I have no idea how I end up putting up all these meat-related posts. While I like a good burger as much as the next carnivore - I’m rarely a carnivore, since our house is dairy-kosher, nd there are desperately few kosher meat restaurants where I live (and truthfully, even fewer that I would consider palatable, let alone worth the money and the trip to get to them. Ah to be back in the kosher meat restaurant paradise of Los Angeles). Oh well. This note at least is about a bit more than just meat. As it points out, kashrut in general has been raised up to new levels of fences. From discussions that I, and colleagues of mine, have had with formerly mainstream mashgichim who are now considered unacceptable (except when most people don’t see the names out front - such as a certain individual whose hechsher is generally considered not acceptable, but whose supervision of certain here unspecified products in the USA is more or less hegemonous - and thus accepted) it seems clear that the business of hashgacha in the USA is in serious trouble in all sorts of ways.
Glatt Kosher Meat Is Not All It Is Cut Out To Be
Marc Shapiro | Fri. August 18, 2006
Due in no small part to the recent controversy at the AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, there has been a lot of talk of late about how glatt kosher meat is produced. Yet for all the sensational headlines about whether the standards of kashrut are being met, little attention has been paid to how those standards are actually determined.
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In nearly every Orthodox community today, glatt kosher has come to stand for unquestionably kosher, with the result being that food carrying the regular kosher label is shunned.
This is more than simply an issue of certification. It is a significant transformation in the religious lifestyle of the Orthodox, a group that, ironically, claims to embody religious continuity.
Regular kosher might be okay if you’re in, say, Montana, and it’s the only meat available. Even then, though, you might want to think twice before bringing home such food. If you’re thinking of having a barbecue for Orthodox friends and throwing some regular kosher hot dogs on the grill, don’t be surprised if your guests suddenly develop a distaste for meat and profess that they’ve recently become vegetarians. You might as well be serving Oscar Mayer franks, because the reaction will be little different.
For hundreds of years, halachic authorities disagreed as to what exactly could be considered kosher. The “Shulhan Arukh” insisted on no adhesions — glatt means smooth, and refers to the fact that the lungs of animals slaughtered according to glatt kashrut do not have any adhesions. Rabbi Moses Isserles disagreed, and ruled that an animal could be declared kosher even with certain adhesions.
In the Ashkenazic lands, regular kosher was the standard, with glatt being reserved for the exceptionally pious, who were also willing to pay more. This is also how matters were in America until about 30 years ago.
Since then, the Orthodox have adopted a new standard in kashrut, one that defines only glatt kosher as acceptable. Regular kosher has been relegated to Conservative Jews and others who don’t take kashrut as seriously as the Orthodox.
Recognition of the change in kashrut standards has, by all indications, been picked up by the Jewish community at large. On numerous occasions I have been informed by non-Orthodox relatives or colleagues that I can eat the food that is being served since, they told me, it is glatt kosher, with the emphasis on glatt. This community-wide acceptance of glatt in the United States is quite significant, as things are rather different in Israel and Europe, where regular kosher is still very popular among the Orthodox.
In previous years, it wasn’t simply the masses who ate regular kosher. The great rabbis did as well. Many of them, including Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, even provided hashgachot, or kosher supervision, for non-glatt kosher meat.
So how did we reach this point in the United States where a practice that was basic to Orthodox society simply disappeared and came to be no longer regarded as acceptable? Much of the blame — or praise, depending on your outlook — falls on the Orthodox Union, which is considered the gold standard of kashrut supervision in the United States.
As part of its effort to achieve universal acceptance, even in the most right-wing circles, about 30 years ago the O.U. stopped providing supervision to non-glatt meat. Once the O.U. no longer recognized the validity of non-glatt, it soon became verboten for the average Orthodox Jew. The great irony here is that the leading Modern Orthodox organization is itself responsible for creating a situation where virtually all Orthodox Jews in this country, even the most liberal among them, would not dream of buying anything but glatt kosher. It is also impossible for a restaurant or hotel to attract an Orthodox clientele without being exclusively glatt.
The O.U.’s move to glatt is not the only example of the organization adopting policies that are not in line with the Modern Orthodox tradition of its founders. Many Forward readers, I am sure, have wondered about the Popsicles and other products that have absolutely no milk in them yet are still stamped “OU-D.” Or, for that matter, the yearly Passover guide that tells people that their candles and laundry detergent do not need a special Passover hashgachah, but do need a regular one.
It was the O.U.’s move to glatt, however, that had a truly momentous impact and changed the religious landscape of American Orthodoxy. Other hashgachot soon followed the O.U.’s path, leaving supervision over regular kosher in the hands of hashgachot that in many people’s minds were regarded as less reliable. Even if these hashgachot were, in truth, completely dependable, the fact that they agreed to certify meat that the O.U. and others would not reinforced the idea in people’s minds that there were problems with regular kosher. It took just a few years following the O.U.’s decision before regular kosher was no longer regarded as acceptable in American Orthodoxy.
Yet this is not all there is to the story, and here things get even more interesting. The very meaning of glatt kosher in the United States is not what most people think, namely, meat that has no adhesions. While this is indeed the original meaning of glatt and the meaning most people identify it with, the word as used today means something more expansive, depending on which kashrut organization you ask.
For some, it simply means that they hold themselves to a very high halachic standard in all areas of meat production. For others, it means that they permit only a couple of small, easily removed adhesions, a type of glatt that was actually quite common among Hasidim in prewar Europe. One thing that is certain is that glatt in the United States does not mean that an animal’s lung is completely smooth. Sephardim, who are supposed to eat only real glatt, are under normal circumstances not permitted to eat the typical “American glatt,” and they therefore have their own special “Beit Yosef glatt.”
