Weekly Torah from Jeremy Rosen

Vayeshev

2010-11-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

The conflict between brothers is a recurring theme in the Torah. It starts with Kayin and Havel, continues with Yitzchak and Yishmael, re-emerges with Yaakov and Esav, and now comes to a climax with Yosef and his brothers.

Yosef is his father's favorite, as indeed was Esav, but this time we know that the favorite is designated for greatness because of the dreams he gets. His father must surely have realized how much Yosef was hated by his brothers, because he knew that Yosef was talking to everyone about his dreams.

So why did he send him off alone, a long way away from home to them? Surely he might have guessed that he was putting him in an invidious position, that something might happen. Or did he, as most parents do, fail to recognize what he would rather not have seen? In other words, is the conflict between brothers something built into them? Is it their fault? Or could you say that it was the fault of the parents?

In the case of Kayin and Havel, there is no textual basis for suggesting that Adam and Chava contributed. But in the case of Esav and Yaakov there certainly was. The Torah says that Yitzchak favored Esav whereas Rivkah preferred Yaakov. And in the case of Yosef it is clear that the colored coat was a sign of favoritism.

Was this favoritism blind in Yitzchak's case? It seems so, both literally and figuratively. But what of Yaakov? The Torah says that his reaction to the dreams of Yosef was to "mark" the situation. Perhaps he felt that Yosef had a special mission and was merely carrying out a Divine plan--in which case he might have felt that God would protect him.

There is another issue however. If it is clear that one child is indeed suited to a specific role, shouldn’t a parent encourage him or her, even if it means showing some favoritism (so long as this favoritism is balanced by showing love for the other children in equal measure)?

Vayishlach

2010-11-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

Yaakov seems to be on the run constantly (though this is tens of years after his flight from Esav). He has escaped from Lavan even though he was pursued by this acrimonious father-in-law, and now he faces his brother Esav. He had no option. He could not have stayed where he was. Now, terrified, he moves his wives and children across the river Yabok to meet Esav. He divides them up into two separate camps in the hope that if one camp is massacred the other will survive. And he is found on the other side of the river, the wrong side.

What was he doing there? The Midrash says he was collecting some pots and pans that had been left behind. But it makes just as much sense to think that he might have been having second thoughts, even possibly thinking of fleeing.

An angel grapples with him. They fight till dawn. Yaakov is "fouled", but he hangs on and only lets the angel go with a promise of a blessing. The angel tells him his name should now be Yisrael, meaning "he fights with God and God and wins". It seems that this gives him the confidence to go back and face his brother, and happily everything is settled amicably.

Some commentators talk about this incident as involving an encounter with a real angel; others see it as a dream. In modern psychological terms we can see Yaakov wrestling with himself, his own anxiety, and finally overcoming his fear. But isn't it interesting that the name Yisrael, Israel, actually implies that we are constantly in a state of conflict, spiritually and physically. Isn't this precisely the state of the Jewish people now, at odds with ourselves and at odds with our enemies? Yet this story tells us we should have the confidence that we can sort things out.

Vayeitzei

2010-11-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

Yaakov runs away from Esav his brother. His mother (Rivkah) has told his father (Yitzchak) that the reason he is leaving is to find a wife back home, where Rivkah came from, even though we know that Esav is the problem. But of course, it is possible to combine both reasons in such a way as to repeat the experience of the previous generation. Then Eliezer, sent by Avraham, had gone back to Aram and straight to the well to find a wife. This time too Yaakov ends up at the well, but not as a wealthy man carrying camel-loads of goodies. He is poor, with only his physical strength to offer. He arrives towards evening and strikes up a conversation with the local shepherds. He enquires after Lavan, his uncle, and at that moment Rachel appears with her sheep (women had careers back then too!)

Yaakov is smitten. You might have thought that he was a weakling, for this is the image we have of him as a "tent dweller ". But he is strong enough to roll a heavy stone off the well to enable the shepherds to water their flocks, and he personally waters Lavan's sheep, in a reversal of the earlier roles.

Once again Lavan runs out to the well, but this time he is disappointed--no money, no gold ornaments--and he takes Yaakov in to work for his keep. Very different. But the similarity of the well is no coincidence. Water is the source of life and fertility. It is also the community center and the natural meeting place for strangers, as well as locals. But in practice it is a very reliable place to test character.

The Talmud says people can be judged by the way they drink, spend their money, and do or do not control their anger. When a person is thirsty, or competing for attention, the baser inner characteristics emerge. If you are thirsty and tired and can still be considerate and use what resources you have left to help others, then this is as much a sign to Rachel that Yaakov is a good man as Rivkah showed her goodness to Eliezer in a previous generation.

Toldot

2010-11-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

This is where we are introduced to the character of Esav, the all-time baddie. The rabbis accuse him of violence, rape, murder, cruelty, and almost any crime you care to mention. We know that "Esav" or "Edom" was used in the Midrash and Talmud as a code for Rome, and they had plenty of good reasons to be anti-Roman at the time, given the aggressive way the Romans dealt with the Jewish insurrections.

But if you look carefully at Esav’s character as it appears in the Torah, he does not seem to be quite as bad as he is made out to be. It is true that he doesn’t seem to care about his birthright, but then most people when they are totally exhausted might want to revive first and think later. It is true that he threatens to kill Yaakov, but then there were extenuating circumstances. He is clearly upset when he does not get the blessing. He cries, hardly the response of a hard, bad man.

The case against Esav is that he is a man of uncontrolled impulse, a dissembler, and religious hypocrite. The very characteristics that Yaakov has, being calm and calculating, even single-minded, are qualities that suit leadership far more than emotional explosiveness.

One might think that the qualities that differentiate Yaakov from Esav would be the ones that the Talmud might have admired in Rome. The Jewish rebels seem to have exhibited the qualities of Esav rather than Yaakov. Based on the gemara in Gittin, they actually killed other Jews who disagreed with them, put violence above negotiation, and tried to bully their way over the wishes of the majority. And if you take Josephus's version of Masada, they went in for mass suicides, against halacha.

But remember that most of the religious leaders at the time of the great rebellions against Rome were not in favor of violence. Like Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai, they wanted accommodation because they saw Torah and spirituality as being more important than land and politics. It seems to me that those same lessons apply today.

Chayei Sarah

2010-10-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

This week, the subtheme seems to be the way we speak with forked tongue! Sometimes to good effect and sometimes not. Avraham wants to buy a cave to bury Sarah. He approaches Efron the Hitite, who says that he will give it for nothing. "Besides," he says, "what is a field worth four hundred shekels between friends?" So Avraham weighs out the money and pays him. Efron was not being honest when he said he would give it for free, otherwise he would not have mentioned the exact valuation of the property. Here is a negative example of doublespeak.

Then Eliezer is sent to find a wife for Yitzchak. Avraham tells him specifically to go back to his homeland and birthplace to look for a wife, but he says nothing about going back to the family. After he has found Rivkah, he says to her family that "my master made me swear that I would not take a wife from the local tribes amongst whom I live, but to go back to my father’s house and to my family to take a wife for my son."

Did Eliezer accurately report what Avraham had said? On the face of it he did not. He clearly made out that Avraham had mentioned his family to make it seem all the more appropriate and amazing that the kind qualities he was looking for could be found in Avraham’s family. Yet Eliezer went to the well where anyone might have been, not just family. So he was slightly distorting the truth in order to persuade her family that Rivkah was the Divinely ordained wife for Isaac.

On the other hand, maybe Eliezer was reading deeper into Avraham’s intentions than the text lets on. Perhaps the art is to read between the lines and to try to understand what is being said to you on more than a superficial level. The Torah provides guidance. It is not just a book of laws and customs, but also one that helps us understand human nature better.

Vayeira

2010-10-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

God appears to Avraham as he sits at the opening to his tent. He looks up and he sees three men. He runs to meet them and says, "My Lord, please do not go away from your servant. Let me get some water and wash your feet and rest under the tree."

The simple meaning of this is that God appears to Avraham in the shape of three men who he sees and invites in. When he says, "My Lord, please do not go away," he is addressing the leader. And later it transpires they are messengers from another world. From this we might learn that angels are really humans acting in such a way as to actualize some Divine plan. We can all be agents of God in some way or another. Avraham clearly saw them as humans, because he offers them creature comforts.

But the Midrash puts a very different spin on this narrative. The Midrash sees the following sequence. God appears to Avraham and they are communicating spiritually, when Avraham looks up and sees three men. He turns to God and says, "My Lord, please do not go away." And then he turns to the three men and says, "Let me get some water," etc.

The idea here is that, however important God is, there are certain types of human crises or obligations that are so important that one can actually tell God to wait. Important as God is, as spirituality is, in the end it must enhance our relationship with other humans. This world we are in is predominantly a human one. This must determine our priorities. Of course, if we do not have a spiritual base to our lives to begin with, we might be inclined to a more selfish outlook. But in the end, being a good person is what God really wants of us.

