Setting the Stage Between Pshat and Midrash by Rabbi Shmuel Goldin

okay uh if everybody will settle in we're going to uh start our our sh all right this is uh those of you who've been learning with me in the past we've been doing par this year we're going to do something a bit different as I announced we're going to be learning and what that means is uh when you do par basically you pick one topic from the par and you speak about that and then you skip a lot of other things what we're going to be doing is we're going to be going step by step through saerit and trying to understand a lot of the stories that are familiar to us from a different perspective today's sh is a bit of an introduction and it's an introduction by setting the stage on an issue that I feel very very strongly about when it comes to the study of humash and that is the distinction between and Med the distinction between what the Torah actually says and rabinal exegesis which is it's it's a wonderful word nobody knows what it means um rabinal interpretation which often goes very far a field and the problem that I see particularly when it comes to the teaching of our children in many of the schools is that we jump immediately to medish and children grow up feeling or understanding or believing that are things written in the Torah that aren't there at all and what happens is and we grow up with that concept we grow up with that interpretation as adults rarely returning to the text in a critical fashion to look at the text and to really understand what it is that the Kish is saying and when that happens we understand neither theat nor the medrash because we don't ever look at the straightforward interpretation of the text and we don't understand what the medish is trying to do what the rabbis are trying to do when they give these interpretations which as I say it often go very far a field we're going to take a look at three examples from saer brait of where everybody knows the the medish or many people know the medish but theat is often missed and the medish is often misunderstood let's take a look at the first one if will this is on the fourth day of creation fourth day of creation the Torah says Let There Be luminaries in the Vault of the Heavens to separate between the day and the night they will illuminate the Earth and God created the two great luminaries the great luminary to rule during the day and the smaller luminary to rule during the night and the Stars right now there are a whole series of questions that that Ares from this text what are the Lum if there's light in the first day how come the luminaries are only created on the fourth day what was the light of the first day all those kinds of questions we're going to take a look at another time we're just looking at one pule we're just looking at that sentence that's underlined now let's remember that our belief is that there is absolutely nothing extra in the text and and no there's no verbiage there are no words that are in the text that don't need to be there what's your problem with that sentence God EX exactly right why doesn't it just simply say and God created why does it first say the two great luminaries and then say the great luminary to rule during the day in the small luminary you didn't need that first at so does anybody know the medish all right both the moon wanted be that the Sun and the Moon and the reason you know the medish is because a medish is quoted by Rashi right but it's a medish that actually is found in the talmood itself and let's take a look at it because most people only know the beginning of the medish it's really a very beautiful medish if you continue as welli says why does it say the two because God created the two luminaries the Sun and Theon Moon of equal size originally that's why it says the two great luminaries and what happened the moon complained right the moon complained the moon turned and said I'm looking at the second line but you can look at the English as well heavenly father is it possible that two kings can rule with one Crown in other words you're you're creating a problem here you're by creating us the same size we're going to what we're going to VI for power we're not going to there's not going to be one who's the ruler and one who's the subject we be vying for power so so God says since you said that since you said that what should what what should you do dear moon since you're complaining right all right go reduce yourself and that's usually where the the the knowledge of the medish ends because that's all that Rashi really quotes but as I said the medish goes on the medish then says so the moon said to to God I'm in the last paragraph on the first page but again the English goes on to the next page as well since I told you something correct right my my my argument is a correct argument I should diminish myself you're punishing me for nothing the medish then goes on to say that God tries to appease the Moon in a whole variety of ways until finally the medra says God sees at the end that no the moon's not satisfied the moon's not happy so what happens take a look it says the medish says if you take a look at the carbon that is bought on brought on rodes which is rodes is the Moon's time right r because we are KES follows the the moon if you take a look it almost sounds like it's a k for a kades God is saying this is a I'm bringing a carbon because I did something wrong I made the I was found it necessary to make the moon diminish itself and therefore I'm atoning for my for what I did Shine that that's the medish all right now I am teaching at Yeshiva University