Who was Cain's father?

Yet another post, inspired by a Twitter conversation....

Here's R. Yochanan on BT Avoda Zara 22B:

When the serpent came unto Eve he infused filthy lust into them

Asked @Marksofla:

R' Yochanan says that the nachash had sexual relations with Chava. Is this from a medrash somewhere?

First, any non-halachic information found in the Talmud is, by definition, a medrash, so the short answer is, yes, it is a found in a midrash somewhere, and that somewhere is the Talmud itself, which discusses the illicit relationship between Eve and the snake in three places.

And where does the story of Eva and the sexy snake come from? Seemingly from an earlier idea that Cain was the product of an illicit union between Eve and a wicked angel disguised as the snake, an idea that itself appears to be very old and appears to have gotten its start with an interpretation of Genesis 4:1.

The verse reads: וְהָ֣אָדָ֔ם יָדַ֖ע אֶת־ חַוָּ֣ה אִשְׁתֹּ֑ו וַתַּ֙הַר֙ וַתֵּ֣לֶד אֶת־ קַ֔יִן וַתֹּ֕אמֶר קָנִ֥יתִי אִ֖ישׁ אֶת־ יְהוָֽה׃.

Some things are curious about this verse.

(1) Why does Eve refer to her newborn as an ish? Ish is a full grown man, not an infant.

(2) What did Eve mean when she said "I have acquired a man with YKVK (the Lord?)" 

For that matter, the whole story of Cain and Abel is puzzling. Why, for instance, did he kill his brother, and why was his sacrifice rejected?

An answer is given by Targum-Pseudo-Johnathan (dating uncertain) on the spot: And Adam knew that his wife Eve had conceived via Samael the angel of the Lord and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. He resembled the upper ones (angels), not the lower ones so she said I have acquired a man (kaniti ish) indeed (or via) an angel of the Lord.

The answer, or interpretation/drash given by TPJ seems based on the idea that ish often means angel (Cain resembled the upper ones) and on the understanding that the Torah uses ellipses (thus "via an angel of") and on a convention that the word YKVK can sometimes refer to a wicked angel (as it is understood for example in Exodus 4:24). 

TPJ solves another problem by explaining that "knew" is not being used in 4:1 in the usual biblical sense, as a euphemism for sexual relations, but literally: Adan knew that his wife had conceived via Samel

The idea that Cain was the son of a wicked angel solves the problem in Exodus 4:1, gives a reason for the rejection of the sacrifice, and also explains why Cain killed his brother (He was evil from birth, and the son of the devil, see?) This idea seems to have been in circulation at the end of the first Temple period as it pops up in a variety of places:

• First epistle of John: (first century): Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother
• TPJ 3:6: And the woman saw Samel and was afraid

Later, or at the same time, the idea seems to have developed that the snake that tempted her was actually the wicked angel in disguise: 

• Pirquei deR. Eliezer (dating unclear): The serpent came unto her and she became pregnant with Cain as it says... What did he know? That she was already pregnant from someone else.
• Apocalypse of Moses (first century) The devil answered me through the mouth of the serpent
• 3 Baruch (first century)(probably) Satanel, when he dressed himself as the serpent
• Macabbes 4 (between first century BCE and first century CE) "I was a pure virgin and did not go outside my father's house; but I guarded the rib from which woman was made. No seducer corrupted me on a desert plain, nor did the destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity.

All of the sources above are older than BT Avoda Zara, by the way.

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Search for more information about demon snakes  at 4torah.com.

A strange Roman ritual, and two interpretations of it

On BT Avoda Zara 11b, Rav Yehudah b. Ezekiel (d 299) provides a description of a Roman ritual which he attributes to his teacher Shmuel (d 250)

Said Rab Judah in the name of Samuel: They have yet another festival in Rome [which occurs] once every seventy years. Then a healthy man is brought and made to ride on a lame man; he is dressed in the attire of Adam, on his head is placed the scalp of R. Ishmael, and on his neck are hung pieces of fine gold to the weight of four zuzim, the market places [through which these pass] are paved with onyx stones, and the proclamation is made before him: 'The reckoning of the ruler is wrong. The brother of our lord, the impostor! Let him who will see it see it; he who will not see it now will never see it. Of what avail is the treason to the traitor or deceit to the deceiver!'; and they concluded thus: Woe unto the one when the other will arise [Soncino translation]

According to Rashi, the ritual is a Jacob and Esav pageant. Soncino summarizes Rashi's view:

Jacob, representing the Jews, here impersonated by the lame man (Gen. XXXII, 32 and he halted upon his thigh); and to Esau, representing Rome, impersonated by the healthy man; The reckoning which is pronounced as wrong alludes Jacob's prediction as to what would happen to his descendants at the end of days (Gen. XLIX, 1) the treason being an allusion to Jacob's deceitful gaining of the paternal blessing which was intended for Esau, and the concluding threat is a warning to Israel for whom the rising of Rome would be fraught with trouble

In short, Rashi seems to beleive that Rome created a ceremony in which various Rabbinic teachings are expressly rebuked. The problem is we don't have any reason to assume that Rome accepted Rabbinic teachings. The idea that Esav = Rome, for example, is nowhere found in scripture. Its an interpretation, propagated by the Rabbis after Rome ascended; prior to the rise of Rome, Esav was identified with Edom.  It's also hard to understand why Rome would go to the bother of establishing a ritual designed specifically to rebuke this teaching. What would such a ritual accomplish? Why go to the trouble of putting on such a show, unless you shared the perspective of the Rabbis, which Rome certainly did not?

A better answer (no offense to Rashi) is provided by Soncino:

Quite a different interpretation is offered by Rapaport ('Erek Millin s.v. [H]). According to him, Samuel here presents an account which reached him of one of the Ludi Saeculares, the spectacular carnivals and pompous pageants, of which altogether ten are known to Roman history. This one must have been arranged by the Roman Emperor Philippus, about 247 C.E., who introduced into the pageant the spectacle of a halting dancer ridden upon by a strong man. This was intended to satyrise and discredit P's rival, Decius, who pretended to be a friend and 'brother' of the Emperor, yet had accepted the crown which P. fondly hoped would be handed to his own son. The lame dancer with a larva, or kind of mask, tied at his neck (described by the Rabbi as R. Ishmael's scalp), thus impersonated Decius the treacherous 'ruler' whose plans and plottings are declared as wrong. The rider was impersonating Philippus. When he (or his son) rises woe betide his rival. The exclamation 'Let him who will see it etc.' alludes to the festivity which occurs but once in a lifetime. The fact that Samuel lived till 3 or 13 years after the date of this Game lends added feasibility to this interpretation.

This is a much better explanation of Samuel's words, but its not without problems. First, Samuel assumes that the larva was actually R. Ishmael's scalp (apparently the Rabbis thought Rome kept it as a souvenir after murdering him); second  he imagines one of the men was dressed in the "attire of Adam."  According to Rapaport's reading, Samuel was wrong on both counts. Can we say such a thing? Yes, I think, we can. Samuel's interpretation of the Roman event does not have the status of Torah She Ba'al Peh. We can't say that he received his description or interpretation of the ritual as part of an unbroken chain stretching back to Sinai, as the revelation occurred over a thousand years before the event in Rome. We can also rely on the teaching of Shmuel Hanagid (d 1050) who said that the non-halachic parts of the Torah are not binding on us, and that we're free to disregard or accept them as we see fit. (a view shared by many) Therefore it strikes me as perfectly okay to say that Samuel was wrong when he misidentified the larva as R. Ishmael's scalp; likewise, its valid to suggest that Rashi was mistaken when he interpreted the ceremony as having to do with Jacob and Esav.

What do you think?

Aside: Last night I had a whole long discussion with @unclechaim and others about this on Twitter in which I erroneously attributed Rashi's explanation to Samuel. As you can see from the cite, Samuel never claimed that the ritual had anything to do with Jacob or Esav.

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Search for more information about Rome at 4torah.com.

ArtScroll and Talmudic Medicine

Noah Roth sends in this great example of ArtScroll tying itself into pious knots. The excerpt is from Artscroll Avoda Zara 28A, note 31. All caps added by Noah Roth for emphasis:

Local Kabbala Cult?

Cross-posted at A Mother in Israel.

"So who is moving into Kiryat Matalon as the older people die out?" I ask the woman I met in the park (let's call her P). P has just explained that Kiryat Matalon, her upscale neighborhood at the western entrance of Petach Tikvah, no longer has enough kids to justify its own elementary school.

"The private houses are expensive," P answers. "So the survivors divide them up into rental units. Do you know that storefront on Jabotinsky Street, Kabbalah La'am? The members of that group snatch up all the available rentals."

"Really?" Whenever I go by the place seems deserted.

"Yes. If you go out at 3am, you see thousands of men headed there, from my neighborhood, Tel Aviv, and other cities. Many are celebrities—singers, models. . . ."

This conversation is starting to ring a bell. A year or two ago I saw a response by Rav Aviner to a question about learning kabbalah, warning the writer about kabbalah cults. His reponse included a former member's testimony, which appears here. If the testimony is accurate Kabbalah La'am, also known as Bnei Baruch, has all the characteristics of a cult: late-night brainwashing, a charismatic leader, large charitable "contributions," gradual initiation into an inner circle, secrecy, and ostracism of members who leave.

From the outside it seems to resemble Orthodox Judaism. The page I linked to mentions Shabbat, kashrut, niddah, modest dress for women, and kippot for men. On Sukkot and Pesach they hold huge festivals with large numbers of overseas visitors.

Nana10 has an interview with other former members of Bnei Baruch. One couple was attracted to it because, unlike others offering Jewish studies, the group didn't object to her Italian-born husband's non-Jewish status.

Men are allowed to spend only fifteen minutes a day with their families. When a husband mentioned that his wife objected, his comrades told him to divorce her and get a new wife. They said "It's like switching one cow for another."

The woman in the park added more details, which I have no way of verifying. The newspaper article (from 2005) mentions an emphasis on skirts for women. The women in P's neighborhood wear skirts or pants, and married women cover their hair. They stay with the kids all day through the evening; P doesn't see fathers with the children. The men volunteer or study at the center during the evenings, and again from 3-6 AM. During Pesach and Sukkot, the men don't see their wives at all. The women and children attend meals on Shabbat but eat separately.

Once P noticed some of the women eating on Yom Kippur. When questioned the women told her that the Jewish Torah is "shtuyot (nonsense)." They explained that they follow the kabbalah, and come from a lost tribe that had left Egypt with the Jews but never made it to Eretz Yisrael. P claims that the kabbalah center houses scrolls that look like a sefer Torah but contain a different text.

One woman from the group noticed that P's daughter is overweight. She looked intently at P and said, "There's nothing wrong with your daughter. It's you. You have a sickness." Still, all in all, P. says that the influx of young couples is good for the neighborhood. The kids attend their own school in a different city, but enroll in local preschools and afterschool activities.

Leader Michael Leitman responded to the claims in the Nana article saying, "We take a 10% tithe like every community synagogue in Bnei Brak." This is disingenuous. Jewish sources recommend donating at least ten percent of income to charity, but no one expects the shul to get all of it. Former group members report that real numbers are closer to 20%.

Blogger Hezi Amiel writes that the kabbalah center has a sophisticated web presence and high ranking in search engines, making it difficult for potential members to find information critical of the group.

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The Wisdom of Kabbalah

Our illustrious host would probably say that's a contradiction of terms, but since he's away...

G-d's supreme unity is the foundation of faith and the root of wisdom...the entire Wisdom of Truth, Chachmat HaEmet, the Kabbalah, comes only to demonstrate the truth of Emunah (faith). It comes to explain how all the created realms and beings and everything that happens in the universe all emerge from the Supreme Will (HaRatzon HaElyon). It shows how everything is governed...by the One G-d...

The component details of this wisdom provide detailed understand of all the laws and processes by which the universe is governed... G-d alone makes and does all this, and He governs everything. The purpose of this wisdom is to explain the ways in which He acts to make and govern the creation.

A chassidic Rebbe spouting off to prove that his blabberings are meaningful? Nope, the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Opening 1 of Klach Pitchey Chochma.

DB has argued in the past from the Rambam, that Hashgacha Pratit, divine providence, applies only to the actions of man. The Baal Shem Tov states that even the landing of a leaf to shade a worm is actions of divine providence. Clearly the Ramchal, author of the Mesilas Yesharim, would not accept a position of random actions in the world. Do you?

...Another fine kosher article brought to you by Akiva of Mystical Paths.