TifereT LeyisraeL

Jubilee Volume in Honor of

Israel Francus

Edited by

Joel Roth Menahem Schmelzer Yaacov Francus

Tiferet Leyisrael: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus 2010 by The Jewish Theological Seminary of America All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from The Jewish Theological Seminary. book and cover Design by Jonathan Kremer Composition by Miles B. Cohen

ISBN-13: 978-0-87334-151-6

Contents

vii ix 1

Preface Abbreviations Israel Francus

Yitzchak Francus 5 Israel Francus

Ismar Schorsch 7 Professor Israel Francus

Leonard R. Levy 13 31 Ribbono shel Olam / God, Dominus: What Does It Mean? Jos Faur Bury My Coffin Deep!
Zoroastrian Exhumation in Jewish and Christian Sources

Geoffrey Herman 61 79 93 The Adiabenian Royal Family in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity Richard Kalmin The Sabbath As a Sanctuary in Space David Kraemer The Decisive Shift: From Geonim to Rabbi Yitshak Alfasi Leonard R. Levy

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Textual Criticism As a Prerequisite for the Study of Rabbinic Thought

Chaim Milikowsky 153 Like Torah Scrolls That Are Rolled Up:
The Story of the Death of Rabbi Eliezer in Sanhedrin 68a

Devora Steinmetz 181 So Why Did the Sages Say, Until Midnight?
On M. Berakhot 1:1

Burton L. Visotzky 189 201 207 Applying Jewish Law to New Circumstances Elliot N. Dorff Caesarean Birth and Pidyon Haben Mayer Rabinowitz Gufei Torah: The Limit to Halakhic Pluralism Joel Roth

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Ribbono shel Olam / God, Dominus: What Does It Mean?

t would be relatively easy to celebrate the intellectual and academic accomplishments of Professor Israel Francus. His book, by now a classic, on R. Eleazar Azzikris perush on Yerushalmi Besa, and his numerous, ground breaking studies on Talmud, talmudic law, and commentaries published in the most prestigious scholarly journals surely rank Professor Francus as one of the leading Talmudists of our time. There is, however, one additional dimension about which only those who have been privileged to know him well, over a long period of time, can attest: his profound, unshakable faith in the Tora and traditions of Israel. That is why Professor Francus is much more than an academician or a scholar: he is a sage imparting wisdom not only knowledge. It is to Professor Francus, sage par excellence, that this study is dedicated.

1
The focus of this paper is a passage in y. Ber. I, 5, 3c. It concerns the justification for the recitation of the first two paragraphs (Shema and vehaya) in the daily Shema. The thesis that we will examine proposes that these paragraphs were chosen because they allude, somehow, to the Decalogue. In this context, we should recall that the Decalogue was recited daily at the Temple together with the two blessings of the Shema (m. Tamid 5:1). Judicial reasoning ( )warranted to include the recitation of the Decalogue with the daily Shema. However, that line of reasoning was not pursued because it could have given substance to the claim of Jewish heretics (minim),

that only the Decalogue was revealed to Moses at Sinai. Rather than expose the public to the squabble of heretics ( ) by reciting the Decalogue, or disregard the dictates of judicial reasoning ( )and leave out the Decalogue altogether, the Rabbis instituted Shema and vehaya, because the Ten Commandments are included ( )in these two paragraphs.1 The inclusion, however, is not explicit, but effected through rabbinic exegesis. In this fashion, one would be complying with the dictates of judicial reasoning, warranting the daily recitation of the Decalogue, as in the Temple, without lending a hand to the heretics claim that only the Decalogue was revealed at Sinai. For our purpose, we quote the passage of the Yerushalmi concerning the parallel between the first two commandments and the two terms of the first verse in the Shema. It reads as follows: Why do they read these two paragraphs [Shema and vehaya]? Because they comprise the Decalogue! [1] I am God your Lord/Shema yisrael. [2] There shall be no other gods before Me/God is One.2 Maimonides included the above passage in his Hilkhot Yerushalmi, edited by the late Saul Lieberman.3 Because that book is a halakhic compendium, the question arises: what could the legal significance of that passage be? Addressing this question, Professor Lieberman wrote that although it has been taught that nothing (authoritative) may be learned from an aggada, nonetheless, this (particular) aggada encloses some halakhic-dust ( .) He then proceeded to point to Mishne Tora, Hilkh. Yes. Hat. 1:6, where Maimonides cites the verse I am the Lord . . . (Exod. 20:2), as the justification for classifying the first commandment as a misva.4 The explanation is unclear. One would like to know the criterion by which a homily may be classified as an aggada to be dismissed as not authoritative. More problematic is the expression . It does not appear in any rabbinic source, and no meaning can be ascribed to it. Nonetheless, in what follows, we propose that Professor Lieberman succeeded in pointing at a pivotal aspect of Jewish monotheism.

