A shidduch for Yitzchak

Avraham as he senses that his life is coming to an end tells his servant to go to his birthplace (here noted as Aram Naharaim,   Breishit 24) to get a wife for his son Yitzchak. Under no circumstances is he to take a wife for his son from among the Canaanites.   Nor should Yitzchak ,under any circumstances be taken to Aram Naharaim to marry. What if the woman refuses to come with the servant back to Canaan?.  In that case the servant would be free of any obligations connected with his swearing an oath to Avraham.  So it seems Avraham put some difficult, almost impossible restrictions on the servant.  It appears the Avraham has 2 goals to satisfy in the marriage of his son.  One is that he maintain purity if the line by not marrying a Canaanite woman(Interestingly the Torah does not hide the fact that Yehuda and Shimon married Canaanite women).  The other is that the prospective bride come to Canaan to marry Yitzchak.  If you read the verse it says the woman.  Did Avraham in a prophetic sense know that Rivkah would be the one to marry Yitzchak?  Betuel ( her father) was one of 8 siblings( one of 12 if you count the concubine Reumah).  Surely there must have been dozens of girls in the area from his "family" who would be eligible.

And if Rivkah was the "chosen " one what would have happened if she or her family had  refused to go along.  Avraham's destiny of populating the land of Canaan with his offspring would never take place.  I think this is another example along with many in Breishit of the Divine hand in history.  God chooses his elected.  In all of Breishit there is not one bechor (the eldest son) who attains primacy in the family.  The story of Yosef is another example.  If you consider that if any of the details of the story had changed, it is possible that Bnei Yisrael would not have gone down to Egypt and later become forged into a nation.  The guiding hand of God though not explicit in the text is clear to the reader.  So here too Avraham correctly sees that the "family will continue to fulfill the destiny in store for them with the long range goal of populating the land of Israel.

 The War of the 4 Kings vs the 5 Kings

Breishit ch 14 contains an interesting story about how Lot, the nephew of Avraham was taken captive.  I think that a lot of people particularly students miss the point of the story.  I see the story as having two main learning points.  The first is that Avraham will do the right thing and go to any length to rescue Lot, a close relative.  This also brings up a different question about Yishmael.  Avraham is for most commentators a paradigm of Chessed(kindness).  Yet he ejects Yishmael from his home with only bread and water.  The reasons given by the commentators such as that he was following G-ds command to listen to Sarah who told him to get Yishmael out of the house, are wholly unsatisfying.  I have no good answer for this problem.  But I digress.  Getting back to Avraham and the war of the 5 kings versus the 4 kings, one must understand the geopolitics of the time and place in order to understand the story.  This was asymmetric warfare.. There is no question that the Torah is pointing this out.  The identification of the kings from the northeastern area with historical figures such as Hammurabi is uncertain, but the name of the kingdom is not uncertain.  Shinar and Elam  and Elasar(probably Larsa) are powerful entities.  Shinar is the closest thing to an empire at the time.  The others might be vassals which under treaty would be obligated to fight for their master.  The Torah goes on to mention that the 4 kings defeated the aboriginal inhabitants such as Emim, Rephaim and Zuzim and Amalek and the Amorites.  The five kings on the other hand were vassals to the four kings.  They ruled over small city states in Canaan.  So basically this war would be akin to the 1927 Yankees playing against my grandsons little league team.  With that as background the Torah narrates a story which should be seen in a different light than simply a war of two opposing forces. Avraham mobilizes his 318 men and defeats one of the most powerful fighting forces of his day.
  One further thought.  During the late bronze age  1500- 1200 BCE, Canaan is a  vassal to Egypt. Circumstances alluding to this fact are sparse or absent in the Torah.  If we date Avraham to between 1700 or 1600 BCE, It may be that there were times when the Mesopotamians held sway over Canaan during Avrahams lifetime.

When did Rosh HaShana become Rosh HaShana?

2 Questions-

1. How is it that the Jewish new year starts in the 7th month of the year

2. How did Rosh HaShana go from yom teruah to day of Judgement?

   As the name implies Rosh HaShana(RH) is the "head of the year".  This implies that it is the beginning of the year.  Yet all the holidays in the Torah are measured by ordinal numbered months starting with Nisan 

in the spring.  So when did RH become the beginning of the year?  This is a separate question from- When did RH become conceptually the holiday that it is today-ie a holiday establishing the kingship of G-d and the beginning of the period known as the 10 days of repentance.  

     

    In regards to the second question:  The Torah mentions the holidays 5 times.  They are Shemos perek 23 and 34, Vayikra 23, Bamidbar 28-29 and Devarim 16.  Rosh HaSh,kana is mentioned only in Vayikra and Bamidbar.  It is called yom teruah in Bamidbar 29:1 and called zichron teruah in Vayikra 23:24. Rashi says that the zichron  is to remember or to recite the verses relating to shofar and zichronot that remind us of the akeidah(the binding of Isaac).  I think that on a simpler level the teruah was for the purpose of inaugurating  the month which contained Sukkot( and Yom Kippur).  Sukkot was for the mass population the holiday par excellence .  In fact when the word Chag is used in Tanach it almost always refers to Sukkot.  The Chag or Hag is cognate with the Semitic/Arabic word Haj which really means pilgrimage rather than holiday.  And in fact it was such a festive pilgrimage during temple times.  Rosh HaShana as a holiday was a much lower profile holiday.  Its importance was more related to the temple.

