Which came first, the lulav or the etrog?
Before I start, I need to issue a trigger warning. I’m going to be expressing some heterodox views that some of you woke snowflakes might find offensive. If you’re looking for a safe space, this might not be it.
Which came first, the lulav or the etrog? That’s one of the many imponderables that keeps me up at night. Perhaps my eclectic approach in the pursuit of wisdom prevents me from finding this and other answers. I follow up a stray footnote, an interesting item in some bibliography, or possibly an ambiguous posting on Truth Social. I never seem to square the circle, but I do have a lot of fun with the randomness.
Did I say “eclectic”? A more accurate description might be “scatterbrained”. Try contrasting me with our esteemed ritual committee chairman who recently completed a master’s degree in midrash. It goes without saying that I have neither the discipline nor the focus to do anything like that. On the other yad, I do stumble upon many fascinating tidbits that flit around inside my head, and sometimes even come out of my mouth.
Not too long ago I was rummaging through Hayim Bialik’s “Book of Legends” and I chanced upon a ketiv in the Book of Isaiah that I hadn’t seen before. For the uninitiated, this refers to an instance in the Tanach where the spelling of a word as memorialized in the Masoretic text does not match the way the word is pronounced. There may be some long scholarly explanation describing why this is so, but mostly I’m just interested in not giving some showoff gabbi a chance to correct me while I’m on a roll.
This one is a little different: it’s an oddly placed final mem at the beginning of the word “marbeh,” usually translated as “increase”, in Isaiah 9:6. Per Chabad, the verse reads:
“To him who increases the authority, and for peace without end, on David's throne and on his kingdom, to establish it and to support it with justice and with righteousness; from now and to eternity, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall accomplish this.”
In this case, pronunciation does not seem to be an issue. As any bar mitzvah boy knows, final mems sound just like regular mems, but are supposed to be at the end of a word. So, what’s happening here?
Before I dive into that, I’d like to address something that happened last time I mumbled through one of my longwinded streams of consciousness. I was babbling about what kind of Jew am I, who is a Jew, or some such. As I started to sit down, I was unexpectedly hit with a flurry of questions. I know it can be a controversial subject, but what kind of buffoons ask me anything about anything? What were you all thinking?
A particular hypothetical was raised: what to do with an uncircumcised male convert? Could he count towards a minyan or be called to the Torah? Does it matter why he had not been circumcised?
It was bedlam. We were at one another’s throats. That is, until I saved the day with one of my witty bon mots: we don’t have to decide that – just dump the mess on our ritual committee chairman, you know, the one with the master’s degree in midrash. And we were all rolling on the floor laughing.
You might remember this a bit differently. But upon further review, turning an issue like this over to the ritual committee is something that happens all the time.
Which is not to say that this process cannot be painful. I had mentioned the heated discussion that took place in the Clark shul when considering including women in minyans. This sort of thing can tear synagogue communities apart. Or not. The conservative shul in Highland Park resolved this question by having two services: one stag and the other coed. Could something similar work for us here? We already have the occasional separate Shabbat service. I don’t generally attend, but I admire that they conclude with “Song of Glory”, a beautiful prayer I never hear in the main sanctuary.
So how about this? One minyan including the intact member, and a second for the more traditionally minded. Problem solved!
Except, not so much. Remember, we are Jews, and we need to dig a little deeper. Suppose that both groups are one short of a quorum. Let’s say that they could arrange to meet at different times. Since I am retired, and as my wife could tell you, completely indolent, I’d be honored to sit in on both minyans. Problem solved!
Or maybe not. Forgive me for getting all Talmudic on you, but what if these minyans need to run concurrently? You know, modern times, rat race, and all that. How about this: if the rooms were close enough together, I could stand outside both doors. I would not actually need to be inside – if I can hear both sets of prayer, we’re good to go. Problem solved!
But what if the minyanaires could not agree to share my ears? In that event it might be time for me to find a new shul.
For what it’s worth, I’d be inclined to accept someone like that in the minyan. I might want to get to know the guy a bit, and your mileage might vary, but I like what Japheth ben Eli wrote in his commentary on Ruth:
“We find further that nobility of faith ranks higher than that of descent… We find also that even he who is converted to the Jewish faith sometimes reaches a high position because of his obedience to G-d.” (#1)
You haven’t heard of Japheth ben Eli? That’s okay – he lived about a thousand years ago. He was a Karaite. You haven’t heard of the Karaites either? That’s okay too – they’re a sect that broke off from mainstream Judaism. Like the Sadducees, they rejected the oral tradition, and only go by the written Torah. They’re still around today, although in small numbers.
They were excommunicated by the rabbis. One reason was that the rabbis did not trust Karaite divorces and there was no way to be sure if any of their women were halachically available for marriage. All offspring from such a union would be mamzerim, and the stain of illegitimacy lasts for generations.
I don’t fault the rabbis ruling this way, nor do I blame anyone abiding by such a ruling. It just doesn’t sing to me. While I was reading through Artscroll’s “Introduction to the Talmud”, I came across a story about Rabbi Ze’iri, a brilliant scholar from Babylonia. He traveled to Eretz Yisrael to continue his studies, and became the primary disciple of Rabbi Yochanan, who led the yeshivah in Tiberias. Yochanan was so impressed by Ze’iri that he wanted him for a son-in-law. Alas, Ze’iri demurred because Jews from Eretz Yisrael were not considered to have as pure lineage as those from Babylonia. Yochanan was greatly enraged, but the Talmud defends Ze’iri’s refusal. (#2)
Okay. But I’m partial to some thoughts of Sahl ben Masliah, another Karaite. Like so many other Jewish scholars, he warned of emulating the many mistakes of our fathers. We must not accept their decisions unconditionally, and even reject them if need be. (#3)
More recently and succinctly, Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism said: “The past has a vote, but not a veto.”
Please do not misunderstand me. There is so much that is beautiful within our rabbinic tradition, I would never call on Jews to abandon it, especially when there is still so much for me to learn.
Listen to this:
“Thou art blessed, O L-rd, be merciful to me. By day be Thou my shepherd, and my guardian at night. When I walk, be my guide, when I sit be my guardian. When I call Thee, keep Thou not silent. I love Thee, hate me not; I have confidence in Thee, abandon me not; I follow Thee, put me not to shame; I look after Thee, despise me not. Let me pass the day in Thy peace.”
Sound familiar, maybe like something out of Psalms? Except, not so much. In fact, it’s not part of the rabbinic tradition at all. It’s from an Ethiopian Jewish prayer.
Many years ago, my parents, they should rest in peace, went to some sort of Jewish symposium. They were always doing stuff like that. Among the many exhibits, there was one supporting the Falasha cause. Some numbnut went up to the booth and loudly spouted off: “Those people aren’t Jews, and I can prove it to you!”
The presenter paused a moment, and quietly responded: “It’s too nice a day to argue with you.”
My mother was greatly impressed, and so was I.
I shouldn’t be so hard on our Orthodox brethren. They believe differently than I do, which is okay. They are more observant than I am, which is wonderful. It’s the insistence on toeing the line, and pronouncing bans on those who don’t that really repulses me. I give the Rabbinate in Israel great credit for putting aside their enmity towards the Karaites and recognizing them as Jews. But despite the centuries through which the Falasha maintained their traditions, the Rabbinate in Israel does not recognize them as Jews. Go figure. Got to be the shoes. Or maybe the skin color.
We have so much in common with the Karaites and the Falasha, but our mindless hatred can prevent us from appreciating that. And as my meandering studies take me far and wide, I’ve come to realize that we have a great deal in common with the Muslims.
About a year ago, I read the Koran, albeit in English. This was a bit difficult for me. For starters, it was hard to get past the centuries of Muslim cruelty toward Jews. The best I can say about that is that Christian cruelty was worse.
Language is an issue. Translating the Koran into English loses a lot, in a way that translating the Torah does not. Not to get too grammatical, but classical Arabic has a great number of descriptive prepositions that have no equivalent in English. I mean no disrespect to the Koran, but it can make for some dry reading in our vernacular.
Another thing: as any bar mitzvah boy also knows, Jews read the Torah sequentially, starting and ending at Simchat Torah. Muslims read the Koran a bit here and a bit there, which is how it was revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him. The Koran itself is not compiled in the order of its revelations.
