parshat bo (exodus 13)
A live recording of Disruptive Torah recorded on the Madlik Clubhouse with Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz, Rabbi Abraham Bronstein and “The Haftorahman”, Reuben Ebrahimoff on January 6th 2022.
Can Biblical commandments evolve and have alternative meanings at different times and to different people? Mitzvot; for some an obligation, for others a political, cultural or fashion statement and for still others a magical charm. In Exodus 13 we are introduced to the first formal commandments given in the Torah; a book of Law. These laws relate exclusively to the celebration of the first and subsequent Passovers. Out of nowhere we discover the first reference to what was to become the commandment of Tefillin. We explore the classical commentators and modern scholarship to discover the multiple layers and nuances behind tefillin and possibly all mitzvot.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/373717
Transcript:
Geoffrey Stern 00:04 Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey stern and at Madlik we light a spark was shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. We also host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday at 8pm. Eastern. And this week with Rabbi Adam Mintz we learn of the first commandments the Jews were given as they left Egypt. They were instructed to mark their doorposts with blood and put a sign on their hands and between their eyes. We explore how a commandment like this can mean different things to different people and at different times. So get ready for our weekly journey and walk like an Egyptian. Well, welcome. It’s great to have you here. Very excited about this discussion. You know, we’ve been studying the Torah week in and week out those of you who remember when we studied Bereshit, we studied a very famous Rashi. Which said Why does the Torah begin from when God made the first commandment? It’s a book of law. It should be “HaHodesh Ha’zeh L’chem” (Exodus 12: 10), and here we are in Parshat Bo, and we’re getting some commandments. Things are changing, we’re moving from stories, from narratives to actual commandments, the rubber is hitting the road.
So today, we're going to focus on the beginning of one commandment, we're going to start with Exodus 13, where it kind of starts by talking about the stuff we'd expect it to talk about. It says: "Throughout the seven days, unleavened bread shall be eaten. No leavened bread shall be found with you, and no leaven shall be found in your territory. And you shall explain to your children on that day, it is because of what the Lord did for me, when I went free from Egypt. And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand. And as a reminder on your forehead, in order that the teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth, that with a mighty hand, the Lord freed you from Egypt, you shall keep this institution at its set time from year to year." So I like to read the posture of fresh every year. And when I read it this year, I was absolutely struck by this introduction of what many of us will recognize to be a law of Tefillin; these frontlets these phylacteries, these leather objects that traditional Jews put on their arms and put on their heads, and it's smack in the middle of what we absolutely expected to hear, which is the story of unleavened bread, how they had their first Seder, how they had their first Passover, and how that influenced further celebrations of the Passover. But right in the middle, is this law that resonates clearly the the law of Tefillin, but it doesn't really say anything about writing, it says "this shall serve to you as a sign". So the first question is, what is this? When we read it later into Devarim; in Deuteronomy, we kind of say, oh, okay, so it's this, this paragraph that we need to put inside of the Tefillin. But here there's a question of what is the this in the this, and then an Exodus 13" 16. Just a little bit later, it says, "and so it shall be a sign upon your hand and a symbol on your forehead, that with a mighty hand, the Lord freed you from Egypt." And here we have this strange word in the Hebrew that not only should it be a sign an "Ot", a word that we have come across before, but it should be "ul'totafot bein enecha" , this "Totefot" between your eyes? So am I the only guy who read the parsha this week, and said, What is Tefillin doing here? It's not something that we normally associate with either leaving Egypt, or with the first commandments that are given. And it's not quite talking about writing anything. And it just seems so strange to appear. And this was, frankly, the first year that I realized that here when we're listing the first mitzvot the first commandments, boom, we're hit by this non sequitur, I would say, of the law of what ultimately became Tefilin. Anybody share my surprise?
Adam Mintz 04:50
There's no question that that point is right. Let's just review for a minute that in the tefillin that you described, there are actually four selections from the Torah. Two of those selections are from this week. Actually, chapter 13 is divided in half, because there were two references, as you said to tefillin. So, there's the first portion, that's "Kadesh Li" and then the second portion "Vehaya Keviacha". And then there are two more portions, the first two paragraphs of the Shema, which are found in the Book of Devarim of Deuteronomy, also which have mentioned Tefillin. And they're also included. So there are four selections in the Torah, that talk about Tefillin, all those four are in the Tefillin that we wear. And the question I think, is, as you said, Why is it here? What does that have to do with the Exodus? So let me Geoffrey, make the question bigger. This is actually the first parsha that we have, in which we have a combination of law and narrative. Up to now the Torah has been completely narrative, and there've been a couple of little laws here and there. But basically, the Torah has been completely narrative. All of a sudden, in this week's portion, chapter 12, we switch. And we have a combination of law and narrative. That's the first important lesson. And that is that the Torah is a combination of law and narrative, Each one plays on the other to understand the laws, the rituals of Passover, you have to understand the narrative of the Exodus. So that's interesting. Now, why fill in here, the reason tefillin in this here is very simple. And that is because the remembering the exodus is primary in everything that we do. That seems to be the most basic, if not one of the most basic laws that we have, and therefore the villain in chapter 13, those paragraphs remind us of the Exodus, and we put them on our hands and on our head, because we need to remember the Exodus, we need to remember the slavery and then we need to remember how God took this out of out of Egypt.
