Naso (5764)

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Hermeneutical Principles by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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With God’s help

Mida Tova — Friday eve of Parashat Naso, 5765

Questions

1. What is the dispute over whether the particle et is expounded or not?
2. Is reverence for Torah scholars an extension of reverence for God, or an independent commandment?
3. What does it mean that the Nazirite brings himself to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting?
4. Must the word from which an inclusive derivation is drawn be textually available for exposition, or not?
5. Different types of inclusion.

The Hermeneutical Principle

Inclusive derivation.

“And this is the law of the Nazirite: on the day the days of his Nazirite vow are completed, he shall bring him to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.”
— Numbers 6:13

“ ‘He shall bring him’ — could it be that others bring him? Surely he brings himself. This is one of the three instances of et that Rabbi Yishmael expounded in the Torah. Similarly, ‘and they cause them to bear the iniquity of guilt’ — could others cause them to bear it? Surely they cause themselves to bear it. Similarly, ‘and he buried him in the valley’ — could others have buried him? Surely he buried himself. So too here: ‘he shall bring him’ means that he shall bring himself, and others do not bring him.”
— Sifrei on Numbers, section 32; Rashi ad loc.

A. The Problematic Character of the Midrash

Introduction

Parashat Naso deals, among other things, with the laws of the Nazirite. The Nazirite vow is a type of vow in which a person takes upon himself a set of halakhot (Jewish laws) defined by the Torah: not to become impure through contact with the dead, not to eat products of the vine or drink wine, and not to cut his hair.

It is worth noting that the Nazirite vow is a unique prohibition, different in character from all other Torah prohibitions. In an ordinary vow, the person himself determines the content of the prohibitions he creates. The Nazirite, by contrast, does not determine the content of the prohibitions to which his vow obligates him. On the other hand, unlike the other prohibitions fixed by the Torah and imposed on a person, the Nazirite state is one that a person voluntarily accepts upon himself.

The midrash (rabbinic exposition) cited above describes a unique phenomenon. It is one of the three cases in which Rabbi Yishmael expounds an inclusion from the word et — here applied to the word oto (“him”). In this essay we will examine inclusive derivations from et in light of the midrash brought here.

The Course of the Midrash

In the passage concerning the Nazirite, the verse states: “On the day the days of his Nazirite vow are completed, he shall bring him to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” It is unclear to whom “him” refers, and who is supposed to bring “him.”

The Sages teach that the word “him” refers to the Nazirite himself; that is also the view of Rashi and Ibn Ezra ad loc. The question then arises: who is supposed to bring the Nazirite to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting? The answer is that he is supposed to bring himself.

If so, it is not clear what new point this midrash contributes. Could someone else bring him? Rabbi Yishmael answers, in his exposition, that the purpose of the verse is to teach that only he brings himself to the entrance of the Tent, and no one else does so.

The Problem

The reasoning of this midrash is problematic in several respects:

1. If the assumption is that only he can bring himself, then what novelty is produced by the exposition? Who are these “others” who might have brought the Nazirite to the entrance of the Tent?
2. How is this inference drawn from the word oto? From the word oto one might more naturally infer the opposite: that the Nazirite must bring only himself, and not something else. The word refers to the one brought, not to the one doing the bringing.
3. Why should such a consideration count as an exposition at all? Is there any other straightforward way to understand the word oto?
4. What is the dispute over whether the word et is expounded or not?
5. Why does Rabbi Yishmael depart here from his usual method and decide to expound et after all?

The first three difficulties concern the specific passage before us, whereas the last two concern expositions of et throughout the Torah. We will therefore begin with a general discussion of the hermeneutic of inclusion, especially as it relates to the word et.

B. Inclusive Derivations from the Word Et

Inclusions from et

In the second root principle of his Sefer HaMitzvot, Maimonides discusses the hermeneutical principles. There he states that the legal status of laws derived through exposition is like that of rabbinic laws; see the essay on Parashat Hayei Sarah. When he refers to the principles themselves at the beginning of that discussion, he counts fourteen interpretive principles: the thirteen principles of Rabbi Yishmael, plus inclusion.