While the kashrut organizations have not exactly hidden this information, and will tell you the truth if you ask, they have not been exactly forthcoming about it either. There is, for example, no explanation on the O.U. Web site as to what it means when it stamps a product glatt. The closest you get is an article titled the “The Kosher Primer,” which explains that real glatt is free of all adhesions on its lungs. The primer does acknowledge that, “Recently, the term ‘glatt kosher’ is increasingly used more broadly as a generic phrase, implying that the product is kosher without question.” Yet there is no clarification that the O.U.’s glatt falls into the second category — which also explains how the organization believes it appropriate to certify “glatt chickens.”
A great deal has been written about how the Orthodox have in recent years adopted new religious standards. The turn to glatt, however, is in its own category, because here the Orthodox have indeed adopted a new standard, but it is not what most people think it is. If they knew the facts, they might not be so attached to the glatt-only culture of contemporary Orthodoxy — which is something worth chewing over the next time you munch on a Hebrew National regular kosher salami.
Marc Shapiro is a professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton
e are more women on high-court benches. And make sure that we have the power to control our own reproduction. Put abusers in jail. Make sure laws are enforced,and where lacking, pass them. That's power. Taking off your clothes isn't power, it's pathetic.
He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Dis)
A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times published a profile of "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis ("Baby, Give Me a Kiss") that dropped jaws from Poughkeepsie to Chino. Oh, the clatter. It started with a line that applied to a specific act of physical intimidation by Francis against Times writer Claire Hoffman, but I suspect it resonated for many women who long for an invisibility cloak or chador in an era of "show us your tits" sexploitation. Hoffman began her piece by saying, "Joe Francis, the founder of the 'Girls Gone Wild' empire, is humiliating me."
I felt her pain. Not the physical pain of being slammed against a car by a cable-TV honcho gone wild, but the mental ache of channel surfing into "Girls Gone Wild" and suddenly feeling embarrassed to be female. Heck, "Girls Gone Wild" makes me embarrassed to be human. The show is a carnival staffed with exploitation freaks, from the guys behind the cameras to the women struggling out of their tiny T's to the viewers who gobble it up with an order of stupid on the side.
It's not the program's sexuality that bothers me but the fact that, in a country rife with vestigial puritanism, it views sexuality through a leering lens. Continental Europeans see far more nudity on their televisions and in their daily lives than we do. They don't bat an eye because, you know, human bodies. We all have them. Ah, but America. Marked by repression on the one hand (magazines condemned for cover images of breast-feeding babies and nude expectant mothers) and masturbatory excess on the other ("Girls Gone Wild" and any men's magazine that isn't GQ or Esquire), we are forever looping between scolding and ogling. We are never at peace.
Contemplating the hoopla about showing breast feeding and pregnant mamas in magazines, I begin to suspect that a simple principle might be at play: A woman's body has no right being bared unless it is for the purpose of arousing a man. I'd bet lunch at Chez Panisse that many of the guys who like strip clubs and read Maxim would be appalled to see a woman nursing in a restaurant. I'd throw in dinner at the French Laundry if the doods who so enjoy watching girl-on-girl action in porn flicks didn't find real lesbians -- the ones whose sex lives aren't simply warm-up acts for straight men -- disgusting and, yeah, threatening.
In last week's column, I suggested that, in today's cult of the leer, "girls have actually grown tamer rather than wilder. Sure, they flash their breasts more readily, just like monkeys perform tricks for peanuts at the San Francisco Zoo. But neither act symbolizes freedom." To those who think it does, and that these budding sexbots are liberated while I'm oh-so-old-school, I can only offer this: America might be the land of liberty, but it's also the land where freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And when he's done molesting journalists, Joe Francis is laughing all the way to the bank, your dough in one hand and your freewheelin' girl's mammary in the other. Oh, America, my America. We truly enjoy an embarrassment of riches.
It gets better. Dhaliwal writes, "People might call me a sexist pig, but I am the opposite. I love women." Let us now hopscotch across the Atlantic to the L.A. Times, where Hoffman observes that the "Girls Gone Wild" creator destined to physically assault her "says he loves women, is crazy about them. But sometimes it doesn't sound as though he is."
A warning sound should be going off in the reader's head about now, and the reader should listen. Because at the close of his Daily Mail editorial, Dhaliwal starts preparing an assault of his own. "The female orgasm is the natural mechanism by which men assert dominion over women," he writes, before going on to relate, fairly graphically, how he asserted dominion over his wife after she discovered he was cheating. In sum, he "made strong, passionate love to her," giving "a manful bravura performance" that culminated with the demand, "Who's the boss?"
Dhaliwal's wife happens to be Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones. His essay is illustrated by a picture of the happy couple, looking happy. By the way? The same day her husband's essay ran, Jones offered her own little self-assessment in her regular column: "I am a middle-aged anorexic. I don't know which of those two epithets I found harder to say -- that I am middle-aged, or that I still suffer from an eating disorder. The two, for me, are inextricably linked. I have a fear of growing old, and a fear of growing fat."
Forgive me, America! Stupidity is indeed universal. OK, yes, I'll say it, baby, stop pulling my hair: You're the boss.
Tell Neva to shut up with her hormonal bickering at nchonin@sfchronicle.com.
Page PK - 16
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/20/PKGDOIM3471.DTL
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
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
“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
- 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
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
- 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.
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.
