chukas:
sholem aleixem!
Wow, another week! I'm personally feeling quite overwhelmed by gestures broadly. But, it's time for some Torah study and preparation for Shabbos!
Welcome to a bunch of new subscribers -- thanks for finding my weird little gematria-laden home. If you haven't read the entire archives yet (lol), I'll do the proper internet shameless plug thing and recommend my revised and updated commentary on bereishis / gematria 101 course. It's completely free (just enter $0 for the price)! You can technically pay dollars for it, but honestly I'm fine at the moment and you should probably donate those to your local abortion fund anyway.
Okay, embarrassment over. This week on Etz Hi we're going to shift briefly away from the Torah and to the Haftorah. Their are various haftorah traditions, but in the minhag I follow we're reading Shoftim (Judges) 11:1-33 this week, the story of Yiftakh ha-Gil'adi (Jephthah the Gileadite to his enemies.)
Yiftakh is the son of a sex worker and Gil'ad -- which is both the name of his father and his region (though personally I like the idea of Yiftakh somehow being the quintessential Gileadite.) Gil'ad has other sons with his wife, and when those sons grow up they drive Yiftakh away. Yiftakh moves to Tob, where he hangs out with some buddies (the "empty men", which is an excellent name for a punk band.)
Time passes, and the Ammonites attack Israel. Yiftakh is a gifted warrior, so the elders of Gil'ad go to ask him to return. He responds how you might expect:
You are the very people who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house. How can you come to me now when you are in trouble?
There are two things I think are interesting. If these elders are indeed the people who drove him out (i.e. Gil'ad's other sons), then a fair amount of time has passed (and Yiftakh himself is an elder now.) The second is that the word for "trouble" used here is צר/narrow, while Yiftakh's name means "he will open." Let's save this for later.
The elders respond by offering Yiftakh command over all of Gil'ad if he returns, and he agrees. I think it is worth asking why, though we won't get much more from the text. We'll learn later that Yiftakh has a family, a home, and (given that these elders want him) some amount of authority/respect where he is. Does he agree to return to get more power, to right a wrong that he has never really gotten over, or for some other reason?
Yiftakh returns, and asks the Ammonites why they attacked. The king of the Ammonites claims that they attacked to restore land that the Israelites seized when they left Egypt. Yiftakh says that, essentially, the land the Israelites currently hold was given to them by haShem so what can you do?
At this point "the spirit of haShem" comes over Yiftakh and he marches to war, making the following vow:
If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the LORD’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.
Yiftakh wins the war, but anyone who's read "be careful what you wish for" stories knows where this is going. When Yiftakh returns home from the war
הִנֵּ֤ה בִתּוֹ֙ יֹצֵ֣את לִקְרָאת֔וֹ בְּתֻפִּ֖ים וּבִמְחֹל֑וֹת
behold! his dather went out to meet him, with timbrels and with dancing
You might recognize that last phrase. When Pharaoh's men and horses are drowned in the sea, we read
תִּקַּח֩ מִרְיָ֨ם הַנְּבִיאָ֜ה אֲח֧וֹת אַהֲרֹ֛ן אֶת־הַתֹּ֖ף בְּיָדָ֑הּ וַתֵּצֶ֤אןָ כׇֽל־הַנָּשִׁים֙ אַחֲרֶ֔יהָ בְּתֻפִּ֖ים וּבִמְחֹלֹֽת
Then Miriam the prophet, Aharon's sister, picked up a timbrel and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing.
I don't think this a coincidence. This Haftorah, after all, is paired with the Torah portion Chukas, which tells of Miriam's death:
The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.
There is so much to dig into there! But I'm going to have to save that for another time.
Yiftakh does not respond well. You might expect him to ask for a release from his vow, but he does not. Instead, he says
וְאָנֹכִ֗י פָּצִ֤יתִי פִי֙ אֶל־יְהֹוָ֔ה וְלֹ֥א אוּכַ֖ל לָשֽׁוּב
I opened my mouth to haShem and I am not able to take it back [to return]
Yiftakh says "I opened" and, as mentioned above, Yiftakh's name means something like "he opens". But the word for "open" here is not the one in his name (פתח) but פציתי, from the root פצה. This isn't surprising, of course -- this last word is more commonly used to refer to open one's mouth (e.g. to speak a vow) -- but there's something else here too.
Names are important in Judaism. Rabbi Meir teaches that every human has three names. One is the name used by their parents. One is the name used by other humans. And one is the name they create for themself. "And better than all of them," says Rabbi Meir, "is the one they create for themself."
What does "better" mean in this case? Rabbi Meir's discussion of names comes directly after his discussion of angels:
For every good deed a man performs, an angel is assigned to watch over him. If he does one good deed, one angel is assigned to him, and if he performs many good deeds, many angels are assigned to him, as it is said: For he will give His angels charge over thee (Ps. 91:11). Every time a man increases the number of good deeds he performs, he adds to his good name.
The name we create for ourselves, Rabbi Meir is saying, is the name we create through our deeds. Yiftakh was known as Yiftakh/He-Will-Open to others, but when he opened/פתה his mouth to haShem he created a different name for himself.
Yiftakh tells his daughter "you have become my troubler" but of course this has nothing to do with her and everything to do with his own decisions. Yiftakh had made a name for himself and, to mix metaphors, he felt he had to lie in it. "I opened my mouth to haShem" he says "and I am not able lashuv/to return." There is only one way forward for him now, he believes: to keep his vow and sacrifice his daughter. He'd chosen his name, and there could be no other.
Rashi isn't buying it. "Had [Yiftakh] approached Pinchos or Pinchos approached Yiftakh," Rashi says, "he [Pinchos] would have released him from his vow." So why didn't Yiftakh approach Pinchos or Pinchos approach Yiftakh?
"עמדו בגדולתן", Rashi says -- they stood in their greatness. And they destroyed her.
Various Rabbinic texts attempt to interpret this Haftorah in a way that doesn't end in Yiftakh's daughter's death (and it is interesting that most of them involve her having to remain celibate.) But I don't really think that's justified strongly in the text itself. I think he does indeed sacrifice her, for no reason other than his pride.
I think we all sometimes feel bound by our decisions in the past, caught in the narrowness/צר of the name we have made for ourselves. But to be so caught up in this that we sacrifice a human being seems absurd. And yet, it feels more and more like this is what many leaders in our society are doing today. Maybe some truly believe in what they are doing. But it feels like a lot of them are so caught up standing in their power, in the name they've made, that they won't admit they were wrong even to save the lives of actual human beings.
This is not holy. When Yiftakh opens his mouth, he gematrically removes 313=שאחד/"of one" from his name. When he promises to sacrifice anything to ensure his power, he removes haShem from his name.
I can't help but wonder what gate of teshuvah/returning Yiftakh was supposed to open, instead of opening his mouth and declaring that he cannot return.
There's so much more I want to say about this haftorah (I haven't even MENTIONED the connections to the Akeidah or the absolute fuckery of the pasuk where his daughter is like "don't worry I know you have to do it"!!) but I've already procrastinated my actual job long enough. I'll leave you with the last verse of the haftorah:
it became a law in israel: from time to time the daughters of Israel would go to weep for the daughter of Yiftakh ha-Gil'adi, four times each year
good shabbos,
ada
p.s. I've searched midrash for a name for the daughter of Yiftakh, but no such luck. If you no one, please inform me.