Torah Study Blog

Numbers 16 tells the story of a group of Israelites, led by the levite Korah, challenging the authority of Moses and Aaron. Korah says, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” God responded to this challenge by opening the ground beneath Korah and his followers. The people were swallowed by the earth, they fell down into Sheol, “And a fire went forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men,” plus their households and all that belonged to them.

You might think that would have put an end to all challenges of the authority of Moses. But Rabbi Jaech, inspired by scholarship by William Propp of UC San Diego, used this week’s Torah Study to point out to us that there may have been another challenge - and this one even closer to home!

The Torah Portion for this week begins with God instructing Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. But Moses says, “how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech.” (Exodus 6:12) The Hebrew word that is translated in our Bible as “impeded” is “orlah.” The Bible writers do not simply use the word “orlah” because vocabulary was less vast then and no other options were available. There were options! In Exodus 4:10, when God first tells Moses that Moses will be the person to say God’s words to Pharaoh, Moses answers in protest, “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” This line does not use the word “orlah.”

“Orlah” translates more specifically to “uncircumcised.” The King James Bible, as well as many other translations, translates that line as, “how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?” The Jewish Publication Society, or JPS, translation that we use tries to adjust the language so that it is more accessible to modern readers; but sometimes something is lost in translation.

Today Rabbi Jaech led us to question why the original writers might have decided to indicate that Moses had “uncircumcised” lips. The best way to get at the original meaning is to find other parts of the Bible where the same word is used and to look at the context.

Jeremiah 6:10 says, “To whom shall I speak, [and] Give warning that they may hear? Their ears are blocked and they cannot listen.” The word translated here as “blocked” is “orlah.” And, Jeremiah 4:4 says, “Open your hearts to the Lord, Remove the thickening about your hearts.” The word translated as “thickening” is also “orlah.” From these lines, we understand that an “orlah” is some kind of obstruction.

Leviticus 19:23 says, “When you enter the land and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden.” The word translated as “forbidden” is “orlah.” So, we know that “orlah” is something we should not have.

The late Julius Wellhausen is the scholar most closely associated with the “documentary hypothesis” of the Bible. Instead of believing that the Bible is one piece of work created in a single-minded way, scholars of the documentary hypothesis believe the Bible came together as a collection of writings from various sources. Wellhausen identified several sections of the Bible that he believed were written by a “Priestly” source. These sections are concerned mainly with priestly matter, like the role of the priest, the laws of succession, the family genealogies, the rituals and vestments, etc. Scholars believe that roughly 60% of the Torah, the first five book of the Bible, come from the Priestly source. And the patriarch of the priestly source is none other than the brother of Moses himself – namely, Aaron.

The portion we read where Moses describes himself to God as being “uncircumcised” comes from the Priestly Source. And that same chapter goes on to say that:

It is the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring forth the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop by troop.” It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt to free the Israelites from the Egyptians.” (Exodus 6:26-27)

It’s interesting that Aaron is listed before Moses in that line. There is evidence that there was an influential clan of Israelites who claimed to have descended from Aaron, and they sought to exalt the status of Aaron to stake their claim. The Hebrew word for priest is “kohen.” The kohens or, more properly, kohanim, are identified as the descendants of Aaron. Even today, in traditional religious services, the reading of the Torah starts out with a blessing by a “kohen.” This is something many Jews, even non-traditional Jews, may be familiar with, so clearly the Priestly source had some success.

To bolster their claim, the Priestly source might have found it useful to denigrate Moses and his “unclean” lips. However, it is worth noting that in Exodus 24, Moses performs all the priestly functions himself. And in Psalms 99:6 Moses and Aaron are both referred to as priests. And in 1 Chronicles 26 we are told that the sons of Moses ran the Temple at the time of King David. Also, the entire book of Deuteronomy is supposed to be one, long speech by Moses; and there is never a mention of a speech impediment!

Rabbi Jaech shared with us that she had never really stopped to think that there was an anti-Moses group out there. And it is noteworthy that Moses, the man who our tradition tells us led the Exodus, is not ever mentioned in the Passover Haggadah. All praise is given to God. None to Moses.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter