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Keli Yekar is a commentary on the Torah by Rav Ephraim Shelomo ben Aharon (1550-1619), who was born in Luntschitz (Leczyca), Poland, studied under Rav Shelomo Luria (the Maharshal) in Lublin, and served as Rosh Yeshivah in Lvov (Lemberg), and head of the Beit Din of Prague. During his life he won wide renown as a preacher, often excoriating wealthy people for their materialism and those poor people who accepted tzedaqah without attempting to provide for themselves. He also expressed strong criticism of the pilpul methods of Talmud study as being neglectful of truth. Keli Yekar (whose name comes from Proverbs 20:15) is his most famous work, has often been printed in editions of Miqre'ot Gedolot, and remains popular to this day. He also published several volumes of sermons.
Korah Background: This story of the spies, filling the 13th-14th chapters of Numbers, does not directly lead into the story of Korah, which starts at the beginning of chapter 16. Chapter 15 is a legal passage loosely connected to its narrative context but essentially unrelated to the issue at hand. Therefore, in the narrative flow of the book of Numbers, the people's reaction to the spies' pessimistic report, which fills the entirety of chapter 14, constitutes the immediate background to Korah's challenge.
Leibowitz, Dr. Nehama (1905-1997) had probably the most substantial influence on the Jewish study of Bible of anyone in the 20th century. Born to an Orthodox family in Riga, Latvia (including her brother, the philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz), she immigrated to Palestine in 1930 after earning a doctorate from the University of Berlin. In Israel, she taught at a religious Zionist teachers' college and, later, at Tel Aviv University, where she was a full professor, as well as in other places. Her pedagogic influence spread well beyond the walls of any institution, though. Beginning in 1942, she distributed "pages" of questions on the weekly Torah portion to anyone who requested them. Readers would send them back to her, and she would personally review them and send them back with notes. Thousands of Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora and of all sorts of religious affiliation, counted themselves as her students because of this regular correspondence. These sheets became the basis for her volumes of "Studies", published in both Hebrew and English. She also had a Torah commentary radio show on "Qol Yisrael". She began her teaching career at a time when the academic world denigrated the classical Bible commentators as fancifully deaf to the literal meaning of the Biblical text, and when religious educators rejected academic methods of close reading as heretical. Leibowitz's contributed a response to both of these phenomena: she trained students to play close attention to the ambiguities and curiosities in the Biblical text itself, without jumping straight to the commentators, and then to read the commentators equally closely, demonstrating that they always respond to textual difficulties. She almost single-handedly restored study of the classical commentators to prominence both in academia and in religious education. For these efforts, she was awarded the Israel Prize in 1956. An ardent Zionist, she turned down lucrative invitations to lecture in the Diaspora, refusing to leave the Land of Israel. Eschewing affect and formality, she insisted that her students call her Nehama, and preferred to be described not as a professor, but just as a "מורה" ("teacher"), which is the only word inscribed on her gravestone.
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Mecklenburg, Rav Yaaqov Tzvi (1785-1865), rabbi in Koenigsburg, East Prussia, authored a Bible commentary called HaKetav Ve-haKabbalah ("The Writ and the Received Tradition"). As indicated by its name, its chief goal was to show that the oral tradition conforms to the meaning of the written Torah.
The Mekhilta, or, more properly, the Mekhilta D'Rabbi Yishmael, is a collection of tannaitic midrash on the Sefer Shemot, starting with the middle of Parashat Bo (chapter 12) and continuing through Parashat Mishpatim and a small amount of material on Ki Tissa and VaYaqhel. It contains primarily halakhic midrashim, and although it also contains a significant amount of midrash aggadah, the work as a whole is referred to as a Midrash Halakhah. The Mekhilta is one of the earliest extant midrashic works we have and was compiled by the end of the 4th century CE.
