False Messiahs, Sciatic Nerves, and Jewish Tradition
On Vayishlach and the struggle for religious clarity in the darkness of exile
The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
The struggle between Yaakov and Esav endures. This entire parsha, Ramban writes, is a blueprint and model for how the Jewish People should deal with their adversaries.
Which is why the story’s ending is so puzzling.
After Yaakov flees from Esav, he is left alone.
Yaakov fights with a figure who never reveals his name. Yaakov is injured on his hip, near his sciatic nerve. “I will not let go of you,” Yaakov says, “until you bless me.”
Yaakov is given the name Yisrael, and as the Torah explains, all future generations are forbidden from ever eating from the gid hanasheh, this sciatic nerve.
In his commentary on the Mishna, Rambam makes clear that the reason we are prohibited from eating from the gid hanasheh is not because of the story with Yaakov, rather it is because this prohibition was repeated when Moshe received the Torah.
But this prohibition is presented as a part of Yaakov’s story. It’s nice context, but clearly, if it is not the actual foundation for the prohibition, then what is the message of including the prohibition specifically here? Our parsha is the blueprint for the Jewish People to thrive during exile. So where does his story fit into that model? What exactly is the takeaway for future generations and how they should handle adversity? Is abstaining from sirloin steak a part of our long-term strategy in exile? What is the significance of this story and what does the prohibition of eating from the gid hanasheh have to do with its message?
To understand all of this, let’s explore a fascinating debate surrounding the gid hanasheh that featured within one of the most explosive rabbinic controversies in all of Jewish history.
Many thought that Shabbetai Zvi’s conversion to Islam in 1666 would be the end of the controversy surrounding his messianic ambitions that swept up world Jewry.
It was not.
While many abandoned Shabbetai Zvi following his conversion, many elements of the movement went underground. There were many who continued to privately and quietly hold onto the warped messianism that he so successfully stoked throughout the world. What exactly they continued to believe is a more complicated matter, but some element of their belief surely endured.
Following the death of Shabbetai Zvi, on Yom Kippur of 1676, the next big controversy to surround his movement was undoubtedly the controversy between Rav Yonason Eybeschutz and Rav Yaakov Emden that quite literally embroiled the entire rabbinic world.
In February of 1751, the Jewish world was stunned when Rav Yaakov Emden accused Rav Yonason Eybeschutz of being a secret Sabbatian follower. Based on amulets that Rav Eybeschutz had written, as well as older suspicions that had surrounded him, Rav Emden was convinced that the most prominent leader within the Jewish world was a secret Sabbatian.
When I was in yeshiva, I remember hearing from Rav Tzvi Berkowitz that the yeshiva world has deliberately distanced itself from this controversy. There is no easy resolution. You’re stuck either wondering how the acknowledged leader of the Jewish community could have possibly harbored Sabbatian views or why a very serious Torah scholar, Rav Yaakov Emden, would ever make such a wild accusation. Much credit is due to Rav Yechezkel Landau, known as the Nodeh B’Yehudah, for charting a path in a famed letter, that allows for the esteem of both rabbis to remain intact. Special credit to Rabbi Dovid Katz whose dissertation on the Nodeh B’Yehudah discusses this in depth. There are no easy answers.
The most detailed and accessible account of this controversy appears in my friend Rabbi Pini Dunner’s book Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs, which includes a 60-page chapter on the Emden-Eybeschutz controversy, as well as important suggested readings that he includes in his conclusion. Most of the other treatments of this history are either in very academic works, notably Professor Shnayer Leiman and Pawel Maciejko, or in Hebrew.
One fascinating chapter in this debate revolved around—you guessed it—the gid hanasheh.
The gid hanasheh was not an insignificant prohibition in Sabbatian thought. There are 365 negative commandments and in Kabbalistic works, each prohibition corresponds to a different day of the year. The prohibition to eat from the gid hanasheh, mystical works explain, corresponds to the day of Tisha Ba’av, when we mourn the destruction of the Temple. This day in Sabbatian thought, however, was transformed into a holiday, given their messianic claims. It was also Shabbetai Zvi’s birthday.
In his classic article, “Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Porger,” Professor Shayer Leiman details how the gid hanasheh became a part of this rabbinic controversy.
Rav Eybeschutz, who was a master porger, an expert in removing the sciatic nerve from animals, writes in his work that another porger once approached him and suggested that the Jewish people had been avoiding the wrong nerve. To disprove this concern, Rav Eybeschutz marshaled proof from the halachic work of the Semag who writes that this prohibition is for men and women. The nerve that this traveler identified was only found in male animals, so, Rav Eybeschutz explained, it must not in fact be the correct spot of the gid hanasheh.
