Parashat Chukat, Numbers 19:1 - 22:1

The portion of Chukat (literally, “the constitution of”[1]) is one of the most baffling of all Torah portions. At its center – like many a portion before and after – stands Moshe. The same Moshe who was aptly named “the slave of God.”[2]  The same Moshe on which the Torah bestowed the greatest of honors: “And never again has a prophet risen in Israel as Moshe, which God Himself knew face to face.”[3]  And yet, in this week’s portion, Moshe is not being praised. He is not being hailed as a great leader. Instead, Moshe is being punished.

This, of course, is the story of “Mei Ha’meriva”—the water of dispute.  According to the story, the People of Israel were complaining, not for the first time, about the harsh conditions in the desert. This time they demanded water. Moshe, as usual, turns to God. And God, as usual, does not let His slave down: “Take this cane and assemble the community . . . and you shall speak to the rock in front of their eyes, and it shall provide water.”[4]   Moshe, as always, complies: he takes his cane; he assembles the community; he tells them that from this very rock he would produce water.  But then something else happens: “And Moshe raised his arm, and hit the rock with his cane twice. And many waters came out [of the rock] and the community drank.”[5]

For this act – apparently[6] – Moshe was punished.

And the punishment was severe. God famously prevents Moshe from entering the Promised Land, the same land towards which Moshe has led the People for over 40 years.

Other than the reasons for this punishment, many of the commentators dealt extensively with its proportionality, or the relation between Moshe’s “crime” and the severity of the “punishment.”  Today, however, I would like to comment on another aspect of the punishment: its content. As far as we know, this was the first immigration restriction.  God, “Adon Kol Ha’Aretz” – the Lord of all the Universe – prevents Moshe from entering into a country he very much like to enter. Today, this “punishment” is extremely prevalent – indeed, the immigration policy of many countries is specifically designed to prevent people who want to enter from doing just that. Technically speaking, however, such a restriction is no longer considered a “punishment” at all (therefore, for example, the constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” does not apply to refusals of entry into the United States). 

But it is. For anyone who ever attempted to flee one country – either due to slavery, personal attacks, or persecution of any kind – and enter another, the inability to set foot in the new country is one of the harshest punishments imaginable. That is how many Jews felt as they were trying to flee Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, only to receive a cold shoulder from many nations in the West, including, unfortunately, this great country.

Today, too, the sign of “no entry” is shown too often to people the world over who attempt to find a new, safer home for themselves and their families.  But not only people who move across countries are subject of harsh immigration restrictions; in some cases, people become refugees in their own countries. These “Internally Displaced Persons” (IDPs) are growing in an alarming rate, and their current number eclipses 27 million.[7] 

Social-justice organizations, such as the AJWS, are stepping in to help. In the last year alone, the organization raised substantial funds and mobilized volunteers and resources to provided humanitarian aid to the millions – millions! – of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons who are the victims of the Darfur genocide.[8]  Other organizations lend their hand to refugees and IDPs world over – from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe – in order prevent them from “dying on the mountain,” overlooking their own Promised Land – as happened to Moshe.

All this brings me to my final point:  Moshe may have been punished because he disobeyed the word of God.[9]  But this was not the underlying reason here. The real reason was the “meri’va” – the dispute over water in the community.  In other words, whenever a community is torn – over water, over land, over whatever resource – refugees and IDPs are the inevitable outcome.  That was the case at the time of the Torah; that is the case today.  Our first step in helping those victims, therefore, should be in trying to avoid disputes within our communities in the first place.  Only when peace – Shalom – would finally arrive, the problem of refugees and IDPs would also come to an end.   

Shabbat Shalom.

    

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[1]  Numbers 19:2; see also Numbers 20:21 (“And [the Torah] shall be for them an eternal constitution.”).  

[2] Deuteronomy 34:5

[3] Deuteronomy 34:10.

[4] Numbers 20:8.

[5] Numbers 20:11.

[6]  There are a myriad of views among the sages relating to the precise reasons for which Moshe was punished.  Suffice it to say that Eben-Ezra, the famous middle-ages scholar, noted that there “too many” views, which is a good enough reason to assume that none is particularly persuasive. 

[7] http://www.internal-displacement.org/

[8] http://ajws.org/emergencies/darfur/sudan_relief_and_advocacy_fund.html

[9] Numbers 20:24; see also Numbers 27:14.

Parashat Korah, Numbers 16:1-18:32

This week’s portion, Korah – named after its protagonist – brings home an important point about opposition and factions in Judaism: Both are not welcome.  The story is well known: Moshe encounters an opposition in the desert; he calls God for help; God kills them all. End of story. No other reported accounts of opposition appear throughout the forty years of wondering the desert. A very effective lesson.

