Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
6 min read
Shemot, 11:6-7: “There will be a great outcry in the entire land of Egypt, such as there has never been and such as there will never be again. But against all the Children of Israel, no dog will whet its tongue, against neither man nor beast, so that you will know that Hashem will have differentiated between Egypt and Israel.”
Shemos, 22:30: “People of holiness you will be to Me, you will not eat flesh of an animal that was torn in the field, to the dog you will throw it.”
Shemos Rabbah, 31:9: “…You do not have permission to eat a treifah (non-kosher meat), as it says, “and meat in the field that is treifah you will not eat, [rather] throw it to the dogs. Why to the dogs? The Holy One, Blessed is He, says ‘you are obligated to the dogs because at the time that I killed the first-born of Egypt and the Egyptians were sitting the whole night and burying their dead, and the dogs were barking to them; but to Yisrael, they did not bark, as it says, “no dog will whet its tongue”. Therefore, you are obligated to the dogs, as it says, ‘you will throw it to the dogs.’”1
The Torah relates that during the Plague of the First-born, the dogs that were in the vicinity of the Jewish people did not bark at all. The commentaries explain that this was something that is considered miraculous, because in general, dogs bark wildly when the Angel of Death is present. Moreover, the dogs that were among the Egyptians did bark constantly. The Midrash teaches that as a reward for this silence, for the entirety of history, if a Jew owns a piece of non-kosher meat, he should give it to a dog, rather than anyone else.
This is not the only reward that the dogs receive for their silence. In Perek Shira (a series of songs of praise of God by animals), in which all the animals sing praises to God, the song offered by the dogs is, “Come let us prostrate ourselves and bow, let us kneel before God, our Maker.”2 The Midrash relates that Rav Yeshaya, the student of Rav Chanina Ben Dosa fasted eighty-five separate days because he could not understand how dogs merited to sing songs of praise to God. His wonderment was based on the fact that dogs are referred to as brazen3 and brazenness is the antithesis of subservience to God. The Midrash continues that an Angel came to him and told him that he was sent from Heaven to inform him that the dogs merited singing Songs of Praise by virtue of their meritorious behavior at the time of the Plague of the First-born.
The Midrash adds yet another reward to the dogs for their silence – the excrement of dogs is used to tan the hides of animals in preparation for making the parchment used to write Torah scrolls, mezuzot and Tefillin. Rabbi Yissachar Frand notes that he saw in the book, Darash Mordechai, that the author asked modern day scribes if this is still the case, and they confirmed that the essence of the chemicals uses to prepare animal hides for the parchment of Holy writings is indeed derived from dog excrement.
A number of questions arise with regard to this idea: Firstly, what exactly was the great benefit that the dogs did not bark – if they would have barked, what would have been so problematic? Secondly, why did the dogs receive such great reward for their silence, and what was the nature of the specific rewards that God gave them?
The answer to the second questions is that the greatness of what the dogs did is that they acted in a way that was totally contrary to their nature – they broke their nature.4 In the words of Rabbi Frand5:
The explanation is that nothing is more precious to the Master of the Universe than a person or animal or creature breaking its nature. That is what Divine Service is all about. A person overcoming his natural instincts and his innate personality traits is more beloved and dearer to the Almighty than anything else. Dogs bark! The Gemara says in Brachot that when dogs sense the Malach HaMavet (the Angel of Death) they certainly bark. It is an amazing accomplishment in the Eyes of Hashem for the dogs in Egypt to conquer their inclinations and not give in to their natural tendencies.
Because the dogs went against their nature, they received a number of rewards. The first was that they will receive non-kosher meat for eternity: They went against their natural desire to bark, and as a reward, their lust for meat will be satiated when Jewish people go against their nature and do not eat tasty meat because it is not kosher.
The dogs also merit to sing praise to God, because they were silent when that was necessary, so as a reward, they have the opportunity to speak when that is the correct way to behave – in praising the Creator. Finally, they also merit to have a part in the creation of Scribes, because controlling oneself and overcoming one’s nature is the height of holiness and consequently, they have a part in writing of holy writings.
We can now also understand the significance of the silence of the dogs. On a simple level, the commentaries explain that the barking of the dogs would have scared the Jewish people, and their silence enabled the Jews to experience that night with serenity.6 However, on a deeper level, the silence of the dogs was such an unusual event, that it contributed to the supernatural character of that fateful night and demonstrated to the Jewish people how God was controlling nature.
Needless to say, Chazal’s teachings about dogs are not merely interesting reading, rather they are to teach us life-lessons. The obvious lesson that we can derive from these ideas is the greatness of overcoming one’s natural desires in general, and in particular, to control our desire to speak when it is not appropriate. As the Vilna Gaon teaches, the reward that a person receives for controlling himself from speaking lashon hara is beyond the grasp of the Angels. May we all merit to overcome our natural tendencies and control ourselves in all realms.
