Who is Bekhor Shor?
This is the first in a series of pieces that I plan to write about Bekhor Shor’s commentary on the chumash. Yosef ben Yitzchak Bekhor Shor was a 12th century French exegete and one of the ba’alei tosefot of the Talmud Bavli. To understand Bekhor Shor’s parashanut, it’s worth understanding the intellectual world in which he is situated. He lived perhaps two generations after Rashi, whose commentary on Tanakh sits in a somewhat paradoxical position in the history of the French school of biblical exegesis. On the one hand, Rashi sifts through a vast sea of midrashic literature to create a streamlined version that adheres to a vision of peshat. On the other hand, and very much enabled by his pioneering work, Rashi’s successors in biblical interpretation move towards more innovative peshat ideas that depart dramatically from the midrashic tradition.
Most prominent among these later “pashtanim” is Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson. Rashbam, Rabbeinu Tam and Rav Yosef Kara were Bekhor Shor’s principal teachers and primary influences. Some of these influences are methodological. For instance, whereas Rashi’s perushim attempt to harmonize midrashic interpretations with the plain sense of the text1, Rashbam frequently notes where the accepted midrashim (in particular, midrash halakha) diverges from his understanding of the peshat of the verse2. This dual-track of peshat and derash is a methodology picked up by Bekhor Shor. In many places, he provides his view of the peshat before concluding “veraboteinu darshu…” [and our sages expounded…] without attempting to reconcile the explanations.
Although he is virtually unheard of in the modern beit midrash, Bekhor Shor was received favorably by his contemporaries, both for his perush on the chumash and for his notes on the Bavli. Indeed, his commentary is referenced by later mefarshim such as Chizkuni and Daat Zekeinim, and we find occasional Talmudic citations in his name by the Tosafot.
Why, then, does he languish in relative obscurity today? The likely culprit is, inevitably, issues with the manuscript history of his perush. By the time the first Mikraot Gedolot were printed, the availability and reliability of the extant manuscripts of Bekhor Shor’s commentary were in doubt. Only one major manuscripts exist today3, replete with errors and gaps. The gaps in the commentary have been reconstructed by carefully examining the literature of the Tosafot and other texts that heavily cited Bekhor Shor. In the modern era, a number of serious attempts to reconstruct Bekhor Shor’s complete perush have been published, including a volume from Mossad Harav Kook and the online resource Al Hatorah.
I was introduced to Bekhor Shor through online shiurim. It became apparent to me that any more shiur who could share Bekhor Shor’s approach to parshanut would do so with gusto. The impression developed of Bekhor Shor as a “hidden gem” that could enrich studying the chumash, which was confirmed quickly as I began to explore his writing. As a result, I now join my teachers in publicizing the innovative ideas in Bekhor Shor’s perush, some of which I find outright stunning in their creativity and simplicity.4 I plan to share some of them with you.
Rivka’s Pregnancy
Let’s examine a particularly striking example of Bekhor Shor’s methodology. The beginning of parashat Toledot (Bereishit 25:20-26) describes the challenging conception and births of Esav and Yaakov to their parents. In a few short verses, a whirlwind drama unfolds:
20. When Yitzchak was forty he married Rivka, daughter of Betuel the Aramean of Padan Aram, sister of Lavan the Aramean.
21. And Yitzchak pleaded with the LORD on behalf of his wife, for she was childless. The LORD granted his plea and Rivka became pregnant.
22. But the children clashed [vayitrotzetzu] within her. She said, “If this is so, why am I living?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.
23. The LORD said to her,
"Two nations are inside your womb; two peoples are to part from you. People will overpower people, and the greater shall the younger serve."24. When the time came for her to give birth, [hinei] there were twins in her womb.
25. The first came out red. His whole body was like a hairy cloak, so they named him Esav.
26. Then his brother emerged, his hand grasping Esav’s heel, so he named him Yaakov.5
To summarize the main sequence of events leading to the birth of Esav and Yaakov:
Yitzchak marries Rivka (v. 20),
Rivka is barren, Yitzchak entreats God on her behalf, God is entreated, and Rivka conceives (v. 21),
The children vayitrotzetzu inside Rivka, Rivka voices (perhaps) existential despair, and goes to consult a navi6 (v. 22),
God gives Rivka the nevua concering her children (v. 23),
Rivka gives birth to twins (v. 24), each named after a characteristic of their births (v. 25-26).
A complete analysis of this scene requires more attention than I intend for the scope of this post. However, as a prefatory note, I want to raise an observation that I have frequently overlooked when reading this parshiya: in v. 22, Rivka does not know that she’s carrying twins. There are two possible moments at which Rivka learns this fact. Most apparently, it seems that the “two nations” nevua in v. 23 tells her that she is carrying twins. In fact, this position is so obvious that it calls into question whether there is any ambiguity over this issue at all. Nevertheless, why might we entertain the possibility that Rivka does not realize that she is having twins until v. 24? In short, it resolves to the presence of the word hinei in the verse, which frequently translates as “behold!” Koren chooses to omit the word entirely in its translation, which I suspect is due in part to “behold!” being somewhat archaic. But for our purposes, hinei is important because its narrative function is to indicate surprise7. In other words, according to the flow of the verse, the revelation of twins comes as a shock.
