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.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Terumah

In its introduction to the Haftarah portion this week (which is about the building of the First Temple), the Etz Hayyim commentary points out an interesting difference between the account of the building of the Tabernacle in the desert and the building of the First Temple in Jerusalem. 

In our parasha, the Israelites are asked to bring gifts so that they might make God a sanctuary that God may dwell among them. It seems that all they need to do is build it, and God will come J  But the instructions to King Solomon are different. In our haftarah, from I Kings, God’s word comes to Solomon,

With regard to this House you are building –if you follow My laws and observe My rules and faithfully keep My commandments, I will fulfill for you  the promise that I gave to your father David: I will abide among  the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel. (6:12-13)

Here, keeping the covenantal laws is what will bring God to dwell among us and will keep God’s presence in our midst.

May of the rabbis argue that the Torah is out of order, and that the instructions for building the Tabernacle actually came after the sin of the Golden Calf, as a way for the Israelites to make it right with God. The building of the Tabernacle would cleanse them of their idolatrous sin and will bring God’s Presence back among them. In this light, the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness is a way of showing loyalty to the covenant.

The prophet Ezekiel, with the exiled Jews in Babylon, also invokes the rebuilding of the destroyed Temple as a way for the people to make up for all of the sins that led to the destruction and the exile in the first place.

Tomorrow, we will read the parasha, and then look at the haftarah and Ezekiel together. As we study, I want to keep this question in mind: is the building of the Tabernacle and then the Temple(s) a way to make things right with a God whom we’ve betrayed? Or are these instructions here simply to help us make a home for God among us? Must the construction of this holy space be linked with our sin – our tendency to stray?

Scrollers Preview - Mishpatim 2015

In the words of the Etz Chayim commentary, beginning with this week’s Parasha, “the tone of the Torah changes. Up to this point, it has been a narrative, with occasional references to laws. . . . Now the emphasis is reversed. From here on, the Torah will present the rules by which the Isralites are to live, with occasional narrative breaks.”

This week’s Parasha is mostly a compendium of case laws regarding how to treat one’s neighbor. There are laws regarding slavery, damages for injury to self or to property, laws about thievery and kidnaping, about how we are required to treat those at the margins of society. There are also ritual laws regarding Festivals and worship. The Parasha concludes with a fascinating scene in which Moses concludes the covenant between God and the Israelites, and it ends with Moses heading up the mountain for 40 days.

The Etz Chayim commentary also asserts that these laws reflect that “Our standards for how we treat others must be based not on social-utilitarian concerns, the desire for an orderly society, but on the recognition of the image of God in every person and the presence of God in every relationship.” How does the God-centered context of the Torah, especially given last week’s drama at Mount Sinai, and the last chapter of our Parasha, color how we understand these laws? Do they simply reflect a desire for an orderly society, or is there something more?

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Yitro 2015

This week’s parasha begins with the story of Moses’ father-in-law Yitro’s visit to the Israelite Sinai encampment. Yitro sees Moses standing all day long giving rulings in the interpersonal affairs of the Israelites, and he gives Moses the sage advice to delegate! Afterwards, we have the set-up for and then the giving of the Ten Commandments.

This year I’d like to focus on the Ten Commandments or better said in Hebrew, “aseret ha-dibrot,” the ten utterances. Among these statements are some revolutionary concepts as well as laws that are common to most societies. The more common laws include the prohibitions against murder, adultery and theft. Among the revolutionary concepts, we have the prohibition of making graven images of God, and we have the idea of a 24-hour period of cessation from work every week, on Shabbat.

What makes these utterances unique as well is that they are not given in the form of case law – if you do this, you will be punished. Theft and adultery and violating Shabbat are not merely seen as illegal and disruptive to society. But to break these commandments would mean that one is violating universal principles, determined by God. The statements are absolute.

Rather than proposing some questions for us to wrestle with up front, I look forward to slowly working our way through these ten statements, hearing your questions, and drawing on the Etz Hayyim commentary as we try to address them.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Bshallach

In this week’s parasha the word “yad,” Hebrew for “hand,” “arm,” or “power,” is a key term. In chapter 14 alone, the word appears at seven times, and it occurs frequently in other sections of the parasha as well.  Moses stretches his arm (yad) with the staff in it out over the sea, and God causes the wind to blow and split the water so that the Israelites may cross over on dry land. God’s power (yad)is seen by the Israelites as it is wielded against the Egyptians. The Song of the Sea concludes with a vision of God’s hands (yadecha – “Your hands,”) building the Temple on the mountain in the Land of Canaan. And as the Israelites complain for lack of food and water, they express the wish that they could have died at the hand (yad) of God back in Egypt rather than starve to death in the wilderness.

In this climactic parasha of our people’s liberation from slavery and the miraculous crossing of the sea, we are invited to notice the hand of God in our story. God reaches in to split the sea, to defeat the Egyptians, and to shower down manna. The parasha even ends with a war with Amalek in which Moses must raise his arms (yadav, “his arms,”) in order for the Israelites to prevail.

We might conclude from this ever-present “hand” of God, that God is with the people in a new and more immediate way than before. In contrast to the 400 years of  distance and darkness and slavery, we now have God in our midst, further embodied by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Yet, even though this hand is reaching in to our story, the Israelites are still unsure. Yes, they celebrate on the other shore of the Sea. But the crossing is bookended by complaints and fear -  Where is the water and the food going to come from? The Egyptians are pursuing us – did you bring us to the desert to die?

Can we identify with this experience? Is the Divine presence in  our lives? Can we detect that “yad”? And even when we do for a moment, is our awareness dominated by worry, fear, a sense of distance? What do we need to do in order to see that hand – that pillar? And how do we keep it in our consciousness, even when we are hungry?

Scrollers Preview - Vayechi

When a matriarch or patriarch in a family dies, there are often a big questions looming over the surviving family members – how will this family continue? Will the siblings and the cousins continue to live in relationship with one another? Who will gather the family for holiday meals, now that Mom is no longer alive? We end the book of Genesis with a similar sense of anxiety. What will the future of this family look like?

Jacob offers his answers when he gathers the brothers together for his death bed “blessing,” announcing that he will tell them, “what is to befall you in the days to come.” While many of his blessings really sound like curses, and several of them focus on past missteps of brothers like Reuben and Simeon, Jacob does eventually turn toward the future. Judah and Joseph seem to fare the best, as Jacob blesses them with royalty and fertility.

These blessings bring some hope, but they are referring to a future that is hard to see. The blessings refer to tribes living in their own land, yet the brothers and their families are now settled in Egypt with no clear sense of when or how they will make their way back to their homeland.

Whereas in last week’s parasha, there was a sense of safety and security in the family’s being able to settle in Egypt during the famine, in this week’s parasha, Egypt starts to feel like a trap. After Jacob’s death, Joseph has to get permission to bury his father in Canaan, and an enormous entourage of Egyptian officials accompanies him. The kids and flocks stay back in Egypt. Pharaoh makes it clear where he wants Joseph and his family to be.

As Joseph is dying, a sinister shadow starts to move over the story. Joseph tells his brothers that “God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land.” (50:24) And he makes them swear to bring his bones up with them. Does this mean that God has stopped noticing them for now?

By the end of the book, it is clear that we are not leaving Egypt any time soon. We are left with an image of waiting, as Joseph’s body is “embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.” (50:26)  We will find out next week that it is quiet a long wait before those bones are finally carried up out of Egypt.