Jonah ReVisioned

I partnered with 2 others to produce a rethinking of Jonah for Yom Kippur -- Jonah ReVisioned. Here it is at the Forward:
http://forward.com/scribe/386907/jonah-reimagined/

Drash on Shemini, butterflies, and elephants

Drash on Shemini, butterflies, and elephants
23 Adar II, 5776
Shemini, Viyekra/Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47


Todays’ portion is Shemini. ‘Shemini’, '8', refers to the 8^th day in the consecration of the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary. This sidrah is usually known for its two mysteries: the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, while lighting incense; and the laws of Kashrut concerning what animals can and can’t be eaten. Neither the reason for the death of Aaron’s sons, nor the reasons not to eat certain animals are explained, and they remain much discussed mysteries to this day.


Since you can find plenty of discussion about those two topics all over the place, I decided to focus on other matters: an extremely minor detail with a butterfly effect, and an elephant in the room.


Butterfly FX:


We read that if a small animal like a mouse or chameleon dies and falls on something, that something will become impure: verse 11:35 (Fox translation):
“Thus, anything upon which their carcass falls shall be tamei, unclean. An oven or 2-pot stove is to be demolished; they are tamei and they shall remain tamei for you. (Thus they cannot be made pure, tahor again.)


Well, a chameleon falling on your oven can be a problem, right? Really! An oven or stove is a major appliance and no one wants to have to destroy the whole thing, take the parts out to the hazmat dump (so they don’t make anything else impure), and then have to go out to some over-crowded, under-pleasant strip mall to buy a new one.


Well, the sages of old were discussing this very problem, and in the process they created one of the most famous, conceptually remarkable, and literarily brilliant midrashim of all time (a real butterfly effect, eh?). We know this midrash now as “The Oven of Akhnai.” It goes something like this:


We have been taught: Say a man made an oven out of separate coils of clay, placing one upon another, then put sand between each of the coils; such an oven, R. Eliezer said, is not susceptible to defilement, while the sages declared it susceptible.


So what’s the issue here? [My answer: an oven’s an expensive piece of equipment; is it possible to make one that can be fixed rather than replaced. But the real problem here becomes a disagreement that leads to a power struggle between the sages...]


            It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the sages did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them "if the Halakhah (body of Jewish law) agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!" Sure enough, the carob tree was uprooted (and replanted) a hundred cubits away from its place. "No proof can be derived from a carob tree," they retorted.
            Again he said to them, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the channel of water prove it!" Sure enough, the channel of water flowed backward. [Visualize frowning and yawning as the sages respond...] "No proof can be derived from a channel of water," they rejoined.
            Again he urged, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the house of study prove it!" Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked the walls saying, "When disciples of the wise are engaged in a halakhic dispute, what right have you to interfere?" Hence, in deference to R. Joshua they did not fall, and in deference to R. Eliezer they did not resume their upright position; indeed, they are still standing aslant.
            Again R. Eliezer said to the sages, "if the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven!" Sure enough, a divine voice (bat kol) cried out, "Why do you dispute with R. Eliezer, with whom the halakhah always agrees?" But R. Joshua stood up and protested, "It (the Torah) is not in heaven" (Deut. 30:12). We pay no attention to a divine voice because long ago at Mount Sinai You wrote in the Torah, "After the majority must one incline" (Exod. 23:2).
            R. Nathan met the prophet Elijah and asked him "What did the Holy One do in that moment?" Elijah: "He laughed, saying 'My sons have bested Me; My sons have bested Me.'"


So we have here a number of remarkable phenomena. Perhaps most importantly, the rabbis override the Voice of God, and are allowed to get away with it! Also of great interest, we have an assertion of democratic principles that even Jefferson or Paine might not have been so bold as to make. What else do we have here?


Let me answer this through an example. Suppose we are sitting around arguing matters of Torah. Reb Ramon, our hazan, declares that we need to add Musaf to our Shabbat prayers (we don’t do Musaf at Shirat haNefesh). The rest of us disagree. Reb Ramon makes lots of arguments but we blow them off. Finally he says, if God wants us to institute Musaf, let that oak tree prove it by jumping across the street. What do we do? We immediately pull out our cell phones and dial 911 to get an ambulance for Ramon who must be having a breakdown. When we’re working in realtime, adults don’t usually suspend their disbelief.


Elephant FX:


And so, may I introduce to you Ganesh, the elephant in the room. When reading holy texts we are inclined to suspend our disbelief.


In today’s portion, verse 9:23, we read (using Fox’s translation):
“... and the Glory of Adonai was seen by the entire people. And fire went out from the presence of Adonai and consumed, upon the slaughter-site, the Olah offering and the fat parts. When all the people saw, they shouted and flung themselves on their faces.”


We read this and what do we say? “Oh yeah, I’d have thrown myself down too. Wow. Amazing!”


Two verses later at 10:2 the text describes the demise of Nadav and Avihu:
“And fire went out from the presence of Adonai and consumed them (Nadav and Avihu), so that they died, before the presence of Adonai...”


We read this and what do we say? “Whoa. Why did God kill them?”


Or, way back in Beraysheet/Genesis we read, “God said to Abraham, kill me a son...” (Reb Dylan’s translation) and we think, ‘How could God demand such a thing?’ Etc, Etc.


We read this book, almost every one of us, like fundamentalists. We read the text, and believe it is true and accurate, and events happened just like what’s written; we believe people said just what’s written; and we believe God talked in human language and said exactly what’s written. Are we out of our minds?


But to mention this, of course, is virtually blasphemous. It got Rabbi Avuya excommunicated for questioning God’s justice, and it got Spinoza excommunicated for questioning the truth of the Torah. Nowadays, of course, we don’t get excommunicated (at least in most congregations), but if we’re asking these questions, we’re almost certainly not spending much time reading Torah (why bother?). We probably don’t come to shul more than a couple of times a year, if that (again, why bother?). Indeed, we probably have no use for religion or God whatsoever.


This is a dilemma! Indeed, it has 70 faces just like the Torah. It’s important now for you, the reader, to try to articulate what the problem is, before you read the four ways I articulate it.


My articulations:

1.         Living in a world of suspended disbelief causes us to become non-credible to many adults, and more troubling, to our children, whose minds are awaking to the productive rigors of evidence-based thinking (multiple sources of evidence or repeatability). On the other hand, if we reject the verity of the Torah, we ultimately reject the foundation of Jewish thought, Jewish practice, Jewish community, Jewish identity. But what if you feel like me: to be a Jew is a privilege and an honor! Throwing out the Torah is not an option.

2.         We are compelled to ask, ‘why are things different these days?’ Why did God talk to people long ago, but not to us? Are we the problem? Is Torah the problem? Is God the problem? I’m guessing most people would say the problem is the Torah. Is it possible to redeem this Torah? Is it possible to make it believable once again? But it needs to be more than believable; it needs to be insightful. Is that possible? But it needs to be more than insightful; it needs to be inspirational, even to a sceptic, even to our kids, if it is to stand as a genuine holy book, and if it is going to continue to be as life-changing and as world-changing now as it was in the past.

