The only way to become purified from ‘`tum’ath meth’ (death defilement—coming in contact with a dead body or grave, or with someone who has), is by getting sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of a ‘parah adumah’–a red cow–that never bore a yoke  (see Numbers 19:1-13).   While the sprinkled individual becomes ‘`tahor’ (ritually pure), the kohen-priest who actually did the sprinkling becomes ‘`tame’ (ritually unclean) in the process!  In fact, the kohen-priests involved in the preparation of the mixture become’`tame’ in the process, too—from the one who slaughtered and burned the cow, to the kohen-priest who merely carries the vessel of ash-water.  

Why did HaShem create this system of purification?  What is the meaning?  And if I’m correct as to the meaning, why has this only been revealed now? 

The unblemished cow that never bore a yoke is a representation of the “`eghel ha-zahav”, the Golden Calf the Bene Yisra’el made in the desert.  This time, it is not an `eghel (calf), but an older, full-grown parah (cow).  This represents the same treacherous, idolatrous impulses that existed in the nation at its youth, standing at Sinai, persisting in later generations, when the nation should have reached maturity.  And that is why, I believe, Shelomo ha-melekh was not granted this understanding, since he built temples to idolatry in Jerusalem to please his wives.

Moshe smashed and pulverized the idol, poured its dust into the nearby stream, and made the Israelites drink from the water–like the punishment of an adulteress (since the Jewish People had committed harlotry with a false god.  See Numbers 5:17-27).  When the kohen-priest, a descendent of Aharon (who actually made the Golden Calf in the first place) reduces the cow to ash and the mixes the ash in water, he imitates the bold actions of Moshe Rabbenu, memorializing them.  This is why the cow is adumah—earth-red: It reminds us of the waters mixed with earth from the altar, for the adulteress to drink.  

When he reduces the cow to ash, the descendant of Aharon symbolically reduces our own evil impulses to ash.  He then mixes the ash with water, and sprinkles it, purifying those who are impure.  The act that recalls the disgrace of Aharon, which brought death to so many Israelites at the time (Exodus 32:26-29), brings purity from death-defilement for all of Israel.  This is why the kohen-priest  who does the sprinkling, even one who merely carries the vessel of ash-water, becomes impure in the process: they are ‘carrying’ [bearing] the guilt of Aharon, their ancestor.  By taking responsibility for their ancestor’s sin, the priests become the vessel of purification for the entire people.  Notably, the Golden Calf episode was the tribe of Levi’s first act to purify the nation.  The fierce vengeance of G-d that the tribe of Levi enacted on the sinners—in which even they did not even spare their own family members—brought about their initiation as Israel’s new priesthood, to replace the firstborn. 

It is generally understood by the Sages that the `eghel ha-zahav was to be a replacement for Moshe, not for G-d.  The people did not realize that by giving up and turning their back on Moshe, they were doing the same to HaShem (Exodus 16:7-8).  Similarly, the nation in Samuel’s generation ‘merely’ wanted a king like the gentile nations: they didn’t understand how such a request was a rebellion against HaShem himself. 

Consider the parallel in our own times–the authority Israel lives under instead of the Divine system set in place by Moshe:  In a position not far off from that of the Rebbe of Satmar, Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, the rabbi remembered as the founder of the national religious camp, warned in his writings:  If the nation’s government will not eventually be based on Torah, the very same men who conquered the Land from the Arabs will eventually return it to them.  (Orot?)

I believe that this simple insight into ‘parah adumah’ being revealed at this time is meaningful:  Jerusalem recently celebrated 40 years of “reunification” since the Six Day War.  Yet now, with the new aggressive American administration, Jerusalem’s future as a united city seems more uncertain than ever.   In the book of Judges, there is a recurring them of the land resting from war for 40 years.  How much longer will it be before we are held accountable, G-d forbid, for remaining complacent under a G-dless leadership–a modern Golden calf–instead of uniting under the Torah of Moshe?   In a way resembling the purification from actual `tum’ath meth, let our ‘priests’—our Torah community—lead the way in accepting responsibility for their role in the ‘Golden Calf’ they keep rebuilding, and be willing to reduce the old, corrupt ways, the ’galuth’ (exile) mentality to ashes.  Eloquent words and easy to say.  But practically speaking, what does that mean?  For a start, it means returning to authentic Torah, and restoring the Sanhedrin.

There is a Torah for us all to accept as one, like never before.  It is the only path in Torah in which every holy `edah (ethnic community) and every valid Torah school of thought can find a firm foundation without sacrificing its integrity: the Mishneh Torah of RaMBaM.  It is the only Code of Law ever written to be a complete constitution for our People.  Moreover, it is the only such code written specifically to be the Guide to the restoration of the nation and its Divine laws in the latter days.  Unlike the `Arukh haShulHan (the only work comparable in scope and style), it is perfectly loyal to the full breadth of authoritative Talmudic literature, without the heavy influence of local custom.  Clearly a modern Sanhedrin, once restored according to halakhah, will adapt the Law according to the needs of the times, and in light of other opinions that exist.  However, as I personally witnessed during my own trying experience with the problem-plagued ‘nascent Sanhedrin’ project (which I left years ago), without a disciplined dedication to the Mishneh Torah as the base of halakhah, the Sages of Israel cannot possibly find the basic common ground required to fulfill the Sanhedrin’s essential role.  As I wrote in principle 13 of The 14 Principles of Our Torah Tradition:

The greatest challenge to be faced by a restored Sanhedrin in our day, is consensus: Effective judicial leadership of the nation requires general agreement among 71 Torah sages on literally hundreds of basic, critical legal issues from the outset, before they can even approach the enormous backlog of issues and challenges of the modern age. Over the centuries of exile, the range of rabbinical opinion has grown too broad, and the ideological rifts that divide the Torah world too deep for meaningful consensus to be reached over any practical span of time.

Besides being the common legal base of all rival sects and communities in the modern Torah world, Mishneh Torah is the most authoritative Code of Law written, covering whole areas of Law that become applicable for the nation under a Sanhedrin. Only by accepting Mishneh Torah as the initial baseline of the Halakhah, the general foundation and framework of Jewish Law, can the future Sanhedrin hope to fulfill an otherwise insurmountable task: unifying the Torah world and restoring Israel’s national observance of Torah after 1600 years of exile.

As the temperature rises for Jews around the world, it is clear that our time to get our house in order is limited.  We can once again perceive the mountain being held above our heads…

Few people understand what on earth that means, and how that legend preserves a vivid national memory of a historical event 3,320 years ago.  The following may reveal another forgotten secret:

We are all aware of the pre-school picture that children are given of Mount Sinai—a lowly hill full of flowers.  Midrash Rabbah teaches that this mountain was Chosen over the other much loftier peaks mentioned in the Torah (such as Har Nevo, for example) to be the site of the Giving of the Torah, because it was a humble and lowly mount.  The problem with this is that the generation of scholars who wrote the Midrash Rabbah, or at least the rabbis who had just preceded them, not only knew the exact location of Har Sinai, but knew fully well that it was the highest peak in the entire region.

Josephus, a learned kohen-priest who actually served in the Beith haMiqdash and was well-versed in the authentic traditions of his day, writes (The Antiquities of the Jews I,12:1[265]): “Now this [Sinai] is the highest of all the mountains thereabout…”  This also fits in well with Jebel El Lawz being Har Sinai, for which compelling evidence is brought in my name in Riddle of the Exodus (James D. Long, 2006)  How can both be true? 

We can easily invoke RaMBaM’s take on midrash, that one who believes every midrash literally is a fool.  We can also rationalize and say that it comes to teach us that Torah is only acquired through humility (hilkhoth Talmud Torah 3:8 [9]).  However, I believe the real answer is something truly awe-inspiring:

In his earth-shaking work, Worlds In Collision (1950, Buccaneer Books), the late Jewish scientist and Torah scholar Immanuel Velikovsky (despite a couple apostate opinions he expresses, which are unnecessary, and do not add to or diminish from the strength of his arguments) pieces together a likely scenario for the historical, global Sinai event.  Showing the harmony between dozens of traditional sources from every literate culture on earth—from Aztec traditions to the records of the Chinese—that all recall the same time in history, he proves something that would have been difficult for the great rational Sefaradi sages of the Middle Ages to take literally:  When the Yalquth Shim`oni teaches that when the Red Sea split, so did every water body on earth, and when our sages taught that every nation on earth heard the Ten Statements, they were passing down a memory that is shared by all mankind.   According to our tradition (Bereshith Rabbah), the Sinai event was no less than the end of the sixth world age, and the beginning of the seventh. 

The mal’akh, the agent, seems to have been a planet that swept dangerously close to the earth.  According to Midrash Shir haShirim (brought down by Rashi), the meaning of Exodus 10:10, is that Par’o was warning the Bene Yisra’el not to leave Egypt, because they would meet the bloody star Ra`.  In masekheth Shabboth 146a, we learn that “although the ancestors of the later converts [to Judaism] were not present at Mount Sinai, their star was there close by.”  (Worlds In Collision p.95)

By means of this agent, HaShem raised tides in which ocean water was held sky high in frozen animation, only to come crashing down, flooding the valleys and plains.  It is a vivid memory preserved in the traditions of the Finns, the Chinese, early Mexicans and the Native Americans of British Columbia. 

However, a body of such magnitude would not only raise water sky high, it would create earth wrenching, cataclysmic tides in the boiling mantle underneath the earth’s crust.  This is beautifully described in Hallel, Psalms 114:  “When Israel went out of Egypt… the sea saw and fled… the mountains skipped like rams and the hills like lambs… Tremble, you earth, at the Presence of HaShem.”  This topography-changing event would include instant mountaining. The manuscripts of Avila and Molina, who collected the traditions of the Indians of the New World, recall this vividly:  

…it is related that the sun did not appear for five days; a cosmic collision of stars preceded the cataclysm; people and animals tried to escape to mountain caves.  “Scarcely had they reached there when the sea, breaking out of bounds following a terrifying shock, began to rise on the Pacific coast.  But as the sea rose, filling the valleys and the plains around, the mountain of Ancasmarca rose, too, like a ship on the waves.  During the five days that this cataclysm lasted, the sun did not show its face and the earth remained in darkness.”  (Worlds In Collision, p.61)

This is really a drop in the bucket of all the sources he cites that legitimize minute details of the Oral Tradition on the written Torah.  It provides a way for the both the midrash and the geographical knowledge of the sages as recorded by Josephus, to both be true: 

At first, Har Sinai was a lower, humble peak, which is why, according to midrash, it was Chosen by HaShem.  We indeed get that sense that it was a low mount in the beginning of parashath Yithro, as Moshe agilely descends and ascends numerous times to relay HaShem’s communication to the people.  But, then at the height of the ‘theophany’ (Giving of the Torah), amidst the terrifying quaking, the mountain was lifted higher and higher.  From the perspective of those at its base, it felt as though the mountain were being held over their heads—threatening to bury them, should they not accept the Torah.  Verily, we suddenly have a different picture of Har Sinai when Moshe ascends for 40 days and nights:  He is now so far away, that Yehoshua` bin Nun, who spends the time partway up the mountain, is at once far away from his master (who remained in the cloud of HaShem’s Presence), yet still far enough away from the camp that he knows nothing about their lewd frivolity around the Golden Calf… clearly the topography had changed—Har Sinai had become a massive peak.

