Nitzavim/ Va-Yelekh (Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30)
LA JOLLA, California — From this double parasha, I chose three passages for comparison, from the internet, with ancient Israel’s neighbors. These were difficult passages on which to inquire of the internet, since they are literary figures of speech more than concepts of action.
I. Deuteronomy 29:18 “When such a one hears the words of these sanctions, he may fancy himself immune, thinking, ‘I shall be safe, though I follow my own willful heart’–to the utter ruin of moist and dry alike.”
“Moist and dry alike” is not easily interpreted. Jeffrey Tigay, Ph D, who wrote the Jewish Publication Society commentary on Deuteronomy admits that this phrase may represent a lost idiom. He proposes that they could denote “everything.” Others suggest that it refers to the full spectrum of ‘innocent and guilty people.’ [1]
My search led only to notions of the universe by the Greeks. It was mainly promulgated by Empedicles (c. 494–c. 434 BCE), a pre-Socratic philosopher, whose ideas were advanced by Socrates (384–322 BCE), and held sway for hundreds of years–until the 17th Century CE!
The gist of this notion is that the universe consisted of five elements-earth, fire, air, water, and spirit. The basic interaction of these (minus the spirit) is that they were affected by warm/cold, and moist/dry opposites. Male qualities were associated with light and warmth, which pointed upward, whereas female qualities were associated with dark and cold, pointed downward. Sounds misogynistic!
The moist vs. dry qualities did not readily correspond to such added concepts. [2]
Empedicles associated Fire, Air, Water, and Earth with manifestations of a deity. In the next century, Aristotle analyzed these elements in terms of four pair-opposed Qualities of Powers: Warm vs. Cool and Moist vs. Dry. Earth is Dry and Cool, Water is Cool and Moist, Air is Moist and Warm, Fire is Warm and Dry, etc. Notions of alchemy, e.g. turning copper into gold, and communication with deities somehow also were involved. [3] [4]
To our modern sentiments, these notions are quirky, primitive, and unacceptable. However, they did arise around the time that Deuteronomy was composed.
The development of the scientific method with actual research laboratories, and the discovery of the Periodic Table, rescued us from such naive notions.
II. Deuteronomy 29:21-2, b2 “…who succeed you…all the soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing…like…Sodom and Gomorrah…”
Salting the earth is the ritual of spreading salt on conquered cities to symbolize a curse on their re-inhabitation. It originated in the ancient Near East and remained a well-established folkloric motif into the Middle Ages.
Various Hittite and Assyrian texts speak of ceremonially strewing salt, minerals, or plants associated with salt and desolation, over destroyed cities.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Judges (9:45) states that Abimelech, an Israelite judge, sowed his own capital, Shechem, with salt, c. 1050 BCE, after quelling a revolt against him.
The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus allegedly plowed over and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after defeating it in the Third Punic War (146 BCE), sacking it, and enslaving the survivors.
The English epic poem “Siege of Jerusalem” (c.1370 CE) recounts that Titus commanded the sowing of salt on the Temple. [5]
III. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life–if you and your offspring would live–by loving the Lord…holding fast to Him. …thereby you shall have life…”
I found no pagan equivalent to this famous Hebrew aphorism, which clearly has a spiritual meaning beyond choosing merely to live.
Aristotle came reasonably close, when he alluded that purpose was ‘happiness.’ He termed this eudaemonia, i.e. ‘activity expressing virtue.’ [6]
Epicurus, remembered for advocacy of flashy pleasure, actually celebrated far simpler pleasures, e.g. the sight of the sea and sky, floral scents, and listening to music. He would add: choose a proper career and neighborhood.
Karl Marx, writing in the early Industrial Age, wanted to shift society to create a culture where pleasure is evenly distributed, i.e. with less labor, and more hedonism. He allegedly sought a life in which he could “do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, breed cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind.” [7]
His utopian ideas translated into disasters, since greedy power-holders in communist societies have invariably perverted his ideas.
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[1] The JPS Torah Commentary, Deuteronomy, Jeffrey H. Tigay, 1996,
p. 280
[2] https://www.leaarnreligions.com/elemental-skymbols-4122788
[3] http://wisdomofhypatia.com/OM/BA/MM.html
[4] https://www.sutori.com/story/history-of-chemistry–y1MLz4GDvu8mCEfmNf2PLyQ
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Salting_the_earth
[6] Positive psychology.com -The Philosophy of Happiness in Life (Arisotle’s View), Heather Craig, BPsySc 7 01-09-2020
[7] “We have hedonism all wrong, according to ancient Greek philosophy,” REUTERS/LUKE MACGREGOR, Olivia Goldhill, Science reporter, September. 8, 2019