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2
For Maimonides the object of the first precept is not belief in the existence of God. As pointed out by R. Hasdai Crescas (d. c. 1412), a misva presupposes the existence
Y. Ber. 1:5, 3c; see Maimonides, Perush Hamishnayot, Tamid 5:1. For reference purposes, the following is the Hebrew original: . . . : . . / . / 3 In Saul Lieberman, ed., Hilkhot yerushalmi leharambam (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1948), 21. 4 See Hilkhot yerushalmi leharambam, 21, n100.
1 2

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of God, on whose authority the misva is issued. Given that a misva any misva already posits His existence, a precept to believe in God would be purposeless.5 A careful reading of the first six paragraphs of Yesode Hatora show that the first misva is not the recognition of Gods existence in the abstract, but acknowledgment of His absolute sovereignty over mankind. Maimonides opened his Yesode Hatora with four paragraphs (1:14), where he formulated the doctrine that God alone exists necessarily; in contradistinction to the rest of creation, which is contingent. The first paragraph postulates that God alone exists from eternity and that whatever else exists is contingent on His existence. This creed is The Foundation of Foundations and the Pillar of the Sciences (1:1). It further proposes that whereas everything depends on Him (1:2), He does not depend on anything else (1:3). Given that the existence of everything but God is conditioned on His existence, Scripture established that He alone exists truly, and nothing else could partake of His level of existence (1:4). In this context, it is important to note that according to Maimonides, the literal meaning of the Tetragrammaton is He who necessarily exists. 6 It posits, as R. Manasseh ben Israel (160457) explained, His inherent, absolute and unconditional existence.7 Indeed, Moses first mission was to transmit this fundamental doctrine to the elders of Israel, under the title I am that what I am (Exod. 3:14). In the words of R. Manasseh ben Israel: Shew them [to the elders of Israel] . . . that my Being is within myself, independent of every other, different from all other Beings, who are so alone by virtue [of] my distributing it [existence] to them, and might not have been nor could actually be such without it.8 This establishes a categorical distinction between Gods being, which is necessary, and everything else, which is only a possible being.9
See R. Hasdai Crescas, Or Hashem (Tel Aviv, 1963), repr., 3a. Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed (henceforth, Guide), I, 61, 101 (l. 10). Expressing in a single word the three tenses of the verb to be, thus signifying continuous, uninterrupted beingness, from ever onto ever. All quotations of the Guide proceed from the Arabic text, Dalalat al-Ha irin, edited with variant readings by Issachar Joel (Jerusalem: J. Junovitch, 1930). The translations are mine. All references are given in the text according to section, chapter, page, and line. 7 The Conciliator, vol. 1 (London, 1842), 104. 8 The Conciliator, vol. 1, 103. 9 See Guide, I, 57, 90 (ll. 49); II, Introduction, Axioms 19, 20; ch. 1, 172 (ll. 1425); and R. Joseph b. Jehuda, Drei Abhandlungen, ed. Moritz Lowy (Berlin, 1879). Cf. Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1934), 1:67; and Jos Faur, Homo Mysticus: A Guide to Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1998), 98102. Therefore, Gods existence and the existence of every thing else are absolutely dissimilar; see Guide, I, 51, 53, 55, 57, 60, etc.
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jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

Before proceeding to the analysis of the next two paragraphs, let us point out that the concept of God as a necessary being was a primary Jewish concept already known to Greek-speaking Jews. As noted by R. Elie Benamozegh (18231900), the source of this concept is Aqilass rendition of shaddai into the Greek ikanos, all or self-sufficient.10 In support, Benamozegh quoted the Arukh, s.v. iqyum, where it is reported that this term was used by Byzantine Jews to translate shaddai. R. Benjamin Musafia (160675), ad loc. interpreted the term to mean self-sufficient.11 From them, this doctrine passed to the Arabic of R. Seadya Gaon, who translates shaddai (Gen. 17:1; Exod. 6:3, etc.) as at-ta iq al-kafi, the absolute, the self-sufficient.12 Finally, this concept acquired doctrinal formulation with Maimonides as an absolute self-sufficient being, depending on Himself alone and on nothing else, whereas everything else is a possible being, depending only on Him.13 It is on the basis of these primary axioms (Yesode Hatora 1:14) that Maimonides postulates: That [the necessary] being is the God of the universe, sovereign (adon) of the whole earth (1:5). By sovereign (adon) of the whole earth, sovereignty over the inhabitants of the earth is meant.14 The next paragraph defines the first mis va. To indi cate that the misva comprises only the previous paragraph and not the preceding four Maimonides used the singular pronoun this (ze). And acknowledgement of this (ze) matter; that is, the foregoing paragraph, is a positive precept (1:6). In similar fashion, in the Arabic text of Maimonidess Sefer Hamisvot, the first precept is defined as acknowledging [Gods] ar-rabbubiya a term indicating dominion and sovereignty.15 It may be of some interest to note that in the course of explaining
As reported in Gen. Rab., 46, 1, ed. Theodor-Albeck (Jerusalem: Warmann Books, 1965), 1:461. The Septuagint on Ruth 1:21, as well as Symmachus and Aquila, translate shaddai into the Greek ikano. 11 See R. Elie Benamozegh, Em la-Miqra, vol. 3 (Leghorn, 1862), 18b19b. On philological grounds, Alexander Kohut, ed. Arukh Hashalem, vol. 1 (New York, 1878), 255, rejected Musafias interpretation. He missed the point. The special value of Musafias contributions, as Professor Lieberman used to teach, rests on his keen knowledge of the koine or colloqial Greek spoken by the Jews (rather than classical or literal texts and dictionaries). This is particularly important in our case, because the author of the Arukh underlined that this term was used in the oral translation of the Tora. 12 Guide, I, 63, 107 (ll. 69). 13 See Guide, I, 57, 90 (ll. 49); cf. ibid., 63, 106 (ll. 2024); II, Introduction, Axioms 19, 20; ch. 1, 172 (ll. 1472); Maimonides, Perush Hamishnayot, Sanhedrin, 10, 1, Doctrine 1, vol. 4, ed. R. Joseph Qafih (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1964), 21011. 14 Maimonides chose the expression ruler of the whole earth because of stylistic considerations; see the anonymous Perush ad loc. printed in the standard editions. It stands for the inhabitants of the earth, and it parallels the liturgical formula king of the universe. See Guide, I, 56; and cf. 63, 106 (ll. 1013); and Faur, Homo Mysticus, 8994. 15 R. Joseph Qafih, ed. (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1971), positive precept #1, 58. This term appears once at the beginning of the paragraph, acknowledging [Gods] ar-rabbubiya, and once at the end, concluding that indeed the first commandment consists in acknowledging
10

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Gen. 28:20, Maimonidess son, R. Abraham (11861237), reported in the name of his father: Far be it from the faithful even if he would be the lowliest of Jacobs children to accept Gods dominion (rabbubiyatihi) only conditionally.16 A few notes will help us gain a better grasp of this term. Like many Arabic legal and religious idioms, rabbubiya also entered the Arabic lexicon via Judeo-Aramaic; in our case, the Aramaic rab. In the Targum, rab translates the Hebrew adon.17 It penetrated Jewish liturgy and literature in the Hebraized form ribbon, ribbono; for example, ribbono shel olam or sovereign of the universe. In this respect we also should point out that in Judeo-Arabic tradition, the Hebrew God without a suffix (eloah) or with a suffix (elohekha, elohenu, etc.) is translated rabb, master, sovereign, or someone exercising dominion. This point deserves to be explained. Rather than simply assuming, as is often done when translating the first commandment, that elohekha is a synonym for God (consequently, the first message transmitted by God to Israel involves a tautology: I am God your God), in Judeo-Arabic this term is translated rabbak your master, that is, someone with rabbubiya or dominion over you.18 Bearing this in mind, the first commandment does not come to establish I am God, but rather, I am God elohekha; that is, as per R. Seadyas translation: rabbak with dominion over you. The source of this doctrine is the Yerushalmi quoted above, where I am your God in the Decalogue, is associated with accepting, acknowledging (Hebrew: Shema) not merely knowing Gods supreme dominion. In similar fashion, R. Abraham ibn Ezra explained that the first precept of the Decalogue is for an individual to accept ( )God as his eloah.19 It follows that the Shema is not an affirmation that there exists only one God, but rather, that God elohenu is One God; that is, no one else but God has dominion. In Seadyas translation: Hear O Israel, God rabbana having dominion over us is one God, that is, no one else can claim dominion but God. Hence the second parallel in the Yerushalmi Berakhot quoted above: There shall be no other gods before Me/God is One.20 There are implications to this doctrine. According to m. Ber. 2:2, the recitation of the Shema entails acknowledging the sovereignty of the kingdom of heaven
[Gods] ar-rabbubiya; see textual variants at n6. (Qafih s translation is faulty). It appears also ibid., Principle 9, 32. 16 Perush R. Abraham (Letchworth, 1959), 88. 17 See Gen. 45:8, 9: ribbon; Exod. 23:17, 34:23; Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. 18:31, 32; PseudoJonathan to Exod. 23:17, etc. 18 Invariably, when this term relates to the God of Israel, R. Seadya Gaon translates it rabbak; see, e.g., his translation on Exod. 15:26; 20:2, 6, 9, 11, etc.; Lev. 2:13; 18:21; 19:12; 21:8; Deut. 4:4, 10; 6:4, 5, 10, 16, etc. However, when the verse refers to a pagan deity, he translates it ma budak your [object of] worship; see Gen. 31:32. 19 Yesod Mora, VII, 10, ed. Joseph Cohen and Uriel Simon (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan Univ., 2002), 142 (ll. 1067); cf. editors note ad loc. 20 And not shared with any creature; cf. R. David Qimhi on Isa. 42:8.

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jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

( .) In Jewish law, verbal acknowledgment ( )is regarded as a performative utterance, having the status of an action.21 Thus, according to m. Sanh. 7:4, acknowledging (hameqabbel) an idol or a deity constitutes aboda zara, although no ritual was performed.22