In conclusion, let us not be like generations of the past who all but a few were blind to HaShem’s rebuke, until they were at the brink of utter destruction.  We are so Blessed, and Loved with a compassion that is beyond human comprehension.  May we choose to receive authentic Torah personally and collectively, in awe and in love, and merit a speedy Redemption.

Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beth Midrash Ohel Moshe

Adapted from the original article in the Ohel Moshe series, O’M 24, “Special Issue for Shavu`oth” 5767.   

ח וַיָּקָם מֶלֶךְ-חָדָשׁ, עַל-מִצְרָיִם, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יָדַע, אֶת-יוֹסֵף.

8 There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Yoseph.

ט וַיֹּאמֶר, אֶל-עַמּוֹ: הִנֵּה, עַם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל–רַב וְעָצוּם, מִמֶּנּוּ.

9 And he said to his people: ‘Behold, the people of the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us;

י הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה, לוֹ: פֶּן-יִרְבֶּה, וְהָיָה כִּי-תִקְרֶאנָה מִלְחָמָה וְנוֹסַף גַּם-הוּא עַל-שֹׂנְאֵינוּ, וְנִלְחַם-בָּנוּ, וְעָלָה מִן-הָאָרֶץ.

10 Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, in the event of a war, they also join themselves to our enemies and fight against us, and leave the land.’

יא וַיָּשִׂימוּ עָלָיו שָׂרֵי מִסִּים, לְמַעַן עַנֹּתוֹ בְּסִבְלֹתָם; וַיִּבֶן עָרֵי מִסְכְּנוֹת, לְפַרְעֹה–אֶת-פִּתֹם, וְאֶת-רַעַמְסֵס.

11 Therefore they set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Ra’meses.*

Egypt’s hatred for the b’nei Yisrael (Israelites) is a theme running through the first Torah portions of Shemoth. Below are stunning images of ancient Hebrews in ancient Egypt.¹ With the possible exception of the image directly below, which could be pre-Sinaitic, I assume them to be from the New Kingdom era (First Temple times in Israel). However, it is possible that some of the relics found in the tomb of Tutankhamen were inherited from earlier pharaohs. Regardless of their exact date of origin, they give us a clear glimpse at how we were seen in the eyes of Egyptians throughout biblical times. They give us a real-life sense of the historical context of the accounts of the Tanakh.

(citation below²)
Note that the only slave/captive with tattoos all over has a Hebrew hairstyle (see the Pharoah’s footstool below). If this is post-Sinai, tattooing being forbidden by Torah law; could this have been forcibly done to the Hebrew captive as a vile, anti-Semitic act? This would still be possible if the image were pre-Sinaitic, from the time of our bondage—assuming tattoos were taboo even before the Giving of the Torah. Or it could simply be a glimpse into a time of the sojourn in Egypt, when tattooing was permitted.

How precious few Jews in the Western world know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were slaves in Egypt, and that HaShem took us out of Egypt with an outstretched arm? How many would seriously consider returning to a life of Torah and miSwoth if only their inner faith were substantiated by clear proof? It was mainly for such honest truth-seekers that this article was written.

As I’ve written before, I believe “The Riddle of the Exodus” by James D. Long (Lightcatcher Books 2006) to be mandatory reading for all mankind. With his explicit permission, I will quote and borrow heavily from his book here, mainly in my own words, including my own insights.

Despite the naysayers as to the origins of Sefer haYashar and the fact that layers were definitely added over the millennia, the text in our possession is a primary source for Rash”i and Me’am Lo’ez—who quoted from it generously. Its original translation into English in 1840 “contains endorsements from Hebrew linguists and biblical scholars attesting to the authenticity of the work.” However, nothing more legitimizing can be said, neither for Sefer haYashar or the authenticity of the traditions it contains, until one finds precise correlations between details in the midrash and those discovered by historians and archaeologists…

According to Sefer haYashar, the second to the last pharoah of Egypt (whose army would drown in the sea), the one referred to by biblical historians as “the pharaoh of the oppression” lived a remarkable 94 years. It is his death that HaShem referred to, telling Moshe, “all who seek your life have died”. The name of this sadistic tyrant was “Melol“, although we who suffered from his cruelty called him “Maror”. His firstborn son should have inherited his throne, but was found to be mentally incompetent. His brother Adikam, at the age of 20, became the next pharaoh, reigning four years—which explains how he escaped the destruction of the firstborn.

Consider the “Kings List, a record of seventy-five kings from the First to the 19th Dynasty” carved on the wall of the ancient temple at Abydos in Southern Egypt. Lo and behold, among the very last pharaohs of Old Kingdom—before it utterly crashed due to “natural disasters” according to the Egyptologists—was Pepi II, also called “Merire“. (There was no hieroglyph for the “l” sound, so “l” was pronounced as “r”, like in Japanese. M-r-r = M-l-l). He enjoyed the longest reign in Egyptian history: a stunning 94 years… His reign is also recorded in the Turin Royal Canon (the official name for an ancient papyrus housed in Turin, Italy, with information about the pharaohs of the past) as being succeeded by a son who reigned only a year, preceding the last, reign of the dynasty. Although this may seem to contradict Sefer haYashar, it doesn’t: the events of the death of pharaoh “Maror”, Moshe’s return to Egypt, and the beginning of the ‘Ten Strikes’ (Ten Plagues) to Egypt all took the span of a year. Now according to tradition, pharoah “Maror” suffered from an incurable skin disease for years. By the time he died, his body was already in an advanced state of decay. During his father’s last years and even the short-lived rule of his handicapped brother, Adikam may have fulfilled the functions of leadership, thus being remembered in Sefer haYashar as direct successor to Malul.

Who replaces “Neferkare the Younger” (Adikam) when he disappears from history? No surprise here: there was no mail heir to the thrown… a woman becomes pharoah… Something must have happened to his firstborn son.

