Rashi 18:4
ורחצו רגליכם. כַּסָּבוּר שֶׁהֵם עַרְבִיִּים שֶׁמִּשְׁתַּחֲוִים לַאֲבַק רַגְלֵיהֶם וִהִקְפִּיד שֶׁלֹא לְהַכְנִיס עֲ"זָ לְבֵיתוֹ;
This morning, someone asked me what that means. Simple enough; why would anyone worship the dust on their feet? Not stam the Earth, davka the dust on their feet.
I'm told that some say they didn't worship just dust, but it was dust from their Beis Avodah Zarah. That's fine, but that is not what Rashi says, and it is not what the Gemara in BM says, or Rashi in Kiddushin that brings it as well. Instead of saying it's not shver according to X or Y, let's focus on explaining what it means according to the Gemara and Rashi.
I suggested that it was a form of ancestor worship.
The concept is not uncommon. The Brittanica says that "Ancestor worship, prevalent in preliterate societies, is obeisance to the spirits of the dead." I believe that it persists even today in spiritually primitive countries, such as China, and certainly in obdurately uncivilized countries such as Haiti and Togo.
As applies to dust, of course we have Breishis 3:19, עפר אתה ואל עפר תשוב.
See also Shabbos 113b, that eating the dirt of Bavel is like eating one's ancestors.
אמר ר' אמי כל האוכל מעפרה של בבל כאילו אוכל מבשר אבותיו
Rashi
מבשר אבותיו. שמתו שם בגולה
And Hamlet act five:
“Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t'expel the winter’s flaw!”
Perhaps the people of Avraham Avinu's time time worshipped their ancestors, and saw the dust that clung to their feet as the dust of their ancestors magically adhering to them.
If I were to attempt relevance, I would suggest that when we go to kivrei tzadikim, we should not ask the niftarim to give us what we need. This is both Avoda Zara and doreish el hameisim, and, as such, is best avoided. At most, (see Minchas Elazar 1:68, but see Igros OC 5:143:6) we might ask them to intercede with tefilla to the Ribono shel Olam on our behalf. So pay your respects, and remember that all the tefillos at that makom kadosh are to the Ribono shel Olam, instead of being משתחוה לאבק רגליך.
On a simpler level, it could be suggested that they worshipped their own efforts, a la כחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה. That is what is meant by משתחוים לעפר רגליהם, that they prostrated themselves, showing bittul, only to that which they had effected through their own hard work.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call that simpler, and I don't mean that as a compliment. Your pshat requires that dust have been made a metaphor for the rushing about and physical effort of achievement. I think, a la Occam, that my pshat is more straighforward. As they say to doctors in medical school, "When you hear hoofs, think horses, not zebras."
DeleteSomeone else said that dust on their feet is the diametric opposite of ruchniyus, a דבר מגונה, similar to Baal Peor. Someone else said that it represented the essence of Avoda Zara, the unwillingness to be dominated by an infinitely superior spiritual being, which they saw as denying human self determination. Again, all possible, just I thought my pshat, was, besides being an excuse to quote Shakespeare, more simple.
I also am annoyed by my one of my sons in law's slavish (not to say dog-like) mimicry of his father, which only seems to arise when he disagrees with me about something. So I am pre-disposed to seeing this flaw in ערביים עובדי עבודה זרה.
For context, he referred to eating the Kreplach my wife served on the Shabbos before Hoshanna Rabba as akin to כבועל ארוסתו בבית חמיו.
DeleteRabbi Bukspan has a drasha on this very idea that you mentioned, and attributes it to the Reisher Rov.
DeleteR' Avrohom -- R' Shlomo Amar in his sefer on chumash says this same pshat.
DeleteMy own contribution is far too derush-y for your (EE's) taste, but here's a link anyway: https://divreichaim.blogspot.com/2009/11/removing-dust-on-feet.html
True. Irrespective of it being pshat here, it's a very moving mussar haskeil. Sometimes, life seems so small and narrow. You can find a way of being daveik bashem even then.
Deleteבן יהוידע
ReplyDeleteוהנה ענין זה דערביים דהוו משתחוים לאבק רגליהם צריך ביאור מה ענין השטות הזאת להשתחוות לאבק רגלים לעשותו עבודה זרה? ונראה הכונה כי היו הולכי דרכים קודם שילכו בדרך נכנסים לבית עבודה זרה שלהם ומקריבים לה קרבן כדי שתלך עמהם בדרך ותלוה אותם עד שיגיעו למחוז חפצם לשומרם ואם כן לפי דעתם הטפש חושבים שהעבודה זרה הולך לפניהם והם אחרית ואם כן אבק זה אשר יהיה על רגליהם כבר דרסה עליו רגלי העבודה זרה כי חושבים היא הולכת לפניהם ונמצא אבק זה נתטמא בטומאת העבודה זרה שלהם שדרסה עליו ולכך משתחוים לו בעת שיגיעו למחוז חפצם ואחר השתחויה רוחצים אותו כי אצלם אבק זה מטומא בעבודה זרה שדרסה עליו.
עפר אני תחת כפות רגליו....
DeleteBut לולא דמסתפינא I would say my pshat is a, more mistavra and b, requires fewer assumptions.
Dust is completely meaningless and valueless. For example, see the Beis Halevi about anochi afar va'eifer where he explains that both afar and eifer have some value: dirt has potential (planting, building etc) and ashes were previously something of value. In this line of thinking, dust may represent complete non-chashivus as it was nothing and will remain nothing. Maybe this avodah zarah was a form of nihilism.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a religion that worships a symbol of nihilism. It is similar to a certain brown rice I tried last week. I got it at Super H, a Korean supermarket, and they know their rice. But I was disappointed - maybe it was not fresh. I described it as "aggressively bland." It had a flavor that was kind of a non-flavor- to the extent that it made whatever you put on the rice also taste somehow insipid, or bland. Hard to describe. The idea of worshipful reverence of meaninglessness is sort of like that. Imagine celebrating the existential abyss.
DeleteJust to clarify, and avoid misrepresenting the Beis Halevi, he is not trying to diminish the anivus of Avraham's afar va'eifer- in fact he does the opposite, in explaining that each word was coming to counter the chashivus of the other. In other words, I am dirt, and lest you think that means I have chashuve kochos like dirt- I am ashes, with no future chashivus. And vice versa. Ayin sham, it's kedai to see the whole thing, and how he uses that to explain the schar of afar sotah and eifer parah.
DeleteSince you mention that Beis HaLevi, here's a link:
Deletehttps://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14068&st=&pgnum=23
Shkoiach as always. I believe the Maharal says along the lines of Menachem. The באר בשדה explains based on a Gemara in Avodah Zara that there is a method of כישוף that utilizes the ground that someone walked on.
ReplyDelete