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

Calendar complications and second day celebrations

As I sit writing this post in Jerusalem, I imagine that a significant proportion of its eventual readers has recently emerged from “Two-day Yom Tov” – a second day of festive Sukkot celebrations and restrictions. The institution of second day Yom Tov for those living outside of Israel, which was decreed by one of the last sitting Sanhedrins, is at the heart of debates between traditionalists and modernisers of the Jewish world.

On the one hand, as a law upheld by the conclusion of the Talmud, it is regarded by traditional authorities such as Rambam as an unimpeachable decree (at least until a new Sanhedrin can be formed to rule on the matter). Its opponents however counter that the initial calendrical confusion which gave birth to the extra festive day of doubt has long ceased to be relevant. The extra day as it exists in our era represents a burden and strain on those who celebrate it, particularly when – as with Sukkot this year – it falls repeatedly on working days.

This post will not address the question of authority of Jewish courts to amend or repeal an earlier ruling – a matter I posted on recently here. Instead I will focus on a fascinating and original approach of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch to the question of second day Yom Tov and the dynamics of the Jewish calendar in general.

Initially the Court’s declaration of a New Moon contained a degree of flexibility, with months established on the basis of witness testimony of the new moon’s appearance. It was only as a result of persecution and exile that the process of witness verification was suspended by the Sanhedrin in favour of a fixed calendar.

At first glance the introduction of a formal perpetual calendar that requires neither verification nor external adjustment appears to represent modernisation and progress. Its sophisticated methods of calculation made redundant the Sanhedrin's reliance on the laborious and potentially erratic process of interrogating witnesses.

In an extensive discussion on the subject, however, R' Hirsch rejects this assertion as a fundamental misunderstanding of the function of the Jewish calendar and the religious symbolism of Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish new moon. Rosh Chodesh is sometimes portrayed as paying homage to the moon and forces of nature — a remnant of pagan practice which was recycled into Judaism and subsequently re-clothed in monotheistic terms. According to such an understanding, precise calendar calculations which can more accurately follow the lunar cycle should certainly be viewed as a positive development.

In his rejection of such as approach, R' Hirsch points to a series of Talmudic rulings (Rosh Hashanah 20-25) which challenge the notion that Rosh Chodesh is an attempt to pay tribute to the natural lunar cycle. This series of rulings teaches, for example, that even if the entire nation had witnessed the new moon on the 30th day but the Sanhedrin was unable to declare the new moon formally before nightfall, the new month would begin only on the 31st day. Perhaps most significantly, Rosh Chodesh can deliberately be declared on the 31st day even if it had been witnessed on the 30th, if such an 'incorrect' declaration would be beneficial to the nation (for example to prevent Yom Kippur and Shabbat from falling on consecutive days). What this suggests is that the process of declaring the New Moon consciously removes the Jewish calendar from the natural cycles of heavenly spheres, placing it instead under the control of human decision making. A similar analysis emerges from the Sanhedrin’s control over how to calculate the Jewish leap year, with the Court declaring and controlling the Jewish calendar often on the basis of national interests rather than strict celestial cycles.

On the basis of this explanation we can understand the significance of this commandment of sanctifying the new moon being commanded to the Jews, as a preface to their monotheistic emergence from pagan Egypt. This first commandment that the Jews received as a nation established as a matter of fundamental importance the freedom and power of God (and by extension the free will that He grants to humanity) over the heavenly spheres and natural forces worshipped by the determinist pagans. For Egyptians and other such pagans there is no concept of renewal or freedom from the almighty forces of nature.

Returning to the theme of second day Yom Tov, R' Hirsch notes that it was the same leader (Hillel the Younger) who calculated and recorded the future calendar system for the post-Sanhedrin exile who also legislated the creation of the 'two-day Yom Tov'. Beitza (4a) describes how the ruling concerning this additional festive day was maintained for Jews living outside of the land of Israel even once the adopted lunar calendar had apparently negated the need for it. R' Hirsch suggests that a reason for retaining these apparently superfluous days of festivity was to prevent the newly-regulated and precise lunar calendar from being seen as an improvement — and a more accurate way of following the natural lunar cycle. 'Second Day Yom Tov' can, to an extent, challenge this misunderstanding by demonstrating that declarations of holy days and times do not merely reflect the cycles of nature but are controlled by human thought and decision-making. In our times this idea has developed further with a dynamic halachic debate over who qualifies as a resident of Israel or the Exile for the purposes of this law.

