Tag Archives: Covenant

Eikev, Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25

Eikev, , , , ,
Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/eikev

Training Days

By Rabbi Denise Eger

With preparation almost everything is possible. With the proper training program you can learn to run a marathon or ride a bike 500 miles for charity! It is a matter of discipline. It is a matter of dedication and it is a matter of preparation. It is a matter of training and building your endurance.

These are examples of how discipline, structure and belief in the cause might help someone achieve a great goal! But it doesn’t just happen because one decides to do so. It takes discipline, fortitude and perseverance. Especially for the times when the training is grueling and the body is tired or not willing!

In this week’s Torah portion Ekev, Moses shares some sage advice with the children of Israel as they are preparing to enter the Promised Land. Moses reminds the people that their journey from Egypt to the edge of Israel/Canaan was a process and describes this journey as the preparation and training for the task ahead. The forty years of desert wanderings which was once described as the consequence of a lack of faith in God (see Parshat Shelach Lecha) is now described by Moses as discipline and training for the era to come. The forty years in the desert was the necessary precursor to ready the people for the challenges of coming into and settling the Promised Land.

Moses says to the people “Remember the long way that Adonai your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years that God might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts…” (Deut. 8:2). These tests were not merely trials but each experience along the way was to discipline and train the generations who would enter the Promised Land. Each was an opportunity to build faith and fortitude. Each encounter in the wilderness of Sinai was part of creating endurance in the Jewish people so that they would continue to honor their covenant even once they had settled the Promised Land. Moses says, “God subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat,…in order to teach you that humanity does not live on bread alone, but that a person may live on anything God decrees.” (Deut. 8:3).

Moses reminds the children of Israel anything is possible.  Sustenance will come from God in many forms, bread, manna, and yes from their faith built through these years of desert training! And Moses then places this training and the miraculous events that helped the Children of Israel do their wilderness training.  “The clothes upon you did not wear out nor did your feet swell these forty years. Bear in mind that Adonai your God is disciplining you just as a father disciplines his son.” (Deut. 8:4-5). This isn’t punishment but discipline as learning, as training, as preparation for a new life. Just as a parent tries to teach life lessons, Moses is trying to help us see God is teaching the Israelites life lessons. It isn’t always flowers and warm fuzzies but often that training and discipline is difficult. And it hardens one for the end result. In this case it was settling the Promise Land.

So the next time you set a goal in mind. Remember that it is possible but it will take endurance, perseverance, discipline, and yes faith. Just as it did for our ancestors as they entered the Promised Land.  Happy Training!

Eger, Denise. "Happy Training." Walking Humbly. Seeking Justice. Living with Hope. (Viewed August 16, 2014). http://rabbieger.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/training-days/

The Rhyme of No Reason

By Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson

During the closing days of Israel’s 1982 “Peace in Galilee” campaign in Lebanon, Tuvia Bolton was one of ten Chabad Chassidim who obtained authorization from the army to enter Beirut to cheer up the soldiers and assist them with their religious needs.

One morning, at the crack of dawn, they got their tefillin ready, and began asking soldiers if they wanted to do a mitzvah and put them on for a minute. Walking around looking for “customers,” Tuvia happened upon a line of about ten open-roofed jeeps with two soldiers seated in each. Their motors were running, and they were waiting in the chilly morning to go out on a mission.

“Tell me, Rabbi, if . . . if I put on tefillin, will G‑dprotect me?”He approached a soldier in a jeep and asked whether he wanted to don tefillin.

The fellow looked straight ahead, without reacting to the question. Tuvia stood waiting for a reply. After a few seconds of silence, the soldier turned and said (loose translation): “Get out of my sight, you religious degenerate! If you don’t get out of my face, I’ll tear you to pieces!”

Tuvia got the message that the answer was no. He tried to force a smile and figure out something to say, when the driver of the next jeep in line suddenly called out in a desperate tone of voice: “Rabbi, rabbi! Come here. I want to put on tefillin.” Happy to get away, Tuvia began to walk toward the third jeep in the line. “Tell me, rabbi,” the soldier called nervously after Tuvia had taken a few steps and was still quite a distance from him. “If . . . if I put on tefillin, will G‑d protect me?”

The man was obviously very worried. Yesterday he was probably sitting in his hardware store selling tools, and here he was today about to enter the front lines.“Listen, my friend,” Tuvia assured him, “G‑d will protect you whether you put on the tefillin or not. Don’t worry. He loves you unconditionally. But if G‑d protects you for free, why not do something for Him for free, and put on tefillin?”

It seems that the soldier who had been rude to him heard this exchange, because when Tuvia was done helping the other soldier with the tefillin, he called out, “Hey, rabbi! Come over here!”

Meanwhile he was rolling up his sleeve like he wanted to put on tefillin.

“What do you want? What happened?” asked Tuvia incredulously.

“What do you care?” he replied. “I want to put on the tefillin, too.”

“For real?”

“Listen, my friend. To put on tefillin in order to go to heaven, that’s not for me. But to put on tefillin for no reason . . . that I’m willing to do!”

And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep and perform them, that G‑d, your G‑d, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers. —Deuteronomy 7:12

An interesting verse. Rather puzzling, even contradictory. At first glance it appears to speak of a relationship with G‑d that is conditioned upon observance: “because you will heed these ordinances, etc.” It suggests that “G‑d will keep you” only if you keep Him.

This arrangement is straightforward: keep G‑d’s will, and He will keep yours.Here we encounter the alleged classic mode of interaction between deity and worshipper, identical to the standard give and take which characterizes any commercial relationship, except that in this case the supplier can be relied upon to deliver.

This system is clearly articulated in the second paragraph of the most central Jewish prayer, the Shema (recorded later on in the same Torah portion):

And it will be, if you hearken to My commandments that I command you this day . . . I will give the rain of your land at its time, and you will gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be sated . . .

Beware, lest your heart be misled, and you turn away and worship strange gods . . . And He will close the heavens and there will be no rain, and the land will yield no produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land that G‑d gives you.

This arrangement is straightforward, containing no hidden fees or clauses: keep G‑d’s will, and He will keep yours. The thing is, we are taught by the sages that there’s more to our relationship with G‑d than cold business.

An inherent and unconditional bond binds G‑d and Jew, operating entirely independent of their respective performances. Jewish history is living proof of this deeper connection—a thousand times over. Just imagine if Jewish survival were linked to observance, or if Jewish devotion to G‑d depended on our people leading the good life . . .

The metaphor of covenant, achieved through an oath, is applied by the Torah to this unbreakable tie. For both a covenant and an oath are, by definition, unconditional, necessary only for moments of low or no performance.

This leaves us wondering about the above-quoted verse: “And it will be,because you will heed these ordinances and keep and perform them, that G‑d, your G‑d, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers,” which implies that our unconditional connection with G‑d is itself conditional!

Before unlocking the secret to understanding this enigmatic verse, an introduction is in order.

The rather unusual Hebrew word used here for “because [you will heed . . . ],”eikev, is related to the Hebrew word for heel.

Is our relationship with G‑d a game of mathematics or economics? One for me, one for You?Thus the unusual word choice leadsRashi to interpret the verse thusly: “If you will heed the minor commandments, those which a person tends to trample with his heels . . . [then ‘G‑d will keep His promise to you . . .’].”

What Rashi is saying here is that this verse isn’t referring to the quantity of divine service, but to its quality. This is about attitude, not amount.

Are mitzvot our way of paying G‑d for a service?

Are the good deeds we do our calculated trade for health, wealth, and happiness?

Is our relationship with G‑d a game of mathematics or economics? One for me, one for You?

If it is, we are bound to trip on our heels. When observing the Torah, we will come to pick and choose. And even if we choose all—because we want all—a means to serve G‑d has essentially become a means to serve ourselves.

This is not to say that the math doesn’t add up. It does. Just see the second paragraph of Shema. But good math can merely satisfy, not infatuate; it can produce money, but not love.

For love begins where mathematical equations end.

This brings us to the inner meaning of the verse: “And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform them”—as Rashi explains, in the way of lovers, who skip math and discard heels—“that G‑d, your G‑d, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.” G‑d will reciprocate accordingly.

Proverbs teaches: “As in water, one face reflects another, so is the heart of a man to a man.”

Our verse adds: So is the heart of G-d to man.

Kalmenson, Mendel. "The Rhyme of No Reason." Chabad.org. (Viewed August 15, 2014). http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/1241533/jewish/The-Rhyme-of-No-Reason.htm

Metzora, Leviticus 14:1-15:33

Metzora, , , ,
Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/metzora

Reappropriating the Taboo

By Rabbi Elyse Goldstein

Theologian Elizabeth Dodson Gray notes: “Women’s bodies may be the hardest place for women to find sacredness” (Sacred Dimensions of Women’s Experience, 1988, p. 197). Our society sends negative messages to women from earliest childhood about the expected perfection of their physiques and the disappointments of any flaws in the female form. Parashat M’tzora, then, with its focus on menstrual impurity (15:19-24), seems to impart the same kind of unfavorable sense. Rejecting our own received biases and patriarchal assumptions about menstruation, however, can help us form a contemporary view of these so-called taboos.

What the Torah deems as tamei (“impure”) or tahor (“pure”) is not actually attached to cleanliness, even though they are often translated as “unclean” and “clean.” These Hebrew words are ritual terms, meant to designate those in a physical and spiritual state unable to enter the Mishkan (Tabernacle; and in later times, the Temple), or those able to do so. Those who are considered tamei are taboo (which is not what we think of as “bad”), meaning that they cannot enter the sacred space; and the thing that causes them to be ineligible to enter is also understood to be taboo.

Anthropologists note that taboos are the system by which a culture sets aside certain objects or persons as either sacred or accursed. Such objects or persons inspire both fear and respect. Penelope Washbourn writes: “Menstruation symbolizes the advent of a new power that is mana. . . ‘sacred.’ … A taboo expresses this feeling that something special, some holy power, is involved, and our response to it must be very careful” (in Woman Spirit Rising, 1989, p. 251). This mixed message of fear and power, contact and avoidance, actually dominates all the Torah’s passages around blood.

