"Hey Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone!"

Parashat Shemini Lev. 9:1-11:47

by Dr. Jeffrey L. Seif

Years ago, Pink Floyd’s irreverent song “Another Brick in the Wall” caught my attention. Lines like, “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom,” followed by the commanding, “Teachers, leave them kids alone!” caught my attention. As a thirty-year college classroom teacher, it gets my attention even now. My job here, of course, is to understand Moses, not Pink Floyd. I mention Pink at the outset, not to attempt to explain him but to note that, in this week’s parasha, Aaron stands up to Moses the rabbi-teacher and, in effect says, says: “Hey teacher. Leave my kids alone!” Really!? Could it be? Don’t take my word for it. Take a look.

In Leviticus 10:16-20, Moses noted that a sin offering was not attended to properly (v. 16) and “snapped at [Aaron’s priestly sons] Eleazar and Itamar” (v. 17). He is heard scolding them, in vv.17-18, with: “Why have you been negligent!?” (My paraphrase.) By way of response, Aaron steps in and says, in effect: “Ok. You’re right. But they did this and they did that. Hey teacher, leave those kids alone!” After he takes up for them, Moses considers his argument and backs off his critique, in v. 20. The back-and-forth between Moses and Aaron makes for a rather odd exchange. Don’t take my word for it; take a moment and read it in the Word yourself. When I did, this odd exchange and moment leapt out and prompted some reflection. What is going on here in the ancient Word, I wondered, and might it have any implications for today’s modern readers?

When one considers how chapter 10began with Aaron’s two other sons, Nadab and Abihu, invoking God’s ire for not properly attending to the Tabernacle’s particulars, and being summarily executed, it’s understandable that Aaron would be a bit edgy when his other two sons—novice priests, themselves—become the object of Moses’ displeasure, for screwing up a major sacrifice in the Sanctuary. By way of response, one hears Aaron immediately taking up for them to stave off further chagrin. I imagine he’s particularly mindful of the consequences for not adhering to proper Tabernacle protocol, given that the chapter opens with a painful reminder to that effect. So much for face value, now let’s dig a little deeper.

In 9:15, Aaron, himself, was told to offer this offering—with no mention of his sons assisting. While I make room for delegation every now and again, the point is that he was principally responsible for the offering—and thus for the impropriety noted here. Rashi alights upon this and says Moses takes on Aaron’s sons, Eleazar and Itamar, so as not to cast aspersions on Aaron and the dignity of the High Priest’s office. Leaving the merits of this assumption aside, J. H. Hertz says, against the backdrop of the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, “they [all] didn’t deem themselves in a state of purity to share in the solemn rite” (Hertz, Pentateuch & Haftorahs, pp. 447-448). For him, assuming I understand him correctly, brazen disregard is less the issue here, than humility and a general feeling of unworthiness. In short, with Nadab and Abihu’s deaths still very fresh, and the internalized pain very raw, seeing themselves as sinners too, Eleazar and Itamar were reluctant to eat the sin offering. Was this a mistake, even so? Yes. But Moses was satisfied with the response (v. 20), and he moved on.

Before we move on ourselves, let’s consider a few applications. First, the misconception that God is an angry God given to snapping out on every one and throwing folk into hell for every infraction is simply not borne out by even a casual reading of the Mosaic literature. It’s not how Jews see him, and it’s simply not who he is. God is gracious. Secondly, note that motive is more important than motion here: at the chapter’s opening, the priests’ mistake evolved out of a casual indifference toward their priestly tasks—spirited along, perhaps, by their being intoxicated while attending to them; here, at the close, the misstep is spirited along by a very sober reverence—a fear of the Lord. With this as the case, judgment is averted: because God looks at the heart and not just at the fact that someone didn’t do their part.

This good news from ancient Jews is good news for me and yous. There is no word for “yous,” of course; I invented it because it rhymes. I wanted my point to impose itself on your brain and stick there. Why is that? Yeshua beckoned his followers to look deeply and to “not judge by appearance, but judge righteously” (Jn. 7:24). This, of course, comports perfectly with the Torah’s oft-stated premiums on looking into matters deeply, inquiring of particulars diligently and judging people and circumstances righteously. May we all do so in our affairs with others, and recall how our gracious God does so in his assessments of us.

Perhaps Pink Floyd’s kids didn’t need their teacher’s “mind control,” as the rebellious song goes, but we need ours. May biblical faith and virtue grow within us and renew our minds, along with a healthy reminder of the grace of God toward us—something amply attested in this week’s Torah reading.

Jeffrey Seif is available at drjeffreyseif@aol.com

Keep That Fire Burning

Parashat Tsav, Leviticus 6:1-8:36

By Monica Roush, Beth Messiah Congregation, Montgomery Village, MD

Have you ever heard the phrase “on fire for the Lord”?  The metaphor of fire has long been equated with passion, and in my mind this is a Christian saying, not a Jewish one.

I was surprised to find out that the phrase actually stems from this week’s parasha!