Lech Lecha

2010-10-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

This week we read about Avram, emerging as the first monotheist, the founder of our tradition. He is the first character in the Torah whose relationship with God seems to make him a better, more caring person. It is this that distinguishes him from, say, Noach.

There is a well-known tradition, not in the Torah itself, that Avram’s father, Terach, was an idol maker, and that one day Avram smashed the idols and put the hammer into the hand of the largest idol. When Terach returned, Avram said that the idol with the hammer must have done it, and Terach realized how ineffectual his job was!

Maimonides says that they were not that stupid. After all, both in Ur and Egypt massive engineering projects and sophisticated calculations were common, even before this period. The error was in the symbolism, not the reality. Even making a symbol for God can be misleading, just as endowing humans with supernatural power, the Superman Syndrome, can be dangerously illusory. So was Terach a goodie or a baddie?

If you look at the text, it seems that he, rather than Avram, started the migration out of Ur and moved up the great rivers towards Charan, which was where he dies. This is all mentioned before God appears to Avram and tells him to go to the new land he will show him. Indeed, at the end of the previous chapter it actually says that Terach left in order to go towards Canaan, and that he took his son and nephew Lot with him.

Yes, you can say that the Torah does not go in chronological order. But you can also say that although Terach might not have been as great as Avram, he did have some merit. He did start the process. And Avram does want to back to his roots for a wife for Isaac. Maybe Terach was not so bad after all and even inadequate fathers can still have a positive impact on their kids.

Noach

2010-10-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

Noach's Flood. God decides He has made a mistake and mankind needs to be recast in a different mold. Isn't it strange that things went so completely wrong so quickly with humanity? Didn't God know in advance?

The fact is that right from the start, when Adam was told not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, humans disobeyed God. Of course we were given the freedom to do so, yet this does not mean that we have to make the wrong decision every time. What happened in the Garden of Eden was not usually taken by Jewish commentators to indicate "original sin", that humanity is essentially bad. Yet we do seem to keep on getting things wrong. The narrative of the Torah is trying to teach us how to do a better job.

But it is also teaching us some other principles. One is that God is patient. That He tried to see if we could manage without a detailed constitution, but slowly it became clear we humans need something more than a few simple "dos and "don'ts". Ultimately this will lead to the need for a full program for human behavior, as reflected in the Sinai revelation.

What has always intrigued me is that, for all the mistakes, God really only reacts against violence. He intervened directly with Kayin and established the principle that violence is unacceptable. Even if Kayin might have thought it nothing terrible to hit his brother, and even if he might not have realized what he had done (as he said in excusing himself later on), he and his descendants knew full well that violence was the ultimate sin. So when God decides to destroy the world, it is not because of idol worship. It is not because people aren't eating kosher or keeping Shabbat. It is because of violence (Bereishit 6:13). Or perhaps in our modern mind we might think of the end of the Neanderthals and the beginning of another human race.

But then if God saves mankind through Noach, and he was a good man, why is he not the founder of the Jewish tradition? The fact is that, good as Noach was, he seems to have had little impact on anyone else. He did not persuade one person outside of his family to join him on his "cruise". Now you might argue that God hadn't asked Noach to try to influence anyone else. But Avraham didn’t need God to tell him to argue for the lives of the men of Sodom. Clearly Noach, before and after the flood, is wrapped up in himself.

This is the issue. To help deal with aggression and violence, we must go out to try to stop, to try to educate, to try to do something before it is too late. That is one of the morals of the Noach story!

But the impact of the flood and the ark does not end there. Noach built his ark with the dimensions given in seemingly precise detail. It had three levels, and was three hundred amas long (an ama is about a foot and a half, but there are plenty of arguments about the precise measurement in our terms), fifty amas wide, and thirty amas high. Proportionally speaking, the long flat boat actually is replicated in the dimensions of the Tabernacle that would be built in the desert. So the narrative intentionally links one era to another, later one, the general human condition to the later, specifically Jewish one.

The flood is described in precise time spans. Seven days warning to get inside; Noach was six hundred years old when the flood began; the rain started in the second month on the seventeenth day; the rain lasted for forty days and forty nights; the water remained at its height for one hundred and fifty days. The ark rested on Ararat in the seventh month on the seventeenth day again. The water sloshed around until, on the first day of the tenth month, the mountaintops appeared. Then another forty days and Noach opens the ark window.

Out goes the raven and does not return. Out goes the dove and comes back. Then another seven days and the dove goes out and comes back with an olive branch. Another seven days and out goes the dove and does not come back. So in the hundred and first year of Noach’s life, on the first day of the first month, Noach takes off the covers of the ark. And in the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth is dry. The flood is over. One year and ten days.

It seems no coincidence that the forty days and nights echoes Moshe up on the mountain receiving the Torah and then the forty years of wandering to correct the mentality of those who were not ready to accept it. One important thread of opinion amongst the Biblical commentaries sees the Tabernacle as a direct response to the Golden Calf. Like Noach's boat, it too represents the benevolent presence of God.

So here too our scientific and religious minds get to work. Are these numbers meant to be literal, and as scientific as we like to think? Or do they contain other messages? Do we have to assume that when Noach thinks of the "whole world" it was in the same way as we think of the world today? Or should we be looking for the real, the hidden messages that numbers give us, the association of numbers with spirituality, not just science?

Bereishit

2010-09-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

The first chapter of the Torah is a description of the creative process that brought our world into existence. The whole of the Torah was written in a language that an average person would have understood. "The Torah spoke in human language", says the Talmud in Brachot 31b. We should not be surprised if our modern mind finds difficulties in understanding words that seem modern but might have meant something different once. A "day" can have several meanings. What was a day before the cycle around the sun was established on the fourth day? And would they have understood the notion of the earth revolving around the sun thousands of years before Galileo?

But there is another important paradox in the opening chapters. In the first chapter God creates the plants and the trees, but in the second it says that there was nothing on earth because it hadn't yet rained and man was not there to till the ground. In the first chapter man and woman are created together, while in the second man is made first, is presented with animals as potential partners, and only then is Eve fashioned from the rib.

There are six creative days of chapter one, but only one in, "This is the story of the heavens and the earth on the day they were created." I understand the first chapter to be talking about the ingredients of creation and the second to be talking about relationships--humanity to nature and the animal world, relations between man and woman.

You often find an idea or a narrative in the Torah is too complex to be described fully in one version or that it requires two different viewpoints to fully describe the process. You have two versions of the Tabernacle; the first contains the basic elements, the second talks about how they function. There are two versions of the Ten Commandments, two different justifications for keeping Shabbat, the Song of the Sea is repeated in condensed form, the narrative of the Golden Calf is given twice, and Eliezer's journey to find a wife for Isaac is reported and repeated. Here the first chapter of Creation describes the contents of the world. The second describes the interactions and relationships.

Sometimes the many facets of an idea are conveyed sequentially, each new description adding an extra and important dimension. It is not that there is a contradiction, simply an expansion.

Nitzavim & Vayelech

2010-09-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

God tells Moses that he must hand over the leadership of Children of Israel to Joshua. He then goes on to say that after Moses’ death "this people will be seduced after the strange gods of the land that it is entering, and it will desert Me and renege on the agreement I made with it ... and I will hide My face on that day"(Deuteronomy 31:18).

This simple phrase disguises a major theological issue. The Torah is not a theological document in the way that Greek philosophy would have understood theology, or indeed in the way Christian theology developed. It is not a system based on pure logic or rational reasoning. Logically, a nonphysical, supernatural force cannot have a body or moods like humans. I know there is a heated debate about whether some great Jews of the past did actually think God had a body, but we now all accept, as we sing in Adon Olam, “He has no material form and has no body.” So on that level, we do not take the Torah literally.

However, within Torah there are a series of statements about God’s relationship to humanity that have come to influence Jewish thinking. This idea of "Hester Panim", hiding of God’s "face", is one of these. Superficially, it implies that God engages with humanity on a reciprocal level. Our increase in spiritual activity acts as a sort of magnet that attracts Divine Intervention. Mystically, God interacts all the time with humanity. The problem we have is that we often do not see it or realize it. To hide a face is not to remove it, but to disguise it. So God is there all the time. It is just that we do not know how to experience God. While we live Jewish lives we have a chance to break down the barriers, through religious experience. But if we do not live a religious life, even if only superficially, then we will be less likely to establish any kind of contact. Pagan or secular life is so focused on physical targets and goals that it has no room for the spiritual.

The Kabbalists argued that God, in the absolute sense, is not subject to change. But for humans to interact with God, God has to find a way of "diluting" or "filtering" into a form that humans can relate to. This is the system of the Sephirot, the ten "Attributes" or "Emanations" that enable the absolutely infinite Ein Sof to "transform" to Shechina, the Divine Presence that we experience.

But whichever way we try to look at it, as Maimonides says, we simply cannot describe God in human terms. So "God hiding His face" should not be taken as theology. Rather it is an analogy, just as the "Hand of God" implies no dirty fingernails or the "Anger of God" implies no rise in blood pressure.

