The Bridal Snake: Can Charitable Living Make You Immortal??
Prv. 11:4
Will being philanthropic and generous save any of us from death? Not likely.
So what’s this famous tip for wiser living found in today’s chapter of Proverbs all about?
לֹא־יוֹעִ֣יל ה֭וֹן בְּי֣וֹם עֶבְרָ֑ה וּ֝צְדָקָ֗ה תַּצִּ֥יל מִמָּֽוֶת׃
Wealth is of no avail on the day of wrath,
But righteousness saves from death.
Prv. 11:4
The English word ‘righteousness’ is the translation of the Hebrew word ‘Tzedaka’ which most often means ‘charity’.
But whether this word means living lives of justice or being very generous with one’s resources - what’s really going on here? Did the authors assume that we have ways with which we avert whatever death date is upon us? Is there a belief here that our wiser, kinder actions will determine our fate?
A famous and utterly weird Talmudic tale suggests that it’s exactly what is going on here.
The Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Shabbat 156b brings a tale about Rabbi Akiva’s daughter - whose name is not mentioned. At some point, an astrologer said to the rabbi, “On the day she enters the bridal chamber, a snake will bite her and she will die.”
Rabbi Akiva hides this information from his daughter and perhaps forgets all about it.
On her wedding night, the brides removed a hair pin and stuck it into the wall. When she gets up the next morning and pulls out the pin -- she sees a dead snake, pierced through the eyes by that pin.
“Was there anything special that you did yesterday?” her father asked her.
“A poor man came to our door in the evening,” she replied. “Everybody was busy at the banquet, and there was none to attend to him. So I took the portion of food which was given to me, and gave it to him.”
And that’s when Rabbi Akiva quotes this line from Proverbs and declared: “Charity delivers from death”
There’s a lot to unpack with this problematic legend and its many puzzling dimensions. It’s such a good story that it even became a children’s book - taking place in 12th Century China, where the young girl gets a name, too: Zhen Yu and the Snake.
Rabbi Ayala Dekel wrote a thoughtful reflection on the story's meanings, from a feminist approach.
“Interestingly, despite this being a wedding celebration marking the union of a new couple, the Talmud doesn’t spend even a single word on the groom, choosing instead to focus on the bride. This tale thus contains a Talmudic twist on a story familiar to us from the legend of Sleeping Beauty – but in this case, instead of the prince saving his beloved with a kiss, she manages to save herself.
Well over a thousand years ago, long before Disney concluded that female heroines can save themselves, the Talmud placed this brave woman at the center of the story and even sent us to follow in her footsteps and change our own fate.
Approaching her father Rabbi Akiva with the dead snake, he immediately understands that she has successfully changed her destiny and asks her – “What did you do?” The sages comment that by this he did not mean – “How did you kill the snake?” but rather “What good deed did you do which enabled you to change your fate?” Banning all the spindles or the snakes from the kingdom won’t help. Nor will trying to hide from life as a whole. Danger is everywhere, whatever we do. The only way to make it through life is to be a good influence on one another, and to listen to the knocking at the door and the voices around us, doing our best to hear them.”
So perhaps another way to make sense of this teaching of Lady Wisdom is to know that we can’t change our fate, or prevent ourselves or anybody else from dying.
But we can choose to live our lives with eyes wide open to the needs of everyone, not to be dead inside to hurts and yearnings. Maybe that’s how charity beats death?
Living lives of more care, justice and compassion, as the young bride showed us, whether we live long or not, is wisdom’s way of telling us to be as true as we can to life’s highest virtues and best practices, come what may.
To life.
SO WHO IS WISDOM?
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Thursday, November 21st – Who is She Who is Wisdom?
Wednesday, December 18th – Welcome to JOB
Wednesday, January 22nd – Response to JOB
Tuesday, February 25th – Songs of Solomon & Ruth
Monday, March 3rd – Lamentations
Sunday, March 23rd – For Everything There is a Season
Wednesday, April 9th – Persian Palace Lives: Esther & Daniel
Monday, April 28th – Ezra Arrives
Wednesday, May 21st – The WaterGate Revolution
Wednesday, June 11th – Welcome to Chronicles 1
Wednesday, July 9th – Welcome to Chronicles 2
Wednesday, July 30th – Who Wrote the Bible and Why?
Wednesday, August 27th – Blessings Below the Bible Belt to Mark the Journey’s End
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