The Hidden Derasha of Eshet
A common theme on the Scribal Error Substack is what I call the hidden derasha. That is, Tannaim or Amoraim are interpreting a verse in a particular midrashic manner, and the gemara, or Rishonic commentators, or modern translations don’t pick up on it. Instead, if they provide any derivation, they assume that the classic, systematic midrashim methods are in play. And then, they might have questions as to why we interpret like X as opposed to Y.
A recent one I pointed out to my son occurs in Makkot 10b:
וּמְכֻוּוֹנוֹת לָהֶם דְּרָכִים וְכוּ׳. תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֶּן יַעֲקֹב אוֹמֵר:
§ The mishna teaches: And roads were aligned for them from this city to that city. It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov says:
10b
״מִקְלָט״ הָיָה כָּתוּב עַל פָּרָשַׁת דְּרָכִים, כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּכִּיר הָרוֹצֵחַ וְיִפְנֶה לְשָׁם. אָמַר רַב כָּהֲנָא: מַאי קְרָא? ״תָּכִין לְךָ הַדֶּרֶךְ״ – עֲשֵׂה [לְךָ] הֲכָנָה לַדֶּרֶךְ.
Refuge was written on signs at every crossroads marking the path to a city of refuge, so that the unintentional murderer would identify the route to the city of refuge and turn to go there. Rav Kahana said: What is the verse from which this is derived? “Prepare for you the road” (Deuteronomy 19:3), meaning: Perform for you preparation of the road.
This derasha, if you can call it that, seems quite meh. The verse says to prepare, and here you are preparing. Maybe by doing something to the road, concretely?
However, Chazal often engage in sophisticated wordplay, and your typical frum Jewish person, even in Israel, isn’t attuned to the grammatical possibilities. I think something more is happening here.
Namely, this:
A road sign tells you to proceed thusly.
Similarly, on last Sunday’s daf, Menachot 28, there is a brayta and the gemara’s question on it:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: מְנוֹרָה הָיְתָה בָּאָה מִן הָעֶשֶׁת וּמִן הַזָּהָב. עֲשָׂאָהּ מִן הַגְּרוּטָאוֹת – פְּסוּלָה, מִשְּׁאָר מִינֵי מַתָּכוֹת – כְּשֵׁרָה.
מַאי שְׁנָא מִן הַגְּרוּטָאוֹת פְּסוּלָה? דִּכְתִיב ״מִקְשָׁה״ וַהֲוָיָה, שְׁאָר מִינֵי מַתָּכוֹת נָמֵי זָהָב וַהֲוָיָה!
The Sages taught (Tosefta, Ḥullin 1:18): The Candelabrum was fashioned from a complete block [ha’eshet] and from gold. If they fashioned it from fragments [hagerutaot] of gold then it is unfit, but if they fashioned it from other types of metal rather than gold, it is fit.
The Gemara asks: What is different about a Candelabrum made from fragments of gold, that it is rendered unfit? As it is written with regard to it: “Their knobs and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it one beaten work of pure gold” (Exodus 25:36), employing the term “beaten [miksha]” and a term of being, indicating that it is an indispensable requirement. But accordingly, a Candelabrum fashioned from other types of metal should be rendered unfit as well, since the verse states that it is made from gold and uses a term of being.
I strongly suspect that the derasha is NOT on the verse cited, 25:36, but a slightly earlier verse, 25:31:
וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ מְנֹרַ֖ת זָהָ֣ב טָה֑וֹר מִקְשָׁ֞ה תֵּעָשֶׂ֤ה הַמְּנוֹרָה֙ יְרֵכָ֣הּ וְקָנָ֔הּ גְּבִיעֶ֛יהָ כַּפְתֹּרֶ֥יהָ וּפְרָחֶ֖יהָ מִמֶּ֥נָּה יִהְיֽוּ׃
You shall make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be made of hammered work; its base and its shaft, its cups, calyxes, and petals shall be of one piece.
More precisely, it is on the very first word, וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ. The word ha’eshet, a complete block, is quite rare. While present Biblically in Shir Hashirim, and found in various places in the gemara, it is not really frequent.
Eshet is a Biblical Hebrew word of Ayin - Shin - Tav. Although there is a related Biblical Hebrew word of Ayin - Shin - Shin, with about the same meaning, as Jastrow notes.
Meanwhile, in the word וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ, the vav and the tav are morphology, and the root letters are Ayin - Sin - Heh.
Even so, I think that it is hidden drasha.
Ayin = Ayin
Sin = Shin, since they appear as the same consonant
Tav = the Tav in the morphology
Then, there are really three clues in the verse itself that it needs to be of one piece.
The derasha of וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ
מִקְשָׁ֞ה meaning hammered out, since this is how you take a single piece and form it into a shape, instead of fusing pieces on
מִמֶּ֥נָּה יִהְיֽוּ means that all these pieces and decorations are to be part of it, thus coming from the original single piece.
The gemara grapples with how we should derive it using standard features like repetition of words, to decide what is essential and what is not, but it overlooks the hidden derasha, opting instead for the standard systematic ones.
Aside from any derashot, what makes something essential or non-essential, in terms of the gold-ness and the hammered-out-ness? There is the reality of history, and the reality of metallurgy. I don’t know much about… either of them, but a dentist in the daf yomi chabura who worked with metals helped fill in (heh) some of the details.
In terms of history, practically, in Bayit Sheini, they were just not able to have a gold menorah for a long while. And the gemara notes how they promoted it in stages. We can say, as the gemara seems to take it, that there is a lechatchila and bedieved application. When we operate lechatchila — where we indeed make the menorah of gold as it is described in the Biblical instructions — then we will go full lechatchila and will insist on the knobs, flowers, and so on. Because we operate in the lechatchila version, and everything should be perfect. When we cannot have gold, then we are already in a bedieved state, so we will not insist on all of the smaller details of construction.
From the perspective of metallurgy, you cannot just smelt / fuse gold onto gold. It won’t hold its shape. Instead, you would need some other metal like iron to join the two pieces. That would not look very good.
Further, gold is the most malleable of the metals, so it is the one for which hammering into its final shape actually makes sense. If it were of copper or iron, hammering it into shape does not really make that much sense. For silver, it is possible, but more difficult. So, it makes a lot of sense that, once we drop the gold requirement in the bedieved situation, we should not be insisting on knobs and flowers hammered out of it, or the branches hammered out of a giant block.
The other eshet and hammered work is in Bemidbar:
עֲשֵׂ֣ה לְךָ֗ שְׁתֵּי֙ חֲצֽוֹצְרֹ֣ת כֶּ֔סֶף מִקְשָׁ֖ה תַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה אֹתָ֑ם וְהָי֤וּ לְךָ֙ לְמִקְרָ֣א הָֽעֵדָ֔ה וּלְמַסַּ֖ע אֶת־הַֽמַּחֲנֽוֹת׃
Have two silver trumpets made; make them of hammered work. They shall serve you to summon the community and to set the divisions in motion.
OK, it does not say ve’asita, which calls my hidden drasha into questions But it does say aseh. And you have the hammered work portion of it.
The gemara takes the silver-ness as essential, and the hammering as non-essential. Maybe this is because we don’t have any mimenah yihyu, further hammering forth the point. But also, silver is not as malleable. And perhaps we can expect silver as available in a way that gold will not always be, so we don’t fall into the accessibility / bedieved trap regarding materials. Or, we are only discussing a restriction on materials in Moshe’s days, regarding Moshe’s trumpets, so we would not encounter the bedieved situation regarding those.