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a fire what is more the textual proximity of the description of the tabernacle s construction to a repeated stipulation that concerns resting on the seventh day was enough to suggest that anything required for the former must be prohibited on the latter and since the preparation of dyes for the tapestries required a process of heating and stirring that effectively prohibits cooking on shabbat while one might need to be a rabbinic jew to accept the logic underlying this conclusion one certainly need not be a rabbinic jew to accept the conclusion itself in fact all available evidence would suggest that non rabbinic jews also abstained from cooking on the seventh day be it for any reason other than the most obvious one that cooking simply feels like work this is where things get a little complicated since the rabbinic predilection for casuistry has resulted in careful delineations of precisely which aspects of cooking are to be so labelled and while stirring is indeed a problem in the event that the food is already at least one third cooked and so long as it is placed upon the flame before shabbat has come in and so long as one does absolutely nothing to adjust the flame in any way to change the rate at which the food is being heated or to add anything further to it it will be possible to eat a nice hot meal for shabbat lunch understandly this is something that non rabbinic jews can simply not accept and equally understandably the decision to make cholent has come to be viewed as a powerful statement as regards one s faith in the rabbinic sages as such rabbi zerachiah halevi of gerona in his 12th century commentary to rabbi yitzhak alfasi s sefer hahalakhot declares that all those who abstain from eating cholent should check their lineage lest they turn out to be descended of sectarians no doubt he had in mind the anti rabbinic karaites who at the time that he was writing comprised some 40 of the world s jewish population and with whom the rabbis frequently engaged in heated polemics of this nature only those who do eat cholent rabbi zerachiah halevi continues are to be considered believers and it is only they who will merit to see the end of days maor haqatan shabbat 38b these statements are quoted in a number of important rabbinic texts such as sefer abudirham 177 and sefer kol bo 31 and their sentiments are adopted in several others so for example in the midst of the shulchan arukh s description of those items that may and may not be used to cover a pot the concern being whether or not they will cause it to emit steam rabbi moshe isserles a 16th century polish scholar and contemporary of the shulchan arukh interjects with a gloss ומצוה להטמין לשבת כדי שיאכל חמין בשבת כי זהו מכבוד ועונג שבת וכל מי שאינו מאמין בדברי החכמים ואוסר אכילת חמין בשבת חיישינן שמא אפיקורוס הוא we are commanded to cover hot vessels in advance of shabbat that we might eat hot food chamin on shabbat since this is a fulfillment of the twin commandments of honouring and delighting in shabbat and anyone who does not believe in the words of the sages and who forbids the consumption of hot food on shabbat is suspected of being an apikorus orach chayim 257 8 the apikorus is a curious category of person but for all practical purposes he or she is somebody who has forfeited their right to inherit the world to come msanhedrin 10 1 the suggestion that one might be suspected of being an apikorus on no stronger ground than an aversion to cholent is a powerful one but it is not the fiercest statement made in cholent s defence that dubious honour belongs to another contemporary of the shulchan arukh rabbi mordekhai yoffe one of a number of people who disliked the shulchan arukh rabbi yoffe is almost alone in having utilised his dissatisfaction with the text to produce an alternative it is known as levush malkhut and it spans ten volumes the first five of which only are devoted to an exposition of rabbinic law to properly understand the nature of this work it is important to appreciate that it effectively functions as a commentary upon another the text that serves as its foundation is the monumental arba ah turim of rabbi yaakov ben asher a 13th century german scholar who condensed all of rabbinic law into four broad categories the first of which orach chayim covers the laws of shabbat amongst other things rabbi mordekhai yoffe was far from being the only person to have authored a commentary on this magisterial work rabbi moshe isserles whom we have already mentioned wrote a commentary on the tur called darkhei moshe and rabbi yosef caro who was later to pen the shulchan arukh wrote a commentary on the tur called beit yosef the beit yosef is a vast and thoroughly comprehensive exposition of rabbinic law too vast for the average person to make good use of and more comprehensive than a text of that nature may be required to be it is a tremendous resource and encyclopedic in scope but thoroughly in need of an abridgement