THE POISONED AGENT
(or ANATOMY OF A PILPUL)
צֵא וּלְמַד מַה בִּקֵּש לָבָן הָאֲרַמִי לַעֲשׂוֹת לְיַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ. שֶׁפַּרְעֹה לֹא גָזַר אֶלָּא עַל הַזְּכָרִים וְלָבָן בִּקֵּשׁ לַעֲקוֹר אֶת הַכֹּל, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: "אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי…"
Go learn what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to our forefather Yaakov, for Pharaoh only decreed against the males, whereas Lavan sought to uproot everything, as it is written: “An Aramean sought to destroy my father…”
The Haggadah here interprets the verse ארמי אובד אבי as a reference to an attempt by Lavan to destroy the entire Jewish nation in its infancy.
This is puzzling. Where do we find Lavan attempting to kill Yaakov’s family?
This question leads some commentaries on the Haggadah assert that the verse is referring to an incident that took place in Parshas Chayei Sarah, before Yaakov was even born! How so? Hang on and let’s see.
THE PREMISE
We read that when Eliezer came to Besuel’s home to discuss a match between Rivka and Yitzchak, ויישם לפניו לאכול ויאמר לא אוכל עד אם דיברתי דברי - food was placed before him to eat, but he said, “I shall not eat until I have spoken.”
Targum Yonason and some Midrashim teach us that the Eliezer’s food was poisoned, in an attempt to kill him. Besuel ends up consuming that food and dies, and therefore Besuel disappears toward the end of the story, and Lavan takes over the negotiations.
Now Tosafos in Kesubos 7b, based on Maseches Kallah, write that Eliezer was not just a shidduch investigator. He was a legally empowered agent, a shaliach for Kiddushin. This means that Eliezer could betroth Rivkah as a representative of Yitzchak, at which point she would legally become Yitzchak’s wife.
And now we come to the punch line, so to speak. The Gemara in Gittin 64a teaches:
.האומר לשלוחו צא וקדש לי אשה סתם ומת שלוחו אסור בכל הנשים שבעולם
One who says to his shaliach: “Go and betroth for me an unspecified woman”, and the shaliach died and did not return, the sender may not marry anyone in the world.
Wow, what a pickle to be in. The rationale is as follows: Is it assumed that the agent carried out his mission and betrothed someone to the sender. So this fellow unfortunately now has a wife somewhere that he has virtually no chance of identifying. Therefore, any woman in the world may now be a forbidden relative. What if the woman he now wishes to marry is his unknown wife’s sister, mother, or daughter? Hence this poor fellow may never marry anyone.
So when Lavan tried to assassinate Eliezer by poisoning his food, he almost destroyed the entire nation of Israel! Had Eliezer, the shaliach l’kiddushin, never returned, Yitzchak would have had to remain single for the rest of his life! There would then be no Yaakov and no Jewish people...
This, then, was the moment where Lavan “sought to uproot everything”...
WHO SAID THAT?
It’s hard (for me, at least) to find the original source of this piece. These vertlach, especially those on popular topics such as the Haggadah, tend to get poured from vessel to vessel, accumulating baggage as they go. Misattributions and errors abound in this area, as Haggadah printers “borrow” material from others.
The piece is commonly attributed to the Chasam Sofer and/the Kedushas Levi in Parshas Chayei Sarah. This is only partially correct, as in those places it is found as a vort on the parsha and not on the Haggadah. Both say that by killing Eliezer, Yitzchak would have been prevented from marrying, in accordance with the Gemara about a shaliach who dies.
But they do not go so far as to inject this incident into the verse ארמי אובד אבי or the Haggadah passage of לבן בקש לעקור את הכל. Those Haggadahs (and there are many) which present the Kedushas Levi or Chasam Sofer as having said this piece to explain the Haggadah, thus betray that they never looked up the things they quote.
The whole megillah, using the Gemara in Gittin as a commentary on the Haggadah passage of לבן בקש לעקור את הכל, is found in an oldish Haggadah called Tzuf Amarim in the name of R. Aharon Kaidanover; as well as R. Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe in his Haggadas Mordechai, quoting R. Yosef Slutzker. I don’t know of an earlier source.
TAKING STOCK
This whole edifice makes several leaps, and is the subject of much give and take in Parsha and Haggadah literature. Let us examine some of the issues that crop up.
