avakesh

A contemporaneous seal with a picture of Samson fighting the lion found.

A seal showing a bearded, long haired man (look closely) fighting with a lion, as presented in Shoftim 14:5-7, was found in the same area in which Samson lived and dated to around the time that he lived.

 

Story here

 

New Cycle of Nach Yomi

In honor of Nach Yomi starting again this past Friday, I post three interesting quotes from the end of Divrey Hayomim and the first chapter of Yehoshua.

 1.

כא  וַיִּשְׁלַח אֵלָיו מַלְאָכִים לֵאמֹר מַה-לִּי וָלָךְ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה, לֹא-עָלֶיךָ אַתָּה הַיּוֹם כִּי אֶל-בֵּית מִלְחַמְתִּי, וֵאלֹהִים, אָמַר לְבַהֲלֵנִי:  חֲדַל-לְךָ מֵאֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר-עִמִּי, וְאַל-יַשְׁחִיתֶךָ.	21 But he sent ambassadors to him, saying: 'What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; and God hath given command to speed me; forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not.'

 

Chazal explaned: "Elokim -is kodesh(holy)", and the same appears to be from the nearby verse, that Yoshiah did not listen to the words of Pharaoh Necho, from the mouth of Elokim. ... and we find that the kings of the nations speak not only in the name of their diety but also in the name of the gods of the people whom they mean to subjugate. Sancheriv said: "Now is it without G-d's help that I came upon this Land to destroy?" Compare it with the words of Koresh, the King of Persia at the end of the book (of Chronicles):"All the lands of the earth had G-d given me... and He commanded me to build HIm a house in Jerusalem(Daat Mikra ad loc.) 

2. Yehoshua 1:1

Malbim:  Moshe is called Servant of Hashem to say that even after his death he is is called, "Servant of Hashem". This is because a tsaddik who works only to better himself, his work stops at his death. However, he who works for the sake of the generation and the generations to come, and (the effects of) his work continues even after his death...".

3.

ח  לֹא-יָמוּשׁ סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה מִפִּיךָ וְהָגִיתָ בּוֹ יוֹמָם וָלַיְלָה, לְמַעַן תִּשְׁמֹר לַעֲשׂוֹת, כְּכָל-הַכָּתוּב בּוֹ:  כִּי-אָז תַּצְלִיחַ אֶת-דְּרָכֶךָ, וְאָז תַּשְׂכִּיל.	8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then thou shalt make thy ways prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.       .

 Radak:Our Rabbis disagreed. Some say that this is an imperative for all the days of a man's life, even if he knows the entire Torah. Some say that this is a blessing (to Yehoshua).What seems right is that it is an imperative for Yehoshua and for every man to study until he knows the entire Torah and afterwards he should study Wisdom.

Documentary Hypothesis and Betrayal

Betrayals abound. Some might say that betrayal is as much a part of human condition as loyalty.

There are, I think, three types of betrayals.

One is when one party to the convenant does not give the other party what it deserves. A a husband who does not give his wife the respect that she deserves, or a citizen who, in JFK's immortal words, asks what his country can do for him and not what he can do for his country, betrays by omission.

Another kind of betrayal is an exchange. A husband who gives his affection to a woman other than his wife commitsinfidelity, irrespective of whetheradultery was committed, or a soldier who spies for another country to the detriment of his own,are egregious betrayers.

These are pretty clear.

There is, however, another kind of betryal. It is a pitiful and nebachykind, one in which a person becomes a traitor without ever recognizing it. A husband who flirts with another woman but denies that there is anything wrong with just a little flirting, a Jew who supports the Palstinian cause citing Jewish ideals, deserve pity as much as contempt. To betray and not even know it is sad; it is sad!

A Jew who adopts the historical-scientifc approach to Scripture commits that kind of betrayal.  

To explain why this is so, I begin with a few assumptions.

1.I contend that there is no "correct" way to read any text and that multiple interpretations are legitimate. Neither is there an understanding that is divorced from method and what determines method is the tradition of the interpreter. How one reads a text depends on what assumptions one makes and what background informs the reader. This is, by the way, the standard approach in many disciplines, associated with Hans George Gadamer. Therefore reading Torah like a Biblical critic is not in any way truer or superior to reading it out of the ArtScroll.

