Saturday, October 20, 2012

Biblical Inconsistency and Rabbinical Readings

I am presenting this week a sample from my upcoming Chumash with the Rogatchover Gaon's commentary translated and annotated. Enjoy.

Bereishit 1:20

Overview – The Rogatchover raises an inconsistency that the Talmud asks, about whether birds were created from water or from land. He then proposes a novel answer, based on the Rambam’s assertion that there are creatures that are both water and air based animals.

 וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים--יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה; וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל-הָאָרֶץ, עַל-פְּנֵי רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם
“Let the waters produce swarms of living creatures and birds that fly. And let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”

The Rogatchover:
 דעוף יעופף. עיין חולין דןן כ״ז, ע״ב א, ולשיטת הרמב״ם ז״ל דיש מין 
שהוא דג וגם עון 6, כמבואר בםה״מב ובהל׳ מא״ם פ״ב ג, י״ל ת ה ר״?
כאן ד. ואכמ״ד.
 Look in Chullin page 27b. And according to the Rambam’s opinion that there is a species that is a fish as well as a bird, as is explained in Sefer Hamitzvot and Hilkhot Maachalot Issurim chapter two, we can say that that is the intent here. And this is not the place to elaborate.”

The Background:
In verse 20 it says “Let the waters produce swarms of living creatures and birds that fly.”
The Talmud in Chullin 27b asks, in verse 20 it states that birds were created from water, yet in chapter 2 verse 19 the Torah says:
וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה ואֵת כָּל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ
“God had formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the sky

The implication here is that birds were formed from the earth. Which was it, were birds formed from the waters or from the earth? The Talmud answers that in fact birds were created from mud which is a mixture of earth and water. Thus, the Torah attributes birds as being land-formed creatures as well as being sea-formed creatures.

Chullin 27b:
ועוד שאלו כתוב אחד אומר ויאמר אלהים ישרצו המים שרץ נפש חיה ועוף יעופף אלמא ממיא איברו וכתיב (בראשית ב) ויצר ה' אלהים מן האדמה כל חית השדה ואת כל עוף השמים אלמא מארעא איברו אמר לו מן הרקק
“He put to him further this question: One verse says. And God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and let birds fly above the earth, from which it would appear that birds were created out of the water; but another verse says. And the Lord God formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the air, from which it would appear that they were created out of the earth? He replied: They were created out of the mud.”

The Innovation:
There is a dispute amongst the Rishonim whether one can receive numerous sets of lashes (malkot) for the same act. For example, the prohibition of wearing wool and linen together (shaatnez) is stated twice. If one transgresses this injunction do they receive two sets of lashes or only one set for the one act?

The Rambam holds that one can never receive numerous sets of lashes for a doubled prohibitory clause. He states this with some force in Sefer Hamitzvot- mitzvah lo saaseh (negative prohibition) #179:
וכבר נתבאר ביטול דבר זה, ושאין לוקין שתי מלקיות על לאו אחד בשום פנים, כמו שביארו בגמרא חולין.
“This idea has no merit, as our Sages have explained in tractate Chullin that one can never receive two sets of lashes for a single prohibition.”

Several other Rishonim argue with the Rambam, most vocal among them the Ramban (in Sefer Hamitzvot loc. cit.). They argue that one can receive numerous sets of lashes for the same act.
This argument is brought to fore in the Talmud. In Makkot 16b the Talmud discusses one who eats a creature called the putisa. The putisa is a sheretz. A sheretz is a type of creature that we would conventionally term an insect. The sheretz has special laws concerning one who touches it and the resultant ritual impurity (tumah) that they receive. As well the Torah forbids eating any sheretz. The Torah first states the prohibition generally (twice in fact), and then enumerates a specific injunction against eating a land, sea, and air sheretz.

The law as stated in Makkot is that this person receives four sets of lashes for eating this crawling creature. Rashi and most other Rishonim learn that the reason one receives four sets of lashes is because the Torah says twice a general prohibition regarding eating a creature, and twice states a prohibition to eat a land based creature (which according to them is what the putisa is classified as). Thus for each clause one receives lashes ending in four measures of punishment for the four infractions.