First posted to Facebook 23 September 2021, here.

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.

Some thoughts on Part II of Rabbi Dr Joshua Berman's Ani Maamin

I posted a few months ago in great anticipation of Joshua Berman’s new work on biblical criticism, historical truth and the Thirteen Principles of Faith. The book has certainly not disappointed: the first half is a comprehensive and highly accessible summary of much of Berman’s earlier work on biblical criticism, while the second investigates the content and application of Rambam’s Thirteen Principles. Many of the ideas contained within the first half – such as the need to view the Torah through the ancient Near-Eastern eyes of its first recipients – feature prominently in Judaism Reclaimed, where I integrate a number of Berman’s ideas into my chapters which address some of the challenges to the Torah from the halls of academia. This post will therefore focus on some of the engrossing material contained within the second half of Ani Maamin.

Orthodox Judaism’s embrace of Rambam’s Thirteen Principles and the implications for those who fall foul of them have been a popular subject in recent years, particularly in light of Prof. Marc Shapiro’s provocative Limits of Orthodox Theology fifteen years ago. That work sought to demonstrate the extent of Rabbinic dispute over core elements of Rambam’s principles. Berman’s analysis builds impressively on much of this material, presenting some thought-provoking original suggestions.

Studies of fundamental Jewish beliefs will often highlight the fact that the Torah itself contains no such catechism, the implication being that these required beliefs are therefore a later innovation. Continuing the theme from the first section of his book however, Berman provides his own unique and illuminating perspective on the subject: while all of the cultures of the ancient Near East were deeply religious and held numerous beliefs, none of the mass of religious texts unearthed by archaeologists have ever produced a basic list of beliefs (or even a term which could convey such beliefs). Berman draws upon the analogy of a marriage to argue that the thought systems of such societies were an integral part of their daily life, nurtured and clarified not through abstract articulation but through lived experience. The introduction of catechism to Jewish literature, he continues, was largely a medieval response to the aggressive Christian and Muslim societies in which Jews resided. Berman uses the example of belief in Torah from Heaven to demonstrate how the various pressures brought to bear by these societies led to the Principles being framed with different emphases.

“Beliefs matter and they matter halakhically”. Berman stresses the importance underlying determination of heretical beliefs in that they can invalidate shechitah (among other things) performed by one who holds such a view. This is an important rejection of the suggestion that Rambam would have considered that debates concerning correct belief are not subject to psak(halachic resolution) since they are not of a practical halachic nature. Much of the rest of the book explores how various Rabbinic authorities have approached the task of determining the boundary between acceptable and heretical beliefs. This is no simple task since, as Berman demonstrates, Rambam’s own presentation of the Thirteen Principles (part of his Commentary on the Mishnah) is far more detailed and restrictive than their presentation in his later and more authoritative Mishneh Torah. The gulf between Rambam’s presentation of required beliefs in the Thirteen Principles and Mishneh Torah is shown to be most pronounced with regard to the eighth principle, belief in Torah from Heaven. While the Thirteen Principles state unequivocally that every word of the Torah was dictated by God to Moshe, Hilchot Teshuvah contains the looser formulation that “one who says Torah, even one verse or one word, is not from God” is a heretic.

In addressing this difficulty, Berman introduces a distinction which is central to Rambam’s understanding of the nature and transmission of the halachic system. As I develop in Judaism Reclaimedin the context of Rabbinic dispute over principles of faith, Rambam makes a key delineation between ikkarim mekubalim (core tenets of mitzvot) which, he believes, were transmitted faithfully and without dispute from Sinai, and peratim (finer details) which were left to the Rabbis of each generation to determine. Accordingly, Berman argues, the Thirteen Principles in his Commentary to the Mishna are a reflection of Rambam’s own determination from Talmudic sources that each word of the Torah was indeed dictated to Moshe. In his more abstract legal work, however, Rambam was not prepared to establish as a required belief a matter which Jewish tradition records as a disputed non-ikkar. This is because of a Tannaic opinion that the final verses of the Torah were transcribed by Yehoshuah. The existence of this opinion means that the belief in Mosaic authorship of every word in the Torah could not belong to the body of core undisputed ikkarim which were transmitted from Sinai.

