Torah Study Blog

William Tyndale was an English scholar who lived from 1494 until his execution in 1536 CE. Using the Hebrew and Greek editions of the Bible, in 1530 Tyndale translated the Bible into English. The Church believed that allowing people to read the Bible for themselves would detract from the authority of the Church; therefore making the Bible available in English was against the law. Tyndale was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation.

Just two years later, King Henry VIII authorized publication of an English-language Bible. The King James Bible, first published in 1611, relies heavily on the Tyndale translation.

The setting of Exodus 12, this week’s Torah portion, is that the Israelites are preparing for the coming of the tenth plague – the death of the first-born. The Israelites are instructed to slaughter a lamb, paint the doorposts with blood, and then eat the flesh of the lamb. They are instructed to, “eat it hurriedly: it is a passover offering to the Lord.” (Exodus 12:11) Tyndale was the first person to translate the Hebrew word “pesach” as “passover.”

The Hebrew word pesach is more appropriately translated as “protect” which is seen in Isaiah 31:5: “Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shield and saving, protecting and rescuing.” In Hebrew, the word that has been translated as “protecting” is “pesach.”

It is likely that, over the centuries, people have used Tyndale’s translation of “pesach” as “passover” because it lets people know that this passage relates to our holiday of Passover. But the word really is “protect.” The Israelites were instructed to paint their doorposts so that “the Lord will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home.” (Exodus 12:23)

In several of our traditions, God sends an “angel” or a “messenger” to deliver death; like the Destroyer in the story above. The idea of an angel or messenger of death comes from Ugaritic traditions. The Ugaritic community lived in an area near modern-day Syria and reached its peak at about 1450 BCE, and was destroyed around 1200 BCE. The Ugarites worshipped Mot who was the god of death and the underworld, which likely inspired the Israelite tradition of a separate messenger, or angel, of death.

The Babylonian Talmud came together in the early part of the 5^th century CE. The Rabbis at that time tried to figure out how death occurred and some of their theories are preserved in the Talmud. The Rabbis would have observed death and possibly noted that a person’s mouth will pop open when they die. The Rabbis would also have been familiar with Ezekiel 21, which says that God brings death by drawing a sword. Building on these things, the Rabbis said that when a person is dying the Angel of Death stands above them with a sword drawn. A drop of poison drips from the end of the sword into the dying person’s mouth and then they die.

And the Rabbis talked about ways to stave off death. Because they spent most of their time studying, they believed their own example provided a possible answer. There is one story about when it was time for King David to die and the Angel of Death could not get David because he was constantly studying. So Death went outside and shook a tree, which caused David to cease his studying to see what happened. Because David stopped studying, interrupting his studies for just a moment, he died.

There is no consensus about what happens when we die. The Rabbis believed that the act of dying was frightening, but the Rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud taught that we should not be frightened of where we go. They told a story about a rabbi who was righteous, so Death allowed him to choose his own manner of death. The rabbi requests to see the paradise where he will be in the afterlife. When the rabbi sees Paradise, he tricks Death and jumps immediately into paradise without having to go through the pain of death.

One of our Torah Study attendees recalled a Woody Allen quote which says, “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

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