The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

What Do You Give to the G-d Who Has Everything?

2009-02-27T05:09:00.000-08:00

Here we go! Five weeks in a balloon of intensive involvement with the construction of the Mishkan, starting now with Parashat Terumah. A balloon, it seems, since we’ve just been at Sinai and receive an entire corpus of civil and criminal law with which to found a society in Eretz Yisrael, and we’re told we’ll be accompanied by Hashem’s angel on the way, so you’d think the next stage would be to set off.

Not so fast! The Mishkan and all it entails and implies for the life of the people of Israel will be our subject clear through until the third parashah in B’midbar (!), when we finally do get going. This Mishkan, the most elaborate construction project undertaken by humanity to date as recorded by the Torah (the Tower of Babel was aborted, and the Egyptian store-houses merely required a huge supply of adobe bricks), allows us to fulfill our promise as created in the image of Hashem. Hashem creates a world, and we, imitating Him, create a symbolic world.

But for now, we’ll leave aside the powerful spiritual associations of the Mishkan and turn the focus on beginning of the parashah: the gathering of raw materials.

Hashem says to Moshe: Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me an uplifted-donation; from each generous-hearted man you (pl.) shall take My uplifted donation.

That’s how the parashah begins, followed with a list of thirteen types of raw materials to be collected. At the end of the list, the dispensation of these materials is indicated:

And they shall make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell within them. In accordance with everything which I am showing you – the form of the IndwellingHouse and the form of its furnishings/utensils, and thus you shall do.

One might think that regarding something so central, so indispensible for the life of Am Yisrael, everyone, bar none, would be obligated to participate in its construct. And, at first, that’s how it seems: Speak to the children of Israel, that they take… No one is excluded. And yet, right afterward, we read: From each generous-hearted man whose heart volunteers him. Evidently, we were wrong; it’s only those moved by spirit who are tapped to give. No external compulsion is to be used, not even a Divine command.

In fact, the Talmud indicates there are actually three separated collections, reflecting the three usages of the word terumah in the opening verses – and the initial collection of the raw materials is the voluntary one.

But doesn’t that mean that some people will be left out, and will not have a part in the Mishkah? And what about us, who live at such a temporal remove from the Mishkan – what part can we hope to play in a construction which brings out the image-of-G-d within us?

Let’s look at what the term “generous-hearted”. The Hebrew is asher yidvenu libo. “whose heart volunteers him”. The heart is the core of the person. Whether we take it literally, to mean “heart”, or we understand it figuratively, to mean “mind”, or “spirit”, as it often does, there is no doubt that the heart is, well, the heart. It is the source of a person’s being, his will, his sense of self. So what the heart wills and wants IS the substance of one’s life. The heart can hardly want except for what it is – and so people always want for themselves. How can we want otherwise? It’s not just cynical to say that altruism is ultimately motivated by a selfish concern for our image, more real to us in some ways than our very bodies. So how can actually truly give anything to anyone, without some existential string attached?

On the other hand, what do we HAVE that we can give? If we are serious when we say that “The world and its fullness belongs to Hashem”, then, with David, we must say, “Give Him what is His, for you and what is yours is His”. So, what is it precisely that we own that we CAN give to Hashem?

When we give something truly, we’re really giving it back to where it ultimately belongs. Everything we have, everything we are, is on loan. When we acknowledge that everything is Hashem’s, and not ours, then that acknowledgement is a giving over of our very selves to Hashem. We thereby emulated Hashem, Who wills His overflowing essence to spill out into the beauty of creation. We can actually give anything of our own, except this spilling over into the acknowledgement of Hashem – and even THAT ability – that act of seeming free-will – is a gift of G-.d.

So we build the Mishkan NOT so much with gold and silver and copper, etc., but with and from our freewilling self-giving – the deepest, rawest material of the universe.

And that is why it says, at the end of the passage quoted above, “And thus shall you do”. Those dangling words, seemingly out of place, are explained by Rashi to mean “For future generations”. Rashi truncates the Talmud’s interpretations of those few words – there understood to include the making of the implements for the Temple in the time of Shlomo – to allow the following understanding:

When we give ourselves fully to one of Hashem’s mitzvot, when we pour into it our everythingness, WE become the raw materials, beyond the constraints of time and space, from which the Mishkan, that is, Am Yisrael, is ever being constructed.

Separate Dishes!?

2009-02-20T04:18:00.000-08:00

How do you get from “Don’t seethe a kid in it’s mother’s milk” to two sets of dishes? I mean, three, if you include pareve? Oh, make that six, for Pesach? Plus add in the the treif set from the olden days, for the non-Jewish servant, and we’ve got our magic number – seven sets of dishes!!

Behind the multiplication of the plates is a serious question, however. This week’s parashah, Mishpatim, is much more than a jumbled collection of laws regulating capitol and civil offenses. Not only is it not jumbled at all (hint: compare the progression of themes in the various sets of laws in Mishpatim with those of the storyline in parashat Shemot!), it contains some of the most powerful “one-liners” in Jewish tradition. “Na’aseh v’nishmah”, for example, is uttered by the people in THIS parashah (and not in Yitro, as some people mistaken think). The definitive reference to the unity of the written and oral Torah also appears herein. But probably the verse which is most closely associated with daily Jewish life is the verse forbidding mixing milk and meat.

But how does that verse prohibit basar bechalav? After all, isn’t it just some poetic flourish brought as a coda to the Book of the Covenant – the term used by the Torah itself (as understood by the Ramban) to refer to the legal codex presented in Parashat Mishpatim? It can’t actually mean two sets of dishes, can it?

Ah, but the verse is repeat two more times in the Torah. Once, in Parashat Ki Tisa, as the concluding phrase of yet another “covenantal” passage, in which Hashem re-offers the covenant, functionally rejected by the people as they revel before the Golden Calf. And a second time in Devarim, where the verse as a coda to the repetition of the laws of animal prohibited and permitted for eating. Clearly, a verse so frequently and prominently intoned must have some overarching significance.

And indeed, the Sages in the Talmud interpret the three-fold repetition of “don’t seethe…” to be teaching three separate prohibitions:

Don’t consume a meat-and-milk mixture.
Don’t cook a meat-and-milk mixture, even though you won’t eat it.
Don’t derive benefit from a meat-and-milk mixture (such as reselling cheeseburgers for fun and profit).

The dishes are another story – absorption and re-emission of flavors by cooking vessels is considered to be substantial and not incidental.

But our question remains – given that the repetition of the verse means something – whence do the Sages get the notion that it is precisely these three things being prohibited by the Torah, and, perhaps more importantly, how does such a practice make us into more refined servants of Hashem?

Let’s take a step back. After giving over to Moshe an entire ethical-legal corpus which forms the core of legal traditions and societal structures the world over to this day, Hashem turns to task at hand. For, that ethical-legal corpus is written from a standpoint which presumes a society settled in its land. And that has yet to be accomplished. The land still needs to be conquered, the morally bankrupt people still lingering there is yet to be disposed, and, perhaps of central importance, their idolatrous, violent and corrupt religious civilization has yet to be eradicated, to be replaced by a people constantly yearning to ascend to Oneness.

Imagine all the people, living for the One. Leaving aside their worldly occupation to join as one in the place Hashem will choose to cause His Name to dwell there, three time a year: On Pesach, the feast of springing anew into life; on Shavu’ot, the first-harvest feast of the firstfruits/firstborn – first to arrive at adulthood, and at Sukkot, the feast of the ingathering of all our works – animal and vegetable – from the field, and eight-day ending-of-a-cycle festival joyously awash with meat and drink (for there is no real joy save sacrificial meat and wine, say our Sages), all that physicality transmuted through boundless joy into Divine service.

Now read this:

And everything which I said to you guard carefully; do not mention the names of other gods – let them not be heard upon your mouth.

Three festivals shall you celebrate for Me each year.

·Keep the festival of matzot – seven days shall you eat matzot as I have commanded you, on the occasion of the spring month, for in it you emerged from Egypt; let there not be seen hametz in your houses.
·And the harvest festival, the first fruits of your works which you shall sew in your fields;
·And the ingathering festival at the going-out of the year, when you gather your works from the field.

Three times each year all your males shall be seen/see the Face of the Master, Hashem.

Do not slaughter the blood of my sacrifice upon (i.e., while) chametz (is yet to be seen) and do not allow the fat of My festival offering to linger until morning;
The first of the firstfruits of your land bring to the House of Hashem;
Do not seethe a kid in its mothers milk.

Shemot 23:13-19

The parallels are clear: We all gather in Yerushalayim at three points in the agricultural year, laden with symbolism. We are commanded to be careful regarding three specific commandments, one for each holiday:

On Pesach, we must be precise regarding the Pesach sacrifice – we must neither sacrifice it too early, when chametz is still to be found, nor may we leave it/its fat parts unconsumed past the following dawn.

On Shavu’ot, we must stand before Hashem and, surrendering the first products of backbreaking labor in the field, we stand with the Kohen in the Temple courtyard, waving our offering and proclaiming we have arrived in the fullest sense (See Parashat Ki Tavo).

On Sukkot, … hmm, what is this mother-and-kid non-reunion? Ramban writes (davka on the repeated verse in Parashat Ki Tisa) that when the first-born animals were brought as sacrifices to the Temple, their mothers came along for purposes of nursing the young animals, right up until the time of the sacrifice. But Ramban doesn’t specify that this is happening on Sukkot. In fact, he might be referring to the holiday of firsts – Sukkot.

I’d like to suggest a slight twist on the Ramban’s take. The first of Elul is one of four Jewish new years, the new year for tithing of the animals born that year. One of each ten new-born sheep, goats and cattle would be designated as the tenth, the ma’aser, releasing all nine others to the realm of the secular. The ma’aser animals would be offered as sacrifices at the Temple and their flesh would be consumed by their owners in purity, anywhere throughout the city. When would this most naturally be done? On the next trip to Yerushalayim, of course, since zerizim mak’dimim lamitzvtot – the zealous jump at the chance for mitzvot. And this would be…Sukkot.

Sukkot, the blow-out holiday-to-end-all-holidays, as time dies and new time is born, eight days more meat, more drink, more dancing, more music, more spectacle and more holy indulgence than we can really imagine. Just the time to fall over the edge into the REAL spiritual seductions of ultimate unboundedness.

Rambam understands the prohibition of milk and meat as an anti-idolatrous practice – THEY horrifically cooked kids in mothers’ milk, you must not do this. They allows life to bleed into death, to conjure a self-contained and self-perpetuating cycle where life and death are yin-yanged into one another, a boundless self-invoking myth of existence leaving no room for the truly transcendant. You shall not do this in your holiness.

This should imply that the kohanim should not behind like idolatrous priests. They should not consume the holy sacrificial flesh in its delicious, saturated-with-meaning self-sauce at the propitious time of connection. But what about regular Jews.

All three of the holiday practices are really on the threshold of the “kohanic”. Non-kohanim are allowed to slaughter a sacrifice, but not to collect the blood nor dash it upon the altar in atonement, and on Pesach, with so much work for the kohanim to do, that’s precisely what they did. On Shavu’ot, the Jew bringing his basket of first-fruit entered into the Temple as deeply as he was allowed and, waved, with Kohen’s hands upon his, his offering before Hashem. And on Shavu’ot, the Jews ate holy meat in amounts fit for only for a Kohen, with the lactating mothers bleating outside in the courtyard. It’s sooo good, and, with the Rambam, it only has its anti-pagan symbolism at this time, in this setting, so the rest of the year, back home in the kitchen…

“You shall be for Me a nation of priests, a holy people”. The “extension” of the prohibition of mixing milk and meat, with its undeniable ethical and spiritual implication, in inherent already in the first appearance of the verse. When it is brought again a third time in Devarim, that “extension” is complete – every Jew is in a certain sense a kohen, aware of the incredibly powerful spiritual reverberations of every act, the symbolism that is more that symbolism, echoing its implications throughout the universe.

It is stated in the Talmud, “when there is no altar operative, a man’s [comportment at his ] dining table atones for him. Separating meat and milk can, should and needs to be a way of separating from a life lived in a realm of linear, cause-and-effect superficiality to re-engage that same life as one constantly on the dizzying edge of the holy.

Now about that seventh set of dishes…

Brain-Link Fence

2009-02-13T02:43:00.000-08:00

Is Mt. Sinai under construction in this week’s parashah? One could be forgiven for thinking so, since Hashem’s intructions to Moshe regarding preparation for His revelation to Am Yisrael include the erection of a fence around the mountain!

You say you don’t remember any fence? Take a look at the verses leading up to the the Ten Commandments: “Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Go down, give testimony before/warn the people, lest they destructively break through to Hashem to see, and many fall (i.e., die) from amongst them. Even the priests, who draw close to Hashem, must sanctify themselves, lest Hashem break out amongst them.” Moshe said to Hashem, the people are not able to ascend the mountain, for You warned us saying, ‘Set up a boundary around the mountain and sanctify it.”

Hmm, the people aren’t able to ascend, something is preventing them – there’s a boundary there, set up precisely to avoid rash, impulsive spiritual overload. Clearly, this boundary can’t be made merely of stern warnings taken to heart, since Hashem knows that whatever they see at the moment of revelation is likely to overwhelm their caution and good sense. He insists on an extra level of protection, while Moshe insists it’s unnecessary, since the boundary constructed stands firm.

Of what was this boundary constructed? Let’s go back to the initial passage a few verses earlier, where Hashem gives instruction as to the preparations to be made in advance of Matan Torah:

Hashem said to Moshe: Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothing. Be ready for the third day, for on the third day, Hashem will descend upon Mt. Sinai before the people’s eyes. Bound the people around, telling them, ‘Guard yourselves from ascending the mountain, or even touching its edge. Whoever touches the mountain will surely die”.

At first glance, it would seem we’re not closer to finding the raw material from which the fence was constructed. In fact, it looks like the initial supposition, that the best de-fence is a good of-fence, is born out – the boundary is nothing more than the fear of divine punishment for those who, literally, trans-gress.

R. Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, in his marvelous work MeSHeKh Hochmah, interprets the words, Bound the people around differently. The Hebrew reads Hagbel et ha’am saviv, with the word for people serving as a direct object to the causative verb, make a boundary. Thus, Hashem is telling Moshe, “Use the people as raw material for the fence”. Here are his words:

The Divine Presence and the attendant phenomenon of prophecy extended up to the place where Yisrael stood facing the mountain, as it is stated (Devarim): Face to face did Hashem speak with you at the mountain. Just like with the Beit Hamikdash, it was permitted to touch the walls of the courtyards but forbidden to come into their space, since the walls served as partitions between the Sanctuary of Hashem and outside of it, likewise here, Yisrael served as the partitions between the revelation of the Glory of Hashem and that which is otherwise. Thus, the mountain was forbidden to be touched, since the holiness did not end at the mountain. Therefore, it states that the Glory had a boundary, and what was that boundary? The people!

(There were a couple more paragraphs here, full of ideas that to me were really exciting, but Windows updated itself without adequate warning for a simpleton like me, and so lost them!! Can you cry over spilled Torah? But, not to end too abruptly, I'll reconstruct the gist of it and say…)

Nothing can exist in our realm w/o being manifest via a vessel; everything of the world is a vessel, and the Kodesh, ultimately not of this world, becomes manifest in a place/time/soul vessel called Am Yisrael at Mt. Sinai. The containment vessel which is Am Yisrael doesn’t merely enable the manifestation of the holy, but it also defines the secular (means literally: temporal) realm – a realm cleansed of the overwhelming, radioactively-dangerous wholly holy, a realm which IS space for that which is other than holy. Ultimately, the secular is created to be MADE holy, but the tension of, on one hand, keeping the sacred at bay, to allow for the human, and, on the other hand, transforming our OWN material to become more G-dlike, more holy, less “vessalic” and more penetratingly liquid with holiness – this tension is the exasperating blessing of Am Yisarel from Hashem, for the world. No surprise people might wish to run away from the mountain, as the midrash on Parashat Beha’alotecha teaches us. No surprise people might be carried away by the smidgen of eventual ecstasy they were allow to taste at Sinai and want to run up the mountain to attain the intimacy they felt they couldn’t bear to be without.

Ulysses was lashed to the mast by his crew to heart the Siren’s song. Hashem has lashed us to the mast of His world with the rope of our own will bending to do His in this as-yet-unredeemed realm. With the strong rope of his Torah – a Mobius strip that, followed to the end, will turn out to have been, all along, that holiness which we sought to hold back, now embracing us for eternity.

My G-d, a Navaho?

2009-02-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

Shabbat Shirah, it’s time to sing. Standing on the edge of a Red Sea that has returned to its roiling nature, drowning the fleeing, terrified Egyptian charioteers, Am Yisrael is ecstatic and, with Moshe, breaks into song. They sang in unison a song that welled up from a prophetic vision of redemption that, our sages tell us, outstripped even the visions of Yechezk’el and Isaiah, both of whom “saw” Hashem enthroned on high. The song so permeated the very fabric of being that it is introduced with the imperfect mood of the verb – Az Yashir Moshe… “Then Moshe will sing”, as though the song is every ringing in the background of our Jewishness.

So what did they sing? Pure poetry, and therefore, as difficult to feel confident in parsing as it must be even to attempt to imagine what they were feeling at that moment. And yet, we reprise it every day in our morning prayers, as part of Pesukei D’Zimra. Every verse of this song is fit for deep reflection; I’ve chosen the following well-known verse to dwell upon this time around:

Zeh E-li v’anveihu, E-lohei avi va’arom’menhu

This is my G-d and anveihu (“I will ???); the G-d of my father and I will uplift Him

(As usual, left part of the verse untranslated so as not to prejudice the subsequent analysis.)

What is it that we are committing ourselves to doing here in this verse, as a response to the dramatic redemption of Israel from what they feared was sure death? The context might suggest that anveihu is a synonym of arommenhu, as is so often the case in the Biblical poetic convention of parallelism or symmetry. But let’s look closer at the root of the word, and see what the commentators have to say.

Onkelos translates: This is my G-d and I will build Him a sanctuary. This is based on understand our key word to stem from the root nun-vav-heh., meaning “abode, habitation”. The Beit Hamikdash is referred to as Naveh sha’anan, abode of tranquility.

Ramban is evidently uncomfortable with this approach, both because it violates the rule of parallelism and for reasons pertaining to his mystical understanding of precisely what it was that the people experience. Therefore, he preserves Onkelos’s linguistic derivation but with a twist: I will elevate to His heavenly abode the G-d of my fathers who revealed Himself to them as E-l Sha-dai, but now I will raise Him up to His “full-namedness”!

Rashbam goes in what seems to be a different direction. He understand anveihu as deriving from a related but different root, meaning “beautiful”. “This is my G-d and I will beautify Him” is how he translates the passage. He, too, wants anveihu to parallel arommenhu - both “beautification” and “uplift” being expression of honoring the divine.

The sentiments expressed in the interpretations of both the Ramban and the Rashbam are such a wonderful responses to the experience of being lovingly snatched from the jaws of destruction – quid pro quo, as it were; the only question is – how? How is this to be accomplished?

A midrash in the Gemara (Shabbat 133b) helps us with this last question:

“This is my G-d and anveihu: beautify yourself before Him with mitzvot – make before Him a beautiful sukkah, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful tzitzit, a beautiful Sefer Torah written in beautiful ink with a beautiful pen, by a skilled scribe, and swathed in beautiful silken cloths; Abba Shaul says: anveihu – become a semblance of Him: just as He is merciful and compassionate, so you be merciful and compassionate.

In the midrash on Shir haShirim, the splitting of the Red Sea is described as Yom Chatunato – Hashem’s Wedding Day, as it were. Am Yisrael is the Kallah. We must be clothed appropriately for the occasion, so that everyone who sees us will know, “there goes a bride!”. What garments are we to wear? Outer garments, meant for everyone, and inner garments, meant for our Beloved. The outer garments are the “ritual mitzvot”, the inner garments is the making over of our personal attributes in the image of Hashem. The outer garments are worn over the inner garments, mitzvot are done out of and through a fundamental sense of compassion and mercy for all Hashem’s creatures, and thus become expressive of those traits.

Thus do we bond to our Redeemer, our Covenantal Partner, our Might and our Song (“Ozi v’Zimrat – Kah!). Thus do we make the Name whole as we enthrone Him in His supernal abode, and take our own place up there even as we walk down here.

Anveihu - Aleph-nun –vav-heh-vav. Our mystics teach us that this word is in reality “clipped” form of Ani v’Hu – I and He. Bound together we are, as expressed in the everyday mystery of the union of ordinary and sacred, the here-and-now and the beyond-and-forever, in the act of mitzvah done out of self-transformation.

Aristotle identified symmetry as as key element of beautify. By invoking anveihu, we are summoning ourselves to enhance the beauty of symmetry in poetic expression, in song, by taking it to the level of actions, of soul states, of real being.

I learned from the detective novels of the recently departed Tony Hillerman that Navajo have a ceremony in which they recite the following;

In beauty may I walk
All day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons may I walk
Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk
With dew about my feet may I walk
With beauty may I walk

With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty

Maybe the stories about them being descended from Am Yisrael aren’t so farfetched afterall?

Primogeni-cure

2009-01-30T03:28:00.001-08:00

The fruit is finally ripe for the picking. The Torah’s pre-occupation since creation with birth-order comes to a head in Parashat Bo. While in previous encounters with the privileges and problematics of primogeniture, the first-borns have been displaced one by one – Kayin, Yefet (perhaps), Yishmael, Esav, Reuven, Zerach, Menashe, Aharon – now the firstborns suffer the ultimate displacement – death. Even the firstborn of Yisrael would not have been spared, were it not for the Korban Pesach. No Egyptian firstborn is spared, however – from the firstborn of Par’oh, sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-woman sitting at the grindstone and the prisoner in the dungeon. Ironically, equality finally comes to all in Egypt, that stratified, ossified, firstborn of all ancient nations. As a result, we are instructed twice in this parashah to redeem our firstborns sons throughout all generations, as we offer the firstborn of our flocks as a sacrifice to Hashem.

What’s wrong with the firstborn that they are forever displaced? Complete disclosure requires me to reveal that I am a firstborn son of a firstborn son, father to a firstborn son (may he soon follow in our footsteps), so I have a very personal interest in uncovering what the Torah has in mind – and in store – for us!

To understand this, we start by how the Torah explains this plague against Egypt. Hashem says to Moshe on several occasions that he knows that Par’oh will not change, will not let Yisrael go, until He smites the firstborn. And, in speaking to Moshe as he heads down to Egypt in Parashat Shemot, Hashem puts these words in Moshe’s mouth to speak to Par’oh: “Thus says Hashem, ‘Yisrael is my son, my firstborn, and I say to you: release My son that he may serve me, yet you refuse to release him? Behold, I am killing your son, your firsborn!’ ”.

But wait, Yisrael is not the most ancient of peoples, we are amongst the youngest! Therefore, R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk explains (in Meshech Chocmah) that we merit being called firstborn in the sense that we are the first people to proclaim Hashem as One in the world, thereby admitting Him, as it were, to the realm of dimensionality. This is what Rashbi says in the Talmud, on the verse, “you are my witnesses…and I am Hashem, where he says, “as it were: if you are My witnesses, then I am Hashem, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am not Hashem”). A firstborn effects a transformation in the parent by making him into the parent, and thus the impact of the event of first birth is almost literally earth-shaking. It is so tempting to equate the wonder and newness that one feels inside oneself with the arrival of redemption and perfection. After all, didn’t Chavah say, upon the birth of Kayin – I’ve created a man – with G-d! The HUMAN active of procreation, as reflected upon from within our humanness, seems to be the fulfillment of the promised Divine Image in which we are created.

But we live on the plane of limitations, in the world of limitation, of “”this and not that”. Our first efforts are often premature, beautifully expressive of initiative and hope, of effort and belief, but, it must be said, imperfect. Physicality IS imperfection, even as it is the substrate for our strivings toward perfection. And yet that squirming, little ball of beauty IS perfect, is ME (O.K., and her), my first effort has to be right, perfect, doesn’t it, or else…

Or else, we’ll have to retool, and take the long shorter way to redemption. Every parent knows the blessings of the first time at every stage of growth granted them by their first-born, and the nightmarish fears of getting it wrong – time and time again. A crazy mixture of feelings – of undeserved blessings and of terror of messing things up irredeemably – visits itself on the new parent of any newborn, be it child of body, mind or heart. The temptation, turned into practice and custom by not a few societies in various ways throughout history: give it up, give it back ,give it away before you spoil it, before it’s all-too-human-therefore-imperfection spoils what YOU need from that child.

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression, and the question thus become not rhetorical, but real – perhaps such a sacrifice is indeed called for? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark than can only be its own atonement?

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark?

In doing this act, in first giving over the firstborn to the realm of the unblemished and then buying him back by giving over our silver – (kesef – yearnings – in Hebrew) for the gold of as-yet-unrealized potential that transcends the need for perfection now, we ultimately redeem ourselves. Or, more correctly, that first-born, pintele yid, soul-root, piece of G-d inside which is His firstborn, sitting stiffly, imprisoned on the Pharaoh-throne of need-for-me, waiting to recline amidst the leisurely plainness of each unsalted chew of matzah, each simply roasted taste of korban pesach, each moment releasing its savor, as we enter deeply into understand Hashem proclaimition: “I am first and I am last, and besides Me there is no god”.

Primogeni-cure

2009-01-30T03:28:00.000-08:00

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark?

Hashem “demonstrated that there is another way. In creating the universe, He came on too strong, as it were, and shattered vessels unprepared for His too-much-perfection. But far from discarding His firstborn world, He redeemed it by a process of Tikkun that will ultimately achieve more than could possibly be imaged in a moment of rapturous firstborn perfection. And thus, though Canaanites might give their firstborn to Molech, we redeem our firstborn, we give five silver coins to the Kohen in charge of the realm of the Holy, and he restores our firstborn to us, no longer devoted to a realm beyond our ken, but now of this world. We re-understand the role Hashem has in mind for the firstborn, apropos of his/her particular set of talents and potentialities of body, mind and soul, and the trajectory set for him by his/her circumstances. In doing this act, in first giving over the firstborn to the realm of the unblemished and then buying him back by giving over our silver – (kesef – yearnings – in Hebrew) for the gold of as-yet-unrealized potential that transcends the need for perfection now, we ultimately redeem ourselves. Or, more correctly, that first-born, pintele yid, soul-root, piece of G-d inside which is His firstborn, sitting stiffly, imprisoned on the Pharaoh-throne of need-for-me, waiting to recline amidst the leisurely plainness of each unsalted chew of matzah, each simply roasted taste of korban pesach, each moment releasing its savor, as we enter deeply into understand Hashem proclaimition: “I am first and I am last, and besides Me there is no god”.

In Arm’s Way

2009-01-23T05:04:00.000-08:00

And here come the plagues. With Parashat Va’era, the unfolding of a great divine lesson begins. Lesson, because the ten plagues are seldom referred to as such in the Torah. Over and over they are called otot umoftim “signs/letters and demonstrations/proofs” – acts of communication from Hashem designed to remedy Par’oh’s earlier response, “I don’t know Hashem, and (therefore) I also will not release!”.

An expected response on Par’oh’s part. After all, Hashem had told Moshe when He revealed Himself to Moshe at Mt. Sinai, “I know that Par’oh will not let you go, not until the mighty hand”. Hashem, of course, knew, and Moshe also should have known, having heard if directly from Hashem. Yet at the end of Parashat Shemot, we find Moshe, complaining to Hashem – after merely one Pharonic encounter – “ever since I’ve come to Par’oh to speak in Your Name, he has done worse to Am Yisrael, and saved? You haven’t saved Your People!”, As that parashah ends, Hashem reassures Moshe, as though he hadn’t previously informed him, “Now you will see, that through a mighty hand he will release them, through a mighty hand he will drive them from his land.”

Whose mighty hand? The commentators differ – most say the funny syntax is shorthand, what’s intended is G-‘ds Mighty Hand, i.e., the plagues. A few suggest it’s a double entendre, doubling as a wry reference to how how hysterically Par’oh will shove them out of Egype in the end.

For the time being, let’s leave aside the resolution of this textual problem and join Moshe as he sees the unveiling of this Mighty Hand, the teaching slap that will waken divine consciousness in Egypt – for many of them, only at the bottom of the sea, as well as for Israel. For, indeed, the communicative, revelatory function of the plagues is not limited to Egypt. As Hashem states at the beginning of Parashat Bo, before the last round of three plagues, the purpose of the plagues is also to so inculcate awareness of Hashem’s Presence and action in this world that Yisrael will relate the story of the redemption from Egypt from generation to generation, a sort of collective Jewish version, l’havdil, of Zen mind.

But there’s a question that has, yes, plagued me for years. IF the entire set of the ten plagues is of one piece, a divine lesson for each of the various players in the drama of Israel in Egypt, why not group them all together? Why does Parashat Va’era relate only the first seven plagues, leaving the last three for Parashat Bo?

To answer this question, let’s look at the last few verses of our parashah. With the seventh plague, hail, Hashem is no longer pulling His punches (well, He is, but…). Moshe introduces this plague in Hashem’s name by saying:

“This time, I am sending all My plague against your very heart, your slaves, your people, so that you should know that there is none like Me in all the land. I could have sent My hand and smitten you and your people, and you would have been wiped off the land, but for this reason have I maintained you – so that you would see My power, and tell [praise] of my Name throughout the land”. Shemot 9:14-16

And indeed, the plague of hail is as destructive as it is terrifying, and Par’oh quickly summons Moshe and say, for the first time, “I’ve sinned this time”, and, relenting, begs Moshe to intercede with Hashem and stop the plague, promising to let them leave unconditionally. Moshe agrees to beseech Hashem, stating, “When I exit the city, I will lift my hands in prayer and the thunder will cease and there will be no more hail, so that you know that the earth is Hashem’s”. But, this time, Moshe adds, “But, you and your servants, I know that you have yet to fear the Presence of Hashem, G-d”.

