Techeilis 3 – How Much is Too Much?

In our past post we noted that some of the teachings of Chazal can be very confusing because it may not shtim with other words of Chazal. The situations that we discussed were conflicts in textual accounts (girsaot), conflicting opinions among members of Chazal (chilukei deos), and conflicting unrelated passages (contradictions). In this post, I want to discuss the things that really count. 

Numbers.

One of the most confusing aspects of Chazal is the tendency to exaggerate numbers and sizes. In some cases, the exaggerations are more than obvious and confirmed by the meforshim. In other cases, it may not be quite so obvious.

We will start with the gemara in Chullin 90b that tells us straight out that Chazal tend to exaggerate. It even says that there are exaggerations in the Torah and Neviim. The gemara there brings a few examples of Chazal and one each from the Torah and Neviim. From the tone of the gemara, it seems that these examples are the sole instances of this phenomenon. As I wrote in the earlier posts, it is amazing to what extent Chazal take their statements literally.

At least, in divrei Chazal, there are other examples of exaggerations. Let’s look at the Rashbam in Pesachim 119a. The gemara is trying to impress us with how wealthy Korach was. It states that Korach had 300 mules laden with the keys to his treasure house[s]. Rashbam states that the number “300” is not exact. He seems to mean that Korach had a large number of laden mules but not necessarily 300. And he adds “this applies to every place that it says 300 in Shas”. In other words, “300” is a universal code word for “a large amount”. This fits in perfectly with the previously mentioned gemara in Chullin because the cases they bring likewise are displaying the inexact number “300”.

A few questions occur to me: (1) Why is 300 chosen as this universal exaggerated number? (2) Does this mean that we cannot say this for any other number in Shas?

The gemara then goes on to tell us that these keys were made of leather and not metal to imply that these mules each carried a tremendous amount of keys (mules are pretty strong and can carry lots and lots of leather keys). The Rashbam stresses: And even so it was the amount of 300 mule loads. (Note – Rashi says the same thing in Sanhedrin 110a.)

Questions: (3) Didn’t Rashbam just say that the number 300 was not exact (implying that it is on the high side)? (4) Have you ever seen a leather key? (I haven’t) How do they work? Were the locks on the treasure houses full of valuable gems and gold and silver also made of leather?

Well, both Rashi in Sanhedrin and Rashbam in Pesachim give a second pirush that these were really metal keys and they were not for the storehouses but for the individual treasure sacks which were made of leather. This would greatly reduce the amount of keys and the amount of treasure that each key could access and make this Chazal a bit more realistic. This also makes sense if Korach actually had only one treasure house which is indicated by the girsah in all texts “beis genazav” and not “batei genazav”. Still, this is only presented as an alternative pirush. Besides, it really does not make much sense. What good is a lock and key on a leather treasure sack? Any thief could just take a knife and slice open the sack!

All told, this is an awful lot of treasure. And it’s only 1/3 of the treasure that Yosef stored in Egypt!

More questions: (5) Where exactly was this (or these) treasure house[s]? were they in Egypt? How did Korach plan on retrieving it despite his 300 large mule caravan of keys? (6) After the makkas dever and makkas barad that killed all the Egyptian animals, where did Korach get 300 white mules? Did he already have them before the makkos so they didn’t die? When exactly (and how) did he discover this vast treasure? I suppose since the Leviim were not slaves, they had plenty of spare time to go treasure hunting.

Well, perhaps he got the mules from Libya. After all, the gemara in Bechoros 5b tells us that every single person from the Israelites had 90 Libyan donkeys laden with the gold and silver of Egypt.

Let’s look at this. Does this mean 90 donkeys for every single man, woman, and child or only for every one of the 600,000 baalei-batim that went out? Please, let’s take the second option.

600,000 people with 90 donkeys each? 54,000,000 donkeys? Just in Egypt alone? After the makkos that killed all the animals? Are you kidding me? (My answer is – Yes.) Where in the desert did they keep 54,000,000 donkeys in a camp that was 12 KM by 12 KM (size of present day Jerusalem) that already had 3-5 million people in single level dwellings? (Note- This figure does not include the eirev rav.)

Per Google, today’s world population of people is 7.6 billion and the total world population of donkeys is about 44 million and you mean to tell me that when the world was 3300 years younger and barely populated there were 54 million donkeys in Egypt alone?

The Ben Yehoyada asks these exact questions (well, the main ones) and gives some very weak suggestions. One is that we are talking about donkey loads and not real donkeys. This answer will totally nullify the whole purpose of this Chazal which is to explain why donkeys were singled out for pidyon peter chamor. Another suggestion is that only the dignitaries of the nation had this caravan of donkeys. This would contradict the language of Chazal that each and every Israelite had them and raises the question – why only them?

Oh, and by the way, all this donkey treasure is on top of the three treasure troves that were stored by Yosef. What heavenly purpose is there to all this exorbitant wealth? Does anybody really need a 747 with solid gold toilet seats? Will this wealth help us fix the sin of Adam HaRishon?? And, if I had some, would it spoil some vast eternal plan?

Bottom line is that there is an awful lot of exaggeration and allegory in the words of Chazal. We are told this in numerous places. At the top of the list are the tall tales at sea in the fifth perek of Bava Basra. There are the allegorical riddles in the debates of Ravi Yehoshua and the wise men of Athens in Bechoros. And, of course, the sukka test in the beginning of Avoda Zara. In all these places, the masters of Aggada – Gr”A, Maharsha, Maharal, Rashbam, Ben Yehoyada and others – tell us straight out not to take these pieces at face value and decipher for us the hidden messages.

We have smaller pieces of this same kind of Aggadata scattered all over Shas. In fact, in the earlier part of this sugya in Pesachim (on 118b) the gemara tells us that there were 365 markets in the great city of Rome (could possibly mean all of Italy) and each one has 365 buildings (we are up to 133,225 buildings) and each building has 365 “steps” (maybe “stories”? anyway, we are at 48,627,125 steps) and each “step” contains enough food to feed the entire world.

I foresee a lot of wasted food.

In any case, Maharsha gives an enlightening explanation that the “city of Rome” is a codeword for a human who has 365 sinews (giddin). Each of those has 365 compartments each with 365 sub-compartments (cells?). Perhaps the idea of each one with "food for the entire world" is a cryptic reference to DNA such that the DNA in each cell can recreate the entire organism. If so, it is very cryptic.

Other cryptic gemaras are the stories of Dovid HaMelech in the last perek of Sanhedrin – his encounter with Yishbi of Nov (95a) and that he wanted to worship avoda zara as he ran from Avshalom (107a, see Maharsha); Iyov’s discussions with HKBH in the first perek of Bava Basra; and everything the gemara tells us about Og King of Bashan (Niddah 22b and Brachos 54b; these two accounts contradict each other; see Maharsha both places).

The problem with all this is that once we know for certain that pieces of Chazal are allegorical and cannot begin to be taken literally, what about other pieces of Chazal which are not as farfetched? For example, when the gemara tells us that 40 days before a baby is formed a heavenly voice announces his future spouse, is this one that we can take literally or not? We all do, but should we? Are all our marriages really pre-destined?

I wrote an elaborate post about this right HERE.

The well-known gemara in Shabbos 92a is waffling on whether all of the Leviim were 10 amos tall. Even if not, it seems to maintain that Moshe himself was 10 amos tall. Some say also Aharon. Well, how tall were Tziporrah and Elisheva? 9.5 amos?

The gemara sticks with the 10 amos in the Og story in Brachos 54b. If that story were to be taken literally, Og at 30 amos at the ankle would be around 540 amos tall (720-1080 feet). Now Rashi tells us in Breishis (14:13) that the reason Og tipped off Avrohom Avinu about Lot’s capture was in the hopes that Avrohom would die and he could marry Sarah.

How tall was Sarah?

Hey, I am personally not in the market for a woman (so says my wife) but, if I was, and I (at 5’ 10”) had Og’s standards, I would probably be interested in a 5’ 7” replica of a Barbie doll. But, trust me, the exact same girl at the real size of a Barbie doll, all of 10 inches, would not get a first date, I don’t care how stunning she is. The parts wouldn’t fit together. It just wouldn’t work. I can't even begin to imagine how she could cook me a decent supper and bring it to the table she can't reach or change the sheets on my massive 9 amos iron bed down in Amman.

Both the Ibn Ezra (Dvarim 3:11) and Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim say that Og was about twice as tall as an average person (six amos). I think even this would cause marital issues but it’s way more down to earth. Maharsha in Brachos says he was at the high end of the scale of reasonable human size. Personally, I don’t believe Moshe and Aharon were 10 amos tall, either. Why should they be taller than Og?

Did Zimri ben Saleu really enter Kozbi 424 times while Pinchas just stood and watched (Sanhedrin 82b)? Why did Pinchas take action precisely after round number 424? Why not another 50 or 100 rounds (how about 613)? And was Zimri really more than 250 years old at the time (see Maharsha about Shaul ben HaCannani)? What was he on?

Were the grains in the days of Shimon ben Shetach really as big as kidneys and olives and were the lentils like gold coins (Taanis 23a)? Did Choni HaMeagel really sleep for 70 years (Ibid.)? Incidentally, Wikipedia tells me that a carob tree sees fruit within eight years and it has peak production as of 20-25 years. Also know that the Yerushalmi has quite a different version of this story. Did Rabi Chanina ben Dosa really get a golden table leg?

So we have so far seen that 300 is not the only number that is an exaggeration. We also have 365 [markets], 90 [donkeys], 10 [amos], 70 [years], 424 [won’t say]. What else?

How about the number 400?  

The number 400 is all over Shas as a high amount of money such as the wager to make Hillel angry, the value of the glass broken by Rav Ashi at his son’s wedding, the value of the dress that Rav Ada ripped from the lady in red. Also, Rav Preida taught his student the lesson 400 times. Likewise, there are numerous appearances of this number in Tanach. We start with the 400 shekels that Avraham paid for the Mearat HaMachpelah. Then there are 400 men with Eisav and likewise 400 men with Dovid HaMelech. Eliyahu was challenged by 400 false prophets. And, back to the gemara, the 400  shuls in Beitar with 400 rebbes each with 400 students. The 400 boys and girls who jumped into the sea so as not to be violated. 

The general consensus is that all of the references in of 400 in Chazal are inexact, just like the ones for “300”. It’s because 400 is the biggest number that can be represented by a single Hebrew letter, since the last letter of aleph beis, the tav, is the one with the highest numerical value. Thus, early texts simply put a tav to represent a large number. I have seen other more mystical reasons, but the bottom line is that the number is usually not precise. As for those in the scriptures, with the likely exception of the 400 shekels for the Mearat HaMachpelah, it can well be that those numbers are approximations, as well.

So we would not really expect the number 400 to be taken literally in most cases.

But, alas, Rashi, or the Tanchuma that he is inaccurately quoting in Bamidbar 13:25 take it very seriously. The pasuk tells us that the spies returned after 40 days. Rashi is astounded:

But the size of Eretz Yisrael is 400 parsah by 400 parsah and an average person can only walk 10 parsah in a day? It’s a 40 day journey just from East to West, and they investigated the length and breadth?! We must say that since HKBH knew he would punish the Israelites a year for every day in E”Y, so he “shortened” their journey (to limit the punishment).

What is a parsah? It is defined as 4 mille. A mille is 2000 amos or roughly a kilometer. So a parsah is four Km. This makes a lot of sense because the average person today can do about 4 Km in an hour and during a twelve hour day, if he spends 10 of those hours on the move he will cover 40 Km or 10 parsahs. One thing we see is that the meraglim were anatomically and physically average people.

Okay now. So Eretz Yisrael is, according to Rashi, is 400 parsah square which is 1600 Km by 1600 Km. How big is Eretz Yisrael really?

Well, the distance between Eilat and Maalot today is 465 Km (11.5 day walk). And the distance between Rafah and Ein Bokek is 107 Km (2.5 day walk). Did they really need “kitzur derech”?

Clearly, the Eretz Yisroel that is outlined in Bamidbar 34 which is the part checked out by the meraglim is nowhere close to 400 parsah on 400 parsah. It just isn’t. So, why does Rashi think that E”Y is 1600 Km by 1600 Km?

He seems to be referring to several places in Shas (Megillah 3a and Bava Kamma 82b) where it is written that Eretz Yisroel shook 400 parsah by 400 parsah. Firstly, as I have been saying, it is very clear that virtually every time it says the number 400 in Shas, it is an exaggeration or at least an imprecise number, just like 300. So this should not be taken literally. But even without this. The Shas does not really say that Eretz Yisroel is 400 parsah by 400 parsah. It says that when these two calamities happened, the land of Eretz Yisroel quaked for a distance of 400 parsah by 400 parsah.

Earthquakes do not recognize borders. We can easily say that while the quake was centered in Eretz Yisroel, it affected the surrounding lands so that it could be felt as far as 400 square parsah. It does not need to mean that every inch of it or even the majority of it was Eretz Yisrael proper. We certainly cannot conclude from here that Eretz Yisrael is that big, and, in truth, it isn’t.

