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A: So it really seems to me that there are 2 questions here, a micro
question and a macro question. The micro question has to do with
Rivka's age and how the ancient rabbis could possibly say she
was three when she got married. The macro question, it seems to
me, has to do with how we, as modern readers of pre-modern texts,
deal with such fantastic kinds of interpretations, and how we
choose between conflicting interpretations or rabbinic statements.
Let's actually deal with the macro level first. Much of the traditional
Jewish Bible interpretation that we commonly see in commentaries
or anthologies dates from very ancient times- from the earliest
days of the Talmudic era, say around 100 - 600 C.E. Some of these
interpretations are found in the Talmud, and some are found in
separate books of midrash, or homiletic, imaginative Biblical
exegesis. What's important to note about both the Talmud and the
ancient books of midrash is that they are recordings of lots of
statements of individual rabbis, NOT attempts to be systematically
rational and linear in thinking. So you will often find things
like "Rabbi X says so and so, but Rabbi Y says so and so" - and
the two statements will completely contradict each other.
Imagine a tape recorder inside a seminar room where a bunch of
learned scholars are debating- that's what the oldest Jewish books
are like. So it's no surprise that it's confusing sometimes. They
were attempting to find the hidden significance in every word
and letter of the Bible, and show how it's all interconnected-
but they weren't doing systematic philosophy as we understand
it.
Now, the second major source of "traditional" Bible interpretations
for Jews are later commentators from the Middle Ages- the most
famous being Rashi, but you might have heard of Ramban, Ibn Ezra,
Sforno, and others. These guys knew all or most of the interpretations
and midrashim scattered around the Talmud and the midrashic books,
and they picked the ones they liked when writing a line-by-line
commentary on the Torah- so in a way, the medieval commentators
WERE trying to do something more systematic, by highlighting certain
midrashim but not others. They disagreed with each other all the
time, but again, this is Bible exegesis, and the text aren't always
clear, and all you can do is make your best case for why one reading
is better than another. In other words, it's not like halacha,
or Jewish law, where eventually one opinion may emerge as prevalent
practice.
So getting back to our specific example, the problem seems to
be in Genesis 24:16, where it says that Rivka was a "youth, very
pretty, a virgin whom no man had known." The word "na'arah," usually
means "youth," but here the verse also says she's a virgin, which
might imply the same thing. The rabbis usually pick up on any
word that seems extra or unnecessary- in this case, why does the
Torah tell us she is both a youth AND a virgin, since we can presume
a child is unmarried? So there is a midrash that "na'arah" means
she was 3. Now, that's not the only midrash, and it's a pretty
fantastic act of imagination- camels drink a lot of water and
an adult could barely do that task alone!
I think the rabbis were simply trying to make a kind of hyperbolic
point about the heroic character of our Biblical matriarchs- it's
like telling tall tales about your grandparents, in a way. We
KNOW a three year old can't water all those camels, but some rabbi
at some point in time wanted to tell his audience about the greatness
and miraculous nature of our mother Rivka- so he found an opening
in the word "na'arah," to say she was WonderChild. Other rabbis,
and most of the medieval commentators I checked out, don't repeat
or emphasize this midrash.
To sum up, the midrashic or imaginative approach to Bible interpretation
can be confusing and complex. As one Orthodox rabbis is reported
to have suggested, if you take it ALL at face value, you're not
getting what it's about, and if you take NONE of it at face value,
you still aren't getting it. What often works for me is to ask:
"what question is this text the answer to?" In our case, a clearly
fantastic midrash about Rivka being three is an answer to the
question: "what kind of amazing human beings were the Matriarchs?"
It was not an attempt to advocate child marriage, and in fact
the rabbis learn from the very same story, in verse 58, where
Rivka gives her assent to go with the servant, that a woman cannot
be forced to marry against her will.
Taking traditional texts seriously is not the same as taking them
literally- this, to me, is a crucial principle of contemporary
liberal Judaism.
Hope this helps.
NJL |
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