That’s the whole trouble.
You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful,
because there isn’t any.
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Dan ben Bilhah: The Liminal Child
If there were ever a provocative and entirely appropriate symbol for a tribe, it is that of Dan: the serpent. Seductive and at times mesmerizing in its exotic mystery, the serpent – like its tribe, Dan – provokes a reflexive distance. Grasping the complexities of this tribe was difficult. Dan seemed to act ever the serpent, skulking away in the shadows, evasive and unyielding. It took much reflection – stormy, at times – to determine just why this tribe evoked a strange mingling of discomfort and fascination.
Dan represented a new force in the family of Israel. Before him came Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah – four children, all of Leah, all clearly defined by their relationship to their mother. Dan was the first of the in-between children, the first to be born of a surrogate – an intertwining of Rachel and Bilhah. Dan came of Rachel’s growing desperation and despair, and his personality continued to reflect the tension of this family placement throughout history. He was the almost-child of Rachel, from whom he inherited many of his strongest and most controversial traits, yet he was also the child of her disappointment, of her deficiency.
Leah bore four children. With the birth of Judah, Leah reached an internal peace, a sense of celebration and placement.1According to the midrash (BR 71:4), this was the moment when Leah surpassed her natural share of the twelve tribes, and became the primary mother – in other words, this was the point when Leah began to “cut into” Rachel’s share. They went from co-wives to primary and subsidiary. Rachel, by contrast, was barren and alone. In desperation, she turned to her husband: “Rachel said to Jacob: ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’ Jacob was angered with Rachel. He replied: ‘Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?’” (Genesis 30:1–2).
Rachel’s anguish, her “if not, I shall die,” indicated a nothingness, a terrible sense of being erased. Her only position in the family was based on Jacob’s love, but she was not “bearing children for Jacob.”
That Rachel was Jacob’s destined partner is obvious in the text. Consider that the recurring “type scenes” of Tanakh created patterns that are laden with significance. A scene that was repeated at various points built its meaning through comparison. If a man met a woman by a well, for instance, we expect love and marriage between them.2For more on type scenes, a term coined by Robert Alter, see his seminal study The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 55–78. Rachel was a new version of Rebekah: she was the wife. Beyond that, she was the “younger” sibling who should naturally have been matched with the “younger” twin.3BR 70:16; Bava Batra 123a. At the very last minute, though, Leah stepped into her place: “And behold, it was Leah” – whom Jacob had unwittingly married!
This usurpation of Rachel’s rightful place was either a generous gift from Rachel to her sister or, alternatively, Leah took an active part in Laban’s deception of Jacob. Whether this was Rachel’s selfless act or a ruse entirely wrought by Laban, Rachel was relegated to a much more uncertain role in Jacob’s family. Consider the terrible situation of both sisters when Rachel eventually married Jacob, as encapsulated in this verse: “Jacob came also to Rachel, and he also loved Rachel more than Leah” (Genesis 29:30). Leah may have been pained by the knowledge that she was less beloved, but Rachel suffered with the reality of acting the auxiliary within her own life story. She was the “also,” the extra, the nonessential.
This exchange between Rachel and Jacob was another type scene, one that already occurred twice in Genesis. Two other barren mothers sought children: Sarah and Rebekah. The difference between those situations was with their husbands: Isaac only wanted children with his wife,4Radak, Seforno on Genesis 25:21. whereas Abraham was content to father children with a surrogate. For Abraham, the problem of children was disconnected from the question of his relationship with Sarah. Jacob, similarly, was not overtly troubled by the fact that his relationship with Rachel did not bear fruit of the womb. Jacob reminded Rachel: “God has withheld children from you; I have children!”
“Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?!” He has denied you, but not me! [Rachel] said to him: “Did not your father ‘gird his loins’ for your mother [to beseech God on her behalf]?” [Jacob] replied: “My father did not yet have any children, and I do have children already!” [Rachel] said: “Your grandfather, who did have a child, ‘girded his loins’ for Sarah [beseeched God on her behalf].” [Jacob] replied: “You can do as my grandmother did.” [Rachel] said: “What did she do?” [Jacob] replied: “She brought her rival [another woman] into her home [to act as surrogate].” [Rachel] declared: “If that’s what is holding back [my fertility], then ‘here is my maid Bilhah. Come to her that she may bear on my knees [in my stead], and that I may be built through her.’”
Genesis Rabbah 71:7
Dan was conceived in an emotional tempest, where Rachel despaired of bearing a child and so forced an additional complexity onto the already strained family dynamic. Rachel desired progeny and a legacy beyond her role as the primary love of Jacob’s life. She wanted to be built. Even if she did not contribute the actual flesh and blood, she would raise and impact and leave her mark on Jacob’s children.
This child, Dan, inherited elements from the woman who did not conceive him physically, but conceived his existence. He was, in all respects, her firstborn: “And Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated me; indeed He has heeded my plea and given me a son.’ Therefore she called his name Dan” (Genesis 30:6).
