The first kinah on the night of Tisha B'av: Zekhor Hashem meh hayah lanu - הקינה זכר ה' מה היה לנו

On Tisha B'av we recite kinot (dirges) at night and during the day. At night the first kinah that we recite begins with the phrase, zeckor Hashem meh hayah lanuu, please G-d what has happened to us.

This kinah is recited after reading Eicah at night, and it forms a continuation with Eicah since it is based on the fifth chapter of Eicah, as the first half of each line of the kinah is from the fifth chapter and the kinah follows the order of the verses in the chapter. Yet, the unknown paytan (the author of the kinah) changed the second half of the verse, with the exceptions of verses 5:1,2 and 5:19-22, and this change highlights one of the changes in Hebrew poetry from the biblical period to the first millennium. In Tanakh, poetry is not defined by rhymes, and any rhymes that do occur are unintentional. However, in the first millennium, the paytanim (cantors) began to create piyyutim, of which the kinot is one example, based on rhyme. Benjamin Hrushovski (1981, p. 62) writes, "The rhyming system of the Hebrew piyut was the earliest known massive, systematic and obligatory use of rhyme in poetry, and it is very plausible that through the Christian Syriac church employing Aramaic (a cognate language to Hebrew), and via Latin liturgy, the principle of rhyme was transferred to European poetry."

Why did this stress on rhyme begin with the paytanim in the first millennium? My guess is that since they were creating new prayers that the congregation did not recognize, they used rhyme to get the listener’s attention.

Returning to our piyyut, maybe the paytan had a “problem.” On the one hand, the paytan wanted to base the entire piyyut on the fifth chapter of Eicah, but he also wanted that the piyyut would rhyme. His solution was to keep some verses, such as 5:1,2, which happen to have a rhyme, and he kept the last four verses of Eicah chapter 5 without making any changes. However, for all the intervening verses, Eicah 5:3-18, the paytan changed the second half of the verse even though some verses such as 5:15,16,17 have a rhyme. 

We will now go through these intervening verses to see that either the paytan changed the verse to introduce a rhyme, to improve the rhyme, or to give what apparently, he thought was a better explanation or a more appropriate explanation to the beginning of the particular verse. In addition, in many lines, the paytan changed the idea of chapter five, which is to show how sad the situation was with the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash, to blaming the people for their sins which caused the tragedy. Furthermore, at the end of half of each line, the paytan added the word oy, and the end of the second half of each line, he added the word oy meh hayah lanu, “what has become of us” which is from Eicah 5:1.

The first example of this change is by the third line of the kinah. The second half of Eicah 5:3 records that because of the destruction by the first Bet ha-Mikdash, “our mothers are like widows,” while the paytan changed the phrase to “our mothers lament in the month of Av.” Presumably, this change was to create a “full” rhyme (the same word) with the word av in the end of the two halves of the verse. Note the word lament in the piyyut is mekkonnot. The Mishnah Moed Katan 3:9 explains that this was a special type of mourning practice, where apparently one woman cried out and other women joined in to also cry out. I do not think this is done today at funerals.

The next line in the kinah changes the idea in the second half of Eicah 5:4 that after the destruction of the first Bet ha-Mikdash, the people had to pay a lot for their wood (people hate inflation) to “because we dishonored the water libation.” This change relates to the mention of water in the first half of the verse, adds a rhyme to the two parts of the line, and now blames the people for the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash, that the people sinned by the water libations.

The fifth line of the kinah changes the idea in the second half of Eicah 5:5 that “our enemies were exhausting the people giving them no rest” to “we hated other people for no reason.” This change gives a “full” rhyme since the same word, radafnu, which now ends both parts of the line, and again places blame on the people for the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash.

The sixth line of the kinah changes the idea in the second half of Eicah 5:6 that the people were dependent on hand outs from the Assyrians for their bread, to “Assyrians hunted us as a hunter does his pray.” This change keeps the reference to the Assyrians from the verse in Eicah 5:5, but makes the plight of the Jews much worse and it adds a “full” rhyme with the word yad in the end of first half of line and the word yad again in the end of the second half of the line.

The seventh line of the kinah barely changes the second half of the Eicah 5:7, just the order of the words. Eicah 5:7 has the words, “And we suffer for their sins” and the kinah has “And we for their sins suffered.” This does not change the meaning of the verse in Eicah, but with the change, the two parts of the seventh line in the kinah rhyme.

The eighth line of the kinah changes the second half of Eicah 5:8 that the people have no hope of coming free from their masters who had been (or still?) slaves to blaming the people for why slaves ruled over them that the Jewish people had not freed their slaves, presumably in the yovel year, see Yirmiyahu 34:13-17. This change not only blames the people for their sins, which is not in Eicah 5:8, but also adds a rhyme between the first half of eighth line of the kinah with the second half of the eighth line of the kinah.

The ninth line of the kinah changes the second half of Eicah 5:9 in a similar manner to the eighth line of the kinah. Eicah 5:9 records that the people barely have bread since they are in fear of being robbed, while the kinah records that the people barely have bread since they did not give bread to the poor when they had the chance. Again, the paytan blames the people for their sins as he claimed the people sinned due to a lack of ethics, just like in the fifth and eighth lines, and he made a rhyme between the two parts of the ninth line of the kinah. Goldschmidt (2002, p. 24, footnote 9) notes that the word used by the paytan to describe the people not giving to the poor comes from Devarim 15:7.

The tenth line of the kinah changes the second half of the Eicah 5:10 from a description of the people withering from famine to that the people had switched the glory of G-d, which Goldschmidt (footnote 10) suggests means that the people did not follow the Torah, for a scandal. The paytan seems to be insinuating some sexual impropriety, which would connect this line to the following lines in the kinah since this change does not seem to relate either to the beginning of the verse or to the words that were replaced, the second half of Eicah 5:10. Again, the paytan is blaming the people, when there is no blame mentioned in the verse in Eicah, and he added a rhyme to the kinah.

The eleventh line of the kinah changes the second half of Eicah 5:11 that young women in Yehuda were raped like other women in Jerusalem, the first half of the verse, to saying that the women were raped since the people had regularly committed adultery. Again, the paytan blames the people and again he added a rhyme to the kinah, which is not in Eicah 5:11.

The twelfth line of the kinah replaces the second half of Eicah 5:12 which states that the Jewish elders were shown no respect, presumably by the non-Jews, to explaining the first half of Eicah 5:12 that the leaders of the people were hung. The paytan explains that the leaders were hung because they acted unethically by stealing and robbing from the poor. Again, the paytan is saying that the people sinned, again unethically, but here the gain in rhyme is somewhat minor, as Eicah 5:12 has a rhyme between the two parts of the verse based on the sound, oo, but now with the change, the rhyme of the twelfth line of the kinah is based on the sound loo.

The thirteenth line of the kinah, as usual quotes the first half of Eicah 5:13, which refers to the difficulty of young men carrying heavy millstones, but does not quote the second half of the verse, which refers to the young men failing by some wood, which is not that clear. Instead, the paytan changes the second half of the Eicah 5:13 to refer to young men going to a house of prostitutes based on Yirmiyahu 5:7 and this connects with the millstone in beginning of the verse which is used for grinding wheat. Again, the paytan is blaming the people and there is some improvement in the rhyme, from oo and loo in Eicah 5:13 to oo and oo in the thirteenth line of the kinah.

The fourteenth line of the kinah changes the second half of Eicah 5:14 from referring to an absence of music by young people to explaining the first half of Eicah 5:14 that the elders were no longer judging the people since the paytan explains that they perverted justice of the orphans and widows. Again, the paytan is saying that the people sinned, and he added a rhyme to the fourteenth line of the kinah when there is no rhyme in Eicah 5:14.

The fifteenth line of the kinah changes the words in second half of Eicah 5:15 “our dancing has turned into mourning” which relates to the loss of joy expressed in the first half of the verse to “because we did not go on the pilgrimages to Jerusalem,” which explain the loss of joy in the first half of the verse/ kinah. In this case, there is no change in the rhyme at all from Eicah 5:15, but the paytan has changed the verse from being a description of sadness to blaming the people for the sad state. Did the paytan think that this was a more appropriate explanation to the beginning of the particular verse than what is recorded in Eicah 5:15?

The sixteenth line of the kinah as usual changes the second half of Eicah 5:16, but it is surprising. Eicah 5:16 begins by stating that our crown (the Bet ha-Mikdash) has fallen and the second half of the verse is that this happened due to our sins. Accordingly, this verse blames the people and also the two parts of the verse happen to rhyme based on the sound noo. One might have thought that the paytan would have accepted this verse as is, but no, he changed the second half of the verse to “because the Bet ha-Mikdash was burnt.” These words explain the crown falling in the first half of the verse, but do not blame the people, which breaks the pattern in this piyyut. Instead, maybe the paytan changed the second half of Eicah 5:16 since he improved the rhyme to now be based on she-noo (instead of just noo) in the end of both halves of the sixteenth line of the kinah.

The seventeenth line of the kinah changes the second half of Eicah 5:17 from “our eyes are dimmed” to “because the honor of the Bet ha-Mikdash is gone.” The second half of Eicah 5:17 is a parallelism to the first half of the verse which expresses the sadness of the people, but with the change in the kinah the second half of the seventeenth line of the kinah explains the first part of the verse that we are sad since the Bet ha-Mikdash is gone. Presumably, the paytan thought that this change was a more important message since this again, as in Eicah 5:15, is a case where his change did not alter the rhyme that happened to be in Eicah 5:17.

The eighteenth and last line that the paytan changes from Eicah chapter 5, seems also to be due to his desire to add a rhyme to the verse which does not exist in Eicah 5:18. Eicah 5:18 begins by stating that the Bet ha-Mikdash is desolate and then explains that this is because foxes roam over it. The paytan changes this to explain that the Bet ha-Mikdash is desolate since an idol was placed in it. This might make the desolation seem greater, and for sure it adds a rhyme of the sound mem to the end of the first and second halves of the eighteenth line of the kinah.

The next four lines of the kinah are exactly the same as the last four lines of Eicah chapter five, Eicah 5:19-22, and maybe the paytan did not changes these lines since he did not want to change Eicah 5:19, which speaks about G-d.

Bibliography:

Goldschmidt, Daniel (1895-1972), 2002, first printed 1972, The kinot of Tisha B’av: Following the custom of Poland and Ashkenazi communities in the land of Israel, 2nd edition, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.

Hrushovski, Benjamin, 1981, Note on the systems of Hebrew versification, in The Penguin Book of Hebrew verse, edited and translated by T. Carmi, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: England, pp. 57-72.

Bemidbar 31:26-47 and 32:1-4 – The unequal split of the spoils from the war with Midyan: Efficiency over equality?

Bemidbar 31:12 records that the soldiers brough back many women and animals from the war with Midyan and gave them to Moshe and Elazar. While in modern times, it is considered wrong to keep booty from a defeated enemy, the Torah here is following the convention of the rules of warfare of antiquity that the spoils of war, the women and animals in this case, were considered the legitimate possession of the victors, see Bereshit 14:24. (Maybe the idea of getting booty was so ingrained to the soldiers that if the Torah had not given the soldiers the booty, then nobody would have been willing to fight in future wars?)

The question was then what was to happen with all these people and animals? Should the animals have all gone to the mishkan/ ohel moed? Should the women and animals have been equally divided amongst the people?

31:25,26 record that G-d said that all the people and animals from the spoils of the war should be counted. 31:27 then records that G-d told Moshe to split up the young women and animals that had been captured in the war with Midyan, that half would go to the soldiers who fought in the war (12,000 out of 601,700 men, Bemidbar 26:51 and 31:4) and half would be distributed amongst the rest of the population (589,700 men). 31:28,29 then records that of this booty, the soldiers had to give one five hundredth (0.2% or 0.002) of their spoils to the priests, and 31:30 records that the people had to give one fiftieth (2% or 0.02) of their spoils to the Levites. With this distribution, the Levites as a whole received ten times more than the priests as a whole, which roughly matches up with the difference in giving of terumah (if it was 1%) and ma’aser by the people, and also that each Levite would give 10% of the ma’aser he received to a priest, 18:12,21,26, see Milgrom (1990, p. 263). 31:31-47 records that the people fulfilled these instructions, and below we go through the calculations referred to in 31:32-47.

This division of the spoils means that the soldiers who went to fight received more spoils, around 33 animals per fighter as opposed to 0.67 animals for rest of the population, and more women captives since the soldiers were a small group within the population and their gifts (taxes?) to the priests were a smaller percentage than the general population's gifts (taxes?) to the Levites. In addition, the soldiers also got other assets from the war besides women and animals that the general population did not get a share of, 31:20(?), 50-54. 

The Jewish people were about to go into the land of Israel, and this unequal division of the spoils of the war meant that the people were not going to start living in the land of Israel from an equal economic base since the soldiers in the war with Midyan would have been wealthier and had a “first start” advantage over the rest of the population. While a person might claim it is fair that the soldiers should receive more of the spoils than the people who did not go to fight, still this meant that the people were not entering the land of Israel with equal wealth since the soldiers from the war with Midyan were wealthier than the rest of the population.

This question of the division of the wealth of the spoils relates to a general question, should society prioritize efficiency (production of goods) or equality? In general, if a society chooses to prioritize efficiency, then there will be less equality in society, while if society chooses to prioritize equality, then the economy will be less efficient, that is to say, there will be less goods overall for the people in society. In broad terms, capitalistic economics prioritize efficiency while socialist/ communist economies prioritize equality.

In this case, the unequal distribution of the spoils of the war would have led to greater efficiency since it would have encouraged more people to fight in the upcoming wars for the land of Israel in order to get more spoils, and historically in all societies, soldiers were rewarded for their fighting by being able to take spoils from the war, The fact that the Torah followed this practice with just a symbolic gesture to give the people who stayed behind some of the spoils, shows that here the Torah was favoring efficiency at the expense of equality.

This same question of equality vs. efficiency might also be applicable to the request of the tribes of Gad and Reuven for land on the east side of the Jordan River, 32:1-4. Moshe did not respond to them that the land that they were requesting was inferior to the land in Israel, which implies that the land on the east side of the Jordan river was fertile, so why should these tribes have gotten the land? This would seem to be an unequal distribution of land that these tribes were getting superior land. However, on the other hand, it was more efficient to give the two tribes land since then there would be more land for all the other tribes, which would lead to a greater production of goods. Also, in the end the tribes agreed to be the first fighters, which can be considered an increase in efficiency.

In conclusion, by the distribution of the spoils from the war with Midyan, and maybe by the agreement to give the tribes of Gad and Reuven the land on the east side of the Jordan River, the Torah was showing a preference for efficiency over equality in society.

Calculations:

The total number of women captives: 32,000 (31:35). The soldiers received half of these captive, 16,000 women, 31:40. Of these 16,000 women, 0.002 had to be given to the priests. This would be 16,000 times 0.002 = 32 women (31:40). This means that the soldiers received 15,968 women, and then each soldier received 15,968/12,000 = 1.33 women captives. It is not clear how the fraction of a person was distributed. The Torah does not give the calculation of the distribution of the women amongst the general population, but it should have been 16,000 times 0.02 = 320 women who were given to the Levites. The remaining women, 15,680 were then in theory divided amongst the civilian population, 15,680/589,700 = 0.027 women, which again has the problem of distributing a fraction of a person.

The total number of sheep was 675,000 sheep (31:32). For the soldiers’ share, this was divided in half, 337,500 sheep (31:36). 0.002 of this number of sheep (337,500*0.002), 675 sheep were given to the priests, 31:37, which means that 337,500*0.998 = 336,825 sheep remained to the fighters. This number of sheep is then divided by 12,000 (the number of soldiers), 336,825/12,000 = 28, which means that each soldier got 28 sheep. For the rest of the population, their share of the sheep that was given to the Levites, was 0.02 times 337,500, which is 6,750 sheep (10 times more than was given to the priests). The remainder of their share of the sheep was 337500*0.98 = 330,750 sheep. These sheep were then divided by the civilian population 589,670, and then each person who did not fight received 330,750/589,670 = 0.56 sheep.

This same calculation can be done for the distribution of the of captured cattle and donkeys (mules?). The total number of cattle was 72,000 (31:33) and then half of the cattle was 36,000 (31:38,44). We can multiply 36,000 by 0.002, 36.000*0.002 = 72, which means 72 cows were given to the priests by the soldiers, 31:38. The soldiers were then left with, 36,000 times 0.998 = 35,928 cattle. If we divide this number by the total number of soldiers, 12,000, then each soldier received, 35,928/12,000 = 2.99 cows. With regard to the general population, in total they received 36,000 cattle, of which they gave 36,000 times 0.02 =720, which means 720 cows were given by the general population to the Levites, ten times what the priests received. There remained 35,280 cows for the remainder of the population, and then on average each of the non-soldiers (35280/589700 = 0.06), received 0.06 cows.