This is not a cynical remark dropped by Moshe, already accustomed to Par’oh’s zigzagging. Recall that the plagues are intended to teach everyone, Egypt, Yisrael…and Moshe too. Moshe heard and understood but did not really know that the plagues were not vindictive, that Hashem’s goal was not merely to redress an injustice, but to bring human beings to an awareness of the immediacy of the Divine Presence which permeates everything everywhere. Moshe, wielding staff and speaking grandly, would be the agency of this lesson for an idol-worshipping Par’oh, who must come to see Moshe not as sorcerer or magician but as agent of Hashem, transparent to His Will. Until Moshe can say, “I know” like Hashem said “I know”, Par’oh will continue not to know Hashem.

And indeed, it turns out that the early crops have been smitten by the hail, but the later crops, just under the soil’s surface, hold out hope and Par’oh’s heart is seduced by its own intransigence once again, and, continuing to misread his own reality, he recants, just like Hashem said by the hand of Moshe”.

Now we see whose hand is mighty. It’s Moshe’s hand, that hand which has taken itself by the scruff of its own stubborn, narrow neck and, slapping itself wide awake from its own presumptions and certainties, opened a wide thoroughfare for the awareness that “there is no other besides Him”.

And now we see Whose Hand is Mighty. For it would have been much easier for Hashem to dispense with the whole notion of human agency and do it all Himself. But He chose to wrestle with man, possessor of free will and evil urge, and coax him to allow Him into his heart. And He won. And we won. And He One.

Cry Boyby

2009-01-16T00:46:00.000-08:00

They were standing there, leaning against the wall with that world-weary, seen-it-all indifference. Shalhevet, our oldest daughter, had returned to the school at which she worked during her three months in Sherut Leumi (National Service) to visit the kids with whom she had formed a connection. She had decided to change track to a pre-army Mechina (preparatory academy) for religious girls, but she still missed the kids, and so she hit the road early last Erev Shabbat, made her way to Netanya, and was rewarded by an overwhelming, excited response on the part of the kids, who missed her too. Even fifth-grade boys, normally so habituated in their pre-macho macho, smiled and came running. All except these two. Earrings in place, spitting sunflower seed shells, they kept their distance and make sarcastic remarks. Oh, well. You can’t win ‘em all. Teenagers will be teenagers, no?

Except this pair were no teenagers. They were six-years old! Shalhevet remembered them from her time at the school, and she was profoundly saddened. Not that they didn’t greet her with enthusiasm, but that already at six, they could be so disdainful of all around them, so deadened to the world, so closed off to their own youthful vibrancy.

We meet another “troubled youth” in this week’s Parashah – Shemot. Starting off on the wrong foot, with his mother “putting him up for adoption” to save his life, Moshe’s struggles are briefly chronicled. We watch as he discovers identity conflict, both in the society around him and within his own soul. We see him grow into a passionate advocate for justice, as his deeds bring a price upon his head that brings him to flee for his life. But even in far-off Midyan, having married a chieftain’s daughter, he cannot rest, he burns inside with an unknown energy, and so he must understand “why the bush was not consumed”. Launched on a mission from G-d, he returns to Egypt to make more trouble, for Egypt and, in a profound sense, for Israel, too.

What is it in this man? Who is he, that pushes the envelope from the get-go? The Torah text, in its typically spare way, gives us a clue.

Yocheved bears Moshe prematurely, so the Midrash tells us. That is why she is able to conceal him for a while from the prying eyes of the Egyptians and, perhaps even then, from the Jewish “Kapos”. They did not expect her to give birth so soon, she was not on the list for this month’s baby-tossing sporting event.

But when the time comes, she beats the Egyptians in their own game. SHE “throws” the baby into the Nile, thereby “technically” fulfilling the Pharaonic decree. Only she does so AFTER gently placing him in a makeshift boat – a Tevah, an Ark, the same word used for Noah’s seaworthy craft. But while Noah sealed his ark outside and in with pitch, a noxious tar derivative, Yocheved used pitch only on the outside; the inner surface was clay – soft, smooth, yet sturdy. And, having provided all she could, she let it go, the Nile carrying the precious, months-old cargo where it would.

Straight into the arms of Pharaoh’s daughter! Oh, well, not STRAIGHT into her arms – she saw the ark a distance from shore, and “sent her amah” out to fetch it. The literal meaning is that she sent her servant girl, but, for reasons connected to true textual “irregularities”, the Midrash explains the word with its alternate meaning: arm. Her arm miraculously hyperextended and she gathered the boy in. And when she opened the ark, this is HOW she saw:

“And she opened, and she saw HIM, the BOY and behold A YOUNG MAN crying; she had compassion upon him, and she said, this one is from the Hebrew children…” (Shemot 2:6).

Why does the verse refer to the unnamed baby with three different referents? First, she saw HIM – as he was, a baby? Then, she saw a BOY. Finally, she sees a YOUNG MAN crying. What happened there?

We normally see the surfaces of things. There is no Superman, Virginia; only G-d has x-ray vision. As Hashem told Shmuel when he went to pick out one of Yishai’s sons to anoint as king over Israel and, swayed by broad shoulders and primogeniture, got it wrong time after time: “Man sees through/to the eyes; Hashem sees to/through the heart”. Divine seeing is a dynamic non-event; it is a movie unfolding in an instant, presenting in the now the trajectory of an entire life.

And this was her miracle. She extended both extremity and encounter beyond the bounds of the possible, and for that moment, she saw MOSHE, a fish out of water amongst men, at once a baby, and a boy, and a young man, always a young man (at 120, “his eye had not dimmed and his moist life-vigor had not fled”), especially a young man…crying.

She saw a teen-aged boy crying! Perhaps THAT was the miracle. For the emergent man that is the teenager, desperate to take his place amongst men, steels himself through rites of passage to a stoicism which refuses to be moved by emotion, by others… by life. And in modern times, the onset of teenage ennui and cynicism, thanks in large part to the media, has crept earlier and earlier. To the point where first-graders, though they may not learn to read, can read the cultural writing on the wall all too clearly, and act accordingly.

Egypt was an ancient world-weary culture even then, yet here was an infant projecting passion – every bit the YOUNG MAN, with all those strengths and capacities; from the earliest stages, Moshe would always be crying – compassionate, tender, moved by the plight of others. For the next 120 years, those monumental actions, taken at divine behest with all the vigor of the YOUNG MAN, would be powered by the empathy of one who floated on the amniotic Nile, mothered and motherless at the same time. Hardened already outside, soft and accessible inside, and blessed with the ability to be seen as such by those who gazed upon him. Thus would it be when he would descend from Mt. Sinai with the goodly rays of translucent divine light effulgent upon his face, and thus may it be with all of us, when, integrating stricture and compassion, light and vessels, we fulfill the statement in Devarim: They will see that the name of Hashem is called upon you, and they will fear you.

As well they should. They shall retreat… and then we shall speak to them, and bring them close.

One-Horned, One-Eyed and Flying

2009-01-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

We didn’t give it a nickname. I never even referred to it as “she”, as was once the fashion with vehicles of all sorts. Nevertheless, I felt that same strange bond with our 1993 Subaru “Station” (as that sort of is called in Israel, dropping the “wagon”) that develops between people and their possessions over time. It was the only car we’d owned since making Aliyah, bought for us by my parents, one of their many munificent acts on our behalf over the years. Keeping its provenance in mind, I tried to use it for mitzvot whenever possible – given “trempistim” (hitchhikers in Israeli parlance) rides as the default option, lending the car to friends in need, trying not fret and worry when our son our daughter took it somewhere. We were careful to keep it up as directed, and it was dependable in return, perhaps sensing how dependant we had become on it.

Oh, there I go again, anthropomorphizing. Well, you can hardly blame me, as I have moved from denial to mourning. You see, our car was stolen last night. I had brought it to local garage for a repair, and, as I had to go into Jerusalem, and couldn’t wait for the tire to be changed, left it to be picked up in the evening. Thousands have done the same over the last ten years, Elad the garage owner and mechanic told me, as we hunched over his close-circuit computer-based security camera system, watching helplessly as the car backed out two hours after closing and about an hour before I returned from Jerusalem to fetch it. Was it miffed that I had refrained from taking it to Jerusalem, such that it succumbed to the blandishments and practiced hands of the thief?

Probably reduced to parts in the surrounding villages by now, I said to Elad. No, they don’t take apart old Subarus, they just drive them. And the police detective agreed, asking for unique identifying signs, holding out hope against the statistics that the car might be spotted and returned. I want to believe him, but, like I said, I’m already dealing with the likelihood that I’ve seen that last of our old Subaru.

And it’s not easy. It’s not the money. Elad tried to console me – a car like that can’t bring even its Blue Book price, he told me. You don’t know what we’ve done, what we’ve been through with that car, I told him, as he nodded, obviously not the first time he’d hears such word.

A few years ago, not long after I began the Pshat, I wrote about my accident. I won’t reproduce the whole account, but I can’t help but recall – feel, more like – how we skidded together off the road, out of the path of the onrushing semi, into the ditch. How we rolled together, as time came to a standstill, twisting, turning, almost flipping over to crush me, but no, coming to rest on its side, as though to protect its soft, fleshy driver. I assumed it was totaled, but the tow-truck driver encouraged me to look into fixing it. And indeed, the motor was untouched, and while the body work cost a pretty penny, when finished we had a pretty, new Subaru that got back on its wheels and picked up where we had left off. Until last night.

But, with all of that, I feel strangely accepting. How much emotion can I lavish on a contraption of steel and plastic when our boys (collectively and not immediately personally intended – until you see the faces) are in Gaza fighting the most viciously hatred-filled anti-Semites on earth to protect the entire enterprise of Am Yisrael). So it’s perhaps a good deal easier than it might be in better times to say, “it’s just a car”. It’s just an object, and who knows what might have happened had this not happened. A kapparah, it’s all for the best, as the folk expression goes.

But it’s more than a folk expression. It’s the very heart of faith, as we see in this week’s parashah. After Ya’acov dies, the brothers come to Yosef to beg that he not take vengeance upon them in the manner that Esav had intended to do to Ya’acov once THEIR father would be no more. Yosef responds to his brothers with the following words: “Don’t fear – am I then in G-d’s place? You planned against me for evil; Hashem planned if for good…”.

The brothers can’t imagine that Yosef bears no grudge, but Yosef can’t imagine that anything happens outside of Hashem’s purvey. Your planning, Yosef tells his brothers, is really a tiny part, a subroutine, of Hashem’s planning, on a scale incomprehensibly huge, so enormous and intricate that it reaches beyond complexity, beyond multiplicity, to simple oneness.

Ya’acov blessing to Yosef is precisely reflected here, since he has blessed his favorite son that he should be beyond the impact of our bifocal, manifold vision. “Ben porat ali ayin” – Floweringly productive son, above the eye! And Moshe, in his blessing to the tribes of Yosef, says, “his horns are the horns of a Re’em, with those he shall impale the ends (literally, the “zeros”) of the earth.

And what is a Re’em? According to the midrash, the Re’em is a one-horned kosher animal which was offered by Adam in thanks for the return of light after surviving his first night, and the descent of enveloping darkness. Some wish to identify the Re’em with the unicorn, but that animal, being equestrian, wouldn’t’ be kosher – no split hooves. Rather, some researchers posit, the Biblical Re’im is the scimitar-horned oryx, a beautiful white antelope with wickedly long, slim horns. When viewed in profile, the two horns merge, and the animal appears to bear but a single horn. And the name Re’em? Hebrew for “see ‘em”, or perhaps, “see – if”.

We constantly impale reality with the horns of our analytical assessments. Being wishes to flow, and we parcel it out in sensible quanta, consumables for our theories and our consciences. But if G-d is One, it’s all one. We don’t see this “if” on a daily basis, we go rampaging through the china shop of our precious time dancing on this earth with our two horns swinging, back and forth, slicing our experience into bad and good, up and down, agony and ecstasy, and so on.

Yosef lived in captivity, in uncertainty and dependency, in suffering and deprevation for years, all because of his brothers’ envy. Yet every step of the way, he tries to bring his two horns into alignment. You intended it for bad; Hashem intended it for good. It’s not a truism, it’s not a theological proposition – it’s a constant practice of seeing life as aligned with Hashem’s will, and living in accordance with that vision.

There was a wobble somewhere inside, it had to been the wheels, the steering, no? But each time I brought the car to Elad, he drove it and didn’t hear it. Since he took my report seriously, he checked the steering, the axles, everything. He found no problem, told me I could drive with confidence, so I set forth, and tried to ignore the telltale beat-beat I was everyone could hear. I’m going to miss that wobble sound, you know. Perhaps I’ve just been given that long-awaited wheel alignment that only the great Mechanic knows how to diagnose. In the meantime, I start looking for a new car. I’m not looking for much: just a reliable, sturdy workhorse – with one horn.

Getting to Hug

2009-01-02T05:03:00.001-08:00

Shalom, Shalom v’ein Shalom.

“And you shall go up to your father in peace”. With those words Yosef concluded last week’s parashah. Everything looked hopeless. After having sworn their innocence on the life of the purported thief, the brothers were horrified to see the goblet emerge from Binyamin’s sack. They were drags back to Egypt, presumably to witness the execution of their father’s last precious son from his beloved wife, Rachel. Yehuda seeks to avert this worst of all outcomes by pledging the servitude of all the brothers in exchange for commuting the death sentence of Binyamin. The viceroy, however, is not interested in multiplying his servants, but in justice. On the surface, then, everything works out fine – he will spare the life of the goblet thief, allowing him to remain his servant, while all the other brothers are free to go. Yehuda has made his plea, and this is the verdict: so let it be written, so let it be done!!

Of course, peace is the last thing Yehuda and his brothers will find should they return to Ya’acov without Binyamin. Ya’acov will die of a broken heart, most likely on the spot, Yehudah will have effectively written himself out of any future in the here or the hereafter by bring down upon himself his own curse – “should I not restore him to you…I will have sinned against you forever”. It is difficult to see how his life could continue under such circumstances, much less how the Avrahamic enterprise could continue.

Vayigash Yehudah – Yehudah approaches. The root nun-gimel-shin seems most frequently to convey a sense of approaching the unapproachable. Whether Oz or Sauron, great foreboding precedes approaching one whose power seems limitless, whose will is capricious, and who holds the key to any conceivable future. How does one approach such a one?

Rashi says that Yehudah was angry; his approach was bold and threatening. He was cowed neither by the station of viceroy nor by his demeanor; he insisted that the viceroy was in the wrong, was acting by whim, that despite the undeniable facts, this was all some kind of subterfuge.

Ramban says that, driven by desperation and realizing who held all the cards, Yehuda was obsequious; trying to play upon whatever smidgen of sympathy there might be in this cold-hearted Egyptian. He recounts previous events well-know to the viceroy, in a manner that repeated seeks to tug at his sense of compassion.

Perhaps we don’t need to choose between the interpretations. Perhaps Yehudah stepped forward out of the vortex of emotions that must have enveloped him, humbled by his awareness of how his own original actions against a brother had spun things so far out of control, dead-set that he would make things whole this time, angry at the manipulative power-broker who stood in the way, yet all to cognizant of the need to avoid a single word uttered in Egyptian to the guards. He had to swiftly insert the blade of truth and compassion into the opening presented by his bold stepping forward toward the unknown.

“They try to heal the brokenness of my people all to easily, promising “peace, peace”, when there is no peace”. Jeremiah uses these words in two places to decry attempts of powerful and supposedly wise leaders to smooth over problems whose roots are so much deeper than they can admit to themselves, much less to the people.

You go up to your father in peace, says the viceroy.

No, says Yehuda, as he defies the all-powerful all-but-ruler with each step forward. I will be bold and I will be humble, I will be angry and I will be prudent, but I will be real.

That’s how brothers come to re-embrace

A Cover-up of Messianic Proportions

2008-12-19T04:44:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this story of Yosef’s descent after descent until the depths of Egypt’s dungeons to catch up with his brother and the cause of his suffering, Yehudah. Not to be outdone by Yosef, Yehudah also goes down and down. He leaves his brothers and is the first (besides the rejected Esau) of whom it is told that he begins hanging out with the Canaanites – he becomes fast friends with the Adulamite, Chira, marries a daughter of Shua and starts a family. Bat-Shua, as his wife is termed, bears for him three sons in (seemingly) quick succession – Awake, Bereaved and Hers.

Well, those are exactly their names. The Hebrew is ‘Er, Onan and Shelah, respectively. But that’s what they mean. And the first-born, Er, gets a double portion of meaning, for his name spelled backwards, is Ra – Evil. If you think I’m playing a little fast and loose by attributing meaning to that reversal, then take a look at the Torah’s reversal of Yehuda’s fortunes, beginning with 38:7: Right after Yehudah takes for Er a wife, named Tamar, we read: And Er’, Yehuda’s first-born was Evil in Hashem’s eyes, and Hashem killed him.

It just gets worse for Yehudah from their. As ‘Er has died childless, Onan, the next brother, is obligated by levirate tradition to marry Tamar such that their first child will bear ‘Er’s name and paternity. He doesn’t want that, so he engages in coitus interruptus and spills/kills his seed. Hashem kills him, too, for this selfish, almost murderous, and ritually horrific act, and now Yehudah faces the prospect of giving Hers, er, Shelah to Tamar and try the levirate game once again.

Yehuda has no intention of doing this, as he considers Tamar to be one of those classic mankillers. So he sends her back to her father’s house, ostensibly to await Shelah’s achievement of maturity.

But many years pass and Yehudah doesn’t make good. Then he hits bottom: Bat-Shua, his wife, dies. He’s got no one left – two sons gone, the third overprotected to the point of offering no future for his father’s lineage, his wife is dead…

Yehudah seeks consolation and the celebratory ritual sheep shearing time provides the occasion. The Midrash tells us that the shearing always leaves an impression, keying a cascade of unanticipated but profoundly significant events. So he goes up to She Counts – oops, there I go again – Timnah, a place, just a place, but can it be accidental that it’s name is the same word use to indicated the period of time a woman must count before she rejoins her husband after a period of distancing due to impurity?

Tamar gets wind, removes her widow clothes, swathes herself in scarves, sits on the highroad, and Yehudah takes her for a prostitute, “since she covered her face”.

What? I thought this was behavior more characteristic of the most pious women? In fact, the Midrash explains that “she covered her face” while in her father-in-laws house, so he didn’t recognize the brazen faced hussy. But the commentators don’t consider this pshat. Rather, she was-half-covered, half-revealed – covered (most of) her face, but revealed her neck and throat (Ramban), as is the way of prostitutes, in a combination of seduction and shame that works so powerfully on the male libido (“stolen waters are sweetest”).

Oh, but there’s a small matter of the fee. Yehudah left his sheep with the shearers, so he can’t be fleeced, but promises payment; Tamar insists on tokens of indentification: his signet ring, his leader’s belt (see Seforno) – kind of like the way martial arts use different colored belts – and his leader’s staff.

When word gets out that Tamar is pregnant, Yehudah commands she be taken out and burned to death for her adultery (remember, she is bound to the house of Yehudah by levirate practice), but Tamar says, “the owner of these items got me pregnant – care to examine them?”, Yehudah does and rises to the moment: She is more righteous than I; I didn’t give her to Hers/Shelah, my son. And twins are born, one of whom is Peretz, great-great-etc-grandfather of David and, ultimately, the Mashiach.

What I find striking is the positioning of this story between two other stories of sexual encounter. In the previous parashah, Shechem the Canaanite rapes Dinah, Ya’acov’s daughter, and though he tries to make it good by whispering sweet nothings and offering to Ya’acov to name his price for the brideprice, he brings down disaster upon his entire clan and, by Ya’acov’s lights, for that vulnerable, sojourning family as well. In the subsequent parashah, Potiphar’s wife tries every which way to seduce Yosef and, when Yosef resists the temptation (the midrash tells us it was indeed a difficult trial), well, hell hath no fury, and Yosef is consigned to such a hell in the ground, instead of killed outright, only because of the inexplicable charm (read: Hashem’s hidden Presence) he has found in Potiphar’s eyes.

In both stories, the Jew is powerless before the non-Jew, whether man or woman. Shechem, the male, is chesed gone wrong, and Potiphar’s wife is din out of control (midrash – she KNOWS that Yosef’s seed and hers are destined to join and she’s right; but she thinks its through her and not her daughter). In both stories the mode of encounter is violent by definition – one-sided.

In the case of Tamar and Yehudah, there is negotiation and agreement. In fact, some over the ages have demurred on the characterization of prostitution in moral categories, claiming that it should be seen merely as a business deal.

This is far from the truth, but there is one feature of the encounter which makes it completely different from the surrounding stories of sexual encounter: There is a mutuality of investment. Since both Tamar and Yehudah are invested via negotiation and agreement, then when the transgressions come to light, they can be rectified.

And indeed, Tamar, righteous like a palm, does NOT publicly out Yehudah, but rather, is willing to be consigned to the flames if Yehudah doesn’t come forth, so concerned is she not to clamber out of her situation on the corpse of the reputation, in fact, the very person, of the father of her child. Yehudah, for his part, recognizes and announces that this whole matter is his doing – Tamar’s actions are an outgrowth of his own refusal to give her what was hers all along. Yehudah, having before him the option of engaging in a cover-up that would save his hide, chooses, instead, to cover up his transgression permanently by revealing it and, thereby, reclaim his destiny: A signet of authority and responsibility, a loin-girding belt of self mastery, and a staff pointing the way ever upward.

Worshipping Big Brother

2008-12-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

“We came to Esav with your message, and he’s on his way – with four hundred men”! These words must have been enough to send shivers up Ya’akov’s …spine?

So he prepares for the fateful encounter – gifts, prayer and a few rounds with Esav’s angelic sparring partner to toughen himself up in case he has to go mano a mano with his brother. I can understand all of Ya’akov’s anticipatory actions (especially after they have been explicated by our commentators” – except one – why did he bow to him?

And not just bow – humiliate himself, kowtow, grovel!! Why did Ya’acov do this SEVEN TIMES! So much so that, in fact, Bechor Shor interprets Esav’s running toward Ya’akov as intended to prevent him from additional bowing!

This behavior on Ya’akov’s part is not only disturbing from a perspective of Jewish pride, it would also seem to be problematic halachically. It is true that, as opposed to what many people believe, it is permitted to bow to another human being as a sign of respect. That is why the midrash explains that Mordechai’s refusal to bow to Haman was because Haman had a graven image affixed to his garment. Yet Ya’acov’s bowing is something more than mere kavod – it seems fawning, slavering, almost, well worshipful!!

Let’s marshal some more evidence to make the case even stronger: Ya’akov sends lavish gifts to Esav ahead of his approach, intending to gain favor in his “master’s” eyes and ward off harm. He uses the term “achaprah fanav” - I will atone before him. And upon encountering Esav, he implores him to accept the gift even after Esav has indicated by his actions that all is forgiven. He says to his big brother, “Please, no, please, if I have found favor in your eyes, then take my gift (minchah) from my hand, in as much as I have seen your face like seeing the face of divine being, and you have accepted me (tirtzeni).

All the italicized Hebrew terms echo unmistakably the terminology of the sacrificial service. The term used a number of times regarding a successfully offering: “v’nirtzah lo l’chaper alav” – it is accepted for him, to atone for him. The word minchah means not only “gift”, but also a poor man’s sacrificial (grain) offering. It sure sounds like Ya’acov’s approach to Esav was one of worshipful obeisance. Yet how is it possible even to entertain such a thought?

The Zohar is also disturbed by Ya’akov’s action, when taken at face value, and offers another angle. The key verse, Bereshit 33:3, could/should have read, “Vaya’avor Yakov lifneihem…” – Ya’acov passed before them (his wives and children) – and he bowed seven times. Instead, the Torah states, “V’hu over lifneihem” – And He is passing before them.

The Zohar understands from this that Ya’acov saw the Shechinah going before him as he approached Esav. Hashem’s Presence, which He promised would accompany Ya’acov constantly “Ki lo a’azovchah, ad asher asiti et asher dibarti bach” – For I shall not leave you, until I have done what I have spoken of in your regard – that was the promise given to Ya’akov by Hashem in the ladder-revelation. Hashem would not abandon him, would be fully present with him in every circumstance, even here when approaching one whom the Zohar describes as having polluted his soul with every conceivable form of impurity.

G-d dwells with us in our impurity, and what could be more impure at that moment than the poisoned and loaded relations between an older brother who is an explosion of evil waiting to happen, who has been simmering in a perceived spiritual cuckolding for twenty years, and a simple and pure favorite of motherly prophetic vision whose lifepath has taken him on the crooked straighter way?

Five dots on “vayishakehu” – he kissed him. The five harsh dinim are rectified by the seven histachavayot, as Rashbi tells us that, at that moment, the inviolable rule of the universe that all who Esav is hates all of who Ya’akov will become – is turned on its face, that Esav kisses Ya’akov with all his soul – THAT’S THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD’S PRESENCE THAT YA’AKOV WAS WORSHIPPING!!

Ya’akov comes into the meeting limping, and emerges soon thereafter whole – “Vayavo Ya’akov shalem ir Shchem”.

Yet, all is not well. Ya’akov has risked the appearance of idolatrous hanufah – of hypocritical flattery of evil, a crime for which one is expelled from the Land – while celebrate, albeit prematurely, a reconciliation that will only find its fullness at the end of time, but which bespeaks a rectification on the deepest levels. Perhaps this worship is one that cannot yet truly be performed. There is a price to be exacted, as the residue that clings to Ya’akov from the embrace must be shaken off via two thousand years of exilic thrashing. The Midrash Hagadol says that for each of the seven bowings, the Mishkan/Mikdash subsequently was moved/removed. Esav has sped ahead, resumed his ways, and Ya’akov has needed to conduct himself slowly, deliberately.

But there will be yet another reunion, when all people come to Yerushalayim, speaking clearly and straightforwardly with one another, serving Hashem in and with unity.

Then, we’ll really worship big, brother!

Standing in Place of…

2008-12-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

So Ya’akov sets out for Padan Aram, ostensibly to find a wife, but everyone knows (except for Yitzchak) that’s he’s fleeing for his live. The quick, post-blessing departure was arranged by Rivka, who told “her son” (as he is repeatedly termed in last week’s parashah) that Esav was consoling himself for the lost blessing by plotting to kill his brother as soon as Yitzchak, their father, is no longer around. “Get up, go to Padan Aram”, says Rivka. She insists it will be but a brief sojourn by Lavan, her brother. Just until Esav’s anger passes. And so, after receiving yet another blessing from Yitzchak, as well as a charge to find a wife there (Rivkah has dissembled to her husband regarding why she wishes Ya’acov to “visit the family”) is sent out by his father and goes to Padan Aram.

Esav also believes that his marriage to Canaanite women might indeed have upset Father and Mother, perhaps to the point of denying him blessings? Therefore he takes a “Jewish” wife – well, a daughter of Yishmael, his uncle – close enough! End of Parashat Toldot.

And what’s become of Ya’acov? That’s the story of this week’s parashah. We would expect to pick up the action with Ya’acov’s arrival in Padan Aram. It is strange, therefore, that at the outset of the parashah, we are told, “And Ya’acov went out from Be’er Sheva” – again, for Ya’acov has already been sent off by his father. How do you leave a place twice?

Rashi brings two explanations: First, he tells us that since the Torah interrupted the account of the journey with the brief recounting of Esav’s reaction to Ya’acov’s departure on marital grounds, it needs to resume by reminding us of what’s going on. It’s as though Hashem is saying, “where was I? Oh yes, so Ya’acov leaves Be’er Sheva”. Rashi considers this the pshat meaning of the text. On another level, he makes the famous statement that when a tzaddik leaves town, all of that towns luster, glory and splendor depart with him. The place is become a ghost-town.

But we’ve got a bigger problem. It’s not just that we’ve been told already that Ya’acov left Be’er Sheva. We’ve also been told that Ya’acov came to Padan Aram! So why are we told that again? Ibn Ezra explains that the Torah is now relating to what befell Ya’acov during his journey from Be’er Sheva to Padan Aram. The Midrash explains the repetition of departure and arrival in a similar, but more picturesque manner – it seems that, upon speedy arrival in Padan Aram, Ya’acov suddenly realized that he had passed by the place of his father’s Akedah, where the Temple was destined to be build, without stopping to acknowledge the place. So he went back.

And smacked into The Place. The real article. The definite article. The Hebrew uses the definite article marker on a noun which has not been previously introduced. You would have expected the indefinite article – he chanced upon A PLACE. Why “the place”. It must be previously known, it must be “the place”, “this place”, “that place”, as in fact the place is referred to over and over again in a space of a few short verses.

We know the story of that place: he gathers stones, makes a shelter, dreams a dream - Jacob’s ladder, angels clambering up and down, Hashem atop it, revealing himself to Ya’acov and reassuring him, he awakens and is blown away, “How awesome is this place, the House of G-d - I had no idea”.

Time after time, the word “place” repeats itself. How many times? Six.

Wait a second – what happened to the seventh usage? Don’t we always see significant words repeated seven times?

Indeed. In fact, there ARE five more appearances of the word “makom” in our parashah. The next two, by Lavan, are to be discounted – they are deceptive, as is Lavan himself. He gathers the “men of the place” for Ya’acov wedding feast, in order to dupe Ya’acov, and when confronted by his nephew, he justifies by claiming, “it is not done in our place”. The six inintial occurrences, paralleling the six fundamental directions (N,W,E,S,U,D), defined the parameters of Hashem’s revelation; Lavan uses place to conceal. Neither usage can truly be a candidate for the seventh occurrence, the occurrence of completion.

The ninth occurrence is after Yosef’s birth, when Ya’acov says to Lavan, “send me, and I shall return to my place and my birthland”. The usage of the word place in this context would be odd, were it not for the opening passage we have referred to above. However, this is still not a reference to THE PLACE. It’s rather, a reference to a subjective place, not the definite and absolute place when he departed.

We have to wait for the final verses of the parashah to identify our candidate for “seventh place”. We are told that Lavan returns to his place, and Ya’akov went on his way and angels chanced upon him ( a reversal of the opening of the parashah). When Ya’akov saw them, he called THE PLACE “double-camp”.

Why do we need to wait until this point to complete the set of seven place-invocations? Why do we need to consider and discount several other occurances? To answer this, we need to consider what makes a place a place? What, in fact, makes it THE PLACE? In English, the word “place” come from a word meaning “broad”, “flat”. The focus is on what’s not there. In Hebrew, the word “makom” is a noun derived from the root “kum”, meaning, “to rise, to stand up”. The verb doesn’t mean “to stand still” – that meaning in conveyed by a different word “la’amod”. “Lakum”, rather, means, to rise up from a prone or sitting, and in any case, still position. Thus, “kum”, the command form, initiates action. Place, in Hebrew, isn’t stasis, but, rather, “where it’s all happening”.

And that’s why Ya’acov had to go back. Because his mother told him “Kum, lech”. Get up and go – stand on your own two feet, I’ll always be your mother, but if you’re ever going to be able to encounter Esav and prevail, you’ve got to initiate. You’ve got to take a stand to make a stand.

And where did Ya’acov do that? At the end of parashat Vayatze, when he faced down Lavan, he didn’t back down, he told Hashem's truth to idolatrous power, sent it packing, and took his leave to return to his own place, now vested in the full definiteness of Hashem’s presence and revelation in his life: It’s no longer he who goes bumping, unknowingly, into bands of angels and holy places, but rather they who bump into him, the seventh and central point of the cube as the spiritual geometry would have it – stationed now at the base of the ladder and ready to climb ever upward.

That's Enough!

2008-11-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

Who is it who tells Avraham, “Lech Lecha”? I don’t mean that as it might seem – after all, the Torah tells us: “And Hashem said to Avraham, “Go, you…” Rather, what I mean is this name, Shad-dai (one of the seven holy names; thus I don’t write it completely even in English), regarding which Hashem later said to Moshe, “I was revealed to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’acov as E-l Shad-dai, but My name, Hashem, I was not known to them”. What aspect of Hashem’s ever-unfolding-to-us Being was revealed to Avraham through that Name? And: Why is understanding this divine name so important to understanding Avraham’s spiritual consciousness and mission?

To be sure, our parashah is peppered with a variety of divine names. But our commentators tell us that it is precisely as/with the Name, Shad-dai, that Hashem makes a covenant with Avraham. So, let’s examine the critical verse:

Toward the end of our parashah, after all the episodes which take Avraham to Egypt, to Dan in the north in hot pursuit of Lot’s captors, up and down the Land with stops at various locations at which Hashem revealed Himself and Avraham responded by sacrifice and altar-building, all the while awaiting that son who would continue his mission – Hashem reveals Himself once again to Avraham, age 99, and promises him a son through Sarah. He commands Avraham regarding the brit milah, changes his name from Avram to Avraham, and there is at least one exchange of great importance between Avraham and Hashem. But let’s focus on the introductory sentence: Hashem says to Avraham: “I am E-l Shad-day, walk yourself before Me and be unblemished/whole/perfect”.

The truth is, we might have preferred that this encounter had taken place BEFORE the beginning of the parashah. After all, Hashem does not introduce Himself to Avraham before charging him with a mission that totally upends his life, as he does with the other prophets.

Yet, in another sense, this IS an introduction before a mission: What has led up to this point is in a real sense only preparatory: NOW it is that Hashem created Avraham from Avram, remakes his being via brit milah, and redirects his energies toward the yet-to-born Yitzchak. So we need to ask: Who is E-l Shaddai, and what does He ask of Avraham?

The Ramban surveys a selections of explanations, before settling on the one he feels is the truest. He brings Rashi’s quote of the Midrash – that Hashem said to His newly created world, “DAI” – Enough! – and it ceased its relentless expansion – an expansion that might have overwhelmed any possibility for life as we know it. He mentions the Rambam’s explanation in Moreh Nevuchim: That the name implies the unique necessity of Hashem’s Being – only He MUST BE – every other being is contingent and therefore different in kind. But the Ramban settles on the explanation brought by Ibn Ezra in the name or R. Shmuel Hanagid: Shad-dai means the one who overcomes and overturns/plough up the heavenly order – that order which, it was understood, dictated nature and the fate of all sublunar beings.

But wait a second: Hashem Himself CREATED nature, He converted Tohu VaVohu to an orderly, comprehensible, lawlike realm – why would He overturn it? Does He wish to return everything to primordial chaos?

The Ma’or VaShemesh (one of the great Chassidic masters of the third generation of Chassidut) has an amazing insight. In describing the process of creation according to the Kabbalistic sources, he states the following: When it went up in (i.e., occurred to) His simple/undifferentiated Will to create worlds, He contracted His G-dliness from mover/cause (ilah) to moved/caused (alul), and the worlds descended…

In other words, G-d chose to undergo a self-estrangement, to become “passive”, actable upon, so that there would be room for other actors. (Note: this is actually a much greater, more incomprehensible yet divinely chosen “catastrophe”, since SELF itself is an expression of limitation, and Hashem chose to move from selflessness to being seen/addressable as a self!) But, continues the Ma’or VaShemesh, this lead to a process of “concretization”, in which being becomes more and more substantial, to the point where, had that process continued, yet-to-be created human beings would not have been able to overcome the demands of the material world with the limited access to spiritual resources at hand. It was at precisely that point that Hashem said to His world “DAI” – Enough! Plenty! He needed to leave the possibility that nature could be seen as a functional, organizing framework, but no more than that? He needed to leave a sliver of insight that our own independent persons were precisely enough to launch a reversal of direction that takes us beyond and back, back to the One we are always, always yearning for especially when we are least aware of it: the Only One.

Hashem shows the way – He “rebels against” and transforms, as it were, His essence, He moves from active to passive, and allows that estrangement which makes for us, so that we can imitate Him in the opposite direction, going before Him, toward the blemishless perfection of divine consciousness. “I am the G-d Who ploughs up the very field I’ve sown, Who casts fate to the winds of chaos and allows for a man who will smash every idol and stand against an entire world in his quest for the source of that whisper-become-roar inside, that dormant Presence waiting for one who, mastering self, could both brandish the knife AND stay his hand from that precious seed here promised: The one who could transform “lech lecha” – go for YOUR benefit, to “hithalech lefanai” – walk before ME, the one who could say, ENOUGH to his own program – that is the one to whom Hashem chose to reveal Himself. I could go on… but that’s enough!

Wiping the Disk and Saving the Animal

2008-10-31T06:21:00.000-07:00

Why the animals, too? That’s the question I’ve always dreaded from my kids when it comes time for Parashat Noach – meilah, the sinful humans, but why the animals? What did they do? Why did everything need to be obliterated. At the end of Bereshit, Hashem “regrets” he created man, since his urge and thoughts are only evil all day. And therefore – all creation is exterminated?? What’s the connection?

It’s true, we’re told that “all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth”, and the Midrash explains that everything had relations with everything else. But if this is true, why is man singled out for special mention? Did we lead the charge, seducing the ant and the elephant alike?

And besides, isn’t this approach the complete antithesis of what we read not so long ago in Maftir Yonah, where Hashem has pity on Nineveh, where there are oh so many ignorant people AND EVEN LOTS OF ANIMALS!! So if he didn’t punish there, why does he punish here.

And now for something that seems completely different. I’ve begun learning the Ramchal’s Da’at Tevunot. At the beginning of this dialogue between the soul and the mind, the soul list the principles of faith that it understands and those that it does not. A quick comparison shows that theses thirteen principles are precisely those famous thirteen outlines by the Rambam in his commentary on the Misheh (Perek Chelek). With one exception. The fifth principle by the Rambam is “that it is only Hashem to whom it is fitting to render praise”. Yet the Ramchal list as his fifth principle: The creation of the world. Now this is passing strange, as the Rambam explicitly eliminates belief in chidush haolam as one of the fundamental thirteen, claiming in the Guide to the Perplexed that, though belief in creation is true, if (Aristotelian) science would dictate otherwise (he believes it does not), the Torah could be understood not to contradict that position. Other rishonim took him to task for this omission. So how can the Ramchal list as the fifth principle “creation of the world”?

Here’s a clue: In Yigdal, a poetic rendering of the thirteen principles from before the time of the Ramchal, the fifth principle is phrased thus: “Behold He is Master of the World, and every creature shows/teaches His greatness and sovereignty”. Now, this is not what the Rambam said!! And some have suggested emending the word “shows/teaches” to “confesses” (a simple switch of “Resh” to “Dalet”). But the truth is that this formulation fits the Ramchal’s teaching to a T. The Ramchal posits that the purpose of creation is to reveal the oneness of Hashem. This is done by making a multitude of entities who come to see how, in truth, everything is one. There is a danger here –the multiverse might get lost and intoxicated by its own fascinating diversity – but the Oneness revealed thereby – and only thereby - is true Oneness – “Ein Od Milvado”.

Thus: Hashem created the world so that we could recognize Him. The two formulations of the fifth principle – He alone is worthy of praise, and He created the universe from nothing – imply each other and are necessarily connected!! Hashem creates us by utterance so that we can “create” (since He doesn’t “exist” in the terms of “Alma d’peruda”) Him! Freud was more correct that he had the “kelim” to comprehend!

Cut back to Noach. The reflexivity of the universe is intimated over and over, like the symbol of infinity. Shofech dam ha’adam b’adam damo yishafech, says Hashem in Parashat Noach. Why? “Ki b’tzelem E-lohim asah et ha’adam”. Chiasms are embedded in the depth of the creation, every utterance is palindromic (“Madam, I’m Adam”). Hashem can no more maintain a creation that cannot express and reveal His Being than He could create such a reality in the first place. But He created us in His image, with creativity and freedom and the possibility of rebelling against our essence – like He did in the Tzimtzum.

Wwwwwwwwiipe Out!! Start over. Hashem creates worlds and reformats them. But you know, when you reformat a disk, you only erase the addressing information which accesses the files. The files are still there. In fact, even true disk erasure also leaves behind sensitive information, tiny clusters of bits and bytes that can be painstakingly reassemble to make sense.

Viewed from above, the tempestuous seas and fierce storms have overrun everything. Nothing escapes their fury, everything is dashed to pieces. Oh, look, down there, what’s that speck? Probably just the remnants of a ruined building or some other flotsam and jetsam.

But we know – there's a safe space inside, it’s a teivah, it’s a seedpod of hope and possibility that can explode onto a cleansed landscape and offer sweet savor to the L-ord as the first expression of a remade world – a world where His creation and ours call each other to ever higher vistas. “And Noach found favor” - “v’NoaCH matza CHeN” – reflect on that, and save the animal inside.

A Sure Bet

2008-10-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

How to begin? This is a dilemma that many of us face repeatedly in various situations in our lives. But none of us have had to face it in quite the way that Hashem needed to confront the problem of beginning at the outset of the Torah. It’s not just that it had never been done before, but, rather, how do you begin when you have no beginning? Ein Sof, the One Without End, is also Ein Tachlit, The One Without Beginning. So the question becomes not only HOW to begin, but WHAT IS “beginning” for such a One?

Kabbalah has already extensively dealt with the question of transition from the infinite to the finite, and the entire array and interaction of the sefirot and their various constellations are in part a response to this question. But in addition to the ontological question indicated above, there is an epistemological question of perhaps greater moment: How does Hashem begin the Torah such that people get off on the right foot? How does He avoid embedding the seeds of error in the very beginning?

The Midrash explicates this when it raises the concern that some, upon reading the first words of the Torah, Bereshit bara E-lohim…, might come to the conclusion that some entity called Bereshit created G-d! Presumably, this interpretive problem could have been avoided had the Torah began E-lohim bara bereshit...

But this is also not possible: Hashem wanted to begin the Torah with blessing, berachah, hinted at by the letter Bet, of bereshit, and not with curse, hinted at by the alef of …E-lohim!!! What!! How could the name of G-d ever hint at curse!!??

It can, if by beginning with a name, indicating an entity, the reader will conjure up an image. Any image – there lie the roots of misperception of the divine by assuming perception. Better to let Him “slip”in a few words later, even at the price of problematic syntax and grammatical confusion.

Because that’s certainly what the Torah gives us to begin with. Bereshit, as is already well known, does not me “in the beginning”. The word “Reshit” is a semichut form, always relating to the noun that follows it. (The few places where it seems to stand alone are poetic passages, where unusual forms and usages predominate). Bereshit, then, means “in the beginning of..”, and we have to turn our attention to the second word to uncover WHAT it is the beginning OF.

But when we we, we’re in deeper trouble. We need the second word to be a noun – that’s the rule of semichut, two nouns juxtaposed which impact upon one another. The second word, however, is a VERB! Bara means “He created”. If this verb was a gerund, then perhaps it would have been workable, and that is the way Rashi wants to tweak it. But, as others take him to task for this and other issues connect to these first few words: It won’t fly.

In fact, each one of the classical commentators expends much ink in trying to make sense of the beginning of the Torah, each contributing an original and thought-provoking view. I was most taking this time around by the words of R. Ovadiah Seforno. Here’s what he says:

Bereshit: The beginning of time, an indivisible moment.

Bara: He made “it isn’t” (into) “it is” – an act that cannot take place in tiime.

E-lohim: This name always conveys “eternity”.

Being and Time (only pro forma apologies to the Nazi supporter and pre-eminent 20^th century philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose magnum opus of the same name I’ve never read), inseparably related though not identical from our perspective; one and the same from His?

We are those beings who are constantly struggling to make a noun out of a verb, to idolize. He is the One who, despite knowing that we finite ones would ceaselessly attempt to stop the stream, chose to teach us how to stream though the stoppages. The Bet, the second letter - for ultimately, there is no beginning by Him - the letter of blessing, places us “in” time, in a beginning which is always in relation to, so that we can make our own “isness” into an “isn’t” that opens onto the Eternal.

Can we actually do this? Hashem says yes, and we’d be fools to Bet against Him!

You're Shofar Away

2008-09-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too wondrous for you, nor too distant. It is not in the heavens, such that you should say, “who will go up to the heavens and take it for us and inform us of it that we may do it; Nor is it over the sea, that you should say, “who will cross for us to the other side of the sea and inform us of it that we may do it. For this thing is so very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.

Devarim 30: 11-14.

So, it’s that easy, says Moshe, over three thousand years before Nike: Just do it!! The only problem is: what is “it”?

Not such an easy question. Many of us are most likely walking around, carrying out our daily tasks with a mixture of freshness and drudgery, but in background that question keeps asking itself, punctuated a bit differently: what is it?

But although Rosh Hashanah is almost upon us, let’s not get too wistfully philosophical – at least not yet. Let’s address the textual problem. Moshe is using the full range of his rhetorical talents, and coaxing and urging the people to take Hashem’s Torah and its guidance-through-observance into their hearts in the most genuine of ways. So here, he tells them and us: It isn’t inaccessible, it isn’t high and mighty, it isn’t inscrutably distant, it’s right here, inside you. So, again, what is this commandment, this thing which he is commanding us right now?

Rashi says it’s the whole Torah, given to us in writing and orally. Others explain that the verse stresses how mind, speech and action come must come together in translating the Divine Will into reality: In your mouth and in your heart (=mind) to do it.

The Ramban, however, says that if the intention had been the entire Torah or all the mitzvot, it would have said, “All the mitzvah which I am commanding you today”, as it does earlier in Parashat Ekev. Rather, claims the Ramban, there is a specific mitzvah which is introduced here by the Torah – the mitzvah of teshuvah. He goes on to demonstrate how central teshuvah is to all of \parashat Nitzavim. And, though he doesn’t enumerate the instances of the verb root Shin-Vav-Vet (return) in our parashah, I’ll do it for him: Between verses 1 and 10 of chapter 30 there is the largest concentration of teshuvah references in the entire Tanach. The verb is used precisely seven times. (Don’t get confused by the word shvutcha in verse 3: That word means “your exiled population”, and is derived from another verb root: shin-vet-hey). The verses are beautiful, so evocative, that anything I could say by way of interpretation will only take away. We should just savor them, as they tell us of how we can return all the way to Hashem and He will also “do teshuvah” and come back to us.

But we can explore a bit more this intriguing notion: We are commanded to do teshuvah. But what is teshuvah? Rav Kook wrote reams teshuvah, yet felt he had barely touched this inexhaustible mother-lode of restorative being – I certainly won’t attempt a definition here. Rather, a question: isn’t teshuvah ultimately an inner feeling? And, as such, isn’t it fraught with the same problematic as other “emotions” once they enter the normative realm. How can Hashem command us to “love” or “fear”, etc? We usually address those questions by transforming the demand into two components: A normative, halachic component consisting of doable actions, and a more ethereal emotional component, transposed to immeasurable realm of aggadah. Here, the question is compounded, however: what use is it to command a bunch of sinners who have distanced themselves so effectively from the immediacy of the Divine Presence that they can violate all His commandments despite the threatened horrors of the Tochechah in last week’s parashah? Who would heed such commandment?

The answer is: everyone and anyone. Here’s the “proof”. It is forbidden to violate Shabbat and the penalties for doing so are most severe. Yet one can and must violate Shabbat to save a life. How do we know this? A whole series of Chachamim in the Gemara (Yoma 85a) line up to demonstrate that the Torah teaches precisely this law. One of the proof: Rabbi Shim’on ben Menasiah says: “The people of Israel shall keep Shabbat, in order to make Shabbat” (Shemot 31): Violate one Shabbat for him, so that he can keep many Shabbatot”. Another: Shmuel says: The Torah says, “these are the mitzvot which a man shall do them and live by them” and not die by them. In other words, when keeping a mitzvah will prevent a person from living, and put an end to keeping the mitzvot, then it is not then and there a mitzvah!

The question is asked: If we find a person under the rubble of a landslide on Shabbat and he is dying, how can we continue to dig him out on Shabbat, thereby violating Shabbat, when it is clear that he will NOT thereby be in a position to keep subsequent Shabbat, or perhaps any mitzvah. And yet we do save him – why?

One answer given by some of the Rishonim: He can still do teshuvah in his heart!

Note: As critically important as Shabbat is, the mere passing though of teshuvah can suspend it in extremis. More: it is particularly when a person feels himself to be at wit’s (and life’s) end that his thought of teshuvah reaches deep to the core of the conundrum of life and perfection. Such a thought of teshuvah, says Rav Kook, is the very heart of teshuvah, the rest “just details” (which, of course, must be done one must yearn to achieve). And since such a teshuvah touches the essence of being, it is so very compelling – to us and to Hashem – and can make us whole.

So the Ramban is right. Teshuvah is a command – it is the command emerging from the core of our very lives, the upwelling insistence to strive ever again to reconnect to the genuineness of our stance before Hashem.

In the end, we come back. In the end, the unending tale told by our lives to our lives of our lives brings us to link back to the Source. In the end, we begin again. We find ourselves once again, standing (Nitzavim), all of ourselves, before Hashem, so impossibly, so inadequately, yet so inescapably and so very much desired by Hashem. As we try so very hard to deceive and preoccupy ourselves, as we reach to the heavens and across the seas in our distraction, fretting that we can’t-but-must go there, He says: I’m here, and you’re here, and “it’s here – so very close. Just put heart to lips and… teki’ah!!

A Roaring Dawn

2008-09-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

Parashat Ki Tavo is best known for serving as home to the Tochechah, the long, hair-raising curse/prophecy uttered by Moshe toward the close of Devarim. It’s also familiar to us from the Pesach sedcr, since its opening passage, the mitzvah of bringing bikkurim, first fruits, contains the verses expanded upon by the Haggadah, Arami Oved Avi. Sandwiched between those two “big-name” passages is a passage a bit less dwelled-upon: the command to conduct a ceremony of blessing and curse on Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Eval upon entry to the land. It is this ceremony, with its Arur HaIsh (“cursed be the man”) rhythmically intoned by the Kohanim, and the antiphonal choral Amen responses of the tribes, echoing off the two mountains, which grabbed my attention this year.

The people had already been initially instructed regarding a blessing and curse ceremony upon entry into the Land, in Parashat Re’eh. That command was phrased generally; here we have a dramatic description of a ceremony which must have had a huge impact upon the newly arrived and triumphant people. Historically, the fulfillment of this mitzvah seems to be presented toward the end Sefer Yehoshua, AFTER the many years of conquest and division of the land, instead of immediately upon entry. Commentators try to reconcile the two passages, but it’s not this aspect of the ceremony which intrigues me at present. Nor is it the question of the logic behind the seemingly arbitrary choice of which six tribes will stand upon each of the two mountains. Rather, it’s the list of the twelve curses itself that I’m interested in.

Twelve curses. Obviously, paralleling the twelve tribes, yes? Well, perhaps, but some say there are only eleven curses. How so? Let’s examine the list:Here’s the list:
Cursed be the one who…
1. Fashions an idol and worships in secrecy
2. Ridicules his parents
3. Moves back the boundary of his fellow
4. Misleads the blind on the way
5. Perverts justice for the stranger, orphan ot widow
6. Has relations with his father’s wife
7. Has relations with an animal
8. Has relations with his sister
9. Has relations with his mother-in-law
10. Smites his fellow in secret
11. Takes a bribe to bear false testimony in a capital case
12. Does not uphold the words of this teaching (Torah) to do them.

There are a number of questions which this list raises:
a) Why are these particular mitzvot chosen for the ceremony – what do they have in common?
b) Why are only the curses mentioned? Wasn’t this supposed to be a ceremony of blessing and curse?
c) What about that last curse – it seems so general – why is it included in a list of very specific transgression?
In answer to the first question, Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, amongst others, notice that all the transgressions listed are those down in private, in secrecy, with no one the wiser. The only two which are not normally done in such a fashion – worshiping idols and smiting one’s fellow – are here indicated as being done “in secrecy”. Along the same lines, the only prohibited relations mentioned here are those where the man approaching the woman’s domicile would evoke no raised eyebrows amongst onlookers: mother/step-mother, sister and mother-in-law. We have, therefore, a list of transgressions - most severe transgressions at that - which an individual might well get away with should he so inclined.

This also answers the second question regarding the blessings. Though Chazal say that for each Arur there was a parallel Baruch, Ibn Ezra understands that this list of Arurim is actually a preface to the full blessing and curse, which follows immediately (chapter 28). It was that blessing and curse which was intoned by the priests facing now this mountain, now that. Our passage was an necessary preamble to that overarching blessing and curse, as will become clear when we tackle the third question.

What’s with that last Arur? What is it doing here? And how does it fit into the list of transgressions done in secret? Ibn Ezra explains that, after having addressed secret violation of prohibitions, the Torah now addresses the failure to fulfill all the positive commandments. Ramban takes theis farther and explains that this curse is referring to one who does not accept as true and binding all the mitzvot of the Torah. Lo Yakim is to be understood in the sense of kiyymu v’kiblu hayehudim – the Jews accepted upon themselves Mordcchai’s pronouncements (and, according to the Gemara, the entire Torah). And the curse is not on the violation, but the refusal to accept – as indicated by the combination – lo yakim…la’asot otam – who doesn’t accept to do them.

Ramban then brings a dispute in the Midrash:

Arur haIsh asher lo yakim et divrei haTorah Hazot:
Is there, then a Torah that falls??
Rabbi Shim’on ben Yakim says: This is referring to the synagogue official
Rabbi Shim’on ben Chalafa says: This is referring to the executive branch of government.

The first opinion has the Torah cursing the one who fails in his duty to “uphold the Torah” – literally – he does not hold up the Torah for all to see the writing;
The second opinion invokes wrath upon those who have the power to impose allegiance and ferret out violators – and fail to do so.

Both of these opinions fit well with Ramban’s own understanding. The visceral encounter with the physical text of the divinely given Torah – that palpable experience – can do more than abstract catechisms to fire conviction in the heart of the Jew from the outset. And the knowledge that, in the end, those representing society’s enforcement mechanisms will not shirk their responsibilities reinforces the individual’s own conscience in matters known only to him.

But perhaps there is another sense in which the two interpretations meet. To uphold the Torah is to hold up the Torah. The more a Jew feels inside, in those secret places where no one else can go, a revulsion from transgression, akin to a curse, as with the first eleven Arurim, as well as an unshakeable will to fulfill the Will, the more he becomes a living Sefer Torah, the more he walks in the world showing the ktav to all who will see. He becomes the Hazan of whom Rabbi Shim’on ben Yakim spoke. At the same time, such a person will not stand by idly when it is time to act; he will not “let George do it”, he will say, with Hillel, “in a place where there are no men, strive to be that man”. And in our own souls, there are no other “men” but us.

The ceremony of blessing and curse on Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Eval, speaking powerfully to the people as a whole, was preceded, then, by a addressing of each constitutive element of that whole. Each individual was called upon to examine his inner world, find that place where transgression is vile, and conviction is beloved, and to step forward, armed with those indispensable personal resources into his role as part of Am Yisrael.

And when each Jew, searching his soul, heard his thousands of brothers roaring “Amen”, and he along with them, the impact would fuse him and his fellows into a mutually-responsible spiritual unit, illuminating the world like the breaking dawn, whose echoes still resonate in the hills of this land. It is the echo of the inner transmutation of curse to blessing: Baruch Hagever asher yivtach Bashem…

Brownian Emotion

2008-09-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Parashat Ki Tetze is comprised of one of the largest, and perhaps the most diverse collections of mitzvot in the entire Torah. A whole jumble of topics – new mitzvot and those we’ve seen before, ritual and ethical, from the sublime to the SEEMINGLY trite, addressing individual and family, clan and society. What holds them all together? Is there a thread running through all of them?

Rashi tries his hand at finding that thread. He begins with the first mitzvah – the law of the captivating war captive. He understands its provisions as intended to curb the Jewish soldier’s desire for the gorgeous, goyish woman by having him exposed to her in her mourning and degradation – perhaps he will not follow through with making her his wife, and set her free. But if he DOES follow through, Rashi understands that the Torah warns us that he will end up hating her.

Ah, a hated, originally non-Jewish wife, in his household with a beloved, Jewish-from-birth wife – a recipe for domestic fireworks. And so, the second mitzvah is not to give primacy to the sons of the beloved wife in matters of inheritance, if indeed the son of the hated wife is the firstborn, but rather, give him his fair double-share as firstborn.

But even so, such a marriage is doomed to produce a poorly adjusted kid, and this brings us to the third law – the law of the rebellious and wayward son. When he refused to respect, or even heed his parents, eating and drinking away their livelihood, he is put to death before he actualized what the Torah sees is his future – crime, robbery and murder.

So we see – lust for war bride leads to domestic horrors leads to incorrigible youth – the three mitzvot are connected.

But where do we go from here? Do we just continue to weave a narrative all the way through the parashah? We could – and some do – go on one more mitzvah – the law of not allowing the displayed corpse of one who has been executed to pass the night in such a fashion, as it is just too degrading to the human image. This could be the rebellious and wayward son! Alright, and then? “Should you see your brothers’ ox or his ass thrust aside (gone astray), do not ignore them, rather return them to your brother”! Ah, you say, son gone astray, ox gone astry? “The gates of interpretation are never locked”, as we say. But the project becomes more and more unwieldy as we move on, trying to tie one mitzvah after another on to the train. If there is some underlying structure in this parashah, it almost certainly does not consist of a narrative spun by threading one mitzvah after another onto an artificial string.

And yet: we simply refuse to accept that the mitzvot appear in this parashah scattershot from Hashem’s blunderbuss. Over and over, we recognize associations.

Here are a few:

1) Technically speaking, it would be permitted to have techelet (the blue-die woolen strings) on a linen garment, despite the prohibition of sha’atnez (linsey-woolsey), because just after the Torah says not to wear garments woven of both linen and wool, it immediately follows with, “make for yourself twisted threads on the four corners of your garments”. (Note: but don’t go doing this nowadays – it’s become more complex over the years)

2) Lashings are given for a person convicted of transgressing a transgression. The standard interpretation restricts those lashing to one who has violated a prohibition by doing an action (as opposed to, say, leaving your chametz in your house on Pesach, and thereby violating the prohibition of “You shall not have chametz…) specifically prohibited (as opposed to a prohibition of sweeping generality. This is learned out from the fact that immediately after the mitzvah of punishing by lashings, we are told, “Don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing”, which is seen as a classic example of the kind of prohibition violation of which would be punished by lashing.

3) Ashkenazi men don’t wear a tallis until they are married. There is no such explicit indication anywhere in the Torah, so where does it come from? Many point to the fact that the mitzvah immediately following “you shall make for yourselves twisted threads” come the statement, “when a man marries a woman…”

There are many additional examples of juxtaposed mitzvot which impinge upon one another in this parashah. And the phenomenon can be found even on the level of individual words. For example, in the first mitzvah, the captivating captive is called in Hebrew an Eshet y’fat to’ar. This translates literally as “a wife of a beautiful one (feminine) of form”. That’s a pretty round-about way to say “a beautiful woman”. In fact, standard Hebrew would have preferred: Ishah y’fat to’ar – “A woman, beautiful of form”. The fact that the Torah chose to represent her in the way it does is understood that the law permits her to the Jewish soldier (under the very specific conditions laid down) even if she is (or more likely was – see Ibn Ezra who states that this passage should be juxtaposed to the law of laying siege to a city, at the end of the previous parashah) a married woman. The word ishah has been “deformed” by its proximity to another noun, and assumes its combining form eshet.

