Temple B’nai Israel

Korach, Numbers 16:1−18:32
Shabbat, June 27, 2009 / 5 Tammuz, 5769

The Torah remains a valuable tool for understanding the world. In part that’s because it is the scriptural foundation for over three billion people. But it’s also filled with stories that are as current today as they ever were, about the challenges we face as families and as nations, especially in the context of religion.

This week, the Torah cycle brings us to one of the most storied and discussed religious and political uprisings in history, the rebellion of Korah (Numbers 16:1-18:32). At this point, the Israelites are still stuck in the wilderness. Moses, who is both the supreme religious and political leader, faces constant dissension.

Now Moses’ leadership is assailed on both fronts. Korah doesn’t understand why Moses and Aaron maintain a monopoly on the priesthood and religious leadership. “All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them,” Korah says. “So why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

In the same portion, Dathan and Abiram have a much more political complaint: you haven’t kept your promises, and we are suffering for it. While their rebellion is overshadowed by Korah’s, it is actually pretty fascinating because of its currency as a political strategy. They start by completely misstating the facts: “We will not come! Is it too little that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also lord it over us?” This is laughable, since no one would characterize the Egyptian enslavement as “milk and honey,” except that Dathan and Abiram may be politically depending on short memories and deep disaffection to cloud the past. They proceed to their big point: If you’re so great, where is this land you promised us?

The biblical solution to rebellion against religious and political authority is simple: Let God handle it. God is reported to have stepped in, and after considering destroying everyone, limits his lesson to destroying everyone in any way associated with Korah, Dathan or Abiram and their movements, by means of earthquake, fire and plague.

The questions raised by Korah’s rebellion will never go away, and based on very current events, have become more important than ever. When religion and politics combine at a national level, when religious authority bolsters politics and political authority bolsters religion, nothing is as clear as it seems, and anything can happen.

We naturally want good guys and bad buys, right and wrong, black and white. But even in Iran, where our hearts ache for the oppressed and our belief in freedom shines, it isn’t so simple. Those that might be better may not be, by our standards, good. The alternatives to the current situation may involve those who by their history, ideology and faith are far from perfect.

We learn this from the rebellion of Korah: Completely good guy and bad guys are hard to find in religious or political history, and when the two combine (as they did then, and as they do in so much of the world today), it is even harder. In Judaism, where Korah is sometimes painted with a broad brush as a self-interested demagogue who stood up to God and Moses, some have a much more complex view:

Korah’s argument turns on the eternal tension between authority and freedom. Like many demagogues after him, Korah offered himself as a fitting guardian of the spirit of freedom. But while the people might have accepted the offer of substitute leadership, God did not.

The argument Korah presented was not blotted out with drastic divine response, and neither was Korah’s name. His family continued to serve with high distinction; no less a person than the prophet Samuel was his descendant (I Chron. 6:16 ff.); ten psalms were composed by the sons of Korah; and his offspring functioned in the Temple courts. Like Korah’s argument, they refused to disappear.

W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp. 1132-33.

Bob Schwartz

Beha’alotecha, Numbers 8:1−12:16
June 13, 2009 / 21 Sivan, 5769

The Israelites, in their second year of wandering in the wilderness, complain to Moses. Moses in turn complains to God about the burdens of prophecy and leadership:

10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the LORD became very angry, and Moses was displeased. 11 So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child,’ to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. 15 If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.” (Numbers 8 )

God ignores (forgives?) Moses’ sharp tone (“If this is how you treat me, just kill me now!”) and offers a solution. Moses will share the burden of inspiration with the Seventy Elders:

16 So the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their place there with you. 17 I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself….

24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. 25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. (Numbers 8 )

But we are not done with the question of prophesying. While most of the elders stop, a couple continue on:

26 Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men,c said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!” (Numbers 8 )

The final discussion of prophecy and inspiration in this portion comes in a confrontation with Aaron and Miriam, who are criticizing the marriage of Moses to a Cushite woman. These two believe they are entitled to a special opinon about such matters:

While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); 2 and they said, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. 3 Now the man Moses was very humble,a more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. 4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. 6 And he said, “Hear my words:

When there are prophets among you,
I the LORD make myself known to them in visions;
I speak to them in dreams.
7 Not so with my servant Moses;
he is entrusted with all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles;
and he beholds the form of the LORD.

(Numbers 12)

Who gets to be a prophet and how? Who gets to hear God and speak?

We can conclude from this portion that the spirit may rest on anyone, but that God makes himself known in different ways to different people. To a few people (or in this case just one), God will “speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles.” Others will have to settle for visions and dreams.