The fire on the altar shall remain aflame on it, it shall not be extinguished; and the Priest shall kindle wood upon it morning after morning. . . . A constant fire shall burn upon the altar; it shall never go out. (Leviticus 6:5-6)

Yosef Jacobson has this to say:

“A constant fire shall burn upon the altar” – the altar, in the writings of Jewish mysticism, is symbolic of the human heart, the space in each of us most capable of sacrifice. The heart, however, needs a continuous fire burning in it. For the human heart to live deeply, for it to feel empathy and experience the depth of life and love, it needs to be on fire, passionate, aflame. (Yosef Y. Jacobson, http://www.algemeiner.com/2010/03/26/tzav-“a-constant-fire-shall-burn-upon-the-altar”/)

The Modern Hebrew word for enthusiasm is hitlahavut, being inflamed or impassioned, or . . . “being on fire.” Abraham Joshua Heschel says that hitlahavut is

The experience of moments during which the soul is ablaze with an insatiate craving for God, when the memory of all other interests and the fear of misery and persecution are forgotten. In such instances a man seeks to give himself to God and delights in his being a gift of God. (A. Heschel, “Being Aflame or Having Fire Within,” in A Passion for Truth, New York: Jewish Lights Pub., 2008, p. 333.)

There is a challenge here, if you’re willing to take it. Life has a way of bogging us down with the mundane, with self-doubts, struggles, with whatever it can.  It’s easy to lose focus and forget to continue to “kindle the fire.”

So how do we maintain and continue to foster our own inner altar? Jacobson goes on to say:

There is only one way: “The Priest shall kindle wood upon it morning after morning”.  Each and every day we must place “wood” on our altar, in order to feed its potential flame. Fire cannot exist in a vacuum; the fire in our heart and soul, too, requires “wood” to sustain it . . . it needs fuel.

What is the wood or fuel that is capable of feeding the soul’s flames each day? Study, meditation, charity and prayer. These are daily encounters with the living G-d that allow the fire of the soul to hold on to something and to take root in the human psyche.

A delicious piece of cheesecake, reading and answering your e-mail, listening to the news don’t do the trick of turning on your soul or your inner depth. They lack the properties to stoke the flames of the soul. In the morning, before you do anything else, you need to engage in labor that will let the flame of your soul emerge.

What’s the key to a good marriage, or any relationship for that matter? Communication.  It’s vital to any healthy relationship. This same principle applies to our relationship with HaShem. We must make it a priority to meet with him.

According to the Baal Shem Tov, one’s relationship to God is like a romance. One must be fully and wholeheartedly invested. And as Heschel said: “Faith is fire, not sediment,” meaning it is action. Faith requires active investment. When given that investment it becomes, like fire, necessarily infectious.

According to Jacobson,

Goethe said, a man sees in the world what he carries in his heart. If your heart is aflame, your world that day will be on fire. And you must place the wood on your altar each morning, no exceptions.

Consistency is the key to a meaningful and inspiring day. There are no shortcuts to inspiration; everything comes with a price. The only job where you start at the top is digging a hole. But life is about climbing mountains, not digging holes. And to climb a mountain, you must begin at the bottom.

We have the opportunity to make a difference for good, to bring good in the world, but our course is one of action. We must work at having hitlahavut, at being on fire.

May these words from our Master be readily found near our hearts:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

The Call across the Divide

Parashat vaYikra, Leviticus 1:1-5:26

by Rabbi Russ Resnik

It’s one of the 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century, the second best single of all time according to Guinness, and number three in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” And here’s what it says:

Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try
No hell below us / Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace . . . Copyright © Downtown Music Publishing

This isn’t just a 20th century sentiment, but an idea that is thriving in the twenty-first. The most rapidly growing religious affiliation in the US is the “Nones,” people with “no religion” as John Lennon would put it. In 2014, Nones represented 23% of the US population and 35% of Millennials. Only seven or eight percent of Americans declare themselves atheists or agnostics; so most of the Nones believe that there’s a God or, more accurately, that there’s probably something out there, but this “something” is beyond personality, beyond our knowing, and generally not that relevant. One reason that Nones don’t affiliate is that they think religious people use the idea of God for their own narrow purposes. So if you get too specific in your beliefs about God, you’re suspect. The (dogmatic) truth among the Nones is that all religions are groping toward the same destination, even though they don’t realize it, so any claim to unique truth is invalid.

For the unaffiliated, especially the younger unaffiliated, if you claim to know God, or more outrageously yet, claim that God actually wants to make himself known, you’re part of the problem. If there’s a God, he should keep his distance.

Leviticus dispels this dogma of the undefined God from its first word.

Leviticus opens with Vayikra el Moshe, “And he called to Moses…” Normally, when God speaks to Moses, the verb is amar or davar, used repeatedly throughout the Torah. Vayikra, on the other hand, is used to describe God’s speaking to Moses at only three points in the story.

The first Vayikra came when Moses was out tending his father-in-law’s sheep and saw a bush burning without being consumed by the fire. He turned aside to observe this wonder more closely, “vayikra elav Elohim – and God called out to him from the midst of the bush and said ‘Moses! Moses!’ and he replied ‘Hineni – here I am!’” (Exodus 3:4).

The second Vayikra actually appears twice. When Israel arrived at Mount Sinai, “Moses went up to God and Adonai called to him – vayikra elav – from the mountain” (Exodus 19:3). Later, Moses went back up to receive the stone tablets, “and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of Adonai rested upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. And he called to Moses – vayikra el-Moshe – on the seventh day from the midst of the cloud” (Exodus 24:15-15).

The third Vayikra is here at the beginning of our parasha. Exodus concluded with the tabernacle or tent of meeting in place, filled with the glory-cloud of God’s presence so that Moses could not go in. The cloud rested upon it “in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys, and the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting” (Ex. 40:38b – Lev. 1:1).

The glory-cloud keeps Moses at a distance; the voice of Adonai calls him near.

This glory-cloud God is not the abstract “something out there” of the no-religion folks. The God of the Bible is awesome, transcendent—and actively revealing himself to us. He’s a person, who ultimately reveals himself by walking among us in human form—a scandalous idea in our postmodern world. In Exodus this God appears to be unapproachable, but he calls out to Moses, our representative, across the distance of his otherness and awe.

This same dynamic is at work with the other two Vayikras. At the Burning Bush, the fire of God keeps Moses at a distance, but the voice of God calls to him across the distance. Likewise at Sinai; the glory-cloud covers the mountain and no one can approach. But the voice of God calls Moses to come near and hear his life-giving instructions.

The Nones are right to emphasize God’s otherness. We’re wrong if we try to reduce God to our categories or harness him to our agendas. The Nones probably wouldn’t use the term “holiness”, but that’s what they’re sensing. But the unique message of Scripture is that God calls to us across the divide of his holiness. God won’t diminish the impact of his holiness, but he still seeks to bring humanity near. Here is a remedy to our tendency to reduce the divine to our own terms, to produce a user-friendly god, or like the Nones, an irrelevant God. The God of Israel will always transcend our terms, and yet he calls us to draw near. Spiritual growth means embracing God’s transcendence, at the same time as we listen for his call across the divide.

God’s call to Moses in Leviticus 1 introduces an elaborate system of sacrifice, detailed in the rest of our parasha, and all the way through Leviticus 9. Worship is the goal of the Exodus, so why does Leviticus seem to make worship so difficult? The truth is that the rules of sacrifice and priesthood don’t make worship more difficult; rather, they make it possible. God is ever-present, but his holiness keeps us mortals at a distance. The Levitical system is given, not to impose or maintain the distance, but to bring us near, and to prepare the way for the ultimate Sacrifice who bridges the gap.

God seems abstract, unknowable, totally other to many today, but the God of Scripture reveals himself to be a person, knowable, and near to those who heed his call. This God might even be calling out across the divide, to some of those who’d like to imagine a world where God doesn’t matter.

Learn to Listen

Parashat Ki Tisa, Exodus 30:11-34:35

Jonathan Roush, Beth Messiah Congregation, Montgomery Village, MD

People love to talk but hate to listen. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us. You can listen like a blank wall or like a splendid auditorium where every sound comes back fuller and richer. (Alice Duer Miller)

Our portion this week opens with Exodus 30:11: “The Lord spoke to Moses saying…”

Drift down to verse 17: “The Lord spoke to Moses saying…”

Verses 22 and 34. Chapter 31:1 and 12. Chapter 32: 7 and 9.

Over and over again we see one party talking and one party listening.

Of the five senses that we have (see, smell, taste, touch and hear) hearing is, arguably, the one we have the least amount of control over. We cannot help what we hear. However, we do have incredible control over what we choose to listen to. Could the exacting details of God’s instructions have been communicated to the Israelites if Moses had not been listening?

Ours is a world that can’t stop talking. Yet at the center of Jewish faith and practice is the Shema, the call, the command to listen: “Shema Yisrael! . . . Listen Israel!” Interestingly enough, the world “listen” is an anagram of the word “silent” in English. How else can we listen unless we are silent?

It’s not for nothing that the Torah records the phrase “The Lord spoke to Moses” (or some form of this phrase) no fewer than 21 times in this parasha alone, while there are only six or so moments recorded of Moses talking to God. The emphasis is clear. Are we listeners?

Proverbs 15:28 encourages us that “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer,” yet author Stephen Covey once noted, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” This breakdown between hearing and intentional listening results in an isolating fracture. Not only between us as individuals, but also between us and God. We all need to be heard because listening is an act of engagement. It’s the foundation of relationship.

In a 2014 sermon Rabbi David Wolpe said that people unfold slowly. “They give new dimensions, different colors, different vectors, different ideas of who they are, where they’ve been and where they’re going each time we engage with them.” Obviously, this requires us to spend time, and it takes real effort.

This stands directly opposite of the world we live in. The world moves so quickly now. Nearly anything is available to us at the touch of a button. Have a question? I can have answer for you in a matter of seconds. Want to see a movie? You don’t even have to go to the theater or the video store, you can stream it on your TV. Want some food? Hop down the street to a fast food place or better yet order in. Want to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Pull up a photo online. Want to talk to friend? Drop them a text.

We’ve replaced experience with expedience (pseudo-experience)!

It’s not that these things don’t have a useful place in our lives, but would anyone argue that these represent the best, most meaningful and fulfilling ways to experience life? We’ve grown accustomed to the idea that if we can’t get it done quickly, then it’s not really worth doing. Yet, as Rabbi Wolpe notes, one of the effects of this lightning-quick age of technology is that “we know ourselves less well, other people less well and the world less well. We have much more information but less insight.”

There are some things you simply cannot shortcut or shortchange.

By taking the time to listen,

we engage in a way that changes both ourselves and the people we interact with. In music, the way we listen has an immediate effect on the unfolding of what is happening in the ensemble. We are not just each playing our individual instruments at the same time, but rather we are playing together. Our listening and actions are inseparable. (What Does it Mean to Listen by Michael Gold.)

This is not just true of music. This is true of our lives, our relationships with each other and
with God. Moses was changed through the time he spent listening on the mountain.

He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water, and he inscribed upon the tablets the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments. And it came to pass when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand when he descended from the mountain and Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while God had spoken with him. Exodus 34:28-30

That fact that Moses was physically altered is a beautiful word picture of this dynamic listening.

Albert Einstein said:

A human being is part of the whole . . . limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

We may not have 40 days on a mountain, but we do have Shabbat. We stop and we work to focus our attention and intention more than any other day. On Shabbat we work harder not just to hear, but to listen. To listen to each other, to listen to creation around us, and to uncover the voice of God in it all.

