Chayei Sarah: The Pshat of “Place Your Hand Under My Thigh”

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Artwork: DALL-E's response to the prompt: "abstract oil painting of Biblical Abraham sitting on his servant's hand" 

Chayei Sarah: The Pshat of “Place Your Hand Under My Thigh”

When Avraham Avinu charges Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchak, he begins by saying: “Place now your hand under my thigh, and I will have you swear by Hashem, God of heaven and God of earth, that you not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites” (Bereishis 24:2). Similarly, when Yaakov is about to die, he tells Yosef: “Please – if I have found favor in your eyes, please place your hand under my thigh and do kindness and truth with me – please do not bury me in Egypt” (ibid. 47:29). The question is: What is the significance of this gesture?

Rashi (ibid. 24:2), citing Chazal’s drashah (Midrash Rabbah ibid.), maintains that “place your hand under my thigh” means “grab hold of the place of my bris milah.” He explains: “one who swears an oath needs to take a mitzvah object in hand, such as a Torah scroll or tefillin, and milah was the first mitzvah for [Avraham], and came to him through pain, and was beloved to him.” According to Rashi, the conduct of Avraham and Yaakov serves as a precedent for the halachic requirement to hold a mitzvah object when making certain types of oaths (see Talmud Bavli Shavuos 38b and Rashi’s commentary there). Rashi does not qualify his comments, nor does he cite any alternative views.

The majority of other Rishonim either oppose or qualify Rashi’s interpretation. The leader of the opposition is Ibn Ezra (Bereishis 24:2) who objects to the notion that Avraham swore by milah, and then offers his own take:

[The Sages] said that [the phrase “place your hand under my thigh”] refers to milah, but if this were so, he would have sworn by his milah and not by Hashem. The more likely explanation to me is that it was customary in those days for a person to place his hand under the thigh of the person who had mastery over him, meaning: “If you are under my dominion, place your hand under my thigh,” and the master would sit on the hand, [as if the servant were] saying: “Behold! My hand is under your dominion to do your will.” This custom is still followed in India today.

Ibn Ezra’s view is cited and endorsed by a number of other Rishonim, including Rashbam (ibid.), Bechor Shor (ibid.), Radak (ibid.), Chizkuni (ibid.), Rabbeinu Bachya (ibid.), Tur (peirush ha’aroch ibid.), Ralbag (ibid.), and Ibn Kaspi (ibid.). Other major commentators highlight the difficulties with Rashi. Abravanel (ibid. question #4) rejects Rashi’s approach as “extremely improbable, for a person cannot take an oath on any mitzvah [object,] like maakeh, sukkah, or lulav, and especially not on milah, which would be disgraceful.” The Rosh (Shavuos 6:1) finds the plain reading of Chazal’s drashah to be so halachically problematic that he relegates it to a mere asmachta (textual allusion) rather than a legitimate halachic source – unlike Rashi, who takes the drashah at its halachic face value.

In sum, Rashi is the minority position among the mainstream commentators who comment on this pasuk. Even those who cite both opinions characterize Rashi’s as “the midrashic approach” and Ibn Ezra’s as “pshat.”

I do not find this to be problematic. However, there are those who find this conclusion to be deeply troublesome. A number of prominent rabbis, among them the Roshei Yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha (of Lakewood, NJ), have recently signed a ban on a popular edition of Chumash entitled Pshuto shel Mikra (LNN, 11/15/22). The ban alleges (among other things) that this Chumash constitutes “a stumbling block for the masses” because it presents other traditional commentaries as pshat instead of regarding Rashi as the definitive pshat.

My thoughts on this ban cannot be shared in the space of a 1-page article. Moreover, as of this morning, I have only read 24 pages of the 76-page Kuntress Vayivinu ba’Mikra which explicates the many reasons for the ban. Suffice it to say, as someone who favors the non-Rashi pshat commentators among the Rishonim, I am as disturbed by this ban as its promulgators are disturbed by the Chumash Pshuto shel Mikra. I can’t help but wonder what all the Rishonim cited above would say about this treatment of their Torah.

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