chayei sara, genesis 24
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on November 17th 2022. With the Binding (Sacrifice) of Isaac still on our minds we look at Brit Milah from a fresh perspecitve and review the meaning, function and contemporary controversies regarding circumcision.
Transcript:
Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday at 8:00pm Eastern and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s Torah portion is Chayei Sara. After last week’s clubhouse discussion, I dropped in on another clubhouse discussion that segwayed from a discussion of the sacrifice of Isaac to circumcision. It got me thinking…. So with Akedat Yitzchak still on our minds we look at Brit Milah from a fresh perspective and review the meaning, function and maybe even contemporary sensibilities regarding circumcision. So, join us for Circumspect about Circumcision.
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Well, welcome, welcome, Rabbi, welcome you faithful. So, you know, this week’s parsha really doesn’t talk all that much about circumcision. So just as excited as I was to link it with the binding of Isaac, I do have to link it to the parsha. So, the parsha begins, … after Sarah passes away, Abraham is concerned about his son Isaac, and he’s concerned like many parents are about finding a nice bride for him. So in Genesis 24: 2 it says as follows. And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household, most of our rabbis believe this was Eliezer, who had to charge of all that he owned, put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by God, the God of Heaven and the God of Earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell. So “under my thigh” Rashi writes, Rashi almost assumes it is that he was holding the member, the penis of Abraham, but more importantly, the sign of the circumcision of Abraham. And while she explains, because whoever takes an oath, must take in his hand, some sacred object, such as a scroll of the Torah, or tefillin, as circumcision was the first commandment given to him. And because it’s only through much pain, it was consequently dear to him; to Abraham. And therefore, he selected this as the object upon which to take the oath. So, we have heard already of the commandment of circumcision, we might even go back during today’s review and see where it’s written. And it’s a sign of the covenant. But we’ve never really had any meat put on it, so to speak. And here is a fascinating instance of how it was used. Rabbi, what do you make? Is this is this something that strange? Does it give us any insight in what circumcision is? Well, I’ll tell you what the rabbi’s say. You know, throughout rabbinic history, whenever you took an oath, in court, you know, whatever it is, like we put our hand on the Bible, like Jews put their hands on the Bible or hold the Torah. In the Talmud, they hold the Torah scroll. But in the time of Abraham, there was no Torah scroll. There was no mitzvah, the only mitzvah they had was circumcision. So what the Rabbi say is that the reason he grabbed his circumcision is like grabbing a Torah scroll, like putting your hand on the Bible. And this isn’t an isolated case. It happens once more. No, no, this happens a few other times. It’s not necessarily, you know, an exciting explanation, but it’s probably right. It sounds correct, doesn’t it?
Geoffrey Stern 04:22
Well, it does. Yes, it does appear elsewhere. Under for instance, Jacob; when Jacob is about to pass away, and he wants his family to swear that they’ll take his bones out of Egypt and bury him in the Promised Land. The same thing he says. And when the time approached for Israel to die, he summoned Joseph and said, place your hands… so number one, it doesn’t seem to be something out of the ordinary, it seems to be kind of accepted. And one of the commentaries Rashbam, but also Shadal who we’ve quoted before, says that the making of a covenant or an oath of a son or a slave to his master was in this fashion for they shared the aspect of subjugation. And it is thus written a son shall honor his father and his slave, his master. However, (this is fascinating) handshaking or cutting an object into two for a covenant and passing between the pieces is found with other persons. So just as I think we’ve established that this was not a unique occurrence, I think what rush bomb and shutdown are saying is that this is something that you might find even in other traditions, it’s a sign of subjugation that a slave might give to the master. And I think of a brand. You know, a rancher brands, his animals, and after a while we do call it an “OT” a sign, it is a sign upon the flesh. So what he’s saying is it at the one level it’s almost like a branding and it’s almost like a slave would touch the sign of the brand. If it’s the okay corral, he puts his hand on that sign of the okay chorale to show fidelity. I think if you want to stop here and say what does Brit now mean between the Jewish people and God, it would be kind of like, we’re God’s servants, we are branded to the Master of the Universe. And that would be a very natural way of taking it. The other thing that Shadal says it is making a covenant and that of course, we saw in the in the original texts, whether Abraham made a covenant between the pieces where he cut animals in half, and maybe Abraham walked through them. But there was this sense of it. I was just blown away when he says כף אל כף, handshaking. It’s like sealing the deal. So we’ve had a metaphor of taking an oath, and holding something tangible, like a bible we have that when you get sworn into office, it seems to be all of these things combined. And seems kind of straightforward. The only thing that I would add is it reminds me a little bit of joining a gang like West Side Story.
Adam Mintz 07:39
Well, I mean, that’s exactly right. It is joining a tribe. And the one sign that the tribe had was bris that’s all they had.
Geoffrey Stern 07:50
But in terms of that tribe, where you would see a tribe or a gang, I should say, where they have their mark. And that would make sense where you make an oath, you touch the mark. And you say, yeah, man, I’m a Jet. Well, I’m a whatever, it does put it in to context, although clearly, when someone like a we read it. It seems very, very strange. But I think it puts it into the context of tribal relations, of swearing on something tangible that has meaning, of a sign. I think it’s in that way, it is it is kind of helpful.
Adam Mintz 08:44
Very helpful. I think what you’re you explain is really an elaboration about what I said; the circumcision, because it was all they had, it represented all of the things that you described, that idea of being part of the tribe, that that that covenant between God and the people, everything was reflected there. Now I find it interesting that he requires this tribal handshake of the person who’s not part of the tribe.
Geoffrey Stern 09:16
So I think, again, if we look back at Genesis 17, where this was all commanded, it’s clear that ….
Adam Mintz 09:26
Eliezer did have a circumcision…
Geoffrey Stern 09:28
It’s your servants to its its real branding. You know, the question is, does the sign of the covenant on a servant, mean fidelity to the master you or does it mean fidelity to the master of masters? But I think in 17, it says God further said to Abraham as for you, you and your offspring to come throughout the ages, so keep My covenant, such shall be the covenant between me and you and your offspring to follow. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant א֣וֹת בְּרִ֔ית בֵּינִ֖י וּבֵינֵיכֶֽם. And then he goes on to say, as for the home born slave and the one bought from an outsider who is not of yours offspring, they must be circumcised home bound and purchased alike. The covenant be marked in your flesh as an everlasting pact. And so clearly, here we have the outcome of that, where Eliezer is going on a very, I wouldn’t say a risky mission… important mission. And he’s got to take this oath.
Adam Mintz 10:32
With uncertain outcome.
Geoffrey Stern 10:48
Absolutely. Absolutely. And this, this thing of “OT” is also kind of fascinating. You know, we’ve talked in the past, about belief, and whether belief was a commandment, or it was the basis for all the commandments. But here, even though there’s no question that circumcision is one of the 613 commandments, it kind of has a place of its own. in the sense that it is this “OT”. I mean, for instance, in practical terms, so many of the commandments you don’t do on Shabbat, Shabbat, overrides them, but one that doesn’t. And I gotta believe that doing a circumcision on Shabbat, I mean, does that literally break? One of the 39 melachot?
Adam Mintz 11:41
Yes, yes, it does. Yes, it does. To cut skin on purpose is a prohibition, one of the Lamed Tet Melachot, and it’s allowed because it’s a bris.
Geoffrey Stern 11:52
So in a sense, its kind of in a class of its own in that regard. Yochanan who is not here tonight, but who is becoming one of my favorite visitors to Madlik he was on last week in the after-party discussion. And when I went to another place of meeting and clubhouse, and he said that there is this verse that says, דרכיה דרכי נעם וכל נתיבותיה שלום “Her ways are pleasant ways, And all her paths, peaceful” and he quoted one source that says with the exclusion of Brit Milah. So, Brit Milah is in kind of a class of its own. And that becomes kind of interesting, does it not? I mean, you’re involved with conversion. Circumcision is a big part of conversion. It’s not simply just another commandment.
Adam Mintz 12:53
A male cannot convert to Judaism without circumcision. Now some non-Jewish men today are circumcised at birth. That was because there was a period where they believed that that was healthy. But and even in that case, they need to have a symbolic, ceremony to turn that circumcision by the doctor in the hospital into a Jewish circumcision. The Jewish handshake as you call that.
Geoffrey Stern 13:28
Is it really called that?
Adam Mintz 13:30
The Jewish Handshake… Yeah, of course it’s called. That’s what you’re referring to when you gave the whole description. The Jewish Handshake.
Geoffrey Stern 13:36
Okay, okay. So there are different metaphors. There are some fascinating stories about circumcision that I’m going to review now. In Exodus, Moses spent some time with his father-in-law Jethro, and he’s finally going down to Egypt, and he’s going to do his main mission and free the Israelite people. And he’s traveling down with, it seems two sons. And all of a sudden, he’s at a night encampment, Exodus 4: 24 And at the night encampment on the way God encountered him and sought to kill him. So, Tzipora his wife took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin touched his legs with it, saying, You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me חֲתַן־דָּמִ֛ים אַתָּ֖ה לִֽי And when God let him alone, she added a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision. Well, first of all, we have to ask the question, why did this all happen and what’s the lesson? But clearly then, there is this question of letting blood and this starts to become interesting in the understanding of what that sign is, and I think this will segue us a little bit into starting to think of what how, if any parallels there were to the sacrifice of Isaac or the Akedah. But here somehow she is saying that by doing the circumcision on her son, she is now forever connected to him. And what connects her is the blood that was shed. What do you make of this strange story?
Adam Mintz 14:53
It’s a strange story, very strange story. You know, it’s something about the same thing, which is that was the sign that they were committed to going back to Egypt and representing the people, and therefore the son needed to be circumcised. The question is why Moses doesn’t do it. And why there needs to be such drama. We don’t usually have drama at circumcisions. You just have the circumcision? Why is there so much drama to circumcision? It also raises an interesting question, that the blood of the circumcision is the important part of the circumcision. That introduces the possibility that what we’re talking about here is really a sacrifice. That a circumcision is actually a sacrifice. Now, we don’t believe in human sacrifices, we can’t really give a human sacrifice. But we can do something that in a way reminds us about it, you.
Geoffrey Stern 16:35
So I think in the commentaries that we mentioned last week, when we were talking about call it the sacrifice of Isaac call it the Binding of Isaac was this John Levinson. And he argues very strongly that the Qaeda, The Binding of Isaac has to be put in the tradition of sacrificing the first fruits, the firstborn to God. And he develops that throughout our tradition, and there’s plenty of legs for him to stand on. Because we have be Bikkurim, the first fruits we have Orla, the first harvest, we have pidyon ha’Ben, (redemption of the first born) we have all of these things, I think what you just said, would fit very well into his tradition, which means that the eradication of sacrificing one’s child or one’s one’s first child, for sure. But any child is something that takes a long time. It doesn’t disappear. It gets redirected. And clearly, and that’s why I was so impressed when I went to that other clubhouse. And they segwayed so naturally, from talking about the sacrifice of Isaac to brit milah. To circumcision, it took me a second to kind of connect the dots. But they were onto something there is this connection, I believe, between the two. And in a sense if that’s the case, then every time we have the Brit Mila, in a sense, we are reenacting….. They talk about the Mikdash ma’at (the small Temple), this is the Akedah Ma’at, is there anything there?
Adam Mintz 18:15
Yeah, no, there’s something there. This is it. This is the Akedah Ma’at, every religious experience, needs an Akedah moment. Now, usually, we don’t think about it as needing, you know, blood or sacrifice or any of those things. But you know, the more literally you take it, the more you get to that conclusion that you actually need a physical act. And like you said, from the beginning of Exodus, that act might require blood. I think that’s something that’s not emphasized enough in that Exodus story. The fact that חֲתַ֥ן דָּמִ֖ים לַמּוּלֹֽת that God says you are like the groom of blood for the bris. It’s all about the blood. You know, as a result of doing my research this week, I said, well, let me pull out a siddur and let me take a look at the Milah, the circumcision ceremony. And I never saw this before. It was just a matter of I looked at the Ashkenazi Siddur on Sefaria and didn’t have the milah ceremony. So I went to the other side. I went into the Sephardic siddur. And I’m going to read you a Ye’hi Ratzon that I found in the Sephardic Siddur. It’s right up there.יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ, שֶׁיְּהֵא חָשׁוּב וּמְרֻצֶּה וּמְקֻבָּל לְפָנֶֽיךָ, may it be the your Will, Master of the Universe, may it be Your will that it be considered (the Brit Milah) and regarded favorably, and accepted before You, כְּאִלּוּ הִקְרַבְתִּֽיהוּ לִפְנֵי כִּסֵּא כְבוֹדֶֽךָ as though I had offered him (as a sacrifice) before the throne of your glory. So, there it is. We don’t have a parallel to that in the Ashkenazi service, do we? That’s an amazing Yehi Ratzon, I mean, that clinches your argument right there. You don’t need to go any further than that. That’s the only source we need tonight. That’s an amazing Yehi Ratzon. That Yehi Ratzon means that in the Sephardic tradition, they are supporting that view. So here’s where we start looping back and connecting the dots. If the Akeda is so difficult for us, what how does that impact upon the Brit Mila, and it I came across the sensitivity in modern society to this because I was involved in a wedding of a young couple. It happened to have a Jewish mom and a husband who had not yet decided to convert but she wanted a Jewish wedding. And sure enough, nine months later, they called me up. And she said, we’ve decided not to circumcise our son. And my father, she said, is beside himself. But we just feel that it’s traumatizes. She, she told me about a movie called American Circumcision, which I hadn’t watched until today. Boy, you know, if you watch this movie, you would be afraid of it too. There are those out there, it’s a new thing. It’s a new thing. There are two areas I think that the younger generation is starting to look at one is what can they do that similar for a girl in terms of a rite of passage, but the other is there are those who are very troubled by the whole circumcision procedure. So, what I told her, I want to work out with you. And I want to see what your opinion is. Before I tell you what I told them. I want to continue with our discussion of Tzipora. So as you say, Why did Moses not give circumcision to his son traditional interpretation is that the reason why Moses had not circumcised him was because they were going on a journey. “If I circumcise him and immediately proceed on the journey the child’s life will be in danger” is what Rashi quotes from the rabbinic sauces סַכָּנָה הִיא לַתִּינוֹק. And most of us know this when a baby is born, and they have jaundice or whatever, that Shabbat might not delay a Brit, but the health of the child definitely delays the circumcision… to the point, and this was always fascinating to me, that there is a tradition that the whole generation of the Exodus was not circumcised. Meaning to say that in Joshua 5, it says as follows that all the people that Joshua brought …. Moses had died. Now he took the whole new generation out of the desert, and it says “proceed with a second circumcision of the Israelites” וְשׁ֛וּב מֹ֥ל אֶת־בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל שֵׁנִֽית. And here the commentary to say something very similar to what they said by Moses and Tzipora and that is לֹא נָשְׁבָה לָהֶם רוּחַ צְפוֹנִית, there was no let-up in this northern wind all 40 years in the desert. And so, it was a sakana, it was too dangerous. There was a perceived health challenge of circumcising in the desert. And so, which is kind of amazing, if you think about it, you know, because you and I both know, they didn’t move every day, they camped out in some places for a long period of time. But nonetheless from this Joshua, there was this tradition, that we learned that if it’s something dangerous to your health, you can postpone it. So, what I told to this couple, because truly, I just felt here was a couple who wanted to be Jewish, who asked for a Jewish wedding, who hopefully had a very good experience, but you watch movies like these, and you can become very scared. And I said, If you truly believe that this is something that is dangerous to your child, you can put off the circumcision. That’s what I told him. And I’m sure there’s no rabbi, including you who will agree with that halachikly. I do think it was the right response because they weren’t going to have a circumcision one way or the other. But I’m curious. I never would have thought of that. But that is actually brilliant. Because now they can always keep in the back of their mind that they can always they can still do it. You didn’t say you’re bad people if you don’t have a circumcision, and I didn’t said you’re delayed.
Geoffrey Stern 25:24
Yeah. And I didn’t say you don’t have to do it or you, you’re gonna not do it. You delay it,
Adam Mintz 25:29
You’re delaying it. We’ll worry about it next.
Geoffrey Stern 25:31
Well, because maybe another movie will come out with other doctors and the other doctors will say it’s okay,
Adam Mintz 25:36
These things are clearly cyclical, because I can just tell you, as someone who’s involved with conversions, Until last year, I almost never had a young man who came to convert who wasn’t physically circumcised. Because 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, everybody was circumcised, the doctors circumcised, everybody in the hospital, just now I’m beginning to get people who are not circumcised. Because 20 and 25 years ago, they started this movement. “American Circumcision” is one example of that movement, that circumcision is bad for you. So, you have these young men who are going around and they’re not circumcised. Now, that’s fine. I mean, that was a decision, but it’s unfortunate when they come to convert to Judaism.
Geoffrey Stern 26:26
So the other thing that I learned, and this is a segue to my next question, practical question to you, is from this Rashi in Joshua, where it says that the whole generation did not get circumcised in the desert. It picks up on the language that it says “a second circumcision”. And a Rashi says that, שֵׁנִית זוֹ פְּרִיעַת מִילָה שֶׁלֹּא נִתְּנָה לְאַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ that, is this the prick that you hear about?
