Shabbat HaGadol Akharei Mot: Death in Spring

Here on the cusp of the new agricultural year, in the full blown glory of spring, we think of new life and renewal. Our spring holy day festival, Pesakh, is first of all a time to celebrate the new wheat, the baby lambs, and of course the return of grasses and flowers with the lengthening day.

It’s all the more shocking when death occurs at such a time, when we’re so focused on new life and all the future planning that goes with it. But this week’s parashah is about death, and its aftermath. Akharei Mot, “after the death”, refers to the unexpected sudden death of Nadav and Abihu, the two sons of Aaron who were killed accidentally during their first day on the job as priests in the newly-erected Mishkan, the holy space the Israelites created for the purpose of seeking G-d’s presence.

In truth, though, death is always unexpected, in a way, and always shocking. And in our surprise, we are frozen out of our normal activities, and, often, at a loss. Is this what happened to Aaron? He and four sons were all newly invested as priests, serving the Israelites by taking care of the sacrifices they brought. It was their job to keep the place clean and functional, to offer the sacrifices correctly and to keep the fire burning upon the altar. Through no fault of their own except perhaps for ignorance, two of them are now dead. There is no way to know why they are dead.

There is a prescribed response for when we hear about a death. We are to say barukh Dayan haEmet, “blessed is the True Judgment”. This is a statement of acceptance – that even as we accept life and love, we must accept death and loss. It is a statement of resignation, and, perhaps, of assent: I was happy to have to one, even at the cost of the other. Who among us would refuse to love, simply because life will end?

The High Priest, Aaron, brother of Moshe, has two things to teach us about death in his reaction to the death of his sons, both in the parashah in which they are killed, Shemini, and the parashat hashavua for this week, Akharei Mot.

The first is that after his sons were suddenly killed, we read vayidom Aharon, “And Aaron was silent.” (Leviticus 10.3). He did not have it within him to immediately say “I accept this”. There are times when we cannot utter the words right away, because we cannot yet feel them to be true. Aaron reacts honestly, as a father. He is not rebellious, he is just not there yet. This kind of loss will take time to absorb; in such a moment of shock the heart is numb. For him, in this moment, there is no sense of G-d’s presence to acknowledge.

The second lesson Aaron teaches in these moments is that his own personal loss of connection to G-d is his own business, and that he still has a job to do, and an important responsibility to the community. The disaster has happened while he is in the course of the ritual of blessing the Israelite community in G-d’s name. No matter his personal sadness, he must function for the sake of the people – and he does not let them down. He continues and concludes the sacred rituals, and only then does he take time for himself to grieve.

In our private extremities of experience, we may feel ourselves radically alone. Yet, just like Aaron, we are surrounded by, and part of, our community. Even when we are without words, we still belong to it, and it to us. Sometimes there are no words, and no sense of G-d, in the face of death – but there is still love, that gift of G-d that comes to us through the people whose lives we share, and which lifts us up out of darkness toward the light and renewal of spring.

Shabbat Metzora: Take a Breath Before You Commit

Ever since just before Purim we’ve been encountering a series of special Shabbatot which are meant to get our attention and focus us upon the fact that Pesakh is coming. There is much to do to greet the Festival appropriately: house cleaning, Seder planning, tzedakah giving…. there are so many details and such a rush (and sometimes, such family dynamics) that it might remind you of the preparation before a wedding day.

And that, of course, leads to a midrash offered by the Rabbi Leibele Eiger, a disciple of the Ishbitzer Rabbi (who wrote the popular Torah commentary Mei Shiloakh). He writes that this Shabbat, unlike last week and unlike next week, is not one of the Arba Parshiyot, the weeks of the special “four Parshas” that we read in the run-up to Pesakh.  This Shabbat has no special extra designation; it is Shabbat Metzora, a regular Torah reading. For that reason it is known as Shabbat Penuyah, the “open”, or “uncommitted” Shabbat.

Rabbi Eiger points out that the word penuyah can also be translated “turning”, and as “single woman”. In these grammatical nuances he weaves a vision of us as a woman turning away from a former life and toward the Covenant, even as the people of Israel turned toward G-d and at Sinai entered into the Covenant as a woman enters the huppah. G-d is our partner, goes the midrash, and we are meant to live in G-d’s presence in joy and unconditional love – and complete commitment.

But first we have to be ready, to prepare ourselves, to take the time to let the ritual mean what it can mean for us. And that is what this Shabbat, I suggest, might usefully offer us. Shabbat Penuyah, the “free” Shabbat, can be designated by us the Transition Shabbat: the pause before the Big Day, a necessary moment to breathe between the preparations and the ritual itself.

When I officiate at a wedding, I require of the couple that they write me a letter telling me why they are getting married to the person they love. They are not to write it far in advance, but during the week before the wedding, when they are the most hassled by the myriad details and family dynamics and things that go wrong. It provides a moment for a deeper thinking, and feeling, about what is about to happen to their lives.

Before this Pesakh, take time to experience the transition offered you: between winter and spring, between darkness and light, between bare trees and blossoms – what does it evoke in your own soul? what does it feed in your own spiritual experience? Check in with yourself, and figure out where you are standing. Only then can you turn, with your community, toward a deeper sense of G-d’s presence, and what it really means for you to be part of this Jewish people.

Shabbat Tazria 5774: Watch For Rot

Our parashat hashavua (“reading of the week”) is one of the more misunderstood of the entire Torah. It seems to be entirely too consumed with concern regarding the appearance of discolorations on a person’s skin or hair. The first verse of our reading this year, the third of the Triennial Cycle, begins:

When a man or a woman has a נגע upon the head or the beard….(Lev. 13.29) This is actually part of a much larger section on what is usually translated “leprosy” (no relation to Hansen’s disease) and is called in Hebrew tzara’at. The verses between Lev. 13.1 and Lev. 14.53 can be seen as a unit which follows a simple a-b-a-b pattern:

Tzara’at of a person, diagnosis

Tzara’at of a garment, diagnosis

Tzara’at of a person, declaring clean and atonement

Tzara’at of a house, diagnosis, cleansing, and atonement

In her book Leviticus as Literature, the anthropologist Mary Douglas proposes that this unit of Torah describes a “body-Temple microcosm”. The body and the Temple are seen as exact reflections of each other. Your body is a Temple, and the Temple is a body. Anything and everything which upsets the healthy stasis of one or the other is a very serious matter, because your individual body cannot be separated from the community’s body, nor from the Temple. We are all one – animate and inanimate.

Leviticus is not easy to read, but it contains hints way back to the most ancient Israelite religious beliefs and practices. Among them is this idea, no less true for us: no part of us can be allowed to decay or become infectious without damage to the rest of us. Mold, rot, fungus – whether physical or moral – must be watched for constantly, because when it spreads it damages all of us. It is interesting to note the physical-moral connection. Is it true that if we act immorally, our houses will also be affected? Is that not exactly the case when, for example, insufficient oversight of building contracts allows substandard buildings to be built that may then collapse?

The medieval Jewish scholar and physician Maimonides believed that moral rot would sooner or later show on the body. The underlying truth of that assertion shows up in myth and fairy tale (just think about how many bad guys physically corrode in death). This indicates some deeper truth that our rational intellects don’t want to, or can’t, handle; instead we take refuge in insisting that there are those who suffer who are innocent. That is true, but it is only a simple truth. There is a complex truth here. Our intellects can see the connection between moral and physical rot in the fabric of our communities, when we allow part of town to deteriorate, or when we underfund our schools and public services, or when innocent individuals suffer physical ailments such as tzara’at, whatever it was – and is. People downstream from chemicals may suffer physical ailments; that is not so difficult a moral connection to make. Someone dumped those chemicals.

We do not know every moral and physical connection in our world; we cannot understand every suffering. But the ancient truth cannot be so easily swept aside, especially when atonement is prescribed – that is to say, possible. The innocent suffer; what is our complicity? Where is the rot in our surroundings? How might we  atone for the civic, environmental, and political sins we have committed as a community, and clean up our act? We are, after all, all in this together.

Shabbat Zakhor and Purim 5774: Laugh It Off

Here comes Purim, the better to liven up the book of Leviticus! Our parashah for this week is Tzav, “command”, in the imperative form of the word, no less. And yet Torah comes first; Purim begins at the close of Shabbat, tomorrow.

 

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Zakhor; it always precedes Purim (this year not by much). It reminds us to forget. And this is only the first of the curious inversions of the Purim holiday period:

 

1. We are commanded in the special extra Torah reading for this Shabbat to “remember to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Deut.25.19)

2. We are commanded in the regular reading of the parashat hashavua to light a fire an eternal flame: “fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continuously; it shall not go out.” (Lev. 6.6)

3. We are commanded by the mitzvot of the holy day of Purim to laugh at the terrifying story of a powerful tyrant who held a lottery to decide the best day to massacre the Jewish people of his land. We are commanded to laugh, one might say, in fear, or in fury, or in defiance.

 

Purim invites us to turn our expectations upside down and to take lightly our own most sober conventions; it is more of a surprise to discover the same invitation to inversion coded in the Book of Leviticus, a seemingly mind-numbing recording of the minutiae of priestly sacrificial work. Yet the religious anthropologist Mary Douglas alerts us to just this astonishing fact. Hidden in the literary style of Leviticus is a great work of art: rings upon rings of echoes, parallels upon parallels of concepts and words. Here’s an example just right for this time of year, as we prepare for the great Festival of the Exodus from Egypt:

 

The Bible is sprinkled with famous puns, and Leviticus is no exception. For example, two distinct verbs are used in the Bible to refer to G-d’s bringing the Israelites out of Egypt: the commonest is literal “to bring out”, the rarer one, only used in Leviticus 11.45, is literally “to bring up“. In Hebrew the same word means “to regurgitate”. In this one rare case the verb for the L-rd’s saving action is the same as that used for “bringing up the cud”, one of the criteria of a clean animal. By this device the whole of chapter 11 is bracketed between the opening law that says the only animals to be used as food are ruminants which bring up the cud and the concluding passage, “I am the L-rd your G-d who brought you up [regurgitated you] from Egypt.” (Mary Douglas, Leviticus As Literature: 49)

 

Laughter is a curious thing. Aristotle posited that when a baby laughed for the first time, it became a human being, with a human soul. Something about laughter lifts us up above the animal kingdom, perhaps – and certainly lifts us out of victimization. Laughter fits us Jews very well, after all – we perfected the art of laughing through tears in modern comedy, even as we suffered persecution and discrimination. On this Shabbat and, upon its heels, Purim, let’s take the message to heart: some things, like Amalek, are best forgotten in laughter. Some things, like keeping an eternal fire – or any other important purpose – burning, can’t be taken too seriously if we are to succeed.

Shabbat Shekalim: Tax Time in Ancient Israel

half-shekel
half-shekel

This Shabbat, on which we are reading Pekudei as the parashat hashavua, is also known as Shabbat Shekalim. Yes, the Shabbat of the Shekels. This special Shabbat is not necessarily tied to the parashah called Pekudei, but it’s not entirely inappropriate, since this last reading in Exodus consists of an audit of the records (in Hebrew, “records” is pekudim) as well as the account of, finally, the erection of the Mishkan, the space the Israelites are constructing in order to have a designated place for their kavanah (spiritual intention). Thus the place is called the place to meet G-d, although everyone agrees that no one space contains the holy.

This Shabbat is called Shekalim because it is the first of four special Shabbatot that focus on the upcoming Festival of Pesakh. Shabbat Shekalim always occurs on the Shabbat before Rosh Hodesh (the beginning of the month of) Adar (or Adar II in leap years such as this year). On this Shabbat, a special extra reading is added to the regular Torah readings for Pekudei. The extra (maftir) reading comes from a text earlier in Exodus which describes a half-shekel tax collected from all the Israelites. It is read on this Shabbat because the tax, which became a yearly tax in later Israelite history, was due on the first of the New Year, which begins with Rosh Hodesh Nisan.

This raises some interesting questions which shed light on our ancestors’ culture and social organization.

1. What was the original purpose of the tax? It was a way of conducting a census. Since it was believed that counting the people was bad luck and had been demonstrated in the Torah to bring on a plague, there was – and still is – a reluctance (call it a superstition) to count people. Even in a traditional shul today, one does not count people when checking to see if we’ve reached the minyan number of ten; rather, a gabbai might use a verse such as Psalms 5.8.

 וַאֲנִי–בְּרֹב חַסְדְּךָ, אָבוֹא בֵיתֶךָ;    אֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶה אֶל-הֵיכַל-קָדְשְׁךָ, בְּיִרְאָתֶךָ.

As for me, I come into Your house filled with the joy of Your Presence; I bow in awe of the holiness of your Plac e.

2. Why use a Shabbat as a reminder that tax time is coming? It is striking, after all, in a religious tradition that shuns money on Shabbat and holy days, to consider the prominent place of  money in this Shabbat’s theme. In the ancient past, and continuing right up until the last generation or so, Shabbat was the weekly gathering time of the Jewish community, and the shul was the equivalent of the public square. If you wanted to reach the most Jews with the important announcements of community news, the way to do it was to incorporate it into the Shabbat prayer ritual. The Rabbis of the Talmudic period, who devised the intricate plan of what to read when all year long, mandated certain Torah and Haftarah readings which emphasized aspects of the community. Sometimes the special Shabbat reading brought depth of meaning to the day itself, and sometimes it served, as well, as a reminder of something important coming up. In the same way that we read three haftarot of gathering doom before Tisha B’Av (when the Temple and Jerusalem itself were destroyed, and we went into exile), we – on a happier note – have special readings that recall and add to the excitement of the upcoming Festival of the Spring Harvest, the Festival of Matzah.It’s quite convenient that this verse is part of the first song we sing upon beginning our prayers, so that while you are singing, you can simply let your eyes rest on each person as you chant each word of the verse. You are not precisely counting the people, yet you know if you’ve got your minyan. (Another way to count people is to point to each one and say “not one”, “not two”…..)

3. Why a half-shekel apiece? isn’t that a regressive sort of flat tax?  There are other taxes that are tied to one’s income; this small contribution has a more symbolic value, that of reminding us that this Temple tax asserts that we are all equal before G-d. Further, the application of this tax to all of us demonstrates our belief that each of us has an equally valuable contribution to make to our congregation.

“The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less; it is an atonement for your souls.” (Exodus 30.15)

The last phrase of the mitzvah (the obligation commanded here) is the most provocative, describing the tax as an “atonement”. It is easy to see, and assert, that no one is too poor to give, and to understand why the rich are not allowed to give more, but why is the giving an atonement? Perhaps because each of us needs to atone for either feeling sorry for ourselves that we don’t have more, or looking down on others who don’t have as much as we do. In the act of giving the very same thing, each one of us and all together, we are invited to atone, which is to say, to return to a place of at-one-ment with each other.

Our Mishkan, our sacred space, exists because of the support of each one of us, and that support is equally valuable, equally necessary. The offerings of our hearts, minds and wherewithall are all needed if we are to fulfill the mitzvah “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might”, from the Shema.

Shabbat VaYakhel: Kehillah

The name of this week’s parashah is VaYakhel, from the word kahal, or kehillah – “gathering”. The people are gathering for the purpose of building the Mishkan, the sacred space that will be dedicated to their longing to feel G-d’s presence. They are gathered together not as the am, the people, and not as the eydim, the witnesses who entered into the Covenant; here, our ancestors, working together on building a place, are the kehillah. 

There’s a necessary balance here between two concepts which exist in an inevitable tension: our sense of the independent value of each human being, and the vital importance to our lives of meaningful community. Each person is to bring the gift of her or his own ability and willingness, and all must be woven into a coherent whole. A building is not well-built without careful plans, and a community does not thrive without individuals willing to bring their gifts as they are needed – and not just when the individual feels like it.

The teaching of the word VaYakhel, is in the detail that the people here are not primarily individuals, but individuals who have become a meaningful collective. Kehillah refers primarily to what it means to gather for the purpose of creating sacred space, and, through that act, to create a sense of Place, where that word – Makom in Hebrew – is a Name of G-d. In other words, when we gather with a sense that we gather in order to evoke the sacred, we find ourselves in the Place of G-d’s presence. We do not bring G-d into our midst, rather, we become aware that we are already standing in the Place of G-d. A gathering like this is called a kehillah kedoshah, a “sacred community”, and by default, every Jewish congregation is referred to traditionally with that phrase.

It’s an aspirational name, reminding us of why we come together and for what reason. And it’s also a challenge: can we come to realize that in relationship to G-d we do not go looking for the divine, but rather open ourselves to the reality that we are already surrounded, supported, and suffused with the Presence. As the mystics put it, we are each a drop of water, and G-d is the ocean.

At our best as a congregation, Jews are a kehillah. That does not mean that we are always in agreement with each other, nor that we will all be best friends. A kehillah is a gathering of us when we are mindful of the fact that we are needed to step up, each of us, bringing our own individual talents and sensitivities, to create a sense of Place where all of us feel safe in belonging, even when we do disagree. Underneath it all, after all, we are one people, all of us in need of support, all of us in need of kindness. In G-d’s presence there is no lack; there is always a place at the table, and always enough love for us all. We act as a kehillah when we deliberately act in love, no matter what the provocation. Let G-d’s shefa, “abundance”, surround you, and may you know the deep joy of opening up to let it flow through you and to your kehillah around you.

Shabbat Ki Tisa: Those Who Stand And Wait

The middle third of the parashah on this Shabbat, Ki Tisa, begins with Moshe on Mt Sinai receiving the Word of G-d in the form of “tablets of testimony written with the finger of G-d.” (Exodus 31.18) At the same time the Israelites, who are waiting below in the valley, become restive. What’s taking so long?

 

For the literally mind-blown Moshe, time had ceased to exist. According to one midrash, for forty days he neither ate nor drank, but simply existed, basking in the Divine Presence. It is the first example in Jewish tradition of a state of being which is now called a mystical experience. Moshe was no longer of this world; as the Israeli Nobel laureate in literature Shai Agnon put it in his story HaSiman, “The Sign”, in words informed by the language of the Zohar, the primary text of Jewish mystical expression:

 

“Thought on thought was engraved, holy thought within my thought. And all the communicated words were etched in letters, and the letters joined into words, and the words formed what was to be said….My flesh crawled and my heart melted and I was annihilated from being and I was as if I were not.” (Agnon, HaSiman, cited by Rachel Elior in Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom, p. 16)

 

Down below in the valley of the shadow of doubt, the Israelites were having no such peak experience. The leader who was their emotional anchor had asked them to wait for him, and in their anxiety, the time cannot pass quickly enough. They are looking for leadership; they are nervous about the lack of communication; in short, they are not feeling serene and trusting. As the Torah relates, G-d was aware of this and the awareness communicated itself to Moshe, who hastened down the mountain to respond.

 

When Moshe returned, things had gotten a bit out of hand, but that’s been well-described and analyzed elsewhere by many; I want to concentrate for a moment on the day of his return. “You said you’d be back yesterday!” said the people who loved him, who had waited for him, and who had quickly turned on him when they felt let down. “No, I said I’d be back on the fortieth day,” said the leader. “I’m back right when I said I would be!”

 

The waiting Israelites cannot relate to the fact that Moshe was having a fantastic experience; they only know that he was not there for them, and they are in pain.

 

Both felt let down; both experienced a sense of being misunderstood, of being lied to, of being betrayed. And both sides, each in their way, were right.

 

Here are several chasms: between mystical experience and the everyday, between leader and follower, between the one leaving and the one waiting to be returned to. It is so easy to get caught up in one’s own experience – which is, after all, paramount by definition – and so difficult to remain aware of those others who are waiting for word. But it is necessary to do so if one would move in the world ethically. Note the description of being close to G-d: “I was as if I were not.” That does not mean that one who is close to G-d ceases to exist; just that one who is close to G-d ceases to be blinded by the ego, the “I”, and is given a new ability to see, and take note of the reality of others.

 

There is a wonderful midrash about staying aware of the feelings of the other:

 

Once upon a time Rabbi Preda was teaching a student when he was told that he was going to be needed for a mitzvah related to tzedakah.

Rabbi Preda taught the student as usual, but on this day the student could not grasp the material as usual.

He asked, “what is the matter?”

The student answered, “from the moment they said to you there is a mitzvah to be done,

I could not concentrate because I thought, ‘now he will have to go. Now he will have to go.’

Rabbi Preda reviewed the material to the student four hundred times.

A Voice from Heaven was heard to ask, “Would you prefer to have four hundred years added to your life,

or that you and your entire generation be assured life in the World to Come?”

“May my generation be given life in the World to Come”, Rabbi Preda answered.

The holy Voice was heard to say, “give him both rewards.”  (BT Eruvim 54b)

 

The essence of Jewish ethics is to be able to put ourselves in the place of others; to empathize with them, not to judge them in their vulnerability. May we be humble enough to be alert to those who are waiting for a word from us, distracted by anxiety and afraid of betrayal, and may we recognize our own needs for reassurance in theirs.

Shabbat Tetzaveh: It’ll Cost You

Our parashat hashavua (the parashah, “reading” or “portion” for this shavua, “week”; notice that the h changes to a t when parashah is modified by the specific week’s reading) is Tetzaveh, “[you shall] command”.

The parashah begins with a grammatical anomaly noted by the famous Torah teacher Nehama Lebowitz. Usually a parashah begins with the familiar phrase Speak unto the people of Israel, and say to them….. This phrase precedes the specific command. In this case, we have instead G-d’s word coming to Moshe as

You yourself command the people of Israel (Exodus 27.20)

Then, unlike all the other places in Torah that we could mention which go on to specify a command such as bring Me – sacrifices, gifts of the heart for the building of the Mishkan, and more – the verse continues

to bring you 

The subject of the verse is pure beaten olive oil for lighting, for a lamp to burn continually. (still Exodus 27.20)

This is the lamp indicated: the seven-branched menorah. This most ancient of Jewish symbols is attested throughout Israeli archeological sites. This powerful symbol of light kept perpetually kindled was a beacon, more than simply visually, for our people through the course of much darkness.

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What is the way in which we are commanded to keep this lamp alight? Our teacher Nehama offers the commentary of prior Rabbis and Sages, focusing upon one verse, the first verse of the parashah.

Why does G-d say you yourself and to bring you in this parashah of all parashiot? There are at least two possible answers:

1. Moshe’s name does not appear in this parashah, alone of all the parashiot of the Torah which include him (that would be 4 out of the 5 books). Perhaps this signals his feeling diminished, because he knows now that he will not be the High Priest – that job goes to his brother. Here, G-d reassures Moshe that his is really the superior position, since he relays the commands that Aaron must follow. In this particular case, that point is underscored by having Moshe stand in, as it were, for G-d.

2. This is not about Moshe at all. The words you yourself are without a pronoun because the command is for you yourself, and I myself, and all Jews. Our obligation is to bring ourselves. Where? Toward G-d, via the light that we are commanded here to kindle, in company with all those who travel our spiritual path. Bring yourself, and help to bring others, for although there is an important individual link we each seek to experience to life, there is for Jews also and always the mystery of how we experience G-d’s presence only in community.

Now, about the command itself: from Sifre Naso, a collection of ancient interpretation, we find several levels of human context. First, the idea of eternal loyalty to the Word of G-d, implied in the regular lighting of a symbolic lamp, which must be tended twice a day at the very least.

“A command [the word tzivui, from the parashah’s name Tetzaveh) implies now and for all time.”

And then more, shall we say, down to earth comments about the implications of the word “command”:

“Rabbi Judah ben Batira stated: ‘command’ implies extra enthusiasm…..Rabbi Shimon bar Yokhai stated: ‘command’ invariably occurs in the context of monetary loss.”

Between Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Shimon there is an entire world of human religious behavior. Enthusiasm and monetary loss; are they poles or does one imply the other? At the very least, enough enthusiasm for anything is going to cost you: just look at the price of a child’s sports or arts enthusiasm (uniform, instruments, lessons, shows or games….) and this is not less true for adults. Anything worth being enthusiastic over will demand a price from us.

This is the Jewish path: it demands b’khol levavkha, b’khol naf’shekha, uv’khol m’odekha, “all your mind, all your emotions, all your resources”. (Deuteronomy 6.5, and also found as part of the Shema in the siddur). There are days when we fulfill mitzvot as if they were delightful good deeds, with enthusiasm, feeling good about ourselves and our Jewish ethics. And there are days when we must be reminded that we are obligated beyond our comfort level.

Certainly, our enthusiasm for our Jewish community demands time, talent and money from us. There are days when we don’t count the cost because of our delight; other days we may need to be reminded that we are obligated to nurture and strengthen it. If Jewish community is to exist, we all have to bring our enthusiasm and our monetary contributions.

In sociological studies of Jewish baby boomers it has been noted that the only religious paths which are strong in our post-modern Western society are those which expect excellence and commitment. We expect the best of our schools, our leaders, and our society – why would we settle for less in our religious community? For a generation, Jewish leadership tried to make it as easy as possible to keep Jews attached to religious communities – changing holiday observance to the nearest convenient Shabbat, for example, or refusing to make strong statements about ethics in society that might alienate some. And what we have found is that the half-serious practice of Judaism produces half-serious Jews who cannot stand strong when the winds of uncertainty and stress challenge them. Obligation to excellence apparently nurtures stronger and more meaningful lives.

It’s still okay to moan about it, of course….on our way to showing up and being counted. Each one of us – you yourself – must see ourselves as obligated, whether enthusiastically on any given day or not. Each one of us is necessary if we are to keep that lamp alight.

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Shabbat Terumah: In The Details

“This too is Torah, and I need to learn it.” Two millennia ago the renowned sage Rabbi Akiba asserted that Torah is not only that which is written on the parchment of the sefer Torah, the Scroll of Direction (the Hebrew verb root h.r.h means “teaching”, and also “aiming” as well as “indicating direction”). Torah is also expressed through the exegesis that gives us midrash, “investigation”, and halakhah, “path”. This larger sense of Torah is contained, more or less, in Talmud, the sixty-three tractates (volumes) that derive from the Five Books of Moshe. But it is not contained fully, for it was already acknowledged even then that there was more that would unfold, and in a very real way, “that which a veteran student will, in the future, innovate before his teacher was already said to Moshe at Sinai” (Jerusalem Talmud, Peah 17b).

Clearly, then, there is more to any given parashah than meets the eye.

The parashah we read this week, parashat Terumah, gives us a minutely-detailed description of the Mishkan that the Israelites were to build in order to evoke the Presence of G-d in their midst. Chapter after chapter, verse after verse, is devoted to the topics of what goes inside the Mishkan, what goes outside, and of what it is to be made. The dimensions of objects as well as their composition, number, color, and purpose are all specified.

It is easy to grant that such detailed plans for the construction of the Mishkan existed, but why were they sanctified? Why are we to read them with all the honor and respect due to every word written in the Torah? For example, what are we to make of the first verse we read in the second year of the Triennial Cycle:

You are to make the Mishkan with ten curtains; skilled workers shall make them of fine twined linen, in blue, purple and red, with kheruvim. (Ex.26.1)

One might see this as exactly the challenge offered to the “veteran student” mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud passage above. What are we to make of this verse? If we accept that each word and each verse has value prima facie, then the challenge is not to the text, to prove its relevance, but to us, to prove our ability to see that relevance. It’s not so far away. Much can be understood and derived from such a verse once one enters the interpretative world of our tradition.

Here are three short interpretations:

1. In Jewish tradition, one important way to demonstrate the respect we show for that which we hold sacred is to bring our best effort to it. “Skilled workers” are to make the curtains. When we are building something important, than, we are to look through our community for those best suited and most capable. Art is best done by the artistic.

2. Blue, purple and red – תכלת, ארגמן ותולעת שני – tekhelet, argaman v’tola’at shani – are important colors in the ancient Near East, all of them bright and deep (and expensive). The blue tekhelet color is also that which we are commanded to include in the fringes on the corners of our garments. Perhaps in that way the fringe – the tzitzit – is meant to remind us of the Mishkan, and what it symbolizes.

3. Kheruvim are fantastic creatures that were imagined to be among the animal and human-like servants that surrounded our G-d; for example, G-d is described as “riding on the back of a kheruv” into battle with Pharoah at the Reed Sea during the Exodus. They are symbols of divine power and awe.

at the entrance of the palace of Nineveh; now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
A kheruv (?) at the entrance of the palace of Nineveh; now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

Our ancestors guarded every detail of the Mishkan for the ages because it was the most important structure they built; they built it together, they brought their best people to it, and they made it a place that evoked their sense of awe for the holy. In such a place, that means so much, there is no such thing as too many details, for every single one is a precious part of the whole. As are you and I in the building of our own Mishkan today.

Shabbat Mishpatim: Equality Before the Law – For All of Us

Last week in parashat Yitro we stood together at Sinai, and entered into the covenant with our G-d as a community, all equally necessary, equally precious. The text itself expresses this in unspecific language:

And Moses brought forth the people [et ha’am] out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. (Ex.19.17)

Et ha’am, “the people”, can as easily refer to the men, representing each household, as to all the adults, or even all the Israelites, of all ages and genders. It may also be fair to simply note that the Sinai experience was so overwhelming that it could not be communicated in detail. This is hinted at by the text itself, since we are only told of nine (or ten, depending upon your interpretation) laws incumbent upon Israelites through the Covenant relationship

The details of the laws are the subject of our parashah this week – the “fine print”, if you will, of the Covenant relationship. While you will not find in this parashah all 613 of the mitzvot as they are traditionally counted, there are fifty three, covering both moral and ritual obligations. The question we are left with from the Sinai account of the Covenant moment is this: if only the men stood at Sinai, then, as Judith Plaskow once famously observed, are only men Jews?

Not only is G-d in the details, as it has been said, but so, apparently, is our own identity. To whom do the laws apply? How? When?

When we compare what scholars call “a second Covenant ceremony” on the steppes of Moab in parashat Nitzavim, we find more explicit language to help us answer the question of who stands before G-d in Covenant relationship:

You are standing this day, all of you, before YHVH your G-d: your heads, your tribes, your elders and your officers – all the men of Israel; the little ones, women, strangers that are among you, even the wood choppers and the water drawers, to enter into the Covenant of YHVH your G-d, and into G-d’s oath, which YHVH your G-d makes with you today. (Deuteronomy 29.9)

Here, it is explicitly stated that all of us are counted; all of us count. Social class? an aside, gender and age? unimportant, elites and masses? all alike. This Covenant moment takes place, by the way, forty years after the Sinai moment.

It’s a growing, developing revelation. So is our own modern sense of community. It takes a while to realize that all social classes and all forms of humanity are equally created in G-d’s image. It takes a while, perhaps, for the men to realize that they can’t do it alone; it takes forty years of wandering to come to understand that we are all more alike than different, no matter what seems to separate us.

It is appropriate that we celebrate Equality Shabbat this week, along with all the Community of Welcoming Congregations in Oregon, because this week is all about the details of our Covenant with G-d and each other, details of mitzvot that demand the best we have from all of us, not just some of us acting on behalf of others of us.

We are neither at Sinai, in the first shock of the moment, nor at Nitzavim toward the end of the Torah’s narrative; we are in the middle, in the fine print, in the ongoing, confusing, foggy midst of a revelation that has not entirely unfolded. We are still learning what is true and right and righteous, from learning and from experience. From knowledge to understanding, and then, perhaps, to wisdom, as the mystical sefirot show us, is a long and uncertain road.

Equality Shabbat is our moment to recognize that, no matter what our tradition believed about women in the past, they do stand equally with men before G-d; no matter what we thought we knew, when we look at the Torah it does not say “all of you who are straight men” stand before G-d, nor even “all of you who are Israelites”, but all Jews, no matter gender, sexual orientation, age, or origin, stand together, nitzavim, as the text says, “firmly rooted” in our standing. It does not say that at the Sinai moment; there, we trembled and fell down. Only when we stand respectful of the image of G-d in each and all of us equally can we stand firmly.

For more of Rabbi Ariel’s teachings on the relevance of ancient sacred text to your life, get her book – available in paperback and on Kindle: Because All Is One