The Rambam however is forced to learn this law in a very different style since he holds that one does not receive multiple sets of lashes for a doubled prohibitory injunction.
Instead, he holds that the reason one receives four measures is because this creature called the putisa is a land, sea and air creature all at once since it lives in all three environments. Therefore one receives three sets of lashes for the three different prohibitions of eating a land, sea and air creature. (The fourth set is for the infraction of eating a non-kosher fish.)

The first source of the Rambam’s position on the putisa is in Sefer Hamitzvot- mitzvah lo saaseh (negative prohibition) #179:
מצות ל׳׳ת קעט
״כי הנה יתכן שיהיה דג ושיהיה שרץ המים, וכמו כן יהיה עוף
ויהיה שרץ המיס, וכמו כן יהיה עוף ושרץ העוף. מהו פוטיתא, שהוא עוף שרץ
העוף ושרץ הארץ ושרץ המים, ולפיכך׳ חייבין עליה ארבע מלקיות״.
“This is the putisa, which is a bird, a sheretz ha'of (an air creature), a sheretz ha'aretz (an earthbound creature), and a sheretz hamayim (a water creature), and one therefore receives four sets of lashes for eating one.”

The second source is in Hilkhot Maachalot Assurot Chapter 2 Halakha 23:
הרי שהיתה הבריה משרץ העוף ומשרץ המים ומשרץ הארץ כגון שהיו לה כנפים והיא מהלכת על הארץ כשאר שרצים והיתה רבה במים ואכלה לוקה שלש מלקיות
“The following laws apply if a particular creature is [included in the categories of] a flying crawling animal, an aquatic crawling animal, and a crawling animal of the earth, e.g., it has wings, it walks on the earth like other earthbound crawling animals, and it reproduces in the water. If one eats it, he is liable for three sets of lashes.”
[It should be noted that the Raaved argues with this most emphatically loc. cit.:
כתב הראב"ד ז"ל המאסף הזה אסף דברים שאינם בעולם שלא שמענו מימינו נמלה גדלה במים ולא שרץ העוף גדל במים
“The compiler gathered ideas here that simply don’t exist in this world and that we have never heard of- that there should be a land creature living in the sea or an air creature living in the sea!?”]

Enter the Rogatchover who threads all this together and resolves the apparent biblical contradiction with ease as follows:
According to the Rambam there is a creature that is a sea and air animal we can say that our verse (1:20) is only talking about air creatures that are also sea creatures. Therefore the verse states:
 וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים--יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה; וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל-הָאָרֶץ, עַל-פְּנֵי רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם
“Let the waters produce swarms of living creatures and birds that fly. And let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”

The waters are producing the birds here because the verse is speaking about the amphibious birds that also dwell in the water. Interestingly this would explain the anomalous terminology used in this verse for life, namely,  שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה. The term sheretz is employed here, a strange choice of words and not one used elsewhere for describing life. According to the Rogatchover it is in fact, a most precise choice of linguistic style. This is because the verse is speaking about a sheretz that lives in the water as well as the air.
Whereas the verse in 2:19,
וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה ואֵת כָּל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ
“God had formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the sky
which attributes birds as being formed from the earth and having nothing to do with water is referring to all regular birds.

Friday, October 12, 2012

What's so special about this generation of Jewry?



This essay explores 3 ideas:
1. The relevance of Yetziat Mitzraim (the Exodus from Egypt) to modern man.
2. The value of “limitation” in one’s personal life.
3. The significance of the current generation of Jewry over all preceding generations.


CHAPTER ONE

The bible states “Just as in the days of leaving Egypt [there was miracles], so too [when Moshiach comes] there will be miracles”.

The Zohar asks, somewhat uncharacteristically, a textual question. We know that the Jews left Egypt in one day, if so, why does the verse employ the usage of plural “days” instead of the singular “day”?

The answer offered by Chassidus is the following:
Leaving Egypt is not, as one would suppose, a one and done event. Instead it is an ongoing process in one’s personal life. The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim. The word Mitzrayim is etymologically similar to the word Meitzarim. Meitzarim means limitation. Thus Yetziat Mitzrayim would compute into Yetziat Meitzarim, meaning breaking free of one’s own shortcomings. The exodus of Egypt would be more properly translated as the exodus from one’s own Egypt. 

