The Man who Tried to Put it All Together: A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

The Man who Tried to Put it All Together:

A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

By Yehudah Mirsky

Yehudah Mirsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University, and the author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale University Press), available here (link).

This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog.

Jerusalem of the 1930s was boiled in fury. The inevitability of bitter conflict with the Arabs of Palestine had become too clear to deny, while the fighting among Jews, if not quite as violent, was bitter and unmistakable. How to deal with the Arabs, how to deal with the British, how to bring new immigrants and, once they were there, sustain them, how to deal with Hitler’s shadow looming large over Europe – and how to deal with Zionism’s revolution not only against centuries of Jewish politics, but centuries more of Jewish religion and history. The arguments were as heated as the stakes were high.

All the more striking it was that on Monday, September 2, 1935, the fourth day of Elul 5695, some fifteen thousand people, amounting to one third of Jewish Jerusalem and nearly five percent of Jewish Palestine, religious and secular alike, joined by foreign diplomats, scholars, day laborers and rabbis, came out to follow the coffin of Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, dead at age seventy. The procession wound from his yeshiva near Zion Square, in three columns through the Old City, to his freshly dug grave on the Mount of Olives, as thousands more watched from the rooftops.

The night before, just a few hours after his passing, the Nineteenth Zionist Congress, meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, had held a memorial service of its own. Menachem Ussishkin, president of the Jewish National Fund responsible for land-purchases in Palestine and incoming President of the Zionist Executive, had long been Rav Kook’s chief interlocutor in the Zionist leadership, navigating between the movement’s relentlessly secularizing thrust, and the rabbi’s dogged insistence that the movement was bound to be the very vehicle of spiritual rebirth, for Jews and the world. Ussishkin said the rabbi had told him the building modern-day Palestine, its roads, factories and farms was nothing less than rebuilding the Temple – and that now, as then, all the ranks were meant to work together, the secular, itself charged with divine energy, being the indispensable foundation of the sacred.

Ussishkin was followed by Meir Berlin, leader of the perpetually-embattled Religious Zionist movement, the Mizrachi (whose Hebraized name would later garnish Israel’s religious university, Bar-Ilan). Rav Kook, Berlin said, “loved the Jewish people the way only a father can love his children. Nobody is left after him who will love his nation that fiercely…He understood his people, the situation of the generation, and its life conditions, and that is why he forgave them everything.” There was a lot to forgive.

Berlin and Rav Kook went back a very long way, longer than the former’s own lifetime. In the fall of 1884, then aged nineteen, Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook had become a student and disciple of Berlin’s father, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, known as “The Netziv,” dean of the great yeshiva of Volozhin. The yeshiva teemed with prodigies, future rabbis and future revolutionaries, among whom young Kook stood out, for an unfamiliar mix, appealing to some, off-putting to others, of intellectual prowess, intense piety, and lyric sensibility.

In the early years of his career, begun in a tiny Lithuanian shtetl, Kook was drawn to Maimonidean rationalism. With time, and intense grief at the death of his first wife, he turned inward, undertook deep introspection and extensive study of Kabbalah, on his own and with Rav Shalom Elyashiv (grandfather of the recently departed Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv). Alongside his command of Talmud and halakha, he mastered an extraordinary range of Jewish mystical, philosophical and other texts, read widely in the rich Hebrew and Yiddish periodical literature of the day, and became an autodidact of contemporary philosophy. In a departure from rabbinic conventions, he made serious study of the non-halakhic portions of the Talmud, the Aggadah and all its divergent voices.

“There are those who erroneously think that world peace will only come from a common character of opinions and qualities. But no – true peace will come to the world precisely by multiplication of all the opinions and perspectives… all facets of the larger truth… peace (is) the unification of all opposites. But there must be opposites, so that there be those who labor and that which will be unified… Hence peace is the name of God, who is the master of all the forces, omnipotent and gathering them all.” (Eyn Ayah to Massekhet Berakhot, vol. 2, pp. 397-398, 9:361, on BT Berakhot 64a.)

In another, marking his burgeoning conviction that God is to be found in the stormy recesses of one’s own inner life, he began to keep a spiritual diary.

In the summer of 1904 Kook moved to Palestine after accepting an offer to become the rabbi of Jaffa and the surrounding colonies, effectively becoming rabbi of the New Yishuv (Jewish collective). The year of his arrival marked the beginning of the Second Aliyah, the migration wave that brought a small but influential cadre of young intellectuals and revolutionaries who left an outsized mark on the political and cultural development of the New Yishuv. The combined effect of his encounters with their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the Jewish people and for the ethical universalism of Socialism, with the vibrancy of the New Yishuv and sheer embodied-ness of the land was electrifying. In public, he became the leading rabbinic champion of the New Yishuv, and thus the target of traditionalist attacks. In private, as time went by he wrote more and more furiously and extensively in his diaries, lost in a torrent of thought as he began to train the dialectical worldview which he had developed to understand the complex mix of his own soul and the ideological debates of Eastern Europe onto larger historical patterns. His thinking also became explicitly Messianic.

Thus in his reading, and in a move which astonished and enraged many of his Rabbinic peers, the rebelliousness of the pioneers was neither accidental, nor evil, but in fact nothing less than part of God’s plan to restore to Judaism a vitality and universal spirit worn thin in centuries of exile. The young rebels against tradition in the name of Jewish nationalism and social justice were nothing less than the bearers of a new revelation.

In a major essay of 1912, Li-Mahalakh Ha-Ideiot be-Yisrael, (“The Progression of Ideals in Israel,”) he presented a philosophy of Jewish history structured along series of mirroring, theses and antitheses, whose collective synthesis is redemption: The vital, collective, bodily Judaism of the Bible followed by its antithesis, the subdued, individualized, spiritualized,Judaism of Exile, all to be synthesized in the fullness of redemption.

The Land of Israel was central to his reflections.

“The holiness within nature is the holiness of the Land of Israel, and the Shekhinah that went down into exile with Israel (BT Megillah 29a) is the ability to preserve holiness in opposition to nature. But the holiness that combats nature is not complete holiness, it must be absorbed in its higher essence to the higher holiness, which is the holiness in nature itself, which is the foundation of the restoration and tikun olam… And the holiness in exile will be joined to the holiness of the land, and the synagogues and batei midrash of Bavel will be reestablished in the Land of Israel.” (Ibid; and Shemonah Kevatzim 2: 326-327, Orot pp. 77-78).

Here and throughout he was reinterpreting a rich skein of Kabbalistic thought, in which the divine presence, the Shekhinah, as the Oral Torah, is Knesset Yisrael, the sacred community of Israel, and thus the Land, are all ultimately as one, constituting, as Sefirat Malkhut the very meeting point of God and the world. The “Ideals” under discussion in his 1912 essay were not only the Ideals of Western philosophy and the moral, spiritual and aesthetic ideas driving all human yearning, but also, and more deeply, the Sefirot, the nodal points of divine energy that in Kabbalistic teaching are the deep structure of all of Being, and, animated as it is with divine energy, its endless Becoming.

The outbreak of World War One caught Rav Kook in Germany, where he’d hoped to attend a rabbinic conference and mollify some of his peers’ fierce opposition to the Jewish national revival. He spent the war years in Switzerland and then England, in horrified witness to the great civilizational suicide.

The world crisis and slaughter were redeemed for him by the Balfour Declaration, which he took as electrifying confirmation of his messianic reading of world events. As always, the national was for him complemented by the universal, and in the midst of the war, in the pages of his diaries, he reached some of the farthest heights of his universalism:

“There is one who sings the song of his self, …And there is one who sings the song of the nation, who cleaves with gentle love to Knesset Yisrael as a whole, and sings her song with her, grieves for her sorrows and delights in her hopes…And there is one whose soul expands further beyond the bound of Israel, to sing the song of man…And there is one whose spirit expands and ascends even higher, to the point of unity with all creation, with all creatures and all worlds, and sings with them all…And there is one who ascends above all these songs in a single union, and all sound their voices…The song of the self, of the nation, of man, of the world – all come together within him at every time, in every hour. And this perfection in all its fullness ascends and becomes a sacred song, God’s song, Israel’s song…a simple song, doubled, tripled, fourfold, the Song of Songs of Shlomo (Cant. 1:1), (as the Midrash says) The King to Whom Peace, belongs.” (Midrash Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah, 3:1(6), Vilna ed.) (Shemonah Kevatzim, 7:112, Orot Ha-Kodesh, vol. 2, pp. 444-445).

On his return to Palestine be became, first, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, and in 1921, the co-founder, with his Sephardi colleague Yaacov Meir, of the Chief Rabbinate. What was for the British an extension of established colonial policy of delegating religious services and some legal jurisdiction to local religious authorities was for him an opening to institutions that would gradually reshape the law into a new Torah for a redeemed Eretz Yisrael. He hoped to create institutions that would move the historical progression forward, creating the halakha and institutions to guide the great changes to come.

The reality was more complicated. That which made him the obvious choice to head the Rabbinate and indispensable to the burgeoning project of building the Jewish national home – his mix of erudition and piety, his engagements with modern thought and culture, a deeply conciliatory personality and a theology and historical perspective to make that conciliation the basis of a new philosophy – his ability to square seemingly incommensurate circles, left him out of the political mix and unable to make headway on his most prized projects, the new Rabbinate and bringing the Zionist movement into deep dialogue with Judaism.

It all came to a head in 1933 with the murder of the general secretary of Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party, Chaim Arlosoroff. Suspicion fell on Jabotinsky’s Revisionists, who had been doing rhetorical and sometimes physical battle with Mapai over its willingness to negotiate Jewish immigration with Hitler, and several were arrested. Rav Kook himself had never affiliated with a party, or even formally joined the Zionist movement as such. But once convinced of the Revisionists’ innocence, Rav Kook threw himself and all his stature into their defense. The accused were exonerated, but his ties to the Left were irrevocably broken.

The ultra-Orthodox, for their part, throughout his Jerusalem years, saw him as their gravest foe and attacked him relentlessly, even while on his deathbed, and after.

The ensuing decades saw growing interest in Rav Kook’s teachings and their significance. The thousands of pages of his diaries were edited and published, in different series, by his disciple “ha-Rav ha-Nazir,” David Cohen (see here) and by Rav Kook’s son, Zvi Yehudah.

The latter eventually assumed the deanship of his father’s yeshiva, renamed Mercaz Ha-Rav, and in the late 1960s and early ‘70s became spiritual leader of the new vanguard of Religious Zionists.

When in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 religious Zionists decided to capture the flag and lay hold, not only of the hilltops of Judea and Samaria but of the Zionist movement as a whole, they were taking the religious language that Labor Zionism had made into a functional tool for a political program and re-infuse it with its classical religious meaning. And they did so, with the conceptual tools provided them by Zvi Yehudah, in his interpretation of his father.

The central question for Zvi Yehudah, his own successors, and for his and their critics within Religious Zionism, (most notably Rav Yehudah Amital) was what his father would have said, and how his ideas ought to be interpreted. It’s hard to think of another Jewish theologian whose legacy has been as consequential as AvrahamYitzhak ha-Kohen Kook.

Those arguments continue in present-day Israel, where new volumes by and about Rav Kook, academic, sectarian and popular, continue to be published at a dizzying pace year after year. The publication in recent years of his diaries in their original form has heightened interest in him, while showing the depth of his immersion in Kabbalah, and the depths he was plumbing in his own complicated soul. He simultaneously embraced both universalism and particularism with rare vehemence. He saw genuine revelation in the spiritual life of all peoples, and in the very body of Israel, whose unique collective vocation was the salvation of mankind. He affirmed both pragmatism and utopia, or in his terms, sagacity and prophecy. The common thread to this entire way of thinking is the dialectic, a principled appreciation of complexity, and the ways in which precisely that complexity, that coincidence of opposites, is that which gives birth, slowly, to whatever it is that we can know of truth.

The last day of his life was the third day of Elul, sixteen years to the day since his arrival, after the Great War, in Jerusalem. He had been ailing with cancer for months and gone to the then-suburb of Kiryat Moshe. In his last days he’d received a number of visitors, including a disciple of the Rebbe of Munkacs, come to query Rav Kook’s support for the Zionists, and the young rabbi and theologian, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who was visiting from America on what would be his only visit to the Land of Israel (see here). And, after asking his physician how long he had left to live, did his best to read through the Mishna, Bible and Bahya ibn Paquda’s eleventh-century classic, Duties of the Heart, one last time.

On the first day of Elul, the penitential month, Ha-Nazir had brought him the elegantly designed title page of the theological compendium he’d wrought out of the spiritual diaries, to be entitled, “Light of the Holy,” Orot Ha-Kodesh. Rav Kook wept and asked that on the title page he be referred to simply as “Rav” and nothing more. He was surrounded by treasured rabbinic colleagues – Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, Rav Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, Rav Aryeh Levine – and Ha-Nazir stood in the courtyard downstairs, his face buried in a tree. At the very end, Rav Kook’s lips were moving. His disciple and soul-mate, Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap leaned over him, and heard him say, “Even now, my hope in God doesn’t falter.”

Rav Kook turned his face to the wall as the attending physician rinsed the blood from his body, and once his visitors re-entered the room, he faced them all once again. They began to say the Shema together, and he joined them on the final word, “Echad / one.”

Easing the Donkey’s Burden: Nitkatnu Hadorot or Nitgadlu?

Easing the Donkey’s Burden: Nitkatnu Hadorot or Nitgadlu?

By Rabbi Simcha Feuerman

“If the earlier generations were like angels, we are like humans. But if they were like humans, then we are like donkeys.”
(Talmud Shabbat 112b)

One of the basic and fundamental tenets of our tradition is respect and deference for the previous generations. Although there are notable exceptions, generally, rabbinic authorities do not override or disagree with the rulings of authorities from a previous class, such as Amoraim disagreeing with Tanaim, Gaonim with Amoraim, Rishonim with Acharonim and so on. While this may be due largely to conceding that their knowledge of, and access to Torah Sheb’al Peh is more accurate[1], there is also an aspect of deference and respect for those who are considered to be of higher moral and spiritual character. [2]

This principle has a subtle but pervasive impact on the chinuch we give our children; it is not uncommon for rebbes and rabbanim to speak of “Nitkatnu Hadoros – The generations have become diminished” as a reason to explain how we are unable to fulfill a particular spiritual, moral or halachic ideal. For example, while it is virtually unheard of to fast for more than 25 hours today, there were minhagim to fast for two days consecutively – on the 9th of Av and the 10th of Av[3], as well as those who were able to make vows of abstention for penitence.[4] Apparently, we consider ourselves too morally and physically weak to live up to this standard. Likewise, based on the accounts of many individuals from the previous generations, it was not uncommon for persons to spend the entire Yom Kippur night standing and reciting Psalms, and THEN praying the full day. This seems beyond reach for most of us today. When contemplating this, most people wearily sigh, “Oy, the doiros get more shvach (weak).” These are but two examples of many instances where the deterioration of subsequent generations is an accepted fact of life in our tradition and our culture.

Is this principle absolutely true in all areas? Is each successive generation truly less spiritual and less moral than the previous ones? Are we riding a one-way train down to the depths of oblivion waiting to be rescued by the arrival of Messiah? This resonates with the midrashic tradition about our ancestors in Egypt, who would have descended past all forty-nine levels of impurity had they not been rescued.[5] While such a belief seems to be well-supported by everything we have studied so far, there is a basic illogic to this position. What is the spiritual purpose in the divine plan for sustaining us, if indeed each generation is less worthy? Why not just throw in the metaphysical towel and bring Mashiach now, while we are still partially ahead of the game?

The answer must be, as was undoubtedly true in regard to our ancestors who were slaves in Egypt, that despite our continuous moral deterioration, our experiences must be preparing us and priming us for an ultimate experience of higher spirituality and achievement. Presumably, the experience as slaves in Egypt somehow was a necessary preparation for acceptance and fulfillment of the Torah. Indeed, many commandments in the Torah, ranging from Shabbat to the laws of usury, are supplemented with a reminder that we are obligated to follow them “Because I am your G-d who took you out of Egypt.”[6] Furthermore, in regard to the capacity of empathy and caring for the plight of the downtrodden, the Torah reminds us “And you know the soul of the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[7] If the experience of slavery in Egypt helped elevate and prime our ancestors for the accepting of the Torah, it may likewise be a fair assumption that while each generation may be undergoing spiritual and moral deterioration, there also is some new quality that is being
developed. Perhaps this quality is not fully expressed and lays dormant until the time of redemption, or perhaps its quality is available and accessible to all of us right now.

In this essay, I will suggest one specific area where each generation improves its ability and depth to comprehend and fulfill the Torah, as well as the practical implications for the chinuch of our children. According to fascinating research and statistics regarding I.Q. scores, the ability to perform abstract reasoning increases significantly with every generation. This has a distinct impact on the ability to understand the more esoteric parts of the Torah, such as the reasons for the mitzvot, ways of understanding reward and punishment, as well as the mystical aspects of religious activities. The Talmud tells us that “Three things expand a person’s consciousness: A pleasant home, a pleasant wife and beautiful utensils”[8], and it is quite possible that the relative wealth and security of modern life allows for each generation to improve its capacity to understand abstractions, because our surroundings are more pleasant and engender sensitivity and perception. As we shall see, the Sages of the Talmud did not believe the average not-so-learned Jew to be capable of grasping and comprehending many of the deeper aspects of the Torah. There are numerous examples of this, and we shall study a few of them found in the Talmud and Medieval authorities.

The Truth about the Scrolls

The Talmud tells us that one of the early rabbinic decrees was a form of impurity applying to holy scrolls. While it seems rather strange to declare holy scrolls to be impure, the rabbis had good reason to do so. According to the Talmud, the common folk developed an ill-advised habit of storing food consecrated as Terumah in the same areas where they stored the holy scrolls. The people reasoned, “The Terumah is holy and the scrolls are holy so why not store them together?” The problem with this practice is that the rodents would come to eat the Terumah and inevitably also chew on the scrolls. Therefore, the rabbis brilliantly declared that the scrolls are always impure, greatly discouraging people from storing them near the Terumah, which was required to be ritually pure.[9]

This clever bit of social engineering begs one basic question: If the people were compliant and agreeable to following rabbinic rules and injunctions, why did the rabbis have to complicate matters by decreeing that the scrolls were impure, and of all things, have the audacity to suggest that holy scrolls are impure? Would it not have been simpler to merely forbid storing holy scrolls alongside Terumah? This suggests that actually the rabbis could not easily or completely secure compliance via this route and therefore could not directly forbid the co-placement of Terumah and scrolls. Instead, they needed to tap into an apparent cultural taboo and respect for the laws of Terumah purity as a way to mobilize the people to comply and refrain from storing scrolls next to the Terumah. In other words, to simply tell people that rodents will chew on the scrolls and therefore it is forbidden to store Terumah next to them would not have been as effective as creating a new form of impurity. By creating a rabbinic decree of impurity, the rabbis were able to tap into a deeply ingrained respect for the laws of purity and fear of violating them. This was apparently the most effective deterrent.

Another possible instance where the Sages used the taboo of impurity to shape behavior is in regard to the rabbinic mitzvah of washing hands before eating bread. The stated reason for this law seems highly convoluted and begs for a deeper explanation. The reason supplied is that since, when the Temple is rebuilt and the Cohanim will eat Terumah they will need to wash their hands before eating, the rabbis wanted to accustom everyone to wash.[10] This reason is a quite a stretch, because the original ruling itself that required the Cohanim to wash was only based on another rabbinic declaration that hands are automatically considered ritually unclean. So, in effect you have a rabbinic injunction to safeguard a rabbinic injunction, in effect a double safeguard, which is usually not the modus operandi of the sages.[11] Furthermore, let us study the original reason for declaring unwashed hands as impure in regard to Terumah bread. The Talmud tells us it is because one’s hands absentmindedly touch many objects.[12] The rabbis therefore enacted a strange form of impurity declaring only the hands and no other part of the body impure, and then allowing a special ritual of water poured from a vessel to act as a mikvah for the purpose of removing the impurity. This is in itself quite remarkable, because indeed had a person’s hand absentmindedly touched an impure
object such as dead rodent as the stated reason fears, the entire person’s body would be rendered impure and he would need to immerse himself in the mikvah. Washing his hands from a vessel would accomplish nothing. So, what problem if anything, did the rabbis
solve?

In fact, Rashi (Ad loc.) finds this explanation so implausible that he suggests another explanation, admittedly overriding what his rabbis taught. Rashi proposes that the requirement to wash before eating Terumah was enacted in order to ensure that the person eats clean hands out of respect for the holy food. If so, it is not implausible that the rabbis ultimately extended this requirement to all bread in order to encourage sanitary eating habits.[13] In any case, it is clear that according to Rashi, the rabbis once again used the taboo of impurity to shape social behavior, at least to show deference for Terumah by eating with clean hands, and possibly to eat with general cleanliness.

This deeply ingrained fear and respect for the laws of ritual impurity and regard for the sanctity of Terumah bread cannot be underestimated. So much so, that according to some interpretations of the Mishna Nedarim, even a thug and a murderer will still be “pious” and careful to make sure he does not defile Terumah. The Mishna states that if one is accosted by bandits, he may make a false oath declaring his produce as Terumah, so bandits and/or self-appointed tax collectors will leave him alone. Incredibly, this implies that a bandit, who has no qualms robbing and murdering, will not want to transgress the boundary of defiling Terumah. This brings new meaning to the concept of honor among thieves![14]

These were not the only instances where the rabbis tapped into the taboo against impurity as a way to shape society. The Sages were quite concerned about Jewish children being exposed to inappropriate sexual contact during playtime with their gentile neighbors. They therefore decreed that gentile children be considered to have the impurity of a zav (a certain disease that was considered to cause a high degree of impurity, see Leviticus ch. 15) so that the Jewish children would not play with the gentile children. This decree was enacted to protect them from being subjected to improper contact.[15] One would think it would have been more effective to just educate and warn parents about the dangers of inappropriate sexual contact and/or abuse, as we attempt to do nowadays. Apparently, the rabbis who enacted this decree felt the standards of tznius would be violated if they stated their concerns directly, and/or their warnings would go unheeded because the average parent considered such acts unthinkable. They therefore resorted to the fear of impurity as a way to influence parental behavior and protect the children, taking care of safety concerns without violating tznius or overwhelming people with information beyond their ability to emotionally process.”

We see from the above examples that the rabbis had no qualms about withholding information and influencing people via their taboos, so long as it was for a worthy cause. Apparently, at least in regard to the examples of the scrolls and molestation prevention, the rabbis did not have enough faith in the average person’s ability to grasp or handle the entire truth. One wonders if this is an approach that would work well nowadays. It does not seem likely. As members of a democratic and open society, people expect and demand transparency from their leaders. While these may or may not be Torah values, they are expectations that are accepted as our rights. Furthermore, as we shall see later in this essay, the research shows that in modern times the average person is indeed more capable of understanding and grasping nuances than in previous generations. [16]

As If They Are Children

In his introduction to Perek Chelek, Maimonides tells us that the pleasures of the soul are as inconceivable to us as color is to person who
is blind from birth. The ultimate reason for doing mitzvot should not be about reward or punishment, rather one’s focus should be on wanting to become attached to G-d by performing his will. In the World to Come, the soul will experience great ecstasy to whatever degree it can attain attachment to G-d, and the greatest possible punishment is that of karet, which is the soul’s disconnection from G-d.[17] Maimonides tells us, despite the value and importance of this lofty concept, the Torah exhorts people in terms of reward and punishment as a concession to the limits of human understanding and motivation. Few people would be motivated by the abstract notion of connection or disconnection to G-d. Instead, for most people, the expectation of concrete reward and punishment is necessary to propel people in the direction of spiritual growth. In time, as the person ascends to greater heights, he may be become capable of fulfilling the commandments completely lishmah, as is prescribed by Antignos Ish Socho in Pirke Avot.[18] Maimonides explains that this is no different than a parent or teacher who motivates a young child to study by offering him sweets, and then as he gets older, offers even more significant prizes. Only when the child is a full adult will he realize the value of what he is studying, and will he no longer require material rewards and prizes.

But, again one must wonder, is it true that people today would be insufficiently motivated by a vision of spiritual ecstasy and attachment to G-d? The thousands of Jews and non-Jews who flock to gurus, ashrams, so-called “Kabbalah” Centers and other similar places seem to indicate this is not quite true. In fact, perhaps to the modern man, the idea of heavenly reward and punishment may seem juvenile and much less of a motivator than the notion of performing good and moral deeds for their own sake. Furthermore, although in the intimacy of my counseling practice as a psychotherapist, I indeed have encountered a fair share of clients who express nihilistic sentiments and profess atheism or agnosticism, I also have been deeply moved by persons of high moral character who profess a firm conviction that there is no G-d, nor any afterlife whatsoever. I have seen such persons withstand remarkable moral tests. Are they deluding themselves and actually, deep down, fear a final accounting in the Afterlife, or are they truly capable of being moral for its own sake?[19] Has modern Man expanded his capacity for spirituality, and if so, in what way?

Midrash and Aggadot

Midrash have been explained and interpreted throughout the ages in accordance with various Jewish exegetical and philosophical approaches. Medieval commentaries throughout the ages have instructed us to understand midrashic stories as allegorical in nature, hinting at lofty concepts such as mystical and kabbalistic teachings which the rabbis were reluctant to state explicitly.[20]

In his introduction to his commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides states that the aggadot were taught to a general audience, which included children and those who were not scholars. He therefore explains:

“One cannot teach the general public except by means of parable and riddle so as to include…the youth, in order that when their intellect reach a more complete level, they will understand the meaning of the parables.”

The proper and meaningful study of midrash is in general a vastly unexplored area of learning for most Jews, even those who spend many hours a day studying Torah in depth. Unfortunately, aggadot are often relegated to the status of Jewish tales told to entertain children without enough thought being given to their deep meanings.

Are children today truly incapable of understanding the deeper meanings of these midrashim? Personally, I recall studying a midrash with a nine year-old boy which stated that the Torah was primordially written with “Black fire on top of white fire.”[21] When I asked him what he thought it meant, he told me “The black is the Yetzer Hara, and the white is the Yetzer Hatov. The Torah needs both in order to be complete.”

Admittedly, this was a particularly precocious young man who had a track record of ingenious insights. Nevertheless, it is worth considering that children today are quite capable of seeing deeper meanings in aggadot when challenged to do so. All we need to do is keep an open mind and ask them what they think. Here is one example of how this can be done with a famous midrash taught to all children.

The Sun and the Moon

“In the beginning of the creation of the world, G-d made the Sun and the Moon to be the same size and equally bright. After they were created, the Moon approached G-d and said to him, “It does not make sense that two rulers should wear the same crown.” G-d answered, “Okay, then you be the one who is shrunken to a smaller size and the Sun shall rule!” The Moon then replied, “Because I said one smart thing you punish me so severely?” G-d answered the Moon, “I’ll tell you what. Go, and you shall rule over day and night.” The Moon then replied, “What purpose is there in my ruling over the day, when there is plenty of light and no one needs my light?” G-d replied, “Go, and through you the Jewish people will measure the days and the years, and thereby establish the dates of the holy days. After some additional give and take, G-d saw that the Moon still was not satisfied, and in response he made following
request of the Jewish people: “On every Rosh Chodesh bring a sacrifice on my behalf in order that I obtain forgiveness for having reduced the light of the Moon.””[22]

If encouraged to do so, even young students will have no problem finding the obvious lessons in the story, such as how the Moon’s greed and grandiosity did not pay in the end. But what about the other ideas in the story? What can the students make of this give and take between the Moon and G-d? Not only does the Moon gain concessions, in the end, G-d even asks the Jewish people to seek forgiveness on his behalf!

The Maharsha (Ad loc.) interprets this dialogue to be about the Jewish people. In order for them to achieve their spiritual goals they must undergo great suffering in this world. Ultimately, they will reap the reward in the world to come. Nevertheless, the fact that the Jewish people must suffer so much in exile is, so to speak, painful to G-d, and he therefore tries to console the Jewish people. First, by giving them the Jewish Festivals, but ultimately by reminding them that just as the Moon waxes and wanes through its cycles, so too the Jewish people will have moments in history when they are powerful and others when they are weak.

Given some chance to discuss this, children can easily be led to see these deeper meanings. It also gives the teacher an opportunity to discuss the ways in which the Torah presents G-d with human emotions. Though G-d is not subject to emotional whims, he chooses to reveal himself in such a manner so humans can relate to him.[23] Within that light, from this story we see a willingness by G-d to enter into a dialogue with the sinner, to make accommodations, adjustments, and surprisingly, even to regret the harshness of the punishment he enacted. From this story, any chutzpadik and misbehaving child could surely draw comfort.

Surely, with the right kind of instruction, this kind of analysis and understanding is well within the range of even many first graders. We have a great opportunity to combine intellectual analysis with an emotional component to inspire internalization and practice of Torah values. Yet previous generations seem to have preferred keeping this treasure trove of information in the form of a child’s tale. It seems to me that our generation of children have an increased capacity for deeper reasoning and understanding and should be encouraged to look at these stories in a more symbolic light. My experience talking to children today shows me that they are capable of great depth, analysis and interpretation. Let us see why this might be true, and what has changed in recent history.

The I.Q.’s Keep Rising

One striking area where each successive generation is superior to the next is in regard to I.Q. Test scores.

“In 1981, New Zealand-based psychologist James Flynn…Comparing raw I.Q. scores over nearly a century… saw that they kept going up: every few years, the new batch of I.Q. test takers seemed to be smarter than the old batch. Twelve-year-olds in the 1980s performed better than twelve-year-olds in the 1970s, who performed better than twelve-year-olds in the 1960s, and so on. This trend wasn’t limited to a certain region or culture, and the differences were not trivial. On average, I.Q. test takers improved over their predecessors by three points every ten years – a staggering difference of eighteen points over two generations.

The differences were so extreme, they were hard to wrap one’s head around. Using a late-twentieth-century average score of 100, the comparative score for the year 1900 was calculated to be about 60 – leading to the truly absurd conclusion, acknowledged Flynn, ‘that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded.’ The so-called Flynn effect raised eyebrows throughout the world of cognitive research. Obviously, the human race had not evolved into a markedly smarter species in less than one hundred years. Something else was going on.

For Flynn, the pivotal clue came in his discovery that the increases were not uniform across all areas but were concentrated in certain subtests. Contemporary kids did not do any better than their ancestors when it came to general knowledge or mathematics. But in the area of abstract reasoning, reported Flynn, there were ‘huge and embarrassing’ improvements. The further back in time he looked, the less test takers seemed comfortable with hypotheticals and intuitive problem solving. Why? Because a century ago, in a less complicated world, there was very little familiarity with what we now consider basic abstract concepts. ‘[The intelligence of] our ancestors in 1900 was anchored in everyday reality,’ explains Flynn. ‘We differ from them in that we can use abstractions and logic and the hypothetical … Since 1950, we have become more ingenious in going beyond previously learned rules to solve problems on the spot.’

