avakesh

Ethrog in Hezekiah's palace

For many years it has been scholarly dogma that Esrog did not grow in Eretz Yisrael in Bilbical times and, therefore, the identification of "goodly fruit" with Ethrog was post-biblical. Now comes evidence that Esrog was grown in Judea during the First Temple period, here.

See here on Ethrog in Josephus.

This reminds me of the "camel" controversy. It was similarly claimed for many years that the story of Abraham and his camels msut be an anachronism because camels were not yet domesticated in the Bronze Age. This also turned out to be incorrect. See also here.

The lesson is that we must approach scholary dogmas with a good measure of scepticism.

Of physical and spiritual hungers!

"After 10 years of studying the rabbinic texts that went into composing the Seder, after reading numerous studies on the development of the Haggada, and after writing (and rewriting, and rewriting) a critical commentary on the Haggada, I can safely say that at least one thing has changed in my life - my family no longer has to starve before the main meal is served at our Seder. "

Comment: A perfect example of self-delusions of academic scholarship. Does anything else need to be said?

Rabbi Isaac Aboab

An interesting review of the first American Rabbi... and a foe of Spinoza.

Not to be confused with Isaac Aboab I or Isaac Aboab of Castille.

 

A book from the Aoab family foundation , here

The Aboab family site also contains a song about him (WARNING for those who consider anonymous voices to be kol isha: it is sang by a woman!) and other interesting material.

No he was not English or German; he spoke Portuguese.

Nebuchadnezzar's poetic gifts

After seeing the miracle that ocurred to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah , Nebuchadnezzar praised God; and he was so carried away by his songs that had he continued he would have surpassed David, but an angel forced him to desist (Sanh. 92b). Yet this did not prevent him from massacring all the 600,000 Jews who had obeyed his command and worshipedthe idol, and whom he reproached for not having followed the example of the three pious men and trusted in God (Pirḳe R. El. xxxiii.).

We can now understand this Chazal in contxt, for we have several examples of Nebuchadnezzzar's religious poetry.

1. Daniel (4.34)  And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him Who lives forever: for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation. (4.35 ) All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'

2.Prayer to Marduk (The cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar):

Without you, lord what is existence? For the king you love, whose name you called and who pleases you-you advance his fame.I am a prince you favored, a creature of our hands. You made me and entrusted me the kinghsip over all men. By your grace, lord, who provides for them all, cause me to love your exalted rule. Let the fear of you be in my heart. Grant me what seems good to you; you will truly do what profits me.

One sees again how informed, or aware Chazal appear to be, how prescient about discoveries that came so much later. We see in this fragment the ability of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar to creat great poetry, so technically proficent, in fact, that an angel had to come and stop him.

 

So many Jews!

from Matteh Dan 

Behold it is acknowledged and well known to any educated person that in the Second Temple period and for hundreds of years after its destruction, in the Land of Israel and beyond, there lived millions of Jews, so many that it is hard to believe. This is as they said in Pesachim 64b, "One time King Agrippa sought to focus on the count of the multitudes of

Israel

. He said to the High Priest, "Note the how many Paschal sacrifices there are". He set aside on kidney from each sheep and they were found to be twice the number that went out of

Egypt

[1], not counting people who were not ritually pure or were too far away to be obligated to bring a Paschal sacrifice. There was not a Paschal lamb that did not have at least ten people signed up to share it and consume it together. According to this count there were 12 X 10 X 1000.000.00: what we would call in English language 12 million. This accords with reason and this number of inhabitants is realistic[2]. That, however, which is written in Gittin 57b that Yannai had 600.000.00 cities and each one had a number of inhabitants equal to the number that came out of Egypt, except for two that had twice the number that went out of Egypt, is an exaggeration. It is just like what it says in the beginning of the second chapter of Tamid (29a), "Sages spoke in an exaggerated language[3]". Should you not say that it is an exaggeration, 600.000.00 cities with 600.000.00 inhabitants each will result in so many bodies that it will not leave even a parsa[4] of arable land that can be plowed and sawn. Similarly what is said there (Gittin 57b) that Hadrian slaughtered 600.000.00 times 600.000.00 in

Alexandria

in

Egypt

is an exaggeration. There is, however, no doubt that

Judah

and

Israel

were numerous like the sand on seashore.

