Ki Tavo (Part 2) - Deut. 26:1-29:8

Obscurity in Scripture

In this week's Torah portion, there are a lot of words and phrases that we really are not 100% certain of their meaning.

For those who do not hold the Torah as God's word to His people, that's not a problem. For those who do, well, they try to not think of the question, "Why would an Omniscient Being dictate a text with words that He knew that we wouldn't know the meaning?" 

And to those Apologists who claim that God couldn't tell humanity about planets because they wouldn't understand it (plus there was no Biblical Hebrew word for "planet"), they need to come to terms with the problem that Scripture doesn't care if people don't understand what words mean. To combat this, we simply give them meaning that "feels right".

Here are some examples from this week's portion.

Verse 26:5 - ארמי אבד אבי ("Arami oved avi").

Some interpret this as "My father was a fugitive Armenian", "My father was a straying Armenian", the Septuagint rends this as "My father abandoned Aram". The Vulgate has "An Armenian persecuted my father". Many reinterpret this to speak of Jacob and Laban (Rashi, Ibn Ezra), even though the Torah never refers to anyone as an "Armenian", although Laban did speak Aramaic, which is a different issue. Some interpret this to speak of Abraham (Rashbam). And some have a different twist on it, with Laban and "my father" not being explained (the Passover Haggadah, Onkelos).

So whatever this special phrase means that a Jew is supposed to say when he goes to the Temple with his first fruits...nobody is really in agreement.

Verse 28:4 - עשתרות - (Ashterot)

This is the same name of the Goddess (or the town named after the Goddess) in Genesis 14:5. It is sometimes translated to "lambing" or "birthing the flock", but nobody is really certain. The Goddess connection is never looked at.

Verse 28:5 - ומשארתך - (u'mishartekha)

This is a word of unknown origin. Some translate it as a kneading bowl (Onkelos), some as a "residue" (Rashi).

Verse 28:22 - בשחפת - (b'shakhafet)

This is likely a disease of some sort. Onkelos sees it as "consumption", Rashi as a wearing away of the flesh, Saadiah as malfunctioning lungs, and the Rashbam as a general variety of illnesses.

Verse 28:32 - אל - (El)

This word has a number of meanings, and because of these, different interpreters will choose a different meaning, depending on their comfort zone for "there will be no El in your hand". Is it God? Power? An Idol? There is no universal agreement.

And more!

Yes, there are more verses in this week's portion with strange and obscure words. I have presented a handful to give you a taste of what it a common occurrence throughout the Torah.

Of course, a traditionalist will say, "See! That proves that the Oral Torah is true, because without it you cannot understand the written Torah!"

The problem with that is the lack of agreement by those who believed in the Rabbinical construct called, "The Oral Torah".

Ki Tavo - Deut. 26:1-29:8

There are a number of expressions that often creep into our conversation:

Everything happens for a reason

Somebody up there likes me

What did I do to deserve this? 

These and many other expressions that are often directed at the idea of some Divine exercise of  "reward and punishment" stems from this very Torah portion.

Sure, chapter 26 of Leviticus is certainly a list of terrible things that God will do to you if you don't keep His rules. But this week's version not only has twice as many punishments listed (96 according to the count in Midrash Tanchuma), but it is preceded by 11-12 curses (depending on if you count #12 as a summary or a separate curse) of things people do in secret.

This view is damaging to society because it creates the view that anything bad that befalls upon another person is because he or she sinned. Are you a guy who was betrothed to a young woman who was raped (verse 28:30)? God was punishing you. Or maybe she wasn't raped, but committed adultery instead. Again, God was punishing you, and they were his vehicles.

Of course, how this affects any punishment for adultery or rape when it was apparently God's will requires a lot of philosophical gymnastics.

This is one of the core philosophies of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets funerals.

They are simply echoing a sentiment found in The Babylonian Talmud by Rav Ammi (Shabbat 55a), that if not for sin, no one would die. And the idea that the children would die for the sins of their fathers was also acceptable as well. Here is a snippet from Shabbat 32b:

One of the horrible things about this week's Torah portion is that it defined and encourages such a mindset - that anything bad that happens, it's all your fault and it is a "gift" from God who you should credit as being "the True Judge".

If you see someone mourning the loss of a loved one, do you accept that it was the result of sin and try to help correct the sinner, or do you give comfort?

That is the dilemma that literalists go through who accept that all punishment is the result of sin.

If there is a drought, then obviously the people of the town have sinned. Sure, they look like good people, but it's probably a secret sin. So the only way around this is to atone for it through fasting. At one time, self-flagellation was also considered a remedy.

 The belief in a Heavenly Reward and Punishment has done much to impact who we are as human beings. It is a factor that was used to control people, to tell them that all the good that they have is from God, but also, all of the evil as well. And the only way to avoid the evil is to keep every single rule (28:1) that God set down, and the only way to have good in your life if to keep every single rule, and the only way to get rid of the evil in your life, beside returning to doing every single rule is to work with the religious leadership who will atone for you.

Little good can come out of this view.

And it is this view that festers among many of the religious, especially the one who blame those who died in a hurricane as deserving of God's wrath for any number of stupid reasons (e.g., God opposed that town's passing of a law that permits gay marriage.).

One would think that none of these people had ever read the Book of Lot.

 

Ki Teitzei - Deut. 21:10-25:19

This Torah portion opens with the problematic "Woman of a Beautiful Form" story in verses 10-14.

The story goes like this:

Your army won a battle and brought back the booty. Among them were women taken as captives. You see one of them that strikes your fancy and you lust for her. So you take her for yourself. The rules state that after she is in your house, she will remove her hair and clothes and will do something with her nails. She will then mourn the loss (or death) of her parents for a month, and after that, you are then permitted to take her for your wife and come to her if you desire. If you don't, then you can send her on her way.

The final verse is chilling:

וְהָיָה אִם-לֹא חָפַצְתָּ בָּהּ, וְשִׁלַּחְתָּהּ לְנַפְשָׁהּ, וּמָכֹר לֹא-תִמְכְּרֶנָּה, בַּכָּסֶף; לֹא-תִתְעַמֵּר בָּהּ, תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר עִנִּיתָהּ. 

21:14 "And it will be that if you will not [any longer] desire her, you will send her away to be her own person, and you will not sell her for money and you shall not put her to work [as a slave], because you had [sexually] abused her."

But wait...what sort of abuse are we talking about?

Later on, initah (עניתה) appears again in this Torah portion, about a man who rapes a woman, and he can never divorce her because he [sexually] abused her.

Here is the NIV translation of that verse, which correctly uses "violated".

When it comes to anything dealing with lust, with sex, with taking a woman against her will, and עינתה is used as a verb - she was raped. If there is no sex involved, it is "simple" abuse and possible torture.

In other places we find this expression as well (2 Sam 13:22 and Ezekiel 22:11 on the raping of one's sister).

I talk more about Biblical Rape in another blog post.

The Rashbam agrees, but few people who study this text will ever cite him. Instead, they will cite some of the typical apologists.

Apologetics

So let's talk about the typical apologetics on this one.

Not just Christian, but Jewish translations of this text will use "humbled" in place of "violated" or "raped", simply because it is not very comfortable to read that someone was permitted to take another against their will and exerted his will upon her. ArtScroll is an example of a Jewish publication company that has done this.

So how do you justify that God permits a man to take a woman against her will, knowing full well what will happen?

The Rambam wrote that God gave this commandment because men are lustful in times of war, and it was a way to reduce what was natural for them. Also, if God forbade this, men would do it anyway, and so this is a way for God to reduce the sinful nature of man.

Rashi concurs with this. Rashi goes further to say that she likely dressed well when captured in order to attract her male captors, which is why she is commanded to remove her clothing and remain in her captors house.

Yes, apparently, according to Rashi, she was asking for it.

One apologetic I read was that the man initially raped her to satisfy his lust, and after the cooling down period, he is free to let her go. He only took her once.

That doesn't help.

But why would the text demand that she remain in her captors house?

The Sifrei is bothered by this and, responding to this question, Rashi wrote that by remaining in the man's house, she will become repulsive to him. Perhaps he means because she is crying without any hair.

This doesn't answer the question: how is this moral?

One more thing to throw into the mixture: if, after a month in his household, the man wants to keep her and make her his wife, can she say "no!"?

The woman has no choice. And as with verses 22:28-29, the woman is condemned to be owned by her rapist all the remaining days of his or her life.

One last thing.

The woman is called an ayshet yophat to'ar. It is commonly translated as a "woman of beautiful form". But in the Tanach, an ayshet usually refers to a married woman. And so, from this the general interpretation is that even if she was married, she is now the property of her new master.

(Note: ba'al means "master, owner, lord, etc.", and is also a term that is translated as "husband".)

Shoftim (Part 2) - Deut 16:18-21:9

The Power of the Priesthood

In verses 17:8-12 we read about an incompetent judge who cannot arrive at a decision, and so he brings the people having the argument (and, perhaps, the witnesses), before someone far more capable and powerful to make that judgement.

And if someone doesn't like the judgement, there's no higher court to go to. And if that person refuses to accept it, then he or she is put to death. To refuse is considered an evil within Israel's midst.

So who is this high and mighty person who has so much power? 

It's the priest.

But not just any priest, but a priest from the tribe of Levi!

"But wait?! Aren't all priests from the tribe of Levi?"

Well, during the period of this story, yes. But much later, that wasn't always the case. (See Judges 17:5, 2 Samuel 8:18, 1 Chron. 18:17, etc.). Many apologists try to render "Kohain" into something less official because of these references. Yet many Christians are willing to have the Messiah be a priest who is not a Levite, citing Psalm 110:4. 

So there is this special expression that you can scan for, which speaks of Levitical Priests, which is הכהנים הלוים, or "HaKohanim HaLevi'im", which renders the second word as a modifier of the first.

This expression occurs more than 80 times in the Tanach, of which 5 are in the Book of Deuteronomy (17:9, 17:18, 18:1, 24:8, and 27:9).

The very idea was not even considered in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers.

And so, by saying, "You will come to the Levitical Priests...who will be there in those days..." is akin to saying, "You must not come to a priest who is not a Levite...in those days...".

So the Deuteronomist was a supporter of the Aaronoid Priests, supported their absolute power, and was against giving such power to the non-Levitical priests who would either existed during his time, or had existed.

This, of course, sets the authorship of Deuteronomy much later than literalists are willing to accept.

And as I noted in the previous blog post, the Deuteronomist was well aware of the stories in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.

It's not a problem if you see Deuteronomy as literature that was authored about 2500 years ago.

It's only a problem if you see Deuteronomy as having been authored by Moses.

Shoftim - Deut 16:18-21:9

This week has a lot of good stuff for the Biblical Critic.

Besides the usual anachronisms, such as iron ax head (19:5) and the Canaanite Goddess Asherah (16:21) we have what I call the "Royal Edict", meaning, the commandment or suggestion to have a king.

Now why do I say "commandment OR suggestion"? That has to do with the Deuteronomist quoting from the book of Samuel and citing examples from the book of Kings and Chronicles.

You see, while Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were often unaware with the commands of the Torah, the Torah seems eerily aware of what went on in those books that speak of periods that are centuries after Moses had died.

Think of it as a continuity problem with a general rewrite.

In verses 17:14-15, we read that when the Jews enter the land, they will say, "I will set a king over me like all of the nations (goyim) around me" and then they will appoint a king.

And in 1 Samuel 8:5 we read that the Jews would do just that, and say to Samuel "Set a king over us like all of the nations (goyim)."

It is almost word-for-word.

But there is one important distinction.

In the Book of Samuel, God hated that the people wanted a king and, in 1 Samuel 8:7, Yahweh proclaims that the Jews have rejected Him by wanting a human king. And in verses 8:11-18, 1 Samuel lists all of the horrible things that kings do to their subjects, but to no avail.

So why is there a confusion over the beginning of Deut. 17:14 to ask if it is a commandment (a position held by the Ramban) or a suggestion (A position held by the Rambam and many others)?

The first thing is the that first word could be read as "when", "because of", "for", and even "if". And the problem that many people have with this text is that is contradicts the Book of Samuel by showing a king in a positive light, and something that God would approve of at all.

And it gets better.

The text (Deut. 17:15-20) describes the type of king to avoid and it then describes King Solomon to a tee (but doesn't name him)! It lists his major sins - having too many wives, too many horses, and sending the Jews to Egypt to work. It says that having too many wives would turn one away from God (Solomon had idols erected for his foreign wives). And Deuteronomy tells us that kings are forbidden from having too much gold, which Solomon had, and it was his lust for it that caused his  kingdom to split.

The Deuteronomist, like Samuel, either did not care or was unaware of the decree by Jacob (Genesis 49:10) that the kingship would always be with Judah, especially since the first king chosen by God was Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin.

