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.

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.