King Josiah and the secret Temple scroll

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

As discussed a few weeks ago on this group, the origin of the book of Deuteronomy has long been a matter of intense speculation and debate. This post will tackle a popular approach from academic bible critics, which attempts to trace Deuteronomy’s provenance to the religious revolution instituted by King Josiah towards the end of the First Temple era.

The young Judean king is raised in a religious void following the efforts of his predecessors to erase knowledge of Torah and Jewish beliefs from the nation. II Kings 22-23 describes how Josiah courtiers discover a Torah scroll (II Chronicles 34:14: “written by the hand of Moshe”) which had been concealed within the Temple. Josiah proceeds to read this “scroll of the covenant” publicly to his subjects before enthusiastically instituting its requirements.

Scholars point to the biblical passage describing Josiah’s reaction to reading the scroll, identifying a number of “Deuteronomic” words, phrases and themes. Various theories evolved from this identification, which proposed distinguishing between the book of Deuteronomy and the previous books of the Torah in terms of their functions, authorship and era. Some even went so far as to suggest that Deuteronomy – with its strong insistence on centralized worship and power – was a forgery, perpetrated by Josiah’s courtiers as part of a ruse to enhance the authority of the young king.

We will first address the claim that Josiah’s revolution reflects an exclusively Deuteronomic influence, before examining some of the broader theories of a fraudulent power-grab which sprouted up around it.

Josiah’s Scroll: From All Four Corners of the Bible

In Who Really Wrote the Bible?, Clayton Ford responds to the claim that Josiah’s revolution reflects a solely Deuteronomic theme by arguing that terms and ideas from all four supposed biblical sources can be found in the crucial passage of II Kings. While scholars draw upon common linguistic and legal themes in order to connect Josiah to “D”, he explains, the same kinds of arguments, however, prove that the book of the Torah must also have contained the other proposed J, E, and P sources too.

The discovered scroll is referred to in II Kings as "the Book of the Covenant." Near the end of his reform, Josiah commanded the people to "Keep the Passover to YHWH your Elohim, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant" (II Kings 23:21). At the beginning of his reform, when Josiah gathered the people to the temple, "he read in their ears all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which was found in the house of YHWH" (2 Kings 23:2). Aside from this episode, “the Book of the Covenant" appears in only one other place: “Then he [Moshe] took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the ears of the people” (Exodus 24:7). Scholars are in agreement that this verse originates from “E” – containing all of the laws of Exodus 21-23. Based on the methodology of the critics, therefore, the book which Hilkiah found must have contained E as well.

Furthermore, the description of Josiah’s reforms recounts how he "smashed the sacred monuments and cut down the Asherim [a type of idol]" (23:14). This directly replicates and fulfils a law found only in Exodus 34:13, a passage attributed by scholars to the “J” source: "You shall smash their sacred monuments and cut down their Asherim" (Deuteronomy 7:5 contains a similar though differently worded law). The alleged “P” source is also reflected in Josiah’s reaction to discovering the scroll, which describes how he prevented the priests who had sacrificed at the prohibited bamot (private altars) from officiating at the Temple in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, they still “ate unleavened bread among their brethren” (II Kings 23:8-9).

In The Exodus and Biblical Narrative, Richard Elliot Friedman himself notes how Josiah's treatment of these priests was similar to the treatment of the physically blemished priests proscribed by a law in “P”: "He may eat the bread of his God...only he shall not go near the curtain nor approach the altar, because he has a defect" (Lev. 21:22-23). The “P” source, he continues, may also have prevented Josiah from prohibiting priestly consumption of bread to those who had sinned since it commands “all the males among the children of Aaron may eat it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations" (Lev. 6:16, 18). Finally, the description of Josiah defiling Topheth so that “no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech" (2 Kings 23:10) closely reflects the language of Lev. 18:21).

Thus all four of the critics’ claimed biblical sources are reflected and well represented in the passage describing Josiah’s revolution.

Was Josiah Attempting to Centralize Sacrificial Worship?

Further academic theories have proposed more radical implications of the alleged special relationship between Deuteronomy and scroll of Josiah. One claim put forward in a variety of forms by bible critics over the last 150 years is that Josiah’s attempt to eradicate idolatry and bamot, was driven by the desire to consolidate power and assert control over the nation’s religious worship. His advisors, it is alleged, fraudulently composed the scroll and claimed to have found it hidden in the Temple.