With regard to the donkeys, the total amount of donkeys taken from Midyan was 61,000, 31:34. Again this number was split between the soldiers and the general population. The soldiers received 30,500 donkeys (31:39), and this number need to be multiplied by 0.002, 30,500*0.002 = 61, which means the soldiers gave 61 donkeys to the priest, 31:39. This left the soldiers with 30,500*0.998 = 30,439 donkeys, and if this number is divided by the number of soldiers, 30,439/12,000 = 2.54, then each soldier received 2.54 donkeys. With regard to the general population, as a group they received 30,500 donkeys (31:45). They gave 2% of this total to the Levites, 30,500 times 0.02, which equals 610 donkeys (again ten times the number of donkeys the priests received). The remaining donkeys, 30,500 times 0.98 = 29,890 donkeys, were then divided by the general population, 29,890/589,700 = 0.05 donkeys. This means that each person from the general population received 0.05 donkeys.

Altogether the people who went to fight received 28 sheep + 2.99 cows + 2.54 donkeys = 33.53 animals per fighter, and 1.33 women. The people who did not go fight received 0.56 sheep + 0.06 cows + 0.05 donkeys = 0.67 animals per person and 0.027 of a woman captive. Note, it is not clear which people from the population that did not fight received an animal and which type of animal since there were not enough animals for everybody.

Bibliography:

Milgrom, Jacob, 1990, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

Bemidbar 11:4-34 - The clamoring of the Jewish people in the desert for meat: Be careful what you ask for

Bemidbar 11:4 (also 11:13) records that the Jewish people clamored for meat when they were in the desert. Bemidbar 11:18-20 records that in response to the people’s request for meat, G-d told Moshe that He would supply the people with meat for thirty days until it "comes out of their nostrils." G-d was angry with the people’s request, but Shemot 16:2,3 records that the people also asked for meat, and G-d did not seem to have been angry with the people at that time. (Maybe because the people were not punished in Shemot 16, the people believed they could complain here.) Why was G-d angry with the people here?

Nehama Leibowitz (1982, pp. 118,119) suggests that in Shemot the people had just come out of Egypt so these complaints could be expected while in Bemidbar the people had been living with the protection of G-d for more than a year. Also, she writes that the “second occasion was no longer the first offense, they had been warned (?) and they should have known better.”

In the Anchor Bible Dictionary (Freedman, 1992, topic: covenant), they explain that in Shemot, the people had not yet made a covenant with G-d, while in Bemidbar the people had made a covenant that made them responsible for their actions.

Another possibility is that after the sin of the golden calf, G-d was less forgiving. The idea being that really the people should have been wiped out for the sin of the golden calf (Shemot 32:10), but G-d accepted Moshe's prayers to let them live. However, now G-d's tolerance for their sins was much lower so when they complained after the sin of the golden calf they were punished. Maybe this is the idea of Shemot 32:34 that when the people would sin, then it will be considered as being more grievous due to the sin of the golden calf.  

A fourth possibility is that from Vayikra 17:3 it appears that the people had meat, and most likely the laws recorded in Vayikra 17 were told to Moshe just a month or so before the people are complaining for meat. Maybe the people’s complaint for meat was because Vayikra 17:5,6 required the people to bring their slaughtered animals to the mishkan/ ohel moed, and then the people would have had to give some of their meat to the priest. The meat was then no longer free, and maybe this was a reason for their complaints that they did not want to share their meat with the priests.  Following this approach, G-d was angry here since the people were complaining since they did not want to bring the meat as sacrifices in the mishkan/ ohel moed, though they had been willing to offer sacrifices to satyrs, Vayikra 17:7. According to this idea, their complaints for meat also showed a desire not to worship G-d.

A fifth answer is that in Shemot 16:3 they had yet received the mahn, and they honestly thought they were going to die of starvation, but here they had been receiving the mahn for a year, and they were not on the verge of starvation.

Regardless of why G-d was angry with the people's request, their request was apparently fulfilled. 11:31 records that a wind, ruah, came and brought copious quantities of birds, which fell/ landed outside the camp. 11:32 then records that the people went out and collected the birds for thirty-six hours (continuous?), day, night and day, and then they placed and the birds around the camp in order to cure the meat to last a month (see Milgrom, 1990, p. 92 and Alter, 2004, p. 740) or to store the birds in an orderly fashion.  However, then 11:33 records that the meat (birds) was in between their teeth and G-d killed the people.

Why were the people killed when they ate the birds? 11:18-20 records that G-d was upset with the people, but G-d did not say the people were going to die from eating meat, but that the people would loath the meat. 11:18-20 records that the people would eat meat for thirty days, but in the end, the people ate meat for less than one day. In addition, why would G-d provide huge quantities of birds if the people would barely eat the birds? If the request for meat was inappropriate, why did G-d agree to grant the meat?

The Ramban (on 11:19, also see Seforno on 11:33) suggests that there were two groups of people who desired to eat meat, but not everybody died. One group, the wicked, the asafsuf, died immediately, while the not as bad, ate the meat for a month until they became sick of it. This approach is problematic since 11:33,34 records that the people died, ha-am, and does not distinguish between the asafsuf, who are only mentioned in 11:4, and the rest of the nation.

Instead, the answer to all the questions is that G-d was going to give sufficient meat/ birds for the people to eat for a month, as stated in 11:18-20, and that is why such large quantities of birds fell outside the camp. However, the people sinned after the birds fell near the camp, and this is why they were killed. 11:32 records three actions by the people, which apparently caused G-d to punish them.

One action relates to the people’s response to G-d’s instructions to Moshe. When G-d responded to the people’s request, he told Moshe to tell the people that the people were to mekadesh the following day and eat meat, 11:18. This command to be mekadesh was presumably for people to separate from their spouses (see Shemot 19:10-15), which would show their ability to control their desires. We do not know if they did this, but we do know that the people did not follow G-d’s instructions with regard to the birds since they did not eat the birds the following day, but two days later.

After Moshe told the people G-d’s instruction in 11:18, the prophesizing of the seventy people outside of the camp occurred, 11:24-29, and only afterwards the birds descended by the camp. We know this since 11:30 records that Moshe, who had been outside the camp in his personal tent with the seventy people, went into the camp after being informed that Eldad and Medad were prophesying as he could not have remained outside the camp when the numerous birds were descending outside the camp.

Accordingly, at best, these birds began arriving in the afternoon after G-d had given the instructions to the people, or maybe they only came later at night, as by the first occurrence of the birds, Shemot 16:13 records that they came at night. Also, such large quantities of birds would have taken quite some time to descend. In addition, 11:32 records that the people got up, va-yakam, which would refer to the people getting up in the morning.  We see that the birds fell during the night after Moshe had told the people G-d’s instructions as recorded in 11:18.  Yet, the people did not eat the birds that day as 11:32 records that the people spent the entire day, the night and the following day gathering birds. It was only a day after the birds fell (two days after hearing G-d’s instructions) did the people start to eat the birds. Thus, the first possible sin of the people was that people did not follow G-d’s instructions after G-d had agreed to give them meat since they ate the meat two days after hearing G-d’s instructions, while they were supposed to have eaten the meat on the day after hearing the instructions.

The second possible sin was that the people had complained that they had such a craving for meat that they remembered Egypt in a positive manner, 11:4,5. Yet, when the meat came and they had a chance to eat the meat, they waited a full day, as we explained above, to eat the birds/ meat. What happened to their craving for meat? Just like they were able to hold back from eating meat for one day, they could have held back for a month or so until they got to the land of Israel. The people’s actions showed that the craving for meat was just a pretext for complaining about the Exodus from Egypt.

The third possible sin in 11:32 is that by gathering all the quantities of birds, the people were showing a lack of faith in G-d. G-d had told them that they would have meat for thirty days, which means that they only had to gather enough birds to eat that day, and then the next day they could go out to gather more birds. This would have been like the mahn as each day they went out to get the mahn, Shemot 16:16-21. Accordingly, by gathering the birds in such large quantities, this showed that the people did not believe that G-d would provide more birds if needed.

Note, the people died when the meat was still in the teeth which means that they did not swallow the food or have a chance to enjoy the taste of the birds. This would be a measure for measure punishment since the people had complained about the taste of the mahn, 11:6.

Did all the people eat the birds at the exact same time? Presumably no. What then happened to the people who were not the first people to eat the birds? Would they have eaten the birds after seeing that other people died had died immediately when eating the birds? I'm guessing no, who would take that chance? This means that some of the people who gathered the birds to eat, had to sit and stare at the birds. I doubt that that they were even willing to burn the birds since they would have been scared of what would happen to them. This group of people even knew that the birds were tasty since they had eaten them before in Shemot 16, but this just increased their punishment. For these people, G-d did not kill them and they suffered by having to stare and smell the meat for a month.

With this understanding, the phrase in 11:20 that the meat "would come out of their nostrils" is not referring to the meat itself but to the smell of the meat that either the meat smelled good or the meat became rancid, see Ibn Ezra on 11:20. In either event, the birds/ meat became loathsome to those people who had to hold back from eating the birds. Note, had the people not sinned, then the people would have eaten meat for a month, and eating so much meat would have made the meat loathsome to them (diminishing marginal utility).

In addition, 11:34 records that the people who had not eaten the birds had to bury the people who had begun to eat the birds, “the cravers.” Maybe this burying was also a punishment since the survivors would have realized that had they eaten first they would have died. Also, this burying might have been a way to remind the people what Egypt was really like, a place where they had to bury their male children who had been killed by the Egyptians.

Bibliography:

Alter, Robert, 2004, The five books of Moses: A translation and commentary, New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Freedman, David Noel, 1992, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Leibowitz, Nehama, 1982, Bemidbar, translated and adapted by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization

Milgrom, Jacob, 1990, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

Shemot 21:4-6 and Vayikra 25:10 – Can a Jewish slave voluntarily remain a slave forever?

Shemot 21:4 record that a slave owner can give his single slave a wife, who is apparently a non-Jewish slave, and then after the end of six years of slavery, the slave goes free, while the wife and if there are any children, stay with the slave owner. 21:5 then records that the slave can say that that he loves his master, wife and/ or children, and that he does not want to go free. The idea being that if he would go free, then he would not see his wife and children again, or that he prefers life as a slave than being a free person. 21:6 then records that his request is granted. The master puts a hole in his ear, and the person would remain a slave forever, le-olam. (One wonders if the master has to agree to the slave remaining?) A similar law is recorded in Devarim 15:17, but Vayikra 25:10 records that all Jewish slaves go free in the yovel year, which seems to mean that there is no such thing as a permanent Jewish slave.

The traditional answer to reconcile Shemot 21:6 and Vayikra 25:10 is that when the Torah uses the word le-olam in Shemot 21:6 and Devarim 15:17, the meaning is until the yovel year because fifty years is a long period of time (Talmud Kiddushin 21b, quoted by Rashi on 21:6 and on Devarim 15:17). Yet, this is not the meaning of the word le-olam, and the Rashbam (12th century, France, on Shemot 21:6, also see Rashba, towards the end of Responsa 9) writes that the simple reading of 21:6 is that a slave could choose to remain a slave forever. Furthermore, when a slave chose to be a slave "forever" a hole was bored in his ear, which Rashbam (on 21:6) explains was a sign that the person was a slave. This sign only makes sense, if the person was a slave until he died, as otherwise he would have a mark that he was a slave when he would be free.

The Rashbam is following his revolutionary idea that he states in his introduction to parashat Mishpatim, that he intends to explain the simple reading of the Torah, even when it does not accord with the halachik understanding of the Torah. To the best of my knowledge, this change only began with the Rashbam, as for instance, Rashi and Ibn Ezra do not offer explanations that counter the halachik interpretations. Prior to the Rashbam, there were many opinions that one does not have to follow Midrashim in reference to non-halachik texts, but not to follow the halachik interpretations is potentially more dangerous since people can argue that one can act based on the person’s understanding of the text. To counter this possibility, the Rashbam in his introduction to parashat Mishpatim, writes that the primary interpretation is the halachik interpretation. Touitou (2005, pp. 177-188) suggests that the Rashbam developed his new approach due to arguments with Christians in 12th century France. While many people do not accept the Rashbam’s approach, this blog (commentary) adheres to it.

Hoffmann (1953, p. 236, on Vayikra 25:40) notes that the Gra (1727-1797) wrote that this case is one of the instances where the legal tradition uproots the simple reading of the text. The idea being that we follow the tradition that a Jewish slave cannot be a permanent slave even though the simple reading of the Torah is that a slave could choose to remain a slave forever. Yet, while this rule tells us how to practice, still the contradiction would remain for understanding the Torah, as Shemot 21 and Devarim 15 imply that it is possible for a Jewish slave to be a slave forever while Vayikra 25 rules out this possibility as all Jewish slaves became free during the yovel year. I did not see that the Rashbam addressed this question.

Hoffmann (1953, pp. 236, 237) suggests that the meaning of le-olam in Shemot 21:6 and Devarim 15:17 is that the slave can never claim his freedom from his owner. However, during the yovel year, all slavery is ended without the slave having to claim his freedom and hence even a slave who cannot claim his freedom goes free in the yovel due to the national abolishment of slavery.

Barry Eichler (1985) seems to suggest that the laws of Shemot and Devarim refer to slaves who are sold because of debt, and these slaves could remain forever slaves, while the laws of Vayikra refers to slaves who choose to be slaves because of poverty, and these slaves cannot remain as slaves forever. I am not sure if this distinction between the types of slaves in the different chapters accords with the simple reading of the Torah since the Torah does not state or even imply that the slave being referred to in Shemot 21:4-6 was sold into slavery due to debt. Also, while Vayikra 25 refers to a person who is so poor that he/ she sells himself to be a slave, these passages (Vayikra 25:39-44) are after the Torah stated that all slaves go free in the yovel year (Vayikra 25:10).

I would suggest that when the slave declares that he wants to stay a slave, then he has annulled the possibility of going free in the yovel year. The reason is that Vayikra 25:10 states that all slaves are to be freed to return to their ancestral property and to their family. However, by the case of the slave who wants to remain a slave for more than six years, he is stating that his family is the wife the master gave him, his children, and/ or the master. This statement by the slave means that he is legally replacing his biological family from his birth and his claim to the ancestral property with his new family, the wife, his biological children or the master. Thus, the slave does not go free in the yovel years since in his case to return to his family means to stay a slave.  

Note the word kol, all, in Vayikra 25:10, does not mean literally all, but a majority, and this is the definition of the word kol in many verses in the Torah. 

Bibliography:

Eichler, Barry, 1985, On slavery, Harper's Bible Dictionary. edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, San Francisco: Harper & Row, p. 959.

Hoffmann, David (1843-1921), 1953, Leviticus, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.

Touitou, Elazar, 2005, Exegesis in perpetual motion: Studies on the Pentateuchal commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press.

Vayikra 18:25, 28; 20:22 – The metaphor of the land of Canaan/ Israel vomiting in the book of Vayikra

Vayikra 18:25 records that due to the sins of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan/ Israel, the land vomited them out. 18:28 (also 20:22) continues this metaphor of the land being able to vomit like a person, and records a warning that the Jewish people should not sin since if they would, then they would be vomited out the land just like the land had vomited out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. What does the term vomit in reference to land mean? What is the meaning of the metaphor?

I believe the standard explanation of the phrase that “the land will vomit out its inhabitants” is that the people will go into exile (see for example, Rashi on 18:28, quoting the Sifra and the Targum). 18:25 and 20:22 are then warnings to the Jewish people not to sin since they would be punished with exile.

Threats of punishments for sins are recorded towards the end of the book of Vayikra 26:14-43, and one of these threats is that the people will go into exile if they sin, 26:33,34. I have heard (do not recall from whom) that the punishment of the land vomiting out people differs from the similar punishment of exile in chapter 26 that the punishment relating to vomiting is an automatic exile from the land, while the punishment of exile as recorded in 26:33,34 is dependent on G-d deciding to send the people into exile.

Does the metaphor of vomiting really correspond to the idea of people going into exile? Even if a person vomits immediately after eating, still around half of the food remains in the body. Thus, if a person wants to understand that the land vomiting means that the land will somehow force the people into exile (low agricultural productivity?), this can only mean that half the people will go into exile, which significantly reduces the warning not to sin. Note in this case in Vayikra, one cannot say that the land of Canaan had low agricultural productivity at this time since the spies brought fruit that was enormous, Bemidbar 13:21,27.

Another difficulty with the idea that the metaphor of the land vomiting means that the people will go into exile is that 18:25,28 seem to explain that the Canaanites were vomited out the land of Canaan, but the Canaanites were still living in the land, as the end of 18:24 records that the Canaanites will be sent out of the land when the Jewish people come to the land.

With regard to the last difficulty, the Ramban (end of comments on 18:25) explains that the vomiting can refer to going into exile and be referring to the Canaanites since once G-d had determined that the Canaanites were to be exiled, then it is like it already occurred. A variation of this idea is that a friend of mine, Ram Elboim, suggested that since the Jewish people were about to enter the land of Israel (if there had not been the sin of the spies), so then one can understand that 18:24,28 are saying that the Canaanites are being thrown out in the present, which would include the upcoming months.