Adam Mintz 26:58
No, it’s the uncovering of the foreskin. They cut it, and then they uncover it.
Geoffrey Stern 27:05
So is it different than the circumcision?
Adam Mintz 27:08
No, they just pull the skin back so that the circumcision is visible. priya means to uncover.
Geoffrey Stern 27:17
So one of the things that came up in my research that I had not realized before, and I’m embarrassed to say that it was on Wikipedia, Is that we all heard about during the Hellenistic rule, the Maccabees…. Hanukkah is just around the corner, that the Greeks disdain and disgust with circumcision was so great, that there were Jews who wanted to assimilate who actually went through an operation to reverse their circumcision. And according to the sources, and actually I joke when I say it’s, it’s in Wikipedia, Wikipedia quotes, the Jewish Encyclopedia, which quotes Genesis Rabbah, and quotes the Tractate of Shabbat were as a result of that the rabbi’s incense made circumcision more extreme than it had been before. Am I making any sense? Is there anything any basis to this that maybe circumcision before this whole Hellenism thing? was a little bit less?
Adam Mintz 28:32
It could be I’m not familiar with this. But that doesn’t mean so much.
Geoffrey Stern 28:36
Interesting.
Adam Mintz 28:37
I’m not familiar with that. But it fits in all those sources. And it’s right. Yeah, I’ll actually go down and dig out the sources. And for those of you listening, by the way, the sources are posted this week, right on our clubhouse, but it seems to me that circumcision is something that on the one hand is extremely, extremely basic. And that any, any movement like the one in this movie, I think, who questions the need to have circumcision as one of the Jews that are interviewed and says, look, if I wasn’t Jewish, I would question it too. But I have a religious commitment here. I think, then we’ll finish on this that one of the things that made circumcision even more important was that we were persecuted for it. And that once you get persecuted for fulfilling a mitzvah, then it becomes a line in the in the ground. So for instance, we all know that there were only certain commandments that you have to give your life for and they do not include circumcision. But the Rabbis say if you make a case of something in public if it becomes a litmus test, even changing the color of your shoelace, is something that is forbidden. And I think that in helping a next generation navigate this, we have to understand that today the issue of circumcision, thank God, is at least not one of a polemical nature or one of standing up against and standing for being Jewish. It’s a personal decision. And I think that studying the Torah and clergy and the community has to help a next generation understand it, grapple with it because if we can grapple with the Akedah, we can grapple with circumcision, they do seem to be linked. It’s spilling of blood. I think that I think that’s great. This was a great topic tonight. Geoffrey, thank you so much. Chayea Sarah. Next week, Thanksgiving, everybody Toldot; you cannot beat it. Shabbat Shalom everybody.
Geoffrey Stern 30:58
Shabbat Shalom to everybody and thank you all very much. And be sure to listen to the Madlik podcast and if you like what you hear, share it with friends and family and give us a Star or a nice review. Thank you all so very much

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/446688
Listen to last year’s podcast: Life is with People and so is Death
First Fruits – First Prayers
parshat ki tavo – Deuteronomy 26
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on September 15th 2022. As we approach the high prayer season we trace the evolution of the oldest prayer preserved in the Torah. The First Fruits Declaration, a once iconic prayer made by a farmer on Shavuot; the Harvest Festival. We see how this prayer was censored, repurposed and reinterpreted up until today and wonder what license it provides to us.
Transcript:
Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday at 8:00pm Eastern and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. As we approach the high prayer season, we trace the evolution of one of the oldest prayers preserved in the Torah. The Bikurim or First-Fruits Declaration, made by a farmer on Shavuot; the Harvest Festival. We explore how this prayer was censored, re-purposed and re-interpreted and wonder what license it provides to us. So grab a bowl of fruit and a siddur and join us for First Fruits – First Prayers.
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Well, welcome back another week. And as we said, in the pre-show, the High Holidays are coming, they’re coming. They’re coming. They’re not waiting for us. And that’s what I meant when I referred to the “prayer season”, because isn’t that actually what it is, I mean, there’s no time of year that we pray more, that we are engaged with our liturgy. And before we get to the exact text from our parsha, that I want to discuss, and the Parsha is Ki Tavo in Deuteronomy, it just seems to me, Rabbi that Deuteronomy is the source of many prayers, much of our liturgy, I mean, the most famous Shema Yisrael is in Deuteronomy 6: 4. Last week, while not liturgy, we talked about the paragraph that says that you have to remember what Amalek did to you. And I referenced that there is a whole Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor, that we focused just on saying that little chapter in public, and some say, that’s one of the rare occasions that literally by Torah law, we have to make that declaration. So am I wrong here? There’s little avoid liturgy comes from the Chumash, The Five Books of Moses itself, but that that does, there’s a lot in Deuteronomy.
Adam Mintz 02:34
So you’re absolutely right. And the fact that Shema, not only the paragraph of Shema. But the second paragraph of the Shema Vehaya Im Shemoa וְהָיָ֗ה אִם־שָׁמֹ֤עַ also comes from the book of Deuteronomy (11: 13), I think the reason is probably a simple reason. And that is Deuteronomy is the kind of the summary, the review of the Torah. So, it has paragraphs that have a lot of different ideas all together. Like in the paragraph of Shema, you have belief in God, you have study Torah, you have Tefillin and you have Mezuzah. Yeah, you have all these things, you have reward and punishment. It’s all there in one paragraph, you don’t have that in the rest of Torah. So actually, in terms of prayers, and in terms of kind of covering all the bases, Deuteronomy is a great place to get prayers from.
