Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week.
How goodly are
your tents, o Jacob,
Your dwellings, o Israel!
(Bemidbar 24:4)
How goodly are your tents, O
Jacob - Two tents of Jacob's
multitude. These are tents of men and tents of women.
Your dwelling, O Israel - 'Dwelling' is the gathering of the people's
leadership which exits in two forms; the assembly of those appointed to deal
with public needs in worldly matters, and the gathering of the great scholars
of Israel to deal with matters of [religious] instruction and message, and this
is "your dwellings O Israel". And he said "How goodly", a
term of high praise; God exhibited the highest possible praise for each body as
is further detailed.
(Haamek Davar,
ibid., ibid.)
How goodly are your tents O
Jacob etc. This refers to
the Tents of Appointment in the desert and in Shilo
and in Nov and in Giv'on; your dwellings O Israel -
do not read 'mishknotecha'
- 'your dwellings', but rather - 'mashknotecha',
'your collateral'…
[The author of this midrash notes that, lacking
niqqud - the diacritical marks which indicate vowels -
the Hebrew 'mishknotecha' may also
be read 'mashknotecha'. Thus the
author has God promise (through Balaam) that His dwellings (the Tabernacles and
(Bemidbar Rabba 12:14)
Two donkeys - one
male and one female
Leah Shakdiel
Said Rav Zeira in the name of Rabba bar Zimona: If the ancients
were angels - we are but human beings, and if the ancients were human beings - we
are like donkeys. And not like the donkey of Rabbi Chanina
ben Dosa or of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair,
but like other donkeys. (Bavli, Shabbat 112b)
The
above presents the famous paradigm of "weakening of the generations" by
constructing the hierarchy which positions human beings between angels and
asses. The Talmud remarks incidentally that there were once extraordinary donkeys,
but these are not those referred to by R' Zeira. Rashi refers us to the stories of these two donkeys. First
we meet the donkey of R' Chanina, or, as in variant
readings - R' Yossi of Yokerat:
He
owned a donkey that, when hired for a full day, would be sent home with his
wages on his back. If they would add or detract [from the
wages], she would not appear on the morrow. One day, they forgot a pair
of sandals on her. She refused to leave until they removed them, and then she
departed. (Taanit, 24b)
In
the beginning of the story, the verb form establishes that the donkey is male [hamor] . Immediately after,
it becomes - grammatically - a female [hamorah].
Is this happenstance? A minor phenomenon of Hebrew and/or
Aramaic of the Talmudic period? Let us examine the sources pertaining to
the second donkey, that of R' Pinchas ben Yair. We know of two such
stories - Rashi refers us to the Bavli
version with which he was acquainted, but the version in the Yerushalmi seems closer to the context of the above-quoted
excerpt from Tractate Shabbat:
R' Abba
bar Zvina said in the name of R' Zeira:
If the ancients were angels, we are but humans, and if they were humans, we are
asses. Said R' Mana: At that time, they said: We are
not even comparable to the donkey of R' Pinchas ben Yair. The donkey of R' Pinchas ben Yair
was stolen by robbers. It was hidden for three days during which she ate
nothing. After three days, they had a change of heart, and returned her to her
owner, saying, Let us send her to her owner, lest she die here and stink up the
cave. They released her, she stood at the entrance to
her owners property and began to bray. He said to them [to his workers]: Open
up for this wretched being [aluvah] who has
not eaten for three days. They opened for her and she entered. He said to them:
Give her something to eat. They gave her barley, but she did not want to eat. They
said to him: Master! She does not want to eat! He said to them: Has the barley
been properly tithed? They replied: Yes! He said to them: Have you also set
aside demaii [produce regarding which there is
doubt as to it having been tithed]? They replied: Did not our master [you] teach
us that "one who takes grain for an animal [...] is exempt from tithing demaii"? He said to them: What shall do for
this aluvah, who accepts upon herself many stringencies... They tithed the demaii,
and she ate. (Yerushalmi Demaii 1;3)
From
the outset it is clear that this exceptional donkey, of a higher spiritual
plane than humans such as ourselves, is female. Now
let us read the story in a different context, as it appears in the Bavli:
Surely
if the Holy One, Blessed Be He, would not permit the beast of the righteous to sin in error, how much less the righteous
themselves!... What was the incident involving the beast of the righteous? Once,
R. Phinehas b. Jair was on
his way to redeem captives, and came to the river Ginnai.
'O Ginnai'
, he said to her, 'divide thy
waters for me, that I may pass through thee'. It replied. 'Thou
art about to do the will of they Maker; I, too, am doing the will of my Maker.