The most dramatic statement on this subject is left to Moses, as he answers Joshua’s alarm at the continuing prophesying of Eldad and Medad:

Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them! (Numbers 8:29)

There are three important ideas embedded in this one sentence.

First, as a practical matter, being the sole prophet is, as the portion highlights, an unbearable burden and responsibility.

Second, God calls Moses “very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.” In some ways, this is a statement of unmatched humility; it is a super-hero admitting that he has no interest in the singularity of his powers. (In other ways, it also reflects a super-hero who is tired of being on duty all the time.)

Finally, it is the opening to a bigger question introduced here. If it is not just Moses, if it is not just Aaron and Miriam, if it is not just Eldad and Medad, if it is not just the Seventy Elders, how many more may be inspired, how many more may prophesy, who are they, and how might we know them?

Bob Schwartz

B’midbar, In the Wilderness
Numbers 1:1−4:20
Shabbat, May 23, 2009 / 29 Iyar, 5769

This begins a new book of the Torah. In English, we have adopted the title of this book from the Greek. The title Numbers reflects all the counting and statistics this book contains.

The Hebrew name for this book, B’midbar, is taken from the very first sentence, and is much more descriptive and poetic. B’midbar. In the wilderness.

According to the arrangement of the Torah, the narrative of the journey at the end of Exodus is interrupted by the detailed laws of Leviticus. Now the story of that journey resumes:

The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt…

Wilderness is a motif not only throughout the Torah, but in the Tanakh and even in the New Testament. Just in Numbers there are 48 references to “wilderness.”

In part this simply reflects the natural settings of these scriptural stories. The wilderness is also a contrast to city and civilization, a place apart, a place to run to or from, a place for strange and challenging events.

Above all, it is a metaphorical place. Moses and the people of Israel find themselves in the wilderness, long gone from Egypt, still far from the Promised Land. They are forced to find themselves there, that is, forced to figure out who they are. They will try to bring order to their lives, as they book begins with the arranging of tribes around the Tabernacle. From this point, rather than following the strict linear narrative of Exodus, the book will go here and there, mixing storytelling (some very dramatic and crucial) with more mundane lawgiving.

Many scholars attribute this grab-bag of material in Numbers to the editorial vagaries of compiling the Torah. But it also seems, if it isn’t too much of a stretch, to represent exactly what journeying through the wilderness is like. There are days of excitement and adventure, days of oppression, and days of just moving ahead and getting the basic rules straight. There will be days you don’t know which way to go, or who to listen or follow. But when it is all over, at the end of the book, you may find yourself through the wilderness and looking across the river:

These are the commandments and the ordinances that the Lord commanded through Moses to the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. (Numbers 36:13)

Torah Portion Behar-Bechukotai
Leviticus 25:1-27:34

The Sabbatical Year

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces…. (Leviticus 25:1-12)

A sabbatical year is to be observed. In the seventh year debts are to be cancelled, property is to be reverted to ancestral owners, slaves are to be freed, and land is to rest. More than that, in the fiftieth year (7×7+1), a year of jubilee is to be observed. This is to be the sabbatical year plus much more.

The year of jubilee is certainly a big idea. But unlike other important observances detailed in the Torah, it is mentioned only here and briefly elsewhere (Numbers 36:4). And unlike other observances, there is no evidence at all that such a year of jubilee every took place in Jewish history, or in the history of the region.

So why write about an observance that never took place at all, and as a practical matter, would be difficult to observe anyway?

The answer may lie in the Sabbath itself. The sabbatical year and the year of jubilee are express extensions and expansions of the Sabbath. It is the Sabbath writ large, not only across a week or across a few years, but literally across a lifetime. That is, for most people, a year of jubilee is a once in a lifetime observance.

The Sabbath, and by extension the sabbatical and the jubilee, is about a lot of things. But according to Abraham Joshua Heschel, it is ultimately about time. His book, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man is for many the definitive writing on the subject (and for others is the most significant work of modern Jewish spirituality).

The book is brief but difficult to properly summarize or excerpt. Still, this Torah portion asks us to focus on the Sabbath in all its forms, and all those forms are about time. It is therefore worth quoting at length from Heschel’s Epilogue, To Sanctify Time:

Time is man’s greatest challenge. We all take part in a procession through its realm which never comes to an end but are unable to gain a foothold in it. Its reality is apart and away from us. Space is exposed to our will; we may shape and change the things in space as we please. Time, however, is beyond our reach, beyond our power. It is both near and far, intrinsic to all experience and transcending all experience. It belongs exclusively to God.