Now I will quite for you the words of Agrippa[5] to Ceasar Caius[6]. It describes what happened when that wicked man decided that all kings shall bow to him and all nations should worship him as a god, including all the congregations of Israel that are spread throughout the four corners of the earth and in the Temple in Jerusalem. These are some of his words as they pertain to us:

" As for the holy city, I must say what befits me to say. While she, as I have said, is my native city she is also the mother city not only of one country Judea but of most of others in virtue of the colonies sent out in diverse times to the neighboring lands Egypt, Phoenicia, the part of Syria called Hollow[7]  and the rest as well and the lands lying far apart, Panphylia, Cilicia, most of Asia up to Bythinia, and the corners of Pontus, similarly also into Europe, Thessaly, Boetia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and most of the best parts of Pelloponnese. And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies but also the most highly esteemed of the islands

Euboea

,

Cyprus

,

Crete

. I say nothing of the countries beyond the Euphrates, for except for a small part they all,

Babylon

and the other satrapies those where the land within their confines is highly fertile, have Jewish inhabitants. "

 One of the Christian scholars went too far, for he had written that during the

Second

Temple

period there were in the

Land

of

Israel

66 times 110.00.00, that is 66 million and 260 thousand. He wrote this because he found in the Josephus "To Romans" that in one Galilean village there were 15.000.00 persons. It appears that he assumed that it was the same with every single village. He gave every walled city a population of 50.000.00 and allocated 9 walled cities to each tribe. The total came out to be 5 million and 520 thousands people. If you multiply it by 12 tribes, the result will be that number of 66.260.000.00.

This is something that does not make sense, for during the

Second

Temple

period there were only two and a half tribes, counting priests and Levites[8].  If some of the other tribes were with them[9], their numbers were not of great consequence. In addition, not all settlements were of equal size. Even if you were to say that a certain village had 15 thousand inhabitants, it does not necessitate that population in other villages or towns of that province were proportionate to that number. Even if Gallilee was densely settled,

Judea

does not need to be as settled as Gllilee was.

Be it as it may, everyone accepts that the number of the Children of Israel was great and awe-inspiring, one that could not be counted or grasped, whether inside the Land or outside it.

---

[1] This peculiar construction that qualifies the number or multiples of 600.000.00 as "the number that went out of Egypt" may be used to indicate that the number 600.000.00 that refers to the number of males has standing behind it also appropriate numbers of women and children, just as the 600.000.00 that went out of Egypt were accompanied by women and children.

[2] This account is corroborated by Josephus who reports that the number of people coming to the

Temple

in his time was on the order of 2.565 million. "So there high priests, upon the coming of their feast which is called Passover… found the number of sacrifices as 265.500; which upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amount to 2565.00.00 persons that were pure and holy (Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Ch. 9. Sec. 3, 422-427).

[3] From the Talmudic discussion itself it appears that only the specific examples quoted there are subject to the principle, "The Sages spoke in an exaggerated language (see Tosafot Chullin 90b, s.v Bshlosha Makomot )", while R. Nieto appears to understand it as a general principle that can also be applied to toher Aggadic passages. In this he follows Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed II, 47 and Shiltei Giborim Avodah Zara, p. 6 (in Alfasi).

[4] A parsah is 2.3 - 2.9 miles.

[5] AGRIPPA I (10 B.C.E.–44 C.E.), tetrarch of Batanea (the

Bashan

) and

Galilee

, 37–41 C.E. and king of

Judea

, 41–44 C.E.; grandson of Herod and Mariamne the Hasmonean, and son of Aristobulus and Berenice. He was friendly with Gaius, later the emperor Caligula. Caligula on his accession appointed him to the tetrarchies of Herod Phillipus and Lysanias consisting of Bashan-Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Argob, and Abel, with the title of king. During this period Agrippa used his connections in

Rome

to intercede with Caligula on behalf of the Jews. They wished Caligula to retract an order to erect his statue in the

Temple

in

Jerusalem

. Shortly afterward Caligula was murdered.

