Tag Archives: Book of Jubilees

Did Abraham Pass the Test?

This week’s parasha, Vayera, contains one of the most difficult passages in the entire Torah, the Akedah or “Binding of Isaac”. Just about everyone reading this narrative will inevitably ask: how could Hashem have commanded child sacrifice? Even though He stopped it from happening, and Abraham didn’t go through with it, how could this have even come up? How is it that Abraham is seemingly blessed for “not withholding” his son from Hashem (Genesis 22:12)? Does God really want child sacrifice, or demand that level of obedience? Is it even morally acceptable? Many more questions emerge from the narrative:

Why is it that here, with the Akedah, Abraham does not question God at all? Previously, when God tells Abraham that He is about to obliterate everyone and everything in Sodom, Abraham challenges God. Yet here, Abraham is silent. Why is that the Torah says “Abraham returned to Beer Sheva” (22:19) but Isaac is not mentioned? In fact, Isaac doesn’t go to Beer Sheva at all, but lives in a totally different place in Be’er Lachai Roi (24:62). We don’t see Abraham and Isaac speaking ever again, and strangely Abraham does not even bless Isaac on his deathbed, as we find with all the other forefathers. It’s not only Isaac that seemingly never speaks to Abraham again, but neither does Sarah, who tragically passes away immediately upon hearing of the incident. Finally, we don’t see Hashem ever speaking to Abraham again either! It begs the question: Did Abraham really pass the test?

Of course, the Torah explicitly tells us that he did, and that God blessed him for it. The Mishnah in Avot adds that Abraham passed all ten of his tests (5:3). But we also know that there is a difference between passing a test with a C grade, and passing with an A+. Surely and undoubtedly, Abraham was a huge tzadik and beloved by Hashem, as the Torah repeats multiple times. That said, many of our Sages questioned the whole Akedah episode, and struggled with its mysteries and implications. The Midrash (Beresheet Rabbah 56:8) states that Abraham misunderstood the test:

Rabbi Aha said: Abraham began to express his confusion, [saying to God]: “These events are nothing short of bewildering! Yesterday, You said: ‘For it is through Isaac that will be called your descendants’ (Genesis 21:12), then You said: ‘Take you your son […and offer him up]’ (Genesis 22:2), and now You say to me: ‘Do not extend your hand against the lad’? This is bewildering!” The Holy One blessed be He said to Abraham: ‘“I will not violate My covenant, nor alter the utterance of My lips’ (Psalms 89:35) – when I said to you: ‘Take you your son,’ I did not say: ‘Slaughter him,’ but rather, ‘elevate him.’ I said this to you in affection. You have elevated him and fulfilled My word, now take him down!”

The Midrash points out that God never told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac; He literally just said to “elevate” him! Of course, there was never any intention of an immoral child sacrifice. The Midrash continues:

They said a parable; this is analogous to a king who said to his friend: “Bring your son up to [eat at] my table.” He brought him to him, knife in hand. The king said: “Did I say to bring him up in order to eat him? I said: Bring him up out of affection for him!” That is what is written: “[They built altars on which to burn their sons and daughters in fire, something that I never commanded] and which never entered My heart” (Jeremiah 19:5) – this refers to Isaac.

When Jeremiah, like many prophets, critiques the idolaters for their cruel pagan child sacrifices, he quotes Hashem as saying that such “devotion” never entered God’s heart. The Midrash says this refers to Isaac himself, and God never wanted nor commanded a child sacrifice. Abraham misunderstood the assignment. Yes, he passed the test on one level, and showed his unwavering devotion. But that wasn’t quite the point. The point was to recognize that God would never demand an immoral child sacrifice. It was to realize that Judaism is not pagan, and would never involve any kind of human sacrifice, God forbid. Even if God Himself commands a person to do something like this, the correct response is to refuse! This is similar to the way Moses refused God’s offer to expunge the Israelites following the Golden Calf and make a new nation out of Moses. Moses boldly countered: “Erase me, then, from Your book!” (Exodus 32:32)

It is also similar to Rabbi Yehoshua’s bold reply to the Bat Kol during the incident of Tanur shel Achnai. Even when God’s own voice resonated through the study hall to insist that Rabbi Eliezer was correct in his halakhic ruling, Rabbi Yehoshua looked up and said lo bashamayim hi, “It is not in Heaven!” (Deuteronomy 30:12) The rabbis overruled God. When Rabbi Natan later met Eliyahu and asked how God had responded up in Heaven, Eliyahu related that God laughed and said nitzchuni banai, “My children have overruled Me!” Our rabbis passed the test by refusing to heed the Bat Kol! Moses, too, passed the test by refusing God’s offer. God gave us a divine intellect and commanded us to use it wisely. He made us His partners in Creation, and wants us to think for ourselves. We are not meant to be brainless drones. This is the very meaning of the name Israel, “for you have struggled [sarita] with Elohim and with people, and prevailed!” (Genesis 32:29)

The Role of Satan

The Zohar (I, 10b) takes a very different approach to the Akedah, and suggests that the whole thing was a punishment:

Whom do we have in the world greater than Abraham, whose benevolence extended to all creatures? However, on the day that he prepared a feast—as it is written: “And the child grew, and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned” (Genesis 21:8)—to that feast Abraham invited all the great men of the age. Now we have been taught that whenever a banquet is given, that “Accuser” [Satan] comes to spy out whether the host has first dispensed charity and invited poor people to his house. If he finds that it is so, he departs without entering the house. But if not, he goes in and surveys the merry-making, and having taken note that no charity had been sent to the poor nor had any been invited to the feast, he ascends above and brings accusations against the host.

Thus, when Abraham invited to his feast the great men of the age, the Accuser came and appeared at the door in the guise of a poor man, but no one took notice of him. Abraham was attending on the kings and magnates… The Accuser then presented himself before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to Him: “Master of the world, You have said “Abraham is My beloved”, yet he has made a feast and has not given anything to You nor to the poor, nor has he offered up to You so much as one pigeon…

Said the Holy One, blessed be He: “Who in this world can be compared to Abraham?” Nevertheless, the Accuser did not stir from there until he had spoiled all the festivity; and God then commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac as an offering, and it was decreed that Sarah should die from anguish on account of her son’s danger—all because Abraham did not give anything to the poor!

The Zohar states that both the Akedah and the death of Sarah was because of a lack of kindness and charity on the part of Abraham, who was usually the very epitome of kindness and charity. It appears the test itself came much earlier, at the weaning feast of Isaac, and Abraham the paragon of Chessed was tested with Chessed. The Zohar suggests Abraham failed this test, and the punishment was the Akedah!

It is worth noting that the ancient apocryphal Book of Jubilees has a similar suggestion, saying that the whole Akedah was Satan’s doing. In Chapter 17, Satan (called “Mastema” here) comes before God and questions Abraham’s devotion. The passage is reminiscent of the way Satan appears before God in the Book of Job, and gets permission to harm and test Job. Satan suggests the Akedah to prove that Abraham’s devotion is complete. Apparently, it was Satan’s idea! That would explain both the Midrash quoted above where God says He never commanded the Akedah (and it never “arose in His heart”); as well as the well-known Midrash that Satan tried to stop Abraham from going up to the Akedah, including by creating a mirage of a raging river to block Abraham’s journey. Satan had to do what he could to stop it, since it was his idea to begin with, and he thought Abraham would never go through with it!

A Diversity of Perspectives

While we commonly hear rabbis praising Abraham for being so devoted to Hashem that he was willing to sacrifice his own son, others were far more critical. Perhaps the most explicit statement came from the Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel, c. 1250-1327), in his comments on the verse “Jacob is God’s own allotment” (Deuteronomy 32:11). The literal reading of the verse, Ya’akov chevel nachalato, implies that Jacob is the start of God’s “rope” of inheritance. The Rosh asks: why Jacob? Why not Abraham, the first patriarch? And he says it is because “Abraham was cruel [akhzari] to want to sacrifice his son and not pray for him instead… But Jacob had compassion for all of his children.” Jacob thus merited to be “Israel”.

Indeed, the Tanakh speaks out so many times against cruel human and child sacrifices, and calls out the wicked Canaanites, Moabites, and others for engaging in these practices and sacrificing children to their gods Molech and Chemosh. It is one of the 613 commandments not to sacrifice a child or “pass a child through a flame” (Deuteronomy 18:10). So how could God ever demand such a thing, and how could Abraham ever think to go along with it?

Some rabbis held that the whole Akedah episode must have only been a dream, and didn’t physically happen. (This was explored fully in Garments of Light, Volume Two, in the chapter titled ‘The Shocking Opinion that the Akedah Never Happened’.) According to this view, Abraham only saw the Akedah in a vision, and proved his devotion virtually. Of those who held this view, perhaps the most notable is the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204) who, as a general rule, believed that any time an angel is mentioned in the Torah, it must be a dream. The Rambam wrote that “in the case of everyone about whom exists a Scriptural text that an angel talked to him or that speech came to him from God, this did not occur in any other way than in a dream or in a prophetic vision.” (Moreh Nevukhim, Part 2, Ch. 41)

