Between the Straits. Delivered at All Souls Unitarian Church, July 2017

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Here is (more or less) the text of this sermon:

In the section of scriptures that the Jewish community reads this week, the story of five women seems nearly an afterthought. Yet, unlike many biblical women, all five are given names, and this is an indication that we should pay close attention. These five women appear only one other time in the five books of Moses, but they bear an important message.
Earlier, the daughters of Tzlophchad (Makhlah, Tirtzah, Khoglah, Milcah, and No‘ah) come before Moses with a complaint. At that point, in Biblical law, only sons can inherit their fathers. The father of these five had had no sons. So the five women went and stood before Moses, before Elazar the priest, before the heads of all the tribes, and before all the community, to point out  that this meant that their family’s inheritance would disappear, and they demanded to inherit from their father. Moses heard their cause, and took it to God. And God said to Moses, “The daughters of Tzeophchad speak rightly, give them their father’s inheritance. Furthermore, from now on, the law is changed -and then the passage goes on for a while to explain exactly how the law is to be changed.
In the passage this week in which the daughters of Tzelophchad are mentioned, there is a further clarification of the law, and then they carry out God’s commands, and they get married, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Together, these two passages make up possibly one of the most extraordinary moments in the Torah, in the Five books of Moses – and that’s no small feat. This is, as far as I can recall, the only instance of a regular, everyday person taking a complaint up to the highest levels --and causing an unjust law to be changed –by God, Godself! And not just a regular everyday person, but five women who have no father. This is, biblically, almost the very definition of a powerless person, a person with no one to advocate for them, and so, they advocated for themselves, marching up to the tent of meeting, which is their version of the marble cladded halls of power, and demanding that an unjust law be changed.
And surprisingly, the rabbinic sages approve wholeheartedly. In the code of Jewish law and commentary called the Talmud, one of the most canonical and central of Jewish texts collected over centuries and compiled around the year 500, the rabbis say (bava batra 119b),
  בנות צלפחד חכמניות הן דרשניות הן צדקניות הן
  “The daughters of Tzelophehad are wise, they are darshaniot – which means something  like interpreters of Torah, but also means something like seekers, and they are righteous.”
The rabbis add, “That they are wise can be seen from the fact that they spoke in accordance with the moment.” The great commentator Rashi adds, “Their eyes saw what Moses’ did not. “
The rabbis continue, explaining that we know they are interpreters of Torah – in other words, learned equals of the rabbis- by demonstrating that the women must have been familiar with the law, and brought their claim through logic and argument.   And the rabbis conclude that (Sanhedrin 8b): The daughters of Tzelophechad merited that the law be written through them…This is to teach you that punishment is brought about through the sinful, and reward is brought about through the righteous.
Remember the daughters of Tzelophchad, because we’re going to need them in a bit.
*******************
It’s hot outside.  It is, in fact, humid, miserable, and oppressive. This period of the summer, for Jews, falls during a three-week period of mourning leading up the saddest day in our calendar, the 9th of the month of Av, the day on which Jerusalem fell and the Temple there was destroyed. This moment of our history turns out to be, in many ways, the defining one of Jewish memory, and a pivotal event in the creation of rabbinic (that is to say, modern) Judaism. So we might want to ask, of the many possible ways to remember this event, how do the sages choose to explain what happened?

In the Talmud, and aso partly in another early text from the same period, a very early commentary (midrash) on the book of Lamentations, the rabbis retell the story of this tragedy: it begins with a party.

A tale is told of one of the wealthy men of Jerusalem who made a banquet, inviting everyone.

This man had a friend, Kamtza, and an enemy, Bar Kamtza.  [This wealthy man] made a party and said to his servant, Go and bring Kamtza. The [servant] went and brought Bar Kamtza. When the man [who gave the party] found [Bar Kamtza] there he said, …what are you doing here? Get out. Said [bar Kamtza]: Since I am here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.

[The host] said, I won't. [Bar Kamtza said] Then let me give you half the cost of the party. No, said the [host]. Then let me pay for the whole party [said Bar kamtza]. [The host] still said, No, and he took him by the hand and put him out.

R. Zecharia b. Avqulos, who was capable of protesting, was there, but he didn’t protest. (In Hebrew)
Upon leaving, [bar kamtza] said, “I get thrown out in shame, and let them sit there in peace?!”

Said [bar kamtza to himself], Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against them, to the Government.

He went and said to the Emperor, The Jews are rebelling against you. [The Emperor] said, How can I tell? [Bar Kamtza] said to him: Send them an offering and see whether they will offer it [on the altar of the Temple]. So [the Emperor] sent with [bar kamtza] a fine calf.  While on the way he made a blemish …on the white of its eye, in a place where [Jews] count it a blemish but the [Romans] do not.

The Rabbis were inclined to offer it in order not to offend the Government. Said Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulas to them: People will say that blemished animals are offered on the altar [of the Temple – ie. That we do not follow the laws about sacrifices]. They then proposed to kill Bar Kamtza so that he should not go and inform against them, but R. Zechariah b. Abkulas said to them, Is one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals to be put to death? R. Yohanan thereupon remarked: Through the scrupulousness of R. Zechariah b. Abkulas our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt and we ourselves exiled from our land....


This is … a very peculiar story. Given that the rabbis themselves redacted the Talmud, one would think they might not include this story, which does not put the rabbis in a particularly good light.

But the rabbis clearly felt the need to make this point: that the worst tragedy in our history, which resulted in persecution, famine, and the destruction of the central institution of our religion (at the time) was the result of a very human chain of events in which the leaders of the people turned a blind eye to one man publicly shaming another, followed up by that same set of leaders waffling in their responsibilities to act to protect their people from the malice engendered by their own actions.

In fact, in another section of the Talmud, one of the rabbis says specifically, “Jerusalem was destroyed only because they did not rebuke each other: for it is said, Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture: (Lam. 1:6.)  Just as the hart, the head of one is at the side of the others's tail, so Israel of that generation hid their faces in the earth, (i.e. turned their faces away from the evil that the other did)  and did not rebuke each other.” (Shabbat 119b)

It seems to me to be a harsh, accurate, reflection on the failings of the leadership of the time. The rabbinic sages had a great deal to say about what a proper leader is. Elsewhere in the Talmud, they call out exactly the situation that seems to have been described in our story. They say, (Shabbat 54b-55a) Whoever can rebuke his household but does not, is held responsible for [the sins of] his household; [if he can rebuke] his fellow citizens, he is held responsible for [the sins of] his fellow citizens; if the whole world, he is held responsible for [the sins of] the whole world.

In other words, as Rabbi Zechariah b. Abkulas stood by and did nothing as a man was shamed, he is held responsible for not only the shaming – which in our tradition is considered comparable to murder – but for the results that followed.

This is possibly the exact opposite of the story of the daughters of Tzelophchad.
They are both stories about the relationship between regular people and people in power:
In the first story, the daughters of Tzelophchad feel wronged. They, through no fault of their own, have been deprived of their land, and they aren’t going to take it sitting down. And they don’t!

The second story is also a story about someone who is wronged, and who decides to do something about it.

In the first instance, the focus seems to be on the women and in the second, it appears to be on the leaders. And we might want to investigate why.

And this is the crux of the matter: in each story, both sides of the wrong have choices to make. As you recall, Tzelophchad’s daughters are lauded by the community, and even by God. They chose to stand up against injustice,  and they did it firmly – they didn’t ask, they instructed. And yet, they also clearly made a point of respecting the community they were in to do so, and so they were called wise, insightful and righteous.

Bar Kamtza made a different choice, he reacted to his – very correct- reading of the situation saying that he was going to get revenge against the leaders who failed to stand up for him, but in doing so he rained destruction down on everyone.

But in the case of the five women, they are given credit for doing things the right way, but in Bar Kamtza’s case, his role is nearly ignored, and it is the leaders who are held responsible, nd I believe that the difference did lie in the behavior of the leaders.
Moses listened. He took their criticism to heart, and he acted on it.
This made that event a stirring example not only of the power of common people to stand up for what is right, but of an example of what good leadership looks like.
In contrast, the leaders in Bar Kamtza’s case weren’t malicious, they were perhaps worse – they were apathetic.  Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulous did nothing as Bar Kamtza was humiliated and thrown out. And then together with the other leaders of the community, they failed to take any action at all.
The name for this three week period that Jews are currently observing is “Bein HaMeitzarim” which means “Between the straits.”
It seems to me that we stand here today, as Americans, “between the straits.” We are living in a moment in which our leaders are unwise, and we, the people, have to make choices about how to react to the deep unwisdom which threatens the social order.
We are, I believe, living with leaders far more like Zechariah Ben Avkulous, than like Moses. The daughters of Tzelophchad had the benefit of a leader who could hear  their wisdom and insight, and who valued their righteousness. That allowed them to stand before the community and repair what was broken.
And so it leaves us to wonder about what might have been. We know – we can see today – that some people love to blow things up. They want to see the crash. But today, it’s not just the  people who are hurting who want this – it seems to be the leaders as well.
What could have happened if Zechariah ben Avkulous stood up at the party and stopped the action, perhaps made peace between Bar Kamtza and his enemy? Perhaps he would have been unsuccessful at that, but at least Bar Kamtza would have seen that someone stood up for him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have then brought destruction upon the entire community.
And so, if our country is filled with bar Kamtzas who are hurt, and want to lash out at everyone, and our leaders are unwise, then, it must fall to us to be aware – to be Tzelophchad’s daughters – wise and insightful and righteous. If there is no Moses to help, then we must go all the way to the top and make sure that the inequity is fixed at its root.
The mystical book the Zohar says, “Rabbi Jose said ‘I was reflecting that the condition of mankind depends entirely on their leaders: when these are worthy, the world and all in it prosper, but when they are unworthy, woe to the world and woe to the people!’    -- Zohar, Sh’mot, Section II, 36b

In the medieval book, the sefer hakuzari, which is a dialogue between a king and a rabbi:
2. The Kuzari said, “Tell me how the upright and pious people of your religion behave.”
3. The Rabbi said, “An upright person is one who is concerned with his country. He provides all its citizens with their every provision and need. He leads them justly, does not oppress any one of them, and does not give to any one of them more than his rightful share ...”
4. The Kuzari said, “I asked you about an upright person, not a leader!”
5. The Rabbi said, “An upright person is a leader. All of his senses and attributes – both
spiritual and physical – submit themselves to his command. He thus leads them just like a real
world leader, as it says, ‘He who rules his spirit is greater than one who captures a city’ (Mishlei/Proverbs 16:32). He has shown that he is fit to govern – that were he to rule over a country, he would preside over it justly, just as he has done with his own body and soul.”

So what do we do when we have no leaders who are worthy? We must act after the model of the daughters of Tzelophchad.  We must be righteous and in justice and care for others, we must take our vision to the halls of power, and we must walk before the powerful and not ask, but insist, that the wrongs be righted.

Parshat Emor: What is it to be holy?

What does it mean to be holy?
The portions we have been reading for the last couple of weeks include a section known as “the holiness codes.” They open with the commandment
קְדשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
You shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy.

This week we close that parenthesis saying (22:31-33):
לא וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם מִצְוֹתַי וַעֲשִֹיתֶם אֹתָם אֲנִי יְהוָֹה
: לב וְלֹא תְחַלְּלוּ אֶת-שֵׁם קָדְשִׁי וְנִקְדַּשְׁתִּי בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְֹרָאֵל אֲנִי יְהוָֹה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם
: לג הַמּוֹצִיא אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לִהְיוֹת לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים אֲנִי יְהוָֹה:
You will guard My commandments and do them; I am God
Do not profane My holy name, but I will be made holy among the children of Israel; I am God Who makes you holy
The One Who brought you from the land of Egypt to be God to you; I am God.

If we had to boil these verses down to their essence, they seem to be saying that it is we who make God holy, even while God makes us holy. But.. what does God need us to make Her holy for? What can this possibly mean?
The great commentator Nechama Liebowitz connects this to the midrash Pesikta deRav Kahana one of the oldest of the homiletic midrashim:
פסיקתא דרב כהנא (מנדלבוים) פיסקא יב - בחדש השלישי ד"ה [ו] אנכי הגדתי

ואתם עדיי נאם י"י ואני אל. תני ר' שמע' בן יוחי אם אתם עדי נאם י"י, אני אל, ואם אין אתם עדיי כביכול אין אני י"י.

The midrash quotes Isaiah, “You are My witnesses… that I am God; before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be any after Me.” Then Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai explains: “If you are My witnesses, then I am God, the first One, neither shall any be after Me. But if you are not My witnesses, I am not, as it were, God.”

“IF you are not My witnesses, I am not God..” that’s a pretty astonishing statement. Our torah portion says that we make God holy, and the commentary says we make God, God.
How is this possible? What can this possibly mean?

There are two possibilities:
The first is a more or less common sense way to understand it:
The rabbis come up with a few different variations on the theme.

The rabbis tell us that the recitation of the shema (Talmud Berachot 14b) is our witnessing of God’s unity (in the first Paragraph), that is one very practical sanctification of God’s name, literally.

Elsewhere in the Talmud (Yoma 86a via Ein Yaakov) gives a more detailed discussion of how one can sanctify God’s name, focusing on our behavior, and how people witness us behave either honors or disgraces God- i.e. if we act in a way that is shameful, people will take note and say, “look at those Jews, and how badly they act, what a bunch of rotters – they must have a rotten God too – I’m glad I’m not one of them – and this profanes God’s name, conversely, if Jews act well, people say, “Look how honest those Jews are, they must have a great God,” in other words sanctifying God’s name.

One final example from the Tosefta (Bava Kama 10:15) succinctly sums up the above idea, “It is a more serious crime to rob a gentile than a Jew, because of the profanation of God’s name that that causes.”
תוספתא מסכת בבא קמא (ליברמן) פרק י הלכה טו

הגוזל את הגוי חייב להחזיר לגוי חמור גזל הגוי מגזל ישראל הגוזל את הגוי ונשבע ומת חייב להחזיר מפני חילול השם

In other words, in Judaism, mitzvot are given to make our every action holy – that’s why our three verses about holiness begin with a reminder to guard them. Jewish tradition commands us not to separate anything we do from the realm of holy action.

Holiness isn’t something you do in shul, it isn’t lofty thoughts, asceticism, or any kind of belief: it’s every single thing you do, from being mindful of what you eat and where it comes from and who made it, through kashrut, being grateful that you have food by saying blessings, being aware of time and of our limited nature by observing Shabbat, being modest in dress and speech, being honest in business and decent in your treatment of your employees – all things elaborated for us through Jewish law – halachah – mitzvot. When we choose to live through mitzvah, we hallow God – we also have the choice to make ourselves profane, to ignore mitzvot and erase God from the world.


The second possible response to the question of how do we make God holy is a mystical one. The word Kadosh comes from the word for separation.
The primary metaphor for the relationship between God and Israel is that of marriage.

When God tells us in this week’s portion,
Make Me holy, as I make you holy,” it isn’t merely a commandment – it’s a plea. Put Me first, says God.

There are a whole list of things that most of us prioritize before we get to God.
Well, what happens in a human marriage when we start putting things on our priorities ahead of our partner? It’s not that we intend to abandon God, but that as She gets lower and lower on the list, She slips from our mind, and one morning we wake up and She is no longer there.

When God says I make you holy, you must make Me holy – kadesh as related to the word “kidushin,” marriage – God is reminding us that it is impossible to put other gods – whether they’re money or vacation, fame, power, whatever – ahead of Him and still be in the relationship.

Practically speaking, this isn’t really so different than my first point: that in our lives, everything we do has the potential to be blessed and holy if we do them through mitzvot- but in the higher level, this is a profound reminder of how our every choice brings us the opportunity to receive the divine love – or turn away from it.

When we love someone, we see through the eyes of the beloved – we think ‘Oh, look at that, I’ll have to tell him about that later,” or, “Oh, I wish she were here to see this!” and so the beloved is with us all the time. That is what mitzvah is: not a set a bothersome obligations, but the quick thought that God is here, with me, now, and with God, unlike with a human, God really is here, with us, now – to so to speak – keep the lines open by keeping God in our every action and keeping our actions holy.

There’s a story about the famously cranky rabbi, Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotsk. He was walking with his students and he asked them, “where is God?”
They all looked at him in astonishment, and finally one of them was brave enough to pipe up and say, “Rebbe, even the littlest child knows that God is everywhere!”
To which he roared his response back, “Fool, God is only where you let Him in!”

The famous Chasidic master Elimelech of Lizhensk put it more positively, “ In every place where you dwell, in your house and everywhere you go, through the great holiness of your actions, you will increase light and holiness and bring divine grace into the world.

The Akedah: Forgiving the deepest betrayal

The story of the Akedah –the binding of Isaac- that we read today, - is perhaps one of the most difficult of all the Torah portions we read over the course of the year. Unlike some portions, it’s not difficult because it’s hard to understand what’s going on, but because the ideas presented in it are so challenging to us.


I struggle with the portion every year, to make sense of it from a religious point of view, and I always have trouble accepting the ideas presented in it as ones which I can accept. So, today, instead of speaking about the Akedah, I want to talk about what happens after the Akedah, after Isaac is saved, and he and Abraham return to their lives, and descend the mountain.

The Torah tells us that after Abraham offers Isaac to God on the mountain, and after Isaac is saved by God, Abraham returns to his young men, and they went together to Beer Sheva, and Abraham dwelt in Beer Sheva (ber. 22:19). The next thing we hear is of Sarah’s death, which is in Kiryat Arba in Hevron – and Abraham must travel there to mourn for her. The midrash tells us that her death was from hearing about what Abraham did to Isaac.

The next piece is Abraham’s sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac. When the servant succeeds in bringing Rebecca back, the Torah tells us that Isaac had just returned from Beer Lachai Ro’I (24:62) and finally, when Abraham dies ( 25:8) Isaac and Ishmael return together to bury him, and then Isaac returns to Beer Lachai Ro’i.

The text hints at something which is perhaps not terribly surprising: Abraham’s life after the Akedah is quite different. His family is essentially destroyed. Sarah according to midrash, dies of horror as Abraham returns, of what he has done to Isaac (or almost done); in the plain words of the text, she is living somewhere else than he at the time of her death.
Abraham does take a new wife after the death of Sarah and is given a whole new family, but the evidence seems to be that, either way, he never directly speaks again to Sarah or Isaac.

It is suggestive that the place Isaac returns to after his experience on the mountain is Beer Lachai Ro’I, which is the place named by Hagar when she has an experience of God. While we know that Ishmael lives elsewhere in the wilderness of Paran, it is possible that Hagar is still living there, and that Isaac goes to stay with her after the death of his mother. He leaves his father, and goes to another person who has been betrayed by his father.

We see from a close reading of the Torah itself that the family relationships of Abraham are destroyed: Abraham and Sarah are no longer together, Abraham and Isaac are also living apart, and as far as we know, during Abraham’s lifetime, his relationships with his family are never repaired, and Isaac never forgives him during his lifetime

Why do we tell the story of the Akedah on Rosh Hashanah? During these days of repentance, is the story of Abraham and Isaac one about repentance? I think that perhaps it is actually, a story of forgiveness.
Let’s talk about forgiveness for a moment:

It is odd, given the amount of time we spend talking about repentance, how little we really talk about forgiveness. We know that there is a process of teshuvah - we have to admit our sin to God and where relevant, our human victim, say we are sorry, make restitution, and then for complete teshuvah, repentance, not make the same mistake again when the opportunity presents itself.

In one of the classic sources that we use to talk about teshuva, repentance, Rambam’s hilchot teshuva (Laws of repentance), I found relatively little about human forgiveness of others: “It is forbidden for one to be harsh and non-appeasing. One should rather be forgiving and slow to anger, and whenever a sinner asks one for forgiveness one should grant it wholeheartedly. Even if the sinner had distressed one considerably and sinned against one a lot, one should/may not take revenge or bear a grudge, in the manner of a true Jew…" The main advice about forgiveness that we receive from tradition is that we shouldn’t withhold it from one who asks for forgiveness, and that if a person asks in good faith for forgiveness two or three times, and they are refused, in most cases, the person who did not forgive becomes the sinner.

