expose the guilty.113 O’Brien emphasizes that everyone was guilty, especially in light of Exodus Guillaume, Philippe (2013) “Drinking Golden Bull: The Erased Ordeal in Exodus 32,” in Studies on Magic and Divination in the Biblical World, eds. Helen R. Jacobus, Anne K. de Hemmer Gudme, and Philippe Guillaume, 135–147, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 135. 110 Ibid., 135–147. 111 Ibid., 140. 112 Begg, Christopher (1985) “The Destruction of the Calf (Exod 32,20/ Deut 9,21),” in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft: Deuteronomy: Origin, Form and Message, ed. Norbert Lohfink, 208–251, Leuven: Leuven University Press. 113 O’Brien, Mark A. (2012) “The Dynamics of the Golden Calf Story (Exodus 32–34),” Australian Biblical Review, 60: 18–31. 109

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32:3.114 Essentially, even after the Levites kill the three thousand people, Moses addresses the people the next day that they were sinful and says that he will ask God to atone for their sin (i.e., Exodus 32:30). This suggests that there were still sinful people in his audience. As Moses asks God to forgive the sin of the people, the narrative itself remains inconclusive on whether God has forgiven them or not, because God states that He will blot from His book anyone who has sinned against Him (i.e., Exodus 32:33–34). The narrative even continues with God then smiting the Israelites because they made the calf (i.e., Exodus 33:35). All this suggests that even after the Levites killed the three thousand, the sinners were still among those who remained. Perhaps everyone was indeed guilty, which would make unlikely Begg and Guillaume’s suggestion that drinking the calf was to expose the sinners for the Levites to kill. The Levitical killing also appears in the Qurʾanic narrative of the golden calf with the specific command by Moses to the Israelites, “kill yourselves (f-aqtulū anfusakum)” [Qurʾan 2:54]. After discussing the golden calf and the red cow narratives, the Qurʾan returns to the golden calf again. Qurʾan 2:92–93 states that the golden calf was drunk by the Israelites due to their sinfulness, but it is ambiguous in the sense that it states that they drank the calf into their hearts instead of into their bellies. Accordingly, it is unknown whether the Qurʾan understands the Exodus narrative as something literal or symbolic. While Exodus is not explicit on the reason why the Israelites were given the golden calf to drink, it appears that the Qurʾan understands the reason is due to their sin; something understood implicitly in Exodus. Immediately after the first Qurʾanic narrative on the golden calf and the Levitical killing, the Israelites tell Moses that they will only believe in him if they see God plainly (i.e., Qurʾan 2:55). As a response, a great cry (ṣāʿiqah) seizes them. Qurʾan 2:56 implies that the cry had killed them and God had resurrected them after it. This very specific narrative in the Qurʾan is ambiguous in terms of what it corresponds to in the biblical or rabbinic tradition. Actually, Exodus 33:18–23 shows Moses asking to see God’s 114

Ibid.

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glory while interceding for the Israelites after the golden calf incident. The Qurʾan brings up this narrative in Qurʾan 7:143, where Moses is taken by a loud cry (ṣaʿiqā) and is then awakened from it. Traditional exegetes such as al-Ṭabarī have read this Moses narrative as implying his death and resurrection.115 Yet, it appears al-Ṭabarī may somehow have had some knowledge of Jewish tradition, in which he explicitly mentions the Torah, as he states that God informs Moses that nobody sees him and survives,116 an allusion to Exodus 33:20. Yet the Qurʾanic narrative of Moses asking to see God in Qurʾan 7:143 differs somewhat from Exodus 33:18–23. In the Qurʾanic narrative, God asks Moses to watch a mountain; when God descends and the mountain remains in its place, Moses will be able to see God. However, when God descends, the mountain is crushed, implying that Moses will not be able to see God—and in fact, Moses is overcome by a great cry and then repents. This implies that Moses had sinned, unless one understands tubtu ilayk (“I repent to you”) simply by its etymology connoting that Moses is returning to God (perhaps in will, in mind, etc.) instead of necessarily a repentance from sin. To understand the mystery of the red cow, one must first understand the connotations attached to the golden calf.117 To explain why a golden calf was chosen by the Israelites as an object of worship, Stephen Newman118 looks to an ancient Egyptian link, in the worship of the goddess Hathor119 (something other scholars also consider).120 Although this hypothesis is not necessarily fully convincing, it still is interesting to note. Since Hathor was associated in ancient Egypt with life and reproduction, Newman Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) (2000) Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir. Beirut: al-Risālah, (Q. 7:143), 13: 92–98. 116 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, (Q. 7:143), 13: 90–96. 117 Newman (2015) “Understanding the Mystery.” 118 Newman, “Understanding the Mystery.” Compare with Chung, Youn H. (2010) The Sin of the Calf: The Rise of the Bible’s Negative Attitude toward the Golden Calf, London: T&T Clark. 119 Newman (2015) “Understanding the Mystery.” Compare with Chung, Sin of the Calf. 120 Danelius, Eva (1967) “The Sins of Jeroboam ben-Nabat,” Jewish Quarterly Review, 58: 95–114. 115

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suggests it to be a possible reason why a red cow would have the power to purify those who were in contact with the dead:121 Rabbi Moshe ha-Darshan explains that the rite of burning the Red Heifer was a reenactment of the destruction of the Golden Calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. Thus, it would also be a symbolic destruction of the cow-goddess Hathor which the Golden Calf represented. This explains why a red cow was needed for the ritual. The association with cleansing from impurity as a result of contact with a dead body is understood, in light of the midrash in TB Avodah Zarah 22b, to mean that the Israelites attained a state of immortality at Mount Sinai, but lost it due to the sin of the Golden Calf. Purification from death thus involves rejection of the Golden Calf, demonstrated by the ashes of the Red Heifer. This is especially powerful considering that Hathor was associated in Egypt with life and reproduction. Seen in this light, the Red Heifer ritual is a total rejection of Egyptian idolatry and its symbols. The ritual includes burning a crimson thread (Num. 19:6), which may likewise be a negation of the magic scarlet ribbon worn by the cow-goddess that was thought capable of binding evil spirits.122

So while the red cow represents Egyptian idolatry, according to biblical (e.g., Genesis 35:2) and Mishnaic accounts,123 those who are in contact with idols become impure.124 Accordingly, Newman states, “The impurity contracted by dealing with the Red Heifer is therefore associated with the idolatry that it represented.”125 Yet Hathor also had a role in assisting the dead into their journey to the afterlife:126 she also passes between the realms of the living Newman (2015) “Understanding the Mystery.” Newman (2015) “Understanding the Mystery,” 107. On the scarlet ribbon worn by Hathor, see Harris, Eleanor L. (1998) Ancient Egyptian Divination and Magic, Boston, MA: Red Wheel/Weiser, 59. 123 m. Shabbat 9:1. 124 Newman (2015) “Understanding the Mystery,” 107. 125 ibid. 126 Lichtheim, Miriam (1976) Ancient Egyptian Literature 2: The New Kingdom, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 197–199; Brewer, Douglas J. and Teeter, Emily (2007) Egypt and the Egyptians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 170; McGill, B.G. (2008) “Hathor in the 121 122

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and the dead,127 perhaps also associating the red cow with death and resurrection. Although the golden calf narrative is in Exodus and the ritual of the red cow is in Numbers, the Qurʾan does contextualize both into a single narrative on the history of the Israelites saved from Egypt (i.e., Qurʾan 2:49–74). While an intertextual analysis is not fully conclusive, it might be possible that the Qurʾan is perhaps aware of some Jewish traditions that link the red cow ritual with the golden calf. Since the Qurʾan describes the colour of the red cow with “ṣafrāʾ,” which as described can be reddish or yellowish, it might itself be an allusion to the colour presumed by the Qurʾan for the golden calf. Though I find the most convincing alternative is that the Qurʾanic colour and that of Numbers 19 simply denote a brownish cow, it does not preclude the Qurʾan’s use of polysemy and wordplay. Consider the following: (1) some Jewish traditions make a connection between the golden calf and the red cow; (2) some rabbinic traditions understand that the Israelites were given immortality due to their experience at Sinai, but were resubjected to death due to the golden calf; and (3) the red cow is undoing the sin of the golden calf. From these premises, one might deduce that the red cow purifies the Israelites from the realm of the dead so that they may partake in the realm of the living. Perhaps this deduction means the Qurʾan is associating the red cow narrative with death and resurrection, similar to Parashat Parah’s reading of Ezekiel 36:16–38, which itself is contextualized with death and resurrection found in Ezekiel 37.

CONCLUSION

The cow narrative in Qurʾan 2:67–73 has elements that include the red cow’s account in Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21:1–9, as well as in rabbinic literature, especially about the cow’s age and the description of her needing to be satisfactorily of uniform Context of the Coffin Texts,” Studia Antiqua, 6(1): 27–32; Basson, Danielle (2012) The Goddess Hathor and the Women of Encient Egypt, Masters Thesis, Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, 27, 81–85. 127 Graves-Brown, Carolyn (2010) Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt, London: Continuum Books, 166–167.

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colour. It is, therefore, without doubt that the Qurʾan is aware of Jewish tradition and literature about the red cow. The main difference is that the Qurʾan places it in the context of resurrection, while the biblical and rabbinic literature do not always do so—at least not directly. According to both the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinic tradition, “death” is the chief source of “ṭumʾah” (impurity).128 Jacob Milgrom states: The bodily impurities enumerated in the Torah focus on four phenomena: death, blood, semen, and scale-disease. Their common denominator is death. Vaginal blood and semen represent the forces of life; their loss—death. In the case of scaledisease, this symbolism is made explicit: Aaron prays for his stricken sister, “Let her not be like a corpse” (Num. 12:12). Furthermore, scale-disease is powerful enough to contaminate by overhang, and it is no accident that it shares this feature with the corpse (Num. 19:14). The wasting of the body, the common characteristic of all biblically impure skin diseases, symbolizes the death process as much as the loss of blood and semen.129

Milgrom continues, Of all the diachronic changes that occur in the development of Israel’s impurity laws, this clearly is the most significant: the total severance of impurity from the demonic and its reinterpretation as a symbolic system reminding Israel of its imperative to cleave to life and reject death.130

The Qurʾan might understand resurrection in the cow narrative as purification from “ṭumʾah” or death. Yet this death does not necessarily have to be physical death. It might hold its similarity with Adam, who perhaps lost his opportunity for immortality, and became spiritually dead. As the rabbis in the Talmud state, the Israelites became immortal for accepting the Torah but lost this Feldman, Emanuel (1972) “Death as Estrangement: The Halakhah of Mourning,” Judaism, 21(1): 59–66. 129 Milgrom, Jacob (1993) “The Rationale for Biblical Impurity,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, 22: 107–111, 109–110. 130 Ibid., 110. 128

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immortality due to the sin of the golden calf. Thus, perhaps the Qurʾan even understands this as spiritual death, in which the red cow is undoing the sin of the golden calf that caused such spiritual death. Many scholars have had different approaches in understanding biblical and rabbinic impurity laws, some emphasizing death and others sin (itself associated with spiritual death). Still others approach it from a hygienic perspective emphasizing the sacredness of the Temple. Vered Noam states: From Philo of Alexandria to contemporary scholars, a multitude of approaches to understanding the formative concept of purity and impurity in biblical writings have been proposed, with the numerous explanations reflecting the prevailing circumstances, the accepted norms, and the sentiments of their authors no less than they do the world of the Bible. These approaches can be classified according to their underlying perception of impurity, … Some of them derive from the naturalistic perception of impurity as an entity, explaining it variously as a reflection of demonic worlds, an expression of death with all that it entails, or a “side effect” of transition states and human crises. A second approach, meanwhile, proposes a symbolic interpretation that views ritual impurity as a reflection of moral values of sin and expiation. And yet a third approach, at the opposite end of the spectrum, represents an absolute reduction of biblical impurity, interpreting it instrumentally as a system that lacks actual existence or inner content but that serves certain social needs, whether religious or secular, such as hygiene, esthetics, reinforcing the sacredness of the Temple or the distinctiveness of the Jewish people, strengthening the status of the priesthood, or disputing pagan concepts of holiness.131

In short, while the Qurʾan contextualizes the narrative of the cow to bringing life back to the dead, its portrayal of the resurrection power of this ritual is metaphorical to bringing purity from impurity. The Qurʾan is, thus, not having a different context, but simply uses different terms as a metaphor for the same biblical Noam, Vered (2010) “Ritual Impurity in Tannaitic Literature: Two Opposing Perspectives,” Journal of Ancient Judaism, 1: 65–103, 67–69. 131

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and rabbinic context of the red cow ritual. Comparatively, it is elsewhere argued that even though the Qurʾanic context of the metaphor of the camel passing through the eye of the needle appears to be different from its use in the Synoptic Gospels, the Qurʾan perhaps merely redefines and interprets the metaphor within the same context.132 Hence, the Qurʾan might be doing the same thing with the red cow narrative. Additionally, it may also be appropriate to further investigate the dating of some midrash by taking into consideration the Qurʾan’s possible allusions to them. The later midrash might have used a shared source with the Qurʾan or, perhaps, some parts of their editing layers may be dated earlier than thought. It would be less likely that the Qurʾan in specifically the topic of the red cow ritual influenced these Jewish traditions subtly, especially since the ritual was no longer performed at the time.

Galadari, Abdulla (2019) “The Camel Passing through the Eye of the Needle: A Qur’anic Interpretation of the Gospels,” Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 55: 77–89. 132

3. THE RABBINIZATION OF THE ENEMY: VILLAINS IN THE SERVICE OF THE PHARISEES GILAD ELBOM I NTRODUCTION

This paper examines several midrashic narratives that offer a curious rabbinization of the enemies of Israel, most notably Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; Zeresh, wife of (and, according to rabbinic literature, advisor to) Haman; and Jezebel, the archetype of the evil queen. Surprisingly, these vilified figures show remarkable proficiency not only in the Hebrew Bible but also, and more importantly, in rabbinic literature itself. The ingenuous recruitment of otherwise irredeemable villains in the service of the rabbis promotes a clear Pharisaic agenda, especially in the context of the political rivalry with the Sadducees. As a statement about the supreme importance and wide acceptance of rabbinic literature, the fact that despicable biblical characters are familiar with the hermeneutic tradition of the rabbis implies that even the worst enemies of Israel, if knowledgeable in the Oral Law, are better than the Sadducees, who reject it. In this context, it would also be interesting to examine some instances of the rabbinization of God: the portrayal of the Hebrew deity as a Talmudic scholar who endorses, imitates, and champions the midrashic practices of the Pharisees.

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A GAINST THE PRIESTS

According to Ezekiel, the corruption of centralized rituals is orchestrated by the elders of the House of Israel (8:9–16): the ruling elite at the Temple. Vivid descriptions of idolatrous practices are followed by the promise of purification through death and destruction (9:4–10), then rebuilding and reunification. According to some visions, the future leader will be a king, a descendant of the House of David (37:15–28); according to others, a righteous priest, a descendant of the House of Zadok (40:45–46, 44:15–16, 48:11). The duality of king and priest reaches a more explicit level when Zechariah names the rival authorities: Joshua, the high priest, is wearing filthy clothes, standing in front of an angel of God, humiliated by Satan, the accuser (3:1–3). God forgives the unspecified sin of the priest (3:4) but entrusts Zerubbabel, a glorious descendant of the House of David, with the task of rebuilding the Temple (4:8–10). According to the Talmud (b.Sanhedrin 93a), the sons of the high priest are guilty of sexual relations with impure women: women that members of the priesthood are not permitted to marry. Relying on the Talmud, Rashi identifies these forbidden women with the foreign wives mentioned in Ezra 10:18. In any case, subtle parallels are established between Joshua, who, according to the Talmud, is punished for his failure to rebuke his sons, and two other famous priests, Eli and Samuel, whose failure to prevent the sins of their sons ultimately cost them the priesthood (1 Samuel 2:12–36, 8:1–5). The would-be dynasties of both Eli and Samuel are terminated when God and the people realize that the priests abuse the power they enjoy, signaling the beginning of an ongoing search for sociopolitical alternatives to a theocratic administration. And if the sons of the latest high priest, Joshua, are not fit to inherit him, could it be that this episode in Zechariah, at least in its midrashic form, foreshadows the end of the priestly dynasty and its control of the Temple?

THE RABBINIZATION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR

The same Talmudic section is also specific about the nature and details of the punishment that Joshua endures: he is thrown into the fire with Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah,

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the false prophets mentioned in Jeremiah 29:21–23. According to Jeremiah, the two false prophets, having committed adultery with the wives of other men, are “roasted in the fire” by Nebuchadnezzar. According to the Talmud, their fate is sealed when they take it upon themselves to seduce the king’s daughter, each of them trying to persuade her to sleep with the other. When she tells her father about it, his response indicates his intention to confront the offenders with the codes of their own faith. “But their God abhors lechery,” he exclaims. “Next time they come to you,” he says to his daughter, “send them to me.” And so she does. Ahab and Zedekiah are brought before Nebuchadnezzar, who knows that the Jews are expected to obey certain rules that govern sexual behavior. “Who told you to do such a thing?” he asks the so-called prophets. Shamelessly, and probably because they assume that the king of Babylon would not be familiar with Jewish laws, they reply: “Our God.” The king, recalling his encounter with three other Jews in Daniel 3, says: “But when I asked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego about it, they said it was forbidden.” Their impudence intact, Ahab and Zedekiah reply: “We are also prophets, just like them. To them God didn’t say that. To us he did.” The king says: “Very well. Then I will test you just the way I tested them.” Ahab and Zedekiah, appealing to the principle of strength in numbers, protest: “But there are only two of us, whereas they were three.” The king says: “Very well. Name your third companion.” They name Joshua, the high priest, thinking that his righteousness might protect them, but when all three are thrown into the fire, Ahab and Zedekiah are burned to death, while the high priest survives. Only his clothes are singed, which explains why God refers to him as “a burning brand saved from a fire” (Zechariah 3:2). Different versions of the story, some slightly more elaborate, appear in other midrashic sources. In Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer (33), Ahab and Zedekiah, who pose as physicians, take sexual advantage of the women they pretend to examine. In Midrash Tanchuma (Vayikra 6) and Pesikta de Rav Kahana (Buber Recension 25), the king’s wife, not his daughter, is the object of desire that Ahab and Zedekiah try to seduce. Unique to Sanhedrin, however, is a curious section that records a rather humiliating conversation

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between Nebuchadnezzar and the high priest. Once again, it is the ruler of Babylon, in his role as prosecutor, who demonstrates outstanding knowledge of the God, the Law, and the traditions of the Jewish nation, including the Oral Law, while the Jew who stands before him, presented here from an anticlerical perspective, resorts to petty technicalities in a feeble attempt to defend himself. “I know that you are righteous,” the king says to the priest, “but how would you explain the fact that the fire did burn you a little? When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the same situation, the fire did not touch them at all.” Echoing the weak apologetics of Ahab and Zedekiah, the high priest replies: “They were three, and I was on my own.” Unimpressed with such an excuse, Nebuchadnezzar, who shows outstanding proficiency in midrashic literature, reminds the high priest that Abraham was also on his own: a reference to the famous story in Genesis Rabbah 38:13, according to which Abraham, having smashed the false idols manufactured by his father, and having refused to worship the fire that Nimrod revers as a deity, is thrown into a fiery furnace, from which he is saved by God and emerges unharmed. “Yes,” Joshua says, somewhat inconsistently, “but Abraham did not have any wicked people with him, and therefore the fire was not permitted to touch him. I was in the company of wicked men, which is why the fire was allowed to singe me.” At this point, the Talmudic narrator concludes the anecdote by citing a common saying: “Three firebrands—two dry, one wet—and the dry ones burn the wet one.” In other words, one’s righteousness is no protection from the wickedness of the people with whom one comes into contact. Or, to put it more explicitly, the high priest, though technically innocent, is guilty by association. In political terms, and especially from a Pharisaic perspective, the cumulative wisdom of these interconnected narratives is that although individual priests may be blameless, the priesthood as an institution is condemned.

THE RABBINIZATION OF ZERESH

A midrashic pericope on Esther (Esther Rabbah 9:2; Midrash Abba Gorion 5) offers a curious rabbinization of another infamous character: Zeresh. Haman had 366 advisors, but none of them was as

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shrewd as Zeresh, his wife. She tells him that if Mordecai, the man he is after, is one of those Jews, he would not be able to prevail upon him unless he outsmarted him. And how do you outsmart him? With textual proficiency. If you dropped him in a fiery furnace, she tells her husband, it would not work, because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have already emerged from such a thing. If you threw him into a den of lions, it would not work, because Daniel has already ascended from such a place. If you locked him in jail, it would not work, because Joseph has already been released from a similar place. If you put him in a boiling cauldron, it would not work, because Manasseh has already found himself in such a frying pan, and prayed to God, and God listened, and he escaped from this predicament. If you banished him to the desert, it would not work, because the People of Israel have already been fruitful and multiplied there. And if you gouged his eyes, it would not work, because we know that Samson managed to kill quite a few Philistines while blind. What you need to do, she says, is hang him, because nowhere do we find that God has saved anyone from such a thing. As in the case of the Talmudic Nebuchadnezzar, the evil wife of one of the most hateful enemies of Israel is presented here as a studious scholar of Jewish textuality. We must applaud Zeresh, the rabbis seem to say, for showing such impressive expertise in our hermeneutic tradition. After all, the extended narrative of King Manasseh, with its significant additions to the so-called official history (2 Kings 21:1–18), appears only in midrashic texts (the Aramaic translation of 2 Chronicles 33:10–13; j.Sanhedrin 51b; Pesikta de Rav Kahana, Buber Recension 25; Ruth Rabbah 5:6; Deuteronomy Rabbah: Va’etchanan 20; Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 43). When captured by the Babylonians and placed in the fire, the king, a lifelong sinner, calls to every false idol he can think of, asking for help. When nothing works, he remembers that his father used to recite a certain verse in synagogue, something about the faithfulness of God, who never forgets his promise to those who repent (Deuteronomy 4:30–31). The king decides that this might be a good time to test this proposition. He will pray to God. If an answer comes, good. If not, what difference would it make? He has nothing to lose. But the angels block the windows, trying

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to prevent God from hearing his prayer. “Dear Lord,” they say. “Do you really intend to forgive a man who worshiped other gods? A man who erected an abomination in the temple?” Determined not to close the valves of his attention, God replies: “If I did not forgive him, I would be shutting the door on all who wish to return to me.” And then what does he do? He digs a tunnel right under his own divine throne so he can hear the desperate Manasseh. Moved by his supplication, God delivers him from the fire and restores him to his kingship in Jerusalem. In this case, two notorious characters, King Manasseh and Zeresh, are redeemed by their familiarity with rabbinic practices: King Manasseh through prayer and repentance, Zeresh through the concept of intertextual interpretation. Especially noteworthy is the fact that Zeresh uses biblical and midrashic references to contextualize, illuminate, and understand a new, hitherto unforeseen situation: a hermeneutic method that has become the socalled trademark of rabbinic exegesis.

