L'shana tovah everyone.
I have made a short change to the blog format. I have created two general indexes, one for the TMH / DH project, and one for the blog in general. I then included links to these indexes in the margin on the right. Hopefully, that will increase the readability, decrease the clutter, and make navigation a little easier.
UPDATE: I probably should have put the links here.
General index
Torah Min Hashamayim / Documentary Hypothesis index
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Blog format update
Monday, September 14, 2009
Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - Part III
Monday, September 7, 2009
In That Very Day - P
Friedman points out that the phrase "in that very day" (sometimes translated "in that selfsame day" or "in that same day") occurs 11 times on the Torah. Ten of these are in P, and the 11th is R, modeled after P. The Hebrew is "בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה" or "b'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh".
Here is the list:
Gen 7:13 - "In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark."
Gen 17:23 - "And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto him."
Gen 17:26 - "In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son."
Exod. 12:17 - "And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt . . . ."
Exod 12:41 - "And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the host of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt."
Exod 12:51 - "And it came to pass the selfsame day that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts."
Lev 23:14 - "And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day, until ye have brought the offering of your God; it is a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings."
Lev. 23:21 - [On Shavuot]: "And ye shall make proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be a holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no manner of servile work . . . "
Lev 23:28 - [On Yom Kippur] "And ye shall do no manner of work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God. "
Lev 23:28 - "For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from his people."
Deut 32:48 - "And the LORD spoke unto Moses that selfsame day, saying:" [continued in 32:49-50: 'Get thee up into this mountain of Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession; and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people.'] (Note: this is from R.)
This phrase arises in very different contexts, including narrative stories (Noah's flood, Abraham's circumcision, the exodus from Egypt, death of Moses) and the laws of holidays (Passover barley offering, Shavuot, Yom Kippur).
Sinai and Horeb - Criticism of the DH
Oswald T. Allis in "The Five Books of Moses" (3rd ed 1964) attacks the DH and defends the traditional view. In this book, he addresses the Sinai-Horeb issue. His general argument is that J and E get really fragmented if one tries to separate them, and he is right. Advocates of the documentary hypothesis note this as well. If the only sources were J and E, the theory would be considerably weaker. But we also have P and D and they break more cleanly.
Let's look at his argument in detail. In making a more general point (that there are sometimes variations in wording within a single source, even though one would expect uniformity) (p. 34), Allis includes an endnote (p. 310, n. 27), where he discusses Horeb and Sinai:If Horeb is regarded as characteristic of E (Ex. iii.1, xcii.6, xxxiii.6), the mention of Sinai six times in Ex. xix constitutes a serious difficulty, since all critics apparently find a considerable E element in this chapter. According to Driver the verses which mention Sinai are either P (vss. 1, 2a) or J (vss. 11, 18, 20, 23), while vss 2b, 3a, 10-11a, 14-17, 19 are given to E. . . . But this analysis destroys the continuity of both E and J. E.g., E skips from Ex. ii.14 (or 10) to iii.1 and then to iii.4b.
Let's unpack this argument. Allis argues that if we separate E and J using the Horeb / Sinai distinction, we run into a problem with the story in Exodus 19 (were God revealed himself just before giving the Ten Commandments). More specifically, once we separate out the J and P elements from the story, we are left with an incomplete E narrative.
Allis uses Driver's breakdown of the sources. However, as I have noted, Friedman later revised this breakdown slightly and reverses some of the J and E sources. (See my Exodus comparison chart --- good thing I put that together.) Friedman's E story coveres 19:2a-9, 16b-17, and 19.) (This argument is easier to follow with an open Torah.)
How does this argument hold up? P is not a problem. The P source is simply the introductory sentence 19:1, and R has 19:2a.
E and J are a little messier, but not too bad. They are interwoven, but E stands in pretty good shape. God talks to Moses (19:3-6), and Moses tells the elders and the people (19:7-8), and then God speaks again to Moses and tells him he will appear in a cloud (19:9). And the God does so. (19:16b-17, 19.) Driver's version (see the chart) is a little shorter and choppier, but still hangs together as a coherent story.
J also holds up. In it, God tells Moses to tell the people to get ready (19:10-13) and he does so (19:14-15). On the third day, there is thunder and lightening, smoke, and God appears and speaks to Moses again. (19:16a, 18, 20-25.)