Geoffrey Stern 03:22
And you know, I would kind of add, and I’ve said this before, that, modern scholarship believes that Deuteronomy was probably written closer to when Ezra came back from the exile, we’re talking about a period where there was maybe no temple anymore, the synagogues were starting to be formed. But even if you don’t buy into higher criticism the whole angst of Deuteronomy is when you come into the land. And certainly, coming into the land, the central Mishkan was over. And there was this beginning of what we could see as decentralized Judaism. And certainly, it had a prophetic sense of there would be a time where Jews would need to pray and our religion would change. So, I think from all different perspectives, there is no question that Deuteronomy is a great source for later liturgy. I think we’re on the same page there.
Adam Mintz 04:28
Good. I think that’s 100%. Right. And I think you know, that just makes the point stronger, but you know, whatever the explanation is just making the point is interesting, right, just realizing that so much of our prayer service and the Shema itself comes from Deuteronomy is a super interesting point.
Geoffrey Stern 04:46
Great. So, we’re going to start with one of the most iconic little prayers; declarations if you will, certainly something that we’ll see ended up in our liturgy by way of the Haggadah. It is a farmer’s declaration of bringing the first fruits of the harvest to the temple. And it starts in Deuteronomy 26: 3 it says, You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, I acknowledge this day before your God that I have entered the land that God swore to our fathers to assign us. The priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down in the front of the altar of your God. You shall then recite as follows before your god, my father was a fugitive Aramean he went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there. But there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us they imposed heavy labor upon us. If this sounds familiar to any of us, it’s because it is quoted in the Haggadah. And what the Hagaddah does is literally take every one of the words that I just said, … when it says the Egyptians dealt harshly with us. When it says that we became לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב when it says they oppressed us וַיְעַנּ֑וּנוּ it has a standing commentary, which actually becomes the most fundamental core part of the whole Haggadah-Seder moment. And it says, We cried to God, the God of our ancestors, and God heard our plea. God heard our plea. You’ll see in the Passover Haggadah, it says, When God heard our plea, he understood what they were doing to us. Maybe he was separating men from women. It goes into this running commentary in the Haggadah, he saw our plight, our misery and our oppression. God freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, you remember in the Haggadah talks about what does it mean by בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ by an outstretched arm וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה and awesome powers and by signs and portents…. So, this is as far as the Haggadah goes, but the literary piece the parsha of Bikkurim continues, bringing us to this place, וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of soil which you God have given me, you shall leave it before your God and bow low before your God, and you shall enjoy together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, and all the bounty that your God has bestowed upon you and your household. And then if you were looking at this text in a Sefer Torah, there is an end of literary piece, the end of Parashat Bikkurim, we have finished. So this clearly is a very old piece. It is in a sense quoted, you are literally quoting what the farmer says in front of the Cohen. So Rabbi, how many prayers like this do we have that are verbatim? And what does it mean to you?
Adam Mintz 08:48
Well, you said a mouthful here. The first interesting thing is that this is probably the earliest prayer that we have, which means that this was said as a prayer. In the time of the Torah, when they brought the first fruits, they recited this as a prayer. We just a minute ago, talked about Shema. Now Shema in the Torah is not written as a prayer, meaning that Moshe tells the people to believe in God and to put on tefillin and to put up a mezuzah, but he doesn’t say recite this every day. It wasn’t a prayer. We took it to become a prayer. But this actually was a prayer. And that’s really interesting. It’s interesting because what you see is that we have prayers, from the very beginning of time we have prayers, there are very few prayers in the Torah. There’s one another example of a prayer when Miriam, Moshe’s sister is sick. So Moshe says to God וַיִּצְעַ֣ק מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶל־הֹ’ לֵאמֹ֑ר אֵ֕-ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ (Numbers 12: 13) , God, please cure her. It’s the shortest prayer in history. But that’s an example of a prayer and here we have another prayer. So, it’s interesting that the Torah recognizes the value of prayers, and even gives us some prayers that we actually recite.
Geoffrey Stern 10:10
You know, you saying that reminds me of the key prayers of the High Holidays? הֹ’ ׀ הֹ’ אֵ֥-ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם וְרַב־חֶ֥סֶד וֶאֱמֶֽת. This is something we’re going to start saying Selichot on Saturday night. These prayers are not only old, but because they’re old. They almost seem to have power, don’t they? If you really can count on your fingers, whether their prayers like this one, or whether like the Shema we’re quoting verses, I mean, some of the other ones that come to mind is with Ballam מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב (Numbers 24: 5). We start our service every day with that we quote, How goodly are the tents of Jacob”, it’s maybe written over the ark. We have the prayer that maybe parents say on their children on Friday night, יְשִֽׂמְךָ֣ אֱ-לֹהִ֔ים כְּאֶפְרַ֖יִם וְכִמְנַשֶּׁ֑ה (Genesis 48: 20) which is what Joseph said. But you’re absolutely right. This is, along with רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ which is with Miriam is one of the few places where, at least in the Chumash, The Five Books of Moses, you have actually texts of prayers.
Adam Mintz 11:27
Yeah, that is interesting in the history of prayer. That’s interesting that prayer is biblical. That’s not the prayers we say. The prayers we say are basically rabbinic. The Amidah that we recite is not found in the Torah, the Amidah that we recite the rabbi’s made up. So, we generally think of prayer as being rabbinic. But the truth is a prayer is biblical. There is a biblical source for prayer.
Geoffrey Stern 11:51
I mean, I think if you look at for instance, the Shemoneh Esrey, the Eighteen Benedictions, the Amidah, the Silent Prayer, a lot of stuff is taken from Psalms, Psalms is a rich source of if not prayers, but at least phrases or expressions; ways of talking about the, you know, healing people or making them stand up straight or reviving them in the morning. But here, actually, it’s very few times that in our liturgy, we have stuff directly from the Five Books of Moses. But there are a few cases. And this is a very, very old prayer, no question about it.