.2.If no particular method is more true than another, how should one select a method? Well, based on one's background, of course. Inother words, the choice of the interpetative tradition is based on moral adn nto technical considerations. Iit is more moral to be loyal than to exchange one's inheritance for another's. There is a Jewish way of approaching the Scriptures and there is a Christian one. Jews see Bible as one kind of a book and Christians as another. This is where the betrayal comes in. When a Jew uses a method of interpretation that is essentailly a Christian one, a betrayal has occurred. When a Jew reads the Bible like a Christian, he has turned his back on this heritage and tradition. It is even worse when the interpreter does not even recognize that he has switched sides.

I guess you see where I am going. I contend that Biblical Criticism is a Christian or one of Christian methods of interpreting the Old Testament and a Jew who holds the Documentary Hypothesis as revealing the "truth" about the "Old Testament" has committed betrayal, whether he realizes it or not, whether he recognizes it or not.

In what way is the Documentary hypothesis Christian? Let me cound the ways. The following is based on Umberto Cassuto's discussion(pp.xvi-xvii).

1.Wellhausen's understanding of the Bible was informed by the evolutionary and Hegelian concepts in which there is a continuous gradual progression from the primitve to the highly evolved but there is also a process of decline and deterioration adn then revival. In this view, Judaism was a precursor of Christianity and when Judaism detriorated into empty and mindless legalism, Christianity came and  Spirit replaced Law. As such, sections that deal with Law and ritual are late and represent deterioration of Judaism. That is why he dated the Pentateuch to the post-exilic period (something that no serous scholar any longer believes).

2.Old-time Biblical critics said that there are four essential documents out of which the Torah was stitched together, just like there are four Gospel, the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John.

3.For Christians, religion is not about a book or about a way of life. Christianity is about Jesus and everything else is there solely to provide a theologically "correct" account of who he was. Scriptures are there only so that Christians can teach the correct doctrine. This is a very surprising feature of this unique religion for Jews and Moslems, for whom religion is about a way of life and Scripture is holy in a way that Christians do not recognize. When they speak of the "inerrant word of G-d", they mean that the substance of what Bible teaches about Jesus (and it is all about him) is true, not that the text itself is from G-d or that it is intrinsically holy.

I remember once listening to the radio and a Moselm convert to Christianity was talking about how two of the things he initially found most offensive about Christian worship was the mixing of the sexes during worship and that the congregants put their Bibles on the floor after reading from it. A Moslem would not lower the Koran below his belt and Jewish Law prohibits sitting on the same bench as the Torah. To us, it is a holy book. To Christians, it is not holy in itself and the text is not literally given by G-d. The text is only important inasmuch as it presents the correct doctrine; it has not intrinsic value. This is why slicing and dicing the Scriptural text is fine for a Christian but an anathema for a Jew. The Jew sees the Torah as a Divine document that partakes of the holiness of its Giver. For a Jew to adopt the historico-critical method is the on some deep level to adopt Christian assumptions about the Bible. This is a betrayal . This must be understood.

4.One more point, and it's not from Cassuto.

The historical-critical approach sees each book of the Bible, and sometimes even each chapter or sentence, as presenting different points of view that come out of different religious groups with disparate theologies and perspectives. Somehow, at some time, someone cobbled all these different perspectives and documents together. Why didn't the Redactor eliminate contradictions? Because the culture of the times did not see anything wrong in contradictions since the goal was to preserve a record of different communities and views ( I know that this is weak and I know that you recognize it too). With this assumptions, the end to reconcile disappears, and with it, the drive to think deeply about the Biblical text.

This approach has a great deal of explanatory power because of the way we think nowadays. The reductionist approach has yielded great benefits in the scientific sphere. The price that we paid for that is atomization and scattering of focus and perspective.The reductionist scientific approach makes is appealing to those who grew up adn are educated in it, and we all have been impacted by it. This is why it is not questioned beyond the traditionalist circles. But for a spiritual person, it is immensely harmful because it has not focus and no "larger picture". It leaves us without meaning as we desperately attempt to see the forest behind the trees.

