[Much of what is presented in my paper is
an analytical interpretation of sorts, of the religious thought of
Leibowitz. I am deeply indebted to my wife, Naomi Kasher, for her
continuous criticism and encouragement]
Beit Shammai say Heaven was created first and
afterwards the earth was created... Beit Hillel say Earth was created first and
afterwards heaven[1].
The precept relating to idolatry is equal in
importance to all the other precepts put together... Acceptance of idolatry is
tantmount to repudiating the whole Torah... And whoever denies idolatry
confesses his faith in the whole Torah[2].
My point of departure will be theological. Judaism
never had an official theology, but there is good reason to suppose that may,
among the multitude which formed "the congregation of believers", held some kind
of view - either clear or clouded, the handiwork of a thinker or of a parrot -
with a theological mush at its center - no excellent delicacy perhaps, but at
least a pale pudding. This way or that, theological statements were never
lacking on the lips of the common believer. The philosophizers of this
congregation of believers had a problem - how is it possible to describe Him in
the language which describes us and our world? The various theories of
attributes are each a proposal for the solution of this problem. The first idea
that I intend to offer in this paper is the nucleus of a different theory of
attributes. What is the function filled by such a theorys - given a simple
theological statement of the type "God is so and thus" - perfectly good,
omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, all-rulling authority, etc. - the theory should
determine the meaning of the statement, if indeed it has such a meaning.
Various famed theories set differing restrictions upon the predicates that
are meaningfully applicable to God; Maimonides, for instance, allowed the
"negation of absences".
However, if we are dealing with theological
statements the subject of which denotes God and the predicate of which is an
attribute, we are under no obligation to limit ourselves to the predicate alone;
a theory of attributes is under no obligation to be a theory about attributes
only. In order to make the understanding of theological statements possible, I
propose the introduction of a standard modification of the subject and a
standard modification of the predicate, producing a new statement that will be
equally applicable to all things.
The modification formula is as follows: given, in a
simple theological sentence - some specific predicate attributed to God, the
given predicate will be replaced by its negation and instead of being attributed
to God, the new predicate will be attributed to each of the things in the world.
For example: the given sentence is - "God is necessary". Instead of discussing
God we will discuss each of the things in the world, and instead of the
predicate "necessary" we will use its negation, the predicate "not necessary".
Instead of the sentence, "God is necessary" we will then receive the sentence,
"Each of the things in the world is not necessary." It seems to me that this
sentence is much less proble- matic than the original which is replaced by it.
In order to give the modification formula a simple name, I will disregard a few
logical subtleties and call it "Constituent Negation" as if we had negated the
subject and the predicate, each independently, and then conjoined these
negations.
To allow a closer scrutiny of the proposal, I will supply a few
more examples of the translation of theological language to this other language
- perhaps a metaphysical one, but not a theological one - a translation effected
by constituent negation.
Instead of the sentence from the principles, "God
is the author and guide of every thing that has been created."[3]We receive, through constituent negation and additional
slight repairs, "None of the things in the world is the author and guide of all
things in the world." While the original sentence is not open to complete
literal comprehension, its translation, obtained through negation of
constituents, clearly allows a philosophical discussion that is devoid of
mystery. I shall take one step in the direction of such a discussion. The
epithet "author and guide" has both a factual denotation and a normative
denotation. On the factual level the guide or leader is he who determines the
rules of action and carries them out; on the normative level, the leader is he
who is worthy of being followed. There is nothing in the worId which is
worthy of being followed with unlimited loyalty, be it human or otherwise - this
is the normative interpretation given by the negation of constituents, to part
of the well known first principle. While the sentence from the principles is
unfathomable, its normative interpretation can be illuminated in a philosophical
discussion. The same holds for the less interesting factual interpretation of
the same part of the first principle. A second sentence in the principles
states, among other things. "The Creator ... there is no unity in any manner
like His."[4]
A translation of this sentence, using constituent negation and making small
stylistic repairs, will produce the sentence, "In all cases there are unities
like those of each thing in the world." Nothing in the world has its own
essential qualities, its own distinctive qualities. Again the double negation
has transferred us from obscurity to clarity. While the original sentence is not
open to literal comprehension, its translation is obviously the bread and
butters of many a philosopher including some of the most lucid among them. Even
logicians have used the question of essence as a topic of much interest.
