Chagigah 13a ~ On the Origins of the Modern Hebrew Word "Chashmal"

Today’s page of Talmud continues a discussion of who may be taught about Ezekiel’s vision of the Chariots, known in Hebrew as Ma’aseh Merkavah. The vision is found in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel and describes a four-wheeled chariot driven by four hayyot ("living creatures"), each of which has four wings and four faces; one of a human, one of a lion, one of an ox, and one of an eagle (or possibly a vulture).

The Mishnah (11b) has ruled that this section may never be taught to another person; instead it can only be studied by one “ who is wise and understands most matters on his own” (הָיָה חָכָם וּמֵבִין מִדַּעְתּוֹ)

One of the verses included in Ma’aseh Merkavah is this one, from Ezekiel 1:4:

וָאֵרֶא וְהִנֵּה רוּחַ סְעָרָה בָּאָה מִן־הַצָּפוֹן עָנָן גָּדוֹל וְאֵשׁ מִתְלַקַּחַת וְנֹגַהּ לוֹ סָבִיב וּמִתּוֹכָהּ כְּעֵין הַחַשְׁמַל מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ׃

I looked, and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the north—a huge cloud and flashing fire, surrounded by a radiance; and in the center of it, something like chasmal, from the fire.

Rashi explains that the word chashmal refers to an angel:

כעין החשמל. חשמל מלאך ששמו כך וכעין גוון שלו ראה מתוך האש

it was like the color of the chashmal “Chashmal” is an angel bearing that name, and he [Ezekiel] saw something like the appearance of its color in the midst of the fire.

This strange word chashmal appears one other time in this chapter, in verse 27:

וָאֵרֶא כְּעֵין חַשְׁמַל כְּמַרְאֵה־אֵשׁ בֵּית־לָהּ סָבִיב מִמַּרְאֵה מׇתְנָיו וּלְמָעְלָה וּמִמַּרְאֵה מׇתְנָיו וּלְמַטָּה רָאִיתִי כְּמַרְאֵה־אֵשׁ וְנֹגַהּ לוֹ סָבִיב׃

From what appeared as his loins up, I saw a gleam chashmal, what looked like a fire encased in a frame; and from what appeared as his loins down, I saw what looked like fire. There was a radiance all about him.

On today’s page of Talmud we read this:

חגיגה יג, א–ב

מַאי חַשְׁמַל? אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: חַיּוֹת אֵשׁ מְמַלְּלוֹת

What is chashmal? Rav Yehuda said: It refers to speaking animals of fire. Chashmal [chashmal] is an acrostic of this phrase [chayyot esh memallelot].

While the meaning of this strange word chashmal in Ezekiel’s vision is unclear, today, the word has a very clear meaning. It is the modern Hebrew word for electricity. On today’s Talmudology, we will explore how this modern word was derived from Ezekiel’s mystical vision.

Chasmal and - The “Electrum”

The ArtScroll English translation of the Talmud translates the word chashmal as, well, chashmal, which is fair enough, since we don’t know what it means. But the Koren Talmud does translate the word. It translates it as “electrum.” This is an interesting choice, because in his original Hebrew commentary, the late Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz, on whom the Koren edition is based, did not explain the meaning of chashmal. Did the Koren translators work backwards from the modern Hebrew meaning chashmal as electricity? If so, that would not be a very reasonable choice. But this seems unlikely.

Marcus Jastrow, in his classic dictionary, translated the word as amber, which is also the translation used by the Jewish Publication Society’s 1985 english translation of the Bible.

Time for A Greek Lesson

Perhaps the Koren based its translation on another ancient text known as the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible that was written anonymously some time between the third and second centuries BCE.

In the Septuagint, the word chashmal is translated as the second declension count ηλεκτρου - elektron, which does not have the modern connotation of electricity. Instead, it means amber, and hence Jastrow’s translation. The word is connected to another Greek word ηλεκτωρ - elektor, meaning "beaming Sun." In Latin, the word is translated as electrum, which is likely where the Koren translation picked it up. (If you are one of the Koren translators, please write to Talmudology with the full story. We will share it with our readers.)

