This week's Torah learning has been sponsored by Vanessa, the first person who offered to cover the costs of my Zoom account for the year. Thank you, Vanessa!
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| Artwork: DALL-E's response to the prompt, "painting in the style of Van Gogh of Noah bringing an animal sacrifice" |
Noach: Shadal’s Radical Application of Dibrah Torah ki’Lshon Bnei Adam
Parashas Bereishis features a handful of “extreme” anthropomorphisms: “Let Us make man in Our Image” (1:26), “They heard the sound of Hashem-God walking in the garden” (3:6), and “Hashem regretted having made man on earth, and He was pained to His heart” (6:6). Another example can be found in Parashas Noach. After Noach emerges from the Ark and brings burnt-offerings to Hashem, we are told that “Hashem smelled the soothing fragrance” (8:21), then declared that He would no longer curse the earth or smite all living creatures. Shadal (R’ Shmuel David Luzzatto, 1800-1865), quoting Johannes Coccejus (1603-1669), explains that this anthropomorphism “signifies a sacrifice brought to make God forget His anger.” Shadal continues:
(translated from the Italian by Dani Klein, with my own underlining for emphasis)
This expression, of course, is merely an anthropomorphism suited to the popular understanding of the generation in which the Prophet (i.e. Moshe Rabbeinu) lived (על דרך דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם לפי מצב בינת אנשי הדור שהנביא עומד בו). At this point it is well to consider that the prophet Samuel told Saul, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." [I Samuel 15:22]. From then on, we find this concept widespread in Israel; David said: – "For You delight not in sacrifice" [Psalms 51:18]; – "If I were hungry [for sacrifices], I would not tell you" [ibid. 50:12]; – "Burnt offering and sin offerings have You not required" [ibid. 40:7]. All the prophets of the Monarchic period, moreover, expatiated at length on this subject. Hence it should be clear as day that the Torah could not have been written during the Monarchic period, or from the time of Samuel onward, for the Torah speaks the language of people who were on a far lower intellectual plane than that of the Israelites of the Monarchic period (כי התורה דברה כלשון בני אדם אשר שכלם עומד במצב שפל מאוד ממצב ישראל בימי המלכים).
Before we discuss the “radical” part, let us appreciate Shadal’s main point. Shadal wrote his commentary in the wake of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), in which the Torah’s authority was challenged from all sides. Maskilim (the so-called “enlightened Jews”) claimed that the Torah was composed during the Monarchic period – specifically, during the reign of Yoshiyahu in the 7th century B.C.E. Shadal argues that if the Torah were composed during this later era, the text would evince a negative attitude towards korbanos, as we see from numerous statements made by national leaders, such as Shmuel, David, Yeshayahu, and Yirmiyahu. Shadal concludes that this positive characterization of God’s response to korbanos is a concession to the lower intellectual level of the Jews in the pre-Monarchic period, and therefore serves as evidence of the Torah’s antiquity.
It is Shadal’s opening and closing statements (underlined above) which intrigue me the most. I’m not troubled by Shadal’s assertion that the Jews in Moshe’s time were “on a far lower intellectual plane than that of the Israelites of the monarchic period.” The Jews who left Egypt had been steeped in the paganistic Egyptian culture for over two centuries. The Korban Pesach (lit. “sacrifice of skipping”) is predicated on the fact that the Jews were identical with their Egyptian masters in nearly every way and therefore needed to differentiate themselves by rejecting avodah zarah in order to merit redemption. The narratives that follow the Exodus are rife with examples of how attached Bnei Yisrael were to the Egyptian culture from whence they came. Likewise, I am not troubled by the notion that the Torah catered to the earlier generations’ attachment to korbanos. Indeed, this is the basis of the Rambam’s entire theory that korbanos as a whole are (as it were) a concession to the Jews’ attachment to the modes of worship that were ubiquitous at the time the Torah was given (see Moreh 3:32).
What I find both radical and compelling is Shadal’s application of dibrah Torah ki’lshon bnei Adam (Torah speaks in the language of man). This principle is typically invoked to explain the Torah’s use of anthropomorphisms: since it is impossible for the human intellect to have any positive knowledge of God, we are forced to speak of Him in terms which are, strictly speaking, inaccurate. Shadal takes this one step further by claiming that in some cases (at least) the Torah’s specific anthropomorphisms are tailored to the developmental level of the audience to which it was given. This methodological move has enormous implications, which I will leave the reader to consider.
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