a number of years ago a group of students and they are there there these are students who have gone to gone to Hebrew school or to a Yeshiva but of limited background and I come to this p and I say to them okay tell me what you know they said well the Moon the Moon complained and the moon all right I said I turned to them and I said how many of you think the moon can talk Moon all right the Man in the Moon right how many of you think the moon can talk so they said they they they didn't know what to say I said let's let's let's imagine for a moment and now this is even more true than when I said it I said let's imagine we are you I'm raising this question to you in the safety of the four walls of yiva University but let's say you were on another college campus and someone brought this text to you and said to you and you quoted this Mish because that's what you learned and then that person said to you how many of you think the moon can talk what would you be able to answer and we're asking our children to to sort of believe things this is what I mean when I say that we go go immediately to the Mish we're asking children to believe things that no that don't that they don't necessarily need to believe under those conditions right and making things more difficult so now let's let's examine the medish for a moment before we go toat the medish why do you think the rabbis would have said this medish what do you think the lesson they might be teaching would be why would they suggest don't be jealous wages of jealousy cause you to diminish yourself all right in other words that's one possibility that the rabbis have a lesson that they want to teach and what they do is they look at the text and they say wow we can teach that lesson using this text and it's a lesson that we want what we want to travel across the ages and this is a powerful lesson so therefore using the text the rabbis will what will will take this text and say yes it has its own meaning but now let's let's find other lessons we can teach and that's what the medish is see not every not everyone agrees with this but many many feel that MIM are not meant to be taken literally I know that sounds revolutionary right but Med rashim are not Med rashim are teaching tools by the rabbis and I can show you classical commentaries that that are very clear about this that understanding the medish the key question is not the historical veracity of the statement the key question is what what are the rabbis trying to teach now let's take a look at the why would it say we got a problem right if we don't take the medish literally then we're still stuck with this textual problem so I remember very interestingly reading a a book I forget the name scientist wrote a book on bra sheet and he said you know there's a miraculous thing from the perspective of man on one level the sun and the moon are of the same size not illumination not in terms of Illumination but in terms of circumference it is miraculous that standing where we stand the circle of the moon and the circle of the sun are of equivalent size how how do I know that the eclipse is because you can have an eclipse and it's almost that's an almost perfect fit now imagine if the sun would have been a little more a little closer or a little more distant or the moon would have been a little closer or a little more distant life wouldn't have been possible here on this world at least not not Life As We know it and therefore what you have is you have something miraculous from the perspective of man you are looking at you are looking at two great luminaries of equivalent size at but when you talk about what illumination one of them is great and one of them is smaller so that is that's a beautiful chat that's text that's looking at the text and saying wow what a what a miracle I that I didn't realize is underscored by a couple of seemingly extra words in the text and that's what I mean by saying understanding the medish and its place and understanding the text let's take a look at the second case the second case is actually to my mind very very very t ly in fact I wrote about it a little bit in the Torah tiets it's very timely this is this is a a a POS that is one of the strangest sukim in the Torah let's let me tell you the setting we are now looking at the second generation of mankind and the lesson of the second generation of mankind is be careful with your mistakes because your children will perfect them all right what happen happens is you've got Adam and sinning and then denying the sin and trying to get away from it and then you go to the second generation and who do you have you have Ken saying right so and in other ways his sin parallels but takes a step further the sin of his parents we're going to learn that when we get to it but the Torah comes to a climactic moment in the story of cayen and he and that climactic moment is when kills Heaven let's take a look at that said to heel and it was when they were in the field and Ken rose up on against his now look at the word repeated right to say how bad this was it's his brother but what's your question about the text what did he say exactly he didn't say anything to him well he's the torah's telling me he said something right but the Torah leaves it out now if it would have said V it would have been less of a problem because means he spoke to him means he said and nowhere in the Torah other than this to my knowledge is there a place where it says and he said and doesn't tell you what he said so in Jump the rabbis all right here's in the rabbis jump into the breach and you have a very very strange medish interprets we're going to see howz interprets this med Med is at the bottom of page two and again the English carries over into page three Al what were they arguing about asked the rabbis your question it's the rabbis question they turned to each other and they said listen we're the only ones really here except for our wives right let's divide the world let's divide the world so they divided the world in the way the rabbis often divide things between what's known as Cara and metalin Cara is what real estate metalin is movables all right so one of them said okay I got all the land and the other one said okay I got all the movables all the what the movables right I mean right I have all the the the the things I have the things you have the land real estate right I mean in our world too there's a difference between the real estate and removables right so what then happened the one who said I get all the land turned to his brother and said okay start flying you're on my land right you're on my land get off my land and the one who said I get all the movables said okay give me back my shirt and they started fighting and that's what they said so that's that is suggestion number one there will be three suggestions in this matter suggestion number two is now they divided everything equally the land and the movables equally what was the problem one of them said okay it get stranger as we go the base ham mikos is going to be on my property and the other one said no the Bas of mcos is going to be on my property and once they started delineating that that claim what did they do they fought finally you have the last suggestion Rabbi oo AO says rabi hudar Ami says they were arguing over a woman right one of them was at one suggestion is they were arguing over their mother all right another suggestion is that twins were born with each of them because the Torah doesn't tell us who they married or was created right and there was an extra twin so they were arguing over the extra twin one of them was one was guess was triplets I guess now let's stop there this is very strange right what are the what the rabbis have a right to suggest these things they weren't there right and they're asking us to believe that Cen and he were arguing about the B mikos the B mikos was no no concept of that at the time of Cen and he so what are they what are they saying here so I'll tell you what any ideas any suggestions what the what the lesson might be here yes there's a third choice what's the yeah I'm not sure but that's that's the that's what lesson is in other words that there's another choice that it could have been any one of these all right all right so I think you're close I think you're close Never Satisfied what never satisfi the laitz takes a step further it says if you take a look at human history and you look at all the Bloodshed that's been spilled it has been spilt over one of three things it's either been spilled been spilled over possession over religion or over lust that's it that's it that sums up the totality of warfare in human life and I said I said this is very very very pertinent and I should have said at the beginning by the way I should have said at the beginning that we are dedicating all our learning in in this class and throughout as for as long as it will be necessary to the welfare of our soldiers and to the return of the hostages and to the return of the soldiers safely back home after they do their job but says nit is saying we haven't moved one step off the killing field of cenne right that's really sobering isn't it it's really frightening that's what we've killed each other about but that's the m so the Mish is is giving us options not necessarily saying we know what they said but saying we got to tell you it had to be one of these things because those are the three things that we fight about but what's this is powerful by said to HEB and the Torah doesn't tell me what he said said what is the Torah teaching me by the Omission doesn't matter that it doesn't matter what he said that's shocked that cing maybe hadn't had a had a had a reasonable argument maybe he had a good tium maybe there was something he but you know what there is nothing you can say that can forgive that condone the killing of your brother there is no Tina in the world that can condone the crime that that and therefore the Torah says I'm going to tell you he said something and I'm not going to tell you what he said because it don't matter it doesn't matter right and look how look again when you look at the text and it's so powerful it's the only place in the Torah where it says he said something and doesn't tell you and the Torah wants to teach you by that Omission volumes and of course that's what our war now today is about there is nothing that condones the kind of atrocities and the kind of a approach to to to the life that kamat represents there's nothing that condones look they are killing their own civilians and they come right out and say it they come right out and say say it they say it it doesn't matter that thousands of civilians will die we're we're making our point unfortunately the world in in large measure it's it's interesting you know it's interesting that that some of the world leaders are are much better than than the world this time right in some cases um because I think they realize what Hamas represents and the danger that it poses to to the Free World all right finally we're going to take a look at the last one all right now this one takes us further into braus into the patriarchal era and it takes us to to what many will say is Abraham's greatest test and that is the test of AAS the Thea the test of the the aborted sacrifice of its and that test begins if you'll take a look at page three with three words it was after these things that God tested Abraham and God said to Abraham Abraham and Abraham said here I am so the first three words all right now I'm going to ask you a question that I've asked in class before does the Torah follow chronological order right the answer very good all right the answer is what that's correct that's my answer the Torah follows always follows chronological order except when it doesn't all right now what do I mean by that what do I mean by that the Torah is you see we learned a a very famous rinic statement right the rabbis will say there is no chronological order to the text they never said that they said those words but they never said there's no chronological order to the text what they did say is that sometimes some commentaries will find the order in the text difficult and on those unique circumstances under certain cases they will say this doesn't follow chronological order all right once in a while According to some commentaries the ran for example nakes fights against it entirely he says the Torah is always chronological except when it tells you it's not and let in say unless it says this came first this came at an earlier time so in other words the Torah is always following chronological order if the Torah is generally following chronological order then what's the problem with the first three words in that sentence didn't have to say why does it have to say that right in other words why does it ever have to say it was after these things and sometimes it will say sometimes it will say why does it ever have to say that okay so what would you suggest they're connected correct correct right they're connected the problem is that in this case the connection is very hard to see because the we'll look in a moment at the event we'll look at it more carefully and it's also very timely but the event that immediately precedes the AA is a covenant created between Abraham and a that's the event that comes right before and all the commentaries look at it and say what's the connection between those two events it's not clear so Rashi right on the spot will jump right into medish which is what Rashi will do at times and we're going to look at his soon we're going to look at his grandson the rashbam and we're going to see that the rashbam takes Rashi to task at times because he rashbam is my favorite classical commentary because he always tries to stick with pup shot always tries to stick and he takes his grandfather to task periodically saying my grand grandfather will do in fact in fact at one point I believe he says my grandfather told me that if he would have Rewritten his pish he would have stuck closer to what I think it's he says that okay good take a look if that's where it is now here Rashi jumps immediately to to to medish and he says the word and he quotes from the gamorra again the word with a little bit of a Twist can mean after the not after these things it could be after these words de and he says what were the words and He suggests two possibilities one possibility is that the Satan Satan now by the way we don't believe in a Satan that is independent as an entity Satan is an angel what's an angel an angel is a messenger from God and most will the easiest way to understand Angels is to understand that they are representations of aspects of God that help us Bridge the chasm between man and God in other words some say they are actual entities some of them say they are Visions some of them say they but are they are basically entities real or Vision envisioned which as which represents certain aspects of God and Satan is not an independent being it's a prosecutor it's that aspect of God that speaks of harshness or Den or judgment so Satan comes to the to the to God meaning and says you know AA made a party when get called was born and everybody had a good time and they all ate but he didn't offer a carbon didn't offer something to you so God says okay you're going to see what kind of carbon he'll bring up and God causes the AA the second medish says the words were not satans but the words were yesma and they weren't directed to AB they were directed to y y turns to and says you think you're such a big deal CU you had a bris at 8 days I was 12 years old when I had to do that so yock has to show that he's willing to sacrifice himself in in to respond to that accusation medish does it is this the shot of the text clearly not which brings us to the problem again we're we're not going to take the medish as the answer to the text but rather as they're teaching us lessons about what's happening so we have to take a look at the rashbam the rashbam offers and some of you have heard this the rashbam offers a revolutionary approach to the young kdom one that others don't agree with but it is certainly a way of explaining the first thing the the let's take a look at the event before we read the rashbam let's take a look at the event that precedes the AA in the text it's on page four it was at that time that a and his chief of staff came to AB and said we see that God is with you right we want to we want to jump on board how do we want to jump on board let's make pray swear to your to God if you will deal falsely you will do falsely to me or to my child or to my grandchild right I want there to be an intergenerational Covenant like I treated you pretty well treat me Etc so what does AB say immediately yes and then in the next sentence he yells at a he says