A.
Having heard of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, Yithro, Moshe’s father-in-law, leaves Midyan with Moshe’s wife and two sons and rides to join the yotz’ei Mitarayim. When he arrives at the machaneh Yisra’él, the encampment in the desert, Moshe greets the new arrivals enthusiastically, and fills his father-in-law in on everything that had happened during the Exodus itself and subsequently.
ויחד יתרו על כל הטובה אשר עשה ד' לישראל וגו' (XVIII, 9).
The main verb of this verse, va-yichadd, is a fine example of what I have termed the “creative ambiguity” which is at times inherent in the Hebrew text. Onqelos understands the word to be an apocopated form of the verb chada, “to rejoice,” and hence translates the verse: “And Yithro rejoiced over all the good which Ha-Shem had done for Israel….” The Talmud records that the great Babylonian Amora Abba Aricha, known affectionately as Rav, was heir to a different tradition, and understood the verb to be chadad, “be sharp,” and hence held שהעביר חרב חדה על בשרו, “that he had passed a sharp knife over his flesh” (סנהדרין צ"ד.), i.e. he translated it: “And Yithro circumcised himself because of the good which Ha-Shem had done for Israel….”
The Minchath Chinnuch considers Rav’s version, and raises the question of whether or
not a gér tzedeq, a converted, “naturalised” citizen of Israel, is in fact permitted to circumcise himself (מצוה ב' אות י"ד ד"ה והנה גוי).
The question lands us smack dab in the middle of a controversy between Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Hyrkanos, also called Rabbi Eli‘ezer ha-Gadol or often simply Rabbi Eli‘ezer, and his colleagues in the Sanhedrin: ת"ר גר שמל ולא טבל ר"א אומר הרי זה גר שכן מצינו באבותינו שמלו ולא טבלו כו' וחכמים אומרים טבל ולא מל, מל ולא טבל אין גר עד שימול ויטבול (“The Rabbis taught: A gér who has been circumcised but has not been immersed in a miqveh, Rabbi Eli‘ezer says, 'He is a gér, for so have we found amongst our patriarchs, that they were circumcised and not immersed….' And the Chachamim say, 'One who has been immersed but not circumcised, or circumcised but not immersed is not a gér until he is both circumcised and immersed”; יבמות מ"ו.).
In other words, Rabbi Eli‘ezer appears to hold that géruth takes effect immediately upon circumcision, and so would arguably agree that a gér is capable of performing his own brith mila. His colleagues, the Chachamim, require both mila and tvila, and so would not agree that the potential convert could perform his own circumcision.
Precisely why a non-Jew is ineligible to perform a brith mila, a valid circumcision either on a Jewish infant or on a candidate for conversion, is a matter of dispute elsewhere in the Talmud, this time between Rabbi Yochanan and Rav: דרב אמר "ואתה את בריתי תשמור" ורבי יוחנן "הימול תימול" (“for Rav said [that he justifies the prohibition because of] ‘And you shall keep My covenant [brithi; Genesis XVII, 9]’ and Rabbi Yochanan’s [justification is] ‘circumcising you shall be circumcised’ [ibid., 13]”; עבודה זרה כ"ז.). In other words, Rav holds that to perform brith mila one must first be subject to the brith, i.e., be Jewish, whilst Rabbi Yochanan holds that only one who has himself been circumcised may perform circumcision.
But wait a moment; it is Rav who says that Yithro circumcised himself, i.e. became a convert, on hearing of all the good which Ha-Shem had done for Israel, yet it is also Rav who holds that such a circumcision would be invalid, because Yithro was not Jewish, especially in light of the fact that the halacha (which Rav certainly does not dispute) follows the opinion of the Chachamim, that géruth requires both mila and tvila (עיי' רמב"מ הל' איסורי בואה פי"ג ה"ו).
So Rav appears to contradict himself. How can we to resolve this?
B.
Elsewhere in the Talmud, we find a discussion of the occasion of Yithro’s departure for and arrival at the machaneh Yisra’él. וישמע יתרו חתן משה את כל אשר עשה אלקים למשה ולושראל עמו כי הוציא ד' את ישראל ממצרים (“And Yithro heard all that G-d had done for Moshe and Israel, for Ha-Shem had brought Israel out of Egypt”) begins our parasha. What, precisely, had Yithro heard?
ר' יהושע אומר מלחמת עמלק שמע שהרי כתיב בצדו "ויחלש יהושע את עמלק ואת עמו לפי חרב". ר"א המודעי אומר מתן תורה שמע ובא שכשנתנה תורה לישראל הי' קולו הולך מסוף העולם ועד סופו. ר' אליעזר בן יעקב אומר קריעת ים סוף שמע ובא שנא' "ויהי כשמוע כל מלכי האמורי" ורך רחב הזונה אמרה לשלוחי יהושע "כי שמענו את אשר הוביש ד' את מי ים סוף" (“Rabbi Yehoshua says, 'He heard of the war with ‘Amaleq, for it is written beside [our verse] "And Yehoshua weakened ‘Amaleq and his people at sword-point" [XVII, 13].' Rabbi El‘azar ha-Moda‘i says, 'He heard of Mattan Torah and came, for when the Torah was given to Israel, His voice carried from one end of the earth to the other….' Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov says, 'He heard of the splitting of the Reed Sea and came, for it is said "And it was when all the Emori kings heard" [Joshua V, 1], and even Rachav the harlot said to Yehoshua’s emissaries, ‘For we heard that Ha-Shem dried up the waters of the Reed Sea’ [ibid., II, 10]”; זבחים קט"ז.).
It would appear thus that both Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov held that Yithro arrived at the machaneh Yisra’él before Mattan Torah, and experienced it subsequently with the bnei Yisra’él, whilst clearly Rabbi El‘azar ha-Moda‘i held that he had arrived after Mattan Torah, since he believed that it was that event which motivated him to come.
The significance of this lies in the fact that Rav establishes in several places והא קיימא לן משנת ר' אלעזר בן יעקב קב ונקי (“it is established for us that the teaching of Rabbi El.i‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov is measured and clean”; עיי' למשל יבמות ס. ובכורות כ"ג. וע"ע תוספות שם ד"ה משום). “Measured,” as Rashi explains, because we have relatively few of his statements, but they are always clearly the halacha. So plainly Rav agreed with Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov, that Yithro arrived at the machaneh Yisra'él before Mattan Torah.
C.
Armed with the above information, we go on to confront yet another famous controversy which involved the same Sanhedrin as that of which Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi El‘azar ha-Moda‘i, and Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov were members. The controversy concerns the status of a tabor shel ‘achnai, a sort of collapsible, portable oven. The specific issue of the dispute is not important here, so much as the fact that Rabbi Eli’ezer ben Hyrkanos, also a member of that Sanhedrin, stubbornly clung to his opinion even after the Sanhedrin voted against it. He tried to convince his colleagues that he was correct by performing several (actual) miracles (none of which was immediately germane to the topic), which was climaxed when a bath qol, a voice from heaven, rang out, מה לכם אצל ר' אליעזר שהלכה כמותו בכל מקום (“What do you have beside Rabbi Eli‘ezer, according to whom the halacha is decided everywhere?”).
Rabbi Yehoshua, the head of that Sanhedrin, refuted the bath qol by declaring "לא בשמים היא" כו' שכבר נתנה תורה מהר סיני אין אנו משגיחין בבת קול שכבר כתבת בהר סיני בתורה "אחרי רבים להטות" (“‘It is not in Heaven’ [Deuteronomy XXX, 12]… for the Torah has already been given from Mt. Sinai; we pay no attention to a bath qol, for You already wrote on Mt. Sinai in the Torah ‘to follow after the majority’ [Exodus XXIII, 2]”; בבא מציעא נ"ט).
As I have noted several times in the past in these essays (עיי' ביחוד א"ז ישיר לפרשת חקת שנת תשס"ה), the implications of this passage are profound. Rabbi Yehoshua was, of course, right; the Torah was given to Israel at Sinai in a physical form for a physical world, to be administered by rabbinic authority and majority vote of the Sanhedrin. But the bath qol, emanating as it did from the ‘alma d’qushta, the “world of truth” which contains and encloses this one, in which חותמו של הקב"ה אמת (“the seal of the Holy One, Blessed is He, is truth”; שבת נ"ה. וע"ע זוה"ק ח"א ב). There, in the ‘alma d’qushta, the halacha agrees with Rabbi Eli‘ezer, regardless of the decision of the Sanhedrin here below.
D.
Therein, I believe, lies the key to reconcile Rav with Rav. Since, as we have established, he agrees with Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov that Yithro arrived at the machaneh Yisra’él before Mattan Torah, there was as yet neither Torah nor Sanhedrin in this world; hence, the halacha b’chol maqom, “everywhere” (as the bath qol asserted) would have followed the opinion later held by Rabbi Eli‘ezer ben Hyrkanos, that géruth takes effect immediately upon circumcision, and therefore Yithro could indeed have circumcised himself. (It is perhaps noteworthy that Rabbi Eli‘ezer himself drew his justification from the actions of the Patriarchs, before Mattan Torah).
Rav’s opinion that one must be subject to the brith in order to usher anyone into it is germane to his own time, after Mattan Torah, when the halacha had already been decided by the Sanhedrin in favour of the opinion of the Chachamim.
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