EXCURSUSES<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 1*<\/p>\n
The Hebrews 1:15<\/p>\n
The designation \u201cHebrew(s),\u201d \u02bfivri(m), is found approximately thirty times in the Hebrew Bible. It can only derive from an original \u02bfiver or \u02bfever, and its form permits a connotation that is either geographic or gentilic\u2014that is, having an ethnic denotation like kena\u02bfani, \u201cCanaanite,\u201d or mo\u02beabi, \u201cMoabite.\u201d The former possibility is based on the use of \u02bfever, meaning \u201cthe region beyond,\u201d as used in Genesis 50:10 and Numbers 21:13, so that \u02bfivri is \u201cthe man from the other side.\u201d Such an understanding might be reflected in Joshua 24:2: \u201cIn olden times, your forefathers\u2014Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor\u2014lived beyond the Euphrates.\u201d The Septuagint rendered \u02bfivri in Genesis 14:13 as ho per\u00e1tes, \u201cthe one from beyond,\u201d or \u201cthe wanderer.\u201d Opposed to the geographic interpretation is the associated \u201cMamre the Amorite\u201d in that verse. This and the vast majority of citations weight the balance heavily in favor of the ethnic nature of the term.
\nBiblical references to \u201cHebrews\u201d are concentrated within three contexts. The first is the cycle of Joseph stories,1 always having to do with relationships with Egyptians. The second cluster appears in the early chapters of Exodus,2 in which, again without exception, \u201cHebrew\u201d contrasts with \u201cEgyptian.\u201d The third collection is in the Book of Samuel,3 in which the term is invariably in opposition to \u201cPhilistines.\u201d The only other narrative usage is in Jonah 1:9, also in a non-Israelite ambience. It will be noted that, apart from this last source, which is most likely a conscious archaism, all citations are pre-Davidic; all refer only to Israelites (including 1 Sam. 13:3, 7; 14:21) in contrast to other peoples.
\nApart from a narrative context, there is the sociolegal term \u201cHebrew slave,\u201d \u02bfeved \u02bfivri, in Exodus 21:3 and Deuteronomy 15:12. This, too, means an Israelite, as is proven by the descriptive \u201cyour fellow\u201d (\u02bea\u1e25ikha) in Deuteronomy 15:12 and by Jeremiah 34:9, 14.
\nThe foregoing data overwhelmingly support the view that \u02bfivri is an ethnic term. The alternative geographic explanation is, moreover, discounted by the fact that Abram\u2019s family back home in Mesopotamia, \u201cbeyond the River,\u201d is not called \u201cHebrew\u201d but \u201cAramean\u201d (Gen. 25:20).
\nThere are, however, several curious aspects of the biblical employment of the word \u201cHebrew.\u201d Of the three patriarchs, why does Abram alone bear this epithet, and why only in Genesis 14:13? Why are the other peoples who are related to Israel and also descended from Eber, grandson of Noah, called \u201csons of Eber\u201d in Genesis 10:21 but never \u201cHebrews\u201d? And why is the description reserved exclusively for the descendants of Abraham through the line of Isaac and Jacob but not used of the lines of Ishmael or Esau? Not all of these questions can be satisfactorily resolved in the present state of our knowledge, but the possible relationship of the Hebrews to a well-documented Near Eastern phenomenon needs to be examined because this latter has often been adduced as evidence to provide a solution.
\nFrom the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E. through the twelfth century B.C.E., cuneiform tablets from Sumer, Babylon, Upper Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Syrian-Canaanite area, as well as hieroglyphic texts from Egypt, register the presence of groups of people variously referred to as SA.GAZ, \u1e2bapiru, \u02bfpr(m), and \u02bfpr(w). The meaning of these terms has long been the subject of scholarly debate, but each term is concerned with the same class of people. SA.GAZ is a Sumerian ideograph that is read in Akkadian as \u0161agga\u0161u and to which the scribes often attached the gloss \u1e2babb\u0101tu. \u0160agga\u0161u in Akkadian means \u201ckiller, aggressor, violent person.\u201d In West Semitic languages the same stem denotes \u201cto be restless, ill at ease.\u201d \u1e2aabb\u0101tu means \u201ca robber\u201d as well as \u201ca migrant,\u201d but \u02bfpr, which must be West Semitic, is as yet of uncertain meaning.
\nThe people referred to by these terms are distinguished not only by extensive geographic distribution but also by considerable ethnic and linguistic diversity. Everywhere, they constitute a recognizable subservient social class, essentially an urban element. They are rootless aliens, deprived of legal rights, who often hire themselves out as professional soldiers of fortune or as slaves. Within the Egyptian sphere of influence, where authority was weak and centralized control was lax, this group exhibited independence and aggressive behavior and appeared as a socially disruptive element. The phenomenon as a whole seems to be the product of the convulsions that afflicted the Near East in the course of the second millennium B.C.E. By the end of the period, conditions became more stabilized, and the \u02bfApiru (\u1e2bapiru) disappeared from history.
\nWere the Hebrews part of the \u02bfApiru? Various lines of evidence converge to reject the likelihood. First, there is no doubt that \u02bfapiru, an adjective, is the correct form of the name, as Egyptian and Ugaritic texts show, and the differences in the vowels and middle consonant between it and \u02bfivri, a gentilic, cannot easily be reconciled. Further, the \u02bfapiru are a social entity, not an ethnic group like the Hebrews. They possess nothing remotely resembling the Israelite tribal system. Extrabiblical sources of the second millennium B.C.E. do not identify \u02bfapiru with Israel, and where Israel is mentioned, it is not identified as belonging to the \u02bfapiru. If Abram is an \u02bfapiru, it is surprising that he enlists the support of Amorites in Genesis 14, rather than call upon his fellow \u02bfapiru for help. Even more persuasive is a comparison between the descriptions of the \u02bfapiru in Canaan, given in the El-Amarna letters (14th c. B.C.E.) and the activities of the invading Israelites under Joshua. The \u02bfapiru are never portrayed as being invaders from without, as are the Israelites; they often collaborate with the local Canaanite rulers, absorb local elements into their ranks, and defy Egyptian suzerainty over the land. The Israelites, on the other hand, are implacably hostile to the Canaanites, and Egypt never appears as a factor in the Israelite wars of conquest. Significantly, the term \u201cHebrews\u201d is never featured in Joshua or Judges, which report on the Israelite wars of conquest and settlement in the land\u2014precisely those books in which they would be expected to appear, were they to be identified with the aggressive \u02bfapiru.
\nThe true origin of the term \u201cHebrew\u201d is still to be determined. Perhaps it came to be used of social elements marginal to a society. If it was a self-designation for the people in the formative period of Israelite history, it would explain why it was used exclusively of Israel. At any rate, the term fell into disuse with the founding of the monarchy and was revived in much later times.<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 2*<\/p>\n
The Abandoned Hero Motif 2:3<\/p>\n
The story of the baby Moses placed in a basket and abandoned to the River Nile has attracted the attention of scholars, especially folklorists, because it appears to conform to a widespread motif that is characteristic of tales about the birth of heroes.
\nA well-known example is the nativity of Oedipus in Greek mythology. Laius, his father, had received an unfavorable oracle from Apollo; therefore, when a son was born to him, he handed him over to a shepherd to be exposed on Mount Cithaeron. Disregarding instructions, the shepherd entrusted Oedipus to another shepherd, who, in turn, gave him to Polybus, King of Corinth. The monarch and his wife reared Oedipus as though he were their own son.
\nAnother example of the same genre is the story of the birth of Heracles (Hercules). He was abandoned by his mother Alcmene but was found by Athena, who handed him over to Hera. She, unaware of the baby\u2019s parentage, gave him to his own mother.
\nA third instance from classical literature is the famous tale of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of the city of Rome. The twins were born to Rhea Sylvia, a princess and Vestal Virgin, who had been violated by Mars. Amulius, younger brother of her father Numitor, deposed the king and ordered the infants to be thrown into the River Tiber. However, the chest in which they were placed washed ashore; the twins were found and suckled by a she-wolf until their discovery by Faustulus, the royal herdsman. He and his wife brought up Romulus and Remus as their own sons.
\nThe identical motif occurs in the biographies of two Near Eastern heroes. One concerns the birth legend of Sargon of Accad, the great empire builder of Mesopotamia. Purporting to be autobiographical, the cuneiform text claims that he was the love child of a high priestess of noble descent, the father being unknown. Disclosure of his mother\u2019s indiscretion would have entailed the loss of her office, for which childlessness was an indispensable precondition. Accordingly, Sargon\u2019s mother placed him in a basket of reeds, which she caulked with bitumen, and abandoned him to the River Euphrates. Carried downstream, the infant was discovered and saved by Akki the water drawer, who adopted him. Later in life, Sargon was favored by the goddess Ishtar and seized the throne of Akkad, which he held for fifty-five years.
\nThe other Near Eastern example of this popular theme pertains to Cyrus, son of Cambyses, founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire. His grandfather Astyages, king of the Medes, experienced two dreams that were interpreted to mean that his newly born grandson Cyrus would one day usurp his throne. He therefore ordered his trusted servant Harpagus to murder the infant. Forebearing to commit the deed himself, the man summoned a herdsman named Mithradates, handed him the baby, and commanded him to leave him to die on a mountain range. The herdsman, however, took the infant home, only to discover that his wife had just given birth to a stillborn baby. The couple substituted Cyrus for the dead infant, whose body they left on the hills instead. Ten years later, by a quirk of fate, Cyrus\u2019s true identity was uncovered.
\nA close examination of the account of the birth of Moses clearly demonstrates striking differences that distinguish it from the foregoing examples. Other than the life-threatening exposure of the infant, all the significant details of the Torah\u2019s narrative are antithetical to the conventional characteristics of the literary genre that has to do with the birth legends of heroes. First of all, a singular feature in the biography of Moses is the absence of a divine announcement foretelling his birth. There are no prophecies about his destiny or fate, no omens of future greatness, and no supernatural phenomena appear in connection with the event. The absence of these items conspicuously distinguishes the biblical narrative from the popular biographies of heroes.
\nThere are many other considerations as well. The baby Moses is neither the issue of an illicit relationship nor the child of nobility or royalty. There is no parental or grandfatherly hostility to the newly born. The mother desperately makes every effort to retain her offspring at home as long as possible, and she cedes him to the river only to circumvent the pharaoh\u2019s decree of genocide. Even then, she does not assign the task to someone else but carefully and tenderly puts the baby in a well-caulked basket that she places among the clumps of reeds by the river bank so that it would not float away and would be spotted by the princess. She also takes measures to make sure that she keeps track of developments. Again, the finder in the Exodus story is not the usual person of humble birth but the daughter of royalty, who at once recognizes the Hebrew identity of the infant.<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 3*<\/p>\n
\u201cGod of the Father\u201d 3:6<\/p>\n
A distinctive and characteristic feature of the Book of Genesis is the frequent use of a certain type of divine epithet that is made up of the phrase \u201cGod is my\/your\/his father,\u201d1 often with \u201cAbraham\u201d or \u201cIsaac\u201d2 or both names3 added in apposition to \u201cfather.\u201d In some instances, God is further identified as YHVH.4 This designation appears once again in Exodus 3:6 in God\u2019s self-manifestation to Moses, where it is intended to emphasize continuity. The God who speaks at the Burning Bush is the selfsame One who spoke to the patriarchs. Thereafter in the Torah the epithet becomes \u201cGod of your\/their fathers,\u201d the plural referring to the entire people of Israel.5
\nThe epithet \u201cGod of the father\u201d is not unique to the Bible. It is, in fact, documented over a wide area of the ancient Near East over a long period of time, from the nineteenth century B.C.E. on. In these texts the \u201cgod of the father(s)\u201d sometimes appears anonymously, sometimes with an accompanying personal name. For example, we find \u201cAshur, god of my father,\u201d \u201cAshur and Amurrum, the gods of our father,\u201d \u201cShamash, the god of my father,\u201d \u201cIlaprat, god of your father,\u201d an oath \u201cby the name of the god of my father,\u201d an appeal to the king \u201cby the name of (the god) Adad, lord of Aleppo, and the god of your father.\u201d
\nThe connotation of this divine epithet is a special, personal relationship between the individual and his god, who is his patron and protector. This designation is particularly appropriate in the patriarchal narratives, since they revolve around the lives of individuals. It is highly significant that it is never used in reference to Abraham\u2019s father. This is to be explained by the tradition, preserved in Joshua 24:2, that Terah was an idolator. It indicates that the advent of Abraham constituted a new stage in the history of religion. Similarly, the change from the singular to the plural form, \u201cfathers,\u201d following the commissioning of Moses, registers a further development.<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 4*<\/p>\n
\u02beEl Shaddai 6:3<\/p>\n
This is the most common of the several divine names constructed with an initial \u02beel element. Like \u02beel \u02bfelyon, it could be a fusion of an initially independent element shaddai, with \u02beel, or the compound could be original. One way or the other, the distribution of shaddai both with and without the accompanying \u02beel is highly instructive. This divine name appears nine times in the Torah, of which three are in poetic texts.1 All but two of the Bible\u2019s other thirty-nine usages are likewise poetic (Prophets, Psalms, and Job). The prose exceptions (Ruth 1:20\u201321) are more apparent than real, since the Book of Ruth possesses a poetic substratum and frequently displays archaisms.
\nThese statistics have an important bearing on the question of the antiquity of usage. The overwhelming appearance in poetic contexts points a priori to a venerable tradition, for Hebrew poetry tends to preserve or consciously to employ early forms of speech. The remarkably high incidence of shaddai in Job is of particular importance in light of that book\u2019s patriarchal setting. All the true prose usages are concentrated within the Genesis narratives,2 a fact that is in perfect harmony with Exodus 6:3: \u201cI appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai,\u201d a tradition explicitly assigning the divine name to the pre-Mosaic age. Significantly, of the vast store of biblical personal names, only three are constructed with the element shaddai. These are Shedeur (=?shaddai-ur), Zurishaddai, and Ammishaddai\u2014all appearing solely in the lists of Numbers 1\u20132. Each is the father of a tribal representative at the time of the Exodus. In other words, the divine name Shaddai lost its vitality in Israel with the advent of Moses and was preserved only as a literary relic in poetic compositions. Interestingly, the personal name shaddai-\u02bfammi\u2014that is, the biblical Ammishaddai with its two components inverted\u2014has turned up in a hieroglyphic sepulchral inscription as the name of a petty official in fourteenth-century B.C.E. Egypt. Since it cannot be explained as Egyptian, and because it is written in the syllabic orthography often reserved for foreign words, there is every reason to believe that the name belongs to a Western Semite in Egyptian employ. It is indeed known that Semites served the Egyptian bureaucracy in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C.E. There is thus additional evidence of the use of shaddai in pre-Mosaic times.
\nThe great antiquity of the name and its obsolescence in Israel in the Mosaic period explain why there are no consistent traditions as to its meaning and why the ancient versions have no uniform rendering. The Septuagint variously has \u201cGod,\u201d \u201cLord,\u201d \u201cAll-powerful,\u201d and \u201cThe Heavenly One,\u201d among others, as well as the transliteration shaddai. The Vulgate has \u201cOmnipotens,\u201d whence the English tradition \u201cAlmighty.\u201d The Syriac has \u201cThe Strong One,\u201d \u201cGod,\u201d and \u201cThe Highest,\u201d as well as shaddai. The Greek rendering hikan\u00f3s, \u201cHe that is Sufficient,\u201d found in the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodo-tian, reflects a rabbinic suggestion explaining the name as a combination of the relative particle sha with dai, meaning \u201csufficiency\u201d (Gen. R. 46:2). The modern conjecture that has gained widest currency connects shaddai with Akkadian \u0161adu, \u201ca mountain,\u201d often used as a divine (and royal) epithet. The name would originally have meant, \u201cThe One of the Mountain,\u201d probably referring to a cosmic mount or corresponding to the divine epithet \u201cThe Rock.\u201d
\nNotwithstanding the various conjectures, the original meaning of the divine name shaddai still eludes us.<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 5*<\/p>\n
Tefillin 13:9, 16<\/p>\n
Exodus 13:9 states as follows: \u201cAnd this shall be as a sign (Hebrew, \u02beot) on your hand and as a reminder (Hebrew, zikkaron) on your forehead.\u201d The same is repeated in verse 16 with a variant term: \u201cAnd it shall be as a sign upon your hand and as a symbol (Hebrew, totafot) on your forehead.\u201d
\nThe terms \u201csign,\u201d \u201creminder,\u201d and \u201csymbol\u201d evoke some material object that serves to jog the memory, but they do not in themselves require a literal meaning for these verses. Rashbam actually considered the \u201cdeep, straightforward meaning\u201d of the verses to be metaphorical. He adduced, in support, Song of Songs 8:6: \u201cLet me be a seal upon your heart,\/Like a seal upon your arm.\u201d Abraham Ibn Ezra mentions, but rejects, this figurative interpretation, which its proponents bolstered by citing additional biblical sources such as \u201cFor they are a graceful wreath upon your head,\/A necklace about your throat\u201d (Prov. 1:9). \u201cLet fidelity and steadfastness not leave you;\/Bind them about your throat,\/Write them on the tablet of your mind\u201d (ibid. 3:3). \u201cTie them over your heart always;\/Bind them around your throat\u201d (ibid. 6:21). Other texts of the same order are Proverbs 7:3 as well as Jeremiah 17:1 and 31:32.
\nApparently, both the Samaritans and the medieval Jewish sect of Karaites also took the instructions of Exodus 13:9, 16 metaphorically, for they do not have tefillin. Traditional rabbinic exegesis, however, interpreted Exodus 13:9, 16 literally as enjoining the wearing of tefillin. This understanding is upheld by two other texts in the Torah that reiterate the precept. Deuteronomy 6:8, which is part of the section that has traditionally become known as the Shema, states: \u201cBind them [i.e., God\u2019s teachings, v. 6] as a sign on your hand, and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.\u201d A literal meaning is here favored by the immediately adjacent verse: \u201cInscribe them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.\u201d The other text is Deuteronomy 11:18, which is part of the second paragraph of the Shema\u02bf in the Jewish prayer book: \u201cTherefore, impress these My words upon your very heart; bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.\u201d
\nThe tefillin comprise two small, cubelike, blackened leather capsules that are called in Hebrew battim (sing. bayit, lit. \u201chouse\u201d). One is placed on the arm and one on the forehead, preparatory to the morning prayers. Because the singular form is tefillah,1 which is also the Hebrew word for \u201cprayer,\u201d a widespread explanation for the term \u201ctefillin\u201d is \u201cobjects worn during prayer.\u201d It has been argued that this is not entirely satisfactory because in tannaitic times it was the custom among many to wear the tefillin all day long. Still, the designation could have derived from their being first put on for morning worship. Another possible derivation is from the biblical Hebrew stem p-l-l in the sense of \u201cto intercede.\u201d2 That is, the tefillin, with their expressed purpose of reminding the worshipper of God\u2019s teachings and commandments, perform indirectly a propitiatory and expiatory function.
