January 19, 2024 /9 Sh’vat 5784
The announcement of the tenth plague begins with a strange statement:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה כֹּ֖ה אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֑ה כַּחֲצֹ֣ת הַלַּ֔יְלָה אֲנִ֥י יוֹצֵ֖א בְּת֥וֹךְ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
Moshe said: Thus says YHWH: Around the middle of the night
I will go forth throughout the midst of Egypt…
“Around” the middle of the night, not precisely “at” the middle of the night! Why?
Rashi’s (France, 11th century) answer goes like this: “around the middle of the night which means ‘approximately, either before or after midnight.’ Moses did not say ba-hatzot – exactly at midnight – so that Pharaoh’s astrologers should not make a mistake and say ‘Moses is a deceiver.'”
Aviva Zornberg suggests that while Moses “knows exactly when midnight is, his language is based on the possibility of error.” Moses, Zornberg notes, is acting out a Talmudic principle: “Teach your tongue to say, ‘I don’t know,’ lest you be exposed as a liar.” [Bavli Berakhot 4a]
Abraham ibn Ezra’s (Spain, 12th century)Torah commentary takes a slightly different tack: “Now it is common knowledge that it is beyond the ken of a wise man to ascertain the exact moment of noon without great effort and the use of large copper instruments. It goes without saying that it is much harder to ascertain the more difficult time of midnight.”
Maybe Moses doesn’t know precisely; maybe we don’t either!
Indeed, ibn Ezra’s contemporary, the great poet and philosopher Shlomo ibn Gabirol offers us this juicy piece of behavioral and ethical advice: “Don’t be embarrassed to ask when you don’t know; that way you’ll be spared the embarrassment of confessing that you don’t know when challenged!”
“Human language must engage with the approximations and not with the absolute” (Zornberg’s words) because in most cases we really don’t know precisely or exactly. “Moses” concludes Zornberg, “avoids an arrogant exactness of prediction” instead adopting “a modest skepticism.”
Sounds like good advice to me.
Shabbat Shalom.
On this snowy Shabbat – treat yourself to a musical interlude – a collection of versions of Thelonius Monk’s classic – ‘Round Midnight!
Monk’s 1947 original!
Miles Davis 1957
Jon Batiste live!
Round Midnight Variations (over an hour…)