Examples of abstract notions that simply didn’t exist in the minds of our nineteenth-century ancestors include…the concepts of control groups (1875) and random samples (1877). A century ago, the scientific method itself was foreign to most Americans. The general public had simply not yet been conditioned to think abstractly.

The catalyst for the dramatic I.Q. improvements, in other words, was not some mysterious genetic mutation or magical nutritional supplement but what Flynn described as ‘the [cultural] transition from pre-scientific to post- scientific operational thinking.’ Over the course of the twentieth century, basic principles of science slowly filtered into public consciousness, transforming the world we live in. That transition, says Flynn, ‘represents nothing less than a liberation of the human mind.’

The scientific world-view, with its vocabulary, taxonomies, and detachment of logic and the hypothetical from concrete referents, has begun to permeate the minds of post-industrial people. This has paved the way for mass education on the university level and the emergence of an intellectual cadre without whom our present civilization would be inconceivable.

Perhaps the most striking of Flynn’s observations is this: 98 percent of IQ test takers today score better than the average test taker in 1900. The implications of this realization are extraordinary. It means that in just one century, improvements in our social discourse and our schools have dramatically raised the measurable intelligence of almost everyone.”[24]

Chinuch Implications

According to these findings, our generation has the highest capacity for abstract reasoning and analysis than ever before. Young children today who spend a great deal of time on computers, are even more used to hypothetical thought, layers of representation of symbolism, nuances and multiple perspectives than almost every computer game employs. In fact, the actual use of a computer itself engenders recognition of symbolic content because the entire graphical interface is representation of acts rather than actual physical acts. Opening “windows”, switching from one program to another, multi-tasking, becoming exposed to world events as they unfold in real time via newsfeeds, and playing role playing games can all lead to expanded consciousness and awareness. True, these same technologies can also lead children to be highly distractibility and crave constant stimulation, but let us focus on this generation’s gifts and strengths instead of bemoaning their shortcomings.

This is not the first time in Jewish history where a successor generation was superior in one aspect over a previous generation. The Talmud records a remark of Rav Papa to Abaye, who ponders why miracles happened to the earlier generations and not nowadays. Rav Papa states that it cannot be due to lack of Torah knowledge, as he declares their knowledge to be superior.[25]

I am not an educator by profession, so the definitive implications of these findings for the chinuch of our children require more extensive thought and discussion. However, some areas that we might consider are :

Increased focus on symbolic meaning, philosophy and the deeper aspects of the Torah. Our children are indeed capable of understanding the Torah on a very deep level and we should not make the mistake of selling them short. It is possible to engage them in actively interpreting and delving into a study of reasons for the mitzvot. Maimonides encourages people to do, regardless of whether the mitzvah is a chok (law without an obvious reason) or a mishpat (law based on apparent logic.) Maimonides states, “Though all the laws of the Torah are decrees [and not subject to debate]…it is fitting to contemplate them and, to whatever extent possible, try to find reasons for them.”[26] One should pause to ask why Maimonides considers it important to find reasons for the laws of the Torah if they must be followed regardless of whether they seem logical or not? Presumably the answer is that when one makes an effort to understand the laws, it helps guide a person to think in consonance with the morals and ethics of the Torah, thereby increasing the development of character. With proper guidance and encouragement, our children can excel in this area.

Likewise, in regard to the study of aggadot, we could help the children reach for the deep lessons and interpretations of these allegories, to strengthen their belief and respect for the insights found in our tradition.

Every now and then, someone bemoans the fact that in prior generations, the yeshivot covered far more ground and mastered hundreds of blatt, instead of merely focusing on a few blatt per year, studied in great depth. While this criticism is valid and important, perhaps we also should embrace this situation in recognition that the yeshivot might be indulging in a great deal of analysis for one simple reason – the students are good at it. As a generation, more individuals are capable of this deeper learning than ever before. Thus, the desire to do so is understandable, and may need to be given more recognition. True, the knowledge of basics needs to be encouraged as well, but this can be tempered with a special appreciation that more and more young people have a thirst to study and analyze in greater depth and the drive should not be excessively stunted. As the Talmud says, “A person should always study in the direction that his heart desires.”[27]

It is well and good to teach our children humility and historical perspective but care might be taken not to overdo and engender an attitude of pessimism and defeatism. They certainly should understand the brilliance, dedication and awesome spiritual and moral character possessed by sages of previous generations. Nevertheless, no one wants to be on a losing team, so if we want children to stay loyal to Jewish tradition and practices, they ought to feel like winners. We can also convey a message of confidence and belief in their ability as Jews and spiritual beings to make new and important contributions, as opposed to being mere paving bricks, biding time on the road to the Messiah. Showing them their unique strengths and intellectual abilities is one way to do that.

Concluding Thoughts

As they mature in life, our children will be exposed to science and philosophy in various degrees. Some may learn complex ideas as a result of the professions they choose such as medicine, psychology, sociology or other science-based courses of study, or may just read about these ideas on their own due to the readily available and popular works. Today, your average person can go to a book store and purchase titles such as Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, which makes physics and astronomy understandable to the common man. Do we want to run the risk of our children having a grade-school understanding of the Torah, and then as they grow up and learn about the world, find secular ideas to be more sophisticated and exciting? While indeed, in some respects, our generation is at a spiritual and moral low point, embarrassingly insignificant compared to the giants of years past, we do not have to wallow in self-pity. Rather, we have an opportunity to modify our curriculum and include deeper and more profound aspects of the Torah, allowing our children to become stimulated as they capitalize on their ever increasing capacity to comprehend what previous generation considered secret, esoteric and beyond the reach of but a few.

Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R is psychotherapist in private practice specializing in high conflict couples and families. He serves as Director of Operations for OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services, and as President of Nefesh International. Simchafeuerman@gmail.com

[1] Menachem Kellner in Maimonides on the Decline of
the Generations (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996) suggests that according to
Maimonides the previous generations of rabbis have superiority on the basis of
their access to a less distorted masorah,
but not due to an inherent supernatural superiority.

[2] See Eruvin 53a which suggests that the deterioration
in Torah knowledge of successive generations as due to many factors including
lack of spiritual breadth and lack of studiousness.

[3] Ba’er Heytev, Shulchan Aruch, O.H. 558:3

[4] Shulchan Aruch, O.H. 563:4

[5] Zohar Chadash, on Parashas Yitro, by the first verse of the Aseret
Hadibrot, 20:1.

[6] Leviticus 25:35-38

[7] See Exodus 23:9 and Leviticus 19:33

[8] Berachot 57b, see also Maimonides, Shemoneh Perakim,
ch. 5, where he elaborates on this concept.

[9] Shabbat 14a

[10] Chulin 106a

[11] Beitzah 3a, see Mesoras Hashas ad loc. for further
references

[12] Shabbat 14a

[13] See Mishna Berurah 158:1 which offers both reasons,
that of habituation in ritual purity for Terumah,
and also physical cleanliness as an aspect or representation of spiritual
purity.

[14] Nedarim 3:4, see Bartenura ad loc.

[15] Shabbat 17b

[16] See R. Eliezer Lippmann’ Neusatz’ Mei Menuhot,
published in 1884. Here is a quote from
Dr. Marc Shapiro’s discussion on the Seforim Blog (here)

“On p. 16a, after citing Maimonides’ words that the majority err in
understanding aggadot literally, Neusatz comments that this was the situation
in earlier times, which were less religiously sophisticated than later
generations. The proof that the earlier generations were religiously naïve is
that belief in divine corporeality was widespread then. According to Neusatz,
people who were so mistaken about God that they imagined him as a corporeal
being would obviously not be able to understand Aggadah in a non-literal
fashion. He contrasts that with the generation he lived in, which was able to
properly understand Aggadah.

אמנם בדורנו זה נזדככו יותר הרעיונות ונלטשו הלבבות והמושגים האלהיים
הנשגבים האלה מצטיירים בלבות המאמינים בטוהר יותר ורוב זוהר, ונתמעטו אנשי הכת
הזאת, ותה”ל רובם יודעים שחז”ל כתבו אגדותיהם ע”ד משל ומליצה וחדות
וכפי הצורך אשר היה להם לפי ענין הדורות אשר היה לפניהם, פנימיותם הם ענינים
אמתיים נשגבים עומדים ברומו של עולם.”

[17] Also see Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Hilchot Teshuvha
chapters. 8 and 10 where he elaborates on this theme

[18] Avot 1:3

[19] It is important to point out that though this is
superficially similar to Maimonides’ position, and certainly relatively
admirable, being moral for its own sake with no belief in the ultimate goal of
connection to G-d is problematic.
According to Maimonides, doing a mitzvah
lishmah – for its own sake, does not
mean without connection to G-d. It just
means without a need or desire for reward as a motivator. In fact, in Hilchot Melachim (8:11),
Maimonides definitively states that a Gentile who fulfills the seven Noachide
Laws out of logic and morality alone without doing them with the intent to
fulfill the Creator’s mitzvot, will
not merit reward in the World to Come among the righteous gentiles. This is even more striking because there is
no apparent source for this ruling, which suggests that Maimonides considered
this principle obvious and self-evident, perhaps stemming from his
philosophical beliefs about the nature of the soul and how immortality is
attained through a process of elevating the intellect and character, which
would be impossible without correct beliefs.
It would seem, according to Maimonides, that morality without acceptance
of the yoke of Heaven is simply not considered moral.

[20] See for example Rabbi Moses Chaim Luzzato’s
introduction to Aggadah, found in the beginning of most editions of the Ein
Yaakov, and Maimonides’ commentary on Mishna Sanhedrin, introduction to chapter
10, “the third group”, p. 137, Kapach Edition, and Ibn Ezra’s
introduction to his commentary on Chumash.

[21] Midrash Tanchuma Bereishis 1

[22] Chulin 60b

[23] See Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Yesodei Hatorah
1:9.

[24]
Shenk, David,
The Genius in All of Us, Doubleday Copyright 2010, pp. 35-37.

[25] Berachot 20a

[26] Mishne Torah, Hilchot Temurah 4:13

[27] Avoda Zara 19a

Waiting Six Hours for Dairy- A Rabbanite Response to Qaraism

Waiting Six Hours for Dairy- A Rabbanite
Response to Qaraism

By Tzvi H. Adams

tzviha@gmail.com

Qaraites are a Jewish group that began around 760 CE. They rejected the Talmud
and rabbinic Judaism and insisted that Jews only observe halacha as expressed
in the literal text of the Torah. “Qaraite” means “Scriptualist”. The movement
started in Iraq and Persia by Jews who objected to the authority of the leaders
of the Babylonian Talmud Academies, the Gaonim. The Gaonim and their
successors, the rishonim, are called Rabbanites because of their stance in
defending the Talmud and rabbinic laws.

Scholars have noted that many minhagim began as a response to the Qaraite
movement. For example, the recital of במה מדליקין
on Friday evening after davening [1] was
started in the times of the Gaonim to reinforce the rabbinic stance on having
fire prepared before Shabbos, in opposition to the Qaraite view that no fire
may be present in one’s home on Shabbos [2]. There is evidence that the reading
of Pirkei Avos [3] on Shabbos afternoon, which began in Gaonic times, was to
emphasize to the Jewish masses that the Oral Law was passed down since Moshe
Rabbeinu as stated in the first mishna of Pirkei Avos.

Professor Haym Soloveitchik [4] has argued
convincingly that the unique arrangement of Hilchos Shabbos in Rambam’s Mishna
Torah was organized specifically with anti-Qaraite intent. Briefly, Rambam’s
formulation of the Shabbos laws does not follow a chronological order or any
other expected logical order. In his opening chapters, Rambam lays down the
following rules: preserving lifesaving overrides the restrictions of Shabbos;
only work done on Shabbos itself is forbidden (e.g. shehiyah and hatmanah are
allowed); work done by a Gentile upon a Jew’s request is only forbidden by
rabbinic law. These three rulings were denied by Qaraites. Rambam is then
careful to segregate the Torah laws (di’Oraisas) into one group of
chapters (7-12) and all the rabbinic rulings (di’rabbanans) into another
set (21-24), with eight chapters separating the two. Soleveitchik argues that
this was done to “highlight the very existence and legal force of rabbinic
enactments, both of which were denied by the Qaraites”. Finally, Maimonides
concludes the laws of Shabbos with an uplifting positive note: the laws of kibbud
ve’oneg Shabbos. This further emphasizes the difference between the Qaraite
and Rabbanite Shabbos, because Qaraites treated Shabbos “as a day of ascetic
retreat and allowed only the barest minimum of eating and sleeping.” Rambam
emphasizesאיזה
הוא
עינוג: זה
שאמרו
חכמים
שצריך
לתקן
תבשיל
שמן
ביותר,
ומשקה
מבושם,
הכול
לשבת and
[5] אכילת
בשר
ושתיית
יין
בשבת,
עינוג
הוא
לה.

With this argument Soloveichik is suggesting that Rambam organized material in
Mishna Torah so that the differences between Qaraite and Rabbanite Shabbos are emphasized
to the reader. However, Soloveitchik takes matters one step further: He notes
that Rambam is the first to define intimacy on Shabbos as oneg Shabbos: תשמיש
המיטה,
מעונג
שבת
הוא.
The Talmud only states that intimacy on
Shabbos is allowed, but does not elevate this act to the categorization of mitzvas
oneg Shabbos. Here, Soloveitchik argues that Rambam actually redefined
the Talmudic law for polemical reasons [6]. This is a revolutionary proposition
as we are generally under the assumption that the Mishna Torah is a practical
summary of the Talmud – as Rambam tells us in his introduction to Mishna Torah [7]. Professor Soloveitchik has opened the door for the
understanding that within Mishna Torah there may be Talmudic laws which have
been redefined or reformulated for anti-Qaraite reasons.

Waiting After Chicken: Rambam’s Innovation

I would like to suggest that Rambam’s interpretation of meat-milk
separation laws was also based on anti-Qaraite socio-political motivation. While
some earlier rishonim required waiting between eating beheima meat and eating
dairy, Rambam was the first to state that one must wait after eating poultry,
as well. (Beheima meat refers to meat from cows, sheep or goats.):

מִי שֶׁאָכַל בָּשָׂר בַּתְּחִלָּה,
בֵּין בְּשַׂר בְּהֵמָה בֵּין בְּשַׂר עוֹף–לֹא יֹאכַל אַחֲרָיו חָלָב עַד
שֶׁיִּשְׁהֶה בֵּינֵיהֶן כְּדֵי שֵׁעוּר סְעוֹדָה אַחֶרֶת, וְהוּא כְּמוֹ שֵׁשׁ
שָׁעוֹת: מִפְּנֵי הַבָּשָׂר שֶׁלְּבֵין
הַשִּׁנַּיִם, שְׁאֵינוּ סָר בְּקִנּוּחַ

רמבם
משנה תורה מאכלות אסורות פרק ט’ הלכה כז

This contradicts the simple reading of the Gemara Chullin
104b:

תנא
אגרא
חמוה
דרבי אבא
עוף
וגבינה
נאכלין
באפיקורן
הוא
תני
לה
והוא
אמר
לה
בלא
נטילת
ידים
ובלא
קינוח
הפה

which states plainly that poultry and cheese (even
in that order) may been eaten באפיקורן (in one kerchief)) or
without concern (לשון הפקר) even without washing one’s hands or mouth in
between their consumption. See, for example, Ritva (Chullin 104b) [8]:

פירש”י שאם אכל זה ובה לאכול זה
א”צ לקנח פיו ולא ליטול. ונראה מלשונו אפי’ בשאכל בשר עוף בתחילה…

Earlier rishonim who required a long wait between beheima
meat and dairy did not require this waiting between poultry and dairy. R. Chananel
and R. Yitchak Alfasi required a waiting period only between beheima
meat and dairy, but not between poultry and dairy. Rishonim in the years close
after Rambam’s lifetime challenged his innovation.

Here are the core lines of the sugya (Chullin 105a) which are most relevant to
this discussion:

גופא אמר רב חסדא אכל בשר אסור לאכול
גבינה

אמר מר עוקבא אנא להא מלתא חלא בר
חמרא לגבי אבא דאילו אבא כי הוה אכיל בשרא האידנא לא הוה אכל גבינה עד למחר עד
השתא ואילו אנא בהא סעודתא הוא דלא אכילנא לסעודתא אחריתא אכילנא

R. Chananel comments:

וזה
לשון
רבינו
חננאל
ז”ל, ולא
מצינו
מי
שהתיר
לאכול
גבינה
אחר
בשר
בפחות
מעת
לעת
אלא
מר
עוקבא
דאכל
בשר
בסעוד’
אח’
בסעוד’
אחרת
גבינ’
ואמ’
על
עצמו
דבהא
מלתא
חלא
בר
חמרא
אנא
ואי
אפשר
להתיר
בפחו’
מזה…ע”כ הובא
בתוס’
הרא”ש וחי’
הרשב”א חולין
קה
ע”א))

R. Chananel is not cited in regards to poultry and
it can be assumed he is speaking only of red meat. This is more apparent in the
words of his disciple R. Yitchak Alfasi (1013 – 1103) who shares his master’s
view:

הרי”ף פרק
כל
הבשר- תנא
אגרא
חמוה
דרבי אבא
עוף
וגבינה
נאכלין
באפיקורן
וי”א באפיקוליס הוא תני
לה
והוא
אמר
לה
בלא
קינוח
הפה
ובלא נטילת
ידים…
ושמעינן
מהא
דהאי
דא”ר חסדא
אכל
בשר
אסור
לאכול
גבינה
דלא
שרי
למיכל
גבינה
בתר
בשרא
אלא
עד
דשהי
ליה
שיעור
מה
דצריך
לסעודתא
אחריתי
דלא
אשכחינן
מאן
דשרי
למיכל
גבינה
בתר
בישרא
בפחות
מהאי
שיעורא

It is clear from the Rif’s discussion of the
statement of אגרא that his use of the
words בשר
and עוף
denote two separate entities. Rif’s requirement to wait דשהי
ליה
שיעור
מה
דצריך
לסעודתא”
אחריתי”
is only for red meat, not poultry. Rif
moved from North Africa to Spain in 1088 and was recognized there as the
leading halachic authority. The psak of R. Chananel and Rif became standard
over time in Spain and people waited after red meat before eating dairy; and
evidence suggests that they did not wait after poultry. One source is in the Sefer
Ittur of R. Yitchak ben Abba Mari (c. 1122 – c. 1193). In his discussion of
the view of R. Chananel, Ittur makes clear that for fowl there is no six
hour waiting requirement:

ספר
העיטור
שער
ראשון
הל’
הכשר
בשר
דף
יג
ע”ב והלכתא
… אלא
קינוח
הפה
לגבינה
לבשר.
ושהייה
לבשר
וגבינה…
ועוף
וגבינה
א”צ
שהייה
לבשר
וגבינה
ולא
קנוח
הפה
ונט”י לגבינה
ובשר.

Another source is from Meiri (1249-1306) in his Sefer
Magen Avos written about 100 years after Rambam’s Mishna Torah.
Meiri wrote Magen Avos to defend the customs of Provence against the
ridicule and challenge of Spanish rishonim:

מגן
אבות
דף
יא’
הקדמה-
ומה
שהביאנו
לסדר
אופני
אלה
הדברים
שכתבנו…הוא,
שאנחנו
בעיר
הזאת
עיר
פרפיאגיאק
והחזקנו
בהרבה
מנהגים
היו
בידינו
בירושה
מאבותינו…
ביד
חכמי
העיר
ברדש
… ורב
גבול
ארץ
פרובינצה.
ועתה
מקרוב
באו
הנה
קצת
חכמים
מארץ
ספרד…
לערער
בקצת
מנהגינו…
וראיתי
לכתוב
על
ספר
מה
שנשאתי
ונתתי
עמהם
באלו
המנהגות…

He records the Spanish custom not to wait at all
between fowl and milk. He describes how in his time a new generation of Spanish
rabbis began to adopt the stringent view of Rambam and begin a new trend:

דף
מו’-מט’
הענין
התשיעי.
עוד
נשאו
ונתנו
אתנו
במה
שהם
נוהגים
לאכול
גבינה
אחר
עוף,
ואנו
מחמירים
עד
שישהא
שש
שעות
או
חמש
כשיעור
שבין
סעודה
לסעודה
כדין
האמור
בבשר
בהמה….ונמצא
כלל
הדברים,
שכל
מאכל
בשר
בין
של
בהמה
בין
של
עוף
אינו
אוכל
גבינה
אח”כ עד
שיעברו
שש
שעות
או
חמש…ויראה
לי
להקל
עוד
שאף
באכל
עוף
תחילה
אע”פ שצריך
שהיה,
אינו
צריך
שש
שעות,
אלא
כל
שסעודה
לסעודה
אפילו
בקירוב
זמן
הואיל
וסילק
, ועקר….אלא
שהדברים
ברורים
כשטתינו
ואף
הם
הודו
שחכמים
האחרונים
שבגלילותיהם
מחמירים
בה
ונוהגים
כמנהגינו
והנאני
הדבר

It is clear that the former norm in Spain was to eat
cheeses/dairy immediately after poultry with no
kinuach ve’hadacha, like the Ittur indicates was the
accepted halacha in that country.

(Is interesting to note Meiri’s own leniency for poultry: …ויראה
לי
להקל
עוד
שאף
באכל
עוף
תחילה
אע”פ שצריך
שהיה,
אינו
צריך
שש
שעות,
אלא
כל
שסעודה
לסעודה
אפילו
בקירוב
זמן
הואיל
וסילק
, ועקר.)

In the two generations following Rambam, the
greatest rishonim attacked the Rambam’s reform as it reversed the ruling of the
Bavli. Ramban (1194-1270) was the first to challenge Rambam’s alteration:

… אבל הרמב”ן ז”ל כתב דאגרא
אפילו עוף ואחר כך גבינה שרא דלישנא הכי משמע דקאמר עוף וגבינה…(ר”ן על
הרי”ף חולין דף לז’)

R. Aaron Halevi (1230-1300) was next:

…ואפילו הכי שרינן בעוף בלא נטילת ידים
משום דקיל דלא מיתסר אלא מדרבנן, ודאי לא שני לן בין עוף ואחר כך גבינה בין גבינה
ואחר כך עוף… הוא הדין לקנוח הפה דלא בעינן אפי’ בין עוף לגבינה…. ולהוציא קצת
מדברי רבי’ ז”ל (=הרמב”ם) שפרשו דההיא דאגרא דאמר עוף וגבנה נאכלין
באפיקורן דוקא גבינה תחילה ואחר כך עוף… (חידושי רא”ה לחולין דף קד’)

However, as Meiri noted, the trend in Spain began to
change [9]. Creative ways of reinterpreting the words of אגרא
were created to fit this new reform into the Talmud. Tur (1275-1340) YD 89
cites Rambam’s ruling on poultry as if none other exists.

Why did Rambam change the Halacha? Perhaps it was an anti-Qaraite measure. By extending
the waiting requirement to include poultry, the divide between Rabbanites and Qaraites
became more apparent. Rabbanite Jews who followed Rambam’s ruling could
participate in only a limited way at a multicourse Qaraite meal which included
poultry and dairy.

Waiting 6 Hours- R. Chananel’s Innovation

Until R. Chananel’s time, waiting between meat and milk was not considered
mandatory by halachic authorities. One could choose instead to perform kinuach
ve’hadacha – clean out one’s mouth and rinse one’s hands, if they were soiled
from meat. The halachic modification of removing the kinuach ve’hadacha option
was likely planned as an anti-Qaraite legislation.

Two primary authorities report on the halacha as it was in pre- R. Chananel
times. One is the Baal Halochos Gedolos (BaHaG) of either R. Yehudai Gaon, head
of the yeshiva in Sura from 757 to 761, and/or Shimon Kayyara (8th
century). (The correct authorship of BaHaG is a matter of scholarly debate, but
its author was a recognized source of halachic tradition from the 8th century.)

הלכות גדולות הלכות ברכות פרק ששי ט’
א’ (הובא גם בטור או”ח קעג’)- אמצעיים רשות אמר רב נחמן לא שנו אלא שבין
תבשיל לתבשיל אבל בין בשר לגבינה חובה והאי דשרו רבנן גבינה בתר בשר
משמעתיה דרב נחמן … אמר רב חסדא אכל בשר אסור לאכול גבינה ודוקא בלא קינוח אבל
מקנח פומיה שרי למיכל…

A careful reading of BaHaG shows that the “רבנן” cited in BaHaG refers
to contemporaneous sages, not only earlier “Chazal”.

The second testimony is from R. Hai Gaon (939-1038), as cited by Rashba:

חידושי
הרשב”א חולין
קה
ע”א אבל
הרב
בעל
הלכות
גדולות
ז”ל כתב
בהלכו’
ברכות…
וכן
דעת
רבינו
יעקב
ז”ל וגאון זכרונו לברכה גם כן כתב אכל
בשר מותר
לסעודה אחרת למיכל גבינה וה”מ בחסידי אבל אנן מקנחינ’ ומחוורינן ידן
ופומן ואכלי’. אכל גבינ’ שרי למיכל בשר בלא קנוח בלא נטילת ידים וה”מ
דחזייה לידיה דלא מטנפא. (הובא גם בספר העיטור שער ראשון הל’ הכשר בשר דף יג
ע”ב)

The Rashba is clearly citing two separate sources, the
BaHaG and the “Gaon” (R’ Hai [10]). R. Hai Gaon speaks in the plural and says “we
rinse hands and wash out our mouths and eat”. Evidently, this was the common
practice amongst the gaonim.

What triggered the halachic transformation which we observe in the leading
North African and Spanish rishonim of the following generation? (R. Chananel
was about 48 years old when R. Hai passed away.)

Let’s analyze early Qaraite halachic progressions and how they correlate with
inverse developments in Rabbanite halacha. To fully appreciate the reasons for
R. Chananel’s modernization of milk and meat laws, it is necessary to trace Qaraite
geographic, demographic, and halachic developments.

Historical Development of Qaraite
Halacha

Nathan Shur’s Toldoth haKaraim[11]
provides an overview of Qaraite history. Qaraism began gradually in the late
eighth and early ninth centuries CE. Anan Ben David (c. 715 – c. 795), who was later claimed to be the founder of the
Qaraite movement (though not historically accurate), maintained that it is
forbidden to eat meat until the Temple is rebuilt [12]. Benjamin Nahawendi (early 9th century), Sahl ben Matzliah Abu al-Sari (910–990), and Daniel al-Kumisi (d. 946), all early
prominent Qaraite scholars and philosophers, forbade their followers from eating meat until the restoration of the
sacrifices [13]. The Tustaries
[14], a family of wealthy influential Qaraites with independent philosophic and
halachic views, also forbade eating meat. Qaraite views were not uniform on all matters; Yacob
Qirqisani, a
leading Qaraite scholar of the first half of the tenth century, limited this meat restriction to Jerusalem but
allowed consumption of meat and wine outside Jerusalem. Slowly over the course of the tenth
century the abstinent trend amongst Qaraites loosened and it became acceptable
to allow meat consumption [15].

From the
inception of Qaraism, its scholars read the passuk, “לא
תבשל גדי בחלב אמו” literally (al-Qirqisani, Kitab al-AnWar,
XII, 25:4 “‘in its mother’s milk’ refers only to the milk of its mother”). They
therefore had no hesitations against eating meat and dairy together and did so once
they had relaxed the mourning restriction. Shlomo ben Yehuda Gaon, (Jerusalem, 1025-1051), records that the
Qaraites ate dairy with meat [16].

These Qaraite
developments coincided with corresponding developments in Rabbanite circles. R.
Chananel
was born in the year 990 and passed away in 1053. We don’t know exactly when he
wrote his commentary to Tractate Chullin requiring a six hour wait, but it
probably was early in the eleventh century. Soon after the Qaraites
began breaching the rabbinic meat and milk halachos in the
mid-tenth century, the Rabbanites responded by building a fence to
guard those same halachos.

Qaraite Geography

In beginning of ninth and tenth century Qaraites were concentrated in Iraq and
Persia, but in the middle of the tenth century they began moving westward to
Jerusalem, North Africa, and Spain. During this time period, Qaraites lived throughout
the Jewish-inhabited world. In every important city besides those in France and
Germany, a Qaraite community could be found alongside each Rabbanite community
[17]. Many of the Qaraites were great philosophers, writers, and wealthy
merchants; some were invested with high political power. In Cairo, Qaraites
were so powerful and influential that many Rabbanites left the fold for Qaraism,
until Rambam came to Cairo in 1166 and stopped this drift by improving the
political power of the Rabbanites [18]. It is thus understandable why Rambam
would seek to modify Jewish practices to widen the separation between Rabbanites
and Qaraites.

R. Chananel (990 – 1053) and R. Yitchak Alfasi (1013 – 1103), the first rishonim to make the six hour wait an
absolute requirement, lived in Fez, Kairouan, and Spain, side by side with Qaraite
communities. As the Qaraites allowed themselves to eat milk and meat together
over the course of the tenth century, they became nicknamed ‘the eaters of milk
and meat’. They surely influenced some from the Rabbanite community. In order
to protect the Halacha, highlight their symbolic differences, and erect a
social barrier between the two camps, these leaders extended the original kinuach
ve’hadacha obligation to a six hour wait.

Some historians believe that the Qaraites of the early Middle Ages
counted for close to half of the total Jewish population [19]. Furthermore, recent
analysis of Cairo Geniza documents shows that Qaraite and Rabbanite communities
of North Africa and Eretz Yisrael of the tenth through thirteenth centuries
collaborated in legal affairs, political endeavors, and commerce. There were
even frequent mutually respectful Qaraite-Rabbanite marriages [20]. The
two communities were dependent on each other in many ways. An excellent
description of this historical setting is found in Heresy and the Politics
of Community by Marina Rustow (2008). The need to defend the rabbinic
Halacha is understood better against such an historical backdrop. As the
divide between the communities was sometimes blurred, reinforcement was
necessary. It is understandable why we find a Rabbanite response to Qaraite
leniencies from North African Rabbanite authorities and not from the heirs
of the Gaonate in Iraq. This is because the center of Qaraite activity had
already migrated from Iraq to the Mediterranean Basin over the course
of the tenth century.

During the tenth and
eleventh centuries Rabbanites from all over the Mediterranean
would make yearly pilgrimages to Jerusalem for Sukkos. On Haosha’na Rabba the
custom was for all
to gather on Har ha’Zaisim and amongst other things declare blessings and bans.
In 1029 and 1038, the Rabbanites proclaimed a ban against the Qaraites. It is
the wording of these charamim which is very revealing. The ban was worded
“against the eaters of meat and milk”.

Rustow explains the deeper context and meaning behind the ban:

…the Rabbanites and the
Qaraites in the Fatamid realm conducted regular professional and personal
relations. The ban’s aim was not to correct Qaraite religious behavior, but to
achieve symbolic or ritual separation between the two groups. …. the principle
violation with which the Qaraites stood charged- challenging the rabbinic claim
to exclusive authority in interpreting biblical law …. The ban was couched, by
a synecdoche that stood for an entire theological aberration, in terms of a
specific infringement: eating meat with milk. [21]

The
milk and meat mixing of the Qaraites symbolized the divide between the Qaraite
and Rabbanite camps. It is clear why the leading rabbinic sages of this era
would fortify and tighten this particular area of law.

Precedent in Rabbeinu Tam

This argument for the political origins of the six hour wait may seem novel and
shocking, but in fact, the truth of its background was known from the
beginning. Rabbeinu Tam (1100-1171) of France who lived shortly after the
innovation of R. Channenel and Rif writes exactly this:

ספר
הישר
לרבינו
תם סימן
תעב.
כל
הבשר.
אמ’
רב
נחמן
לא
שנו
…פירש
רב
יהודאי
בשאלתות
שנשאלו
לפניו…
אבל
בין
בשר
בהמה
לגבינה
בעי
קינוח
והדחה.
והא
דאמר
מר
עוקבא
להא
מילתא
(חלא)
בר
חמרא
אנא
כו’
היינו
גבי
שיהוי
בלא
קינוח.
דהא
בעי
ר’
יוחנן
כמה
ישהא
כו’
היינו
היכא
דלא
קינח
אבל
אי
קינח
לא
בעי
שיהוי.
(ובין)
גבינה
לבשר
לא
בעי
קינוח
כלל….ובין
בשר
לגבינה
בעי
קינוח
או
שיהוי…
וכן
מוכיח
בהלכות
גדולות
של
ברכות….
וכן
עיקר.
ואע“ג
דר‘
חנינא
פליג
אהאי
פיסקא
לאו
דסמכא.
דהא
דאורי
שאינן
בני
דאורייתא.
ובקעה
מצא
וגדר
בה
גדר.
וכמו
שפסקתי
נר’
מתוך
ההלכה.
ורב
יהודאי
גאון
פירשה.
והיא
דסמכא….ספר
הישר
לרבינו
תם
חלק
החידושים
י”ל ע”י שמעון
ש.
שלזינגר
תשמ”ה 282-283

(There appears to be printing error in this text: ר’ חנינא should be חננאל ר’.)

R. Avraham HaYarchi (c. 1155-1215) of Provence in his Manhig Olam paraphrases
Rabbeinu Tam’s words (without the printing error) [22]:

ספר המנהיג
הלכות סעודה אות ט’- ובהלכות ה”ר שמעון קיירא … ודאמר רב חסדא אכל בשר אסור
לאכול גבינה היינו בלא קינוח הפה אבל מי שיקנח פומיה וידיה שרי ליה למיכל…, ואפילו
באותו סעודה קאמר וכן כתב ר”י מנוחתו כבוד בספר הישר… פירש רב יהודאי גאון
בשאלתות שנשאלו לפניו… אבל בין בשר לגבינה בעי קינוח הפה והדחה ,,והא
דאמר
מר
עוקבא
אנא
להא
מילת
חלא
בר
חמרא
אנא
וכו’
היינו
גבי
שיהוי
ובלא
קינוח
הפה
דהא
דבעו
מיניה
דר’
יוחנן
כמה
ישהא
וכו’
היינו
בלא
קינוח
הפה
אבל
בקינוח
לא
בעי
שיהוי,
ובשר
שאכל
אחר
גבינה
לא
בעי
קינוח
ושיהוי
כלל…
וכן
מוכח
בהלכות
גדולות
של
ברכות….
ואע“פ
שרבינו
חננאל
פליג
אהאי
פיסקא
וכן
הרב
אלפאסי
לאו
דסמכא
נינהו
ולמקום
שאינן
בני
תורה
חששו
ובקעא
מצאו
וגדרו
בה
גדר
וכן
עיקר
… כפר”ת.

What is meant by בקעא
מצאו
וגדרו
בה
גדר? It refers either to the Qaraites or to
the weakening of Rabbanite community values due to Qaraite influence.

Minhag Ashkenaz

What was the accepted Halacha in the Franco-German Jewish communities of the
early Middle Ages? Their custom was to allow eating dairy after meat as long as
a disuniting action was performed in between. Some Ashkenazi
rishonim required only kinuach ve’hadach; others required birkas
hamazon. Rashi [23] (as cited by Siddur Rashi and Manhig) and Rashbam [24]
required birkas hamazon– the dairy foods must be consumed in a separate meal.
Rabbeinu Tam allowed their consumption in the same meal with an intermediary kinuach
vehadacha. Consistency exists between the two Franco-German views- a time waiting
intermission as an absolute requirement was foreign to them [25].

R. Zerachiah
HaLevi Baal Ha-Maor of Provence (c. 1125- c. 1186)
concurred independently [26] with the view of R. Tam and reports that this was
the general custom in France:

המאור הגדול לרבינו זרחיה הלוי
פרק כל הבשר – נקיטינן מהאי עובדא … היכא דאכל בשר מקמי גבינה אי ההוא בשר דאכל
בשר חיה ובהמה הוא צריך נט”י והוא דאכל בלילה וצריך נמי קינוח הפה … ועוף
וגבינה נאכלין באפיקורין

ולא צריכי ולא מידי … אע”פ שהקדים עוף לגבינה ..

והיכא דשהה ליה ו’ שעות שיעור שהייה שבין סעודה לסעודה אע”פ
שאכל בשר בהמה וחיה מותר לאכול גבינה… בלא ובלא קנוח הפה ולא אמר רב חסדא אכל בשר אסור לאכול גבינה אלא באפיקורן
כלומר בלא נט”י”נט”י

ובלא קנוח הפה אבל בנט”י ובקנוח הפה הכל מותר… ועל
זה הדרך מתיישבת כל השמועות כולן וכן פסק בעל ההלכות הראשונות ז”ל ומזה יתבאר
לך מה שפסק הרי”ף בהלכותיו על לא נכון…וטעו בפירושיהם להעמיד מנהגיהם ומה
שכתבנו היא המחוור וכן נהגו כל חכמי צרפת

The custom of the sages of France and Germany reflects the original
Halacha and simplest reading of the Talmud. There were no Qaraite communities
in France and Germany during that time period and hence the Franco-German sages
saw no need to respond with a symbolic and social barrier. The existence of the
original gaonic custom in European communities is in line with Haym Soloveitchik’s recent “Third Yeshiva of Bavel” hypothesis
[27]. Soloveitchik argues that the Ashkenazi scholarly community was
transplanted from Iraq sometime between the years 930 and 960. This emigration occurred
before R. Chananel’s new legislation [28]. They therefore knew only the ancient
Halacha and stuck with it because they had no reason to change [29].

Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of
Machon Shilo delivered a series of
comprehensive shiurim
(2010) explaining all the fine detail of this sugya in Chullin-
how it was originally understood and how it was later re-explained.

Here are two additional
considerations regarding the words of מר
עוקבא:

אמר
מר עוקבא אנא להא מלתא חלא בר חמרא לגבי אבא דאילו אבא כי הוה אכיל בשרא האידנא לא
הוה אכל גבינה עד למחר עד השתא ואילו אנא בהא סעודתא הוא דלא אכילנא לסעודתא
אחריתא אכילנא

1) Mar Ukva is well-known in the Talmud for
his extreme piety and righteousness. See Kesubos 67b and Rashi Sanhedrin 31b ד”ה לדזיו. Why shouldn’t this statement be
understood as another example of his extreme personal religiosity [30]?

2) How could R. Chananel say-לא
מצינו
מי
שהתיר
לאכול
גבינה
אחר
בשר
בפחות
מעת
לעת
אלא
מר
עוקבא? This statement is shocking. If Jews commonly
waited 24 hours before dairy after eating meat wouldn’t there be some hint of
it somewhere in the vast Tannaic, Amoraic or Midrashic literature? The truth is
to the contrary- מר
עוקבאand his father are the only sages we ever hear
of who waited so long. In fact, his words are expressed in a way which
indicates that he speaks of a personal private custom: .”אנא
להא מלתא…
ואילו אנא…” R. Chananel
himself was surely aware of the shortcomings of his argument.. He may have only
said these words in order to allow for the creation of a new Rabbanite custom
which would aid in segregating the Qaraites from the Rabbanites. For the sake of launching the new order of
dietary and hence societal and communal limitations, R. Chananel devised a
clever way of manipulating the brief quasi-aggadic words of Mar Ukva.

Conclusion

The Qaraites from the start understood the biblical verses of lo sevashal
literally, in contrast to the Talmudic/rabbinic interpretation. Qaraite law
allowed for cooking and eating meat with milk. However, this Qaraite departure
from the Oral Law did not cause strife between the two factions during the
first two centuries of the movement’s existence because Qaraites adopted an
ascetic mournful lifestyle, abstaining from any meat at all. Practically,
therefore, during these early years, Qaraites were not cooking and/or eating
any meat and milk together. In the middle of the tenth century, Qaraite
lawmakers gradually adopted a more lenient worldly approach, allowing meat
consumption. With authorization to eat meat, Qaraites did so with no
compunctions about preparing the meat with dairy. This Qaraite breach of the
Oral Law earned them the nickname “the eaters of meat with milk”. This transgression
of the Qaraites became symbolic of the entire conflict between the Rabbanite
and Qaraite camps. Throughout this
period, the two camps were very connected socially, politically, and economically.
There were Rabbanite-Qaraite marriages, joint business ventures, and joint
communities. The lines between the two camps were not as distinct as we may
imagine. At some point in the early eleventh century, the Rabbanite rishonim devised
a way to create greater division and social split between the two camps.
Choosing the very topic which represented the heart of the schism, they
reinterpreted Talmudic passages in a manner which requires waiting six hours
between eating red meat and dairy products, further separating the Rabbanites
from the Qaraites both halachically and socially. However, Rabbanites and Qaraites
could still enjoy a poultry-dairy meal together during community gatherings or
business meetings. It was more difficult to redefine an explicit statement in
the Talmud allowing poultry and dairy together without any separation in
between (אגרא’s statement). Maimonides was the first to
attempt to further widen the gap by including poultry in the six-hour wait
category. He was quickly attacked by other Talmudists such as Nachmanides and
R. Aaron HaLevi for contradicting the Talmud’s legal allowance. However, in
time even Maimonides’ expansion found justification by means of rereading and
re-explaining the simple meaning of the passage תנא
אגרא
חמוה
דרבי
אבא
עוף
וגבינה
נאכלין
באפיקורן
הוא
תני
לה
והוא
אמר
לה
בלא
נטילת
ידים
ובלא
קינוח
הפה [31].

I am very grateful to Rabbi Bar-Hayim of Machon
Shilo. Only after hearing his shiur
was I able to fit in the missing puzzle pieces [32]. This paper
repeats his message but also adds by filling in the historical setting which
caused the new strict waiting practice. Readers will probably enjoy Rabbi
Bar-Hayim’s restorative conclusions
on this sugya.

[1] See Naftali Vieder, התגבשות נוסח התפילה במזרח
ובמעריבVolume I (1998), pgs. 323-351

[2]
Friday after davening was the best time for this recital as people returning
from shul would see the Qaraites in their dark homes- the rabbinic
interpretation of the passuk “לא תבערו אש”
needed to be reinforced by discussion in shul. Even the bracha said before
lighting the Shabbos candles was likely initiated to strengthen this practice
in response to the Qaraite custom. See Vieder ibid. pg. 343-346

[3] Vieder ibid. pg. 350

[4] Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays, Volume II
(2014), pgs. 378-395

[5]
Many of us are careful to drink some wine during every Shabbos seuda
shlishis. The source for this custom originally (before kabbalists created
other reasons) is from Rambam (Shabbos 30:9):

חייב
אדם לאכול שלוש סעודות בשבת–אחת ערבית,

ואחת
שחרית, ואחת במנחה…

וצריך לקבוע כל
סעודה משלושתן על היין

I
don’t think there is any source for this in the Talmud. Like Prof. Haym Soloveitchik
has argued about intimacy, Rambam may have created this ‘halacha’ to oppose the
Qaraite custom of abstaining from wine on Shabbos.

[6]
A similar phenomenon is found in ספר העתים
pg. 25:

ובשבת תקנו חכמים לטמנו מבערב כדי שישתמר
המאכל בחמימתו ויהי’ חם בשבת ואיכא בהא מילתא עונג שבת. ורוב מן החיצונים תלמידי
ביתוס יהי’ אהליהם לנתוץ וירקבו עצמותם אשר הטעו… שהחמין אסור בשבת ותיפח
עצמותיהם… והלכך כל שאינו אוכל חמין בשבת בר נידוי הוא ודרך מינות יש בו וצריך
להפרישו מקהל ישראל…

When
studying the third and fourth perakim of Shabbos one sees a long list of
restrictions and limitations. R. Yehuda Barcelona depicts these halachos in a
positive light: Chazal required shehiya and hatmanna for the purpose of oneg
Shabbos. The beloved Shabbos lunch cholent
may be an anti-Qaraite creation.

[7] Here is the relevant section from Rambam’s Introduction:

…ואין צריך לומר, התלמוד עצמו:
הבבלי, והירושלמי, וספרא, וספרי, והתוספתות–שהן צריכין דעת רחבה ונפש חכמה וזמן
ארוך…ומפני זה נערתי חוצני, אני משה בירבי מיימון הספרדי, ונשענתי על הצור ברוך
הוא, ובינותי בכל אלו הספרים; וראיתי לחבר דברים המתבררים מכל אלו החיבורין,
בעניין האסור והמותר והטמא והטהור עם שאר דיני תורה: כולן בלשון ברורה ודרך
קצרה, עד שתהא תורה שבעל פה כולה סדורה בפי הכול–בלא קושיה ולא פירוק, ולא זה
אומר בכה וזה אומר בכה, אלא.. על פי המשפט אשר יתבאר מכל אלו החיבורין והפירושין
הנמצאים מימות רבנו הקדוש ועד עכשיו

[8] Also other early baalei Tosfos in Or Zarua 1:480.

[9] See Ritva and Rashba on Chullin 104-105. A similar trend is seen amongst
Italian rishonim. R. Yeshaya Trani II writes:

אלא שמורי זקני הרב (=ר’ ישעיה דטראני
הזקן) מתיר גבינה אחר בשר עוף. ורבינו משה (=רמב”ם) אוסר. וכך נראה בעיני
שאסור לאכול גבינה אפילו אחר בשר עוף

[10] I am taking the liberty to assume Rashba refers to R. Hai
Gaon. See for example Rashba on Brachos פרק תפלת השחר
where he cites “הגאון ז”ל” several times and is
certainly referring to R. Hai.

[11]
(2003) Bialik Institute Jerusalem

[12] Ibid. pg. 28

[13] Ibid. pg. 65

[14] Ibid. pg. 55

[15] Ibid. pg. 39

[16]
Ibid. pg. 66

[17] Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of
Community (2008), pg. 3

[18] Nathan Shur, Toldoth haKaraim
(2003)
pg. 60-61

[19]
Salo Wittmayer Baron

[20] See Elinoar Bareket , “Karaite Communities in the Middle East”, Karaite
Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources (2003) pg. 240: “The
Gaon Shelomoh ben Yehuda (gaon between the years 1025-1051) tells in one of
this letters that before his appointment as gaon he served as prayer leader of
the Karaites in Ramle, and would pray one day with the Rabbanites and the next
with the Karaites…. he pointed out that the two communities “complete each
other as adultery to a bed…”, that is
sinners are to be found in both communities and there is no difference in this
matter.”

[21] pgs. 206-207

[22]
Also Or Zarua 1:480 :

…ופר”ח שלא פסק כך בקעא מצא וגדר בה
גדר.