David Hoffmann (1953, vol. 2, p. 23) notes that since the Canaanites were still living in the land of Canaan/ Israel when G-d was speaking to Moshe, then it cannot be that the metaphor of vomiting means that the people will go into exile. Instead, he notes that before people vomit, they feel uncomfortable, and then the idea is that the vomiting by the land is referring to a stage where the land is making the people on the land feel uncomfortable (again, low agricultural productivity?) prior to the people being thrown out of the land (or leaving on their own?).

A different idea is that the vomiting signifies a partial exile, like a partial spewing out of food, and a partial exile could mean that while the people were living in the land, they were not the legal owners of the land. With this idea, once Avraham captured the land from the four kings (Bereshit 14:14,15), he became the legal owner of the land of Canaan. The Canaanites remained in possession of the land and lived in the land (like squatters), but they were no longer considered the legal owners of the land. With this idea, the vomiting out of the Canaanites in the past would refer to the Canaanites losing their legal ownership of the land, and then the threat of the Jewish people being vomited out in the future is that they would lose ownership of the land, which would mean that they would be living under the control of other people and/ or living with an ever-present threat of being expelled. This threat is different than the threat of exile in chapter 26, and hence the Torah uses different terms to describe the different punishments.

A variation of this third approach with regard to the Canaanites is that for approximately three hundred years the Egyptians controlled the land of Canaan/ Israel, 1468 BCE to 1140 BCE (?). Thus, the Canaanites had been ruled by a foreign ruler for quite some time or were still being ruled by a foreign ruler depending on when chapters 18 and 20 were told to Moshe. This could be the reference to the Canaanites who had been vomited out in the past in 18:20,24, as in the past, from the perspective of the time when the book of Vayikra was told to Moshe, the Canaanites had experienced a partial exile of living under foreign Egyptian rule.

This idea also accords with another aspect of vomiting since when people vomit, they are not in control of themselves, as usually the body forces them to vomit, and if a foreign ruler has control of the land, then the people are forced to do what the foreign ruler decides. The warning to the Jewish people of being vomited out in the future would then be that they would sin in the future, then they would lose control of the land of Canaan/ Israel, even if they still would be living in the land of Canaan/ Israel. 

Also, this idea that the vomiting refers to the people losing control of the land is also a measure for measure punishment for the sins described in chapters 18 and 20, many of whom relate to a lack of sexual self-control.

Bibliography:

Hoffmann, David Tzvi (Germany, 1843-1921), 1953, Leviticus, (Hebrew), Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.

The 2024 version of Andrew Schein's commentary on Haggadah is now available

 Hello,

While admittedly it is a little late, the 2024 version of my commentary on the Haggadah (116 pages, 1.5 spacing) is now available. It has some additions/ corrections / revisions from the previous versions.  If you are interested in receiving the file, send me an email, ajayschein@gmail.com, and I will send you the file.  I wish everybody a chag kasher ve-samaech and good health.  

In addition, unrelated to my commentary, as part of the Seder, we should all add a prayer for the safety of our soldiers and the return of all of the captives from Gaza.

Andrew Schein

Vayikra 11:2 - The definition of the words behamot and hayyot in the Torah

Vayikra (Leviticus) chapter 11 records different animals that can be eaten (that is to say they are kosher) and animals that cannot be eaten. After the introductory sentence, Vayikra 11:2 records, “These are the hayyot that you can eat from all the behamah that are (is) on the land." 

Which animals are classified as hayyot and which animals are classified as behemot?

In modern Hebrew the definition of hayyot are wild animals and behamot are large domesticated animals. I believe that this definition derives from the halakhah of kosher animals. Devarim 14:4,5 record, "These are the behamot that can be eaten: ox (cows), sheep and goats, gazelle, deer, roebuck, bison, antelope, wild goat, ibex, and mountain sheep." The Rambam (Laws of forbidden foods, 1:8) writes that the animals listed in Devarim14:4, the ox, sheep and goats are behamot, while the other seven animals listed in Devarim 14:5 are hayyot. The Rambam (Laws of forbidden foods, 6:1, also see Rashi on Devarim 14:4) also writes that hayyot are a sub-category of behamot. This definition has important practical implication. Vayikra 17:13 records that if a person hunts (kills) a chaya (or a bird), then the blood of the animal has to be covered with dirt. Based on this verse, the blood of an animal that is classified as a behama does not have to covered with dirt.

I do not understand this distinction between hayyot and behamot since Devarim 14:4 records "These are the behamot that you can eat" before the list of all ten animals, and there is no mention of hayyot in the verses. It seems obvious that the ten animals listed in Devarim 14:4,5 are behamot. In addition, hayyot, based on the name, living things (see also Vayikra 11:47), refers to all animals, and then behamot are a subcategory of hayyot. With regard to Vayikra 17:13, according to my more expansive definition of the term behamot, the blood of all the animals listed in Devarim 14:4,5 do not have be covered, which would be a leniency. Note with regard to which animals can be eaten, the difference between my understanding and the traditional understanding is just a question of semantics since there are still just ten land animals that can be eaten. It is just that I think that all ten animals listed in Devarim 14:4,5 are behamot, while the traditional view lists three as behamot and seven as hayyot. However, the different definitions of the term behamot lead to some differences how to understand various verses in the Torah.

If we return to 11:2, the verse means these are the hayyot, the animals, that can be eaten: (Example one:) With regard to the behamah, a sub-category of hayyot, (animals that move) on the land. And then 11:3 explains that “with regard to the behamah” means those behamot that have split hooves and bring up their cud can be eaten. Thus, some behamot can be eaten, while others cannot be eaten. Afterwards, 11:9 records a different sub-category of hayyot, example two, animals that move in the water that can be eaten, and 11:13 records a third sub-category of hayyot, example three, animals that fly that cannot be eaten.

Another verse that indicates that behamot are more types of animals than cows, sheep and goats is Vayikra 1:2, which records that a person who wants to offer a behama as a sacrifice, can offer a cow or a tzon (which refers to both sheep and goats, see Vayikra 1:10). However, if behamot are cows, sheep and goats, then there is no need to specify these animals once behamot are mentioned. We see that behamot are more types of animals than cows, sheep and goats, and then the mention of cows and tzon in Vayikra 1:2 is to limit which types of behamot can be brought as a sacrifice.

Another example is Vayikra 7:25, which records “for whoever eats helev (fat) from the behamah that is offered as a sacrifice…” This verse means that there are some behamot which can be offered as a sacrifice and some that cannot be. If the term behamot refers to the ten animals (or more) listed in Devarim 14:4,5, then there exists the possibility that some behamot are offered as sacrifices and some are not. However, if behamot are only ox, sheep and goats, then all behamot can be offered as sacrifices, and Vayikra 7:25 cannot be understood in its simple sense.

In addition, Vayikra 11:26 records that any behama that has hoofs but the hoofs are not split and does not chew its cud is tamei. Yet, if behamot are only ox, sheep and goats, then all behamot have split hoofs. Instead, 11:26 is indicating that some behamot do not have split hoofs, such as horses, donkeys, zebras (see Luzzatto on 11:26) and these behamot differ from animals whose hoofs are split and chew the cud who are kosher and not tamei. This distinction between behamot that are tamei and those that are tahor is also recorded in 20:25.

11:27 then records that any animal that walks on its paws among the hayyot that walk on four legs is tamei. This implies that an animal that walks on paws (bears, cats, dogs?) is a type of hayya, but it is not a behama. This means that a behama is a hoofed animal (ungulates) and all the animals listed in Devarim 14:4,5 seem to be ungulates. (Note that Rashi on Shemot 14:7 seems to define horses as being behamot, which supports the idea that animals that have hoofs are behamot.)

Some other verses where the two terms, hayyot and behamot appear are in Bereshit 2:19,20, by the Garden of Eden.  In Bereshit 2:19 the Torah uses the word hayya when referring to all land animals. In the following verse, 2:20, the Torah separates out the behamot (deer? sheep?), the sub-category of hayyot, from all the other hayyot in the Garden of Eden. 2:20 also refers to the behamot before the remaining land animals, hayyot, maybe because Adam was more likely to have found help (ezer) from these animals, the ungulates, who are relatively tamer than the hayyot.

Another case is in Bemidbar 35:3, where first the behamot are listed since they are more likely to be in one's field since some of them are raised for food or work, and then the general term for all animals, who may happen to be in one's fields (i.e., dogs? birds?), hayyot is recorded.

There is a third term in the Torah for a group of animals, mikneh, livestock, cattle, sheep, pigs and horses(?). Behamot are a larger category of animals than mikneh, as all mikneh are behamot but not all behamot are mikneh. Thus, Bereshit 36:6 starts with the smallest group, the mikneh, then it becomes more expansive, the behamot, all ungulates, which would be horses and donkeys, and then it refers to all possessions. In Bemidbar 31:9, the Torah first refers to women and children, then to behamot, the larger group of animals, and then to mikneh, the smaller group of animals.

In Tanakh, Micah 5:7 records that lions will eat behamot in the forest, but farm animals like cows, sheep and goats usually are not living in the forest. On the other hand, deer, antelopes and gazelle do live in forests and are eaten by lions.

After writing this, my son Yishai, pointed out to me that this discussion of what animal is defined as a behama is not new. Ibn Ezra in his commentary on Tehillim 8:8 quotes from the Karaite commentator Yefet that behamot refer to animals who eat grass, which would be ungulates, but Ibn Ezra rejected this interpretation since Mishlei 30:30 refers to a lion as being a behamah. Note Ibn Ezra in his comments on Bemidbar 31:30 refers to camels as behamot, and if a lion is considered a behama, then this would also contradict the traditional definition of the word behama. I am not convinced by this refutation from Mishlei since a verse from a prophetic writing is not sufficient to overturn the simple understanding of the verses in the Torah. It could be that the definition of the word behama changed from the time of the Torah to when Mishlei was written. Also, maybe, one can understand Mishlei 30:30 that it means that lions, who are not behamot, are stronger than behamot, which includes rhinoceros and hippopotamuses.

Shemot 32:11-35 – Sin and forgiveness by the sin of the golden calf

Shemot 32:7-10 record that when Moshe was up on Mount Sinai, G-d told Moshe that the people sinned with the golden calf, and then 32:11-13 record that Moshe prayed for the people to be forgiven. These verses indicate that Moshe prayed for the people immediately upon hearing about their sin when he was on Mount Sinai. G-d quickly agreed to forgive the people, 32:14. Yet, even though G-d forgave the people, when Moshe came down from the mountain, he broke the tablets, 32:19, told the Levites to kill the people, 32:27, and then on the following day he told the people that he had to go pray for them that maybe G-d would forgive them, 32:30. Why did Moshe break the tablets, have the Levites kill people and need to pray again when 32:14 records that G-d forgave the people? Also, 32:33-35 indicate that G-d did not accept Moshe’s prayers in 32:31,32, but had not G-d already accepted Moshe’s prayers in 32:14?

Ibn Ezra (on 32:11) explains that really Moshe only prayed (once) on the day after he came down from Mount Sinai. This appears to accord with Moshe's account of the sin of the golden calf in the book of Devarim, that there he said that he first went down from the mountain, broke the tablets and only afterwards began to pray for the people, Devarim 9:15-18. Ibn Ezra argues that Moshe could not have prayed before he destroyed the golden calf. With this approach, Ibn Ezra is forced to argue that the verses 32:11-14, which indicate that Moshe prayed on the mountain immediately upon hearing of the people's sin, are recorded out of their chronological order and really follow 32:30. Yet, still there remains the problem that 32:14 (even recorded out of order) indicates a complete pardon for the people, and 32:33-35 indicate that there was only a partial pardon for the people.

Ramban (on 32:11) asks that if Moshe really only prayed once, why would the Torah split the prayers by recording half the prayer sixteen verses before the other half of the prayer? Furthermore, Ibn Ezra's proof from Moshe's account in Devarim is not so convincing. Devarim 9:19 records that G-d listened to Moshe for a second time, which implies that there were two prayers. Also, in Devarim, Moshe was not giving a complete recording of the events, and hence maybe he skipped mentioning his first prayer since he did not want the people to know that they had been forgiven so quickly for their sins. 

Ramban argues that Moshe had to pray immediately for the people's welfare when he heard of their sins since he believed that there was a possibility that the people would have been destroyed at that moment. Thus, he claims that Moshe prayed twice, once as recorded in 32:11-14, when he heard about the sin on Mount Sinai, and then again as recorded in 32:30-34, after he had come down from Mount Sinai. Why was there a need for two prayers?

The Ramban (also see Hoffmann on Devarim 9:18,19) suggests that when 32:14 records that G-d agreed to Moshe's prayer on the mountain this just meant that the people would not be wiped out at that moment, but the people had not been truly pardoned and they could be punished later for the sin with the golden calf. Hence, Moshe had to pray again on the day after he came down from Mount Sinai. This approach is difficult since 32:14 seems to mean that G-d renounced punishing the people, and not that G-d might punish the people a few days later.

Abravanel accepts the Ramban's answer (1997, p. 542) and then he suggests (p. 546, also see N. Leibowitz, 1976a, p. 579) that the second prayer was for those people who did not participate in the sin but who did not attempt to stop the people from sinning. I doubt this since 32:14 seems to mean that everybody had been forgiven.

In his comments on Devarim, Abravanel (1999, p. 162) suggests two additional reasons why Moshe prayed twice.  One, while the Torah records that G-d renounced punishing the people in 32:14, he suggests that this information was not told to Moshe. And, then if Moshe did not know that the punishment was rescinded, Moshe had to pray a second time. This approach is difficult since there is no reason to think that Moshe was not informed that G-d renounced punishing the people, and if Moshe did not know this fact then he would have kept on praying before descending from the mountain.

Abravanel's other answer in his comments on Devarim is a variation on the Ramban's approach.  This suggestion is that when G-d renounced punishing the people, this meant that G-d would not directly kill the people, but G-d was still going to indirectly destroy the people by leaving them to fend for themselves in the desert. With this idea, one would understand that the threatened destruction recorded in Devarim 9:19 was indirect and not complete. Yet, the word in Devarim 9:19, le-hashmid, means to destroy and not simply to let the people fend for themselves, and again 32:14 seems to mean that the people would not be punished at all for their sin of the golden calf. Also 32:35 records that G-d would send a plague on the people, which is not just letting the people fend for themselves.

A different approach is that Moshe had to pray a second time due to the events that occurred after Moshe came down from Mount Sinai. When Moshe came down from Mount Sinai, he saw not only the golden calf but the dancing (around the idol?) and he broke the tablets, 32:19. N. Leibowitz (1976a, pp. 610,611) quotes Isaac Arama and the Netziv that Moshe broke the tablets to shock the people. This makes sense to me since there was pandemonium in the camp and he needed to do something to restore order in the camp. However, N. Leibowitz rejects this approach since she claims that with this approach Moshe's act was premeditated while 32:19 implies that it was a "spontaneous reaction sparked off by indignation." Yet, afterwards she writes (p. 612), "It is difficult to accept that Moshe deliberately planned to break the tablets. But the alternative – that it happened in a spontaneous fit of anger without any thought at all is equally implausible."

I would understand that after Moshe heard that G-d had forgiven the people, 32:14, he took the tablets with the idea that he would speak to the people and tell them that G-d had forgiven them. He did not intend to break the tablets when he was going down the mountain. However, when he came down, he was angry since he had not realized the mad frenzy scene that was occurring and he had to think of a way to get the people to stop. Moshe's solution was to break the tablets in front of the people, Devarim 9:17. However, this plan did not succeed.

32:25 records that even after Moshe broke the tablets and destroyed the golden calf, still the people were going wild. Accordingly, he went to plan B. He asked the people "Who is with G-d, come to me," 32:26. However, only the Levites responded. They compromised approximately 4% (22,000 males/603,000 men 20 years and up) of the population, which meant that 96% of the population was not with G-d. Moshe then sent out the Levites to kill the people who sinned, and as we discuss on 32:20-28, "Spiked water and the aftermath of the sin of the golden calf," they only killed people who had marks on their bodies which indicated that they had sinned. These people were not being killed for their actions with the golden calf, which no longer existed and for which they had been forgiven, but because they had not responded to Moshe when he asked who was with G-d. By not responding to Moshe’s call, this showed that they rejected G-d and were in essence continuing with the sin by golden calf even though the idol had been destroyed. Note, it could be that the Levites had also sinned by the golden calf, but once Moshe called to them, then they repented and answered Moshe’s call.

After this killing by the Levites, it seems that the pandemonium in the camp ended, and on the following day, Moshe told the people that they had sinned greatly and that he would pray for them, 32:30. What was the need for this prayer?  One possibility is that G-d's forgiveness of the people in 32:14 was no longer relevant since the people continued to sin by not responding to Moshe when he asked who was with G-d, 32:26. A second possibility is that in 32:14, G-d forgave the people for their worship of the golden calf, a full scale idolatry, while in 32:30, Moshe needed to pray for the people for making the golden calf independent of their worship of the golden calf. Thus, in Moshe prayer’s he refers to the making of the golden calf, 32:31, and in G-d’s response that there would be a plague for the people’s sin, again the reference is to making the golden calf, 32:35. Moshe also refers to this sin as being a great or large sin, chataah gedolah, when he spoke to the people, 32:30, in his prayer, 32:31, and when he questioned Aharon about his actions, 32:21. The reason for this designation is that people might have thought that just making the golden calf was not such a terrible action since the goal might have been to use the idol to worship G-d, and hence to impress on Aharon, the people, and readers of the Torah, Moshe uses the phrase great sin to teach that even just making the golden calf was a terrible sin.

Bibliography:

Abravanel (1437-1508), 1997, Commentary on Shemot. 1999, Commentary on Devarim, Jerusalem: Horev.

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976a, Studies in Shemot, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.

Shemot 20:5 – The term kanah in reference to G-d in the Decalogue

Shemot 20:5 records the prohibition of idolatry, and within this prohibition, the Torah states that G-d is kel kanah. This same description of G-d also appears in Shemot 34:14, Devarim 4:24, 5:9 and 6:15. What does this phrase kel kanah mean? The word kel means G-d, but what does the work kanah mean? Also, Pirkei Avot 4:28 records that R. Elazar ha-Kappar said that ha-kinah takes a person out the world, which implies that it is a negative trait, why would G-d be described as a G-d of kanah?

Rashi (on Bemidbar 25:11, also has similar comments on Devarim 29:19) writes that the term kinah always refers to a person taking vengeance. Does this mean that kel kanah means that G-d is the G-d of vengeance? While vengeance might be appropriate on some occasions, this would not seem like a flattering description of G-d.

Rashi (on Bemidbar 11:29) gives a slightly different definition that kinah means that a person sets their heart on doing something, whether to help or to take revenge. This would be the idea of being zealous or ardent, and has a potential positive element to the term.

Rashi on our verse, 20:5, offers a third variation of the definition of the word kanah or kinah, that G-d is determined to punish people who worship idolatry. Does Rashi here think this term kanah only refers to idolatry? Does this definition in reference to G-d differ from when the term kanah is used by people unrelated to idolatry? For example, Bereshit 26:14 records that Philistines were kaneh of Yitzhak, and Bereshit 37:11 records that Yosef’s brothers were kaneh of Yosef, and both cases seem unrelated to idolatry.

Even-Shoshan (1988, p. 1020) explains that this description of G-d as kel kanah means that G-d is very strict and exacting, but this seems to contradict the idea that G-d is merciful, 34:6. Also, again, can this same definition apply to other cases of the word in the Torah? For example, when the Philistines were kaneh of Yitzhak, were they being strict? Or, were Yosef’s brothers being strict with Yosef?

Robert Alter (2004, p. 430) writes on 20:5 that “the leading edge of the word here may in fact be jealousy.” If jealousy is interpreted to mean envy, could one say that G-d is envious?

I think we need to understand the word kanah in the same way in reference to G-d and in reference to regular people. As we discussed on Bereshit 26:14-33, “Yitzhak and the wells: True grit,”  in the Torah the word, kanah, means that a person will act in aggressive manor to defend a perceived attempt to limit or end a person’s rights. This same definition applies to G-d. Once the Jewish people entered into a covenant with G-d, and this process was beginning with the Decalogue, then the obligation of the people was just to worship G-d. This was a right of G-d. All the verses that refer to G-d as being kanah are cases where the people are either worshipping idolatry (Bemidbar 25:3,11,13) or they are being warned not to worship idolatry, like in 20:5. The point of 20:5 is to warn the people that G-d will act aggressively to punish them if they commit the sin of idolatry, as the verse ends that G-d will punish idol worshippers for up to four generations. Thus, both by G-d and people, the term kanah refers to acting to defend an attempt to limit or end a person’s right, but by G-d, the limiting or ending the right is referring the right of G-d to be worshipped and then the term kanah is only in reference to G-d acting against people who worship idolatry, but by people the limiting or ending rights can refers to various rights that a person claims. Accordingly, in Pirkei Avot, R. Elazar ha-Kappar can be referring to all types of rights that people make up and then fight about them since they believe their rights are being limited or ended. This fighting will take people out of the world, but his statement does not refer to G-d, where the kinah is only in reference to the sin of idolatry.

References

Alter, Robert, 2004, The five books of Moses: A translation and commentary, New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Even-Shoshan, Avraham, 1981, A new dictionary (Hebrew), Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer Publishing House.

Bereshit 41:25-44, 47-49, 54-57; 42:5,6; 47:13-26: Yosef’s economic and administrative policies in Egypt

Bereshit 41:25-32 records that Yosef interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams that there would be seven good years of agricultural abundance and seven years of famine in Egypt. Yosef then gave Pharaoh advice how Egypt could survive the seven years of famine, and Pharaoh appointed Yosef to administer Egypt, 41:33-44.

Yosef’s plan was for food to be collected in the good years and then distributed during the seven years of famine. The advice to store up food is not surprising because this would seem to be the obvious implication of Yosef’s interpretation of the dream. How was the food to be collected? 

The food could have been collected through force (Rashbam on 41:34,35), as with taxes, or the Egyptian government could have bought the food (Ibn Ezra on 41:34). The implication of 47:24, which records that Yosef imposed a tax on the Egyptian people, is that the taxation appears to have been something new. If this is true, then Yosef’s advice was to buy the food in the seven good years and this can be understood with basic economics. During the seven good years, there would be an increase in the supply of grains (the supply curve would switch right), which would drive the price of wheat down. The government could buy the grain at the lower price knowing that the costs would be recuperated during the bad years since then the price would rise due to the shortages (the supply curve would shift left). Yosef‘s advice was then based on him having perfect information about future prices due to Pharaoh’s dream.

One potential problem with Yosef’s plan to store the food, was that the food could go bad until the seven years of famine. Can wheat be stored so long (see Ibn Ezra on 41:35 and Rashi on 41:48), or was this a miracle in the story that G-d made sure that there was enough wheat for Yosef’s plan to succeed and for Yosef to meet his brothers?

41:47-49 record how Yosef gathered up all of the produce in Egypt. This surely required a large government bureaucracy to coordinate all of the purchasing (or taking), storing and distributing the food. Interestingly, MacGregor (2012, pp. 88-95) in his discussion of the Rhind mathematical papyrus, a papyrus from Egypt from around 1550 BCE that listed 84 mathematical questions which are believed to be preparations for the Egyptian civil servant exams at that time, noted how the papyrus shows the well-developed and mathematically well-trained bureaucracy in Egypt. It is not clear when Yosef lived, a little before 1550 BCE or maybe a little afterwards, but we see that in Egypt there was a talented bureaucracy at his time that could have implemented his policies.

Instead of having this large government bureaucracy, Yosef could have informed the people of the coming famine, and relied on the people themselves to store up their food. Did Yosef think that the people would not have listened since they would not trust him or because people in general are short-sighted? Or, maybe Yosef needed to have the government apparatus in order that he would be able to “catch” his brothers?

Yosef’s policies were an example of big government. Government policies usually suffer from two problems. One, government officials usually do not have sufficient information to solve problems, and two, many times the officials are more concerned with their own welfare than the welfare of the people. However, these problems did not exist in this case since Yosef was a fearer of G-d (39:9, 41:38, 42:18), and through the dreams Yosef had all the necessary information. Yet, while Yosef solved the problem of famine, in the end his solution caused the Jewish people to be in Egypt, where they eventually ended up as slaves. Yosef only had information for fourteen years, and he could not foresee the consequences of his actions after the fourteen years.

41:54-57, 42:5,6 and 47:13-26 record the implementation of Yosef’s plan during the seven years of the famine. Yosef’s actions in these years with regard to non-Egyptians can be divided into several stages, see our discussion on 41:54,56,57; 42:5-7; 47:15, “Was Egypt the breadbasket of the world in the time of Yosef?” 

Yosef’s policies just with regard to the Egyptians had four stages. First, Yosef acquired all of the people's money, then Yosef acquired their animals, and then when the people offered to sell themselves and their land, he bought their land as well. After the famine was almost over, in the fourth stage, Yosef gave the Egyptian people seeds to start over, but he instituted a tax of twenty percent which he justified since he had bought them and their land. The net result of the famine was that the people survived due to Yosef, which they acknowledged, 47:25, and then afterwards they had to pay an annual income tax of 20%.

One question about these policies during the seven years of famine is why did the Torah record them as the section of 47:13-26 seems peripheral to the main focus of the story of Yosef and his brothers? The Torah could have recorded in one sentence that the Egyptians survived the famine due to Yosef and they were thankful to him, without recording all the details of Yosef’s actions.

