Arami
oved avi

The Passover haggada contains the memorable phrase “Arami oved avi”, which is from the passage in Ki Tavo regarding the ceremony of bikkurim, the bringing of first fruits to Jerusalem.
Most but not all of this passage is cited in the haggada to explain how the Children of Israel (NB: not the Jewish people) arrived in Egypt and were rescued from there.

ה וְעָנִיתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה, וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט; וַיְהִי-שָׁם, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל עָצוּם וָרָב.

5 And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God: 'A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

This phrase is itself hard to understand and each word can be questioned

In the context of the verse, the plain meaning of arami oved avi seems to be “A wandering Aramean was my father” however many haggadot, notably ArtScroll, follow the rabbinic understanding of this and translate it as “An Aramean
attempted to destroy my father”.

This translation has been challenged by more grammatically minded commentators, such as Rashbam, who say that the verb oved is intransitive so the verse cannot have this meaning and in any case this is not a verb at all.

The suggestion that oved can mean “wandering” or “gone astray” can be seen from other verses in the Hebrew Bible, a striking example being from Psalms 119:176

קעו תָּעִיתִי-- כְּשֶׂה אֹבֵד, בַּקֵּשׁ עַבְדֶּךָ: כִּי מִצְו‍ֹתֶיךָ, לֹא שָׁכָחְתִּי.

176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant; {N} for I have not forgotten Thy commandments. {P}

So, having established that oved
means wandering, this raises question - who was “Avi” the alleged
wanderer?

The “usual suspects” here are the three forefathers, so it makes sense to look briefly at each candidate.

Abraham’s original name was Avram which is understood in rabbinic tradition as meaning Av le-Aram (father to Aram) so he fits as an Aramean. He also wandered the land and of course went to Egypt.

Isaac did not do that much wandering as he never left the land of Israel, this is according to the rabbis because he counted after the akeda as “sanctified” and so could leave the “sanctified” land of Israel.

Jacob, of course, fits the sense of the Haggada and to be fair this does fit the sense of the rest of the verse “and sojourned there, few in number”.

If you can’t make up your mind there is a compromise suggestion that avi means all of three of the forefathers!

However, the question remains why the rabbis changed the plan meaning in the haggada, which is also found in the halakhic midrash (Sifre) on this passage in Devarim?

In addition, the Septuagint, which was composed by Jews under Egyptian rule, also changes the meaning of the words 'arami 'obed 'abi. Its texts render the phrase as though it read 'aram y'obed (or
ye'abed) 'abi, which is forced into the sense of "My father
forsook Aram."

It is possible that the authors of the Septuagint, like the Midrash, hesitated to identify the ancestor of Israel, specifically Jacob, as an Aramaean. The idea here is perhaps that Jacob had “transcended” his Aramean roots to create
a distinct national identity – or simply that at the time there were bad political relations with the Arameans! In addition, the Arameans appear to have been a nomadic people, whereas the Children of Israel are intended to have fixed portions in the Land of Israel (and Transjordan)
so it may have been felt that this comparison was inappropriate.

Looking at this within the context of rabbinic derash, as noted above, the context of arami oved avi is the Bikkurim (first fruits) ceremony which they associated with being rescued from our enemies – the Mishna in Bikkurim says
when they are brought the Levites would sing the Psalm Mizmor
Shir Hanukat HaBayit LeDavid specifically:

ב אֲרוֹמִמְךָ יְהוָה, כִּי דִלִּיתָנִי; וְלֹא-שִׂמַּחְתָּ אֹיְבַי לִי.	2 I will extol thee, O LORD, for Thou hast raised me up, and hast not suffered mine enemies to rejoice over me.

Aside from Esau, who was after all his brother, Laban is the most obvious enemy of Jacob. Further we can see that the rabbis identified Laban with the word oved in the sense of “enemy” rather than wandering from Bereishit Rabba on Genesis 24:60 (And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her: 'Our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let thy seed possess the gate of those that hate them.'):

...R. Berekiah and R. Levi in the name of R. Hama b. Haninah said: Why was Rebekah not remembered [with children] until Isaac prayed for her? So that the non-Jews might not say: ‘Our prayer bore fruit’; but, “And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife” (Gen. XXV, 21). R. Berekiah said in R. Levi's name: It is written, “The blessing of the destroyer (oved) came upon me” (Job XXIX, 13). ’ The blessing of the destroyer (oved)’ alludes to Laban the Syrian, as it says “An Aramean sought to destroy my father” (Deut. XXVI, 5).