Dan was born of a breakdown between Rachel and Jacob, a result of the barrenness of Rachel. The Danites defined themselves as a “bitter-souled” people,5Judges 18:25. the same language employed to describe Hannah’s barren state: “She was bitter souled.”6I Samuel 1:10. To be barren, especially in the ancient world, was to be uniquely alone, deprived of the companionship provided by the most primal relationship: mother to child. Dan represented the long-term impact of Rachel’s barrenness: the tribe that bore his name was the dispossessed tribe, reflecting Rachel’s sense of isolation and rootlessness that brought about Dan’s birth.7Though manifest most strongly in Dan, this utter existential loneliness was experienced by her other descendants as well: Joseph in the pit and then later in jail, Saul on the eve of his final battle, Esther as she entered Ahasuerus’s throne room uninvited, and, of course, primarily Rachel herself, buried alone – on the way somewhere, but never reaching her intended destination.
As we saw in the case of Reuben,8See chapter 1 on Reuben. the unique connection between a mother and a firstborn child is laden with dangers. Just as Reuben bore the brunt of his mother’s hurt and uncertainty, Dan bore the brunt of Rachel’s insecurities and passions. This was particularly poignant as she embarked on her life of mothering and mentoring, complicated by the extra presence of Bilhah.
Dan the Leader
Dan remains silent to us over his lifetime. It is only in Jacob’s blessing to this mysterious son that we are first exposed to the elements of leadership, power, danger, and glory that characterized the tribe.
Dan shall govern his people,
As one of the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the road,
A viper by the path,
That bites the horse’s heels
So that his rider is thrown backward.
I wait for your deliverance, O Lord!
Genesis 49:16–17
This is a strange and hauntingly poetic outburst. The first few lines are clear enough: a play on Dan’s name. Rachel named Dan in thanksgiving for having been judged favorably by God and granted the opportunity to raise a child: “God has judged me.” Jacob here gave the name a more profound turn, and vested the boy with the blessing of din, or justice, and that he would best epitomize that unique model of the Jewish leader: the shofet.9“As the Lord was gracious unto me and gave me a son, so He will permit Samson to judge the nation of Israel so that they do not fall to the Philistines” (Targum Yerushalmi, Genesis 30:5). See also Radak, who concurred. Rashi and Ramban understood “yadin” as meaning “will take vengeance” – Dan will take vengeance on behalf of his nation. This prophecy was realized when Samson battled the Philistines.
A shofet was not your run-of-the-mill judge. The shofetim were the bridge between the period of Joshua’s administration and that of the monarchial era, ruling for hundreds of years. These were fiercely charismatic men and women who emerged to lead Israel, regardless of tribe or pedigree. They were accepted by the masses as political, military, and at times even spiritual leaders. Such disparate characters as Deborah, Jephthah, and Gideon arose in their generations. Of all the shofetim profiled in Judges, though, it was Samson the Danite who stood as the archetypal leader for that troubled age, where “there was no king of Israel, and each man did what was right in his own eyes.”10Judges 21:25.
It was to Samson that Jacob alluded in his blessing to Dan, said the midrash.11BR 98:14 and Tan. VaYeĥi 12.
The entirety of Jacob’s blessing may indeed be understood as referring to this outstanding son of Dan. Samson was infamous for his devastating and quick strikes against the Philistines, evoked in the image of a dangerous viper lying in wait along the path.12Radak, Rashi, Ramban. He toppled bodies much larger than he – “biting the horse’s heels so that the rider is thrown backward” – and the Gazan temple came crashing down. He worked alone, as does the snake, and “as a separate tribe in Israel.”
Samson had the attributes of fierce strength, ingenuity, heroism and fearlessness. And Samson went in alone: “Just as the Unique One of the world requires no assistance, so too did Samson son of Manoah require no assistance” (Genesis Rabbah 98:13).
Samson’s barren mother, herself a symbol of loneliness and displacement, was visited by an angel of the Lord. She was informed that she would conceive and bear a son. He was slated from the womb to dwell apart, as his mother was charged with ensuring he was nurtured even in utero as a proto-nazir:
Now, be careful [the angel tells her] not to drink wine or other intoxicant, or to eat anything unclean. For you are going to conceive and bear a son; let no razor touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite to God from the womb on.
Judges 13:4–5
A nazirite takes a vow to separate from general society, to a degree. One curbs one’s natural desires by abstaining entirely from grape products and by growing one’s hair long. Samson made no such personal decision; his isolation was a lifelong charge from the Divine. God foreordained Samson – even prior to his conception! – to a proscribed existence. Why?
The midrash argued that the answer was to be found in Jacob’s outburst upon blessing Dan: “I hope for your salvation, O Lord!” Jacob could only have been prompted by a vision both wonderful and terrible, said the midrash – the vision of the Messiah. In his vision of Samson, Jacob saw intimations of the Messiah.13BR 98:14. Upon glimpsing Samson’s savage death, with no apocalyptic redemption in its wake, Jacob cried for salvation.
The wild, controversial Samson may seem a strange prototype for the Messiah. The midrash, however, traces various connections. Rashi reads Jacob’s blessing to Dan, “Dan yadin amo ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael,” as indicating that Dan would unify (le-aĥed) the nation under his leadership.14“כל ישראל יהיו כאחד עמו.” See also BR 98:13. He would defeat his enemies like the swift and deadly serpent. It is of interest that the gematria (numerical value) of mashiaĥ (Hebrew for “messiah”) equals that of naĥash (serpent), further connecting this tribe with the promises of ultimate leadership.
Eschatological studies are somewhat taboo in rabbinic literature, and details are scant, but one prominent motif is that of a dual meshiĥut, or two messianic leaders: one stemming from Leah, the other from Rachel. Leah’s line is to produce Mashiaĥ ben David, the ultimate King Messiah from the tribe of Judah, who will govern the nation in peace. The Messiah from Rachel’s progeny is to precede him, and work to ingather and unite the nation and go to battle, defeating Israel’s enemies. Jacob’s initial hope that this Mashiaĥ ben Rachel, who would unite the nation and vanquish the Philistines, was Samson was violently shattered upon realizing that Dan was not destined to produce Rachel’s Messiah.
What were Samson’s failings – and by extension, the failings of Dan? What exactly was the call to incubate Samson as a lifelong nazarite meant to accomplish, or prevent?
Samson is repeatedly described in rabbinic literature as one with large, searching eyes:
Our Sages taught: Samson rebelled with his eyes, as it says: “Samson told his father: Get me that one, for she is fitting in my eyes.” [For his betrayal,] the Philistines would gouge out his eyes.
Sotah 9b (emphasis mine)
It was clear to God that Samson would stray after his eyes. Therefore, He ordained that he be a nazir, abstaining from wine so that he not be enticed to licentiousness.
Numbers Rabbah 10
Samson was the quintessential leader for this era that “did what was right in its eyes” because he, too, was extraordinarily responsive to his surroundings: I desire that one, and she’s the right one in my eyes. While he was most definitely a lone wolf, there was little cool detachment to him; he responded to everything, and ferociously.
Indeed, all of Rachel’s children (and Rachel herself) were marked by powerful emotional responsiveness. The fervency of hava li banim, Joseph and Benjamin’s intense crying bouts (which stand in stark contrast to the other brothers’ silence), Rachel’s inconsolable mourning for Israel (“Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be consoled”)15Jeremiah 31:14. – all were linked to the matriarch and her progeny’s passionate involvement in the world.
Jacob saw in Samson of Dan the same riveting passion that had immediately and powerfully drawn him to Rachel. This emotional involvement, Jacob intuited, was the source of redemption. He hoped Dan would channel these intense passions to save Israel from their enemies.16Dan’s only son’s name was Hushim, “senses,” indicating both an involvement in life and the danger of lust.
It would take this type of responsive personality – a messianic personality, envisioned Jacob – to defeat the Philistines. Yet this deeper level of responsiveness and passion came with dangers. Such a man would have a grand vision, but had to be able to control his eyes lest his personal lusts betray him.17״כל הגדול מחבירו יצרו גדול הימנו״ (סוכה נב.) The nezirut of Samson was meant to protect him, but was not enough to prevent his wandering, large eyes from entrapping him. Samson was Dan: a strong leader with insurmountable weaknesses. “Le-yeshuatkha kiviti Hashem! ” lamented Jacob, and the brilliant flash of Dan receded back into dark shadows. The patriarch had to look elsewhere for his Messiah, to a different son of Rachel who set into sharp relief Dan’s failings.
Dan and Judah
Although the Messiah who was destined to emerge from Rachel did not come from Dan, the tribe surfaced over and over again, in curious partnership, with Judah, from whom will come the King Messiah of the progeny of Leah. Twice these tribes were joined together in building God’s Home: both the Tabernacle in the desert (Bezalel from Judah and Oholiab from Dan);18Exodus 31:1–6. and Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah (where Solomon from Judah was aided by the expertise of Hiram the Danite).19To harmonize the contradiction between I Kings 7:14 and II Chronicles 2:13, it is assumed that the architect Hiram was from Naphtali on his father’s side and was a Danite on his mother’s side. He was said to be a descendant of the Danite Oholiab, the assistant of Bezalel of Judah. Arakhin 16b; PR 6. Also, Samson emerged from a union between these two tribes: Manoah of Dan and his wife Tzelalfonit of Judah.20BaR 10:5. Hatzlelponi in I Chronicles 4:3 is listed there as a female member of the tribe of Judah, and was identified by the Sages as Samson’s mother (Bava Batra 91a). The nasi of Dan was named Ahiezer (“my brother’s helper”), alluding to the supportive role the tribe would play to Judah.21Ahiezer’s father was Amishadai – “my people’s judge” – a reference to Samson, the shofet of Am Yisrael. Additionally, Judah and Dan were both large tribes, even though Dan started out as the smallest tribe, with only one son.22Bava Batra 143b; Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 26:40.
The midrash interpreted the difficult phrase in Jacob’s blessing, “ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael,” as implying that Dan would resemble that singular, singled-out shevet, Judah.23BR 99:11; Tan. VaYeĥi 12. This association was reflected as well in the subtle linkage made by Moses between these two tribes. Moses called Dan a “gur aryeh,”24Deuteronomy 33:22. a lion cub, in a clear echo of Jacob’s blessing to Judah: “gur aryeh Yehudah.”25Genesis 49:9.
These tribes were joined together time and again, offered the midrash, to demonstrate that no tribe was without salvation. Thus, majestic Judah was consistently paired with Dan:
Says the Master of the Universe: “Let us join them together, both so that he [Dan] not be shamed and that he [Judah] not be arrogant, since the most grand and the lowliest are equal before the Lord.”
Exodus Rabbah 40
This “equality before the Lord” was a beautiful statement of God’s unique connection to the lowly dispossessed.26The paradigm of the dispossessed individual was himself a Danite. In the curious episode of the “blasphemer” in Leviticus 24, the victim of fate was cast out, even as he tried to find his place. This boy was unfortunately born to an Israelite woman from the tribe of Dan and an Egyptian man, rendering him an undesirable element in the eyes of the Danites. As he tried to find his place among his mother’s tribe in their desert encampment, the midrash tells us, the Danites banished him, and he came to blows with one of them (VR 32:3; Tan. B. Emor 32; Tan. Emor 23). Miserable and raging at his undeserved fate, the quasi-Danite blasphemed God. Here again we see Dan, this time in the extreme, portrayed as an outsider. He tried to fit in among the nation, but only managed to isolate himself even more. He must choose a Messiah to gather together all of the disparate elements of the Children of Israel, however remote, before Mashiaĥ ben David can rule. This role ultimately belonged to the Gatherer, Joseph, whose very name captured that magical quality of binding together individuals into a shared vision. And yet Joseph was not the only me’asef among the brothers. His older brother, Dan, filled that role as well.
Dan Was a Serpent on the Path
Dan’s unique and difficult position was perhaps best embodied by its singular placement within the travel formation in the desert. “Dan was the rear guard [me’asef – lit. gatherer] of the entire camp” (Numbers 10:25).
Because theirs was a large and unwieldy tribe, Dan traveled last.27Yerushalmi, Eruvin 5:1, as quoted by Rashi on the verse. It was a dual position, exemplifying their strength and their weakness. On the one hand, they were the first line of defense in the case of a rear attack on the nation. This pointed to their fortitude, since they would almost definitely incur massive losses. As we saw with Samson, his tribe of origin had indomitable mettle. Yet it also pointed to their vulnerability. This displaced child remained on the fringes, forgotten, trailing at the back, always feeling “bitter souled” and least beloved.
To understand Dan’s role as the me’asef – those who pulled up the rear of the camp – we would do well to revisit the serpent. While, from the very stirrings of Genesis, the serpent’s reputation as a sly seducer was cemented,28The narrative alone builds a strong case for the serpent to be perceived as a wily con artist, intent on bringing man to sin. Midrashic motifs gloss sexual lust onto the serpent, intimating that the animal desired Eve physically (see, for instance, BR 18:6). This resonates universally, as the imagery of the snake has sexual connotations in almost every culture. Whether leading Eve to sin for reasons of personal lust, jealousy, or just sport, the serpent was inescapably depraved. certainly no creature is without its redeemable aspects. The serpent, lowly and oftentimes reviled, knew what it was like to eat the dust. And perhaps that was a necessary trait for a me’asef, for their assignment was to keep people from falling too far behind. A me’asef herded the stragglers and forgotten elements, encouraged them to remain in the fold, said to them, “I’m with you, brother, in your loneliness, and yet I’m still part of this nation and you should be, too.” The me’asef absorbed everything, and left no one behind. “Dan will be a serpent on the path” – perhaps not the gloried tribe, but the one who most easily related to those who dawdled on the fringes, not really a part of things.
This role of me’asef was a lonely one. They did not share the easy camaraderie of the group, and instead hovered on the fringes, dutifully serving what was often an unappreciative nation by bringing up the rear.
Samson, the quintessential Danite, personified this element of the tribe’s basic nature. He was a fierce isolationist. No one had Samson’s back, whether in battle or in politics, and it seemed as though he almost preferred it that way. It is as if he would not have been as successful in drawing his fractured nation together had he not drifted along their margins – ke-eĥad shivtei Yisrael.
Dan the Idolater
Time and again, the prophets compared man’s attraction to idolatry to lusting after foreign women. On a superficial level, both betrayals were fueled by that same fatal attraction to the exotic and external. More profoundly, though, the pull toward idolatry was caused by feelings of disconnect, leading to betrayal of the intimate relationship between man and his Creator.
It was Dan’s utter dispossession that enticed him away from the monotheistic center of Israel. There was clear discontent with the status quo as early as the period of the Judges. An understandable chafing under the inadequate dimensions of their naĥalah29Rabbi Ari Kahn points out the curiosity that the firstborn tribes – Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh – opted for land outside (or at the very edge of) Eretz Yisrael proper, perhaps due to their shared sense of displacement and dispossession as spurned firstborns (Explorations [Southfield: Targum Press, 2001], 398). I’d add Dan, another firstborn, to the list of displaced bekhorot who sought territory on the very edges of Eretz Yisrael. actually reflected a much more alarming spiritual dissatisfaction. Take heed of the abrupt textual transition of this opening verse of Judges 18:
In those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the tribe of Dan was seeking a territory in which to settle, for to that day no territory had fallen to their lot among the tribes of Israel.
There was no security, no tranquility among the ranks of Israel – no unified vision embodied by a central ruler – and Dan felt the discomfit most acutely. On the surface, the tribal quest was to expand their territory so as to accommodate their huge ranks.30Dan’s large population is highlighted in Yerushalmi, Eruvin 5:1, as quoted by Rashi on Numbers 10:25. Notice, though, that this independently spirited tribe was the only one sufficiently dissatisfied with their naĥalah allotment that they sought a solution far from their base – at the most distant point, up in the city of Laish, where
the people who were dwelling in it were carefree, in the manner of Sidonians – a tranquil and unsuspecting people, with no one troubling them and distant from the rest of Sidon; they had no dealings with anybody.
Judges 18:7
The Danites felt isolated, and they reflected their distance on the physical plane. They were marei nefesh, bitter that God did not grant them an adequate place in the nation or the land.31Aside from the limited land granted to Dan, they were constantly threatened by the neighboring Philistines and saw some of their allotted cities taken over by Judah and Ephraim: “The territory of the Danites slipped from their grasp, so the Danites migrated and made war on Leshem” (Joshua 19:47). To be encased within the other tribal territories was too suffocating. The same secession that appealed to this small band of Sidonians, who dwelled contentedly away from the rest of their nation, so appealed to Dan’s primary instincts.
Dan’s most basic instinct, though – a trait that the son of Jacob could not shuffle off – he inherited from his mother. As Jacob fled the house of Laban, his furious father-in-law chased him down and accused him of stealing the household idols. Jacob hotly contested:
Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!
Genesis 31:32–34
Jacob, of course, did not know that Rachel had stolen them. She had taken the idols, placed them in the camel cushion, and sat on them. The allure of divining the future was something that Rachel just could not shake. Most of the classical biblical commentators understood this verse to indicate that Rachel believed in the prognosticating power of these idols, either fearing their abilities or desiring them for herself.32Rachel either feared that her father Laban would determine their whereabouts by divining via the terafim (Rashbam), or she herself wanted them (Bekhor Shor). For the opinion that she sought to distance her native family from idolatry, see BR 74:5, as quoted by Rashi. Ramban concurred with Rashi, but added the opinion of Radak that the terafim were actually used for divination to gain knowledge of future events.
This elemental pull toward ascertaining the future was manifest in her children as well. Joseph commanded his servants to accuse the brothers of stealing his divination cup.33והוא נחש ינחש בו – and this is the one he uses for divination (Genesis 44:5). Note that in Hebrew, to “guess/divine” is identical with “snake,” the symbol of Dan. Micah the Ephramite fashioned an efod and terafim, items of divination.
When King Saul from Benjamin spared the Amalekite king and animals, Samuel blasted his rebellion against God’s command as comparable to “the sin of divination, the iniquity of terafim.”34I Samuel 15:23. Saul eventually succumbed to his desire to know, calling upon the Ov diviner in En-dor to determine which way the battle with the Philistines was to go.35I Samuel 28.
The same yearning for prognostication was conspicuous in Dan. As the Danites headed up north, seeking new frontiers, they stopped by – or, more correctly, were drawn to – the curious shrine housed by Micah the Ephramite. They inquired of the Levite who ministered to the molten images in the shrine:
“Please inquire of God; we would like to know if the mission on which we are going will be successful.” “Go in peace,” the priest said to them. “The Lord views with favor the mission you are going on.”
Judges 18:5–6
When they decided to campaign against Laish, the Danite band stopped once again at the house of Micah. Those who were familiar with the shrine said to their fellow tribesmen:
Do you know, there is an efod in these houses, and terafim, and a sculptured image, and a molten image? Now you know what you have to do.…So they took the sculptured image, the efod, the terafim, and the molten image.
