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Parashat Mishpatim
February 18, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week’s Parashah, Mishpatim, contains the laws of what has come to be known as the “Book of the Covenant.” Last week the people stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and directly experienced God’s powerful presence. They heard God pronounce a set of broad commandments of ethics and ritual. But the covenant doesn’t stop with broad statements and values as given in the Ten Commandments. The covenant isn’t concluded until this week, when God gives specific laws that govern people’s daily domestic, mundane lives. Not only do we receive a “Constitution” that sets out the core values of the society God expects us to create, but we also receive case law, and in the coming weeks and months, we’ll receive laws pertaining to the priests.
In Parashat Mishpatim we receive laws governing our daily lives, such as:“When a fire is started and spreads to thorns, so that stacked, standing or growing grain is consumed, the one who started the fire must make restitution.” (Exodus 22:5) And: “If you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it.” (Exodus 23:5)
The Etz Hayyim commentary quotes Moshe Greenberg who wrote, “Outside of Israel, you would have to go to three different addresses to get the material. . . in Mishpatim. The Torah combines law (as in the Code of Hammurabi), cultic instructions (as from a priestly manual,) and moral exhortation (as found in wisdom literature). This is the only Near Eastern literature in which an amalgam of these three interests is found: law, cult and wisdom.”
The Torah is unique in that all of these kinds of instructions are found in one place, and all of these instructions are part of a covenant with the Divine.
• What might this teach us about our unique brand of Israelite (or Jewish) spirituality? What does it mean to us that laws pertaining to the details of everyday human existence have a Divine source?
The Torah also stands out in contrast to the Code of Hammurabi and other Mespotamian documents in that the rules are set before the entire community. According to the Women’s Torah Commentary, “the Laws of Hammurabi stipulate that only the aggrieved party could have the laws read to him; in Mesopotamian society, public knowledge of the law was not assumed.”
Our Torah portion concludes with a very public ceremony in which the whole Book of the Covenant is read to the people. Then Moses conducts a sacrificial covenant ritual involving dashing blood on an altar and then dashing blood on the people. The covenant is transparent – its terms are known to all, and it includes everyone.
• How might this be experienced by a people who have just been freed from slavery, where rules were probably arbitrary and arbitrarily enforced? How does this system set up a different kind of power structure between the people and God versus the kind of power dynamic you might have in other Mesopotamian cultures?
Friday, February 17, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Scrollers preview for 2/11/12 - Parashat Yitro
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Parashat Yitro
February 11, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week the Israelites accept God’s offer to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” in exchange for following God’s laws.
According to the Etz Hayyim commentary, Parashat Yitro can be seen as, “ ‘the hinge of the Torah,’ containing the pivotal event in the history of the Israelite people and indeed of all humanity. Through the revelation at Sinai, Israel is transformed from a band of freed slaves to a nation covenanted to God. A Rabbinic tradition (from the Midrash Sifrei Deuteronomy) has it that God created the world so that Israel would emerge as a model nation and all humanity would learn from their example. . . . Had Israel not accepted the Torah, the universe would have ceased to exist.”
According to this commentary, all of Torah – all of history, even - was leading us to this moment, the revelation at Sinai, and the rest of Torah and history flows from this moment. If so, how do we see our lives in light of the revelation at Sinai and the covenantal promise between God and our People? Do we feel connected to that moment? Do we believe that we were there? Do we get glimpses of revelation in our own lives today?
Parashat Yitro
February 11, 2012
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week the Israelites accept God’s offer to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” in exchange for following God’s laws.
According to the Etz Hayyim commentary, Parashat Yitro can be seen as, “ ‘the hinge of the Torah,’ containing the pivotal event in the history of the Israelite people and indeed of all humanity. Through the revelation at Sinai, Israel is transformed from a band of freed slaves to a nation covenanted to God. A Rabbinic tradition (from the Midrash Sifrei Deuteronomy) has it that God created the world so that Israel would emerge as a model nation and all humanity would learn from their example. . . . Had Israel not accepted the Torah, the universe would have ceased to exist.”
According to this commentary, all of Torah – all of history, even - was leading us to this moment, the revelation at Sinai, and the rest of Torah and history flows from this moment. If so, how do we see our lives in light of the revelation at Sinai and the covenantal promise between God and our People? Do we feel connected to that moment? Do we believe that we were there? Do we get glimpses of revelation in our own lives today?
Friday, February 3, 2012
Scrollers Preview - Parashat B'shalach
Holy Scrollers Preview
Parashat B’shalach/Shabbat Shirah (the Shabbat of song)
Exodus 13:17-17:16
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week’s Torah portion contains three sections. First, we have the climactic event of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the Israelites’ redemption. Following the narrative account of this dramatic moment, we have Shirat Ha-Yam (Song of the Sea), a poem that recounts the same events but from a different perspective and using a very different form and language. The parasha then turns to a very important topic for our people – perhaps even an obsession – food! In this section the Israelites complain and worry about the lack of food and water, and God provides manna, quail and sweet water.
This year what stood out to me in that first section were two things – first, that God takes the Israelites on a round-about path – the long way, rather than the short way. And, that the sea doesn’t really split in the dramatic amazing “whoosh!” that I have always had in my imagination. Rather, it takes all night long for the wind to blow the sea into two parts. Even during this last stage of redemption, the Israelites have to wander and wait.
In the poetic section of Shirat Ha-yam, I appreciated the Etz Hayyim commentary which, paraphrasing a Midrash, points out “From the day that God created the world until this moment, no one had sung praises to God – not Adam after having been created, not Abraham after being delivered from the fiery furnace, not Isaac when he was spared the knife, or Jacob when he escaped from wrestling with an angel and from Esau. But when Israel came to the sea and it parted for them, “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord.” And God said, “for this I have been waiting.”
And for the last section about food, I enjoyed an essay by Rachel Havrelock in the Women’s Commentary. She asks, “Why are the people so hungry?” Her answer is that “Hunger is indicative of exile; and Israel is not sated until it finds a home.”
All of these observations and commentaries seem to point to a theme of delayed gratification. What are we to learn from our story in which freedom, satisfaction, and expressions of gratitude and joy are continually delayed? What might this theme have to teach us about faith?
Parashat B’shalach/Shabbat Shirah (the Shabbat of song)
Exodus 13:17-17:16
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
This week’s Torah portion contains three sections. First, we have the climactic event of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the Israelites’ redemption. Following the narrative account of this dramatic moment, we have Shirat Ha-Yam (Song of the Sea), a poem that recounts the same events but from a different perspective and using a very different form and language. The parasha then turns to a very important topic for our people – perhaps even an obsession – food! In this section the Israelites complain and worry about the lack of food and water, and God provides manna, quail and sweet water.
This year what stood out to me in that first section were two things – first, that God takes the Israelites on a round-about path – the long way, rather than the short way. And, that the sea doesn’t really split in the dramatic amazing “whoosh!” that I have always had in my imagination. Rather, it takes all night long for the wind to blow the sea into two parts. Even during this last stage of redemption, the Israelites have to wander and wait.
In the poetic section of Shirat Ha-yam, I appreciated the Etz Hayyim commentary which, paraphrasing a Midrash, points out “From the day that God created the world until this moment, no one had sung praises to God – not Adam after having been created, not Abraham after being delivered from the fiery furnace, not Isaac when he was spared the knife, or Jacob when he escaped from wrestling with an angel and from Esau. But when Israel came to the sea and it parted for them, “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord.” And God said, “for this I have been waiting.”
And for the last section about food, I enjoyed an essay by Rachel Havrelock in the Women’s Commentary. She asks, “Why are the people so hungry?” Her answer is that “Hunger is indicative of exile; and Israel is not sated until it finds a home.”
All of these observations and commentaries seem to point to a theme of delayed gratification. What are we to learn from our story in which freedom, satisfaction, and expressions of gratitude and joy are continually delayed? What might this theme have to teach us about faith?
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