To be sure, Rivka and Yitzchak were both in the room at the time of the twins’ births, so it could be that Rivka knew but Yitzchak was unaware, and hinei addresses only Yitzchak’s surprise. In this case, we are forced to conclude that while Rivka divines the (unstated!) implications of the nevua, she didn’t share her insights with Yitzchak. On the other hand, for us to imagine that Rivka is unaware about the twins until v. 24, we would have to claim that the surprise implied by hinei affects her as well. In this vein, it would follow that in v. 23, Rivka does not understand the implication in the nevua that she will be the mother of “two nations”.
Rashi’s Duel of the Fates
I want to focus on v. 22. The description of Rivka’s pregnancy employs the highly unusual verb, vayitrotzetzu ויתרצצו, which has no other example in Tanakh. Therefore, the translation of the verb requires delicate attention. Rashi cites an interpretation in Chazal of the verb from the stem ר.צ. (to run):
When she would pass by the openings of the tents engaged in studying the Torah of Shem and Ever, Yaakov would run and try to escape [the womb to the tents], but when she would pass by the door to a tent of idol worship, Esav would run and try to escape.
He suggests an alternative derivation from the stem ר.צ.צ. (to fight) based on the idea that Esav and Yaakov were engaged in a conflict for the inheritance of this world and the next world.8
Although these approaches have distinct implications, they reflect an important trend in midrashic interpretation. All of the future conflicts between these two brothers, including the conflicts between their descendants (both in Tanakh and Rabbinic literature), are sowed from the very outset of their lives. With foreknowledge of the narrative, the midrash seeks to prefigure and embed its conclusions into its beginning. We understand Esav as susceptible to idolatry by temperament or innately driven by a (dangerous) vision for the world, and we are primed to see Yaakov as his perfect foil. The story takes on elements that transcend the information presented to the reader, raises the characters into archetypes, and infers eschatological significance from the events. This entire analysis is quite characteristic of Rashi’s style of peshat.
Although my own preferences tend to push against this style of analysis, it is worth emphasizing that the midrashic view is clearly grounded in the text. After all, it is not the midrashic literature that introduces the idea that Rivka’s pregnancy carries implications for the future histories of the tribes of Yisrael and Edom. On the contrary, God Himself declares this to Rivka through the prophet in v. 23!
A narrative thread that loses some prominence from the view of Rashi is the personal experience of Rivka herself during her pregnancy. Although Rashi sees Rivka as an actor as early as v. 21, she withdraws from her role as the subject of the narrative by the next verse. Instead, her behavior essentially serves as a connector between the exposition, the nevua, and the births. For Rashi, the principal agents of our attention are the children and their conflict, and Rivka’s position in this constellation takes secondary significance.
Bekhor Shor’s Miscarriage of Divine Justice
Bekhor Shor turns this focus on its head:
Vayitrotzetzu has a similar meaning to kane ratzutz “crushed reed” (Yeshaya 42:3), i.e., being broken. She thought that she was experiencing premature pains of labor and feared that perhaps she was having a miscarriage. “She said, ‘if this is so that I am miscarrying, why did I conceive, and for what reason did the Holy One accept our prayers, if neither for our help nor our benefit?’”
In reading the verb vayitrotzetzu in terms of a possible miscarriage, Bekhor Shor agrees with Rashi’s second suggestion that the verb comes from the stem ר.צ.צ. It’s worth elaborating on the inferences made to achieve this reading of the word vayitrotzetzu. His innovation comes from the added contextual meaning of the word: namely, from drawing upon the universe of plausible outcomes in the process of pregnancy and childbirth. The innovation is truly creative, because outside of the word vayitrotzetzu itself there is no hint in the text or the midrashic literature that a miscarriage is even a possibility.
For Bekhor Shor, Rivka’s experience is central to the story, and his comment raises the stakes for the larger narrative. Consider the state of the family prior to v. 22. Although Avraham had many children, Yitzchak is the sole heir to the project of establishing a name for God in the land of Kena’an. Much of the previous parasha concerns a rather elaborate process for finding Yitzchak a suitable spouse. When Rivka decides to abandon her family in Aram, she becomes Yitzchak’s only wife. (Avraham, by contrast, had at least two.) Whereas the drama between Avraham, Sarah, and Hagar revolve around the specter that Sarah’s infertility will force Avraham to pursue the project with Hagar, Yitzchak and Rivka understand that the success of the project depends, exclusively, on their having a child. This is an important subtext for Rivka’s infertility in v. 20 and the divine assistance in v. 21.
Per Bekhor Shor, Rivka originally understands her conception in v. 21 as a fulfillment of the promise to Avraham to make a great nation through his son Yitzchak. The gravity of this promise justifies the supernatural intervention needed to help her conceive. The possibility that this pregnancy, laden with all of the aforementioned weight of divine assurances as it may be, could fail in this fashion would be devastating. We now read into Rivka’s question “im ken, lama ze anochi?” “if so, why am I?” [Koren: if this is so, why am I living?] a desperation borne not just from the inherent emotional turmoil of the prospect of a miscarriage, but from a growing suspicion that God’s promises are fickle; covenants, dispensable; and sense of humor, death dark. It is in this maelstrom that Rivka goes to consult the navi.
As testified by the remaining sidraot of Toledot, Rivka’s actions throughout her life reflect a certain commitment to the nevua she receives during her pregnancy. That is, she consistently takes the initiative to ensure that the outcomes supporting the destinies alluded to by the nevua will emerge as she envisions.
Bekhor Shor deals with the questions of destiny in a distinct manner from Rashi. First, in reading “Two nations are inside your womb,” Bekhor Shor understands this as prophetic assurance to Rivka that her pregnancy will go to natural term:
In other words, [the navi is relating] “you have not miscarried, since there are two nations that will emerge from you.”
Furthermore, Bekhor Shor understands the distinct destinies of Yisrael and Edom as emerging directly from the events of their respective births. Commenting on the prophetic line “people will overpower people”, he writes
They will be strengthened one against the other, so that there will not be peace between them, and as such the zodiac dictates that they will appear as combatants. In fact, newborn babies tend to give an indicative sign of their futures according to the zodiac, such as: “his hand grasping Esav’s heel” (v. 26) which seems like he was impeding [him] from being be the firstborn. And so too [with the birth of Tamar’s son Peretz,] “‘How you have burst through!’” (ibid 38:29) and from him, the monarchic dynasty of David.
As such, Bekhor Shor addresses the question animating Rashi and the midrashic literature regarding the fates of these two boys. Nevertheless, unlike Rashi’s allusions to Shem and Ever, or to idolatrous temples, or to eschatological conflict, Bekhor Shor applies imaginative restraint in approaching the characterization of Esav and Yaakov. We do not find in Bekhor Shor the same effort to demonstrate that the two boys have personalities that completely overlap with the ensuing histories of their respective descendents. Instead, we again find the introduction of contemporary (to Bekhor Shor at least) mores that explain the unusual details about the birth of the twins. The destiny apparent from the moment of their birth is but the inexorable conflict for supremacy, reflected equally in the future lives of the brothers and in the later tribal and national context.9
A Tour of Bekhor Shor
Scholars tend to describe Bekhor Shor’s approach to peshat as steeped in “realia,” which broadly means that he musters the realities of the lived experience to explain passages in the chumash. In our case, by introducing the possibility that Rivka might be experiencing a miscarriage, Bekhor Shor ties her anguish to a tangible reality with which many women identify. As we will continue to explore, Bekhor Shor’s realia not only functions to clarify textual difficulties in the parasha, but also shrinks the experiential and epistemological gaps between characters and readers of the Torah. This latter point is highly significant for modern debates concerning the balance between reverence and relationship to the heroes, heroines, and villains of Tanakh, and we shall investigate it further.
Stay tuned for more posts on Bekhor Shor! I plan to address examples of Bekhor Shor’s highly combative anti-Christian polemics, hashkafic perspectives, and perhaps his famous (or infamous) innovative reading of Moshe striking the rock in Bamidbar. We’ll also cover some of the intrigues that developed around the identification controversy, in which scholars debated whether Bekhor Shor is the alias for Rabbi Yosef of Orleans, a(nother) 12th century Tosafist.
Sometimes, Rashi’s commitment to harmonization of derash and peshat leads to forced or unnatural readings; see, e.g. Rashi to Bereishit 27:24.
A famous example of Rashbam’s (sometimes extreme) deviations from midrashei halakha in his perushim is his comments to Shemot 13:9. A number of places in Rashbam’s commentary have been subject to the Jewish censor in the somewhat erratic history of its manuscript. See this article for an overview of some of these issues.
Dr. Avigail Rock z”l puts it well: “Many Times, Ri Bekhor Shor provides a simple reading of the verses that is so convincing that after reading his words, one is hard-pressed to understand the text in any other way.” I think that Rivka fearing a miscarriage is one such example. We shall explore others.
Bereishit 25:20-26, trans. Koren Magerman Edition Tanakh. I added line breaks to the verse containing the nevua because the nevua clearly exhibits the stylistic features of Biblical poetry.
The idiom לדרוש את השם occurs frequently in Tanakh. The view espoused by Rashi, Bekhor Shor, and Rashbam among others is that this expression refers to consultation with a third party navi instead of a direct, personal revelation of nevua.
BDB: “very freq. in historical style, especially (but not exclusively) after verbs of seeing or discovering, making the narrative graphic and vivid, and enabling the reader to enter into the surprise or satisfaction of the speaker or actor concerned”.
This idea is found in Yalkut Shimoni al haTorah 111:2 in the context of olam haze and olam haba, although Rashi himself is not explicit about what the “two worlds” refer to.
We note that Bekhor Shor’s astrological determinism is entirely typical, with similar sentiments found in the Talmud and in the works of the rishonim. For an example in the Talmud, see Moed Katan 28a; for an example in the halakhic literature, see Mishne Torah, Yesodei haTorah 3:6; for an example among peshat-oriented commentaries, see Ibn Ezra on Shemot 23:25