 

[6] From Philo's Legatio at Gaium, Section 281-282 (vol.10, p 143 in Loeb Calssical Library, Tr. F. H. Colson,

London

: William Heinemann, 1962.  I am indebted to Dr. Louis Feldman for locating this citation for me. The version quoted by R. Nieto contains minor discrepancies from this translation in the listing of places and may represent his own translation from a Latin manuscript.

[7] The Greek is Coele, I,e, Coele-Syria, the offician Seleucid designation for those portions of

Palestine

and southern

Syria

captured by Antiuchus III from the Ptolomies (ca. 200 B.C.E.

[8] Only Judah and Benjamin have returned from captivity. R. Nieto assumes that priests and Levites were evenly distributed throughout kingdoms of

Judah

and

Israel

and that only the half of the tribe of Levi that was exiled with

Judah

has returned.

[9] Erachin 33a.

Egyptians on gilgul.

 R. Samson Raphael Hirsch was no fan of superstitions and gilgul was to him a grave superstition. He was not alone; opponents to this belief include: Rav Saadiah Gaon (Emunos v'Dayos 6:8); Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam (see R. Margoliyos, in his introduction to Milchamos Hashem p. 19 note 11); Rabbi Avraham ibn Daud (Raavad I, in Emunah Ramah 7); Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben Avraham Ibn Latif (Rav Poalim, p. 9 section 21); Rav Chasdai Crescas (Ohr Hashem, ma'amar 4, derash 7); Rav Yosef Albo (Sefer HaIkkarim 4:29); and Rav Avraham Bedersi (Ktav Hitnatzlut leRashba). See too Tosafos Yom Tov (approbation to R' Naftali Hertz Bachrach, Emek HaMelech), who cites Abarbanel that transmigration is an import from Greek philosophy rather than being part of Kabbalah (but contradicted by his comments on yibbum in parshas Ki-teitse), and Rashash to Bava Metzia 107a. (most sources from Rabbi Yitzchak Blau, "Body And Soul: Tehiyyat ha-Metim and Gilgulim in Medieval and Modern Philosophy," The Torah u-Madda Journal vol. 10 (2001)

In his commentary to Genesis 50:2, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch juxtaposes the Jewish belief and the Egyptian belief in immortality. This contrast serves an explicit exegetical purpose in his earlier comments, for it explains Yakov's insistence on being buried in the Land of Canaan rather than being embalmed AND left in Egypt.

" Here we have an interesting contrast between the Egyptian view - as
expressed in embalmment - and the Jewish view. Such contrasts, whenever
they occur, should be analyzed, and should be stressed especially in
our confrontation with those who deny the Divine source of the Torah,
who regard "the work of Moses" as merely the product of "his genius'
which "drew upon the wisdom of the priests of Egypt."

How striking is the contrast that is revealed here! The Egyptian would
embalm the body, so that its individuality should endure. However,
the soul, he thought, did not remain in its personal individuality,
but wandered from body to body - even to animal bodies - in manifold
metamorphoses. The Jew believes that the soul endures forever, whereas
the body wanders. Once the soul has been gathered unto the souls of its
people, the body has nothing more to do with the individual. Rather,
it is a mitzvah to bring the body as soon as possible into close contact
with the decomposing earth (see Sanhedrin 46b). The body returns to dust,
and goes through all the transformations of earthly matter. The Egyptian
believed in the transmigration of the soul, and tried to protect the
body from any possibility of change. The Jew believes in the soul's eternal personal existence, and surrenders the body to earthly change."

