Shabbat Nakhamu: let hatred give way to kindness

This Shabbat bears two names, one for the parashat hashavua, the “parsha of the week”, and one which reflects the fact that we have just passed Tisha B’Av, the “9th of Av”, the day on which we reach our lowest, saddest point as a people and a nation. On Tisha B’Av the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed and we went into exile, stateless, homeless refugees. This happened not once but twice, both times during the hot summer days which are so harsh in the Middle East.

The first time that the Temple was destroyed, and our people were led into slavery and a fifty-year exile, was at the hands of the Babylonians, in 586 BCE. The Rabbis state in the Talmud that the first Temple was destroyed because Israelite society was guilty of idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed. In other words, cynicism and hypocrisy, disrespect for one’s body and that of others, and callous disregard for life were the conditions our ancestors contributed to or stood by and witnessed. The destruction of the first Temple was understood after the fact (and by the prophets way before) as a direct result of the corrosion of Israelite society’s ethics and behavior.

The second time that the Temple was destroyed, and our people were led into slavery and a two thousand year exile, was at the hands of the Romans, in 70 CE. The Rabbis ask in the Talmud, why did this happen? Our people was not idolatrous, nor sexually immoral, nor wantonly violent. The answer is that our ancestors of the Roman period, we are told, were guilty of baseless hatred. For no real reason, our ancestors assumed the worst of each other’s actions and words and responded with hate. The destruction of the second Temple was understood to be the end result of baseless hatred. Therefore, our Jewish tradition teaches that baseless hatred as as destructive as idolatry, sexual immorality, and callous bloodshed together.

Baseless hatred – sin’at hinam in Hebrew – is a judgmental anger that finds fault and assumes the worst of others, without any justification at all. It is the result of the sin of not giving the other the benefit of the doubt. It is a sin that is doubled by the sin that follows, of treating the person we’ve judged unkindly, instead of respecting as we wish to be ourselves respected. We are warned that, even as a mitzvah will often lead us to another mitzvah, an averah often leads directly to another averah. Once they pile up, it is difficult to dig oneself out. On the bright side, the world will one day be healed of the horrors we inflict upon each other, when we stop reacting as children to what life brings us, and instead consider, as adults, not only how we feel, but what we’ve learned.

On this Shabbat Nakhamu, the first Shabbat after the mourning over destruction on Tisha B’Av, the rituals of our tradition encourage us to lift up our hearts from sadness and be willing to be consoled. The Rabbis who, two thousand years ago, set this meaning for this Shabbat, had lived through total catastrophe. Everything was destroyed – yet they insisted that we refrain from despair. On this Shabbat Nakhamu, as the rockets fly again and peace is nowhere in sight, we who are experiencing something much less total, have all the more reason to pull ourselves and our morale together and hope. More, in good Jewish fashion, let us see the task of making Shabbat Nakhamu a real and complete consolation in the future. May we live to see many more of them, and may we strengthen each other to work for a time where no baseless hatred remains to corrode our vision of what might yet be. The most difficult work, of course, is within ourselves: if each of us tries never to give in to thoughts of intolerance and hatred, the small ripples of our influence will have an impact on all those with whom we interact.

Let that work begin for you today, with three small acts of Torah, Avodah, and G’milut Hasadim: learn something, meditate upon it, and let it lead you to a random act of kindness. Let that be your small observance of the true meaning, and hope, of Shabbat Nakhamu.

Tisha B’Av 5774: May Our Mourning Soon Turn to Celebration

Today, the 9th day of Av, is one of intense mourning. For two thousand years the People of Israel has mourned the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple on this day. In 586 BCE Solomon’s Temple, paneled with cedar from Lebanon, was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire’s army; in 70 CE the Second Temple, begun by those who returned from Babylonian Exile and renovated by Herod of Rome to great beauty, was razed by the army of Rome.

The full horrors of siege and massacre were recorded in the Book Eikha (“Lamentations”), traditionally attribute to the Prophet Jeremiah. Ever since, we read from that book on this day and cry; we recite laments written in fantastically artful rhyming acrostics, two, three, and four times repeating each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. Some of the kinot are anonymous; some of the most beautiful are attributed to the poet Eliezer ben Kalir (7th century). The words within each beautifully written kinah (“lament”) describe the horrifying details of suffering and death – all the more awful in that stark contrast.

The kinot give voice to a despair that, though it may change its specific circumstances, remains tragically the same in all human experience: How can our lives have become so wretched that some seek to kill others? How has the Garden of this beautiful world into which we are born, a beautiful gift that we did nothing to deserve, how have we turned it into such a radioactive dump?