3.         How do we create and teach the intellectual and spiritual tools to help us more directly experience and understand God? What are we God-believers doing to open the doors of perception? If God is real we should be able to repeatably open those Divine doors, at least a crack. We’re not doing that now at all. Prayer, for all of its many virtues, is not a tool that can help us to experience God, in my opinion. It may help reinforce our faith; cool our overheated brains; help us develop concentration skills; teach us spiritual and religious insights; help us build community. But I have almost never seen it open the doors of perception

4.         And finally, this corollary problem overlaps our problems with text and God: is God an active agency for justice in the world today? Is there a Divine causality behind all the good and the bad that happens in the world? Is God an active force turning history? The traditional answer is, “absolutely; unconditionally; in everything!” But we moderns then ask, “where was God during the Shoah? And if not then, when?”

Let me offer up a couple of ideas that may help us begin to address these problems.


First: over a half century ago Erik Erikson proposed the theory of the psycho-social stages of human development, a theory that has since become virtually canonical. I think we can use Erikson’s model to postulate stages of growth in human civilization. I would suggest that we, as a civilization, are emerging from childhood into a kind of early adulthood. In our childhood we may have been happy and satisfied to believe in a God that is near, loving, and always enforcing the rules. We were largely credulous, and we had, if I can mix religious metaphors, a Santa Claus view of God. It appears that civilization is growing beyond that now, although, obviously, not uniformly. A more sophisticated understanding of God and the value of faith is concurrently beginning to emerge, although people who have abandoned religion are rarely aware of this.


Second: how can we talk about God if we’ve never really, honestly experienced God? I have no patience for, nor interest in hand-me-down versions of spiritual awakening. People that claim that God surely exists need to provide personal credentials that are more than a collection of feel-good experiences or curious coincidences that have been invested with “the intentions of God.” Consider this quote from Cormac McCarthy’s, The Crossing:

“He heard the voice of God in the murmur of the wind in the trees. Even the stones were sacred. He was a reasonable man and he believed that there was love in his heart. There was not! Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear in them but only that wildness of heart that springs from such longing and they cry out to stay his presence for they know at once that while godless men may live well enough in their exile those to whom he has spoken can contemplate no life without him but only darkness and despair.”

While McCarthy doesn’t seem to understand that there are many ways to experience the Divine, and many degrees of intensity in this experience, his demand for authenticity in asserting that experience is compelling.


Third: have our spiritual senses grown dull? If so, we need to be teaching ourselves and our children how to sharpen those spiritual senses, and how to appreciate the complexity of what we call God. We need to develop in ourselves a more nuanced, multi-faceted understanding. But we also need to hone our innate ability to sense the subtle workings of God in this world. Every civilization that has emerged on this planet has been grounded in a sense of the Divine. This stands as compelling evidence that we have an innate sense of God and spiritual matters within us. Therefore, if we can make 100 tons of metal fly, we should surely be able to develop tools, physical and mental, to help us discern, even if dimly, the Divine within and beyond us.


Finally, our children need to know that God isn’t going to step out of the sky to tell them what to do. Neither will God come down and spank them when they’re bad. We don’t now have the sensitivity and skill, and we may never have it, to comprehend Divine causality as it works in this world. In any case, harking back to the McCarthy quote above, we may be able to live and thrive in this world with no religion and no sense of God, but our lives will be deeply enriched by a knowledge of our Divine Essence, and we will surely be immeasurably transformed if we have the privilege to experience that Essence in its power and grandeur. Of that I am certain, having been, myself, greatly transformed!


Let us therefore turn our energies to help develop the skills to sense the Godness embedded in this world.



Two out-takes:


So, it seems we stand in two worlds, often at the same time. Now, that wouldn’t be such a big problem if we didn’t care that so many people have walked away from religion, and if we didn’t care about our children walking away from our faith, our traditions, our sense of calling, our community, our identity. But we care. I hope we care. Anyway, I for one, care!


So how then do we tell the story of God talking to our ancestors in such a way that it is still believable, and doesn’t sound like folklore and fairy tale? How do we tell it, not with a stick – ‘you have to understand things THIS way or you’re bad’ – but with real and convincing insight? So how do we read this book in a new way that doesn’t rely on suspending belief, but actually inspires belief? What do we do? You tell me.

Drash on Torah portion Tetzaveh

A drash (an exploration, an essay) on the parashah Tetzaveh to be delivered at Congregation Shirat HaNefesh, 2/20/2016; 11 Adar 1, 5776.

But before I start, for those who are not familiar with Jewish practice, Jews divide the Torah into portions, known in Hebrew as sidrot (singular: sidrah). They are also known as parshiot (singular parashah). The two terms are interchangeable. There are 54 sidrot, and they are read sequentially thru the year, one every week. We begin with the creation story on the holiday of Simchat Torah, and parashah by parashah, complete Deuteronomy one year later.

Let’s begin with a thought experiment.
Imagine you are Moshe (Moses) and God has just instructed you to write the Torah. Naturally, the first thing you do is go to the local stationary store down near Sinai to buy a notebook to start recording things. Once you’ve got your  notebook, what do you do?

If I can give you a little direction on what I’m thinking about here, and naturally, there are other ways to address this problem, but what I’m thinking about is this: what kind of information does Moshe need to write this book? Or, if you prefer, what information did the later writers and editors need? (My question isn’t, ‘who wrote the Book?’ My question is, ‘what information were they interested in reporting?’)  I’m asking you to address the problem of “what are the pieces of this book?” What kinds of texts have been compiled into it? Torah isn’t just laws and mitzvot dictated by God or God’s agents here. It’s a lot more than that. What kinds of documents and oral histories does Moshe need to collect, and where does he get them?
{To the reader; at the end of this drash you can find a partial answer, much of which was compiled in a former drash I wrote on sidrah VaYekhel}

Well, we can see this is a multi-textual document, but I don’t think anyone would argue that Torah is primarily a cookbook or a text on dream interpretation or a map of Canaan and Sinai. What is Torah primarily?
{your thoughts?}
I would call it a marriage contract between us and God, but such a summary doesn’t do justice to the multi-textual nature of the contract.

If we can’t really agree on what Torah PRIMARILY is, can we at least agree on what the most important narrative/story is?
{your thoughts?}

How about this to try to hone in on some DEFINABLE measure of importance: what is the most important narrative based on the number of verses or pages devoted to it in Torah? What do you think that would be?
{your thoughts?}

Well, this is a bit crude, but based on the Kaplan Living Torah, the narrative that gets the most pages is... Here’s the breakdown:
Abraham story: .................................... 48pp; Lekh Lekha, VaYera, Khiya Sarah
Joseph story: ....................................... 46 pp; VaYishlakh, Miketz, VaYegash (less Tamar story)
Exodus story: ....................................... 72 pp; Shmot, VaEra, Bo, Beshallakh
Giving of the Law: .................................. 26 pp; Yitro, Mishpatim
Kinds of sacrifices/rituals: ....................... 30+ pp; ViYikra
Building the Mishkan and its parts: ............. 85pp; Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ki Tissa, VaYakhel

The building of the Mishkan and the making of all its sacred components gets decidedly more parchment real estate than any of the others. Surprising, eh? Why isn’t this obvious, and common knowledge?

Part of the reason is that the human mind is a narrative-creating engine. It’s what we do; it’s how we think; it’s how we organize and remember. We like stories and we need stories: Adam and Eve, Abraham and the 3 visitors, Eliezer and Laban, Dinah and Shkhem, Joseph in Egypt, Moses and the plagues, the golden calf. The building of the Mishkan, however, is not what we commonly call a narrative. It’s more like one of those indecipherable and aggravating booklets you get with a piece of furniture from Ikea. Or you can think of it as a set of blueprints; or as an art history lesson.

So tell me, why is the most extensive narrative unit in the Torah an art history lesson, and why is it almost always ignored?
{your thoughts?}

Last week everyone sitting in this synagogue agreed that this art history lesson gave clear instructions on how to create the Mishkan and it’s sacred objects. You said the instructions were clear so we didn’t have to worry about process, so that we could dive in and get to work. It was a brilliant interpretation. But, with all due respect, I totally disagree. The instructions are confusing; the materials are often inappropriate for their use; and there is hardly a single description of what the end products actually looked like. We have no idea what the keruvim looked like, or whether the designs in the woven walls looked like an oriental rug, an art deco pattern, a starry sky, a landscape, or a flat field of color, stripes, or polka dots.  Indeed, even Aaron’s robe, with its bells and pomegranates is argued about in the Talmud. Do the bells and pomegranates alternate around the fringe, or do they hang together as a unit. And we hear Moshe complain in frustration, “show me the candelabra; Your description is incomprehensible!”

All we have is an incomplete blueprint; a set of vague instructions. And we NEVER hear what the Mishkan ultimately looked like. Dare I suggest that THAT wasn’t what the authors (or the Author) was concerned with. I would postulate that the concern was not about end products, but to inspire a people to go out and build; go out and create; go out and take a chance and see what happens! That’s the direct opposite of what we commonly think Torah is trying to do. We commonly think it’s trying to direct us, constrain us, set a clear path for us to walk. Here we’re being told: it’s on you. Go figure it out yourselves.

Normally, a drash concludes in such a way that the congregation thinks, ‘aaah, of course, that’s how God wants me to behave’; or, ‘oooh, so that’s the meaning of that indecipherable word or that grammatically strange construction’; or, ‘hmmm, so that’s why bad things happen to good people’. Etc. Well, I don’t have a nice wrap-up to this drash. It’s more like one of those really aggravating TV shows that ends with the 3 contemptible words, “to be continued”. I’m much less concerned with having you come to neat, clear conclusions than in having you realize that this section, so often introduced as being boring, perhaps isn’t so boring, especially if you’re an artist, an art historian, or someone who values arts and crafts. Or someone who values creativity in general.

I urge you to re-read this series of sidrot with an understanding that this is perhaps as crucial and valuable a section of Torah as the giving of laws, or the telling of remarkable sagas, or the careful execution of sacred rituals. I want you to think about these parshiot and elevate them to their actual importance, an importance that the Torah makes clear by devoting so much time to them. This is not just some instruction manual from Ikea, l’havdil. Creative endeavors are one of the most essential defining features of being human, and not just being human, but being a spiritually and morally elevated human being. Creative endeavors are perhaps the most direct route from earth to God, from Babylon to Jerusalem, from our common, selfish, morally ambiguous state to a place of compassion, openness, and wisdom.

Shabbat Shalom.

Some answers to Question 1, above:

Question 1. What kinds of texts are compiled in this book?
cosmogony, cosmic origins
phylogeny, human origins
mythology of the origin of nations
genealogy
saga and history (inextricably intertwined)
contracts (eg purch of Machpelah)
poetry
dreams
blessings (Balaam)
mystical experiences
basic corporate (Bezelel) and judicial (Yitro) management trees
descriptions of sacrificial and other rites
legal rulings and precedents
census
job descriptions (most of Viyikra)
architectural blueprints
templates for furniture, weaving, cast and beaten metal objects
menus (Abe and 3 angels; Pesakh meal)
recipes (incense and anointing oil)
want-ad (for inspired craftsmen)
mapping, geography
geological surveys
field guides of flora and fauna
etc...}

From my drash on VaYakhel:
I believe Torah was consciously composed as a multi-document text.  It was not intended to have the traditional kind of singularity of perspective and subject found in most other sacred or literary texts. Torah was revolutionary in this way, along with its other revolutionary features:
1. its understanding of God's unity,
2. its ethical code that shattered all cultural norms of the day;
3. its establishment of a whole people as a priesthood;  and
4. its conception of history as having a direction and a purpose.
Torah casts its net over every detail of life and brings it into the sacred realm. Aside from encyclopedias, the only other document that I'm aware of with equal breadth, is... the Talmud, a worthy successor in the Jewish canon.

Parashah Yitro - an exploration

The following is a short discussion, aka a dvar (a word), or a drash (an exploration), on the Torah portion Yitro, Exodus/Shmote, 18:1  to 20:23. I will be presenting this discussion to my congregation, Shirat HaNefesh tomorrow, 2/7/15.

Yitro and the building of national identity

Yitro, Jethro, is a parashah, a sidrah that most of you probably know quite well, although it often gets mixed up with Ki Tisa (tablets, golden calf) 4 sidrahs later. What are some of the salient things that happen in this sidrah?

Yitro comes out to meet Moshe, acknowledging the God of Israel as the greatest deity.
Yitro advises Moses on how to govern better, building a judicial hierarchy.
In the 3rd month, on the 1st day, the Israelites arrive at Mt. Sinai.
Moshe goes up Sinai, and God informs him He wants Israel as His special people.
Moshe returns to inform the people and they/we agree to the terms.
Moshe again ascends and is told to prepare people for experience of God on peak of Sinai.
Moshe instructs people to purify themselves for 3 days, and set a boundary around Sinai to keep people away.
God appears at peak amidst clouds, thunder, ram’s horn blasts, and summons Moshe up.
God tells Moshe to go back down to warn people to stay away.
God declares the Ten Commandments while Moshe is among the people.
Moshe enters mist of God’s Presence and God tells him not to make idols but to make an altar for sacrifice.
In sum, Moshe goes up Sinai 3 or 4 times, but the Commandments are given when he is down with the people.

A traditional drash starts with something far, something apparently unrelated, and then shows how it is near, that is, relevant.

I would like to start with a mashaal, a parable. It's about a king who wanted to marry a beautiful and strong and wise and noble woman. When she gladly accepted his offer of marriage, he had a very special ketuba, a marriage contract, prepared.  In it, among other things, he described all the wealth he was transferring to her.  Such and such tracts of land; thus and many chieftains for an honor guard; what well-trained handmaids and servants; which buildings in the capital city; abundance of garments of this and that sort; special cuisine and cooks; and so on.
The problem was, just after the wedding the king was called away to a distant land across the sea. After many months, he hadn't come back yet, and secret desires began to stir. 

How do we complete this mashaal, this parable? Of course, before you can complete the parable, you need to postulate what the nimshaal, the underlying story is, since a parable is a story meant to illustrate and clarify another story. Take a few minutes to postulate the ending to this parable. If you already know the parable, imagine a new ending.

While your mind is composing the parable’s ending, let me seed your imagination with some ideas.

First, what is illogical about Yitro’s advice about forming a hierarchical judiciary?

This is hard, so let me give you another mashaal. A parent said to her 5 year old, “I want you to obey all the laws of this household.” The five year old of course agreed, but a moment later she did something that angered the father, and he yelled at her. Sound familiar? What’s illogical here? Do you have a written set of household laws that you can refer to? Do you read those laws to your 5 year old every night so that she will know them well?

So now, what’s illogical about Yitro’s advice? [My answer: Israel does not yet have a body of laws to adjudicate!]

So the rest of the sidrah is about getting the Laws, right? Wrong! All that Israel obtains is 10 laws, not even a bare minimum to actually govern a functioning society. There’s no civil or business law here, and only a couple of the most extreme criminal issues are covered, without any discussion of procedure or punishment. Further, one commandment is about outlawing certain thoughts, coveting, which is unimplementable and was never intended to be implemented (it seems to me), at least in a human court.

So what’s missing here? What remains illogical?
1. The build-up of case law over 40 years is what ultimately becomes the Law of Moshe.
2. Much of the law emerged as a response to human need in the face of human conflict and confusion about what to do.
3. A nation needs to build an identity if it is to implement a functioning judiciary. The values that form a nation’s identity also shape a nation’s laws, and vice versa, a nation’s laws, and the way they are implemented, shapes a nation’s identity.

So when does Israel really assume a national identity?

The issues of national identity building are ongoing. Read the news. Much of what you read is about national identity building. Look at the problems in the Middle East, in Africa, in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Look at our national debates about abortion, immigration, racism and affirmative action, corporate profits, history textbooks. The list of issues concerning national identity building is endless. Yitro is the first sidrah in which we, the Jewish people take the first steps towards our national identity building.

The rest of the Bible and then the compilation of our other canonical texts, Talmud, Midrash, Kabbalah, and now in this era, all the documents and historical events leading to the establishment of Israel, and now continuing in the building of Israel, are mostly about national identity building.

So let us return to our mashaal of the king. Now that you have composed your version of the ending, let me tell you how the original author completed it:

After a year, the king still hadn't returned, and the whispering grew louder.  After 2 years people began to be bold enough to ask the queen why she didn't seek out a new royal husband. There were many to be had! But this noble and devoted queen cast them out of her presence.
    The king didn't return for a very long time. But finally he did return. And his wife rushed out to greet and welcome him. The truth is, the king was amazed, and he asked her, "You are truly more noble than I could have imagined! How were you able to withstand your doubts and remain loyal to me?" And she answered, “every time I worried or despaired, I pulled out our ketuba, our marriage contract, and I would read about all the gifts that you bestowed upon me, and my faith in you would return."

    Naturally, it is the nature of a parable that the story refers to something other that its literal meaning. So, who is that king, and who is that queen, and what is that ketuba?

    The king is God, and the queen is the Jewish people, and the ketuba is our Torah. Throughout the ages people have tried to claim that our God has abandoned us, and that we should turn away to another faith, or to no faith, but when we study our Torah, we realize what an incredible privilege it is to be Jewish, to be chosen to be a priesthood people. And that has renewed our faith and courage, in spite of everything.

In sum, parasha Yitro may be seen as a wedding ceremony, in which the Jewish people are married to God, and the Torah is our ketubah. It is in this sidrah that the idea of the nation of Israel is born. It is here that Jewish peoplehood starts to emerge, both through law, and through the willingness to take on an enduring purpose -- to be a priesthood people, to be a holy nation.
This drash was composed in honor of the new ketubah, the new Torah scroll that Shirat HaNefesh is getting, that is indeed being repaired and prepared right now, and which we will take possession of in the coming months.

The Akedah

The following is a short midrash (literary exploration/expansion) on the biblical story of the Binding of Isaac (Yitzkhak), that is, when Avraham is tested and takes Yitzkhak to sacrifice him. The brief story can be found at Beraysheet/Genesis 22:1-19. 

Like so many biblical tales, there is much more left out than told. The text, translated by Fox, says, 22:3, "He saddled his donkey, he took his two serving-lads with him, and Yitzkhak his son..." Of course, the rabbis have been asking, lo these thousand years and more, who are these 2 "serving-lads"? Equally (or more) provocative, the tale says nothing from Yitzkhak's POV, and indeed it concludes with this, 22:19, "Avraham returned to his lads and they arose and went to Be'er-Sheva." Where's Yitzkhak?? These, and many other questions are much commented upon.

One existing midrash suggests that one of the "serving-lads" was none other than Ishmael, Yitzkhak's half brother. Another (unrelated) midrash suggests that Hagar, wife/concubine/servant of Avraham and mother of Ishmael, is an Egyptian. Those 2 little details should provide you with sufficient points of entry into the following:

When Avraham took Yitzkhak, along with Ishmael, a servant, and a donkey up to Mt. Moriah, he said to his Egyptian son, "you stay here with the donkeys, while I take this one up." Then Ishmael cried, "What about me father?! Is there no blessing for me?"

Avraham sternly replied, "Stay with the donkeys."

Avraham and Yitzkhak returned the next day, and Ishmael saw the horror in his brother's eyes. He thought to himself, "This is a God I should fear, and this is a father I should fear. This is a God, better to know from a distance, and this is a father better to keep at a distance."

And they walked back to Be'er-Sheva in silence.

Genesis/Beraysheet: an analysis

The Torah is read weekly in synagogues around the world. Indeed every synagogue reads the exact same portion each week. To this end, the Torah is divided into sections, parshiot (singular: parashah), each of similar length. Now after the holiday of Sukkot (tabernacles) ending in Simchat Torah ("rejoicing in the Torah"), we begin again, as we do each year, at the beginning of the Torah, with the parashah named Beraysheet (common spelling: Bereshit), pronounced ba-RAY-sheet. It is probably one of the best known parshiot (sections), the story of creation, including Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Cain's killing of Abel, and then the next ten generations of humankind.

The following is a kind of structural analysis of Beraysheet, ala Levi-Strauss. It is my preferred way of giving a first reading to a Torah text. I break the text into its component sub-documents, based on perspective, information content, grammar-structure, and questions the text appears to be addressing. I also try to make sure that I look at the text both from the point of view (pov) of an author writing the text (what am I trying to tell my readers?), and as a reader, asking why does the author think this is important.

So here is a structural analysis of Beraysheet, Genesis 1:1 to 6:8.

1:1 - 1:23      myth; cosmology; early science including origin of species, with evolutionary perspective; source material for this narrative includes texts and concepts from other cultures, and thus is highly layered and multi-cultural; for the relationship of myth to science, see Malinowski, et al.
1:24 - 1:25    classification of species
1:26              hierarchy of life
1:28              a blessing
1:27 - 2:8     continuing with myth-science
2:9                origin of ethics
2:10 - 2:14    geography and mapping; geology
2:15 - 2:17    divine origin of law
2:18 - 2:20    continuing with myth-science
2:21 - 2:22    surgery, medicine, bio-engineering
2:23 - 2:25    continuing with myth-science
3:1- 3:7        origin of deceit
3:8 - 3:11     awakening of self-consciousness; developmental psychology
3:12 - 3:20   first crime and punishment; also origin of dissatisfaction, sorrow, pain
3:21              origin of clothing fabrication
3:22 - 3:23    origin of mortality; strange text - God speaks with other divine/eternal beings
3:23 - 3:24    human exile
4:1                etymology
4:1 - 4:2       origin of occupations/professions;
4:3 - 4:4        first sacrificial offerings described
4:5                God is partial and can appear unfair, for no reason
4:5 - 4:12      psychological analysis; impulse to anger/murder; human social responsibility
4:13 - 4:16    there are other humans!! where did they come from? clearly intimates that the text so far, or at least the Adam/Eve story, is not to be taken as literal, but metaphorical or allegorical
4:17 - 4:26    genealogy
4: 23 - 4:24   embedded poem with definite prosodic and conceptual structure
5:1                first reference of multiple books comprising Torah
5:2 - 6:1        genealogy; origin of nations; one explanation for the impossibly long lives of the people - they are tribal lives, not human lives; another explanation: the myth of human decline
6:2, 6:4         another reference to other divine/eternal/super-human beings
6:3                genetic/inherent limits to longevity
6:5                psychology
6:6 - 6:7       non-linearity of human development; (flood myth is reference to other cultural literary/historical sources)
6:8               God’s partiality; God’s merciful nature; reward of obedience

Drash on Khukkat

I was so busy last week making my Aternen Jew video, I forgot to post this drash (analysis) I wrote for Parasha Khukkat, 2005 (Numbers/Viyekra 19:1 to 22:1).

Drash: Khukkat, 5765, July 9, 2005 

Today's sidrah has an unbelievable number of huge issues in it, many absolutely inexplicable.  Most obviously: 

1) the Parah Adumah (the red heifer) and the whole issue of the transmission of tumah, whatever "tumah" is; 

2) The death of Miriam, which is accompanied by a midrash so embedded and taken for granted, that one can hardly talk about Miriam without talking about water and particularly, a well that follows her like some kind of puppy. 

3) The death of Aaron, a death laid out like a sacrificial ritual. The "ritual" includes the stripping of Aaron of his vestments, an event which in the modern sensibility generates emotions in the key of revulsion, but which, I might add, could also be seen as the foundational definition of a living will. 

4) There's the punishment of Moses and Aaron which stands as a permanent challenge to those who insist the Torah (aka God) would never impose a punishment inappropriate to the crime.  

5) This sidrah contains the mapping of the vast majority of moves the people made while in the wilderness.  This is not mysterious, true, but it is embedded in an entirely fragmented and non-sequential narrative, which troubles not a few commentators.  And finally, it contains 

6) the military encounters with Sichon and Og, whom the midrash elevate to the status of giants.

That's quite a lineup of topics, all of which I am going pass over. I would like, instead, to look at 3 minor details and show how they provide a gorgeous little opening into the writing, editing, and literary history of this Book, a Book that for most of its existence has been forbidden to be viewed thru a literary lens.

Let me begin with what is far, and try to bring it near.   Shemot Rabbah 5:22 explains that the Hebrew slaves had in their possession various scrolls, relating the incidents of the book of Bereishit (Genesis), which they would enjoy reading during their rest every Shabbat.  So here is the midrash talking about early documents, written before Moses was born, telling the stories that Moses (et al) would eventually incorporate into this Divine and human collaboration we call Torah.

For me, this is the key to understanding how the Bible was written, and particularly these first 5 books. Like any major interdisciplinary text, I believe it was composed using multiple sources, over an extended period of time.  This was not the result of some Ginsbergian 3 day binge.  I imagine that Moses worked 40 years to put together a first comprehensive draft.  But what does this have to do with our sidrah this week?

Khukkat is one of the few parshiot that provides tangible and clear references to Torah source texts.  We're not talking about genealogical lists, or narrative subplots, or architecture plans, or ritual prescriptions, etc, etc.  Every sidrah has this kind of thing in abundance embedded in the text.  But in Khukkat we have more.  First we have, in 21:14 what I believe is the only reference in Torah to a named external text: "Therefore the Book of the Wars of the Lord speaks of..." and Torah quotes this book for at least a verse and a half, and possibly more.  Would that we had a full bibliography of source texts.  I imagine it would read like a card catalog from the Rare and Ancient Books section of the Library of Alexandria.

Second, we have The Song of Khashbone, 21:27 thru 21:30.  This enigmatic poem that Torah says, "the bards would recite" is worthy of a good long drash in itself.  From Tannaitic authors to modern commentators, this poem is widely considered to be an Amorite text, borrowed and then tweaked for Israelite purposes.

And finally, my favorite literary detail: a song that reminds me in a very special way of a remarkable film, Andrei Rublev, by the Russian, Andrei Tarkovsky.  I am speaking of the song or poem that is perhaps only 8 words long, and perhaps as much as 12 or even 14 words, found at 21:17 to 18.  Here's one translation of the long (14 word) version, with it's introduction:

"17. Then Israel sang this song: Spring up, O well – sing to it – 18. The well which the chieftains dug, which the nobles of the people started with maces, with their own staffs.  And from the wilderness a gift!"

The poem has a couple of words that create particular difficulty for the Hebrew reader and the translator, most notably "mekhokek," translated variously as "maces", "scepters," and "styluses of Law".  But even disregarding this and the other hard words, the poem is not so easy to understand.  Not a few commentators have suggested it is a murky tribute to Miriam's well.  Or perhaps the people are praising Moses for striking the rock, objecting to God's punishment for this act.  Maybe.  But let's read it over again.

"Then Israel sang this song: Spring up, oh well.  Respond!  The well which the *chieftains* dug, which the *nobles of the people* started, with *maces*, with *their own* staffs."

What an ominously evocative beginning: "Uz y'sheer Yisroyel et ha-sheera ha-zote." Does that sound familiar?  The song of the Sea begins, "Uz y'sheer MOSHE u'venay Yisroyel et ha-sheera ha-zote L'ADONAI.  Our song today strips from acknowledgment both Moses and God!  The midrash resorts to a mashal, a parable, to justify these notable deletions.  But let us, instead, consider why Moses doesn't sing and God isn't addressed.

Who are these "chieftains" and these "nobles of the people."  I suggest, we know them very well.  We just read about them... last week.  They are Korakh and the rebels, who with maces and with their own stylus's of law, challenged the existing order and the existing power structure. They had just learned (in Sh'lach Lecha) that they weren't getting out of the desert alive.  For them the exodus didn't bring them to milk and honey.

So how is this song like the movie Andrei Rublev?  Andrei Rublev is a deeply subversive movie, that utterly delegitimizes the existing Soviet government. But it makes its points so subtly that the censors sensed something out of order, but they just couldn't put their finger on it.  In the end it was banned, with no reasons given, and it had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union.

This song in Khukkat is really a literary bombshell, a powerful but subtle statement of rebellion.  But I think it's in Torah, not because it was able to slip past Moses and his editors, but precisely because Moses (et. al.) wanted us receivers of Torah to know that all authority is subject to question.  Korakh's rebellion was a popular uprising, and subtly Moses wanted us to know that perhaps his punishment was not so much about hitting rocks, but about striking down people.

Shabbat Shalom.

This week's Torah reading

Shelakh Lekha (Bamidbar/Numbers 13:1 - 15:41)

In Jewish liturgy, the Torah is divided into weekly portions, to be read sequentially throughout the year, beginning and ending on the holiday of Simkhat Torah. Which is to say, on Simkhat Torah we read the last verses of Devarim/Deuteronomy, and then the beginning verses of Beraysheet/Genesis. We then proceed to read the Torah in order over the course of the year, a Portion each week. Portions vary in length, but are usually between 2 and 5 chapters.

This week we read the portion Shelakh Lekha.

Questions:

What is the main event in this sidrah?
What is the main legal ruling in this sidrah?

Torah as a collection of documents:

The Torah is much more than a long narrative. It is a collection of many kinds of documents. Even the midrash (Canonical Rabbinic exegetical literature) acknowledges this:
Shemot Rabbah 5:22 explains that the Hebrew slaves had in their possession various scrolls, relating the incidents of the book of Beraysheet (Genesis), which they would enjoy reading during their rest every Shabbat.

Here is a list of the documents/components I found in this week's portion:
Scout narrative (chapts 13-14)
genealogy (13:4-15)
linguistic note (13:16): “Hoshayah” is past tense of helper/savior; Yehoshuah the future tense.
diplomacy/psychology: (13:17-20)
geography/place naming (13:21-24)
history (13:22): “and Hebron had been built... long before Tzoan (of) Mitzrayim.”
agricultural info (13:23)
myth: (13:28, 32-33): Anak and the giants
geography/nations: (13:29)
theophany (14:10-12)
logical debate (14:11-17) Moshe defeats God
divine events in nature (14:28-38)
military engagement (14:45)
directions for sacrificial rituals (15:1-14)
weights and measures (15:5-10)
moral dictate/law: (15:15-16)
ritual law/national taxation (15:19-21)
laws/procedures to seek atonement for sin (15:22-29)
laws for heretics/blasphemers (15:30-31)
precedent law (15:32-36)
laws/customs of tsitsit (fringes on garments). (15:38-39)
psychology (15:39) “[do] not go exploring after your own heart and after your own eyes... and become unfaithful to me”

Torah was written with acute attention to literary forms and styles:

Here are some motable literary details:

13:18 - “look at the land, what it is like.” Why the 2nd phrase? Literally: compare it to other places you’ve seen. Is it like Egypt or the wilderness?
13:22 - Hebron. Yet no mention of Machpelah, the burial place of the patriarchs and matriarchs. The 2 places are certainly connected, both early in Torah (Khiya Sarah) and in the midrash.
13:26-27 - “...came to Moshe and to Aaron and to the community.... They told him...” plural-singular conflict?
13:33 - “and so were we in their eyes.” Classic psychological projection. Indeed the opposite is true as we learn elsewhere, including directly from the Haftarah: the land was consumed with fear of the Israelites.
14:4 - After last week’s rebellion by Aaron and Miriam, now the community plots to replace/overthrow Moshe. He sways them, but next week, rebellion is the main narrative. Subtle hints of building discontent against Moshe.
14:18 - In Exodus, Moses discovers those attributes to be that God is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet God does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children's children, upon the third and fourth generations" (Exodus 34:6-7). But in Sh'lach L'cha, Moses reorders God's attributes as "slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression; yet not remitting all punishment, but visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and fourth generations" (Numbers 14:18). In so doing, Moses leaves out seven of God's attributes, including compassion, graciousness, and forgiving of sin. In addition, he begins with "slow to anger."

“the manna” is spelled exactly as “Haman.”

SMB Commentary:

As 10 of the 12 scouts were selected poorly, so very often in Jewish history, those we have chosen to represent us, do so poorly, setting their own interests and personalities as the standard for the community and its needs. This is particularly true when we select “notables” such as the rich and famous to represent us.

“Assembly! One law for you and for the sojourner that takes-up-sojourn, a law for the ages, throughout your generations: as (it is for) you, so will it be (for) the sojourner before the presence of YHVH....” (Numbers 15:15, Everett Fox trans.)
This is the foundational difference between paganism and the Judaic vision of One God. It is not the worship of idols, per se, that is wrong or evil. The part points to the Whole, so idol worship is merely an indirect means of worshiping the One. Rather, it is the fragmentation of the Whole that then justifies the establishment of “insider” and “outsider” values and laws. All forms of oppression are the direct result of having 2 or more classes of law based on group status (inside/outside, us/them, powerful/weak). Paganism is not about believing rocks and trees are God; few pagans were so deluded. Paganism is about holding to dual standards, and therefore it is as relevant (and prevalent) an evil today as in the time of Avraham and Moshe.

The rebellion(s) against God teach us that it is inherent in human nature to resist, as well as desire to follow the Divine Will. Our resistance/rebellion is a defining feature of relationship to God, and the course of that struggle determines the depth and value of our spiritual search and the extent of our holiness.

Questions on this week's Torah reading

This is the week of Torah reading Shemini, Viyekra/Leviticus chapters 9 thru 11. Here are 4 questions for the astute reader:
1.What have we directly inherited from the Temple sacrificial system?

2. What is the embedded narrative going on from the previous sidrah into this one? I use “embedded” here to mean: it’s clearly part of the text, but not so obvious.

3. What sacrifice will still be needed in (utopian times)(messianic times)?

4. What is the most important olah offering that has shaped post-Talmud-era Judaism?

Drash on Viyeekra

Viyekra Drash

The following is a drash, an explication and interpretation of the sections of the Torah and Prophets that will be read this week in most synagogues around the world. Actually, I wrote it in the year 2000, and it happened to be a special Shabbat (Sabbath), with a different reading from Prophets than will be done this coming Shabbat, 3/12/2011 (6 Adar II, 5771 in the Jewish calendar). The Torah is broken down into portions, which are read sequentially throughout the year, so that once a year every Jewish congregation will have read the whole Torah from beginning to end. This coming week's portion is Viyikra, as it is known in Hebrew. It consists of the first five chapters of the book Leviticus.

This drash is not particularly daring, but I believe it nicely unpacks a difficult text, and contextualizes it in changing historical world-views. It’s rather long. I hope it holds your interest.


This Shabbat is Shabbat Viyekra. Viyekra, which means "And there called". An odd beginning, literally, "And there called to Moshe and there said, God, to him..." Already you know you're in deep water. So, let's step back, put on our life jackets, get our goggles, and start by sticking our toes in the surf.