THE RABBINIZATION OF JEZEBEL

The rabbis, who see themselves as the rightful keepers of the Torah and true successors to the prophets (m.Avot 1:1), promote the idea of loving-kindness (‫ )גמילות חסדים‬as a Pharisaic alternative to the Temple rituals from which the Sadducees benefited. The first to be quoted in a quintessentially Pharisaic text is Simon the Just, the high priest himself, who admits that the work at the Temple—the sacrifices—could not exist without the Torah, which comes first, and loving-kindness, which the prophets and poets of the Hebrew Bible, as he must have known, have praised as greater than any Temple ritual (m.Avot 1:2). In fact, the world itself, according to the high priest, could not exist without the Torah and loving-kindness. The world can certainly exist, however, without the sacrifices. Upon observing the devastated Jerusalem, Rabbi Yehoshua says to Yohanan ben Zakkai: “Woe to us! The house of our very life, the place where the sins of Israel are atoned, is destroyed.” Yohanan ben Zakkai replies: “Rest assured. We have another atonement which is just as good.” Rabbi Yehoshua asks: “What is it?” Yohanan ben Zakkai replies: “Acts of loving-kindness!” (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, Recension A 4:5, Recension B 8:2).

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God himself, as early as the creation of man and woman in the Garden of Eden, declares that he appreciates acts of loving-kindness more than any offering that the People of Israel, in the future, will sacrifice in his name (Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 12, 16). The rabbinic treatment of Jezebel could be understood as part of the textual effort to promote the observance of lovingkindness as a superior substitute for the sacrifices at the Temple. Jezebel, the quintessential wicked queen—idolatrous, devious, murderous, monstrous—is credited as one of the originators of the charitable traditions of celebrating with newlyweds and consoling mourners (Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 17). According to the rabbis, Jezebel, whose house was near the marketplace, would join the festivities each time a bride and groom passed through. She would clap her hands, and sing, and walk ten steps with the wedding entourage. And whenever a corpse was carried through the market, she would come out of her house, and clasp her hands, and bewail the dead with her mouth wide open, and follow the funeral procession. When she is killed, the dogs devour her body, as prophesized by Elijah (1 Kings 21:23; 2 Kings 9:36), leaving only her head, hands, and feet (2 Kings 9:35). The rabbis interpret this otherwise horrifying scene as a tribute, approbation, and reward: the dogs have no power over the limbs that performed deeds of loving-kindness.

THE RABBINIZATION OF GOD

According to the rabbis, God spends the first three hours of every day studying the Torah (b.Avodah Zarah 3b). The image of God as a reader of the Bible and the Oral Law is a textual extension of the biblical claims against the priests, against the Temple, against the sacrifices, and in favor of fair judgement, social justice, and human kindness. These superior substitutes for spatial, physical, and corporeal rituals are promoted by the prophets (and other biblical poets) as the express wish of God (Isaiah 1:11–17; Jeremiah 6:20, 7:22, 14:12; Amos 5:21–24; Hosea 5:10, 6:6, 8:13; Micah 6:6–8; Malachi 1:10; Psalm 40:6–10 [40:7–11 MT]; Proverbs 21:3). The rabbis, debating whether it is allowed to offer sacrifices to God in places other than Jerusalem, conclude that Torah

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study—or, perhaps more accurately, the study of the Oral Law, in which dedicated scholars engage everywhere—is a divinely approved substitute for ritual sacrifices. Praising those who study the Torah and its hermeneutic extensions, including rabbinic literature, the rabbis attribute the following quote to God himself: “I hold them as deserving of credit as if they offer actual sacrifices to my name” (b.Menachot 110a). God, according to the rabbis, prefers burnt offerings (‫—)עולות‬sacrifices that are entirely consumed by fire and leave nothing for the priests to enjoy—to sacrifices that are eaten (‫)זבחים‬. More importantly, he prefers textual scholarship to burnt offerings (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, Recension A 4:2; Midrash Tanchuma: Tzav 14). According to the Zohar, God especially enjoys the work of serious, talented, innovative biblical scholars. Such good scholarship rises all the way to his divine throne. God reads it in heaven, and it pleases him very much (Vayechi 242b). This communion between human and divine minds is in keeping with the idea that to find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:5) means to have the knowledge that God has. Those who study the Torah, therefore, gain access to the mind of God, and a scholar who expounds on Scripture in front of an audience is the equivalent of a priest who sacrifices at the altar (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, Recension A 4:2). Textual practices enable humanity, in the rabbinic imagination, to serve as an example for God himself. Rather than mimic the divine, we envision a deity who imitates the noble practices of human beings. Such is the portrayal of the divine in the crucial period that precedes the giving of the Torah to the People of Israel. God and Moses sit on top of Mount Sinai for forty days, studying the Written Law during the day and the Oral Law at night, just like a rabbi and his pupil (Midrash Tanchuma: Ki Tisa 16, 28, 36; Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 46). The fact that the rabbis imagine God enjoying biblical scholarship means that readers of the Torah receive a heavenly seal of approval when God follows in their footsteps. God is reached through reading and writing, and in order to communicate the utmost importance of interaction with the text, the rabbis envision God himself as a reader and writer who participates in their hermeneutic world, endorses their literary efforts, and reaffirms his own textuality.

4. THE DEATH OF MOSES, AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEUTERONOMY, IN DEUTERONOMY RABBAH 11:10 JONATHAN SCHOFER I NTRODUCTION

The death of Moses, according to Judah Goldin, brings two responses from midrashic interpreters: first, the need to defend or justify God’s sentence that Moses must die, and second, the need to express protestation that this “fate of Moses” was disturbing to later generations.1 This paper examines the long and highly refined treatment of the death of Moses in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, a source whose redaction is the eighth century CE or later, with consideration of parallel sources. Thematically, my analysis is similar to Goldin’s but not the same. I show that two conflicting sets of concerns run through the Pentateuch—God’s intimacy with Moses, and the recurring statement that Moses cannot “cross” the Jordan River with the Israelites and will die first. These concerns are integrated in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 in a narrative that portrays emotional expression of Moses in a Judah Goldin, “The Death of Moses: An Exercise in Midrashic Transposition.” In Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, edited by Barry L. Eichler and Jeffry H. Tigay, pages 175-186. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988. 1

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prayer so powerful that it terrifies God Himself. More foundationally, this study argues that this text presenting the death of Moses reveals both key features of the changing genre of midrash in this period, and the understanding of the Book of Deuteronomy as scripture in late canonical homiletic midrash. In addition, the portrayal of Moses in Deuteronomy Rabbah reveals dynamic considerations of emotion as treated in rabbinic midrash.

MIDRASHIC EXEGESIS OF DEUTERONOMY

In setting the context of the rabbinic midrashic exegesis to the Book of Deuteronomy, the earlier Sifre Deuteronomy provides a productive contrast that reveals important features of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10. Steven Fraade characterizes Sifre Deuteronomy as “the earliest extant commentary to the biblical book of Deuteronomy,” and he places the date of redaction of Sifre Deuteronomy as the “mid-third century C.E.” Fraade argues that the midrash to the Book of Deuteronomy in Sifre Deuteronomy needs to be addressed both through the perspectives of “formation” and “reception.” He writes, “By the first I mean attention to how otherwise discrete and sometimes discordant traditions have been redactionally combined and to varying degrees configured to form a running commentary to the text of Deuteronomy.” The second approach demands that researcher consider the perspective of the rabbinic student of the mid-third century C.E., who is “progressively working through the text of commentary” and “seeks to understand its contained traditions in relation both to one another, fore and aft, and to the text of Scripture, both fragmented and continuous, upon which it comments.”2 Deuteronomy Rabbah is not a Tannaitic or even Amoraic collection, but one compiled after the Babylonian Talmud gemara, yet probably still well within the first millennium C.E., and

Steven Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991, 1, 17, 20. 2

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perhaps by 800 C.E.3 Within Deuteronomy Rabbah, however, the exact date of compilation for the last Parashah (section) Deuteronomy Rabbah 11, and in the last Parashah the last and very long sub-section Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, is a matter of dispute and ambiguity—and this text may be later. Deuteronomy Rabbah probably was completed after the extra-canonical tractates, the Minor Tractates, of the Babylonian Talmud, but in comparing passages in Deuteronomy Rabbah with parallels or related imagery in anthologies such as Avot de Rabbi Natan, this study will not assume that the Minor Tractates were finalized and closed before Deuteronomy Rabbah. With reference to Fraade’s description of Sifre Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Rabbah is not a “running commentary to the text of Deuteronomy” but rather a series of exegetical expositions that select key verses as starting points, probably verses that were crucial in the context of a cycle of reading the Pentateuch in a liturgical setting. Deuteronomy Rabbah does not present “discrete and sometimes discordant traditions” but rather highly edited units of exposition that tend to be well-developed. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 in particular has a clearly defined beginning, middle and conclusion. Also, Deuteronomy Rabbah does not really present its object of commentary, the Book of Deuteronomy, as “both fragmented and continuous,” but rather seeks to identify themes spread throughout the work to show common concerns, even if concerns that carry internal tensions, in the Book of Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch more broadly. Moses’ death is not simply an event at the end of Deuteronomy, but an extensive preoccupation in the biblical text. Consideration of Deuteronomy Rabbah, as a later and more canonical midrashic collection than Sifre Deuteronomy, then, provides a very different picture than Fraade exposits for early rabbinic midrash, regarding both rabbinic exegesis and rabbinic portrayals of biblical sources. In the shaping of rabbinic traditions, the exegetical and narrative passages found in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 also reveal

Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, translated by Marcus Bockmuehl, Second Edition. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996, 306-308. 3

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intensified forms of two literary developments found in earlier rabbinic literature. Rachel Anisfeld’s analysis of the Pesikta deRav Kahana emphasizes that Amoraic midrash has features of being “more accessible and less technical and intellectual” than previous forms of midrash, but “still retains a certain amount of rabbinic esotericism in some of its more complicated exegeses.”4 Also, Daniel Boyarin has highlighted the significance of seriousness along with a rejection of the solemn in the gemara of the Babylonian Talmud.5 Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 exemplifies a further development of these features of rabbinic culture, presenting some of the most complex features of rabbinic theology, with plot and dialogue that have a simple and exaggerated tone: grave issues are presented in a manner that may bring a smile or laughter at the representation of Biblical scenes in rabbinic prose. When the redactors of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 gather and intensify the two conflicting components of Pentateuchal presentations of God’s relation with Moses surrounding Moses’ death—God’s intimacy with Moses, and God’s decision that Moses cannot cross the Jordan River with the Israelites and will die first—they also present a dynamic account of emotion. In current scholarship on rabbinic literature and emotion, at least two approaches are prominent, one emphasizing emotion as linked with norms, values, training, and enculturation, and one emphasizing interiority and self-reflexivity.6 For analyzing Deuteronomy Rabbah’s presentation of Moses including the implications of his Rachel A. Anisfeld, Sustain Me With Raison-Cakes: Pesikta deRav Kahana and the Popularization of Rabbinic Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2009, 10, 18, 45-46, 49, 190. 5 Daniel Boyarin, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. 6 For scholarship emphasizing values and enculturation, see Michael Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998; and Yochanan Muffs, Love and Joy: Law, Language, and Religion in Ancient Israel. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. For two recent examples of scholarship emphasizing interiority and self-reflexivity, see the chapters by David Lambert and Joshua Levinson in Maren R. Niehoff and Joshua Levinson, eds., Self, Self-Fashioning, and Individuality in Late Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019, 25-50 and 169-186. 4

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intercession with God on behalf of Israel, this study will build on scholarship that emphasizes values and enculturation. Michael Fishbane writes, for example, in opening a chapter on joy in Judaism: Comprehensive religions give direction to the behavior and inner life of their adherents, marking off proper and improper actions and emotions. Judaism is such a religion, and a vast number of its instructions attempt to guide and even regulate states of delight or sorrow for religions practice and celebration. In the process, various ideals and dangers are formulated. There is thus no purely natural state for humankind in Judaism, or any other religious culture for that matter, since the natural self is transformed from birth into a cultural self— heir through training and tradition to the wisdom and practices of the past. In a tradition as complex as Judaism, the whole range of accumulated values is constantly sifted and reformulated by its teachers in each generation.7

Fishbane’s treatment of joy builds on earlier work on joy and biblical law by Yohanan Muffs, and Muffs formulates central interests of his research with attention to God and Torah: Law is a synthesis of form and content, yet it is formal only on the surface. I have attempted to spell out some of the primal feelings underlying the law. Law in the biblical pattern of culture is reflection of God's “urge” to create and God's “need” for kinsmen. God desires to translate the Torah—the plan for a moral world—through the instrumentality of the people God loves, Israel.8

In the depiction of Moses’ response to God’s decree that he will die, and the following prayer and other exchanges, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 may be emphasizing strongly “primal feelings underlying the law” through this account of the greatest prophet of ancient Israel. In sum, this study argues that the concluding exegesis in Deuteronomy Rabbah provides a long and readable narrative that Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination, 151. Muffs, Love and Joy, 1; also see pages 9-14 on Moses, Abraham, and prophetic intercession. 7 8

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complements the biblical Pentateuch by providing a picture of Moses’ life and leadership emphasizing the moment of his death as the vantage point. The Pentateuch of course has a more-or-less continuous narrative from creation in Genesis 1 through the Revelation of the Decalogue at Sinai in Exodus 20, but afterward the presentation of law and the unfolding of the sacred history intertwine. The Book of Deuteronomy strongly highlights the importance of Moses’ death, and the characterization of his life as a whole from the standpoint of his death, and Deuteronomy Rabbah emphasizes these elements to create an accessible, witty, and also theologically complex story that captures the intensity of Moses’ relations with God and the sadness of his death prior to the Israelites entering the land promised by God to Israel. This midrashic narrative gathers elements primarily from Deut. 31-34, along with passages from earlier in Deuteronomy, from earlier Pentateuchal books, and from the opening of Joshua, to convey the importance of Moses at the moment of his death and with the words of the last chapters of Deuteronomy as the center. This late midrash, well after the Amoraic period, then, employs a combination of accessibility and esotericism to emphasize common concerns found in the Pentateuch and the biblical poetry, and to weave these together into entertaining and concentrated passages that convey to the audience biblical verses and their implications in the context of scripture in its entirety.9

THE LAST PARASHAH OF DEUTERONOMY RABBAH

The last Order (seder) of Deuteronomy Rabbah consists of one Parashah—Parashah 11—and addresses Moses’ blessing to Israel, beginning with the verse, “And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death” (Deut. 33:1). Parashah 11, in turn, has ten sub-sections, and sub-section 11:10 is far longer than all the rest, marking the end of Deuteronomy Rabbah. The last Parashah of Deuteronomy Rabbah emphasizes The full midrash of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 is very long, and this study presents translation and analysis of the first parts of the literary unit. I have a complete treatment of the text in draft form as part of a book manuscript on the homiletical midrash of Deuteronomy Rabbah and Exodus Rabbah. 9

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strongly the greatness of Moses as the most righteous prophet and leader of Israel. Moses not only led the people of Israel out from slavery in Egypt, received the Revelation at Sinai, received the other commandments that define Jewish law, led the Israelites through the wilderness to the edge of Canaan, and then appointed Joshua to be the next leader for the conquest of the land promised by the Israelite God—in addition Deuteronomy Rabbah reinforces a focus on Moses exemplifying purity, sanctity, and humility. This emphasis draws heavily upon the Psalms and also poetry of the prophets. As context for an analysis of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, this analysis begins with two exemplary passages earlier in Parashah 11 of Deuteronomy Rabbah. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:2 is a petihta centered on Psalm 24 as an exposition of Deut. 33:1. More specifically, the midrash integrates three verses from the Psalm— Ps. 24:3-5—with passages from the Pentateuchal narratives of Moses in Exodus and Numbers, to convey the righteousness of Moses and the significance of his giving a blessing to others. The opening exegesis draws attention to the Revelation at Sinai and to God speaking to Moses from the burning bush: Another opinion: And this is the blessing [that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death] (Deut. 33:1). This is what the biblical verse says, Who will go up to the mountain of YHWH? And who will stand in the place of His holiness? (Ps. 24:3). The rabbis said: It speaks of Moses, Who will go up to the mountain of YHWH? (Ps. 24:3). This is Moses, that it is said, And Moses went up to God [and YHWH called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you will say to the house of Jacob, and you will tell the descendants of Israel...”] (Exod. 19:3). And who will stand in the place of His holiness? (Ps. 24:3). This is Moses. From where? That it is said, [And He said, do not come hither. Draw off the sandal from your foot,] for the place that you stand upon, it is holy earth (Exod. 3:5) (Deut. R. 11:2).

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The midrash of Deuteronomy Rabbah offers an unexpected application of the poetic images—“the mountain of YHWH” and “the place of His holiness”—in Psalm 24. With reference to specific terms, “the mountain of YHWH” becomes the mountain from which God called to Moses just before giving the Ten Commandments at Sinai: “YHWH called to him from the mountain” (Ex. 19:3). The statement by God that Moses stands upon “holy earth” (Ex. 3:5), when addressed by God from the burning bush, supports the connection between this location and “the place of His holiness” (Ps. 24:3). Deuteronomy Rabbah, then, employs a petihta to create a compact and vivid connection between Moses receiving God’s commission in Exodus 3 to lead Israel as a prophet, Moses being instructed by God in Exodus 19 to prepare Israel for the Decalogue, and the blessing by Moses upon Israel close to his death near the end of the book of Deuteronomy. The rest of the petihta turns to Moses’ distinct character. Moses is careful in dealing with opponents, as exemplified in the relations with Korah, and keeps necessary distance but does not carry out aggression. Moses appeases God in times of God’s rage against Israel. These moments become characterized through midrashic use of the Psalms as Moses being, “clean of palms and pure in heart”: Clean of palms, [and pure in heart, who did not direct my soul to vanity, and did not take an oath treacherously] (Ps. 24:4). This is Moses. From where? That it is said, [And Moses burned with anger greatly, and he said to YHWH, “Do not regard graciously their offering.] I did not lift up even one donkey of theirs, [and I did not hurt even one of them”] (Num. 16:15). [A]nd pure in heart. This is Moses. Rabbi Isaac said, Even an ignorant man, if he spoke to his fellow like this, it is a disgrace to him, and Moses said, [And Moses appeased YHWH his God {or, induced YHWH his God to show favor in place of wrath and chastisement}, and he said,] “Why, YHWH, does Your nostril flare against Your people, [that You brought out from the land of Egypt, with great strength and with a strong hand?”] (Exod.

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32:11). Rather, his heart was made clear regarding it, that he does not ask for the needs of his own, but rather the needs of Israel (Deut. R. 11:2).

Moses also avoided gratuitous violence or greed against the Egyptians at the time of the exodus, and he maintained his oath of marriage rightly: [W]ho did not direct his soul to vanity (Ps. 24:4). This is the soul of Egypt, that He did not take it gratuitously, but rather He acted according to justice. [A]nd did not take an oath treacherously (Ps. 24:4). This is Moses, that it is said, And Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses [as his wife] (Exod. 2:21). Let him lift up a blessing from YHWH [And righteousness from the God of his salvation] (Ps. 24:5). This is Moses. Rabbi Tanhuma said, Read it only that he lifts up a blessing for others (Deut. R. 11:2).

The verses of the Psalm themselves call for the clean and pure man to “lift up a blessing from YHWH,” to bring “righteousness,” and in Deuteronomy Rabbah this blessing becomes that of Moses for Israel, specifically. In this case, then, the petihta offers a concretized use of imagery in biblical poetry, probably quite different than conveyed if the Psalm were read alone, to convey the character of Moses and the importance of his late act of giving a blessing. The theme of Moses’ death, which gains extensive elaboration in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, appears earlier in Parashah 11 in ways that convey some of the conflicts that the Bible and rabbinic midrash find in the relations between Moses and God surrounding this moment. In Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:9, the harshness of God’s emphasis that Moses must die before the Israelites enter the land promised to them, combined with the intimacy between Moses and God as well as with Moses’ piety, appear in a short midrash that juxtaposes Moses’ blessing upon Israel with an earlier passage conveying God’s instruction to Moses that Joshua be confirmed as Moses’ successor:

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JONATHAN SCHOFER [And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death] (Deut. 33:1). [And YHWH said to Moses,] “Behold, your days are coming close to death, [call Joshua and station yourselves in the Tent of the Meeting, and I will command him,” and Moses went, and Joshua, and they stationed themselves in the Tent of the Meeting] (Deut. 31:14). Rabbi Aibo said: Moses said, “Master of the World, with the word that I praised You, amid the sixty times ten-thousand sanctifications of Your name, in it you decreed upon me death,” as it is said, Behold, your days are coming close to death…. All of your measures, measure for measure, the bad measure corresponding to the good measure, the defective measure corresponding to the full measure, the narrow measure corresponding to the wide measure (Deut. R. 11:9).

This exegesis centers on the biblical emphasis that Moses gives his blessing upon Israel “before his death” (Deut. 33:1). This sense that the Bible, both in the narrative voice and in God’s words to Moses, frequently emphasizes Moses’ death as marking both a time before which key tasks must be completed—including Moses’ song or poem, Moses confirming Joshua as his successor, and Moses’ blessing upon Israel—and as a time after which Israel will enter the land promised them, recurs throughout Deut. 3134. Deuteronomy Rabbah juxtaposes the apparently gratuitous or excessive reference to Moses’ death in Deut. 33:1, in the narrative voice—“before his death”—with another such reference in God’s voice earlier—“Behold, your days are coming close to death, call Joshua and station yourselves in the Tent of the Meeting, and I will command him” (Deut. 31:14). The midrash portrays Moses as observing that God “decrees upon” him “death” just at the same time as Moses praises God. Moses states that he can understand this in terms of the rabbinic theological imagery that God has “measures” of bad and good, full and narrow. This motif is part of a broader element in rabbinic understandings of

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God, in which a person must embrace the divine when facing both good and bad components of the world.10 God replies to Moses, “Even this is the good measure,” stating that death will bring life in a future among the “completely righteous men.” The exegesis centers on the word, “Behold” (hen) in Deut. 31:14, which appears just before God reminds Moses of his upcoming death: “Behold (hen), your days are coming close to death….” In the rabbinic exegetical technique of gematria, hen is the number fifty-five, spelled with the consonants h and n: “h is five, n is fifty.” Deuteronomy Rabbah portrays God as saying that Moses will be “among fifty-five ten-thousands” of these righteous ones. Deuteronomy Rabbah quickly presents three other verses that also open with “Behold” (hen or hinneh) to develop the importance of God’s use of this word: The Holy One, Blessed Be He, said to Moses, “Even this is the good measure, that I said to you, Behold” (Deut. 31:14). Behold, I send an angel before you, to protect you on the way, and to bring you to the place that I establish (Exod. 23:20). Behold, a righteous man in the land will be requited, also the wicked man and the sinner (Prov. 11:31). Behold, I send to you Elijah the prophet, [Before the day of YHWH comes, the great and the awesome] (Mal. 3:23). And just as you raised up to me sixty ten-thousands [of sanctifications], so too, I account you to the future among fiftyfive ten-thousands of completely righteous men, as it is said, “Behold” (hen). Hen in gematria is this: “h” is five, “n” is fifty (Deut. R. 11:9).

“Behold” (hen or hinneh) in this midrashic collection opens verses in which God gives protection and guidance through an angel, in Jonathan Schofer, “Classical Jewish Ethics and Theology in the Halakhic Tractates of the Mishnah.” In Imagining the Jewish God, 47-62. Edited by Len Kaplan and Ken Koltun-Fromm. New York: Lexington Books, 2016. 10

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which proverbial wisdom emphasizes that the righteous will be requited for their deeds, as will the wicked with punishment, and in which the promise of a future “day of YHWH” is affirmed. The overall picture both appeals to the general rabbinic theological claim that God will reward the righteous in a world to come, and to an exegetically generated collection of specific sources in which the simple word “Behold” conveys support by God for the Israelites, order in the world that upholds the righteous including Moses, and the promise of a future messianic time.

