Ancient Fears, Modern Tragedy

Please see my essay on MBP and drinking water at the tekufah.

The Lion and the Compass: Untangling Medieval Science from Modern Halacha

Please see my essay on Halakhah, science, and superstition.

Two pieces on Akdamut Millin

Please see my essay below on Akdamut Millin (also appeared in The Jewish Standard).

Please also see my Seforim Blog essay on "be-esek atevata," a misunderstood phrase in the poem.

After posting the latter essay, I discovered that my conclusion was predated by R. Shneur Zalman Moshe Friedman in his commentary Shnei Ha-Meorot, in Seder Piyyut Akdamut (Vilna, 1902), though I arrived at it independently.  A comment pointed me to Rabbi A.Y. Salamon's edition of Akdamut (published by ArtScroll), which cites Shnei Ha-Meorot.


“Akdamut Millin”: A Masterpiece of Piyyut for Shavuot

One thousand years ago, poet-cantors from the Jewish communities of the Rhine Valley composed soaring piyyut (liturgical poetry) for the Sabbath and holiday services. A handful of those piyyutim became staples of Ashkenazic liturgy.

Rabbi Meir ben Yitzhak Sheliach Tzibbur (“emissary of the congregation") was a giant among those poets. Recognized by contemporaries for his scholarship, artistry, and piety, Rabbi Meir was active in Worms in the latter half of the eleventh century, on the eve of the First Crusade. Akdamut Millin (Introductory Words) is his masterwork.

The poem does not lend itself to casual recitation. It can be difficult to approach due to the Aramaic in which it was composed, its compressed style, the lack of stanzas, and the complex of biblical, midrashic, and liturgical allusions in every line and half-line. Akdamut becomes fully accessible, even to those who know it, only after close study.

Like the prayers themselves, virtually all piyyutim were composed in Hebrew; the Aramaic of Akdamut is related to its original function. In the taxonomy of piyyutim, Akdamut is a reshut, a preface to a prayer or Torah reading in which the leader asks for the congregation's consent. This reshut was written for the reader of the Aramaic translation of the Torah (the "Targum"); hence it too is in Aramaic. While the ancient synagogue practice of alternating the Hebrew verses of the Torah portion with the Targum fell into general disuse, it continued in medieval Germany for special readings such as the Ten Commandments on Shavuot. And even after the Shavuot Targum was itself discontinued, Akdamut persisted on its own and is still recited by Ashkenazim on the first day, just before the Torah reading.

Akdamut is an artistically sophisticated and emotionally affecting work.

It is an intensely sensory piyyut. Its ninety lines overflow with vivid, almost cinematic, imagery. Like a crowded allegorical painting by a Renaissance master, a library of images and symbols fill the poet’s canvas -- Creation, ministering angels, mythical creatures, and the delights awaiting the righteous.

Unlike typical piyyutim, Akdamut is structured as a narrative that sweeps through time and space, both natural and metaphysical. Rabbi Meir’s story begins before creation and concludes with a grand eschatological vision. On the way, he makes multiple scene changes: From God’s throne and His heavenly court (a composite of three theophanies: Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel), to Israel, the nations and, finally, the End of Days.

The narrative axis around which the poem turns is a symbolic confrontation between the gentile nations and Israel. Here the poet alludes, obliquely but unmistakably, to the social and theological pressures facing the Jews of Germany in the eleventh century.

Borrowing imagery from the Song of Songs and its related allegorical midrashim, the poet imagines Israel as a beautiful woman longing for her distant beloved (God, in the allegory) while being harassed by the daughters of Jerusalem (the nations). The nations suggest that Israel's tireless but painful devotion to God is unrequited and they attempt to seduce her with social acceptance and political power:

From where and who is your Beloved, most beautiful
For whose sake you perish in the lions’ den?
How dear and lovely you are! If you join our hegemony
We will grant whatever you desire, everywhere.

This unexpected narrative turn follows a meditation on God’s preference of Israel’s prayers over those of the angels. The poet abruptly changes scenes to a coalition of nations gathering, “like waves,” to accost the Jewish community. The sudden shift is jarring -- it may be a deliberate attempt to evoke the instability of Jewish-Christian relations as known to Rabbi Meir and his community. The scene also likely alludes to public disputations at which Jewish scholars were required to defend their faith.