\nThe English rendering for tefillin is usually \u201cphylacteries.\u201d This is an unfortunate misnomer. It is based upon the Greek term used in the Christian Bible.3 The Greek noun phylakterion derives from a stem that means \u201cto protect, guard,\u201d the noun form indicating \u201ca safeguard, amulet.\u201d It is quite possible that at the lowest popular level the tefillin were regarded as being charged with magical power, able to protect the wearer from malignant influences. Such a misconception may have arisen from the similarity in shape of tefillin to amulets in the ancient world,4 and from the fact that the preferred area of the body for the wearing of amulets was the forehead and often the arm as well, as Song of Songs 8:6 shows. Also, inscribed amulets were frequently stored in small leather cases.
\nAncient popular misinterpretation notwithstanding, and despite the widespread use of the designation \u201cphylacteries,\u201d the tefillin have nothing to do with amulets. Their contents carry neither incantations nor petitions\u2014standard items in all such paraphernalia. Rather, the biblical passages inscribed within the capsules express fundamental doctrines of Judaism. They proclaim the existence and unity of God, the call for the loving surrender of the mind and will to His demands, the charge to make God\u2019s teachings the constant subject of study and to ensure the education of the young, faith in divine righteousness with its corollaries that society is built on moral foundations, that there is reward for virtue and punishment for evil, and finally, and above all, that the experience of the Exodus is of transcendent importance in the religion of Israel.
\nAside from the contents of the tefillin, which in themselves preclude any phylacteric function, there is also the confounding fact that halakhic requirements exempt from the obligation to wear tefillin precisely those who, in the popular mind, would be expected to be most in need of protection from baneful influences\u2014namely, minors, slaves, women, those who labor under certain sicknesses, and pall-bearers.5 Moreover, it is in places such as the cemetery and toilet, where, in the pagan world, people were thought to be most vulnerable to evil spirits, that Jewish law forbids the wearing of tefillin.
\nThe biblical sources are silent on the implementation of the command. It is only from the Second Temple period that the evidence is forthcoming. The Sadducean faction that departed in so many ways from Pharasaic interpretation of Scripture, adhered to this command. Since that party was formed about the year 200 B.C.E., it must have already enjoyed a venerable past by then. The earliest post-biblical literary source to comment upon the tefillin is the Hellenistic-Jewish propagandist work known as The Epistle of Aristeas,6 composed about 170 B.C.E.; however, it mentions only the hand tefillah. From the last years of the Second Temple we have the testimony of the Jewish historian, Josephus, who records both the hand and head tefillin.7 In addition, rabbinic sources mention the existence of tefillin that originated two generations before Hillel and Shammai,8 that is, to about 70 B.C.E., and also a pair that had belonged to Simeon ben Sheta\u1e25,9 of the same century.
\nThe aforementioned literary traditions about the use of the tefillin have been abundantly reinforced in recent years by the finds from the region of Qumran in the Judean wilderness near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea.10 Here was uncovered the headquarters of a sectarian Jewish community that occupied the site from about 135 B.C.E. to about 68 C.E. Among the hoard of manuscripts and numerous objects found in the nearby caves were many fragments of tefillin, including the capsule of a head tefillin that still contained its four inscribed slips. Other fragments have been found in the Wadi Muraba\u02bfat region in the Judean wilderness, about twelve miles southwest of Qumran. During the first and second centuries C.E., this site served as a refuge for Jewish soldiers who fought against Rome.
\nThe widespread use of tefillin in this period contrasts with the surprising silence of the Mishnah, edited ca. 200 C.E., about their makeup and contents. Maimonides suggests that it is because the public was so thoroughly familiar with the rules that it was not necessary to specify them.11 Be that as it may, the details are discussed at length in the Talmud, tractate Menahot 34a\u201337b.
\nAs stated above, the tefillin are cube-shaped, although the height need not be the same as the equal length and breadth. The capsule for the arm is hollow and contains a single slip of rolled or folded parchment, called klaf in Hebrew, on which are inscribed all four relevant biblical passages in the same script as used for writing a scroll of the Torah: Exodus 13:1\u201310, 11\u201316, Deuteronomy 6:4\u20139 and 11:13\u201321. For the head tefillah, these passages are transcribed onto separate slips, and each is inserted into one of the four compartments into which the capsule is divided. The order of the passages was a matter of dispute in talmudic times12 and was still an issue in the eleventh and twelfth centuries between Rashi (1040\u20131105) and his grandson Rabbenu Tam (1096\u20131171). The view of Rashi became universally accepted in the Jewish world. It is now clear that both systems existed in the time of the Second Temple, as the finds from Qumran prove.13
\nAs to the makeup of the tefillin, the two capsules rest on a wider, square base of thick leather known in the Talmud by its Aramaic name, titora\u02be This has a hollow projection at the back, called ma\u02bfabarta\u02be Through it the strap (in Hebrew retsua\u02bf) is passed. Both capsules and straps are made from the hide of a ritually clean (kosher) animal. They must be especially prepared for their sacred purpose. The entire tefillah is sewn together with twelve stitches, using tendon thread derived from a kosher animal.