Yet a third approach holds that the test was not Abraham’s at all, but Isaac’s! Targum Yonatan records:

And it was after these things that Isaac and Ishmael contended; and Ishmael said: “It is right that I should inherit what is our father’s because I am his firstborn son.” And Isaac said: “It is right that I should inherit what is our father’s, because I am the son of Sarah his wife, and you are the son of Hagar the handmaid of my mother.” Ishmael said: “I am more righteous than you, because I was circumcised at thirteen years; and if it had been my will to hinder, they should not have delivered me to be circumcised; but you were circumcised a child eight days; if you had knowledge, perhaps they could not have delivered you to be circumcised!” Isaac said: “Behold, today I am thirty-six years old; and if the Holy One, blessed be He, were to demand my whole body, I would not delay.” These words were heard before the Master of the Universe, and the Word of God immediately came to Abraham, and said to him: “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am”…

The Targum suggests it was Isaac’s test more than Abraham’s, to prove his devotion to God and to prove himself more worthy than his half-brother Ishmael.

Whatever the case, what we can say for sure is this: the Torah explicitly forbids child sacrifice, and it is one of the 365 prohibitions of the 613 mitzvot. God does not demand such cruel obedience, and never did. Judaism is a religion of life, not death. Unlike other religions that glorify death and martyrdom, Judaism’s highest value is life. The Torah is a “tree of life for those who grasp it” (Proverbs 3:18). Abraham may have passed the test and showed his unwavering devotion, but as the Midrash states, he seems to have misunderstood the whole assignment. It is Jacob that ultimately merits to become Israel, embodying our mission to “wrestle with Elohim, and with people, and prevail.”

For a deeper understanding of sacrifices and further discussion of the Akedah, see the following class:

Mysteries of Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah

Tonight we usher in Shemini Atzeret, the final “eighth” day following Sukkot, which is technically a distinct holiday of its own. In the diaspora—where we keep two days of yom tov—the second day of Shemini Atzeret is Simchat Torah, when we start a new Torah reading cycle with a big celebration. In Israel—where one yom tov is observed—Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret are on the same day. The Torah does not actually say what the purpose of Shemini Atzeret is, and why it is distinct from Sukkot. Simchat Torah is not mentioned in the Torah at all! What is the real meaning behind these mysterious festivals?

‘The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Livorno’ by Solomon Hart (1850)

The Torah itself only tells us that we should have one extra holiday after Sukkot, a yom tov in which we should not do any work and in which we should bring offerings to Hashem (Leviticus 23:36, 39). Commenting on this, Rashi famously cites our Sages and quotes God saying “‘I keep you back with Me [atzarti] one more day’—like a king who invited his children to a banquet for a certain number of days. When the time arrived for them to leave, he said, ‘Children, I beg you, please stay one more day with me; it is so hard for me to part from you!’” The Zohar adds to this a beautiful explanation:

As discussed in the recent class here, Sukkot is a holiday envisioning the future, not commemorating the past. The prophet Zechariah tells us (in chapter 14) that in the forthcoming Messianic age, all the nations of the world will come to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot with us. Sukkot will become an international festival! And so, the Zohar says, once all the nations of the world leave following seven days of Sukkot in Jerusalem, only the Jewish people will remain for one more day of celebration just for us—Shemini Atzeret. That’s why the Torah says atzeret tihyeh lakhem, “it shall be an atzeret for you” (Numbers 29:35), meaning specifically for the people of Israel and not the other nations of the world who will come to celebrate Sukkot! (See Zohar I, 64a)

But why is this particular date special? What happened in history on Shemini Atzeret to make it a holiday to begin with?

Secrets from Jubilees

The ancient (apocryphal) Book of Jubilees provides an incredible origin to Shemini Atzeret. Recall that Jubilees was excluded from the Tanakh by most Jewish communities (although it was included in the Ethiopian Tanakh and in the ancient Essene Tanakh, and many copies have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls). Nonetheless, it was always studied and referenced throughout history, and many parallel passages are found in our Midrashim (for more on this, see here).

The setup for Shemini Atzeret begins in Chapter 31 of Jubilees, where we read how Jacob destroyed all the idols in his household (paralleling Genesis 35:2). Jubilees says that it was here that Rachel told her husband about the teraphim she took from Lavan, and handed them over to Jacob to be destroyed. Jacob then finally goes to visit his parents after decades away from them. Instead of taking his entire big family on the journey, he decides to bring only his sons Levi and Judah. Isaac and Rebecca give these two grandsons special blessings, and Isaac gives Levi a blessing to be priestly and Judah to be royal. This is Jubilees’ explanation for why later in history the tribe of Levi would become priests and the tribe of Judah would give rise to the line of kings. It also explains why these are the two tribes that survived throughout history, to this day, while the other tribal lineages have been lost.

