Footnote Fallacies and Rabbinic Inventions

Now Moses was pasturing the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the ^[a]west sideof the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  Exodus 3:1  NASB

To the west side – Sometimes translators of Bibles with Western perspectives alter the text in order to make it sensible to Western readers despite the fact that it was written for Middle-Eastern audiences.  Of course, you are well aware of this, but in this particular case, there is an additional rabbinic interpretation of the text that Western readers find incomprehensible.  Let’s see.

First we need the actual Hebrew text.  The words are mey’acharey hamidbar.  The literal translation is “behind the wilderness.”  Of course, that doesn’t make any sense, so the translators give the terms a geographical orientation, namely, “to the west side.”  But why couldn’t it be to the East, or North, or South?  The word “west” doesn’t appear in the text at all.  The translators have rendered the word according to their geographical sense of Moses’ location.  Bad enough, so a footnote is added, “rear part,” which is more accurate but confusing.

You would think that the rabbis would recognize this ambiguity and clarify it according to its context, but, no, that’s not what happens either.  While Western translators attempt to make the words fit a geography, the rabbis provide midrashim as explanation, and all the midrashim are grossly anachronistic.  Let me explain.  Consider that interpretation recounted by Rabbi Jack Riemer:

The Torah says that Moses was grazing his sheep mey’acharey hamidbar, “at the far end of the desert.”  The Sages ask: Why do we need to know that the burning bush was located at the far end of the desert?  And for that matter, what was Moses doing grazing his sheep at the other end of the desert?  Would it not have been easier to graze closer to home?

The first answer is that Moses grazed his sheep at the far end of the desert kidey libarchik min hagezel, “in order to distance himself from the possibility of theft.”

Moses understood that if his sheep grazed on private property that would be theft.  And Moses wanted to be careful that he did not commit a crime of theft directly or indirectly.  For him, the law against theft was a central value, even before he brought down the Ten Commandments that proclaim lo tignov, “Thou shalt not steal.”

And then the Midrash goes on to give a second explanation of why Moses grazed his sheep at the other end of the wilderness.  It says that he did it kidey lihitboded, “in order to be alone.”  He wanted to be alone so that he could meditate without distractions.  He understood that you cannot connect with the Holy unless you separate yourself from all the noise around you.[1]

Creative, isn’t it?  Imaginative exegesis, I might say, but completely anachronistic.  It interprets the text as if it were written during the Second Temple period when rabbinic concerns about the details of the Law dominated theological thinking.  Do we really think Moses was contemplating the Ten Commandments while tending sheep?  Are there any grounds at all for claiming that Moses didn’t want to steal grass from someone’s private property (an idea that does not exist in the nomadic cultures of the 14^th Century B.C.E.)?  I’m sure you can easily see that the rabbinic midrash is culturally dependent on the time and place of the Sages, just as the English Bible translation is dependent on the time and place of the Western translator.

What’s the lesson?  Religion trumps scholarship—every time.  The translators have a religious perspective.  So do the rabbis.  And that perspective determines how the text is read.  For Westerners, the claims of the rabbinic midrash are outrageously non-biblical.  It’s as if they just made things up.  But for the rabbis, the insertion of geographical direction without warrant is just as non-biblical.  Neither side pays attention to the actual culture and history of the text because they don’t have to.  They write for their own audiences, not for scholarly inquiry.

Topical Index: midrash, geography, mey’acharey hamidbar, behind the wilderness, Exodus 3:1

[1] Jack Riemer, in Jack Riemer and Elie Spitz, Duets on Psalms: Drawing New Meaning from Ancient Words (Ben Yehuda Press, 2023), pp. 80-81.