Today's Twitter Torah: Chanuka and Unicorns

This morning a Twitter conversation about lighting Chanuka candles developed into a discussion of the agadic view of unicorns. A quick summary (all paraphrased):

@hsabomilner: If my husband is lighting candles in a different city, in his own house, am I covered? Or do I light candles in my own house? And what about the brocha?

Almost everyone said yes, light the candles and say a blessing. (My own view was "who cares?" If you want to light, light; if not, don't.) I say "almost" everyone, because @noahroth took the view that she's not supposed to light because both houses are part of her husband's halachic domain, and his lighting in one houses covers both. According to @noahroth only one person (the husband, naturally) lights per house/halachic domain.

A discussion about @noahroth's approach to halacha ensued, as his answer does not take into account the view of ashkenazi psak halacha, which says the mitzvah is made more beautiful if as many people as possible in each house light candles. @tikun_olam_ asked him to explain how @hsabomilner's own personal house, where she pays rent, could be part of someone else's domain. @noahroth answered,but torts and domains bore me, so I didn't really follow it. I got the sense his reply irritated some of the women, however.

I started paying attention again when @noahroth said that if @hsabomilner is going to bless the candles, she might as well say a blessing on a unicorn. (From his perspective neither are legitimate blessings) I responded that there is a blessing on unicorns (meshaneh es habriyos) and anyway, the aggada says they are real. Using notes, I quickly provided several sources:

[The] lxx translates re'em as unicorn. JT shabos says tachash has one horn. BT chulin says keresh has one horn. koheles raba says keresh has one horn midrash tanchuma says tachash has one horn. 

@IsraeliMom objected that unicorns are similar to horses, which are not kosher. I replied that the unicorn that Jewish lore seems to presume existed was more like a goat. @judahe said that according to Slifkin, the giraffe   fits the midrashim. I replied that, in my view, the giraffe answer is apologia, as there's no question chazal were thinking of a one horned animal. I supplied the quote from the Talmud:  BT Chulin 59b vkeresh af al pi she ain lo ela keren achas mutar. [The Keresh, even though it has one horn, is permitted [i.e. as food] Rashi: daled yud yud nun (old french) [Can anyone translate that?]

... and on and on it goes.  Our name for this new type of Torah study? How about Bet Twitrash (I think @hsabomilner coined that, but I can't locate the Tweet. Was it her?)

Regarding the Canon, Maccabees, History and Twitter

Yesterday, I introduced some Twitter friends to the possibility that Chanuka is an 8-day celebration because the Hashmonaim modeled their original holiday on Sukkos. This, I pointed out*, is attested to in the Book of Maccabees II 1:8 where we find a quote from a letter sent by the Hashmonaim to other Jews in which they introduce a new holiday called "Sukot b'Kislev":

And now celebrate ye the days of Scenopegia [i.e. Sukos] in the month of Casleu [i.e. Kislev.]

In Maccabees II 10:6-9 an explanation for this designation is provided. After retaking Jerusalem and the temple...:

...they kept eight days with joy, after the manner of the feast of the tabernacles, remembering that not long before they had kept the feast of the tabernacles when they were in the mountains, and in dens like wild beasts. Therefore they now, carried boughs, and green branches, and palms [i.e. lulavim]  for Him that had given them good success in cleansing his place. And they ordained by a common statute, and decree, that all the nation of the Jews should keep those days every year

Today, some friends (notably @mottel) have raised an objection, saying (paraphrased): Maysvai @motel: "Can we rely on Maccabees as a source? Its not in the canon"

I confess to not understanding the objection. Here's how I replied:

I don't understand your [objection's] premise. [The f]act that its not [in the] canon doesn't mean [that] it's lies. [Even the] Torah(!) cites non canon books. (I refer here to the Book of the Wars of the Lord which is a non-canonical book quoted by God in Numbers.) 

I continued:

[The T]almud also cites non-canon books. (Here I have in mind Ben Sira,a non canonical book, beloved by the Rabbis, and thought by scholars to have provided the vocabulary and framework for the Amidah, along with several now-popular aggadic ideas) [The] Aggada [is also to some extent] based on non-canon books. [Jubilees is perhaps the best example but there are dozens of others, including the Testament of Job discussed last week] who says history must come from canon?

This line of argument was picked up by @slerner who said: ...even if [the apocrypha books were] not [written with] ruach hakodesh, [they] can still be historically accurate.

Of course, I think he's right. Points in Macabees favor are that it was written within 100 years of the events it describes, and though the Sages later elected to exclude it from the canon, I'm not aware of any reason they may have provided. Perhaps the objection, simply, was that it was written too close to their own time?  Or perhaps there was no "objection." As S. says on the thread, "Who says it was ever intended to be canonical Scripture? Was Megillas Taanis also excluded?"