It is not clear why Rabbi Yishmael himself does not list the principle of inclusion among his own principles. At first glance, it seems that he disputes that principle. But this leads to the opposite question: why was specifically the principle of inclusion chosen from among all the principles not mentioned in the baraita of Rabbi Yishmael’s principles?

We have previously suggested that this principle represents the method of Rabbi Akiva, who derives inclusions from certain biblical words, whereas Rabbi Yishmael holds against him that in such cases the Torah simply speaks in human language, and therefore such words should not be expounded. On this understanding, the set of fourteen principles reflects the combined picture produced by merging the two systems: that of Rabbi Yishmael and that of Rabbi Akiva.

The Baraita of Shimon Ha-Amasoni

In a number of Talmudic passages there appears a dispute over whether one derives inclusion from the word et; see Babylonian Talmud, Menahot 11b, and parallels. In many cases this is linked to the well-known baraita about Shimon — or, according to another version, Nehemiah — Ha-Amasoni; see Babylonian Talmud, Bekhorot 6b, and parallels:

“And this tanna does not expound the particle et, as it was taught in a baraita: Shimon Ha-Amasoni — and some say Nehemiah Ha-Amasoni — used to expound every et in the Torah. Once he reached the verse, ‘You shall fear the Lord your God,’ he withdrew. His students said to him: Rabbi, what will become of all the ets that you expounded? He said to them: Just as I received reward for the exposition, so I receive reward for withdrawing from it. Until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: ‘You shall fear the Lord your God’ — this includes Torah scholars.”
— Babylonian Talmud, Bekhorot 6b, and parallels

The baraita describes Shimon Ha-Amasoni as someone who expounded every occurrence of et in the Torah, until he failed to find an exposition for the verse “You shall fear the Lord your God,” and therefore retreated in principle from the idea that ets are to be expounded. It emerges clearly from the baraita that this is a substantive issue, not a local one. Whoever expounds et must do so everywhere; whoever does not expound et must be consistent throughout. That is why Shimon Ha-Amasoni chose to retract all his expositions. This is also explicit in Rashi; see, for example, Rashi on Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 22b, s.v. “et lo darish.”¹

It is not clear whether the dispute here concerns inclusion in general, or only inclusion from the word et. From the plain wording of the Gemara it seems clearly to concern only that word, since we do not find this baraita cited with regard to any other disputed inclusion in the Talmud. But if the issue really is only the word et, then we must understand what is special about this word specifically.

This becomes sharper in light of what we saw in the essay on Parashat Vayetze: inclusion is Rabbi Akiva’s interpretive tool, whereas Rabbi Yishmael maintains that the Torah speaks in human language, and therefore he does not expound words that naturally belong in the biblical text. If so, why is the word et, which appears naturally, expounded by Rabbi Akiva? Does he expound every word in the Torah?

In all these places, the Gemara tries to prove from the baraita that there is indeed someone who does not expound et — in other words, that there is a dispute on the matter. From that context it appears that Shimon Ha-Amasoni remained with the position that inclusion should not be derived from et, and only Rabbi Akiva does so. That is indeed explicit in the Rashi just cited.

As a practical matter, Maimonides’ ruling is unclear. For example, with regard to deriving benefit from the hide of an ox sentenced to stoning — a law derived from an inclusion based on et; see Babylonian Talmud, Bekhorot 6b, and parallels — the law does not appear at all in Maimonides; see Mishneh Torah, Forbidden Foods 4:22. In Sefat Emet to Pesahim 22b, s.v. “ba-gemara u-lehanakh tannai,” it is suggested that Maimonides rules that et is not expounded. By contrast, Tosafot on Menahot 11b, s.v. “ve-Rabbi Shimon,” leaves the practical ruling unresolved. Tosafot cites tannaitic views according to which et is expounded only sometimes, and this too stands against Shimon Ha-Amasoni — and apparently against Rabbi Akiva as well — who, as we saw above, regarded this as an across-the-board determination.

Is There Any Logic to Inclusion from Et?

At first glance, inclusion from the word et is a completely formal matter. There is no obvious redundancy in the phrase “You shall fear the Lord your God,” or in similar cases, for it is hard to see how the verse could have been written differently. Nevertheless, Rabbi Akiva expounds the word et there to include Torah scholars. As noted, this dispute is connected to the broader interpretive approaches of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael.

At this point we should note that in the three examples cited in the exposition above, what is expounded is not the bare word et but the word oto. In all three examples the logic of the exposition is very similar: the word oto teaches that the subject of the verb “shall bring” is identical with its object — namely, the Nazirite himself.

Unlike the usual cases of expounding et, in these three cases the word oto can indeed be replaced, and therefore it is, to some extent, textually available for exposition. In our case, for example, the verse could have said, “he shall bring him” in a suffixed verbal form, thereby absorbing the word oto into the verb to which it is attached.

If so, the exposition here is not purely formal; it has some textual logic. There is a degree of textual markedness here, and therefore a reasonable cue inviting us to seek an exposition. More than that: the actual change from the suffixed form to the separate phrase “he shall bring him” does indeed point toward the exegete’s conclusion. A suffixed form would clearly refer to some other object, whereas “he shall bring him” can more readily be understood — though still not necessarily — as referring to the one who is himself doing the bringing; see Rashi and Ibn Ezra ad loc.

This distinction may explain why Rabbi Yishmael departs here from his usual method and expounds the word et. In cases where there is a logic behind the exposition, and it is not merely formal, even Rabbi Yishmael is prepared to expound the word et. By contrast, the distinctions cited by Tosafot in Menahot — namely, that there are tannaim who expound et only under certain conditions — concern expositions from the word et itself, and therefore involve inclusions that are entirely formal. It follows that all those tannaim discussed by Tosafot do not hold like Rabbi Yishmael, since they are willing, at least sometimes, to expound even purely formal derivations.²

The question that now arises is the opposite one: why does the Sifrei classify these three expositions as inclusions from et, when, as we have seen, they are logical rather than formal? More than that, Rabbi Yishmael’s expositions here are not inclusive at all, but restrictive. He learns from the word oto that only the Nazirite must bring himself, and not someone else.

Rabbi Akiva’s Method

Rabbi Akiva’s approach, too, is very difficult to understand if taken as wholly formal. Surely it cannot be that Rabbi Akiva simply selects any word in Scripture that he wants and derives an inclusion from it. Presumably the expounded words must contain something special — some kind of textual cue. But, as we have seen, the word et usually has no substitute and does not seem redundant. How, then, does Rabbi Akiva decide to derive inclusion specifically from it?

It seems that Rabbi Akiva detects a textual hint even in verses that contain the word et. Here too the process is not purely formal. For example, in the verse “You shall fear the Lord your God,” there is a hint in the very placement of the word et, which seems to invite exposition. The Torah might more naturally have written, “You shall fear the Lord your God,” with et later in the clause; had it done so, perhaps Rabbi Akiva would not have expounded it. The displacement of et from its more expected position hints to Rabbi Akiva that there is indeed a basis for exposition. Rabbi Yishmael, however, is not willing to proceed on that basis, since the wording is still perfectly normal human language — and this is the heart of his disagreement with Rabbi Akiva.

Another example is the verse “Honor your father and your mother,” which is expounded to include one’s stepfather and stepmother, and also one’s older brother; see Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 103a. Here too there seems, at first glance, to be a certain redundancy, since one of the two occurrences of et might appear unnecessary. The verse could seemingly have said, “Honor your father and your mother.” In fact, however, there appears to be no redundancy at all, since the Gemara there derives a different law from each occurrence of et — one for the stepfather and one for the stepmother.