 

The exegetical point would disappear if Egyptians did not believe in transmigration of souls and, in fact, they did not. This misconception, that comes to us through Herodotus but not found in a clear form in the Egyptian sacred texts, may have entered the classical world though the identification of Pythagoros' views on transmigration with the opinions that he brought from his sojourn in Egypt. It was not uncommon for his Greek contemporaries and followers to identify beliefs and rituals of Pythagoreans, strange as many of them appeared in Greek eyes, with Egyptians and Babylonians. The ancient Egyptians embalmed the dead in order that the body might be preserved and accompany the soul into the other world. This rather suggests their belief in resurrection than in reincarnation.

 

 

 

Midrash and Oral Law

Midrash and Oral Law.

Our ability to trace Oral Tradition back in historical time used to be quite limited. Although later books of Tanach, such as Ezekiel, Chronicles and Ezra provide evidence of an oral tradition in how they interpret Mosaic Law,[1] the trail appears to go cold after the close of the Biblical period. The early Second Temple period is the dark ages of Jewish history and we do not know very much about this period at all. The trail of Oral Law is picked up again toward the end of the Second Temple period by scholars such as R. Dovid Hoffman, Isaac Halevy, Zecharia Frankel,[2] and more recently Chanoch Albeck, Saul Lieberman and many others. These scholars were able to demonstrate incontrovertible antiquity of many mishnaic traditions. They were generally unable to trace them past the middle of the Second Temple period based on internal evidence from the Rabbinic literature alone. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls brought forth a wealth of new information, much of which is still being digested. It is already clear, however, that although these scrolls are in majority of sectarian origin, they confirm the existence of many mishnaic laws, some of them in the same arrangement and phrasing that we find in the mishna but 300-400 years before its final editing.[3] What remains then is a span of some 200-300 years after the last Biblical books were written down and the earliest evidence for existence of the Oral Law available form internal Jewish sources. While it is not often possible to trace a specific interpretation or legal statement, general trends are clear.

The comparative study of Midrash helps close this gap. When we compare a variety of extra-canonical Jewish books and the midrashic sources, we find a great deal of overlap and similarity. Many of these books date back to the beginning or even before the Second Temple period.[4] They come from diverse locations and sectarian standpoints. These works were not written with Ruach Hakodesh and some of them clearly contradict the Rabbinic tradition, marking them as being products of deviant movements. Some of them are Hellenistic, such as Philo, and others, are marked by some degree of contamination by Hellenic thought and philosophy. Septuagint, a translation into Greek that also contains a great deal of interpretation, is the earliest, probably receding the return to Zion. All of them, however, unexpectedly and as a matter of course present remarkably similar interpretative traditions, suggesting that there was a body of traditional interpretative tradition at an early time period that was widely shared among Jews of all types and believes and across widely separated lands. These traditions solve the interpretative problems and fill in narrative gaps in very similar ways. The high degree of uniformity and correlation supports the existence of Oral Tradition at least in the aggadic sphere. To a lesser degree, the same can be said of legal interpretation, although, as we would expect, sectarian tendencies and inaccessibility of legal traditions to some of these authors lead to a wider divergence.[5]

Let us look at one example.[6]

Our parsha contain a very ambiguous phrase:

Ben Poras Yosef; ben poras alei ain, banos tsaady alei shur (Genesis 49,22).

Many possible interpretations of this verse have been offered.[7] Among them is one that sees daughters of Egypt (Banos) prancing on the nearby wall as Yosef's carriage derives by, so he may look at them and also in order they may enjoy his beauty. This interpretation is found in Targum Yonasan, Targum Neofitti[8], Genesis Rabbah and Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer.[9] From the latter: "Yosef rode in a chariot and crossed the whole land of Egypt, and the Egyptian girls would climb up on the wall and throw down on him golden rings, so that he might look upon their beauty (39)."
This tradition is also found in 'Joseph and Asnas', a Greek Hellenistic work, probably written in the 1st century C.E and is reflected in Jerome's Vulgate.[10]

The idea that Joseph was very handsome and that women were attracted to his beauty is reflected in Philo, Testament of Joseph, Testament of Simeon and in Josephus[11] as well as in various midrashim. It is clear that the tradition of Yosef's great beauty and its effect on the daughters of Egyptians was widespread throughout the Jewish world confirming the existence of widespread oral tradition among the Jews. While our example is from the later Second Temple period, there are many similar examples from the early Second Temple period. This kind of evidence strengthens the Orthodox position and enables us to respond to various critical theories, at the same time broadening our understanding of midrash.

