Purah, Gidon's sidekick

 As it turns out, Gidon had a sidekick. Well, not quite a sidekick. He's called a "na'ar" in Hebrew. A young assistant. Kind of like an intern, except with stealth and fighting capabilities. Like a spy plane. Okay, I'll stop.

His name was Purah, which is exceedingly interesting. The word Purah will be familiar to some of us from Anim Zemirot: "Purah Bedorcho Be'vo'oh Me'edom". Purah means "winepress" in old Hebrew. Why is this interesting? Because Gidon's story opens up with him beating wheat in...a winepress! As I heard from Rabbi Uzi Bienenfeld, Gidon did this because he didn't want the Midianites to discover him and take what precious little food his family had.  In that part of the story, the more well-known word for winepress was used - "Gat". But the two words mean the same thing.

Gidon's story begins in a winepress, and then he has an assistant named "winepress" sneaking with him to spy on the Midianites, per commandment from Hashem (yes, He mentioned Purah specifically). I don't quite know what this means, but it's certainly interesting. I'm sure there must be a reason for this, because the Tanach isn't lacking in nameless characters, in particular ne'arim (plu. of na'ar).

Another interesting point is that the word Purah when referring to the winepress as an object, is spelled with full ktiv - פורה, whilst Purah the person is spelled with missing ktiv - פרה. I thought it might be symbolic of two things: a. When Gidon used the winepress, he wasn't using it for its intended purpose - he beat wheat instead of making wine, so the missing letter in Purah's name may be symbolic of this improper usage of the press. b. Gidon, as far as we know, never returns to the winepress, neither to beat wheat nor to make wine. Instead, he takes a lot of gold, makes a golden jacket of sorts, and tries to retire - but isn't able to do this very well, as the people start to worship his jacket. Instead of returning to his job in the field or the press, he does things that he shouldn't be doing - so, another lack in the Purah.

(an ancient winepress)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pre-Islamic Arabian Dust Worship

One of my interests is researching idolatrous practices mentioned in Tanach and later Jewish sources. For the last three years or so, I've been conducting an on-and-off search for the possible identity of a deity hinted at in this section of the Talmud, tractate  Bava Metzia 86b : "The Gemara continues its analysis of the verse: “Let now a little water be fetched and wash your feet” ( Genesis 18:4 ). Rabbi Yannai, son of Rabbi Yishmael, said that the guests said to Abraham: Are you suspicious that we are  Arabs who bow to the dust of their feet ?" It is reasonable to conclude that the sages were aware of an Arabian pagan cult that practiced some form of dust worship. Last year I discovered that one of my professors shares this interest in researching idolatry and even wrote his doctorate on idol worship mentioned in Talmudic literature, although he was focused on particular pagan religions (Greece, Rome, and a couple of others) and didn't analyze this quote. But I did
Read more

Anakim, Rephaim, oh my!

This week's parsha features Bnei Yisrael passing through Edom and the two Emorite countries - Sichon's country and Og's country ( Bamidbar 21:21-35 ). Og was the last of the Rephaim ( Devarim 3:11 ), a race of giants that were wiped out way back during the War of the Four and Five Kings in Beresheet ( 14:5 ). Some midrashim state that Sichon was also a giant, of the antediluvian kind (for example, Devarim Rabbah 11:10 ). Looking through Tanach it occurred to me that giants might be frightening, but they obviously aren't unbeatable. David and his men defeated a number of giants, and, as mentioned already, the four Mesopotamian kings managed to defeat the Rephaim. And yet, two parshas ago, when the spies told Bnei Yisrael that there were Anakim in the Land of Yisrael ( Bamidbar 13:28 ), Kalev and Yehoshua said nothing about "hey, guys, giants are not unbeatable!" Kalev made a more generalized statement, that "yes we can, because we have Hashem!" ( ibid
Read more

Big news! Kind of...

Big news! Last week I emailed out an academic-level essay that I had been working on for nearly a year (!!!) to an academic-level Tanach-studies journal in Israel. This is the first time that I've attempted to get one of my essays published outside of my yeshiva's monthly journal, which is only handed out in the yeshiva and it's also the first time that I'm trying to get published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal. This essay deals with the subject of the Levitical Cities and I offered up a theory of mine based on analyzing archeological findings of the cities in the territory of one specific tribe. Right now I'm not going to say too much on the theory because I'm holding out for the paper being published (whether in that journal or another one if it gets rejected). B"H I'll update on what happens - whether it gets accepted or is rejected and I'll be turning to a different journal.
Read more