DEUTERONOMY RABBAH 11:10: BACKGROUND IN SCRIPTURAL AND RABBINIC SOURCES

Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 is a long midrashic sequence that combines both exegesis and narrative, and three themes productive to name in advance are God’s intimacy with Moses alongside Moses’ humility, rabbinic esoteric imagery employed to develop the biblical themes of God’s intimacy with Moses, and the recurring emphasis upon Moses’ death in the Pentateuch and also the opening of Joshua. The exegetical and narrative use of these themes and their relations in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 is itself quite rich, and adds additional elements as well, so consideration of each of these three themes individually both conveys the extent of each, and will allow the analysis of the passage itself to focus on the literary arrangement and unfolding. The midrash of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 draws from biblical verses that emphasize God’s intimacy with Moses of several sorts. God expresses God’s own rage against Israel, even promising Moses that He will destroy Israel and make a nation from Moses’ descendants alone. Moses appeases God, and then God relents. This pattern first appears in the Book of Exodus, during the transgression of the Golden Calf. God says to Moses, “And now, leave Me alone, and My nostril will flare against them, and I will destroy them, and I will make you into a great nation” (Ex. 32:10). Moses speaks to God on behalf of Israel, and God then renounces the punishment, “And YHWH suffered grief regarding the bad punishment that He said he would do to His nation” (Ex. 32:14). Later in Numbers, a rebellion by the Israelites protesting the difficulty of their travels, criticizing Moses and Aaron, leads

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to a similar exchange. God says, “I will smite it with a pestilence, and I will bring it to ruin, and I will make you into a great nation, more mighty and numerous than it” (Num. 14:12). Moses responds in a similar manner as he did earlier, and again God pardons Israel, “And YHWH said, ‘I have forgiven, according to your speaking’” (Num. 14:20). In Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the event of the Golden Calf and recalls that exchange with God to the people of Israel, reminding them that God had said to Moses, “Leave me alone and I will destroy them, and I will wipe out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you a nation more mighty and numerous than it” (Deut. 9:14). The midrash of Deuteronomy Rabbah, then, gathers these scenes as part of the overall portrayal of Moses’ distinct relation with God, which gains force at the time of Moses’ death. The repeated emphasis upon Moses’ importance in Deuteronomy Rabbah largely builds from the Book of Deuteronomy itself, and especially one of its last lines, “Another prophet like Moses has not risen in Israel, that YHWH knew him face to face” (Deut. 34:10; also Exod. 33:11 and Deut. 5:4). Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 also emphasizes the humility of Moses, explicitly quoting from Numbers: “And the man Moses was very humble, more than all humans that are on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). This combination of Moses’ intimacy with God, his humility, and his great achievements is a key starting point for the complexity that the creators of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 find in the biblical depictions of Moses’ death. The intimacy between God and Moses also appears, in Deuteronomy Rabbah, through rabbinic esoteric imagery that occurs in several other rabbinic sources—perhaps in the most similar form in the Minor Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, Avot de Rabbi Natan and especially Version A. Avot de Rabbi Natan, like Deuteronomy Rabbah, is understood to have a final redaction that is later than the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps between the sixth and eighth centuries C.E.,11 so there are not definite grounds for asserting that Avot de Rabbi Natan is the source for the imagery Jonathan Schofer, The Making of a Sage: A Study in Rabbinic Ethics. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, 26-30. 11

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in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10. It may be fair to say, though, that Avot de Rabbi Natan is a late redaction of earlier material that may even be Tannaitic as presented. Menahem Kister has characterized the redaction of Avot de Rabbi Natan in all versions as ongoing, occasional, and revealing a strong editorial hand yet not organized in a thoroughgoing way.12 Deuteronomy Rabbah, on the other hand, is more likely composed as a late midrash following the Babylonian Talmud, so perhaps the compilers of Deuteronomy Rabbah knew fragmentary yet exegetically derived esoteric teachings about Moses from Avot de Rabbi Natan, and wove them into the narrative that concludes the midrashic anthology. Given these considerations, the teachings in Avot de Rabbi Natan, then, are either parallel and contemporary with those in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, or possibly earlier and an inspiration. Early in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, which will be discussed below, Moses is portrayed as drawing a circle and standing within the circle while praying. Avot de Rabbi Natan A, Ch. 9, portrays Moses drawing a circle and standing within it as part of a strong prayer seeking God’s compassion, a scene that of course echoes the act of Honi the Circle Drawer in the Mishnah (m. Ta‘an. 3:8).13 Also, later in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, in sections beyond those covered in this study, two other themes have parallels in Avot de Rabbi Natan A. In Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 Moses says that he was born circumcised: “I am the son of Amram, that I came out from the womb of my mother circumcised, and I did not need that he circumcise me.” In Avot de Rabbi Natan A, Ch. 2, a discussion of Job includes a list of biblical figures that are said to have been born circumcised: Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Bilaam, Samuel, David, Jeremiah, Zerubbabel, and also Job. Also, in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10: God calls upon the angel of death to bring Him the soul of Moses; Moses rebukes this angel and sends him away; God then comes to Moses and promises him life in the world to come; God also says that He will place the soul of Moses under the throne of Menahem Kister, Studies in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan: Text, Redaction, and Interpretation. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Department of Talmud, 1998. 13 Goldin, Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, 331-335. 12

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glory; and God takes Moses’ soul with a kiss. Many if not all of these motifs also occur in other rabbinic sources, but Avot de Rabbi Natan A, Ch. 12 gathers in short narrative form these esoteric theological images, which are developed with more drama and with elaboration of other themes in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10.14 The redactors of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 both contrast and connect God’s intimacy with Moses, with the repeated emphasis that Moses will die before the Israelites cross the Jordan River and enter the land that God promises to them. The Bible presents this complex mix of contrast and connection repeatedly, and key verses are gathered in Deuteronomy Rabbah. Considering them in the order that they appear in the Pentateuch, first, the statement that Moses and Aaron will not enter the land given by God to Israel appears in Numbers with God’s criticism that they lacked sufficient belief: “And YHWH said to Moses and to Aaron, ‘Because you did not believe in Me to treat Me as sacred before the eyes of the descendants of Israel, therefore you will not bring this congregation to the land that I give to them’” (Num. 20:12). Early in Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that God would not let him cross the Jordan and see the land on the other side, but instead God commanded Moses to view the land from a distance, standing on the top of a mountain: And YHWH was furious with me because of you, and He did not listen to me, and YHWH said to me, “It is enough for you! Do not continue speaking to me any more regarding this matter. Go up the top of Pisgah, and lift your eyes west, and north, and south, and east, and see with your eyes, for you will not cross this Jordan [River]” (Deut. 3:26-27).

Moses emphasizes to the Israelites a bit later in his speaking, “For I die in this land, and I do not cross the Jordan, and you cross and take possession of this good land” (Deut. 4:22). Much later in Deuteronomy, as discussed above, God mentions Moses’ upcoming death when Moses is to establish Joshua as his successor, “And Analysis of some of this material appears in Schofer, The Making of a Sage, 139-141 and 256 n.62. 14

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YHWH said to Moses, ‘Behold, your days are coming close to death, call Joshua and station yourselves in the Tent of the Meeting, and I will command him,’ and Moses went, and Joshua, and they stationed themselves in the Tent of the Meeting” (Deut. 31:14). Later, Moses himself names his own death as a concern that Israel’s corruption will increase afterward: For I know your rebellion, and your stiff-neck; behold, while I still live with you today, you are showing disobedience toward God, and even so after my death (Deut. 31:27). …For I know after my death, that you will surely act corruptly, and turn from the way that I command you, and distress will befall you in the end of the days, for you carry out evil in the eyes of YHWH, to anger him with the deed of your hands (Deut. 31:29).

Soon after Moses presents his song—the Song of Moses in Deut. 32:1-43—God commands Moses to go up to a mountain and die, “And die on the mountain, that you go up there, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and he was gathered to his people” (Deut. 32:50). Before the depiction of Moses’ death, though, Moses’ long and rich blessing, which is the focus of Deuteronomy Rabbah Parashah 11, appears in Deuteronomy starting with, “And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death” (Deut. 33:1). Following the blessing, the actual account of Moses’ death names the death twice in the last chapter of Deuteronomy: And Moses died there, servant of YHWH, in the land of Moab, at the command of YHWH (Deut. 34:5). And Moses was 120 years old at his death. His eye did not grow dim, and his freshness had not fled (Deut. 34:7).

After the completion of the Pentateuch, the opening of Joshua and the Deuteronomic History immediately names Moses’ death twice: And it happened, after the death of Moses, servant of YHWH, that YHWH said to Joshua son of Nun, chief assistant to Moses, saying, “Moses My servant is dead, and now, arise and cross

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this Jordan River, you and all this nation, to the land that I give to you, to the descendants of Israel…” (Josh. 1:1-2).

The death of Moses, then, is not simply one scene at the end of Deuteronomy and the end of the Pentateuch, but rather Moses’ death is a point of anticipation and transition that is discussed from Numbers and throughout Deuteronomy. Announced much earlier, contested, not able to be changed, a point of worry that Israel will degenerate afterward, a time of transition to new leadership—Moses’ death is an ongoing preoccupation in the later parts of the Pentateuch and the continuation of the biblical narrative in the Deuteronomic History, with recurring references that Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 gathers into its own distinctive combination of exegesis and story.

DEUTERONOMY RABBAH 11:10: MOSES’ DEATH AND FLAWS

Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, as for all of Parashah 11, comments upon the opening of Moses’ blessing, “And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death” (Deut. 33:1). Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 has two features that are the same as the previous sub-section, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:9 (quoted and analyzed above). Both midrashic units open with a juxtaposition of Deut. 33:1 with Deut. 31:14—“And YHWH said to Moses, ‘Behold, your days are coming close to death, call Joshua and station yourselves in the Tent of the Meeting, and I will command him,’ and Moses went, and Joshua, and they stationed themselves in the Tent of the Meeting”—emphasizing the repeated focus on Moses’ death before the event itself. Both midrashic units also emphasize Moses’ praise of God and Moses’ piety, righteousness, and sanctity. As a result, both observe that many biblical scenes and even individual verses combine an emphasis on Moses’ death before entering the land promised to Israel with depictions of Moses’ importance to God and his service to God. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, however, presents a much more elaborate account. The midrash opens by gathering ten verses in which Moses’ death is named. Soon after, Moses is portrayed as having little worry about the naming of his death, referring to biblical scenes in which God altered His punishment of Israel based on Moses

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speaking with God, so, “this matter was light in the eyes of Moses.” When Moses learns that he really will die, though, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 portrays him as engaging in extraordinarily powerful prayer, and the rest of the story presents God facing the challenge of taking the soul of His greatest prophet, when the prophet really wants to live. The narrative sequence extends far beyond this point, but consideration of this much will support the key arguments of this study. The final passages of the midrashic unit extend Deut. 34:8—“And the descendants of Israel bewailed Moses…”—to exhibit the grief of God and heavenly beings, citing verses conveying sorrow that a righteous man has passed. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 opens with a teaching of Rabbi Yohanan that gathers ten verses naming Moses’ death. From the standpoint of an interpretation of Deuteronomy and Joshua, this list conveys with great force the repeated emphasis upon Moses’ death throughout Deuteronomy and into the opening of Joshua. The exegesis, moreover, takes each of these verses to be God’s “decree,” but the midrash also states that the “decree of judgment” was not “sealed” until Moses’ actual death, when “the great court was revealed to him.” In Deuteronomy Rabbah, the verses are presented very briefly, in a list that refers to each in just a few words: Rabbi Johanan said, Ten deaths are written about him, about Moses, and they are these: [And YHWH said to Moses,] “Behold, your days are coming close to death, [call Joshua and station yourselves in the Tent of the Meeting, and I will command him,” and Moses went, and Joshua, and they stationed themselves in the Tent of the Meeting] (Deut. 31:14). And die on the mountain, [that you go up there, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and he was gathered to his people] (Deut. 32:50). For I die [in this land, and I do not cross the Jordan, and you cross and take possession of this good land] (Deut. 4:22). For I know after my death, [that you will surely act corruptly, and turn from the way that I command you, and distress will befall

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you in the end of the days, for you carry out evil in the eyes of YHWH, to anger Him with the deed of your hands] (Deut. 31:29). [For I know your rebellion, and your stiff-neck; behold, while I still live with you today, you are showing disobedience toward God,] and even so after my death (Deut. 31:27). [And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel] before his death (Deut. 33:1). [And Moses] was 120 years old at his death. [His eye did not grow dim, and his freshness had not fled] (Deut. 34:7). And Moses died there, servant of YHWH, [in the land of Moab, at the command of YHWH] (Deut. 34:5). And it happened, after the death of Moses, [servant of YHWH, and YHWH said to Joshua son of Nun, chief assistant to Moses, saying,] (Josh. 1:1). “Moses My servant is dead, [and now, arise and cross this Jordan [river], you and all this nation, to the land that I give to you, to the descendants of Israel…”] (Josh. 1:2). This teaches that up to ten times He decreed upon him that he would not enter into the land of Israel, and still the harsh decree of judgment was not sealed until the great court was revealed to him. He said to him, “It is a decree from before Me that you do not cross, as it is said, Go up the top of Pisgah, and lift your eyes west, and north, and south, and east, and see with your eyes, for you will not cross this Jordan [river]” (Deut. 3:27) (Deut. R. 11:10).

The quotation of Deut. 3:27 at the end, a verse that appears before any of those named in the list of ten (the earliest in the list of ten is Deut. 4:22), emphasizes that God’s “decree” is not simply that Moses will die, or that he will die at the age of 120 years old, but that he will die before crossing the Jordan River and before the Israelites enter the land that God promises to them. The midrash then presents two ways of finding fault in Moses. The first is that the intimacy between God and Moses may lead Moses to be overly optimistic about his own ability to persuade God on his own behalf. If God changed His rage against Israel at

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the time of the Golden Calf based on Moses’ words (Ex. 32:14), and if God did so again later during the time of wandering in the desert (Num. 14:20), and if God more than once said in rage against Israel that He would destroy Israel and make Moses “a nation more mighty and numerous than it” (Deut. 9:14; see also Ex. 32:10 and Num. 14:12), then would not it be sensible for Moses to conclude: “I, who have not sinned from my youth, is it not the more so, when I pray for myself, that He will receive from me.” Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 presents this possibility: And this matter was light in the eyes of Moses, that he said, “Israel sinned great sins several times, and when I requested compassion upon them, immediately [Israel] received from me,” that it is said, Leave me alone and I will destroy them, [and I will wipe out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you a nation more mighty and numerous than it] (Deut. 9:14). What is written there? And YHWH suffered grief regarding the bad [punishment] [that He said he would do to His nation] (Ex. 32:14). I will smite it with a pestilence, and I will bring it to ruin, and I will make you into a great nation, more mighty and numerous than it (Num. 14:12). What is written there? And YHWH said, I have forgiven, according to your speaking (Num. 14:20). I, who have not sinned from my youth, is it not the more so, when I pray for myself, that He will receive from me (Deut. R. 11:10).

However, midrash states that God rejects the claim that when Moses prays “for himself,” then God “will receive” from him. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 emphasizes that God set in place during events described in the Book of Numbers that Moses and Aaron would not bring Israel to the land promised to them by God: And when The Holy One, Blessed Be He, saw that the matter was light in the eyes of Moses, and he did not stand in prayer, immediately He sprung upon him, and He swore by His great

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name that he would not enter the land of Israel, as it is said, [And YHWH said to Moses and to Aaron, “Because you did not believe in Me to treat Me as sacred before the eyes of the descendants of Israel,] therefore you will not bring this congregation [to the land that I give to them”] (Num. 20:12). [T]herefore means an oath, that it is said, Therefore I swear regarding the house of Eli [that the iniquity of the house of Eli would not be atoned for with sacrifice and with offering forever] (1 Sam. 3:14) (Deut. R. 11:10).

The final reference to God’s response to Eli in 1 Samuel 3:14 does not equate Moses with Eli: Moses and Aaron will not bring Israel “to the land that I give to them” (Num. 20:12), while the house of Eli has “iniquity” that “would not be atoned for with sacrifice and offering forever” (1 Sam. 3:14), but for both cases, God swears an oath that His decision will stand.

DEUTERONOMY RABBAH 11:10: MOSES’ PRAYER TO L IVE

The rest of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 portrays the drama of Moses praying and requesting to God that he live, and God trying to take his soul but also promising Moses life in the world to come. The compilers of Deuteronomy Rabbah repeatedly convey to the audience the conflict between Moses’ greatness and service to God, and God’s decree of death before crossing the Jordan River, as presented in the Bible. In addition, the rabbinic interpreters add a very strong and repeated emphasis on Moses’ own desire to live. Initially, Moses engages in a fast, “and he drew a small circle, and stood in its interior,” and called upon God to “cancel that decree.” Moses’ compelling power in relation to nature, as conveyed at the start of the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy—“Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak. The earth will hear the utterance of my mouth” (Deut. 32:1)—here becomes the ability of his prayer for life to affect the world: “heavens, and the earth, and the order of nature shook.” Cited along with this scene is the explicit biblical statement that Moses was the most humble person on earth: And when Moses saw that the decree of judgment was sealed upon him, he decreed upon himself a fast, and he drew a small circle, and stood in its interior, and he said, “I will not move

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JONATHAN SCHOFER from here until you cancel that decree.” At that moment, what did Moses do? He wore sack-cloth, and wrapped himself up in sack-cloth, and he covered himself in ashes, and stood in prayer and in supplications for grace before The Holy One, Blessed Be He, until the heavens, and the earth, and the order of nature shook, and they said, “Perhaps the desire of The Holy One, Blessed Be He, is to renew His world.” A heavenly voice went out and said, “The desire of The Holy One, Blessed Be He, to renew His world has not yet arrived, rather, That in His hand is the soul of each that lives, and breath of all flesh of man (Job. 12:10). And man means “Moses,” as it is said, And the man Moses was very humble, more than all humans that are on the face of the earth (Num. 12:3) (Deut. R. 11:10).

Again, the midrashic narrative holds together strong contrasts and oppositions. All the heavens, the earth, and “the order of nature” think that God wants “to renew His world,” yet actually He aims to take the “soul” of Moses. Is Moses arrogant, because regarding his death “the matter was light in his eyes” (quoted earlier), and here he “will not move” from his small circle until God changes? The reader of scripture might think so, yet Deuteronomy Rabbah reminds the audience, “the man Moses was very humble” (Num. 12:3). God responds to the condition of “the heavens, and the earth, and the order of nature” to make sure that no one on high will receive Moses’ prayer: What did The Holy One, Blessed Be He, do at that very moment? He announced in each and every gate of each and every firmament, in each and every court, that they not receive the prayer of Moses, and they not credit it before him, because a decree of judgment was sealed upon him. That very angel that was appointed by that announcement, ’Akhrezi’el is his name (Deut. R. 11:10).

God’s communications to the heavenly beings include several named angels. The overall presentation in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 of these beings in the heavenly realms includes the Serafim of Isaiah 6, the wheels of the chariot of Ezekiel 1, the general

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phrase, “the ministering angels,” a “heavenly voice” (bat qol), and also several named angels. ’Akhrezi’el, whose name is literally, “Announcement of God,” is appointed by God’s announcement “that they not receive the prayer of Moses.” In addition, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 presents Zagzag’el, “the greatest scribe of the inhabitants on high” and two other angels who are supportive of Moses: Mikha’el and Gabri’el. The heavens include wickedness as well, including “Sama’el, the Wicked, the chief of all Satans” and two angels that are said to bring improper sexual desire to humans—‘Aza and ‘Aza’el. God’s announcement brings to the angels a sense of calamity and an urgent need to act quickly: At that very moment The Holy One, Blessed Be He, called, in a sudden calamity, and said to the ministering angels, “Go down in a sudden calamity, and lock up all gates of each and every firmament, since the voice of the prayer prevailed against the upper realms, and request to go up the firmament because the voice of Moses’ prayer: that his prayer resembles a sword, that it tears and cuts and it does not have a hindrance, that his prayer was a reflection of the Divine Name [the Tetragrammaton], that he learned from Zagzag’el, the greatest scribe of the inhabitants on high” (Deut. R. 11:10).

The angels, then, are told to “go down” in a sense of urgency, “lock up” the gates of each firmament, and “request” to go up at the end of this act. Moses’s prayer is characterized as powerful and without a hindrance, and also Moses’ use, without heresy or other improper features, of the divine name is described here for the first time—this motif repeats later in the midrashic unit. Moses’ powerful prayer gains characterization through a series of midrashic expositions of the prophet Ezekiel’s statement, “And a spirit lifted me, and I heard after me a voice of a great quaking: Blessed be the glory of YHWH from His place (Ezek. 3:12). The central interpretation of this verse is attributed to the heavenly Serafim, who paraphrase Mishnah Avot to say that the verse means, “there is before Him no partiality, neither for the small nor for the great” (see M. ’Avot 4:22). In addition, an interpretation of the opening of Deut. 3:23—“ And I sought favor”—

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by way of gematria supports the image that Moses prayed fivehundred-and-fifteen times: Regarding that moment, it says, [And a spirit lifted me,] and I heard after me a voice of a great quaking: Blessed be the glory of YHWH from His place (Ezek. 3:12). And quaking is “trembling,” and great is “Moses,” as it is said, [And YHWH gave favor to the people, in the eyes of Egypt;] also the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the eyes of the servants of Pharaoh and in the eyes of the nation (Ex. 11:3). What is, Blessed be the glory of YHWH from His place? In the moment that the wheels of the chariot, and the flaming Seraphim, saw that The Holy One, Blessed Be He, said, “Do not receive the prayer of Moses, and do not be partial to him, and do not give him life, and do not make him enter the land of Israel,” they said, Blessed be the glory of YHWH from His place, that there is before Him no partiality, neither for the small nor for the great. And where [do we learn] that Moses prayed in that very period of time, five hundred and fifteen times? It is said, “And I sought favor of YHWH at that time, saying” (Deut. 3:23). And I sought favor in gematria thus proves [6+1+400+8+50+50=515] (Deut. R. 11:10).

Moses seeks favor with a prayer that generates quaking, hundreds of time, yet “the glory of YHWH” is strong such that the prayer is not received. Moses now shifts to speak to God, emphasizing his hard work on behalf of Israel. Building from the words of the prophet Hosea, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 asserts that Moses’ service of God led a lying, deceitful, and ignorant people to become holy and faithful. Moses appeals to Deuteronomic law regarding the payment of wages to say that he should get proper “payment for the service of forty years” of hard work: In that moment, Moses said before The Holy One, Blessed Be He, “Master of the World, my painstaking, and my trouble, that I suffered regarding Israel, until they believed in Your name, is revealed and known before You: how much trouble I suffered for them regarding the commandments, until I made permanent for them Torah and commandments. I said, when I saw their distress, thus I would see their good, and now, that

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Israel’s good has arrived, You say to me, [Y]ou will not cross this Jordan [River] (Deut. 3:27). You make Your Torah a fraud, as it is written, In the proper time you pay his wages: and the sun has not set, for he is poor, and he lifts up his soul to it [his wage], and he shall not call out against you to YHWH, and the guilt of sin would be upon you (Deut. 24:15). Is this the payment for the service of forty years during which I worked hard, until they became a holy and faithful people?” That it is said, You have surrounded me with lying, Ephraim, And with deceit, house of Israel And Judah lacks knowledge of God, and the faithful person is with Holy Ones (Hosea 12:1) (Deut. R. 11:10).