We are beginning a new book of Torah this week. The book is also known as Viyekra. It is more familiarly known in English as Leviticus. The Rabbis often refer to it as Torot HaKohanim, "teachings to the Priests" (from God) and equally validly, "teachings by the Priests" (to the people). This is a book of instructions for managing the portable Mishkan, and later, the Temple. Literally an instruction manual, and it reads like one. Probably, there's very few of us who enjoy reading a lease, or a software user's guide. We read them not for the pleasure of the narrative, but for the knowledge, the skills, the power they give us.

The same is true here, in large measure. There is almost no narrative in this book, and in fact, the Torah is largely done with narrative. We came to Sinai, and almost everything up to that point was narrative, fascinating, completely pleasurable to read, full of wonders and poignant stories. At Sinai, the whole nature of the Torah changed, just as the whole nature of the Jewish people changed. Immediately after Sinai we get instructions to build a portable, but nonetheless spectacular Mishkan, a temple, a tent of meeting. Now the Mishkan's built, and we get detailed instructions for how we are to use it to worship, and use it to become a holy people.

This is really much like the pattern of most of our lives. When we're young our lives are defined by our adventures, what we do and what we fantasize. As we come to the point of taking responsibility for ourselves, we find a partner – the Sinai experience is often seen as a marriage ritual between us and God – and then we make a house for ourselves, as the people made the Mishkan. And then we get down to the details of establishing ourselves, building a knowledge base and and functional skills. And the parallels continue; this isn't a coincidence. If we desire, and we're fortunate, we have children. The book of Numbers is the counting of the generations, numbering our children, trying to pass on our mission to them, sending them off into their own new land. And Deuteronomy, Devarim in Hebrew, is a summing up and looking back. What have we accomplished, and what have we not accomplished.

So, the Torah is really a template for each of our individual lives, as well as our life together as a community, here in Victoria, and here in the world, spanning the millennia as Jews, as a holy people.

From this perspective, the minute details in Leviticus, Torot HaKohanim, Viyekra, have a value that may not be apparent on first blush. What is this instruction manual about? As I said, it's about managing the Temple, which is a template for managing our own spiritual lives. It is about proper worship of God, and about how to be holy. It's about preparing ourselves to deal with our incompleteness, our imperfections, our errors, and still have a working relationship with God, with our Divine Foundation.

"All the earth is Mine, but you shall be My kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." We are being taught to be the Priesthood to the world. This is a very serious instruction manual. And that's why this book is known as Torot HaKohanim, teaching to and by the Priests.

Still, this is a very difficult book to read. I have read it many times, and yet it always remained a mishmash to me. One thing blended into another, and I'd always walk away not really holding on to anything. So let me summarize the whole book, because this is what we're going to be dealing with for many weeks, and then I'll focus in.

The book is divided into two main portions. The first half deals with the many kinds of sacrifices, and the details of preparing and presenting them. It then goes on to address the issues of purity in the pursuit of holiness. That's part 1, thru chapter 16. Chapters 17-27 have been called the "Holiness Code." It builds from the commandments and laws given at Sinai, setting them in a framework of correct ritual and holiness. From another angle, the first half of the book is God's teachings TO the Kohanim. The second half is the Kohanim's teachings to the people.

Today's portion discusses the basic modes and classes of offerings, of sacrifices. It discusses what may be offered, and how it is to be offered. It discusses what the priest must do, and if and when the donor plays a part. And since the sacrificial system also had an important economic role, since it supplied the basic income and food for the priesthood, we learn here what parts would be burned, what parts the priests could keep, and what parts they had to share with the donor.

A particularly interesting detail has to do with the donor's passing a sacrificial animal to the priest. He/she had to lean into it, pressing with both hands. "Laying on of hands" is how it's often translated. The Hebrew, which you can see beginning the 4th verse of Chapter 1, is "samach" and elsewhere, "semikhah". Does that ring a bell to anyone? "Semikhah" is what we call rabbinic ordination. I believe the first example of this usage in Torah is when Moshe lays his hands on Yehoshua, Joshua, conferring leadership on him. We can understand this in a linear manner: a transference of spiritual responsibility, to the student no less than to the sacrificial animal, BUT we can also see this as an amazing linguistic and conceptual inversion. We go from sending an animal to its death, to conferring life and spiritual continuity on the next generation. And so, already in the Torah we see a movement from physical ritual to spiritual teaching. We pursue that line a little later.


I'd like to discuss the kinds of sacrifices because it's confusing and I've been reading these chapters for years and never could make much sense of it, but there so many other juicy things, that I think I'll talk instead about the transition from a sacrifice-based religion to a prayer-based religion, and how they are related, continuous, and intertwined.

But we need at least this bit of background. The term "sacrifice" in Hebrew has a general name: "Korbon". Chapter 1 describes the first kind of korbon, the Olah, often translated Holocaust, because, excepting the skin, the whole animal was completely burned; none was eaten. It is a KIND of sacrifice; it had more than one purpose, but it was never used to remove sin or guilt. "Olah" means "ascent" so it's a supplication. "Remember us. Be kind to us."

Oddly, both the terms Korbon and Holocaust came to be used to describe the destruction of European Jewry in our era. While Korbon quickly went out of use, Holocaust has become the most widely used and known term, but many object to it, because it has its origins in a sacred ritual, which seems entirely inappropriate. That is why many people, including myself, prefer the term Shoah, which means "destruction" and has no sacred or ritual antecedents in its usage.

So now we can look at our Haftorah portion. Actually, the normal Haftorah for today is Isaiah 43 and 44, an awesome portion, describing how the people have fallen away from holiness, and into idolatry, with extended images describing corrupted sacrificial rites. It begins like this: "You have not called on Me oh Ya'akov... nor did you honor Me with your sacrifices... And YET I will not remember your sins! Put Me in remembrance. Let us plead together. State your case that you may be vindicated!" Wow. Even more amazing perhaps is how Elie Wiesel and others turned this around, requiring God make vindication for the Shoah, for the Holocaust.


But we didn't read that portion today. Because it is Shabbat Zachor, the second of the special Shabbatot leading up to Pesach, we read an equally electrifying Haftorah, Shmuel 15. Shmuel is sent by God to tell Saul to destroy Amelek; to kill not only every single person, including elderly and children, but every living creature, all their cattle, to destroy their homes and everything in them. What does Saul do? He and the troops spare some of the choice animals, and take Agag the king, captive. The text says Saul had pity on Agag and on the best of the cattle and the finest objects. Is it pity, greed, or pride of interpretation: "I will decide what God intends." God informs Shmuel that Saul didn't follow the letter of the commandment. Shmuel goes to find Saul, and soon as Saul sees him says, "I have fulfilled the word of the Lord." And Shmuel responds, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears?" Is he referring to the sheep or Saul's jabber? Shmuel goes on, "Even if you are small in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel!" The responsibility of leadership. The responsibility of being a priesthood people. And then we hear something even more amazing from Shmuel: 15:22, the first major revision in prophetic literature of the course of our spiritual destiny: "Has the Lord as much desire in burnt-offerings and peace offerings, as in obeying the Voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than a peace offering, to listen intently for God's word is better than the fat of rams!" And the reading ends with Shmuel hacking Agag to pieces, not unlike some sacrificial slaughtering run amok. Yoy.

And thus we have been set on our spiritual journey. We have some problems here. We have a text with an extremely detailed accounting of sacrificial rituals, coupled with a legal code of incomparable justice and democracy. We have later parts of the text demanding slaughter, and genocide, juxtaposed against the most profoundly insightful and moral teachings. And here we are 3000 years later confronting this primitive ritual, sacrifice, that has become offensive to most of us. How do we cope with it? The problem is, we can't just read the text and say, "Nah, this is no good. This is wrong. I don't like this. This is politically incorrect. Let's throw it out."

This text is holy whether we say it came directly from God or indirectly through inspired prophets, or just that it's just a brilliant human thing. We have devoted ourselves to it for 3000 years. 150 generations devoted themselves to it, memorized it, interpreted it, died for it. It is at the foundation of our identity. And because it is so essential to us, we are obligated to do 2 things, at least: carry it forward intact, and make it relevant, even add new literature to it today.

I remember when I was in college it was the time of the Vietnam war. I remember seeing a veteran wearing a tee shirt that said: "Kill 'em all and let God sort it out." It was at once horrifying and completely understandable. And really, when you think about it, that is exactly what Saul was commanded to do. Are we still in that same place today? Some might say yes, but I don't think so. I think our history has created a new mandate for us.

From Shmuel on, the Prophets contrasted the demands of ethical behavior with sacrifice, insisting on the primacy of morality, not ritual. No prophet called for the end of sacrifice, at least not until the early 19th century, but Amos, Jeremiah, Shmuel, Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah all made strong arguments, demoting sacrifice to a place well below moral behavior. But it was not until the Roman destruction of the Temple that sacrifice ended. At that time the transition from a priesthood class to a priesthood religion was completed.

It's an interesting historical development. I don't have time for it here, but let me tell one story, a parable by Rabbi Levi, found in Leviticus Rabbah. "The son of a King became mentally confused and fell into the habit of eating carrion. Thus, the King ordered the servants to serve kosher meat at his table prepared from the same kinds of animals, so that the son might regain the habit of eating proper food. Similarly, Rabbi Levi continues, Israel became addicted to idolatry in Egypt, and in the desert they still brought offerings to goat demons. God said, 'Let them bring regular sacrifices to Me, and they will be protected from the tendency to idolatry.'" What's the point here? This 5th century rabbi is already saying sacrifice is a temporary means to wean us from idolatry. Once weaned, it could be dispensed with. Revolutionary ideas in those days, and it took another 1200 years before the Reform movement, followed 100 years later by the Convervative and Reconstructionist movements, to comprehensively renounce the idea that sacrifice might be re-instituted, should a 3rd Temple be built. I should mention, that many in the Orthodox movement find this rejection entirely unacceptable, given that such a significant portion of the Torah is devoted to sacrifice.

There's so much more to talk about. The sacrifices themselves; the problems and obscure parts of the text, including essential ritual details that have remained entirely unstated; the differences in Orthodox and Conservative siddurim relating to sacrifice. A more detailed tracking of the history of transition from sacrifice to prayer, and priest class to priest religion; related texts found in other cultures, that help us understand the international flavor of these rituals.

But let me end with a bibliography. I have 4 Chumashim: Samson Hirsch, Aryeh Kaplan, Fox, and the Reform Chumash by Plaut. Every one is a treasure chest of ideas and commentary. Plaut's is particularly good, altho the actual translation he uses is uninspired. Then there's the Jewish Publication Society's 5 volume commentary. Finally, the online sources are very expansive. I give my students a list of 4 sites, and I'd be glad to email them to anyone who requests. And these are the sources that will simply help you scratch the surface.

Shabbat shalom.


Addundum on sacrifices, with apologies for a little repetition from above.

First, I ask your indulgence. I think it appropriate to discuss the kinds of sacrifices described in our portion. The term "sacrifice" in Hebrew has a general name: "Korbon". Chapter 1 describes the first kind of korbon, the Olah, often translated Holocaust, because, excepting the skin, the whole animal was completely burned; none was eaten. It is a KIND of sacrifice; it had more than one purpose, but it was never used to remove sin or guilt. "Olah" means "ascent" so it's a supplication. "Remember us. Be kind to us."

Oddly, both the terms Korbon and Holocaust came to be used to describe the destruction of European Jewry in our era. While Korbon quickly went out of use, Holocaust has become the most widely used and known term, but many object to it, because it has its origins in a sacred ritual, which seems entirely inappropriate. That is why many people, including myself, prefer the term Shoah, which means "destruction" and has no sacred or ritual antecedents in its usage.

Chapter 2 describes the second type of sacrifice, the "minkhah", which translates to "tribute" or "gift". It establishes the donor's subservience to God. Here again there is no expiation for sin or guilt with this sacrifice. Originally, Minkhah was a generic term. Both Kayin and Abel's sacrifices were called minkhah, even tho Abel's was animal, and Kayin's grain. Here, now, it is taking on a more specific character. Now it is NOT an animal sacrifice. It is a grain offering, more accurately wheat, and still more accurately, semolina, the best part of the wheat. It too was burned, but only a handful. Before burning, it was usually mixed with olive oil and frankincense. What was not burned was eaten by the priests, presumably without frankincense. Minkhah was a late afternoon or evening sacrifice, and it's name, and its intentionality have been transferred to the daily afternoon prayer service.

Chapter 3 brings us to the Zevakh, especially the Zevakh Sh'lamim, the "sacrifice of well being" or the "sacred gift of greeting". This was specifically a sacred meal, so altho some would be burned, the majority would be eaten by the priests WITH the donor. So, it was unlike the Olah in that much was not burned, and it was unlike the minkhah in that the donor also ate it. Also, it could even be eaten outside the sanctuary. These latter 2 differences also made it a step down in holiness.

So you can see the borders between these offeringss are hazy, with many shared components and some distinct ones. More importantly, because we don't do them anymore in any physical way, it's hard to see the value in trying to figure them out. It can be compared, perhaps to the laws of Kashrut for someone who doesn't keep kosher. You can eat meat and you can eat milk, but you can't eat milk and meat together. You can eat fish and you can eat meat, but again, not together. But just a second, you can eat milk and then you can eat meat, but not the reverse. You get the point. If you don't do this every day, it's definitely confusing, and it's hard to see the point why anyone would WANT to do it. So why do Jews do this? One reasone is because there's knowledge and meaning in the DOING that can't be derived from the ideas alone.

This parasha covers 2 more sacrifices, as well. These are specifically to expiate sin or guilt. They are called the Khattat and the asham sacrifices. These 2 sacrifices are meant to restore purity. In the Biblical context purity and sinlessness are equated, and impurity and sinfulness are equated. While the text talks a bit about the sacrificial ritual, more of it is devoted to defining the crime and its category. I could discuss these sacrifices at length, but let me say only this: sacrifice was NEVER meant for purposeful sins. You sinned; you were subject to punishment. Only if your sin was unintentional, or due to ignorance of the laws, could sacrifice be used as a PART of the expiation. You were still also subject to appropriate restitution, as Chapters 4 and 5 describe.