JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ezra
It is probable that he also wrote the commentary on the Torah,
Sefer ha-Ezobi, still in manuscript.
Bibliography: Zunz, Lit Poesie, 351, 480; Davidson, Oẓar,
4 (1933), 397; Schirmann, Sefarad, 2 (1956), 343–8; I. Freedman, in:
JQR, 8 (1895/96), 534–40; J. Reuchlin, Ezobi, Jehoseph ben Hanan ben
Nathan, Rabi Ioseph Hyssopaeus Parpinianensis iudaeorum poeta dulcissimus
ex hebraica lingua in latina[m]traductus (1512); M. Steinschneider,
Musar Haskel ve-Shir ha-Keara (1860); Weinberger, in: HUCA,
37 (1966), 1ff. (Heb.); B. Bar-Tikva, in: Sefer Aviad (1986), 185–94;
idem, in: Jewish Studies in a New Europe (1998), 54–63; idem, in: Talpiyot,
10 (1998), 397–405; Schirmann-Fleischer, The History of Hebrew
Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France (1997), 464–67,
469 n. 2; M. Forcano, in: Anuari de Filologia, Estudis Hebreus I Arameus,
20 (1997), 67–79.
[Angel Sáenz-Badillos (2nd ed.)]
EZRA (Heb. ארְז ָע;
ֶ “[YHWH] helps”), priest and scribe who
played a major role in the rebuilding of the Temple, after the
return from the Babylonian exile.
The Man and His Mission
Ezra whose name means “help” (possibly a shortened form for
הָירַז ְ ע ֲ “The Lord has helped,” the name of two of his ancestors
(7:1, 3)) was, along with Nehemiah, one of the two notable figures
of the post-exilic community in Judah (sixth–fifth century
B.C.E.). His work is known from the last three chapters
(7–10) of the book that bears his name, and from chapter 8 of
the book of Nehemiah (see *Ezra and Nehemiah, Book of).
Ezra was both a priest, whose ancestry is traced back to Aaron
(7:1–5), and a scribe “well versed in the law of Moses” (v. 6,
11). Just as another Persian king, *Cyrus, had done in his time
(538), so also one of his successors, *Artaxerxes I (465–424),
issued a royal edict to Ezra granting permission for Jews to go
with him to Jerusalem. Ezra was permitted to bring with him
gold and silver donations from other Jews, and regular maintenance
expenses of the Temple were to be provided from the
royal treasury. Ezra’s mission was “to expound the law of the
Lord” and “to teach laws and rules to Israel” (v. 10). For this
purpose he was granted not only a royal subsidy, but he was
also empowered to appoint judges, enforce religious law, and
even to apply the death penalty. In response to critics who
argue that such a concern by a Persian king for a foreign cult
would be unlikely, the Passover papyrus issued by *Darius II
in 419/18 to the Jews at Elephantine in Egypt regarding the
date and method for celebrating the Passover (Porten) has often
been cited. Nevertheless, the question of imperial authorization
of Jewish law by the Persian Empire continues to be
a subject of debate (Watts).
Date
The date of Ezra is problematic as is his relationship with Nehemiah,
because apart from Neh. 8:9, and two other minor
references (Neh. 12:26, 36), the two are never mentioned together.
According to their respective books, Ezra assumed his
mission in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (458) and Nehemiah
came in the 20th year of the same king (445). This would mean
that Ezra, who came at the express command of Artaxerxes to
implement and teach the law, did not conduct his first public
reading of the Law until 13 years later. Another problem
for the biblical chronology is that Ezra found many people in
Jerusalem but, according to Nehemiah, in his time, Jerusalem
was unpopulated. For these reasons and others, some scholars
believe Ezra came to Jerusalem much later, either in the
37th year of Artaxerxes I (428) or in the seventh year of Artaxerxes
II (397) (see discussion in Klein).
His Journey to Jerusalem
Ezra’s four month journey to Jerusalem is described by Ezra
in a first-person memoir. After listing the names of the leaders
returning with him, Ezra discovers there were no Levites in
his party so he had to muster up 38 Levites from some Levitical
families. Another problem was security. Because Ezra had
originally made a declaration of trust in God before the king,
he felt it inappropriate to request from him the customary escort.
Thus he accounted the party’s safe arrival in Jerusalem
with all its treasure intact as a mark of divine benevolence.
Ezra’s Reaction to Reports of Intermarriage
When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem he was informed that some
people, including members of the clergy and aristocracy, had
contracted foreign marriages. Immediately upon hearing this
news Ezra engaged in mourning rites, tore his garments, and
fasted and, on behalf of the people, confessed their sins and
uttered a prayer of contrition. At the initiative of one of the
leaders of the community Ezra was urged to take immediate
action. An emergency national assembly was convened, and
Ezra addressed the crowd in a winter rainstorm calling upon
the people to divorce their foreign wives. The assembled crowd
agreed to Ezra’s plea, but because of the heavy rains and the
complexity of the matter (Ezra’s extension of legal prohibitions
of marriages that had previously been permitted), they
requested that a commission of investigation be set up. After
three months the commission reported back with a list of
priests, Levites, and Israelites who had intermarried. It is often
thought that Ezra’s action insisting on the divorce of foreign
wives and their children, together with Nehemiah’s concern
that the children of these foreign women could not speak the
language of Judah (Neh. 13:24), represented a shift in Israelite
matrimonial law. Previously offspring of intermarriage was
judged patrilineally; now it was to be on the matrilineal principle
(for a different view, see Cohen).
The Reading of the Torah
Chapter 8 of the book of Nehemiah records that Ezra publicly
read the Torah on the first day of the seventh month (Rosh Ha-
Shanah). He stood upon a platform with dignitaries standing
on his right and left. The ceremony began with an invocation
by Ezra and a response by the people saying “Amen, Amen”
(v. 6). During the reading the people stood while the text was
made clear to them (or translated for them (into Aramaic)) by
the Levites (van der Kooij). The people were emotionally overcome
by the occasion and wept. However, they were enjoined
not to be sad rather to celebrate the day joyously with eating,
652 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6