Tribal Lands
נחלת השבטים
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This file contains merged sections from the following text versions:
-Jerusalem, 2019
-https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH003809131/NLI
Tribal Lands
Foreword
by Rabbanit Shani Taragin
קוּם הִתְהַלֵּךְ בָּאָרֶץ, לְאָרְכָּהּ וּלְרָחְבָּהּ; כִּי לְךָ, אֶתְּנֶנָּה:: (בראשית יג,יז)
With these words, Hashem directed Avraham Avinu to traverse the Land of Israel from North to South, and West to East to explore the scope of the Land that would be given to his descendants. Today we have the miraculous privilege to walk in the footsteps of Avraham Avinu and to once again fulfill this divine directive – with a Tanakh in hand. It is a true zechut to live, learn, teach, and tour in the Land of Israel today where the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs come to life, and where the pesukim and parshanut are understood with greater clarity as we explore geographical locale firsthand.
Teaching the stories of Yehoshua atop of Har Gerizim, and the prophecies of Amos from Tekoa while standing in eastern Gush Etzion and Bet-El, inspire by the mere connection of content with context. The Land of Israel has become the classroom and setting, providing accurate scenery, with the Biblical narratives serving as “screen directions” and commentary to picture the events. Inasmuch as I enjoy every moment of sharing the beauty of the scope and depth of the Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings) regardless of location, I feel spiritually energized and religiously reinvigorated when the shiur is taught “on site”. I thank MaTaN (Machon Torani l’Nashim, flagship midrasha for women in Jerusalem) for providing me the opportunity to teach an annual “Learn and Tour” series with esteemed colleagues – teaching students the books of Nevi’im and Ketuvim in the Beit Midrash, followed by shiurim and siyurim “ba’shetach” – encountering and exploring the respective geographical locations of the scenes in the text.
A few years ago, while preparing shiurim for the MaTaN Learn and Tour course, entitled “Yehoshua-Shoftim: Tribes, Traits and Territories,” I recalled an invaluable resource – Tamar Weissman’s Tribal Lands. In previous cycles of teaching the prophecies of Yehoshua and Shoftim, I focused on the narrative and the religious messages extrapolated from the prophet’s textual devices. The prophetic themes accompanying the stories of national and then tribal conquest and settlement in Sefer Yehoshua, through the religious, cultural and political anarchy presented in the book of Shoftim, were taught within the historical and textual context of the respective sefarim. For the new series, however, I decided to employ a different methodology. As I charted the development of the tribes from their initial entrance and conquest of Eretz Yisrael through the challenges of battles and leadership in the period of the Judges, each tribe’s unique “personality” emerged, matured, and ultimately expressed itself within the fabric of national unity. The tribal division of nation and land described in Sefer Yehoshua and revisited in Sefer Shoftim was an essential component to appreciating the complexity and trajectory of forming a nation comprised of multiple traits, strengths and resources. I began to notice patterns of tribal characteristics repeating themselves in the stories spanning hundreds of years, and recognized various allusions to Torah narratives – from the birth stories through the formative development and blessings of the twelve sons of Yaakov Avinu. The interplay between the personal traits evident in Sefer Bereishit and the tribal characteristics manifest throughout Sifrei Shemot, Bamidbar and Devarim, underscored the significance of teaching Yehoshua and Shoftim with particular emphasis placed on the tribal traits and their destined territories in the People and Land of Israel.
As I pursued the study of the personal and tribal distinctive attributes, I found an indispensable resource in Tamar Weissman’s Tribal Lands. Tamar has collected and carefully collated hundreds of sources, incorporating biblical and rabbinic texts into the body of the book, as well as providing copious footnotes that I found invaluable while preparing shiurim. She deftly weaves pshat with midrashic explanation as she traces the emergent identity of the tribal character, meticulously documenting her source material. This sefer provides a framework for appreciating the development of our unique national structure – from tribes with disparate characteristics to a unified nation; I found it a requisite accompanying guide to learning Sifrei Yehoshua and Shoftim from a new perspective.
Tamar introduces her study of connecting the tribes with their respective nachalot in the Land of Israel with a quote from Erich Fromm describing maternal love through the metaphor of our inherent attachment to “mother earth.” I was immediately impressed with this acute analogy and incorporation of semiotics as an expression of Torat Imecha with its dual connotation and significance. Through evoking maternal imagery of a Land flowing with milk and honey, we are sensitively drawn to female characters connected to the Land. We are simultaneously conditioned to appreciate the bond of each of Yaakov’s sons to his respective mother, and subsequently to his respective portion of Land.
The powerful and repetitive description of Eretz Yisrael as zavat chalav u’devash – flowing with milk and honey (appearing sixteen times in the Torah and five times in Nevi’im), is an image we associate with our mothers, who nourish us with their milk, and provide balm for our wounds with the sweetness and therapeutic benefits of honey. The Torah and Nevi’im portray particular women with these qualities; women who restore us as a family and nation to the Land of Israel. The “twinned” Devorahs of Tanach – Devorah the nursemaid of Rivka who appears upon Yaakov’s return to his homeland, and Devorah the prophetess and judge who restores unity and settlement after Canaanite oppression - link these dual elements of milk and honey. Devorah, whose very name means honeybee, is found in both stories under a tree in Bet-El. Devorah the prophetess sits under a date palm associated with the honey of the fruit (thereby reflective of both opinions in the Mekhilta of Rashbi (13,5) regarding the interpretation of “Land of Milk and Honey”. Rabbi Eliezer maintains that both the milk and honey are referring to fruit nectar – the honey from dates. Rabbi Akiva posits that the blessing of milk is from animals and the honey from bees). Devorah meineket Rivka, the nursemaid who provides for milk, is buried under a tree in Bet-El, and Devorah the prophetess sits under the milk/nectar of the date palm and sings the praises of Yael’s heroic assassination of the Canaanite general, Sisera, through her offering of milk. These women remind us of the blessings of Eretz Yisrael as they provide for peaceful settlement in the Land through their feminine qualities and strength.
Though all the shevatim share the same father, Yaakov Avinu, they are conceived, named and nurtured by different mothers. Leah and Rachel fundamentally impacted the individual natures of each child of the Bnei Yisrael, including those sons born by surrogate. Beyond that, they connect us to the Land of Israel, already intimating through their lives and actions the proper regions suited to each of their children. Rachel Immeinu in her life and death, through her beauty, yearnings and disappointments, teaches us the uniqueness of the tribes and territories (nachalot) of Yosef and Binyamin. Rav Yitzchak Arama (in his Commentary Akeidat Yitzchak, Bereishit 9) highlights the dual role of women – as wives and mothers. Rachel epitomizes the wife who yearns to be the mother, and is ultimately remembered as the matriarch who cries for her children (Yirmiyahu 31). Leah’s role in the house of Yaakov, though she mothered multiple sons, is as Yaakov’s wife, and in fact she merits to be buried with her husband in Hevron. Leah’s children are divided on the borders of the Land, protecting the North and South, whereas Rachel’s children are in the center. Rachel, who dies upon entering the Land of Canaan, merits to have her descendant Yehoshua (from the tribe of Ephraim) begin initial conquest of the land. David Hamelekh, a descendant of Yehudah ben Leah who is responsible for selling Rachel’s son Yosef to Egypt, merits to restore and reunite the children of Rachel with the children of Leah through the conquest of Yerushalayim in Nachalat Binyamin, thereby completing the stages initiated by Yehoshua.
Recurring themes, allusions and personality traits manifest through the challenges of unifying the Bnei Yaakov/ Yisrael as tribes to form a nation, drew me towards a renewed understanding and presentation of the messages of Sefer Yehoshua. Teaching the chapters of Yehoshua as the stories of tribal conquest unfold, and continuing through Shoftim, which presents a tribal-based military and judicial system, behooves one to revisit the unique character of every shevet and the qualities of their respective nachalot. To properly appreciate the narratives and messages of Sifrei Tanach, one must learn to explore beyond the developments of the immediate text and consider their broader context. This means approaching a specific parshia (biblical unit) within the context of the particular sefer and then revisit the story/law as it appears throughout Tanakh. The broader context, however, includes the historical and geographical setting; only through the Land may the narrative truly come to life. There was a need for a sefer that would present both of these contexts for the novice and experienced student of Tanakh.
Tamar Weissman masterfully presents all the above throughout the chapters of Tribal Lands. She comprehensively and elegantly traces each tribal character from his genesis through emergence into family clan and tribe, uncovering patterns and revealing undercurrents of personality which are rooted in the earliest musings of our history. One of the more compelling and insightful aspects of each chapter is the suggestion as to why each shevet was granted his particular nachalah. From the outset of the divine promises and covenants of Brit ben Habetarim and Brit Milah, the Land and Nation of Israel are inseparable (see Sefer Hakuzari , 2:3–32). As such, every nachalah in Eretz Yisrael must be appreciated with all of its facets – geographical, topographical, geological, and botanical – for each is an essential expression of tribal identity. The Land is evocative, Tamar writes, and this is very true; the different regions of Eretz Yisrael affect and influence the development of personality, and certain personalities are drawn to specific landscapes. This was certainly the case with the tribes, and it is fascinating to explore how a landscape’s particular attributes, advantages and drawbacks impact the tribal character throughout history.
Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook elaborates upon the symbiotic connection between Land and Tribe as first evident by unique tribal flags in the desert encampment; as with each tribe, he writes, so too with each individual member of Knesset Yisrael. “The Land of Israel is suitable for the Knesset as a whole, throughout the generations, forever and forever, and yet it is also suited to the lives of all individuals, to every single individual in Israel, according to his or her value. And the adaptation is so precise that even the amazingness and proportion of the Land of Israel . . . is all fitting in the supreme direction from the hand of God to His holy people.” (Olat HaRAY”H 1, p.203)
Tribes, composed of family clans and members, feel a draw and attachment to a particular piece of Land. Moshe Rabbeinu sent representatives of each tribe who were experts in geography and geology (Seforno Bamidbar 13:2) to scout the Land of Israel and choose the location most befitting their tribe. Subsequently each family and individual would choose their plot of land, as Calev ben Yefuneh chose the city of Hevron and Yosef’s descendants initiated conquest surrounding their namesake’s burial plot and inheritance in Shechem. I remember my first trip to Eretz Yisrael at twelve years old, when I encountered the remarkable countryside that I would eventually call home. My family’s visit to Alon Shvut, Gush Etzion was on a particularly foggy day in Tishrei (not uncommon in the Judean hills), and all I could see was the top of the “eagle’s head” of Yeshivat Har Etzion as we made our way from Yerushalayim in the direction of Hevron. For the first time, I could literally picture the path of Avraham as he made his way from Bet-El to Hevron and Be’er Sheva. I could feel Yaakov’s anxiety trying to find his way along the rocky path escaping from his bloodthirsty brother, Esav. There was an immediate attraction and a connection to “Derech ha’Avot” (the path of our Patriarchs) already then, and I instinctively knew that I belonged in the hills of Yehudah.
Six years later I returned to study in Yerushalayim, but spent many hours learning with my husbandto-be in Yeshivat Har Etzion, hosted by families who are today among my closest friends. The women’s section in Yeshiva was my Beit Midrash, and the parks of Alon Shvut became my backyard. Together with my husband Reuven, we raised our family and built our home overlooking the same breathtaking panoramas that inspired David as he composed his Tehillim. Our favorite tiyulim include swimming /immersing in the same nearby springs as our ancestors did on their way to Yerushalayim for Aliyah La’regel.
One can feel the depth of Am Yisrael’s roots here in Nachalat Yehudah, and a particular connection as a descendant of Yehudah who was gifted by his father Yaakov with the ancestral homes of Hevron and Beer Sheva. Yaakov informed Yehudah that he will inherit a region saturated with vineyards and pastureland:
חַכְלִילִי עֵינַיִם, מִיָּיִן; וּלְבֶן־שִׁנַּיִם, מֵחָלָב:: (בראשית מט, כא)
Yehudah’s eyes shall be colored as wine, and his teeth whitened with milk.
Nachmanides explains that Yehudah’s eyes will not be red with intoxication (see Rashi, Ibn Ezra, RaDaK), but rather colored with wine; just as others paint (their eyes) with eye paint, which in Arabic is el kachul, Yehudah paints them with wine; others whiten their teeth with ointments, Yehudah whitens them with milk – this is to highlight the abundance of wine and milk in Yehudah’s nachalah (Ramban Bereishit 49:12). Yehudah is blessed with two divergent topographies and colors – the steep hills perfect for terraced vineyards depicting the blue of oxidized wine, and the Judean wilderness, a rock desert for grazing animals who will produce white milk.
Rav Ya’akov Medan, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, notes via this commentary of Ramban that Yehudah’s beracha contains the first reference to the central colors of Eretz Yisrael; he is granted the blessings of a landscape that features both “kachol/techelet” (blue of the mountain wine) and lavan (white of the goat milk). The dialectic between concrete clarity (symbolized by white), and the abstract metaphysical (symbolized by techelet), is everpresent in my world, and resonates deeply here in the Judean hills. The colors of Yehudah’s nachalah are the colors of the tzitzit, reminding us after the sin of the meraglim not to veer from our promised homeland and destiny. They are the colors of the miraculous return of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael in our present day, boldly displayed like a tallit on our national flag proudly waving over the citadels and hilltops of Gush Etzion, resettled immediately after the Six Day War.
This tension propels the endless passionate relationship between Am Yisrael and Hashem. Shir haShirim, the paradigmatic love song between God and His people, unfolds in the landscape of Nachalat Yehudah; the female persona – Ra’ayah (Yisrael) resides in the hills of Yerushalayim, and her Beloved/ Dod (God) is described as emerging from the vineyards of Ein Gedi, an oasis in Midbar Yehudah. The hills of Judea and the Judean desert evoke an intensity which drew the Avot, David HaMelech, generations of scholars and poets, and hundreds of leaders in our own time to this region. Avraham Avinu envisioned Mt. Moriah as he was climbing the hills of my home – וירא את המקום מרחוק. Here in Nachalat Yehudah we wake up in the mountain clouds, wrap ourselves in kachol v’lavan, and strive to glimpse HaMakom, yearning to draw close to Him. We feel the everpresent vicissitudes of the love relationship between God and Am Yisrael, and a topographical romance between Nation and Land. Perhaps this is why the three oaths of Shir HaShirim serve as the basis of debate between Rav Yehudah and his student Rabbi Zeira regarding the permissibility of return to Eretz Yisrael. This discussion and the continued explanations of ChaZal regarding the physical and spiritual beauty of the Land of Israel are compiled in the Talmudic tractate of Ketubot – which discusses the laws of the marriage contract given by a groom to his bride. This is indicative of our “marriage” with God – the Land of Israel serves as the Ketuba – the “marriage contract” between God and His beautiful nation.
The chuppah (bridal canopy) is the Mikdash in Yerushalayim – bringing the Dod and Ra’ayah of Nachalat Yehudah together while simultaneously bridging the children of Leah (i.e. Yehudah) with the children of Rachel (Yosef and Binyamin – see Tamar’s insights in the respective chapters). Yehudah is the vanguard of Yisrael, and his nachalah represents the transition in development from one stage of leadership and nationhood to the next. The era of our Avot began here with Avraham’s purchase of the first realestate of the Machpela field, and concluded here as Yaakov left Hevron to reunite with Yosef in Egypt; Calev ben Yefuneh, prince of Yehudah, charted the land and sought patriarchal inspiration from Hevron encouraging us – against the dismissive reports of the spies – to conquer and settle the Land promised by Hashem:
עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ; כִּי־יָכוֹל נוּכַל, לָהּ:: (במדבר יג, ל)
We should go up at once, and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.
Hashem responds to the nation’s request for a leader in battle with an echo of Calev’s cry – “Yehudah ya’aleh!,” imbuing this shevet with a tradition of leadership that is realized within the contours of this nachalah – bayamim ha’hem, bazman hazeh (in those days, and in ours). This nachalah is and always was the place of Yisrael’s transition to malchut, with Yehudah at the helm. David ruled as king in Hevron for seven years before his coronation over all of Israel in Yerushalayim. R’ Amital z”l saw the revival of Gush Etzion as a catalyst for future growth and expansion. He, together with Rav Aharon Lichtenstein z”l, believed in and built institutions of Torah scholarship for both men and women, a contemporary manifestation of the tent of Otniel ben Kenaz and his wife Achsa, the pioneering daughter of Calev. Indeed, there is a remarkable concentration today of yeshivot, ulpanot and midrashot between Hevron and Yerushalayim, batei midrash resonating with enthusiastic Torah learning, where characteristics central to leadership and royalty are cultivated.
This is my nachalah – my space, my place, my home founded on the Torah and values of Tanakh, that defines my religious-national relationship with Hashem, within Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael, through the past and toward the future; this is why Tamar Weissman’s Tribal Lands resonated so strongly with me. Studying the nature of the shevatim in Tanakh opens one’s mind and heart to the broader religious messages, history and trajectory of our nation. Today’s Yehudi/Yisraeli can and should deeply appreciate the very natural, organic relationship of the Jew to his land. It is imperative that every Jew, whether he is living and resettling our ancestral land, or whether he does not yet have that opportunity, nurture and deepen his own particular connection to Eretz Yisrael in text and context. Tamar has shared her scholarship, insight and experience in linking tribal character to nachalah character. She has equipped us with the pesukim, midrashim and parshanut to traverse the Land with Tankah in hand, mind and heart, and then has illustratively taken us to virtually tour the nachalot of past and present. This exceptional sefer helps the reader to discover narratives and landscapes anew, opening our eyes to inspiring new encounters with the tapestry of Torat Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.
B’virkat tefillat haderech – ותגיענו למחוז חפצנו לחיים, לשמחה ולשלום
Hoping you enjoy every pasuk, page and step of Tribal Lands as much as I do,
Shani Taragin
Alon Shvut, Nachalat Yehudah
Reflections on the Second Edition
Preface
ההבדל בין הקנאה והנחלה הוא עצום. המקנה מעביר, אמנם, את החפץ לרשותו של הקונה, אבל העברת רשות זו, אינה יוצרת שום יחס אישי ושום קשר פנימי בין המקנה והקונה. מה שאין כן בהנחלה. המנחיל מעמיד את הנוחל תחתיו. והנוחל קם תחתיו של המנחיל. ומתוך כך ההנחלה יוצרת יחס פנימי בין המנחיל והנוחל. וזו היא הרבותא של הפסוק ״כבוד החכמים ינחלו.״ פסוק זה בא ללמדנו, כי אין החכמה מקנה את הכבוד לבעליה, אלא שהיא מנחילה לו את הכבוד.
הרב יצחק הוטנר, פחד יצחק: שבועות , טז:י
The difference between a grant (hakna’ah) and a legacy (hanĥalah) is vast. A grantor indeed transfers the object to the possession of the grantee, but such a transfer does not create a personal relationship or internal bond between the grantor and grantee. This is not true of a legacy. There, the benefactor appoints the beneficiary in his stead, and the beneficiary assumes the status of his benefactor. Thus, a legacy forges an intimate relationship between benefactor and beneficiary.
This is the novel idea expressed by the verse “Honor is the legacy of the wise” (Proverbs 3:35). The verse teaches us that wisdom does not simply grant honor to the wise; rather, wisdom gives honor as a legacy to those who possess it.
Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, Paĥad Yitzĥak (Shavuot), 16:10
What I present here is not an academic study, or a travel guide, or a biblical commentary. It is, rather, an act of committing to record years of reflection on the dynamic interplay between text and land.
This book was born in the Judean Desert, at the northern tip of the Dead Sea. I was guiding a group through the ruins of Qumran, the ancient commune whose residents wrote and stashed the famous Dead Sea Scrolls in the surrounding limestone caves two thousand years ago. Much of my daily work involved this era of Jewish history, when sects fought for control of the Second Temple and the Roman threat of conquest loomed large.
It was during the ice cream break that I suddenly had intimations of a new direction for research and thought. I had turned my back to the caves for a few minutes, gazing out over the Dead Sea to the mountains beyond. Moabite, Amorite, Ammonite, I recited to myself, automatically checking off the range of ancient civilizations that had dwelled in those hills. Israelite…the tribes of Reuben and Gad – and then, the fleeting thought that would reframe my presentation of the Land of Israel and influence my work for the next few years: a land divided among tribes must reflect in its apportionment the varied personalities of its owners.
There is something preternaturally intimate in the Bible’s presentation of a person’s relationship to the land. When Jacob fled the wrath of his slighted brother, Esau, he encountered the place where he was to camp for the night: “va-yifga ba-makom” (Genesis 28:11). Encountering implies something more than casual meeting; it implies confrontation, contact – a rendezvous with an entity that intrigues us with its mystery, yet is comfortingly familiar at the same time. Those who encounter the land have a relationship with the land.
I believe this highlights an essential truth. Every person yearns to encounter the land; it is as natural as the relationship between mother and child: “for from dust were you taken, and to dust shall you return.” What is it that we are truly seeking from mother, and from land? Erich Fromm explains that mother does far more than preserve the child’s life and growth, but “instills in the child a love for living, which gives him the feeling: it is good to be alive, it is good to be a little boy or girl, it is good to be on this earth!”
Fromm himself used land as an apt metaphor to describe a mother’s love:
The promised land (land is always a mother symbol) is described as “flowing with milk and honey.” Milk is the symbol of the first act of love, that of caring and affirmation. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, the love for it and the happiness in being alive.
Mother, our first and most primal relationship, gives us both sustenance and joie de vivre. Land does the same. How good it is to be on this earth! This joyous sense is heightened for the Children of Israel in Eretz Yisrael, the archetypal land of “milk and honey” – of abundant blessings and sweet meaningfulness. They are not only sustained through their land; they find the sweet contentedness of home in her borders, as right and as at home as in their mother’s embrace.
And yet it is not only the primal connection to the earth that is part of the human condition; we are also drawn to a particular place because of its qualities, some quantifiable, some nebulously sensed. As I gazed across the sea at Naĥalat Reuven, the region of the ancestral homeland apportioned to the tribe descended from Jacob’s son Reuben, I wondered about all twelve of these regions, naĥalot, and the tribes who dwelled therein. Was there some essential connection between the individual natures of the tribes and the territory each called its own? Did each tribe feel that maternal sense of rightness in its own territory, and not in the others? The diminutive swath of Eretz Yisrael offers mountain and desert, coast and plain. Different parts of the land inspire and resonate in different ways. From my vantage point in Naĥalat Yehudah, I speculated: perhaps the specific tract of land allotted to each tribe resonated with that tribe’s particular culture. Perhaps there was a design to the land apportionment, rooted in the different characters of each tribe.
Jewish tradition seems to take for granted that it is so. At the closing of the Book of Genesis, as Jacob blessed each son in turn, the blessing was not for the person standing before him, but for the entire tribe that each son was to sire. Each tribe’s destiny was couched in this encounter between father and son: “Gather and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days” (Genesis 48:1). Future descendants of each of Jacob’s twelve sons acquired (and sometimes overcame) the same characteristic behavioral traits as their forefather, and patterns established in the lives of the original sons emerged again in later generations. Moses’s blessings, at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, echoed those bestowed by Jacob, often reinforcing the particular message, sometimes altering the vision based on events that had transpired. These two sets of blessings defined the essence of each tribe, and the allusions within the blessings to their specific land allotments implied a unity of destiny, character, and naĥalah.
Thus, the apportionment of the naĥalot was neither haphazard nor primarily politically motivated. The more dominant and populous tribes received larger tracts, as the verse in Numbers commanded: “Let the numerous one receive a bigger allotment, and the smaller one, a smaller allotment; each one according to his count shall his naĥalah be given” (26:54). But this kind of pragmatism was not the sum and total consideration when divvying up the land. If it were, why would God Himself need to have been involved?
Only by goral [lots] shall the land be divided; according to the names of their fathers’ tribes shall they inherit. According to the lot shall one’s naĥalah be divided, between the numerous and the few.
Numbers 26:55–56
This goral method was a divine lottery of sorts, as expanded upon in the Talmud:
And it [the Land] was only divided by lot, as it is said, “By lot shall the land be divided” (Numbers 26:55). It was only divided by way of the Urim ve-Tumim.… How was this effected? Elazar (the high priest) was wearing the Urim ve-Tumim while Joshua and all Israel stood before him. An urn [containing the names] of the tribes and an urn containing descriptions of the boundaries were placed before him. Guided by divine inspiration, he gave directions, exclaiming: “Zebulun will be drawn and the boundary lines of Acco will be drawn!” He then vigorously shook the urn of the tribes and Zebulun came up in his hand. He vigorously shook the urn of the boundaries and the boundary lines of Acco came up in his hand. Guided again by divine inspiration, he gave directions, exclaiming: “Naphtali will be drawn and the boundary lines of Gennesaret will be drawn!” He then vigorously shook the urn of the tribes and Naphtali came up in his hand. He vigorously shook the urn of the boundaries, and the boundary lines of Gennesaret came up in his hand. And so it was with every tribe.
Bava Batra 122a
In this way, Eretz Yisrael was divinely apportioned, and the tribal populations clearly factored into the division. Ramban (Nachmanides) offered a similar reconciliation, understanding that each tribe received an equal share by divine lottery, after which the given naĥalah was reasonably divided within the tribe according to clan size. However it is parsed in its details, the Talmudic explanation of this lottery defied assigning any randomness to the procedure: tribal divisions were to be by lot, with God Himself deciding the territorial destinies of the tribes.7
I set to researching the connections between shevet (tribe) and naĥalah by first investigating the character of each tribe and its patriarch. As my course of study developed, I discovered that each tribe had an identifiable personality, with dominant, definitive traits. Nature and nurture worked in tandem to form the biblical personality, so elements like birth order, formative circumstances, and family dynamics influenced each son of Jacob as much as innate, raw abilities, tendencies, and weaknesses did. As I sifted through the rabbinic material, as well as other ancient sources, such as the Apocryphal literature and exegetical works of Josephus and Philo, emergent recurrent motifs allowed me to assign to each tribe a specific trait based on the nature of its founding father. No character portrait can ignore the complexities inherent to the human personality, but each tribe can be typified by one essential trait. I then examined the character of the tribe’s naĥalah, which in turn led me to explore possible historical and conceptual ties of the tribe to its particular land holdings.
Given these considerations, this work is based in no small part on the Talmudic approach above that the naĥalot were apportioned by divine hand, implying that the specific qualities of any given naĥalah were perfectly suited to those who dwelled within it. But even for those who cannot accept the doctrine of divine allotment, recognition of a certain connection between a region and those who inhabit it justifies an examination into the nature of that connection. Setting aside the philosophical pickle of whether the territory inspired the tribe or the tribe inspired the territory, we may begin to examine the underlying bonds between the tribe and its naĥalah.
I conclude this section with the thoughts of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch regarding a single nation composed of disparate tribes:
This people is to consist of diverse tribes of differing traits, while maintaining complete unity.…This people should represent the agricultural nation, the merchant nation, the warrior nation, the nation of scholars.…[I]t should demonstrate for all to see that the one great mission…does not depend on a particular vocation or trait.…The division of the nation into diverse tribes, and the resulting division of the Land into different provinces for the different tribes, whose distinctiveness is thus to be retained, is what is indicated here [in the verse: a community of peoples]. Without the division into diverse tribes, all distinctiveness would be absorbed in the consolidated mass of the nation as a whole, just as the land would be divided among the nation as a whole and not according to different tribes.
Hirsch, Genesis 48:3–6
It is my sincerest hope that this contribution to biblical and Land of Israel studies encourages further encounters between the Jewish people, in all their marvelous diversity, and their land.
Methodology/Structure
I initially envisioned this book as a casual read. As I delved into these twelve personalities and uncovered their bond with the land, however, I realized that I could not present the shevatim without their complexities. I strove for a tone that mixes chatty and philosophical, designing this book to be good company, with enough substance for further thought.
The primal patterns set in motion by the sons of Jacob reverberated throughout history with startling consistency. It is the emergent complexity of the layers of history, initially formulated in the blessings bestowed by Jacob on each son and realized over the course of the evolution from son to tribe, that is examined on these pages.
This work presents a new way of thinking about – and experiencing – the interplay of text and land. Many tour Israel with Bible in hand, but to tour with a deeper understanding of tribal character, and how that character was realized by the contours of its lands, is a rich experience for the serious Bible student. Rise, and walk the land – not just casually, to see the sites, but to sense, and even to participate in, the unfolding of tribal destiny within the twelve naĥalot.
This book is a series of character composites of the twelve sons of Jacob. Each analysis is followed by an exposition of each naĥalah and suggestions for conceptual connections between tribe and territory. Additionally, a day-tour itinerary of each naĥalah is provided, as are my personal reflections on getting the most out of those sites.
The chapters are not organized by birth order, but rather by birth mother. That is, all of Leah’s children are grouped together, despite the chronological interlude in their births of sons born to Rachel’s, and then Leah’s, handmaids. The children born to Rachel herself are in birth order, of course, as they were the youngest of all.
It is important to note that I devote a chapter to Levi, despite the fact that this tribe received no specific regional apportionment, but only inherited cities scattered throughout the land. In that chapter, I address the issue of why this tribe was not given a contiguous naĥalah. I also assigned a chapter to Joseph, though his portion was represented through the naĥalot of his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Is is impossible to fully treat the Benei Yisrael without giving Levi and Joseph their due.
So as to best understand the relationship of each tribe to its naĥalah, each chapter opens with a discourse on the character of the tribe. These are analyses woven together from classical Jewish sources: the Bible, midrashic works, the Talmud, medieval exegetes, and modern commentaries. My fondness for other ancient sources is manifest throughout these pages. I trust my instincts, though you shouldn’t necessarily. I am confident that others may well draw different conclusions from the same texts. I therefore provide citations within the footnotes, as well as some scholarly excursions for those interested.
A word here on sources: certainly we find an established hierarchy within Jewish literature, whereby one source dominates another in its importance and weightiness. A Talmudic statement, for instance, is of more consequence than a medieval midrash. That is not of particular concern to these discussions, as I readily present Midrash Tanĥuma alongside a teaching of Sefat Emet and trust the reader to discern and decide for him or herself their relative authority and purpose. This is not the forum to introduce the source material that I have used, nor is it the place to discourse on the relative significance of each source. I have included a list of primary sources for the first purpose; as to the second, I leave that heavy task to those more capable.
The Sages were the most nuanced readers of all, both transmitting traditions about how to read the text and revealing subtleties that the less-trained or accomplished might miss. I have traced the characters, insofar as I have been able, within the Bible, drawing primarily from the wealth of rabbinic literature and considering midrash an indispensable and integral element of my enterprise.
The treatment of the naĥalot in these pages is not meant to substitute for a thorough geographical discussion of the borders between the tribes, nor does it address at length the complexities of conflicting textual versions of just what those borders were. I have included one excursus relating to the latter issue as an exercise in demonstrating different approaches to the problems inherent in variant textual traditions. Note that some of these topics may be touched upon in other chapters as well, but the purpose of naĥalah discussion in this work is non-scientific.
The day-tour itineraries were designed as an accompaniment to the character portraits. Certainly there are many additional sites in every naĥalah that are well worth a visit. As the essayist Mark Twain opined, the sheer concentration of antiquities in the Holy Land proves positively exhausting to the traveler. Consider my touring suggestions as only the first of many possible ways to explore the intrinsic connections between each shevet and its naĥalah.
A Word on Usage
I was nourished on the milk-and-honey sweetness of the Hebrew Bible in my youth, but my more serious exposure to the gamut of source material began in the university. I returned to the kotelei beit ha-midrash, and ever since, I have been exploring multidisciplinary approaches to talmud Torah. I fully appreciate that this varied background makes for a somewhat uneven terminology.
You will find some idiosyncrasies in translation and transliteration in these pages. Biblical names and places appear in their English form. All spellings of historical place names, including tels or ruins, follow Atlas Carta. When I refer to the modern place, however, I follow the contemporary convention. The books of the Bible are known by their common English titles as well, as are some other source materials, but rabbinic texts are identified by their Hebrew titles. Biblical translations are based on the New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh, but I have taken liberties as I deemed fit. The Hebrew letter ח is transliterated as ĥ, and כ as kh. I have included a glossary of commonly used Hebrew terms, as well as a list of all primary sources referenced in the footnotes.
Chapter 1; Reuven
The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s marriage bed, his rights as firstborn were given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel; so he could not be listed in the genealogical record in accordance with his birthright, and though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him, the rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph) – the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
I Chronicles 5:1–3
Reuben, the Firstborn
Reuben has always unnerved me. Something haunted this eldest son. Even as a young girl, when reading his story for the first time, I felt sad for him. His adventures made me think of myself, also the firstborn, in stride with Reuben. We “openers of the womb” (Genesis 29:31) are generalized as the reliable and conscientious children, many of us incapable of coping well with perceived imperfections. Firstborns are alternatively aggressive or compliant; either way, we’re natural leaders. And firstborns have inflated superegos, anxious to do the right thing and please authority – especially that grand authority, the parents. We hold the promises of the world in our eldest hands, and for some – like Reuben – the pressure can be crushing.
In Birth Order and You, the family therapist Ronald Richardson and his coauthor Lois Richardson sum up the experience with this succinct description:
From ancient times, the oldest child has had a special significance in the family – and in the world. This special significance has meant everything from inheriting the kingdom to being offered as a sacrifice in religious rites, which is a good metaphor for the mixed blessings of the oldest.
From the moment that my husband and I named our firstborn, “Reuven” (the Hebrew version of the name), I have had niggling doubts about our choice, even though Jewish tradition firmly supports the naming of a child after a loved one (in this case, my grandfather Rubin). Is it a proud name? Would we have done better opting for Avraham, or David? I’m glad we chose to honor my family, but every now and then, I am given pause when I consider the struggles of the first Reuben, the biblical, conflicted one.
The Meaning of “Reuben”
Consider his name, given to him by his mother, Leah. She was the one who claimed this child and proclaimed him Reuben. Perhaps she was inspired by his very existence: “Re’u ven” (See? A son!). In his name lay her dreams that Jacob would be bound to her, now that they shared a child. Reuben, at his very birth, was a symbol of Leah’s arrival as an essential figure in Jacob’s household. Maybe now, she thought desperately and a little deliriously, I have earned his love – or at least his affections.
Clearly, he [Jacob] loved Rachel more than Leah.…God saw that Leah was unloved, so He opened her womb [Rachel, meanwhile, remained barren]. Leah conceived and bore a son, and named him “Reuben,” for she declared, “It means: ‘God has seen [ra’ah] my suffering, and now my husband will love me!’”
Genesis 29:30–32
Another possibility: maybe Leah was simply happy that the baby was healthy and without any extraordinary features to draw any additional attention upon them – after all, Leah was surely the focus of much community gossip, having frustrated the natural love of her husband for her sister Rachel by tricking him into marrying her first. “See, thank the Lord, a regular boy was born to me,” she sighed in relief and with expectations that now the vicious gossip might abate.
A deeper reading of the text: Leah sensed something ominous and at the same time redemptive about this child’s future. Reuben was unique for a firstborn: he was to lose his firstborn privileges, but he did so gracefully. Later in life, he would even attempt to save the life of the much-younger brother who essentially usurped the primary status among the sons. “See? A son: See how this son differs from that other firstborn in the family, Isaac’s son Esau, who sought to kill his brother Jacob to regain his firstborn privilege.” Reuben might suffer, intuited Leah, but he will emerge as a model for his brothers to emulate.
From birth, then, this boy was alternatively a symbol of a mother’s triumph and a desperate wish for legitimacy. Did he absorb the apprehensive glances of Leah? Did he sense the significance of his name?
Loyalty to Leah
The birth of Reuben undoubtedly helped Leah feel more securely a part of Jacob’s life. The child, in turn, understood well her inferior position in Jacob’s house – who knows how long he sensed this? Such things are not difficult for even a small child to understand.
A midrash teaches us that when Reuben was a young boy of ten years, he was out in the fields tending his father’s mule. Approaching a strange plant, he excitedly recognized it as the duda’im, the dangerous mandrake, which kills anything attempting to uproot it. The duda’im plant was a renowned fertility talisman. Reuben badly wanted to procure the valuable mandrake to bring joy to his mother – to the extent that he was willing to face his father’s anger at losing the beast. Reuben tethered the mule to the plant, and the animal died trying frantically to free itself. Reuben hurried home to his beloved mother Leah with his prize, eager to gift her with the one thing she wanted most in life: the love of Jacob, attainable to her only through the birth of more children.
How devastating it must have been for a young child to be so sensitive to his mother’s pain, even assuming that it went unspoken. Reuben grew into a frustrated young man, simmering at every occasion when his mother was shunned by Jacob in favor of her sister Rachel. This righteous indignation could not be contained when father Jacob, mourning the untimely loss of Rachel, sought solace in the arms of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah, instead of seeking out Leah. The Sages fill us in on Reuben’s inner turmoil:
Reuben harbored within himself the humiliation his mother had endured: for the whole of Rachel’s married life, her bed was always placed next to Jacob’s bed. Upon Rachel’s death, Jacob replaced her bed with Bilhah’s. Cries Reuben: Was it not enough that my mother was slighted during her sister’s lifetime? That she is still slighted – by a maidservant, nonetheless – is too much!
Genesis Rabbah 98:4
Incensed to the point of irrationality, Reuben did the unthinkable: he slept with his father’s wife, Bilhah.
Sin and Loss
What did Reuben hope to accomplish by sleeping with Bilhah? Nothing, maybe – perhaps his impetuosity was an uncalculated lashing out against his father, or a peal of pain on his mother’s behalf. That the text places this episode directly after the story of Rachel’s death intimates a link between the two events. The midrash above fills in the details: a suffering son, driven by his maternal fealty to revenge. Father undermined Mother? Well, I’ll undermine him!
What Jacob thought of this all played out over the rest of the Book of Genesis, sometimes tantalizingly, in the empty spaces within the stories, and sometimes with explicit directness. The text tells us that immediately after Reuben sinned with Bilhah, Jacob heard of the matter. We are not privy to more than that dry fact, but we do know that immediately afterwards, the verses list Jacob’s sons, placing Reuben first – and a telling addition to his name: “Reuben – Jacob’s firstborn – Simeon, Levi, Judah… ” (Genesis 35:23). Reuben seems to have retained the prime position within the family hierarchy. Are we to intuit from this that all was forgiven?
No more overt hints are offered until Jacob’s deathbed, when he held back nothing, and fired at Reuben:
Reuben, you are my firstborn!
My might and first fruit of my vigor.
Exceeding in rank and exceeding in honor…
Unstable as water [paĥaz ka-mayim], you shall excel no longer;
For when you mounted your father’s bed, you brought disgrace.
My couch he mounted!
Genesis 49:3–4
There is no getting around the fact, claimed Jacob, that you crossed the line. You went beyond meddling in my marital affairs – you slept with my woman! Beyond disgraceful, it will cost you your firstborn birthright. Reuben, you are indeed my firstborn son, “my might and the first fruit of my vigor.” You may have been tormented by the complexities of my feelings toward my wives, but you were always slated for the greatness of the firstborn. It was your impetuosity, Reuben, your inability to accept the complexities of my humanity as my right, that cost you your right. You shall exceed no longer.
There is something about firstborns, I believe, that makes them vulnerable to the vicissitudes of their mother’s feelings, even more so than their father’s. They are the first to bear the brunt of her love, of her disappointment, of her dreams. The firstborn opens the woman, and then she is a mother. Forever after, she will always be a mother, and the child has made her so. And this first child feels the full force of the mother’s stumbling attempts to learn how to mother. If the mother is successful, the child will fiercely love her back.
So it was with Reuben. The staunch, pure loyalty to Leah was so central to his character that it dominated his tribal symbols. The flag of Reuben was embossed with a mandrake plant; likewise, Reuben’s stone on the priestly breastplate was the odem – a ruby – chosen for its believed ability to improve chances of conception. Clearly, we must never forget the centrality of Leah to Reuben’s identity.
Reuben was a sensitive child, however, looking to please both of his parents. Where the text burdens us with interpreting Jacob’s silence after the Bilhah affair, Reuben had no difficulty understanding just how Jacob viewed his act. The Sages read Reuben’s remorse into every reference to him from here on. Reuben, they say, did not need to wait the long years until his father’s death to feel the wrongness of his deed and the seriousness of his infraction. We may also infer from Reuben’s then-constant penitence an anxiety that his birthright of primacy was in jeopardy.
Penitence and Redemption
Where was evidence of Reuben’s conscience-stricken spirit? Witness Reuben’s eagerness to save his brother Joseph’s life. Years after Reuben’s sin (we cannot say exactly when), Joseph, favorite son of Jacob, dreamed of the future. He fashioned himself as head of the brothers, envisioning his role as central and superior within the family hierarchy – even his parents would be subject to his leadership. Joseph shared his dreams with his family, perhaps in the naiveté of youth, perhaps to provoke, and the brothers banded against him. Whipped into jealous frenzy, the brothers conspired to kill Joseph as they saw him approaching from afar. Reuben, whose role Joseph threatened directly and whom we therefore would expect to see heading this cabal, instead jumped to intercede: “Let us not take his life!…Do not shed his blood, rather cast him into this pit in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves” (Genesis 37:21–22).
Reuben, the verse testifies, intended to return Joseph to Jacob after his brothers had dispersed. The brothers (perhaps begrudgingly, but nonetheless) deferred to Reuben, and Joseph was cast alive into the pit, whereupon the brothers sat to feast.
It should be noted that Reuben had matured some since his youthful defiance. In this episode, we see a more cautious Reuben, a more responsible one, who waited things out and tried to temper the rashness of his brothers. He had erred in tampering with the Jacob-Rachel relationship, so later he tried mightily to protect Joseph, the direct outgrowth of that relationship. He reasoned with his brothers and convinced them to change their course of action. Reuben, tentatively, the leader.
Unfortunately, Reuben’s plan was forgotten in the brutal excitement of a game-changer.
They sat down to a meal; looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.…Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.”…They pulled Joseph up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites.…Reuben returned to the pit and behold! – Joseph was not in the pit!
Genesis 37:25–29
Where was Reuben while his brothers were feasting? He had exited the scene, the Sages say, so as to sit alone in sackcloth, fasting, the sobbing prayerful posture of the penitent. Reuben occupied every spare moment engaged in teshuvah (penitence), attempting in word and deed to compensate for his sin with Bilhah. His leadership was present, but hesitant and then absent – and ultimately failed. For while Reuben was off atoning for a sin committed long ago, his brothers engaged in a more heinous one. They sold Joseph to a passing caravan of Ishmaelite traders, and there was no one there to convince them otherwise. When Reuben returned, it was too late: “He tore his clothes…and screamed, ‘The boy is gone! Now what am I going to do?’” (Genesis 7:29–30).
We deeply sympathize with Reuben. He seems to bewail the inevitable disappointment and guilt that Jacob was to level on him, the oldest, the natural leader. If, through his stumbling leadership, Reuben sought to dispel Joseph’s visions that he, Rachel’s firstborn, was the destined leader, and to persuade Jacob that indeed Leah’s firstborn should be rewarded the primacy, he clearly failed.
A bittersweet note: Since Reuben attempted to save Joseph, his naĥalah was later granted the distinction of housing the first ir miklat, city of refuge. The ir miklat served as a haven for those guilty of accidental manslaughter. Because Reuben tried to avert Joseph’s death, his portion was granted the first asylum for those who, though tainted with guilt, did not intend to murder.
Another Shot at Redemption
Another opportunity for Reuben to redeem himself arrived years later. The story: a famine tore the land. The famished brothers were sent down to Egypt by Jacob to find food. They found themselves accused of espionage by the vizier of Egypt (we, the readers, know that this is the disguised Joseph), who held Simeon hostage until the brothers returned with Benjamin. Awareness of the cause of their dire situation – their callous sale of Joseph – dawned on the brothers, and they began to repent their past misdeeds. Reuben, haunted for many years by this failure, burst out: “Did I not tell you, ‘Do no wrong to the boy,’ but you would not listen! Now comes the reckoning for his blood” (Genesis 42:22).
The brothers unwillingly left Simeon in Egypt and returned to Jacob. But Jacob would not relinquish Benjamin into his brothers’ care. They had already been involved in the shadiest of affairs, the apparent death of Joseph. Nor did Jacob trust this new Egyptian vizier. His vision of a nation composed of all twelve of his sons was crumbling, and he was in despair: “You have bereaved me! Joseph is no more; Simeon is no more. And now you would take away Benjamin?! These things always happen to me!” (Genesis 42:36). Here again Reuben tried to lead, to take responsibility. He deliriously bargained with his father: “You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Hold me responsible; I shall return him!” (Genesis 42:37).
Driven to extremes, Reuben exposed his distress in all of its complexity. The insanity of Reuben’s offer causes the reader – and the text – to stop short. We are relieved that the text compassionately omits Jacob’s response, sparing us (and Reuben) head-on exposure to Reuben’s pain. Yet Jacob’s reaction is implicit in his contemptuous refusal to respond – and his repeated refusal to part with Benjamin. In the midrash’s words: “A foolish firstborn! Doesn’t he realize that his sons are my grandsons, and their deaths will bring me pain like the deaths of my children are paining me?!” (Genesis Rabbah 91:9).
But that was the painful truth embedded in Reuben’s mad offer: he truly did not realize that his sons were Jacob’s grandsons. Reuben believed that Jacob did not care about his grandsons from Leah’s children, that only Rachel’s children counted. He thought that Jacob was willing to act to protect Benjamin, but not Simeon; that Jacob mourned Joseph, but would not mourn Reuben’s children. Deeply rooted anxiety was Reuben’s birthright – “God saw that Leah was hated, so He granted her a son” to begin building her relationship with Jacob – and it never dissipated.
No role was predetermined in this family. Think back to those faint echoes of Reuben’s future as his mother Leah bestowed upon him the heaviness of his name: see, a son who might grow to be unlike the other rejected firstborns in Abraham’s family! Isaac, the younger son of Abraham, was chosen over firstborn Ishmael. Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, was chosen over firstborn Esau. Even Rachel, younger sister to Leah, was the favored one. Reuben certainly knew that being the firstborn did not guarantee the scepter. Whatever heightened anxieties he may have had prior to his sin with Bilhah were exacerbated by his father’s distant silence after the fact, and as much as he sought to prove himself, he alone sabotaged every effort. He could not lead – but he could repent.
Reuben spent the rest of his life atoning for his sin with Bilhah. This was the dominant feature, the reoccurring motif that colored so much of his tribe’s character: the remorseful penitent. As the tribe that excelled in seeking atonement, Reuben was deliberately placed in the encampment formation around the Tabernacle alongside sinning Simeon, so as to encourage that tribe toward teshuvah. The very name of the tribal prince, “Elitzur” (“my God is a rock”), intimated the “penance of Reuben, who was forgiven by God, the Rock who will bear his sin as a foundation stone bears the weight of a house.”
Even his descendants excelled in the art of repentance. One of the first prophets, Hosea, certainly the first to plead eloquently with Israel to repent from their sinning ways, was from the tribe of Reuben. The Sages saw in this a poetic justice:
God said to Reuben: “You were the first to turn to Me in penitence. By your life, your descendant Hosea son of Be’eri will be the first to instruct Israel in the ways of teshuvah!” (…for so it says in the Book of Hosea: “Turn to God, O Israel… ”)
Genesis Rabbah 84:19
Moses’s Plea for Reuben
Full exoneration came not in Reuben’s lifetime, but in the days of Moses, when he prayed on Reuben’s behalf:
Let Reuben live, and not die,
Though few be his numbers.
Deuteronomy 33:6
The intent of Moses’s vague plea was fleshed out by the midrash, which explained the confusing repetitive language of “live…and not die” as the duality of this world and the World to Come. Moses was asking that Reuben be granted a successful future among the tribes of Israel, and that his repentance be accepted on high so that he might earn his place in the Next World, a status that had been in limbo until then. Moses’s prayer was accepted. Incidentally, we know Reuben received full pardon, because his tribe was charged with leveling the curse at Mount Ebal: “Cursed is he who sleeps with his father’s wife” (Deuteronomy 27:13, 20). If Reuben were still held accountable for that sin, then Moses would not have been so cruel as to ask of his tribe effectively to curse themselves! Thus we know the atonement was complete.
True, Reuben moved past his atonement, but his sin with Bilhah was ever-present for him: he lost the firstborn birthright. Did he go on to find his place in Am Yisrael, even with the specter of sin continuously attendant? I believe he tried mightily, and this maturity was exhibited as Am Yisrael was about to enter their homeland.
Reuben’s Duty toward His Brothers
Forty years of desert life gave the nation strong tribal affiliations. They encamped around the Tabernacle as tribes, each decided on a tribal prince to represent their interests before Moses and the nation, and they were counted in census by tribal membership. Ostensibly, they were all meant to cross the Jordan as one nation, at which time the division of the land into naĥalot would be determined by divine lottery. That was not what happened, however, and the tribe of Reuben – with overtones of its namesake’s paĥaz-ka-mayim spontaneity and impetuousness – did not want to wait.
Reuben and Gad owned much cattle; they saw the lands of Jazer and Gilead were excellently suited for cattle. So the tribes of Gad and Reuben approached Moses, Elazar the Priest, and the princes of the tribes, and said, “ . . . this land that God has conquered for the congregation of Israel is good for cattle raising – and we’ve got the cattle! If it pleases you, let your servants be given this land as a holding; do not move us across the Jordan.”
Numbers 32:1–5
Worryingly, here was the old Reuben surfacing again: impulsive when he felt justified in being so, even if it ran counter to protocol. The confederation of tribes was supposed to divvy up the land west of the Jordan – to settle prematurely on other lands (east of the Jordan, for example) amounted to secession. Were Reuben and Gad rejecting the national mission to conquer the Land of Canaan and claim it as the Land of Israel? More urgently: were they shirking their military responsibility to the nation? Moses was angry. He hurled accusations:
Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?! Why are you turning the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land which God has given them?…and now you, a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to God’s wrath against Israel!
Numbers 32:6–7, 14
In response, and to our relief, Reuben did not retreat into his natural inner world of sackcloth and atonement. This time, he did not waffle, lost in incompetency. Though eager to realize his own tribal success, Reuben had grown temperate and responsible. He at last suggested a plan that could be fully executed (unlike the botched rescue of Joseph) and would not be scoffed at (unlike the desperate overture to save Simeon). After all, he had intended all along to “sally forth, armed for battle, leading the Children of Israel until we have established them in their homes. We will not return to our homes until every one of the Israelites is in possession of his portion” (Numbers 32:17–18). Here you have it: glimpses of impetuousness at preempting the Grand National Plan, balanced by a conscientious promise to serve the nation. Outwardly, at least, Reuben had arrived.
Reuben went on to fight for Israel, leaving behind families and assets. Thus extolled Joshua:
You have not forsaken your kinsmen through the long years down to this day, and have fully kept the commandment of the Lord your God.
Joshua 22:3
When the tribe was given leave to return back to their naĥalah, Reuben was again accused by a deeply suspicious Israel of secession. Once more, he passionately defended himself, clarifying that “God, the Lord God! God, the Lord God! He knows, and Israel too shall know! If we acted in rebellion or in treachery against the Lord, do not vindicate us this day” (Joshua 22:22). Though the people accepted his explanation, the emergent pattern of a nation repeatedly wary of its “eldest tribe” betrays a strained and complicated relationship between Reuben and the rest of Am Yisrael.
Naĥalat Reuven
What then made the region of Reuben’s naĥalah an appropriate fit for the tribe of Reuben?
The explanation provided by the text for why Reuben was attracted to the Transjordan is straightforward: this region was appropriate for the tribe’s needs: wide-open flatlands, good for grazing large herds. They had been told that across the river lay difficult terrain of sharp mountains and steep valleys, a terrain that was worrisome to cattle farmers. This safer, known area, east of the Dead Sea, called to them. Could there have been other reasons, though, for Reuben’s preference?
To determine this, we must expand on the geography and history of the Transjordanian plateau, home to the two and a half tribes of the Kingdom of Israel who chose their territory east of the Jordan.
There is a fairly narrow north–south strip of land starting just south of the basalt Golan Heights that runs all the way down to the Gulf of Aqaba and empties into the Red Sea. This strip constitutes a small portion of the eastern rim of the Syro-African Rift, a fault line stretching more than 6,000 kilometers (approx. 3,700 miles). It is bordered on the west by the deep rift itself, plunging at its lowest point into the Dead Sea, and, on the east, by vast tracts of desert. The strip is essentially a highland plateau, severed into defined geographical units by a series of east–west canyons formed by ancient rivers rushing west toward the Jordan River. Of the four main rivers, the Yarmuk is northernmost, severing the Golan Heights in the north from the Transjordan Plateau. Next is the Jabbok (Nahr ez-Zerqa), emptying into the Jordan River about halfway down the Rift Valley, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Then there is the mighty Arnon (Wadi el-Mujib), which spills into the Dead Sea. More south still is the Zered riverbed (Wadi el-Ĥesa), at the southernmost tip of the Dead Sea. The highland plateau can be divided into tracts formed by these great wadis.
Running north through the highland plateau is a leg of the most famous route in antiquity: the King’s Highway. This road, extant for thousands of years and serving all ancient peoples, broadly makes up one critical tract of the tortuous route linking Africa and Asia, or Egypt and Mesopotamia.
This highland plateau, broken up by these rivers, is the region of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. Broadly put, Manasseh dwelt in the mountainous Gilead region between the Yarmuk and the Jabbok (as well as north, beyond the Yarmuk, in the large area known as the Bashan; see chapter 13 on Manasseh for further detail). Gad claimed the midsection, spanning south of the Jabbok and culminating at the Plains of Moab, a yawning stretch of land facing the oasis city of Jericho. The Plains of Moab also formed the northern border of Reuben, whose naĥalah extended south until the Arnon. The bulk of terrain within the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad was the broad, flat expanse of level tableland on the highland plateau, known in the Bible as the Mishor.
The Mishor, the Plains of Moab, and the mountains of Gilead to the north were all conquered in a war fought by Israel prior to entering the Land of Israel. The lands originally belonged to the Amorites, and stretched from the River Jabbok down south to the River Arnon. Numbers 21 contains the account of the confrontation, beginning with polite overtures by the Israelites toward Sihon, the Amorite king, to allow them to continue north on portions of the King’s Highway that ran through Amorite territory (this territory had at one time belonged to Moab; Sihon had taken it in battle). Sihon refused, opting to drive the Israelites away, but he was roundly defeated and his lands fell in their entirety to the Israelites. Bolstered by their resounding victory, the Israelites headed north and defeated Og, king of Bashan, probably also an Amorite king, and conquered the Gilead and lands to the north. Thus, the entire strip of highlands, from the Hermon, north of the Golan Heights, down to the River Arnon, came to be in the possession of the Israelites.
Reuben and Gad eyed the expanse to the east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, north of the Arnon and running up to the southern hills of the Gilead, and were pleased because of the ample grazing terrain. The climate, heavily influenced by the desert to the east and by the steep slopes descending to the Jordan River and Dead Sea to the west, produced conditions favorable to ranching and agriculture. What else was appealing to them?
First, the region had sufficient freshwater sources. The Transjordan highland plateau is made of limestone layered on Nubian sandstone. Sandstone is not porous; thus, even if the bulk of the limestone was worn away by the many perennial rivers flowing westward from the watershed, the sandstone remained and allowed for significant surface water.
Additionally, the swath of King’s Highway running through the land might have been a considerable attraction to tribes that were to have little access to the major urban centers of their brethren to the west. Reuben and Gad were essentially on their own and benefitted from the caravanserai that wended their way up from Arabia toward Damascus and paid for the use of the King’s Highway. Not to be underestimated was the strategic advantage of controlling the road for purposes of national income and defense.
It is possible that Reuben and Gad’s decision to angle for this region was ideologically motivated. Even then, Israel needed a buffer from the enemies of the east: Ammon, Moab, and Midian. Much as today’s Israeli residents of the Jordan Valley see themselves as serving their nation by forming that defensive zone, Reuben and Gad did the same for their brothers. This would be another nod to the suggestion that Reuben assumed his natural responsibility as oldest brother to protect the family: not just to settle them in their respective naĥalot, but to always stand guard against the great eastern threat. Considering the location of Gad’s cities, and by extension, Gad’s assumed role as the nation’s warriors, much of the task of defense was the purview of that tribe, but we must not overlook Reuben’s association with Gad and their potential role in helping Gad fend off Israel’s enemies.
Another motive, though beyond the cattle issue the text is silent, so we can only surmise: perhaps the natures of these tribes, Reuben in particular, were drawn to the relative seclusion and privacy afforded by the Transjordan. The consistent primacy of Joseph and Judah in the tribal hierarchy must surely have stung those who definitively lost a confirmed leadership role in the tribal confederacy, even assuming that they made their peace with it. Maintaining a respectful distance from the constant reminder of what they lost may have been desirable.
Furthermore: there are striking parallels between Reuben and the indigenous Moabite population of this region that tantalize us with prospects of emergent patterns. The naĥalah chosen by Reuben was regularly encroached upon by Moab, a nation unwilling to remain south of the Arnon, home to the substantial bulk of their kingdom. Moab regularly attempted to reclaim the northern stretch of their ancestral homeland, first taken from them by the Amorites and then conquered by the Israelites. The large swath stretching from the Arnon River in the south to the Plains of Moab in the north (just opposite Jericho) beckoned Moab. They often invaded northward, hoping to gain more territory. Sometimes it was difficult to determine who dominated the region.
The biblical history of this region was reminiscent in these peoples, both descended from firstborns, the tribe of Reuben and the nation Moab. The region provided refuge for Abraham’s nephew Lot, who had had his own problems figuring out his role in the family. He had run off to Sodom, an area just abutting (or even encompassed by) the territory later belonging to Reuben.Upon the terrible ending that befell that cursed place – now a desolate land entombed in deadened salt – Lot incestuously fathered Moab and then Ammon, who settled permanently in their ancestral homeland.
At the salt flats of the lower Dead Sea, in the shadow of that mountain composed entirely of salt, Mount Sodom, the flashes of a hurt Lot and a bewildered Reuben danced together. One fled here and sired two sons whose families remained estranged from their fathers’ roots, and the other willingly and confidently staked claim to the lands bordering the hostile kingdoms of those sons, while essentially cutting himself off from his brethren on the more acceptable side of the river. Both harbored hidden pain, preferring distance to engagement. This stark, silent, salty place giving way to the quiet and mysterious pasturelands of the Mishor beckoned those who yearned for escape. Indeed, there were those among the Israelite kings who fled to the Transjordan to escape political crisis, as did fugitives from the west in later periods. It was no coincidence that the first city of refuge (ir miklat) was granted to Reuben, the oldest brother who sought refuge from a family dynamic that forever unsettled him.
The tribe did make good on its vow to lead Israel in conquest. Then, after satisfactorily establishing their brothers across the river, Reuben crossed the river again, going back to settle down. Where, definitively, is unclear, but we have some rough parameters of his naĥalah, enmeshed as it is within the naĥalah of Gad.
The End of Reuben
Here and there were whispers about Reuben once they finished fighting their brothers’ battles. They returned east to rebuild the destroyed Amorite cities and initially settled them, forming a loose and sprawling network that does not seem to have been organized into a centralized government. Perhaps Reuben never bothered; though the tribe chose marginalization over mainstream, they demonstrated no disloyalty to the seat of Israel’s administration in the west by organizing into anything but small municipalities. There was no ambition to do much beyond the stated commitments: fight Israel’s battles and graze the cattle. There is passing reference to the tribe in I Chronicles 5:9 as having eventually resigned themselves to an almost fully nomadic existence, eschewing urban development: “He also dwelled toward the east, as far as the edge of the wilderness, this side of the Euphrates, because their cattle had increased in the land of Gilead. During Saul’s reign…they occupied their tents throughout the entire region east of Gilead.”
It was a rather subdued Reuben, haphazardly retreated to a sprawling jumble of tents, who was most easily dismantled by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser in 732 Bce, as he waged his first campaign against the Kingdom of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser managed a painless victory against Reuben, who finally lay claim to being first: “Reuben, you will be the first to receive your land inheritance…and also the first to lose it” (Yalkut Shimoni 157).
Reuben led the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel across the legendary Sabbatyon River, disappearing into exile and lost to the remnant of Israel. One may conjecture as to where Reuben was taken: perhaps he was relocated in the lands near Khabur River in northeast Syria, or maybe he settled in Gaul and left his mark on the origins of French culture. We can theorize indefinitely, but all that lingers about Reuben are the desolate tels of his naĥalah and the melancholy tales of his life.
Reuben: the firstborn, madly loyal to his mother, tempestuous to a fault. A paradigm of the penitent son, he spent his life atoning for his unforgiveable sin, and made his peace with the unexceptional role left to him. Can we not single out this son as one whose birthright destined him for greatness, but whose actions buried that chance? And should we not, at long last, greatly admire the firstborn who consented to accept his altered role in the family and the nation?
Therein lies the strength of his character, and the essence of Reuben.
Visiting Naĥalot Reuven ve-Gad
Itinerary: Tel Deir ‘Alla (Succoth?); Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi and Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh (Mahanaim/Penuel?); Survey of the Plains of Moab; ascent at Dead Sea via Wadi Zarka Ma’in; overlook at Wadi el-Mujib (Arnon); Tel Dhiban (Dibon); Medeba; Hisban (Heshbon); Mount Nebo
Visiting the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad is unlike taking easy day trips to explore the naĥalot on the western side of the Jordan River. The logistics are difficult to arrange and much depends on the political situation at the time of your trip. Given that these two naĥalot were intertwined terrain, or at least naturally border each other, it makes sense to organize a visit to both naĥalot in one excursion. Since most contemporary readers will find it prohibitively difficult to make this visit, I’ve described these sites more thoroughly, as compensation.
Organizing an itinerary is a straightforward task; bringing it off, however, is not simple, at least not for one carrying an Israeli passport. First, the most logical border crossing for those seeking to visit these naĥalot is the Allenby Bridge, renamed the King Hussein Bridge since it was used by King Faisal Hussein to connect Amman with Jericho between 1948 and 1967, the years of Jordanian control over the West Bank. This border crossing is located just opposite Jericho and is an easy half-hour ride from Jerusalem. Were we to cross here, we would have easy access to the heartland of Gad and Reuben. But Jordan does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank; thus, the Hussein Bridge is off limits to those traveling as Israelis.
All of this means that we would likely pass into Jordan at the alternative border crossing in Beth She’an, just south of the Sea of Galilee. This longer route has its benefits in allowing the Israeli tourist to reflect on his or her unfamiliarity with the lands east of the Jordan. The early morning drive up the Jordan Rift Valley, known in Hebrew as Bika’at ha-Yarden, is arduous, thanks to hairpin turns and few street lights. It also affords a magnificent meditation of the shadowy hills of the Gilead, bathed in pink luster as the sun rises behind their crests. This is as close as most Israelis – and most Jews – get to the east side of the Jordan River. We know that beyond lie the sites of many of the great stories of the Bible, and that at one point, long ago, our ancestors claimed the entire region as their own, but our imaginations must carry us beyond that point.
To navigate the fickle border administration on the Jordanian side of the crossing successfully, you must leave behind any trappings of your Jewish identity: tallit, tefillin, Tanakh. Tensions in the Middle East simmer just below the surface, and the Jordanian government does not want you to inflame the locals with religious displays. You must also arrange for a driver who is willing to wander far off the beaten path, as many of the sites are located in far-flung villages with few signs and landmarks. Best to resolve all the details, including entry permits and additional border charges, with a seasoned tour operator well before your trip.
My goal in visiting Jordan was twofold: I greatly wanted to see the land as described by the Torah that remains elusive to many of us on the west side of the Jordan River, and I wanted to better understand the psyche of the tribes that chose this particular territory. What was it that they saw, exactly, that excited them? Would the land speak to me as well? Could we conclusively identify any cities or regions that are reference points for these tribes and, more broadly, for the whole of the Israelite nation?
Descending as an Israeli down the Jordan Rift Valley on the Jordanian side, opposite the Samarian Hills, is to glance at your beloved through an impenetrable window. The two banks of the now-chastened river, trickling mainly with sewage, seem to be coldly distant brothers, sharing the same blood but refusing to acknowledge each other. Absorbed into the modern Jewish soul is the reverential familiarity of sovereign Israel, the land of our forefathers and of our national destiny, where so many of the events that forged us as a nation played out. Over there is the land of the Bible – but, I remind myself, so is this land, the eastern bank of the Jordan.
Approach the Jabbok River, and one begins to feel this in earnest. The Jabbok is listed as the northern boundary of Shevet Gad, and the major sites to see along its banks belong to that tribe as well. We first visit a site obvious even to the unseasoned layman as a tel, or an artificial mound formed by thousands of years of civilization. Tel Deir ’Alla, a beautifully formed dome of earth, protrudes earnestly from the flatness of the Jordan Valley, and is such an anomaly that curiosity demands we explore further.
A five-minute scamper up the tel affords you a sufficient vista of the surrounding territory: the Jabbok wadi, now dry, stretching northeast, the swath of the Jordan Valley to the west, and the wide-open Plains of Moab to the south.
Many identify this tel as the northern Succoth, established by Jacob to the north of the Jabbok River as it emptied into the Jordan after he parted from his brother Esau. In this place, he built himself a home and made booths for his cattle, naming the location after the momentous event of establishing his presence in the region immediately after the anxiety-ridden confrontation with his hostile brother. Much later, the judge Gideon crossed the Jordan in pursuit of the kings of Midian and sought aid from people of Succoth; they refused him and were subsequently punished. The place was also referenced as the general area where Hiram of Tyre cast bronze vessels in earthen molds for Solomon’s Temple. Indeed, excavations on the tel uncovered ample evidence of a metalworking industry. To our point, Succoth was gifted by Moses to the tribe of Gad as part of their inheritance.
The most stirring part of surveying the tel, which is a confusing jumble of sherd-littered earth and tumbled walls, is approaching the spot where excavators from the University of Leiden uncovered one of the most exciting finds to emerge thus far in biblical archaeology: the Balaam ben Be’or Inscription. This difficult-to-decipher inscription was painted on a plastered wall and recovered in 119 pieces. Dating to the mid-ninth century Bce, the undetermined dialect of the text (though closely related to Aramaic) retold a prophecy of Balaam ben Be’or, seer of the gods. While the prophecy itself was unrelated to those attributed to Balaam in the Bible, and the dating of the inscription is not in consonance with the suggested dating of the biblical story involving the famous prophet, the thrill of encountering extra-biblical evidence of ancient awareness of such a considerable biblical figure is profound. That this evidence was discovered in the general area of Balaam’s activities is no less exciting.
Journeying south and then east, we drive along the moderate trickle of the polluted Jabbok, a dry riverbed where it used to empty into the Jordan, dammed up near Deir-’Alla by the small Al-Rwyha dam, and then further inland by the much-larger King Talal dam. Eastward, past the small dam, the river skips moderately in its narrow course, as the low hills of Gilead begin to rise from the Jordan Valley. We soon reach the twin tels of gold, Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi and Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh (Western and Eastern Tel edh-Dhahab, respectively). The two mounds, nearly identical in proportion, lie on opposite banks of the meandering Jabbok. Tel edh-Dhahab el-Gharbi retains some meager evidence of foundation walls on its lower slopes. A probable identification of these tels is biblical Mahanaim, a city apportioned to Gad and designated as an ir miklat, a site of refuge for those guilty of accidental manslaughter, and inhabited by the Levites from the clan of Merari.
Mahanaim, like Succoth, was named thus by Jacob, who parted ways with Laban in the hills of Gilead and was journeying westward, “on his way.” He named the place “encampments,” after encountering God’s angels, saying, “This is the camp of God.” It was ostensibly from Mahanaim that Jacob sent messengers to engage his brother Esau. Many years later, in the wake of King Saul’s death, the general Avner accompanied the prince Ish-bosheth to Mahanaim and anointed him there as king “over all of Israel,” in flagrant contest with David. Later still, King David fled there from the threat of his mutinying son Absalom.
Josephus notes that the Greek toponym for Mahanaim, Manalis, is translated as “camps,” which parallels the plurality of the original Hebrew name. The twin tels seem to reflect the dual nature of the name “encampments” topographically, even though certain scholars identify the eastern mound (Tel edh-Dhahab esh-Sherqiyeh) separately as Penuel, the site of Jacob’s nighttime wrestle with the angel. While many other cities were apportioned to Gad, this particular site stirs up associations with the very symbol of the tribe, the tent, emblazoned on its standard.
We travel back westward along the same poor road abutting the Jabbok to reach the Jordan Valley yet again, and continue southward toward the Dead Sea. North and south of Wadi Hisban (Heshbon River), which runs east–west and in antiquity would have emptied into the Jordan just north of the Dead Sea, we pass a number of nondescript tels: Tel el-Ĥammam (Abel-shittim, where the Israelites “began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab,” and from where Joshua sent spies to reconnoiter Jericho; it was also from Abel-shittim that the Israelites set out to cross the Jordan), Tel el-’Azeimeh (Beth-jeshimoth, the southernmost extremity of the Israelite encampment in the Plains of Moab, and later assigned to Reuben), Tel Nimrin (Nimrah, or Beth-nimrah, assigned to Gad) and Tel Iktanu or Tel ar-Rama (both have been identified as Beth-haran, also assigned to Gad). These unexceptional tels (with the exception of Tel Iktanu, which is quite impressive) dot the landscape identified as the “Plains of Moab,” rich with many scenes from within the biblical narrative. This indeterminate area, referenced so often in the Bible, also formed, perhaps just for a circumscribed time, the northern boundary of Reuben and ended the southern boundary of Gad. (We do expect to see more Gadite cities further to the south, though, as we approach the Arnon River. See the discussion below on boundary determination in chapter 2.)
Soon the Dead Sea, a contained basin of liquid sunshine that looks oily and languid, is sparkling on our right. Jordan is still developing a Dead Sea resort area of sorts, with luxury hotels and lush grounds basking in the relentless and unique heat of the lowest point on earth. We mosey along the coast for a bit and then turn eastward, climbing up an uncertain road that cuts along the ridge of Wadi Zarqa Ma’in. This breathtaking wadi is one of many that plunge down from the Mishor, our destination, toward the Jordan Rift Valley.
The ascent through sandstone studded with basalt protrusions is unfamiliar to Israelis used to the lissan marl, dolomite, and limestone rocks of the Judean Desert, west of the Dead Sea. At times, the ground looks littered with millions of dark debris sherds, and hot springs bubble up from the region clearly marked by volcanic activity. This all belonged to Reuben, but it is hard to imagine an ancient people making much use of this stark landscape. It was majestic and primal, defining the western boundary of the Mishor as a forbidding, dark escarpment. If this had been the only way to access Canaan, then Reuben and Gad would have been entirely cut off from any contact with the other tribes. We know, though, that traffic passed between the two sides of the Jordan through the more moderate and traversable northern plains of the Jordan Valley.
Up, up we climb, until the low hills of the southern Mishor open generously before us. This is not yet the classic flat plateau that Reuben and Gad so desired and that we are expecting; rather, the southern Mishor was built of gentle hills of grain on a land cut through with frighteningly deep canyons of wadis. We saw the impressive Wadi Zarqa Ma’in on our ascent up from the Dead Sea to the Mishor; now we head south to inspect the majestic gorge of Wadi el-Mujib, the Arnon riverbed, which marks the natural border between Reuben and the Kingdom of Moab.
Gazing out from the well-tended lookout station, we observe the steep slopes which form the wadi and are indented with frequent caves. From here, it is possible to glimpse the ruins of biblical Aroer, which sat on the northern ridge of the Arnon and marked the southernmost city allotted to Gad.
Such dramatic vistas remind us that the landscape of Naĥalot Reuven ve-Gad was not uniform, and that Reuben’s southern flank was quite dramatic compared to the placid northern Mishor.
As with the arresting cliffs on the east of Reuben’s naĥalah, the Arnon gorge brings pause. Reflection on the broad span of this tribe’s portion, mainly calm but decidedly dramatic at times, evokes associations with the character of Reuben. How delightful that the calm and fertile Mishor, which made up the bulk of this tribe’s naĥalah, can be considered to reflect Reuben’s pragmatic side (“The land that the Lord has conquered for the congregation of Israel is cattle country – and your servants have cattle! It would be a favor to us if this land were given to your servants”). That the southern terrain of this naĥalah was marked by wilder, less friendly elements awakens remembrances of a certain elusiveness and turmoil that mark the character of Reuben as well.
Just three kilometers (almost two miles) northwest from Aroer is the important Tel Dhiban, confidently identified as the biblical Dibon. Dibon was another city belonging to Gad, yet in the territory of Reuben, demonstrating along with Aroer how closely the two tribes were intermingled. The large tel abuts and even extends into the village of Dhiban, a typical Jordanian rural jumble of poor homes and even poorer urban planning. No signs point to the abandoned tel; it does not sit on a main road and is not regularly visited. For all its contemporary anonymity, Tel Dibon retains the fame of its prized Iron Age remains: massive fortifications, including stretches of a ten-meter-high wall (approx. thirty-three feet high) from the ninth century Bce, and the discovery of the Mesha Stele, the victory inscription commissioned by King Mesha of Moab, who ruled from Dibon, to mark his military successes against the House of Omri, the Israelite king.
This city, unrestored and unremarkable in its present state, was a critical holding of the Moabite kingdom once it was captured from Gad. Mesha had much to boast about his military campaign in this region. He bragged of conquering neighboring Ataroth from the men of Gad, and of reconstituting nearby Aroer, which at one time had belonged to the Israelites. In this southern swath of Naĥalat Reuven, we see the constant tensions at play between the Moabites and the Israelites, as well as the emergent dominance of Gad as the central Israelite presence in the Mishor.
From Dibon north into the heartland of Reuben, the appeal of the landscape is clear. Grazing lands and wheat fields abound. And of course the ancient King’s Highway ran straight through this plain – Dibon and Medeba were both stations on that critical route. The next three cities that we visit – Medeba, Heshbon, and Nebo, all cities of Reuben – have abundant, flat fields, typifying the Mishor.
Medeba is most famous for its Byzantine-era mosaic floor map of the Holy Land, focusing on a detailed Jerusalem. Its history is much more ancient, though, mentioned alongside Heshbon and Dibon in Sihon the Amorite’s taunt song mocking Moab’s resounding defeat. After the Israelite victory over Sihon, the city, or at least its environs, was explicitly handed over to Reuben.
Israel’s hegemony over the Mishor’s central city seems to have been relatively short-lived. By the time of David, the area was no longer firmly in Israelite hands. In his days, the fields around Medeba saw battle between the Ammonites (with the help of their hired Aramean armies) and the Israelites. Years later (in the days of Omri, in the ninth century Bce), Medeba was again conquered by the Israelites. Shortly afterward, the city fell back to its original owner, Moab, as claimed by King Mesha from nearby Dibon and corroborated by the prophet Isaiah in his ominous vision concerning Moab. One of present-day Medeba’s choice lodgings is even named the Moab Land Hotel, saluting the bygone nation that once ruled here. Other than the famous mosaic map, there is not much to see in Medeba, the ancient city hidden underneath the modern one.
Just nine kilometers (approx. five and a half miles) north of Medeba sits Tel Hisban, identified as the biblical city of Heshbon. Little archaeological evidence supports a vibrant Amorite city in the Late Bronze period, yet the toponymic and textual clues indicate a strong likelihood that the famed city – once Moabite, then Amorite, then Israelite, then finally Moabite again – was located here. Wadi Hisban (Naĥal Ĥeshbon), with some active springs, passed to the east of the city. Nothing more of Reuben was to be found to the north, as Wadi Hisban marked the northern border of the naĥalah.
Our last stop is Mount Nebo, on the hills west of Heshbon. Every Israeli schoolchild knows of Nebo, even if it remains an elusive destination for most Jews. This is, after all, the site of Moses’s death. The ancient town of Nebo (identified with Khirbet el-Mukhayyat), held by Reuben and conquered by Mesha in the ninth century BCE, was immortalized in the Mesha Stele:
And Kemosh said to me, “Go! Seize Nebo against Israel.” So I proceeded by night and fought with it from the crack of dawn to midday, and I took it and I slew all of them: seven thousand men and boys, and women and maidens because I had dedicated it to Ashtar Kemosh. I took [the ves-]sels of Y-H-W-H, and I dragged them before Kemosh.
Mesha Stele, lines 14–18
This stronghold of Moab was later cursed by both Isaiah and Jeremiah, and was destined to lie forever in ruins as a testament to the divine punishment of that cursed nation. Nothing much of Nebo remains today, a triumph of the prophet Isaiah:
Over Nebo and Medeba, Moab is wailing;
On every head is baldness, every beard is shorn.
Isaiah 15:2
Even though Mount Nebo is tangential to the day’s objective, a visit to the church at its peak is a must, if only for the perspective afforded by the lookout. It remains impossible to prove that Moses gazed out from specifically this hilltop as opposed to any other of the various options surrounding us. Never mind: the poignancy for the modern Jew is acute. He or she views exactly what Moses saw during his last aching moments in this world: the vista of the Plains of Moab, the Jordan Valley, and the Judean Desert splayed before him. The text expanded Moses’s range of vision far beyond the possible; our earthly eyes can take in only the natural elements of what can be seen from this lookout:
Moses went up from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan; all Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; the whole land of Judah as far as the Western Sea; the Negev; and the Plain – the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees – as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will assign it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.”
Deuteronomy 34:1–4
A few short hours later, and we can pass through border control into the sovereign State of Israel. Moses, however, was destined to remain forever on the other side of the river – still embraced by his brethren, the two tribes who both laid claim to his burial place, but outside the established, cherished borders of the Land of Israel.
One can make a successful daytrip to Jordan to better understand the naĥalot of Reuben and Gad. Visitors immediately recognize the Mishor landscape; they have been anticipating this prairie from their readings of the Bible and delight in how the terrain remains true to the textual description. Now they grasp the topographical significance of the wadis that have been referenced repeatedly in the Bible: the Jabbok, Heshbon, and Arnon shape the terrain of ancient cities that now assume some form in their minds. Crumbling tels such as Dibon and Deir ‘Alla (Succoth) hold the scant remains of important cities, poignant to the visitors who wish, for just a moment, to cling to the hoary memories of tribes that have been lost to the Jewish people for many centuries. It is a stronger sense of poignancy than one might feel visiting the naĥalot of the other lost tribes to the west of the Jordan, for modern Israel has been rejuvenated within their lands. Reuben and Gad, by contrast, remain relics of a fallen Israel. For a moment, visitors to Dibon, Succoth, Heshbon, and Medeba can dust off, examine, and treasure the memories of these tribes.
Chapter 2; Excursus; Textual Evidence for Boundary Determination of Nahalat Reuven
The difficulties determining the exact boundaries of areas apportioned to the two and a half tribes in the Transjordan stem primarily from textual discrepancies. Take, for instance, the description of Reuben’s naĥalah in Numbers 32:33, 37–38:
So Moses assigned to them – to Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph – the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, the land with its various cities and the territories of their surrounding towns.…Reuben rebuilt Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim, Nebo, and Baal-meon – some names being changed – and Sibmah; they gave names to the towns that they rebuilt.
The two key Amorite cities, Heshbon and Jazer, were allocated respectively to Reuben and Gad. The third principle city in this region to dominate the King’s Highway was Rabbath-bene-ammon; intractable, it remained the capital of the Kingdom of Ammon.
The layout of the cities as they were divided in Numbers presented Reuben as almost cushioned within Gad’s territory, which was arranged in a sort of bow around the cities given to Reuben. Gad formed a northern, southern, and western perimeter around Reuben, whose cities sat toward the interior of the Mishor. Perhaps this division of cities was by design, drawing upon the innate character of Gad as the natural warriors who successfully defended the Israelites dwelling in the region against nations invading from the north (Ammonites), south (Moabites), and west (Canaanites). Further, textual evidence indicates that the Gadite cities were fortified against the enemy, a detail that remains unclear with regard to Reuben’s cities. Concerning potential uprisings from the indigenous Midianite population of the Mishor itself, three early episodes against that people quashed any threat of imminent attack.
To these cities of Reuben were added another four, delineated in I Chronicles 6:63–64, that were designated as cities of Levi located in Naĥalat Reuven. These four cities, like all of those granted to Levi, were cities of refuge. They lay further inland on the Mishor, forming an eastern boundary of Reuben’s territory.
A competing version of the portion divisions is found in Joshua 13:15–23. In that narrative, Gad sat squarely to the north of Reuben, and Reuben’s naĥalah included such southern cities as Dibon and Aroer, which were assigned to Gad in the Numbers 32 version. Also, the southern cities Ataroth and Atroth-shophan, both inhabited by Gad in Numbers 32, were mentioned nowhere in the Joshua 13 list, though implicitly they shared the same fate as Dibon and Aroer, since they were present in the general description of Reuben’s naĥalah:
Their [Reuben’s] border was from Aroer that is on the edge of the River Arnon and the city that is in the middle of the river, and all the span of the Mishor until Medeba; Heshbon and all of its cities that are in the plain – Dibon and Bamoth-baal and Beth-baal-meon.…
Joshua 13:16–17
Thus, in the Book of Joshua, Reuben was allotted a much larger portion, spanning the entire Mishor: from the Arnon riverbed in the south up to Nebo and Heshbon in the north (both of which sat due east of the Plains of Moab), bordered on the west by the Dead Sea and on the east by the vast desert. The land division in Numbers had Gad on the volatile eastern and southern borders, while the Joshua version left Gad to contend only with Ammon on its eastern flank. The Joshua version saddled Reuben with sole defense of their southern border against the Moabites agitating just south of the Arnon.
To compound the difficulties presented by the competing narratives, an extra-biblical source of tremendous importance to the region offers yet another variation. The Mesha Stele, discovered in 1868 in Dibon, a city allotted to Gad in Numbers 32 and to Reuben in Joshua 13, is definitively dated to the ninth century Bce. The stele was a victory monument commissioned by Mesha, the king of Moab, to consecrate his victory over an Israelite king from the House of Omri. Aside from its relative importance in providing an extra-biblical corollary to II Kings 3, the Mesha Stele offers another glimpse into territorial division in the Transjordan. It boasts, for instance, of having captured the city of Ataroth away from Israel:
The men of Gad had dwelt in Ataroth from of old; and the king of Israel built Ataroth for him. But I fought against the city and took it.
Mesha Stele, lines 10–11
Ataroth, slightly north of the Arnon, was allotted to Gad in Numbers 32, and seems to have been absorbed into Naĥalat Reuven in Joshua 13. By 840 Bce, though, the Moabites described the city as having a long history of belonging to Gad: Mesha was firmly entrenched in Dibon, indicating that the city had been Moabite for some time.
In sum, the listing that ostensibly reflects the scenario during the Israelite conquest of the late Bronze period (thirteenth century BCE) has Gad’s territory skirting Reuben’s; some years later, the account of their naĥalot limits Gad to the northern belt of Reuben. Finally, the Moabite Stele, attesting to the reality of the ninth century BCE, returns to Gad the southern cities that were granted to them in Numbers 32 but were seemingly allocated to Reuben in Joshua 13. Can these accounts be reconciled?
One approach is to treat these narrratives as reflective of various shifts in history. These two tribes were intimately linked in their naĥalot, and assignment of territory or dominance of cities may have fluctuated over time. Alternatively, and more likely, the account in Joshua that mentions Dibon and Aroer within the naĥalah of Reuben, and intimates that Ataroth and Atrothshophan were also in Reuben’s naĥalah, is imprecise regarding the administration of these cities. While Reuben’s naĥalah might have broadly been described as the stretch from the Heshbon River (Wadi Hisban) to the Arnon, and while Gad’s portion was depicted as the stretch from the Jabbok to the Heshbon River, as per Joshua 13, these descriptions make no reference to those four southern cities as being Gadite. Perhaps this is because they were located in Reuben’s naĥalah. Gad, as the larger and more preeminent of the two tribes, needed more cities. From the outset, the Gadites built in Reuben’s southern belt and served not as a threat to the Reubenites, but as a buffer against the Moabites. The reference in the Mesha Stele to Gad’s long history in Ataroth is a solid indicator that the competing biblical texts should be reconciled as presenting complementary perceptions: Numbers is particular and city-oriented; Joshua is more general and region-oriented.
Chapter 3; Shimon
De todos ha de haber en el mundo. (There must be all types in the world.)
Cervantes, Don Quixote, vol. 2, chap. 6
Separating Simeon from his brother Levi does not come easy. “Simeon and Levi are brothers” declared Jacob, tying them together as a single unit. Indeed, they were so often intertwined in deed and personality, in intent and action, that they were all but interchangeable in the Book of Genesis. Together they vanquished Shechem; together they bore their father’s wrath.
It was not until a much later era, when one tribe dominated the national landscape while the other floundered to find his unique role, that their personalities diverged. It is thus impossible to examine Simeon without his constant partner-in-arms, Levi. Yet even as Levi extricated himself from the sticky brotherly bond to emerge triumphant, Simeon was crushed by his father’s curse and, as a tribe, consigned to near oblivion.
Often these less-painted characters are precisely the ones who linger in the reader’s mind: the dismissed – those who were deliberately obscured by the deep shadows cast by the blazing, dominating heroes. Quite a few of Jacob’s sons fell into this rank, eclipsed as they were by such brothers as Judah, Joseph, and Levi. We wonder and worry about the lesser stars within Jacob’s family. We are discomfited by the notion of hierarchy among siblings, seeking to discover the distinctiveness of each personality. Perhaps none is more difficult to come to terms with than Simeon, the impugned and blasted shevet, almost beyond salvation thanks to Jacob’s curse and ignored entirely in Moses’s last testament to the nation. Yet he remained counted among the twelve tribes, and thus he was reserved a specific role and distinct naĥalah within the nation of Israel.
Who was Simeon, really, beyond the sullen older brother, censured by Jacob? Did he retain any redeeming features that might offset his reputation as the most disgraced of the shevatim? Was he ever rehabilitated?
Simeon was the second son of Leah. His birth bolstered her confidence – and the hope that Jacob would love her on account of the children she provided him. This is the simple meaning of the name that Leah gave him:
She conceived again and bore a son, and she said, “God has heeded [lit. heard, Heb., sh-m-’] that I am unloved, and has given me this one also.” So she named him Simeon.
Genesis 29:33
Simeon stems from the root sh-m-’, meaning “to hear,” or “to heed.” God noticed my pain, Leah proclaimed, and again provided me with a son to help ease my way into Jacob’s heart.
Simeon’s name may also be read, however, as bearing ominous overtones of the iniquities in store for this son. Perhaps, posit the Sages, Leah sensed dark potential as she peered into her second child’s face: “sham avon” – there (in him) is sin. This midrash plays on the letters of Simeon’s name, while careening wildly away from the simple meaning of the verse; it functions to pin later information about the tribe to the very essence of his name.
Shall Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?!
We next meet Simeon as a young man. Years have passed. Jacob is finally on the way back to Israel. Then disaster strikes.
Now Dinah – the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob – went out to visit the daughters of the land. Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, chief of the country, saw her; he took her, and lay with her by force.
Genesis 34:1–2
All of Dinah’s brothers were “distressed and exceedingly angry” (Genesis 34:7). Yet it was Simeon and his younger brother Levi who set forth on revenge. They killed all of the unprotected male citizens of the city at their most vulnerable, weakened from the circumcisions that they underwent as part of a peace treaty with Jacob. While it is possible to interpret that the other brothers joined Simeon and Levi afterward in plundering and looting the city, Simeon and Levi were the ringleaders. It was they who were held accountable by their father:
Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and Perizzites. My men are few in number, so that if they unite against me and attack me, I and my house will be destroyed.”
Genesis 34:30
Startlingly, the narrative doesn’t end there. Simeon and Levi had the last word: “Shall our sister be treated like a whore?” (Genesis 34:31).
This dramatic close to the episode offers a telling glimpse into Simeon’s character. He was righteously indignant, zealous for the honor of his father’s house. By destroying Shechem and redeeming their sister, he and Levi proved themselves true “brothers to Dinah,” whereas the other sons of Jacob were never identified as such. Simeon’s loyalty to his family, especially to another child of Leah, is underscored by the midrashic tradition that he went on to marry Dinah, who despaired of ever finding a husband after her defilement. Simeon cared deeply about his family’s integrity. And he is forever symbolized – for good and evil – by the battle against Shechem that he initiated.
The two central tribal symbols – the standard and the gemstone on the priestly breastplate – both demonstrate the centrality of Shechem to the formation of Simeon’s identity. His flag was emblazoned with a depiction of Shechem, the city he destroyed. His gemstone was the pitdah (topaz, or jade), which had the mythic property of breaking or changing color as soon as an unchaste person gazed at it – a fitting complement to Simeon, who was singularly enraged at the dissoluteness of Shechem.
Simeon’s Hatred of Joseph
It is not surprising, then, that Simeon was the zealous leader of the move against Joseph. When a teenaged Joseph shared his dreams of supremacy with his brothers, Simeon was the one who called for his murder. Perhaps Joseph’s charisma, his strong sexual allure, acutely disturbed Simeon’s well-honed sense of sexual morality and integrity.
Apart from issues of Joseph’s personality, though, Simeon may have had a more basic concern. As next in line to lead the clan after Reuben, perhaps Simeon felt that his personal status was threatened. Maybe he, like his older brother, lobbied for the dominance of Leah over Rachel, and was put off by the loving attentions lavished on Joseph by their father (so reminiscent was this of the simmering tensions between their mothers). One thing is certain: his national vision demanded equality among the brothers, and Joseph’s claims to dominance deeply insulted that vision. A charismatic individual encourages adoration; from there, it is only a short leap to deification. Simeon (and his brothers) deeply feared that Joseph would bring the Children of Israel to idolatry of one form or another. This, according to the midrash, was Simeon’s key contention, his justification for attacking Joseph:
Simeon said to Levi: “Behold, the master of dreams comes with a new dream. This one will lead them all to the Baal idolatry! Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, that we will see what will become of his dreams.”
This midrashic motif that Simeon headed the plot to kill Joseph continues with a number of details. Simeon wanted to kill; Simeon alone was charged with throwing Joseph into the pit. He threatened the Midianites with death for drawing Joseph out of the pit and keeping him alive. And, when Issachar advised tearing Joseph’s ketonet pasim, the special colorful garment lovingly given him by Jacob, and dipping it in blood to trick their father into thinking that Joseph had been torn apart by a wild animal, Simeon did not want to relinquish the cloak. This refusal to cooperate stemmed from Simeon’s anger toward his brothers for not agreeing to kill Joseph.
Why, we must ask, does the midrash take this approach? True, Simeon had, in the past, taken deadly initiative, but linking the plot to murder Joseph with the massacre of Shechem seems spurious. The midrash, however, is responding to a puzzling detail that emerged later in the story.
When Jacob’s sons descended to Egypt seeking relief from the famine raging through Canaan, they were directed to the vizier – who was none other than their brother Joseph (whom they did not recognize). Joseph sought a comprehensive rapprochement with his brethren, and devised an elaborate ruse to prolong their interaction with him. He accused them of spying. He then held Simeon captive until the brothers could prove the veracity of their tale by demonstrating that they indeed had a younger brother. They were to bring Benjamin down to Egypt, and only then would Joseph release Simeon.
The choice of Simeon is curious. We might have expected Joseph to imprison Reuben, as he was the firstborn son, or Judah, the brother identified as having suggested selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites. But it was Simeon, a relatively low-key figure, who was kept. It is this oddity that led the Sages to identify Simeon as the ringleader of that whole sorry conspiracy. Joseph imprisoned Simeon because he was the one who sought to kill Joseph.
The glimpses of Simeon throughout the Book of Genesis, from both the verses themselves and the midrashic constructs linking the sale of Joseph with the detainment of Simeon in Egypt, form a troubling image of this shevet.
Jacob’s Curse
The portrait of this second son of Jacob that emerged over the course of his lifetime was not a positive one. It was the zealousness with which Simeon terrorized Shechem, the hotheaded rage that Simeon focused on Joseph, that Jacob scathingly blasted in his last testament to his sons:
Simeon and Levi are a pair;
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.
Let me not be included in their council,
Let me not be counted in their assembly.
For when angry, they slay men,
And when it pleased them, they maimed the bull.
Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.
I will divide them in Jacob,
Scatter them in Israel.
Genesis 49:5–7
Simeon and Levi were brothers-in-arms, lamented Jacob, finding no solace in the closeness or similarity between his sons. A midrash read into Jacob’s opening words: “Brothers, indeed! – brothers to Dinah, but not to Joseph.” The two defining episodes in Simeon’s life – the massacre of Shechem and the attempted murder of Joseph – were alluded to repeatedly by Jacob.
Simeon had the last word when finally confronted by Jacob about Shechem, but Jacob had not forgotten and had not forgiven. The Sages understand Jacob’s deathbed testament to Simeon and Levi as a sharp censure:
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness – [can also be interpreted as] their weapons are ill-begotten tools. The weapons of violence that you used to kill Shechem were illegitimate – they were of Esau’s portion (for to Esau was it said: by the sword you shall live; not to you, Simeon and Levi!). It was not seemly for you to draw the sword.
In their anger they slew a man – You wrongfully killed Hamor, father of Shechem.
And when it pleased them, they maimed the bull – You sought to uproot Joseph, whom Jacob defined as “the Bull” (Genesis 49:22).
Their punishment?
Let me not be included in their council – When the Simeonites involved themselves with the Midianite women at Shittim, a move spearheaded by their leader Zimri, nowhere was Jacob’s name mentioned in Zimri’s lineage.
Cursed be their anger…I will divide them in Jacob – 24,000 men of Simeon died in Shittim due to their sins of licentiousness and idolatry, and their widows married into other tribes.
I will scatter them in Israel – Your descendants shall be destitute, and will be forced to go begging amongst their brethren throughout the land.
In Jacob’s testaments to his sons, he honed in on an essential attribute that could greatly impact the future of the given tribe. Simeon’s zealousness would again become his undoing, Jacob intimated – it was a trait that he would not be able to shake. There seemed to be little redemptive potential in his future.
Simeon and Levi
The tribe of Simeon realized their diminished status long after their ancestor’s death, when they confronted Moses in the desert. It was there that the twinned brothers finally separated. Levi had taken his trait of zealousness in a very different direction.
Nowhere is this more evident than in a later biblical episode detailed in the Book of Numbers. As the Israelites camped in Shittim in the Plains of Moab, on the cusp of crossing over into the land, the Moabites hatched a plan for their downfall: sexual entrapment by fetching Midianite women that would eventually lead to idolatry. Flagrant breeches of propriety were brought to a climax as a Simeonite prince, Zimri son of Salu, paraded Kozbi the Midianite princess into his chambers as Moses and the Israelites looked on from the Tent of Meeting. It was the Levite and priest Phineas son of Elazar who determinedly took up his spear and strode after them into Zimri’s tent, then impaling the couple in flagrante delicto.
Ramban explains the order of events. The people worshipped the Midianite god Baal-Pe’or, causing the “anger of God [to flare] up against Israel.” This, Rashi and Ramban argue, refers to visiting a plague upon the people, as we are later told that Phineas caused “the plague [to be] removed from upon the Children of Israel.”
As the fatalities mount, the nation and Moses came wailing before the Tent of Meeting. It was then that the prince of Simeon defiantly cavorted with the daughter of the Midianite chieftain, in full sight of the Israelite populace and Moses himself. It seemed that, as the representative of his tribe, Zimri had a specific agenda. It would be a misreading to explain away his public, almost ceremonial, act as simple carnal lust. The Talmud solves the incongruities by introducing a backstory – an earlier dispute between Zimri and Moses, incited by the resentment Simeon harbored toward Levi.
Kozbi [the Midianite princess] was charged to only yield to Moses [to seduce him]. When approached by Zimri, he boasted that he was greater than Moses, for Moses was chief of the third tribe, whereas Zimri was chief of the second [older] tribe of Simeon.
Zimri grabbed Kozbi by her braids and presented her before Moses, asking, “Is this one permitted to me?” Moses answered no, to which Zimri retorted, “You married the daughter of an idolater, also a Midianite – so why can’t I have Kozbi?”
Sanhedrin 82a
This confrontation would be difficult to understand were we not aware that the two brothers who essentially had shared adventures and curses – Simeon and Levi – had since diverged. Levi escaped the brunt of Jacob’s curse, fathering the leaders of the nation, Moses and Aaron. By avoiding sinning with the Golden Calf, he earned the favor of God. Simeon, by contrast, languished, unredeemed from his father’s curse. He nurtured a resentment toward his younger brother. Zimri lambasted the fact that Moses the Levite was allowed a Midianite woman; surely he, as representative of the elder tribe, should have been afforded the same license. Royalty should be with royalty, Zimri argued, and persuaded the princess Kozbi that he was the principal figure among the Israelites.
Zimri was so convinced of the rightness of his claim to lead Israel, and his desire to best Moses and the Levites was so intense, that he failed to see the madness of his act. Blinded by righteous indignation, Zimri shamelessly sinned against God just to aggrieve Moses.
At this point, the tribe of Levi, through their favorite son Phineas, demonstrated how the trait of kana’ut – zealousness – shared by the blood brothers could be applied judiciously. Phineas was zealous not for his own honor, nor for the honor of Moses, but for the honor of God, and his bold act was praised by the Lord:
And the Lord said to Moses: “Phineas son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest has turned My wrath away from the Children of Israel, for he was zealous for My sake in their midst, so I did not wipe out the Children of Israel in My passion. Thus, I say, I grant him My covenant of peace.”
Numbers 25:10–12
Simeon and Levi were brothers, Jacob bemoaned – the two sons who were most alike, and most dangerous when united. They were the hotheaded ones, zealous and unforgiving, and united they were too formidable a force. “I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.” This attribute of zealousness is a powerful tool, redemptive if used correctly and deadly if misemployed. At Shittim, as Phineas confronted Zimri, Jacob’s prophecy was realized, and the once-inseparable brothers now faced each other as antagonists. Levi (in Phineas) proved triumphant in his mastery of the potential inherent in a zealous personality, while Simeon (in Zimri) disastrously exposed that he never learned to channel his intensity properly.
Moses’s “Blessing”
After Jacob’s curse, and the calamitous episode in Shittim, we are fairly unsurprised that Simeon was the one tribe upon whom Moses did not bestow a blessing. The Sages, however, believe that Simeon was alluded to in Judah’s blessing, for the naĥalah of Simeon was buried deep within Judah’s territory:
“And this is the blessing for Judah: he said, Heed, God, the voice of Judah!” (Deuteronomy 33:7) – Moses prayed on behalf of Simeon, saying:
“Master of the Universe, whenever Simeon’s welfare is in question, provide his salvation!”
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 348
Others assert that Simeon is to be found in Levi’s blessing – discovered in the very omission of his name, for Jacob established the precedent of grouping the brothers together. Simeon’s absence is especially glaring in the context of the lavish attention given to Levi:
“And of Levi he said” (Deuteronomy 33:8) – Why is this said? Because Simeon and Levi drank from the same cup, as it was said, “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, I will scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7). A parable: Two men borrowed money from the king. One repaid the king and even lent him some money, while the other not only did not repay the debt but even borrowed more money. So it was that both Simeon and Levi “borrowed” in the matter of Shechem, but Levi repaid his debt in the wilderness and even “lent” something to God at Shittim. But Simeon not only did not repay his “debt” but even “borrowed” more, in the matter of Zimri. Thus Levi was blessed, but not Simeon.
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 349
This lack of blessing, or at best a blessing hidden deep within another tribe’s blessing, portended a dismal future for the tribe. Indeed, the midrash notes that Simeon produced neither judge nor king, unlike the other tribes who each laid claim to a period of national leadership.
Simeon’s fate – to be eternally overshadowed by younger brothers Judah and Levi, and bereft of distinguished sons – was succinctly distilled into a curse with which the father of the tribe burdened his offspring: “As a small remnant you will be scattered among Levi and Judah, and none among you will rise to be a judge or a king of our people… ” (Testament of Simeon).
Simeon, the Schoolteacher
Are we to despair entirely of Simeon? After all, we have seen little evidence of any redemptive quality that might salvage this tribe from its cursed status. And while the midrash might claim that the three oldest sons of Jacob indeed received blessings like the other brothers, despite the severe censure for their sins by Jacob, we are hard-pressed in Simeon’s case to identify just what that blessing was.
We are left to interpretive innovation, introduced compassionately by Rashi, to grasp at some notion of Simeon’s saving grace. In the context of Jacob’s “blessing” to Simeon, Rashi comments that Simeon brought forth schoolteachers needed by Israel.
What does it take to be a good teacher? Communication skills, clearly, and a mastery of the material. Most critically, though, a teacher must be passionate about what he or she is teaching, in order to inspire the students. Simeon, perhaps, was given the role of the national schoolteacher because he was passionate. Young, impressionable minds react strongly and positively to an instructor who fully embraces the pedagogical role with excitement. To introduce young Jews to Torah, we want someone whose teaching is heartfelt on the job, and Simeon fit the bill.
Simeon, Flawed…but an Integral Part of the Nation of Israel
In sum, we find that Simeon’s great trait was his zealousness. He was zealous for the honor of his sister and refused to engage in diplomacy when it came to Shechem. He also was hotheaded with jealousy toward Joseph, and led the brothers in the plot to kill him. This zealousness tied him together with his brother Levi, and their combined intensity was potentially incendiary. Thus, even as Jacob grouped the brothers together, he also intimated that they separate for their own good. Indeed, the tribe of Levi later distanced themselves from that of Simeon, using their zealousness for the honor of God – and against Simeon. Levi, as embodied by the archetypal son Phineas, put their outstanding character trait of kana’ut to good purpose, even as Simeon’s kana’ut degenerated to competitiveness and jealousy. Moses omitted Simeon from his blessings, and we are forced to seek out a smidgen of absolution or favor for the beleaguered tribe embedded within another brother’s blessing. It seems this tribe could only have been redeemed by being “scattered among Israel.”
Simeon and Levi, the twinned brothers, came to embody two sides of a single, dangerous trait. Kana’ut can be expressed either as selfless zealotry for a lofty purpose, as achieved by Levi, or, conversely, jealousy driven by petty and personal reasons, with which Simeon was associated. Even as they diverged, Simeon and Levi remained interlinked, each defining the other: it was only through Simeon’s mistakes that Levi could learn to embody and express the positive aspects of zealotry. Phineas achieved the “covenant of peace” with the very act that destroyed Zimri.
While our exploration of Simeon reveals a character that was more chastened than gloried, we are gratified that this second son of Jacob was not banished from the family. He too had his naĥalah, a set of cities in the south from which the members of the tribe that bore his name set out among the other tribes to fulfill their role as itinerant preachers and beggars. Perhaps this role was their tikkun, or redemptive measure, for him. Even if not, their teaching served the nation, as did their begging – for “as much as the wealthy might give to the poor, the poor give more to the wealthy [by way of ĥesed opportunities].”
A final thought: “There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.” The diminished shevet had another role: to serve as a foil for the rest of the nation. The ketoret (holy incense) served in the Temple had to contain one foul-smelling ingredient to bring out the sweetness of the components; so too, stated the Talmud, on days of fasting and penitence, congregations must include evildoers. Simeon remained a vital part of Am Yisrael, providing the dark notes to highlight their greatness.
Naĥalat Shimon
Simeon’s naĥalah, as detailed in Joshua 19:1–9, was composed of a series of seventeen cities within the southern belt of the naĥalah of Judah. Twice here, and once more in the Book of Judges, the verses stress that Simeon was all but absorbed into the larger, more powerful tribe of Judah (Simeon’s cities were surrounded on the north, east, and south by Judah’s territory). The midrashic sources that discover Moses’s blessing to Simeon implicit within his blessing to Judah rely heavily on the fact that Simeon was subsumed by Judah:
Out of the portion of the children of Judah was the inheritance of the children of Simeon; since the share of the Judahites was larger than they needed, the Simeonites received a portion inside their portion.
Joshua 19:9
Later evidence indicates, though, that Simeon maintained its tribal identity and did not assimilate into Judah.
One question remains: why was Simeon allocated a southern portion? A curious Talmudic adage addresses the issue. In Bava Batra 25b, the Sage Rabbi Yitzĥak opined that one who sought wealth should head north, while one who sought wisdom would find it in the south. Even a superficial understanding of the topography of Eretz Yisrael demonstrates that the northern areas of the country were rich in water and soil, and that it required much more ingenuity and cleverness to produce fruit in the south, the dry Negev. As David Ben-Gurion, the modern visionary who so championed Jewish settlement in the south, put it: “It is in the Negev that the creativity and pioneer vigor of Israel shall be tested.” To find applied wisdom and a perspicacious spirit, head south.
Why, then, would we expect to find Simeon in this difficult terrain? Rabbi Eliyahu Mallai offers the following explanation:
The south, which is the permanent home of Simeon, exemplifies the uniqueness of Israelite wisdom, its focus and distinctiveness.…Wealth and materialism mark the connection and similarity of Israel with the other nations.…Simeon is associated from his very outset with the trait of zealous passion for the special sanctity of the Jewish people and for his concern for the paradigm of Israel as “a nation which dwells apart,” with little association with other peoples. Therefore he especially belongs in the south.
Simeon, who was adamant that Shechem not be absorbed into the family of Jacob and that the Israelites remain distinct, belonged in the south, a region where the other nations had no interest in partnering with the Jews, and where the unique “yiddishe kop” was needed to make the desert bloom.
Visiting Naĥalat Shimon
Itinerary: Ziklag (Tel Ser’a), Tel Beer-Shev’a
We expect that a tour of Naĥalat Shimon will evoke association with the tribe of Judah. The Negev region and its cities belonged to both of these tribes. The situation was particularly complicated, given that the national royal family, the House of David, were Judahites, imparting even more clout to the already powerful tribe of Judah, which had personal investment in this region. Thus, any city allocated to Simeon likely became subsumed fairly quickly into Naĥalat Yehudah.
We start our tour at the westernmost city assigned to Simeon, Ziklag. Ziklag marked the western edge of the entire Israelite territory. Just west of the site sat the famed foreign entity Gerar (Tel Haror), which was always, since the days of the Patriarchs, unconquerable by the Israelites.
Tel Ser’a (alternatively, Tel esh-Shari’ah), situated on the northern bank of the Gerar Brook, roughly between Beer-sheba and Gaza, was identified by its lead excavator Eliezer Oren as the biblical city of Ziklag. It is located just west of the Bedouin city of Rahat, and the contours of a classic tel are easily viewed from the road.
Park your car by the side of the road just before the entrance to Rahat so you can take in the view. The tel itself is some distance off in a barley field, all but inaccessible and not visitor-friendly. Still, considering the importance of Ziklag to the biblical narrative, this is probably the best place to stop and take in a city of Simeon.
Where did Ziklag surface in the Bible? As with some of the other cities listed within Simeon’s naĥalah in Joshua 19, Ziklag was also registered on Judah’s city list. Most famously, in I Samuel 27, the city was given to David by Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. David had found haven from Saul’s wrath by entering the thick of Philistine territory, and he makes a request of the king:
David said to Achish, “If you please, let a place be granted me in one of the country towns where I can live; why should your servant remain with you in the royal city?” At that time Achish granted him Ziklag; that is how Ziklag came to belong to the kings of Judah, as is still the case.
I Samuel 27:5–6
When David later marched up to Aphek, ostensibly to join the Philistines in their war effort against Saul, Ziklag was raided by Amalekites. David recovered all of the captives and restored Ziklag’s lost wealth. It was in Ziklag that David heard of Saul’s death and where he composed his famous elegy in commemoration of the slain king. Ziklag marked an important station in David’s convoluted journey to the monarchy.
Given the verses cited above, it seems reasonable to posit that the city was at least administered by David’s tribe, Judah, in the monarchial period. What of its earlier history? In one place, the biblical record indicated that the cities of Simeon were self-governed until the Davidic era. In the I Samuel narrative, though, Ziklag was a Philistine holding in the time of David. It is impossible to determine the makeup of Ziklag’s population in David’s day. Explicit in both contexts was that David assumed control of Ziklag – before he was coronated in Hebron – and of Simeon’s other cities, perhaps after he took the throne. This being so, we must consider the possibility that a certain implicit understanding between Simeon and Judah was in place in the tribal period, in which Simeon maintained its tribal identity, but willingly ceded administrative control over its scattered cities to the dominant regional power, Judah.
We do not hear of friction between these two southern tribes, only that Simeon, over time, increased heavily in number. It seems that Simeon did not threaten Judah’s hegemony over those cities that originally belonged to Simeon, but had since passed into Judah’s hands. By the days of King Hezekiah, the Simeonites had spread out toward the eastern valley of the approaches to Gedor, “in search of pasture for their flocks, and finding rich, good pasture. And the land was ample, quiet and peaceful.” They further expanded to Mount Seir, wiping out the Amalekites who dwelt there and settling in their place. In all, Judah and Simeon can be understood to have dwelled together in harmony.
The archaeological record of Tel Shera accords with the biblical narrative of Ziklag, making the site’s identification as Ziklag highly probable. Tel Shera’s earliest stratum dates to the Chalcolithic period, and significant remains from Egyptian and Philistine cultures were discovered in the LB-era stratum. The material evidence suggests a new, highly organized urban plan imposed on the site dating to the tenth century Bce monarchial period, replete with the four-room house model so indicative of Israelite occupation.
From Ziklag we make our way southeast toward Tel Beer-Shev’a, identified by the excavators of the site as ancient Israelite Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba was a central southern city, mentioned often in the Bible to demarcate the southern extent of Israelite sovereignty figuratively.
According to Yoel Elitzur, the conventionally accepted identification of this tel as ancient Beer-sheba is wrong. He argues that this archaeological park was really the Israelite fortress Sheba, not Beer-sheba: “The second lottery went to Simeon…and in their territory was Beer-sheba, and Sheba, and Moladah… ” (Joshua 19:2).
Elitzur supports his thesis with the following arguments:
the small size of the site (only eleven dunam) indicates that the site was a fortress rather than a city;
the site lacks the earthen rampart fortifications typical of Canaanite cities conquered by the Israelites that elevated those cities above the surrounding area (giving the ruins the familiar trapezoidal shape missing here);
the Bedouin village near the tel is named Tel-Seba, also indicating that this site was originally known as Sheba, not Beer-sheba.
But if the national park that we’re visiting was really Sheba, then where was the ancient Israelite city Beer-sheba? Elitzur suggests that we find it in the area of the Bedouin shuk in the present-day modern city of Beersheba, the “Jewel of the Negev” (known in Arabic as Bir a-Saba, to distinguish it from Tel-Seba). Excavations have not been conducted in that location, but Elitzur is certain that the large, fortified city of ancient Beer-sheba, a Canaanite city destroyed and rebuilt by the Israelites, is hidden under modern Beersheba.
Whether we are visiting ancient Beer-sheba or ancient Sheba, we are still “on task.” As with Ziklag, both of these localities were allotted to both Simeon and Judah. Beer-sheba, though, has a history going back hundreds of years before the Israelite conquest and allotment of territory.
Our familiarity with the place began with Abraham, who gave the location its name in honor of the peace pact drawn up between himself and the Philistine king, Abimelech of Gerar. The two disputed which of them had dug the local well. Abimelech capitulated, admitting that it indeed had been Abraham. In making a pact for peace, both men swore over seven sheep on that day, so the area surrounding the well was renamed Be’er Sheva (Beer-sheba) – “The Well of the Seven” or “The Well of the Oath.” Abraham planted an eshel tree near the well and settled there to raise Isaac.
Isaac, in turn, was also a digger of wells, as he traversed the same region, redigging the wells his father had dug, that were subsequently plugged up by the Philistines. He then went on to dig four wells of his own, the last one in Beer-sheba. Many years later, Jacob lingered in Beer-sheba on his journey from Hebron down to Egypt to reunite with Joseph. There he was promised Divine Providence while in Egypt, as well as the assurance that he would grow into a large nation whom God would return to the land.
We are reminded of these stories in the lives of our Patriarchs as we peer into the well just outside of the city gates. This well dates to the twelfth century Bce, hundreds of years after Abraham and Isaac dug in this area. It is 70 meters (approx. 230 feet) deep, a massive undertaking to access the groundwater from this relatively high position. Since the site could have housed relatively few residents (given its small size), archaeologists posited that this well mainly catered to the needs of the surrounding nomadic tribes. This is particularly interesting, given that the site sits on the plain just north of the confluence of two large streambeds, Beer-sheba and Hebron, both of which served as main passageways for caravans and foot traffic in the region. The well must have been built to draw people toward the place and serve the passerby, reminding us through association of the Patriarchs’ penchant for welcoming strangers into their tents.
The city itself was built at the same time as the well, in the twelfth century Bce, which accords nicely with the settlement records in Joshua and Judges. The archaeological record here boasts some fine examples of the typical Israelite “four-room house,” erected during a renovation period in the tenth century Bce. These dwellings, consisting of three parallel chambers with a fourth long chamber running perpendicular, were standard for Israelite Iron period sites, cropping up in excavations of other nearby cities like Arad, Jerusalem, and Tel Beit Mirsim. After an eighth century Bce earthquake (perhaps the one mentioned by the prophet Amos, who rebuked Beer-sheba for her idolatrous ways), the fortifications were strengthened and various features were renovated, such as the city gate, complete with benches for the elders and judges to gather.
Yohanan Aharoni and Ze’ev Herzog, who identify this site as Beer-sheba, conclude that, throughout the biblical period, Beer-sheba was more of an administrative center than a residential zone – ascertained by the relatively few dwellings discovered during excavation. A walk on the tel affords you the opportunity to examine the “Governor’s House,” identified as such because of its large and numerous rooms, as well as three storehouses that were filled with an impressive pottery assemblage. Thrill at the surprisingly large dimensions of the subterranean water system that sustained the city during wartime. The large plastered reservoir was fed by a channel redirecting floodwater from the Hebron Stream.
Tel Beer-shev’a, whether peopled by Simeonites, Judahites, or both, remained stable for the hundred-year stretch after the eighth-century Bce renovations. The reconstructed four-horned altar positioned by the Parks Authority at the entrance to the site tells the story of an idolatrous city that underwent reform by royal order, probably issued by Hezekiah. The dressed stones of the altar were discovered in secondary use in a storeroom wall, indicating that the altar was purposefully dismantled and reused in a mundane context. Hezekiah’s reforms, though, were not enough to save the city from the campaign of the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib, who sacked Beer-sheba in 701 BCE. While various later strata of occupation were marked, the city never really recovered from that devastation.
What becomes clear from a visit to the region of these two important biblical cities, Ziklag and Beer-sheba/Sheba, is that Simeon’s holdings were scattered throughout Judah’s southern swath and did not form a contiguous territory of their own. Furthermore, we can only loosely associate these cities with Simeon, in that the biblical listings conflict, sometimes allocating to Judah, other times to Simeon – most likely reflecting the realities of either different eras or nuances of what a “holding” might mean. Could these cities have been populated mainly or even entirely by Simeon, but administrated by Judah? Or perhaps at one period Simeon administered the city, and at a later time ceded control to the dominant regional power, Judah. Either way, we leave the day with a strong sense that Simeon’s naĥalah was entirely overshadowed by Judah’s.
Chapter 4; Levi
We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
We are our choices.
Jean-Paul Sartre
We come to the second of our twinned brothers whose naĥalah was “scattered through Israel.” But where Simeon has faded to ignominy, Levi may well be considered the most pedigreed of the tribes. All of his descendants, throughout the many generations of Jewish history, have proudly self-identified as Levites, meticulously charting their family histories and transmitting their special customs through the ages. Some of those descendants have the added distinction of being born as kohanim (the priestly family), a subdivision of the tribe. And while other distinguished families have earned pride of place in Jewish tradition, such as the Davidic dynasty of kings from the tribe of Judah, all members of the tribe of Levi have a rarified status. No contemporary Jew can definitively determine his tribal affiliation with the exception of a Levite or kohen. One can convert to Judaism, but the blood rights of the Levite or kohen are reserved for genetic descendants of the original son of Jacob.
Yet what distinguished Levi from his brothers demands investigation. There was nothing in his life in Jacob’s house that identified him as remarkable, worthy of generous and eternal privilege. Indeed, there was little to differentiate him from his brother Simeon at all. He acted in concert with his older brother, and the paternal blessing (which read more like a curse) was leveled at them both together. We either have to wait for the later sons of the tribe to prove their greatness and leave their stamp on tribal destiny, or argue that the privileged destiny of this tribe was not necessarily determined by any meritorious acts of its members. That is, perhaps their status was preordained, rather than earned. Was Levi chosen, or did he earn his privileged status through merit?
First, an examination of his life is due. He was the third son borne by Leah, named by her along lines that have become familiar: “She named her third son Levi, saying, ‘This time my husband will become attached [yelaveh] to me, for I have borne him three sons’” (Genesis 29:34).
Is there anything new to be found in the somewhat tired refrain? After all, we have heard this before:
And she named him Reuben, declaring, “The Lord has seen my affliction; now my husband will love me.” And she gave birth to another son, and she said, “God has heard that I am hated, so He has given me this one as well.” And she named him Simeon.
Genesis 29:32–33
Levi’s name continued the theme of those of his two older brothers: an appeal by an insecure Leah that Jacob would be further bound to her, now that she had borne him another son.
What differentiated Levi’s name, though, was the absence of despair present in the names Reuben (“God has seen my affliction”) and Simeon (“God has heard that I am hated”). This third son was named with a positive prayer, a confidence in having borne a third child.
The Sages note the predominance and significance of the number three to this tribe, and to its most treasured son:
The letters in Moses’s name are three, and he was a scion of the third tribe, Levi…the letters in Levi’s name are also three. There were three children in the family of Moses. Moses was hidden for three months. The revelation of Torah took place on the third of the three days, and in the third month.
Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 12:13
Levi was different from his older brothers, and the serendipity of his birth order had the Sages commenting on his preordained status as borrowed (loveh) by Jacob, but belonging to God Himself:
[When Jacob wrestled with the angel], the angel said: “Jacob! Did you not vow to give a tithe ‘from all that You [God] grant me?’ Well, what of your sons – you have not tithed them!” Jacob then set aside the firstborn of the four mothers, and eight children remained. He began to count from Simeon, and finished with Benjamin, and began counting again [and the tenth was Levi]. Levi was declared the ma’aser – the tithe holy to God – as it is said, “The tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.”…[T]he archangel Michael descended and took Levi, and brought him up before the Throne of Glory, and declared before God: “Sovereign of the Universe! This is Your lot, and the portion of Your works!” And God put forth His right hand and blessed him that the sons of Levi should minister on earth before Him.
Pirkei de-Rebbe Eliezer 37
The midrash traces this idea back to the very moment of Levi’s birth. There is an anomaly in the description of this son’s naming that differentiates it from the formula used to name Leah’s first two, as well as all subsequent children born to Jacob. All were clearly named by Leah and Rachel themselves, with the exception of Levi.
After Leah declares her personal reasons for naming her son Levi (“so that my husband will be bound to me”), the verse continues with the passive “Therefore he was named Levi.” The midrash sees this as indicating God’s direct involvement in determining the fate of this son.
With Levi, the verse states: “Therefore he was named Levi.” This indicates that it was divinely announced: “His name is Levi, in that he was accompanied by and will accompany the King.”
Midrash Ha-Gadol, Genesis 29:34
A related midrash is based on the same textual anomaly and underlines a variation of the meaning of loveh. Rabbi Yudan remarks that just as Leah was inspired by the concept of being joined and further bound to her husband when naming her son, so too did God relate to him from that same angle: this tribe would serve to bind Israel to God.
The midrashic motif highlighting Levi’s chosenness, as opposed to extolling his performance or accomplishments, is pronounced. Quite a few of these midrashim are based in the verse where the baby Levi was granted his name. One source credits Leah with naming him based on her intuition that, in the future, Levi’s descendants (Moses and Aaron) would bind Israel to their heavenly Father.
Another exegetical device promotes Levi’s chosenness: in his commentary on Genesis 29:34, Rashi expands on the midrashic tradition and adds that Levi was crowned at birth with the twenty-four gifts that were the tribute due to priests.
The Sages view Levi as unusual from birth, granted special status that separated him early from his brethren. Jacob chose Levi and Judah to accompany him from Beth-el when Isaac summoned him for a visit. It was there that Isaac blessed Levi and taught him the laws of priesthood. Other sources claim that Levi strongly resembled Jacob, a gloss that reflects positively on the son, considering the reverence accorded to Jacob by the Sages. And when Jacob died, Levi was forbidden from carrying his bier and contaminating himself, since, in the future, he would be tasked with shouldering the Holy Ark. Additionally, it was Levi who inherited Jacob’s mystical Book of Raziel, which originated with Adam.
And yet, Levi could claim no favorable or constructive accomplishments during his lifetime. He massacred the menfolk of Shechem alongside brother Simeon, an act that Jacob severely censured, and he was subsequently singled out by the midrash as colluding with Simeon to murder Joseph. Jacob lambasted Levi along with Simeon, and he was not spared the curse levied on his brother as well, that they would be “divided among Jacob, scattered among Israel.”
How, then, can we reconcile the tribe’s seemingly ignoble beginnings with the heavy dose of reverential counterbalance offered by the midrashim above? Was Levi all that different from Simeon, who was doomed to remain on the margins of the nation of Israel?
Simeon and Levi, United
Our approach to these questions hinges on understanding just how similar Levi was to Simeon originally, and how fundamentally the one tribe diverged from the other, a few generations later. The midrashic material cited above reads into the sparse narrative of Genesis, tracing the glorious and redemptive actions of Levi’s descendants back to their forefather.
These brothers were initially united by a single troubled city that formed the kernel of character so central to the famous Levites to come: Shechem.
“A city slated for divisiveness,” concludes the Talmud, considering all the traumatic events in the history of the Jewish people that played out there. The rape of Dinah, the subsequent massacre of the Gentile city, the sale of Joseph. Eventually, the kingdom of David and Solomon was wrenched apart in Shechem, divided between Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Shechem was a city that drew the original Levi time and again, and was granted to him by Joshua.
The divisive history of this city was set into place when the eponymous Prince Shechem raped Dinah, the daughter of Jacob.
Now Dinah – the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob – went out to visit the daughters of the land. Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, chief of the country, saw her; he took her, and lay with her by force.…Jacob’s sons arrived from the field, when they heard; the men were distressed, and were fired deeply with indignation, for he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with a daughter of Jacob – such a thing may not be done!
Genesis 34:1–7
Shechem injured Jacob’s family unforgivably, seethed the brothers. The fledgling nation agreed to a peace-and-intermarriage treaty when approached by Shechem and his father, Hamor, but they demanded that the Shechemites undergo circumcision first – the covenantal sign of sexual propriety, unique to the Children of Israel.
Shechem said… “Give me the maiden for a wife!” Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah, and they spoke, saying… “Only on this condition will we acquiesce to you: if you become like us by letting every male among you become circumcised,”…so all the people of the city were circumcised. And on the third day, when they were in pain, the two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and they came upon the city confidently, and killed every male. And Hamor and Shechem his son they killed at sword point. Then they took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left.
Genesis 34:11–25
Most exegetes interpreted the explicit caveat “deceitfully” to mean that Dinah’s brothers had no intention of actually making peace with Shechem. They either felt that the Shechemites would never acquiesce to citywide circumcision, or that, if they did, the brothers might easily steal into the city and snatch their sister back, while the men of Shechem were at their weakest. Neither of these options satisfied Simeon and Levi, though. They cared obsessively about the integrity of Jacob, and burned to see the grievous act avenged. They murdered all of the men of Shechem, while they were impaired by the agreed-upon milah.
Simeon and Levi attacked Shechem because the rape of Dinah and the subsequent halfhearted peace overtures directly threatened the integrity of the House of Jacob. It was this integrity that impassioned the brothers and defined them. These two tribes were zealous for the wholeness and perfection of the family, and they would have fought anyone who threatened that wholeness – even their own brother.
Joseph, favorite son of Jacob, dreamed his dreams of supremacy down in Hebron, the family homestead. His brothers retreated to Shechem, the place where the family had already experienced fraction, to “coddle their own selves.” But it was not humiliation that fueled Simeon’s and Levi’s animus toward Joseph – it was fear of an alluring charmer who placed himself above all. Joseph was the quintessential na’ar at that point, guileless and almost sweetly narcissistic. Nonetheless, he was a potent force that scared his brothers. What if he were to become a hero to be worshipped? The grand plan for the nation of Israel would then dissolve ignominiously into a sad form of idolatry:
It was this danger of the subtle twisting of individuality into egotism, of relationship into lust, of dreams into manipulation, of open-mindedness into insipid emulation, that worried the brothers about Yosef…[his] brothers detected the dangers that lurked in Yosef’s boyhood dreams.
Rabbi Matis Weinberg, Patterns in Time: Chanuka, 82
In Shechem, Simeon and Levi agitated to remove any element that threatened the unity and integrity of Benei Yisrael, whether a rapist or a brother. They lived and died by the creed that all the Children of Israel were to participate in the national mission, and deviation from that vision was a scourge to be zealously snuffed out. This was what characterized the two: the devotion to integrity, and the call to action when integrity was threatened. “Shall our sister be made like a whore?” they demanded of Jacob, simplifying moral ambiguity to a single, startling point.
The Glorious Kana’ut of Levi
The midrash sees a continuity between Levi’s early zealousness and his descendants’ subsequent behavior as a tribe. It singles Levi out as the tribe who spurned idolatry in Egypt. The midrash argues that the Levites had separated themselves sufficiently from their sinning brethren that the Egyptians paid them no mind, letting them be, while enslaving the rest of the Israelites. Idolatry is the antithesis of integrity, and the Levites were unwilling to accept anything even smacking of idolatry. It was Levi who massed eagerly around Moses when he angrily confronted the sinning Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. When Moses called, “Whoever is for God, rally to me!” the Levites immediately responded. They who had murdered in the past in the name of integrity had no qualms about doing it again:
[Moses] said to them: “Thus says the Lord, God of Israel: Each of you put sword on thigh, go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay brother, neighbor, and kin.” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and some three thousand fell that day. And Moses said, “Fill your hands today for the Lord from this day, for each of you has been against son and brother. Therefore God has granted you today a blessing.”
Exodus 32:27–29
This act of solidarity with God was what elevated the Levites to the elite status of bearers of the Holy Ark. The tribe’s willingness to take even a bloody stand for integrity forged a bond between them and God. It qualified them for the special tasks that deprived them of a naĥalah, but granted them the unique role of God’s closest ministers:
At that time, the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Lord’s covenant, to stand in attendance upon the Lord, and to bless in His name, as is still the case. That is why the Levites have received no naĥalah along with their kinsmen: the Lord is their portion, as the Lord your God spoke concerning them.
Deuteronomy 10:8–9
At that time – In the year immediately after leaving Egypt, you sinned with the Golden Calf; yet Levi, who did not sin, was separated from you by God.
Rashi, ad loc.
This was the defining act of the shevet, the source of their celebrated gifts – a startling stand that must have been engraved in the minds of the entire nation. Levi, the one who battled the battle of God. Up until the Golden Calf, it was the bekhorot (firstborn) who were slated for the Temple service. At the moment of the Exodus, they were defined as holy, set aside. Yet after the sin of the Golden Calf, they lost their birthright, and the bekhorah rights passed to the shevet that channeled its passion toward selfless devotion to God. In the natural order of things, the bekhor should have been consecrated. He was the first fruit, “my strength, beginning of my vigor.” In the divine order, however, beĥirah – choosing greatness – trumps bekhorah, every time.
Levi’s zeal to act on behalf of God’s name earned them great praise by their prized son, Moses, in his final blessing to his tribe:
(Levi) said of his father and mother, “I consider them not.” His brothers he disregarded, ignored his own children. Your precepts alone they observed, And kept your covenant.
Deuteronomy 33:9–10
Even those with whom he shared blood ties did not escape Levi’s vengeful sword, so committed was he to preserving national loyalty to God alone. With a showering of blessings for subsistence and victory over Levi’s enemies, Moses went on to counter Jacob’s curse (“I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel”) with a missive for the Levites: “They shall teach Your laws to Jacob, and Your instructions to Israel.”
Levi and Simeon: A Parting of Ways
Levi earned another covenant – by expressing this same dominant characteristic. Once again, he turned the bloody anger that destroyed Shechem into a force for good. This time, his righteous wrath was focused on the very brother who had once been his brother in lawlessness.
When the Israelites sinned at Shittim, engaging in idolatry and sexual licentiousness with Midianite women, the most flagrant sinner was Zimri, prince of Simeon. Phineas, expressing his identity as a Levite, did not hesitate. While the other leaders looked on helplessly, frozen in despair, Phineas speared Zimri and his Midianite princess consort, Kozbi, before the nation’s eyes.
Zealousness is a frightening force. Like Jacob in the aftermath of the massacre at Shechem, the nation of Israel did not know how to respond to this bloody act. Yet this time, God Himself spoke, defending Phineas’s action:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Phineas, son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them a passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My covenant of peace.’”
Numbers 25:10–12
Here was where the two brothers – Simeon and Levi, who were once the closest of kin – dramatically diverged. The trait of kana’ut, or zealousness, surfacing earlier in Levi with Shechem, the Golden Calf, and now here – was pure in the one brother, and sullied in the other. It was Phineas, not Zimri, who was the paradigmatic kanai, zealous for the honor of God. Zimri was jealous for his own tribal honor. While coming from similar roots, his was far removed from the kinah of Phineas, described wonderfully as “an act of true love, whose only object is the strengthening of the ties between God and Man, not the crushing of opposition” (Rabbi Matis Weinberg, Patterns in Time: Chanukah, 288).
Jealousy is petty and hostile; zealotry is noble and ultimately seeks peace. It was with zealous Phineas that God forged His covenant of peace. A jealous character does not value the glory inherent in the distinctiveness of his friend, and wants to abrogate the other’s gifts in favor of himself. A zealous character, in contrast, glories in the uniqueness and greatness of the other. He cherishes not only his own integrity, but also the integrity of the whole that is formed by the utter individualism of its parts. A fine line divides jealousy from zealotry, but that exacting distinction makes all the difference in the world.
The paradigms for Levi were his two prized sons, Moses and Aaron, who embodied the trait of appreciating the other:
If only you were like a brother to me…I would find you outside, I would kiss you…
Song of Songs 8:1
Which outside could the verse be referring to? The desert: the place where two brothers kissed each other. It means Moses and Aaron!
Exodus Rabbah 5:1
All the brothers hated each other until Moses and Aaron.…When Moses became king and Aaron, high priest…each rejoiced in the achievement of the other. When Moses hesitated to accept his mission, it was because he did not want Aaron to be hurt. Said the Holy One to Moses, “Not only will he not be hurt, he will be happy. And not only externally happy but ‘he will see you and rejoice in his heart!’” (Exodus 4:14).
Tanĥuma, Exodus 27
Only one who truly loves and appreciates the strengths of another, one who does not covet but seeks only to encourage the other to realize his own greatness, can be called truly zealous. And paradoxically, burning zealotry creates “a covenant of peace”: “Be of the disciples of Aaron, a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, a lover of people, drawing them near to the Torah” (Avot 1:12).
The genuine affection and respect between Moses and Aaron and the passionate drive of Phineas were rooted in the same basic character trait: selflessness. The concern that characterized this tribe was not for each individual’s own personal integrity, but for the best interests of the other, and, above them all, the best interests of God. It was this concern that drew God’s love toward the Levites, and it was this concern that fostered peace in the world.
Intrinsic to the Nation, Yet Eternally Removed
We have examined how the Sages read intimations of separateness and distinction in the private life of Levi, even though a simple reading of Genesis revealed nothing manifestly remarkable. On the contrary! Levi was consistently partnered with Simeon during his lifetime, a fact that was made most explicitly clear by Jacob’s closing summary: “Simeon and Levi – the brothers! Together plying weapons of violence.” In finding hints of greatness in Levi even at this ambiguous point, the Sages pointed to latent potential that was only to be realized later in the life of the tribe, at Sinai and Shittim. Zealotry is not a clear-cut characteristic. Murky and dangerous, it took time to discover itself, to clear out the dross of anger and jealousy.
As we leave the tight family stories of Genesis and begin the narrative of the confederation of tribes developing in Egypt, it is quite startling just how much Levi stood apart from his brothers. First, a rabbinic gloss declared (without precedent and seemingly unwarranted by any textual analysis) that the nation of Israel only became slaves to Pharaoh after the death of Levi. As mentioned above, there was a midrashic motif that the tribe of Levi was never enslaved in Egypt, perhaps because they separated from their brethren early on and therefore were overlooked by Pharaoh. Additionally, the Levites were singled out as the only tribe to uphold the sacred covenant of milah, circumcision, during the nation’s enslavement in Egypt.
They separated themselves further, we have seen, when they refused to participate in the idolatrous episode of the Golden Calf, instead following Moses’s command to execute their sinning brethren. Continuing along the same praiseworthy route, the tribe of Levi was the only one not to send a representative to spy out Eretz Yisrael, thereby avoiding participation in the spies’ report, an incident that turned out to be one of the most catastrophic in Jewish history.
These separation measures did not drive a wedge between the tribe and the broader nation, but did serve to establish a tribal identity of independence and distinction. As the nation camped around the Tabernacle in the desert, Levi did not join their ranks, but was encircled by them all. When the tribes were divided between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal to engage in the berit arevut (covenant of responsibility) of the blessings and curses upon entering the Promised Land, Levi bridged between them, joining neither group, but ensconced securely in the valley between the mountains.
Levi earned freedom from personal toil due to their service of God – on behalf of the nation:
And to the Levites I hereby give all the tithes in Israel as their share in return for the services that they perform, the services of the Tent of Meeting.…[T]hey shall have no territorial share among the Israelites, for it is the tithes set aside by the Israelites as a gift to the Lord that I give to the Levites as their share.
Numbers 18:21–24
Levi served God on the nation’s behalf, and the nation provided the tribe with sustenance. Afforded no naĥalah of their own, Levi were freed from having to provide for themselves. This arrangement was designed from Above and alluded to in Jacob’s blessing – which initially did not seem like a blessing at all:
Cursed be their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless;
I shall divide them among Jacob; I shall scatter them in Israel.
Genesis 49:7
It is a terrible thing to be destined for all time to subsist on handouts and charity. Indeed, when it came to Simeon, these words were interpreted by the Sages as a curse leveled on the tribe, condemning the Simeonites to a poor naĥalah embedded within another’s territory, and a scourge of poverty that forced them to wander throughout Israel, begging for handouts. Not so Levi. The curse was changed to blessing through a symbiotic relationship with the rest of the nation. The Sages pointed out that Jacob’s words can be read as a hidden blessing. Our characteristics are not destiny; mistakes can be turned to good:
God said, “Shall Levi too [alongside Simeon] go begging?” What did God do? He kept Levi free from earning his livelihood through humiliation…by apportioning to him the tithes. Thus Levi would make the rounds, legitimately requesting his portion. Hence the verse “I shall apportion for him within Jacob.”
Genesis Rabbah 99:7
Another national role was assigned to the Levites, when Moses explicitly tasked the tribe to assume the job of teaching the nation the ways of God: “They shall teach your laws to Jacob and your instructions to Israel” (Deuteronomy 33:10).
This privilege was extended to Levi because of the merit earned by avoiding the sin of the Golden Calf and by taking a stand at Shittim, explained the midrash. Levi had become a role model for the nation, and the best teachers are those who lead by example. Clearly, the roles of servicing the Temple and instructing the nation went hand in hand; the Levites were the natural religious leaders.
The scattering of Levi turned into the source of his greatness. Divided throughout others’ naĥalot, Levi interacted constantly with the nation of Israel. His brethren were able to support him efficiently since his cities were not concentrated in one specific area. Rather, they were easily accessible to every tribe. That his cities were all over the map also indicated that the tribe was not meant to form an elite, removed caste of holy men; instead, Levites were to involve themselves with the life and lifestyles of the nation. They were to be the teachers and scholars, reminding every tribe of its duty to the whole and its duty to God.
Though our Sages read a special promise into Levi’s birth, we have seen that Levi’s greatness lay in his choices. Jacob dispensed open-ended blessings to the twinned brothers Levi and Simeon, pointing out shared patterns and dangerous forces. Each remained free, though, to determine his own destiny by choosing how to channel and act on his innate passion. Unlike Simeon, whose jealousness became progressively more tainted by personal considerations and unrighteous anger, Levi chose the path of zealousness…and the bekhorah rights thus passed to him.
Visiting Naĥalat Levi
Itinerary: Tel Balatah (Shechem), Umm el-’Umdan (Modi’in?)
Devising a day itinerary in the footsteps of Levi can take one the length and breadth of the country, as this tribe’s cities are scattered throughout the other naĥalot. When considering this shevet, it may be instructive to visit Shechem, modern-day Nablus, nestled for millennia between the two imposing mountains of Gerizim and Ebal. The best vantage point to take in the sprawling city (to which, at present, Israeli entrance is forbidden) is from the Samaritan village of Kiryat Luza, located on Mount Gerizim. Directly opposite the sacrificial center in Kiryat Luza (where the Samaritans annually slaughter dozens of lambs in their Passover sacrifice ritual) is a short walking path that leads to Mitzpeh Yosef, the Joseph Outlook – named for the closest protected point to gaze upon the Tomb of Joseph.
Just west of the Tomb of Joseph is Tel Balatah, the site of biblical Shechem. Look for a pronounced tel, the bare raised mound girded by the apartment buildings of Balata refugee camp. The Arabic name for the ancient site preserved a second biblical name for Shechem: Elon Moreh, or the “Tree of Instruction” (balut is Arabic for oak tree). Ancient Shechem was situated next to abundant springs on lower Mount Gerizim, and was strategically located at the mouth of the valley, commanding trade and travel routes.
Tel Balatah has been excavated sporadically throughout the last century. Scant Chalcolithic and Early Bronze-era potteries were uncovered, but discoveries from the Middle Bronze period (corresponding to the patriarchal period in biblical chronology) revealed that that was when the city really came into its own. A fortification wall, gates, earthen rampart fortifications, and a temple complex dating to between the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries Bce were excavated. Egyptian inscriptions and execration texts from this period mention Shechem by name. But the archaeological record ceased after this point, save for the temple complex, which seems to have continued in active use. Some have suggested that Simeon and Levi’s slaughter of the city’s inhabitants accounted for the long interruption in building, which picked up again only in the Late Bronze period (the thirteenth century Bce).
This was the period when Joshua led the Israelites into Eretz Yisrael, and assembled them there for renewing their covenant with God upon entering the Promised Land. It is certainly possible to interpret the thirteenth-century Bce renovated temple complex, with its east–west orientation and architectural plan nearly identical to that of the future Temple (ĥatzer [courtyard], heikhal [inner sanctuary], and devir [Holy of Holies]), as the Temple of God mentioned in Joshua 24.
On that day, Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the Temple of God. “See!” he said to all the people. “This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.” Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to their own naĥalah.
Joshua 24:25–28
Still on its base today is the lower part of a broken matzevah, or large standing stone, that some believe to be the remains of Joshua’s matzevah. Long gone is the ancient oak, under which Jacob hid the terafim idols of Rachel, centuries before Joshua erected his matzevah on that very spot.
The city grew throughout the period of the Judges, but the archaeological record shows a destruction layer dated to 1100 Bce, likely corresponding to the sacking of the city by Avimelech, as described in Judges 9:42–49.
The ties that bound Levi to Shechem went back to the period when the city was Canaanite, continued through the sale of Joseph, and culminated in the berit arevut of the blessings and curses in the days of Joshua. Then, the Levites stood on the ruins of the city and gazed up at the other tribes splayed out on the two mountains girding Shechem. The city was granted to the tribe of Levi, within Naĥalot Benei Yosef.
It is instructive that each city granted to the Levites (forty-eight in total), among them Shechem, was also designated an ir miklat, a city of refuge for one who accidently committed manslaughter and fled from his victim’s family. It is possible that this design was intended to rehabilitate those who were excessively careless by forcing them into prolonged exposure to the nation’s teachers. Perhaps religious instruction would further sensitize them to the sanctity of life.
Interred in Shechem are idols, covenants, Joseph himself. The place hosts so many bitter memories, of rape, slaughter, secession, and ultimately national division; but also triumphant ones, of grand promise and renewed commitment. Shechem was given to the Levites to repair…for none are better in “loving peace and pursuing peace, loving their fellow men and drawing them closer to the Torah.”
To encounter a later Levite city, one might visit Modi’in, a Second Temple–period city that was described in rabbinic discussion as a “city of priests” – specifically, the priestly Hasmonean family. The exact location of ancient Modi’in has not yet been conclusively identified. One of the possibilities is Umm el-’Umdan, Arabic for either “Mother of Pillars” or a reworked version of “Modi’in.” If the latter is accurate, then the Arabic name of the village is strong evidence that the site was the Modi’in of antiquity. Alternatively, the place may indeed have been named for its pillars, since the most significant building excavated was a Herodian-era synagogue with eight pillar bases.
Umm el-’Umdan is located on the western edge of the Shevatim neighborhood (also known as North Buchman) of present-day Modi’in. Although the excavated synagogue and adjacent mikveh complex are Herodian, archaeologists have identified two strata of monumental buildings lying underneath the synagogue, at least one of which has tentatively also been identified as a synagogue. These strata are dated to the Hasmonean and pre-Hasmonean periods, and indicated to the excavators that the site may well have been where the priest Mattathias and his sons revolted against the Seleucid Greeks in the 160s Bce. In recent years, the charming custom of holding a prayer service on the Shabbat of Hannukah at this site has developed, reviving the spirit of the ancient Maccabees. The spirit of Levi is alive and well among the enthusiastic participants, who thrill at the almost tangible connection with their revered ancestors who fought zealously to defend the honor of the Lord.
Here is a fitting place to ponder a later manifestation of the zealousness that characterized the tribe, specifically its specialized priestly caste descending from Phineas, son of Elazar son of Aaron. In the second century Bce, the Syrian Greeks threatened the traditional way of life in Judah by hellenizing the Temple compound and levying a series of draconian decrees on the native Jews. Specifically, they outlawed basic Mosaic practices, such as Shabbat and the dietary laws. The grassroots Jewish revolt was launched by the Hasmonean priest Mattathias and his sons from their hometown of Modi’in. This city symbolized the staunch resolve of the tribe of Levi, and especially the kohanim within the tribe, to counter the brazen threat that the Greek lifestyle posed to their ancestral mores.
Finally, a tribute to Levi would be incomplete without a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Tour the Davidson Center Museum, which showcases the archaeological remains and history of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park (the ongoing excavations of the Ophel and areas adjacent to the western and southern retaining walls of Herod’s Temple). Wander around the impressive ruins; there is much to take in. Note the abundance of ritual baths, necessary to purify the Levites, priests and laymen who would ascend to the Temple, as well as shops to purchase animals, birds and grain for sacrifice and exchange coins. The stone tumble and ash residue tell the story of the Temple’s destruction. Of particular interest is the replica of a stone from the fallen southwestern tower of the royal stoa (which ran along the top of the Temple’s southern wall). This stone was inscribed with the words: “l’beit hatekiya l’hakh[riz]” – Of the Trumpeting Chamber to ann(ounce). It marked the point where a priest would trumpet shortly before the commencement of the Sabbath and holidays.
Climb the reconstructed steps leading to the gates in the southern retaining wall. It is easy to envision the Levites, as the custodians and musicians of the Temple, assembled on the steps inside, marking the passage of the week, with dedicated psalms and singing with instrumental accompaniment as the sacrifices were offered.
To more fully immerse in the Levite Temple experience, visit the Temple Institute in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. This museum has a scale model of the Second Temple, as well as reconstructed Temple vessels, including the musical instruments played by the Levitical choir. On display are vivid oil paintings depicting daily and holiday services, transporting the visitor back in time to when the Temple was the vital center and heart of the nation.
Chapter 5; Yehudah
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Max DePree
Judah loomed large over his brothers and over the Land of Israel. He was the natural leader, commanding the respect of his family at an early age. Even his father yielded to him. Chief of the children of Leah, he assumed the authority that the vacillating Reuben could not wield.
He had close kinship with Dan, Naphtali, Simeon, and Levi, but his most rocky and complex relationship was with his competitor, Joseph, leader of the children of Rachel. Understanding these brothers’ interactions throughout history clarifies greatly the personality of Judah, lion of Israel.
Let us begin, as always, with his mother Leah. She had already named three sons in succession, each one explicitly marking her relationship with Jacob. “Now my husband will love me,” “God has heard that I am hated,” “Now my husband will be attached to me.” Yet here, with the birth of her fourth son, something changed: “This time, I can thank God. So she called him Judah [lit. thanksgiving, acknowledgment]” (Genesis 29:35). Angst disappeared. Leah offered only thanksgiving for this unexpected gift.
Leah’s first attempts at mothering were essentially efforts to establish her role within the complex family dynamic: a man married to two sisters, one whom he loved desperately and the other whom he tolerated. Each son’s name was a testament to Leah’s attempts to turn her fortunes around. Yet here, with Judah, she settled down to pure mothering, delighting in this child who was to be unburdened by his mother’s anxieties. Judah marked a turning point for Leah; she was transformed from a cripplingly uncertain wife to the confident matriarch. Having borne a family while her sister remained barren, Leah felt that an imbalance had been righted.
At last, Leah discovered herself. In naming Judah, she identified her own most essential trait: “Leah held a distaff of hodayah, and men of hodayah came from her: Judah [from hodayah], David, Daniel” (Genesis Rabbah 71:5). What does hodayah mean? It can imply thanksgiving, admittance, obligation – all related concepts. I give thanks when I admit that I am obliged to someone else. This time, I shall thank God, sang Leah; I am indebted to Him – much obliged.
Judah embodied this new assuredness, this sense of self. He did not become embroiled in the contentious attack on Shechem, as Simeon and Levi did. In contrast to Reuben, he avoided over-involvement in his parents’ affairs. This was not because he was unaware or distant; he simply exhibited more constraint and thoughtfulness when faced with a difficult situation. Unlike the older, angry sons of Leah, he was anything but rash or hotheaded. While he disgraced himself time and again, he owned his actions, admitted his wrongdoing, and made the necessary reparations.
Judah’s Descent
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington
We have no explicit biblical reference as to who initiated the plot to kill Joseph. All of the brothers (excepting Benjamin) raged with jealousy at their father’s obvious preference for Joseph. They snorted derisively (or in alarm) at Joseph’s narcissistic dreams. Hate was rife in the air. Yet Judah first demonstrated leadership during the sale of Joseph.
The brothers deliberately left Joseph behind as they headed to Shechem to tend their flocks. Jacob sent Joseph after them, hoping to restore kinship. When the brothers saw him approaching, they plotted as one to kill him.
They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes that dreamer! Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, and we can say, ‘A savage beast devoured him.’ We shall see what comes of his dreams.”
Genesis 37:18–20
Only Reuben abstained, interceding to save Joseph’s life. Instead of killing him directly, the brothers threw Joseph into a pit, naked to the elements, leaving him to languish to death. To demonstrate their resolve, they sat down to feast.
It was then that Judah first stepped into the role of leader – in an act that would cost him dearly.
Judah said to his brothers: “What do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.”
Genesis 37:26–27
It is unclear what motivated Judah to make this suggestion. Did he do so to spare Joseph’s life? Or did he hope for material gain beyond the satisfaction of destroying a hated brother? Both possibilities are latent in his argument. Regardless of his true motivation, the brothers agreed to the sale: “And his brothers listened to him” (Genesis 36:27).
Yet in the disastrous aftermath of their father’s unending grief, the brothers turned on Judah, attacking him for poor leadership. After the sale of Joseph, we are told: “About that time, Judah went down from his brothers… ” (Genesis 38:1). Rashi explains: “He was brought down in their esteem.”
The midrash elaborates: Upon seeing Jacob’s sorrow, the brothers were filled with remorse, and blamed Judah for the whole affair. Judah defended himself, reminding them that he had counseled against killing Joseph; it was thanks in part to him that Joseph’s life was spared! But they retorted: “Had you told us to restore him to our father we would have done so – we follow your lead!”
The estrangement cut both ways. His brothers distanced themselves from him, but Judah also felt cut off – both from himself and from others. Rabbi Matis Weinberg describes this disorientation:
All human creativity and production are consequences of relationship, and failure at interpersonal excellence ultimately presages failure at life itself.…Yehuda disavows the petty concerns of human relationships…and becomes incapable of viable creativity.
Frameworks, Genesis, 224
Judah was affected by his actions in the sale of Joseph. Having ruthlessly debased Joseph by branding him little more than chattel, Judah himself was debased. He became isolated and remote. His relationships were temporary, divested of any real meaning or depth. They were essentially business arrangements. Having reduced brotherhood to a matter of property, his relationships became transactional, revolving around the issue of money. Judah began associating with Canaanites, entered into a strategic marriage with his business partner’s daughter, and saw his sons die young.
“And Judah went down from his brothers… ” It was quite a downfall for Judah to marry a non-Jew, quite a downfall that he buried his wife and children (Genesis Rabbah 85:2). It was a slippery slope. First, Judah lost his wife; then, two of his sons died for misdeeds. Then he did not do right by Tamar, his widowed daughter-in-law. Tamar, duty-bound to levirate marriage, at last set out to trick her father-in-law into performing the act. It was here that Judah hit his nadir, as he entered a transactional relationship with the disguised Tamar. Thinking her a prostitute, he paid her for her favors. The depravity of selling a brother precipitated the depravity of buying a woman.
Judah’s Triumph
Tamar fell pregnant, as she hoped she would, fulfilling the yibum requirement. And thus began Judah’s redemption. When Tamar was accused of marrying outside the bounds of levirate marriage, she called out Judah. Faced with his own responsibility, Judah made a choice. “She is more righteous than I!” he proclaimed. Not only did he exonerate Tamar from perceived misdeeds, he publicly confessed guilt. With that admission, Judah discovered his capacity for true leadership. Leaders of Israel must be able to put aside their egos and personal concerns and admit when they have erred. The ability to be modeh (cognate of Judah) – to concede to the verity and justice of a system far greater than one’s particular interest – that is the mark of a king. “The Holy One said to Judah: Because you were modeh, your brothers will be modeh that you be king over them” (Genesis Rabbah 99:8). That latent potential embodied in his name that had earlier made him a natural leader of his brothers was rediscovered and distilled. This moment marked the beginning of the rise of Judah that culminated when his father granted him the scepter.
We see Judah’s renewed leadership when the brothers descended to Egypt in search of food. Following the imprisonment of Simeon, the brothers returned to Jacob. Judah stepped into the breach left by Reuben’s faltering leadership. It was he who took responsibility for Benjamin.
Unlike Reuben, whose rash and mad offer was scoffingly dismissed by Jacob, Judah bided his time before approaching his father. He intentionally waited until the food stores ran out, when Jacob again ordered his sons to return to Egypt. Judah then gently helped Jacob absorb the inevitable: they had to return with Benjamin. Only a desperate Jacob could countenance parting with his youngest son, the sole remnant of Rachel. When Judah judged that his father was beginning to turn, he requested:
“Send the boy in my care.…I myself will be surety for him; you may hold me responsible; if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I shall stand guilty before you forever.… ” [Jacob answers,] “Take your brother too, and go back at once to the man.”
Genesis 43:8–13
As in the case of Tamar, Judah did not shirk his responsibility. When Joseph arrested Benjamin on trumped-up charges, refusing to release him, Judah rose up in protest.
And Judah went up to him [Joseph] and said…“Your servant, my father [Jacob], said to us: ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. But one is gone from me, and I said, Alas! He was torn by a beast! And I have not seen him since! If you take this one [Benjamin] from me, too, and he meets with disaster, you will send my white head down to Sheol in sorrow.’…Now your servant [Judah] has pledged himself for the boy [Benjamin] to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father forever.’ Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers.”
Genesis 44:18–33
Here was the transformation of Judah. He rectified his earlier flaws: he protected his kin, he embraced accountability, he obligated himself beyond his own individual interest. Beyond even that, Judah demonstrated his commitment to and love for his father and family that were so deep that personal hurt ceased to matter at all. Consider the words he put into his father’s mouth: “My wife bore me two sons” (Genesis 44:27). This open acknowledgment was a matter-of-fact acceptance that Rachel and her sons were the principals to Jacob, and that he, Judah, would always run second place in his father’s affections. Effective leadership is found in one who can accurately assess and accept reality, and then adjust his vision and strategy to that reality. With his finessing of both Jacob and Joseph, Judah emerged the monarch.
Judah and Joseph
In the crucible of the fight for Benjamin, Judah proved himself capable of being the champion even of those he once wished to destroy: the children of Rachel. It was therefore Judah that Jacob sent before him to Goshen, so that he might prepare the land for Israel’s resettlement. The verse was very particular as to Jacob’s instruction to Judah: that he go “ahead of him, to Joseph, to prepare Goshen before his arrival.” Joseph was already in Egypt. His tasks – to unite the Children of Israel, to act as liaison to the nations of the world, to build a “foundation for nationhood and malkhut,” were fulfilled. Judah followed Joseph, building on what Joseph had already achieved. This pattern repeated itself throughout Jewish history: David followed Saul (of benei Rachel), and the Messiah of the House of David will ultimately follow the Messiah of Joseph.
Both Rachel’s and Leah’s sons were critical to the monarchy of Israel, though with different roles. And though their roles and distinct personalities clashed time and again, eventually they will work in harmony, as they did in Goshen. The prophets attested to this tension: “Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim” (Isaiah 11:13), and: “Take a stick and write on it ‘Judah’…take another stick and write on it ‘Joseph’…Bring them close to each other, so that they become one stick, joined together in your hand” (Ezekiel 37:16–17).
Judah the King
A man’s a man,
But when you see a king,
you see the work
Of many thousand men.
George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy
Jacob exuberantly blessed Judah with the monarchy:
You, Judah, your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the nape of your foes; your father’s sons shall bow low to you.Judah is a lion’s whelp; on prey, my son, have you grown. He crouches, lies down like a lion, like the king of beasts – who dare rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet; until he comes to Shiloh, and the homage of peoples be his.
Genesis 49:8–80
Judah’s flag was emblazoned with a lion, symbol of monarchy and acknowledgment of the central theme pervading Jacob’s blessing. Moses’ blessing to the tribe echoed the matter of Judah’s military leadership: “May his hands fight for him, and help him, God, against his foes” (Deuteronomy 33:7). Judah was clearly the sovereign tribe of Israel, blessed and burdened with leading the nation in war.
The determinant of Judah’s monarchy was implied within Jacob’s blessing. Jacob celebrated the fact that Judah’s growth and transformation was due to the very prey (mi-teref beni alita) that he claimed was torn apart by another (tarof taraf Yosef). The aftermath of the sale of Joseph led to Judah’s great shift of focus away from his own individual aspirations, and onto others: first Tamar, and then his whole family.
Judah’s quality of hoda’ah was what made him the king. Hoda’ah is the confession that one is but part of a much larger system that demands that one subjugate the ego, so that one may reflect the system itself.
Royalty is successful when the monarch is not promoting himself, but refracts the greatness of his kingdom through his person instead. The “royal we” reflects the power of the totality represented by the king. Judah deeply understood the working system of nation, and rejected the dream of a society composed of individuals. This is why “the scepter will not depart from Judah”…and why the House of David is the eternal royal legacy of Israel.
David, not his predecessor Saul, was granted the enduring monarchy because of two words: “ĥatati le-Hashem” (I have sinned before the Lord). His ability to admit to his sin with Batsheva, where he impregnated her and then finessed her husband Uriyah’s death, was the key trait that assured his eternal kingdom. “He who covers up his faults will not succeed; he who confesses and gives them up will find mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Saul could not come to terms with his wrongdoings. He could not admit (modeh), so he could not wear the crown. “The scepter will not depart from Judah”; the scepter belongs only to the one who is modeh.
Judah and his descendants admitted their wrongdoings, obliged themselves to the kelal, and came at last to embody the most sublime aspect of their tribal name: hodayah (thanksgiving, praise). David, the composer of psalms, wove a common thread through many of his poetic arrangements: “Praise the Lord, for He is good!” (Hodu le-Hashem ki tov). Thanksgiving is an expression of gratitude, of acknowledging the good that someone else has done for me.
Though kingship today is not active, and we wait for the Messiah of David to reintroduce that concept to the world, David’s masterful psalms still inspire. That expressive element of David – his confessional, thankful, and praising psalms – serves his nation for all generations.
Naĥalat Yehudah
The contours of Naĥalat Yehudah as described in Joshua 15 are fairly clear. The tribe’s territory was the entirety of the south of Eretz Yisrael, enclosing the much smaller naĥalah of Simeon. Benjamin and Dan were directly to their north. The border between Judah and these shevatim was the ancient Maale Adumim highway from the Dead Sea. Upon reaching ancient Jerusalem (Ir David), Judah’s border skirted the city to the south along the points of En-Rogel (Bir Ayyub) and the Valley of Hinnom.
From that point, the northern border wandered northwest toward Nephtoah (present-day Lifta) and faithfully followed today’s main modern highway linking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At the present-day Sha’ar HaGai junction, the border turned sharply south, along the route followed by today’s Highway 38 toward Beth-shemesh, where it continued west along the Sorek River, ending at the Mediterranean.
The tribe’s southern border descended from the bottom of the Dead Sea, sharing a border with Edom to the east, and turned westward along Ma’ale Akrabim until Kadesh-barnea. The whole southeastern swath, from Ma’ale Akrabim west to Kadesh-barnea, was called the Wilderness of Zin. From Kadesh-barnea, the border climbed northeast along the Brook of Egypt (Wadi el-’Arish) and ended at the Mediterranean.
The eastern and western borders? Easy enough: the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively.
This naĥalah was the largest of them all, expressing the grandeur of the shevet. Imposing mountains, gentle coast, placid plains, generous hills, blasted desert – Naĥalat Yehudah has all temperaments. Just as a king is not his own man alone but is a reflection of the nation, so too Judah contained within its territory all manner of landscape, a perfect distillation of varied perspectives.