Blood, which is to be avoided in the realm of eating and sex, is the same substance that atones for the community in the sacrificial system, and it binds the individual male child to the Israelite covenant through circumcision. Blood both sustains and endangers; it is the medium of plague or deliverance. Thus blood–like every potent symbol–has the double quality and the twin potential of birth and decay, purity and impurity.

So too with menstrual blood. We who are often uninspired and unaffected by our bodies should reject the negative connotation of taboo–and explore, instead, the positive and sacred aspect. Surely a religion that has a blessing for an activity as mundane as going to the bathroom should have a blessing for the coming and going of menstruation. Since the male composers of the liturgy, living in a world where modesty was central and women’s bodies were a mystery at best, were not able–or more likely, not willing–to imagine such a blessing, we must be the first generation to do so.

More than thirty years ago, I did just this: I wrote a blessing for menstruation and have been writing about it and teaching it ever since. When I crafted my b’rachah, I reappropriated the difficult and offensive morning blessing in the traditional prayer book, which reads: “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.” (Traditionally, women say instead, “who has made me according to Your will.”) Each month, when I get my period, I say: “Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haolam, she’asani ishah: Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has made me a woman.” Saying the blessing becomes a revolutionary moment, for this slight change in wording–changing the negative “who has not made me a woman” into the positive “who has made me a woman”–affirms my holiness and sanctity within the context of menstruation, not despite it.

I believe it is possible to rescue the aspects of mystery inherent in menstruation. While we reject menstrual huts, a separation from the sancta, and antiquated notions of cleanliness, we can still emerge with a sense of the overwhelming mystery of life and death that is embodied in our corporeal female selves. While many women associate menstruation with physical pain and discomfort, the experience nonetheless involves a degree of power. We should reject the notion that menstruation makes a woman “unclean” and instead think of this time as a period of intense electrical charges-the charge of life and death-pulsing through our bodies. Blu Greenberg urges us to focus more on the positive, “to restore that element of holiness to our bodies, our selves” (On Women and Judaism, 1981, pp. 118-120).

We can also consider a connection between menstruation and covenant. The prophet Zechariah speaks to “daughter Jerusalem” and “daughter Zion” about “your covenant of blood” as that which releases prisoners from the dry pit (9:9-11). It does not say “the covenant of blood,” as most translations render it, but rather emphasizes that blood is the focus of the covenant. The address to the feminine persona suggests that all “daughters of Zion” have that covenant of blood. It is through menstruation–from puberty when we accept our responsibilities as Jews, through the elder years when bleeding stops and deep wisdom starts–that the entire world is saved from the dry pit of death, in which there is no water, no womb, no regeneration, no rebirth.

See menstrual blood, then, as women’s covenantal blood–just as the blood of b’rit milah (ritual circumcision) is men’s. The possibilities for rituals around this abound. For women too have a b’rit (covenant) inscribed in our flesh as an “everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:19): not just once, at eight days old, but every single month. And M’tzora, in its ancient and perhaps awkward way, attempts to remind us.

Goldstein, Elyse. "Reappropriating the Taboo." MyJewishLearning.com. (Viewed on April 6, 2014). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/URJ--metzora.shtml?p=0

Dvar Tzedek

By Sigal Samuel

Parshat Metzora lays out the biblical prescriptions regarding menstruation, a topic more steeped in critique and apology than almost any other area in Jewish law. Contemporary readers seeking to reconcile the Torah’s approach to menstruation with their own sensibilities typically run up against a few uncomfortable facts. First, the text discusses this natural bodily process in the same breath as tzara’at, a skin disease traditionally viewed as punishment for sin, and seminal emissions, a phenomenon that rendered Israelite men ritually impure. Second, the text explains that a menstruating woman is impure for seven days, and that she communicates this impurity to anyone who touches her and anything she sits or lies on.

In addition, women in Israelite society were likely forced to withdraw from the public sphere during their periods, both because of their impure status—which prevented them from entering sacred spaces or eating sacred foods—and because they may have lacked the means to effectively contain menstrual blood.

For millions of girls and women in developing countries today, menstruation still stands as a barrier to women’s inclusion in society. Because feminine hygiene products are not always available or affordable, girls use rags, newspapers, leaves and mud instead. But these are relatively ineffective methods, forcing girls to withdraw while they are menstruating. Girls’ school attendance suffers as a result. According to an Oxford University study, in rural Ghana, many girls miss up to five school days each month because of their periods. Afraid to risk the humiliation of bloodstains on their clothes, they stay at home, often falling behind in class or dropping out entirely.

This reality is especially troubling when we realize that women are critical drivers of community development, which means that girls’ inability to complete their educations constitutes a great loss, not only for them as individuals, but also for their families, communities and countries.

While many organizations are starting to do the important work of providing poor women access to affordable sanitary pads, we must also look at the root of this problem, which is the fact that menstruation is taboo in many developing nations. It is rarely discussed openly, making its deleterious effects on girls’ school attendance difficult to see and address. Without a higher profile and increased visibility, the problem will continue to go largely unacknowledged.

