Sermons from a Southern Rabbi

Isbell

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781498275521
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Every Shabbat in synagogues around the world and across America, sermons from the local rabbi are an important component of worship. This book brings together thirty-five sermons preached to the congregation of a typical small southern city, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Included are several sermons based upon the weekly parashah (assigned biblical portion from the Pentateuch), a series of messages brought during the high holy days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) of 2007, three funeral sermons, a special Yom ha-Sho'ah (Holocaust-memorial) address, and a short talk about freedom, given on July 4, 2008. Each message represents the author's attempt to link the concerns of the modern world back to the classical, biblical roots of the Jewish faith, thereby invoking the principles of biblical faith to serve as guidelines in the twenty-first century.

1

Can We Really Blame Eve?

Genesis 2:4a—3:24

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:4a—3:24) has formed the basis for numerous Jewish and Christian theological positions. Ideas about human mortality, sexuality, male-female relationships, sin and temptation, and even the identification of the serpent with the later figure of Satan have all been traced back, appropriately or not, at least partially to this narrative.

The best-known interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden comes from the pseudo-Pauline New Testament epistle of First Timothy: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (2:14). The ideological bias of the author becomes clear from the fact that this statement, presented as undeniable fact, provides justification for his confidence not only that he knows how women should dress, fix their hair, and wear jewelry (2:9), but also that they should “receive instruction with total submission” (2:11). In addition, the anonymous author avers, “I do not allow a woman to teach or hold a position of authority over a male, but rather to remain silent” (2:12). In fact, because Eve (and not Adam!) was at fault in the garden, the only hope of salvation for all females must be that they bear children and keep a good attitude about it (2:15).

Granted that this passage in First Timothy taxes the idea of Eve’s responsibility rather melodramatically, it is important to note that the writer was not expressing an original idea in offering his own personal spin on the Genesis narrative. Among Jewish authorities, the second-century BCE teacher ben Sira had earlier stated the matter equally unequivocally: “The beginning of sin was from a woman, and because of her, we all die” (Ecclesiasticus 25:24), and a similar sentiment is echoed by several other Jewish teachers of that day.

A cursory reading of the Genesis text appears at first blush to support this position. In the narrative, clearly Eve was the first to partake of the forbidden fruit, and just as clearly, she was the one who gave it to Adam after she herself had eaten (Gen 3:6). What is more, while the text portrays Eve as having disobeyed God, the chief failing of Adam appears to be that he had “listened to the voice of [his] wife” (3:17). What is more, the narrative portrays Adam himself as the first male to blame a female for his own disobedience, and notes that he even went so far as to indict God for having given him Eve in the first place (3:12). Little wonder, then, that early interpreters placed the blame on Eve. They were not blaming Eve, the Bible itself was!

But there is another aspect to the biblical story as well as to its subsequent interpretation. A closer reading of the text reveals that throughout their conversation (Gen 3:1–5), both the serpent and Eve consistently employed the plural:

[The serpent] said: “Did God really say, ‘you (pl.) may not eat from any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said, “We may eat the produce of the garden trees, but concerning the produce of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘you (pl.) may not partake of it, and you (pl.) may not touch it, lest you (pl.) die’.” So the serpent said to the woman, “You (pl.) will not really die. But God knows that on the day you (pl.) partake of it, your (pl.) eyes will be opened, and you (pl.) will become divine, knowing (pl. participle) everything.”

It is thus obvious that throughout the entire exchange between the serpent and his wife, Adam was close at hand. And this point is underscored not only by the plural forms in the text assuming him to be within earshot, but also by the fact that when Eve wished to share with Adam the taste of the new fruit she had just eaten, she did not need to act as a temptress, and faced no objections from him that had to be overcome. Nor did she have to search for him. She simply “gave some to her husband who was with her” (‘immah), i.e., who had been standing mute beside her all along. In other words, far from being led astray by Eve, Adam heard and fell victim to the same argument that confused her.