Reuben Ebrahimoff 07:17
I just wanted to first say, every morning, we have this zoom Parshat HaShavua class. So I'm following along. You know, Yetziat Myzrayim, Pharaoh and all this and then I it just struck me this year, I didn't understand what was this text doing, like smack in the middle of your storyline? So just to say I resonated with your question. I did.
Geoffrey Stern 07:46
Reuben, there must have been something in the water this year. I don't know.
Reuben Ebrahimoff 07:49
Oh, so then the other thing Rabbi Mintz you taught me about the website, Al Hatorah (https://alhatorah.org/) And in the morning as they're reading, I try to find the Hapax legomenons (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon ) in the parsha or words with very low frequency. And here 'l'totafott" is once in this parsha. And then when it comes around back in Devarim it mentions it two more times. So it's a very, very rare word in the Torah.
Geoffrey Stern 08:26
But, but let me just you know, add to the question a little bit, if you look at Rashi when Rashi says "VeHaya l'cha l'Ot", it should be to you a sign, he says "The Exodus from Egypt shall be to thee a sign" "Yetziat Miztrayim ti'hie l'cha l'Ot" There's already a sensitivity to what is this in the this? What is the sign? Now, we sometimes talk about this personalities that we're talking about. I think the Rashi family had a little bit of a monopoly on tefillin. First of all, it's pretty well known that the daughters of Rashi wore tefillin and the Rabbenu Tam was a grandson of Rashi and the very very observant Jews put on two pairs of tefillin every day, they put on Rashi tefillin and Rabbenu Tam tefillin. because the the grandson argued with the grandpa about the order of the parshiot (scrolls). But there was another grandson; Rabbenu Tam had an older brother, and his name was Rashbam, and Rashbam says something amazing on this verse. He says, "According to the true meaning and exhortation that this memory should be with you permanently, "as if", "K'ilu". The matter is literally inscribed upon you hand. And he says we have similar metaphorical expressions about putting things on your body. He says in Song of Songs, it says place it on your heart, as if it had been engraved there." And take it. On my, my word. There are commentaries like the Ibn Ezra and others who understand exactly what the Rashbam is saying. He's saying, don't talk about the other instances of the mention of this law that ultimately became tefillin, these black boxes of leather that we put on our body parts. Here. It is a metaphor. Here it is in the tradition of a Jeremiah who says, "and you should write these words on your heart", he goes and quotes multiple verses, where this concept of wearing God on one's body is a metaphor. So there's clearly a fascinating aspect of how........ it's easy for us to say we're talking about tefillin. But it's not totally clear that we're talking about tefillin as we know it, we're talking about an aspect of tefilin. And that blew me away,
Avraham Bronstein 11:19
I want to say something to what you just said. And then something back to what Rabbi Mintz just said, I think that when the Rashbam is talking about the metaphor of you know, "on your heart", "between your eyes", in those ways, he's talking more about where you wear the tefillin, right, because he's telling you that you wear the tefillin on your arm corresponding to your heart. You don't wear literally on your chest. And likewise, you wear that go on your head, between your eyes on top of your head, not literally on your nose between your eyes. And I think he's trying to use the term metaphors that way. So that the practice of wearing tefillin corresponds with the verse But even so, even if you take them metaphorically, he's describing a very, very embodied experience. You're literally taking these reminders of the Exodus, and you're strapping them to your physical body and you're walking around with them, you're wearing them and feel them and you're touching them. And they're part of how you get around your day. And so much of what we do to remember the Exodus on a day-to-day basis are the mitzvot that are connected to it, are very embodied mitzvot, right. We eat things, we drink things, we say things, we hear things. And what I meant and was talking a little bit about before about the combination between law and narrative and how those two formats kind of play into each other and inform each other. I think what this is showing you also is that there's even a deeper level to it or a deeper connection, because even the remembering even the mitzvah itself is so physical, it's so embodied and still it really sums it up more than almost anything else
Adam Mintz 12:59
Rabbi Avraham. I think that's really such a good point. That actually the relationship between law and narrative is reflected in the in the selections that we use for the villain, and that actually when we put them on our arms, and on our head, we're thinking about that relationship, not just the law of putting on tefillin, but the narrative, the Exodus from Egypt. I just will add one thing, Geoffrey. And that you made reference to the fact that there are two traditions, Hasidim put on two pairs of tefillin, they put on Rashi tefillin at the beginning of davening (prayer) and at the end of davening, they take off their Rashi tefillin they put on the Rabbenu Tam and they look the same, but inside there's a difference. And the difference is what the order of the portions is. Rashi's tefillin which is the tefillin that are generally used by most people have the order of the portions in the order they appear in the Torah. So therefore, you have the two portions from Exodus chapter 13. Then you have the portion of Shema. And then you have the pope the portion of V'haya im Shemoha". And that's the order in which they appear in the Torah. Rabenu Tam has it different. Rabenu Tam says you start with the two selections from this week's parsha "Kadesh" "VayaHi kiviyach" but he switches the order of the two chapters in Devarim and he says first is "V'haya im Shemoa" and finally is Shema. He switches the order of "Shema" and "V'haya im Shemoa". The question is what difference does it make? It would make sense.... Rashi makes sense. You should have the port the selections in the order in which they appear in the Torah. And Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik gave an amazing explanation. He said actually the four selections are actually two different themes.... This is what Rabbi Avraham was referring to.... the selections from our portion are talking about the Exodus. The selections from the book of Deuteronomy, talk about tefillin as an expression of our acceptance of God's kingship over us. So actually, according to Rabbenu Tam, they are in order, but one you read from left to right, and one you read from right to left. So the two portions from our from our chapter, you read from left to right, "Kadesh" "VayaHi kiviyach" , but the portions from Devorim, you read from right to left "Shema" and "V'haya im Shemoa". And the reason we do it that way is because we want to separate the two, to show those are two different things. One is about remembering the Exodus, and one is about remembering that God is King over the world. And those are two very distinct themes in our Jewish lives. So I think that that's just interesting, at least for a moment to, you know, to pay respects to rabbenu Tam and his different villain than Rashi tefillin.