\nThe two straps, which are blackened on their visible side, are made from a single piece of leather. They hold the tefillin in place on the arm and forehead. The strap for the hand tefillah needs to be long enough to be wound seven times around the arm, three times around the hand, and three times around the middle finger. The strap for the head tefillah must reach to the navel on the right side and the chest on the left; or, according to another ruling, that on the right should reach down as far as the genitalia and that on the left to the navel.
\nThe hand tefillah is put on first, following the order of mention in the passages in the Torah. Its proper position is on the left arm (unless the wearer is left-handed), directly on the biceps, slightly inclined toward the heart, thus symbolizing the literary image \u201cImpress these My words upon your very heart\u201d (Deut. 11:18). The strap is tied in the form of a noose and is knotted so as to form the Hebrew letter yod at the end of the side nearest the heart. The winding round the hand shapes the letter shin, and that round the finger, the letter dalet, so that in combination they make up the divine name shaddai, \u201cAlmighty.\u201d
\nThe proper place for the head tefillah is at the high point in the center of the forehead at the edge of the hair line, \u201cbetween the eyes.\u201d The knot of the encircling strap lies on the nape just where the skull ends. The Hebrew letter shin, probably standing for shaddai or shema\u02bf, is embossed on both sides of the head capsule. That on the right is the standard form with three upright strokes, but that on the left side has four such strokes. The meaning of this unusual shape is uncertain. An interesting hypothesis is that it arose to indicate that the tefillin so marked are normative, having four, not five, compartments. The extra parchment slip would have contained the Decalogue, which was recited daily at the morning service in the Temple,14 but which practice was discontinued in the face of sectarian polemics.15 It is theorized that the Decalogue also once had a place in the tefillin and was removed at the same time and for the same reason.16 Mishnah Sanhedrin 11:3 refers to those who claim that there should be five compartments in the head tefillah, and similar references are to be found elsewhere in Rabbinic literature.17 The findings at Qumran provide evidence of the early existence of tefillin containing the Decalogue. The Church Father Jerome (347\u2013420 C.E.) reported that the tefillin contained the Decalogue.18 He apparently saw a sectarian pair.
\nTefillin are not worn on Sabbaths and scriptural festival days, nor are they worn at night; hence, this precept falls within the category of \u201ctime-conditioned performative mitzvot.\u201d According to rabbinic halakhah, women are exempt from all such obligations and, therefore, are not duty-bound to wear tefillin.19 Nevertheless, rabbinic sources mention that Michal, daughter of King Saul, did assume the obligation to put on tefillin, and the sages of the day did not object.20 The Code of Rabbi Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen of Lunel (ca. 1330\u20131360), called Orhot \u1e24ayyim,21 quotes Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Adret (Rashba, ca. 1235\u2013ca. 1300) to the effect that women are permitted to recite the benedictions even over performative, time-bound precepts.22 Rabbenu Jacob b. Meir Tam (ca. 1100\u20131171), grandson of Rashi, made a similar ruling,23 thus allowing women to wear tefillin. However, these views did not become the norm.<\/p>\n
EXCURSUS 6<\/p>\n
Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Law1 (21:1\u201322:16)<\/p>\n
If, as the Rabbis frequently stated, God employed the everyday language of human beings in order to communicate His will,2 then there is no section of the Torah in which this principle is more patently manifest than in the collections of legal ordinances. Extant corpora of laws, records of court proceedings, and judicial decisions provide ample evidence to prove that in its external form, in legal draftsmanship, in its terminology and phraseology, the Torah followed long-established, widespread, standardized patterns of Mesopotamian law.
\nDocuments from the practice of law run into the many tens of thousands, uncovered at several widely dispersed sites in the Near East. Collections of laws recovered number no more than six.
\nTwo such collections have survived in the non-Semitic Sumerian language spoken in southern Mesopotamia during the third and early second millenniums B.C.E., written in cuneiform script. The older one is that of King Ur-Nammu3 of the city-state of Ur, founder of the Third Dynasty of that city in the twenty-first century B.C.E. The original has not been found, only a fragmentary copy from Nippur, a city about one hundred miles (ca. 160 km.) south of Baghdad. This has been supplemented by two broken tablets from Ur itself, both of which are much older. The extant materials preserve the prologue to the collection, together with twenty-nine stipulations, probably less than half of the original number. The prologue refers to \u201cprinciples of equity and truth\u201d and describes social abuses that the king sought to correct in order \u201cto establish equity in the land\u201d by standardizing weights and measures and by protecting the orphan, the widow, and the poor. The stipulations cover sexual offenses, support of divorc\u00e9es, false accusations, the return of runaway slaves, bodily injuries, the case of an arrogant slave-woman, perjured testimony, and encroachment of another\u2019s private property. The laws are formulated in \u201ccasuistic\u201d style; that is to say, they are conditional, the opening statement beginning with \u201cif\u201d followed by the hypothetical, concrete case, and the concluding statement giving the prescribed penalty.
