Rogue Regime

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Acharei

2010-06-21T15:29:00.000-04:00

16:2-3 - "...and the LORD said unto Moses: 'Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the ark-cover which is upon the ark; that he die not; for I appear in the cloud upon the ark-cover. Herewith [בְּזֹאת] shall Aaron come into the holy place [הַקֹּדֶשׁ]: with a young bullock for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt-offering." So when, exactly, can Aaron come into the "holy place"? The translation here of b'zot ("herewith") isn't very good; I prefer Kehot's "with this," suggesting that when he comes with the sin- and burnt-offerings, then he can come into the Holy of Holies. But it isn't clear. I know that Yom Kippur is the only day Aaron can enter, but it certainly isn't made clear here. Why not?

16:7-8 - "And [Aaron] shall take the two goats, and set them before the LORD at the door of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for Azazel [לַעֲזָאזֵל]." Interesting! Who -- or what -- is "Azazel"? The modern Hebrew phrase, lech l'azazel, means, basically "go to hell!" So it's interesting to see this word here in the Torah. Rashi explains that Azaael

is a strong and hard mountain, [with] a high cliff, as the Scripture says [in describing Azaael] (verse 22 below), "a precipitous land (אֶרֶץ גְּזֵרָה)," meaning a cut-off land [i.e., a sheer drop]. - [Torath Kohanim 16:28; Yoma 67b]

Fascinating! So "hell" is a place cut off from everything, some place hard to reach. Neat!
16:16 - "And [Aaron] shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins; and so shall he do for the tent of meeting, that dwelleth with them in the midst of their uncleannesses [הַשֹּׁכֵן אִתָּם בְּתוֹךְ טֻמְאֹתָם]." Interesting... So Aaron had to "make atonement" not only for the people and their sins, but for the very tent of meeting -- the ohel mo'eid itself. First of all, this echoes what we read in metzora, about a house itself having leprosy, that uncleanliness can adhere to things as well as people, and that things need to be atoned for as well.. Second, there's something to my mind poetic about saying: 'because of our since, the very place in which we meet you, God, is itself in need of atonement.'

16:21 - "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins [וְהִתְוַדָּה עָלָיו אֶת-כָּל-עֲו‍ֹנֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאֶת-כָּל-פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם לְכָל-חַטֹּאתָם]; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness." Question: How in the world is Aaron supposed to know what all of the sins of all of the people actually are? (Unless what is intended here is a more general statement.)

16:22 - "And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land which is cut off [אֶל-אֶרֶץ גְּזֵרָה]; and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." Is this "land which is cut off," this eretz g'zeirah, the same as Azazel? (The New JPS calls this "an inaccessible region.") Although I'm sure it's not meant this way, I like the symbolism of putting the collective sins of the people into a goat, who is sent off to a place far from human habitation, a place not reachable by normal means.

16:29 - About Yom Kippur: "And it shall be a statute for ever unto you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls [תְּעַנּוּ אֶת-נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם], and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger that sojourneth among you." Is something objective and specific intended here by t'anu (e.g., fasting), or is this meant in a more general sense, that on this day, we should, literally, afflict ourselves in the course of atoning? I like the idea, though, that on YK, the point is to afflict one's self through the contemplation of sins.

16:31 - "It is a sabbath of solemn rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls; it is a statute for ever [חֻקַּת עוֹלָם]." Something I'm noticing: There are places, like here, where the Torah says something is to be "for ever," while in other places, no mention is made of time. Is this to imply that, where for ever is not explicitly mentioned, that a law/ordnance is not meant to be forever? Are things "for ever" weightier than others?

17:7 - "And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the satyrs [לַשְּׂעִירִם], after whom they go astray. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations." The "satyrs"?!? Who are these?!? Rashi explains that "to the satyrs" means "to the demons [לשדים], like, 'and satyrs (וּשְּׂעִירִים) will dance there' (Isa. 13:21). - [Torath Kohanim 17:100]." Demons! Weird...

17:10-11 - "And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that eateth any manner of blood, I will set My face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood [כִּי נֶפֶשׁ הַבָּשָׂר בַּדָּם הִוא]; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life." Two thoughts. First, it is a bit jarring to me that God would want this kashrut-related law applied to non-Jews. Is eating blood something so generally moral that anyone who does it violates God's laws? Strange. Second, we find here an actual reason for not eating blood, that, basically, it contains the life of the living thing and is meant for sacrifice, not eating. But once a reason is given, that reason is open to analysis, and this reason -- that "the life of the flesh" is in it -- is pretty weak. Living things can't live without water either, but that's not considered to be something super holy. Same for bile. I guess my point is premodern societies viewed blood as something more magical and mysterious than it is...so what's the point of the prohibition against eating it?

17:15 - "And every soul that eateth that which dieth of itself, or that which is torn of beasts, whether he be home-born or a stranger, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even; then shall he be clean." This verse seems to imply that it is at some level "okay" to eat such non-kosher animals, if the only thing you have to do afterwards is wash in order to become clean. But I thought you simply aren't supposed to do this?

18:2 - "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: I am the LORD your God." You know when a chapter starts out with this, some heavy laws are going to follow. Rashi adds

I am the Lord, your God: I am the One Who said at Sinai, “I am the Lord, your God” (Exod. 20:2), and you accepted My sovereignty upon yourselves [at that time]; consequently, accept My decrees. Rabbi [Yehudah Hanassi] says: “It is openly known before Him, that they would eventually be scourged by [transgressing the laws of] immoral relations, in the days of Ezra. Therefore, [concerning these laws,] God came to them with the decree: I am the Lord, your God! You should know Who is placing these decrees upon you-the Judge Who exacts retribution (אלֹקִים), but Who is faithful also to pay a reward (ה ) ! ”- [Torath Kohanim 18:138]"

18:3 - "After the doings of the land of Egypt [כְּמַעֲשֵׂה אֶרֶץ-מִצְרַיִם], wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan [וּכְמַעֲשֵׂה אֶרֶץ-כְּנַעַן], whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their statutes [וּבְחֻקֹּתֵיהֶם לֹא תֵלֵכוּ]." First, what are the "doings" (ma'aseh) of Egypt and Canaan as opposed to their "statutes" (chukot)? The Torah doesn't make this clear, nor whether these are meant to be comprehensive statements (i.e., should the Israelites do nothing that the Egyptians? nothing of what the Canaanites did? or only those things that violate other Torah laws?). Rashi tries to explain that their "statutes" in this context as follows:

and you shall not follow their statutes: What did Scripture omit [until now] that it did not state [and includes in this clause]? However, these are their social practices, things that assumed the status of law (חָקוּק) for them, for example, [certain days set aside for attendance at] theaters and stadiums. Rabbi Meir says: These [practices referred to here,] are the “ways of the Amorites,” [the superstitious practices] enumerated by our Sages. — [see Shab. 67ab; Torath Kohanim 18: 139]

Uh, so the things the Egyptians and Canaanites did that the Israelites aren't supposed to do involve attending "theaters and stadiums"!?! Is the point that in every possible way they were supposed to be different, even down to things that are not proscribed by Torah? Rashi quotes another Rabbi Meir implying that the social practices in question are "superstitious practices," presumably involving soothsaying, etc. But then why cite the examples of attendance at theaters and stadiums? There's a lot in Judaism about not doing things that other peoples do, almost for the sole reason of differentiation... Not sure what I make of this. I suppose there was a time and a place where from a social psychological perspective, differentiation made sense from a social cohesion perspective, but I'm not sure that the take home message is that savory for today's world...
18:4-5 - "Mine ordinances shall ye do, and My statutes shall ye keep, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. Ye shall therefore keep My statutes [חֻקֹּתַי], and Mine ordinances [מִשְׁפָּטַי], which if a man do, he shall live by them [אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם]: I am the LORD." So...if he doesn't keep them, then he dies? Or is it that one's life is through them, so if you keep them, then you live "by" them? Rashi has two interesting things to say here. First, he distinguished betrween "statutes" and "ordinances." The former

are the “King’s decrees” [without apparent rationale to man], against which the evil inclination protests, “Why should we keep them?” Likewise, the nations of the world object to them. Examples are: [The prohibition of] eating pig and wearing shaatnez [a mixture of wool and linen] (see Lev. 19:19), and the purification procedure effected by purification water [the mixture including the ashes of the red cow] (see Num., Chapter 19). Therefore it says, “I am the Lord.” I have decreed [these] upon you; you are not permitted to exempt yourselves [from fulfilling them]. — Torath Kohanim 18:140]

Ordinances, on the other hand,

are the laws stated in the Torah in justice, [i.e., which human intellect deems proper,] which, had they not been stated [in the Torah], would have been deemed worthy to be stated [e.g., not to steal, not to murder, etc.]. — [Torath Kohanim 18:140]

Fascinating! So the Torah makes an explicit distinction between statutes (chukim) which lack any apparent rationale, and ordinances (mishpatim), which do have underlying reasons. So on the one hand, it suggests mishpatim are open to some kind of interpretation, while chukim are not: they are as they are because God says so. But does not the prohibition against doing things as others do them (e.g., the Egyptians, Canaanites) suggest a logic behind chukim? They mix their fabrics, so we don't; they eat milk and meat, so we don't. It's hard to view some of these things as anythingng other than a system of social control vis-a-vis the other peoples of the time, whose codes of laws were far less onerous. I need to think about this some more...

18:7-16 - "The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness." And so forth and so on. Here we find a series of laws concerning illicit sexual relationships. I'm curious to know whether these practices were common among the peoples from whom the Israelites were trying to be different. Did the Egyptians take siblings as wives? Did the Canaanites sleep with their children? Someone must have been doing these things or it wouldn't have been necessary to expliciutly prohibit the behavior.

18:9 - "The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or the daughter of thy mother, whether born at home, or born abroad [מוֹלֶדֶת בַּיִת, אוֹ מוֹלֶדֶת חוּץ], even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover." Why is it necessary to stress that it doesn't matter where the sister is born? And why not say the same about sons?

18:17 - "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter; thou shalt not take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness: they are near kinswomen; it is lewdness [זִמָּה הִוא]." So...this is lewd, but not all the other things? Why only say this here?

18:21 - "And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to set them apart to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD." Who is Molech, and what's the big deal? Rashi explains that Molech was

[a] form of idolatry...and this was the manner of its worship, that one would hand over one’s child to the pagan priests, who would make two huge fires. The child was then passed through on foot between these two fires. — [Sanh. 64b.]

Hmmm. This is one of those passages that gives pause. On the one hand, reference is made to the specific practices of a specific religious group/cult that existed thousands of years ago and is now no more. On the other hand, we're supposed to view the Torah as being above and beyond time, something perfect and permanent forever. That's a bit hard to do...
18:22-23 - Oy: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination [תּוֹעֵבָה]. And thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast, to lie down thereto; it is perversion [תֶּבֶל]." So there we have it, right? No homosexual behavior (or bestiality). In this context -- of the many different illicit sexual relationships -- I see this as a differentiator in some way: others do it, so therefore we will not. It's a mixing of things that others allow, but Judaism will not.

I suppose if one believes that God said so, that this is simply one of God's chukim, and therefore no explanation is needed or given, then there's not much to discuss. But is homosexuality really an "abomination"? Are my friends who are gay doing something at odds with the natural order of the universe? I just can't accept this. It makes no sense. Having relations with siblings or children isn't the same as homosexuality. It just isn't. I can understand why God would create a world in which people had y'zirei hara (evil inclinations) to do things prohibited by moral law, but to create a world in which people are hard-wired to want to do things that are prohibited by chok (statute) rather than mishpat (ordinance)...what could possibly be the point of this? Right, I know, who am I to ask why God does as God does. But in this world, where gay friends would suffer terribly if the sexual aspect of their identities were suppressed -- heck, where most gays in the world do suffer in this way -- where there are so many terrible things happening...how am I supposed to buy that this is so important to God?

By the way, what's the difference between a toevah (abomination)and a tevel (perversion)?

18:24-28 - "Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled [כִּי בְכָל-אֵלֶּה נִטְמְאוּ הַגּוֹיִם], which I cast out from before you. And the land was defiled, therefore I did visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomited [וַתָּקִא הָאָרֶץ] out her inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep My statutes and Mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you--for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled--that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. "

Yikes!

Some thoughts: There is a tension here. On the one hand, there are statutes from God that have no rationale, that God has explicated in Torah. On the other hand, we are to understand that even before the Torah was given, non-Israelites were "defiled" by not observing certain prohibitions, which caused God to make the land "vomit" (!) them out. But how could these peoples have known what God wanted and, more to the point, why should it have mattered? A counterargument would be that these sexual prohibitions are mishpatim -- and therefore logic-based and applicable to non-Israelites. But then what is the logic according to which homosexuality is an abomination? What is the underlying morality, other than the fact that God "said so"? What troubles me even more about this passage, though, is that it seems to say that even chukim apply to non-Jews: "Ye therefore shall keep My statutes and Mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you." But why should chukim apply to non-Jews, no matter where they live?

Am I missing something here?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Metzora

2010-06-18T12:43:00.000-04:00

14:2 - "This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing..." Rashi's comment again speaks to the socially constructed nature of un/cleanliness: "This teaches [us] that [one afflicted with tzara’ath] is not [pronounced] clean at night. — [Torath Kohanim 14:3, Meg. 21a]." In other words, it is the pronouncement of cleanliness -- not the objective lack of the leprosy -- that makes one clean.

14:4 - "...then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two living clean birds, and cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop." So why birds? Why the scarlet and hyssop? Here, Rashi again draws the (unfortunate) connection between one's behavior and having leprosy:

[Why are birds required for this cleansing rite?] Because lesions of tzara’ath come as a result of derogatory speech, which is done by chattering. Therefore, for his cleansing, this person is required to bring birds, which twitter constantly with chirping sounds. — [Arachin 16b]

What is the remedy that he may be healed [of his tzara’ath]? He must humble himself from his haughtiness, just as [symbolized by] the תּוֹלַעַת [lit., “a worm,” which infested the berries from which the crimson dye was extracted to color wool], and the [lowly] hyssop. — [Tanchuma 3]

I suppose one could draw a lesson that derogatory speech makes one unclean (X causes Y) rather than inductively assume that the presence of leprosy is a sign of having engaged in loshon hara (the presence of Y is evidence of the prior occurrence of X). But that's not really what the parsha says, does it?

14:5 - "And the priest shall command to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water." Am I the only who things this is strange, to take two birds, kill one but not the other?

14:7 - Some confusion in this verse. Back in 14:3, we read "And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper," implying that we're talking about someone cured of leprosy. But here, in 14:7, we read "And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times..." Is this to say that once one is cured of leprosy, one still needs to be cleansed?

14:10 - "And on the eighth day he shall take...three tenth parts of an ephah of fine flour for a meal-offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil [וְלֹג אֶחָד שָׁמֶן]." The Hebrew for "log" is log [לֹג]? Is log a Hebrew word?!?

14:18-20 - "And the rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put upon the head of him that is to be cleansed; and the priest shall make atonement for him [וְכִפֶּר עָלָיו הַכֹּהֵן] before the LORD. And the priest shall offer the sin-offering, and make atonement for him that is to be cleansed [וְכִפֶּר עַל הַמִּטַּהֵר] because of his uncleanness; and afterward he shall kill the burnt-offering. And the priest shall offer the burnt-offering and the meal-offering upon the altar; and the priest shall make atonement for him [וְכִפֶּר עָלָיו הַכֹּהֵן], and he shall be clean." For what, exactly, is the priest making atonement? For the (supposedly) underlying loshon hara that caused the leprosy? For the fact of having been unclean? It seems wrong that someone afflicted should have to make atonement at all. The reason for needing to atone is obviously assumed in the text, but I don't get what it is.

14:28 - More social construction: "And the priest shall put of the oil that is in his hand upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the place of the blood of the guilt-offering [עַל מְקוֹם דַּם הָאָשָׁם]." Rashi has an interesting comment here. Why does the Torah say upon the place of the blood rather than just on the blood itself? Because the priest is to put the oil on the place where the blood was "[e]ven if the blood had been wiped off. This teaches us that the blood is not the determining factor, but the place is the determining factor. — [Torath Kohanim 14:54; Men. 10a]."

14:34-57 - This series of passages -- of what to do with a house that has leprosy -- is remarkable. First you empty the house before the priest goes in. Then you see if it's on the walls (?). If so, you wait a week and come back. If it's still there, you remove the stones from the wall, then scrape around the mortar holding the stones together; then you replace the stones. If leprosy remains, you break down the house entirely. To me, these passages are a powerful metaphor for the diligence with which one needs to root out uncleanliness, though I realize that it is not intended to be metaphorical. This makes me a little uneasy: drawing my own lessons from the text while remaining aware that it was surely not intended that I, as an individual, should do so...

14:34 - A remarkable verse: "When ye are come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you [אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי נֹתֵן לָכֶם ] for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy [וְנָתַתִּי נֶגַע צָרַעַת] in a house of the land of your possession..." It's as if God is saying, on the one hand, I give you this land, while on the other hand saying, I put -- actually, the Hebrew word is the same, natati or "I give" -- a plague in the house I'm giving you. What is the meaning of this? Rashi offers a strange explanation:

and I place a lesion of tzara’ath [leprosy]: Heb. וְנָתַתִּי, lit. and I will give. This is [good] news for them that lesions of tzara’ath will come upon them, (Torath Kohanim 14:75), because the Amorites had hidden away treasures of gold inside the walls of their houses during the entire forty years that the Israelites were in the desert, and through the lesion, he will demolish the house (see verses 43-45) and find them. — [Vayikra Rabbah 17:6]

Sooooo...all this talk of leprosy literally being in the house isn't because of the loshon hara we read about earlier, but rather a kind gesture from God so that the Israelites will find the gold hidden in the former inhabitants' houses?!? Aside from this being -- I'm sorry -- thoroughly ridiculous, it's also a bit creepy: So the Israelites wipe out the Amorites, move into their houses...and then God points out to them the riches in the walls?!? Ugh. In any case I don't buy it. But it leaves open the question: Why give with one hand while taking with the other? Surely it speaks to the fact that leprosy can't be because of loshon hara, right, if God is putting it in the house simultaneously with its being given to the Israelites. Hmmm...
14:37 - "And [the priest] shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house [וְהִנֵּה הַנֶּגַע בְּקִירֹת הַבַּיִת] with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, and the appearance thereof be lower than the wall..." How is this even possible, to have leprosy in the walls of the house?!?

14:43-44 - "And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that the stones have been taken out, and after the house hath been scraped, and after it is plastered; then the priest shall come in and look; and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a malignant leprosy in the house: it is unclean." Rashi has a lot to say about this, and what he has to say is strange. I'll quote at length, but bold the relevant portions:

[From here,] one might think that a recurrent lesion [in a house] can be deemed unclean only if it spreads. However, the term צָרַעַת מַמְאֶרֶת, “malignant tzara’ath,” is mentioned in reference to houses, and צָרַעַת מַמְאֶרֶת is mentioned in reference to garments (see verse 13:52). [Through the exposition of a גְזֵרָה שָׁוָה we derive that] just as over there [in the case of garments,] a recurrent lesion is deemed unclean even if it had not spread, here too, [in the case of houses,] a recurrent lesion is deemed unclean even if it has not spread. If so, what does Scripture teach us here when it says, “Now, [if] the lesion… has spread…”? [in answer to this question, Rashi explains that the verses here should not be understood in the order in which they are written. Rather, they should be read in a different order, because] this is not the place for this verse. [I.e., the first section of this verse, namely, “Then the kohen shall come and look [at it]. Now [if] the lesion in the house has spread,” is to be understood by inserting it elsewhere within these verses, as follows]: “He shall demolish the house…” (verse 45), should be [understood as if] written after “And if… the lesion returns…” (verse 43), [skipping over the first section of verse 44], and then [reinserting this first section of our verse] “Then the kohen shall come and look… the lesion in the house has spread.” Thus, [when our verse says that the kohen looks at the lesion, the phrase, “[if] the lesion…has spread”] comes to teach [us] only about a lesion which remains the same during the first week [of quarantine], but when he came at the end of the second week [of quarantine], he found that it had spread. For in the earlier verses, Scripture does not explicitly tell us about a case where the lesion had remained with the same appearance after the first week [of quarantine]. Here, though, Scripture teaches you with this mention of spreading, that it is referring only to a lesion that has remained the same for the first week but spread during the second [week]. So what shall he do to it? I may think that he should demolish it, as is written immediately following it, “He shall demolish the house….” (verse 45). Scripture, therefore, says (verse 39), “the kohen shall return,” and [here], “the kohen shall come.” Just as in the case of “returning” [i.e., when the kohen returned after one week and the lesion had spread], he must remove [the unclean stones], scrape, and plaster, and give it another week [of quarantine], likewise, in the case of “coming” [i.e., where the lesion has remained the same for the first week, but spread during the second week], he must remove [the unclean stones], scrape, and plaster and then give it a week [of quarantine]. And, if it recurs again, he must demolish [the house]. If it does not recur, [however,] it is clean. Now, how do we know that if it remained the same during this and this, [i.e., during the first and second weeks], he must [also] remove [the unclean stones], scrape, plaster, and give it a [third] week [of quarantine]? Therefore, Scripture [here] says, “the kohen shall come (וּבָא),” and [in verse 48, it says], “if the kohen comes and comes [again] (בֹּא יָבֹא) ” What is Scripture referring to? If [you suggest that it means a lesion] that spread during the first week [of quarantine], this has already been mentioned [in verse 43]; if [you suggest that verse 48 is referring to a lesion] that spread during the second [week], this has already been mentioned [in our verse]; so [one must conclude that verse 48], “if the kohen comes and comes [again],” [is referring to the case that] he comes (בֹּא) at the end of the first week [of quarantine] and comes [again] (יָבֹא) at the end of the second week [of quarantine], and looks, and [as is continued in verse 48], “behold, the lesion did not spread” [i.e., it has remained the same throughout]. What shall he do to it? One might think that he should dismiss [the case] and depart, as it is written here (48) “the kohen shall pronounce the house clean.” Scripture, however, continues there, “because the lesion has healed.” [God says:] I deemed clean only what was healed. What shall be done with it [if the lesion has remained the same during the first and second weeks, and has not yet healed]? “Coming” is stated above [in verse 44, “the kohen shall come”], and “coming” is stated here [in verse 48, “if the kohen comes…and comes [again]”]; just as in the case above (verse 44), he must remove [the unclean stones], scrape, plaster, and give it a week [of quarantine], a law which we learned through the link made between the terms “returning” and “coming,” likewise, in the case below, [in the question of a lesion that has remained the same through the two weeks, the owner shall remove the unclean stones, scrape, plaster, and observe a week of quarantine]. The above is taught in Torath Kohanim (14:105). The conclusion of this matter is: Demolition [of an afflicted house] is required only when the lesion recurs after the removal [of the unclean stones], scraping, and plastering. The recurring lesion does not require spreading [to necessitate demolition]. Hence, the sequence of the verses is as follows: (Verse 43), “And if [after he had removed the stones, and after the house had been scraped around and after it had been plastered, the lesion] returns” ; then (verse 44, second section),“it is malignant tzara’ath …it is unclean”]; then (verse 45), “He shall demolish the house…,” and (verse 46), “Anyone entering the house […shall become unclean],” and (verse 47), “[And one who lies down…] and one who eats in the house [shall immerse…]” ; [at this juncture, just before verse 48, the second section of our verse (44) is now inserted in the sequence, namely,] “Then the kohen shall come and look…the lesion in the house has spread”- [and, as above, now we know that] Scripture here is referring to a case where the lesion remained the same during the first week [of quarantine], so a second week of quarantine is applied, and at the end of this second week of its quarantine, he comes and sees that it has spread. What should he do with it? The owner must remove [the unclean stones], scrape, plaster, and give it another [i.e., a third] week [of quarantine]. Now, if the lesion recurs, he must demolish, but if it does not recur, [the house is deemed clean, and] birds are required [along with the whole cleansing procedure, because lesions are never quarantined for more than three weeks.

Remarkable! Rashi is saying that the order of verses in the Torah is wrong! So no reason is given for the order in which re read them, only a complicated argument is to why it "should" be different. What are we to make of this? That God dictated the Torah incorrectly to Moses? That Moses wrote it down wrong? Or -- gasp! -- that the Torah is an imperfect, incomplete, problematic document?
14:53 - "But [the priest] shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open field; so shall he make atonement for the house [וְכִפֶּר עַל-הַבַּיִת]; and it shall be clean." How can one make atonement for something that can't sin? Weird...

Now we get into the gross stuff...

15:2 - "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When any man hath an issue out of his flesh [זָב מִבְּשָׂרוֹ], his issue is unclean." This verse -- indeed, the entire chapter -- is in certain respects very strange. Why would something over which one has no control -- something entirely natural and part of being human --- be a source of uncleanliness? A possibility is that uncontrollable bodily emissions are powerful things precisely because they cannot be controlled; if purity is in part a function of performing certain rituals and taking incredibly great care to perform them correctly, then anything that might through a monkey wrench into that precision might by its very nature be viewed as a "threat" to the maintenance of purity. The problem, of course, is that it's hard to make the case in modern terms that there's anything actually "wrong" with bodily emissions other than the taboos concerning them (which probably come from pre-modern superstitions). Maybe one way of approaching the issue (no pun intended) is to think of involuntary emissions as signs or reminders that our bodies are not entirely under our control, which is to say, they belong to God. Hmmm...

15:24 - "And if any man lie with [a woman who as had an issue], and her impurity be upon him [וּתְהִי נִדָּתָהּ עָלָיו], he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean." Let's put aside for the moment the issue (!) of whether a woman's menstrual blood should be an impure thing. By framing this verse in the conditional "if" -- if a man lies with an impure woman and her impurity is upon him -- it implies that a man might lie with a woman who has had an issue but the issue wouldn't touch him. But I thought men were supposed to be extremely diligent about not getting into this situation in the first place? Why not just say, don't do it, or X, Y and Z will happen? Is it possible that a man could sleep with a menstruating woman and not get her blood on him? Is this what the verse is contemplating?!?

15:30 - "...and the priest shall make atonement for her [וְכִפֶּר עָלֶיהָ הַכֹּהֵן ] before the LORD for the issue of her uncleanness." Again, why make atonement for something beyond her control?!?

15:31 - "Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness [וְלֹא יָמֻתוּ בְּטֻמְאָתָם], when they defile My tabernacle that is in the midst of them." Aha! Here's part of the explanation for all this... To the extent that a thing makes one ritually impure to enter the mishkan -- which would cause one to die -- it is uncleanliness and therefore something to be dealt with.

Maybe a way of approaching these clean/unclean and pure/impure issues has to do as much with being aware of one's appearance and state of being -- one's holiness, perhaps? -- before coming into the presence of God. There's something very archaic about it, but at the same time -- when the premodern aspects can be overlooked -- something poetic about it, that being aware and mindful of our physical state should be related to our readiness to approach God. The problem is how to separate this idea from the distasteful aspects. How does orthodox men not touching women in public not, in practice, constitute discrimination or misogyny? How does basing any kind of distinctions on whether or not a woman is menstruating entail anything less than superstition? The problem, for me at least, is that I don't see these things is inherently dirty, embarrassing, impure or "unholy," so using them as some kind of touchstone for determining ritual cleanliness seems wrong. Not to mention the fact that in the absence of a priesthood/the Temple, who are the arbiters supposed to be of what is un/clean or im/pure? The Rabbis of the Talmudic period? This seems insane. It seems to me that if the priest's pronouncement of un/cleanliness or im/purity is a critical step -- indeed the sine qua non -- of something actually being un/clean or im/pure, then the absence of a priesthood means there's no central authority to make these calls and, therefore, no basis for making them. Indeed, once the Temple itself is gone, the very point of maintaining cleanliness and purity -- to avoid defiling the mishkan -- is gone. So if we want to still maintain cleanliness and purity, then we need a different justification, and that justification surely cannot be rooted in a set of premodern ideas that existed thousands of years ago.

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Tazria

2010-06-10T15:40:00.000-04:00

For me, this is a trying parsha on several levels. With the subjects of post-natal uncleanliness and leprosy, we're getting our first glimpse here at some of the most pre-modern aspects of the Torah. I can search these verses for more contemporary meanings, but it's tough. I'm just glad Tazria wasn't my Bar Mitzvah parsha...

12:2-5 - "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a woman be delivered, and bear a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of the impurity of her sickness [כִּימֵי נִדַּת דְּו‍ֹתָה]...But if she bear a maid-child, then she shall be unclean [וְטָמְאָה] two weeks, as in her impurity [כְּנִדָּתָהּ]; and she shall continue in the blood of purification [תֵּשֵׁב עַל-דְּמֵי טָהֳרָה] threescore and six days." Oy. In the first place, why could there possibly be a difference between delivering a male versus a female baby in terms of the length of post-birth "uncleanliness"? By my reading, the Torah is saying that having a girl makes the mother six times as impure as having a boy. Aside from this being abhorrent (do the Orthodox observe this difference?), I just don't get why there should be any difference at all.

The second thing is an interesting difference in translation, not exactly what I would expect. Machon-Mamre translates kiyimei nidat dotah [כִּימֵי נִדַּת דְּו‍ֹתָהּ] as "the impurity of her sickness" while Kehot translates this [12:2] instead, more sensibly, as "the days of her menstrual flow." Sickness isn't exactly the same as menstrual flow, is it? Rashi has a rather unfortunate explanation for the connection between "menstrual flow" and "sickness" in terms of this word dotah:

flow: Heb. דְּוֹתָהּ This expression denotes a substance that flows from her body. Another explanation: It denotes illness (מַדְוֶה) and sickness, for there is not a woman who sees [menstrual] blood without feeling ill, [since] her head and limbs become heavy upon her.

Nice, right? A woman's period is a "sickness" because it makes women ill to see their menstruation. Ugh.

12:6-7 - "And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest. And he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her [וְכִפֶּר עָלֶיהָ]; and she shall be cleansed from the fountain of her blood [מִמְּקֹר דָּמֶיהָ] ..."

In the first place, why does any atonement have to be made at all? Surely having a child doesn't in itself constitute some kind of sin, but then why must a sin-offering be made? (I get the idea of a burnt-offering, though, as a way of giving thanks to God.) Second, look again at this strange translation here: mim'kor dameha [מִמְּקֹר דָּמֶיהָ] is translated as "from the fountain of her blood," while Kehot translates this as "from the source of her blood" (emphases mine). Both translations are technically right, though fountain hardly makes sense here. But the difference, actually, is important: If we accept the first translation - fountain - it implies that the woman is cleansed from the blood itself; the second translation - source - on the other hand suggests that she needs to be purified from something deeper: not the blood itself but rather its source. But what is that source? The text doesn't say.

13:2 - From menstruation to leprosy: "When a man [אָדָם] shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it become in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests." What's interesting is that no mention is made of a woman who exhibits such scabs or spots. We know the word used here - adam - refers to a man and not a woman because later on, in 13:29, we read "And when a man or woman [וְאִישׁ אוֹ אִשָּׁה] hath a plague upon the head or upon the beard..." implying that in this case, it could be either. Why is this?

But note Rashi's completely fascinating comment here. The question for Rashi is why does a person with skin lesions have to be brought before the priests? Isn't it obvious what his problem is? Rashi's answer, I think, not only drives at the heart of why the Priesthood is so important, but it says something incredibly important about the social construction of meaning in Judaism in general. Why does the person have to be brought before the priest and his sons? Because

[i]t is a Scriptural decree that the uncleanness of lesions and their cleanness do not come about except by the pronouncement of a kohen. — [Torath Kohanim 13:43]

In other words, the a lesion isn't inherently clean or unclean; it only becomes so when someone in authority says it is. Incredible! By my read, it is the Priest's interpretation that matters -- in the context of his authority and in light of the textual direction, of course -- not some underlying reality. So, unlike pork -- which is inherently unclean even in the absence of a specific interpretation that a particular piece of meat is indeed pork -- leprous lesions are not unclean unless and until the relevant authority says so. I need to give more thought to the implications of this difference...