The unique structure and content of the book of Deuteronomy — which we examined a few weeks ago— together with its injunctions not to offer sacrifices on private bamot, are taken by these critics to be evidence in support of this theory. While this idea has enjoyed widespread popularity among some bible scholars, Amnon Bazak, (To This Very Day) demonstrates that powerful questions against its credibility tend to be overlooked.

The first challenge questions the assumption that Judaism before the time of Josiah lacked any notion of centralised worship, and that no religious laws restricted private sacrifice. Support for this assumption is often premised on a verse shortly after the first recording of the Ten Commandments, which is taken to approve sacrifices in any place of the worshipper’s preference. A more careful reading of the verse however shows that this approval of sacrifices is limited to a place “asher azkir et Shemi — where I [God] allow My name to be mentioned”, which clearly implies a limitation. Furthermore, the Hebrew text contains a subtlety which does not translate easily and is therefore often overlooked. In the phrase “bechol hamakom asher azkir et shemi” the word makom (“place”) is prefixed by the heh hayediah (the Hebrew equivalent of the definite article, i.e. “the place”) which means, in effect, “any specific place in which I allow My name to be mentioned”.

In fact, many biblical sources point strongly to an earlier prohibition against the performance of sacrifices in private non-centralised locations. The details of the construction of the Mishkan in the desert are related at length by the Torah, as are the details of Shlomo’s construction of the first Mikdash – an indication of the importance placed on a place of centralised sacrifice. This is underlined by the prohibition (Lev. 17. 1-9) of the performance of any sacrifice (and at times even regular slaughter) outside the Mishkan’s perimeters Furthermore, in an episode towards the end of the book of Joshua (chap. 22), a misunderstanding brought the nation to the brink of civil war when the tribes of mainland Israel thought that their Transjordanian brethren were setting up their own altar to rival the centralized one.

Dating Deuteronomy

A closely-related question which arises from the suggestion that Deuteronomy was forged for political reasons by the courtiers of Josiah (or Hezekiah as others suggest) is the broader antiquity of the book. But is the content of Deuteronomy consistent with such a claim that it was authored in the late First Temple period?

Many scholars maintain that the book was the work of power-grabbing leadership who sought to centralize worship in Jerusalem. But were this to be true, it would be surprising that within the entire book of Deuteronomy there is not even a single instance of any mention by name of the capital.

If anything, the text appears delicately and deliberately to step around the word “Jerusalem”, substituting in its place the verbose and vague phrase “in the place in which God shall choose that His name shall dwell there” – a phrase which appears approximately 20 times throughout the book. While this phenomenon can be seen to support Jewish tradition that the Temple was just the latest and most impressive of the places of centralised worship, it deals a blow to the claim that a primary aim of the book of Deuteronomy was to focus on the central importance of this specific place.

Additionally, despite the existence of several mentions of the prohibition to sacrifice outside the permitted place(s), it is far-fetched to imagine that it constitutes the primary or even a central theme of the book of Deuteronomy. Instead, Deuteronomy places far greater emphasis on avoiding the temptations of idolatry, the establishment of effective institutions in the Land and appropriate preparations for upcoming battle with the Canaanite nations.

A broader look at the book of Deuteronomy reveals that, if its composition was dated to the era of the later kings, this would render much of its content both anachronistic and absurd. The entire context and tone of Deuteronomy is fundamentally suited to a nation being addressed by Moshe on the cusp of its entry into the Land of Israel. Politically, Deuteronomy (23:8) regards the nation of Edom favourably, as a ‘brotherly’ nation not to be “rejected”. The reality in the era of Josiah, however, was that Edom had become a bitter enemy of the Jewish people, with whom it had fought several severe battles. It is indeed hard to imagine a book composed in Josiah’s times viewing the nation of Edom in such a positive light; however, this position is entirely consonant with the more peaceful attitude towards Edom displayed by Moshe in Numbers (20:14-21), where God instructed him to detour rather than trespass and provoke the Edomites.

