47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page i To rah through Time 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page ii Dedicated l’dor v’dor in honor of our parents, Harvey and Judy Zalesne and Sherwin and Jackie Siff, who taught us the richness of Torah; and our children, Matthew David, Adina Claire, and the one on the way, to whom we hope to teach the same. Kinney Zalesne and Scott Siff 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/16/07 2:23 PM Page iii To rah through Time Understanding Bible Commentary from the Rabbinic Period to Modern Times Shai Cherry The Jewish Publication Society 2007• 5768 Philadelphia 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page iv JPS is a nonprofit educational association and the oldest and foremost publisher of Judaica in English in North America. The mission of JPS is to enhance Jewish culture by promoting the dissemination of religious and secular works, in the United States and abroad, to all individuals and institutions interested in past and contemporary Jewish life. Copyright © 2007 by Shai Cherry First edition. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, except for brief passages in connection with a critical review, without permission in writing from the publisher: The Jewish Publication Society 2100 Arch Street, 2nd floor Philadelphia, PA 19103 Design and Composition by Progressive Information Technologies Manufactured in the United States of America 0708091011 10987654321 ISBN 13: 978-0-8276-0848-1 ISBN 10: 0-8276-0848-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cherry, Shai. Torah through time : understanding Bible commentary from the rabbinic period to modern times / Shai Cherry. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8276-0848-1 (alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T.—Hermeneutics. 2. Bible. O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. BS476.C477 2007 221.601—dc22 2007017299 JPS books are available at discounts for bulk purchases for reading groups, special sales, and fundraising purchases. Custom editions, including personalized covers, can be created in larger quantities for special needs. For more information, please contact us at [email protected] or at this address: 2100 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page v To Rivka Nomi, my darshanit 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page vi No One Drashes Her [Torah] Like Israel —“Ein Adir Kadonai,” traditional Shabbat and Shavuot song 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/10/07 10:32 AM Page vii CONTENTS Foreword by Marc Zvi Brettler ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. No Word Unturned 7 2. The Creation of Humanity 40 3. The Sons of Adam and Eve 72 4. The Hebrew Slave 101 5. Korah and His Gang 132 6. The Daughters of Zelophehad 161 Epilogue 189 Glossary of Terms 192 Glossary of Texts and Commentators 196 Bibliography 202 Index 215 vii 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page viii 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/7/07 1:38 PM Page ix FOREWORD To most people, the Hebrew Bible is an impenetrable book. It was written during a thousand-year period, and reflected a wide variety of internal and external political and intellectual currents. Even more difficult yet is Jewish interpretation of the Bible, which has been written for over two millennia in an even wider set of political and intellectual currents. To add to the problem, the language in which such interpretation comes down to us can be harder than biblical Hebrew, and much of this literature, such as that written in medieval times, is not yet available in translation. Consequently, most people do not have access to the rich legacy of this interpretive tradition. The Bible is the most important of Jewish books, and much of Jewish cre- ativity is presented as an interpretation of the Bible. This is not only true for the rich and variegated midrashic literature, and of the tradition of medieval commentators like Rashi, but of mystical tracts such as the Zohar, of many medieval Jewish philosophical works, and of modern feminist interpretation. Therefore, understanding the world of Jewish interpretation is an ideal way of gaining insight into the changes that Judaism has undergone through the ages. Dr. Shai Cherry, an experienced and excellent educator, opens up this rich legacy in Torah Through Time: Understanding Bible Commentary from the Rabbinic Period to Modern Times. He does this by choosing biblical episodes that raise especially important issues. The texts he explores include: the creation of humanity in Genesis 1, which raises questions about the role of humans, God, and the earth; the enigmatic Cain and Abel story, which deals with brotherly conflict and the origins of murder; the slavery law in Exodus, which raises significant issues concerning the Bible and morality; the Korah rebellion in Numbers, which highlights the problem of authority; and the episode concern- ing