The Rooster Prince

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Once upon a time there was a king who had an only child. The child grew up adorable, brilliant, confident, dutiful, earnest and . . .  you can finish the acrostic yourself. But in the year before his bar mitzvah, the prince seemed increasingly sad and distracted. He began spending more and more time in the free-range chicken enclosure. One day he announced that he was actually a rooster. He took off his clothes, crowed at sunrise, and spent his days scrabbling for bugs in the dirt. The king offered extravagant rewards for a cure. Waves of therapists came and went to no avail.   

One day several years later, a modestly dressed scholar appeared in court and announced that he was there to cure the prince. After the appropriate consent forms and releases were signed, he took his clothes off, entered the chicken enclosure, and began scrabbling for bugs in the dirt.

The prince looked at him oddly: “What are you doing?” The scholar replied: “I’m a rooster, just like you.” They pecked and clucked companionably. After a few days, the scholar asked for two shirts to be thrown to him. When he put one on, the prince asked him: “What are you doing now? Chickens don’t wear clothes!” The scholar replied: “Why do you think a chicken can’t wear clothes? Of course we can!” So the prince put on the other shirt. And so it went, until the prince was completely cured.

I’ve taken the liberty of retelling Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav’s “The Rooster Prince” in my own words. All the kabbalistic allusions may be gone or distorted, but that’s fine – the narrative has power within our culture in purely psychological terms, and that’s the framework I want to work within.

Here’s the question I sent to several friends with deep Bratzlav ties:

At the end of the story, is the prince cured because he no longer believes that he’s a rooster? Because he’s discovered that there’s no reason one can’t be both a rooster and human? Or because it doesn’t matter that he thinks he’s a rooster so long as he behaves like a human?

Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger, Founding Director and Senior Scholar of The Witness Institute, replied as follows:

“It’s a good question and I’ve never heard a definitive answer. But I can share that one interpretation I’ve heard several times is that the rooster-delusion isn’t a generic illusion, but has to do specifically with the central question of despair. The prince thinks he’s a (turkey) [rooster], which means he believes he is defined by his lowest state, and is therefore unworthy of acting like a prince (doing mitzvot, grabbing whatever good he can). His identity gets in the way of his behavioral potential. In this reading the upshot of the story is something like: “Yes, it’s true, you’re filled with flaws, sins, etc.; but this should not stop you in the least from accomplishing what good you can”. In this reading, he still thinks he’s a rooster, but it doesn’t matter – what we think of ourselves shouldn’t limit our progress. Don’t let your lowest condition prevent your highest condition from coming to expression.”

As I understand this reading, roosters and humans are biologically/metaphysically the same. “Rooster” and “human” refer to different states of the same being. Identity is a psychological choice imposed on that reality – the prince can identify as either rooster or human but is actually sometimes one and sometimes the other. The prince’s problem is that he chooses to identify as a rooster and also believes that identity determines behavior. The sage’s solution changes only the second parameter – the prince’s identity no longer determines his behavior. He still identifies as a rooster but no longer believes that  roosters must behave differently than humans.

This reading doesn’t explain why everyone who knows the prince, except possibly the sage, classifies him as human and not rooster. Perhaps that is just their inability to adjust to his having changed his identification, or perhaps I have misunderstood. 

Rabbi Burger’s mentor Elie Wiesel in his Souls on Fire also ends the story with the prince still identifying as a rooster. In his retelling, the sage has parting words for the now humanly-behaving prince:

“You mustn’t ever believe that it is enough for a rooster to behave like a man to become human; you can do anything with man, in his world and even for him, and yet remain the rooster you are.”

Wiesel seems to think that the prince’s self-identification as a rooster is correct and important. What the prince got wrong was thinking that behavior can change identity, that you become who you act like. The sage is convincing to the prince because he too is actually a rooster. He shows by example that one can act as act as human and identify as something else. What’s left open is whether “being a rooster” requires anything more than identifying as one.

A Chabad reading that I found online came from a radically different perspective. It understands the sage as a version of Plato’s philosopher returning to the cave of non-philosophers. Roosters are not human. They can become human, but don’t understand why they should want to be. The already human sage must “meet them where they are” and enlighten them gradually. I think this reading works much better if the prince realizes at the end that he’s human and no longer a rooster.

