Post by Rabbi Neil on Feb 14, 2020 18:08:23 GMT
Before the awesome Revelation at Sinai, God calls to Moses from the mountain with a speech that starts with the words, “Say to the House of Jacob and tell the Children of Israel…” (Ex. 19:3) To the untrained eye this seems a completely innocuous start to a speech, meaning that Moses should go and talk to the people. But to the trained Torah reader, it begs a question – why the repetition? Why “Say to the House of Jacob” and “tell the Children of Israel?” - don’t they both mean the same thing? Since one of the key modes of Torah interpretation suggests that there are no meaningless repetitions in Torah, we have to ask “Is there a difference between the House of Jacob and the Children of Israel?” Our Rabbis say, “Yes, there is a difference.”
In Talmud (Shabbat 118b) Rabbi Yossi says: “I have never called my wife “my wife” or my ox “my ox,” but my wife I called “my home” and my ox “my field.” The famous expression that comes from this is bayto zu ishto – his home is his wife. Before I get jumped on by anyone thinking I’m being completely sexist, this is actually a very lovely and progressive thought by Rabbi Yossi. He doesn’t want to use a Hebrew word that suggests ownership, but rather, partnership. He doesn’t own his wife, he comes home to his wife. Given the time when this was written, this is quite progressive. Indeed, Rabbi Jenny and I liked the idea so much that when we got married, we had the theme of bayit – of home – of us each coming home to the other, as the central theme of our wedding. So, according to Talmud, the word for house can refer to partner, although usually the wife. Thus, Say to the House of Jacob means “talk to the women.” How is it that “Tell the Children of Israel” means the men? Well, that’s easy – the Hebrew is b’nei yisrael – which literally means “sons of Israel.”
So just before the Sinai Revelation, according to Midrash, God tells Moses to “Say to the House of Jacob and tell the Children of Israel,” in other words, talk to the women and then to the men. Why? Why separate women and men in their learning? Well, this is where midrash becomes rather less egalitarian. It suggests that Moses is instructed to tell the women the main outlines of the laws so that they can understand but that he should tell the men the details of the precepts because they’re able to understand them in greater depth. Another explanation that is given for putting the women before the men is because women are prompt in fulfilling commandments – a positive approach. Another attitude suggests that the women are put first so that they can teach the children. And the final suggestion is because Adam taught Eve and Eve broke the commandment, so if women learn after men at Sinai then there is a risk that they will nullify the entire Torah! Of course, the more sexist of these midrashim are certainly products of their time but that doesn’t mean that we cannot glean anything of value from them.
At the core of these midrashim is a belief that differing people learn differently. Of course, they divide between the sexes – men are from Mars, women are from Venus kind of thing. But at the core we all do learn differently and that provides an interesting perspective on the Sinai revelation. When the Israelites gathered around Sinai, they couldn’t have all been Torah scholars because, well, Torah hadn’t been given yet. How did the Israelites all learn Torah? Were they all expected to learn Torah? Were they expected to just learn the basics? It seems unlikely that it was just the basics because contravention of some of the laws carried the death penalty. So did they just learn the laws that carried capital punishment for infringement? That hardly seems sensible, either. Torah seems to suggest that the Israelites all understood the law and chose to accept it instantly, but any teacher will attest that this is unnatural. So maybe that is part of the point of the narrative of the Sinai revelation. Whereas any teacher will tell you that some students learn one way while others learn another way, some students pick up concepts quickly while others need repetition, some students can delve into the deeper meanings of the learning while others just skate over the surface, maybe at Sinai, everyone got it. Maybe it was the teaching exercise par excellence.
How could that happen? How could it be that everyone learned in their own way? Another midrash (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:13) explains. In this midrash, Rabbi Yochanan says that an angel carries each utterance from God to each of the Israelites in turn. The angel says to each Israelite, “Do you take upon yourself this commandment? So-and-so many rules are attached to it, so-and-so many penalties are attached to it, so-and-so many precautionary measures are attached to it, so many precepts and so many lenient and strict applications are attached to it; such-and-such a reward is attached to it.” The Israelite would answer, “Yes.” The angel would then say, “Do you accept the divinity of the Holy Blessed One?” and the Israelite would answer, “Yes, yes.” Thereupon the angel would kiss the Israelite on the mouth and the commandment would be learnt. The other Rabbis disagree with Rabbi Yochanan and say that it wasn’t an angel but the commandment itself that would fly to each Israelite and ask the same questions before kissing them on the mouth.
What do we learn from this? It seems almost disingenuous now for me to say what we learn because that’s rather the point – we all learn differently. So what I learn from this is that for learning to be truly effective it has to be intimate and personal, especially learning Torah. More than this, the Revelation at Sinai may have been a grand public event but it was also an event that moved people individually. To me it also suggests that learning needs openness – it needs the learner to say, “Yes, I want to learn; yes, I am open to another lesson.” Sometimes the best lesson loudly grabs the attention of the learner but then quietly whispers the lesson into their ear. And to me it shows that although God is portrayed as speaking to the Israelites from the top of a mountain amidst fire, smoke and thunder, that really we learn from God when we open ourselves up to the lesson, when we go beyond the brashness and listen out for the still small voice. May that voice approach us all, may it draw close to every one of us and may it come to kiss us on our lips. Amen.