3
The preceding leads to a more precise understanding of the second commandment. It does not merely prohibit polytheism, but, as per Seadyas translation, it prohibits attributing Gods rabbubiya to someone or to something else. Thus the parallel made in the Yerushalmi quoted above: There shall be no other gods (elohim) before Me/God is One.23 In different words, Gods sovereignty or rabbubiya is indivisible.24 The worshipers of the golden calf sinned not because they believed in the existence of another God, but because by declaring This is elohekha, O Israel! (Exod. 32:4, 8; Seadyas translation: this is rabbak O Israel!), they attributed dominion to something or someone other than God. This view was shared by R. Judah Halevi. When explaining that the worshipers of the golden calf were only a minority, he went on to clarify that the rest of the children of Israel neither worshipped the golden calf, nor negated [Gods absolute] rabbubiya.25 Accordingly, acknowledging the sovereignty of the kingdom of heaven ( ) implies much more than abstract monotheism. Paraphrasing the explanation given by the Mishnah that the section of Shema must be read before vehaya in order that one should accept first the kingdom of heaven ( ,) Maimonides explained:
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On the legal status of this type of utterance, see my Performative and Descriptive Utterances in Jewish Law [Hebrew], in Studies in Jewish Law in Honor of Professor Aaron Kirschenbaum, Dine Israel 2021, Arye Edrei, ed. (20001), 10121, esp. 10810. 22 See Sanh. 61a; Mishne Tora, Hilkh. Abod. Zar. 3:4. 23 And not shared with any creature, cf. R. David Qimhi on Isa. 42:8. 24 See R. Seadyas translation on Exod. 32:4, 8. Cf. Sefer Hamisvot, Arabic text, 181; simi larly, ibid. Principle 9, 32. Maimonides illustrates an intellectual sin as if one were to attribute rabbubiya to someone besides God (Qafih s translation in both places is faulty). Likewise, accord ing to Maimonidess son, Perush R. Abraham, 315, the second commandment prohibits attributing Gods rabbubiya to someone else. The source for this interpretation is m. Sanh. 7:4, where acknowledging (hameqabbel) an idol or a deity as eloah consitutues aboda zara, although no ritual was performed; see above nn2122. 25 According to R. Judah Halevi, Kuzari, I, 97, [Hebrew], Yehuda Even Shmuel (Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing, 1994), 3336; Arabic original, ed. David H. Baneth and H. Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977), 2932, the children of Israel neither worshipped the golden calf, nor negated [Gods absolute] rabbubiya, 30 (l. 18); cf. ibid. 29 (l. 18), and IV, 15, 168 (l. 9). The Hebrew version, 34 (l. 24) is faulty, but ibid. 33 (l. 24) and IV, 15, 174 (l. 5), it was correctly translated ribbonuto.
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The Shema section is to be read first because it contains [i] the unity of God, [ii] loving Him, and [iii] studying Him, which is the all-encompassing principle upon which everything else rests.26

4
The association dominion/creation is conceptually related to the root q-n-h, standing not only for ownership and possession, but also for forging and making; as when Eve declared on the birth of Cain: I have forged (qaniti) a person together with God (Gen. 4:2).27 Bearing this sense in mind, the oath pronounced by Abraham to Melchizedek, I have raised my hand [in oath] to the supreme God qone heavens and earth (Gen. 14:19, 22), acquires precision and depth. God is acknowledged qone in the double connotation of Creator/Lord of the universe.28 When discussing the title adonai used by the Hebrews for reading the Tetragrammaton, Maimonides explained that it derives from adon. The final diphthong ai is not a suffix added to the construct form (like the suffix i in adoni) but a part of the absolute form of the noun. Accordingly, adonai stands for total dominion, without condition or encumbrance.29 This postulates that dominion is a function of qana in a double sense: Creator and thus Lord (Dominus).30 Here is what Maimonides said: Concerning Him it was said to have possession (qana) (Gen. 14:19, 22) over them [heaven and earth], because He, the most high, has dominion over them [His creatures] as a master has dominion over his slaves. This is why He is called Lord (adon) of all the earth, and the Lord (ha-adon), since one cannot be a master unless having possession (qinyan).31

jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

Mishne Tora, Hilkh., Qer. Shema 1:3. See Umberto Cassuto, From Adam to Noah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1953), 13335, and Deut. 32:6. Cf. Prov. 8:22, and Seadya Gaon, Mishle, ed. and trans., R. Joseph Qafih (Jerusalem, 1976), 77. Incidently, the above mentioned verse meant that Eve, the first mother of humanity, recognized that parents have only limited dominion over their children, subservient to Gods; see b. Yeb. 5b; Mishne Tora, Hilkhot Mamrim 6:12; unlike pagan society where parents dominion over their children is absolute. 28 See Guide II, 30, 251 (ll. 2225). 29 Guide, I, 61, 100 (ll. 2029). Cf. R. Judah Halevi, Kuzari, IV, 3, Arabic original, 153 (l. 5): ya mawlai, O my Lord, in the sense of supreme sovereign, governor, or master; the Hebrew translation, 159 (ll. 12) misses the point. 30 See Guide II, 30, 251 (ll. 2225). Cf. David Levi, Lingua Sacra, vol. 1, pt. 2, (1786), s.v. adonai. 31 Guide II, 30, 252 (ll. 68). R. Judah Halevi, mentioned above n29, makes reference to the same verse.
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Thus, Scripture refers to God as adon, Lord, or master in the specific sense of having dominion as in Lord (adon) of the whole earth (Josh. 3:11, 13; Zech. 4:14; 6:5; Ps. 97:5). From this substantive derives adonai, regularly used in Hebrew as an appellative to God. For our purpose, it is highly significant that the Septuagint renders adonai as kyrios a Greek legal term. It means, as Elias Bickerman taught, the legitimate master of someone or something, a word which as a substantive was not used in Greek religious language.32 Intimately bound up with the doctrine that God possesses absolute dominion is the doctrine stipulating that creation must be essentially and fundamentally ex nihilo. Maimonides explained that this is why Scripture stipulates that God bara (created) the whole world because according to us, it was created out of nothing.33 To ascertain this overwhelming principle, Jews proclaim in the Amida thrice daily that God is qone hakol, Creator / having dominion over everything. Put differently, only a necessary being, creator of everything can have absolute dominion. Conversely, polytheism is the intellectual alternative to the above.34