Jews were welcomed into some German towns, but their security was often short-lived. Persecution and tolerance were alternating features of Jewish life. While writing Akdamut, Rabbi Meir would surely have been mindful of the expulsion from nearby Mainz in 1012. But he may also have known of the charter written in 1084 by Bishop Rudiger of Speyer for a group of Jews who took refuge in his town; according to a contemporary Jewish source, Rudiger “pitied us as a man pities his own son.” The charter was reaffirmed in 1090 by Emperor Henry IV, only six years before the First Crusade massacres devastated the Rhine communities (Rabbi Meir's son may have been a victim).

How then, in the narrative of Akdamut, does Israel respond to the Gentiles’ challenge? Rabbi Meir provides the Jewish people with a clear and strident retort:

Of what value is your greatness compared to that glory
The greatness He will grant me when salvation arrives?

This is followed by a detailed and colorful portrayal of the messianic era -- including an apocalyptic battle between Leviathan and Behemoth -- in which the righteous are finally rewarded for their loyalty. The poem’s last line provides a segue to the Torah reading, and also summarizes the poem’s argument:

He desired and wanted us, and so gave us the Torah.

This, essentially, is Israel’s answer: If God favors his people over the angels, he has certainly not forgotten them. God gave us, and only us, the Torah; our relationship is immutable. There is no match for the Jewish people, either in Heaven or on Earth, despite claims that God abandoned the Jews and made Christians the “New Israel.” Empire and Church may threaten us, but we will prevail.

Some may find this response inadequate, even naive, in light of subsequent events -- the tragedy that befell German Jewry soon after Rabbi Meir’s death and, especially, the unfathomable horrors of the last century. But Akdamut somehow endures, resonating with worshippers a millennium later, as an incomparably beautiful hymn to God and his faithful people.

Segulot and Other Fallacies: A Call for Intolerance

Please see my essay in the Jewish Link, "Segulot and Other Fallacies: A Call for Intolerance."

An Inconvenient Text

First appeared in The Jewish Standard.

Imagine discovering that someone you trust -- a colleague, mentor, close friend or relative -- has been less than honest with you. Even if it was a minor deception, you would feel hurt and angry. Imagine further that you gather up the courage to confront the person. But when pressed to explain, he offers a patronizing and somewhat sanctimonious defense: “My actions were completely justified. I had my reasons. Yes, I could have been more transparent, but why wouldn't you trust me? If you must have an explanation, here it is . . .”

The explanation is lawyerly and contrived. Still, you hold out hope that this was a lapse in judgment by someone generally trustworthy. But as you examine this individual's past behavior, a pattern emerges of deliberate omissions and half-truths.

This scenario may sound familiar to followers of an unfolding chapter in the world of Jewish books.

ArtScroll Publications is releasing an updated version of “Mikraot Gedolot” (the Pentateuch with commentaries). The new edition features vowelized and punctuated versions of the most important medieval commentaries, such as Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Nahmanides, making them more accessible to general readers.

In at least one instance, however, ArtScroll’s editorial reach extended beyond formatting. As Marc B. Shapiro recently revealed on the Seforim Blog, the publisher deleted comments by Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) -- without alerting its readers -- and later defended the move.

Rashbam was a grandson of Rashi. Like Rashi, Rashbam belonged to the eleventh and twelfth-century school of exegesis centered in Northern France, which was inclined toward “peshat” or simple reading of Scripture, and de-emphasized the deeper but less contextual midrashic style (“derash”). But while Rashi tends to present peshat alongside derash, Rashbam was dedicated exclusively and almost fanatically to peshat, often criticizing his grandfather for veering too far from the plain sense of the verse.

The lines missing from the ArtScroll edition are from Rashbam’s commentary to Genesis 1:4-5, on the phrase “and there was an evening, and there was a morning, one day.” The Talmud cites these words to support the halakhic view that the day begins at sundown. But Rashbam reads the peshat as follows: “There was an evening (at the conclusion of daytime) and a morning (at the end of night), one day”; that is, the day begins in the morning and lasts until the next daybreak.

It goes without saying that Rashbam did not intend to undermine Jewish practice (he was a leading Talmudist and known for his extreme piety). Still, Ibn Ezra -- a contemporary of Rashbam -- wrote a scathing critique of this exegesis, motivated largely by sectarians who actually began the Sabbath in the morning.

