Latest News
Weekly Dvar Torah
Do rabbis and scholars have any privileged authority to interpret Torah, or is Torah, like many areas of science in the 19th century, a field in which talented amateurs have equal standing? This question is threatening to fragment the observant community today, and deserves intense and probing study and discussion. This week’s dvar Torah is an attempt to begin such, although we will get there by a somewhat circuitous route.
Devarim 1:3 apparently dates the book’s beginning to 1 Adar 40 AE (After Exodus). As Mosheh is reasonably supposed to have died on 7 Adar of that year, it follows that the speeches mostly comprising Devarim were delivered over a period of no longer than a week. But we can even argue that in fact they were all given on that one day[1].
Now Ibn Ezra suggests that the book does not report Mosheh’s speeches and actions in the order that they happened/were delivered, but rather intercuts them in rather dizzying fashion. He has a strong case, although reassembling the chronological day – the raw footage from which Devarim was cut – is a daunting task even if one accepts his basic exegetical arguments.
That is not my task today, although I hope to return to it. Rather, what I wish to point out is that the choronological problem raised by Ibn Ezra should have ramifications for midrashic narratives as well. Such narratives are generally attached, in our extant collections, to specific Biblical texts, so when they are supposed to have happened should depend on when in the day we locate their base text.
This is a serious oversimplification, however, because many midrashic narratives are attached to different prooftexts in different midrashic collections. I mention often that I am impressed by the argument that many of these prooftexts are post facto, in other words that many of these narratives existed as part of the Jewish understanding of Torah long before specific textual details were found to suggest or corroborate them. So it may be that the narratives have a specific chronological location in the narrative, but different prooftexts are chosen based on understandings of where those prooftexts fit chronologically.
[1] The word hayom, “this day”, occurs more often in Devarim than in the rest of the Pentateuch, many times more often if one only considers uses that mean “today”, and Mosheh could have spent a week on Mount Nevo before dying.
To read the whole article, go here.
Shabbat Shalom!
To sign up to get the Dvar Torah, contact us at moderntorahleadership@gmail.com.
SBM Alumni News
If you have any news to share with the SBM alumni, please let us know at moderntorahleadership@gmail.com.
Jonathan Ziring ('09) has a few articles in the latest edition of Kol HaMevaser. In particular, the article on p. 17, Halakhah, More than Exegesis" mentions his experience in SBM.
Mazal Tov to these alumni:
Adina Polen ('02) on her marriage to Ariel Mayse
Avraham ('02) and Daniela Bronstein on the birth on their son, Elisha Chanan
Rachel Katler ('06-8) on her graduation from McGill University
Ariel Diamond ('04,9) on his graduation from Yeshiva College
Josh Shrager ('00) on his engagement to Yehudit Weinberger
Elliot ('01) and Toby Kaplowitz on the birth of their son, Matan
Michael Pershan (’09) on winning this year’s Weinstein Prize in Jewish Studies at Harvard University and on his graduation. Michael's entry was “The Law of Closed Vessels in the Tent of Death: A comparative study of the law in the Temple Scroll and the Mishnah”.
Sara ('07) and Noam Greenberg on the birth of their daughter, Penina Hadas
Avishai Gebler ('09) on his graduation from Columbia
Yonatan ('01) and Elana Kohn on the birth of their son