** The word that appears in printed editions of this midrash, as well as in Rashi's commentary to the Torah, is "אפיקורוסים"-"Apiqorosim", which, in early texts, refers to followers of Epicurean philosophy, and in later texts, is used generally for "heretics". However, I have translated it here as "undergarments", following the Berlin, Rome, London, and Oxford manuscripts, which record versions of the word "אפיקרסים", which means "undergarment", "night-gown", or "sheet". I follow this version because more manuscripts have this word and so does the Targum Yonatan. Moreover, I think that it makes more sense in the context of the midrash. All Tannaitic mentions of Apioqorosim refer to followers of Epicureanism, a missionizing philosophy that denied God's providence, reward or punishment for human behavior, or any other involvement in human affairs. (See Mishnah Pirqei Avot 2:14; midrash Sifrei Bemidbar 112, and Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1. For more depth, see our teacher Jenny Labendz's article, "‘Know What to Answer the Epicurean': A Diachronic Study of the 'Apiqoros in Rabbinic Literature," published in the Hebrew Union College Annual 73 (2003). Jenny first called to my attention that the word in our midrash is not "‘Apiqorosim".) Our midrash's particular description of the Israelites' bad behavior seems to have nothing to do with Epicureanism.
Nevertheless, we may wonder how later scribes and readers, such as Rashi, who did think that our midrash was talking about Apiqorosim, understood the text. I suggest the following: In the Amoraic world, where Epicureanism was fading and no longer a threat, the Amoraim were left to define these "Apiqorosim". The Talmud defines "Apiqoros" as one who defames scholars-"המבזה תלמידי חכמים" (Sanhedrin 99b; also, Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10:1/27d). Therefore, when they read the mishnah that teaches that Apiqorosim have no share in the world-to-come (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1), they understood that one who maliciously defames leaders undermines the ability of society to function and that person has no share in the idyllic future of a utopian civilization-one that is realized via respect and civility. Those who thought that our midrash referred to Apiqorosim focused on the disrespect the midrash shows the people showing to Mosheh. Mosheh lashes out, unable any longer to bear their contempt for authority.
Netziv (נצי"ב) is the acronym representing the name of Rav Naphtali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, 1817-1893, who served as Rosh Yeshivah at the reknowned yeshivah in Volozhin, Russia, for 40 years, during which time he transformed it into a religious center for all of Russian Jewry and the "Lithuanian" yeshivah par excellence in whose image yeshivot to this today try to model themselves. The Netziv, following the tradition of the Vilna Gaon, placed great curricular emphasis on primary sources, bringing study of halakhic midrashim, the Talmud Yerushalmi, and the writings of the Geonim-the Babylonian sages who lived closest to the time of the Talmud-to a place of unusual prominence in Talmudic learning. Accordingly, he taught the Talmud in order, without skipping any passages, unlike other rabbis who often focus only on areas they find more interesting. He also introduced a daily shiur on Parashat HaShavua into the yeshivah, aimed at demonstrating that traditional Rabbinic understandings of the Torah conform to the Torah's plain meaning (peshat). His Torah commentary, Ha‘Ameq Davar, is based on those shiurim. His other writings include ‘Emeq HaNetziv (a commentary on the halakhic midrash Sifrei), Ha‘Ameq She'elah (a commentary on halakhic code She'iltot, of Rav Ahai Gaon), and Meshiv Davar (halakhic responsa). He publicly identified with Zionism, encouraging Torah-observant Jews to make aliyah and maintain high standards of Torah observance in the growing Jewish community in the Land of Israel.
