Q&A: The Beauty of an Israelite
The Beauty of an Israelite
Question
In a number of places, the Talmud describes the beauty of the ancient Israelites. I’ll mention one example: in the chapter Helek, it says that the daughters of Babylon saw among the captives brought from the Land of Israel young men who outshone the sun, etc.; see there. And I was unsure about this, because according to the view of researchers, it is commonly accepted that the ancient Israelites had the appearance of Middle Eastern people, meaning in skin tone, as is also implied in chapter 2 of tractate Nega’im, and presumably in facial features too they resembled other people of the East. If so, this requires consideration, because it is well known that nowhere in the world are there people as beautiful as those of Western Europe and its regions, such as the Germans and the British, the so-called Caucasians, etc. In fact, the first time I saw people of that race, I almost recoiled backward at the work of the Holy One, blessed be He, to the point that they seemed worthy of the blessing, “Such is His world.” In short, just how beautiful could the ancient Israelites really have been?
Answer
I don’t know.
Discussion on Answer
The truth is that this whole matter of beauty in the words of the Sages requires explanation. They wrote about the righteous that they were beautiful, and for some reason it seemed to them that these things go together—that Abraham was handsome, Sarah was beautiful, and so on. They even twisted verses for this; see for example in the portion of Beha’alotekha, regarding “the Cushite woman whom he had taken,” which they explained there as, “just as everyone distinguishes…” and that is really a complete inversion of the plain meaning. There are many such cases, and it seems that by way of aggadic literature the Sages wanted to create a connection between the good and the beautiful, because that is how the human mind works.
In contrast, as in all legends that create an identification between beauty and goodness so that the reader will identify with the good character, so too the Sages did regarding the righteous, and also regarding Israel, to glorify a splendid past that they did not really have—like many aggadic accounts about the destruction.
Blessed is David—judging by the Israelis we see today, the situation wasn’t anything special at all. In both senses: external ugliness and internal ugliness.
The Sages admired Hellenistic culture!
To dear Judah Abraham!!!
According to you, the Sages invented things so that we would connect more to religion?! Have you gone crazy?!
Not only are you bringing a far-fetched interpretation, you’re also explaining that the Sages started inventing stories about who was beautiful and who wasn’t [as you yourself wrote: “as in all legends that create an identification between beauty and goodness so that the reader will identify with the good character, so too the Sages did regarding the righteous, and also regarding Israel, to glorify a splendid past that they did not really have—like many aggadic accounts about the destruction.” The Sages really were cute comic-book fans]. In short, you’re talking nonsense!!!
Take it easy, Benjamin. Present evidence and we’ll judge.
Yechiel, I do not have the slightest doubt that there are exaggerations in the words of the Sages about the destruction. See the Talmud in Gittin, how many people King Yannai supposedly had; see also other exaggerated aggadic accounts about the destruction or about Israel; see in Sukkah how wealthy the Jews of Egypt supposedly were, and I won’t quote more because of the length.
Now there are two possible ways to proceed from here: either to assume that in some places the Sages really thought this, or that they were hinting at great secrets.
The second approach is that the Sages knew very well how many people King Yannai had, and that Moses’ wife was a Cushite, and that there is no source saying Abraham was among the most beautiful people in the world.
Rather, there is no harm in adorning and glorifying the nation.
And people today are exactly the same: they dream that the great rabbis of the generation are the smartest people in the world and understand every field, and that the medieval authorities were in every respect like angels, in ways we cannot even understand.
That seems to me the most logical.
And to me, absolutely not!!!
But let’s ask the Rabbi what he thinks: do the Sages invent things, or is this tradition and the like?
A tradition of six hundred thousand upon six hundred thousand—let’s ask.
I’d be happy to hear the Rabbi’s opinion on the matter.
It doesn’t seem likely to me that they had such a tradition. It is more plausible that the aggadah is trying to convey a message in an aggadic form. When aggadah describes facts, there is no necessity to understand them literally.
There’s also a passage in the Maharal of Prague that describes the beauty of Jacob’s face as against Esau’s lack of beauty. There are also midrashim that describe the beauty of Adam, and the ugliness of Esau—graphic descriptions of how he ruined Rebecca’s womb and the like. Apparently the idea is that when there was a clear divine influence in the world, this also had an effect in the sense that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave beauty to certain righteous people and ugliness to certain wicked people. You can see it as just a metaphor, or you can take it literally. I don’t think it’s all that important. But if there was divine intervention in the world, what is so hard about accepting that the Holy One, blessed be He, also influenced human beauty and the beauty of the ancient Israelites? Is that more miraculous and supernatural than the splitting of the sea and the ten plagues?
The ancient Israelites were also included among those called “Caucasian.”