Kusim or Shomronim?
Rabbi Kaganoff
There is a bit of a sad association between the Shomronim and Parshas Shelach; both relate to our losing rights to Eretz Yisrael.
Kusim or Shomronim?
By Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff
Question #1: Kusim or Shomronim?
What is the difference between the Kusim and the Shomronim?
Question #2: Kussite? Shomronite?
What language do they speak? Do they have their own language as do the seventy original nations?
Question #3: Kusi religion?
Are they Moslem? What religion do they practice?
Question #4: Kusi Chaveir???
Can there be a Kusi chaveir? This sounds like an oxymoronic term.
Question #5: When is a Kusi not a Kusi?
Is the word Kusi authentic?
Foreword:
The Gemara is filled with references to a people called the Kusim, yet most people are either confused or unaware of their existence, their history and that they still exist as a minority population in Eretz Yisrael. And then I find many people who confuse them with the Kara’im (in English, called the Karaites), to whom the Kusim have no relationship, history or common culture. Since this is a halachic column, I will be emphasizing the halachic aspects of the Kusim and discuss their history and sociology only to the extent necessary to make the halacha clear, and I will leave discussion about the Kara’im for a different time.
Introduction:
When the northern tribes, Malchus Yisrael, were led away in exile by Ashur, the Assyrian empire, several nations from other places were moved into their lands to replace them. Sancheirev, the king of Ashur, did not want to leave Eretz Yisrael vacant; firstly, this could eventually make a valuable country uninhabitable, and it was certainly not good for the Assyrians who needed the area as a buffer zone against their traditional enemy, Egypt. The Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeishev II) adds another reason: Sancheirev did not want to lose the valuable taxes he would receive from the produce of the land if it was properly and profitably farmed.
These transplanted people are called the Kusim or the Shomronim, the Samaritans. Among the different places that they came from was the town of Kusah (see Melachim II 17:24-41). In addition to the several locations, stated in Melachim, from which Sancheirev resettled them, the Midrash cites many other places whence they came. In all likelihood, each of these places had its own language or dialect, and attempts to communicate among themselves must have been similar to the Tower of Bavel. They may have created a polyglot language of their own, but, eventually, as we see from the book of Ezra (Chapter 4), they used Aramaic, the lingua franca of the era, to communicate with others. With time, Aramaic became their only language until, hundreds of years later, it was replaced by Arabic, which was the spoken language of the Middle East. (For a brief time, Greek was used more commonly than Aramaic, but local populations continued to speak Aramaic among themselves, as evidenced by the Assyrian, Kurdish, Georgian, Circassian and other longstanding Middle Eastern populations that still speak Aramaic dialects as their native tongue. [Both Georgian and Circassian are derived from Aramaic. Most linguists also consider Arabic to originally have been a dialect of Aramaic.])
From early times, the Kusim were joined by other peoples and religions, and even by some less committed Jews. At one time even some kohanim joined them (Kiddushin 75b; Tosefta, Demai 3:3), and they initially were meticulous about not contaminating themselves by coming in contact with tumas meis (Niddah 57a).
Thus, with time, the Kusim became a people descended from a mix of various nations, languages and cultures, all of whom assimilated to become a small population.
Shomronim
Whereas the name Kusim derived from their town of origin, the term Shomronim is derived from the place to where they moved. Shomron was the capital city and regional area of the former northern Jewish kingdom, just as today the area between the Judean Mountains and Migdal Ha’eimek in modern Israel is called the Shomron. As the Midrash notes, Chazal use both terms, Kusim and Shomronim, although they use the term Kusim more commonly (Pirkei Derabbi Eliezer, Chapter 37). This community is today usually called the Shomronim (“Samaritans” in English).
As the sefer Melachim describes, after these nations had been settled into their new homeland in Eretz Yisrael, Hashem sent lions to attack them. The Kusim appealed to the Assyrian monarch to send someone to instruct them how to serve the local deity so that the animal attacks would end. Sancheirev accommodated them, and the pasuk describes how they began to observe some of the mitzvos of the Torah, but still continued to worship their idols, thus creating their own religion.
The Kusim never accepted most of the Torah she’be’al peh, nor did they accept the sanctity or educational value of Nevi’im and Kesuvim. Although they claimed to accept the laws as stated in the written Torah, in practice, they followed a potpourri, observing some mitzvos, ignoring others and including practices from their previous idolatrous ways.
Assyria was eventually conquered by the Babylonian Empire, and, as taught at the end of the Book of Daniel, the Persian Empire overran the Babylonian Empire. Ezra describes how Koresh, the Persian Emperor, gave permission and encouragement to the Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael, to build the second Beis Hamikdash and to create a Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael. Zerubavel, a descendant of malchus beis David, was appointed the governor of Eretz Yisrael. Upon their arrival in Eretz Yisrael, the small returning Jewish community were assisted by the prophets Chaggai, Zechariah and Malachi in locating the venue of the mizbei’ach; they began offering korbanos even before they had built the Beis Hamikdash. The kohein gadol was Yehoshua ben Yehotzadok, whose father was a brother of Ezra.
When the Jews arrived in Yerushalayim, the Kusim approached the Jews, attempting to infiltrate the renascent Jewish community. The Kusim were rebuffed because the Jews distrusted them (Arachin 5b). We see how well placed this distrust was: the Kusim sent a missive to Koresh charging the Jews with insurrection, a complete canard. Unfortunately though, the charge resounded within the royal household, and the emperor ordered an immediate halt to the construction of the Beis Hamikdash. Throughout the rest of Koresh’s reign and that of Achashveirosh, construction of the Beis Hamikdash was stopped. Eventually, the Persian emperor Daryavesh (Darius) allowed the construction of the Beis Hamikdash to continue (Ezra 4:24) and ignored the further attempts of the Kusim to block it.
Nevertheless, the Kusim and their allies continued to harass the Jewish community. As Nechemiah writes, “We were performing the construction, while half our number was holding their spears (on constant defense against attack) from daybreak until the stars appeared” (Nechemiah 4, 15). Shortly afterward, the Kusim staged a major attack on the Jewish community and also attempted to assassinate Nechemiah (Nechemiah 6:2; Pirkei derabbi Eliezer, Chapter 38).
During the period of the second Beis Hamikdash, relationships with the Kusim deteriorated further. The Kusim saw the Jews as an enemy and devoted much effort to undermining the Jewish community and its practices (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 22b; Beitzah 4b). When Alexander the Great marched through the holy land, the Kusim tried to convince him to destroy the Beis Hamikdash (Yoma 69a; Megillas Ta’anis). As we know from the Gemara, when he saw Shimon Hatzadik leading the procession of Jews to greet him, Alexander dismounted and bowed to Shimon Hatzadik (Yoma 69a). Thus, another of the Kusim’s nefarious plots was foiled.
Eventually, the Kusim gave up on trying to control Yerushalayim. At this point, they decided to replace Har Hamoriah (also known as Har Habayis) as the focal point of their religion, with Har Gerizim. As they apparently frequently did, when they changed their minds about a particular practice, they modified their version of the Torah to reflect their changed perception (Sanhedrin 90b; Shu”t Melamed Leho’il 3:79). Thus, all references and allusions in the Torah to Har Habayis were changed to Har Gerizim.
Apparently, at a later time, the Kusim abandoned their idols, but even then, they did not fully observe mitzvos (Rambam, Peirush Hamishnah, Berachos 8:8). At the time of the Mishnah and Gemara, they were keeping some mitzvos, such as shechitah (Chullin 3a), baking matzoh and separating ma’asros (Berachos 47b; Gittin 25), more or less correctly, but not other mitzvos. They had no concern about lifnei iveir, the prohibition of causing someone else to violate what Hashem has commanded him. Chazal derive from the pasuk lifnei iveir lo sitein michshol, the prohibition of misleading someone or causing them to sin. The Kusim limited the meaning of the pasuk to literally placing a stumbling block in front of a blind person.
The Kusim had little concern about observing Shabbos properly (Eruvin 31b), purity laws (Niddah 69a; Tosefta, Demai 3:3), properly observing the laws of gittin and kiddushin (Kiddushin 75; Yerushalmi, Gittin 1:4) or of being honest about financial matters. They were also notorious for not being knowledgeable or careful about the laws of yichus (Kiddushin 75a-76a) and rejected basic tenets of the Torah (Sanhedrin 90b). Because of their callousness in the important area of yichus, there are opinions in the Gemara that, according to halacha, a male Kusi and a female Kusis are forbidden to marry one another, because of the possibility that one is a mamzeir and the other is halachically a kosher Jew (Kiddushin 75a-76a; Tosafos s.v. Verabbi).
On the other hand, the Gemara notes that at times they observed practices that halacha does not require, such as separating challah on products made from rice flour (Pesachim 51a).
The early tanna’im dispute whether (1) there was a point in history at which the Kusim accepted mitzvos properly and became authentic Jewish converts, an opinion called Kusim geirei emes; or (2) Kusim geirei arayos, the Kusim converted only because of the lions and never accepted the mitzvos, as the halacha requires (Yerushalmi, Gittin 1:4).
According to the first opinion, since the Kusim observe certain mitzvos, such as shechitah and matzoh, properly, there was a time in history when it was permitted to eat Kusi shechitah and to fulfill the mitzvah of matzoh at the seder with what the Kusim baked. To quote a beraisa, “It is permitted to eat the matzoh of a Kusi and one can fulfill with it the responsibility of eating matzoh seder night, whereas Rabbi Eliezer prohibits it because they are not expert at the details required to observe mitzvos correctly. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says that the mitzvos that Kusim do observe, they are much more careful in observing than Jews are” (Kiddushin 76a; see also Berachos 47b).
Kusi chaveir
In several places, Chazal also note a phenomenon of a Kusi chaveir, which meant a Kusi who was very meticulous to observe the details of their practices (Berachos 47b; Gittin 10b; Niddah 33b). As opposed to other Kusim, a Kusi chaveir could be relied upon to faithfully keep what Kusim contended that they kept[DB1] .
The opinion that Kusim geirei arayos maintains that meat or matzoh of Kusim is produced by non-Jews. Since meat shechted by non-Jews is not kosher, the meat of Kusim is non-kosher, and, since the matzoh produced by non-Jews may not be used at the seder, the matzoh they baked is not acceptable for seder use, although it could, in theory, be eaten during the rest of Pesach, if one is certain that proper standards were maintained throughout the production.
One of the surprising aspects of Kusi mitzvah observance is that, apparently, in this era, Kusim performed shechitah correctly, notwithstanding that the details of its laws are mesorah from Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai, and that, otherwise, the Kusim rejected any aspect of the Oral Torah. In other words, the Kusim were completely inconsistent. Yet, the Gemara (Chullin 3a; 5b; 6a) reports of amora’im who ate from the shechitah of Kusim. Nevertheless, with time, the opposition to treating the Kusim as kosher Jews strengthened and it became accepted to treat the Kusim as non-Jews.
In the time of the later Tannaim, Kusim were discovered to maintain an idol of a dove atop Har Gerizim (Chullin 6a), to which they dedicated their performance of bris milah (Avodah Zarah 27a). For this reason, the Mishnah (Berachos 51b, see especially Rambam Commentary) rules that one does not recite amen when hearing the conclusion of a Kusi’s brocha unless you heard him recite the entire brocha. This is out of concern that he might have been blessing his deity on Har Gerizim.
Eventually, the Kusim created their own religion, which bears some minor resemblance to a literal observance of the Written Torah. They follow their own version of the eastern calendar and they have their own “kohein gadol” with their own version of his garments. It is a popular tourist experience to visit the Kusim -- or as they are commonly called today, the Shomronim -- on their day of erev Pesach to watch them “offering” their version of korban Pesach. One does not need to look hard to realize that they no longer practice shechitah according to the method that they did at the time of the Gemara. Their “shechitah” appears much closer to the Moslem method of halal slaughter than it does to what halacha requires.
As an experienced student will readily note, the attempts by the Tzedukim, Samaritans, Kara’im, Conservatives and others at ignoring Chazal and the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeinu of the Oral Torah have resulted in completely different observances, non-identifiable with one another. Some of this was actually the subject of the doctoral dissertation of Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel.
At one point, the organized Jewish community, both in Eretz Yisrael and in Bavel, realized that there was no choice but to excommunicate the Kusim and declare them as personae non gratae to the Jewish people. They were to be treated as non-Jews. Their bread was to be considered completely non-kosher “like pork.” Even conversions of Kusim to the Jewish people were banned, out of concern that they were already mamzeirim because of their approach to yichus and related laws. This ban was accepted even by the Persian royal household (Yalkut Shimoni, Melachim II 234; see also Chullin 6a).
The Samaritan community today has two withering branches, one on Har Gerizim, right next to the yishuv Har Beracha, and the other in Holon. They speak Arabic, but identify with the Jewish presence in Israel. Most are law-abiding Israeli citizens, and they even operate food companies bearing mehadrin hechsherim. In recent decades, they have suffered from a high rate of assimilation of their descendants (becoming secular Israeli Arabs) and a shortage of potential wives for their young men. Prior to the Ukrainian War, they were actively recruiting rural Ukrainian women to join their ranks as converts to their religion and wives for their men. Many of the more established Kusim complained about the lack of sincerity and consistency of the neophyte converts. The young men responded that they had no other choices for mates. Of course, the result was an even greater ethnic and polyglot mix, with Ukrainian and Arabic intermingled.
When is a Kusi not a Kusi?
At this point, we should discuss the last of our opening questions: When is a Kusi not a Kusi? First, some background.
As we are painfully aware, the invention of the printing press in Europe was instrumental in creating several new professions. One of them was the censor, a government official authorized to use his discretion to decide what was in the interests of the ruler to publish and what was not. The censor deleted and changed text at whim, depending on whether he felt the intended text might be perceived as showing the rulers, their religion or anything similar in a poor light. Of course, there was little interest in preserving the accuracy of the text, nor were the censors necessarily well versed in the language or the material that they were censoring. For this reason, many censors used a very broad wand to eliminate words that they considered offensive. Many words that were not intended in any negative way were often deleted, and at times replaced by others that the censors considered to be “pareve.”
The term “Kusim” had no negative connotations for the censors or their employers. They considered the Kusim to be another wayward group, similar to the Roma, the Jews and the Moslems. Thus, to change a word to “Kusi” was a convenient way for the censors to wave their wand. For this reason, there are many instances in which censors changed the words akum (idol worshipper), goy (non-Jew), or min (non-believer), a word often reserved in the Gemara for the early Christians, to Kusi. In all of these instances, one must realize that the text has nothing to do with Kusim (see, for example, Gittin 10b; Avodah Zarah 15b, Niddah 50b), but probably means either “non-Jews” or “heretics,” depending on context.
Conclusion
The story of the Kusim is very different from the various challenges and alternative mistaken expressions of Judaism that we have encountered over the millennia, such as the Tzedukim, the Mis’yavnim, the Kara’im, Reform and Conservative Judaism, the haskalah and secular Zionism. All of these were attempts by Jews to redefine Judaism to their liking. They were attempts to exchange the covenant that Hashem provided with something that could be accommodated to someone’s personal modus vivendi.
In the case of the Kusim, we are dealing with a group who were not originally Jewish and may never have become Jewish. Although many Jews apparently intermarried with them, the culture was completely non-Jewish. Yet, even at the time when there was a possibility that the Kusim were wayward Jews, our Torah leadership realized that this was a group from which to distance ourselves, not only from their philosophy, but even from themselves personally, a highly unusual step, perhaps without any precedent.
[DB1]I think this is redundant.