Tazria/Metzora 5769

This was going to be one of those entries in which I thank HaShem that
I am not a Biblical Literalist, insinuate that those who claim to be
Biblical Literalists are hypocrites, and otherwise rant.

Luckily, I read and listened to worthwhile commentary, so the world is
spared.

I do, however, have a question about how the sacrificial system
worked, or if it even worked at all. It seems very unsustainable, and
these parshiot point out why.
In Metzora, we learn that women become tainted (unclean, ritually
impure, etc) every time they have their periods, and they are tainted
for a week following and until they bring a sacrifice and can not
touch consecrated objects. This sacrifice is two birds, either pigeons
or doves; one is a purification/sin offering, and the other is a burnt
offering. So that's two sacrifices every four weeks, if you're a
healthy woman who's not pregnant.
In Tazria, we learn that a woman is also tainted after childbirth, and
remains so until she brings a sacrifice. If the baby is male, she is
tainted for a week, just like when she has her period. If the child is
female, it's two weeks. As if that wasn't enough, she stays tainted
for another 33 days (boy) or 66 days (girl), until she brings a
sacrifice. This sacrifice is a yearling lamb to be burnt and a pigeon
or dove for purification/sin.
That's a lot, considering there would also be a thanksgiving offering
for the child, which would probably be another lamb. But thinking in
terms of sheer volume, I don't know that the system could work. There
is only one Temple, only one altar, and only one set of priests. Each
sacrifice must be performed in a specific place and according to exact
instructions, or the priest risks getting frizzled. Each sacrifice,
other than the burnt ones, must also be eaten completely and can only
be eaten by the priests and their families.
Considering women who live in close proximity tend to "sync up",
that's a lot of squab all at once. During these busy times and
festivals, logic also breaks down, because the priests can only
perform the ritual so quickly. I don't know if it was even possible to
make more than two or three burnt sacrifices in any given day. Did
people have to wait? What happened when they were time-sensitive?

My rabbi also doesn't know. I hope someday to understand.

The commentaries that stood out to me this week were from some usual
suspects: the Pardes podcast, G-dcast, and one from Jewschool.com. It
is from the jewschool article that I took the word "tainted" to use
for <i>tumah</i>. Most translators use something with a negative
connotation like "impure" (which implies sin), or "unclean" (which
implies filth). Other, more liberal translators use the more neutral,
but somewhat unwieldy "ritually impure". To me, tainted seems like a
reasonable word to use. It describes an impure state, which fits the
bill, but it also doesn't imply intention, unworthiness, or disease.
It's just a state that requires a little action to correct, like
refining, distillation, or sacrifice.

The Jewschool commentary also put a spin on the situation that made
sense to me. To the commentator, being tainted with whatever tzara'at
is wasn't necessarily a bad thing. You got some required time away
from the public. It was time to think, time to reflect, time to grow
as a person. And when your condition changed and improved, the
sacrifice marked the transition in your life from tainted to pure
(which are essentially synonyms for HaShem's favorite things to
separate, the sacred and the profane/secular). The commentator also
wrote a very beautiful reason for the ritual: "old opportunities are
sacrificed to make way for new ones", reinforcing the idea that tumah
is a lifecycle event. I can buy that.

The G-dcast for Metzorah talks more about the skin ailment parts than
the lady-specific parts. He points out that modern doctors are unsure
of what tzara'at describes. It doesn't seem to be any known disease,
which somewhat paves the way for a supernatural explanation. I know
that acne or herpes wouldn't be cured by this ritual (although the
text isn't describing a cure). But since it can happen to homes and
clothing as well as skin, it's not something easily explainable. It
would have to be some kind of mold or fungus that occurs very
selectively in the homes and on the clothes, and might cause the skin
problems also, but the text implies that each can happen
indepentently, and that it can happen to only one family member's skin.
This commentator says, as is traditional, that it was the result of
<i>lashon hara</i> (evil tongue/gossip). This is clearly a
supernatural explanation. However, it seems to fit, at least until you
consider that tzara'at doesn't occur any more, even though gossip is
prevalent. Even so, the effects of the tzara'at haven't necessarily
disappeared. Evil tongue used to take away your home, your
possessions, and your position in society. This is still possible
today, and it does happen. The lesson we can learn here is that once
the damage of gossip is done, it's very difficult to fix.