The accusation by Moses to God, “You make Your Torah a fraud,” asserts that law protecting a worker and insuring that he is paid wages at an appropriate time should also protect Moses from death before seeing the “good” that will arrive for Israel. This phrasing will appear later in the midrashic unit, where God will respond.

CONCLUSION

One scholarly starting point for the consideration of Deuteronomy Rabbah, Parashah 11, and particularly the end of Midrash Rabbah to the Pentateuch with the long sub-section Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, is the historical development of rabbinic exegesis to the Book of Deuteronomy. In contrast with midrash in the much earlier Sifre Deuteronomy, as analyzed by Fraade, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 is a long and highly edited sequence that closely combines exegesis and narrative, not “discrete and sometimes discordant traditions.” Also, Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 identifies common concerns that appear throughout the book of Deuteronomy, and even earlier and later, at least from the opening chapters of Exodus through all the Pentateuch and into the opening chapter of Joshua.

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A second and related scholarly starting point for examining Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 is Anisfeld’s attention to the development of both accessibility and esotericism in rabbinic midrash over time. The narrative of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 employs dramatic and almost comic images while also being densely exegetical. The narrative is funny, at times repetitive, and vividly portrays God and the angels in dynamic relations with Moses. The midrash and narrative build from very extensive citations of scripture, including long lists of biblical verses, use of biblical vocabulary without citations of full verses, and also prominent midrashic exegesis as found elsewhere in rabbinic literature. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 shows its audience vividly its purpose. The passage opens by emphasizing that Moses’ death, which is named in the verse defining the Parashah—“And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, blessed upon Israel before his death” (Deut. 33:1; emphasis added)—is a repeated preoccupation for the Book of Deuteronomy and the opening of the Book of Joshua, with ten verses listed to exemplify this point. Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10 shows early on, in addition, that God’s intimacy with Moses, and Moses’ demonstrated ability to change God’s response to humans as evident at the time of the Golden Calf, are in tension with this repeated emphasis that Moses will die and not enter the land promised to the Israelites. The midrash notably expresses this tension with great elaboration of a simple desire to live expressed repeatedly by Moses, and later in the midrashic unit by Moses’ soul addressed separately from the whole person. These components of Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10, I believe, can be characterized through Muffs’ phrase that we can identify “primal feelings underlying the law.”15 The humanity of Moses as mortal and facing death, and the greatness of Moses’ worldly achievements as well as service to God, all are conveyed through midrash that dramatically portrays angels respecting his strength, and Moses’ prayer with emotional force that can transform heavens and earth.

15

Muffs, Love and Joy, 1.

5. EMOTIONAL DISCOURSE IN RABBINIC LITERATURE RONIT NIKOLSKY I NTRODUCTION

Studying emotions in ancient Jewish and Judaic societies are identifying modern emotions in antiquity is a challenging and exciting field, where we try to understand whether the ancients felt as we did in a particular situation, what was their attitude toward emotions, how, if at all, they tried to manage them, and even whether they had a general concept of emotion or only of particular emotions. There are two major directions in studying emotions in antiquity, one is looking for what we perceive as emotions in the ancient texts. This direction was followed by Francoise Mirguet, when she studied compassion in ancient texts, she exposed what is meant by compassion in our culture, and looked for similar interactions in antiquity, regardless of the words that were used to describe the interaction.1 The other direction is looking into what we perceive as an emotional word in antiquity, and try to understand what these words mean in the original context. This was done by Joel Gereboff in his study on the word ‘hate’ in early Rabbinic tradition.2 Shulamit Valler took an approach in the middle of the two in her books about happiness and sorrow in

1 2

Mirguet, An Early History of Compassion, 1–20. Gereboff, Joel, ‘Hate in Early Rabbinic Traditions’.

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rabbinic culture, both relating to emotion words, as well as looking into narrative situations.3 Narratives are acknowledged by all scholars as an instructive locus for studying emotions. In this contribution I will be joining these colleagues, and others, in studying rabbinic emotionality. I will take an approach closer to Gereboff and Valler, and will be looking into three words from rabbinic literature that are suspected as referring to emotions. However, I will take a cognitive approach to emotions. Two things are acknowledged by most if not all cultural scholars of emotions: first, that emotions are cultural, and this was recognized by scholars of culture before it was recognized by the biologists, and second, that they are embodied, that is, they have a strong bodily component. The bodily component is not transparent in the study of past cultures, as references to bodily gestures are not always understood, and in many cases they are collocated (i.e. habitual juxtaposition of two words, such as the biblical ‘fall on one’s neck’). But as recent cognitive study of emotions shows, the bodily aspects are less instructive than previously thought even in modern emotions. In what follows I will describe recent cognitive study of emotions, and this will also serve to explain what I search in the study of rabbinic emotions.

CONCEPTUALIZING E MOTIONS IN SCIENCE

In the past, the heart was seen as the seat of the mind, of emotions, and other inner activity.4 Current science sees the heart as the center of blood circulation, and the bodily member responsible for the mind is the brain, acknowledging that the major task of the brain is to manage the body, both in terms of its inner status (homeostasis) as well as its relation to the environment, including social environment. No less than the cultural scholars of emotions, scientists of emotions struggle with defining what these are, and how they can be differentiated from other brain activity.

Valler, Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud; Valler, Types of Happiness. Kiperwasser, ‘Matters of the Heart: The Metamorphosis of the Monolithic in the Bible to the Fragmented in Rabbinic Thought’. 3 4

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Joseph LeDoux, a prominent scientist of emotions, who studied fear, describes emotions as neurological circuits activated by a stimulus, be it an external one, i.e. perceived by the senses, or internal monitoring of the situation of the body (homeostasis). When these circuits are activated as a reaction to a stimulus, specific kinds of responses rise in priority, other activities are inhibited, the brain and body are aroused, attention is focused on relevant environmental and internal stimuli, motivational systems are engaged.5

According to LeDoux, then, the trigger that stimulates emotions causes the body to spring into action in a way that overrides its usual and normative activity with which it was busy. The survival discourse and urgency found in LeDoux’s description is tempered down in Antonio Damasio’s when he talks about emotions as “not a luxury”, in the sense of not only part of ‘survival mode’, but as he put it, “Emotions play out in the theatre of the body. Feelings play out in the theatre of the mind...”6 He describes emotions as Bioregulatory reactions that aim at promoting, directly or indirectly, the sort of physiological states that secure not just survival but survival regulated into the range that we […] identify with well-being.7

This means that any movement the organism does in order to balance their well-being is, in a way, an emotion. Damasio connects the biological aspect of emotions with their psychological role in his pointed to the gap between having emotions and being aware of them, calling the former “emotions”, which is what we saw above, and the latter “feelings”; feelings are “the mental representation of the physiological changes that occur during an emotion”. This means that, according to Damasio, emotions are the automated unconscious movements of the organism toward wellbeing, and ‘feelings’ are these movements when we are aware of them. Currently it is accepted to call the first affect, and the word emotions usually applies to the second, in the cultural fields. LeDoux, ‘Rethinking the Emotional Brain’, 655. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, 28. 7 Damasio, ‘Emotions and Feelings: A Neurobiological Perspective’, 50. 5 6

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The recent scientific work on emotions of Lisa Feldman Barrett, asserts that the relationship between bodily reactions and emotions is not an habitual juxtaposition: there is no universal correlation between a bodily arousal and an emotion: tears can be of happiness or of sadness; sweat can result from fear or other excitements; increased body heat or palpitation are non-specific, and neither are facial expressions. Rather, when we talk about emotions we think of a range of physical phenomena that testify to bodily arousal: dilation of the pupils, salivation, increased respiration, increase in heart rate, or secretion of certain hormones. What is unique in the case of emotions is that this arousal is brought to the consciousness, to our awareness, as usually we are not aware of such physiological changes in our body.8 This awareness is what enables the organism to choose the most appropriate reaction to the cause of the bodily arousal, and in the case of humans, as far as we know only humans, also to name the phenomenon, to assign a word, to the combination of cause of arousal and bodily reaction: love to increased heart rate and the sight of the loved one, compassion when feeling and perhaps tearing upon encountering a case of a suffering other, etc. The non-specificity of affect is thus described as either positive (being attracted to the stimulus) or negative (being distracted from it), and these can happen either as an intensive or non intensive manner.9

BASIC EMOTIONS

Scientists also tried to find, or decide, what are the basic universal emotions that an organism has, or at least complex or social organisms. Many theories came up in these studies, from four basic emotions, five, or six, and various emotions were named as such. There is no universal agreement on this question, especially after the scholars of culture, ranging from anthropologists to ancient historians, have demonstrated how culture-dependent emotions are. However, I would like to look shortly into one of the theories. 8 9

Barrett, How Emotions Are Made, 72; Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, 50. Barrett, How Emotions Are Made, 74.

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Jaak Panksepp was the founder of affective neuroscience, and also coined this term. He developed the theory of seven basic emotional systems, which he calls primal emotions. These are behavioral systems that are motivated by affection. The seven systems are Seeking, Rage, Fear, Lust, Care, Panic, Play. Panksepp identifies similarity between human and other animals’ brains regarding these systems.10 While Panksepp’s research was criticized for various reasons, it has some instructive points for our purpose. Without going into the details of each affective behavioural system, we can see in the list which Panksepp has developed, and which he claims we share with other animals, behavioural strategies that serve a to sustain not only the individual body, but also the interaction between members of a social group. Indeed, as Michael Tomasello’s studies assert, the human exceptional ability of recognizing the attitude of another human, enables a level of cooperation higher than other animals, and is at the root of being human.11 So while fear of snakes might save an individual, fear of missing out would help create a cohesive group; these are common to all social animals, humans included. Thus, social, and within it pro-social behaviours are common strategies for maintaining group cohesion. But fear of wrongly citing a bibliographical item is an example of where human culture differs from others’, and it is also where we can point to cultural uniqueness. While the biology and chemistry might be similar to the affective reaction in many social animals, the artefact that raises this affective reaction is something that has to be learned culturally. For the culturally unique we should look into how these social behaviors are directed or redirected in one culture or another, which means that we should look for is toward which object should the affective action be directed, and to which it should not, as well as which cultural object should incent affective activity and which should not. These are the unique items that are Davis and Montag, ‘Selected Principles of Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience’, 1. 11 Tomasello, Why We Cooperate; Tomasello, Becoming Human. 10

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behind the creation of an emotional community, hopefully by now a familiar term, coined by Barbara Rosenwein.12

RABBINIC E MOTIONS

This short review of the scientific aspects of emotions suggest a few concepts that can help in studying emotions in rabbinic culture. I will be studying three verbs that seem to refer to emotions: lahat (‫)להט‬, to be habituated, hamad (‫)חמד‬, to covet, and the expression ‘to act out of love’ (‫)לעשות מאהבה‬. I will ask whether these verbs refer to affection (without awareness) or emotions (with awareness), I will look at whether and how they are managed, what is the rabbinic assessment of these verbs, and what is the cultural aspect of their expression. As usual in this field, I will take into consideration the timeframe of the use (tannaitic, amoraic, and post-amoraic),13 geographical frame (Palestine or Babylonia)14 and whether the source is halakhic or midrashic. I left out cases of a collocative use of these roots, such as the fixed expression “a vessel of desire” (‫ )כלי חמדה‬where the meaning of the root h-m-d is not always relevant.

CASE STUDIES Habituating: the root l-h-t (‫)להט‬

In the Bible, the root l-h-t is found only as associated with heat or fire (i.e. Gen 3:24). As heat, it is accompanied with terror of meeting with grandeur (Joel 2:3) or with the feeling of anger, mostly expressed with other ‘heat’ roots, like h-m-m (‫ )חממ‬or q-d-h (‫)קדח‬ (Deut 32:22; Isa 42:25). In modern Hebrew, the root means to be eager. In rabbinic Hebrew, the use of this root as a predicate in a sentence is quite different. It refers to being habituated to Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Gereboff, Joel, ‘Hate in Early Rabbinic Traditions’, 80, but throughout the article as well. 14 Valler, Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud, 264–72. 12 13

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something to such an extent that there is little to no chance of altering the habit, i.e. both habituated and engaged with it. Such a habit is executed whenever the option appears and is obtainable. I will use the verb ‘habituate’ to relate to this Hebrew root. Being habituated as of itself is not assessed either positively or negatively in rabbinic literature. Therefore, the activity resulting from being habituated is considered problematic only if the action or object about which a person is habituated is problematic, that is, if it transgresses halakhah or is morally wrong. I will present here some cases that illustrate the use of this verb. In this example, the verb is used to relate to animals: Rabbi Halafta bar-Shaul learned: The snake is habituated to garlic.

.‫תנה ר' חלפתה בר שאול‬ .‫הנחש הזה להוט אחר השום‬

Rabbi Shmuel son of Nahman said: it happened that a snake who descended from the mountain to the home, and found a bowl of garlic and ate it, and then vomited in it.

‫ מעשה‬.‫אמ' ר' שמואל בר נחמן‬ .‫בנחש אחד שירד מההר לבית‬ .‫ומצא קערה שלשום ואכלה‬ .‫והקיא בתוכה‬

GenR 54:1 (p. 575)

(575 '‫בראשית רבה נד א )עמ‬

This tale tells about a wild snake who arrived at a house and found a bowl with garlic. As a wild animal, who does not have an abundance of food available to it, he could not stop himself from eating the garlic; it thus over-ate and vomited. The verb ‘habituate’ is used here to describe the snake’s inability to avoid eating the garlic. We also find this verb used to describe a dog habituated to (eating) carcasses (GenR 81:3, p. 974); or a fly who is habituated to being flogged (PDRK Zakhor 8 [p. 47], Teze 9). The use of this verb with regards to animals comes in two different contexts: in one, it is describing the nature of animals, and thus a relatively low level of awareness of the subject, it is still somewhat neutral in terms of moral assessment, as no high moral behaviour is expected of animals. Such is the case quoted above. It is different when the verb is used in a parable, or as a parallel to human behaviour. This happens with regard to the Israelites who are compared to a dog. In such a case we can infer a derogatory attitude.

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When people are the subject of habituation it is usually in a domain that is assessed negatively. One such domain is gossip: Doeg and Ahitofel are said to be habituated to gossiping ( ‫היו להוטין‬ ‫)אחר לשון הרע‬.15 Another semantic domain is buying land; while on its own buying land does not seem negative, all cases to which the rabbinic literature refers are presented as negative: three biblical character were habituated to having land, and they all came to no good, Cain, who worked the land, and then killed his brother; Noah, who ended up getting drunk from the vine he planted in his land, and king Uziah, who acquired a lot of land, and ended up being struck by leprosy.16 Other cases are of habituation as a negative trait concerns illicit sex,17 homosexuality (about Pharaoh),18 excessive drinking of wine,19 or being habituated to someone because of witchcraft.20 However, we also find narratives with a different attitude constructed using this verb: Rabbi Haninah said: Forty years before the Israelites exiled to Babylonian they planted date trees in Babylonian, so that [the Israelites] will become eagerly-habituated with sweets, because it makes the tongue used to the Torah. (yTaa, chapter 4 mishnah 6, p. 79b)21

‫ קודם לארבעים‬.‫אמ' ר' חנינה‬ ‫שנה עד שלא גלו יש' לבבל‬ ‫ על ידי שיהו‬.‫נטעו תמרים בבבל‬ ‫ שהיא‬.‫להוטים אחר מתיקה‬ .‫מרגלת את הלשון לתורה‬

‫ פרק ד משנה‬,‫)ירושלמי תענית‬ (‫ דף עט ע"ב‬,‫ו‬

The story combines realistic and metaphorical discourse: being habituated to eating sweet things is a realistic description, while yPea chapter 1 mishnah 1, 16a; PDRK Parah Aduma 2, p. 56; LevR 26:2, p. 590; Tanhuma Hukat 4; Midrash on Psalms 7:7, p. 34a. 16 GenR 22:3 (p. 206); GenR 36:3 (p. 337), and there some later attestations as well. 17 EsthR 51:9, p. 538. 18 GenR 93:6, p. 1157. 19 yAZ chapter 1 Mishnah 1, 39b; GenR 36:4, p. 339; Tanhuma Shmini 5; Tanhma-fragments (Mann, p. 37). 20 Tanhuma-fragments (Mann, p. 172). 21 Also in PDRK, Divrei Yirmiahu, 10, p. 233. 15

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this habit as preluding being used to the torah seems to build on the metaphor that the words of the torah are sweet. The story is quite instructive regarding the meaning of l-h-t. Firstly, the idea behind planting the dates is to make the Israelites accustomed to eating sweets, so the text speaks about habituating a behaviour. Thus, the habitual meaning of the verb comes across very clearly: getting used to the sweet taste is not an eruptive event nor is it one time or extraordinary event. Then, the overall message of the narrative is positive. Perhaps a habit as it is would not be looked upon positively, but once it is utilized for a good cause - loving the Torah - it is positive. Another story also integrates well into the pattern, but is even more surprising: Similarly, because Israel was habituated to idolatry in Egypt and would bring their sacrifices to the goat-demons… and they would offer sacrifices on high places and retribution would befall them, the Holy One blessed be He said “let them offer sacrifices before Me at all times in the Tent of Meeting and they will be separated from idolatry and be saved.” This is the meaning of what is written (Lev 17:3-7): “Any man of the House of Israel who slaughters an ox or sheep or goat... “ (Translation based on Sefaria) LevR 22:8 p. 517-18

‫כך לפי שהיו ישראל להוטים‬ ‫אחר עבודה זרה במצרים והיו‬ ... ‫מביאין קרבניהם לשעירים‬ ‫והיו ישראל מקריבין‬ ‫קרבניתיהן באיסור במה‬ ‫ אמר‬.‫ופורענות באות עליהן‬ ‫הקדוש ברוך הוא יהיו‬ ‫מקריבין לפני בכל עת‬ ‫ והן‬,‫קרבנותיהן באהל מועד‬ ‫נפרשים מעבודה זרה והם‬ ‫ הה"ד איש איש‬,‫ניצולים‬ (‫ד‬-‫מבית ישראל וגו' )ויק' יז ג‬ (517-18 '‫ כב ח )עמ‬,‫ויק"ר‬

The text is a nimshal of which I do not quote the mashal here. Because the Israelites were habituated to bring sacrifice to idols in Egypt, various calamities came upon them. Therefore, God established to have their sacrifices brought to Him in the Tent of Meeting, and thus the Israelites were saved from idol worshiping and its calamities. The habituation to which the Israelites were attached is obviously bad: worshiping idols. However, LevR says that this can be managed. By redirecting the meat offering to the Tent of

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Meeting, God kept the habit, the activity itself, intact, but directed it toward the right cause. We see here a method of emotions control; not a personal one, which a person does by him or herself, but emotional-crowd management on the part of the governance, in this case God. He knows not to stop the habit of the people, but instead, keep it and only divert it to the right cause. One other example makes clear the habitual nature of this verb is the halakhah learned in the Yerushalmi, which allows a mourner to study Torah if he is habituated to it ( ‫אם היה להוט אחר‬ ‫ מותר‬- ‫)התורה‬.22 We have looked at a few cases where verbs with the root lh-t were used. Most cases were midrashic, and one was halakhic. Most sources are Palestinian. The habituation aspect ensures that l-h-t is not an emotion, according to our classification, even though it is engaging and unavoidable, as no awareness of the subject is indicated. To summarize, we saw that L-h-t refers to habituated (and thus engaging) behaviour, not eruptive or overwhelming, but unavoidable. It is an incentive to act common to animals, to negative characters from Jewish culture such as Amalek of Pharaoh, but also Jewish people. It is looked upon somewhat derogatory but tolerable and not vehemently judged in rabbinic sources. When directed toward a positive action, it is seen as good (the cases of eating sweets, and sacrificing). Regarding awareness: on the one hand, no awareness is pointed out, but on the other—activities resulting from habituation are not necessarily subconscious, such as bringing a sacrifice, or even gossiping. In the stories studied here we see the assumption that this habit is difficult if not impossible to change, neither by the person nor from the outside. Habituation can be managed from the outside, albeit not changed; no demand for self-restriction is mentioned. Perhaps as a result of this last point, there is no halakhic regulation of habituation, but it is taken into consideration when making an halakhic decision about mourning. It is used only in Palestinian sources, and mainly from the amoriac period onward. Only one case is Mishnaic - the 22

yMQ chapter 3 halakhah 5, 82d.

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habituation to gossip. The verb is hardly used in the Bavli, except as biblical quotations.

COVETING: THE ROOT H-M-D

The starting point of this root is very different from the previous one. ‘Do not covet’ (h-m-d) is part of the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus (Ex 20:13), which already frames this verb as a core divine instruction. In the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy (Deut 5:17), we find the root, a-w-h (‫)או”ה‬, desire, replacing ‘covet’ in the same commandment. Rabbinic literature reconciles the two versions either by using both verbs together (i.e. tBer 1:15; mMak 3:15), or by relating to them as two separate commandments and putting them on a continuum: first a person desires, then he covets, and then, he acts (Mekhilta de Rashbi, 20:14). Covet is an affective verb in rabbinic literature, incenting a person to act. Here is how such a verb plays out in the various rabbinic discourses. Let us first look at the halakhic context. The Mishnah is saying: It says: “Only be steadfast in not eating the blood, for the blood is life” (Deut 12:23). And since the blood, which the soul detests, the one restraining oneself from [eating] it one is rewarded, how much more so gezel (robbery) and arayot (illicit sex) which a man desires and covets, the one restraining himself from them will be rewarded for generation on generation until the end of all generations. (mMak 3:15)

‫הרי הוא אומ' "רק חזק לבלתי‬ "‫אכל הדם כי הדם הוא הנפש‬ .‫ ומה אם הדם‬.(‫)דב יב כג‬ .‫שנפשו של אדם חתה הימנו‬ ‫ גזל‬.‫הפורש ממנו מקבל שכר‬ ‫ שנפשו של אדן‬.‫ועריות‬ ‫ הפורש‬.‫מתאוה להן ומחמדתן‬ ‫מהן על אחת כמה שיזכה לו‬ ‫ולדורותיו ולדורי דורותיו עד‬ .‫סוף כל הדורות‬ (‫טו‬:‫ מכות ג‬,‫)משנה‬

The Mishnah does not discuss the commandment not to covet (this will be done below, in a Midrash Halakhah), but compares the commandment of not to consume blood on one hand, and the commandments not to engage in arayot (illicit sex) or gezel (robbing) on the other. While blood is repulsive, the other two, arayot and gezel are attractive, and the Mishnah describes them using the

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two affective verbs, desire and covet. But since these verbs are part of negative commandments (i.e. “do not covet”), the Mishnah suggests that one should restrain oneself. However, the restriction is not of the affective verbs but of the action with which it is involved, arayot or gezel. We find here, then, affection acknowledged and the demand for the individual to restrain himself, which implies, of course, awareness of the affection; thus, in our system, these are emotions. The Halakhic midrashim on Exodus discuss at length the commandment not to covet, but the texts focus more on how to categorize the objects which one should not covet, than on what coveting actually means. However, we do find some enlightening explanations about the affections. Here is what the Mekhilta from the school of Rabbi Yishmael says: I might think that [if one covets] in speech, [he is in transgression of "You shall not covet; it is, therefore, written (Deut 7:25), but it says] “You shall not covet the silver and gold upon them and take” (ibid), Just as there, he is not [in transgression of “You shall not covet”] until he performs an act, so, here he does not transgress until he performs an act.