Adam Mintz 12:36
Right that so so that’s, that’s the beginning of what’s interesting here. Now, the text of the prayer is also interesting, because what the prayer is, is it’s kind of a review of Jewish history, to allow us to be grateful to God, recognizing not only that God gave us new fruits, but that God gave us everything beginning with taking us out of Egypt.
Geoffrey Stern 13:00
I mean, isn’t it amazing if you step back for a second, and the two prayers that we’ve identified as biblical and old, one had to do with healing, and the other one had to do with thanks and gratitude. And what more can you talk about thanks Then the harvest? You know, I think of he who sows in tears reaps in joy הַזֹּרְעִ֥ים בְּדִמְעָ֗ה בְּרִנָּ֥ה יִקְצֹֽרוּ (Psalms 26: 5), There is nothing more primal than the thankfulness and it comes all the way to the Puritans and the Thanksgiving festival and Sukkot that we’re going to have. You can almost track the three major festivals, the pilgrimage festivals, all around agriculture, which ultimately becomes that we are dependent on the earth we’re dependent on rain, we’re dependent on God. And the flip side of that is we are so thankful when we have a basket of fruit that we can we can bring to God to thank Him or Her.
Adam Mintz 14:09
Right. I think all that all that is exactly right. I think that’s, that’s wonderful here, and then the use of this prayer in the Seder also needs to be discussed. Why do we choose this verse? To make the question better? Let me ask it like this. The Seder on Passover, remembers the Exodus from Egypt. If we’re going to choose verses that talk about the Exodus from Egypt, why don’t we take verses from the book of Exodus that talk about the Exodus from Egypt? It seems kind of ridiculous that we choose verses from the book of Deuteronomy that talk about the Exodus from Egypt. We might as well choose to have the original story I might as well you know if I’m if I’m reading the story, I don’t know what your story the story of of the you know, of the I have the respect that they’re paying to the Queen. I might as well read it as it’s happening now. I’m not interested 10 years from now and they write a book about it, they IV the story in the moment is actually more accurate and more reflective of the way people are thinking later on, you kind of just have a perspective. So why do we choose the verses from Devarim? from Deuteronomy? And not the verses from Exodus?
Geoffrey Stern 15:24
So that is an amazing question. And I think that also will give us an insight into some prayers of the High Holidays. So, one of the commentaries on the Haggadah, that that I love, he claims he says that the Mishna wanted that …. and by the way, the Mishna in Pesachim actually dictates that these verses are said in Pesachim 10: 4 it says that, when teaching his son about the Exodus, he begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace, and concludes with their glory, מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, and he expounds from the passage an Aramean tried to destroy my father, which is our verse with a new translation we’ll find out in a second, the declaration one was cites when presenting his first foods at the temple. And here the Mishnah says until he concludes explaining the entire section. So the Mishna says you have to read it, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ. The Mishna, in fact says to answer your question, not why, but that you have to say this whole section about bringing the first fruits on the night of the Seder from beginning to end. But the commentaries and modern scholarship, argue that the Mishna wanted to find a text and integrated commentary that was well known to the Jewish masses. And when we say well known to the Jewish masses, remember, there were many centuries, generations of Jews who did not even speak Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic, they spoke other languages. Because this prayer of giving the Bikkurim was so iconic, these scholars argue, we pick the one that people knew they not only knew the words in Hebrew, but they also kind of knew in a singsong way, the commentary on it. So, there was a great scholar named David Tzvi. Hoffman, who wrote a book called The First Mishna. And he actually uses the Haggadah and the way it goes from וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה, and it gives an explanation, בְּיָד חֲזָקָה and gives an explanation. He says, this is a prime example of Midrash Halacha, and the earliest use of reading the written law and adding ongoing explanatory Midrash and interpretations. So, his answer to your question is, there are many other verses that talk about the exodus of Egypt, that might do it in a more poetic way, in a more discursive way, but the rabbi’s of the Mishna picked these because as we started by saying, it was an old prayer that everybody knew. And clearly, this is a prayer unlike the Shema that is not household to every Jew nowadays. But there was a time …. you knew The Bikkurim, and that we could we could talk about…
Adam Mintz 18:50
Well, everybody had first fruits, everybody had a harvest. We don’t we don’t live in agricultural life anymore. But if everybody lived in agricultural life, you would all have it.
Geoffrey Stern 19:00
so so again, I think that it’s fascinating that when we look at prayers, and some prayers are so well known, and we don’t even remember the reason that we know them. I mean, I think, and I’d love your take on this. We come to services on the night of Yom Kippur, the holiest night of the holiest day of the year. And this service is named after a prayer that we all sing in the same tune, and we probably all get choked up over; it’s called Kol Nidrei. And it is basically a prayer that has to do with a legal formula for canceling your oaths that you made. And we might not even know the meaning of the words we might not know the meanings of a lot of words of prayers, but this one has lived way beyond its expiration date, but it still has all the power and the meaning. And that’s a fascinating insight, I think into prayer.
Adam Mintz 20:00
Yeah, that is an interesting point, the power of the prayer and you raise the power of the tune of Kol Nidrei. You know exactly what its history is not clear. The key is that everybody has been doing it. Right. And everybody sings the same tune. And that’s what’s so powerful.
Geoffrey Stern 20:22
Do you know if the Sefardim, the Mizrachim also have the same tune?
Adam Mintz 20:26
I don’t know if they have Kol Nidre, I think Kol Nidrei is an Ashkenazim thing?
Geoffrey Stern 20:31
Well, it’s certainly for the for the Ashkenazi him. And again, it’s a little bit like the beginning of the Seder, where we sing the Seder itself. It’s like singing the table of contents of a book. You’re right, it is the music. But I think the rabbis and the scholars who say that the reason Bikkurim was bought into the Haggadah are touching upon this aspect of some of our prayers, that a prayer can be more than the words that are written in it becomes like a mantra, it becomes something that we share with each other. And it goes beyond the meaning of the words or the original context. And I think that if we stopped right here, that would be a fascinating lesson about the power of prayer, or how prayer is used, or what its power on us is, don’t you think?