I found another version in which the sage/Rebbe is actually human and the prince is actually a rooster, and roosters cannot become human. But they can become much better roosters! The problem is that the prince believes that roosters are worthless, and should not strive to be more. The sage pretends to be a rooster so that the prince will gradually learn that there is value in imitating humans even if one cannot become one (although maybe humans are born thinking of themselves as roosters, and the sages have to educate all chicks in order to discover and develop their own successors.)

The unabashed essentialist elitism of the last version repels me. Nonetheless, I think it raises a different challenge to modern ethical sensibilities that needs addressing, namely: To what extent is authenticity, in the sense of acting in accordance with one’s identity or one’s nature, a good thing? In that calculus, does it matter whether one’s identity conforms to one’s nature, opposes it, or is wholly disjunct from it?

Most of the readings we’ve seen so far addressed evaluative, hierarchical identities. For example, Rabbi Burger emphasized that the rooster represented our lowest nature, and the sage our highest. My instinct, and perhaps Elie Wiesel’s reading, make the story about identities that are simply different and can’t be objectively ranked. Wiesel’s reading, however, allows the readings to be subjectively ranked, meaning that while rooster and human identities are of equal value, this individual might be better off identifying as a human, or the world might be better off if this individual identified as a rooster. 

The story’s effectiveness rests on our willingness to suspend disbelief, and our choice of readings depends to some extent on the boundaries of our willingness. So it might be a productive thought experiment to stress-test that willingness by retelling the story with one of the variables adjusted.

Consider for example “The Hen Prince”.

Once upon a time there was a king who had an only child. The child grew up adorable, brilliant, confident, dutiful, earnest and . . .  you can finish the acrostic yourself. But in the year before his bar mitzvah, the prince seemed increasingly sad and distracted. He began spending more and more time in the free-range chicken enclosure. One day he announced that he was actually a hen. He took off his clothes and spent his days scrabbling for bugs in the dirt. The king offered extravagant rewards for a cure. Waves of therapists came and went to no avail.   

One day several years later, a modestly dressed scholar appeared in court and announced that she was there to cure the prince. After the appropriate consent forms and releases were signed, she took her clothes off, entered the chicken enclosure, and began scrabbling for bugs in the dirt.

The prince looked at her oddly: “What are you doing?” The scholar replied: “I’m a hen, just like you.” They pecked and clucked companionably. After a few days, the scholar asked for two shirts to be thrown to her. When she put one on, the prince asked her: “What are you doing now? Chickens don’t wear clothes!” The scholar replied: “Why do you think a chicken can’t wear clothes? Of course we can!” So the prince put on the other shirt. And so it went, until the prince was completely human.

The last line is for you to finish – what gender does the prince identify with/as at the end of the story? Would your answer change if the scholar identified as male, or be affected by the scholar’s biological sex? Would your answers simply invert with regard to “The Rooster Princess”? Which of the readings we’ve discussed would work/not work in each of these retellings?

I focused on a Rabbi Nachman story to keep this a low-stakes affair. I can discard the story and its lessons if it leads me to places that I find too challenging, and/or yields morals that I can’t live with or by. It doesn’t bind me. And that option might enable me to listen with more integrity than I would to understandings of Torah stories, because this story can’t convince me to act human unless I really want to.

I’m not sure we’re ready as a community to listen even to each other’s version of Rabbi Nachman stories with regard to many issues of actuality and identity, such as those around gender identity and sexual orientation. But I want to hold up the aspiration of telling and retelling each other Torah stories, and having real conversations about which versions and whose interpretations violate our sense of integrity as readers, and which challenge our identities and consciences, and find our way to reading them together. I doubt that halakhic discussions can have the necessary depth unless these conversations are happening alongside.  

Shabbat shalom!

Reason and Revelation

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

A fundamental premise of Talmud study – the one lesson without which, in my opinion, one has learned little or nothing – is that reason (practical and pure) and revelation need each other. The truths of Torah can’t be discovered via unaided contemplation of the self or the world; the text of Torah can’t be properly understood without the mediations of intellect and experience. 

I’ll try to provide a clear illustration.