In one of the passages in which Maimonides speaks about repentance, he talks about how repentance actually changes the person’s relationship with God, saying, “Teshuvah brings near those who were far removed. Previously, this person was hated by God, disgusting, far removed, and abominable. Now, he is beloved and desirable, close, and dear…Yesterday he was separated from the Lord God of Israel, …today he is attached to the Divine Presence.”

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, (Likutei Sichot vol. 28) pointed out that Maimonides’ perspective involves the victim in the process of repentance. The victim must assist the offender in hir process of rejoining with the Creator by offering forgiveness and treating the offender as though the incident had not happened. That is why the late Rabbi Schneerson emphasizes that the victim must forgive the offender with “a generous spirit” –most importantly looking upon the offender as someone who is precious and beloved.

As I thought about the parshah, I came to wonder what Abraham thought, not during the Akedah, but afterwards. Did he think that, as God had asked him to sacrifice his son, that there was nothing that he needed to apologize for? Did he try to apologize and Isaac refuse to accept it? We don’t know. There’s not enough information in the Torah itself, and the midrash doesn’t seem to be interested in taking up this narrative challenge.

But I can imagine the feelings of betrayal that Isaac felt. It is easy enough to forgive those who have no connection to us – perhaps even for fairly significant wrongs. When we know that the person has no real power over us, then it may be easy enough to simply forgive someone and move on. But when we are wronged by someone whom we love, then forgiveness is much more difficult:
When it is someone we love who wronged us, if it is serious, how can we forgive? How can we act as if we do not fear that we will be betrayed again?

Not long ago, I had a conversation with another parent about the fact that my son knows that I’m the tooth fairy. I actually have this conversation on a pretty regular basis, since Maiyan is fond of telling people both about his lost teeth, and also about his Ima who pretends to be the tooth fairy.

In a study that came out abut a year ago and was released in the Journal of Moral Education, Professor Gail Heyman, of the University of California, it was shown that parents lie to their children regularly, abut all kinds of things. The study suggested that , in fact, socially approved lies, such as telling children that there is such a thing as the tooth fairy may be a necessity, not for the children, but for the parents, as it sets up a safe lie which teaches children – in a relatively harmless way- the necessary lesson that your parents lie to you.
It is an interesting point.
It is rare that we can be in a loving relationship that does not have moments of betrayal. And if nothing else, all of us eventually die, leaving behind our loved ones, grieving.

So it is part of the human condition to need to forgive, as well as to need to repent. But coming back to our story, Isaac doesn’t seem to have been able to do it. The picture we have from the plain reading of the Torah’s story is a son who cannot forgive his father.

But the Torah (and its midrash) does give us some insight. What happens to a person who cannot forgive? In Isaac’s case, the Torah tells us that as he aged, his eyes became dim: Several sources understand this in a very broad sense, that Isaac’s blindness was not only physical, but spiritual. It affected him in two ways:
The first is that he was unable to see the faults in others – that’s the midrash’s understanding. He looked at his sons and was not able to know which of them was the one who God wished to inherit him and become the father of the Israelite nation. But that blindness was a random blindness – the second way in which he was affected is precisely because of the fear he continued to hold inside him:
He preferred which son? Not the dweller in tents, the son who was more like him, but the son who was more like his brother Ishmael: outdoorsy, strong, self-willed. Esaiv would never have let himself be dragged up a mountain to be sacrificed in blood. Isaac’s blindness was that he couldn’t see *himself*. He was unable to see what his own good qualities were and why they were necessary to someone who would lead his descendants.

There are three ways we can react to the betrayal of a loved one:
1. We can, like Sarah, accept betrayal as normal, but be unable to live with the world as it is, and find a way to protect ourselves form the inevitable betrayal by shutting love out, no longer engaging with the world
2. We can, like Isaac, develop a spiritual blindness, instead blaming oneself, or one’s loved one, for the betrayal, and holding onto that fear throughout life.
3. Or we can take a third option: forgiveness. We can see the world as it really is, and learn to accept that part of the human condition. Neither making for oneself a shell that no one can break through, refusing to be open to love again, nor remaining a victim, but moving beyond the moment of betrayal and healing the harm - when there is true desire for repair in the heart of the one who did the harm
How do we forgive, with a whole heart, those we love?

Every morning, we say during the bircot hashachar a set of blessings, which include blessings such as "blessed are you who clothes the naked,…blessed are you who releases the bound…"

In the Talmud (Sotah 14a) we read, R. Hama son of R. Hanina further said: What means the text: Ye shall walk after the Lord your God? Is it, then, possible for a human being to walk after the Shechinah? …But [the meaning is] to walk after the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He. As He clothes the naked, … so do thou also clothe the naked.

The Talmud explains that we say these blessings in the morning as a reminder that we have the power to act b’tzelem elohim in God’s image. In forgiveness, too, we ought to be reminded that we act in God’s image. If it is our part during these days of awe to repent, it is also our part to imitate God and to forgive. We speak constantly during these days of the power of God’s forgiveness, we, in fact, rely on it, for release from the bad habits of our past. If God is a forgiving God, so must we also be forgiving people, in God’s tzel, in God’s image. To forgive one another, but also, as in our story of the man who could not forgive his father, to forgive not only our father, those we love who are human, but also to forgive our Father, God.

I came to wonder as I thought about Isaac, if maybe, in the end, that’s really what the story of the Akedah is: Maybe the test was not to offer Isaac, but that Abraham knew, he knew that after he put his son on the altar – he trusted that God would not allow his son to die- but his son, his wife, Sarah, how could they forgive Abraham for putting Isaac on the altar and holding the knife to his throat? And he knew that after he walked down the mountain, he would never be forgiven. When God said, “you did not withhold your son, your only son,” maybe what he meant was that Abraham knew that he allowed his son to feel betrayed by his father, and the test, that was really the rest of his life, in which he did not speak again to him, which he lived without Sarah, and until his dying day, when Isaac and Ishmael, his two betrayed sons, came together to bury him, he did not speak to them again, and that was God’s test of Abraham.

But remember the study of the lies we tell our children: Like children who are betrayed by their parents by hearing lies from them, we also feel betrayed by our Father, by God sometimes. Sometimes when life gets difficult, it is nearly impossible to remember the love, because of the feeling that somehow, God has betrayed us in this moment of our difficulty. And in fact we have a powerful story about what this type of betrayal might teach us – namely to teach us, as humans, to forgive:

The story is told of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev:
A tailor once came to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and told him about an argument he had had with God on Yom Kippur. The tailor said: “I declared to God, ‘You wish me to repent my sins, but I have committed only minor offenses.” I may have kept leftover cloth, or I may have eaten non-kosher food, or not blessed my meal. But You, O God, have committed great sins: You have taken babies from their mothers and mothers from their babies. Let’s call it even; may You forgive me, and I will forgive You.’”
After listening intently, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak rose in anger and said, “You fool! You ignoramus! Why did you let God off so easily? You might have forced God to redeem the whole world!”

God is up to the challenge. In God’s demand of us that we forgive with a whole heart, however difficult, we are being asked to also forgive God. And because it is difficult, for us to forgive those we love, and those whom we ought to trust, we are caught, but perhaps we need betrayal from God to teach us how to forgive? Within us, we have the power to forgive one another, and perhaps even God, as wholeheartedly as God forgives us, when we come with true repentance.

When the Chickens Went on Strike

Although most modern Jews have abandoned the practice of Kapores, in some parts of the community, it is still common. I'm not sure what the Masorti movement thinks it will accomplish by joining with the SPCA -Tel Aviv, ince the parts of the community that are practicing kapores aren't the parts likely to care what the masorti movement does, but all in all, it can't hurt.

In the story from which I took this post's name (an adapted tale based on the original story by Sholom Aleichem) the author in fact points out that the practice of taking a chicken (male for men, female for women) swinging it over one's head to "catch" one's sins, and then slaughtering it, is not exactly halacha ( Jewish law). And while in general one ought not to depend on fiction for accurate portrayals of Jewish law, in this case, it happens to be correct. Not only is "Where is it written?" a good response, but where it is written, the rabbis aren't too happy with it, considering it (Like many folk customs which have become embedded in Jewish practice) akin to idolatry, or at lest very improper.

And reasonably so, while it might be a midat chesed (act of mercy) to buy a chicken which one will then donate to the poor to eat (although that does raise some questions about how that came about... really? We're giving our sins to the poor to eat? Hmmm. I hear a sin eater story in here somewhere for those of us familiar with that southern custom), the problems with the ritual as a whole are numerous. For now, let's set aside the problem of tzaar ba'alei chaim - the requirement not to be cruel to animals (in this case, by packing them in itty bitty crates sitting around in the sun all day until it's time for them to be grabbed and swung around by the feet) and concentrate on the symbolism of the custom itself.

While there seems to be some kind of yearning for authenticity as played by certain elements of the Jewish community which favor dress styles not native to Israel, but rather early modern Europe, I've never been able to fathom why people attach their sentiments to these kinds of customs (including within the community, but without it as well). There's somehow a sense that it looks or feels more authentic - but how could it be? If Judaism and our peoplehood is based upon our connection to God through God's commandments, as the Torah tells us, then one couldn't possibly repent by swinging a chicken around.
I far prefer the formulation of the Talmud (Brachot 17a) (See the bottom of the post) which likens the fat that one loses during a fast to the fat offered as a sacrifice in the times when the Temple stood. That makes far more sense to me.

Most importantly, if w are repenting, we cannot hope to shed our sins elsewhere without the ful act of teshuvah that goes with it. Whether we are speaking of ourselves as individuals, our individual communities, or Israel as a whole, our own sins cannot be displaced by any symbolic act, whether we're talking about swinging a chicken or saying that the other party involved has done bad things and so they have to repent first. NO, we are responsible for the sins of ourselves, and the sins of our people. If we wish for peace, we have to act first to recognize and admit our sins; to make reparation to those whom we've harmed; to confess to God - because in doing so, we humble ourselves and take into our hearts that our acts, whether accidental or intentional, whether preemptive or retaliatory, were wrong; and then to not do it again when the opportunity presents itself.
Stop building settlements, stop demolishing homes, stop blaming others for acts over which we have agency. Goldstone isn't our enemy, and taking on against him, as the Rabbinical Assembly has just, entirely ridiculously, done, will not bring peace.
As long as we treat acts for which we need to repent as thought they were public relations bloopers which can be addressed if we only change our spin, there will not be kaparah, atonement, no matter how long we fast on Yom Kippur, no matter how many chickens we swing. We have to do the work ourselves.

(From the Yom Kippur Haftarah Isaiah 58:2-7)
They ask Me for the right way,
They are eager for the nearness of God:
3 "Why, when we fasted, did You not see?
When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?"
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!
4 Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist!
your fasting today is not such
As to make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the Lord is favorable?
6 No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
7 It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

When R. Shesheth kept a fast, on concluding his prayer he added the following: Sovereign of the Universe, Thou knowest full well that in the time when the Temple was standing, if a man sinned he used to bring a sacrifice, and though all that was offered of it was its fat and blood, atonement was made for him therewith. Now I have kept a fast and my fat and blood have diminished. May it be Thy will to account my fat and blood which have been diminished as if I had offered them before Thee on the altar, and do Thou favour me.. (Brachot 17a)

XP

Up and down the ladder

I know that this portion is over and we're on to the next thing, but perhaps since my travels overlapped with it a little, I can squeeze just a little more juice out of it this week before I put it away.

It's nothing profound really, just that this week I find myself ba'aretz. Usually, I suppose, we must identify ourselves with Yakov, but unlike Yakov, I already knew that God was in this place; I did not need to dream to see the angels, nor to understand that God protects us in all our travels to Jerusalem, and of course, that as Rebbe Nachman said, that wherever I travel, I travel to Jerusalem.
But this time, perhaps I feel a bit more like the angels going up and down on that ladder. I have a purpose for being here, and I pray that as a servant of the HKBH, I will be able to fullfil it, but only God can ensure that end, ultimately.
And I have been the angel going up the ladder, and soon I will be the angel going down. And perhaps it is well to remember that even if I am unlike the angels in that I spend more time at the foot of the ladder, than its top, that in order to carry out one's mission, one has to go down. And that one can love even places that one goes to carry out, rather than those to which one will return.

Tze u'lmad

When I was in rabbinical school, the morning of erev Rosh Hashanah of my second year, my car had a mechanical failure and it rolled off a cliff. Those of you who read my blog probably know this story already, and so I won’t repeat it – and in any case, it’s a Rosh Hashanah story, not a shabbat haGadol story. But what happened afterward, that is a shabbat haGadol story.
I walked away from that accident, and right after the chagim, returned to class to the wonder of my classmates, who had all seen my car, which was, off course, totaled. My classmates and professors were all a little ginger with me. Yet, obviously, I was physically unhurt, and so, after a few tedious rounds of “did you feel like God did a miracle for you?” (The answer, for the record is, “no,” which is probably yet another dvar for another day) most of us went back to normal. But after a few months, when everyone but me had forgotten about it, I felt compelled to go see one of my teachers.

This teacher is a bit eccentric, even by fairly generous standards of eccentricity. Yet, something about him let me know that there was something deeper to him than he wanted to let on generally. So I went to him one day after class, and told him that I had been having what were sort of wide awake dreams, or maybe something akin to a sense of déjà vu – I didn’t know what to call it, exactly: I would have moments when I was sitting in class, or was about to fall asleep at night, or I was shopping at the grocery, when I was convinced that I had not actually walked away from the car accident. That in fact, perhaps I was still falling at that very moment, and in precursor to my death, I was living out a whole life in my mind. Or that I had already died, and didn’t yet know it –I was a sort of ghost, still walking.
I didn’t really know how to explain it – perhaps I still don’t. After all, nothing really bad had happened to me in that accident. I had walked away from it – had I not? My rav asked me about the experience – he was surprised to hear that in fact, I hadn’t passed out while falling, but was conscious the whole way down, through all the rolling.

As you may guess, his answer did nothing to stop these moments of unreality. They continued for months afterward – in fact, I occasionally still have them, although not nearly as often as I used to.
You may by now be wondering what all this has to do with the portion. This week, we read the portion of tzav, which is about korbanot – sacrifices.

Most of us look at anything that has to do with sacrifices, and our eyes just glaze right over. A whole portion of nothing but this -well, it doesn’t bode well for those of us not inflicted with insomnia.
But, what are the sacrifices, really? The word korban, itself, comes from karev- to draw close to. And indeed, the purpose of korbanot are to help us draw close to God.

Why aren’t we close to God? What is it that poisons the soul? What is it that makes us too tired to live Jewishly, to pray with joy, to make our connections to one another and to Our Great Beloved Friend? What could possibly make us feel that it isn’t worth the bother?
The rabbis tell us that it is nothing but hirhurim – the murmurings of the heart. What are the murmurings of the heart? Turning aside from God? Idolatry? Some rabbis looked at them as an outside force – something that enters us to distance us from God.
I want to suggest that hirhurim aren’t really those things at all. Hirhurim, murmurings, are those things which fill up our minds with noise and static, and so distance us from ourselves, God and the world. This is why the rabbis viewed that as an embodiment of the evil inclination. They are those things that make us say, “what’s the difference?” or, “I’m busy right now – maybe later,” about talking to our children, God or our friends and neighbors; about doing mitzvot, making an attempt to ameliorate a large problem – like poverty, or Darfur. They can be caused by all kinds of things – big incidents, like an accident or trauma, or small details building up upon us so that we finally are buried under them, like housework, or our jobs and errands. They prevent us from seeing one another, ourselves, and God for all the dust they stir up, and the cobwebs they lay down over our vision.

The Chasidic rabbi Rabbi Shalom Noach, the Slonimer Rebbe, commented in Netivot Shalom that
The olah came to atone for the murmurs of the heart. And behold, it says … there’s a story that one person was in a great forest and wanted to cut down all the trees in order to build there a city, and he began to cut one tree down, until he saw that his days would end and still he would not have finished, since the numbers were beyond counting. What did he do? He lit a great flame of fire that burned and cut down all the trees at one time. So with a Jew whose bad thoughts wage war [upon him] behold, when this thought is removed, another thought will come to be beneath it and his days will end and the thoughts will not end, and his etzato (a pun on advice and trees) is to light a great flame, a flaming, blazing fire of God, and the holy fire burns and consumes all the ideas of bad thoughts. And this is the inyan (point) of fire of the altar, the fire of holiness, that this is the torah of the olah to atone for murmurings of the heart, by means of holy fire, fire of torah and fire of serving God, that only with the power of the holy fire of the altar that burns and consumes all thoughts is it possible to purify [oneself of] the murmurings of the heart.

In other words, the fire on the altar, is a fire that should light not sacrifices, but us – it is we who should be on fire.
Perhaps I heard a muted gasp about the comment that advocates burning a huge forest to the ground – but really it’s an apt metaphor- let’s say it isn’t a city that we want to build in its place, but a healthy forest: pine bush is a kind of environmental niche which requires fire very regularly in order to survive. Without fire, underbrush and dead wood buils up and prevents young plants from getting enough sun, and new life and growth cannot begin. The entire ecosystem begins to founder; it needs the fire to clean out the trash so that the young fresh life can have room to take seed and root and to grow.


The second verse of our portion reads,
זֹאת תּוֹרַת הָֽעֹלָה

This is the Torah of the ha-olah, the burnt offering. But the midrash reads it
( Vayikra 6:2) This is the Torah of the one who goes up - ha- oleh. Whenever someone raises himself up, his end is to go into the fire (Midrash tehillim 11:5). R. Moshe of Kobrin explains:
“This is the Torah of the burnt offering (Olah) – the way to ascend in Torah study is by remaining ‘on the altar’ – by studying with fervor – with a holy flame.”

This comment on the olah reminded me of a phrase which is used many times in the Talmud – the way that a rabbinical scholar is referred to in the Talmud is as a “tzurba merabbanan” – literally “one who is on fire from the rabbis.” In tractate -Ta'anit (4a), it says, “If a young scholar - tzurba mrabbanan- gets into a rage it is because the Torah inflames him, as it is said [in the Torah in Jeremiah], Is not my word like fire? said the Lord.(Jer. 23:29)”

What is the way to go up? It is to become tzurba merabbanan. To light oneself on fire, every day and not let the fire go out. To clean out our minds by means of passion, by studying – as a kind of meditation that focuses us on the dialogue between Jew and God.

We are used to thinking of scholars as rather dry people, alone in their hidey-holes, poring away at some arcane bit which can’t possibly have any relevance to one’s life. And it’s true that some are – but that’s not the Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition of scholarship is, for one, not for the elite. It’s for everyone. That’s why the Talmud requires a scholar to live only in a place where there is a teacher for the young. That’s why Jews were one of the first cultures with public education.

To study is shmirat hanefesh – guarding one’s soul. For the soul is not something which need no tending. It is a gift, but a gift of a very special kind, like the pitch pines of Louisiana, which require fire to reseed itself. It must be burnt to the ground, and yet doing so, it never “goes out.” In order to grow, to see the sunshine, one must light a fresh fire, to release new seeds and begin new growth.

The sensation I had of being still stuck in that moment when my car went over a cliff – the feeling that perhaps I remain there, abandoned in the moment for ever - “being dead already and not knowing it” – could have become real hirhurim – murmurings so loud, so distracting that I became a sort of zombie, constantly distracted from the world by that feeling of distance – that false feeling of distance. But I was lucky to have been in the right place to cure that – a place in which study was a regular occurrence, a place in which those murmurings could be turned into yearnings that can be spoken and acted upon – making the chasm into which I was falling, an opportunity to experience flying.
The opening of the Torah portion, in describing the ritual of the olah, tells us that every morning, the priest must dress in special linen clothing and remove the ashes from the fire (Vayikra 6:3), and then reminds us that the fire on the altar must be kept continually burning, and not allowed to go out; thus every morning, the priest also has to put fresh wood on the fire to keep it going (6:5, 6)
The chasidic commentator Sfat Emet says that this fire which is renewed each day is like God’s grace which, says the prayerbook, “God renews each day in God’s goodness (from the first blessing before the shema shacharit : uv’tuvo m’chadesh bchol yom tamid maaseh bereshit). He adds, “The commandment here to remove the ashes hints that as we burn up the waste in our lives we are uplifted each day and then we are given new light. The redemptive process is with us every single day.”
The world offers us all kinds of mysterious things to chant and sing and burn and wave around to cure our hirhurim, but it turns out that there is a way which is simpler by far, and perfectly accessible to our understanding: it is opening a book and studying –just a little bit- every day.
In doing so we burn down the forest of tangled thoughts, and fill up the stuckness with the richness of here I am now, with God and my chevruta. We don’t just light a fire, we become the fire.
When we become the fire that stuckness becomes not clinging to emptiness, but being filled with something that purifies. There is a Sufi saying, “He is burnt who fears the fire, but the one who is fire, how shall he be burnt?”

xposted to Radical Torah

Slacking

I know it's been something like a month since I've last posted - apologies to all. I'm not dead yet - just resting. It's been a rather full month, and I have a list of topics that I'm thinking abot taking on... just as soon as I get a little more sleep.
See you soon - I promise.

In the meantime, a litle taste from er, last week's portion. (I told you I'm tired. But I'm just a little behind...)

I wonder if it is possible to think view Ki Tissa in terms of a unifying theme. There is, after all, an awful lot going on this week – and that is before we even get to adding on the special reading of the maftir for Shabbat Parah.

If I were to attempt to discuss all the various events and commandments… well, this post would be a liot longer, and certainly would not qualify as "a taste."

But when all the different pieces are put together: the census, the anointing of priests, the commandments of shabbat, the people’s worrying that Moshe had not reappeared after 40 days and nights and creating the golden calf, Moshe’s ongoing talks with God panim el panim – face to face, as the Torah says, “as a person speaks to his friend” (ex.33:11), Moshe’s request to see even more than that – to see God’s Kavod, and God’s offer of a partial assent to this request, and then Moshe’s return to the mountain, from which he returned with his face alight – it seems to me that there is indeed a theme that runs through the portion: God’s presence and absence, and how we go about engaging with God.

After Moshe had come down from the mountain, he asked Aaron what the heck happened. And he gives a very peculiar response: Aharon says that he said to the Israelites,

לְמִי זָהָב הִתְפָּרָקוּ וַיִּתְּנוּ-לִי וָאַשְׁלִכֵהוּ בָאֵשׁ וַיֵּצֵא הָעֵגֶל הַזֶּה

“Whoever has any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me; then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.”

One’ s immediate thought is “Sheesh, Aaron is lying through his teeth so as not to look bad.”

But on further reflection, maybe Aharon wasn’t lying. There is an interesting commentary (32:14) by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotsk. The Torah tells us, “And the Lord repented of the evil which He had thought to do to His people.” The Kotsker rebbe asks, “Why is it that God forgave the sin of the golden calf even though they did not repent, while He did not forgive the sin of the spies, even though the people had repented? The reason is that the sin of the golden calf at least had a spark of holiness, a thirst for a supreme force –‘make us a God,’ whereas in the sin of the spies all that they sought was a better material life.”

When Aharon says that the calf came out of the fire, perhaps rather than attempting to imply that he was blameless, perhaps he really was saying was that the sin of the calf came out of the people’s desire to be close to God. They were burning with the desire to be close to God – that was the fire- and in the meantime, Moshe was off having a private conversation with God.

Moshe speaks to God face to face – but every time the Israelites get a taste of this intimacy, it’s too much. We end up asking for a mediator. But still, in our hearts, that desire to be close to God is there, and it never leaves us. We can see that someone else has been able to make that connection, and we’re burning for it.

In Shir ha shirim (3) we read:

1. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I found him not.

2. I will rise now, and go around in the city; in the markets and in the broad streets will I seek him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I found him not.

3. The watchmen that go around in the city found me; Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

4. I had just passed them when I found him whom my soul loves; I held him, and would not let him go...

Israel had shown that they were burning for God; One who seeks God must be prepared to get up and look for God. But in searching, we surely will find the one whom our soul loves.

The Power of Words - Mattot-Maasei

There’s a spectacularly interesting review in this week’s nation by Martha Nussbaum on Catherine Mackinnon’s new book Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues.

I’m not going to say much about either the review or the book, because I think you should go read the review yourselves, but the reason I mention it is because the first thing that popped into my head -no, really- was this week’s parsha. The beginning of parshat Mattot jumps into a set of commandments about what happens when people take oaths, but most of its focus is set squarely upon what happens when women take oaths. And the answer is not exactly pretty.

The Torah tells us that if a woman who is underage makes an oath, if the father acts immediately, he has the power to revoke the oath. Similarly, when a woman gets married, as soon as he hears about any oath she has made for herself, if he says something on that day, the husband can revoke it. Only a woman who is single - either divorced, or a widow- has ultimate power over her own vows. Of course this is nothing quite new. There are all sorts of ways in which the Torah makes quite clear that a woman is not a full agent, unless she has “acquired herself” through death or divorce.
in Parshat kedoshim on Vayikra 19:3
אִישׁ אִמּוֹ וְאָבִיו תִּירָאוּ וְאֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ אֲנִי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶֽם:
Every man his mother and father you shall fear and My sabbaths you shall observe.I am Adonai your God.
Rashi comments:
אין לי אלא איש, אשה מנין, כשהוא אומר תיראו הרי כאן שנים, ד א”כ למה נאמר איש, שהאיש סיפק בידו לעשות, אבל אשה רשות ה אחרים עליה:

I [know this] of a man, from where [do I know this of] a woman? When it says: “You shall fear,” this is two. If so, why is “man” mentioned? For it is in a man’s power to do, but a woman is under the control of others.
As Sifra explains, (Sifra Kedoshim, par. 1, 3) A woman must consult her husband about her activities outside the house.

This is only the very beginning of skimming through many texts where it is quite clear that women are not considered to be agents, nor have they the power to make themselves such. According to the commentators, even the power to obey commandments expressly given to them by God are mediated through the lesser social status of gender.
This is why the review of MacKinnon’s book reminded me of this week’s portion: here it is one of the places where women’s lesser status is made clear.

Vows - words- are a form of reality - God speaks and the world comes into being. In Judaism, unlike other religions, words are not transferrable. Any language isn’t as good as any other in all things: Hebrew is the holy language, and as soon as one translates, one loses something. Words aren’t symbols, they are, themselves, power.To say that one person can revoke another’s vows is to make literal one’s power over another - it is saying that one has the power to erase another’s speech, and in so doing, erase their deeds and their power, as well.

Is there an out? Yes - the out is that when women are free of others - widows or single adult women, others have no power over them, even biblically. In these days, we must recognize that speech reifies - it is not, in Judaism, simply sound waves that disappear like ripples in a pond. It is the movement of oceans - equaivalent both to the dripping of water on stones that wear them smooth, to the destructive force of tsunamis. When God speaks, the world comes into being. So, too when we speak. This is why the rabbis felt so strongly about vows.

The Talmud, in Nedarim 77b, states: “Rav Dimi, the brother of Rav Safra, learnt: He who vows, even though he fulfils it, is designated a sinner.” This isn’t the only position of the rabbis of course: others held that if one made a vow and fulfilled it, that was praiseworthy - but what all the rabbis shared was a deep respect for vows, and a horror of making vow that might not be fulfilled.

How can we understand the underlying meaning of these verses. Does the Torah really intend to tell women that the power of words is not for us? Are we really to be stripped of our humanity, only subject to others, always the silent servants in the room?

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that the Torah does leave an out: the woman who is no longer under the authority of her father or husband. This seems to imply that today, when we expect men and womento be equals in marriage, the ability to annul vows is not in effect: rather we should understand not just that women are always subject to men, but the reverse as well. What the Torah means is that in a house where there are two, they must take one another into account when speaking, when shaping the reality of their lives. It also means that we understand that silencing another person is in essence equivalent to murder: because if words are power, preventing speech stops not only their tongue, but their hands.

The Chofetz Chaim, commenting on a verse from this week’s portion, says, (31:8)
And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi…they also slew Balaam the son of Beor with the sword:
He came to Israel and changed his tools of trade for theirs, for the Jews are only saved by their mouths and by their prayers and entreaties, while he came and used their belief, by cursing them with his mouth. They too changed their tools of trade for his, for the other nations come with the sword as it states, “By your sword you shall live.” (Rashi) From this we see that the tool of the trade of the Jewish people is speech, and with it they can create worlds, both material and spiritual, as it states, (Isa. 51:16), “I have put My words in your mouth…to plant the heavenes and lay the foundations of the earth,” therefore a Jew must be very careful not to harm the tools if his trade, i.e. his tongue, by speaking that which is forbidden, but must utilize these tools for Torah and prayer.

What does it mean to be human? To be human, one must be heard, and one must have the power to carry out one’s intentions. Martha Nussbaum makes a very interesting comment in the review, in which she summarizes Mackinnon’s central theme as, ” the hypocrisy of the international system when it faces up to some crimes against humanity but fails to confront similar harms when they happen to women…There is a category of torture, and we think we know how to define it. We think we know what it does: It uses violence to control and intimidate. And yet when violence is used to control and intimidate women ‘in homes in Nebraska…rather than prison cells in Chile,’ we don’t call it torture, and we somehow think it is not the same thing. Torture in Chile is not explained away as the work of isolated sick individuals…”
Aside from the fact that only too often, we do rationalize torture as the work of isolated sick individuals (take for example the US government’s reaction to the exposure of methods of torture by American soldiers - in all sorts of places, but just for specificity’s sake, let’s focus on Abu Ghraib) let’s ask what’s really the point: that these women are treated in a way which undermines their status as human beings. The Torah of course isn’t advocating that women ought to be tortured: chas v’shalom! But it does lay the groundwork, when we read these commandments without subtlety, for women to be in situations where they cannot escape from being treated this way.

For generations - and even today, in some places- shalom bayit, peace in the home- was used as a bludgeon against abused women to prevent them from leaving, to place the blame on them for violence against them. Again, the Torah is not advocating this, but its words, used poorly, bolster those who would be naval bir’shut hatorah - villains within the boundary of Torah (or with the permission of Torah) and so abuse it. And so, ultimately, it is up to us to make sure that the Torah’s words are not made into a way to silence the powerless, but rather used as God intended, as a way to protect the powerless. But we have to be careful, because often, systems which have at their heart the desire to protect, reinforce systems in which people remain in need of protection, rather than fixing the actual problem, it perpetuates it.

We can read the verses on vows in many ways: focusing on the way that society was in those days, in which the Torah protected women, by giving them a way to not be held liable for their inability to fulfil their obligations; or we can focus upon the future, in which the Torah tells us that a woman who is a full agent has the power to carry out her vows. This shouldn’t make us wanton with our power: we should always take care to make sure that our actions don’t adversely affect those around us - we shoud take care with our power- but ultimately, we must be free to act, in order to use the tools of our trade.

Crossposted to Radical Torah

Pinchas - Tools of Power

This weeks thought - why does Pinchas contain both the story of the slaying of Kozbi and Zimri by Pinchas, and also the story of the daughters of Tzelophchad? Is there a relationship?

Our commentators understand that what Kozbi and Zimri, who are given names -as well as titles- during this week’s portion, were doing was actually fornicating (how often do I get to use that word) in front of the entire community, as well as Moshe, and it was for this reason that Pinchas slew them.

But let’s look a little closer at what was actually described. It is true that chapter 25 of Bamidbar begins by saying that the Israelites started mixing sexually with the Midianites, but that doesn’t actually seem to be what annoys God. In fact, according to the text, God gets mad when? After the Israelites slide into genuine idol-worship attaching themselves to the Baal -Peor (not when they have sex with the Midianites) and before Kozbi and Zimri show up on the scene. That’s when God really loses it and tells Moshe to get things under control. It’s at that point that an unnamed man and woman

בָּא וַיַּקְרֵב אֶל־אֶחָיו אֶת־הַמִּדְיָנִית לְעֵינֵי מֹשֶׁה וּלְעֵינֵי כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְֹרָאֵל וְהֵמָּה בֹכִים פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵֽד

“come and draw near to his brethren… and before the eyes of Moshe and all of Israel….and they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting ”

This week, we get some additional information: Kozbi and Zimri aren’t just any old Israelite and Midianite! Verse 14 and 15 tell us: 14. And the name of the Israelite who was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a father’s house among the Simeonites. 15. And the name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was chief over the people of a father’s house in Midian. This tells us two things: first, they’re of equal rank - Kozbi is the daughter of a tribal leader, Zimri is himself a tribal leader. Second: They aren’t just Joe Israelite and Jane Midianite - they’re important people. And the Torah makes a point of telling us this.

This immediately reminded me of the story of Korach, which we read just two weeks ago, in which Korach, a Levite accused Moshe and Aaron of arrogance, because they had “taken” the “important” positions, when all of Israel is holy, but revealed in the course of the rebellion that he wasn’t really worried about all of Israel, but about getting more power for himself.

So let’s go back to the strangely ambiguous comment from last week’s parshah about the crying. When we read, it actually isn’t quite clear who is doing the weeping here, whether it is Israel, or whether it is Zimri and Kozbi.
Later on in our portion there’s another story involving women which is quite different, the story of Tzlophchad’s daughters, which we’ll get to in a few minutes. Regarding that story, there is an interesting comment in the talmud to the effect that women cry easily - and it makes all sorts of hay out of this pronouncement - to which the Avnei Ezer comments that tears are a form of bribery by word.

Even though this comment was regarding the section about the daughters of Tzelophchad, perhaps it more properly belongs here, regarding Zimri and Kozbi. What we have here is a situation in which Israel is suffering from a horrible plague in which people are dying left and right. Moses’ response is to say that God told him to kill everyone who worships Baal with the Moabites. And there’s one more piece: At the end of the chapter on Pinchas, the Torah comments that the reason we are to harrass the Midianites (not, mind you, the Moabites!) is because the Midianites harrassed you

בנכליהם אשר נכלו לכם

- tough to translate, but more or less, “in their conspiracy of villainy that they conspired (or were villians) about the matter of Peor and Kozbi” -one translation is possibly, “they did the same to you with beguilement about the matter of Kozbi.”

The implication is that there was a political move going on here. Maybe sex is a kindof gateway drug to idolatry at most - but what Kozbi was doing was using this plague as an opportunity to seduce people over to Baal worship, and Zimri was involved in this intrigue. The crying is a technique, bribery, as the Avnei Ezer puts it, not real tears, but a show. It seems to me that what angered Pinchas was not this couple -as the commentators suggest- having sex, but that a local power player went to someone of equal rank amongst the Midianites and brought her there to stir up the crowds against Moshe during this moment of great panic and fear. That makes this an episode much more like that of Korach than a rant about intermarriage. That’s why the Torah is so careful to go back and tell us the name and rank of this slain man and woman, when it didn’t before, in last week’s portion, when the incident actually happened.

No matter how we understand what Zimri and Kozbi were doing, they are using some very specific kinds of tools to get power. And these tools are illegitimate. To the contrary, Tzelophchad’s daughters were no one special, their father was no one special, they didn’t have any special priveleges. Yet, instead of playing at power games, they were completely forthright. And Godself answered through Moses, saying that they were right.
And the reason that all of this is wrapped up here in this parshah is because there is a third piece here that talks about leadership: God tells Moses to take Joshua and bring him in front of the people and put his hands on him and commanded him (Bamidbar 27: 19 & 23) which he does.
ultimately, what can we draw from this? Joshua and the daughters of Tzelopchad represent two diferent stations of people, and how they can appropriately gain authority: the rabbis valorize the daughters of Tzlopchad (Bava Batra 119b) as

חכמניות הן, דרשניות הן, צדקניות הן

wise women, they were exegetes, they were virtuous. Anyone can legitimately wield power by pursuing justice and learning, but once you have the power of authority by some other means, one has to be very careful. Korach and Zimri, both people who had heriditary standing in the community - positions that they had come by only because of an accident of birth, are not forgiven for abusing that power. The Torah juxtaposes Joshua to them to show that the highest authority is one remains commanded - that is, someone who does things not because of hisown benefit, but because he is obligated to keep in mind his care for the community. That’s what made Moshe such a great leader; the Torah is very careful to say that Moses was the humblest of men -it was not for his own benefit that he led Israel, but because he combined the leadership qualities of the daughters of Tzlophchad and Joshua - he had a keen sense of justice, which he felt obligated to pursue, even when it menat he had to flee his home; and he was commanded - he maintained authority only in order to do the work that he must.

What’s the difference between Tzelophchad’s daughters and Kozbi? Kozbi gets up and starts acting like a stereotypical female - we don’t even know what it is that she and Zimri want, except that it clearly has to do with the Midianites and some sort of conspiracy to woo the Israelites away to worship their Gods. She is using sex to win Israel over. It’s a neat trick - and we all know, sex works.

But

שקר החן והבל היפי

- grace is false and beauty vain (Mishlei 31:30). In the end , the Torah sees the sexual antics of the Moabite women and Kozbi’s tears as two of a variety of different tactics - here they’re all about sex, but Korach as well numbers among these strategists - the fault is misusing the rules, rather tan changing them to make them better.
To the contrary, Tzelophchad’s daughters, who not only were women like Kozbi, but weren’t even powerful women - their father was no one special, they didn’t have any special priveleges. Yet, despite being powerless, they had the gumption to go before Moses, Elazar the Kohen, and the leaders and the whole assembly of Israel and speak out. They didn’t cry, and they didn’t use a man to make their case for them. They simply presented a rational case and hoped that despite living in a society in which they had little power, their argument would be enough. One might answer that they ran a pretty big risk - what if Moshe hadn’t brought their complaint to God? The answer is that it wasn’t going before Moshe that got God’s response. Not since Abraham, did someone think to go to the top and challenge, not the individual preference, but the rule. Everyone else challenges not God, but Moshe! (Think of Korach, which opens with Korach and his followers staniding before Moshe and Aaron and accusing them of being arrogant). The daughters of Tzelophchad were not after a personailty contest. Moreover, their challenge was not a challenge only for themselves and their personal status, but one which was brought for women as a whole - any woman who had no brothers was affected by their plaint.

The point we bring here is not that one should follow channels (as they say, Chas v’shalom!), but rather that there are legitimate and non-legitimate ways to acquire power. Even the powerless have choices. No matter how powerless an individual is, they have the ability to find a way to change society and make it right, rather than simply exploiting the tools which are already there to benefit themselves.

crossposted to RadicalTorah.org

Korach - The Salt of the Earth

Although this week’s parsha, named for what appears to be its main character, begins with Moshe and Korach, it actually ends with Aaron and the establishment of the eternal priesthood. Why does this shift take place? Perhaps the explanation lies in a small detail that appears in Bamidbar 18:19. God tells Aaron that in place of an inheritance of land to support themselves, the Levites are to be given everything that is set aside for tithing forever, and it is a brit melach olam, an eternal covenant of salt. This brit melach is mentioned only three times in the Torah: in Vayikra 2:13, in which the meal offering is first explained as not being offered with honey or leavening, and then continues, “And every sacrifice of your meal offering shall you season with salt; nor shall you allow the brit melach of your God to be lacking from your meal offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” The second mention is from this week’s parsha, “All the offerings of the holy things, which the people of Israel offer to the Lord, have I given you, and your sons and your daughters with you, by a statute forever; it is a brit melach forever before the Lord to you and to your seed with you,” and the third mention is from Divrei Hayamim 13:5, “Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, to him and to his children by a brit melach?”

What is the connection between these three things? The brit melach is eternal – it is a covenant that does not fade over time, it cannot be undone or superceded. Salt comes to symbolize eternality because of its preservative properties. In Vayikra, melach is opposed to chametz: chametz, leavening, is temporary: one’s fortunes are a wheel in the world that turns (T. Bavli Shabbat 151b). Salt, to the contrary, is a constant. It does not ferment; it is stable and preserves food against rot.

But the preserving properties of salt have other symbolism, as well. Salt, unlike leaven, and honey, doesn’t have any obvious effects. Honey sweetens, leaven puffs bread up with air. Our sages note, that salt, however, disappears into that which it is used on – you can’t see it. Moreover, in itself, it doesn’t taste like much, but it makes that to which it is added tasty. It is therefore a symbol of humility and service. In this way, salt is contrasted in particular to leaven, chametz, which symbolizes haughtiness – as we might say today, someone who is “puffed up with their own importance.”

But one of the most powerful statements about salt appears in the Talmud (Berachot 5a) which states, “The word ‘covenant’ is mentioned in connection with salt, and the word ‘covenant’ is mentioned in connection with sufferings: the word ‘covenant’ is mentioned in connection with salt, as it is written: Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking. And the word ‘covenant’ is mentioned in connection with sufferings, as it is written: These are the words of the covenant. Even as in the covenant mentioned in connection with salt, the salt lends a sweet taste to the meat, so also in the covenant mentioned in connection with sufferings, the sufferings wash away all the sins of a man.”

It is instructive to notice that in fact, Aaron seems to exemplify precisely what the Talmud is telling us. Aaron not long ago lost two of his sons, and yet not bitter, but of all the characters of the Torah, he is known primarily for his sweetness. The rabbis called him “peacemaker,” and the midrash reiterates over and over his gentleness and kindness. Avot d’ rabbi Natan (12:3) says, “When Aaron went on his way and a wicked person encountered him, Aaron greeted him. The next day, that man wanted to commit a sin, but thought, “Woe is to me! How will I raise my eyes afterwards and look at Aaron? I am ashamed before him, for he greeted me.” It continues, “When two people quarreled Aaron went and sat down with one of them and said to him, “My son, know that your friend has said, ‘I am ashamed before him because I have sinned against him.’ ” Aaron would sit with him until he had dispelled the ill feeling from his heart. Then Aaron would go and sit with the other one and say to him, “Know that your friend is saying, ‘Woe is to me! How shall I raise my eyes and look at my friend? I am ashamed before him because I have sinned against him.’ ” Aaron would sit with him until he had dispelled the ill feeling from his heart. When the two friends later met, they embraced and kissed each other. Because of this, when Aaron died, it says: “All of Israel cried over Aaron for 30 days.”

While many commentators focus on the difference between Moshe and Korach: Moshe’s humility compared to the haughtiness of Korach, only a few notice that in fact, Moshe may well also have had some small blame against him – a few note that he did tshuvah (notice that when Korach accuses him, he falls on his face, an act of contrition, or at least appeasement). But even granted Moshe’s lesser level of haughtiness, or complete lack thereof, no one mistakes him for a warm and fuzzy kind of guy. Aaron, however, is. The Sifra (Shemini 1) even claims that Aaron never said to a person, “You have sinned”
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One of the other effects that our sages noted from salt is that it shrinks that which it is placed upon. Aaron merited an eternal covenant because through that which he suffered, he was able to shrink himself, and through by doing so, he brought huge numbers of people to God and away from sin. Despite Rabbi Ismar Schorsch’s recent excoriation of touchy-feeliness, it seems that the tradition itself recognizes that there is a way in which eternity is often better promoted through human relationships than through other means.

In a certain sense, the covenant itself is a reflection on the family to whom it is given. If the way that the House of Levi relates to the world is through kindness, which made them so loved that “thousands in Israel were called by the name Aaron,” (Avot d’rabbi natan 12:3), then who could better stand a covenant which in giving up any inheritance of land, requires that family to rely on the gifts of others for their livelihood? What other family could be charged with bearing the sins of the entire people Israel – who better than the family which through their gentleness, drew people to Torah.

While Korach is a symbol of everything that can go wrong in how one approaches service to God and one’s people, Moshe turns out also not to be the model for us. Moshe, no mater how you slice him, is different than the rest of us. In theory, sure, anyone could aspire to being a Moshe, but in reality, the one who is really successful in bringing people together are not the prophets who speak face to face with God, but those who speak face to face with us. That is, the salt of the earth.

Crossposted to RadicalTorah

Vaera

The unusual number of “have-to-see” movies that have come out recently has made my life very difficult. It seems to me that this year, there have been just SO many films that everyone is seeing and talking about. That’s why when I finally got around to seeing “Brokeback Mountain” I felt for a moment like I had finally rejoined the 21st century, at least pop culture-wise. If there actually remains anyone else who hasn’t yet sent the movie, I’m going to let you know ahead of time, that it doesn’t matter that I’m going to be mentioning the film today – this isn’t the kind of movie that you can spoil by talking about it.
Although Brokeback Mountain has been discussed endlessly as a breakthrough romance of gay characters, really it’s a very classical tragedy in which the flaws of one or more of the characters cause them to take a path which leads to sorrow, and ends in death. In this, the character of Ennis, bears not one, but two, of these flaws. And both of these flaws make an appearance in our torah portion this week, with different outcomes.
Ennis Del Mar is nicely described by the Nation’s Stuart Klawans as “light-haired, square-faced, mush-mouthed, stolid.” But that hardly begins to describe the inability to speak suffered by Ennis. He is the absolute paradigm of the strong but silent type. Only with Jack is he able to occasionally open up and speak a few sentences about himself. With no one else in the film is he ever able to articulate anything that is going on inside himself.
How much does this make him like our teacher, Moshe? Shemot 6:12, “
And Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips

Ennis: If you can’t fix it, you just have to bear it.

Both of these men suffer a deep lack of faith in their ability to effect any kind of change. The word Orlah (foreskin) means a covering. The word orlah appears in several different incarnations in the Torah: "Orlat HaLev" (uncircumcised heart), "Orel Sfataim" (uncircumcised lips) as we have here, or "Orlah" from a tree (fruits of the third year). It implies a spiritual "barrier" between which has to be removed. Is Ennis’s problem a spiritual one? Not entirely,- he does in deed live in a world dangerous for men like him. Jack can dream about moving in together and running a ranch, but Ennis’ father made sure that his sons knew what happened to gay men, and indeed, toward the end of the film, we do see that Ennis’ fears about how the world treats people like them were justified. Or were they?

Deep down, What is the cause of Ennis’ inability to speak? The orlah of Ennis Del Mar, is an orlah of fear. It isn’t enough to say that Ennis is wisely avoiding the outcome that eventually falls upon Jack by keeping his inclinations secret. In fact, he completely fails at that. Rather, Ennis is sealed into himself in all things. He is never able to open himself up to others fully – even to Jack, whom he loves, he can only commit himself briefly, sporadically, and in relative silence. A few minutes of self-revelation here and there, leaving the wealth of his emotions under lock and key, Ennis is a man alone in the world, and unable to circumcise his lips – unable to break through and open his heart to others.

And this is related to Ennis’ second, related flaw. Ennis never moves very far from the person he was at the beginning of the film. He starts out a man dedicated to living a certain way, in a certain place. He has a particular notion of himself, and never moves very far from it, even as the circumstances change drastically. He spent the summer of 1963 learning that he wasn’t the man he thought he was. He fell in love but never changed his plans to go back to Alma and marry her. In fact, throughout his entire life, he is unable to go to Jack, even after his wife divorces him, because Ennis Del Mar simply cannot change himself. He cannot recognize his place in the world is subject to any power not his own, as if by sheer will power, he can make himself other than what he is. And this is the flaw of Pharaoh.

Pharaoh can simply not recognize that there are times when one simply doesn’t control the circumstances of one’s life. He thinks that if he only insists long enough, the world will bend to his will. Maimonides notes that for the first five plagues, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and only beginning with next week’s Torah portion does it say that God hardened pharaoh’s heart.

Maimonides explains that the reason for this curious change in phrasing is that in reality, Pharaoh is simply being human. God does not remove Pharaoh’s free will, he merely watches as Pharaoh sets down a path. Human beings are very strange creatures. The first time we act a particular way, it’s not so hard to turn back. But each time we commit to that action again, it becomes harder and harder to stop doing it.
The first time we skip going to the gym, it’s just this time, but after a week, it becomes, oh, why bother, and soon enough, we’re back to being couch slugs.


So how is it that Moshe’s story becomes one of redemption, and Pharaoh’s remains ultimately a tragedy, not only for himself, but for his nation?



The Rabbi of the Warsaw ghetto, Rabbi Kalonymous Kalmish Shapira, writes in the Esh Kodesh, about our portion, In the Talmud, (Arachin 10b) it says, ‘There was a magrefa in the holy temple that had ten holes, each of which produced ten different kinds of music. A tanna taught: It was one cubit long, one cubit broad, and from it projected a handle with ten holes. Each hole produced one hundred kinds of sounds, amounting for the whole to one thousand tunes.’
Rashi explains that the magrefa was a sort of trowel or spade, used in a daily Temple ritual of terumat hadeshen – the tithing of the ashes, in which the ashes on the sacrificial altar were gathered, heaped and removed.
Rabbi Shapira asks, “Why does an implement used for moving ashes need to sing – and not just to sing, but to sing a thousand songs, which is something that other instruments cannot do? In fact, from other references to the magrefa in the mishnah (Tamid 3:8) we learn that this instrument was so loud, its sound could be hears as far away as Jericho…

He goes on to mention, “There is a teaching in the book sha’ar HaKedusha by R. Chaim Vital, “The evil inclination in humanity is patterned after the four elements from which human beings and the entire universe are fashioned. From the element of fire comes anger, from the element of air comes pride, from the element of earth comes sloth and indifference.”
For the moment, let’s put aside the science of the matter.

In his holy book, Imrei Elimelech, the father of the Rabbi Shapira explains how one may exploit the passion inherent in the evil inclination derived from the element of fire, by harnessing it to good purpose and using it to worship God. ‘The same passion a person might use to do wrong can be used for doing good, because a person in his progress toward spiritual renewal can utilize passion. However, the principle does not work with the characteristics of sloth and indifference resulting from the evil inclination derived from the element of earth. There we are dealing with Amalek, who functions by chilling the passions of the Jewish people. Indifference and cynicism are devoid of passion, so they cannot be inverted and sanctified.’”

IN other words, when a person – or for that matter a nation- is angry in a passionate way, they are still able to connect. Anger and passion are still a kind of engagement. Granted, not exactly the ideal kind of engagement, but there’s something there to work with. But the kind of feelings that leave us cold, as it were, indifference, or despair, kills a piece of us, and leaves us disengaged – what can you do with that?
Rabbi Shapira says, “Once a Jew is trapped in depression and apathy, his heart, mind and all those parts of his body influenced… are dragged down, growing incapable of shaking off their depression. When thus prevented from cleaving to holiness, his faith is damaged, God forbid. That explains why calamities and crises that beset a person, God forbid, breaking him or forcing him to succumb, can also damage his faith….This is why even in the Temple, where the Jewish people offered sacrifices upon the holy altar, wanting nothing but to elevate everything to God in a fire of holiness, the ashes – the element of earth- remained on the altar. The earth element could not be elevated to holiness, and so the ashes had to be consecrated in the daily ritual of terumat hadeshen, tithing the ashes. How can this tithing be done? Only with the music of the magrefa, representing joy …-for with joy and an expression of salvation anything can be elevated, and darkness can be transformed into light.”

Rabbi Shapira also adds, “…The ashes themselves because they are disconnected from their spiritual source, are filled with longing and hence, even more song.” That when there is that feeling of detachment from holiness, it is an opportunity or the longing for God to grow out of that disconnection, which inspires within us song. The song comes “directly from the pain of separation.” In other words, song, or “the expression of salvation,” can awaken the chill of despair to an awareness of the pain causing the despair, and through the song, a connection is forged, not only banishing the despair and bringing us back to God, but the very pain itself, has caused an even deeper connection to God than we might have had without it.

Pharaoh’s story is a tragedy because he never breaks out of his chill. We are never told that he gets angry – he never, as far as we know, flares his nostrils at Moshe. He is always the calculating pharaoh; even at the very end – he will ask only “What have we done, why did we send Israel out from serving us?” Even after all the plagues, after the deaths, after the destruction, he still is mired in himself, and never breaks free of the idea that he can somehow get ahold of the situation. There is no “expression of salvation” to raise him up to a more rational evaluation of the world, and he never changes. He never breaks through the orlah of his heart, which remains hard, impervious. He is stuck doing the same things over and over again, hoping for a different result.

Moses’ story becomes one of redemption because he was not, in the end trapped in himself. Moses did not despair because God was there to remind him, “You are not alone, you have a brother Aaron, who can help you speak.” And he does. The orlah of Moses’ lips, is circumcised by the relationship he has with his beloved brother. His relationship enables him to break out of his silence. And his brother is not the only one in whom Moses confides, his father in law, later on, gives him advice, which he takes. His sister, is clearly dear to him, as we read in Numbers, even when she speaks against him because of his wife, Moses pleads to God on her behalf in one of the shortest prayers in the Torah, 5 words, el na refah nah lah – please God please heal her.
He grows from being a sheltered child of the Egyptian palace to being a leader who is involved in every aspect of his community, whom he leads to freedom and to God, for them to be healed, as he was healed, of the spiritual blockage of his lips – his inability to relate to other people, perhaps a malady he caught from Pharaoh, is healed by God.

And in fact, Moses’ expression of salvation saves not just himself from despair, but an entire nation. And that is why Brokeback Mountain is such a moving film. In it, we see ourselves, isolated, unable to truly be intimate with others, trapped in our same patterns, over and over again. Ennis is unable to express himself to the ones he cares about. There are moments of passion with Jack, but he can’t sustain them, just as pharaoh had moments of insight, which he then immediately retracted.
Ennis may very well have cared deeply about his wife, despite not having a great passion for her, but he can’t tell her – even when she confronts him with it- the truth. He loves his daughters, but he can’t make them part of his life.

A final point, there’s a very odd little midrash about pharaoh which suggests that even the greatest tragedy may not be the final end we expect.
According to one opinion, Pharaoh later became the king of Nineveh, who repented in the times of Jonah.

The one glimmer of hope that Brokeback Mountain leaves with us is at the end of the film, when his daughter comes to ask him to attend her wedding. He at first, answers her in the way he has been accustomed to doing his entire adult life, making himself absent, isolating himself in his work, but finally, when he sees the disappointment in her face, he relents, and allows himself to say that for once, they can do without him, and agrees to take part in her joy, and to himself, have a moment of joy with others, and perhaps, after all, he may yet hear the song of the magrefa, as ashes of chill are turned into notes of joy, and the song of salvation connects him to those he loves.

Parshat Miketz

Miketz 05
Who here has not woken one morning, head filled with a dream from the night before, thinking, "What a horrible dream," and just shuddered a bit, with a creeping superstitious feeling, hoping that it wouldn't come true. Throughout history, humans have shuddered or delighted in the visions that our minds have given us at night. And throughout history, humans hav believed in the power of dreams, that dreams hold the power to unlock the future for us.
The rabbis, too, stated that a dream is 1/60th of prophecy. The Torah portion of Miketz is enthralled with dreams. Pharaoh dreams of cows and and grain, and he sought someone to interpret his dreams for him. Strangely, though, even though he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt, no one could help him, until the head cupbearer remembered the young servant who had correctly interpreted his dream and that of the head baker years before. Joseph is summoned and sure enough, does provide a dream interpretation that proves later to be perfectly correct.
In light of this, it is somewhat interesting to note that in a chapter of the talmud in which the rabbis extensively discuss dream interpretation, the end conclusion they give is that in fact, dreams are, as they are interpreted.
The midrash tells the story of
Midrash Rabbah - Genesis LXXXIX:8
8. AND WE TOLD HIM... AND IT CAME TO PASS, AS HE INTERPRETED TO US, SO IT WAS (XLI, 13).
A certain woman who went to R. Eliezer and said to him: ' I saw in a dream how that the loft of the upper storey of my house was split open.’ ‘You will conceive a son,’ he told her. She went away and it happened even so. Again she dreamed the same and came and told it to R. Eliezer, who gave her the same interpretation, and it happened even so. She dreamed this a third time and repaired to him but did not find him, so she told his disciples, ' I saw in a dream that the loft of the upper storey of my house was split open.’ ‘You will bury your husband,’ they told her, and this did happen. R. Eliezer, hearing a cry of wailing, asked what was amiss, whereupon they related to him what had occurred. ‘You have killed the man,’ he upbraided them; is it not written, AND IT CAME TO PASS, AS HE INTERPRETED TO US, SO IT WAS?
R. Johanan said: All dreams are dependent on the interpretation given to them, save a dream about wine. Sometimes a dream of drinking wine augurs well, and sometimes it betokens misfortune. When a scholar drinks [in a dream], it is a good augury; when an ignoramus drinks, it betokens misfortune.
Rabbi Yochanan's statement is an interesting response. It suggests that a dream interpretation is more natural than the sages stattement that it is 1/60th prophecy would seem to suggest: one whose life is in general in good order, one might expect to have a good outcome, whether or not they had a dream about it. Someone whose life is not so together, one might predict a negative future. But in fact, if this is how we understand the rabbi's views on dreams we would be very mistaken.In fact, what the rabbis man is that speaking the dream makes it happen, even if the speaker is completely without knowledge of the circumstances of the dreamer.
A key tothe rabbinic view of dreams can be found in the portion itself. When Pharaoh tlls Joseph I dreamt a ream, but there is no one who could interpret it; I heard it said about you that if you hear a dream you are able to interpret it," Jospeh responds (Ber. 41:16):
áÌÄìÀòÈãÈé àÁìÉäÄéí éÇÍòÂðÆä àÆúÎùÑÀìåÉí ôÌÇøÀòÍÉä:
"That is beyond me [to interpret a dream]; God will answer for pharaoh's welfare."
That is, unlike the students of our story whose interpretation killed a person, Joseph made himself transparent in a way; a window for God to be seen through.
There is a saying of the rabbis that appears in the talmud:
Yevamot 49b
ëãúðéà: ëì äðáéàéí ðñúëìå áàñô÷ìøéà ùàéðä îàéøä, îùä øáéðå ðñúëì áàñô÷ìøéà äîàéøä
All the prophets looked into a dim glass, but Moshe rabeinu looked into a clear glass.
Why would we say that the prophets only saw God through a dim glass? So often when we seek God, we see God only through the lens of -ourselves. IN fact, instead of seeing God, we see ourselves: we make of our religoin a mirror. We do what we wnt and hear what we wish for. The prophets were better at this than most of us - they were able to scrape a little of the silver off the mirror and see through to God's wishes of us, but still, one can see by the different tones of the prophets, that they, too, revealed themselvs through their prophey evn as they were revealing God to us. But when Moshe sought to reveal God in the world, he made of himself a clear glass, one through which not his wishes, but God's, came through - at least most of the time. Even Moshe, after all, wasn't perfect.
In Isaiah 59:21 which appears at the end of the weekday morning service,
it says:
As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord; My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, nor from the mouth of your seed’s seed, says the Lord, from now on and forever.
God promises Israel that we and our children will always have the power of prophecy. Now you may think that this has turned out not to be true, not withstanding bubbe's uncanny ability to call when one of her grandchildren have broken a leg or dinged the car on the last trip out. But if we think about Jospeh's response, perhaps we might come to a different conclusion.
It's true that none of us are Moses. We're mostly - especially today when we're accustomed to living however we wish and thinking that whatever we wish must be the right thing- unable to put ourselves aside to make a clear glass for God's will. But God doesn't expect that of us, anyway. God doesn't ask, why weren't you Moshe rabeniu, God asks us, why weren't you, you?
But while we my not be able to be a clear glass, we o hav the capability of avoiding being the mirror, inwhic we see only ourselves, when we look for God.
While perhaps we don't have the power to make our dreams come true through interpretation, we have something almost as good, the power to make our lives be true through the power of making them a window for God.
When Jospeh told pharaoh that he didn't hve the power or wisdom to interpret dreams, he took himself out of the mirror, and made a little space for God to act in the world. Thus through him, thw beginning of Israel's destiny to come down into Egypt so that we could be redeemed and made holy at Sinai began. Who knows what our dreams may hold, if we open our minds to God?