I share your outlook in general, but in this case I don't find Rashi's interpretation to be such a whitewash of the story. The rivalry between Rachel and Leah, and then by extension their offspring, is a major part of the story. For Jacob to have chosen to make Bilhah (Rachel's maid) his primary wife after Rachel's death instead of Leah would have been a provocative, major issue, and for Reuben to take such a stand against his father by moving his stuff from Bilha's tent to Leah's would also be shocking. It might be suitable in this case for the Torah to hint to that unseemly family drama via a euphamistic verse, so in this case I think it's possible to see Rashi as helping to reveal pshat.
Here is a worthwhile essay entitled “Midrashic Betrayal” on this very topic (by a blogger and Torah Teacher with the unlikely name of Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss) from a few years back:
I have often deplored the degree to which midrash has become so deeply enmeshed in the popular understanding of Tana”ch among Orthodox Jews (note that I’m not saying I deplore midrash itself, which is a fascinating literary phenomenon).
So much so that I have found guys like me who grew up going to Jewish school are often gobsmacked when we learn that that “charming story” we learned chumash class is, in fact, *not* in the Torah. I’ve even heard that this can sometimes have a more pernicious effect, when thinking Jews decide that some of the more outlandish [midrahsic] stories they were taught as canon are too preposterous, offensive, or self-contradictory, and this contributes to their going “off the derech”.
I fear that part of the fault lies with Rashi, who has of course become by far the most dominant biblical commentator in Orthodoxy (though it wasn’t always so; see Eric Lawee’s excellent “Rashi's Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic”).
While Rashi claims vociferously that his aim is to reflect nothing more than “p’shuto shel mikra” (“the plain sense of the text”) he often acts an “aggregator” of midrashic/aggadic material (as you point out in your 4th endnote), which has become the primary lens through which Orthodox folks come to view “Scripture”.
I cannot abide this infantile, credulous belief in midrash. It makes me think of religious coloring books where Batya’s arm has extended a freakish 40 feet to reach baby Moshe in the basket. Come ON.
It doesn't invalidate the strong points made in the article, but I hope you would want someone to point out that the character's name is "Han Solo", not "Hans Solo". Star Wars fans will have a negative reaction to getting a main character's name wrong. You might want to edit and correct that small detail. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Han_Solo
Thank you Todd for the correction! Although I'm proud of seeing the first Star Wars when it came out and made a big effort to make sure Judah saw the original version with the proper Han Solo scene, I'm more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars guy!
David wrote those psalms BECAUSE he was lusting after Bathsheba and every other hot piece of desert ass that wandered into his view. Sublimated sexual passion is the most classic of all Muses.
Passion for one's God and one's People is supposed to come from a flaccid, indifferent male? Dream on. Passion is passion. David was a roaring old goat which is why he was King.
“It’s Not Easy Being a Jew, or a Christian, or anyone who lives by a code.” That’s my response to this.
Conventional wisdom is that intelligence, deep thought, and rigorous discernment are only present in the pursuit of science, never in the study of religion. Does that ring true? Jewish scholarship has harnessed the genius of thousands of Einsteins.
I believe that every question has its answer. Sometimes it takes longer to find it. That has been my experience. If it is a question.
Thanks for this posting, Thomas. One of the things I love about Tanakh is its utterly matter-of-fact accounting of human behavior. No tendentiousness, no apologetics (until you get to Chronicles, the crummiest book in the Bible.)
Like you, I’ve come to serious Judaism late, and so I have a hard time swallowing a lot of this midrashic stuff. In fact, I was grumbling to one of my rabbis this morning about some Rashi. Yet many whom I respect find tremendous insights in Rashi! Maybe I’ll eventually catch up.
Yeah, they all really love Rashi. I don’t get it. Maybe it’s like loving the music you grew up with. If you didn’t listen to it when you were like 17 you’ll never feel the same way as somebody who did.
This is, among other things, why I'm more Rambam than Rashi. Rashi seems particularly set on smoothing out our stories in ways that, I think, obscure their true beauty-in-complexity.
I also much prefer Rambam, but my understanding of his position on this is that he wouldn't much like my easy dismissal of the Midrash and would expect deep thinkers to understand they have deeper meanings than at first meet the eye. I'm just not feeling that deep on these.
I love this post that reminds me that being human is being imperfect and aiming (in some cases) to improve. It is human humility and self-reflexivity that I admire the most. I never feel (or say) that Jews are perfect and I believe as any people they make mistakes, and sometimes grave mistakes, precisely because they are human. So, yes, white washing does not work for me too - it reduces the attraction I feel.