This may also help explain the contradictions cited by Tosafot in Menahot 11b. It may be that there is really no dispute at all between the tannaim, and that even Shimon Ha-Amasoni did not mean that all the ets in the Torah must be treated as one undifferentiated class. Rather, his point may be that when there is some kind of redundancy, one must expound the word et — as against Rabbi Yishmael, who does not expound it even when there is some degree of redundancy, at least a minor one of the type discussed here, because he sees it as ordinary human phrasing.

If so, the disputes over whether one does or does not derive inclusion from the word et may depend on the extent to which et is redundant under the circumstances. When Shimon Ha-Amasoni retracted his expositions of et, he need not have meant that he retracted all such expositions, but only those that depended on the changed position of et in the verse, as in “You shall fear the Lord your God.” It is very plausible that he would have agreed to expound the three cases that even Rabbi Yishmael expounds in our midrash. Perhaps he would also expound the word et in cases where its redundancy is more blatant than a mere shift of position, as in “You shall fear the Lord your God.”

Rabbi Akiva’s Method: A Second Possibility

There is, however, another possible explanation: Rabbi Akiva may not require any redundancy in the word et at all. His expositions may be based on a different understanding of the word et itself. That is, he is not deriving anything from redundancy, but reading the biblical text with a different semantic value. For him, the word et can sometimes mean “with.” Indeed, there are several biblical passages where et clearly means “with,” for example: “They came, each man and his household, with Jacob,” at the beginning of the book of Exodus.

If that is correct, Rabbi Akiva may really understand the word et everywhere as indicating something added to the term with which it is associated. Thus, in “You shall fear the Lord your God,” the sense would be that we must fear whoever is attached to God — that is, those who are “with” God, namely Torah scholars. Likewise, “Honor your father and your mother” would mean: honor those attached to your father and mother as well — that is, the step-parents.

According to this proposal, the issue is not inclusion in general, but the meaning of the word et. True, the plain sense of the Gemara suggests that Shimon Ha-Amasoni and Rabbi Akiva were expounding the word et, meaning that this was a non-literal derivation rather than straightforward interpretation. But that need not be so. Rabbi Akiva and Shimon Ha-Amasoni read the verse in its ordinary sense as well; in addition, they also read it with the supplemental meaning of et as “with.” This is exposition, but an exposition generated by the word’s dual plain meaning.

The Relation of Laws Learned by Inclusion to the Explicit Laws

Maimonides, in the second root principle mentioned above, maintains that laws derived by exposition are not counted in the enumeration of commandments. In the course of that discussion he attacks the author of Halakhot Gedolot (Behag) for counting the commandment to revere Torah scholars. His main objection is that Behag does not also count the commandment to honor one’s stepfather and stepmother, which is likewise learned — in Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 103a — from an inclusion based on the words et in the verse “Honor your father and your mother.” More than that, Maimonides challenges him even from the commandment to honor one’s older brother, which is learned in the same sugya from an inclusion based on the extra vav in the words “and your mother.”³

Nahmanides explains that Behag holds that these commandments are included within the commandment to honor one’s father and mother, and therefore are not counted separately. But two fundamental problems arise from his explanation:

1. Why does Maimonides think that, if laws learned by exposition did have to be counted, the commandments to honor step-parents would have to be counted separately? Does he not agree that they are included in the commandment to honor one’s parents?
2. Why does Behag himself count the commandment to revere Torah scholars, which is also learned from an inclusion based on et? Why is that not included, in his view, in the commandment to fear God, which he counts separately?

We are thus led to ask: what is the relationship between laws learned by inclusion and the laws stated explicitly in the verse from which the inclusion is drawn? Are the included laws subsumed under the explicit law, or not? Is inclusion an extension of what the verse already says, or merely a formal device for deriving entirely new laws?

The Positions of Maimonides and Behag

Maimonides seems to hold consistently that these laws are not included within the explicit ones. He explains his decision not to count the obligation to revere Torah scholars by saying that it is a law derived by exposition. In other words, if the rule had been that a law derived by exposition possesses full Torah status for purposes of enumeration, it certainly would have been counted.

But in the seventh root principle Maimonides states that one does not count details already included within another commandment that has been counted in the total enumeration. It follows, first of all, that according to both Behag and Maimonides, the commandment of reverence for Torah scholars is not included within the commandment of reverence for God. For that reason Maimonides also attacks Behag for not counting the commandment to honor step-parents. In Maimonides’ view, were it not for the problem of the halakhic status of laws derived through exposition, these would be independent commandments and should be counted.

By contrast, Nahmanides’ explanation of Behag yields a split position: the obligation to honor step-parents is included in the obligation to honor one’s parents, whereas the obligation to revere Torah scholars is not included in the commandment to fear God. What is the difference between these two cases? What criterion determines when the included law is subsumed under the generating law and when it is not?

Explaining Behag’s Position

It may be that the difference lies in the underlying logic of the two contexts. With respect to the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no possibility of analogy or extension. Honor and reverence toward God cannot be expanded or compared to anything else.

We noted above that this may also explain why Shimon Ha-Amasoni did not accept Rabbi Akiva’s exposition. Shimon Ha-Amasoni thought that laws derived by inclusion are subsumed within the explicit laws, and therefore he saw no room to include anything as an extension of the commandment to fear God. For that reason he rejected the possibility of expounding the et in that verse in any direction. In practical terms, Behag does not agree with Shimon Ha-Amasoni on this point. In his view, laws derived by inclusion are not necessarily subsumed under the laws from which they are included. Therefore, according to Behag, one can indeed expound even this verse. That is apparently how he understood Rabbi Akiva’s method.

By contrast, the commandment to honor step-parents seems, by simple reasoning, to be part of the commandment to honor one’s parents, and therefore in that case we reach the conclusion that the included law is subsumed under the explicit one.⁴

It is possible, however, that the basis of the distinction is not conceptual but textual. Where the word et is expounded because it is redundant, the result is a separate law not included in the original law. That is the situation in the case of reverence for Torah scholars. But where the word et is not redundant — for example, in the case of honoring one’s parents, at least according to the Gemara’s final conclusion that two different expositions are derived from there — the included commandment is subsumed under the explicit one.

Why? For one of two reasons, corresponding to the two possibilities we raised above regarding Rabbi Akiva. Either because the exposition here is derived from the meaning of et as “with,” in which case it is clear that the expounded law is ancillary to the original law. Or because, when the word is not redundant, the textual cue is subtler and et does not function as an independent word within the verse. In such a case, one should not derive from it an entirely independent commandment.

C. Explaining Our Exposition

Introduction

In the first section we saw several difficulties raised by our exposition. Some concern this specific exposition itself, while others concern inclusive derivations more generally. The broader difficulties were addressed in the previous section, where we also discussed the foundations of the dispute over expositions of et and explained why Rabbi Yishmael departs here from his usual method.

Still, several significant problems remain beyond those already noted. For example, it is not clear how this exposition, which is restrictive in essence, is connected at all to the topic of inclusion.

In this section we will propose two ways of explaining our midrash. The first continues to understand it as part of the dispute over whether the word et is expounded. The second explains it as based on a wholly different principle, unrelated to that dispute.

First Possibility: Our Exposition as a Qualification Within the Dispute over Et

First of all, we must clarify what this exposition teaches. What exactly does the verse mean when it instructs the Nazirite to bring himself?

Ibn Ezra explains that the verse teaches that he is compelled to come to the Tent of Meeting. The Malbim adds that his meaning is this: although people obligated to bring a sin-offering are not coerced into bringing it,⁵ here there is coercion. It appears from the Malbim that he understands Ibn Ezra’s explanation to be the same as the exposition of the Sifrei.

That may perhaps be the plain sense of the verse — though even that is not obvious — but it is certainly not the plain meaning of the midrash’s language. For the whole point of the midrash is the exact opposite: he brings himself, and no one else brings him. It therefore seems that the exposition is specifically teaching that he is not coerced into coming.

