Yehudah's Blessing of Wine and Milk

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In last week’s parsha, Yaakov blesses his sons. While the Torah calls these blessings, they are also prophecies. The blessing of Yehudah is:

יְהוּדָ֗ה אַתָּה֙ יוֹד֣וּךָ אַחֶ֔יךָ יָדְךָ֖ בְּעֹ֣רֶף אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ יִשְׁתַּחֲו֥וּ לְךָ֖ בְּנֵ֥י אָבִֽיךָ׃

גּ֤וּר אַרְיֵה֙ יְהוּדָ֔ה מִטֶּ֖רֶף בְּנִ֣י עָלִ֑יתָ כָּרַ֨ע רָבַ֧ץ כְּאַרְיֵ֛ה וּכְלָבִ֖יא מִ֥י יְקִימֶֽנּוּ׃

לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר שֵׁ֙בֶט֙ מִֽיהוּדָ֔ה וּמְחֹקֵ֖ק מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו עַ֚ד כִּֽי־יָבֹ֣א שִׁילֹ֔ה וְל֖וֹ יִקְּהַ֥ת עַמִּֽים׃

אֹסְרִ֤י לַגֶּ֙פֶן֙ עִירֹ֔ה וְלַשֹּׂרֵקָ֖ה בְּנִ֣י אֲתֹנ֑וֹ כִּבֵּ֤ס בַּיַּ֙יִן֙ לְבֻשׁ֔וֹ וּבְדַם־עֲנָבִ֖ים סוּתֹֽה׃

חַכְלִילִ֥י עֵינַ֖יִם מִיָּ֑יִן וּלְבֶן־שִׁנַּ֖יִם מֵחָלָֽב׃

I intentionally didn’t translate this, yet, because the translation of most of these verses are so vague.

Side point

And this leads me to a side point before I get to the main point.

This parsha, and the last four, are quite puzzling from the Biblical Criticism perspective, that the composition of the Pentateuch started in 7-6th cent BC, in the Kingdom of Judah. From authors who lived under the Davidic dynasty, we would have expected an explicit focus on the tribe of Yehudah as the forerunners of this celebrated household. After all, from a normal, human vantage point, the ancestry of the royal family is something of utmost importance to the nation. But instead, all we get is this vague prophecy that sounds more like Yehudah will be a tribe of warriors and scribes (מחוקק sounds like a lawmaker or a scribe of law, as in the verseמִנִּ֣י אֶפְרַ֗יִם שׇׁרְשָׁם֙ בַּעֲמָלֵ֔ק אַחֲרֶ֥יךָ בִנְיָמִ֖ין בַּֽעֲמָמֶ֑יךָ מִנִּ֣י מָכִ֗יר יָֽרְדוּ֙ מְחֹ֣קְקִ֔ים וּמִ֨זְּבוּלֻ֔ן מֹשְׁכִ֖ים בְּשֵׁ֥בֶט סֹפֵֽר -Shoftim 5:14, and since when does שבט refer to a king?). It is only retrospectively, knowing about the Davidic dynasty, that we are practically forced to read this as monarchical prophecy.

But much more blatant is the fact that there is a far greater emphasis on Yosef in these last four parshiyos. The entire narrative is about how he ascended to the throne after prophetic dreams that he would rule over his brothers. At the beginning of Parshas Vayechi, Yaakov appoints him the bechor (firstborn) instead of Reuven. And Yaakov’s blessing of Yosef sounds much more like he will be the ruler:

בֵּ֤ן פֹּרָת֙ יוֹסֵ֔ף בֵּ֥ן פֹּרָ֖ת עֲלֵי־עָ֑יִן בָּנ֕וֹת צָעֲדָ֖ה עֲלֵי־שֽׁוּר׃

וַֽיְמָרְרֻ֖הוּ וָרֹ֑בּוּ וַֽיִּשְׂטְמֻ֖הוּ בַּעֲלֵ֥י חִצִּֽים׃

וַתֵּ֤שֶׁב בְּאֵיתָן֙ קַשְׁתּ֔וֹ וַיָּפֹ֖זּוּ זְרֹעֵ֣י יָדָ֑יו מִידֵי֙ אֲבִ֣יר יַעֲקֹ֔ב מִשָּׁ֥ם רֹעֶ֖ה אֶ֥בֶן יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

מֵאֵ֨ל אָבִ֜יךָ וְיַעְזְרֶ֗ךָּ וְאֵ֤ת שַׁדַּי֙ וִיבָ֣רְכֶ֔ךָּ בִּרְכֹ֤ת שָׁמַ֙יִם֙ מֵעָ֔ל בִּרְכֹ֥ת תְּה֖וֹם רֹבֶ֣צֶת תָּ֑חַת בִּרְכֹ֥ת שָׁדַ֖יִם וָרָֽחַם׃

בִּרְכֹ֣ת אָבִ֗יךָ גָּֽבְרוּ֙ עַל־בִּרְכֹ֣ת הוֹרַ֔י עַֽד־תַּאֲוַ֖ת גִּבְעֹ֣ת עוֹלָ֑ם תִּֽהְיֶ֙יןָ֙ לְרֹ֣אשׁ יוֹסֵ֔ף וּלְקׇדְקֹ֖ד נְזִ֥יר אֶחָֽיו׃ {פ}

Yosef is called רֹעֶ֖ה אֶ֥בֶן יִשְׂרָאֵֽל, the “shepherd of Israel”, and נְזִ֥יר אֶחָֽיו “the crown of his brothers”, and is given greater blessings than that which Yitzchak blessed Yaakov (“בִּרְכֹ֣ת אָבִ֗יךָ גָּֽבְרוּ֙ עַל־בִּרְכֹ֣ת הוֹרַ֔י”).

And furthermore, this gets worse when we reach Moshe’s blessings in Devarim. All Yehudah receives is the one-liner that references his struggles as a warrior:

And this he said of Judah:
Hear, God, the voice of Judah
And restore him to his people.
Though his own hands strive for him,
Help him against his foes.

Whereas Yosef receives an elaborate blessing that harks back to the original blessings of Yitzchak to Yaakov (Bereishis 27:28), and ends with the implication that Yosef is the best of his brothers:

And of Joseph he said:
Blessed of God be his land
With the bounty of dew from heaven,
And of the deep that couches below;

….

With the bounty of earth and its fullness,
And the favor of the Presence in the Bush.
May these rest on the head of Joseph,
On the crown of the elect of his brothers.

Like a firstling bull in his majesty,
He has horns like the horns of the wild-ox;
With them he gores the peoples,
The ends of the earth one and all.
These are the myriads of Ephraim,
Those are the thousands of Manasseh.

There is clearly a running theme that Yosef is treated with more importance than Yehudah, the opposite of what we would expect from the standard Biblical Criticism perspective. If I were a Bible Critic (ח”ו), I would use this as evidence that the composition of the Pentateuch started not in the Kingdom of Judah, but in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, under the dominion of the Israelite kings who mostly descended from Ephraim, and as a polemic against Davidic rulership (we can also add the fact that Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Pentateuch, but Beth-El, one of the most significant religious locations for the Kingdom of Israel, where one of the Golden Calves was located, is given a prominent position in the narrative of Yaakov’s journeys.) But of course, nobody says this. The bottom line is that almost nothing about the Torah fits the theories of the Bible Critics when you actually investigate. Some science. What a bunch of stinkers. Anyways, I digress.

Main point

In the end of the day, despite the vagueness of the verses, we know that the blessing of Yehudah actually is a prophecy of kingship. Therefore, the last two verses of Yehudah’s blessing are somewhat puzzling. The translation is:

He loads his young donkey with grapes of a vine, and his she-donkey’s foal with a vine-branch. He washes his clothes in wine, and his cloak in the blood of grapes.

His eyes are red from wine, and his teeth are white [from an abundance of] milk.

This sounds like a completely separate blessing, that Yehuda’s land will be bountiful in wine and milk. And indeed, this is how Rashi and most other commentators understand it. But is there perhaps a connection to the prophecy of kingship? According to the Seforno, there is. He understands that the verses are not referring to Yehuda’s bountiful land in particular, but to the Messianic period:

אוסרי לגפן עירה, this is one of the things that help us recognise the Redeemer when he comes. 1) he will manifest himself as Messiah by a foal borne by a she-ass. (Zecharyah 9,9) The reason this indicates that he is the Messiah is that he does not arrive on a horse, an animal which is ready for battle, for war. The final battle involving the nations of the world will already have been fought and won by G’d at the time he will manifest himself. He will commence his reign when peace already prevails. 2) the fact that he will tie his ass to a גפן, a vine, will be a symbol that he is destined to rule over the Jewish people, the people who have been compared to a grape vine as stated in Chulin 92. The prophet Isaiah 5,7 also referred to the Jewish people as G’d’s vineyard.

ולשרקה בני אתונו, this is a reference to a third symbol by which the Messiah will be identified, that not only will he tie his ass to a vine but to a sorekah, a choice vine. The wine from such vine illuminates the eyes of the Just of their respective generations, something that cannot be said of an ordinary vine.

כבס ביין לבושו, the fourth sign identifying the Messiah is that he will be able to launder his garments in blood. He will have to do this as he will find many people who have been slain in the war preceding his coming, and he will assist in their burial. (compare Isaiah 63,2 מדוע אדום ללבושך “why are your garments so red?”) Another allusion to this is found in Psalms 110,6 ידין בגויים מלא גווית, “he works judgment on the nations piling up bodies.”

חכלילי עינים מיין, the fifth of the identifying marks of the Messiah will be the onset of an unusually long period of economic progress, plentiful harvests, etc. This has also been predicted in Psalms 72,16 “let abundant grain be in the land to the tops of the mountains, let his crops thrive like the forest of Lebanon.” Our sages have paraphrased this in Shabbat 30 when they described the affluence in messianic days by crediting the soil of Israel with producing ready to eat rolls and garments made of the finest wool.

Unlike the proponents of Muscular Judaism, the ideology of כוחי ועוצם ידי, the Seforno understands that the ultimate ruler of the Jewish people will not need to fight wars, but that God will fight for Jewish people. This is consistent with the ideal made clear by the Torah everywhere else (of course, we are still far from that ideal).

Consistent with the theme of the Seforno, I would like to offer another interpretation of these verses:

The prophet Yeshaya announced many prophecies about the defeat of Sennacherib in the times of Chizkiyahu. One of them is (Yeshaya 7:20-23):

“In that day, my Sovereign will cut away with the razor that is hired beyond the Euphrates—with the king of Assyria —the hair of the head and the hair of the legs, and it shall clip off the beard as well (referring to Sennacherib).

And in that day, each household shall save alive a heifer of the herd and two animals of the flock.

And they shall obtain so much milk that they shall eat curds. Thus everyone who is left in the land shall feed on curds and honey.

For in that day, every spot there will stand a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver from what was once a wilderness of thornbush and thistle. (translated according to the Radak)

Yeshaya is saying that after the defeat of Sennacherib, there will be tremendous prosperity in the land. Therefore, perhaps in the manner of many of the other blessings of Yaakov, which are prophecies about specific historical events (see Rashi), we can suggest that these verses about wine and milk in the blessings of Yehudah too, it refers to the period of the defeat of Sennacherib and the ensuing bounty.

But moreover, in the vein of the Seforno we saw, it seems from Yeshaya that this period was a kind of a Messianic period. In several places, Yeshaya mixes together prophecies of this period with prophecies of Moshiach proper. Chazal tell us that Hashem originally wanted Chizkiyahu to be Moshiach if not for his deficiency (Sanhedrin 94a):

…the Holy One, Blessed be He, sought to designate King Hezekiah as the Messiah and to designate Sennacherib and Assyria, respectively, as Gog and Magog, all from the prophecy of Ezekiel with regard to the end of days (Ezekiel, chapter 38), and the confrontation between them would culminate in the final redemption. The attribute of justice said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, and if with regard to David, king of Israel, who recited several songs and praises before You, You did not designate him as the Messiah, then with regard to Hezekiah, for whom You performed all these miracles, delivering him from Sennacherib and healing his illness, and he did not recite praise before You, will You designate him as the Messiah?…

And similar to the actual Moshiach, as mentioned by the Seforno, Sennacherib was defeated by God without the king or his army lifting a finger, without “horses”, but with a “donkey”. And with what merit did God make this happen? The Gemara tells us (Sanhedrin 94b):

It is stated with regard to the downfall of Assyria: “And it shall come to pass on that day, his burden shall be taken from on your shoulder, and his yoke from on your neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed due to fatness [shamen]” (Isaiah 10:27). Rabbi Yitzḥak Nappaḥa says: The yoke of Sennacherib was destroyed due to the oil [shemen] of Hezekiah that would burn in the synagogues and study halls when the Jewish people were engaged in Torah study at night.