In Chapter 32, Jacob fulfils his promise to tithe everything he has to Hashem—and that includes his children! So he lines them all up and counts from the youngest up, the tenth being Levi. Thus, Levi is chosen to be the “tithe”, and to dedicate his life to Hashem. Levi has a dream where God confirms that he will be the family priest. He then builds an altar and begins his work of sacrificial offerings. The family has a seven-day celebration, going out into the fields and dwelling in booths. According to Jubilees, this is the original Sukkot!

On the eighth day, after the seven-day Sukkot is over, Hashem appears to Jacob again. This is where He affirms that “You shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name” (Genesis 35:10). The following verses in the Torah tell us that God blesses Jacob to be fruitful, and promises to Jacob the Holy Land, and tells him that nations and kings will emerge from him. This special day is Shemini Atzeret! Fittingly, Jubilees adds that God then reveals to Jacob all the things that will happen in the End of Days, engraved upon seven tablets. Again, we see the link between Sukkot-Shemini Atzeret and the End of Days, the holiday being more about envisioning the future then commemorating the past.

In this way, Jubilees shows how Jacob celebrated Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret long before Sinai, confirming our Sages statement that the Patriarchs observed the whole Torah and marked all the holidays—even though their lives pre-dated Sinai and they did not have a physical Torah in their hands.

What about Simchat Torah? There is no explicit mention of it in Tanakh, and not in Mishnah or Talmud (and not in Jubilees either). This is a much more recent holiday. Where did it come from, and why?

Celebrating the Torah

In olden times, the Torah was typically read over the course of not one year, but three years. (Earlier still, in Biblical times, it was read publicly over the course of seven years—more on that below.) It was in the Persian Empire that the Babylonian sages sped up the cycle to read the whole Torah once a year (see Megillah 29b). Even as late as the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204), he writes in the Mishneh Torah that there were still some minority communities who followed a three-year cycle, although it had become nearly universal to follow a one-year cycle (Hilkhot Tefillah 13:1). The Rambam codifies that the Torah begins anew with parashat Beresheet on the Shabbat following Sukkot. He then states that it was Ezra the Scribe who instituted the yearly cycle. There is no contradiction here, because Ezra came to Israel from Babylon.

Why start with Beresheet in the fall? Why not in Nisan, which is the first month of the Jewish calendar? This goes back to the debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua on when Creation took place (Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a). The former said that Creation took place in Tishrei, while the latter argued it took place in Nisan. Rabbi Eliezer brings multiple proofs for his position, including the fact that the Torah states there had not yet been precipitation and then God “raised a mist” and made it rain before creating Adam (Genesis 2:5-6). So, the creation of Adam is clearly tied to the start of the rainy season, meaning Creation must have been in Tishrei!

Another proof is that the Torah says God created every species in its mature, adult form, including trees already containing fruits on their branches. When do find that trees are full of fruit and ready for harvest? In Tishrei! (Sukkot marks the final fruit harvest of the year.) Thus, it is fitting to read Beresheet in the fall, since the Torah begins with a description of a divine spirit “hovering over the waters”, the separation of upper and lower waters and establishment of the water cycle, the first rains, and trees full of fruit. And by the Rambam’s time, the yearly Torah-reading cycle had become essentially universal. However, the Rambam does not mention Simchat Torah.

Some four hundred years later, the Shulchan Arukh (in Orach Chaim 669) does mention Simchat Torah, but very briefly. The way Rav Yosef Karo (c. 1488-1575) phrases it makes it seem like it’s only outside of Israel—where people have to keep two yom tovs—that the second yom tov is called Simchat Torah. The Ashkenazi gloss of the Rama (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, 1530-1572) adds the details that we are familiar with: to remove all the Torah scrolls from the ark and have a big celebration, with hakafot, song and dance, and aliyot for all. The Rama’s language suggests this was the practice specifically in European lands. He cites the Arba’ah Turim of Rabbi Yakov ben Asher (“Ba’al haTurim”, c. 1269-1343) who explicitly says it was “the custom in Ashkenaz” to hold a big celebration and feast in honour of the completion of the Torah reading cycle and the start of a new one. The Ba’al haTurim was born in Ashkenaz but moved with his family to Spain around the year 1300, and became a rabbi among Sephardim. It could well be that his family of Ashkenazi rabbis introduced Simchat Torah to the Sephardic world. By the time of the great Abarbanel (1437-1508)—who was advisor to the Spanish crown and was given an exemption from the Spanish Expulsion, but famously chose to leave with his people—we see that Simchat Torah was observed in Spain, too, and Abarbanel explains (in his commentary on Deuteronomy 31:9):

It is written that each and every year, the high priest or the prophet or judge or gadol hador would read on Sukkot a portion of Torah, and would conclude reading the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers over the course of six years, and then in the seventh year (the Sabbatical), the king would read on Sukkot the book of Deuteronomy, and would complete the Torah. Thus, the custom has remained until our days, that on the eighth day festival, Shemini Atzeret, on the last day we have Simchat Torah, on which we complete the Torah…

Rav Yosef Karo himself was born in Spain, and ultimately settled in Tzfat where he was the chief rabbi. His contemporary was the great Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572), who lived out his final years in Tzfat and revolutionized Judaism with his mystical teachings. The Arizal had an Ashkenazi father and a Mizrachi mother, and was raised in Egypt by his uncle, studying under great rabbis like the Radbaz (Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra, 1479-1573, also born in Spain). The Arizal played a big role in fusing together Sephardic, Mizrachi, and Ashkenazi practices. He revealed various mystical meditations on Simchat Torah, and particularly on the hakafot. And so, from Tzfat, Simchat Torah spread to the Mizrachi world as well, and it soon become universal to hold a big Simchat Torah celebration—with the additional details and practices mentioned by the Ba’al haTurim and Rama that first originated in Ashkenaz.

Celebrating the Tree of Life

We can now clearly piece together the evolution of Simchat Torah. It officially began in Central Europe. The first explicit mention of the term “Simchat Torah” appears to be in the 11th century Machzor Vitry, written by Rav Simcha of Vitry, France, a student of Rashi. Simchat Torah might trace back to an earlier custom among the Geonim to have a big celebration upon completion of the Torah-reading cycle. The Rambam, who came from a long line of Sephardic rabbis, does not mention Simchat Torah in the 12th century, but the Sephardi gadol Abarbanel does speak of it in the 15th century, meaning it was adopted among Sephardim at some point in those intervening three centuries. It may have been due to the Ba’al haTurim’s family who immigrated from Ashkenaz to Sepharad around the end of the 13th century.

At the same time, in 1290 CE, came the first publication of the Zohar, in Spain. The Zohar (III, 97a) does mention Simchat Torah, calling it by its Aramaic name Hedvata d’Oraita (which is likely what it would have originally been called among the Babylonian Geonim). The Zohar gives a beautiful explanation as to why we celebrate with the Torah specifically on Shemini Atzeret. As noted above, Shemini Atzeret is the festival that is only for Israel, once all the nations of the world leave after Sukkot, and once the seventy bulls offered on behalf of the seventy nations was complete. Now, only Israel remains, delighting with Hashem once last time before going off to start a new year. And what makes our relationship with Hashem special? What makes us unique compared to the other nations? The Torah! It is our covenant with Hashem, with Torah as contract, and our devotion to its laws and its study. So, Shemini Atzeret is the ideal time to celebrate the Torah, to dance with the Torah, renew our commitment to Torah, and start a new Torah-reading cycle.

We see how, between the Zohar and the Arba’ah Turim, Simchat Torah spread throughout Sepharad; and after the Spanish Expulsion, to North Africa and the Middle East and Mizrachi communities as well. Today it has become a beautiful, universal practice in all Jewish communities, a public display of faith and commitment to Hashem and His Torah. And this ties right back into what the Zohar says about Simchat Torah:

Intriguingly, the Zohar gives it another name, calling it Hedvata d’Ilana, a celebration of the Tree of Life. The simple meaning is that King Solomon called the Torah a “Tree of Life for those who grasp it” (Proverbs 3:18). On Simchat Torah we grasp the Torah quite literally! On a deeper level, connecting Simchat Torah to the Tree of Life is yet another allusion to Creation, and to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At the start of the year, we have a new opportunity to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19), to live a godly life of divine service, a life of blessing, righteousness, kindness, and goodness. It is the opportune time to set resolutions for the new year, so that it should be a fruitful, productive, happy, and blessed year for all.

Chag sameach!

Giants & Aliens in the Torah (Video)

Ancient Mesopotamian civilizations spoke of various giant-like beings called Anunaki and Rapiu. These same terms (Anakim and Rephaim) are found in the Torah, also in reference to ancient giants. Where did they come from, and where are they now? What is their connection to angels, Nephilim, and the Bnei Elohim mentioned in multiple places in Tanakh? Find out in this mind-blowing class where we also explore UFOs and UAPs, God’s Divine Chariot, and the prophetic experiences of Ezekiel, Enoch, Isaiah, Eliyahu, and others.