What is incredible is that this amazing correlation, besides proving the authenticity of our Oral history, proves that the last pharaohs of Egypt (before HaShem brought it to its knees) were the last pharaohs of the 6th dynasty, which we know to be the fall of the Old Kingdom. Housed in the Museum of Leiden (Netherlands) is a damaged, ancient Egyptian papyrus, known to us as the Admonitions of Ipuwer. It is a list of dreadful events that shook the Egyptian nation to its very foundations at the time… It is dated to the end of the Old Kingdom: the same final days of Pepi II and Neferkare the Younger (Malul and Adikam)… and it reads like a newscast straight from the scene of the Ten Strikes (Ten Plagues). I quote from Riddle of the Exodus (In all quotes, the use of boldface and italics are my own additions):

Blood…

Papyrus 2:6 Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere.

Papyrus 2:10 Forsooth, the river is blood.

Papyrus 7:4 Behold Egypt is poured out like water. He who poured water on the ground, he has captured the strong man in misery. [According to Exodus 4:9 and 4:30, one sign Moses performed publicly was pouring water out on the ground, becoming blood. "The strong man" here might be a euphemism, even a degrading reference to pharoah]

Fiery hail…

Papyrus 2:10 Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire; while the [....] of the king’s palace stands firm and endures.

Papyrus 4:14 Trees are destroyed…

Plague…

Papyrus 4:1 Forsooth, hair has fallen out for everyone.

Papyrus 5:4 Forsooth, all animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan because of the state of the land.

Darkness…

Papyrus 9:8-10 Destruction… the land is in darkness.

Ex-slaves Spoil Egypt…

Papyrus 2:4 Forsooth, poor men have become the owners of good things. He who could not make his own sandals is now the possessor of riches.

Papyrus 3:3 Gold, blue stone, silver, carnelian, bronze and Yebet sone and ….are fastened to the necks of female slaves.

The `erev rav… (mixed multitude of Egyptians who left with the Banei Yisrael)

Papyrus 3:14 Those who were Egyptians have become foreigners.

The Pillar of Fire…

Papyrus 7:1 Behold the fire mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth before the enemies of the land.

Hatred for the B’nei Yisrael…

…Would that he [pharoah] perceived their nature in the first generation (of men); then he would have repressed their evils, he would have stretched forth (his) arm against it, he would have destroyed their seed and their inheritance…”

Not enough people have any awareness that the Egyptians apparently enshrined the memory of the Exodus in the hieroglyphs covering an ancient, black granite naos on display at Ismailia, in Egypt. It was a mystery until 1890, when it was translated, but it shouldn’t be today. It reads:

“Evil fell on the earth…the earth was in great affliction…great disturbance in the residence.”

“…neither man nor the gods could see the faces of those next to them…”

It describes how the king and his men fight “the evil ones at the Place of the Whirlpool,” whose location is described as Pi-Kharoti” (= Pi ha-Hiruth, see Exodus 14:2,9, Leviticus 33:7). It relates how the pharoah commands his men to follow him, and then disappears from their midst: “There at Pi-Kharoti the Pharoah is thrown by a whirlwind high into the air and seen no more.” (Consider the wind that blew the whole night, drying the seabed.) He is referred to as Par’o “T’hom”, which sounds very much related to “T:hom” in Hebrew, meaning “the depths”… i.e. “Pharoah of the Depths”! Note that although the midrashic account takes on a mythical character at that point, Pharoah’s disappearance from the scene is mentioned specifically in Sefer haYashar (parashath beshallaH).

James Long, the esteemed author, makes an fascinating linguistic connection: We already learned that the pharoah lost in the sea is Neferkare the Younger (see above), who was also referred to as “Nem-t’m-saf II” Could the consonants “t” and “m” be a shortened form of “T’houm”? An even more direct correlation can be made between the name of the pharoah T’houm and one of the treasure cities we built in Egypt: Pit’om. Long writes, “The prefix ‘Pi’ can be roughly translated ‘city of’ or ‘dwelling of. The above verse from the book of Exodus could very well be referring in retrospect to the “City of T’houm”, city of the drowned pharaoh.

There are more amazing parallels and correlations, but they are beyond the scope of this article. In the end, one must buy the book: http://lightcatcherprod.com/products_books_riddle.shtml

I can find no more appropriate concluding words than those in the article “The Truth About Yoseph and What to Do About It” © (see Beith Midrash, “Torath Emeth–A Torah of Truth”):

The first miSwah (commandment) described in Mishneh Torah, is to know that there is a G-d. (Laws of Foundations of Torah 1:1) Not to believe, not to have faith, but to know. While many people believe that seeing is believing, they are mistaken: Seeing is knowing. Once an idea has been observed to be true, time and time again, it is a known fact and not merely believed. The connections between Yoseph and Imhotep are only one subject treated in Riddle of the Exodus. However, even all of Jim Long’s honest Egyptology is but the tip of the iceberg of all the proofs of Torah through the principles and discoveries of modern science, archaeology and recorded history.

Why are we commanded to know, and not merely to believe? To me it is clear that any religion that considers belief or faith in its theology–not action–as the adherent’s greatest goal, admits its own weakness: It is as if they realize deep down that believing in their fallible belief system is quite a feat: it’s not easy, even for the uneducated! Therefore, the one who succeeds in ‘believing’ earns his/her way to Heaven…

Being that the Torah and HaShem are ultimately provable to the honest, sincere researcher—and through deductive reasoning alone—we are expected to know it to be true and then move on to fulfill 612 other miSwoth. After all, when you know something to be true, there is only one thing left to do about it: act on that knowledge. As our faith solidifies into true knowledge, may we be moved to action: to love HaShem and keep His miSwoth with all our heart, soul, and resources.