Interesting post. I’m not Jewish but grow up Catholic. A few years ago I read Genesis using Alter’s translation and Prager’s, Sacks’, and Sarna’s interpretations. It seems to me that the best way for me to read Genesis, the way to make it come alive, was to see the characters as individuals with human characteristics, not as supernatural creatures with superhuman characteristics, living amongst a God that cared about them. While I understand that Hebrew is pliable and open to different translations and interpretations, and that the works and interpretations of other people and Rabbi is important, too many times they are in the service of an established religious tradition and Orthodoxy. There are too many things in the Bible that are contradictory and seem to be in conflict with orthodoxy (for example I find the bit where nephilim and sons of gods walkes the earth strange for a monotheistic religion).
Your comment about King David is accurate— he was a man that was overtaken by eros, who wrote beautiful poetry, a subject that Plato would not have trouble understanding.
But in the end, it seems like Genesis is the story of “human stuff” living in divine presence, people who are not perfect but like us. Otherwise, whitewashing is wishful thinking.
I would rather take man for who he is, and examine what he aspires too, and how he ticks; the Bible can be how that ticking is a manifestation of the divine, sometimes failing but always hoping.
Quick comment on Reuven. Rashi is basing himself on a Gemara, Masechet Shabbat 55B, where Shmuel Bar Nachmani in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: "Reuven did not sin is only making a mistake." On the next page (56A), he uses the same exact wording about David אינו אלא טועה. What I find interesting though is that he says it in the name of Rabbi Yonatan. In other words, he seems to be hedging his bets: "I didn't say it. It was Rabbi Yonatan." On the other hand, the fact that he even had to say that indicates to me that plenty of people were saying that Reuven (and David) sinned. The thing is that Reuven always gets a raw deal, whether it is with Bilhah, Joseph, or later in the time of the Devorah (see Shoftim 5:15). It is interesting that he had the kingship taken from him and handed to Judah (via David), whereas David is described in the same way by Rabbi Shimon Bar Nachmani.
I’m sorry, but I go with the party line. The Torah has so much depth (as you pointed out with Rabbi Tatz’ classes) that I trust the wisdom and other-worldliness. Midrashim are brought to teach us lessons, whether they are to be taken literally or not. The ancient rabbis were heads above us. The people in Tanach are heads above them. And don’t fret, they are human. Examples: Ya’akov is called out for preferring Yosef; we are paying to this day the fact that Sara sent away Yishmael; Yitzchak made a mistake about Esav; Yehuda was seduced by Tamar. These people were human and at the same time there are layers and layers of depth about why they did these actions. Many things can be true at once, which is the depth of Torah.
And when Jacob blessed his sons before he died, he chastised Reuben but he still included him in his sons. That is the proof that he did not sin so severely.
No I think what I meant is that after the episode it says “and the sons of Jacob were twelve” or something like that. That’s the proof. He was counted in the twelve, so his sin could not have been as serious as it seems.
The story with King David doesn’t smoothly fit the lowly temptation theory. King David was pretty old by the time this happened (47, 55 or 58 from a quick search). There are more facts that make it not fit as well either. It wasn’t that recently that I learned it but the scandalous version of the story only fits when the details are glossed over.
No disrespect intended, Rivka, but you may be surprised by what goes through the mind of a 58 year old man. Indeed, may you be spared of such knowledge.
There should be a blessing “that He hasn’t made me a man” but G-d had mercy on men and didn’t want their feelings hurt.
I learned this topic semi-recently and I can’t recall the details precisely but the way the story plays out with the details didn’t fit into the knee jerk reaction version. That’s not very persuasive, but I will try to come up with hard facts.
It is well known that King David loved women, but again, sexuality was much closer to spirituality in those days than the perversion it is today. Shir Hashirim explicitly describes love in many of its forms, and it is also the description of the love between Hashem and the Jewish People. It is called the “Holy of Holies”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with human attraction, as evidenced in our laws of Family Purity. King David was meant to marry Bat Sheva,so that Shlomo could be born. His sin was that he should have waited. And, by the way, he is one of our models for doing tshuva, for recognizing sin and then fixing it: repentance..
So, his sin didn't include getting Uriah killed off? My point being not to denigrate King David's greatness, but to affirm that great men may well have great flaws.
Of course! That’s my point. He had flaws, and we learn from those flaws how to do tshuva. But, we also have to realize that their God-consciousness was much much higher than ours. They were like Beethoven’s 5th, while we’re plinking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with one finger.
I share your outlook in general, but in this case I don't find Rashi's interpretation to be such a whitewash of the story. The rivalry between Rachel and Leah, and then by extension their offspring, is a major part of the story. For Jacob to have chosen to make Bilhah (Rachel's maid) his primary wife after Rachel's death instead of Leah would have been a provocative, major issue, and for Reuben to take such a stand against his father by moving his stuff from Bilha's tent to Leah's would also be shocking. It might be suitable in this case for the Torah to hint to that unseemly family drama via a euphamistic verse, so in this case I think it's possible to see Rashi as helping to reveal pshat.