Visiting Naĥalat Yehudah
Itinerary: Herodium/Elah Valley/Khirbet Quieyafa (Shaaraim?)/Lachish
Since Judah was the royal shevet, a tour through its naĥalah should highlight major monarchial monuments. We begin at Herodium, the Judean fortress-palace and most personal building project of King Herod. Herod nearly despaired at this location when he was being pursued by the Parthians in 37 Bce. He persevered, though, and later chose this spot to erect a startling conical monument to personal triumph that he named after himself. It was here that he entertained Marcus Auerelius from his frescoed theatre built into a massive artificial mountain. He willed the dry and tepid landscape to yield bathing pools, cavernous water cisterns, gardens, and massive towers. Everything was in the round – towers, walls, collonades – evincing his marvelous aesthetic and powerful pocketbook, since this design was a particularly expensive undertaking. It was in Herodium that he chose to be buried.
Herodium tells some marvelous stories: of Herod, certainly, but also of the zealous Jews who escaped to here during the Roman siege on Jerusalem in 68 CE and unceremoniously mauled the fortress’s colonnade and triclinium. They hewed mikvaot into the manicured Roman lawns and repurposed the dining area of the palace for a synagogue. These stragglers held out for a little while, until the Romans, finished with Jerusalem, turned to battle the renegade Jews here and in Masada. Fifty years later, the guerilla soldiers of Bar Kokhba tunneled dozens of subterranean channels in Herodium, skillfully dodging the menacing Roman Tenth Legion for a few years, before they too were defeated.
Take a walk around Herodium’s walls. East are the sand-and-red gorges of the Judean Desert as they tumble steeply hundreds of meters down to the Dead Sea. Face west, and recall Jacob’s blessing to Judah:
He ties his foal to the grapevine, his donkey to a choice vine;
He washes his garment in wine, his robe in blood of grapes.
His eyes are dark from wine,
His teeth are white from milk.
Genesis 49:11–12
The watershed line that bisects the central mountain range from Jerusalem to Hebron spills out in both directions with vineyards and olive groves. Sheep graze among the grapevines, white and purple swirling in the distance like milk droplets in a wine flask. These terraces dip and bend, dip and bend, as lulling as waves on a beach. Tan, green, purple, white are the terraced hills, echoing the colors that bathe Jacob’s blessing to Judah.
Chaim Mageni offered wonderful insight into the nature of Naĥalat Yehudah, seen most pronouncedly from this vantage point. He noted that famous Judean towns, such as Bethlehem and Herodium, offered up “two faces”: a face to the mountain and a face to the wilderness (panim la-har u-panim la-midbar). These towns were situated on the eastern end of the Judean hills. Facing west are the terraced mountains described above. Facing east is the Judean Desert, with its craggy and desolate terrain. The hills were prime land for agriculture, and the midbar was naturally suited to raising livestock. Mageni suggested that in the family of Yishai from Bethlehem, the older sons were farmers, while the younger son (David) shepherded the flock, since the land suited both occupations.
One more thought while you stand at the top of Herodium: spreading out before you to the west are the revitalized yishuvim of Gush Etzion. The four original Jewish settlements, destroyed in 1948 by the Arabs, have been rebuilt tenfold. Gorgeously planned yishuvim, home to thousands of Israelis, dot the hilltops. Here, you can be a dreamer who never awakens.
A song of ascents: When the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion, we will be as dreamers. Our mouths shall be filled with laughter; our tongues, with songs of joy. Though he goes along weeping, carrying the seed-bag, he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves.
Psalms 126
Drive west through these terraced mountains on Road 367. You are in “Patriarch country,” crossing the hills canvassed in antiquity by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along their many journeys. Merge west onto Route 375 and drive along the Elah Valley riverbed, site of the epic biblical showdown between David and Goliath. To your left is Socoh, described in the Bible as the assembly point of the Philistines as they arrayed against Saul’s Israelite army: “The Philistines assembled their forces for battle; they massed at Socoh of Judah.…The Philistines were stationed on one hill and Israel was stationed on the opposite hill; the valley was between them” (I Samuel 17:1–3).
We turn onto Route 38 and shortly thereafter, right before the Azekah junction, make a sharp right onto the Israel National Trail dirt road leading up to Khirbet Qeiyafa, the newest vantage point to contemplate the importance of this formative experience to young David. The boy came into his own with an understanding that his facing Goliath was not a battle of brute strength, but rather a display of Divine Providence in facing down the enemy: “David said to the Philistine: You come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of the Lord!” (I Samuel 17:45). David, of course, wielded the stronger weapon, and he felled the giant in the very valley that we overlook from Khirbet Qeiyafa.
As you wander around the site, take in the two impressive identical four-chambered city gates, as well as the large casemate wall with ten abutting residential structures. A massive palatial structure was excavated at the center of the site. Unseen are the hundreds of pottery vessels, cultic objects, seals, and metal implements uncovered during seven excavation seasons.
This relatively small city (only six acres large) was enclosed by a four-meter-thick casemate wall (approx. thirteen feet thick), built of ashlars (large dressed stones) that weigh in at nearly ten tons, and including two sophisticated gates. One gate faced west, directly toward the Philistine city of Gath, Goliath’s home, around six miles due west of Khirbet Qeiyafa, and the other faced east toward Socoh and Hebron. This unusual phenomenon (two gates in a city wall is unheard of in this region, even among much larger cities like Lachish and Jerusalem) led archaeologists to suggest that the city be identified as the biblical Shaaraim (“Two Gates”).
The excavations at Qeiyafa have had a huge impact on what has been the prevailing battle within biblical archaeology circles for the past generation: whether the early monarchial period in Judea was a major, nation-building era or rather a time when relatively minor chieftains (namely, David and Solomon) ruled over unfortified villages. Until now, the lack of archaeological evidence decidedly supported the latter theory; to wit, in the period of the early monarchy (eleventh century Bce), the excavated sites in Judea (Lachish, Arad, Beer-sheba, among others) were unfortified, small agricultural villages, and not the massive cities one might expect in David’s kingdom. The Qeiyafa excavation turned this lack of evidence on its head. The site is now definitively dated to 1000–970 Bce, based on carbon-dating analysis of burnt olive pits from the destruction level of the city, as well as pottery analysis. In other words, the site is now definitively dated to the time of King David’s reign – and it is the first place in the region that strongly attests to the urbanity and establishment of the Davidic kingdom. It took significant manpower and wealth to construct the impressive fortifications found in Khirbet Qeiyafa. The excavators of the site are assured in their determination that Qeiyafa was a well-planned fortified city, and not a rural settlement. Thus, Qeiyafa presents a strong argument for traditionalists who posit that King David was not a tribal chieftain, but rather an important king of substantial means who indeed fortified the southern areas of his kingdom.
The first few weeks of excavation yielded the most important – and remarkable – discovery at the site. The archaeological team uncovered an inscribed ostracon (a pottery sherd that was used in the ancient world in lieu of paper) with Hebrew words written in proto-Canaanite script (an alphabet that predates even the ancient ketav Ivri, the Phoenician-like script in which Hebrew was written throughout the Iron Period). This may be the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered! Some of the words that the epigraphers could decipher at first glance were melekh (king), shofet (judge), and eved (servant).
A visit to Khirbet Qeiyafa catapults one back to the very stirrings of the Davidic dynasty, to a site that may very well have been built and fortified by a centralized Israelite administration in Judea, and later occupied by King David and his troops. It likely was witness to the Philistine/Israelite showdown in the Elah Valley that thrust David into the national limelight. The strongly built city would have served as an Israelite fortification against the Philistine coastal plain, with Philistine Gath menacing just a bit to the west.
Take in one more fascinating tel during your day in Judah. This one cannot be beat for bringing the Bible to life. A visit to Lachish, centrally located in Naĥalat Yehudah, highlights the mundane affairs involved in administering townships during the monarchial period, as well as the dramatic moments of Jewish history.
Lachish does not generally figure on the typical tourist itinerary, due mostly to its rather remote location and erroneously assigned inconsequence. Lachish was mentioned twenty-two times in Tanakh. It was a large and important city in Judea, paralleled by huge Hazor in the north and eclipsed in prominence only by Jerusalem (in fact a much smaller city than Lachish). Many foreign kings saw Lachish as a city that must be conquered in their quests to vanquish the region. Thus, Lachish was witness to many crucial battles in the history of Israel, battles that were described both in Tanakh and in the annals of the ancient world’s foreign empires.
Let’s start with the tel. A tel is a mound, unique to the Middle East, formed by layers of occupation over thousands of years. As one society built its city on the ruins of a previous period, the site rose and the original landscape was permanently altered. Layer upon layer of civilization caused quite a build-up. After all, there was no reason to break new ground when building a new city when the original infrastructure and building materials were already abundant at a site that was obviously strategically important enough for previous periods to occupy! Such was the landscape at Lachish – you cannot miss this tel rising above the surrounding low hills of the shefelah (the Judean foothills).
Originally a Canaanite city, Lachish was conquered by Joshua (Joshua 10:31–32). If we place the period of the conquest of the Land of Israel by Joshua and the Israelites in the Iron I period (1250–1000 Bce), as most scholars do, then we have evidence of Joshua’s conquest of Lachish on site. The remains of a burnt Iron I Canaanite temple complex, on the acropolis of the tel, were uncovered. The popular theory is that Joshua destroyed this pagan temple in his mission to conquer the cities of Eretz Yisrael and rid the land of idolatry.
The Israelites then occupied Lachish and built a large palace – the foundations of which are still present – on top of the ruins of the earlier Canaanite palace. Over the years of Israelite presence in Lachish, during the reigns of such illustrious kings as David, Solomon, and their descendants, Lachish grew to become a massive, significant administrative center, heavily fortified by a six-meter-thick wall (approx. twenty feet thick) with the most impressive gate system as yet excavated in Israel.
A number of years after Shalmaneser and Sargon, kings of Assyria, exiled the Northern Kingdom of Israel, their successor, Sennacherib, set his sights on Malkhut Yehudah, the Southern Kingdom, ruled by the righteous Hezekiah:
In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched against all the fortified towns of Judah, and seized them. King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, at Lachish: “I have done wrong; withdraw from me and I shall bear whatever you impose on me.”
II Kings 18:13–14
Sennacherib conquered Lachish in 701 Bce. He used the captured city as his base of operations while planning his ultimate conquest: Jerusalem, capital of Judah. We know, however, that he was unsuccessful in penetrating Jerusalem, and returned to Nineveh (best known as the city the prophet Jonah was commanded to rebuke harshly) after dismantling his siege.
But what of Lachish? Does the archaeological evidence bear out the account in Tanakh?
A visitor to Lachish can easily make out the impressive Assyrian siege ramp (100 meters/328 feet long!) constructed by Sennacherib to penetrate the city. The Israelites inside Lachish tried to defend the city by erecting an interior counter-ramp, thereby raising the height of the city wall and forcing the Assyrians to likewise raise the height of their ramp to overcome the new defenses. The defensive measures, however, were to no avail. The Assyrians fought viciously and relentlessly, leaving behind masses of weapons, scales of armor, and hundreds of slingshots and arrowheads on the ramp and inside the city wall for archaeologists to discover thousands of years later. Add the macabre discovery of 1,500 piled skulls in a nearby cave, and the evidence decidedly points to a massive defeat of the Israelites at Lachish.
Sennacherib himself immortalized the battle against Lachish in a series of monumental reliefs, a specific art form of engraved stone, commissioned for his palace at Nineveh. These reliefs depicted the siege of Lachish and its defeat, complete with the ramp, ammunition, and major weaponry used against the city. Depictions of Israelites being cruelly killed and led off into captivity wearing chains were in every frame. Sennacherib made sure to include an image of the complex gate system, the remains of which are on the tel, as a specific point of pride in conquering the well-fortified Judean city. The Lachish siege reliefs are on permanent exhibit at the British Museum, along with other remains of Assyrian Nineveh.
Rarely is a historical event found in the annals or monumental inscriptions or art of the ancient world paralleled in Tanakh (which, of course, was not meant to be a work of history). When we do find such parallels, it is cause for much excitement. Such is the case with the Lachish reliefs of Sennacherib – extra-biblical evidence of a sorrowful defeat in Malkhut Yehudah.
One last marvelous find at Lachish is worthy of note. The destroyed city was rebuilt, albeit on a smaller scale, by King Josiah, great-grandson of Hezekiah, sometime between 639 and 609 Bce. A short while after that, Lachish was again targeted by a mortal enemy: this time, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, as he waged his destructive campaign against Judah and her final king, Zedekiah, on the eve of the Destruction of the First Temple, in 586 Bce. A cache of eighteen ostraca (inscribed pottery sherds) were found at Lachish. These letters preserved the last moments of the Jewish fighters’ stance against the Babylonians. Most of the letters were dispatches from a Jewish sergeant named Hoshaya to his commander at Lachish, reflecting the events recorded by the prophet Jeremiah:
When the army of the king of Babylon was waging war against Jerusalem and against the remaining towns of Judah – against Lachish and Azekah; for they were the only fortified towns of Judah that were left…
Jeremiah 34:7
Hoshaya wrote an urgent message to Lachish, his correspondence serving as a virtual glimpse into the tumult of those days. The message was immortalized on one of the ostraca discovered: “Let my lord know that we are watching over the beacon of Lachish, according to the signals which my lord gave, for Azekah is not seen.” This letter, in light of the verse in Jeremiah that spoke of Azekah and Lachish as the only two cities left before Nebuchadnezzar’s war machine reached Jerusalem, is especially poignant. Neighboring Azekah had fallen; we know that Lachish was next to go.
A final note on Lachish: the site was also well known for the discovery of several complete storage jars, dated to the reign of King Hezekiah. These were large jars stamped with the impression of the letters LMLK (for the king) on their handles. The jars’ contents would have been designated as government taxes, religious tithes, or military rations. All three possibilities attested to the extensive civil administration of the monarchy, based in Jerusalem but recognized throughout Naĥalat Yehudah.
Chapter 6; Yissakhar
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Thomas Jefferson
The birth of Issachar marked a fundamental shift for Leah. His name reflected Leah’s newfound confidence with her role in the family, and his personality strongly exhibited all the promise contained in his name: the obedience and the diligence of a hired hand, contentedness with his work, and ample reward. We find scholarship and wisdom in Issachar, and also a deep connection to the simple joys of farming. After “bending his shoulder to the burden,” Issachar “rejoiced in his tents,” basking in the synthesis of darkei ha-aretz with talmud Torah.
Since much of his personality was forged by his very conception, we must begin with Leah.
Leah’s Reward
After the birth of Judah, Leah’s fourth son, “Leah ceased from giving birth.” Upon realizing that she was suffering from secondary infertility, Leah followed her sister’s initiative, and gave Jacob her maidservant Zilpah, as Rachel had given him Bilhah (see chapter 8 on Dan). She was determined to produce more children for Jacob, even if her body was not cooperating. The text is explicit that this was her initiative, not a suggestion of Jacob: “When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as concubine” (Genesis 30:9).
Why, after bearing a respectable number of children herself, was Leah driven in the emotionally wrenching direction of pressing her husband to sleep with yet another woman? It is a testament to her steely determination to move forward, a hint of her insistence that all was not yet right with her role as a matriarch – that she must be the matriarch, the head wife who produced children regularly for her husband, in stark contrast to her beautiful, tragic sister Rachel who remained barren. This was Leah’s self-definition: my husband is bound to me because I mother most of his children.
The matriarchs knew that each was to produce three. When Leah bore a fourth son [Judah], she exclaimed: This time I will praise the Lord.
Genesis Rabbah 71:4
This midrash taught that each of the intended partners of Jacob somehow realized that she was meant to bear equal shares of his intended twelve sons. The midrash here used this device to afford us a glimpse into Leah’s inner world. When Leah realized, upon the birth of Judah, that her claim to matriarchy within the family was secured – that she was granted beyond her expected share of Jacob’s offspring – she shifted her energies away from the wistful longings of what was always to remain an unrequited passion for Jacob and toward her newfound goal of energetically building up his family herself. The midrash did not much care about how the wives of Jacob knew what God had intended for their husband’s house; it is asking us to examine the fundamental shift in Leah’s thinking, and to explain her newfound confidence from the birth of Judah onwards.
Yet despite the entrance of Bilhah and Zilpah as surrogates, both Rachel and Leah continued to long for children of their own – even though four children had already been born to Leah. This dual longing came to a head when Reuben found duda’im (mandrakes) – a fertility medicine – in the fields.
Once, at the time of the wheat harvest, Reuben came upon some mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s duda’im.” But she replied, “Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son’s duda’im?” Rachel responded, “I promise, he shall lie with you tonight, in return for your son’s duda’im.”
Genesis 30:14–15
Leah knew she would never have Jacob’s complete love. Her place in the family depended on her children. This explains her defensive, angry response to Rachel’s request: “It isn’t enough that you’ve taken my husband – now you want my son’s mandrakes as well?!” Leah recognized that Rachel was always to own Jacob’s heart. The only claim that Leah had to her husband was their children – and the claim grew stronger with each child. Then she felt Rachel was threatening that as well.
Let us consider Rachel for a moment. Her obsession with becoming a mother was getting in the way of her actually becoming pregnant. Rachel gave up her night with Jacob in exchange for the duda’im – that’s how tormented she’d become! We see that Leah could not help but rub in the fact that she had children, pained and jealous as she was of her younger sister, who owned the natural love of their shared husband – my son’s duda’im. I have a son – four, in fact – and you’re still waiting to conceive. From this position of power, she struck a bargain: the duda’im for Jacob. Is it so difficult to imagine how smugly – almost pityingly – she handed the duda’im over to her desperate sister and, with no pretenses, went to claim her reward: more children? By then, she did not pretend that she could win Jacob’s heart. There was a tone of hard commerce – but also power – as she went out to meet her husband.
“Come to me,” she ordered Jacob, “for I have hired you [ki sakhar sekhartikha]…And he lay with her that night” (Genesis 30:16). Rashi explained that Leah hired Jacob by exchanging the duda’im for her night with him, and that God Himself intervened so that Issachar was conceived from that union. Leah was then willing to forget and forego any hope that her love for Jacob would be requited. She was practical, ambitious, building an enduring bond throughout the years and the children borne, to which Jacob, at this juncture, conceded. He went with Leah, and did not put up a fight.
Her confidence was rewarded, as the barren, older Leah conceived again. The baby’s name reflected her new position as matriarch, her devotion to having children: “And Leah said, ‘God has given me my reward [sekhari] for having given my maid to my husband.’ So she named him Issachar” (Genesis 30:18).
Issachar, the product of that night, symbolized Leah’s maturing power. He represented the payoff of a lifetime’s toil, the reward due to someone who kept her head to the ground and steadily worked toward her goal. As time marched on, she refined her mission, perfected her ambition, and then reaped her reward. Many years after that first night, when Leah desperately sought entry into Jacob’s inner life, she tired of waiting futilely for Jacob to return her passion. Now I have hired you – sakhar sekhartikha – Leah said to Jacob, redefining their relationship as one where she asserted her matriarchy and power. When their new baby was born, he was the reward for that hire – the sekhar.
The nature of a matured Leah-Jacob relationship was analyzed beautifully by Dr. Avivah Zornberg:
The marriage of Leah and Jacob…represents one type of possible marriage, the type that is characterized by children, by the multiple consequences of a complex self-knowledge. This is Rashi’s concept of “one flesh”: the child, the fruit of two people struggling to understand who they may be, singly and together. Even in his anger, even in the “hate” that the narrative ascribes to him, Jacob looks at his children and says, “The mother of these – can I divorce her?” The children represent possible “makings and matchings” of self and other: possible integrations of parts of himself that Leah has mirrored back to him. There is no divorcing the source of such intimations.
Dr. Avivah Zornberg, Genesis: The Beginning of Desire, 212
Issachar, the reward, both alluded to Leah’s hire of her husband and her earning of him. It was this matured power that also was to express itself in what would become Issachar’s trademark: his excellence in and devotion to Torah.
Issachar, the Ben Torah
Ask any young yeshiva student about his association with Issachar son of Jacob, and he will undoubtedly tell you how Issachar was a talmid hakham, a Torah scholar. This midrashic motif is a well-entrenched one:
He was named “there is reward” (yesh sakhar), since he was to devote himself singleheartedly to Torah study and be rewarded with intuitive wisdom.
He was identified as the brother who advised the others to tear up Joseph’s coat of many colors and dip it in the blood of a goat (since that animal’s blood most resembled human blood). That way, they had something then to present to Jacob as “evidence” that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. Why did the midrash detail Issachar? Because he was known to give wise counsel.
Jacob’s testament to Issachar, according to the midrash, included a blessing that his descendants be members of the Sanhedrin and have the advanced wisdom to establish the Jewish calendar.
Jacob also blessed Issachar that the fruits of his land be exceedingly large. Why? So that when Gentiles inquired about the whereabouts of such blessed fruit, the Jewish merchants would comment that the size of the fruit was a reward to the tribe that devoted themselves to Torah study. God eased this tribe’s path to parnasah because of its devotion to Torah study.
Issachar was called a “donkey” by Jacob in his deathbed blessing. Why? Just as a donkey’s bones are well-defined, so too the Torah of Issachar was clear and understood. Alternatively, just as a donkey breaks his bones under his workload, so too the tribe of Issachar “broke Israel” (schooled Israel) in halakhah.
The names of Issachar’s sons were all in accord with the tribe’s devotion to Torah study.
Upon death, Issachar was described as having been “in possession of all of his faculties,” a fitting end for one who was regularly praised for wisdom during his lifetime.
Issachar’s stone on the priestly breastplate was the sapphire (sapir), since the two tablets of law given to Moses (the luhot ha-berit) were hewn from sapphire, and Issachar devoted themselves to study of Torah. The sapphire also had properties of increasing strength of vision and healing many diseases, as the Torah enlightens the eye and makes the body well.
The name of the prince of the tribe of Issachar was Netanel, meaning “gift of God,” for the tribe devoted its life to studying the Torah given by God.
In the formation around the Tabernacle, Issachar was grouped with Judah, since the royal tribe should be partnered with the tribe that excelled in Torah.
The tribe’s flag was black, depicting the night sky, with the sun and the moon emblazoned on it. This symbolism was natural to the tribe that excelled in the study of astronomy and the science of the calendar.
This persistent midrashic motif prompted Rashi to interpret the blessing that Jacob conferred on Issachar (Genesis 49:14–15) entirely in this vein:
“Issachar was a strong-boned donkey” who bore the yoke of Torah like a strong donkey that they loaded up with a heavy burden.…“And he bent his shoulder to bear” the yoke of Torah; “and he became” to all of Israel, his brothers, “an indentured laborer,” to provide for them practical decisions on questions of Torah law and the arrangements of the leap years.
The tribe that bore his name did the same for the blessing Moses bestowed upon them (Deuteronomy 33:18): “ ‘Succeed, Issachar, in sitting in your tents for Torah, to sit and set leap years and to fix the months of the calendar.”
This midrashic motif upon which most of the other commentators also built was clearly very strong. The textual or narrative peg on which it was based was less so. True, Issachar’s name was auspicious, and the wording of his blessings was suggestive. Nonetheless, we have no evidence of any outstanding accomplishments or tendencies during Issachar’s lifetime. We must turn to a much later textual clue, provided by the very last book of the Bible, Chronicles.
These are the numbers of the armed bands who joined David at Hebron to transfer Saul’s kingdom to him, in accordance with the words of the Lord…of Issachar, men who knew how to determine the signs of the times [yod’ei vinah la-itim], to determine how Israel should act…
I Chronicles 12:24, 33
This verse may be interpreted as indicating that the tribe of Issachar was particularly adept at “reading the times,” and advising the nation toward action, given a particular circumstance. Alternatively, the verse may indicate that the tribe excelled in the astronomical arts, calculating and predicting the changes in time. That Jacob blessed Issachar with descendants who would fix the calendar, as well as the idea that the tribe’s iconography was dominated by astrological symbols, provided the most direct midrashic links to this verse “yod’ei vinah la-itim.” A strong argument can even be made that the motif of Issachar-the-Torah-Scholar developed from this verse, as no other tribe was explicitly singled out in the text for its wise men.
Ahasuerus and the Wise Men of Issachar
A curious midrashic reference to the wisdom of Issachar surfaced in the context of the Book of Esther: “Then the king said to the wise men, who knew the times (Esther 1:13). Who were these wise men? The Sages” (Megillah 12b). And: “He consulted with the wise men of Issachar, who understand the signs of the times” (Esther Rabbah 4:1).
The clear connection drawn by the midrash between the verse in Esther and the verse in I Chronicles mentioned above hinges on the reference in both contexts to wise men who “understood the times.”
Rabbi Fishel Mael, in his Shivtei Israel, believed that something fundamental concerning the nature of Issachar could be teased out from the association with Ahasuerus’s overtures to that tribe. He reminded us that the Persian king sought advice as to how to best resolve the crisis of power distribution that was thrust into sharp focus after Queen Vashti refused his order to put in a public appearance. At the core of the problem was the question of the relationship between the sexes, especially the husband-wife relationship.
That Ahasuerus approached the Wise Men of Issachar for advice is very instructive, posited Rabbi Mael, given the particulars at stake. For Issachar embodied the trait of binah (recall, yod’ei vinah la-itim) – the specific category of wisdom defined as taking a germ of an idea and analyzing it until it is best understood – of building the idea from its original kernel of inspiration. Issachar was born at the apex of Leah’s binah. She had worked diligently at building a partnership with Jacob through the years by bearing him children. She had nurtured and developed the rhythms of their relationship until it reached the point of complete maturity and mutual understanding – “Come to me! And he lay with her that night” – that resulted in the conception of Issachar. The binah necessary to navigate the particulars of the husband-wife relationship is the same binah that is applied to figuring out the rhythms of the natural world. Understanding the nature of things – the sun and the moon, man and woman – and then intercalating and applying that knowledge: this is binah. In this area, Issachar, the product of Leah’s emergent binah, excelled naturally.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch further refined the concept of Issachar’s unique wisdom in his commentary on Genesis 49:15:
They [the representatives of Issachar who rallied to David] were “yod’ei vinah la-itim” – they brought with them binah, discernment, the ability to see between things [re’iyat beinayim], to recognize the interrelationships of persons and things and their potential effects on one another. This insight, attained by Issachar during his hours of leisure, was da’at binah, concrete perception, not sophistry but practical understanding of the true relationships of persons and things, which is acquired through genuine hokhmat ha-Torah. And it was la-itim; it came through correct evaluation of the uniqueness of any given moment.
The Talmud informed us that the Sages of Issachar refused to proffer advice to Ahasuerus, fearing the king’s wrath at either outcome. On a deeper level, though, they fully grasped this particular circumstance (yod’ei vinah la-itim). They feared (and were hesitant to confront) the fundamental impropriety of the Ahasuerus-Vashti partnership – that two “suns” could not share one sky, as found in the rabbinic literature: “What accounts for Ahasuerus’s excessive anger [at Vashti]? Rava said: It was because she had sent him a message, saying ‘You’re just my father’s stable boy!’” (Megillah 12b). And:
The sun and the moon were created equal, both in size and in brightness, as the Scripture states, “And God made the two great lights.” Then there was a dispute between the sun and the moon. The moon complained, “Two kings cannot rule with the same crown.” God agreed, and made the moon smaller.
Hullin 60b
The understanding that was the purview of Issachar, masters of binah, was manifest in profound ways. It is the understanding that relationships sour if each party always seeks to outshine the other, if husband or wife fails to grasp the delicate balance that must be maintained for two people to live together peacefully; that in order for this particular personality, the blazing Ahasuerus, to find happiness, he had to partner with a woman who resembled the unassuming moon in her modesty and unpretentiousness. The Sages explain: “If her name was Hadassah, why then was she called Esther? Because the nations of the world used to say admiringly that she was as beautiful as Istahar – the moon” (Megillah 13a). The Sages of Issachar therefore wisely keep silent, allowing for Ahasuerus to realize on his own that Esther was his perfect complement.
Issachar and Zebulun: A Beautiful Partnership
Issachar and Zebulun, the two youngest sons of Leah, were bound together in Moses’s blessings:
Rejoice, O Zebulun, on your journeys,
And Issachar, in your tents.
Deuteronomy 33:18
The nature of their partnership is explained by Rashi’s commentary on this verse:
Zebulun and Issachar made a partnership. Zebulun “shall dwell by the seashores” and depart in ships to engage in commerce. He will earn profit and support Issachar, and the men of Issachar will sit and engage in the study of Torah.
This idea – and that relationship – is a fundamental one to Judaism, having particular influence on the social constructs of contemporary Orthodoxy. Witness the predominance of kollels – centers of Torah study for married men – that are structured on what is known as the “Yissakhar-Zevulun arrangement,” with benefactors supporting the scholars.
More specifics about their partnership were alluded to in Jacob’s blessings. Then, the two sons were inverted: Zebulun, the youngest, was placed before the elder Issachar. A long tradition grew around this inextricable connection: Zebulun, the merchant, offered financial support to Issachar, so that the latter might pursue his Torah studies, free from anxiety and worry.
What is more, the midrash derived an interesting principle from the irregularity of Jacob’s order:
Why was it that Zebulun came before Issachar? Because Zebulun engaged in commerce while Issachar studied the Torah, and Zebulun came and provided him with sustenance. Therefore, he was given precedence.
Genesis Rabbah 99:9
The rabbinic adage that “if there is no flour, there is no Torah” marvelously satisfies the specific nature of this brotherly relationship: first, one’s worldly concerns must be addressed, and only then is one free to immerse oneself in Torah study.
This concept is reinforced in the blessings of Moses. Moses followed Jacob’s lead in blessing Zebulun before Issachar, but he went a step further, practically marginalizing Issachar in language that was dominated by blessings for Zebulun:
Rejoice, O Zebulun, in your journeys,
And Issachar, in your tents.
They [Zebulun] invite their kin to the mountain,
Where they offer sacrifices of success.
For they draw from the riches of the sea
And the hidden hoards of the sand.
Deuteronomy 33:18–19
The symbiotic relationship between Issachar and Zebulun was manifest in their adjacent territories, allowing for a fluid boundary, or at the very least regular movement, between their naĥalot (so described by the Malbim, Genesis 49:14). The tribes partnered in sanctifying God. Whereas Zebulun ventured out to foreign lands for trade with Gentiles and to impress positively that way, Issacharites stayed by their brother tribe’s shores, plying their produce to passing foreign ships and dazzling the foreign seafarers with their navigation prowess.
The Strong-Boned Ass
The Yissakhar-Zevulun arrangement was best suited to a personality like that of Issachar’s, who was compared by Jacob to an ass:
Issachar is a strong-boned ass,
Crouching among the sheepfolds.
It is strange that a personality that was constructed by generations of rabbinic gloss as an outstanding scholar (the Sages’ own ancient apotheosis!) should be compared to a donkey! This animal is described as crude, boorish, stubborn and ignorant; indeed, the root of the Hebrew for donkey, ĥamor, means “lowly, material, base.”
And yet. Perhaps it was this very simplicity that appealed to Jacob as he imagined his Issachar as a donkey, with the necessary diligence and single-mindedness required to toil in the complexities of Torah study. The simple donkey puts his head down and his shoulder into the burden – and he also doesn’t put on airs, whine, or ask for luxuries. These too are qualities befitting the Torah scholars, who must remain simple folk, finding happiness in their studies and making do with little.
Another positive association with the donkey (this one introduced by the Seforno), recalled the animal’s capacity for shouldering a heavy burden or two. The Seforno interpreted the enigmatic verse of the donkey “crouching among the sheepfolds” (plural) as intimating that Issachar paced regularly under the weight of a double burden, a task that only a strong ĥamor was capable of handling. This double burden of Issachar was Torah im derekh eretz; that is, the application of wisdom to political and practical matters. Entirely insufficient was his study of Torah if it were not made relevant and accessible to the rest of the nation. Other commentators took the same tack, as Rashi comments on Genesis 49:14: “Rovetz – this means wandering, since Issachar traveled around deciding on matters of halakhah for the nation,” and Radak on Genesis 49:15: “Le-mas oved – Issachar was the servant of Israel, involved in disseminating wisdom and Torah matters.”
Issachar’s diligence, commitment to the greater community, and unparalleled capacity for binah established him as a worthy recipient of Zebulun’s largesse.
Issachar the Farmer
There was an additional striking facet to Issachar that is consistently absent from contemporary references to the Yissakhar-Zevulun arrangement. As always, the key is to be found in Jacob’s blessing:
When he saw how goodly was his rest,
And how pleasant was the country,
He bent his shoulder to the burden
And became a toiling serf.
Genesis 49:15
Rashbam interpreted Issachar, the diligent donkey, as a farmer:
Not like Zebulun who travels the sea as a merchant, he [Issachar] works his land like a donkey with strong limbs…who saw that resting on the land was better than going out to far-off places, “how pleasant was the country” and successful, as it is written (Deuteronomy 12:9): “to the rest and the inheritance.” “And he bent his shoulder to the burden, and became a toiling serf” to give tithes of his produce to the kings.…This is the essential simple meaning, and it is a tiding of wealth for the tribe of Issachar.
Nehama Leibowitz noted that Rashbam understood Issachar’s goodly rest (menuĥah) not as a respite from work, but the work itself – the settlement and development of the Land of Israel.
What often goes unmentioned with regard to Issachar, the Torah scholar, was his connection to the land. Yes, the fruits yielded easily, and yes, he rejoiced in the blessings of an accommodating land, but his was a deeply rooted tribe – rejoicing in the industries of Eretz Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, and Am Yisrael. He embodied Torah with a literal “derekh eretz,” a knowledge of the ways of the land, with a rich understanding of the rhythms and ways of Eretz Yisrael.
Expanding on this concept, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch added a piercing insight into the nature of Issachar:
Issachar is happy to work, but only to the extent that there is value to the work for the Jewish people.…Issachar exemplifies the essential core of the nation of Israel: the Jewish farmer. He doesn’t work for so as to labor without letup or to accumulate wealth; the Jewish man of the people doesn’t subjugate himself to the work, but rather works so as to merit menuĥah [rest].…He regards the leisure he earned by his own labors as his greatest asset and most prized possession. For leisure enables a person to stand tall and to find himself.…Knowledge of Torah and its practical application to current circumstances are not attained by one who immerses himself in business. Rather, they are attained by one who, in his hours of leisure, frees his mind of all else, of whom it can be said that “Va-yar menuĥah ki tov,” he regards leisure as the true profit to be obtained from work; thus “oseh Torato keva u-melakhto ar’ai” – he regards Torah study as the main goal, and work as merely an incidental means. Issachar regards ha-aretz, agriculture, as the surest path to this goal. Hence, he devoted himself with enthusiasm to the taxing chores of tilling the soil: “va-yehi le-mas oved.”
Issachar succeeded at his tasks, both tilling the land and toiling in the beit midrash. He was one who “put his shoulder to bear,” happily engrossing himself in meaningful hard work. But he was at his best when he could busy himself with both. Note the sobering response with which the Wise Ones of Issachar put off King Ahasuerus:
“Our master the king! When we were in our land, we had the means to achieve wisdom. Now [that we’ve been exiled], we’re no longer connected!” They quoted to him the following verse from Jeremiah 48:11 as illustration:
Moab has been secure from his youth on –
He is settled on his lees
And has not been poured from vessel to vessel –
He has never gone into exile.
Therefore his fine flavor has remained
And his bouquet is unspoiled.
Esther Rabbah 4:1
Distance from the land and the heaviness of exile weakened Issachar’s faculties. Only when he was safely home, happily toiling the fields of his naĥalah with mind unfettered, could Issachar truly flourish.
Naĥalat Yissakhar
The naĥalah of Issachar was alluded to in Jacob’s blessing:
“Issachar is a strong donkey” refers to his territory. As a donkey is short on this side and short on that side with a high place in the middle, so too [his land] will have a valley on this side and a valley on this side and a mountain in the middle…the Valley of Kesuloth, the Valley of Jezreel [and Mount Tabor in the middle].…“And he bowed his shoulder to bear” the yoke of the Land of Israel.
Genesis Rabbah 98:12
Issachar’s territory encompassed the whole eastern swath of the Jezreel Valley, from Afula as a westernmost point to the Jordan River in the east. The southern border can be roughly identified as the Harod Valley, the southeastern dip stretching from the Jezreel Valley to the Bik’ah, or the Jordan River Valley, and stretching south of the Gilboa mountain range towards the west to include the city of Ir Ganim (Jenin). Perhaps the Jabneel Brook, which bisects the Jabneel Valley up at the southern tip of the Sea of Chinnereth, served as the northern border for this naĥalah. As expected, the heights that separate the Harod Valley from the Jabneel Valley are known as Ramoth Yissakhar.
The abrupt rise of Mount Tabor served as the nexus point of three tribes: Zebulun, to the west; Naphtali, to the east; and Issachar, to the south. The biblically famous sites of Jezreel, Shunem, En-dor, and the Harod Spring were all found in Naĥalat Yissakhar. While not the largest naĥalah, this region of primarily plain and inviting hills had tremendous agricultural potential. No wonder that it was given to the “Jewish farmer,” Issachar.
Visiting Naĥalat Yissakhar
Itinerary: Havat Kinneret, Museum of Art in Kibbutz Ein Harod, En-harod, Tel Jezreel
What was true during biblical times – that the Jezreel and Harod valley regions of Naĥalat Yissakhar were a virtual “breadbasket” for the country – has come full circle in the modern period. Early in the twentieth century, this cradle of flatland intrigued Joshua Henkin and Arthur Ruppin, two leaders of the Palestine Land Development Fund, who rallied hard to purchase these areas for the ĥalutzim, the young pioneers of the Second Aliyah. These visionaries, along with labor socialist idealists such as Manya and Yisrael Schochat, saw past the malarial swampland that had condemned the region to waste for centuries, and energetically set about training bands of young farmers.
As background to the period of the Second Aliyah, we start our tour with a visit to the Havat Kinneret, Kinneret Farm, a training farm founded on the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in 1908. After rigorous training – agriculture in the fields and labor Zionism in the dining hall – bands of young idealistic and socialist farmers were dispatched to found the first collective settlements, like Degania, the first kevutzah, Ein Harod, the first kibbutz, and Nahalal, the first farming moshav (cooperative agricultural settlement)– all of which are in or near Naĥalat Yissakhar.
In 1911, Hana Maizel Schochat established a separate training farm for women at Havat Kinneret. One of her prized pupils was the poetess Rachel Bluwstein, whose verse expressed the determination and commitment of those early ĥalutzim to cultivate their own land:
Here on Earth – not in high clouds–
On this mother earth that is close:
To sorrow in her sadness, exult in her meager joy
That knows, so well, how to console.
Not nebulous tomorrow but today: solid, warm, mighty,
Today materialized in the hand:
Of this single, short day to drink deep
Here in our own land.
Before night falls – come, oh come all!
A unified stubborn effort, awake
With a thousand arms. Is it impossible to roll
The stone from the mouth of the well?
Rachel Bluwstein, “Here on Earth”
Rachel’s mentor was the secular Zionist philosopher, A. D. Gordon, her neighbor at Kibbutz Degania, who preached and practiced a certain “religion of labor.” To his thinking, work for its own sake was a redemptive and necessary measure for the Jewish nation in its homeland. Labor and defense should not be contracted out, he preached, but should be embraced as necessary, just, and good.
A people that was completely divorced from nature, that during 2,000 years was imprisoned within walls, that became inured to all forms of life except to a life of labor, cannot become once again a living, natural, working people without bending all its willpower toward that end. We lack the fundamental element; we lack labor, but labor is [the means] by which a people becomes rooted in its soil and in its culture.
Driving down the Bik’ah from Havat Kinneret and then west through the Jezreel Valley gives a clear picture of what Naĥalat Yissakhar has become – a fertile track of crop circles, irrigated fields studded with bales, and lush stretches of patchwork green and brown. It suffices to make us marvel at the realization of Issachar’s potential in our day.
We stop at Kibbutz Ein Harod and head for the Museum of Art, built in the 1930s, shortly after the kibbutz itself was founded. The museum, founded by the original kibbutz members, expressed their ideology that art and culture were critical to society. Indeed, the museum was completed even before other essential buildings in the new kibbutz were erected.
It is a lovely, large and airy building, showcasing mainly modern art and avant-garde exhibits. Its only permanent collection is the Judaica room, where the keepsakes that the ĥalutzim brought with them from the “Old Country” are on display. At the time of their most earnest ideology of labor Zionism, the early pioneers had little use for such mementos, like Hannukah menorahs or havdalah spice boxes. Yet the hardened ĥalutzim were loathe to discard these relics; instead, they were put on display in the museum as curious artifacts from a former life.
Considering the personality of Issachar, it is quite startling to realize that the land in his naĥalah was tilled and readied by ĥalutzim of an era that abandoned traditional Judaism and embraced instead the ethos of labor – an approach that is inimical to Issachar’s regard for work as a necessary means to nurture the ultimate Torah scholar.
Lest we despair, however, that the ideological gap between the old and the new Issachar is unbridgeable, we may find comfort and inspiration in the words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the esteemed sage who toured these communal settlements of Naĥalat Yissakhar in 1914 to bolster and encourage the ĥalutzim in their Torah observance. While visiting one of the new settlements, he articulated a vision so infused with binah that we marvel at how, indeed, the yod’ei vinah la-itim of Issachar became manifest in his own naĥalah, in our own time:
I feel like a man who is called to raise the banner, like a man who must unite the good and the healthy in both communities: the Old and the New. I am like a poor person sitting at the crossroads, in the shadows between these two holy communities, the New and the Old. These two communities are connected by a bond that cannot be severed, just as the soul is connected to the body, and together they form the person who lives, breathes, acts, and creates. The Old Community in the beauty of its holiness and the glory of its aristocratic old age shines a wealth of beautiful rays upon all of the New Community. And the New Community in its dewy youthfulness, in the wildness of its youth, in the dwellings of its adolescence, stands ready to electrify the heart and strengthen the hands of the Old Community, which has already been uplifted toward the heights of holiness for hundreds of years. Their mixing together will bring about the renewal of Israel.
In the period after the Israelite conquest, when the tribe of Issachar would have been working their fertile fields, their naĥalah was also the stage for some famous biblical stories. The setting of one of the exciting battles in the Book of Judges is right across the road from Kibbutz Ein Harod, in the En-harod National Park.
Visit the Harod Spring (En-harod) in the national park, gushing forth from a cave at the foot of the Gilboa mountains. This is the site where Gideon’s soldiers gathered in preparation for war against the Midianites. Gideon himself was a Menassehite from the town of Ophrah, most likely located in Naĥalat Yissakhar, but belonging to Manasseh. Along with the men of Manasseh, the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali were called upon to join his troops. Curiously, Issachar was entirely absent from the story, though the battle was arrayed squarely in its naĥalah. This was most likely because Issachar had suffered the brunt of the previous seven years of Midianite incursions into Israel, and their land and numbers were severely damaged. In a sense, Issachar’s countrymen were coming to their aid (and their own), trying to drive the Midianites away, so that they all could rebuild.
Gideon tested his soldiers at En-harod, seeking only those who were not serial idolators. He asked each soldier to drink from the spring. Those who prostrated themselves were sent home, as were others who were fearful of battle. Gideon was left with a mere three hundred soldiers to man his army. They successfully fought the Midianites, who had encamped just north, in the Kesuloth Valley between Mount Tabor and Moreh Hill (Moreh Hill was opposite En-harod, but the Midianite camp would not have been visible to the Israelites at En-harod; it was, though, close enough that Gideon could easily spy on them). The miraculous victory over the massive Midianite force helped cement Gideon’s authority over Israel, and restore Issachar’s lands to that beleaguered tribe.
Just east of En-harod is the aptly-named yishuv of Gidona. It’s worthwhile to pay a short visit to the atmospheric cemetery here, the final resting place for many of the young ĥalutzim who died in the 1920s–30s while draining swamps, building roads and fighting Arabs. As you wander around the tilted and moss-covered tombstones, notice how disproportionate the losses were to their ranks at the time. Disease, accident, and suicide were rampant – these young ideologues could hardly tolerate the dissonance between their will to work and the near-impossible conditions of daily life. At the entrance to the cemetery, there is a mass grave for all the infants who died at birth or shortly afterwards. These young parents – barely adults themselves – had no elders to guide them through their grief. The price of revitalizing Naĥalat Yissakhar in our modern period was steep indeed.
Our final stop is a tel on the eastern edge of the Jezreel Valley that saw some of the greatest biblical drama in its heyday. This is Tel Jezreel, the site of the ancient city of Jezreel, a city of Issachar. In the last days of his life, King Saul gathered his troops at the nearby Jezreel Spring (the cluster of trees visible in the near distance from the eastern lookout point on the tel), in preparation for war against the Philistines. His strategy was to draw the Philistines to higher ground, where their chariots would be less effective. The battle, however, quickly turned in favor of the Philistines, and Saul and his sons died on Mount Gilboa.
Jezreel was a Canaanite city strategically located on the trade and military route linking Egypt with Damascus. There was ample water supply from the nearby Jezreel Spring, water cisterns on site, and the surrounding fertile fields provided excellent agriculture and grazing land. Canaanite Jezreel was ostensibly appropriated by Issachar, though there is no destruction layer indicating a violent takeover.
The town seems to have been repurposed as either a central military base or a winter palace for Omri or his son Ahab in the early ninth century Bce. Archaeological excavations headed up by David Ussishkin uncovered a casemate wall-and-tower fortification system, as well as an impressive rock-cut moat, dating to this period. Little excavation has been carried out at the center of the tel, so the scope and function of the rectangular, symmetrical enclosure formed by the casemate wall is hard to define.
Jezreel next surfaces in the Bible with King Ahab, who coveted the vineyards of Naboth the Jezreelite that may have been located in this area. Ahab’s Queen Jezebel had Naboth killed so that the king would have quick claim to those vineyards, an act for which both king and queen were severely censured by the prophet Elijah and cursed with death:
The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the ramparts of Jezreel.
All of Ahab’s line who die in the town shall be devoured by dogs,
And all who die in the open country shall be devoured by the birds of the sky.
I Kings 21:23–24
This gory premonition came to pass when Ahab was killed in battle against Aram. Years later, Jehu, who aspired to rule Israel at the behest of the prophet Elisha, killed Jehoram, son of Ahab, in the fields of Naboth – poetic justice if ever there was! He then entered Jezreel and accosted Jezebel in her fortress tower. She was thrown from the tower by her servants and eaten by the dogs.
The excavated northeast tower would have been the watchtower from which the royal sentry first spied Jehu approaching the Jezreel, since it faced the hills of Gilead from which Jehu was approaching the city: “The lookout was stationed on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the troop of Jehu as he approached” (II Kings 9:17).
It is almost too much to suggest that this tower was the one where Jezebel met her death. After all, how often can we place the exact location of key biblical events? It must have been in one of the towers of Jezreel, certainly. Ussishkin does suggest a definitive location for the piling up of the dismembered heads of Ahab’s seventy children, killed on Jehu’s orders in Samaria. According to II Kings 10:8, the heads were put on display at the entrance gate of Jezreel, where the archaeologist excavated on the southern casemate wall.
Have a look at the crop circles on the plain below you, and our tour will come full circle with the prophetic words of Hosea. The prophet-poet recognized the potential of redeeming “Jezreel” from a symbol of desolation and ruin to the promise of growth and productivity in his plea for a wayward Kingdom of Israel to return to God. Hosea first lambasted a sinning and traitorous Israel as “Yizrael,” destined to suffer the same cursed fate as this city and valley that had seen so much bloodshed. But then, as God remembered His love for His people and forgave them their iniquity, “Yizrael” came into its own as the “Zera-El,” the seed of God, a fertile tract, abundantly blessed. As it once was in the early days of Issachar, before all of the bloodshed that maligned the valley into a synonym for utter desolation, so it now is, in our day, as the Jewish farmers live and work the land:
Chapter 7; Zevulun
On that day, I will respond, declares the Lord
I will respond to the sky,
And it shall respond to the earth;
And the earth shall respond
With new grain and wine and oil,
And they shall respond to Yizrael,
Ve-zar’ati Li ba-Aretz – and I will sow her in the land
as My own.
Hosea 2:23–25
Those that descend to the sea in ships, plying their trade in the mighty waters;
They have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.
Psalms 107:23–24
Zebulun was so intertwined with his older brother Issachar that it is difficult to tease apart an individualized portrait.
Rejoice, Zebulun, in your journeys,
And Issachar, in your tents.
Deuteronomy 33:18
His one consistent marker was the theme of plenty, of overwhelming success.
They draw from the riches of the sea,
And the hidden hoards of the sand.
Deuteronomy 33:19
From Jacob to Moses, this was the theme of his bountiful blessings.
This is not really surprising, as “abundance” is the meaning of the name given to the sixth and final son of Leah. Looking at the unexpected gift of yet another child, Leah was profusive in her wordplay:
God has given me a choice gift [zevadani Elokim oti zeved tov]; now my husband will exalt me [ha-pa’am yizbeleni ishi], for I have borne him six sons. So she named him Zebulun.”
Genesis 30:20
The alliteration in this verse heightens our awareness of this rare phoneme zv – zevadani, zeved, yizbeleni, Zevulun. The root zav indicates an abnormal, pathological flow – a curious abundance. Leah’s poetic turn highlighted the unexpected, even extraordinary occurrence of this baby’s birth. She herself bore Jacob half of the sum total of his sons. That this was not meant to be was highlighted in the midrash:
The matriarchs knew that each was to produce three. When Leah bore a fourth son [Judah], she exclaimed: This time I will praise the Lord.
Genesis Rabbah 71:4
At this point, when she had given birth to number six, Leah’s fortune seemed almost…abnormal, as reflected in the nuance of that phoneme zv.
If the meaning of the root z-v-d is widely agreed to imply “give, bestow,” the second rare root in the verse is less clear. Z-v-l occurs only six times throughout the entire Tanakh. It was understood by most traditional commentators to mean “dwelling place,” in which case the meaning of the second half of the verse is “now my husband will dwell with me.” In the simplest sense, Leah followed the agenda she established with her firstborn, and continued to use with every subsequent son: the children were a means to secure a relationship with Jacob. One commentator, though, read a more profound significance into the solid and secure connotation of z-v-l: with the birth of this son, Leah secured for herself the ultimate, eternal dwelling – a grave next to her husband in Me’arat HaMakhpelah.
Another implication of the root z-v-l is “fertilizer.” This again highlights the extraordinary fecundity of Zebulun’s birth: I have become fertile yet again. The midrash that chose to interpret in this vein read the verse: my husband has fertilized (yizbileni) me yet again.
Moshe Held of Columbia University offers yet another understanding of the root z-v-l. Pointing to the link with the Ugaritic cognate z-b-l, he argued it means “to elevate or raise up.” A related noun in Ugaritic is zbl, meaning “prince.” It is then possible to translate the verse as “this time, my husband will exalt me.” Further application of this meaning also renders z-v-l as understandable in its five other contexts throughout Tanakh.
Zebulun’s birth was an unexpected blessing for Leah. This new baby secured her an eternal existence with Jacob. Now, he would not only cede to her vision (as with Issachar), but would also honor it. Taking off on the theme of fecundity, the pseudepigraphal Testament of Zebulun suggested that Zebulun brought fortune to his father as well, since Jacob’s wealth multiplied enormously upon this son’s birth.
Jacob indeed focused on fortune in his blessing to Zebulun: Zebulun was to be a successful and astute businessman, harvesting his wealth from the seas, trading with other nations:
Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore;
He shall be a haven for ships,
And his flank shall rest on Sidon.
Genesis 49:13
Zebulun was given control of the ports, heading up the most dynamic aspect of Israel’s wealth: trade. The farming and herding life of the other shevatim was relatively serene and unsurprising. Zebulun’s destiny was electrified with the unpredictability of the trader’s life. It was no wonder that his stone on the priestly breastplate was the pearl, or quartz (yahalom) – both because it came from the sea, and because its roundness symbolized the fickleness of wealth.
Zebulun and his linked brother, Issachar, represented two opposing approaches to life, the far poles of the spectrum:
Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore;
He shall be a haven for ships,
And his flank shall rest on Sidon.
Issachar is a strong-boned ass,
Crouching among the sheepfolds.
When he saw how good was security,
And how pleasant was the country,
He bent his shoulder to the burden,
And became a toiling serf.
Genesis 49:13–15
Issachar was defined by stability and plodding single-mindedness. He was rooted in his “security” amongst the “sheep folds,” standing on the land. In contrast to the steady donkey, Zebulun was an agile ship, always seeking new initiatives, dwelling by the ever-changing sea. He was the entrepreneur of the family, comfortable with the excitement of the unexpected.
Like all entrepreneurs, Zebulun was unusually mindful of potential partnerships and mutually beneficial arrangements. Seeing in his older brother tremendous potential for the depth and knowledge that can come only through many hours of diligent study, he suggested that they capitalize on their respective strengths. Zebulun, the astute businessman, would act as Issachar’s agent, selling the produce gleaned from his brother’s fertile fields. He was also to provide any additional funding. In return, Issachar would apply himself to his studies and become the tribe of national scholars.
With their arrangement, Zebulun secured something of the eternal, while Issachar procured something of the dynamic. Like all true partnerships, both sides were enriched by the other’s strengths.
As per their agreement, Zebulun received a share in the spiritual benefits, or the World to Come, derived from his brother’s Torah. Zebulun made a “leap of faith” – after all, he signed on to an eternity of philanthropy, with no insurance that he wouldn’t have to surrender his personal wealth to support his brother. He received no tangible benefit from the exchange, while Issachar saw a marked material advantage. Thus, in the blessings of both Jacob and Moses, Zebulun was extolled before the older Issachar. This was appropriate not only because he initiated the arrangement, but also because he took on the more precarious and challenging role of committing to another tribe that he would always “take care of business.”
This was not an easy commitment to make. Zebulun was no trust fund baby. He had no concrete assets over those of his brothers. In fact, some had naĥalot that were far richer than his! The difference was one of attitude. The seas, Zebulun understood, belonged to no one – they could be harvested only by charisma and savvy. To be consigned to the water meant a life of constant danger, constant alertness. Yes, there was much to be gained, but also everything to be lost. Control over ports did not equal a regular cash flow. Zebulun was fully aware that his was a difficult destiny:
Zebulun was dissatisfied with his lot, as it is said, “Zebulun is a people that felt remorse in its soul to the death” (Judges 5:18). Why did he feel this way? Because [as the verse in Judges continues] “Naphtali was on the high places of the field.” Zebulun said before the Holy One, blessed be He, “Master of the Universe, to my brothers You have given fields and vineyards, but to me You have given mountains and hills. To my brothers You have given lands, but to me You have given seas and rivers!”
Megillah 6a
The Maharsha, the master commentator on the aggadah, noted that when the tribe of Zebulun was summoned to Kedesh of Naphtali by General Barak, they saw those fertile fields and vineyards firsthand. In Naĥalat Naphtali there was bounteous, rooted wealth. There was the satisfaction of bonding with the steady earth – a connection absent for those who ply the moody sea. Faced with the reliable serenity of the fecund earth, the tribe of Zebulun felt “remorse in its soul to the death.” This was something that they, slated to travel far and wide to earn fortune, however substantial, never had.
God comforted Zebulun with an additional gift: “All of your brothers will need you for the ĥilazon [sea creature that produces the indigo dye]” (Megillah 6a). The indigo dye secreted by the ĥilazon was the source of the costly tekhelet color, necessary for certain priestly garments as well as for the petil tekhelet, the single blue thread that was tied with the other tzitziot on each corner of four-cornered garments. The straightforward intent of this midrash was that Zebulun would always be wealthy, no matter how fickle the seas, because he provided the prized ĥilazon snail to the rest of Am Yisrael. This snail was harvested from the northern shores of Israel, an area that fell under the purview of Zebulun’s naĥalah.
I suggest that God’s response to Zebulun addressed more than the anxiety over his capricious naĥalah. Zebulun was a trader, acting primarily as an agent, facilitating others’ fortune. He was the middleman who regularly entered dangerous waters with no promise of a happy outcome. He provided for others’ well-being – whether Jacob’s wealth, Leah’s security, or Issachar’s freedom. He was always involved in pragmatiah, always looking for the next hot deal, never sitting still. He was the ultimate worldly shevet, immersed in the here-and-now. When God gifted Zebulun with the ĥilazon, He was gifting him with another dimension.
Why was tekhelet selected from all other dyes? Because [the color of] tekhelet resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the sky, and the sky resembles the Throne of Glory.
Sotah 17a
The tekhelet on the tzitzit, noted Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, represent the metaphysical, a thin strand of unattainable heaven that throws the clarity of the other, white, tzitzit strands, into even sharper focus. These white strands are the sum of our mundane lives, to be lived in holiness, shot through by an awareness of the unreachable Divine, symbolized by the single strand of tekhelet. Even though Zebulun was busy with matters of pragmatiah, to his lot fell the tekhelet, the symbol of the otherworldly. When Zebulun felt rootless and uncertain, God gently reminded him that his calling was in no way inferior to that of his brothers. They turned to you not only for your worldly acumen, God said, but also for the inspiration to exalt the mundane by infusing it with a higher purpose. It was not Jacob and Moses alone, God intimated, who took note of your overtures to Issachar. Do not be discouraged, Zebulun – to you alone, who compromised your personal safety, relinquished serenity, and toiled selflessly to help others realize their destinies – is dominion of the tekhelet, and to you alone are the material and spiritual blessings of the blue, mysterious seas.
To gaze into the depths of tekhelet is to fathom the rolling expanse of the sea, to ride the waves of creativity, pondering elements that might have seemed disconnected, as a successful merchant does. It was not only Zebulun’s sacrifice that made him worthy of the tekhelet; it was his very unrootedness, his dynamism and creativity, that allowed him to leap from sea to sky, and on to the Kisei Ha-Kavod.
One final note on the matter: we have much to learn about Issachar’s appreciation for Zebulun from a famous example of such an arrangement – the relationship between Maimonides and his younger brother, David. In assuming the “Zebulun” role, David supported his older brother, allowing the natural scholar in the family to produce prodigiously and focus on intellectual pursuits. Upon learning of David’s death at sea while on a trading voyage in the Indian Ocean, Maimonides lamented:
The worst disaster that struck me of late, worse than anything I had ever experienced from the time I was born until this day, was the demise of that upright man, who drowned in the Indian Ocean while in possession of much money belonging to me, to him, and to others, leaving a young daughter and his widow in my care. For about a year from the day the evil tidings reached me, I remained prostrate in bed with a severe inflammation, fever and mental confusion, and almost perished. From then until this day, that is, about eight years, I have been in a state of disconsolate mourning. How can I be consoled? For he was my son; he grew up upon my knees; he was my brother, my pupil. It was he who did business in the market place, earning a livelihood, while I dwelled in security.
Maimonides, Correspondence, January 1185
Maimonides mourned the loss of a beloved brother, yes, but he also voiced his despair over losing a certain measure of freedom that his brother’s commitment had granted him those many years. David had realized his older brother’s scholarly potential, understood well his own strengths and business prowess, and committed to the classic Yissakhar-Zevulun arrangement. Let us carefully note two things: David himself apparently studied Torah under his brother’s tutelage, and Maimonides was a scholastic giant, whose promise and achievements benefited generations. The model presented by the house of Maimon therefore served as an excellent application of a successful and appropriate relationship between two people who understood each other’s potential.
Zebulun, Ambassador to the World
Moses expanded upon Jacob’s blessing of sea trade, pointing to a pattern seen throughout history. Traders not only exchange goods, but also worldviews. They are the first, most primary, ambassadors. As the tribe that had the most international exposure, Zebulun naturally acted as a representative for the nation of Israel. Moses blessed the tribe that they might
Rejoice in your excursions.…Nations will proclaim at the mountain; there they will slaughter offerings of righteousness. For they shall be nourished by the riches of the sea and by the treasures hidden in the sand.
Deuteronomy 33:18–19
The Sages interpreted the curious “nations proclaiming at the mountain and slaughtering offerings” to mean that Issachar and Zebulun would positively influence foreign nations to appreciate Jerusalem and Temple worship. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch expanded on this notion:
Both of them together [Issachar and Zebulun] bring to the nations their first acquaintance with the Jewish spirit and Jewish life, and with the source of both – the Sanctuary of the Torah of Israel. They invite peoples to ascend the mountain and to offer there offerings of righteousness. For the peoples with whom they have dealings will learn to know and respect the spirit of Israel and the Torah of Israel. Ultimately, they will go up to the Mount of God’s House, and there, in devotion to the one God, they will attain the sanctity of a life of duty in righteousness.
Hirsch, Deuteronomy 33:19
The tribe of Zebulun was not merely an agent of material resources; it was also Issachar’s full partner, disseminating not only agricultural goods, but also spiritual wealth. Issachar developed the clarity and depth of the ideas, and Zebulun represented them to the world.
Jonah and Zebulun
We can see this spiritual role in the one prophet most closely connected to Zebulun: Jonah. The motifs of the tribe were abundant in the story: ships, sea, and the flanks of Sidon. It is not surprising, then, that the Sages traced Jonah to the tribe of Zebulun! Within this context, it seems entirely appropriate for Jonah of Zebulun to entreat his endangered fellow passengers to “raise me and cast me into the sea” – a son of Zebulun returning to his natural habitat.
Jonah was connected to his tribe in other ways as well. Even though many others – Amos, Isaiah, Obadiah, Nahum, among others – prophesied about nations other than Israel, only Jonah was instructed by God to travel abroad and deliver His message directly to a foreign people: “Rise, and journey to Nineveh, that large city, and call out to her, for her iniquity has come before me” (Jonah 1:2).
Zebulun was the tribe of ambassadors, the ones who interacted with the peoples of the world, who were comfortable in their cosmopolitanism. Even as Jonah fled his mission, he was still a child of his tribe, spreading a vision of God to his far-off destination.
Jonah’s effect on non-Jews was demonstrated even through his escape route! The verses speak of his impact on the boat’s passengers in language that directly echoed Zebulun’s blessing “nations will proclaim at the mountain; there they will slaughter offerings of righteousness,” and the midrash explicitly linked their worship to Jerusalem: “And they heaved Jonah overboard, and the sea stopped raging. Then the men feared the Lord greatly; they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows” (Jonah 1:15–16).
When the sailors saw all of the miracles and wonders that the Lord had done for Jonah [he was spat out on land by the fish]…they returned to Jaffa port and ascended to Jerusalem…and made loyalty vows and sacrificed there.
Yalkut Shimoni 550
Rashi explained the connection between the tribe of Zebulun and the Temple in Jerusalem in his commentary on Moses’s blessing:
People will call to the mountain: Through the commerce of Zebulun, the merchants of the nations of the world arrived at his coast. They said, “Since we’ve gone to the trouble to get here, let us go to Jerusalem and see this nation’s Deity and practices.” When they saw there all of Israel worshipping the same God and eating the same food…they said, “There is no nation as proper as this one” – and they converted then and there, as it says, “There they will slaughter offerings of righteousness.”
Zebulun drew the nations of the world to Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem. Jonah, the quintessential son of Zebulun, demonstrated in his person the strong affiliation between his tribe and the Temple:
Jonah was from the tribe of Zebulun.…Rabbi Jonah said: “Jonah ben Amitai was a regular amongst the pilgrims to Jerusalem. He would participate in the festival of the drawing of the water [on Sukkoth], and the Holy Spirit would stir him [to prophesy].”
Yerushalmi, Sukkah 5:1
Remarkably, the ritual highlighted here was the nisukh ha-mayim, the annual water-drawing ceremony celebrated on Sukkoth. Of course, a Zebulunite would be particularly drawn to the water-based ritual that was dedicated to beseeching God to provide for the world’s material welfare. What’s more, the ceremony was performed on the most cosmopolitan of holidays, the one festival concerned with the nations of the world – Sukkoth.
Jonah, who led the sailors on the boat to the Temple, who himself was strongly drawn to the water ceremony in the Temple, prayed to God from the depths of the water…about the Temple:
You cast me into the depths,
Into the heart of the sea,
The floods engulf me…
Would I ever gaze again
Upon Your holy Temple?…
Let my prayer come before You
Into Your holy Temple…
And I, with loud thanksgiving,
Will sacrifice to You.
That which I have vowed, I will perform.
Jonah 2:4–10
Though the seas might have carried Zebulun off to distant shores, and though their primary place was interacting with foreigners at busy ports, this tribe fully understood the need to stay rooted to the nation’s spiritual center. Jonah and his tribe quenched their thirst for the Divine with the nisukh ha-mayim ceremony, rejoicing with the nations of the world as they “ascend year after year to worship the King, Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the festival of Sukkoth” (Zechariah 14:16).
Naĥalat Zevulun
The contours of Naĥalat Zevulun are provided in Joshua 19:10–17, and they are surprising. Based on the poetic verse of Jacob’s blessing to Zebulun, we expect that much of the northern Mediterranean coast would have been granted to this tribe:
Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore;
He shall be a haven for ships,
And his flank shall rest on Sidon.
Genesis 49:13
This is a theme echoed by Moses in his blessing: Zebulun “shall be nourished by the riches of the sea and by the treasures hidden in the sand” (Deuteronomy 33:18–19). These selections both strongly intimated a seaside territory for Zebulun, and the following midrash aggadah concurred:
Elazar the High Priest was wearing the Urim ve-Tumim, and Joshua and all Israel stood before him. An urn [containing the names] of the tribes, and an urn containing descriptions of the boundaries, were placed before him. Guided by divine inspiration, he gave directions, exclaiming, “Zebulun will be drawn, and the boundary lines of Acco will be drawn!” He then vigorously shook the urn of the tribes, and Zebulun came up in his hand. He vigorously shook the urn of the boundaries, and the boundary lines of Acco came up in his hand.
Bava Batra 122a
Instead, it seems clear that all of these coastal cities were apportioned to Asher, from the strip at the foot of the Carmel up through Acco and Sidon. Zebulun was granted a landlocked region, surrounded by Naphtali, Issachar, Manasseh, and Asher. Their naĥalah was shaped like a short boot facing westward, encompassing (from south): the northern cities of the Jezreel Valley, the Nazareth Mountain Range, Mount Tabor, the Tur’an and Jotapata Mountain Ranges, and the Tur’an and Beit Netofa Valleys.
How to reconcile the discrepancy between the territory that actually was allotted to Zebulun, and that which was all but promised to them in the Torah? The Vilna Gaon extrapolated that lots were cast twice: once in Gilgal and then seven years later in Shiloh. He interpreted Joshua 14 and the territorial allotments there as the first lottery divvying up the naĥalot of Judah and Benjamin that happened seven years after the Israelites entered the Land of Israel. Seven years after that lottery, when the Tabernacle was moved to Shiloh, lots were cast again – this time for the seven remaining tribes, as delineated in Joshua 18.
Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun refined this interpretation by positing that all of the tribes received their naĥalot in Gilgal, back in Joshua 14, but some were dissatisfied with their allotments and therefore neglected to pursue conquering their territories. After the move to Shiloh, Joshua lamented, “For how long will you be negligent in rising to inherit that land that the Lord, God of your fathers, has given to you?!” Understood thus, Zebulun indeed inherited the coastal region in the initial lottery. We noted above how the midrash commented on their dissatisfaction with this region, a difficult tract of “mountains and hills, seas and rivers.” Rabbi Bin-Nun suggested that this midrash served to explain the discrepancy between what Zebulun was initially allotted and that which they received later at Shiloh – a portion cut off from the sea, with the ample fields and agricultural tracts that they had so coveted.
Was it therefore acceptable to be dissatisfied with a God-given lot? Don’t we teach our children that “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset”? Why did God humor Zebulun and change their naĥalah to suit the tribe’s whims?
I believe that another approach to this presumed textual discrepancy is to acknowledge that there really wasn’t much of a discrepancy to comment on. Nowhere was Zebulun explicitly promised the coast (with the possible exception of the midrash in Bava Batra 122a). What was essential to the tribal makeup was not their territory, but their profession. And their profession was on the seas, fluid and amorphous, impossible to allot to any one tribe. The major coastal cities may have belonged to Asher, but Zebulun’s personality dominated the trading ports. Their territory was not essential to their character, but their avocation was.
Visiting Naĥalat Zevulun
Itinerary: Jotapata, Laura Netofah, Hannathon, Sepphoris
Though the naĥalah might be of limited importance to understanding Zebulun (the tribal character didn’t involve a special attachment to land, but rather to the sea), it still merits consideration. Naĥalat Zevulun was a relatively compact area, easy enough to traverse in one day.
We start our tour at the outlook point in Kaukab Abu al-Hija (off Route 784), a small Arab village on the Jotapata Mountain Ridge in the Lower Galilee. Turn right at the first intersection in the village, and you’ll soon arrive at the sculpture garden and lookout post.
The southern, or lower, Galilee is carved up into a series of mountain ranges, mostly running east–west, with defined valleys between the ranges. We are currently on the western extremity of the Jotapata Mountain Range. Just south of us is the expanse of the Netofah Valley, bordered on the south by the Tur’an Mountain Range. South of that is the Tur’an Valley, bordered on its south by the Nazereth Mountain Range.
Before you, to the west, lies a fantastic view of what is known as the Valley of Zebulun. Take in the ports of Haifa and Acco and the outlying suburbs of Haifa at the coastal edge of the broad plain. While much of this territory really belonged to Naĥalat Asher, it is colloquially named the Valley of Zebulun, and would have been the easy land route that connected the trading ports to Zebulun’s inland territory.
The port of Acco was where Vespasian and his son Titus rallied their Roman soliders, 50,000 strong, in the spring of 67 CE. Their strategy was to quash the Jewish rebellion in the Galilee before besieging Jerusalem. Their destination? Jotapata – just to the west and our next stop.
Jotapata enjoys splendid natural fortifications, ringed as it is on three sides by deep valleys. The only easy access to the city is from the north (the current parking lot). Follow the blue route up to the top of the hill, and then circumambulate the tel, careful to stay on the marked path for the abundance of cisterns (not all of which are covered) dotting the tel.
Jotapata’s earliest identifiable origins are Israelite. Listed as one of the walled cities from the days of Joshua, the city had very likely at one time been settled by Zebulunites. There is one possible biblical reference to the city. An archaeological survey revealed scant Iron II sherds predating the watershed eighth century Bce exile of the northern tribes by Assyria, suggesting occupation of the site in the era of the Israelite kingdom.
After that, the archaeological record goes quiet, resurfacing in the Hellenistic period when the city enjoyed a renaissance. The population surged in the Roman period, reaching its apex just prior to the Great Revolt with a count of more than 40,000 people. Although not much remains of Jotapata, the dozens of cisterns for water collection, interconnected cave systems for shelter and industry, mikvaot, and even a remarkably intact frescoed room demonstrate the vibrancy of daily life there prior to its demise.
Josephus, the Jewish general of the Galilee during the Great Revolt, settled in Jotapata as the Roman army was organizing in Acco. He reinforced the city with a formidable casemate wall and prepared the populace for war, understanding that Vespasian would judge the conquest of this central Galilean city as a critical victory. The Romans did not disappoint; they besieged the beleaguered Jotapata for forty-seven days, after which their considerable war machine reached the western fortifications. Remnants of the Roman battle ramp are still visible on the western side of the tel, as are significant sections of the defense wall.
The archaeological evidence for Jotapata’s destruction is conclusive and in accordance with Josephus’s first-person description. Arrowheads and ballista stones were discovered in abundance, as were hundreds of human bones found in caves and cisterns, the remains of the population that died on and around July 20, 67 CE. The Roman soldiers stealthily overcame the Jewish sentries at dawn, and slaughter ensued:
And for the Romans, they so well remembered what they had suffered during the siege, that they spared none, nor pitied any, but drove the people down the precipice from the citadel, and slew them as they drove them down.…This provoked a great many, even of those chosen men that were about Josephus, to kill themselves with their own hands; for when they saw that they could kill none of the Romans, they resolved to prevent being killed by the Romans, and got together in great numbers in the utmost parts of the city, and killed themselves.…And on this day it was that the Romans slew all the multitude that appeared openly; but on the following days they searched the hiding-places, and fell upon those that were under ground, and in the caverns, and went thus through every age, excepting the infants and the women, and of these there were gathered together as captives twelve hundred; and as for those that were slain at the taking of the city, and in the former fights, they were numbered to be forty thousand. So Vespasian gave order that the city should be entirely demolished, and all the fortifications burnt down. And thus was Jotapata taken, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, on the first day of the month Panemus [Tammuz].
Wars of the Jews, 3:7:34, 36
With our loud and aggressive modern lives, we must actively seek out the quiet necessary to give our imaginations free reign to fill in the landscapes left empty for centuries. These excursions can be merely pleasant outings…or they can be transformative. Continue along the Jotapata Mountain Range toward its eastern end, and you will reach Moshav Hararit. Turn off your electronic devices and detach from society for a spell in the “Laura Netofah.”
Two Christian monks, one Dutch, the other American, arrived in Israel in 1967 intending to live peacefully as hermits in solitude. They settled on Mount Netofah and established a laura, or primitive monastery, with a charming underground chapel built with a Byzantine cistern at its center. The nuns of the laura keep meticulous grounds, dotted with olive groves and vineyards. They also keep to a life of silence and endless prayer. You may walk very quietly along these paths, drinking in the pristine silence and breathtaking views of the Netofah Valley below.
Moshav Hararit, which you entered to reach the laura, is a natural complement to the quiet lives of the laura’s nuns. Most of the residents of Hararit, a Jewish community, practice daily transcendental meditation. Their personal and communal lives are environmentally conscious and reverential of nature.
The Netofah Laura is open to everyone. Visit here to sit quietly and take it all in. Gather yourself back into the land before you die, by appreciating the comforting weight of your humanity. “You are from dust, and to dust shall you return” – there are not many places left in the world where you can feel organically part of the natural order of things, so revel in it here. And I suggest going a step further – there are not many places in the world where you can feel the comforting weight of your history bearing down on you. This mountain was apportioned to Naĥalat Zevulun, by God, thousands of years ago – and it is apportioned to Israel, now, by God. The fields of the Netofah Valley spreading out before you are a familiar place to the Jewish soul. You can know your home as soon as you first set eyes on it, because you’ve seen it before.
Head back toward Jotapata on Route 7955 (appreciate the views on this winding mountain road – they’re some of the best in the country!), and turn south on Route 784. Opposite the modern Kibbutz Hanaton is Tel Ĥannaton, a small but obvious tel in the flats of the Netofah Valley. The city dates back to the Early Bronze period, although it seems to have been named for the Pharaoh Akhenaton (fourteenth century Bce).
Hannathon was referenced in the Bible as marking the western border between Zebulun and Asher, and was listed among the twelve cities of Zebulun. Aside from two seasons of excavation uncovering a Crusader-era Hospitaler complex, as well as a survey that established the periods of civilization here (including Israelite), Tel Ĥannaton is essentially a virgin tel and awaits further study.
For much of its history, Hannathon must have been considered an outlying suburb of Sepphoris, our final stop. This city, like Jotapata, rose to prominence only in the late Second Temple period, and any evidence of settlement in the First Temple period is inconclusive.
At its heyday, in the fourth century CE, Sepphoris was a cosmopolitan treasure, as inviting to Roman nobility as it was to the reknowned Jewish sages. The different cultures lived side by side, tolerating the other’s conventions, while remaining distinctly pagan or Jewish. Intellectual creativity flourished in this unique climate. The Mishnah itself, the foundational text of the Oral Law, was redacted here by Rabbi Judah HaNasi, and many of the great tannaitic scholars frequented its study halls and synagogues.
Much of what there is to see of the archaeological site reflects the complexity of Sepphoris’s urban, multicultural nature. Magnificent, intricate mosaics abound, registering both Jewish and wholly Roman motifs. Abraham and Dionyses, Isaac and Hercules, Amazonian women, Egyptian gods, and even Jewish worship in the destroyed Jerusalem Temple are all depicted among the dozens of mosaics carpeting the cardo shops, the preserved synagogue, and the stately Roman manor.
Sepphoris was renamed “Eirenopolis” (City of Peace) and “Diocaesarea” (Second Caesarea) by Vespasian’s Roman army, who were grateful for the city’s capitulation and cooperation during the Great Revolt. This encouraged a generous spirit, although most likely no outright collaboration, between the city’s residents throughout the ensuing centuries.
Wonderful tales in the Talmud illustrate the interaction between the Jewish and Roman elite here in Sepphoris. Rabbi Judah HaNasi held many profound conversations with the Roman governor, Antoninus Pius; theirs was a deep mutual affection. There was also regular interaction among the regular citizens of Sepphoris. As you stroll down the original flagstones of the cardo and decumanus, the streets forming the main north–south and east–west arteries of the lower city, it is no great leap to imagine the city’s varied residents jostling for space in the busy marketplace. Near houses with mosaics depicting the myth of Orpheus or centaurs is a graffito of a menorah.
The tribe of Zebulun was long exiled by the time Sepphoris fully developed its uncommonly urbane culture. It is highly appropriate, though, that one of the most famous cities in Naĥalat Zevulun so strongly manifested the tribe’s admirable character trait of reaching out, albeit with caution, to other peoples, and relating to them successfully.
Chapter 8; Dan
That’s the whole trouble.
You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful,
because there isn’t any.
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Dan ben Bilhah: The Liminal Child
If there were ever a provocative and entirely appropriate symbol for a tribe, it is that of Dan: the serpent. Seductive and at times mesmerizing in its exotic mystery, the serpent – like its tribe, Dan – provokes a reflexive distance. Grasping the complexities of this tribe was difficult. Dan seemed to act ever the serpent, skulking away in the shadows, evasive and unyielding. It took much reflection – stormy, at times – to determine just why this tribe evoked a strange mingling of discomfort and fascination.
Dan represented a new force in the family of Israel. Before him came Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah – four children, all of Leah, all clearly defined by their relationship to their mother. Dan was the first of the in-between children, the first to be born of a surrogate – an intertwining of Rachel and Bilhah. Dan came of Rachel’s growing desperation and despair, and his personality continued to reflect the tension of this family placement throughout history. He was the almost-child of Rachel, from whom he inherited many of his strongest and most controversial traits, yet he was also the child of her disappointment, of her deficiency.
Leah bore four children. With the birth of Judah, Leah reached an internal peace, a sense of celebration and placement. Rachel, by contrast, was barren and alone. In desperation, she turned to her husband: “Rachel said to Jacob: ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’ Jacob was angered with Rachel. He replied: ‘Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?’” (Genesis 30:1–2).
Rachel’s anguish, her “if not, I shall die,” indicated a nothingness, a terrible sense of being erased. Her only position in the family was based on Jacob’s love, but she was not “bearing children for Jacob.”
That Rachel was Jacob’s destined partner is obvious in the text. Consider that the recurring “type scenes” of Tanakh created patterns that are laden with significance. A scene that was repeated at various points built its meaning through comparison. If a man met a woman by a well, for instance, we expect love and marriage between them. Rachel was a new version of Rebekah: she was the wife. Beyond that, she was the “younger” sibling who should naturally have been matched with the “younger” twin. At the very last minute, though, Leah stepped into her place: “And behold, it was Leah” – whom Jacob had unwittingly married!
This usurpation of Rachel’s rightful place was either a generous gift from Rachel to her sister or, alternatively, Leah took an active part in Laban’s deception of Jacob. Whether this was Rachel’s selfless act or a ruse entirely wrought by Laban, Rachel was relegated to a much more uncertain role in Jacob’s family. Consider the terrible situation of both sisters when Rachel eventually married Jacob, as encapsulated in this verse: “Jacob came also to Rachel, and he also loved Rachel more than Leah” (Genesis 29:30). Leah may have been pained by the knowledge that she was less beloved, but Rachel suffered with the reality of acting the auxiliary within her own life story. She was the “also,” the extra, the nonessential.
This exchange between Rachel and Jacob was another type scene, one that already occurred twice in Genesis. Two other barren mothers sought children: Sarah and Rebekah. The difference between those situations was with their husbands: Isaac only wanted children with his wife, whereas Abraham was content to father children with a surrogate. For Abraham, the problem of children was disconnected from the question of his relationship with Sarah. Jacob, similarly, was not overtly troubled by the fact that his relationship with Rachel did not bear fruit of the womb. Jacob reminded Rachel: “God has withheld children from you; I have children!”
“Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?!” He has denied you, but not me! [Rachel] said to him: “Did not your father ‘gird his loins’ for your mother [to beseech God on her behalf]?” [Jacob] replied: “My father did not yet have any children, and I do have children already!” [Rachel] said: “Your grandfather, who did have a child, ‘girded his loins’ for Sarah [beseeched God on her behalf].” [Jacob] replied: “You can do as my grandmother did.” [Rachel] said: “What did she do?” [Jacob] replied: “She brought her rival [another woman] into her home [to act as surrogate].” [Rachel] declared: “If that’s what is holding back [my fertility], then ‘here is my maid Bilhah. Come to her that she may bear on my knees [in my stead], and that I may be built through her.’”
Genesis Rabbah 71:7
Dan was conceived in an emotional tempest, where Rachel despaired of bearing a child and so forced an additional complexity onto the already strained family dynamic. Rachel desired progeny and a legacy beyond her role as the primary love of Jacob’s life. She wanted to be built. Even if she did not contribute the actual flesh and blood, she would raise and impact and leave her mark on Jacob’s children.
This child, Dan, inherited elements from the woman who did not conceive him physically, but conceived his existence. He was, in all respects, her firstborn: “And Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated me; indeed He has heeded my plea and given me a son.’ Therefore she called his name Dan” (Genesis 30:6).
Dan was born of a breakdown between Rachel and Jacob, a result of the barrenness of Rachel. The Danites defined themselves as a “bitter-souled” people, the same language employed to describe Hannah’s barren state: “She was bitter souled.” To be barren, especially in the ancient world, was to be uniquely alone, deprived of the companionship provided by the most primal relationship: mother to child. Dan represented the long-term impact of Rachel’s barrenness: the tribe that bore his name was the dispossessed tribe, reflecting Rachel’s sense of isolation and rootlessness that brought about Dan’s birth.
As we saw in the case of Reuben, the unique connection between a mother and a firstborn child is laden with dangers. Just as Reuben bore the brunt of his mother’s hurt and uncertainty, Dan bore the brunt of Rachel’s insecurities and passions. This was particularly poignant as she embarked on her life of mothering and mentoring, complicated by the extra presence of Bilhah.
Dan the Leader
Dan remains silent to us over his lifetime. It is only in Jacob’s blessing to this mysterious son that we are first exposed to the elements of leadership, power, danger, and glory that characterized the tribe.
Dan shall govern his people,
As one of the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the road,
A viper by the path,
That bites the horse’s heels
So that his rider is thrown backward.
I wait for your deliverance, O Lord!
Genesis 49:16–17
This is a strange and hauntingly poetic outburst. The first few lines are clear enough: a play on Dan’s name. Rachel named Dan in thanksgiving for having been judged favorably by God and granted the opportunity to raise a child: “God has judged me.” Jacob here gave the name a more profound turn, and vested the boy with the blessing of din, or justice, and that he would best epitomize that unique model of the Jewish leader: the shofet.
A shofet was not your run-of-the-mill judge. The shofetim were the bridge between the period of Joshua’s administration and that of the monarchial era, ruling for hundreds of years. These were fiercely charismatic men and women who emerged to lead Israel, regardless of tribe or pedigree. They were accepted by the masses as political, military, and at times even spiritual leaders. Such disparate characters as Deborah, Jephthah, and Gideon arose in their generations. Of all the shofetim profiled in Judges, though, it was Samson the Danite who stood as the archetypal leader for that troubled age, where “there was no king of Israel, and each man did what was right in his own eyes.”
It was to Samson that Jacob alluded in his blessing to Dan, said the midrash.
The entirety of Jacob’s blessing may indeed be understood as referring to this outstanding son of Dan. Samson was infamous for his devastating and quick strikes against the Philistines, evoked in the image of a dangerous viper lying in wait along the path. He toppled bodies much larger than he – “biting the horse’s heels so that the rider is thrown backward” – and the Gazan temple came crashing down. He worked alone, as does the snake, and “as a separate tribe in Israel.”
Samson had the attributes of fierce strength, ingenuity, heroism and fearlessness. And Samson went in alone: “Just as the Unique One of the world requires no assistance, so too did Samson son of Manoah require no assistance” (Genesis Rabbah 98:13).
Samson’s barren mother, herself a symbol of loneliness and displacement, was visited by an angel of the Lord. She was informed that she would conceive and bear a son. He was slated from the womb to dwell apart, as his mother was charged with ensuring he was nurtured even in utero as a proto-nazir:
Now, be careful [the angel tells her] not to drink wine or other intoxicant, or to eat anything unclean. For you are going to conceive and bear a son; let no razor touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite to God from the womb on.
Judges 13:4–5
A nazirite takes a vow to separate from general society, to a degree. One curbs one’s natural desires by abstaining entirely from grape products and by growing one’s hair long. Samson made no such personal decision; his isolation was a lifelong charge from the Divine. God foreordained Samson – even prior to his conception! – to a proscribed existence. Why?
The midrash argued that the answer was to be found in Jacob’s outburst upon blessing Dan: “I hope for your salvation, O Lord!” Jacob could only have been prompted by a vision both wonderful and terrible, said the midrash – the vision of the Messiah. In his vision of Samson, Jacob saw intimations of the Messiah. Upon glimpsing Samson’s savage death, with no apocalyptic redemption in its wake, Jacob cried for salvation.
The wild, controversial Samson may seem a strange prototype for the Messiah. The midrash, however, traces various connections. Rashi reads Jacob’s blessing to Dan, “Dan yadin amo ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael,” as indicating that Dan would unify (le-aĥed) the nation under his leadership. He would defeat his enemies like the swift and deadly serpent. It is of interest that the gematria (numerical value) of mashiaĥ (Hebrew for “messiah”) equals that of naĥash (serpent), further connecting this tribe with the promises of ultimate leadership.
Eschatological studies are somewhat taboo in rabbinic literature, and details are scant, but one prominent motif is that of a dual meshiĥut, or two messianic leaders: one stemming from Leah, the other from Rachel. Leah’s line is to produce Mashiaĥ ben David, the ultimate King Messiah from the tribe of Judah, who will govern the nation in peace. The Messiah from Rachel’s progeny is to precede him, and work to ingather and unite the nation and go to battle, defeating Israel’s enemies. Jacob’s initial hope that this Mashiaĥ ben Rachel, who would unite the nation and vanquish the Philistines, was Samson was violently shattered upon realizing that Dan was not destined to produce Rachel’s Messiah.
What were Samson’s failings – and by extension, the failings of Dan? What exactly was the call to incubate Samson as a lifelong nazarite meant to accomplish, or prevent?
Samson is repeatedly described in rabbinic literature as one with large, searching eyes:
Our Sages taught: Samson rebelled with his eyes, as it says: “Samson told his father: Get me that one, for she is fitting in my eyes.” [For his betrayal,] the Philistines would gouge out his eyes.
Sotah 9b (emphasis mine)
It was clear to God that Samson would stray after his eyes. Therefore, He ordained that he be a nazir, abstaining from wine so that he not be enticed to licentiousness.
Numbers Rabbah 10
Samson was the quintessential leader for this era that “did what was right in its eyes” because he, too, was extraordinarily responsive to his surroundings: I desire that one, and she’s the right one in my eyes. While he was most definitely a lone wolf, there was little cool detachment to him; he responded to everything, and ferociously.
Indeed, all of Rachel’s children (and Rachel herself) were marked by powerful emotional responsiveness. The fervency of hava li banim, Joseph and Benjamin’s intense crying bouts (which stand in stark contrast to the other brothers’ silence), Rachel’s inconsolable mourning for Israel (“Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be consoled”) – all were linked to the matriarch and her progeny’s passionate involvement in the world.
Jacob saw in Samson of Dan the same riveting passion that had immediately and powerfully drawn him to Rachel. This emotional involvement, Jacob intuited, was the source of redemption. He hoped Dan would channel these intense passions to save Israel from their enemies.
It would take this type of responsive personality – a messianic personality, envisioned Jacob – to defeat the Philistines. Yet this deeper level of responsiveness and passion came with dangers. Such a man would have a grand vision, but had to be able to control his eyes lest his personal lusts betray him. The nezirut of Samson was meant to protect him, but was not enough to prevent his wandering, large eyes from entrapping him. Samson was Dan: a strong leader with insurmountable weaknesses. “Le-yeshuatkha kiviti Hashem! ” lamented Jacob, and the brilliant flash of Dan receded back into dark shadows. The patriarch had to look elsewhere for his Messiah, to a different son of Rachel who set into sharp relief Dan’s failings.
Dan and Judah
Although the Messiah who was destined to emerge from Rachel did not come from Dan, the tribe surfaced over and over again, in curious partnership, with Judah, from whom will come the King Messiah of the progeny of Leah. Twice these tribes were joined together in building God’s Home: both the Tabernacle in the desert (Bezalel from Judah and Oholiab from Dan); and Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah (where Solomon from Judah was aided by the expertise of Hiram the Danite). Also, Samson emerged from a union between these two tribes: Manoah of Dan and his wife Tzelalfonit of Judah. The nasi of Dan was named Ahiezer (“my brother’s helper”), alluding to the supportive role the tribe would play to Judah. Additionally, Judah and Dan were both large tribes, even though Dan started out as the smallest tribe, with only one son.
The midrash interpreted the difficult phrase in Jacob’s blessing, “ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael,” as implying that Dan would resemble that singular, singled-out shevet, Judah. This association was reflected as well in the subtle linkage made by Moses between these two tribes. Moses called Dan a “gur aryeh,” a lion cub, in a clear echo of Jacob’s blessing to Judah: “gur aryeh Yehudah.”
These tribes were joined together time and again, offered the midrash, to demonstrate that no tribe was without salvation. Thus, majestic Judah was consistently paired with Dan:
Says the Master of the Universe: “Let us join them together, both so that he [Dan] not be shamed and that he [Judah] not be arrogant, since the most grand and the lowliest are equal before the Lord.”
Exodus Rabbah 40
This “equality before the Lord” was a beautiful statement of God’s unique connection to the lowly dispossessed. He must choose a Messiah to gather together all of the disparate elements of the Children of Israel, however remote, before Mashiaĥ ben David can rule. This role ultimately belonged to the Gatherer, Joseph, whose very name captured that magical quality of binding together individuals into a shared vision. And yet Joseph was not the only me’asef among the brothers. His older brother, Dan, filled that role as well.
Dan Was a Serpent on the Path
Dan’s unique and difficult position was perhaps best embodied by its singular placement within the travel formation in the desert. “Dan was the rear guard [me’asef – lit. gatherer] of the entire camp” (Numbers 10:25).
Because theirs was a large and unwieldy tribe, Dan traveled last. It was a dual position, exemplifying their strength and their weakness. On the one hand, they were the first line of defense in the case of a rear attack on the nation. This pointed to their fortitude, since they would almost definitely incur massive losses. As we saw with Samson, his tribe of origin had indomitable mettle. Yet it also pointed to their vulnerability. This displaced child remained on the fringes, forgotten, trailing at the back, always feeling “bitter souled” and least beloved.
To understand Dan’s role as the me’asef – those who pulled up the rear of the camp – we would do well to revisit the serpent. While, from the very stirrings of Genesis, the serpent’s reputation as a sly seducer was cemented, certainly no creature is without its redeemable aspects. The serpent, lowly and oftentimes reviled, knew what it was like to eat the dust. And perhaps that was a necessary trait for a me’asef, for their assignment was to keep people from falling too far behind. A me’asef herded the stragglers and forgotten elements, encouraged them to remain in the fold, said to them, “I’m with you, brother, in your loneliness, and yet I’m still part of this nation and you should be, too.” The me’asef absorbed everything, and left no one behind. “Dan will be a serpent on the path” – perhaps not the gloried tribe, but the one who most easily related to those who dawdled on the fringes, not really a part of things.
This role of me’asef was a lonely one. They did not share the easy camaraderie of the group, and instead hovered on the fringes, dutifully serving what was often an unappreciative nation by bringing up the rear.
Samson, the quintessential Danite, personified this element of the tribe’s basic nature. He was a fierce isolationist. No one had Samson’s back, whether in battle or in politics, and it seemed as though he almost preferred it that way. It is as if he would not have been as successful in drawing his fractured nation together had he not drifted along their margins – ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael.
Dan the Idolater
Time and again, the prophets compared man’s attraction to idolatry to lusting after foreign women. On a superficial level, both betrayals were fueled by that same fatal attraction to the exotic and external. More profoundly, though, the pull toward idolatry was caused by feelings of disconnect, leading to betrayal of the intimate relationship between man and his Creator.
It was Dan’s utter dispossession that enticed him away from the monotheistic center of Israel. There was clear discontent with the status quo as early as the period of the Judges. An understandable chafing under the inadequate dimensions of their naĥalah actually reflected a much more alarming spiritual dissatisfaction. Take heed of the abrupt textual transition of this opening verse of Judges 18:
In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the tribe of Dan was seeking a territory in which to settle, for to that day no territory had fallen to their lot among the tribes of Israel.
There was no security, no tranquility among the ranks of Israel – no unified vision embodied by a central ruler – and Dan felt the discomfit most acutely. On the surface, the tribal quest was to expand their territory so as to accommodate their huge ranks. Notice, though, that this independently spirited tribe was the only one sufficiently dissatisfied with their naĥalah allotment that they sought a solution far from their base – at the most distant point, up in the city of Laish, where
the people who were dwelling in it were carefree, in the manner of Sidonians – a tranquil and unsuspecting people, with no one troubling them and distant from the rest of Sidon; they had no dealings with anybody.
Judges 18:7
The Danites felt isolated, and they reflected their distance on the physical plane. They were marei nefesh, bitter that God did not grant them an adequate place in the nation or the land. To be encased within the other tribal territories was too suffocating. The same secession that appealed to this small band of Sidonians, who dwelled contentedly away from the rest of their nation, so appealed to Dan’s primary instincts.
Dan’s most basic instinct, though – a trait that the son of Jacob could not shuffle off – he inherited from his mother. As Jacob fled the house of Laban, his furious father-in-law chased him down and accused him of stealing the household idols. Jacob hotly contested:
Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!
Genesis 31:32–34
Jacob, of course, did not know that Rachel had stolen them. She had taken the idols, placed them in the camel cushion, and sat on them. The allure of divining the future was something that Rachel just could not shake. Most of the classical biblical commentators understood this verse to indicate that Rachel believed in the prognosticating power of these idols, either fearing their abilities or desiring them for herself.
This elemental pull toward ascertaining the future was manifest in her children as well. Joseph commanded his servants to accuse the brothers of stealing his divination cup. Micah the Ephramite fashioned an efod and terafim, items of divination.
When King Saul from Benjamin spared the Amalekite king and animals, Samuel blasted his rebellion against God’s command as comparable to “the sin of divination, the iniquity of terafim.” Saul eventually succumbed to his desire to know, calling upon the Ov diviner in En-dor to determine which way the battle with the Philistines was to go.
The same yearning for prognostication was conspicuous in Dan. As the Danites headed up north, seeking new frontiers, they stopped by – or, more correctly, were drawn to – the curious shrine housed by Micah the Ephramite. They inquired of the Levite who ministered to the molten images in the shrine:
“Please inquire of God; we would like to know if the mission on which we are going will be successful.” “Go in peace,” the priest said to them. “The Lord views with favor the mission you are going on.”
Judges 18:5–6
When they decided to campaign against Laish, the Danite band stopped once again at the house of Micah. Those who were familiar with the shrine said to their fellow tribesmen:
Do you know, there is an efod in these houses, and terafim, and a sculptured image, and a molten image? Now you know what you have to do.…So they took the sculptured image, the efod, the terafim, and the molten image.
Judges 18:14, 17
They also took the house Levite along to serve as priest in the temple they planned to erect in their new city, which they renamed Dan. This temple, later famously co-opted by Jeroboam son of Nebat as one of two centers of calf worship in the early days of Solomon’s First Temple in Jerusalem, served as the tribe’s religious focal point throughout their history, and idolatrous worship there continued uninterrupted until the tribe’s forced exile by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE.
Midrashic literature is rife with other episodes and allusions to Dan’s idolatrous tendencies, systematically portraying the tribe in a very negative light. This motif antedates the documented idolatry of Judges by hundreds of years, with allusions to Dan’s idolatrous inclinations even in the desert wanderings of Israel. The midrash notes that Joab ben Zeruiah, David’s chief general, began the fatal census in II Samuel 24 with the tribe of Dan. It explained that this was a calculated choice: knowing the prohibition against census taking, Joab was reluctant to carry out David’s order. He therefore first approached Gad, as he hoped that they would refuse of their own accord because of their marked independent streak. He then turned to Dan – hoping that, if divine punishment came for the sin of taking a census, it would be meted out on that idolatrous tribe.
General wickedness was heaped on Dan by the Sages. They considered Dan’s representative among the spies to be the most heretical; it was he who bemoaned that “the land is so strong that not even God can go up against it.”
The wickedness of Dan was symbolized even in his breastplate stone: the leshem (amber), in which was visible the inverted face of a man. The sinful Danites turned good into evil, hence the inverted face of their stone. This motif stretched as far as Christian legend, which identified the antichrist as descending from Dan. It is also found in an early midrash, where Abraham himself had an ominous premonition of future idolatry by his offspring at the site of Dan’s northern temple.
Dan’s permanent liminality and loneliness were the root, perhaps, of their attraction to idolatry. Like Dan’s semi-mother Rachel at the time of his birth, Dan’s namesake tribe did not find its place. They flitted alone, on the fringes, contributing to Benei Yisrael, but without forming their essential bulk. His character represented that suspended stage of Rachel when she was still barren and unfulfilled, still distant from the rest of the family.
Rachel was the matriarch who could not take her leave of the family idols, and her first son inherited this instinct to live dangerously. In contrast, her actual birth son, Joseph, who represented the consummated relationship of Jacob and Rachel, succeeded in tempering the hazards by maintaining a strong sense of responsibility and affection for the kelal. He was Rachel triumphant, the Messiah from her bearing, while Dan personified Rachel unrestrained. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s musings beautifully underline her essential personality, so clearly manifest in Dan:
Rachel represents expectation; she represents dreams and aspirations. However, she remains forever expectant, forever awaiting fulfillment. Both personally and symbolically, she is perhaps one of the most poignant expressions of the person who has everything – and yet remains lacking. Even when Rachel’s dreams were realized, it was not in her lifetime: the hope, the potential remained always suspended between what might have been and what might yet come to be.
Biblical Images, 54
Eternal Promise
Dan presented startling contrasts that at once attracted and repelled. To him belonged raw power and tremendous self-reliance, but dangerous vulnerability and isolationist disquiet menaced those strengths. Though we have much to root for, he consistently succumbed to his flaws; although he was part of the nation, it remained admittedly hard to embrace the serpent. But include him we must, and the best way to achieve that is by celebrating the promise and potential that will be his birthright, forever. Let us believe that one day, Dan will emerge as the leader that we all yearn for, and let us echo the cry of Jacob: Le-yeshuatkha kiviti Hashem!
Naĥalat Dan
Naĥalat Dan is outlined in Joshua 19. The tribe was initially given a narrow strip that ran from the Mediterranean Sea by Jaffa southeastward toward the Judean Hills. A reference in the Song of Deborah had Dan “lingering by the ships,” perhaps referring to their presence in Jaffa. They maintained borders with a number of other tribes: Judah in the south, Ephraim in the north, and Benjamin in the north/northeast.
Two impediments prevented them from settling permanently in their naĥalah. Firstly, the territory was simply not large enough to accommodate the huge tribal population. Though larger in population than the tribe of younger brother Naphtali, Dan’s naĥalah was a fraction of the size. Additionally, they were not able to conquer most of it, since it was held by the Philistines and was regularly threatened by them.
As mentioned above, Dan decided to switch locations at a relatively early stage, even prior to the monarchial period. They successfully waged war on Sidonian Leshem/Laish far up in the north and settled there for the duration of the Kingdom of Israel. Interestingly, their new naĥalah was situated adjacent to the naĥalah of Naphtali, Dan’s younger full-blood brother.
What did this new northern naĥalah look like? It seemed as though Dan’s territory was not limited to the city of Laish, renamed Dan, but that it encompassed a larger region surrounding Dan. Moses presciently blessed Dan that he be a “lion cub that leaps forth from the Bashan.” This perhaps indicated that Dan occupied portions of the Bashan, in the northern Golan.
We might also extrapolate that Dan held the cities and outlying regions of Iyun (within the Valley of Iyun) and Abel-beth-maacha in the Hula Valley from a reference to the three cities of Iyun, Abel-beth-maacha, and Dan in I Kings 15:20. There they were grouped together as the cities conquered by Ben-Hadad of Damascus from Baasha, king of Israel, separately from the “land of Naphtali” which was in the same vicinity. These strongholds, and the large sprawling territories buffering them, probably pleased Dan much more than the narrow, penned-in, and oft-traversed strip of his original territory in the south.
By now the reason for this is clear. Dan was not a team player, and the fiercely isolationist tribe always preferred to linger on the fringe of the nation. In which case, why was he not granted the more removed northern territory from the outset?
Rabbi Eliyahu Mallai suggested that the confined contours of Dan’s original naĥalah were intended deliberately to counter his natural tendencies. It served this tribe best to be surrounded by buffering influences, like Judah (a natural partnership, as outlined above) and Jerusalem (the national capital), to balance its fierce strength and draw the distant tribe closer to its brethren. But Dan could not find peace with this arrangement; the tribe needed to move north, and in doing so they succumbed to their natural separationist tendencies.
Visiting Naĥalat Dan
Itinerary: Tel Sor‘a, Tel Dan
To first seek Dan, one should visit the tribe’s God-given stomping grounds, taking Dan’s most famous son as our muse and trying to get a better reading of the tribe through a journey in the footsteps of Samson. We begin at the summit of Zorah (Tel Sor’a), reached through a serpentine drive up through the sculpture forest in Park Eshtaol. There are two marked tombs, most likely those of Arab sheikhs, but they serve our purposes as the graves of Samson and his father, Manoah (that is indeed how they are marked).
The story began with a woman: the wife of Manoah the Danite. An angel appeared to her twice, somewhere close to where we are standing, and informed her that she would be given a son. The angel warned her: do not cut his hair, and do not allow him wine – nor should you drink any wine! He shall be a nazarite even in the womb.
Gazing down toward the riverbed below, you will see what a tall order this was. Nahal Sorek is specked with abundant vines and groves. Boutique wineries abound in this region, which is famous for its quality grapes. To abstain from wine in Naĥalat Dan is like being a teetotaler in Alsace. And yet abstain Samson did, religiously, even as he grew up in the vineyard.
Samson’s inner world was described poignantly: “The spirit of God began to ring within him in the Danite camp, between Zorah and Eshtaol” (Judges 13:25).
What else for a son of Dan than to have the tumult of divine awareness beating in his breast? Consider that his tribe’s territory was a narrow confine sandwiched between two large and overwhelming presences, Ephraim and Judah. There was no large, wide expanse to Dan’s naĥalah. It was the place of restless souls, as if designed for pacing between the closely situated and densely populated villages. Anyone living there would have sought escape. Samson’s discontent led him to squabble with the neighboring Philistine villages, and to find relief again and again in the bosom of foreign women. Eventually, his fellow tribesmen quit the place altogether, seeking broader terrain up north – seeking the quietude of isolation.
Therefore, north we head, to Tel Dan, the conquered city of Laish, renamed for the tribe. What an attractive location this must have been for the ancients! Based at the foot of Mount Hermon, Laish was built around ample springs whose waters eventually flowed together into a strong river. An important road from the Galilee to Damascus passed this city in antiquity, enriching the place and heightening its importance. No wonder then that the men of Dan coveted Laish: “The land was very good…expansive…where there was no shortage of anything you could possibly want.… ” (Judges 18:9–10).
Tel Dan is one of the most exciting archaeological sites in the country, with impressive remains from many critical periods. There is a magnificently intact Middle Bronze (eighteenth century Bce) mud brick gate, part of the rampart system of huge packed earthen embankments. This gate served an earlier incarnation of the Canaanite city of Laish, at least five hundred years before the Israelites began conquering the area. When Abraham set out to rescue his captive nephew, Lot, he reached this city and may very well have seen this massive fortification system in action.
Evidence for the early Israelite occupation of Laish is found in the abundance of collared-rim jars. This type of pottery is associated with the early Israelites (Iron I – the era of the Judges) and otherwise foreign to the area’s indigenous Canaanite population.
Dan’s infamy was established by the secessionist king of Israel, Jeroboam son of Nebat, who carefully pried his people’s attention away from Jerusalem by building two alternative cultic sites, one in Beth-el, the other in Dan. The primary reason seemed political:
Jeroboam thought: Now the kingship may revert to the House of David. If the people go to worship in the Temple of God in Jerusalem, their hearts will revert to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah.…The king took counsel, and he made two golden calves; and he said, “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough. These are your gods, O Israel, who delivered you from Egypt!” He placed one in Beth-el and the other in Dan.
I Kings 12:26–29
It is also possible that Jeroboam chose Dan because the city was already considered a sacred place in the region, the Danites having worshipped in their temple there for hundreds of years previously.
Have a look at the excavated temple complex. The upper platform, or bamah, was where Jeroboam’s golden calf was likely placed. Fragments of a large four-horned altar uncovered in the lower platform, as well as a sacrificial bowl containing animal bones, an incense installation, and spatulas found in the antechambers all conclusively establish that this building was a cultic center.