The classic Jewish response is this: for our sins we were exiled from our land. The responsibility for our exile from happiness, from peace, from safety, from delight, is the work of our own human hands. I do not mean to say simplistically that an individual deserves what happens to her; rather, to recognize that none of us is an individual in that radical way. Our acts are dependent upon, and affect, each other, not only in our own day but throughout time.

Take one example from political science: After World War I, a supremely confident victorious group of allies divided up the spoils, just as victors always have. In this case, the spoils were the Ottoman Empire, and the victors were the colonial powers of Europe. The victorious imposed arbitrary “states” and “nations” upon the vanquished, and in so doing created the conditions for great suffering among those whose lives and identities were peremptorily reassigned. Much of the unhappiness in the Middle East today is more easily understood simply by recalling those days, and the Islamic State newly self-styled (and appearing in the areas of Syria and Iraq, tellingly ignoring those Western-drawn state borders) declares itself a direct reaction against that time.

What each of us does, affects us all. In Jewish tradition we recognize this reality through the Talmudic teaching What is the best practice to which a person should adhere? Always consider what is being born. (Pirke Avot 2.12)

Jewish tradition is optimistic; since human beings are created in G-d’s image, we are capable of creativity, love, and beauty – not just the horrors we tend to inflict upon each other. Thus, on this day of Tisha B’Av 5774, when there is much about which to despair, let us consider our power to work for good even in the midst of darkness. If we are in exile because of our sins, it is an ethical exile, not geographical, and we cannot return from it physically or mentally but only morally. We are capable of this return, but only after we come to terms with our acts, and seek healing from them for ourselves and for those we have injured.

The most optimistic teaching of all is that one day, Tisha B’Av will become a day not of our greatest mourning, but of our greatest celebration. On that day we will look back at all our former struggling, and our unkindness towards each other, and then we will laugh it away, and sing our sorrows into delight.

If you have a hard time fighting off despair, you are not alone. But there are those who wrestle a blessing even from the current darkness that seems to surround us. This link shows you a short video of people helping people, in the midst of the destruction. They might be Israelites or they might be Babylonians; they might be Israelis or they might be Arabs. What matters is that they are choosing life in the midst of death.

 http://youtu.be/g_1Mv7F9pyc

…May the day that turns our mourning into song come soon – it cannot come soon enough

Because for now, we find ourselves situated within the difficult and sad work of coming to terms with what we, the people of Israel, and what we, human beings on this earth, have wrought. May this Tisha B’Av be one of fasting from denial, fasting from hate, and fasting from despair.

Here are a few excerpts from the kinot. May these songs of sorrow turn soon to their opposite, and may we all see the day of joy on the other side of this darkness.

Oh how they have cast down my glory from my head when they set up an idol opposite G-d’s Throne, when they profaned the conditions the prophets had counselled, saying “If you walk in My statutes”….G-d has cut down the cornerstone of the city which was full of righteousness, for in her chamber of imagery He found every kind of impurity.

How lonely sits the rose of Sharon! Song is muted on the lips of the Levites, and the priests, the offspring of Aaron, were moved away from their watch-stations when the Temple was delivered into the hands of those who rebel against G-d.

The five-fold Torah cried bitterly when the priest and prophet was slain on the Day of Atonement, and over his blood the young priests were slaughtered like young goats, and the priests of Tzippori scattered like birds in flight.

On account of the iniquity of tithes and the sabbatical year, Israel, the bedecked bride, was exiled from her land.

When I think how the tongue of the suckling child could cleave to his palate through parching thirst, oh woe!

When I think how the daughters were swollen from starvation in their mothers’ laps, oh woe!

When I think how women were burdened with miscarrying wombs and dried-up breasts, oh woe!

When I think how the mother weeps over her children that are sinking toward death, oh woe!

When I think how the young warriors dropped in the desert of Arabia, oh woe!

When I think how in exhaustion the exiles diminished from a thousand to ten, and ten to one, oh woe!

When I think how their breath became flame from thirst, and were given empty skins of water, oh woe!

When I think how nine kavs of children’s brains were piled up on one rock, oh woe!

When I think how three hundred babies were impaled on a single lance, oh woe!

When I think how the young men and women fainted through parching thirst, oh woe!

Palestinian children from border crossings to Israeli hospitals and back. It was shot during the first week of Tzuk Eitan (the current conflict w Gaza) and it features my cousin Yuval, the founder of Road to Recovery.

 http://youtu.be/g_1Mv7F9pyc

.A bit of sanity for us all, please share with the world…

Shabbat Hazon: A Vision To Hold On To

This week we begin to read the final book of the Torah, called devarim, “words”. The entire book consists of Moshe’s parting words.