In any event, amber is not only a color; it is the name of a gemstone made from fossilized tree resin. According to Greek myth, when Phaeton, the son of Helios the sun god was killed (it’s a long story), his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron, giving us amber. Over the centuries it was noted that this amber could attract things like leaves and feathers to its surface. Today, we recognize the cause of this as static electricity, but back then objects, like amber, that had this property were said to be electric. Apparently, the first time the word appears in English was when it was used by by English physicist William Gilbert (1540-1603) in his treatise "De Magnete" (1600). We soon had the word electrical, meaning "giving off electricity when rubbed.”

ChaSMAL as Electricity in the Writings of Yehudah Leib Gordon

As this new word spread into Europe, it also entered the Yiddish lexicon, where electricity was called, unsurprisingly electric, (עלקטעריק). And so things remained until “the most important Hebrew poet of the nineteenth century,” Yehudah Leib Gordon (1831–1892), decided that the Jewish people could do better. In a very (very, very) long poem called Two Yosef ben Shimon (which is itself a play on the words of the Talmud from Gittin 24b) Gordon wrote this beautiful verse

וּכְמוֹ הַהֲלָכָה בְּמַעֲשֶׂה־בְּרֵאשִׁית נִשְׁלָבָה
כֵּן נוֹסְדָה הַקַּבָּלָה עַל מַעֲשֵׂי־מֶרְכָּבָה
מָה הַסְּפִירוֹת אִם לֹא גַּלְגִּלֵּי שָׁמָיִם
הָאוֹר, הַחֹם, הַקִּיטֹר, הַחַשְׁמַלָּה
כָּל כֹּחוֹת הַטֶּבַע הֵם מַלאֲכֵי מַעְלָה
יֵדָעוּם הַחוֹקְרִים גְּלוּיֵי־הָעֵינָיִם

…What are the mystical sephirot, if not the layers of heaven

Light, heat, the streaming [?] and electricity [hachashmala]

On June 28, 1974, the Hebrew newspaper Davar published an article on the origin of the word chashmal. It claimed that in a footnote to his poem, Gordon wrote

כוונתי להכוח הטבעי הנקרא עלעקטריציטעט, שכן התרגום היווני של חשמל הוא עלעקטרא

I am referring to the natural phenomenon called electricity, for the Greek translation of the word “chashmal” is “electra.”

And so a new word was born in modern Hebrew. Electricity would now be known as chashmal.

(By the way, it is worth noting that another early Hebrew poet, Yehuda Leib Katzenelson (1846-1917), who wrote under the pen-name Buki Ben Yogli, also used the word chashmal, only his meaning did not catch on. In a short story titled The Olive and the Chasmal, he used it to mean the light that is reflected from olive oil.)

The Palestine Electric Company

Pinchas Rotenberg (1879-1942) founded the Palestine Electric Company in March 1923, and called it Chevrat Hachashmal Palestina (חברת החשמל פלשתינה). It was recognized by the British Mandate Authority, had its headquarters in London, and was traded on the London Stock Exchange. It later became the Israel Electric Company. With this, the word entered the modern Hebrew lexicon.

summary

1. The word Chashmal is used in Ezekiel’s vision but its meaning is not certain. Perhaps refers to an angel (per Rashi) or to a color (also per Rashi).

2. In the Greek Septuagint, the word chashmal is translated as elektron, meaning an amber color. This is also how Jastrow translated the word.

3. In the seventeenth century, the word electra was introduced by William Gilbert. It came to mean “giving off [static] electricity when rubbed.”

4. In a sort of back translation from the Greek, the nineteenth century Hebrew language poet Yehudah Leib Gordon used the word chashmal mean electric in the modern sense that we use it today.

5. In 1923 the Chevrat Hachashmal Palestina was founded by Pinchas Rotenberg, and the word chashmal entered modern Hebrew.

The resurrection of the dry bones

Ezekiel had another famous vision. It was the resurrection of the dry bones that appears in chapter 37, and describes how God re-animated the dead.

יחזקאל 37:14

וְנָתַתִּי רוּחִי בָכֶם וִחְיִיתֶם וְהִנַּחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם עַל־אַדְמַתְכֶם וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי־אֲנִי יְהֹוָה דִּבַּרְתִּי וְעָשִׂיתִי נְאֻם־יְהֹוָה׃

I will put My breath into you and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil. Then you shall know that I the Lord have spoken and have acted”—declares the Lord.

A vision of the Jewish people once again “set you upon your own soil.” And on that soil they used a word from another of Ezekeiel’s prophecies to describe electricity as chashmal. Ezekiel would have been very proud.

