Apologetics, Part III, and Rabbinic Racism...

I've been cheerfully following DovBear's posts about Moshe Rabbeinu marrying a Cushite woman, who may or may not have been Tzipporah. It's been interesting, though I've posted no thoughts of my own there, since In don't feel like getting sucked into arguments with some of the cuckoos commenting there.

Anyway, I think there is a point being missed by many people: Looking at the Perushim by people like Rashi and Ibn Ezra, they might have been racist! And it was racism due to ignorance more than anything else. What do I mean? Let's take a look (thanks to DovBear for easy translation access to Ibn Ezra):

1. Says the Ibn Ezra: Cushite is slang for ugly. The verse is speaking of Tzipporah, who was black, and therefore ugly.

2. Rashi, Bereishis, 12:11 - Avraham says to Sarah, "Babe, we gotta worry about your beauty. We are coming to a land filled with black, ugly people, brothers of the Cushites, and they are not used to beauty like yours."

Let's discuss:

Ibn Ezra: Have you seen some black women out there? There are some who would put most white women to shame with their beauty! Also, not all white women are pretty. Every race has its beauties and its uglies. Ibn Ezra was Spanish, and travelled extensively, and to him, I guess, black people were ugly. But that was his taste. In truth, we don't even know if he saw any actual black people in his travels in mediterranean countries (both Northern Africa and Southern Europe). Was he a racist? Might have been!

Rashi: Rashi lived in France and Germany all his life. Likely, he didn't even know what an Egyptian looked like, and carvings we have uncovered over the last couple of centuries pretty conclusively prove they were NOT black (and Egyptians today are not Arabs, they are Egyptians, descendants of old Egyptians, and just happen to be Muslim). Rashi probably had no idea what they looked like. He probably figured since they lived in Africa, in close proximity to Ethiopia, that they were black. In fact, some carvings show Egyptians to be quite attractive. Further, he probably never saw a black person in his life! Most likely, Avraham really just feared his wife being taken from him and himself getting killed if he told them he was Sarah's husband. Further, since Avraham uses the tactic with the Plishtim (as does his son Yitzchak) what's the excuse there? Rashi gives no explanation there. And in all three cases, two by Avraham and one by Yitzchak, they get in trouble for lying about Sarah, though they probably were justified in lying about her.

No, most likely, these rabbanim had an idea in their heads of what type of people lived where and stereotyped those people. The other funny thing is that most likely, Avraham and his direct descendants were probably closer to brown than white, considering the region from which they originated...And the Avraham probably had reasons other than "ooh, they black and evil" for telling the Mitzrim Sarah was Avraham's sister rather than his wife. And that reason was probably a very mundane "Sarah, babe, you are hot, and they are gonna take you from me, so let's tell them your my sister rather than my wife. This way, they'll just take you and not kill me, whereas if I tell them you're my wife, they'll kill me and take you." You see, Avraham was being very practical here. He did not wish to die, and did not want to be somech al Hanais in thinking no matter what his destiny, that the Mitzrim couldn't kill him if he told them he was Sarah's husband. Instead, he did not rely on a miracle, and very practically told them he was her brother, figuring he did his hishtadlus to stay allive and whatever happened after that would be in the hands of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

So, were these rabbanim racist? Very possibly. Does that therefore nullify their perushim? No. As I've said before, gedolim are human, both past and present, and as humans, they are fallible and have human failings. They were not perfect, and they had their own preconceived notions of the world in which they lived and in which they were educated that, if they were living today, would probably have been different than what they were living then.

Why can't the same be applied Rashi or Ibn Ezra? Those were their preconceived notions, without ever having seen black people or Egyptian people. Again, it doesn't mean these people weren't Gedolim. It just means they were human. And just as we can learn how TO act from a great person, so too can we learn how NOT TO act from a great person. We don't need apologetics to explain these people's actions. We need to learn from their actions.