Thou mayest or mayest not accomplish thy purpose; I am sure of
accomplishing mine'. He said: 'If thou wilt not divide thyself, I will decree
that no waters ever pass through thee'. It, thereupon, divided itself for him. There was also present a certain
man who was carrying wheat for the Passover, and so R. Phinehas
once against addressed the river; 'Divide thyself for this man, too, for he is
engaged in a religious duty'. It, thereupon, divided itself for him too. There
was also an Arab who had joined them [on the journey], and so R. Phinehas once again addressed the river, 'Divide thyself
for this one, too, that he may not say, "Is this the treatment of a fellow
traveler?"' It, thereupon, divided itself for him, too.
R. Josef
exclaimed: How great is this man! Greater than Moses and the sixty myriads of
R. Phinehas happened to come to certain inn. They placed
barley before his ass, but it would not eat. It was sifted, but the ass would
not eat it. It was carefully picked; still the ass would not eat it. 'Perhaps',
suggested R. Phinehas, 'it is not tithed"? It was at once tithed, and
the ass ate it. He, thereupon, exclaimed, 'This poor creature is about to do
the will of the Creator, and you would feed it with untithed
produce'!
In
this story, the Talmud Balvi tries to prove that this
exceptional beast is not on the level of super-human humans who resemble angels,
but she does belong to a sage of the "righteous and doers of good deeds"
type, one has the ability to perform miracles like the prophets: We must
remember that Chazal identify the Biblical Pinchas - the zealot who repairs that which Balaam did to
Israel - with Elijah, the "disciple" who competes with the "Master"
and takes into his own hands the keys to rain and also the keys to the
resurrection of the dead... but here I wish to focus on the elements common to
all the stories which I have brought: Here too, the wider context is the
discussion of the question of the difference between man and beast (ibid, 5a-b): Who are the humans who resemble beasts? And
is every comparison of man to animal necessarily to our denigration? And I say:
In all these sources, of all animals, focus is particularly upon the donkey, and
the incidental switch, as it were, from the male donkey to the female, is not
coincidental.
Of
all cultured beasts that served man in the ancient east and were an inseparable
part of his household and daily life, the donkey held a special place in the
Bible, and much has been written about it: Its name in Semitic languages, derived
from the word "chomer" [clay,
material] places it in obvious contrast to Man who was created in His image, and
raises the question about the difference between Man who realizes his divine
mission in the world, and Man who remains on the level of "a living being"
alone, like all the beasts.
Perusal
of our sources reveals, on the one hand, the attribution of this difference as essentially
one between Jews and Canaanite idolaters; on the other hand there is a
willingness to technically condemn Jews who descend not only to the
level of idolaters but also behave bestially, just as the donkey. A different
aspect of the donkey is the place assigned it alongside the ox in the Sabbath-observant
Jewish family, that household which is also careful not to pain living
creatures - but, being an unclean animal, he is both similar to the ox but also
different from it: in contrast to the ox, which is ritually clean, the donkey
may not serve as a sacrifice or as food. In this sense he is similar to Man, whose
firstborn is not sacrificed but is redeemed (Massechet Bechorot, Chap. 1). This synopsis sheds light also on the hierarchy prevalent in our
sources: angel, Man, chamor [donkey]-who-is-but-chomer [material, clay].
Between
angel and Man, however, there exists another category, that of the chamor hamachmir al atzmo [the donkey who accepts upon himself halachic stringencies], who resembles the angel-like tzaddik. In my opinion, it is not
happenstance that particularly in stories of this category the male donkey is 'becomes'
a female, just as the famous comparison of Avraham
and Balaam is based not solely on the gap between Avraham
the Tzaddik and Balaam the Wicked, but also on the
plain meaning of the texts which describe Avraham
together with his male donkey as against Balaam with his female donkey. Chazal are careful to note that the recommended human
position, that of humility before the greatness of the ancients, is also the position
of humility before these unique female donkeys. Balaam's (female) donkey, who sees
the angel and fulfills a divine mission of changing her master's action in the
world, also speaks words of moral reproach to her master. Balaam is forced to
learn his mission though her in particular, and she is female.
