Scrollers Preview - Noach 2015

Parashat Noach encompasses the flood story, the Tower of Babel, and the genealogies that set up God’s calling Abram to set out for the land of Canaan.

The story of Noah has clear parallels with the story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The differences, however, are differences that make the story very clearly ours. For example, while Enlil wants to flood the world to wipe out humanity’s constant noise, God wipes out the world because God sees “how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth.” The idea that God is horrified by category violation and lawlessness is quite clearly derived from Torah categories. The specifics of the Noah story both reach back to creation and forward to Abraham, the Mishkan, and into the prophets (where the Noah story serves as a useful metaphor for later exiles and redemptions).

The question then becomes not how or whether we borrowed the story, but why is this story placed here? How is it a useful hinge to get us from creation to Abram? What does Noah provide us that B’reishit didn’t? Additionally, how does the parasha shed light on later stories of sin, exile, redemption, and law-giving?

Scrollers Preview - Ki Tavo 2015

As we near the end of Deuteronomy, we will see this week a feature of royal documents and covenants. This parasha, known as the parasha of “tochecha,” or “rebuke,” ends with a long list of curses.  This is a typical way that kings would seal a covenantal document, asking the gods to curse anyone who disobeyed the laws within.

The Israelites are instructed on a number of rituals related to crossing over into the new land. This includes the ritual of bringing the first fruits to the Temple, of setting up stones inscribed with this “Torah” (probably the book of Deuteronomy,) and the ritual of declaring blessings and curses on two mountains. The text spells out the blessings and curses that seem to be a part of this ritual. But then, the majority of Chapter 28 (more than 50 verses in total,) lays on even more curses – terrible, graphic things that will happen to the Israelites if they break God’s covenant.

For me, the most interesting verses in this whole section are 28:47-48, which read, “Because you would not serve the Eternal your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve –in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—the enemies whom the Eternal will let loose against you. He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until He has wiped you out.”

The reason God gives for bringing horrific plagues and curses upon us is that we did not serve God in joy and gladness over all that we have. Ultimately, this piece is about our lack of gratitude for what we already have – for the blessings we enjoy in each and every moment.

I don’t believe that the curses are meant to be taken literally – that men and women will literally be eating the flesh of their own children (probably the worst curse in the list). I think Deuteronomy is describing what happens to human beings when we are unable to experience and express gratitude for the blessings in our lives in the present moment. What happens when we get stuck in disappointment about the past, or in worry about the future, is that our minds and our hearts spiral into horrible negative thoughts; our spirits become empty; life becomes meaningless – cursed.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Ki Tetzei 2015

Our parasha this week includes a collection of ethical laws regarding individuals, families, and neighbors, and how we are supposed to treat each other. There are also laws on treatment of animals. Dignity is the pervasive theme; although, we may not agree that all of these laws truly preserve human dignity in the ways we would want.

Here are some examples of laws in this parasha:

• What to do when you take a woman captive during war and you want to marry her – let her grieve, then you can marry her. If you don’t want her after a while, you can’t sell her as a slave but must release her.

• What to do with a defiant son – if his parents have put in a good faith effort as changing his ways and he resists, they bring him to the elders, and the community stones him to death.

• Do not ignore your fellow’s stray animal. Return it to him, or if you don’t know to whom it belongs, take care of it until the owner comes to claim it.

• Don’t muzzle an ox who is threshing a field of grain.

• You can take grapes off the vine or ears of corn from a field that you are walking through, but only what you can carry and eat immediately.

• Laws regarding a man who doesn’t like his wife anymore and accuses her of not having been a virgin when they married.

• Laws regarding the rape of an engaged woman if the rape occurs in a town or an open field. Laws regarding the rape of a virgin woman who is not engaged.

• Laws regarding leaving produce in the field for the stranger, widow and orphan.

On this parasha, the medieval commentator Nachmanides explores the question of the purpose of doing the mitzvoth. Does our observance of the commandments serve God in any way that actually benefits the Holy One? Are the commandments meant to bring us some kind of reward? Do the mitzvoth change us? Are they here to cultivate certain qualities in ourselves, or are they only important as a way to show our devotion to God?

