Two Radical Pieces of Talmud (Purim)

Two radical pieces of Talmud are both connected to Purim. Oddly enough one is from tractate Shabbat 88a and the other from Sanhedrin 99b.

The Talmud in Shabbat 88a famously says that God held Mount Sinai over the heads of the Israelites and forced them to accept the Torah. Since this is not a very promising way to view our acceptance of the Torah - we could argue it is not legally binding - the Talmud then adds, "But they reaccepted it willingly in the days of Achashverosh." 

The Talmud in 99b tell us: 

And Lotan's sister was Timna... Timna was a royal princess... Desiring to become a proselyte, she went to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but they did not accept her. So she went and became a concubine to Eliphaz the son of Esau, saying, 'I had rather be a servant to this people than a mistress of another nation.' From her Amalek was descended who afflicted Israel. Why so? — Because they should not have rejected her.

In both cases, the Talmud is saying something completely unexpected, something that presents fundamentals of Jewish thought in an unflattering light that you would never in a million years have imagined the rabbis of the Talmud would wish to adopt.

In the first case, it tells us that the Israelites had to be coerced into receiving the Torah. What kind of statement is this, after the Exodus and all the miracles? It takes the entire experience and deflates it like a flat tire. In the second case, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acted wrongly and that all the trouble we have had with our archenemy Amalek is, in essence, our own fault.

I think it is not a coincidence that both are related to Purim. Purim is the turnaround, the topsy turvy, the unexpected.... leading to these radical pieces of Talmud.
And it is also the resolution of that upside-downness. In the days of Esther, the people accept the Torah of their own free will. And in the days of Esther, the Amalekite Haman is finally defeated and shown that it's God's will that counts. (One might also stretch things a little and, connecting Esther with Ruth as two women after whom megillahs are named, say that in Ruth the Jewish people accepted a convert despite her Moabite background, and thus rectify the previous rejection of Timna).

For He Told Them He Was a Jew

Esther chapter 3: Haman has become mighty, and all the king's servants are bowing to him. All except Mordechai.

3. Then the king’s servants, who were in the king’s gate, said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king’s command? 4. Now it came to pass, when they spoke daily to him, and he did not listen to them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s words would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew.

So I asked my Bibliodrama participants to be Mordechai, and posed the following question to them:
"Mordechai, you told Esther to keep her Jewish identity a secret. And yet you yourself reveal that you are a Jew - and in a very dangerous context, that of not bowing to Haman, offending him, and breaking the King's decree, to boot.
- At what point did you tell them you were a Jew? From the start, or in the course of time?"

My participant, Viktoria, replied as Mordechai: 
"In the beginning I kept it hidden. I was afraid to reveal my identity. But as time went on, and I daily did not bow, that action strengthened me. And it was during that process that I found myself suddenly deciding 'Enough of hiding, it's time to speak my truth. The time has come for me and us as a nation to stand up and not hide anymore, suffering the consequences if necessary."

I find it fascinating that, according to this interpretation, it was this situation with Haman, something that was the antithesis of all that is godly, that brought out this courage in Mordechai and enabled him to declare "I am a Jew". It reminds me very much of another biblical person who stands up and declares "I am a Hebrew" only because he finds himself in a strange situation that is not, seemingly, the godly route - and that is Jonah (Jonah 1:9):

I am a Hebrew and I fear the God of Heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.

As I explain in another blog post "The Jonah Epiphany", this entire set of events with the sailors was not meant to occur; it would not have happened at all had Jonah obeyed God. And yet it enabled him to come to this place of growth for him, like Mordechai. 

We can deduce from this that even situations that seem difficult and wrong (and maybe specifically these) can be marvelous opportunities to bring out of us inner strengths we did not know we possessed.

Serach Bat Asher and the Elephant Matriarch

In the list of the descendants of Jacob, Jacob's son Asher is recorded as having a daughter named Serach (Genesis 46:17). It's an unusual piece of information, as none of Jacob's other granddaughters are recorded in this list. She again appears in the census in the book of Numbers (26: 46). There, she really doesn’t belong, as this is a count of all the fighting men and the clans that will inherit in the land of Canaan – neither category fits Serach.

Although the text itself tells us no more, clearly there is something important and unusual about this woman. The midrash goes ahead to expand her backstory, portraying her as a wise woman who is entrusted with a particular code that will mark the beginning of the redemption from slavery, hundreds of years after her birth.

Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer 48:17

…Joseph his son delivered the secret of the Redemption to his brethren. Asher, the son of Jacob, delivered the mystery of the Redemption to Serach his daughter.

When Moses and Aaron came to the elders of Israel and performed the signs in their sight, the elders of Israel went to Serach, the daughter of Asher, and they said to her: A certain man has come, and he has performed signs in our sight, thus and thus. She said to them: There is no reality in the signs. They said to her: He said "pakod yifkod —God will surely visit you". She said to them: He is the man who will redeem Israel in the future from Egypt, for thus did I hear pakod pakadeti "I have surely visited you".

This long-lived wise woman is the one who has to remember what everyone else has forgotten – something that has been passed down from Abraham for safekeeping. We see that the elders of the tribe seek out her opinion and trust her memory. The midrash continues:

Forthwith the people believed in their God and in His messenger, as it is said, "And the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel."

Interestingly, in elephant families, the matriarch of the pack is the memory keeper. As recounted here:

“The matriarch elephant in the herd is the most experienced family member. In critical moments, the entire group relies on the experience of the oldest female. The wealth of experience of the matriarch is due to her photographic memory and the ability to retain superior memories for several decades. Those sharp memories sometimes even last a whole lifetime.

Studies have found that she alerts the rest of the herd when confronted by everyday dangerous situations or when sensing the presence of predators nearby. She even leads and directs the team if she recognizes an old feeding site as she can recall important locations, even if they had not visited those places for many years. The memories they possess of water holes and feeding spots along the migration routes previously taken are remarkable. The members of the herd just have to look at the mother elephant in times of trouble, danger, and emergency as she will remember what to do and where to go.

The rabbis view Serach as this woman of acute memory, who retains accurate information to pass on to people that otherwise would be forgotten:

Pesikta D'Rav Kahanna 11:12

(11:13) Rabbi Johanan sat [in the teacher's seat] and expounded how the waters [of the Red Sea] became like a wall for Israel. Even as Rabbi Johanan was explaining that the wall of water looked like latticework, Serach bat Asher looked down [or "grew angry"] and said, "I was there, and the waters were, rather, like shining windows."

According to Persian tradition, Serach lived on until the middle ages and is buried in Isfahan's Jewish cemetery. The midrash describes her entering heaven alive. She did her job faithfully for many centuries, and can be considered by us as our “matriarch elephant”.

The Staff and the Hand

Moses starts off his mission as God's emissary using his staff. Along with Aaron's staff, it was the instrument of the signs he was to do in Egypt - turning into a snake, bringing on the plagues.

However, if you look carefully, from the moment the plagues begin, the staffs become interchangeable with the hand.

Plague of BLOOD:
And the Lord spoke to Moses, Say to Aaron, Take your staff, and stretch out your hand upon the waters of Egypt… that they may become blood…

Plague of FROGS:
And the Lord spoke to Moses, Say to Aaron, Stretch forth your hand with your staff over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt

And so on:

LICE = "staff"

HAIL = "Stretch out your hand" (but Moses stretches his staff)

LOCUSTS = ditto

And at the Splitting of the Sea - staff, hand, hand, hand, hand.
(And the battle with Amalek - staff, hand, hands)

What is going on here?

It seems as if God started off with the staff intentiionally. Either because a staff is more impressive and would grant Moses and Aaron more respect. Or perhaps because people's attention would be more drawn to a staff as a symbol of God's power.  Also because they would, at the outset, not attribute the powers to Moses and Aaron, something God did not want to happen.

But then it begins to not matter when the hand is used instead. In fact, the hand takes over at the sea. 

Based on responses I received at a Bibliodrama session, we could suggest that the staff was educational at the beginning, but then after that God wanted them to see that it didn't matter if it was a staff OR a hand, because all of it was from God. And that is the main thing, not to start attributing false power to an object (we run into this risk later with the Ark of the Covenant too, when it is taken into battle).

Masculine/Feminine

One more idea is that the staff is a very masculine (phallic) symbol, in the positive sense in that it makes this happen and can be used for dramatic and violent effect - but also in the negative aspect of masculinity i.e. in being rigid, authoritarian, and punishing.

The hand however is feminine in being soft, human, flexible and fluid, able to take on infinite different shapes, and connected not only to itself but to the entire whole (i.e. the body). 

Therefore the move from staff to hand represents the transition from the masculine to the feminine mode, in a very subtle way that was before its time, and only becoms clear to us today as we reclaim "the moon's lost light".

(It takes a while for Moshe to understand this. He continues to use his staff, though God is commanding hand).

And yet, once again, ultimately it matters not if it is masculine (staff) or feminine (hand), for all are instruments for God's power and light. 

* Thank you to my Bibliozoom group for helping me develop these ideas.

Serving God in the Moment

After the devastating plague of locusts, Pharaoh hurriedly calls for Moses (Exodus 10)

24. And Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, Go, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds stay; let your little ones also go with you.

25. And Moses said, You must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.26. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not a hoof be left behind; for we must take it to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come there.

These last few words are interesting. It's true that Moses might simply have been giving Pharaoh some kind of excuse, to explain why they needed to take all the cattle with them. However, there is also a deeper truth in the words "we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come there."

For a while I studied with a teacher of the Yemima method. One of Yemima Avital's fundamental principles was that every moment has its diyuk - its precise and right action. The aim and skill in life is to live each moment as rightly as possible, bearing in mind all factors. You cannot predict the diyuk in advance, based on yesterday's diyuk or your imagination or logic. It is only in the moment that the true diyuk emerges. To me, these words of Moshe's point to that. We need to come as prepared as possible because service of God is not (or not simply) by pre-prescribed laws, but rather also according to the call of the moment.

Those of you familiar with the Myers-Briggs test will recognise the P here, rather than the J. Come prepared by all means -  but don't plan out every second, remain flexible.

Rebbe Nachman has a teaching that also helps us to remain in the present and focus on the avoda of the present (Likutei Moharan 272:1 translated by Sefaria):

“Today! if you heed His voice.” (Psalms 95:7) 

A very important rule in Avodat Hashem is to only focus on what one has to do today. Whatever it may be a job, work, learning... One should always only focus what he has to do that day and not think ahead and look at everything he has at once. Focus on what you need to do at that moment alone.

When someone wants to improve in his Avodat hashem, of he doesn't take this advice and try to focus on everything he has to do not just today but the next day and the next week it will seem like a burden and too hard to follow. But when he only focuses on that day, that moment alone it will feel much easier. And he will be much better off.

And it's very important to not delay it and say, I will start tomorrow or later because all we have to do in this world is to focus on what we should be doing right now. That's why the pasuk said היום אם בקולו תשמעו to דוקא listen and start improving ourselves right now, one step at a time with whatever we have to do right in front of us right now.

Moshe's life journey taught him not to plan. He took every day as it came, listening for G-d's intructions for that day. Planning for the future didn't work out for him - he never entered the Promised Land, though that was the original plan. On any given day in the desert, he did not know if the pillar of cloud would begin moving again. Yet he was able to spend a full 120 years in this mode. This is the mode of faith.