---

1 The point was first made and elaborated by R. David Nieto in Mate Dan published in 1714. See Dialogue 1, 30-41. The accumulated evidence led to the now popular theory among the non-Orthodox that these later books did not so much report oral tradition as interpreted earlier works. This and archeological evidence forced these scholars to push the purported origin of the final version or versions of the Pentateuch to the late First Temple period, much earlier than Wellhausen claimed. In addition, they were forced to admit that the major part of Pentateuchal material dated yet much earlier. As a result, the time period between the late books and early books narrowed greatly, leaving untenable the claim that later books interpret rather than document a contemporary oral tradition. As result of this internal contradiction, they found themselves having to choose between denying the Written Law and accepting Oral Law and denying Oral Law but accepting greater antiquity and thus authority for Written Law. Since heresy precedes philosophy, another approach had to be formulated. The most recent, almost contemporary, entrant in the field of critical theories in the contention that Written and Oral Law both evolved together. This is clearly a fallacious argument, unable to explain side by side existence of two legal systems that treat the same material but are taught and passed on in very different ways. A comprehensive refutation of this approach cannot be presented here and it needs to wait for another time.

2 In fact, it was his unwillingness to clearly state that he believed in Sinaitic origin of these ancient laws that caused great controversy and impelled R. Samson Raphael Hirsch and others to write works that were highly critical both of Frankel's orthodoxy and his scholarship. See R. Hirsch's Collected Writings, Vol. 5 (Feldheim)

3 For example. Miktsat Ma'asei Torah is a missive sent by the Teacher of Righteousness to the High Priest in Jerusalem in which he argues against several specific practices in regard to laws of tumah and taharah. The Qumran inhabitants upheld a different Halacha than that eventually recorded by Chazal. These laws are arranged and phrased essentially identically to how they were preserved for us in Tractate Yadaim, an incontrovertible proof that these several mishnayos were taught and widely known hundreds of years before they were written down in the Mishna (heard from Professor Lawrence Schiffman).

4 The earliest among them are Ben Sira, Tobith, Judith and Jubilees. For a list of known works see http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com.

5 This argument is eloquently laid out by James Kugel in the last chapter of his In Potiphar's House: The Interpretative Life of Biblical Texts, Harvard University Press, 1994 and to a lesser degree in the introduction to his The Bible as it Was, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1997. For a reflection of Rabbinic legal interpretation in Septuagint, see C. Albek, Introduction to the Mishna, Ch. 1.

6 From Kugel ibid.

7 See Onkelos, Rashi, Saadia and other standard commentators.

8 The Septuagint is not helpful here as it reflects the Samaritan version of this verse, which is very similar but does not contain the word banos.

9 As the Radal points out in his introduction to P'DRE, this work is the first example of Oral Tradition written down (if you discount Megillas Taanis).

10 Hebrew questions in Genesis 49,22. Jerome studied Hebrew and Tanach from the Jews in Palestine and often quoted his Jewish teachers.

11 Sources quoted in Bible as it Was p. 254

History of Halacha and the non-Jewish systems of Law

I have been recently exchanging emails with a bright young man, who now is studying law. Among other issues that we discussed was theinteraction and mutual influence of Jewish and secular law on one another.

It is popular among academic scholars to maintain that developments in the manner of organization, study andapplication of Jewish Law follow the developments in the world outside. The periods for which such claims have been made are the Mosaic period and the Code of Hammurabi, the period of Baalei Hatosafos and contemporary legal schools, and the talmudic halacha and its Persian correlates (also here).

Such claims diminish the Divinity and uniqueness of Halacha and demand a response.

The arguments about the parallels between the Hammurabi's Code and Parshas Mishpatim was the first instance and it had been addressed to some degree. R. Samson Raphael Hirsch in his commentary to Mishpatim argued that the laws listed in the Chumash are a collection of notes that are meantto be accompanied for interpetation by Oral Law. Others,have suggested that they are,in fact, a response to Hammurabi's laws, in that these specific instances were specifically chosen to highlight the difference between the compassion and morality of Mosaic legislation andthe class-conscious and authoritarian legalism of Hammurabi.

In regard to theAmoraic period and the Baalei Hatosafos, I suggest that on the contrary, secular law followed the forms and developments in the Jewish legal system.

I think that it had a lot to do with the popular understanding of Justice. I think that until Justinian, they used to see the purpose of a lawsuit as resolving the specific case in litigation based on common sense and the inborn sense fairness, and precedents were only seen a guide to what other people thought in similar situations.  It was not until fairly late, in the time of theemperor Justinian that Byzantine jurors compiled, and more importantly reconciled various precedent decisions, so that they they could be understood within a framework of principles, rather than disconnected rules.In addition to compiling precedents, they offered a rudimentary outline of laws on every legal subject. The paradigm shift to defining the "Law", was probably much influenced by the Jewish idea of Halacha, as an independent legal Truth that exists in its own space, up there. This slowly sipped over to the Gentile world and led to the attempts to define "pure" Law, for application in specific cases. The same is true of medieval Ashkenaz. It is not the the Jewish world of BaaleiHatosafos was influenced by legal developments outside of it, as Ta Shma and others claim, but in reverse.

It is trendy among academicians to assume that influence flows one way, from thelarger and wealthier Gentile world to the poorer, scattered and disadvanteged Jewish world. However, in numerous other instances, this is simply not so. Judaism has impacted on theworld to great, almost formative degree in many areas that are remote form "pure" religion. It is not only in religion that Judaism determined and shaped the face of Gentile society, but even, for example,  in science. To the pagans, nature was a field of competition and strife by opposing and disparate forces. The idea of universal principles established by one God, transmitted via a return of Protestanism to the "Hebrew Truth", gave birth to the scientific method.

Similarly, Gentile jurists were undoubtedly affected by the Jewish system of courts that existed and functioned alongside theirs. Udoubtedly, they were exposed to cases that had already been litigated in Beis Din, or they had an opportunity to send cases back to the Jewish courts and followed their outcomes. In this fashion, the idea that Law is an independent and self-referring system, not only a collection of precedents to serve as a gudie to an individual jurist, had ample opportunity to penetrate and become established among non-Jewish legal theoriticians.

The meaning of Maccabee

A nice post from Seforim on the etymology of the word Machabee. I found this to be entirely new to me and so I share this excerpt.

One of the earliest persons to deal with the meaning of the word Machabee was R. Azariah Di Rossi, in his Me'or Eynaim. 

According to Samotheus, "Maccabee" is a Greek word that is translated as paladino (fighter) in Italian.  But I have been told by others that he received the designation Maccabee because it was inscribed on his banner and derived from the acrostic based on the words Mi Kamokha Ba-elim Hashem.  But this interpretation is not consistent with the fact that On the Maccabees is the title Josephus gave to the work in which he describes the sufferings of Eleazar and Hannah and her seven sons, and this episode predated the rise of Hasmonean dynasty.  But the first explanation would fit, since they, too, [i.e. Eleazar and Hannah who suffered martyrdom] were also fighters.

Me'or Eynaim, Imrei Binah, section two, chapter 21.  Now, Weinberg, in her translation which the above was taken from with one minor alteration, explains that Somatheus is Johannes Lucidus Samotheus and this appears in his Opusculum, bk. 2, ch. 10, 25v.  Di Rossi accepted Samotheus' explanation that Machabee means fighter and is a Greek word.  Although not discussed by Di Rossi, Greek origin of the word makes sense in light of the fact that it was not only Judah who had a title, but his other brothers as well and those titles are Greek. Returning to Di Rossi, Di Rossi rejects the other explanation that Machabee is an acrostic because it was applied by Josephus to a story that long pre-dated Judah's existence.  It is worth noting that the second and rejected explanation is perhaps the more well known explanation of the word, Weinberg in her translation, however, admits that "I do not know the source for this explanation."  p. 343 n.12.  This rather surprising as the source for this understanding of Machabee appears in numerous sources, including the Rokeach (Pirush Siddur ha-Teffilah le-Rokeach, Jerusalem 1992, 219 & n.105), Tzoror ha-Meor (Parshat Veshahan), Shelah as well as many others. It is unclear why Weinberg was unable to locate any of these sources.  

Although Di Rossi had a good reason for rejecting the Mi Kamokha explanation, it didn't stop some from holding on to it. R. David Ganz, in his Tzemach David, argues that perhaps while Judah was the main person to use Machabee, the term may have been applied to earlier persons as well.  Levin, in his Mi-Boker ad Erev, rejects this. Levin states, "with all respect to R. David Ganz, however, does this make any logical sense? In general, is it possible to prove that the son of Matisyahu was called "Judah Mi Kamokha Ba-elim Hashem" and even if one is to assume that this was his slogan?  Further, if one is going to argue that Machabee is an abbreviation can't the word be explained in hundreds of different ways, for example, Mattisyahu Kohen ben Yochanan.  This intrepretation, of Mattisyahu Kohen ben Yochanan, makes the least sense, as anyone with a brain will admit that it makes no sense that Judah the son of Mattisyahu's name was called "Judah Mattisyahu Kohen ben Yochanan." 

A lesser known explanation was offered by Solmon Zeitlin who explained that during the Hellenistic period many people were called based upon their appearances. For example, Antichos VIII referred to Grippas as "the nose" due to his large nose.  Zeitlin accepts that Machabee is based on makbas, a hammer and thus, in keeping with the norms Judah had a hammer shaped head  - a block head.  Thus, Judah was Judah the Hammer Head. 

Levin, cites other explanations including that if makbas means a hammer it is not a large hammer but instead a small one used by a blacksmith. According to this explanation, Machabee refers to Judah's occupation a blacksmith.   Indeed, if one looks to the story of Yael, she used a makabas which assuming she was of normal strength was probably not a huge hammer but a small one. Ultimately, Levin rejects this.  Levin also rejects Munks explanation that Machabee refers to Hammer as used as an honorific for Charles Martel - Martel the Hammer - for his victory over the Muslims between Tours and Poitiers.  Another explanation is that Machabee refers to a place - but then it should read mi-chabani. 

 

Comment: I believe (will check later)  that In 1 Kings, 6, the word makabas, as in "and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any iron tool heard in the house while it was being built", Rashi translates makbas as "dloto b'lashon rus". In modern Russian, this is the word for a narrow tipped chisel.

Interesting, this use of Russian by Rashi!

Academics, and the matter of Belief

Menachem Mendel posted an interesting excerpt from Wellhausen, the father of Biblical criticism

"I became a theologian because the scientific treatment of the Bible interested me; only gradually did I come to understand that a professor of theology also has the practical task of preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and that I am not adequate to this practical task, but that instead despite all caution on my own part I make my hearers unfit for their office. Since then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience."

I think that this teaches us a great deal. It is rare that a Rav or mechanech or other keli kodesh, whatever his personal beliefs may be, serves a negative role in terms of hashkafa (all the stories of maskilim infiltrating chadorim in Europe notwidstanding). If he loses his faith, he resigns, or becomes an unorthodox rabbinic functionary ( I can, of course,  think of some exceptions, but they are rare). On the other hand, "academic" scholars, many of whom have come from similar backgrounds and received the same education,  write and publish some very bad and injurious material. Why is this so?

I think that the loss of practical orientation and dissapearance of personal responsibility for shaping rabbinic  students, actual living breathing human beings with souls, is one of the major reasons that academic Talmud scholarship was able to range so far from the traditional sphere. I's far easier to publish papers than to tear down the faith of a real person -  face to face. Even a scholar who lost his faith wishes that he had retained it and does not want to play a negative role in someone else's spiritual life. Academics, on the other hand, do not sense the same responsibility and therefore often write and publish irresponsibly.