Trivia: Beheimos asher Einenos Tehoros

Parshas No'ach mentions animals which are t'mei'os in the kashrus sense, but how is it possible to have a live animal which is tamei in the more common sense of the word, in which it is capable of transmitting tum'a to another object?

Nimrod defended

In defense of the numerous Israelis who have been saddled with the name of one of the larger villains in Bereishis, it should be noted that the Ibn Ezra (10:9) says that the reason why Nimrod was called a great hunter before HaShem was that "he would build altars and offer on them wild animals to HaShem". He rejects the practice of looking for meanings to names in Tanach whose meanings are not stated explicitly (thereby dealing with the big red flag that his name comes from the root meaning "to rebel"). He notes the existence of d'rashos that interpret Nimrod differently, but insists that his explanation is the p'shat.

I've found that the Ibn Ezra has a tendency to defend the border between p'shat and d'rash - see also his comments on Yiska and on the beginning of the Akeidah - which is a very valuable service in this era (both his time and ours) where p'shat and d'rash are so often conflated. He seems to have fallen out of favor, though, perhaps for this reason (or, more likely, for the reason that no one likes dikduk, which most of his comments are about).

One is m'chuyav to know the entire Torah with only the simple p'shat, one is m'chuyav to know the entire Torah with every d'rasha, and one is certainly m'chuyav to know the difference between the two.

Bereishis-No'ach Interface

The end of last week's parsha and the beginning of this week's parsha seem very similar. One way to examine them is to determine the reason for the break, both in parsha and in sedra, at specifically that point (I have created a separate blog, Parshiyos, with the goal of examining questions of this type as we travel through the year). For this post, though, I would like to take a look at the two sections together, as one unit.

The narrative of the evilness of the world leading up to the flood at the interface of P' Bereishis and P' No'ach seems to be divided into three distinct parallel sections, each consisting of three subsections:

I. A. 6:1-2 - Man begins to multiply upon the face of the earth, and the b'nei HaElohim take wives from whichever of the beautiful b'nos HaAdam they want.
B. 6:3 - God declares that He shall not contend with man forever, being that he is mere flesh, but rather man's days shall be limited to 120 years.
C. 6:4 - The Nephilim result from these unions.

II. A. 6:5-6 - God sees that man's evil is great upon the earth and that all of the thoughts of his heart are evil. He regrets that he made man and is saddened (or, as Onkelos reads it, He decides to "break their strength").
B. 6:7 - God declares that He will blot out man and all beasts and birds on the earth.
C. 6:8-10 - No'ach is righteous (and presumably will not be subject to this decree).

III. A. 6:11-12 - The world is full of corruption and violence
B. 6:13 - God tells No'ach that He will destroy all flesh along with (lit., es) the earth.
C. 6:14-16 - God gives No'ach instructions of how to build the ark and what to do with the animals.

The three "action" sections each describe a different form of evil. In the first, it has to do with the b'nei Ha-elohim marrying the b'nos HaAdam. The sin here could either be the powerful b'nei Ha-elohim abusing their power to take the b'nos HaAdam against their will, the righteous b'nei HaElokim allowing themselves to be negatively influenced by the wicked b'nos HaAdam, or something different, but the verses use a relatively objective tone in describing this phenomenon. In the second, it has to do with man's "great evil" upon the earth and his evil heart. In the third, the sins are specified to be (sexual) corruption and violence that even pervaded the very land, which appears to be a type of sinful climax.

The three reaction sections are also different. In the first, God declares that He will limit man's days to 120 years. In the second, He declares that He will blot out man, beasts, and birds. In the third, he declares that he will even destroy the earth (if we take es to mean "with", as per Rashi). From section to section, the subject of the punishment is broadened (man - man and animals - man and earth), and the magnitude of the punishment also seems to be increasing (limiting of years - blotting out - destruction, although the last seems to be a bit equivocal).

Finally, the three concluding sections have different results. In the first, the Nephilim are singled out as being mighty men that are mei-olam and "men of name". In the second, No'ach is singled out as being righteous and finding favor in God's eyes. In the third, No'ach is singled out to build an ark to survive the coming punishment.

Perhaps the following is a way to understand the parsha that utilizes the noted parallelism. Originally, the sins of the people were relatively minor, so God only set a limit upon the days of man. The midrash explains that this is a period of 120 years' probation before which God will punish the people. Colloquially, this passuk is the source of the blessing "May you live until 120 years", which I had always understood to be a mistranslation of the verse, but it does seem to fit the simple reading of the passuk. This being the case, perhaps this is not merely a preparation for punishment, but rather is a punishment in itself, in that man's days would become shortened. This would seem to be somewhat remniscent of the opinion of the Rambam in Moreh HaNevuchim, who holds that only the people mentioned in the lineage from Adam to No'ach lived exceptionally long lives, while the rest lived normal lives. Perhaps long life could be part of the gevurah, mei-olamkeit and sheim of the Nephilim, who were exceptions to this decree for reasons unclear. It's true that if we connect the pesukim in this way some of the Nephilim would even be tzaddikim, which would be strange, but not impossible. However one understands the Nephilim, one would also have to deal with the mention of the Nephilim by the meraglim and by the conquest of the land.

