Q&A: A Concern About a Prohibition?
A Concern About a Prohibition?
Question
I’ve often heard people singing a certain refrain on Lag BaOmer: “In the merit of the divine tanna, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.”
I listened carefully, and in many places they sing “the divine tanna” with a pataḥ under the final syllable.
That is, [it sounds like] the tanna is some kind of god…
I was horrified, and I pointed out to the singers that presumably the intention of the author of the refrain—and that is also what logic dictates—is that it should be read “the divine tanna” with a ḥirik.
Meaning, that the tanna is holy and possesses lofty spiritual attainments, but is not God—rather, flesh and blood, born of a woman.
To my surprise, some paid no attention to what I said [I’ve been pointing this out for years, and to many people…], and even more surprisingly, some did respond and told me that this is exactly what the author of the refrain meant, and that their intention is that he is a kind of god…
What does the Rabbi think about this?
Answer
This is just hairsplitting, and rightly so—they didn’t pay attention to your claim. The term “divine” here refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the claim is that something of Him appears through Rashbi. That is an idea that appears in the words of the Sages (“These foolish Babylonians…” “You shall fear the Lord your God”—to include Torah scholars, and so on), throughout the generations, and I do not see any fundamental problem with it.
Discussion on Answer
It seems to me that it’s just a corruption that stems from Hasidic pronunciation.
Do any Hasidim pronounce a ḥirik like a pataḥ? Do they also say “la-khvod” with a pataḥ instead of “li-khvod” with a ḥirik?
With God’s help, 21 Iyar 5781
To us it is obvious that something related to God is “eloki,” just as the Kuzari speaks about “the divine matter,” and just as in rabbinic literature the great thinkers in the wisdom of divinity are called “the divine philosopher,” “the divine investigator,” and “the divine kabbalist.”
But it could be that there are pronunciations following the pattern common in possessive or relational forms belonging to a noun ending in -a: Hashmonai, Moroccan, Haifaite, American. And so something belonging to “eloka” would, according to this, be “elokai.”
That may be the reasoning of those who pronounce it “the elokai tanna.”
Best regards, Shatz Bar Livai Levingai Halingwai
There was a “debate” about this between Rabbi Ovadia (Hashmonai) and Rabbi Meir Mazuz (Hashmona’i). Of course Rabbi Mazuz was right there, and I remember that he proved it nicely from a poem by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi in which he rhymed “proud,” “awesome,” and “Hasmoneans” (and not, for example: “Give thanks now, congregation of the faithful, sing and praise my Lord—He saved the descendant of the Hasmonean from the hand of the enemy, for by them He struck”).
With God’s help, 21 Iyar 5781
In the Jerusalem Talmud it is spelled “Hashmonei,” whereas in the Babylonian Talmud it is spelled “Hashmonai.” According to the Jerusalem Talmud, the ending is certainly “ay,” while according to the Babylonian Talmud there is room to discuss whether it should be “Hashmonai” with a ḥirik under the aleph (as grammar dictates) or “Hashmonei” by analogy with the Jerusalem Talmud; and according to that one would have to say that biblical Hebrew is one thing and the language of the Sages is another.
The later halakhic authorities adopted “Hashmonei,” as is evident from the Jerusalem Talmud (and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef followed them), whereas Rabbi Meir Mazuz, who tends to follow the grammarians, reads “Hashmonai.”
Best regards, Shatz Levingei/? Levingai?
The difference in spelling between the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds also exists in the names Shammai / Shamai, Zakkai / Zakai, Yochai / Yochay, and with them, as far as I know, everyone agrees they are pronounced with an “ay” sound.
With God’s help, the 36th day of the 49-day count, 5781
A great deal of ink has been spilled over the etymology of the nickname “Hashmonei.” Professor Samuel Klein conjectured that the family originated from Heshbon in the Judean Negev. Some of the medieval authorities explained that “Hashmonei” means a great man (as in “nobles shall come out of Egypt,” Psalms 68:32).
But Rashi there cites in the name of “the interpreters” that “hashmanim” means “gifts.” According to that, it would work nicely that “Hashmonei” is a synonymous nickname for “Mattathias.”
At one point I saw an article by Professor Daniel Schwartz suggesting that names ending in “-ei” are an abbreviation of “…-yah”: “Shammai” from “Shemaya,” “Zakkai” from “Zechariah,” “Mattai” from “Mattathiah,” and the like. According to this one could also say that “Hashmonei” is short for “Hashmoniah,” a gift from God—in other words, “Mattathiah.”
Best regards, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
“The interpreters” mentioned by Rashi are the teachers who passed down from generation to generation the tradition of translating the Torah into the vernacular language. According to Dr. Aryeh Galia, of blessed memory, in his dissertation on “The Taytsh Tradition of the Chumash,” the teachers had very ancient traditions that were passed down from generation to generation, traditions not influenced by the commentators of their own time.
It would be interesting to compare the Ashkenazic Taytsh traditions with the Sharḥ and Tafsir traditions of the various Eastern communities. Such a comparison might uncover shared ancient elements.
With God’s help, 21 Iyar 5781
Rabbi Amos Hakham cites (Daat Mikra on Psalms 68:32) the explanation of the author of Mikra Ki-Fshuto (Arnold Ehrlich), based on Arabic, that “hashmanim” are horses and chariots.
According to this one could suggest that “Hashmonei” means a horseman driving a chariot harnessed to horses. Perhaps one of the ancestors of the “House of Hashmonei” drove horses, and the family was named for his occupation. And that explains why the family nickname is not mentioned in the Book of Maccabees, which was written by one of the family’s admirers, who did not especially like that nickname.
With the blessing of “the sound of joy and song,”
Faivish Lipa Sosnovitsky Dehari
(owner of the old platform)
And the source of that idea is in the Zohar: “The face of the Lord God—this is Rashbi.” It is well known that the Yaavetz saw this as blasphemy and abuse, and this was one of his famous complaints against the Zohar. Therefore he emended it to: “the face of the Lord God with”—this is Rashbi, meaning they derive it from the inclusive particle, not that this is literally the face of the Lord Himself. And even that did not satisfy him, because with regard to fear and love one can include additional cases, but not with regard to the divine essence.
In any case, in the refrain it seems clear that originally it was “divine” with a ḥirik, but the singers distorted it so that it would rhyme with “In honor of my god, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.” Because with a ḥirik it is a clearer wording, like “man of God” in the Hebrew Bible in many places (that is, not that he is half-and-upward God, as they said in the midrash about Moses our rabbi, but rather that he is associated with God, like “the king’s man”).
And it seems to me that since the accepted version (in the song and generally in rabbinic texts) is with the definite article, “the divine,” then presumably it is “ha-eloki” and not “ha-elokai,” because you can’t use the definite article together with a possessive suffix. You don’t say “my table” as “ha-shulchani”; rather, “ha-shulchani” would be an adjective. There are exceptional cases in the Hebrew Bible, and they are mentioned by Radak, such as “hidden in the ground inside my tent,” but why would a poet complicate things for himself, even if he is as weak a “poet” as the author of this song.