Bava Kamma 46b records a halakhic dispute between Symmachus and anonymous fellow Tannaim in the following case:  A known-to-have been-pregnant cow is gored to death by a bull. A stillborn calf is found next to the dead cow.  Do we presume that the stillbirth occurred before the goring, or rather that the goring caused the stillbirth?  Symmachus says that the issue is in doubt. He therefore rules that the owner of the gore-r pays half of what he would pay were his responsibility clear. “The Sages” say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה = “The one who wishes to take something away from his fellow carries the burden of proof”. Therefore, owner of the gore-r pays nothing, since the owner of the cow cannot prove that the goring occurred before the stillbirth.

The Amora R. Shmuel bar Nachmani asks: What is the Biblical source for the Sages’ principle?  He responded by citing Exodus 24:14.

וְאֶל־הַזְּקֵנִ֤ים אָמַר֙

שְׁבוּ־לָ֣נוּ בָזֶ֔ה עַ֥ד אֲשֶׁר־נָשׁ֖וּב אֲלֵיכֶ֑ם

וְהִנֵּ֨ה אַהֲרֹ֤ן וְחוּר֙ עִמָּכֶ֔ם

מִי־בַ֥עַל דְּבָרִ֖ים יִגַּ֥שׁ אֲלֵהֶֽם –

יגיש ראיה אליהם.

To the Elders he said: 

Sit for us in this situation until we return to you

and behold Aharon and Chur with you

whoever is a baal devarim (= plaintiff) yigash (=will draw near) to them –

 meaning that he will draw-near evidence to them.

R. Ashi attacks Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani’s premise:

הא למה לי קרא!?

סברא הוא  – דכאיב ליה כאיבא, אזיל לבי אסיא!?

But why should a verse be needed (to teach us who carries the burden of proof)?! 

This can be derived from sevara (=reason) – the one who experiences pain goes to the house of healing!?

Rav Ashi assumes that unaided practical reason can reliably derive some Halakhic truths, here a principle that seems roughly equivalent to “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” He therefore must understand the verse as teaching a supplemental truth:

אלא קרא לכדר”נ אמר רבה בר אבוה,

דאמר רב נחמן אמר רבה בר אבוה

מניין שאין נזקקין אלא לתובע תחלה?

שנאמר:

מי בעל דברים יגש אליהם –

יגיש דבריו אליהם

Rather, the verse is needed (as the basis) for R. Nachman in the name of Rabbah bar Avuha,

for R. Nachman said in the name of Rabbah bar Avuha said:

What is the Biblical source for the principle that (Rabbinic courts) initially take cognizance only of the plaintiff?

Scripture says:

Whoever is a baal devarim (=the plaintiff) will yigash (=draw near) to them –

 meaning that he will draw-near his words to them.

This new conclusion establishes a procedural principle that seems unrelated to who has the burden of proof. However, Rashi draws a connection:

כגון

ראובן תובע משמעון מנה שהלוהו (בעדים או בשטר)

ושמעון משיבו ‘תפסת משלי – החזר לי מה שתפסת’,

או

‘משכון היה בידך ונפחת מדמיו, שנשתמשת בו’ –

בתחילה נזקקין לטענת ראובן ומוציאים לו המנה משמעון,

ואחר כך נזקקין לו לטענת שמעון לדון על דבר התפיסה והמשכון

An example (of taking cognizance only of the plaintiff initially) is

Reuven sues Shimon for a mana that he has lent him

Shimon replies: ‘You (illegitimately) seized something of mine –  return what you have seized’

or

‘You had my pledge in your possession and it lost value, because you made use of it’ –

We initially take cognizance of Reuven’s claim and extract the mana from Shimon for him,

and afterward take cognizance of Shimon’s claim to judge the matter of the seizure or the pledge.

According to Rashi, Rav Nachman is not introducing a new axis. Rather, he introduces a circumstance in which the implication of Rav Shmuel bar Nachmani’s reason-derived principle is not obvious.  What happens when the defendant counterclaims? The verse teaches that the plaintiff carries the burden of proof only with regard to specific claims, not with regard to the general financial balance between the parties.  To collect, Reuven needs only to prove that Shimon hasn’t repaid a loan, even though that leaves open the possibility that he owes Shimon as much as or more than Shimon owes him.  

Rav Nachman’s statement should end the sugya.  Instead, the Talmud cites an astonishing coda:

אמרי נהרדעי:

פעמים שנזקקין לנתבע תחלה.

והיכי דמי? דקא זילי נכסיה,

Those of Nehardea say:

Sometimes we take cognizance of the defendant initially.

When is that?  When his assets are losing value.

Rashi provides two illustrations of ‘losing value’: 

1) when Shimon has a deal in place to sell the object he is counterclaiming from Reuven. 

2) when Shimon is under financial pressure and will have to sell his real estate at a below-market price in order to pay Reuven. 

The common denominator of these cases is that the Nehardeans disregard R. Nachman’s clarification when they see it as generating injustice, even though the clarification is derived from a Biblical verse and their standard of injustice appears derived solely from intuition. What entitles them to do this?

With this question in hand, let us return to Symmachus and the Sages, and ask an almost opposite question. If the Sages’ principle is so obviously true that no verse is needed to teach it, how can Symmachus disagree?

The answer is that Symmachus agrees that “the one seeking to extract money carries the burden of proof”, but he and “The Sages” disagreed about the standard for meeting that burden. In many areas of halakhah, if possibility X is demonstrably more likely than possibility Y, halakhah will treat X as true. Symmachus held that a probabilistic argument (=rov) is also sufficient evidence for the purposes of extracting money, but the Sages disagreed. (Perhaps the Sages thought it obvious that the standard of evidence here should match the halakhic standard elsewhere; or perhaps they quoted a verse because they thought Symmachus’ argument was plausible.)

ROSH (Bava Kamma 5:1) collects several interpretations that disagree with Rashi’s.  Rabbeinu Tam, for example, thinks that Shimon’s counterclaim must be for personal injuries rather than property damage, and ROSH thinks that in such a case Shimon doesn’t even get the standard 30-day stay of judgment to collect exculpatory evidence.  RIVA interprets “taking cognizance of only the plaintiff initially” as meaning that the plaintiff gets to put his full case on before the defendant rebuts, and wins the case even if the defendant plausibly claims that his witnesses died or left town owing to the delay.  RAAVAD interprets it as giving the plaintiff the right to suspend his case indefinitely without prejudice, even if the defendant asks for a verdict. 

What matters for us is ROSH’s summary comment: 

וכל הני פירושי סלקי אליבא דהלכה

דסברות גדולות הם:

All these interpretations come out in accordance with the halakhah,

because they are in great accord with reason (=sevarot gedolot).

What sort of reason?  Remember that Rav Ashi gave what appeared to be homespun wisdom via analogy – the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, as why should the healthy party (=the party in possession) go to the doctor (=beit din)?  Shitah Mekubetzet cites Rav Yehonatan as offering a very different interpretation:

כלל גדול נתן משה רבינו עליו השלום לשבעים זקנים ואהרן וחור

שלא ידינו שום אפוקי ממונא בדעת מכרעת וברובא

אלא בראיה:

סברא הוא, דכאיב ליה כאיבא אזיל לבי אסיא –

לא היה צריך משה להזהירן,

דפשיטא הוא דלא גרע דין אחד ממשפט הרופאים,

שאין הרופא דן את החולה לפי סברתו לבדו

עד שאומר לו החולה ‘ראשי כבד עלי ובמקום פלוני’, ‘ומשתנה עלי במקום פלוני למקום פלוני’,

ולפי שהוא מראה לו פנים הוא דן אותו

כך התובע צריך להראות לו פנים שתביעתו חזקה וברורה

כלומר בעדים.

Mosheh Rabbeinu of blessed memory gave a broad principle to the seventy elders and Aharon and Chur

that they should not extract any money judicially on the basis of compelling reason or probability

rather (only) via evidence:

 this principle is derived from reason: “the one who experiences the pain goes to the house of healing”

and therefore Mosheh did not need to command them about this,

since it is obvious that legal judgement does not require less care than medical judgement,

and a physician does not judge the patient on the basis of his unaided reason,

rather waits until the patient says, “My head is heavy and hurts in that place”, or “(the pain) moves from place to place”.

and he judges in accordance with what the patient makes apparent to him,

so too the plaintiff must show that his claim is strong and clear,

namely via witnesses.

According to R. Yehonatan, reason teaches that one cannot extract money on the basis of reason alone!

Bottom line: Reason can be a source of halakhic truth. When reason appears to make a verse of Revelation redundant, we may interpret that verse as limiting or countering the halakhic truth derived from reason.  But this does not shake our underlying epistemological faith in reason, so we may limit that limit on the basis of reason.  This cycle can and should be iterative. 

Shabbat shalom!

A Week Imitation

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Rashbam understands some parts of Torah as included for the sake of other parts, rather than because they have independent value. The most radical instance of this willingness is his subordination of the Creation Story, and perhaps the entire book of Genesis, to the Shabbat commandments in the Ten Statements.

This entire section about the work of the six days –

Moshe Rabbeinu prefaced it to explain to you what Hashem said at the time of The Giving of the Torah Remember the Shabbat to sanctify it . . . because six days Hashem made the heavens and the earth

 and the land and the sea and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day.

This is what Scripture means when it says:

There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day –

that sixth day that was the end of the six days that the Holy Blessed One said at the Giving of the Torah. That’s why Mosheh said to Israel, to inform them that the word of the Holy Blessed One is true.

‘Do you think that this world was always built as you see it now full of goodness?!

It was not so, rather In the beginning . . .

גם כל הפרשה הזאת של מלאכת ששה ימים

הקדימה משה רבינו לפרש לך מה שאמר הק’ בשעת מתן תורה

זכור את יום השבת לקדשו [וגו’] כי ששת ימים עשה ה’ את השמים ואת הארץ את הים ואת כל אשר בם וינח ביום השביעי,

וזהו שכת’ ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום הששי –

אותו ששי שהוא גמר ששה ימים שאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא במתן תורה.

לכך אמר להם משה לישראל, להודיעם כי דבר הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת:

וכי אתם סבורים שהעולם הזה כל הימים בנוי כמו שאתם רואים אותו עכשיו מלא כל טוב?!

לא היה כן, אלא בראשית ברא א-להים וגו’

This approach seems to demand a literal understanding of the first Creation story. Shabbat takes place on the literal seventh day because G-d made the world for six days and rested on the seventh.

It might also make it very important for us to locate Shabbat on the correct day of what presumably has been a continuous weekly calendar. If Hashem was super-creative on Friday and rested on Saturday, our imitatio dei is doubly flawed if we rest on Friday and create on Saturday. True, halakhah mandates individuals who have lost track to keep every seventh day as Shabbat, but that is clearly an inferior substitute.

But the Earth is round. This means that there is no universal 24-hour period during which all Jews keep Shabbat. So are we actually tracking Creation?

The simple answer is that the sun was already in the heavens on day 4. A literal understanding presumably requires at least days and nights 5-6 to have been caused by the Earth’s rotation. This means that G-d’s Shabbat needs to be conceptualized not as a static block of time, but rather as a rolling 24 hours following the sun, which our Shabbat matches.

Here we run into a problem, however. The dateline means that Jews around the world do not actually observe Shabbat over 24 hours. Rather, when Shabbat ends on the Eastern side of the line, it is just beginning on the Western side. Shabbat is observed for 48 hours out of every 168. That can’t parallel G-d’s period of rest.

This problem doesn’t really bother me, because my preferred understanding of Genesis 1 is at the opposite extreme of literal. Rashi cites a midrash saying that Chapter 1 represents the world as G-d initially considered – alah bemachshavah – creating it with justice and without mercy. That’s why the only name of G-d in Creation Story One is Elo-him. But G-d decided that a world without mercy was unsustainable, and created the world with both.  That’s why Creation Stories Two and Three identify G-d as Hashem Elo-him. Chapter One is therefore a hypothetical.  So the issue of literalism is irrelevant.

I can also think of ways to make Rashbam compatible with a fundamentally metaphorical reading of Genesis 1. These ways may be somewhat stretched, but Maimonides and Sherlock Holmes teach that when the impossible has been eliminated, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

And – it is probably impossible (I like that phrase – you’ll see what it means) for Rashbam to believe that halakhah intends our Shabbat to literally correspond to G-d’s.  

Here’s why. Rashbam identifies erev and boker as gerunds meaning “even-ing” and “morn-ing”. Even-ing means that it was light and then became dark; morn-ing means that it was dark and then it morned.