[23] סידור רש”י סימן תקפז.
See Aviad Stollman, “מהדורה מדעית וביאור מקיף לסוגיות
ההרחקה בין בשר לחלב” Ramat Gan (2001) note 27.

[24] Compare Tosfos ד”ה לא שנו ,חולין דף קה:
with .ד”ה לסעודתא אחריתא

[25] The idea of a waiting period only became popular in France and Germany
many generations later- probably because of influence of the seferim from the
Sefardic rishonim.

[26]
R. Aaron HaLevi also agrees with R. Tam in peirush to Chullin as well as סימן מח ויטרי מחזור.

[27] Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays, Volume II
(2014), pgs. 150-215

[28] As R. Hai (939-1038) still preserved the original kinuach
ve’hadacha tradition it is reasonable to assume that R. Chananel
(990-1053) was the very first rishon to require six hours. In fact, R. Tam
places the blame on R. Chananel and was not aware of any earlier source.

[29]
Aviad Stollman in his “מהדורה מדעית וביאור מקיף לסוגיות ההרחקה בין בשר לחלב” and

התרחבות בהלכה כהיתוך אופקים פרשני: המתנה
בין בשר לחלב כמקרה מבחן”” AJS Review 28/2 (2005), has made a thorough analysis of
this sugya. Some of the more obscure sources on this topic I found in his
articles. He argues that the minhag Ashkenaz here originates from minhag Eretz
Yisroel and that the custom of the Sefardim to wait six hours originates from a
minhag Bavel. To establish that such a minhag Bavel existed he found it
necessary to downplay the words of BahaG (which indicate lack of a
waiting custom in Bavel) by pointing to ambiguities in BahaG’s wording. I believe R. Hai’s
testimony וה”מ בחסידי אבל אנן מקנחינ’“

ומחוורינן ידן ופומן ואכלי’” is
sufficient evidence that even the rabbinic elite in Bavel did not wait between
meat and dairy.

It
seems that Rabbi Stollman’s approach is based on the century old academic view
that minhag Ashkenaz had its origins in minhag Eretz Yisroel. The remainder of
Stollman’s arguments are built upon that model. More recently though, Haym Soloveitchik
in his Collected Essays, has made a very strong case for the
Babylonian origins of minhag and
chachmei Ashkenaz (besides for the obvious Palestinian liturgical components of
minhag Ashkenaz). Stollman’s assumption that the non-waiting practice of
Ashkenaz originated from Eretz Yisroel should be reevaluated. Rather, the
minhag Ashkenaz here should be seen as pre-Qaraism Halacha.

It is evident from R. Hai that a small
group of pious men in Bavel did indeed have a waiting practice. Though this
cannot be considered “the minhag Bavel”, it may have been a kernel of precedent
which R. Chananel expanded for political reasons.

[30]
See Aviad Stollman, “מהדורה מדעית וביאור מקיף לסוגיות
ההרחקה בין בשר לחלב” (2001) note 40.

[31] Many later rishonim explained that though the order in Agra’s statement
is- poultry then cheese- it means –cheese then poultry!

[32] Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin’s post on Qaraism here
also inspired this article. His insightful essays on all areas of Jewish
thought are always filled with depth and wisdom.

Mishloah Manot: An Insight of the Rav zt”l

Mishloah Manot: An Insight of the Rav zt”l

By Nathaniel Helfgot

Rabbi Helfgot is Chair of the Dept. of Torah SheBaal Peh at SAR High School and rabbi of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Teaneck, NJ. He has served as editor of Or-Hamizrach and associate editor of The Meorot Journal. He has written and edited a number of sefarim and volumes including Divrei Berakha U-Moed: Iyunim Be-Nosei Berakhot U-Moadim (Yeshivat Har Etzion, 2002), Community, Covenant and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Toras HoRav Foundation, 2005), The YCT Rabbinical School Companion to Sefer Shmuel (Ben-Yehuda Press, 2006), Mikra and Meaning: Studies in Bible and Its Interpretation (Maggid Publishers, 2012), Al Saf Ha-Aretz (Maggid Publishers, 2014)

One of the abiding contributions of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik , the Rav zt”l, to halakhic thought was the introduction of the notion that there exists a category of mitzvot that though expressed in external action (maaseh ha-miztvah) is geared to fulfillment in the inner recesses of the heart and soul (kiyum she-ba-Lev). The external act is meant to engender and lead or in other instances to be a concrete expression of an inner emotional experience. Most famously the Rav developed these notions in relationship to the areas of aveilut, simchat yom tov and the experience tefillah and teshuvah. Rabbi Reuven Ziegler has noted that the Rav himself, (or in citations by students) used this distinction in print in relation to fifteen distinct mitzvot[1].

I would like to add one more to the list based on two unpublished letters of the Rav. In the year 2000 when I was deep into my research on the letters of the Rav zt”l for the volume that would be published in 2005 entitled Community, Covenant and Commitment : Selected Letters and Communications of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik )Toras HaRav Foundation-Ktav, 2005), I received copies of a number of letters that the Rav sent to Mr. Aaron Schreiber z”l in the mid 1950’s and early 1960’s.[2] Mr. Schreiber z”l was a resident of the West Side of Manhattan and an active and devoted member of the Rav’s celebrated weekly Talmud shiur for the general community held each Tuesday night at the Moriah Shul on West 80th street from 1952 through early 1980. The short letters were notes of good wishes and greetings for Rosh Hashanah and other events and thus not published in the volume mentioned above.

In two of these letters the Rav argued that the mitzvah of משלח מנות also fell into the paradigm of maaseh ha-mitzva and kiyum she-ba-lev.

Below are the texts of the letters (including the original spellings):

1. עשרה באדר שני, תשי”ד

March 14, 1954

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Schreiber:

Thank you so much for the beautiful basket of fruit which you sent us for Purim. We appreciate greatly the thought behind your kind gesture. As an attentive and intelligent participant in our weekly class, Mr. Schreiber, you certainly recall my remark about a unique group of mitzvoth which display a dual aspect; the technical performance asserts itself in a physical deed whereas the intrinsic content of the mitzvah expresses itself in a state of mind, a thought, a feeling or an emotion.

I believe that the precept of משלח מנות belongs to this category of dual mitzvoth-the actual sending or giving of the present is an external act, in itself irrelevant, yet the full sublime meaning of it is attained in the manifestation of warm -hearted and sincere friendship. For such sentiments I am always very thankful. Mrs. Soloveitchik joins me in wishing you a very happy and joyous Purim.

With kindest personal regards, I remain

Sincerely yours

Joseph Soloveitchik

שמחת פורים וחדות ד’ מעוזכם!

יום שני, יג’ אדר, זמן קהלה תשט”ו

Dear Mr. Schreiber:

We received the basket of candy which you sent to us for Purim. Permit me to convey to you and to Mrs. Schreiber our sincerest thanks for remembering us at this time of the year. The Halachah has introduced the practice of משלח מנות as an objective symbol of a subjective feeling, as an expression of a sentiment, as a manifestation of friendship, the greatest of all gifts that human beings can bestow upon each other. As such we cherish your present and are thankful for it.

With kindest personal regards to you and Mrs. Schreiber, I remain

Sincerely yours,

Joseph Soloveitchik

[1] Majesty and Humility (Urim, 2012) pg. 86-87.

[2] My thanks to his son Mr. Joel Schreiber for sharing the letters with me at that time.

Mezuzah Revisited. Parshat Vaetchanan.

Mezuzah
Revisited. Parshat Vaetchanan.

By
Chaim Sunitsky.

Rashi on
this Parsha (Devarim 6:9) says that since the word Mezuzot is
written without the Vav[1], only
one Mezuzah is necessary. It’s generally assumed that Rashi can’t argue with a
clear Talmudic statement that every door of the house needs a Mezuzah[2] and
therefore he can’t be understood at face value. However the custom in many
places in Medieval Europe had always been to only affix one Mezuzah per house[3]. We
will now try to examine if indeed there ever was a tradition that supported
this minhag.

The Rema makes a
unique statement in Yoreh Deah (287:2): “The commonly spread minhag in
these countries is to attach only one Mezuzah per house and they have nothing
to rely on”. This statement is very unusual. Rema is known for
supporting Jewish minhagim and it’s very common for him to use the
expression “common minhag” often followed by a statement that this minhag
should not be changed, or at least that this minhag can be relied on.
Here however the Rema is saying just the opposite: the minhag has
nothing to rely on and a “yere Shamaim” person should affix the Mezuzot
on every entrance.

It’s hard to understand
how this incorrect “minhag” could have possibly become wide spread. R. Yissachar
Dov Eilenburg[4]
(the author of Beer Sheva on the Talmud) suggested that this mistake became
widespread due to incorrect understanding of our Rashi. However I find
it strange if the previous minhag was to affix a Mezuzah on every
doorpost, how would it change in many countries simply because they misunderstood
the Rashi’s Torah commentary[5]. As
for the correct understanding of Rashi, two possibilities were offered:
either Rashi is saying that we don’t have to affix two Mezuzot on each
doorframe[6], or
that Rashi is following the opinion of R. Meir that if an entrance has
only one doorpost on the right, there is a need to affix Mezuzah (despite the
lack of second doorpost[7]). As
for Rashi’s actual drasha[8]
we don’t see it in any known source in Hazal[9].

In general there was[10] some
attempt to explain the custom of affixing only one Mezuzah based on the fact
that many of the inside rooms in their houses were not clean enough, but this
does not explain what people relied on when the house itself had more than one
entrance[11].
However Rashi[12]
on our Gemorah brings an interpretation according to which if a house
has exactly two entrances, it needs only one Mezuzah on the more commonly used
entrance, since the other entrance is batela (is unimportant) compared
to the first one. Only if the house has more than two entrances then we don’t
say that two entrances are batelim to the one commonly used entrance.
Maybe then Rashi on the Chumash is following his shita and
saying that a house (or room) with two entrances requires only one Mezuzah. Interestingly,
in Yerushalmi[13]
there is even a stronger statement that seems to imply that only one entrance per
house requires a Mezuzah:

בית
שיש לו שני פתחים נותן ברגיל היו שניהן רגילין נותן בחזית היו שניהן חזית נותן על איזה
מהן שירצה

The simple meaning of Yerushlami
seems to contradict the Talmud Bavli and imply that only the entrance that’s
used more often needs the Mezuzah. If he uses both entrances equally, then the
Mezuzah is affixed to the “stronger” entrance and is they are equally strong,
one can affix the Mezuzah on either entrance.

To conclude we seem to
have found a possible explanation of Rashi according to the simple
meaning of his words[14] and
a possible justification for the old minhag in Europe[15]. Needless
to say our words are only theoretical and Baruch Hashem that minhag has
disappeared a long time ago and every Orthodox Jew today affixes a Mezuzah on
every entrance.

[1] Apparently Rashi
implies that Mezuzot is written without the second Vav and can be read as Mezuzat.
Our scrolls written according the Mesorah, Rambam (Sefer Torah
2:6), Semag (Asin 22) and Minhat Shai have the first Vav
between two Zain’s missing, but Leningrad scroll (used on Bar Ilan disk)
in fact has the second Vav missing. It’s also possible that Rashi meant
that as long as some Vav is missing we can “transfer” the missing Vav to the
last position and thus read the word as Mezuzat. See also Minhat Shai,
Shemot 12:7. Interestingly the famous statement of the GR”A that
there are 64 different Tefilins one would need to put on to fulfil all opinions
does not consider the various opinions about how to write various words like “mezuzot”,
“totafot”, which would bring the numbers of different Tefillins to hundreds.

[2] See for
instance Menachot 34a.

[3] In this article
we only discuss if there is any justification for the custom of affixing one
Mezuzah on one’s home. See however Semag (Asin 3) that there were
some people in Spain who did not affix Mezuzot at all, and see there in Asin
23 some weird “justification” they used for their “minhag”.

[4] In his super-commentary
on Rashi called Tzeda Lederch and his “Beer Maim Chaim” usually
printed in the end of Beer Sheva.

[5] To say nothing about the fact that Halacha is
rarely learned from a Torah commentary as Rashi does not “pasken”
there.

[6] In Yalkut
Shimoni on Mishley (remez 943) indeed there is an opinion
that each of the doorposts requires two Mezuzot, but our Gemorah (Menachot
34a) does not hold like this opinion and does not even mention it (see also Shu”t
Minchat Yitzchak 1:9).

[7] Obviously the
Biblical word Mezuzah means not the parchment but the pole itself, so one Mezuzah
in Rashi means one doorframe.

[8] Which Rabeinu
Bahya quotes as words of Razal.

[9] See however Mordachai
(962) who brings in the name of Rif that R. Meir and Rabonan who
argue about the above law apparently learn from the spelling of Mezuzot. It may
be according to this girsa, not found in our Rif, R. Meir had no
Vav and Rabonan had a Vav in the word “Mezuzot” in Devarim 6:9. The
Talmud mentions that R. Meir was a scribe and it’s possible he had some
especially accurate scrolls that were different from the more commonly used
ones (his “Torah scroll” is mentioned in Midrashim, see for instance Bereshit
Rabbah 94:9). Our Gemora however only mentions the learning from “Mezuzot”
with the Vav to support the shita of Rabonan (see also the first Tosafot
on 34a).

[10]
See Maharil, Minhagim, Laws of Mezuzah, 1 and Tshuvot 94 . In practice the
Maharil and Rema did not accept these explanations.

[11] See also Shu”t
Divrey Yatziv Yore Deah 191 who proposes that maybe only the Mezuzah on the
outside doorpost is a Biblical command, but the question of a house with two
entrances still remains.

[12] Menachot 33a
starting with words Holech Achar Haragil and 34a starting with words
Af Al Gav Deragil Beechad.

[13] The end of Megila,
34a (see however second perek of Tractate Mezuzah, in Vilna Shas
it’s printed at the end of the volume with Avoda Zara). Even if our
interpretation off the Yerushalmi is correct, if the house has many
rooms, it would seem to need a Mezuzah for each one even according to Yerushalmi.

[14] In Sefer
Zechor Leavraham on Rashi in Likutim in the back the author
also interprets Rashi to mean only one Mezuza is needed. He proposes
that Rashi quotes a lost Midrash similar to the one preserved in Yalkut
Shimoni I quoted above. According to the author the dispute there is not whether
the Mezuzah is placed on both sides of one entrance but whether there is a need
for a Mezuzah on every entrance of the house.

[15] It’s known that
many European communities started in Italy, where Yerushalmi was often
followed to a greater extent than Bavli and therefore it’s possible that
the earliest settlers in France and Germany were told only to affix one Mezuzah
on the main entrance leading to the street. Regarding inside rooms, maybe they
did not have any since simple houses had only one room in those times or maybe
they relied on some of the weak reasons mentioned in Maharil (who
rejects them) but regarding the outside doors if there are only two they may
have followed Rashi and if some of their houses had more than two entrances
they may have followed Yerushalmi or some other lost opinion (partially
preserved in the Yalkut Shimoni).

The Seven Nations of Canaan

THE SEVEN NATIONS OF CANAAN[1]

By Reuven Kimelman

This study deals with the war and the
seven Canaanite nations.[2] It complements my previous post on Amalek of March 13, 2014, “The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An
Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition. “The popular
conception in both cases is that the Bible demands their extermination thereby
providing a precedent for genocide.[3] The popular reading of the Canaanites filters it through the prism of
Deuteronomy. The popular reading of
Amalek filters the Torah material through the prism of Saul’s battle against
Amalek in the Book of Samuel. In actuality, the biblical data is much
more ambiguous making the most destructive comments the exception not the rule as
will be evident from a systematic analysis of the Canaanite material in the
Bible as was previously done with Amalek.

This
post will deal with the following seven questions with regard to the nations of
Canaan:

a). What are the different biblical
approaches to the native nations of Canaan?

b). According to the Bible, what
actually happened to them?

c). What is the evidence that the
Bible is sensitive to the moral issues involved?

d). How has the Jewish tradition
removed the category of the seven nations from its ethical agenda?

e). What is the role of the
doctrine of repentance?

f). What is the relevance of the
“Sennacherib principle”?

g). How relevant is the category
“holy war”?

With
regard to the extermination of the seven nations of Canaan,[4] sometimes called Canaanites sometimes Amorites, the biblical record is also not
of one cloth. The clarification of their status in the Bible requires a
systematic treatment of all the data book by book.

Genesis (12:6, 15:16) is aware that the
Canaanites were in the land when Abraham arrived and would remain for
generations. From Genesis 38 and the end
of The Book of Ruth we learn that from the progeny of Abraham’s great grandson
Judah and the Canaanite Tamar will issue King David. Also Simeon’s son is identified as “Saul the son
of a Cannanite women” (Genesis 46:10, Exodus 6:15) without comment.

Exodus (23)’s position on the
elimination of the Canaanites (v. 23) is a gradual dispossession by God, not by
the Israelites:[5]

27 I will send forth My terror before
you, and I will throw into panic all the people among whom you come, and I will
make all your enemies turn tail before you. 28 I will send a plague ahead of
you, and it shall drive out before you the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the
Hittites.[6] 29 I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become
desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt. 30 I will drive them out
before you little by little, until you have increased and possess the land.

Leviticus (18) refers to God casting out
of the nations:

24 Do not defile yourselves in any of
those ways, for it is by such that the nations that I am casting out before you
defiled themselves. 25 Thus the land became defiled; and I called it to account
for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants.

Here there is a coordination between God
and land. The land spews out its
inhabitants for defiling it and God expels them.

Numbers (33) refers to the Israelites
deporting the local inhabitants:

51 Speak to the Israelite people and say
to them:

When you cross the Jordan into the land
of Canaan, 52 you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall
destroy all their figured objects; you shall destroy all their molten images,
and you shall demolish all their cult places. 53 And you shall take possession
of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.

It is clear that the issue here is not
ethnic but religio-cultural. The fear is that Israel will be ensnared,
especially through intermarriage, by the local moral and cultic practices
.

Exodus 34 emphasizes the religious
factor:

12b Beware of making a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare
in your midst. 13 Rather you must tear down their altars, smash their
pillars,and cut down their sacred posts; 14 for you must not worship any other
God, because the Lord, whose name is Impassioned, is an impassioned God. 15 You
must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for they will lust
after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you, and you will eat
of their sacrifices. 16 And when you take wives from among their daughters for
your sons, their daughters will lust after their gods and will cause your sons
to lust after their gods.[7]

Leviticus 18 emphasizes the moral
factor:

26 But you must keep My laws and My
rules, and you must not do any of those abhorrent things, neither the citizen
nor the stranger who resides among you; 27 for all those abhorrent things were
done by the people who were in the land before you, and the land became
defiled. 28 So let not the land spew you out for defiling it as it spewed out
the nation that came before you. 29 All who do any of those abhorrent
things—such persons shall be cut off from their people. 30 You shall keep My
charge not to engage in any of the abhorrent practices that were carried on
before you, and you shall not defile yourselves through them: I the Lord am
your God.

Numbers 33 warns Israel against
assimilating Canaanite norms lest they share their fate of expulsion. “55 But if
you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to
remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall
harass you in the land in which you live; 56 so that I will do to you what I
planned to do to them.”

The exception is Deuteronomy 7
which demands total destruction:

1 When the Lord your God brings you to
the land that you are about to enter and possess, and He dislodges many nations
before you— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites,
Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you—2and the Lord your
God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to
destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter.

Even according to Deuteronomy the fear
is not of their DNA but moral assimilation, for it goes on to say: “Lest they lead you into doing all the
abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before
the Lord your God” (20:18). For Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12), the abhorrent
things include child sacrifice.

Strangely, Deuteronomy continues with a
provision against intermarriage:

3 You shall not intermarry with them: do
not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.
4 For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the
Lord’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out.
5 Instead, this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars,
smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to
the fire.

Apprehension about intermarriage or coming to terms with an eradicated people
is strange unless Deuteronomy is aware that its demand to doom them will not be
(or was not) implemented. And, in fact, as we shall see the evidence from
Judges 3 is that they did intermarry.

Alternatively, ḥerem does not entail
the elimination of the Canaanites only their isolation, that is, they are to be
quarantined. This understanding follows its Semitic cognates where it means to
separate, to set aside.[8] The goal is to exclude any intercourse with them. Thus verse 5 only refers to
the elimination of their objects of worship not their persons. This opens the
possibility that “What we have is a retention of the … traditional language
of ḥerem, but a shift in the direction of its acquiring significance as
a metaphor … for religious fidelity.”[9]

Even stranger is the description of the
confrontation with Sihon king of the Amorites. Within the context of
Deuteronomy, one would expect an outright attack when God says to Moses: “See,
I give into your power Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin
the occupation: engage him in battle” (2:24). Instead, what does Moses do:

26 Then I sent messengers from the
wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon with an offer of peace, as
follows, 27 “Let me pass through your country. I will keep strictly to the
highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left. 28 What food I eat
you will supply for money, and what water I drink you will furnish for money;
just let me pass through.”

Sihon rejects the offer and attacks
Israel. They are destroyed only in the counterattack.

If there is no evidence for the
expulsion of the Canaanites, whence the position of Deuteronomy 7:1-2?
It has been speculated that Deuteronomy took “both the expulsion law of Exodus
23:20-33, directed against the inhabitants of Canaan, and the ḥerem
(total destruction) law of Exodus 22:19 (“Whoever sacrifices to a God other
than the Lord shall be proscribed), directed against the individual Israelite,
and fused them into a new law that applies ḥerem to all idolaters,
Israelites and non-Israelites alike.”[10] In other words, the ḥerem is not against Canaanites as Canaanites, but
idolaters as idolaters. Thus Deuteronomy (13:13-19) imposes the very punishment
on Israelite idolaters. The choice of the word ḥerem also promotes a
sense of quid pro quod, for, according to Numbers 14:45, the Canaanites and the
Amalekites pummeled Israel to Hormah a word which could simply designate a
place or also serve as a toponym since ad haḥormah could be
rendered “to utter destruction.”[11] The point of the paronomasia is that the Canaanites and the Amalekites got as
they gave.

In any case, except for some sources in
Joshua (6:21 and chapters 10-11) the later biblical sources follow the earlier
biblical books from Exodus to Numbers rather than Deuteronomy. Even the Joshua
material raises some questions. According to Joshua 10:33, Joshua totally
destroyed the people of Gezer. Yet Joshua 16:10 (like Judges 1:29) states: “They
failed to dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites
remained in the midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform
forced labor.” In actuality, they stayed there until the reign of Solomon only
to be killed off by Pharaoh as noted in I Kings 9:16. Apparently, once the
people were defanged by having its army destroyed, they were given quarter.[12] As a subject nation they apparently present no religious threat. In fact, save
for the peculiar case of Judges 3:5, the surrounding nations, not the
Canaanites, are blamed for Israelite apostasy.[13] In fact, according to Joshua 8:29 and 10:27, the bodies of Canaanite kings hung
by Joshua were buried by nightfall just as Deuteronomy 21:23 enjoins.
Apparently, Human dignity is inalienable even for Canaanite kings.

The triumphal picture of Joshua is
undermined by the facts on the ground. For example, Joshua 11:12 gives the
impression that Joshua wiped out all the cities in the area of Hazor and burned
them to the ground. Yet the next verse says: “However, all those towns that are
still standing on their mounds were not burned down by Israel; it was Hazor
alone that Joshua burned down.” In fact, only two other cities were burned —
Jericho and Ai.

Similarly, Joshua 11:23 claims: “Thus
Joshua conquered the whole country, just as the Lord had promised Moses,”
whereas 13:1 concedes “and very much of the land still remains to be taken
possession of.” Even where Israel spread out much of the native population was
allowed to remain in their midst, as it says later in the same chapter: “the
Israelites failed to dispossess the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and Geshur
and Maacath remain among Israel to this day” (13:13). The sparing of the
Canaanite population was common. With regard to southern Israel, Joshua 15:63
says: “But the Judites could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; so the Judites dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day.”
With regard to central Israel, Joshua 16:10 says: “However, they failed to
dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites remained in the
midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform forced labor.”
And with regard to northern Israel, Joshua 17:12-13 says: “The Manassites could
not dispossess [the inhabitants of] these towns, and the Canaanites stubbornly
remained in this region. When the Israelites became stronger, they imposed
tribute on the Canaanites; but they did not dispossess them.”

Judges 1:27-36 follows suit. It begins:

27 Manasseh did not dispossess [the
inhabitants of] Beth-shean and its dependencies, or [of] Taanach and its
dependencies, or the inhabitants of Dor and its dependencies, or the
inhabitants of Ibleam and its dependencies, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and
its dependencies. The Canaanites persisted in dwelling in this region. 28 And
when Israel gained the upper hand, they subjected the Canaanites to forced
labor; but they did not dispossess them. 29Nor did Ephraim dispossess the
Canaanites who inhabited Gezer; so the Canaanites dwelt in their midst at
Gezer…

All these sources mention the failure to
dispossess the Canaanites, despite the Israelites’ power to do so. No mention
is made of any extermination.[14] Joshua 24:13 does mention the expulsion of two kings but without resorting to
the sword and bow, a point reiterated in Psalm 44:5. Most remarkable is the
story in Judges 4. There it is told that God punished the Israelites by handing
them over to Yabin the king of Canaan and Sisera his general. In the divinely
commanded revolt against them, God promised to deliver them into the hands of
the Israelites not to wipe them out.

Joshua concedes in his farewell address
the failure of his policy. The most he can hope is that “The Lord your God
Himself will thrust them out on your account and drive them out to make way for
you” (Joshua 23:5). In the meantime, they are exhorted to be resolute not “to
intermingle with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names
of their gods or swear by them” (23:7). He them mentions the apprehension of
Deuteronomy of intermarriage: “For should you turn away and attach yourselves
to the remnant of those nations — to those that are left among you–and
intermarry with the you joining them and they joining you, know for certain
that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you;
they shall become a snare and a trap for you” (23:12-13).

In fact, Judges 3 states that they did
intermarry: “The Israelites settled among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites,
Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; they took their daughters to wife and gave
their own daughters to their sons, and they worshiped their gods” (5-6).
Intermarriage was likely a factor in the absence of biblical or extra biblical
evidence for Israel’s expulsion of the Canaanites.

The archaeological record confirms that
Israel primarily settled in previously unoccupied territory in the central
highlands rather than rebuilt towns on destroyed Canaanite cites. In Judges 2,
they are threatened with the consequences of not dispossessing them:

1 An angel of the Lord came up from
Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up from Egypt and I took you into the
land which I had promised on oath to your fathers. And I said, ‘I will never
break My covenant with you. 2 And you, for your part, must make no covenant with
the inhabitants of this land; you must tear down their altars.’ But you have
not obeyed Me—look what you have done! 3 Therefore, I have resolved not to drive
them out before you; they shall become your oppressors, and their gods shall be
a snare to you.”
The Israelites not only did not drive out the inhabitants, they concluded
treaties with them. Their expulsion by God was contingent upon Israel’s refusal
to conclude a treaty with them. Neither took place.

Even at the height of ancient Israelite
power under the reign of Solomon there was no move to do away with them only to
subject them to forced labor, as I Kings 9 (= 2 Chronicles 8:7-8) states:

20All the people that were left of the
Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not of the
Israelite stock—21those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom
the Israelites were not able to annihilate—of these Solomon made a slave force,
as is still the case.[15]

Nonetheless, Uriah the Hittite not only
marries Bathsheba but also serves as a trusted officer in David’s army.

Psalm
106 laments the total failure of the policy. According to it, everything that
Joshua warned against, they did and more. Following Deuteronomy 12:31, it also
provides the moral basis by documenting the abhorrent behavior of the
Canaanites to their own children:

34 They did not destroy the nations as
the Lord had commanded them, 35 but mingled with the nations and learned their
ways. 36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare for them. 37 Their own
sons and daughters they sacrificed to demons. 38 They shed innocent blood, the
blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
so the land was polluted with bloodguilt. 39 Thus they became defiled by their
acts, debauched through their deeds.[16]

Verses 34-35 attest to the non
implementation of the policy of Deuteronomy 20:17-18.

Remarkably,
the Rabbis explain the non implementation through the conversion of the
nations:

R. Samuel bar Nahman began his discourse
with the verse: “But if you will not drive out the inhabitants
of the Land before you, then shall those that remain of them be as thorns in
your eyes and as pricks in your sides” (Numbers 33:55). The Holy One reminded
Israel: I said to you, “You shall utterly destroy them: the
Hittite and the Amorite” (Deuteronomy 20:17). But you did not do so; for “Rahab
the harlot, and her father’s household, and all that she had, did Joshua save
alive” (Joshua 6:25). Behold, Jeremiah will spring from the children’s children
of Rahab the harlot and will thrust such words into you as will be thorns in
your eyes and pricks in your sides.[17]

Irony of ironies, the thorny and prickly
issue is no longer the continuity of pagan practices but the pointed prophetic
barbs from the progeny of converts.

The tendency to blunt the impact of the
seven-nations policy of Deuteronomy is also furthered by two other comments in
rabbinic literature. The first contends that Joshua sent three missives before
embarking on the conquest of the Land of Israel. The first said: “whoever wants
to leave — may leave;” the second: “whoever wants to make peace — make
peace;” and the third: “whoever wants to make war — make war.”[18] War was only conducted against those who opted for war.[19]

That war was not waged against those who did not opt for war may be supported
by the following verse in Joshua:

When all the kings of the Amorites on
the western side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites near the
Sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the sake of
the Israelites until they crossed over, they lost heart, and no spirit was left
in them because of the Israelites (5:1).

No war no killing. Similarly, Joshua 9
mentions that all six nations of Cannaan mobilized for war against Israel as
opposed to the Gibeonites who made peace with them. Even though the peace was
made under false pretenses, Joshua in chapter 10 honored his “treaty to
guarantee their lives” (9:15) by rescuing them from the attack of the five
Amorite kings. The treaty here entails security arrangements in exchange for
submission. Also in the beginning of
chapter 11 Joshua defeats those nations that had mobilized for war against him.
None of these accounts attribute their destruction to their religious
depravity, only to their initiation of attack on Israel.[20]

The other rabbinic comment rules that by
transplanting and mingling the populations he conquered, the Assyrian king
Sennacherib dissolved the national identity of the Canaanite nations in ancient
times.[21] Accordingly, Maimonides ruled that all trace of them has vanished.[22] Harav Abraham Kook, former chief rabbi, attained the same goal by limiting the
commandment to expel the Canaanites to the generation of Joshua. He writes:

If it were an absolute duty for every
Jewish king to conquer all the seven nations, how would David have refrained
from doing so? Therefore, in my humble opinion, the original duty rested only
on Joshua and his generation. Afterwards, it was only a commandment to realize
the inheritance of the land promised to the patriarchs.[23]

Moreover, non-Canaanites captured along
with a majority of Canaanites were to be spared just as Canaanites caught with
a majority of non-Canaanites were to be spared[24] reducing possibilities of any wholesale slaughter. In fact one commentator
contends that the destruction of a city is predicated upon the unanimous
opposition to submission to the Israelites for “we cannot impose a death
penalty on them (women and children) because of the sin of their fathers and
the guilt of their husbands.”[25] Finally, the Maimonidean ruling that all war must be preceded by an overture of
peace and that only the nations of Canaan that maintained their abhorrent ways
are to be doomed reduced the possibility of any war of total destruction.[26] His position is rooted in the repeated classical rabbinic comment to the verse
“Lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for
their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God” (20:18) — “This
teaches that if they repent they are not killed.”[27] The assumption is that the Canaanites got special attention not only because of
their geography, but also because “they were enmeshed in idolatry more than all
the nations of the world.”[28]

Similarly, The Wisdom of Solomon notes that the
Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites “at once, but judging them gradually
You gave them space for repentance” (12:10).

The best biblical example of judging
Canaanites by their behavior and not by their genes is the case of Rahab of
Jericho. Since she acknowledged the God of Israel as “the God of heaven and
earth” (Joshua 2:12) and threw her lot in with Israel, she and her household
were not only spared but were welcomed “into the midst of Israel” (Joshua
6:25). Rabbinic tradition extended this welcome to marrying Joshua and becoming
the progenitor of priests and prophets.[29] Moreover, based on the fact that “The young men . . . went in and brought out
Rahab . . . and her brethren . . . all her kindred also” (Joshua 6:23), it was
understood that her immediate relatives, and also their relatives totaling many
hundreds were also spared.[30] The other salutary example is the Canaanite Tamar who not only trumped Judah
morally (see Genesis 38:26), but, according to the genealogy at the end of the
Book of Ruth, became the progenitress of King David. The other progenitress was
Ruth the Moabite who is linked to Tamar in Ruth 4:12. That behavior or
life-style trumps genes explains the permissibility of marrying the captured
woman in Deuteronomy 21:10. Having left her previous ways she no longer
presents a temptation of apostasy. Rabbinic tradition following suit
specifically included a Canaanite as long as she had shed her idolatrous ways.[31]

In the same vein, rabbinic tradition
held that the descendants of the Canaanite general Sisera became Torah teachers
in Jerusalem,[32] and that Abraham’s servant Eliezer was removed from the category of Canaanite
due to his loyalty to Abraham,[33] indeed, deemed his peer in piety,[34] worthy of entering Paradise alive.[35]

In the light of the biblical doctrine of
repentance (“For it is not My desire that anyone shall die—declares the Lord
God. Repent, therefore, and live!” — Ezekiel 18:32), it is hard to contemplate
an alternative. Such a doctrine does not sit well with the possibility of
irredeemable evil. A lesson that Jonah had a hard time learning. According to
The Book of Jonah, even Nineveh, the capital of the empire that brought ruin on
the lost tribes of Israel and annihilated everything in its path (see Isaiah
37:11), could avert destruction by engaging in repentance. Finally, the
evidence that the issue was all along ethical and not ethnic lies in the fact
that Abraham was prevented from taking possession of the land in his day
“because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16),
whereas his descendants were allowed to take possession because of the
“wickedness of these nations” (Deuteronomy 9:4-5).

The midrashic tradition followed the
biblical categorization of groups through a combination of ethics and
ethnicity. With regard to repentance, the Midrash pointed out that the Torah
was given in the third month whose Zodiac symbol is twins to make the point
that were Jacob’s twin Esau to repent and convert and study Torah God would
accept him.[36] In fact, God looks forward “to the
nations of the world repenting so that He might bring them nigh beneath His
wings.”[37] Kindness is also a criterion for inclusion; its absence a criterion for
exclusion. The Cannanite Rahab is allowed in for her act of her kindness.[38] Even Egyptians, according to Deuteronomy 23:8b-9, are accepted after
three generations apparently for having initially extended kindness to Israel.[39] The case of the Moabite Ruth is exemplary. According to Deuteronomy 23:4-5,
Moabites are not allowed into the Congregation of the Lord because of their
lack of human decency and hospitality to Israel after the Exodus. In contrast,
Ruth is accepted because of her decency and kindness to her Jewish
mother-in-law.[40] Her example led to the wholesale exemption of women from the Deuteronomic
prohibition.[41]

She in fact is a latter day Tamar. Both Tamar and Ruth are erstwhile barren
foreign widows of Israelite men who insinuate themselves into the messianic
line through linking up with prominent progenitors of David through a
combination of feminine wiles and moral rectitude.

In the same vein, Eliezer’s criterion,
according to Genesis 24:14, for incorporating a woman into Abraham’s family was
precisely kindness and hospitality to strangers. In fact, the midrash lists ten
biblical women of Egyptian, Midianite, Cannanite, Moabite, and Kenite origin
whose kindness accounts for their acceptance as converts.[42] As noted, kindness qualifies one for inclusion as its absence qualifies one for
exclusion, as the Talmud says, “Anyone who has mercy on people, is presumed to
be of our father Abraham’s seed; and anyone who does not have mercy on people,
is presumed not to be of our father Abraham’s seed.”[43] Maimonides follows suit by defining
charitableness as “the sign of the righteous person, the seed of Abraham our
Father. Indeed if someone is cruel and does not show mercy, there are grounds
to suspect his or her lineage.”[44] Obviously, Abrahamic lineage has also an ethical DNA marker.

In sum, there are basically
four strategies for removing the seven-nations ruling from the post-biblical
ethical agenda and vitiating it as a precedent for contemporary practice:

1. The recognition that the mandate for their extermination was a minority
position in the Bible, significantly limited to Deuteronomy 7:1-2, and was only
thought to be partially implemented in parts of the Book of Joshua.
2. The realization that since the threat was posed by their religion and ethics
a change in them brings about a change in their status.
3. The limitation of the jurisdiction of the ruling to the conditions of
ancient Canaan at the time of Joshua.
4. The application of the “Sennacherib principle” that holds that under the
Assyrian empire conquered peoples lost their national identity.

These four stratagems of the biblical and
post-biblical exegetical tradition mitigate if not undermind the ruling
regarding the destruction of the Canaanites. In both cases, ethics end up
trumping genealogy. This understanding helps account for the absence of any
drive to exterminate or dispossess the seven nations even when Israel was at
the height of its power under the reigns of David and Solomon.

Postscript
According to John Yoder’s When War Is Unjust, holy wars differ from just
wars in the following five respects:

1. holy wars are validated by a
transcendent cause;

2. the cause is known by revelation;

3. the adversary has no rights;

4. the criterion of last resort need not
apply;

5. it need not be “winnable.”[45]

This study illustrates how the antidotes
to 3-5 were woven into the ethical fabric of the biblical wars of destruction.
In most cases the resort to war even against the Canaanites was only pursuant
to overtures of peace or in counterattack, and even the chances of success
against Midian were weighed by the Urim and Tumim. It is therefore not
surprising that the expression “holy war” is absent not only from the Bible but
also from the subsequent Jewish ethical and military lexicon.[46]

[1] For a survey of
alternative ways of dealing with the history of the problem outside of Jewish
exegesis, see Ed Noort, “War in the Book of Joshua: History or Theology,”
Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook: Visions of Peace and Tales of
War (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 69-86, at 72-76. For an
assemblage of material on ḥerem, see P. D. Stern, The Biblical
Herem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience, Brown Judaic Studies 211;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991.

[2] For the whole
subject of war in the Bible, see Charles
Trimm, “Recent Research on Warfare in the Old Testament,” Currents in
Biblical Research 10 (2012), pp. 171-216.

[3] On the practice
of genocide in antiquity, see Louis Feldman, “Remember Amalek!”: Vengeance,
Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo,
and Josephus, (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), pp. 2-6.

[4] Sources differ
on the number. For seven, see Deuteronomy 7:1, Joshua 3:10, 24:11. For six, see
Exodus 3:8, 17; 23:23, 33:2, etc. For five, see Exodus 13:5, 1 Kings 9:20, 2
Chronicles 8:7. For three, see Exodus 23:28. The most comprehensive list is
Genesis 15:19-20 with ten.

[5] The Septuagint
and Pseudo–Jonathan have, in Exodus 33:2, the angel expelling
them.

[6] This is
apparently behind the historical recollection of Psalm 4:2.

[7] See 23:32, 33:2.

[8] See Baruch
Levine, Numbers 1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 446f.,with
Leviticus 27:28, and Ezekiel 44:29.

[9] R. W. L.
Moberly, “Toward an Interpretation of the Shema,” ed. Christopher Seitz and
Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard
S. Childs (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 124-144, at 136. For
an expansion of this metaphor thesis, see Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and
the Meaning of “Monotheism”, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 108-123.

[10] Jacob Milgrom, Numbers,
The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1990), p. 429; see idem, Leviticus (AB 3) ( New York: Doubleday,
1991-2001) 3:2419. Alternatively, see Ziony Zevit, “The Search for Violence in
Israelite Culture and in the Bible,”

eds.
David Bernat and Jonathen Klawans, Religion and Violence: The Biblical
Heritage (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), pp. 16-37, at 25, and 31.

[11] Baruch Levine, Numbers
1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 372; see Targum Jonathan,
ad loc. Similarly, the last word of Numbers 21:3 can be rendered as Hormah or
“Destruction;” see Milgrom, ibid., Numbers, pp.172, 456-48. According to
Judges1:17, Hormah was destroyed later; see Tigay, Deuteronomy, p. 348,
n. 121.

[12] See Yehezkel
Kaufmann, Sefer Yehoshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer,1959), pp. 146-47.

[13] See Yehezkel
Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian
Exile (New York: Schocken,1960), p. 248. With regard to Judges 3:5-6, see
ibid., n. 4.

14] Judges 11:23,
Psalm 44:3, 80:8b, 2 Chronicles 20:7, Fourth Ezra 1:21, and
The Testament of Moses 12:8 mention only dispossession.

[15] For the presence
of Canaanites in King David’s administration, see the chapter “King David’s
Scribe and High Officialdom of the United Monarchy of Israel,” in Benjamin
Mazar, The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies, eds. Shmuel Aḥituv
and Baruch A. Levine, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986.

[16] The prophetic
harangue against Canaanite practices focused on their abhorrent behavior to
their children; see Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah
2:23; 3:24; 7:31-32; 19:5-6, 11; 32:35; Ezekiel 16:20-21; 20:25-26,
30-31; 23:36-39. According to Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12) such practices
include child sacrifice. The Wisdom of Solomon
(12:5-6) extends this to slaughtering children and feasting on human flesh and
blood.

[17] Pesiqta de-Rav
Kahana
13.5, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228f.

[18] Leviticus Rabbah 17.6; see Deuteronomy
Rabbah 5.13-14; P. T. Sheviit 6.1, 36c; and
Maimonides, “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 6.5. According to the midrash, the
Girgashites took up Joshua’s offer and settled in Africa. Accordingly, there is
no mention of their defeat in the conquest narratives of Joshua 6-12, albeit
they are listed in Joshua 24:11 among the seven nations handed over to Joshua.

[19] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, l. 10. This refers to the
thirty-one kings of Canaan whose defeat is narrated in Joshua 12

[20] See Lawson
Stone, “Ethical and Apologetic Tendencies in the Redaction of the Book of
Joshua,” CBQ 53 (1991), pp. 25-36.

[21] See M. Yadayim
4:4, T. Yadayim 2:17 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 683), T. Qiddushin
5:4 B. T. Berakhot 28a, B. T. Yoma 54a, with Oṣar Ha–Posqim,
Even Ha–Ezer 4.

[22] Mishneh Torah,
“Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 5.4; “Laws of Prohibited Relations,” 12.25. See
idem, The Book of Commandments #187: “They
[Amalek(?) and the seven nations] were finished off and destroyed in the days
of David. Those that survived were dispersed and assimilated into the nations
so that no root of them remained.”

[23] Abraham Kook, Tov
Ro’i (Jerusalem 5760), p. 22.

[24] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, with n. 10; and Joseph Babad, Minḥat
Ḥinukh to Sefer Ha-Ḥinukh, mitzvah #527,

[25] Yaakov Zvi
Mecklenburg, Ha–Ktav Ve–Ha–Kabbalah (New
York: Om Publishing Co., 1946), p. 52a, to Deuteronomy 20:16.

[26] “Laws of Kings
and Their Wars,” 6.1,4; see Leḥem Mishnah ad loc.; and Shlomoh
Goren, Meishiv Milḥamah, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Ha-idrah Rabbah,
1986), 3:361-366.

[27] Sifrei Deuteronomy
202, T. Sotah 8:7, B. T.
Sotah 35b with Tosafot, s.v., lerabot

[28] See Sifrei
Deuteronomy 60, ed. Finkelstein, p. 125, lines 11-12, with n. 12.

[29]See Sifrei Numbers 78, ed. Horovitz,
p. 74; Sifrei Zutta, ed. Horovitz, p. 263; Midrash Ruth
Rabbah 2.1; Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13. 5, 12,
ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228, 237; and Yalqut Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im
Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 16f.,
n. 4f., along with Michael Fishbane, The
JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society, 2002), p. 232, n. 11; p. 482, n. 11.

[30] See Ruth
Rabbah 2:1 and parallels.

[31] Sifrei Deuteronomy
211; see B. T. Sotah 35b and Tosafot, s.v. lerabot.

[32] B. T. Gittin
57b, B. T. Sanhedrin 96b, Midrash Psalms
1.18. Sennacherib got a similar
comeuppance (ibid.), while the Moabite king Balak became the progenitor of
Ruth; see B. T. Sotah 47a with parallels.

[33] See Genesis
Rabbah 60.7, p. 647; and Leviticus Rabbah 17.5, p. 383.

[34] Beit Ha–Midrash,
ed. Jellinek, 6:79.

[35] Derekh Erets Zutta
1.18, ed. Sperber, p. 20.

[36] Pesikta De–Rav
Kahana 12.20, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:218.

[37] Song Rabbah
5.16.5, and Numbers Rabbah 1.10 (middle).

[38] See Joshua 2:2
with Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13.4, ed. Mandelbaum,
1:227.

[39] See Rashi ad
loc., and Philo, On the Virtues, 106-108.

[40] See Ruth
2:11-12, 3:10. R. Zeira (Ruth Rabbah 2:14) attributes the
composition of The Book of Ruth to its acts of kindness.

[41] B. T. Yevamot
77a; See M. Yevamot 9:3; Sifrei Deuteronomy 249,
ed. Finkelstein, p. 277, and parallels.

[42] See Yalqut
Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem:
Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 17, line 15.

[43] B. T. Beṣah
32b.

[44] Mishneh Torah, “Gifts to the
Needy,” 10:1-2.

[45] John Howard
Yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-war thinking
(Minneapolis: Ausburg Pub. House, 1984), p. 26f.

[46] This point is
even conceded by Reuven Firestone in the Preface to his book titled Holy
War in Judaism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
The biblical “wars of God” (Numbers 21:14; I Samuel 17:47, 18:17, 25:28) are
simply battles fought by the people of God. Although Maimonides (“Laws of Kings
and Their Wars,” 4:10) does take them as wars fought for God in the sense that
they are fought to promote God’s unity or to sanctify the Name, he does not
categorize them as commanded wars; see Gerald Blidstein, “Holy War in Maimonidean
Law,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and
Historical Issues, ed. Joel Kraemer (The Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 1991), pp. 209-220, esp. 220, n. 33. Nonetheless, there is
no case in the Bible of a war for spreading the Israelite religion to
foreigners or compelling then to accept it nor is there an example of wars of
conquest being dubbed holy even when booty is dedicated to God. For the
insinuation of “holy war” into Protestant, primarily German, biblical
scholarship based on the model of the Islamic Jihad, see Ben
Ollenburger’s Introduction to Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 1-33;
and John Wood, Perspectives on War in the Bible (Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1998), p. 16 with note.