5
Hebrew theocracy or Gods governance is an affirmation of God as the absolute adon or ribbon of earth. This is standard Jewish belief. Expressions such as kingdom of the almighty ( ) and kingdom of heaven ( ) in the liturgy and in rabbinic literature, mean that Gods law not a man or group of men incarnating a deity is the supreme rule of Israel! This was, precisely, what Jesus had in mind by the kingdom of heaven (basileia ton ouranon; see Matt. 4:17; cf. 6:10; Mark 9:1; Luke 11:2) and kingdom of God (basileia tou theou; see Mark 1:15; Luke 9:27; 21:31) not the hallucinatory doctrines of divines! With Oscar S. Straus (18501926) the first Jew to be appointed a member of the U.S. cabinet Hebrew theocracy stands for the government of men under the rule of the law. The government under the Judges [= ]was very much like our own federal government: each tribe had its own tribal or state government that had jurisdiction over local affairs, and it sent its duly elected representatives to the national congress. From the fact that God, the source of all power, the embodiment of the law, and not a king was ruler of

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66.
33 34

Elias Bickerman, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees (New York: Schocken Books, 1962), Guide II, 30, 252 (ll. 45). Cf. Faur, Homo Mysticus, 13942, and 235 n89.

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the nation, this government, is termed by various writers a theocracy, nomocracy (from nomos law), or a commonwealth.35 The modern emphasis on biblical monotheism misses all of the above.36 Scripture does not come to teach a metaphysical notion, but rather, that the one and only God is the adon, that is, that He has absolute dominion over His creation.37 To stress this fundamental doctrine, Jewish law requires that a blessing should be addressed not only to our God, but it should also spell out: king of the universe ( .) The Yerushalmi reports this doctrine in the name of Rab: Any blessing which does not proclaim (Gods) sovereignty ( )is not a blessing. What is the justification (for that doctrine)? R. Tanhuma responded: I will propose the justification for this doctrine: I shall exalt Thee, My God, O King! (Ps. 145:1).38 This doctrine was registered by Maimonides and other halakhic authorities.39 Together with the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), Gods sovereignty ( )form the nucleus ( )of the blessing.40

6
The biblical ideal of God as supreme sovereign (instead of sovereign as supreme God) bears on the realm of the political. Throughout antiquity there were pagan monotheists, some of whom are mentioned in the Scripture with deference.41 However, not a
Oscar S. Straus, The Origin of the Republican Form of Government in the United States (New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1885), 108. 36 Chiefly, on a priori grounds and intellectual bias, biblical monotheism is analyzed according to Greek more specifically Hellenistic ideology, with the foreseeable results. If one were to add to it the notion of ethical a term antithetical to misva and halakhah (neither the Rabbis lexicon nor Scripture has a semantic equivalent to ethics) and then go on to examine biblical ethical monotheism, the conclusions will be confusing, at best. It is as if one were to assume that apples in Judaism are bananas and then go on to demonstrate that the biblical concept of this fruit is flawed. See, however, the valiant efforts of V. Nikiprowetzy, in Ethical Monotheism, Daedalus 104 (1975): 6990. 37 Cf. R. Judah Halevi, Kuzari, IV, 15, 174; Arabic original, 168 (l. 9). 38 B. Ber. 40b; y. Ber. 9:1, 11d. See Ber. 40b, and Tosafot, s.v. amar. Cf. the note of R. Solomon b. Adrete, ad loc.; and Haggahot Maimoniyot and Maran Joseph Caro, Kesef Mishne on Hilkh. Ber. 1:5. 39 Mishne Tora, Hilkh. Ber. 1:5; Maran Joseph Caro, Bet Yosef on Tur, O.H. 214, s.v. vekhen katab. 40 See Mishne Tora, Hilkh. Ber. 8:11; Maran Joseph Caro, Bet Yosef on Tur, O.H., 209, s.v. haya beyado. Cf. the quotation from Newton below at n74. 41 See Mishne Tora, Hilkh. Abod. Zar. 1:2. There is an excellent collection of articles on pagan monotheism, Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, ed. Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). This is why, the concept of dominion in pagan lore is paternal
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jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