First, let’s examine the most basic source: the verse in Parshas Ki Savo. Most Rishonim simply translate the phrase ארמי אובד אבי, as “my forefather was a wandering Aramean”, in which ארמי אובד is a description of Yaakov himself, and there’s no mention of any antagonist.
The Haggadah, which renders “an Aramean sought to destroy my father”, and fingers Lavan as the unnamed assailant, is found in other sources, including Targum Onkelos, Sifri, and Rashi.
It should be noted that Sifri and Rashi clearly understand this as a reference to direct interaction between Lavan and Yaakov, and Eliezer is definitely not in their picture. The Haggadah text, as well as the Targum, are less specific, and can bear our “shtikel”, albeit with some stretching of the imagination.
WHO POISONED THE FOOD?
Another assumption being made here is that Lavan was the one who attempted to poison Eliezer. In the Targum and Midrashim no suspect is named, and it seems as if Besuel is as likely a culprit as Lavan. In the Yalkut Shimoni it says “they put poison”, which implies that both Besuel and Lavan were in on the plot.
I have not found any early source that specifically accuses Lavan of trying to kill Eliezer at this point.
WAYS OUT
Would Yitzchak really have been stuck had Eliezer not returned? The Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 35:11) gives a couple of solutions. First, he could still marry any woman with no living mother, grandmothers, sisters, or daughters or granddaughters. And he could even marry a woman who did have living relatives, if those relatives were married at the time of the shaliach’s disappearance; or if they stated that they had not been betrothed by the shaliach and backed up their statement by marrying others.
I don’t see why this isn’t a major problem with the entire premise that killing Eliezer would have ruined Yitzchak’s matrimonial opportunities. צריך עיון גדול. Nevertheless this isn’t a kushya on the Haggadah printers; it is a difficulty with the aforementioned Chasam Sofer and Kedushas Levi. Therefore we will assume there’s an answer out there.
There’s still a lot to be said about this vort, but there are limits on our space and time. Let us finish with 2 questions that have particularly clever solutions, (or what in the Yeshiva world is know as a “chop”.)
CHAP 1:
WHAT ABOUT YAAKOV’S WIVES?
There’s a simple objection to the entire premise that Yitzchak would have been bound by the prohibition to marry lest he end up with his wife’s relative: The Torah had not yet been given, and therefore our forefathers had no obligation to follow the laws forbidding the marriage to such relatives. We need no further proof than the simple fact that Yaakov married two sisters.
But here we have an answer. For on the other hand, we have the teaching that our forefathers kept all the laws of the Torah ere Sinai. How do we resolve this with Yaakov’s actions?
There is somewhat famous Ramban that says that although the Avos kept all the laws of the Torah, they only did so in Eretz Yisroel. Hence Yaakov only re-enters the Land after one of his wives dies, because he would not have married to two sisters in the Holy Land itself.
The last piece of the puzzle is the somewhat famous Rashi that G-d told Yitzchak not to leave the Land of Israel, for he was sanctified as a Korban Olah at the Akeidah.
Aha! So since in Eretz Yisroel the Avos would not have married any of the (later-to-be-) forbidden relatives; had Eliezer disappeared, Yitzchak would have been stuck without a way to marry, lest he marry a relative.
CHAP 2:
WOULD THE PLOT HAVE WORKED?
Let’s wrap this up with one final twist: a revelation (maybe) of how Avraham Avinu had everyone fooled the whole time!
Many seforim on chumash question the propriety of Avraham’s actions in sending Eliezer as a shaliach to betroth someone to Yitzchak. As we noted in footnote 2, this seems terribly irresponsible. What would they have done if Eliezer had not returned? Although Hashem thwarted the attempt on Eliezer’s life, shouldn’t Avraham have been more careful and avoided this risk?
Another common difficulty raised here is the halacha that an עבד כנעני, a Canaanite slave, is not eligible to serve as a shaliach for Kiddushin.
It has been suggested that the 2 questions answer each other. Avraham gave Eliezer a שטר שחרור - a writ of emancipation, which would render him able to do the kiddushin for Yitzchok. However, this שטר included a conditional clause: the emancipation was contingent on Eliezer’s successful completion of his mission.
So what would have happened had Eliezer’s mission failed for any reason - including if Lavan had have killed him? The emancipation would have been void, and Eliezer’s kiddushin to Rivkah or anyone else would remain void as well, having been done by an עבד כנעני!
Yitzchak would have remained single and free to marry!
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה