Words can redeem and words can betray.
The term Shiboleth means something like a secret handshake - “a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords, simple ways of self-identification, signaling loyalty and affinity, maintaining traditional segregation, or protecting from real or perceived threats.”
The Hebrew word means ‘wheat’ - but it became a password in today’s chapter, during a dreadful dispute between the tribes of Israel, in which different dialects betrayed their speakers as each other’s enemies, till death.
The backstory is brief -- Yiftah, the leader from Gilead, of the tribe of Menashe, having sacrificed his daughter to pacify Adonai and win the war against the Ammonites, continues the fighting - this time with his own brothers from the next door tribe of Ephraim. As a reminder - these two are the sons of Jospeh, at least according to some shared myths. By the time this chapter rolls around, the two neighbors are at each other’s throats as refugees from the territory of Ephraim are trying to flee the fight and cross the Jordan river for safety. But Yiftach’s men are waiting for them at the riverbank with an ID check:
וַיֹּ֣אמְרוּ לוֹ֩ אֱמָר־נָ֨א שִׁבֹּ֜לֶת וַיֹּ֣אמֶר סִבֹּ֗לֶת וְלֹ֤א יָכִין֙ לְדַבֵּ֣ר כֵּ֔ן וַיֹּאחֲז֣וּ אוֹת֔וֹ וַיִּשְׁחָט֖וּהוּ אֶל־מַעְבְּר֣וֹת הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן וַיִּפֹּ֞ל בָּעֵ֤ת הַהִיא֙ מֵֽאֶפְרַ֔יִם אַרְבָּעִ֥ים וּשְׁנַ֖יִם אָֽלֶף׃
“They would say to the refugees, “Say shibboleth”; but they would say “sibboleth,” not being able to pronounce it correctly. Thereupon they would seize them and slay them by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites died at that time.”
Scholars claim that this story indicates the continued rifts between the different sub-sections of Canaan, blurring alliances and assumed origin stories of solidarity as those collapse in the face of changing political threats and coalitions. Civil wars emerge because of many reasons and quickly devolve, as this one, into age-long divides. Why ‘Shiboleth’ becomes the key word is the cause of much speculation but tragically a single word used as identity test is not limited to this chapter and predates face recongtion and other safety passes.
A famous modern version is the Spanish word for parsley, perejil, used in 1937 as a shibboleth to identify Haitian immigrants living along the border in the Dominican Republic. Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ordered the execution of between 20,000 and 30,000 individuals who were murdered within a few days in the Parsley Massacre.
Colombian conceptual artist Doris Salcedo created a work titled Shibboleth at Tate Modern, London, in 2007–2008. The piece consisted of a 548-foot-long crack that bisected the floor of the Tate's lobby space.
Salcedo said of the work: “It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe. For example, the space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space.”
Yiftah ruled for six more years, followed by three other short term leaders whose reigns are not remembered as dramatic. But the divides among the people will only deepen with time, and with those inner strifes - increased tensions with the neighbors. Next to rule will be the Philistines and to handle their wrath, a new hero will be born in Israel, not distinguished by his speech, but by his sheer force, long hair, and miraculous birth.
Image: Shibboleth by @DorisSalcedo at Tate Modern, London, in 2007–2008at Tate Modern, London, 2007–2008
Judith meets Judges! How does the lesser known heroine of Hanukkah echo the bloody tales of this book? Find out at our next free and open zoom conversation on December 15th 1-2pm ET. Join Rabbi Amichai to explore further what the Book of Judges has to teach us today about leadership and loyalty, faith and fanatics, history and myth - just in time for the winter holiday season.
Bring your questions from previous chapters!
Link here:
https://labshul.org/event/929-below-the-bible-belt-monthly-wrap-up-with-rabbi-amichai-4/
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections: Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. January 2022-July 2025
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Astoundingly horrific. I didn’t know about the Parsley Massacre. But episodes like this in our sacred texts have a very very important function: to help us know that we are capable of genocide, like everyone else. It’s not inhuman, it’s all too human -- and we are part of the human family, vulnerable to every evil and susceptible to every beauty. Our cuturally inherited superiority and victim complex blinds us. But maybe only when we are blinded and know we are blinded can we truly see... so much better in the dark.
Then there's an entire episode on West Wing that bears this word as its title.