So many words, so many mitzvot, crowded together in one little parashah – they inevitably rub up against one another, and impact the way each is understood. So many people in one little land, its inevitable that some will want to venture beyond the bounds. “When you go out”, is the name of the parashah – when you go out to war, you’re free of the pressures that proximity brings. The commentators explain that the war spoken of here at the opening of the parashah is of the category known as a “permissible war”, in which captives can be taken. Ooops, sorry, that term is actually, in Hebrew, milchemet hareshut – the war of permissibility. Or, as the commentators explain, a war with your yetzer, that urge set loose when structure crumbles and everything seems permitted.

But the truth is: when we go out to war, we merely bind ourselves anew. We survey the spoil of our deeds, and we inevitably find ourselves eying the contextually irresistible “wife of beauty”, and craving what we believe she holds in store for us, not imagining how she is already an eshet, how she carries with her a whole web of tangling threads by virtue of her merely being “not us”. The word hashak, crave, is derived from the same root as hishuk, linked.

Our work is to be done in the densely packed space of family, neighborhood, city, society, humanity, earth as we know it. Perhaps once upon a time, the vistas seemed vaster and the possibilities infinite, but no more. If we are to find the vast and endless recesses of creation, we'll have to find them right here, in the deformation the individual undergoes when he's about to discover the limits to his self-deification. So let’s not try to escape into imagined solitude, but rather, let us examine who we become when we go bumping along, and let us welcome every loop we are thrown for, as revealing parts unknown of Hashem’s realm.

Judging by its Un-Cover

2008-09-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

Parashat Shoftim is most appropriately named. This week’s parashah concentrates our focus on dimension of living Torah which engages the larger social structures. We are given guidelines for armed conflict, the nature of monarchy in Israel, the workings of our judiciary, etc. The first verses of the parashah immediately launch us into a realm beyond our own cognizance: if we are in doubt, or in conflict regarding a whole range of matters, we much take that doubt and conflict to the judges and act precisely in accordance with their ruling, straying not an iota, neither left nor right. The midrash fixes on those words and insists: even if they tell you that your left is right or your right is left. In manner which echoes some of the most famous political philosophers, the Torah insists we cede to government – in our case, G-d fearing, Torah masters – a significant segment of our own autonomy to decide matters, for the good of the collective.

But wait a second, just who are these judges? Who are these leaders, these elders, how does the Torah depict their self-conception, their own sense of their responsibilities, such that we can develop the trust necessary to cede the power we are called upon to cede? A careful look at the last mitzvah of the parashah, eglah arufah, can shed some light on this question.

The Torah is quite insistent that murder cannot go unatoned-for. When it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone committed a murder, he is put to death and that execution has expiatory power for his soul as well as for the society as a whole. As is stated in Parashat Noach: The spiller of blood of man, by man shall his blood be spilled. The textual symmetry of that singular verse mirrors the balance restored in the world as a result of carrying out its stipulation.

But what happens when blood has been spilled, the divine image has been dimished, but it is unknown who killed him? As tempting as it might be to do a cursory investigation and let the case go cold, the Torah understands that is is not in the believing public interested to cover such things up. When a person is found murdered between towns, and it is unknown who killed him, the elders and judges of the nearest town accompany the Kohanim down to an adjoining virgin valley, take a heifer which has never known a yoke, and break its neck. Then they wash their hands over the carcass and say, “Our hands did not spill this blood and our eyes did not see”. The Kohanim follow this statement with a supplication for atonement for the people.

Rashi brings a midrash which addresses the obvious question: Does anyone really suspect that these elders and judges murdered the poor habeus corpus? No, says the Midrash: rather, they are saying, we did not see him and dismiss him without providing for his wellbeing. The image is of a stranger, lacking everything, come to town, wandering around uncertain of his surroundings, hoping someone will welcome him, give him guidance and perhaps some food and drink, maybe a place to curl up for the night. And these great leaders solemnly aver: we did not see such a one and fail to attend to his needs.

Beautiful. The lesson is when a society ignores such basic, Avrahamic obligations, they are already heading down the greased slippery slope that will end with corpses being uncovered just beyond the edge of town. But there’s something that still nags: The Midrash asks rhetorically, do we really suspect that these elders are, G-d forbid murders? No, it answers, we merely suspect that they are insensitive, self-absorbed shirkers! And it’s that suspicion that they must dismiss by their proclamation. But why should they come forth and perform this ceremony, don’t we have charitable institutions in town which see to issues of welfare, and what about the common householders? Certainly, the elders and judges are the least likely to be in need of having a stain expiated!

An answer can be found in the laws of Pikuach Nefesh on Shabbat. When a person is seriously ill, such that there is reason to be concerned that he might die, Shabbat restrictions are set aside and we perform full-fledged melachot as needed to treat his condition. Not only that, but, as a baraita in the Gemara says, we do not use non-Jews or minors, but rather the leaders and scholars of the community to perform the actions.

What is the reason for this? Why not use non-Jews, and preserve the sanctity of the Shabbat while accomplishing the needed life-saving actions? Two answers are given: 1) perhaps the non-Jews will not be as zealous and quick-moving in their actions. 2) If we use non-Jews and minors, people might think that it’s actually prohibited to violate Shabbat even in situations such as this, and, the next time around, waste precious time looking for a non-Jew.

In the Shulchan Aruch, the Rema rules that IF there happens to be a non-Jew present who will act efficiently and quickly, we may use him and, says the Rema, that is the accepted custom.

The Taz, in his commentary on this paragraph, in his imitable style lays into the Rema. He says that the Rema has ignored the second of the two reasons above. Furthermore, he reminds us that the baraita in the Gemara has a second part: We do not tell women and Samaritans to do it, but, rather, precisely, the leaders and scholars. It would seem that, although women and Samaritans are both commanded regarding Shabbat, and no one would make the mistake that only one not commanded regarding Shabbat may act, nevertheless, since these two categories were, in those days, on the lower end of the social spectrum, people might think that its really difficult to allow a “violation” of Shabbat even to save a light, so, y’know what, let the women and Samaritans do it. To avoid such a conclusion on the part of the masses, we use… judges and elders? But why? Why not just regular, old adult Jewish males? We’d achieve the desired goal, no one would think that it’s difficult to permit the necessary actions on Shabbat.

The Taz tells us that there are two separate goals here: one is to avoid future mistakes. The other is to teach the people how to serve Hashem in quandaries such as these. The second goal can only be achieved by the leaders, the teachers, the judges and elders. The Taz allows that if a person wants to use an efficient non-Jew who just happens to be there, he may, but only if he announces to all that it would have been completely permissible for a Jew to have acted. Why does the Taz only ALLOW for that? Why does it remain for him the best course of action – mitzvah min hamuvchar – for the leaders to engage in Pikuach Nefesh? Not just because the best teaching is by personal example, but because, of course, the elders themselves see how this IS the fulfillment of the mitzvah of Shabbat in this case, and they crave to fulfill Hashem’s will on Shabbat also when that entails lighting a fire, stitching a wound, etc. It was told of a Yom Kippur in Yeshivat Merkaz Harav where someone fainted and the rabbis “fought” at the phone as to who would make the call to Magen David Adom.

And so it is in our parashah. The judges and elders wash their hands of the affair because they feel their hands are perhaps stained with that blood, because this happened on their watch, because they need the atonement as much as the lowliest street urchin in town. It’s judges such as these, whose sense of responsibility is not a burden to be born but and expression of a breadth of soul, of depth of spirit, and of a yearning to serve Hashem in the hardest, darkest places, that the Torah tells us, “don’t depart from their instruction right or left”. May we raise up from amongst us such leaders, nurtured by the spirit of a people who longs for the realization of the verse, “from the midst of your kinsman shall you place upon yourself a king”.

Following the Heard

2008-08-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

The prominence of the Shma passages in Jewish life is so great that, when we come to Parashat Va’etchanan, home of the famous first paragraph of the Shma, it is tempting to focus on those few verses to the exclusion of the rest of the Parashah.

Which is exactly what I am planning to do! You see, as I was review the parashah earlier this week, I was struck by the repeated usages of the verb root Shin-Mem-Ayin. First, I noted that even the combination Shma and Yisrael is used two other times leading up to the epiphanic verse. But beyond that, the root appear no fewer than 23 (!) times in the course of three short chapters, almost 1/10 of all the appearance in the entire Torah – a six-fold increase in concentration. The mantra goes: a sudden increase in frequency of appearance of a given word or verb-root means – this is the key to the whole passage. So, it would seem that understanding what is implied by the word Shma holds the key to the entire parashah.

But what does the word Shma mean? Yes, it means “hear”, but it also means “listen”, “obey”, “understand”, “pay attention”, all accompanied by a host of subtle nuances. So what does “Shma Yisrael” mean here?

I’ll tell you one thing it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean, “read these words, plus another two paragraphs, out loud twice a day”. At least, on the level of pshat it doesn’t. On the level of drash – that is, in orally transmitted interpretations we understand as coeval with the Torah text itself, the words of the Shma themselves yield precisely such a directive. I’d like to investigate a dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi in the Mishnah, as understood in the Gemara, so as to gain a deeper understanding of what Moshe is calling upon Am Yisrael to do when he tells them, “Hear O Israel”.

In Berachot 15b we read in the Mishnah:
One who reads the Shema and doesn't make it heard to his ears, Rabbi Yehuda says: fulfills his obligation
Rabbi Yosi says: He does not fulfill his obligation
If one read and was not exacting [in distinguishing] the letters, Rabbi Yosi says: he fulfills his obligation
Rabbi Yehudah says, he does not fulfill his obligation.

The mishnah can be rephrased:
1) Said it in a manner that he couldn't hear it:
a. Rabbi Yehudah: O.K. post facto
b. Rabbi Yosi: not O.K. post facto
2) Said it in a manner that he didn't distinguish the letters and words from one another:
a. Rabbi Yosi: O.K. post facto
b. Rabbi Yehudah: not O.K. post facto

The gemaras presents a textual/interpretive basis for each of their positions, and the other side explains why he doesn’t find that position convincing. Let’s now analyze their positions:

Rabbi Yosi places the emphasis on the proper and accurate HEARING of the passage. As the gemara explains in his defense when he is challenged regarding whence he learns a different law, the allowance that Shema may be said in any language one understands, if he has already “used up” the word “Shema” : tartei shma minah – "hear" (=learn) TWO things from the word "Shma". Actual hearing, with comprehension, is the critical element of Shema. Lacking that element, one cannot have been said to have fulfilled the mitzvah.

Rabbi Yehudah, on the other hand, places the emphasis on proper and accurate DECLAMING (“reading” in days of yore was always done aloud) of the passage.

Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosi have staked out positions which are polar opposites of one another - whence this distinction?

One might express the dispute in the following terms: The Shema is one of several peak moments in Moshe's final address to Bnei Yisrael. In understanding the fulfillment of its stipulations as depending in part upon reciting THAT SAME PASSAGE, the question can be asked: are we to see ourselves as standing in Moshe's place, intoning and proclaiming Hashem's oneness to the world, or in the place of Bnei Yisrael – experiencing and internalizing a message enunciated from beyond. The former places emphasis upon the PRONOUNCING/DECLAMING; the latter places the emphasis upon the HEARING/ INTERNALIZING.

In a curious verse prefacing Moshe’s RE-DECLAMATION of the Ten Commandments, he says, “Face to face did Hashem speak to you from the mountain from within the fire. I stood between Hashem and you at that time, to tell you the word of Hashem, since you were afraid because of (lit. “from the face of”) the first, and you did not ascend the mountain, saying...”. There are many difficulties with this verse, and the one that strikes me most immediately is: If Hashem spoke to them face to face, what does it mean that Moshe stood between Hashem and the people to tell them the word of Hashem?” My answer: Moshe was saying Shma, just as both Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Yehuda require. He was listening so deeply that the words became imbedding in his soul so that when he said them to a people who could/would/should not hear with such excruciating intimacy, it WAS “panim el panim”.

A careful examination of Va’etchanan will reveal that it a deep sense, the Shma is our daily reinvoking, better, reliving of Mt. Sinai. On the following verse - “These words, which I am commanding you TODAY, shall be on your heart” – Rashi explains that TODAY means that we need to read the Shma with the sense of newness and urgency that we would read the latest bill posted on the billboard in the name of the king. One who reads it like that turns from deep empathetic listener to town crier.

Shma means become a living resonance chamber for Hashem – both on the individual and the communal level. We, as Jews, both individually and collectively, must be the town criers for the global village. We say the Shma precisely inside our souls, allowing it to address each particular of our lives, but its sound must resonate until it is “heard” by the whole world, or else, it’s neither “Keriah” nor “Shma”.

Moshe davenned 515 prayers to Hashem to be allow to enter the Land, but, he tells us, Hashem didn’t listen. The Midrash explains: If he had “defied” G-d and prayed one more prayer, Hashem would have relented.

We are the 516th prayer. Let us articulate our lives precisely and resonantly – so that we can all enter together.

A Bunch of Know-It-A.W.L.s

2008-08-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

These are the words with which Moshe spoke harshly to the Jewish people “in the desert” (complaints about the deprivations of the desert) , “on the plains” (orgiastic idolatrous indulgence with the Moabite women), “facing the Red Sea” (complaint about their seemingly inevitable death at the hands of the onrushing Egyptians as the sea was splitting), between “Paran” (the staging ground of the spies) and “Smeared and White” (complaints about the manna) and “courtyards (the place of the rebellion of Korach) and “Plenty of Gold” (the calf, of course).

You’ve just seen Rashi’s reading of the first verse of Devarim. Taking his cue from the words of Rabbi Shimon in the Midrash – “we’ve gone through the entire Tanach and we haven’t found such place-names”, Rashi explains that what are presented in the form of place-names are actually veiled references to the great transgressions of the people over the last forty years. Moshe is reminding a new generation, poised to enter the Land, of their history and spiritual heritage. In the next thirty or so chapters, he will be rebuking them, and, through selective retelling of experiences most of those gathered did not share, he will be attempting to bring them to see the lurking dangers, hidden by this moment of emotional upheaval – taking leave of their beloved leader AND entering the promised land.

Moshe must choose carefully what parts of the long saga he emphasizes in his retelling, lest he allow their attention to flag at the wrong moments. So it is most important to see that the very first episode he relates is the appointing of judges as recommended by Yitro and confirmed by Hashem. The question of the crisis of leadership, especially in times of transition, has already proven to be critical in B’midbar, and now Moshe shows the roots of the problem to lie way back at Mt. Sinai.

Moshe cannot single-handedly deal with the burden of teaching, interceding for and judging the people (Ibn Ezra’s explanation of the terms, torchachem, masa’achem v’rivchem – Devarim 1:12). He tells them (vs. 13):

Havu lachem anashim hakhamim un'vonim vidu’im k’shivtechem va’asimam b’rasheichem. “Ready for yourselves men, wise, understanding and thoroughly knowledgeable – for your tribes, and I shall place them upon your heads”.

I’ve translated the description of the desired qualities NOT in accordance with Rashi. Rashi explains that the word vidu’im is connected with the word which follows it:

“they are well-known to you; if he would come wrapped in his tallit (i.e., impressively garbed and therefore, “disguised”), I would not be able to identify him nor ascertain his qualities, but you would, because you know him since you’ve raised him from childhood.

The problem with this interpretation, drawn from the Midrash, is that it explicitly contradicts the punctuation indicated by the trope markings. There, the word n’vonim carries a tvir, the melody of which, Rashi explains in a remark in Tetzaveh (Shemot 29:13) – “draws forward”. Picking up upon this, Ramban notes that the final word of the clause, lishivteichem, is not connected with the word vidu’im preceding it, as Rashi explains, but rather refers back to the opening words, as though the verse read, havu lachem l’shivteichem – “prepare for yourselves, for your tribes”.

So what about vidu’im? If it shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that the candidates must be “known to your tribes”, what does vidu’im mean? Ramban wishes to hold fast to the view that this is a passive participle: “known”, but rather than “known TO”, he explains it as “known AS” – known as worthy candidates for the office to which they would be appointed.

But Ramban’s explanation doesn’t solve the problem. Rather, it assumes too much – no where are all the appurtenances of his explanation – “worthy candidates for office” – made explicit. Therefore, Rabbi Ya’akov Mecklenburg, in his magisterial 19th century commentary, HaKetav veHaKabbalah, explains simply that vidu’im simple means “thoroughly knowledgeable”. He brings as a source for this explanation no less than the G’ra, and he also references the Targum Onkelos, who seems to explain similarly. By translating vidu’im as “thoroughly knowledgeable” – understanding it as an adjective, not as a passive participle - he allows the triad of hokhmah, binah and da’at to remain intact. As for the interpretation promoted by Rashi – he allows that that is the drash implied by the choice of the rare word, y’du’im, instead of yod’im.

This approach is so much more satisfactory – so OBVIOUSLY the Pshat – that one wonders why Rashi chose to go with the Midrash instead? Especially when Rashi himself, in a comment on Shemot 29:30, indicates that the trope tvir draws us on and connects to the word following it. When that word carries a tipchah (which it so often does) – a trop which is a higher order pause than a tvir, it means that the tvir becomes effectively conjuntive, and the phrase MUST be read as a whole, with the pause AFTER the word carrying the tipchah. Here, that would mean – wise, understanding and thoroughly knowledgable. Why does Rashi turn a blind eye to all this?

The key, I believe, is in Rashi’s explanation of the meaning of n’vonim and his subsequent comment on verse 15. N’vonim, stemming from the root B-W-N, means “to understand one thing from another” Rashi uses a parable to indicate that navon is someone who actively seeks the connections and implications of things; he doesn’t passively wait until a situation arises to which he reacts, but he sallies forth and seeks to apply his restless, G-d-given capacity to comprehend.

WISDOM/UNDERSTANDING/KNOWLEDGE – that tripartite representation of human mental activity is first presented in the Torah. Betzal’el, the builder of the Mishkan, is endowed with those qualities, and now we learn that judges must be similarly endowed. The translation and associated explanation of hokhmah, binah, and da’at most familiar to people is the one made famous by HABAD Hasidut – various commentators have construed the terms differently, starting with Rashi. But one thing is clear – these endowments function interactively with one another. Take away one, and the others will be hamstrung in their capacities.

On verse 15, Rashi explains why the word nevonim is missing: Moshe couldn’t FIND ANYONE amongst the people with the quality of being able, truly and deeply, to understand the connections between things and trace their implication to the end. So, he had to make due with candidates who still retained the other two endowments, wisdom and knowledge.

Now, our mystical tradition emphasizes that “knowledge” is not the amassing of facts, but rather the intimate familiarity with how things in practice connect up to become a whole. The faculty of knowledge, therefore, CANNOT function in a vacuum, and lacking its natural partner, binah (understanding), it will BIND to whatever it can – in this case, the masses.

Being “known” to the people, being “known” as a judge, are not of themselves bad things. Of course it is most useful, even necessary, for the leaders to have the kind of social standing which allows their words to be accepted as authoritative. But merely “wearing the mantle” of leadership, walking with the bearing of a leader, having deep connections with the people, cannot possibly take the place of a true ability to draw out the implications of developments and planned courses of action and adopt or avoid them accordingly. A leader of the first kind can “sell his wares” to the people, but if his wares turn out to be mere junk, disaster will ensue.

Over and over, we are presented with leaders who, on one hand, cultivate a connection with the people - and the right people - and, on the other hand, have visionary goals which drive them. What they lack so often – a lack for which we all pay the price – is the ability l’havin davar mitoch davar, to actively draw out and follow up implication, making decision on that basis. It’s hard work, neither as fun as disembodied da’at nor as inspiring as hokhmah reaching for the heavens. But without it, populism will decay into demagoguery, and vision into insanity. Moshe said, nevonim lo matzati – I didn’t find men of understanding, and that, I maintain, is the key to all of what follows in his stinging rebuke. Let’s accept the rebuke and start now to actively cultivate the missing link in our human mental/spiritual function, so that we can all be candidates for that most perfect of human vocations, outcome of all of our mental and spiritual faculties working in concert – prophecy!

The Strong and Binding Load

2008-08-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

So here we are, at the end of the journey. We’ve made it through the desert, and now it’s time for a backward glance o’er traveled roads (all rights reserved by Walt Whitman) So begins our parashah, Mas’ei, with a review of the 42 places at which Hashem directed us to pause our journey from Egypt to the Land of Israel. Some evoke brief comments, most are passed over with the formula of “and they traveled from X, and they camped at Y”. And after that cursory review, it’s time to divvy up the land. Chiefs of each tribe are appointed to receive their tribes portion. Then, the needs of the Levites, who are given no portion in the land, they themselves being Hashem’s portion in Israel, are addressed. The Levites are granted towns, each surrounded by a small belt of land for grazing and small farming, scattered throughout the holdings of the tribes. Of these 48 cities, six are to be designated as “cities of refuge”, and the parashah continues by elaborating on the function of these cities:

Should a man accidentally kill another man, he must (not may, but must) flee to one of these cities and there he will be safe from a relative of the dead man desiring to exact vengeance. He must remain there until the death of the serving High Priest, and if he ventures outside the city of refuge and the blood-avenger finds him and kills him, he has written his own fate.

The last passage of the parashah, and the entire chumash, relates the tribes’ concerns that the provision made for the daughters of Tzlofchad to receive their father’s land in the absence of any sons will lead to a violation of the integrity of each tribes portion when they marry into other tribes.

It is striking how, poised upon the edge of the land they’ve moved toward for so long, and about to enter it and leave wandering behind forever, the people are confronted with rootlessness. For the Levites have no actual title to the land – their cities are more on the order of a concession, an urban entity that is not truly of the land. And an attempt is made to tie down the daughters of Tzlofchad so that they don’t go wandering off to other tribes, taking their land with them. And, of course, there is the business of the accidental murderer.

The word used to describe the flight of the accidental murder is not flight, but exile. The term “ir miklat”, usually rendered “city of refuge”, would be more accurately translated “city of absorption” - a place which absorbs and takes in exiles. Because the truth is that accidental murder is still murder, at least in Hebrew. The Talmud clarifies that only certain cases of accidental murder would be subject to this law. Neither in cases of criminal negligence nor is cases of unavoidable consequences is the individual exiled. Only in cases where scrupulous attention to detail could well have avoided the unfortunate turn of events. Atonement is necessary for this sin of omission and it is achieved by exile.

The road has been our blessing and curse since Avraham Avinu. His relationship with Hashem is launched with his exile from his home and everything it carries with it. Rashi there tells us that the road tears down and wears down a person. That, however, is a “tearing down for the purpose of building” as Hashem promises Avraham He will bless him in each of the ways the exile has caused him to be torn and worn.

When we look carefully at the journeys of our people through the desert, they are really more like a series of exiles. Rashi here tells us that Hashem was being considerate of us – in the majority of cases we stayed for an average of two years. But is it considerate to allow people to settle in and feel at home only to command them to pick up and move on?

Yes, if you know that the transformations that can be had thereby are only accessible via the process of exile and resettlement: “And they traveled forth from, and they camped in”.

But what is to become of that tool of growth and transformation once we’ve settled the land? The answer: internal exile. Cities of exile for the one who murders the realization of potential by means of “oops”. Places chock full of Levites in permanent transit learning and teaching Torah – a place to become absorbed in ascent. A place where we can taste going beyond the world of accidents, where intentional living is the very air they breath, where the possibility of responsible action is synonymous with joyful living.

When we don’t settle for settling, we’re always on the road. It’s long and winding, but it leads to His door.

A Woman of Substance and the Man of His Dreams

2008-07-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

So here we go again. The continuity of the narrative is broken even before it gets underway. As we move toward the conclusion of B’midar with this week’s parashah, Mattot, there is some unfinished business to attend to. Vengeance is yet to exacted from Midyan, so that needs to be done. Then there’s the matter of what is to be done with the land of Sichon and Og, extensive tracts of land taken by Israel in battle but, alas, located on the wrong side of the tracks. So, nu, let’s get to work!!

Not so fast. First, Moshe must relate to the heads of the tribes the laws of vows and their annulment, with special reference to one’s daughter or wife.

“Now, Moshe?”, I imagine the heads of the tribes asking as they tap their feet impatiently. “Now we need to learn about vows? Now’s not the time to talk - all the more so to talk about talk - now’s the time to do!”

Yet that is how our parasha begins. Following the initial verse regarding the singular importance of not desecrating any vows or oaths one might take, the subsequent verses explain the powers granted to a father to annul the vow his youthful and impetuous daughter might take to impose on herself some ascetic, if well-meaning regimen – assuming he does so on the day he hears (of) her vow. The same is true of a husband, should the vow impact the relation between the two of them – he may annul the vow upon hearing it. If neither of them act on the first opportunity, they lose this right, and if they subsequently prevent fulfillment of the vow, then guilt for doing so rests upon them.

The text reads very much like a limitation on the power of a father or a husband to impose his will on his daughter or wife: only certain types of vows and oaths, and only on the day of hearing them. Yet the question remains: why is it necessary to allow even that residual power to vest in men?

Let’s let that question rest for the moment, and proceed with the narrative. The next section has Moshe sending off a select group of men drawn equally from each tribe to wreak vengeance upon the Midyanites. They do so, bringing back extensive spoil. But, though they have killed all the males of fighting age, they have spared the women. Moshe is exasperated, noting that it was precisely those women who lured the Israelite men into licentious, idolatrous transgression that brought a divine plague upon the people. Only the minors amongst the females may be spared, all the rest, boys and women, must be killed. This is done and the spoil is divided, with the warriors receiving the largest portion.

The last part of the parasha relates the request of the tribes of Reuven and Gad (and ultimately, part of Menashe) to receive the conquered lands of the Emorites east of the Jordan as their inheritance in the land, seeing as how it is perfect for their needs as herdsmen. Moshe, again, almost loses it, reminding them of the disaster that ensued when the people heeded the spies’ evil report and rejected the land. Gad and Reuven insist that such a thought is the furthest thing from their minds. They will go into the land at the head of the fighting force, after building homes for their women and children, and pens for their flocks, and they will only return to take possession of the their lands only after the land west of the Jordan is parceled out to their brethren. Moshe agrees to this, but not before he makes the two tribes swear a formal oath, in the presence of all the people, with a double condition (if we do…and if we don’t…) that would become the hallmark of the halachic oath.

Though both can take either, we find women taking vows and men taking oaths. What’s the difference between a vow and an oath? The details of the laws of vows and oaths filled an entire tractate each, and there is a great deal of overlap between the two, as the initial verse of our parasha indicates: “Should a man vow a vow to Hashem, or a take an oath to bind a bond on his soul…” But there are some crucial differences, as summarized by the Rambam in Chapter 3 of Hilchot Nedarim:

1) An oath has no effect when there is already a similar oath in place, whereas vows heaped one upon the other are all considered valid;
2) One who hears someone taking an oath and says, “me too” is not bound by that oath, whereas one who does the same with a vow IS bond as though he himself had uttered the words.
3) And oath taken not to perform a mitzvah has no validity, and does not constrain the performance of the mitzvah, whereas a vow taken in a similar vane WILL prevent the performance of the mitzvah!!
4) An oath affects abstracts such as actions, whereas a vow only has power over physical objects.

At the core of these distinctions lies the following critical difference, as expressed by the Rambam: One who takes an oath forbids HIMSELF regarding the object of the oath, whereas the one who vows forbids the object upon himself.

All life, all being, is about process and result. The journey is measured in quanta, but it is called a journey, a wholeness, nonetheless. We humans are the vortex of the meeting between action and object, between verb and noun, between realization and potential, between flux and stasis, between being and becoming. These dichotomies are expressed within each of us, but also in the relationship between male and female. In other species, the sense of female as home, as place, as context is more pronounced. Males in those species are genetic vectors, bearers of seed to be consumed or otherwise dispensed with upon completion of their mission. Now there is nothing mere in the male role, unless one considers abstractions as, well, mere abstractions. It can and has been said that the realm of abstractions, of what is not here and now, is the more real, the more substantial than the realm of the palpable. But while we need not engage in such apologetics of masculine on-upmanship, we also need not deny that in a profound sense, maleness is distressing abstraction that is uncomfortably dependent upon the realness, forgive me, the “earthiness” of woman” to be realized.

But what happens when that dynamic, that need to act, is disturbed by the encroachment of women? What happens when the woman vows a vow that will impact upon him instead of Mr. Impact calling shots? That is absolutely intolerable!! Off with her head!

Ooops. Except that this isn’t the world of animal-like impulses, this the the Torah. So we learn that when woman relates to object, man may not interfere UNLESS it’s a direct shot to the jaw – matters between him and her.

And when women DID usurp entirely the role of initiator, as when the Midyanite women, with nothing to gain and no vested interest, went out of their way to seduce the Israelite men into BOTH adulterous license and idolatry, in ORDER to annul the Israelite male as force, as actor, thus leaving the entire people wide open – there can be NO waving of the implications.

And what happens when our boys dream big dreams, and swear oaths that compel them into the masculine world of land and battles at the vanguard, always at the vanguard, scanning the horizon for what’s coming, coming…

So first Moshe insists, and they confirm: build homes for your women.

Men looking off into the distance and champ at the bid; women tugging them back, vowing that it won’t come at the expense of the home they can only build together. Between the two lies a land and a people to build – let’s go! Slow!

Always Adding

2008-07-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

One of the Torah scrolls in the aron kodesh of any shul is always rolled to Parashat Pinchas. That is because this week’s parashah is the unlikely locus of the passages detailing the holiday sacrificial offerings which we read for Rosh Chodesh and for maftir on the various chaggim. As such, it is convenient, when there is more than one Sefer Torah in a shul, to leave one rolled and ready to go.