The Pardes podcast was also full of insight that I wouldn't have
expected from these parshiot. He talks mostly about the category of
"impurity that goes out from one's body", and how that logically also
applied to childbirth. He says that the 40 (or 80) days in which a
woman couldn't go to the Temple after childbirth or bring sacrifice
are because if the close proximity of childbirth and death. (a note, I
found this troubling, because a woman couldn't then attend her own
son's brit milah).
The explanation goes that a dead body is the ultimate expression of
impurity, and all impurity is associated with death. During
childbirth, there is a great deal of blood. Large amounts of blood and
death are often in the same place. There was also a high mortality
rate associated with childbirth; both the mothers and the babies were
at risk. So it might seem reasonable to think that there's at least a
small amount of death in birth.

This commentator also points out that it wasn't always this way:
sadness in childbirth was part of HaShem's curse to women in Eden. He
also says, like the Jewschool commentary, a new mother might need some
time away to get used to the new period in her life. He used the
phrase "part of a woman has left her", and suggests that like today's
mothers, women then also suffered post partum depression and the tumah
time allowed them a chance to reflect on the transition.

The commentator goes a step further with the Eden comparison in order
to tie tzara'at in to the parsha. Like the G-dcast commentator, he
says that the cause was lashon hara. But he says that the snake in the
Garden was the originator of the evil tongue, and is the reason that
people who speak it become like living dead, and that the sacrifices
allow people to affirm life and mark their commitment to becoming
better people.

Shemini 5769

As the Dog Whisperer would say, a calm-submissive pack requires
exercise, discipline, and affection. If we consider HaShem our calm
(more or less)-assertive leader, then it falls to G-d to set up
Cesar's other favorite trinity: rules, boundaries, and limitations.
And that's what Leviticus is all about. Rules. And boundaries and
limitations. This parsha is an excellent example.

Our opening scene is dramatic, a continuation of last parsha's Mishkan
dedication ceremonies gone horribly wrong. Aaron's sons, Nadab and
Abihu, bring an incense offering before HaShem, and they get frizzled.
The text doesn't offer much in the way of explanation. There are two
pretty good possibilities.

One: G-d required sacrifice to dedicate the Mishkan. The evidence for
this is that the two men are killed by fire in the same way that fire
consumes the animal sacrifice in the previous chapter. Moses also
implies that he thought he and Aaron would have to die for the cause.
Of course, there's some pretty strong evidence against it, as well:
HaShem doesn't like human sacrifice. It could be that it's just not
okay for humans to sacrifice humans, but it is established in the
Tradition that HaShem doesn't like people created in the image dying.

Two: G-d punished them for incorrect behavior. The description of
Nadab's and Abihu's offering says they brought "strange fire". There's
no explanation of what that means, or why that means they had to die
for it. It could be something as simple as the ceremonial flame they
carried from the Ner Tamid went out, so they lit the incense with a
flint; they used regular fire instead of sacred fire. Or it could be
that they mimicked a trick they'd seen Egyptian priests do to conjure
fire and that made HaShem angry because they didn't follow directions
and they referenced a different god. The best I can tell for sure is
that they didn't follow directions and they got frizzled.

Rules, boundaries, and limitations.

Immediately after that, the parsha starts teaching us about what we
can eat and what is forbidden. Most of what we can eat is the same as
what we can feed to G-d in the form of sacrifice. The two exceptions I
can think of are also the two exceptions to the meat rule: fish and
locusts. I'm not sure if it's because these two are references to
other things or if it's just because they're efficient food sources
that don't depend on climate conditions (like drought, famine, or
flood).

Fish are given the first commandment in the Torah: to be fruitful and
multiply and fill the seas. They were a symbol of fertility and
fortune. They were also only ever referred to in the Biblical texts in
a general sense and not by species, which is interesting, given how
specific the rest of this passage is.

Locusts featured heavily in the plagues. Maybe they're okay to eat
because they're a symbol of HaShem's power? I don't know.

The last rule, boundary, or limitation in the parsha is given to Aaron
instead of Moses. He's told that the priests are not to consume
alcohol before performing their duties. This brings us back to the
beginning of the parsha, and the third possible explanation for why
HaShem frizzled Nadab and Abihu: they were drunk. I would tend to
disagree with this idea, because HaShem usually likes to give fair
warning. This limitation was never previously mentioned, so it seems
like a new, additional, responsibility. It could be a rule put in
place to prevent further frizzling, like perhaps they were tipsy and
grabbed the wrong fire by mistake?