The third principle says of God that "he cannot be
conceived of by mortal conceivers." What will negation of this sentence's
constituent's produce? - "Each thing in the world is not such that it cannot be
conceived of by mortal conceivers," or, in other words, each thing in the world
is open to full human understanding. This statement is, basically, a fascinating
claim about science, philosophy and all other means for human under- standing,
maintaining that, together, they are unlimited in their comprehension of the
world. This statement is open to both scientific[5]
and philosophical discussion.
I have translated the first three principles without
taking a stand as to the acceptability of the resultant statement. I will now
cite a few more examples in which such a stand may easily be taken.
A.
Is God in the world? - I do not know
how to answer the question itself, but when we translate it by means of
constituent negation we receive the statement that each thing in the world is
not in the world. If we presume that there are things in the world, we can
conclude from the resultant statement that there are things in the world that
are not in the world. This is a contradiction and we are therefore left with two
alternatives - either we presume that the world is empty or we reject the
statement obtained by translation, together with its original. Given that I a m
in the world - so I at least suppose - I consider the contention that God is in
the world, as it is presently translated, as an incorrect statement. I am
prepared, if you insist upon-it, to relate all of my conclusions about the
translation, to the original theological sentence, but I will take
responsability for what is said of such a theological sentence, only if you view
it with me through negation of constituents.
God has been said to be simple. Again, in order to
understand this we shall take a look at the product offered us by constituent
negation - "Each thing in the world is not simple." Now, if you are an atomist
of any sort, you will surely reject that, but if you believe in general
continuity, you will surely accept it. This way or that, you will have no
difficulty in taking a stand. In the previous example ("God is in the world") we
arrived at a logical contradiction and we therefore took a stand on logical
grounds; in this example ("God is simple") we can take a stand on grounds of a
general physical theory. In the next example I will take a stand on grounds of
opinion.
One of the principles states that God merits prayer. Where does the
negation of constituents lead us this time? - "There is nothing in the world
that merits praying to." Needless to say, the obtainment of this normative
statement is an essential component in the discipline of Judaism and we shall
return to this below. I will cite two more examples of constituent negation; the
resultant statements will be of religious importance.
One of the statements is a difficult one - "God merits
awe and love." The negation of constituents translates simple theological
sentences, so we will break down this sentence into the following two components
-"God merits awe" and "God merits love". In order to give meaning to the
translation, we will analyse the concepts of awe and love according to Kant in
his religion within the limits of reason alone. If awe is the disposition in
obedience to the law from bounden duty, i. e. from respect for the law, and love
is the disposition to obey the law, from one's own free choice and from approval
of the law, then negation of the constituents will lead to the following,
important, normative statement - "Nothing in the world merits obedience to its
law resulting from an acknowledgement of bounden duty and nothing in the world
merits obedience to its laws of one's free choice and approval. "In other words
- there is in the world no man, society, state, institution of any kind,
meriting obedience to its laws from an acknowledgement of bounden duty or out of
free choice and approval.
If, from this statement, you derive the religious
opposition to absolute obedience to any man, whatever his virtues and laws, the
religious opposition to complete compliance with any society, whatever its laws
and properties, and the religious opposition to blind submission to any state,
whatever its laws and orders - you will, no doubt, be right, but the full
strength of the religious opposition will not yet be exhausted; these
oppositions are common to both religion and ethics, and are one and the same.
Ethics itself is a human institution, so that he who accepts our translation of
the statement that God merits awe and love will reach the markedly religious
conclusion that the institution of ethics does not merit obedience to its laws
from an acknowledgement of bounden duty, nor does it merit obedience to its laws
out of free choice and approval.
Yet the institution of religion is also a human
institution in the world. True, its values are unique and its loyal followers
cannot be loyal in the same way to any othe r institution, still, its mode of
existence in the world is the same as the mode in which the ethical institution
exists in the world. If nothing in the world merits obedience to its laws from
an acknowledgement of duty or of one's own free choice and approval, then
neither does the religious institution merit obedience to its laws in this
manner or that. This is a conclusion that no man among the "community of
believers" will be able to accept. Therefore, if we adopt the method of
constituent negation as well as the Kantian analysis of both love and awe, we
are compelled to avoid the acceptance of this statement.