Chagigah 12b ~ Rabbinic Cosmology and Rabbinic Allegory

To the naked eye, the terrain of the Earth varies quite distinctly; in some places it is fairly flat, while in others it is mountainous and irregular. Standing and looking out over the sea, the water appears perfectly smooth and continues as far as the eye could see. What is beyond that was often unknown in the ancient world, and what supported the Earth itself could only be ascertained from reading the Bible. Of the few sages whose cosmology is known to us, one of the most important was Rabbi Yose ben Halafta. Born in Lower Galilee some time in the middle of the second century, Rabbi Yose was a student of the famous Rabbi Akiva, and he went on to establish a rabbinic court in his hometown of Zippori (Sepphoris). Although most of his teachings were legal in nature, he also addressed the geographic locations of both the Earth and God in the universe on today’s page of Talmud:

חגיגה יב, ב

תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי יוֹסֵי אוֹמֵר: אוֹי לָהֶם לַבְּרִיּוֹת, שֶׁרוֹאוֹת, וְאֵינָן יוֹדְעוֹת מָה רוֹאוֹת. עוֹמְדוֹת, וְאֵין יוֹדְעוֹת עַל מָה הֵן עוֹמְדוֹת. הָאָרֶץ עַל מָה עוֹמֶדֶת — עַל הָעַמּוּדִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״הַמַּרְגִּיז אֶרֶץ מִמְּקוֹמָהּ וְעַמּוּדֶיהָ יִתְפַלָּצוּן״. עַמּוּדִים, עַל הַמַּיִם — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״לְרוֹקַע הָאָרֶץ עַל הַמָּיִם״. מַיִם, עַל הֶהָרִים — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״עַל הָרִים יַעַמְדוּ מָיִם״. הָרִים, בְּרוּחַ — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כִּי הִנֵּה יוֹצֵר הָרִים וּבוֹרֵא רוּחַ״. רוּחַ, בִּסְעָרָה — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״רוּחַ סְעָרָה עוֹשָׂה דְבָרוֹ״. סְעָרָה, תְּלוּיָה בִּזְרוֹעוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּמִתַּחַת זְרוֹעוֹת עוֹלָם״

It is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Yose says: Woe to them, the creations, who see and know not what they see; who stand and know not upon what they stand. He clarifies: Upon what does the earth stand? Upon pillars, as it is stated: “Who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble” (Job 9:6). These pillars are positioned upon water, as it is stated: “To Him Who spread forth the earth over the waters” (Psalms 136:6). These waters stand upon mountains, as it is stated: “The waters stood above the mountains” (Psalms 104:6). The mountains are upon the wind, as it is stated: “For behold He forms the mountains and creates the wind” (Amos 4:13). The wind is upon a storm, as it is stated: “Stormy wind, fulfilling His word” (Psalms 148:8). The storm hangs upon the arm of the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is stated: “And underneath are the everlasting arms”(Deuteronomy 33:27), which demonstrates that the entire world rests upon the arms of the Holy One, Blessed be He. 

It is of course entirely reasonable to suggest a metaphoric explanation for this cosmology and to suggest that this talmudic discussion not be taken literally. This approach would seem to be supported by an opposing cosmology suggested by those who take issue with Rabbi Yose’s picture:

וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים: עַל שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר עַמּוּדִים עוֹמֶדֶת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״יַצֵּב גְּבוּלוֹת עַמִּים לְמִסְפַּר בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל״. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: שִׁבְעָה עַמּוּדִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״חָצְבָה עַמּוּדֶיהָ שִׁבְעָה״. רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן שַׁמּוּעַ אוֹמֵר: עַל עַמּוּד אֶחָד, וְצַדִּיק שְׁמוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וְצַדִּיק יְסוֹד עוֹלָם״ 

And the Rabbis say: The earth stands on twelve pillars, as it is stated: “He set the borders of the nations according to the number of the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 32:8). Just as the children of Israel, i.e., the sons of Jacob, are twelve in number, so does the world rest on twelve pillars. And some say: There are seven pillars, as it is stated: “She has hewn out her seven pillars” (Proverbs 9:1). Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua says: The earth rests on one pillar and a righteous person is its name, as it is stated: “But a righteous person is the foundation of the world”(Proverbs 10:25). 

This single pillar suggested by Rabbi Eleazar certainly seems to be metaphoric rather than literal, given the context of the surrounding verses of the Book of Proverbs from which it is taken. A metaphorical understanding, however, does not fit in with the rest of the discussion. For, having established what lies beneath the Earth, the Talmud then addresses the nature of the skies above it and records the precise order and number of layers of the heavens. This technical discussion is generally not understood as being merely a metaphor. For example, it is this passage that is used by Maimonides to establish his own cosmology.  In light of this, it is reasonable to assume that Rabbi Yose’s claim that the Earth rests on pillars that are supported by God is his description of reality.

The Rabbinic Flat Earth

Whether it stood on seven pillars or only one, the Earth was considered by the sages of the Talmud to be flat. As recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud, people lived on this flat Earth completely surrounded by water:

ירושלמי עבודה זרה3:1

אָמַר רִבִּי יוֹנָה. אַלֶכְּסַנְדְּרוֹס מַקֶּדוֹן כַּד בְּעָא מֵיסַק לְעֵיל. וַהֲיָה סְלַק וּסְלַק סְלַק עַד שֶׁרָאָה אֶת הָעוֹלָם כַּכַּדּוּר וְאֶת הְיָּם כִּקְעָרָה. בְּגִין כֵּן צַּייְרִין לֵהּ בְּכַדּוּרָה בְיָדֵהּ. וִיצוּרֶינָּה קְעָרָה בְיָדֵהּ. אֵינוּ שַׁלִּיט בַּיָּם. אֲבָל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא שַׁלִּיט בַּיָּם וּבַיַּבָּשָׁה. מַצִּיל בַּיָּם וּמַצִּיל בַּיַבָּשָׁה

Rebbi Yonah said, when Alexander the Macedonian wanted to ascend he rose, and rose, and rose, until he saw the Earth as a ball and the ocean like a plate

“The opinion of our sages of blessed memory in these matters is well known: They believed that the Earth and the Great Ocean were flat.”

— Midrash Rabbah Perush Maharzu 6:8.

Another talmudic sage, Rabbi Natan, noted that the stars do not seem to change in their positions overhead when walking far distances. The assumption underlying his explanation for this observation was that the Earth is flat. Covering this flat Earth was an opaque cap referred to as the rakia, which is most commonly translated as the sky or firmament. Rava, a fourth-century Babylonian sage who lived on the banks of the river Tigris, determined this cap to be 1,000 parsa in width, while Rabbi Yehudah thought that he had over- estimated this thickness. There were others who added to the picture of the sky; on today’s page of Talmud Resh Lakish announced that it actually was made up of seven distinct layers.

חגיגה יב, ב

רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ אָמַר: שִׁבְעָה, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: וִילוֹן, רָקִיעַ, שְׁחָקִים, זְבוּל, מָעוֹן, מָכוֹן, עֲרָבוֹת. וִילוֹן — אֵינוֹ מְשַׁמֵּשׁ כְּלוּם, אֶלָּא נִכְנָס שַׁחֲרִית וְיוֹצֵא עַרְבִית, וּמְחַדֵּשׁ בְּכׇל יוֹם מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״הַנּוֹטֶה כַדּוֹק שָׁמַיִם וַיִּמְתָּחֵם כָּאֹהֶל לָשָׁבֶת״. רָקִיעַ — שֶׁבּוֹ חַמָּה וּלְבָנָה כּוֹכָבִים וּמַזָּלוֹת קְבוּעִין, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיִּתֵּן אוֹתָם אֱלֹהִים בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם״. שְׁחָקִים — שֶׁבּוֹ רֵחַיִים עוֹמְדוֹת וְטוֹחֲנוֹת מָן לַצַּדִּיקִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיְצַו שְׁחָקִים מִמָּעַל וְדַלְתֵי שָׁמַיִם פָּתָח. וַיַּמְטֵר עֲלֵיהֶם מָן לֶאֱכוֹל וְגוֹ׳״

Reish Lakish said:There are seven firmaments, and they are as follows: Vilon, Rakia, Shechakim, Zevul, Ma’on, Makhon, and Aravot.The Gemara proceeds to explain the role of each firmament: Vilon, curtain, is the firmament that does not contain anything, but enters at morning and departs in the evening, and renews the act of Creation daily, as it is stated: “Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain [Vilon], and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in” (Isaiah 40:22). Rakia, firmament, is the one in which the sun, moon, stars, and zodiac signs are fixed, as it is stated: “And God set them in the firmament [Rakia] of the heaven” (Genesis 1:17). Shechakim, heights, is the one in which mills stand and grind manna for the righteous, as it is stated: “And He commanded the heights [Shehakim] above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He caused manna to rain upon them for food, and gave them of the corn of heaven” (Psalms 78:23–24). 

Given this model, there would have to be a place where the opaque cap touched the Earth, and Rabba bar Bar Hanah in fact claimed to have touched this Earth-sky interface:

בבא בתרא עד, א

אָמַר לִי תָּא אַחְוֵי לָךְ הֵיכָא דְּנָשְׁקִי אַרְעָא וּרְקִיעָא אַהֲדָדֵי שְׁקַלְתָּא לְסִילְתַּאי אַתְנַחְתָּא בְּכַוְּותָא דִרְקִיעָא אַדִּמְצַלֵּינָא בְּעֵיתֵיהּ וְלָא אַשְׁכַּחְתֵּהּ אָמֵינָא לֵיהּ אִיכָּא גַּנָּבֵי הָכָא אֲמַר לִי הַאי גִּלְגְּלָא דִרְקִיעָא הֲוָה דְּהָדַר נְטַר עַד לִמְחַר הָכָא וּמַשְׁכַּחַתְּ לַהּ

A certain Arab also said to me: Come, I will show you the place where the earth and the heavens touch each other. I took my basket and placed it in a window of the heavens. After I finished praying, I searched for it but did not find it. I said to him: Are there thieves here? He said to me: This is the heavenly sphere that is turning around; wait here until tomorrow and you will find it.

The Flammarion Engraving, from here.

Turtles all the way down

In classic Jewish teaching, the Earth rests on twelve pillars. Or seven. Or just one. Other cultures have their own cosmology myths, of which perhaps the most well-known is a story in which the world is carried on the back of a turtle. Here is a version told by the Delaware “Indians” (or native Americans, as we would call them today):

First there was only water, then the Great Turtle gradually rose above water level, and the Creator placed mud on his shell. The mud dried and the Great Tree grew in the middle of the earth. As the Tree grew towards the sky a sprout became a man, then the great Tree bent down and in touching the earth caused a sprout to become a woman. From this man and woman all of humanity descended.

Susan Culver. Turtles All The Way Down, from here.

The belief that the Earth rests on the back of a Turtle is apparently also shared by the Iroquois, and when the turtle moves, there are earthquakes. In Hindu belief, Kurma is a turtle incarnation of the God Vishnu. This incarnation is also known as Akupara (Sanskrit: अकूपार), and it supports the world on its back. The earliest reference to the myth in Western literature is from the Jesuit Emanuel da Veiga (1549–1605), who described it in a letter written in 1599:

Others hold that the earth has nine corners by which the heavens are supported. Another disagreeing from these would have the earth supported by seven elephants, and the elephants do not sink down because their feet are fixed on a tortoise. When asked who would fix the body of the tortoise, so that it would not collapse, he said that he did not know.

In Chinese mythology, Ao is a turtle whose legs were chopped off by the goddess Nuwa and used them to support the sky. “It’s not quite carrying the world on its back,” wrote Eric Grundhauser on the site Atlas Obscura, “but it still puts a terrapin at the center of the universe, making sure that the very sky doesn’t fall down.”

The obvious question is, on what does the turtle that is supporting the world stand? And the answer is: another turtle, of course. It is “turtles, all the way down,” a phrase that has come to mean infinite regress. Here is how the late great physicist Steven Hawking told the story in his bestselling book A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

To avoid its own infinite regress, Rabbi Yose imagined that world rested on pillars, which rested on water, which rested on mountains, which rested on the wind, which rested on a storm, which rested on the arms of God. It wasn’t turtles all the way down, as it was for some other cultures. It had an end, and the end was God.