   The only explicit reference to RH in later Tanach is Yechezkel 40:1, and its hard to know if Yechezkel is actually referring to RH as we know it.  The 9th chapter of Nechemiah tells of events on the the first of the 7th month, but it bears litttle resemblance to our holiday.  By the time of the writing of the book of Jubilees,in the 2nd century BCE the holiday gets barely a mention in that book where the Avot(patriarchs)celebrated all the Jewish holidays prior to the giving of the Torah.Interestingly the book of Jubilees gives the origin for "days of remembranceas relating to the story of the Flood.  By the time of the Mishneh, (2nd Century of the common era) .though , the concept of a day of judgement is already in place. So an evolutionary path in the concept of RH can be traced.

   With regards to the first question- when is the beginning of the year?  Certainly every date in the Torah should be assumed to go according to the ordinal number scheme starting in the spring.  However in Shemot  Chag Ha'asif (agricultural harvest festival) is related to tzeit hashana (the going out of the year)  or in chapter 34 tekufat hashana.( the turning of the year).  Both these phrases imply the year end would be in the fall.  And so it was in the middle east of the second millenium. There were places and times when the year would start in the spring and places where it would start in the fall.  The Gezer calendar is a famous archaeological piece that outlines the agricultural tasks of the year.   Ot date to the 10th century BCE, and it starts in the fall.  

  The conclusion, I think is that a dual calendar system was in place.  The ritual year and the counting method of the Torah started with Nisan as the first month.  The agricultural year started and ended in the fall with the harvest followed by the joyous Sukkot festival.

   

The recent fast of Gedaliah makes me wonder about the origin of the fast.  The first textual reference is in the 7th chapter of Zechariah.  The exiles (now returned from the Babylonian exile and now living in around Jerusalem) approach the Kohanim and the prophets of the day (about 520  BCE) and ask if they should continue to fast in the 5th month.  He replies somewhat cynically- for whom have you been fasting these 70 years( of the exile) in the 5th and the 7th month.  Finally in the 8th chapter he says the fast of the 4th, 5th ,7th and 10th month will be days of joy- Just love peace and truth.  So it appears that the fast originates in the exilic period.   But you have to ask yourself about the fast of the 7th month.  Obviously not referring to Yom Kippur( that is a Torah law).  Look at Nehemiah chapter 9.  The exiles about 50 to 70 yrs later fast on the 24th of the seventh month.  To me that seems to have been an ad hoc fast due to their realization that their observance of the Torah had been less than perfect.
   So again I ask can the origin of the fast be related to the assassination of Gedaliah as related in Melachim 25 and Yirmiahu 40.  Gedaliah was a Babylonian appointee who probably took office in the month of Av 586 BCE.  He was assassinated probably 6 weeks later.  ( there are some who question this and say that he was not killed until a year or two later.  The context to me indicates a rapid series of events- I think 6 weeks is a safe bet).. In any event whether 6 weeks or two years- ask yourself is there any reason the exiles 70 years later would still be fasting for a Babylonian functionary who died before most of them were born.  I cannot think of a good reason.  By the time of the Talmud the fast of the 7th month is clearly associated with Gedaliah.  The Talmud says the death of a Tzaddik is equivalent to the burning pf the Temple. 
I think Chazal associated this fast with Gedaliah for a simple reason.  You cannot have a fast without a reason.  People get too hungry to fast without a reason.  Secondly- if you check your Tanach disk -searchword- seventh month- there is only one mention in all of Tanach that could in any way be associated with the destruction of the Temple, and that would be the death of Gedaliah(which by the way has no specific date mentioned).
    Lastly, if the fast didn't originate with Gedaliah, how did it  start?  I have no idea but the Jews in exile certainly came under the influence of the Babylonians.  The Babylonians has many ideas about days and months which were good omen days and bad omen days.  So at present the origins of the fast remains ,in my opinion, speculative.

Topics in Tanakh Tanach

I will be posting various topics in Tanakh. ( Tanakh  is the academically accepted spelling.  However the majority of Americans use the spelling Tanach, so I will be using that spelling from here on.  Since orientation is important, I will  state mine.  I am orthodox Jewish. I give primacy to the text.  I am not rigidly slavish to Midrash.  The opinions here are mine although I rely on many varied sources .  And I will name them if I can remember them. I think it is key for understanding of any text is to read it through the eyes of its target audience.  For example, the genealogy of Edom given in Breishit meant one thing to the generation that received the Torah and in the centuries that followed- namely which tranjordanian clans were part of Israel and which were the "cousins".  To Chazal( the Rabbis of the Mishneh and Gemara) who were not big fans of Edom(as it was a symbol of Rome) it meant something entirely different- that based on the names that Edom violated laws of incest.  Each interpretation appropriate for its time, but ask yourself what was the Torah's original intent in including the clans of Edom.
It seems too me that if you go through a Jewish day school education or even if you attend your Rabbi's parshah class, you will for the most part be learning Midrash not text.  This probably a good thing.  Midrash is basically an interpretation which forces you to think in a certain direction.  Organized religion has to put the brakes on totally free thinking otherwise it becomes disorganized religion(Sometimes it seems we're pretty close to that).  So if you ask someone where the Torah was given most people would say Sinai rather than Horeb or the plains of Moab which are also correct.  Similarly Israel's time in Egypt is 210 years rather than 430 years.  Moshes father in law is Yitro rather than Hobab. All these answers because we are taught this since childhood.   I think it is a shortcoming of Jewish day school system that the distinction between text and Midrash is so blurry that even high school students cannot tell the difference.