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In Moscow for a conference during the last days of the Cold War, I managed to attend Shabat services at the nearest synagogue, and told a curious Russian Jew who had never been out of Russia but was eager to emigrate to Israel that if he came back to my hotel, he could meet Shulamit Aloni, a celebrated human rights activist and, at the time, an Israeli cabinet minister. His response: "Her problem is, she doesn't know the Arabs." When I told her of his uninformed impertinence, she said, "if he makes aliyah, he'll fit right in." (I might add that after in living Israel for the rest of his life and never meeting an Arab, he'll still be convinced that he knows better)
In tomorrow's Toah reading (Sh'lah, Numbers 13-15), 12 spies set out to reconnoiter the Promised Land, and come back with a mixed report: the land is lush and fertile, but its inhabitants are fierce; bottom line, all but Kalev, who is later joined by Yehoshua, believe the enemy cannot be vanquished. The Israelites, discouraged, begin to complain and consider returning to Egypt. God threatens to get rid of them, and Moses manages to bring God to stick with them, but God will keep them in the desert for 40 years till this entire generation dies off, only bringing the next generation into the Land. The desert narrative is suspended during chapter 15, which provides seemingly unconnected ritual commandments; the Haftarah, from Joshua 2, retells a similar spying expedition, and this time, the result is an endorsement of the planned invasion.
The commandment to attach fringes on the outer clothing, tzitzit (Numbers 15:37-41) is the pivotal passage here: the fringes function paradoxically: seeing them will make the Israelites remember the commandments and perform them, and keep them from straying after their desires (to go back to Egypt) and what the eyes have seen (a hostile land), because the commandments come from YHWH, who took them out of Egypt to be their God. The Haftarah features Rahab, the righteous prostitute, to indicate that some straying from the norm can be useful, thus adding an ironic if not subversively antinomian rabbinic flourish to tomorrow's service.
Diaspora Jews will resonate with the assignment the spies received: what kind of land will they find if/when they come, and how fierce are its inhabitants? The animosity that confronts the immigrant is not restricted to hostilities between Jews and Arabs; there's plenty of aggession to go around, but somehow, luckily or not, many visitors don't pick up on it. It's in the eye of the beholder, and even more so, in the itinerary that a tour follows; people quickly establish comfort zones that mark the boundaries of the familiar, beyond which spin and stereotypes tend to prevail. And what binds up the package is faith: the 10 discouraging spies forgot to factor divine providence into their report.
What could count for divine providence in the Middle East for us today? Is it in the acquisition of the latest weaponry that does not distinguish between combatant and civilian? Could it be in discriminatory policies that impverish the indigenous population with the hope of forcing it to emigrate, but actually only breed a hard line and violent resistance? Christian Zionists? I'd rather see divine providence as that which has us overcoming our fear and seeking our partners, sharing the land and harvesting the peace.
The three closest pizza venders to my flat here in Berlin are all Lebanese, which inevitably means that their parents were Palestinian refugees from '48, and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have never seen it -- the modern equivalents of Moses and his generation. I imagine relatives who remained and satellite television and internet deliver their reports, and I wonder what keeps them going. My heart pounds louder when I greet them in beginner's Arabic, but my inner dialogue is in mamma loshen, what I drank with my mother's milk: vih'yitem k'doshim leyloheychem; be holy, be faithful, to your God (Numbers 15:40).
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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(לה) וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר משֶׁה קוּמָה יְהֹוָה וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ: (לו) וּבְנֻחֹה יֹאמַר שׁוּבָה יְהֹוָה רִבֲבוֹת אַלְפֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:
vay'hi binso'a ha'aron vayomer moshe: kuma hashem v'yafutzu oy'vecha v'yanusu m'san'echa mipanecha uv'nuho yomar: shuvah hashem riv'vot alfey yisrael
When the ark was to set out, Moses would say, "Rise, O Lord, may your enemies be scattered and may your foes flee before You" And when it was put down, he would say, "Rest, O Lord of Israel's myriads of thousands"
A nun-friend of mine was rather surprised when I told her I was planning to write about Numbers 10:35-36: "Enemies scattering?" she wrote, and I'm not sure whether it was the subject of enmity or the violence (or fear of it) required to scatter them that upset her, or maybe she assumed that I was simply adding a few verses to the longish list of passages I wish would disappear, and she's a traditionalist...well, I'm not going to censor it, but I'm also not willing to turn this prayer in a central pillar of faith,sefer hashuv bifney atzmo (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 116a; actually, the inverted letters -- nunim m'nuzarot -- that bracket these two verses do suggest an ancient form of anti-virus quarantine!).
Etz Hayim (p. 826) starts off trying to shift the physical danger into the past: "During our years of wandering, exile and persecution, when we were (my emphasis) vulnerable to those who sought to do us harm, our prayer was (again, my emphasis), 'Advance [sic], O Lord! May your enemies be scattered!'" However, our vigilance has only moved to the spiritual: "During tranquil times, when the danger is not persecution but assimilation, our prayer is a homiletic interpretation of verse 36: 'O Lord, return the thousands of Israel who have strayed'" (notice how the editors reduce the verse's astronomical order of magnitude -- 10 to the 7th power -- to an almost trivial amount). But finally, Etz Hayim keeps the midrash from Sifrei (and popularized by Rashi) current when it asks, and answers: "Does God have enemies? Anyone who hates the Jewish people because we strive to do the will of God is an enemy of God" (nota bene: "because we strive to do the will of God" is -- perhaps unfortunately-- an editorial novum).
So, is this yet another utterance of the default sentiment in all religions: "God is on our side"? Nehama Leibovitz provides some relief by bringing the following snippet (the original is oh, so wordy...) from Samson Rafael Hirsch's Torah commentary (Frankfurt, 19th century): "Moses knew that enemies would arise to the Torah from the word go, since justice and loving the Other are completely contrary to the decrees of tyrants and their aggression..." and not once in over a page and a half of commentary does he imply that we and the Torah are one, or that its enemies are our enemies or visa versa.