It does not explain the most remarkable and obvious truth about the BIble - its unparalleled power of ideas, its ability over and over again to change societies and redirect human history, its ability to claim allegiance of millions and millions in generation after generation. In short, it misses exactly what is unique and central to the Bible - its religious potency. It is like looking at Michelangelo's the Last Supper and seeing only what is on the plates. In short, it misses THE point.

Traditional interpretations are focused precisely on the sacredness of Scripture, not only on its text. Certain kinds of interpretation, the ones that are not consistent with the message that a particular religious community subscribes to, cannot possibly be true, because it is not about the Bible ' as we know it". On the other hand, they cannot be "proven" by one community to another. Most believers, however, do not look for proof, they are in pursuit of meaning.

Some might counter by saying: "I don't care. It makes sense and what do I owe to Judaism anyway?". Unfortunately, loyalty to one's people and one's heritage is a concept that is rapidly becoming incomprehensible to the new generation of American Jews. Russian and Iranian Jews understand it so much better.

The answer is that his question had been considered before.

Certain philosophers in the Middle Ages raised a question. In their view, philosophy teaches the truth and religion is at best a shortcut to that truth for the uninitiated. If so, is there anything wrong with a Philosopher switching from one religion to another, if more convenient? They answered that a philosopher should not change religions because he must remain loyal to the religion in which he was born. Would it be that all Jews understood this!

 

Kings are not exempt

 

2 Chronicles 26:21

King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house--leprous, and excluded from the temple of the LORD. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

Bible and Meaning

I just finished reading a compilation of articles on New Insights and Scholarship in Hebrew Bible. This was an interesting experience as I found some interesting and thought provoking material as well as much that I could not agree with or found contentious and inaccurate in sensibility or approach. The first article was why I bought the book. Gary A. Rendsburg in "Israel without Bible" presented a novel approach of asking the question: "How would Biblical history look if we attemtped to reconstruct it solely from archeological evidence, without a reference to the Biblical accounts?" His response is: "Very similar to the Biblical account".

Other articles contain some nuggets of insight but are otherwise dissapointing or of marginal interest. I liked David P. Wright's response to the proposal that Temple sacrifice represent a sublimation of human sacrifice.  He points out that the actual killing of the animal (shechita) is performed by a non-cohen, thus placing the main meaning of the sacrifice not in the killing but in the offering (p.125). He derives it from Yechzkel 40:38-43,which is of course not how Talmud derives it, but this derivation is notable as a supportive, if somewhat arguable source. I also thought that Ziony Zevit was onto something in chapter 8 when he pursued the parallels between Biblical examples of outside- the- Temple- prayer and Rabbinic prayer. In this way, he contested that argument that Rabbinic Judaism is discontinuous with Biblical religion because the former has prayer while the latter had only sacrifices. I wonder whether the disagreement about the three rabbinic prayers being derived from the Avos or from the sacrifices (Brochos 17) may not be precisely about this point - about whether they are formatted after Biblical order of sacrifices or Biblical examples of out of the Temple prayer. There is, parentetically, another view, brought only in Yerushalmi, of Rabbon Gamliel, that the three daily prayers correspond to the three natural division of the day. See fascinating comments of Oruch Hashulchan about this in O"C:1.

The epilogue, however, is what I found most interesting. In it, E. Greensplan compares and contrasts the three modern ways of interpeting BIble: historico-critical methods, as sacred literature ( with the interpretation determined by a particular body of believers) and literary interpretation. I will now do the same thing but from a personal perspective, commennting on what is positive and negative in each approach.