,‫או אפילו חומד בדיבור‬ ‫ת"ל "לא תחמוד כסף‬ "‫וזהב עליהם ולקחת לך‬ ‫ מה להלן‬,(‫)דברים ז כה‬ ‫ אף‬,‫עד שעושה מעשה‬ ‫כאן עד שעושה מעשה‬

(The translation is based on Sefaria) (Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael, Yitro, Masekhta deBachodesh, 8)

,‫ יתרו‬,‫)מכילתא דר"י‬ ,‫מסכתא דבחדש‬ (‫פרשה ח‬

This halakhah states that unless a deed is actually performed, i.e. the goal-act of the coveting, there is no transgression involved. We also get a hint about what coveting involves: coveting here is done by speaking. This is brought here as one way of coveting (“if one covets in speech” entails that there are other ways). Thus coveting can only be recognized after a transgression was performed, and it is not the state of mind, but the actions that lead to the transgression. The parallel midrash on Exodus, from the school of Rabbi Aqivah, has a different understanding:

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“You shall not covet” (Ex 20:13), and there it says “you shall not desire” (Deut 5:18); [this is done] in order to indict ‘desire’ as a [transgression] of itself, and ‘covet’ as a [transgression] of itself.

‫ "לא תחמד"[ ולהלן הוא‬.(‫)יד‬ "‫או' "לא תתאוה בית רעך‬ ‫)דב' ה יח( לחייב ע]ל תאוה‬ ‫בפני עצמה ועל[ חמדה בפני‬ .‫עצמה‬

What is ‘desire’? It is saying “I wish I had ….”]

‫איזו היא תאוה האומר לו]יי‬ [...‫ש‬

What is coveting? When one forces someone using speech in order to take [what he wants].

.‫ הכובש כבושין ליטלן‬:‫חמדה‬

How do we know that if a man desires he will end up coveting? As it says “you shall not desire and shall not covet” (probably Deut 5:18, but the order is reversed), how do we know that if a person covets he will end up robbing? As it says “and they covet fields, and seize them” (Mic 2:2).

‫מנ' התאוה אד]ם סופו לחמוד‬ "‫שנ'[ "לא תתאוה ולא תחמוד‬ '‫מנ' חמד אדם סופו ]לגזול שנ‬ ‫"וחמדו[ שדות וגזלו" )מיכה‬ (‫ב ב‬

(Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon son of Yochai, 20:14)

‫)מכילתא דרבי שמעון בר‬ (‫יוחאי פרק כ פסוק יד‬

This midrash emphasizes the difference between desiring and coveting. Coveting here means trying to force someone verbally to hand over what is desired (‫)הכובש כבושין‬, and in this it is similar to what we saw in the Yishmaelian midrash, but it is presented as its own offence. The two systems differ, then in that the Aqivan school sees negatively each affection, but the Yishmaelian system focuses on the final (transgressional) action, and not the affection ‘covet’ on its own. What we see in the Aqivan method is the recognition of complex inner activity in a person: the stage of desire is hidden, but is still being declared a transgression. Coveting is a manipulative action which has to do with interpersonal power play. While it is not the transgressional act itself, it is still declared as a transgression.

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In the next sentence in Mekhilta de Rashbi, coveting is put on a continuum of desiring-coveting-robbing (‫)גזל‬, each of which is a necessary outcome of the previous. This might be softening the previous sharp distinction between desiring and coveting, that each act is an offence, but it does not contradict it directly. What both systems have in common is that, unlike habituation, we see a gap between affection and action. Together with the name assigned to this affection, coveting, it qualifies as an ‘emotion’ according to Damasio and Feldman Barrett. In the amoraic halakhic literature it is less clear to what extent coveting is recognized as a transgression on its own and to what extent it is declared a transgression only a posteriori. Here is what the Yerushalmi says about taking idol in order to use the gold or silver of which they are made, one is permitted to use the gold and the silver if one does not covet it: Rabbi Yochanan in the name of Rabbi Yanai: learn from this verse: “you shall not covet silver and gold on them” (Deut 7:25). You should not covet and take; others may covet, and you can take (the golden and silver idols). (yAZ chapter 4 mishnah 4, page 43d)

‫ר' יוחנן בשם ר' ינאי שמע לה‬ ‫ "לא תחמוד כסף וזהב‬.‫מן הדא‬ ‫ את אין את חומד‬."‫עליהם‬ ‫ אחרים חומדין ואת‬.‫ולוקח‬ .‫לוקח‬

,‫)ירושלמי ע"ז פרק ד משנה ד‬ (‫ עמ' ד‬,‫דף מג‬

If one covets, says the text, one is not allowed to benefit (i.e. use) the gold or silver of an idol, but if others covet it but the subject of the halakhah does not, one may benefit from it. The text is obscure; it does point to coveting as an activity in its own right, but it does not specify what this action is or whether it is it a transgression on its own. Similarly, the Bavli tells, and then rejects, a common opinion (‫ )לאינשי‬that ‘do not covet’ means do not rob (‫)בלא דמי משמע להו‬, and asserts that even when the acquisition of the good with

EMOTIONAL DISCOURSE IN RABBINIC LITERATURE

99

proper payment is considered ‘coveting’ if done in a coveting manner (which here too is not specified).23 Later halakhah24 follows this understanding, asserting that only if the goal of the coveting (goal-action) is enacted, is it considered a transgression. Outside the halakhic context, the root h-m-d is not seen as strictly negative (inner) activity, but similarly to l-h-t the assessment depends on who is coveting and what is being coveted. We thus find a negative assessment of Esau coveting the high-priest clothes of Nimrod (GenR, 65 16 [p. 727]; Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 24), Pharaoh coveting all women, and Joseph coveting Benjamin (this was Judah’s accusation; Tanhuma Vayigash 5). However, there are contexts where coveting is perfectly fine, such as when Moses coveting the death of Aharon,25 the forefathers coveting the land,26 God coveting his house again,27 and even some sexual contexts coveting is fine, such as a wife coveting her traveling husband.28 This brief study of the use of the verb h-m-d (covet) and the attitude toward it reveals a gap between the affection and the action, which points to awareness, or at least a possibility for awareness about the affection, and thus it qualifies as an emotion. Rabbinic discourse about coveting asserts that it entails an activity, not only the action that is driven by the affection, but some sort of ‘middle-activity’ which enables goal-action, i.e. the goal of the affection. This ‘middle activity’ may be speaking, and by that convincing, forcing, or manipulating another person, and it is considered a transgression in its own right. This is how the rabbinic discourse interprets the biblical commandment. The schools of Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Aqivah differ on the question of whether coveting itself is a transgression, or only bBM 5b. Maimonides Hilkhot Gzela veAveda chapter 1 halakhah 9. 25 Tanhuma Buber Hukkat (addition) 2; AdRN version A and B chapter 12, p. 25a(A), 26a (B); Sifre on Deuteronomy 239, p. 389, but it is in the ‘small letters’ section, and thus might be a later tradition. 26 Tanhuma Mishpatim 17; Tanhuma Buber Shlach 16; ExR 32:2. 27 tBer 1:15. 28 bNid 20b. 23 24

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once the goal-action is realized it is a transgression (on top of the goal). As a negative commandment, a person is expected to restrict coveting, and here too it depends on the school, whether the goalaction only, the coveting (perhaps referring to the middle-action), or both. When the goal-action is not a transgression, coveting does not seem to pose a problem, and is not pointed out as negative.

POSITIVELY DRIVEN: DOING OUT OF LOVE

Among the reproach speeches in the book of Jeremiah, one finds the story of the Rechabites. These sons of Jonadab son of Rechab serve as an example of piousness, as they adhered to their father’s command not to drink wine even when brought to the Temple and offered wine to drink (Jer 35). Since they were so obedient to their father, says God, no offspring of Jonadab the son of Rechab shall be cut off before God for ever (Jer 35:19). The title ‘the house of Rechab’ is also found in 1 Chron 2:55 as the name of an ethnic group which is associated with the desert group of the Kenites. In the book of Judges (1:16, 4:11), the Kenites are associated with Jethro. The connection between the Rechabites, Kenites, and Jethro is later taken up in rabbinic literature. In rabbinic halakhic literature the Rechabites are found in the list of priestly families that serve in the Temple. The focus of the tannaitic aggadic literature is on their being offspring of Jethro and thus converts. This entails joining the Israelites voluntarily, and as such, they are praised for their piousness, together with other converts. Their obedience to their father, as the biblical text has it, is not the reason for their praise in rabbinic literature. Brought themselves close

Here is the formulation of the praise of the Rechabites in Sifre on Numbers:

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The thing is argumentum a fortiori (‫ )קו"ח‬: since these [i.e. the Rechabites] drew themselves near, God also drew them near [to Himself]; how much more so if Israel followed the Torah [would God draw them near to Himself].

,'‫והלא דבר' קל וחו‬ ‫מה אילו שקירבו את‬ ‫עצמן כך קירבן‬ ‫ יש' שעושין‬,‫המקום‬ ‫את התורה על אחת‬ .‫כמה וכמה‬

(Sifre on Bamidbar BeHaalotkha, 78, Kahana, p. 188).

,‫)ספרי על במדבר‬ ‫ כהנא‬,‫בהעלותך עח‬ (188 '‫עמ‬

The Rechabites are praised for ‘drawing themselves near’, apparently to God, as He, reciprocally, drew them near (apparently to Himself). But this praise seems to be restricted, as the same act would have been much better had the Israelites do (in the sense of ‘follow’) the Torah. Drawing near to God is here paralleled with doing the Torah. This is an unusual use of the expressions ‘to near to’ in rabbinic literature. In other Tannaitic and Amoraic literature, mainly in the Palestinian one, we find this expression not in the indicative form in pa‘al, but in the pi‘el, in a causative use: one person is drawing another person to something. We find it as drawing to the Shekhinah (‫)לקרבן תחת כנפי השכינה‬,29 or the Torah, in this case as a negative instruction: “from this the sages learned: do no join a wicked person, not even for the purpose of bringing him near to the Torah” ( ‫ אל יתחבר אדם לרשע אפילו לקרבו‬,‫מכאן אמרו חכמים‬ ‫)לתורה‬.30 In the Babylonian Talmud we find that Hillel’s humility drew him close to the Shekhinah ( ‫ענוותנותו של הלל קרבנו תחת כנפי‬ ‫)השכינה‬.31 Thus, the usual use of this expression does not entail an incentive on the part of the one who is being drawn near, and the case of the Rechabites is therefore unusual.

ySan 2 halakhah 6. Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael 18:1. 31 bShab 31a. 29 30

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A more affection-related motive is found in the formulation in the parallel school, the one of Aqivah, in Sifre Zuta on Numbers:32 ...if someone who had been from the nationsof-the-lands, because he acted out of love, God gave him out of love, (referring to God’s promise to keep the Rechabites in his service all the days) how much more so if they had been from Israel.

‫הא אם מי שהיה מגויי‬ ‫הארצות וממשפחות‬ ‫האדמה על שעשה‬ ‫מאהבה נתן לו המקום‬ ‫מאהבה על אחת כמה‬ .‫וכמה אלו היה מישראל‬

(Sifre Zuta on Numbers 10)

(‫)ספרי זוטא על במדבר י‬

Here the Rechabites, described as non-Israelites, are praised for “doing out of love”. and, again, how much more would an Israelite get had he done out of love. In the Tannaitic literature, the expression ‘to act out of love’ with regard to the relation to God or to the commandments is found almost exclusively in aggadic sources. Within these, it is only found in the sources of the Aqivan school and in none of the Yishmaelite ones. In the one case where this expression is found in halakhic sources, the Mishnah33 and the Tosefta,34 it is within the framework of distinguishing between doing out of love and doing out of fear. This distinction is a sore point of dispute between Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, who learned that Job worshipped God out of fear (‫)יראה‬. And rabbi Aqivah, referred to in the Mishnah with the words ‘a disciple of your disciple’, who learned that Job ‘acted out of love’.35 Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai was a leader before (and during) the destruction of the Temple; he thus is traditionally of the first generation of sages. As shown by Atzmon, the attitude of ‘doing out of fear’ was Rabban Yochanan’s attitude throughout

With a parallel in Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai 18. mSot 5:5. 34 tSot 6:1 Lieberman pp. 182-3. 35 tSot 6:1 Lieberman pp. 182-3. 32 33

EMOTIONAL DISCOURSE IN RABBINIC LITERATURE

103

his teaching and his life.36 Rabbi Yehoshua son of Hannania was his disciple, and Rabbi Aqivah, in turn, was a disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua. Thus the opinion of the early generation, of ben Zakai,37 was not accepted in the school of Rabbi Aqivah, two generations later. ‘Doing out of love’ is certainly an action incented by affection, and thus is part of the emotionality of rabbinic culture. The Aqivan assertion parallels well what we saw in the Yishmaelian Sifre on Numbers, where the Rechabites acted on their own incentive to ‘draw themselves near’. The Yishmaelian formulation has an unusual use of a known expression, and this can be explained as avoiding discourse of affection. In the Amoraic sources, the expression ‘to act out of love’ migrates from the aggadic to the halakhic compositions, and is found in the Talmudim (Palestinian 3 times and Babylonian 5 times) and in none of the midrashim. Here we find that the Palestinian Talmud follows the older tradition of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai,38 where Job is presented as ‘doing out of fear’, and this is designated as less good than doing out of love. The Bavli39 emphasizes that Job ‘acted out of love’, thus following the Aqivan conviction. By way of summarizing what we learned from this case, again we see inner activity, this time love, that incents the Rechabites to join the rabbinic culture of the Torah. The active aspect is made clear by the unique use of the phrase ‘to draw oneself’ which we saw in the Yishmaelian school, and the typical Aqivan formulation ‘act out of love’. There is no indication of awareness, but the action of conversion is complex and demands many stages, and this might be sufficient to designate it as an emotion. This activity is tolerated, and even praised, but the texts are not shy to tell us that they would have preferred to see Israel be

Atzmon, ‘Rabban Yochana Ben Zakai and Rabbi Akiva: Fear or Love?’, especially page 137 and the previous literature he describes. 37 And see Kaminka, ‘Rabbi Johanan Ben Zaccai and his disciples’, 81, who contrasts this to Paul’s idea about love. 38 ySot chapter 5 halakhah 5 and yBer perek 9 halakhah 5. 39 bSot 31a. 36

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incented to perform this act. This seems to point to the restrained enthusiasm rabbinic culture exhibits toward converts.40 The counterintuitive negative attitude to a positive emotion such as love might result from the meaning of the verb in rabbinic culture: it might be the biblical meaning is still held. Most of the usages of ‘to love’ in biblical Hebrew refer to an action that works against the norms, i.e. in contradiction to the expected behavior.41 This meaning of the verb was known in the amoraic literature (i.e. in the expression ‫)אהבה מקלקלת את השורה‬.42 If the rabbinic attitude was to establish their type of normative society, i.e. one of which halakhah is a marker, relying on non-normativity would not serve the purpose.43

CONCLUSIONS

This study took at its basic assumption the understanding of emotions as a cultural based interpretation of affect, i.e. of bodily arousal that incent a person to act. Cultural uniqueness of an emotion depends, therefore, on the goal of the affect, and the cultural object that is suggested to the individual as a goal of engagement. We looked at three verbs used in rabbinic literature to denote various aspects of affection or emotions: habituate (‫)להט‬, covet (‫)חמד‬, and the expression “to act out of love” (‫)לעשות מאהבה‬. We checked how these are used in the different types of rabbinic culture, tannaitic and amoraic, Palestinian or Babylonian, and in the halakhic and midrashic genres. We saw that l-h-t refers to habituation. When directed toward a positive action, it is seen as good. The assumption is that habituation is difficult if not impossible to change, but can be managed from the outside; no demand for self-restriction is mentioned with regard to the goal of the affection. We also saw that Lavee, The Rabbinic Conversion of Judaism, passim. Nikolsky, ‘“To Love” in the Bible: A Cognitive-Evolutionary Approach’; and see also Vardi, ‘Love and Commitment: The Sociocultural Conceptualisation of ’hb “Love” in Biblical Hebrew’. 42 GenR Vayera 55:8 (p. 592). 43 See the analysis of Abraham Balas: https://daf-yomi.com/DYItemDetails.aspx?itemId=31868, who asserts that the Yerushalmi will not allow a non-Jew to love God. 40 41

EMOTIONAL DISCOURSE IN RABBINIC LITERATURE

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this verb is used only in Palestinian sources, mainly from the amoriac period onward. The verb ‘covet’ is addressed much more widely in the halakhic literature, as it is used in the Ten Commandments. Rabbinic literature sees a gap between the affection and the action, which points to awareness and thus, according to our system, it is an emotion. The schools of Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Aqivah differ on declaring the emotion itself a transgression (Aqivah) or only declaring it a transgression if the goal-action was actually executed (Yishmael). In the halakhic context coveting was not only an inner activity, but also some action taken in order to reach the goal of the affection. Probably counterintuitive is the rabbinic attitude toward ‘doing out of love’ in the tannaitic literature: it is not promoted full heartedly by this literature, when it comes to non-Israelites being attracted to what the rabbis see as their social group. This might be because the verb ‘to love’ entails non-normative behaviour, or because the rabbis felt reluctant to assign such positive engagement to those whom they saw as foreigners (including future converts). Naturally, the halakhic genres focused on how to manage these affections or emotions, and narrative genres provided more of narrative-moral assessment of these. We found that each of these expressions enlighten different aspects of rabbinic emotional discourse. These findings, albeit on about only three emotion-words, give a direction to how the study of rabbinic emotions should proceed: the rabbis manage the emotionality of their imagined halakhah follower both by directing it to the proper cultural objects, i.e. proper narratives (their interpretation of the biblical text), characters (God), objects (Torah) etc., as well as addressing the emotion itself (such as not to covet).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Atzmon, Arnon, ed. ‘Rabban Yochana Ben Zakai and Rabbi Akiva: Fear or Love?’ In Ve-Hinneh Rivka Yotzet: Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Rivka Dagan, 136–40. Jerusalem: Private Publisher, 2017. Barrett, Lisa Feldman. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. Damasio, Antonio R. ‘Emotions and Feelings: A Neurobiological Perspective’. In Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium, edited by A. S. R. Manstead, Nico H. Frijda, and Agneta Fischer, 49–57. Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ———. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. London: Vintage, 2004. Davis, Kenneth L., and Christian Montag. ‘Selected Principles of Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience’. Frontiers in Neuroscience 12 (2019): 1025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.01025. Gereboff, Joel. ‘Hate in Early Rabbinic Traditions’. In To Fix Torah in Their Hearts: Essays on Biblical Interpretation and Jewish Studies in Honor of B. Barry Levy, edited by Barry B. Levy, Jaqueline S. Du Toit, Jason Kalman, Hartley Lachter, and Vanessa R. Sasson, 59–83. Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press, 2018. Kaminka, Aharon. ‘Rabbi Johanan Ben Zaccai and his disciples’. Zion 9, no. 2–3 (1944): 70–83. Kiperwasser, Reuven. ‘Matters of the Heart: The Metamorphosis of the Monolithic in the Bible to the Fragmented in Rabbinic Thought’. In Judaism and Emotion: Texts, Performance, Experience, edited by Gabriel Levy, Sarah Ross, and Soham AlSuadi, 43–59. Studies in Judaism, vol. 7. New York: Peter Lang, 2013. Lavee, Moshe. The Rabbinic Conversion of Judaism: The Unique Perspective of the Bavli on Conversion and the Construction of Jewish Identity. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity = Arbeiten Zur Geschichte Des Antiken Judentums Und Des Urchristentums, volume 99. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018.

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LeDoux, Joseph. ‘Rethinking the Emotional Brain’. Neuron 73, no. 4 (2012): 653–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.02.004. Mirguet, Françoise. An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Nikolsky, Ronit, ed. ‘“To Love” in the Bible: A Cognitive-Evolutionary Approach’. In Language, Cognition, and Biblical Exegesis: Interpreting Minds, 1 [edition]., 70–87. Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation 13. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Rosenwein, Barbara H. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. First printing, Cornell paperbacks. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2007. Tomasello, Michael. Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019. ———. Why We Cooperate. A Boston Review Book. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2009. Valler, Shulamit. Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud. Translated by Sharon Blass. Judaism and Jewish Life. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011. ———. Types of Happiness in the Talmud. Tel Aviv, Israel: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2018. Vardi, Ruti. ‘Love and Commitment: The Sociocultural Conceptualisation of ’hb “Love” in Biblical Hebrew’. Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 2020.

6. A YELAMMEDENU UNIT IN PESIQTA RABBATI AND MIDRASH TANḤUMA: A TEXT LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS 1

RIVKA ULMER A BSTRACT This chapter presents a text linguistic analysis of a yelammedenu unit in the Tanḥuma (printed edition, Naso 2930) and in Pesiqta Rabbati 3 (On the eighth day). The rabbinic homiletic unit referred to as “yelammedenu” (“Let our rabbi teach us”) is a major characteristic of the so-called “Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu” literature. Several features of this literature are present in the midrashic work Pesiqta Rabbati, which is a unique rabbinic work based on an annual liturgical calendar in its presentation of homilies for festivals and special Sabbaths, whereas Midrash Tanḥuma follows a triennial2 cycle of the weekly Torah readings. Both

In memory of Dr. John Townsend, a founding member of the SBL midrash section, who was a midrashic scholar of the highest caliber, a mentor, and a friend. This chapter is also dedicated to the memory of my husband, Rabbi Dr. Div. h.c. Moshe Ulmer, ‫זצ”ל‬, who was a true supporter of the SBL Midrash group. I am grateful to W. D. Nelson for including my paper in this volume. 2 J. Mann and I. Sonne, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue: A Study in the Cycles of the Readings from Torah and Prophets, As Well As from Psalms, and in the Structure of the Midrashic Homilies, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1966), vol. 1. Perrot, Charles, The Reading of the Bible in the Ancient Synagogue. In M. J. Mulder (ed.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient 1

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RIVKA ULMER midrashic works lend themselves to “form-analytical,” textlinguistic and post-modern literary theories, because the texts contain recurrent elements of midrash, as well as comprehensive religious messages. The respective homilies in both works are written in a series of symbols constituting a Sigma, which renders the texts comparable. This suggested methodology may assist scholars in their production of editions and in their “decoding” and defining of ancient texts beyond the more superficial level of “contents” and narratives.