In this regard, Parshat Metzora may provide a helpful model for the international development community. Despite some of the potentially negative aspects described above, there is one remarkably positive aspect to the biblical treatment of menstruation: as far as the Torah is concerned, this bodily process is neither private nor unmentionable. Instead, it is quite public: people often know when a woman has her period, and if she experiences any irregular bleeding, she must bring two birds to the tabernacle for the priest to sacrifice on her behalf. Far from being hidden or ignored, the rites of menstruation are dealt with by the priest: the person in the highest position of all. On an even more basic level, menstruation receives ample attention and acknowledgment in the text, and is treated with surprising frankness.

If families, schools, communities and governments in the Global South would begin acknowledging menstruation and discussing it candidly, we could remove the underlying stigma that prevents women from accessing the sanitary solutions they need to come out of hiding and achieve greater inclusion in society overall.

This destigmatization process needs to be undertaken, not only by people in developing countries, but by us as well. While we may have access to physical amenities like pads and tampons, many of us still view menstruation as private and unmentionable. We should, instead, address this bodily function with a sort of biblical openness, insisting not only that it be public but that the stigma associated with the normal functioning of women’s bodies be removed.

In discussing the priestly rites that accompany menstruation, ourparshah speaks of the sanctuary as the “tabernacle that is betocham.” While betocham is typically translated as “in their midst,” it can also be read quite literally as “in them”—in their bodies. I would like to propose that, this week, we choose to read the verse this way, and to recognize that the Divine sanctuary resides in us: physical, embodied beings. It is only by fully internalizing this notion that we will feel moved to ensure that girls’ and women’s bodies everywhere are freed from stigma and, by extension, that we will succeed in empowering girls and women as agents of change.

Samuel, Sigal. "Dvar Tzedek." American Jewish World Service. (Viewed on April 6, 2014). http://ajws.org/what_we_do/education/publications/dvar_tzedek/5772/tazria-metzora-1.html

Shmini, Leviticus 9:1-11:47

Shmini, , , , ,
Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/shmini

Reticence vs. Impetuosity

By Rabbi Jonathon Sacks

It should have been a day of joy. The Israelites had completed the mishkan, the sanctuary. For seven days Moses had made preparations for its consecration. Now on the eighth day – the first of Nisan, one year to the day since the Israelites had received their first command two weeks prior to the exodus – the service of the sanctuary was about to begin. The sages say that it was in heaven the most joyous day since creation.

But tragedy struck. The two elder sons of Aaton “offered a strange fire, that had not been commanded” (Lev. 10:1) and the fire from heaven that should have consumed the sacrifices consumed them as well. They died. Aaron’s joy turned to mourning. Vayidom Aharon, “And Aaron was silent (10:3). The man who had been Moses’ spokesman could no longer speak. Words turned to ash in his mouth.

There is much in this episode that is hard to understand, much that has to do with the concept of holiness and the powerful energies it released that, like nuclear power today, could be deadly dangerous if not properly used. But there is also a more human story about two approaches to leadership that still resonates with us today.

First there is the story about Aaron. We read about how Moses told him to begin his role as high priest. “Moses [then] said to Aaron, ‘Approach the altar, and prepare your sin offering and burnt offering, thus atoning for you and the people. Then prepare the people’s offering to atone for them, as God has commanded’” (Lev. 9: 7).

The sages sensed a nuance in the words, “Approach the altar,” as if Aaron was standing at a distance from it, reluctant to come near. They said: “Initially Aaron was ashamed to come close. Moses said to him, ‘Do not be ashamed. This is what you have been chosen to do.’”

Why was Aaron ashamed? Tradition gave two explanations, both brought by Nahmanides in his commentary to the Torah. The first is that Aaron was simply overwhelmed by trepidation at coming so close to the Divine presence. The rabbis likened it to the bride of a king, nervous at entering the bridal chamber for the first time.

The second is that Aaron, seeing the “horns” of the altar, was reminded of the Golden Calf, his great sin. How could he, who had played a key role in that terrible event, now take on the role of atoning for the people’s sins? That surely demanded an innocence he no longer had. Moses had to remind him that it was precisely to atone for sins that the altar had been made, and the fact that he had been chosen by God to be high priest was an unequivocal sign that he had been forgiven.

There is perhaps a third explanation, albeit less spiritual. Until now Aaron had been in all respects second to Moses. Yes, he had been at his side throughout, helping him speak and lead. But there is vast psychological difference between being second-in- command, and being a leader in your own right. We probably all know of examples of people who quite readily serve in an assisting capacity but who are terrified at the prospect of leading on their own.

Whichever explanation is true – and perhaps they all are – Aaron was reticent at taking on his new role, and Moses had to give him confidence. “This is what you have been chosen for.”

The other story is the tragic one, of Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, who “offered a strange fire, that had not been commanded.” The sages offered several readings of this episode, all based on close reading of the several places in the Torah where their death is referred to. Some said they had been drinking alcohol. Others said that they were arrogant, holding themselves up above the community. This was the reason they had never married. 

Some say that they were guilty of giving a halakhic ruling about the use of man-made fire, instead of asking their teacher Moses whether it was permitted. Others say they were restless in the presence of Moses and Aaron. They said, when will these two old men die and we can lead the congregation.

However we read the episode, it seems clear that they were all too eager to exercise leadership. Carried away by their enthusiasm to play a part in the inauguration, they did something they had not been commanded to do. After all, had Moses not done something entirely on his own initiative, namely breaking the tablets when he came down the mountain and saw the golden calf? If he could act spontaneously, why not they?

They forgot the difference between a priest and a prophet. A prophet lives and acts in time – in this moment that is unlike any other. A priest acts and lives in eternity, by following a set of rules that never change. Everything about “the holy,” the realm of the priest, is precisely scripted in advance. The holy is the place where God, not man, decides.

Nadav and Avihu failed fully to understand that there are different kinds of leadership and they are not interchangeable. What is appropriate to one may be radically inappropriate to another. A judge is not a politician. A king is not a prime minister. A religious leader is not a celebrity seeking popularity. Confuse these roles and not only will you fail. You will also damage the very office you were chosen to hold.

The real contrast here, though, is the difference between Aaron and his two sons. They were, it seems, opposites. Aaron was over-cautious and had to be persuaded by Moses even to begin. Nadav and Avihu were not cautious enough. So keen were they to put their own stamp on the role of priesthood that their impetuosity was their downfall.

These are, perennially, the two challenges leaders must overcome. The first is the reluctance to lead. Why me? Why should I get involved? Why should I undertake the responsibility and all that comes with it – the stress, the hard work, and the criticisms leaders always have to face? Besides which, there are other people better qualified and more suited than I am.

Even the greatest were reluctant to lead. Moses at the burning bush found reason after reason to show that he was not the man for the job. Isaiah and Jeremiah both felt inadequate. Summoned to lead, Jonah ran away. The challenge really is daunting. But when you feel as if you are being called to a task, if you know that the mission is necessary and important, then there is nothing you can do but say, Hineni, “Here I am.” In the words of a famous book title, who have to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” 

The other challenge is the opposite. There are some people who simply see themselves as leaders. They are convinced that they can do it better. We recall the famous remark of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, that he was head of a nation of a million presidents.

From a distance it seems so easy. Isn’t it obvious that the leader should do X, not Y? Homo sapiens contains many back seat drivers who know better than those whose hands are on the steering wheel. Put them in a position of leadership and they can do great damage. Never having sat in the driver’s seat, they have no idea of how many considerations have to be taken into account, how many voices of opposition have to be overcome, how difficult it is at one and the same time to cope with the pressures of events while not losing sight of long term ideals and objectives. The late John F Kennedy said that the worst shock on being elected president was that “when we got to the White House we discovered that things were as bad as we said they were.” Nothing prepares you for the pressures of leadership when the stakes are high.

Overenthusiastic, overconfident leaders can do great harm. Before they became leaders they understood events through their own perspective. What they did not understand is that leadership involves relating to many perspectives, many interest groups and points of view. That does not mean that you try to satisfy everyone. Those who do so end up satisfying no one. But you have to consult and persuade. Sometimes you need to honour precedent and the traditions of a particular institution. You have to know exactly when to behave as your predecessors did, and when not to. These call for considered judgement, not wild enthusiasm in the heat of the moment.

Nadav and Avihu were surely great people. The trouble was that they believed they were great people. They were not like their father Aaron who had to be persuaded to come close to the altar because of his sense of inadequacy. The one thing Nadav and Avihu lacked was a sense of their own inadequacy.

To do anything great we have to be aware of these two temptations. One is the fear of greatness: who am I? The other is being convinced of your greatness: who are they? I can do it better. We can do great things if (a) the task matters more than the person, (b) we are willing to do our best without thinking ourselves superior to others, and (c) we are willing to take advice, the thing Nadav and Avihu failed to do.

People do not become leaders because they are great. They become great because they are willing to serve as leaders. It does not matter that we think ourselves inadequate. So did Moses. So did Aaron. What matters is the willingness, when challenge calls, to say, Hineni, “Here I am.”

Sacks, Jonathon. "Reticence vs. Impetuosity." OrthodoxUnion.org. (Viewed on March 22, 2014). http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/reticence-vs-impetuosity/

Kashrut After Refrigerators

By Rabbi Bradley Artson

Without attempting to justify the elaborate Jewish dietary laws, the Torah provides a lengthy list of which foods are kosher and which are not.

Since the earliest stages of our history, Jews have understood the patterns of kashrut (the dietary laws) to be at the very center of our heritage. Jews have sacrificed their lives rather than desecrate themselves with ‘treif‘ (non-kosher) food. From the biblical and into the rabbinical period, new guidelines and restrictions developed as Jews encountered different cuisines and aesthetic standards, yet the core of kashrut has remained unchanged over the millennia. Some of our most stirring stories of Jewish martyrdom–of Jews who preferred to lay down their lives rather than abandon their Judaism–center around the laws of kashrut. Animals with cloven hooves and which chew their cuds are kosher. Fish with fins and scales are kosher. Birds which eat grain and vegetables, and which can fly, are kosher. Insects, shellfish and reptiles are not.

