To whom it may concern...

...I've decided to get back to posting on my other blog. I'll still be posting here Tanach-related stuff, but if you're interested in reading my thoughts on other subjects (everything from personal going-ons to the trials of academia to thoughts on other fields of Torah to whatever else may come to mind), you're welcome to check it out.

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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
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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
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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.
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