Geoffrey Stern 16:14
So I love this discussion, because we are discussing the first mitzvot that are commanded to the Jewish people, in a sense, and some of the commentaries make this distinction there pre-Sinai revelation as well. And here we are, and we're looking at all of the different perspectives that you can have on this one; I would say it's a seed of a mitzvah, because I am not willing to concede yet that the mitzvah of tefillin is fully played out yet. I want to get back to the rush bomb. One of the commentaries that I have in the source sheet says
רשב"ם אינו רואה בפסוקנו אזכור של מצוות תפילין, אלא מפרשו כמטפורה.
This commentary is saying is at this point in time, does the Rashbam believe that there's a commandment of tefillin? He does, he's not a Karite. He's not a Samaritan. There were fundamentalists who read not only these verses, but the later verses. And they said, you know, it says you should write these words on your door post, the Samaritans wrote them literally on their door post. They talked about writing these words on your arm and on your head, they took it as a metaphor, the Rashbam is "Lahavdeel", not in that camp. But what he is saying is at this point, it's a metaphor. And what I love when we discuss Rabbenu Tam and Rashi and their different views of what should be inside of the to fill in, is here we have the first commandment. Yes, the first commandment that piqued Reuben and my curiosity... because it was literally made as a commandment, it didn't fit into the narrative that much. And all of a sudden, we can parse it in so many ways. And I'd like to think that this is an example of all the mitzvot to that are to come. And yes, there is an aspect of this commandment that is totally physical. But the Rashbam is saying something very profound; that you can take a commandment as a metaphor. And that doesn't detract from taking it also, as a physical, tactile directive as to what to do in the first four hours of the morning. And that I think, is an amazing thought. And I'd like to use that as a segue to then get into the various interpretations and explanations that Reuben talked about which is; what does this "totafot" mean at this point in time? Where are we? What does this mean? It's clearly using a foreign term and making reference to something that the audience that it was written to understood but that we do not. What what do you all feel is going on here in terms of what is "totafot"?
Geoffrey Stern 16:57
Haftorahman what do you think?
Reuben Ebrahimoff 19:40
I'm gonna digress for a second, on purpose. These prayers are in two places. One on the Mezzuzot and two on the tefillin. And not that this adds credibility But the story was told to me by Mr. Shlomo Musayev. And Shlomo said, originally, they didn't have doorposts. They lived in tents. And that this, this scroll was a Kamia, and they would hang it like a lintel. And that when somebody would go into their tent, they would have to move their hand in front of them across to the side, and they would touch the mezzuza, thereby merging the heaven and earth by touching the Mezuzah, which was this go-between area. So, to me, that sounds beautiful on a thought level. Then the other thing I think about is the name of God. You only have two places .... Rabbi Mintz, correct me if I'm wrong, where you have the shin on the Mezuza bayit and the Shin on the tefillin boxes for the shin dalet Yud name of God. So I always found that interesting, too.
Adam Mintz 21:13
Okay, what is uh, how does that relate to the word "totafot"?
Reuben Ebrahimoff 21:17
Okay, so I'm just gonna read what they had Al Hatorah.... it says, bands, so they must have just tied these things. And I think also, Geoffrey, that the Samaritans, like put it like in between their eyes there to fill in, like right down on the forehead. If I'm not mistaken
Geoffrey Stern 21:41
Well, let's get to the band's the the most straightforward explanation is in the Gomorrah in Shabbat 57B. And it says, "The Mishna said that a woman may not go out with the ornament called a totefet. The Gemara asks: What is a totefet? Rav Yosef said: A packet of spices to ward off the evil eye. Abaye said to him: And let the legal status of this packet be like that of an effective amulet, whose effectiveness is proven, and it should be permitted, as an effective amulet may be moved on Shabbat. Rather, Rav Yehuda said in the name of Abaye: A totefet is an appuzainu, an ornament worn on the forehead. This opinion was also taught in a baraita: A woman may go out with a gilded hairnet worn to hold the hair in place, and with the totefet, and with the sarvitin that are fastened to the hairnet, since a woman would not remove her head covering to show her friend those ornaments. And they said: Which is a totefet and which is sarvitin? Rabbi Abbahu said: Totefet is that which goes around her forehead from ear to ear...." and I think that's the opinion that you quoted. But the point is even modern scholarship and if you look at the notes on Safera to this episode, it gets into great detail and basically says, you know, I think the rabbis of the Talmud had it right. Totafot, as you said, Reuben; a headband. And we come across for the first time, it's to ward off [evil]. It's an amulet. Again, the tefillin strikes us Western, Moderns, as very strange. But my guess would be that, whether you called it a Kamia or Oh, whatever. In the ancient world, people wore charms people wore amulets, and it was an accepted practice to wear an amulet as a headband and on one's arm. I'd like to point out that one of our faithful listeners, Bob, who's in the audience today, pointed out a few weeks ago, that they just discovered a pharaoh. They were able to do a scan of him without actually touching him. And they found that he was circumcised which is interesting. Yeah, but they also found a bunch of amulets, a bunch of jewelry on his arm and stuff. So I gave the subject matter of tonight's talk "Walk like an Egyptian". It seems to me that, number one, we can all assume that unlike us, when the Torah said "totafot", everybody understood what it was referring to. It wasn't speaking in riddles. And so it seems pretty clear that this was some sort of an amulet both on one's head and on one's arm. You know this question... and I'll just give two other references to trigger further discussion. It has this strange expression of "between the eyes" , "l'zicharon Beyn Eynecha". Those of us whose children ask us, are you allowed to have a tattoo? We always said, no, no, no, no, you can't have a tattoo. It says in in the Bible itself. In Deuteronomy 14, "You are children of the Lord your God, You shall not gash yourselves or shave the front of your heads because of the dead." Now I just read a translation. But the Hebrew says, "Lo Karocha beyn einechem l'Meit" You can't make a mark on yourself. You can't cut yourself "beyn einechem" between your eyes. And it's fascinating that when the rabbi's discuss that Karocha means to make oneself bald. So they actually learn from here that tefillin is not to be actually between one's eyes, but it's to be above the hairline. So they actually learned from the law against gashing and pulling out one's hair, maybe making tattoos and signs that it is above the hairline. There's a real connection here. And these are not stuff that was made out of nowhere. Yesh, me'ayin these were amulets, these were signs that were made. The other word that's used is an "Ot". And of course, we find that with Cain, the sign of Cain. And in the Midrash, it says, What is the sign of Cain the "ot" of Cain? Well, God took one of the "otiyot", one of the letters of the 22 letters of the alphabet and wrote it on Cain. So we almost have tattooing here, which is kind of fascinating. So that kind of really opens up the discussion, in terms of what.... from a metaphor to a tattoo, to an amulet, what this could be referring to and what its antecedents are.
Adam Mintz 27:21
So I would add the following. And that is that maybe we don't know what the word totafot leads. And maybe that's the idea. Maybe tefillin is the perfect model of the integration of the Written Torah, and the oral tradition, that without the oral tradition, we can't know what tefillin in really are. The Gemara says and another Gemara, it says that Tat means two and pat means two. And totafot just means for that we have four selections from the Torah. And maybe that's what we need, maybe we have to be willing to admit that if all we have is the Written Torah that's not enough. We need an oral tradition; we need a living tradition. A bunch of years ago, there was an exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls have the things they found in Qumran. And one of the things they had in the exhibition was a pair of tefillin. And I was always struck.. Qumran is about 2,100 years ago. And the tefillin from 2,100 years ago, looks basically the same as the tefillin we put on today. That's an amazing statement about Jewish tradition. Jews have been thrown out of places Jews have been prosperous in places, a lot has happened to the Jews over 2,100 years. But the tefillin are still the same tefillin that we had. And probably 1,000 years before that they were the same tefillin. And that's part of our living tradition. It's similar, by the way, Geoffrey to the Etrog. You know, the Torah says you should take a fruit of from a tree. We don't even know what the fruit is "Pree Etz Hadar" and the way we know what an Etrog is, that's part of the living tradition. We need the living tradition without the living tradition, we have nothing. And I think that totafot the tefillin actually is a great model of that.
Geoffrey Stern 29:28
I totally agree with you. The only thing that I would add .... and we've talked about so many facets of one of the first commandments that we've come across, is .... you know, one of the questions and I'll save this for my Shabbat Hagadol drasha is the obvious question of why Mezuzah isn't mentioned here after they put the blood on the doorposts and maybe Rabbi you'll talk about that on Shabbat
Adam Mintz 29:59
That's good also
Geoffrey Stern 30:00
But it seems to me that there's another element here. And in the New Testament, when Jesus talks about the Jews wearing tefillin, he says in Matthew 23:5-7, "everything they do is done for people to see they make their phylacteries wide and tassels on their garments long." And what he captures is this sense of pride, their sense of who we are. And it seems to me and you were talking about this living tradition, I'm not a scholar, I thought of the Egyptians have every time you see an Egyptian pharaoh, you see that little snake [uraeus snake] that comes out, right on the forehead, as a sign, it was not one by a foreigner, it was not one by a layman. It was only worn by a king. And I'd like to think that another aspect of tefillin is that these Jews, they might have put on the blood on the doorposts, so that the God would pass by and spare them. But then when they were told to put these ornaments on, they were like kings, a "Mamlechet Cohanim v'goy kadosh". And I would like to think that, that is also part of the aspect of what we're talking about, that this tefillin and this commandment here is this sense of being like a pharaoh walking like an Egyptian so to speak. And the ultimate lesson and the ultimate takeaway is in half an hour, I think we've probably touched upon 13, or 14 different ways of looking at one of these first commandments of mitzvah. And I think what we can learn from this, and I'd like to extrapolate going forward, is that not only are there "shivim Panim L'Torah" 70 faces to every verse and every idea of Torah, but a mitzvah, whether it's Shabbat, whether it's tefillin, whether Pesach can be taken at a metaphorical level, it can be taken as an amulet and a little bit of superstition. It can be taken as a political statement; it can be taken as a fashion statement. It's all there. It's all acceptable. And all that we are asked to do is to study the texts and become a part of that tradition. And I'd like to think that's the element of living that you were describing in terms of what the Oral law is.