While I particularly enjoyed this suggested solution for resolving the inconsistency between the Thirteen Principles and Mishneh Torah, my only slight disappointment is that the book does not develop this suggestion further. Certainly, in my reading of the subsequent chapters, this idea kept popping back into my mind. To what extent could it be used to explain the way in which later authorities – comprehensively recorded by Berman – presented their own variations of Rambam’s Principles while remaining broadly loyal to the original underlying theme? Is there perhaps a broader principle at play in which Rambam’s Commentary to the Mishnah represents more his personal interpretations while the Mishneh Torah reflects his understanding of the correct halachic determination?

This delineation between core ikkarim and peratimdetails could perhaps even illuminate Berman’s provocative closing chapter. There he convincingly argues that a key function of later fluctuating formulations of Rambam’s Principles was sociological: to serve as an effective boundary marker between loyal members and those who were straying too far from the religious community. Could it be suggested on this basis that the principles of faith consist of two interwoven categories? A combination of core ‘basic truths’, denial of which would be seen by Rambam as automatically severing one’s connection with God, and the finer rabbinically-determined details which could fulfil functions such as boundary-markers (notably, Rambam also condemns those who “separate from the ways of the community” as losing their share in the World to Come).

To conclude, Ani Maamin is a book which challenges its readers and opens up new channels of thought and exploration rather than demanding adherence to fixed conclusions. In that way it can be said to mirror its own author’s depiction of the role of Rambam’s Thirteen Principles within Jewish theology.

First posted on Facebook 25 April 2020, here.

Circumcision: divine duties and human morality

The command of circumcision, which features in this week’s Torah portion, has become an important battleground in recent years for those seeking to challenge religious practices on apparent humanitarian grounds.

This challenge forms part of a bigger question of the interplay between mitzvot and morality in Judaism. In its chapter on Torah and universal morality, Judaism Reclaimed approaches first from the point of view of Rambam, maintaining that the Maimonidean perspective rejects the very notion of God being subject to or working within human conceptions of morality (although there is far more to discuss on this, see my post here).

Others however follow a more Hirschian approach which seeks to explain the Torah’s teachings as representing the pinnacle of morality. Mitzvot which may initially appear to present a moral challenge are accounted for by pointing to our lack of divine knowledge, wisdom and perspective. Circumcision itself is understood by R’ Hirsch to contain a rich array of profound symbolic moral teachings (a sample of which are well presented in this podcast by Simi Rivka Lerner here).

In this post I would like to focus on a fascinating essay on the subject by Rabbi Nathan Cardozo in his recent book on Bereishit (my review of his book is here). Rather than trade in apologetics and attempted moral justifications, Cardozo goes on the attack, arguing that

[T]he whole premise on which these objections are based is the result of a profound misunderstanding of what human beings are all about, what moves them, and what make their lives meaningful. To be truly alive is only possible when one lives for some supreme goal. There are values in life that surpass our concern for the mundane, and many of us are prepared to make highly uncomfortable – even painful – sacrifices in order to live by those values.

Instead of focusing on the right of parents to wound their newborn son, Cardozo turns the tables asking

What right do we have to bring children into the world without giving them a higher mission? While Socrates teaches that the unexamined life is not worth living, Judaism teaches us that a life without commitment is a life not lived. To deny our children this is to withhold from them true joy, and the capability to withstand major challenges, as well as the chance to experience the highest, truest value of living in this world.

Cardozo the proceeds to evaluate a more fundamental question of parental rights

But shouldn‎’t we also ask ourselves honestly whether we have the right to bring a child into this world at all? Is that not a much greater injustice than circumcision? After all, even with today’s medical knowledge, many children are tragically born with all sorts of deformities or illnesses, often crippled and handicapped for life. Others may suffer at some later stage in life, contracting diseases, experiencing violence, and even becoming victims of war and other atrocities…Subconsciously, we all know that we have the right to bring a child into the world because there is something about life that overrules all objections against it. If we did not believe this, it would be completely prohibited to risk bringing children into the world, knowing full well how much harm and pain they will probably encounter. Only if we understand that life is of invaluable importance – and not merely a matter of physical survival – can we live a life of grand spiritual import.

The discussion then proceeds to investigate the underlying difference in priority and perspective between Judaism and the contemporary Western society

Western society is rights-orientated, and secular ethics is deeply rooted in this distinction. One of the great contributions that Judaism…has made to this world is the concept of duty. Judaism does not believe that people own their bodies, and are therefore free to do with them whatever they please. Judaism, and most monotheistic religions, believe that the human body is a loan granted by God, Who is the ultimate Owner…

The rite of circumcision is the Jews’ way of passing on life’s meaning to their children, by obligating them to fulfil the Jewish people’s covenant with God, sealed thousands of years ago. It is duty we talk about, and there is no growth except in the fulfilment of one’s duties. For Jews, circumcision – the promise to live life with a great mission as its guide – is God’s seal imprinted on human flesh. And it is only proper that this sign of allegiance be imposed upon the body, for after all, it is not the soul that needs to make the commitment. The soul is already committed to its mission.

Cardozo concludes powerfully that

The claim that it may hurt for a moment, and that it interferes with a child’s self-determination, is totally disproportionate to its infinite spiritual value. The child, from the very beginning of his life, is physically and symbolically reminded that living a life of higher meaning requires sacrifice, but is also the source of both ultimate happiness and the notion of mission.

One final point, many readers may be questioning at this point why the divine seal of meaning appears to be an exclusively male notion: do women not also require or deserve such an imprint of Judaism's divine mission?

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch addresses this question in a passage we expand upon in Judaism Reclaimed's chapter on the Jewish view of gender. R' Hirsch highlights the unexpected placement, in parashat Tazria, of the commandment of circumcision amidst the laws relating to ritual purity of a new mother and Niddah. Among other things, R' Hirsch understands the Torah to be drawing a parallel between the dedication to divine mission that circumcision symbolises for the male and the symbolic moral significance offered for women by the laws governing the Niddah cycle.

First posted on Facebook 29 October 2020, here.

A tale of two tales

By Shmuli Phillips and Daniel Abraham

Parashat Noach lies at the heart of the battle between traditionalists and bible critics over the structure, origin and authorship of the Torah. While it has always been a core tenet of traditional Judaism is that the Torah as a whole was revealed to Moshe, source criticism in recent centuries has developed a methodology through which, its adherents believe, they can identify a multiplicity of original sources from which the fabric of the received text of the Torah was subsequently woven. Scholars have considered that the application of this methodology to the narrative of Noach and the Flood is “foundational” to source criticism; they count it as being amongst this methodology’s most “brilliant achievements”.

In his recent works (Inconsistency in the Torah, Ani Maamin) Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman has challenged some of source criticism’s fundamental assumptions. In doing so he has identified what he claims to be serious methodological flaws in the critics’ interpretations of the Flood narrative. Motivated by what they understand to be widespread instances of contradiction and repetition, critics divide the narrative into 27 snippets of varying sizes. 14 of these snippets, they claim, originate with one source, while the other 13 emanate from the other. Yet, as Berman notes, the “unravelling” of the text into two sources “clearly does not provide us with two accounts, each free of contradictions and incongruities…”. He observes that, “…rather than walking back from the hypothesis, source critics have sought to buttress it by resort to a series of redactors, who are the agents responsible for the disruptive passages”. Citing other scholarly studies, however, Berman notes that the sort of redactive interference that critics propose in the Flood narrative is absent from other compositions which have reached us from the Ancient Near East.

