Parshas Shoftim and a reference to Sefer Shoftim, among other places
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This week's parsha contains the injunction to avoid divination as is derived from the positive mitzvah to be Tamim with Hashem juxtaposed with the description of what the other nations do.
10:13-14
'תָּמִ֣ים תִּֽהְיֶ֔ה עִ֖ם ה
You shall be Tamim with the L-rd, your G-d –
כִּ֣י | הַגּוֹיִ֣ם הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתָּה֙ יוֹרֵ֣שׁ אוֹתָ֔ם אֶל־מְעֹֽנְנִ֥ים וְאֶל־קֹֽסְמִ֖ים יִשְׁמָ֑עוּ וְאַתָּ֕ה לֹ֣א כֵ֔ן נָ֥תַן לְךָ֖
For these nations, which you are to possess, hearken to diviners of [auspicious] times and soothsayers, but as for you, the Lord, your God, has not given you [things] like these.
Rashi interprets the first verse in light of the second:
תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך: התהלך עמו בתמימות ותצפה לו ולא תחקור אחר העתידות, אלא כל מה שיבא עליך קבל בתמימות ואז תהיה עמו ולחלקו:
“Walk with Him with wholeheartedness/simplicity . Trust in what He has in store for you and do not delve into the future. But rather, whatever comes upon you accept with simplicity/wholeheartedness and then you will be with Him and His portion.”
This would be the source for not consulting astrologers or medium, conducting seances and the like. While most people today don't really take this kinds of readings all that seriously, there was a time when it was commonplace. I'm not referring to the late 19th and early 20th Century when these kinds of things were fashionable. (One ironic thing I'd like to share is this: Houdini -- of Jewish birth -- did consult mediums to try to contact his mother after her death and was so upset to discover that it was all faked that he made a point of exposing the frauds. Nevertheless, after his death, his widow tried to contact him that way -- according to the magic exhibit at the NY Historical Society.)
Back in Biblical times, this really as a thing, and we see several instances in TaNaCh that I related here:http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2011/12/scrying-in-scripture.html
Like other practices of divination, scrying would come under the general order of black magic and necromancy that is forbidden by the Torah. But we see that some people did use these means. According to some views, the reason Rachel stole her father's Teraphim was because they could be used for divination, and she wished to prevent him from using them to find out where Yaakov had gone with his family. When Yosef had not yet revealed himself to his brothers, he indicated that his goblet was his means of scrying.
But the real purpose of this post is to bring up two particular incidents of scrying in TaNaCh, both of which use a chalon, which is normally translated as window (as per my husband's request; he was taken with the view quoted below): "Vayashkef Avimelech melech Plishtim b'ad hachalon, vayar vehine Yitzchak metzachek eth Rivka ishto." (26:8) This is usually translated as saying that he peeked into their window and saw intimacy between them. Their behavior indicated that the women Yitzchak traveled with was not his sister but his wife.
In Lev Eliyahu on Bereishis, (90-91) Rav Eliyahu Lopian rejects that pshat that Avimelech saw them through a window because he cannot accept that they would have not maintained absolute tznius and would have kept their interaction absolutely private. He invokes a story involving the Gaon of Vilna who said that the man who boasted knowledge of what people did in private did so through black magic. In the same way, R' Lopian says, Avimelech used black magic to gaze into his chalon, a device used for scrying, into the private room of Yitzchak and Rivka.
The next day, I was reading through Shoftim and noticed that toward the end of Shiras Devorah, when Sisro's mother is invoked, the text also refers to her gazing at a chalon: "B'ad hachalon nishkefa vateyabev em Sisro b'ad haeshnav, madua boshesh richvo lavo, madua echaro pa'amey marchevothav." (5:28) I noticed that it would fit the text very well to say that she was not just anxiously looking out the window to find out why her son was delayed in battle but to say the she, too, was scrying in her attempt to find the answer. It actually fit in very well with the fact that she gets answers from the wise women around her and answers herself. She also suggests that they are gathering women for each man. Considering how Yael was supposed to have succeeded in tiring out Sisro, it makes perfect sense for her to draw that conclusion based on her vision from scrying.
But don't take my word for it. After formulating my own take, I looked through the commentators to find out if someone did say something like that. Sure enough, the Malbim, who always focuses on the distinction between words when there appears to be duplication maintains that the eshnav (usually translated as lattice) is what we think of as a window, but "chalon hakesem shebo hishkifa em sisto liksom kesamin," a device for divinatation that the mother of Sisro used to attempt to divine what happened to her son.
But the real purpose of this post is to bring up two particular incidents of scrying in TaNaCh, both of which use a chalon, which is normally translated as window (as per my husband's request; he was taken with the view quoted below): "Vayashkef Avimelech melech Plishtim b'ad hachalon, vayar vehine Yitzchak metzachek eth Rivka ishto." (26:8) This is usually translated as saying that he peeked into their window and saw intimacy between them. Their behavior indicated that the women Yitzchak traveled with was not his sister but his wife.
In Lev Eliyahu on Bereishis, (90-91) Rav Eliyahu Lopian rejects that pshat that Avimelech saw them through a window because he cannot accept that they would have not maintained absolute tznius and would have kept their interaction absolutely private. He invokes a story involving the Gaon of Vilna who said that the man who boasted knowledge of what people did in private did so through black magic. In the same way, R' Lopian says, Avimelech used black magic to gaze into his chalon, a device used for scrying, into the private room of Yitzchak and Rivka.
The next day, I was reading through Shoftim and noticed that toward the end of Shiras Devorah, when Sisro's mother is invoked, the text also refers to her gazing at a chalon: "B'ad hachalon nishkefa vateyabev em Sisro b'ad haeshnav, madua boshesh richvo lavo, madua echaro pa'amey marchevothav." (5:28) I noticed that it would fit the text very well to say that she was not just anxiously looking out the window to find out why her son was delayed in battle but to say the she, too, was scrying in her attempt to find the answer. It actually fit in very well with the fact that she gets answers from the wise women around her and answers herself. She also suggests that they are gathering women for each man. Considering how Yael was supposed to have succeeded in tiring out Sisro, it makes perfect sense for her to draw that conclusion based on her vision from scrying.
But don't take my word for it. After formulating my own take, I looked through the commentators to find out if someone did say something like that. Sure enough, the Malbim, who always focuses on the distinction between words when there appears to be duplication maintains that the eshnav (usually translated as lattice) is what we think of as a window, but "chalon hakesem shebo hishkifa em sisto liksom kesamin," a device for divinatation that the mother of Sisro used to attempt to divine what happened to her son.
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