Written by Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beith Midrash Ohal Moshe

Additional Images

Below are more images from ancient Egypt that bring life to our history.¹

“Above [the image below is a close-up]: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: the ecclesiastical throne, shown assembled, and a full view of the footrest. Bound Semitic and Black prisoners appear on the footstool: the Egyptian king would rest his feet on his foes. There is reason to believe the dates to the First Temple period.”³

“Above: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: bound Semitic and Black prisoners decorating the curved end of Tutankhamen’s walking stick: when the Egyptian king went for a walk, he would hold the enemies of Egypt in his palm.”

“Below: Racial imagery from Tutankhamen’s tomb: the Egyptian king’s sandals have bound Black and Semitic prisoners inlaid into the soles: when the king walked in these shoes, he would crush the enemies of Egypt underfoot.”³

Based on the article O”M 12 of the original Ohel Moshe series, written for parashoth Wa’era and Bo 5767.

Footnotes

*  Quote from Bible was copied from the authentic Yemenite manuscript edition found at the ‘Mechon Mamre’ website, www.mechon-mamre.org.  The English translation is original, but close to the electronic text (c) by Larry Nelson.

1. Thanks to the painstaking web-research of the Aluf Abir Yehoshua Sofer.
2. An image called “ram3captives” (Rameses III?) apparently from a Lutheran site called “The Old Testament and the Ancient Near East”, http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/.
3. These pictures and their captions are from an unlikely source: a racist website with photos from the tomb of King Tutankhamon, called “Egypt: The Nordic Desert Empire” http://www.vivamalta.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2299. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the images: I have personally seen the throne below at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Conveniently, these wicked racists ignore a famous painting showing Tutankhamon to have been darker, negro-like complexion.)

Dear National Geographic,

After years of ignoring your not-so-subtle anti-Israel bend, after your December 2008 issue, I can hold my tongue no longer.  Your map, “Crucible of History” calls modern Israel “the dream of European Zionists”—end of phrase.   Wait:  Since when did “a Jewish home in the land of the ancient Israelites” stop being the eternal dream of the Jewish People, but merely the dream of one secular ideological group from Europe?  What about my own ancestors from Morocco who helped reestablished the Jewish community in Jaffa, some 50 years before the first wave of immigration from Europe?  What about the other Jewish communities of the Middle East: Iraqi Jews, Yemenite Jews, Egyptian Jews, Syrian Jews, and others?  They chose to leave behind all their assets (whose collective value cannot be estimated) to return to the eternal Jewish home as soon as the state was established.  Did they thrust themselves into an unknown future because of “European Zionism”?  To escape persecution, they could have left for other lands.   On the contrary, like our Ashkenazi brethren (Jews of the European diaspora), they took the opportunity to fulfill our national dream: The return to Zion was and continues to be the fulfillment of the ancient dream of the entire Israelite / Hebrew / Jewish nation.  For over 2,500 years we have expressed that dream in the `amidah prayer daily—a prayer that unites all observant Jews of all ethnic backgrounds throughout our diaspora.   Nothing you write and no words you leave out can take that away from us.

That leaves me with a question:  Does National Geo write maps to portray the world’s geography according to historical truth, or to re-design its geography according to a new political vision?  

In your article “The Stolen Past” regarding Arab looting in Judea and Samaria, Karen Lange writes: “critics say the Palestinian Authority could do more to educate its people about the value of their archaeological heritage.”  You quote an Arab archaeologist who laments, “They are destroying a cultural heritage that belongs to every Palestinian…”  Can you tell us just what archaeological heritage in the “West Bank” is Palestinian?  Are they the “returning remnant” of indigenous natives who walked the land in antiquity?   Whoever visits the ruins of the Tabernacle of Shiloh, having studied the Mishnah (ZevaHim 14, from “ba’u la-Shiloh”), recognizes the innumerable pottery shards along the surrounding hilltops as remnants from the Israelite pilgrimages to the site for the three annual festivals 2800 years ago—which we Jews still celebrate today.   Is that part of this Palestinian heritage you refer to?  Are the pottery, the Bar Kokhba, Roman and Greek-era coins and ancient oil-lamps they steal from the world of their ancestors?  

Judea—the very source of the word “Jew”—is the ancient ancestral heritage of us, direct descendants and heirs of her original natives.  Unknown to most, Jewish families exist that never went into exile, but remained in the land since the Roman period.  Yet, with your generous PR help, this heartland of a very small country that cannot be divided is being crudely and artificially cut apart from the rest through cruel politics, and renamed “West Bank.”  As an aside, you casually inform your readers that “Judea and Samaria are Israel’s terms for the West Bank.”  Wait—Israel’s term?  Nothing more?  How old is the term “West Bank”—what is its origin?!  Judea and Samaria were Hebrew kingdoms from antiquity.  Ancient writings prove that those regions continued to be known and called by those terms by every nation in the region, long after the actual kingdoms fell.  Reading National Geo all my life, I know this is not the way you treat other indigenous tribes from around the world whose rights you choose to champion…

What is your motive in rewriting history, and erasing us from it?  Many peoples have lived in Israel through the ages, but the “Stolen Past” you might write about is the one the international community is attempting to steal from the people of Israel.

Along your theme of King Herod, and in the spirit of this month of Hannukah, I’ll conclude with a quote from the Hasmonean hero, Judah the Maccabee: “We did not seize a foreign land, nor did we take control of the property of strangers; but rather the heritage of our ancestors that was unjustly conquered at one time.  So when it became possible for us, we took it back.”  (Book of Maccabees I, 15:33-34)  

Sincerely,

Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron,  Beith Shemesh, Israel  

FROM THE DAYS OF AVRAHAM UNTIL TODAY

Beth Avraham, the house of Avraham, was a flowering Noahide community.  It was a camp of numerous families of servants and students of the prophet-warlord (Avraham), that must have spread out over a sizeable area.  Surely there were young girls among those families of “ba`alei teshuvah” (returnees to the observance of HaShem‘s commandments) for YiS’Haq to marry.  Yet, incomprehensibly, Avraham had his eyes set on the family he had left behind in Aram Naharayim, who remained with their idolatry and teraphim (which were the product of child sacrifice [murder] according to Sepher ha-yashar).   If Lavan’s behavior is indicative of the values (or lack thereof) of the degenerate family Avraham left behind, they would be no strangers to lying, cheating and theft. 

What then did he see in them?  What  was there in Aram that convinced Avraham that the root of his dynasty could only be found there?  And why is it that, in the same Torah that sums up phases of several decades in the lives of great men in few words, this story is described in vivid detail?  What eternal message does it have for us?

In perspective of all the stories of Lavan, from Avraham’s time to Ya`aqov (Jacob), it becomes clear that the house of Bethuel was a home in which women were not only cared for and protected, but respected as intelligent human beings. 

First, note how Eli`ezer (Avraham’s faithful servant) tells the story of his mission and its miraculous fulfillment to the household of Bethuel (hoping to impress them that the match was clearly from Heaven).  One of the small changes he makes to the story is as follows: 

Before he left, Avraham had told him as follows (B’reshith [Genesis] Chapter 24)¹: 

Avraham knew that his brother’s family would not arrange a marriage for their daughter without her consent.  Eli`ezer, however, expecting a different attitude from the house of Bethuel, related Avraham’s words differently to them:

On the contrary, the family’s nobility in this regard (which again, must have been known to Avraham) comes out loud and clear.  The elders in the family are even willing to put the whole transaction in jeopardy (and this was an agreement that would bring them considerable wealth) in order to keep her home for just another year.  Ultimately, when Eli`ezer presses them, they leave the matter to the girl’s own decision:

Here we see that Rivqah’s intelligence was respected: she was not being treated as a mere object to be married off.  Their parting blessing to her also carries the message of their high regard and hopes for her:

This pattern holds true even through later in the story of RaHel (Rachel) and Leah, and it puts the stormy relationship between Lavan and Ya`aqov in an interesting light:  Pushing Leah into marriage with Ya`aqov might well have been Lavan’s way of saving her from the fate of marrying the wild and G-dless `Esau.  When Lavan pursues and overtakes Ya`aqov in his flight homeward, consider the opening words of Lavan’s scourging attack, and then his parting message to Ya`aqov:

 Blind to his own selfishness and unfairness, Lavan sees in Ya`aqov’s action his worst nightmare: his daughters being carried off as captives of war.  He is deeply emotional about losing them.  Yet, despite his character flaws, I believe that his zealous caring for them is the very quality that made his home the root of the nascent Hebrew nation. 

In order to appreciate how rare that must have been in those times, consider how latent and widespread child abuse is today, in a world infused on certain level with basic Torah values, however diluted, through Christianity and Islam. (The RaMBaM’s teaching regarding the temporary role these two religions are playing in HaShem’s world can be found in ‘hilkhoth Shof’`tim’ [Laws of Judges] 11:11).  One can only imagine how rampant child abuse of every kind was in those times, especially abuse of girls.  To this day, there are traditional societies in which girls are still viewed chiefly as objects of family wealth to married off for a good bride price.

Attitudes such as these do not end with the perpetrators; they are passed on to the victims:  Modern statistics show that children who were abused themselves are far more likely to abuse their own offspring.  Perhaps that is the reason Avraham couldn’t entrust his beloved son to a girl from the families he had converted to the Torah of NoaH and Shem.  In a world where life for most women was “poor, nasty, brutish and short”³ the house of NaHor would have been a special exception.  

This message couldn’t be more critical in our own homes in these times.  In a world culture in open revolt against traditional values, women are objectified in the worst ways.  On the opposite extreme, Orthodox Jewry, seeing the clear dangers in modern feminism, must be very careful about the honor of our wives and daughters as intelligent human beings.  In this regard, loyal students of the Rambam have reason to take great pride in our authentic tradition: In the Mishneh Torah, our heritage of respect for women is no less than codified Law.      

The myth that RaMBaM condoned wife-beating must be done away with.  It is nonsense and a dangerous misunderstanding.  Just as there are instances in which a cruel husband might deserve to be punished with stripes by a court of law, so can a woman in other instances.  However, this can only be in the context of an ordained court, and there is none in our generation.  Never is a husband allowed to strike his wife, G-d forbid!  One need only skim the pertaining laws in hilkhoth Hovel u-maziq (Laws of Injury and Damages) to see an entire system of punishment in place for one who as much as pushes, kicks, or insults another person—no distinction is made between men and women.  In fact, to prevent marital abuse, the sages forbade us to give our daughters in marriage to ignoramuses:

כט  )לב( …ולא ישיא בתו לעם הארץ שכל הנותן בתו לעם הארץ כמי שכפתה ונתנה לפני הארי  מכה ובועל ואין לו בושת פנים.  ולעולם ימכור אדם כל מה שיש לו ויישא בת תלמיד חכמים שאם מת או גלה בניו תלמידי חכמים וכן ישיא בתו לתלמיד חכמים שאין דבר מגונה ולא מריבה בביתו של תלמיד חכמים.

…A man may not marry his daughter to a simpleton, for whoever gives his daughter to a simpleton is like one who binds her and feeds her to the lion:  he strikes [her] and then has sexual relations, and he has no shame.   A person must always [be ready to] sell all he has in order to marry the daughter of a Torah scholar [lit. “a student of the Sages]… And likewise one must marry his daughter to a Torah scholar, for there is nothing improper and no quarreling in the home of a Torah scholar.   –Hilkhoth Biah 21:29 (32)

One key ingredient of that peace in the home is honoring one’s wife (and her honoring her husband as well, of course).  Again, a wife’s honor isn’t an ideal by us; it is law.