THE YELAMMEDENU AND THE RABBINIC HOMILY

The yelammedenu is a halakhic unit of the rabbinic homily, although it often contains aggadic components. A halakhic unit seems to be somewhat out of place in a homiletic text, but the yelammedenu functions as an integral unit of a homily by interpreting a lemma from the Mishnah, Tosefta or Baraita and connecting it to the ‘Inyan (the Scriptual portion) that is read on a special Sabbath or festival as well as on regular Sabbaths). The yelammedenu serves to teach halakhic issues, usually relating to a particular liturgical occasion. The yelammedenu unit has a strict form according to methodologies of form-analysis, but not every homily has such a unit. Statistically, 44.367% of the existing late antique and early medieval, “classical,” rabbinic homilies contain yelammedenu units. In this chapter, I apply text linguistic and form-analytical approaches in an “abstract sentence” (Sigma), in order to determine the conceptual location of the yelammedenu and its connectedness to the homiletic texts in Pesiqta Rabbati and the Tanḥuma. For example, a Sigma of Pesiqta Rabbati 5 ‫ ויהי ביום כלות‬And it happened on the day [that Moses] completed would be represented as: LIN→{Y}:{P“1”___ P“5”}:{SEM1}:{MIN“1”___MIN“2”} : {H}. The analysis is based on a manuscript from Parma that contains both the Tanḥuma and Pesiqta Rabbati; furthermore, the so-called “printed Tanḥuma” will be included. 3 The goal of this analysis is Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen: Van Gorcum-Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1988), 137-59. 3 I am referring to the following texts: S. Buber, Midrasch Tanchuma. Ein aggadischer Commentar zum Pentateuch von Rabbi Tanchuma ben

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111

to render comparable structures of texts. When we read a homiletic, midrashic text we recognize that it is midrashic-homiletic, but what is the underlying theory of our understanding and what are the assumptions we bring to the text? The reader/student of midrashic literature may have internalized such text linguistic structures in a similar way that the human brain has internalized the structure of language. I maintain that the homiletic midrashim contain text linguistic structures that are not always “visible”, but that may be discovered by applying heuristic models of analysis I differentiate between the “Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu” literature4 and the single gramma of a yelammedenu. A gramma is an abstract sentence which describes the yelammedenu unit in homiletic rabbinic texts. A short definition of the yelammedenu units requires the presence of a yelammedenu question cum response. The question is anonymous and it is directed at “our rabbi;” the questioner may be the teacher, darshan, homilist, redactor, or whoever else created a particular homily. Alternatively, a member of the “audience” may pose as a questioner, similar to the

Rabbi Abba, zum ersten Mal nach Handschriften aus den Bibliotheken zu Oxford, Rom, Parma und München herausgegeben, kritisch bearbeitet, commentiert und mit einer ausführlichen Einleitung versehen. 2 vols. (Vilna: 1885, repr. Jerusalem 1965) [also referred to as the old Tanḥuma or Tanḥuma qadum, cited as Tanḥuma, Buber ed.]; Midrash Tanḥuma (ed. Ch. Zundel; repr. Jerusalem: Levin-Epstein, 1973) [Based on the editio princeps, Constantinople, cited as Tanḥuma, printed edition]; R. Ulmer, A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati. Based Upon All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts And The Editio Princeps. Vols. I-II (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997-1999); Vol. III and Index (Lanham, MD: UP of America, 2002). (Repr., vols. I-III; UP of America, 2008), vol. I, XII-LIV, vol. III, 1125; A Bilingual Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati: Volume 1, chapters 1-22 (Judaica 86; Berlin & New York: W. De Gruyter, 2017), Volume 2, chapters 23-52 (forthcoming), simultaneously published as an e-book. All Hebrew citations in this chapter are from these editions and MS Parma 3122, MS Cod. Vaticanus Ebr. 34, Oxford Opp. 20, and others, as noted. 4 M. Bregman, “Toward a Textcritical Approach of the TanhumaYelamdenu Midrashim / ‫ילמדנו‬-‫לביקורת הנוסח של מדרשי תנחומא‬.” Tarbiz 54 (1985), 92-289.

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diatribe in midrash.5 The stereotypical response is “our rabbis taught,” referring to a previous body of literature, commonly defined as tannaitic, which provides the framework of a response to the initial query. A rabbi or several rabbis may be mentioned in the extended response, which may also provide a rationale for the response. In this chapter this particular constellation is referred to as “yelammedenu unit,” although, from a text-linguistic, strictly abstract perspective, this question/response unit fulfills the criteria of a gramma or “sentence.” The following example of a yelammeden unit from the Tanḥuma contains the halakhic question and a response: Tanḥuma (Buber), Vayyera {‘Inyan:} THEN THE LORD APPEARED UNTO HIM….(Gen 18:1). {Yelammedenu unit:} {Question:} Let our master instruct us: How many blessings does one pray every day? {Response:} Thus have our masters taught (in Ber. 4:3): {Quotation from tannaitic literature: Mishnah Berakhot 4:3:} ONE MUST PRAY THE EIGHTEEN BENEDICTIONS. {Extended Response:} And why eighteen? correspond to the eighteen references to the Divine Name which are written in (Ps. 29) ASCRIBE TO THE LORD, O HEAVENLY BEINGS. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings (Ps. 29:1). They reply to R. Levi: But does not one say nineteen in Babylon? He said to them, That also is from the reference to the Divine Name, as stated (in Ps. 29:3) THE GOD OF GLORY THUNDERS. R. Simon said: correspond to the eighteen vertebrae which are in the spine, since when one stands to pray, it is necessary to bend over with all of them.6 See R. Ulmer, “The advancement of arguments in exegetical midrash compared to that of the Greek ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 28,1 (1997), 48-91. 6 J. T. Townsend, Midrash Tanhuma: Translated into English with Introduction, Indices, and Brief Notes (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1989, vol. 1, p. 87. I added the text in {}. 5

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113

The yelammedenu question and the response are also found in tannaitic material, for example in Tosefta Berakhot 4:16 and 4:18 (Liebermann edition). There are also several yelammedenu “sentences” in the Babylonian Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Pesaḥim. 48b, 103a, Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 123a, Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 21b, 25b, and more), as well as in the Jerusalem Talmud. The yelammedenu unit in homiletic midrash has mainly been approached from the following perspectives: 1. the sources of the yelammedenu units, 2. the halakhic part of the yelammedenu and tannaitic sources cited in the yelammedenu, 3. the aggadic part of the yelammedenu, 4. the form-analytical location of the yelammedenu in the homily.

SOURCES OF THE YELAMMEDENU U NITS

The term Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu literature refers to three collections of rabbinic homiletic texts: 1. The Yelammedenu Midrash, 2. Tanḥuma (ha-qadum -the old or lost Tanḥuma) edited by Solomon Buber, 3. The printed Tanḥuma (editio princeps, Constantinople, 1522).7 The transmission of this literature is difficult to ascertain, since it reflects Jewish society of the late Byzantine period in the Land of Israel. Additionally, it reflects Jewish culture of Egypt, Southern Italy and other locations.8 Pesiqta Rabbati also experienced a difficult to ascertain transmission history, since it is also a key source for evaluating the passage of rabbinic literature from the Land of Israel into Europe and the reworking of its texts. The yelammedenu in Pesiqta Rabbati9 and in Midrash Tanḥuma, which

M. Bregman, “Early Sources and Traditions in the TanḥumaYelammedenu Midrashim / ‫ילמדנו‬-‫מסורות ומקורות קדומים בספרות תנחומא‬.” Tarbiz 60 (1991), 269-274; s. the first edition of the Tanḥuma at HAB Wolfenbüttel. 8 R. Ulmer, « La transmission de Pesiqta Rabbati dans la France du XIe siècle à Narbonne et en Champagne » -”The transmission of Pesiqta Rabbati in 11th century France in Narbonne and in Champagne: Borderlands Theories.” Revue des Études Juives 179.1-2 (2020), 83-113. 9 L. Ginzberg, “‫מאמר על הילמדנו‬.” In: idem, ‫( גנזי שעכטער‬1st ed., New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Text and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; vols. 7-9, 1928-1929; repr. Jerusalem: Maqor, 1969; new ed., 2 vols., New York: Hermon, 1969), vol. 7

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had been observed and utilized in halakhic literature and rabbinic responsa for centuries, garnered renewed interest when Genizah fragments from Cairo were initially researched in respect to unearthing “lost” midrashic and other texts or establishing the “correct,” virginal urtext versions of rabbinic texts. Citations of the Tanḥuma in Ashkenaz have been found in book binding fragments from Germany.10 However, the debate concerning the sources of the yelammedenu in homiletic midrash has not been settled.11 Menaḥem de Lonzano (16th century) recognized that the text of Tanḥuma ha-qadum, which was later edited by Buber, and the printed edition of the Tanḥuma were two distinct books; however, he may have considered that the work cited in rabbinic literature as “Yelammedenu” (aka Yelammedenu Midrash) and the printed edition were the same. Leopold Zunz12 also concluded that the printed Tanḥuma was an excerpt from the Yelammedenu Midrash. Furthermore, Zunz identified three distinct works; the oldest text would be represented in the text version in the Buber edition, followed chronologically by the Yelammedenu Midrash, followed by the printed edition. Additionally, the compiler of the Yelammedenu had access to the old Tanḥuma. Nevertheless, Louis Ginzberg maintained that the Yelammedenu Midrash was the oldest of the three works; this reasoning was based on an analysis of Genizah fragments. Moreover, neither the old Tanḥuma nor the 1, 449-50; A. H. Grünhut, “‫מדרש תנחומא וילמדנו‬.” Sefer ha-likkutim 1 (Jerusalem, 1894), p. 3. 10 A. Lehnardt, “The Binding Fragments of Midrash Tanhuma (Buber) from the Municipal Library of Trier.” In: Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend (ed. I. Kalimi; Leiden: Brill 2016), 217 238; idem, “A new fragment of Midrash Tanhuma from Cologne University Library.” Zutot 7,1 (2010), 1-16. 11 R. Ulmer, “The Halakhic Part of the Yelammedenu in Pesiqta Rabbati.” Approaches to Ancient Judaism, N.S., vol. XIV (1998), 59-80. 12 L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden historisch entwickelt: Ein Beitrag zur Alterthumskunde und biblischen Kritik, zur Literatur- und Religionsgeschichte. 2nd Edition, Nach dem Handexemplar des Verfassers berichtigte / und mit einem Register vermehrte Auflage. Hrsg. von N. Brüll. Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1892. (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003).

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Yelammedenu could be considered as the source of one or the other.13 Ginzberg also offered evidence that the homilies of the oldest midrash are distributed among several books: 1. Buber’s Tanḥuma version; 2. the printed Tanḥuma, 3. Yalkut Shim’oni and ‘Arukh, 4. Devarim Rabbah and Devarim Zuta, 5. Pesiqta Rabbati and Pesiqta de-Rab Kahana. Several scholars, mainly in the late 19th and early 20th century, suggested that the material derived from a lost Midrash Yelammedenu, or an Ur-Yelammedenu (yelammedenu qadmon), while others, in particular Viktor Aptowitzer, thought that it could be traced to the she’iltot of R. Aḥa14 (from the eighth century), since there are some intertexual connections. This latter hypothesis led to the misdating of Pesiqta Rabbati, beginning with Leopold Zunz,15 which is still textbook material that should be revised. Solomon Buber, the editor of the Tanḥuma, based on a combination of multiple manuscripts, including the Parma manuscript,16 maintained that the redaction of the yelammedenu texts The evolution of this type of literature was the topic of the somewhat dated work of M. Bregman, ‫ תיאור נוסחיה ועיונים בדרכי‬.‫ילמדנו‬-‫ספרות תנחומא‬ ‫( התהוותם‬PhD diss., The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1991; published by L. Teugels and R. Ulmer; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003); idem, “‫ילמדנו‬-‫ומקורות קדומים בספרות תנחומא‬-‫”מסורות‬. Tarbiz 60 (1990), 269-74. Several fragments have been located since then, e.g., A. Lehnardt, “A New Fragment of Midrash Tanhuma from Cologne University Library.” Zutot 7, 1 (2011), 1-16; M Perani and G. Stemberger, “A New Early Tanḥuma Manuscript from the Italian Genizah: The Fragments of Ravenna and their Textual Tradition.” Materia giudaica X, 2 (2005), 241265, in which Stemberger remarks: “Much of this ‘Ashenazi revision’— where ever it really existed—seems to have occurred in Italy and not in Germany and Northern France…”, p. 261. One fragment had been known previously for a long time: K. Wilhelm, “Ein Jelamdenu-Fragment.” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 75 (1931), 135-43. Similarly, the Genizah fragments of Pesiqta Rabbati had to reevaluated, and newly identified fragmentary evidence had to be considered, see R. Ulmer, “Manuscript fragments of Pesiqta Rabbati from the Cairo Genizah and Europe.” Hebrew Union College Annual 89, 2 (2017), 204-252. 14 V. Aptowitzer, “Scheeltoth und Jelamdenu.” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 74 (1930), 562-69, p. 558. 15 L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge. 16 S. Buber, Midrasch Tanchuma, introduction, 6. 13

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was accomplished well before the gemara of the Babylonian Talmud was shaped. The reason for this argument by Buber was that there were no extracts and no citations from the Babylonian Talmud in the yelammedenu sections of his Tanḥuma. Therefore, Buber believed that the halakahah in the yelammedenu in the Tanḥuma must have been based on the halakhah in the Mishnah and the Tosefta.17 This assumption contradicts the conclusion of other scholars, who claimed that the yelammedenu sections in the other extant Tanḥuma recension presumed the Babylonian Talmud.18 In short, these scholars contended that the yelammedenu is post-talmudic, which is correct as far as the Yelammedenu Midrash or the Yelammedenu literature is concerned. A related conclusion holds that the yelammedenu passages in Pesiqta Rabbati should be designated as the last step of a long development in the appearance of the yelammedenu.19

L ITERARY TYPE (GENRE)

With regard to genre theory, Menaḥem Stein investigated the yelammedenu from a philological perspective that, in my view, was informed by the late nineteenth century understanding of literary genres of classical literature; he viewed the yelammedenu as a genre sui generis20 that pre-dated the She’iltot. Stein’s insight is still relevant today, since the manifestation of smaller literary units in rabbinic literature has been recognized.21 Furthermore, Stein saw a relationship between the questions posed in rabbinic homilies and Jewish ritual practice. Arthur Marmorstein also S. Buber, ibid., 6. J. Müller, Briefe und Responsen in der vorgeonäischen jüdischen Literatur (Berlin, 1886); A. Neubauer, “Le midrash Tanhuma et extraits du yélamdénu et de petits midrashim.” Revue des Études Juives 13 (1886), 224-38; 14 (1887), 92-114, pp. 225ff. 19 M. Lerner, “Jelamdenu Rabbenu. Kritische Untersuchung über die Entstehungszeit des Midrasch Jelamdenu.” In: Jahrbuch der jüdisch literarischen Gesellschaft 1 (1903), 203-12. 20 M. Stein, “‫לחקר מדרש ילמדנו‬.” In: Sefer ha-yovel likhvod moshe shor (Warsaw, 1935), p. 101. 21 See R. Ulmer, “Pesiqta Rabbati: A Text Linguistic and Form-Analytical Analysis of the Rabbinic Homily.” Journal of Jewish Studies 64 (2013), 64-97, and the literature cited therein. 17 18

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defined yelammedenu as a genre of midashic interpretation that indicated a late midrashic form.22 However, recent research has convincingly demonstrated that there is no strong evidence of the post-Talmudic origin of the yelammedenu material.23 This argument would refute Marmorstein,24 who had claimed that the yelammedenu texts were a collection of sermons from the seventh or eighth century. However, both positions could be partially correct, if one makes a distinction between the origin of the halakhot in the yelammedenu and their appearance in a particular literary form. The halakhis material is of early Land of Israel origin, based upon the rabbis mentioned, from approximately the third century, but the appearance of this material as a literary form occurs in the later so-called yelammedenu sermons dating from approximately the sixth and the seventh centuries. In addition to the yelammedenu material from the Cairo Geniza, a fragment had been described by Kurt Wilhelm.25 Yelammedenu material in Pesiqta Rabbati26 that may have derived from a presently lost Yelammedenu Midrash includes the following homilies: 1-14, 19, 25, 29, 31, 38-45, 47-49. These homilies begin with a yelammedenu unit, followed by a petiḥah in the name of R. Tanḥuma bar Abba, which demonstrates their relation to the Tanḥuma. Nevertheless, the yelammedenu question cum response is found in many additional sections of Pesiqta Rabbati (approximately thirty such sentences), whereas the Tanḥuma has more than one hundred yelammedenu units.

THE HALAKHIC PART OF THE YELAMMEDENU

The stereotypical response to the introductory formula of the yelammedenu question (“Let our rabbi teach us”) is “our rabbis taught.” This is followed by the halakhah, which is mostly found in tannaitic texts. The legal practice of referring to previous A. Marmorstein, “Zur Erforschung des Jelamdenu-Problems,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 74 (1930), 266-84 23 Böhl, Aufbau, p. 89-90. 24 Marmorstein, “Zur Erforschung,” p. 270. 25 K. Wilhelm, “Ein Jelamdenu-Fragment.” 26 R. Ulmer, A Synoptic Edition Of Pesiqta Rabbati, vol. I, XII-LIV, vol. III, 1125. 22

118

RIVKA ULMER

rulings in the yelammedenu does not extend beyond tannaitic literature; there are no additional references to the Talmudic legal discourse or to more recent (i.e., geonic or medieval) legal rulings. Some of the halakhic material in the yelammedenu units of Pesiqta Rabbati can be dated to the third century C.E. and, generally, the yelammedenu units are no later than 400 C.E.27 The yelammedenu units indicate that the intended audience of Pesiqta Rabbati was familiar with halakhic practices and that the homilies served as a reminder of the halakhah that would be applicable on a particular Holy Day. Since Pesiqta Rabbati follows the sequence of the liturgical calendar pertaining to festivals, special Sabbaths, fast days and occasions for national mourning, the yelammedenu units are aimed at specific questions, e.g., regarding the Hanukkah lights or tithing. In the Tanḥuma, which follows the triennial reading cycle of the Torah that was common in the Land of Israel in late antiquity, the yelammedenu fluctuates between specific halakhic questions related to the liturgical occasion (e.g., the Sabbath before a festival) and questions arising from a certain biblical passage that may imply the obligation to perform a certain ritual or enact a certain commandment. For example, Jacob Mann28 mentions in regard to a yelammedenu sermon on Gen 1:1 that the question is based on the Haftarah, Isa 66:22: Tanḥuma, Bereshit In the beginning God created (Gen 1:1). Let our rabbi teach us: Someone who builds a new house, what blessing does he recite? Thus taught our rabbis: Someone who builds a new house pronounces the blessing: He that kept us alive (Mishnah Berakhot 9:3), in order to provide peace of mind to the builder.

The above passage is connected to Isa 65:17 and Isa 65:21, which respectively predict the creation of a New Heaven and the building of new houses. This unit is integral to the homiletic text. Allan Kensky also observed that the yelammedenu in the Tanḥuma is an F. Böhl, Aufbau und literarische Formen des aggadischen Teils im Jelamdenu-Midrasch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977), p. 90; L. Ginzberg, “‫דרשות ילמדנו שבפסיקתא רבתי‬,” pp. 503-15; A. H. Grünhut, “ ‫מדרש‬ ‫תנחומא וילמדנו‬,” p. 3. 28 J. Mann, The Bible as Read and Preached, vol. 1, 23. 27

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119

integral part of the text and that the halakhic question and answer are related to “the theme of the portion.”29 Chanokh Albek,30 similar to Stein, perceived the questions in the yelammedenu to be appealing to the audience, while at the same time fulfilling the requirement to teach halakhah in the homilies. Overall the Tanḥuma cites tannaitic halakhah. The halakhah and particular customs in Pesiqta Rabbati31 that deviate from Talmudic sources are referred to in medieval Ashkenaz.32 However, some of the halakhic units in Pesiqta Rabbati do not merely repeat the halakhah in the Mishnah or Tosefta. Occasionally, a yelammedenu is clearly distinguishable from other halakhic texts as well. I have demonstrated this concerning Pesiqta Rabbati.33 Without the yelammedenu units, homilies would often lack an introductory part that serves as a “connection” between the biblical portion (parashah), the occasions and the exegetical part of the homily. This is even the case when a homily has two consecutive yelammedenu units, as in Pesiqta Rabbati ‫ פרה‬Red Cow 14:1 and 14:5,34 or when the identical yelammedenu unit appears in two separate homilies for Hanukkah, as in Pesiqta Rabbati 2:1 and 6:1; both homilies contain the same question: “if some oil is left over in

A. Kensky, “New light on Midrash Yelammedenu.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 23,3 (1995), 44-52, p. 47. 30 H. Albeck, in his remarks in the Hebrew edition of L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, ‫( הדרשות בישראל‬Jerusalem, 1956), p. 114. 31 R. Ulmer, “The Halakhic Part of the Yelammedenu in Pesiqta Rabbati.” Approaches to Ancient Judaism, N.S., vol. XIV (1998), 59-80. 32 R. Ulmer, “The Mishnah in the Later Midrashim.” In: The Mishnah in Contemporary Perspective. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Part 1 Ancient Near East, 65 (eds. A. J. Avery-Peck and J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 193-233 [Repr. 2016]. 33 See R. Ulmer, “Halakhic.” 34 See A. Jaschke, “Die Asche der Roten Kuh – Eine rabbinische Homilie zu Parasha para (PesR 14).” FJB 31 (2004), 21-61, pp. 26, 30. I agree with Jaschke’s insights that the first yelammedenu displays the standard form, whereas the second yelammedenu has no verifiable relation to the ma’ase that is cited. This raises an important question in regard to serialization in rabbinic texts: Are these summative, additive or controversial expressions of similar topics? 29

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a Hanukah lamp, what is to be done with the oil?”35 In short, the yelammedenu units end with a biblical verse that is interpreted in the homiletic units that follow, namely, in the petiḥot. Moreover, the yelammedenu unit may also be cited in other constitutive units of the homily, as in Pesiqta Rabbati 14:24 (Mishnah Bava Qamma 7:7); 14:26 (Mishnah Shabbat 14:1) and in Pesiqta Rabbati 16:10 (Mishnah Shabbat 24:3; Mishnah Berakhot 6:6); Pesiqta Rabbati 22:11 (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 44b; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, Tefillin 29:1). Therefore, some of the halakhic units in Pesiqta Rabbati do not merely repeat or rephrase tannaitic halakhah, and they do not reflect the She’iltot. Occasionally, the yelammedenu sections in Pesiqta Rabbati reflect genuine halakhic issues; for example, the Mordekhai on Shabbat, ch. 2 (pp. 9 and 151), cites the halakhah concerning Hanukkah according to Pesiqta Rabbati 7:1. Furthermore, a unit in Pesiqta Rabbati 1 has no exact parallel in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmud. A parallel is found in Rokeaḥ, sect. 228. The Pesiqta Rabbati homily presumes that there is an insertion concerning the New Moon in the Grace after Meals. An insertion is also mentioned in the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 24a). However, the question in the Talmud focuses on the case in which a person forgets to recite the additional prayer for the New Moon; this case is also mentioned in the Talmud (Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 7:4(5); Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 49a-b) in a series of inquiries concerning the omission of additional prayers that should be inserted on a festival, on Shabbat or on the New Moon.36 Pesiqta Rabbati 1 ‫ והיה מידי חדש‬And it shall come to pass that from One Moon37 Let us begin in the name of God, our Lord. Yelammedenu. 1:1

She’iltot Vayishlaḥ; Tosafot Shabbat 44a. Maḥzor Vitry, ed. S. Hurwitz (Nuremberg: Bulka, 1923; repr. Jerusalem, 1988). 37 And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Shabbat to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, says the Lord (Isa 66:23). 35 36

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT

121

Let our rabbis {our rabbi} teach us: What should a Jewish person do, if he forgot to mention [the words referring to] the New Moon when he recites Grace after Meals? Our rabbis taught us: If he forgets to mention the New Moon, but realizes it immediately [that he omitted it, when he recites] Grace after Meals, and before his attention is diverted from the blessings, then he is not required to return to the beginning [of the Grace after Meals]. Instead [he amends his omission] by reciting a short blessing: Blessed are [You, Lord our God, King of the universe], who has given New Moons to His people Israel. Blessed are {You, Lord,} who sanctifies Israel and the New Moons. 38 Shimʿon ben Abba in the name of R. Yoḥanan said, During the festival season one is required to recite [the blessing]: Lord, our God, bestow upon us.39 Now, we learned that New Moons are equivalent to festival seasons, as it says: In the days of your rejoicing, both in your festival seasons [and in your New Moons] (Num 10:10). New Moons are even equivalent to the Sabbath. Therefore, your position is that New Moons are equivalent to festival seasons and to Sabbaths. What is the Scriptural basis] that New Moons are equivalent to Sabbaths? From the concluding [passage] from the prophet [read for the New Moon]: And it came to pass, that from one New Moon to another, and from one Shabbat to another, shall all flesh come to worship, etc. (Isa 66:23).

