Nimrod

What makes a leader? More specifically, and even though this is a universal issue, what does the Torah demand of a leader? In the following article rabbinic sources are brought to bear on this question, at least in a negative way: what is a leader meant not to be or not to do.

The Negative Leader Model

The Talmudic sages and those who followed in their footsteps would often go beyond the simple meaning of the text of the Bible to teach the lessons that would serve their purpose. This took great imagination, particularly when discussing leadership qualities. By the time they wrote down their teachings the people of Israel no longer had a land of their own, the Temple was gone, and they were subservient to a foreign authority, in this case Rome. To be critical of the ruling power was dangerous, sometimes fatally so. They therefore used their skills of exegesis in creating legends that would be meaningful for their audience and yet not disturb the existing, fragile peace.

Thus, for example, searching for an archetype “fit to be king,” the sages sometimes resort to negative models. Such a person is Nimrod, who appears in the story of Noah with the reputation as a strong man, a hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9). A descendant of Cush, Ham, and Noah, the text suggests that Nimrod was a legend during his own lifetime. On the surface, at least, it would appear that he was an outstanding figure of his generation.

The sages weren’t persuaded. Rashi, based on Sifra (Bechukotei 2), reflects these suspicions when he comments: “He caused the whole world to rebel (Hebrew limrod) against God – in the generation of the Dispersion. Moreover, he ‘hunted’ with his mouth in order to rebel against God. Thus the saying: ‘Every arrogant person who knows who his master is, but intends to rebel against him – is likened to Nimrod, “a hunter before God.”’“

For the Sages, Nimrod is an archetype who creates a model for a whole string of nasty people thereafter – Esau, Edom, Datan and Aviram, Ahaz, Achashverosh (Genesis Rabbah 37:3). In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 16:5) he is even considered to have fathered Pharaoh, the ultimate representation for an evil king in the Torah.

These sources point to the special nature of the man; he is the first king in biblical history. How he achieves this eminence is explained by the medieval commentator Abarbanel, who was himself involved in the politics of his age as a leading courtier in the Spanish royal house. Of Nimrod he notes: “When people saw his great feats in hunting and killing animals they feared him and venerated him and appointed him their king. But he abused this power. Whereas formerly there had been complete equality among people, Nimrod introduced a new system based on power. The idea of his ‘beginning to be a hero’ means that he began to rule over others. To demonstrate his power he began to build turreted cities and strongholds, as it is written – the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad and Kalna (Genesis 10:10).”¹

In this view, Nimrod was the master of deception and cunning, a hunter in the broader sense of the word, seeking his opponent’s weak spots. He even pretended to be God-fearing (in order to increase his popularity); thus it is written a mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9).

He is also seen as someone who uprooted the “natural way of life,” abandoning God on the way, And they journeyed from Kedem (Genesis 11:2), literally “from their origins,” pursuing trivial and vain things, manufactured objects to satisfy their superfluous appetites (and thus sought things other than God). According to Rabbi Zev Wolf Einhorn (Maharzu), Nimrod was the one that initiated rule by force, lauding it over the weak, killing them and stealing from them with violence (in Hebrew: hamas).²

To this Rabbi Akiva in Pirkei d’Rebbi Eliezer 24 teaches, “they threw off the yoke of Heaven and appointed Nimrod over them – even though he was the servant, son of a servant (the cursed Canaan), and woe to the land that is ruled by a servant (Proverbs 30:22).” Maybe Rabbi Akiva’s comment is meant to suggest that Nimrod was caught in a dialectic of master-servant, you were either/or; he could never see beyond this duality; thus he was “a servant” to a limited perception of reality.

Later writers, too, drew the necessary conclusions from this first monarch, reflecting perhaps the world in which they themselves lived. Samson Raphael Hirsch (19th century Germany) observes: “He was the first to make ‘heroism/brute strength’ into a full time occupation. Strength is good when used to enforce justice, but not to laud it over the weak. He conducted his policies in secret” (Hirsch connects tzud, hunting, to sod, secret, and says that secret politics is bad politics).³

To the tradition that Nimrod’s “hunting” included capturing people, Hirsch adds that he kept them under his yoke until he could use them for his own purposes. “This is the opposite of voluntary submission from below,” concludes Hirsch, who was writing at the time when his German homeland was struggling with unification and democracy.

Other Traditions Concerning Nimrod

There are two other traditions that grew out of the Nimrod legend without any clear literary basis in the original. One is that this Nimrod is the selfsame king of Shinar who ordered the building of the city and tower of Babel, many generations later. Nimrod has already been introduced as the builder of four cities (Genesis 10:10), offering some justification for this connection. Building cities had already received bad press; the first builder of a city was none other than Cain, the first murderer, who built a city for his son Henoch (Genesis 4:17), so it would fit the image the sages were constructing for Nimrod.