This temple continued to function throughout the Israelite kingdom’s term, falling prey to destruction by the Assyrians only in 732 Bce, when Tiglath-Pileser ravaged the north. The words of the prophet Amos were realized: “On that day…those who swear by the idol of Samaria and say, ‘By the life of your god, Dan’…will fall and not rise again” (Amos 8:13–14).
The reputation of Dan as a cultic center, though, did not go the way of the destroyed temple. Indeed, even as late as the Hellenistic period, Dan was associated with idolatrous worship. A dedicatory stone discovered in the temple and dating to the third–second centuries Bce bears the bilingual inscription (in Greek and Aramaic): “To the god of Dan, Zoilos made a vow.” That the material evidence colludes with the biblical and rabbinic record on the issue of Dan’s idolatry provides a classic opportunity to “live the Bible” by visiting the site.
Perhaps the most exciting discovery at Tel Dan was found in the Israelite city’s fortifications, renovated in the ninth century BCE. Fragments of an Aramaic inscription commissioned by Hazael, king of Damascus, who ruled Dan for a brief period in the ninth century Bce, were recovered. Once pieced together, the text relays Hazael’s victory over the kings of Israel and Judah on the battlefield. This discovery marked the first extra-biblical evidence of “Beit David,” proving that the Davidic dynasty was known as such in antiquity.
Chapter 9; Naphtali
Be fierce as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven.
Avot 5:23
Whenever I pull Rabbi Moses Ĥayim Luzzato’s Mesilat Yesharim off the shelf, I fully expect a bawling out. Indeed, we need the Ramĥal to stir us out of the ennui that threatens purpose and devotion to our life’s work, so those of us with overactive superegos never let this famous work gather too much dust. The treatise is, after all, devoted to practical ways to perfect one’s character, and I know to anticipate a reprimand in his gentle words.
Examining the character of Naphtali was like spending time with Mesilat Yesharim: at once, exhausting and exhilarating; humbling…and positively energizing. Naphtali is a delight, perfectly capturing the midah of zerizut, or enthusiasm. He had a lightness and swiftness that refreshes after a meditation on his older brother Dan. We will leave Naphtali with a panging for his zerizut, and a lighter spring in our step.
This second son of Bilhah was a relief for Rachel, who could savor this child without the heavy expectations she suffered upon Dan. Perhaps after the pain of the exchange with Jacob that led to Dan’s birth, this next child proved to lighten her burden significantly, as she came more fully into her role in the family. It was Rachel’s emergent understanding that she was to be the catalyst for family growth – to be the binder of people, without necessarily needing to provide the children from her own body – that inspired Naphtali’s name:
Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Said Rachel: I was persistent with God [naftuli Elokim], and I prevailed to be like my sister; I too am able [naftalti im aĥoti, gam yakholti]! She therefore called his name “Naphtali.”
Genesis 30:7–8
Every exegetical attempt to expound this last verse suffers from the strangeness of Rachel’s language here. What exactly did she intend for her second surrogate son?
In the plainest sense, as I’ve chosen to translate above, Rachel celebrated her perseverance in the face of crippling infertility. Naftal is rooted in patal, which means twisting, or, by extension, wresting/expending effort. Rachel demonstrated her flexibility and willingness to find a roundabout way to defeat destiny, and that was what was celebrated in Naphtali’s name. A closely related reading: “Elokim” indicates something mighty, weighty; Rachel gloried in the “mighty wrestlings that I have wrestled, the efforts I have expended to be like my sister – to be a mother! Look at me now.”
Another take on the “twisted” connotation of patal, this one suggested by the midrash, has the word meaning “subverting” or “tricking.” With her proclamation, Rachel was stating: “I was able to gracefully bear subversive matters and divine secrets between my sister and me (for this I merited another son!).”
This interpretation is supported by the midrashic story that Rachel, in a supreme act of self-sacrifice, handed over to Leah the special simanim (passwords) that she and Jacob had arranged before their nuptials so that she might prove herself to be Rachel, and avoid this very situation. This interpretation is further supported by another midrashic contention that “n-f-t-l” is an acronym of “nafot,” “patoh,” “taloh.” Said Rachel: I perfumed my couch (I was set to marry Jacob), I was persuaded (to have Leah marry him first), I exalted, raised up (my sister, so therefore I too merited children).
Others explain “patal” to suggest attachment and bonding (much as a petil, a thick thread or wick, is woven and twisted together). In this sense, the proclamation might mean: Mine is the bond that binds Jacob to this place, for it was for my sake that he came to Laban, implying that Rachel was reasserting her familial role. She defined herself as the source of Jacob’s relationships: if not for her, Jacob would not have had children with Leah. Or, alternatively: I have bound myself to the Lord in prayer, I have contorted myself in supplication to Him, and my prayers were accepted like those of my sister.
All of these attempted interpretations agree that this mysterious proclamation reflected a confidence that was new to Rachel. I deserved this child, she asserted. My perseverance – Naphtali – built me a family of my own. More subtly, but equally compelling, was the sense that Naphtali freed Rachel to newly experience a simpler joy, unburdened by the anxiety of becoming a mother for the first time. Both her confidence and her lightheartedness were embedded in the expansive character of Naphtali.
Perhaps we’d best revisit the root of Naphtali’s name, p-t-l,” to provide the most suitable description of this tribe’s character. The commentator Abarbanel astutely draws upon the tribal name in explaining the bountiful blessing bestowed by Moses on Naphtali:
And of Naphtali he said,
Naphtali, whose will is content,
And who is filled with the blessing of God,
Inherits the sea and the south.
Deuteronomy 33:23
Naphtali was praised by Moses for his naturally agreeable and content character – he was the quintessential seva ratzon, happy with his lot. The intertwined threads of the petil wick symbolized hibur, or the qualities of social connection and agreeability. Naphtali counterbalanced the isolation and coldness of his older brother Dan. The imagery employed by Jacob to describe Naphtali – a hind – was symbolic of connections made: the swift messages and imrei shefer (sweet words) that bind a society together. He served the family faithfully and enthusiastically, desiring only to provide for their happiness.
The Swift Shevet
Naphtali is a hind sent forth,
Delivering sweet words.
Genesis 49:21
Throughout rabbinic literature, Naphtali is best known for his startling swiftness. It was Naphtali whom Jacob dispatched to summon both Rachel and Leah for a consultation about leaving their father’s home and setting out for Canaan. Naphtali delivered Joseph’s coat to Jacob after the brothers dyed it in blood, and he inverted this action years later, by delivering the news to Jacob that Joseph was alive. At the moment of Jacob’s burial, Naphtali hightailed it back to Egypt to retrieve the deed securing right to burial in Me’arat Ha-Makhpelah.
The tribal symbols all marked this swiftness that so characterized Naphtali. The tribe’s breastplate stone was shevo (turquoise), which had the power of giving a rider speed. Their flag was emblazoned with the image of a bounding deer.
The swiftness characterizing the tribe is evoked again and again by the midrash and commentaries as a metaphor for the abundant blessing bestowed on Naphtali by both Jacob and Moses. Their naĥalah was to be wide and expansive, as a deer bounds around the field. Their fruits and produce were to ripen quickly and be fit for a king’s table. Voluminous minds were to meet in their territory, men of wisdom far-reaching enough to adjudicate for the entire nation.
Jacob’s characterization of Naphtali as fleet-footed had profound implications. The general attribute reflected a deeper existential character trait. The Psalmist equated swiftness with a haste to fulfill the commandments: “I was quick; I did not delay in keeping your mitzvot” (Psalms 119:60).
The exemplary dispatch of Naphtali demonstrated, according to midrashic readings, not an unusual athletic prowess, but an eagerness to act and fulfill the divine will. The hind of Naphtali bounded along with the other fleet animals in the famous dictum of the Sages: “Be fierce as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven” (Avot 5:23).
If we carefully examine the cases above that exemplify Naphtali’s swiftness, they all point to Naphtali’s role as messenger. In none of the situations did he strike out on his own initiative; in all of them, he was faithfully serving the greater cause.
Consider one of Naphtali’s noted descendants, Barak son of Abinoam. Barak was Deborah’s partner, and played a strictly secondary position within their dual leadership. He certainly exemplified the swiftness of his tribe, chasing relentlessly after the Canaanite enemy. What was most notable about Barak was his choice to play a supporting role, facilitating Deborah’s glory and eschewing the limelight. Barak was the quintessential ben Naphtali, joining together the northern tribes in service of the nation, but absolutely refusing to go it alone: “Barak said to [Deborah]: If you will go with me, I will go; if not, I will not go” (Judges 4:8).
The messenger was the binder and the enabler. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on Jacob’s blessing to Naphtali, noted that while the creativity and originality came from elsewhere, the messenger served to actualize the idea and make it real.
The zariz is not a philosopher or the charismatic leader of a group. The zariz is a facilitator, eager to serve, and his constant activity on behalf of others brings him blessing.
The Ramĥal outlines the rarity and uniqueness of this trait of zerizut – and its essential importance to Israel:
A person’s nature exercises a strong downward pull upon him.…Neglect [of his responsibilities] is due not to an inadequate recognition of his duty nor to any other cause but the increasing weight of his laziness upon him. He says, “I will eat a little,” or “I will sleep a little,” or “It is hard for me to leave the house,” or “I have taken off my shirt; how can I put it on again?” or “It is very hot outside,” or “It is very cold,” or “It is raining too hard,” and all the other excuses and pretenses that fill the mouths of fools. Whatever the excuse, the Torah is neglected, Divine service dispensed with, and the Creator abandoned.
“The Trait of Zeal,” Mesilat Yesharim
This rebuke resonates with many of us, especially in this period of enticing new technologies that may divert our drive. We have more silly excuses than ever before to push off purposeful activity and succumb to the myriad ways of being unproductive. Naphtali’s bounding enthusiasm, the zerizut neither easily attained nor maintained, serves as a particularly relevant wake-up call for the Internet generation.
Naphtali and Dan
Throughout the various biblical lists of tribes and censuses, Naphtali is almost always counted last. The tribe served as the connector, and its position as the last to be counted brought the family full circle. The unifying shevet, who served at the pleasure of the nation, brought up the rear, calming the divisive influences among their brethren by entwining them all together in a single vision.
In this respect, Naphtali was the mirror image of Dan. Dan too was the me’asef, whose task it was to gather the lost and disenfranchised. Both were surrogate children, “in-betweeners,” who have two mothers. In contrast to Dan, though, Naphtali experienced this as a strength, rather than as a weakness. His flexibility as a go-between allowed him to attach the disparate elements within the nation, promoting goodwill and harmony. Perhaps this was due to the shift in Rachel’s perception on her role in the family. Whereas with Dan, Rachel was in a dispossessed, fraught state, at the time of Naphtali’s birth, she accepted her family role as the facilitator of relationships.
The Month of Naphtali
The Arizal assigned each of the twelve months to a different tribe, exploring the commonalities of individual tribal character with specific qualities unique to each month. In accord with the established pattern of Naphtali being listed last throughout the Bible, the Arizal assigned the final month, Adar, to that tribe.
The links between Naphtali and Adar are numerous. Adar’s central holiday is Purim, which is anchored by the personality of Esther. She was described by the Sages as “ayelet ha-shaĥar” (the doe of the dawn) – an echo of Naphtali’s ayalah. Esther was the unifying force that galvanized a fractured nation, described at that time as “scattered and dispersed among the other peoples.” “Go and gather all of the Jews together,” she commanded, calling the people to unity.
Although from a different child of Rachel, Esther shared Naphtali’s symbol, and with that, his ability to reenergize the nation. She, too, was among the me’asfim, the binders, among Rachel’s descendants who personified the facilitating nature of their matriarch. Esther, whose beauty was compared to the moon, shared the quality of regular renewal and reinvigoration, the same zerizut that so characterized Naphtali. Adar, the month of Purim, is, indeed, the perfect complement to Naphtali.
Naĥalat Naphtali
The naĥalah of Naphtali soared over a vast terrain, broad and expansive. It covered a good bulk of the north, stretching west from the southern tip of the Sea of Chinnereth over to its meeting point with Zebulun and Issachar at Mount Tabor, and then north to encompass the entire central and eastern Galilee, including the Hula Valley and the rivers that feed the Jordan. Naphtali shared a western border with both Zebulun and Asher. Theirs was the largest northern naĥalah. The emblem of the northern command of the Israel Defense Forces is, naturally, a deer, since most of contemporary northern Israel belonged to Naphtali.
The ayal, with his long, windy antlers, is an animal particularly suited to navigating the natural brush and foliage that covers much of the northern stretches of Naĥalat Naphtali. The image of these twisted antlers perfectly suits Naphtali, the “connecting” tribe devoted to weaving the intricate binds that tie our diverse nation together.
In contrast to Dan, who felt constrained within their naĥalah, Naphtali was granted a broad expanse of land. This naĥalah reflected the expansiveness and openness of Naphtali’s personality, one that could effectively mediate between others because he wished only to satisfy all parties. As a binder, he had more room, not less; he was not limited to a single point. Often, in our times, Israelis travel north to recharge their batteries, soaking in the spaciousness of Naĥalat Naphtali and enjoying the large expanse between villages. Anecdotally, a noted benefit of living up north is that there is a more generous, open spirit among local residents than is found in the more congested and busy center of the country.
Visiting Naĥalat Naphtali
Itinerary: Tel Ĥazor, Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar, Tel Qedesh
We begin our tour at the imposing Tel Ĥazor, a massive ancient site by regional standards. This important city in Naphtali was originally Canaanite, reaching its apex in the Middle Bronze period (c. 1750 Bce) and then again as an Israelite city in the first half of Iron II (1000–720 Bce). Hazor cropped up in numerous ancient records, including the nineteenth century BCE Egyptian execration texts and the fourteenth century Bce el-Amarna correspondence between Canaanite kings and the Egyptian pharaoh. More detail about the city and its wealth is provided by the Mari archives, a huge collection of cuneiform texts dating to the eighteenth century Bce, discovered in the ancient Sumerian (later Hittite) city of Mari, in eastern Syria.
Enter the site and walk toward the tented lookout on the right. You’ll now see a trench that cuts through the many strata to reveal all the layers of the site, affording you a glimpse at the massive lower city, excavated by Yigael Yadin in the 1950s. Yadin exposed temples, basalt pillars and gates, and many other architectural curiosities and relics from Canaanite Hazor. The massive earthen ramparts circling the city made the conquest of Hazor a formidable challenge.
It was this Canaanite city that organized the northern cities to wage a campaign challenging Joshua, after Israel had defeated an alliance of southern Canaanite fiefdoms. King Jabin, a name of numerous sovereigns associated with Hazor throughout its history, organized the northern rulers against the Israelites:
When Jabin king of Hazor heard [of Joshua’s victory against the southern Amorite kings], he sent to Jobab, king of Madon, to the king of Shimron, to the king of Achshaph, to the kings from the north, in the mountain, in the plain south of Chinnereth, in the lowland.…All these kings gathered; they came and encamped together at the Waters of Merom to wage war with Israel.
Joshua 11:1–5
The excavations at Hazor have thus far uncovered seventeen cuneiform tablets, all written in Akkadian, tantalizing scholars with the prospect of a much larger cache waiting to be discovered. On one of these tablets is written the personal name, Ibni perhaps referring to the king of Hazor, whose name was given as Ibni-Addu (meaning “Hadad [Canaanite weather god] shall build”) in the Mari tablets. Ibni must have been one and the same as Jabin, king of Hazor from the Bible!
Make your way to the large, covered area on the acropolis of the tel. Here was the impressive Canaanite palace of Jabin. Successive temples or palaces were built on this, the highest point in the city, but it was Joshua’s Jabin who ruled from the remains of the palace you see before you.
In the preserved flagstone forecourt is a large white bamah, or cultic platform, set in front of two massive basalt pillar bases flanking the entrance to the throne room. Excavations yielded conclusive evidence of a massive conflagration that destroyed this palace, along with all of the other buildings from the thirteenth century BCE. Deliberate iconoclasm was also on the archaeological record in connection with this event, which followed the defeat of the northern Caananite alliance to Israel:
Joshua turned back at that time and conquered Hazor and struck its king with the sword, because Hazor had formerly been the leader of all those kingdoms. They killed every soul that was in it…he burned Hazor in fire.
Joshua 11:10–11
The dressed basalt orthostats of the throne room, still in situ, were topped with wooden beams before the mudbricks were laid, to protect the structure from earthquake damage, so the storied palace fell easily to fire, as the beams burned down. The mighty heat, helped along by wooden floors and large pithoi of oil in the building, cracked the dressed basalt and partially melted and reddened the mudbricks. Massive piles of soot discovered upon excavation and the still-charred walls complete the picture.
Turn back a bit to take in the famed Solomonic Gates, discovered by Yadin on a lucky hunch. He reasoned that since a uniquely structured six-roomed city gate was discovered in Megiddo, and since the architectural plans drawn up some fifty years before Gezer’s first excavations also hinted to an identical gate there, he was bound to find the third in the series here. He did, and dated it to Solomon. After all, the Tanakh refers to “a description of the levy imposed by Solomon to build the Temple of God, his own palace, the Milo, and the walls of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer” (I Kings 9:15). Since Hazor was grouped with Megiddo and Gezer in this verse as having been renovated during the same period, it stands to reason that the major architectural features, especially fortifications, would be uniform throughout.
Fortunate Yadin. In his first season at Hazor, he uncovered the six-chamber gate before you, identical to the one found in Megiddo. These two powerful northern cities, with Gezer in central Israel, were the focus of Solomon’s attention, as he embarked on his various countrywide building projects. And the residents of this city were from the tribe of Naphtali.
Visit the impressive water system built during the reign of the Israelite king Ahab in the ninth century Bce, which also parallels the renovations visited by that king on Megiddo. Ahab understood the importance of easy access to a city’s water supply during times of enemy siege. And the large Israelite four-room house and pillared storage facility, originally located on top of the destroyed Caananite palace, but meticulously moved to its present spot, illustrates further the material life of the Naphtali tribesmen of Hazor.
Our last stop in Hazor brings us to the era of the Judges, a relatively ambiguous period in the history of settlement in this city. According to the biblical record, there was yet another Jabin, king of the Canaanites, who ruled from Hazor. This other Jabin dominated the Israelites for twenty years until Deborah, their judge and leader, called on the military man Barak son of Abinoam to organize against him.
At the westernmost excavated area (Area #6), a cultic high place was uncovered; the basalt obelisk marks the temple center. It is inconclusive who exactly worshipped here, considering that the city was totally burned a few generations earlier and was only significantly rebuilt during the reign of Solomon. Did Jabin (not to be confused with the earlier Jabin who battled Joshua’s army) have a reduced hamlet here, an inherited headquarters from which he commanded the northern Canaanite clans alongside Sisera, who based himself much farther west in Harosheth-hagoiim?
The cultic installation was eventually replaced with an Israelite fortress, most likely during the renovations dated to Ahab’s reign (concurrent with the advanced water system). Ascend the Israelite tower, the last structure to be added to the fortress in the eighth century Bce, from which the soldiers of Naphtali surely saw the Assyrian forces of Tiglath-Pileser advancing. It was the northernmost cities of Naphtali that fell to Assyria in their first wave of conquest in 732 Bce, followed a decade later by the complete exile of Malkhut Yisrael (the Northern Kingdom).
Pay a visit to a neighboring kibbutz serendipitously named Ayelet HaShahar – the Sages’ designation of Esther. This was the first kibbutz in the northern Galilee, founded in 1915. Its name suggests both Naĥalat Naphtali and the dawning of redemption, perfectly capturing the early pioneers’ ideology of resettling the biblical landscape to bring about national renewal. Ayelet HaShahar has a small museum that houses some of the artifacts discovered over the years of excavation at Hazor.
We move further north to another large tel in Naĥalat Naphtali, the only tel in the mountainous region of the upper eastern Galilee. This is Tel Qedesh (Kedesh), one of the six cities designated an ir miklat, or city of refuge for one guilty of accidental manslaughter. These six cities were scattered on both sides of the Jordan. It was a residential center of Levites as well as Naphtalites, since the cities of refuge were allotted to the tribe of Levi throughout the Land of Israel.
Excavations thus far at Tel Qedesh have focused on the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods at the tel. Ancient Kedesh, originally an Early Bronze Canaanite city, still lies buried under these later layers of civilization. Traces of a large earthen glacis circling the tel date to the Canaanite Kedesh and indicate the large size and imposing defenses of the city. Judging by its proportions, it competed with Hazor in the monarchial period for top significance in Naĥalat Naphtali, although only a future archaeological excavation can provide more conclusive evidence.
Kedesh surfaces in a famous biblical episode in the period of the Judges.
Barak son of Abinoam, called to action by Deborah, hailed from Kedesh-naphtali. There is yet another Kedesh (identified as Ĥorvat Qedesh) in the southern region of Naĥalat Naphtali, to the east of Jabneel and in the general area of Mount Tabor. Most scholars suggest that this second Kedesh was more likely the city where Deborah and Barak mustered an army from Naphtali and Zebulun. Since the battle took place in the vicinity of Mount Tabor and the Kishon River, and Sisera fled to an area near Kedesh where he met a gruesome death at the hands of the heroine Yael, it is unlikely that Tel Qedesh in the far north was involved in the biblical story.
What there is to see of Tel Qedesh thus far is confined to the northeastern section, accessible via the parking lot. Take a short stroll through the remains of ornately decorated Roman-era sarcophagi. One originally had the image of Nike, the winged goddess of victory (later iconoclasts have left contemporary visitors with only the wings from the goddess’s form to admire). Farther down the path was a most impressive Roman temple, dedicated to the sun god Helios. Much of the eastern entrance is still standing, complete with doorways, carved niches, and some stunning examples of carved stone lintels, pillar bases, and cornices (much of the stone lies scattered on the ground, felled by a fourth-century earthquake).
One final observation as you travel through Naphtali, especially in the northernmost stretches: the Torah scholarship in this naĥalah must be noted. Just around every corner you will encounter a tomb of one of the Tannaitic or Amoraic Sages. Most of their prodigious scholarly activity, redacted into the corpus of rabbinic literature that formed the bulk of the Oral Law, took place in the villages of the Galilee. Then the lands of Naphtali fostered another period of immense Torah scholarship hundreds of years later, during the kabbalistic renaissance of sixteenth-century Safed.
Chapter 10; Gad
Mark Twain commented that the “Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events.” Perhaps only poetry can express how the bounteous charm of Naĥalat Naphtali can nurture creativity and yearning for the Sublime:
הַכַּרְמֶל הוּא הַר,
הַיַּרְדֵּן נָהָר,
הַכִּנֶּרֶת יָם,
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם עִיר
וְהַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר
שֶׁל הַר
נָהָר
וְיָם
וָעִיר.
הַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר
הַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר.
דוד יעקב קמזון
The Carmel is a mountain
The Jordan, a river
The Kinneret, a sea
Jerusalem, a city.
But the Galilee is a song
Of mountain
And river
And sea
And city.
The Galilee is a song,
The Galilee is a song.
David Jacob Kamzon
In earnest thought he seems to stand
As if across a lonely sea
He gazed impatient of the land.
Out of the noisy centuries
The foolish and the fearful fade;
Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,
Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.
Walter de la Mare, “A Portrait of a Warrior”
Gad, the Confident Warrior
Gad represented the entrance of yet another force into the family. The first of Leah’s surrogate children, he was marked by his warrior-like tendency, aggressiveness, and confidence. Like all the firstborns, he felt the complexity of the painful family situation most acutely, reflected in the formation of his personality. His salient characteristic of military confidence became evident in both Jacob’s and Moses’s blessings, as well as through the unfolding history of the tribe that bore his name. As with all of the shevatim, Gad’s character was rooted in the story of his birth.
Leah was a woman who understood well that each child she bore for her husband cemented his hard-won love. (Reuben: “Behold! A son! Now my husband will love me!” Simeon: “The Lord has heard that I am unloved and has given me this one also.” Levi: “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.”) Yet after the birth of her fourth son, Judah, her streak seemingly ran its course: va-ta’amod mi-ledet – “and she ceased giving birth” (Genesis 29:35). This affected her keenly. The text mentioned it twice, driving home the significance of Leah’s secondary infertility.
Meanwhile, Rachel initiated a desperate strategy learned from Sarah, wife of Abraham: if you can’t do it yourself, find a suitable replacement. Barren Rachel built her family through an ancient arrangement of surrogacy. She gave her maidservant, Bilhah, to Jacob to bear the children who in name and upbringing were hers: Dan and Naphtali. “She shall birth through my knees [in my stead], and I, too, shall be built through her.”
Leah immediately followed suit. After being told that Rachel gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, the next verse informs us that Leah gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob as well. “When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as concubine” (Genesis 30:9).
In contrast to Rachel, Leah provided no reason for giving Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. A complex mix of jealousy and vision lay behind this apparently inexplicable action. Latent was the competition with the sister who then had claim to both children with Jacob, as well as his unaffected love. Beyond that, though, lay a more reasoned method: a determined sense that she should be mothering most of Jacob’s children. Leah saw herself as the primary mother, the one whose position in the family was based on her bearing Jacob the bulk of his children. She therefore gave Zilpah to Jacob, and alongside the four that she already bore were the two children emerging from this new union. All were named by her, and all she considered her own.
This was the complex context into which Gad emerged: a son of Leah’s, yet with the liminality and lack of concrete placement we have seen in the maidservants’ children. Like Dan, he, more than any of Leah’s natural-born sons, marked the furthest reaches of his mother’s salient characteristic. Leah was here at her most aggressive in pursuing her husband’s affections – and in securing her place of dominance as the head mother. His personality, like Dan’s, reflected the unique circumstances of his birth. His name reflected the complexity of his situation.
Leah named him simply, but stealthily: “And Leah said, ‘bagad’ – thereupon she called him ‘Gad’” (Genesis 30:11). This enigmatic statement contained many possible connotations, and commentators are torn as to what she meant. First, the most obvious, somewhat sinister reading: the word bagad is built off of the root b-g-d, treachery. Leah was schooled in deception, having passed herself off as her sister on her wedding night, betraying Jacob. Here, she again usurped her sister’s place. The midrash highlighted this problematic element of Leah’s strong will by claiming that, in this surrogacy, Leah repeated her first deceit. She dressed Zilpah in her garment, thus duping Jacob again.
Leah thus acknowledged the dark side of her tenacity. She named her son after her aggressiveness in claiming her role as the dominant wife, celebrating, but confessing her ill-gained status.
This dark potential to pursue one’s own resolve at the expense of others surfaced again, in the tribe’s future, albeit with a twist. After the nation defeated the mighty kings Sihon and Og, Gad requested to settle in those conquered lands on the east bank of the Jordan. Moses accused the tribe of betraying the nation by claiming their portion on the “wrong” side of the Jordan.
Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Why will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Lord has given them?…And now you, a breed of sinful men…will bring calamity upon all this people.
Numbers 32:6–15
Gad denied the accusation, and generously offered to lead the nation in battle against Canaan until all of the other tribes were settled. Rather than treachery, Gad ended up expressing the positive side of aggressiveness: the ability to fight and to lead.
The most likely germane understanding of Gad’s name relied on the root g-d-d, but saw the origin of Leah’s inspiration in the word gedud, meaning “troops,” or “slayers.” “The warrior has arrived!” announced Leah. He will be the trooper amongst my sons, solidly marking my fifth claim to this family, my ability to fight for what I want.
Jacob clearly noted this aspect of his son’s name, as his blessing to Gad was replete with military jargon.
Gad shall be raided by raiders,
But he shall raid at their heels.
Genesis 49:19
Gad’s name marked him as the soldier son – and this was indeed the task he took upon himself again and again, until his actions as well as his name defined him as such.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wove together these two meanings of the name – fortune and troops – drawing a conceptual link between them. A gedud, or shock troop, falls on the enemy unexpectedly. So too did this son provide a sudden turn of fortune for Leah, who now had even more children in her arsenal.
Gad’s future was clearly on the battlefield. The tribal iconography was explicit: the tribe’s stone on the priestly breastplate was the aĥlamah, (crystal, or amethyst), symbolic of courage in battle, and their flag was embossed with an army tent or fortress. In the wilderness encampment formation around the Tabernacle, assertive Gad was grouped with Reuben, their neighbor and associate on the eastern Jordan, and Simeon, the latter being Gad’s martial charge, whom they were bound to protect from incurring punishment. Perhaps even the colors of the flag, described as “neither white nor black, but a mix of black and white,” might hint to the moral and physical complexities of the battlefield – Gad’s turf.
In declaring Gad’s destiny, dying Jacob played with the root of his son’s name over and over again: “Gad gedud yigudenu ve-hu yugad ekev” (Gad might be trampled by troops, but he will trample at their heels! Genesis 49:19). I base this translation on the approach of most commentators, who saw in Jacob’s words a cautious optimism. You, Gad, will be attacked repeatedly, but in the end you shall triumph. Others prefer a wholly positive reading: “Gad, troops shall form in your wake, and you will soldier at their heels!”
In this sense, the blessing indicated that the descendants of Gad would lead the ranks of Israel into battle, and they would be sure to protect the rear when the nation retreated. Both interpretations focused on Gad’s fighting spirit and soldierly ways.
There is little in the text concerning Gad’s personal life, a fact consistent for exactly half of Jacob’s sons. Rabbinic midrash also does not single out any noteworthy vignettes from Gad’s life. Interestingly, however, the pseudepigraphal Testament of Gad traces early expressions of this warrior spirit in Gad’s personal life. It claims that Gad, more so than his brothers, particularly hated Joseph. Gad, as per this account, was a very brave shepherd. When the herd was attacked by wild animals, he took the predator by one of its legs, whirled it over his head and flung it away. It happened once that Gad saved a lamb from the jaws of a bear; he then reluctantly had to slaughter the lamb because it was so badly injured. Upon seeing this, Joseph misunderstood and reported to his father that Gad had killed one of the flock to eat, implying that he was careless with his father’s animals. On his deathbed, Gad confessed to his children that he had since harbored a maniacal hatred toward Joseph. He concluded by reminding them that he almost died of liver illness, which he attributed to acrimonious bile pooling in his liver.
We have no other sources regarding Gad’s personal life that hinted to the future of his tribe. The rest of the Torah was also relatively silent regarding this tribe. After the altercation with Moses in which Gad promised to lead his brethren into battle, the tribe’s position as warriors seemed secure. This was the blessing bestowed upon the tribe by Moses:
And of Gad he said:
Blessed is He who enlarges Gad;
Poised is he like a lion, to tear off arm and scalp.
He chose for himself the best,
For there is the portion of the revered chieftain,
Where the heads of the people come.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:20–21
The blessing was studded with promises of wealth, military success, primacy, and leadership, all of which came to fruition.
In for the Long Run: Gad the Soldier
Leah and Jacob invested incipient Gad with the promise of success on the battlefield. Moses added another layer to Gad’s gifts, lauding him for his stamina and fortitude when leading the nation in their prolonged conquest:
He executed the Lord’s judgments,
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:21
They were true to their word and faithful in their promise to remain across the Jordan until the land was conquered and divided (Rashi, ad loc.).
More than Reuben, his partner in approaching Moses, Gad was singled out as the initiator, the dominant partner who fights Israel’s battles.
The Wealth of Gad
Gad were granted a large naĥalah to accommodate their numbers and wealth. The first allusion to the tribal assets was reflected in this verse: “U-mikneh rav hayah livenei Reuven u-livenei Gad atzum me’od” (Numbers 32:1). Many translate this as: “Much cattle was accrued by the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad – exceedingly much!”
An alternative parsing of the verse was offered by the biblical commentator Rabbi Naphtali Tzvi Judah Berlin. His interpretation is: “Much cattle was accrued by the sons of Reuben; but the sons of Gad had even more.”
While Reuben was certainly blessed with wealth, here – and in virtually every other reference to the two tribes – Gad was dominant. This explains why most of the cities of the Mishor, the tableland plateau in the Transjordan, were built by, or at least inhabited by, the tribe of Gad, despite the fact that most of them fell within the purview of Reuben’s naĥalah. This also explains why it is specifically Gad’s cities that are described as “fortified towns and enclosures for flocks.” Gad, more than Reuben, had need for fortified cities to protect his significant wealth, and he managed to retain a more secure administrative structure than did his older brother.
The midrash actually finds allusion to this within the words of Moses’s blessing:
And of Gad he said: “Blessed is He Who grants expanse to Gad; he dwells like a lion” (Deuteronomy 33:20). What does this verse mean? That the borders of Gad will expand and extend onward toward the east, and therefore Gad will have the strength of a lion, necessary to defend his territory.
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 355
In area, Gad’s territory certainly dominated that of Reuben. Furthermore, the whole of the Transjordan was sometimes referred to as “the land of Gad and Gilead,” clearly indicating that Gad was paramount in the region. Gad was also the only tribe singled out by Mesha of Moab in his ninth-century Bce victory stele as specifically occupying territory to the east of the Jordan.
Primacy of Gad over Reuben
As we have seen just from the vignettes above, Leah’s two firstborn sons – Gad and Reuben – were inextricably linked. They were placed beside each other in the encampment in the desert; they inherited together on the left side of the Jordan; Gad dwelled within Reuben’s very cities. And Gad, the younger-born surrogate son, dominated throughout.
The preeminence of Gad over Reuben was not manifest only in land or military leadership. Time and again, Gad and Reuben are grouped together, and the text almost always lists Gad first.
The Gadites and Reubenites came to Moses…
Numbers 32:2
Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites…
Numbers 32:6
The Gadites and Reubenites said…
Numbers 32:25
When the tribes are listed in order, Reuben retains his position as firstborn and always precedes Gad. Yet when grouped together without the other tribes, the younger brother’s tribe dominates. Invariably, Gad surpassed its partner Reuben in wealth and military prowess.
This follows the pattern of their blessings. In both Jacob and Moses’s final words, the younger brother was praised while the eldest was scorned. Reuben was scourged by Jacob: “Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer” (Genesis 49:4). Moses mitigated this with a promise of life, but the curse remains standing: “Reuben shall live and not die, though he be few in number” (Deuteronomy 33:6).
Gad, by contrast, was blessed by Jacob: “He shall raid at [his enemies’] heels” (Genesis 49:19). And this was amplified by Moses: “He executed the Lord’s judgments/And His decisions for Israel” (Deuteronomy 33:21).
Reuben and Gad were linked together in a shared destiny at the outset of the Israelite conquest. Both had significant wealth; both approached Moses together to inquire about a shared naĥalah; their territories were inexorably intertwined. Yet their partnership was dominated by one, while the other gradually diminished.
This perhaps reflects the circumstances of the birth of these two firstborns of Leah. Reuben was Leah’s first child of the flesh and Gad was the first child of Leah’s maidservant, his existence due solely to Leah’s wiles. Though not borne by her, he was indeed born because of her.
Reuben was born when Leah’s position was at its most precarious: “When God saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb… ” (Genesis 29:31).
She had taken the place of Rachel in the wedding chamber, but then Jacob “took also Rachel, and he loved also Rachel, more than Leah” (29:30). Leah was without the natural love of her husband. Where Rachel was beautiful and mysterious, loved by Jacob at first sight, Leah was the awkward older sister of weak eyes and uncertain aspect. Reuben’s birth was the first step, she felt, in building a solid relationship with her husband (“See? A son! Now my husband will love me!”). Yet this was still a very hesitant step. She needed to add child after child to her arsenal to cement a relationship with Jacob.
Leah’s initial state when she embarked on motherhood was apprehensive and troubled. Her firstborn, Reuben, bore the mark, his personality molded by his heavy sense of responsibility toward her, by his absolute loyalty. He, like Leah, was apprehensive. He was uncertain about Jacob, yet desperate for his approval. When he acted against his father, it was through heated impetuousness, rather than cool determination, and he spent the rest of his life attempting to atone.
The case was very different with Gad. Gad was born after Leah had already won a certain acceptance, after a transformation in which Rachel was now “jealous” of her. Gad, for Leah, marked a new stage, a bold initiative that was far from the earlier, anxious new mother. By tricking Jacob into sleeping with Zilpah (or, alternatively, by giving her maidservant as another wife to her consenting husband), she was aggressively and confidently pursuing a new goal: primacy. Gad was a reflection of that mindset, in both his ruthlessness and his courage on the battlefield. His assurance as a leader (“Gad – troop units will fall in line after you!”) was born as Leah’s triumph.
Consider a fascinating detail that surfaced much later in the history of Israel. When King David commanded his general Joab to conduct an ill-advised census, a reluctant Joab attempted to sabotage the order by first approaching the tribe of Gad. The midrash suggests that Joab chose this tribe because he believed that Gad would have no qualms balking at the royal order; they were, after all, the most independent and confident of the tribes (sadly, Gad did submit to the census). Important to our discussion is the notion that this tribe was recognized for their tenacity and pluck – so much so that Joab was certain they would oppose King David’s orders. What an apt reflection of Gad’s origin, whose very existence was owed to his mother’s grit!
Gad and Elijah Ha-Giladi
Gad was perhaps best represented, in all his ambiguous glory, through the figure of his most famous son, the firebrand prophet Elijah: “Eliyahu ha-navi, Eliyahu ha-Tishbi, Eliyahu ha-Giladi… ” The prophet Elijah, from Tishbi, which was in Gilead – located in the naĥalah of Gad. Perhaps when she named Gad, Leah dreamed of his most outstanding descendant: “One has arrived [ba] who in the future will sever [gadad] the foundations of evildoers. Who is this? Elijah…R. Nehorai said that Elijah was from the tribe of Gad” (Genesis Rabbah 71:9).
Jacob also recognized this potential:
Salvation will only come from Gad…from he who arrives at the “heel of time” [be-ekev], the end time – as it says, “Behold I am sending you Elijah the Prophet” [Malachi 3:23], who was from the tribe of Gad, for he will herald in the end [ve-hu yugad ekev].
Genesis Rabbah 99:11
Elijah expressed the Gaddite traits of outspokenness and tenacity, for pursuing a goal aggressively and single-mindedly. He did not hesitate to ruthlessly impose his will – even on God – in order to achieve his vision. In the end, this fierceness separated Elijah from his people. He became incapable of relating to the nation to whom he spoke, and God discharged him from his role as prophet. Yet this tenacity also earned him eternity and greatness. He rose “in a storm to the heavens,” and eventually became a source of fortune and timely protection to Israel. As the one who vindicated God’s justice, Elijah drew from the blessings of Moses to his ancestor Gad: “And he came at the head of the people; he did what is righteous for the Lord, and what is just for Israel” (Deuteronomy 33:21).
Elijah’s mission during the reign of King Ahab was to restore Israel to love and worship of God and to eradicate the pervasive idolatry so championed by the monarchy. He was hated and hunted by Ahab and Jezebel, and he had to live in hiding. Elijah did not dwell within the nation. He struck in and out of civilization to agitate aggressively for change. He was from the other side, the isolated side – Gilead – yet he led his nation in battle against the worshippers of Baal before retreating. Elijah did come home to Gilead after war for and with his nation, as did his whole tribe in a much earlier time, yet in the end he left for the heavens, to lead at a future time.
Elijah reflected his tribe in his confident aggressiveness and militant nature. Gad’s territorial isolation, on the other side of the Jordan, also nurtured Elijah’s elusiveness and penchant to appear in fits and spurts among his nation, darting back into concealment after his mission was completed.
Elijah’s seminal encounter with God in the wilderness linked him in the rabbinic mind to the other great prophet – not from the tribe of Gad, but buried in his naĥalah: Moses. This was not a coincidence. Moses, like Elijah, had strong associations with Gad.
Gad and Moses
The biblical text is full of allusions to a relationship between Moses and the tribe of Gad – Moses indeed inserted himself into the very blessing he bestowed on Gad. It is not surprising that the Sages saw a special affinity between the great prophet, who was barred entry into the land, and those two tribes who chose their portions in the Transjordan.
He [Gad] chose for himself the best,
For there is the hidden portion of the lawgiver,
He who had led the heads of the nation.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:20–21
Some have argued that Reuben and Gad chose their naĥalot solely to have the honor of having Moses’s eternal resting place on their soil.
“He chose for himself the best” – When Gad chose the lands of Sihon and Og, despite their not having the intrinsic holiness of the Land of Israel, his intention was to acquire for himself something fundamental: the hidden burial place of the lawgiver, Moses.
Seforno, Deuteronomy 33:21
Note that the nation knew that Moses was destined to die before they entered the land; the doom was proclaimed publically prior to Gad and Reuben’s request for naĥalot in the Transjordan.
Perhaps Gad and Reuben had a special relationship to their beloved teacher, and so vied for the distinction of hosting his burial plot. This dovetails nicely with the midrash that both tribes shared in the prophet’s final resting place:
“For there [in Gad] is the hidden portion of the lawgiver.” There was the burial place of Moses that was granted to the portion of Gad. But did not [Moses] die in Reuben’s portion [since Nebo is in the naĥalah of Reuben, and it is there that he expired]? From here we learn that Moses was carried on the wings of the Divinity four miles away from Reuben’s portion and interred in Gad’s portion.
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 355, Sotah 13b
If understood in this vein, then the two tribes were not at fault for prematurely requesting their portions rather than waiting patiently for the goral, the divine lottery, nor were they to be blamed for choosing their portions outside of the assumed boundaries of the Promised Land. Neither tribe could countenance leaving Moses eternally abandoned, so they claimed the region in which he died as their own, to remain permanently bound to him, and he to them.
This stretches the plain meaning of the text, though. We are told that the two tribes desired this region for its lush and abundant grazing potential…and for one additional element: “This land that the Lord has conquered for the community of Yisrael is cattle country… ” (Numbers 32:4).
This detail helps explain the risky maneuver undertaken by Reuben and Gad in boldly requesting the Transjordan. These two firstborns of Leah, who were rejected in favor of other tribes (Levi, Judah, Ephraim) for the bestowal of special gifts, felt justified in renouncing protocol so as to claim the territories of Sihon: Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Nebo, among others. The first territorial conquest, resulting in land acquisition and settling of cities, the first active claim of land beyond a defensive war – this territory should have gone to the first of the tribes as its “birthright.” First to the first, and so Reuben and Gad preempted the divine lottery and their portions to the west of the Jordan so as to retain finally some faint association with the lost promises of the bekhorah.
The End of Gad
Gad had more resilience than Reuben, and seemed to have maintained a successful urban structure well into the Israelite kingdom, with a stronger tribal identity than his brother. He was exiled along with Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the days of Tiglath – Pileser, king of Assyria, in 732 Bce, during their first wave of conquest. The two and a half tribes were carried away to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the River Gozan, and have been lost to history since.
All was not forgotten of Gad, for we regularly remember one of his own, who surfaces at every circumcision, seder, and conundrum. The promise of future glory for the tribe was entrusted to its prized son, Elijah, who is to herald the Messiah, at the end of days: “Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the Lord. He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents” (Malachi 3:23).
The tribe of Gad can no longer be identified with confidence, but his character is manifest in the modern-day nation of Israel. Assurance in his mission, military robustness, seeing things through to their end: that was the essence of Gad.
Naĥalat Gad
The southern portion of Gad’s naĥalah as described in Numbers 32 was a circumference of cities buffering Reuben’s land against enemy threat from Moab in the south, Canaan in the west, and Ammon in the northeast. Gad the Protector, who “dwells like a lion,” fiercely protected the outer eastern edges of the Israelite kingdom.
Beyond those buffering cities in the Mishor, Gad received the whole western swath of the Gilead, the mountainous land extending from the Plains of Moab up to the southern banks of the Chinnereth Sea (the eastern part of the Gilead, from the eastern stretch of the Jabbok up to the Yarmuk, belonged to Manasseh). The term “Gilead” is sometimes a reference for much of the Israelite territory in the Transjordan, even though its topographical parameters can be more narrowly defined and do not include the Mishor to the south or the Bashan to the north.
For an itinerary and discussion of touring Naĥalat Gad, see chapter 1 on Reuben.
Chapter 11; Asher
One who sees olives in a dream will see his business increase…and gain a good name. One who sees olive oil in a dream can anticipate being illuminated by the light of Torah.
Berakhot 57a
Asher was the second birth son of Zilpah, and the sixth of Leah’s progeny. Upon his birth, Leah ceased her battle. For the first time, she felt true joy, a sense of sheer fortune. “Said Leah: ‘Happy am I [alternatively: Such fortune have I]! Now the women will call me blessed.’ And she called his name Asher” (Genesis 30:13).
Leah birthed four of her own children for Jacob. Then she added two more to her tent, fully matching the two that her sister Rachel brought into the world by giving Bilhah to Jacob. This sixth son was…pure abundance. Dumb luck. A bonus not of Leah’s own devices, a spontaneous gift for which she did not plan – a gift from God.
This son was destined to thrive and succeed. He represented the culmination of Leah’s force of will and outgoingness – not in battle with others, but as a connector and source of relationship. And indeed, this abundance of blessing was felt most keenly in his naĥalah.
Fruitful Shevet, Fruitful Naĥalah
What a pleasure it is to take in Naĥalat Asher. The large swath of the north, encompassing most of the western Galilee, is lush year-round, with abundant foliage and ample water sources. The land always makes me think of that lovely psalm sung under my marriage canopy, a beautiful German (yekke) tradition that I hope my children embrace when their time comes:
Ashrei (fortunate, happy) are all who fear the Lord, who follow His ways…
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;
Your children will be like olive saplings around your table.
Psalms 128
These were the words that gladdened the hearts of the groom and his bride, providing a vision of a future laden with promise and productivity. The most blessed son of Jacob, named for fortune, was appropriately gifted with a thriving naĥalah that dripped with olive orchards and well-watered ground, a portion that the whole nation collectively treasured. Consider how the blessing of Moses contained not a trace of animus – only benedictions for this Fortunate Son:
Blessed are you, Asher, from all the sons!
He shall be the best liked among his brothers,
And shall dip his foot in oil.
Deuteronomy 33:24
Jacob bestowed a blessing on Asher that foreshadowed the blessing Moses gave. Jacob blessed Asher with the richest land in Eretz Yisrael: “From Asher shall come rich bread, and he will provide kingly delicacies” (Genesis 49:20).
Different regions of Eretz Yisrael are amenable to olive growth, but none so much as the northwestern Galilee, the territory of Asher. This prized fruit was an essential commodity in the ancient world, used for light, hygienic and cosmetic applications, cooking, and medicinal purposes. Thus, Asher was prized, for from his land oil flowed like a spring:
Once the Lacedonians were short on oil. They instructed an appointed agent to secure one million maneh of oil. He traveled to Jerusalem, but they told him there to go to Tyre. He traveled to Tyre, but they told him to go to Gush Halav [in Naĥalat Asher]. He traveled there…and purchased more oil than he had set out to buy. It is said that no animal – neither horse, nor mule, nor camel, nor donkey in the Land of Israel – was not hired to carry back all of this oil.
Menaĥot 85b
The flag of Asher was a fiery red, alluding to the light of the olive’s oil, and it was emblazoned with an olive tree, the symbol of Asher. His stone on the priestly breastplate also reflected the plenitude of the tribe: the tarshish (aquamarine, or beryl) was said to aid digestion and bring well-being to its handler, in consonance with the blessings of the olive.
This blessing of land extended to promises of healthy children and large families. The daughters of Asher, especially, were praised for their beauty, with the envious gift of appearing young even in their old age. As per the midrash, these fine women were sought after by kings and high priests. It is interesting that both kings and high priests were dedicated by being anointed with oil. How appropriate that they would desire women who were raised amongst the olive groves!
Perhaps we can find a deeper connection between the prized women of Asher and the olive oil that symbolized their tribe. Consider these verses from Ecclesiastes that juxtaposed the “wife you love” with the plentiful presence of oil in the description of the path to joy in a life that is inherently limited:
Let your garments always be white, and your head never lack for oil. Enjoy life with the wife you love through all the fleeting days of your life that He has granted you beneath the sun, all of your futile existence; for that is your compensation in life and in your toil which you exert beneath the sun.
Ecclesiastes 9:8–9
As oil smoothes and balms the skin, an intimate and loving relationship soothes and comforts the tired soul. The qualities of the land of Asher inspired the qualities of its inhabitants. The women of Asher bore the warm and gentle, healing and health-giving character of the olive. These Asherite women would smooth over the rough edges of the nation’s leaders, partnering with them to provide the necessary support that powerful men needed and craved.
Asher the Illuminator: To Speak and Not to Speak
Interestingly, Asher’s otherwise delightful personality was complicated by certain indiscretions on his part. The midrashic literature, expanding on Asher’s personal story, reveals a personality who was practically compelled to shed light on truths that were meant to stay in the shadows. Any characteristic, when expressed in full, is a force that can be both good and bad. Asher clarified and illuminated, but he also overexposed – there are times when secrets are meant to stay hidden. He sometimes cast an unforgiving light into dark corners.
First, Asher was the one who told his brothers that Reuben had sinned with Bilhah. For this, they excommunicated him for “breaking code” and informing on his kin, only reconciling with him after Reuben confessed his guilt.
Second, before the sons of Jacob could break the news to their father that Joseph was alive and well as an Egyptian viceroy, Asher’s daughter Serah informed him. Since she only could have known the dread secret of the brothers’ involvement in selling Joseph if her father had told her, the enraged brothers excommunicated Asher again, for betraying their confidence.
This need to communicate, to illuminate, also served to comfort and console. Serah was the only one who could ease Jacob into the knowledge of Joseph’s survival without him dying from shock. She was the embodiment of the wise women of Asher, possessed of that special ability to enlighten gently, without traumatizing, like soothing oil smoothing rough skin.
Serah’s skill in disclosure was legendary. It was to Serah that Asher revealed the specific mark that would designate the redeemer of Israel. Many years later, when Moses returned to Egypt and uttered the code, Serah affirmed to the nation that he was indeed the redeemer. This assurance, delivered as it was by Serah, convinced the people to put their trust in Moses. Serah also informed Moses concerning the whereabouts of Joseph’s sepulcher, smoothing the way for the nation to leave Egypt with the bones of their forefather.
Communication, with all its dangers of speaking too much, is a gift, the lubricant that allows people and families to live together. It can be damaging, certainly, but we can assume from what we can piece together of Asher that he never intended to cause strife. The illuminating Asher, blessed and beloved, loved his family in return. Asher was unique in being “ratzui eĥav” – favored by his brothers. Ultimately, the brothers made peace with Asher and forgave (or were grateful for) his well-intentioned indiscretions.
Naphtali and Asher, both second-born sons of the maidservants, shared the ability and desire to bind the nation together. Naphtali wove disparate elements together through his abundant enthusiasm and goodwill, and Asher connected through communication. As Naphtali was a counterpoint to Dan, promoting harmony rather than isolation, Asher was a counterpoint to Gad, building relationships rather than cutting them off. They were linked by Jacob in his blessings, Naphtali directly following Asher, with a shared focus on both “giving” and the “mouth.” Both employed their talents to unite the shevatim in bonds of fraternal love. No wonder, then, that they were presented with the entirety of the north – expansive naĥalot, side-by-side, lush and fruitful.
Naĥalat Asher – He Who Seeks Wealth, Head North!
Asher’s blessings rang with bounty, and the lushness of the region within his naĥalah was everything we might have expected from this favored shevet. Even a casual familiarity with their territory makes clear why the Sages advised one who sought wealth to head north, for Asher’s land was always fertile and relatively secure (with little threat from neighboring Phoenicia during most of biblical history). Asher was exiled by Assyria in the second part of the eighth century Bce along with the other northern shevatim, but their naĥalah was spared the raids and threats from neighboring enemies until that time, unlike all of the other naĥalot.
Naĥalat Asher took up the entire western Galilee. Its southern border was the Carmel Mountain and Jezreel Valley with an uneven southeastern border shared with Zebulun (imagine Zebulun as a boot kicking into Asher’s southeastern corner, leaving a shoe-like impression). Its western border was the Mediterraean Sea, all the way up to Phoenicia, and its eastern border was shared with Naphtali on an approximate straight north–south line. Asher’s northern border is indeterminable, but was ostensibly deep into Lebanon, far north of the Litani River. Identification of most cities in Asher (twenty-two of them, as listed in Joshua 19) is still inconclusive.
Visiting Naĥalat Asher
Itinerary: Tel Qashish, Ushah/Shefar’am, Tel ‘Avdon, Nahal Kaziv
The best way to see Naĥalat Asher is by driving north on Route 70 from Yokne’am. The southernmost cities of Asher, clustered together more tightly than the scattered urban centers in the north, sit along the Kishon River as it winds its way northwest skirting Mount Carmel.
Our first stop to view this southern swath of Asher is from the Mukhrakah, the Carmelite monastery on Keren Ha-Carmel (“Horn of the Carmel,” the southeastern tip of Mount Carmel). From the roof of the monastery facing southeast, you can easily see the pronounced Tel Yoqneam, the border city of Manasseh located just east of modern-day Yokne’am. A bit north on Route 70 is Tel Qashish, which marks the southern border of Asher.
