[Avodah] What happened to the nefesh asher asu b'charan?

[david guttmann]

Again I am jumping into the middle of a discussion. I posted this a while
back based on the Pirush of a Talmid of R. Sa'adyah Gaon and also reported
by R. Yehudah Hachassid in the name of his father in his controversial (see
Iggerot Moshe) Pirush al Hatorah. It is in the introduction to Divrei
Hayamim in the Da'at Mikrah Tanach by R. Yehudah Kill.

http://yediah.blogspot.com/2007/01/egyptian-land-grab-real-story.html

According to this , though I did not see that specifically in either of the
two pirushim nor in R. Kill's discussion , there were remnants of the Nefesh
that Avraham and Sarah recruited all through the Mitzraim Galut working for
the children of Yosef and possibly [my conjecture] they helped during the
conquest at the time of Yehoshua. (Was Rahav a marrano?). 

In the scholarly world I remember reading an article by Prof. Ben Zion Luria
about the "Semitic" influence that existed in K'na'an at the time of the
"conquest" of EY . I don't remember if he used the Avraham story as the
basis (I doubt it knowing his mindset) but he also had this idea that there
was a monotheistic population in EY helping the conquerors. (I tried finding
the article but it was long ago and could not). He claimed that this
monotheistic belief was widespread in that area all the way to parts of
Syria which explains the Levo Hamat in the time of Shlomo Hamelech
(melachim1;8;65). Hamat is quite high up in Syria and the fact that Shlomo
had people coming from there to the inauguration of the Beit Hamikdash shows
that there was an interested population there.


David Guttmann
 
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