The River of Egypt

The Nile or Wadi el-Arish?

The nearest river south of the land is the Nile, and some interpreted it that way, like Targum Yonatan in Parashat Masei: “to the Nile of Egypt.” But then the entire Sinai Peninsula would be part of the Land of Israel. That seems exaggerated, and it contradicts the Bible, which presents Egypt as a separate country on the banks of the Nile.

If we give up on a river that flows all year round, we can think of a wadi in the south of the land. Many Rishonim and Acharonim proposed Wadi el-Arish, in northern Sinai, like Rav Saadia Gaon, quoted by the author of “Kaftor VaFerach.”

The Radbaz, the chief rabbi of Egypt in the 16th century, wrote: “Without a doubt this is a well-known error; the clear truth is that the river of Egypt is what is today called Wadi el-Arish.” And he mocked one of the great men of the generation, who lived on the east bank of the Nile in order to “live in the Land of Israel,” yet asked that his bones be taken up to Jerusalem: “apparently, he changed his mind.”

In 1979, when the Begin government committed in the Camp David Accords to withdraw from Sinai, the question returned. Some rabbis ruled that the river of Egypt is the Nile, and that Sinai is therefore part of the land. And this view has some unexpected support.

The strange divorce of Eibenschütz

Eibenschütz is the town of Ivančice in Moravia, where Rabbi Natan Neta, the father of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschütz, served as rabbi. It lies near the meeting point of three rivers.

In a bill of divorce (get), one writes the town and the name of its river, so as to identify the place beyond doubt. The book “Tiv Gittin” (p. 128) tells of a get written there, in which the scribe wrote: “Eibenschütz, which sits on the river Eibenschütz.” But Eibenschütz is the name of the town, not of a river! Even so, “three giants of the world” validated the get after the fact: the Maharal of Prague, the head of the rabbinical court of Kraków, and Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe of Poznań.

The permission is based on our parasha. The Torah writes “the river of Egypt,” although the river has its own name; that is, “the river near Egypt.” So too here: “the river near Eibenschütz.”

But if so, the river’s name in the get adds nothing! In Germany one distinguishes between Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder. By this permission, one could write “Frankfurt on the river Frankfurt”: how would we tell them apart?

In any case, these great authorities took it for granted that the river of Egypt is the Nile. And if we follow this to the end, the borders of the promise also include half of Sudan, Eritrea and a large part of Ethiopia. So why did anyone bother bringing the Jews of Ethiopia to the State of Israel, instead of leaving them there as settlers at the edge of the promised border? Interesting.

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