Seeing that our translation by negation of
constituents, of the statement that God does not merit awe and love, using
Kant's analysis, will result in the statement that everything in the world
merits obedience to its laws from an acknowledgement of duty and of one's own
free choice and approval, it is clear that ultimately, in the theological
language, we will apply to God neither the attribute "merits awe" and "merits
love" nor their negations, as Kant interprets them. Notice that if we thought of
the religious Iaw giver as not being in the world, we could then say of
the laws of the religious institution that they were the laws of someone outside
of the world, and we could accept the statement that none of the things in the
world merit obedience to their laws from an acknowledge - ment of duty or of
one's own free choice and approval. There is, then, a fast bond connecting the
love of God and the awe of Him with divine legislation. In places where the
latter is not to be found the former will not be found.
B.
Is
it possible to maintain the religious idea of opposing all absolute obedience to
man, state or nature, without sawing off the branch upon which the human
institution of religion rests? In order to answer this question we will study
the following theological sentence - "God merits worshipping." Negation of the
constituents of this entence leads us to the statement that there is nothing in
the world that merits worshipping. Therefore, there exists no bligation to
worship the king, no obligation to worship the state, no obligation to worship
man! Here is the rejection of all forms of slavery, the denial of all of the
various shades of fascism, and - noting the difference - a rejection of ethics.
Doesn't this imply a refutation of religion itself? - I think not. People who
blindly obey the laws of their state, whatever they may be, are not worshipping
the fascist idea, but the state - a thing in the world which this idea attempts
to make holy. It is not the ideas' attempting sanctification that are
worshipped, but the things that these ideas attempt to sanctify. Ethics is not
being worshipped when its rules are observed with complete loyalty, what's being
worshipped is the thing expressed by the ethics - man, in the supreme position.
Therefore religion, the human institution, is not worshipped, and there is
nothing in the world that is put in the supreme position by religion. There is,
then, noting in the world that is worshipped when the laws of religion
are obeyed, according to the Jewish pattern. (I can say nothing here about the
Moslem pattern, which is, I am told, similar).
Arriving at the idea that there is nothing in the world
that should be worshipped, we have come very close to the second idea which is
central to the view I am presenting here; we have come very close but we have
not yet reached the heart of the matter.
There is no obligation to worship
the state, we are under no obligation to worship man, no one is under any
obligation to worship nature, but perhaps the permission (to do so) is given?
Oviously, the absence of an obligation does not necessarily imply the existence
of an opposite obligation. I am not obliged to talk; am I, as a result, obliged
to be silent? The transition from denying all obligation to the obligation to
deny, will get us where we want to go: not only is there no obligation to
worship the state - there is an obligation not to worship it; not only are we
under no obligation to worship man - we are obliged not to worship him; not only
is no one under any obligation to worship nature - not to worship it is an
obligation. To make a generalization: adherence to the law and the precepts is
the unique Jewish expression of an acknowledgement of the obligation not to
worship anything in the world. Furthermore, the most marked expression of
acknowledgement of the obligation not to worship the king, will be a breach of
the king's ordinance, made consciously and clearly. It can therefore be said of
the law and the precepts that they reflect the Jewish war against all types of
idol worship (avodah zara) - not only of the Jews of Persia and Egypt it was
said in the Talmud (Megillah 13 etc.) "For anyone who repudiates idolatry is
called 'a Jew',"[6]
but of all Jews it was said there - "Idolatry is so heinous that he who rejects
it is as though he admits (the truth of) the whole law"[7]
(Torah) (Kiddushin 40 and in other places). The repudiation of idolatry, though,
does not consist of a single, solemn vow of disbelief. It consists of the
exhaustive, routine and perpetual system of laws comprising the practical
precepts.
Seven hundred and seventy faces idolatry hath and there
is no gully in which some idol or another has not entrenched itself. If it was
not for the battle waged against any human inclination to worship something in
the world, it could be said of idolatry that no place is free of it. "If the
name of every idol were to be specifically mentioned all skins in the world
would not suffice."[8]
Pascal writes in his Pensees (paragraph 640) that the
Jews preserve their scriptures and love them, but don't understand them. Perhaps
he was right but most probably not for the reasons he maintained. I shall now
try to point out what seems to me to be the central objective of the law and its
precepts - total war against any possible manifestation of idolatry - using a
few examples.
I shall not repeat for you what is well known - the
explicit prohibition of making other gods - but supply some indirect evidence,
going from the lighter cases to the more serious ones. The words of Maimonides
in Moreh Nebokhim (3, 48), about the prohibition of meat in milk, are common
knowledge - (the prohibition) "I think... is somehow connected with idolatry,
forming perhaps part of the service, or being used on some festival of the
heathen. This I consider as the best reason for the prohibi- tion."[9]
The Rashbam as well, explains the passage "Ye shall not eat with the blood;
neither shall Ye practice divination nor soothsaying" (Leviticus 19; 2 6)[10]-
"It is the prohibition of a heathenish practice connected with witchcraft pagan
custom to eat at the grave of a murdered person to avoid his vengeance."[11]
The Bible's stories express the said objective no less than its precepts. Moses
descends from Mount Sinai holding a supreme document - "And the tables were the
work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables."[12]What
does Moses do with the writing of God which he holds? - "And he cast the tables
out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount."[13]
If they had made the calf their idol, they would certainly do so with the tables
which were the work of God! "And he broke them" - there is no object in the
world that deserves to be worshipped and any object in the world that becomes an
accessory for idolatry deserves being broken and "ground... to powder."[14]
Neither is man of supreme importance, and when he is immersed in idolatry
the law sentences him to death. When Moses sees that the people are "broken
loose"[15]bowing
and making sacrifices to calf and mask - he cries "Whoso is on the Lord's side,
let him come unto me!"[16]
Being loyal to the Lord and waging war against idolatry are one and the same.
What, then, does he say to the Levites that gathered around him? - "Thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel: Put Ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go
to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his
brother, and every man his neighbour."[17]Life,
brotherhood, friendship, kinship - all are insignificant when they clash with
the obligation to fight idolatry.
The liberation of Israel from Egypt's yoke
is also not a complete picture of what the exodus from Egypt was about. The
struggle between Moses and Pharaoh is not a political struggle but a religious
one. 'Moses doesn't bid Pharaoh "Let my people go" - the quotation has been
distorted. The passage reads: "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Let My
people go that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness"[18]
(Exodus 5; 1 etc.), and what is Pharaoh's answer? - he doesn't speak of the
Egyptian economy which is in need of cheap manpower, or of Egyptian history
which made him a ruler of men - "Who is the Lord that I should hearken unto his
voice to let Israel go?" he asks, "I know not the Lord and moreover I will not
let Israel go."[19]Also,
when he surrenders after the plague of the first born, he tells Moses and Aaron,
"Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of
Israel, and go serve the Lord as ye have said." (Exodus, 12; 31).[20]
National liberty is not an ultimate objective but a crucial means for organizing
the war against idolatry. "What is (the meaning of) Mount Sinai? The mountain
whereon there descended hostility (sin'ah) toward idolaters... and why was it
called Mount Horeb? Because desolation (hurbah) to idolaters descended thereon."
(Shabbath 89).[21]If
this is indeed the ideological objective of the precepts and the biblical
stories, how is it that such a large portion of the precepts (and several
stories as well) seem to have a moral basis? Of the ten commandments, seven deal
with what occurs between people and at least five, possibly with slight
ammendments, appear in every acceptable theory of ethics. What, then, does the
issue of war against idolatry have to do with all this?
An answer to this
question can be given only if a distinction is made between religious strategy
and religious tactics. The ultimate objective is not the preservation of human
life, the prohibition of murder does not, therefore, serve the strategic force
directly; preserving the insti- tution of family is also not of supreme
importance, the obligations to respect one's parents and not to commit adultery
do not, therefore, bear directly upon the strategy. The same relationship exists
between the institution of private property and the religious commandment not to
steal and between the institution of just legal controversy and the reli- gious
commandment not to give false evidence about one's neighbour. However, under the
historical circumstances of the Bible, the war against idolatry was a collective
task, it was imperative to organize the community of warrior s
efficiently and the re is no doubt that the systems of laws allowing human
communities to emerge from "the state of nature" (in which war is waged by all
against all according to Hobbes' description of it in Leviathan) include central
elements, necessary for the existence of any collective as a political entity.
The Bible possesses moral tactics which are necessary for the organization
of warriors fighting idolatry, as a community. Even if we assume that the
religious collective is a necessary agent for such a war under all possible
circumstances, at all times and in all places, even then the moral precepts will
not depart the realm of the religious tactics which form the basis for the
strategic religious moves as well. The contradiction between the ethical
institution and the religious institution cannot be bridged, but that is no
reason to conclude that these institutions cannot have similar practical laws.
The actions may be the same, but each of these institutions will associate a
different meaning with these actions, evaluate them in the light of its ultimate
objectives; it is the objectives themselves which are incompatible with each
other.
