V'dibarta Bam

11:32 AM

Reading the Bible without commentary is tricky but required. I kind of felt that the contrast in approaches might interest ye. (Not all Christian denominations are this divorced from history.)

Isaac Moses

2:10 PM

@TRiG Re: first link: It sounds like the author was taught to read not just without commentary, but also without analysis, i.e. reading with one's heart but not one's brain.

> Like, OK, I’ve just memorized this list of tribes, but why come it’s not the same as the lists of tribes we get in, like, Deuteronomy or Chronicles? And where are they getting all this gold and silver from? Didn’t they already use up all their gold making that calf-idol thing back in Exodus? And what about the flour — they’re eating manna and quail because they’re wandering, not planting crops?

These are all good questions that are worth analyzing the text to try to find answers for. We call this practice parshanut (par-sha-NOOT). In investigating and discovering answers, one may yet find that there is more inspiration hidden in the seemingly esoteric or boring parts than one thought.

I very much appreciate the commentary of R' Samson Raphael Hirsch because it performs exactly this service, persuasively (IMO) unlocking the elegant and rich symbolism in many sections of the Torah that are otherwise obscure. So I come to quote him a lot.

Re: second link: I have, unsurprisingly, experienced some of the problems described there when trying to do Nach Yomi and Project 929. I've never done Daf Yomi, the popular Talmud analog to those, but I understand that participants can suffer from similar problems, especially the continuity one.

I submit R' Hirsch's commentary as a solution to the Leviticus Problem. It's the shortest of the five books of the Torah, and he wrote more commentary on it than on any of the other four.

I like the idea of, at least for the sake of initial familiarity, reading through a book of the Bible as a book, at a self-directed, natural pace. I think I may try this on one of the later books of the Prophets that I have unfortunately yet to read. Consistent with my tradition, I'd do it with classic commentaries on hand.

TRiG

3:03 PM

> one may yet find that there is more inspiration hidden in the seemingly esoteric or boring parts than one thought

Or one may read that stuff in. Biblical fanfic?

Isaac Moses

@TRiG Whether and to what degree interpretations come from the text itself, tradition, or one's own imagination will certainly vary, depending on the section, the interpretation, the commentary, the reader, etc. There are differing opinions within Jewish tradition about how to view Midrash and about the interplay between tradition and individual creativity in interpretation.

@TRiG There are significant functional similarities between Midrash and, lehavdil, fanfic.

10

Q: Belief in midrashim

The ramban in sefer havikuach asserts with regard to medrash " mi shemaamin bo tov, mi shelo maamin bo lo yazik" whoever believes in it, good, he who does not believe it, will not be harmed. Are medrashim really optional??

^^ "differing opinions" mentioned above.

More:

19

Q: does one have to take a Midrash/Aggadah literally?

Does one have to take a Midrash/Aggadah literally?

parshanut-torah-comment hashkafah-philosophy talmud-gemara midrash literalism

Monica Cellio

3:49 PM

@IsaacMoses this conversation reminds me of this little bit of fiction I wrote many years ago.

Isaac Moses

4:24 PM

@MonicaCellio Nice. Interesting way to puzzle out an individual's motivations, by "experimenting" with a particular hypothesis through writing. Note that although making them related is your invention, there's a Midrashic account in the Talmud that B and Y did indeed know each other.

Monica Cellio

4:38 PM

@IsaacMoses thanks for the link -- thought-provoking post there. Now that you mention it, I've seen that passage in Sotah, though hadn't back when I wrote that story.

Isaac Moses

@MonicaCellio FTR, I haven't read the thing I linked to; just did so to refer to the Sotah story mentioned at the top. Now that you've endorsed the whole post, I guess I'll read it.

Monica Cellio

@IsaacMoses I didn't read the part about the haftarah, just FYI.

Isaac Moses

6:55 PM

We have zionism and I see now israel-defense-forces, but no state-of-israel. Questions that are actually about the State of Israel frequently are tagged eretz-yisrael even if they have nothing to do with the Land, per se. This strikes me as silly.

Meta-Man

7:24 PM

0

Q: Should we have a state-of-israel tag?

We have zionism and I see now israel-defense-forces, but no state-of-israel. Questions that are actually about the State of Israel frequently are tagged eretz-yisrael even if they have nothing to do with the Land, per se. This strikes me as silly. Shouldn't we have a state-of-israel tag?

discussion specific-tag

Scimonster

8:48 PM

@MonicaCellio Nice writing. Didn't take me too long to identify what it was about, but i don't think the purpose was really hiding it.

Monica Cellio

@Scimonster also, you had the context of the discussion here. When I posted it on my blog it might have taken people a little longer. :-) (But no, I wasn't trying to conceal it or anything -- just trying not to state it up front, hence pronouns instead of names.)

Also, thanks.

Scimonster

Some Biblical fan-fiction i'd really like to see is a story that highlights the emotions Yaakov must have felt over the past couple parshiot. His favorite son Yosef disappearing without a trace, the famine and the brothers' descent to Egypt, how they returned without Shimon and with orders to bring Binyamin down, Reuvein and Yehuda's offers, and finally his reunion with Yosef.

Monica Cellio

Yes, that's a lot of emotional stress for one man. No wonder he seems somewhat bitter when he meets Paro.

Scimonster

I heard a dvar torah 4 years ago about how we seem to miss out on this aspect of the story, simply because we know what's coming. Internally we're cheering Yaakov on, it's going to get better soon, and not living in the moment with his pain. Bereshit 42:17 was mentioned -- יוֹסֵ֤ף אֵינֶ֙נּוּ֙ וְשִׁמְע֣וֹן אֵינֶ֔נּוּ וְאֶת־בִּנְיָמִ֣ן תִּקָּ֔חוּ עָלַ֖י הָי֥וּ כֻלָּֽנָה׃.

4 years ago, for anyone who doesn't remember, was right after the Sandy Hook massacre.

Monica Cellio

Yosef from his rise to power to his death would be interesting, too. First he's doing well, but after the famine ends we don't hear more about him and we know that we end up in slavery, which started during his lifetime. How did that all play out? What did that do to him and the rest of the family?

@Scimonster yes, good point.

Scimonster

8:59 PM

So, something that would help us identify with his troubles as with "any other book character", at the very least, perhaps disguised so that we don't realize we know what's coming.

Monica Cellio

Yeah. I would like to read that too, were somebody to write it.

msh210

9:18 PM

@MonicaCellio "which started during his lifetime"[citation needed]

Monica Cellio

@msh210 I'd have to reconstruct. Another member of my minyan did the math and showed me a chart he made once.

msh210

@IsaacMoses That page on "l'havdil" links to MY, btw.

Isaac Moses

@msh210 Ha!

msh210

@MonicaCellio Fair enough. A midrash says iirc that the slavery started at Miriam's birth, which was iirc 86 years before the redemption. (Others may differ.) If that's true then it started well after Yosef's death, since they were in Egypt 210 years and he lived to 110.

Monica Cellio

@msh210 how does that midrash explain the longer lengths for the slavery given in the torah?

Double AA

10:05 PM

For questions about the various rain/dew insertions/adaptations in prayer, is weather or water better (or calendar?), or should we make a new one like prayers-for-precipitation or even just precipitation?

Monica Cellio

Is tagging for their rain-ness/dew-ness important, or is calendar + tefila sufficient for such questions?

Isaac Moses

@DoubleAA what's wrong with however many of weather, water, and calendar there's room for, prioritized based on the particulars of the question?

Double AA

@MonicaCellio IMO it would be helpful, since they are all about a single topic and it's hard to search through them all (you can search "tal" or "geshem" "gashem" or "matar" or "umatar" or טל גשם מטר etc.).

@IsaacMoses That doesn't help much with searching (see above)

Isaac Moses

10:20 PM

@DoubleAA judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/weather+tefilla

msh210

@MonicaCellio What dates? Afaik all such dates are hard to explain no matter when you (reasonably) think the slavery began.

Double AA

@IsaacMoses And that's not all of them, which is exactly my point.

judaism.stackexchange.com/search?q=-%5Bweather%5D+tal+is%3Aq it's not even most of them.

msh210

@DoubleAA perhaps precipitation-prayers rather than prayers-for-precipitation, so as to include not only Barech alenu but also Ata gibor.

Monica Cellio

@msh210 God told Avraham (or maybe Avram, don't remember) that it would last 400 years, right? And somewhere else I think it says a smaller number (250)? I'm doing this from memory, obviously, but the numbers I've heard have all been three digits until now.

Double AA

@msh210 I definitely intended for Hazkara and Sheilah to be included in this tag

Isaac Moses

10:22 PM

@DoubleAA I suspect that there are many individual prayers or prayer variants or small texts for which we'd have this searchability problem. (Not saying that making them granular tags is the wrong approach, necessarily)

Double AA

@IsaacMoses Not that many. We have al-hanissim. We don't have a tag for yaaleh veyavo but I think searching 'veyavo' is pretty effective, and I wouldn't oppose such a tag. We have a tag for 10 days of repentance, and all the holidays. What other major variant classes are there?

Scimonster

@MonicaCellio 210

Double AA

@Scimonster and 430

msh210

@MonicaCellio 210. But that works out iinm to Jacob's descent until the exodus. Clearly that's not all enslavement.

Monica Cellio

@Scimonster @msh210 thanks for the correction.

@DoubleAA thanks to you too. (Missed it between my pings.)

msh210

10:27 PM

3

A: How long was the period of Oppression

Before I actually answer your question, I'd just like to make one note. Jochebed, our Sages tell us, was 130 years old when Moses was born (Numbers Rabbah 13:21). She was born as the Israelites crossed into Egypt. Her son, Moses, as you mentioned, was 80 when they left. Thus, the Israelites were ...

@msh210 @MonicaCellio ^

@DoubleAA I think a new one is in order. Not sure what to call it. I think dew-and-rain-prayers would more accessible than precipitation-prayers.

Shorter, too. :-)

Monica Cellio

10:55 PM

Oh, it seems I asked this before and this answer says the enslavement started after Levi died. Not much voting, though, so I don't know if that means there's an issue or it just flew under the radar.

1

A: How did Israel's slavery in Mitzrayim begin?

Seder Olam according to this translation states that Yoseph died at 110 in the year 2309. The translator also states that Levi (the last of the brothers to die) lived from 2194 - 2331 (year 95 in Mitzrayim). He dates the bondage from then. Note that given the 116 years mentioned in the quote belo...

Amazing what you find with Google sometimes. :-)

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