But why are these sacrificial offerings brought just now? This is a question we can and have been asking all throughout Chumash B’midbar, as time and again a halachic passage intrudes into the narrative. Here, as we come toward the end of B’midbar, it is a particular curiousity. In Parashat Emor, in the midst of Vayikra, the offerings are detailed for the various holidays – why shouldn’t this passage be either redundant or mentioned there? What do these offerings have to do with the protective covenant which Hashem extends to Pinchas in exchange for his holy zealotry at Shittim?

Naturally, the Midrash and the commentators ask a similar question. The question as phrased in the Midrash stems from the fact that in the preceding passage, Moshe, realizing his death is impending, asks Hashem to appoint an appropriate leader in his stead so that the people will not stray like a leaderless flock, and Hashem assents, instructing Moshe to publicly appoint Yehoshua and transfer (some of) his authority to Yehoshua. The Midrash, as quoted by Rashi picks it up from there:

This can be compared to a princess on her deathbed, commanding her husband regarding the care of the children. He says to her, “Before you command me regarding the care of the children, command the children regarding me, that they shouldn’t rebel against me or treat me with contempt”! Similarly, Hashem said to Moshe, before you command Me regarding My children, command My children regarding Me that they not rebel against me, exchanging My honor for that of some foreign deity” (Sifrei).

The surprising metaphoric associations and expression of the Midrash are a worthy subject of exploration, but for now, we’ll note that the sacrificial passage is seen in the context of Moshe’s departure. It is as though he is saying to the people, “offer these sacrifices to insure that your relationship with Hashem remains loving, respectful, and aware of your mutual past”.

What still remains unanswered is why this particular set of mitzvot has such an affect. Why not save out some other mitzvah, and allow these sacrifices to be mentioned in their place, in Vayikra?

The key, it would seem, lies in the recognition that the sacrifices detailed here are the musaf, or additional sacrifices, for the various holidays. The sacrifices mentioned back in Emor were the standard, “regulation” holiday offerings. These are above and beyond those. Ramban finds in this the reason for the delay of mention: Musaf offerings were not offering in the desert; only upon coming into the Land of Israel was the offering of these additional offerings incumbent upon the people. Now, in Parashat Pinchas, on the border of Eretz Yisrael, with the “hand-off” from Moshe to Yehoshua outlined, it is appropriate to instruct the people about the musaf offerings.

But we’re not home yet. It is true that almost all the sacrifices listed here are musaf offerings, but the very first item on our list is the daily burnt offering, the korban tamid, that never varying offering of two lambs, one at dawn, one at dusk. The korban tamid has already been commanded way back in Shemot in Parashat Tzav; why is it repeated here?

R. Yosef Bechor Shor explains that the tamid is called lechem because just as lechem is the invariable fundamental of all foods, so the tamid is amongst sacrifices. The sun rises and sets daily, and renewed once again is our need to do battle with the pull of an inner “sun-worship” in which we turn away from the intangibly infinitude of Hashem, bedazzled by a shining world that warms, caresses, calls us to its blinding gaze. The constancy of halachic recommitment is a remedy for that bewitching, so that we don’t dash ourselves upon the sharp rocks of an imagined “firmament” in our rush for the redemption of newness. No: one foot in front of the next – upon that basis can we – must we – found our extra, efforts, doing more, offering more, but always – in addition to, not in place of.

If Eretz Yisrael is to be/become a place in which we serve Hashem in ALL our ways, we need to come to terms with the way in which life in it is routine – “just another land”, G-d forbid – and find precisely within the u the platform upon which to launch our added fervor, renewed and deepened each day.

Yehoshua and Pinchas succeed Moshe and Aharon in this week’s parashah, taking upon them new leadership roles in the political and spiritual spheres. Each is invested with a powerful zealous energy; neither will be content with mere acquiescence to a status quo. But we – and they – need to understand that musaf is only truly musaf when it leaps beyond from the platform of tamid.

Tense and Swelling Faces

2008-07-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

"Mah Tovu Ohaleicha Ya'akov, Mishkenoteicha Yisrael". How good are your tents, Ya'akov; your dwellings, Yisrael! These words, some of the first we utter each morning as we enter the Beit Knesset for Shacharit, are the opening words of the third and climactic blessing that Bil'am utters in place of the curse he was summoned from afar to place upon Israel. Though Bil'am was intent on cursing Yisrael one way or another, and sought some subterfuge through which to slip in a curse, Hashem placed His word in Bil'am's mouth like a bit in the mouth of a donkey, and compelled him to follow His original, unchanged instructions of blessing Israel. See Ramban, who explains that Hashem's consent to Bil'am's journey was predicated upon the latter's understanding that he may well end up blessing Israel in Balak's presence! So Bil'am knew he was going to be compelled to bless, and yet he went anyway, and uttered some of the most lofty praise of Yisael ever heard. Yet he still agreed to accompany Balak's messengers, he went through the motions of attemtping to evoke Divine favor for a curse, he suffered the indignities heaped upon him by Balak - why did he do this?

Let's look more carefully at Bil'am's words. After glimpsing only the edges of the people from his earlier vantage points, Bil'am casts his gaze toward the desert and sees the people dwelling by tribes. He takes in the marvelous precision of their array, each tribe encamped by its ancestral houses, each ancestral house by its families, and so on. So many people, moving from place to place, yet each time reconstituting a perfect web of human nexus points, a distributed network in which Hashem dwells as their focus turns to the Tent of Meeting in the center. So exact is the perfection that none of the entrances or apertures of any tend face any those of any other. A hive buzzing with communal activity yet preserving the privacy and the integrity of the individual. The ultimate in Kosher Feng Shui. The spirit of G-d fills Bil'am (Bechor Shor: against his will - he was hoping to utter at least his own curse, if not a divinely inspired one) and he utters his blessing.

"Mah Tovu" - How precise are the tents, the dwellings. Ibn Ezra says that the unusual verb, tovu, is a past-tense verb. Now in Hebrew, what we call past tense is not really past; rather it's a verb mood indicated completed action, called the Perect Mood. It usually is employed in conveying action in the past, but not always; sometimese it's used to show indicate a perfect state in the present. And that's thte sense in which Bil'am speaks: How completely good, clear, aligned are your lives, oh Jewish people - your private and public lives (for "tents" are interpreted by the Midrash as Batei Midrash; "dwellingplaces" as temples, sanctuaries and houses of worship).

Rabbi Ya'acov Yosef of Polnoye, author of the first book of Chassidus ever to be published - Toldot Ya'acov Yosef - and known in Chassidus as the Toldos, says that Bil'am shows himself here to be a false prophet:

"What is the difference between true and false prophets? True prophets appears generally as those who admonish, they reveal the blemishs and the faults and seek to break the unrefined character traits. False prophets, however, laud the people with their sweet lips, they see no shortcomings, everything is fine and perfect, nothing in need of repair. But it is actually the true prophets who reprove who truly love the people. For it was not because of his great love of Israel that Bil'am sang such songs of praise for Israel. The opposite is the case - he intended to persuade the people that they don't have to do anything, that there is no need to yearn to ascend to higher levels and states of being, they are all complete perfect as they are, blessed with all the good character traits and spiritual achievements. This is the difference between true and false prophets."

He did it! Bil'am managed despite everying to curse Israel. He managed to lure Israel into a sate of smug self-satisfaction and puffery. And soon thereafter, we were downing the toxic cocktail of the Big Three - Idolatry, Sexual Violation and Murder. Every prophet but Moshe imparts his style to the language he uses to convey the Diviine message, and Bil'im twists Hashem words by phrasing his blessing in the Perfect Mood. Moshe, however, toward the end of Devarim, states, "See I have placed before you Goodness and Life (on one hand, and on the other) and Evil and Death - choose! (life...) There's always a choice to ascend higher and by running up the down escalator, reverse its direction for the entire world, or to stay put on one's present level and end up below the basement.

Bil'am may have slipped in his curse-in-sheep's clothing, but we've had the last laugh. We invoke his words as we enter the Beit Knesset, asking Hashem as we come together in prayer, to take our own everyday human language, inadequate to express the truth of His transcendence ("If all the heavens were parchments, and all the trees quills, and all the oceans ink...") and convert them, via our ceaseless yearning, into a crown for His Glory. Then it is that Bil'am's blessing-curse is truly redeemed, as we are afforded a glimpse of how far we have yet to go, and we set forth anew each day on that path.

Shabbat Shalom,

Yehoshua Kahan

The Human Magnet

2008-07-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is the week where forty years passes in the blink of an eye. One minute we’ve been speaking of the rebellion of Korach – a rebellion which takes place not long after the investiture of the Levi’im, at Mt. Sinai – and the next think we know, Miriam has passed away in the fortieth year of wandering. One generation is replacing its predecessor, and no one will be spared – including the other siblings, Aharon and Miriam. The demise of both is announced in this week’s parashah, Parah, in the wake of the incident at Mei Merivah. A sin at once so heinous that it brings on the death of the holiest of Am Yisrael, and on the other hand, is considered a sin of significance only for someone on the level of Moshe – but what is it?

The Torah is silent. It is true that in several places the sin is referred to, but in each case, it is referred to in general terms: You did not sanctify Me before the people, you violated My instructions, etc. What, precisely, is it that they did? It is rather strange that by not specifying Moshe’s sin, the Torah prepares the ground for the commentators’ speculations. One later commentator lists FIFTEEN different suggestions amongst the words of his predecessors as to what might have been the downfall of Moshe. Another takes the one prominent verse Moshe utters before the people gathered at the rock, - “Listen now, you rebels, shall we bring forth water from this rock?” – and explains how each word is the source of yet another commentator’s take on “the sin”.

I was taught a long time ago that when there are a lot of competing explanations for a phenomenon, usually NONE of them are correct. Nevertheless, I’d like to share a fascinating approach to Moshe’s mistake brought by the Shem MiShmuel. However, I’d like to take it in a different direction.

The Shem MiShemuel quotes his father, the Sochechover, who says that Moshe thought that the rock was a tashmish mitzvah and not a tashmish kedushah. Therefore, he though it necessary to HIT the rock to bring forth the miracle, instead of speaking to it.

A tashmish kedushah has been imbued with permanent holiness. Examples would be: stones of the mitzbeach in the Temple; a sefer torah. A tashmish mitzvah, on the other hand, has the holiness derivative of its use in performing a mitzvah. When the mitzvah usage is over, so is the kedushah. This is why when tefillin are worn out, them must be buried, while tzitzit can be thrown out after they are no longer useful (although the custom is not to through out tashmishei mitzvah, but to find a way to recycle them – etrog is made into havdalah scent source; left-over Hanukkah oil is used to burn Chametz, etc.)

This reminds me of ferromagnetism versus electromagnetism. The former is the product of nature – natural magnets have been magnetized in the earth’s core, and will remain magnets forever. But any piece of iron, when wrapped in a wire and a voltage applied, will become a powerful magnet as long as the current is flowing; when the current ceases, so does the magnetism.

Natural holiness is problematic, because it seems to exist on its own, it seems to be produced ex nihilo. Natural holiness is totemic. Kedusah, on the other hand, is all derived from Hashem. Even a tashmish kedusah is holy because it invokes a presencing of Hashem. Regarding tashmishei mitzvah, we say, “who has sanctified us with His mitzvot”. Jewish holiness is electromagnetic in the main – when the will of Hashem is flowing in our lives, we partake of kedushah; it was davka Korach who insisted that the people had permanent access to kedushah.

But Moshe – Moshe is different. Moshe is close to being erromagnetic. The Rambam compares Moshe’s prophecy to a series of lightening flashes which constantly re-illuminate the landscape, showing the way; whereas others, even Avraham’s are at best occasional flashes. The flash is gone, and darkness seeps back in as the charge drains from our retinas. Moshe, however, is a true seer.

And the people KNOW this. They know that Moshe is on a different level. It’s true, they THINK that he has constant access instead of the flickering flashes that the non-initiate confuses with steady state. And SINCE THEY think that Moshe has that permanent charge, his stand before the people has the potential to confirm his almost godlike status in their eyes, if done the slightest bit wrong.

It’s late, they’re almost there, and while his strength has not abated, his patience may have slipped after forty years of non-stop “not quite GETTING it” on the part of the people. So he lashes out, showing he’s human.

And humans must die. The current stops flowing, and the magnet falls inert. And Hashem insures that the holiest imaginable human being will sanctify His Name through his demise, rectifying the sin of not realizing, due to his holy humility, just how holy he came across. When you come across too holy, you cannot come across.

An Ark Key

2008-06-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

This week's parashah is about, pardon the expression, the anti-Moshe. Korach and his gang of fellow travelers and sycophants is set against Moshe as embodying precisely the opposite qualities as those which made Moshe fit for leadership. Both were wise, strong and wealthy, we are told, but while Moshe was the humblest of all men, Korach was full of himself. But before we jump to a satisfying dismissal of Korach, let's first allow him to speak and examine his claims – perhaps we'll be able to understand more deeply whence his self-immolating, doomed-from-the-start uprising.

"All the assembly, all of them, are holy, and the Eternal is in their midst!", Korach intones. Truer words were never spoken. After all, didn't Hashem say, "They shall make Me a sanctuary that I might dwell amongst them" (Shemot 25:8)? And didn't Hashem exclaim, "You shall be holy, for holy am I, Hashem, Who sanctifies you"? So what was so wrong with what Korach and his gang said?

Some want to locate Korach's mistake in the static, frozen image of holiness which Korach presents. Our promise of holiness is first enunciated by Hashem in Shemot 19, where He says: "And now, if you hearken to My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a treasure from amongst all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall become for me a kingdom of priests and a holy people". Notice that our holiness is conditional, following upon our godly actions. A presumption of holiness in place of the dynamic feedback-loop of actions-beget-holiness can lead to horrific conclusions.

But we haven't yet finished Korach's charges: "So why do you lift yourselves up over the congregation of Hashem"? Korach concludes. Ah, there it is – Moshe is charged with usurping power which has been invested in the entire people. Never mind that Hashem has repeatedly sought to invest Moshe with precisely this stature: at the sea: "And they believed in Hashem and Moshe His servant" and at the giving of the Torah: "And also in you shall they believe forever". In fact, the people themselves asked Moshe to serve as their go-between "Speak you with us, and we will heed, and let not Hashem speak with us, lest we die".

But Korach does NOT address the issue of prophecy – though he speaks in the plural, he seems to reserve his ire for Aharon. This is indicated by Moshe's responses, which defend Aharon and turn the questions back to Korach – the elevated status of levitical service s isn't enough for you that you seek also the high priesthood?

But how did Moshe know that Korach was really seeking the priesthood? He laid no such claim, and his words merely accused Moshe of arrogating to his small clan a prerogative which should have belonged to (the first born of) all the people: coming before Hashem in sacrificial proximity.

How ironic it is to discover, as the Midrash Tanchuma tells us, that Korach himself was one of those entrusted to carry the Holy Ark. The same man who assembles everyone who conceivably might feel passed over by the rise of the tribe of Levi and the selection of Aharon and his sons as priests was the ultimate insider – he merited bearing the holiest item in the universe. And this was actually a cushy job: Far from having to lug a massive amount of solid stone and gold, those who bore the Ark were actually borne aloft by it: Ha'aron noseh et nos'av.

What is it that by all logic should be so heavy as to be immovable, yet bears itself aloft along with a ton of fleshy human be-ing clinging to its golden staves? What's inside the ark must be a unique substance the like of which is to be found nowhere else? If only one could open the ark and see!! But Moshe has packed away the tablets, given by a kiss of the divine mouth [("Yishakeni min'shikot pihu" (let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth) – one of the opening verses of Shir Hashirim understood as the giving of the Torah; "Peh el peh adaber bo" (I shall speak to him mouth to mouth) – Hashem's clarification of what prophecy is to Miriam and Aharon at the end of B'ha'alotecha)]. So there would be no glancing inside, not with those Kohanim diligently covering over everything with beautiful, opaque ornamental coverings. Korach would never get to see the Ark, let alone what it was that spoke thrillingly to him through his very bones as its antigravity gently massaged away the desert, the miles, the aching limbs.

Korach, so close yet so far, desperately sought the access that had been granted to Aharon – to enter inside the inside, to offer, to kiss with his own kisses. His anarchistic rhetoric is a cover for one who cannot bear NOT to be ever lifted above the masses by and to the Only One. The Akedat Yitzchak (R. Yitzchak Arama), considers Korach's populist remarks as stated in a sarcastic tone. It was Moshe who had asserted the spiritual equality of the people – he, Korach, knew better, but he also knew that there was nothing like the populist, egalitarian, anarchistic claim to break up the monopoly of one elite and replace it with another. The people are always the pawns.

In an odd way, Korach got what he was seeking – he was devoured by fiery kisses as he held his firepan, and he was swallowed by the kiss of an earth opening its mouth to consume one so eager to draw close that he pushes aside those whose equality he championed.

All was not lost for Korach – his sons sired descendants who penned psalms and sang them in the Beit Hamikdash, and his firepans are pronounced as holy, and hammered into bronze cladding for the altar. But he was wrong about Aharon – he enters the Holy of Holies once a year and sees nothing, his vision obscured by a cloud of incense designed to do just that. For the key to the ark lies in not seeking to open it. And the truest leader, the one who rises to the top of his own accord, is one who - like Aharon - sees the potential holiness in all, and dedicates his all to its actualization.

You Care Wrist

2008-06-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

בס"ד

So the people are on the brink of absolute despair. After having fallen prey to the trust-dissolving fear sown in their hearts by the spies and their evil reports of a land which devours its inhabitants, after hearing the unimaginably crushing words of Hashem’s measure for measure punishment of wandering and death for forty years, “A year for a day, a year for a day”, after seeking to regain Hashem’s favor by impulsively initiating a sortie to conquer the land, despite Moshe’s warning – “Hashem is not in your midst” and being summarily routed . . . what could possibly comfort and console them? What could possibly motivate them to pack up camp, hit the trail, and resume a journey to a promised land never to be seen, entry having deferred for a whole generation.

I know! Bread and wine, that always does the trick!

What? Are you crazy? A whole people is in existential crisis of the most profound and threatening nature, and you’re talking food?

But that’s precisely what Hashem does. Immediately following the debacle of the ma’apilim (those who seek to storm the land against Hashem’s instructions), Hashem gives the mitzvah of bringing wine libations along with the sacrificial offerings previous commanded in Vayikra as well as the mitzvah of taking hallah from the dough and giving it to the Kohen, precisely as is done at an earlier stage of the field-to-kitchen process with terumah. Why now? Why here?

The Ramban explains, in his introduction to B’midbar, that the mitzvot which are scattered throughout the narratives of B’midbar are all those which were temporary in nature, directly connect to the transit through the desert; the only mitzvot which apply for all generations which appear in B’midbar are those which were begun in Vayikra but left unfinished – here, they are finished.

But this begs the question – WHY were these mitzvot left unfinished in Vayikra? Why isn’t hallah taught together with terumah? Why isn’t the law of wine libations not brought when the original commandments are given regarding the sacrifices?

The Ramban suggests that, as these two mitzvot are introduced with the formula, “when you come to the land…”, “in your coming into the land”, they have the effect of consoling the people. By giving these mitzvot immediately after punishing the people for their treachery against the land, Hashem effectively reaffirms His absolute commitment to His promise to bring the people to the land so that they may serve Him and establish there the visionary society in whose midst Hashem may dwell.

But how does giving more mitzvot console? Is there perhaps something more than consolation at work here? And why these two – mitzvot relating to bread and wine?

With apologies to anyone passionately devoted to raw food – processed food is one of the greatest gifts Hashem has given human beings. Cooking, cutting, chopping grinding, squeezing, mixing, marinating – the list is as long as the Joy of Cooking – all of these actions are human “interference” with the “natural” process of picking and chewing that, say, apes engage in. Human food processing can release the many nutrients and benefits, flavors and other potentials hidden within the plenty Hashem provides, or it can destroy them – it all depends upon how it’s done.

When you pick grapes, if you squeeze them and collect the juice and store it away in certain types of containers in just the right conditions for the right amount of time, the result is a delicious, powerfully affecting beverage that has shaped human society for good and bad; if you do it wrong, you get vinegar!

When you grind wheat, mix it with water and knead it and knead it - it's all in the wrist - then let it sit in an environment that just happens to contain yeast spores, you get a marvelously flavorful and full textured loaf; if something isn’t right, the result is a nutritious, unchewable rock!

Hashem has places within the wheat and the grape a potential unlocked by a process called fermentation. When mastered, it takes those “raw materials” to a whole different level, adding enjoyment, impact and “shelf-live”, but if allowed to proceed without our intervention, that same process takes the food to its destruction.

No wonder we say special blessings on bread and wine, we have special mitzvot which relate to bread and wine. Bread amongst foodstuffs and wine amongst beverages are the testimony to the covenant of partnership between Hashem and human beings. He places the potential within creation, we are bidden to bring it forth. And it’s not a option – we MUST act, we are created to do, to make, to transform, to bring Hashem’s world toward perfection using that drop of godly infinity which is the essence of our beings, our souls.

We CAN refuse to partner with Hashem, as did the people who refused to go up to the land upon hearing the report of the spies, despite Hashem’s effusive praise of the land, or when they acted on our own after the punishment was announced. But if we do so, we are rejecting the extended hand of the Infinite One Who wanted to walk with us in Eden and promised to walk with us in that Eden Regained, the Land of Israel. The way we partner with Hashem, bringing all the potential into actuality, is through mitzvah. The Hasidic books never tire of reminded us that mitzvah is intimately connected to the Aramaic word, tzavta, companionship, linkage. When Hashem directs us to bring wine libations in the land, and separated parts of our dough for the Kohen, He is telling us – take the dough of your own flesh, the wine of your own blood, and work them, knead them, let them sit and bubble, FERMENT YOUR BEING just right, convert your will to deeds of love and justice, and discover how we walk together in the Land in the Eden of every passing moment.

And the people were reproved; and the people were consoled; and the people packed their things and set forth, setting their sights on a generation hence, one a mission from G-d once again, spying out an Eden in the distance and moving toward it one footstep at a time; one mitzvah at a time.

The Runaway Banim

2008-06-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Where does one start? This week’s parashah, Beha’alotecha, is packed with more narrative episodes demanding our careful attention than any parashah since perhaps way back deep in Bereshit. Independent stories, each, or at least seemingly, at first blush. It opens with yet another account of the lighting of the menorah, and continues with the dedication and investiture of the Levites, the event occasioning the law of Pesach Sheni, the description of the CPS (Cloud Positioning System) of guidance through the desert, the commandment to craft two silver trumpets to disperse the encampment or assemble the people (see last years pshat on the inner meaning of the trumpets), an account of first setting forth from Mt. Sinai as the people stretched out into marching order, the appeal to Chovav (Moshe’s father-in-law? Brother-in-law? Dispute between Ibn Ezra and Ramban) to guide them through the desert (what, divine clouds aren’t good enough?) ….

STOP! All of a sudden, the stories are interrupted by curious figures in the Torah text, setting off two verses:

ויהי בנסוע הארון ויאמר משה קומה ה' ויפוצו אויביך וינוסו משנאיך מפניך

ובנוחה יאמר שובה ה' רבבות אלפי ישראל

And it was, as the ark traveled forth, that Moshe said, “Rise up, Hashem, and your enemies will scatter, and your adversaries will scatter from before You”; and when it came to rest, he said, “Return, Hashem, myriads of thousands of Israel”.

Then the narrative resumes. The people are murmuring bad things, Hashem lashes out and burns at the edges of the camp (social edges – low or high? An interpretive dispute in the midrash); The people (starting with the fellow travelers who latched on in Egypt) loathing the manna which lacks all substance, demand meat and Hashem gives it to them, alright – for a month until it’s coming out of their noses (literally, that’s what it says!), then zaps the craven cravers at a place subsequently called “Graves of Desire”. At the same time, Moshe complains that he can no longer lead the uncontrollable mob and how can Hashem possible meet their seemingly endless complaints and needs, whereupon Hashem reprimands Moshe, but has him set up a tribunal of elders who will be installed via and experience of prophecy. Two of those chosen, Eldad and Meidad, remain behind yet prophecy. This is interpreted by Yehoshua as a challenge to Moshe’s leadership, whereas he expresses the wish, if only the all the people resembled these two!. To round out the chorus of complaints, Miriam and Aharon complain about the seeming arrogation of prophetic privilege by Moshe. Hashem sets them right with a little bout of leprosy, and the people wait for Miriam to be restored before setting off on their way.

Whew! What a parashah. A lot to keep together. But amidst the non-stop flood of details, you surely noticed how the mood soured immediately after the two verses triumphantly proclaiming Hashem’s travel plans. Up until that point, everything seems to be going well. As soon as we intone, “”Vayi Bin’soa”, everything comes unraveled. What went wrong? Perhaps it’s the fault of those intrusive two verses?

Pum Ferkert, as we say in Yiddish (“just the opposite”). Let’s take a closer look. Indeed, up until that point, everything IS going well. In fact, Rav Ovadia Seforno comments that the connection of the apparently disconnected episodes in the first part of the parashah is to link together a whole bunch of events in which Yisrael gains merit and is described meritoriously – sort of a making deposits in a merit bank for a rainy day (which comes all too soon and suddenly). We install the Levites to replace the firstborn and insure proper awe of the Mishkan, we argue for a second chance to bring the Pesach offering, we merit the gift of divine response to our call, throughout generation at times of need, on the silver trumpets, we follow the clouds no matter how much their inconstancy confounds us (see Ramban on that passage), we march neatly in formation around the aron, and we implore a close associate to join us and share the goodness.

Look carefully at those few verses Moshe speaks to Chovav: “We are traveling to the place which Hashem said, “I give it to you”; go with us and we will be good to you, for Hashem has spoken good (really “well” in good English, but it loose the Hebrew associations!) regarding Israel” and again “If you go with us, then that good which Hashem will do good with us, we will do good to you”.

Notice the five-time repeated term? Good! So good is everything from the beginning of B’midbar, that the word “bad” does not appear even once in the first ten chapters of B’midbar. Not until we file for chapter 11:

“And the people were like mourning complainers, bad in the ears of Hashem; and Hashem heard and He grew angry and fire burned amongst them, devouring at the edge of camp”. The people cried out to Moshe, he prayed, and the fire died down.

Yet immediately afterward: “The rabble amongst them craved a craving, and the masses of the people started crying again…” MORE MEAT. We know what happens as a result of this, as described above.

Hey, that’s two strikes. Three strikes, you’re out! Three consecutive events creates a hazakah according to Halachah, a legal presumption of the way things are, and a basis to adjudicate cases even in the absence of evidence. Israel, had it sinned three times in a row immediately upon setting off toward the good land . . . WOULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THERE!!

Good thing we got our act together and didn’t do that, isn’t it?

But we DID sin three times in a row! Two verses before the “Vayhi bin’soa”, we read, “And it was, as they traveled away from the Mountain of Hashem”. The midrash reads, “fast” maher in place of mehar, “from the mountain”, and interprets: it’s like children running from schools at the end of a session. The people fled from Mt. Sinai, called here Mountain of Hashem, relieved to be away from the unbearable demands, the agony and the ecstasy of the Presence. Not that they violated anything tangible, mind you. No, but they ran away from Hashem. That’s a sin. That precede the two which kick off chapter 11. That’s three strikes, right?

Wrong. Because interposed between this first transgression and the fires of Tav’erah and the graves of flesh which follow stand our two verses: Vayehi bin’soa…. That’s what the Talmud says. These verse don’t belong here, actually. They belong fifty parashiyot - textual sections - (not parashot in the sense the weekly parashah, but much shorted divisions in the physical Torah scroll) earlier, in chapter two of B’midbar, in the midst of the description of the array of the people when marching. It was placed here to divide between the transgressions, to make each one stand on its own, incidental, accidental, not indicative of a deeper tendancy, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THEY MIGHT REPEAT! The real character of the people is deep, deep goodness, as Moshe rehearsed to Chovav over and over, as Seforno explained was the meaning of all the disparate incidents grouped together. Scattered goodness IS indicative of a deeper, essential goodness, but not evil. For, THIS IS THE WORLD CREATED BY HASHEM, and He looks at His creation, ever so deep into the heart of His ultimate creation and behold it is SO GOOD!

So He moves His very Torah, interceding so that evil will be dispersed, badness scattered before the ever entering Presence. You can run from me, Am Yisrael, but I’ll always come after you, seeking your goodness.

It’s said in the Talmud that the 85 letters of these two verses constitute a separate book, a complete book which divides B’midbar into three books. We can call them the Book of Good (first ten chapters) and the Book of Bad (all the rest of B’midbar), but what shall we call the two-verse encapsulation of the dynamic of all existence – the dynamic entry of Hashem into our dimensionality, and His settling in amongst us. The Kli Yakar understands this dynamic to be a call to engage in the first mitzvah, to reproduce the Divine Image as we become the multitudes and myriads of hosts accompanying Hashem. This powerfully profound understanding points clearly to the what must become the name of our two-verse tour de force volume: The Book of Life!

Talking to Himself Again

2008-06-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

Parashat Naso is the longest parashah of the Torah – 176 pesukim - curiously, the same number of verses as in the longest of the mizmorei tehillim – Psalm 119. AND the same as the number of pages in the longest masechet of the Gemara – Bava Batra. Usually Naso is read after Shavuot, and it's always either immediately before or after the chag. Thus the length has been explained as connected to the freshness of Matan Torah – we just can't get enough of that sweet stuff!

