Avodah Mailing List

Volume 23: Number 45

Thu, 08 Mar 2007

• 1. besulos (Jonathan Baker)
• 2. Re: esther (Meir Shinnar)
• 3. Common understanding (Yisrael Medad)
• 4. Re: besulos (Arie Folger)
• 5. Re: vashti (Arie Folger)
• 6. Re: Vashti (herb basser)
• 7. Re: vashti (Zev Sero)
• 8. Re: Tzeit (A & C Walters)
• 9. Re: besulos (Zev Sero)
• 10. Precedent and Change (david guttmann)
• 11. Re: vashti (Moshe Yehuda Gluck)
• 12. Medrash (Micha Berger)
• 13. Re: Megila is not part of Bible? (Micha Berger)
• 14. Hakirah Article on Midrash (Sperling, Jonathan)

From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
 
> > and appeared to others merely as uncle and niece
 
> <head-desk> COUSINS!  They were first cousins, as the pasuk plainly

They were cousins, idetical cousins...

> says.   WHY is this idea that they were uncle and niece so prevalent?

See article by RAZZ here: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/purim/ziv.html

Also Michael Pitkowsky here: http://tinyurl.com/2z6kmk

Summary:
- It's an old idea, it appears in Josephus, Targum Rishon and the Vulgate.
- Eliezer Segal suggests it may originate in 2nd-Temple polemics in favor of
    uncle-niece marriage.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker@panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com

> RZS
> BTW, that she was his wife is definitely to be taken literally;
> the gemara and *all* the rishonim and acharonim take it literally
> and seriously, and learn halachot from it.  I think treating it
> as some metaphoric medrash would come very close to the edge of
> the acceptable range of hashkafa.

As a follow up to my previous response, see the kesef mishne on  
hilchot yesode hatorah 5;1 - where he is clear that the rambam's  
understanding of the gmara - and apparently also the kesef mishne  
himself - is that since rava holds hana'at atmzan shane - and hana'at  
atzman doesn't apply to giluy arayot - rava does not (repeat not)   
have the drasha of al tikri levat - that esther was married - and  
this seems also to be rashi's pshat.

Therefore, the kesef mishne holds that  rambam, and rashi all seem to  
think that the gmara (and the psak halacha is derived from that  
gmara) is that esther was not married to mordechai - and on avoda we  
are told that this is close to the edge of the acceptable range of  
hashkafa??? perhaps those accusing rava, rashi, rambam and kesef  
mishne are close to a different edge...

Meir Shinar
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Dov Kay wrote: This runs counter to the common understanding that, even
after the shivas tziyon, most Jew remained in Bavel.

Well, not exactly "common" but rather Biblical - Nehemiah 7:64 records
but 42, 360

-- 
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
Mobile Post Efraim 44830
Israel
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RTK wrote:
> Why bother saying that? ?The number of ?unmarried
> non-virgins in his empire -- and in any country you could name, before ?the
> advent of the Pill -- would have been vanishingly small.

"... betulah ve-ish lo yeda'ah" (regarding Rivqah). If that was so usual, why 
did the Torah mention it, and why did 'Hazal comment on it, that she had also 
refrained from alternative sexual practices? It seems clear that both in 
Lavan's and 'Hazal's worlds woemn weren't as chaste as we think, despite the 
general difficulty Pfizer, Merck and Novartis had in delivering contraceptive 
pills in those markets.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

One problem occurs to me regarding the literal interpretation of Vashti 
physically having a primitive appendage grow from her coccyx (tailbone). 
Since eventually she was executed, the executioners and those dealing with 
the body would have seen the odd sight of Vashti with a monkey's (or cow's, 
or horse's, or whatever's) tail. Imagine the headlines of Shushan Times. "Was 
Queen a Demon, Tail and All?" Somehow, I feel that tsaraat would have made 
for less interesting headlines, but a tail?

Forcibly, we must say that the tail disappeared, creating a second miracle not 
mentioned by 'Hazal at all.
-- 
Arie Folger
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

As for the tale of Vashti's tail check out:
The Babylonian Esther Midrash: A Critical Commentary, Volume 1(ershter
teil), To the End of Esther Chapter 1  by Eliezer L. Segal (Brown University
Press).

Zvi Basser

Arie Folger wrote:
> One problem occurs to me regarding the literal interpretation of Vashti 
> physically having a primitive appendage grow from her coccyx (tailbone). 
> Since eventually she was executed, the executioners and those dealing with 
> the body would have seen the odd sight of Vashti with a monkey's (or cow's, 
> or horse's, or whatever's) tail. Imagine the headlines of Shushan Times. "Was 
> Queen a Demon, Tail and All?" Somehow, I feel that tsaraat would have made 
> for less interesting headlines, but a tail?
> 
> Forcibly, we must say that the tail disappeared, creating a second miracle not 
> mentioned by 'Hazal at all.


1. So who says she was executed?  That is no more Biblical than the tail.
There is no more reason to believe in the execution than there is to
believe in the tail.

2. There was no Shushan Times; the women who dealt with the body would
have whispered, and rumours would have spread among the women, but
there'd be no official record.  So what makes you think this didn't happen?

3. Once the tail was no longer needed, it might make sense for it to
disappear on its own.  Its very existence was unnatural, so why should
Hashem continue to create it after it had served its purpose?

4, and this should satisfy the minimalists: Maybe the tail was "visible"
only to Vashti.  It was all in her mind; or if RMB prefers, it existed
in her private universe but not in anyone else's.  When she looked in
the mirror, she saw a tail; when she felt behind her, she felt a tail,
and so she refused to be seen like that.  There was no need for anyone
else to see it, so they didn't, but *she* didn't know that.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

In Toldos Aharon where I davened last year, they finished neilia half an
hour after nacht (R"T) so there was no sheileh of duchaning. In Satmar where
I usually daven, we duchen till shkia shneia (58.5min after shkia), even on
a regular taanis by mincha (taanis esther in Ram"o here in Beit Shemesh,
duchening was 50 mins after shkia, in the minyan of Chaver BeDatz Reb Shia
Rosenburger shlit"a

"Jeffrey Saks" <atid@atid.org> wrote in message
news:<01b701c75f37$070bc3c0$0400000a@SacksFamily>...
 In Israel this creates a problem of wanting to get to Birkhat Kohanim for
Neilah before Shkiah, then having to shlep out everything else (Avinu
Malkeinu, etc.) to fill the time. If anyone has a creative solution to this
problem -- aside from paskening like the Mishnah Brura over the Luach -- I'd
be delighted to hear it. 
----------


Click to make millions by owning your own franchise
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Jonathan Baker wrote:
> From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>

>> says.   WHY is this idea that they were uncle and niece so prevalent?
> 
> See article by RAZZ here: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/purim/ziv.html
> 
> Also Michael Pitkowsky here: http://tinyurl.com/2z6kmk
> 
> Summary:
> - It's an old idea, it appears in Josephus, Targum Rishon and the Vulgate.

So meshabeshta, kevan de'al al?


> - Eliezer Segal suggests it may originate in 2nd-Temple polemics
>   in favor of uncle-niece marriage.

His suggestions there are unacceptable.
     Segal sees the development of this midrashic tradition that
     Abraham married his niece, and also that of Mordechai marrying
     his niece, as a way for some of the Pharisees and sages to
     find scriptural support for the institution,
This assertion falls flat on its face, because there *is* no Pharasaic
source for the claim that Mordechai was Esther's uncle.  Josephus was
a Sadducee heretic, Jerome was a sheigetz who probably got the idea
from Josephus, and Targum Rishon is post-Talmudic.

But worse is this assertion:
     In the light of these facts, it seems far more likely that
     the identification of Sarah and Iscah did not originate in
     the application of midrashic hermeneutic technique to the
     biblical text, but rather out of a polemical determination
     to find pentateuchal support for the practice of niece-
     marriage. (Segal, 428)
So Chazal, wanting to make a point against sectarians who were
making up dinim that aren't even hinted at in the Torah, instead of
arguing the issue on the merits, made up stories about Avraham Avinu
that they knew weren't true?  They deliberately decided to claim that
Sarah and Yiskah were the same person, knowing that they were lying,
and hoping that their opponents wouldn't notice?  What sort of
argument is this?  This is how he thinks Chazal behaved?  This is
how he sees their intellectual honesty?

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas

There is an article in the latest Hakirah by R. Benzion Buchman that
addresses R. Feldman letter and explains how he is not in tune with Gedolim
such as the Chazon Ish and R. Moshe Feinstein. He also discusses Rambam's
position on this issue basing it on Rambam on Treifos.
The first two pages are available at www.hakirah.org . The full text will
become available on line in a few months.

Regards,

David Guttmann

R' Arie Folger:
*One problem occurs to me regarding the literal interpretation of Vashti
*physically having a primitive appendage grow from her coccyx (tailbone).
*Since eventually she was executed, the executioners and those dealing with
*the body would have seen the odd sight of Vashti with a monkey's (or cow's,
*or horse's, or whatever's) tail. Imagine the headlines of Shushan Times.
*"Was
*Queen a Demon, Tail and All?" Somehow, I feel that tsaraat would have made
*for less interesting headlines, but a tail?
*
*Forcibly, we must say that the tail disappeared, creating a second miracle
*not
*mentioned by 'Hazal at all.

It was much easier to keep a secret in the good ol' days, when revealing it
meant one's head be permanently estranged from the rest of one's body...
OTOH, perhaps you are right and it was not a secret - which was how Chazal
knew about it.

KT,
MYG

I am going to make comments across a number of threads ("Esther and Virgins",
"Vashti", "Bizmaneihem" and "Malbim on 19th century politics") that I think
can be unified with a single observation -- we are using "medrash" "derashah"
in a number of different ways, and I think it is leading to both
miscommunication and errors of homonym (proving something for one meaning of
the word and using the conclusion with another meaning).

My rav's Shabbos morning derashah is different than the kind of derashah
performed with middos shehaTorah nidreshes bahem. Derashos using middos is
called "medrash", and is found in medrashei halakhah, but we also use the word
"medrash" to refer to stories in medrashei aggada. All of the above are found
in shas.

In SAT order (addressing the simplest first):

An LOR will generally make his derashah about an issue of import to his
kehillah. Therefore, a contemporary LOR talking about Migdal Bavel might focus
on the society's rebelliousness. RSRH and the Netziv chose to write about
their fascist totalitarian attitude -- placing more value on the gov't
building project and a fallen brick than on the individual. Neither are wrong
-- but the topic of the time and locale defines what lesson one is motivated
to draw out.

If the Malbim is very aware of an issue because of contemporary politics and
therefore sees a lesson about it in the megillah, then his devar Torah will be
both a real devar Torah and a political observation.


Second, middos shehaTorah nidreshes bahem (MTNB):

On Tue, March 6, 2007 3:05 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
:> So the question is whether divrei Soferim and derashah mesh, and the answer
:> may be a one-off of our case. The nafqa minah would be whether the
:> conclusion
:> is also divrei soferim (derashah) or or derabbanan (asmachta).
:
: Again, for the question to begin there must be some reason to suppose
: that we don't darshen Nach.  And again I ask: ver zogt?   AFAIK not only
: do we darshen Nach, but we darshen Mishna.

We are medaqdeqim belshon haMishnah -- or even the Mishneh Torah -- but we do
not apply MTNB to them. Not every diqduq belashon is dershah (in this sense of
the word), as the existence of asmachtos shows.

MTNB are a means of deriving halakhah, which means that for every case but
these four mitzvos. DeOraisos must come from chumash, regardless of the
question of MTNB. And there are no other divrei Soferim in Nakh. This one
derashah would be the only example for us debate.

I do not think MTNB are meaningful for anything the A-lmighty didn't dictate
letter for letter. I have no maqor, but it's mistaber to me. Derashah is a
means for HQBH adding a second legal layer to a text that is more concerned
with precision in mussar than precision in din. As per "ayin tachas ayin",
where Chazal use the peshat to teach guilt, and a gezeirah shavah to show that
"tachas" refers to payment.

But here it seems obvious for a totally different reason: It refers to a din
that couldn't have existed when Yom Nikanor was added to megilas ta'anis. The
din post-dates the text. Even if MTNB were a meaningful term WRT divrei
Soferim in theory, how can we apply it to a din derabbanan centuries after the
text?

With the one nafqa mina eliminated, the theoretical difference between us
becomes moot.


Last, looking at medrash as a term for aggadic stories:

On Mon, March 5, 2007 10:53 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
:> Of course, if medrashim that are "fantastical" are meshalim, then
:> those aren't ra'ayos either. [...] The question of whether a private
:> lema'alah min hateva miracle defies hesteir panim is an interesting one.

: Aren't you rather putting the cart before the horse?  The idea that
: the Purim Miracle was characterised by "hester panim" is itself
: merely a drasha, of no better pedigree than these midrashim....

I gave a list of rishonim and acharonim who state that we are not supposed to
assume that "fantastic" aggadic stories are meant as historical statements.
(Admittedly on this iteration I got tired of it and didn't truck out the list
of citations and quotes again.)

Thus, such medrashim taken as history have worse pedigree than statements
about the meaning of the Purim story, or even aggadic stories that do not
involve large claims. I also question your characterization that "hesteir
panim" is a late notion, but that's tangential to the broader issue.

We're not discussing the pedigree of the aggadita, we're discussing the
pedigree of the mashal. The nimshal is true whether the mashal was written for
the nimshal, or drawn from a historical event. None of us question the
authority of the TSBP in the story in terms of the values it teaches.

In none of our iterations have we had anyone post a maqor that is choleiq with
the sources for saying they aren't necessarily historical.

For that matter, it's hard to even prove anyone discusses the historical event.

When they darshen the story, the fact that the story is presented means that
you can assume some things about it. The behavior ascribed to the righteous
will fit almost always fit halakhah. A historical medrash would not repeat LH
about a tzadiq if the point could be made otherwise. And if the story was
invented to teach, it would not be done at the expense of a tzadiq's name. Not
when evil people can be used to teach the definition of evil. See the Maharetz
Chajes pereq 20.

So the medrash would be dealt with by latter baalei mesorah with no regard to
history. You are fleshing out the medrash to get the lesson, not the history.

On Tue, March 6, 2007 1:52 pm, Zev Sero wrote:
: BTW, that she was his wife is definitely to be taken literally;
: the gemara and *all* the rishonim and acharonim take it literally
: and seriously, and learn halachot from it.  I think treating it
: as some metaphoric medrash would come very close to the edge of
: the acceptable range of hashkafa.

Given the above, the fact that the story exists means that there it is a way
it  is possible without ascribing aveiros to Esther.

People discuss medrash within its own terms. The issue of history doesn't and
shouldn't come up.

Similarly, when Rashi says that the one frog coming from the Nile doesn't fit
peshat. It was we who jumped to the question of what does that mean about what
really happened. Rashi simply doesn't care.

Which is the whole reason why we shouldn't assume anything about the
historicity of these aggadic stories to begin with! The people who told and
retold them weren't teaching history, the subject of what really happened
wasn't on their radar.

Instead, they were interested in making a point in a way that keeps students'
attention, or in a poetic way that gives emotional depth and a metaphor for
the mind to analyze, or in a way that minimizes the writing of TSBP -- to give
some of the various reasons given for aggadic points to be relayed by mashal.


As for the dangers of teaching children these stories, speaking as someone who
believes that the overwhelming majority of baalei mesorah did not expect these
stories to be taken as history....

We are now having a debate, where those of us who take them as historical are
expected to prove this claim for what I believe is the 5th time since the
founding of this list. Despite the fact that there are meqoros saying that are
not always (and some hold: ever) historical, and no one cited a statement
saying they are choleiq.

So, the default assumption of our generation's masses is different than that
of most baalei mesorah. (Again, as I see the issue.) And this belief is deeply
entrenched to the point of requiring extraordinary proof to uproot, if
anything can.

Second, regardless of what one feels about "fantastic" aggadic stories,
doesn't peshat come first? Combined with our lack of focus on learning Tanakh,
people don't know what's in the pasuq and what isn't.


I would have thought that the topic is a non-starter until someone actually
finds a maqor that says "I am choleiq with the Rambam, aggadic stories that
seem like tall tales are historical", or with the Ritva, the Rashba, the
Maharsha, the Maharal, the Gra, the Maharitz Chajes, RSRH, RYSalanter... And
for that matter someone who is maximalist WRT another famous topic, R' Feldman
in his overview to The Juggler and the King (pg xxii), said besheim haGra.

That would be enough to say there are two sides to the matter. I do not see
how an idea with such a list of supporters could ever be dismissed altogether.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Tue, March 6, 2007 2:01 pm, R Michael Kopinsky wrote:
: On 3/6/07, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
:> In Pirqe deR' Eliezer, Achashveirosh is after Daryaveish, which means the
:> second bayis was standing for something like 40 years at the time of Purim.
:> Well after Ezra's return.

: How does this fit with the Gemara about the different calculations of the
: 70 years?  (Does a PDRE have to fit with a gemara?)

There is a shitah that PDRE was written by R' Eliezer b Hyrkanus. If so, the
burden of proof is on the gemara, not PDRE. But the gemara could simply hold
like R Yosi bar Chalafta (the Seder Olam). To whatever extent "hold like" has
meanings for matters of history. Perhaps, in light of my previous post, I
should write: The gemara could simply be explaining the meaning and Torah of
the SO's version of the events.

Someone noted I confused people by misspeaking, so here's the machloqes again.

The Seder Olam orders them Koresh, Achashveirosh, Daryavesh. This places Purim
between shivat Tziyon (under Koresh) and before bayis sheini. And thus
Esther's (adopted?) son was the one who permitted the building of the BHMQ
(2nd year of Daryavesh) and the aliyah sheniyah with Ezra (7th yr of
Artachshasta, who is identified with Daryaveish).

PDRE has a chronology that matches the opinion of most modern historians, that
Achashveirosh was after Daryaveish, and Purim is around 4 decades into the
bayis sheini period. Historians -- who so far agree with the PDRE but who
knows what the PDRE would say about this point -- identify Artachshasta with
Artexerces, and make Ezra and Nechemiah 20 years after Purim.

While this 2nd shitah robs Purim of its connection to bayis sheini, it speaks
volumes to someone sitting and typing this in NY. Why didn't the Jews wake up
and leave Shushan when Artachshasta opened the doors less than a generation
after we narrowly escaped extermination?

All of this ties to the 168 year difference between our dating of galus Bavel
and secular histories of Babylonia, Persia and Greece (which are consistent
with each other and astronomical events). The SO folding Daryaveish and
Artachshasta is part of explaining how Babylonian rule was not as long as it
seems. The folding isn't necessary to explain 70 years of galus, but a 70 year
span for the entire Persian period. If that is predicated on the SO, and if
the PDRE is choleiq, then why not simply assume the data sides with the other
tzad?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

The current issue of Hakirah (vol. 4) contains an article entitled "Al
HaYachas HaRaui LeDerashot Chazal".  The article refers at the outset to
a purportedly well-known lecture on the same subject given approximately
three years ago by one of the "chachmei hakehila" of Flatbush,
recordings of which it says were widely distributed.  The first page of
the article, which contains this reference, is available at
http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%204%20Schweka.pdf.  Can anyone identify whom
the author is referring to, or even better, point me to a copy of the
recording?


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