It is on the subject of other ancient texts that Berman launches his most serious challenge to the claims of source criticism regarding the Flood narrative. Scholars have long noted strong thematic and structural parallels between the Torah’s account of the Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia. Whether we assume that the Epic and the Torah are both independently reporting the same event, or whether the Torah is reworking a prior prototype from a monotheistic perspective, what stands out is that the discovered tablets similarly combine content which, the Torah’s source critics contend, originated from two distinct sources. As biblical scholar Gary A. Rendsburg put it:

We are supposed to believe that two separate authors wrote two separate accounts of Noah and the flood, and that neither of them included all the elements found in the Gilgamesh epic, but when the two were interwoven by the redactor, voila, the story paralleled the Gilgamesh flood story point by point. [The Biblical Flood Story p116]

While Berman’s rejection of source criticism’s attempt to have disassembled the Flood narrative may be persuasive, it nevertheless leaves us to address a further question. Why would the Torah – as a single source – present the episode in such an inconsistent and repetitious manner?

Judaism Reclaimed presents a fascinating explanation of this passage by Malbim which explains why the Torah might have adopted this style. The basis for Malbim’s approach is an ancient midrashic teaching that the divine names, YHVH and Elokim, represent different dimensions of the complex and multi-faceted relationship between God and humanity. The name Elokim is used when the Torah is describing God as a distant “First Cause”, relating to the world through the perpetual forces of nature. YHVH, by contrast, is employed by the Torah when it depicts God as a concerned providential deity, managing the lives of people in accordance with principles of reward and punishment. The Malbim utilises this distinction in order to contrast the first chapter of the Torah, which employs the divine name Elokim as part of its cold, factual account of Creation, with the use of YHVH in the subsequent chapter which examines creation specifically through God’s providential relationship with humanity (this theme is developed extensively by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik in Lonely Man of Faith).

Malbim uses the same technique to analyse the repetitious and contradictory phenomena which critics highlight throughout the story of Noach. In the passage that opens the parashah, God (as Elokim) relates to Noach as the “distant first cause” – concerned only with ensuring that the natural world continues:

Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; Noach walked with Elokim … The Earth had become corrupt before Elokim … And Elokim saw the earth … All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth … Elokim said to Noach “The end of all flesh has come before Me ...”. From all that lives, of all flesh, two of each shall you bring to the ark … [Bereishit 6:9-19, selected text]

In the next chapter, the Torah again records that God instructs Noach to build an ark, but this time the deity carries the personal providential name of YHVH:

And YHVH said to Noach, come you and your household to the ark, for it is you that I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation. Of every clean animal take with you seven pairs … [Bereishit 7:1-2]

Commenting on these parallel accounts of the world’s corruption and God’s instruction to Noach to prepare and enter the ark, Malbim appears to be following the approach of source critics in so far he separates them into two distinct passages. Each of these passages, however, plays an integral role in communicating the Torah’s core message: the multi-layered interaction and dynamic of the relationship between God and humanity.

While the Elokim passage, therefore, records Noach’s merit in cold, objective terms (“righteous in his generations”), the second passage describes it in terms of a personal providential relationship with God “I have seen that you are righteous before Me”.

In keeping with this approach, Noach is instructed by God in the Elokim passage to take two animals of each species. Malbim explains that this is because the perspective of the Elokim dimension of the God’s interactions with the world simply seeks to preserve and maintain the natural world. For this, a male and female of each species suffices. The YHVH passage, however, additionally commands Noach to take “seven pairs of pure animals”. This further requirement relates solely to the personal providential dimension of Noach’s relationship with God. As Malbim explains: Noach understood that “God had commanded me regarding more pure than impure animals so that I can offer them as sacrifices”.

This dichotomy continues through to the covenant(s) between God and humanity at the end of the Flood narrative. The Elokim description of the covenant (9:1-17) is essentially a detached divine commitment not to destroy the world’s natural order – animals and humans alike. This is in contrast to the second account of the covenant (8:20-22) which utilises the personal, providential YHVH name of God in order to relate God’s commitment specifically to humanity’s frailties. It is also significant that God’s commitment appears to be prompted by Noach’s sacrifices and by the providential dynamics that had been created by humanity’s good deeds.

Malbim’s approach offers a framework through which one can accept – and perhaps even expect – a degree of duality within a Torah narrative. Thus, where the Torah wishes to convey aspects of the Flood through different providential dynamics, it can do so within the flow of a single textual narrative. Adopting this approach also means that Malbim need not be troubled – as source critics are – by the presence of two apparently incompatible sets of storylines which cannot each tell a distinct and, free-standing version of the Flood episode.

First posted to Facebook 3 October 2021, here.