So, like a good pack leader, HaShem set rules, boundaries, and
limitations on the chosen pack.

Vayikra 5769

Vayikra is the first parsha of Sefer Vayikra, also known as the book
of Leviticus. This is a tough book; it's mostly an instruction manual
for the priests. The bulk of this doesnt really seem to apply to us
today, since there is no Temple and therefore no priests and no
sacrifice. In Torah study we talked about how some believe that
Leviticus shouldn't even be taught, because it is mostly irrelevant.

I disagree. It is only irrelevant if you read it literally. There's a
lot to learn if you place it in a historical and/or spiritual context
and see how we have evolved in our faith and ritual since then.

When the Second Temple was destroyed, it became impossible to perform
sacrifices properly. We no longer had the proper tools or the proper
location. These elements were determined to be more significant than
the act itself. We could have just made new tools. We could have built
an altar somewhere else. But we didn't.

Instead, the Rabbis decided that prayer would substitute for the
sacrifices. We would pray three times a day, just as we had
sacrificed. We would pray prescribed prayers to ensure that they
served the same purpose as the sacrifices had.

How could this make sense? How could saying a few words ever have the
same value to HaShem as an animal sacrifice, a burnt offering? Prayer
doesn't give anything up. Prayer doesn't have an immediate and obvious
display of power; it doesn't engage the five senses or provoke a
visceral reaction the way a sacrifice did. They're apples and oranges.

Or are they? Maybe we're using the wrong words.

According to <I>The Five Books of Miriam</I>, "Sacrifice", from the
Latin for "to make sacred", is an imprecise translation of the Hebrew
word used here. "Korban" comes from the root "to draw near". It's a
very different idea. Unlike in the Christian understanding of the word
sacrifice, there is no quid pro quo associated with korban. It's not a
matter of giving something up in hopes of appeasing G-d so you can be
forgiven, it's about restoring spiritual equilibrium and correcting
the sense of distance that comes along with sin. Prayer can do that.
It might even be more effective for people today, since most would be
uncomfortable with ritual slaughter.

As I read more on Radical Torah, I found an interesting discussion on
commentaries by Maimonides, Nachmonides, and Nachmonides' "spiritual
successor".

Maimonides was a rationalist. He said that the korban was a means of
affirming monotheism. The goats and cows and other animals sacrificed
were clearly not gods. The summary I read suggested this was a way of
letting other nations know that their gods were weak, but I think it
would work well for helping the Israelites to understand this, too.

It also dovetails nicely with a commentary in my Friedman text, which
points out that after HaShem gave these instructions, there was only
one place on earth to perform sacrifices: at the altar in front of the
Mishkan, and later, at the Temple. This would help to underscore the
idea that sacrifice had to be replaced after the destruction of the
Temple.

Nachmanides was more of a mystic. He felt that the korban was an
imperfect way of offering oneself to HaShem and a means of keeping the
community sufficiently pure for the Divine Presence to continue
dwelling among them. In this interpretation, it is literally about
allowing HaShem to be close. This also makes sense, and describes a
function that prayer could also perform.

Rabbeinu Bahya was a successor to Nachmanides, also a mystic. He
suggested that the korban was a vehicle for the community's moral
growth, which would allow HaShem to remain close, the people to trust
and therefore be close to each other, and describe a function that
could also be performed by prayer.

It gets a bit better when you consider that Bahya's interpretation
suggests communal responsibility and accountability. Accountability is
also something we talked about in Torah study.

It becomes particularly clear upon a close reading of Leviticus 1:2.

"A person from among you who will make an offering to HaShem..."
The word used for "person" is <I>adam</I>, a word that is relatively
rare in the Torah. It means "man", but unlike the typical word,
<I>ish</I>, this one comes with a few images and a slightly different
meaning. <i>Adam</I> calls to mind, well, Adam, the first human being.
It also references <I>adamah</I>, the earth (for which Adam was
named). It implies a level of universality that <i>ish</I> never
could. This means human, not just male or Jew.