But a look at the content of Naso, especially the latter portion, might call that into question. It's true, technically, that Naso is the longest, but it achieves its length by an apparently unnecessary repetition of the details of the sacrifices brought the the Nesi'im – the princes of each tribe. Twelve times we read exactly the same details – "His sacrifice: one silver bowl, one hundred and twenty [shekel] its weight…" etc., etc. While there are other passages which feature repetition, in almost every case there is some feature of the text which is varied each time the passage is presented, bidding us to look more deeply into what is being hinted at by the variation. But here – the precision is almost monotonous. Other than the names of the princes and the tribes they represent, there is no variation, no detail that changes along the way. Why would the Torah spend so many verses saying something that it could say is one simple statement: "Each prince brought…"?

Ramban addresses the question by noting that it would be impossible, in receiving the donations and offering the animals as sacrifices, NOT to give precedence to one tribe over the other, since sequence and order is an inescapable feature of our finite world. In order to alleviate any feelings of disrespect or inadequacy, each nasi was given his turn in the sun.

But there's still a problem. If I know that I'm the sixth one in line to do the same exact – to make the same exact gift, to say the same exact thing, then I will feel that, while it is new for me, the one receiving the gift and my words is growing weary and bored. I will experience the tension between what I, as newbie, feel, and what I assume the recipient is thinking and feeling. And the problem not only will not be solved, but it may be exacerbated, as I resent the "ceremonial" nature of an act emptied of meaning by repetition. How princely could Achira ben Einan have felt knowing he was bringing exactly the same thing as the eleven who preceded him?

But when the recipient, when the listener, is Hashem, this no longer is an issue. When I know that the one I am speaking to is beyond time, then I know that my being there at that moment is not assessed in relation to a before and after, but only on the basis of the degree to which I am really doing and being what I claim to be doing.

Each nasi was then treated to an "audience" of the One who is eagerly awaiting with full newness what he might be bringing and saying, knowing it has never been done or said this way before.

We are called upon to 'imitate" the Divine – just as He is merciful, so shall we be merciful, just as He is compassionate, so shall we be. But how do we begin to emulate the ability of the Infinite one to constantly renew?

Moshe is treated to the answer. At the end of the twelve-fold litany, after stock is taken of all the donation, there is appended a curious verse which constitutes the final verse of Parashat Naso:

"And when Moshe came to the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heard the Voice speaking-with-itself to him from above the atoning-cover which is upon the Ark of Testimony, from between the two Keruvim, and He spoke to him."

All of this conforms to what we were told to expect in Parashat Terumah, in describing the function of the Keruvim mounted atop the ark, except for one small detail. A single dot. The Hebrew word for "speak" in Terumah is in the Piel construction, with a dot in the ”bet" but no dot in the ”dalet". Here, there is also a dot in the "dalet", converting the word to the Hitpael construction (The "tav" of the HItpael is absorbed into the now-doubled dalet). That construction is used to indicate reflexive, self-referential activity.

Moshe, then, does not hear a voice speaking to him, but rather, THE VOICE speaking-to-itself - - - to him! But wait! Only crazy people speak to themselves, right? And we're not crazy enough to imply that Hashem is, G-d forbid, crazy!

But the truth is that all speech is BOTH an act of communication and self-revelation. Every time we talk, we're talking to ourselves, realizing ourselves, struggling with ourselves, working out some issues and getting entangled in a host of new ones. We speak ourselves into being whether we are conscious of that or not. And Hashem, the Ultimate Consciousness, is always"speak himself into being" and making that coming into being present and available to the other" in a way which honors the other with the fullness of His Presence, so that when He listens, that other knows he is being heard and is moved himself to speak from his depths, and know the newness in a word or an act that has just been done a thousand times before.

But not by me. Not right here. Not in this way. And not in the presence of "I Am Becoming Who I Am Becoming".

Hashem allows us to give to Him what can't possibly not be His, and cherishes it from the always newness which is His Being. THAT is a gift fit for a prince!

Miles from NoWhere

2008-05-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yep, time to start a new book. We just finished Vayikra, wrapped up in a tidy little package all those laws about sacrifices and the like (well, not so tidy – see last week's Pshat!), and it's time to move on.

But, to where? Where are we going? And where are we now? Oh, yeah, those last couple of parashiyot of Vayikra reminded us that, despite all the emphasis on the MIshkan and, by implication, its permanent successor, the Beit Hamikdash, we are still firmly planted at Mount Sinai. And standing (and sitting, and camping, and waiting) at Sinai, we are still dreaming of returning to a land that returns to each of us every fifty years. Marching instructions? None, yet. We're still stuck in the middle.

Indeed, Josh, my weekly Ramban chevruta, adamantly insists that we are still in Vayikra, still in a process that began toward the end of Shemot and won't come to a conclusion until Hashem "gets those doggies movin'" in Beha'alotecha, where one of B'midbar's three books – the "good" book – comes to a close and another – the "bad" book – slaps us in the face. Until then, we're still in the midst, says Josh.

All of this is true. And yet: we begin a new chumash, one which, though difficult to characterize, with its difficult to grasp interplay of narrative and halachic material - is different from Vayikra from the get-go.

So, let's start from that beginning. Here's the first verse of Bamidbar:

"And Hashem spoke to Moshe in the desert of Sinai on the first of the second month in the second year of their going out from the land of Egypt, saying..."

Last week, Hashem spoke to Moshe at Mount Sinai. Now, it's the DESERT of Sinai? Is that the same place? The people haven't departed the mountain yet, so it must be. Yet if so, why change the reference from "mountain" to "desert"?

The key is to be found in the word "spoke". The place reference isn't referring to where the people are, but to whence the Divine voice emanates. Until this point, Hashem has spoken to Moshe from the top of Mt. Sinai. Now, in Bamidbar, the Divine voice comes to Moshe from between the two keruvim almost-embracing atop the aron, as promised by Hashem way back in Parashat Terumah.

The date noted in this passuk confirms this: the first of the second month. Now the entire Mishkan was made operational on the first of the FIRST month of the second year – that's the date of the passage in chapter 8 where the mitzvah of Pesach Sheni is given. ("Wait a second", you ask – "why does a passage dated "1/2/2^nd from Egypt" precede one dated "1/1/2^nd from Egypt"!! Ah, good question! See Ramban square off with Ibn Ezra on this question – coming up in a couple short weeks!) With the Mishkan up and running, Hashem speaks to us from that special point He's chosen as His Dwellingplace in our midst.

But why the SECOND month? Why do we not hear Hashem's guidance and instruction from that place right away upon the completion of the construction of the Mishkan? Why wait a month? The Kli Yakar has a beautiful insight. He says that since Hashem was not to "take up residence" amongst us as a "temporary lodger" but as a "permanent resident", Now permanent residence – dirat keva – is only established after a full month of residence. Only when one loony cycle of waxing and waning, of hiding and reappearance, of tzimtzum and hitpashtut is complete can the relationship proceed on a basis of trust in process. "Mommy's gone to the store but SHE'LL BE BACK", are words which reassure not only the toddler but the parent as well. Hashem wanted to reveal Himself to us from the perspective of Eternity – a perspective we didn't merit even at Mt. Sinai.

When Hashem move IN, Mt. Sinai, with all of its ephemeral florescence, the lights, the sights, the shakes and sounds and smells – reverts to desert by comparison. The nourishment, the richness, the sustenance – all comes through the channel He has establish "b'toch" – in the midst – of individual, family, tribe, people…universe. That is why, says the Or HaChaim, that midbar in our verse precedes ohel mo'ed. Just as with the designation, where the particular precedes the universal – date precedes year – likewise, and almost counterintuitively, with place: The spiritual singularity of bein shnei hakeruvim, that forever-point bounded momentarily by non-touch of the beating wings of the celestial beings approaching embrace even as they are solidly mired in the thick gold of the atonement cover – that singularity is expressive of the everflow of the The Oneness – and the desert, in all its apparent generality and receptiveness, an unmarked canvass upon which our people will paint its journey in colors of forty years and Shabbat portions, is but a particular waiting to become actualized.

As did our ancestors before us, we wander the deserts of our lives, causing them bloom with meaning by the dripping sweat of our grandest visions and apocalyptic fears. That expanse is as transversable, that bloom is as real as we allow the bein hakeruvim point to be in our lives. When we see and experience the Yes that Hashem says about us and pours into us on every level, then even in the desert, we are miles from nowhere!

The Blessing of Not Abhorring

2008-05-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

With this week's parashah, Bechukotai, the central (in both senses of the word) book of the Torah comes to a close. Recent years have produced much study, in many circles, of Sefer Vayikra, and the various results all seem to converge on a profound appreciation of the fullness, complexity and profoundity not only of the book's content, but of the structure which imparts to that content its richness and resonance even today, when we are, seemingly so much at a remove from so many of it's clauses. Bechukotai, as the Ramban has pointed out, is the bringing to a close of the statement of the brit between Hashem and Am Yisrael - a statement which was begun way back toward the end of Shemot. Its provisions - blessings for covenant fulfillment and unspeakably horrific punishment for willful violation - serve as a formal conclusion for the momentous, history-shaping compact between the Infinite One and His self-created finite partner.

Except that the book doesn't end there. Vayikra doesn't come to a conclusion where by all rights it should, at the end of chapter 26, with the words, "These are the statutes, judgements and teachings which Hashem set between Himself and the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai, at the hand of Moshe". Of course that is the fitting conclusion to the covenant, to the entire book. Why would an additional chapter be appended, only to be concluded with words that seemingly unneccesarily echo the verse just quoted: "These (emphasis obvious added) are the commandments which Hashem commanded Moshe regarding the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai"?

A look at the content of this chapter doesn't immediately yield an answer. The chapter deals with vows and oaths - statements which impact upon other objects and individuals and would presume to affect their status. The concluding section, bringing the entire book to a close, deals with dedicatory evaluations - when a person devotes the value of something or someone to the Holy - what is incumbant upon that person regarding the item so dedicated.

Why was this particular chapter left out of the extended covenant, only ot serve as a kind of an appendix, a coda of sorts? I'd like to explore a particular law presented in this section, and try to understand it in light of a curious statement by Hashem in the first few verses of the blessing part of the parashah.

After having elaborated the laws of holy dedications - the laws of hekdesh - and how items which are not immediately usable as part of the sacrificial procedures are to be evaluated and redeemed, the money going to maintaining the general function of the Mishkan/Mikdash, the Torah states (Vayikra' 27:28-29)

"However, any cherem which a man shall doom/devote (yacharim) to Hashem from anything which is his - from man, from domestic animal, from the field of his holdings shall not be sold and shall not be redeemed. Any cherem is holiest of holies for Hashem. Any cherem which will be doomed/devoted from man will not be redeemed - he shall certainly die."

This passage raises several questions. First: what is cherem? It seems clearly to be more severe than hekdesh, but what is it? Secondly, does this passage really mean, as it might seem at first glance, that one might doom/devote one's slave to the realm of the Holy and then, seeing as humans are not fit to be offered as sacrifices, then that slave must simply be put to death? Forgive the pun ,but perish the thought!

Regarding the first question: There is a realm where the sacred and the proscribed meet. Somewhere behind our head, something becomes so unique, special, inaccessible that it becomes completely forbidden. The paradox involved with this outcome of human grappling with the limits of evaluation have been explored by anthropologists study many human societies. For us, it is enough to note that the Hebrew word can meet "to utterly destroy", "to completely prohibit benifit from/usage of". In Arabic, the word haram is used for a realm which is inaccessible and therefore holy, such as the Temple Mount, called Haram Ish Sharif, or, more familiarly, the notion of "harem". Thus, a devotion made with the word (and the conception which lies behind it) of haram is one placed utterly beyond retrievability. No evaluation applies to something rendered so inaccessible.

This brings us to the second question: Can one really doom by utterance one's servant to death? Shadal takes on this explanation of the verse head on, and he shows how unthinkable such a notion is. Chazal presents two different understandings of this commandment (Arachim 6b):

When a man has been condemned to death by a Beit Din for some crime, then if one says regarding him, "his value is upon me" (i.e., I pledge his value to the Holy realm), then one has said nothing, since a condemned man is accounted as though he's already been executed.
This verse serves as a further warning not to accept ransom money to pardon someone who has been condemned to death by a Beit Din.

The Ramban has yet another take on the critical second verse. He demonstrates that the simple meaning of the verse is that when in battle, one in the power to do so (a king, or the sanhedrin) decrees, in extremis, that the enemy is devoted entirely to Hashem, then every male must be killed - no slaves and no servants are to be taken from the population, for they are "holy" to Hashem.

What these interpretations have in common is seeing the the process of haram as an utter rejection, a putting beyond the pale, with no return into the human sphere of evaluation and exchange possible.

Let's now switch gears. At the beginning of the parashah, we meet with a series of blessings promised to us by Hashem when we keep His mitzvot and teachings. The blessings are phrases in a generic fashion, as opposed to the almost unbearably vivid detail of the longer curse section which follows. These blessing promise us not eternal life in the world to come, but very earthly benefits: plentiful rain, bountiful harvest, fecundity, peace and security in the land, success in the battlefield. Wrapping up these blessing is the following set of promises by Hashem: (Vayikra 26:11)

I will place My Dwellingplace in your midst, and My soul shall not abhor you, I will stroll in your midst and I will G-d for you, and you will for Me a people. I am Hashem your G-d Who brought you forth from the Land of Egypt; I broke the poles of your yoke and I led you upright."

The imagery here is that of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Chavah heard the sound of Hashem strolling in the Garden, and they took cover amidst the trees of the Garden. The imagery is enriched by the midrash, which tells of a king strolling in his orchard, and the sharecroppers, who were intended to accompany him, seeking to take cover from him. He says to them: Why are you taking cover from me; I am just like you!! Likewise Hashem and the righteous in the future to come. Except: that they will still be in awe of Hashem.

With all of this comfort and friendship promised, what place does the clause, "and My Soul shall not abhor you" have? In the words of one commentator: Who would have thought that a people who has faithfully kept the covenant need to be rewarded by the promise, "My Soul shall not abhor you"?

Perhaps we can understand it this way: The Indwelling of Hashem is the soul. That soul, placed in our midst, is, as Chassidut teaches, a piece of the Infinite from on high, with all the paradox that implies. "I will stroll in your midst" is understood by one commentator as the "silver cord" that connects the soul with the Infinite Capacitor above, along which the current of living being in all its dynamism is in constant flux. One MIGHT THINK that the Infinite has no place for the finite, that any attempt to connect the two would result in explusion, rejection, or, phrased emotionally rather than mechanically: abhorrence. But NO! says Hashem. The blessing of holy proximity gained by doing His will is that WITH all the awe, I am here with you, the possibility of image of G-d is realized, "I'm like you!" He impossible allows us to hear.

My soul, my inner essence, expressive of my identity and my uniqueness - that doesn't reject you, that has room for you, that is not threatened by you. To be ultimately me, I don't have to push to infinity what is ultimately you. ONLY HASHEM CAN REALLY TRULY SAY THAT, and have that be the pinnacle of holiness, the complete realize of the call that Hashem made to man/a man at the beginning of Vayikra: "And He called to Moshe".

And as for us humans? For us, holiness is almost inseparably wrapped up in the attempt by us, the finite, to place things beyond the realm of the measured and the relative and securing for them the absolute. Haram is abolute holiness, beyond the possibility of redemption. That attempt to invoke holiness must result ultimately in death, for only death stands inaccessibly beyond the realm of the limited. Hashem understands how entangled we become when we try to approach his paradoxes, when we try to use the gift of language to alter irrevocably the state of things in the revocable realm. He allows us our attempts, and shows us, evaluativly, how to climb down from the high branch we've found ourselves on, in most cases. But the entire passage is placed on the outside of Vayikra, the Covenant of Holiness! Hashem sets apart our ultimate attempts at doing holiness on our own by setting apart, juxtaposed to the rest of Vayikra. He beckons back from the precipice - "it is better not to vow than to vow!", we are taught by Shlomo in MIshlei.

But when we do, He'll take us back. Heck, even when we violate His covenant in the most egregious fashion, and He responds by violently turning away from us, and we suffer unspeakable indignities, until we lay in shambles, strewn over the face of the earth, "I have NOT rejected them, NOR have I loathed them them to utterly destroy them, to rescind My covenant with them".

Only the Soul can bless by not rejecting the soul, and thus, the book isn't over until it isn't over.

Signs of Recovery

2008-05-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in the market, choosing vegetables. This particular store offered two type of tomatoes - Heter Mechira and Hothouse. I suddenly was reminded of all the various possibilities and nuances, stringencies and leniencies of Shemitta observance, and I was at once elated and exasperated. Why, I wondered?

Once every seven years, we come to Parashat Behar thoroughly immersed in its headline provision - Shemittah. Here in the Land of Israel, the Shemitta is not just a theoretical construct, as it had been for most of our people for almost two thousand years. Rather, it's a complex of mitzvot that impact many aspects of life on a daily basis - especially for those of us blessed to live outside the cities, with a dunam or two of holy land to try and wrest from the thorns and thistles that are happy to take over at the drop of a seed. But even here in Israel, the Shemitta as we presently observe it is but a shadow of the full-blown social/agricultural/spiritual structure presented to us in Parashat Behar. Most authorities hold that, as long as the majority of the Jewish people does not reside in the land, Shemitta is obligatory only on a derabbanan (rabbinic) level, and some even hold that it is to be observed as a pious custom. This fact has generated some of the intense disagreements between various sectors of the religious population as to what limitations are to be imposed on agricultural activity. But even the most stringent agree that Yovel, the Jubilee year, during which the land reverts to its (ab)original owners, has not been practiced since even before the destruction of the First Temple. This is because once the first of the tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel, Gad and Reuven, were exiled by the Assyrian, the land was no longer intact, and the mitzvah didn't apply on a deoraita (Torah) level.

The absence of Yovel has repercussions regarding the applicability of the rest of the provisions of the parashah. Nowadays, land IS in effect sold in perpetuity, as opposed to being leased for the remained of the period of fifty years until the next Yovel. Land sold may NOT be redeemed by the seller for the value of the remaining crop years, even against the will of the purchaser. Houses in cities are NOT redeemable during he first year of there sale, which becomes a permanent sale subsequently. Free loans are NOT made in order to help one's brother right himself and regain his ancestral patrimony. The institution of Eved Ivri, effectively bonded servitude intended as a last resort for the desperately poor, is NOT available, or even allowed (the one who sells himself into such servitude would be release from his status and returned to his land as a free man by the Yovel). And finally, should a stranger in our midst become successful enough to buy one of our brethren as a servant, we are NOT compelled to purchase his freedom however we do so. In other world, an entire social/economic/spiritual structure - one which sees all members of the Jewish people as fundamentally equal, existentially free, as we are all, as servants of Hashem, to devote those energies to bringing His Presence into this realm - has been put into mothballs by our exilic history.

But WHY did it happen that we have spent the significant majority of our history as a people in exile? This we are told explicitly in NEXT week's parashah - it's because we did not observe the Sabbaths of the land. Indeed, the Shemitta year is called Shabbat L'Hashem - A Shabbat to/for/on behalf of the Eternal. What the weekly Shabbat is to the individual Jew, the WEEKLY Shabbat (since seven years is also termed a "Shavua") is to the entire people. If you don't observe the Shabbat, the punishment is that you will not observe the Shabbat. If Shabbat for an individual is experienced as something which detaches one unbearably from the habits of his life which define him, then the punishment is that those routine habits will indeed define and delimit him, and he will never be able to find the deep, regenerative connection to the very sources of his being which is Shabbat in the deepest sense. What goes around, comes around, eh?

The same is true on the national level, for we are absolutely indubitably cells in the that Living Creature the Talmud calls Yisrael. If the people as a whole does not appreciate what it means to deeply reconnect to the meaning of land, life and liberated spirit, what a social organism can be when it goes beyond maximizing consumption, production, competition and invest in contemplation, speculation and celebration - then that people will condemn itself to breathlessly exerting itself merely to maintain a fragmented existence where dreams and their fulfillment remain beyond the horizon of the imaginable.

The Shem MiShmuel compare the signs which mark the individual Jew - brit milah and tefillin/Shabbat - with the signs which mark the people as a whole - Yovel and Shemitta. He teaches that we humans are like avedot, lost objects, precious lost objects, retrievable by their Master, Hashem, upon presentation of identifiable marks and signs. Without an identifiable mark, the owner of a lost object would despair of ever retrieving his property. Now the parable goes only so far, since Hashem certainly doesn't despair of retrieving a single particle of His creation, but, as the halachah stipulates, a finder has a duty to guard an object and return it only to its true owner. Without presentation of signs, the finder may not rightfully relinquish an object.

Am Yisrael has strayed, in a profound way, for well over two thousand years. We remember our home in some embedded, preconscious way, but we've wandered through time and civilization, through land and language, never finding rest. As a people, we've clung fast to the signs which identify us as Jewish individuals - we've given our lives for Brit Milah, for Tefilling and for Shabbat. But, we've failed to do the same, as already stated in the Talmud, for Yovel and Shemitta. Those individuals who do give their all to observe these demanding mitzvot are called "Giborei Koach Osei Devaro" - The mighty of strength, who do His bidding". It's hard to act in one's one individual life on the level and on the behalf of an entire organism, a people, whose composite conscious one might only have the faintest fleeting notion.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, undeservedly, we have been given another chance, we have been challenged to come together, to understand that just as the pintele yid inside of every Jew is as indestructible as its Sinaitic origins, so is the pintenle am, that essential people-point that can take us beyond ourselves and launch us on a trajectory toward the Infinite.

Our parashah begins with the statement: Hashem spoke Moshe at Mt. Sinai, saying: This is the matter of the Shemitta. The famous question is: What does Sinai have to do with Shemitta? The answer given by the Midrash, and brought by Rashi: Just as Shemitta was given as a mitzvah at Sinai, both in its general formulation and in its specifics, likewise all the mitzvot were given at Sinai, both in their general formulation and in their specifics.

The consciousness of oneness of the particular and the general, the individual and the people, that Oneness but not Sameness that prevailed at Sinai, that enabled Torah to come into this world, very close to us, inside of us, available to us if we would only want it and act on it. Come together - physically and spiritually - and the various sorts of tomatoes on sale will all coalesce into one shining globe, plumped juicy by each little seed, and retrieved by presentations of indisputable signs by the Gentleman Farmer on high: "This one is Mine, for you can tell by looking at it: I rested on the Seventh". Heavens!!

Shabbat Shalom,

Yehoshua Kahan

Fixing the Flat with No Words to Spare

2008-05-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

Parashat Emor concludes with one of the only narrative passages in all of Chumash Vayikra - the story of the man who blasphemes. Although the account is brief, it must be of critical importance, for otherwise, why interrupt the halachic flow of Vayikra, a Chumash suspended in time with almost no dateable events, to tell us about a single foul-mouthed boor? So, let’s turn our attention to the concluding few verses of the parashah, and work backwards from there.

“He came out, the son of an Israelite woman, he being the son of an Egyptian man, into the midst of the sons of Israel, and they quarreled in the camp, the some of the Israelite (woman) and an Israelite man. The son of the Israelite woman specified THE NAME and cursed, and they brought him to Moshe. The name of his mother – “Hello” daughter of “Speak!” (literally rendered; the Hebrew is “Shelomit bat Divri”) of the tribe of Dan. They place him under guard, to (have the situation) explained to them by the mouth of Hashem.”

What follows is the Divine word to Moshe, instructing him to have the man put to death for his blasphemy, and indicating the penalty for other crimes – all of which are cases of smiting/striking, whether animal or person, whether the result is death (=murder) or injury (called here a “blemish”).

Several question arise regarding the Mekalel, as the blasphemer is referred to in the Torah. First, whence did he come out? He actually does exit, but rather, enters into the midst of the camp of Israel, so what is meant when the account begins with the word, “he came out”? A number of answers are given, but the one which is the most intriguing: “he came out of his world/eternity”.

Literally, this is referring to the preceding passage, which describes one of the “perks” of the Kohanim – they get to eat the “Lechem Hapanim” that rests on the golden table in the sanctuary of the Beit Hamikdash for a week before distribution, still warm and fresh a week later. The bread is described as “holy of holies”, coming from Hashem’s sacrificial offerings, and the privilege is a “hok olam” – an eternal decree.

O.K., so the last word preceding the account of the Mekalel is “olam”, but still, how does that help us understand the explanation, “he came out of his ‘olam’”? Did he bolt from inside the sanctuary, after being denied a fresh piece of the Bread of Presence, run into the midst of the camp and scream, “Gevalt!!”?

Almost. Because our Sages tell us that this man, lacking a Jewish father, though Jewish, was tribeless, and therefore was quarrelling about where – that his, which whom - he should rightfully pitch his tent. When the dispute heated up – and perhaps blows were exchanged, since subsequently we read of the punishment for inflicting a blemish – the Mekalal lashed out in all his humiliation and all his fury – against Hashem.

What precisely did he do to Hashem? He punctured the Name. The fundamental meaning of the root N-K-V, translated above correctly in context as “to specify”, means “puncture”, “penetrate”. And, having punctured the protective sheath of fear and trembling which guards the sanctity of the Name, he reamed it out – “he blasphemed” is actually, “he made light, insubstantial”. The Holy Divine Name was “shown” as empty, insubstantial, meaningless.

What an ironic twist. Here this poor chap, jealous of his pedigreed fellow Jews, wanting to also taste the Eternity of the Presence viscerally, desperate to find his place, if not among the Kohanim, then somewhere, and, suddenly, he jettisons the whole enterprise.

It’s his mom’s fault!! That’s what the tradition might seem to imply, when it interprets her names as implying too much fraternization with all sorts of passers’ by. But even it we don’t go there, we can understand how being raised in an environment where speech, the instrument of deepest connection to the substance of the other, was reduced to chatter and empty banter would result in a blemished sense not only of the Other, but also, and more critically, in a falsely inflated notion of entitlement and NO trepidation before the holy.

Our parashat begins with an unusually twist on a familiar introductory formula: “Vayomer Hashem el Moshe, emor el hakohanim b’nei Aharon vayomer aleihem” – Hashem said to Moshe, say to the the Kohahim, sons of Aharon and say to them.

Usually, it would have used daber in place of emor: SPEAK to the Kohanim, not SAY. First the act of speech, then the content. Rashi explains: it’s to warn the adults regarding the minors. This comment of Rashi’s has generated many, many creative interpretations, but the original context is in the gemara (Yevamot 114a) . There, it means that the Kohanim may not render their children impure with their own hands, even though the children themselves may not yet be subject to the mitzvot for which impurity is an impediment.

Now: tum’ah is a halachic category. If there is no halachic consequence to the tum’ah for the minor, why should it matter whether he, though he be a Kohen, be tame’? True, he might render others impure, but Rashi’s comment is, “to warn adults regarding minors”! The concern is for the minor himself! And his situation is remedied by speaking to him gently, so that the content get through, not overwhelmed by the “envelope”, the speaking of an adult which often pre-empts, for the child, WHAT it is that is being said. In order to make sure a child is not blemished inside, in a way that won’t be manifest for years but is all the more serious for its long latency, the Kohanim, who bless with their speech and utter the Divine Name, must transmit that content through an attitude toward speech in which holiness comes through in both utterance and message. Parent models this to child – this is the inner essence of the oral tradition, the sense in which the whole Torah is names of the Divine.

The opposite of Mekalel, one who makes light of, is Mechabed, one who imparts weight, substance, one who honors. In a world in which delight is taken in letting the air out of all things of standing and substance, by running them through with the blade of our flightiness and inconsequence, let us warn the still-child inside us of the potential for purity, of our inescapable role as guardians of the sacred, and of that delicious, warm, nourishing presence that, though it abide the long, long week in the recesses of the sanctuary, will melt, still warm, on the praising tongues of our patient, expanding awareness of the Holy.

So that I may be Holy

2008-05-02T07:47:00.001-07:00

Parashat Kedoshim is, structurally, the climax of the Torah. The Jewishly-critical seventh parashah of the middle book of the Torah, Kedoshim turns from the Kohen Gadol on Yom Hakippurim in the Kodesh Hakodashim to the people, gathered formally and addressed as an entity. The seemingly arbitrary interweave of ritual and ethical mitzvot which it presents is introduced with the famous state, "You shall be holy, for Holy am I, Hashem your G-d"! The series of mitzvot that follow include some of the most basic - indeed, the midrash shows how all ten of the Ten Commandments are restated in Kedoshim. This restatement is now in the context of communal and corporate holiness, and is punctuated by multiple repetitions of the concluding phrase, "I am Hashem". At one point, Rashi interprets this interjection to mean, "don't think I don't know what's in your heart, what your true intentions are - I am Hashem".

Over and over, "I am Hashem", seven times in the first segment (verses 1 -22) and seven times in the second segment (verses 23-37). And just before we reach the seventh invocation of "I am Hashem" in the opening segment, what mitzvah is being presented? "You shall love your fellow as yourself". There it is, at the apex of the Torah! No wonder Rabbi Akiva states, "This is a great principle in the Torah".

Impressed? Ben Azzai wasn't. He disputed with Rabbi Akiva, and said, there's a greater principle than that: "This the the book of the generations of man" (Bereshit 5:1)!

Curious! What "principle" is derived from a verse that appears to function as a historical statement! And further, what does it mean, "this is great principle in the Torah". It might mean, "this is the idea upon which the divine commandments are based". The implications would be, if you are uncertain as to how to fulfill a given directive in relation to your fellow, apply this principle to clarify the proper path to be chosen.

The Malbim seems to take this path. After invoking the Ramban's understanding that the Torah can't possibly be commanding to "feel" about the other as we feel about ourselves, he notes that when love is meant as a feeling, it is expressed as "Ahavat Nefesh" soul love. Further, the direct object is always used - "et". Here, the indirect object is used. Indeed, Hillel famously inverted this verse and, in "reducing" the Torah to one principle, said, "what is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow" [editorial note: although I've long claimed that the real principle Hillel was trying to convey is: the rest is commentary; go and learn - upon accepting THAT is it possible for the non-Jew to be converted by Hillel] Many people note the negative formulation, but not as many note that what is been bidden is not feeling but action.