Purim and the Hidden Messiah

Purim—the festival of Esther—is the most light-hearted of the Jewish holidays. Perhaps that’s what leads the sages of the Talmud to ask, “Where is there an allusion to Esther in the Torah?” (Chullin 139b). They answer with a reference to Deuteronomy 31:18, where God warns Israel of exile to come: V’anochi haster asteer panai, “And I will hide, yes hide my face.” Asteer – “hide” – sounds like Esther. So does the term hester panim, to hide the face, which describes the conditions of Israel’s long exile. Rashi wrote, “In the days of Esther there will be hester panim, hiding of the divine countenance.” Accordingly, there is no mention of God in the whole book of Esther.

Purim, then, is the festival of exile, a time when God seems hidden, which extends even to this day. Believers in Messiah, however, might not think of themselves as being in exile. If Messiah is risen and present among us, how can we say that God’s face is hidden?

Isaiah 53:1 provides a vital clue:

Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

Ironically, the phrase “arm of the Lord” normally describes the mighty and undeniable acts of God. “Arm of the Lord” reminds us of Passover, which comes just a month after Purim, when God revealed himself openly both to Israel and to Egypt by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. “Arm of the Lord” is almost a synonym for revelation of the Lord, but Isaiah asks whether there is anyone who has seen it. We again confront hester panim, God alive and well, but hidden.

The Gospel of Mark sounds this same theme. It opens announcing, this is “the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of God,” (1:1) and goes on to record the testimony of Yochanan the Immerser (1:7–8), and a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with you” (1:11). Even the demons recognize that Yeshua is the Son of God (1:24, 3:11, 5:7), but Yeshua silences them. Indeed, he repeatedly instructs those who experience his healing power to tell no one about it (1:44, 3:12, 5:43, 7:36, 8:26). When Yeshua visits his own hometown, the people ask, “Where did this man get all this?” (6:2-3). Rather than recognizing him as Messiah the Son of God, they take offense at him. His own disciples, when Yeshua performs the great miracle of calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee, ask “Who can this be, that even the wind and the waves obey him?” (4:41).

Mark has announced who Yeshua is, but there’s still something hidden about him, and we, the readers, get drawn into the question, “Who can this be?” If we answer too quickly, we’re bound to get it wrong, because Yeshua hides that he is Messiah to reveal what kind of Messiah he will be. He turns the normal expectations of his day, and our day, on their head. As Purim reminds us, things are not as they appear. Those who seem powerful and in control will be put in their place by outsiders, including a God who is hiding.

The turning-point in Mark comes when Yeshua takes his disciples off to a retreat, and asks them on the way, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter nails it: “You are the Messiah,” but Yeshua orders them not to tell anyone else (8:27-30).

The secret is out, but now Yeshua focuses on the suffering and crucifixion he must endure to fulfill it. Furthermore, Yeshua reveals that even after he rises from the dead there will be continuing exile and persecution—the hidden face of God—until he returns (13:33-37).

Yeshua hides his Messianic identity to ensure that his followers understand what kind of Messiah he is. But he has another purpose in remaining hidden; to prepare them for the long period between his resurrection and his return in glory, when he will often seem hidden, and his followers may be tempted to lose hope and become complacent. Instead, Yeshua warns us to stay alert, to believe actively, and to serve him before all else as we watch for his return.  The way of loyalty to a hidden Messiah is different from what we might choose for ourselves. And it’s definitely different from the way carved out by the religious consumerism of our day.

Purim reminds us of Isaiah’s question, “to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” And Purim provides the answer: it will be revealed to those who actively rely on him, despite the delays and disappointments of exile. In the same way Yeshua, who seems hidden to many, who fails to meet the expectations that this world cherishes, is the source of deliverance to Israel and the nations. Purim reminds us to remain faithful to Yeshua’s words and example during this time of hester panim, the hiding of God’s face.

Rabbi Russ Resnik

The Story of Us

Parashat Tetzaveh, Exodus 27:20-30:10

Rabbi Isaac Roussel – Congregation Zera Avraham

Once a year the Queen of England addresses parliament. She enters through a special door, only to be used by the reigning monarch, which leads directly into the House of Lords. She sits on her throne, turns to her steward and says “Fetch the rabble.” The steward then marches down the long corridor separating the House of Lords from the House of Commons. As the ministers of the Commons see him coming they slam the door in his face. He raps on the door three times with his large staff and shouts, “The queen demands your attendance.” At that point, they open the door and process down the corridor and listen to the queen’s address.

What caused such an unusual ritual?

Well, on January 4, 1642, King Charles I stormed the House of Commons seeking to arrest four ministers of parliament that he suspected of treason. He was unable to do so because they had fled. But this intrusion eventually led to the English Civil War and ultimately Charles I’s beheading. Some years later when his son Charles II was enthroned, the ruling monarch was permanently banned from the House of Commons and this ritual evolved.

So what does this have to do with us?

This ceremony has become part of the shared story of the people of Great Britain. As Jews, we too have our shared story. The Torah is full of commands from Hashem. In recent parashiyot we have commandments for the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and the sacrifices. In today’s parasha we have commandments for how to make the vestments for the cohanim (priests). But our tradition also includes human-ordained commandments. We have rabbinic commandments such as not mixing meat and dairy, and lighting Shabbat candles 18 minutes before sundown, and definitions of what constitutes work on Shabbat. Chanukah is a holiday ordained not by God but by the Rabbis. And we have the upcoming holiday of Purim, which is a biblical holiday but is not expressly commanded by God.

