The Hakhel Ceremony

Reading “This Torah” Every Seventh year

Deuteronomy legislates gathering together the community every seventh year to read “this Teaching (torah)”:

^{דברים לא:ט} וַיִּכְתֹּב מֹשֶׁה אֶת הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת וַיִּתְּנָהּ אֶל הַכֹּהֲנִים בְּנֵי לֵוִי הַנֹּשְׂאִים אֶת אֲרוֹן בְּרִית יְ־הוָה וְאֶל כָּל זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. ^לא:י וַיְצַו מֹשֶׁה אוֹתָם לֵאמֹר מִקֵּץ שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים בְּמֹעֵד שְׁנַת הַשְּׁמִטָּה בְּחַג הַסֻּכּוֹת. ^לא:יא בְּבוֹא כָל יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵרָאוֹת אֶת פְּנֵי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחָר תִּקְרָא אֶת הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת נֶגֶד כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאָזְנֵיהֶם.

^{Deut 31:9} Moses wrote down this Teaching and gave it to the priests, sons of Levi, who carried the Ark of YHWH’s Covenant, and to all the elders of Israel. ^31:10 And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at the Feast of Booths, ^31:11 when all Israel comes to appear before YHWH your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel.^[1]

The ceremony is known by the term hakhel, “gathering together”:

^{דברים לא:יב} הַקְהֵל אֶת הָעָם הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ לְמַעַן יִשְׁמְעוּ וּלְמַעַן יִלְמְדוּ וְיָרְאוּ אֶת יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וְשָׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת. ^לא:יג וּבְנֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדְעוּ יִשְׁמְעוּ וְלָמְדוּ לְיִרְאָה אֶת יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם כָּל הַיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם חַיִּים עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּן שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ.

^{Deut 31:12} Gather the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere YHWH your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching. ^31:13 Their children, too, who have not had the experience, shall hear and learn to revere YHWH your God as long as they live in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.

It is unclear exactly to what “this Teaching (התורה הזאת)” (v. 11) refers.

What Is “This Teaching”?

Mishnah Sotah 7:8 suggests a minimalist reading, that it refers to selected sections of Deuteronomy (1:1-6:3; 6:4-9; 11:13-21; 14:22-29; 26:12-15; 17:14-20; 28). Jeffrey Tigay, professor emeritus of Bible from University of Pennsylvania takes a more maximalist position. He argues that the entire book of Deuteronomy may be the referent, noting that, “[a]ll of Deuteronomy can be read aloud in three to four hours,”^[2] and, therefore, can still be read in one day as suggested in Deuteronomy 31.

It is a striking fact that the Torah is remarkably un-self referential, by which I mean the Torah does not refer to the Torah. Certainly, the word torah appears often in the Torah: fifty-six times to be precise. In Priestly literature, it often means “(ritual) law,” and is frequently used to introduce specific regulations, as in Lev. 7:1, “This is the ritual of the guilt offering (וְזֹאת תּוֹרַת הָאָשָׁם).” The word appears mostly frequent in Deuteronomy (22 times), which, more than any other book, reflects on torah.

Our very brief parashah contains five, or nearly one-quarter of these references, and thus it is a torah-centric parashah within a torah-centric book. Yet, given that torah often means teaching, none of these references clearly refer to the (entire) Torah, namely the books of Genesis-Deuteronomy; most, if not all, refer to smaller or larger section of Deuteronomy. Stated differently, in the Torah, torah never means Torah.

There is a simple logic to this. From the academic perspective, the Torah was compiled or redacted by (an) editor(s) who put together individual pieces to form the whole, hardly adding his own voice. Since these individual pieces predate the compilation of the Torah, then torah within them can never refer to the whole book. And indeed classical rabbinic and medieval commentators often debate exactly what torah refers to in particular cases in Deuteronomy.

It is only in very late biblical books such as Chronicles or Ezra-Nehemiah where it is likely that the word torah (in phrases such as the Torah, the Torah of Moses, God’s Torah) refers more or less to the Torah as we know it.

Where?

Deuteronomy expresses strong interest in the centralization of worship הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בּוֹ לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם “to the site where YHWH your God will choose to establish His name” (Deut 12:11), or in shorthand, הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר “in the place that He will choose .” Many scholars (traditional and academic) understand this as a code-name for Jerusalem.^[3]

The Israelite males would have already been at the Temple for the Sukkot festival (16:13-16); our passage commands that at least once every seventh year the males would bring their entire family with them. Commemorating this ritual of torah-reading at the Temple would further enhance the position of Jerusalem and its Temple.

When?

It is somewhat surprising that this ritual takes place on Sukkot. It is likely that Sukkot was at some point in ancient Israel a new year festival; it is dated in Deuteronomy 16:13 to the very end of the harvest season, and thus would mark the end of one year and the beginning of another. Indeed, in Exodus 34:22 notes וְחַג הָאָסִיף תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה “the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.”

What we call Rosh Hashanah is only noted in Priestly calendars (Leviticus 23:23-25; Numbers 29:1-6), where it is dated to the first of the seventh month, and thus clearly is not (yet) the new year. Sukkot, after the final ingathering and before preparation for planting the first grain crops, was the major festival in ancient Israel, a time that afforded some leisure from the agricultural cycle, and was, therefore, an appropriate time for this grand ritual. This complex ritual, which imagined everyone gathered in Jerusalem, was too grand to transpire annually, so it happened on the special Sukkot, once every seven years at the year of release.

The above is the simple reading of the text, but the Sages (m. Sotah 7:8) understand the text to mean that the reading should occur on the 8^th year, i.e. the year after the Sabbatical year. The reason for this surprising (and forced) interpretation is that, as the 13^th cent. commentator, Rabbi Hezekiah bar Manoach (Chizkuni), explains (v. 10), the laws of agricultural rest would apply to that year’s harvest, since whatever might be in the fields came from what grew during the seventh year. Thus, he writes (v. 12), people would have an easy time coming to the Temple then, since no agricultural activity needed to be done that year, making it truly a time of leisure.

This suggestion works well in the context of the Torah as we have it and rabbinic halakha, but this cannot be the intention of the author in its original context, since, in Deuteronomy, the sabbatical year is only a time of remission of debts (see 15:1-11), not of agricultural rest (as in Lev 25:1-7.) Instead, in Deuteronomy, its timing with the sabbatical year would have enhanced the importance of that year and the social legislation associated with it.

To Whom Is the Torah Read: The Place of Women

Verse 12 is very clear about who must participate in the hakhel ritual: הַקְהֵל אֶת הָעָם הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ “Gather the people — men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities.” This verse offers a clear definition of העם, “the people” or “the nation,” that is very inclusive.

It is much broader than the description of the same group in the unit preceding the revelation at Sinai in Exodus 19, where women are likely excluded, or at best, included via their fathers or husbands. Exodus states:

^{שמות יט:יד} וַיֵּרֶד מֹשֶׁה מִן הָהָר אֶל הָעָם וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת הָעָם וַיְכַבְּסוּ שִׂמְלֹתָם. ^יט:טו וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל הָעָם הֱיוּ נְכֹנִים לִשְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים אַל תִּגְּשׁוּ אֶל אִשָּׁה.

^{Exod 19:14} Moses came down from the mountain to the people and warned the people to stay pure, and they washed their clothes. ^19:15 And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day: do not go near a woman.”

Since the men only are addressed with respect to their wives, the term “the people” here refers to men only, and only they are imagined as directly part of the covenantal community; the ‘am is comprised principally of males. This is similar to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, where we know from history that “We the people” referred to landowning, white, Protestant males—terms such as “the people” or ha’am often seem inclusive, but are not.

The rabbis recognized the problematic exclusion of women here—for if women are excluded how can they be expected to fulfill the mitzvot—and they therefore interpreted the doubling in the opening speech to mean that both women and men were addressed:

^{שמות יט:ג} ...כֹּה תֹאמַר לְבֵית יַעֲקֹב וְתַגֵּיד לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל.