Since the <i>adam</I> is acting on behalf of "among you", a plural
form, he is representing all of us with his korban. He is responsible
for his community, which also suggests that the sin of one is the sin
of the whole. What we do reflects on our entire community, possibly
even on the entire human race. We must be careful. No amount of animal
sacrifice could change that responsibility we have for each other. If
anything, replacing the korban with prayer has simply made our faith
sustainable.

Vayikra

The five books of Miriam

Sacrifice comes from the Latin word for "to make sacred". This is
different than the Hebrew word used in this parsha, korban, which is
often translated as sacrifice, but is really from the root for "to
draw near". The difference between the two says a lot about what it
means to give a sacrifice. It is not about giving something up in
hopes of appeasing or currying favor with G-d; it's not about making
yourself more sacred or making anything more sacred.

It's about restoring spiritual equilibrium. When we sin against HaShem
or against our neighbor, we've upset the balance created by Jewish
law. When we make korban, we publically acknowledge that we have done
wrong. It is part of the way we set things right again, along with
restitution. When we follow the ritual, we no longer have to carry our
guilt or shame along with us. They're dealt with and given over to
HaShem.

Several types of sacrifices: olah, burnt offering (animal); minhah,
meal offering (flour & oil, some burnt, some for priests); zevakh
shelamim, well-being/peace offering (animal, parts burnt, parts eaten
by family and priests); hattat, purification/sin offering (animal, fat
burnt, sometimes parts eaten by priests, sometimes blood sprinkled on
altar and animal burnt outside camp); asham, guilt offering (goat that
was sacrificed after restitution and fines paid).

Nicole

Vayakhel 5769

There are technically two parshiot this week: Vayakhel and Pikudei. I'll be commenting on Vayakhel.

As I listened to podcasts and read commentary this week, many of them focused on generosity. It is a very important part of this parsha and teaches us a very important lesson. In Exodus 35:5 Moses told the people that HaShem commanded a donation from (using the Richard Elliott Friedman translation) "everyone whose heart is moved". He then gave a list of the required items. The list goes on until Exodus 35:20, when the "congregation of the children" came to Moses and brought a contribution.

Verse 22 is interesting, "and the men came together with the women". Friedman's commentary notes that Torah commentators have found this intriguing since the beginning of Torah commenatary. One of the sources of this intrigue is that the Hebrew usually just uses the masculine plural to refer to a mixed group. But here, the writer uses both the masculine plural and the feminine plural, indicating that there should be emphasis on the women. This has to mean something. According to Friedman, there are several traditonal answers.

• Ibn Ezra says that it's just a grammatical thing, and the Torah is pointing out that the ladies were simply present with the men.
• Rashi gives the women a little more credit. He says that the verse is saying that the women were already there, giving their gifts, when the men arrived to give theirs.
• Sforno gives the women no credit. He says that it means the men accompanied the women in order to agree with their gifts, because they would not be accepted otherwise.
• Ramban has still a different take, one that increases the merit of the Israelite women. He notes that the women are given significance. He also notes that the donated items include jewelry. Since the men gave their jewelry to make the Golden Calf, these donations must have come from the women.

I think Ibn Ezra oversimplifies. It is a relatively rare occurrance for the Torah to mention women, so mentioning them must be significant and not just grammar. The other three ideas make more sense, logically. I think that the real reasons are probably a combination of all three. The women might well have arrived before the men, offering their jewelry since it wasn't destroyed with the Golden Calf, and the men followed along since the women had no right of ownership to almost anything. Logical. Reasonable. But also very generous and a sign of great virtue.

More generous and more virtuous than the men? I don't know about that. The fact of the matter is, the gifts were still given, and in vast quantities. One of the things that we've been marvelling about in Torah study at my synagogue is just how much gold, silver, and bronze were required. In Exodus 36:5, the amounts become even more mind-boggling.

In fact, Exodus 36:5 has become a central command in Judaism. Friedman translates it this way: "and they [the artisans working on the Tabernacle] said to Moses, saying 'The people are bringing more than enough for the construction, for the work that HaShem has commanded, to do it!'" If it's even possible, the people were too generous, but that's not even the most significant lesson of this story.

What we really learn is that, even though we're commanded to give back to our communities and we therefore have no choice about it, we must do it because we've made the choice to do so. In the Friedman translation, the text says things like "everyone whose heart is moved" and "everyone whose heart inspired him". There's nothing obligatory or perfunctory in either of those phrases. The other thing that I notice is that the Israelites have limited resources, they've been asked for donations before, and yet, they still give very freely.

