THERE IS NO “JEWISH” DEVIL

Sidrah:  Genesis 41:1-44:17

Haftarah:  Zechariah 2:14-4:7

                This week the Haftarah is related to the celebration of Hanukkah instead of the weekly Sidrah.  While it contains a number of famous and profound verses, and the remarkable symbol of the Menorah, I choose to focus on a frequently misunderstood personage in the Hebrew Bible, known in Hebrew as ha-Satan, or in English as “the adversary.” In the Haftarah he stands to oppose the appointment of a priest named Joshua as High Priest over the Second Temple which will soon be rebuilt.  A figure with the same title appears in the Book of Job to accuse an innocent man of insincerity, and in the first book of Chronicles (1) “an adversary” entices King David to take a census of the nation without Divine authorization.  Significantly, the description of this event in the second book of Samuel states that Hashem incited King David to take the census because He was angry with the nation. 

                Hashem rebukes the adversary who opposes Joshua the priest, but does not punish or curse him for his words.  The Malbim explains the repetition of the word, “rebuke” as a dismissal of two accusations against the priest Joshua.  First, Hashem declares Joshua vindicated of any charges against his personal character; the Malbim understands the filth on the priest’s clothes to be soot from the “fire” from which Joshua the “firebrand” has been rescued.  Second, Hashem announces that He has chosen Jerusalem to be His capitol and will restore it as the capitol of the Jewish nation, with Joshua serving as chief priest in the rebuilt Temple.  The Malbim attributes both verdicts to Hashem’s compassion, which is as infinite and as irrefutable as His attribute of justice. 

                In the story of Job, the adversary is also not punished for speaking against Job even though Job shows himself steadfast in the face of adversity and Hashem declares him righteous.  Any reader who sees Hashem “making a bet with Satan” and treating an innocent man as a pawn, does not view Him as either just or merciful.  In Jewish liturgical poetry the figure known as ha-Satan frequently gains the title of prosecutor in the Heavenly court, a role some see as consistent with that of the serpent in the narrative of the Garden of Eden.  Accordingly, says the Midrash, Hashem does not ask the serpent for his motive because he would reply, “Who were they supposed to listen to, me or You?”

                Occasionally the Tanakh (2) interchanges the name of Hashem with the phrase, “angel of Hashem.”  How can the “adversary” mentioned in Chronicles equate to the intervention of Hashem described in Samuel?  To shorten a very long answer, Judaism did not create the belief that anything evil or even harmful comes only from some entity acting independently of Hashem’s will.   The point of our Haftarah is that Hashem decided that the time was right for the end of the Babylonian exile.  The point of the story in David’s life is that an unseen hand wrote tragedy into the narrative, but no human can grasp the reason, and all King David could do was pray for mercy.  No matter how angry we feel when the universe does not give in to our wishes, the proper response is to shout in protest as Job did and accept the reply even if it does not satisfy us, because we are responsible for working with each other to relieve suffering regardless of its source.

(1)    The “double books” in the Hebrew Bible were originally single books. Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were divided into “first” and “second” books when they were translated into Greek.

(2)    Tanakh:  derived from the initials of the Hebrew words Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings), the three major divisions of the books in the Hebrew Bible.  The “k”consonant at the end of the word becomes “kh” because of the rules of Hebrew phonology.