parsha

How Old Rivka? 3 or 14?

Was Rivka 3 or 14 or some other age when she got married?

Josh Waxman has much more on this topic.

But for us in the 21th century, either age seems young. One can see advantages to marrying someone off at fourteen; it (mostly) eliminates the problem with teenage pregnancies, as the girl/woman is married. She was also marrying someone who shared her culture, even if one family worshiped one God and the other worshiped idols. On the other hand, it doesn’t give her anytime to develop a career or even any sense of herself before having children. I can’t even begin to imagine a married 3-year-old, unless it was just a betrothal. Then, married fourteen-year-olds also seems like a strange notion…

This post is a continuation of 100 20 7 14 3. More on the 127, coming soon.

100 20 7 14 3

In an effort to get up a post about the Torah portion of the week, Chayei Sarah (which literally means the Life of Sarah) before Shabbat, I am just showing you these numbers:

100 20 7 14 3

Why am I showing you these numbers? Anyone is free to answer. I’ll write the full post early next week. Your comments will help write the post.

Read the parsha online here.

Hint: think women.

Explanation on 7 and 14 is on this post.

Is this How Sarah Felt?

Linking Vaera to Chayei Sarah

In an effort to link last week’s parsha of Vaera to this week’s of Chaya Sarah (the Life of Sarah), I put together this “collage” of a tent with a famous painting by Edvard Munch:

Rashi wonders what is the connection between the Akeida, the Sacrifice of Isaac, at the end of Vaera, with Chayei Sarah, the telling of Sarah’s death at the beginning of this week’s parsha? Sarah, who had waited so many years to have her first and only child, has just learned that her husband is about to sacrifice him. Unfortunately, she doesn’t learn the angel has stopped Abraham, and she dies of grief.

So is this perhaps how she felt?

See also 100 20 7 14 3 for more on parshat Chayei Sarah.

Hospitality

In this week’s parsha of Vaera we learn about hospitality, known in Hebrew as Hachnasat Orchim, welcoming guests. We have two examples of hospitality, one as Abraham welcomes three men (it does not say angels in Genesis 18:2) and another of Lot, who invites two angels to visit him.

How is Abraham’s hospitality different from that of Lot? For one, Abraham welcomed three men whom he saw as wanderers, not as angels, whereas Lot invited in angels. Rabbi Frand (from Rabbi Frand on the Parashah 2) differentiates the two greetings; Abraham welcomed men wandering through the wilderness, Lot was only welcoming because he saw angels. But at the same time, Lot had learned something from Uncle Abraham’s example.

Rabbi Frand writes:

Lot…saw angels. Lot was hospitable, but he wasn’t going to have just anyone at his house… Lot had learned enough from his uncle Avraham to invite the angels in, but he had not learned a most important lesson: you don’t handpick your guests. True hachnassas orchim is to make everyone feel welcome at your home, angel or human. And human, we might add, applies to all humans, even those that come from the less genteel segments of society.

Rashi brings another difference in their hospitality. Abraham requested that the travelers remove the dust from their feet first and then enter. Lot invited them to enter with dusty feet. Abraham saw his guests as worshipers of dust and did not want to bring their idol worship into his home. Lot, on the other hand, knew that the people of Sodom objected to Hachnasat Orchim so to protect the visitors suggested the guests remain with dust on their feet so it would appear as though they had just arrived.

I do like having guests over, though I can’t say I always feel up to it; some weeks I feel more inclined to entertain than others. But I do welcome my daughter’s complaint when we don’t have guests (“no guests this week?” she has been known to say). I like that she appreciates Hachnasat Orchim, welcoming guests into our home.

Finally, I struggle with Rabbi Frand’s idea of welcoming anyone into one’s home. Anyone else have their doubts or thoughts about this?

Oaks, Terebinths or Plains

Terebinth. Now that’s an interesting word. Seems to be a Greek word, and it refers to a tree that is also known as a “turpentine tree”. It occurs in some translations of this week’s parsha of Lech Lecha.

Here’s the Mechon-mamre translation of Genesis 12:6 —

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the terebinth of Moreh.

And to give another example, Genesis 13:18 —

And Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the terebinths of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.

So the key word we are trying to translate here is ‘elon’. What is an ‘elon’?

My Artscroll Saperstein edition of Breishit translates ‘elonai mamre’ as ‘the plains of Mamre’.
My JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh claims ‘terebinth’ is the translation.
The first translation of the Bible, the second-century BCE Greek Septuagint, interpreted the word as ‘oak’.

OK, so which is it, oak, terebinth or plains? Depends who you ask. (Do you hate answers like that? Or can you just accept that as life?)

Incredibly enough, I was introduced to this whole topic by two articles on the Forward, of all places (I did not know they had words of Torah on the Forward, a newspaper founded by atheist socialists):

• Oaks or Terebinths
• Back to Mamre

In the second article, Seth Cohen suggests an explanation to the ‘plains’ translation, the translation that is least likely to be the literal one but is suggested by Onkelos:

The translation of elonei as “oaks,” he writes, “might have suggested to some readers in antiquity that Abraham settled in the midst of tree worshipers, since the worship of trees was quite prevalent in his lifetime and for many centuries afterwards.” Therefore, Mr. Cohen continues, although Onkelos’s translation is generally highly literal, he deviated from the text in this case for apologetic purposes — that is, to prevent any possible misinterpreting of the biblical story contrary to the way that he, and the rabbinic sages whose authority he accepted, understood it.

Onkelos did not want any misinterpretation that Abraham might be a tree worshiper.

So what about oaks vs. terebinths?

The Philologos of the Forward argues for oaks, because it is the oldest translation, and because of its small appearance:

Terebinths, whose small leaves indeed smell a bit like turpentine when crushed, may have an impressive-sounding name, but they are not very impressive in appearance. The terebinth is an evergreen shrub that rarely grows to more than 7 or 8 feet and is found all over Israel, where it is one of the most frequent plants in the hillside maquis; terebinths grow wild in my garden and can spread like weeds if you do not keep them in check. The common Palestinian oak, on the other hand, develops into a tall, stately tree. A whole forest or grove of such trees, now seen in only a few places but less rare in Abraham’s time, is an impressive sight indeed.

Why do other translators, such as Robert Alter who wrote the Five Books of Moses, choose terebinth? Perhaps because of its abundance? I couldn’t find an answer.

Here’s a terebinth, courtesy of Wikipedia:

If any of you have the opportunity to visit Neot Kedumim in Israel, you can find a terebinth there. We were there in June (hot!), but I hadn’t yet read about terebinths, so I didn’t think to find one and photograph it.

Mabul Cake

The cake itself came out delicious. And no one seemed to care that my lights and darks were not very pronounced. No one except me, however. So in preparing this post I put the picture in Photoshop and made it look a little more marbly (mabully?):

Another fun idea for this parsha by Juggling Frogs: Rainbow Menu

My speedy blogger friends already have posts up about this week’s parsha, Lech Lecha:
Go to Yourself (Ilana-Davita)
Avraham Ha-Ivra/the Hebrew (Daniel Saunders)

Rashi’s Crawlies List

In this week’s parsha, Breishit (Genesis), we get short lists of what was created on each day. On Day 5 God created something called sheretz. What is sheretz? According to Rashi (see a post of mine on Rashi) it is “creepy crawly things” (my words, not Rashi’s). So what are these swarming beings, these beings that Rashi explains as “not high off the ground”? Among the flying creatures, he has the zvuv, the fly. His examples of crawling or slithering creatures are ants, beetles, worms, weasels, mice and snails. And he adds “and the like”, so I looked in Vayikra, where sheretz is also mentioned in connection to kashrut (none of these creatures are kosher), and Rashi there has wasps, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and the word escharbot in Old French, which sounds an awful lot like escargot to me. I find it curious that he has mice and centipedes grouped together. But I suppose if they had invented the microscope in 10th century France, paramecium might be on this list, too.

I also read a piece by Rabbi Abraham Twerski about the parsha. He related the following story:

There was a 96-year-old resident of a nursing home who had not spoken a single word for over a year. No amount of cajoling could get her to speak. It was assumed she was suffering from senile dementia.

One of the volunteers, a young girl of 14, was assigned to sit with this woman. The old woman looked out the window, totally ignoring the young woman’s efforts to engage her in conversation or in an activity. Nothing could distract her from looking out the window.

After an hour, the young woman had just about had it. She arose to leave, but couldn’t help asking, “What are you looking at?” The “demented” old lady looked at her and smiled, “Why, at the light, my child.”

Rabbi Twerski’s comment about this story is that wisdom is often thought of as a kind of light, and most people need to have a practical application in order to value wisdom. But this woman seemed to enjoy looking at the light because … because she enjoyed looking at the light.

So what does this have to do with the insects and mice and weasels? Many of the photo bloggers whose posts I read (or look at, to be more accurate) seem to enjoy photographing these little critters. And this old woman enjoyed looking at the light. And I enjoy looking at the sky and flowers because… because I do.

Visualizing the Parsha

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, starts with the bikurim, the first fruit offering. Are these all fruits or just some? According to Rashi, the bikurim are only the fruits of the seven species. He learns that it is not all fruits from the “mem”, the word that translates as “of”:

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 26:2–

You shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground

Rashi learns that the word “eretz” used both here and when it mentions the 7 species teaches us that it is the seven species that one needs to bring as bikurim.

It says in Devarim (Deuteronomy) 8:8–

a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey;

So in order to learn this better, I decided to draw some pictures. And who decided to join me but my daughter. First, some notes for next year: we both need to learn what wheat and barley look like:

Next on the list are the grapes. Can you guess who drew which grapes:

Do these look like figs:

Now our pomegranate drawings:

(I am hoping to work on a pomegranate watercolor, as a pre-Rosh Hashana siman post)

Olives:

Finally, the honey was supposedly the honey of dates:

Hope you will remember this Rashi, having seen all these drawings to go with the bikurim.

Check out Daniel Saunder’s post on the bikurim.

Justice, Justice: Why Double?

Parshat Shoftim

First, an aside: we went to a bar-mitzvah yesterday of a boy that I’ve known since he was a baby. He gave a wonderful speech, and as part of the speech he said (from memory, not his exact words): “Don’t people have a natural ability to detect what is the right thing to do? In my experience, they don’t, and so we need the Torah to teach us.” This was in reference to finding a dead body in a field; what does one do? How to be a responsible person does not come naturally.

Deuteronomy 16:20—

“Justice, Justice, you shall pursue”
Whenever the Torah repeats, there is a reason. Why the doubling of “Justice, Justice, you shall pursue”?
(One could also translate ‘tzedek’ as righteousness instead of justice).

The most obvious answer is “emphasis”. This is one of the three answers given by Ibn Ezra. “Hizuk” is the word for emphasis, for those who want to improve their Hebrew skills. Another explanation he gives is whether for profit or for loss, one choose the right path. A third approach is pursue righteousness not just once but all the days of one’s life.

Rashi’s explanation is: “Go after a high quality court”. I wonder what the courts were like in Rashi’s day; could one actually pick one’s own judges?

Rabbi Abraham Twerski in Twerski on Chumash (a great parsha book, if anyone wants a recommendation for one) writes:

Rabbi Simchah Bunim of P’shi’che says that the repetition of the word “righteousness” means that one should pursue righteousness with righteousness. We may not use unjust methods even in the interest of a just cause. The end does not justify the means.

In commerce, good and bad are determined by outcome. Profit is good, loss is bad. If someone undertakes a project in a helter-skelter manner and ends up with a windfall profit, he is a good businessman. If someone does a careful market analysis, uses every bit of caution in setting up his business and goes bankrupt, he is a bad businessman.

It is unfortunate that our preoccupation with commerce has resulted in our personal lives being influenced by commercial standards. We often evaluate ethical good and bad by results rather than by process.

I liked that. May we continue to learn the right thing to do and make those choices.

Sacrificing Children