It
would seem to me that that which was created extraordinarily on Sabbath Eve at
twilight (Aboth 5:8) that
is to say, together with Man, is specifically the mouth of the aton [female donkey], not of the male, serves
as an especially emphatic message for the nomadic patriarchal or agricultural
society. T.H. Lawrence, the British leader of the Arab uprising against the
Turks during the First World War, notes in his autobiography "the Seven
Pillars of Wisdom" that the only females to play any role in the Arab
uprising were the female camels upon which the warriors rode. This was because,
in contrast to the male beast, they were easy to train. A man
who lives in such a society, lives in close proximity to many female animals, much
more than to the males of the species. It is upon the female, in particular, that
he realizes his masterhood, his ownership, and thus
the frequency of intimate relations with the household animals of said
societies; the latter is indeed a practice quite foreign to the spirit our
modern society in which agriculture is totally mechanized and is no longer a "household"
function (which included shared living quarters). It is difficult for us to
comprehend the background to the Talmudic midrashim
which explain the Biblical dialogue between Balaam and the aton
as a dialogue between a wife-beating husband and she who satisfies his sexual
needs. It is difficult for us to grasp how the Sages explained the creation of
woman (Bereishit
2) as two stages of an attempt
to free Man of his solitude - in the first stage he assigns names to the
animals through intercourse with them, but success comes only in the second
stage, when he gives woman a name, because only she is bone of his bone and
flesh of his flesh, that is to say, only her does he 'know'. It is difficult
for us to understand a society in which a freeman has mastery over humans who
are subservient to him, differentiating between male servant and female slave, between
Hebrew and Canaanite. The Hebrew slave is Jewish in every respect, the Hebrew
maidservant is intended for marriage into the master's family, the Canaanite male slave is converted to Judaism by his
master, whereas the Canaanite maidservant is like a beast given by the owner to
his servant for propagation of new slaves for himself... It is painful to learn
that in one of the prayer books from the Medieval period, the daily male
blessing "for not having made me a woman" was paralleled by the Jewish
woman reciting - including Name and Kingdom-- "for not having made me a beheima - a beast"...
Against
this background of beastly patriarchal hierarchies, the Torah employs the aton, and
subsequently the sages employed the term chamora,
in order to teach us to decry such norms. The chamora
in the story is "aluvah" [wretched],
a realistic reflection of the attitude of the male master towards the female, who
should be protected - in the best case - in a paternalistic manner (a reminder:
this description is commonly applied to unfortunate women such as poor widows).
But this particular "aluvah" is
on a plane higher than we, teaching us Derech
Eretz - proper ethical behavior - and also how to
walk humbly with our God.
Leah Shakdiel is an educator and social activist in Yerocham.
And Balaam rose in the morning
and saddled his she-donkey (Bamidbar 22): We learn in the name of R. Shimon ben Elazar: Love revokes the customs of high status. [one
learns this] from Abraham, for it is written And Abraham arose early in the morning [and he saddled his donkey] (Bereishit 22:3). Hate [also] revokes the customs of high status, for it is
said: And Balaam rose in the morning
and saddled his she-donkey.
Rav Yehudah said that Rav said: A person should always
occupy himself with Torah and the commandments, even if not for their own sakes,
since Balaam gained merit and Ruth was his descendent as reward for the forty
two offerings that he sacrificed.
Rabbi Yosi bar Huna said: Ruth was Eglon's daughter, who was the grandson of Balak, king of
(Sanhedrin 105b)
For there is
no enchantment with Jacob, neither is there any divination with Israel
These practices are
all false and deceptive and were means employed by the ancient idolaters to
deceive the peoples of various countries and induce them to become their
followers. It is not proper for Israelites who are highly intelligent to suffer
themselves to be deluded by such inanities or imagine that there is anything in
them, as it is said, For there is no enchantment with
Jacob, neither is there any divination with Israel (Bamidbar 23:23).
(Rambam, Hilkhot
Avodat Kokhavim 11: 16, Hyamson translation)
Never again
did there arise in
(Sifrei Ve-Zot Ha- Brakha 357)
The bestowal of the
gift of prophecy on all human creatures was designed to impress upon the world
that the choice of
(Prof. E. E. Urbach, "Midrashot HaZaL al Nivi'ei Umot ha-Olam ve-al Parashat Bilaam" passage translated by Aryeh
Newman)
Yoel Yosef
Fine, z"l
On the fourteenth anniversary of Yoel's death
we will meet for an evening of
study in his memory
on Tuesday the 27th of Tammuz 5772 (17.7.12) at 19:45
Mincha service at 19:30.
The lecture in his memory will be
delivered
Mrs. Gilla
Rosen
on the topic:
Repairing a Flawed World -
A Chazal Perspective
Ma'ariv will follow the lecture.
Miriam, Jonathan, Devorah, Naomi, and Ephraim Fine
The evening will take place in the
synagogue of Kehillat Yedidya
12 Rechov
Lipschitz (at the end of Rehov
Gad, in the Baka neighborhood),
To all our readers and
supporters:
We need your support in order that the voice of a religious Zionism committed to peace and justice will continue to be heard through the uninterrupted distribution of Shabbat Shalom in hundreds of synagogues, on the Internet and via email in both Hebrew and English.
Donations in
For a
If you wish to subscribe
to the email English editions of Shabbat Shalom, to print copies of it for
distribution in your synagogue, to inquire regarding the dedication of an
edition in someone's honor or memory, to find out how to make tax-exempt donations,
or to suggest additional helpful ideas, please call
Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc. Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in advance to appear in the English email.
About us
Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement
dedicated to the advancement of a civil society in
Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep
attachment to the
4,500 copies of a 4-page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah
reading are written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot
Shalom and they are distributed to over 350 synagogues in
Shabbat Shalom is available on our website: www.netivot-shalom.org.il
For responses and arranging to write for Shabbat Shalom: