Parshat V'zot Ha-B'rachah: 5776/2015 thoughts
You can read the basics here.
Hmm, whatever happened to Shim'on (Shimon, Simeon, Simon)? I noticed that the tribe of Shim'on got no blessing from Moshe (Moses) before he died. Was the tribe of Shim'on already so small at the time of Moshe's death (or, alternatively, from a non-traditional perspective, at the time when the blessings were actually written) that they were just plain forgotten?
Hmm, whatever happened to Shim'on (Shimon, Simeon, Simon)? I noticed that the tribe of Shim'on got no blessing from Moshe (Moses) before he died. Was the tribe of Shim'on already so small at the time of Moshe's death (or, alternatively, from a non-traditional perspective, at the time when the blessings were actually written) that they were just plain forgotten?
| [Stubborn post refuses to reformat back to normal margins--sorry.] I've heard that the rabbis of old interpreted this to mean that Z'vulun was a tribe of seafaring merchants that supported the tribe of Yissachar the scholars. How the word "tents" came to be interpreted by the rabbis as "yeshivot" (schools for the study of Jewish sacred texts) is beyond my understanding, but that seems to be the case, from what I've heard and/or read. Be that as it may, this Yissachar-Z'vulun "partnership" seems to be a basis for the kollel, a type of yeshiva in which Torah scholars are relieved of the responsibility of working for a living and are supported financially by the rest of the Jewish community. Then, of course, there's the fun that the rabbis had with D'varim/Deuteronomy, 34: 5-12, which couldn't have been dictated by HaShem and written down by Moshe because Moshe had just died. I've heard that these verses are said to have been written down by Y'hoshua (Joshua). At least the text says nice things about the recently departed. Moed Tov, Moadim l'Simchah! I wish you great simchah (joy) on Sh'mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah. To help you remain pleasant enough to be around, after all that dancing on Erev Simchat Torah :), I'm linking to some rabbinic opinions regarding taking a shower on a Yom Tov (major holiday). The short version: a hot-water shower (some say with liquid soap only) and shampoo is permission (if you accept these opinions), but pat your hair dry instead of drying vigorously with the towel. |
posted by Shira Salamone at 11:31 AM
5 Comments:
Hmm, whatever happened to Shim'on (Shimon, Simeon, Simon)? I noticed that the tribe of Shim'on got no blessing from Moshe (Moses) before he died.
I have a theory on this.
1. In the episode of the rape of Dinah, Shimon and Levi killed all the males in Shechem.
2. Jacob disinherits both in his blessing.
3. After the incident of the Golden Calf it is the Levites who rally to Moses
4. In Numbers God reverses Jacob's disinheritance of the Levites by claiming them in place of firstborns from among the other lands.
5. In Parshat Balak it is a Shimonite who has sex with the moabitess and a Levite who skewers them. Given that tribal affiliation is a kind of Destiny and a manifestation of the tribe's patriarch, this implies the Levi was sincere in the concern about Dinah's honor when he killed the Shechemites, but that Shimon was not.
6. And so at V'zot haBrachah we find that Jacob's disinheritance of the wantonly violent Shim'on stands, even as the disciplined violence of Levi is drawn near to God.
As for the transformation of tents to Yeshivot, look at Rashi on Gen 25:27. Jacob was a sitter in tents - ישב אולים these tents, where Jacob sat, were the schools of Shem and Ever. And what do we call a place in which one sits (יושב) - a ישיבה - yeshiva, of course.
That said, I think the kollel model is bad for Jews, Judaism, and Torah because people who are removed from being-in-the-world should not be trying to apply law to people who have to make their way in the world.
Richardf8, I've never been comfortable with the Torah's portrayal of the Levi tribe being rewarded for violence. In fact, some years ago, a commenter here even suggested that the Leviim became the priestly tribe because the other tribes knew how violent they were and were afraid to mess with them. As for that fellow (Zimri ben Salu) who made it a point to publicize the fact that he was fooling around with a pagan priestess (Cozbi bat Tzur), he should have been brought to trial, not killed by a vigilante.
As for the yeshiva (yeshivot?) of Shem and Ezer, I've always found that midrash/those midrashim highly unlikely. Shem, as a son of Noach, would have been long dead by the time anyone said to have studied at his alleged yeshiva was even born, and I don't think his grandson Ever would still have been alive, either. There is also the major detail that since the Torah had not yet been given, what would have been taught at that alleged yeshiva/those alleged yeshivot is a darned good question. And don't get me started on the tradition that there's no chronology in the Torah (ein mukdam v'ein m'uchar ba-Torah--there's no early and late in the Torah). As I've written previously, the rabbis shot themselves in the collective foot with that idea. Why should anyone care what Avraham Avinu (Abraham our Father) fed the angels? Since the laws of kashrut hadn't been given yet, there's no logical reason to assume that Avraham even *knew* them, much less observed them.
I do agree with you that ivory-tower kollel scholars shouldn't be making halachic rulings for the average Jew who works for a living.
By the way, my husband tells me, based what he's read, that by the time V'zot haBrachah was committed to writing, the tribe of Shim'on was so small that it had merged with the tribe of Yehudah (Judah). I much prefer explanations based on history to explanations based on midrash.
While I appreciate your preference for historical explanations, I don't think having them removes from us the obligation of making sense of the narrative we have before us. I tend to assume that the Torah, as we have it, is a crafted document, and as such there is a narrative logic to it that must be teased out.
Your point about Pinchas' vigilanteism is well taken; midrashic sources show a great deal of discomfort with it as well, see BT Sanh. 82a.
One of the reasons that we cannot ignore rabbinic sources is that they are a part of our cultural heritage. ChaZal's struggle to reconcile Pinchas' extralegal behavior with the divine reward he receives lets us know that we are not the first to be so troubled.
I think that there are forces at work in the world today that are demonstrating very clearly that if good people refrain from violence, then bad people get a monopoly on it and can wreak horrors. I would submit to you that the violence of Levi was for the sake of recovering Dinah and punishing the enablers of her captors, while the violence of Shimon was for the sake of the booty, in every sense of that word.
This I think is why we do not have Shimon in v'zot hab'rachah. This does not contradict the Punster's explanation in any way. The diminution of the tribe is, I might suggest, how that distinction operated in history.
Violence exerted by good people does not make those people bad; just able to protect themselves from bad people.
I've also written on Pinchas here.
Richardf8 (aka Reform BT), thanks for the link. Nice post. And nu, more posts on your own blog, please?
"One of the reasons that we cannot ignore rabbinic sources is that they are a part of our cultural heritage."
A good point, and one that I sometimes fail to take into account.
"ChaZal's struggle to reconcile Pinchas' extralegal behavior with the divine reward he receives lets us know that we are not the first to be so troubled."
Indeed, trying to justify Pinchas' violent act does seem to challenge ChaZal, which is certainly a good thing--it *shouldn't* be easy to justify violence.
"I think that there are forces at work in the world today that are demonstrating very clearly that if good people refrain from violence, then bad people get a monopoly on it and can wreak horrors."
Oy, politics. :( Whenever discussions regarding committing US military forces are raised, I feel awkward, since our own son, with his partial hearing loss and Crohn's Disease, is not likely to be drafted. That said, I wish our president would stop drawing lines in the sand if he doesn't intend to do anything when those lines are crossed.
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