We are so prone to take advantage of the presence of Jewish worshippers and spoonfeed a pro-active political agenda that originates in certain corridors of power that we hardly notice the jingoistic force of singing these verses during the Torah service (last week I heard a prayer sung to the melody of Hatikva...); does our demeanor resonate "tranquil times" and do our texts reflect the nuances of our tradition, which certainly contains fantasies of divine violence against "them", but an authentic voice such as Hirsch as well? We move right on from Kuma Hashem (verse 35) to Ki mitziyon (Isaiah 2: 3b); I can't recall where I experienced it, but I was thrilled when I discovered somewhere out there they keep going till the end of the next verse as well: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore".
A final note of subversion: I was suddenly struck (or maybe what my father wrote, "This song is only a prayer (the imperative "Arise", "Rest" are not written in the usual form, "kum," "shuv", but are lengthened to "kumah," "shuvah" and thus may be expressing a wish," Numbers, JPS, p. 375) by the similarity of this language to the words Elijah puts into the mouths of the Ba'al worshippers:
"It was already noon, and Elijah made fun of them, saying, "Cry out in a loud voice, he's a god, maybe he's busy, maybe he's on a journey, or maybe he's sleeping and must be wakened!" (I Kings 18:27)
It's almost as if God is a reluctant warrior whom Moses has to beseech to go out to battle (actually, Moses was wont to say this whenever the ark arose, not only in battle, which suggests a default setting of belligerence...hmmmm); and once set in motion, there's inertia to overcome, to get God back to non-violence...(kevan shenitan rashut l'hash'hit --once the slaughter begins, look out! -- the danger that Israel found itself in when the Angel of Death was killing the Egyptian first-born -- ואתם לא תצאו איש מפתח ביתו עד בקר כיון שניתן רשות למשחית אינו מבחין בין צדיקים לרשעים ולא עוד אלא שמתחיל מן הצדיקים תחלה שנאמר והכרתי ממך צדיק ורשע)
Life in the desert, according to this passage, was not a beach (that's the clean version), and we should choose our prayers carefully.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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Greetings to my faithful readers; I hope you all managed to "get a life" during the last four weeks of this column's absence... I must confess that I needed the break, and I'm not sure that I'm up to resuming my weekly struggle with the Parashah/haftarah, but two center-stage events, macro and micro, impel me to write: both happenings, the latest chapter in Obama's presidency, as well as Tony's visit to Minerva House relate directly to the Middle East conflict, and resonate within Parashat Naso (and, for Israeli readers, the haftarah of B'ha'alot'cha).
. אל נא תאמר הנה דרכי האחרונה את אור היום הסתירו שמי העננה זה יום נכספנו לו עוד יעל ויבוא ומצעדנו עוד ירעים: "אנחנו פה!" Al na tomar hiney darki ha'aharona et or hayom histiru sh'mey ha'ananah Zeh yom nechsafnu lo, od ya'al v'yavo u'mitz'adenu od yar'im anahnu po!
Don't say this is a dead end -- the light of day is only hidden by a cloudy sky It's a long awaited day, bring it on -- Our parade will yet thunder: we are here! (from the Jewish Partisan's Hymn, Glick/Shlonsky)
1. The long awaited day -- in the Minerva/Shiber house
וְהֵשִׁיב אֶת אֲשָׁמוֹ בְּרֹאשׁוֹ וַחֲמִישִׁתוֹ יֹסֵף עָלָיו וְנָתַן לַאֲשֶׁר אָשַׁם לוֹ v'heshiv et ashamo b'rosho vahamishito yosef alav v'natan la'asher asham lo " ...He shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one-fifth to it, giving it to him whom he has wronged." -- Numbers 5:7
"Tony's father was around the age of 11 when Zionist soldiers came to the doorstep and informed them that they had 48 hours to vacate the home in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Talbieh...I looked around and wondered to myself, what happened to the furniture and household items, where did all the clothing go, how much has been removed and redone, what about kitchen supplies and food items, where did the ghosts of the home settle?" (http://onefire.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/finding-tonys-house-in-jerusalem/ )
We had heard that George Shiber built two houses, and believed he'd rented this one out and lived in another, larger house that he'd built around the corner; while that version took a bit of the heat off of us, it didn't significantly diminish Tony's rights to the house. But he wasn't here to reclaim his property (it isn't always easy for an American citizen with an Arabic name to enter Israel; Tony told us he felt lucky he'd made it in); he had basically come to find his roots. His traveling companion wrote about us (op. cit.), "They both seem to be very calm at our arrival, almost as if the home has been telling them that one day the Shibers would come back in search of their home, and now this 'one day' has arrived," but the truth is that I'm very happy and excited to meet Tony and to have brought him into the house;
וְאִם אֵין לָאִישׁ גֹּאֵל לְהָשִׁיב הָאָשָׁם אֵלָיו הָאָשָׁם הַמּוּשָׁב לה' לכהן v'im ein lai'sh go'el l'hashiv ha'asham elav, ha'asham hamushav l'hashem lakohen If the man has no kinsman to whom restitution can be made, the amount repaid shall go to the Lord for the priest (Numbers 5:8)
We had heard that George's children had gone to Beirut and Kuwait, from which it is not that easy to enter Israel, and I figured we'd never have a living connection with that family.Who would be the priest who would receive restitution instead of George Shiber's exiled children? Lucky for us, Tony's father John had made it to the United States; If they are interested, I hope his grandchildren will have the same access to their past as my own; will our leaders do the honorable but inconvenient thing, or will they continue to play games, play war games, play with our lives and the lives of our loved ones? (hint: God willing, my grandson will turn 18 in 17.8 years...)
2. The long-awaited day that arrived in Cairo, in Dar-al-Islam (the rest of the Moslem world) and in Dar al-Harb (the rest of the world that is not yet Moslem -- just kidding, folks)
Both Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89) and B'ha'alot'cha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) provide ready-made springboards for peaceful preaching; the priestly blessing (Numbers 6: 22-26), which inspired a sublime series of midrashim that all begin with Gadol Hashalom ("Peace is the Greatest"), and B'ha'alot'cha's haftarah, with "Not by power and not by might rather by my spirit," (Zecharia 4:6) will hopefully resonate in homilies throughout the Jewish world tomorrow. However, even the most powerful sermon will not be able to penetrate the insularity of fear, victimhood and privilege that allows the Jewish establishment to be dismissive of every peace initiative and hostile to the idea of justice. For them, peace means "they should stop bothering us", i.e., what we have, we can keep; sooner or later they'll settle for crumbs. Bush seemed to think that was fine, and apparently, hopefully, Obama does not. Is he serious enough to be willing to pay the price of meaning what he says? Do supporters of Israel really think there can be any kind of long-lasting stability, let alone peace, without ending Israel's systemic discrimination againist and marginalization of the Palestinian people?
You guessed right if you thought Obama's words in Cairo yesterday gave me hope; wouldn't it be wonderful if his denounciation of violence brought about a cessation of attacks on Israel and Jews worldwide? What was significant, in my mind, in his approach yesterday, was what appeared to be his giving Jewish and Palestinian nationalism equal weight, which basically means that not all means can be used to achieve national ends. I hope Jewish leadership internalizes this message, because I have begun to despair of the worship of the state, i. e., the religion of Israel. The Land and the State can be no more than instruments in the worship of God; the People is not essential but is rather a framework of a covenanted community. But I'm slipping into a sermon or a seminar here, and that's not where it's going to happen. For that -- surprise, surprise! -- we'll go back to the text:
Numbers chapter 5 begins with two ostensibly unrelated topics: ostracism of the leper (verses 1-4) and מעל, ma'al, the restitution of misappropriated property (verses 5-8). We've talked about the second pericope above, in the story of Tony's house; now I feel I can (or rather, I must) use the homiletic principle of סמיכות פרשיות smichut parshiot (the adjacency of passages) to derive a truth and deliver a message: what we -- Israel, with the connivance of the western world -- have been doing to the Palestinians has been a ma'al, a misappropriation of sancta, and this is becoming evident worldwide, where Judaism is increasingly seen as hideous because it is inextricably linked with Zionism, itself resembling more and more a form of moral leprosy. Oh, but we made the desert bloom while defending our land from infiltrators, we said. Actually, they were refugees who just wanted to come back to their homes and families (ושבתם איש אל אחוזתו ואיש אל משפחתו תשובו v'shavtem ish el ahuzato v'ish el mishtahto tashuvu, Lev. 25:10), and most of the world is learning that now. As for us, the innocent and gullible are in denial and are still spun by propagandists, while the more brazen say, "So what?" (the former group could have their eyes opened, as their hearts have not been hardened; the latter will probably only learn the hard way). Which tendency do you think got Netanyanu and Lieberman (and maybe Barak) elected?
May God who healed Miriam and Na'aman of their leprosy heal us of ours. And may redemption come to Zion.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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Having spent a good bit of time adjacent to recent festivals of freedom (Passover and May Day) in Shaarey Tzedek hospital's orthopedic and rehab wards with one of my favorite octogenarians, and starting my first-ever serious stint of caregiving at his home, I am happy to report that there can be life "Aharey Mot" and I keep witnessing many living examples of holiness in action. Not to be able to pick up convalescent spirits with home-baked goods in that hospital was, in my book, an unnecessary humra, but overwise, one often experiences there a connectedness between the spiritual axis, beyn adam lamakom and the social one, beyn adam lahavero -- a realization which provides us with what might be a fitting introduction to the message I contributed to RHR's weekly Parashat Hashavua mailing.
shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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“V'ahavta l're'acha kamocha – Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18)”: a commandment not easily applied in Human Rights work, since generally readers of this message don't have Palestinian neighbors or live among foreign workers, etc. And then there's the issue of loving someone with whom one is not in some kind of committed relationship. Hillel the Elder rephrased this commandment in the following way: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your friend”. No matter how it is formulated, does this commandment take into account the residue of resentment, fear and hatred accumulated in a long and violent struggle? An answer is found in the Torah commentary of the medieval exegete Yosef Bechor Shor, who point out that full statement in Leviticus is actually “Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.” “It is as if God is saying”, Bechor Shor adds, “ 'Let your love for Me vanquish your hatred for him, until peace obtains between the two of you' (this is the meaning of the verse in Proverbs (3:17) 'Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths lead to peace'). 'I am the Lord' – loving Me ought to wipe out hatred.” This is the Torah on one foot: love is everything, and religion without love is godless. את כל התורה הרלוונטית לעיסוק בזכויות האדם אפשר לתמצת בשלש המילים הידועות מתוך פרשת השבוע (אחרי-מות/קדושים): "ואהבת לרעך כמוך".ואכן כבר לפני אלפיים שנה סיכם הלל הזקן את התורה כולה בניסוח השלילי של אותו כלל: דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד (מה ששנוא עליך, לחברך אל תעשה). אך ברור שכלל לא פשוט ליישם את ציווי הזה: האם אפשר לדרוש שנאהב אדם זר, בן לשיכבה סוציו-אקונומית אחרת, בן עם אחר, במיוחד כשמדובר בעם שנמצא במאבק אלים איתנו? בהקשר זה, כדאי שנזכור את מה שקודם בפסוק ל"ואהבת לרעך כמוך" – איסור על נקימה ונטירה, שהן תגובות מוכרות ואפילו מובנות ממצבים של מאבק. בפירושו מימי הביניים על התורה התייחס רבי יוסף בכור שור לאותה תהייה, כיצד אפשר לדרוש את התגברות הזאת על שינאה שנובעת מסבל, פחד והשפלה שגרמו מעשיהם של אויבים. הוא מצביע על הנוסח המלא של סוף הפסוק, “ואהבת לרעך כמוך, אני ה'”. וכך משיב הפרשן: "אומר לך הקודש ברוך הוא, 'תנצח האהבה שיש לך עמי את השנאה שיש לך עמו, ומתוך כך יבוא שלום ביניכם'; וזהו 'דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלום': אני ה', וראויה אהבתי לשכח את השנאה".