To hide one’s face can also be understood as an act of despair, of God’s "pain" at not wanting to see what stupid things we humans are capable of doing.

Ki Tavo

2010-08-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

The whole of the forty-year experience of exodus and then wandering in the desert was intended to be a preparation for entering the "Promised Land". We know only too well what a difficult, trying, and occasionally disastrous experience it was. Nevertheless, it was a tremendous feat, holding the people together and forging a new constitution and a new national character. Finally arriving and beginning the process of settlement brought with it other challenges.

Initially an invading force reaps the benefits of what others have planted or built. But in time new crops and new buildings spring up, as the old is slowly overtaken and forgotten.

The ceremony of bringing the first fruits is designed to get the settlers to appreciate their good fortune and, at the same time, to remember the past. These two ideas complement each other. It is a principle of Jewish law that one should actually try to enjoy life. We are commanded many times to rejoice. "God does not come to a person through sadness or depression or laziness, but through joy." But it is also a principle not to enjoy anything without first thanking God.

Thanking for what? It is so easy to take things for granted. If we normally enjoy good health, only sickness makes us fully appreciate our good fortune. Unlike in other traditions, there is no concept that suffering is necessary (of course it happens and often without any clear reason) or that only through suffering can one come to appreciate good things. In Judaism one can manage pretty well without suffering or evil, if one is lucky enough to be able to live without them. But then the only way to really appreciate our good fortune is to see it as a gift from God and to be grateful for it.

The formula that we recite when we bring the first fruits is one specifically designed to get us to appreciate our good fortune. Only by referring to the past can one appreciate the present. A bit like enjoying the rewards of graduating after remembering how hard you studied beforehand. Sometimes one needs to appreciate how far one has come materially since earlier generations struggled to survive. This is as true of post-war generations as it was of post-Exodus generations. Some things haven't changed over four thousand years.

Ki Teitzei

2010-08-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

"The Torah recognizes the power of temptation." This is one of the responses of the rabbis to the law about a captive woman. War brings out the worst (and occasionally the best) in us. So the Torah allows for a soldier under conditions of war to take a woman captive. But then there is a whole procedure to go through before he can give in to his lust (some disagreement as to whether first time or second) and finally he must marry her and make "an honest woman" of her.

The next episode concerns a man with two wives--one beloved and the other not. He cannot favor the sons of the preferred wife over the seniority of the children of the hated one. And this is followed by a law about a son, out of control, who threatens his parents.

Rabbinic tradition sees these as sequential for a good reason. If marriage is based only on lust then the relationship is bound to falter and may indeed turn into hatred. Check out the story of the rape of Tamar, King David’s daughter, by her half-brother. A loveless marriage is bound to affect the children, and this in turn leads to loss of respect, rebelliousness, and a breakdown in normal family life.

The Torah does indeed recognize human frailty. But at the same time emphasizes that there are consequences. Our actions and their motives certainly have an impact, for better or for worse!

Shoftim

2010-08-12T08:00:00.001-07:00

In this week's Torah portion, there is the commandment to appoint a king. It is only mentioned here, not previously in the Torah, and it is phrased in an unusual way.

"When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you inherit it and settle it, and you may say, 'I want to appoint a king like all the other nations around me', then you may indeed appoint a king whom your God will choose."

The Torah then goes on to lay down conditions. He mustn't have too many wives (in case they distract him), or too many horses (lest he take people down to Egypt in search of more wealth), and he should always be subject to the Torah and not "above the law".

The question is whether monarchy is a necessary requirement of halacha. If so, why did Samuel get so angry when the people asked him to appoint a king? The usual reply is that the motive was wrong. Samuel argued that having God as the Supreme King was enough. Why want a human figurehead? Yet here in the Torah it says very clearly that even if the motive is the most non-Jewish motive of wanting to imitate pagan nations round about, they may still go ahead.

Actually, the motive of wanting to be like the other nations is relevant here specifically. The issue then becomes simply one of self-defense. They felt that having a supreme military commander might help them deal with the outside world better. Of course after the Saul failure it worked for awhile, but then descended into petty rivalry after Solomon. So why do we want to see King David and a monarchy restored?

I think it is just nostalgia, the dream of a time when we controlled our own destiny and King David was the boss and no one else. But now? I do not approve of the hereditary monarchy and would not want to see one. Either Elijah will come and decide we don't need the monarchy or I will have to change my mind.

Re'eh

2010-08-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

Amongst the fascinating laws in this week's Torah is one that is particularly relevant. If a prophet or a dreamer emerges from amongst the Jewish people and performs miracles and uses these to get the Jews to abandon their God, then one is not allowed to listen or to pay any attention to the miracles themselves. This is simply a test to see how loyal we are to God and to the set of commands given to us through Moses. There in Chapter 13 is as clear a message as one could possibly wish for to refute any claims by Christians or "Jews for Jesus" that we can fulfill our spiritual destiny as Jews by rejecting or abandoning our tradition or by accepting a false prophet.

Interestingly, the passage does not say that magic might not work, just that we should not pay any attention. Miracles function to reinforce a prior commitment, not establish a new one. The message is the medium, tricks have their roles but they are secondary. Indeed the whole function and nature of miracles is downgraded by this passage. All our prophets sought to reinforce commitment to the full range of Torah principles--ethical, spiritual, ritual, and civil.

This does not mean that ours is the only religion and the only way that God communicates with humanity. There were other prophets amongst the rest of the world, and prophets from our tradition to the nations. The Torah assumes that other nations and traditions will coexist with ours, from Ishmael onwards. Even before Sinai, Avraham relates positively to Melchizedek of Shalem, a Priest to El Elyon. There are indeed many paths to God, and others may have equally high ethical and spiritual traditions.

But our tradition is our heritage and anyone trying to attack that fundamental cannot possibly have anything of value to say to us or to add to what has already been given.

Ekev

2010-07-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading sounds just like our worst nightmare of a cheder teacher. "Do this, because if you don't God will punish you and your family and lightening will strike you down as soon as you break the laws of the Torah." I guess many of us were threatened with force or punishment by parents or teachers or both and so we react very negatively when we are threatened. It is the worst possible way of getting us to do something. So why does the Torah try this tactic? Is it just for the poor, simple barbarians who would not understand any other language? Surely we should do things because we want to and because they give us pleasure or meaning or something important to our lives, not because we are scared.

I certainly agree we should serve out of love rather than fear. But fear really should mean respect. In fact "fear" is the wrong word, the wrong translation, and sends the wrong message. But "respect" is an altogether different issue. If I really love someone I should respect him too. It should be automatic. If I know that something is offensive to someone I care for, then I should try to avoid it.

Moses is so profoundly committed to Torah, not just because he has experienced God, but also because he has come from a different world and has experienced other societies and civilizations. He has seen what Egyptian society has done to the Hebrews and to others. Despite its scientific and industrial achievements, it was a morally sick society where human life was disposable.

The more passionately Moses felt about the new religion and the new constitution, the more he felt he needed to stress its importance. It was out of his passionate love that he threatened. It was his way of conveying what he cared about. His words were ways of showing how much he cared, and as a result how much he wanted his people to care too. And if they cared for him or wanted to remain loyal to his memory, what was expected of them. The threats were simply ways of conveying to them how much it all mattered to him.

Va'etchanan

2010-07-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading includes the second version of the Ten Principles (misleadingly called the Ten Commandments). If you remember, Moshe came down from Sinai the first time, saw the Golden Calf, smashed the tablets of stone, and eventually went back up and received a second copy. This version differs in several relatively minor ways from the first. The principles are the same but there are interesting variations in the wording.

The most interesting one is that in the first version the instruction to keep Shabbat is phrased as "Remember" the Shabbat because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. In the second version, read this week, the instruction is to "Keep" the Shabbat because we should remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt. Why the differences?

One explanation of the two words "Keep" and "Remember" is to suggest that they were identical and meant the same thing. The word "Remember" should involve "keeping" and vice versa--otherwise what is the value of remembering? And indeed what is the value of keeping if not for a greater and Divine purpose?

But in truth there is a similar parallel between Creation and the Exodus. Creation implies that there are two levels to life--the active, working, material six days, which need to be combined with a spiritual dimension. The concept of withdrawal from society, not becoming dependent on the material alone, is essential for a balanced life, being part of the material world but having something more.

Slavery means being entirely at the beck and call of another human. It is another side of a material world, dominated by work and the absence of self-determination. Being free means that we are able to control more of our lives.

Of course we are all determined and controlled to some degree. But the measure of spirituality is the extent to which we can add another dimension and be fuller humans, precisely because we can combine work with spirituality.

So in fact both explanations add up to the same idea. Participate in society and be part of the material world, but try to add something more. Try to express freedom by living a fuller life. For that is what we were created for, the maximum self-expression, not just the physical.

Devarim

2010-07-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

The last book of the Torah is a sort of last will and testament by Moshe before he dies. It is a repetition of the essential message of the Torah, its laws and the spiritual content of Jewish life.