So it seems that the Deuteronomist was aware of the books of Samuel and Kings/Chronicles.

Recap

The "Royal Decree" is a commandment to have a king. It it does not matter from what tribe he comes from, but being from a tribe, he is Jewish. And this king should be righteous, and good and when he dies, if he was good, then his son will also be a good king.

Classical commentators have a problem with this because these verse contradict the Book of Samuel and it contradicts everything that we read in the books of Kings and Chronicles about the type of kings who ruled over Israel.

Solomon (albeit nameless) is an example here of the worst kind of king. And if you read the Book of Kings you will discover that there was never a good an righteous king who kept to these rules. According to the Abarbanel in his commentary to the Book of Samuel, there was never a righteous king over Israel. (He gives one person, Jotham the son of Uzziya, a pass because Scripture doesn't really speak of him at all!)

There is no mention of any king who wrote a copy of a Torah (whatever that means, since there was no Pentateuch, no single collection of the "5 books", at the time that Deuteronomy was written), and every King written about was a bad king.

It's possible that the Deuteronomist was being sarcastic, perhaps giving a wink at the idea "this is what God really wanted, but we never got this!"

It seems that the Deuteronomist was aware of those other books, while the authors of those other books were not aware of the Book of Deuteronomy.

And I find that to be a fascinating idea.

Re'eh (Part 2) - Deut 11:26-16:17

Meaty Issues

There are three issues in this week's portion that I want to address.

Where's The Beef?

In Leviticus 17:3-5, while complaining that the Children of Israel were bringing offerings of meat to the local satyrs, we are told that all animals that are butchered away from where God's place was must have their meat and blood brought to the temple so that God can get His portion, the priests their portion, and the blood may be dashed upon the alter. The owner of the animal would bring the rest of the animal home for consumption.

Now, imagine that, centuries later, the people are spread out across the land, and it is not convenient to bring an animal to Jerusalem when you live a full day's journey away.

Deuteronomy reflects that period, and changes a couple of the rules.

The first is that you don't have to bring any animal to the Temple unless you proclaim it to be cherem to you, holy and forbidden, and only for the Temple. You are permitted to kill your own animal and eat it. And unlike the Levitical requirement to cover the blood after it has been poured upon the ground, the Deuteronomist simply required that the blood be poured on the ground "like water" and not eaten.

One likely explanation for this difference, telling the people that they could kill and eat their own livestock, could have been the result of people actively ignoring the priestly requirements.

Read how the Deuteronomist repeatedly stresses that the non-Levites must not forget about the Levites, and that the non-Levites need to give a portion to the Levites, that the Levites should be treated like one of the poor, and that the Levites don't have as much. Could this also reflect a time when people were fed up with the Levitical cult and the Deuteronomist is emphasizing such a  condition?

In any case, there is a difference between the Leviticus and the Deuteronomy view of butchering your own livestock.

What To Eat?

This weeks portion also lists a lot of animals that you may eat, and those what you should refrain from eating. You may eat any bird that is tahor (it doesn't explain what that means, and is often rendered as "pure"), and it then lists a number of birds that we cannot eat.

But guess what? We don't know what animals that most of the biblical names are referring to! Sure, one translator is keen on having a bird be a carrion eater, after all, what is less tahor than one of those? But another translator may decide that it's not really a carrion eater at all. Is an eyal a "deer"? Or is it more like an impala since the horns of a deer are used to blow an alarming sound.

Because of these problems, the Rabbis, who claim that there was an "oral Torah" where MNoses told people what all of this meant, admitting that they don't know as well made up a rule about birds: if your family doesn't have a tradition of eating a specific bird, then you don't eat it. And I know some people who, for this reason, refrain from eating turkey.

Meat, Milk, and OCD

Verse 14:21 ends with, "You shall not boil/cook ["seethe"] a kid (gadi) in the milk of it's mother."

This does not refer to a cow, chicken, or even a sheep, but a goat.

Three times this prohibition is given, but no reason is ever mentioned.

Some people say that it was a type of food of idolaters, but there is no evidence that this was the case. The Rambam, who disagreed that it was idolatrous food declared that it was likely unhealthy, but this too is without any evidence.

And so, the Rabbis declared that all of the meat forms that would be brought for Temple sacrifices (bovine, sheep, goat) would be considered meat, and any milk, even from a different animal, was forbidden to cook in the same vessel at the same time. They later added birds either because they were also Temple offerings, or because people confused bird meat with meat from one of the other animals. They refrained from including fish in the meat category since it was never a Temple offering (unlike the Greeks who would offer a tuna to the Temple of Poseidon).

And even though the Talmud speaks of using a bowl for cooking a dairy meal, and after washing it out, using the same bowl for cooking a meat dish, later Rabbis ruled that you could not use the same cooking vessels for meat and dairy.

And, of course, since you cannot derive any benefit from it, you cannot feed your pet meat/dairy food, and there are those who have two washing sinks, one for meat, and one for dairy.

Some people do the same thing for their trash as well.

The Torah does not forbid cheeseburgers, and the zealots treat the layers of Rabbinical ordinances based on Deuteronomy 14:21 as though God really was demanding that everyone have two sets of dishes!

(With the invention of very hot electric dishwashers, some people, but not many, have reverted to using one set of dishes).

It has been my observation that the more religious a person is, the more OCD he or she is concerning all of these rules.

Re'eh - Deut 11:26-16:17

As I have mentioned several times before, theists who view themselves as monotheistic, will offer the Book of Deuteronomy as their primary proof text within the Torah, ignoring all of the problems that the other four books offer when one holds that the Torah is anything but henotheistic. However, one who does this is careful to not quote Deuteronomy as a whole, since that mostly monotheistic view of this book is not carried through the entire book because, like the other books, it was also not composed by a single author, although it does appear to have fewer authors than, say, Genesis.

The term "Other Gods" (אלהים אחרים) appears more in Deuteronomy than the other four books of the Torah combined, with a third of those occurrences appearing in this Torah portion alone.

So because of that, I thought that it would be useful to describe how the ancient people viewed an invasion by a people with their special God, especially based on the audience of the OT.

Remember, Yahweh was first appears in Canaan, and decides to create a special cult for Himself, choosing Abraham to father this cult.

And when the Hebrews went into exile, Yahweh, in effect, went into exile as well, for more than 200 years, dwelling atop a mountain near Midian, upon which, Moses would encounter Him, and would be chosen to lead the people back to Canaan, carrying their God on His golden throne, bringing Him back to Canaan, where He would be the one and only God of the land.

But it's been awhile, and while Yahweh was gone, other Gods were the protectors of the other peoples, and they needed to be destroyed.

If you read the Book of Daniel, the idea of supernatural agents, in this case, angels, fighting one another was a common view. Each nation had its own supernatural agent, and when one nation went to war against another, the supernatural agents went to war as well. Humans fought humans and Gods fought Gods.

(It should be noted that the difference between Gods, angels, and demons are simply semantics.)

So in this week's portion, Moses tells the people that they are going to encounter resistance, and that the incoming Hebrew forces needs to wipe out all of the places where the other Gods are worshiped, which includes their shrines, alters, idols, and even their names.

One of the words used is asherim, which are the idols of the Goddess Asherah. This term appears in Exodus 13:34, Deut. 7:5, and this week's verse. 12:3. Using this expression is an anachronism. Asherah was not a Goddess in Egypt, nor would she have been known by the Jews in the wilderness. However, during the first-Temple period, she was quite popular among many Judeans. The Hebrew word for tree, eitz, also means wood, or when used as an adjective, "wooden". So while some translations (KJV excluded) translate "eitz-asherah" as an "asherah tree", a more likely expression of this would be a wooden idol of asherah, and being a fertility Goddess, likely a phallic one at that.

The wiping out of the names commandment is an interesting one in that the Tanach will often not mention the names of the other Gods, as in "Lord of Peor" (baal-peor), or will use polemical names, such as "Lord shit-eating-pest (fly)". From this commandment to erase the names of other Gods, a the sages of the Talmud enacted a law to forbid the erasure of 7 names of God: Yahweh, Adoni, El, Eloah, Elohim, Shaddai, and Tzvaot. The Jewish code of Law (Shulchan Aruch) lists another 90 names.

Summary

The ancient view of the Gods was that each nation had one, and when there was an invasion, the invading force brought their God with them to fight the resident God. This is exactly what the Book of Deuteronomy is depicting in its preparation for the Israelites coming to the land of Canaan, after having been bred and raised and trained to be part of the Yahwist cult, carrying Him like the returning King, to depose those who had taken over after He had left more than 200 years before.

It's not quite the same story that one is presented on a Sabbath sermon.