Reading the text of the Torah carefully requires us to note the words that are specifically there – and those that are not. There is a wealth of potentially viable explanations for any given verse or set of verses, but in order to be considered reasonable interpretations, those explanations must still be faithful to the text.
For example, there is nothing wrong with speculating as to the nature of the fruit that Adam and Eve ate – as long as one can concede that, since the text does not name the fruit, there are no definitive answers. Ambiguity in the text is thus a feature, and not a bug, because it invites us to dig deeper and try to understand the range of possible explanations for the way the Torah gives us information.
Last week my study partners and I noted one particularly odd word choice that seems to link disparate parts of the text together. But because we could not agree on any single answer giving a particularly compelling explanation, we thought we would identify the question, and then offer the range of answers that occurred to us – with the hope that you, dear reader, would be able to either be satisfied with at least one of these, or could offer a better alternative!
Here goes:
There are a number of words used in the Torah that loosely translates as“staff.” Mateh is the most common, with shevet being another. There is another word, mishe-ayno, which is more of a crutch.
But there is a fourth word that refers to a staff, and it is an odd one, specifically because of where it is used. The word is mahkel. And it is quite reasonable to ask why the text uses one word in one verse, and another word in another, especially if those usages seem to be synonyms.
Here are all of the verses that use this word (with the word highlighted):
And Yaakov took himself rods from moist poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled white peelings in them, exposing the white that was on the rods; then he presented the rods that he had peeled in the gutters, in the water troughs where the flock would come to drink, in front of the flock. Now they would be in heat as they came to drink; so the flock came to be in heat by the rods, and the flock bore streaked, speckled, and dappled [young]. But the sheep, Yaakov set apart, and gave position among the flock to [each] streaked one and every dark one among Lavan’s flocks; thus, he made special herds for himself, but did not make them for Lavan’s flock. So it was that whenever the robust flock-animals were in heat, Yaakov would put the rods in sight of the flock-animals, in the gutters, to make them be in heat next to the rods.
Then… when praying to G-d for deliverance from Esau, Jacob says:
“I am unworthy of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant: with my rod alone I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.”
The commandment for the final meal before leaving Egypt:
And thus you are to eat it: your hips girded, your sandals on your feet, and your rod in your hand.
And you are to eat it in trepidation— it is a Passover-Meal to G-d.
Bilaam, on the way to curse the Jews, when the way is blocked by an angel that his donkey – but not Bilaam himself – can see.
And the she-ass saw G-d’s angel, so she crouched down beneath Bilaam. Bilaam’s anger flared up, and he struck the she-ass with his rod. Then G-d opened the mouth of the she-ass, and she said to Bilaam…
That is it! Every single time this word, makel, is found in the text!
So, what links them all? How do we explain the use of this specific word in each of these cases – instead of the far more common words the Torah uses for a staff or rod?
Here are the answers we came up with:
1: Makel Denotes the Supernatural
In the case of Jacob’s breeding of the sheep, the use of the rods seems to supersede the natural order, suspending the ordinary rules of genetics. Jacob seems to consider his use of rods to be talismanic: “with my rod alone I crossed this Jordan.”
The Jewish slave in Egypt thus held his rod in his hand because it was meant to do something that is against the way normally things work in nature: for the less-powerful to transform and change.
And Bilaam strikes his donkey with his rod – and while G-d opens the donkey’s mouth, it is the donkey who speaks, in contravention to what we know about how the natural world works. So in this explanation, the makel represents divine or angelic intervention in the natural laws of the world, to serve G-d’s purpose.
2: Makel represents transformation from within servitude.
The rods Jacob uses are his form of rebellion against his dominant father-in-law. They allow him to transform the sheep, and thus his own material wealth.
The word is found again when Jacob prays for divine salvation from Esau, invoking his rod to say that he craves divine deliverance yet again.
In this understanding, the slave leaving Egypt is similarly about to transform from slavery to freedom.
And Bilaam’s long-suffering donkey is in servitude to Bilaam, who is in turn serving the Moabite king Balak. The rod transforms the donkey as surely as it transforms the Hebrew slave and the sheep Jacob bred.
In all cases, the direction of travel is toward freedom and away from oppression. All the parties invest themselves and their energies in a certain direction, and G-d intervenes to get the result He wanted all along.
3: Makel is about Listening to G-d
The original procreating sheeps embodied “get up and go” – they were in heat, and inclined to change. The makel may have encouraged them, or it might just have been a marker for that change. They are fulfilling the first commandment from G-d – be fruitful and multiply.
As such, Jacob the ivri, the crosser of boundaries, brought his rod with him because he was showing his willingness to change and grow, and similarly to follow G-d’s commandments.
The Hebrew slave ate with his rod, his makel, in his hand because he was emulating Jacob, identifying with his forefather’s situation with the sheep and before meeting Esau: in need of deliverance, a deliverance that starts with the person’s willingness to change himself and his future. This kind of deliverance starts with the conscious decision to obey G-d.
Bilaam strikes the donkey and the result is that the donkey changes its very nature. But the result is that Bilaam, too, is changed, because he realizes that the situation he is in is fraught with dangers he had not previously grasped. That he must not, on any account, say anything that G-d does not put in his mouth.
So there you have it: One question, and several possible explanations. Do any of them sound more persuasive to you than others? Do you have a better explanation?
Thank you!
iWe, with @susanquinn, @blessedblacksmith and @eliyahumasinter