Indeed, Sforno explains the passage that way: the exposition teaches that no one else brings him. One might initially have thought that a prisoner cannot free himself from prison, and therefore someone else — for example, a priest — would bring him and set matters right for him. But in the case of the Nazirite, who has become a different kind of person through his Nazirite status, he brings himself. According to Sforno, the novelty is that the priest does not impose the correction on the Nazirite against his will; rather, the Nazirite himself brings himself — the exact opposite of Ibn Ezra.

If so, this is a restrictive derivation, not an inclusive one. The question therefore returns: why do the Sages connect it to the dispute over whether et is expounded to include? The connection may be explained in light of what we saw above. Even Rabbi Akiva does not make purely formal inferences. The word et is, to some degree, textually marked, and therefore he expounds it. Consequently, he is committed to derive an exposition whenever there is some degree of redundancy in the word et.

The reason that here he would choose to expound et restrictively is that here the word does not attach itself to some other noun. It stands on its own in the form oto, and therefore it excludes rather than includes. The common denominator of the two cases is that in both, the word et is expounded contextually. In particular, if we understand Rabbi Akiva’s method to take the word et as meaning “with,” then certainly there is no room here for inclusion, only for exclusion.⁶

Rabbi Akiva, then, is consistent with his view that every redundancy demands explanation, and he is not prepared to accept Rabbi Yishmael’s account that the Torah speaks in human language. In cases like ours, however, even Rabbi Yishmael agrees that the redundancy is too pronounced to ignore, as we explained above, and therefore he too expounds the word oto.

We also asked how one can infer from the word oto that others do not bring him. At first glance, one should instead infer that he should not bring someone else. This too is clarified in light of our discussion. The alternative wording would have been a simple suffixed verbal form, which would refer to bringing some other person or object. But once the Torah writes “he shall bring him,” the interpretive implication is that the one brought is the one who brings; see Rashi and Ibn Ezra ad loc.

We also asked what the plain-sense alternative is in this verse. One could say that the other possible understanding of oto is that the Nazirite brings his offering; this is also the explanation of Rashbam ad loc. It is therefore now clear why the reading discussed here is an exposition and not the plain sense. Had the text used the simple suffixed form, the meaning could only have been the bringing of an offering. The Torah therefore wrote “he shall bring him” in a form that can also be understood as referring to the Nazirite himself.

Second Possibility: The Sifrei’s Exposition Has Nothing to Do with the Dispute over Et

All these difficulties lead us to another possibility. Perhaps the Sifrei’s intention has nothing to do with the dispute over expositions of et at all. Perhaps it is speaking of an entirely different principle. As background, let us cite Rashi in the parallel source on Leviticus 22:16:

“ ‘And they cause them to bear’ — this is one of three occurrences of et that Rabbi Yishmael expounded in the Torah as speaking of the person himself. Likewise, ‘on the day the days of his Nazirite vow are completed, he shall bring him’ — he shall bring himself. Likewise, ‘and he buried him in the valley’ — he buried himself. Thus it is expounded in the Sifrei.”
— Rashi on Leviticus 22:16

In this formulation, Rashi adds three words that shed new light on the entire matter. This is one of three places where Rabbi Yishmael expounds et as “speaking of the person himself.” In other words, this is not an inclusive derivation from the word et in the usual sense, but a different plain-sense interpretation of the word et. According to this interpretation, the word refers back to the subject himself. This is an unusual way of reading the verse, and according to Rabbi Yishmael there are only three places in Scripture where the word oto refers to the very subject of the sentence.⁷

According to this proposal, there is no connection at all to the disputes discussed above regarding expositions of et, and all the difficulties disappear on their own. The local difficulties disappear as well, because we are no longer looking for alternative interpretive options that would count as the plain sense of the verse. This midrash identifies the plain sense of the verse — admittedly an unusual one relative to other occurrences of oto — and does not add a further midrashic interpretation beyond that plain sense.

Footnotes