Moshe starts by describing the sequence of events that led from Egypt to this moment, when, overlooking the Promised Land and knowing that he will not lead the people into it, he prepares the people for the future.

Why the need go over the events that they had lived through? The last time the people were about to invade, forty years earlier, there had been a major crisis. The people were clearly not ready. Moshe wants to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen this time.

But then why the need to repeat and to add some extra laws that were not mentioned the first time round? One could argue that it was just a matter of emphasis and shifting priorities. In the light of Moshe's experience over forty years, it is natural that he should focus more on matters of kingship, leadership, organization, and administration than he did in Exodus, when there were other priorities.

There is nothing wrong in shifting emphasis. Consider the phases Judaism has gone through: kings, prophets, and priests. We have worshipped in Tabernacle, Temple, study houses, and synagogues. We have been exiled to the four corners of the earth and lived under different regimes, religions, and cultures. Different aspects of Torah have assumed greater or lesser significance. The crucial issue is that the tradition remains faithful to its essential spiritual and ethical message.

And that is why Moshe keeps on reiterating in his final speeches the importance of the words tzedek (righteousness), tov (good), and yashar (noble), all words which emphasize that, important as the law is, there are moral, ethical values that underpin it, that if we forget them we will have lost our mission and our true soul.

Matot-Masei

2010-07-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

The Midianites presented a major threat to the Children of Israel. They had rejected any form of compromise or accommodation. Balak of Moav, an ally, had brought Bilam the magician to try cursing. When the supernatural did not work to stop the advance of the Children of Israel, the Midianites turned to sexual tactics.

Actually, there is a tradition that they did so on the advice of Bilam, which would be another mark against him but doesn't seem to follow the text which has Bilam accepting that what God wants, He should get. Having experienced the special relationship between God and Israel why should he try challenging the clear will of an Almighty power he accepted? Unless you assume that, like Satan in the Book of Job, he had been "given permission" to test the Hebrews.

The Midianites sent in their sexy women. And they were hugely successful, not just sexually but in seducing many of the Hebrews into idolatry and the worship of Baal Peor. "Peor" literally means defecation. The orifices of the body were used as part of religious worship. Defecation and sexuality coming from a similar physical source are then equated within the framework of religious worship. Peor is known for its temple whores and the requirement that every woman be prepared to prostitute herself as an act of religious submission.

Of course, this approach to life fundamentally contrasts with a spiritual one in which the physical is restrained and combined with a different dimension. The fact that chieftains, the most senior level of the Hebrew hierarchy, were seduced to the point of publicly defying Moshe meant that the threat was a very real one. But does this justify the extent to which in this week's reading the Children of Israel were commanded to purge themselves of this evil influence? Even to the point of having to purify the vessels and cutlery of the Midianites?

This indeed is the origin of our custom of kashering and toveling (immersing in a mikvah) vessels and implements used for food. This origin underlines another important dimension of kashrut; we need to combine the physical with the spiritual.

We do not reject physical pleasures, but our tradition requires us to see them as part of wider, deeper, spiritual world.

Pinchas

2010-07-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

This sedra includes the approach of Tzelafchad's daughters to Moshe regarding the matter of female inheritance. Their father had died and there were no sons. This meant that when the allocation of land was going to be made in Israel their father's family would lose out, because land was given through the males. (We may argue that this was unfair, but bear in mind that in Britain females were allowed to inherit only in late Victorian times, and in Switzerland they were given the vote barely thirty years ago).

Moshe does not know how to respond, so he consults God. This is interesting in itself because it implies that there were laws that Moshe did not know about even after the Sinai revelation. Moshe returns with a ruling: Where there are no male descendents, then women may inherit.

However, the law was qualified to restrict marriage to someone within the tribe. The reason was that otherwise the land would then follow the tribe of the husband and could create an imbalance in tribal property. This way each tribe would retain the proportion of the original allocation. The Torah does not specify this. What is made clear is that any tribal land that was sold outside of the tribe could be redeemed by a member of that tribe within the Sabbatical or the Jubilee periods. Otherwise, the land would automatically return with the 50 year Jubilee. (It seems originally that everyone was supposed to marry within the tribe. The Mishnaic festival of the 14th of Av is the anniversary of a decree allowing "intermarriage" beyond the tribal boundaries.)

There is an implicit principle in all this that no one should acquire too much of or a monopoly over lands. Of course this applied at a time when tribal land was relevant, which ended with the first exile. Similarly, the function of the Jubilee required conditions--the Sanhedrin, the Temple--that no longer apply, so we are left with the concepts and ideas that can have relevance even though the commercial world has changed.

Balak

2010-06-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Bilam is a fascinating character, reviled in the Midrash and yet described as a prophet of the nations of the world. On the face of it, he has a relationship with the Divine which seems to be a positive one. When Balak sends representatives to ask him to go and curse the Children of Israel, he makes it very clear that he must get permission first. God appears to him and has a conversation. Asks who the visitors are and tells Bilam not to go with them. It looks as though there is a pretty close relationship. And Bilam does as he is told.

Then more important messengers come back with a higher offer and again Bilam demurs and goes even further, "Even if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold I could not go against the word YHVH, my God." Seems pretty conclusive. Indeed, he uses the name YHVH unlike Melchizedek who used EL ELYON.

That night God appears again and this time tells Bilam to go with the messengers, but only to say what is put into his mouth. Bilam gets up to go, but on the way an angel blocks the road, and only Bilam's donkey can see it. Bilam can't see the angel, so he doesn't know why the donkey has stopped. Finally, the donkey opens its mouth and explains why it can't go on. This time it appears the donkey is closer to the forces of Heaven than is Bilam.

The angel finally appears to Bilam and tells again to go on but only to speak as he is told.

On he goes. He gets to Balak, he asks for seven altars to be built and sacrifices offered. God puts words into his mouth that praise Israel rather than curse. Later on God appears to Bilam directly (using a rare word VAYIKAR which could also imply ACCIDENT) and again tells him what to say.

Finally, "Bilam saw that it was good before God to praise Israel, so he no longer turned to the spells he had before…and the Spirit of God rested upon him."

Here lies the clue to Bilam's negative side. To begin with, God was just one of the "forces" he used, related to, or served. God played with him the way he played with Pharaoh, and finally Bilam was able to see the difference.

Chukat

2010-06-17T11:59:00.001-07:00

The notion of purity in the Torah is a very complex one. In Western Society we associate notions of purity with physical purity. Impure means "dirty", pure means "clean". But this is not how the Torah sees the idea. After all, in this week's reading the agency of purity is the ashes of a red heifer and yet anyone involved in preparing them becomes impure. This doesn't make sense.

Firstly, it must be said that the purity we are talking about is simply being in an appropriate state to participate in Temple ritual. In the ordinary way of things, most Jews would have carried on a perfectly normal existence throughout the year and across the world while being in a state of "ritual impurity". This would have had no effect whatsoever on, say, the daily life of say a rabbi in Babylon or a rebbetzin in Rome or a Dayan in Worms. The fact is that most humans are in a state of ritual impurity all the time, and indeed at one stage the rabbis actually made a law to the effect that the soil of the Diaspora was ritually impure. (Louis Finkelstein argued that this was to protect the Israeli pottery industry! Reminds one of current commercial practices.)

It was only if one were a priest that this would be a daily problem, because you couldn't eat tithes or other sanctified food in a state of impurity. But for the common and garden Israelite it was only relevant if you wanted to go and visit the Temple. Yes, three times a year there were mass pilgrimages, and tourism existed in those days too. So the real issue was not a negative one of suggesting that we were all dirty, but rather a positive one that suggested that if one wanted to elevate oneself, to go up to the Temple, then one had to go through a very serious process of preparation and purification. Perhaps "elevation" would have been a better word to use, but the effect is the same. The symbolism is what really counts.

Korach

2010-06-10T16:34:00.001-07:00

Most people remember the Korach story for the earth opening up and swallowing up the protesters. The "grave" consumed them, and I guess this must be one of the origins of the notion of Hell being a place down in the pit of the earth where bad people end up.

But there is another amazing event associated with the rebellion. One of the objections was that Moshe had given the best jobs to members of his closest family. So Divine instructions were given. Every prince of each tribe was given a wooden staff and the name of each tribe was written on the staff. Aharon presented the staff on behalf of the tribe of Levi. The staffs were placed in the Tent of Assembly overnight. The following day only the staff of Aharon had sprouted blossoms and almonds. The idea of the supposedly dry and "dead" wood coming alive, so to speak, was confirmation that Aharon's appointment had a higher authority than Moshe. Of course this would not have completely satisfied Korach, because he too was from the tribe of Levi. Nevertheless it was a pretty impressive confirmation.

This image of the "shoot" sprouting is used much later on in the Bible by Isaiah in Chapter 11: "And a branch shall sprout from the stock of Yishai and blossom from its roots." Here of course he is referring to the House of David whose father was Yishai. He is looking forward to a new king emerging who will impose justice and fair government. The quote goes on with the famous phrase, "And the wolf will live with the sheep and a leopard will play with a kid."

Jewish commentators always assumed this was a reference to King Hezekiah, who brought about a religious revival not, as Christians suggested, to someone coming six hundred years later. Virtually all prophetic predictions were relatively short-term. The wolf and the lion are symbols of aggression, and the sheep of a passive or quieter person. No one was expected to believe that lions would actually change their eating habits to consume straw. But, differences apart, the flowering staff became a symbol of Divinely approved leadership. Perhaps this where scepters originated.

Shelach Lecha

2010-06-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

The signs of trouble were there all along. Everyone has been organized in marching formation ready to invade. We know soon they are going to panic and ask Moshe to send in spies. But at this moment there is no challenge to the invasion scenario. Moshe asks his father-in-law, Yitro, to come with them into the new territory and to merge; the famous phrase that is used in our synagogues when we open up the Ark, is the signal to advance.
Then things go wrong.

People start complaining and fires start burning around the edge of the camp. They cry out to Moshe and in he steps as the fire chief to damp things down. Then they start grumbling about their diet and get nostalgic for the wonderful food they had back in the Egyptian work camps. This time Moshe has had enough. Public office in the Jewish community is getting to him. He calls on the seventy elders to help. Eldad and Medad start prophesying independently and then Miriam and Aaron complain as well.

Clearly morale is low. It is not surprising that they want reassurance. God’s word is not enough. However religious we may sometimes feel, we are practical people. The project of the spies was doomed from the start because the circumstances under which they were sent were unstable. The people needed reassurance. But the reassurance they needed was that they would have an easy ride, no hassle. And life just isn’t like that; even the easy things need working at.

So if you are thinking of going on aliyah, you’ll get help and some very favorable concessions. But don't assume it will all go simply and easily without a few hitches. All good things are worth fighting for and it helps if you have the right attitude, a positive one, before you go.

Beha’alotecha

2010-05-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

The command is given to make a candelabrum of seven branches in the Tabernacle. A detailed description has already been given to Betzalel much earlier in Exodus and now that the Priesthood has been established and Aharon and his sons have been "dedicated", they are commanded to make sure that lights should burn on this "menorah" perpetually.

The Seven Branched Candelabrum became the national symbol and was far more widely recognized, and for longer, than the Star of David. Historians and archaeologists still argue as to the origin of the Star of David, but the candelabrum is certainly our earliest recognizable national symbol (as opposed to the symbols of the individual tribes).

Yet even here there is plenty of disagreement. Most of us were used to the representation of the menorah from reproductions of the sculpture on Hadrian's Arch, which depicts the victorious Romans carrying off booty from the sacked Temple in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. The branches are curved and the base is solid, as opposed to the Biblical instruction for there to be "legs". And in recent years Lubavitch has made a feature of using the straight angular-branched version that Maimonides mentions "though the vast majority of the other commentators and experts disagreed.

Then there is the issue of how many lights and for how long they were lit. The Torah is ambiguous, on the face of it. The full seven lights were lit to coincide with certain public ceremonies. The wicks were arranged so that they all pointed towards the center. But the western most light alone kept burning all the time and this is the origin of the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Flame, that burns in front of the ark in synagogues today.

Chanukah is the commemoration of the period under Greek rule when the Temple was desecrated and only Judah Macabee's interventions allowed the Temple to be rededicated and the menorah to be relit.

But of course on Chanukah we have an eight branched candelabrum. There has always been a ban on trying to replicate Temple artifacts. As a result some people do not call this eight-branched Chanukah candelabrum a "menorah", but a "Chanukiah".

The eight-branched is the most popular; most Jewish homes have one. But the seven-branched one is the one and only authentic original.

Naso

2010-05-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

One of the stranger laws of the Torah is that of the Nazir. A person could decide to be stricter than the law required and take on extra burdens, like Samson who let his hair grow and never had it cut (until he fell for the wrong woman).

The most common act of self-denial was to give up alcohol (you couldn't go against the Torah in your vow, so giving up sex, supposing you were married, was not an option and your wife could sue for divorce if you did). The reasons for self-denial could vary but it was a personal decision. You could decide in advance how long you wanted this period of abstinence to last and then you had to stick to it because it was a very serious religious obligation.

Nowadays we do not take too much notice about the vows we make. "If I pass this exam, I promise to a) be nice to my parents, b) give up smoking, c) eat kosher." Or, "If this deal comes through I’ll give 10% to charity." And even if we do begin to keep the vow, we rarely keep it up. Almost no one takes commitments seriously any more.

After the Nazir finished his (or her) period of denial, he had to bring a Sin Offering to the Temple. Why a Sin Offering? After all, he has just come through a period of being better and holier than the Torah requires--he should be rewarded not punished. But the Talmud says that it is not automatically a good thing for a person to deny himself a pleasure that is allowed in the Torah. It is hard enough keeping those basic rules we have been given without trying to be over-strict.

I've always been amazed by this. Most people think that being more religious is automatically better. But the Torah seems to indicate that it is a rather risky business to be too pious. Besides, the pleasures of life are there for us to enjoy (obviously, with moderation). The message is that life should be enjoyed and the truly religious person should take pleasure from life rather than being somber, self-denying, and negative.

Bamidbar

2010-05-13T18:47:00.001-07:00

Oh no! Not another census! There was one after they came out of Egypt, another to provide the silver shekalim for the Tabernacle, another after the Golden Calf episode, and now this one in the second month of the second year. Rashi explains that it is because of the Divine love for Israel, rather like a shepherd constantly checking up, so the Children of Israel were always being counted. Yet counting is clearly considered problematic. Back in Ki Tisa, the idea of the shekel as the vehicle for counting was explained, so that "no plague would strike during the census".

A census is, of course, a very important vehicle of information. The results can be used in many ways. In past years, census results in America revealed the rise of the Hispanic population, the rise of the population in some states and cities, and the decline in others. Those that stand to benefit trumpet out the results that reinforce their claims. Results that are negative are hushed up. Numbers also brought commitment, leadership, and a bigger burden of responsibility.

So a simple mechanical process carries with it rewards and negative impacts. Some tribes would have gloried in their numerical strength and others would have tried, like the Levites, to assert other criteria for importance over and above pure numbers.

The notion that every person is equally important is reflected in the fact that everyone gave the same amount of money, and yet the age and the gender of the census implies a very definite militaristic aspect. From twenty to sixty, every male who could go out to war was counted. The Levites, on the other hand, were counted from thirty up to fifty. This might imply that Divine service is more arduous. And would anyone have suggested that women did not matter? Of course not. But the function of the census seems not to have required their participation.

So its impact and purpose were limited. The idea that it conveyed power or importance was effectively overruled and the intent seems to have boiled down to determining the duty rotas and obligations of society rather than the intrinsic value of its citizens.

Behar-Bechukotai

2010-05-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

The last part of this double sedra deals with the tradition of "valuations". In Temple times, people often dedicated an object or an animal or even themselves to the Temple. This was another aspect of the sacrificial system. We can see from the story of Samuel how it was possible for a parent to "give" a child to the Temple service. There is no hint of this in the Torah. There the priesthood provided all the manpower that was needed. Perhaps the Levites might have offered additional assistance beyond simply singing. But nothing is explicit. What is made clear is the tradition of erchaot, valuations.

In Chapter 27, people who "gave themselves" to the Temple did not actually give themselves over to be servants, but agreed to pay a contribution. This contribution was laid down in advance. It was not a matter of each person being assessed on his or her own merits, but rather on the basis of generalized tables of value.

Males from 20 to 60 had the highest value, 50 shekels. Females of this age were 30 shekels. From age five to 20, the vales were 20 for males and 10 for females. From one month old to five years, it was five or three. And from age 60 upwards, it was fifteen or ten. Then the Torah goes on to lay down the law for valuing livestock and buildings, where the object would indeed go to the Temple treasury but a valuation was given to "redeem" the object back for everyday use.

One can find a great deal to be upset about in these valuations. One could be upset on the basis of sexism and one could be upset on the basis of ageism. If the criterion was "hard work", then how could one assess a one-month-old child? Was this a hangover from the slave system? Agreed, that was how most people have been valued for most of the past 5000 years. But the fact is that here no one is being forced into anything. No one has to offer up anybody.

Perhaps, like the sacrificial system itself, this was simply a way of channeling the contemporary devotional impulses into a less excessive expression than the actual human sacrifice practiced in pagan cultures. Like running along with a runaway horse and slowly bringing it under control, rather than standing in front and trying to stop it dead in its tracks. Some pagan religious practices were indeed banned altogether, like self laceration and prostitution. But others were adapted, modified, and channeled.

Emor

2010-04-29T17:01:00.001-07:00

Cohanim, priests, lived a very different life than the ordinary Israelites. Of course they had a massive lot of Temple duties of all different kinds, from sacrificing to baking special bread and mixing incense. They even ate different food. Only they and their families could eat tithes, and they had to be in a state of special ritual purity to do this.

This week's Torah talks about the limitations concerning mourning. Priests could not go to graveyards, in case they came into contact with a corpse either directly or indirectly, and so they could not bury people who were not immediate relatives (unless there was absolutely no one else around to do it). In addition, they were forbidden to express their mourning in ways that must have been quite common then, like shaving their heads, cutting off their beards, cutting their skin, or tattooing themselves. In effect these laws soon extended to the whole of the people, and this is why they are now forbidden to us all.

Tattooing? Forbidden? Yup. We are supposed to treat our living and dead bodies respectfully. We can’t deface ourselves, and tattooing counts as that. It also counts as following pagan customs. In modern terms this means trying to imitate a code of practice that conflicts with Jewish values. Can we seriously argue that this is what tattooing is about? Well, it certainly is an expression of rebellion, an expression of secularity, and a statement of where one wants to belong, what one wants to say about oneself.

The idea of priests is the idea that some of us can aspire to higher standards. Higher standards should lead us to live a fuller, more satisfying way of life. A tattoo doesn't mean much in itself. But it is what it really means, beneath the surface, that counts.

Acharei Mot & Kedoshim

2010-04-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

These two sections of the Torah are normally read separately. The question that intrigues me is whether it is possible to find a common theme that unites them. Is the fact that they come together this year just a phenomenon of the calendar? We require several combinations of sedrot in order to squeeze the readings of the Torah into the number of available weekends in the Jewish year.

On the one hand, in both sedrot there are a wide range of laws, and there are common themes. In both there are crucial ethical laws relating to sexual, social, and interpersonal behavior. On the other hand, both contain references to non-Jewish pagan practices as the negative touchstone by which we measure what not to do.

What exactly is wrong with paganism? Medieval Jewish authorities were divided. Maimonides, in his Yad Hachazaka, sees the problem as one of intellectual error. The pagan misunderstands the way to appreciate the Divine. Early man saw the agents of nature and life, the heavenly bodies, as being the vehicle for Divine intervention and so they worshipped them instead. They knew full well that the symbols were of no intrinsic value. As depicted in the story we were told of Abraham's father, the idol maker, they were not fooled, really believing that the images had powers of their own. They were no different than modern Hindus who know that Kali or Krishna or Vishnu or Ganesh are just ideas, symbols of different aspects of life. The error is simply in failing to appreciate the purity of the monotheistic direct line to the Source.

Alternatively, in his Bet HaBechira, Meiri suggests that it is nothing to do with the concept of the Divine. Rather, it is whether one has a "moral code" or not. Paganism accepts no objective moral constraints. It leads to pure licentiousness and abandon. Monotheism imposes obligations and limitations as an expression of the Divine, rather than permitting self-indulgence so long as one performs set rituals. Otherwise, "Where the heart wishes to go, the mind is sure to follow."

Tazria & Metzora

2010-04-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

Tazria

When a woman gave birth in Temple days, she had to bring a Sin Offering. Naturally enough one wonders what for. What did she do wrong? Some commentators try to suggest it is because of something she did. Maybe she cursed in her pain. Maybe the burden of pregnancy made her do things she otherwise would not have done. But this doesn't seem very fair to the woman, who after all has made a really special contribution to life in general and Jewish life in particular.

The Sin Offering was not used solely in cases where people did something wrong. The word "sin" (chataat) itself has a double meaning. Actually it also means to purify, to clean out, and to prepare for a new phase. So the word is used to describe cleaning the alter from one holy sacrifice before the next one is offered up (Exodus 29). And it is used several times in Numbers (Chapters 19 and 31) to describe priests preparing themselves to serve. The Sin Offering is required of the Nazirite after he has completed a period of special withdrawal from ordinary levels of observance to a higher level. Something that one would expect to applauded rather than condemned by requiring a Sin Offering.

So, in effect, the woman is asked to bring an offering to celebrate and to acknowledge her transition from one phase to another and to prepare herself mentally for her return to "normal" life. There is a common assumption that talk about "purity" and "impurity" in the Bible means what it sounds like--impure being something bad or dirty. But it does not mean that at all. It means "ready" for a particular function or state, as opposed to not being ready. So an impure priest is simply not available for Temple service. In every other way he is a "normal" member of society. Likewise, in the case of a woman the state of "impurity" meant that she was protected from certain functions so that she could concentrate on other ones. It did not carry any of the negative connotations that post-Biblical societies attached to it.

Metzora

We know leprosy as a disease associated with poverty and Third World countries. Is this what the Torah was talking about when it laid down a whole series of laws involving the priest coming to check discolourations and bubbles of decay on bodies, clothes, and buildings?

You could, indeed, say that the Torah was concerned with contagious diseases and wanted people to learn how to avoid them and use hygiene in a constructive way. After all, these are important principles that go towards creating a safe and clean society and a world in which we minimise the chances of catching diseases. So there is a moral and spiritual message in that.

But then many of the phenomena the Torah talks about do not bear any resemblance to the things we see nowadays. Some commentators have suggested that the Biblical word for leprosy meant something quite different than the disease we know today.

This is why the Biblical "disease" is taken to be associated with gossiping and spreading rumors. Rumors and gossip spread like a disease and can do terrible damage. So Miriam is stricken with leprosy when she speaks out against Moses, and Moses himself gets a dose at the burning bush when he is disparaging about the Jewish people. The involvement of the priests in examining the problem and prescribing solutions implied that there was a religious dimension and that religious penance might be one stage on the road to a cure.

But the chapters on leprosy also remind us that there are many different dimensions and elements at play in life that we often don't understand and may even not be aware of. The message is that we should try to be sensitive to these other levels of existence and reality. Science is importance but it has its limitations and it isn't the complete picture.

Shemini

2010-04-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

This week a big chunk of the Torah is devoted to the animals, birds, and fish that we are and are not allowed to eat. For ages people have been trying to discover one theory that explains the animals that are kosher and those that are not. I have seen theories about hygiene (but there are separate guidelines in Jewish law about eating anything unhealthy). There are theories about needing to preserve transporting and working animals and that is why horses and camels are "out". There are theories about avoiding animals that feed in the dirt, likes pigs and shellfish. Some claim it is to do with aggression and that is why we cannot eat sharks and birds of prey. Yet others suggest it all has to do with sacred animals. This is fine for Egyptian sphinxes but what about the holy bull of Babylon? And so on. But no theory fits all the variations; the Bible is pretty good at defying classification. So what are these laws all about?

The one theme that seems to run consistently through the Bible is that people should think about their actions. The difference between a thinking human being and an animal is that a human thinks before acting and, if he or she has a moral code, then sometimes self control and self discipline may prove stronger than simple desire or natural tendencies or even instinct. On the other hand, some humans act just like animals and do give in entirely to indulgence and desire.

So it is this ability to reflect that is crucial to humanity. Most of the Biblical laws are designed to get us to think before we act. Some of them are abstract, like thinking what it is like to be poor or a slave so that we may be more charitable and caring. But others get us to think before mundane actions like eating. Bearing in mind that we all tend to eat pretty regularly at some time every day, regulating our eating habits is a good way of getting us to think and value what we do on a regular basis. This attempt to raise eating to a higher plane and to add a spiritual dimension is what is really behind the kosher laws.

Tzav

2010-03-25T11:51:00.001-07:00

We can learn something from studying the different types of sacrifices, even if they don’t actually apply nowadays.

The sin offering was probably the most popular individual sacrifice. If a person had done something wrong, then he or she first of all had to confess what they had done. Unlike Christian confession, this was not directed to the priest. Each person had to confess directly to God and specify what it was that they done wrong. I think the psychology of this is brilliant. It is all about recognizing for oneself what the true situation is. You can fool others, but it is much tougher to fool yourself.

Then, if you were asking for forgiveness for something you had done to another person, you had to make restitution to that person before you could bring your offering. Only after a complete restitution and confession could you bring a sacrifice. You had to face up to your actions and their consequences instead of hiding behind a ritual.

The prophets kept on complaining about problems with the sacrificial system. What they were complaining about was hypocrisy and the abuse of the system. Isaiah asks what the point of bringing a sacrifice is, if the person is a criminal, cruel to others, and insensitive to poverty and deprivation. "There but for the grace of God go I." One has to get one's priorities right.

The sacrifice was not an easy way of getting out of trouble or a way of salving one's conscience; it was a way of getting us to appreciate life. You had to do justice and right wrongs and try to make the world a better place, and only then could you turn up on God’s doorstep and ask for forgiveness.

Vayikra

2010-03-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

A new book, and it introduces a new body of law, mainly to do with sacrifices. In those days the sacrificial system had two roles. On the one hand, it was a system for worshiping and interacting with God. People like to give, to do something, either to celebrate or to ask for forgiveness, to thank or to atone. The sacrifices enabled people, rich or poor, to feel part of the religious system, to contribute to it, and to feel closer to God. Sure there was prayer and meditation, but people seem to need to feel part of a wider community as well.