Now, those who are familiar with halachic language will understand why this disproof is nearly laughable. When a halakhic work writes that the prohibition is for men and women it means it is a binding prohibition on Jewish men and women—not that the prohibition can be found in male and female animals! How could Rav Eybeschutz make such an obvious error?
When Rav Yaakov Emden heard about this he ascribed much more nefarious motivations to Rav Eybuschutz. Of course, Rav Emden reasoned, Rav Eybeschutz knew that the prohibition for men and women refers to the Jewish People and not to male and female animals! It must be, rather, that Rav Eybeschutz was willingly trying to get Jewish people to violate the prohibition of gid hanasheh as a part of his alleged Sabbatean views.
If this claim seems outlandish, and in some ways it is, it may be because we still do not fully appreciate the lengths to which secret Sabbatians went to hide their affiliations.
Still, as wild as it may seem, this caused a serious stir. It is one of the only accusations against Rav Eybeschutz that emerges directly from his published halachic writings.
In the somewhat covert maskilim work, Toldos Adam, the author points to this incident as a reminder that even great rabbis like Rav Eybeschutz can make basic errors in reading texts. Others, such as Rav Moshe Sofer, in his work Chassam Sofer (Teshuvos on Yoreh Deah #69), have tried to contort themselves into justifying Rav Yonason Eybeschutz’s read that the prohibition relating to men and women bears upon the existence of the gid hanasheh in male and female animals. More recently, Moshe Haberman wrote an extensive article trying to definitively prove that Rav Eybeschutz was relying on a very real guide that identified the gid hanasheh as appearing in both male and female animals, but a printer’s error obscured what halakhic work he was relying upon. In a stunning article of seforim detective work, my friend Elli Fischer responded that he remains unconvinced by Haberman’s suggestion.
The Emden-Eybeschutz controversy remains one of the most painful chapters in the history of rabbinic leadership. The more you look into it, the harder the proper approach becomes. Professor Leiman concludes that the gid hanasheh story is likely just a product of Rav Emden’s overzealous concerns about residual Sabbatianism within rabbinic ranks. Who was right about the larger controversy, we may never fully know.
Sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, "I will not let you go until you bless me.”
~Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l
One of the hardest parts of exile, which is often overlooked, is knowing what God wants from us. Without the direct word of God through prophecy, we rely on our mesorah, the traditions of Jewish thought and practice that have guided us through millennia. But exile can cloud that as well. How do we know what the correct approach is when rabbis from within our mesorah argue? Without prophecy, how do we muster the clarity to proceed with confidence?
Like Yaakov, exile makes us feel alone.
Yet even in the darkness of exile, even hobbled because of the injuries we have sustained through the generations, we are able to continue walking.
That is the message of the gid hanasheh.
Even after the pains of Yaakov’s lonely battle, we know that the Jewish People will never be abandoned completely. The gid hanasheh, explains Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin in his commentary Ha’emek Davar, is a reminder for the Jewish people to remain resilient and flexible even after sustaining pain and injury.
“Even though we have endured so much suffering,” the Sefer Ha’Chinuch writes, “we remain certain, that we will never be completely lost.”
Yaakov’s name is transformed to Yisroel and netzach Yisroel lo y’shaker—the eternity of the Jewish People will always endure.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
New Evidence on the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy: The Amulets from Metz, Shnayer Leiman
When a Rabbi is Accused of Heresy – R. Ezekiel Landau’s Attitude Toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversty, Shnayer Leiman
Rabbi Ezekial Landau: Letter of Reconciliation, Shnayer Leiman
A Case Study in the Making of a Super-Rabbi:The Early Years of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, 1713-1754, Dovid Katz
Sabbatian Heresy: Writings on Mysticism, Messianism, and the Origins of Jewish Modernity, Pawel Maciejko
Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Porger, Shnayer Leiman
The Haskalah in Vilna: R. Yehezkel Feivel’s Toldos Adam, Edward Breuer
The Twice Told Tale of R’ Yonasan Eybeschutz and the Porger, Mosher Haberman
Of Twice-Told Tales and Ockham’s Razor: A Response to R. Moshe Haberman, Elli Fischer
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If the 365 commandments each represent a day in the year, it must refer to the yemos hachama, none of which are tisha ba'av?