but I want you to know you stole my well to which a responds lo yti I never saw it I didn't do it I I had no knowledge of any of this aam then goes on and do they contract a covenant they actually do it says very clearly abam takes Sonu I'm looking at the underlined section sentence in the middle and again it says again it says it once again the torah's reiteration of the fact that they contracted a treaty an intergenerational treaty in now first of all what do we know about AI we don't know much but you know it's interesting to to spend time looking at the peripheral Al characters in the Torah AI emerges as someone he's the king of the Philistines he's not an evil man but he leads an a pretty evil society and when pushed and said you did this what does he respond not my fa not my right we' we've heard this before all right again very so what could what could the connection be between this and the AR so now let's take a look at the rashbam turned into the next page and now I'm reading the rash page five page five Murray was right what is happening now is somehow thematically conceptually connected and by the way it may not even be immediately afterwards temporar but thematically it is what it is connected to what came before so now he's now he's stuck so what does he say skip to the next underlining section in Hebrew afan in the English here too here too these events are connected after AB contracted a covenant with a intergenerationally obligating not only him but obligating his children and grandchildren and the rashbam now brings down that the rabis feel this Covenant was an error it should not have been made it was wrong because God promised the land to Abraham and what God promised the land to Abraham and not supposed to create a covenant with the Nations on the land and what is he doing he is not only creating a covenant for himself but for his progeny elim I'm skipping to the next paragraph n as Abraham God tested Abraham canaro vitaro he he not tormented but he treated abam harsh and what did he say to him you you were Hoy with what the safety of your child and your grandchild you took the safety for granted now now you you treated him holy you didn't you weren't careful enough with the welfare of your child now take a look at what it might what it might feel like to lose that child right and this is a whole suddenly now the aor becomes something very different from what thought it was now I don't think by the way that the rasham is rejecting all the other explanations to the AA in other words it's a test of aram's faith that all the other explanations it was actually a statement that this is not what God wants because that's finally what what happened all of those explanations but he is adding another he's adding another layer he's saying in a sense that the aada was a coarse correction for Abraham Abraham was so anxious to what to to to deal and to to have peace with the people around him that he didn't take that he didn't look carefully enough and he didn't recognize the danger into which he was putting his Tri now again this is a very frightening explanation right but I'm going to tell you something if you take a look at the flow of the text you find something very interesting the aaham that is painted for us after the AA is very different from the Aram before after the a in you don't see Abram preaching to the world anymore he does two things get married he buries his wife marries off his son he takes care of family and I don't think that this is a rejection of all that he did before in other words he's not saying that but it's balance right balance you want to have peace be sure you have safeguards I mean one of the things we are feeling the effect now of is an apparent error that we made over the years right the term mowing the lawn right what was the term mowing the lawn we can keep we can keep our enemies at a reasonable level right it it's okay as long as yeah St Ro can can get Rockets but you know will Tit for Tat a little bit and as long as that's the worst that he gets that's the worst was wrong that was wrong and hindsight is Is 2020 I'm not saying any one of us would have done any better if we were sitting in the driver's seat I don't know that we would have but it was the wrong decision and and here you see centuries ago the rashbam turning and saying aam went too far and because of that Abraham is now being tested with the potential loss of his son just like we are being tested with some very very serious challenges very serious challenges that perhaps didn't have to occur had we had we made other decisions so I I I hate to leave you on a downer uh um but I want I let's sum up what we've seen we've seen three cases right three cases where we confront a textual difficulty where there there are two Global approaches there is the mid rashik approach and the Pas Shad approach each has its place we're not rejecting one or the other but each has to be understood within that place the medish is the rabbis wanting to transmit lessons and using the text as the springboard for those lessons theot is what does the Torah say here and what is it what is it trying and and very often the lessons of the are extremely powerful people make the mistake is thinking that because we call it sometimes pup that it means simplistic it's not the shot can be very very deep and as we've seen the lessons can be very very powerful so we're going to be beem following through with this approach as we proceed through Sait I I'm glad that you all found your way here today and batem we should continue to learn together for a long time all the best