A second question is while we can understand why Yosef sold the grains to foreigners (from the Egyptian perspective), should Yosef have given the Egyptians the food for free? Benno Jacob (1974, p. 318) argues that it was just for the Egyptians to pay for the food since they had received money when they sold the grains to Yosef during the good years. Yet, after the Egyptians ran out of money, Yosef made them pay for the food by the Egyptians giving him their animals and then accepting their offer to sell their land and themselves for food. Why did Yosef not give the Egyptians the food for free after their money was gone? It is true that when people get things for nothing, they waste them, and during the famine the goal was to conserve the food, which implies that the food should have not been distributed completely free, but was it necessary for Yosef to take all of the Egyptians’ money, animals and their land? Maybe Yosef's goal was to have the people agree to a tax of 20% (47:24). With this idea, after the Egyptians gave Yosef their lands, then the food was given freely since there was nothing left for the people to pay. Furthermore, with this understanding, maybe the reason why the Torah records the details of the implementation of Yosef’s polices was to provide proof of Pharaoh's statement in 41:39 that Yosef was brilliant, as Yosef was able to institute a tax of 20% with complete acceptance by the public.

A third question is, was the 20% tax reasonable or fair? The answer here, as in many cases by the question of fairness, depends on one’s perspective. A tax of 20% is reasonable to a person who pays more than 20% in taxes (see Ramban on 47:19), but for somebody who did not pay any taxes before the famine to pay 20% after the famine was surely a lot.

A fourth question is why would the people trade their animals for food when they could eat the animals? The answer could be that the nourishment from the wheat they received was much greater than what they would have attained by eating their animals. This could be because they received comparably more grains than the value of their animals, and it could have been that the animals had become quite scrawny (like in Pharaoh’s dream) during the famine.

A fifth question is what did Yosef and Pharaoh do with all the animals that they acquired? Did they return them to the Egyptians after the famine? Maybe again they were so scrawny from the famine that they fed some of them and let most of them die.    

After the Egyptians sold their lands to Yosef, he moved the people throughout the country to the cities, 47:21. Not only is this a difficult process logistically, but it also would have increased the suffering of the Egyptians in those years, who were already suffering from the famine. Why did Yosef do this? (A sixth question.)

Rashi (on 47:21) explains that Yosef moved the people from one city to another city in order that they should realize that they had sold their land and that they should not look upon Yaakov's family as foreigners. This is a difficult since the verse just states that the people were moved to the city and not that they were moved from city to city. Also, is this second rationale of helping his family in some minor way sufficient to justify uprooting people from their homes?

Luzzatto (on 47:21) tries to mitigate the suffering of the Egyptians from this action by Yosef by arguing that Yosef maintained the initial groupings of the people. The idea is that all the people from each town were moved together to a new town in order that there were no problems of social adjustment. Furthermore, since the Egyptian people were willing participants in selling the land, there probably was no need to forcibly move the people. Yet, the Egyptians were probably not happy to be moved from their homeland.

Ibn Ezra (on 47:21) first writes that Yosef moved each person from his place, and then he adds a second opinion that Yosef moved all the people from the rural areas to the cities. This second opinion accords with the words of the verse, but why would Yosef do this? Ibn Ezra writes that by moving the people, then the land could be worked. This seems unlikely since during a famine there was no farming at all, 45:6.

Bekhor Shor (on 47:21, also see Rashbam on 47:21) first quotes Rashi's first explanation, and then the Bekhor Shor adds a second possibility that Yosef moved the people from city to city after each city ran out of food. The idea here is that the cities were the places where the food was sold/ distributed, and then when there was no more food to give out, the people moved to another city to get food. The Bekhor Shor writes that Rashi’s explanation is more correct, but Hertz (1960, p. 177) follows the second approach, as he writes "the cities became depots for facilitating the distribution of the food." This idea that the cities were the points of distribution accords with 41:48 that the food was gathered in the cities during the seven good years.

There was no reason for the Egyptian people to remain in the fields during the famine since due to the famine there was no possibility to farm the lands, so following Hertz's understanding, Yosef moved the people to the cities where it would be easier to feed them. Maybe the people worked at crafts in the city during the famine, and then when the famine ended the Egyptian people would have returned to their lands. Thus, Yosef’s action to move the Egyptians was only temporary until the famine was over, and was to ease the lives of the Egyptians during the famine.

However, the moving of the Egyptians as recorded in 47:21 seems to be towards the end of the years of the famine, and then one must argue that only towards the end of the famine would it have been necessary to move the people to the cities to get the food.

Another (seventh) question is that the Torah makes a point of specifying that Yosef did not buy the land of the Egyptian priests, which implies both that they paid either less or nothing for the food that they received from Yosef and that the tax was not instituted on them, 47:22,26. Independent of why the Torah records all the details of Yosef’s action by the Egyptian population in selling them food, why did the Torah mention Yosef’s special policies with regard to the Egyptian priests?

N. Leibowitz (1976, pp. 520-529, also in Jacobson, 1986) offers two explanations. One, the Torah is ridiculing the Egyptian system of justice that allowed a difference in land ownership between the elite, the priests, and the common people. However, it was Yosef who caused the Egyptians to lose their land and who made this difference in land ownership.

N. Leibowitz’s second answer is that the Torah mentions that the Egyptian priests owned their land to contrast the future Jewish law that the Jewish priests would not own land. This point is not entirely correct since while the Jewish priests did not have land in the countryside, they did have their own cities in which presumably they owned property, Bemidbar 35:2. Also, what is to be learned from this contrast? N. Leibowitz writes that it is to show that “the Levites were not chosen in order to enable them to accumulate wealth and exploit their flock” but to work for G-d. It is true that the Torah attempts to prevent the religious elite, the priests, from being the economic elite, and this separation may not have occurred in Egypt, but I doubt this is the point of this section. Here, we do not see the Egyptians priests benefiting at the expense of the people, rather we see the Egyptian people losing their land due to Yosef.

Instead, it could be that this differentiation that Yosef made between the general Egyptian population and the priests is to explain how it was that the Egyptian people seemingly easily agreed to Pharaoh to enslave the Jewish people, Shemot 1:8-10, and then to murder the male Jewish children, Shemot 1:22. Pharaoh must have had popular support from at least a majority of the population when he enslaved and tried to kill the Jewish male children. Yet, why would the people have given Pharaoh this support if 47:25 records how thankful the Egyptians felt towards Yosef? Did all the Egyptians have amnesia? One might argue that Egyptians would have had no compunctions against enslaving the Jewish people since that was normal in those times and it provided free labor, but I think to commit genocide there needed to be some underlying antagonism.

Maybe the answer is Yosef’s policies during the famine. Initially the people were happy with Yosef, but what happened after the famine was over? The people were left without their money, animals and with a new tax of 20%, and they would have forgotten how perilous their existence was during the famine. Yosef would have quickly changed from a hero to a villain. A mere 17 years after Yaakov came to Egypt, Yosef had to have Pharaoh’s officials intercede with Pharaoh to get Yosef permission to bury Yaakov in the land of Israel, 50:4,5. Furthermore, the fact that the priests were given food (either for free or cheaper), did not lose their land and did not have to pay the tax would only have increased the resentment of the Egyptians towards Yosef and his family, the Jews, since this showed that it was not necessary for Yosef to have sold the food to them. Only Pharaoh would have had a reason to remember Yosef since he was the only person who benefited in the long run after the famine was over from Yosef’s plans. Thus, once Shemot 1:8 records that a new king came to Egypt who did not know Yosef, there was nothing to stop the Jewish people from suffering at the hands of the Egyptians. Accordingly, it could be that Yosef's polices was partially responsible for the Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt, see Lerner (1989) and Wildavsky (1993, p. 8).

To conclude, were Yosef’s policies in Egypt good or bad? From a short-term perspective, during the 14 years of the good and bad years, they were successful both in saving Egypt and in re-uniting Yosef with Yaakov and his brothers, but from a long-term perspective, it is not clear if Yosef implemented the best policies during the years of the famine.

Bibliography:

Hertz, J. H. (1872-1946), 1960, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, second edition, London: Soncino Press.

Jacob, Benno (1869-1945), 1974, The first book of the bible: Genesis, commentary abridged, edited and translated by Earnest I. Jacob and Walter Jacob, New York: Ktav Publishing House.

Jacobson, B. S. 1986, Mediations on the Torah, Tel Aviv: Sinai Publishing.

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.

Lerner, Berel Dov, 1989, "Joseph the unrighteous," Judaism, 38:3, pp. 278-281.

MacGregor, Neil, 2012, A history of the world in 100 objects, London: Penguin Books.

Wildavsky, Aaron, 1993, Assimilation versus separation: Joseph the administrator and the politics of religion in biblical Israel, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.