Rabbi Meir Hacohen (Hafetz Haim, 1834-1933) sees the Babel episode, too, as underlining Nimrod’s bad tendencies as well as the Divine response: “Nimrod becomes a byword for bare-faced arrogance, the story of Babel comes to tell us that in the end God’s will is done, that His enemies are destroyed and their arrogance uprooted . . . even though on the way it appears that the wicked have it their own way and succeed in all their undertakings.”⁴

The second extra-literary addition to Nimrod’s story is his connection to Abraham. Although this might seem far-fetched, seeing as Nimrod lived only four generations after Noah and Abraham ten, the sages recognized that such archetypes as Nimrod exist in every age. They even gave him three names: his own, that of Cush (his father), and Amraphel, another king who flourished in Abraham’s time (Genesis Rabbah 42:4).

There are numerous versions of the confrontation between these two polar opposite personalities. Among the most elaborate is found in Genesis Rabbah (38:13): “Terach (Abraham’s father) took Abram and delivered him to Nimrod, who said to him: ‘Abram, come let us worship fire.’ Abram said to him: ‘Only if we worship water that will quench the fire.’ Said Nimrod: ‘So let us worship water.’ Said Abram: ‘If so, let us worship the clouds that carry the water.’ Said Nimrod: ‘Let us worship clouds then.’ Said Abram: ‘If that is so, let us worship the wind that disperses the clouds.’ Nimrod agreed – ‘Let us worship the wind.’ Said Abram, ‘If so, let us worship man – for he is full of wind!’ Nimrod said to him – ‘Are you speaking vain words (nonsense)? I only bow down to fire, so I am going to throw you into fire, and let the God whom you worship come and rescue you from it.’ Abram went down into the furnace and was saved.”

This need to introduce Abraham into the narrative suggests the motivation behind the sages’ comment. It was not merely to introduce something fanciful into the script; rather it points to the contrast of leadership models. Abraham is also a leader, who is addressed by the men of Chet as a Divinely appointed leader (Genesis 23:6), as well as being promised by God that his descendants will be kings (Genesis 17:6).⁵ However, his “kingdom” is founded on an elevated ideal, free of the force and unprovoked violence that characterizes Nimrod’s megalomania.

If Nimrod is symbolized by a walled city, Abraham is characterized by an open tent. If Nimrod is characterized by arrogance and violence, Abraham is the paragon of altruism and selflessness. TB Chullin 89a makes a similar observation: “I gave greatness to Abraham and he said before Me: ‘I am dust and ashes’ . . . but idolaters do not react so. I gave greatness to Nimrod and what did he say, Come let us build a city . . . And make for ourselves a name (Genesis 11:4).”

Nimrod’s End

Nimrod’s end, according to many traditions, is violent. Firstly, he is punished in a way that exactly fits his rebellious and bullying nature. In confusing the tongues of his followers at Babel, God is paying back Nimrod in kind. As we have seen, he had achieved his enormous political power through abusing the power he had been given by the people. The Targum Sheni speaks of him as one of ten kings who ruled the entire world. When it came to Babel, he enticed, cajoled and deceived people into following him with a smooth tongue and twisted arguments. All he wanted to do, he argued, was to respond to God’s violent act of drowning the entire world in the flood. Yet in so arguing, he also tried to transform himself into a god, to replace the One in Heaven, even fixing a location where people could come and bow down to him (Midrash HaGadol, Genesis 11:28).

This megalomaniac impulse was not confined to Nimrod. The builder of Babel was able to lead his peers into an orgy of egoism, let us make for ourselves a name (Genesis 11:4). Everyone adopted Nimrod’s selfishness as their own. They all joined in this great undertaking in order to acquire “a name” for themselves. So the confusion of language would have, or should have, been a source of great shame for this once mighty king. Whether or not it was is not recorded, and perhaps given the nature of Nimrod’s character, it is possible to conclude that it was not. Still, along with the dispersal of the people, there was presumably a significant contraction of the leader’s power.

In any case another end is awaiting him, one that is also fraught with violence, and which also contains a certain poetic justice. According to the rabbis one source of Nimrod’s power was a mythical garment, the clothing that God had made for Adam and Eve. It was stolen from Shem by Ham, who then passed it down to Nimrod. When he wore it, all the animals and birds came and prostrated themselves before him, for they thought of him as a source of strength, and appointed him king over them (Pirkei d’Rebbi Eliezer 24). Yet this selfsame garment leads to his end. When Esau and Jacob are in the process of being blessed by their father, the following verse appears: The clothes of Esau the treasured older son (Genesis 27:15). To what does this verse refer? Esau coveted the clothes that Nimrod wore, so he killed him (and his son Henoch) and took them (Genesis Rabbah 65:16 and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Genesis 25:27). Those that live by the sword are destined to die by it.

Conclusion

Perhaps in their wisdom the sages realised just how constant is this pattern of leaders who gain power only to lose their purpose. Instead of serving their people, they serve themselves; instead of freeing their subjects, they enslave them. Instead of clarity and hope, they plunge the world into confusion and darkness. This is the example of Nimrod, but it is applicable to leaders throughout human history and is more than relevant in our own day.