"On the Way" Parshat Behalotecha

Parshat Beha'alot'cha - "On the Way"  Details about worship, the Jews complain some more, Moses and his siblings get into an argument, and the journey towards the Promised Land continues. Were our parshah an episode of TV, this would not be a major one with exciting reveals or a dramatic cliff-hanger ending. It would be focused on filling in more of the details of our plot, characters and the world they inhabit. In that way, it is much like the life we lead today.  We are more likely than not somewhere "along the way" in our lives.  Perhaps we are facing some dramatic moment, but more than likely we are just facing life.  That doesn't mean however there isn't anything the Torah can't tell us about the journey we are on. 

Rabbi Simcha Bunam said:  Two merchants go to the Leipzig fair.  One goes by a direct route, another by an indirect route, but both reach the same destination.  In the service of God, too, we aim at holiness, and hope to arrive at the point where we make God’s will our own.  As long as we get there, it makes no difference how long our journey has been, how long we have served God.  One may die young yet achieve just as much as one who dies in old age.  We have learned (bBer. 5a) “more or less, it matters not, if the heart is turned to Heaven.”

Who is Our Redeemer? Parshat Naso

“Who is Our Redeemer?”  Parshat Naso – The worldview of Judaism is at odds with that held by many in America today, and we see that reflected in a passage in our portion this week.  In it, we find (Numbers, chapter 5) the rules for restitution following an injury and we encounter there the verse, “But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest” (Num. 5.8). 

The Rabbis have a hard time imagining the Jew who lacks a “close relative” or a go’el, a “redeemer” to use the Hebrew.  Surely, they wonder, everyone must have someone else in the community to whom they are attached.  Fresh off the story of Shavuot, we see how the system typically worked, with Naomi and Ruth coming to rely on the aide of their distant relative Boaz, who ultimately marries Ruth, because, at least in part, he has an obligation to help them.  The case at hand regarding the redeemer, so the Rabbis decide, must be that of a new convert who has no children and hasn't had time yet to make familial connections, and thus doesn’t have anyone to stand in for him. 

While this is interesting on its own, it is the larger message it speaks to that sparks my concern this week.  The Rabbis, as well as the Torah portion itself, imagines that usually, the community is very much an extended family, and more than just that, the community is forged with links connecting and obligating people to help and support and stand up for each other. 

And even more, it is a community in which the individual is not meant to stand alone.  The measure of the individual is not the final measure.  The measure of the individual as connected to the community, as a part to it, as bound to it, that is what counts.

Our modern era has lost this notion, and finds it challenging if not repelling – the idea that we might be limited in our choices or our actions by “community.”  That not everything I could conceive to do might be right to do because it might impact others negatively even if it doesn’t bother me. 

We would do well to keep in mind that that notion is in fact the spurious departure, for such an emphasis on the individual alone is a relatively recent development in the human conception of how humanity works. 

Let us, as Jews, give thanks, that we are still part of a community where we can reliably hope on the help of earthly redeemers to support us when we need it, while we pray all come to know in God the true and ultimate Go’el Adam, Redeemer of Humanity.

Parshat Emor - Better Luck Next Time

Parshat Emor, "Better Luck Next Time" - The Dubner Maggid taught that people are often governed by their wicked nature. That we do not always get things right the first time.  We suffer because of this.  But most people figure out the second time they try it.

This is how the Chasidic Sage explains the opening line of our parshah this week, "The Lord said to Moses, "say to the priests, saying to them..."  Why did God tell Moses to "say" it twice?  

The Dubner Maggid says it is like a person whose doctor says don't eat garlic.  If the person listens, great.  But even the person who doesn't listen and gets sick, at least comes to know why they are sick - they really are allergic, and they also learn to trust their doctor.  

Rashi explains the double saying as God warning the priests to really listen to God and be careful after the earlier deaths of Nadav and Avihu, two of the priest who erred in their offerings and were struck down.  

The Dubner Maggid connects his teaching to that of Rashi's to make his observation about human nature - we do often times need to make a mistake to learn how to do things right, and luckily God seems to understand that about us and has built that into God's plan!

You Might Be Good But Are You Holy, Too?

Acharei-Kedoshim: 

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What is the meaning of holiness?  Is it the same as morality?  If it is not, how is it different?  Read chapter 19, verses 1 and 2 of this week’s double-parshah that includes “you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.”  Consider the following:  

The renowned Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (Germany 1869 – 1937) rejected any attempt to identify holiness with morality, and sought to define the true, unadulterated nature of holiness free of any ethical element.  While the ethical and the good might be a part of it, “holiness” was its own separate category, separate entity. 