Judges 18:14, 17
They also took the house Levite along to serve as priest in the temple they planned to erect in their new city, which they renamed Dan.36Judges 18. This temple, later famously co-opted by Jeroboam son of Nebat as one of two centers of calf worship in the early days of Solomon’s First Temple in Jerusalem, served as the tribe’s religious focal point throughout their history, and idolatrous worship there continued uninterrupted until the tribe’s forced exile by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE.
Midrashic literature is rife with other episodes and allusions to Dan’s idolatrous tendencies, systematically portraying the tribe in a very negative light. This motif antedates the documented idolatry of Judges by hundreds of years, with allusions to Dan’s idolatrous inclinations even in the desert wanderings of Israel.37The question as to why Dan was grouped with Asher and Naphtali to the north of the Tabernacle in the desert encampment is resolved by this motif: the tribe’s dark tendencies toward idolatry (tendencies which rabbinic literature link to the northerly direction), already recognizable at this point, needed to be counterbalanced and overridden by the goodness of the other two tribes with whom he was grouped (BaR 2:10 and 3:12). Another related midrashic strain explains that Dan suffered more than any other tribe from the attacks of the Amalekites because they were denied protection by the Clouds of Glory due to their idolatrous ways (Tan. Ki Tetzei 10; PK 3:12). An expansion on this theme has the Gentile prophet Balaam observing the Danites from the top of Mount Peor. On account of their sins, the Danites were not covered by the Clouds of Glory. At this, Balaam rejoiced, hoping that he might be able to induce God to curse Israel (Targum Yerushalmi, Numbers 22:41–23:1). The midrash notes that Joab ben Zeruiah, David’s chief general, began the fatal census in II Samuel 24 with the tribe of Dan.38II Samuel 24:1–9; I Chronicles 21:1–6. It explained that this was a calculated choice: knowing the prohibition against census taking, Joab was reluctant to carry out David’s order. He therefore first approached Gad, as he hoped that they would refuse of their own accord because of their marked independent streak. He then turned to Dan – hoping that, if divine punishment came for the sin of taking a census, it would be meted out on that idolatrous tribe.39PR 11, 43b.
General wickedness was heaped on Dan by the Sages. They considered Dan’s representative among the spies to be the most heretical; it was he who bemoaned that “the land is so strong that not even God can go up against it.”40The spy’s name is given as Amiel ben Gemali. Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 13:12; Tan. Haazinu 7.
The wickedness of Dan was symbolized even in his breastplate stone: the leshem (amber), in which was visible the inverted face of a man. The sinful Danites turned good into evil, hence the inverted face of their stone.41Rabbenu Baĥya, Exodus 28:17. This motif stretched as far as Christian legend, which identified the antichrist as descending from Dan. It is also found in an early midrash, where Abraham himself had an ominous premonition of future idolatry by his offspring at the site of Dan’s northern temple.42In Abraham’s pursuit of the four kings who had taken his nephew Lot captive, his strength failed him momentarily at Dan due to a foreboding of what was to happen there in the future when Jeroboam would raise the golden calves (Sanhedrin 96a).
Dan’s permanent liminality and loneliness were the root, perhaps, of their attraction to idolatry. Like Dan’s semi-mother Rachel at the time of his birth, Dan’s namesake tribe did not find its place. They flitted alone, on the fringes, contributing to Benei Yisrael, but without forming their essential bulk. His character represented that suspended stage of Rachel when she was still barren and unfulfilled, still distant from the rest of the family.
Rachel was the matriarch who could not take her leave of the family idols, and her first son inherited this instinct to live dangerously. In contrast, her actual birth son, Joseph, who represented the consummated relationship of Jacob and Rachel, succeeded in tempering the hazards by maintaining a strong sense of responsibility and affection for the kelal. He was Rachel triumphant, the Messiah from her bearing, while Dan personified Rachel unrestrained. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s musings beautifully underline her essential personality, so clearly manifest in Dan:
Rachel represents expectation; she represents dreams and aspirations. However, she remains forever expectant, forever awaiting fulfillment. Both personally and symbolically, she is perhaps one of the most poignant expressions of the person who has everything – and yet remains lacking. Even when Rachel’s dreams were realized, it was not in her lifetime: the hope, the potential remained always suspended between what might have been and what might yet come to be.
Biblical Images, 5443Translated by Yehuda HaNegbi and Yehudit Keshet (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994).
Eternal Promise
Dan presented startling contrasts that at once attracted and repelled. To him belonged raw power and tremendous self-reliance, but dangerous vulnerability and isolationist disquiet menaced those strengths. Though we have much to root for, he consistently succumbed to his flaws; although he was part of the nation, it remained admittedly hard to embrace the serpent. But include him we must, and the best way to achieve that is by celebrating the promise and potential that will be his birthright, forever. Let us believe that one day, Dan will emerge as the leader that we all yearn for, and let us echo the cry of Jacob: Le-yeshuatkha kiviti Hashem!
Naĥalat Dan
Naĥalat Dan is outlined in Joshua 19. The tribe was initially given a narrow strip that ran from the Mediterranean Sea by Jaffa southeastward toward the Judean Hills. A reference in the Song of Deborah had Dan “lingering by the ships,”44Judges 5:17. perhaps referring to their presence in Jaffa. They maintained borders with a number of other tribes: Judah in the south, Ephraim in the north, and Benjamin in the north/northeast.
Two impediments prevented them from settling permanently in their naĥalah. Firstly, the territory was simply not large enough to accommodate the huge tribal population. Though larger in population than the tribe of younger brother Naphtali, Dan’s naĥalah was a fraction of the size. Additionally, they were not able to conquer most of it, since it was held by the Philistines and was regularly threatened by them.45Samson, based in the Danite cities of Zorah and Eshtaol in the northern Judean Hills region, fought against the neighboring Philistines his whole life. Additionally, the midrash interpreted Moses’s blessing of Dan as intimating that he would be emboldened with extra courage and be able to fend off attacks, since his territory bordered Israel’s enemies (Sifrei, Deuteronomy 355; Midrash Tannaim 33:22; Malbim, Judges 18:1). The verse describing Dan’s territory in Joshua 19:47, though, told ultimately of their unsettled lifestyle in this swath of central Israel: “But the territory of the Danites slipped from their grasp, so they migrated and made war on Leshem.”
As mentioned above, Dan decided to switch locations at a relatively early stage, even prior to the monarchial period. They successfully waged war on Sidonian Leshem/Laish46The city is alternatively called “Leshem” (Joshua 19:47) and “Laish” (Judges 18:29). far up in the north and settled there for the duration of the Kingdom of Israel. Interestingly, their new naĥalah was situated adjacent to the naĥalah of Naphtali, Dan’s younger full-blood brother.
What did this new northern naĥalah look like? It seemed as though Dan’s territory was not limited to the city of Laish, renamed Dan, but that it encompassed a larger region surrounding Dan. Moses presciently blessed Dan that he be a “lion cub that leaps forth from the Bashan.”47Deuteronomy 33:22. This perhaps indicated that Dan occupied portions of the Bashan, in the northern Golan.
We might also extrapolate that Dan held the cities and outlying regions of Iyun (within the Valley of Iyun) and Abel-beth-maacha in the Hula Valley from a reference to the three cities of Iyun, Abel-beth-maacha, and Dan in I Kings 15:20. There they were grouped together as the cities conquered by Ben-Hadad of Damascus from Baasha, king of Israel, separately from the “land of Naphtali” which was in the same vicinity. These strongholds, and the large sprawling territories buffering them, probably pleased Dan much more than the narrow, penned-in, and oft-traversed strip48“The territory of Dan… includes important segments of the Via Maris and its branches, as well as the chief approaches to Jerusalem and Mount Ephraim.” Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 371. of his original territory in the south.
By now the reason for this is clear. Dan was not a team player, and the fiercely isolationist tribe always preferred to linger on the fringe of the nation. In which case, why was he not granted the more removed northern territory from the outset?
Rabbi Eliyahu Mallai suggested that the confined contours of Dan’s original naĥalah were intended deliberately to counter his natural tendencies. It served this tribe best to be surrounded by buffering influences, like Judah (a natural partnership, as outlined above) and Jerusalem (the national capital), to balance its fierce strength and draw the distant tribe closer to its brethren. But Dan could not find peace with this arrangement; the tribe needed to move north, and in doing so they succumbed to their natural separationist tendencies.49הרב אליהו מאלי, “נחלת שבט דן בספר יהושע ובספר יחזקאל,״ האתר למקוריות במצוות, http://tora.us.fm/tnk1/sofrim/mali/nxlot_dn.html.
Visiting Naĥalat Dan
Itinerary: Tel Sor‘a, Tel Dan
To first seek Dan, one should visit the tribe’s God-given stomping grounds, taking Dan’s most famous son as our muse and trying to get a better reading of the tribe through a journey in the footsteps of Samson. We begin at the summit of Zorah (Tel Sor’a), reached through a serpentine drive up through the sculpture forest in Park Eshtaol. There are two marked tombs, most likely those of Arab sheikhs, but they serve our purposes as the graves of Samson and his father, Manoah (that is indeed how they are marked).50Israelite graves from this period (Iron I) were not located in town, but rather in one of the caves dotting the periphery. Since we are standing on the tel of Zorah, the ruins of the town itself, it is highly unlikely that these graves are Israelite.
The story began with a woman: the wife of Manoah the Danite. An angel appeared to her twice, somewhere close to where we are standing, and informed her that she would be given a son. The angel warned her: do not cut his hair, and do not allow him wine – nor should you drink any wine! He shall be a nazarite even in the womb.