Some reject these human-ordained commandments because they did not come directly from God. They do not understand that the story of Israel is not just about God, but about our covenant with God, our relationship with God. Sometimes you will hear Christians refer to history as “HIStory.” While I understand the sentiment, the fact is that it is not just HIStory but it is OURstory. It is the story of Israel and Hashem, with the Church grafted in through the agency of Yeshua.

These commandments, though, are in decreasing authority. The highest level commandments are those given by Hashem in the Written Torah. The next level is Halacha, Oral Torah, the decrees of our Sages. (I frequently use the analogy of the Written Torah being the US Constitution and the Oral Torah being the case law that plays out the practical aspects.)

Next in importance are the minhagim, customs. There are universal customs such as the lighting of Yahrzeit candles. This is not a mitzvah but a custom, and why we do not recite a blessing before doing so. But each congregation also has its own local customs. A Purim custom in our congregation seeks to honor not only Mordechai but also Esther. So when we read the Megillah we not only yell “Yay!” for Morty, but also “You go girl!” for Esther. And we have a recently developed another minhag where two of our women, whose Hebrew names are Devorah and Yael, get aliyahs for the parasha that has the story of the prophetess Devorah and the tent-peg-wielding Yael.

We also have personal customs. One of my personal minhags is based on a midrash that is especially meaningful to me. It speaks of the eternal silent Aleph that daily radiates out from Mount Sinai calling all of humanity to Hashem. During the Torah procession I always try to kiss the Torah with my tzitzit on the Aleph that is on the mantle or breastplate.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently who told me that he was very depressed last fall and was walking in the woods while it was raining. He suddenly felt God’s presence in a powerful way and felt like God was telling him that he too was crying over all the problems. This has become a part of his personal story.

But our personal stories join with our communal stories and with God’s story to become OURstory. Therefore, we do not reject rabbinic mitzvot out of hand (though we may wrestle with them) and we honor our Sages’ writings such as the Talmud. They are part of our story with God.

I would like to go a bit further, however, and say that God is really in these things, just in less obvious ways. God is not mentioned at all in the Purim story and yet he is behind the scenes working to accomplish his will. God is behind our customs. He is in our desire to honor heroic women as well as men. And God is in our personal stories of encountering him in the rain. One could dismiss all of these and say that Purim was just a matter of politicking, and that God really wasn’t there in the rain. But faith says that he was. My first spiritual director, Byron Hosmer, of blessed memory, had a plaque hanging on the wall with a Latin inscription. It said, Vocatus atque vocatus deus aderit; “Bidden or unbidden God is present.”

As we celebrate Purim this coming week, let us reflect on this. Let us reflect on the fact that it is not only HIStory but OURstory. Let us reflect on the fact that Torah, Halacha, universal customs, local customs, and even our personal customs that come from our own experiences, all make up this Grand Story. It is a story that started when God chose Israel. It is a story that continued as he gave us the Besorah of Messiah Yeshua and grafted in the Church. It is the Story of God and Us!

Building a House for the Holy One

Parashat T’rumah, Exodus 25:1–27:19

Rabbi Stuart Dauermann

The Mishkan was the place where the congregation of Israel met with God during their wilderness wanderings. It was a place they built, which God inhabited, and where they could meet with him and honor him.

Let’s think together of each of us building a mishkan—a space in the midst of our lives especially prepared to meet with God and honor him.

It is probably a big mistake to imagine we can know God in terms of colossal generalities. Knowing that God is the Lord of the Universe is nice, but you can’t wrap your arms around that. It is too general and “way out there.” When God directed the Israelites to construct the Mishkan, the Holy One knew that we needed to encounter him within the confines of predetermined circumstances.

To know God deeply is to know him in the details. To only encounter God in the universe-sized generalities is to know about him, but must not be confused with knowing him.

How did people encounter God in the Bible and grow in their relationship with him? Here are some of the specifics:

• Public worship
• Sacrifices
• Regular prayer
• Situational prayer
• Reading Scripture, study
• Rituals
• In-breaking visions, intuitive ways of learning
• Following the tradition
• The counsel and prayer of trusted elders
• Learning from the experience and counsel of one’s forbears
• Intensification practices such as fasting

What might it mean for us to clear a space and build a structure in our lives where we can meet with God and grow in our relationship with him? What will it take to build our mishkan?

1. It means recognizing that there is a need to do so.
2. It means recognizing that this will take effort and sacrifice.
3. It means taking steps to insure that the effort will be sustained—often through enlisting the aid of others.
4. It means choosing the right materials and an approach that will achieve the desired ends.
5. It means taking steps to make sure that one is not being deluded. This is one reason why it imperative to link our concepts, plans, and efforts with community and with tradition.
6. It is helpful to have a blueprint.

And speaking of tradition, what help is offered for this process by the Jewish tradition?

In his excellent book, On Being a Jew, James Kugel reminds us “The cliché about Judaism is still true: it is not so much a religion as a way of life. And the way to ‘walk through the door’ is to begin to adopt that way of life, to keep the Sabbath and our festivals and say the fixed prayers every day, to observe our laws of pure food and of proper behavior, and in all ways to try and act like a Jew.” (James Kugel, On Being a Jew. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1990, 32-33.)

This underscores the learning-by-doing aspect of Jewish spirituality as contrasted to the “learn first and then maybe do” model prevalent in American culture. For Judaism it is always na’aseh v’nishma, “We will do and thereby understand.”

For Kugel, and for Judaism, the way we build our mishkan is by employing the blueprint of practices provided in the Jewish tradition—our community across time. Seeing Jewish life as a “blueprint” is an apt metaphor. Imagine passing a beautiful home in Beverly Hills, and deciding, “I’m going to build me one of those!” You then purchase real estate and materials at great price and start building. How is that going to go? Not well!