The Israelites will soon cross the Jordan River, under the leadership of Joshua. Before the crossing, a moment of reflection: Moshe is reminding the Israelites of where they came from, and how far they have come. Over and over he will urge us, remember your ancestors, and what they did; remember your forebears, and what they taught.

As we face the challenges of our lives, it may help to consider that, whatever we are facing, there is a good possibility that either we have been in a similar situation before, or that our friends, our colleagues, even – yikes – our parents, may have, and may have the wisdom of experience to share. None of us need ever be alone in a stressful situation.  As Jews, we are told this over and over again: you are part of a community that remembers, that seeks to learn from experience, and that holds before it an ideal against which we measure ourselves, our experiences, and our beliefs.

Our starting point is the belief that life is a gift, and that it is not enough to be grateful. We have a responsibility as receivers of the gift of life, to respond out of that gratitude, and ask what is my obligation? what do I owe to Life, having been given life? The answer, of course, is to become the best life-form we can be: to be open always to learning, to pray and meditate upon that which is learned, and to practice loving kindness at all times.

It is easy to understand a teaching when one agrees with it; it is easy to pray and meditate when one is serene; it is easy to do kindness to those we like or feel sorry for. But our obligation to uphold our ethics is no less when it’s difficult – rather, that’s where we find out what we really believe, and what we really worship. It is in the face of anger, frustration, stress, and fear that we discover what we’re really made of.

On this Shabbat we are challenged by a special haftarah to consider how we are doing. This special Shabbat is called Shabbat Hazon – the “Shabbat of vision”. The vision is that of the Prophet Isaiah, whose words supply our haftarah for this Shabbat. On this Shabbat, consider his words as they echo in your life and the life of our People:

21 How is the faithful city become a harlot! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her once. 

22 Your silver is become dross, your wine mixed with water. 

23 Your leaders are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loves bribes, and follow after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

24 Therefore says our G-d, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge Me of Mine enemies; 

25 And I will turn My hand upon you, and purge away your dross as with lye, and will take away all your alloy; 

26 And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counsellors as at the beginning; afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. 

27 Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and they that return of her with righteousness. 

Evil, whether done by us or by others, will not endure, if we are committed to its end. This is the vision that we are called upon to believe in and to make real through our words and our acts. On this Shabbat, consider your own power to create a more just world in every small act, in every situation, and that real justice will only come from finding within ourselves a willingness to learn also from those whom we don’t like, to pray and to meditate upon our acts and our attitudes when we are not serene, and to practice kindness with those from whom we recoil. Such behavior can only come from constantly reminding ourselves, in the moment before crossing from a word to an act, to consider G-d’s command to us to, at all times, to

do justice

love mercy

and walk humbly with G-d. (Micah 6.8)

Shabbat Masei: Ethical Cleansing

The parashah for this week offers a challenge to our interpretive skills and to our honesty. As we confront the first verses read in this second year of the Triennial Cycle, we read clear words which are incredibly problematic for anyone who holds up both the ideals of progressive, liberal ethics and our people’s understanding of the teachings of Judaism.

50 And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying: 

51 ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 

52 then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. 

53 And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it. 

54 And ye shall inherit the land by lot according to your families–to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less inheritance; wheresoever the lot falleth to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall ye inherit. 

55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein ye dwell. 

56 And it shall come to pass, that as I thought to do unto them, so will I do unto you.

There’s a problem here. This sounds like ethnic cleansing. The command G-d gives Moshe here seems to support the settlement movement in Israel in the violence they are known to perpetrate against the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank. Further, the last verse feels like some kind of nightmare coming true in these very days.

This does sound like ethnic cleansing. It is exactly the kind of violence practiced against our own people when the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and others invaded our homes, destroyed our Temple and our villages, and carried off most of us into slavery. There are at least two possible responses:

Remember the recent New Yorker cartoon of one man telling another laboring over a parchment scroll, “don’t worry about your attributions. It’s not like anyone is going to take this stuff literally”? A liberal modern Jew starts by asserting that the Torah is not timeless; it is, rather, a record of the struggle of the Jews to understand G-d’s word over many generations. We continue to learn, and we continue to assert that our understanding, as it becomes more compassionate and more respectful of the earth and all upon it, is a fuller expression of the same Voice that our ancestors strained to hear. This is true of many issues that were once problematic: marriage equality, women’s equality, and more.

The Jewish interpretive approach insists upon an evolving revelation; Jews do not read Torah alone. We read with the insights of Rashi, of Maimonides, of Midrash and of modern scholars, to name just a few influences upon our learning. One of the insights of the early modern period in Jewish study is in this suggestion: the words of Torah, if they are true, may be true in a way that you just weren’t expecting. Try turning them around to face yourself rather than someone else. There is a long-held belief in Jewish tradition that anyone who occupies the land in an unethical way will be swept off of it, for the Land itself is meant to be holy.

We are in the middle of a three-week period of introspection and reflection as a people: what are our deeds? where will they lead us? Is it possible that we are more like the ancient Canaanites, with their false gods and unethical behavior, than like the People of Israel that are meant to exist in thoughtful Covenant with the G-d who took us out of Egypt?

Torah maintains its status as an endless source of guidance, of insight and of knowledge, even as we struggle to understand what it is saying to us. The Land is holy, according to Torah; in our evolving understanding of G-d’s word, especially in these seven verses, all depends upon our ability to come to know that all land is holy, and that false gods are those who cause violence, against the earth and against each other. What is needed is not ethnic cleansing, but ethical cleansing. May we hear the Voice that calls us to our higher selves before it is too late.

Shabbat Pinhas: Peace in the Midst of Violence?

This week’s parashah is startlingly appropriate to our current situation. We are all aghast at the violence that has broken out in Israel – although the fact that Israel remained relatively quiet as the region seethed struck many as a miracle that could not last – and our hearts are broken for the suffering and death, not only in Israel but in Gaza, Syria, Iraq and throughout.

When I work with those who consider converting to Judaism, I always remind them that Judaism includes a people and a land. For some of us, Israel is a distant and difficult reality which feels far from any sense of the Jewish ethical life we strive to live. But life is complicated, and to be a Jew is to be connected to Israel, for better and for worse.

How to approach this difficulty? This week two of my colleagues in Israel shed light for us by offering learning. Please join me in considering their words carefully.

We need to be very careful about how we, as Jews, might learn, and consider, and thoughtfully to react to this difficult challenge. We are Jews, we have a significant relationship as American Jews to the Land of Israel, and we have the right and the responsibility to own it and to act within it according to our ethical sense – but knowledgeably, and carefully, and compassionately toward all. That, after all, is who we want to be, and the challenge is to remain reliably ourselves even as we meet the challenges of our lives.

Light is seen only in contrast to darkness, and according to our creation story light comes from darkness (darkness precedes it). Perhaps peace can only come from violence. If this be true, let us learn what we have to learn from it, and bring peace.

The following messages are reposted in their entirety:

This war hurts all of us who are caught in the crossfire and our hearts go out to the innocent people on both sides who are suffering.  

The ability to balance passiveness and action is the theme of this week’s parashah. As an Israelite and a Midianite flagrantly sin in front of all of Israel, and law and order break down, one man–Pinhas–acts decisively, killing them both.

The complexity of the moral issues is not wasted on the rabbis. They refer to a biblical verse which implies the language of justice in the heavenly court:

Then Pinchas stood up and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed. This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come. (Psalms 106:30)

According to the rabbis, the angels wish to condemn Pinchas, but he defends his violent response, on the basis that 24,000 people had already died; it was necessary for him to act boldly in order to prevent more deaths. While vindicating Pinchas’s zealoutry, God rewards him with a Covenant of Peace. (Sanhedrin 82b) He was right to take action in the moment, but ultimately, he must pursue peace.

We share the vision of the angels; a world which is filled with peace and tranquility. This is the messianic ideal that: “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

Sometimes, it is necessary for nations to respond with force. Israel, like all sovereign nations, has the right to defend itself from targeted attacks on its civilians—a basic violation of human rights. Even in this violent moment, though, we need to keep asking and searching for a path to bring about a brit shalom—a covenant of peace.

Rabbi Gideon D. Sylvester, Senior Rabbinic Educator in Israel  (www.truah.org)

Shalom Friends,

I hope that you are all well. Here in Israel it is one of those periods in which the news is happening so quickly that it seems impossible to keep up. We are now under rocket attack by Hamas terrorists from Gaza and pray that the IDF will win a decisive victory over them with minimal casualties on our side so that we can resume “normal life” (which of course doesn’t exactly exist here). During the shiva for our three murdered boys we were also shocked to the core to discover that the vicious murderers of the Arab boy from East Jerusalem were in fact Jewish. In certain ways this was more shattering than the murder of our own boys. When I discussed this horrific profanation of God’s Name with the Komarner Rebbe shlit”a he quoted Golda Meir that “we can forgive the Arabs for killing us but not for forcing us to kill”. In light of this I want to share three pertinent sources with brief translations.  I think they speak for themselves. May we be blessed to sanctify God’s Name in our daily lives and with true peace.

Shabbat Shalom, Rav Zvi Leshem

תנא דבי אליהו רבא פ’ כח

ולא נתנה התורה אלא על מנת לקדש שמו הגדול. מכאן אמרו ירחיק אדם את עצמו מן הגזל בין מן הישראל בין מן העכו”ם ולא עוד אלא משום שכל הגונב מן העכו”ם לסוף הוא גונב מן הישראל ואם הוא נשבע לעכו”ם לסוף הוא נשבע לישראל ואם הוא מכחש לעכו”ם לסוף הוא מכחש לישראל ואם הוא שופך דמים לעכו”ם לסוף הוא שופך דמים לישראל ולא נתנה התורה אלא לקדש שמו הגדול שנאמר (ישעיה סו) ושמתי בהם אות ושלחתי מהם פליטים מהו אומר בסוף הענין והגידו את כבודי בגוים.

Tania d’be Eliyahu Raba 28: The Torah was given to sanctify God’s Name…one who sheds the blood of a gentile will in the end shed the blood of Jews. The Torah was only give to sanctify God’s Name…so that My [God’s] Name will be honored among the Gentiles.

רמב”ם תשובה א:ד

במה דברים אמורים בשלא חילל את השם בשעה שעבר אבל המחלל את השם אע”פ שעשה תשובה והגיע יום הכפורים והוא עומד בתשובתו ובאו עליו יסורין אינו מתכפר לו כפרה גמורה עד שימות אלא תשובה יום הכפורים ויסורין שלשתן תולין ומיתה מכפרת שנאמר ונגלה באזני ה’ צבאות וגו’ אם יכופר העון הזה לכם עד תמותון:

Rambam Hilchot Teshuva 1:4: One who profanes God’s Name, even though he repented and Yom Kippur comes and he is still repentant and has suffered, he does not achieve full atonement until he dies.

משך חכמה משפטים ד”ה ויתכן

ויתכן משום דישראל שהרג בן נח איכא מלבד חטא הרציחה עוד עון דחילול השם ית’ וכמו שהפליגו בירושלמי אלו מציאות (ה”ה) ניחא ליה לשמוע בריך אלדדון דיהודאי מן כל אגר עלמא, כ”ש ברציחת גופו החלול השם, ובזה אמרו (יומא פו) אין יוהכ”פ ותשובה ויסורים כו’ רק מיתה ממרקת כו’ אם יכופר לכם העון עד תמותון, נמצא דיש עונש מיתה על חילול השם ואיך יכופר לו ע”י מיתה חטא הרציחה ועל כרחין דינו מסור לשמים ודו”ק.

Meshech Chochmah Mishpatim s.v. Vayitachen: When a Jew kills a gentile, there is, in addition to the sin of murder also the sin of profaning God’s Name…and for this there is a [Divine] death penalty.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem – and may we work for the peace of all the world because the peace of Jerusalem is not separate but central to it.

Shabbat Balak: Truth Also Comes From Darkness

This week’s parashat hashavua finds us in the Book of Numbers (BaMidbar, “in the wilderness”, is its Hebrew name) in chapter 23. We are offered a curious perspective in this parashah. There are a few places in the Torah in which a non-Israelites teaches the Israelites, but this is the only place in which an enemy of Israel offers a truth about Israel both to Israel and to its detractors.

The truth-teller is Balaam, a prophet-for-hire (not all prophets are Israelites). The enemy is Balak, King of Moab. He imports Balaam to his kingdom and brings him to the front lines of his territory to curse Israel for him. Keep in mind that an curse in that day was believed to be like a well-placed land mine today, protecting your land from all incursion.

But Balaam, having prepared himself to receive the word of G-d and to exclaim it from a high hill overlooking the Israelite camp, opens his mouth and not a curse but a blessing comes out.

How shall I curse, whom God has not cursed? And how shall I execrate, whom ה has not execrated? (Numbers 23.8)

Balaam tells the truth to the powerful politician who has hired him; the King of Moab is exasperated but respects, in the final analysis, that Balaam, as a prophet, “can only say what G-d puts in [my] mouth”. (Num. 23.12)

He had everything to gain by lying, but Balaam was professionally obligated to speak the truth as he saw it. Balak is going to have to figure out another way to protect his kingdom from the enemy he perceives on his borders.

We have no indication that Balak thought twice about it, that perhaps Balaam’s words might lead to the insight that Israel was not necessarily an enemy. One the blood is up and running, it is very hard for a human being to hear that our perception of an enemy is wrong. Yet it might very well be wrong.

Our tradition warns us to always hold the other in the כף זכות – khaf zekhut, meaning to give everyone the benefit of the doubt (Pirke Avot 1.6). This literally means that we are to assume that there is merit, or at least understandable motive, in all those others we encounter, in person or through the hearsay of gossip or media. It is very difficult to do that when we already know who our enemies are.  But after all, so did Balak; he knew that we were his enemy. Even after Balaam told him three times in this parashah that Israel was a blessing to him, he kept looking for the curses.

On this Shabbat, don’t assume you know the enemies that threaten your life. Rather, look for the hidden blessings that might lurk even in the place where you expect only curses. As it is noted in the teachings of the Sages, it is only within darkness, after all, that we are able to see light. And in that light, held up by or upon someone you thought was an enemy, you might see something that will bless your life.

Shabbat Hukkat: Where Anger Will Get You

This week we read beginning from Numbers 20 verse 7, in parashat Hukkat, as we continue in this second year of our Triennial Cycle to start not at the beginning of each parashah, but at the beginning of the middle third of it. We begin with a simple story, nothing out of the ordinary: the Israelites are complaining and G-d commands Moshe to act in response to the complaint. (One thing worth noting about our ancestors’ concept of G-d: complaints did not fall on deaf Divine ears.)

The people complain that there is no water. In the second verse of this year’s reading of Hukkat, G-d commands: Take your rod, assemble the congregation with Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock in front of their eyes; tell the rock to bring forth water, so that the people and their flocks may drink.” (Numbers 20.8)

If only it were that easy. Moshe assembles the people, but then, instead of speaking to the rock, he hits it, hard, twice. Water comes pouring out, and everyone slakes their thirst, flocks and herds too. That’s good, but the fact that Moshe hit the rock when he was supposed to merely speak to it is counted as a grave sin against G-d, so grave that it is for this disobedience that Moshe is informed that he will not enter the Promised Land.

Most commentaries on this reading spend a great deal of energy responding to the absolutely appropriate question we all have at this moment: for this Moshe is not allowed in? Some comments point to the higher standard a leader is held to; others suppose that this is emblematic of a larger leadership problem. My favorite suggestion is that G-d is desperately searching for any pretext at all to save Moshe, G-d’s friend, from the disappointment of what life will really be like in the Land when they reach it. (No reality is as good as the promise of it, after all.)

But there is another way to understand this reading and what was so terribly wrong with Moshe’s response, and that is the anger with which he speaks to the Israelites, and strikes the rock. Anger is one of the most destructive forces in our world; even when it is justifiable, one must be as careful with it as with fire, or any potentially destructive force. The sages of the Talmud rule that one may not discipline one’s child when one is angry, since anger causes irrational behavior and whatever we’re doing at that moment is not for the child’s good, but only to express the anger. (Talmud Mo’ed Katan 17a). Anger is defined as idolatry by Maimonides; he sees anger as the result of the disruption of our illusion of control.  (Maimonides Laws of Behavior 2:2). Only G-d has control, so what are you upset about?

One might forgive Moshe for forgetting that he was not G-d occasionally, since the Israelites sometimes treated him as if he really was G-d. Go back to their complaint just before creating the Golden Calf for an example. There, the people say make us a god who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. (Exodus 32.1) Yet Moshe Rabbenu, “Moses our Teacher”, was all too human. We have enough proof of it: from murdering an overseer through this week’s evidence, Moshe was not always entirely in control of his emotions. Even Moshe.

What happened on that day, with that rock, was all too sadly, humanly ordinary. Human beings lose our temper, and cause damage to animate and inanimate things around us. Worse is what happens when human beings with power over others become angry, because in our anger, those of us who control others’ lives – our children, our employees, and in some cases whole communities and nations – do terrible things which cannot be undone.

It is not only Moshe who couldn’t enter the Land he longed for because of his anger. We distance ourselves from that land – of peace, of serenity, of safety –  with each harsh, careless word and act. As it was said in a powerful phrase in an old siddur:  we continue to wander the wilderness for our sins, which are confessed in the daily papers. Anger, it is said in our tradition, is the most dangerous of emotions. While we cannot do without its energy, it is a power that must be wisely harnessed, and always feared.

From the perspective of Jewish mysticism, every act echoes in every other act. There is no such thing as looking on aghast and unconnected; all our acts, small and quotidian or nation-altering, echo throughout the world. Let that make us cautious; let that make us hopeful. And most of all, let that make us count to ten before we act, that it be not in anger but in kindness.

Shabbat BeHa’alot’kha: G-d is my GPS

In this third parashah of the Book BaMidbar, we are finally on the move; after over a year camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai, after receiving the Torah, constructing the Mishkan, organizing the priestly sacrificial system, and learning a lot of halakhah on how to maintain the appropriate atmosphere for the Mishkan in our midst, this week we read of the Israelites actually picking up and starting out on their way to the Land promised in our Covenant. BaMidbar means “in the wilderness”, and this book describes the preponderance of our ancestors’ adventures as they journey through it.

Imagine yourself in their place on the first morning that they began to move, with their families, their herds, and their flocks. If you have never explored the Sinai wilderness, here is an indication of what surrounds you: Sinai. You may have many questions about the trip (imagine the young children: “when will we get there?”), about oases, grazing land, and more, but first: in what direction are you to go? How do you stay oriented? How to know which caravan path will lead you the correct way?

You’d activate your GPS of course; no worries. The ancient Israelites did not have GPS, but they had something even more certain: the Presence of G-d, manifested as “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night”.

Whenever the cloud was taken up from over the Tent, then after that the children of Israel journeyed; and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel encamped  (Numbers 9.17)

That was it: when the cloud moved, follow it. When it rested, set up the tents and make camp. The next thirty-nine years are to pass in this way. There is evidence in the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures) that, throughout the ages of Israelite dwelling in the Land of Israel, our ancestors somehow longed for this earlier time, which they saw as, simple, pure, and ideal. The Prophet Jeremiah expressed the feeling with the marriage metaphor commonly used for our Covenant with G-d?

I remember for you the affection of your youth, the love of our engagement; how you followed after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. (Jeremiah 2.2)

 All human beings, at some point in our lives, long for such certainty; we would all love to know exactly how to make our way through the world. It’s not wonder that our ancestors looked back at that time as an ideal – although in the weeks ahead we will read of many disruptions to the harmony that they preferred to remember.

The word bamidbar, “in the wilderness”, may be interpreted in a way that speaks directly to us, we who also wander, not perhaps geographically, but in other ways just as profound. With different vowels, the word may be understood as referring to speech – to words. And this is the wilderness in which we often find ourselves seeking clarity of direction: in a wilderness of words, of spoken, written, radioed, emailed, texted, printed….transmitted in so many ways, how are we to find our way through it all? When we are barraged by information about a candidate or a cause, for example, how do we discern which words most help us to find our way toward a decision regarding the person or the matter at hand? Which words are dead ends, and which lead toward promise?

The Israelites didn’t follow that pillar for thirty-nine years mindlessly; they encountered challenges which they attempted to learn how to answer using the guidance G-d offered through mitzvot such as those found in Mishpatim: keep your word, respect other’s wells, help your neighbor with her burden, and offer others the respect you expect for yourself.

We may not have a pillar that clearly guides us forward, but we still have access to the ethical GPS that has guided our people since those early wanderings. It can guide us just as clearly as we face our own challenges. That’s the gift offered through Torah study: over and over again, we bring our questions to Torah, and as we “turn it over and over again” we find that “….everything is in it”. Most wonderful of all, in this wandering we are not ever alone, for we’ve learned that the only way to follow that pillar is together, holding hands and stepping forth into the world.

Shabbat Naso: G-d is in the Annoying Details Too

This week the parashat hashavua (“text of the week”) is called Naso, a word related to the Hebrew idiom for counting. It literally means “lift up the head”, and underscores the importance of truly seeing each person whom one is counting. This is different from the Western idea of “counting heads”, which only tells you how many bodies are in the room; to lift up the head is to look in the face, to take account of (“a count of”) each person in their personhood. It’s an interesting counter (sorry) to the prevailing communal idea: here we note each precious, unique and irreplaceable individual who makes up our community.

That is the catch: a community is, after all, made up of individuals. There’s an old joke: “I love the Jewish people, it’s just Jews I can’t stand.” More accurately, for all of us the ideal of community is ideal, but the individual human beings with whom we share it may be annoying, from time to time. It’s worth recalling the old Hasidic admonition: when your attention is directed outward at others who bother you, remember that the world is made up of reflections, and you, in your turn, are no doubt just as much a bother to others.

This week we get into the specific, annoying details of life with others. This week’s parashah includes the Sotah ritual, much critiqued by feminists who see this as a misogynistic horror. One case in point is that of “any man whose wife may stray and betray his trust” (Numbers 5.12). Any husband who suspects that his wife has been intimate with another man is commanded to bring her to the priest, who puts her through a curious ritual. Drink this, swear that – and if you are guilty, you’ll get sick. If you are not, you’ll be fine. It seems quite shocking until one realizes that, for the time, it may well have been a woman’s salvation. There are cultures where, to this day, a woman whose husband is jealous of her might very well kill her, with or without the help of his male relatives, and without fear of government intervention or punishment. In this case the man may not lay a hand on his wife, no matter what his provocation: he must bring her to the priest.

It is interesting to further note that the Rabbis of the Talmud abolished the sotah ritual because it could only be conducted in a case where the husband had never committed adultery or any other sexual violation; i.e. a woman could not be accused of something that her accuser was doing. “When the adulterers increased in number, the rite of bitter waters was stopped; Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai stopped it.” (Talmud Bavli, Sotah 9.9).

Some of us tend to accuse the Torah of not being timeless. In truth it is far more amazing to consider how progressive it was when it was codified, two millennia ago. It’s worth keeping in mind the old Rabbinic saying, “the Torah speaks in the language of human beings”. What they meant, I believe, is that while the words of Torah are written down by human beings who are doing their best to record what they believe they have heard G-d saying, they do not hear clearly. Just as G-d spoke to the prophets, we are told, by dreams and riddles, so also we who try to understand the truth of our lives and the world we live in are squinting through a lens smudged by our preconceptions, our desire to find what we want to see, and our inability to see what we cannot conceive.

The theological word for perceiving truth is “revelation”. Sinai, when we received Torah, is called a revelatory moment. We are about to remember and re-celebrate it next week with our Shavuot observance. It seems fantastically appropriate, as our Festival of the Giving of the Torah falls this year during Portland’s Rose Festival, to note that according to our tradition’s teachings, Torah’s revelation unfolds like a rose; each generation sees more and more, as the many-petalled rose blooms over the generations of Jewish study that have kept it fed, and watered, and fertilized. “Even the innovation of a future student, wise in the ways of the teachers, is already included in the revelation at Sinai.” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Peah 6).

Torah is not timeless, and individuals are not perfect. It’s the community’s dance with Torah over time that puts the curious bits, and the irritating people, into the context of kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, “all Israel is responsible, one for another”, and keeps the word of G-d startlingly relevant, when you least expect it, but stay open to the chance.

Shabbat BeHukotai: What Kind of G-d Does This?

In this final week of reading from the Book VaYikra (Leviticus), we are presented with a most unpleasant text, known as the Tokhekhah, “Rebuke”. The parashah has begun with a beautiful picture of the lovely life that we will enjoy if we follow G-d’s mitzvot:

“If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My Commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit….and you shall dwell securely in your land.” (Lev. 26.3)

That’s in the 1st third of the Torah reading. This being the second year of our Triennial Reading Cycle, we start with the consequences not of obedience but of rebellion. The terms are so very harsh that there is a natural recoil from the reading, and a minhag (traditional habit) has developed around it: no one wants the aliyot associated with it, since the content of the aliyah with which one is honored is rather superstitiously thought to have an impact on oneself, and the reader usually tries to chant or read through the verses involved as quickly as possible, in an undertone, for that same reason.

This approach is reminiscent of the way we often treat horrible news; by distancing ourselves, by looking away. And part of the way in which we distance ourselves is to create a sense of how unlikely it is that such a thing could be.

That is how we come to the typical modern Jewish response to these verses: “this is outrageous! what kind of G-d would threaten such horrible consequences for disobeying G-d’s laws, and who would be stupid enough to believe in such a horrible G-d?”

But when we substitute another word for this unacceptable religious term, behold: morality refracts quite obviously through the lens of scientific knowledge. Consider just one such example of a way of understanding the blessings and curses of Behukotai:

The laws of the Torah command respect for the earth and its natural processes if we are to expect reliably dependable sowing time and harvests. When we do not respect the earth and its needs, we are told that “the skies will be like iron…your strength shall be spent to  no purpose. The land will not yield its produce, nor the trees of the field their fruit.” (Lev. 26.19-20)

It is becoming clearer that among the curses brought about by climate change is a new scarcity of water in certain places, which has been suggested as the main reason for the long years of bitter and murderous civil unrest in Somalia (http://www.somwe.com/scarcity.html).

Other examples of short-sighted and immoral human activity which has caused terrible disasters may include the recent landslide in Oso Washington, which killed at least 41 people. A bill which would have restricted further development in areas suspected to be prone to landslides was recently killed in the Snohomish County legislature in favor of a less-comprehensive plan. Developers hailed the move. After all, what are the chances that such a catastrophic landslide could happen again? (http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/what-could-go-wrong.html)

We recoil from the thought that our actions may actually turn our skies to iron and our fertile fields to barren desert. But when we look clearly and soberly at this week’s parashah, and then look around us, do we not see that our choices bring us blessing or curse? And that the word G-d, here, is simply and profoundly a powerful human way to refer to that which cannot be bribed out of consequences, nor avoidance of cause and effect, nor distracted away from looking at what we have wrought, just because it is too painful to contemplate.

The laws of G-d are one way of understanding what can also be expressed as the moral law of the universe. In either case, the kind of G-d that does this is the kind of G-d of which we are an inescapable part. The power we wield as G-d’s hands in the world will destroy us in myriads of curses that kidnap children, drown teenagers, and destroy us all by toxic degrees – or that same power will lift us up into an exaltation of justice and kindness that will heal much and inspire more.