In Talmud (Shabbat 118b) Rabbi Yossi says: “I have never called my wife “my wife” or my ox “my ox,” but my wife I called “my home” and my ox “my field.” The famous expression that comes from this is bayto zu ishto – his home is his wife. Before I get jumped on by anyone thinking I’m being completely sexist, this is actually a very lovely and progressive thought by Rabbi Yossi. He doesn’t want to use a Hebrew word that suggests ownership, but rather, partnership. He doesn’t own his wife, he comes home to his wife. Given the time when this was written, this is quite progressive. Indeed, Rabbi Jenny and I liked the idea so much that when we got married, we had the theme of bayit – of home – of us each coming home to the other, as the central theme of our wedding. So, according to Talmud, the word for house can refer to partner, although usually the wife. Thus, Say to the House of Jacob means “talk to the women.” How is it that “Tell the Children of Israel” means the men? Well, that’s easy – the Hebrew is b’nei yisrael – which literally means “sons of Israel.”
So just before the Sinai Revelation, according to Midrash, God tells Moses to “Say to the House of Jacob and tell the Children of Israel,” in other words, talk to the women and then to the men. Why? Why separate women and men in their learning? Well, this is where midrash becomes rather less egalitarian. It suggests that Moses is instructed to tell the women the main outlines of the laws so that they can understand but that he should tell the men the details of the precepts because they’re able to understand them in greater depth. Another explanation that is given for putting the women before the men is because women are prompt in fulfilling commandments – a positive approach. Another attitude suggests that the women are put first so that they can teach the children. And the final suggestion is because Adam taught Eve and Eve broke the commandment, so if women learn after men at Sinai then there is a risk that they will nullify the entire Torah! Of course, the more sexist of these midrashim are certainly products of their time but that doesn’t mean that we cannot glean anything of value from them.
At the core of these midrashim is a belief that differing people learn differently. Of course, they divide between the sexes – men are from Mars, women are from Venus kind of thing. But at the core we all do learn differently and that provides an interesting perspective on the Sinai revelation. When the Israelites gathered around Sinai, they couldn’t have all been Torah scholars because, well, Torah hadn’t been given yet. How did the Israelites all learn Torah? Were they all expected to learn Torah? Were they expected to just learn the basics? It seems unlikely that it was just the basics because contravention of some of the laws carried the death penalty. So did they just learn the laws that carried capital punishment for infringement? That hardly seems sensible, either. Torah seems to suggest that the Israelites all understood the law and chose to accept it instantly, but any teacher will attest that this is unnatural. So maybe that is part of the point of the narrative of the Sinai revelation. Whereas any teacher will tell you that some students learn one way while others learn another way, some students pick up concepts quickly while others need repetition, some students can delve into the deeper meanings of the learning while others just skate over the surface, maybe at Sinai, everyone got it. Maybe it was the teaching exercise par excellence.
How could that happen? How could it be that everyone learned in their own way? Another midrash (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:13) explains. In this midrash, Rabbi Yochanan says that an angel carries each utterance from God to each of the Israelites in turn. The angel says to each Israelite, “Do you take upon yourself this commandment? So-and-so many rules are attached to it, so-and-so many penalties are attached to it, so-and-so many precautionary measures are attached to it, so many precepts and so many lenient and strict applications are attached to it; such-and-such a reward is attached to it.” The Israelite would answer, “Yes.” The angel would then say, “Do you accept the divinity of the Holy Blessed One?” and the Israelite would answer, “Yes, yes.” Thereupon the angel would kiss the Israelite on the mouth and the commandment would be learnt. The other Rabbis disagree with Rabbi Yochanan and say that it wasn’t an angel but the commandment itself that would fly to each Israelite and ask the same questions before kissing them on the mouth.
What do we learn from this? It seems almost disingenuous now for me to say what we learn because that’s rather the point – we all learn differently. So what I learn from this is that for learning to be truly effective it has to be intimate and personal, especially learning Torah. More than this, the Revelation at Sinai may have been a grand public event but it was also an event that moved people individually. To me it also suggests that learning needs openness – it needs the learner to say, “Yes, I want to learn; yes, I am open to another lesson.” Sometimes the best lesson loudly grabs the attention of the learner but then quietly whispers the lesson into their ear. And to me it shows that although God is portrayed as speaking to the Israelites from the top of a mountain amidst fire, smoke and thunder, that really we learn from God when we open ourselves up to the lesson, when we go beyond the brashness and listen out for the still small voice. May that voice approach us all, may it draw close to every one of us and may it come to kiss us on our lips. Amen.