For this parable, we are going to have the benefit of not only seeing its Hebrew but also two translations. John Hobbins was kind enough to translate the text in two posts entitled “The Parable of the Banquet in the Talmud.” In the first part, he looks at the exchange between R. Eliezer and his students culminating in a quote from Qohelet. Hobbins reminds us of the importance of taking the context of the parables into consideration as they may have never been stand-alone units.

I have my doubts about the tendency to treat parables as self-contained units. They may have been (or may never have been), once upon a time, autonomous units. But, just as is the case with the parables of the New Testament, the parables of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud do not stand on their own anymore. Relationship to context needs to be taken into full account.

In the second part, he looks at the parable of a king who invited his servants to a feast (hence the title of the parable). He also provides a list of non-biblical expressions in the Talmud text and a vocalized biblical Hebrew assimilation that makes it a lot easier to read.

In the book They Also Taught in Parables, the authors go all the way to the end of Berakhot 153a since the last unit has R. Meir’s son-in-law expanding on the last parable. To make things a little easier to follow, I will divide this whole section (as demarcated by the book) into three parts. The first two will follow Hobbins’ sense-units and the last will include the conclusion. I will first provide the translation in They Also Taught in Parables (PT) followed by the Hebrew text and Hobbins’ translation (HT) (expect, of course, for the last part).

One of the things this exercise has encouraged me to do is to try to locate the text in the Talmud. The Hebrew text that I found online is at Mechon Mamre (שישה סדרי תלמוד בבלי), so my observations are based on this text. My first observation in Hobbins’ translation is his insertion of לא in the question וכי אדם [לא] יודע איזהו יום ימות . I am not familiar with talmudic textual criticism, so I don’t know if this is Hobbins’ elucidation of the text or a textual variant. As you can see in PT, they do not include לא, so here we have:

וכי אדם [לא] יודע איזהו יום ימות

PT: Does one know on what day he will die?
HT: And if a person [does not] know on which day he will die?

The reason why I am singling this out is because of the word כי which Hobbins takes as conditional. But I was wondering if כי could have a different function that would make sense of the question without לא. It turns out that וכי can introduce a rhetorical question (is it that?) according to HALOT (4219). One of the examples it gives is 1 Samuel 24:20 [Eng. 24:19]:

וְכִי־יִמְצָא אִישׁ אֶת־אֹיְבֹו וְשִׁלְּחֹו בְּדֶרֶךְ טֹובָה

For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? (ESV)

If וכי is introducing a rhetorical question, then one could translate the question as:

Is it the case that man will find his enemy and let him go safe (in a good way/path)?

I wonder if this is how וכי is functioning in this question and whether or not the insertion of לא is necessary. Of course, HALOT is referring to biblical Hebrew, so it may not even apply to this text.

Anyway, HT is more literal (for example, “he will be found in repentance all his days” instead of “his whole life is spent in repentance”) and gives the reader a better sense of the rhythm of the original

One interesting connection with this parable is what Ben Sira said in Sirach 5:7:

μὴ ἀνάμενε ἐπιστρέψαι πρὸς κύριον καὶ μὴ ὑπερβάλλου ἡμέραν ἐξ ἡμέρας· ἐξάπινα γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ὀργὴ κυρίου, καὶ ἐν καιρῷ ἐκδικήσεως ἐξολῇ.

Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor postpone it from day to day; for suddenly the wrath of the Lord will go forth, and at the time of punishment you will perish.

This will also apply to the next part to which we turn now.

I thought it would be interesting to look at the biblical Hebrew assimilation that Hobbins provided side by side:

I really appreciated this assimilation because it helped me see things that I would easily miss. I am also very impressed that John Hobbins can do something like that! Let’s take the very last part:

The first thing to notice is the use of the waw consecutive from the Qal in the original. Whereas the Talmud has “those who attired themselves for the feast,” John Hobbins assimilates that to “the wise ones [the ones with understanding] who got dressed for the meal (sacrifice)”. And “those who did not attire themselves for the feast” turns into “all that did not get dressed for the meal (sacrifice).”

This is very helpful to get the gist of the parable with a biblical flavor.

The last part concludes the previous parable by expanding on it. For this one, I only include the PT.

The only word that I couldn’t find the meaning for was כמשמשין which seems to be related to the word שמש (to be used, to serve). The rest was straightforward since the quotation from Isaiah takes up most of this unit. What is not included in PT is the very last sentence of Berakhot 153a below:

ד”א בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים אלו ציצית ושמן על ראשך אל יחסר אלו תפילין

This is a repetition of Qoh 9:8 that was used in the very first parable. However, it includes two interpolations. Here is the translation:

At all times let your garments be white, these are tzitzit [fringes on the corners of an upper garment], let there be no lack of oil on your head, these are tephilin [phylacteries].

R. Meir’s son-in-law quotes Isaiah in support of what was said in the second parable – the “dense” will only look while the sensible will enjoy the feast. But Berakhot 153a also includes a midrashic inclusio of Qoh 9:8. Repentance should characterize one’s life at all times for you never know when your last day will be. You should be prepared for that as the sensible in the parable were. The verse in Qohelet becomes the thread the holds it all together for it reminds us that letting one’s garment be white and letting no lack of oil on one’s head is tied to living a life of Torah-keeping to which the tzitzit and tephilin are supposed to be reminders. There is a connection between repentance as the result of one truly living out Torah.

R. Johanan b. Zakkai; ca. 70; B. Shabbath 153a (cf. Eccl. R. 9:8:1)

1 Comment

• By John Hobbins, March 19, 2009 @ 2:57 pm

  Excellent Ben Sira parallel. The Qohelet passage is crucial to tying up the various parts of the whole.

  I inserted לא where I did because, based on what Hebrew I know, or think I know, it is needed. I could be wrong about that.

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