Adam Mintz 32:35
That's beautiful Geoffrey. What a way to end enjoy the parish everybody. Shabbat Shalom and look forward to taking the Jews out of Egypt and crossing the sea next week. Shabbat shalom,
Geoffrey Stern 32:49
Amen. Shabbat shalom. We will see you all next week and discover another hidden aspect of the Torah and hopefully find something that resonates with us. So, with that I bid you all Shabbat Shalom, and let's all leave Egypt together this week. Shabbat shalom.
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Listen to last week’s episode: Holy Crap
God’s Gracious Ruse
parshat beshalach (exodus 13-14)
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on January 13th 2022. God leads the Jews on the scenic (long) route to the Promised Land and the classical commentators wonder why. All of them find a pedagogic approach but their conclusions are diverse and in some cases, perplexing! We join the Israelites as they embark on this fateful trip into the desert and we learn a little something about long roads that are short and God’s Gracious Ruse.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/375388
Transcript:
Geoffrey Stern 00:03
Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and that Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. We also host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday at 8pm. Eastern, and this week with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we join the Israelites as they embark on a trip into the desert. We are perplexed to see that God sets the GPS to wander mode and puts them on a circuitous route rather than the coastal expressway. So get into the backseat and be prepared to badger the driver and learn a little something about long loads that are short as we explore God’s Gracious Ruse.
Well, welcome for our weekly trip. And this week, we are really on a trip because the Israelites are off to the great adventure of 40 years in the desert. We are in Exodus 13. And it starts when it says, "Now then Pharaoh let the people go. God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines. Although it was nearer. For God said the people may have a change of heart when they see war and return to Egypt. So God led the people round about by way of the wilderness at the sea of reeds. Now the Israelites went up armed out of the land of Egypt." And then it continues in Exodus 14. "The Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before Baal-zephon; and you shall encamp facing it by the sea, feral will say of the Israelites, they are astray in the land, "Nevu heym b'Aretz" The wilderness is closed in on them, then I will stiffen Pharaoh's heart, and He will pursue them that I might gain glory through Pharaoh and all his host. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, and they did so." So we have a combination of two different travelogues if you will, that God prepares for the Jewish people one, even before he takes Pharaoh into consideration. He says, You know what, I'm not going to take you on the short path, I'm going to take you in a circuitous route. And he gives a reason because he's afraid they might have a change of heart. And then he looks at it from the perspective of Pharaoh and says, and there's going to be a real advantage here. Because he's going to think that the Jews are "nevuchim". They are confused. And he'll see this as an opportunity for him to have a change of heart. So Rabbi, what do you make of well, this changing of hearts and circuitous routes?
Adam Mintz 03:05
The Jews were clearly not quite ready to leave Egypt. They left because nobody wants to be a slave. You can take the Jews out of slavery, but their mind still thinks like a slave. And the way a slave thinks is that the first hint of any problem, I just want to go back. At least when I'm a slave, I'm taken care of, I may be persecuted, but at least I'm taken care of I get three meals, I have a place to sleep. And now we're going to get attacked on the way to Israel, and they're going to get afraid. Now, what's interesting is that God seems to be very much aware of this. God is like, like their psychologist. And he says, I can take them that way, I have to take them indirectly. Because only if I take them indirectly, will they kind of learn how to be free. That's also by the way, since we're talking about all this, that's why they don't get to Torah for seven weeks, they need a little bit of time, they can't get the Torah.
Geoffrey Stern 04:13
So I totally agree that there's almost a pedagogic aspect to all this. We are embarking on this great journey. And all of a sudden, by talking in terms of planning a trip and picking a route. We're almost given an opportunity to explore how does one move from one place to another, both physically but also spiritually and psychologically. And I think that's going to be a large part of the conversation. But before we even get there, this also seems to be a little bit of a prophecy or a prequel or a forecasting.... I think most of us who know the Torah believe that the Jews at a certain point were punished to die in the desert, the generation that left Egypt was punished whether it was at the golden calf, whether it was when the spies came back and they cried. And here we have, like we have many times. This this sense of it was predestined, or there are multiple reasons for the same event. Let me just read a little bit from the Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael... ""And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel: They are nevuchim in the land": "nevuchim" is "confounded," as in (Joel 1:18) "How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle navochu!" Variantly: "nevuchim" — "bewildered," as in (Esther 3:15) "And the king and Haman sat down to feast, and the city of Shushan navochah." Variantly: "And Pharaoh said": He said and he did not know what he was saying. (i.e., unbeknownst to him he was prophesying. On the surface) he was saying that Moses was leading them without knowing where — but "nevuchim" (prophetically) intimates Moses, viz. (Devarim 32:49) "Ascend the Mount Avarim, Mount Nevo, (short for 'nevuchim')." Variantly: "And Pharaoh said," without knowing what he was saying, viz.: Israel are destined to cry ("livkoth" as in "nevochim") in the desert, viz. (Numbers 14:1) There's a play on words in the desert. "And the entire congregation lifted their voices and the people cried (vayivku)" Israel are destined to fall in the desert," So they're almost finding excuses to tie this premonition here, that God wanted the Jews to go in circles "listovev", not so much as a punishment, but as a prophecy. But it just seemed to be a rather profound message of this was necessary.
Adam Mintz 06:54
Yeah, I mean, you know, this was necessary. The question, Geoffrey really is, what's it necessary for?