Time, then, is otherness, a mystery that hovers above all categories. It is as if time and the mind were a world apart. Yet, it is only within time that there is fellowship and togetherness of all beings.

Every one of us occupies a portion of space. He takes it up exclusively. The portion of space which my body occupies is taken up by myself in exclusion of anyone else. Yet, no one possesses time. There is no moment which I possess exclusively. This very moment belongs to all living men as it belongs to me. We share time, we own space. Through my ownership of space, I am a rival of all other beings; through my living in time, I am a contemporary of all other beings. We pass through time, we occupy space. We easily succumb to the illusion that the world of space is for our sake, for man’s sake. In regard to time, we are immune to such an illusion.

Immense is the distance that lies between God and a thing. For a thing is that which has separate or individual existence as distinct from the totality of beings. To see a thing is to see something which is detached and isolated. A thing is, furthermore, something which is and can become the possession of man. Time does not permit an instant to be in and for itself. Time is either all or nothing. It cannot be divided except in our minds. It remains beyond our grasp. It is almost holy.

It is easy to pass by the great sight of eternal time. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses beheld his first vision “in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the hush was not consumed” (3:2). Time is like an eternal burning bush. Though each instant must vanish to open the way to the next one time itself is not consumed.

Time has independent ultimate significance; it is of more majesty and more provocative of awe than even a sky studded with stars. Gliding gently in the most ancient of all splendors, it tells so much more than space can say in its broken language of things, playing symphonies upon the instruments of isolated beings, unlocking the earth and making it happen.

Time is the process of creation, and things of space are results of creation. When looking at space we see the products of creation; when intuiting time we hear the process of creation. Things of space exhibit a deceptive independence. They show off a veneer of limited permanence. Things created conceal the Creator. It is the dimension of time wherein man meets God, wherein man becomes aware that every instant is an act of creation, a Beginning, opening up new roads for ultimate realizations. Time is the presence of God in the world of space, and it is within time that we are able to sense the unity of all beings.

Creation, we are taught, is not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process. God called the world into being, and that call goes on. There is this present moment because God is present. Every instant is an act of creation. A moment is not a terminal but a flash, a signal of Beginning. Time is perpetual innovation, a synonym for continuous creation. Time is God’s gift to the world of space.

A world without time would he a world without God, a world existing in and by itself, without renewal, without a Creator. A world without time would be a world detached from God, a thing in itself, reality without realization. A world in time is a world going on through God; realization of an infinite design; not a thing in itself but a thing for God.

To witness the perpetual marvel of the world’s coming into being is to sense the presence of the Giver in the given, to realize that the source of time is eternity, that the secret of being is the eternal within time.

We cannot solve the problem of time through the conquest of space, through either pyramids or fame. We can only solve the problem of time through sanctification of time. To men alone time is elusive; to men with God time is eternity in disguise.

Creation is the language of God, Time is His song, and things of space the consonants in the song. To sanctify time is to sing the vowels in unison with Him.

This is the task of men: to conquer space and sanctify time.

We must conquer space in order to sanctify time. All week long we are called upon to sanctify life through employing things of space. On the Sabbath it is given us to share in the holiness that is in the heart of time. Even when the soul is seared, even when no prayer can come out of our tightened throats, the clean, silent rest of the Sabbath leads us to a realm of endless peace, or to the beginning of an awareness of what eternity means. There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.

Eternity utters a day.

Torah Portion Emor
Leviticus 21:1-24:23

This portion includes the laws concerning Priests, with a detailed description of the ideal Priest:

The priest who is exalted above his fellows, on whose head the anointing-oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the vestments, shall not dishevel his hair, nor tear his vestments. He shall not go where there is a dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother. He shall not go outside the sanctuary and thus profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing-oil of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. He shall marry only a woman who is a virgin. A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, a prostitute, these he shall not marry. He shall marry a virgin of his own kin, that he may not profane his offspring among his kin; for I am the Lord; I sanctify him.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say: No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the food of his God, of the most holy as well as of the holy. But he shall not come near the curtain or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the Lord; I sanctify them. Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel. (Leviticus 21:10-24)

In these and other respects, the ideal Priest proved hard to come by. At this point in his Torah Commentary, Gunther Plaut takes the opportunity to discuss the history and the demise of the Jewish priesthood. After the Hasmonean victory over the Syrians in the second century B.C.E:

Simon the Maccabee assumed the high priesthood, though he was not of the high priestly family, and his far from pious successors on the throne also held the office. This greatly troubled loyal spirits. And the later Hasmonean rulers estranged the people still more by their tyranny and their intrigues.