This distinction between strategic and tactical aims is not limited
to the realm of the moral precepts. The army for the war against idolatry was
organized under specific historical conditions - upon and against a specific
cultural background, on a limited social basis and to a certain extent against
it. The religious tactics dictated the attitudes towards the given culture and
the given society. Therefore it is my opinion that the precepts regarding the
institution of slavery, the statutes which distinguish between the rights and
duties of men and those of women, the rules of kingship and other similar laws,
all express the tactical subordination of the cultural, social and historical
conditions to the strategic aims of the battle against all possible
manifestations of worship of something that is in the world. If the Jewish
nation were founded today, with the aim of obliterating all varieties of idols,
wild and meek, outdated and modern, apparent and concealed - wise tactical use
of the current conditions of Western society and culture would presumably be
made.
One currently relevant conclusion of this view that I will cite here,
is a conclusion which Leibowitz taught and made public. Thirty three
years ago he wrote, "Very slowly the Jews (of the diaspora) became accustomed to
see the law as a thing which has no demands or claims other than those upon
personal life. Everything outside of this limited sphere - is a thing upon which
the law leaves no impression; moreover, the order of the law does not apply to
these things just as it doesn't apply to the weather. Thus, the feeling spread
and seeped deep into the unconscious, that national life, social life, problems
of science and technology, the economic and political regime - are among the
things about which the law determines nothing" (Judaism, a Jewish People and the
State of Israel, p. 42). To express this in our terms - the congregation of
believers struggled to fight off difficult types of idolatry. A special effort
was made to remove all normative status from nature; you have no better example
of this than the forest of definitions, conditions and obstacles imposed upon
relationships between man and woman so as to combat the possibility of
subordination to sexual drives. Yet the same congregation made no serious effort
to reach its strategic goals outside of the realms of man himself, man and his
neighbour, man and his family, and to a certain extent - man and his
congregation.
Leibowitz was not lamenting the revenge of the cursed
diaspora, but preaching the overthrow of the diaspora's reign when he spoke of
"endeavoring to order public life according to the law." In the same article of
1943 he said, "We must understand that there are, today, duties and problems the
solutions of which we will not find arranged and ready in the traditions we have
received from our ancestors and our teachers, because they were not compelled to
deal with these problems. We cannot be content to walk the way that our
forerunners blazed and we will have to search for solutions and invent them
despite ourselves." He then adds without going into detail, "There will, in
fact, be no real innovation, because all of the solutions are concealed in the
law (Torah), but they must be elicited from it." (p. 45, italics in the
original). How will we elicit the solutions from it? - It is possible, no doubt,
to employ all of the well known techniques used for religious rulings, but that
will not be enough; opening a screw-off bottle cap can be likened to creating a
vessel and closing an electric circuit can even be likened to striking with a
hammer, but the categories for organization of political life differ from those
relating to personal and family life. What should be elicited from them is the
strategy of war against all idols; what should be ordained? - The ordinations
whose observance is equal to the oppression of anything in the political realm
that is worshipped by people, such as economic might and military power. I'm not
saying that these will never be necessary for tactical purposes, but we must
fight the worship of money, the worship of arms, and all of the disgraceful
manifestations of tree and stone worship commnited by various breachers of
trust.
C.
I have offered a possible stance regarding the
function filled by the system comprised of the law and the precepts, but an
important layer of the defense for this stance is still missing. The question
must be asked - if we are at war with a specific enemy, why don't we choose the
means which seems to us to be the most efficient - under the circurnstances of
time and place - for our attempt to overpower it? Why not decide afresh, in the
present, how to realize our diametrical opposition to the idea that work
constitutes regarding the Sabbath?
The answer is a cornpex one. First we must distinguish
between the different contexts in which such a question is apt to arise. If it
is the wish of someone who is not a Jew to wage total war against any possible
manifestation of worship of something in the world, I won't be prepared to tell
him that the way of Judaism is the only or even the best way to do this.
Maimonides wrote to Rabbi Ovadiah, the convert, on the subject of Moslems,
"These sons of Ishmael are not performing idolatry at all. It has long been
excised from their mouths and hearts. They allot to the Lord, blessed be He, the
appropriate uniqueness, unblemished unique- ness... Their error lies in other
things... "Yet if the same question comes from a Jew or from someone interested
in Judaism, contemplating the various means of attaining the strategic aims of
Judaism, two points must be added.
First of all, tactical considerations are not foreign
to Judaism. Leibowitz illustrated this using the political differences
between the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Jeremiah. "In Isaiah's generation the
nation adhered to the widespread, idolaters' view that the God of Israel was one
of the territorial-national gods... In opposition to this Isaiah presents the
great principle that all national gods are idols and the God of Israel alone is
God. This makes it necessary to associate Jerusalem as the city of God with a
special meaning distinguishing it from all other cities... Jeremiah was
compelled to turn the religious battle in the opposite direction... (against)
belief in the immanent holiness of Jerusalem... and confidence in the magical
immunity ensured by this status, disregarding preservation of the law and
observation of the precepts. Therefore Jeremiah had to stress that there existed
no immanent holiness and consequently no special immunity either... (;) When the
people violated God's Torah... Jerusalem's uniqueness was cancelled..." (p. 309)
Futhermore, Leibowitz himself, who broke countless penpoints writing of
the need for "endeavoring to order public life according to the law" writes in
1975, "Today, the independent meaning of shaping the individual's life as part
of the collective framework, should be emphasized more': (p. 45).
In the
second place - and this is the more important point -Judaism is given to
us and we are not its institutors. The system of laws of the Jewish religion is
a constitutive system - it defines Judaism along with its institutions - the
holy scriptures, the holyland, the Jewish nation. This system of laws institutes
these institutions, it does not serve them; they live by virtue of its decree,
it is not dependent upon them. Just as your cannot want to play chess without a
king, you cannot want to fight all forms of idolatry as a Jew without the
law Torah and the precepts, which constitute the definition of the Jewish war
against idolatry. Wherever Judaism solved the problem of war against fetishes,
the solution became part of its definition.
It has, of course, internal principles for flexible
rulings and highly developed applications, which allow development of the
components of the constitutive system, without deviating from the system; when
an organization alters its code according to a procedure specified in the code
itself, it does not become a new organization - it is the same organization, but
the details of its code have been altered. It must further be stated that
Judaism possesses an immanent strategy, enabling it to attempt to widen the
laws' domain to include new svstems, again, without impairing its identity.
The constitutive character of Judaism as an historic religion is the third
idea about which I wished to conduct this discussion, along with the negation of
constituents and along with the obligation to fight the worship of anything in
the world.
I was contemplating the Creation (and have come to
the conclusion) that between the upper and the nether waters there is but two or
three fingerbreadths, 'he (ben Zoma) answered, "For it is not written here, and
the spirit of God blew but hovered, like a bird flying and flapping with its
wings, its wings barely touching."[22]
[1]The Babylonian Talmud, Mo'ed Vol. IV, I. Epstein (trans. ),
Soncino press (London, 1938), p. 66.
[2]Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, The Book of Knowledge, M. Hyamson
(ed. trans.) Boys Town Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1965), p. 68a.
[3]IsraelKurnah, A Handbook for Proselytes, The Kumah Publishing
Co., (Jerusalem, 1971), p. 11.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Ibid. My colleague Dr. Abraham Nuriel has pointed out to me
that Mairnonides associated a different meaning with this principle; my
translation does not bear directly upon this meaning.
[6]The Baylonian Talmud, ibid., p. 74.
[7]Ibid., Nashim, Vol. IV, p. 199.
[8]Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Vol. II, J.Z. Lauterbach
(trans.& ed. Jewish Publication Society of America (Philadelphia, 1949,
p.240.
[9]Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, M.Friedlander
(trans.), George Routledge & Sons (London, 1919), p. 371.
[10]The Soncino Chumash, A. Cohen (ed.), Soncino Press (London,
1966), pp.7Z7-8.
[11]Also in the Rashbarn's exegesis of Exodus, 20,21 and
Deuteronomy 14;1; I would like to thank my brother, Rimon Kasher, for several
relevant excerpts.
[12]Ibid., pp. 551-2.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid., p. 553.
[16]Ibid.
[17]Ibid., pp. 553-4.
[18]Ibid., p. 341, author's italics.
[19]Ibid.
[20]Ibid., p. 395.
[21]The Babylonian Talmud, Mo'ed, Vol. I, I. Epstein (trans.),
Soncino Press (London, 1938), pp. 424-5.
[22]The Midrash, Vol. I., H. Freedman & M. Simon (trans.
& ed.), oncino Press (London, 1961), p. 18.