\nThe second Sumerian collection of laws comes from Lipit-Ishtar,4 king of the city of Isin, in central lower Mesopotamia, in the nineteenth century B.C.E. Although an Amorite, he wrote his laws in Sumerian. There may once have existed also an Akkadian version, now lost. The laws, of which about thirty-eight remain, are estimated to have originally numbered about two hundred. They are framed by a prologue and an epilogue. In the former, the king writes that his god had commissioned him \u201cto establish justice in the land\u201d and \u201cto promote the welfare\u201d of his people. In the latter, he declares that he has restored domestic tranquility and established righteousness and truth. The extant laws, which belong to the concluding part of the corpus, deal with a variety of civil cases: the hiring of a boat, horticulture, the institution of slavery, house ownership, family laws such as marriage, divorce, polygamy, inheritance, and responsibility for injury to a rented animal. In these laws too, the casuistic formulation is the rule.
\nThe other law collections from Mesopotamia are all written in Akkadian. The earliest in this language derives from the city of Eshnunna,5 situated about twenty-six miles (42 km.) northeast of Baghdad, on a tributary of the Tigris River. Its author is unknown, and its date is uncertain. The laws, some sixty in all, are preserved on two tablets, neither being complete. These were copied in the time of a contemporary of Hammurabi, but the original is believed to be considerably older. Neither prologue nor epilogue, if there were any, has been preserved. The legislation concerns the prices of various commodities, the cost of hiring a wagon and a boat, negligence on the part of the hirer, the wages of laborers, as well as laws pertaining to marriage, loans, slavery, property, personal injury, a goring ox, a vicious dog, and divorce. As before, the casuistic formulation is predominant. A peculiarity is that the application of the laws may vary according to the social status of the persons involved.
\nMesopotamian jurisprudence reached its zenith in the seventeenth or eighteenth century B.C.E., with the promulgation of Hammurabi\u2019s great collection.6 These were inscribed on an eight-foot-high black diorite stele that was originally placed in the temple of Esagila in Babylon. In the early part of the twelfth century B.C.E. it was looted by the Elamite king Shutruk-Na\u1e25-\u1e25unite and carried off to Susa (Hebrew, shushan), capital of his kingdom, where French excavators discovered it in 1902. It now resides in the Louvre in Paris.
\nThe upper front part of the stele bears a relief that features King Hammurabi standing before a seated deity, either the sun god Shamash or the chief god of Babylon, Marduk. The scene is often misinterpreted in popular books as Hammurabi receiving the laws from the god, but it is nothing of the kind. The god is really investing the king with the ring and the staff, which are the symbols of sovereignty. He thereby endows him with the authority, and perhaps also the wisdom, to promulgate the laws. The text makes it perfectly clear that Hammurabi himself is the sole source of the legislation.
\nWritten in cuneiformed Akkadian in fifty-one columns, the stele now contains what is calculated to be two hundred and eighty-two legal paragraphs. About thirty-five to forty paragraphs were erased by the Elamite king; a few of these have been restored from other tablets. An extensive literary prologue and a lengthy epilogue frame the legal section. The prologue abounds in lofty sentiments about the purpose of the legislation, which is to further public welfare, to promote the cause of justice, to protect the interests of the weak, and to ensure the rule of law. The epilogue repeats these noble ideals and adds that the statutes are there so that anyone may know the law in case of need and that a future ruler may be guided by Hammurabi\u2019s ordinances. It closes with a series of blessings invoked on him who is faithful to the laws and heaps fearful curses on him who is perfidious. Both prologue and epilogue are unabashedly replete with Hammurabi\u2019s copious and effusive self-praise and with massive hyperbole extolling his own greatness and mighty deeds.
\nThe corpus of the laws, mostly styled casuistically, includes a large variety of legal topics. The first forty-one paragraphs deal mainly with matters of public order; the rest belong overwhelmingly to the domain of private law, matters that affect the individual citizen. Distinctive features of the laws are the extraordinarily large numbers of capital offenses (some thirty in all), the penal mutilation of the body, vicarious punishment, the principle of talion, or legal retaliation in kind, intense concern with the protection of private property, and an innovative approach to several areas of private wrong that are now recognized as issues of public welfare to be regulated by the state. Finally, as in the laws of Eshnunna, those of Hammurabi reflect a stratified society; as mentioned above, the penalties and judgments may vary according to the social standing of the litigants.
\nConsiderably different from the collections hitherto described is the body of legislation that has come to be known as the Middle Assyrian Laws.7 Uncovered at the ancient city of Asshur on the Tigris River, about two hundred and fifty miles (563 km.) north of Babylon, the several clay tablets on which these are inscribed come from the twelfth century B.C.E., but the legislation itself may well go back three centuries earlier. Although they conform to the casuistic pattern, the legal formulations and terminology as well as the prescribed penalties suggest influences, presently unknown, other than the standard Mesopotamian traditions. One hundred and sixteen paragraphs are preserved in full or partial form. An extraordinarily large number deal with matters relating to the status of women and to family law. Peculiarly characteristic of these Assyrian laws are the savagery and severity of the punishments they mete out: numerous instances of the death penalty, even for offenses against property; mutilation of the body; flogging, even to the infliction of one hundred lashes; pouring pitch over the head; tearing out the eyes; subjection to the water ordeal; forced labor; and the exaction of grievously heavy fines. There are also instances of multiple punishments imposed for a single offense.
\nGreatly under the influence of Mesopotamian legal traditions but deriving from quite a different cultural and linguistic milieu and geographic region are two hundred Hittite laws8 that have survived from the Old Hittite kingdom in Asia Minor, now central Turkey. The extant tablets date from about 1250 B.C.E., but they go back to a much larger corpus of laws, apparently promulgated or collected for the use of jurists about five centuries earlier. A unique feature of this compilation is the clear references to earlier laws that have been revised. Capital punishment has been restricted to but a few offenses and has been replaced by restitution. The casuistic style is extensively employed.
\nAt this point it should be emphasized that none of the collections discussed can be considered to be codes in the usually understood sense of the term. First, one and all, they omit important spheres of legal practice, and none comes close to being a comprehensive regulation of the citizens\u2019 lives. Second, not one of the compilations decrees that it is henceforth to be binding on judges and magistrates. Third, none is ever invoked as the basis of a legal decision in all the thousands of extant documents from the actual practice of law in the courts. For these reasons, the various collections are to be regarded as recording emendations and additions to bodies of existing unwritten common law that are seen to be in need of reform. This conclusion applies equally to the corpus of laws embedded in the Torah. It is silent on matters of commercial law, on such indispensable practices as sales and contracts, the transfer of ownership, the legalization of marriage, the regulation of professions, and on most aspects of inheritance. Clearly, there existed in Israel a body of unwritten common law, orally transmitted from generation to generation, knowledge of which is assumed. What is prescribed in the Torah is a series of innovations to existing laws.
\nIt should be further underlined that the review of the legal corpora of the ancient Near East given above unquestionably establishes that when the people of Israel first appeared on the scene of history, their world was already heir to a widely diffused common legal culture of long standing. No wonder, then, that Israelite laws exhibit so many points of contact with the earlier collections. Like them, the Torah expresses itself in terms of concrete, real-life cases, and, like them, the underlying legal principles are not abstractly stated but are to be deduced from the resolutions of those cases.
\nAnother feature that is common to both ancient Near Eastern law collections and their Torah counterpart is the difficulty in uncovering the organizing principle that determines the arrangement and sequence of legal topics, although some progress has been made in this regard in recent years.9
\nThe affinities and analogues that abound between the Israelite and the other Near Eastern law collections tend to obscure the fundamental distinctions that exist between the two, a subject that must now be addressed. First and foremost is the essential fact that biblical law is the expression of the covenant between God and Israel. Several important consequences flow from this. The legal sections of the Torah cohere with the Exodus narratives and cannot be separated from them without losing their integrity and identity. Their sole source and sanction is Divine will, not the wisdom and power of a human monarch. As imperatives of a transcendent, sovereign God who freely entered into a covenanted relationship with His people, the laws are eternally binding on both the individual and society as a whole. Hence the public nature of the law. There can be no monopoly on the knowledge of the law, and the study of it is a religious obligation. Further, there can be no differentiation between the branches of public and private law and between both of them and religion and morality. All topics that fall under any of these rubrics are equally binding. Law is not severed from morality and religion. As to the substance of the law, the Torah allows of no vicarious punishments, no multiple penalties, and, apart from the special category of the slave, demands equal justice for all, irrespective of social status. Finally, whereas the Near Eastern laws place great stress on the importance of property, the Torah\u2019s value system favors the paramount sacredness of human life.10<\/p>\n
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EXCURSUSES EXCURSUS 1* The Hebrews 1:15 The designation \u201cHebrew(s),\u201d \u02bfivri(m), is found approximately thirty times in the Hebrew Bible. It can only derive from an original \u02bfiver or \u02bfever, and its form permits a connotation that is either geographic or gentilic\u2014that is, having an ethnic denotation like kena\u02bfani, \u201cCanaanite,\u201d or mo\u02beabi, \u201cMoabite.\u201d The former possibility … <\/p>\n