The wars of conquest which are envisaged and legislated for in the book of Deuteronomy are well suited to a nation posed to embark on an invasion. Such descriptions, however, are profoundly incongruous with the political reality of Josiah’s era in which, it is alleged, they were composed — an era in which the tiny Judaean state was struggling to exist alongside the regional Assyrian and Babylonian superpowers. Furthermore, there is no hint in the entire book of Deuteronomy of the serious rupture which had taken place among the Jewish people, splitting it into two separate kingdoms, one of which had recently been defeated and exiled. The fundamental incompatibility of the content of much of the book of Deuteronomy with Josiah’s era was conceded by Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? p 120, who considered that: “The laws of war in the book of Deuteronomy, therefore…suggest an early, nonmonarchic point of view”. Friedman also argues that the type of conscripted armies described in Deuteronomy had been entirely replaced by professional armies by the time of the later kings such as Josiah.

Finally, if the primary agenda motivating the composition of the book of Deuteronomy was truly to expand the authority of the monarch by centralising religious worship in Jerusalem, it is extraordinary that this scroll in fact limited monarchy in a way which was unique among ancient cultures. The concept of a limited monarchy was a contradiction in terms in ancient Eastern cultures. It is an unfathomable proposition that a king, setting out to compose a fraudulent document in order to broaden his power, would include such a passage – which sets limits to his glory and places him within rather than above the law as was the norm in Josiah’s era.

First posted on Facebook 8 August 2021, here.

Rosh Hashanah: how new is the Jewish New Year?

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

The holiday season which spans Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah lies at the heart of modern Judaism. Various scholarly critiques have attempted to portray these celebrations as post-biblical rabbinic innovations. Last year this group featured a response (based on an essay in Judaism Reclaimed), to claims that Sukkot was never celebrated in the first Temple era (linked in comments).

This post addresses an article from Project TABS which claims that Rosh Hashanah – featuring shofar- blowing and divine judgement – has no basis in the Torah and was not observed as the Jewish New Year until the late second Temple period. As with several articles that we have previously analysed from the thetorah .com website, we demonstrate that this claim (attributed to “Project TABS Editors”) can be effectively countered both from archaeological discoveries and biblical sources.

Archaeological Sources

Starting with the archaeological evidence for Jewish observance of Rosh Hashanah as a new year and day of judgment, an Egyptian papyrus from the mid-4th century BCE (known as Papyrus Amherst 63) contains three prayers that originated in the Kingdom of Israel before the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE. This papyrus provides a valuable insight into the beliefs and practices of the early Israelites, describing a day of the New Moon on which there is a solemn banquet for the God during which He determines destinies for the year to come. The prayers also focus on the theme of appointing God as King and celebrate God’s kingship over all other gods. In combination, these various elements point to a New Year’s festival— which scholars understand to be evidence of the historicity of the early Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashanah (read more about the papyrus here).

A second piece of archaeological evidence points to Tishrei as the time of the Jewish new year. A small clay tablet was found during the archaeological excavations of Tel Gezer, an important biblical city in central Israel. Bearing a Hebrew inscription from the mid-First Temple period, the tablet (known as the Gezer Calendar) is currently on display at the Istanbul Museum of Archaeology. Not only does it clearly place Tishrei at the start of the Jewish calendar but, fittingly, the calendar refers to the start of this agricultural year as a time of “asīf”. This is the precise term used twice by the Torah to refer to the “harvest-gathering festival” at the beginning of the new Jewish year (we will return to this shortly). More about this calendar can be read here (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rosh-hashanah-and-the-mystery-of-the-gezer-calendar/).

Finally, it has been convincingly argued by Edwin R. Thiele in The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, that the Kings of Judah counted the years of their reigns from Tishrei, suggesting that this was seen as some form of new year in the first Temple period in the Judaean kingdom too. Though this theory is not unanimously accepted, it has gained a wide acceptance among scholars.

Biblical Sources

The claim by “Project TABS Editors” that Rosh Hashanah was a post-biblical, rabbinic invention, is based on the absence of any biblical description of such a Jewish new year, coupled with a lack of reference to it in biblical accounts of Jewish first Temple history. Against the backdrop of scholarly evidence for Rosh Hashanah as a Jewish new year – a time of divine judgment and recognising God’s kingship – we will now examine some important biblical sources.

While the project TABS article is correct in noting that Rosh Hashanah is not included in the list of festivals in the book of Exodus, we do however find that both references to Sukkot in this book describe it as being celebrated at the turn of the year (23:16, 34:22). These passages in Exodus (along with Deuteronomy 16), are primarily focused on the laws of the pilgrimage to the Temple and therefore address only with laws unique to the three Pilgrimage Festivals. They nevertheless make it clear that Sukkot is celebrated at the time of the Jewish new year.

Other passages containing further laws of the festivals, which can be found in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, make explicit reference to a celebration on the first day of Tishrei as a “Yom Teruah” and “Yom Zichron Teruah”. What might be the nature and significance of such a special festive “Yom Teruah” – a celebration that, we have seen from the book of Exodus, takes place at the time of the Jewish new year?

Shortly after the Leviticus reference to the first day of Tishrei as a day of “teruah”, we find a description of a different “teruah” requirement in the Tishrei of the Jubilee Year (the “Yovel”): “You shall proclaim [with] the shofar-teruah, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month…”. A clear connection between “teruah” and shofar blasts. And what might be the significance of Shofar blasts at the time of the Jewish new year?

The book of Psalms provides a crucial missing link here, with Psalm 98 stating:

“Blast [a word that shares the same root as teruah] with trumpets and the sound of a shofar before God the King....Before the Lord, for He has come to judge the earth; He will judge the inhabited world justly...”

We have therefore found explicit reference in the Torah to the start of Tishrei as a new year, a day of shofar blasts -- blasts which the book of Psalms connects to the theme of recognising God’s sovereignty and passing judgment over the world. This is precisely the sort of celebration that archaeological sources indicate was observed by ancient Israelites in the first Temple period.

While it is true, as the TABS article points out, that Nechemiah’s Temple dedication in Tishrei does not make mention of a Rosh Hashanah celebration (including the biblically mandated shofar blasts), this is likely to be because the passage is only describing aspects of celebration which relate explicitly to the unique dedication events of that year (as discussed by Dov Zakhjem in Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage, Maggid Press, p 158). The Nechemiah celebrations, in the context of the festival of Sukkot, are discussed here.

In conclusion, despite the superficially persuasive presentation of this attack on the authenticity of Jewish tradition, careful analysis of the biblical text in the context of available archaeological evidence demonstrates that it is deeply flawed. The concept of Rosh Hashanah as a Jewish new year in Tishrei considerably precedes the extra-biblical Second -Temple sources that the Project TABS article cites extensively. It must be questioned whether this essay from Project TABS (“Torah and Biblical Scholarship”) accurately portrays either Torah or true scholarship on this matter.

First posted on Facebook 19 September 2021, here. 

All rea

Nechemiah's Sukkot celebration: not since the times of Yehoshua bin Nun?

Nechemiah’s description of the Sukkot celebration as something that “the Children of Israel had not done so since the days of Yehoshua bin Nun,” raises profound questions. As a Gemara asks: “Is it possible that [King] David came and yet [the Jews] did not perform Sukkot until the days of Ezra?” We can add to the Gemara’s example many more righteous rulers such as Shmuel, Shlomo, Josiah and Hezekiah who were lauded by the prophets for their punctilious observance and teaching of the Torah and under whose reign it would therefore seem inexplicable for the festival of Sukkot not to have been celebrated as mandated by the Torah.

Furthermore, other biblical sources indicate widespread and enthusiastic participation in Sukkot observance. When Yeravam ben Nevat’s Northern Kingdom seceded from Judah, he “innovated a holiday in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month,” in imitation of the holiday in Judah. The commentaries explain that the pilgrimage festival of Sukkot was so popular that Yeravam could not simply abolish it. Instead he had to fabricate a replacement festival a month later.

The importance of the Sukkot celebration in the Jewish calendar is also apparent from Shlomo’s consecration of the First Mikdash. With the construction work having been completed almost a year earlier, Shlomo waited until the Sukkot festival of the following year in order to dedicate the Mikdash “in the festival of the seventh month.” This delay enabled him to celebrate the dedication and the Sukkot festival in consecutive weeks with the amassed crowd of pilgrims.

The statement in Nechemiah, that the festival had not been observed since the days of Yehoshua, is addressed by Malbim, who highlights the fact that there is only one aspect of the celebration of Sukkot—dwelling in sukkot—which the text records as not having been performed since the days of Yehoshua:

[The people] made sukkot, each man on his roof, and in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the Temple of God, in the plaza of the Water Gate and in the plaza of the Gate of Ephraim. The entire congregation that returned from the captivity made sukkot and dwelt in sukkot. The children of Israel had not done so from the days of Joshua ben Nun until that day…

Noting the clear emphasis placed on the various public locations of the sukkot which the people built, Malbim draws upon halachic and Talmudic sources to propose a solution. Starting by citing the halachic ruling that it is forbidden to build a sukkah in the public domain, Malbim argues that this severely limited the practicality of widespread sukkah construction during the days of the First Mikdash. The festival of Sukkot, being one of the three pilgrimage festivals, would have required a significant proportion of those observing its laws to be away from their private property.

The inability of pilgrims and celebrants to build sukkot was exacerbated following the construction of the Beit Hamikdash by King Shlomo, which meant that the festival of Sukkot would have been observed primarily in Jerusalem. Malbim cites Tannaic sources which teach that the whole city of Jerusalem was not divided among the tribes and therefore remained public property. One result of this would have been that constructing sukkot within its walls was prohibited. Such a surprising phenomenon may have been considered acceptable in light of the Torah’s unusual presentation of the commandment to “every resident [ezrach]” to dwell in sukkot. This is understood by some commentators to mean that the mitzvah is primarily applicable to those in their own property and not to travellers.

When the Jews returned to Jerusalem at the start of the Second Commonwealth, Malbim continues, Ezra legislated a series of key religious and social enactments which included “permission to build sukkot in Jerusalem” [Tosefta, Baba Kama 6:13; see Magen Avraham, who uses this as basis for current halachah].

The first sukkot in the aftermath of this enactment revolutionized the national observance of Sukkot in Jerusalem, leading Nechemiah to list the key public areas which were now filled with private sukkot. It is in the immediate aftermath of this listing of public places—in reference to the new dimension to the celebration of the Sukkot festival—that we find the comment “The Children of Israel had not done so since the days of Yehoshua bin Nun.”

First posted on Facebook 5 October 2020, here.

Was ritual immersion practiced in the First Temple era?

By Daniel Abraham and Shmuli Phillips

In last week’s post, we discussed the arguments for and against the requirement of washing in the case of a menstruant according to biblical law. This week’s follow-up post will explore the requirement of full immersion in cases of impurity that require washing – and respond to the claim that the practice of full-body immersion was a far later addition to Jewish law.

An article on theTorah. com by Hayah Katz (linked at the end) argues that ancient cultures which had plenty of water nonetheless often cleansed themselves from impurity through pouring water on their bodies. Katz concludes that, other than the few instances in which mayim chayim is specifically required

“In all other cases of defilement, purification is accomplished by washing in water, without any requirement that it be running water. It is reasonable to assume that the form taken by ritual washing for the purpose of purifying the body was directly derived from the forms of washing that were possible in the various regions of Judah.”

In Isaac Sassoon’s article (discussed in last week’s post), he also questions how the Israelites in the Sinai would have had enough water to cleanse themselves through immersion. Yonatan Adler goes as far as to suggest that the practice of immersion and building mikva’ot was influenced by and a response to the Hellenistic hip-bath practice that eventually somehow evolved into full immersion for the Jews.

These claims can be challenged from several different angles:

First off, it should be recognized that there were a number of ancient cultures that had large pools and required immersion in water for ritual purposes. For starters, Yiğit Erbil and Alice Mouton describe water cults that existed among the ancient Hittites. All sorts of large pools were built near temples for ritual purification. They even describe how animals required full immersion before sacrifice (see here). In a similar vein, Professor David Shapira describes a number of purification rituals involving water which were uncovered from excavations in the proximity of ancient Egyptian temples (The “Molten Sea” Revisited David Shapira 2020).” Professor Hector Avalos in discussing the ancient magical texts known as Namburbi writes "In one medical Namburbi a man must immerse himself in the river seven times."

Clearly then, bathing in large pools and immersion was a practice in ancient times and this cannot be simply dismissed.

Secondly, the availability of water for bathing purposes in ancient Israel must be looked at more closely. There were lakes, rivers, streams, wells, cisterns, and reservoirs that could easily serve as a mikvah.

Whereas reservoirs were much larger, unroofed, and for public use, cisterns were often built for private use. In the words of Sennacherib in 2 Kings 18:31 “Don’t listen to Hezekiah. For thus said the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me, i.e., to my representative the Rabshakeh. so that each man may eat of his vine, and each man may eat of his fig tree, and each man may drink from his cistern."

James Kugel describes how new technologies aided the early settlement in the highlands of Israel, writing “…the introduction of a new type of waterproof plaster to line these cisterns allowed rainwater to be collected and preserved far more efficiently.” Kugel adds that “Before these innovations, permanent settlements had been located mostly in places of abundant water; now a village could survive solely on rainwater collected in the new cisterns.” (p. 384)

Some of the earliest plastered cisterns have been discovered in Hazor and Gezer, around 1800 BCE. Even in areas such as the Negev where rainfall is much less, archaeologists have nonetheless discovered advanced rain collecting techniques in cisterns that date to the Bronze age. 

Thus even as early as possibly 4,000 years ago, there is the very real possibility that the inhabitants of the region had developed highly advanced water storing techniques.

In the Temple itself, Chronicles 4:6 states, “…But [Solomon’s] Sea was for the Cohanim to wash in it.” The Jerusalem Talmud suggests that the Molten Sea that Solomon built was one big mikveh that the Priests used to immerse themselves in. The Temple – and Jerusalem more generally – would have required a significant reservoir of stored water in order to purify arriving priests and pilgrims.

In 2012, the Israeli Antiquities Authority discovered a cistern in the Jerusalem that they say likely dates to the first Temple and could have held 66,000 gallons of water. Tvika Tsuk, chief archaeologist of Israel's Nature and Parks Authority, said: 'Presumably the large water reservoir, which is situated near the Temple Mount, was used for the everyday activities of the Temple Mount itself and also by the pilgrims who went up to the Temple and required water for bathing and drinking.” While there is some disagreement about the dating of these reservoirs, the fact remains that there is ample evidence that the means for immersion were quite available.

But what of the claims that the Israelites did not have enough water in the desert? For one, there are some oases in the Sinai desert that the Israelites could have used for all their ritual needs. The Israelites would naturally be led from water source to water source as need be. The ocean could have served this purpose whenever they were near one. We also read in Psalm 68:9-10 that generous rain poured down on Israel in the desert – as well accounts of God miraculously producing water when required.

Yonatan Adler’s article claims that it would be unlikely that Bathsheba would have a roof that could support a full mikveh. However, the verse in question may be saying only that David was on his own roof while Batsheva was bathing somewhere below on the ground level.

Turning now to an analysis of the biblical laws and specifically the claim that the Torah did not require immersion.

When dealing with the Torah, one must be very careful when making argument from silence. The Torah, like any book, was given to a specific audience and its wording and instruction therefore took into account the background knowledge of its initial recipients. There are many instances in which the Torah will give us a law that is not fully explained. The Torah forbids work on the Sabbath, but never spells out exactly what work is. The reader is expected to know what the Sabbath labors are.

The laws of immersion may be no different. When it was first commanded, the Torah may have expected its readership to know that “washing” referred to immersion because that is what everyone did.

The most powerful argument in favour of interpreting biblical “washing” as full-body immersion emerges from an episode in Kings, in which the Aramean general, Na’aman, is smitten with leprosy and seeks a cure from the prophet, Elisha. When Elisha tells Na’aman to wash in the Jordan - "וְרָחַצְתָּ֚", Naaman understood that to mean immersion - " וַיִּטְבֹּ֚ל." “So he went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had bidden”. (II Kings 5).

In conclusion, we have found that ancient near-eastern cultures did require full-body immersion to purify, and that the First Temple conditions did potentially allow for an abundance of stored natural water to be used for ritual baths. Most significantly, we also saw how the terms “wash” and “immerse” were used interchangeably. This phenomenon suggests that modern scholars who construct theories based on an attempt to distinguish “wash” from “immerse” might be displaying insufficient sensitivity to the realities of the ancient world and how the Torah’s first recipients are likely to have interpreted its terms.

https://www.thetorah.com/.../biblical-purification-was-it...

https://www.thetorah.com/.../the-purification-of-a-niddah...

https://www.thetorah.com/.../on-the-origins-of-tevilah...

First posted on Facebook on 18 May 2022, here.

"Berlin is Jerusalem!"--cycles of decadence and complacency

Perhaps the most chilling words contained in any of the thousands of rabbinic works on the Torah are those written by Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in his Meshech Chochmah commentary to the passages of Tochacha-Rebuke of Bechukotai. Describing historical cycles of Jewish communities in exile – a phenomenon expanded upon more recently by Rabbi Berel Wein – the Meshech Chochmah writes how, with the lengthening of each exilic sojourn, new generations of Jews arise who are disillusioned with their heritage and start to identify more strongly with the culture of their host nation. Such assimilation, the Meshech Chochmah darkly predicts from 1920s Germany, would lead to a “storm” which would uproot the nation from its complacency and delusions.

The immediate focus of Rabbi Meir Simcha is to impress upon us the vital role of a fully-functioning Sanhedrin in ensuring the continuing relevance and applicability of Jewish law to new generations. Talmud Reclaimed explores in detail the scope of such a judicial power and the implications for the Jewish people in exile who lack its wisdom and legislative ability.

But I believe that this cycle of exilic disillusionment is part of a much broader phenomenon, in which our Judaism and distinct Jewish identity can become relegated to increasingly irrelevant background ritual if not constantly rejuvenated and renewed. This can manifest itself in several ways:

1. In terms of our unique Jewish identity, new generations have repeatedly shown an alarming lack of awareness of our national history. When my grandmother, a child-refugee from Czechoslovakia, warned us of the need to have a spare passport and ability to flee the country we would smile at each other, sure that we were growing up in a new civilized modern era in the West in which such anti-Semitism could no longer threaten us. Reading the thoughts of German Jews from the late 19th century and Spanish Jews from the Golden Age I know that our naivety and complacency had strong precedent.

2. This phenomenon of disillusionment and complacency is not limited to the Diaspora. In fact biblical warnings to the Israelites of religious and societal decay are prefaced with phrases like “And you grow old in the land and become corrupt…” (Devarim 4:25); initial stages of punishment are regarded with “keri” – apathy and complacency, leading to more severe suffering.

Recent months have shown us what happens when we grow overly complacent and naïve in our land. When our politicians, intelligence community and army start to believe the myths of their own invincibility, the people in their indestructibility (I hearing someone in a local Jerusalem Shul refusing, a few years ago, to say the apparently unnecessary prayer-phrase “chamol aleinu be’eretz shivyenu” – have pity on us in the land of our captivity – a prayer he believed only applicable to those in exile).

Instead of working to secure greater unity and finding ways to coexist together in our hard fought for State, we turned our energies inward to generate distrust and hatred for “enemies” and “traitors” elsewhere on the political spectrum.

Again, this corrupt and decadent attitude is not without historical precedent. Both Josephus (War of the Jews) and the Talmud provide vivid accounts of how the Jews possessed sufficient military capabilities to withstand the Roman siege. The walls of Jerusalem with its millions of citizens and holy Mikdash only fell because they turned so viciously on each other rather than unite against the common enemy.

3. A third manifestation of this national decay and complacency is in the religious sphere. Our Judaism becomes stultified and institutionalized – focused on high-profile rituals to supposedly ward off harmful spirits and divine wrath rather than building a genuine personal relationship with God and improving ourselves as individuals and communities. Heartfelt prophetic objections to decadent and corrupt elites prioritizing rote-performed ritual over the needs of the downtrodden and oppressed are as relevant today as they were 3000 years ago.

Bearing in mind the multiple very real dangers posed by such complacency and apathy, the opening words of our parashah take on a particular significance. “If you will walk in my statutes…” is an unusual phrase, interpreted by our sages to mean that we must remain dynamic, fresh and enthusiastic in our observance of the Torah – and in our Judaism in general. If so, continues the Torah, we can anticipate the fulfilment of the ultimate blessings, when we are spiritually, morally and nationally rejuvenated, that: “the Sword shall not pass through our land” and that we will “dwell with security in our own land”.

First posted on Facebook 26 May 2024, here.