Tag Archives: Moses & Aaron

Korach, Numbers 16:1-18:32

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Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/korach

Brass Pans

By Rabbi Lazer Gurkow

As recounted in this week’s Torah portion, Korach led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Two hundred and fifty of Korach’s followers brazenly performed the rite of incense offering—a rite reserved only for the high priest. They were punished, but the brass pans they used in their misguided offering were salvaged. G‑d instructed that they be utilized as a covering for the altar. Why would a sinner’s pan be incorporated into the altar of atonement?

The simple reason given is that this would serve as a reminder to the nation never to engage in rebellion again. Yet there must be a deeper dimension, a positive aspect, to this remarkable twist in the tale.

The chassidic masters point out that every metal used in the building of the Tabernacle represented a human character trait. Gold is indicative of awe, silver of love, and brass of conviction and strength of character. Korach and his men were indeed made of brass, prepared as they were to sacrifice their life on the altar of conviction.

They backed the wrong horse, but they sure knew how to run. Their conviction was laudable though their choice was tragic. So G‑d instructed that the brass pans be incorporated into the altar itself, but the hot coals within it—also used to perform the incense rite—be discarded. This demonstrates that G‑d did not approve of the nature of their sacrifice, but appreciated the sacrifice itself.

The message to the nation was simple. Do not repeat Korach’s mistake, but do take a lesson from the manner in which he pursued it. Find that strength within yourself, but harness it to the service of G‑d.

Korach was given a gift, but he abused it. We need to utilize that very gift in a positive sense. Strength of character is handy when, for example, skeptics and detractors beset us and question our values.

When doubts cross our mind, when questions plague us, conviction sustains us till such time as we discover the answers. When our strength is eroded by temptations and craven delights, we rely on our inner reserves till our moment of weakness passes.

In short, when the ego, heart or mind loses enthusiasm, an unshakable faith will carry the day.

This Torah portion comes on the heels of the story we read last week, in which the nation was handed a forty-year sentence to wander the desert. It would take patience and long-term commitment to overcome this long and trying period. This strength of character was born out of the ashes of Korach’s tragedy.

Though Korach’s rebellion was ill-fated, it sparked a fire deep within the Jewish soul. If Korach could feel such conviction, then so could we. Buoyed by this conviction, the nation resolved to overcome the forty-year sentence and enter the promised land.

We too would do well to tear a page out our ancestors’ playbook. We too have been wandering for many years, and we too await the promise of return. With the conviction of a faith unshaken, let us resolve to anticipate the coming redemption speedily in our days, Amen.

Gurkow, Lazer. "Brass Pans." Chabad.org. (Viewed on June 21, 2014). http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/395376/jewish/Brass-Pans.htm

Servant Leadership

By Rabbi Jonathon Sacks

“You have gone too far! The whole community are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above God’s congregation?” (Num. 16: 3).

What exactly was wrong in what Korach and his motley band of fellow agitators said? We know that Korach was a demagogue, not a democrat. He wanted power for himself, not for the people. We know also that the protestors were disingenuous. Each had their own reasons to feel resentful toward Moses or Aaron or fate. Set these considerations aside for a moment and ask: was what they said, true or false?

They were surely right to say, “All the community are holy.” That, after all, is what God asked the people to be: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, meaning, a kingdom all of whose members are (in some sense) priests, and a nation all of whose citizens are holy.

They were equally right to say, “God is with them.” That was the point of the making of the Tabernacle: “have them make Me sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Ex. 25: 8). Exodus ends with the words: “So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels” (Ex. 40: 38). The Divine presence was visibly with the people wherever they went.

What was wrong was their last remark: “Why then do you set yourselves above God’s congregation?” This was not a small mistake. It was a fundamental one. Moses represents the birth of a new kind of leadership. That is what Korach and his followers did not understand. Many of us do not understand it still.

The most famous buildings in the ancient world were the Mesopotamian ziggurats and Egyptian pyramids. These were more than just buildings. They were statements in stone of a hierarchical social order. They were wide at the base and narrow at the top. At the top was the king or pharaoh – at the point, so it was believed, where heaven and earth met. Beneath was a series of elites, and beneath them the labouring masses.

This was believed to be not just one way of organising a society but the only way. The very universe was organised on this principle, as was the rest of life. The sun ruled the heavens. The lion ruled the animal kingdom. The king ruled the nation. That is how it was in nature. That is how it must be. Some are born to rule, others to be ruled.

Judaism is a protest against this kind of hierarchy. Every human being, not just the king, is in the image and likeness of God. Therefore no one is entitled to rule over any other without their assent. There is still a need for leadership, because without a conductor an orchestra would lapse into discord. Without a captain a team might have brilliant players and yet not be a team. Without generals an army would be a mob. Without government, a nation would lapse into anarchy. “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25).

In a social order in which everyone has equal dignity in the eyes of heaven, a leader does not stand above the people. He serves the people, and he serves God. The great symbol of biblical Israel, the menorah, is an inverted pyramid or ziggurat, broad at the top, narrow at the base. The greatest leader is therefore the most humble. “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3).

The name to this is servant leadership, and its origin is in the Torah. The highest accolade given to Moses is that he was “the servant of the Lord” (Deut. 34:5). Moses is given this title eighteen times in Tanakh as a whole. Only one other leader merits the same description: Joshua, who is described this way twice.

No less fascinating is the fact that only one person in the Torah is commanded  to be humble, namely the king:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites … (Deut. 17: 18-20)

This is how Maimonides describes the proper conduct of a king:

Just as the Torah has granted the him great honour and obligated everyone to revere him, so too it has commanded him to be lowly and empty at heart, as it says: ‘My heart is a void within me’ (Psalm 109:22). Nor should he treat Israel with overbearing haughtiness, as it says, ‘he should not consider himself better than his fellows’ (Deut. 17:20).

He should be gracious and merciful to the small and the great, involving himself in their good and welfare. He should protect the honor of even the humblest of people.

When he speaks to the people as a community, he should speak gently, as in ‘Listen my brothers and my people…’ (King David’s words in I Chronicles 28:2). Similarly, I Kings 12:7 states,  ‘If today you will be a servant to these people…’

He should always conduct himself with great humility. There is none greater than Moses, our teacher. Yet, he said: ‘What are we? Your complaints are not against us’ (Exodus 16:8). He should bear the nation’s difficulties, burdens, complaints and anger as a nurse carries an infant.

The same applies to all positions of leadership. Maimonides lists among those who have no share in the world to come, someone who “imposes a rule of fear on the community, not for the sake of Heaven.” Such a person “rules over a community by force, so that people are greatly afraid and terrified of him,” doing so “for his own glory and personal interests.” Maimonides adds to this last phrase: “like heathen kings.”[5] The polemical intent is clear. It is not that no one behaves this way. It is that this is not a Jewish way to behave.

When Rabban Gamliel acted in what his colleagues saw as a high-handed manner, he was deposed as Nasi, head of the community, until he acknowledged his fault and apologised. Rabban Gamliel learned the lesson. He later said to two people who declined his offer to accept positions of leadership: ‘Do you think I am giving you a position of honour [serarah]? I am giving you the chance to serve [avdut].” As Martin Luther King once said “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.”

C. S. Lewis rightly defined humility not as thinking less of yourself but as thinking of yourself less. The great leaders respect others. They honour them, lift them, inspire them to reach heights they might never have done otherwise. They are motivated by ideals, not by personal ambition. They do not succumb to the arrogance of power.

Sometimes the worst mistakes we make are when we project our feelings onto others. Korach was an ambitious man, so he saw Moses and Aaron as two people driven by ambition, “setting themselves above God’s congregation.” He did not understand that in Judaism to lead is to serve. Those who serve do not lift themselves high. They lift other people high.

Sakcs, Jonathon. "Servant Leadership." OU.org. (Viewed on June 21, 2014). http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/servant-leadership/

Shmini, Leviticus 9:1-11:47

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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

 

Tzav, Leviticus 6:1-8:36

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Link to Parsha: http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/tzav

Tzav 5774

By Ian Gamse

“So did Aaron and his sons, all the things which God had commanded by the hand of Moses.” (Vayikra, Leviticus 8:36)

The parasha ends with the account of the seven days during which the mishkan (the “tabernacle”) was dedicated – the culmination of six months of donations and crafstmanship. The eighth day will be the first day of Nisan, a new year and a new phase in the Israelites’ relationship with God. Rashi reads this final verse entirely positively: it comes to praise Aaron and his sons who have not deviated one iota from the instructions they were given.