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It's a relief that on Yom Hashoah (Israeli Holocaust Day) 2009, Germany is caring about Jews; it would look pretty bad if it weren't. But there's something cheap, something wrong, and even something pathetic in the German government's boycott of the UN conference on racism today.
I'll start out by admitting that I don't really understand what brought the German nation to perpetrate the Holocaust; I'm not sure anyone does. There were probably more Germans who objected to Hitler's ideology than believed in it, but evidently there were not enough people who had the courage to stand up to the Nazis, and too many people who, thinking they might benefit from it, went along with it. Today, it's just the same in reverse: I don't believe that most of Germany really agrees with the kneejerk support of the Israeli government shown by the German establishment, but not many have the courage to speak justice to power, and too many people take the easy way out -- it's easier for their consciences, and who needs the risk of being branded an anti-Semite...
Blanket German support for Zionism is wrong as well as foolish; it's not good for Germany or for the Jews in the long run, and it's an insult to the Judaism that flourished in Germany for many hundreds of years before the Holocaust. It's also a sign that the lessons of the Holocaust have not really been learned except in the most vulgar way: Never Again should this happen to the Jews -- is that all we've learned? There were less than a million Jews in Germany before the war, and they were mostly very well integrated into German society; there are many millions of Moslems in Germany today, and for many decades they've mostly been living in ghettos far more distinct and separate than those Jews inhabited. There's something very sick in the German mentality that does not allow their absorption into the mainstream of society, and it might be closely connected with what "othered" the Jews then, and basically still "others" them today.
By celebrating the state of Israel as a Jewish state -- the raison d'etre of modern Germany, as Bundeskanzlerin Merkel declared in the Knesset last year, a year after the war crimes of "the Jewish state" in Lebanon and a year before its war crimes in Gaza -- Germans can feel some relief that its final solution for the Jewish people was not fully carried out. But they are fooling themselves if they believe that the suffering inflicted on the Jewish people ended with them. The ferocity of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians is hard to imagine without the scars the Holocaust seared into the survivors and their ancestors; if it is not surprising that Germans would feel a perverse solidarity with this evil, it is still a shame that they do not show more responsibility, if not compassion, for the secondary suffering that they have caused.
The equanimity of Germany in the face of the ongoing suffering Israel has caused the Palestinian people for over 60 years is both a sign of Germany's cowardice as well as its opportunism, a small price to pay to belong to the West, whose emnity towards the Third World is nothing new, except that this time around it's not only Christianity against Muslims, but a Judeo-Christian coalition. This face-off cannot lead to a better result than Hitler's grand plan; it is a neo-conservative scenario that will make the bloodbath of Iraq pale in comparison, and will leave not only all of the Middle East in ruins, but Europe, with its 50+ million Muslims, as well. Is supporting Israeli expansionism worth this price?
The lead story on Kulturradio today was that the Zentralrat des Judens in Deutschland congratulates the German government for boycotting the UN conference in Geneva, and protests that the rest of EU did not do the same; that the Zentralrat takes its marching orders from the Israeli Foreign Ministry is nothing new. But it would be helpful if Germans were told that beyond the official PR, most Israelis are well aware that Israel is indeed a racist state; Israelis know it, but are too lazy to do anything about it. Why should they, if they can get away with it, and noone on the outside can be bothered? It was much the same during the 30's in Germany, no?
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The interface between tomorrow's Torah reading (Tazria-M'tzora, Leviticus 12-15) and the regular reading from the Prophets (haftarah, II Kings 7: 3-20 -- but Isaiah 66 is read instead because of Rosh Hodesh) is quite interesting: Leviticus 13-14 deals extensively with the priest's role in diagnosing and purifying the "leper" (the popular but innaccurate translation for m'tzora), and the overwhelming sense here is of the transient nature of this affliction; only in an aside (Lev. 13:45-46) is the ostracism of lepers and their indeterminate banishment outside the camp mentioned. In the haftarah, the entire story of the salvation of Israel hinges on the exclusion of the lepers, and everything is now reversed: distanced from the Israelite city, they "defect" to the Aramean camp, which has been abandoned (a reverse ostracism -- the only people in this camp are now the lepers) but fully stocked with food and horses (which were in such low supply in the Israelite city -- the horrors of the famine are detailed in the previous chapter, perhaps too shocking to be read in the synagogue) as well as with clothes (to replace the rent clothes of the lepers) and valuables (a sign of grace).
Sharing the good news and wealth with the Israelites would not easy for them -- as opposed to the Aramean camp, into which they enter effortlessly, the lepers cannot enter the city, and must call out from the city gates, and in any event are not believed by the king (to whom their report registers more as beguilement, or even betrayal and collusion with the enemy -- they have eated and drank, while the rest of the Israelites are still famished); without a reconnaisance mission suggested by one of the king's courtiers (which adds to the suspence but also prolongs the famine and suffering), all would be lost. When the report of the lepers is verified, the people of the city plunder the Aramean camp, and the price of food at the city gates plummets, as "the man of God" had prophesied; the king's aide, who scoffed at that prophecy is trampled to death by the rush of the people at the city gates. The city, far from representing civil society, is the scene of barbarism, not fit for the habitation of caring lepers. Leprosy (or whatever tzara'at is) is a plague, not only a disease, meaning, it is a divine punishment for moral sin that (pardon the expression) "men of God" -- Elisha, as well as Moses -- can inflict and cure as well (Elisha, in II Kings chapter 5; Moses, on himself, Ex. 4:6-7, and on Miriam, Numbers 12:11; Moses also inflicts the 6th plague, sh'hin, boils, with which Job was also afflicted, might be a variant of tzara'at). When I first read throught the haftarah, I wondered why the heroism of the four lepers does not inspire Elisha to cure them as he did Na'aman. The Talmud's answer (Sanhedrin 107b; Fishbane points to Ginzberg's note on the matter, Legends of the Jews, vol. 4, 244-45) is that these anonymous heroes are actually Gehazi and his sons, whom Elisha had cursed eternally with Na'aman's leprosy after Gehazi messes up at the end of that story (5:20-26). But the p'shat, the simple truth of the matter, is that, like in the Exodus narrative, the Elisha stories are more about establishing the power (and abuse of it) of God and/or His prophet than they are about justice and morality. Gehazi, the king's aide and the 42 youths who laughed at his pate (2:23-24) deserve the punishments they suffer at Elisha's hand as much as the first born of the captive in the pit and the animals in Egypt did -- i.e., not at all, and it's all politics: to establish, through fear and not love, the authority of God and His representative.
Leprosy has not lost its political currency in our times: many celebrated the establishment of the state of Israel for bringing the leper Jewish people back into history, meaning, full membership in the family of nations and an end to the ostracism and disgrace that exile and persecution had brought us. But statehood and power come not so much with pride as with responsibility, and many of us find ourselves deeply disappointed by the image of Judaism that "the Jewish state" projects. Whatever low expectations we might have had regarding this week's UN conference on Racism in Geneva, boycotting it did not enhance our self-definition as rahmanim b'nai rahmanim (the merciful descendants of merciful ancestors). If, in the words of the Psalm One, Ahmadinejad's grandstanding made it into a moshav letzim (a sitting of fools), joining with the Coalition of the Willing who captured and traded slaves for centuries and, continuing to exploit the world's poor, remain unrepentant and deaf was standing b'derech hata'im (on a sinful path) and walking out b'atzat r'sha'im (with evil counsel).
Is this what our heritage boils down to?
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side. Harry: That's what drew her to me. Sally: Your dark side. Harry: Sure. Why, don't you have a dark side? No, you're probably one of those cheerful people who dot their "i"s with little hearts. Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person Harry: Oh really. When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first; that way, in case I die before I finish I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side. (from When Harry Met Sally)
I really hope people read the haftarah this week (Shabbat hagadol, Malachi 3:4-24) till the end, and observe the practice of going back and rereading verse 23, so as not to be left with the bad taste of the last six words of gloom. This happy almost-ending virtually turns the entire Haftarah upside down: instead of* the doom of the great and terrible Yom Hashem (day of the Eternal is rendering it literally, but it doesn't quite deliver...), it promises Elijah's arrival and the reconciliation of parents and children, a symbol for overall restoration:
הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי שֹׁלֵחַ לָכֶם אֵת אֵלִיָּה הַנָּבִיא לִפְנֵי בּוֹא יוֹם יְהֹוָה הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא: וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב אָבוֹת עַל בָּנִים וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל אֲבוֹתָם פֶּן אָבוֹא וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת הָאָרֶץ חֵרֶם hineh anochi sholeah lachem et eliyah hanavi lifney bo yom hashem hagadol v'hanora v'heshiv lev avot al banim v'lev banim al avotam pen avo v'hiketi et ha'aretz herem Behold I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Eternal He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents -- lest I come and smite the land with destruction
We're told that Elijah is present at the initiation of every child into the covenant, so for me, reading this haftarah this year, filling Elijah's cup at the Seder on Wednesday night, and opening the door to let him in will echo the trauma we all went through eight days ago. The most spiritually devastating moment in that ritual also had a Seder connection: it was when the mohel recited ואומר לך בדמייך חיי ואומר לך בדמייך חיי (va'omar lach b'damayich hayee, va'omar lach b'damayich hayee "I said to you, live in your blood, I said to you, live in your blood"**, Ezekiel 16:6); this verse is so heavy with lachrymose alarmism, it sounded just like a curse...I had told the kids that it's better to let the (Orthodox) mohel do his thing and go, as opposed to trying to negotiate any adjustments in text or ritual, but I'll bet that if there are any more circumcisions in this family, they will be strictly medical procedures.
Many moons ago, I somehow made it onto a list of lecturers who could be called up to speak to Israeli soldiers who would spend a week away from their military tasks, breathing in the exalted air of the Judean Hills and learning what it's all about; my usual topic was the holiness of Jerusalem, and after I insisted once too often that since, according to classical Jewish law, a sword that killed had the very highest degree of impurity, this week they'd have to track down the history of each and every weapon they were carrying, I stopped being invited. But before we parted ways, there was a time when I had to speak on "who is a Jew" -- the issue periodically comes up in Knesset debate -- and I brought the Talmudic teaching (Yevamot 79a) that defines us as רחמנים ביישנים וגומלי חסדים rahmanim, baishanim v'gomley hasadim "merciful, God-fearing/humble, and benificent." I'll never forget the response of one soldier who said, "but that's just what a human being should be!"
My grandson started that day as a human being; I hope his initiation into Judaism will never take away his humanity... And as for Elijah, after a week of struggle, I came across these two more hopeful cadenzas:
1. I was happy to find the following in the last lines of this week's Oz V'Shalom/Netivot Shalom parashat hashavua message (ozshalom@netvision.net.il):
The Future Role of the Prophet Elijah: he shall reconcile fathers with sons (from the haftara for Shabbat HaGadol)
The Sages say (Mishnah Eduyot 8:7), Not to push off or draw near, but rather to make peace in the world, for it is said, Lo I will send the prophet Elijah to you, and it concludes he shall reconcile fathers with sons and sons with fathers
2. But I was even happier, when googling "Elijah's seat," to find this link for use in spiritual practice:
So I guess I'm with Harry: read the last page first!
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
*I don't know if this notion that Elijah's arrival will cancel out all the punishment and destruction that is prescribed throughout the haftarah is a hiddush or totally baseless; other commentators I read did not seem to accord it such power.
**which is brought in the Seder as an addendum to the midrash on Deut. 26:5. The adaptation is bold, even shocking: In Ezekiel, Israel is a foundling wallowing in blood, but in a circumcision, a perfectly healthy baby is made to bleed. The Passover midrash makes use of Ezekiel 16:7, but somehow, perhaps in the spirit of v'hi she'amdah, has to drag in the previous verse as well, and refers to another midrash which does not appear in the Hagaddah, but lingers in the air: you were naked of all mitzvot but two: the sacrifice of the pascal lamb and circumcision, and these merited your redemption.
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Netivoteha Shalom on Vayikra (Leviticus 1-5): v'kara zeh el zeh v'amari
Well, we're definitely now in P (the Priestly documentii), and like last week, I sought my refuge in the haftarah (Isaiah 43:21-44:23) , on which Plaut's lengthy comment (in his supplementary volume of Haftarah commentary, not in his Humashiii) is...is... certainly something to write home about: Chosenness The prophet addresses the exiled remnant. They are depressed and wonder whether the Eternal still remembers them. Isaiah reassures his people by invoking the image of Israel as God's servant. The image reinforces the idea of Israel's chosenness. In the Torahiv, the people are referred to as the Eternal's "treasured possession," and are to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Because they were mysteriously chosen for divine service, they have a duty to separate themselves from the idolatry that surrounds them and unswerving faith in the Holy One is their obligation. For this they are singled out from all other nations -- strange as that concept must have struck many people then and still does so today. Yet it is around this very concept that Jewish history revolves. To be a Jew was and is a privilege, and in daily Jewish worshipv the idea is repeated time and again: We praise the Maker of heaven and earth who has set us apart from the other families of the earth, giving us a destiny unique among the nations. The choice of Israel goes back to Abraham and was confirmed at Sinai and acknowledged by the people who affirmed, "All that the Eternal has spoken we will do." In this grand view, God's plan for humanity can be put into effect only if Israel is faithful, and then the world at large will see salvation. God and Israel are forever intertwined and dependent on each other. In a direct way, then, human history is the responsibility of the Jews, for it is ultimately they to whom human fate is entrusted. God and the world await the perfection of the Jewish people. It is without question a grand, if "unreasonable," conception. But then, is grandeur ever reasonable? Against all odds, Jews have played a role quite out of proportion to their numbers. They have nonetheless not fared materially better than others. Rather, their task has exposed them to persecution and oppression, to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Yet their belief in the divinely appointed task has never disappeared, even when it has been difficult to maintain it. It was difficult in Isaiah's day, among conditions of exile, and modern times have not eased the problem of believing in a God who chose this people for divine service despite all appearances that would deny such a choice. This is the burden of belief. Isaiah faced it among his contemporaries, and in this respect, conditions are not much different today. Many Jews (as well as many gentiles) think that such a concept has become outmoded. It once served Jews as a survival mechanism, they say, but that does not work any longer in an open, egalitarian society, and consequently there is no further need for it, and all it does is to raise the resentment of others. However, Jews and Christians who see the Torah as a holy book centered in God will counter that the only privilege that this belief entails is the self-assumed obligation to be God's servant at all times and with full devotion. In antiquity, all Israelites took this task upon themselves, not because they were in any way superior to others, but only because God's mysterious plan had so provided. To the ears of the disbelievers, Isaiah's voice sounds strange and disconnected from an often harsh reality; for those who continue to believe in the divine promise, being a member of the Jewish people is an infinite privilege, which is grounded in special obligations, called mitzvot. For them, there is nothing more glorious than to be a servant of the Holy One. (The Haftarah Commentary, pp. 239-240) Where do I start? Where all theology starts, i.e., with biography: My daughter gave birth to a baby boy last week, her mother and I have become happy grandparents, and while he's pretty close to perfection, our expectations are much more modest: I trust that no-one in his surroundings will make him feel that human fate is entrusted unto him. They haven't chosen the name yet, but I have a hunch that it will come from nature, and won't be anything like Ovadiah (Servant of the Lord). When I wrote above that Plaut's comment was "something to write home about", here is just a sample of what I had in mind: ---they have a duty to separate themselves from the idolatry that surrounds them and unswerving faith in the Holy One is their obligation. For this they are singled out from all other nations -- strange as that concept must have struck many people then and still does so today. The key phrase here is to separate themselves from the idolatry; the difference between then and now is that unless we are somewhere in Africa, our neighbors are not pagans but rather monotheists (I'm not sure how to relate to the non-Islamic parts of Asia theologically, but I think the Jewish war against paganism was called off almost two thousand years ago!) ---in daily Jewish worship the idea is repeated time and again: We praise the Maker of heaven and earth who has set us apart from the other families of the earth, giving us a destiny unique among the nations. This is precisely why I don't say alenu; this phrase only makes sense in conjunction with shehem mishtahavim l'hevel varik umitpal'lim el el lo yoshi'avi, but please let's not put it back in... The intimacy between God and Israel is fine, even glorious and comes with many strings attached; but the exclusivity rubs me wrong, and isn't even consistent with other inclusive, universalist passages in Deutero-Isaiahvii. My midrashic answer to the celebration of chosenness would be as follows: זֶה יֹאמַר לַה' אָנִי וְזֶה יִקְרָא בְשֵׁם יַעֲקֹב וְזֶה יִכְתֹּב יָדוֹ לַה' וּבְשֵׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל יְכַנֶּה
zeh yomar l'hashem ani
v'zeh yikra v'shem ya'akov v'zeh yichtov yado l'hashem uv'shem yisra'el y'chaneh
One shall say "I am the Lord's"
Another shall use the name "Jacob" Another shall mark his arm "the Lord's" and adopt the name "Israel" (Isaiah 44:5) One, another, and yet another -- there are three groups here, possibly different ethnicities and rituals, but united in belief in God; "Jacob" and "Israel," transcending biology/genealogy are defined by this belief and have to take on the broadest possible meaning. That's exactly what my kavannahviii is when I say Sh'ma yisraelix: "Yisrael" is whoever is hearing that God is one.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
i*“they called one to the other” from Isaiah 6:3, a phrase much used in Jewish liturgy; I use it here to draw the Jewish reader to the verse I'll quote from the haftarah (the prophetic reading) iiAccording to the Documentary Hypothesis first articulated in the 19th century that believes the Torah consists of various documents from different periods and social milieus iiiEdition of the Pentateuch (Torah) designed for synagogue use viPolemical phrase that caused Jews great embarrassment and trouble and was removed from Ashkenasi (European) prayer books about 200 years ago and restored in some recent Israeli editions viiiIntentionality or focus ixDeuteronomy 6:4 – the central Jewish declaration of faith
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Sifting through two ritual-object-oriented parashot m'hubarot and their haftarot, thankful I'm not spending hours practicing and memorizing the trop(cantellation marks) for a Shabbat service, wondering how the synagogue-going world will be able to keep this up throughout the next 10 parashot of cult-oriented Leviticus... following a hunch that it's probably a special maftir and haftarah (yes, more ritual!) but this time it wasn't boredom but rather sheepish embarrassment realizing that for the last four years, my father has been living and breathing the last part of Ezekiel from which the haftarah is taken, and I have never even read these chapters...it didn't take much time to read through it twice, but most of it still made little sense; ok, I know where to get an advance copy of the commentary! Chapter 40, 41, 42...the haftarah was coming close, and it suddenly moved away from ritual measurements to a more familiar prophetic message: "Remove the violence and thieving, and do justice (45:9)" but then the haftarah went back into ritual, and I was sunk, until the last verse; a very close call...
Ezekiel and the prince*
"So you're traveling to Germany; I knew some Germans in Uzbekistan -- Stalin 'moved' them there -- why is it that everyone can do a 'transfer' except for us?"
Judaism can -- if we so desire-- come up with an answer to this sad sentiment, even in this weekend's liturgical cycle, which mostly deals with ritual matters -- the construction of the mishkan, the portable desert tabernacle (Vayakhel-Pikudei, Exodus 35-40) and the Passover cult (Exodus 12: 1-20 and Ezekiel 45:16 - 46:18).
The last line -- the bottom line -- of the haftarah, suddenly departs from ritual to morality: "The prince may not defraud the people of their land and cause them to be dispersed, cast off from their heritage; if he wants to gift land to his sons, he must do so from his own holdings (Ezekiel 46:18)" Like many of the readers of this commentary, I was raised with the belief that the land of Israel is in some way mine, but I never imagined that my Jewish attachment would come at anyone else's expense. One would have to be totally detached from reality to claim that the Palestinian people have not paid an awful price for our return to Zion; as the years pass, I find it harder and harder to celebrate our ingathering, when it is used to justify their dispersion. What would it take to bring us to overcome our greed and callousness and to follow Ezekiel's unequivoal directive?
A favorite passage of mine from the Talmud includes the following personal prayer of Rabbi Alexandroni:
"Master of the Universe, it should be totally clear to You that we want to do Your will, but two things stop us: the yeast in the dough and the oppression of the nations; may you desire to save us from them, and we will go back to serving you full-heartedly (Berachot 17a)." There's something so naive, but also so hutzpadik, in this statement: is our desire to do God's will really so strong that it should be clear to God? Isn't it rather cheeky to suggest what should be clear to God? Can Jews today, living in unprecedented prosperity and security, really claim that removing the yoke of the nations will take away the yeast in the dough (a leavening agent, a symbol of haughtiness), that keeps us from serving God as we should? What exactly is the secret ingredient that makes matza so spiritually superior to regular bread?
As Yeshayahu Leibovitz constantly reminded us, we cannot celebrate our freedom until we understand our slavery; from the viewpoint of an ancient midrash, just as only 2 out of 600,000 made it out of the desert into the Land, so too, did only 2 out of 600,000 leave Egypt (cf. Rabbi Simai in Sanhedrin 111a). We are free when we dream, and enslaved when we despair. The real miracle in Rabbi Alexandroni is the preservation of will, and beseeching the divine will is his way of identifying the source of hope.
I don't think any single prayer or pious thought will bring us to the Land of Promise (meaning, a land that Jews and Palestinians share willingly and not begrudgedly). But a necessary first step is recognizing what is hopeless, and what will reclaim our faith.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
* originally written for the RHR weekly missive (the Hebrew version follows); a propos "prince," since I didn't have the Sitzfleisch to go through his recently completed draft, I asked my father (avi, mori v'rabi!) for "prince in Ezekiel" in 25 words or less: it's the highest civil authority envisioned by the prophet, responsible for weights and measures, possibly dynastic, with Davidic associations; the memory of monarchic abuse rings clear in 45:9 and 46:18
אתה נוסע לגרמניה? אני פגשתי גרמנים באוזבקיסטאן שהגיעו לשם אחרי שסטאלין גירש אותם לשם -- למה לכולם מותר לעשות טרנספר ורק לנו אסור?"
הייתי מאוד רוצה לקוות שבר-השיח שלי יגיע לבית הכנסת בשבת הקרובה וישמע את השורה האחרונה -- השורה התחתונה, בעצם -- של ההפטרה: "וְלֹא יִקַּח הַנָּשִׂיא מִנַּחֲלַת הָעָם לְהוֹנֹתָם מֵאֲחֻזָּתָם מֵאֲחֻזָּתוֹ יַנְחִל אֶת בָּנָיו לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָפֻצוּ עַמִּי אִישׁ מֵאֲחֻזָּתוֹ" -- יחזקאל מ"ו 18 הפטרת שבת "החודש" מסתיימת עם הפסוק הנ"ל המפציר בנשיא להיזהר ברכושם של אחרים ולא להעבירו לרשות בניו. דאגתו של הנביא איננה רק לטוהר המידות של המנהיג, אלא גם לתוצאה של גזילת האדמה, שהיא למעשה גירוש ונדידה, גלות לכל דבר. אמנם מן הסתם מדובר בנישול בקנה מידה פרטני, אך אין הבדל איכותי בין צרת היחיד וצרתם של הרבים; ספר יחזקאל כולו ספוג בחוויית הגלות, כך שגם כאשר מחשבתו של הנביא נתונה לעתיד, אי אפשר לא לחשוב על המציאות אותה הוא מכיר ומתוכה הוא כותב. ציבור קוראים זה יושב רובו ככולו בארץ האבות, ועם מושג "גלות" יש לנו רק היכרות תיאורטית, משהו שאולי (אם ההסטוריה שלמדנו נכונה, ויש המפקפקים) עבר על קדמונינו לפני אלפיים שנה. אך לא רחוק מכל אחד מאתנו, הן בארץ והן בחו"ל, ישנם אנשים שגלו מארצם לפני ששים שנה, והם ובניהם ובני בניהם עדיין מצפים שהמעוות יתוקן, ושצאצאיו של הנביא יחזקאל לא רק שיקראו את הפסוק הנ"ל ב"שבת החודש" אלא שגם יפנימו אותו ויקיימו את צוויו של אלהי הנביא במלואו. לאורך עמוד וחצי בתלמוד מובאות תפילות אישיות של תנאים. אחת מהן, של ר' אלכסנדרוני, מנוסחת כך: "רבון העולמים גלוי וידוע לפניך שרצוננו לעשות רצונך ומי מעכב? שאור שבעיסה ושעבוד מלכיות. יהי רצון מלפניך שתצילנו מידם ונשוב לעשות חוקי רצונך בלבב שלם" (ברכות י"ז ע"א) יש בתפילה זו תשובה חלקית לשאלה שאני שואל כבר עשרות שנים: איך זה קרה שאנשים שלהם חשובה כל כך שלילת הגולה, יכולים לשלול את החזרה ממנה מאחרים.. ר' אלכסנדרוני טוען שישנם שני סוגים של שיעבוד: הלחץ החיצוני, אותו הוא מכנה שיעבוד מלכויות, והחמץ הפנימי, מטפורה מתאימה בימים אלה שבהם נכנסים רבים מאיתנו להיסטריית נקיונות לקראת סדר פסח. מסתבר שזכרון שיעבוד מלכויות וההיצמדות לתחושת הקורבן יכולים ללוות אותנו זמן רב לאחר שמצבנו הפיזי והמדיני השתפר, וצל השיעבוד ממשיך לשעבד אותנו פסיכולוגית וגם רוחנית. אכן יש משהו חמוץ אצלנו שמונע מאתנו לחשוב על עתיד משותף; אנחנו נאחזים בפחדים ובחוסר הבטחון שלנו, ודוחים את החזרת מה שלקחנו בכח ולא מגיע לנו, כאשר מה שבאמת מניע אותנו זו החמדנות. יהי רצון שעונת הפסח השנה תקרב אותנו לחירות האמיתית, חירות מדאגות, מתירוצים, מפחדים ומשקרים, ונשוב לעשות חוקי רצונך בלבב שלם.
שבת שלום, גרמי
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True to my word, I didn't drink on Purim (my Uncle Ezra, a k a great-uncle Abraham E. Millgram, who always reminded me that we were Hassidim, would not have approved, and a couple of my classmates on ravnet didn't like the spiritual context I put it in last week...Oh, well...), but guess what: I actually found myself intoxicated for most of the 3 1/2 day visit to Israel that occupied the middle of this past week:
Wednesday, on which I followed Ernst Simon's tradition of getting out of Jerusalem on Shushan Purim (and yes, I spent Tuesday IN Jerusalem) was especially rich; I was
drunk with the beauty of the land
drunk with the beauty of the people, and especially the sad beauty of the woman in uniform who gave me her seat on that trip (I'm just getting used to realizing I'm reaching the age where one is offered that courtesy...Shehekheyanu!
drunk hearing the Arabic of a sufi from Nazareth and priests from around there along with a rabbi from the upper Galilee
and initially startled and then gratified/excited to have the soldier sitting behind me on the bus ask me if what I was writing was for publication...he apparently had been reading off my my laptop screen and realized it was about dialog with the Other; he said that's the very situation he's in; I asked him whether he tries to do it in uniform, and he said yes. I asked him what kind of dialog is possible in that condition, and he said it's actually a non-verbal encounter, because he meets the Other on the battlefield. I promised him a copy and he gave me his email address, and we've already had one brief exchange. I realized that I'd rather write for him than for the German Development Service (Deutsche Entwicklungs Dienst ) who commissioned it
and then sobered up real quick when the Russian immigrant I met on one segment of my trip to the airport, upon learning I was living in Germany said, “I knew some Germans in Uzbekistan – Stalin transferred them there; I don't understand why everyone can do transfer except for us...a vote for Lieberman (not Saul, or even Joe...).
Anyway, the article ("Looking for the Streetlamp Instead of the Coin: A Realistic Assessment of Interfaith Dialog in the Middle East"), which I wanted to post here as an ersatz-D'var Torah isn't quite done -- my deadline is Tuesday and if anyone is eager to buy a cat in the bag today with the promise to send me any comment that will save me from really embarrassing myself, I'll be happy to send you the draft.
So, patur b'lo chlum ee efshar, so here's a tiny morsel:
וקרא לך ואכלת מזבחו v'kara l'cha va'achalta mizivho He will invite you and you will eat of his sacrifice (Ex. 34:15)
We could go all sorts of places with this partnership of sacrifice, but I'll stick close to the actual situation described in the text, the danger of sharing a fleischig meal with the indigenous population. This is not the thing I'd most like to do with them -- it sort of reminds me of my visits to Bedouin at the beginning of Eid el Fitr and Eid el Adha, when they say to me, look, we know you're a vegetarian, so would you please go home so we can kill the animal -- and even less tempting to me than a strong drink...
It's definitely a risky thing to share your plate, but the parashah actually teaches us that xenophobia is not the answer -- the s... hit the fan two chapters back, when
וישב העם לאכול ושתו ויקומו לצחק vayeshev ha'am le'echol v'shato, vayakumu l'tzahek The people sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to... (play around? -- Ex. 32:6b)
Whatever the playing around consisted of, it was pure home grown Israelite, without the help of impure outside influences; the command in chapter 34 is not more than a scapegoating, a projection on the Other of an inner fault or need.
Back to my drunkenness: the most intoxicated I got this week was with a Bedouin who for years has been trying, through active non-violent resistance, to get back the land his tribe lost almost sixty years ago. On the cadenza of this visit, last night before my early morning flight out, he just happened (?) to be visiting his son, who lives near the airport, and I was able to eat labane and drink tea (of course!), catch a few winks and then be driven to my flight. Nuri wears his heart on his sleeve, and nothing opens my own up and inspires me to deal with the challenges in my own life like spending time with him.
If we only shared our food with the indigenous more often (and took lessons in hachnasat orhim,hospitality, from them), this whole thing would look entirely different.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeremy
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