Maybe this act of Reuben was out of resentment then? It still could have been more than rearranging beds, but I see your point.
Here is a worthwhile essay entitled “Midrashic Betrayal” on this very topic (by a blogger and Torah Teacher with the unlikely name of Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss) from a few years back:
https://kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/2015/07/midrashic-betrayal.html?m=1
I have often deplored the degree to which midrash has become so deeply enmeshed in the popular understanding of Tana”ch among Orthodox Jews (note that I’m not saying I deplore midrash itself, which is a fascinating literary phenomenon).
So much so that I have found guys like me who grew up going to Jewish school are often gobsmacked when we learn that that “charming story” we learned chumash class is, in fact, *not* in the Torah. I’ve even heard that this can sometimes have a more pernicious effect, when thinking Jews decide that some of the more outlandish [midrahsic] stories they were taught as canon are too preposterous, offensive, or self-contradictory, and this contributes to their going “off the derech”.
I fear that part of the fault lies with Rashi, who has of course become by far the most dominant biblical commentator in Orthodoxy (though it wasn’t always so; see Eric Lawee’s excellent “Rashi's Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic”).
While Rashi claims vociferously that his aim is to reflect nothing more than “p’shuto shel mikra” (“the plain sense of the text”) he often acts an “aggregator” of midrashic/aggadic material (as you point out in your 4th endnote), which has become the primary lens through which Orthodox folks come to view “Scripture”.
I cannot abide this infantile, credulous belief in midrash. It makes me think of religious coloring books where Batya’s arm has extended a freakish 40 feet to reach baby Moshe in the basket. Come ON.
It doesn't invalidate the strong points made in the article, but I hope you would want someone to point out that the character's name is "Han Solo", not "Hans Solo". Star Wars fans will have a negative reaction to getting a main character's name wrong. You might want to edit and correct that small detail. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Han_Solo
Thank you Todd for the correction! Although I'm proud of seeing the first Star Wars when it came out and made a big effort to make sure Judah saw the original version with the proper Han Solo scene, I'm more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars guy!
David wrote those psalms BECAUSE he was lusting after Bathsheba and every other hot piece of desert ass that wandered into his view. Sublimated sexual passion is the most classic of all Muses.
Passion for one's God and one's People is supposed to come from a flaccid, indifferent male? Dream on. Passion is passion. David was a roaring old goat which is why he was King.
“It’s Not Easy Being a Jew, or a Christian, or anyone who lives by a code.” That’s my response to this.
Conventional wisdom is that intelligence, deep thought, and rigorous discernment are only present in the pursuit of science, never in the study of religion. Does that ring true? Jewish scholarship has harnessed the genius of thousands of Einsteins.
I believe that every question has its answer. Sometimes it takes longer to find it. That has been my experience. If it is a question.
Thanks for this posting, Thomas. One of the things I love about Tanakh is its utterly matter-of-fact accounting of human behavior. No tendentiousness, no apologetics (until you get to Chronicles, the crummiest book in the Bible.)
Like you, I’ve come to serious Judaism late, and so I have a hard time swallowing a lot of this midrashic stuff. In fact, I was grumbling to one of my rabbis this morning about some Rashi. Yet many whom I respect find tremendous insights in Rashi! Maybe I’ll eventually catch up.
Yeah, they all really love Rashi. I don’t get it. Maybe it’s like loving the music you grew up with. If you didn’t listen to it when you were like 17 you’ll never feel the same way as somebody who did.
This is, among other things, why I'm more Rambam than Rashi. Rashi seems particularly set on smoothing out our stories in ways that, I think, obscure their true beauty-in-complexity.
Yes. I’m a Rambam girl all the way—to the point that my husband refers to him as “your boyfriend Rambam.”
I like to imagine he’s ‘My-Monides,” but I guess he’s really everyone’s. 😉
🤣 okay, we can share him.
Ha!
I also much prefer Rambam, but my understanding of his position on this is that he wouldn't much like my easy dismissal of the Midrash and would expect deep thinkers to understand they have deeper meanings than at first meet the eye. I'm just not feeling that deep on these.
Rambam does expect a lot of us.
I love this post that reminds me that being human is being imperfect and aiming (in some cases) to improve. It is human humility and self-reflexivity that I admire the most. I never feel (or say) that Jews are perfect and I believe as any people they make mistakes, and sometimes grave mistakes, precisely because they are human. So, yes, white washing does not work for me too - it reduces the attraction I feel.