Netziv's Midrashic Source
The Netziv writes as follows:
| "May Hashem lift up His face..." Here, "His face" means "His attributes", which are referred to as a face in that the form of His face changes according to human behavior, whether with a joyous or a furious face, or what-have-you. | "ישא ה' פניו..." כאן, משמעות 'פניו' מדותיו, שמכונים פנים, באשר לפי מדת האדם משתנה צורת הפנים. אם בפנים צוהלות או נזעמות וכדו'... |
"...and in the morning you shall behold the glory of Hashem." (Shemot 16:7) From here you learn that with a shining face was the Manna given to Israel. The quail, which they requested with full stomachs, was given to them with a dark face, but the Manna, which they requested legitimately, was given to them with a shining face. | "ובקר וראיתם את כבוד ה'" (שמות ט"ז:ז) מכאן אתה למד שבפנים מאירות ניתן המן לישראל. השלו ששאלו אותו ממלא מעים ניתן להם בפנים חשכות, אבל המן ששאלו אותו כהלכה ניתן להם בפנים מאירות: |
This midrash is paralleled in the Talmud Bavli, Yoma 75a-b:
| "Mosheh continued: ‘Since it is Hashem who will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to the full..." (Shemot 16:8) It was taught in the name of R. Yehoshua ben Qorhah: meat, which they demanded inappropriately, was given to them inappropriately; bread, which they demanded appropriately, was given to them appropriately. | "ויאמר משה בתת ה' לכם בערב בשר לאכל ולחם בבקר לשבע" (שמות ט"ז:ח). תנא משמיה דרבי יהושע בן קרחה: בשר ששאלו שלא כהוגן - ניתן להם שלא כהוגן, לחם ששאלו כהוגן - ניתן להם כהוגן. |
It is difficult to say with any certainty that the Netziv had this midrash in mind when he penned his comments to our verse. In his commentary on the Talmud, Meromei Sadeh, he says nothing on this passage, and in his commentary to the Mekhilta, Birkat HeNetziv, he writes only that one should see the comments of Rashi and Ramban to verses which are the subject the midrash, Shemot 16:6-7. Neither Rashi nor Ramban says anything that can bring us any closer to establishing a clear paper trail from the Netziv to this midrash. Nevertheless, the connection is suggestive and we can at least say that the idea articulated by the Netziv on our verse in Bemidbar was already developed in this midrash. For a fine analysis of the Mekhilta passage, see Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash, pp. 49-56.
Editor's note: Thanks to Professor Yaakov Elman for directing us to the Mekhilta passage and to Boyarin's discussion thereto.
Targum Onqelos is the standard Aramaic translation of the Tanakh. It apparently dates from the second century, C.E., and is attributed to Onqelos HaGer ("the Convert"), whom the Talmud reports was a nephew of Titus, but converted to Judasim and became a student of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, the great Tannaim. There is some scholarly suspicion about this historical figure, in part since his name so closely resembles that of Aqila, who translated the Tanakh into Greek. Be that as it may, the book very quickly became widely accepted and canonical both in the Land of Israel and in Babylonia and in many communities, certainly in earlier generations, it was read publicly in synagogue on shabbat morning, following the Torah reading verse-by-verse. To this day, it is published aside the text of the Torah in most editions of the Humash and many Jews fufill the halakhah (Shulhan Arukh, OH 285:1) to read Parashat HaShavua with translation every week by reading Targum Onqelos alongside the Torah. It is known for its close, literal rendering of the Hebrew text, albeit with a strong tendency to alter anthropomorphic language.
Or HaHayyim is a Torah commentary written by Rav Hayyim ben Mosheh Attar (1696-1743), a Moroccan rabbi and kabbalist who traveled exensively in Italy encouraging aliyah to the Land of Israel as a way of hastening the Messianic redemption, and finally settled in Israel in 1741. There he taught advanced Torah students-among them the great Hayyim Yoseph David Azulai (the HIDA)-in Akko, Peqi'in, and Jerusalem for the last years of his life. Or HaHayyim is distinguished as a commentary that reads the whole Torah, including the mitzvot, as an allegory for the relationship between God and the Jewish People. The particulars of these allegories are often influenced by Kabbalah. This commentary became so central in Hasidic curricula that for many it was the commentary that they learned with the Torah. To this day, it is referred to in such circles as "Or HaHayyim HaQadosh" ("The Holy Or HaHayyim"). Among his other published works is the Peri To'ar, an important halakhic commentary on the Yoreh De'ah section of the Shulhan Arukh.