The essay below first appeared on the website of Rabbi Marc D. Angel's Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. This is a slightly revised version.
Issachar and Zebulun are said to
have founded an economic model now popular within a segment of
Orthodox Jewish society. As commonly perceived, Issachar “bore the yoke of Torah,” devoting himself exclusively to study, while Zebulun became a successful global merchant. Recognizing the benefits and deficiencies of
their single-track careers, they contracted to share the rewards, if not the
burdens, of their respective products.
Each received goods produced by the labor of the other. Lacking the time, or inclination, for constant study, Zebulun
financed his brother’s cerebrally pious lifestyle and, in return, was
guaranteed a portion of Issachar’s metaphysical reward. Issachar avoided traditional work but, thanks
to Zebulun, he could still put food on the table.
The paradigm just described turns
out to be based on a superficial and incomplete reading of Issachar’s image in
the Bible, in the traditional biblical commentaries, and in the literature of the
Sages.
As with many midrashic themes, the
Sages derived the concept of an Issachar-Zebulun partnership from cryptic but
suggestive biblical language. The
relevant biblical passages are below — the first is from Jacob’s poetic prophecies on the tribes; the second,
from the blessings of Moses. The final
passage is from an account of King David’s coronation in the Book of Chronicles
(translations from the New JPS version):
Issachar is a strong-boned ass,
Crouching among the sheepfolds.
When he saw how good was security,
And how pleasant was the country,
He bent his shoulder to the burden,
And became a toiling serf (Gen.
49:14-15).
And of Zebulun he said:
Rejoice, Zebulun, on your journeys;
And, Issachar, in your tents (Deut.
33:18).
Of the Issacharites, men who knew
how to interpret the signs of the times, to determine how Israel should act;
their chiefs were two-hundred, and all their kinsmen followed them (I Chron.
12:33).
To celebrate David’s ascension to
the throne, Chronicles reports, nearly all the tribes of Israel sent large
delegations of their best soldiers to Hebron. But the Issacharite team was unique; instead of fighters, they sent a small
cadre of two-hundred men who were expert in reading the "signs of the
times." This expression is ambiguous,
and the precise nature of the two-hundred Issacharites is something of a
mystery. Jewish translations and commentaries
provide multiple explanations, including suggestions that they were
astrologers, astronomers, or gifted policy makers with broad expertise on
national issues. The Midrash identified
them as legislators who were experts on the Hebrew calendar, specifically, the
rules of intercalation (i.e., when and how to add a thirteenth lunar month to
the year). Having mastered this highly
technical area of the law, the Issacharite council was charged with determining
-- for an entire people -- the proper days to observe the biblical
holidays. This was a daunting
responsibility, as national unity depended on a uniform calendar.
The central biblical source-text on
Issachar is our passage from Genesis.
However, the metaphors in Jacob’s blessing, while detailed and colorful,
are hardly transparent. Jacob compares
the tribe to a crouching, toiling donkey, who willingly bears some sort of
burden as “a toiling serf (mas ‘oved)”; but it is unclear from the text
whom Issachar serves and of what his service consists. Rashi, following the Sages, defines
Issachar’s burden as Torah study, and adds Zebulun’s supporting role to his
portrait. On the surface, Rashi appears
to promote the current paradigm, in which Zebulun goes to work and earns a
living while Issachar “sits and learns.”
Read carefully, however, Rashi’s view is surprisingly nuanced.
The popular model assumes that by
virtue of his single-minded dedication to Torah study, Issachar had a right to
Zebulun’s financial support. But Rashi
himself underlines Issachar’s responsibilities, rather than his privileges, and os completely silent on Issachar’s right to external subsidies. As a serf who “bent his shoulder to the
burden,” Issachar owed specific services, not only to his patron but, in
Rashi’s words, to “all of his Israelite kinsmen.” For the privilege (not the right) of
Zebulun’s investment, Issachar was obligated, according to Rashi, “to provide
[the nation of Israel] with religious instruction and with [decisions on] the
intercalation of the calendar.” Rashi’s model essentially
depicts Issachar as a utility, providing a real, if intangible, commodity to the
nation. Issachar’s scholarship is a means to satisfy the Jewish people’s religious and cultural needs; it is never an end in itself.
In Rashi’s portrayal, as it
happens, Issachar also brought a physical commodity to his partnership
with Zebulun. On the words “he saw how
good was security (va-yar menuha ki tov),” Rashi cites the view of the
midrash and Onkelos that Issachar’s land produced superior fruit, allowing the tribe to spend minimal time at work in the orchard.
A related midrashic opinion, not cited by Rashi, takes the expression
“when he saw . . . how pleasant was the country” at face value; “this refers to
his land,” in the words of an alternate view (yesh omrim) in the
midrash. But even Rashi’s conception of
Issachar includes an element of real labor.
Rather than being a completely passive recipient of charitable gifts from
Zebulun, Issachar grew his own fruit and, following an efficient distribution model, utilized his merchant brother to bring
them to market. For a good part of the year, we would find Rashi’s Issachar in the orchard, rather than the beit midrash.
Other exegetes on the pages of Mikraot
Gedolot offer radically alternative views of Issachar that are worth considering in
contrast to the current model.