single pagan monotheist is known to have expressed the belief that only the one God has absolute dominion over His creatures.42 In pagan political thought, the earthly sovereign has absolute authority because he is the master of everything, that is, he has total monopoly of violence. In a dialogue between Nimrod and Abraham, Nimrod tells Abraham: Dont you know that I am adon of everything there is? That (on my command) the sun, the moon, and the stars and constellations move! I created the entire universe!43 The apotheosis of kings and the worship of rulers indicate the close, intimate relation between the realm of the political and the divine. Addressing this aspect of pagan sovereignty, Abraham Joshua Heschel noted: God and king are two conceptions so nearly coupled in the oriental mind that the distinction is constantly blurred. The God Re, according to mythology, was the first king in Egypt, and gods were among the rulers in Sumeria after the Flood. Thus, in historic times the kings majesty was equaled to that of a god. The king was held to be a god, begotten by his heavenly father, the sun god Re, who assumed the form of the living king for the purpose of procreation of an heir to the throne.44 The king is god and his will is supreme. The norms and administrative rules of government do not have the force of law in regard to the sovereign. As with Pharaoh: He as a god was the state. . . . To be sure, it was necessary for a new state to have rules and regulations for administrative procedures and precedents, but our negative evidence suggests that there was no codification of law, impersonally conceived and referable by magistrates without consideration of the crown. Rather, the customary law of the land was conceived to be the word of the pharaoh. . . . The authority of codified law would have competed with the personal authority of the pharaoh.45
or political, but not divine; see Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Penguin Classics, 1984), ch. 20. 42 This is the root of the Jewish concept of martyrdom. For some insights, see my On Martyrdom in Jewish Law: Maimonides and Nahmanides [Hebrew], Memorial Volume in Honor of Professor M. S. Feldbloom Annual of Bar-Ilan University, 3031 (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan Univ., 2006), esp. section I. 43 Midrash Haggadol, Genesis, ed. Mordecai Margulies (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1967), 205 (ll. 1516). 44 Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: The Burning Bush Press, 1962), 474. 45 E. Wilson, quoted by E. A. Speiser, The Biblical Idea of History in Its Common Near Eastern Setting, in The Jewish Expression, ed. Judah Goldin (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1976), 5.

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The king was a supernatural being, and the possessor of magical powers that were not shared by any other human being. The kings were regarded as gods, sacrifices were offered to them, and their worship was celebrated in special temples by special priests. Indeed the worship of the kings sometimes cast worship of the gods into the shade. . . . The king was also the high priest of each god, who for practical purposes delegated his functions to the professional priesthood.46 The sin of Israel was political not theological. Tacitus, described the Jews as the most degraded of the other races.47 The reason was that Jews paid respect to God over kings. Therefore, they do not allow any images to stand in their cities, much less in their temples. Adding in ire, This flattery is not paid to their kings, nor this honour to our Emperors.48 Cicero, too, was baffled at that. Even when Jerusalem was still standing and the Jews at peace with us, the demands of their religion were incompatible with the majesty of our Empire, the dignity of our name and the institutions of our ancestors.49 In pagan political thought, sovereignty is unlimited. On behalf of Caligula, it was said that Sovereignty cannot be shared, that is an immutable law of nature. This principle stems from the logic that might is the ultimate source of authority. He [Caligula] being the stronger, it was explained, promptly did to the weaker what the weaker would have done to him. It follows that the assassination of those who were supposed to share power with Caligula was an act of self defense, not murder. People who might moralize to the contrary should consider that the elimination of potential rivals is designed to avoid disturbances and wars both civil and foreign. And what is better than peace?50 In states organized on the basis of hierarchically structured power, the sovereign is god. This principle rests on impeccable logic. As argued by Caligula: Those who have charge of the herds of other animals, ox herds, goat herds, shepherds, are not themselves oxen, nor goats nor lambs, but men to whom is given a higher destiny and constitution, and in the same way I who am in charge of the best of herds, mankind, must be considered to
The Prophets, 474. See Henry Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1948), 3334. 47 Tacitus, Hist., V, 5, 659. All quotations come from The Complete Works of Tacitus, ed. Moses Hadas (New York: Modern Library, 1942). For a critical appraisal of Tacituss views, see Hans Levy, Tacitus on the Origin and Manners of the Jews, [Hebrew] Zion 8 (1943): 134, 6180. 48 Tacitus, Hist., V, 10, 663; and 5, 660; cf. 9, 663. 49 Cicero, Flac., 69, in Cicero (LCL, vol. 10, 51719). For a detailed analysis of Ciceros argument, see Hans Levy, Cicero on the Jews in his Speech for the Defense of Flaccus, [Hebrew] Zion 7 (1942): 10934. 50 Philo, Embassy, 68, (LCL, vol. 10, 35).
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jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

be different from them and not of human nature but to have a greater and diviner destiny.51 In antiquity and throughout the ages, Jews and Jews alone recognized absolute sovereigns for what they truly were, and they alone refused to bow down to them. Surely, when Caligula proclaimed that he was a god and demanded to be worshiped, there were among the pagan intelligentsia those who recognized his folly. However, none except Jews refused to worship him. It is on this ground alone and not because of their religion that Jews were targeted for persecutions. Philo, who was a witness to one of those not infrequent episodes in pagan political history, wrote: For he (Caligula) looked with disfavor on the Jews alone because they alone opposed him on principle, trained as they were we may say even from the cradle, by parents and tutors and instructors and by far higher authority of the sacred laws and also of the unwritten customs, to acknowledge one God who is Father and Maker of the world. For all others, men, women, cities, nations, countries, regions of the earth, I might almost say the whole inhabited world, groaning though they were at what was happening, flattered him all the same and magnified him out of all proportion and augmented his vanity. Some too even introduced into Italy the barbarian practice of prostrating themselves, a degradation of the high tradition of Roman freedom. One nation only standing apart, the nation of the Jews, was suspected of intending opposition, since it was accustomed to accept death as willingly as immortality, to save them from submitting to the destruction of any of their ancestral traditions, even the smallest, because as with buildings, if a single piece is taken from the base, the parts that up to then seemed firm, are loosened and slip away and collapse into the void thus made. But that displacement was of nothing petty, but of the greatest of that exists, when the created and corruptible nature of man was made to appear uncreated and incorruptible by a deification which our nation judged to be the most grievous impiety, since sooner could God change into a man than man into God.52 [italics added] This same point was made by none other than Thomas Hobbes (15881679), the father of modern political thought. Roman persecution of Jews was motivated by political, rather than religious considerations:

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Philo, Embassy, 76, (LCL, vol. 10, 39). Philo, Embassy, 5759, (LCL, vol. 10, XVI, 11518, 5759).

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And therefore the Romans, who had conquered the greatest part of the then known World, made no scruple of tolerating any Religion whatsoever in the City of Rome it selfe; unlesse it had something in it, that could not consist with their Civil Government; nor do we read, that any Religion was there forbidden, but that of the Jewes; who (being the particular Kingdome of God) thought it unlawful to acknowledge subjection to any mortal King or State whatsoever. And thus you see how the Religion of the Gentiles was a part of their Policy.53 Thus the fury of Tacitus and the rage of Cicero at the Jews the vilest and most degraded of all races for refusing to give to rulers the honor they give to God. This also may explain the antipathy towards the God of Israel, peculiar to dictators, megalomaniacs, and aspiring divines and intellectuals.

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The political creed stipulating that might equals right affected Hobbes theology. In his view, God reigneth over men . . . not from his Creating them . . . but from his Irresistible Power.54 In the Hebrew Scriptures, however, God has supreme dominion over all by right of creation (see above Section 4). The primary objective of the story of creation is not to teach something in the realm of metaphysics, but, as taught by Philo, to show that the Father and Maker of the world was in the truest sense also its Lawgiver.55 This means that might does not bestow authority: only creation, ex nihilo. Hobbes, however, proposed that God is to be obeyed . . . not as a Creator, and Gracious; but as Omnipotent.56 Having Hobbes in mind, R. Isaac Abendana (c. 1640 c. 1710), reiterated, with precision and elegance, the Jewish doctrine that Gods authority is a function of creation: Whereas God Almighty is the Lord and Governor of the Universe, as having by Right of Creation the Supreme Dominion over all Creatures.57 It is on this basis that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, as absolute master, issues misvot precepts a series of laws regulating all aspects of
Hobbes, Leviathan, 90. Hobbes, Leviathan, [187], 397. 55 Philo, Mos. II, 48, (LCL, vol. 6, 47173); Philo Embassy, 115, (LCL, vol. 10, 55; see ibid., 293, p. 147). 56 Hobbes, Leviathan [187], 397. There was a political agenda to Hobbess theology: the authority of the Rex, too, is a function of might. In the same line, Hobbes proposed that God does not always punish because of sin, but because He has the power to do so. See ibid. [188], 398: Right of Afflicting, is not always derived from mens Sinne, but from Gods Power. 57 R. Isaac Abendana, Discourses on the Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (London, 1706), 126. This answers the question Why Genesis? in Alan M. Dershowitz, The Genesis of Justice (New York: Warner Books, 2000), 123.
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the spiritual and political life of His subjects.58 The designation ribbono shel olam, master or ruler of the universe, for God in rabbinic Judaism and Jewish liturgy encodes this paramount doctrine of the Jewish faith: the God of the universe has absolute dominion over the whole world. In the words of Maimonides: He, the most high, has dominion over them [His creatures] as a master has dominion over his slaves. This is why He is called Lord (adon) of all the earth and the Lord (ha-adon).59 Isaac Newton (16431727) incorporated this doctrine in the General Scholium to the Principia: [W]e admire him (God) for his perfection; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion; for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things.60 The connection dominion/God in Newton presupposes the Hebrew adonLord / adonaiGod, but it is impossible according to the Latin deus.61 Having in mind the Hebrew connotation adon/adonai (rather than the Latin deus), Newton wrote this remarkable passage: [F]or God [i.e., adonai] is a relative word, and has respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over His own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel; but every Lord is not a God.62
Including the Seven Noahide Precepts for Non-Jews; see my Sir Isaac Newton, in Moses Maimonides (11381204), ed. Grge K. Hasselhoff and Otfried Fraisse (Ergon: Wuerzburg, 2004), 297303. 59 Guide II, 30, 252 (ll. 68). The source for this interpretation is Seadyas translation of Gen. 14:19, 22. 60 Isaac Newton, Principia, trans. A. Motte and rev. F. Cajory, 2 vols. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1934), 2:546. On Newtons attitude towards Judaism and his dependence on Maimonides, see my Newton, Maimonidean, Review of Rabbinic Judaism, vol. 6 (Brill, 2003), 21549. 61 The English translator of Principia, (544 n), assumed that Newton was thinking of the Latin deus/dominium. Because there is no linguistic relationship between these Latin terms, he sug gested that perhaps the Latin word Deus [derives] from the Arabic du . . . which signifies Lord. (sic). 62 Newton, Principia, vol. 2, 54445.
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As with Maimonides, Newton, too, conceived dominion in terms of a necessary Being. Thus, in the General Scholium he pointedly noted that all agree that the Supreme God exists necessarily and went on to describe God as a Being necessarily existing.63 Given that only God is a necessary being, nothing could be coeval with Him; that is, creation is essentially and fundamentally ex nihilo. Maimonides maintained that causality, necessity, as well as all the gamut of the physical laws are the effect, not the source of creation. Hence, the laws ruling the universe do not apply to God.64 The preceding precludes identifying God as a force immanent in nature, acting as the soul of the world.65 This Being, proposed Newton, governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all. 66 Fundamental to the doctrine that God is a necessary Being with absolute dominion is the belief that He does not act mechanically but as a willful, free agent. The chain of cause and effect, observed Newton, will eventually lead us to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical.67 The planetary system is the Effect of choice exercised by God.68 Even though God had created a perfectly mechanical universe, He acts as a voluntary Agent. 69 [T]he Motions which the Planets now have, wrote Newton to Richard Bentley (16821742), could not spring from any natural Cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.70 Roger Cotes (16821716), further developed this theme in the preface to the second edition of the Principia (1713), attacking those who deny that the world was caused by the will of God and attributing it to some necessity. There is not the least shadow of necessity compelling the Creator. Without all doubt this world, he declared, could arise from nothing but the perfectly clear free will of God directing and presiding over all.
jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