The Temple ceremonial consisted of community ceremony, daily, weekly, and throughout the year, as well as on festivals. But it also allowed individuals to come in at different times and in different ways to be part of the ceremonial. In a way it is a bit like synagogues now. You can come in to be part of the crowd, or you can come in to do something, to participate as an individual, as well.

Not all the sacrifices were animal. But they were indeed a major part of it all, for the simple reason that originally animals could only be killed for food in a special way, in a special place, and by specified people. This way killing animals became a religious ceremony rather than a dehumanizing outlet for aggression or cruelty.

So originally if you wanted to eat meat, you had to go up to the Temple, have the parts you couldn’t eat offered up and burnt together with incense, and the rest divided between you and the priest (taxation!). The whole procedure was far more dignified and restrained than the processing lines and force required in modern abattoirs, which we hide from normal view. Nevertheless, the Gemara records animals fleeing the knife only to be turned back. Perhaps once the Temple is rebuilt, Elijah will replace the animal sacrifices with the meal and vegetarian options that actually existed then too.

Vayakhel & Pekudei

2010-03-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

Vayakhel

On the face of it there seems no logical reason to repeat all the details of the Tabernacle. The first time Moses gets instructions to build the tent of assembly, the ark with its covers and cherubs, the altars, the table, the vessels, everything in detail of form, dimension, and materials to be used. The second time Moses repeats these instructions to Betzalel (the master craftsman after whom Israel’s school of Arts and Crafts is named) and his assistant, Oholiav.

The usual explanation is that this shows the importance of accurate transmission and of Moses' refusal to alter neither a jot nor a tittle. We might have expected a minor suggestion here or a modification there, or even the chance for the craftsmen to exercise a little free expression. But no, the dimensions and the details remain the same. Perhaps there was something more to the measurements than we realize. We know that we have forgotten many of the calculations that went into Stonehenge and the amazing structures of the Egyptians, the Aztecs, and the stone patterns of the Andes. There is a mystic dimension to the Tabernacle.

Given the fact that very few people had access to the written word on those days, the importance of repetition was that it made it easier to learn, to remember, and to retain knowledge. The importance of the dimensions of the Tabernacle, and then the Temple, is reiterated in Ezekiel’s famous message to the Jews exiled in Babylon, when he again reminds them of every detail of the dimensions of the Temple as if to say, "You will be rebuilding soon, so make sure you’ve got the plans right and ready."

The message for us is that there is a whole body of material to which we are oblivious. If we really value our heritage, we owe it to ourselves to look into it a little deeper.

Pekudei

The Tabernacle was erected and dedicated in the second year of the journey through the wilderness on the assumption that shortly the Children of Israel would be invading and settling in the Land of Canaan. Its function as a community center was reiterated by the way it was used as a sort of university or yeshiva for teaching and disseminating the law, both civil and ritual. Moses would teach what he had already received, and what he continued to receive, from God to the priests and the elders, who then taught and directed the rest of the people.

But there was a clear understanding that all of the structures were temporary and in due course other structures, permanent ones, would replace them in the Land of Israel. This transience was emphasized by the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud that centered on the Tabernacle. They were signs of God’s involvement and the signal for moving or settling. Fire and cloud--the one powerful in its capacity both to destroy and to nurture, the other the source of rain and life, yet at the same time vague, insubstantial, and ephemeral.

Just as their lives wandering in Sinai had elements of permanence and of transience, so too their spiritual life combined the two. Some laws were temporary, related only to a one-off invasion or to changing conditions like leprosy or slavery, and changing times like replacing the Tabernacle with the Temple. Others were permanent and eternal.

The manna, the cloud, and the fire were there initially till the invasion, which was expected to be a year away. In the event, they lasted for forty years. All of these elements exist within our own daily lives--the permanent, the temporary, and the unexpected. Torah gives a framework for coping with them.

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2010-03-04T16:23:00.001-08:00

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Ki Tisa

2010-03-04T16:20:00.001-08:00

Moshe is up the mountain receiving the tablets of stone. Yehoshua is halfway up attending on Moshe, and Aharon and Chur are down below. When Moshe delays returning, panic sets in and "the people" come to Aharon and ask for an idol to represent God.

The delay could surely not have been in itself the cause of the need to create a golden calf. The need for images must have been very deeply ingrained. Hardly surprising, given the many animal gods of Egypt, and the Middle East in general. There must have been a current of discontent running through the camp long before. And of course we know how fractious the people had been even within days of crossing the Red Sea.

And what happened to Chur? He is never mentioned again. The Midrash suggests that he tried to stop the protesters and was murdered. That was why Aharon was so compliant.

When Moshe hears what is going on, he immediately appeals to God to suspend judgment. He gets nearer and sees the calf and smashes the tablets in anger. In anger? Or because the covenant with God had been broken, anyway, by the calf worshippers. He then conducts his enquiry. Decides it was a minority inspired deviation. Restores order and returns to God.

Normality is soon restored. The people in general are not punished. Why is it, therefore, that later on when the ten spies come back with a frightened report on the Land of Israel, and the people are terrified, they are punished as a nation altogether and made to wander for forty years until the fainthearted are all dead?

It seems that having problems understanding the nature of God is not as problematic as actually refusing to follow God and trusting. The Golden Calf people just didn't understand the nature of God. They said, "These are the gods who took you out of Egypt." Sure, they knew they had just made it themselves. In the final, analysis behavior counts. It is not so much what you think, as what you do.

Tetzaveh

2010-02-25T18:43:00.001-08:00

This week’s reading goes in detail into the special clothes the priests and the High Priests wore, which actually form the basis of Christian clerical ceremonial dress to this day. In practice, the priesthood did not quite work out in Jewish history the way it was intended to. Moshe appointed his brother, Aharon, to be the High Priest responsible for performing the Tabernacle rituals, who in turn appointed his sons. The other families of priests were all related. Aharon was also responsible for heading the judiciary and for being the keeper of the tradition.

But the priesthood was always a dangerous role. Aharon’s two sons were burned to death. By Samuel’s time the priesthood was being abused; throughout the reigns of the kings of Judah, some were noble and acted for the good of Judaism, but others were political. The prophets became the main standard bearers of Jewish life. When Ezra arrived in Israel after the return from Babylon he found a discredited priesthood that had largely married out.

We have managed with priests only being symbolic for two thousand years. What values can we learn from them? We all need examples to look up to. After all, the Jewish people were expected to live a really spiritual life to show it was possible to follow God and yet still play an important role in everyday life. The priests were supposed to be similar examples within Judaism.

There are lots of situations in the Torah where high standards are set, even though it seems almost inevitable that people will fail. But understanding failure does not mean we shouldn’t aim high. The priesthood is a reminder that humans are different, have different roles, and yet still are subject to one moral code, even if there are different ritual functions according to sex or birth.

Terumah

2010-02-18T20:26:00.000-08:00

The chapters we read this week are all about building the Tabernacle. Why were so many chapters devoted to what was, after all, a rather magnificent collapsible community center?

Even if we say that the Tabernacle was the temporary "House of God" before people would get a chance to build a permanent Temple, why did God need a house or a physical base, altogether? Isn’t God everywhere?

Any community needs to have a center, either in the form of a person or in the form of a location, and usually both. The tabernacle was the focal point, the meeting place, the law courts. It was the market square as well as the center for worship. But it was also the seat of leadership.

There can be strong, charismatic leadership. One might have thought that Moses was such a person, and yet we are constantly reminded of his inability to express himself. We see several times how frustrated he gets, how he needs Aaron and, more frequently, God. So the Tabernacle became the symbol that it was God who was the real leader, rather than Moses.

This is all the more significant because the commentators argue as to when the Tabernacle was built. Some say it was designed and ordered before the Golden Calf incident, because this is the sequence of events as written down in the Torah. Others see it as a response that came after. If it was built after, it could be seen as an antidote, as a concession to the people's need to have a physical presence to symbolize God's leadership. If it was built beforehand, then its significance becomes functional. It was designed primarily as the community center and only incidentally did God choose to signify His presence with the pillars of cloud and fire.

Mishpatim

2010-02-11T21:26:00.000-08:00

The Torah is often accused of being a legalistic document rather than an expression of spirituality. Of course only biased reading could overlook the presence of God dominating every aspect of the Torah.

But it is true that one aspect of the Torah does indeed focus on behavior--after all, this is something that we all do! But the impression created by behavioral guidelines is often one of arid, harsh legalism. Look at this week's parsha--all those "Thou Shall Nots" and all those "Put him to death" bits. It does not make pleasant reading, unless you are prepared to take a much closer look.

So, for example, circumstantial evidence is not acceptable in a Jewish court of law dealing with capital offences. In England people have been hanged for murder after having been convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and it was later determined that at least some of those hanged were innocent! Not only does Jewish law require actual witnesses, but it also requires two of them. It also requires evidence that the perpetrator had been officially warned about both the crime and the punishment. In effect, you would have to be a suicidal maniac to get convicted under Jewish law. Indeed, Rabbi Akiva famously said that a Beth Din that put one person to death in seventy years would be a Beth Din with blood on their hands!

And as for "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", this statement cannot possibly be taken at face value. What would a judge have done with a toothless man who had knocked out the tooth of another? There must have been some supplementary code of practical guidance for judges. The Oral Law says that the context in Torah proves that the law is talking about financial compensation.

The traditional position is right. You cannot understand the Written Law without the Oral!

Yitro

2010-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

The focal point of this sedra is the revelation on Sinai that is called The Ten Commandments. Actually, they are not commandments as such, rather principles, which is why in Hebrew they are called the Ten Statements. Dibrot, not Mitzvot. At one stage they were read in the Temple and were part of the daily service. But the rabbis excluded them because they believed that people had come to think that only these ten were essential and the rest of the Torah was less important. This was also why some objected to standing when this chapter is read from the Torah.

None of the ten can stand by itself as an effective law without a lot of clarification. Does murder include self-defense, or war, or accident? Nevertheless, these principles have remained the essential formulation of basic morality and spirituality, not only for Jews but indeed for the whole world, because no other formulation has superseded them and they have been adopted, more or less as they are, by all the monotheistic religions.

Surprising, therefore, that this sedra is named after a non-Jew: Yitro, the priest of Midian, who also happened to be the father-in-law of Moses. He has heard of the exodus and now feels it safe to bring Moses' wife and two children from the safety of Midian to be reunited. On his visit he sees how overworked Moses is and advises him to delegate. Moses accepts his recommendations. Twelve times the Torah repeats his title as father-in-law of Moses, stressing respect both for the man and his position. Even in the very sedra where the Jewish people are given their specific religious constitution, there is room to remind everyone that we are not the only people on earth. Even with regard to a priest of another religion, we are bound not only to respect the person but also take his advice and opinions with consideration.

Beshalach

2010-01-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

The Children of Israel are not just allowed to go out of Egypt, they are ejected. Out of consideration for their morale, they are taken a roundabout route so as to avoid facing armed opposition on the short coastal journey to Israel. Their apparent confusion encourages Pharaoh to recover his arrogance and give chase. The Israelites are trapped with their backs to the sea as the enemy advances. Miraculously, Moses leads them through the Red Sea. The Egyptians are drowned. Safely on the other side, they break into song to celebrate.

You might have thought that having seen what happened to the Egyptians in Egypt, and again at the Red Sea, there would not be one dissenting voice and everyone would be absolutely convinced of the existence and the power of God--yet immediately afterwards the complaints begin.

Three days without water is perhaps reasonable grounds. But why gang up against Moses instead of a reasoned discussion of the problem? Moses sweetens water for them at Marah, and at Eilim there are wells and date palms. But then the moaners start again, complaining about the food. One might have had some sympathy were it not for the fact that they said how wonderful it had been in Egypt. Nevertheless, down comes the manna, and whatever one might think about a daily diet of neutral sesame wafers, at least they were not dying of hunger. Yet once again the complaints start up against Moses over water.

Some apologists want to suggest that the mixed multitude hangers-on who joined the exodus were to blame, but the text implies a much wider groundswell of discontent. Isn't it amazing? They experience the reality of God time after time and they still don't get it. Times haven't changed much for us Jews, have they? We are an ungrateful, moaning bunch of doubters who wouldn't face reality even if it came and tapped us on the shoulder.

Bo

2010-01-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

The slow process of getting Pharaoh to change his mind and let the people go continues.

There are two overriding issues. Why does the process take so long, with so many false hopes and miracles that failed to have the desired impact, and why does it take so long for Pharaoh to change his mind?

Every process in the Torah takes time. God may make promises, humans may make resolutions, but the world of human interaction is one where immediate results are rarely achieved. Relationships take time to develop, good ones and bad ones.

God tries different ways of impressing Moses at the Burning Bush--fire, snakes, leprosy, and then rational argument. Similarly, Moses tries a series of ways of trying to persuade the greatest most powerful king on earth that a small, God-inspired nation should be taken seriously. It is a game of trial and error. At first Pharaoh is dismissive; then he begins to wonder. He half relents, but with conditions attached. His advisors wilt first and they try to persuade him to let the Israelites go. The campaign is waged against every level of Egyptian society with the aim of getting them to realize that there is something here to be taken seriously. And then it is too late. This is how we humans function. We think we can cope. We disregard the warning signs. And then wham.

And into this whole story of human reactions to disaster comes the legal instruction to keep the Pesach festival. The details of observance seem out of place. Yet it is through daily behavior that we train ourselves and we sensitize ourselves to be conscious of our actions in the hope that this will make us better people. The lesson to be drawn is that foresight, consideration, would have helped Pharaoh and his people. Similarly, they may help us, today, to lead more effective daily lives.

Vaeira

2010-01-14T23:51:00.000-08:00

The opening sentence of this week's parshah is one of the most interesting, theologically speaking, in the whole of the Torah. God is trying to reassure Moshe after his initial attempt to get Pharaoh's attention fails. He says, "I appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and my name, God, I had not made known to them." What does this mean? We have always assumed that Avraham had the ideal relationship with God. He was supposedly the first monotheist and the one for whom God engaged with mankind in general and the Jewish people specifically. There is no hint that there was something missing in Avraham's relationship.

But here the Torah is saying that hitherto there was something about God that they were not aware of. Traditionally, the explanation is that inherent in God's nature is the fact that he carries out His commitments. He had told Avraham that he would father vast numbers of children and that his children would be enslaved and then let free. But until that process had been completed, there was still an unfinished agenda. Now, says God, the promise would be kept.

However, the wording still implies that Avraham did not fully know God's name. The theological implication is that God is complex, and however close one gets there are still aspects that a human may be unaware of. Similarly, Moshe several times asks God for reassurance and clarification. So the way Avraham understood God was through his own experiences, and Yitzchak through his, Yaakov through his, and Moshe through his. And we through ours. God works through history, and it is through history that we see what happens to the Jewish people, for better or for worse. But parallel with that flow of history is our own personal history and it is this which defines our relationship with God.

Shemot

2010-01-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

It seems strange that a new king came to the throne who was unaware of Yosef. After all, Yosef had been instrumental in saving the nation from disaster, and not only that, but he concentrated power in Pharaoh’s hands and consolidated the monarchy.

One traditional response is that he pretended not to know. Very often we feel embarrassed by the extent of our indebtedness and we try to escape an obligation by "forgetting". Although this is a view expressed in a Midrash that is two thousand years old, it is one of Freud’s important "discoveries" that we often forget that which is uncomfortable to remember.

Another suggestion is that this was indeed a new king. New dynasties often try to obliterate the memory of those who came before, particularly if they achieved power by revolution. Freud was fascinated by Moses; in his book Moses and Monotheism, he suggested that when Ahknaton overthrew the old dynasty he established a new monotheistic regime. Moses got the idea from him, so that when Moses was overthrown and was out of favor with the new regime, he took up with the Jews and became their leader.

Most Egyptologists reject the idea that Ahknaton was a monotheist. And Freud’s theory includes the strange but very Freudian notion that the Jews assassinated Moses (as sons want to remove their fathers so that they can have their mothers to themselves) and then "re-created" a new legend.

But the idea that Ahknaton's coup would explain the negative attitude to Yosef has some supporters. As indeed does the theory that the Hyksos who invaded Egypt were sympathetic to shepherds and thus to the sons of Yaakov, unlike the returning old dynasty who saw the sons of Yaakov as a Fifth Column.

From our point of view, the issue is not the past so much as the future, and oppression of the new regime is the painful catalyst to the emergence of a new nation. The message is relevant today.

Vayechi

2009-12-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

No personality in the Torah seems to have more impact after his death than Yaakov. In his final speech he sets out different roles for each tribe and decides that Judah will be the primary tribe and dispossesses Reuven, the firstborn. He sets the tone for the future of the Jewish people.

But the first act he does in this process, on his deathbed, is to switch the position of Menasheh, the first of Yosef’s sons, and Efraim, the younger. Yosef protests, but Yaakov insists. He changes the position of his hands, putting his right hand, the preferred one, on Efraim, the younger son.

Does Yosef protest because he has experienced the consequences of preferential treatment and does not want them repeated? Is it because, as did Yitzchak, he wants to stand by the firstborn regardless? Either way, Yaakov insists on the idea of merit. Yaakov was not the firstborn, so it is natural that he wants to express his belief that personal qualities should decide, rather than the accident of birth.

On the one hand, we have been given the notion of priesthood, of election, that birth confers automatic responsibility and duty. On the other hand, the prophetic tradition was one that stressed personal qualities that had nothing to do with birth or status. The automatic priesthood failed until Ezra imposed restraints and a sort of constitution. And out of Ezra’s innovations emerged the rabbinic tradition, which has now become the essence of Jewish religious life. It seems that history has supported Yaakov's notion of meritocracy.