Practically speaking this means that quite often in a Jew’s daily service of God, they may experience an unwillingness to engage in what God requests of them. Obviously this unwillingness can rear its ugly head at any time. Yet when a Jew breaks free from their limitations and smashes this wall of obstruction and performs the act that God desires, they have experienced their own intimate exodus from Egypt.
Clearly then Yetziat Mitzrayim is not a historical event that transpired in the murky eons of the past but rather a shockingly relevant and current experience that needs to be accessed and engaged in on a daily basis.

Chassidus then develops this concept further. Not just is the Exodus a static daily exercise, but it is in fact an accelerating experience. Breaking one’s limitations becomes a catalyst for spiritual maturation necessitating the transcendence of increasingly refined and mature personal limitations. In other words if on Sunday they surpassed themselves beyond what they thought possible and gave a thousand dollars to charity, then on Monday their new boundary is giving a thousand and one dollars to charity; that is the new limitation that they must transcend.

Not just is this true on an individual scale, but in fact it applies to the world as a whole. Starting from our creation as a people on Mount Sinai, each era of Jewry has been engaging in progressively deeper and more powerful refinement of the world. As the coarse battlegrounds of yesterday turn into the standardized norms of today, today’s battles revolve around yet more refined areas of the human experience that need to be purified and transcended. Paving the way for tomorrow’s as of yet unimagined horizons.

[Steven pinker has recently published a book called "The better angels of our Nature". He describes it as follows: We’ve all had the experience of reading about a bloody war or shocking crime and asking, “What is the world coming to?” But we seldom ask, “How bad was the world in the past?” 

In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. With the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps, Pinker presents some astonishing numbers. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate of Medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then suddenly were targeted for abolition.  Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the people they did a few decades ago. Rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals—all substantially down.] 

Thus the whole of Jewish history can be seen as a generational chain spiraling into the heavens and bringing increasingly loftier gradations of holiness into this world. The climax of this will be in the times of Moshiach when the ultimate transcendence of all human limitation will be realized as God will reveal Himself to us in all his glory.


CHAPTER TWO

According to our analysis that each generation is increasingly mature and spiritually sensitive, our current era should be the most advanced and developed in history. Yet we see that in fact, it is quite the opposite.

What is our area of expertise that surpasses previous eras of Jewry? Is it Talmudic scholarship and halakhik knowledge?  Not likely. Whereas in the past, knowing all of Shas (an acronym for all 60 volumes of the Talmud), was simply a prerequisite for entry into higher level study groups and yeshivot, today one would be hard pressed to find 50 rabbis who know the entire Talmud cold. Additionally, the evolution of Torah study is structured in a way that the authority of each generation of the tradition has increasingly less legislative power and credence. Tannaim ,earlier Talmudists, trump Amoraim ,later Talmudists, and Achronim, rabbinic scholars from roughly 1600 and on, cannot generally argue with Rishonim, rabbis from roughly 1000 to 1600.

Nor is it sainthood or stronger leadership; not for nothing has this post-holocaust generation been called a “dor yasom”, an orphaned generation.

Neither is it our camaraderie or strong Jewish unity. Unfortunately, Judaism has never been more fractious with so many divisions and groups.

Can we even find one Mitzvah in which we shine over all preceding generations? And even if we could, would that justify classifying our era as more refined then all of the generations of Jews who came before us?

That’s just within Judaism. But the world at large has changed as well. The secularism of modern technological man combined with society’s utter embrace of the flesh and material pleasures have produced an environment of immeasurable temptation and seduction. Add to that the accessibility and ease with which such secularism and materialism is obtained thanks to modern technology and current attitudes of acceptance and individualism, and one begins to imagine the challenges facing the 21st century spiritual-religious Jew. 

Chassidus answers this in a spectacular way. Indeed we possess nothing that other generations did not do better and stronger with more widespread participation. Rather the secret ingredient that we have that no other era had, is precisely our weakness. Our depth lies in our shallowness. Our superiority is in our inferiority.

Meaning, despite it all we serve Him with strength and devotion. We still believe in God and seek to fulfill his divine plan for the world called Torah and Mitzvot. The immutable faith and commitment found in the 21st century spiritual-religious Jew is truly astonishing and shocking.

This then is our profundity and innovation within Judaism. We are a living testament to its versatility and timeless truth. At the end of the day, Chassidus says, we are basically serving God without limitation. To withstand all the trials and tribulations facing us today and to remain Torah-true Jews is to invest oneself in Judaism without qualification or limitation.