You cannot build such a home from the outward appearance! You must have the blueprint, or you will never get the results you admire. Similarly, we need a blueprint for our mishkan—and Jewish tradition provides that blueprint. And there is perhaps nothing in life more specific than a blueprint: everything is specified and measured to the nth degree.

Kugel points out how we will learn the satisfactions of this kind of mishkan building only by doing so, just as children are brought into Jewish life through patterned practices, before they have any explanations offered them.

Long before they can properly understand, in fact, almost before they can talk, they are taught the difference between the Sabbath and the rest of the week, that certain things are done only in the one and not the other; and shortly after they speak their first words they begin to learn the words of blessing that we say before eating this or that kind of food or washing our hands before a meal. The understanding of God, if any, that may accompany these acts is, of course perfectly childish, but what does that matter? Because a place for understanding is opened up inside the children by their first doing these things, and that place will be filled with greater and greater insight as they go on. (32)

It as we first do that we come to understand.

One cannot build and inhabit this kind of mishkan simply by attending Shabbat services. Kugel rightly points out the “daily-ness” of Jewish life, the sanctification of the mundane and the habitual. The everyday, life-permeating ritual responsibilities and responses of the Jew living in community, at home, at business, in daily life, all of these become occasions for growing in awareness of God and for honoring him in the details of life. As Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, “Judaism is the theology of the common deed.”

Adapting the biblically grounded Jewish blueprint/way of life as a means of creating a meeting place with God is our way of building a mishkan. Kugel says,

This is the most basic principle of our way, to open up such a space in our lives and in our hearts. Then such a space will have the capacity to radiate outward. So the holiness of the mishkan radiated out to fill the whole camp of the Israelites during their wanderings, and the camp itself became changed as a result. And it was quite proper that the people be the ones to build God’s dwelling, because this is the way it always must be: the people create the space and then God can fill it. (36-37)

Finally, Kugel reminds us, “The space is made by human beings and can be made quickly or slowly. But when God fills the space it is always quick and never gradual” (38).

May you, may I, may all of us build our mishkan slowly and with care. And may the Holy One come quickly and fill our mishkan, our lives, and our world with his presence.

Soon, and in an acceptable time.

Shabbat Shalom.

History or Law?

Parashat Mishpatim, Exodus 21-24

by Jared Eaton, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

This week’s parasha may contain one of the most jarring chapters in all of literature. If you were reading the Bible in order up to this point, you would have been looking at the story of God’s relationship with humankind and especially with the Jewish people.

The book of Genesis tells of the Creation, and then the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The tragic tale of Cain and Abel is next, followed by the great flood and Noah and his family. After recounting the many families of the earth and the trouble they got into at the Tower of Babel, the story then narrows its focus onto a single family, and we read of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, and the fate of their family in Egypt. The narrative then switches to Moses and his partnership with God in freeing the Hebrew nation from the clutches of slavery.

While there have been many different characters and events in this unfolding tale, the one consistent thing about the Bible is that it’s been a very human story. That is, until we get to Mishpatim.

The Bible, which had been developing very much like a history book, all of a sudden changes genres completely. The narrative structure of the book completely disappears and what had once been a riveting tale of God and men and miracles transforms into a rather dry recitation of legal statutes and strictures.

Perhaps it’s not unexpected; the word “Torah” after all, is often translated as “Law”, but it still feels incongruous. What happened to the story? It’s certainly not over yet. In just a few chapters we will read the very human account of the sin of the golden calf. The Bible isn’t finished telling our history yet, so why are these chapters about laws squeezed into the middle of the narrative? What do our laws and our history have to do with each other?

Perhaps there is not so great a division between law and history as one might think. What if the mitzvot are a response to the history of the people of God?

Consider the first mitzvot spoken of in Exodus 21; laws concerning human servitude. The Lord introduced himself to Israel at Sinai as Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Isn’t it fitting that he would first concern himself with ensuring that his chosen people never afflicted themselves with the same evil from which he had just delivered them?

Slavery was an ugly reality in the ancient world and wasn’t abolished, even in the West, until the 19th century. With just a few words, however, God took the greatest tragedy that the Jewish people had experienced until then, and used it to lay the groundwork for an entirely different system. In this system, slavery was not an existential condition but a temporary circumstance that one would be liberated from in the Sabbath year.

Slavery is given limitations; women indentured to other families have a system in place that allows them to be elevated within the household. Servants, once regarded as property, are given rights as human beings, and all of Israel are reminded that God is the true master.

God takes the painful history of his people and uses it as a guide to shape his laws so that the evils of the past need not be repeated.

After addressing slavery, the next mitzvot concern the difference between premeditated and accidental murder. The examples given once again recall the history of the Jewish people.

Compare the intentional murderer, who hunted down his prey, to Cain, who slew his brother with malice aforethought, or Esau, the hunter, who waited eagerly for the day of his father’s death so that he might kill his brother Jacob. Contrast those men with Moses himself who, in a fit a righteous anger against an Egyptian taskmaster, struck and killed a man. As with the hypothetical accidental murderer in Exodus 21:13, God grants Moses a place of refuge where he can run and hide from Pharaoh’s wrath.

Again, in Exodus 21:16 we hear echoes of the past in the prohibition against stealing a person to sell him. The reference to the traumatic kidnapping and subsequent sale of Joseph could not be more clear.

The laws in Parashat Mishpatim are not a diversion from our history, they are our history, and an antidote to the hurts we have suffered at each others’ hands.