I would like today to dedicate my limited space to a closer look at that story, and see whether the point about controversy – which, of course, failed as a matter of principle in Judaism ever since, as Halacha is the place for finding a plurality of opinions – was justified in the first place.   

Korah and His Followers – The Text

The story of Korah and his band of supporters (or, as they may be called today, his “posse”), is much more interesting and nuanced than appears at first site – the way it is abbreviated above, for example, which is the common (abbreviated) form of telling that story. 

Our first encounter with the figure of Korah is as a Levite – a servant of God, a person who has a special status among the many former servants who by now are walking for a little over a year in the desert. Recall also that only recently those people have accepted – in essence – their divine death sentence, as they all – as a generation – were judged to not enter the Promised Land by virtue of their collective adoption of the libelous report issued by the Spies.  So the People are angry; they are frustrated; they are tired; and they just learned that there’s no end in sight. With such leadership, it should not come as a great surprise that opposition emerges.

What is interesting about Korah’s actions is how calculated they are. Again, Korah himself is no shrinking violet – he’s a member of (in today’s terms) the North-Eastern Elite. But he doesn’t stand alone; along for the ride he brings an all-star team of 250 “chieftain of the community, chosen in the assembly, men of repute.” (Numbers 16:2) (Etz Hayim trans.).  Then these 250 “men of repute” gather, publicly, against Moshe. But in a very clever political maneuver, they do not argue that he never fulfilled his campaign promises, or that the water is no longer tasty.  They do not argue that they should arrive in Israel way prior to the forty-year mark, or that Moshe is no longer fit to lead.. Instead, Korah raises a philosophical-religious point, which is not only more sophisticated than the ones you even hear today in political rallies across the world; rather, it is a point which remains without a good retort until today. And here is Korah’s crystallized, short-but-crisp argument:

The entire People – everyone – is holly, and God is within them; Why would you [Moshe and Aharon] raise yourselves above the God’s congregation? [Num. 16:3]

 

Note that the argument, which is multifaceted, contains two political-science concepts: First, equality. Everyone is equally holly; God resides within all of us equally. Why would you stand above us? [The notion of equality, as it conflicts with the idea of human leadership (as opposed to divine leadership by God), was a source of great contention among Halachic scholarship. Our sages, who were experts on providing catchy phrases as answers to incredibly complex issues, tried to solve this dilemma with the famous (paradoxical) statement that the human leader is “a first among equals.”] Second, and very close to equality, is the populist notion of the sovereignty of the people (a variation on the theme of the notion of direct democracy as introduced by the ancient Greeks): We, the people, are all capable of leading ourselves; why should you select yourselves to do the job for us?

Note that though the argument is a direct attack on Moshe, it is not, at least on its face, either a direct attack on God (which is represented, according to the story, by Moshe) or a direct endorsement of Korah (or any of his people) as alternative leaders.  All it says is that since we are all equal no one human should feel – and act as if they are – superior.

Clearly, however, Moshe understands the challenge well. In a series of elaborate maneuvers – which involve fire, sacrifice, dramatic showing, and, of course, the by-now-unavoidable plea by Moshe to an angry God not to kill all of them (“would one person sin and You shall be wrathful on his entire community? – Moshe “kills the opposition” by creating a miracle, whereas “and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them whole with their households, all Korah’s people and all their possessions, they went down alive into hell, and the earth closed over them and they vanished from the congregation.” (Num. 16:32-33).

Lessons from the Korah Story

What are the lessons of this story? Clearly, first and foremost – just as we learned in the story of the sons of the High Priest who dared suggest additional (“foreign”) fire and were killed for that – opposition to God, and in particular to his only true messenger, Moshe, is forbidden, and punishable by death.

Second, we learn that ever since early history, every society – even one governed by a true slave of God, a person who is extremely humble and always thinks about the good of the community – would, at some point, yield a band of strong opposition. The Founding Fathers have hoped that this would not happen here in America (see Federallist No. 10 on “factions”).  Others may have hoped that it would not happen in the Promised Land itself (indeed, throughout the first 29 years of its existence, between 1948-1977, Israeli was ruled by one party only (not to mention one person, who, eventually, was voted out by his own ruling party). But it happened both in Israel and the U.S., as it happened in every democracy before or since. The question of whether democracy is the best form of government has also been resolved, or so it seems, following a horrible world war. Still, it is useful to compare those models to the God-centered, one-man model that rejected the notion of opposition with all its might.

            Finally, it is worth mentioning that even within Judaism, the idea of one-view-trumps-all was rejected eventually, and rejected entirely. The entire Halachic canon – the Mishna, the Talmud, the Tosfot, the Q&A, and many, many other documents – are rife with opinion pluralism. Even this humble blog represent yet another drop in the ocean of Jewish pluralism. And that’s the model which, eventually, won. So thank you Korah for your important lesson, and our sincere regrets for your bad timing.

Shabbat Shalom.                                                                                                                            

Parashat Shlach Lecha, Numbers 13:1-15:41

This week’s portion, Shlach-Lecha (literally, “send over,” as in “send over people to Israel”) tells one of the most famous stories of the Desert Generation – indeed, a story that defines that generation – that of the Twelve Spies.

The Story of the Spies

The story, in essence, is that:  God instructs Moshe to send people to scope the Land of Canaan.  (This seemingly minor point – that God instructs Moshe to do so rather than that it was Moshe’s idea – is quite important. More on that later.)  Moshe, in essence, sends an “all-star team” consisting of all twelve leaders their tribes. Among them are two that would become very famous later – Ye’ho’shu’a Ben Nun (also known as Joshua here), and Calev Ben Yefoo’nai (aka Caleb). Moshe does not satisfy himself with mere forming of the committee; he also provides them with a detailed framework of their report: where to go, what to look for (“Is the people sitting there strong or weak? Consisting of many or the few? And what is the nature of the country? Is it good or is it bad? Etc., etc., - Numbers 13:17-20).  He also instructs them to bring “from its fruit.” The narrator is kind enough to tell us that that was the season for grapes (Num. 13:20).

The twelve spies are on sent their way, and they return after 40 days. They do bring grapes – hence the famous picture of two men carrying a huge cluster of grapes on a pole – as well as some other fruits. They also praise the Land as “flowing with milk and honey.” But then they come to the thrust of their report (and, interestingly, unlike most “spies-report” before and since, this one is done in public, when the entire people can listen and opine):  “Alas, the people occupying in the Land is fierce, and the cities are as fortresses and very big, and we have also seen the offspring of the Giant.” (Num. 13:28).  This, understandably, upset the listening people to no end; Calev, in response, is required to “hush all the people,” and tell Moshe that “[despite all that] we could still do it”; or, in more modern parlance, “Yes we can.”  The rest of the spies, however, concluded differently: “No, we would not be able to come to this country, as the people there are stronger than us.” (Num. 13:31)

The rest of the story is well known: The people of Israel become incredibly upset – they weep the whole night and complain to Moshe and Aharon, demanding that they would return to Egypt; Calev and Jushua try to save the day, claiming this Land is “very, very good” (twice the text reads “very”) and begging the people to trust God. The people, in return, decide to stone them (nothing new here – just read some of the responses (called in Israel “talk-back”) to the pieces published in the Israeli e-newspapers on the same Land today). God – not for the first time – has had enough; just like after the Golden Calf story, he confesses to Moshe on His wishes to destroy the people. Moshe pleads back – in one of the most moving and inspiring defense “closing arguments” ever heard (do read: Num. 14:13-19). God, in response (like any great Judge), decides to split the offer: While not killing all the people, He would “only” condemns them to wonder in the desert for 40 years – “as the number of days that you have wondered the Land; forty days – one day for each year” (Num. 14:34). In addition, God kills all of the spies – other than Calev and Joshua, of course – and then, to complete, kills (through the Amalekies, the eternal enemy of the Israelites) many other Israelis who dared challenge Him and climb to top of the local hill. End of story.

Lessons of the Story

The most obvious lesson of the story – as it is taught for years in Israeli schools, Sunday Schools, and otherwise – is that those who trust God are rewarded accordingly, and those who do not are punished accordingly.

Moreover, those who dare “libel” the Land of Canaan should be severely punished – by death, no less; while those who only sang its praises and described its beauty and fertility will become the future leaders of the People of Israel.

So far, so good. Or is it?

As loyal readers of this blog may come to expect, some serious doubts may be casted on this narrative upon closer reading. First, it was neither Moshe’s nor the people’s idea to be sent as spies to Israel – God Himself gave the order. That, of course, leaves us scratching our heads – why would God need to gather intelligence about the Promised Land? Is there anything He doesn’t know about it? “Of course not,” our religious friends would smile to us, knowingly, “He did not do that for Himself, He did it for the People – so they would know.” [Another option, according to which it was Moshe’s idea, but that he only invoked the highest authority possible to persuade the best-of-the-best to go is not “religious enough,” so we can put it aside for the moment.] Let us assume, then, that this task was, in Lincoln’s famous words, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” So what went wrong?

The people who were sent – not shrinking violets are they – felt a duty to report things “as they saw it.” This is the most sacred duty of every spy and reconnaissance unit person ever since: as someone who was trained to perform this very same task more than 3,000 years later, I can personally testify that the value of “truth in reporting” is the most basic – and sacred – value we were taught to keep from day one; even – and in particular – if the news we had were not good news. Indeed, in military news, “good news” are often very suspicious; the spies – or the reconnaissance people – are expected to bring bad news, so the generals in the back can properly prepare for the worst.

The ten spies, therefore, didn’t “libel” the Promised Land at all. They told the story as they saw it (which, to be sure, is also extremely logical): There is a Land, at the heart of the Middle East, surrounded by deserts, hostile nations, and rough weather. Yet the Land is awesome – it is fertile, it is lush with milk and honey, and it is beautiful. Not surprisingly, this piece of land is dutifully guarded – the cities are fortified, and the people are fierce. It would not be easy – if at all possible – to concur it from them.

Any of that sounds not familiar today, 3,000 years later? Maybe they were not so wrong after all…

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Be'ha'a'lot'cha, Numbers 8:1-12:16

This week’s portion, Be’ha’a’lot’cha – literally, “when you raise” (here in the unusual use of “when you raise the candles against the Menorah”) – provides us with a rare opportunity.  Ever wondered what it is like to wonder the desert for forty years? Welcome to this portion of the week. From “when they went” to “what they ate” – it is all there. Accordingly, this week’s post would be a bit different: instead of commenting on two points appearing in the text, we’ll have a quick Q&A on life in the desert.  For the readers who are interested in a less-religious commentary, I also offer a one at the margin of each answer.

Life in the Desert: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Did they actually travel every day?

A: Not always, but generally yes.  The big principle, of course was that: “According to God the People of Israel would go, and according to God they shall make camp.” (Numbers 9:18; and again, 9:23).  At times, the divine cloud rested over camp several days, and then they would remain in that place.  But generally speaking, that cloud resided over the Mishkan in the evening, and was lifted in the morning – signaling that it would be ok to travel during the day. In some cases, they Israelites travel at night time as well. At times they walked three days straight.

Non Religious Explanation: Life in the desert is tough.  Different terrain, changing weather, and continuing issues with this enormously large traveling group (over 600,000 grown up men) require flexibility in moving arrangement. A good pattern is to move every day, and to rest during the night, but that pattern has to yield to the changing circumstances.

Q: Was there a special order of traveling?

A: Yes. First in the group was the tribe of Judah, with their military commander (Nachshon – a name and title that, until today, signals (in Hebrew) “he who dares to stand in front” of the army, and to run into battle.) Then two other tribes, with their commanders. Then the Mishkan itself. Then the tribes of Re’uven, Shimon, and Gad. Then, separately from the Mishkan, the Kahaties – those in charge of actually erecting and dismantling the Mishkan each time the People made camp.  Then the other tribes. And then, at the very end – as sweep – the tribe of Dan and its commander.

NRE: Clearly, considerations of safety and utility are well utilized here. The notion that the strongest part of the army is in the front has been a leading strategy for the Israelis since those days and until today. The strategic placement of the Mishkan – at the top of the group, but not the very top, as well as the separation between the Mishkan and its workers, all guarantee a smooth operation and quick set-up and breakdown. Great work by Moshe here.

 Q: What did they eat?

A: Despite the widely-spread myth of “Manna from Heaven,” the Israelites complained at times about the narrow selection (nothing new here, either).  This week, their complaint is especially detailed (and visual, I may add): “[And the People] cried and said:  Who would provide us with meat? We all remember the sea-food that we have eaten in Egypt for free, and the squash, the water melons, the leek, the onions, and the garlic; and now our soles are dried – there is nothing but the Manna in our eyes.” (Numbers 11:5-6).  In response, occasionally, Moshe would provide some other culinary choices, such as meat. But that, in turn, would create some issue of its own – widespread food poisoning, etc. (See Numbers 11:33-34).  

NRE: Water and food supplies are easily the hardest part of this entire operation. The great thing about the Manna was its freshness – every day the people would only get enough for the next day (except for Shabbat, when they collected for the weekend in advance). Those who dared to collect more were severely punished – sometimes by God, sometimes by a severe food poisoning. Every deviation from this strict diet had its consequences, but Moshe had to balance between his needs and the People’s complaints – so he provided them meat (and other options) every now and again, only to prove them, once again, that Manna is really from Heaven.

Q: Was Moshe the only person in charge?

A: We know, from many portions ago (Yitro, Exodus 18:18), that Moshe could not handle his judicial power obligations all on his own, so his father-in-law provided him with a structured legal system based on himself as the sole Justice of the Supreme Court (see there for details). But today, we learn that his executive powers, too, were hard to handle with a group of that size and for that duration. After pleading with God (a wonderful one, btw – check out Numbers 11:12), Moshe receives assistance in the form of 70 elderly wise men, who help him in carrying the load. Later, this number would form the basis for the famous Sanhedrin, a joint legislative-executive body of the small Jewish community in Israel. (Note that despite his hardships in the Article II and III issues – executive and judiciary departments – Moshe leaves to God (and himself, by delegation) the sole authority on legislation.)

NRE: Clearly, the model of a single leader as the only legislator, executive, and judge is unattainable; but it is interesting to note that the request for help comes from Moshe himself – not from the people (who doesn’t seem to mind) or from God (who is apparently content with channeling all three branches to one person). Empirically speaking, it seems, the separation of powers is not only a wise poly-sci choice (just ask Motesquieu and then the Founding Fathers, who read him closely), but also a necessary fact of life.

Q: What about the Occasional Catastrophe?

A: This week’s portion alone tells us the story of three emergencies/mini-catastrophes: First, a fire consumes part of the camp’s edge (Num. 11:1-3). Second, as we have seen earlier, many people die due food poisoning, following the People’s demand for meat (Num. 11:33-34). And finally, a mysterious skin disease afflicts Miriam, Moshe’s sister, perhaps in response to a bizarre derogatory comment she made against Moshe’s black-skinned wife. (Num. 12:1, 10)  All that are issues Moshe had to contend with on a daily basis, with the help of God, of course.

NRE: I believe these incidents, who were reported and then included in the text forever, are only a tip of the iceberg of what Moshe had to deal with on a daily basis. With no medical facilities (or much knowledge, for that matter), no sanitation, harsh conditions, and a people who was never used to long-term camping, those occasional catastrophes were probably a part of the people’s daily routine.  The fact that Moshe successfully brought them all to the Land of Israel is a testament to his fantastic leadership skills – not only from the religious perspective, but also – and perhaps mainly – from the pragmatic, day-to-day leadership perspective. Not for naught does this portion concludes with the following compliment:  “And the person Moshe is very humble – more than any other person on earth.” Indeed, we had a very humble leader then. I wish we had more of those today.

Shabbat Shalom.

       

Parashat Nasso, Numbers 4:21-7:89

This week’s portion, Nasso – literally, an order to count (as in “go and count the people of Israel”) – is the longest of all portions of the week. Then again, it is also a great example of the rule that quantity does not necessarily yield quality. But enough about me.

The portion’s main issue – other than the continuing them of the census and its importance, with which we dealt last week – is infidelity.  More accurately, a married woman’s infidelity and its consequences. In looking at this issue I will venture, almost for the first time in this blog, to the very muddy waters (more in a second on this choice of words) of the Torah’s view of women. I am aware how dangerous this terrain may be, yet still I would like to offer my two cents. I begin with what – thankfully – has by now become a standard criticism of the text.  I then move to suggest a surprising possible justification of the ancient practice described in this week’s portion. I conclude with some general thoughts of the text and its relation to women.

The Water of Bitterness

The ceremony of the “the water of bitterness and curse” may be viewed as a typical (and unfavorable) biblical treatment of women. To begin with, the text does not even mention, let alone discuss, a situation in which the husband – not the wife – is suspected of cheating while the wife is “fraught with jealousy.” Not here. Instead, all we have is a situation where the woman is suspected of being disloyal to her husband, to “have gone astray and broken faith” with another man (nice, creative translation by JPS here) (Numbers 5:12).  What would a husband to do in this situation?

According to this week’s portion, the husband has to go to the priest.  To the religious authority (which, coincidently, comprises of all men – then and now, more than 2,000 years later). In a description reminiscent of the later “Salem witchcraft trials” and the famous “drowning test” –if the accused woman has drowned, she was innocent, but had she lived she was guilty of witchcraft – the text goes in great detail through what the poor suspected woman has to go through:

“And the priest made the woman stand before God, making her hair undone, and then he gave unto her hands [holy water (mixed with) the soil of the Tabernacle . . . this was] … the bitter, cursing water.  And the Priest swore that woman in, and told her: If no man has slept with you, and if you have not gone sinfully astray under you man, you shall be cleared by this water of bitterness and curse . . . [but if not,] your stomach would distend and your thighs will sag . . . and the woman would say: Amen and Amen.” (The full description, which is heavily edited here, may be found in Numbers 5:16-31).

Importantly, the text provides a nice alternative to the likely physical response the woman may have to the bitter water: if her stomach would not “distend,” then the suspected woman would be cleared of all suspicion, declared as “pure,” and even be “planted a seed” (become pregnant) (Numbers 5:28). [Loyal readers of this blog may look back at the discussion we had on the first verse of Parashat Tazri’a (Levit. 12:1), where, again, our sages has shown clear preference against naming a portion “A Woman”; there, too, the verse deals with the planted seed in the woman’ womb.]  

While the text provides no data, one may only venture to guess how many poor women could actually survive the test – which their husbands, again, had no need to take under similar circumstances – and be declared “pure.” To reiterate, this ritual is not dealing with the case of well-proved infidelity cases. Rather, we are dealing here with mere suspicions, rumors, and innuendoes; all we have in fact is “the wind of jealousy” by the husbands.

When I first read this text, I was appalled. To me, it represented everything that was wrong with the Torah’s treatment of women. It reminded me of my first class of Jewish Law in my final year at the Hebrew University Law School. By then, we were no longer viewing our professors with the same awe and revere that were the staple of our first year.  So when the Instructor opened the class by announcing that the Israeli Law of Equality of Women’s Rights – a mainly declaratory, though still important, act of legislation passed by Israeli Knesset very early in the life of the Jewish State – that this Act has “violated a delicate balance struck over thousands of years by Jewish sages with regards to women’s rights” I could no longer take this. “It is quite the opposite” – I told the instructor, shortly before leaving the class for good – “The State of Israel has corrected an imbalance that lasted through thousands of years with regards to the rights of Jewish women, due mostly to sages of Jewish thought who intentionally and creatively discriminated against women.”

That was how I felt when I read the text initially.  

Later Developments – in Halacha and Within Me

In part, it seems that my sense is disgust was somewhat jutified. During the Mishna period, the “Water of Bitterness” test was abolished. (3 Mishna, Sotah, Chapter 9 mishna 9).  The reason stated to this surprising state of affair may be more telling than the act of abolition itself: “Mi’she’rabu Ha’me’na’a’fim” – when cases of infidelities became too many, there was no longer need for the test.  In other words, the deterring effect of the test was lost in the “sea” of infidelity incidences. But a careful reading of the text shows an even more interesting feature: the Mishna does not say: “Mi’she’rabu Ha’me’na’a’fot” – when the women infidelity cases became too many; but rather “when the infidelity cases [by all!] became too many” then the test was abolished. Here we have an initial recognition – very implicit, very hesitant, almost secret – in the fact that perhaps the initial test was wrong, as it applied to women alone. Perhaps not only women should have been accused of such an act. Perhaps men, too, are fallible.

But not only have our sages changed their mind. I did, too. I came to view the test in a different light. I realized that – at the time, and within that context – women required a great degree of protection from their jealous husbands.  That, sometimes, these women were in a state of clear and present danger to their very lives, just by virtue of being suspected of committing adultery. (Hmm… Is that really so different from today?) And that by providing the test – horrible as it may seem to us today – the Jewish religion has stepped forward to end this situation and to protect those women (clearly in a manner less than satisfactory, but still).  To be more specific, the notion that a priest – the prime religious authority – may absolve a woman of that cloud, in a final manner and with the blessings of God, is a huge step towards the protection of women’s right. [Moreover, as I was poring some sugar into my baby son’s bitter medicine – he is seek this week – I was thinking that maybe some thoughtful Priests pored some sugar into those bitter waters back then, to make it easier on the women.]  Again, I don’t know if any of this is true. I don’t know how many women, if any, were absolved by this test. But the very option granted by our religion to clear a woman from any unfaithful suspicion – with the authority of God, no less – should, in my mind, be looked upon favorably, even if the actual means used to effectuate this thought were inhumane by today’s standards. At least for that thought, the Torah’s text should be absolved.

Shabbat Shalom,

Doron    

    

  

Parashat Ba'Midbar, Numbers 1:1 - 4:20

This week’s portion, Ba’midbar (literally, in the desert) opens the penultimate book of the series of five known as the Books of Moses (or, in Hebrew, Torat Moshe).  It begins with an accurate time stamp – God speaks to Moses on the first day of the second month of the second year from the day they left Egypt – one year and one month, to the day, after the exodus.

And what concerns God on that day? The exact number – or “Numbers” as the English version provides (this is the title of the Book in English) – of the People of Israel.  In other words, God orders a census. And that brings me to a point I began talking about last week – that very little had changed between then and now.

The Census – Then & Now

By now you probably have heard (perhaps more than you wanted) about “Census 2010” – the mandatory counting by the federal government of the People of the United States.  To me, this latest census is strikingly similar to the first census ever taken – the one we read about this week in our Portion. Allow me to demonstrate.

           

i.                    The Number – 600,000

The total number of the people (and by “people” the text means only men over the age of 20 – see Numbers 1:3) counted in the first census was exactly 603,550 (Numbers 2:32).  This number is strikingly similar to the approximated number used a year before, on the day of the exodus, “approximately (“Ke”) 600,000 men, notwithstanding children.” (Exodus 12:37).

While this number is not identical to the 300 million or so Americans living in the U.S. today (ok, ok – it does not even remotely resemble it), it certainly is identical to the number of people who conduct the census in America today; or, in the words of the Census’ Director (not God, the current one): “A Note to my 600,000 New Colleagues.” (available at http://blogs.census.gov/2010census/ ).

ii.                  The Method

Today, just like the first Census, the actual counting is achieved through districting – allocating the entire lot into smaller and smaller lots, and having count each of those smaller lots until – in the aggregate – we reach the final number (see Numbers chapter one for an extremely detailed description). This may sound quite trivial today, but in my mind this is one of the very few things that we are doing today precisely the way they were conducted thousands of years ago (and with the same amount of success, I may add).

iii.                The Reason

Why a census? We all heard the “formal” reasons – a proper allocation of federal budget that is proportional (or number dependent) in nature, such as funds allocated to education, police, infrastructure, and, in fact, almost anything. There are myriad of other reasons cited on today’s census website (“Why It Is Important?” http://2010.census.gov/2010census/why/index.php ).  Yet part of the reason so many people try to evade the census’ pollsters (and the reason the Government today had to recruit 600,000 strong to do the job) is that they fear that counting all the people would provide the government with a lot of power – too much power – to govern over its citizens. Indeed, there’s a sense that knowledge is power, and absolutely accurate knowledge may lead to absolute power. I would not like to dwell into this weak version of conspiracy theory, (“weak,” counter intuitively, because it does have some factual basis) but I would love to leave it to you to draw the proper analogy with the ancient ultimate pollster entity – and the reason He was interested in the exact number.

The Prophecy: Hypothetical, Not Actual

From the census – a scientific, data-oriented, fact-based, empirical experiment, we are moving this week into the world of moral philosophy – the untested, hypothetical, purposively inaccurate realm of biblical prophecy.

This week’s Haphtarah – Hosea 2:1 – begins with a statement that is quite contradictory to the subject-matter of our portion: “And the number of the People of Israel has been like the grain of sand in the ocean, which cannot be measured and cannot be counted . . . [but God told them:] You are not my people.” I will not dwell here on the heavier conundrum posed by the text – why did God waited until the Jewish People has arrived at that number to break that news – but rather concentrate on a much more mundane question:  Why does the portion text take so much pains to reach an accurate number, while the “prophecy version” insists on a number that neither countable nor measurable?

The answer to this seemingly trivial question is actually quite deep, and stands at the heart of really understanding the nature of Jewish prophecy (and for that matter, all true prophets) over the generations.  And this true understanding can be summarized in the wonderful phrase – appearing originally in the Tosaphot (Yevamot 50, 71) and invoked countless times by Leibowitz – that “the prophet does not engage in prophecy but for the matters that are ought to be.” In other words, prophecy is prescriptive, not descriptive in nature; it tells us in which direction we should go, not in which direction we are actually going. Indeed, for thousands of years many of the prophecies written into the text did not come true – an evidence, for many, that they were wrong (or that the prophets who made them were charlatans). But rather than an evidence of incompetence of the prophets, those unsubstantiated prophecies may only serve as an evidence of our own incompetence – our own inability to live up to their desired ideals. And that, to a large extent, is the difference between the actual and the hypothetical.  

Shabbat Shalom,

Doron

Parsaht Be'Har-Be'Chu'ku'tai Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34

This week’s two portions – Be’har (literally, “on the mountain”), and Be’Chuku’tai (literally, “in my laws”) – mark the end of the third book, the book of Leviticus.  They contain the famous laws of “shmee’ta” – the innovative idea that every seventh year the land itself has to rest, just like we humans rest every seventh day.  They also contain other, more familiar religious laws such as the prohibition on the making of idols (Levit. 26:1), the decree to keep the Shabat (26:2), and others.  At the end of the Chapter 26, we see a dramatic concluding remark: “These are the statutes, laws, and doctrines that God provided between Himself and the Israelite People at Mount Sinai at the hand of Moshe.”  (26:46)

But other than those well-established rules, this week’s portions discuss two very interesting concepts – the notion of business cycles, and the notion of negative rewards (or sanctions) for bad behavior.  To me, both demonstrate that apparently not much has changed since the time the Torah has been written. I will disucss them in turn. 

On Business Cycles and Old Recessions

The modern theory of business cycles – the notion that markets function in predictable stages, notably four: (1) expansion; (2) crisis; (3) recession; and (iv) recovery – was only developed in the twentieth century by economists like Joseph Schumpeter.  Yet the idea that economic activity operate in waves, and that sometimes people find themselves on top and sometimes on the bottom, is as ancient as markets themselves.

This week’s portion is famous for its detail discussion of the laws of Sh’meeta, which I mentioned earlier – the careful consideration given to the ground, the main production source of the day. In a limited sense, this is also a discussion of a business cycle, though one that is self created. However, to me, the more interesting part of the portion relates to the very detailed account of what happens when people are suddenly affected by economic hardship. What happens, for example, when your relative is forced to sell a part of his land as he no longer can hold onto it; when someone had to sell his lucrative dwelling home behind the protective walls of the city (the then-Upper East Side, I presume); what happens to other dwelling homes that are sold, without a wall (insert your favorite wall-less neighborhood here); what happens when your relative lost his job; and so on and so forth. (Levit. 25:25-55)

Though the laws dealing with these situations are fascinating – providing, in essence, a model for market-created social safety net, including the (now famous) restriction on usury loans – I am more interested here in the very phenomenon of people who fell on hard economic times. More importantly, I am interested in how society -- according to Judaism -- should treat those people. This, to me, shows not only that this unfortunate phenomenon was prevalent way before the Great Depression or our current economic crisis, but that the Jewish religions saw it as a religious obligation to treat those people with dignity, honor, and hope.  The message here is simple: You better treat those people well today, because tomorrow you might be the person needing that kind of support. The debate in Washington today over the creation of a new consumer protection agency or the concept of a “private” bail-out – a direct government assistance to people in need – are but a faint echo to this comprehensive set of rules that was created more than two thousand years ago to properly deal with business cycles and their effect. Once again, we can be proud of our wise sages (or God, if you believe He is the author of the text) that identified a social issue and created a comprehensive way of dealing with it.

The “She’ma” and Sanctions for Bad Behavior

While business cycles are entirely a secular phenomenon – no God is involved in either the creation or solution of the issue (with the proviso, of course, that everything is done in His command, again for those readers who hold this view) – the next issue is anything but.

The She’ma – “She’ma Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad” – is by far the most famous of Jewish texts.  It consists of two parts, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz explained in length (in English, see The Reading of Shema in Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State 37 (Harvard 1992)). The first part of the She’ma, which is presented as an absolute demand (or a Kantian categorical imperative), orders every Jewish person to love the Lord our God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might. (And Rabbi Akiva says: “with all his soul – meaning even when they are taking away your soul (killing you) – you should still love Him.”) I would not dwell here on the beautiful issue of why the word love was chosen to portray the desired – nay, decreed(!) – relationship between the person of faith and God. I would just suggest that love is the greatest of human feelings, the strongest, the most expressive, and thus no other human emotion could be chosen for the task.

The second part of the She’ma is framed as a conditional demand (or, in Kantian terms, a conditional imperative). It begins with the words “And if you shall hear [Me],” and promises a set of rewards for those who would follow the ways of the Jewish Lord.  Leibowitz dwells here on the notion of “Lishma” and “Lo Lishma” (a faith for its own sake, which is the one mentioned in the first part, and a lesser, though much more prevalent, form of faith, to gain a reward, appearing in the second) – an issue I dealt with in previous posts. But for my purposes today, I would like to remark on what is missing from the She’ma.  The two sections (I omit, for a second, the third part of Ts’tsit) are very positive in nature. They describe no sanction, no punishment, no negative reward for not following the ways of God. 

That part is supplied by today’s portion. And in droves.

The portion of “Be’Chukutai” begins with the now-familiar text of “If you shall follow my laws, and keep my decrees . . . then I shall provide your rain in time (etc., etc.)” – much like the second part of the She’ma.  But then the text moves onto a third part that does not appear in the She’ma:

"But if you shall not listen to me, and shall not follow my decrees, and if you reject my rules and despise my laws . . . then I shall do the following onto you:" And here the text provides a parade of horribles, including plagues, losing in wars, turning to enemy slaves, having no fruits from the ground, death of domestic animals, and so on and so forth, including being forced to eat the very flesh of your own sons and daughters. (Levit. 26:29).   

To me, that shows – once again – that not much has changed since the time the text was written. Yes, it is very nice to discuss categorical imperatives – doing things because they are right in and of themselves; or even do something for anticipation of reaping the rewards – such as “if you will follow my laws, all the best will happen to you.” But human nature is such that nothing would happen unless and until meaningful sanctions are put in place. And those sanctions, to be sure, must be such that would deter someone from doing the act.  Serious, big sanctions (and in this case, perhaps even cruel and unusual sanctions). And this is the role (well) played by our portion of the week. 

I would like to leave you with the following question, however: If this section is so important, so vital, so crucial to human behavior, why was it left outside the She’ma itself? If you were sitting today in the Knesset Gdolah (a religious legislative body that doesn't exist anymore), would you reintroduce this part of the text into the She'ma?

Shabbat Shalom,

Doron