As we start the new weekly parsha cycle, we present the first in a weekly series from Rabbi Dov Kramer on how geography impacts our understanding of the Torah. Many of you may know of Rabbi Kramer (who prefers to be called “Dov”) from his work as executive producer of WFAN. He wrote a weekly dvar Torah for 15 years (most of it archived at RabbiDMK.Wordpress.com), but after taking a break for a few years, decided to try again, with a focus on geographical nuances and controversies.
“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it separated and became four heads” (Bereishis 2:10). Being that the third and fourth rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, start in Turkey, it might come as a shock to see that Rashi says the first river, the Pishon, is the Nile. After all, the Nile is located in Africa, nowhere near the Tigris or the Euphrates. Not only that, but since the Nile flows from south to north, while the Mesopotamian rivers flow southward, their sources are even farther away.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that “the geographical description in our verse has aroused controversy, for it has been taken to refer to a river that divides into four branches—and no such river has been found. However, it appears that scholars have overlooked the fact that ראשים does not mean branches, but four separate heads. The river starts as a single stream. But outside Eden, after it has watered the garden, it returns deep in the ground, and bursts forth again in four different places. Inside Gan Eden it is one spring, but outside Gan Eden it flows in four streams.” Ramban (3:22), trying to explain the distance between the Nile and the rivers to the (north)east, says that many rivers flow for a long distance before going underground, then travel a few days’ journey underground before reemerging far away. Nevertheless, it is not just the distance here that is the issue, it is also that this underground river would need to cross a sea to get to either central Africa (where the Blue Nile begins) or southern Africa (where the White Nile begins).
Another issue is that the second river, the Gichon, is associated with Kush (Nubia, modern day Sudan), which would seem to be a better fit for the Nile than the Pishon (and some do say that the Gichon is the Nile). Why does Rashi ignore the Kush connection and say that the Pishon is the Nile? In order to address these issues, we need to look at Rashi’s geographical perspective.
Rashi adds that the Nile is “the River of Egypt.” The River of Egypt is one of the borders of the Promised Land (Bereishis 15:18). Whenever it is mentioned after the promise to Avraham to give him the land (e.g. Bamidbar 34:5, Yehoshua 15:4 and 15:47), it is called the Wadi of Egypt not the River of Egypt—likely because over the centuries (between the promise and its fulfillment) the river slowed down and became a wadi.
The most common understanding is that the Wadi of Egypt refers to Wadi el Arish, which is in the northern Sinai peninsula. Some understand it to refer to Wadi Gaza (Nahal Besor), which is slightly north of Wadi el Arish. Obviously, neither is the Nile.
Rashi equates the three (the Pishon, the Nile and the Wadi of Egypt), as he explains “Shichor, which is on the face of Egypt” (Yehoshua 13:3) as “the Nile, which is the Wadi of Egypt, which is close to the edge of the southwest boundary of the Land of Israel.” Clearly, Rashi thought that the Nile was not a river running through Egypt, but was its northeastern border. [It would be difficult to say that he thought the Wadi of Egypt refers to the easternmost branch of the Nile (when the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea, it branches out into numerous rivers and streams), as Radak explains Shichor the same way Rashi does, adding that it is near Gaza; even the easternmost branch of the Nile does not come close to Gaza].
Elsewhere (Bamidbar 34:3), we also see that Rashi thought the Nile was the Wadi of Egypt, separating the Land of Egypt from the Land of Israel: “Three countries were on the southern border of the Land of Israel, one next to the other; part of the Land of Egypt, the entire Land of Edom, and the entire Land of Moav. The Land of Egypt was in the southwest corner… and the Wadi of Egypt went along its entirety… and was in-between the Land of Egypt and the Land of Israel, with the Land of Edom next to it to the east and the Land of Moav next to the Land of Edom at the eastern end of the south [of the Land of Israel]. And when Israel left Egypt, had God wanted to quicken their entry to the Land, He would have crossed them over the Nile to the north and they would be in the Land of Israel.” If we substitute “Wadi el Arish” for “Nile,” Rashi’s border works (although I would argue that Egypt ended further southwest, since they crossed the sea when leaving Egypt, and were free as soon as they entered the Sinai Peninsula). Similarly, when Rashi says the Pishon was the Nile, we should focus on his also calling it the River of Egypt, thereby referring to Wadi el Arish.
We can now understand why Rashi says the Nile is the Pishon, rather than the Gichon, despite Kush being mentioned with the Gichon; since Rashi’s Nile was only in the north, it didn’t pass through Kush. And being that it was on the Sinai Peninsula, there is no sea that any underground river would need to cross in order to connect with the Mesopotamian rivers.
For a longer version of this piece, with thoughts on all four rivers, visit dmkjewishgeography.wordpress.com or email the author (RabbiDMK at gmail dot com).