The suggested remedy for forgetting the required insertion of the blessing is to recite a short blessing; this blessing is not completely parallel in the Babylonian Talmud. The recitation of the substitutional blessing for the New Moon at the conclusion of the Grace after Meals is only found in this yelammedenu unit in Pesiqta Rabbati, as far as sources from the Land of Israel are concerned. 40 The yelammedenu units may therefore be studied as repositories for unexpected halakhic quotes.

See Rokeaḥ, 228, citing this passage. Maḥzor Vitry, 322: “A person is required to say, Lord, our God, bestow upon us, during the New Moon.” 40 For an elaborate discussion of the rabbinic sources, see R. Ulmer, “The Halakhic Part.” 38 39

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THE AGGADIC PART OF THE YELAMMEDENU

In addition to communicating the halakhah, the yelammedenu may be related to an aggadic (“narrative”) part of the homily. Felix Böhl41 investigated this issue by focusing on the redactional activity in the homily that, in my view, provided the aggadic counterpart to the strict halakhah; Böhl viewed particular homilies as Yelammedenu Midrash. The connection between an aggadic part (a comparison) to the halakhic part is found in the following text: Tanḥuma Shelaḥ 4 This is comparable to a certain person who was thrown into the water. The helmsman extended a rope to him. He said to him: Grab this rope with your hand, and do not let go of it; for if you do let go of it, you will lose your life. So also did the Holy One say to Israel: As long as you adhere to the commandments, but you who clung to the Lord Your God are all alive today (Deut 4:4) and so it says: Hold unto discipline, do not slack off, keep it, for it is your life (Prov 4:13).42

The ‘Inyan43 of the homiletic text in the Tanḥuma is Num 15:1f.: Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come to the land of your habitations… The narrative part reflects the halakhic question regarding the obligations of a father to his male offspring that are entailed in the instructions given to Moses by God: Tosefta Qiddushin 1:11 Let our rabbi teach us: How many things is a father obligated to do for his son? Thus have our rabbis taught: A father is obligated to do five things for a son: to circumcise him, to teach him Torah, to redeem him according to the redemption of the first-born, to teach him commandments, and to take a wife for him.

F. Böhl, Aufbau und literarische Formen. My translation takes into consideration J. T. Townsend, Midrash Tanhuma: Translated, vol. 3, p. 118. 43 See A. Goldberg, ‫סדר הפתיחתות במדרשי תנחומא‬- ‫)עפ”י פרשת במדבר( ילמדנו‬. In: ‫ בית המדרש לרבנים‬:‫יורק‬-‫ ניו‬.‫ספר הזכרון לרבי שאול ליברמן ערך שמא יהודה פרידמן‬ 104-85 (‫באמריקה )תשנג‬ 41 42

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123

THE LOCATION OF THE YELAMMEDENU IN THE HOMILY

The term “rabbinic homily,” a hypothetical form, a construct, can be determined through form-analysis of an individual text, since a density of certain forms supports the premise that many homilies display the same recurrent forms. This comment is based upon a statistical analysis of 408 complete and incomplete homilies.44 Of this total 181 homilies contained yelammedenu units (44.367%), 382 contained one or more petiḥot (93.623%), 97 contained a semikhah unit (23.774%), 378 contained the interpretation of the ‘inyan (92.647%), and 332 contained a ḥatimah unit (82.372%). It is evident that individual homilies frequently do not conform to the ideal type. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the great majority of homilies contain a petiḥah, an interpretation of the ‘inyan and a ḥatimah. Additionally, the yelammdenu is present in ca. 44% of all rabbinic homilies. Furthermore, it is apparent that other forms are less frequent in homilies. Based upon the mathematical concepts of “constant” and “variable,” the “constant” would be the form-analytical units themselves that are found throughout the homilies, whereas the “variable” would be the frequency of their appearance in the homilies. The variable may assist us in determining if a homily is fragmentary by noting the nonexistence of numerous formanalytical units. From the perspective of form-analysis, one example of a fragmentary homily is Pesiqta Rabbati 38 ‫הרנינו‬, which has nothing but an extended yelammedenu. In order to document that chapter 38 is not a complete homily, it should be noted that all text witnesses have serious problems in respect to the presentation of this unit.45 The copyist of MS JTS 8195, Elyaqim Mehlsack,46 entitled this yelammedenu ‫ ויי' פקד את שרה‬which would suggest that it could be added to Pesiqta Rabbati 42 And the Lord remembered Sarah, which has the identical title. However, Pesiqta Rabbati 47 is a D. Lenhard, Die Rabbinische Homilie: Ein formanalytischer Index (Frankfurter Judaistische Studien 10; Frankfurt am Main: Gesellschaft zur Förderung judaistischer Studien, 1998), lists 408 rabbinic homilies; I quantified these homilies for the purposes of this chapter. 45 R. Ulmer, “Halakhic,” 60. 46 R. Ulmer, “Further Manuscript Evidence of Pesiqta Rabbati: A Description of MS JTS 8195 (and MS Moscow 214),” Journal of Jewish Studies 52 (2001), 269-307. 44

124

RIVKA ULMER

homily for Rosh Ha-Shanah. The yelammedenu unit of Pesiqta Rabbati 38 begins “Let our rabbi teach us: If there has been a quarrel between a person and his fellow human being, how can he obtain forgiveness on Yom Kippur?” Since Pesiqta Rabbati 47 ‫ אחרי מות‬After the Death, a homily for Yom Kippur, does not have its own yelammedenu. the yelammedenu unit of Pesiqta Rabbati 38 could be attached to it. This hypothetical emendation of the manuscript evidence would be based upon the ideal form of a complete homily, namely, a yelammedenu unit by itself cannot constitute a complete homily. However, the separate homiletic agendas of the two homilies (38 and 47) do not allow such “emendations.” The following table follows the order of the homilies in MS Parma 3122, which differs from the sequence in printed editions. Pesiqta Rabbati 1 Pesiqta Rabbati 2 Pesiqta Rabbati 3 Pesiqta Rabbati 4

47

‫והיה מדי חדש‬ ‫מזמור שיר‬ ‫חנוכת הבית‬

48 49

‫ביום השמיני‬

50

‫ויקח אליהו‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 1: Isa 66:23 - The reading for Shabbat Ha-Ḥodesh (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 31a). 48 Pesiqta Rabbati 2: Ps 30:1 - Probably a reading for Ḥanukkah. Soferim 18:2; this psalm was possibly read in addition to the established Hallel Psalms (cf. Josephus, Jew. Ant. 12,7:7). It should be noted that there are eight homilies for Ḥanukkah in Pesiqta Rabbati; however, they are not necessarily based upon the daily Torah readings or the Haftarah readings on the Sabbath. 49 Pesiqta Rabbati 3: Num 7:54 - Reading from the Torah for the eighth day of Ḥanukkah. Soferim 17:7; 20:10f. 50 Pesiqta Rabbati 4: 1 Kgs 18:31 - Possibly a Haftarah reading for Ḥanukkah. Soferim 20:12, assumes that there is a special reading for the New Moon of Tevet; M. Friedmann, Meir, Pesikta Rabbati: Midrasch für den Fest-Cyclus und die ausgezeichneten Sabbathe (Vienna: Published by the editor, 1880), ad locum. Pesiqta Rabbati 8, Haftarah for the New Moon of Tevet if it falls on the Sabbath; cf. W. G. Braude, Pesikta Rabbati: Discourses for Feasts, Fasts, and Special Sabbaths, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), vol. 1, 82-83, who mentions Radal (according to Radal, this portion was once the Haftarah reading for the Sabbath during Ḥanukkah). Thus it is not clear if the reading, 1 Kgs 18:31, was read on the Sabbath or only if Rosh Ḥodesh (New Moon) Tevet coincided with the Sabbath. 47

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT Pesiqta Rabbati 5

125

‫ויהי ביום כלות‬ 51 ‫מש ה‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 6 Pesiqta Rabbati 7

‫ותשלם כל‬ ‫המלאכה‬

52 53

‫ויהי המקריב‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 8

‫ויהי בעת‬ 54 ‫ההיא‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 9

‫למנצח על‬ 55 ‫הנגינות‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 10 Pesiqta Rabbati 11 Pesiqta Rabbati 12

56

‫כי תשא‬ ‫יהודה‬ ‫וישראל‬

57

58

‫זכור‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 5: Num 7:1 - Reading from the Torah for the Sabbath during Ḥanukkah. Mishnah Megillah 3:6; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 29b mention this reading as the third Torah reading on Shabbat Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet. 52 Pesiqta Rabbati 6: 1 Kgs 7:51 - Haftarah reading for the second Sabbath of Ḥanukkah in the event that there are two Sabbaths during the festival (the first and the eighth day). Babylonian Talmud Megillah 29b, 31a; Soferim 20:10. The theme of “light” is reinforced in this portion. 53 Pesiqta Rabbati 7: Num 7:12 - Reading from the Torah for the first day of Ḥanukkah. Soferim 17:7; 20:10f.; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 31a. 54 Pesiqta Rabbati 8: Zeph 1:12 - Haftarah reading; possibly for the Sabbath during Ḥanukkah, Friedmann edition, ad locum. The verse has a connection to “light”, a theme of the festival. 55 Pesiqta Rabbati 9: Ps 61:1 - Probably recited on the eighth day of Ḥanukkah (Friedmann edition, ad locum). The theme of “victory” is addressed in this homily. 56 Pesiqta Rabbati 10: Ex 30:12 - The Torah reading for Shabbat Sheqalim. This is the reading if the New Moon of Adar falls on the Sabbath, or the reading for the Sabbath preceding the New Moon of Adar; Mishnah, Megillah 3:4; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 29b in the name of R. Shmu’el. 57 Pesiqta Rabbati 11: 1 Kgs 4:20 - Haftarah reading for Shabbat Sheqalim. However, Tosefta Megillah 3:1, Babylonian Talmud Megillah 29b mention 2 Kgs 12:1ff. This reading was a Palestinian (Land of Israel) practice, cf. B. Z. Wacholder, “Prolegomenon,” in J. Mann and I. Sonne, The Bible As Read and Preached (repr. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1966), vol. 1, p. XXIV. 58 Pesiqta Rabbati 12: Deut 25:17 - Torah reading for Shabbat Zakhor (Mishnah Megillah 3:4). 51

126

RIVKA ULMER Pesiqta Rabbati 13

59

‫מני אפרים‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 14

60

‫פרה‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 48 Pesiqta Rabbati 49 Pesiqta Rabbati 25

‫שור או כשב‬ 61

‫ויהי בחצי הלילה‬ 62

‫עשר תעשר‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 21

63

Pesiqta Rabbati 31

64

‫י' הדברות‬

‫ותאמר ציון‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 33 Pesiqta Rabbati 38

65

‫אנכי‬

66

‫הרנינו‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 13: Judg 5:14 - Haftarah reading for Shabbat Zakhor. However, Babylonian Talmud Megillah 30a mentions 1 Sam 15:2. 60 Pesiqta Rabbati 14: Num 19:2 - Torah reading for Shabbat Parah (Mishnah Megillah 3:4). 61 Pesiqta Rabbati [49]: Ex 12:29 - Torah reading for Pesaḥ. According to J. Heinemann, “‫”פרשות בויקרא רבה שמקוריותן מפוקפקת‬, Tarbiz 37 (1968), 339-54, 348, this text is an alternative reading for the first day of Pesaḥ. This position was criticized by A. Goldberg,” “ ‫למקוריותן של הפסיקתאות 'ויהי‬ ‫בחצי הלילה' ו'שור או כשב' בפסיקתא‬, Tarbiz 38 (1969), 184-85, 185. In the Friedmann edition, this chapter is based on a manuscript in the possession of S. Buber (who had received it from S. D. Luzzatto). 62 Pesiqta Rabbati 25: Dt 14:22 - Torah reading when Shavu’ot falls on the Sabbath or the reading for the Sabbath of the intermediate days of Pesaḥ Another possibility is that Dt 14:22 was read on the first of the intermediate days of Pesaḥ, when the Omer was brought forth, see Heinemann, “‫”פרשות בויקרא רבה‬, 348. 63 Pesiqta Rabbati 21: Ex 20:2 - Torah reading for Shavu’ot; First Commandment (and Second Commandment). Tosefta Megillah 3:5; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 3, 74b. Pesiqta Rabbati 21 through Pesiqta Rabbati 25 refer to possible Torah readings for the Festival of Shavu’ot and the week following it. However, Zunz, ‫הדרשות‬, 120, contended that the entire Midrash of the Ten Commandments was a separate rabbinic work that was subsequently inserted into Pesiqta Rabbati. 64 Pesiqta Rabbati 31: Isa 49:14 - Haftarah reading for the second Sabbath of Consolation. Tosafot Megillah 31b, s.v. ‫ראש‬ 65 Pesiqta Rabbati 33: Isa 51:12 - Haftarah reading for the fourth Sabbath of Consolation. Tosafot Megillah 31b, s.v. ‫ראש‬. 66 Pesiqta Rabbati 38: ‫מדרש הרנינו‬. Rosh Ha-Shanah. Based upon Ps 81 (cf. Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Ha-Shanah 4:4; Babylonian Talmud Rosh Ha-Shanah 16a, 30b). The designation Midrash Harninu was already cited by the Rishonim (Rokeaḥ, 214) to refer to a literary midrashic unit. This unit is 59

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT Pesiqta Rabbati 39

67

‫הרנינו לאלוהים‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 40

68

‫בחודש השביעי‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 41 Pesiqta Rabbati 42 Pesiqta Rabbati 43 Pesiqta Rabbati 44

127

69

‫תקעו‬

70

‫וה' פקד את שרה‬

71

‫כי פקד ה' את חנה‬ 72

‫שובה ישראל‬

not a complete homily, i.e., it contains only a yelammedenu unit, which probably should be assigned to the Rosh Ha-Shanah homily, Pesiqta Rabbati 42. In the dissertation of B. Meijer, Midrasch Pesiqta Rabbati 42 -- Und der Herr besuchte Sara, [diss.] (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 22ff., it was shown that the form of the homily ‫ וה' פקד את שרה‬is problematic, especially the Yelammedenu units; however, this unit (JTS MS 8195, pp. 235236) was not discussed by Meijer. 67 Pesiqta Rabbati 39: Ps 81f. - Rosh Ha-Shanah, Musaf. Babylonian Talmud Rosh Ha-Shanah 30b mentions Psalm 81; however, Soferim 19:2 cites Psalm 47 for the Musaf service on Rosh Ha-Shanah. 68 Pesiqta Rabbati 40: Lev 23:24 - Rosh Ha-Shanah. Mishnah Megillah 3:5; Tosefta Megillah 4:5 lists this as an alternative reading for Rosh Ha-Shanah. 69 Pesiqta Rabbati 41: Joel 2:1 - Haftarah for Rosh Ha-Shanah. Pesiqta deRav Kahana 25, (Mandelbaum ed., vol. 2, p. 351). Ginzberg, ‫גנזי שעכטער‬, vol. 1, p. 507, views Joel 2:1 and 1 Sam 2:21 as alternative Haftarah readings for Rosh Ha-Shanah (cf. Friedmann, ad locum; the usual reading is Jer 31:19). 70 Pesiqta Rabbati 42: Gen 21:1 - Torah reading for first day of Rosh HaShanah. Tosefta Megillah 4:6; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 31a initially refers to this passage as an alternative option for the first day of Rosh HaShanah (the regular reading would be Num 29:1 and the Haftarah would be Jer 31:19), when only one day of Rosh Ha-Shanah was observed. However, since an interpolation in the Tosefta mentions that “since two days are celebrated now,” the reading Gen 21:1 is assigned to the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah. 71 Pesiqta Rabbati 43: 1 Sam 2:21 - Haftarah reading for the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah. Babylonian Talmud Rosh Ha-Shanah 11a; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 31a. This passage is read according to the triennial cycle of Torah readings (see J. Mann, The Bible as Read, vol. 1, pp. 165, 563). 72 Pesiqta Rabbati 44: Hos 14:2 - Haftarah reading for Shabbat Shuvah between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur (Friedmann edition, ad locum).

128

RIVKA ULMER Pesiqta Rabbati 47

73

‫אחרי מות‬

Pesiqta Rabbati 48 Pesiqta Rabbati 49

74

‫שור או כשב‬

75

‫ויהי בחצי הלילה‬

Table 1: Homilies in Pesiqta Rabbati Containing Yelammedenu Units In each homiletic unit – yelammedenu, petiḥah, semikhah, interpretation of the ‘inyan and ḥatimah - there is a similar structure consisting of particular scriptural lemmata (“L”), hermeneutic operations or strategies (“O”), rabbinic dicta (“D”), and proof-texts (“L”). Each rabbinic dictum or interpretation contains at least one proposition; thus, the units contain a series of propositions (“Prop”). Beyond the “midrashic sentence” the rabbinic homily has definitive, recurrent constitutive elements, which reveal the homiletic structure. The homilies in Pesiqta Rabbati are based upon a lectionary cycle and provide interpretations relating to the pericope. The “form-analytical” approach to rabbinic homilies also provides definitions of the larger constituents of rabbinic texts. These constitutive components are macro-forms in the following sequence: the yelammedenu,76 the petiḥah77 (“opening form”), the optional semikhah78 (an interpretation referring to the scriptural verse preceding the ‘inyan), the interpretation of the

Pesiqta Rabbati 47: Lev 16:1 - Torah reading for Yom Kippur. Mishnah Megillah 3:5; Mishnah Yoma 7:1; Mishnah Soṭah 7:7; Tosefta Megillah 4:7; Babylonian Talmud Megillah 30b. 74 For the first day of Passover (bMeg 30b). 75 And it happened at midnight that the Lord struck all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle (Exod 12:29). This is the lectionary portion for the first day of Passover. 76 R. Ulmer, “The Halakhic Part.” 77 For example, J. Heinemann, “‫ מקורן ותפקידן‬:‫הפתיחות במדרשי האגדה‬,” Fourth WCJSt, Vol. II (Jerusalem: WUJS, 1965), 43-7; A. Shinan, “ ‫לתורת‬ ‫הפתיחתא‬,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 1 (1981), 135-42. 78 A. Goldberg, “The Semikha. A Compositional Form of the Rabbinic Homily,” Ninth WCJSt (Jerusalem: WUJS, 1986), Division C, 1-6. 73

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT

129

‘inyan79 (“middle form”), and the ḥatimah80 (“concluding form”). Other textual forms in the homily, not on the same level as the above constituent forms, include the mashal81 (a “parable”), ma’aseh82 (a case), a diatribe83 (an argumentative form), and extensive narrative sections that may be subsumed under the operation (“O”) of the midrashic sentence. A petiḥah (“P”) begins with an abbreviated base-verse (scriptural verse), the lemma of the ‘inyan (“LIN”), and subsequently cites another lemma from a different biblical passage. The second biblical passage is known as the petiḥah verse (“PV”); it may refer to a verse from the Prophets or the Writings. A homily may contain more than one petiḥah. On the first level of interpretation, in the petiḥot, different parts of the ‘inyan are the basis for further midrashic exegesis. There is a second level of midrashic exegesis in each petiḥah that is applied to its respective petiḥah verse. These interpretative procedures involve focusing upon certain lemmata of biblical verses. The overall movement of the petiḥot, from the initial petiḥah (P “1”) through an unlimited number of petiḥot (P “n”), assists in the creation of the intended theme of the homily.84 Each petiḥah is based upon the tension between a lemma from the ‘inyan (the pericope of the lectionary cycle) and a lemma from the petiḥah verse, and the petiḥah resolves this tension with

A. Goldberg, “Form-Analysis of Midrashic Literature,” Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (1985), 159-74, 166f. 80 A. Goldberg, “Die Peroratio (Ḥatima) als Kompositionsform der rabbinischen Homilie.” Republished in A. Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte als Gegenstand der Auslegung. Gesammelte Studien II (M. Schlüter and P. Schäfer (eds.), Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 73; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) Rabbinische Texte, 395-409. 81 A. Goldberg, “Das Schriftauslegende Gleichnis im Midrasch.” In Rabbinische Texte, 134-98, first published in 1981); D. Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1994). 82 A. Goldberg, “Form und Funktion des Ma’ase in der Mischna,” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 2 (1974), 1-38. 83 R. Ulmer, “The advancement of arguments in exegetical midrash compared to that of the Greek ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ,” JStJ 28 (1997), 48-91. 84 R. Ulmer, “The Midrashim on Hanukkah: A Survey and a Sample Analysis,” Approaches to Ancient Judaism N.S. 3 (1993), 163-78. 79

130

RIVKA ULMER

its interpretations. The following abbreviations describe the rabbinic homily: L (lemma); LIN (lemma of ‘inyan); Y (yelammedenu); P (one petiḥah) or P“n” (numerous petiḥot); PV (petiḥah verse); SEM“1” (semikkah) or SEM“n” (numerous semikkah units); IIN“1” (interpretation of the ‘inyan) or IIN“n” (numerous interpretations of the ‘inyan); H (ḥatimah); D (dictum); O (midrashic operation); Prop (propositions).