The Malbim, however, stops short of adopting Hillel. Rather, he claims that Hillel is simply the true source of Kant's categorical imperative: (from memory, and thus almost certainly a bit off - please correct me): That action will be considered a moral action if one could universalize it, i.e., if one would always want people to behave in this way, even when he was not the doer but the done-to or more distantly affected. Only such actions become moral imperatives.

Then, the Malbim notes that there are those philosophers who critique Kant by stating that, by leaving the focal point of the moral decision in the assessment of the individual, he has NOT removed the subjective, personal element and the potential bias. A person is STILL doing an action because of how he sees himself in the picture, albeit at a remove of one level.

Therefore, says the Malbim, Ben Azzai suggests that there's a higher, more objective level: All human beings are bound together as one book. As one entity, comprised of interacting component parts. As one organism. That action is moral and correct which promotes the welfare of the whole. [Compare Rabbi Nachman's first entry in his Seder Hamiddot on the subject of prayer, where he says very much the same thing, only in the contact of tefillah].

Now, all this is find, but what about the other "half" of Torah? Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai, at least as understood by the Malbim, have only addressed the ethical mitzvot; what about the ritual ones? What about "bein adam lamakom"? Parashat Kedoshim does not discriminate between the two realms - it intersperses them freely. Yet even in the verses quoted by Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai, the "G-d" part has been left out. Vayikra 19:18 reads: "Neither revenge nor avenge the children of your poeple, you shall love your fellow as yourself - I AM HASHEM"!! Bereshit 5:1 reads: "This is the book of the generations of man, on the day of G-d's making man, IN THE IMAGE OF G-D HE CREATED HIM".

The verses have G-d in them; why don't the Rabbis?

Here, I believe, is the key: The Midrash Tanchumah brings several interpretations, the upshot of which I read as follows: You shall be holy - you must be holy - because I, Hashem, your divine partner MUST BE HOLY. Now make no mistake: Hashem is KODESH. He is the stuff of holiness, its source, its definition. That's the term used in the previous parashah, with the Kohen Gadol and the Mishkan with its Holy of Holies and Yom Kippure, that singular day. But that's a noun, and that's inaccessible to us - Ve'al yavo bechol et el HAKODESH - and He, as pure holiness, is, as it, inaccessible to the world. Only through actions can Hashem be reveal, but those actions can only be described - i.e., adjectives. The KADOSH (plural: KEDOSHIM) is what is used in this parashah, both in reference to Hashem AND to us.

We are holy because Hashem is holy and has, as we always say, "sanctified us with His Mitzvot", i.e., actions that reveal that holiness in the world, and therefore render Hashem "adjectivally holy"!

Thus, neither Rabbi Akiva nor Ben Azzai may invoke Hashem's holiness, mHIs "I am Hashemness", His "man in His imageness" directly - Hashem's "nominal" (understand this word correctly: it means: related to a NOUN) holiness is refracted through our "adjectival" holiness. Hashem BECOMES holy when we realize the holiness as potential waiting inside to be realized through actions that only we, as paradoxically selfless "I's" can do. Love your fellow actively, who thereby becomes as yourself, and, voila, "I am Hashem"!

A Leper a Mother Could Love

2008-04-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

What is one to do with all this skin disease? Parashat Tazria, the locus classicus for tzara’at (usually, but very probably inaccurately, translated as “leprosy”), a disease that could cover the entire body with repulsive, oozing, hairy and perhaps disfiguring growths, pustules, welts etc. And not content to invoke misery upon the body of the sufferer, tzara’at could strike clothing and house, systematically rendering impure in the extreme every “container” within which a life might take refuge.

So it is more than a bit bizarre that the parashah opens with the laws of impurity of a birthing mother. “When a woman becomes fertile and bears a male…” Is there anything sweeter, more pure, than a newborn baby? The midrash in Vayikra Rabbah expresses amazement at the phenomenon: The mother is an av hatum’ah, capable of rendering impure other humans and vessels, yet the baby whose emergence invokes this impurity, is as pure as, well, the day he is born.

That image, however, belongs to an era before us crunchy-granola types took to shaping public images. The all-natural crowd insisted on displaying in birthing manuals and elsewhere the picture of a gooey scrunchball, bawling his lanuga-covered his head off. What’s so pure about that, we may ask?

So does Midrash Tanchuma. In interpreting a set of verses from Iyov as referring to the longings of Iyov for the time before troubles beset him, the Midrash has us looking, well before the invention of ultrasound, intrauterally at the developing fetus. “Like I was in the days of my horef”, says the verse. Winter, the period when seeds, watered by the percolating rains, prepare to sprout forth in spring. The rains splatter dirt, find the tiniest cracks in a sun-wearied roof, knead the soil into a muddy mess, aggravating everyone except the farmer. Slogging through his fields, drenched from head to toe, he thinks it’s the most marvelous thing!! For he knows that all that mud brings forth the earth’s bounty.

Likewise our little crying, seconds-old humanoid. “No one but a mother could love such a creature!” Precisely. “Because she sees what’s underneath all that goo!!” No! She sees the stuff of herself still covering that living part of her innermost depths and suddenly, the entire package is shining beauty, love and reconnection.

So it is, teaches the Midrash, with us sinners. Even though one may be filthy with transgressions, even when troubles and suffering heap their indignities upon one, when one wishes he was anywhere but in that situation, Hashem looks upon us, squawking in the puny enormity of our insuperable difficulties, irresistible urges no matter how foolish, trying to free ourselves and become re-entangled even as we break free, and Hashem sees all that seriousness, all that effort, all that straining to reach beyond, and Hashem is enraptured once again with His child/image/junior partner, and forgiveness and reconnection can be had.

Let every leper, no matter how intractable he perceives his case to be, recall, as the Torah recalls for him, that our original state is purity, connection, love, and our misdeeds and misconceptions are merely the gluey goo that brings a hand that soothes even as it scrubs behind the ears. For no tum’ah - no mass of mud and blood, acquired as we stumble up the road to the One, is too much for Momma Shechina to wipe away.

Pre-Need Mourning?

2008-03-28T08:00:00.001-07:00

Pshat:

"And it came to pass on the eighth day" - that is how this week's parashah, Shmini, opens. "The eighth of what?", you ask? We''ll get to the "pshat" forthwith. For me, this week, the "eighth" had a different association. This week I marked the eight yahrtzeit for my father, Osher Kahan, may his memory be a blessing. As is frequently the case, his yahrzeit falls this year between parashot Tzav and Shmini. As is also frequently the case, one of the two is Shabbat Parah. All of this is of great significance for me, since he passed away on Shabbat Parah, Parashat Tzav. Both of those Torah passaged make reference to mortality - the former instructing us regarding the rites of purification from the impurity imparted by physical contact with or proximity to a corpse, and the latter concluding with the verses that form the basis for the universal Jewish custom of sitting in mourning for seven days - the custom of shiv'ah.

So let's take a look at those verse. Toward the end of pararshat Tzav, after the Torah describes the sacrificial procedures followed by Moshe during the days of training and installation of Aharon and his sons as kohanim, Moshe says the following to Aharon and his sons:

"You shall not go forth from the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the the completion the days of installation. Just as was done today did Hashem command to do to atone for you.
You shall sit at the entrance of the tent of meeting day and night seven days, guarding Hashem's guard/watch, lest you die, for thus have I been commanded.
And Aharon and his sons all the things which Hashem commanded at the hand of Moshe".

Note the seemingly unnecessary repetition of the warning to Aharon not to leave the tent of meeting. We return to the theme of sitting at the tent of meeting in Shmini. After the consecration of the Mishkan, which culminates with fire from heaven descending and devouring the offerings on the altar, Nadav and Avihu, two of Aharon's sons, enter the holy of holies of their own initiative, brings an offering which has not been commanded. Fire again comes down from heaven, this time devouring the offending and newly consecrated kohanim. This is a personal disaster not only for Aharon, but also, presumably, for the entire people. But: the "show" must go on.

"Moshe said to Aharon and his two remaining sons: Do not let your hair go wild, nor tear your garments (signs of mournings), so that you don't die and Hashem's anger be upon the entire congregation. Rather, let your brothers, the entire house of Israel, bewail the burning that Hashem has caused to burn. And from the opening of the tent of meeting do not go forth, let you die, for the oil of consecration to Hashem is upon you" and they did in accordance with Moshe's word."

So Aharon and his sons cannot mourn their son and brother, that will be done by the rest of the people; They must stay on the job at this impossibly trying moment. So when CAN they mourn their loss? The answer is brought in an astonishing Midrash from the Tanchuma: In explaining the seemingly unnecessary repetition that we saw at the end of Tzav, the Midrash explains the second verse there as follows:

Moshe said to Aharon and his sons: Keep the seven-day mourning period now, before it overtakes you. "Guard the guard of Hashem" - for so did Hashem keep a seven-day mourning period, as it were, before He brought the Flood. Now how do we know that He mourned? For it says, "Vayinachem (literarlly, "was regretting", in this context: "regretted") Hashem that he made man upon the earth, and He was saddened in His heart". The word "saddened" connotes mourning, as it is stated (in connection with David's behavior while his infant son, the first issue of his liaison with Bat Sheva was dying), "the king is saddened over his son". [There, David curiously engages in mourning rites WHILE his son still lives, but immediately upon being informed of his death, rises up from his mourning, and resumes his kingly duties].

The Midrash goes on to tell us that Moshe had known that the Mishkan would be sanctified by the death of one of those closest to Hashem, but he did not know which one of them it would be. He thought it might be himself. He didn't tell Aharon, however, that it would be one of them collectively. He simply told him to mourn, to make a deposit, as it were, in the bank of tears in advance, so that when the inevitable overtook him, perhaps in a situation which would not allow mourning, he would have already paid his due. In the end, the Midrash has Moshe consoling Aharon by emphasizing the merit of his two sons that Hashem chose them for the necessary death via too much closeness that was imperative to instill an awe of the indwelling Presence in the midst of the people.

The question which I find disturbing is this: How is it possible to mourn before the loss. "While there's life, there's hope", goes the saying, and even were Aharon to have been privy to the information to which Moshe was privy, how could he have accessed the emotional space to sit shiva for an unidentified close relative whose fate has yet to befall him. Further: How is it possible to mourn generically. If, G-d forbid, you knew that one of your dear ones had been taken, but you did not know which one, could you mourn properly?

And then there's the ultimately question: How could Hashem have mourned for a world He was choosing to efface, and why did He do so beforehand? Unlike Aharon, He would not be in an active state of "highpriesthood", He could have mourned subsequently.

Perhaps the answer lies in discerning the elements of Avelut. Mourning can be dividing into two components. One is directed toward the other, the dear one who is no more, who has taken his/her last journey, and whom, more than anything, one wants to honor. The other component is directed toward self, and consists in recognizing the magnitude of the loss for oneself and reconfiguring one's own identity and life trajectory in the absence of the presence.

But what is it that has been lost? It is not the other per se - that is addressed by the first component of mourning. Rather, it's the potential inside oneself which corresponded to and was activated by the impact of the loved one upon one's soul. "How can I go on?" is the inevitable question. And yet: life goes on, and we gather our powers anew, with a rededicated conviction that we will become everything Hashem dreams us to be and with even more power and substance precisely because our loved one's departure has created such a gaping hole - in our souls, in the world - that is crying to be refilled by the powers of life flowing through us with our every breath.

This is a rededication that need not be occasioned by the departure of the loves ones of our life, but which the tzaddikim do on a daily basis, ever intensifying the fire of life, love and holiness coursing through their every action. This is the rededication engaged in by Hashem, as He considered the loss of the entire world He had created - for the death of each living being is a diminishing of the divine image in our world. It is as though Hashem chose to put Himself through a tzimtzum, in order to allow the re-expansion that the world would be so desperately in need of after the flood.

Shiv'ahi isn't seven days by happenstance. It is a time for moving through death to recreate a world anew. It is form of Shabbat, a transition and culmination that allows all that is beyond the world as we presently conceive it to be activated in our lives, to make way for the eighth day, the day beyond the way things are now, the day that brings the transcendent and inaccessible down to earth, to be incorporated into the new day.

May these thoughts, if they bear any insight, be a merit to memory of my father, Osher ben Harav Chizkiyahu Elizer Halevi - who was always keen to gain a peek at the eighth day in the intensity of his everyday activities. He knows now, and someday we all will know. May we all be reunited in the Oneness and Love of Hashem after we have done His bidding with faithfulness, yearning, and devotion.

Shabbat Shalom,

Yehoshua Kahan

Certain I'm Wrong

2008-03-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Quick - which sacrificial offering is more hamur (serious, substantial, and therefore, sacred): an asham (guilt-offering) or a chattat (sin-offering)? Conventional wisdom - and the order in which they are presented in this week's parashah tell us that it's the chattat, Thats the offering one brings for committing a serious transgression - such as eating a chunk of forbidden fat or chametz, violating Shabbat - unvittingly. The penalty for intentional violation of such prohibitions can be as serious as death, and unwitting violation cannot be let go with nothing. Lack of mindfulness about one's actions is in itself an indictment. Thus, the Torah prescribes the bringing of a particular offering as part of the process of atonement. There is much behind the symbolism of the act of bringing a sacrifice that time and space and mine (my limited one) does not permit us to explore here, but suffice it to say that the chattat is part of a reconciliation with Hashem, coming out of a deep awareness of the wrongdoing born of inattentiveness.

The asham has a different set of rules governing it. Different animals, offering in different ways, for different reasons. The Ramban, when discussing the asham on this week's parashah, actually posits that it is the sacrifice brought for the more severe violations, not the chattat. Now, there's actually a whole list of transgressions for which an asham is brought - we say (better: rattle off) this list every morning as part of "Azeh Mekomam", the chapter of Mishnah listing all the sacrificial offerings which concludes the preliminary section of the Shacharit prayer. At first glance, it's hard to see what they have in common. But when looked at deeper, they share a feature most explicit in the "Asham Talui". This type of Asham is brought when, for example, I know I ate a chunk of fat, but I don't know if it was forbidden fat or not. Since I don't know if I transgressed, I cannot do teshuva properly - I cannot confess to a transgression that perhaps I did not commit. Thus, since I am uncertain, I cannot bring a Chattat, so instead, I bring an Asham, which suspends punishment UNTIL I remember, and then I can do teshuva properly and, as part of the process of atonement, bring a Chattat.

Why is it, then, according to the Ramban, that an Asham is more "Chamur" than a Hattat? I'd like to offer an answer. Uncertainty is a cloud behind which we hide from Hashem, our responsibilities, indeed, ourselves. MAYBE is the source of all excuses. Confronting our wrongdoing is hard, it hurts, at times it feels impossible. So we like to weave around our lives a web of uncertainty. In the post-modern vogue, doubt, vagueness, allusion, uncertainty is "in". But the cloud of obfuscation we spray by strewing our minds with so many equivocal stances allows no definite stance. MAYBE we actually ARE close to Hashem, so why bring a "korban" to drave close?

Sin is objective; Guilt is subjective. Sin can be made right; guilt trickles into the gutters of our own self-loathing and propagates itself there, refusing to clean up its own mess. The trap of subjectification is that what looks like a way out MAYBE a way out, or perhaps just another secret passage back into our own heads. To KNOW that we were mindless, thoughtless, senseless, and therefore, so far from the One who "grants mindfulness" as His first gift, is in itself a gift, for it allows us to understand that, just as there is "far away", there is also "ever-so-close".

During this week when Amalek casts his net of uncertainty, doubt, over the world, then do you think that MAYBE, just MAYBE, we can stand firm and refuse to be caught up in it? I'm CERTAIN we can!

Shabbat Shalom,

Yehoshua Kahan

You Split our Skulls

2008-03-07T05:19:00.000-08:00

This week's Pshat is dedicated to the memory of the eight young men murdered learning Torah last night at Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, two of whom were my son's classmates through eighth grade: Segev Avichayil and Avraham David Moses.

Y'hi Zichram Baruch, Hashem Yikom Damam.

The last cold snap has barely lifted, but outside, the almond trees have no time to wait. They are so suddenly filled with beautiful, fragrant white blossoms that it is hard to believe that little over a week ago, they weren't there. Even harder to believe that by the time Nisan comes and we can say Birkat HaIlanot, they will be long gone. What's their rush? Where are they going? Can't they wait for the other trees?

The word for almond in Hebrew is shaked, which means "quick and diligent". Yeshivah Letzi'irim, popularly known as Yashlatz, is the high-school branch of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, the yeshiva founded by Rav Kook almost eighty-five years ago. It's know as being hard to get into. Only the quick and the diligent of eighth-grade graduates apply, often those whose fathers learned at the senior yeshiva before them. Last night, while the almond trees continued their silent explosion under cover of night, there was a burst of explosions in the library of the yeshiva compound in the heart of Jerusalem, only a couple of blocks from the entrance to the city. At first, many thought it was firecrackers shot off as part of festivities for Rosh Chodesh Adar, anticipating Purim in two weeks. Instead, it was a terrorist, a former driver for the Yeshiva, an Arab from Jerusalem, who shot off well over four hundred rounds, killing eight young men, injuring ten, three seriously or worse. Some of the boys were in the library, learning, the books shown on the media bloody from their wounds. Avraham Moshe and Segev were Yinon's friends, the serious, studious ones, they were at his Bar Mitzvah, Avraham Moshe I remember a bit better, he had a smile that could light a room. Once Segev came over to play with Yinon when they were seven years old, as the afternoon wore one, Shoshana discerned that Segev was getting fidgety, she asked what was the matter. "I have to davven minchah", he said. She encouraged him to go ahead and davven in the house. "But I always davven in a minyan!", came his worried reply. Seven years old....

Promising young men have traditionally been referred to as Pirchei, flowers, similar to the English expression, "flower of youth". But plucked so soon, so soon... Where are you off to, you beautiful flowers, what's your rush, you were so diligent...

But the young men at such institution are indeed shakdanim, they are diligent in discharging all their obligations. Just this week, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, refused to authorize a list of new yeshivot for exemption from army service. The Charedi response was immediate and dismissive. The former stood firm on the need for everyone to bear the defense burden of the country, the latter insisting that Torah study cannot be compromised if the Jewish people is to have a hope of a claim to its land and heritage before G-d and the world. Two truths - for they are both truths, butting up blindly against one another. In the meantime, within the walls of yeshivot like Mekaz, thousands of young men sit who are determined that they will learn and fight. How did they come to put it together, when the rabbis and the generals just don't get it?

It hasn't been lost on anyone that the target of the attack was the ideological fount of the renascent religious-Zionist enterprise. Foolish, superficial people who believe that everything is political noted that Merkaz was long indelibly associated with Gush Etzion and the movement to restore Jewish life to our ancestral lands in Yehudah and the Shomron. (The word "settler" has become so pejorative, so poisoned for so many people that have never really encountered the wide variety of people living here that I would never use it). But those same people are probably unaware of the teachings of the yeshiva's founder, the master to whose life and insights I am repeatedly drawn and who never fails to astonish and encourage me, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook. I ask your forbearance as I try to apply one of Rav Kook's seminal to this week's parashah, Pekudei.

Pekudei, "accountings", continues relating the story of the actually construction of the Mishkan in the desert. Last week, in Vayak'hel, we read about the construction of the MIshkan per se; this week, we read about the crafting of the priestly garments. Interposed between the two is an accounting of the materials collected, especially the precious metals - gold, silver and copper. The silver collected was comprised in part by the half-shekel set aside for each adult male so that plague would not smite the people when they were being counted. The instruction to count in this fashion, by half-shekel, was given two weeks ago in Ki Tisa, and now it is carried out. The Torah is careful once again to tell us that it is precisely one-half shekel, the words being "Beka Lagulgolet". Literally, "a split for a skull". Money back then had value by weight, and it wasn't uncommon to literally split a coin if you needed a coin half the value of a given standard weight.

But splitting skulls is another matter. You may recall from high-school biology that there are fissures in the skull, jagged lines from where the parts of the skull fused like continental plates smashing into one another, creating places like the Beka'a valley of Lebanon, held tight between two mountain ranges, and issuing forth so much pain. It's astonished to think Hashem created the skull of the infant from pieces that, while still soft and malleable, would press together to allow the passage through the birth canal, but then separate again for a while. Every parent remembers that wondrous, worrisome "soft-spot", sometimes looking backing longingly and wistfully when they've had a quarrel with that "hard-headed kid" How did those pieces fuse together? Did those jagged fissure lines match perfectly from the start? Or, could it be that the process had its share of violence on a cellular level?

Rav Kook teaches: When pieces of truth encounter one another, they attract and repel. The repulsion is a failed attempt at self-definition in terms of self-sufficiency. The attraction is born of the intuitive clarity that the "whole-part" which is my I is also the "part-whole" which is We. When I see myself in depth, in truth, I can bring it as the "whole-part" to be fused by the painful but oh-so-real process of butting up against the Other. I see the good in his good (which corresponds to my vision of the good and useful) and I see the good in his bad (for which I give thanks that, in its incessant, expansive attempt to encroach on my realm, it keeps me in check from the same egregious error - an error for which I have no eyes myself). As we wrestle, the advantage shifting back and forth, a river of pain and enlightenment meanders between us, fusing us as one. The parts are set together, perfectly and beautifully, like the the nesting designed ornaments of the menorah in the Mishkan, meshukadim, "almond-blossomed", or, with Rashi, as engraved on a silver cup. The skull is whole, firm the mind . . . is safe.

Haman said, "there is One people, scattered and separated". Let me weight out money for the right to destroy them. Esther said, "Go and gather all the Jews. GATHER ALL THE JEWS. It cannot be that we remain apart, aloof. It cannot be that we gather into clusters, each laughably content to cling possessively to his own pitiful fragment of truth. This Shabbat, as we read the words, beka lagulgolet, we say, Hashem, split our tortoise-shell skulls and knit them anew in the almond-frenzied freshness of a youth each one of us has begging to be released inside. Each one a piece of a precious coin, just a piece, but so whole, so holy. Take us, make us one. Let the only indication that there ever was a split be the lazy meandering line of when I conceded to him and he conceded to me. And in that crevice, hidden in its recess, bonding us more firmly that matter itself . . . YOU.

Huddle Before the Muddle

2008-03-02T00:41:00.000-08:00

I overheard my daughter on the phone with a friend this morning. It wasn't hard to do - she was speaking animatedly in the living room! The Hakhtarah is coming up - the crowning of the Rabbanit Purim - the Purim Rebbetzin - in her Ulpana. She is in twelfth grade, and the twelfth-graders put on the Purim Shpiel. There was brisk competition for the various parts, and Shalhevet was chosen for the lead role. Her good friend also was chosen for a part, albeit a minor one. In the most recent rehearsal yesterday, it seems that a number of girls who had minor parts skipped the rehearsal, and their lines had to be read by the directors. A few dedicated girls are trying to pick up the slack, but that creates ill-will. Shalhevet was engaged in giving musar in a forthright but loving way, to her good friend, one of those who skipped the rehearsal to tend to personal matters. She said that she understood the thinking - how much can the absence of one line impact a rehearal, and why should she give up hours of precious time when there were other pressing matters to be tended to. But, Shalhevet reminded, such pouting sort of behavior was more characteristic of third-graders than graduating high-school seniors. She explained that those who had the major parts were also adversely affected by the absence of the "one-liners", as the rehearsal lacked the feel of the real thing. In the end, the shpiel would resemble the kind of slapped-together presentation of a youth group rather than the crowning achievement of talented high school seniors working together.
This week's parashah, Vayak'hel, is often overlooked, as it "rehashes" parashat Terumah and some of Ki Tisa. Having received the divine command regarding the Mishkah in those parashiyot and in the intervening Tetzaveh, Moshe now conveys that command to the people and Betzal'el and crew begin the work of construction. The wording is often word for word like Terumah, the only difference being the conjugation of the verb in past tense instead of command form. This "duplication" is confirmed by Rashi, who has little to say this week. It is in precisely such circumstances that our attention is drawn to details that might ordinarily have escaped our attention. Details such as the commanding of Shabbat before the Mishkah, rather than after, as it was given to Moshe; the use of the phrase, "These are the things which Hashem has commanded to do them", regarding Shabbat, which is only one thing, and there's nothing to do; and, the very name of the parashah - Vayak'hel.
The Ohr Hachayyim points out the unusual use of the word Vayak'hel - "and he convened". Moshe is constantly speaking to the people, but nowhere else is such wording used. The Ohr Hachayyim suggests that Moshe needed to reconvene the people since they had fled at his approach upon his descent from Har Sinai with his face beaming intolerably bright. It would be unthinkable that anyone should be absent when the details of Shabbat are presented. Now, the details - the thirty-nine categories of prohibited work derived by the Rabbis are not presented, but they are hinted at in a number of well-known ways. The most engaging, to my mind, the one I heard from Rav Yoel Bin-Nun. He noted that the subsequent list of everything which Betzalel and crew needed to make has a total of 39 items for the Mishkah's construction (Bigdei HaSerad were the covers used to protect and honor the various kelim during transport when the Mishkan was packed away, and thus not part of the Mishkan itself. Aharon and son's garments, however, were an integral part of the "construction" of the Mishkah, as were the various oils.
He also brings the Zohar, which understands that Moshe made separate gatherings of women and men, since they were all involved in bringing the Terumah, and, in situations such as these, the evil urge abounds. This, however, seems to be far from the peshat - the peshat says that Moshe brought together, and the Zohar says that Moshe brought individuals into two separate groups. But it started me thinkiing.
The command to donate to the Mishkan is a command to tap into our individual gifts. Kol Nediv Libo - Everyone whose heart motivated them. Everyone brought what they had, what they could, everyone contributed their own skills. One one hand, this makes the Mishkan a communal effort. On the other, it emphasizes differences. Everyone is encouraged - commanded, if fact, to bring to the fore those things which they DO which makes them unique, and to offer them for the sake of the divine. The people is thereby individuated. Every one has a role, emphasis on the one. In an effort to reach deep into untapped individual potential, an appeal has been made that disguises the ego involved by placing in a context of giving. Upon hearing the command, everyone would go off and search their estates for possessions and abilities which their own heart could offer. Great!! Except for where that energy might lead you.
Thus, it was critically necessary FIRST to gather all the people, to make them a Kahal - a community - before the command to access their individuality. Not to gather them in order to make sure everyone hears the details, but to gather them in order that they understand that THAT is what it's about - THAT's the Mishkan. Now, Shabbat is about ceasing doing. In this manner, everyone is equally gifted - everyone can equally refrain from acting the master of Hashem's world. There are no jagged edges to all the parts, everyone fits together in the wholeness, the action-silence of Shabbat. And it is ONLY with such an understanding - that the I is allowed to be because of the WE, that the I comes back to re-include itself in the WE, that the undifferentiated core of being which resides in the stillness is really the stuff from which our identities are extruded - that the actions of individuals can come together to form a greater whole in a world in which every THING excludes by its very being the THING next to it. Shabbat enables a life in which the possibility of wholeness - holiness - can be constructed from the Lego parts which are our ego-gifts.
It's going to be a great Purim shpiel at Shalhevet's Ulpana. Not because she's starring - in a girl's ulpana, I can't watch in any case. But because when she got off the phone with her friend, after a few giggly last exchanges, her smiling face told me that the show would go on, with everyone bringing what they bring best - the passionate compassion that the other neither left out nor leave out. All aboard!!

Facing Hearts

2008-02-22T06:46:00.000-08:00

Ki Tisa - when you lift up the head of the people of Israel. Lifting up the head or face has many associations and meanings, some positive, some not so positive (to wit: the opposing and ironic usages of the term by Yosef to the Egyptian butler and baker), but the positive predominates. Lifting up the head is a way of encouraging by relating. Those were some of the thoughts going through my mind as I was learning with my son, Yinon, last night at his yeshiva tichonit (high school yeshiva) in Otniel - the parents are invited to learn with their sons before every in-Shabbat, about every two or three weeks, and I try to make as many of those sessions as I can because Yinon, the middle child (or "sandvitch", as they say in pure Biblical Hebrew) of our five (bli ayin hara) children, effectively lives at yeshiva, so it's special opportunity to encourage him, deepen the connection, heck, to lift up his head!! They gave us a sheet of prepared sources dealing with road safety, and, as it interested Yinon about as much as it probably interests you, we learned a few gems on the Parashah that I had seen the preceding days.

The first was Ramban on my name. That is, my eponymous anscestor's patronymic. When Moshe moves the tent of meeting (homework assignment: which tent is that? The Mishkan has not been built yet!) out of the camp as a sign of divine disfavor, his daily exit of the camp to speak with Hashem is described in detail. Upon conclusion of the audience with Hashem, Moshe returns to the camp, but, "his servant, Yehoshua Bin-nun, subordinate, did not move from the midst of the tent".

Why is Yehoshua referred to as Bin-Nun? You would think "bin" is simply a variant of Ben, "son of", and in fact, that's the first option explored by the Ramban. But, he notes that it's ALWAYS "bin", and never, "ben". If they were variants, you'd think at least once he would be called "ben-nun". Therefore, Ramban posits that it should be read as though it said, "Binun", from "binah", the understanding one. OR, he says:

But wait: I must preface the Ramban's remarks with the following contextual remarks: The dominant consonant in my name is "shin". The dominant consonant in my wife's name is "lamed" (Before she went by Shoshana, she used her given name name, Lili). Our oldest son is named Elisha. Our oldest daughtere: Shalhevet. Do you see? We perpetuated our bond, unconsciously, in the names of our two oldest children! Further, Elisha means the same thing as Yeshoshua: G-d will save!

