The God with Moral Fault: (Perspectives on Jewish Hermeneutics and Theology)

Copyright © 2007 by John W. McGinley

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ISBN: 978-0-595-47791-3

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Contents

EXERGUE

RABBI MEIR AND DEATH

GETTING IT RIGHT WITH EVIL

WHO’S WRITING WHAT?

THE NESHAMOT FACTORY

THE DYADICIZING UNITY

LIVING WITH SLANTING WALLS

postscript as preface

appendix

note on the writer

EXERGUE 

R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: "The serpent was asked: Why are you generally found by fences?" He replied: I have made a breach in the fence of the world. [Nahmani]: Why do you move along with your tongue slavering? [The serpent]: Because that led me to the crime. [Nahmani]: Why is it that when any other animal bites it does not kill, while when you bite you kill? He [the serpent] answered citing: If the serpent bite, is it without a whisper? The [mere] possessor of the tongue hath no advantage. [Qohelet 10:11] [then, continuing on in his own voice]:

Is it conceivable that I was not ordered to do so from on High?

[Numbers Rabbah, 19:2. Soncino, page 747. Translation very slightly amended.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

R. Aibu interpreted: [Speaking on behalf of the Holy One, blessed be He]: It was a regrettable error on My part to have created an evil urge [yeitser ha ra] within him [mankind]; For had I not created an evil urge within him he would not have rebelled against Me.

[Genesis Rabbah, 24–4; page 222 of Soncino. R. Aibu is commenting on Genesis 6:6 wherein Hashem is presented as deeply regretting the fact that He had created mankind.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

In the copy of R. Meir’s Torah was found written: And behold it was very good as: And, behold, death was good. R. Samuel b. Nachman said: I was seated on my grandfather’s shoulder going up from my own town to Kefar Hana via Beth Shean, and I heard R. Simon b. Eleazer as he sat and lectured say in R. Meir’s name: And, behold, it was very good" as: And, behold, death was good.

[Genesis Rabbah; 9:5. Soncino, page 66. Translation very slightly modified.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

[Context: At Rabbi Eliezer’s command the walls start to fall down on the beit

midrash. At Rabbi Joshua’s challenge to the walls, the walls stopped midway.]

They did not fall out of respect for Rabbi Joshua and they did not straighten up out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer. And they still remain aslant until this very day.

[Bavli Gemara on tractate Bava Metsia of the Mishna; 59b.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Exodus 34:26 -28:.

You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

Write thou these words for [right here right now] I am by mouth [al peey] cutting a covenant with you and with Israel.

And he was there with Hashem forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and he drank no water. And he wrote down the words of the covenant, the Ten Words

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it.

[Deuteronomy13:1]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

And whoever forces time, time forces him; but whoever yields to time, time will halt for him.

[Bavli commentary on tractate Erubin; page 13b-ii of the Art Scroll translation]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.

R. Ishmael says: "Why is this law stated in three places? To correspond to the three covenants which the Holy One Blessed be He made with Israel. One at Horeb [Exodus 24:7–8] ; one on the Plains of Moab [Deuteronomy 29:11]; and one on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal [Deuteronomy 28:69].

[Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael. Lauterbach, 1935, vol. iii; pages 187–188. The Biblical references are by Lauterbach.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

The tanna from the school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: "Write thou these words [Exodus 34:27]. These [eilah] you write. But you may not write halakhot."

[Bavli commentary on tractate Temurah; 14b-i—14b-ii. Art Scroll. From the context it is quite clear that halakhot refers to Oral Law traditions.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Moses could see that the people were getting out of control ((Aaron had done nothing to check the people)). They were mocking the one who would try to oppose them. Then Moses stood up at the gate of the camp and cried out: "Who is on the side of

Hashem! Let him stand with me!" And all the sons of Levi [Moses’ own tribe] ral

lied to him. And he spoke these words to them:

Thus says Hashem, God of Israel:

Each one of you! Carry your sword by your thigh and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp. Each one of you!: kill your brother, your neighbor and your kinfolk!

And the sons of Levi did according to the word/command of Moses; and about three thousand of the people were killed that day.

[Exodus 32:25–28. Translation of verse twenty-five inspired by the Fox translation. Emphases are mine.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Joshua of Nun, a young man, would not stir out of the Tent.

[Exodus 33:11; emphasis mine]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

I shall favor/grace whomsoever I shall favor/grace and I shall bestow mercy on whomsoever I bestow mercy.

[Exodus 33:19]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Heenei! [the Biblical code for something of profound significance] There is Maqom beside Me. Stand upon the rock. And what will happen is this: as my kavod passes by I will put thee in a fissure of the rock and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see my back; but

my face shall not be seen.

[Exodus 33:21–22. Emphasis and interpolation is mine.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Moses desired urgently to learn what was the reward for the awaiting for the righteous

and why the wicked prosper.

[Genesis Rabbah 45–5; Soncino, page 523. Translation very slightly amended. Moses receives an inconclusive answer based on debatable prooftexting. In the next Rabbah entry, 45–6, this desire will be answered with referencing to a portion of Exodus 33:19]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

And now the famous verse (and its basically submissive accounting for by the Rabbis) which is really behind the quandary of Moses:

I will favor/grace whomsoever I shall favor/grace and I will bestow mercy upon whomsoever I will bestow mercy upon. [Exodus 3:19]

It is right here that the Rabbis offer a mashal-esque accounting which simply describes the gist of Hashem’s bold statement without really addressing the quandary:

It was then that God showed him [Moses] all the treasures in which the rewards of the righteous are stored away. Moses asked: To whom does all this treasure belong? And He replied: To those who fulfill my commandants. and to whom does this treasure belong? To those who bring up orphans. So it was with every treasure. Later he [Moses] saw a huge treasure and inquired: Whose is this great treasure? The Divine response was: "Unto him that [has such things to his credit] I give of his reward, but unto him who does not have such, I have to supply freely and I help him from this great pile, as it says I WILL BE GRACIOUS TO WHOM I WILL BE GRACIOUS, namely unto him to whom I wish to be gracious. Similarly, AND I WILL SHOW MERCY ON WHOM I WILL SHOW MERCY.

[The Soncino translation slightly amended; 45–6. Pages 524–525.]

Qohelet, if not the Rabbis, would probably be happy with this mashal-esque avoidance of the obvious question. Qohelet’s idiosyncratic kind of piety no

longer looks for theodicy-oriented accounts of the whys and wherefores of God characteristic of much ((but certainly not all of)) of the Book of Job. Should we?

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Exodus Rabbah, 47–5 asks with reference to Exodus 34:28:

Is it then possible for any man to be forty days without food or drink?

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

no man knows his burial place till this day

Deuteronomy 34:6]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Deuteronomy [at 30:19 emphasis mine] commands us:

… accordingly, CHOOSE LIFE! that you and your seed may live

In the text death gets associated with a curse and life gets associated with a blessing. And such may very well be the objective situation. But consider: human life as we know it is a constant dis-ease and, as well can be construed as a sexually transmitted disease which is always fatal. The venom from the serpent is now endemic and is as much as part of our human nature as, say, mind or reason. There may or may not be another mode of life. But the only form of life which we know to exist is one wherein when it is chosen, death is chosen as well. It’s all very curious. Miasmatic is exactly the appropriate word.

And truth? You will not find it in the noon-day sun. Nor in the darkest pit of a moonless night. You will find it in the saccharine sweetness of thick miasma.

[Reb Anonymous; from his posthumous writings]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

That man is a fool who is smug and self-satisfied while making his home in a house with slanting walls. He is a greater fool who thinks that the house could ever be with

out slanting walls.

[Reb Anonymous; from his posthumous wittings]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

We are such stuff as dreams are made of

[Tempest.]

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

But it’s much too late for goodbyes;

Yes it’s much too late for goodbyes

[Julian Lennon. Taken from: Too Late for Goodbyes.]

RABBI MEIR AND DEATH  

Rabbi Meir and Genesis 1:31

So God reviewed all that He had done, and—can you believe it???!!! [v-heenei???!!!]—even death was good.

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

In the copy of R. Meir’s Torah was found written: And behold it was very good as: And, behold, death was good. R. Samuel b. Nachman said: I was seated on my grandfather’s shoulder going up from my own town to Kefar Hana via Beth Shean, and I heard R. Simon b. Eleazer as he sat and lectured say in R. Meir’s name: ‘And, behold, it was very good as: And, behold, death was good.

[Genesis Rabbah; 9:5. Soncino, page 66. Translation very slightly modified.]

In endnote # 1 the Soncino editors offer the suggestion that either this was in Rabbi Meir’s own actual text of the Torah or that it was a marginal notation inscribed in the margin.

a). Several years ago I subscribed to the notion that the marginal-notation interpretation was the correct interpretation of this Genesis Rabbah passage. After all—as Rabbi Meir’s own experience with his two young sons and (arguably even more searing given the circumstances) the presumed suicide of his wife all indicate—Rabbi Meir must have done much meditative reflection on death. And thus the possibility of such a marginal gloss on Genesis 1:31. Of course I take it for granted that Rabbi Meir did some very personal and serious reflective meditation on death irrespective of what is being referred to in the first paragraph of Genesis Rabbah 9:5.

b). These days I am much more inclined to suggest that Rabbi Meir’s own copy of the Torah did in fact say death [mem-vav-tav] rather than very [mem-alef-dahlet]. Indeed, the natural reading of what Genesis Rabbah is saying is to the effect that Rabbi Meir’s own Torah had death/mem-vav-tav rather than very/mem-alef-dahlet. And I am likewise inclined to believe that Rabbi Meir’s own copy of the Torah was accurate.

Recall the portrayal of the relatively young Meir in the Bavli Gemara’s commentary on tractate Erubin of the Mishna. [13a-i—13a-iii of the Art Scroll’s translation]. There, while living with Rabbi Ishmael and being mentored by him, Meir is portrayed as having the métier of a Scribe and as being extremely scrupulous about transcribing accurately the words and letters of the Torah.

c). It would be a redactional stroke of genius to have the first creation narrative come to its