The overwhelming impression I got from reading the Koran is how much of it overlaps with our beliefs. This is from the Opening, which is an obligatory part of Moslem prayers: “In the name of G-d, the L-rd of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy” (#4)
An appropriate response to the Opening would be this: “I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice.” (#5)
That’s from Hosea. We Ashkenazic say it as we wind the shel yad strap around our middle fingers.
I did find a few places in which the Koran contradicts Jewish belief. For starters, it wasn’t Isaac who was nearly sacrificed by Abraham, but Ishmael.
Another item is a little more involved. Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of G-d, born of the Virgin Mary. Jews don’t. There’s also a horrible counter-Gospel written by Jews which claims that Joseph pimped out Mary to some Roman centurion. I’m happy to say that I’ve never actually heard that in a synagogue.
Some Gnostic Christians went with something of a hybrid between Jewish and Christian thinking. I don’t know if this is midrash or a bubba misa, but we spend the nine months of gestation inside our mothers communing with Hashem. Just before we’re born, some angel flicks us on the upper lip right under our nose. That’s how we get that little cleft, but it also brings on some sort of fetal amnesia, and we forget all we learned in that time. The Nazarene was conceived like any other mortal but wasn’t flicked and didn’t lose any knowledge. So, just as Adam didn’t have a belly button, Jesus had no cleft.
For what it’s worth, the Gnostics had all sorts of ideas that are as strange as any in the Cabala, but I’ll leave that for another day.
So, what do Muslims believe? Well, of course Mary was a virgin, but that Son of G-d business? Don’t be so anthropomorphic. If Allah wanted Mary pregnant, it would be so. Just forget this nonsense about Him fathering a child.
My absolute favorite difference between Jewish and Moslem theology has to do with Moses and Pharoah. According to the Koran, Pharoah’s chief wizard was a fellow named Haman. Jews taunted the early Muslims about this. First, there are very few Egyptians given names in the Exodus story, and none of them are called Haman. Second, don’t you guys have the wrong holiday in mind?
It’s not unusual at all for names to be a little inconsistent in scripture. An unnamed character may be given a name elsewhere. Sometimes the same character shows up with two different names – for example, Moses’s father-in-law is referred to originally as Reuel, then later as Jethro. The Christian Gospels refer to two of Pharoah’s wizards – Jannes and Jambres – but these do not appear in the Exodus story either. I’m not sure whether they are mentioned in midrash.
A little earlier, I mentioned Artscroll’s “Introduction to the Talmud”. It has over 350 pages of biographical sketches of rabbis, and how they were related to each other. It’s also littered with disputes of what the actual names were and who was who. So, let’s give the Moslems a break with their Koranic Haman.
Still, there is a far more important lesson for Jews. The world has always had room for plenty of Hamans. We were supposed to wipe out the memory of Amalek and remember. Since we haven’t come close to wiping him out, what’s one more Haman?
When I was in middle school, I had a friend whose Palestinian father had been kicked off a farm by the Israelis. We had trouble talking about the Middle East, but I learned a lot. His anger was quite sincere. He also had no thought of compromise. Anything that the Palestinians did was completely justified, while anything that the Israelis did was not. If I asked him about some terrorist attack, well, the Palestinians were right! When I mentioned the Holocaust, the Palestinians had nothing to do with it, and besides, Hitler was a Jew.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel had a similar experience. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and a lot of his allies were not sympathetic to Israel at all. After the atrocity at the Munich Olympics, he reached out to some of his friends; surely, they would join him in a statement of condemnation. They would not, and he was left heartbroken.
There was one point I made to my friend. This was before the Camp David Accords were signed, but after the 1973 Disengagement Agreement. Short of a nuclear exchange, Israel could no longer be defeated militarily. Wouldn’t it be in everyone’s interest to start on some accommodation? But no, it might take five hundred years, but Israel would be wiped out.
Golda Meir once said that she could forgive the Arabs for killing Jewish children, but she could not forgive the Arabs for making Jews kill Arab children. Maybe that was just a made for TV sound byte, but it does resonate with me. And of course, Abba Eban famously said that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Counter-histories are always risky, but I’m convinced that if the Palestinians had accepted the regional councils proposed by the Camp David Accords, as limited in scope as they were, there would be a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and many fewer Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
I am not a particularly observant Jew. There are some things I am strict about. No pork. I put on tefillin regularly. I will not walk on the Temple Mount.
Why not? I was taught that since we don’t know the precise location of the Holy of Holies, we risk violating the sacred space unless we avoid the Temple Mount entirely. At least until Moshiach comes.
This is not a great problem for me. I’ve only been to Jerusalem once, and the tour took us to the Kotel and no farther. And whichever came first, we wave the lulav and etrog in all directions, so I can certainly enjoy my prayers wherever I am.
There are some Jews who have started praying on the Temple Mount, under police protection. These might be the same folks who throw rocks at women biking through the wrong neighborhoods and spit on little girls who aren’t dressed modestly enough. Now, I am not happy designating any place as forbidden for Jews to pray, but this foolish.
When Sarah died, Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah for her burial. If Hashem had already promised him the entire land, why was this purchase even necessary? And when the Hittites offered the cave to Abraham for free, he insisted on paying top shekel. What is going on here?
There is an explanation that really works for me. Abraham wanted to show magnanimity to his neighbors, and it was also a way to establish Abraham’s legitimacy in the land in their eyes. To be sure, magnanimity has no great currency in the modern Middle East. But sticking a finger in your neighbor’s eye will not bring peace either.
So, what about that final mem?
We have these sorts of issues in English as well. Spelling changes. Pronunciation changes. Meaning changes. Remember back to first grade: I before E except after C; syntactic pluperfect declension of irregular verbs; that whole business with schwa.
More on point here is the silent consonant blend G-H, as in “right” and “brought”. Evidently, these words used to be vocalized with a bit of a cough, as in “rikt” or “broukt”. This recalls the mostly silent Hebrew letter ayin, which originally had a bit of vocal fry, and still does in some Sephardic communities.
In many words like “what” and “whenever”, the W comes before the H, even though we’re supposed to say “h-wat” and “h-wenever”. Got to be the shoes.
The letter Q almost never shows up lest it is immediately followed by a U. I have no idea why.
And before anybody starts googling, I made up the part about “syntactic pluperfect declension of irregular verbs”. My bad.
Besides ketivs there are many other delightful oddities in the text of Jewish scripture. We recently started reading Vayikra, aka Leviticus. There’s a tiny aleph in the very first word. According to my Kestenbaum tikkun, Hashem said “He called to Moses”, but that was a bit much for the humble Moses, who left off the aleph, changing it to “He chanced upon Moses”. The Almighty Proofreader caught the elision, and commanded Moses to put the aleph back in. Which Moses did but wrote it ever so small. Humility is a great asset to any leader.
Let’s talk a bit about incest, focusing on fathers and daughters. After that whole Sodom and Gomorrah business, Lot and his daughters hid in some cave. Afraid there were no men left in the world, and to restart humanity, the ladies got their father drunk on wine. That night, the older daughter came and lay with daddy, and as per Bereishit 19:33: “…he did not know when she lay down or when she rose.”
There’s a catch: there’s a stray dot over the word u-vkumah, which is translated as “she rose”. It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for anything like a vowel to appear in a Torah scroll. There’s a midrash that explains this by saying that Lot didn’t know when his daughter lay down with him, but he had sobered up a bit by the time she left. How does this impact Lot’s culpability for the transgression? Did he anticipate that his younger daughter would come to him the next night? Having only a son and no daughters, I don’t have the frame of reference to address this question. I’ll leave it to others with more appropriate experience.
My favorite oddity is in Bamidbar 25:12 – the broken vav in Pinechas’ covenant of peace. Usually, a damaged letter makes the entire Torah scroll unusable for ritual purposes. Not so in this case. Traditionally, this is explained that the word shalom should be read in two ways, both as peace and unblemished. I much prefer a different explanation – it’s a warning against extremism and fanaticism.
But getting back to the ketiv in question: the Bialik book explained the final mem as an objection to G-d’s plan to name Hezekiah as the Messiah. (#6) I didn’t quite follow, but perhaps someone with a master’s degree in midrash could walk us through it sometime.
I love Israel. I hesitate to criticize Israel or pressure them to take any more risks than they already have. I am just an American Jew watching television in my comfortable American living room. “Land for Peace” is a wonderful talking point, but it’s always been a mixed bag. The withdrawal from the Sinai after the 1956 war was followed ten years later by a cowardly betrayal by the United Nations. The retreat from Lebanon drew missiles. The Oslo Accords, which had to be given a chance, drew missiles and suicide bombers.
But at Camp David, the Egyptians and the Israelis were able to draw a line on a map, and the result was a cold but tangible peace. Similarly, Israel returned some captured land to the Jordanians when relations were normalized.
A disturbing novella titled “Khirbet Khizeh” was published in Israel shortly after the 1948 war. It describes the expulsion of Arab villagers from their homes, even though their village was nowhere near the front lines. The author’s agony at witnessing these events bleeds through every page. It speaks to Israel’s strength that the book became part of school curriculum. Given the cynicism of Israel’s enemies, it’s hard to imagine anything equivalent showing up in the confrontation states. I can understand anyone who feels that peace is a hopeless cause. Perhaps it is.
But, unless there is a change, Jews will soon be outnumbered between the river and the sea. Surely, it’s always been a hundred million Arabs against a few million Jews. But if Israel is to remain a democracy, it must find a way to separate from the Palestinians. And it should certainly not give free reign to the most extreme elements in its own population. Israel cannot be destroyed by the Arabs. Israel can only be destroyed by Jews.
So, what should Israel do? And, which came first, the lulav or the etrog?
As with so much else, I have enough insight to ask the questions, but not nearly enough wisdom to answer them. I haven’t a clue.
Now, go and study.
(#1) “We find further that nobility of faith ranks higher than that of descent, since we find that persons of noble descent are sometimes demoted from their high positions because of their acts of disobedience to G-d. We find also that even he who is converted to the Jewish faith sometimes reaches a high position because of his obedience to G-d.”
(#2) “Ze’iri II was a student of Rav and Rav Kahana in Babylonia. He later went to Eretz Yisrael where he studied under the elderly R’ Chanina. Afterward he became a primary disciple of R’ Yochanan (who led the yeshivah in Tiberias). R’ Yochanan held Ze’iri in such great esteem that he wished for Ze’iri to marry his daughter. Ze’iri, however did not want to marry her (since he was from Babylonia, where the Jews were considered to have purer lineage that the Jews of Eretz Yisrael). When R’ Yochanan pursued the matter, Ze’iri took to avoiding his teacher. R’ Yochanan exclaimed, ‘Our Torah is fit for you, but our daughters are not fit for you!?’ However, the Talmud defends Ze’iri’s refusal (Kiddushin 71b).”
(#3) “Know that he who justifies himself by saying, ‘I have walked in the way of my fathers,’ will gain nothing by it, for did not our G-d say: ‘Be ye not as your fathers’ (Zech. 1:4), and again: ‘And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation’ (Ps. 78:8)? This shows that there is no duty resting upon us unconditionally; rather it is our obligation to scrutinize their ways and to set up their deeds and judgements over against the words of the law. But if their words contradict the Law, we must reject them.”
(#4) “In the name of G-d, the L-rd of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy! Praise belongs to G-d, L-rd of all worlds, the L-rd of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy, Master of the Day of Judgement. It is You we worship; it is You we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path: the path of those you have blessed, those who incur no anger and who have not gone astray.”
(#5) “I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, loving-kindness and compassion; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness; and you shall know the L-rd.”
(#6) “Rabbi Tanhum related that Bar Kappara expounded this verse in Sepphoris as follows: Why is every mem in the middle of a word open while this one is closed? Because the Holy One was about to designate Hezekiah as the Messiah, and Sennacherib as Gog and Magog. But the attribute of justice spoke up to the Holy One: Master of the universe, David, king of Israel, who uttered so many hymns and praises before You, You did not make him the Messiah, yet Hezekiah, for whom You performed all manner of miracles and who uttered no hymn of praise to You” – him, You are about to make the Messiah?”