According to Rashbam, day comes before night in Genesis 1.

What about Shabbat? The yeshivishe answer is that the calendar switched at Sinai. This means that halakhic night-before-day Shabbat is deliberately out of synch with G-d’s day-before-night rest.

However, that answer preceded Rabbi Dr. Hillel Novetsky’s manuscript- based edition of Rashbam to Genesis 1:31 on alhatorah.org. In that version, Rashbam explains that G-d rested, and the first Shabbat began, at sunset of the sixth day. So Rashbam must believe either in the 6.5 Days of Creation or else that G-d rested for 36 hours. Either way, our halakhic Shabbat does not correspond.  

But addressing the problem that the dateline raises for literalism may nonetheless help us understand something important about halakhah.

The halakhic issues associated with the dateline are not to my knowledge addressed anywhere in Chazal or by any rishon. Why not? The easy answer is that Chazal thought the world is flat.

But that is plainly false. Mishnah Avodah Zarah 3:1 teaches that a statue holding a ball in its hand is presumptively an idol, because the ball represents the world. Tosafot Avodah Zarah 41a draws the moral explicitly – the world is round (shehaolam agul). Tosafot also cite evidence from the Yerushalmi to that effect. There is counterevidence from the discussion on Bava Basra 25b about where the sun goes at night. But at least some members of Chazal and rishonim knew that the world was round. So why don’t they raise all the great dateline issues – sefirat haomer, counting seven clean days for niddah, Channukah lights, etc.?

I initially thought that the answer was that such issues could never arise in practice. The dateline arises in four circumstances: one person circumnavigated the globe while keeping a weekly calendar, two people meeting at a point which makes their combined journeys a circumnavigation, a person travelling fast enough to overtake the sun (=faster than the earth rotates), or two people communicating at a speed and from locations that, if they were one person, would require them to have overtaken the sun. None of these are known to have happened before Magellan.

But on reflection, I realized this account was imprecise. It suggests that the halakhic dateline existed but was halakhically irrelevant. But actually, there was no “objective” halakhic dateline at all. Every individual would have gained or lost a day had they circumnavigated the globe, and individuals who met after circumnavigating in opposite directions would be two days apart. But the point at which the gain or loss happened would be subjective, depending on their original location and time of day.  When it happened, the halakhah would almost certainly have required them to abandon their subjective count and observe the Shabbat of whatever community they found themselves in. I’m confident that’s what any Jews among Magellan’s crew were told if they asked.

But the telegraph meant that two Jews could be in communication while simultaneously living in communities with conflicting day-of-the-week calendars. (This was also a problem for non-Jewish human beings trying to date commercial transactions etc.) So it became necessary to draw a line that would standardize the days of the week everywhere. But here’s the key point – that line was entirely arbitrary from a halakhic perspective. Poskim were not discovering the line – they were creating it.

The crucial choice, I think, was whether to try to keep Jews on the same schedule as the rest of humanity – which is enormously helpful for commerce and social integration – or, on the analogy of the lunar calendar, deliberately seek to create difference that requires effort to overcome.

The discussion is ongoing, even though I haven’t seen it consciously framed in these terms. I leave it to you to decide how we have decided.

But if this analysis is correct, I think it’s important to acknowledge and internalize the idea that sometimes fundamental, deoraita halakhah that ramifies through the system needs to be created in response to new circumstances, and not just discovered.

What Happens after G-d Becomes King Forever?

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Parshat Beshalach tells the story of the Splitting of the Sea twice. The narrator tells it in prose; Mosheh joins Bnei Yisrael to tell it in poetry. This follows a common Tanakhic pattern of embedding a poetic account of subjective experience within an objective prose narrative about the same events.

Part of any event is the effect it has on its audience. A tree that falls in the forest may make as many sounds as there are listeners. If an enemy army heard the wrath of G-d trampling out His vineyard, that sound is as real as, or more real than, the sound of wood cracking that would show up on a recording. The Torah’s technique is essential to conveying the event. (Lehavdil elef alfei havdalot, consider Norman Mailer’s two very different accounts of the October 1967 March on the Pentagon in The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History.)