Gazing down toward the riverbed below, you will see what a tall order this was. Nahal Sorek is specked with abundant vines and groves. Boutique wineries abound in this region, which is famous for its quality grapes. To abstain from wine in Naĥalat Dan is like being a teetotaler in Alsace. And yet abstain Samson did, religiously, even as he grew up in the vineyard.
Samson’s inner world was described poignantly: “The spirit of God began to ring within him in the Danite camp, between Zorah and Eshtaol” (Judges 13:25).
What else for a son of Dan than to have the tumult of divine awareness beating in his breast? Consider that his tribe’s territory was a narrow confine sandwiched between two large and overwhelming presences, Ephraim and Judah. There was no large, wide expanse to Dan’s naĥalah. It was the place of restless souls, as if designed for pacing between the closely situated and densely populated villages. Anyone living there would have sought escape. Samson’s discontent led him to squabble with the neighboring Philistine villages, and to find relief again and again in the bosom of foreign women. Eventually, his fellow tribesmen quit the place altogether, seeking broader terrain up north – seeking the quietude of isolation.
Therefore, north we head, to Tel Dan, the conquered city of Laish, renamed for the tribe.51In Joshua 19, Laish was called Leshem – the same name used for Dan’s stone on the priestly breastplate. Intimations of Dan were present in Laish even in its earliest permutation. What an attractive location this must have been for the ancients! Based at the foot of Mount Hermon, Laish was built around ample springs whose waters eventually flowed together into a strong river. An important road from the Galilee to Damascus passed this city in antiquity, enriching the place and heightening its importance. No wonder then that the men of Dan coveted Laish: “The land was very good…expansive…where there was no shortage of anything you could possibly want.… ” (Judges 18:9–10).
Tel Dan is one of the most exciting archaeological sites in the country, with impressive remains from many critical periods. There is a magnificently intact Middle Bronze (eighteenth century Bce) mud brick gate, part of the rampart system of huge packed earthen embankments. This gate served an earlier incarnation of the Canaanite city of Laish, at least five hundred years before the Israelites began conquering the area. When Abraham set out to rescue his captive nephew, Lot, he reached this city and may very well have seen this massive fortification system in action.52The city is named Dan in Genesis 14:14.
Evidence for the early Israelite occupation of Laish is found in the abundance of collared-rim jars. This type of pottery is associated with the early Israelites (Iron I – the era of the Judges) and otherwise foreign to the area’s indigenous Canaanite population.
Dan’s infamy was established by the secessionist king of Israel, Jeroboam son of Nebat, who carefully pried his people’s attention away from Jerusalem by building two alternative cultic sites, one in Beth-el, the other in Dan. The primary reason seemed political:
Jeroboam thought: Now the kingship may revert to the House of David. If the people go to worship in the Temple of God in Jerusalem, their hearts will revert to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah.…The king took counsel, and he made two golden calves; and he said, “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough. These are your gods, O Israel, who delivered you from Egypt!” He placed one in Beth-el and the other in Dan.
I Kings 12:26–29
It is also possible that Jeroboam chose Dan because the city was already considered a sacred place in the region, the Danites having worshipped in their temple there for hundreds of years previously.53See above.
Have a look at the excavated temple complex. The upper platform, or bamah, was where Jeroboam’s golden calf was likely placed. Fragments of a large four-horned altar uncovered in the lower platform, as well as a sacrificial bowl containing animal bones, an incense installation, and spatulas found in the antechambers all conclusively establish that this building was a cultic center.
This temple continued to function throughout the Israelite kingdom’s term, falling prey to destruction by the Assyrians only in 732 Bce, when Tiglath-Pileser ravaged the north. The words of the prophet Amos were realized: “On that day…those who swear by the idol of Samaria and say, ‘By the life of your god, Dan’…will fall and not rise again” (Amos 8:13–14).
The reputation of Dan as a cultic center, though, did not go the way of the destroyed temple. Indeed, even as late as the Hellenistic period, Dan was associated with idolatrous worship. A dedicatory stone discovered in the temple and dating to the third–second centuries Bce bears the bilingual inscription (in Greek and Aramaic): “To the god of Dan, Zoilos made a vow.” That the material evidence colludes with the biblical and rabbinic record on the issue of Dan’s idolatry provides a classic opportunity to “live the Bible” by visiting the site.
Perhaps the most exciting discovery at Tel Dan was found in the Israelite city’s fortifications, renovated in the ninth century BCE. Fragments of an Aramaic inscription commissioned by Hazael, king of Damascus, who ruled Dan for a brief period in the ninth century Bce, were recovered. Once pieced together, the text relays Hazael’s victory over the kings of Israel and Judah on the battlefield.54The biblical parallel to these events is recounted in II Kings 9. The primary difference between the two versions of the story is the identity of the murderer: in the Dan inscription, Hazael takes credit, whereas the Bible named the perpetrator as Jehu, seditionist from the current monarchy and future king of Israel. This discovery marked the first extra-biblical evidence of “Beit David,” proving that the Davidic dynasty was known as such in antiquity.