But this doesn’t stop Rashi. I don’t really blame Rashi because he is really [mis]quoting the Midrash Tanchuma (Shelach Lecha 8). Only two interesting tidbits. (1) The Tanchuma does not explicitly say E”Y is 400 parsah square. He says that “the journey from South to North itself was a 40 day journey”. This seems to indicate the same thing but he only mentions one direction. And I wonder what does Tanchuma himself base this on? (2) Strangely, Tanchuma says their journey “from South to North” was one of 40 days and Rashi says “from East to West…” If Tanchuma is Rashi's source, why does he change the orientation?

All I can say about Rashi, and I love him dearly, is that this isn’t the first time he does this.

While we are talking about numbers that don’t work, we have plenty of issues about the population of Jews before, during, and after the Exodus from Egypt.

The Torah tells us that the population leaving Egypt was about 600,000 adult males. It expressly says it is not including children and we assume not women either. As such, based on conservative estimates of normal family sizes, the total population would have to be at least 3,000,000 and even 5,000,000 is more realistic. As I said earlier, this does not include the eirev rav.

One logistical issue is that, since the families all lived in single level tents, it is very hard to fit all those people at ground level in a 12 km by 12 km area. Don’t forget the eirev rav and all those donkeys and other livestock.

I suppose we can shrug this off. But here come Chazal and tell us that this number was only 20% of the amount of Jews who lived in Egypt before makkas choshech. So this means that there were between 15 to 25 million Jews in Egypt a few months earlier. Oh, and only seven thousand Leviim between 30 and 50 of which only about 10 of them came from Kehas.

Now, I understand the Chazal about everyone having sextuplets, but since only about 130 of the 210 years were years of servitude it is still a stretch to come out with 15-25 million from 70 souls in such a short time (maybe the sextuplets were coming from day one.) Also, even though this plague happened when the Egyptians weren’t looking, it is hard to imagine that 12-20 million Jews are going to vanish in a week and the Egyptians don’t notice. Unless they figured they left early.

But let’s accept all of this and look at a gemara in Sanhedrin 111a:

Tanya, Rabbi Simai expounds: It states “and I will take you to me for a nation” and it states “and I will bring you to the land”. We learn a comparison between leaving Egypt to entering Eretz Yisrael. Just as only 2 out of 600,000 who left Egypt entered E”Y, so too only 2 out of every 600,000 in Egypt left Egypt.

You get this? Not one out of five, but two out of 600,000 (one out of 300,000)! Rashi confirms that all the rest died in the three days of darkness so that the Egyptians won’t notice the downfall of the Israelites.

Can you imagine this number?

Maharsha is silent, but the Ben Yehoyada tries to tone it down by suggesting, unlike Rashi, that it means those born and died over the course of the 210 year exile, not in 3 days. Even so, it’s just too much.

But here is the topper. The gemara in Sanhedrin doesn’t end there. There is a short trailer:

Says Rava:... and likewise in the days of Moshiach.

Rashi – That there will not remain from every 600,000 except 2.

According to Rashi, if we assume 18 million Halachic Jews currently in the world (I tend to doubt it), there will be a mere 30 spots for the grand winners. I signed up already. According to the earlier Ben Yehoyada, there is hope for a few more. Personally, as much as I love Rashi, I love the Ben Yehoyada more.

But we do know this. At the Exodus from Egypt, there were approximately 600,000 heads of household from the age of twenty on up. We know that after forty relatively peaceful years, there were…drumroll… approximately 600,000 heads of household from the age of twenty on up. Note that the original count in 1 Iyar 2449 was done after the maaseh eigel and first war with Amalek. There wasn’t another war for 38 years after Aharon died.

Now, for all the 600,000 heads of household between 20 and 60, there were probably an average of 1-3 sons per family below age twenty already in place. Add to this the gemara in Shabbos 89a-b. This gemara tells us that the Sinai desert had five names. One of which was Midbar Paran. Why Midbar Paran?

שפרו ורבו עליה ישראל That the Israelites multiplied in number there.

Rashi tells us that every one impregnated his wife with a male child upon the order of Shuvu lachem – go back to your tents. He adds that he has no idea how this is indicated from anywhere in the Torah.

If this is so, then precisely nine months after Matan Torah – about 7 Adar 2449 – another 600,000 boys hit the scene. Evidently, there weren’t enough mohelim to take care of them so they let it go and blamed it on the eastern wind. After all this, there were just about forty years of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in the desert. Anyone born in the first twenty years would be twenty at the time of entry to E"Y. Based on these Chazals and normal population growth without sextuplets, there would definitely be at least three times the 600K figure after the first twenty years that would be twenty by the end of the forty years. How can this initial figure remain unchanged? 

Perhaps we can knock out the lion’s share of those boys already born at the Exodus based on the Midrash that says that even boys less than 20 years old, if they agreed with the meraglim, they also died. So maybe most of them agreed with the meraglim. But this won’t account for those who were born after the meraglim (and the 600K newbies).    

I am not the only one to ask this, but nobody can come up with a suitable answer except to say plagues and more plagues.

This did indeed bring up a big issue with the number of judges that were in office and how many Jews they killed after the debacle of the Bnos Moav. I wrote about it in this post in 2008. (The solution is in this post.)

The final anomaly for this post has to do with the people that Ezra brought up from Bavel. In Sefer Ezra it states that Ezra took up a group of 42,360 folks. We would assume a normal population distribution; something like 40% between 20 and 60 and another 40% between 0 and 20 and 20% from 60 on up with the bulk below 80 and a few old codgers over 80. This is basically the distribution estimated in the population that left Egypt and it is pretty standard.

Now the gemara in Temura 15b needs to justify some Chattas offerings that were brought as soon as the second Bais HaMikdash was operable. Apparently, these offerings were meant to atone for the idolatry that was done by the tzibur in the times of the first Bais HaMikdash. These offering can only be brought if the tzibur, meaning the majority of the current population, requires it; which means they were alive 70 years earlier and committed the idolatry and are still here today. Not only still here today, but they must be the majority.

To prove that the majority of the population was alive 70 years earlier, the gemara expounds from the pasuk that says that when they opened the second Bais HaMikdash, some people were rejoicing but others were crying because they remembered how beautiful was the first Bais HaMikdash and this new Bais HaMikdash could not compare. Obviously, this crying was done by the old-timers. But the pasuk says that the sound of the crying overwhelmed the sound of the rejoicing. The gemara understands that more people were crying than rejoicing. Ergo, the majority of the population that came up with Ezra were those who required an atonement for their sins 70 years earlier.

But, in order to be sinful 70 years earlier so as to require atonement, one had to be at least 13 years old at the time. Hence, these folks who made the majority were not a day younger than 83 years old. And this was the majority!

And what kind of majority was it?

It doesn’t seem like a scant 50.5% vs. 49.5 % majority because this majority was strong enough to drown out the rejoicers (who were all younger and more vibrant, by the way). The minimum I could imagine is like 55% vs. 45%. Let’s go with this and apply it to the original number of 42,360 souls. We will arrive at about 23,300 people above 83 and 19,060 total population of all the olim from 0 to 83.

You mean to tell me that in the year of the churban bayis rishon there were not less than 23,300 able bodied people from 13 to, let’s say, 25 who were pious Jews and who survived and remained “frum” all 70 years and this group could not produce in 70 years from their children and children’s children and at least one more generation, more than 19,060 Jews willing to make Aliya?

Was the stock market in Bavel doing that well that nobody wanted to come?

Under normal circumstances, this kind of distribution is overwhelmingly lopsided. It just doesn’t shtim.

The only thing that I can think of to answer is that these old codger survivors were mostly men. Very few women survived the churban because they were even younger and more vulnerable and invading armies have a habit of culling out all the eligible women for special treatment. As such, there were very, very few eligible Bais Yaakov maidels for these fellows and they either went without wives or married non-Jewish ones. As such, for quite a while, reproduction was at a low and, even after 70 years, the old timers actually outnumbered all of 70 years worth of [re]production. Perhaps this is why, right after this incident with the crying and rejoicing, Ezra had to tell so many of them to lose the non-Jewish wives.

So, all told, perhaps there is a good explanation. Nevertheless, I am greatly perturbed that, to date, I haven’t seen anybody who even makes note of the problem.

The purpose of all of this is to point out that, all through Shas and other Talmudic bodies, “shtimming” with Chazal can be an immense challenge. You have seen that wherever possible, I have made an attempt to present a “teirutz”. HaRav Reisman, Shlita, stated that we cannot build Halacha on teirutzim.

It would be nice if this were so. Like it or not, all of our mesora depends on teirutzim.

More to come…