In the view of the rabbis, did Laban want to physically destroy the Jewish people or to spiritually destroy them?

Rav Soloveitchik is reported to have suggested that the haggada asks this question and says it was not physical destruction rather when Laban caught up with Yaakov on Har Gilead, at the end of Vayetze he says:

מג וַיַּעַן לָבָן וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל-יַעֲקֹב, הַבָּנוֹת בְּנֹתַי וְהַבָּנִים בָּנַי וְהַצֹּאן צֹאנִי, וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה רֹאֶה, לִי-הוּא; וְלִבְנֹתַי מָה-אֶעֱשֶׂה לָאֵלֶּה, הַיּוֹם, אוֹ לִבְנֵיהֶן, אֲשֶׁר יָלָדוּ.

43 And Laban answered and said unto Jacob: 'The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that thou seest is mine; and what can I do this day for these my daughters, or for their children whom they have borne?

Specifically, look
at the contrast that the Haggadah provides. Pharaoh only wanted to destroy the males, and we have verses to that effect, saying כָּל-הַבֵּן
הַיִּלּוֹד, הַיְאֹרָה תַּשְׁלִיכֻהוּ, וְכָל-הַבַּת, תְּחַיּוּן.
Rav Soloveitchik understood the verses above as Laban claiming both sons and daughters - both the daughters and the sons of Jacob are claimed for his own.

On this basis, the threat that Laban posed to Yaakov and all of Israel was not a physical one, but a spiritual one, namely one concerning the very character of the Israelites.

To make this case, the Rav's claim is that even in the derasha in Haggadah, the Arami is Jacob, so he combines the peshat
and the derash, to read this as “As an Aramean, my father 'perished'."
(This corresponds to the parsing provided by the leyning). As a result of this threat, Jacob had to leave to prevent the assimilation, and so eventually descended to Egypt – which is why we now have to celebrate Passover!

This does relate to something which has puzzled me whenever I have read the haggada.
After all leaving the daughters alive would allow for the Jewish people, as we understand our identity today, to continue – the children of the surviving women would still be Jews (subject to litigation anyway).

However, at time of Pharaoh the rabbinic idea of the Jewish people did not exist in this form and there was instead a tribal concept of the Children of Israel, based around patriarchal descent. We can see this as, for example,
one follows the tribe of one’s father (as is still the case, e.g. for Cohanim, Levites and “Israelites”).

Pharaoh therefore felt that if he killed the boys the girls would marry Egyptians and become part of that culture. He wasn’t in a position to anticipate that when the haggada emerged, there would be a concept of matriarchal
descent which led to the analysis in the haggada!

In practice, it seems quite likely that Pharaoh did indeed intend to wipe out the Children of Israel and this would have been the sort of aim that one would expect in those days. Indeed, the first mention of the Children of Israel
in a non-biblical source is the Merneptah Stele which claims “Israel is wasted, bare of seed.”

As for Laban, whether or not it is about assimilation, the verse above seems to be effectively saying that Laban claims some sort of ownership over his extended family.

In summary, however one understands all the above, it seems that the Jewish people are indeed still around and continuing their traditions. Within this, there is a rich tradition of study, scholarship and ongoing interpretation
for our days inside the Jewish world and also in academia – so go and learn, and don’t take anything at face value – even (especially) this essay!

Seeing God?

One of the best known phrases in the Torah is from the sedrah of Mishpatim when the Children of Israel accept the Torah by saying “na-aseh venishma” (“All that HaShem hath spoken will we do, and obey”). Nishma is from the word “to hear” and this has given rise, among some Jewish thinkers, to the idea that Judaism values hearing above all other senses.

Yet just after this verse from Exodus 24 we read the following remarkable passage:

9 Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel;
10 and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet the like of a paved work of sapphire stone, and the like of the very heaven for clearness.
11 And upon the nobles (atzilei) of the children of Israel He laid not His hand; and they beheld God, and did eat and drink.

This section stresses the visual, specifically seeing God both through “sight” (verse 9) and also “vision” (verse 11).

These three verses raise many questions and the Rabbis of the Talmudic period understood this passage in varying ways.

For example, with regard to “eating and drinking” Rab says “In the future world there is no eating nor drinking nor propagation nor business nor jealousy nor hatred nor competition, but the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads feasting on the brightness of the Divine Presence, as it says, And they beheld God, and did eat and drink” (Bavli Berakhot 17a).

Yet in Bamidbar Rabba we read “R. Johanan, however, said [that the pleasure derived from gazing at the Divine splendour was] real nourishment; as it is written: In the light of the king's countenance is life2 (Prov. XVI, 15)”

The Aramaic translation by Onkelos has “as if they were eating and drinking” so follows the idea expressed by Rab.

The text itself in verse 11 implies that “seeing God” is dangerous (NB: the word atzilei in this verse is obscure and is understood to mean “nobles”). Bamidbar Rabba develops this idea as follows:

“R. Tanhuma said: It teaches that [Nadab and Abihu] waxed haughty and stood upon their feet and fixed gloating eyes upon the Divine Presence. R. Joshua of Siknin, in the name of R. Levi, said: Moses had not gazed gloatingly upon the Divine Presence, yet he enjoyed its splendour.”

Yet what is striking in these comments is a lack of focus or concern by the midrash over the basic idea of “seeing God” itself. In fact there are other passages understood by the Rabbis in this way – e.g. on “This is my God and I will glorify him” from the Song at the Reed Sea the midrash says that all of the children of Israel actually saw God at the Red Sea – because it says straight after “The Lord is a man of war”.

A modern scholar, Daniel Boyarin, argues that concern over the idea of “seeing God” actually has its source in Hellenic rather than Hebraic sources because of the problem of anthropomorphism – sight implies that God is (as it were) corporeal. This was not an issue for the Hebraic tradition.

This concern emerges clearly in Maimonides, who is well known for disdaining anthropomorphism for reasons based on Greek philosophy. Our passage is discussed in several places in his Guide to the Perplexed where typically he says of verse 10 “this refers to intellectual apprehension and in no way to the eye’s seeing”.

Yet there are strong contradictory traditions. In Maimonides Laws of Repentance III:7 he declares that anyone who says there is one God but that he has a body or physical form is a heretic (alongside an idolater amongst other categories). The Rabad challenges this passage robustly – he claims that “greater and better men than [Maimonides] have accepted this doctrine” because of the way in which they have read scripture and midrash (i.e. as in the passages above).

There is a little discussed work, which may date back to the late Talmudic period, called the Shiur Qomah which actually provides measurements for the limbs of the “Divine body”. It would appear that in the passage from the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides is attacking this tradition and those who accepted it – i.e. people such as Saadiah Gaon, Judah HaLevi and Abraham ibn Ezra.

In addition, in the roughly contemporaneous writings of the Hasidei Ashkenaz (German Jewish pietists) there are many grossly anthropomorphic passages. They saw the Torah as a collection of names and, in some cases, that these names give clues to the dimensions of the Divine limbs as in the Shiur Qomah. It should be noted that the passage from Shemot above mentions one such limb, i.e. God’s “feet” an imagery appears in several places in the Tanakh and which may be euphemistic in its own right.

What is striking is that Maimonides critique of such views has become universally accepted thereby arguably introducing a Hellenistic philosophical conception of God into the heart of our understanding of Judaism.

Given that ideas of God’s corporeality were clearly accepted by pious Jews of Maimonides period, it is also conceivable that these ideas existed in the Talmudic period and of course before that in the Biblical period.

Returning to the theme of whether “seeing” is more important than “hearing”, at the giving of the Ten Commandments the Torah says “All of the people saw the voices” (Exodus 20:14). The midrash on this says:

Rabbi Ishmael says “They saw what could be seen and heard what could be heard” but Rabbi Akiva says “They saw what could be heard”

Boyarin argues that this passage, amongst others, indicates that Rabbi Akiva strongly privileged seeing above hearing and there was a strong desire amongst the rabbinic sages who followed this idea to “see” God in some sense, albeit that this is dangerous if done incorrectly as seen, for example, in regard to Nadab and Abihu above.

In conclusion, we should not take for granted the idea that “hearing” is predominant in our tradition. Further, the passage from Mishpatim above is remarkable and worthy of much greater study.