יט  וכן ציוו חכמים שיהיה אדם מכבד את אשתו יותר מגופו ואוהבה כגופו ואם יש לו ממון מרבה בטובתה כפי הממון.  ולא יטיל עליה אימה יתרה ויהיה דיבורו עימה בנחת ולא יהיה עצב ולא רוגז.

Likewise, the Sages commanded that a man honor his wife more than himself, and love her has himself.  If he has money, he must increase his provision for her according to her needs.  He must not cause her unnecessary fear.  He should speak gently with her and not be depressed    or angry. (hilkhoth Ishuth 15:19)

The list of supporting sources and quotes goes on and on, and could well be the subject of a whole book. 

  It is clear from Laws of Foundations of Torah 4:21, that RaMBaM viewed the study of halakhah (Jewish Law) by both men and women as an ideal.   Unfortunately, quotes that are (mis)understood out of context upset people needlessly:  In the laws of idolatry, when women are included among the simple folk who tend to believe in magic and superstition, this is not a statement regarding women’s abilities or potential, G-d forbid.  Rather, it is a description of the reality in the RaMBaM’s day.  What offended people don’t realize is that RaMBaM’s opinion of the men of his time was not much higher.  In hilkhoth De`oth 6:2, he makes it clear that, “bizmanenu zeh” –”in our times”, no place in the world he knew of was on the proper path.  He was referring to Jewish communities the world over, which were generally run, of course, by men.   

I will end with the most vivid example of the positive legacy of the house of NaHor.  It remains to this day as codified law in Mishneh Torah and it is an echo of our ancestor’s covenant with Lavan: 

ו  לפיכך ציוו חכמים שלא יישא אדם יותר על ארבע נשים אף על פי שיש לו ממון הרבה כדי שתגיע להן עונה פעם אחת בחודש.

Therefore, the Sages decreed that a man not marry more than four wives even if he has a lot of money, in order that they might enjoy the marital obligation [at least] once a month.  (hilkhoth Ishuth 14:6)

In the merit of our zealous love and honor of our wives and daughters, may we be blessed with success in raising a new generation that will be redeemed as the generation that left Egypt: in the merit of righteous women.

Written by Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron, Beith Midrash Ohel Moshe

Based on his article O”M 6 of the original Ohel Moshe series, parashath Hayye Sarah 5767

_______________________________________________________________

¹ Quotes from Bible are according to the authentic Yemenite manuscript edition posted on www.mechon-mamre.org.  The English translations in my articles are original.  The Bible translations often bear influence and occasional borrowings from the JPS Bible based on the electronic text (c) by Larry Nelson, and the The Living Torah: The Five Books of Moses by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Maznaim Publishing Corporation, New York, 647 pp.

 ²  Quotes from Mishneh Torah, Mishnah and Talmud are manually copied from the authentic editions posted on www.mechon-mamre.org, without use of their unique punctuation (providing a commentary) or hyperlinks.  The English translations are original. 

³  Borrowed from the words of Thomas Hobbes, written in another context.  From Wikipedia article on Thomas Hobbes  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

“שאלה למארי: מה כבודו יכול לספר לי על החבאנים בתימן? אני חוקר אותם, ואני רוצה לדעת יותר עליהם.”

“החבאנים היו גיבורים. שמעתי הרבה מזקנים בילדות שלי על החבאנים, על המלחמות שלהם, איך הם היו נלחמים ‘על פי שמות’. מה זה ‘על פי שמות’? –האותיות: היו עושים את צורת האותיות עם הידיים שלהם, ובזה היו מנצחים. גם השרעבים–מן העיר שרעב–היו חזקים, אבל לא באותו רמה כמו החבאנים…

“A question for the Mori: What can you [lit. "his honor"] tell me about the Habbanis in Yemen? I am researching them and I want to know more about them.”

“The Habbanis were mighty heroes. I heard a lot from elders in my youth about the Habbanis, about their wars, how they would fight ‘according to names’. What does it mean ‘according to names’? –the letters: They would make the shape of the [Hebrew] letters with their hands, and by this they would be victorious. Also the Shar`abim–from the city of Shar`ab–were strong, but not to the same degree as the Habbanis…

“הדודה שלי, אחות של אבא שלי, סיפרה לי סיפור ידוע בתימן. (הייתי כמו בן מאומץ אצלה… כל לילה היא הייתה מספרת לי סיפור עד שאני נרדם.) פעם בתימן היה שבט פראי של לוחמים ערבים רצחניים שכבשו עיר אחרי עיר, שוחטים את כל מי שמצאו. ככה הם התקדמו ממושב למושב: הורגים, הורסים–יימח שמם–עד שהם התקרבו לעיר של יהודים, בת 13,000 יהודים בערך. כולם היו חסר אונים-אפילו הערבים שביניהם הרימו את ידיהים, וחיפשו לאן להימלט. פתאום הגיעו עשרה [יהודים] חבאנים ונלחמו איתם–עשרה נגד אלף–וחיסלו את כולם. לא היה נשאר בחיים בלוחמים האלה אפילו אחד, ולא נפל אחד מן העשרה… כן, הוא סיפור ידוע בין יהודי תימן…

My aunt, the sister of my father, told me [what was] a well-known story in Yemen. (I was like an adopted son with her… Every night she would tell me a story until I fall asleep.) Once in Yemen there was a wild tribe of murderous Arab warriors that conquered town after town, slaughtering whomever they found. Thus they moved forward from settlement to settlement: killing, destroying–may their names by blotted out–until they approached a city of Jews, 13,000 Jews roughly. Everyone felt hopeless-even the Arabs among them put up their hands, searching for a place to escape. Suddenly ten [Jewish] Habbanis arrived and waged war with them–ten against a thousand–and vanquished all of them. Not even one of those warriors was left alive, and not one of the ten fell… Yes, it is a well-known story among the Jews of Yemen…

