Og Melech Habashan
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5768
There are some stories that you hear as a child that will stay with you and intrigue you forever. One of these legends surrounds a Biblical figure that we read about this morning: Og melech haBashan, the famous Og, the king of Bashan. In our parsha, we read of the military defeat of Og at the hands of Moshe and the Jews. An ordinary man, albeit a king, defeated in battle. The presentation of the story in the Torah is very clear and simple.
- And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.
- And the Lord said to Moses, Fear him not; for I have delivered him into your hand, and all his people, and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.
- So they struck him, and his sons, and all his people, until none was left alive; and they possessed his land.
The legend that has stuck with me goes as follows: Moshe was 10 amot, or cubits, tall. He had an ax that was 10 amot tall and he jumped 10 amot off the ground, struck the ankle of Og and killed him. For years I had this in my head until I finally sat down to think about it:
The first problem is that ONE amah is about 22 inches. That means that if Moshe is 10 amot tall, he stood at 220 inches or 18 & 1/3 feet. If he had to jump 10 amot and use a 10 amah ax to reach Og’s ankle, then Og’s ankle stood at 55 feet! I did not work out the proportions of ankle to body height, but I did an experiment on Tuesday in the office which led to an astounding result: my ankle is about 4 inches off the ground and I am about 6 feet tall or 72 inches. Thus your body height is roughly 18 times the height of your ankle.
55 times 18 = 9,980.1, which means that Og was 9,980 feet tall. The Chrysler building in NY is only 64 feet taller. That is really tall.
(Although that certainly would explain why Hashem tells Moshe not to fear Og, but does not tell Moshe not to fear in other situations. If Og really was 1,000 feet tall, who would not be afraid?)
The second problem is a textual one. The Torah presents the battle as an ordinary one. They went to war and were victorious. Why does the Midrash alter the nature of the battle?
The third problem might seem minor but it did bother me. How does Moshe kill Og by hitting him in the ankle with what must be a relatively puny blade for a 1,000 foot tall person?
Those three questions prompted me to go back and look at the Midrash in its entirety, which is always a good idea.
The Gemara in Berachot (54b) tells us the following:
He (Og) said: How large is the camp of Israel? Three parasangs. I will go and uproot a mountain of the size of three parasangs and cast it upon them and kill them. He went and uprooted a mountain of the size of three parasangs and carried it on his head. But the Holy One, blessed be He, sent ants which bored a hole in it, so that it sank around his neck. He tried to pull it off, but his teeth projected on each side, and he could not pull it off.
The height of Moses was ten cubits. He took an axe ten cubits long, leapt ten cubits into the air, and struck him on his ankle and killed him
The first thing to note is that this is not a Midrash that was written as a historical episode. There is a general question as to how to study and understand Midrash, which I am not interested in taking up at the moment. This Midrash goes well beyond that discussion. Natan Slifkin ably demonstrates that it is biologically and physiologically impossible for a human to be anywhere near that tall – see his recently banned book entitled “Mystical Creatures” which is a great read. That ban is not endorsed in our community, so not to worry. For those who want a more traditional source, a proof positive that this can’t be, you may flip to the back of the Gemara to the commentary of R. Samuel Eliezer ben R. Judah HaLevi Edels – the Maharsha – who was born in Cracow in 1555. He begins his commentary by quoting the Rashba, Rabbi Shlomo be Aderet the great 13th century Spanish Torah scholar who says and I quote: סוד המאמר זה שפשוטו ודאי הוא זר מאד – the secret to this piece is that its literal interpretation is very strange! And he then proceeds to give an allegorical explanation of the Midrash.
I was not taken with his and would like to suggest my own. To do that, I want to start with the second question: why would the Midrash change the nature of the battle. I believe that it does so to highlight a tension created by the text. Hashem tells Moshe: don’t worry, I will deliver Og and his army into your hands. That seems to imply that God will bring a plague and wipe them out or open the ground beneath them etc., yet the Torah records what seems to be an ordinary battle without detailing the method of God’s involvement or deliverance. And so you ask the question: was this a regular battle or did Hashem deliver them? That of course is a flawed question- the correct answer is that is was both, a regular battle, yet Hashem aided in the victory even though you can not pinpoint exactly how or when or where. Consider a modern day example of the same phenomena: the Six Day War. The overwhelming majority of all Jews saw God’s hand in that victory yet it was fought by real soldiers, in real tanks, with real battle plans, etc. God was there but you can’t see how.
I think that the Midrash is trying to draw our attention to the miraculous nature of the victory in a very dramatic way. And its message is – don’t look at the text and say where is the miracle? The natural miracle is the same as the supernatural – picture this battle like you would the battle between Moshe and Og as portrayed in the Midrash.
That would explain some of the details as well. Take the ants for example. Why does the author of this Midrash use the ants to bring the mountain on Og’s head? Because we don’t give ants much thought at all nor do we view them as significant. They are a part of nature and for most of us they are nothing but an annoyance. Rethink that — says the midrash — everything in our natural world can be a tool of God; Hashem’s options are limitless. Og probably did not even see the ants, yet they were there. That is the point. We don’t think they play any role because we don’t see and understand.
Our challenge is to believe in a God of history and pray for divine interaction and intervention even though we may not realize that our prayers are being answered as we live through history. In hindsight it usually becomes clear – the question is: can we perceive it or believe in it while it is happening? That is much more difficult, but it is our challenge!