the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad, which raises the topic of the status of women in Judaism. As a whole, these chapters develop themes that are of concern to contemporary readers, and emphasize a key thesis of this ix 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/14/07 8:42 AM Page x x FOREWORD book, namely that for Jewish commentators, the Bible, through proper inter- pretation, must speak to the crucial issues of the day. The scope of this book is extensive. For Cherry, Jewish biblical interpreta- tion stretches from the early post-biblical period, including writers such as Philo of Alexandria (1st century C.E.) through contemporary writers who are reflecting on the Bible today. Allegorists, rationalists, philologists, philoso- phers, mystics, and feminists are all represented. Moreover, rather than siding with either the intellectual school that sees everything Jewish as reflecting internal Jewish development, or the school that sees everything Jewish as influenced by the outside Greek, Roman, Christian, or Moslem external worlds, Cherry shows how ever-changing biblical interpretation is the result of both internal and external developments. This is an important corrective to many previous surveys. Cherry’s skill as an educator shines throughout this volume. His transla- tions, explanations, and contextualizations of commentaries are lucid and engaging. He offers clear charts that concisely illustrate the diversity of inter- pretive positions on particular texts and issues. He cites extensive suggestions for further reading. The back matter includes useful indices and a glossary. By making this rich tradition accessible, this book as a whole should play a signif- icant role in the renaissance of Jewish learning that is now taking place. Marc Z. Brettler, Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I began teaching a course on Jewish biblical interpretation at Vanderbilt University in 2001, I was met with a series of surprises. The first was the lack of available texts tracing Jewish commentary on biblical narrative and law from the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, roughly two thousand years ago, until today. Even the small group of texts that did exist (in English) tended not to approach the subject in a manner appropriate for a university setting. At that point, I began to gather a wide variety of individual commentaries and com- piled a reading packet for my students. My next surprise came in the form of sticker shock. Upon recovery, Torah Through Time was conceived. My students at Vanderbilt consisted primarily of Protestants with a tendency toward what they considered to be biblical literalism. These students believed that the King James translation of the Hebrew Bible somehow inter- preted itself in a way that the meaning was unequivocal and transparent. That was my biggest surprise. For the previous 10 years, I had shuttled back and forth between Brandeis University, outside of Boston, and Jerusalem as I pursued my doctorate in Jewish thought and theology. During that period, I bumped into relatively few Southern Baptists. I was introduced to Jewish biblical interpretation while studying at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in the early 1990s. My teachers, Walter Herzberg, Judy Klitsner, and Baruch Feldstern, presented the world of Torah commentary not as the literary analysis of a static text, but as the unfolding of Jewish thought through the matrix of the Torah. They taught using an approach that contemporary literary theorists call indeterminacy—that is, incorporating multiple interpretations without attempting to determine the “true” meaning. Indeed, the very existence of mutually exclusive and plausible interpretations points to the impossibility of determining one true inter- pretation. The faculty at Pardes disabused me of the naïve notion that any translation can be “objective.” All translators are constantly choosing among a field of options. Their choices, their interpretations, seal off large swaths of that xi 47830_FM_pi-xiv.qxd 8/6/07 11:40 AM Page xii xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS original field—in this case, from the ancient Hebrew—while opening up new territory with previously unforeseen interpretive possibilities. Did Abraham take a knife or a hatchet to his son Isaac (Gen. 22:10)? Did Moses’ mother think the infant was beautiful or good natured (Ex. 2:2)? Did Moses’ siblings complain because Moses married a Cushite woman or on behalf of the Cushite woman he had married (Num. 12:1)? All translations are interpretations. While at Brandeis, I studied with Arthur Green, whose approach to the study of Jewish texts greatly influenced my own. In many ways, I structured my course at Vanderbilt on Professor Green’s course on midrash: after closely reading the biblical text, we would then delve into the history of commentary to understand how the issues of concern for the commentators changed over time.