R. Max Kadushin (United States 1895 – 1980) rejected Otto’s approach to the concept of holiness, viewing the ethical component as essential to the Jewish conception of holiness:  “Some have declared it to be an experience entirely separate from any other… that has no relation whatever to normal experience…Our study disproves this contention, so far as rabbinic experience is concerned. The concept of Kedushah… connotes the idea of imitating God in being merciful and gracious; it demands the withdrawal from what is impure and defiling – from idolatry, adultery, and the shedding of blood (Max Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind, 176).

So, is our holiness and that of God’s the same?  If so, what are we doing when we “imitate God”?  And how does being commanded to be holy relate to the other commandments?  Is it “more” than them?  Is it a state of mind or of being, and if so, is that impinging on our free-will; that we have to be holy on top of just doing the mitzvot?  Come to shul this Shabbat and maybe you’ll find out more!

I Believe in Miracles - Yom Ha-Atzma'ut

"If you will it, it is no dream." - Herzl

Yom Ha-Atzma’ut:  I Believe in Miracles - “Bless you, and increase you, and bless what you and the land produce; that land which was your ancestors’ land, too” (from Deut. 7:13).  It is easy to under-appreciate, to miss the marvelous significance of words like these.  As part of the Jewish community today, it can seem a given that Israel exists or that the Bible talks about Israel a lot.

But when I read those words, which are part of the Torah reading commonly recited for today, Yom Ha-Atzma’ut, Israel Independence Day, I am chilled by the confrontation with what they are saying. 

It is easy, sure, and countless people and groups have done so, over history, declaring that this person today or that thing today is the fulfillment of what the Bible said so many years ago.  We Jews have fallen prey to such false self-fulfilling prophecies, such facetious reading of ourselves back into the text – as I say, that’s easy enough to do. 

But the miracle of modern Israel isn’t like this.  Those words above declare that a people, over two thousand years, countless generations, countless individuals in those years, spread around the world, that enough of them, at all times, kept reading those words as a promise, as a hope, as an instruction, a charge, that it could be so again, and seventy years ago, it did become reality.

That is a miracle.  A miracle that bolsters my faith today that God’s will can still come to pass even in the world in which I live.  And it clarifies as it reaffirms my faith in the miracles we read about in the past.  In their time, they probably looked much like the birth of the State of Israel looked, messy, chaotic, mundane and extraordinary all at once – it’s only after centuries that the ancient miracles have become what we more easily call “miraculous.” 

Let us then, remember how vital each and every member of our Jewish community is, for it was through the collective dedication to a dream that Jews were able to bring about God’s promise in our own times.  That should inspire us that we too can and must contribute to other miracles unfolding, perhaps slowly, even now, through our little efforts at nudging the holy and miraculous into our world.

Shemini, Pig or Camel?

For an animal to be Kosher it must chew its cud and have split hooves. The camel is deemed non-Kosher because it only chews its cud; likewise, the pig because it only has split hooves.

Rabbi Shimshon Pincus explained the symbolism: people often act in a way that appears righteous to others, they have Kosher signs on the outside, while within they are selfish and dishonest. They can be compared to the pig whose Kosher signs appear only on the outside of its body. Others are often filled with good intentions and righteous beliefs, yet there is little manifestation of that in their actions. They compare to the camel – Kosher only on the inside. Inward and outward refinement is the ideal.

Not having reached the ideal, should we be pigs or camels? The Sages say, "In the future the Almighty will return the pig to us." While this may be a prediction of lab grown bacon, consider also the following.  If one exhibits the signs of the pig, outwardly righteous, yet inwardly self-serving, perhaps their outward actions will eventually refine their inner being. Act as if you love others, and you'll begin to love others – spiritually refined and godly through and through.

Tzav: The Great Sabbath

Parshat Tzav, Shabbat Ha-Gadol, “The Great Sabbath”-  Why is it the Great Sabbath?  In the story of the First Passover, this Shabbat was the day, according to the Talmud, the 10^th of Nissan, when the Jews chose the lamb they would sacrifice on Passover.  And considering that the lamb was considered a god by the Egyptians, preparing to sacrifice it was the first real challenge to Egyptian authority that the Jews made. 

But the other reason is that this Shabbat was the one that rabbis would always give a sermon (can you imagine that once rabbis didn’t always give sermons – why did people even come to shul?).  The sermon would be on the rules for getting ready for Passover.

And what is the significance of Passover?  It is nothing short of our birthday, or maybe a little like our Bar Mitzvah, as a people.  We had been around, as a tribe, before that, but on Passover, like the book of Leviticus from which our weekly parshah comes, is all about, we were separated out by God, and set on the path towards holiness, kedushah. 

That idea of holiness in Hebrew is about being set apart, called, as it were to be different – to take on responsibilities and have a certain mission in life that God gives us.

On Passover we are separating out all sorts of things – dishes, food, many things, but most important, we are separating ourselves, reminding ourselves, of our call to be holy:  קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדֹושׁ אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃ “You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.”