Geoffrey Stern 07:05
So that that's the million-dollar question.
Adam Mintz 07:08
That's really what we need to talk about tonight, you're right, the Torah itself, even before you get to the Mechilta, the Torah itself says it was necessary. Had they done it the other way, it would have been bad. So, it was necessary. But nobody tells you exactly what it was necessary for. So, I gave this theory that they had to get the slave mentality out of their system. But really, I made that up. Why doesn't the Torah tell us why it's necessary?
Geoffrey Stern 07:39
So I think if you look at the actual verses that we just read, it says the people may have a change of heart when they see war. "Pen Yinachem hAm b're'otem milchama", maybe it's war, maybe it's trouble, maybe it's a tribulation, maybe it's hard work, and return to Egypt. And of course, returning to Egypt is something that we see throughout the book of Exodus, wherever things get tough. Their first response is nostalgically to say, let's go back to Egypt. So, I think even in the verses themselves, in terms of the mindset of the Jews, there is this sense that God changed the travelogue in order to ensure that the Jews would be protected from making that knee jerk reaction and heading home at the first sight of whether it was war, or some sort of turmoil, stress or challenge.
Adam Mintz 08:42
But it's really unbelievable, because can you imagine being a slave and going back to slavery? Now, I'm not an expert on the Civil War. But, you know, when the slaves were freed in the south, after the Civil War, you know, they had trouble. We know that trouble... took 100 years for there to be equal rights. For, you know, for black people. Did they go back today asked to be slaves again? Were there a group that said it's better to be slaves then to be free? Maybe there were, but that would be interesting.
Geoffrey Stern 09:22
I think what it does, is this points a little bit at how unique the Exodus story was an is in terms of disruption. How many times do you have a people that has this opportunity to make a total paradigm shift? And I think that maybe makes this whole question of this pedagogic question that much more interesting. So, let's start looking at how some of the classical commentaries look at this from a pedagogic point of view. The Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael in another place says "for it was near". They pick up on the verse that says he didn't want them to go through the Philistine route because it was too near "The holy one bless it be he did not bring them directly to Eretz Israel. But by way of the desert, saying if I bring them they are now immediately. "m'yad" is the Hebrew word. Each man will seize his field and each man his vineyard and they will neglect Torah study. Rather, I will keep them in the desert 40 years eating mana and drinking from the well and the Torah will be absorbed in their bodies. From here Rabbi Shimon would say the Torah was given to be expounded only by the eaters of Mana, and like them, the eaters of Terumah." So this is kind of fascinating. It's, it's really, I mean, there are two aspects of it. The first aspect I absolutely love, where he picks up on this thing about Karov about being near, about being near and he moves it from something that is temporal, in terms of space, to something that is from a perspective of time, that there is an evolution that had to occur, you can get miracles in Egypt, you can get miracles at the Red Sea, you can't change a person's heart or a person's mind in the same miraculous fashion. Then, of course, he transitions into a yeshiva student to a teacher, and talks about the best way to study Torah is in the desert, away from distractions. But again, it's wonderful that from this perspective, and many that we'll see, they all saw these few verses, as the paradigm of how does one create change inside of a person and inside of a people.
Adam Mintz 12:00
Right? That's correct. That's really the story of 40 years in the desert. The reason for 40 years in the desert, was in order to create that that paradigm shift where the Jews go from being slaves in Egypt, to being free people, you know, there is work done. I'm not sure about what happened after the Civil War. But there is a lot of work done about countries that have revolutions. And it's interesting that very often, the one who leads the revolution is not the one who's a successful leader of the country going forward. It needs a transition phase. And that's really what you have in the Torah, you have a transition phase. And if you want to be honest, Moshe, who is the one who leads them out. He's the Liberator can't be the one who takes them into the land of Israel.
Geoffrey Stern 13:03
You know, I think that's a good point. But I'd also kind of argue that we're not yet there... these verses include a premonition, and they already have a premonition about wandering in the desert. I don't think the premonition is yet here, that after the wandering, you won't get into the land. I think that's another step.
Adam Mintz 13:25
But I'm just saying that it's interesting. This is the beginning of that process that will lead us there.
Geoffrey Stern 13:33
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Adam Mintz 13:35
By the way, you didn't talk about the fact that there's you know, there's a lot of complaining starts this week,
Geoffrey Stern 13:43
the complaining starts from day one, right?
Adam Mintz 13:46
That's right. Yeah. They cross the sea. They see the biggest miracle in the history. What do they do? They complain.
Geoffrey Stern 13:55
So let's get back to some of the lessons that the classical commentaries take. The next I'm going to quote is Rabeinu Bachya and and he says, that what we are just seeing "is characteristic of the way God dealt with the Israelites in the desert. They were to be raised gradually to a level of trust and the word in Hebrew is b'madregot ha'bitachon" "degrees". I think if there's one takeaway from tonight's discussion, is that faith doesn't come in a moment. Whether it's from the previous perspective of studying Torah, whether it's perspective of Rabeinu Bachya, where you're trying to get faith, there is no fast-food solution. There is no silver bullet. This question of a "milchama" could be a war, but it's also turmoil. You know, there's an expression we know it from the New Testament it says "seek and thou shall find" In the Talmud, it's "Yagat u'metzat, T'amin" If somebody works hard at something, and they find it, believe them, but if they say "Lo Yagata umatzata al ta'amin", if they say now I just discovered this, I didn't work hard at all. Don't believe them if he said he found the answer. So I think it's clearly this sense of degrees. And you find this so much in religious thinking that one has to plod from one level to the next, that faith and understanding is cumulative. And Rabeinu Bachya brings a number of examples, which I think are kind of interesting, he says, "This is why God parted the waters of the Sea of Reeds only a little bit at a time. That is why even at Marah where God showed Moses how to make sweet water which had become bitter sweet again, God went to the trouble of first miraculously making that water bitter and then performing a second miracle. And Rabeinu Bachya goes on and on he writes for another three paragraphs, giving his I guess, exegesis on multiple miracles where he shows that the idea is not to stun, the idea is not to shock, the idea is to gradually, step after step, bring a person from where they are, to where they want to be. And he uses words like "davar Yom b'yomo" day after day "likvoa b'nafshotam midat habitachon" to create in them this trait of faith. I think that's fascinating.