In a written reply to inquiries about the apparent censorship (see Seforim Blog), ArtScroll claims that what they removed was inauthentic. They offer some unconvincing technical reasons for this conclusion, but the thrust of the argument is ideological: If Ibn Ezra considered the interpretation heresy, how could Rashbam have authored it?

As Shapiro shows, no serious scholar questions the authenticity of the deleted passages. In fact, several great Jewish thinkers -- the Lubavitcher Rebbe among them -- grappled with this Rashbam without dismissing it as a forgery.

(On the subject of heresy, note that Ibn Ezra himself was roundly condemned for his non-Talmudic interpretations and accused of providing fodder for heretics; he was Spinoza’s favorite exegete.)

ArtScroll’s erasure of Rashbam’s words can only be described as ideologically motivated censorship.

For all its great accomplishments, it turns out that ArtScroll has a history of blatant censorship and subtle misrepresentation.

Several years ago, Artscroll published a translation of Ha-Moadim Ba-Halakhah, Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin’s popular work on the festivals. At one point in the book, the author made an offhand remark expressing gratitude for the State of Israel. ArtScroll excised this line from the translation and, when challenged, publicized a bizarre statement claiming that Rabbi Zevin ultimately changed his opinion about the state (the evidence shows otherwise).

In its translation and commentary on Song of Songs, ArtScroll misrepresents Rashi. Rashi reads the Song allegorically, in traditional fashion. But in the introduction to his commentary, Rashi explicitly promotes a two-tiered approach to the book which first addresses the plain-sense, contextual peshat – an approach he implements in his commentary. Drawing support for their unusual translation – said to be "allegorical, based on Rashi's commentary" -- ArtScroll quotes nearly all of Rashi’s introduction, but omits the most critical section, about the peshat underlying the Song’s allegory. Reading ArtScroll’s rendition of the Song, you would never know about the peshat layer in Rashi’s commentary.

By taking such editorial liberties, ArtScroll undermines its own credibility and underestimates its readership. I am confident that most of its readers prefer to judge primary texts for themselves before they end up on the cutting room floor.

There is much more at stake here than the integrity of Rashbam's commentary. Weighing the truth against its own perception of piety, ArtScroll chose the latter. It now asks its readers to do the same. But no religious person should ever be put in that position. The dichotomy between religion and reality is a false one, and the idea that one must choose between truth and piety violates both.

None of this minimizes ArtScroll’s major contributions to the Jewish community. But it can do better. ArtScroll’s readers deserve better. We can handle the truth.

History or Heresy

First appeared in The Jewish Standard.

Students of the Talmud may encounter some strange and troubling passages, especially within its aggadic sections. And this is hardly a new phenomenon. Skepticism regarding Talmudic realia -- scientific, historical, and other non-legal observations recorded in the Talmud -- far predates the modern period. The reliability of Talmudic medicine, for example, was questioned by the Geonim of Babylonia as early as the tenth century.

Much of this material can only be understood in historical context. When the ancient sages commented on nature they drew on popular beliefs or utilized the limited observational techniques of their age. In fact, the rabbis acknowledged their own scientific shortcomings; they conceded, for example, that Gentile astronomers had bested them in a debate about the sun's path at night.

Talmudic superstition can be especially unsettling. Again, our response must be to invoke history. It should go without saying that references to demons, witchcraft, evil spirits, the evil eye, incantations, amulets, magic, and astrology that are scattered throughout the Talmud and Midrashim derive from ancient Near Eastern or Hellenistic culture, and that these phenomena have no basis in physical reality.

Ironically, the premium that the Talmudic rabbis placed on contemporary reality is on full display where they struggle to reconcile once-popular, but now debunked, ideas -- the realities of their time that are today considered superstitious or pseudoscientific -- with traditional Jewish values.

Tractate Shabbat records a debate on the question of astrological influence over the Jewish people. Despite the pervasiveness of astrology in the ancient world -- as real to them as the rising and setting of the sun -- the rabbis were palpably uncomfortable with the moral implications of astrological determinism. But they could not merely dismiss astrology as nonsense. After examining both sides of the issue, and citing proofs in both directions, the Talmud arrives at a compromise position: Although the nations of the world are indeed subject to the influence of the stars, the nation of Israel is apart: "Israel is free from astrological influence.” The impact of astrology was limited and the moral freedom of the Jewish people was left intact.