Interesting post. I’m not Jewish but grow up Catholic. A few years ago I read Genesis using Alter’s translation and Prager’s, Sacks’, and Sarna’s interpretations. It seems to me that the best way for me to read Genesis, the way to make it come alive, was to see the characters as individuals with human characteristics, not as supernatural creatures with superhuman characteristics, living amongst a God that cared about them. While I understand that Hebrew is pliable and open to different translations and interpretations, and that the works and interpretations of other people and Rabbi is important, too many times they are in the service of an established religious tradition and Orthodoxy. There are too many things in the Bible that are contradictory and seem to be in conflict with orthodoxy (for example I find the bit where nephilim and sons of gods walkes the earth strange for a monotheistic religion).
Your comment about King David is accurate— he was a man that was overtaken by eros, who wrote beautiful poetry, a subject that Plato would not have trouble understanding.
But in the end, it seems like Genesis is the story of “human stuff” living in divine presence, people who are not perfect but like us. Otherwise, whitewashing is wishful thinking.
I would rather take man for who he is, and examine what he aspires too, and how he ticks; the Bible can be how that ticking is a manifestation of the divine, sometimes failing but always hoping.
Quick comment on Reuven. Rashi is basing himself on a Gemara, Masechet Shabbat 55B, where Shmuel Bar Nachmani in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: "Reuven did not sin is only making a mistake." On the next page (56A), he uses the same exact wording about David אינו אלא טועה. What I find interesting though is that he says it in the name of Rabbi Yonatan. In other words, he seems to be hedging his bets: "I didn't say it. It was Rabbi Yonatan." On the other hand, the fact that he even had to say that indicates to me that plenty of people were saying that Reuven (and David) sinned. The thing is that Reuven always gets a raw deal, whether it is with Bilhah, Joseph, or later in the time of the Devorah (see Shoftim 5:15). It is interesting that he had the kingship taken from him and handed to Judah (via David), whereas David is described in the same way by Rabbi Shimon Bar Nachmani.
I really appreciate your thoughts here. I imagine it's probably healthy to see people for who they actually are, you know, to humanize them.
I’m sorry, but I go with the party line. The Torah has so much depth (as you pointed out with Rabbi Tatz’ classes) that I trust the wisdom and other-worldliness. Midrashim are brought to teach us lessons, whether they are to be taken literally or not. The ancient rabbis were heads above us. The people in Tanach are heads above them. And don’t fret, they are human. Examples: Ya’akov is called out for preferring Yosef; we are paying to this day the fact that Sara sent away Yishmael; Yitzchak made a mistake about Esav; Yehuda was seduced by Tamar. These people were human and at the same time there are layers and layers of depth about why they did these actions. Many things can be true at once, which is the depth of Torah.
And when Jacob blessed his sons before he died, he chastised Reuben but he still included him in his sons. That is the proof that he did not sin so severely.
No I think what I meant is that after the episode it says “and the sons of Jacob were twelve” or something like that. That’s the proof. He was counted in the twelve, so his sin could not have been as serious as it seems.
The story with King David doesn’t smoothly fit the lowly temptation theory. King David was pretty old by the time this happened (47, 55 or 58 from a quick search). There are more facts that make it not fit as well either. It wasn’t that recently that I learned it but the scandalous version of the story only fits when the details are glossed over.
No disrespect intended, Rivka, but you may be surprised by what goes through the mind of a 58 year old man. Indeed, may you be spared of such knowledge.
There should be a blessing “that He hasn’t made me a man” but G-d had mercy on men and didn’t want their feelings hurt.
I learned this topic semi-recently and I can’t recall the details precisely but the way the story plays out with the details didn’t fit into the knee jerk reaction version. That’s not very persuasive, but I will try to come up with hard facts.
Or men had mercy on men :)
“Thank you for making me as I am” always works.
I think so! According to His will.
It is well known that King David loved women, but again, sexuality was much closer to spirituality in those days than the perversion it is today. Shir Hashirim explicitly describes love in many of its forms, and it is also the description of the love between Hashem and the Jewish People. It is called the “Holy of Holies”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with human attraction, as evidenced in our laws of Family Purity. King David was meant to marry Bat Sheva,so that Shlomo could be born. His sin was that he should have waited. And, by the way, he is one of our models for doing tshuva, for recognizing sin and then fixing it: repentance..
So, his sin didn't include getting Uriah killed off? My point being not to denigrate King David's greatness, but to affirm that great men may well have great flaws.
Right. If he didn’t murder Uriah by proxy, why did the first baby have to die as a punishment to David and Batsheva?
Of course! That’s my point. He had flaws, and we learn from those flaws how to do tshuva. But, we also have to realize that their God-consciousness was much much higher than ours. They were like Beethoven’s 5th, while we’re plinking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with one finger.