Tel Qashish is identified as either Beth-dagon or Helkath, both of which were southern cities in Naĥalat Asher. The tel juts out from the otherwise flat Jezreel Valley. This location most likely appealed to the founders of the city, built long before the Israelites conquered Canaan, because of the abundant local water sources (note the wadi belting the east of the tel – this was once the flowing Kishon River) and because the city sat at a key juncture of the Via Maris, the ancient trade route running from the port of Gaza to various northern destinations.
The tel got its Arabic name al-Kassis (Tel of the Priests) from the site’s association with the biblical story for Elijah’s showdown against the prophet-priests of Baal. All three faiths identify this southeastern tip of the Carmel where we are standing as the likely site where Elijah challenged his ideological enemies, to demonstrate to the nation “sitting on the fence” – including the indigenous tribe of Asher – that loyalty to Baal was meaningless, that this god was not a god. After convincing the Israelites that Baal was powerless, Elijah drove all of the Baal prophets down the mountain and killed them by the Kishon River. This is why the Carmelite monastery, where we are standing, is called Mukhrakah, Arabic for “slaughter.”
The vista spread out before you may have been the location of another famous biblical showdown: the battle between the Canaanites and the Israelites in the days of the prophetess Deborah, hundreds of years before Elijah challenged the priests of Baal. The army of Canaanite king Jabin and his general Sisera was routed here. Deborah and Barak pushed the enemy army from Mount Tabor west to the swampy terrain of the Kishon River. The iron chariots of the Canaanite army could not ascend to the Israelite encampment on higher ground. It is therefore possible that the Israelites could have held out until that strategic moment when the rains and floodwaters streaming down from the Carmel and Ramat Manasseh just to the south swelled the Kishon and made the Canaanite defeat inevitable. Deborah then called: “Arise! For this is the day that God will deliver Sisera into your hand. Behold, God has gone forth before you!” (Judges 4:14).
Sisera’s defeat was sealed by the rains, for which Deborah thanked God: “The heavens trickled, even the clouds dripped water. Mountains melted before the Lord” (Judges 5:4–5).
The stretch of Route 70 between Routes 75 and 79 gives little indication of the numerous tels scattered deeper to the east and west. Many of these tels were surveyed and have strata dating to the biblical period, making them likely cities of Asher, though which cities they were exactly requires further exploration. Tel Regev, Tel Pha’ar, and Tel Alil may have been Helkath, Beten, and Hali, respectively.
Upon reaching the Somekh intersection, turn left and enter Kiryat Ata. At the first traffic circle, make a left on Menachem Begin Way and take that road all the way eastward, under the 70 overpass, until you get to the first lot of picnic benches. Park your vehicle and follow the signs south toward Khirbet Ushah, the remains of the ancient town of Ushah. Ushah is best known as one of the locations where the post–Temple-era Sanhedrin convened – twice, actually – before moving on to its next location (Shefar’am). Such illuminaries as Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel, Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, and Rabbi Judah bar Ilai (who was actually from Ushah) taught and legislated at Ushah.
Though a biblical-era town has not yet been ascertained, an eighth-century Bce seal in Hebrew was found in the vicinity. The water cisterns, mikveh, and wine and olive presses, all surveyed in the 1960s, are what remain of Ushah, though the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently renewing excavations on the site and hopes to uncover further evidence of a vibrant Roman-era Jewish city.
In the late nineteenth century, when the land was under Ottoman rule, a Muslim Arab town was built here, appropriately named Hushe. The townspeople made use of the ample stone on site to build, resulting in the current ruins of Arab Hushe exhibiting some interesting Roman-era finds in secondary context. One example is a building stone with an incised slot for a mezuzah parchment.
Return to the parking lot and continue along the dirt road on foot, following the signs to the Roman road. This road was built by the Romans around 67 CE, as they invaded the Galilee from the Port of Acco. The route itself was actually in use for thousands of years, and was one of the main arteries connecting the Mediterranean to the inland cities of the Galilee. The Romans required large, obstacle-free roads to move their armies and equipment efficiently throughout the region, so they built an impressive network of roads. This particular segment passed between Ushah and Shefar’am (visible off to the northeast).
One fascinating find was discovered just off the road. A Greek inscription on a rock reads “CAB… ” [partial] and “GOYMCBA,” interpreted as a Shabbat marker (CAB = Shabbat and GOYMCBA may refer to the particular zone). A Shabbat marker was an indicator of teĥum Shabbat, or the limits a Jew is allowed to walk outside of a residential area on Shabbat. This marker (assuming it has been interpreted accurately) warned Roman-era residents of Ushah that they were not to walk beyond that point on Shabbat.
This stretch of road and the Shabbat marker discovered alongside it are the perfect context to tell the famous Talmudic tale of one of the renowned sages, Rabbi Judah ben Bava.
The evil empire [Romans] enacted oppressive decrees against Israel: anyone who conferred ordination would be killed, anyone who received ordination would be killed, any town in which ordination was conferred would be destroyed, and the teĥum boundaries [the boundaries as demarcated by the Shabbat markers] of a town within which ordination was conferred would be eradicated. What did Judah ben Bava do? He went and sat between two large mountains, and between two large cities, and between their two Shabbat teĥum boundaries, between Ushah and Shefar’am, and he ordained five Sages there. And these are they: R. Meir, R. Judah, R. Simeon, R. Yosi, and R. Elazar ben Shamua. (R. Aya added R. Nehemiah as well.) When their enemies discovered them, [R. Judah ben Bava] said, “My sons, run!” They said to him, “Our teacher, what will become of you?” He responded, “I am placed before them like a rock that cannot be turned.” It was said that the [Roman] soldiers did not leave until they had driven through him three hundred iron spears and made him like a sieve.
Sanhedrin 14a
The tomb identified as the burial site of R. Judah ben Bava is located nearby, in southern Shefar’am. And in modern-day Israel, the busy intersection that sits between Ushah and Shefaram was named after R. Judah ben Bava, the Jewish hero who refused to cave to Roman decree. It is called Tzomet ha-Somekh, or the “Intersection of the Ordainer.”
Continue your drive up north on Route 70, and you will be cutting straight up through Asher’s naĥalah. This is a happy ride, with expansive plains and green-blanketed hills on your right, prosperous seaports on your left. You will naturally be hoping to spy some olive trees, since that is, after all, the tribal symbol, and the naĥalah does not disappoint. This lush region seems saturated and rich, with evergreen and olive groves in abundance. It is no stretch to describe the land as “pleasing,” virtually “dipped in oil.”
Two minutes north of the Cabri intersection is a turnoff to the village of Avdon. As you drive toward Avdon, you will cross a small bridge (spanning the Keziv River). Park after the bridge and explore the adjacent Tel ’Avdon, one of the only sites within Naĥalat Asher for which we have a positive identification. Both the Arabic name for the side, Khirbet Abde, and the Crusader assignment of the city as “Rasabde” assist scholars in concluding that this tel was the biblical city of Abdon (Joshua 21:30, I Chronicles 6:59).
Remains spanning from the Early Bronze period through the Crusader period were discovered during surveys of Tel ’Avdon; Crusader-era structures sit at the top. Abdon was one of the forty-eight cities scattered among the naĥalot that were given to the Levites. The Levites living here surely ministered to the surrounding Asherite cities and hamlets, serving as teachers and providing refuge for the downtrodden.
Continue your journey up Route 70. Turn west at Hanita Junction onto Route 899. Soon, you will turn off into Goren National Park. Follow the signs to the Montfort Lookout. Here is one of the most breathtaking vistas that Eretz Yisrael offers, with the flowing Keziv River below girded by lushly forested mountains. Opposite are the impressive remains of the German Teutonic knights’ stronghold Montfort (“Strong Mountain” – the knights themselves called the place Shtarkenberg). The Germans acquired the property, originally a French farming estate, in the 1220s and, forced out of Acco by the Hospitaler and Templar orders of knights, developed it into their headquarters. The fortress eventually fell to the Mamluk Sultan Baybars in 1271.
A picnic in this cool serenity, with grand vistas surrounding, is the ideal setting for allowing the mind to wander to thoughts of the naĥalah’s namesake, Asher. His gifts, so lauded by Jacob and Moses, are ripe for the taking, for the whole nation to enjoy. The ideal feast for the occasion? A rich loaf, some good wine and, of course, olives.
Chapter 12; Yosef
The tzadik is the foundation of the world.
Proverbs 10:25
Though Joseph was granted naĥalot through his children, Manasseh and Ephraim (who are treated separately in these pages), a discussion of the shevatim would be woefully incomplete without including the yesod (foundation) of the nation of Israel: Yosef ha-Tzadik.
After years of painful infertility, Rachel finally bore a child of her own. Her relationship with Jacob bore fruit outside of their own passionate love for each other. For Rachel, it was the beginning of a journey: “May God add another son for me,” she named him, speaking of both hope and incompleteness. For Jacob, by contrast, it was a culmination. He felt that he had completed his family, or at least ended a definite stage in his life: “After Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me leave to go back to my own homeland’” (Genesis 30:25).
A weight was lifted; things were right in Jacob’s world, perhaps for the first time. Joseph’s arrival secured for him a yearned-for perpetuity with Rachel, something that had been in doubt until this point.
The text tells us of Jacob’s love for only two people: Rachel and Joseph. Joseph was naturally cherished by Jacob, as Rachel was naturally cherished by Jacob. It was an immediate, instinctive, overwhelming reaction:
Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”…So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.
Genesis 29:18–20
We are told of one essential trait in regard to Rachel: “and Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance” (Genesis 29:17). This trait was shared by Joseph, who was “beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance” (Genesis 39:6). Rachel and Joseph were defined by this great beauty. More than a physical attribute, this beauty seemed the embodiment of passion, longing, instinct, response. It demanded utter engagement, complete sincerity. Jacob, the Midianites, Potiphar, Potiphar’s wife, fellow prisoners, Pharaoh himself: all were drawn to the charismatic Joseph, who “found favor” without even trying. A beauty so intense that it was other-worldy, holy, giving a glimpse of a world beyond. “And Pharaoh said to his servants, ‘Can we find another man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?’” (Genesis 41:37).
Jacob arrived in Haran in the wake of a manipulative internecine family struggle. After a lifetime of stepping carefully in battle with Esau, he was entranced by the vision of Rachel, a maiden “lovely of form and appearance,” approaching the well. At that moment, Jacob awakened to a passion: he cried, he kissed; possessed of an almost preternatural strength, he lifted the stone off the well. It was the promise of a relationship with Rachel that sustained him through the exhausting business of navigating affairs in the home of crafty Laban. The drudgery of seven years’ labor for her hand seemed as nothing, “in his love for her.”
Joseph’s beauty embodied the same promise. If his brothers saw only the dangers inherent in charismatic beauty, Jacob understood its amazing promise, “guarding the dream.”
Joseph is a charming one,
A graceful one to the eye,
Daughters parade on the wall to see him.
Genesis 49:22
This ĥen (an untranslatable word containing elements of beauty, grace, charm, charisma, innocence, and openness combined in a single concept) was the hallmark of Joseph. Ĥen is an openness to relationship, the channel for interaction with and appreciation of the broader world. The ĥen of Joseph drew the world to him.
And Joseph found ĥen in [Potiphar’s] sight, and he made him his personal attendant. He appointed him overseer over his house, placing in his hands all that he owned…(Genesis 39:4)
But God was with Joseph, and showed him kindness, and gave him ĥen in the sight of the chief jailer. (39:21)
And they [the Egyptians] said: “You have saved our lives! Let us find ĥen in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s bondmen.” (47:25)
Joseph awakened love, an instinctive openness to trust and connection. And he reciprocated. Utterly trustworthy, he was loyal to those who believed in him. To him, the reality of relationship defined good and evil, and was the basis for understanding God:
After a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said: “Lie with me.” But he refused. He said to his master’s wife: “Look, with me here, my master gives no thought to anything in this house, and all that he owns he has placed in my hands. No one in this house has more authority than I, and he has kept nothing from me but you, because you are his wife. How tĥen can I do this great wickedness? It would be a sin against God!”
Genesis 39:7–9
The existential question that permeated Jewish history was rooted in the brothers’ primal conflict: Do we remain a nation dwelling apart, aloof, isolated, and cocooned so as to maintain our uniqueness (as per the children of Leah), or do we interact with the world, drawing them into relationship while maintaining our integrity (as per the children of Rachel)? We are a nation torn by universalist and separatist elements, and the concerns of both sides have proven legitimate, time and again. The example of Joseph counters those who fear the dangers of interacting with the broader world. Joseph demonstrated that it was possible to provide for the world, to give them vision and meaning, without becoming caught up in veneration. Yosef ha-Tzadik withstood temptation and maintained personal integrity.
The sale of Joseph – perhaps the central trauma of Jacob’s family – made the differences of approach starkly clear. Joseph traveled great lengths to seek his brothers (“It is my brothers I seek!”). They, on the other hand, retreated from the possibility of any relationship with him:
The man said, “They’ve moved on from here, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan’” (Genesis 37:17). Rashi: They’ve moved away from brotherhood. Their journey to Dothan indicates that they seek against you legal pretexts (nikhlei datot) to kill you.
Seeing him approach from the distance – as Jacob once saw Rachel – they planned to kill him. The next move was in some ways more chilling – a cynical and dehumanizing reduction of brotherhood to commerce. They did not kill Joseph, but sold him for personal gain: “Judah said to his brothers: ‘What do we profit by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Let us sell him instead’” (Genesis 37:26–27).
The brothers preferred a businesslike transaction to having to confront Joseph personally. The coldness of their dismissal, their utter indifference to the warmth that Joseph was trying to nurture among them, was underscored by the midrash that the brothers agreed to sell him for a token pittance – the price of a pair of shoes for each of them.
It would seem, though, that the Torah intimated Joseph’s influence on interpersonal relationships, even in his absence. In the very next episode, Judah underwent a transformation from callous and indifferent to owning up to the importance of familial responsibility. He had married a foreigner for business expediency, sired sons who died for their own lack of care toward their wife, Tamar, and then slept with a woman he thought was a prostitute. Upon learning that the erstwhile prostitute was really Tamar, who was correct in asserting her position in the family, he admitted “tzadkah mi-meni” (she is correct!), and then the verse adds: “and he did not stop from being intimate with her from thereon in [ve-lo yasaf od le-da’atah]” (Genesis 38:26).
This particular word choice, yasaf, reminds us of the one who always remained open to relationship. Once Judah came into himself, and was modeh (admitted) to his flawed approach, then he could integrate the beautiful openness of Joseph: “and from then on, he did not cease from intimacy with her.”
Joseph, in contrast to Judah, was defined by a noncommercial approach to relationship. Everything was given to his hands, yet he took nothing for himself. The money collected from the Egyptians went straight to Pharaoh’s coffers. When the desperate Egyptians sold their livestock, their land, and finally themselves to Joseph in exchange for food, he kept nothing and gave every last commodity to Pharaoh. Even when his brothers arrived with money to purchase food, Joseph repeatedly returned it to them. What this man sought, Jacob intuitively understood (though he did not yet know that the Egyptian viceroy was Joseph) was not a business relationship, but a personal relationship – so he instructed his sons to offer not money, but a thoughtful homemade care package: “Take him a bit of balsam, some honey, wax, lotus, pistachios, and almonds” (Genesis 43:11).
It is this ĥen that we all innately cherish and seek. We crave the grammatically poor personal correspondence over the impeccable form letter, the carefully designed yet childishly executed Mother’s Day card over the clever Hallmark sentiment, the homemade cookies over the commercialized and cellophaned gift basket. Joseph brought the personal to the nation of Israel.
“These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph.” Something was indeed complete in Jacob’s life with the birth of Joseph. Joseph played a key role in the family. It was he who provided for Israel to become a nation in Egypt, he who gave over the code for the ultimate redemption. It was only in his presence that the rift that tore apart the family of Jacob – the split between Rachel and Leah – began to heal. To the very end, he remained “the pinnacle, set aside from his brothers” (Genesis 49:26).
In his focus on ĥen, on relationship and connection, Joseph played a unique role within Am Yisrael. He was the liminal figure, connecting the age of the Patriarchs to the birth of Israel as a nation. Joseph was the only one of the sons of Jacob who was also considered an av, or patriarch-prototype. This leitmotif was repeated throughout Joseph’s story. Jacob blessed him as the even Yisrael (rock of Israel), and Onkelos parsed the phrase to imply qualities of both “av” and “ben.” Although he was followed years later by a younger brother, Benjamin, Joseph was considered Jacob’s ben zekunim – not “son of old age,” but “repository of accumulated wisdom,” Jacob’s extension to the next generation. Joseph was called “avrekh” by the Egyptians, understood by Rashi to be a composite word meaning “av” (father) in wisdom, despite being “rakh” (young). Joseph indeed referred to himself as a “father” to Pharaoh – this in contrast to the numerous references to his na’arut (youth). Joseph, the child of ĥen, was the connecting point: he was both an av and a ben, spanning both eras, closing the book of Fathers (Genesis) and opening the book of the Sons (Exodus). Joseph alone was entrusted with passing on the secret formula “pakod yifkod etkhem,” the signal for movement away from the past and toward the future redemption.
In his focus on relationship, Joseph was never fully present in and of himself. Though everything was “given into his hands,” Joseph held nothing. His very name meant “increase,” “let God give me another son.” He was the potential of dreams and relationships, rather than the concrete possession of the here and now. It is not surprising, then, that he did not even truly have his own naĥalah. Rather, he was ultimately represented by his two sons (an “increase”), each of whom expressed a different element of his personality.
Manasseh and Ephraim would together enjoy the generous blessing bestowed on Jacob’s favorite son, whom he showered with
blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that crouches below,
blessings of the breast and womb.
May the blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my ancestors!
Genesis 49:25–56
Moses reinforces this vision for Joseph in his magnanimous blessing:
Blessed by God is his land
with the bounty of dews from heaven,
and of the deep that crouches below;
With the bounteous yield of the sun,
And the bounteous crop of the moons;
With the best from the ancient mountains,
and the bounty of hills immemorial;
With the bounty of earth and its fullness.
Deuteronomy 33:13–36
This blessing rooted the gifts bequeathed unto Joseph, the nation’s dreamer, a personal destiny that was very much material, earthly and present – a dream ultimately realized in his sons’ ancestral inheritances.
Chapter 13; Menasheh
There was not among the tribal naĥalot a land full of all that is good like the land of Joseph.
Rashi, ad loc.
Why was Israel subjugated to all the nations? So that within Israel they would live on, for Israel must incorporate the world.
Zohar, Exodus 16b
Manasseh: The Diaspora Jew
I have lived most my life within the dream of nationhood. The ingathering of the Diaspora of Jewish exile back to our homeland, and the establishment of the modern Jewish state, Israel, are the most natural and wondrous of miracles, and I thrill at being a part of it all. My reality is, indeed, a dream: “When God brings about the return to Zion, we are veritable dreamers!” Diaspora Jews are meant to be foreign relics, to my thinking – they have lived out their time, and now must join the national enterprise of building the Land of Israel. Their institutions must be dismantled, their comforts undone.
And yet. Though I live in a dream, reaping with songs of joy and rejoicing in the great things that God has done for us, I look back at the fullness of Jewish history and understand how much we needed the exiles of thousands of years (interrupted by periods of autonomy in Eretz Yisrael) to form our national character. Joseph, the very foundation of our nation, ushered Benei Yisrael into exile – an exile that God Himself decreed as critical to our national mission.
Joseph named his two sons after exile, so central had that concept become to his being:
Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, because “God has made me forget completely [nishani] my hardship and my parental home.”
He named his second son Ephraim, because “God has made me fertile [hifrani] in the land of my affliction.”
Genesis 41:51–52
Joseph insisted that his brothers and father settle permanently in Goshen, though they were reluctant to do so. They legitimately feared the dangers of assimilation as a threat to their “national” identity. Joseph, however, knew that Israel had to absorb the beauty, gifts, and knowledge of our host countries, own them, and fully appreciate them in order to fulfill our national destiny. We could only have come into our own after a long, exhaustive era of exiles among different foreign nations:
Why was Israel subjugated to all the nations? So that within Israel they would live on, for Israel must incorporate the world.
Zohar, Exodus 16b
Jewish tradition is to bless our children that God make them as Ephraim and Manasseh, people whose very names reflected aspirations for success within the broader world. More profoundly, and painfully: Manasseh and Ephraim represented the very forgetting of our roots in Eretz Yisrael, a necessary stage in our national development. Joseph understood, as we must, the necessity of letting go for a time, of planting ourselves firmly in galut (exile), though it may be a “land of affliction.”
The rich and profound contributions of exile must not be glibly dismissed; they supplied a critical component to our national character. We did not plod blindly through thousands of years of Diaspora; we lived them deeply, absorbing and reacting – only because we could forget. “God has made me forget completely all of my hardship, and all of my roots.”
Yet even as he named his child for forgetting, Joseph earnestly anticipated the end of exile, and with it, the return to Eretz Yisrael. A man who lived in dreams and potential, he foresaw the distant redemption – and planned on being a part of it:
“I am about to die. God will surely remember you, and bring you up from this land to the land that He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has remembered you, you shall carry up my bones from here.”
Genesis 50:24–25
God will not allow you to forget completely, Joseph assured, for He shall remember you.
As it would be wrong to deny the necessity of galut, it would be a far graver folly to continue “going along weeping, and sowing in tears.” Pakod pakadeti etkhem – the time has come, for I have surely remembered you. We proudly carry the galut names Manasseh and Ephraim with us always, as a memory of our successes in incorporating the world, but we pray fervently: may all our future Manassehs and Ephraims be as dreamers, living as we do in our homeland.
Manasseh and Ephraim
Genesis is dominated by a pattern of challenging primogeniture. With each story, there was an excitement, a fanfare, about the firstborn, but very often it was the younger child who ended up dominating. Despite the auspicious hope of Cain’s naming – “I have acquired a man from the Lord” – Abel was chosen. Isaac was chosen over Ishmael. After a long battle, Jacob trumped Esau. Joseph also trumped all of his older brothers, and was declared by his father to be “the pinnacle.” This central pattern of Genesis was given concrete form in the scene where Jacob blessed Joseph’s children:
Joseph took the two of them, Ephraim with his right hand, to Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left hand, to Israel’s right, and brought them close to him. But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head – thus crossing his hands – although Manasseh was the firstborn.…Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.
Genesis 48:13–20
Here, the choice of the secondborn was made extremely explicit. It was almost as if Jacob was recreating that fateful day where he tricked Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing, and “righting that wrong” by making this blessing a matter of choice, rather than deceit. The preference of Ephraim over the firstborn Manasseh was not surprising then. What was surprising was Joseph’s response.
At the very moment that Joseph was chosen over his many older brothers to receive a choice blessing, he attempted to force his father to choose the firstborn. Despite a long family tradition of dismissing or inverting birth order, Joseph stubbornly presented Manasseh to his father’s right hand, and then argued with Jacob that it was Manasseh who deserved the superior blessing:
When Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he thought it wrong; so he took hold of his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s. “Not so, Father,” Joseph said to his father, “for the other is the firstborn; place your right hand on his head.” But his father objected, saying, “I know, my son, I know.”
Genesis 48:17–19
The scene is evocative, especially in Joseph’s surprising defense of the usually maligned firstborn. On one level, it seems to indicate a particularly close relationship between Joseph and Manasseh. The midrash certainly painted a consistent portrait of Manasseh as Joseph’s right-hand man, steward of his house, his shamash [minister]. Joseph groomed Manasseh in his likeness. When Joseph’s brothers descended to Egypt in search of food, it was Manasseh’s qualities that first alerted the brothers – who were unmindfully interacting with Joseph and his supposed steward – that something was amiss:
Judah threatened: “If you do not comply with our demand [to release Benjamin], I will draw my sword, cut you down first, and then Pharaoh!” Upon hearing this threat, Joseph made a sign, and Manasseh stamped his foot on the ground. The whole palace shook. Judah said: “Only one belonging to our family could have such power!”
Genesis Rabbah 93:6
According to the midrash, Joseph taught Hebrew to Manasseh. The “translator” (Genesis 42:43) whom Joseph appointed so as to keep up the ruse that he did not understand his brothers’ native tongue was identified by the midrash as Manasseh. Manasseh guarded the gates of Egypt and faithfully followed his father’s every command. This first son, then, seemed primed by Joseph to receive the ultimate blessing from his grandfather.
Yet, though Jacob reassured Joseph that Manasseh would not be forgotten, he insisted on granting the superior blessing to the younger Ephraim: “He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall be plentiful enough for nations” (Genesis 48:19).
As Joseph entered with his two sons, Jacob declared that the future of the nation of Israel would feel the impact of these two grandsons as much as they would feel that of the personalities of the other tribes: “Manasseh and Ephraim will be as Reuben and Simeon to me” (Genesis 48:5). Jacob understood that Ephraim was destined for a measure of greatness beyond that of his older brother. No matter Joseph’s preference, Jacob envisioned Ephraim dominating Manasseh, both then and in the future: “Yesimkha Elokim ke-Ephraim ve-khe-Menasheh” (May God make you like Ephraim [first, and then] like Manasseh).
Indeed, Manasseh developed to be relatively unremarkable among the tribes, to be overshadowed time and again by Ephraim’s reputation. This made the scene of the blessing all the more evocative. Was Joseph’s insistence that Manasseh dominate merely a fatherly flight of fancy? If so, let us ask: Why did Jacob make the bizarre move of crossing his hands, rather than just switching the boys’ positions? It is striking that Manasseh remained on Jacob’s right side, even though he did not receive Jacob’s right hand in blessing.
Implied in Jacob’s decision to leave Manasseh standing to his right was a certain latent promise he saw in this grandson. The Benei Yisaskhar, a classic work of Hassidic thought on the festivals and months, notes that the month of the year corresponding to Manasseh is Mar-Ĥeshvan, a month that at first glance is as unremarkable as Manasseh is slighted and overlooked. We are reminded, though, that the building of the First Temple was completed in Mar-Ĥeshvan, even though its inauguration was delayed until the following Tishrei. Mar-Ĥeshvan was robbed, in a sense, of its grandeur. This is in contrast to Kislev, the month in which the Mishkan (Tabernacle) was completed. There, the midrash specifies:
Though the Mishkan was not put into service until the following Nisan, Kislev got its due later on in history, when the Hasmoneans rededicated the Second Temple in that month. And Mar-Ĥeshvan, too, will be compensated: the Third Temple will be dedicated in Mar-Ĥeshvan.
Yalkut Shimoni, Kings, 184
These three months of Temple inaugurals – Tishrei for the First Temple, Kislev for the Second Temple, and Mar-Ĥeshvan for the Third Temple – all correspond to the sons of Rachel. Tishrei is Ephraim’s month, and Kislev Benjamin’s. Rachel, the source of passion, provided the basis of avodah, of service. Just as the relationship to Rachel made Jacob’s service to Laban an act of love, the relationship to Rachel’s children yielded Benei Yisrael a home for the service of God. The Mikdash, locus of intimate relationships with God, had to be dedicated time and again in the months that correspond to the benei Rachel.
And in standing as a symbol of peace and universal unity, each Temple also provided an answer to the dangers of Rachel – the individualistic charisma that can cause division as well as passion. Whether for good or bad, breakdown or healing, the First and Second Temples were launched in months that fell under the purview of Rachel’s sons.
Manasseh, though, is linked to the month that is bitter: as the second month of the year; it bears the intrinsic division of being Number Two. The flood, born of human quarreling and hatred, began in Mar-Ĥeshvan, and the kingdom of David was split between Rehoboam and Jeroboam in Mar-Ĥeshvan. Manasseh himself was dogged by this divisiveness: his was the only naĥalah to be divided into two.
Is there some sort of rectification that can be made for this month? Remember that the First Temple, the symbol of peace built by the peaceful king, was completed in Mar-Ĥeshvan. Within every flaw is the core of its tikkun, or repair: if divisiveness permeates the month’s character, then unity and peace must be latent there as well! The utopian peace promised by the dedication of the Third Temple in Mar-Ĥeshvan will be the ultimate triumph of the erstwhile bitter month.
Now the strange ordering of tribes in Psalms 80:3 becomes clear: “Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh arouse Your might, for it is You who save us.” The First Temple (inaugurated in Tishrei, the month of Ephraim) and the Second Temple (inaugurated in Kislev, the month of Benjamin) both defined troubled eras that did not end well. But the Third Temple (to be inaugurated in Mar-Ĥeshvan, the month of Manasseh) will bear none of the feud and dissonance that accompanied the first two. It will be: “Rehovot [expansive]…brought about without quarrel or feud, and God will enlarge our borders…and all peoples will come to worship God with one consent” (Ramban, Genesis 26:20).
This Third Temple will be launched by Manasseh in the month of Manasseh. Manasseh was indeed the perfected image of Joseph, and Joseph made no error in positioning him firmly in place for the superior blessing (on Jacob’s right side). Joseph was correct, and Jacob concurred by leaving the boys in the positions in which their father presented them. He switched his hands to proffer the blessings of this world on Ephraim, but intimated that latent, later blessings are in store for Manasseh, Joseph’s right-hand man, who will one day have an undivided, single naĥalah. In this, he also offered a dream of restitution for all the disenfranchised firstborns of Genesis. Perhaps in some place, some time, they too will find wholeness.
Naĥalat Menasheh
Manasseh’s borders are described briefly in Joshua 17. They shared a northern border with Asher, Zebulun, and Issachar, along the line where the mountainous region of Samaria yields to the Jezreel Valley. The tribe’s western border was the Mediterranean Sea. Manasseh shared a border with Ephraim in the south, running sharply southeast from Shechem toward the Jordan, and westward from Shechem along the Kaneh Brook. Their eastern border was the Jordan River.
Manasseh was granted a naĥalah on the eastern bank of the Jordan River as well. They inherited the higher inland mountains of Gilead from the Jabbok to the Yarmuk, as well as the remaining conquered area of Og, the king of Bashan, which may have stretched all the way up to the northern Golan. Two of Manasseh’s eight families inherited the Bashan; the other six families were allotted naĥalot in Eretz Yisrael proper.
Though Manasseh and Ephraim remained two distinct tribes, their naĥalot essentially formed one large, contiguous territory that they worked together to conquer. Their combined numbers were such that they found this densely forested, mountainous terrain too constricting:
The children of Joseph complained to Joshua, saying: “Why have you assigned as our portion a single allotment and a single district, seeing that we are a numerous people whom the Lord has blessed so greatly?” “If you are such a numerous people,” Joshua answered them, “go up to the forest country and clear an area for yourselves there, in the territory of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, seeing that you are cramped in the hill country of Ephraim.” “The hill country is not enough for us,” the children of Joseph replied, “and all the Canaanites who live in the valley area have iron chariots, both those in Beth-shean and its dependencies and those in the Valley of Jezreel.” But Joshua declared to the House of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, “You are indeed a numerous people, possessed of great strength; you shall not have one allotment only. The hill country shall be yours as well; true, it is forestland, but you will clear it and possess it to its farthest limits. And you shall also dispossess the Canaanites, even though they have iron chariots and even though they are strong.”
Joshua 17:14–18
Even if they denuded the forest, Manasseh and Ephraim argued to Joshua, the mountainous terrain would not suffice for their numbers. So Joshua suggested that Manasseh (perhaps with Ephraim’s aid) conquer the northern valleys on behalf of their weaker brethren, in exchange for which they would be granted certain cities that officially lay outside of their naĥalah, such as Megiddo, Taanach, Beth-shean, and En-dor. Despite Joshua’s suggestion, when Manasseh tried to wrest control away from the Canaanites, they stubbornly held on to these cities, and the tribe was not able to easily incorporate these strategic assets into its naĥalah.
Moses granted the tribesmen of Manasseh something they did not ask for: an additional portion on the eastern bank of the Jordan, alongside Gad and Reuben. The midrash offers causality beyond the practical:
Since Manasseh son of Joseph caused the shevatim to rend their clothes over the goblet that was found in Benjamin’s sack [because he had planted it], his naĥalah was torn in two: half apportioned in the Land of Israel proper, and half on the eastern side of the Jordan.
Lekaĥ Tov, 140
This seems to be a punative measure. Manasseh caused grief among the shevatim, therefore his descendants were deprived of one cohesive naĥalah. Upon further reflection, though, the midrash might be indicating something else entirely! Firstly, Manasseh’s naĥalah was indeed cohesive; it was actually the largest naĥalah, though it straddled both sides of the Jordan. Also of note is that Manasseh was essentially granted a double portion, as befit a firstborn – especially one whose position of primacy was not entirely rejected, as noted above.
Consider a different reading of the midrash, one that saw the brothers’ horrified reaction to finding the stashed goblet as a positive sign of progress. By tearing their garments – so reminiscent of the torn garments of Joseph and Jacob in the wake of Joseph’s sale to the Ishmaelites! – the shevatim finally demonstrated their care and concern for a son of Rachel. They feared for Benjamin, they stepped up to protect him…and only afterward could they once again be unified as a complete entity, the Benei Yisrael.
Manasseh, Joseph’s emissary in this whole affair, forced the brothers into a demonstration of arevut. It would seem entirely appropriate, then, that the ranks of the tribe that bore his name were divided along both sides of the Jordan, as a group with the unique capacity to promote interaction and relationship among all of the tribes. An ongoing fear of secession was greatly allayed by placing half of Manasseh, purveyor of arevut, in Ever Ha-Yarden (the east bank of the Jordan)
Visiting Naĥalat Menasheh
Itinerary: Mount Kabir lookout, Havat Mevo Dotan (Havat Ma’oz Tzvi), el-Ahwat
We start our tour on Mount Kabir, as it offers breathtaking views of northern Samaria from a height of 800 meters (approx. 2,600 feet) above sea level. Enter through Elon Moreh and follow the signs to Mount Kabir. The outlook points circle the mountaintop; begin with the southern view, with the Beit Dagan valley splayed out beneath. This valley empties right into Shechem, nestled between lush Mount Gerizim and bare Mount Ebal. The final battle between Abimelech (from Manasseh) and the Shechemites played out in the vista below.
The view from the east allows you to take in the likely site of Joshua’s altar, built by the nation’s leader as part of the ceremony establishing a covenant with God directly upon entering Eretz Yisrael. The Israelites first entered the land, heading straight for this location, by way of the Tirzah Valley, the wide and beautiful flatland spread out beneath you as you reach the northern outlook point. The dominant tel pushing up from the valley was biblical Tirzah, the capital of the Israelite kingdom for a time. The Tirzah Valley was heavily populated by Israelites (most likely from the tribe of Manasseh) during the earliest periods of Israelite settlement.
The name Tirzah is found elsewhere in the Bible: she was one of the five daughters of Zelophehad who, together with her sisters, asserted their right to their deceased father’s portion in Manasseh. Was this valley beneath us part of her inheritance?
To address that question, we must explore how Naĥalat Menasheh was split among his descendants. The naĥalah was divided into ten tracts, inherited by the six sons of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh:
For the children of Abiezer, for the children of Helek, for the children of Asriel, for the children of Shechem, for the children of Hepher, and for the children of Shemida. Those were the male descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, by their clans. Now Zelophehad son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh had no sons, but only daughters. The names of his daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They appeared before the priest Elazar, Joshua son of Nun, and the chieftains, saying: “God commanded Moses to give us a naĥalah among our brethren.” So in accordance with the Lord’s instructions, they were granted a portion among their father’s kinsmen. Ten districts fell to Manasseh – besides the land of Gilead and the Bashan that were across the Jordan. Manasseh’s daughters inherited a naĥalah in these together with his sons.
Joshua 17:2–6
This reference to the original story in Numbers 27 condensed a much longer narrative. The five daughters of Zelophehad approached Moses and requested that their father’s portion remain theirs, rather than be granted to his male relatives. Moses consulted with God, who commanded him to heed the women’s request. When the land was finally apportioned in the days of Joshua, it was divided among ten of Gilead’s descendants.
The simple meaning of Joshua 17:6, preceded as it is by the story of Zelophehad’s daughters’ request, is that Naĥalat Menasheh was divided into ten regions, five granted to the sons of Gilead who have male descendants, and the other five granted to the daughters of Zelophehad. As there was a ĥevel Aviezer, there was a ĥevel Tirzah.
As difficult as this explanation is, it does seem to fit the simple meaning of the text, considering that the daughters of Zelophehad were essentially each inheriting a whole portion alongside their great-uncles as opposed to collectively inheriting the territory of their father. Archaeological evidence also backs this account of how Naĥalat Menasheh was allocated among five sons and five great-granddaughters of Gilead. The Shomron ostraca is a cache of sixty-four inscribed pottery sherds from the late ninth to the early eighth centuries Bce. These sherds, written in the capital of the Israelite kingdom, served as receipts of sale or some form of bookkeeping, and provide evidence that each of Zelophehad’s daughters inherited her own portion within Manasseh’s territory.
These ostraca, written in an ancient Hebrew script, basically followed a standard formula: year, territory from where goods ostensibly originated, name of government official(s), product. On some of the ostraca, the territory names given are recognizable as clans from Manasseh. Alongside Shemida and Abiezer were found ostraca inscribed with the clan names Hoglah and Noah, irrefutable proof that each of Zelophehad’s daughters separately constituted one of the ten divisions of the naĥalah referenced in Joshua 17.
Yoel Elitzur suggested that a closer examination of the ostraca might reveal a more precise location for ĥevel Ĥoglah. The two ostraca that mention Hoglah also reference Yazith as a specific village in that ĥevel. “Yazith” was found on three additional ostraca; on one of them, the government official is listed as Aĥnoam, who was also apparently administrator over Geba.
Geba and another village, Bedan, are often mentioned together in rabbinic literature as neighboring locales that were blessed with superior produce. All three of these villages – Yazith, Geba, and Bedan – were located within a twelve-kilometer (approx. seven-mile) radius between Mount Ebal and the Sanur Valley. This area is the most likely contender for ĥevel Ĥoglah.
Hoglah’s region, as of this writing, is inaccessible to the casual tourist. It remains in the national conscience, though, as a unique treasure, for it symbolizes the passionate love for Eretz Yisrael as a family legacy. The daughters of Zelophehad could have forfeited their father’s birthright to their male relatives; instead, they asserted their right to their father’s land, demonstrating a resolve missing from the many others at the time who shied away from claiming rights to all of their God-given property. These women sacrificed personal choice by readily agreeing to marry within Manasseh, so that their inherited land would remain within the tribe. Such was their devotion to their father’s name, such was their ironclad determination to settle the land, no matter the obstacles.
This passion to fight for one’s birthright was answered with blessing, both ancient and new. Ĥevel Ĥoglah was home in antiquity to Yazith, Geba, and Bedan, and produced “the choicest pomegranates and hay.” In the more recent past, there were two small Jewish villages in the area, Sa-nur and Homesh. The idealistic pioneers built these communities with the stated mission of reestablishing a Jewish presence in northern Samaria, close as they might be to the notoriously hostile cities of Jenin and Nablus. It is no great stretch to see in these settlers a reincarnation of the indomitable spirit of Zelophehad’s daughters. Indeed, it was the spirit of Zelophehad himself, as one of the ma’apilim who surged forward desperately toward Eretz Yisrael, though he died en route.
We leave the magnificent vistas of Manasseh offered by Mount Kabir and head to the northwestern region of Naĥalat Menasheh. Underexplored and almost forgotten by most Israelis, this area is a wealth of beauty and history. Northern Samaria lies south of Wadi Ara (Nahal Iron) and the Jezreel Valley. Wadi Ara is the eastern bend in the famed Via Maris – the “Way of the Sea” – one of the most important routes in antiquity. Armies, caravanserai, and travelers inevitably passed through this riverbed valley as they made their way from Egypt toward Damascus, and then on to Mesopotamia. It is still a popular route to travel from the center of the country toward the northeast region.
South of Wadi Ara is Mevo Dotan, one of the few remaining Jewish communities in northern Samaria. Enter the yishuv and follow the signs to Maoz Tzvi Farm (Havat Mevo Dotan), a quaint caravan outpost on a hilltop that affords the very best view of the Dothan Valley (ask the locals – there are always some milling around – to point you in the direction of the nicely kept lookout post).
Dothan Valley is the northernmost and largest valley in the valley series that cuts through Samaria. The panorama legend and audio explanations available at the lookout post help identify the most important locations in the valley. Jenin is to the north; also visible in the distance are the Gilboa mountains, the site of Saul’s fatal battle against the Philistines. This is likely as close as many of us will get to Tel Dotan, the low trapezoidal hill just to the west on the horizon after Mevo Dotan.
This biblical city likely received its name from the ancient double wells that are still extant (dot means “pit,” and dothan is “dual pits”). There are several indications that this tel is indeed the site of ancient Dothan: the tel retains its name in Arabic, which fits the various historical records of Dothan’s location, and it has an archaeological record that aligns well with the historical account of Dothan.
Recall that the shevatim, angry and jealous of Joseph, set out from Hebron to Shechem, a distance of more than a hundred kilometers (over sixty miles). Their stated purpose? To shepherd their flocks. Perhaps they traveled so far north to attend to their father’s land holdings in the area, or perhaps they sought to distance themselves significantly from Joseph. What is particularly strange is that they did not end their journey there, but traveled even farther north, up to Dothan. As Joseph set out to find them, he had an unusual encounter:
When he reached Shechem, a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?” He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?” The man said, “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan.
Genesis 37:14–17
One suggestion is that they headed farther north because the grazing lands around Shechem had already been stripped bare – as resources were drained, people naturally moved farther north, toward the more watered terrain. Interestingly, this nomadic wandering from the southern Hebron hills up to northern Samaria is an ageless phenomenon: in the nineteenth century, Bedouin from the village of Ar’ara (near Dimona) moved up to northern Samaria and established an Ar’ara in that area as well.
Joseph met with his brothers…The rest of the story is well known. He was thrown into a pit, perhaps the well that had subsequently been known and venerated for centuries as Bir Yusuf (one of the two wells in the vicinity of Tel Dotan). The caravan of Ishmaelites was passing right by Dothan, on the ancient road that cut through the Dothan Valley from the Gilead mountains on its way to joining with the coastal Via Maris.
Dothan was a large, walled, and well-fortified city throughout the entire Bronze Age, not listed among the conquered northern cities in Joshua 12. Excavations have uncovered monumental structures, roads, storehouses, and residences, all dating to the Iron II (First Temple) period, indicating that Dothan served as an administrative center at the time when the prophet Elisha was in the city.
The battle for Dothan in the days of Elisha was followed (at least according to legend) hundreds of years later by another famous showdown in the same valley, this time centered in the Hasmonean city of Bethulia. The widow Judith, a resident of Bethulia, stole into the enemy camp and beheaded the fearsome general Holofernes, ridding the Jews of a serious threat. And in our day, this valley was host to one of the pivotal and bloody battles of the Six Day War in 1967 that resulted in Israeli victory and subsequent Israeli building projects in northern Samaria.
Our exploration of this lush, forested region continues with a stop in El-Ahwat, accessed via the western gate of the yishuv of Katzir. This site sits on Mount Amir, the mountain that formed the northern border of Samaria and was heavily settled by Manasseh during the early Israelite and First Temple periods. El-Ahwat is an intriguing candidate for the site of Harosheth-hagoiim, headquarters of Sisera, the general of King Jabin’s army in the days of Deborah. Sisera led a formidable squadron of nine hundred iron chariots, with which he maintained control over the Jezreel Valley, and effectively cut off the northern tribes from Manasseh and the southern tribes.
The site, excavated by the late Adam Zertal, is well positioned to be Harosheth-hagoiim. Located at the juncture where the Via Maris swings east into Wadi Ara, the inhabitants of this city would have ruthlessly controlled the military and trade traffic from Egypt to Damascus, as reflected in the Song of Deborah: “In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Yael, caravans ceased, and wayfarers went by roundabout paths” (Judges 5:6).
The unusual architectural features that do not at all accord with the Israelite type, the presence of pig bones alongside those of other animals, and the various artifacts exotic to this region, all date to the thirteenth–twelfth centuries Bce, in consonance with the dating of the biblical story of Sisera. Sisera set out eastward from there, along the Kishon River, to meet Barak and the Israelites who charged westward from Mount Tabor. They likely clashed at “Taanach, by Megiddo’s waters” (Judges 5:19), the Canaanites “swept away by the torrent Kishon” (5:21), defeated by a miracle of God (4:15).
We have skirted around the borders of Manasseh, with only glimpses into its interior. This cannot be helped these days, as it is nigh impossible to access some of the most important sites of antiquity due to the current political situation. For now, these areas lie in wait, until the latent blessings promised to Manasseh are realized.
Chapter 14; Ephraim
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Franz Kafka
If Manasseh was Joseph’s right-hand man, the expression of his mature power, Ephraim represented the charm of his childhood, when he was the “na’ar,” most beloved by his father. Ephraim was the embodiment of boyhood – mischievous, forever innocent, whatever trouble he might cause. If Manasseh was the child of Joseph’s painful forgetting, Ephraim was the child of fertility. At the very core of Ephraim was the yeled sha’ashuim, the impish child in whom God delighted. A perpetual child, full of fresh dreams for the future, he was always ultimately forgiven. Ephraim was adored, and cherished.
Ephraim is My precious son, the child in whom I delight. When I speak of him, I remember him earnestly; My heart yearns for him! Therefore I will surely have compassion on him, oath of God.
Jeremiah 31:19
The childlike exuberance of Ephraim was both the source of his success and the source of his undoing. There was a danger to youth, to dreams; an overflow of desire for geulah (redemption) can lead to destruction. Yet it was also the only force that could get the job done.
The primacy of Ephraim, second son of Joseph, was first noticeable when Jacob called upon his two grandsons to bless them. Though Ephraim was the younger, Jacob placed him first. “Now, your two sons that were born to you in the land of Egypt – they are mine! Ephraim and Manasseh will belong to me like Reuben and Simeon” (Genesis 48:5).
Even after Joseph protested, and placed the older Manasseh in position for the prime blessing, Jacob insisted on giving Ephraim the superior blessing:
Israel [Jacob] stretched out his right hand and placed it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger…[Jacob] guided his hand deliberately.…When Joseph saw this, it seemed wrong to him.…But his father insisted and said, “I know it, my son, I know it. [Manasseh] too will become a tribe; he, too, will attain greatness. However, [Ephraim] will become greater than he, and his descendants will become the fullness of the tribes.”
Genesis 48:14–19
“The fullness of the tribes” – that’s a strange expression! Ephraim was so powerful that he towered over his brothers and they deferred to his name. He shone forth so strongly that the other luminaries of the nation bowed to his charisma – he was indeed a prism that reflected the glory of the whole nation.
As he blessed his grandsons, Jacob deliberately “[made] his hands wise” and graced Ephraim with the bull’s share of the blessing. He must have seen the potential greatness of the lad, purposefully dimming his eyes to the convention of the firstborn receiving the more significant inheritance.
The latent potential of Ephraim lay in his fresh, unburdened promise. He was born after Manasseh, who was named for the necessity of letting go of the past, with all of the accompanying bitterness and pain. Ephraim, though, represented the vitality of Joseph, a perpetually fertile force that flourished in the adversity of galut. The sweet innocence (ĥen) of Ephraim was imbued in the character of Joshua, called a “youth” (na’ar) even in his maturity. It was only he who had the enthusiasm and drive to lead Israel in the conquest of the land. And if other tribes dallied, and resented the need to fight for redemption, Ephraim hastened to conquer and claim his naĥalah.
Youth and beauty, innocence and exuberance can be perilous if unrestrained. Joseph’s brothers felt this acutely, and it angered and frightened them: “They saw him [Joseph] from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Behold, the baal ĥalomot (dreamer) approaches!’” (Genesis 37:18–19). “They said: ‘This one will lead them all to the Baal idolatry’” (Genesis Rabbah 84:14).
The brothers’ jealousy of Joseph was rooted in a great fear of his innate power. His youthful capacity for passion and his craving for emotional response could have dragged the nation down to treacherous betrayal. Joseph, in his complete loyalty to relationships, proved that the brothers were not necessarily right. Relationship and passion need not lead to breakdown. Integrity can be maintained. Yet there was, indeed, cause for fear, as the later history of Joseph’s descendants attested:
[Jeroboam from Ephraim] made two golden calves, and placed one in Beth-el and one in Dan. He said to the people, “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough. These are your gods, O Israel, who delivered you from Egypt!”
I Kings 12:28–29
Until Jeroboam, the nation nursed from only one calf; from then on, from two and three.
Sanhedrin 102a
How fitting, then, was the imagery chosen by the prophet Hosea to describe the wayward Northern Kingdom: “Ephraim is an untrainable calf that loves to follow his own desires… ” (Hosea 10:11). In embodying Joseph’s youth and passion, Ephraim also represented his greatest danger. Here was the wayward calf, untrained and wandering, not yet grown into Joseph’s sovereign bull. This immature impetuousness got the tribe into trouble time and again. Ephraim, full of dreams of redemption, prematurely marched out of Egypt, and right into slaughter in Philistine territory.
Who were the dead resurrected by Ezekiel [in his prophecy of the resurrection of the dried bones (Ezekiel 37)]? Rav said, These were the sons of the tribe of Ephraim, who calculated the end [of the slavery in Egypt] and erred [in their count, and were killed after escaping Egypt].
Sanhedrin 92b
Unlike much of the nation that had sunk to despair “from shortness of breath and hard work,” Ephraim was invested with the secrets of the end time, a treasure passed from Jacob to Joseph and then on to his prime son, Ephraim. But Ephraim’s calculations were off. In the very intensity of hope, he ignored his brethren’s urge to act cautiously, and sallied forth to be all but wiped out. Woe to the unrestrained calf!
The dream factory of Joseph was a dangerous enterprise, to be sure. But we needed the passionate visionary, the romantic pioneer who united the nation with the sheer appeal of his vision, the pulsing power of hope. Even in death, Ephraim retained the dream of life, for they were his bones that Ezekiel saw resurrected. Only after leadership emerged from Joseph – leadership that lay out the national mission and set it in motion – could Judah effectively guide Israel as monarch.
This should be the very model guiding each individual’s development in this world. Each person must first be a Joseph, discovering and then nurturing his or her unique role within the nation. And then, each individual must of course contribute to the totality of the system of nationhood, understanding that he or she is not isolated, but an integral part of a larger whole. Relationships must develop to build a web of interactions, building connections, or the person becomes a manipulative idolater, worshipping his or her personal dreams.
This harmony, muses Rabbi Matis Weinberg, is the existential dualism of being alive:
Man in this world is the essence of klal and prat, totality and individuality.…The restoration of this world is the restoration of klal and prat (Zohar Ra’ayah Me’hemnah, Exodus 25a).…Each vision is wrong in isolation, because each projects only half the picture. For the visions of bnai Rachel and bnai Leah are complementary; malchus requires both.
Patterns in Time: Chanukah, 96, 112
Ephraim was eponymous with much of Israel, and was foremost among the tribes. In his youthful impetuosity, his dreams of greatness, he introduced much discord and strife. Yet this mischief was not unredeemable. At its core remained a longing for connection and openness to response. And God cannot help but answer:
I have surely heard Ephraim’s crying: “You disciplined me like an unruly calf, and I have been chastened. Bring me back, and I will return, because You are the Lord my God. After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.”
Ephraim is My precious son, the child in whom I delight. When I speak of him, I remember him earnestly; My heart yearns for him! Therefore I will surely have compassion on him, oath of God.
Jeremiah 31:17–19
Naĥalat Ephraim
Ephraim, the dominant shevet among the northern tribes, was granted the heartland of Eretz Yisrael. The tribe’s naĥalah stretched from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It shared a southern border with Benjamin and Dan. Ephraim’s northern border was shared with his closest kin, Manasseh, and bisected Samaria. Most of the cities inhabited by the tribe were located on the central mountain ridge running vertically through this territory, known in that region as “Harei Ephraim.”
Ephraim’s southern border rose unevenly from Jericho, which was in Naĥalat Binyamin, skirted the “Wilderness of Beth On,” and hit various points westward: Beth-el, Ataroth, Lower Beth-horon, and Gezer. The border then extended to the Mediterranean, with its southern point likely hitting north of Jaffa. His northern border hit the points of Shechem, Tappuah, and then followed the entire path of the Kaneh Brook toward the Mediterranean.
Visiting Naĥalat Ephraim
Itinerary: Qubbat a-Najma, Shiloh, ‘Izbet Sarta
Western Ephraim is familiar terrain to just about every Israeli, since the coastal area of the naĥalah is heavily populated in the modern era. The fertility of Ephraim, his creativity, and interaction with the world are realized in the greater Tel Aviv area, the center of Israel’s action. What is affectionately known as the “Merkaz” (Center) is home to millions of Israelis who are the dream realizers, who have propelled the technology and commerce of this young country to the extent that Israel is recognized internationally as the “start-up nation.”
Naĥalat Ephraim is breathtaking, evocative country, mountains interspersed with winding riverbeds, valleys, and grassy plains. We start our tour by driving north on the Allon Road, Route 458, embarking from the Jerusalem–Dead Sea corridor. We wind through the northern Judean Desert, bisecting Naĥalat Binyamin, until the stark and bare gray-white peaks and crags sharply give way to greener and gentler rolling hills. For a grand view of the vineyards and wheat plains of eastern Ephraim, ascend to the lookout point on Qubbat a-Najma, accessed via Kochav HaShahar (a pastoral yishuv off of the Allon Road). The Rehavam Lookout, named after assassinated tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi, is a prime spot to survey the eastern border of Ephraim. To the east is the breathtaking span of the Jordan Valley from Jericho up to the sharp peak of Sartaba, all belonging to Naĥalat Menasheh. (Ephraim’s eastern border was shared with Manasseh; it did not extend to the Jordan River.) You can clearly see the Mount of Olives to the south, accounting for the scholarly consensus that this peak was a substation for the masu’ot, the communication system of torches that would be fired up from peak to peak (beginning on the Mount of Olives) to inform the nation of the New Moon (the next official station was Sartaba).
The view to the west encompasses the eastern span of Naĥalat Ephraim up toward the watershed line, otherwise known as the Way of the Patriarchs. You are looking at the length of the central mountain ridge, running north–south, from Shechem to Hebron. The central cities of Ephraim – Tappuah, Shiloh, Ophrah, Beth-el (arguably located in Naĥalat Binyamin) – were all located on the Way of the Patriarchs. The vista spread out before you is the heartland of Israel. It requires little imagination to rebuild the villages and farms of Israelite antiquity in the mind’s eye.
Continue north on the Allon Road, past the Arab village of Mughayir; about two kilometers on (a little more than one mile), make a sharp left turn on the back road leading to the village of Shiloh. This is storybook land: a lush valley bordered by gentle slopes, populated by idealistic Jews who have spread out from the more established settlements of Ephraim to breathe life back into these ancient hills. Our destination is ancient Shiloh, the spiritual capital of early Israelite settlement, but some would say that the modern-day spiritual revival of the nation of Israel is taking place right here, in the newly established communities of Adei Ad, Kidah, and Shevut Rachel.
A tour of ancient Shiloh begins with a survey of the historical background of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). After fourteen years of conquest and settlement, Joshua of Ephraim chose to erect the Mishkan in this city in his naĥalah for reasons beyond the parochial. Shiloh had been a well-fortified city in the Middle Bronze period (2000–1550 Bce), attested to by the excavated five-meter-thick walls (approx. sixteen feet thick) covered by an earthen glacis. Whether the Canaanite inhabitants were still in the city when the Israelites took over the place is not certain. There is no archaeological record of a destruction layer dating to the Israelite conquest, and the biblical text does not mention any battle for the site. Thus Joshua found in Shiloh a ready-made city, either abandoned or readily captured, with fine water resources, easily accessible via the central mountain range artery.
Much of what there is to see on Tel Shiloh dates to later periods: Second Temple era structures, Byzantine churches, and a Muslim mak’am (holy site). There is ample evidence, though, of a settlement here in the time of the Judges (Iron I) and First Temple era (Iron II). Just outside of the Canaanite (MB) western fortifications are typical Israelite four-room houses that seemed to have been used both as storage facilities and as domiciles. A large collection of collared-rim storage jars, typical to the Iron I Israelite period, was discovered in situ. Carbon testing of charred olive pits found in one of them helped date the jars definitively to the era of the Judges.
Positive identification of the site as biblical Shiloh is a recent development. The location matched the biblical description as “north of Beth-el, east of the road ascending from Beth-el to Shechem, and south of Lebonah” (Judges 21:19). The tel has been traditionally called “Khirbet Seilun,” preserving a form of the name Shiloh. And the archaeological evidence has corresponded neatly with the written record of Shiloh. It was only in 2006, though, that a church inscription, dating to the fourth century CE, was uncovered, asking the Lord to have mercy on Seilun and its inhabitants. This discovery removed any doubt that this place was indeed ancient Shiloh.
The search for the location of the Mishkan site continues apace. Various suggestions include the Muslim mak’am, built on top of two successive Byzantine churches, since that spot has a clear tradition of holiness. Another possibility is the very top of the tel, under the current lookout tower, given the logic that a ritual site should be situated at the highest point. The present consensus is that the Mishkan was likely situated at the very north of the tel, outside of the Canaanite city walls. There, we find a smoothed-out surface, excavated in antiquity, approximately 100 × 50 amot long – exactly matching the dimensions of the Mishkan. That the carved-out area is oriented on an east–west axis is also telling, since the Mishkan (and later the Temple) faced east. While most of the excavated remains at this spot are dated to later periods, recent excavations have uncovered a wall, as well as niches that may have held wooden support beams for a monumental structure – all from the era of the Judges.
Bones of sacrificial animals found on surrounding hilltops attest to the practice recorded in the Mishnah (Zevaĥim 14:6): “When the Mishkan was in Shiloh, kodshim kalim and ma’aser sheni were eaten anywhere within sight of Shiloh.” The Israelites would make pilgrimage to the Mishkan in Shiloh over the 369 years that it stood there, during the entirety of the period of the Judges, and would eat from their sacrifices in the entire surrounding area – so long as they remained within sight of Shiloh.
The first lengthy and formative era of the Jewish nation in its land demanded leeway for self-expression and individuality, for the tribes to come into their own, within their separate naĥalot. Ritual was deliberately designed at this time to be non-oppressive, even as all were enjoined to worship together in one centralized spot. Bamot were prohibited during the time when the Mishkan stood in Shiloh, but as long as one was in sight of Shiloh, one partook of the sacrifice.
This formative period, spanning hundreds of years, was a difficult one for a confederation of tribes trying to establish their own naĥalot while at the same time attempting to nurture a unified national identity. The balance was struck by having a single and central locale to worship together, while still allowing for some distance. “Kol ha-ro’eh” – whoever was in sight of Shiloh could partake of the sacrifices.
The period of the Judges was not only a difficult era – it was a dangerous one as well, without clearly defined boundaries, where the eye could wander and idolatry could flourish, and indeed: “each did as was seemly in his eyes.” Surprisingly, then, the Sages linked Shiloh – the center of religious ritual during this era – to Joseph, master of self-control:
R. Abahu said: “Scripture states, ‘A fruitful son is Joseph, a fruitful son because of the eye.’ Let the eye that did not want to feed upon and derive enjoyment from that which did not belong to it [i.e., Potiphar’s wife] merit to eat sacrifices as far as its range of vision.”
Zevaĥim 118b
Yosef Ha-Tzadik was the paradigm of one who was open to others, who yearned for an emotional response, for relationship between the tribes. Yet he also was the model of restraint when a relationship was inappropriate, as was the case with Potiphar’s wife. Thus, Shiloh was within the borders of his descendants’ naĥalot, for it typified the delicate balance between restraint and expansion.
R. Ĥiya bar Avin said in the name of R. Joshua ben Korĥah: “An elderly man told me, ‘One time, I went to Shiloh, and I could smell the fragrance of the incense from between its walls.’”
Yoma 39b
The holiness of the incense scent of Shiloh could not be contained; nor could the holiness of the Mishkan at Shiloh, for it was like Joseph – increasing outward, so that all who could connect their sight to the focal point were connected to the Shekhinah. But one who set his sight elsewhere, who “did what was right in his [own] eyes,” who betrayed his relationship with God by breaching boundaries of propriety and erecting bamot away from Shiloh, contributed to the destruction of the national vision.
At Shiloh, one could enjoy a relationship with God without being smothered. One had the space to grow fully into oneself, without overly confining boundaries. Perhaps the festival described by the Talmud as “the most joyous of days,” Tu be-Av (the fifteenth of Av), which was held in the vineyards of Shiloh, best characterized the nature of the place:
R. Simeon ben Gamaliel said: “Israel has no days as festive as the fifteenth of Av…when the maidens of Jerusalem would go out dressed in white, borrowed garments [so as not to embarrass one who had none].…They would go out and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? ‘Young man, raise your eyes and see what you choose for yourself.’”
Ta’anit 26b
That this grand event took place in the vineyards of Shiloh was implied by the biblical story of the distraught remaining Benjaminites, their ranks decimated after civil war. Fearing that the tribe might be lost to Israel, other tribal leaders hatched a plan:
They said, “Behold, there is a yearly holiday to the Lord at Shiloh.”…They told the Benjaminites, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards. And see; and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh go out to perform the dances, you shall emerge from the vineyards, and each of you grab his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.”
Judges 21:19–21
This merry fair, full of youthful energy and brimming with promises of love, was the height of joy in the Jewish year. How fitting that it was held outside the walls of Shiloh, where strict boundaries and tight restraint have no place. How fitting that it was held in the city of Joseph, paradigm of beauty and potential relationship. The maidens beckoned the young men to watch them dance, to fall in love. Just as God allowed His children their space to find Him in Shiloh – “kol ha-ro’eh” – the excitement and innocent romance of young love was allowed expression here, in Shiloh.
On the eve of exile, Jeremiah prophesied:
I shall yet rebuild you and you shall be rebuilt, O Maiden of Israel;
You will yet adorn yourself with drums and go forth in joyous dance.
You will yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria; the planters will plant and redeem.
We are not yet fully redeemed. We still suffer constraints from within and without, so that youthful exuberance is rarely allowed full expression. To this, we may understand Jeremiah’s words above as a response of comfort, further enhanced by the Benei Yisaskhar:
“Young man, lift up your eyes”: During the two months of sadness [Tammuz and Av], we are blinded to the wonders of God, since our eyes are full of tears, as it is written, “My eyes, my eyes are continuously brimming with tears” (Lamentations 1:16), and it is impossible to look around. This isn’t so when the eyes are beautiful and clear: they can take in everything, all around. This is what the young maidens who go out to dance on Tu be-Av are saying: “Young man, lift up your eyes!”
Joseph was one for whom maidens would climb the walls just to gaze at his beauty. Young attraction was given proper space to blossom yearly in his city, Shiloh. And we were promised that the clouded eyes of exile will clear once more, and the maidens will beckon and dance, encouraging the young men to look upon them.
We round off our tour of Naĥalat Ephraim with a visit to the western area of the territory. ’Izbet Sarta, named after the Arab village Sarta, is a tiny archaeological site identified as the biblical Eben-ezer: “Israel went out to war against the Philistines. They encamped at Eben-ezer, while the Philistines encamped at Aphek” (I Samuel 4:1).
The site was active for approximately 250 years, between the thirteenth and eleventh centuries BCE. It began as an oval-shaped enclosure, probably for livestock, and was expanded at a later period into a series of a typical Israelite four-room houses. The pottery at the site included collared-rim storage jars, typical of early Israelite settlement. There were many grain silos excavated in the same stratum as the houses, indicating that the population had shifted from nomadic to agricultural, and that perhaps Eben-ezer was a grain repository for the entire area. Charred grain was discovered in the silos, evidence of a destruction level at the site.
The most exciting find was discovered in one of the grain silos. An ostracon – a pottery sherd with ancient writing, in this case in a proto-Canaanite (early Hebrew) script – was found, with 103 letters. Deciphering the inscription proved no easy task, since the letters sometimes appeared in reverse, the grammar was unusual, and the text was written from left to right. There is consensus that the last line was an abecedary (a listing of the alphabet), and that the ostracon most likely represented an exercise tablet for a young student. At the very least, we may take this as evidence of literacy in the premonarchial period of Israelite settlement.
Though ’Izbet Sarta is little more than a jumble of stones to the untrained eye, it is worth a visit, since it was definitely an Ephramite settlement and the site of a momentous biblical battle. The Israelites initiated a war against the Philistines, who had total control over the coast and the Jezreel Valley. They chose Eben-ezer as their headquarters for strategic reasons: this was one of the only Israelite villages located close to the coast, and the Philistine city of Aphek, where they hoped to attack, was situated a mere three kilometers (a little under two miles) to the west. The Philistines waged a successful preemptive attack, prompting the Israelites (who apparently had no central commander of note) to send for the Ark in Shiloh.
According to the analysis of Dvir Raviv and Netanel Ellinson, the Israelites treated the Ark as a talisman that would help them win. The Philistines, on the other hand, feared the power of God represented by the Ark, and were therefore victorious in battle. They killed a huge number of Israelites, confiscated the Ark for themselves, and invaded the central mountain region, gaining control over certain Israelite cities, including Ophrah, Geba, and Michmash. The sacking and burning of Eben-ezer, memorialized by the charred wheat, is testament to the end of the period of the Judges. Samuel of Ephraim would shortly emerge as a unifying leader to the troubled nation, though, and would usher in a new, brighter era in Jewish history.
He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.
Jack London, The Call of the Wild
Chapter 15; Binyamin
The birth of Jacob’s twelfth son marked the end of the era of forebears. Benjamin, the youngest, completed the shevatim, providing an element that had been missing from their ranks.
Benjamin stood starkly apart from the rest of Benei Yisrael. He was the only son born in the Land of Israel. He never experienced the submission of bowing to Esau, as had his brothers. He was not involved in the bloody aftermath of the traumatic rape of Dinah. He did not participate in the sale of Joseph. Similarly, the tribe of Benjamin was fundamentally different from the other shevatim, in ways that both isolated the tribe from the rest of the nation and uniquely positioned them to fight on its behalf.
The Last Born
Rachel died a few moments after the birth of Benjamin, bequeathing on him a name but little else. He knew his mother only through stories, nursed as he was at the breast of Bilhah. And yet Rachel’s essential characteristics – her beauty, her deceptive ways, her tzeniut – were all hallmarks of Benjamin.
Twelve years had passed since Joseph’s birth, and since Jacob emerged shalem, complete, from the dangers of Laban and Esau. His house was built; he was named Israel by God. The birth of Joseph marked a critical juncture for Jacob. Joseph was his ben zekunim, the beloved child of his old age, who seemed to round out the patriarch’s household. And yet, Jacob was not done, and his house was not truly complete, for Rachel had not yet given everything that she could to Beit Yisrael. Upon the birth of Joseph, she recognized instantly that this must not be her final act – that “God should grant me another son” (yosif Hashem li ben aĥer), and even named Joseph in that hope. Only with Benjamin, who resembled her more purely than did Joseph, was the family of Israel to be whole.
There was still a stretch of land to go to Ephrath, when Rachel went into labor and had difficulty in her childbirth. And it was when she had difficulty in her labor that the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for this one, too, is a son for you.” And it came to pass, as her soul was departing – for she died – that she called his name Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin.
Genesis 35:16–18
Rachel had no share of the joy that should have accompanied this miraculous birth. As she expired she named her son Ben-Oni, often translated as “son of my sorrow.” She may have intended another connotation: “this one has taken my very life. I have put all of my strength [another meaning of on] into this child.”
Benjamin was the only child of Jacob to be named by both his parents. He was, in fact, given two names. Jacob firmly chose the other meaning of Oni – not sorrow, but strength – and renamed him Benjamin, or “embodiment of strength.” The doubly named Benjamin was also the only son of Jacob to be born after the patriarch had been given his second name, undergoing the paradigm shift to Israel. He was born, as it were, into a new reality of a nascent nation, coming into its own power. This family was already a force that had proven itself on the battlefield with Esau and Shechem, and received from God the explicit blessing of nationhood. This first (and last) ben Yisrael to be born in the national homeland became the “embodiment of strength,” indeed.
On a personal level, Benjamin was both a painful reminder to Jacob of a life cut short, and an infinitely comforting testament of enduring love. The depth of Jacob’s pain upon his beloved Rachel’s death affirmed the strength of his relationship with Rachel. This child, in the mold of his mother, symbolized both pain and strength to his father, and so he had two names.
The Predator
The language of Jacob’s blessing to his youngest son was striking – and perhaps not what we would expect for the one who was always a “child” to his father. Though Jacob was frantic to protect his last-born throughout the fraught negotiations with Joseph-in-disguise, in his deathbed blessing, he described Benjamin as a predator, well able to defend himself:
Benjamin is a wolf that tears (its prey);
In the morning he will devour,
In the evening he will distribute spoils.
Genesis 49:27
This blessing became so definitive that the symbol on Benjamin’s standard was a wolf. Though perhaps not aligned with the glimpses we found of Benjamin in his personal story, the imagery of a predatory wolf well matched the consistent description of the tribe’s military prowess later in the Bible. Over and over, Benjaminites were singled out as experts at javelin and archery. Saul and his son Jonathan were both lauded as exceptionally skillful among a tribe that was considered distinctly capable with the bow. This aptitude made the Benjaminites a formidable foe, as they held their own when attacked by the rest of the nation in the period of the Judges. But the blessing of the wolf was multifaceted, revealing different aspects throughout this tribe’s turbulent history.
The Left-Handed Tribe
Ironically for the one known as Bin-Yamin, “Son of the Right,” Benjaminites are consistently singled out as left-handed! This irony indicates that the seemingly inconsequential matter of the tribe’s left-handedness might be of real significance. In each instance, the context was military:
Ehud son of Gera, a Benjaminite judge, was described as having a “withered right hand” (Judges 3:15). Ehud used this fact to deceive the Moabite king Eglon into believing that he could not possibly be a threat, before killing the king with his left hand.
Within the army that Benjamin pulled together to battle their brethren in the period of the Judges are seven hundred choice fighters, each “with a withered right hand, all of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss” (Judges 20:16).
The men from Benjamin who abandoned support of Saul and rallied to David’s side in Ziklag were “among the mighty men who helped in war, armed with bows, both right-handed and left-handed in slinging stones or arrows with a bow” (I Chronicles 12:2).
Whether due to nature or training, use of the left hand to fight definitely made for unconventional warfare. The combatant’s left-handedness surprised and disconcerted his opponent, granting a certain advantage. Since left-handed people have always lived in a right-handed world, they compensate creatively for the “handicap,” developing the shiftiness and flexibility so crucial on the battlefield. Ralbag, for instance, read Ehud’s limitation as a distinct advantage:
God established for Israel a savior – Ehud son of Gera – from the tribe of Benjamin; he was underhanded and crafty in battle. How so? He sent a gift to Eglon under the pretense of friendship so as to gain ready access to the king, and his obvious handicap [no use of his right hand] would have Eglon unsuspecting that he carried a sword.
The predatory wolf of Benjamin successfully stalked his prey through underhanded scheming and honed guerilla skills. While the Torah and rabbinic literature preferred the “right” as a symbol of strength and justice, the “left,” though traditionally weaker, had the advantage of surprise.
The Yemini against Amalek
The irony here – a ben-yamin (yamin meaning “right”) was really a lefty! – gives us cause to broaden the traditional definition of “strength.” Yamin indicates conventional might, whether physical or strength of conviction. But Benjamin, as demonstrated above, operated in unconventional ways, a lone wolf who could catch his enemy by surprise. This tribe was primed to defeat that other predatory wolf, Amalek, again and again:
Note that [the verse] does not say, “ze’ev toref ” but, “ze’ev yetraf.” Accordingly, ze’ev could be the object of the verb, rendering the meaning “Benjamin will tear apart the wolf… ” [as opposed to the more conventional translation, “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf”]. It will be the smallest and youngest of the sons who will drive the “wolf,” eternal Amalek, away from the flock of Jacob.
Hirsch, Genesis 49:27
Amalek, grandson of Esau, was the historic nemesis of the nation of Israel. This enemy stabbed at the very heart of faith, cynically attacking the warmth of the loving relationship between God and His chosen ones, coldly and cruelly claiming that all in life was happenstance and without meaning. At the height of Israel’s glory, just when God had made manifest His personal care for them by redeeming them from Egypt – “I, and not a messenger, I and no one else” – Amalek struck. It was a calculated kamikaze attack, aimed at cooling off the world’s fervor at the divine redemption of Am Yisrael. Israel was charged to “wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens,” to destroy the doubt and uncertainty that they sowed in every generation among those who sought an intimate relationship with God.
Yet while the charge was laid upon Israel as a whole, it was specifically Benjamin who was destined to defeat Amalek. This was alluded to in Rashi’s commentary on the second part of Jacob’s blessing, where Benjamin was told that he will “devour spoils in the morning, and in the evening he will distribute plunder” (Genesis 49:27):
Jacob was speaking of Saul, who arose at the beginning of the shining of Israel. Even when the sun of Israel sets, when Nebuchadnezzar exiles them to Babylonia, Mordecai and Esther [who were from the tribe of Benjamin] will distribute the plunder of Haman.
Rashi, ad loc.
Both Saul and Mordecai were champions of Benjamin who battled Amalek, one at the dawn of the period of kings, the other as the nation was in exile. Rashi is not alone in assigning “morning” and “evening” to specific periods of Jewish history where Israel battled Amalek. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch offers a slightly different explication:
Jacob’s final glance comes to rest upon the end of days, when the last of the world powers will be overcome.…Already in the early morning, at the outset of the nation’s history, [Israel] will deal the wolf a powerful blow, but in the evening of time [the end of days] he will destroy the wolf completely.
Hirsch, ad loc.
Benjamin was the shevet who defeated Amalek in every generation, at the outset of our history and at its commencement, because he harbored the potential of both his parents to battle the nation’s most nefarious foe.
Benjamin, as last born, was uniquely suited to counter Amalek-of-Esau. He had the distinct advantage of being born after Jacob’s renaming.
God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel should be your name.” And He called his name Israel.
Genesis 35:10
“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob,” which connotes a person who comes in stealth and treachery [akavah]; rather, your name will connote nobility [sar].”
Rashi, ad loc.
Benjamin was born after Jacob redeemed himself from the stain of having attained the blessings underhandedly. He was born to a father whose rights were acknowledged; he was born after Esau surrendered the field. Until God renamed Jacob, the element of deception inherent within him was still present. It was only after the battle with the angel that Jacob prevailed openly, not through trickery, but through force of will. The angel renamed him Israel, giving him the strength to confront Esau. When they finally did meet, Esau fully and openly yielded: “Let what you have remain yours” (Genesis 33:9) – he conceded the blessings to Jacob. Jacob was once more given the name Israel, this time by God himself, just prior to Benjamin’s birth.
It was only Benjamin, the son of Israel, who could battle Esau’s ultimate expression: Amalek. This unique strength came from both his father, who emerged as a true contender (sarar) to Esau, and from his mother: “Amalek will only fall to a child of Rachel (BR 99:2)…since Amalek embodies the aspects of sorcery and deception” (Benei Yisaskhar, Adar 5).
This quality of Benjamin – his underhandedness, if you will – was inherited from Rachel, who “held the distaff of silence, and all her children were likewise mysterious.” All Rachel’s descendants inherited different aspects of this trait, and her descendants alone (Joshua of Ephraim; Saul, Mordecai, and Esther of Benjamin; Mashiaĥ ben Yosef), have the tools to defeat Amalek, peddler of equivocation and doubt.
Mysterious Rachel had ironclad convictions and unorthodox methods. Quietly, privately, she decided what had to be done and acted on her decisions. In consideration of her sister’s feelings, she divulged to Leah the passwords that she and Jacob had shared. Deciding to rid her father’s household of idolatry, she spirited away the terafim under her skirts and then lied about doing so. She was certain of her actions just as her descendants were certain of the rightness of their cause. They were powerful in their conviction – true anshei yamin – while their clandestine modi operandi rendered them the most capable fighters.
Benjamin was a ben Yisrael, the only son of Jacob born into an era of confidence in the primacy of the nation over Esau and his descendants. He was also a ben Rachel, uniquely positioned to counter Amalek’s cynical aims with his unwavering commitment to tzeniut. Tzeniut, roughly and mistakenly translated as modesty, really means the nurturing of relationships through assiduous and sensitive care for privacy and dignity. The more one values a relationship, the more he will invest in guarding its sanctity; this is tzeniut. To be tzanua is to protect the vulnerability of self and other, to prevent the depth of a relationship from exposure to prying eyes which might cheapen its value. Holiness and blessing thrive in the hidden – specifically, the blessing of power to counter the forces of Amalek.
It took sensitivity to vulnerability to oppose Amalek, who always attacked the defenseless first:
Remember what Amalek did to you, as you came out from the Land of Egypt. How he came upon you when you were faint and weary, and cut off all those who were lagging behind you…
Deuteronomy 25:16–17
Benjamin and his descendants had a unique attachment to tzeniut, inherited from Rachel.
And Esther did not reveal her origins – this teaches us that she kept her silence as did her ancestress Rachel, who held the distaff of silence. Thus her greatest descendants guarded their silence: Benjamin her son kept his silence regarding the sale of Joseph, Saul told no one about his anointing, Esther did not reveal her origins.
Esther Rabbah 6:12
The same Saul who carefully guarded his unique connection to Samuel, the Esther who carefully protected her relationship to Mordecai, were best able to cherish and protect the dynamic, vulnerable, and responsive relationship between God and His nation. It was the children of Benjamin who were poised to most effectively counter that enemy of relationships, Amalek, who was always seeking to undermine the perception of involvement and concern that God maintains with His creations. Their strong convictions brought the Benjaminites to close rank and protect what they cared for through the hidden power of tzeniut. They acted secretively, not exposing themselves or the things they loved, and it was their very tzeniut that was the most potent weapon against the cynicism and coldness of Amalek.
The Isolation of Benjamin
For the good and the bad, Benjamin was removed from the formative experiences shared by his brothers. This isolation from Benei Yisrael gave him unique strength, but also isolated him. The danger was demonstrated most strongly at the end of the Book of Judges, when the nation convened to punish the Benjamite evildoers of Gibeah who had gang-raped a visiting woman to death. The tribesmen refused to hand over their guilty kin, and the nation was thrust into a civil war that ended only when Benjamin was brought to the brink of extinction. It was only through a careful rehabilitation that its numbers slowly rose again.
Benjamin was, in some ways, a lone wolf, standing apart from the rest of the nation, maintaining a solitary independence. While at times this bordered on secession and travesty, it also nurtured the fortitude necessary to defeat Amalek, the “wolf that Benjamin will tear apart.”
This sense of utter aloneness was found in Esther, who was perhaps the prime expression of the royal house of Benjamin. Like her ancestor, Esther, too, was motherless from birth. She was raised by a loving Mordecai, but bereft of the settling and solidifying mother’s embrace. Her loneliness was exacerbated when Esther was taken away from Mordecai, and required to retain her hester – total anonymity and hiddenness – through the many years spent in Ahasuerus’s palace. Only at the very end did she reveal herself, in a moment of enormous self-sacrifice and dedication. The Psalmist depicts Esther’s thoughts as she walked toward her fateful meeting with Ahasuerus. The poetry reveals insight into the power of Benjamin: the intensity of an utterly personal relationship to God; the conviction in God’s ultimate faithfulness to this relationship; and terrible loneliness:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? / O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but there is no respite for me.…I am a worm, and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by all. / All who see me, deride me; they open wide their mouths, they wag their heads./ But if one commits himself to God, He will come to his aid. He will rescue him, for He desires him./You are He who took me from the womb; You made me trust You at my mother’s breasts./On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God./ Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.…But you, O Lord, do not be far off!…I will proclaim Your Name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation, I will praise You.
Psalms 22
Esther saved her people through her ability to hide what had to be hidden until the right moment to act; through her intense and all-consuming relationship to “my God”; through her trust that God would “come to my aid,” though He may seem far. Speaking from the place of greatest vulnerability – “a worm, barely human” – she was able to assert the value of the relationship, and finally to share it with her “brethren” – with those who can learn to appreciate and protect what is so real to her.
The Temple in Naĥalat Binyamin
Benjamin was distinguished in playing “host to the Shekhinah” (the Divine Presence): the Temple was situated in its naĥalah. The midrash interpreted Moses’s blessing to Benjamin as alluding to this special privilege:
God’s beloved shall dwell safely by Him
He hovers over him forever,
And rests between his shoulders.
Deuteronomy 33:12
The Shekhinah would rest in Naĥalat Binyamin.
Zevaĥim 54b
Perhaps this was because Benjamin was the only tribe born in Eretz Yisrael, affording him a higher level of holiness than his brothers. Or perhaps it was because he was the only son who never experienced submission to an enemy, born after the family’s displays of deference to Laban and Esau. Mordecai, arguably the most famous descendant of Benjamin, himself refused to bow to the Amalekite Haman, citing his ancestor Benjamin as his example:
I am of the descendants of Benjamin. When Jacob bowed before Esau, Benjamin was not yet born, and he never in all his life bowed before a mortal. Hence an eternal covenant was made with him while he was still in his mother’s womb, that when Israel goes up to their land and builds the Temple, it will be in his naĥalah, and the Shekhinah will dwell in his border, and that all the nations will bow and prostrate themselves in his land. Thus, I shall not bow before the wicked Haman!
Targum Sheni 3:4
And perhaps there was yet another reason. How ironic that a tribe that established that it could all but rip the nation apart provided the leadership to bind the nation together. As is often the case, the greatest strength and the greatest weakness spring from the same source. The same self-contained, private individuality that could lead to isolation was also the source of leadership and relationship – as demonstrated by Saul, Mordecai, and Esther. And how very appropriate, then, for the Temple – focal point of national unity, the symbol of the tie that binds – to be located in the naĥalah of Benjamin.
Judah and Benjamin
The ties that bind began in the harmonious, eternal relationship between the tribe of Judah, scion of benei Leah, and the tribe of Benjamin, scion of benei Rachel, whose very naĥalot intertwine within the Temple. This relationship had deep roots, reaching all the way back to the interaction of the two brothers during their lifetimes.
After the disguised Joseph demanded that the brothers bring Benjamin to him in Egypt, Judah vowed to a terrified Jacob that he would guarantee Benjamin’s safe return, if only Jacob would entrust the boy to him.
Upon Benjamin’s arrival in Egypt, Joseph set up a test. He knew the depth of the jealousy and hurt the brothers felt over the favoritism Jacob showed to Rachel, and he wanted to gauge whether they had moved past those feelings. Joseph had his goblet secretly planted in Benjamin’s pack and then waited to see the brothers’ reactions.
It would seem that the brothers never fully trusted Benjamin to stay out of mischief. They remembered well how his mother Rachel breathed her last – a consequence, said the midrash, for stealing the terafim idols away from her father Laban. They lambasted the wiliness of Rachel upon discovering the planted goblet: “ ‘The goblet was found in Benjamin’s pack’ (Genesis 44:12). The brothers said to him, ‘You thief, the son of a thief – you are just like your mother, who stole from her own father!’” (BR 92:8).
And yet, Benjamin was innocent of theft or deception. He did not steal Joseph’s goblet. He was not part of the sale of Joseph, either. He was the clean-handed, pure son of Jacob and Rachel – and Judah, mastermind of the sale of Joseph, stepped in to take full responsibility for Benjamin’s welfare. From his oath to Jacob, “I personally will guarantee him,” to his acknowledgement before Joseph of the special relationship Jacob would always have with Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, Judah passionately insisted on bearing Benjamin’s fate in his stead.
Your servant took responsibility for the youth [Benjamin] from my father saying, “If I do not bring him back to you then I will have sinned to [you,] my father, for all time.” Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the youth as a servant to my lord, and let the youth go up with his brothers. For how can I go up to my father if the youth is not with me, lest I see the evil that will befall my father!
Genesis 44:32–34
This arevut, or interconnection, between Judah and Benjamin marked the first true linkage between benei Rachel and benei Leah without the taint of the sale of Joseph. Benjamin’s deep bond to Judah was expressed throughout history, and their arevut surfaced time and again. During the Exodus from Egypt, when the tribe of Benjamin forged into the Red Sea even before it miraculously split, they were joined by Nahshon son of Aminadav, a Judahite. The Beit HaMikdash lay right at the juncture of the naĥalot of Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin aligned with Judah when the kingdom split into northern and southern spheres, and from that point on they enjoyed and suffered the same fate as the Judahites.
The powerful link between the two tribes was perhaps most fully and painfully expressed in the passionate love between Benjamin’s royal family and King David of Judah: first in Saul’s love for David, then in Michal’s love for him, to the extent that she chose him over her father, Saul. Ultimately, Jonathan of Benjamin and David of Judah become the very model for a selfless love – a soulful love, “ki ahavat nafsho ahavo.”
Benjamin hovered constantly between isolation and arevut. He could be dangerously divisive, and at the same time capable of incredible loyalty. His existential loneliness, rooted in family dynamic and manifest throughout history, created the neutrality necessary to heal the rifts between benei Rachel and benei Leah. This was why his naĥalah was nested between theirs.
Naĥalat Binyamin – The Unifying Naĥalah
That Benjamin would serve to unite the nation was reflected in the contours of his naĥalah, which sat as a narrow belt smack-dab in the middle of the country. Bordering him on the north was Ephraim, with Dan to the west and Judah to the east. Benjamin was buffered between these three powerful and stormy tribes, and cushioned the Temple within its borders.
A midrash: Benjamin was named after the southern direction yamin/teiman, since he was born in a land far to the south of Padan Aram, or because his naĥalah was to be the southernmost of the sons of Rachel. The tribe therefore rested easily between Ephraim, their namesake’s full kin, and Judah, who was also yamin, the southernmost shevet. Benjamin was the neutralizing factor here, a tribe as comfortable with the left as they were with the right.
Benjamin’s close relationship with Judah and his natural blood relationship with the other sons of Rachel (Manasseh and Ephraim) positioned him beautifully to tie the two factions into a unified whole. Moreover, Benjamin’s naĥalah connected the other two, and both met within those borders in service of God.
An additional consideration, unique to the one son of Jacob born in the Land of Israel, is that the naĥalah that bore his name likely included his birthplace (see further discussion on the probable site of Rachel’s death and burial).
Touring Naĥalat Binyamin
Itinerary: En-prat (En-fara), Khubur Bani Israi’el, Tel el-Ful
Benjamin’s life began with Rachel’s death, so we begin our tour in Eretz Binyamin by exploring a popular contender for the site of Rachel’s burial. For many hundreds of years, tradition assigned a tomb south of Jerusalem, on the road passing Bethlehem and heading down to biblical Ephrath in the naĥalah of Judah, as the burial spot of Rachel. That site satisfies the descriptive verse in Genesis 35:17–19:
There was still some distance [kivrat ha-aretz] before Ephrath, when Rachel went into difficult labor…and Rachel died, and she was buried on the road to Ephrath that was Bethlehem.
Kivrat ha-aretz, as explained by Rashi, Ramban, and Radak, was a short distance. It seems that as Jacob’s family journeyed on the main road down from Beth-el to Hebron, Rachel began heavy labor, and the caravan stopped just short of Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem. Upon her death, Jacob buried her along that road, and indeed she “accompanied” her children, as it were, many years later, lamenting their exile, as they were led away from their homeland:
A voice is heard from Ramah, crying and weeping bitterly. Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be consoled for her children, for they are gone.
Jeremiah 31:14–16
How, though, was Rachel’s voice heard from Ramah (er-Ram, located four kilometers/two and a half miles north of Jerusalem, squarely in Naĥalat Binyamin), when she was buried in the famous Kever Rachel next to ancient Bethlehem? More urgently: given that Rachel was not buried in the family tomb of Me’arat HaMakhpelah in Hebron, shouldn’t we expect her grave to be found in one of her own sons’ naĥalot, rather than in Naĥalat Yehudah?
The most compelling evidence that Rachel’s burial place was in Naĥalat Binyamin comes from the Bible itself:
Then Samuel…said [to Saul]: When you leave me today, you will encounter two men near Rachel’s Tomb, at the border of Benjamin, in Zelzah…
I Samuel 10:1–2
Samuel and Saul were in Ramah. From there, Saul was to make his way to Gibeath-elohim, in Benjamin, by way of Kever Rachel, located in Zelzah – identified as a site on Benjamin’s border. On his way to Gibeath-elohim, he was to meet three men who were heading north to Beth-el. This is quite an accumulation of evidence for an alternate site for the burial of Rachel: (a) Saul was headed to a location north of Jerusalem (Gibeath-elohim), he was to meet people who were also headed north (to Beth-el), and was also to meet in the interim with men at Kever Rachel, located near or in Benjamin’s border; (b) “the voice of Rachel is heard in Ramah, crying bitterly for her children,” and Ramah was north of Jerusalem in Naĥalat Binyamin; and (c) sheer poetic justice demands that she be buried in the naĥalah of the son she died birthing. All this combines to make a compelling case for us to seek out Kever Rachel in Naĥalat Binyamin.
But what of Ephrath and Bethlehem? The story of Rachel’s death and burial mentions those two places, located south of Jerusalem in Naĥalat Yehudah. That question is what brings us to the first stop on our tour of Naĥalat Binyamin – the springs of En-fara.
Enter Yishuv Almon (off of Route 437, near Pisgat Ze’ev in Jerusalem) and follow the signs down to the national park reserve of Nahal Prat (En-fara). Park at the first ticket counter, and take the blue path down to the canyon floor. You’ll pass the Faran Monastery, dating back to the fourth century CE, built into the cliff face. If you examine the imposing cliffs closely, you’ll spot caves that have been inhabited for hundreds of years by hermits seeking the solitude and quiet that this desert region offers in abundance.
This ancient riverbed, fed by runoff from the watershed line and by the freshwaters supplied by the three intermittent springs – oases, really – that dot the 28 kilometer (approx. 17 mile) stretch between northern Jerusalem and Jericho, is one of the most breathtaking spots in all of Israel. The westernmost oasis is En-fara, a series of natural pools just east of the monastery. While dipping in the perennially cool fresh spring waters, have a look at the tel rising on the northern bank of the wadi. This site was identified as the village of Parah in Naĥalat Binyamin (Joshua 18:23).
Proponents of the theory that Rachel was buried in Naĥalat Binyamin believe that Parah may have also been known as Ephrath, and that the toponym “Bethlehem” (Beit-Lehem, which literally means “House of Bread”) was a common name for a central city within any particularly fertile grain-rich region. These identifications provide a solution for the sticky issue reconciling burial in Naĥalat Binyamin with the verses in Genesis that have Rachel buried “on the road to Ephrath, that was Bethlehem.”
Drive west on 437, turning right at the Hizmeh junction toward Beit-El. About a kilometer north (less than a mile), between Hizmeh and Geva-Benjamin (Adam), there’s a rocky plain with five monumental rectangular stone structures, dated to the second millennium Bce, known as Kubur Bani Israi’el. No one knows the origins of the name for certain, but those who believe Rachel was buried in Naĥalat Binyamin place her tomb there. With Fara just a few kilometers off to the east and Ramah just a kilometer off to the west (less than a mile), Rachel’s tomb here at Kubur Bani Israi’el would conform with multiple criteria: accordance with the geographical details in Genesis 35/48 as well as in I Samuel 10, and the capacity, as it were, to hear her “voice” in nearby Ramah.
Our next stop is Tel el-Ful (literally Hill of Beans), located just west of Pisgat Ze’ev and overlooking the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat. There’s not much to see of the excavations that were carried out sporadically between 1868 and 1964. Archaeologists uncovered a double-walled rectangular fortress with four corner towers, as well as some interesting smaller finds, such as a gaming board and kitchen utensils. The site underwent four different periods of settlement and destruction. The archaeological record fully accords with the various events as recorded in Tanakh, and a visit to the site demands that you come with Tanakh in hand to review those events and ponder their significance.
When you arrive, carefully make your way to the second floor of the skeleton of the monumental building on the crest of Tel el-Ful. You are now in what was intended to be a summer home for King Hussein of Jordan. He commissioned this palace in 1964 to further secure his standing on the “west bank” of what was then Jordan. His contractor managed to complete the shell of this royal residence before the Six Day War broke out and then the area fell to sovereign Israel. Cautiously pick your way around this somewhat dilapidated palace. You’ll be transported right back to 1967, when this unfinished Arab chateau built on the ruins of the colossal palace of King Saul fell into the astonished hands of the Israeli army.
This site was originally known as Gibeah, and was clearly located in Naĥalat Binyamin. The first reference to the city is in Judges 19, which recounted one of the darkest moments in our history. A Levite living in Naĥalat Ephraim (in southern Samaria, abutting the northern border of Naĥalat Binyamin) pursued his pilegesh (concubine), who had fled south, back to her ancestral home in Bethlehem (in Naĥalat Yehudah). After spending a few days with her father, the Levite started traveling north, back to his home in Ephraim, with his pilegesh restored to him. The entourage approached Jebus (later to be known as Ir David, or Jerusalem) at evening, and were wary of staying overnight in a Gentile city. Instead, the Levite led his group to nearby Gibeah of Benjamin, the site where we are currently standing. He sat down expectantly in the town square, waiting for a townsman to offer hospitality. None was forthcoming, until an Ephramite who happened to be living in Gibeah welcomed him home. The Benjamite townsmen surrounded the house and demanded that the guest be relinquished to them. The Ephramite host offered his daughter and the visiting pilegesh instead. (Does the storyline sound familiar? Think back to Sodom and Lot’s guests.) The bloodthirsty mob grabbed the pilegesh, abused her all night, and left her to die on the threshold of the Ephramite’s home. One last gory detail has been seared in the mind of every reader of Tanakh: the Levite dismembered his pilegesh’s body and sent one piece to each shevet in Israel, as if to say, “You are all guilty for allowing Shevet Binyamin to act so inhumanely.”
In response, all of Benei Yisrael banded together and insisted that Shevet Binyamin hand over the evildoers of Gibeah. When the Benjaminites refused, the nation rallied to war against them. After two crushing defeats, the national army was finally victorious and burned Gibeah to the ground. Shevet Binyamin was reduced to fewer than a thousand men, and the women were decimated. The nation vowed not to allow their daughters to marry into the tribe of Benjamin, fundamentally eradicating the shevet. Eventually realizing how tragic such an outcome would be, the Israelites captured four hundred women from Jabesh-gilead, a city in the Transjordan that had not participated in the battle against Gibeah and Benjamin, and gave those women to the small remnant of Benjaminites as wives. The sacrifice of Jabesh-gilead to salvage Shevet Binyamin was said to be rewarded some years later, bringing us to the next chapter of Gibeah’s history.
When Saul from Benjamin was anointed king by Samuel (I Samuel 10), he ruled from his home in Gibeah, which was rebuilt after its destruction so many years earlier, during the terrible civil war. The place assumed a more regal title at this point: Gibeah of Saul. Now, the people of Jabesh-gilead, blood relatives of Benjamin (as explained in the story above), were threatened by their hostile neighbors, the Ammonites (led by their appropriately named king, Nahash). They appealed desperately to King Saul down in Gibeah of Saul, who galvanized the whole of Israel to aid Jabesh-gilead by doing something highly evocative: he took a pair of oxen, dismembered them, and sent the pieces throughout the regions of all twelve shevatim, warning them that their oxen would meet the same fate, if they did not join in battle against the Ammonites to save their brethren.
With this act, the evil that once emanated from Gibeah was rectified. Once, the dismembered pieces sent throughout the land were human flesh, signifying both the moral decay of this tribe and the call for the rest of Am Yisrael to rid itself of such a depraved element from their midst. Now, the graphic symbol of dismembered flesh – issuing again from Gibeah – indicated just the opposite. In this pointed message from King Saul, the beloved hero of a rehabilitated tribe, Am Yisrael was once again charged to band together to rectify a wrong. This time, though, the threat was from an external enemy. This time, Gibeah served as the place from which justice emanated, rather than as the source of terrible violations. Benjamin came into his own, uniting the nation under his leadership. Benjamin – shevet and naĥalah –redeemed themselves.
As we stand in Hussein’s empty and permanently unfinished palace, we recall one other event that took place right here, on Tel el-Ful, ancient Gibeah of Saul. Flavius Josephus told us that as the Roman general Vespasian besieged Jerusalem in 70 CE, his infamous Legion X was camped right here, awaiting assault directives to destroy the Temple. A visit to Gibeah of Saul is an auspicious moment to ponder how enemies of Am Yisrael, whether Roman, Arab, or, most tragically, our own in-fighting, can bring upon us such terrible destruction. The seeds of redemption, though, are also to be found in this place, where an ancient king transformed his nation from a people steeped in divisiveness and enmity to a strong and united Israel, bent on promoting justice.
Glossary of Commonly Used Terms
Am Yisrael The nation of Israel descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.
Av/Avot Forefathers of the Jewish nation, specifically Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Can also refer to the progenitor of a tribe.
Benei Yisrael (lit. Sons of Israel) Refers to both the twelve sons of Jacob and the entire nation of Israel.
Em/Emahot Foremothers of the Jewish nation, specifically Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah.
Ĥevel Region or tract of land, either a broad description (“ĥevel ha-ĥof ” – the coastal region) or specific (“ĥevel Ĥoglah” – “Hoglah’s tract”).
Khirbeh Ruins of an ancient town/settlement.
Malkhut Yehudah Southern kingdom of Israel, formed in the wake of the monarchial split in Israel, ruled by the Davidic dynasty based in Jerusalem from around 930 BCE to 586 BCE. Includes tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
Malkhut Yisrael Northern Kingdom of Israel, formed in the wake of the monarchial split in Israel, ruled by various dynasties, based in Shechem and Shomron, from 930s Bce until 720s Bce. Includes a confederation of tribes, excepting Judah and Benjamin.
Mishor Tableland of Naĥalat Reuven.
Naĥalah Tribal territory. The specific region within the Land of Israel and the east side of the Jordan River allotted to the descendants of each of the twelve sons of Jacob by divine assessment.
Shefelah Judean foothills between the coastal plain and the central mountain range.
Shevet (lit. “staff ”) A tribe formed by the descendants of one of the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel.
Tanakh Acronym for Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim. The Hebrew Bible.
Tel A mound unique to the Middle East, formed by layers of occupation over thousands of years. As one society builds its city on the ruins of a previous period, the site rises and the original landscape is permanently altered.
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List of Abbreviations and Primary Sources
Rabbinic Literature and Targumim
Mekhilta
Midrash Aggadah
Midrash Rabbah:
BR – Bereishit (Genesis) Rabbah
ShR – Shemot (Exodus) Rabbah
VR – Vayikra (Leviticus) Rabbah
BaR – Bamidbar (Numbers) Rabbah
DR – Devarim (Deuteronomy) Rabbah
Esther Rabbah
Ruth Rabbah
Song of Songs Rabbah
Midrash Tannaim
Onkelos
PK – Pesikta de-Rav Kahana
PR – Pesikta Rabbati
PRE – Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer
Sifrei Numbers/Deuteronomy
Talmud (Mishnah and Gemara) – all tractates quoted are from the Babylonian Talmud, unless specified otherwise
Tan. – Tanĥuma (Vilna edition)
Tan. B. – Tanĥuma Buber
Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu
Targum Sheni
Targum Yerushalmi
Tosefta
Yerushalmi – Palestinian Talmud
Zohar
Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Literature
Jubilees
Judith
II Maccabees
Testaments of the Twelve Tribes
Early Jewish and Christian Scholars
Hippolytus – Philosophumena
Flavius Josephus – Antiquities of the Jews, Wars of the Jews
Philo – De Josepho
Tertullian – Adversus Marcion and Adversus Judaios
Medieval/Modern Compendia of Midrash
Beit HaMidrash (Jellinek)
Genesis Rabbati
Lekaĥ Tov
MHG – Midrash HaGadol
Midrash Mishlei
Midrash Talpiyot
Sefer Ha-Yashar
Midrash Shoĥer Tov (Midrash Tehillim)
YS – Yalkut Shimoni
Biblical Commentaries and Medieval/Halakhic Scholars
(Note: these works are identified either by their author or by title)
Abarbanel
Alshikh
Bekhor Shor
Hadar Zekeinim Ba’alei Ha-Tosafot
Ha-Emek Davar
Hirsch (Rabbi Samson Raphael)
Ĥizkuni
Ibn Ezra
Malbim
Metzudat David
Metzudat Tziyon
Pa’aneaĥ Razah
Rabbenu Baĥya
Radak
Ramban
Rashbam
Rashi
Saadiya Gaon
Seforno
Tzeror Ha-Mor
Vilna Gaon
Philosophy and Ĥasidut
Beit Yisrael
Benei Yisaskhar
Ramĥal
Sefat Emet
Tzidkat Ha-Tzadik
Archaeological Periods of Israel through the First Temple Era
Chalcolithic 4300–3300 BCE
Early Bronze 3300–2000 BCE
Middle Bronze (MB) 2000–1550 Bce (Caananite and Patriarchal)
Late Bronze (LB) 1550– 1250 Bce (Caananite)
Iron I 1250–1000 Bce
(Israelite Conquest, Joshua, and Judges)
Iron II 1000–586 Bce (Kings, First Temple)
Acknowledgments
This book was a joy to write. Mah ahavti Toratekha, kol hayom hi siĥati (How I do so love Your Torah, it is my constant companion). Thanks first and foremost to my husband Ira, for making Torah our constant companion, for cherishing this land along with me, and for your endless support and sunny cheer. You have always inspired me. May we merit much naĥat from each other and from our children.
The past three years of researching and writing about the shevatim has given me great insight into mothering different personalities. Ruvi, Kayla, Bat-Chen, Shalva, Tziona, and Tzvi Aryeh (Chachi): I hope that you’ve enjoyed this creative process alongside your Ema, and I thank each of you for being so caring and loving. Continue to be benei Torah and ohavei ha-Aretz. Abba and I couldn’t be prouder!
I am indebted to my rebbeim, Rabbi Matis Weinberg and Rabbi Ari Kahn, for the years of shiurim, for their invaluable sefarim, and for their sage advice. Rebbe, you have guided our family for many years, and may Ira and I be zokheh to always continue to learn Torah and menschlichkeit at your feet.
So many teachers have opened up worlds to me; I must mention Rebbetzin Nechama Frand, Professor Barry Eichler, Professor Gary Rendsberg, the late Moshe Arend, z”l, and especially Dr. Bryna Levy, whose skill in transmitting true passion for Torah is legendary for good reason. Eyal Meiron, Shai Baitner, and Era Rappaport are masterful guides who motivated me early on in my career as a tour guide to “explore all the cracks and crevices of Eretz Yisrael, but do so barefoot – for with every step you are treading on pesukim (biblical verses).”
I consider some sefarim my dearest companions; they certainly were indispensable in writing this manuscript. Firstly, R. Arye Hendler’s חן מקום and R. Matis Weinberg’s Frameworks sit lovingly on my shelf next to my Tanakh, and inspire me anew every time. The עולם התנ״ך series is timeless, as is מדריך ישראל. I thank Professor James Kugel for his significant contribution to the study of early biblical exegesis; his extremely readable The Bible as It Was has helped many students like myself deepen our appreciation for a wide variety of ancient source material. Dvir Raviv and Netanel Ellinson’s new series, המדריך למטייל בשומרון, as well as Yoel Elitzur’s recent המקום בפרשה, proved extremely useful, as you can see on these pages.
Every page of this work reflects the wisdom of my editor and friend, the exceptionally talented Batnadiv HaKarmi-Weinberg, who also contributed the frontispiece. Anne Gordon’s expert copyediting polished everything to a high sheen. I thank Chava Boylan Neustadter and Raphaël Freeman of Renana Publishers for their patience and professionalism in helping this first-timer navigate the complexities of producing a book. Thank you to the ever-gracious Michael Silverstein for preparing the maps and the overall graphic design of the book. The gorgeous artwork which graces the cover and opening page of each chapter is courtesy of Jerusalem artist Bracha Lavee.
The second edition of this book was nurtured along by my dear friend and publisher, the perpetually cheerful Mechael Pomeranz; Mechael, I hope our paths cross often, so that I may continue to learn from your gentle and genteel ways.
This edition benefited primarily from the addition of Rabbanit Shani Taragin’s foreword. Wisdom and grace compete for dominance in Shani, a ma’ayan mitgaber figure to her thousands of students worldwide. Shani, epitome of Yehudah – I am modeh to an אהבה שאינה תלויה בדבר. May your voice, in shiur or on the written page, continue to inspire multitudes.
Many thanks are due to my friends Chana Tannenbaum and Esti Herskowitz, who each read through the manuscript and offered extremely helpful feedback. Thanks as well to Elli Fischer, for help with translating a difficult passage in the Paĥad Yitzĥak; to Yair Shalev, for many insightful hours spent in conversation about the eastern Shomron; and to Shai Baitner, for sharing his expertise in Jordan.
Thank you to my dearest in-laws, Helaine and Richard Weissman, for always having my back and showering us all with so much love and support. Mostly, though, I thank you for making Ira into the man, husband, and father he is today – without him, there would be no book!
This work is dedicated to my parents, Barbara and Kenneth Lasson, who always believed in me and supported me, giving me the unconditional love that allowed me to pursue my passions. May this book give you much joy, and may you continue to have only naĥat from your children and grandchildren.
Finally, thank you to the Borei Olam, who has sustained us and brought us home, allowing us to live in this miraculous time. May Jacob’s vision be realized, in our days.
לישועתך קויתי, ה׳!