“לא ידענו הרבה עליהם. הם היו מביאים מלח מן החוף בעדן ומביאים אותו רחוק רחוק עד קצה השני של המדבר… הם היו חוצים את המדבר בלי בעיה. הם לא פחדו לא מאויבים, לא מכל מיני בעלי חיים ארסיים, שום דבר, כי הם גדלו ככה… אתה זוכר את האיש הזה שראיתי בבית מדרש שלך כשהזמנת אותי?–אני חושב שזה היה אולי לפני שנה בערך… [הוא מזכיר לי את פגישתו המהירה עם האלוף אביר יהושע סופר ב'בית מדרש אוהל משה' ברמת בית שמש. שניהם הוזמנו לדבר לפני ציבור קטן, אחד אחרי השני-ראה בתמונות למטה. אחרי שהרב דיבר והוצרך לצאת, האלוף אביר נכנס: הם רק ראו אחד את השני לא יותר מדקה אחת, מבלי להכיר אחד את השני מקודם] הוא נראה כמו חבאני–הפנים שלו…“

We didn’t know much about them. They would bring salt from the coast of `Aden and bring it far, far to the other end of the desert… They would cross the desert with no problem. They had no fear of enemies, not of all kinds of poisonous creatures, nothing, because they grew up like that… Do you remember that man I saw in your Beith Midrash when you invited me? –I think it was perhaps a year ago roughly… [He reminds me of his brief meeting with the Aluf Abir Yehoshua Sofer in Beith Midrash Ohel Moshe in Ramat Beith Shemesh. Both were invited to speak before the same small gathering, one after another <see pictures below>.  After that rabbi spoke and needed to leave, the Aluf Abir entered: They only saw each other for not more than a minute, without knowing one another from beforehand.]  He looks like a Habbani–his face…”

(הצתות מראיון אישי עם הרב יוסף מגורי-כהן שליט”א, תלמיד חכמים וסופר מומחה תימני בלעדי יליד תימן בן 60 שנה, ע”י מיכאל ש. בר-רון ב-ה’ אלול תשס”ז (8 לאוגוסט 2007) בגני בושתן האלה, ליד ירושלים

Direct quotes from a personal interview with Rav Yoseph Maghori Kohen shlit”a, 60-year old, Yemenite-born (Baladi) Torah scholar and scribe, born in Yemen, by Michael S. Bar-Ron on 5 Elul 5767 (August 8, 2007) at Ganei Bustan Ha’elah, near Jerusalem

(הרב יוסף מגורי-כהן בבית מדרש אוהל משה בכינוס סיום ספר שופטים בתמוז תשס”ו (יוני 2006

Rav Yoseph Maghori-Kohen at Beith Midrash Ohel Moshe at a ‘completion gathering’ for the Book of Judges in Tammuz 5766 (June 2006)

אביר יהשוע סופר נושא דברים אחרי סיום דברי הרב מגורי-כהן (ראה למעלה) באותו כינוס סיום

Abir Yehoshua Sofer speaks after the end of Rav Maghori-Kohen’s words (see above)
at the same ‘completion gathering’ in Tammuz 5766 (June 2006)

And after him was Shamgar the son of ‘Anath, who smote of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad; he also saved Israel. (Judges 3:31) ¹

וַיִּמְצָא לְחִי חֲמוֹר טְרִיָּה וַיִּשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וַיִּקָּחֶהָ וַיַּךְבָּהּ אֶלֶף אִישׁ: וַיֹּאמֶר שִׁמְשׁוֹן בִּלְחִי הַחֲמוֹר חֲמוֹר חֲמֹרָתָיִם בִּלְחִי הַחֲמוֹר הִכֵּיתִי אֶלֶף אִיש: שופטים טו:טו-טז

And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and he stretched out his hand and took it, and smote with it a thousand men. And Samson said: ‘With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men.’ (Judges 15:15-16) ¹

וַיֹּאמֶר שָׁאוּל כֹּה תֹאמְרוּ לְדָוִד אֵין חֵפֶץ לַמֶּלֶךְ בְּמֹהַר כִּי בְּמֵאָה עָרְלוֹת פְּלִשְׁתִּים לְהִנָּקֵם בְּאֹיְבֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְשָׁאוּל חָשַׁב לְהַפִּיל אֶת דָּוִד בְּיַד פְּלִשְׁתִּים: וַיַּגִּדוּ עֲבָדָיו לְדָוִד אֶת הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וַיִּשַׁר הַדָּבָר בְּעֵינֵי דָוִד לְהִתְחַתֵּן בַּמֶּלֶךְ וְלֹא מָלְאוּ הַיָּמִים: וַיָּקָם דָּוִד וַיֵּלֶךְ הוּא וַאֲנָשָׁיו וַיַּךְ בַּפְּלִשְׁתִּים מָאתַיִם אִישׁ וַיָּבֵא דָוִד אֶת עָרְלֹתֵיהֶם וַיְמַלְאוּם לַמֶּלֶךְ לְהִתְחַתֵּן בַּמֶּלֶךְ וַיִּתֶּן לוֹ שָׁאוּל אֶת מִיכַל בִּתּוֹ לְאִשָּׁה: שמואל א’ יח:כה-כז

And Saul said: ‘Thus shall you say to David: The king does not desire any dowry but a hundred foreskins of Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies.’ For Saul intended to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to become the king’s son-in-law. And the given time frame had not yet expired; and David arose and went, he and his men, and slew two hundred men of the Philistines; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave their full number to the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter for a wife. (Samuel I 18:25-27) ¹