Thus, as early as the time of the Maccabees (167 B.C.E.), we have stories of Jews forced to eat pork by the Syrian oppressors. In those stirring tales, the Jews chose to die with their integrity intact, to expire still obedient to the dictates of God and Torah. They could not conceive of a Judaism without kashrut, so central were the dietary laws to the entire rhythm of Jewish living.

Yet, the Torah gives no justification for kashrut. Consequently, Jews throughout history have struggled to understand the reasons underlying kosher eating. One explanation, popularized by the Rambam (12th-century Spain and Egypt), is found in Sefer Ha-Hinnukh (The Book of Education). For this school of thought, God is a cosmic doctor, providing a prescription to ensure the health of the Jewish People. “God knows that in all foods prohibited to the chosen people, elements injurious to the body are found. For this reason, God removed us from them so that the souls can do their function.”

This view understands kashrut as a medical plan to ensure the health of individual Jews. God prohibited foods that were harmful, thus ensuring that Jews would be vigorous and fit. God, they tell us, was the first health-food freak, and kashrut was the macrobiotics of its time.

The problem with such a viewpoint (that pigs cause trichinosis and were prohibited for that reason, for example) is that it implies that God doesn’t care about the health of the rest of humanity. After all, kashrut applies only to the Jews. If God is the creator of all humankind, then isn’t it logical to expect God to care about everyone’s health?

Another understanding of kashrut, advanced by persons interested in abandoning the dietary laws, is that kashrut was an early compensation for unsanitary conditions. If the Jews of the Torah had invented refrigerators, they wouldn’t have required kashrut. Now, with modern technology, we don’t need these outmoded precautions.

My grandmother was one of the most devoted exponents of that opinion.  Now that we have homogenized milk and air-tight containers, we don’t need kashrut. Such a viewpoint has no basis in either science or religion. No sacred text links the practice of the dietary laws to a fear of epidemic, or to a need to avoid rotting meat. That viewpoint also ignores the fact that most of the world’s religions observe some form of dietary laws (Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, among them).

Why, then, is kashrut significant? If not health or physical well-being, what is the goal of the dietary laws? The answer is found in the Torah itself. “You shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I [the Lord] am holy.” 

Kashrut is a way of welcoming the holiness of Judaism into our daily lives. At each meal, we rededicate ourselves to the high standards of Jewish living and behavior. The network of Jewish values–loving our neighbor, caring for the widow and orphan, affirming a connection to the Jewish people, and establishing God’s rule on earth–gain strength and depth through the regular practice of kashrut.

Every form of effective pedagogy involves regular repetition and frequent exposure. Since we eat three times each day (at a minimum!), kashrut is the basic school to recall and reinforce a sense of living in brit (covenant) with God, to making the values of Judaism visible through our deeds and priorities. Affirming our Jewish commitments by adhering to kashrut cultivates a greater awareness and an unwavering commitment to the eternal values of Torah–justice and holiness.

Artson, Bradley. "Kashrut After Refrigerators." MyJewishLearning.org. (Viewed on March 22, 2014). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/shemini_artson5759.shtml?p=0

 

Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23

Yitro, , , ,
Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/yitro

Women and Revelation

By Judith Plaskow

Read from a feminist perspective, Yitro contains one of the most painful verses in the Torah. At the formative moment in Jewish history, when presumably the whole people of Israel stands in awe and trembling at the base of Mount Sinai waiting for God to descend upon the mountain and establish the covenant, Moses turns to the assembled community and says, “Be ready for the third day: do not go near a woman” (19:15). Moses wants to ensure that the people are ritually prepared to receive God’s presence, and an emission of semen renders both a man and his female partner temporarily unfit to approach the sacred (see Leviticus 15:16-18). But Moses does not say, “Men and women do not go near each other.” Instead, at this central juncture in the Jewish saga, he renders women invisible as part of the congregation about to enter into the covenant.

These words are deeply troubling for at least two reasons. First, they are a paradigm of the treatment of women as “other,” both elsewhere in this portion and throughout the Torah. Again and again, the Torah seems to assume that the Israelite nation consists only of male heads of household. It records the experiences of men, but not the experiences of women. For example, the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (20:14), presupposes a community of male hearers.

Second, entry into the covenant at Sinai is not just a one-time event, but an experience to be reappropriated by every generation (Deuteronomy 29:13-14). Every time the portion is chanted, whether as part of the annual cycle of Torah readings or as a special reading for Shavuot, women are thrust aside once again, eavesdropping on a conversation among men, and between men and God. The text thus potentially evokes a continuing sense of exclusion and disorientation in women. The whole Jewish people supposedly stood at Sinai. Were we there? Were we not there? If we were there, what did we hear when the men heard “do not go near a woman”? If we were not there originally, can we be there now? Since we are certainly part of the community now, how could we not have been there at that founding moment?

