A Contradiction In Rashi On Joshua 2?

There are a great many stories in Tanach where people do bad things. A lot of the time, it is the good guy doing the bad thing, and that's what makes the story so compelling and interesting. Reading the stories, one is often struck by how complex the motivations are, where the character is coming from, and reading it like that makes for a larger-than-life tale of the hero-antihero, a story of (literally) biblical proportions.

I love reading the stories like that. Was Jacob right for stealing his brother Esau's blessings from his father? Just reading the story compels you to see Esau as the rightful heir who was taken advantage of. Why, then, do the sages of old in Midrash Rabbah feel obligated to defend Jacob? For example, it turns out Jacob never lied. When he said, "I am Esau your firstborn son," he meant "I am. Esau, (though), is your firstborn son." And on and on. The other nitpicking interpretations are set to do one thing: vilify Esau, and defend Jacob.

Why? It seems obvious on the surface - the sages viewed themselves as heirs to Jacob, not Esau, and sought to defend their ancestor from disgrace in the Torah. It couldn't mean he did anything wrong, because he was a complete tzaddik, and according to one literal interpretation of an aggadic statement, he never even really died (Taanit 5b). How could he have done something wrong, if Esau is so evil, and Jacob is so good?

This assumes that the rabbis saw the stories as simply as when we were children - black and white, good and bad, hero and villain. As adults, we realize that people aren't like that - life isn't like that. Should we assume that the rabbis viewed it in the same way as when we were children? Why didn't they grow up in their interpretation? And why is it that at other times, we find that the rabbis were well in touch with complexities of character? Were they influenced by their historical surroundings, did they see the attack on Jacob as the attack on the Jew, and thus resorted to defend Jacob at all costs of pshat?

What about Rashi? Why did he take many of these interpretations and run with them? Did he feel the need to defend Jacob the Jew's honor against Esau the Christian? Was it only historical? Doesn't Rashi set out as his programmatic statement that he is looking to solve just pshat and context? Was he being intellectually dishonest with himself?

Although I wrote in an earlier post about the possibility that the rabbis of the Talmud felt that judging others favorably is such an important trait, that we should strive to apply it to biblical characters as well, I think other things might be at play here, specifically in the world of pshat. I don't think Rashi was moving away from his programmatic statement, and I don't think the rabbis were interpreting the story like children. While I could spend this post talking about Jacob and Esau and the problems of pshat there, I want to focus on a few Rashis in Joshua to make the point.

Joshua 2:1 says the following:

1. And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men out of Shittim to spy secretly, saying, Go see the land and Jericho. And they went, and came to the house of a woman zonah, and her name was Rahab, and they lay there.		א. וַיִּשְׁלַח יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן נוּן מִן הַשִּׁטִּים שְׁנַיִם אֲנָשִׁים מְרַגְּלִים חֶרֶשׁ לֵאמֹר לְכוּ רְאוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ וְאֶת יְרִיחוֹ וַיֵּלְכוּ וַיָּבֹאוּ בֵּית אִשָּׁה זוֹנָה וּשְׁמָהּ רָחָב וַיִּשְׁכְּבוּ שָׁמָּה:
Inkeeper: זונה. Targum Jon. renders: Innkeeper, one who sells various foodstuffs (מזונות).

So we see that once again, Rashi seems to be defending the honor of the two spies by quoting a forced interpretation of zonah, which always means harlot, into a word from the root of zan, meaning sustenance. Josephus, who lived way before Rashi, seems to be doing a similar thing, by saying she was an innkeeper. Why?

To add to the question, Rashi, in the very same chapter, says that Rahab was indeed a harlot. And not just a harlot, but that she started when she was 10 and continued for 40 years while the Israelites were in the desert, and that she had high officials come to her all the time. See it for yourself:

11. And as soon as we heard, our hearts melted, nor did there remain anymore spirit in any man because of you, for the Lord your God He is God in heaven above and on the earth below.		יא. וַנִּשְׁמַע וַיִּמַּס לְבָבֵנוּ וְלֹא קָמָה עוֹד רוּחַ בְּאִישׁ מִפְּנֵיכֶם כִּי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הוּא אֱלֹהִים בַּשָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל וְעַל הָאָרֶץ מִתָּחַת:
nor did there remain (or arise) anymore spirit: And there did not remain anymore spirit, even to lie with a woman. [This was evident to Rahab] because, as the Rabbis said: There was neither prince or ruler who had no relations with Rahab the harlot. She was ten years old when the Israelites departed from Egypt, and she practiced harlotry for forty years.

So, Rahab was a harlot? Why, when the word actually means harlot, Rashi backs away, but when he doesn't need to, he says she was indeed a harlot, and a hardcore one at that?

I asked one of my rebbeim, Rabbi Yisrael Isserv Zvi Herczeg, who is the author of the famous Artscroll Rashi set, as well as the author of other Rashi books on Tanach, and he suggested an answer that I think is a very important one in methodology of Rashi, as well as a warning not to read into the sages of old our natural feeling that the past was more simple-minded.

He suggested that the solution might need to assume she was both, and we should be looking at problems of pshat in the first verse that led Rashi to say she was a seller of food (one that he suggests is below), and the problems in pshat in verse 11 to say she slept with many men. I have taken these ideas and added to them.

We must ask ourselves why, when the Torah describes where the spies went, it says they went to "the house of the woman zonah, and Rahab was her name." This is an altogether strange way of saying what it meant, that "they went to Rahab the zonah's house." Instead, there is an indication that her profession is important, that it introduces her as a woman zonah, and then introduces her name. This is akin to saying, "He is a carpenter, his name is John." This seems to place the fact he is a carpenter as central to why I am telling you who he is.

In addition, the context is funny. Joshua sends spies to Jericho, and they end up at a zonah's house? Why? For what purpose? If it was indeed for prostitution purposes, why keep the detail in at all, if it doesn't add to the story?

But if it's a inn, and she is the innkeeper, it makes good sense. They went to Jericho, and found an inn, and a woman who sells food. They need provisions, after all, if they were to spy a land. Not only that, but innkeepers might have information about the details of a city, as people talk when they are staying in someone's house. In this way, the spies chose a place to spend the night that makes sense in the context and description of the story.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the word used was zonah. Why does the verse use the word if it doesn't really mean it? Why use a word for which the regular meaning is eschewed, and an obscure meaning is meant instead?

I believe Rashi felt that she was a harlot as well, and the verse was hinting to it. Later, when she professes to know what all men were thinking when the people of Israel drew close, Rashi understood her as drawing on the knowledge of her profession as a harlot, and a good one at that.

I have friends who refuse to even discuss Rashis like these when talking about pshat, because they believe that Rashi did not see complexity there. I think Rashi saw Rahab as much more complex than meets the eye, and we should strive to see what Rashi was doing before making rash decisions about his motivations.