Rabbi Dr Irving Jacobs, who passed away this week, was arguably British Jewry’s most inspirational academic teacher, a man who deserved far greater recognition than he received. His talent lay in a unique blend of easy-going humour, the enthusiasm that he showed for whatever topic he was teaching and an innate sense of how to connect with his students.
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Lacunae in the biblical text give the Midrash the opportunity to insert its own ideas. Frequently these insertions, instead of trying to clarify the biblical text, reflect matters of concern in their own time. The Mechilta, the earliest commentary on Exodus, attaches an idea to the phrase “you shall not do with me” which is far removed from the plain meaning of the text.
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According to the Bible, when God expelled Adam and Eve, wrapped in fig leaves, from the Garden of Eden he made them clothes from animal skin. The midrashic collection known as Genesis Rabbah, probably compiled in the 5th or 6th century, says that in Rabbi Meir’s Torah it did not say they were clothes of skin, but clothes of light. The Hebrew words for clothes and light differ by only one letter, and are pronounced almost identically.
Leaving aside the question of the authenticity of the biblical text (and this is not the only occasion when the 2nd century Rabbi Meir seems to have had a different version of the Torah), the suggestion that Adam and Eve may have had ethereal clothes made of light, rather than ordinary animal skins, connects this Midrash to a legend, now mostly lost, which casts Adam and Eve in a very different light. Continue reading
In the rabbinic imagination Esau is the ancestor of the wicked Roman Empire. They drew this concusion from a creative interpretation of the story of Jacob and Esau, and from the Book of Daniel.
Daniel had predicted that the Jews would be subjugated successively by four kingdoms. When the fourth kingdom was overthrown the messianic age would begin. Continue reading
The Midrashic tradition seems to do a great disservice to Isaac’s brother-in-law Laban. It casts him as an out-and-out villain, a trickster who according to the Passover Haggadah, wanted to prevent the creation of the Jewish nation.
“Go and see what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob. For Pharoah only issued a decree against the men (casting the baby boys into the Nile) whereas Laban wanted to uproot all (the whole nation).”
It is axiomatic in Judaism that Abraham was the first person to recognise that God created the world and that there are no other gods. Maimonides says as much. In the 2nd of his thirteen Principles of Faith he states that God is the First Cause. In the 5th Principle he asserts that there are no other gods beside him and it is not appropriate to worship any other entity. Abraham is the founder of Judaism. It follows that Abraham was the first monotheist, a fact known to every Jewishly educated child.
The trouble is that if we look at the bible text there is no indication that Abraham did not believe that other gods existed. Continue reading