שמות פרק
י"ב
כא וַיִּקְרָא מֹשֶׁה לְכָל זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מִשְׁכוּ וּקְחוּ לָכֶם צֹאן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיכֶם וְשַׁחֲטוּ
הַפָּסַח. כב וּלְקַחְתֶּם אֲגֻדַּת אֵזוֹב וּטְבַלְתֶּם בַּדָּם
אֲשֶׁר בַּסַּף וְהִגַּעְתֶּם אֶל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף וְאֶל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת מִן
הַדָּם אֲשֶׁר בַּסָּף וְאַתֶּם לֹא תֵצְאוּ אִישׁ מִפֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ עַד בֹּקֶר. כג וְעָבַר יְהוָה לִנְגֹּף אֶת מִצְרַיִם וְרָאָה אֶת
הַדָּם עַל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף וְעַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת וּפָסַח יְהוָה עַל הַפֶּתַח
וְלֹא יִתֵּן הַמַּשְׁחִית לָבֹא אֶל בָּתֵּיכֶם לִנְגֹּף. כד וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְחָק לְךָ
וּלְבָנֶיךָ עַד עוֹלָם. כה וְהָיָה כִּי תָבֹאוּ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יִתֵּן
יְהוָה לָכֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת. כו וְהָיָה כִּי יֹאמְרוּ אֲלֵיכֶם בְּנֵיכֶם מָה
הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם. כז וַאֲמַרְתֶּם זֶבַח פֶּסַח הוּא לַיהוָה אֲשֶׁר
פָּסַח עַל בָּתֵּי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּמִצְרַיִם בְּנָגְפּוֹ אֶת מִצְרַיִם
וְאֶת בָּתֵּינוּ הִצִּיל וַיִּקֹּד הָעָם וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ.
Based on this Biblical passage,
scholars read the multi-generational practice (hukat olam) to place
blood on the doorpost as an apotropaic practice – as a practice done to keep agents
of harm away.[1]
However, placing fresh blood on the entrance to a home attracts predators
rather than protects against danger. Thus, in order to both understand what
this practice means and even what the wording of this passage means, one must
first turn to the seasonal context of the Paschal holiday. One must then read
all the details of the Paschal sacrifice as intertwined and place them in the
seasonal context. Then and only then, can one see how it makes sense to spread blood at
the entrance to the home. Moreover, then and only then, can one
understand how placing blood on the doorpost can sensibly relate to a
declaration that agents of harm will be kept at bay.
To begin: Every spring, the Ancient Middle
East celebrated an annual barley (aviv) holiday. Coming after the
cropless winter, when the poor ran low and sometimes even ran out of grain, the
Ancient Middle East celebrated finally having flatbread again. In the Biblical
version of the holiday, the propertied persons are obligated on the Passover
eve holiday to share with their dependents a Paschal-eve sacrificial meal
(Exodus 12:4; Numbers 9:14) of meat and of flatbread (Exodus 12:8; 23:18;
34:25; Numbers 9:11; Deuteronomy 16:3). Meaning, the propertied are obligated
to celebrate the barley harvest both by festively sharing meat with the poor
and by joining the poor in eating flatbread (hag ha-matzot) – even as
barley flatbread is comparatively painful to digest and is thus the bread of
the afflicted (Deuteronomy 16:3[2])
poor when compared to soft wheat bread. Rather, than continue to eat their soft
wheat bread and immediately feed the new barley to their animals while the poor
both needed the barley and were stuck being happy with barley, the propertied
were obligated to join with the poor for a week in eating flatbread – a
reminder of all classes’ past enslavement and of God’s redemption therefrom
(Exodus 23:15; 34:18; Numbers 9:14; Deuteronomy 16:1). In the Biblical version
of the holiday, moreover, the propertied must even destroy their sourdough and
refrain from creating new sourdough for all seven days (Exodus 12:15, 19; 13:7)
– making it unrealistic for the propertied to eat risen bread until around a
week after the Passover holiday. Furthermore, in line with that Biblical
obligation on the rich to celebrate and share meat and (flat)bread with the
poor, moreover, Second-Temple Judeans delayed the Barley Offering that permitted
consumption of the newly-grown barley (Leviticus 23:9-11).[3] Second-Temple Judeans delayed the Barley
Offering until after the shared Paschal celebration, in which the propertied
shared with the poor their stored barley and wheat from the previous year. (We
will discuss elsewhere the competing Second-Temple practices of delaying only
until the day after the Paschal celebration versus delaying until after all
seven days of the Flatbread/Matza holiday.)
Now, with that background that
propertied persons share meat (an expensive food) and (flat)bread with their
slaves and with their tenant farmers (ger nimol), the Biblical
law of spreading blood on the doorpost makes sense. Even as blood on the
doorpost attracts predators, or precisely because blood on the doorpost
attracts predators, it makes sense to spread blood on the doorpost. When a
whole homestead (or such) feels unified in a mutually-trusting relationship, it
makes sense to spread blood at the doorway to boldly take the risk of drawing a predator and thus reaffirm the conviction that the mutually-caring
group will be able to survive the harms that God brings about outside – harms that do indeed damage those homesteads (or such) that malfunction (-- which, according to these Biblical sources, malfunction because the propertied persons oppress the
slaves and tenant farmers and fail to develop a strong cooperative
relationship).
This sensible reason for spreading
blood on the doorpost to express and reinforce the interclass unity of the homestead unit (or such), moreover, makes so much sense that later generations
found an added way to express the ethics of mutual unity. Later generations ceased
to eat in the homestead and ate instead in mass pilgrimage gatherings in
Jerusalem (as I will discuss elsewhere). Later generations thus stopped placing
blood on doorposts. Nonetheless, they continued to eat the Paschal sacrifice in
pre-designated groups. And in parallel to the Biblical practice of placing
blood on the doorpost and declaring that God did and would protect the ethical
mutually-supportive homestead, these later generations sang Hallel/Psalms
together at the Paschal celebration.[4] Moreover, it is mainly[5]
because the Paschal sacrifice models anew every year an
ethical relationship within each group/homestead, that later generations continued
to eat the Paschal sacrifice in pre-designated groups and continued to affirm via Psalms (Hallel) that God (or: Existence's) both destroys and saves -- that God will protect them from the very harms
that the Divine inflicts on the world to the harm of those who do not live in ethical
mutually-supportive groups.
To close: Beyond understanding the
Torah's important message here, we have now seen how to accurately understand the
message of all Torah sources (in the broadest sense). First understand the
real-life context of the practice. Second explain the practice to match the
context. Then and only then, figure out the correct meaning of the words that a
source uses to explain the practice.
[1]
Greenberg M. 1976, 71 and many others).
[2]
I don't know what to say about critical Biblical scholars who view themselves
as academically rigorous (such as Shinan and Zakovitch 2012, 97-99) and yet
read the term lehem oni as a literary explanation of the reason to eat
flatbread, rather than translate the term in its agricultural context before
conjecturing what other allusions the Biblical author intended.
[3]
For more on the question of the date of the Barley Offering, see Ancselovits
2016, 72-73. (For the reference to Milgrom 1997, 81-89 and fn.14 in that
article, one should add the earlier Ginsberg H.L. 1982, 59.)