Newton, Principia, vol. 2, 546. See Guide, I, 56; cf. ibid. 35 (82); 63, 106 (ll. 1013). On the designation of God as first Cause, see ibid. I, 69; and Faur, Homo Mysticus, 8994. 65 Guide, I, 70, 118 (ll. 2226); III, 29, (ll. 2225). On this fundamental concept, see Philo, Spec. Laws, I, 18 (LCL, vol. 7, 109). 66 Newton, Principia, 544; cf. Isaac Newton, Opticks (New York: Dover, 1952), based on the 4th ed. (London, 1730), Qu. 31, 403. 67 Newton, Opticks, Qu. 28, 369. 68 Newton, Opticks, Qu. 31, 402. Cf. Guide II, 20, 218 (l. 23)219 (l. 2); and Faur, Homo Mysticus, 11215. 69 Letters to Bentley, reproduced in Isaac Newtons Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, I. Bernard Cohen, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958), 282. 70 Cohen, Letters to Bentley, in Isaac Newtons Papers and Letters, 284.
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In conclusion, the idea of ribbono shel olam and God, dominus, means, first and foremost, that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is not reducible to pure metaphysics. From the parallel, I am God your Lord / Shema yisrael registered in Maimonidess Hilkhot Yerushalmi, we learn that Jewish monotheism is not merely an abstract knowledge, but rather, it implies, as per m. Ber. 2:2 acknowledging the sovereignty of heavens ( .) To ascertain this principle, upon the performance of a misva, a blessing is pronounced. It consists of four small segments. First, an invocation addressed to God: Blessed are You God; followed by an announcement that He is king of the universe, that is, the one and only one having total dominion over everything. The third segment ascertains that (consequently) He had awarded us sanctity with His precepts; concluding, and prescribed us, spelling out the specific precept about to be fulfilled. Conversely, biblical idolatry is not just the worshipping of idols, as per popular wisdom, but as taught by the Rabbis: aboda zara: an alien non-misva worship, whereby man not God proclaims his supreme dominion over Him by stipulating how It ought to be worshiped.71 In the realm of aboda zara, authority is grounded on the right of might; in contrast, the God of Israel has dominion over everything by Right of Creation.72 In the Hebrew Scripture, God does not act as a raving cosmocrator, on the basis of might as in the mind of frenzied divines and misguided theologians! The holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are to remind the faithful that the God and king of Israel not only has the right to judge all the inhabitants of the world,73 but also, as Father and Maker to remiss sins.74 The modern emphasis on biblical monotheism and its subsequent emphasis on ethics, rather than on misvot misses all that.75 Put differently, a God without dominion has nothing to do with the God of Israel. As reasoned by Isaac Newton, the father of modern science: It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity
See Faur, Homo Mysticus, 1011. See above n57. 73 See m. Rosh Hash. 1:2; b. Rosh Hash. 16b; Mishne Tora, Hilkhot Tesh. 3:1, 4. See the 6th and 11th blessings of the daily Amida and m. Yoma 8:9. Cf. George Foote Moore, Judaism, vol. 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1966), 15051. 74 Cf. above n55. 75 See above n36.
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to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done.76 Properly understood, the Hebrew hymn Adon Olam sung throughout the world in Jewish synagogues is a most eloquent summary to all of the above.77

jos faur : : Ribbono shel olam / god, Dominus: What does it mean?

Newton, Principia, vol. 2, 545. 77 There is a beautiful rendition in English of this hymn with notes in Joseph H. Hertz, Daily Prayer Book (New York: Bloch Publishing Co., 1963), 55657. Other hymns were modeled after it, the most popular of which is Yah ribbon alam by Israel Njara.
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