Rashbam, following the midrashic thread mentioned previously, portrays
Issachar as a farmer rather than a scholar.
Seeing “how pleasant was the country,” Issachar preferred an agrarian
lifestyle, became highly successful and wealthy, but was also heavily taxed by
the Israelite kings in the form of tithes from his vast produce. Much more harshly, Ibn Ezra suggests the
Issacharites “were not courageous” and were thus assessed a draft-dodging fine or,
to avoid conquest, paid protection money to the surrounding powers. Ibn Ezra’s portrait of a rather emasculated
Issachar appears to be inspired by our passage in Chronicles; if they were able
to fight, why would Issachar not send soldiers to King David’s inauguration,
like the other tribes? (Interestingly,
Onkelos portrays Issachar in the very opposite light. Following another midrash, his translation includes a comment about Issachar achieving extraordinary military success against his enemies, and turning them
into “toiling serfs.”) For Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, then, Issachar was never dependent on the financial support of
any other tribe. In fact, just the opposite; by establishing a mostly self-serving economy, Issachar
-- not Zebulun -- was in debt to his brothers.
His books were regularly audited and he was forced to give up a percentage of profits to the national treasury.
Moses’ two-word blessing to
Issachar is even more mysterious than Jacob’s.
How should we interpret “rejoicing in tents”? The peshat (literal) approach, taken
by several traditional commentaries, is straightforward and parallel to the
previously cited explanations of Jacob’s blessing. Represented by tents, the Issacharites were
shepherds and farmers, in contrast to the merchant-marine Zebulunites. Again, midrashic exegesis takes a different
approach. The Sages read “tents” as a
symbol of Torah study; recall that Jacob is also called a “dweller in tents”
(Gen. 25:27). Like Jacob’s, Issachar’s
“tents” were taken to mean “tents of Torah study,” i.e. batei midrash, maintained by Zebulun’s profits. One may be tempted to argue that the midrashic approach supersedes the
literal one, and that the popular Issachar-Zebulun model is in
perfect agreement with the midrash. But peshat
and derash are both legitimate and religiously significant layers of
biblical interpretation. The Sages never precluded Issachar's agricultural vocation; rather, they added the scholarship theme to the
more obvious peshat interpretation.
When we imagine Issachar, we may — perhaps should — picture both.
One additional biblical reference
to Issachar must be included in this discussion. From Deborah’s Song in the book of Judges, we
get a view of Issachar’s character during a period of national crisis:
And Issachar’s chiefs were with
Deborah;
As Barak, so was Issachar --
Rushing after him into the valley.
Among the clans of Reuben
Were great decisions of heart.
Why did you stay among the
sheepfolds
And listen as they pipe for the
flocks?
Among the clans of Reuben
Were great searchings of heart!
(Judges 5:15-16)
Perhaps Ibn Ezra was correct — the Issacharites were usually poor soldiers.
Still, when Barak and Deborah led Naphtali and Zebulun in battle against
Sisera, Issachar enlisted voluntarily and served courageously. The neighboring tribe of Reuben, in contrast,
sat out the war. The Reubenites
themselves, of course, believed that their lofty contributions were necessary
and sufficient to serve the nation: “Among the clans of Reuben were great decisions of heart,”
Deborah sang with bitterness and sarcasm.
After all, the Reubenites were the (self-appointed) thought leaders of
Israel, who could count on thousands of their flock to attend spirited rallies
at a moment’s notice. At their
conferences and rallies they had “great searchings of heart,” analyzing the issues of the
day from all possible sides. But their high-minded pronouncements were hollow, and glaringly irrelevant to the wider public. Their platform produced no
meaningful action and, being so obviously detached from reality, it only highlighted Reuben’s isolation; in the end, Reuben “stayed
among the sheepfolds,” (or sheep-pens -- bein ha-mishpetayim -- ironically, the very same
expression Jacob used with respect to Issachar) remaining both geographically and existentially on the nation’s periphery. In an earlier era, Reuben fought at the front lines with Joshua to fulfill a debt for the patrimony Moses
granted him east of the Jordan. But now,
in the age of the Judges, the Reubenites were secure in remote villages far
from the Canaanite armies, and they could expect no gain from Barak’s
war. Issachar, in stark contrast,
remained empathetic to his brothers, and fought alongside them when needed.
Orthodox Judaism promotes neither a
single religious archetype, nor an ideal “Torah personality,” nor a monolithic
concept of a labor economy. Over the centuries, our religion has
accommodated multiple paradigms in all aspects of life and there are many great and varied figures in
our history and literature from whom to draw inspiration. The Issachar familiar to most of us -- the full-time
scholar -- was never held up by the Torah or by our Sages as the one and only
model of authentic Jewish living. His image has taken on other, no
less ideal, forms in biblical and rabbinic tradition, including that of a man
who finds joy and meaning working the soil under his feet and who returns home every evening soaked in the
sweat of physical labor. That Issachar
is no less a ben Torah than the one who has never left the beit
midrash. With a sense of
responsibility stretching beyond his own borders, the Issachar we have
described is the type of leader the Jewish people can look to for support and for
guidance, on and off the battlefield.
It is time to rethink our fixation on the two-dimensional Issachar, to
the exclusion of all others. On closer examination, they are even more inspiring.