Macabees (I mean Chapters 1 and 2; 3 and 4 belong to other eras, and describe other events) was written by a/ believing Jew/s, who was/were attempting to accurately describe a historical event. What principle requires us to dismiss his/their account out of hand? What rule renders their own account of their own history invalid?

(Remember, this isn't a question of theology, where the judgment of the Sages is paramount. This is about history, a discipline in which the Sages confessed no expertise. Additionally, we have Rishonim who expressly give us permission to ignore the Sage's history. All this considered, what exactly do we lose if we choose to  consider the information provided in Maccabees, and admit that it seems like quite a good explanation for the length of the holiday?)

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*And let's do our part to bring the geulah by remembering that I first heard about the Sukkos/Chanukah connection from Mis-nagid.

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Search for more information about Twitter Torah at 4torah.com.

Pshat in Twitter

This morning, the following Tweet appeared on my screen (1):

Got a hitch w/ a kipah sruga guy. When I got in, he said "the price for the ride is a vort on this week's parsha". #onlyinisrael

In attempting to interpret this Tweet, a distinction must be made between what the author intended, and what he actually said. I'm glad to stipulate that nothing nasty was intended, and I'll further stipulate that the author is a fine guy, who loves all Jews, equally, regardless of sect. However, I hold that once an idea is reduced to writing, the words speak for themselves, and the intention (or, to be precise, your best guess at the intention) becomes irrelevant (2). From the perspective of interpretation, it doesn't matter one bit what the writer thought he was doing because this is unknowable. We look only at what he did, ie, the words on the page.

With this in mind,  I have two related observations to make about the Tweet cited above.

First, I wonder why the author thought the style of kippa was noteworthy and submit that it suggests surprise that a "kippa sruga guy" cared about parsha. Second, why "only in Israel?" I'd expect similar conversations almost anywhere. Based on the words alone, I think its fair to say that the writer is claiming a "kippa sruga guy" cares about parsha "only in Israel." Don't believe me? Imagine the Tweet had said instead "Got a hitch with a blond woman, When I got in she said the price for the ride is a Calculus lesson. #onlyatharvard." How's this different? In the blond women Tweet, I think we can agree a claim is being made about their intelligence. Isn't a similar claim being made about "kippa sruga guys" in the original Tweet? Why, or why not?

Objections I will not accept
- Stop being so PC. There's nothing PC about this post. I'm not interested in protecting the feelings of "kippa srugah guys." I'm interested in understanding this Tweet on its own terms and making a point about interpretation.
- Its Twitter! He only has 140 characters! So what? A writer is still responsible for what he says.
- I know the writer! He's a great guy. See the initial stipulation, and remember I'm not interested in guessing what he intended. My crystal ball is in the shop. All I wish to do is examine what he wrote.
- Why can't you judge people favorably? I did judge the writer favorable. Again, see the initial stipulation. However, a writer can't put words on paper and then disown their logical interpretations.
- This is such a stupid non-issue. I may agree, but by attempting to end the discussion with this complaint you're engaging in the Sanctimony Fallacy.

NOTES
(1) I don't name the author because I don't wish for his identity to influence your reading.

(2) I think attempting to divine an author's intention is an exercise in futility, and often a rude distraction. Any writer worth a grain of salt can mimic various voices and moods, and often does so for effect or other rhetorical purposes. A reader, therefore, has no justification in making any deductions about a writer's agenda, psychology, or mood, and usually these deductions reflect the reader's own biases, or what he expects to see, and not what has actually been said. All a reader can do with any certainty is explain what the reader has done. (a) A reader can't, with any justification, say why it was done unless the writer supplies the information himself (b).

(a) ie: I think the tweet makes a claim about people who wear kippot srugot; I have no idea at all what the writer really and truly thinks about people who wear kippit srugot, and no attempts to guess have been made.
(b) In my own career, readers guilty of this error have come to any number of ludicrous conclusions about me (My favorite: "DovBear has no friends, or family. He's just a lonely old grump.") These types of conclusions about me are a product of the reader's arrogance, and indicate a preference for assigning motives over accepting with humility that knowledge is often incomplete.

Retraction and apology

A Guest Post by Rafi G

In a conversation in Twitter yesterday I asked DovBear a rude question, making an assumption about his understanding of how we relate to midrashim.

I hereby publicly, not just on Twitter, apologize to Dovbear for that. I retract my question, considering it was based on a misunderstanding of DBs position, and I apologize for the implication in the question.

It got pretty heated, and if you are not following @dovbear and @gldmeier on twitter (among many other great tweeters in our regular conversations), you have been missing some great conversations...

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