Demons have frequent cameos in the Talmud. Near the end of Pesahim we find a lengthy digression on demons and witches, once thought to inhabit the margins of society (one demon was familiar enough to be known by his name, Joseph). But the Talmud’s bottom line on the subject is explicitly subversive: Yes, demons are out there, but they harass only those who pay them too much attention. The rabbis arrived at this conclusion because they regarded demonology to be largely at odds with Judaism. Short of denying their existence, which was not an option in the Talmudic era, they made demons essentially irrelevant.

Rather than cause for embarrassment, I find such Talmudic discussions inspiring. These passages grapple honestly with contemporary cultural issues and demonstrate a refusal to disengage from evidence and facts.

The sages transmitted a timeless tradition, but they did not live outside of time. They did not float above history. They lived and breathed the realities of their environment -- a sign of spiritual and moral courage rather than weakness.

Despite a persistent anti-rationalist tradition within Jewish thought over the centuries, the greatest Jewish thinkers and halakhists from Maimonides to Samson Raphael Hirsch, and beyond, insisted that Talmudic science was a product of its time, rather than a binding part of the Oral Law.

This bears emphasis and repetition because it is currently under attack as heresy.

An increasingly vocal school of thought claims that all unqualified scientific statements of the sages were divinely inspired and must be accepted as truth. A corollary to this position is that modern science is transitory and unreliable compared to the divine wisdom of the sages. Its proponents maintain that those who say otherwise are disloyal to Jewish tradition.

This new Talmudic fundamentalism is a major departure from mainstream traditional Jewish thought. Whatever its motivation, it is an ideology that is tragically out of touch with the realities of both Jewish intellectual history and modern life. It also smacks of intellectual insecurity and desperation, as if to say that observant Judaism had better hang on for dear life to the divinity of the entire Talmud -- including its realia -- or it will slide down the slippery slope to assimilation.

History is the attempt to uncover the realities of the past. Fearing that history will not only explain tradition but explain it away, reactionary elements within our tradition, past and present, view history as its natural enemy. But denying history is no longer an option, especially after so many of our own intellectual luminaries have successfully married history with tradition.

Despite those determined to drive a wedge between tradition and reality, there is cause for optimism. We can be certain that "truth shall spring up from the earth," even when it occasionally finds itself underfoot.

ArtScroll's Assault on Truth

Mesorah's ArtScroll publications tend to elicit strong and diverse reactions.  Their multiple imprints encompass a vast range of translations and original works by numerous authors, so the content and writing quality naturally varies considerably.  More fundamentally, however, ArtScroll's substance and tone often reflect a particular religious outlook which will either attract or irritate, depending on the reader.  

But anyone who values truth and integrity -- regardless of any other consideration, including communal affiliation and religious ideology -- must protest ArtScroll's latest transgression in a now-familiar pattern of editorial dishonesty. 

First, there was the misrepresentation of Rashi's commentary on Song of Songs.  Rashi takes a hybrid approach to Shir Ha-Shirim, interpreting the text both literally and allegorically.  But ArtScroll truncated Rashi's introduction to his commentary, in which he clearly outlines this methodology, and ignored entirely his commentary's literal layer.  Anyone who uses the Stone Chumash for an English translation and commentary on the Song of Songs is a victim of ArtScroll's distortion of Rashi.

Then came the blatant censorship of R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin's Ha-Moadim Ba-Halakhah. Rabbi Zevin made an offhand remark expressing gratitude for the State of Israel.  The line was excised from ArtScroll's translation.

Most recently, in a shameless act of textual fraud and an insult to the intelligence and integrity of bnei Torah (and to Rashbam himself), ArtScroll has released a censored version of Rashbam's commentary on the Torah within their new punctuated edition of Mikraot Gedolot.  As Marc B. Shapiro has shown, ArtScroll concluded that parts of the commentary are unworthy of publication, no doubt for ideological reasons.  For example, they censored sections of the commentary to Gen. 1:4-5, in which Rashbam argues that night follows day in the plain reading of the verses.  No explanation was provided for the omissions.  

In the financial world, fraud results in regulatory fines, bans from the industry, and sometimes imprisonment.  Should we hold those who publish fraudulent versions of religious texts to a lower ethical standard?

Please contact ArtScroll to request an explanation and to demand that this fraud be corrected in the next printing.

Postscript:

ArtScroll responded to what must have been several complaints.  Here is Marc Shapiro's analysis of the response.