rabbi caro s shulchan arukh is precisely that abridgement an expurgated and abbreviated version of his beit yosef designed for easier use it was the opinion of the levush that this abridgement was a little too abbreviated and he sought to create a work of jewish law that would fall midway between the beit yosef and the shulchan arukh a commentary in other words upon the tur that would not be too encyclopedic but would neither be too casual in its presentation of the sources it is a masterful work and sadly too little studied the section that corresponds to the laws of shabbat is titled levush hachur and there in orach chayim 276 8 he concludes rather strikingly מצוה להטמין לצורך שבת כדי שיאכל בשבת מאכל חם וזהו מכבוד ועונג שבת וכל המפקפק על התמנת חמין לשבת שאינו רוצה לאכול חמין בשבת משום טעמא שנתבשל בשבת ואינו מאמין בדברי חכמים הרי זה נקרא מין ומלעיג על דברי חכמים וחייב מיתה we are commanded to cover hot vessels for the sake of shabbat that we might eat hot food on shabbat and this is a fulfillment of the twin commandments of honouring and delighting in shabbat and anybody who casts aspersions on the covering up of hot food chamin in advance of shabbat since he does not wish to eat hot food on shabbat for the reason that he considers it to be cooking on shabbat and who does not believe in the words of the sages is called a sectarian and one who scorns the words of the sages and is deserving of death one wonders what a person ought to do if he doesn t like cholent fortunately such people have long existed and it has long been noted that if the consumption of hot food is disagreeable to somebody than he is forgiven for eating cold food on shabbat that s something of a relief but strong words require strong counter words and so it is fitting that rabbi eliyahu shapira a 17th century polish scholar who authored a commentary on the levush has the following to append to rabbi mordekhai yoffe s sentiments אבל מי שכואב לו החמין ועונג שלו לאכול צונן לא יצער נפשיה באכילת חמין ומי שאין אוכל כהאי גוונא צונן עליו נאמר כסיל בחושך הולך קהלת ב יד but one who is pained by eating hot food and for whom eating cold food is enjoyable should not cause anguish to himself by eating hot food concerning somebody who under these circumstances doesn t eat cold food scripture states an idiot walks in darkness ecclesiastes 2 14 who would have known that cholent could be so polemical comments leave a comment categories all hail the sages of israel beyond narrative 16 02 2015 here recently reprinted is roger ebert s 1978 article beyond narrative the future of the feature film it is rather lengthy but thoroughly engrossing and comprises in part a highly informative review of the history of arthouse cinema within this it features a profound analysis of robert altman s three women ingmar bergman s persona and the nature of films that eschew conventional narrative much that the author has to say about the relationship between cinema and television for example needs to be taken with a grain of salt the article having been authored after all in 1978 that said several of his predictions concerning the future of mainstream cinema have been vindicated and to a great extent they remain true today comments leave a comment categories random musings charmed i m sure wizardry women and war in the book of numbers 16 02 2015 yesterday i had the pleasure of presenting my fourth paper at an aajs conference held this time at the university of new south wales i was a last minute stand in since one of the registrants had cancelled and as such i was able once more to enjoy the experience of hastily cobbling together a synopsis in time for the programme to go to print and then labouring over the construction of a paper that might both satisfy that synopsis and the general expectations of the discipline i cannot say whether or not i succeeded in the second of those two aims but i at least succeeded in the first of them my paper the title of which introduces this post was concerned with a series of narratives in the book of numbers which culminated in what might be termed a holy war against the midianites my concern with the last of those passages numbers 31 was two fold i was interested in establishing the ideological goals of the text and in considering why that story which might have featured for its enemy any number of different nations was presented as being one about the midianites in particular we know from archaeological evidence that midian came into existence at some point in the 13th century bce in the northern hejaz region of saudi arabia which is just east of the gulf of aqaba effectively where eilat is today extending both westward and southward and but a little bit south of where the moabites dwelt at the time when our story is set interactions between midianites and moabites are recorded in a few instances both negatively as in genesis 36 35 where the edomite king hadad is said to have defeated the midianites in the plains of moab and positively as when midianites and moabites unite in numbers 22 to secure the services of balaam the proximity of the midianites to the land of israel is such that we might expect them to feature in a number of texts as we find for example with the edomites moabites and ammonites and so it perhaps comes as something of a surprise that they are really only mentioned a handful of times in some instances the midianites appear as active characters within a story advancing the plot and participating in it while at others they are incidental features of a narrative part of the backdrop if you will it is midianite traders we are told who were responsible for raising joseph from the pit and selling him to a caravan of ishmaelites and it was to midian that moses fled after having murdered an egyptian taskmaster while the midianites in that former narrative play no further part in the joseph saga the midianites who feature in the subsequent text become active characters whose role in the moses story is somewhat complicated moses of course marries a midianite woman and develops a strong and positive relationship with her father he is referred to throughout the book of exodus primarily as jethro but when he reappears in the book of numbers it is as chovav we are told on several occasions that he is a midianite priest and the context in which this information is conveyed would seem to suggest that it is information favourable to him he offers moses good advice that the latter is quick to heed and joins up with the israelites for a time having heard of the wondrous things being done for them so positively is this midianite priest described that the rabbinic tradition came to look upon jethro as a convert to judaism while some scholars have hypothesised that the worship of the israelite god actually originated in midian not all references to the midianites are so favourable together with amalek they are described in judges 6ff as having oppressed israel for several years their subsequent defeat is alluded to in psalm 83 and referred to on more than one occasion by the prophet isaiah yet the most striking display of animosity towards these people is in the book of numbers and it is none other than moses himself who leads the charge numbers 22 describes midianites and moabites joining forces to secure the services of balaam a prophet for hire they approach him with amulets or charms קסמים in the hebrew these are devices used for soothsaying or sorcery the term is mentioned again in joshua s review of israelite history when describing balaam as a קוסם a sorceror it features a number of times throughout the biblical literature and it is noteworthy that it only appears positively in one instance and that is when balaam declares in numbers 23 that there is no קסם in israel such cannot be said of course for israel s neighbours who have approached balaam with קסמים in the hope that he will curse them this passage marks the last reference to midianites within the balaam cycle their subsequent omission is strange and one that josephus attempts to correct by giving the midianites a stronger part to play in his version of events it is on the basis of their absence within the rest of the balaam story that many see the reference to them at its beginning as an addition to the text designed to link it with the events described later on in the same book indeed the midianites resurface in numbers 25 in which they feature in a tale of sexual and cultic infidelity that leaves some twenty four thousand israelites dead in this passage we are told that the israelite men began to consort in a depraved manner with moabite women the verb employed here לזנות implies sexual debauchery as a result of this they then become attached to the service of a moabite deity named baal peor the relationship between sexually liaising with moabite women and becoming attached to this particular god lends itself to an interpretation of this god s worship involving a sensual component as was suggested by many earlier biblical commentators in particular suddenly an israelite man brings a midianite woman not a moabite woman into his tent we are subsequently told after both she and he have been murdered that her name was kozbi and that her father was a midianite chieftain the name kozbi of course is reminiscent of the hebrew כזב which means false or lying and which is a term associated several times in the book of ezekiel with both sorcerors and sorcery in this instance its usage harmonises with the sudden command given by god to moses that he should harrass the midianites for they have conspired against the israelites a term that denotes deception and trickery the notion that things were not really as they seem it is a fascinating feature of this narrative that the moabites who are likewise implicated in their use of magic their hiring of balaam the sexual enticing of israelite men and the worship of baal peor are now dropped from the narrative altogether the midianites who until this point have been a background...