Given the seriousness of these questions, it is important to note the larger narrative context of Moses’ injunction to the men not to go near a woman. When the Israelites arrive at Sinai on the third new moon after leaving Egypt, Moses twice ascends the mountain to talk with God. After he brings God the report that the people have agreed to accept the covenant, God gives Moses careful instructions for readying everyone for the moment of revelation: “Go to the people and warn them to stay pure today and tomorrow,” God says. “Let them wash their clothes. Let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day Adonai will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai” (19:10-11). It is striking that God’s instructions to Moses are addressed to the whole community. It is Moses who changes them, who glosses God’s message, who assumes that the instructions are meant for only half the people. Thus, at this early stage in Jewish history, Moses filters and interprets God’s commands through a patriarchal lens. His words are a paradigm of the treatment of women, but a complex one. They show how Jewish tradition has repeatedly excluded women, but also the way in which that exclusion must be understood as a distortion of revelation.

Interestingly, the Rabbis seem to have been disturbed by the implication of women’s absence from Sinai, because they read women into the text in a variety of ways. B’reishit Rabbah 28:2 understands Exodus 19:3 (“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel”) to mean that “the house of Jacob” refers to the women and “the children of Israel” refers to the men. According to the midrash, the order of the verse suggests that God sent Moses to the women with the Torah first. Perhaps, the sages speculate, God regretted the mistake of not directly giving Eve the commandment concerning the forbidden fruit and so resolved not to repeat it. Besides, the Rabbis note, women are more careful in observing religious precepts, and they are the ones who will instruct their children. Rashi, commenting on the Mishnah (Shabbat 9:3; BT Shabbat 86a), interprets Exodus 19:15 (“Do not go near a woman”) as a stricture specifically designed to enable Israel’s women to be present at Sinai. Since semen loses its power to create impurity after three days, Moses’ instruction to the men guarantees that women will remain ritually pure, even if they discharge residual semen during the Revelation. In other words, without ever naming Moses’ distortion of God’s words directly, the Rabbis sought to reverse its effects.

Several lessons can be drawn from this. One is the inseparability of revelation and interpretation. There is no revelation without interpretation; the foundational experience of revelation also involves a crucial act of interpretation. Second, we learn that the process of interpretation is ongoing. What Moses does, the Rabbis in this case seek to undo. While they reiterate and reinforce the exclusion of women in many contexts, they mitigate it in others. Third, insofar as the task of interpretation is continuing, it now lies with us. If women’s absence from Sinai is unthinkable to the Rabbis–despite the fact that they repeatedly reenact that absence in their own works–how much more must it be unthinkable to women and men today who function in communities in which women are full Jews? We have the privilege and the burden of recovering the divine words reverberating behind the silences in the text, recreating women’s understandings of revelation throughout Jewish history.

Plaskow, Judith. "Women and Revelation." My Jewish Learning. (Viewed January 18, 2014). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/URJ--Yitro.shtml?p=0

Not Norms for Everyone

By Jon D. Levenson

The Decalogue [the Greek word for the Ten Commandments] is part of a specific covenantal relationship, born out of the Exodus, between God and Israel. It does not purport to be a set of universal norms. To act as if everybody in the world came out of Egypt, everyone in the world is required to observe Shabbat and everyone in the world was brought into the land of Israel would make a travesty of the actual biblical narrative. The truth is that neither biblical nor rabbinic traditions speak of the Decalogue as applicable to universal humanity. In rabbinic tradition, there is a universal set of norms, but it is the “Seven Noahide Commandments.” Among different Christian communities, the understanding of the Ten Commandments varies widely. Sometimes they are seen to include ceremonial norms that applied to the ancient Hebrew commonwealth but were superseded by the Gospel, but other times they are thought to apply in full force to Christians today. Given the prominence of Protestantism, and especially the Calvinist emphasis on the Old Testament in American culture, it is not surprising that the Decalogue has widespread significance and high prestige here. It is often mistakenly detached from its covenantal framework and treated instead as a code that binds society as a whole. Within the covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people, of course, scrupulous observance of the Decalogue remains essential.

Levenson, Jon D. "Not Norms for Everyone." Excerpt from 10 Commandments 2.0 by Joan Alpert. Moment Magazine. (Viewed on January 18, 2014). http://www.momentmag.com/10-commandments-2-0/3/

Va-era, Exodus 6:2-9:35

Va-era, , ,
Link to Parsha: http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/vaera.shtml

Dvar Tzedek

By Rachel Farbiarz

Parshat Vaera continues the conversation between God and Moses following Moses’s first encounter with Pharaoh. God persists in his alternately tender and impatient wooing of the reluctant emissary, while Moses insists that he is unfit for the task. As before, Moses’s feelings of inadequacy center on his difficulty with speech, now captured, ironically, by his poetic lament: “I am uncircumcised of lips.”