The historical-critical approach sees each book of the Bible, and sometimes even each chapter or sentence, as presenting different points of view that come out of different religious groups with disparate theologies and perspectives. Somehow, at some time, someone cobbled all these different perspectives and documents together. Why didn't the Redactor eliminate contradictions? Because the culture of the times did not see anything wrong in contradictatons since the goal was to preserve a record of different communities and views ( I know that this is weak and I know that you recognize it too). This approach has a great deal of explanatory power because of the way we think nowadays. The reductionist scientific approach makes this  thought pattern appealing to those who are educated in it, and it frees one from the burden of having to reconcile contradictions. This is why it is not questioned beyond the traditionalist circles.

On the other hand, it does not explain the most remakable and obvious truth about the BIble - its unparalleled power of ideas, its ability over and over again to change societies and redirect human history, its ability to claim allegience of millions and millions in generation after generation. In short, it misses exactly what is unique and central to the Bible - its religious potency. It is like looking at the Last Supper and seeing only what is on the plates. In short, it misses THE point.

Traditional interpretations are focused precisely on the sacredness of Scripture, not only on its text. Certain kinds of interpretation, the ones that are not consistent with the message that a particular religious community subscribes to, cannot possibly be true, because it is not about the Bible ' as we know it". On the other hand, they cannot be "proven" by one community to another. Most believers, however, do not look for proof, they are in pursuit of meaning.

Literary approaches are compatible with the either method. On one hand, they are not interested in the source of the text or in how a text came together. On the other hand, they are not interested in the message of the text but in what it says. They shortchange everyone equally. To understand Bible as literature, they approach Bible as a literary text, trying to understand what techniques are being employed, what the effect on the reader may be and how it is accomplished. There are many types of literary approaches and while they can results in unexpectedly enlightening insights, even some that have unintentional Meaning to a traditionalsit, they are ultimately sterile because they are also not interested in the Truth but only in literality. They also, miss the big picture of Biblical Religious Meaning.

What is the take home message? Do not draw after them (Psalms 37). The sources of religious meaning are: Personal experience and longing, Tradition and Text. If literary methods add to your sophistication as in intepreter who can uncover Meaning - fine. But it is Meaning and only Meaning after which you must draw.

Leah's green eyes and "Jewish Beauty".

Standards of beauty vary between time periods and cultures. In Reuben's times,"fat was beautiful" and women in his paintings are always large, voluptuous and dripping with layers. This is not surprising in a society in which food was scarce and being fat signified wealth and status. To this day, China is facing an epidemic of childhood obesity caused by doting grandmothers imported from rural areas where the standard of good health and physical beauty is still heftiness and size.

Similarly, dark skin signified manual labor in the fields and low soceoeconomic status. "Do not see me that I am Dark for the sun has scorched me", says the protagonist in the Song of Songs. To be beautiful was to be fair. Women wore layers and carried parasols to protect themselves against sun and tan. Only when the improving transportation systems allowed the wealthy aristocrats to vacation in Nice during the winters, did tan become a sign of beauty and wealth. In or own day, it is again becoming a marker of lower classes, the kinds of women who go to tanning salons and spend too much time on the beach.

The comments of Rashbam in parshas Vayetse provide an interesting window on the mindset of medieval Jewry in regard to what is beauty.

The following verse clearly requires an explanation:

יז  וְעֵינֵי לֵאָה, רַכּוֹת; וְרָחֵל, הָיְתָה, יְפַת-תֹּאַר, וִיפַת מַרְאֶה.

17 And Leah's eyes were soft; but Rachel was of beautiful form and fair to look upon.

 

Rashbam comments:

Soft: Veres in Laaz( Veres means green in French). A Bride who has nice eyes, her entire body does not require checking(Taanis 24a), and black eyes are not soft like light ones.

Thus far it is an isolated comment but the next comment puts it into the perspective of being a comment on beauty in general.

"Nice of shape" - ... the shape of nose, forehead, mouth and cheeks. "Nice appearance" - white and red (meaning fair and red-skinned).

Rashbam established for us the standard of beauty: light or reddish skin and green (and presumably blue) eyes (See M. Lokshin's comments in the Chorev edition).

This reminds me of a passage in Sefer Hanitsachon (p.224), where the Christian asks why Gentiles are fair and beautiful and Jews are dark, implying that their dark appearance is a theological sign of their rejection. The Jew answers that Gentiles have relations during the day and in front of the beautiful icons and statues and that is why their offspring comes out fair and light skinned. Here too, the standard of beauty is geared toward the European look.

It is interesting that in Chazal we seem to find a similar perspective. We learn that a Sotah who was unjustly suspected and drank the waters is compensated in that, "if she produced dark skinned children, she will now produced light skinned children (Sotah 36a)". In the same vein, Chana begged G-d for "gavra b'guvrin", which means an average child, "not smart and not foolish, not short and not tall, not dark and not light (Berachos 31a)". Here being light skinned is seen as both an asset and a liability.

Chazal also understood that different nations have different colors, and so they speak of light skin Germans and dark skinned Ethiopians and Jews having an intermediate hue.

Negaim 2:1 THE BRIGHT SPOT IN A GERMAN

 APPEARS AS DULL WHITE, AND THE

 DULL WHITE ONE IN AN ETHIOPIAN

APPEARS AS BRIGHT WHITE.  R. ISHMAEL5

STATED: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

(MAY I BE AN ATONEMENT FOR THEM!) ARE

LIKE BOXWOOD, NEITHER BLACK NOR WHITE BUT OF AN INTERMEDIATE SHADE.

 

Europeans tended to see Jewish beauty as exotic and Eastern. This attitude is expressed in Ivanhoe and the character of dark-haired beauty Rebecca, who some claim, was modeled after Rebecca Gratz.

 

Though being light skinned is beautiful, in Tanach we certainly find an appreciation for what we now would call "Semitic Beauty". Note the following verse from the Song of Songs(7:5) that lauds  woman for her beauty: " ...thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus".

It is a rare European who has a nose like that!

 

Dawn of Redemption:The Author Responds

The book,  The Dawn of Redemption: What the Books of Ruth and Yona Teach about Alienation, Despair and Return was reviewed by Mattan Erder in the last issue of Jewish Bible Quarterly. This review touched upon and discussed several crucial issues of methodology and hashkafa in regard to how Orthodox Jews may approach Nach. It posed questions about whether it is legimate for frum interpreters to incorporate or discuss academic and Christian Bible scholarship, whether archeology and comparative linguistics, history, hermeneutics, literary criticism and other "modern" approaches have a place in the study of Nach qua "Talmud Torah", and whether the Bible should be viewed as a purely historical document or as a guide to religious life. 

Because of the importance of these topics, avakesh asked R. Meir Levin to respond to the review. We present this discussion in an interview format.

Avakesh: Your book was reviewed in the Jewish Bible Quarterly. Were you pleased with the  review?

RML: Yes. It was a fair and informed review that both understood the book and stated clearly what its ideological disagreements were with it.

Avakesh: Rabbi Erder wtires: "Controversy about methodology and hermeneutics has always been a prominent feature of biblical studies. Recently, there has been a vigorous debate as to whether the stories in the Bible are primarily etiological or ethical; whether it makes sense to read the Bible as a source of instruction, or if it should be viewed primarily through a historical lens. While not explicitly, and perhaps not consciously, addressing this debate, Rabbi Dr. Meir Levin's new work The Dawn of Redemption: What the Books of Ruth and Yona Teach about Alienation, Despair and Return (originally a series of articles on www.torah.org) makes a powerful statement in favor of reading the Bible as a source of guidance and instruction on the most crucial issues of life. As the title of the book and his preface indicate, Levin's primary concern is to elucidate the Bible's messages about a certain set of pressing human concerns in a way that will furnish the reader with guidance and new perspectives.

Levin's goals combine with his chosen interpretative strategies to create a blend that is unique and often refreshing. In addition, he is forthright about methodology, stating exactly what methodological choices he is making and why he makes them. Levin makes extensive use of rabbinic literature to elucidate the texts of both biblical books, although this tendency is more pronounced in his commentary to Ruth. This choice means that, in addition to his own considerable talents, Levin has placed the textual, psychological, historical and spiritual wisdom of the entire rabbinic tradition at his disposal, and his commentary is much richer for it. "

Avakesh: Do you believe that the Bible is an instructional document that educates us to how a Jew should think and by what he should be inspired?

RML: Yes, with the caveat that this is how Chazal saw it. The whole institution of Midrash is predicated on the assumption that Tanach is a repository of moral, religious and spiritual teachings. When one utilizes modern approaches, he automatically removes himself from this position and enters the interpretative world in which understanding of the environment, mentality and history of the Biblical period is what is paramount and not the message for the individual, nation and humanity.

Avakesh: So it is fine to use these approaches but it is not Talmud Torah.

RML: Let me state from the beginning that academic Bible study is scientific. Science in our day is reductionist. It aims to take every phenomena apart and through this understand how the smallest building blocks combine and function together, and it hopes that thusly, the whole will be understood as well. Judaism, on the other hand, is integrative. An yeshiva bochur can say a chiddush that explains a Shach, which then elucidates a disagreement between Rishonim, and throws light upon a Tannaitic dispute or contradictory Biblical verses.Talmud Torah means reconcling contradictions and bringing everything together. Hashem is One and His Torah is one.

That doesn't mean that scientific approaches are not OK, but it does mean that when a frum interpreter uses them, he must not allow himself (or herself) be seduced by their explanatory power and placidly accept the conclusions to which they may point. Should he choose to use these methods, he must consciously employ them toward a goal that is different from the goal to which their proponents, adherents, and academic Bible experts use them. It may not be very scientific but it looks scientific, and only in such a way is it  Talmud Torah and not academic scholarship.

Avakesh: R. Erder is surprised that in your commentary to Yonah, "he also seems more willing and eager to interact with modern biblical scholarship. This results in discussions of linguistics, archaeology, and theme in which Levin engages various viewpoints that depart from those of traditional rabbinic Jews. In these discussions, Levin takes on what can best be described as an open, confident, but very Orthodox approach: he feels free to utilize the insights of modern scholars to further his understanding of the text, and equally free to reject their views and arguments when they conflict with his broader vision and worldview. "

RML: Yes, except that I wrote in the introduction to Yonah that there are much fewer Chazal's on Yonan on Ruth and I, hterefore, had more "space" to consider these issues, not that it is a different method.

Avakesh. He did write that, "he is forthright about methodology, stating exactly what methodological choices he is making and why he makes them".

RML: I think that methodology is important, no, it is everything. Before any commentator takes on the task of elucidating a book, he or she must clarify the assumptions and intepretative method to be used. Shadal does this well in this introduction to Chumash and Ishaya and so do many other commentators; even those who do not, clearly have an approach that becomes apparent if you look for it. An interpreter constantly makes choices. One will make ad hoc, eclectic and unenlightened choices, or he will make these choice in a prospectively defined fashion, fully reasoned and compatible with a pre-existent set of assumptions. That is what makes a good commentary - predictability, constancy, committment, consistent and reasoned approach.

Avakesh:...and in this case the assumptions arise out of Chazal?

RML: Out of a particular approach and understanding of Chazal.

Avakesh: Is that why you speak of Chazal as a monolith. R. Merder criticizes that. He writes: "Throughout his discussion of the book of Ruth, he refers often to the "view of the Sages" or to "the Sages' interpretation," in a manner that seems to present the entire classical rabbinic tradition as a monolith. This language has the potential to blur the significant diversity that characterizes the rabbinic works that are utilized. Texts as different from each other in their provenance and orientation as the Babylonian Talmud, Midrash Rabbah, and Zohar Hadash are all quoted equally as representing the uniform view of "the Sages." Furthermore, Levin makes almost no use of any debate or disagreement between different rabbinic views in his commentary to Ruth. In the rare cases when he does mention rabbinic disagreements, it is usually only in order to emphasize the common denominators between the various interpretations. This is one unfortunate respect in which Levin under-utilizes the rabbinic sources, there is much to learn from the disagreements and debates between the sages, and attention to those debates could uncover even more nuanced and multifaceted readings of the texts at hand. In any event, while the rabbinic sources Levin cites are certainly extensive, they are not comprehensive enough to sustain the claim that they represent the exclusive view of "the Sages." This criticism, of course, does not detract from the substance or rabbinic authenticity of Levin's insights. Rather, the issue is that some of the language used to express these insights may impose a false image of uniformity on a diverse body of literature. "

RML: Well, part of it a deliberate insistance on that the Sages do have a common point of view and that this view is central to their Weltschaung and not haphazard or dependent on the personality, social class, or some other peculiarity of an individual Sage, and also because I do believe that Sages agreed much more than they disagreed. The inclination to emphasize disagreements betrays a non-Orthodox bias, a belief that Oral Law is "made up" and that it is merely a collection of individual opinions.

Avakesh: You really think so.

RML: I do. We always speak of roots and branches and how one who is committed to the Divine origin of the Torah sees areas of agreement as more securely of Divine origin than disagreements, which are also from Hashem but in a different way. You yourself wrote about it.

I remember hearing that in his younger years. R. Y.D. Soloveitchik used to spend time during his shiurim demonstrating that disagreements in the Talmud were predicated on common assumptions and shared much more than they did not.

Avakesh: So you think that people who are allergic to the term "Sages" have an agenda.

RML: Not always. I dont think so in this case. They may just not recognize the ideological basis for this objection, which I have encountered before and from less sympathetic quarters.

Avakesh: What were you trying to accomplish with your book.

RML: Many things. I wanted to demonstrate that one can be frum and write a sophisitcated and informed commentary, one that is faithful to Chazal and inspirational to the modern man. I tried to do something different, to blaze a trail, to show how sophisticated literary techniques can be combined with inspirational message based on Chazal, how modern hermeneutical techniques can add value to the Talmud Torah aspect and not in any way detract from it. I tried to write a kind of a commentary that modern man can appreciate and by which he or she can be spiritually uplifted but that would still be based on solid scholarship and be understood and respected by scholars.

Above all, I wanted to uplift Kavod Shomayim by showing that Hashem's Word is relevant and deep even in our age.

Avakesh: R. Merder says that not everything in the book is Pshat.

RML: I learned many things while writing this book. One of them is that, in Nechama Liebowitz' words, "Pshat is what I say it means. Drash is what you say it means". The fact remains that if you start from a set of exegetical assumptions and encounter a verse that seems to contradict these assumptions, there are only two choices. You must be willing to either reconsider your assumptions or you must be willing to reconsider the meaning of the verse. If you are an academician, you may emend the verse, chas veshalom. You have no choice but to explain that verse in some other manner, which you will call "omek hapshat", allegory, poetic license or some other variety of pshat. It will be not the apparent but the real meaning of the verse, for the apparent meaning is false by the virtue of assumptions that you employ. Someone who starts from a different set of assumptions will call your interpretation drash. This is simply the nature of hermeneutics and there is no way to escape this conundrum. There is a very grey and very long transitional area between pshat and drash.

Avakesh: Thank you for this interview

RML:On the contrary, thank you for this opportunity.

More on The Dawn of Redemption

I previousely posted a review of the book, "Dawn of Redemption..".

Here is another, a more detailed review from the perspective of a Biblical scholar, with some interesting points, from the current issue of Jewish Bible Quarterly.

Download Dawn Review     

 

I hope to soon post the author's response to some of the important points of methodology and outlook in contemporary Orthodox Biblical Interpretation that this review raises.

Jewelry of the Bible

See here

 

A little Akkadain goes a long way

An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological- Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents With Supplements on Biblical Aramaic
By Hayim ben Yosef Tawil
KTAV Publishing House, 456 pages, $125

Reading the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, is tough. For one thing, it’s very, very old, and not refracting the text through our 21st-century prism is difficult. For another, it’s written in two odd languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, in such a way that even those familiar — even fluent — in these tongues find that the simplest passages beg analysis.

COURTESY OF JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY

The Expert: Hayim Tawil’s ‘Lexicon’ is a watershed study.

“What’s the p’shat?” — the basic meaning of the text — is the toughest question of all.

Where does Akkadian fit into this question? ...

A little expensive at $125.00

More

More