13:2-8 - These verses, indeed the entire 13th Chapter, deal with leprosy and how the priests should deal with it as an uncleanliness. On the one hand, I can understand how this affliction might have been seen as frightening back in the day. Indeed until very recently it was viewed in extremely pejorative, highly charged terms. On the other hand, we know better today, and therefore it's hard to read these verses as anything other than ancient superstition. What to make of the fact that the disease for all intents and purposes has a cure and has been virtually wiped out in the developed world? That "impurity" and "uncleanliness" only exists in the southern hemisphere? It's chapters like this that make me look at much of the Torah differently. If some parts are clearly pre-modern, then what about others? How can we tell the difference, and what are the implications?

Also worth noting is that, as with the mishkan, we see an incredible amount of detail concerning different kinds of skin problems and their meanings, much more so than we see concerning the more "moral" aspects of the Torah. What is this trying to tell us?

13:14 - "But whensoever [וּבְיוֹם] raw flesh appeareth in him, he shall be unclean." Mechon-Mamre unhelpfully translates u'vayom as "but whensoever"; the more correct translation, I believe, is Kehot's: "but on the day."

Why say "on the day"? Note Rashi's comment, which echoes his comment on 13:2 above:

But on the day [that live flesh] appears: [The verse could have simply said, “But when live flesh appears.”] What does Scripture teach us [by saying,] “on the day”]? It [comes] to teach that there is a day on which you [the kohen] look [i.e., examine the suspected lesion], and there is a day on which you do not look [i.e., when he may not examine it]. From here [our Rabbis] say that a bridegroom is exempt [from having a lesion examined] throughout all the seven days of the wedding feast, for himself, his garments, and his house. Similarly, during a Festival [people] are exempt [from having a lesion examined] throughout all the days of the Festival. - [Torath Kohanim 13:87]

Incredible! So basically when it comes to this kind of impurity, sometimes it's best to operate on a "hear no evil, see no evil" basis. If the priest doesn't check, then there can't be any impurity, right? And if there isn't impurity, then there can't be any basis to postpone a wedding, celebrate the Festival, etc.

Could this entire approach to leprosy be saying something about its relatively lower importance in terms of causing one to be impure? But then it seems to go against the grain of so much of Judaism, where being exact, and checking a million times, is the order of the day. Fascinating!

13:46 - "All the days wherein the plague is in him he shall be unclean; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone [בָּדָד יֵשֵׁב]; without the camp shall his dwelling be." Rashi brings up a good point: Why should someone afflicted with leprosy be kept apart, isolated even from others who have it as well? He quotes chazal:

Our Sages said: “Why is he different from other unclean people, that he must remain isolated? Since, with his slander, he caused a separation [i.e., a rift] between man and wife or between man and his fellow, he too, shall be separated [from society].”- [Arachin 16b] [This rationale is based on the premise that a person is stricken with tzara’ath as a result of his talking [loshon hara] לְשׁוֹן הָרַע, i.e., speaking derogatorily of others, although he may be telling the truth.]

Ouch. So the assumption is made that loshon hara, and specifically slanderous talk that causes problems between other people, is the cause of leprosy, which is, of course, insane. But what I don't get is if loshon hara indeed caused leprosy, then why would its diagnosis be dependent on what the priest says? Is this to suggest that if the priest doesn't diagnose the affliction, then the loshon hara didn't take place? Makes no sense, but it's the logical conclusion to this line of reasoning...

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Shemini

2010-04-27T17:18:00.000-04:00

9:3-4 - "And unto the children of Israel thou shalt speak, saying: Take ye a he-goat for a sin-offering; and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, for a burnt-offering; and an ox and a ram for peace-offerings, to sacrifice before the LORD; and a meal-offering mingled with oil; for to-day the LORD appeareth unto you [כִּי הַיּוֹם יְהוָה נִרְאָה אֲלֵיכֶם].'" Obviously this can't be taken literally, right? If the people actually looked at God they would die, if I recall correctly. So then what does this mean?

9:23-24 - Okay, here's what it "means": "And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and came out, and blessed the people; and the glory of the LORD appeared [וַיֵּרָא כְבוֹד-יְהוָה] unto all the people. And there came forth fire from before the LORD [וַתֵּצֵא אֵשׁ מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה], and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat; and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces." So God doesn't actually appear but rather fire from God comes...from where? The heavens? I can't picture this...

10:1-11 - Aaron's sons, Nadav and Abihu, "offered strange fire [אֵשׁ זָרָה] before the LORD, which He had not commanded them," and as a result "there came forth fire from before the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD." More astonishing is Moses's reaction: "'This is it that the LORD spoke, saying: Through them that are nigh unto Me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.'" Not very comforting. Aaron's response is even more astonishing: "And Aaron held his peace [וַיִּדֹּם]." His sons are killed, and to Moses's unsympathetic response, he remains silent. After telling some of Aaron's relatives to come take the bodies of Nadav and Abihu, God -- for the first time -- speaks directly to Aaron: "'Drink no wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of meeting, that ye die not; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations [חֻקַּת עוֹלָם לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם]. And that ye may put difference between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'"

What is the meaning of all this? In the first place, what is the aish zarah or "strange fire" that led God to kill Nadav and Abihu? We don't know. Presumably it was some kind of ritually impure fire, but in any case it was bad enough to get them killed. And what about the remarkable prohibition against drinking alcohol before going into the ohel moed, the Tent of Meeting? Why is this what God says to Aaron at this moment? Rashi's commentary on why Nadav and Abihu died is illuminating:

Rabbi Eliezer says: Aaron’s sons died only because they rendered halachic decisions in the presence of Moses, their teacher. Rabbi Ishmael says: [They died because] they had entered the sanctuary after having drunk wine. The proof is that after their death, [Scripture] admonished the survivors that they may not enter the sanctuary after having drunk wine. This is analogous to a king who had a faithful attendant. [When he found him standing at tavern entrances, he severed his head in silence and appointed another attendant in his place. We would not know why he put the first to death, but for his enjoining the second thus, “You must not enter the doorway of taverns,” from which we know that for such a reason he had put the first one to death. Thus [it is said], “And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” But we would not know why they [Nadab and Abihu] died, but for His commanding Aaron, “Do not drink wine that will lead to intoxication.” We know from this that they died precisely on account of the wine. For this reason Scripture showed love to Aaron by directing the divine utterance to him alone, thus, “Do not drink wine that will lead to intoxication,”] as recounted in Vayikra Rabbah (12:1).

For me, even assuming it is accurate, this explanation is lacking. If they weren't supposed to drink wine before entering the sanctuary, why didn't God say something about this ahead of time, allowing them to make a decision about it? It seems to me they were killed for doing something abou which they had no idea was forbidden. This assumes, of course, that there is a connection between the aish zara and their (alleged) intoxication.

10:16-20 - What a strange story, offered with no introduction:

And Moses diligently inquired for the goat of the sin-offering, and, behold, it was burnt; and he was angry with Eleazar and with Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left, saying: 'Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin-offering in the place of the sanctuary, seeing it is most holy, and He hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD? Behold, the blood of it was not brought into the sanctuary within; ye should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.' And Aaron spoke unto Moses: 'Behold, this day have they offered their sin-offering and their burnt-offering before the LORD, and there have befallen me such things as these; and if I had eaten the sin-offering to-day, would it have been well-pleasing in the sight of the LORD? And when Moses heard that, it was well-pleasing in his sight.

Why was Moses angry with Elezar and Itamar for not eating the sin-offering? What is the meaning of Aaron's retort, that had he (Aaron) eaten the sin-offering, it wouldn't have pleased God? And why does this answer satisfy Moses? Rashi doesn't help much here...

11:2 - The laws of kashrut! "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: These are the living things which ye may eat among all the beasts that are on the earth." Rashi makes an interesting analogy here:

Since the Israelites cleave to the Omnipresent and are therefore worthy of being alive, accordingly, God separated them from uncleanness and decreed commandments upon them [so that through these commandments Israel would live]. For the other nations, however, He prohibited nothing. This is comparable to a physician who went to visit a patient [who was incurable, and allowed him to eat anything he wished, whereas when he went to his patient who was to recover, the physician imposed restrictions on his diet that would ensure that the recoverable patient would live. So too, the nations and Israel…], etc. as is found in the Midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma (6).

So non-Jews are like terminal patients, who have no hope so what does it matter what they eat? But more to the point: Rashi is making an explicit connection here between dietary laws, cleanness, and holiness. That is, it's not just 'don't eat A, B and C because non-Jews do,' but rather 'don't eat A, B and C because these things are unclean.' If there is, in fact, a connection between cleanness and holiness, then kashrut is more than an arbitrary set of dietary rules: it's a set of judgments about what is clean and what is not. Hmmm. I need to think about this more...

11:3-7 - These verses do an interesting thing. First, we read "Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is wholly cloven-footed, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that may ye eat." This seems like a clear statement: cloven hooves, chewing cud. But the following verse adds what I think is an unnecessary clarification: "Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof..." The list of these animals that either have cloven hooves or chew cud -- but not both -- include camels, "rock-badgers" (i.e., hyraxes), hares, or swine. It seems to me listing these things creates more confusion than it solves. The original statement in 11:3 is clear, but the effect of listing four different animals one can't eat raises the question of what about all the other animals that either have cloven hooves or chew cud (but not both)? Logic would say of course they're not kosher, but then why list these specific animals? Confusing if you ask me.

11:8 - "Of their flesh [מִבְּשָׂרָם] ye shall not eat, and their carcasses ye shall not touch; they are unclean unto you [טְמֵאִים הֵם לָכֶם]." First, I didn't realize you couldn't even touch the dead bodies of non-kosher animals. Is that still true? Second, here again we have the notion of uncleanness. Is God saying that the flesh of certain animals (a) is inherently unclean and, therefore, not for Jewish consumption; or (b) is to be considered as unclean for Jews though, by implication, it is not unclean for non-Jews? I always assumed it was the latter, but reading these verses it's not entirely clear. Third, the way the prohibition is stated suggests something very different I would have thought. Saying you can't eat their flesh or touch their carcasses begs the questions: can we touch these animals while alive, and can we eat parts of them other than their flesh? Amazingly, Rashi seems to answer the second question in the affirmative: "The [Scriptural] prohibition applies [only] to the “flesh” [of an unclean animal], but not its bones, sinews, horns, or hooves. — [Torath Kohanim 11:74]" So that means gelatin is all right to eat!?!

11:9-12 - Here we move on to sea creatures:

These may ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them may ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that swarm in the waters, and of all the living creatures that are in the waters, they are a detestable thing [שֶׁקֶץ הֵם] unto you, and they shall be a detestable thing unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses ye shall have in detestation. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that is a detestable thing unto you.

A couple of points here. First, what is the meaning of this word, sheketz [שֶׁקֶץ]? Mechon Mamre per above translates it as "a detestable thing"; Kehot translates this as "an abomination." Either way, I wonder whether the Hebrew is as strong as either of these translations and, if so, what its implications are. What are other sheketzim in the Torah, and are they to be treated better/worse than unkosher animals? Second, and related, why are sea creatures without fins and scales so detestable -- it's repeated four times in three verses -- while non-kosher beasts of the land -- including pigs even -- are not. The prior verses simply say they shouldn't be eaten because they are unclean. Is a sheketz worse than a tamei? Third, note the difference between the treatment of dead sea creatures and dead land animals. The dead bodies of the former are to be detested; the dead bodies of the latter are unclean and not to be touched. But can the dead bodies of sea creatures be touched? The Torah doesn't say.

Rashi has two interesting points here. First, he reiterates his previous point about land animals, that "[You shall not eat] of their flesh" means "[Only their flesh is prohibited,] but one is not prohibited [to eat] the fins or the bones. — [Torath Kohanim 11:82]" (!) Nice. Second, concerning the Torah's exhortation that "Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that is a detestable thing unto you," he points out that the qualifying statement "in the waters" means that a sea creature that has fins and scales in the water but "shed[s] them in its emergence [onto dry land], it is permitted" to be eaten. My question is, What kind of creature would fall into this category? I certainly can't think of one...

11:13-19 - Now the flying things: "And these ye shall have in detestation [וְאֶת-אֵלֶּה תְּשַׁקְּצוּ] among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are a detestable thing..." But unlike the laws concerning land and sea creatures, which are given in abstract forms (i.e., cloven hooves, fins and scales, etc.), here, with flying things, we first get a list of prohibited birds without explaining (a) why these particular birds are prohibited nor (b) why exactly they are prohibited (e.g., because they are unclean, detestable, etc.). So no eating of eagles, kites, ospreys, kestrels, vultures, ravens, ostriches, jays, sparrow hawks, goshawks, little owls, gulls, big owls, horned owls, starlings, magpies, storks, herons, hoopoes or bats. (Phew!) I have gathered the commonality is that these birds are birds of prey or scavengers that eat other living things, but it is striking that no explanation is given in the Torah.

11:20-25 - And, finally, the insects, which are described even differently than the preceeding three groups of creatures:

All winged swarming things that go upon all fours are a detestable thing [שֶׁקֶץ] unto you. Yet these may ye eat of all winged swarming things that go upon all fours [הַהֹלֵךְ עַל-אַרְבַּע], which have jointed legs above their feet, wherewith to leap upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat: the locust after its kinds, and the bald locust after its kinds, and the cricket after its kinds, and the grasshopper after its kinds. But all winged swarming things, which have four feet, are a detestable thing unto you.

Again, some observations: First, this formulation seems to imply that flying bugs that don't have four legs are all right to eat (e.g., flies). In fact, I can't think of flying insects that do have four legs, unless "upon all fours" really means "walks around." (Rashi, though, suggests this is not the case: "But any [other] flying insect [that has four legs is an abomination for you]: [In verse 20, it already says, “Any flying insect that walks on four is an abomination for you.” Why is this repeated here?] It comes to teach us that if it has five [legs], it is clean.") Second, what's interesting to me is the distinction between jumping insects -- locusts, grasshoppers and crickets -- and non-jumping insects; the former are all right to eat but not the latter. Not sure why jumping makes an insect undetestable, but apparently it does. Blech.

11:29-31 - Another list of prohibitions: "And these are they which are unclean unto you among the swarming things that swarm upon the earth: the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after its kinds, and the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand-lizard, and the chameleon." Again, why list these things? Why not simply say, of the animals on land, if it doesnt (a) have cloven hooves and (b) chew its cud, then you can't eat it. Period. Why list these things?

11:44-45 - So why, in the end, should we observe these dietary laws? "For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am holy; neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of swarming thing that moveth upon the earth. For I am the LORD that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." This is a remarkable statement. On the one hand, there is an equation -- or at least a relationship -- between what one eats and his/her "holiness." The question, as I intimated above, is whether the holiness comes simply from doing as God asks, or whether there is something inherent to the laws themselves that helps bring about this holiness. These verses seem to suggest the latter. The statement "neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of swarming thing that moveth upon the earth" certainly seems to suggest that there's something inherently, well, dirty about swarming things.

Lots of food for thought in this parsha... : )

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Tzav

2010-04-27T11:56:00.000-04:00

Back to catch up... : (

6:6 - "Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually [תָּמִיד]; it shall not go out." Not go out at all? Ever? What about when the mishkan was moved from place to place? Seems like a pretty important detail not better explained here...

6:7-10 - Concerning "the law of the meal-offering": In 6:7, we read "the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the LORD, in front of the altar"; verse 8, however, begins with "And he shall take up therefrom his handful..." Who is the "he"? An individual son? I do like, however, the sentiment that the portion of the meal-offering not burned on the altar goes to Aaron and his sons, to "be eaten without leaven in a holy place" [מַצּוֹת תֵּאָכֵל בְּמָקוֹם קָדֹשׁ], as if the lack of leavening is what makes it holy. (Interesting also to see matza mentioned outside of the Passover context!)

6:16-19 - Here we first read that "every meal-offering of the priest shall be wholly made to smoke; it shall not be eaten." But we just read above (6:9) "And that which is left thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat" in unleavened form. Which is it? Is part of the meal-offering set aside or not? We then read that of the sin offering, "The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it; in a holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting." Why would it be all right for the priest to eat the sin offering but not the meal offering?!?

7:7-10 - Interesting discussion about different kinds of offerings and under which circumstances parts (or all) of what is left over belong to the priest who effected the offering. Is this some kind of tribute system? Seems to me that there's a built in conflict-of-interest situation if priests can personally benefit from the guilt- and sin-offerings of the people...but that's just me I guess.

7:20-21 - "But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people [וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מֵעַמֶּיהָ]." I have already commented on this formulation here. But I still wonder what it means. Banishment? Death? Ostracism?

7:23 - "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: Ye shall eat no fat, of ox, or sheep, or goat." Huh. If I recall correctly, there's nothing in the laws of kashrut about not earing fat of animals otherwise fit to eat. So what's the deal with this? Is this verse specifically speaking about animals used for sacrifice? If so it's not clear...

7:26 - "And ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings [בְּכֹל מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם]." Two observations: First, the prohibition against eating blood which is part of kashrut comes right after a similar kind of prohibition against eating "fat, of ox, or sheep, or goat" that isn't part of kashrut. That's a bit strange. Second, and more importantly, what is the meaning of the boundary condition "in any of your dwellings"? This clearly seems to imply that there are places that do not fall under the category of "any of your dwellings" in which one might eat blood. But surely this can't the case! Why are "dwellings" mentioned?!?

7:29 - This has to be one of the most circular verses in the Torah: "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: He that offereth his sacrifice of peace-offerings unto the LORD shall bring his offering unto the LORD out of his sacrifice of peace-offerings." From where else would one's peace-offerings come if not from one's peace-offerings?!? What am I missing here?!?

7:34 - "For the breast of waving [חֲזֵה הַתְּנוּפָה] and the thigh of heaving [שׁוֹק הַתְּרוּמָה] have I taken of the children of Israel out of their sacrifices of peace-offerings..." Strange locutions!

8:1-36 - This entire chapter is devoted to a blow-by-blow repetition of everything we've already read about the investiture of Aaron and his sons as priests in Tetzaveh. I know some things are repeated for emphasis, but even this is a little strange: an entire chapter of 30+ verses that could have been summarized by saying 'And Moses invested Aaron and his sons as priests as the LORD had commanded him.' I suppose the point of this is to make absolutely clear that Moses did, in fact, do exactly as God had asked. But it still seems redundant.

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayikra

2010-03-18T17:02:00.000-04:00

1:1 - "And the LORD called [וַיִּקְרָא] unto Moses, and spoke unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying..." This word "called" -- vayikra -- is a curious one. Usually it's God speaking to Moses. Why the difference? Rashi suggests this is a term of affection:

Every [time God communicated with Moses, whether it was represented by the expression] וַיְדַבֵּר, “And He spoke,” or וַיֹּאמֶר; “and He said,” or וַיְצַו, “and He commanded,” it was always preceded by [God] calling [to Moses by name] (Torath Kohanim 1:2-3). [קְרִיאָה] is an expression of affection, the [same] expression employed by the ministering angels [when addressing each other], as it says, “And one called (וְקָרָא) to the other…” (Isa. 6:3).

Who knows. It certainly makes the book sound better than vayidaber! (By the way, Rashi has a lot to say about pretty much every word in this verse! It's always interesting to me why he says something here but not there, a lot here, very little there...)

1:4 - "And he [one coming to offer a sacrifice before God] shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall be accepted for him [וְנִרְצָה לוֹ] to make atonement for him [לְכַפֵּר עָלָיו]." To make atonement for what? Rashi asks the same question: "For which [sins] will [the sacrifice] be accepted for him [thereby atoning for them]?" The answer? After apparently saying that a burnt offering cannot (?) atone for capital offenses, Rashi concludes "we determine that it is accepted only for [failure to perform] a positive commandment [for which the punishment is not expressly stated in the Torah, or [violation of] a negative commandment that is attached to a positive commandment." Oooookay. Where Rashi gets this from is beyond me, and what's particularly strange here is that this isn't a minor point: At issue here is what exactly can a person atone for through sacrifice. If Rashi is right, then eating something non-kosher cannot be atoned for through sacrifice, but not honoring one's parents can?

1:10 - "And if his offering be of the flock..." Lots of talk in this parsha about different kinds of sacrifices without, it seems to me, any explanation of the differences. Variously mentioned are bulls, sheep, birds, and "meal offerings." Is there any difference between them? Do they atone for different things, or are they merely more/less "expensive"?

1:15 - "And the priest shall bring [the fowl] unto the altar, and pinch off its head..." Why is the priest charged with slaughtering bird sacrifices but not bulls or sheep?

2:3 - "But that which is left of the meal-offering [הַמִּנְחָה] shall be Aaron's and his sons'; it is a thing most holy [קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים] of the offerings of the LORD made by fire." First, why do Aaron & Sons get some of the meal offering but not of the other offerings? Why no meat for the priests? Second, why is the meal offering in fact "a thing most holy"? What's the difference?

2:11 - "...ye shall make no leaven, nor any honey [וְכָל-דְּבַשׁ], smoke as an offering made by fire unto the LORD." Honey?!? First, why not offer honey? Second, and more importantly, how in the heck could there have been honey bees in the desert?!?

2:13 - "And every meal-offering of thine shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God [מֶלַח בְּרִית אֱלֹהֶיךָ] to be lacking from thy meal-offering; with all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt." Salt of the covenant of God!?! To what does this refer? Rashi reports, intrestingly, that "there was a covenant made with salt since the six days of Creation, in that the lower waters were promised that they would be offered on the altar. [And how were they offered? In the form of] salt [which comes from water,] and in the water libations on the Festival [of Succoth]." No reference is given. Did Rashi just make up a midrash? I mean, is this really what melach brit elohecha means?!?

3:1 - "And if his offering be a sacrifice of peace-offerings [שְׁלָמִים]..." What is a "peace offering"? What is it supposed to do that "burnt-offerings," "meal-offerings" and "sin-offerings" don't do? Rashi says they are "[So named] because they instill peace (שָׁלוֹם) in the world. Another explanation: [They are called שְׁלָמִים because they bring about harmony (שָׁלוֹם) , [since some portions of the sacrifice go] to the altar, to the Kohanim, and to the owner [of the sacrifice]. — [Torath Kohanim 3:156]." Not sure how this explains anything, though...

3:17 - "It shall be a perpetual statute [חֻקַּת עוֹלָם] throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat [כָּל-חֵלֶב] nor blood." The not eating blood I get, but not to eat fat?!? Rashi says it's "explained very clearly" in Torath Kohanim 3:189. Huh. Don't have a copy of that lying around...

4:2 - On this verse, Rashi offers a comment concering what a "sin-offering" is:

Our Rabbis explained: A sin-offering is brought only for such a transgression whose prohibition is expressed [in the Torah] as a negative commandment, and whose willful violation incurs the penalty of excision (premature death by the hands of Heaven). The unintentional violation of such prohibitions incurs a sin-offering [upon the individual]. — [Torath Kohanim 4:196; Shab. 69a)]

Well, at least this explains what it is...

4:13 - "And if the whole congregation of Israel shall err, the thing being hid from the eyes of the assembly [וְנֶעְלַם דָּבָר, מֵעֵינֵי הַקָּהָל], and do any of the things which the LORD hath commanded not to be done, and are guilty..." What, exactly, is this thing that is hid from the kahal? Rashi says "the thing" in question "[means that the Sanhedrin] issued an erroneous decision regarding any matter in the Torah that incurs the penalty of excision, by declaring that matter permissible. — [Hor. 7b]" Huh. But how exactly would the Sanhedrin know that it did so?

4:20 - "...and the priest shall make atonement for them [וְכִפֶּר עֲלֵהֶם הַכֹּהֵן], and they shall be forgiven." It's very interesting to me, this concept at the center of vayikra, that the priest -- through sacrifice -- can "make atonement" for one who has sinned. I know it's not the same thing, but there's something very Catholic/confessional about this. As a Reform Jew, I'm so used to thinking about there being nothing between me and God -- nothing able to come between me and God -- that to read about the priest being able to effectuate atonement is strange to my eyes. The question in my mind is, doesn't the change represent progress? Do we need a priest -- or a temple, or sacrifices, or...? -- in order to atone? Hmmm....

5:2-3 - "or if any one touch any unclean thing [דָּבָר טָמֵא], whether it be the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean swarming things, and be guilty, it being hidden from him that he is unclean; or if he touch the uncleanness of man [בְּטֻמְאַת אָדָם], whatsoever his uncleanness be wherewith he is unclean, and it be hid from him; and, when he knoweth of it, be guilty..." Rashi explains that the uncleanness in question comes from corpses or "a man or woman who has experienced a discharge." Issues of ritual impurity are not new to me, but to read about them...is to confront a decidedly outdated, pre-modern view of the world that holds no meaning for me. It's one of the most foreign parts of Judaism to me. I can appreciate the symbolism of the mishkan, I can acknowledge the role of community in expiating individual sins against God, and I can even appreciate the need to respect holy things. What I have a hard time doing is seeing how coming into contact with the dead or having one's period changes any of this.

5:7 - "And if his means suffice not for a lamb, then he shall bring his forfeit for that wherein he hath sinned, two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD: one for a sin-offering [אֶחָד לְחַטָּאת], and the other for a burnt-offering [וְאֶחָד לְעֹלָה]." Again, what's the difference? You'd think this parsha would tell us a little something about it...

5:16 - Yet another kind of offering: the "the guilt-offering" [הָאָשָׁם]. Again, what's this as opposed to the other kinds of offerings? And why not explain this better in the Torah itself?!?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei

2010-03-12T17:47:00.000-05:00

Parshat Vayakhel

35:2 - "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whosoever doeth any work therein shall be put to death [כָּל-הָעֹשֶׂה בוֹ מְלָאכָה, יוּמָת]." Put to death for violating Shabbat? Another instance where the death penalty is no longer applied. And is not appropriate.

35:3 - Do not light fires on Shabbat. Actually, the verse says do not kindle fires "throughout your habitations" [בְּכֹל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם]. Why is this added? It surely isn't to imply that it is okay to light fires on Shabbat in all places other than one's place of living. But then why add this qualification? Strange.

35:10 - "And let every wise-hearted man [וְכָל-חֲכַם-לֵב] among you come, and make all that the LORD hath commanded..." Another use of this strange locution, attributing wisdom to the heart. What does it mean?

35:22 - "And they came, both men and women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought nose-rings, and ear-rings, and signet-rings, and girdles [וְכוּמָז]." Kehot translates this word v'chumaz as "buckles," but the real fun is in Rashi's commentary. What are these girdles/buckles? "This is a golden ornament placed over a woman’s private parts. Our Rabbis explain the name כּוּמָז as [an acrostic]: כַּאן מְקוֹם זִמָּה, [meaning] here is the place of lewdness. -[from Shab. 64a]" Ah well. Not so nice, but not that surprising either, right? Question: Does the fact that the Talmud considers a woman's privates to be inherently lewd mean that for all time that's the way it has to be? Can there be any acknowledgement that such views are outdated?

35:29 - "The children of Israel brought a freewill-offering unto the LORD; every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all the work, which the LORD had commanded by the hand of Moses to be made." I'm just curious: whose heart didn't make them "willing" to contribute?

36:8-38 - Verse 8 says "And every wise-hearted man [כָל-חֲכַם-לֵב] among them that wrought the work made the tabernacle with ten curtains...." In verse 10, "And he coupled five curtains..." In verse 11, "And he made loops of blue..." In verse 13, "And he made fifty clasps of gold..." And so on. So who is the "he"? In verse 6, Moses tells the people to stop bringing offerings because they had already brought enough for the mishkan and then some. The next person mentioned is "every wise-hearted man" in verse 8. But the next 30 verses all refer to this "he" who, in effect, builds the physical structure of the miskhan. The singular forms of the Hebrew are used here, not the plural. Am I just misunderstanding the grammar here?

An aside: While I'm sure there's a "reason" for it, to my eyes it seems very strange that the details of the mishkan's constitution and construction are described in detail, multiple times; first when God tells Moses what to do, then Moses tells the people what to do, then what it is the people did. Frankly there's something weird in my view about the Torah providing so much detail about these physical things while glosssing over important details when it comes to so many other laws. It makes sense if the Torah is a blueprint for establishing a set of new religious practices in a certain place and time...but not if the Torah is supposed to be a timeless document.

38:8 - "And he [Bezalel] made the laver of brass, and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the serving women [בְּמַרְאֹת הַצֹּבְאֹת] that did service at the door of the tent of meeting." What are these mirrors, exactly, and what is the point of using them to fashion the laver, particularly because this detail was not commanded by God? (Kehot translates this as "the mirrors of the women who had set up the legions.") Rashi's commentary, at once fascinating, beautiful, and terrible, is worth citing at length:

Israelite women owned mirrors, which they would look into when they adorned themselves. Even these [mirrors] they did not hold back from bringing as a contribution toward the Mishkan, but Moses rejected them because they were made for temptation [i.e., to inspire lustful thoughts]. The Holy One, blessed is He, said to him, “Accept [them], for these are more precious to Me than anything [אלו חביבין עלי מן הכל] because through them the women set up many legions [i.e., through the children they gave birth to] in Egypt.” When their husbands were weary from back-breaking labor, they [the women] would go and bring them food and drink and give them to eat. Then they [the women] would take the mirrors and each one would see herself with her husband in the mirror, and she would seduce him with words, saying, “I am more beautiful than you.” And in this way they aroused their husbands desire and would copulate with them, conceiving and giving birth there, as it is said: “Under the apple tree I aroused you” (Song 8:5).

Beautiful, right? But then it takes a turn to a darker side:

This is [the meaning of] what is בְּמַרְאֹתהַצֹבְאֹת [lit., the mirrors of those who set up legions]. From these [the mirrors], the washstand was made, because its purpose was to make peace between a man and his wife. [How so?] By giving a drink from the water that was in it [the washstand] to [a woman] whose husband had warned her [not to stay in private with a certain man] and she secluded herself [with him anyway. The water would test her and either destroy her or prove her innocence. See Num. 5:11-31].

So if I understand Rashi's commentary correctly, women are precious because they helped perpetuate the Jewish people even though the men were tired from labor...but they are also fundamentally untrustworthy and should be judged by magic rather than their word. Not nice.

Parshat Pekudei

38:21 - "These are the accounts of the tabernacle [פְקוּדֵי הַמִּשְׁכָּן], even the tabernacle of the testimony..." The first section of this parsha enumerates in detail the exact amounts of precious metals collected for purposes of building the mishkan. It made me wonder why these exact numbers are important enough for inclusion in the Torah. Is it to provide "proof" that it was indeed built? Does it suggest some measurement of the "wise-heartedness" of the people who "donated"? Would the mishkan have been less grand/impressive/important had the numbers been less?

38:22 - "And Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses." This is an interesting statement, one that Rashi discusses at length. To wit, why does it say Bezalel make what God commanded Moses when he (Bezalel) wasn't present when the instructions were given? Why doesn't it say Bezalel made what Moses commanded him? Rashi explains that while Moses commanded that the mishkan be constructed after its contents, but Bezalel understood -- "correctly" -- that the contents should be made first. Moses, incredibly, agrees:

Moses said to him [Bezalel], “You were in the shadow of God [בְּצֵל אֵל, which is the meaning of Bezalel’s name. I.e., you are right], for surely that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded me.” And so he did: [Bezalel] first [made] the Mishkan, and afterwards he made the furnishings. -[from Ber. 55a]

This statement is remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, it's a particulary tortuous way of resolving an apparent problem in the text. Rashi could easily have let this verse alone, implying equivalence between what God told Moses and what Moses told Bezalel. Second, it raises the possibility -- both troubling and encouraging -- that Moses, for whatever reason, didn't get God's words right, and God doesn't step in to correct things. And if he doesn't get this right, what else might Moses not be getting right? Since everything but the Ten Commandments was b'yad Moshe, doesn't it imply other things could be wrong? As troubling as that might seem, it also reminds me at least of the liberal implications of b'yad Moshe and lo bashamayim he: that ultimately it is up to us to understand, interpret and apply the Torah to our lives.
38:27 - "And the hundred talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the veil: a hundred sockets for the hundred talents, a talent for a socket." For some reason this verse spoke to me: According to the Torah narrative, the wealth of the people, given by God/taken from Egypt, donated by the people, is physically used to bind together the structure of the mishkan. Not converted into money to buy things, but physically used to construct it. I know that one of the big turn-offs of "organized Judaism" for many people is this focus on money, but there is a point to it beyond the "needs" fo the money to keep the organization functioning, namely people's personal investment in the community. I need to think about this more...

39:28 - "and the mitre of fine linen, and the goodly head-tires of fine linen [וְאֶת-פַּאֲרֵי הַמִּגְבָּעֹת שֵׁשׁ], and the linen breeches of fine twined linen..." Kehot translates this more interestingly as "glorious high hats of linen." This makes me smile, I must confess...

39:31 - "And they tied unto [the plate of the holy crown] a thread of blue, to fasten it upon the mitre above; as the LORD commanded Moses." Pretty short and sweet...but Rashi has a lot to say about the meaning of "to fasten it upon the mitre above." It's interesting to me that he comments on some things but not others...

39:33 - "And they brought the tabernacle unto Moses, the Tent, and all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, its bars, and its pillars, and its sockets..." And yet another recounting of all the bells and whistles of the mishkan, for the third (?) time. Again, why the repetition of these details, while other, seemingly more crucial things, only get said once?

40:1-16 - "And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 'On the first day of the first month shalt thou rear up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting. And thou shalt..." The next 14 verses explicate all the things God tells Moses todo concerning the construction of the mishkan, all its furnishings, and the installation of Aaron and his sons as priests. Are we to understand that Moses -- himself, without help -- did all of this?!? (You'd think this would be something for Rashi to comment upon...)

40:17 - "And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up." Hmmm. In 40:2, as we just saw above, God says "'On the first day of the first month shalt thou rear up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting." So are we to understand that an entire year elapsed between God telling Moses what to do and the mishkan actually being raised?!?

40:33-38 - A strange sight, worth quoting at length:

And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the screen of the gate of the court. So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud [הֶעָנָן] covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward, throughout all their journeys. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and there was fire therein by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

I'm trying to understand this. So the mishkan is completed, but then immediately (?) it is covered by a "cloud" -- presumably the presence of God? -- which prevents Moses from entering. So then did Aaron & Sons enter? Am I missing something?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Ki Tisa

2010-03-04T15:36:00.000-05:00

Wow, a lot going in on this parsha...

30:11-12 - "'When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, according to their number; then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them..." Census taking, eh? First, this seems a little out of the blue in this context. In any case is having people give money "as a ransom for his soul" as they are counted a way to "make sure" people participate in the census?

30:14 - "Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the offering of the LORD." Where does this number come from? Rashi says that this is the minimum age for serving in the army, so the rest weren't counted. But did women fight? Obviously not...so were women not counted?

30:15-16 - These verses describe how all people should give at lease 1/2 shekel for census purposes (and, as noted, for "atonement"), and that the money should be used for use in the mishkan "that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for your souls." This is interesting, linking monetary donations, atonement and communal worship. (Is this where the Yom Kippur concept of tzdekah "tempering judgement's harsh decree" comes from?)

30:22-24 - God describes to Moses the ingredients that are needed for the anointing oil: myrrh, cinnamon, fragrant cane, cassia and olive oil. I have to call b.s. on some of this. These were really scarce, expensive things back in those days, things that could not simply be found or produced in the desert (excepting olive oil). Yet again, we're left to believe that all these things (myrrh?!? cinnamon?!?) were stolen from the Egyptians prior to the exodus? I don't buy it.

30:29 - For some reason, this verse - "And thou shalt sanctify [the Tent of Meeting, the Ark of the Testimony, the table and all its implements, the altar of incense, etc.] , that they may be most holy; whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy." - made me think about what it means to call something "holy." I have tended to think that "holy" is something "normal" that becomes imbued with God-ness or, to put it a little differently, that holiness is God-ness. Pressing myself to think about it now, I think I've viewed holiness as some kind of magic force that enters things under certain conditions and in certain situations. But reading this verse, with its idea that by applying an fragrant compound (prepared according to God's instructions) to things, the things themselves become capable of making other things they touch become holy...ironically leads me to rethink what "holy" means. In the most basic sense here, something is holy because we make it holy -- combining God's instructions with earthly objects and our intentions sanctifies a thing. For me, this sanctification isn't "magic" -- it's not anything more special, really, than the collective will of the community to say "this thing, made according to the will of God/tradition of our people, is important and special.

I like the idea that holiness is not intrinsic to some thing or place, but is, rather, constituted by our relationship to it and to God -- that what you get out is a function of what you put into it. More thoughts on this to come...

30:37-38 - More on holiness: In the preceding verses, God describes how the incense for use in the mishkan is to be made. Here, God says "the incense which thou shalt make, according to the composition thereof ye shall not make for yourselves" -- in other words, the incense you make for yourselves (i.e., for non-mishkan use) shall not be made in the same way, and that whoever does so "shall be cut off from his people" [וְנִכְרַת מֵעַמָּיו]. Interesting! By one reading, God is saying that those who duplicate the mishkan's incense for their own use should be punished for doing so. By another reading, however, one more in line with my discussion above, God is saying that the act of using something holy to the community for one's personal use in itself cuts one off from his/her people! Using something holy for a profane use inherently cheapens the individual's relationship with the community, in part, because it is in no small part through the sanctification of communal spaces and objects that community itself is constituted. That much I believe, anyway.

31:1-5 - "And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 'See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and I have filled him with the spirit of God [וָאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים], in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise skilful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship."

I kind of like this phrasing: Instead of making Bezalel able to do something, or commanding him to do it. God, in essence, inspires him to create works of art: He gives him inspiration in these different ways. (Or maybe I'm totally wrong, and Bezalel was a hunter who "became" an artist because God made him one.)

31:6 - "And I, behold, I have appointed with [Bezalel] Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom [וּבְלֵב כָּל-חֲכַם-לֵב נָתַתִּי חָכְמָה], that they may make all that I have commanded thee..." Again, nice imagery, though it begs the question: Who are these "wise-hearted" people? Everyone?!?

31:13-17 - These verses go into the "Huh, I never realized that" category a/k/a/ the "full" v'shamru. Verses 16-17 I already knew: this is the "v'shamru" we sing on Shabbat, in which God states that the Shabbat is "a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and rested." That is, Shabbat is a sign of God's covenant with the people of Israel because it was on the seventh day God rested.

Nice, right? But in the prior three verses, 13-15, the ones I somehow never recall learning, a somewhat "different" take, with fire and brimstone, is offered: "And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 'Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying: Verily ye shall keep My sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the LORD who sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore, for it is holy unto you; every one that profaneth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people." In other words, this "V'shamru #1" says, basically, Shabbat is so that you will remember that God makes the people of Israel holy and that if you transgress it, you should be killed; "V'shamru #2," on the other hand, portrays Shabbat much more benignly, as a sign that God created the world in six days then rested. V'shamru #1 threatens; V'shamru #2 promises.

Two thoughts: First, it isn't surprising that I, a Reform Jew, was never really exposed to V'shamru #1, kind of like the middle paragraph of the v'ehavta is excised from Reform liturgy. Reform Jews get very uncomfortable with the image of God as punisher. I need to give this more thought. Second, the brimstone in V'shamru #1 - "for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people" [וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִקֶּרֶב עַמֶּיהָ]- might also be read in the way I suggested reading the passages about those who use mishkan incense for their own, personal use: that one's life, in a very real way, is bound up with the life of one's community (and moreso during the time of the tanakh)...to violate this central law of shabbat observance is, in a way, to break the central binding law of the community. One who does so -- one who disregards this most fundamental tenet -- in some sense does "cut off" his or her soul from that of the people. As before, I'm probably soft-pedaling what was actually a capital offense (though it begs the question of how many people were actually executed for violating shabbat...), but it seems to me that the relevance here is precisely this: to the extent you fail to abide by the norms, laws and beliefs of one's community, you are cut off from them.

31:18 - The Ten Commandments! Or are they? This verse relates that Moses received from God at Sinai "the two tables of the testimony [שְׁנֵי לֻחֹת הָעֵדֻת], tables of stone [לֻחֹת אֶבֶן], written with the finger of God." Did I miss something? How do we actually know what is engraved on these "tables of stone"?!?

32:1-5 - The Golden Calf! A number of questions/puzzling things:

Aaron tells the people to "'Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.'" First of all, this instruction implies that everyone except men -- including young boys -- wore earrings. Was that true? Seems a bit odd.
"And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron." All the people?!? This must have been tons and tons of gold! What was left to use for the mishkan?!?
Out of curiosity, why a calf? Why not a lamb? Or a crocodile? Was there a reason Aaron decided on a calf?
Verse 4 is confusing to me: "and they said: 'This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' " Who is the "they"? Rashi explains that it is the "mixed multitude" speaking here, the non-Jews who had come along during the exodus. Are we to understand that the mixed multitude pressured (!) the Israelites into doing something they otherwise would not have done?
How could Aaron have caved so easily to popular demands for an idol to worship and still have the standing (and the blessing of God) to become High Priest? Rashi's commentary on verse 5 "And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said: 'To-morrow shall be a feast to the LORD'" is that all of this -- the altar, the festival the next day -- was pure stalling tactics meant to buy time until Moses could return. But this was a big gamble. Given that the mixed multitude was in the minority (right?), why did Aaron cave so quickly into their demands for an idol? Why not encourage the Israelites to have faith? Surely this was not Aaron's finest hour...

32:7-14 - Another great moment of our prophets arguing with God that the people should be saved... After the Golden Calf is fashioned, God complains to Moses that the people "have dealt corruptly" and "they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them." God adds (famously) "'I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people [עַם-קְשֵׁה-עֹרֶף הוּא]." Therefore, God says, leave me alone so that I can destroy them. Moses pleads their case, "And the LORD repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." Phew! The striking thing, to me, is that God complains about how obstinate the Israelites are as if he weren't already aware of that fact. Moreover, God seems to be pretty short-tempered with a people who have only known idolatry most of their lives. The Old Testament God is a pretty Short Tempered God...

32:15-16 - A remarkable description of the "tables of the testimony": "tables that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." Rashi "explains" that their being written on both sides was so that the letters could be read from either side, implying that the writing on one side was, in effect, the mirror-version of the writing on the other side. Not sure I read the verses that way -- I think that לֻחֹת כְּתֻבִים מִשְּׁנֵי עֶבְרֵיהֶם מִזֶּה וּמִזֶּה הֵם כְּתֻבִים can just as easily be read as saying the tablets were engraved with different words on their two sides -- but who am I to contradict Rashi, right?

32:17-20 - Moses comes down from the mountain, sees the Golden Calf, then shatters the tablets. That much I remember from Sunday school (!). But then there's this part I don't seem to recall learning: "And [Moses] took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." Interesting. Rashi's explanation is pretty vanilla, at least by Biblical standards: by making them drink the Golden Calf. Moses "intended to test them like women suspected of adultery [are tested, as prescribed in Num. 5:11-31] (A.Z. 44a)." To my eyes, this seems like the most visceral, personal kind of punishment, as if to say, "You like your golden idol...then eat it!" I have a much harder time buying into the "trial by ordeal" aspect implied by Rashi's commentary.

32:25-29 - Moses next commands, that "Whoso is on the LORD'S side, let him come unto me." The Levites, who answered this call, are then instructed to "go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.'" The Torah relates that "the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men." This, frankly, makes no sense. First of all, who are these 3,000 people exactly? The mixed multitude who encouraged the making of the GC in the first place? The people who did not view themselves as being on God's side? Second, this seems like an awfully small number given that we read how everyone -- including women and children -- played a role in the fabrication of the Calf. Third, and to the point, what was the capital offense? Certainly not wanting to make the Calf; that would have included almost everyone. Aaron wasn't included, so he's off the hook. But we don't read anything about who actually prayed to the thing. Were these people, perhaps, the ones who were executed? It's a big question mark...

32:30-33 - Moses now turns to God, to ask for forgiveness. First, though, he says to the people "'Ye have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up unto the LORD, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin.'" Again, what was the sin for which (a) they did not have to be killed but (b) did need God's forgiveness? It isn't clear. Moses says to God "'Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them a god of gold," but clearly this in itself isn't a capital offense, or everyone should have been killed.

Moses's exchange with God that follows is interesting. Moses says "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.' [מְחֵנִי נָא מִסִּפְרְךָ אֲשֶׁר כָּתָבְתָּ]" God replies, "'Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. [אֶמְחֶנּוּ מִסִּפְרִי]" Hmmm. First, and most important, what is the "book" in question, and what does it mean to be blotted out of it? The Torah? Rashi seems to think so, but this makes little sense. If not the Torah, then what? Perhaps the Book of Life about which we speak at the High Holy Days?

32:35 - "And the LORD smote the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made." Kehot translates this as "Then the Lord struck the people with a plague, because they had made the calf that Aaron had made." Where to start? First, what kind of plague? Did people actually die? What made these people different from the ones the Levites killed a few verses back? Even stranger is the language "because they had made the calf that Aaron had made" [עַל אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ אֶת-הָעֵגֶל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה אַהֲרֹן]. This is pretty tortured language here. Who is being held responsible here, Aaron or the people? (In the end, I'm having a hard time figuring out who survived the GC incident, with all the executions, plagues, and trials.)

33:7-11 - These strange (am I overusing this adjective?) passages describe the procedure by which Moses would communicate with God on the people's behalf. As far as I can tell, Moses pitches the "Tent of Meeting" [אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד] outside of the camp. Every person who wanted something from God [כָּל-מְבַקֵּשׁ יְהוָה] would go to this tent and wait outside. Moses would then come and enter the tent, at which point "the pillar of cloud descended" [יֵרֵד עַמּוּד הֶעָנָן], blocking the entrance of the the ohel mo'eid, and someone -- presumably God -- would speak to Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend" [פָּנִים אֶל-פָּנִים, כַּאֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר אִישׁ אֶל-רֵעֵהוּ]. The strange things are (a) no where in this passage is there a description of what actually happens between Moses and the people who come wanting something from God; and (b) how is it even possible for God to speak to Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend"?!?

33:18-23 - A curious set of instructions from God: Moses asks God to show him his glory ("הַרְאֵנִי נָא, אֶת-כְּבֹדֶךָ"), to which God says that while he will "make all My goodness pass before" Moses, Moses will not be able to look at it directly: "'Thou canst not see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.'" God tells Moses that he will place him "in a cleft of the rock and will cover thee with My hand until I have passed by." Okay, but then how was it possible just above for God to speak with Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend"?!?

34:6-7 - Again I come to one of my favorite passages...only to find that my Reform education "excised" the non-touchy-feely parts. This is the part I know: "And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed: 'The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin..." Nice right? Then comes the brimstone: "...and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation.'" So crazy that these lines get left out in the Reform telling...

34:10 - God says to Moses: "'Behold, I make a covenant; before all thy people I will do marvels [אֶעֱשֶׂה נִפְלָאֹת], such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD that I am about to do with thee, that it is tremendous." What "marvels"? Something post-splitting the Red Sea?

34:11-16 - Tough talk from the Lord. God promises here to expel from the Promised Land "the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite" and warns Moses not to "make a covenant" with these peoples "lest they be for a snare [מוֹקֵשׁ] in the midst of thee." Moreover, Moses is instructed (a) to "break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim [sacred trees]"; (b) not to "take of their daughters unto thy sons" lest "their daughters go astray after their gods, and make thy sons go astray after their gods"; and (c) not to make "molten gods."

First of all, I can understand (sort of) the need in ancient times to vanquish the inhabitants of a land you want to conquer and possess, but surely this "advice" no longer makes any sense today. The idea that people need to be wiped out in order to avoid their pernicious influences -- as opposed to just being secure and confident in one's own identity -- is similarly outdated. Second, this mention of not letting the non-Jewish women get ahold of the Jewish sons is interesting to me. It doesn't say that intermarriage is inherently bad, it simply says that it is a bad idea to the extent it may encourage Jewish men to stray from Judaism. This certainly doesn't make the Jewish "sons" out to be very committed to Judaism!

34:21 - "Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest." Hmmm. Why specifically mention plowing and harvesting if the real intent of Shabbat were to prohibit many more kinds of work? Why mention just plowing and harvest? Rashi (after asking this very question) opines that this is a reference to letting the fields lay fallow once every seven years, but this seems pretty tortured to me.

34:24 - "For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders; neither shall any man covet thy land, when thou goest up to appear before the LORD thy God three times in the year." Hmmm. So much for that plan...

34:27-28 - "And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.' And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words [עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים]." On the one hand, we have some better evidence here that it was actually the Ten Commandments on the tablets. On the other hand, is this to say that the first set of tablets was written by the finger of God -- the ones Moses destroyed -- but that the second set, i.e., the set that actually survived, was not written by God but rather by Moses!?! Is there any significance to this distinction?!?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Tetzaveh

2010-03-02T16:51:00.000-05:00

This parsha takes the level of detail provided in Parshat Terumah to an entire new lever. In Terumah, we read about the most minute details concerning the construction of the tabernacle, including many of the structures within it. Here, the focus is on the specific rites involved in Moses's installation of Aaron and his sons as Priests and on as the unique kinds of garments they are to wear (particularly Aaron as High Priest) in their service. Before making sharing some of my comments on specific verses, two general comments are in order:

I personally had a hard time picturing the specific kinds of clothes, adornments and rites of installation described in this parsha. It made me think about how there are many passages in the Torah which offer ambiguous descriptions of things. While I'm sure the Talmud "clarifies" these things, it makes one wonder to what extent the Torah is in fact a narrative tied to its time and place rather than a document timeless and universal in its relevance. (Though see the illustrations provided by our Chabad friends at Kehot, in particular pages 216-25).
The discomfort I felt reading about the weath and ostentation involved in the building of the tabernacle was, for some reason, multiplied several times over reading about the priestly garments and rites of consecration. Perhaps it is the involvement with individual people rather than buildings that makes the difference for me. In any case, given who I am today, I would be absolutely mortified to belong to a religion that required gold forehead plates, flowing robes, and animal blood in order to have a relationship with God. While I appreciate that these things were considered more or less normal at the time, it again goes to show that it's a good thing that things have changed and will continue to change.

28:3 - "And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise-hearted [חַכְמֵי-לֵב], whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom [אֲשֶׁר מִלֵּאתִיו רוּחַ חָכְמָה]..." This is a curious description, those who are "wise-hearted." To whom is God referring, exactly? Who is excluded from this subgroup? What's most interesting about the phrase "wise-hearted" is that it's a bit oxymoronic: the heart is usually emotional, while the head is wise. What is God trying to say here?

28:4 - In this verse and the ones that follow, God explains that a specific kind of garment called an "ephod" [אֵפוֹד] should be made for Aaron and describes what this garment is like. As noted above, I had a hard time picturing this garment (Kehot's illustrations notwithstanding). Apparently so did Rashi, who relates in his comments to this verse that he "did not find the explanation of its pattern in the Baraitha." However, "My heart tells me [ולבי אומר לי]," he says, that certain of its characteristics can be deduced from other tanakh passages. Sometimes, it seems, you kind of have to make an educated guess.

28:29-30 - One element in particular of Aaron's costume is a "Breastplate of Judgment" [חֹשֶׁן הַמִּשְׁפָּט], into which are to be placed "the Urim and the Thummim" so that "they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before the LORD." Rashi explains that "the Urim and the Thummim" refers to the actual name of God, which was to be written on a piece of parchment (?) in placed within the folded-over breastplate. I am struck by the literalness of this: "Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the LORD continually" is physically manifested by (a) a breastplate on which is engraved the names of the 12 tribes and (b) a piece of parchment on which is written God's name placed inside of it.

Personally, when I think about something "being upon my heart," I tend not to think of it literally in this way; I think of taking something seriously or investing myself emotionally in something. I suppose there's nothing to preclude my physically putting something on my chest as a sign or reminder of the thing I'm supposed to take seriously, but the physical form would only be a practical manifestation of the underlying thing. Aaron's "Breastplate of Judgment," though, is explained in precisely this way, that by wearing vestments on which the names of the tribes are written, and the name of God is inside of them, Aaron as the high priest literally "bear[s] the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart" when he enters the Holy of Holies. So how are we to understand this in the broader context of observing mitzvot? That adhering to literal interpretation trumps meaning, regardless of how the world changes? For example, is the essence of the mitzvah not to eat leavened bread during pesach honored by finding ways to substitute all ingredients so that, to the observant Jew, everything looks exactly like it does "on all other nights" -- cakes, rolls, etc. -- or is the point not just to make things different but to have them seem and feel different? What if following the law doesn't evince the intended kavanah?

In my opinion, it is absurd to think that what it means to put the things God commands us on our hearts will be the same for all people for all time. Perhaps for the Israelites fresh out of Egypt's idolatry, certain specific physical objects made of gold were needed to do so, but they are not for us. Well, at least not for me...

28:35 - "And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and the sound thereof shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the LORD, and when he cometh out, that he die not." This idea that if Aaron doesn't do certain specific things he will die, is something I "get" but is nevertheless troubling to me. I suppose it's the byproduct of purity: if it has any meaning, something really bad has to happen if one is "impure" in the presence of God. But what's the mechanism by which this happens? I'm imaging a laser projected through a mirror, where if the mirror is imperfect in even the tiniest way, the laser light would cause the lens to explode. But this is a pretty outdated way of thinking about God, no? In any case, I suppose it isn't an issue so long as the temple is not rebuilt, and the presence of God doesn't come down to earth (!).

28:36-38 - A plate of gold to be placed on Aaron's forehead with the words "HOLY TO THE LORD" [קֹדֶשׁ לַיהוָה] on it?!? Seems kind of like tefillin with bling. But do the words "and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD" actually mean that Aaron always wore this thing on his head?!? Rashi says no. Actually, he says "It is impossible to say that it should always be on his forehead, for it was not on him except at the time of the service. But [it means that] it will always make them [the sacrifices] favorable Even when it is not on his forehead, namely if the Kohen Gadol was not ministering at that time." This is, frankly, silly. The text says "it shall be always upon his forehead" [וְהָיָה עַל-מִצְחוֹ תָּמִיד]. If the intention was to say that it should be on his forehead at all times while certain rites are being performed, that would make complete sense. But that's not what the Torah says. This can't be what it means...

29:13 - "And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the lobe above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and make them smoke upon the altar." Gross!!

29:20-21 - As part of consecrating Aaron and his sons as priests, Moses is supposed to kill a ram, then smear its blood on the tip of their right ears, the thumb of their right hands, the big toe of their right feet; and to sprinkle the blood on the altar and on Aaron & Son's garments. My question is, wouldn't this permanently stain the priestly garments?!? Would they be replaced?!?

29:29 - "And the holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them, and to be consecrated in them." Is this to say they never changed out these garments? That they lasted for generations and generations?!?

29:35-37 - "And thus shalt thou do unto Aaron, and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded thee; seven days shalt thou consecrate them." Seven days? What abbout Shabbat?!? How could all of the consecration activities have continued for seven days straight?!?

29:45-46 - "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God." I have always liked this sentiment -- of God being among the people, not within a structure -- but this begs a question (at least to me): Now that there is no mishkan, and no Temple...does this mean that God no longer dwells "among the children of Israel"? If not, then what are the implications of this for the way we think about our relationship with God? If God does, then clearly something has changed from the days when the tabernacle was needed in order to bring God into the midst of the people.

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Terumah

2010-02-16T15:52:00.000-05:00

25:1-2 - "'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart maketh him willing ye shall take My offering." So what if the men's hearts didn't 'make them willing' to contribute? Would that have meant that the mishkan wouldn't have been built? And given how its construction requires so much in the way of precious metals, stones and fabrics --as we subsequently read -- what if the required materials weren't given? I'm just saying that while a freely-contributed system makes a lot of ethical sense, it's not exactly the most practical way to go about building the tabernacle.

25:3-7 - Wow, God is asking for a lot of valuable items: gold, silver, brass, dyed fabrics, and animal skins (seal skins?!?) and stones... First, are we to understand that the former Egyptian slaves took all this stuff with them at the time of the Exodus? (They certainly didn't have the time or means to mine these metals in the desert!) Second, while I grant that the mishkan was important, it seems so glaring that a people who were asked to give up the worship of idols would be asked right away to build a religious structure with so much wealth.

(I have heard it suggested that while the mishkan seems borderline-idolatrous from a modern perspective, at the time of its construction, it was indeed a radical departure from the kinds of religious structures employed by polytheistic cultures of the time in that, for example, there were no depictions of the divine. This makes a lot of sense to me. If this is right, however, it implies that idolatry is in some ways a relative, changing concept: the specific things we would identify as idolatry aren't necessarily the same things that our forefathers would (and vice-versa). But if that is true, then isn't it likely that at least some of the rituals and practices from centuries past are no longer able to elicit the kinds of contemplative or emotional responses that they once did and therefore should be changed? I wonder what I -- or any Reform Jew -- would make of the mishkan if we could go back in time and bear witness to the rites that took place in it. Would we be impressed by the animal sacrifices, the burning of incense, etc.? Or would we be alienated and put off by the entire thing?)

25:8 - "And let them make Me a sanctuary [מִקְדָּשׁ], that I may dwell among them." Nicely worded!

25:18-21 - "And thou shalt make two cherubim [כְּרֻבִים] of gold..." How strange these cherubim out of all the things God might ask the Israelites to put on the cover of the Ark, and how wierd the level of detail offered in their description! I wonder what these things meant to them at the time...

25:22 - "...and I will speak with thee from above the ark-cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." Huh?!? This seems to be riding pretty close to the line for God to speak as if from the cherubim. If the point is to wean the Israelites away from idolatry, why not just have the voice eminate from nowhere, or from everywhere, or from just the Holy of Holies?

25:23-30 - All these details about the table for the "showbread" [לֶחֶם פָּנִים]. Seriously, how were they supposed to make something so elaborate in the desert?!?

25:31-40 - Incredible detail on how to make the "candlestick" [מְנֹרָה]. Why are all these details -- of the number of branches (seven), its constitution (a single piece of gold), the "cups" [גְבִעִים ] on the branches that are supposed to be "made like almond-blossoms" -- so specific? What was the point of being so specific here?

26:4-6 - Crazy details! About the way to connect the sections of the curtains together, with holes in specific places, and clasps made of gold. Incredible!

Random questions:

Apart from these and other passages in the Torah, is there any independent evidence that the mishkan ever actually existed? I'm not saying it didn't, but I am curious: Did anyone else ever see it and leave a written record? I mean, coming across this structure in the desert must have been a sight to behold...
The tabernacle was a huge thing, with lots of parts, some of which were themselves incredibly large. Are we to understand that this entire thing was taken apart, packed up, moved, then reconstructed every time the Israelites moved their camp in the desert? For 40 years?!? How many times, then, would this have occurred? For how long did it ever stay in one place?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Mishpatim

2010-02-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

21:1-11 - Ah yes... The Laws. A brief comment on these verses: I get that slavery at the time was all right, and that the Torah is actually placing limits on its practice and implementing protections for the owned "servant." But to make this comment is in some ways to historicize the Torah, to suggest that morals can and do change. Surely no one in this century would turn to these verses as legitimation for slavery, right? But if certain words of Written Torah are clearly no longer binding, then doesn't it equally follow that the same would apply (if not more so) to Oral Torah? I'm open to hearing the counterarguments to this view, but it's subjects like this that make me on the one hand admire the ethics of the Torah for its time, but reject them for our time.

21:4-6 - Nice...and weird. The first of these verses (4) seems to say that if the Master provides for his Slave/Servant [עֶבֶד] a wife, that wife -- and any children that are produced -- are the property of the Master, not the Servant. The next verse (5), though, seems to say that if the Servant loves his wife and children and does not want to be separated from them after serving the master for six years -- at which point normally he would be freed -- then, apparently instead of being rewarded for this familial loyalty, the next verse (6) explains how he is to be punished in two ways: (a) "his master shall bore his ear through with an awl"; and (b) he loses his freedom and must serve his master forever [וַעֲבָדוֹ לְעֹלָם]. Am I missing something here? This seems extremely punitive. Geez.

21:15 - "And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death." Really? Put to death just for striking a parent? See comment above about 21:1-11. A question: Was this really such a problem in Biblical times such that this harsh punishment was demanded? Or was the point to emphasize the need to honor father and mother? And how often was such punishment actually imposed, if ever?

21:16 - Death penalty for kidnapping. Kind of rich, given that slavery itself was okay.

21:17 - Here, "he that curseth [וּמְקַלֵּל]" mother or father gets put to death. See comment on 21:15. By the way, what constitutes a "curse" in this situation? (Good thing this fell by the wayside. I think I'd be given the death penalty a thousand times over!)

21:20-21 - "And if a man smite his bondman, or his bondwoman, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his money." Uh, so if I hit my servant and he dies, I get "punished"...unless he lingers for 24 hours or more before dying, in which case I'm off the hook?!? Yikes.

21:22-25 - Ah, yes. A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise. Funny, I never realized that these verses are in the context described in 21:22, in which two men are fighting and, presumably by accident, injure a pregnant woman, causing her to miscarry. Clearly these verses aren't to be taken literally, right, that if you blind someone by accident -- even if through negligence -- your eye should get put out?

21:26-27 - If you poke out your servant's eye or tooth, the servant should go free as compensation. At least there's some incentive here not to mistreat your servants, right?

21:33-34 - If you open a pit, and someone's animal falls into it, you're responsible for making restitution. Weird. It makes sense, but why these two verses sandwiched in between verses about goring oxen (21:28-32, 21:35-36). Why break up the flow in this way? Is there a point?

22:1-2 - Something has to be left out here. "If a thief be found breaking in, and be smitten so that he dieth, there shall be no bloodguiltiness for him [אֵין לוֹ, דָּמִים]. If the sun be risen upon him [אִם-זָרְחָה הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ עָלָיו], there shall be bloodguiltiness for him--he shall make restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft." So if a thief is killed while in the commission of his theft, that's okay, but what does it mean by "If the sun be risen upon him"? Does this mean if time goes by before he is identified as the thief, i.e., not caught in commission of the act?

22:8 - A translation issue. The verse says if two people disagree if something was stolen, according to Mechon Mamre, "the cause of both parties shall come before God [אֱלֹהִים]; he whom God [אֱלֹהִים] shall condemn shall pay double unto his neighbour." The Kehot translation, however, translates elohim [אֱלֹהִים] as judges. This is a big difference. Which is it? The latter clearly makes more sense, but the Hebrew elohim clearly points to the former translation as being right.

22:17 - "Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress [מְכַשֵּׁפָה] to live." Hmmm. Questions: What the heck is a "sorceress" in this context? Is there a modern equivalent? And why are they so bad?

22:18 - No bestiality. Was this a serious problem back then? Why did this merit a prohibition? I wonder...

22:20 - Says the verse, "And a stranger [גֵר] shalt thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him; for ye were strangers [גֵרִים] in the land of Egypt." I like the sentiment, but I wonder what exactly is meant here by ger or "stranger." Foreigners? Non-Jews? Anyone not a member of one's own community?

22:24 - No usury a/k/a interest. I'm interested to see how the Talmud deals with this little problem.

22:27 - "Thou shalt not revile [לֹא תְקַלֵּל] God, nor curse [לֹא תָאֹר] a ruler of thy people [נָשִׂיא בְעַמְּךָ]." What's the difference between t'kaleil and ta'or? Are these two different things? And what does it really mean to revile/curse God? The Torah is indeed a strange, vague book... (And does "a ruler of thy people" mean whoever the leader is? We in the U.S. certainly don't follow this commandment!)

22:30 - Nice and clear: Don't eat meat torn from living animals.

23:2 - What the heck does this mean: "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou bear witness in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to pervert justice"? The first part I get: don't follow the majority if it's doing the wrong thing. But the second part? No idea.

23:8 - No bribes. The Hebrew here is really nice: וְשֹׁחַד, לֹא תִקָּח: כִּי הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר פִּקְחִים, וִיסַלֵּף דִּבְרֵי צַדִּיקִים

23:20-25 - Yikes. Fire and brimstone about what God will do to the inhabitants of the Land of Israel so that the Israelites will take it. But there is strangeness too: Instead of God saying what God will do himself, instead an angel [מַלְאָךְ] is appointed "to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." God tells Moses to tell the people that they should "Take heed of him, and hearken unto his voice; be not rebellious against him; for he will not pardon your transgression; for My name is in him." This is strange. Why does God tell the Israelites to pay heed to the angel, a messenger, as opposed to God? How does the angel have the power to pardon transgression? I thought only God could judge?!? And let's not get into the implications of this verse for Middle East peace... (!)

23:27-33 - The Israelites are not encouraged to show much mercy toward the inhabitants of the Land of Israel... How can God be this way toward innocents? What did the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, etc. do to deserve being wiped out?!?

24:3-4 - Talk about leaving out the details! After three chapters of God telling Moses what God wants the Israelites to do (or not do), here, in two verses we read: "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said: 'All the words which the LORD hath spoken will we do.' And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD..."

Huh!?!

First of all, how do we know what it was exactly that the people agreed to do? Are we to believe that Moses was able to repeat verbatim everything that God said, as opposed to giving his version of what he heard? Second and related, what exactly did Moses write down? Exactly what God said? Exactly what Moses had just told the people? And what was this that he wrote down, the Torah itself? All pretty vague. The most significant thing for me is that it underscores the idea of al pi adonai b'yad moshe -- according to the word of God by the hand of Moses, i.e., human beings have a role in even the most basic interpretation of what the Torah is telling us.

24:4 - The rest of the verse: "And Moses ... rose up early in the morning, and builded [sic] an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel." Trying to picture this strange thing: Twelve pillars...of what? And where exactly is "under the mount" [תַּחַת הָהָר]? Weird.

24:7 - "And [Moses] took the book of the covenant [סֵפֶר הַבְּרִית], and read in the hearing of the people..." Book of the Covenant?!? So is this the Torah?

24:9-11 - First of all, here's a truly bizarre sight: ""Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel [וַיִּרְאוּ, אֵת אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל]; and there was under His feet the like of a paved work of sapphire stone, and the like of the very heaven for clearness [כְּמַעֲשֵׂה לִבְנַת הַסַּפִּיר, וּכְעֶצֶם הַשָּׁמַיִם, לָטֹהַר]." Wait, they saw God!!?! With something sapphire-like under his feet?!? In the first place, what does this mean and what did it look like? I can't picture this. Second, I thought God was pretty clear that only Moses could come near. In 24:2, God says "Moses alone shall come near unto the LORD; but [Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel] shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him.' " But then in 24:11, God seems to backtrack on this: "And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand; and they beheld God, and did eat and drink." What could this possibly mean?

24:12 - "And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Come up to Me into the mount and be there; and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.' " Huh. So then what was Moses writing down before, and telling to the people, then reading out loud to the people?

24:13-14 - God has just told Moses to come up to the mountain to receive tablets, the law, etc. In this verse, though, we read "And Moses rose up, and Joshua his minister; and Moses went up into the mount of God." Was Joshua going with him? The text is unclear. It would seem not, as it says Moses went up [וַיַּעַל מֹשֶׁה], not 'Moses and Joshua' went up. But in the next verse Moses tells the elders "wait for us here until we return to you" [שְׁבוּ-לָנוּ בָזֶה, עַד אֲשֶׁר-נָשׁוּב אֲלֵיכֶם]. Wait for us until we return. So does Joshua go with him or not?

(Rashi offers a possible explanation (see his commentary on 24:13 here), based on what we have not yet read: "I do not know what business Joshua had here [לא ידעתי מה טיבו של יהושע כאן], but I would say that the disciple [Joshua] escorted his mentor [Moses] until the place of the limits of the boundaries of the mountain, for he was not permitted to go past that point. From there Moses alone ascended to the mountain of God. Joshua pitched his tent and waited there for forty days. So we find that when Moses descended, “Joshua heard the voice of the people as they shouted” (Exod. 32:17). We learn [from there] that Joshua was not with them." Perhaps. But it begs the question of why these key details are left out in the first place...)

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Yitro

2010-02-04T13:36:00.000-05:00

18:14-16 - An interesting story... Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, asks Moses what he's doing sitting around dealing with the masses all day. Moses answers "'Because the people come unto me to inquire of God; when they have a matter, it cometh unto me; and I judge between a man and his neighbour, and I make them know the statutes of God, and His laws.'" My question is what "statutes"? what "laws"? The Torah has not yet been given! (I know, I know, midrash invariably explains how the Torah was already revealed to Moses or some such thing. But I found these verses jarring anyway.)

18:17-23 - Jethro tells Moses why his plan isn't a good idea, and suggests instead appointing others to handle all but the most important matters and questions: "Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God be with thee: be thou for the people before God, and bring thou the causes unto God." But who is Jethro to make this kind of suggestion? How does he know what God does or doesn't want? Why in this case has God remained silent, not telling Moses what to do? Perhaps this is because the matter concerns the interpretation of the law rather than its content; the latter is God's job (through Moses), but the former is a human job. Maybe.

19:3 - Trying to picture this: "And Moses went up [עָלָה] unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain [מִן-הָהָר]..." So Moses climbs the mountain...part way? Then God calls to him from the mountain?!? Not from the heavens, not from the top of the mountain, but from the mountain? Interesting...

19:7-8 - Another minor point of confusion (inconsistency?): God has just finished telling Moses that, if the Israelites keep their side of the covenant, they will be for God "treasure from among all peoples." Moses is then instructed to tell the "children of Israel" about this. First, we read that "Moses came and called for the elders of the people [זִקְנֵי הָעָם]" to give them the message. Immediately thereafter, though, we are told "And all the people [כָל-הָעָם]answered together, and said: 'All that the LORD hath spoken we will do.'" So who got the message? The elders or all the people? (Or does "all the people" refer to just the elders?) The difference is critical, because this is the moment of acceptance before the giving of the Ten Commandments. Did all the people agree, or only the elders?!?

19:14-15 - "And [Moses] said unto the people: 'Be ready against the third day; come not near a woman.' " Oy. Vey. I get it, I really do; things were different back then. Purity was a different ball of wax, as it were. Or was it? Purity laws are still fundamental aspects of Orthodox Judaism, and of all the things in the Torah I have a problem with, this is way up there. I'll keep my powder dry on this for now, but as far as I can tell, this is the first mention about women having the potential for being unpure...

19:16 - A nitpick: "...there were thunders and lightnings [sic] and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a horn [קֹל שֹׁפָר] exceeding loud" A shofar? Was God blowing a shofar? Hmmmm.....

19:21-24 - Weird. God tells Moses to tell the people not to approach the mountain lest they die. In the immediately following verse, God then says that the priests who do approach should "sanctify themselves" lest they die. Moses, rightly I think, then points out to God that "'The people cannot come up to mount Sinai; for thou didst charge us, saying: Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.' " God replies, you and Aaron come up, but "let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD." Huh?!? Did God get confused and miss the part where he told Moses none could approach?!?

20:2 - Ah yes, the Ten Commandments... Here's #1: "I am the LORD thy God..." Not to be nitpicky here, but frankly this isn't a commandment. Proclamations 2 through 10 are clearly commandments -- do this, don't do this -- but #1 is a statement. If the commandment were to know that the Lord is God or to believe that the Lord is God, then why doesn't it say so? (To be fair, the statements that constitute the "official" Ten Commandments are not universally recognized as the same. See this interesting chart.)

There is a strange divergence between the verse numbering in Mechon-Mamre on the one hand, and other sources I have seen on the other. Specifically, Mechon-Mamre incorporates the words "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" [לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, עַל-פָּנָי] into verse 20:2, while the other sources I have consulted say that these words make up their own verse, 20:3. This throws off the verse numbering for the rest of this chapter insofar as I am providing links to the Mechon-Mamre site. It seems to me that Mechon-Mamre must be wrong, but to avoid confusion, for the verses that follow, I will provide the link to the verse as numbered in Mechon-Mamre, then include the actual number in brackets immediately after. Weird!

20:3-5 [20:4-6] - #2 = No idols... But the verse reads differently than I had always thought: It doesn't say no idols of other Gods...it says no idols or graven images whatsoever "of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." What?!? The commandment is no sculptures or pictures of anything at all, even if they are not intended to be worshipped?!? The next verse says "thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them," but if the intention was to allow likenesses of things but not to allow their worship, why not say 'thou shalt not worship idols or graven images'?

20:6 [20:7] - Commandment #3, not to take the "take the name of the LORD thy God in vain." Yet another instance of the Torah leaving out the key details of something supposedly of critical importance. I hope I don't do this without realizing!! : (

20:7-10 [20:8-11] - Commandment #4 - remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. See, here we get some specific instructions, viz. don't work. Of course, what constitutes work isn't said here, but at least we get direction. (Of special note: look at the list of who shouldn't do work: "thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." So why, then are shabbas goys all right?)

20:11 [20:12] - Commandment #5, to honor mom and dad. Ugh. I'll get to this in my Mitzvah of the Week project at the proper time, but it's worth pointing out here, again, that the Torah offers no explanation of what this means. The other interesting thing is the second half of this verse: "that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." This is the only one of the Ten Commandments to offer an explanation of why one might want to do it. Is it possible that honoring father and mother wasn't so self evident? ; )

20:13 [21:14] - Commandment #10 (6-9 are pretty self-explanatory) - 'Do not covet...' This is also an interesting commandment in that it seems to prohibit an emotion rather than behavior or belief. How is one supposed to stop one's self from feeling something?!?

20:15 [20:16] - In this verse, the people of Israel say to Moses after hearing the Ten Commandments "'Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.'" Uh, but in verse 20:1, we read "And God spoke all these words, saying..." Didn't they already hear God's voice, then? The last verses of Chapter 19 relate God telling Moses to go tell the people "So Moses went down unto the people, and told them," but 20:1 doesn't say 'Moses spoke to the people, saying'; it just says "God spoke all these words." Who said what to whom?!? The verses that follow are more confusing. First Moses reassures the people they won't die ("'Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not.'") Then "Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was" at which point God tells him: "Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel: Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven." So here it is implied that the people did hear God talking to Moses, in which case they did hear God's voice. Which way is it?

20:20 [20:21] - Neat idea here: "in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come unto thee and bless thee" [בְּכָל-הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַזְכִּיר אֶת-שְׁמִי, אָבוֹא אֵלֶיךָ וּבֵרַכְתִּיךָ]. We need no set, "special" place to worship God; wherever we are, there God is.

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Beshalach

2010-01-28T16:02:00.001-05:00

And now, finally, I am caught up! Phew! Now it's time to keep the Torah Train on the Tracks and turn to other things... Stay tuned!

13:19 - "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him..." (This must mean Joseph's mummy, right, per Genesis 50:26.)

13:21 - Interesting: "And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night." If memory serves, this is the first time we read in the Torah about something (a) supernatural/miraculous, something that couldn't even possibly be explained away, and (b) that was witnessed by the masses.

14:19 - God gets ready to part the Red Sea, when we read that "And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind" the Egyptians. Huh?!? Didn't we just read in 13:21 that it was "the LORD" that was doing the guiding?!? Did I miss something?

15:1-18 - The Song at the Sea in praise of God... Quite beautiful, actually. But there are some snags. How was Moses able to sing about things that hadn't yet happened? Like what Pharaoh said after the Israelites had left (15:8)! Like speaking of the destruction of the peoples of the Promised Land in the past tense (15:14-16)! The building of the Temple (15:17)! Geesh.

15:20-21 - Nice interlude for Miriam here, who, after the long Song at the Sea, "took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances" and sang.

15:26 - Ah yes, the fire and brimstone: After only three days wandering the desert, they can't find water, and the people turn to Moses for answers. God provides water, saying "'If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His eyes, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon thee, which I have put upon the Egyptians; for I am the LORD that healeth thee.'" I know I have a lot to learn in terms of understanding the role of punishment vs. rewards, and I'm sure my thinking will evolve on the subject...but frankly this is some of the hardest stuff to swallow in the Torah: That punishments and rewards are causal effects of whether or not I observe the law. I just don't -- I can't -- see the world working this way. I can't believe in a God that operates in this manner, nor in a religious-legal system predicated on God doing so.

16:2-3 - So this is where Jewish whining comes from: "...and the children of Israel said unto [Moses and Aaron]: 'Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.'" Nice! But it makes me wonder: Why don't we talk about this during Passover? I think it would make a good subject: Why is it, just when we've gotten the greatest thing in the world (i.e., freedom), we complain and want more? I would think the haggadah should talk about this lessons in this...

16:13-15 - Another nomination for the "strangest verses in the Torah" award: God produces manna, apparently overnight, and in the morning, "when the layer of dew was gone up, behold upon the face of the wilderness a fine, scale-like thing, fine as the hoar-frost on the ground." Say what? Kehot translates this as follows:

When the sun rose and the layer of dew rose, behold, over the surface of the desert a thin substance that had been packed within the two layers of dew was exposed, as if the dew had been peeled back. It had a thin crust on top and was as fine as the frost on the ground. Underneath this was another layer of dew. This substance was thus protected by dew both above and below. Although dew usually descends from the atmosphere onto the earth, here, the dew miraculously rose from the ground.

I still can't figure out what this is supposed to look like...

17:11-12 - Curious: When Moses physically lifts his hand on the hill top, Joshua and the Israelites prevail over the forces of Amalek. When Moses lowers his hand, though, Amalek prevails. As if to drive the point home that there is an actual connection between the position of Moses's hand and the fortune of the Israelites in battle, we read that "Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Why was this necessary? Why not just wave the staff once or some such thing? Seems like overkill.

17:14-16 - I don't get it. A couple mitzvot directly pertain to never forgetting what Amalek did and to destroy their seed...but what did they do that was so bad? This is it? Huh...

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Bo

2010-01-25T17:15:00.000-05:00

10:7 - I understand that, according to both the narrative and many commentaries, God needed to unleash the plagues on Egypt not only so that Pharaoh would let the Israelites go but because God wanted the Israelites themselves to see his power. I get that. But here is another one of those verses that give me pause: Pharaoh's courtiers basically tell their king to give in, but he won't. So despite the fact that clearly there were Egyptians ready to free the Israelites, God keeps hardening Pharaoh's heart (in 10:20), which sets the stage for the worst plagues to come. I'm not a fan of collective punishment no matter what the reason.

10:24-27 - The back and forth between Moses and Pharaoh over the so-called three day sojourn into the desert continues, with almost comedic effect. Here, Pharaoh, who by now clearly understands the Israelites are asking for freedom, not a vacation, says they can go into the desert...if they leave their flocks behind. Moses offers a fabulously opaque excuse: since they didn't know exactly what animals God would want them to sacrifice, they needed to bring all of their animals along with them! But God "hardens" Pharaoh's heart, and the answer is no. (Though it seems to me that the word used here, וַיְחַזֵּק , is better translated as "strengthened" than "hardened," no?)

11:2 - Unless I've missed something, this is the first time God says please! Mechon Mamre translates the Hebrew "דַּבֶּר-נָא, בְּאָזְנֵי הָעָם" as "Speak now in the ears of the people," but Kehot translates it -- more accurately, I think -- as "Please speak to the people". It's weird, because Mechon Mamre literally translates "in the ears of the people" but ignores the na suffix on the word "speak," while Kehot does the opposite, leaving out "ears" but including "please." My question is: Why does God say "please" here? Why not just command?

11:7 - What the heck does this mean: "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog whet his tongue, against man or beast; that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." What do dogs have to do with anything?!?

12:2 - "'This month [Nisan] shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you..." This may be an ignorant question, but huh?!? I thought Tishrei was the first month of the year, ergo Rosh Hashanah?

12:11 - A poetic verse (in Hebrew), and a great image: "And this is how you shall eat it: with your waist belted, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hands, and you shall eat it in haste this Passover offering to God." Do traditional sederim do something to commemorate this?

12:12 - Fascinating! I always thought the slaying of the firstborn was carried out by the Angel of Death, not God (a la verse 9 of had gadya), but the text is very clear (both here and at 12:27 and 12:29): It was God alone who does the killing. This makes sense, but why did I have it my head that it was the Angel of Death?!?

12:14-20 - These verses made me sigh. Here we have in unambiguous, explicit details about what we're supposed to do on pesach: (a) eat matzot, (b) not to eat anything leavened or have anything leavened in the home, (c) not to work on the first and last of the seven days of the holiday, and (d) to do these things "for all generations." So much in the Torah is ambiguous; so many of the mitzvot, it seems to me, are not explicitly commanded in the Torah but rather by the commentators. But here we have a nice set of dos and don'ts that leave little to the imagination. This begs the question: Of the 613 mitzvot, how many are clear like this? I wonder...

12:21-23 - I'm sure there's a good answer for this, but why would God need the Israelites to mark their houses with blood so that their firstborn would not be killed? Doesn't God know everything? A shudder to think the alternative was the case: That putting blood on the house was the litmus test to find out who didn't believe in God...

12:35-36 - Let me get this straight: The Israelites "asked" the Egyptians for their "silver and gold," and because "the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians...[the Egyptians] let [the people] have what they asked," and in doing so "despoiled the Egyptians." Are we to understand that God made the Egyptians give up all their wealth?!?

12:38 - Who, exactly, made up the so-called "mixed multitude" [עֵרֶב רַב] that accompanied the Israelites when they left Egypt? Obviously non-Jews... But who were they? Why did they come? What happens to them? Weird...

12:43-50 - Concerning the laws of pesach, God has a lot to say here about who can't eat of the sacrifice: not "aliens" (or "strangers"), and not "A sojourner [nor] a hired servant." And you can't take it out of your house, "neither shall ye break a bone thereof." Etcetera. If this means non-Jews can't eat of the sacrifice, then what of matzah? What of the ceremonial foods eaten at a seder to take the place of the sacrifice? (An aside: Why don't we eat lamb on pesach? The Temple and the preisthood were not yet established, so there were no rules about ritual sacrifice to follow. Ergo, the destruction of the Temple, it seems to me, should not have any bearing on whether we sacrifice lambs today. I'm probably missing something...

13:1-2 - A-ha moment #1! So this is where pidyon haben comes from: God sparing the firstborn of the Israelites!

13:9 - A-ha moment #2! So this is why we put a bayit of the tefillin on the arm: because God took us out of Egypt with a mighty hand!

13:14-16 - Where the Torah tells us about the "good son," in eloquent Hebrew: "If in time to come, your child asks you, saying: 'What is this?' You shall say to him, 'With a mighty hand God brought us out of Egypt, from the House of Bondage.'"

Is the Kotel a Jewish tourist trap?

2010-01-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's article by URJ President Rabbi Eric Yoffie at jweekly.com, about recent events at the Kotel, got me thinking.

(For those who missed it, "Women of the Wall," a group of women who meet regularly to conduct services at the Kotel, ran into trouble last November when one of their group brought a Torah scroll and put on a tallit. That ran afoul of a previously-issued High Court ruling that required the group to adhere to the regulations for behavior at the Kotel, regulations, of course, written by Orthodox Jews who are, shall we say, unsympathetic to such behavior. You can read a contemporary account of what happened here.)

I get why some Orthodox Jews view it as a holy place. It's the sole remnant of the Temple. Insofar as some pray for the restoration/rebuilding of the Temple, it stands to reason that the Kotel is hugely significant. (Why it's considered to be a synagogue for legal purposes is another matter...) But for the rest of us Jews who do not hope and pray for the restoration of the Temple and the resumption of sacrifices...why do we make such a big deal out of it? Yoffie writes, "Throughout the generations, the Kotel has been a source of inspiration to Jews everywhere. It is a concrete symbol of our love for Jerusalem and our common Jewish destiny. The Wall belongs to the entire Jewish people; it must be a place that unifies our people, where all Jews are welcomed and all are respected."

Frankly, I don't buy it.

As far as I can tell, the Kotel is a tangible symbol of what divides Jews, not unites them: Those who long for the restoration of the Temple vs. those who don't; those who view it as a powerful religious site vs. those who view it as a powerful nationalist site. It may be "a source of inspiration to Jews everywhere," but if the things we're being inspired to do are widely divergent, it's hard to see how it unifies us.

The first time I went to the Kotel was in High School, on Tisha B'av. It was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life. I had planned for my semester in Israel for years, hoped and dreamed it would come...and when I saw it lit up at night, thousands of Ultra-Orthodox chanting Eicha, I wept on the stones for what seemed like hours. By the end of my six months in Israel, it still felt special. Several years later when I returned, it felt familiar, but there was something strange about being there -- I felt as if I was supposed to feel something, and the more I thought about it, the more I didn't know what was even appropriate to feel. And, of course, I got hit up a dozen times for money every time I went to pray.

And then it started to feel a bit idolatrous.

In my opinion, one of the genius things about Judaism is its distinction between real holiness and its trappings. Jews aren't supposed to have holy places -- anywhere 10 Jews come together to pray is perfectly holy enough, thank you. We don't need art, or things, or monuments...just Torah and people. The Kotel, though, seems to undo all of this, as if the remnants of the retaining wall of the Second Temple could ever be imbued with any holiness beyond that brought by the people who go there...and the Orthodox certainly have no monopoly on that.

Don't get me wrong, I think people have the absolute right to feel whatever they want to feel about the Kotel. That's none of my business. But from where I stand, it's the ultimate Jewish tourist trap: That place to which we're all supposed to go, supposed to feel something...supposed to put our prayers on paper and stick them between the stones where they're supposed to get to God faster. Where we get hit up for money from every other Black Hat in Jerusalem.

Others can have a blast there if they must, but sorry to say I think it's baloney.

Mitzvot of the Week: #2, #3 - Not to believe in other gods/To believe that God is one

2010-01-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

Introduction:

The Rambam doesn't make things easy here. By my reading, there is a "double-double" approach to the uniqueness of God. First, as in Week 1, he seems to approach this mitzvah from two different angles, "belief" in vs. "knowledge" of God's oneness. Second, the mitzvah is really two mitzvot, one positive, one negative. So what we have here, at first blush, are four possible approaches -- (1) to believe in God's oneness and (2) not to believe in other gods (from Sefer HaMitzvot); and (3) to know that God is one and (4) not to consider that there are other gods (from Mishneh Torah). I look at his arguments for all four of these positions, but I adhere to the Rambam's classification system by considering that these positions really constitute two mitzvot, opposite sides of the same coin.

In Sefer HaMitzvot (Negative Commandments - Mitzvah 1), "The exhortation against believing [מלהאמין] in the Divinity of aught beside Him" is stated as the first negative commandment. The Rambam here cites Exodus 20:3: "There shall not be unto you any other gods before my presence" (לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, עַל-פָּנָי). As with the first mitzvah concerning belief/knowledge of God, he cites Makkot 23a as to the status of this "exhortation" as a negative commandment.

On the positive side (Positive Commandments - Mitzvah 2), he writes that to believe in God's oneness means "to believe [להאמין] that the Maker of the creation and its First Cause is one, as the Exalted One has said (Deuteronomy 6:4): "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." "The intent here," Rambam continues, "is that He took us out of the house of bondage and bestowed upon us what He did out of lovingkindness and beneficence only, so that we believe in the Unity, as is our obligation." This mitzvah, he says, is also known as "mitzvath yichud" (i.e., the commandment of unity).

In the Mishneh Torah, however, these mitzvot are explained slightly differently. In Chapter 1.6, he explains that "Anyone who presumes [המעלה על דעתו] that there is another god transgresses a negative commandment" [emphasis mine] while in Chapter 1.7, he writes "The knowledge of this concept [that God is one] fulfills a positive commandment, [as implied by Deuteronomy 6:4]..." [emphasis mine].

Some preliminary thoughts and questions:

At first glance, these mitzvot are in many respects similar to Mitzvah #1 (to believe in God), but they're also different in that they can't stand on their own: you have to do Mitzvah #1 to be able to do Mitzvot #2 and #3. (I wonder how many mitzvot are interdependent in this way, i.e., to observe mitzvah X necessitates observing mitzvah Y.)
Furthermore, like mitzvah #1, what is being commanded here -- whether knowledge or belief -- is an intellectual rather than physical task, what the good folks at Aish (I know, I know!) call "Constant Mitzvot" in the sense that "Rather than requiring the performance of a certain action, these mitzvot are a state of being, of living with the reality of God's existence." Therefore, this week will most likely be spent studying and thinking about the mitzvah rather than tangible observance per se. (Or, rather, the study will be the observance.)
As noted above, in Sefer HaMitzvot the Rambam asks us to believe certain things about God, while in Mishneh Torah he asks us to have knowledge about these things. What is the difference?
I struggle to understand Christianity's concept of the trinity in light of the Rambam's discussion of God. I get it and I don't get it. At the very least, I appreciate that the question is complicated (just try making your way through this discussion).

Things I am going to do this week

I'm going to spend some real time studying the relevant portions of Mishneh Torah and the commentary on it.
I'm going to think about the distinctions between belief and knowledge, between doing something and not doing its opposite.
Try to answer the question: Am I really a monotheist?

And now for the week-2 roundup

Clearly for the Rambam, knowledge is a (but not the only) basis for belief. On the one hand, knowledge allows one to base belief on more than blind faith; it allows one to have reasons for having that faith. On the other hand, as we saw with belief in/knowledge of God, he seems to say that belief doesn't require reason but rather, as Touger puts it, "to internalize that belief and [to] make it part of [one's] conscious process....the intellectual activity necessary for this process of internalization is an act which can be required of a person." So, then, the mitzvah is the internationalization of the belief via the study the underlying philosophy.
Touger also points out that the Rambam goes through five halachot before arriving at the actual commandment to believe in one God (p. 143). Why? Doing so "implies that our knowledge of God's existence must be developed and cannot be left as a general, undefined conception." I like this formulation, which reminds us that believing in something large and abstract may not have the same effect on us that a deeper, more differentiated understanding can have. I can easily say, "I'm an American," but unless and until I spend some time thinking about what this actually means, it's not likely to mean much...
It seems to me, though, that in the case of belief/knowledge in God's oneness, belief doesn't require knowledge whereas knowledge, at some level, does requires belief. That is, you can take something on blind faith or you can have some intellectual basis for believing that something is true. But if you do the latter in a case where empirical evidence is impossible (i.e., the existence of God), then at some point I think you do have to rely on belief. This is tricky.
In my opinion, the textual basis the Rambam provides for the belief in/knowledge of one God being a mitzvah -- basically the She'ma -- is fairly weak. "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one" doesn't actually command anything other than to hear that God is one. It doesn't say to believe it. At best, I think it says that Israel should know that Judaism understands that God is one. I mean, if the Rambam (or anyone else) can glean a "commandment" from statements in the Torah that don't actually say or ask Jews to do something, then I suppose we could derive lots of things that aren't explicitly said. This isn't to say I don't agree with/accept the commandment to believe in one God/not believe in other Gods; it's just that in my mind, there's a difference between the Torah saying "Do X, Don't do Y" on the one hand, and the Torah saying A and B which are then interpreted by others as saying "Do X, Don't do Y."
I am very much impressed with the way the Rambam persuasively contrasts God as being fundamentally beyond, above and different than anything human language or intelligence can comprehend with human beings' inability to discuss or comprehend anything without using language to describe it. That is, if we are to take God seriously, we have no language capable of offering an accurate description, but if we don't use language, then we as human beings have no way of even starting to approach the matter. The solution, he seems to say, is to use human language but always be aware of what it can and cannot do in terms of understanding God. "If so," he asks,
what is the meaning of the expressions employed by the Torah: 'Below his feet [Exodus 24:10], 'Written by the finger of God' [ibid. 31:18], 'God's hand' [ibid. 9:3], 'God's eyes' [Genesis 38:7], 'God's ears' [Numbers 11:1], and the like?
The answer?
All these [expressions were used] to relate to human thought processes which know only corporeal imagery, because the Torah speaks in the language of man. They are only descriptive terms... [Chapter 1.9]
This is powerful stuff! In short, we can't take the Torah literally when it comes to descriptions of God. Of course this makes absolute, logical sense. But it begs the question: If we can't take certain descriptions of God literally, then what else can't we take literally? What else wasn't intended to be taken literally?

Conclusions

Certain kinds of mitzvot are fundamentally intellectual rather than physical in nature; they're about attempting to understand and/or internalize certain ideas as opposed to taking certain actions. (This is surprising to me, in a way: I somehow had it in my head that Judaism was about doing rather than believing; but apparently I am wrong.)
There is some uncertainty over exactly what specific mitzvot are asking us to do. Again, I thought differently: I thought there were authoritative sources that could tell me specifically what a given mitzvah asks of me, but, it seems, this may not be so easy. Sefer HaMitzvot doesn't, nor, really, does Mishneh Torah. This is surprising. Will this trend continue?
In the end, I am personally "persuaded" by the Rambam's logic about what it means to say that God is one and that we should not contemplate the existence of others. To do so is to fundamentally look at the universe in a different way. That's something I didn't realize before: there is relationship between the way one looks at the world and the kind of God one believes in. I also appreciate much better the extent to which I take much of monotheism for granted without having thought about what it means.

So for now, the tally is:

Mitzvot I can get on board with: 3
Mitzvot that I can't accept: 0
Mitzvot that no longer apply: 0
"Question marks": 0

Mitzvot tried out: 3
Mitzvot to go: 610

Stay tuned next week, for Mitzvot #4, #5: To Love God and to Fear God...

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vaeira

2010-01-21T13:40:00.001-05:00

6:2 - "And God spoke unto Moses, and said unto him: 'I am the LORD [יְהוָה];" Funny, the relationship between God's "Lord" name and the present tense "is" never really occurred to me. That word is the almost always unused word for "is", right? I like the idea of using abstract words concerning tense (e.g., "I will be") to talk about God .

6:4 - Why does God refer to Canaan as "the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings, wherein they sojourned"? Isn't calling it Canaan enough? Is there another Canaan?!? When God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he says something like "your son, your only son, the one that you love, Isaac," but here Abraham has two sons, so until Isaac is mentioned by name, it could be either one.

6:20 - Okay, this verse bugs me. To wit, "And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses." Uh, I thought you weren't supposed to do that (see Negative Commandment 333). What gives? Kehot's "A Closer Look" is, frankly, both incoherent and, interestingly enough, improperly edited so that we can't even say what they were trying to say:

The Torah prohibits a man from marrying his father's sister. However, as we have seen [footnote refers to Genesis 23:16, where Joseph, apparently, serves improperly-slaughtered meat to his brothers the interpolation is hilarious], before the Torah was formally given, only the Torah's [sic] for non-Jews were legally binding, and non-Jews are permitted to marry paternal relatives, so Amram was permitted to marry his father's sister.

This is how Chabad (and others, presumably) evades dealing with the contradiction between (a) their insistence that the Torah is eternal and, therefore, in force for Jews from the get-go; and (b) the obvious fact that no one could have known even theoretically what was in it before its "revelation" at Sinai. Why can't they just admit that the taryag mitzvot came long after the events of Exodus?!?

6:29-7:2 - God tells Moses to speak to Pharaoh; Moses complains about his speech impediment; God then tells him Aaron "shall be thy prophet." Why doesn't God just fix Moses's speech? Or tell him to go ahead and speak with his lisp anyway? It seems strange, at least to me, that God would basically play along with Moses's insecurity on this point.

7:3-5 - Ah yes: God tells Moses what to say to Pharaoh, but wait, God also plans to "harden Pharaoh's heart," basically in order to provide a pretext for unleashing the plagues. Maybe I'm a simpleton, but it disturbs me that God would in essence inflict collective punishment on all of Egypt -- a dictatorship -- because of the quite understandable reluctance of Pharaoh to let all the Hebrews take a 3-day vacation in the desert (more on this in a bit). Why not just unleash plagues until Pharaoh caved?

This speaks to a wider theme in the Torah that, for obvious reasons, is hard for some modern folk (myself included) to stomach: Back in the day, entire peoples would be punished if not wiped out for standing in the way of the Israelites. This isn't such a cool thing today.

7:9-13 - The "pre-plague": Aaron's staff becomes a snake and eats Pharaoh's magicians staves, who are themselves turned into snakes. First, the word used here for the magicians of Egypt -- חַרְטֻמֵּי מִצְרַיִם -- is excellent! Second, how the heck could the Egyptians change their staves into snakes!?! I buy (!) that God could do this, but that others could do it...no way. So what gives?

7:16 - This verse, and others, make something clear that I never realized: Aaron and Moses were not sent to Pharaoh to "free the slaves"; they were sent to get them a three-day break to go into the desert and make sacrifices. Perhaps Pharaoh understood that this was essentially the same thing, or that it might have that as its net effect, but it is different than demanding total freedom. Who knew? But what if he had called the bluff? Would the Hebrews have come back? Or would God have "made sure" that Pharaoh didn't agree?

7:19-22 - The magicians of Egypt are able to reproduce the First Plague and turn water into blood. Pretty nifty. Again, how exactly were they able to do this?!?

8:1-3 - And then the frogs... How did these "magicians" have any power at all?!?

8:12-15 - Finally the magicians drop the ball: They can't make lice. And how do they react: "'This is the finger of God'" Again, I thought the Egyptians didn't believe in "God" as in, Adonai. So what's the deal?!?

8:21-24 - This is kind of funny... So after the swarm comes, Pharaoh relents: "'Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.'" That is, go take your three-day break, but do you sacrifice here (i.e., in Egypt) as opposed to out in the desert. Moses's response, taking from Kehot, is classic: "It would not be proper to do so, for it is the deity of Egypt that we would sacrifice to God, our God. We are going to sacrifice sheep, one of the animals you worship as an idol. If we were to sacrifice the deity of the Egyptians before their very eyes, would they not stone us?!" Does Moses really believe this baloney?!? But it works! Pharaoh relents!

Hard to even know how to respond to such bile...

2010-01-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

Last night, before turning in for bed, I turned to a 9:30pm Queens Public Television (QPTV) program on Channel 82 called (!) "Judaism." (Based on the programming guide, it seems like a regular spot.)

I know, I know: big mistake.

The entire 30 minute segment was of a single guy standing in front of a bookcase, ranting directly into the camera. I really should have known better, but photos of Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein were visible over his right shoulder, and in light of my recent foolhardy attempt to take a dip into that pool of quicksand (here, here and here), I couldn't resist.

It's not that the guy (whose exact name I can't remember) said anything I haven't heard before:

he likened the Maccabees revolt against the Seleucids and Hellenistic Jews in the 2nd Century BCE to Yigal Amir's assassination of Rabin: in both cases, he claimed, "real Jews" did what was necessary to save Judaism from "assimilationist, evil Jews"
he claimed that the "so-called Chassids or Chassidic Jews" do not have the spirit to keep Judaism alive
he repeated many times -- actually screamed -- "No Arabs, No Terror!!!"
he discussed how "Rabin HaRasha" ("Rabin the Evil One"), among other things, was responsible for murdering unarmed, innocent people during the Altalena affair; was an alcoholic and a "nicotine addict" (!); and "ate swine, pork" when he visited the U.S. and that, in sum, "what went around, came around," viz., his assassination

And so on.

As I said, nothing new here.

But listening to this sad, angry little man, and thinking about what he said and what he represents, I became deeply sad...and very angry.

It makes me sad and angry that bigoted, fundamentalist nutjobs like him put on their kippas and spew this hateful, murderous bile...while insisting that Jews who eat pork are the evil ones.

It makes me sad and angry that many Jews think that it's only other religions that have crazies like this guy; "goyyim, sure, but not us."

It makes me sad and angry that my religion -- the beautiful, comforting and meaningful tradition without which I don't know who or what I would be -- gets perverted and twisted by the dirty hands and foul mouths of such sick people.

It makes me sad and angry that anyone could ever turn to a literal interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago as justification for inflicting pain and suffering on other people.

It makes me sad and angry that many American Jews turn a blind eye to this billious intolerance out of a misguided and misdirected "support for Israel."

It makes me sad and angry that so many people are so narrow-minded to think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "all the Arabs fault," and that if they would all just move to the Saudi desert, everything would be perfect.

It makes me sad and angry that saying these kinds of things leads others to think I'm a "self-hating Jew."

It makes me sad and angry that some Jews have spent so much of their time and effort to give the veneer of intellectual legitimacy to philosophies that only lead to the misery and suffering of other human beings.

It makes me sad and angry that I once thought there was something different and special about Jews...only to learn that we're just as screwed up, crazy and ignorant as everyone else in the world.

But listening to the broadcast reminded me of something else as well that I don't remember enough, and is part of the reason I'm writing this blog in the first place: What other people say, think and do affects me as a Jew, but it does not -- it cannot -- define my Jewishness. I too get to say what I feel, think and believe and in doing so play my part in shaping what it means to be Jewish. To paraphrase Hillel,
If I do not play an active role in defining what Judaism means to me, who will do it? But if all I do is think and write about myself, failing to speak out against the ignorant, the intolerant, and the fundamentalists who routinely arrogate to themselves the right to define authentic Jewishness, then what does that make me? And if not now, when?

Mitzvah of the Week: #1 - To know/believe there is a God

2010-01-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, after a lot of work on this, I'm back on track! Except doing so meant some re-jiggering of "week 1."

That post, now significantly reworked, is here.

Onward to Week 2: Not to believe in/consider the thought of a divinity other than God.

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Shemot

2010-01-12T13:09:00.002-05:00

1:8-10 - Interesting verses... First, we have the explanation for the difference between Josehp's Pharaoh-friend and Moses's Pharaoh-enemy ("Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph"). Second, it's eye-opening to read with a blank-slate what this "new" Pharaoh did: Seeing that "the children of Israel are [becoming?] too many and too mighty for us," he argues that the Egyptians should "deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there befalleth us any war, they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land." I somehow always had it in my head that Pharaoh's inflicting labor on the Israelites was out of plain malice or evil, but put in this context it makes sense that the Egyptians would be concerned about a growing number of non-Egyptians in their midst. Not that the response was morally justified, but the idea that the Israelites would be viewed as a domestic threat is not a far-fetched idea.

1:15-21 - A remarkable story! Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives to put to death all the boys they deliver, but "the midwives feared God" and did not do so, offering excuses to Pharaoh afterwards about how Hebrew women know how to give bith so well ("like animals") and did so before midwives could even arrive. God was so pleased with them that "the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty" and "He made them houses." It's interesting to me how women in the Torah narrative often lie to other, powerful men in order to save themselves and others (e.g., Rachel lying to her father about stealing the idols, Leah and Rachel deceiving Jacob, etc.). Pretty gutsy, actually. On the other hand, I find it a little hard to believe that Pharaoh would have bought such a bogus line. If Hebrew women didn't need midwives, then why were there Hebrew midwives in the first place?!? Another interesting thing: what does it mean that God made them houses?!?

2:10 - Moses receives his name מֹשֶׁה (moshe) כִּי מִן-הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ ("because [the Pharaoh's daughter] drew him out of the water"). I never knew that! One thing that I'm enjoying in my read-through is learning why people are given the names they're given. (Well, at least the men; not much about womens's names is explained.)

2:12 - Moses kills the Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew man... Was this actually the right thing to do? We're led to believe it is, but was it? If the taskmaster would have killed the man, perhaps, but one gets the sense that Moses killed the Egyptian because just intervening might have led to his own capture and/or execution. But I still wonder...was this killing kosher?

3:2 - The "Burning Bush" episode begins... One thing that struck me immediately is that while I always thought it was God who appears in the BB, it's actually an angel of God. God calls out of the bush in 3:4, but does not appear. So, then, what does Moses actually see? We don't know. Does the angel come in the form of a flame? We don't know. Weird.

3:4-6 - God now calls to Moses out of the bush (where did the angel go), telling him to remove his shoes "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Then a strange thing happens: "And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." First, I thought it was the angel, not God in the bush. Second, this expression implies that had Moses not been afraid, he could have seen God...even though we know this was impossible.

3:10-12 - God tells Moses that he will send him to Pharaoh in order to get the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses, reasonably, asks "who am I" to undertake such a task? God's answer is maddeningly vague: "I will be with thee; and this shall be the token unto thee, that I have sent thee." But what does God mean by the "token" (הָאוֹת)? What is it? The text doesn't say. So basically, God doesn't answer Moses at all. Nice.

3:13-15 - Fascinating! Moses asks God what he should say when the Israelites ask him what God's name is: "What is His name? what shall I say unto them?" God's answer is terrific -- again vague, but also, in a poetic way, accurate: "I will be what I will be" (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה) and "I will be the one who sent you to them" (אֶהְיֶה, שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם). Here is God saying, in effect, my name isn't important; what is important is what I do. God then goes on (my translation): "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'the Lord -- God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob -- has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, how I am to be remembered for all generations." For deeds, not words, are we to remember God...

4:1-17 - In this remarkable passage -- with echoes of God's debate with Abraham over the fate of Sodom and Gemorrah -- Moses complains to God that the people will not believe him "'...for they will say: The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.'" In the exchange that follows, God shares with Moses the magic signs he will need to prove God is with him. First, the staff that turns into a snake. But then two more signs that, if I recall correctly, never again appear in the narrative: by putting his hand on his chest, Moses's hand became "leprous, as white as snow," only to return back to normal when the act was repeated; and God tells him that if he takes water from the Nile and pours it onto the ground, it will turn into blood. But Moses, the reluctant prophet, then objects he isn't a good public speaker speaker. God says take Aaron with him. What strikes me is that, essentially, God capitulates to Moses's complaining. Why not just reiterate his command and be done with it? Why bother to reason with Moses?

4:21-23 - This part I have never been able to come to grips with: God tells Moses that, in spite of all the powers granted to him, Pharaoh will not allow the Israelites to leave because God "will harden his heart." Why does God do this? Was it not possible that, had God not done so, Pharaoh would have been swayed by the powers God gave to Moses, thereby avoiding the plagues to come? This is reminiscent of the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil in Eden...why does God put the tree there only to command Adam and Even not to eat of it. Here, if we are to believe the narrative, God indirectly condemns the Egyptians to great suffering for seemingly no reason at all. Why would God do this?

4:24-26 - This has seriously got to be the weirdest couple of verses in the Torah. Immediately after God tells Moses what he needs to do in front of Pharaoh, we read: "And it came to pass on the way at the lodging-place, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him." What?!? Why? Then it gets seriously weirder: "Then Zipporah [Moses's wife] took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said: 'Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me.' So He let him alone. Then she said: 'A bridegroom of blood in regard of the circumcision.'" Then we go right back into the narrative streat, with God telling Aaron to go meet Moses for their showdown with Pharaoh.

What more needs to be said? If there was ever some evidence of bad editing in the Torah, this is it. The lines make no sense, are totally unrelated to what comes immediately before and after, and, well, they're just weird. (Something to study up on...?)

5:1-2 - First of all, it's interesting to me that the first time Moses (and Aaron) go to Pharaoh, it's not to ask that the Hebrew slaves be freed but rather that they get a few days off, as it were, "that they may hold a feast unto [God] in the wilderness." Moreover, Pharaoh's reply is pretty reasonable under the circumstances: "Who is GOD that I should heed His voice and let Israel go? I do not recognize GOD, nor will I let Israel leave" (from Kehot). Seriously, why should Pharaoh agree to Moses's request? I'd think it was a scam too!

6:1 - So Pharaoh says no, punnishes the Israelites by demanding that they make the same number of bricks with no straw, and Moses complains that things are now worse, not better. God's answer? "And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand shall he let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.'" See the logic? God hardens Pharaoh's heart, which causes him to punish the Israelites, which causes God to punnish Pharaoh. !!!!!

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayechi

2010-01-08T15:28:00.001-05:00

48:5 - Jacob blesses Joseph's Egypt-born sones, Ephraim and Menasseh... But they're not Jewish!?! Their mother was Egyptian and, from what we read in the Torah itself, she never converts. Incredible! (And not the first time that intermarriage isn't such a bad thing...)

48:8-9 - You have to love Chabad... What we read in these verses is "And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said: 'Who are these?' And Joseph said unto his father: 'They are my sons, whom God hath given me here.' And he said: 'Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them.'" Pretty straightforward, right? The Kehot interpolated text, though, offers some choice "extras" (that clear up my point above as well, apparently. It's worth quoting at length (as a reminder, the bold is the direct translation, the plain type is the Kehot "interpolation"):

So Israel saw Joseph's sons and prepared to bless them, but just then, his Divine inspiration left him. He understood that this meant that they were not worthy of being blessed, and therefore asked Joseph, "Who are these sons of yours, whom I thought I knew so well? Why are they unworthy of my blessing? Is it perhaps because they were born and raised in this country, which is infamous for its lechery?" In fact, God withdrew Jacob's inspiration on account of the unworthy descendants that would descend from Joseph's sons—King Yehu and his sons from Manasseh, and King Yeravam and Achav from Ephraim—but Jacob did not know that his Divine inspiration was withdrawn for this reason. In order to prove that his sons were worthy of Jacob's blessing, Joseph replied to his father, "Precisely because the Egyptians are notoriously lecherous, I went out of my way to ensure that the integrity of my marriage be beyond reproach by following the norms dictated in the Torah, even though we have not yet been formally required to do so, and even going beyond them. Specifically, I had my marriage contract written out, as the Torah requires, and I also had a document written attesting to my engagement, even though the Torah does not require this." Joseph then proceeded to produce these documents. He continued, "So you see, they are my sons, whom I made sure God gave me in accordance with His highest standards of marital integrity, even though they were born in this licentious country. Thus, they are truly worthy of your blessing." Joseph then prayed to God to once again grant Jacob the inspiration to bless them, which He did. So Jacob said, "If you would, bring them to me so that I may bless them."

Kind of impressive, no? Just "fill in" all the question marks with your own text... Amazing.

48:16 -"הַמַּלְאָךְ הַגֹּאֵל אֹתִי מִכָּל-רָע, יְבָרֵךְ אֶת-הַנְּעָרִים" Nice! As Jacob blesses Joseph's sons, now he seems to recognize that all those times a "man" came to help him find the way, it was really an angel...

48:17-19 - History repeats itself! Jacob, who had tricked his father into giving him, the younger son, his blessing and birthright, here deliberately decides to give his blessing to Ephraim - the younger son - rather than Menasseh. Obviously Jacob has a soft spot for second-borns...

50:2-8 - Joseph has Jacob enbalmed (לַחֲנֹט)?!? I thought that was assur! And it takes 40 days?!? I thought you're supposed to get them into the ground ASAP!? (Was this done in order to be able to bring the body to Hebron for burial?) And the Egyptians wept for him...and travel with him en masse to the burian in Cannan. Amazing. What causes things to change?!?

50:26 - When Joseph dies, he is embalmed and buried in Egypt. I never realized that he was buried there... And embalmed?!? Is he a mummy?

Mitzvah of the Week: Update

2010-01-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

Not a very auspicious start to my Mitzvah of the Week project, is it?

In order to make it work, I need to devote more time to the ground work -- to knowing what the mitzvah in question, thinking about it before jumping in, then taking the time to write a thoughtful post-mortem. The holidays have made this hard, not to mention that I've been a little intimidated by the literature. You'd think it would be easy to find (a) an unambiguous list of the mitzvot themselves and (b) sufficient background material to make sense of what they actually ask one to do. In reality, it isn't so easy. I've already come to the realization that the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot is really only the tip of one iceberg. The paragraph or two he offers by way of explaining each miztvah is one thing; his Mishnah Torah has many, many volumes, each of which takes a handful of mitzvot and treats them in much greater depth. This is good, because it provides a lot more food for thought and much more explanation than in Sefer HaMitzvot alone. The problem is that the order in which the mitzvot are treated in the Mishnah Torah isn't the same as in Sefer HaMitzvot. So I either have to spend $600 to buy the entire set up front, or go with the flow and work through the volumes in their original order. I'm going with the latter.

So I apologize for the delay, but it should be worth it... Stay tuned!

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayigash

2010-01-05T17:01:00.001-05:00

44:18-34 - At the beginning of the parsha, Judah makes his plea to Joseph that he take him in Benjamin's place for having "stolen" the goblet (Joseph himself had the goblet put in Benjamin's pack). Judah's speech is very expressive, conveying not only his frustration but also his concern for his father Jacob's well being. What is interesting to me, though, is how important the sons of Rachel (i.e., Joseph and Benjamin) are to Jacob vis-a-vis the his other sons. What makes them so important?

45:16-20 - After Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers, Pharaoah learns of what has happened. What is interesting his the Egyptian ruler's reaction: to send gifts and wealth back to Caanan. Seems to me a strange response to learning of Joseph's deception...

45:24 - As Joseph bids farewell to is brothers as they return to Caanan bearing gifts from Pharaoah (!), Joseph tells them not to get angry along the way (the unfortunate Mechon Mamre translation is "'See that ye fall not out by the way,'" but the Hebrew, al tirgizu baderech, which clearly speaks of anger). What could this mean? With what is Joseph concerned?!?

45:27-28 - Another neat juxtaposition of Jacob and Israel. The first verse reads, "And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived." The second verse, though, says "And Israel said: 'It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.'" I'm trying to make sense of these differences, but I'm having trouble. Does it mean something when one word is used in place of the other? I can't tell...

46:2 - A fabulous verse: ""And God spoke unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said: 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said: 'Here am I.'" First, what is meant by "visions of the night"? My first thought was it must be a dream, but the Hebrew, b-mar'ot halailah, isn't a dream but rather precisely as it was translated: "visions of the night." What's the difference between a dream and a night vision? What did Jacob see? Second, again we see here the divine calling the name out twice, with the person responding hineini or "here I am" (as the angel in the akedah to Abraham). It's an interesting locution, actually: Why does God call the name twice as opposed to once? Why doesn't God say "Jacob, I have something to say"? And why does Jacob answer "here I am," as opposed to "Yes?" or "What do you want?"

46:4 - God promises to go down to Egypt with Jacob but also to bring him up again... and Joseph will put his hand on Jacob's eyes. Strange! Or does it presage the Exodus?

46:5 - An example of Jacob and Israel being used in the same verse!

47:13-27 - How did I miss this one in Sunday school?!? Famine comes to Egypt, and Joseph does what he can to help the people of the land...for a price. First he takes their money for food, then takes their animals, then he takes their land for Pharaoah and Egypt. Then comes the kicker: The people have lost everything they have, then they happily agree to become serfs: "And they said: 'Thou hast saved our lives. Let us find favour in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's bondmen.'" Thereafter, 20% of the crops they grow on the land that used to be theirs must now be given to the state. So basically, Joseph uses food as a weapon to take away everything the people own, transforms them from landowners to serfs, and all in the service of an idolator. Are we supposed to admire Joseph for this? Why didn't he find a way to help the people of Egypt without bankrupting them?!?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Mikeitz

2010-01-04T16:16:00.001-05:00

41:1-7 - I find the prevalence of dreams in Joseph's life -- and the lives of those he encounters -- interesting. Are these dreams God's indirect communications? As a means of intervening in human affairs without doing so directly? We've seen God, angels, "men" who may or may not be angels, and now dreams all doing the talking (in descending level of clarity). Here we have Pharaoh himself dreaming. Putting aside modern psychology, is this supposed to be God speaking to Pharoah in his dreams as a means of getting him to seek out Joseph? Hmmm...

41:15-38 - Here, Pharoah relates his dream to Joseph, who interprets the dream (according to the Kehot translation) "not by [his] own power" but rather "God will provide an answer through [him] for Pharaoh's welfare." Pharoah is pleased with this interpretation, asking "'Could we find another man like this, who clearly has the spirit of God within him?'" How strange! In the first place, we have the idea that Joseph can interpret dreams with God's help; does this imply they cannot be interpreted with without God's help? (Or is this Joseph trying to humble himself before Pharoah?) Second, and more puzzling to me, is that Pharoah clearly accepts that (a) Joseph is able to interpret these dreams better than this own councilors and, by extension, (b) God exists and is all-knowing enough to allow Joseph to do so. Again, we have evidence that the ruler of Egypt did accept that there is "a" God who is knowing and powerful. Why did the Pharoah of Exodus seem to forget this?!?

41:39-46 - Continuing this theme, these verses show Pharoah bestowing title and power to Joseph, making him more powerful than anyone in Egypt excluding himself! (I never realized how powerful Joseph was...) This is incredible on several levels: Why would he make an outsider so powerful, one in jail no less! And what's more, he gives an Egyptian woman to him!! (What happened to not marrying non-Jews?!?) Incredible!

41:50-52 - Joseph has two sons by his non-Jewish wife, who most certainly aren't then Jewish! What's going on here!?! I thought intermarriage was a no-no?!?

42:24 - Moving on to the episodes in which famine drives Joseph's brothers into Egypt in search of food... Here, I think, are some of the most human, moving portions of the Torah. From Kehot, "[Joseph] turned aside...from [his brothers]...and wept" because he was so moved to see them after so long. (Though it begs the question of why he felt the need to keep his identity hidden from them for so long.)

42:38 - More emotion, as Jacob laments the prospect of sending Benjamin to Egypt at Joseph's request -- "'...should disaster befall him along the road you travel...you will bring my white-haired head down to the grave in grief.'" These scenes are so much more descriptive than, say, when Abraham is told to sacrifice Isaac -- there, we know nothing of his thoughts and feelings.

43:16-18 - Great drama, as Joseph toys with his brothers, who do not know who he is...

43:30-31 - On seing Benjamin, Joseph can hardly control himself...he has to leave the room to weep, before coming back in to order that the meal be served.

Shanah Hilonit Tovah!

2009-12-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

My best wishes for a Happy, Healthy New Year to all!

And May 2010 be a good year for all who seek better knowledge of their faiths...

This is why you can't swim on Shabbat?!?

2009-12-31T14:29:00.000-05:00

A relatively green baal teshuva friend of mine told me the other day that he had asked his rabbi if he could swim in the ocean on Shabbat. The answer was, effectively, no.

This made me sad. And confused. And angry.

It would be easy, wouldn't it, if I could just say screw the rabbis. Certain laws of shomer shabbat are so old, so convoluted, so nonsensical that it makes me wonder how any rational-thinking Jew would even consider following them. I recognize that things are more complicated, but it nevertheless leaves me scratching my head:

As I understand it, you can't swim in the ocean not because swimming itself is a problem but because it might put you in a situation where you would, indirectly, violate a Shabbat prohibition. My BT friend's rabbi said getting one's self or bathing suit wet might cause you to "carry" water, which, in the absence of an eruv, is forbidden. (Does that mean you can't go out in the rain without an eruv? The mind reels...) AskMoses.com offers an even sillier answer: "The sages prohibited swimming in a river or lake on Shabbat since it could lead to repairing a raft (which would fall under the forbidden labor of "Makeh B'Patish" “administering the final hammer blow." This can't be serious. You can't do something on shabbat if doing it might theoretically put you in a situation where you might have to violate the laws of Shabbat? They go on to add "This prohibition extends to all situations, even in a scenario where there is no likelihood of repairing a raft, since rabbinic ordinances generally apply even when the original considerations and reasons for the prohibition are no longer applicable."

Please, please someone tell me that the reason you can't swim on Shabbat isn't that two thousand years ago doing so might have put you in a situation where you might have to repair a raft. Please.

So this friend of mine, on vacation at a lovely beach destination, needs to spend Shabbat looking at -- but not going in -- the ocean because of this (kosher) baloney. I pushed him on this, and basically the answer I got was: Jews don't always get to do what they want, and by not doing certain things together -- by taking extra care to go the extra mile to make sure that the letter of the laws are observed -- Jews collectively fulfill God's will.

This is what makes me sad, angry, and confused all at once. The idea that Jews should differentiate ourselves in certain, traditional ways as a means of bringing us together as a people as well as to praise God, I can understand and get on board with. The Torah, it seems to me, is pretty fair about this: It says cease all your work on Shabbat. Fine. But leave it to Jews to ask "What is work?" and answer it by coming up with 39 categories of forbidden activities, each of which, over the centuries, has been further elaborated into hundreds of additional things you can't do.

To be honest, I'm kind of in awe of anyone who can entirely avoid forbidden activities and still get out of bed on Saturday morning. (ow can one even remember all the required things without going mental?) In that sense, I do see something noble about my friend's not going swimming on Shabbat. He's taking his commitment to shomer shabbat seriously, which means taking the time to know what you can and can't do, and following through with it. It must take serious willpower to consciously make the choice to observe mitzvot that you weren't born and raised to follow, and I respect it. And I must confess, by extention it made me a little sad to think that (a) I don't know that I have that kind of willpower; (b) I don't know if I want to have that kind of willpower; (c) even if I did have that willpower, I don't think I'd keep out of the ocean on Shabbat; and (d) putting (a), (b) and (c) together makes me a bad Jew.

But then I start to think, where does it end? At what point does the pursuit of rest on Shabbat become so burdensome that it becomes something to dread rather than enjoy? At what point does attention to the infinitely subdivided categories of the forbidden overwhelm the point of the exercise in the first place, to remove one's self from worldly concerns in order to remember and celebrate God's resting after the creation? Must one literally and entirely remove one's self from the world in order to observe Shabbat? This is where I start to get angry: That rabbis who lived centuries ago would know more than I do about what it takes for me to reflect on the key themes of Shabbat is both ridiculous and disturbing. Claming that Oral Torah was also revealed at Sinai may be a convenient way of brushing these concerns under the carpet (if this is what God wants me to do, who cares what I want do to), but that's something I'm not willing to even entertain. I approach this from the perspective of a number of really brilliant rabbis discussed these things centuries ago, but their judgment on certain kinds of things simply cannot be assumed to be absolutely true and binding for all time.

But then I start to get sad again: Because I do see the logic of conserving laws and traditions regardless of where they come from. I do realize that if all of us in every age came up with our own personal ways of observing Shabbat, collectively we would lose something. And I do believe that part of what makes the Jewish people worth being a part of is our common traditions, history, language and practices.

But then I get mad, because I look at the insular, backwards-looking, impenetrable, fundamentalist, non-logical Jewish authorities who are "empowered" to tell us what to do and not to do; I look at that world of which I am not a part and never want to be a part; and I feel as if the more I look and and learn what little bits of Jewish law I know, the more I realize how little I know, and the more I feel inadequate. I reject the authority of others to tell me who I am and what I should do, but I also feel wrong turning away from and rejecting them.

How can I live a meaningful, authentic Jewish life while acknowledging that that there are certain aspects of my faith that I cannot -- and probably will never -- do?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeishev

2009-12-30T15:19:00.001-05:00

37:5-11 - Joseph tells his brothers of his dreams that they and their parents will bow down before him... Is it just me, or is Joseph a fool and/or naive to have told others about his dream? Even Jacob recognizes this was a bad move: "and his father rebuked him, and said unto him: 'What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?'"

37:12-13 - Another head-scratcher: Immediately after Jacob rebukes Joseph for telling of his dream -- a dream that involves his brothers bowing down to him -- Jacob sends Joseph off to Shechem to "see whether it is well with [his] brethren, and well with the flock; and bring...back word." Why does Jacob do this? It seems stupid under the circumstances...

37:15 - The mysterious "man" appears again, this time asking Joseph what he is searching for, and telling him that his brothers are in Dotan. Who is he? The Kehot interpolated English text says "The angel Gabriel, appearing the guise of a man..." (the bold is the translation of the Hebrew; the plain text, the interpolation), but unlike other times we've see the "man" appear, the Hebrew text says nothing to indicate otherworldliness; it just uses the word ish. Clearly I have to do more reading about this, but it does make me wonder: Why use the word ish (man) if mal'ach (angel) is what is meant? Perhaps that sometimes angels come in recognizable forms while other times they do not? Hmmm...

37:26-30 - I understand that, in the big picture, Joseph "needs" to go to Egypt for the storyline to make sense, but it puzzles me that later we will read how God kills Onan and, presumably, Er (the text is vague on this), for "spilling their seed," while Joseph's brothers get off scot free for selling their brother into slavery. Am I missing something here?

38:7-10 - If I follow the Kehot interpolated version, Judah's son Er "was evil in God's eyes" because he spilled his seed rather than impregnate his wife, Tamar, as having children "would mar her beauty." "He did not regret his act," and therefore God killed hium. Onan meets a similar fate when he spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar after Er is killed. From the perspective of a couple thousand years ago, I can possibly understand this, but what are we to make of this today? This is where the prohibition against masturbation comes from, right? Seems a wee bit over the top in my book.

38:15-18 - And then the plot thickens... Tamar, still without child from the line of Judah, disguises herself as a prostitute in order to ensnare Judah. He somehow doesn't realize who she is (!?!?), offers to send her a goat for her services, and at Tamar's request, gives up his ring , cloak and staff as "collateral." Even if I can look past the sexual issues here that seem so foreign to me, what is the point of putting this story in the Torah? (Kehot's "Chasidic Insight" is that Tamar's deception was a selfless act done in order to become "the mother of the Davidic dynasty....for the sake of drawing forth the soul of the Messiah." I guess that's one interpretation!)

38:24-26 - Talk about a double take! Judah, upon learning that Tamar is pregnant, first says she must die ("'Bring her forth, and let her be burnt'"). Upon learning that he is the father (when she produces the ring, cloak and staff), Judah changes his tune in a hurry: "'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again no more." So...because he was personally involved it makes it okay?!? The Kehot Chumash offers a bizzare interpolation and explanation: It understands "And he knew her again no more" to mean that Judah married her and therefore never slept with her in the questionable way he had before. The commentary adds that while "the Torah forbits a person to marry his daughter-in-law," it was okay in this case even though the Torah had not yet been given because "Judah may have felt it was better to transgress a future law, which he was not obligated to keep, than abandon Tamar." There's some Torah logic for you!

39:2-3 - Back to Joseph, who is brought to Egypt and sold to a courtier of Pharoah... These verses explain that "God was with Joseph," who becomes a successful man in the house of Potiphar, who "saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand." Joseph becomes quite important in the house. My question is what's the deal with an Egyptian acknowledging "the LORD"? I thought there were lots of gods and that the Egyptians did not acknowledge that God was "the LORD"?

39:7-8 - Here it is! My favorite verses in the Torah!! Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph, who refuses her advances...but he is tempted! The trop on the word "He refused" is a shalshelet, the rarest cantellation mark in the Torah. I always admired the way this mark was used to indicate Joseph's wavering! (Having just done a little Googling, I found this D'var Torah which, to my surprise, points out that this mark appears three times in Bereishit and once in Vayikra. Four times! I thought it only appeared once! Super cool!)

Is anyone else like me out there?

2009-12-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

I have found lots of great frum (i.e., religious) and off-the derech (i.e., by former "observant" Jews) blogs out there, and I have even come across some right-wing sites that at the very least are giving me some food for thought. The Reform Shuckle and Mah Rabu, from the Reform angle, are pretty great as well.

But I'm not finding other blogs written by people like me: Liberal, Reform Jews searching for a meaningful, authentic connection with the nitty-gritty of our faith. There are some great cultural sites out there dealing with modern Jewish issues, but they're not quite what I'm looking for.

I'm trying to find personal answers to some big questions:

How can a truly liberal person take seriously religion in general and Judaism in particular?
What is the meaning of Jewish community if I only cherry pick the elements of Judaism that "speak" to me personally? But once I surrender autonomy to some other authority -- God, Chazal, my rebbe -- then how can I stay liberal?
I cannot believe the Torah was dictated to Moses by God, and I simply can't accept that Oral Torah could be binding for all Jews for all time. But then how do I read and understand these texts? How am I to relate to them?

Does anyone know of other blogs, sites, etc. where people are grappling with these issues?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayishlach

2009-12-29T15:10:00.001-05:00

32:4-7 - Interesting. The English translation here is "And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom." The Hebrew, though, is mal'achim, which I would think is better translated as angels. This sets up a curious scene in which Jacob commands these angels to bring a message to Esau. The angels return with their reports of Esau's advance with 400 men. This is a very different encounter than we saw earlier, where angels speak to Abraham here, Jacob is telling the angels what to do, and they obey (although not exactly -- it's not clear whether they delivered Jacob's message as commanded: "Thus saith thy servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now. And I have oxen, and asses and flocks, and men-servants and maid-servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thy sight"). Is there any other precedent for ordering around angels?!?

32:25-30 - Jacob wrestles with an angel... Or did he? Unlike the previous passage, where Jacob orders the malachim to bring his message to Esau, here the text refers to an ish, i.e., a man. Clearly this is no regular man, because at the conclusion of their encounter, this being gives Jacob the name of yisrael because he has "striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed." You would think it would be the other way around: send anashim to meet Esau, wrestle with a mal'ach to get the name of yisrael. The text is nicely ambiguous here, especially when the amgen/man refuses to give its name, and Jacob calls the place P'niel "'for [he had] seen God face to face, and [his] life [was] preserved." Did he see God "face to face" because the man was an angel, or was the face of God revealed in some other, mysterious way through the act of struggle?

[This is one of those passages into which much could be read and understood, but the text itself says so little it's hard to say. All that happens here according to the Hebrew text is that Jacob wrestles with a "man" who basically blesses him and refuses to tell his name. To me, the notion that Jacob becomes Israel by wrestling with God...this is such a powerful image in contrast with Abraham leading Isaac to the mizbeach because God told him to do so. Here, Jacob is rewarded for struggling against God (stealing the birthright?), as if struggling is a higher form of interaction than obeying or following. I like this image, that the people Israel are who we are because of struggle rather than obeying.]

32:33 - Now I know where the prohibition from eating the sciatic nerve comes from: "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, even in the sinew of the thigh-vein." That's pretty strong, beautiful stuff. Crap, this is a pretty good reason to observe kashrut when it comes to eating meat! The symbolism is pretty powerful here...and pretty straightforward!

34:2-3 - I know I shouldn't apply modern-day notions of sexuality and sexual propriety to the Torah, but really, the text itself here is a bit, um, weird. In verse 2, Shechem takes, rapes and "humbles" (abuses?) Dinah. In verse 3, we then learn that "he loved the damsel, and spoke comfortingly unto the damsel." So he raped her, but loved her? Or he loved her after he raped her? I'm trying to understand this...

34:24-31 - From a Biblical perspective, I understand why Dinah's brothers would want to kill Shechem, then plunder the Hivite's possessions. Indeed, Jacob's reaction is pretty mild: he's not upset that his sons basically slaughtered all the men of the city and plundered it...he's upset because their behavior will make him "odious unto the inhabitants of the land, even unto the Canaanites and the Perizzites" and, in turn, will make his life less secure in the future. But to Simeon and Levi's question -- "Should one deal with our sister as with a harlot?" -- Jacob never responds. Is this to imply that killing everyone in the city to avenge Dinah's honor was not sufficient reason? Is Jacob trying to bring considerations of politics into the picture?

35:1-4 - After God tells Jacob to go to Bethel, Jacob says to the members of his household: "'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments..." In response, "they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears." Earrings?!? I imagine they were symbols of the strange gods (elohai ha-nechar) they were supposed to get rid of. I was under the impression that Jews weren't supposed to have pierced ears because it was a descration of one's body...but this passage suggests they're a sign/mark of avodah zarah. Which is it?

35:20-21 - An interesting juxtaposition of verses here. The first, immediately after Racheh has died, relates "And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; the same is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." The next verse immediately says "And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond Migdal-eder." Why the switch here? Is there something about Rachel's death that somehow changes Jacob? On the other hand, the verses that follow revert back to calling him Jacob rather than Israel. What's going on here?

Rabin and Goldstein: One more time...

2009-12-29T12:55:00.001-05:00

Because the comments section won't allow extended posts, I'm again forced to migrate comments from Rabin and Goldstein: Part Deux to this post. (The original post to which I commented is Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein, and my first post in response was here.)

I must admit to feeling a little gross debating people who defend murder and assassination, but I think it's important to engage their arguments, both to let them know that there are plenty of other Jews out there who disagree with them and to make sure that we liberal, progressive Jews get better at communicating the holes and flaws in their logic. I believe that the vast majority of Jews ahbor and condemn the assassination of Rabin and Goldstein's murderous rampage. And that, at least, gives me hope.

See my responses, indented below...
Anonymous said...

I said: You react here very emotionally, but without basis in fact. Michael has stated facts about what occurred, and Rabin's behavior gloating about what had occurred. Yes, Rabin was the trigger-man who fired on that ship while its white flag was raised and survivors were trying to swim (for their lives) to shore. And yes he boasted in front of foreign officials about having done so (while probably drunk).

Then you said:

"It isn't surprising to me that some people, obviously yourself included, would simply brush aside the content of my arguments with insult rather than engage them."

I don't get this. To speak about Rabin's behavior, (historically documented behavior) is insulting you?

December 25, 2009 7:56 AM

Anonymous said...

"Only unserious historians ever assert things like "The historical fact is that…" Unless you were there, you don't know with certainty what happened. "

This is an idiotic statement. The survivors of the ship DID enlist in the army, just as they had intended to. At that point in history the Irgun units were already in the process of being incoporated into the united fighting forces, aka national army, administratively and were serving under Ben Gurion's central command. Begin had expressed the Irgun's desire to be incorporated (and to submit to central command leadership) upon the British exit for a long time. The Haganah did not hesisate to accept this request and administratively the decision had already been made and was in process of being carried out. This is not proven by "me" but by historical documents.

"If you want to debate whether or not Ben Gurion was justified in believing that Begin intended to establish "an army within an army," "

He didn't believe that because he couldn't possibly have believed that. His worry was about the Irgun's popularity as a potential (future) political rival. Based upon the documented exchanges between Begin and the Haganah representatives there is no possible way to think that Ben Gurion really "believed" that was possible or even desired by the Irgun. He used this as the excuse for his murderous actions. You are not well read about this issue to know that many lies have been told about it. But Begin had an agreement with Yisrael Galili about the ship. The Haganah instructed that the ship must be brought to shore "Without delay" ! If Ben Gurion thought there was really an attempt in the works for the Irgun to "take over" the army and to stage a coup, why would the Irgun ask permission to bring the ship to Eretz Yisrael after telling Ben Gurion what exactly was on it, and why would Ben Gurion not say 'no' but instead insist that the ship must be brought immediately (even though the first ceasefire had actually just begun). It is clear that you are not well-read on this issue. Begin and the Irgun leadership was subjecting itself to "Haganah" (or former haganah, but now unified armed forces) command and asking permission and approval for their own actions.

You have just heard some general sentiments and the propaganda that floats around about it and then drawn conclusions. Let's focus on the facts of the matter. The facts don't fit with the convenient story that the altalena affair prevented a civil war. The facts show that the Altalena WAS an act of civil war by Ben Gurion, and only the staunch discipline and the refusal of Irgun adherents to engage in warfare with fellow Jews prevented an actual civil war from developing in the midst of an existential national danger and engagement with several enemy arab armies.

December 25, 2009 8:09 AM

Your attempt to switch the topic of conversation from whether or not Rabin's assassination and/or Baruch Goldstein's mass murder were justified to a debate over the events of the Altalena affair is understandable, but beside the point. These are not the questions I want to discuss, nor were they the issues about which I initially commented.

To recap, Michael made a number of highly inflammatory and, in my opinion, disturbing statements in his original post and subsequent update. I won't reprint them here, but to sum up, Michael argued that because of (a) the Left's/IDF's inaction and (b) the Oslo accords, Goldstein ultimately was not responsible for his actions – he did 'what he had to do under the circumstances.' In addition, because of Rabin's actions in 1948 during the Altalena affair and, it seems, because of his role in implementing Oslo, he got what was coming to him. I found these statements not only to be incredibly disturbing but based on weak, highly questionable logic.
Your response, Anonymous, was two-fold. One tack was to argue with me over Rabin and the Altalena affair. I'm not going to continue this line of argument, because it will do no good and because we both agreed that even if your version of events was 100% accurate (which I do not), it doesn't in any way whatsoever justify Rabin's assassination.

There is one thing I want to clear up, though. You assert that "[My] challenge to Michael's premise was not based on [arguing that no matter Rabin did in 1948 it did not justify his assassination], but instead on a denial of the facts. The facts are that Rabin did do those evil things. THAT was what I was clearing up."

Sorry, but this is simply wrong. Go back and read what I wrote. In response to his paragraph on the Altalena and Rabin, I said (a) "You really have a poor, biased grasp of Israeli history if this is what you honestly think"; and (b) "A discussion of the Altalena is way beyond the scope of what can be done here." As to (a), that's right, I think Michael has a highly biased view of history if he thinks that the upshot of the Altalena affair is that Rabin, "was a common petty murderer." It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with the statement; the point is that history is supposed to avoid such value judgments and stick to the facts. I maintain that discussing his actions divorced from the military and political context in which they occurred – which is what Michael did in his post – is the essence of bad history. The same applies to your statement that "The facts are that Rabin did do those evil things." Facts don't involve opinion or value judgments; that's why they're called facts. You may believe that Rabin's actions were evil, and that is your prerogative, but that is your belief, not fact. Whether or not Rabin killed people on that day is a question of fact; whether or not his actions were evil, on the other hand, is opinion. This is why debating the Altalena affair isn't fruitful – it's too easy in the blog format to conflate or confuse facts and opinions. In any case, as I stated very clearly, doing so "is way beyond the scope of what can be done here." I stand by that. What I did ask, though, was

If Rabin truly was a "common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission" as you describe, then why wasn't he ever charged for the crime? Sharon could have charged him. Bibi could have done it. Why didn't they do it? I'm curious to know your explanation for this.
No one has yet responded to this. And I don't wonder why…

Anonymous said...

"But let's cut to the chase: Even if I were to grant everything you say here (which I do not), it doesn't in any way whatsoever justify Rabin's assassination. "

This to me is a fair argument. I agree that Rabin being a murderer, even as evil as he was in doing what he did by the altalena, does not justify his assassination about 50 something years later. But that was not what I was commenting about. Your challenge to Michael's premise was not based on this, but instead on a denial of the facts. The facts are that Rabin did do those evil things. THAT was what I was clearing up. If you want to argue that even despite that, it does not justify murdering him, then go ahead, and that is a fair argument worth consideration. But don't sit here and deny the facts of what happened in order to 'defend' Rabin's image/legacy or whatever else just because you never heard of these things since it is inconvenient for the media to talk about them. What happened happened.

I also do feel that if someone wished to "justify" the assassination, it would best be done on grounds different from that which Michael chose to justify it, and which in my opinion, you rightly criticize as being not sufficient justification. But there is a whole can of worms Michael has not touched, for which I do not know if you could possibly offer a good criticism. Perhaps we'll leave that to another time.

December 25, 2009 8:18 AM

Anonymous said...

"Shall we look at the Arabs' massacre of the Jewish Hevron community of 1929 as the precedent? Should that establish a hypothetical "proportionality" of Arab pogrom/massacre carnage? If so, Goldstein's behavior was surely too polite.

No, I'm not going to look at something that happened 60 years ago as a way to justify murder today. And neither should you. "

You misinterpreted my question. You opened up a place for debate about the extent of the pogrom the Arabs intended for Hevron's Jews around the time Goldstein was axed to death inside the cave, in an attempt to determine if what he did was 'commensurable' or "proportionate" with what they were going to do to the Jews in their pogrom. To determine if it was "proportionate to the level of provocation" we would have to make estimations about the extent of violence the Arabs intended for Hevron's Jews in the pogrom that was imminent. In that case, we could only look to precedent, such as the pogrom that Arabs had done against Hevron Jews in the past.

That is not the same thing as "look[ing] at something that happened 60 years ago as a way to justify murder today."

December 25, 2009 8:23 AM

Anonymous said...

"a) Goldstein had credible information that a specific group of individuals was preparing to carry out an attack; and (b) Goldstein had reason to believe that the specific preemptive actions he planned to take would prevent this immanent attack. Neither of these things held true. "

Actually it looks like both "held true." Goldstein did receive instructions from the army heirarchy to prepare for massive casualties to Jews in the impending pogrom the Arabs were going to commit against them. That covers part (a). As to part (b), it appears that Goldstein turned out to be the only victim of the rioting Arabs, instead of the entire community, so it looks like he achieved his goal, if that's what it was.

December 25, 2009 8:26 AM

But now let's turn to Goldstein.

In the first place, Michael hasn't responded to any of my arguments. Maybe he's busy, maybe he doesn't care to bother; both are fine reasons. But as far as I'm concerned he hasn't responded because he has no response.

You, though, put two arguments on the table, one concerning proportionality and the second concerning information.

First, you say that the events of 1929 are relevant because they (could have?) helped Goldstein calculate "the extent of violence the Arabs intended for Hevron's Jews in the pogrom that was imminent." Where to even begin with this? How about here: Using your logic, Palestinians could view the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre as justification for preemptively striking Israeli civilians every time they believed IDF actions were immanent. What's the difference?

Second, you maintain that Goldstein had both "credible information that a specific group of individuals was preparing to carry out an attack" and "reason to believe that the specific preemptive actions he planned to take would prevent this immanent attack." Your evidence for this is that "Goldstein…receive[d] instructions from the army hierarchy to prepare for massive casualties to Jews in the impending pogrom the Arabs were going to commit against them" and because "Goldstein turned out to be the only victim of the rioting Arabs, instead of the entire community," clearly his actions prevented the attack.

You seem to have a lot of difficulty understanding the distinction between states and individuals when it comes to justifying preemptive attack. States have the advantage of advanced and multi-faceted intelligence-gathering organizations; even the most insulated dictators have advisors and experts to consult; and leaders make decisions in the interests of national security, not individual security. When state decision makers, drawing on all of the available information and intelligence, conclude that preemptive attack is the only way to prevent disaster, they do so. In 1967, with reams of intelligence reports, satellite date, and multiple expert opinions, filtered through Israeli military and civilian decision-making apparatuses, government ministers took weeks to debate before preemptively attacking its neighbors. To compare this to Goldstein, who heard general, nonspecific warnings rather than specific military intelligence, then took it upon himself – without consultation, debate or advice – to spray machinegun fire into a crowd of worshipers who posed no immediate threat to anyone is so completely specious that only Baruch Goldstein's supporters could possibly fail to see this. Finally, your argument that Goldstein's being the only casualty is evidence that he knew his actions would prevent the immanent attack…are you for real? I submit that his being the only Jewish casualty is far more persuasive evidence that there was no attack in the making and that Goldstein murdered those people for no reason other than the hatred in his heard and the paranoia in his head. To repeat my questions, "Why was he the only one to see the obviousness of the impending attack? If the evidence was so clear, so overwhelming, then why did he act alone?"

Well?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeitzei

2009-12-23T14:41:00.002-05:00

Lots to discuss in the odd, Vayeitzei soap opera...

29:19 - Strong praise from Laban vis-a-vis giving (!) Rachel to Jacob: "'It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man." Nice.

29:23 - I never understood this: Laban gives Leah instead of Rachel to Jacob, who doesn't realize the switcheroo until the morning after he sleeps with her?!?! Was he an idiot? (Clearly he liked to do it with the lights out.) I would be seriously pissed off at Laban if he did this to me.

29:27-28 - Why did it never occur to me how odd, how weird it was that Jacob married two sisters? So Leah and Racher were sisters and sister wives?!? Seriously, though, I thought it was assur to have relations with your wife's sister -- am I wrong about that?

29:30-31 - More bad patriarchal/matriarchal behavior: First, Jacob not only "loved Rachel more than Leah," but "the LORD saw that Leah was hated"...now there's a recipe for family discord! Then, just to "fix" things up really good, God makes Leah pregnant rather than Rachel. No jealousy there. Why does God make things harder rather than easier?

30:1-2 - More jealousy -- and drama -- from Rachel: "And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob: 'Give me children, or else I die.'" Jacob, of course, then passes the buck: "...he said: 'Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?'" Hard to tell who is at fault here, but in any case, no one seems quite accepting of God's will here.

30:14-17 - This story of Reuben and the mandrakes is strange and creepy. According to the Kehot interpolated version (which I'm not vouching for, but it does fill in some of what would otherwise be entirely incomprehensible), Reuben brings the mandrakes -- which can be made into some kind of fertility drug -- to his mother, Leah, even though she clearly doesn't need it. (Why does he do this?) Rachel, who does need the help, asks for them instead of Leah. Leah is pissed off, saying "Is it a small matter that thou hast taken away my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel offers a swap: Leah can sleep with Jacob on that night in exchange for the mandrakes, which Rachel will use in advance of their next night together, in order to conceive. So, in short, Reuben gets involved in the fertility conflict between his two mommies, who wheel and deal over who gets to have sex with Jacob and when. I'm totally serious when I ask: Are these the people we're supposed to emulate as paragons of Jewish virtue?!?!

30:24 - Joseph is born. Remind me, why isn't Joseph thought of as a patriarch?!?

30:28-42 - The account of the deal between Laban and Jacob over what the former should pay the latter for his years of service is a real gem of this portion. Almost half of chapter 30 is devoted to an extended discussion of different kinds of goats and sheep -- their colors, markings, and mating habits -- and who gets what, how and when. On the one hand, I get it; livestock was important back then, so they cared about these kinds of things. On the other hand, it's hard for me to understand the point of this extended discussion at this point. Heck, the akkedah gets less ink than the goats and sheep do. Are we to understand that something more important is going on here? It's curious to me.

31:19-20 - Interesting juxtaposition of language here: Rachel steals (vatignov) Laban's idols...then Jacob outwitted (vayignov) Laban by not telling him he planned to flee. [You really have to read the Hebrew when it comes to certian things!] My question, though, is why Rachel steals her father's idols. What possesses her to do this? The JPS version relates that "Rachel stole the idols [teraphim] that belonged to her father..." The Kehot version adds "hoping in this way to wean him from idolatry," which I suppose makes sense, but there's no other indication in the text that this is why Rachel does this, and her own behavior up to this point hasn't exactly been exemplary.

31:30-37 - So Rachel has her father's idols when she, Leah and Jacob flee. Laban catches up to the next day...when several very curious things happen. First, Laban, among other things, angrily asks for his Gods (elohai) back and Jacob, the good Jewish monotheist that he is, takes Laban's side, saying "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live..." Instead of telling Laban that his Gods mean nothing and go piss off, he threatens to kill whomever took the idols?!? Second, Rachel, rather than admit what she has done, sits on the idols to hide them, lying that she can't get up because of her period?!?! Finally, and perhaps most weirdly, the story ends here -- we never know what happens to the idols, whether Jacob learns about what happened, or what Laban does afterwards. So what is the moral to the story? It's okay to lie -- including to one's spouse -- when it comes to separating other people from their idols?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Toldot

2009-12-22T14:21:00.002-05:00

26:6-11 - Yet another instance of lying and saying a wife is a sister! Isaac tells the people of Gerar that Rebecca is his sister because "he feared to say: 'My wife'; 'lest the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she is fair to look upon.'" So here we have an instance of God telling Isaac what to do and promising that Isaac will be looked after and taken care of, but, apparently, Isaac doesn't buy it and lies to the Philistines so that they don't kill him and take his wife?!?

26:34-35 - Here's an interesting throwaway line: "And when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a bitterness of spirit unto Isaac and to Rebekah." Why? Up to that point, we know of nothing Esau has done to deserve this bad reputation -- he traded his birthright, true, but his parents didn't know about it. What's more, we already know (25:28) that Isaac preferred Esau. So which was it, a source of bitterness or the perferred son?

27:5-15 - The entire episode of Rebecca conspiring with Jacob to trick Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau is really an odd story. First, this is a lot of scheming and lying among the patriarchs/matriarchs! Second, why doesn't Rebecca just tell Isaac what to do? If God really wanted things to turn out as they did, why not get involved? Why in this case let Rebecca lie about it? And while I understand that Jacob would go along, because he wanted the birthright he traded for the porridge, then why be so secretive about it? Why not just tell Isaac the deal was done? This just seems like a lot of unsavory behavior...

27:46 - Hillarious! From the JPS translation, "Rebekah said to Isaac, 'I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these, from among the native women, what good will life be to me?'" She sounds like the first Jewish Mother: "Oy vey, anyone but the Hittite women!" : )

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Chayei Sarah

2009-12-22T14:02:00.003-05:00

23:4-16 - These verses relate the story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpelah, for the purpose of burying Sarah. Why was it so very important that Abraham pay for the site? Ephron had offered to give it to Abraham free of charge. I can guess that, by paying for the land, there was an implied contract that would have been more difficult to go back on, but the reasons aren't given in the text.

24:2-9 - Abraham's wish that Isaac not have a Cannanite wife makes sense, but it seems odd that Abraham was so insistent that Isaac not travel there to find that wife: "On no account must you take my son back there!" (JPS translation). Rather than simply send Isaac, he sends a servant with a set of code words and instructions concerning how to find the woman and bring her back...but wouldn't it have been a bit more straightforward -- not to mention gentlemanly -- for Isaac to have gone on his own?

25:1-6 - Yet another odd figure... Abraham took another wife after Sarah and Haggar, one named Keturah?!? Never even heard of her.

Mitzvah of the Week: #1 - To know/believe there is a God

2009-12-21T13:52:00.228-05:00

In light of what I have learned over the past couple weeks about this mitzvah, I felt some serious editing was in order. Rather than publish this as an entirely new post, I decided instead to re-write it, retaining those parts from the original that made sense, adding new ideas where necessary.

The important change, which I discussed in this post, is that rather than relying on the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot (see here for Hebrew-only version), I am going to work my way through his Mishneh Torah ("MT"), tackling the mitzvot in the order in which they appear there. There's a lot more commentary and discussion in the MT, so I think in the long run this will make the most sense. (Chabad's English translation of the MT can be found here. Hebrew can be found here and, in a slightly more readable format, here. I am also relying on Rabbi Eliyahu Tougher's translation and commentary published by Moznaim.)

Introduction:

Interesting that what is arguably the most central, important mitzvah is described by the Rambam in two different ways.

In Sefer HaMitzvot, he explains that believing in God - this first positive commandment - means "to believe [להאמין] that there is a Cause and a Reason which is the Maker of all the creations..." He cites Exodus 20:2, in which God says "I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" as well as Deut. 5:6, where Moses quotes God saying these same words. Rambam also refers to Makkot 23a [53-54]:

R. Simlayi lectured: Six hundred and thirteen commands were said to Moses; three hundred and sixty-five of them negatives, corresponding to the number of days in a year counting according to sunrise; and two hundred and forty-eight positives, corresponding to the members of a man's body. Said R. Hamnunah: Where is there an allusion thereto in the Scripture? [Deut. xxxiii. 4]: "The Torah which Moses commanded us." The letters of the word Torah number six hundred and eleven (Tav is 400; Vov, 6; Reish, 200, and Hei, 5), and the two first commandments [i.e., Exodus 20:2], however, of the ten, we ourselves have heard from Heaven.

Concludes Rambam, "It is clear, then, that 'I am the Lord your God' is included in the 613 mitzvoth, and it is the commandment to believe, as we have explained."

However, in the MT (Sefer HaMada, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah, Chap.1), the Rambam says "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know [לידע] that there is a Primary Being who rought into being all existence..." and that "the knowledge of this concept [וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה] is a positive commandment..." The basis of this comandment is the same as in Sefer HaMitzvot (i.e., Exodus 20:2), though there is more discussion in this chapter of MT about what this knowledge entails.

Some preliminary thoughts and questions:

I was surprised to see "belief in God" on the list of mitzvot. Somehow -- not sure why -- I had it in my head that one wasn't actually required to believe in God, only to behave as if it were true. Apparently I was wrong about this. But then I see in MT that Rambam says something different, that the commandment is to "know that there is" God. What is the difference between "to believe" (להאמין) and "to know" (לידע) in the context of understanding and observing this mitzvah?
Can one be commanded to believe something? If one believes in God in the first place (putting aside for a moment that the meaning of this statement isn't entirely clear), then commanding one to do is superflous. If one doesn't believe in God, how is the commandment to do so supposed to work? How do you force yourself to believe something you don't believe to be true? How could any commandment possibly change this?

One way of approaching the problem is to think of being commanded to believe X as implying that X is not a matter of fact. For example, it would be nonsensical to command someone to belive that they sky is blue, when direct observation alone would lead someone to know it is true. It seems to me, therefore, that the mitzvah to believe in God is really about how one should think about something that cannot be decided by resorting to facts; if facts were capable of establishing the existence of God, there would be no need to believe anything; we would simply know.
The problem remains, however, of commanding someone to believe something they don't already believe. One could say that one who doesn't believe in God is unlikely to take mitzvot observance very seriously, rendering the commandment basically irrelevant, but this hardly seems right. How could the very first mitzvah discussed by the Rambam be irrelevant?
Perhaps being commanded to believe X may be a way of saying that the nature of X is such that there is no way to know whether or not it is true. I can apply reason to the matter as far as it will go, but at some point, reason ends and belief or "faith" begins. For example, could I not say, "All of my logical faculties lead me to conclude that there is no God, but to the extent that the nature of God is such that God's existence cannot be either proved or disproved through logic or evidence, it is therefore possible for me to accept the positive commandment to believe that it is so."
Being commanded to know -- rather than just believe -- is something quite different. But how? If being commanded to believe implies that the matter does not concern facts, being commanded to know implies that the matter does concern facts. Yet the Rambam goes to great lengths in the MT to argue that God is completely surpasses all human faculties of perception. In other words, God's very nature means that we cannot have facts concerning God's existence -- words imply limitations whereas God has no limitations. So what is it that we can "know" about God?!?

Things I am going to do this week:

I will explore actively believing in God in light of the fact that I have been commanded to do so (rather than because I myself arrived at this beleif on my own, in the past).
I will observe the implications and effects of actively believing in this way.
I've put a reminder on my cellphone standby mode: "BELIEVE IN GOD"
I will read, study and think about this mitzvah as much as possible.

....

And now for the week-1 roundup:

Actively believing in God is a lot more difficult than I had expected. To say I believe, then file it away is easy, but to keep the idea in my mind...that takes effort. Everything else conspires to get in the way. This isn't easy.
When I tried to believe in God, really what I did was remind or reiterate to myself that I believe. Whether or not these are the same things I don't know, but the act of reminding really did make the entire world look different to me. I felt watched, as if everything I did (or didn't do) had greater significance. The flip side is that when I wasn't actively believing in God, I didn't feel as if I was being watched. Strange.
Having put the stickie on my cellphone to "BELIEVE IN GOD," I now know why I have seen this bumper sticker in the Arab world: أذكر الله (Udhkur Allah), which roughly means "Rember God." Without it, it would be so easy not to. But it also made me wonder what this mitzvah is really asking me to do. It doesn't say "remember" God (there are other "remember" mitzvot), it says "believe" or "know" that there is God. Did I fulfil the commandment this week?
So I turned to some additional, secondary literature on the web. This interesting paper offers the concept of "hechsher mitzvah" or "precondition for mitzvot," meaning that the commandment is to know God through study and deeper understanding, not to force the unbeliever but rather to get the believer to "get to know Him a little better...to study, contemplate, and philosophize, with the aim of achieving a more sophisticated knowledge of the nature and necessity of God's existence."
Other interesting ideas are here and here, the latter of which says that the mitzvah as described by Rambam, is not so much to believe in God as to know God (i.e., "to constantly recognize God's existence"). Interestingly, the interviewee here, Moshe ben-Chaim, makes the argument that proof is a necessary part of belief. That's an eye-opening thought...I thought that if you have proof then belief isn't needed?!?

Indeed, a close reading of the Rambam's discussion in MT suggests that ben-Chaim is right, that whatever his motives in using the words "to believe" in Sefer HaMitzvot, what he's really saying is that the action of this mitzvah is to puruse a certain kind of metaphysical knowledge about God, not to constantly remind one's self to believe in God (as I thought at first). As Tougher comments, the mitzvah implies that "our knowledge of God's existence must be developed and cannot be left as a general, undefined conception."
If I am to take the Rambam's discussion seriously, fulfilling this mitzvah is an extremely tall order. Indeed, Tougher explains that "Through our belief in God, [one] must work to internalize that belief and make it part of [one's] conscious process." It seems to me that this internalization can take place through study, but also through the kind of active reminding that I've engaged in over the past few weeks.
Already I'm starting to appreciate how complicated theology can be. That this seemingly simple commandment could be so...not simple is pretty mind-bending.

Conclusions:

I do believe in God, and I do follow the Rambam's logic and argument to a great extent...so I think I can say I observe this commandment, but I'm sure there's a lot more to it. At the very least I don't object to anything here.
That said, I'm not sure I could learn to constantly remind myself about my belief in God, and if I could, I'm not sure I would like myself very much. Where would I draw the line? How much remembering to believe in God would be "enough"? At what point would the obsessiveness required to rememer to believe in God outweigh the point of believing in God in the first place?
But this is worth more exploration and consideration...

So for now, the tally is:

Mitzvot I can get on board with: 1
Mitzvot that I can't accept: 0
Mitzvot that no longer apply: 0

"Question marks": 0

Mitzvot tried out: 1
Mitzvot to go: 612

Stay tuned next week, for Mitzvah #2: Not to believe in/consider the thought of a divinity other than God...

Rabin and Golstein: Part Deux

2009-12-21T13:00:00.006-05:00

An anonymouns reader posted two comments about my response to my previous posting on Rabin and Goldstein. His comments in their entirety, and my interlineated, responses, are below. (They wouldn't fit into the comments section!)

Anonymous said...

I am a reader of Michael's blog.

Most of what you wrote here is tripe. But I will comment on a few very grievous errors.

Michael stated: "As for Rabin, I might add that by his own admission, he was directly responsible for the murder of all those aboard the Altalena. As related by Moshe Feiglin, Rabin proudly admitted that he was responsible for the Haganah's murder of those aboard the Altalena, because it was carrying weapons for the rival Irgun group."

He then added a few sentences of editorial and you responded by saying: "You really have a poor, biased grasp of Israeli history if this is what you honestly think."

You react here very emotionally, but without basis in fact. Michael has stated facts about what occurred, and Rabin's behavior gloating about what had occurred. Yes, Rabin was the trigger-man who fired on that ship while its white flag was raised and survivors were trying to swim (for their lives) to shore. And yes he boasted in front of foreign officials about having done so (while probably drunk).

It isn't surprising to me that some people, obviously yourself included, would simply brush aside the content of my arguments with insult rather than engage them. That's fine. It doesn't make me wrong.
It's rather ironic for your to accuse me of reacting emotionally to Michael's account of the Altalena affair given the latter's calling Rabin a murderer for carrying out military orders. In any case, his focusing on what Rabin may or may not have said while ignoring the political-military-historical context in which the event occurred, is disingenuous and betrays a lack of concern with history. By the way, I've done some research on Moshe Feiglin. While I'll keep my powder dry for right now, let me just say that until someone can provide me with specific citations to things he has written that I can personally and independently verify, I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have written, and whether or not what he has written has any scholarly merit.

The only problem with what Michael wrote was that the ship was not merely carrying arms for the Irgun, but the arms were for the entire armed forces of Israel under the Central command of Ben Gurion. Only a portion of these arms were to be delivered to the Irgun unit stationed in Jerusalem protecting the Old City, while the rest were to be apportioned by the central command to various army units, which were interspersed with Irgun members, (and Lechi members) all throughout the land of Israel. The historical fact is that the Irgun had already agreed to integrate its units within the unified army of Israel, and that administrative process was already underway. And there was an arrangement for how the arms would be allocated, even though it turned out that Ben Gurion had different plans. Regardless of that, Begin never even once suggested that all arms should go only to "Irgunists" nor did he expect that they would operate autonomously within (or without) the army.

In any case, the fact remains that Rabin jumped at the opportunity to fire on the surrendering and friendly ship while other soldiers balked at the fratricidal request. It certainly catapulted Rabin's military and political career. Those in the ship who were fired on, who were not murdered.... Enlisted in the army! (Like they had planned to do since the ship set sail). Sometimes facts can be uncomfortable, but that does not make them go away.

Only unserious historians ever assert things like "The historical fact is that…" Unless you were there, you don't know with certainty what happened. If you want to debate whether or not Ben Gurion was justified in believing that Begin intended to establish "an army within an army," that is a debate we can have, though I must say I'm a bit "reluctant" to have that debate with someone who refers to my arguments as, what was your word, "tripe."
But let's cut to the chase: Even if I were to grant everything you say here (which I do not), it doesn't in any way whatsoever justify Rabin's assassination. Let's recall what Michael originally posted:

So Rabin was a common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission. The only argument against assassinating him, then, is that practically, it did no good. Murdering him only made him a martyr and strengthened his cause. But were it not for this pragmatic consideration...

Rabin's Oslo was directly responsible for Goldstein's having to do what he did. In fact, we could say that Rabin is guilty of the deaths Goldstein caused.
If you want to talk about evil, twisted logic, this is it.

December 19, 2009 5:45 PM

Anonymous said...

One more issue.

Where you wrote what Goldstein "should have done."

I want to highlight the part that says "Just like Israel did in 1967" because that does not fit with what you listed. Particularly "(c) employed force proportionate to the scope of provocation" and "(b) waited until the attack was immanent – not "possible" or "likely" but literally on the way;"

Israel did not wait until the attack was on its way. It was indeed going to come within days, and it was very much imminent, but it had not yet begun when Israel pre-emptively struck. And I feel they were justified in pre-emptively striking, but let us not call it anything else. "On the way" implies it had already begun. And it had not.

You're right; I was not as clear here as I could have been. The key distinction in security studies is between "necessary," "preemptive," and "preventive" actions. Concerning the first, Daniel Webster wrote that certain "immanent and unambiguous danger[s] to the state’s territory, persons or possessions" inherently demand "a necessity of self-defence…instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." The key here is the immediacy of the time frame; enemy tanks come over the border, and in a moment, the generals must order troops into battle or the state will be destroyed. "Preemptive" action, to simplify, is when you have credible evidence that an attack is immanent and so you strike first. There is time to deliberate over how to respond, but there is little or no question that an attack is coming. This is what Israel (arguably) did in 1967. "Preventive" action, on the other hand, is when attack is not immanent, but the state, believing that it may come at some unknown point in the future, it is better to attack now than wait. This is what Germany did to start WWI.

And in the sense of it being imminent, the massacre by Arabs in Hevron certainly was imminent, as well. That is, if you had seen the Hamas pamphlets that were distributed to scare the Jews, taunting them with a pending massacre, and if you believe what the IDF described to Goldstein when they told him to prepare for massive casualties. So in that way, there was a similarity perhaps with the Arab intended attack on Israel in 1967 because it was indeed imminent. That certainly doesn't help your case.

In the first place, words never constitute evidence of immanent attack; only actions do. Second, let's be super clear here about what you're saying: You say that Goldstein "believed" a massacre was in the works, and so acted preemptively to stop it. In order to justify this claim, you'd have to know that (a) Goldstein had credible information that a specific group of individuals was preparing to carry out an attack; and (b) Goldstein had reason to believe that the specific preemptive actions he planned to take would prevent this immanent attack. Neither of these things held true. At best (and highly unlikely), Goldstein killed a random bunch of people in the hopes that this would deter others from attacking. At worst (much more likely), he murdered a bunch of innocent people because he was a sick, angry man. In any case, your logic - "an individual who thinks he knows that an attack is immanent is justified in killing whomever he wants in order to do what he thinks will stop it" – opens the floodgates to pretty much every horror known to man. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want Palestinians to operate using this logic.

As to part c "(c) employed force proportionate to the scope of provocation"

This is simply ludicrous. Did Israel do that in 1967? It will depend on how you characterize the Arab intentions there. For simplicity's sake let's take for granted that the Arabs wanted to wipe out the entire Jewish armed forces, air force, and drive all the remaining Jews into the sea (as Nasser had been promising in his broadcasts/diatribes). In that case, Israel did not even nearly reach the level of proportionality of that which was intended by the enemy side. They captured territory with strategic and security significance, and they destroyed the enemy's air force over night, but where did they massacre all of Egypt and take over entire countries? That was not proportionate, but it was decisive and victorious nonetheless.

Without getting into a longer debate over Israeli decision-making in the lead-up to the 1967 war, and to simplify things a bit, Israel's actions were proportionate because they did what was necessary to prevent the expected attack, and no more. What mattered was not the obviously exaggerated threats coming out of Cairo, Damascus and Amman; what mattered was Israel's assessment of their military capabilities, which certainly didn't match their heated rhetoric. Regardless of what the Israeli government was saying publicly, the archival record makes it quite clear that they didn't for a second fear military defeat. The question that preoccupied them was whether and under what specific conditions launching a preemptive strike would be viewed favorably by the U.S. In the event, they did what was necessary to prevent airstrikes against civilian populations. If I follow your logic, you'd probably say Israel would be justified in dropping the bomb on Tehran because Ahmadinejad has on a couple of occasions verbally threatened to wipe out Israel. That would, of course, be insane. But don't confuse talk with action.

But what is ludicrous about the statement of yours centers around 2 issues. 1. Who says a person (or nation in this case) must react proportionately to the level of provocation? Is this some unknown handbook of Aristotle that demands this as an ethic of warfare? There is no such underlying rule governing any army or any nation in its defense and offense against enemy entities. There is no country which abides by such an overriding rule except those who self-impose it, for unknown reasons (Israel is one of those countries in many cases). As this does not regulate nations, neither does it regulate the interactions of individuals.

These are good questions. I'd refer you in the first place to the seminal work on the question, Just and Unjust Wars, by Michael Waltzer. In the most basic sense, because the international system is anarchic (i.e., there is no overarching world government that can legitimately tell states what to do and enforce their demands), there's no one in a position to tell any person or state what to do. On the other hand, the U.N. charter, along with a slew of international conventions and agreements, has pretty much enshrined the notion that civilized nations can and should place limits on their conduct of war. The indiscriminate killing of civilians, for example, is a major no-no. Look at the international reaction to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Regardless of one's opinions about Saddam's regime, or the relative merits of the ruling clique in Kuwait, I think we can all agree that invading your neighbors is not a legitimate means of conflict resolution. This isn't to say that some situations aren't complicated; the point is that states, in word and deed, uphold certain standards of behavior most of the time, even when doing so might be in their immediate, narrowly-defined self interest. The reason Israel doesn't go around dropping atomic bombs on countries it doesn't like isn't because it's a "better" nation than the U.S.; it's because doing so would, in the big picture, not improve Israeli security. That is, it's not in Israel's interests. Isn't this obvious?

But issue #2 renders the above discussion moot. How can you say what is "proportionate" or not "proportionate" about an intended pogrom on an entire community of Jews? Can you possibly sit here and proclaim to know exactly the extent of the force the Arabs intended to use, how much violence they wished to employ, how many victims they desired to claim, but where they would draw the line and limit themselves in such a barbaric orgy of murder and pillaging as they have done to our people so many times? Of course you cannot know this, and you cannot make such claims. For all you know the Arabs may have murdered 100 people God forbid. In such a case, you argue yourself into a corner because Goldstein wasn't just lacking in proportionality, it was too polite a response!

I absolutely can't "sit here and proclaim to know exactly the extent of the force the Arabs intended to use, how much violence they wished to employ, how many victims they desired to claim." Who said I could? But I say again, by your logic, anyone who gets it into his head that they do know such things is justified in pretty much killing anyone they wish. By your logic, the Palestinians of Hebron would have been justified in striking Kiryat Arba first, in an attempt to preempt Goldstein's attack. Where does it end?

But, as is often the case, the evidence I need is right in front of us: Either I have to believe that Goldstein was some special man who alone was aware of an allegedly immanent attack or, rather, that he was a sick, crazy man who went postal. Why was he the only one to see the obviousness of the impending attack? If the evidence was so clear, so overwhelming, then why did he act alone? If there were others who saw an attack as immanent, why was he the only one to step into the mosque? Were the rest of them cowards? (And please, no conspiracy theories here.)

I submit that what Goldstein did was simple: he murdered 29 innocent people in cold blood.

Shall we look at the Arabs' massacre of the Jewish Hevron community of 1929 as the precedent? Should that establish a hypothetical "proportionality" of Arab pogrom/massacre carnage? If so, Goldstein's behavior was surely too polite.

No, I'm not going to look at something that happened 60 years ago as a way to justify murder today. And neither should you.

Your logic is greatly lacking here.

December 19, 2009 6:13 PM

Assumptions, Justifications and the Origins of Evil: The Assassination of Rabin and Goldstein's Massacre

2009-12-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

When I first cast my cyberweb out into the blogosphere, one of the blogs I came across was "My Random Diatribes" at http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com/.

A couple of days ago, he put up a post that caught my attention: Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein. I was strongly disturbed by what I read there and commented as such; the author responded, and his response was even more disturbing to me.

Normally I would have posted another comment on his blog, but I felt so strongly about what I wanted to say -- some of which is the product of my own thinking about Arab-Israeli issues over the past 20 years -- that I wanted to give it a home on my blog. I will have a lot more to say about Israel and the Palestinians in the weeks and months to come, but this, well I couldn't not say something to this.

I recommend you read his post in its entirety before reading my interlineated response below.

Michael,

It is hard to know where to begin with your response/update. I'm tempted to let this go, because it's clear to me there are a number of underlying, unarticulated assumptions on which your arguments are based that (a) I believe are absolutely false but (b) ultimately involve value judgments that are not amenable to logic or reason. But I am going to respond not only because I can't in good Jewish conscience let your arguments stand unopposed, but because it seems to me that, while I find your position frankly odious and your reasoning deeply flawed, you seem to be trying to support your positions in good faith.

Before getting into the meat of your position, there is something I need to discuss. I'm not going to try to persuade you that you're looking at Goldstein the wrong way, though I believe you are indeed wrong and could marshal what I think is considerable evidence and reasoning to support my side. I think the task would be futile. Instead I want to do something at once more basic and more important: to highlight the effects of your assumptions on the conclusions you draw and to make the case that your assumption is not the only possible one. I apologize in advance for the length of this argument, but I feel that it is important to state it clearly; in my opinion, the role of assumptions in shaping conclusions is really what is at the root of the problem.

Obviously you believe that in a basic, overall sense, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the "fault" of the Palestinians/Arabs and that were it not for their intransigence, obstructionism, or what have you, the conflict would have been solved years ago or, perhaps, never even begun. Obviously you are aware that the other side sees things differently, perhaps the other way around. Each side views its own actions as necessary, legitimate responses to the other side's provocations, while the other side views these actions as unprovoked, illegitimate and criminal. One side says, our response X is in response to your prior criminal act Y, while the other side, unsurprisingly, says our act Y was in response to your prior criminal act Z. And so on and so on. One side says it "all started" when A happened, the other side says it "all began" when B happened. My point, mind you, is not to say which side is right or wrong in an absolute sense, only that, from each side's relative perspective, it is right and the other wrong.

But let's say for the sake of argument that we found incontrovertible facts establishing that one side's view of the conflict's historical origins was "right" and the other's "wrong." And let's say further that the facts showed the Israeli version of history to be "right" and the Palestinian version "wrong." (For many, many reasons I think this is impossible, but this debate gets complicated and in any case doesn't bear on the argument I'm trying to make here. The short version is that history is not science; historical facts don't "speak" their conclusions to us like chemistry and physics; human beings must bring their own value judgments to bear on which facts are more important. The problem is that disagreements over which values to employ in deciding which facts are important cannot themselves be adjudicated with facts.)

In any case, my simple question to you is: So what if the Israeli version of history to be "right" and the Palestinian version "wrong"? Even if history tells us who did what first, political realities tell us a very different, much messier story. Actions and reactions accrete over decades into political institutions and socioeconomic factors that have little, if any, relationship with their origins. Politics fundamentally is not about what is right and wrong, it's about the relative distribution of power and the implications of that distribution. This is not to say that ethical considerations play no role in politics, only that political problems by their nature can't be resolved decisively in academic journals or scholarly debates. If every journalist, academic, pundit and opinion-maker in the western world said Israel was right and the Palestinians wrong, would that end the conflict?

Okay, so what's the point of all this? The point is that if you start from the assumption that a particular Israeli version of history is "right," it will invariably lead you to interpret the details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in ways very different than if you began with the assumption that, say, a particular Palestinian version of history is "right." One could also begin with the assumption that neither side has a monopoly on historical accuracy or even that historical accuracy cannot be determined, but that's a topic for another time. My point is that different assumptions shape the perception and interpretation of events differently.

Why does this matter? You wrote in your update that "it is only when you come to Israel and see things firsthand that you must take a closer look, and realize things are not so simple. My basic core beliefs have barely changed, but my greater knowledge of the facts on the ground in Israel have made all the difference." But as I think I've made clear, there is no such thing as an objective "closer look." You went to Israel with your personal set of underlying assumptions about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (i.e., what you describe as your "basic core beliefs"), and those assumptions shaped your "greater knowledge of the facts on the ground" in ways that lead you to the conclusions expressed in your post; someone else could go to Israel with a different set of underlying assumptions that would shape their interpretation of events in very different ways. Neither of you would be right or wrong; you would be bringing different assumptions and values to bear on the interpretation of the same facts. How do we know this is the case? If you were right, that "only when you come to Israel and see things firsthand" are you able to gain "greater knowledge of the facts on the ground" leading inexorably to certain conclusions, then all Israelis living in Israel would be unified in their political beliefs vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Obviously this is false, not because some see "the facts on the ground" while others don't, but because different Israelis have different underlying assumptions and value judgments that lead them to interpret these facts differently.

My argument in short: The facts do not speak for themselves. One's underlying assumptions and value judgments, when left unexamined and unarticulated, can play a decisive role in which facts are viewed as important and what these facts "say." Assumptions and values shape the subjective interpretation of the facts.

Now let's turn to your response.

Update: In response to "rogueregime" in the comments, let me explain myself:

When I first came to Israel, all I had was my support for the Zionist enterprise in general (which I still possess) and my belief that Judaism values all of humanity in general (which I still believe). In other words, I generally believed that G-d was returning the Jews to Israel, and that all of humanity and human knowledge were valuable and lovely. On my blog, I often write about these topics, and some readers have said that my gathering of sources on appreciation and love for gentiles in Jewish sources is some of the most comprehensive work they've seen on the subject.

Suffice it to say, then, the whole Baruch Goldstein massacre was wrenching to every fiber of my being. When on TV I'd see Baruch Marzel celebrating Goldstein, I could not understand how such horrific people could exist on earth. It absolutely disgusted me. It was a perversion of Judaism; it was a betrayal of basic humanity.

So far, so good.

But it is only when you come to Israel and see things firsthand that you must take a closer look, and realize things are not so simple. My basic core beliefs have barely changed, but my greater knowledge of the facts on the ground in Israel have made all the difference.

On the one hand, you are absolutely right: experiencing a different society firsthand can give you a very different perspective than if you never visited. But as I've argued above, you went to Israel with your own personal set of assumptions and value judgments, and it was through the lens of these preconceived ideas that you interpreted the "facts on the ground" and, really, that you decided which "facts on the ground" would be worth interpreting in the first place. Someone else, with different assumptions and value judgments, might very well come to very different conclusions than you.

One comes to Israel and realizes that the Israeli Left is taking Israel to hell in a handbasket, and doing nothing at all whatsoever to stop terrorism. The Left in fact hands land and AK-47s to terrorists, almost in reward for their acts of murder.

I will let go for the meantime the factual silliness of claiming that the Israeli left hands out AK-47s to people as rewards for their killing innocent civilians. What I will point out, though, is the rather obvious point that what you're offering here is your opinion – your interpretation of Israeli politics, which is colored in the first instance by your underlying assumptions and value judgments. Lots of people go to Israel and most certainly do not realize "that the Israeli Left is taking Israel to hell in a handbasket, and doing nothing at all whatsoever to stop terrorism." You state as self-evident fact what is most certainly neither self-evident nor a fact.

So the first thing that occurred to me was: if the Israeli army and government do nothing at all to stop terrorism, then what else are people like Goldstein supposed to do? If they legitimately and sincerely want to stop terrorism - with no racism at all in their hearts, but only hatred of terrorism - what do I expect them to do? The IDF is doing nothing at all, and Goldstein has no army of his own to calmly and properly conduct investigations and searches.

I suppose if you believe living in a barbed-wire ringed, West Bank settlement armed to the teeth with automatic weapons is living without protection or security, the Goldstein might be viewed as a vigilante. I'm curious to know, though, what you expected the British to do when they occupied Palestine. I mean, "If they legitimately and sincerely want[ed] to stop terrorism - with no racism at all in their hearts, but only hatred of terrorism - what do [you] expect them to [have done]?" If you start from the assumption that Jews have a God-given right to (a) occupy the Holy Land and (b) kill anyone who gets in the way of that goal, then of course you think the British were wrong then, and the Israelis right today. But can't you even admit the possibility that what one thinks is right or wrong in a given situation is basically a product of their beliefs and values? You think God wants Jews to live in the West Bank and that anyone who says otherwise is "wrong." But Palestinians don't view settlements in the same way and never have. They view these settlements as foreign occupation. So using your logic, slightly rephrased: "if the Palestinian leadership does nothing at all to stop Israelis from expropriating Palestinian land, then what are Palestinians supposed to do? If Palestinians legitimately and sincerely want to stop the occupation - with no racism at all in their hearts, but only hatred of foreign occupation - what do you expect them to do? The Palestinian leadership is doing nothing at all, and Palestinians have no army of their own with which to resist occupation." So of course they should indiscriminately kill civilians. Right?

My thinking on Rabin matured as well. I realized that the Oslo Accords did nothing but to endanger innocent human life, by giving land to unrepentant terrorists who openly and unabashedly admitted to intention to commit terrorism in the future. In Israel, Oslo is known as "when peace broke out". The very day of Oslo, my rabbi was driving from Jerusalem to his home in Beit El (in the West Bank). On the way, the IDF stopped him and diverted him to a side-road. My rabbi asked why he couldn't take the main road anymore to Beit El. Remember, this is the very day Oslo occurred. The IDF told my rabbi that the main road was no longer safe to drive on, because of Oslo. The very day of Oslo, the IDF already recognized that Oslo compromised the safety of innocent human life. My rabbi added that he had been a kashrut supervisor (mashgiah) in an Arab factory, but that Oslo made it too dangerous for him to travel to the factory anymore, and thus, the Arab factory's kashrut certification lapsed. Because of Oslo, this personal (and potentially peace-inspiring) interaction between Arabs and Jews ceased.

Can you, with a straight face, say that Oslo was what caused peaceful interaction between Arabs and Jews to stop? I'm sorry, but are you kidding?

So I realized that with the IDF doing nothing to ensure peace and safety, vigilantes had nothing else to do but to go solo. This still troubled me, and gave me tremendous discomfort. I had an inestimable amount of cognitive dissonance. The idea of individual vigilantes taking on the IDF's job troubled me terribly, but I had to admit that I didn't have a better idea. If only the IDF would do its job, then Goldstein wouldn't have to...

So if my local police won't do anything about the gangs in my neighborhood, it's okay to take an M-16 and kill everyone on the street corner?

So if the State of Israel won't stop settlers from coming into my village and shooting up the place, it's okay for me to blow up a school bus of their children?

So if the U.N. can't get Iran to stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons, it's okay for the U.S. to launch a first-strike and destroy the entire country, killing millions of people?

So if I think abortions are murder, but my government allows them to talk place, it's okay for me to shoot doctors who perform them, or politicians who vote to allow them, or women who have them?

So where do you draw the line?

As regards Oslo, I had to admit: given the objective and indisputable fact that Oslo led directly to the loss of innocent human life, what else was Rabin but a murderer? If I'd assassinate a common street murderer, why should a political figure be any different? If Rabin were faceless anonymous man who murdered before my eyes, I'd surely murder him in return. Why should a political figure be any different?

First of all, what you say here is profoundly sick. Let's just get that out of the way.

Second, every Israeli Prime Minister since 1948 has sent troops into battle. Some of them have been killed; they have killed others, military and civilian. Do you think they are murderers? Do you think Palestinians think they are murderers? What makes you right and they wrong?

Third, and to slightly restate the second point, heads of state – at least democratically-elected heads of state – are fundamentally different than you or me. As commanders-in-chief of their armed forces, part of their job is to send troops into battle when they think it is in the interests of national security to do so. That doesn't mean every action of every soldier sent into every battle in every circumstance is morally justifiable (see Waltzer's Just and Unjust Wars), but it certainly means that the head of state isn't a murderer every time a soldier pulls a trigger somewhere in the world. Is it news to you that the demands of state security are different than the demands of personal security? If you don't see the difference between a Hamas suicide bomber and Yitzhak Rabin, I feel deeply sorry for you.

Fourth, perhaps you would kill someone who you witnessed commit murder. If you did it to save a life, yours or someone else's, it would be self-defense. If you did it to kill him as punishment, then you're committed one of the Torah's most grievous sins and a murder who should spend the rest of his life in prison. In civilized societies, including Israel, I might add, people don't go around killing people whenever they feel doing so is "just."

Back to Goldstein: in fact, the muezzins (Muslim prayer callers) in Hebron had for days been yelling "Itbah al yahud" ("Slaughter on the Jews!"). Days before the Baruch Goldstein massacre, the IDF had told Goldstein (who was an IDF physician) to stockpile medical supplies, in expectation of an Arab massacre. Goldstein asked the IDF why they wouldn't stop the massacre in advance, and the IDF replied that Oslo tied their hands. Jewish lives were going to be sacrificed on the altar of Oslo. (Related in Moshe Feiglin, Where There are No Men.)

Do you think it's all right to kill other people who have done nothing but who you think will attack you at some point in the future? Why not drop nuclear bombs on all Arab capitals tomorrow? I mean, they might attack Israel at some point in the future, right?

If your sense of morality is based only on what personally matters to you, then it is no morality whatsoever.

So thanks to Oslo, Goldstein was faced with the very real prospect of an Arab massacre of Jews, both by report of the IDF and of the muezzins in Hebron. Goldstein perhaps overreacted. But what else should he have done? The IDF told him that they'd do nothing to stop terrorism. Goldstein had no choice but to stand by silently, or to take matters into his own hands.

Your biased, simplistic reading of the facts leads you to your conclusion.

Goldstein could have – and should have – done what pretty much everyone else knows to be both true and morally justifiable: If he honestly thought an attack was in the works, he should have (a) prepared to defend himself, his family and his community; (b) waited until the attack was immanent – not "possible" or "likely" but literally on the way; (c) employed force proportionate to the scope of provocation; and (d) directed the use of force specifically against those actually carrying arms to be used against him, his family and/or community. Just like Israel did in 1967.

As for Rabin, I might add that by his own admission, he was directly responsible for the murder of all those aboard the Altalena. As related by Moshe Feiglin, Rabin proudly admitted that he was responsible for the Haganah's murder of those aboard the Altalena, because it was carrying weapons for the rival Irgun group. So Rabin was a common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission. The only argument against assassinating him, then, is that practically, it did no good. Murdering him only made him a martyr and strengthened his cause. But were it not for this pragmatic consideration...

You really have a poor, biased grasp of Israeli history if this is what you honestly think.

A discussion of the Altalena is way beyond the scope of what can be done here. I do have a question, though: If Rabin truly was a "common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission" as you describe, then why wasn't he ever charged for the crime? Sharon could have charged him. Bibi could have done it. Why didn't they do it? I'm curious to know your explanation for this.

But I do want to make a comment on your position that "The only argument against assassinating [Rabin], then, is that practically, it did no good. Murdering him only made him a martyr and strengthened his cause. But were it not for this pragmatic consideration..." I'm sorry to say, but this is sick; people who believe such things have no place in civilized, democratic societies. In democracies, you vote with the ballot, not the bullet. The great evils of the past century began with your brand of thinking, of justifying murder based on so-called "pragmatic" considerations.

Rabin's Oslo was directly responsible for Goldstein's having to do what he did. In fact, we could say that Rabin is guilty of the deaths Goldstein caused. If it hadn't been for Oslo, then the IDF, not Goldstein, would have killed the terrorists. And obviously, if the IDF were to do the action instead, it'd have been able to investigate who to kill and how, how to avoid the deaths of innocent civilians, etc. Goldstein lacked an army and an investigative apparatus, so all he could do is "spray and pray" with an automatic rifle; he could not investigate individual targets or conduct searches of homes for weapons caches, etc. Had the IDF done its job, many innocent Arab lives might have been spared. So if Goldstein did anything wrong, the blame falls on Rabin who tied the IDF's hands, not Goldstein.

I would call this pure silliness except for the deep evil that lies at its heart. Baruch Goldstein, an autonomous, rational human being picked up a machine gun and killed 29 people. If you want to remove responsibility from him and place it somewhere else – on a head of state, an international agreement – then no human being is ever responsible for anything he or she ever does. Concentration Camp guards? They're not murderers, it was Hitler and Eichmann. Hitler and Eichmann? They're not murderers, it was the leaders of Britain, France and the U.S., who punished Germany so severely at Versailles after the end of WWI that it caused the eventual economic and social collapse that made possible and led to the rise of the Third Reich. The 9/11 terrorists? They're not murderers, it's the State of Israel, whose policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians directly led Mohammad Atta et al to take action. With your brand of sick logic, there is nowhere to draw the line.

All this still troubles me. It sickens me to have to justify assassinations and massacres. I'm naturally a peaceful person; I used to wrestle, but I had to stop because even though I was skilled enough at it, I simply didn't have the heart for it, to hit another person. So for me to support Goldstein not only goes against what I'd like to believe, but it even goes against my basic personality. I'm a born pacifist. Golda Meir said, "We can perhaps forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for forcing us to kill your children". For myself, I'd say, "I can perhaps forgive you for killing us, but I cannot forgive you for forcing me to justify Goldstein." I shouldn't have to wonder whether Goldstein was justified. It should be the easiest thing in the world for me to decry a man walking into a place of worship and shooting unarmed men. I shouldn't have to wonder whether that is justified. But the Arabs have stolen that innocence from me. The Arabs have forced me to side with Goldstein, and for that, I cannot forgive them.

You know, I started writing all this wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now, have reread and reflected on the venomous things you say about Rabin and the extent to which you believe politically-motivated murder is morally justifiable, I'm starting to wonder if really you're trying to frame a wolf's arguments in sheep's words.

You say this "sickens" you, but frankly it doesn't seem that way at all; you seem pretty okay with what Goldstein and Amir did. You effectively blame dead Palestinians for their own murders, then curse them for putting you in the position of having to support Goldstein.

You may have been born a pacifist, but you sure ain't one now.

(Do not misunderstand me. I'm not saying I would repeat any of these actions (G-d forbid), whether Amir's or Goldstein's. One can search everything I've ever written, and one could even search everything and I've ever said, and I guarantee, one will not hear a single utterance by me of advocacy to commit a second Goldstein massacre in another mosque, or advocacy to assassinate Livni or Olmert or Sharon or Netanyahu. Others - usually Israeli Leftists, in fact - have advocated the assassination of Israeli leaders (see Feiglin, Where There are No Men), but so far as I know (Feiglin, ibid.), no prominent right-wing Israelis, by contrast with the Left, have advocated violence against Israeli political figures, and neither will I. Similarly, while Baruch Marzel will celebrate Goldstein, I've never seen him advocate a repetition; I've only seen him stage protest marches through Arab villages. By contrast, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (of the Left) would refer to IDF soldiers as "Judeo-Nazis", and unless he was being hyperbolic with extremely poor taste, I can only assume that he was subtly hinting for IDF soldiers to be treated as Nazis should be. But as against this Leftist advocacy (or veiled suggestion) of violence, no one on the right, as far as I know, advocates a second Amir or Goldstein. Thank G-d.)

It is totally disingenuous for you to say that you "guarantee, one will not hear a single utterance by [you] of advocacy to commit a second Goldstein massacre in another mosque, or advocacy to assassinate Livni or Olmert or Sharon or Netanyahu." You just got done justifying the murder of Rabin and Goldstein's slaughter. If the same circumstances were repeated, do you seriously intend for me to believe that your position would be that the Israeli PM shouldn't be assassinated or that a West Bank settler shouldn't kill a group of unarmed Palestinians?!?

Your entire post absolutely justifies, advocates, explains, and excuses these murderous actions. It's not surprising that you'd try to portray yourself otherwise. Just like Kahane and the string of right-wing Israeli religious figures whose writings, teachings and speeches provided the fodder for Amir to justify killing Rabin, saying that you're not justifying murder doesn't make it so.

What's really the matter with the Christmas Tree?

2009-12-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

I really disliked Christmas Trees.

Surely I'm not the only one, but there's no point in generalizing here -- it's hard enough for me to figure out what's going through my head, so I can't hardly claim to know what other Jews think, or why they think as they do. In retrospect, it's fair to say that Christmas Trees touched on a number of unexamined, sensitive spots for me; sensitive likely because they were unexamined. So when a Christmas Tree -- more specifically, my then-girlfriend/now-wife's Christmas Tree -- first entered my life and then my home, I found myself ill-prepared to handle the latent emotions and underlying prejudices that bubbled up to the surface. Having examined these thoughts and feelings over the past few years, though, I must admit that I've learned a great deal as well as found a lot of new answers to questions that I thought were settled.

For a long time, Christmas Trees represented a lot of wrong things for me: the hegemony of Christianity and Christian culture in the U.S. and the concommitant minority status of Jews; "trojan horses" carrying Christian symbolism and theology into secular spaces -- and, of course, some Jewish homes -- under the guise of celebrating multidenominationalism or cultural tolerance; and, somewhat contradictorily, as an example of the dumbing down of religion whereby something that once meant something specific to some people, comes to mean nothing as a result of its morphing into a symbol of something to all people. In my book, it was more than fine if Christians wanted to have their Christmas Trees, but when they get pushed in my face every year and put up in every Manhattan office building; when I hear about the beleagured Christian masses under assault by the so-called "War Against Christmas" I'm allegedly waging against them; when I get told that Christmas Trees arent' so much about "Christmas" as about the holidays...well, that's all a different story. So one the one hand, clearly the issue wasn't the tree per se; it was what the tree represented vis-a-vis my perception of Jew's position in American society. And as for having a tree; no way was I going to ever have one of those things in my house. Assimilationist Jews who had no knowledge or interest in knowing their culture and religion might have one, but not me. And anyway, wasn't there some relationship between the wood of the tree and the wood of the cross, and wasn't the star on top of the tree the "Little Star of Bethlehem" under which that good Jewish boy named Yeshua was born? You get the point.

There was, though, a pretty major exception in my family. I have an aunt who was and is Jewish, always had a Christmas tree growing up, and continued to do so into adulthood. Funny thing, in spite of all my issues with Christmas Trees, her having one never seemed to bother me too much. I certainly didn't and don't think of her as an "Assimilationist Jew" with no interest in things Jewish; my aunt and uncle went to shul, celebrated the holidays, and, well, let's just say if you didn't know about the Tree Situation, you'd have never guessed. Actually I never saw anything wrong in her practice, which is odd given my own strong feelings about the matter. But looking back now, of course I wouldn't have had a problem with it: my hangups were the result of unexamined assumptions, not reasoned logic; I was the one with an unclear sense of boundary between my Jewishness and American-Christian society, not her. I mean, her tree violated no Jewish laws (at least not in my book), and besides, she was/is my aunt! Silly, I know, but personal connections often trump general prejudices.

And therein lies the rub. To know someone is to have context, and to know one's self is to have self-assuredness. A Christmas Tree represents nothing more or less than what I see when I look at them, and what I see is not some God-given (or socially-determined) fact but rather what I allow myself to see: What remains after I open my eyes and do my best to see what is in front of me without regard to preconceived notions or fears, or ideas long-ago planted in Jewish summer camp...or concerns that, somehow, the scope and content of my Jewish identity is something that is open to judgment and interpretation by others.

I first started to really think about Christmas Trees in the context of my relationship with my then-girfriend, now wife (I'll call her "N"). For N, they were a symbol of much family warmth and togetherness; all good things. So of course she always had one and planned to continue having them around come Christmastime. As we became closer, it became clearer that Trees were going to be a part of our life, and that awakened some of these long-dormant issues I've been talking about here. In particular, as our relationship depeened, the fact that she wasn't Jewish started to loom a little larger, and as that happened, certain little things that wouldn't otherwise be that big of a deal started to feel like they were important.

These little things, I discovered, weren't always obvious ones.

But one of them was the Tree.

In a way it was a fortuitous thing on which to be fixated, because while it helped bring into sharper relief some of the religious issues under the surface, the thing itself -- the Christmas Tree -- was so thoroughly unobtrusive and unobjectionable, and was so definitely going to be a fixture in our life together, that I really had no choice but to "get over it." Looking back at that period of time, when I came to terms with the Tree, I see myself as a sort of addict who, when confronted by friends and family during an Intervention, comes up with every bogus, self-serving explanation in the book to avoid admitting the problem...but in reverse. I knew the tree was a-commin into my life, but as I finally turned to face it, what came out was:

What kind of Jew has a Christmas Tree in his house?!?
What does it say about my real beliefs and feelings that I would have a Tree in my house? That I would live with someone who wanted a Tree in the house? What's wrong with me?
If I let a Tree into my house, what else will find its way into my house?
What will other Jews think of me? Will I be accepted or rejected by my family?
How will letting this Tree into the house -- how will the decision to let it into my house -- change me as a person in unforseen, negative ways?

Nice stuff, right? I mean, where did all this crap come from that would be stirred to consciousness by a frickin Christmas Tree? Was I so insecure, so weak, so unaware, that a Christmas Tree would be some kind of Fifth Column in my household, undermining everything I held dear?

The easy answer is no, of course not: As I was finally able to give voice to these questions, to answer them, and to follow the answers to their logical conclusions, I learned that what was really going on was that a deeply-seeded set of ideas on which I was raised and educated came into conflict with another, ultimately more powerful set of liberal ideas that I was exposed to and came to adopt as an adult...and that the point at which they met was where my inevitable work must be done.

The harder answer, however, one that cannot be answered in a few paragraphs -- and the search for which is a major reason I have started this blog -- is that I don't really know what is at stake when a parochial, religious identity comes up against a self-styled modern, liberal mindset. I don't know what the implications are of all this, of how the answers to new questions -- how turning over the stones of my Jewish identity -- will change things...will change me.

But I do know that I'm grateful that N and her Christmas Tree are in my life. Ironically, they have pushed me to understand my own Judaism in ways I would never have anticipated, "to turn it this way and that," to not take for granted.

Who woudda thunk it?

Fun and/or Disurbing Things to Read:

On Being a Jew at Christmas

Hertzel's Christmas Tree

What Do Jews Do On Christmas?

Toby Belfer Never Had a Christmas Tree (!)

A Lonely Jew on Christmas

Christmas for Jews

My favorite Hanukkah song...

2009-12-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

Light One Candle - Peter, Paul and Mary

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
Give thanks their light didn't die;
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied;
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand;
light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand!

chorus:

Don't let the light go out,
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears!

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe;
Light one candle for those who are suff'ring
The pain that we learned long ago;
Light one candle for all we believe in,
That anger not tear us apart;
And light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart!

(chorus)

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died?
We cry out "they've not died in vain,"
We have come this far, always believing
That justice will somehow prevail;
This is the burden and This is the promise,
This is why we will not fail!

(chorus)

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeira

2009-12-16T13:41:00.002-05:00

18:17-19 - An interesting passage... God speaks to himself, asking aloud (?) whether or not to tell Abraham about his plans to destroy Soddom and Gomorrah, but he doesn't really explain why he shouldn't. Clearly the point of telling Abraham would be to instill in him a sense of God's wrath. But what would be the point of not telling him?

19:31-38 - More not-nice Biblical sexy time! No sooner is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt than his daughters (!) scheme to get him drunk then sleep with him, one at a time, for two consecutive nights!?!! I thought that stuff was verboten!

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Lech-Lecha

2009-12-15T15:14:00.002-05:00

12:10-20 - What a strange story! Abram and Sarai (pre-Abraham and Sarah) go to Egypt because of famine, and Abram tells his wife to pretend she's his sister...so that the Egyptians don't kill him!?! Then Sarai is taken into the Pharaoh's palace! And then God afflicts the Egyptians with "mighty plagues," which leads Pharoah to tell Abram to take is wife and go!?!? Weird.

15:18 - Is this a strange verse, or am I missing something? Here, God says to Abram "'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates," but then goes on to add in the next three verses "the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'" In other words, God seems to be promising not "Greater Israel" to the Jews, but rather the entire Middle East to a number of different, non-Jewish peoples.

16:12 - An angel tells Sarai that "[Ishmael] shall be a wild ass of a man"...!!!

17:10-14 -Slaves must be circumcised too?!? I thought this was only for Jews!

Food for Thought

2009-12-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

This guest post at Hirhurim is really something.

In short, the author is looking at the fine line that separates observance from "observance"; where following the rules concerning a thing (in the case of the poster, wearing his kippa) breaks away from the point of following the rules. That is, the point of wearing a kippa is to instill one with reverence for God, but if one eventually puts it on by rote, then how can the kavanah be sustained? Strict observance might lead to lack of "observing" the underlying point.

The obvious rejoinder would be to focus harder, make a bigger effort to remember that which is supposed to be remembered, etc. I recently bought a two-volume set of the Shulkhan Aruch, which has all kinds of rules concerning actions but also "rules" about what one is supposed to think about or focus on when performing the actions. These suggestions are well taken, but looking at the universe of rules and procedures a diligently observant Jew would have to follow, I just don't see how. It's too much, and too impersonal. If the point is to reflect on God's oneness, or to be thankful about life, or whatever the thing is you're supposed to focus on, then isn't the thought that counts, rather than the action? And what if halacha says do A to remind you of X, but you are reminded of X more by doing B? Then what?

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Noach

2009-12-14T13:01:00.003-05:00

7:22-23 - As we all know, God tells Noah to put two of every kind of animal into the Ark, so that they wouldn't perish in the flood. This raises, for me, a question: Why did God choose this particular method -- water -- to destroy the world? In the first place, it meant that, automatically, sea creatures got a pass. Is there something special about them? Something about the antedilluvian technological difficulty in building aquaria with which to save sea creatures? I suppose it was the lowest-tech way to simultaneously (a) wipe out the earth and (b) make it possible for a couple of people to survive. But it still seems unkind for all the animals that weren't saved. Only two of each get saves...except for the fishes? Hmmm.

9:20-27 - Wow, how did I miss this little tawdry story in Sunday School? The first thing that Noah -- the "one who found favor with the LORD" for reasons that are never given, the father of all humanity -- does upon emerging from the Ark after the waters recede? He plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and strips naked. One of his sons, Canaan, sees him and tells his brothers, Shem and Japeth, who, without looking at their drunk, naked father, cover him up. Noah wakes up and curses Canaan -- as if he had a chance to look away -- and blesses Shem and Japeth, who had the advantage of being alerted to their father's condition. Wow. Canaan gets a pretty raw deal here. Shame on Noah.

11:1-9 - The Tower of Babel story... Somehow I remembered there being more to it than these brief 9 verses. And the lesson! I always thought the story was about how the people thought they could become "like God" by building the tower, which, understandably, angered God. But that's just not here in the text, which says that they build the tower to make for themselves "a name, lest [they] be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Seems pretty reasonable to me -- engage in a civic engineering project to bring the people together. So why does God object? Not because he considers their doing so an affront to his power, but because "If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they map propose to do will be out of their reach." [JPS translation] So...God basically condemns the entire human race to divisions, discord and misunderstandings because, when they shared a language, they decided to build something?!? Sorry, but in my book these are pretty lame reasons for God to act in this way.

11:26-32 - I never realized Abramah and Sarah had different names before having kids. They were Abram and Sarai.

Mitzvah of the Week - Intro Post #2

2009-12-14T12:41:00.001-05:00

Today, my MOTW project officially begins!

Having given this some thought since posting last week about this, there are a few other things I should probably say here by way of procedure before jumping in.

As I mentioned in that post, my main guide will be Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot (with the Jewfaq.org list as an online backup/companion guide). Rambam's list of the mitzvot divides the 613 into 248 "positive" commandments ("corresponding to the organs of the human body") and 365 "negative" commandments ("corresponding to the days of the solar year"). You can find that list here. Obviously any list has advantages and disadvantages. In this case, it means doing all the positive commandments before the negative ones. It can't be helped. I hope I don't run out of steam!
Where needed, I will show Tanakh references using the excellent Mechon Mamre site. (While I don't love it's English translation, it does give the Hebrew. I will also be consulting the most recent JPS translation to make sure I'm getting the right meanings.) Talmud references, unfortunately, are a bit trickier. The weakness of my Aramaic is only superceded by my lack of Talmud knowledge. I could provide online references to specific pages, but (a) this doesn't help me too much and (b) it isn't likely to be of help to the kinds of people who might ever read this. So instead I'll provide references to the relevant Babylonian Talmud English-language translation at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.
Organization of the posts is going to be a little tricky, because there's going to be "before," "during," and "after" components of each mitzvah: "before" is my reading up of what the mitzvah actually requires, existence of alternative readings/interpretations, if any, and what my own thoughts are before juming in; "during" would be my thoughts and comments while the week is going on; and "after," of course, would be the post-game round-up. I think the only way to do this properly, without causing confusion for all 2 people who will ever read this, is to put each mitzvah (or group of mitzvot) into one post, containing the before, during and after analysis. Otherwise there would be too many posts, and too much jumping around. So, check back here in one week's time for the post on positive mitzvah #1, to believe in God.

Stay tuned!

Hanukkah is...the festival of lights?

2009-12-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

I like Hanukkah, but I'm also troubled by it.

What's not to enjoy, right? The aesthetics are fab -- lighting candles, eating yummy fried food, eight nights to celebrate and exchange presents. All is good.

But there are two things about Hanukkah that have always troubled me.

First, the fact that American Jews celebrate it in the ways that we do...doesn't sit well. It's a minor holiday, which barely merits a mention in the Gemarah and doesn't event appear in the Tanakh. It was only late in the game that I came to realize how minor in the broad scope of things Hanukkah really is. Growing up, it felt like a big deal, maybe in the number three position after Pesach and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur in my book. These were the three Jewish occasions in the year when the family would get together, so they loomed larger. And, of course, we got presents, which didn't hurt either. Christmas, though, always lurked in the background: The commercials, the songs, the talk of retail sales, the proliferation of "holiday" (i.e., Christmas) images and symbols...and let's not forget Rudolph! All these things start to sprout up right after Thanksgiving, so no matter how early Hanukkah falls, Christmas beats it to the popular culture punch. On top of all this were the obligatory nods to Hanukkah by these same promoters of Christmas Culture, ostensibly to even things out, to make it "okay" to push Christmas: The creepy public service announcements ("To all our Jewish friends, Channel 2 wishes you a Happy Hanukkah"), big hanukkiot in office buildings, and bags of chocolate gelt at the supermarket checkout lines. All pure afterthought, IMHO. In the end, we know Hanukkah isn't as big a deal as Christmas, but we can't seem to just let it go and celebrate our own things in our own time. (How else to explain the glee with which Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song was -- and continutes to be -- received by so many American Jews? It speaks at some level to the tacit Christmas envy so many of us seem to have.)

Clearly Hanukkah can't but be affected by the Christmas juggernaut (a fact driven home to me the first time I lived in Israel, during high school, where the total absence of Hanukkah schlock was, in a way, rather jarring). But it makes me feel kind of cheap in a way, when that line between our holiday and their culture start to blur. Why can't Hanukkah be it's own dog? Why can't we be all right with having a minor holiday at the same time that our non-Jewish friends have a major one? Or, alternatively, why not do like the Jews of Britain do and just celebrate Christmas as a kind of secular/national holiday with tree and all? There's a lot to like about the non-religious aspects Christmas, after all. It's the juxtaposition that irks me -- the aggrandizement of our holiday because of the crasser, commercialized aspects of Christmas. (Christmas, of course, is in itself neither a crass nor a commercial holiday. It's quite lovely, actually, and has nothing whatsoever to do with gift-giving. I can get on board with that part of it.) Which leads to...

The second, and more important, thing is that Hanukkah itself, what the holiday is all about, is, well, kind of troubling. Growing up, it was all about the eight-days-of-oil miracle; the Maccabee's short-lived guerilla warfare victory over Antiochus's forces, on the other hand...well I don't quite remember that part being mentioned too much in Sunday School. But seriously: The foreign Seleucid power comes to the Holy Land, defiles the Temple, and is "defeated" a couple of years later by a popular guerrilla campaign. (Some scholars believe, in fact, that the Selecuid's interposed themselves into a Jewish civil confict over the extent of Hellenization among the Temple priests.) So what's the take-home message here? That a small band of guerrilla fighters can take down a larger, conventionally armed occupying power? That religious zealots should be appeased lest they declare open warfare against more assimilationist elements? That it's a bad idea to deny people their religious freedoms because it leads them to violent acts?

Hmmm.

I thought a lot about Hanukkah, actually in December 2001. While everyone was calling for the invasion of Afghanistan, it seemed kind of ironic that our and the Soviets' intervention over there in the 1970s spurred the creation of a force of religiously-motivated guerrilla fighters that, eventually, expelled them from the country. Of course, when the Mujjahidin do it, it's Bad, "against Islam" and needs to be stopped. When we did it, it was a "miracle" worth celebrating for all time.

But I digress.

The point, I suppose, is that the more I look at Hanukkah, the more I'm not really sure what it is we're celebrating. Yes, I know, we're celebrating "miracles," but let's be honest: We're celebrating a military victory. We're thanking God for a can of whoop-ass we opened up 2,000 years ago. We're thanking God for helping us smite our enemies. (What's interesting, though, is that the Hanukkah story doesn't involve any direct divine intervention. One day of oil burns for eight days, but at least as I read the story, God doesn't stick his finger in the pot to make it happen.) All this is fine, but (a) it kind of goes against the grain of holidays being about "peace and light" or what have you; (b) it certianly mitigates the universalism of the holiday (hard to see, for instance, how the Greeks can get on board with us at this time of year); and (c) it kind of irks me that it gets pushed under the carpet. Dreidles, gelt, menorahs, latkes and presents don't exactly say "Boo-yah Jihad."

So in the spirit of the holiday, I'm going to try to think about some new things this year:

the importance of seeing the dark side of military victories - what one gains today may be lost tomorrow, or may cause the loss of other things tomorrow
how easy it is to underestimate the power of one's enemies
occupying powers walk a thin tightrope between doing what they must to maintain control, and oppressing the population to the extent that they threaten that control
and that it is a miracle that Jews are still around!

Next post: Me and the Christmas Tree...

Torah Tidbits: Parshat Bereishit

2009-12-09T16:22:00.004-05:00

1:29-30 - I always thought God gave all the creatures of the earth to humans from the start, to do with as they wish (subject, of course, to subsequent limitations), but these verses seem to give good ammo to vegetarians: they seem to say, in the Garden of Eden, humans get plants and trees, and the animals get all the green plants, but it doesn't say humans will have any rights vis-a-vis the animals. (I also wonder, what's the difference between plants/trees and "green plants"?)

3:22 - God makes a self-referential, plural statement here. The divine "we" as it were. "And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...'" That's pretty weird. Is there any point to this? Is it interpreted any differently than when God makes singular self-referential statements?

4:13-16 - Okay, Cain kils Abel and is punnished by God, banished from the soil to become a "wanderer." But then this interesting thing happens: Cain complains that he may be killed while wandering, and God responds by marking him and promising that if anyone kills him "vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold..." Huh?!? I get the banishment, and I get Cain's complaint, but it seems to me the way God handles the situation is strange. In the first place, anyone who meets anyone might kill or be killed, right? Instead of God responding to Cain's complaint by saying, so it goes my friend, next time don't kill your brother, God in effect gives Cain special protection. Or is this really meant to prolong Cain's suffering?

4:26 - What could it possibly mean to say that, with the birth of Adam and Eve's grandson Enosh, the son of their third son, Seth, "then began men to call upon the name of the LORD"? (JPS translates this as "It was tehn that men began to invoke the LORD by name.") I understand the momentousness of refering to God by name, but (a) what was so important about the birth of Enosh that it would be the moment to announce this and, perhaps more importantly, (b) why does it say this is when people started to call upon the name of God, when clearly in 4:1, some time before, Eve mentions God's name, saying of the birth of Cain "'I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD"?

5:6-32 - The first of many "begot" littanies. Seth begot Enosh, who begot Kenan, who begot Mahalalel, etc. That's all right. But the ages! Seth was 105 when he had his son, and lived to be 807 years old. And let's not forget Methuselah, who had children into his 8th century, dying at the quite ripe old age of 969 years. I think of these verses every time someone says something about taking the Torah literally. Yes, I know there are some pretty snazzy explanations for this, and they do kind of make sense. My point is that it kind of undermines the notion of taking the Torah literally.

6:4 - Who the heck are the "Nephilim?" and what exactly is it they do? JPS translates this verse as

It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth - when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown

but my other online source translates it instead

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

Huh.

The Chabad's Kehot Chumash has an even weirder, interpelated translation (bold is their translation of the original text; plain text is their "interpretation")

The corrupt princes became known as the "fallen ones," for they both "fell" i.e., were wiped out, and caused others to "fall," i.e., wiped out because of their misdeeds. Although they were not giants like the offspring of the fallen angels, they behaved as if they were, doing whatever they pleased. They were on the earth in those early days, i.e., in the days of Enosh and the initial descendants of Cain, and also later, when the sons of the rulers consorted with the daughters of man and they bore them children.

So which is it? Are these Nephilim angels? Who slept with whom to conceive of whom?!? Jeez. I don't rememebr this verse from Sunday school!

6:8 - How was it, exactly, that Noah "found favor with the LORD"? We're told he is "righteous" and "blameless in his age," but we never learn what, exactly, made him more worthy of saving than any other person in the world. Strange.

A new feature: Torah Tidbits!

2009-12-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Among the other Jewish-blogging projects in the hopper, I've started doing something else that is long overdue: Reading the parshat hashavua, in both English and Hebrew, on a regular basis. The few times in the past I've gotten into the habit of doing this have always been highly illuminating. In particular, I'm always surprised at how the Torah "changes" for me -- bits and pieces that have sunk into my deeper consciousness, things that I always remember, sometimes turn out to be, well, not exactly as I recalled. Some things come out as brand new to me, while others shock, challenge, trouble or provoke. I'm not really sure why the practice never stuck, but in any case, I'm going to stick it now.

I'm using mostly the JPS translation, but for some strange reason, I've also become somewhat enamored of the Kehot Publication Society's Chumash, at least those volumes that have been published. (The interpolated translation is strange, adding lots of additional text that, in my opinion, might or might not be right, but it includes Rashi's commentary in non-Rashi script, which, for me, is so much easier than reading the Rashi script!) I think I'll be purchasing the ArtScroll Tanach in the near future as well.

My plan, at least to start, is to make sure I've read the parshat hashavua so that I can post on the Sunday/Monday immediately after. By "Torah Tidbits" I'm thinking about something specific: Things I read that seem strange, that raise questions for me, that seem remarkable or out of place. In doing so, I certainly invite readers (if any!) to comment or to suggest other resources for me to check out. I'm hoping that, over the long-run, these "tidbits" will serve as a the entrypoints for further thinking, writing and research.

Like Hadag Nahash says, Ma sheba ba, ma sheba sababa...

What's the deal with Tzniut obsession!?!

2009-12-08T14:56:00.000-05:00

Ever since plugging into the J-blogosphere a few months ago, I've noticed a number of recurring themes. One of which is the issue/problem/matter of modesty or tzniut.

(I'm an Ashkenaz Jew, but for some reason, turning the tav into a sav has always annoyed me. Perhaps it's because from the start I learned Hebrew from Israelis, using the modern Israeli pronunciation. Always said prayers with the tav as well. Maybe it's a cultural thing -- it seems like orthodox communities say it sav. So while the blogs I'm reading spell it tznius, I'm sticking with tzniut. My blog, my rules.)
See, for example, this thoughtful post from a couple of weeks ago over at Honestly Frum.

Sometimes I feel gratitude to the orthodox for maintaining a set of practices and a lifestyle that would otherwise be lost. Other times, like when it comes to tzniut, I don't see any difference between fundamentalist Judaism and fundamentalist Islam. The notion that because women are arousing to men, they -- rather than then men -- have to "do" something about it by covering themselves, making themselves less attractive, etc. makes no sense to me. I can understand from a historical perspective why such attitudes existed centures ago, but the fact that they persist at all into the present day is frightening. There's something simultaneously violent and patronizing about it: Violent because it basically says that women are to blame if they arouse men, and patronizing because it seems to take for granted that men have no self-control. Same thing with the mechitza. I get it: When you're trying to pray, having members of the opposite sex around to look at can be distracting. But isn't it an individual's problem if he or she is distracted? Why do women have to be kept out of view because some men can't control themselves?

When I was in college, early on my Freshman year, I got involved with the Jewish Students Association (JSA). Much of the JSA, it turned out, was made up of East Coasters, Ramazniks and the like. I remember distinctly one of the first times I went to Shabbat services: A big mechitza divided the room...but the Rabbi, an orthodox one, stood squarely in front of the men's side as he gave his d'var. Basically, unless you were sitting in the front row, no one on the women's side could even see him. Afterwards, I expressed my dismay at the situation, only to be told that it would offend a lot of people (including the Rabbi) were he to have done otherwise. Nice, eh? So in spite of the fact that nothing in halacha says a Rabbi can't look at unmarried females while he gives a d'var, and regardless of the point that I myself was offended at the blatant display of 'separate but not equal' tzniut, that's the way it was going to be. Period. I didn't last long in the JSA with attitudes like that.

Mitzvah of the Week

2009-12-07T16:16:00.001-05:00

Ah yes, mitzvot.

One of my plans for this blog -- something I have had in the back (and front) of my mind to do for quite some time -- is to take a long, hard look at the "taryag mitzvot": the 613 commandments that constitute the corpus of a Jew's obligation to God.

(Having recently read some of BZ's posts on this subject over at Mah Rabu -- such as this one -- I'm aware that there are potential "framing" issues attendant to my formulation of the subject, in particular, the notion that there is some agreed-upon, bounded set of mitzvot and that their meaning, modes of implementation, etc. are unchanging and uncontested. At least for right now, my intention is to keep these things in mind as I proceed with my own explorations. I plan to take up BZ's framing arguments more generally in a later post.)

Why?

As a Reform Jew, my relationship to mitzvot has always been problematic.

In the first place, RJs just don't study them. This makes a certain amount of sense: We have enough on our plate keeping up with the mitzvot that are perceived as relevant and worthy of observing, much less those that on their face have little or no relevance to the kinds of lives we lead. So the emphasis on education is to "focus on the positives" -- those things RJs as a whole either do or might possibly do -- rather than "to know the laws." I kind of blame my Jewish educators for this one.

Of course, blaming one's teachers is a pretty sorry reason for not knowing the laws (forget following them or not). Until relatively recently, actually, within the last year, I had never even read a list of the 613. There were some real surprises for me there...but I get ahead of myself.

The problematic aspect of the mitzvot for me has been that "mitzvas" are not "good deeds" -- they're not meant to me things that make one feel good, or things that any decent person should do. They're ostensibly commandments or obligations -- expressions of God's will. Kind of heavy, and no wonder RJs tend not to dwell on them. To understand and appreciate that mitzvot are not just "principles to live by" but actually commandments from God...well, that makes them a different animal entirely. Ah, but then one starts to see what's involved in the observance of mitzvot, and things get murky. Some of them I think are plain wrong. Others may not be "right" or "wrong," but their observance doesn't speak to me in any meaningful way. Yet others make sense, but are so alien to the way I have lived my life, that I can't imagine observing them in any consistent way. And then there are the mitzvot that, when you start to look at them closely, make no sense at all. Well, they make sense, but when I go back to their textual bases -- where does a particular mitzvah "come from" -- they don't seem to be supported by the underlying words.

But, in the end, none of these are reasons not to know.

It's particularly troubling to me that the Reform movement's stand on mitzvot is so at odds with what seems to be the practice of RJs. "A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism" adopted by the CCAR in Pittsburgh in 1999 reads, in part

We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of [mitzvot] and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these [mitzvot], sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times.

Now to be fair, I was "born and bred" as a Reform Jew prior to 1999, but I have to wonder out loud to what extent the commitment referred to here has actually been manifested, in study and action, in the collective behavior of Reform Jews. If it has, I've certainly seen little evidence of it.

So...

I'm going to undertake a project I've long delayed, with the understanding that I have no idea where it will lead, what I will discover, or what it all means anyway: I'm going to examine and, where applicable, observe all of the 613 mitzvot...one by one. I'll read up as much as I can, including reading Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot as a kind of companion guide (yes, I know he's not the first and last word on mitzvot, but I'll be reading other sources too). I'll blog about my experiences here, warts and all. To be sure, I'll probably end up grouping some of them together -- I can't imagine devoting weeks and weeks to the incest probibitions, for example. And for obvious reasons I'll have to skip around here and there, particularly with the holiday-related ones. Others may need more than one week -- Shabbat-related mitzvot are kind of big ones and should probably get more time, both in terms of studying them and observing them. You get the idea. Overall, by trying to stick to one a week, it will give me the opportunity to do my best to really observe it -- to focus on a single thing (or set of things) without being distracted.

I fear that I don't know enough to do this right. I fear that if I don't do this, I never will. I hope that I will be challenged, enlightened and wizened by doing it. And, perhaps most of all, I hope that if anyone out there ever bothers to read any of this, that I will hear other people's thoughts, suggestions, etc. If I could find a good RJ chevrusa to do this, I would, but most would find this a little crazy.

Wow. It's out there now. Let's see what happens...

Lo Bashamayyim He... But then what?

2009-12-04T16:30:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading a fascinating post by XGH over at Modern Orthprax & Heterodox, asking what it means to say that Torah isn't the directly-dictated word of God (i.e., "Torah mi Sinai" or "TMS"). My comment is here.

I know it's naive of me to say/ask, but this question -- what is the meaning and purpose of the mitzvot and of Jewish practices and rituals more generally -- has bugged me for as many years as I can remember thinking about Judaism. In some sense this is surprising: Being a born and bred RJ, this just isn't a question that gets asked too much. Of course the Torah is a human-authored work. Of course God didn't tell us do these things, don't do these things, etc. Of course the main question should be what has meaning to me rather than what does God want me to do.

But where does this leave us?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going frum; for many reasons I'm perfectly happy to identify myself as a RJ. For reals. And yet...the more I look at certain things, the more unsatisfied I get. It's not something that more observance or becoming a BT would help. There's just too much Jewish stuff I can't agree with or be a part of no matter what explanations are given. The dissatisfaction stems from following the logic: Choice is important to me in terms of what I observe and what I don't observe; but once I start picking and choosing, why this and not that? What if we all pick and choose this and not that? Then what becomes the basis of what we are? If, at the bottom, mitzvot are just socio-cultural artifacts, then it really doesn't matter which I do and which I don't. But then what does it mean to be a Jew?

This is the flip-side of the lo bashamayyim he story, at least as I understand it: God says, in effect, I have given the Torah to human beings, and now I'm out of the interpretation business -- it's up to them. Therefore, while Torah may no longer be in the heavens, it certainly came from the heavens. But I can't believe this in any literal sense. It didn't come from the heavens; it was written by (divinely?) inspired human beings trying to make sense of their place in the world. The problem is that it's not really honest for me to accept lo bashamayyim he when I don't accept min hashamayyim ba, right?

What's in The Name?

2009-12-02T16:55:00.000-05:00

When my wife -- my girlfriend at the time -- and I were involved in the 92nd Street Y's Derekh Torah class, a 30-week class designed for (mostly) interfaith couples to explore Judaism together, one week the Rabbi teaching the class gave us a list of names by which, well, You-Know-Who, is referred to in the Torah, in speech, and elsewhere. The list was long, a lot longer than I would have guessed, and the discussion we had was really spirited. Different names spoke to different people for different reasons. (My favorite was HaMakom.)

Having spent the last several weeks perusing the Jewish blogosphere, though, I'm a bit unsure as to how I should handle "The Name." I don't want to offend, but I don't want to violate my own beliefs either. It seems to me that You-Know-Who is almost always mentioned by certain names but not others. HaShem comes to mind. Frankly, I dislike using the term. I understand some of the reasons why it's used, but it seems silly. Not as silly as using the ridiculous locution G-dash-d, but pretty close. I understand the point point of respecting The Name, in the sense that names and reputation are connected. But in a very fundamental sense, the name is not the thing, and particularly so in the case of You-Know-Who. We may be created in You-Know-Who's image, but as I understand it, HaShem (!) is entirely beyond our ability to comprehend much less describe. So why the fetish with the words? Especially given all the different names that are used in various sources, what's the point?

It seems to me that not using the G-word, A-word, or the Whatever Words One Isn't Supposed to Use is simply a way to distinguish or differentiate one's self from the less religious.

I have a couple of friends who are becoming more religious. One is kind of BT, the other not so much, but still, he's becoming more observant. Both of them recently started saying HaShem all the time in place of the G-word. For some reason I find this highly annoying. God is God is Adonai, is YHVH...what's the difference? In Islam, Allah is Allah. Sure, there are 99 other words used sometimes to refer to Allah, but the word itself -- Allah -- means God. Everywhere you go, it's al-hamdu lillah -- All praise to God! No batting around the bush.

Relatedly, the folks at jewfaq.org say that the prohibition against writing God's name is because it might accidentally get defaced. To wit,

The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut. 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.

It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a Name of God on web sites like this one or in newsgroup messages: because there is a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.

This is pure silliness if you ask me. The Torah tells us that things relating to other gods should be destroyed because they are idolatrous, and then the Rabbis turn around and constitute the name of God as an idol -- as a thing that can't be mistreated, mis-said, thrown away or so on. Devarim 12:4-5 -- the following verses -- say "Do not worship the LORD your God in like manner, but look only to the site that the LORD your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitaiton, to establish his name there. There you are to go..."

What does any of this have to do with not saying God's name?!?