The Torah does not identify the nature or origins of Moses’s difficulty. Rashi postulates that Moses had an actual speech impediment—perhaps a stutter or a severe lisp. A midrash explains that Moses’s impeded speech dated from infancy when the angel Gabriel had guided him to place a hot coal in his mouth. Perhaps Moses was deeply shy, a shepherd who preferred the company of animals over people with their insatiable demand for words.
Lending further obscurity, Moses’s impediment is wholly self-described. We learn of it only through his own protests at having been chosen as Israel’s liberator. Whereas the omniscient biblical narrator provides the descriptions of its other central characters, it is silent on Moses’s “heavy-mouthed and heavy-tongued” condition. The absence of this narrative corroboration implies that Moses’s impediment loomed larger in his own mind than as a handicap perceptible to others.
Whatever the impediment’s nature, it is clear that each utterance exacted a painful toll on Moses. God therefore sends Aaron to be his brother’s mouthpiece, and Aaron remains at Moses’s side as the two heap threats and plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Indeed, it is Aaron who initiates the first three plagues, stretching his rod over the waters to bring forth blood and frogs and hitting the earth to summon lice.
While the brothers seem to have settled well into their complementary roles, a nagging difficulty remains. In last week’s parshah, God dismissed Moses’s protestations by saying: “Who gives man speech? … Is it not I, the Lord?” Why then, instead of forcing Moses to suffer through humiliation and anxiety, doesn’t God eliminate the impediment? Why offer Aaron as a crutch rather than solve the problem?
God’s solution of Aaron as translator contains the answer: Aaron’s role as mediator was critical to the success of Moses’s leadership. Aaron’s translation not only smoothed away his brother’s stutterings, but also bridged a vast existential difference that stood between Moses and the slaves whom he was charged with liberating.
Moses, raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, grew up in privilege. He had not been beaten for stumbling over his own exhaustion. His mind had not been numbed by the monotonous horror of slavery. Moses could certainly feel righteous rage for the bitterness of the Hebrews’ servitude, but their burdens had never been his. Their pain was not his desperation. He had simply never been a slave. Aaron, by contrast, was not raised in Pharaoh’s palace: He was raised as a slave, among a family and community of slaves.
Moses’s reliance upon Aaron’s translation served as a constant reminder that to advocate effectively for his nation, Moses needed to reach beyond his own personal experience. Aaron could speak directly from the experience of oppression, and his role as translator helped Moses traverse the large divide between himself and the former slaves. Each time Moses sought use of his brother’s lips, the great leader was compelled to confront the fact that while he could speak to God without barrier, advocating for Israel was a more complicated matter.
As Westerners, many of us have been raised, like Moses, among privilege. While this gives us great power to advocate for those in need around the world, it also means that we have not personally shared their experiences. The partnership between Moses and Aaron helps us understand that in a situation of such disparity we cannot work alone, but must work together with the communities whom we seek to help.
We revere Moses as rabeinu, our greatest teacher: Among his enduring lessons are the insights of his obdurate tongue. Just as Moses needed Aaron’s constant mediation to lead and liberate a nation whose hardships he had never shared, we must be aware, when we commit ourselves to global justice work, that the communities we serve have faced challenges and privations that we have not borne.
Such awareness is, of course, not meant to impose artificial barriers. Rather, it is meant to cultivate respect and humility, to require from us the open-mindedness to listen for local wisdom and the discipline to concede that we do not hold a monopoly on solutions. For Jews seeking to heal the world, this means that grassroots organizations are best positioned to tackle the injustices and challenges of their own communities. They are, in effect, our “translators”— adapting for their communities’ particular contours our common aspirations for a just world.
Farbiartz, Rachel. "Dvar Tzedek: Parshat Vaera." On1Foot.org. (Viewed on December 28, 2013). http://on1foot.org/dvar-torah/ajws-dvar-tzedek-parshat-vaera-1

Part of a Process

By Regina Stein
Moses and God have little credibility among the Israelites in Egypt. Moses’ talk of redemption leads only to more severe oppression by Pharaoh. No sooner does God assure Moses that God’s might will soon be demonstrated than we read again at the beginning of the parsha that God speaks to Moses.

Hasn’t there been enough talk already? What could God possibly say at this point that would be helpful rather than detrimental to the Israelites?

Remind them, God says to Moses, that they are in the midst of an ongoing process. Remind them that this process began long ago, with their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who also had to learn that the covenantal promise would not be completely fulfilled in their lifetimes. Israel will only find the strength to endure and believe in the coming redemption, God seems to be saying, if they can learn to look back at the suffering and redemptive moments experienced by their ancestors.

Israel must remember that the covenant does not begin with them and will not end with their Exodus from Egypt. “I will free you…deliver you…redeem you…take you…and I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It’s all in the process.

“In every generation,” we recite at the Passover Seder, “we must learn to view ourselves as having personally experienced the Exodus from Egypt.” We, as our ancestors before us, tend to focus on the immediate moment with its problems and crises. But to be a Jew is to realize that we are part of a process that began long ago and will not end in our lifetimes.

There may be no immediate gratification; we may be impatient when we do not see the immediate results of our efforts. But as with Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, we can find consolation and meaning in the awareness that we are part of that ongoing covenantal process.

Stein, Regina. "Part of a Process." My Jewish Learning. (Viewed on December 28, 2013). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/vaera_clal.shtml?p=0