^{Exod 19:3} ...Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel.

The traditional reading is that “the house of Jacob” refers to the women.^[4] This wonderful midrashic reading reverberated deeply in Jewish culture—indeed, that is why the girls’ school founded in Cracow in 1917 by Sarah Schenirer was called Beis Yaakov—but it is not the obvious reading of Exodus 19, which does exclude women. Indeed, Judith Plaskow’s pioneering book uses this scene to highlight the exclusion of women from the story, and focuses on how women may be reintegrated into Jewish tradition.^[5]

In contrast to Exodus 19, Deuteronomy 31 explicitly includes women. This equality, however, is undermined in the Babylonian Talmud (Chagigah 3a), cited and made famous in Rashi’s commentary to Deuteronomy 31:12.^[7]

”האנשים“ – ללמוד: ”והנשים“ – לשמוע: ”והטף“ – למה בא? לתת שכר למביאיהם.

“The men”—to study; “the women”—to hear, “the children”—why did they come? To give reward to those who brought them.

In other words, the Talmud claims that the men came to study and the women (only) to hear. Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) explicitly polemicizes against this tradition, noting in his long discursive commentary that (Deut 31:12):

והאנשים ילמדו את דברי התורה לעשות אותם ולקיים מצותיה בין שיש בה קום ועשה ובין שאין בה קום ועשה. והנשים תשמענה ליראה את ה׳ ולהמנע מעשות כל מצות שישנן בשמירתן כמו האנשים.

The men will study the words of Torah to perform them, and to keep its commandments, whether they are positive precepts or just avoiding violations. Women will listen to fear the LORD, to avoid violating any negative precepts under which they are obligated, just like the men.

Abravanel’s polemic against Rashi and the Babylonian Talmud is an important reminder that interpretation, and halachic issues, do respond to changing cultural sensibilities.

Ezra’s Hakhel

According to the Book of Nehemiah (end of ch. 7 – the beginning of ch. 8), Ezra gathered the community together at the very beginning of the seventh month, seemingly on what we would call Rosh Hashanah (though the festival is never mentioned there):

^{נחמיה ח:א} ...לְהָבִיא אֶת סֵפֶר תּוֹרַת מֹשֶׁה אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל.

^{Neh 8:1} ...to bring the scroll of the Teaching of Moses with which YHWH had charged Israel.

This is a hakhel-like ceremony, but, given the date at the beginning of the month, it is not the hakhel mandated in Deuteronomy 31. (Perhaps this was not a sabbatical year?) This passage is one of the most important in the entire Bible for understanding the development of the Torah, and the attitude toward it by some groups (likely) in the fifth century B.C.E.

For our purposes, it is significant to note that in v. 2 the congregation is defined as, מֵאִישׁ וְעַד אִשָּׁה וְכֹל מֵבִין לִשְׁמֹעַ “men and women and all who could listen with understanding.” Similarly, the next verse (v. 3) notes that the text was read to הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַמְּבִינִים “the men and the women and those who could understand.” Nehemiah uses the term “kahal” rather than “‘am,” and his congregation/nation, like that of Deuteronomy, but unlike that of Exodus, includes women.

Regularly Studied by All

Hakhel is an important reminder that the Torah must be read and studied regularly by all. Sinai was not a static event, but, as suggested by hakhel, must be periodically re-envisioned and reenacted.^[6] Every seven years would have allowed people not only to recall the biblical text, but to reflect upon it and reinterpret it in line with different stages of their lives.

Ezra reinterpreted hakhel by instituting a similar ceremony on a one-time basis on Rosh Hashanah, and including not only the reading of the Torah, but its translation and interpretation.

^{נחמיה ח:ח} וַיִּקְרְאוּ בַסֵּפֶר בְּתוֹרַת הָאֱלֹהִים מְפֹרָשׁ וְשׂוֹם שֶׂכֶל וַיָּבִינוּ בַּמִּקְרָא.

^{Neh 8:8} They read from the scroll of the Teaching of God, translating it and giving the sense; so they understood the reading .

This is a model worthy of emulation.^[7]