But the biblical text may implicate Adam in a more serious fashion. Interpreters have often noted that the original commandment of God to Adam did not include a prohibition against touching the tree, and then have jumped to the conclusion that this more stringent element of the divine prohibition was added gratuitously by Eve. As a result, Eve appears to have been either confused or willfully resistant to the divine instructions. Yet when God gave the prohibition to Adam (Gen 2:16–17), Eve had not yet been created! It is not until Genesis 2:22 that “YHWH ’Elohim formed into a woman the rib that He had extracted from the man.” Thus whatever information Eve had about the forbidden tree could not have come directly from God, but must have come from Adam’s repetition to her of what God had said to him earlier, well before her arrival. In short, since everything Eve knew about the matter had been relayed to her by Adam, apparently the one who was confused or willfully resistant was not the woman but the man.

This idea was noted as early as the era of the Tanna’im (ca. 100 BCE—220 CE). In a third-century commentary on the mishnaic tractate ’Avot, the following statement occurs: “Adam did not choose to tell the words of God to Eve accurately, as they had been spoken [to him]” (’Avot de Rabbi Nathan, Chapter 1). In other words, Adam’s willfully false information had left Eve ill-prepared to comprehend the divine decree and thus unable to handle the arguments of the tempter. This explains, according to Rabbi Nathan, how Eve’s lack of understanding allowed the serpent to touch the tree with Eve watching, and convince her that since mere touching of the tree did not produce death, perhaps everything else told to her by her husband had also been incorrect.

Recent modern scholarship has often sought to alert readers of the Bible to the male orientation that colors numerous texts, and not a few scholars have sought to highlight interpretative possibilities that are more sensitive to the concerns and perspectives of female characters. While it is impossible to rewrite the Bible to make it appear more egalitarian than was in fact the case, it is nonetheless important to take seriously the clues contained in narratives like the one under consideration, especially when they show a more balanced view of the male-female orientation than has been commonly supposed. In other words, while we cannot deny that many post-biblical interpreters depicted Eve harshly as the sole cause of sin and death in the world, such depictions cannot be laid uncritically at the feet of the biblical narrative itself. To be sure, Eve disobeyed and then blamed the snake, and the picture we are given of her is not very flattering. But Adam was right there with her all along, strangely detached from the whole affair, weak to the point of whining not only about his wife but about God, and deserving of his punishment every bit as much as were the guilty serpent and Eve.

So we are brought to a salient point about the history of the interpretation of the narrative. While some early interpreters indeed blamed Eve, as we have said, others laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of Adam. And sometimes the same interpreter held both opinions! Thus Philo, cited above as blaming Eve, also accuses Adam: “Abandoning immortality and a life of happiness, you crossed over to death and unhappiness” (Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:45). A late first-century pseudepigraphal work notes that God established only a single prohibition for Adam, “but he violated it” (4 Ezra 3:7). Another late first century author agreed, stating simply that, “Adam sinned” (2 Baruch 17:2). And even the sometimes misogynous Paul noted that, “. . . sin came into the world via one man” (Romans 5:12).

These opinions should not be taken to mean that Adam rather than Eve ought to be blamed for the first sin. What should be clear is that the biblical story implicates them both, and a fair reading of the text indicates dual culpability to be shared equally between the man and the woman. At the same time, careful interpretation demands that we abandon two equally erroneous stereotypes. The female was not confused, weak, easily misled, or an evil temptress, nor was the male in the story stronger, wiser, braver, or protective of his wife. In the end, the narrative is about human beings, male and female, both genders of which fail their initial test and both of whom endure harsh punishment from God as a consequence.

Once we read the story without prejudgment, its message hammers home one single point about which there can be no disagreement. Each of us, male or female, has the freedom to choose what we will do in response to the commandments of the Torah. Finding someone else to blame makes us no better than Adam or Eve, and leaves us, as they found themselves, alienated from the great Giver of the commandments. Only by accepting responsibility for our own actions can we heal the breach that separates us so often from God and from each other.

2

The Ulster Project

July 18, 2008

During a long and especially cold winter a few years ago, a young couple living in Canada decided they needed a break. So they boarded a plane for Lake Charles in the middle of January, landing at noon time, hungry from the long flight and anxious to experience Louisiana cuisine. I happened to be eating in the restaurant they chose, and saw them enter. What a sight they made. The temperature at the time of their departure had been below zero, so they were still wearing parkas, gloves, ski masks, hats, and huge snow boots in the sixty degree air of Lake Charles.

A young married couple seated at the table next to me also noticed them, and I heard the wife instruct her husband. “Go over and find out where they are from.”

Dutifully the young husband arose and approached the table of the Canadians, flashing his friendliest smile. “Where are you folks from?” he asked.

Flashing his own bright smile back at the American, the Canadian husband answered: “Sasketoon, Saskatchewan.”

The American husband looked confused, paused, and said simply, “Oh,” before returning to join his wife.

“Well,” she asked, “Where are they from?”

“I don’t know,” the man responded. “They don’t speak English.”

I have always found it interesting that people who speak the same language and read the same Bible seem to have such a difficult time agreeing. Tonight, I want to look at one particular example of that phenomenon. I believe that the creation stories in Genesis, a book that Jews, Catholics, and Protestants all deem sacred, begin with a concept that holds the key to peace in our modern world. And it is such a simple concept that all readers should have no trouble grasping it, unless, of course, they are from Sasketoon, Saskatchewan.

Taken at face value, it is clear that Genesis portrays an all-powerful sovereign deity who brings the entire universe into orderly existence in a mere 144 hours—six short days. What is more, adding up the numbers scattered throughout the pages of Scripture produces the conclusion that our universe is only slightly more than 6,000 years old. But almost no one is satisfied with the childlike simplicity of the ancient author, and reactions to the story are quite varied, depending upon the presuppositions that each individual brings to it as he reads.

Hard headed scientists, supposing themselves to be guided by objective principles, dismiss the simple story with a wave of the hand. Ancient fossil records, intricate skeletal designs, the impossibility of photosynthesis before the creation of light, and a myriad of other scientific “facts” provide adequate justification for laughing Genesis out of court without a second thought.

On the other extreme, many well-meaning believers read the Genesis story of creation convinced they can prove it to be scientifically accurate even if it means playing fast and loose with the story itself. A “day” magically becomes a geological era, physical evidence is deemed to have been created at an advanced stage of development, and physiological similarities among disparate species might have been created by God in an effort to fool the scientists. The results of such analysis, of which they were convinced before ever opening the pages of Genesis itself, confirm for them that “the Bible is true.”

Thus it is that adherents come to Genesis from wildly different starting points, find in it their own preconceived points of view, and issue forth high-sounding words like creationism, evolution, or, that mother of all goofy science, “intelligent design.” In a word, although they appear to be speaking the same language, proponents of all sides often sound like they come from Sasketoon, Saskatchewan, and it is impossible for them...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Glossary
• Chapter 1: Can We Really Blame Eve?
• Chapter 2: The Ulster Project
• Chapter 3: Noah, the Flood, and the Tower
• Chapter 4: Life at the Crossroads
• Chapter 5: Betrayal
• Chapter 6: The Really Important People in Egypt
• Chapter 7: The New God on the Block
• Chapter 8: Talking Sense to the Pharaoh
• Chapter 9: Not One Hoof Left Behind
• Chapter 10: What Have You Done This Time?
• Chapter 11: A Meddling Father-in-Law
• Chapter 12: Rules to Live By
• Chapter 13: Where Is God’s House?
• Chapter 14: The Spiritual Dimension of Beauty
• Chapter 15: Let’s Get Clean!
• Chapter 16: When Is Enough Enough?
• Chapter 17: Where Do We Go Now?
• Chapter 18: What Do We Do Now?
• Chapter 19: What It Means to Be a Jew
• Chapter 20: The Jewish View of Capital Punishment
• Chapter 21: Introducing Deuteronomy
• Chapter 22: The Secret to Success
• Chapter 23: Leadership
• Chapter 24: Rosh ha-Shanah Evening Service
• Chapter 25: Rosh ha-Shanah Morning Service
• Chapter 26: Shabbat Shuvah
• Chapter 27: Yom Kippur Evening Service—Kol Nidrei
• Chapter 28: Yom Kippur Morning Service
• Chapter 29: Yom Kippur Afternoon Service
• Chapter 30: Ran Mesika Memorial Service
• Chapter 31: Maurice Kleinman
• Chapter 32: Deborah and Francine
• Chapter 33: Hanukkah: 2007?—Bah Humbug!
• Chapter 34: Independence, Americans, and Jews
• Chapter 35: Can These Bones Live?