In a world without Torah, men killed and stole and enslaved one another with no regard for the pain they inflicted on their fellow man. But now, God is showing us a better way to live, a way that allows us to reverse the downward course of history and turn ourselves upwards towards him.

The chapters about laws in Exodus may seem like a divergence from the main story of Torah, but in actuality, the Law looks back into our history and forwards towards a time when the Law will be perfectly fulfilled in Messiah Yeshua. When that day comes, the wounds of the past will be fully healed and the tale of God and men and miracles will come to its glorious conclusion.

Chosen for What?

Parashat Yitro, Exodus 18:1 – 20:23

By Rabbi Paul L. Saal

In the Broadway classic “Fiddler on the Roof” the main character, Tevye, ironically entreats God, “I know, I know. We are your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?” In his frustration, Tevye echoes 4000 years of Jewish experience. It would appear that being God’s Chosen People is not always all it is cracked up to be. Tevye’s little shtetl is continuously assailedby political violence, poverty and the unrelenting demands of modernity. But in the midst of all this, perhaps the greatest challenge to the village of Anatevka is maintaining their traditions in a world that demands conformity.

This week’s parasha contains the dramatic summit of the Exodus story, as Israel encounters the Master of the World at the base of Mt. Sinai. Here, God articulates the special bond he plans with Israel: “And now if you hearken well to me and observe my covenant, you shall be to me the most beloved treasure of all peoples, for mine is the entire world” (Ex. 19:5). This statement, though, appears to contain an internal conflict, the conflict of a “chosen people.”

How can the God of the entire universe choose just one people? Shouldn’t God love everybody equally?  Isn’t the concept of “chosenness” just a bit xenophobic? Many Jews today would argue that such a claim denigrates the rest of humanity.

But isn’t that claim central to the thesis of all of Torah, and isn’t it at the core of the entire Bible? This statement presents the context for the Ten Commandments and all the commandments that follow. In fact, uprooting this concept dilutes the biblical tradition and threatens to eradicate the importance of Scripture’s heroic figures.

How then can we square this circle, God as the loving Divinity of all humanity and the uniqueness and specialness of the Jewish people? To do so we must first come to terms with the assertion that God loves and cares about all humanity. Every person and people group is precious to the Creator who animates the human soul (Gen. 2:7). God’s ongoing care for every “tribe and tongue” is a testament to his ability to seriously multi-task. But if everyone is special, doesn’t it detract from the concept of personal and group exceptionalism? Not necessarily. God creates the world from the beginning in a process of havdil (distinction), giving every element of creation, both environment and inhabitants, a unique and special purpose. God creates and maintains the world by creating an economy of mutual blessing. We bless God by blessing each another and drawing energy from the others’ distinct gifts and experience. To try to conform others to our image does violence to this divine system of blessing.

So, what about Jewish chosenness? To some extent Jewish chosenness is a metaphorical sentence fragment. In the same way as it is incomplete and misleading to say I am the President without context (I am the president of the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council), so it is incomplete and prideful to state that the Jewish people are chosen of God without appropriate context. What completes the concept of Jewish chosenness is the understanding that the Jewish people were chosen to embody the value and standards of Torah and to display these values to the world. By living a life centered on God’s mitzvot we choose to be chosen. We allow the covenant to live by how we choose to live! As is the case of any love relationship we can enhance or demean that relationship. The power is in our hands to live God’s choice of us as much as it is his.

The Holy One’s purpose for Israel is stated in the sentence after he announces his unique love for Israel: “You shall be to me a kingdom of ministers and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). If Israel is obedient to the commands and ordinances of Torah, they will image God as kings and priests, sovereigns and servants. In this respect Israel stands as the living link between God and the rest of humanity, repairing the cosmic breach that occurred with human disobedience.

At the foot of Sinai all Israel said, “Kol asher diber adonai na’aseh v’nishma, all that the Lord has said we will do and obey” (Ex. 24:7). They accepted not only the privileges of bearing his name, but also the covenantal responsibilities associated with those privileges. Likewise, as we stand before the Aron Kodesh each week it is as though we stand in continuity before Sinai and receive Torah again, saying “all that the Lord has said we will do.”

This acceptance compels us to live lives that model God’s image in the world. Sovereignty in God’s economy is not that which is grasped but rather that which is freely given, an odd dichotomy by normal reckoning. The power of God is perfected in our weakness. Through service we attain the mark of divinely gifted aristocracy, following the model of Israel’s greatest son. Yeshua abandoned the privileges of deity and did not claim or exploit his status (Phil.2:6-8). Instead, he actively undertook the role of a servant. For Yeshua, the incarnation in itself is a position of marginality. Far more is lost when he enters the created order than we are capable of comprehending, or that the biblical authors are able to adequately convey. But we also understand intuitively that with this “chosenness” there is more to gain than the accepted politics of power can offer. It is through his sacrifice and servanthood that Yeshua is elevated to the right hand of God.

This is true of Israel as well. We learn from both the Torah and the living Torah that we are given sovereignty to care for the created order. To care for the widow and the orphan, to feed the poor and the hungry, to provide hospitality for the stranger, to protect those who have no position or power, to care for all life forms on the planet and the environment that supports all of us. We do not have the option to claim status or to be self-protective; rather we must look out for all on whom the sun rises and sets.

As we immerse ourselves in Torah and the “living Torah” Yeshua, we renew our unique relationship with God. By doing so we justify the claim that we are not God’s only love, but His first.

