Towards the end of parshat Noach, we are introduced to Avraham and his wife Sarah. Haran was Avram and Nachor's brother, and Nachor marries Haran's daughter Milcah. Bereishit 11:29:
Chazal famously say that Sarah is Yiskah. If this is an ancient tradition, it is accepted. But aside from that, what in the text tells us that Sarah = Yiskah?
Well, Baal HaTurim notes that if you take the Atbash of Yiskah, you get the same gematria as Sarai. He labels this a "remez" to this famous statement of Chazal. Though it is unclear what he means by remez here. To digress to explain Atbash, you write the aleph bet forwards, and underneath it backwards, and substitute each letter on top for the letter on the bottom. Thus, aleph becomes tav, and tav becomes aleph. Bet becomes shin, and shin becomes bet. So the Baal HaTurim did that, and discovered that taking the value of this, we have a gematria correspondence to Sarai. It is a bit forced, but depending on what one means by remez (hint), it is perhaps palatable.
Within the pasuk itself, there is sufficient cause for the identification. That pasuk again was Bereishit 11:29:
obviously he is the father of Milkah. Furthermore, why mention that Haran is the father of Yiskah? Since Milkah is a daughter, presumably Yiskah is a daughter as well, rather than a son, but we never ever elsewhere encounter this Yiskah, throughout Tanach. This then prompts the midrashic closed-canon approach, in which when we encounter an otherwise unknown Biblical character, we equate him or her with another, better-known Biblical character. For otherwise, in this case, what cause does the Torah have to bring this bit player up at all?
We also know from elsewhere that Avraham resorts to the trick of referring to Sarah as his sister. If she would be his niece, then perhaps this reference to achot can be true, just as it is used in regular description of Lot though Lot is not his brother.
Further, we have other precedent. Just as Avraham's brother married his niece, so would Avraham marry his niece. Just as the other Avot, Yitzchak and Yaakov, married close relatives, so did Avraham.
Within the pasuk, we have the parallel. Avram's wife was Saray; Nachor's wife was Milkah. We can distribute the "Bat Haran" to declare both of them daughters of Haran. Then, we give the other name, thus having "the father of Milkah and the father of Yiskah."
Then bring in all the midrashic justifications of the name Yiskah as it applies to Saray. But those justifications are not the midrashic basis. Nor, I would venture, is some ancient tradition.
Another approach. We are in a genealogical section, and indeed, we see this threading of narrative section with genealogical sections, with the genealogy forming the macro level and the narrative forming the micro level. This genealogical data, while miPi haGevurah, is quite possibly drawn from, or paralleled in, extant genealogical documents, megillot yuchsin. Haran dies early, and seems to have no sons, or at least no traceable sons. Since we are mentioning Milkah and her relationship to Haran, we might as well interject all the genealogical data here, where it wedges in nicely. Thus, we mention all his (female and possibly male) progeny, agav urcha, now that we have mentioned that this wife of Nachor is his daughter.
Who then is Yiskah? In this open-canon approach, it is just another child of Haran, who we mention because we are recording all sorts of genealogical data here. And who is Saray? The text here does not give us any more information, perhaps because we are focused on the genealogy of Avraham's family, and she comes from elsewhere.
parshiot
parshablog
-- email me: joshwaxman@yahoo.com
4 comments:
Could it be that Sarah Jessica Parker is so named because whoever named her associated the two names?
Wow. Nice insight. Certainly plausible.
more simply, the children of haran are listed here in order to distinguish him from the other haran. earlier, we read about the haran who died, who was the father of lot. here, we read about milkah the daughter of haran. so we don't confuse this haran with the other one, we are informed that haran is the father of milkah and yiskah.
true.
good point.
Post a Comment