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Want more on rabbinic cosmology? Try these posts:

• Where Heaven and Earth Touch

• The Sun's Orbit Around the Earth

• How High is the Sky? (And How to Measure It)

Talmudology Bonus ~ Plagues and the Census

In the Torah portion (כִּי תִשָּׂא) to be read this Shabbat, we will read about the first census that was to be taken after the Exodus from Egypt:

שמות 30:11-16

וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃

כִּי תִשָּׂא אֶת־רֹאשׁ בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְקֻדֵיהֶם וְנָתְנוּ אִישׁ כֹּפֶר נַפְשׁוֹ לַיהֹוָה בִּפְקֹד אֹתָם וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה בָהֶם נֶגֶף בִּפְקֹד אֹת זֶה  יִתְּנוּ כל־הָעֹבֵר עַל־הַפְּקֻדִים מַחֲצִית הַשֶּׁקֶל בְּשֶׁקֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ עֶשְׂרִים גֵּרָה הַשֶּׁקֶל מַחֲצִית הַשֶּׁקֶל תְּרוּמָה לַיהֹוָה׃ כֹּל הָעֹבֵר עַל־הַפְּקֻדִים מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וָמָעְלָה יִתֵּן תְּרוּמַת יְהֹוָה׃ הֶעָשִׁיר לֹא־יַרְבֶּה וְהַדַּל לֹא יַמְעִיט מִמַּחֲצִית הַשָּׁקֶל לָתֵת אֶת־תְּרוּמַת יְהֹוָה לְכַפֵּר עַל־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם׃ וְלָקַחְתָּ אֶת־כֶּסֶף הַכִּפֻּרִים מֵאֵת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְנָתַתָּ אֹתוֹ עַל־עֲבֹדַת אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהָיָה לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְזִכָּרוֹן לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה לְכַפֵּר עַל־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם׃

God spoke to Moses, saying: 

When you take a census of the Israelite men according to their army enrollment, each shall pay God a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled. This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay: a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight—twenty gerah to the shekel—a half-shekel as an offering to God. Everyone who is entered in the records, from the age of twenty years up, shall give God’s offering: the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel when giving God’s offering as expiation for your persons. You shall take the expiation money from the Israelites and assign it to the service of the Tent of Meeting; it shall serve the Israelites as a reminder before God, as expiation for your persons. 

In this passage, the undertaking of a census is viewed as an inherently hazardous undertaking. It would result in a pandemic outbreak, but this would be prevented by the giving of the half-shekel.

Three further censuses were carried out when the Children of Israel were in the wilderness, and they are mentioned in the Book of Numbers (1-2, 26 [which follows a pandemic] and 31). Later censuses were commanded by Joshua, King Saul, and King David and these all passed without incident.

The Dangerous Census Taken by King David

It is this obvious danger that King David was warned about when he commanded his military advisor Joab to “make the rounds of all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Be’er-Sheva, and take a census of the people, so that I may know the size of the population.” But Joab was reluctant. “May the Lord your God increase the number of the people a hundredfold, while your own eyes see it” he told his king. “But” Joab asked, “why should my lord king want this?” 

David was not persuaded, and the census was taken, but something – we are not told what – convinced David that he had made a mistake. “But afterward David reproached himself for having numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, “I have sinned grievously in what I have done. Please, Lord, remit the guilt of Your servant, for I have acted foolishly” (v. 10). God refuses to absolve David, and the prophet Gad gives the king a choice of punishment: “Shall a seven-year famine come upon you in the land, or shall you be in flight from your adversaries for three months while they pursue you, or shall there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider carefully what reply I shall take back to He who sent me.” David asks that he not fall into the hands of men, and here the Greek translation known as the Septuagint adds a line not found in the original Hebrew: “So David chose the pestilence. It was the time of the wheat harvest.” As a result of this choice, “God sent a pestilence upon Israel from morning until the set time, and 70,000 of the people died, from Dan to Be’er-Sheva.”

A different account of this story is found in the Book of Chronicles. In one of its versions it is Satan who entices King David to count the population. Joab then decides to count those under the age of twenty, in clear defiance of the orders for the census found in the Book of Exodus. “Joab son of Zeruiah did begin to count them, but he did not finish; wrath struck Israel on account of this, and the census was not entered into the account of the chronicles of King David” (1 Chronicles 27:24). In addition, there is no mention – in either version - of the giving of the required half-shekel. This is the basis for several medieval biblical commentaries who explained that the pandemic that followed was because the expiation (kopher) had not been given. Rashi believed that the counting invoked the Ayin Harah, the Evil Eye, and this was the cause of the pandemic that followed, though he doesn’t elaborate.

ולא יהיה בהם נגף. שֶׁהַמִּנְיָן שׁוֹלֵט בּוֹ עַיִן הָרָע, וְהַדֶּבֶר בָּא עֲלֵיהֶם, כְּמוֹ שֶׁמָּצִינוּ בִימֵי דָּוִד

for numbers (i.e. things that have been numbered) are subject to the influence of the “evil eye”, and therefore if you count them by their polls pestilence may befall them, as we find happened, in the days of David (II Samuel 24:10 and 15).

As a consequence of King David’s refusal to take a personal punishment for his crime of counting the people, a pandemic killed 70,000 of his subjects. This belief remained prevalent among the Jews of eastern Europe, who had a saying in Yiddish “When you don’t count, a blessing comes” [Az me tseylt nisht, kumt arayn di brokhe], and Jewish children would protect themselves when being counted while in Polish public schools by whispering “oyf di tseyn” - “on my teeth.”

The Pandemic Gods of the Ancient Near East

The fear of taking a census is actually far older than the Torah itself. It can be found in the writings found at Mari, an ancient city in what is now northwestern Syria. The royal archives there contained thousands of letters which were first excavated in the 1930s, and include detailed written records of how the census was to be taken. Some of the words that appear on the Mari cuneiform letters are like the Hebrew constructs used in the Bible. For example, “to record” (paqadum) has the same root as the Hebrew root word p-k-d meaning “to count.” And the famous Jewish Assyriologist Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (1902-1965) noted that in Mesopotamian lore “the writing down of names could on certain occasions be a very ominous process…on periodic occasions, the higher powers made lists which determined who among the mortals was to live and who was to die.” 

There must thus have been a time when the ancient Near Easterner shrank from the thought of having his name recorded in lists that might be put to unpredictable uses. Military conscription was an ominous process because it might place the life of the enrolled in jeopardy. The connection with the cosmic " books " of life and death must have been much too close for one's peace of mind. It would be natural in these circumstances to propitiate the unknown powers, or seek expiation as a general precaution. In due time, such a process would be normalized as a tebibtum in Mesopotamia, and as a form of kippurim among the Israelites… And such fears would be kept alive by plagues, which must have decimated crowded camps more than once.  

Nergal. Fragment of impression of seal from Larsa. 2nd millenium BCE, Baghdadi Museum. From here.

In ancient Mesopotamia, there were several deities associated with plagues and pandemics.  Nergal, the king of the underworld, was a god of war who was also responsible for plagues. Around the second century B.C.E his role was merged with another god, Erra, and the combined Nergal/Erra god-complex became responsible for both war and pestilence.  Namtar (literally, “fate”) was another Mesopotamian deity associated with disease, whose role, wrote to John Betz, “was more similar to the that of the grim reaper of modern folklore” (A Tale of Two Plague Gods,” Biblical Archeology Review 47, no. Winter 2021). He is described in Sumerian texts as having “no hands, has no feet, [and] who takes away/goes about by night.” Nergal acted as a sort of judge to whom an appeal for clemency could be made, while Namtar had the role of judicial executioner, who could not be reasoned with. “In some ways” Betz noted, “this dynamic is not unlike that between YHWH and personified pestilence. As in Habakkuk 3, plague and pestilence are sometimes YHWH’s instruments, but elsewhere we find prayers to YHWH against plague and disease. Returning to 2 Samuel 24:10-25 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-30, we can see this distinction. The angel bringing the plague cannot be reasoned with, but YHWH can be. When YHWH is moved to compassion by his people’s suffering, he is the one who tells the angel to halt the plague.”

As the centuries passed, the census remained unwelcome, but less than it had been before. In biblical times it was still ominous to be counted, but it became possible to prevent any harm by paying a half-shekel to the Temple. Which is why we read in this week’s Torah portion:

so that no plague may come upon them through their being counted

וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה בָהֶם נֶגֶף בִּפְקֹד

[Excerpted from Jeremy Brown. The Eleventh Plague. Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19. Oxford University Press, Fall 2022.]

Happy Birthday Galileo

Galileo Galilei in a 1636 portrait by Justus Sustermans.

Today, February 15th, is a special day. It is the birthday of Galileo Galilei, who was born in Pisa on that day in 1564. Among his many achievements were his careful observations of the Earth’s moon, the identification of four of Jupiter’s moons, and the discovery that Venus, when observed through a telescope, has phases, just like that of our own moon. The only reasonable explanation of this was that Venus orbited the Sun, and not the Earth. And just like that, the geocentric model of the universe in which everything revolved around the Earth, came to a grinding halt.

Galileo’s Jewish Connection

Galileo taught astronomy to anyone who would listen, including Jews, and his most important Jewish student was Joseph Solomon Delmedigo who was born in Candia on the Island of Crete in 1591. At the age of fifteen Delmedigo left for Italy, where he enrolled in the University of Padua. For seven years there he studied astronomy, mathematics, natural science and medicine, and was taught by none other than Galileo Galilei, who was soon to become famous for both his observations of the planets and his clash with the Church.

When Delmedigo graduated he traveled to Lublin, Vilna, and Livona, where he spent much of his time working as a physician. He ultimately settled in Amsterdam where he published his Sefer Elim, a long book (it runs over four hundred pages) that deals with philosophy, science, mathematics, and astronomy.

“Galileo my Teacher” from Delmedigo, Sefer Elim, Amsterdam 1629. 148.

In this book Delmedigo outlined the reasons he accepted the Copernican model of the universe. In addition to explaining all of the theoretical support for the heliocentric model, he cited experimental evidence. If the planets revolved about the Sun and were illuminated by it, the amount of light that they reflect would depend on their location and distance from the Earth. And this is precisely what Delmedigo and his famous teacher had observed through the telescope. 

My teacher Galileo observed Mars when it lay close to the Earth. At this time its light was much brighter than that of Jupiter, even though Mars is much smaller. Indeed it appeared too bright to view through the telescope. I requested to look through the telescope, and Mars appeared to me to be elongated rather than round. (This is a result of its clarity and the movement of its rays of light.) In contrast, I found Jupiter to be round and Saturn to be egg-shaped.

This glorious passage reminds us that religiously observant Jews were sometimes at the very cutting edge of the new astronomy. How many could claim to have been instructed by the great Galileo himself?

But don’t get carried away

The historian Andre Neher (d. 1988) viewed Joseph Delmedigo as a fearless trailblazer whose goal was not only to influence his own community, but also the Catholic Church itself. In a paper published in 1977 he wrote:

When Delmedigo published Elim in 1629, he used the term “Rabbi” in speaking of his teacher Galileo. Rabbi Galileo! Was this not something of a challenge directed to the inquisitors in Rome who were then preoccupied with Galileo and who were not to let him go until his death in 1642? Free Galileo, Delmedigo seems to be saying, or release him to us; in the midst of our Jewish community, he will not be subjected to any trial, we shall not require him to make any retraction, we shall welcome him and honor him like a Rabbi in Israel!

Well, not quite. As I have written elsewhere, this account is linguistically, historically, and conjecturally incorrect. In the first place, although the term used by Delmedigo to describe Galileo was indeed the word rebbi, in this context, it means “my teacher,” and not “my rabbi.” By translating it in this way Neher was able to support his claim that the Jews were open, receptive, and respectful to new ideas emerging in astronomy; but the linguistic reality (and much else besides) does not bear this out.

Secondly, in the years prior to the publication of Sefer Elim in 1629, Galileo had not become the “preoccupation” of the Inquisition. The work that led to the trial by the Inquisition, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World, was not published until 1632. And so Neher’s claim that Delmedigo was writing a message to release Galileo is chronologically incorrect. Finally, the notion that the Jewish community would not punish one of their own for expressing antinomian views is inaccurate. It was, after all, in Amsterdam itself, the city in which Delmedigo’s books were published, that the Jewish community excommunicated Spinoza in 1656 on account of “the horrible heresies which he practiced and taught.” Although Neher’s assessment of Delmedigo as challenging the Inquisition on behalf of Galileo was not accurate, it he was certainly correct in noting the important role that Galileo must surely have played in the education of the young Jew Joseph Delmedigo from Crete, who grew up and became the first Jewish Copernican.

A selection from the Talmudology Library Galileo Collection

Want more Galileo-related Talmudology posts? Try Jews and their Telescopes, available here.

[A repost, obviously, because it was also his birthday last year.]