O.K., back to Ramban. His second explanation for the form, "bin-nun" is as follows: "Or perhaps it should be understood as 'Yehoshua, born of Bina (Understanding)' rendering 'nun' based on the verse from Tehillim, 'may his name yinon before the sun'. The meaning of Yinon in that verse is unclear - it's the only occurrence of the word in the Tanach. The translations include: endure, shine, prevail". But I didn't care - look at that - Yinon is as integral a part of my name as the first two! In fact, "the child is father to the man!", I quoted to him.

That's what I said, and he grinned and we spoke a bit about what that might mean. Then he said, "so what kind of relationship is father and son, "panim el panim"? I was a bit stunned, given the Kabbalistic associations of that term, but then I remembered that Yinon has been learning a bit of Sha'arei Orah with Elisha, the ever-eager older brother. We noted that only a few verses before, It states that Hashem spoke to Moshe "panim el panim", face to face, as a man speaks to his close friend". On this phrase, the Ohr Hachaim explains that: "In accordance with the preparation Moshe made to receive the Shechina's presence, to that extent did he receive from the Supernal Face - for a person receives holiness in the measure of his preparations. Further, "like a man speaks to a friend" - can be understood with the verse: "Like water - face to face - is the heart of a man to his fellow". for to the extent that a man prepares his heart to love his fellow, to that extent will his friend's heart be prepared to love him".

Silently, the inner preparations for connection are made, hearts communicate at a distance, without knowledge, and the same is true for the divine relationship: The degree of love Hashem shows Moshe is precisely proportional to the love Moshe has aroused in his own heart for Hashem, so as to be real with Moshe, so as not to overwhelm, so as to grow the relationship every stronger, ever deeper.

And then we looked at another passage: When Hashem informs Moshe that the people have built a golden calf and worshiped it, Moshe does not immediately confess on behalf of the people and ask for forgiveness. This he does only after he goes down, breaks the tablets, gathers a posse of "vigilevis" and destroys the hardcore of the transgressors. His first prayer, however, before he descends, is of a very different nature. He asks Hashem, rhetorically, what will become of His reputation, now that He has taken the people out of Egypt by manifesting His Great Name (the Tetragrammaton), the Name Par'oh claimed not to know, the Name with which wonders are done, the Name through which the connection with Am Yisrael is made. If the people are wiped out by Hashem, the entire program upon which Hashem has embarked will be ruined!!

Why split the prayers? While I was struggling with understanding a Kabbalistic cadenza of the Ramban, Yinon said, "maybe it's only when he goes down to the people and deals with them can he come back and pray for them".

A light went on. At that moment, what I wrote above about the first prayer being on behalf of Hashem's name came to me. I suddenly saw that Moshe has been up there for forty days and forty night struggling to understand this whole notion of the Mishkan, and how the Divine Presence - referred to as the Name throughout Devarim ("A place to cause My Name ot dwell") - can possibly reside amidst flesh and blood, and finally, upon "getting it", upon receiving the Tablets which are the work of G-d (ma'aseh Elokim), held in human hands, as he is about to bring the Name down to become the ultimate lithium battery of the spiritual engine which is Israel, Hashem's middah of din would do what is oh-so-right and destroy the indwelling of rachamim! Moshe "knows" Hashem's interest, Hashem's "heart" as no one else does - Hashem has seen to that!! So He pleads for his "Friend's" Own interest - the eternal bond with the Name-bearing, Name-being people Israel And that expression of love, that preparedness of Moshe to the point of complete selflessness, is precisely what enables the fullness of revelation later in the parashah. Hashem's Face was downcast, were it possible to speak thus, and Moshe lifted it up.

At the end of the parashah, Moshe descends the mountain after that indescribable encounter in the niche of the rock, that "you can't see My Face", tefillin-knot glimpse, and Moshe's face is glowing, no, it's throwing off light beams of laser-like intensity, and no one can bear to look, so he covers who he has become with a mask - perhaps a fleshy one? But in the last verse of the parashah, Hashem returns the favor, the heart of a man to his fellow, and lifts up the face of Moshe. For the face of Moshe is only covered, turned down, until he comes to speak with Hashem. Then, he removes the mask, and He...

I hardly noticed that the rav was standing on the bima waiting for the attention of sons and fathers to summarize the sources on the spiritual dimensions of safe driving. But I hadn't heard a word. I drove recklessly toward the heart of my friend, no my son, I took off my mask for a few moments and I think his deflector shields were also down for a while. At least that's what the several smiling hugs told me. Face to face.

Tetzaveh 5767

2008-02-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

Beginning with his birth in Parshat Shmot, Moshe's name is mentioned in every Parasha of the Torah. Yet in Parashat T'zaveh, it is nowhere to be found. Where is Moshe? Now, lest we dismiss Moshe's absence as a coincidental by-product of the haphazard manner in which history and custom have divided the Torah into weekly portions, consider this: our parasha opens with a series of Divine directives aimed at Moshe: V'atah t'zaveh; v'atah hakrev, v'atah t'daber: "you must command, you must bring close, you must speak". What could have been more natural than to set the context of the various commands by at least beginning with Vayomer Hashem el Moshe? Furthermore, the very first pasuk of the next Parasha begins: Vayomer Hashem el Moshe! Where, then, in Tetzaveh, is Moshe? Let's find him!

Parshat T'zaveh places us right in the middle of the extended section which relates the construction of the Mishkan_~ the portable desert sanctuary. Regarding this sizable chunk of Torah, literary analysis has "uncovered" what our interpretive traditional has always taught: far from being a clerical ledger of contributions received and outstanding, or an architect's blueprint, the record of the building of the Mishkan captures a creative process of intricate detail that mirrors G-d's setting in order the cosmos in Bereshit. And if the Mishkan is a cosmos-in_-miniature, then surely the priests and their activities in the Mishkan reflect the Divine vitality that makes the cosmos come alive. Parshat T'zaveh is about those priests. It opens with the injunction that the Kohen Gadol light the holy lamps each day, and closes with the directive to burn the sacred incense daily on the incense-alter - two of the most exalted of all priestly functions. Between these subl1me brackets, G-d instructs Moshe regarding the investiture of his brother, Aharon, as Kohen Gadol

An elaborate, seven-day ritual of preparation, purification, and atonement is prescribed. Moshe is to serve as priest, feeding, waving, and sprinkling blood upon Aharon and his sons. They, for their part, are treated almost as korbanot, as holy offerings - they are not to budge from the sacred precincts the whole seven days. This period is termed miluim, or filling in, for as gold and silver settings are filled with precious stones, so Aharon and his sons are installed in the Mishkan. To this end, they are garbed in the most exquisite apparel imaginable, and this brings us to the first half of the main body of our parasha. For the other meaning of investiture is enclothment. Before Moshe receives the details of the milu'im ceremony, he is instructed precisely how to fashion, from the rarest and most exotic materials, each of the eight vestments Aharon, as Kohen Gadol, must wear.

How are we to understand these garments? What lies behind them, what do they mean? On one level, straight-forward yet profound, these garments are Israel. The names of the twelve tribes are engraved on the twelve stones of the hoshen, the breastplate fastened over Aharon's heart. They appear again on the avnei shoham affixed to the ephod at his shoulders. Aharon literally stands for Israel as he offers their sacrifices before G-d.

Yet there is a deeper sense to the bigdei Kehuna, as is revealed in the following Midrash:

By what merit could Aharon enter the HoIy of Holies? R. Yehoshua of Sikhnin said in the name of R. Levi: [the answer can be under'stood by] a parable: A prince's tutor was to enter the king's court to give good report regarding his charge, the prince. Yet he feared the harm the royal ministers might do him [for they might see him as an intruder]. So what did the king do? He dressed the tutor in his own royal garments, so that the ministers would see and take heed. So, too, Aharon, in carrying out his duties, would have to enter holy places at any given moment. If not for the many merits he brought with him, he would not have been abIe to enter due to the envious wrath of the ministering angels. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He gave to Aharon a semblance of his own Holy Garments, as it is written, "He put on righteousness like armor, with a helmet of salvation on His head. He clothed Himself with garments of retribution, wrapped Himself in zeal as in a robe."

G-d's garments, then, are his attributes, his middot. Our mystical tradition explains: G-d is pure, unadulterated being, illimitably present. We cannot truly speak of His essence at all, and so when we nevertheless do so, we compare Him, however inadequately, to that most enigmatic of all substances, light. In order to shield His creatures from the intolerable presence of His blazing, blinding light, G-d has chosen to limit Himself, as it were. Operating much like filters and apertures in the lens of a camera, G-d allows only a scintilla of light here and there to pass through the many layers which cloak the ineffable. These little rays, due to G-d's self-limitation, are now manifest as definable qualities such as lovingkindness, justice, beauty and triumph. Thus, the very garments G-d cloaks Himself with become the vehicle of His revelation. Paradoxically, G-d's pouring out of Himself into the world necessitates self-concealment, and it is in that act of concealment that revelation takes place.

So too, our midrash tells us, with Aharon. Aharon is a Baal Middot - he possesses fine attributes of soul. And as the word middot means garments as well as attributes, it becomes obvious that the resplendent garments Aharon wears are a manifestation of his inner soul, the soul of a Kohen Gadol. Aharon is the symbol of peace. He constantly puts himself aside, seemingly limiting his self--fulfillment for the sake of others. Another Midrash tells us that the reason he himself engages in the making of the golden calf is to spare Israel the direct responsibility for that heinous sin.

All along, Aharon has accepted the hegemony of his younger brother, content to walk in his shadow. Aharon draped in sartorial splendor reveals an even greater splendor of soul. The soul whose unknowable depths generate such qualities as mercy, modesty, and generosity is he who is chosen to stand for all Israel before G-d.

And where is Moshe? Aharon on the highest heights for seven days, decked out in the finest attire ever beheld, reveling in the savor of sacred meat, reclining with all his sons in the tranquil shade of Divine favor, waited upon hand and foot by his holy brother ... a week- long spiritual repast, the Shabbat of Shabbatot. No wonder our parsha opens with the kindling of lights and ends with the burning of spices!

And where is Moshe? How does he respond to all this attention lavished upon brother? Again; we turn to the midrash for clues:

When G-d told Moshe, "bring close your brother, Aharon", Moshe was distraught. So G-d said to him, "I had Torah, the raison d'etre of the universe, and I gave it to you!"

Moshe's first reaction, our Midrash tells us, was all-too-human - he became jealous of his brother. As he understood it, Moshe was no longer to enjoy that special closeness of Avodah which now became Aharon's prerogative as Kohen Gadol. He knew, of course, of his brother's fine qualities, his beauty of soul. Now he was to witness his profound worship of the Infinite One. As if these were not enough, Aharon was even counted as the most learned of the elders. Such heights of Torah, Avodah and G'milut Hasadim in one man! Moshe saw Aharon's exalted stature, and he envied him his closeness to G-d.

What holy envy - we should all be plagued with it, leapfrogging our way to k'dusha like Aharon and Moshe. Yet, as our Midrash tells us, Moshe was mistaken in envying Aharon. Great as Aharon was, Moshe was even greater. G-d seeks to convince Moshe of this, reminding him of his primacy in Torah.

Aharon may know the Torah as well as Moshe, but Moshe is Torah. And though Aharon merits being drawn close in Avodah, Moshe, via his Torah, draws even closer. For Torah, in its deepest sense, is worship. When one unites one's mind and soul with the words of Torah, that is a state of prayer. The image of the Shehina speaking from Moshe's throat as the wellsprings of Torah overflow into commandment eloquently captures the worshipful communion with G-d that Torah implies. When Torah comes alive in us, it becomes the very speech of Mi she'amar v'hayah ha'olam: the One who spoke and all came to be. This is the reason that the Talmud exempts true Talmidei Hakham from statutory prayer - when they study, they are at prayer. Moshe, whose whole being was Torah, whose whole life served as a conduit between heaven and earth, need not envy Aharon. While Aharon took on Divine qualities, Moshe united wlth their source - Divine mind.

But Moshe was not reconciled. Sharing such closeness to G-d, Moshe thought, must mean separation from Him, and the very thought of that left Moshe broken. And it is this brokenness that G-d utilizes to bring Moshe one notch further. A Midrash that must have been almost as startling when originally told as it is to us today will illustrate:

It's like a wise man who marries his perfect match, and after ten years there are no offspring. He tells her, "Find me a second wife! I could take one myself, wlthout consulting you, but I desire that your great humility [be made known]. Likewise, G-d said to Moshe, "I could make your brother Kohen Gadol myself, but I desire that your greatness be known to him.

It is precisely at the point of Moshe's greatest pain - when, as he perceives it, he is most separate from G-d -- that G-d offers Moshe the opportunity to rise to the highest level. He commands him to attend in person to the investiture of Aharon as Kohen Gadol.

Moshe, most humble of men, is to grapple with that last flicker of envy, and simultaneously, to do good to his brother, Aharon. In investing Aharon as Kohen Gadol as commanded, Moshe steps through pain into a humility that is everywhere open to G-d as commanding presence. We can almost hear G-d cry out to Moshe, "Moshe, this is a moment of greater closeness that ever. Hear my voice - I command you, I address you. Do my will and you bind your profound Torah, your majestic Avodah, and your selfless G'milut Hasadim into a seamless eternity of fractured illusions that contains the greatest truth of all: G-d is One!"

We have found Moshe. In refusing to drive the wedge of ego into the desolate emotional crevices of his soul, Moshe transcends the limits of individual, self-oriented identity. He has discovered that the pintele Yid, the "Jew-point" within all of us, is the portal to the collective soul-memory of Klal Yisrael, which is our truest self. Moshe has reached into his deepest core and, in a twist reminiscent of a mobius strip, comes up with a vastly expanded soul-identity: elemental Jew. It is in this sense that we say, shakul Moshe k'neged kol Yisrael - Moshe is considered as equivalent to all Israel, because he is present to all that is Israel.

This is why Moshe's name does not appear in our parasha. While at this peak, he can no longer be referred to as an object, as third person nistar; hidden, in the language of Hebrew grammar. He is entirely nokhah, present, and thus the parsha opens by referring to Moshe three times in the second person, as atah - you!

Such presence, such transcendence, Moshe attained by commandedness. G-d shows Moshe that the highest form of becoming a tzelem elokim_~ an image of G-d, is in engaging that component of the human which is closest to the essence of divinity - will. Aligning one's will with G-d's opens the channels for a presence, a relationship of imperative that forges Torah, Avodah., and Gemilut Hasadim into a new entity - 'anavah -humility.

So far for the midrash, the theory - what about the ma'aseh, the practical? What does our parsha teach us regarding the details of our Iives? There is a Mishnah in Sanhedrin which reads, Kol Yisrael yesh lahem helek la'olam haba - all Israel has a portion in the word to come. In this parsha, Moshe has taught us to understand that Mishnah differently - it is only to the extent that one can muster the 'anavah to expand the definition of self to embrace Israel and thereby to unite all Israel, that one is guaranteed a piece of eternity.

The Mishkan as an Instance of Tzaddik

2008-02-08T03:53:00.000-08:00

I was speaking last night with Yonatan Neril, a student at the yeshiva with a keen interest in exploring the nexus between Torah and environmental consciousness. We were discussing a seminar he will be giving, G-d willing, in the Bat Area in the next few months. He wanted to present Ya'akov Avinu as a model of environmental consciousness, focusing on two episodes of his life as depicted by the Midrash.

The first is the famous image of Ya'acov at the Yabok, preparing for the encounter with Esav and, having crossed his family safely over the river, goes back for pachim ketanim, little flasks, seeming worthless given the danger hovering over Ya'acov, yet, as we are told, the righteous prize their few possessions, since they attest to the fact that they have studiously avoided theft. Variants of that Midrash tell us that the contents of those small vials was olive oil from the branch presented by the dove to Noach and preserved during all the intervening generations.

The other midrash is apropos of our parashah. Ya'acov foresaw through prophecy that his descendants would be commanded to build the Mishkan, and they would need for those purposed beams of strong, beautiful wood. So, he brought seeds or saplings of acacia wood with him when he came down with his family to Egypt and planted them there. When his descendants, now numbering hundreds of thousands, left Egypt, they cut the wood needed for the Mishkan from those groves of carefully tended, now-mature trees.

In thinking about these two Midrashim, I shared with Yonatan the following thoughts: Going back for the small vials inadvertently left behind was an act of tikkun, of repairing a misstep, and thus, of atonement. The precious, ancient oil should have been one of Ya'acov's prize possessions, and yet they were almost discarded.. Small vials are nothing to busy oneself with when matters of life and death are at stake, and yet the integrative individual - the Tzaddik - understands that the spark of potential contained in even the smallest of missed opportunity might be the key to redemption.

Ya'akov other act was anticipatory. He had a vision of a dwelling place for G-d in the midst of his offspring, made of atzei shittim omdim, of upright acacia beams, and saw his sons, shoulder to shoulder, as constituting that unified dwelling ("Your sons are like olive saplings, around your table" - Tehillim 128) made in part by a craftsman named My Father Is Tent son of My Brother Is Support-Beam (Oholiav ben Ahisamach), and understood he needed to act NOW, planting the potential to enable its future actualization.

This self understanding - of one who repairs the past and prepares for the future, is the understanding within Breslov Chassidut of nature of a true Tzaddik - thus we learned from a shiur by Rav Erez Gazit this past week.

And yet - Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz asher ya'aseh tov v'lo yecheta' (Kohelet 7:20) - For there is no man on earth who will do good without sin. There is NO ONE who doesn't mess up, spiritual pollution is as inevitable as material pollution, for life consumes and expels waste! So if no one is perfect, then, isn't it true, to truncate the verse above, "Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz" - there is no righteous man on earth!!

No. We approach the image of the divine to the extent we integrate our reparative and anticipatory functions into an organic expression of a joy of being extending beyond our need to be perfect in order to justify our being. But the tzaddik goes one step further - he understands that even as he is anticipating future developments and acting to avoid problems and prepare for good, he is also sowing the seeds of future transgression!! Visions of future idylls are beautiful, but actions taken in the here and now to prepare for their advent will inevitably be laced with the same shortcomings we see all to clearly in our everyday actions. It's the tzaddik who sees that he will fall short and nevertheless not desist from acting on behalf of the future, knowing that he is thereby secreting the small precious vials of holy oil, laden with illuminative power, which he or those who stand in his stead will remember to fetch when the time comes.

The Mishkan is precisely that mechanism, making for atonement and restoration while channeling the divine revelation that powers our steps into a future of Oneness. It is inaugurated by that oil fresh from the flasks of Noach, it is the place where taking and giving come together to merge in Being, it is the place where Hashem dwells amongst us because we dwell in Hashem. It is the ultimate recycling device, the factory of life, the wellspring of being.

Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh - May I build a Mishkan in my heart, and in the hearts of our people, humanity, the cosmos, to reveal the One Who is all Heart.

Ki Tetze 5767

2008-02-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

"When a man marries a woman,,," - So much to say about this statement, which appears in two consecutive passages in this week's portion, in VERY different contexts. So much to say about the source of the mitzvah of marriage, but no time to say it, because it's only an hour until Shabbat and this Shabbat is, bli ayin hara, our oldest son's ufruf!!! This next week he is indeed "ki tetze", when he joins his kallah in their new home in Elazar after their wedding this next Yom Revi'i (Wednesday), G-d willing! May we all be blessed to built batim ne'emanim b'yisrael, to the thousandth generation!!!

Toldot 5768

2008-02-03T02:55:00.000-08:00

"Two peoples/proud ones in your womb; two nations will part in/ depart from your womb; nation from/than nation shall gain strength, and great(ly) shall serve young".
This is the prophecy, ambiguous on several counts, which was shared with Rivka when she went to inquire of Hashem regarding the implications of her intolerable pain induced by the thrashing from within her womb. And, as it is practically impossible to shed the midrashic associations which accompany Yaakov and Esav from their first appearance, identifying the former with the people Israel and the latter with Rome, our great adversary, I won't try to do so. It would make no sense.

And sense, or sensation, is precisely what is lacking in the key passage of our parashah. Recall that, upon hearing her husband, Yitzchak's misguided intend to bestow his blessing on Esav, his favorite, Rivka is keen on insuring that Yaakov, her favorite and the one designated for greatness (as she understands the prophecy) receive his father's blessing, Yaakov seems not unwilling, but is consumed with trepidation lest his deception be discovered and cursed, but Rivka sees to it that all the bases are covered. Sight has already been denied Yitzchak (both eyesight and insight), as the verse says, "his eyes dimmed from seeing" (which the Midrash interprets as due to gazing a heavenly truth too powerful for human eyes when laying upon the alter at Moriah). Rivka takes care of the other senses which might lead to detection in summary order: she cook's up an savory, gamy "Esav" dish - that covers "taste". She garbs Yaakov with Esav's special garments - there goes "smell". She even carefully covers his smooth arms and neck with animal skins, mimicking Esav's preternatural hairiness - strike "touch" from the list. All that's left is "hearing". That must left to Yaakov, but Rivka even reassures him regarding "sound", when she says, "your curse be upon me, my son". Thus reassured, and while Esav is out fulfilling his father's will, Yaakov comes before Yitzchak.

"Father" is all he says, for every additional word is more data for the one remaining sense that might assist Yitzchak in accurately identifying the man standing before him. Immediately, Yitzchak hears that something is not right, for he asks, "who are you, my son?" What a strange utterance - asking and identifying in the same breath! Unless we should parse it "who are you? My son?!" Unless we understand that, on a certain level, for purposes of blessing, Yitzchak has only one son. In any case, Yaakov summons his words and speaks at length, saying all the right things, but evidently, the tone, the timbre, the habits of speech of Esav cannot be successfully imitated by Yaakov, for Yitzchak insists that Ya'acov approach that he might feel him and determine if indeed this is Esav. The touch (and smell and taste) seem to allay his doubts, for he utters the famous words, "The voice - a voice of Yaakov, and the hands - hands of Esav", and he blesses him.

The physical contact between Yitzchak and Yaakov is all the more striking for when Yaakov exits and Esav returns shortly thereafter, there is NO physical contact between them. If the HANDS of "Ya'acov" occasioned his blessing, the VOICE of Esav, the great, bitter, unexpectedly cry of Esav extracted his conditional blessing which would hound Israel throughout history.

Something is profoundly out of placer here. Yitzchak prophetically declares that the auditory realm is the realm of Yaakov's mastery, while the tactile realm is given over to Esav, but in this passage, each employs the tool, or is it the weapon, of the other. The disguise deceives Yitzchak, but, might it not also be the case that Yaakov (and perhaps Esav as well) is deceived by the successful adoption of what must ultimately characterize his brother?

Last night at the yeshiva's weekly shmooze, we spoke of music and its role in the yeshiva, and we compared the relative prominence at various stages of the yeshiva's history, of guitars and drums. As we spoke, it struck me that while both (and in fact, all) instruments are played by hands to make a sound, drums are more closely associated with hands - striking, loud, played by striking, associated with violence, sometimes ominous - while guitars, and, to take a step toward a more classically "Jewish" instrument, violins (yes, I know I am being Ashke-centric, but bear with me) are almost all melody, practically never used to maintain rhythm.

Melody and rhythm, the indispensable two elements of music, can be compared to vowels and consonants, their concomitants in the realm of that other music, language. There must be the violence of stoppage, of freeze-framing, and their must be the gentleness of movement toward, of flowing on, of connection.

Yaakov ("Follower") grasps Esav's heel NOT because he seeks to supplant him, but, ultimately, because he seeks to connect the stand-on-his-own self-made man (Esav means "made", "done"), to the root, the source, the ever-loving womb which, in a certain sense, he never leaves.

In the finite world which we inhabit, there is no problem finding percussionists for our cosmic band. Everyone marches to the beat of his own drummer. The real challenge is to find the player who will pick up the lilting melody that wends it way BETWEEN the beats in a legato stream of fluid sound, connecting all the dots.

Last night, when asked to begin a nigun, the drummers said, "just start singing and I'll come in afterward". We need to rectify the hands, we must remember that they do best when they answer the call of the voice, the inner voice, the one which once upon a time followed the lead of the hands when it responded to Yitzchak's inquiry, "are you really my son Esav"? Then, that voice responded with the single word, accented on the penultimate syllable because it appears, curiously at the drumbeat-end of a verse: Ani. Now, that same word, must be spoken, accented as it almost always needs to be, leading toward verbal motion, toward the music of relationship, toward the anticipatory, grammatical, ultimately-accented ani...., flowing toward being to come.

One Real Face Deserves Another

2008-02-03T02:52:00.001-08:00

Ya'akov is returning home after twenty-odd years in Padam-Aram in Lavan's household. He's brought in tow a large household acquired despite Lavan's deceit by years of honest sweat, toil, and, primarily, Hashem's blessing. He's faced down Lavan who pursued him and challenged him at Gal-ed. Now, as he re-enters Eretz Yisrael, he sends messengers/angels to Esav, his brother, his nemesis. He sends the messengers to the land of Seir, where Esav seems to have taken up residence (as is made explicit at the parashah's end). Why does he do this? Why not let sleeping dogs lie, asks the midrash in almost precisely those words? Yet it seems that Ya'akov cannot - he fled from before his brother's rage so long ago, a rage stirred up by Ya'acov's own actions which effective supplanted Esav as heir to the Avrahamic legacy, and now it is time to do the tikkun for a relationship so badly damaged, even if those actions were taken under divine guidance.

So Ya'akov, surprised by his encounter with Lavan, prepares carefully for this one. The midrash tells us that he prepared in three different ways - he prepared via prayer, he prepared for battle, and he prepared to appeased his brother, who, he is informed by his messengers (as understood by the midrash), is still acting in the same, familiar fashion. The appeasement is effected by a lavish gift sent to his brother - small herds of no less than ten different kinds of domestic animals, each sent in the hand of a separate shepherd, set apart by a distance so as to increase the impact of the gift.

It is Ya'akov's words to himself which gives away his apprehension and his hopes in advance of their inevitable meeting.
"I will appease him with the gift that goes before me. Afterwards, when I encounter him, perhaps he will accept me". So the gift went on ahead of him..." (Bereshit 32:21--22).
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This is a translation of the Hebrew text which is, I am confident, a faithful rendering of the simple, straightforward meaning of the text. But oh, how far this simple, straightforward meaning is from the holy grail, the PSHAT!! Here's the Hebrew, transliterated:
Achapra fanav b'minchah haholechet l'fanai acharei chen er'eh panav ulai yisa fanai. Vata'avor haminchah l'fanav.
And here's how the text is rendered by Everett Fox in his translation, in which he attempts to render the poetry, cadence and allusions of the Hebrew:

"I will wipe (the anger from) his face,
with the give that goes ahead of my face;
afterward, when I see his face,
perhaps he will lift up my face!"
The gift crossed over ahead of his face

On this level, Ya'akov is absolutely obsessed by the anticipated encounter: "His face, my face, his face, my face, his face" - a five-time repetition within the space of just over one verse! I'll wipe his face, he'll lift my face - perhaps, perhaps!! What will turn out from this encounter, wonders/prays/steels hiimself Ya'akov.

"Panim" - the Hebrew word for face, is derive from the Hebrew verb root P-N-H, meaning "turn". There is something deceptive about a face. It presents who we are, even as it turns aside the deeper query: who are you really? We reserve that intimacy for a select few intimates, maybe our best friends, maybe our spouses, loved ones, maybe not even them. Maybe not even ourselves. We cultivate our face ever so carefully even as we give away unintended depths via our face, for it "turns" on us as well, revealing and inviting a depth that we are perhaps not so prepared to offer.

What would Ya'akov's face betray? What would Esav's face portend? Would Esav still be angry? Would Ya'akov even know by seeing him? Upon this encounter and its outcome would rest the fates not just of two individuals, but of entire peoples ("Shnei Goyim b'Vitnech" - "Two nations are in your womb", Rivkah is informed), and not just any peoples, but those peoples whose careers would determine the historical trajectory of must of the human race.

But we're missing two "faces"! The Torah typically concentrates seven repetitions of terms within a short space, to tell us that the given word or term is the key to understanding the passage. Where are the other two faces?

Patience, patience. For when Ya'akov finally meets Esav, he approaches, bowing seven times, and Esav runs toward him, (uh-oh), and embraces him (to stab him?) and falls upon his neck (to break it) and "kisses him" (with all his heart? Yes, says Rashbi, although it's totally against his deep-seated hatred of Ya'akov) and they cried". Ya'akov is tremendously relieved - he's done it, he's reencountered his brother. Esav askes about all the gifts, and, when hearing that they are for him, at first refuses them. Ya'akov insists, explaining himself: "for I have seen your face as the face of an angelic/divine being and you been gracious to me".

The sixth face is Esav - he wins, four to two, and the seventh face - the face of an angel or perhaps the face of G-d (for it's the word E-lohim which is employed). Ya'akov's words are understood to refer back to the previous night's wrestling match. For after wrestling that night with the "man", holding his own and receiving a new name, Ya'akov calls that place "Peni'el", for, as he says, "If have seen an divine/angelic being face to face and my life has been saved".

Deep encounter is truly frightening . "No man may see me and live", says Hashem, but who REALLY looks into the face of his fellow? It's an invasion, a penetration into a realm so private it's sacred. When two people separated by a gulf of enmity so deeply entrenched in the very cores of their souls can, even for a moment, look each other in the face and see something sacred, and really hug and really kiss, that moment becomes a revelation of a divine face, a dance of the sevel veils of faces proffered and retracted until, unexpectedly, the face of the divine reveals itself in the spark-gap between two faces really turned toward the depth hidden beneath the surface of the other, waiting to be called up.