Ramban, however, notices an oddity in the wording. The phrase that has been repeated many times in the account of the construction of the mishkan is “ka-asher tsivva”; here we have “asher tsivva”. The missing kaf makes a difference: whereas before everything had been done “just as God had commanded”, here it is merely “which God had commanded”. He accounts for the difference by reading forwards: on the next day, the eighth day, Aaron’s two elder sons will do something that they had not been commanded, bringing “strange fire” into the sanctuary and turning celebration into tragedy.

But what does he mean by making this comment at this stage? Presumably that the lapse was predictable and its cause already discernible – so we must ask what that cause was and why Aaron and his sons are appointed priests despite an apparent flaw.

I would like to suggest that what lies behind Ramban’s comment is an essential difference between Moses on the one hand and Aaron and his sons on the other. Moses – his head literally in the clouds – is able to exactly as God has commanded, with no interruption, no interference. The constant repetition of the phrase “just as God had commanded” is applied to things that Moses does himself and to the work done under his supervision. But the end of the seven days of dedicating the mishkan marks a transition: the mishkan moves from the world of Moses to the world of Aaron – a world that is fallible – a world in which the mishkan is not just an ever-present reminder of the immanence of God but an ever-present reminder of the golden calf, for which it atones.

Fallibility, however, may not be bad. The Kotsker rebbe cites Midrash Tanchuma: “Said the Holy One, blessed be He: if I wanted an offering, should I not instruct the angel Michael to offer Me an offering? But from whom do I ask? From Israel.” If what God wants is specific actions, says the Kotsker, He should ask the angels – beings without free choice who perform His will exactly. Instead, God instructs us, humans, who must put some effort into deciding to do what is required of us – and it’s that effort which is what God is looking for, even though it comes at the price of possible failure.

So perhaps we can read the Ramban’s words not as a critique of Aaron and his sons but as a celebration of the introduction of human fallibility, and thus human potential, into the pristine, sterile structure.

Gamse, Ian. "Tzav 5774." Limmud on One Leg. (Viewed on March 15, 2014). http://limmud.org/publications/limmudononeleg/5774/tzav/

On Not Trying to Be What You Are Not

By Rabbi Jonathon Sacks

The great leaders know their own limits. They do not try to do it all themselves. They build teams. They create space for people who are strong where they are weak. They understand the importance of checks and balances and the separation of powers. They surround themselves with people who are different from them. They understand the danger of concentrating all power in a single individual. But learning your limits, knowing there are things you cannot do – even things you cannot be – can be a painful experience. Sometimes it involved an emotional crisis.

The Torah contains four fascinating accounts of such moments. What links them is not words but music. From quite early on in Jewish history, the Torah was sung, not just read. Moses at the end of his life calls the Torah a song. Different traditions grew up in Israel and Babylon, and from around the tenth century onward the chant began to be systematized in the form of the musical notations known as taamei ha-mikra, cantillation signs, devised by the Tiberian Masoretes (guardians of Judaism’s sacred texts). One very rare note, known as a shalshelet (“chain”), appears in the Torah four times only. Each time it is a sign of existential crisis. Three instances are in Bereishit. The fourth is in our parsha. As we will see, the fourth is about leadership. In a broad sense, the other three are as well.

The first instance occurs in the story of Lot. Lot had separated from his uncle Abraham and settled in Sodom. There he had assimilated into the local population. His daughters had married local men. He himself sat in the city gate, a sign that he had been made a judge. Then two visitors came to tell him to leave. God was about to destroy the city. Yet Lot hesitates, and above the word for “hesitates” –vayitmahmah – is a shalshelet. (Genesis 19: 16). He is torn, conflicted. He senses that the visitors are right. The city is indeed about to be destroyed. But he has invested his whole future in the new identity he has been carving out for himself and his daughters. Had the angels not seized him and taken him to safety he would have delayed until it was too late.

The second occurs when Abraham asks his servant – traditionally identified as Eliezer – to find a wife for Isaac his son. The commentators suggest that he felt a profound ambivalence about his mission. Were Isaac not to marry and have children, Abraham’s estate would eventually pass to Eliezer or his descendants. Abraham had already said so before Isaac was born: “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” (Genesis 15: 2). If Eliezer succeeded in his mission, bringing back a wife for Isaac, and if the couple had children, then his chances of one day acquiring Abraham’s wealth would disappear completely. Two instincts warred within him: loyalty to Abraham and personal ambition. Loyalty won, but not without a deep struggle. Hence the shalshelet (Genesis 24: 12).

The third brings us to Egypt and the life of Joseph. Sold by his brothers as a slave, he is now working in the house of an eminent Egyptian, Potiphar. Left alone in the house with his master’s wife, he finds himself the object of her desire. He is handsome. She wants him to sleep with her. He refuses. To do such a thing, he says, would be to betray his master, her husband. It would be a sin against God. Yet over “he refused” is a shalshelet, (Genesis 39: 8) indicating – as some rabbinic sources and mediaeval commentaries suggest – that he did so at the cost of considerable effort. He nearly succumbed. This was more than the usual conflict between sin and temptation. It was a conflict of identity. Recall that Joseph was now living in, for him, a new and strange land. His brothers had rejected him. They had made it clear that they did not want him as part of their family. Why then should he not, in Egypt, do as the Egyptians do? Why not yield to his master’s wife if that is what she wanted? The question for Joseph was not just, “Is this right?” but also, “Am I an Egyptian or a Jew?”

All three episodes are about inner conflict, and all three are about identity. There are times when each of us has to decide, not just “What shall I do?” but “What kind of person shall I be?” That is particularly fateful in the case of a leader, which brings us to episode four, this time about Moses.

After the sin of the golden calf Moses had at God’s command instructed the Israelites to build a sanctuary which would be, in effect, a permanent symbolic home of God in the midst of the people. By now the work is complete and all that remains is for Moses to induct his brother Aaron and his sons into office. He robes Aaron with the special garments of the high priest, anoints him with oil, and performs the various sacrifices appropriate to the occasion. Over the word vayishchat, “and he slaughtered [the sacrificial ram]” (Leviticus 8: 23) there is a shalshelet. By now we know that this means there was an internal struggle in Moses’ mind. But what was it? There is not the slightest sign in the text that suggests that he was undergoing a crisis.

Yet a moment’s thought makes it clear what Moses’ inner turmoil was about. Until now he had led the Jewish people. Aaron his older brother had assisted him, accompanying him on his missions to Pharaoh, acting as his spokesman, aide and second-in-command. Now, however, Aaron was about to undertake a new leadership role in his own right. No longer would he be a shadow of Moses. He would do what Moses himself could not. He would preside over the daily offerings in the tabernacle. He would mediate the avodah, the Israelites’ sacred service to God. Once a year on Yom Kippur he would perform the service that would secure atonement for the people from its sins. No longer in Moses’ shadow, Aaron was about to become the one kind of leader Moses was not destined to be: a High Priest.

The Talmud adds a further dimension to the poignancy of the moment. At the burning bush, Moses had repeatedly resisted God’s call to lead the people. Eventually God told him that Aaron would go with him, helping him speak (Ex. 4: 14-16). The Talmud says that at that moment Moses lost the chance to be a priest. “Originally [said God] I had intended that you would be the priest and Aaron your brother would be a Levite. Now he will be the priest and you will be a Levite.”

That is Moses’ inner struggle, conveyed by the shalshelet. He is about to induct his brother into an office he himself will never hold. Things might have been otherwise – but life is not lived in the world of “might have been.” He surely feels joy for his brother, but he cannot altogether avoid a sense of loss. Perhaps he already senses what he will later discover, that though he was the prophet and liberator, Aaron will have a privilege Moses will be denied, namely, seeing his children and their descendants inherit his role. The son of a priest is a priest. The son of a prophet is rarely a prophet.

What all four stories tell us is that there comes a time for each of us when we must make an ultimate decision as to who we are. It is a moment of existential truth. Lot is a Hebrew, not a citizen of Sodom. Eliezer is Abraham’s servant, not his heir. Joseph is Jacob’s son, not an Egyptian of easy-going morals. Moses is a prophet not a priest. To say Yes to who we are we have to have the courage to say No to who we are not. There is pain and conflict involved. That is the meaning of the shalshelet. But we emerge less conflicted than we were before.

This applies especially to leaders, which is why the case of Moses in our parsha is so important. There were things Moses was not destined to do. He would not become a priest. That task fell to Aaron. He would not lead the people across the Jordan. That was Joshua’s role. Moses had to accept both facts with good grace if he was to be honest with himself. And great leaders must be honest with themselves if they are to be honest with those they lead.

A leader should never try to be all things to all people. A leader should be content to be what he or she is. A leader must have the strength to know what he cannot be if he is to have the courage to be himself.

Sacks, Jonathon. "On Not Trying to Be What You Are Not." Rabbi Sacks on Parsha, Orthodox Union. (Viewed on March 14, 2014). http://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/trying/

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

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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