The way the verses are usually read, they all occur at the same time, so that the 120 years began at the same time that No'ach began to build the ark. However, perhaps it's possible to read the verses differently. The first set of verses could have happened much earlier in the chronology (since, even according to the normal way of reading things, 5:32 is out of order), perhaps even as early as the time of Sheis (bearing in mind that the b'nei Kayin were also part of this sinful world). In the second section, which occurred during No'ach's life, God planned to punish the world, but perhaps held back because of No'ach's finding favor in God's eyes, perhaps due to his potential to turn the world around. Finally, in the third parsha, which took place at some point later in Noach's 600-year antediluvian lifetime, God realized that No'ach does not represent untapped potential to save the world, and thus decided to start the world again from scratch, using No'ach as a second Adam.

There are several significant holes in this presentation, but I think that it addresses certain patterns within the pesukim.

Vayak'heil-Pekudei - Thoughts from Shabbos

1) Why in 37:29 is the Shemen HaMishchah referred to as "kodesh" while the K'tores is referred to as "tahor", as opposed to vice versa? (credit: Sam)

My immediate reaction was to recall a sugya that I saw in Menachos (96b) earlier this week in which the description "tahor" as applied to the shulchan of the Mishkan teaches us that it is m'kabeil tum'a (the gemara's initial thought is that it not be, since it is an immobile wooden object, although it resolves the problem by explaining that they would bring the shulchan out to show the olei r'galim the warm bread on it, so it was not actually immobile). The only way that incense could be m'kabeil tum'a would seem to be through tum'as ochlim, and only a handful of the spices are edible (according to Wikipedia: cassia, saffron, costus and cinnamon - perhaps also spikenard, which apparently has medicinal purposes - does that qualify?), so perhaps one could apply a similar idea to the k'tores, that all of it be m'kabeil tum'a. The shemen ha-mishchah would not need such a d'rasha, since all of the spices are immersed in the olive oil, which is m'kabeil tum'a, so really have no identity on their own (Perhaps one could also attribute it to an issue of rov, where rov of the k'tores is not m'kabeil tum'a while rov of the shemen ha-mishchah is? What would the halacha be for a regular mixture of edible and inedible spices used for fragrance?)

Of course, I don't think that we would be able to make such a drasha on our own, but it would be interesting if such is, indeed, the halacha.

A cursory glance at the m'farshim produced the S'forno, who says that "tahor" means that the spices of the k'tores must be pure from any impurities - and this adjective is also applied to it in P' Ki Tisa. The question would still remain, though: why only the k'tores and not the oil? S'forno also comments that kodesh by the oil means "bilti nifsad", in the sense of "It should be holy to Me for your generations in P' Ki Tisa" - but I don't understand what this means.

Chizkuni explains "tahor" that the incense requires purity, and quotes the passuk of "Dead flies putrify the perfumer's oil" (Koheles 10:2) to prove his point. I am ignorant, also, of how this verse specifically applies to the incense, and not the oil.

Alternatively, one could answer that "tahor" as describing the k'tores is juxtaposed to the oil, so that it applies to both - this would answer the questions on both of the m'farshim's comments, as well as eliminating the need for any explanation of the differentiation between the two. The gemara says in several places that the concept of hekeish is d'oraissa, but I think that we still need a mesorah in order to invoke a hekeish.

The opposite question, regarding why only the oil is called kodesh is not a question, as the incense is also called kodesh, in P' Ki Tisa.

2) Pekudei is one of the 5 parshiyos in the first four chumashim that do not start with a vav ha-chibbur. The others are Bereishis, Noach, and - interestingly - B'chukosai and Mas'ei. The significance to this tidbit is dependent on who is responsible for our system of parsha divisions. It would be interesting if the three aforementioned sets were the most often doubled up, so that we had parshiyos starting without a vav ha-chibbur as seldom as possible, but this is not the case (IIRC, T-M and/or A-K are doubled more frequently that V-P). Perhaps Bereishis and Noach are just too long to double up (they would even dwarf this week's gargantuan leining).

3) Did anyone else think about R' Nosson Kaminetzky and R' Slifkin while listening to today's haftarah reading? Granted, Yechezkeil's (near-)ban was a bit different, in that it was being done over 500 years following his death (as indicated by the fact that Chananya ben Chizkiyah ben Garon, one of the students of Shammai, successfully defended against it). One can ask why specifically the Rabbis of that generation felt the need to put it in genizah when their predecessors did not, but precedents do exist - 2 of them by Chizkiyahu in the 4th perek of Pesachim.

Addendum (transferred from my comments section): R' Moshe Feinstein touches on the issue of the ban on Yechezkeil in one of his pieces about the peirush on chumash attributed to R' Yehuda HaChassid (whose authenticity he speaks out very strongly against), explaining that, despite the prohibition against stifling a nevuah, Chazal saw that there was a good rationale for doing so, in the case of Yechezkeil. I didn't read it so closely, but, IIRC, it's in the 2nd or 3rd volume of Igros Moshe, Yoreh Dei'ah.