Adam Mintz 16:49
I would agree that that is fascinating. What do you think he has in mind? What do you think? What's the bigger issue that he's really addressing there?
Geoffrey Stern 17:01
Well, I think what he's saying is from these verses, we learn that going out on this journey is not simply about going to a destination, but it's how one gets there. And there's so much that needs to be learned from that journey. There's a Hebrew expression that comes from the Talmud that talks about short paths that are long and long paths that are short. And I think that is part of what he's saying that there are steps that need to be taken to to achieve the desired result. So the Gomorrah in Eruvin, said that there was an incident of a young boy, one time the great Yehuda HaNasi, was walking along the path. And he saw a young boy sitting at the crossroads. And I said to him, on which path Shall we walk in order to get to the city, he said, to me, this path is short and long. And that path is long and short. I walked on the path that was short and long. When I approached the city, I found that gardens and orchards surrounded it. And I did not know the trails leading through them to the city. I went back and met the young boy again and said to him, my son, didn't you tell me that this was short. He said to me, and didn't I tell you that it was also long, I kissed him on his head and said to him, happy are you Oh, Israel, for you are all exceedingly wise from your old to your young." So I think it's a beautiful expression, Ketzara varucha arucha v'kitzara" could the short path that is long, the quick fix that doesn't quite work, and the struggle that fixes everything? And I think ultimately, that's also a kind of a character lying in this discussion.
Adam Mintz 19:01
I think that's a great idea. That idea that the quick fix doesn't work is definitely a lesson that we have from this week's Parsha. From the very, very beginning, right? The Quick Fix was to go up the coast and to be in Israel in 11 days, "Achad asar yom meHorev derech har seir ad kadesh barnea" 11 days, but that would have been the quick fix. And that would have been disastrous. The amazing thing is that from the beginning, God's watching out for the people. It's not in God's best interest, either if we're allowed to say, to have the quick fix, and that the people get scared and want to run back.
Geoffrey Stern 19:42
Absolutely. Well, you know, God's part of the team.
Adam Mintz 19:45
Yeah, God says that the purpose of the of the plagues is to prove to the Egyptians and the Jews that God is God. Interesting. When Pharaoh ultimately throws the Jews out after the plague of the first born in last week's Parsha, he says to Moses and Aaron, get out of here. And then he adds three words, he says, And when you go and pray to your God, pray on my behalf to, I think those are the best three words in the whole Torah. Because right there, Pharaoh says, I finally believe in your God, pray for me too.
Geoffrey Stern 20:29
You reminded me about the 10 plagues. And as long as we're picking up on this sense of what Rabeinu Bachya was saying about Madregod about degrees, in a sense, there's a real powerful theme here, even for the Egyptians, who ultimately God was trying to teach a lesson to, he didn't just go to the 10th plague, there's this sense of an evolution, of a transition, small steps. And I think that has to be one of the powerful lessons of the Parsha. So now we're going to transition to the most absolutely radical explanation for going in circuitous routes, and, and going slowly, and it comes from a great rabbi and a great philosopher, who also happened to be a great doctor. And he starts the discussion by talking about biology. And he's almost prescient, in terms of if you listen to what I'm going to read. now, this almost sense of, of evolution, but his name is Rav Moshe Ben, Maimon, Maimonides himself. And he writes in Guide for the Perplexed..... and before I start, remember, the Jews are "Nevuchim", they are confused in the desert. That's the name of the book, we're going to be reading from the guide for the Nevuchim, he doesn't make the connection. This is only one of the radical ideas in his book, but maybe it's a seminal idea. So here we go. And he's talking about biology. He says, In considering the divine acts or the processes of nature, we get an insight into God's willy graciousness, the Hebrew. .... And of course, the Moreh Nevuchim was written in Arabic. So when you say the Hebrew, you have to say, who you're you're quoting, we're quoting [Samuel ben Judah ibn] Tibon, who was the first translator of it, he goes, "Aramat Ha'elokut" L'arom is to lie... so the Diety's willy graciousness as displayed in the creation of animals with the gradual development of the movements of their limbs and the relative position of the later. And we perceive also his willy graciousness. Now he uses a second word, "Tachluvot" , which is kind of subterfuge in the successive and gradual developments of the whole condition of each individual. And he goes through different animals. And he talks about how certain limbs are used at one time, and then stop being used, but they have their value. And the most powerful final example that he gives is mammals who wean their children. He says, Therefore, breasts were provided which yield milk. And the young can be fed with moist food, which corresponds to the condition of the limbs of the animal, until the later have gradually become dry, and hard. So the breasts are full of milk for a while, and then the child matures, and they dry up. It's an example of planned obsolescence, if you will. And he uses this discussion of biology, to segue into how God educated the children of Israel. And he starts by saying, "it is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other. It is according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything which he has been accustomed. And he goes on to talk about how the ultimate goal of leaving Egypt, after all he was an Aristotelian was to contemplate the divine. And how do you get from living as a slave in a society where there are idols and there were sacrifices, how do you get from there to this sublime state, and he writes that it was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God, as disclosed in biology in the whole of creation, that he did not command us to give up and discontinue all these manners of service for to obey such a commandment would be contrary to the nature of men. So he says, Therefore God allowed these kinds of services to continue. He created a temple, he created sacrifices. And he goes, I'm not going to wean you from sacrifices, I'm not going to wean you from bowing down and from touching a holy stone, and looking in a particular direction to find God, I'm just going to change that. So you go to my temple, and you sacrifice to me, by this divine plan, it was affected that the traces of idolatry were blotted out. And the truly great principle of our faith, the existence of unity of God was firmly established. Does Maimonides know how radical an idea he's saying is that he's basically writing off all of the temple sacrificial cult, as a stepping stone as a necessary ruse a trick to get people from one place to another, he continues, "I know that you will at first reject this idea and find it strange. How can you suppose that all of these commandments were just employed, not for themselves, but to go to something else?" He goes, what would happen if somebody showed up today, and told us you don't have to wear tefillin, you don't have to pray three times a day, just contemplate God. He says we would also be upset. But he says it's written in the Torah. God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines flow that was near for God said ..... so he quotes our verse and he says, Here God led the people about away from the direct road, which he originally intended, because he feared they might meet on that way with hardships too great for their ordinary strength. He took them by another road in order to obtain thereby his original object. It was the result of God's wisdom that the Israelites were led out into the wilderness till they acquired courage. And he uses this same word of it was a divine ruse. It was trickery, if you will. And it was a very radical statement, I encourage you to go to the show notes and Safaria, and read the whole text that's built logically and forward. And that was his takeaway. And it's a radical takeaway, if you take it to its full meaning, which that he was basically saying even the tefillin, at fill in everything that we do is a trick or a ruse, or I would say it in a more nice term, a tool to get us to somewhere else.
Adam Mintz 28:06
I like the word tool. It's a tool to get us where we need to go. It's not in itself a goal.
Geoffrey Stern 28:13
But it is a pretty radical idea?
Adam Mintz 28:16
Crazy, but fascinating. It's so good, that everything we do is just to get us to the goal. But each one of these actions is not in itself valuable. Now, I think that Rambam would probably say that once you're going through them, though, you have to do them properly. means let's take tefillin. So tefillin’s not important for itself. It's important where it takes us but to put on tefillin wrong to do the wrong act in the ritual, to perform the Seder incorrectly to observe Yom Kippur incorrectly, I don't think Rambabu like that, either.
Geoffrey Stern 29:01
Not like that! I mean, he is a man who dedicated his wife life to codifying Jewish law [laughs].
Adam Mintz 29:08
That's what I'm saying, the codification of the detail is important, because it leads us somewhere else. Don't think the ultimate is just putting on the tefillin. The tefillin are a tool to get us where we need to go.
Geoffrey Stern 29:26
So we're running out of time, but let me give you a little bit of the history of this idea. The Ramban, Nachmonidies in Leviticus absolutely goes ballistic against Maimonides for saying this. And he says How could you possibly say this? Your your belittling the sacrifices which actually Noah gave and he goes on and on. We have to remember that Ramban lived in a Christian world He actually had to go into debate with Christians. And this concept that the laws don't really matter, that it's the spirit that counts smacks a lot of Christianity. And my sense is that those are rabbis who defended Maimonides, like the Abarbanel and others, maybe they will less exposed to the Christian ideas. But but here's the amazing thing. In Christianity, they built a whole philosophy on this idea, and it's called Divine Condescendence. And it goes back to the church fathers. And we talked about classical commentators. Some of them use this to explain that education is like with children, that you have to start somewhere and you slowly grow... "St. A rainiest, I deserve special mention, as a rare instance of a church father who relates Divine Condescendence to an evolutionary concept of the Hebrew people in which they pass gradually as a collective, from an infantile to an adult state." They have more variations on this concept than we have. And my guess is for those scholars that like Shai Held, that are finding ideas that we had that were taken by Christians and taken in a father direction, this idea of Divine Condescendence is certainly one of them. But Maimonides either because of his biological background, or because he lived in a Muslim world, and wasn't part of replacement theology. He wasn't afraid of saying that Judaism could evolve, was able to say this. And again, it kind of reflects what we were talking about last week, and what I think what you were just saying, Rabbi, that you can believe that the understanding of the law can evolve, and still keep it. You can keep it the way it was originally observed. But as you grow, as you grow as a person, and as you grow as a nation, your understanding can evolve as far as you want. And I think that's really the theme here. And the theme of what God is telling the Jewish people as they embark on this amazing journey.
Adam Mintz 32:44
I think that's beautiful. Thank you so much for the topic. Shabbat Shalom to everybody enjoy crossing the sea. And next week we look forward to receiving the Torah, The Ten commandments with all of you well, Shabbat Shalom,
Geoffrey Stern 32:58
so soon amazing Shabbat Shalom to you all. Let's all cross the Red Sea, the Sea of Reeds and begin the journey. Thank you so much.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/375388
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