This is an important lesson for us today. In our current economic climate, our neighbors are struggling. There are a great many organizations that depend on donations, from public radio to food banks. Some help the public in general, others help only those with specific needs, but all need donations right now. We owe it to our fellow community members to share what we have, but we also have to remember that it is our commandment to give, and HaShem words that commandment to include inspiration toward generousity. I think that a good way to ensure that we are giving because our hearts are moved to give is to choose to support organizations whose goals allign with our own. It is our duty.

Ki Tissa 5769

In this week's parsha, we read about a few of my favorite things: hiking and Shabbat.

Ki Tissa has Moses climbing Mount Sinai not once, but twice. The first time, G-d calls Moses to the peak, where HaShem writes the tablets of the Covenant with his own finger. Apparently, HaShem doesn't write very quickly, because this takes 40 days. That's quite an expedition! While Moses is away from the Israelites' main camp, some shenanigans happen involving a golden calf. G-d, being all-seeing, noticed this and tells Moses that his people have been very naughty and deserve to be killed. Moses manages to talk HaShem out of wiping out the people and then heads home. When he gets there, he sees what G-d was talking about, and it makes him very angry, almost as angry as HaShem was. In his rage, Moses breaks the tablets. Which, naturally, means he has to hike his way back up Sinai to camp out with HaShem again for 40 more days. During this trip, Moses is given two shiny new tablets, a new commandment to keep Shabbat (as well as a few other special dates), and a radiant face.

There are a couple of things that are significant to me. While it appears in other places as well, in this parsha I really notice how Moses is closest to G-d at the top of the mountain. Here, the two of them talk. Really talk. As my rabbi has pointed out, their dialogue is almost like a married couple. It's very intimate, and I think very natural. As someone who loves to spend time out in nature, I certainly feel closest to HaShem after a nice, long, hike. And if that hike ends on the top of a mountain, so much the better. There's just something about looking down on the world and being able to see forever that makes you want to pray.

I also think that there's a good reason G-d gives the commandment for Shabbat on the mountaintop. I'm sure it's more significant to me, as a modern person, than it was to the ancients, because the only time I can typically climb a mountain is Shabbat. That's just the way life goes. But still, I think that the day most of us get the opportunity to really experience HaShem is Shabbat. For those of us who aren't Moses, we may never experience G-d the way he did on Sinai, but we can try.

The last part of the parsha that hits home for me is Moses's radiant face. He gets to see G-d's back, and he glows for the entire walk back to camp. That's something I can certainly identify with. While I've never seen HaShem, I've seen some pretty amazing and beautiful things, and they never fail to put an ear to ear grin on my face. That's how I picture Moses coming off the mountain that second time. Lit up from within, and eager to share his newest stories.

In my studies this week, the significance of the face stands out to me.  The parsha talks about two faces, those of G-d and Moses.

First, we have Moses asking to see HaShem's face.  He is told that no human can see the face of HaShem and live, so while Moses is protected by a cleft in a rock and shielded by HaShem's hand, HaShem walks past him and Moses is permitted to see G-d's back.  As The Five Books of Miriam points out, a frontal view of HaShem would not be possible, or even imaginable; G-d does not have a gender in egalitarian Judaism.

I hadn't really thought of that before.  As a kid, I pictured G-d as an old man with a long beard and flowing white robes, the "God the Father" of the Trinity.  Now that I'm older and my theology has evolved, I understand HaShem in a less literal way.  I haven't tried to picture HaShem in a long time, other than maybe as light or the series of Hebrew letters that you see on G-dcast.  I don't even know where to start, really.  HaShem is clearly anthropomorphic, based on the descriptions in this parsha and in Mishpatim a couple weeks ago.  Maybe HaShem looks a bit like an androgynous supermodel, tall and thin, with high cheekbones and no beard?

The Five Books of Miriam suggests that we look in the mirror to see HaShem's face; we are all created b'tzetlem Elohim.  HaShem should be recognizable within our own features.  The book also points out that once we can see G-d in our own faces, we should then recognize that the same is true for everybody we meet and treat them accordingly.

While I have always believed that it is important to treat my fellow human beings with dignity and respect, I don't always take the leap to appreciate that their faces are also the faces of G-d. It's kind of a lovely  thought, if a little Miss-America-wold-peace-ish.

The other face that is mentioned is that of Moses.  After he sees HaShem's back, his face becomes radiant. In listening to KOACH's podcast, I found a slightly different take on Moses' radiance than I previously had.

As Dr. Raymond B. Goldstein points out, it was not necessarily a good thing. The parsha says that people never looked at him the same way again; they became afraid of him. Moses started wearing a veil whenever he was outside the Tent of Meeting, because people were so disturbed by his face. Dr. Goldstein also notes, as I alluded to above, that people become radiant over various things, whether it's something they saw or experienced. Dr. Goldstein goes a step further. People aren't disturbed by people who glow over the birth of a new baby or winning a gold medal, but when Moses had a similar reaction to a spiritual experience, the people's reaction was very different. On the podcast, he wonders why this is.

I think it is because we can identify with more earthly reasons for radiance. We can share each other's joy over an accomplishment, because we understand it; we've been there and done that in our own lives. But most of us haven't had a powerful mystical experience like Moses did. We can barely comprehend that HaShem exists, much less deal with having seen what Moses saw. Since we don't understand it, we fear it; this is human nature.

Of course, there is still one problem with this. It does not explain how the veil prevents the Israelites from thinking Moses is strange. He's a grown man, and he's dressed like a woman. This started with my Rabbi and I riffing, but I think there really is something here. The two images my mind conjures up for the word "veil" are a bride and a burqa. These are very feminine images. I would think that the Israelites would make fun of him more because of this odd choice. There is one connection, though, that is intriguing. Earlier in the parsha, HaShem says that nobody can look on the face of G-d and refuses to show it to Moses. Shortly after that, Moses begins to hide his own face from view. Was Moses trying to be like HaShem?

Shemot 5769

This has always been one of my favorite stories in the Bible - Moses's encounter with the burning bush. But, as much as I've loved reading it for years, this year I found a couple new points of view that give new depth, new meaning, and new ideas. You gotta love those podcasts.

The first one I heard was from G-dcast. The commentary came from Jason Lieberman, a man with cerebral palsy. It talked about how  Moses felt unable to perform the tasks HaShem was describing. I had honestly never considered it that way. I always thought he just felt that better candidates existed and wanted HaShem to pick someone else.

The other point Lieberman made that I had never thought about before was that HaShem could have erased any problems Moses had. Now that it's been pointed out, I don't know how I didn't see it before. The fact that HaShem simply gave Moses an accommodation and sent him on his way is very powerful. It shows that disabilities are  just challenges. It shows that we don't need superpowers to do HaShem's work. It also shows that we need to rely on each other. Where Moses was weak, Aaron was strong, and the two of them together were capable of more than either individual could ever accomplish.

The other podcast was Dvar Tzedek, from the American Jewish World Service, with commentary by Rachel Harcash (I may have this name wrong; I couldn't find it written, so I'm going with how it sounds). This does not appear in the podcast for Shemot, but rather, for Vaera. She also talks about how HaShem could have erased the impediment, but chose not to; however, she goes a slightly different way with it. She talks about how Moses had lived a life of privilege and had not been a slave. She also points out Aaron had experienced the exhausting work and the whips and the mind-numbing monotony of slavery. Her commentary raises the question: how could Moses speak for the people, when he had not experienced the injustices they suffered? By using Aaron as a translator, Moses's messages from HaShem would be colored by the collective experience.

I think this is a great question, and one I had never considered. For some reason, I had always had it in my head that Moses's speech impediment was a language barrier or a fluency problem that caused him to be difficult to understand. It seemed logical to me that he would have a hard time communicating with the Hebrews, if he'd learned to speak in the Palace. But this is a little different. The idea that Moses simply couldn't speak about the slavery experience, the idea that he felt unworthy to speak on behalf of those who were enslaved is fascinating. It's almost like he's saying that he'd feel inauthentic in that position. It also points out the difference between Moses and everybody else: he was the only one without the slave mentality. Perhaps that's the reason HaShem chose him; he had a mind that was open and capable of these ideas, while the others were somehow dulled by the endless work they had performed and the constant drain of persecution.  HaShem needed them both.