Scrollers Preview - Parshat Re'eh 2015

Parashat Re’eh covers a wide-ranging set of laws and rules for the Israelites once they enter the land. First, we are told that the people will pronounce words of blessing and of curses from the top of two mountains when they cross over the Jordan river into the land.

Then we have laws that reflect main principles of Deuteronomy – strict monotheism and the centralization of worship in one location where God will cause God’s name to dwell.

We are told to destroy all sites where idolators used to worship (those idolators whom we have already conquered and dispossessed). According to Deuteronomy, our people up until now have worshiped God at various places. When they enter the Land they are only allowed to worship God at one central location where God will choose to “establish His name.” Because many people will live a significant distance away from this place, the laws about slaughtering for meat are being amended. You no longer have to bring every domestic animal you want to eat to the sanctuary first for slaughter. But you must not eat the blood – pour it out on the ground like water. Because “the blood is the life.”

We are warned to protect ourselves from seduction into worshiping other gods by false prophets, dream-interpreters, and even our own family members. God is testing our loyalty through them. They must be put to death. If a town has turned away from God, we need to kill all the inhabitants and destroy the town.

Along the same theme of setting ourselves apart from other peoples, we then have laws of mourning and of kashrut. We are told not to follow the ways of the other peoples, because we are a consecrated people “am kadosh.”

The next section of laws deals more with how we are to treat the poor in our midst. Every seventh year all debts are remitted. We are commanded to help our needy kinsman by giving and loaning to him readily. Included here are laws of indentured servitude and slavery. A postscript tells us to sacrifice all male firstlings. But if it has a defect, you do not sacrifice it but eat it in your settlement – but remember again to pour out the blood first.

Lastly, we have the laws of the Passover sacrifice, of Shavuot and Sukkot, the three pilgrimage festivals, and we are commanded to rejoice!

One of the questions I have this year is about the opening of the parasha – How are we to discern between blessing and curse? Is it so simple to distinguish between these phenomena in our lives?

I also want to spend some time on the section that deals with the poor in our midst. I’ll bring you a section of Talmud that I studied this summer that riffs on the verse in our parasha which says that we must provide “sufficient for his need,” meaning the need of the poor person. The rabbis discuss at length what “sufficient” actually means, and whether to use an objective or subjective standard for determining this.

Scrollers Preview - B'ha-alotecha 2015

In this week’s parasha, the Israelites finally make their way forward from Mount Sinai.

In preparation for taking down the Tabernacle, the Levites are purified and “offered up” to serve God. The text repeats the verb “heinif,” or in its noun form, “tenufah,” eight times to describe the Levites’ being “lifted up” as this offering to replace the 1^st-born of all Israelites. I’d like to explore this question of what this really means to us that the Levites are lifted up, and that they are standing in for the 1^st-born, who belong to God.

In the next chapter the Israelites receive further details regarding how and when they are supposed to march forward and when they are to make camp. It is all at the command of God, and they could be asked to disassemble the Mishkan and break camp at any time, day or night, whether a day or a month or a year has elapsed since they set up the current encampment. The commentators note what a burden this must have been, especially on the Levites. Here I’d like to look at what quality God is trying to cultivate in the Israelites by asking them to be prepared to leave at any moment.

Lastly, we have two chapters which get into the main theme of the Book of Numbers: rebellion. First, in Chapter 11, the people, inspired by the riffraff in their midst, complain bitterly about the lack of meat. This leads Moses to cry out to God for help. God responds by drawing from the spirit that had been placed upon Moses and sharing it with 70 elders.  Many lives are lost in a fire that breaks out and then a plague, embodying God’s wrath at the people.

Later, in Chapter 12, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses and his leadership. God is not happy here either and strikes Miriam with tzara’at – snow white scales – as a punishment. In both chapter 11 and 12, God hears what the people are up to, God immediately gets angry and intervenes, and Moses is shown to be humble.

In chapter 11, Moses is fine with the spirit of prophecy being shared  with others. And in chapter 12, the text notes that Moses was a very humble man, and he even prays on behalf of his sister for God to heal her of the skin disease.  Another question for us to wrestle with – why is the Torah going to such great lengths to show Moses’ humility here? This book of Numbers will soon feature the moment when Moses lets his temper gets away from him; he will strike the rock to get water, and for this, he will be barred from entering the Promised Land. What is going on here?

Looking forward to our discussion of all of the questions, and yours as well.

Shabbat Shalom

Scrollers Preview - Naso 2015

Our Parasha this week is bookended by instructions related to the Tabernacle. It begins by finishing up last week’s instructions to the various clans of Levites regarding their duties of service and schlepping for the Tabernacle. And it ends, in Chapter 7, with a long section describing the chieftains’ gifts for the service of the Tabernacle in a 12-day dedication ceremony for the altar.

In between these bookends, we have two chapters dealing with ritual laws that were not included in Leviticus.

Chapter 5 begins with a short section about people with impurities being removed from the camp, and about dealing with guilt and sin. Then we have the ordeal of the suspected adulteress, or the “sotah.” And finally, in Chapter 6, we have the rules regarding the Nazirite, one who voluntarily takes on a vow to not drink wine and consequentially is not allowed to cut his hair or come into contact with the dead, even his/her own family members.

In these interior sections of the parasha, the Torah seems to be tying up loose ends before the Israelites can march on from Mount Sinai into the next chapter of their journey through the wilderness. Especially the Sotah and the Nazir are about exceptional circumstances involving people who end up placing themselves, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, outside the realm of regular society. The rituals outlined in the text tell us what to do with such people – how to treat them when they are out of bounds, and how to bring them back within bounds, if and when that is possible.  Both rituals involve the name of God. With the Sotah, God’s name is written as part of a curse and then washed into the bitter waters that she is forced to drink. The Nazir presumably invokes the name of God when s/he utters the vow.

We see here how God is intimately involved with how humans cross over the boundary in and out of the normative community. Later in the parasha, Aaron and his sons are instructed on how to bless the people, linking God’s “Name with the people of Israel.” I’m interested in exploring with you this phenomenon of God’s Name and how it functions as a curse, a blessing, and a vow, and as an instrument of shepherding people from one state of being to another.

Scrollers Preview - Vayakhel/Pikude 2015

The modern commentator Yishayahu Leibovitz, brother of Torah scholar Nechama Leibovitz, refers to a Midrash which contrasts the completion of the building of the Tabernacle from this week’s parasha with the building and worship of the Golden Calf in last week’s parasha. The midrash notices that in the story of the Golden Calf, “all the people broke of the golden earrings” (Ex 32:3), but in the story of the Mishkan, “every one of a generous heart” brings gifts for the building of the structure.

The difference here is between the collective action in donating to the calf and the individual actions of donating to the Tabernacle.   The Midrash concludes that when the project is for “the good,” in the instance of the Mishkan, only those of generous heart responded to the call. But when the project was for “the evil,” in the instance of the calf, the entire nation responded.

The reason, Leibovitz posits, is that worshipping God does not come from a natural impulse within human beings. It takes a spiritual effort to overcome our nature to take upon ourselves the service of God. With idolatry, however, our natural urge is to engage in it.

Do we agree with this theory? Is it more natural for us to engage in idol worship, whatever form that may take for us today? What kind of effort does it take for us to serve something higher? We also read that the people are so generous that they actually bring too many gifts, and Moses has to tell them to stop. Does this reflect a spiritual effort or a natural urge? Can something that first takes concerted effort eventually become a natural impulse?

Another set of questions emerge from the idea that while the Mishkan is meant to be a project that serves God, it is still the work of human labor and creativity. We read that God chooses Bezalel and Oholiab, who have been “endowed with the skill” to do the work of carving, embroidery and design, to take the materials and make them into the furnishings and pieces of the Tabernacle. What does this mean, that they have been “endowed with skill”? Does artistic ability come from God, or is it a naturally occurring human trait?

I look forward to exploring these questions, along with yours, as we study together tomorrow morning.