Song of the Two Miryams

Parashat B’shalach, Exodus 13:17-17:16

Rabbi Barry Rubin, Emmanuel Messianic Jewish Congregation, Clarksville, MD

In this week’s Torah portion, we read what happened after the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

Of course, we know that right after Pharaoh allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt, he regretted his decision and went after them, pushing their backs up against the Yam Suf or Sea of Reeds. You might say they were between the devil and the deep blue sea. Yet, through a major miracle, orchestrated by Almighty God, through his prophet Moses, the Israelites were able to get across the sea on dry land and Pharaoh’s armies were drowned.

Well, it’s no wonder that the Israelites were overjoyed by this, so much so that Moses and all the people sang a song (Ex. 15:1-19): “I will sing unto Adonai, for he is highly exalted; the horse and rider he threw into the sea.” It was a great song of deliverance and celebration.

You’d think that that song, sung by Moses and all the people, might have sufficed. But then something surprising happened: Miryam, sister of Moses and Aaron, added to the celebration with her own song: “Sing to Adonai for he is highly exalted. The horse and rider he threw into the sea!” (Ex. 15:20-21).

But, this is odd. The words are the same, so, why would Miryam need her own private women’s celebration? Was she trying to one-up her younger brother Moses? Was she doing some sort of women’s lib thing? Did she think that she and her women dancers could just do a better job than all the men of Israel?

The Sages of the Talmud suggest an answer in Shemot Rabbah. They wondered why Miryam is introduced as “Miryam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron.” Why does Miryam being a prophetess help explain why she would add a conclusion to Moses’ Song of the Sea? And why mention that she was the sister of Aaron? She was also the sister of Moses, so why only mention Aaron here?

The Sages say that we need to understand two things: First, that Miryam was a prophetess; and second, that she had a prophecy when she was just the sister of Aaron, before Moses was born. If we understand that prophecy, we understand her song. And here is the story our sages tell to explain all this:

When Pharaoh decreed that all Jewish boys should be thrown into the Nile, immediately after birth, the man and woman who would become the parents of Moses separated from each other so they wouldn’t have any more children. Why bother procreating since the children are just going to be killed anyway? But Miryam, their daughter, had a prophecy: my mother is going to give birth to the rescuer of the Jewish people. She shared that prophecy with her parents; her parents then reunited. Moses was born.

And, we know from Exodus 2, the child’s mother hid him for three full months, and then she took a little basket, covered it with pitch, placed the child in it, and set the basket in the reeds next to the shore of the river to hide her baby boy so he wouldn’t be killed.

Now, what would we think were the chances of success of this plan? A defenseless child out there by the Nile where all the Egyptians were, as well as crocodiles and snakes, all over the place. Pharaoh has decreed that all Jewish baby boys should be thrown in the Nile. So, what were the chances that this child lives?

Given that, would we be willing to watch what happens next? It could become gruesome. Most of us couldn’t watch, but someone did watch. Miryam watched from afar. The sages say she wanted to know what would happen to her prophecy. Miryam must have had faith to believe God would rescue her baby brother.

Well, then the daughter of Pharaoh comes. Is that good or bad? She could well be the worst possible person, the daughter of the man who decreed genocide upon the Jews. But, unlike her father, the daughter had something about her that caused her to do what was right. She hesitated. Miryam, reading the uncertainty in Pharoah’s daughter’s eyes says, can I call a Jewish woman to nurse this child for you? And the daughter of Pharaoh says, yes. And Miryam, who “stood at a distance to see what would happen with him” (Exodus 2:4), actually becomes the agent of salvation.

Now, fast-forward to the Jews at the Sea of Reeds: a huge body of water and filled with reeds. Horses belonging to Pharaoh, chariots, cavalry, all converging upon the people. It’s like it’s all happening again as it did back in Exodus 2.

There, Moses was threatened by one Egyptian, Pharaoh’s daughter, by a river. And now it’s not just a river, it’s a whole sea, and now it’s not just one Jew that’s threatened, it’s an entire Jewish people that’s threatened. And not just threatened by one particular Egyptian, but by the whole army of Egypt.

“How are you going to get out of this?” Moses asks the people, “You are going to do exactly what Miryam did when I was a baby. Stand and watch what the Lord will do.” Moses would urge the people to do what Miryam did: stand and watch what the Lord would do. Have faith like Miryam did. And when they do, and when the sea splits, and everyone sings a great chorus of praise, Miryam has her own reason for doing her own song and dance. It was the fulfillment of the prophecy she once received: My mother is going to give birth to the child who will save the Jewish people.

This pattern is repeated in Israel’s history several hundred years later. The Jewish people were threatened again by a despot like Pharaoh, this time, King Herod. God revealed to another Miryam that she would have a son that would rescue his people. And, like her namesake, Moses’ sister, Yeshua’s mother knew that God would protect her people from Herod and his order that, as in the days of Pharoah, all the Jewish baby boys be killed. So Miryam sang: “My soul magnifies Adonai, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior . . . he has performed mighty deeds with his arm . . . brought down rulers from their thrones . . . mindful of the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever” (Luke 1:46-55). It’s a repeat of the promise expressed by Miryam of old.

So, in B’shalach, we see that Moses and Aaron’s sister, Miryam, had a prophecy that her brother would rescue the children of Israel. Her faith that God would protect her baby brother was a picture of the faith all Israel would need to have at the Sea of Reeds. And, this same pattern is seen again when Yeshua’s mother, also named Miryam, had the faith to believe that God would once again rescue his covenant people, Israel, and she, like her namesake before, wrote a song about it. And it boils down to this: God keeps his promises to his people. Believe it!