Remembering Rabbi David Hartman z"l (1931-2013)

When a sage dies – all are considered his relatives. All tear, all remove their shoes, all eulogize, and all partake of the meal of comfort, even in the public square. (Tosefta Moed Katan 2:17)

מורי ורבי Rabbi David Hartman z”l passed away this morning in Jerusalem.

David was a teacher and rabbi to many, spawning new thinking across denominations, from North America to Israel, from secular Israelis to American Modern orthodox synagogues, from Reform Temples to Jewish Day Schools. He was a Rabbis’ rabbi, a philosophers’ philosopher, and undoubtedly an acquired taste. He was a critic rather than a constructer, a fiery personality whose thirst was never quenched. But above all he was a teacher – constantly teaching us to demand more: from people, from texts, from God. Indeed, in Hebrew –“to demand” means lidrosh, לדרוש, like “midrash”. In his presence, the Beit Midrash became a “house of demanding”. Arguably his most important act was working to bridge the various parts of the Jewish community by placing the Beit Midrash, the house of learning, at the center of the Jewish experience. Where others placed the synagogue, the secular Jewish state, the federation or – most often – whatever the lowest common denominator that could bring Jews together – at the center, Hartman championed learning as the place where Jews can meet… not in order to agree, but in order to argue! Arguing is the first sign that we care about eachother. Critique, loving critique, was the highest compliment. And oh, did he critique…

I had the privilege of growing up in the “Hartman community”, although we never called it that, because each of his students was encouraged to carve out their own community. It was a community where you were never examined for what you did or did not do, but rather how seriously you took the endeavor of Judaism. My father, Noam, was one of his earliest students in Jerusalem in the 1970’s and has worked at the Hartman Institute his whole life. The Judaism in our home was a constant extrapolation of his teachings. As a teenager at the Hartman Highschool, I satirized him on stage at our graduation, spewing Maimonidean gibberish - I remember him cracking up despite himself. As an adult I got to read Rambam and Fromm and McIntyre with him. My Sinai is a mountain that he built, even when I am choosing a different path. When I last saw him in Jerusalem a few months ago, he bugged me “But are you still learning, really learning?” I’d like to believe I am.

Tomorrow morning his funeral will take place in Jerusalem. I happen to be in Jerusalem, and hope to perform the hesed shel emet – the act of true compassion – of accompanying him on his last path. It is too early to summarize or eulogize, but a teaching from the Talmud which I first opened in his Beit Midrash is fitting.

The Talmud debates the appropriate response for the loss of a teacher is. It is a sticky situation: he is not your relative, yet the Talmud says that “Anyone who teaches a person even one letter, it is considered as if they gave birth to that person.” The Tosefta (quoted above) describes that “When a sage dies – all are considered his relatives. All tear for him, all eulogize him…” The Talmud continues to debate this tension:

Our Rabbis Taught: And these are tears that are never mended: One who tears for his father, for his mother, for his teacher who taught him Torah, for the leader of the community… for a Torah that is burnt, for the cities of Judah, for Jerusalem.

It then asks where we learn that one tears for his father, mother and Rabbi who taught him Torah? It then quotes from the story of the Prophet Elijah’s death as he was walking with his student, Elisha:

“As they kept walking and talking, a fiery chariot with fiery horses suddenly appeared and separated one from the other; and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

Elisha saw it, and he cried out: “Oh, father, father! Israel’s chariots and horsemen!” When he could no longer see him, he grasped his garments and rent them in two.” (Kings 2, 2:11-12)

Says the Talmud:

“Father! Father” – this refers to tearing for his father and mother.

“Israel’s chariots and horsemen” – this is his teacher who taught him Torah.

(Bavli Moed Katan 26a)

 רכב ישראל ופרשיו!

May the Hartman family find consolation. May the tears in our society, which David Hartman pointed out so well, be mended soon. May we all see in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, city of learning, city of Peace, soon. May his life be bound up in the bind of the living.

Mishael

To learn more of David Hartman life and teachings, read his Wiki, hear him speak on PBS, or read his recent book “The God who Hates Lies”.

I Myself Wrote and Delivered: The Hidden Poem in the Ten Commandments

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Yitro 2013

This installment of “Text and the City” will most probably fail. It is an exploration in three languages spanning texts from three millennia. The first (Hebrew) word in the Bible’s most famous text is unpacked into a Talmudic (Aramaic) acronym and is interpreted by a 19^th Century East European commentary. Can we discuss this Hebrew-Aramaic pun in English without losing the elegance and simplicity of the text? Probably not, but let’s try anyway…

“אנכי - I am the Lord your God who redeemed you from Egypt…” – The famous opening of the Ten Commandments, broadcast in this week’s Parasha, Yitro. Generations have debated if this is a prescriptive or descriptive statement: a preamble to the constitution or a commandment to believe in the God of the Exodus. But the literarily inclined will ask: Why open with the “I”? God’s first word spoken to the Israelites at Sinai has been powerfully branded by Ten Commandments sculptures across the world (some claim this is a specifically American phenomenon), but what is its meaning?

Rabbi Yohanan said: How do we know the Torah contains hidden acronyms? For it says: “I am the Lord your God” - “אָנֹכִי ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ”  אָנֹכִי - A’NoKI stands for Ana Nafshi Ktivat Yahavit, I My-self Wrote and Delivered. Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 105a

אמר רבי יוחנן:... מניין ללשון נוטריקון מן התורה? שנאמר  "אָנֹכִי ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ " – אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית תלמוד בבלי מסכת שבת דף קה.

In the hands of Rabbi Yohanan the opening word of the Tan Commandments is discovered to contain a hidden Aramaic acronym, which becomes the Talmud’s shortest poem:

אָנֹכִי - אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית

Anokhi - Ana Nafshi Ktivat Yahavit

I My-self Wrote and Delivered

In Rabbi Yohanan’s midrashic world, if you open up the words of the text, you’ll hear the ars-poetic voice of the author. The author of the Torah is offering here a most personal preface: These words you are about to hear, this entire book perhaps, - “I Myself Wrote and Delivered” it.

What does this poem mean? In the early 20^th century, in his commentary Torah Temima, Rabbi Baruch Epstein, offers the following  interpretation:

“I My-self Wrote and Delivered” - it as the popular wisdom goes that one knows the personality of a person, or the value and depth of their wisdom, from their writings.

The poem claims that the very essence of the Holy Blessed One – the will, dignity, magnitude and humility – can be observed and understood from the Torah. And this is the meaning of “I my-self” – my deepest self, my essence – “has been written and Delivered” - I have ensconced my deepest self in this text, allowing a pathway to know and perceive Me through my writings, through my Torah.

"אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית" – יש לומר על דרך לשון בני אדם שאומרים שמכירים תכונת איש פלוני או מדת וערך חכמתו מתוך כתביו וספריו, ואמר בזה, דמהות הקב"ה כביכול דהיינו רצונו וכבודו וגדולתו וענותנותו נראים ונכרים מתורתו... וזהו עניין אנא נפשי – ר"ל תכונת נפשי, כתיבת יהבית – נתתי לדעת ולהכיר מתוך כתבי, דהיינו מתורתי. )תורה תמימה על שמות כ:א(

“My deepest self – I have written and delivered” – here is an image of God painstakingly fashioning his deepest self into a text, pouring his “self” into his writings, seeking (desperately?) to be known, to be perceived, by us – the addressee of this package. The God who “delivered from Egypt” is now being delivered by his readers.

“My deepest self – I have written and delivered” – and it is accessible every day of the year, through the study of Torah. In the hands of the Torah Temima, heir to the Lithuanian tradition of intellectual Torah scholarship, the endeavor of learning Torah becomes an experience of first hand revelation. As the midrash claims: “The voice goes forth from Sinai every day” – and the place to encounter it is in the study of God’s writings. How does one evoke this experience from the text? Perhaps it involves the magic of Hevruta – the dialogic experience of Self-Text-Other. Perhaps it is encountered when creating hiddushim – intellectual novelties which evoke Divine sparks of creativity. For some it is in only possible in the constancy of a daily communion with the text, for others in the mystical mumbling of mantric words. For me it is found in the fire of a havurah mining a text together in a midrashic jam session of ideas.

Rabbi Yohanan’s acronym is not just about how to read Torah, it also suggests a powerful model for creative action. If we are to “walk in the paths of God”, performing “imitatio Dei” – then the booming voice of אנכי is a call to human beings to follow suit in performing “my deepest self – I have written and delivered”. Not just in text and writing, but in any endeavor אנכי commands us to embed our deepest self and then deliver it, up close and personal, to those who can receive. Whether in the building of institutions, the creation of change, the sharing of an ethic, the raising of children. We are commanded to write our deepest self into our endeavors. And it is our work to mine other endeavors – from God’s text to fellow human’s endeavors – for their deepest selves, allowing them too to be known in the world. Just as God’s אנכי could not have been discovered without the work of Rabbi Yohanan or the Torah Temima, so it is our collaborative endeavor to mine the texts of our inheritance and of our peers for the deeper selves that are peering from between the words.

And all this, tightly packed into one word: אָנֹכִי - אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית. Anokhi - I My-self Wrote and Delivered

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

Shabbat Shira: A Shabbat of Poetry

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | BeShalach 2013 In honor of the “Shabbat of Song,” named after the Song of the Sea read this week, I offer three poems. The Parasha, BeShalach, describes how a terrified nation of refugees, redeemed miraculously through a split sea, break out into song. They attempt to give communal language to their redemptive experience. The midrash describes that the Children of Israel actually “saw” God, with even the simplest of Israel achieving an experience higher than the greatest mystical prophets of the Bible. What does it mean to see God in the 21st century? These poems offer two bold contemporary visions, and one ancient one. All three describe an encounter with God, but all are quite far from the standard language we usually see. At times I wonder if in between these lines are the building blocks of speaking about God in a Secular Age. I. INSTALLING YOU MY LORD / Admiel Kosman  The search to describe an encounter with the Divine is always a search for metaphors. Here Kosman turns to the metaphors of the day: computers, information technology, bandwith. This poem is part of a series written in English using Hebrew letters. While translating it back into English loses some of the effect, reading the text with a fake Israeli accent revives the feeling. The Hebrew text is attached at the bottom. Installing You my Lord, in da middle of the night. Installing You and all Your programs. Up and down da night goes, in my Windows, slows, installing You and da kruvim, installing you and da srafim, installing all da holy crew, until da morning come. Installing You my Lord. Installing all my questions. All da darkest night. Installing all debates. Installing all relations. Troot. Installing all pretending actions. Installing lite, installing life, installing you with love, with awe. Installing all da night long below until da end, my Lord. Would we finally be dead. Installed together. © 2007, Admiel Kosman, from: Alternative Prayerbook © Translation: 2010, Lisa Katz and Shlomit Naor   II. The Manifest Name | Chava Pinchas Cohen Referring to the שם המפורש, the explicit, ineffable name of God,the poet describes her alternative experience of God’s manifest revelation at Sinai. This Israeli feminist poem is best compared to the American feminist “We all Stood Together” by Merle Feld. They’ve all gone to the mountain to wait To wait and see, most quietly they wait, Against their nature even donkeys, even camels in this quiet a bird did not chirp even children on their fathers’ shoulders, the quiet too much to bear as if before a matter so awesome and great but I still wished to first finish hanging the laundry to make time for myself, to refresh my aroma and I warmed the baby’s milk, lest he be hungry, lest he cry, perish the thought, at an improper moment, how much longer till it ends. The expectation that the laundry will dry and the baby, what. No one knew But I saw a light wind, like the breath of a person asleep, pass Through the laundry and inflate the middle Of my shirt and the Sabbath tablecloth Was a white sail in the middle of the wilderness And we went from there on azure Far to the place where we’ll split open pomegranates and devour their juice to the place where love has a manifest name. Havva Pinchas-Cohen, Journey of the Doe (1994), 7. Translation based on “Creator are you listening? Israeli Poets on God and Prayer” by David C. Jacobson III. Seeing God in Heikhalot  Literature This text, by an anonymous author who lived sometime in late antiquity (4-7 CE) somewhere in the Byzantine Empire, is a strange and bold description of God. Mystical “travelers” would ascent to the heavens and describe the wondrous visions experienced there. Maimonides’ hated these texts, but it is the experience behind them which animates prayers like “Anim Zemirot” and provide the theological underpinnings for “Psukei deZimra” and “Yistabach”. The Shema in a Kabbalistic siddur Lovely face, majestic face, face of beauty, face of flame, the face of the Lord God of Israel when He sits upon His throne of glory, robed in praise upon His seat of splendor. His beauty surpasses the beauty of the aged, His splendor outshines the splendor of newly-weds in their bridal chamber. Whoever looks at Him is instantly torn; whoever glimpses His beauty immedi­ately melts away. Those who serve Him today no longer serve Him tomorrow; those who serve Him tomorrow no longer serve Him after­wards; for their strength fails and their faces are charred, their hearts reel and their eyes grow dim at the splendor and radiance of their king's beauty. Beloved servants, lovely servants, swift servants, light-footed servants, who stand before the stone of the throne of glory, who wait upon the wheel of the chariot. When the sapphire of the throne of glory whirls at them when the wheel of the chariot hurls past them, those on the right now stand again to the left, those on the left now stand again to the right, those in front now stand again in back, those in back now stand again in front. He who sees the one says, 'That is the other'. And he who sees the other says, 'That is the one'. For the visage of the one is like the visage of the other; and the visage of the other is like the visage of the one. Happy the King who has such servants! and happy the servants who have such a King! Happy the eye that sees and feeds upon this wondrous light - a wondrous vision and most strange! Heikhalot Rabati Chapter 10:1-2, Israel, 3-7 Century (Talmudic Era), Translated by T. Carmi in The Penguin book of Hebrew Verse   שֵׁם מְפורָשׁ - חוה פנחס-כהן כֻּלָּם כְּבָר הָלְכוּ אֶל הָהָר וּמְחַכִּים מְחַכִּים לִרְאוֹת, בְּשֶׁקֶט רַב מְחַכִּים, שֶׁלֹּא כְּמִנְהָגָם גַּם הַחֲמוֹרִים, גַּם הַגְּמַלִּים בַּשֶּׁקֶט הַזֶּה צִפּוֹר לֹא צִיְּצָה גַּם יְלָדִים עַל כִּתְפֵי אֲבוֹתֵיהֶם, וְהַשֶּׁקֶט רַב מִנְּשׂא כְּמוֹ לִפְנֵי דָּבָר נוֹרָא וְגָדוֹל וַאֲנִי עוֹד רָצִיתִי לְהַסְפִּיק וְלִתְלוֹת אֶת הַכְּבָסִים לַעֲשׂוֹת זְמַן לְעַצְמִי לְתַקֵּן רֵיחוֹתַי וְחִמַּמְתִּי אֶת הֶחָלָב לַתִּינוֹק, שֶׁלֹּא יִרְעַב שֶׁלֹּא יִבְכֶּה חָלִילָה, בָּרֶגַע הַלֹּא מַתְאִים, כַּמָּה זְמַן עַד כְּלוֹת. הַצִּפִּיָּה שֶׁתִּתְיַבֵּשׁ הַכְּבִיסָה וְהַתִּינוֹק מָה. אִישׁ לֹא יָדַע וַאֲנִי רָאִיתִי שֶׁרוּחַ קַלָּה, כְּמוֹ נְשִׁימָתוֹ שֶׁל אִישׁ יָשֵׁן, עָבְרָה בַּכְּבָסִים וְנִפְּחָה כְּרֵסָהּ שֶׁל כֻּתָּנְתִּי וּמַפַּת הַשַּׁבָּת הָיְתָה מִפְרָשׂ לָבָן בְּאֶמְצַע הַמִּדְבָּר וְיָצָאנוּ מִשָּׁם עַל הַתְּכֵלֶת הַרְחֵק לַמָּקוֹם בּוֹ  נִפְרֹט רִמּוֹנִים וְנֹאכַל עֲסִיסָם לַמָּקוֹם בּוֹ לָאַהֲבָה שֵׁם מְפֹרָשׁ Havva Pinchas-Cohen, Journey of the Doe (1994), 7.   ,פנים נאים, פנים הדורים ,פנים של יופי, פנים של להבה פני ה' אלהי ישראל כשהוא יושב על כסא כבודו .וסלסולו מתוקן במושב הדרו. ,יפיו נאה מיפי גבורות, .הדרו מעולה מהדר חתנים וכלות בבית חופתם. ,המסתכל בו מיד נקרע .המציץ ביפיו מיד משתפך כקיתון המשרתים אותו היום שוב אין משרתים אותו למחר, והמשרתים אותו למחר שוב אין משרתים לפניו – כי תשש כחם והושחרו פניהם תעה לבם ונחשכו עיניהם .אחר הדר יופי הדר של מלכם !משרתים אהובים, משרתים נאים, משרתים ממהרים, משרתים קלים ;העומדים על אבן כסא הכבוד והנצבים על גלגל המרכבה -- כשאבן כסא הכבוד מחזר עליהם, כשגלגל המרכבה מחטיף אותם ;העומדים לימין, חוזרים ועומדים לשמאל ;והעומדים לשמאל, חוזרים ועומדים לימין ;והעומדים לפנים, חוזרים ועומדים לאחור .והעומדים לאחור, חוזרין ועומדין לפנים .הרואה את זה, אומר: זה הוא זה ;והרואה את זה, אומר: זה הוא זה .וקלסתר פניו של זה דומה לקלסתר פניו של זה ,אשרי המלך שאלו משרתיו .ואשרי משרתיו שזהו מלכם אשרי עין הנזונת והמסתכלת באור המופלא הזה. (בעריכה של ט. כרמי

Life as Storytelling: Exodus and the Power of a Novel

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | Bo 2013

What matters in life is not what happens to you

but what you remember

and how you tell it.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale

In the opening verses of this week’s Torah portion God makes a scandalous statement regarding the reason for the calamities of slavery, suffering and plagues in Egypt:

God said to Moshe: Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, and in order that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the Lord. Shemot 10

וַיֹּאמֶר ה' אֶל מֹשֶׁה: בֹּא אֶל פַּרְעֹה כִּי אֲנִי הִכְבַּדְתִּי אֶת לִבּוֹ וְאֶת לֵב עֲבָדָיו לְמַעַן שִׁתִי אֹתֹתַי אֵלֶּה בְּקִרְבּוֹ. וּלְמַעַן תְּסַפֵּר בְּאָזְנֵי בִנְךָ וּבֶן בִּנְךָ אֵת אֲשֶׁר הִתְעַלַּלְתִּי בְּמִצְרַיִם וְאֶת אֹתֹתַי אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתִּי בָם וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי אֲנִי ה'.

These verses raise many ethical and psychological questions – the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the campaign of plagues to show God’s power over Pharaoh -  but it is the emphasis on storytelling which is most fascinating to me in this verse. לְמַעַן תְּסַפֵּר - “In order that you may tell”  - what is the power of this commandment that it is described as the raison d'être of the exodus?

The first chapter of Exodus posits that Pharoah’s first sin was not remembering. He is the King who “did not know Joseph”. The inability of Egyptian culture to hold onto its stories was the beginning of the slippery slope to an oppressive society. For the Torah, not remembering is original sin. As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s Zachor: (and Yehuda Kurtzer’s Shuva) put it: What matters in Judaism is not history – a word that doesn’t even exist in Hebrew – but memory, zikaron. I would claim, following Gabrial Garcia Marquez: what matters in life is not history, but storytelling – “not what happened, but what you remember and how you tell it”.

As an antidote to Pharoah’s memory loss, the Exodus is framed first of all as an act of storytelling. Indeed, our parasha flips the usual order of things: Rather than claiming that history “happened”, and now we are faced with how to tell its story (most accurately and objectively?), the Torah claims that history happens in order that we have a story to tell: “I have hardened his heart… in order that you may tell”. History happens for the story.  

It is becoming increasingly clear across academic fields that the stories we tell – to our friends, our children, ourselves –  are the determining factor in our worldview, decision-making and happiness. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that the basic narratives we tell (the “sacred stories”) explain our political and social instincts (and he’s good at telling that story in all the formats of contemporary storytelling: book, OpEd, TED talk). Stories determine political choices, but also intensely personal ones: figuring out our own story, and the stories we tell of the world, are a crucial factor in the professional and intimate choices we make in life.

Nowhere is the need for storytelling felt more than in parenting. Storytelling is the central drama of the Exodus story, and it is brought to the fore at the Passover Seder, with its stress on the mitzvah of והגדת לבנך -  what story will we tell our children? The Haggadah, like the act of storytelling – and like parenting -  must be dynamic, never frozen. The Rabbinic authors of the Haggadah wanted parents to each write their own “Haggadah”. History has proven them right: the Haggadah is the book with the most editions in world history (I cheated by writing a Haggadah with my father, which I’m still not sure what my children will do with. Jonathan Safran Foer beautifully described storytelling to his child as the reason for making his own Haggadah. Edgar Bronfman is publishing his version this year, and Haggadot.com invites each of us to DIY. It’s never to early to prepare for Pesach…)

Storytelling is not only distinguished from objective history or passive memory, it is also distinguished from one-dimensional ideology. Stories are vessels for questions, not certainty. In the annals of Jerusalem intelligentsia it is told that Gershom Scholem would fume about the fact that SY Agnon, the Nobel prize winning novelist, would never answer a question head on, especially questions regarding his religious belief.

“Whenever I would ask him about his faith, or any other pointed question for that matter, he would always evade giving a straight answer and instead smile and say: ‘Let me tell you a story!’

What does it mean when one answers a question only with a story? Milan Kundera, another great storyteller, suggests that the choice of genre – story/novel, over assertion/manifesto - is an ideology in itself:

Milan Kundera

A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions  I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything...

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. The totalitarian world is a world of answers rather than questions. There, the novel has no place.

In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties.

Milan Kundera, from Afterword: A Talk with the Author an interview by Philip Roth reprinted in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Penguin,  1981, page 237

The commandment of “לְמַעַן תְּסַפֵּר - “In order that you may tell” rings loud and clear in my ears. As we grapple with the questions of our own lives, and equip others with the tools to do the same, storytelling is in itself the most powerful answer. Talmud Torah, the central Jewish practice of learning, is in essence engaging in the act of constant storytelling – to ourselves and to others. The memories, the narrative schemes, the twists of plot and the conflicts through which questions are asked in stories, hold the key to redemption. It is through storytelling that the Promised Land is achieved.

Moses’ Sword: Jewish Magic and the Importance of Culture Wars

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Text and the City | VaEra 2013

“If at a full moon you wish to seize and to bind a man and a woman so that they will be with each other, and to annul spirits and blast demons and satans, and to bind a boat, and to free a man from prison, and for everything – write on a red plate from תובר תסבר  until הע בשמהט.

And if you wish to destroy high mountains and to pass  through the sea and the land, and to go down into fire and come up, and to remove kings, and to cause an optical illusion, and to stop up a mouth, and to converse with the dead, and to kill the living, and to bring down and raise up and command angels to abide by you, and to learn all the secrets of the world – write on a silver plate, and put in it a root of artemisia, from תובר תסבר  until הע בשמהט..

Excerpt from Harba de’Moshe, The Sword of Moses, a Jewish magical treatise from 7-9 century

This week’s parasha, VaEra, portrays the “Magicians showdown” between Moshe and Pharaoh’s Sorcerers. It is part of God’s cultural war against Pharaoh’s political-theological system, so that “the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth My hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them” (Shemot 7:5). Biblical commentators saw this as a kulturkampf – the cultural war between “real religion” over superstition, of miracles over trickery, of monotheism over idolatry. Magic was synonymous with a culture of enslavement, inauthentic power, charlatanism and idolatry.

But for some readers, like the author of “Moshe’s Sword”, the magical user’s guide quoted above, the Magician’s showdown is the founding moment of Jewish Magic – a rich tradition which saw Moses as the ultimate sorcerer. This short, quirky book encourages Jewish Magicians to follow in Moshe’s footsteps so that they too can wield the powerful verbal weapon which is “Moshe’s Sword”. The book, which was recently published in an updated English translation by Yuval Harari is a fascinating case study for the cultural wars within Judaism to this day. [For more links to the book and a longer post on the “Sword” see the Text and the City website]

The Jewish magical tradition, while esoteric and often polemical, was extremely popular throughout Jewish history – until Protestantism came along. In a Kulturkampf reminiscent of Moses and the Egyptian sorcerers, magic was exorcised from Judaism in 19^th century Western Europe as part of Judaism becoming a Protestant religion (see Bronfman alum Michah Gottleib’s “Are we All Protestants Now?”). If Orthodox and Reform Jews in Germany and America could agree on one thing, it was that Jewish magic (and mysticism) was a contamination of the “pure religion”, an irrational hunchback which grew on the body of the otherwise rational and mature religion known as Judaism. Nothing else would be befitting the Mothership of Monotheism which gave birth to Christianity.

To this day many “Western Jews” are surprised by the prevalence of mysticism, magic and other “superstitions” within mainstream Judaism. Tellingly, in Eastern European (Catholic) and Arab (Mulsim) countries the Protestant “othering” of magic never happened – mystical/magical/superstitious rituals are commonplace to this day. In America it was through Yiddish literature that this tradition was allowed to live on (think of the Dybbuk, the Golem or Bashevis Singer’s demons); relegated to folklore and popular (i.e. low) culture, magic had no hold on the rational adult religion which is Judaism.

To be sure, belief in magic – aside from probably being wrong – has many morally disturbing aspects, fascinating in their own right. Maimonides objected to magic and astrology’s determinism which undermine moral responsibility. As the incantations quoted above show, magic often involves a use of divine power for self-interested and petty reasons, which are a desecration of the holy (in a way as disturbing as the way people “desecrate” politics or religion with their petty self-centered goals). Finally, there is an inherent violence engrained in magic: it is about coercing divine powers to do the Magician’s will, an aggression towards Divinity which implicitly justifies violence in other means.

Despite all these, I believe telling the story of Jewish Magic is fueled with an ideological urgency not unsimilar to the kulturkampf of old. Feminism and critical race theory have taught us the importance of giving voice to marginalized ideas which were sidelined by hegemonic powers over the ages.

Moses the Magician: Dumbeldore or Gandalf?

With the Age of Reason in twilight, the Protestant assumptions about religion and rationality do not hold sway as they used to. Rationality is being re-examined not only in religion but in economics and psychology as well (see Daniel Kahneman). Religious affiliation is declining (in the affluent North) and being redefined (as fundamentalism?) the world over. Judaism is struggling to grow out of the confines of being a (Protestant-style) religion.

If in the last 200 years Jews have been asking whether Judaism is a religion, a culture or a nation, it is time to admit that we are none of those things, and all of them. We are not really an “ism” at all (as portrayed in a recent “Bizzare Judaism” showcase organized by an Israeli Bronfman alum and funded by our alumni Venture Fund).

What is the alternative? Some see a pluralism of Jewish stories which is no more than a mish-mash Jewish quilt where all Jewish phenomena are “celebrated” equally. Personally, I’d rather see a world in which Jews in various situations fashion the Jewish building blocks at their disposal into Moses’ Swords of a wide variety, shaping Jewish visions and ways of life that further the issues they care about, with each then “making battle” a healthy conflict of ideas. As Yeshayahu Leibowitz once said: “The very thing fools fear is what we desperately need, what in European political jargon is called Kulturkampf.  The struggle is essential for intellectual and moral health.” “Moses’ sword” is a powerful reminder of how this idea has played out in surprising – and powerful – ways for centuries.

Moses’ Sword: On Rabbis, Sorcerers and Verbal Weapons

Hidden among the shreds saved from the Cairo Geniza, and deep within a tome of ancient magical Jewish manuscripts, is a book known as “The Sword of Moses” [חרבא דמשה]. One part disclaimers, two parts magical recipes, and a whole lot of gibberish in the middle, it is a fascinating and loopy users guide for becoming a Jewish magician of the most powerful type. We know very little about the books author (is was probably written in the Land of Israel during the last quarter of the first millennia) but the book has been recently re-published in an academic Hebrew version and in an English translation thanks to the work of Dr. Yuval Harari. Reading this short book – which I recommend for people regardless of their skill at sorcery – brings up fascinating issues about violence, self interest and the limits of human power (in a separate blog post I reflect on the place of magic in contemporary Jewish discourse). [Online you can find an un-annotated Hebrew version and an old english translation which censors most of the fun parts]

As Harari writes: “The Sword of Moses is the largest and undoubtedly one of the most important of all surviving texts from early Jewish magic literature. It comprises three main parts: (a) the ritual for gaining authority over the sword4; (b) the sword; and (c) the practical section.”

The beginning of the book instructs the reader that in order to attain control of the sword, three days of fasting and self-purification must be taken on. The fasts are interlaced with rituals of commanding the thirteen archangels that are “in charge of the sword which is delivered from the mouth of eje ef ej ef ea the Lord of Mysteries, who is also in charge of the Torah.”

The sword itself is a verbal weapon, comprising of 1,800 names of angelic creatures, which read like long strings of meaningless syllables. Wielding the sword promises the magician control over all these angels and all their powers.

How does this magical control of divine forces work theologically? For this the author of Harba de’Moshe has an elegant, monotheistic, solution: God – according to Harba de’Moshe – has given Moses the power over all the angels, through the word. Moreover, he has decreed that any subsequent person who wields the sword will have the same powers as Moses did:

“Do not impede any mortal who will appeal to you and do not treat him otherwise than my servant Moses, son of Amram, for he appeals you by My Ineffable Names and it is to My Names that you render honor and not to him. But if you impede him I will burn you for you have not honored Me.”

A series of words which, if mastered, gives the user the power of Moses himself? This sounds like familiar Rabbinic ideas on speed. The Rabbis radically placed words at the center of the universe: the world was created by words, it is redeemed through words (of Torah) and can be destroyed through words (lashon ha-ra). Whoever masters the words of Torah, like Rabbi Akiva, has the power to almost redefine the meaning of the Torah, empowered by God himself (as in the story of Moses in Rabbi Akiva’s beit midrash). In the hands of the magicians, however, holy words are not just the building blocks of the universe, but can also be inflicted back on divinity to force them to do your will.

This is where magic, for all its quirky coolness, also become ethically questionable. If for the Rabbis the Torah is a weapon for creating a just society or implementing God’s vision for the world, for the magician this holy weapon becomes a way of achieving goals that are both self-interested and petty. Here are a few examples:

If at a full moon47 you wish48 to seize and to bind a man and a woman so that they will be with each other, and to annul spirits and blast-demons and satans, and to bind a boat, and to free a man from prison, and for every thing,write on a red plate from TWBR TSBR until H’ BSˇMHT.49 [2]And if you wish to destroy high ountains50 and to pass (in safety) through the sea and the land, and to go down into fire and come up,51 and to remove kings, and to cause an optical illusion, and to stop up a mouth, and to converse with the dead, and to kill the living, and to bring down and raise up and adjure angels to abide by you, and to learn all the secrets of the world, write on a silver plate, and put in it a root of artemisia, from TWBR TSBR until H’BSˇMHT. [3]For a spirit that moves in the body, write on magzab52 from TWBR until MNGYNWN. [4]For a spirit that causes inflammation, write from MGNYNWN until HYDRST. ’. [5]For a spirit in the whole body, write from HYDRST. ’ until H’ BSˇMHT. [6]For a demon, write from H’BSˇMHT until Y’WYHW.

There is another troubling aspect to the magic at hand: it is achieved through violence. The Sword of Moses is a way of forcing divine powers to do your will. The coercive premise at the core of magic was one of the things that troubled Jewish philosophers throughout the generations, not only because of the way it seems to undermine monotheistic perfection, but because of the violence and coercion at its base, which show a deep disrespect and desecration of the Holy. It is interesting to compare these two critiques

Names/incantations from Harba DeMoshe

Using these critiques of magic, it would be interesting to return to our own figures of authority and ask: what is today’s charlatanistic authority; who today uses power for petty and self-interested motives instead of furthering a vision of good; and whose authority today is rooted in a basic violence which, while possibly invisible, is quite troubling…

Despite these criticisms of magic, reading Harba d’Moshe is a fascinating exercise in the diversity of Jewish experiences, and how wide the net of Jewish texts, ideas and culture can be spread. It is also a fresh midrashic light on Moses’ character – the all powerful sorcerer. One must go beyond the confines of Harba d’Moshe  in order to encounter the boundary of what magic can do for you. A midrash describes how at the end of his life, Moses – for all his amazing powers – is over-powered by God’s decree: he will not enter the land. The midrash, which is clearly aware of the idea of Moses’ power being “magical” while also hesitant about how overtly to point  this out (incantation is framed here as prayer…) describes how Moshe uses all his powers to fight this decree. His ability to coerce the heavens is feared in the higher registers of power, and God has to protect himself from hearing Moses’ plea:

When Moses saw that the decree against him had been sealed, he resolved to fast, and drew a small circle and stood therein, and exclaimed: “I will not move from here until you annul that decree.” […] He donned sackcloth and rolled in the dust and began to pray before the Holy Blessed One ...

God hastily summoned angels and commanded them: “Descend quickly! Bolt all the gates of every heaven! For the voice of Moses’ prayer threatens to force its way into heaven!” The angels sought to flee to heaven because of the sound of Moses prayer, for this prayer was like a sword which tears without any delay, for his prayer was of the nature of the Ineffable Name which he had learnt from Zagzagael the Master Scribe of the children of heaven.

Midrash Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10

Moses has been armed like no human before him: he has the power to tear through the heavens with his powerful “sword”. Yet even the all-powerful Moses meets his limitation: mortality. Moses’ tragic end is a reminder that even in the highest echelons of power, limits exist. In this midrash, which might a polemic of sorts with the “Sword of Moses”, wielding the sword of Moses does not save one from the confines of mortal life – the opposite, it only strengthens the gravity of human action.