Adam Mintz 21:28
I think that that that really is a very interesting point. Now, I’ll just compare for a minute Kol Nidrei. And this prayer for the first fruit, you know, this prayer for the first fruit is biblical Kol. Nidrei is actually in Aramaic, right? I mean, it’s not even in Hebrew. So, some of the power is and you know, Aramaic is like English. That was the language that people spoke. So, you know, sometimes prayer in the vernacular is what’s so powerful. And obviously, we have that, especially in the kind of in the more liberal movements that you know, prayer in the vernacular has a certain power to it.
Geoffrey Stern 22:12
Yeah. And so there’s definitely this issue of lack of language. And those, those scholars who say that Bikkurim was something that people who didn’t speak Hebrew and Aramaic was their language, still new because it was so popular. That’s one message and what you said a second ago, which is to walk into a synagogue, where most of the services for the rest of the day are going to be in Hebrew, and you see something you hear something that’s in Aramaic is welcoming the codices in Aramaic. So the language is an important part. So I said in the beginning, that this was going to be a history of the censorship, and the reinterpretation of a prayer. So when I read the verses in in Deuteronomy itself, and I said, אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י. The translation was my father was a fugitive, Aramean. Oved is typically translated as someone who is lost and we’ll get a little bit into it for a second. In the Haggadah, however, it introduces before we get into this first fruits declaration, it says as follows and those of you who have been at a Seder will remember וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ, and this is what stood for our ancestors for us, since it is not only one person that has stood against us to destroy us, but rather each generation they stand against us to destroy us. But the וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם, God rescues us. So that’s the introduction to this prayer of the farmer. And then lo and behold, it changes the meaning. And in the Haggadah, it says, An Aramean was destroying my father Avood. I guess, when Esther was about to go in front of Achashveros when she wasn’t beckoned. She says וְכַאֲשֶׁ֥ר אָבַ֖דְתִּי אָבָֽדְתִּי (Esther 4: 16), Avood definitely can also mean, not lost, but lost in the sense of my life is in danger. And the rabbis in a sense, re interpreted this, this whole Parshat Bikkurim, this whole declaration of the first fruits in a different way. Do you agree? Before I asked that question Rashi in his interpretation on the Chumash actually goes out of his way to bring the Haggadah’s as interpretation, but if you look at the source sheet, most of the classical commentary say it’s clear that what he was talking about is we were wandering, landless people. And here I am a farmer living in my land, bringing my crop. So how do you account for this change of interpretation?
Adam Mintz 25:20
I mean, that that’s easy, because the change the interpretation, because the new interpretation works out better within the Haggadah,
Geoffrey Stern 25:30
Especially after that introduction, Right, meaning the simple explanation, which is that we were wandering and now we’re in the land of Israel, and now we have our own fruits etc. and all that kind of stuff. That makes a lot of sense, given the context of the Chumash, but that’s not relevant to the Seder. The Seder wants the big picture, which is that Laban tried to destroy us אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, the word Avad, means from the word … tried to make us disappear, and therefore tried to get rid of I think, and we’ll see this comes up in another aspect of what the rabbi’s did. That there was a an evolution in the Haggadah itself. There is the Haggadah that was written and used in the land of Israel. And then when the Jews were exiled, it almost became a Haggadah of the exile. And so, the commentary that I have in the source sheet, it’s a by Joseph Tabori, he says as follows. He says while the temple existed, they understood the whole passage as truly representing their radical change in status. Remember, you’re in the land of Israel, you’re talking about the Exodus from Egypt, you actually parallel that farmer in a very profound way. The people had started out as fugitives, wandering nomads, and now they stood in their permanent home. But he says, After the destruction of the temple, there was no longer any parallelism between the lowly beginnings as nomads and their present status as people saved from persecution. And therefore, they talk about oppression rather than landlessness. So what he is saying and you can either buy it or not, is that the prayer itself evolved based on the needs of the time, and that when the mission of might have said say these verses of the first fruits, it might have been talking to people that their patriarchs, their ancestors had been in Egypt. Now they were in the land. They were spot on, like that farmer and the Seder was a question of being thankful just like the farmer, but when they were exiled, that message almost missed its mark, and therefore the rabbi’s put this introduction about how in every generation, they come to kill us, and it changed the interpretation of the verse. What do you think of Tabor’s theory?
Adam Mintz 26:12
That I love the idea that the that the interpretation of the verse evolves, and being grateful for it to having our own first fruit may not make sense if we don’t have our own land. I liked that a lot. That’s a really good explanation. Thank you.
Geoffrey Stern 28:37
So that explanation explained something else that I mentioned when I read the verses from our parsah, which is that in the Haggadah, it quotes are from our verses, but it doesn’t follow the advice of the Mishnah. It doesn’t read it till the end. It stops at verse 8. Verse 8 says, God freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand you will remember, that’s where the Haggadah says, What’s a mighty hand by an outstretched arm by awesome Power by signs and portents? There’s at least two pages in the Haggadah that talks about each one of these words, but get to verse 9, it says bringing us to this place. וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה no interpretation, giving us this land, no interpretation a land flowing with milk and honey, no interpretation, all the way till the end. And I’ve spoken about this before the last verse, it says, And you shall enjoy together with the Levite the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that God gave you. So, in the introduction, I talked about censorship, in a sense and Tabori goes on to say this for people that were once more in exile. You It would be almost too much to pretend that they weren’t, it would be almost too much to talk about coming into the land, a land of milk and honey, and therefore the Haggadah decided not to quote those verses, and not to provide this singsong commentary about it. And if we step back and we look at prayers, that means that the prayers do evolve based on our condition where we are. But it’s also an open question. And I would say an invitation, is it not?
Adam Mintz 30:36
I think that that’s 100%. right. I mean, I really liked to Tabori’s explanation, I think he got it right. It also is good for us. Because what it does is it links the Torah portion to the Haggadah. Usually, the Haggadah just borrows these verses, but they’re not really relevant. And what he does is he really connects one to the other. So, I like that also.
Geoffrey Stern 31:01
So at the end of my source sheet, I quote just one, one section from a whole Google Doc, which comes out of Israel from young scholars in Israel. But literally, there is a revival in the Haggadah today, where they continue and they say וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ who brought us in, and they say then is now as it is said, How I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to me in the same kind of tradition, this singsong thing they quote another verse, and אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה this place refers to the temple, and it comes from Rabbi David Mishlove, supplement for Seders in Israel. So here we have an example of a prayer that starts in the Five Books of Moses in Deuteronomy, that was changed, maybe censored out of sensitivity to people living in exile, and is today being rewritten, and re-positioned for a new generation of Jews who are in the land. And I just find that to be so. So fascinating.
Adam Mintz 32:14
I think that’s great. I think this was really the sources I give you credit, Geoffrey, because the sources tonight were really, really good.
Geoffrey Stern 32:20
Well, and I think it’s an invitation to all of us as we, as we begin this prayer season, as I call it. There are different ways to approach the prayers. You know, many of us just focus on what does this prayer mean. But I think tonight, we’ve really seen that there were so many other reflective and reflections that can have meaning to us beyond just the simple meaning of the words, and we’re gonna be in synagogue for so many hours. We need all the tools we can get.
Adam Mintz 32:50
Fantastic. And we still got one more next week. So well, Shabbat Shalom, everybody, and we’ll see you next Thursday. Looking forward. Be Well, everybody.
Geoffrey Stern 32:57
Shabbat shalom. Thank you, as always, Rabbi. And for any of you who have a comment. Oh, Miriam, I’m going to invite you on
Miriam Gonczarska 33:08
I posted something a little comment that we have another prayer in our siddurs from the Torah. Not from Deuteronomy but from Numbers and its יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהֹוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ (Numbers 6: 24)
Geoffrey Stern 33:32
Of course, the Priestly Blessing, the Cohen’s benediction. That’s, that’s perfect. We did miss that.
Miriam Gonczarska 33:39
Yeah, and I wanted to add that because I think it’s fascinating, although it’s not from sefer Devarim. But the beautiful part is it’s about Cohanim. It’s about temple, temple rituals. And we say it every day, every morning, but this is a beautiful, beautiful player.
Geoffrey Stern 34:07
Thank you for that. It is fascinating how few of our prayers come from the Torah itself, the rabbi kind of mentioned that. But those that do obviously have great power. And again, you look at Bikkurim It’s a prayer of a farmer being thankful with a historical memory. You look at the priestly blessing that you just mentioned, you know, it doesn’t talk about ritual, it talks about that God should bless you and keep you and shine his light upon you and give you peace. I mean, they’re just powerful.
34:42
Yes. And what is very interesting that apparently, archeologists in Israel found this prayer on a very early materials and there is this concept of biblical criticism, which we might like or not like, but they say that this is one of the oldest texts in the five books of Moses. It’s beautiful words, and that the entire idea that Hashem should bless you and keep you and turn his face and shine upon you and be graceful into you. I mean, there’s different translations, and there’s so much in this play of words, because it’s the וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ, you can translate it as chinuch (education), and Hanukkah, and there’s just so much written here plays so much, so much in this prayer. And again, it’s not from first book of Moses, it’s that from the fourth one. But the observation that you write I really liked that is that most of our prayers are from the sefer Devarim. That’s a fascinating observation and, and there is something very deep about it. Even if I found to be prayer here, taken from Bamidbar (Numbers)
Geoffrey Stern 36:05
So Miriam, if I remember you are a graduate, you got smicha Maharat, is that correct?
Miriam Gonczarska 36:10
Yes. And Rabbi Mintz is my teacher. I took all his classes.
Geoffrey Stern 36:15
And you serve the Polish community, if I remember correctly. So, what do you do during the High Holidays? Are you conducting services?
Miriam Gonczarska 36:26
No, it’s kind of public knowledge. So I can tell you I’m struggling right now with cancer. So I am in New York, but I am not able to be insured in a long you know, for long periods of time. So, I’m undergoing chemo right now. So, I’m laying low on the days themselves, but I teach online before I’m preparing my class, and I actually I want to teach this material to my students. So, I was so excited I need the source Sheet. I want to teach them in Polish. I’m going to translate parts of what you taught and teach it in Polish
Geoffrey Stern 37:07
Amazing! I wish you a life and vibrance and Refuah Shelema and all those good things that were included in Miriam’s Refa Na La
Miriam Gonczarska 37:23
So actually, definitely means knows about my illness, and it was extremely moving when he actually said it knowing that I’m in the audience and my name is Miriam. And I love this moment and it’s like, it’s my teacher, but it’s like this this you know, I was warm and fuzzy.
Geoffrey Stern 37:41
As you should have been.
Miriam Gonczarska 37:43
Yeah. It might be just accidental, but I love that type of accidents.
Geoffrey Stern 37:47
Yeah, there are no accidents. Right? Anyway, Shana Tova, Shabbat shalom. Thank you all for joining us. Thanks Miriam for coming on.
Miriam Gonczarska 37:56
And it was fantastic. Fantastic to talk to you and thank you for all the Torah that you’re sharing with Rabbi Mintz this is this a beautiful class and I’m so happy that there such a zchut for clubhouse to have such a high level Torah on this platform.
Geoffrey Stern 38:14
Thank you so much. Shabbat Shalom Thank you. Bye bye.
Miriam Gonczarska 38:17
Bye bye.
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