So Allis's more general point is one worth considering and I think it is one that is universally acknowledged. If separating the sources produces incoherent or incomplete stories, that weakens the claim for the DH. Conversely, if separating the stories produces complete and coherent stories, which are themselves inconsistent with other narratives, that strengthens the claim. But everyone acknowledges that separating the sources sometimes produces complete and consistent narratives that are themselves inconsistent with other narratives (like the two creation stories), sometimes produces messier fragments, and sometimes produces something in the middle. And I think everyone acknowledges that this is more of a problem with J and E, and less of a problem with P, E, and JE.
But here, once Friedman's revisions are taken into account, the E source is fragmentary but not incoherent.
So I will keep this argument in mind as we go through other sources.
Sinai and Horeb - Traditional Explanations
As noted earlier, the mountain where God appeared to the Children of Israel is called both Sinai and Horeb. As discussed earlier, the Documentary Hypothesis notes that P and J exclusively use Sinai and E and D exclusively used Horeb.
I have not yet been able to find a traditional explanation of the use of these two names. Rashi does not mention anything. The Talmud notes that these names refer to the same mountain, and then notes the derivations of the names:
What is [the meaning of] Mount Sinai? The mountain whereon there descended hostility [sin'ah] toward idolaters. And thus R. Jose son of R. Hanina said: It has five names: [...] Whilst what was its [real] name? Its name was Horeb. Now they disagree with R. Abbahu, For R. Abbahu said: its name was Mount Sinai, and why was it called Mount Horeb? Because desolation [hurbah] to idolaters descended thereon.
(Shab 89a-89b)
Without getting into the merits of this claim, it simply is addressing a different question. Regardless of how the names were derived and what they mean, why is it that one name is used in certain places and another name is used in other places?
If anyone has an explanation from traditional sources, please leave a comment.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Part 2
It ain't magic, ya know.
You simply cannot show up in synagogue on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, mumble a few prayers, and expect to be magically cleansed of your sins. It is not even clear what being "cleansed of your sins" means in that context. To make these holidays meaningful, it takes a little work ahead of time. But fortunately the payoff is large. These holidays represent an ideal opportunity to take stock of our lives, think about what we are doing right and try to continue it during the next year, and think about what we are doing wrong and take steps to correct that during the next year. Part of the great wisdom inherent in the Jewish holidays is that they provide very real, practical, and this-worldly opportunities to make our lives better.
Last year, I posted about how I and others prepared for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. A few commentators made other suggestions. I was speaking to (an Orthodox) friend and colleague the other day, and he graciously shared the interesting way in which he prepares for the holidays.
Each year during Elul (the month before Rosh Hashana) he prepares an outline of all the important areas of his life: family, professional life, friends and relationships, religious, learning, etc. He then password-protects the document and saves it. No one has access to the document, not even his wife. He lists all his specific goals for next year: where he would like to improve, where he would like to continue to do well, what specifically he would like to achieve. In preparing for this, he reviews his outline from the previous year to help him take stock of how he did during the current year.
This is similar to the process I use, but with one huge improvement: it is in writing and can be a lot more detailed. It is easy for him to check on his progress during the year and in fact in subsequent years. But I had not written down my goals, and so I sometimes had a hard time remembering specifically what I wanted to do. And with password protection, it is safe. I am going to follow his lead this year and do the same.
The only thing surprising about his process was that he described himself as being somewhat intense and fanatical about all this. I got the sense from him that few people in his community do this kind of preparation for the holidays. Few people in my Conservative community do this type of preparation either, at least that I know of. But I think we all should do something along these lines. To borrow Tom Lehrer's line (and omit his simile): what we get out of these holidays depends on what we put into them. I am sure that we have all experienced boring and meaningless Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services, where we walk out of synagogue and wonder why we went in the first place. Well, a little preparation now solves that problem then.
So let me leave people with two questions, one religious and one sociological:
What if anything do you or people you know do to prepare for the holidays?
How many people in your family or community prepare for the holidays in some serious way?
Posting update
I'm sorry for the infrequent postings of late. I've been swamped with work, vacation, and home projects. But I'm still here, and I expect to pick up the pace a bit in the next few weeks.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Consoling the Bereaved
Rabbi Yitchok Adlerstein at Cross-Currents seems to exclusively write thoughtful, interesting, and sensitive posts. (I started reading his Cross-Currents posts about a decade ago in their pre-blog e-mail stage.) He has just written on consoling the bereaved. I do not have anything to add to the substance, other than to note that it is well worth reading.
From my Conservative Jewish perspective, I have long thought that Judaism and contemporary society both influence each other, especially where they differ. For example, some modern values, like egalitarianism, feminism, democracy, empiricism and science, and philosophic free inquiry, present strong challenges to traditional and pre-modern Judaism, and some of these ideas have resulted in important changes to Judaism, especially in the more liberal branches. The converse is true as well. As I discussed in an earlier post on "low hanging fruit", there are some traditional Jewish values and sensibilities that are brilliant and insightful and are manifestly counter-cultural in modern America. The prohibition of gossip, for example, is high on my list. Regardless of denomination (or even lack of denomination), we can benefit from understanding these ideas and incorporating them into our lives.
One of these counter-cultural practices --- as Evanston Jew noted in the comments to that post --- is traditional Jewish practices regarding burial, mourning, and comforting the bereaved. R. Adlerstein's post puts meat on those bones. He offers practical suggestions on what to do and say (and not do and not say) at a funeral, shiva visit, and afterwards. This is an uncomfortable situation for most of us, and traditional ideas are quite helpful. Like all of his posts, this one is worth reading.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Daughters of Zelophechad 2 - Legal Theory, Common Law, and Repeated Commands
A commenter Jerry raised an important challenge (here and here)to my interpretation of the Daughters of Zelophechad story (here and here). My argument, in short, is that Moses's final political act was to modify a halachic rule in the name of God, but without consulting God, to promote justice. In doing so, he created a common law system. The story is in Numbers 36:1-12.
Jerry disagrees. He argues, based on Number 36:5 and 6, that Moses did consult God first. The narrative of that consultation is omitted in the text, but it is referred to by Moses. He further argues that this story is shortened because the action speeds up once Moses's death is announced in Number 27:12.
This argument is plausible, but I think my reading is better.
The Torah contains three stories involving a change in the law, and the question I am addressing is what do we make of these stories. A careful look at the three stories shows an interesting change in structure.
The first story involves the second passover (pesach sheni) story in Numbers 9. God issues a command regarding the passover sacrifices. Some people come to Moses with a particular problem. They are ritually unclean (since they just buried a dead person) and cannot offer the sacrifice. (Num. 9:6-7), Moses then consults God and God explicitly responds with a change in the law, namely, that they can celebrate Passover a month later. (Num. 9:8-14). God not only modifies the law for people who are ritually unclean, but also for people who are are on a long trip. Notably, God changes the law without commentary or explanation, but the clear implication is that the old law did not work well, at least for these people in these particular circumstances.
The second story involves the Daughters of Zelophechad. (Num 27.) They come to Moses with a particular problem with the law (Num 27:1-4), and the text explicitly states that that Moses consulted God and God responded with a change in the law. (Num 27:5-6.) Here, God changes the law because the daughters' claim is "just".
The third story involves the men from Manasseh wanting a further modification to the previous law change. They consult Moses and explain the problem. (Num 38:1-4.) But there is no account of Moses consulting God as he did in the two earlier stories. Instead, the next sentence simply says "And Moses commanded the children of Israel on (or about) the word of God." (Num 36:5.) And then, "This is the word (or thing) that the Lord has commanded regarding Zelophechad's daughters." (Num 36:6.)
From a purely halachic point of view, all three stories are unnecessary. The final halachic rule is "Do X, unless Y applies, in which case do Z." The Torah could have simply set forth the rule in that form. (E.g., Celebrate Passover on 14th of Nissan. However, if you are ritually unclean or on a long trip, celebrate it on the 14th of Iyar.) However, the Torah gives us the general rule, a story where this general rule creates a problem, the people effected asking Moses for an exception, Moses consulting God, and God agreeing to the exception. In fact, with the two Daughters of Zelophechad stories, there is a complex final rule involving a limitation to an exception to a rule.
My claim is that the purpose of the stories is to show that halacha is a common law system. It evolves and changes. In the first story (pesach sheni), the problem involves people who are ritually unclean, but God imposes a broader exception (for people who are unclean or on a trip). This shows that exceptions are not always limited to particular cases, but may involve broader categories or similar categories. In the second story (Daughters of Zelophechad), the change is made in the interests of justice. That is, it identifies one particular reason for making a change in the law. And in the third case (men from Manasseh), there is a shift in the source of the change. Rather than the text explicitly stating Moses consulted God and God commanded the change, we have no mention of Moses consulting God and Moses commanding the change himself, albeit stating that it is from God. My claim is that this story teaches that once Moses knew the principles and was old and wise, he himself could modify the law under appropriate circumstances in accordance with these principles. And this change in the law is in fact commanded by God. In other words, this is another example of people acting to bring Godliness into the world, rather than God acting to bring Godliness into the world in a supernatural way.
This is a perfectly reasonable way to run a legal system. English and American common law have worked this way for the better part of a millennium. In fact, I think the halachic system recognizes this explicitly. Not only can leaders impose new laws as "fences", but they can also command that positive Torah mitzvot not be performed (such as the rule prohibiting the explicit Torah mitzvah of hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashana when RH falls on Shabbat).
Jerry notes that the wording in this third story is used elsewhere. The text says "And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying: 'The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaketh right. This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying: ....'" That is, Moses himself notes that God issued these commands. And this form is used elsewhere. For example, "And Moses spoke unto the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded: . . . ." (Num. 30:2.) In this last example, there is no record of God explicitly saying these things, but presumably God did. So too in Numbers 34, argues Jerry.
This is certainly a plausible reading of the text. But this theory does not explain why the structure of the narrative changed from the earlier two stories (where God was explicitly consulted) to here, where God is not explicitly consulted in the text. And it does not explain what we learn from this story. We already know from the earlier two stories that God can change the law and that God does so when a claim is "just."
Jerry's explanation is that the narrative needs to speed up once Moses's death is announced in Number 27:12. But a single sentence saying that Moses asked God would not drag things out. Note how this is dealt with in the second story: "And Moses brought their cause before the LORD. And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: . . . ." That doesn't really slow down the action a lot. And of course we have the entire book of Deuteronomy before Moses finally dies, and the action comes to a complete stop during that book.
Moreover, Numbers 28 (the chapter immediately after Moses's future death is announced) contains a long speech by God. Jerry notes this and argues that it is a "follow up" to the same commands in Exodus. True, but that makes matters worse. If the text is trying to speed up, it makes no sense to include repetitive mitzvot and add extra text involving God speaking.
But strictly speaking, Jerry's reading is plausible. There is enough in the text, consistent with other areas of the Torah, to support the reading that Moses did consult God here. And my reading is plausible as well. There is an odd change in the structure of these stories that is only explained by the idea that Moses did not explicitly consult God but made the change himself based on divine principles. And my theory ties in with a broader notion of the common law evolution of halacha. But neither of our theories give a broader account of when the Torah presents a command by stating that God says X, that Moses says God says X, or both.
Eilu v'eilu.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Halachic Argument for Evolving Halacha
Moses's final act as the leader of the Israelites (other than his long review speeches in Deuteronomuy) is to make an explicit change in halacha, in the name of both God and justice, without consulting God. This is contained in two separate stories involving the Daughters of Zelophechad and inheritance law. (See Num. 27:1-11 and Num. 36:1-12.) The straightforward interpretation of this story (maybe even at the peshat level) is that Jewish law, or halacha, is not a static set of rules, but instead evolves over time, like common law. Laws can change, new laws can be imposed, and old laws can be removed, provided that the demands of justice require this change.
This interpretation runs directly counter to the contemporary Orthodox understanding of halacha, although I have not seen a traditional explanation of these stories that explains them in any other way. It also supports a Conservative understanding of halacha, although I have never seen this story offered as a proof text for modifications of halacha.
The first story is contained in this week's parsha, and I blogged about this last year. This blog has quite a few more readers this year than last year. Rather than repeat the post, I simply link to it here. Take a look. (If you leave a comment, please leave it in last year's post rather than in this post.)
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