TEXTUAL A NALYSIS

The above outlined features of rabbinic homilies may be applied to Pesiqta Rabbati 3 and Tanḥuma (printed editon) Naso 29-30. The yelammedenu component of a homily functions as a supporting unit by interpreting a lemma from tannaitic sources, such as Mishnah, Tosefta or Baraita and connecting it to the ‘inyan (the pericope). Pesiqta Rabbati 3 ‫ ביום השמיני‬On the eighth day85 3:1 On the eighth day [it was] the prince of the Manassites, [Gamaliel son of Pedahzu] (Num 7:54). Let our rabbi teach us: As to the Hanukkah lamp, oil of which was left over, what does one have to do with it? Instruction: Our rabbis taught: If a Hanukkah lamp has oil left over on the first day, one adds oil and lights it on the second day. If oil was left over from the second day, one adds oil and lights it on the third, and so on through the rest of the days. But if oil was left over on the eighth day, one makes a fire and burns it by itself. Why [is that the rule]? Because that oil has been designated for performing a particular religious duty, it is prohibited to make use of it. One should not say, I shall not carry out the religious duty as decreed by the elders since what they say does not derive from the Torah. The Holy On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur came. His offering was one silver charger of the weight of a hundred and thirty shekels, and one silver bowl of seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mingled with oil for a meat offering; one golden spoon of ten shekels, full of incense; one young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a burnt offering; one kid of the goats for a sin offering; and for a sacrifice of peace offerings: two oxen, five rams, five male goats, five lambs of the first year. This was the offering of Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur (Num 7:54-59). This is the lecture for the eighth day of Hanukkah (Soferim 20:10). 85

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT

131

One said to him, No, my son. Whatever they decreed for you, carry out, as it is said: In accord with the Torah, which they shall teach {you} (Deut 17:11). Even for me they issue decrees: Whenever you decree something, he shall obey you (Job 22:28). 3:2 Know [that was so for] Jacob,86 for what does [Scripture say]? When he was blessing Manasseh and Ephraim, He set Ephraim before Manasseh (Gen 48:20), treating the younger prior to the elder. The Holy One carried out {Jacob’s} decree. When? In the offerings of the princes of the tribe of Ephraim brought its offering first, as it is said: On the seventh day [the prince of the] Ephraimites (Num 7:48). What is the Scriptural basis [for this statement]? After that which they read in the lecture portion: On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites (Num 7:54). 3:187 MS Parma f.120b

{‫ ילמדינו ר' }רבינו‬- [‫ נשיא לבני מנשה ]במדבר ז נד‬- ‫ביום השמיני‬ {‫נר של חנוכה שהותיר שמן מהו צריך לעשות לו ת'ל למדונו }למדינו‬ ‫רבותי' נר של חנוכה שהותיר שמן ביום הראשון מוסיף עליו שמן‬ ‫ומדליקו ביום השיני ואם הותיר ביום השיני מוסיף עליו ומדליקו ביום‬ ‫השלישי וכן בשאר כל הימים אבל אם הותיר ביום השמיני עושה לו‬ ‫מדורה ושורפו בפני עצמו למה שכילן }כיון{ שהוקצה למצוה אסור‬ 88 ‫להשתמש הימנה לא יאמ' אדם }איני{ מקיים מצות זקנים הואיל‬ ‫ואינם מן התורה אמ' להק' }לו הקב"ה{ לאו בני אלא כל מה שהן‬ [‫גוזרין עליך קיים שנ' על פי התורה אשר יורוך }לך{ ]דברים יז יא‬ [‫למה שאף עליהם }עלי הן{ גוזרין שנ' ותגזר או' ויקם לך ]איוב כב כח‬ 3:2 Parma f.120b-121a

‫תדע לך יעקב מהו אומ' בשעה שהוא }שהיה{ מברך מנשה ואפרים‬ ‫וישם את אפרים לפני מנשה ]בראשית מח כ[ עשה את הקטן קודם‬ ‫לגדול וקיים הק' }ונתקיימ'{ גזירתו אימתי בקורבנות הנשיאים‬ ‫הקריב שבט אפרים שנ' ביום השביעי נשיא לבני אפרים ]במדבר ז‬ ‫ נשיא‬// ‫מח[ ואחר מנשה מניין ממה שקראו בעינין ביום השמיני את‬ [‫לבני מנשה" ]במדבר ז נד‬ Num. Rabbah 14:4. Edited, including major variants found in ed.pr. (the first printed edition form Prague, 1653). 88 MS Parma: ‫אני‬. 86 87

132

RIVKA ULMER

A TEXT-LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF PESIQTA RABBATI 3 Level 1 ∆BT (Darshan’s use of Base Text) Fluid text: For example, midrashim on Num 7:54. Fixed interpretations that are preserved in midrashic sentences: “S1” →“L Num 7:54”: “O1”: “D1” “S2” →“L Num 7:54”: “O2”: “D2” “Sn” →“L Num 7:54”: “On”: “Dn”

Level 2 (Y) yelammedenu Halakhic part: How does one light a Hanukkah lamp that has oil left over? Response. Aggadic Part: Contains the topic for the homily (P) petiḥah; PV = The words of the wise are like goads and as nails fastened by the master builders, which are given from one Shepherd. And further, my son, by these

Level 1 refers to a fluid base text that is retrieved or re-used by a darshan (∆BT). This level contains fixed midrashic sentences (S1-Sn) that interpret certain lemmata and represents a level of available textual meanings. This level enables comprehension and is based on pre-conceived notions of the nature of rabbinic texts.

Level 1 ∆BT (Darshan’s use of Base Text) Fluid text: For example, midrashim on Num 7:54. Fixed interpretations that are preserved in midrashic sentences: “S1” →“L Num 7:54”: “O1”: “D1” “S2” →“L Num 7:54”: “O2”: “D2” “Sn” →“L Num 7:54”: “On”: “Dn

Level 2 refers to Level 2 form-analytical, (Y) yelammedenu Halaconstitutive elekhic part: How does ments, literary or one light a Hanukkah argumentative lamp that has oil left textual units in over? Response. the homily. Level 2 may contain the following: yelammedenu, petiḥah, semikhah, interpretation of the ‘inyan, ḥatimah, mashal,

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT

words be admonished: of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh (Eccl 12:11-12). Several lemmata of PV are interpreted: L1 like goads A mashal interpretation is inserted (Girls playing ball) L2 nails L3 well plated L4 Masters L 5 nails L6 Words (expansion: interpretations of Gen. 48) L1P-L6P Several lemmata of the petiḥah verse are interpreted. >Prop1 Sages and their words derive from the Sheppard> (IIN) interpretation of the ‘inyan; LIN = Num 7:54 (abbreviated) (Ḥ) ḥatimah, HV? = but they did not know that I healed them (Hosea 11:3)- HV? For though the Lord is high, he regards the humble (Ps 138:6), incomplete.

ma’aseh, narrative, diatribe, other macroforms and text types such as ruaḥ ha-qodesh. However, in chapter 3, only three constitutive elements are found: petiḥah, interpretation of the ‘inyan, and ḥatimah.

133

134

Level 3 (L 1-n) Examples: Lemma 1 goads (derived from Mishnah Kelim 1:7; Tosefta Ohalot 15:12).

Level 4

RIVKA ULMER

Level 3 refers to the utilization of lemmata, which in midrash are typically biblical (L1-n), but may derive from extra-biblical texts. Additionally, there may be lemmata from Mishnah, Tosefta, and Baraita. Occasionally, there are lemmata derived from discourses in other cultures, indicating polemical interactions. The number of lemmata is indeterminate.

Level 4 refers to the propositions >Prop2-n< that do not re>Prop2: The second late to any parproposition asserts that ticular lemma. the Rabbis are the These proposimasters of interpretations evoke tion< “rabbinic” state>Prop3: there was a ments. chain of tradition< The proposi>Propn: further proptions are linked ositions< to each other. These propositions are not part of midrashic

A YELAMMEDENU UNIT

135

sentences. They do not have an “L,” an “O;” they consist mainly of dicta. Level 5 =┌μ┐

Level 5 = ┌μ┐ Level 5 = ┌μ┐ refers refers to a disto a distinctive integraDistinctive integrative tinctive integrative unit in the docuunit. tive unit in the ment. Usually, Level 5 LIN = Num 7:51-54 document. Usurefers to a homily in a ally, Level 5 reseries of homilies, Homily 3, a homily fers to a homily which in Midrash based upon the lecture in a series of Tanḥuma does not alfor the eighth day of 89 homilies, which ways reflect the liturgiHanukkah On the in Pesiqta Rabbati cal occasion. These ineighth day the prince of reflects the liturtegrative units are cythe Manassites Gamaliel gical occasion. clical, i.e., they are trithe son of Pedahzur These integrative annually repeated, folcame. His offering was units are cyclical, lowing the lectionary one silver charger of the i.e., they are ancycle of the synagogue. weight of a hundred and nually repeated, thirty shekels, and one Distinctive integrative following the lecsilver bowl of seventy unit. tionary cycle of shekels, according to the LIN = Num. the synagogue, shekel of the sanctuary, as represented in both of them full of fine Pesiqta Rabbati. flour mingled with oil for The units also a meat offering; one preserve the segolden spoon of ten quence of the lishekels, full of incense; turgical year. one young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a burnt offering; one kid of the goats for a sin offering; and for a sacrifice of peace offerings: two oxen, five rams, five 89

Soferim 20:10.

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RIVKA ULMER

male goats, five lambs of the first year. This was the offering of Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur (Num 7:54-59). The ‘inyan verse addresses the offerings of the Manessites. Level 6 = The meta-nar- Level 6 is the meta- Level 6 rative narrative in conjunction with the {Meta-narrative }= semantic compo- The Tanḥuma does not {Mn} have a dramatic narranent ‹SC›. The Salvific; the words of the tive; it merely follows document has a Rabbis are truthful. the temporal and scripmeta-narrative tural development of {Mn}, the inHomily 3 expresses part the Torah. The order of tended message of the meta-narrative homilies is deterwith which the concerning the past minded by the exegetidarshan strucand the future of Israel cal structure of weekly, tured the text. and its relationship triennial readings. The meta-narrawith God; the future tive reshapes the will bring healing. The tradition, creating semantic component new meanings or ‹SC› requires this text emphasizing a to be a “Hanukkah” particular meanhomily. This particular ing. The semantic homily is subject to the component dicexternal constraint of tates the subparts the liturgical calendar, of the overall the semantic compomessage, namely nent. that Israel will experience salvation, relating this theme to each significant occasion in the liturgical calendar.

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137

Level 7⌠doc⌡ Tanḥuma Naso is located refers to the in the work Midrash “document,” Tanḥuma in its (earliest Pesiqta Rabbati, extant?) comprehenMS Parma 3122, sive version that its earliest extant served as the base text comprehensive of the printed edition. version. The docThe document is conument is controlled by certain trolled by certain premises [docPr], premises which are based upon [docPr], which the rabbinic system of are based upon permissible truths. the rabbinic sysPremises: [docPr] tem of permissiSuch premises include ble truths. that the document Premises: [docPr] must address Israel’s Such premises inhistorical relationship clude that the with God. The docudocument must ment must contain rabaddress Israel’s binic interpretations historical relaand relate to Scripture. tionship with The faithful will be reGod, who is warded. unique and One. The document must contain rabbinic interpretations and relate to Scripture.

All of the above different levels of a midrashic text make up the form and discourse of the rabbinic homily. This renders the text comparable to other homiletic texts that may also be written using similar formulae. The sign ∑→ (Sigma) represents the summation of the symbols used to describe the homily in Levels 1-7 and presents the condensed version of the entire homily. The above describes strict text-linguistic analysis of Pesiqta Rabbati 3 may be summarized by the following concise formula:

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RIVKA ULMER ∑→Level 1 = ∆BT, S1, S2, Sn; Level 2 = (P, PV, L1, L2, L3, L4,L5, L6 >Prop1Prop2-nProp1 Sages and their words derive from the Shepherd>Prop2-n Prop2:The second proposition asserts that the Rabbis are the masters of interpretation< >Prop3: there was a chain of tradition< >Propn: further propositions< Level 5 = ┌μ LIN >On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites, homily 3 addresses Israel< ┐ Level 6 = {Mn: a salvific [apocalyptic] meta-narrative}:‹SC: The homily is subject to the external constraint of the liturgical calendar that determines its topic, consolation› Level 7 =doc Pesiqta Rabbati MS Parma 3122; [docPr: permissible truths, i.e., Israel’s historical relationship with God; One God]

The above linguistic model is an attempt to formulate a synthesis of form-analytical and text linguistic elements of a rabbinic homily. Once a rabbinic homily is written out in a series of symbols constituting a Sigma, the text may be compared to other homilies that are also transcribed into similar symbols. This procedure may enable scholars to differentiate rabbinic homilies from other, nonhomiletic rabbinic midrashic texts or a single homiletic unit from another (parallel) unit.

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MIDRASH TANḤUMA NASO 29-30

The homily in Midrash Tanḥuma Naso 29-30 has a similar structure as Pesiqta Rabbati 3, although it is much shorter and does not contain every unit of a rabbinic homily. Midrash Tanḥuma Naso 29-30 contains the following: a yelammedenu (instead of a full petiḥah), interpretation of the ‘inyan,90 and ḥatimah which is included in the latter. In the homiletic unit entitled interpretation of the ‘inyan there are no citations of Lin (A verse from the lectionary portion). Tanḥuma, Buber edition, Naso 34

Several constitutive units of this midrash in the “printed edition” of the Tanḥuma Naso are included in separate sections in the Tanḥuma, Buber edition, Naso 34, p. 44a.: interpretation of the ‘inyan, namely, Num 7:48, as well as the ḥatimah. The ḥatimah verse is Ps 77:16. However, the yelammedenu is not part of the Tanḥuma, Buber edition; it is singular in the printed version. The overlap starts at the dictum of R. Avin Berabbi Levi. According to this passage, following several interpretations of Gen 39, God was with Joseph. The short biblical narrative of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife leads to a debate between Joseph and Potiphar. In particular, this passage uses a mashal explanation that mentions the Greek personification of the sun, Helios (῾Ηλιος); since no human being can look at the sun without being hurt, and since Helios is only an attendant of another god, how could a human being look at the Israelite God. A lemma from Ps 24:8 is interpreted in an antithetical mashal, which emphasizes that God is not like a human king. God gave insignia of His kingship to worthy human beings, including Moses, Elijah, Solomon, and the royal Messiah. God rewarded Joseph for avoiding sexual intercourse with the Egyptian woman. God will reward Joseph and - by extension - Israel. A lemma in Ps 114:3, a Hallel Psalm, refers to Joseph’s coffin that is carried along with the Ark of the Covenant in the wilderness, because Joseph obeyed the commandments before they were revealed. The interpretations of a Hallel Psalm that is part of the D. Lenhard, Die Rabbinische Homilie, pp. 342-3, refers to this as a Semuḥin exegesis of Num 7:51-54. 90

140

RIVKA ULMER

liturgy of the synagogue is important, since it demonstrates that the homily was part of the liturgy as well. Thus, this passage contains the ark of the Torah (aron), the coffin (aron) of Joseph and it points toward the ark in a synagogue. Redemption will occur through Joseph’s merits. The ḥatimah verse (Ps 77:16) provides hope to the descendants of Jacob and Joseph, who will be redeemed by God and “His mighty arm.” Tanḥuma Naso 29 ‫ ביום השמיני‬On the eighth day

‫ילמדנו רבינו נר חנוכה שהותיר בה שמן ביום ראשון מהו להדליק בה‬ ‫בשני כך שנו רבותינו נר חנוכה שהותיר בה שמן ביום ראשון מוסיף‬ ‫עליו כל שהוא ומדליקו ביום שני ואם הותיר ביום שני מוסיף עליו ביום‬ ‫השלישי ומדליקו וכן בשאר הימים אבל הותיר ביום שמיני עושה לו‬ ‫למה כיון שהוקצה למצוה אסור להשתמש ממנו לא‬,‫מדורה בפני עצמו‬ ‫יאמר אדם איני מקיים מצות זקנים הואיל ואינן מן התורה אמר להם‬ ‫הקדוש ברוך הוא בני אין אתם רשאין לומר כך אלא כל מה שגוזרים‬ ‫עליכם תהיו מקיימין שנא' ועשית על פי התורה אשר יורוך ]דברים יז‬ ‫יא[ למה שאף על דבריהם אני מסכים שנאמר ותגזר אומר ויקם לך‬ [‫]איוב כב כח‬ ‫תדע לך שהרי יעקב בשעה שברך מנשה ואפרים מה כתיב שם וישם‬ ‫ וקיים‬,‫את אפרים לפני מנשה ]בראשית מח כ[ עשה הקטן קודם לגדול‬ ‫הקדוש ברוך הוא גזרתו אימתי בקרבנות הנשיאים שהקריב שבט‬ ‫אפרים תחלה שנא' ביום השביעי נשיא לבני אפרים ואח"כ מנשה מנין‬ [‫ממה שקראו בענין ביום השמיני נשיא לבני מנשה ]במדבר ז נא‬ Let our rabbi teach us: As to the Hanukkah lamp, oil of which was left over on the first day,91 may one light it on the second day? Thus have our rabbis have taught: If a Hanukkah lamp has oil left over on the first day, one adds oil and lights it on the second day. If oil was left over from the second day, one adds oil and lights it on the third, and so on through the rest of the days. But if oil was left over on the eighth day, one makes a fire and burns it by itself. Why? Because that oil has been designated for performing a particular religious duty, it is prohibited to make use of it. One should not say, I shall not carry out the religious duty as decreed by the elders, since

Passages that differ from the yelammedenu in Pesiqta Rabbati are underlined. 91

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what they say does not derive from the Torah. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, My children, you may not say this, but whatever they decreed for you, carry out, as it is said: In accord with the Torah, which they shall teach you (Deut 17:11). Even I agree with their words: Whenever You decree something, it shall be upheld unto You (Job 22:28). Know [that was so for] Jacob,92 for what does [Scripture say]? When he was blessing Manasseh and Ephraim, He set Ephraim before Manasseh (Gen 48:20), treating the younger prior to the elder. The Holy One, blessed be He, carried out {Jacob’s} decree. When? In the offerings of the princes of the tribe of Ephraim brought its offering first, as it is said: On the seventh day [the prince of the] Ephraimites (Num 7:48). What is the Scriptural basis [for this statement]? After [that which they read in the lecture portion: On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites (Num 7:54).

Tanḥuma, Buber edition, Naso

93

R. Avin b. R. Levi said, As Joseph was offering his praise, his master saw him moving his mouth. He said to him, Joseph what are you saying? He answered and said to him, I am offering praise to the Holy One. [Potiphar] said to him, I want to see your God. Joseph said to him, Consider Helios, [who is] one of several attendants. If you cannot look at him, how much less can you look at His Glory. The Holy One said to him, Because of you I will appear to him. Thus it says, When his master saw that the Lord was with him (Gen 39:3). R. Avin b. R. Levi said, What is the meaning of Who is this [King of Glory] (Ps 24:8) And the King of Glory will come (Ps 24:9)? The One who shares some of His Glory with those who fear Him, that is the Holy One. In the case of a king of flesh and blood, no one uses his scepter, but the Holy One gave His scepter to Moses, as it says, And Moses took the rod of God in his hand (Exod 4:20). Moreover, no one sits on his throne [with the exception of King Solomon], as it says, Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king (1 Chr

Num. Rabbah 14:4. My translation takes into consideration J. T. Townsend, Midrash Tanhuma: Translated into English with Introduction, Indices, and Brief Notes (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2003), vol. 3, pp. 67ff. 92 93

142

RIVKA ULMER 29:23). No one rides his horse, [with the exception of Elijah]. Now, which horse belongs to the Holy One? Storm and whirlwind. Thus it says, The Lord is in the whirlwind, and the storm is His road (Nah 1:33). And Elijah went up in a whirlwind into the heavens (2 Kgs 2:11). Therefore, the Holy One shares His Glory with those who fear Him. He also gives His garments to the Messianic King, as it says, Honor and Majesty You bestow upon Him (Ps 21:6), since the garments of the Holy One is Honor and Majesty, You have put on [Honor and Majesty] (Ps 104:1). What is written about the Holy One? [For the Lord is a God] of recompense; He will repay in full (Jer 51:56), since He repays the good according to their good and the evil according to their evil. What is written about Joseph, Joseph is a beautiful bough (Gen 49:22). The Holy One said to him, Joseph, there shall be peace upon the eye which closed and did not look at any of the Egyptian women. Thus it says, daughters on the wall (ibid.). R. Reuven said, What is the meaning of upon the wall (ibid.)? The Holy One said, It is for Me to pay the reward for that eye. Our rabbis taught (Mishnah Zevaḥim 14:4-6) that they would eat in the sanctuary inside the hangings, but in Shiloh [they would eat outside the sanctuary] as far away as the eye could see. Whatever Joseph did, the Holy One rewarded him. What is written? And he left his cloak [in her hand] (Gen 39:12). The Holy One said to him, When the children of Israel leave Egypt, the sea is going to see your coffin [aron] and flee. It says, The sea saw and fled (Ps 114:3). What did it see? It saw that Joseph had kept all of the Ten Commandments. Simon ben Kitron says, It saw the bones of Joseph. Additionally, when Joseph’s coffin [aron] proceeded before the ark [aron], the nations of the world saw it and said, What is the nature of this ark which is proceeding along with the ark of the Torah? Then Israel responded to them and said, This confirms what is written in this. And what was in the ark [aron]? The Ten Commandments. Now Joseph fulfilled all of them before they were given from Sinai. The Holy One said to Joseph, Joseph, although I have rewarded you with a little reward in this world, the main fund remains for you in the world to come, when Israel is redeemed with an everlasting redemption. Through the merit of Jacob and through your merit, they will be redeemed, as it says, With Your mighty arm You redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah (Ps 77:16). The end of parashah Naso.

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Text-linguistic analysis of Tanḥuma Naso 29-30 Level 1 Level 1 refers to a fluid base text that ∆BT (Darshan’s use of Base is retrieved or re-used by a darshan Text) (∆BT). This level contains fixed midNum 7:54. rashic sentences (S1-Sn) that interInterpretations that are prepret certain lemmata and represents served in midrashic sena level of available textual meantences: ings. This level enables comprehen“S1” →“L Deut 17:11”: “O1”: sion and is based upon pre-con“D1” ceived notions of the nature of rab“S2” →“L Job 22:28”: “O2”: binic texts. “D2” “Sn” → “L Gen 48:20: “D” Level 2 Level 2 refers to form-analytical, con(Y) yelammedenu stitutive elements, literary or arguHalakhic part: How does one mentative textual units in the homlight a Hanukkah lamp that ily. has oil left over? Response. Mashal (Jacob…) (Gen 48:20) Level 2 may contain the following: interpretation of the ‘inyan (Joyelammedenu, petiḥah, semikhah, inseph) terpretation of the ‘inyan, ḥatimah, includes (Ḥ) ḥatimah, HV = mashal, ma’aseh, narrative, diatribe, Whenever You decree someother macro-forms and text types thing, it shall be upheld unto such as ruaḥ ha-qodesh. However, You (Job 22:28) yelammedenu (instead of a full Num 7:48 On the seventh day petiḥah); the: interpretation of the ‘inElishama the son of Amyan, and a ḥatimah. mihud, prince of the Ephramites, offered… Num 7:54 On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites

The above text-linguistic analysis may be written in a Sigma (sentence): ∑→ Level 1 = ∆BT, S1 (Base text, Num. 7:54): Level 2 = (Yelammedenu) Level 3 = (L 1 Mishnah)

144

RIVKA ULMER Level 4 = >Prop2-n Prop2:The second proposition asserts that the Rabbis are the masters of interpretation< >Prop3: the elders present God’s commandments< >Propn: further propositions< Level 5 = ┌μ LIN >On the eighth day the prince of the Manassites, homily “Naso” addresses Israel< ┐ Level 6 = {Mn: a programmatic meta-narrative; there is a sequence to events}:‹SC: The homily is subject to the external constraint of the liturgical calendar that determines its topic, the order of offering sacrifices› Level 7 =Tanḥuma printed edition; [docPr: permissible truths, i.e., God and Israel are bound by the Commandments]

CONCLUSION

The yelammedenu units reviewed in this chapter serve the same purpose in the respective homiletic texts that include them. In both works, Pesiqta Rabbati 3:1-2 and Tanhuma Naso 29, the yelammedenu responds to the problem of left over oil during Hanukkah. The yelammedenu unit contains elaborations of sections of the ‘inyan, (Num 7:54ff.), the lectionary portion for the Sabbath during Hanukkah and Shabbat Naso. In Tanhuma Naso 29 there is no extended petiḥah, although the homily (29-30) fulfills the basic criteria for a homily. In this case, the printed edition could represent the older form of a Yelammedenu Midrash. It is remarkable that this unit is only found in its present combination in the printed edition, whereas “parallel” sections are scattered throughout separate interpretations of Naso of the Tanḥuma Buber edition. Compared to Pesiqta Rabbati, the manuscripts of the Tanḥuma Buber edition do not have a specific Sabbath homily entitled “On the eighth day.” Pesiqta Rabbati and Midrash Tanḥuma lend themselves to form-analytical and text linguistic approaches because the texts contain recurrent elements of midrash (e.g., “lemma,” “operation,” and “dictum”) and of the rabbinic homily (e.g., yelammedenu, petiḥah, semikhah, interpretation of the ‘inyan, ḥatimah). The above global theory formulates a synthesis of form-analytical and text linguistic elements of both rabbinic homilies. The respective homilies are written in a series of symbols constituting a Sigma, which renders the texts comparable. This suggested methodology may assist

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scholars in their production of editions and in their “decoding” and defining of ancient texts beyond the more superficial level of “contents” and narratives.