I therefore have little interest in reconciling the two accounts. But I am interested in understanding the differences. I’ll focus here on one of them. Why does the poetic account apparently extend to having the Jews in Israel, and the Temple built, and perhaps Ultimate Redemption achieved, when the entire Torah narrative stops before they cross the Jordan? Or less dramatically – why does the poetic account continue into an imagined future?

The shift seems to happen between verses 12 and 13. In verse 12, we are plausibly still in the present:

You inclined your right (hand);

they will be swallowed up by the land.

נָטִ֙יתָ֙ יְמִ֣ינְךָ֔

תִּבְלָעֵ֖מוֹ אָֽרֶץ:

Granted, it’s not clear whether the hand in question is Mosheh’s or G-d’s (although so far as I can tell only Rashbam says that it is Mosheh’s, despite the obvious parallel to his inclining his hand to bring the sea back and drown the Egyptians), nor why land rather than water swallows up the Egyptians (most commentators assume they were somehow buried after drowning, and ask in what merit they deserved burial; Keli Yakar fascinatingly makes it a hypothetical: Why did You drown them instead of having the earth swallow them up ala Korach?); but we are plausibly in the present. In verse 13, however, we seem incontrovertibly to be in the future:

You led them in Your grace, this nation You redeemed

Directed them in Your strength to Your holy dwelling.

נָחִ֥יתָ בְחַסְדְּךָ֖ עַם־ז֣וּ גָּאָ֑לְתָּ

נֵהַ֥לְתָּ בְעָזְּךָ֖ אֶל־נְוֵ֥ה קָדְשֶֽׁךָ:

If poetry is intended to convey subjective experience, why is it the poetry that goes beyond the moment?

I suspect that the answer is that anticipation is an inextricable part of our experience of the present. Let’s read the poetic account through to what may be its end.

You led them in Your grace, this nation You redeemed

Directed them in Your strength to Your holy dwelling.

When nations have heard, they will be discomfited:

A spasm grabbed hold of the inhabitants of Philistia.

Then the dukes of Edom were in panic;

the powers of Moab seized by trembling;

all the inhabitant of Canaan melted.

Awe and terror will fall upon them

When Your arm becomes great, they will fall silent as a stone

Until your nation traverses, Hashem,

until Your nation which You have brought into existence traverses

You will bring them and plant them in Your mountain homestead

A designated place for your habitation You have made, Hashem;

a sanctuary, our L-rd, Your hands have made.

HASHEM WILL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER.

נָחִ֥יתָ בְחַסְדְּךָ֖ עַם־ז֣וּ גָּאָ֑לְתָּ

נֵהַ֥לְתָּ בְעָזְּךָ֖ אֶל־נְוֵ֥ה קָדְשֶֽׁךָ:

שָֽׁמְע֥וּ עַמִּ֖ים יִרְגָּז֑וּן

חִ֣יל אָחַ֔ז יֹשְׁבֵ֖י פְּלָֽשֶׁת:

אָ֤ז נִבְהֲלוּ֙ אַלּוּפֵ֣י אֱד֔וֹם

אֵילֵ֣י מוֹאָ֔ב יֹֽאחֲזֵ֖מוֹ רָ֑עַד

נָמֹ֕גוּ כֹּ֖ל יֹשְׁבֵ֥י כְנָֽעַן:

תִּפֹּ֨ל עֲלֵיהֶ֤ם אֵימָ֙תָה֙ וָפַ֔חַד

בִּגְדֹ֥ל זְרוֹעֲךָ֖ יִדְּמ֣וּ כָּאָ֑בֶן

עַד־יַעֲבֹ֤ר עַמְּךָ֙ יְקֹוָ֔ק

עַד־יַעֲבֹ֖ר עַם־ז֥וּ קָנִֽיתָ:

תְּבִאֵ֗מוֹ וְתִטָּעֵ֙מוֹ֙ בְּהַ֣ר נַחֲלָֽתְךָ֔

מָכ֧וֹן לְשִׁבְתְּךָ֛ פָּעַ֖לְתָּ יְקֹוָ֑ק

מִקְּדָ֕שׁ אֲדֹנָ֖י כּוֹנְנ֥וּ יָדֶֽיךָ:

יְקֹוָ֥ק׀ יִמְלֹ֖ךְ לְעֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד:

The tenses of the verbs in this section are constantly ambiguous. But it seems reasonable to understand them as referring to an expected future. Bnei Yisrael expect that this miracle will lead directly into universal aliyah, the building of the Temple, and the end of history.

One strand in Chazal picks at this ecstatic moment. In Rashi’s version,

You will bring them –

Mosheh prophesied that he would not enter the Land;

That’s why the verse doesn’t say ‘You will bring us’.

תביאמו –

נתנבא משה שלא יכנס לארץ;

לכך לא נאמר: ‘תביאנו’

Sekhel Tov’s version is darker:

The fathers prophesied but do not know what they are prophesying

until The Holy Blessed One explains it to them –

The verse does not say ‘You will bring us’ but rather You will bring them

= the children will enter but not the fathers from among all those of warrior age –

until the time came and The Holy Blessed One explained it to them,

as Scripture says: If any man from among these men shall see . . .

נתנבאו האבות ואינם יודעין מה מתנבאים

עד שהקב”ה מפרש להם;

‘תביאנו’ לא נאמר כאן אלא תביאמו

= שהבנים נכנסין ואין האבות נכנסין מכל אנשי המלחמה

עד שהגיעה שעה ופי’ הקב”ה להם, שנאמר אם יראה איש באנשים האלה (דברים א לה).

But the darkest and most astonishing version is in Minchat Yehudah:

Rav Elyakim resolved (a previously raised contradiction by explaining)

that when Rashi explained here that (Mosheh) prophesied that he would not enter the Land –

(Rashi) did not mean that Mosheh intended this prophesy,

rather this prophesy entered into his mouth when he said You will bring them and plant them

and did not say ‘You will bring us and plant us”,

but (Mosheh) did not knowingly say this, that he would not enter the land.

ותירץ הרב ר’ אליקים

שמה שפרש”י כאן שנתנבא שלא יכנס לארץ –

אינו ר”ל שנתכוון לכך,

אלא נכנסה בפיו נבואה זו באמרו תביאמו ותטעמו

ולא אמר ‘תביאנו ותטענו’,

אבל לא אמר לדעת כן שלא יכנס לארץ.

Why insert pessimism and death into this moment of ecstasy? Why make Mosheh, soon to become the only human being ever to prophesy without losing consciousness, a Rosencrantz/Guildenstern carrying his own death warrant unaware? Was the Desert Generation doomed long before they commit the sin of the Spies to justify their fate?

A possible clue is that the poem does not actually end in the Redeemed Future. Instead, it circles back to the present:

When the horse of Pharaoh, with his chariots and his cavalrymen, came into the sea,

then Hashem turned the waters of the sea back onto them

then Bnei Yisrael travelled on the dry land in the midst of the sea.

כִּ֣י בָא֩ ס֨וּס פַּרְעֹ֜ה בְּרִכְבּ֤וֹ וּבְפָרָשָׁיו֙ בַּיָּ֔ם

וַיָּ֧שֶׁב יְקֹוָ֛ק עֲלֵהֶ֖ם אֶת־מֵ֣י הַיָּ֑ם

וּבְנֵ֧י יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל הָלְכ֥וּ בַיַּבָּשָׁ֖ה בְּת֥וֹךְ הַיָּֽם:

Why the anticlimax?

My general intent in these divrei Torah is to empower you to read Torah more deeply and precisely, not to bludgeon you with my own interpretations. So before reading on, please take at least a moment to consider whether the questions I’ve raised seem significant to you, and if yes, how you would explain the textual data.

My thoughts went to 1967. The perception and reality of a miraculous victory naturally and properly generate an in-the-moment sense that G-d’s Plan is inevitably and imminently being fulfilled. Having that experience even once can sustain us eternally and prevent us from falling into cynicism and despair when things go badly.

But the truth is that Redemption is never inevitable, even when it seems imminent. It always depends on our ongoing choices. And when we continue thinking it’s inevitable beyond that first moment, we tend to make rushed, impatient, frustrated, even idolatrous choices, often under the illusion that we are acting as super-religious true believers. Our own ecstatic songs develop dark undertones that we have trouble hearing.

Miraculous victories give us a momentary taste of redemption. But then we need to go back to the hard work of deserving it.

Shabbat shalom!