Meantime, a new popular leadership emerged. Laymen who were respected for their learning and fervor began to challenge the spiritual authority of the priests. The laymen constituted a party which to be known as the Pharisees (Hebrew persushim, “separatists.”) They interpreted the Torah in a democratic, humane, and often progressive manner. The priestly party came to be known as Sadducees (from their supposed ancestor Zadok/Sadok); their approach to the Torah was conservative and severe…

What the Pharisees did challenge was the exclusive prerogative of the priest to interpret the Torah; and so greatly did they win popular support that in the lasts years of the Second Temple the priests had to perform the cult according to the Pharisaic rulings.

Those of us who belong to lay-led congregations should be encouraged by this history, and pleased to take our place in this evolution. Interpreting and sustaining Judaism that is democratic, humane, and progressive: without priests, even without rabbis, that is the responsibility presented to us, just as it presented itself two thousand years ago. It is a mission we are happy to take on.

Torah Portion Achare/Kedoshem
Leviticus 16:1-20:27

Some weeks, like last week, the Torah portion seems to leave us mostly lost in the tall and ancient weeds, with instructions about priestly offerings and mysterious diseases. This week, though, we are offered a wealth of three very contemporary subjects: Yom Kippur, sex, and a life of holiness.

Regarding this portion, it is strongly recommended that it be read, and read with more than one modern commentary. The best is, and may always remain, Gunther Plaut’s The Torah: A Modern Commentary (which is not yet in the Library but hopefully will be soon), followed by The Jewish Study Bible (2004) (which is in the Library).

Chapter 16 is the Torah’s introduction to Yom Kippur. About this, Plaut says plainly and unequivocally:

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Yom Kippur in the life of the Jewish people…It has changed lives.

It is a good thing to be thinking about Yom Kippur almost a half-year before the actual day. It is our worthwhile tradition to treat the Day of Repentance as the end of the Days of Awe that begin with Rosh Hashanah. But it is also valuable to set it aside separately, well in advance, so that we can consider and act upon its meaning and power.

There is here some discussion in the Torah of sacrifice to expiate sins. But the central theme is action, not mere contrition: teshuvah, turning. With this months-long window of opportunity before Yom Kippur, maybe there is something, however small, that we can do to be better.

Chapters 18 and 20 are about sex (with a little witchcraft thrown in). Again, a strong recommendation that this be read with an enlightened and enlightening commentary. It’s not that we don’t know what the Torah really means when it says “uncovering nakedness.” It is simply very revealing to read this in the context of its times and in the context of what people since then have made of these biblical directives.

The heart of this portion is Chapter 19, Kedoshem, The Life of Holiness. There are directives here so familiar and basic that as good people we may be moved to say: No one needs to tell me that; it is simply the right thing to do. But in this portion, the Torah reminds us that these are not just the right things to do. They are the holy things to do:

3 You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.

9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

11 You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. 12 And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.

13 You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.

14 You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling-block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

15 You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.

16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.

17 You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord….

32 You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Torah Portion Tazria-M’tzora
Leviticus 12:1-15:33

This portion is a detailed discussion of afflictions and bodily functions that constitute impurity, along with detailed instructions on their purification.

Reading this portion is, in a couple of ways, like watching a medical drama on television.

First, it contains a level of extremely graphic detail about diseases that may be better left to professionals who must deal with those kind of things; in this case, rabbis or doctors.

Second, it involves a medical mystery.

Actually, it’s a scholarly mystery about a medical matter. The portion includes references to a number of afflictions, including one identified as tzara’at. Leading commentators and scholars spend much of their analysis of these chapters trying figure out exactly what tzara’at really is.

It is widely agreed that despite being some form of skin disease, tzara’at is not leprosy. One thing that confounds interpreters is that tzara’at also afflicts fabrics and the walls of houses (leading to the conclusion that it may refer to mold or mildew).

Whatever tzara’at may be, an overall point of the portion is this: As in earlier chapters of Leviticus, there is the pure and the impure, the clean and the unclean, the sacred and the profane. The impure is the way of decay and death; the pure is the way of God and life. A bright line is drawn. All these years after Leviticus, modernity may have moved that line for some Jews regarding various items in this portion. But the existence of two spaces—the sacred and the profane—and how we choose to live in them are matters as current today as they were in the time of Moses.