Author Archives: ndanzig

Parshat Haye Sara – Eliezer’s Test

30 Tuesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

The servant of Abraham requests from God to give him a sign: if the woman whom he asks for water, offers to give also the camels to drink, then it is she whom God set aside for Isaac to marry (Gen. 24:12 ff.). The Talmud (תענית ד) says that there are three who asked incorrectly שלשה שאלו שלא כהוגן two of whom were answered correctly. These two are Eliezer the servant of Abraham and Jonathan the son of King Saul. In the Laws of Idol worship Maimonides writes that it is forbidden to rely on a sign by declaring that if a certain event happens, that it is a bad sign or a good sign. But it is permitted to look back at events and say this event was a good sign for what happened after or this event was a bad sign for what happened after. According to this Eliezer was testing God in a way that’s forbidden. Eliezer was trying to discover if his future actions are being blessed by God and are the right actions or are they not blessed by God and are not the right actions. In other words, to discover if this woman should be brought back to Isaac because God has selected her for Isaac or not.

The underlying reason for this prohibition is that you are supposed to use your own rational faculties to decide what to do and not request a sign from God. I would add that there’s an especially big problem when you pray to God, ‘Please give me a sign’. You are forcing Gods hand, so to speak.  God cannot opt out of your test. For example, if you say, ‘If I am meant to do this thing, then let this coin be heads and if I’m not meant to do it let it be tails. When you flip the coin it must be either heads or tails, which you will then interpret as a sign from God.  But perhaps God doesn’t want to play your game and wants you to decide based on your intelligence.  You will have no way to know if the heads you threw is a message from god or just the laws of physics working.  

At every football game they flip a coin to see who starts with the ball. But what makes that permitted is that you’re not involving God in it. You know that this the 50% chance of either alternative and you are not investing this event with any Divine meaning, although of course God may decide to get involved. But you are flipping the coin because there’s no fairer way to decide between the two teams. The problem arises when you presume God’s involvement in your coin flip. For example, if you say, ‘God if we’re meant to go to war with this nation then let the coin be heads and if not then let it be tails.’ Now the coin will definitely be either heads or tails. So whether God decided to give you a message or didn’t decide to give you a message you have decided that this is a message. That is the biggest problem with predicting the future in this way. You will think God condones certain behavior, certain actions and if they go wrong, if they don’t go well you’ll say God misled me; you’ll blame God when God had nothing to do with it. He was not maneuvering that coin one way or the other. You cannot make an event that may be a random event into a non-random event simply by asking God to be involved. And that is exactly what Eliezer did. He prayed to God that God would send him a sign through the behaviour of Rivka at the well and whether she offered water for the camels.

Those commentators who wish to defend Eliezer’s actions say that he was not simply making a random sign for the future and deciding his behavior based on that but he was looking for a certain compassionate quality in Rivka. She should be not only generous but self-sacrificing. To draw enough water to give to several camels of a guest is not merely generosity, it is also a lot of work and a high degree of self-sacrifice. These are good qualities for the wife of Isaac. Recall that God describes Abraham’s mission as being to practice “charity and justice” (Gen. 18:19) לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט. To partner with Isaac in this mission Rivka should demonstrate charity. Therefore Eliezer was not asking for a sign but looking for an indication of her good qualities. Even if God was not involved in the events that transpired, this was still an intelligent way to discover the girl’s character.

If we look at the blessing that Rivka’s family gives to her before she leaves: (24:60) “Our sister, be thousands of myriads. May your seed inherit the gates of those who hate him.” (An echo of 22:17) On the surface this sounds like an aggressive militaristic blessing, that her children should conquer their enemies. This seems a very strange blessing to give a young girl who from the story seems to be a very generous and caring person. Why have they given her a blessing to be a conqueror? I think this can be understood when we realize that conquering the enemy is not for the sake of revenge or destroying those who are nearby but is to create a better society for them. If we look at the people around the Middle East in those times we’ll see that they place a very low value on life. There’s a certain cruelty in their hearts much as people in the Middle East today believe in unavoidable destiny and martyrdom. Perhaps possessing the gates will save the enemies from themselves.

The literal meaning of the blessing is that her offspring should inherit the gates of its enemy. We know that in the Bible the gates are the place where the elders sit and judge the people. So the blessing is not simply that Rivka’s offspring should destroy their enemies but that they should sit in their enemy’s gates and judge their enemy and in so doing elevate the culture and ethical norms of the society by bringing “charity and justice” into the gates and towns of those enemies. The Jew’s mission in the world is not to destroy the enemy but to enlighten the enemies. We see this in a straightforward way in the Torah that conquering is a mitzvah, first and foremost to remove idolatry which is to remove unethical and unrighteous cultural norms from those enemies. This is the mission God describes in Gen. 18:19, to do charity and justice.

Eliezer looked for a partner for Isaac who would possess the quality of charity and Rivka’s family blessed her that she should join with the Abrahamic mission of bringing ethics to the Canaanites, that she should be  the gatekeeper for the cultures that surround her family in the land of Israel. We should view our actions in Gaza not as revenge and as conquering for conquering’s sake but as a way to achieve a normal to achieve cultural normalization for our neighbors, that their culture should reflect the good values that Judaism has been teaching to the world for 3,000 years. And towards that end it is of utmost importance that Israel be in charge of the education administration of any lands that are under our administration so that the children who will be the next generation will be taught harmony and loving kindness. 

Parshat VaYeshev – The Three Loves

07 Thursday Dec 2023

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

By Rabbi Nachum Danzig

26 Kislev 5784

Parshat Vayeshev speaks of Yaakov settling down to live with his family in peace in Eretz Israel. Rashi notes that the Torah has already told us that Yaakov has settled in Israel. Rashi brings a midrash about this extra emphasis that Yaakov was sitting in the land, dwelling in the land of his fathers:

ביקש יעקב לישב בשלווה. קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף.  צדיקים מבקשים לישב בשלווה !? אומר הקדוש ברוך הוא לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמתוקן להם לעולם הבא, אלא שמבקשים לשב בשלווה בעולם הזה

Yaakov had a hard twenty years and just wants to be allowed to dwell in peace now. But the Midrash criticizes Yaakov for trying to relax because it’s not the job of the zaddik to try to relax. And inasmuch as every Jew strives to be a zaddik this applies to us as well. We cannot relax and this is because we have a mission; we are servants of God; we are His shlichim; we have tasks and duties to perform constantly. Each person according to his ability, needs to serve God and serve the Jewish people and serve the world at large and cannot just relax. We cannot opt out.

Our thoughts of course move to our soldiers who are certainly not sitting in peace and trying to rest. They are serving God by defending the people of Israel. Protecting the people of Israel is doing God’s work. May God protect them!

We are definitely in a trying time right now. We are in a time of judgment – so many people were killed and tortured on October 7th and are still being killed and tortured. I mean of course the soldiers who are sometimes casualties in the war. I also mean the civilians being killed in acts of terror on the home front.  We are certainly experiencing a time of strict judgment. There are still hostages being held and tortured. This is a time of strict judgment.

The Talmud (Menachin 41a) describes how Rav Ketina was avoiding the mitzvah of tzitzit and criticizes him for it, saying:

בזמן דאיכא ריתחא ענשינן

The Talmud says that in times of strict judgement, then even avoiding the observance of an optional Mitzvah ( מצווה קיומית ) like tzizit can bring about the opposite of reward, ח”ו.  It can take away God’s Divine protection, ח”ו. 

The army has actually seen a great uptick in the desire of soldiers to put on tzitzit. I don’t think that most of the soldiers know this Talmudic saying but every Jew in his soul is connected to God and to Torah and intuitively knows that this is the time to wear tzitzit. 

And this reminds me of a kabbalistic idea,

ג’ דרגין אינון מתקשרין דא ברא, קב”ה אורייתא וישראל.(הזוה”ק אחרי ע”ג,) 

God, Torah and Am Israel are all one. Based on this idea, the Hassidic masters explain that the command to love God includes within it the command to love the Torah and to love one’s fellow Jew. These are called the three loves: the love of God, the love of Torah, and the love of another Jew. 

Love of God is not enough. Without the love of Torah and the love of one’s fellow, one’s love of God will not endure. But where the love of one’s fellow exists, it will bring one to the love of God and love of Torah. 

If a Jew loves God without loving his fellow Jew there is something lacking in his love of God. But if a Jew does acts of kindness to other Jews and loves other Jews this will eventually lead him to the love of Torah and the love of God. Thus loving one’s fellow Jew is the fundamental teaching of Torah.

Baruch HaShem we are seeing greater and greater love from one Jew to his neighbor. There is no greater love for one’s fellow Jew than risking one’s life to protect his fellow Jew. I think that the soldiers are teaching us to love one another better.  Just as we were exiled because of unbounded hatred.  So the redemption will come through unbounded love of our fellow Jews.

The Reassertion of Female Power: The Megillah According to the Malbim

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

In general, we do not find in the early rabbinic commentaries a tremendous stress on textual details in their explanations of the Prophets and the Writings (Na”ch). There is a striking difference in the way they approach the Pentateuch (Torah) and the rest of the Bible (Tanach). The logic behind this is simple, the Torah is the direct “Word of God from the mouth of Moses”, so, of course, every single word, an extra expression, a reversed expression, a word that comes before another, obviously, must have a meaning.

 

However, when commenting on the Na”ch, the early commentaries do not stress this approach. They do not worry about the fact that ideas in Psalms are repeated often. That is the literary style.  As long as the community believes that prophecy is from Heaven, then it is safe to believe that besides the Tanach’s being a prophecy, it also happens to be a literary work. However, the time came when among the Enlightened Jews the ideology developed that all that the Tanach really is, is a  literary work. Then the traditional rabbis felt a need to turn the Tanach itself into something very similar to the Torah. In other words, they no longer accepted this theory that we can explain textual difficulties in the Na”ch just by saying there is such a thing as the style of the prophet. If in Megillat Esther, sometimes the king is called Ahasuerus and other times he is called King Ahasuerus, we can no longer ignore this.

 

The master of this new style of interpretation is Rabbi Meir Leibush Wisser (1809 – 1879) commonly referred to as the Malbim. The Malbim actually did an incredible job in finding treasures hidden in those small, subtle differences and changes in style and changes in words and changes in order in the Tanach itself. And the Malbim on Esther is really a classic because there are many things that once you don’t accept that it is merely a story, make you recognize that there must be a story behind the story.

 

For instance, the Book of Esther begins,

“In the days of Ahasuerus, he is Ahasuerus who rules from India until Kush 127 countries. In those days, when the King Ahasuerus was sitting on his throne in Shushan the capital.” (1:1-2 )  

 

The first time Ahasuerus is mentioned he is not called king. The second time he is “ruling” and only in the third instance is he called king. The Malbim, just based on these subtle differences, builds a whole case, a story behind the story, that Ahasuerus was a usurper to the throne. First he was just a general, then, by marrying Vashti, the king’s daughter, he began “ruling” large areas and finally, he was able to sit with tranquility on his throne. But Ahasuerus was obsessed with the idea that people should not say that he became king just because he married the right woman. It bothered him so much that he had to show that he was starting a new dynasty. To show this he changed to capital to Shushan, as the verse emphasizes. This is why “Shushan the capital” is only mentioned after Ahasuerus is called king.

 

The Malbim also pays special attention to when Vashti is called Queen Vashti and when she is called Vashti, the Queen.  When she makes a party she is called Vashti, the queen. Ahasuerus has an inferiority complex built up around his gaining the throne illegitimately.  Vashti is therefore a constant reminder to him that he gained the throne by marriage. So he needs to show the world that she is subservient to him. By calling her Vashti, Ahasuerus is saying she is primarily just Vashti, and only through me is she a queen. I am the carrier of the monarchy, not she.  Also by stating she “also made a party” there is a hint that her party is just an “also” party, an inferior party..

 

The king then requests his eunuchs to invite Vashti the Queen to join him in his party. When Vashti refuses to join him the text tells us that “the Queen Vashti refuses the request that came by the hand of the eunuchs.” (verse 12). But we already know from previous verses that eunuchs delivered the message.  Why, asks the Malbim, does this need to be reiterated? The Malbim sees in this repetition the true reason for Vashti’s refusal; the message was delivered by eunuchs which is an insulting way to do it. Why didn’t the king send more noble messengers or even come in person? Vashti understood correctly, that Ahasuerus was trying to show that her position was inferior to his own. She refused to come because the way she was invited was insulting. Also, the Malbim points out that when she refuses she is called “the Queen Vashti”. By putting her title first she is asserting her regality.

 

So all of a sudden through these subtle differences, we have a whole story behind the scenes, that this is a struggle for prestige. Who is the most prestigious and authentic symbol of the monarchy? Is it Vashti or is it Ahasuerus?  And this will give us an insight into what goes on in the next portion, the Trial of Vashti.

 

“Then the king said to the wise men those aware of the times … the ones close to him  Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memuchan … what to do with the Queen, Vashti for not fulfilling the word of the king Ahasuerus by the hand of the eunuchs?”  (1:13-15)

Let’s focus on four problems. Presumably this is a clear cut case of rebellion. The Queen should be executed.  1. Why then does Ahasaurus need “those aware of the times”? Ordinary judges should be sufficient. 2 Why are they called “close to him”? 3. Why is she called the Queen Vashti, according to the Malbim’s own rules we should emphasize her low stature here if we want to execute her.  4. Why reiterate that the message was sent by eunuchs? That would seem to mitigate her crime.

 

To answer all these question the Malbim says that the king was of two minds, he loved his wife, but letting her get away with her refusal would make him seem weak.  Therefore, he wanted to hint to those closest to him that he really wanted her to be found innocent. Telling anyone else would publicise his true feelings and risk weakening his image. Calling her the Queen and mentioning that the message was sent by eunuchs is intended to show his closest advisers that he wants her to be found innocent.  And this is why he chose to use judges who took into consideration the needs of the times. Only they can make exceptions to the normal required punishment. Memuchan understood all this but explained that nevertheless Vashti needs to be executed.


What was the argument that Memuchan used to convince the King? The King’s position of power was weak and he was looking for a way to gain greater popular support.  Memuchan suggests using men’s rights as the way to get this support. Memuchan said, if women are going to get this kind of a backing, if Vashti is left unpunished, then all the males in the kingdom, will come out against you. But, if you kill Vashti, and when you give the reason you don’t stress that she didn’t listen to the King, you stress the fact that you are doing it as a husband, as an example to others about men’s rights, that a man is the boss in his house, you are going to get millions of people screaming out, “More power to Ahasuerus! Yes, we want to give you all the power!!!”  So in spite of the fact that he loves Vashti, that he is ready to do everything in the world so that Vashti should not be killed, but this is too much of an argument. Ahasuerus can now become the absolute monarch in all the 127 countries, something that did not exist before. If the price is the death of Vashti, so be it. This is a small price to pay for such a power.

 

Now if we take a look at the rise of Queen Esther we see an incredible retribution. Ahasuerus wanted his new queen to be of no threat to his prestige. He chose her solely based on her outward appearance. He did not investigate her pedigree and in fact preferred she had none. He wanted the opposite of Vashti. He wanted someone who would not threaten his self esteem. But in the end she rises to be the actual ruler of the empire.  This is the Divine hand exacting a measure for measure retribution.

 

So, by paying attention to apparently insignificant details, the Malbim is able to create a completely new behind the scenes story.  It teaches how a despot rose to power and how the Divine plan eventually thwarted him. The new depth that the Malbim is able to uncover in the Na”ch reconfirms its holy character.

 

Exodus 35 Vayakhel : New aspects of Shabbat

24 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

The Torah in many places commands rest on the Sabbath day and that all manner of work shall not be done. But exactly what is considered work is almost never spelled out.  One of the only examples given (others being collecting wood and travelling) occurs in Exodus 35:3 where burning a fire is prohibited.  The classic commentator Rashi asks why is this work activity specifically mentioned whereas almost all the other forms of work which are also prohibited are never delineated in the Torah?  Rashi quotes the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 35b) for two explanations.  The first is that burning a fire on the Sabbath is punished to a lesser degree than other types of work. The second reason is to teach that each type of work (אב מלאכה) gets punished individually so that a person may be considered to have committed many sins if he does many types of work on the Sabbath. Burning a fire is just an example to teach that each type of work is considered its own sin.

But according the first explanation, we need to ask why would burning a fire be punished to a lesser degree than other types of work? And according to the second explanation, why specifically was fire used as an example of a type of work? There are two classical answers. The Ramban explains that we might have thought fire would be permitted on Shabbat as it is on holidays (Yom Tov).  The Sforno explains that only creative work is prohibited. But, for example, moving a couch around the living room may be tiring but it is not considered work, whereas removing a single thread from one’s suit is prohibited.  Only creative work is prohibited. Destructive acts are not prohibited by Torah law (the Rabbis did however forbid that too). Lighting a fire is a paradigmatic example of destructive work. Since a fire destroys you might think it is allowed to light one, so the Torah needs to come to give an explicit prohibition. The Torah says since making a fire in certain circumstances may be for a constructive purpose it needs to be forbidden always, albeit to a lesser degree.

Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz  (1690-1764) gives a novel and insightful explanation for why burning a fire is isolated here for special mention. We keep the Shabbat to emulate God who rested on the seventh day of creation.  The Talmud ( Pesachim 54 ) describes the law for making havadala to announce the end of the Shabbat.  The ceremony includes wine, fragrances and fire.  Fragrance is used to console us on the loss of the extra neshama that we receive on the Shabbat but which is now leaving since Shabbat has ended.  Why do we light a fire? The first Shabbat that the first man, Adam had was entirely light. He didn’t need any artificial light. We recall that the first Shabbat of Adam was after he repented for his sins. Mizmor shir le yom hashabbat (Psalms 92) is based on Adam’s original prayers. The Medrash explains that Cain comes over to Adam. Adam asks him how were you saved even though you sinned? He answers, I repented.  Adam says, I too will repent. Then he wrote this mizmor.  Shabbat means return and repentance.  So the first Shabbat was a day of tshuva, return.  The light represents clarity that is the source of all teshuva. But when the Shabbat ended, darkness came.  It is then that the first fire was created, lit by Adam that night.  Up until this point man had received all he needed directly from nature without working. But fire is man making an intervention in nature. The fire Adam makes represents this first intervention.  So in remembrance of  Adam, the whole Shabbat we do not light, but like Adam, when Shabbat ends we do light a fire.  So it would seem the reason we don’t light a fire on Shabbat is because Adam didn’t light one on that first Shabbat.  But says Rabbi Eybeschutz, we really should be allowed to light a fire on Shabbat. Our Sabbath rest is an imitation of God’s rest, but fire is a uniquely human activity.  God did not rest from making fire because God never made fire in the first place. So we should be allowed to make a fire, it being a human work, not a Divine work.  We should only be prohibited from doing Divine work on Shabbat.

If the only reason for Shabbat would have been to commemorate God’s creating the world , fire would have been permitted because fire represents man’s input into the world.  In the first version of the Ten Commandments given in the book of Exodus the reason given for Shabbat is to remember that God created the world in six days. But there is a second aspect to Shabbat. In the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:12 the reason for Shabbat is given as to remember the Exodus from Egypt. So we see Shabbat has a deep connection to the Exodus from Egypt.  But how can this be? The exodus happened after Shabbat had already been established and kept by Adam. The reason for something needs to be prior to that something. The memory of leaving Egypt is only a secondary aspect of Shabbat.

Adam was commanded to be fruitful and multiply and fill the world and to master it. This means man has the obligation, the right and the privilege to use all the forces of nature for his benefit because he is the master of the world. Man is there to serve God and nature is there to serve man.  So by using nature for ourselves, we are making it do its purpose, and ultimately joining it into the service of God.  That is our job, to master the world and use the world to our advantage.   The more you use the world the better.

But the danger is that you plow the field and plant it and work it and you come to depend on your work; you cannot stop.  You become a slave to the work. Shabbat comes to tell you to take control of your life. You don’t really need nature. On the Shabbat you view your work as already completed. Shabbat is your declaration of independence from nature. You have your own internal creation within you and that is allowed. For example, marital relations are permitted.  Lighting a fire shows our domination over nature, so we need to stop, just to show our independence from nature. This second aspect of Shabbat is represented by the Exodus from the slavery in Egypt.  Shabbat represents freedom, whether it be from physical bondage at the hand of the Egyptians or from a self imposed bondage in which we make ourselves slaves to our need to control and work nature. It is this second aspect which generates the prohibition of burning a fire since fire is the archetype of man controlling nature. And since this aspect is a secondary aspect, the punishment for not fulfilling it is lesser. All the other malachot (types of work) relate to first reason given for Shabbat, namely, the Creation.

This explains another difference in wording.  In Parshat KiTisa (Exodus 31:13 ) it says Shabbat is a sign that God created world. In our parsha it does not mention that Shabbat is a sign. In fact there is no mention that Shabbat relates to the creation of world at all.  When the Torah speaks of Shabbat as a sign it means that Shabbat is a commemoration of God’s creation of the world. But in Parshat VaYakhel (Exodus 35:1-3) Shabbat is strictly a representation of our freedom and  independence (as represented by the prohibition of using fire). It is a push back from the possible trap which comes from being masters over nature,  viz. becoming enslaved by nature.

And why does the Torah add this aspect to Shabbat?  What happened in the intervening chapters?  Between the Shabbat mentioned in Ki Tisa and the Shabbat of Vayakhel we read about the sin of the golden calf.  That is slavery, man becoming dependent on  something other than God.  So now it becomes necessary to mention man’s need to declare his independence from nature, so we mention this freedom aspect of Shabbat by discussing the prohibition of burning a fire. Shabbat is thus an aspiration upward toward God the Creator and also a separation from the slavery that Earthly work may trap us in.

Rabbi Nachum Danzig

February 24, 2019

Parsha 22

Baal Worship: Fertility Gods and Leviticus 26

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Parshat Bechukotai starts in Leviticus 26 verse 3.  We read the promises God makes if we keep His Torah and and then the threats of suffering if we do not.  But if we backup to the end of Parshat Behar (25:50 – 55) we read about the fair treatment of slaves, and are reminded that we were once slaves in Egypt.  Ending this section is a command not to worship idols.  (26: 1 – 2) .  Coming as it does after these laws of slavery it seems like just another place where the Torah tells us not to worship idols.  The Massorah which is the traditional division of paragraphs in the Torah clearly connects verses 26:1 -2 to the end of chapter 25.  But the Christians place them at the beginning of a new section, chapter 26.  According to the Christian division, based on the Septuagint, the idol worship prohibition is directly connected to the promises God makes.  I.e. Don’t worship idols, instead do my laws and you will get blessings.  And what are these blessings? First and foremost it is rain.

Let me quote the relevant verses:

“1 Do not make for yourselves gods and a statue and an upright stone do not stand up for yourselves and don’t put a covering stone in your land to prostrate upon because I am the Lord your God.2  My Sabbaths shall you keep and my Temple shall you fear, I am the Lord. 3 If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.”

Read this way, the connection between verses 1-2 and verses 3-5 is that instead of worshiping idols you should keep God’s Laws and then you will receive blessings.  Baal was the primary Canaanite deity.  He was the god of storm and fertility.  In the hilly land of Canaan there are no rivers. Agriculture is completely dependent on rain (compare Deut. 11 : 10 -11). Baal was worshiped as a fertility god, the storm brings rain which drenches that land and makes it fruitful. The rains should come and come in the right time of year so as to be useful for the grain harvest. When the people are told not to worship Baal they will naturally fear that the rains will then cease to come.  So the Torah reassures them that by keeping God’s Law, they will get the blessing of rain and so much abundance that “the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing”.

Verse 1 contains a strange list of idols.  At first reading we might suppose that the verse is simply listing various different kinds of worship all of which are forbidden.  But after a close reading we will notice the use of the word and not or.  It seems these items were worshiped together all at once.

In the ancient city of Hazor a collection of items for the worship of Baal were discovered. They are currently on display at the Israel Museum.  We find a semi-circle of smooth upright stones, the middle one is a slightly larger stone which has worshiping  hands and a crescent moon carved into it . In the center of the semi-circle is one flat stone which is unhewn.  There is also a statue of a seated Baal, its head having been severed at some later point, probably by Israelite monotheists.  Baal worship seems to have required all these elements.  The carved stones are the gods (elilim, “idols”)  from verse one.  The stone bearing the hands and moon is the upright stone.  The unhewn stone is the covering stone used for prostration and the statue is the seated Baal statue. All of these pieces were brought together to make a kind of ad hoc temple to worship Baal. Thus the Torah is listing the specific elements of Baal worship and telling the people not to worship Baal and instead promising fertility in the land based of adherence to God’s Laws.

The Massorah disconnects the prohibition of idolatry from the promises of agricultural success perhaps because idolatry was no longer such a threat.  In the absence of current idolatrous practice, it was better to simply emphasize the success that will come from Torah observance, without offering it as an alternative to a no longer existing practice.

-ND

Leaving a Good Imprint (From Heel to Toe)

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Parshat Ekev (Deut. 7:12 – 11-25) starts off using the Hebrew word ekev to mean “if” as in “If you will listen to these laws…” But the word has another meaning in Hebrew and that is heel. We can understand how the word heel can lead to the the meaning if when we consider the phrase “on the heel of” meaning as a result of. So instead using the word if, we can translate the sentence as “As a result of your keeping these laws … God will keep you”.

If we turn to the end of the parsha we find the words “sole of the foot”. So we can say the parsha starts at the heel and goes to the sole. This verse 11:24 reads “Every place which the sole of your foot will tread will be for you, from the desert and the Lebanon, from the River, the Euphrates until the Sea behind will be your territory.”   This might be taken to mean that the more places the Israelites walk on and conquer so will their homeland be greater in size. So it is a kind of encouragement to walk on and conquer more territory. But why wasn’t the all the territory they had previously conquered in trans-Jordan also to be theirs? Because that wasn’t Israel.  So then there are definite boundaries to the Holy Land. It is not something that can be expanded by the success or failure of military campaigns.  So the verse probably shouldn’t be understood as an imperative, go out and conquer, but more of a welcoming.  Know, that from now on , the places that you will be wandering about in are really yours.  You are home now. Once you cross the Jordan, any place you walk, is justly yours already.

I would like to suggest a different meaning in the spirit of the Hassidic style of explanation.  The verse doesn’t just mean the wherever you walk the land is yours, rather it tells us that wherever we go in life we should view that place as our own and treat it that way.  So if we are renting an apartment, we should leave it in a better state than we found it.  We should fix things and improve things.  The sidewalk in from of our house may not be ours, but we can view it as ours and keep it clean.  So too in social matters.  If there in injustice in our locale we should go about setting it right.  The Torah it telling us the we need to view our greater surroundings as our own and therefore treat them better.

-ND

Holy Korach!

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Parshat Korach (Numbers 16 – 18) begins with a puzzling Hebrew expression, ויקח קרח, literally, Korach took, without ever stating what he took. Commentators have suggested that Korach took himself to one side to separate himself from the community, or that he took or gained the favor of the men of the Sanhedrin (Rashi) or that he took for himself a bad purchase by using his money to gain influence and create a dispute (R Shimon ben Lakish, BT Sanhedrin 109b).

The Torah often plays Hebrew word games and sound games (take for example the Copper Serpent in Number 21:6-10). Here, in chapter 16 the letters ק ח recur frequently. First in Korach’s own name, and then in the word take (Kach).  Then in verses 6,17,18 all in reference to taking fire pans. Is the Torah telling us that Korach is a taker? Why are his followers taking fire pans?  Moses without any instructions from God has decided to use fire pans and burning incense in them to determine who is allowed to be priests. How did Moses know to use this as a means of determination? Why not use animal sacrifices, a far more common service of the priests? Eliahu used animal sacrifices in contest with the priest of Baal on Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18:20). So why not here also? And why did Korach and his entourage so readily agree.  Why didn’t they offer their own contest?

When is the incense offering offered normally? It is offered twice a day on the golden altar each time by a different priest (Mishna Tamid 5:2).  The priest burns this offering inside the Temple building in the Holy section without any other people present.  Once a year, on Yom Kippur the High Priest would burn the incense in the Holy of Holies, also alone. Due to its exclusive nature, the incense offering was seen as the paramount of holy devotion for a priest. Furthermore, when we compare the purified incense to a bloody animal it also seems to be more spiritual in nature.

Korach’s claim is that the whole community is holy and should be able to be priests. What better way to break down the hierarchical structure of the priesthood than to take the most holy of all the sacrifices and allow everyone to perform it?  It was the obvious way to demonstrate that all the people can approach God in the most holy way – the complete democratization of religion.  We noted earlier that it is unclear what Korach took, and that we see later in the verses a lot of taking of fire pans. If we use these later verses that contain the letters ק ח to explain the first verse of the parsha we can suggest that what Korach took right from the start was a fire pan for the burning of incense. This is why Moses suggested using fire pans to run the contest.  And this is why Korach agreed so readily, it was his idea in the first place!
Korach wanted all the people to have an equal share in the religious ritual and sacrificial rite. This seems like it should be a legitimate request. Any person in the faith should be able to come close to God and express his love and fear of God. In current times the desire to open up religious ritual and practice to all the community is the predominate sentiment.  But I want to explore the other side of the argument.  Is there any value in keeping certain areas of the religion off limits, or off limits to most member of the faith?

One justification would be that familiarity if it doesn’t breed contempt, at least is breeds familiarity! And familiarity has its down side.  A goal of religion is take people out of their normal existence, to experience something far removed. This requires specialness of place and time and limitation of access. In Judaism the Temple is mostly off limits and that creates a feeling of awe. In Islam, Mecca for example is a place most members of the faith only visit once in their lifetime. In Catholicism there is a special feeling created by the Midnight Mass, a feeling which would diminished if it would take place every night of the year.  In Judaism, part of the holiness of visiting the Kotel is in its very infrequency. Our feeling of inspiration is often linked to difficulty or rareness of a certain experience.  The Hassidic movement captured this idea in the seasonal visit to the Rebbe. Keeping some things in religious practice off limits serves to enhance meaningfulness of religious practice as a whole.

In the Temple there are two parts, the Holy and the Holy of Holies. The many daily animal sacrifices take place in front of and outside of the Temple.  The incense offering takes place in the Holy section of the Temple.  This represents a higher level of exclusiveness.  As we noted, only one kohen per day may do this service and only once in his life.  The Holy of Holies has even a higher level of exclusivity and holiness, it is visited only once a year. These different levels of separateness command higher levels of respect and awe, and create a sense of holiness.

There is a more prosaic reason for limiting who can officiate in the holy service. It prevents competition and resentment. When a certain position is open to everyone but only one person is chosen, those who are not chosen may feel resentment. Why wasn’t I chosen? He is no better than I am. But when the choice is made from birth, such as the selection of the King of England there is less resentment.  I was never in the running to be King of England so I don’t feel indignant that I was not chosen. This is the primary utility in a static hierarchy. It would have not been possible for all 600,000 (or more) Israelites to act as priests.  All Korach could have accomplished would have been to make everyone eligible to be priests.  When only some would be selected there would have been a lot of resentment. Aharon and his sons are a tiny fraction of the whole population.  By selecting them, God created a greater level of preeminence for them and an ensuing greater respect and awe for them.  And He also removed a potential for a lot of future disappointments and resentment.

What avenue do the faithful have today to approach the Divine? Prayer is our replacement for Temple Service, the service of the heart.  In our prayers there is one special time when we go to a holier place than even the High Priest on Yom Kippur goes to.  In the Kedusha prayer, we do not go to the Holy of Holies, but we go to the angelic place beyond that, the third level of holiness.  And we say, “Holy Holy Holy, Lord of Hosts, the whole world is filled with Your glory.”  And in this paradoxical statement we recognize that God is indeed separate (holy) but we also recognize that we can reach closeness to Him in any place in His world, ‘the world is filled with His glory’. Prayer is open to all people at all times.

Celebrating Victory – Parshat BeShalach

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

In the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b the verse in Exodus 14:20, ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה (“they did not approach one another the whole night”) as teaching that the administering angels wanted to sing before God but God did not let them come together for this purpose. He told them, ‘The work of my hands are drowning in the sea and you want sing praises?’

The Talmud is teaching that God cares for all his creatures. And even if the Egyptians tried to kill His beloved Israel and they therefore had to be destroyed, do not think that God is happy about this. He still loves all his creatures, even those who are wicked. And therefore our joy in victory must be mitigated by awareness of the life that was lost on both sides.

This Talmudic lesson can be contrasted with the how the Midrash understands the verse. In Shmot Rabba 23:7 we find almost the same explanation, except that God’s reason for not allowing the angels to sing is different. He tells them, ‘My legions are still in peril and you want to sing my praises?’ This is a very different reason. Here God is exclusively concerned with the welfare of his nation, Israel. It is ok to sing praises to God about the Israelite victory, but only after the danger is completely past.

We can learn that the Rabbis at different times were sensitive to each of these concerns.  On the one hand we cannot be without mercy for our enemies even if their goal is our destruction, but that mercy should not prevent us from finishing the job of our own salvation.  Sometimes Gods creatures have to be destroyed, but we need to mourn that loss or else we become that much less human.

-Nachum Danzig

 

 

 

Destiny Joseph – Parshat VaYechi

02 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

The book of Genesis comes to a close with Joseph forgiving his brothers. In chapter 50 verses 19 – 20 Joseph tells the brother they should not fear him,  “Do not fear. Am I in place of God? You thought evil toward me, but God thought for the good in order to have what there is today, to preserve a great number of people.” It sounds like Joseph is saying that even though the brothers intended to do something bad, since God converted their actions into something positive, saving humanity from famine, they deserve no punishment.  But does this make sense ethically? Does the fact that the evil done actually brought about some good serve to lessen the guilt of the doer? If Reuben intending to kill Shimon, shoots him in the chest and then in the hospital, the surgeons in the process of saving Shimon’s life find an undetected tumor which they also remove, thus saving Shimon from cancer, is Reuven no longer guilty of attempted murder? The brothers did an evil thing, the fact that it fit into God’s plan should not mitigate their guilt.

The Sforno solves this problem by explaining that the when Joseph says ‘You thought evil towards me’ he meant that the brothers thought Joseph was evil. So Joseph considers their actions justifiable given their opinion. Though in fact God considered Joseph to be righteous. In any event, Joseph would not punish them for doing what they thought was right. Rashi gives a different but equally creative interpretation. Rashi interprets Joseph’s statement like this: You intended to do evil to me, but God prevented it. Am I in Gods place that I could do you any evil without God willing it? So while Joseph does not exactly forgive them, he merely points out that he cannot harm them even if he wanted to since God controls all that befalls man. There is no point for Joseph to actively seek out their punishment since that is for God to do.

This explanation brings up a different theological problem: Shouldn’t man act in this world and do what he can to fix the world, and bring justice?  Is Joseph a believer in absolute destiny? The argument goes like this, I am about to cross the street.   Either it is God’s will that I survive this crossing or that I die.  If I am to survive, then I will survive whether or not I look both ways before crossing.  If, heaven forbid, I am destined to die, then looking won’t save me.  Either way I can cross blindly.  Does Joseph subscribe to this view? This would fit his decision not to punish the brothers. Why bother? If it is God’s will, it will happen with or without Joseph’s interference.

The question might be asked, but we see God commands man, so He does expect us to act. But this would only require us to act when He has commanded us.  What about where there is no command?  Then seemingly we are free to be inactive.

If Joseph really subscribed to this belief we can explain another troubling question: We see almost the whole Jewish people came to Israel to bury Jacob.  Then they return to Egypt. Before his death, Joseph tells them they will be brought one day to the Land of Israel (50:24). If they were supposed to be in the Land of Israel, why didn’t they just stay there when they went up previously? Or even now, why didn’t they just go there, they obviously had the ability? Joseph is telling them that since God did not command them to go now, there is no reason to take any active hand in getting there. They were supposed to wait for the divine plan to unfold around them. All of man’s actions are futile in the face of God’s master plan. This is also the general message of the story of the sale of Joseph and his eventual rise to power. History is under God’s control.

Is there any role for man’s independent action in this world? Can man ever spoil God’s plan or is his influence limited to areas that are irrelevant to and do not impinge upon God’s plan? The Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the Netziv, gives us an amazing insight into this question in commenting on the brothers’ plan to throw Joseph into the pit instead of killing him outright. In his Herchev Devar on verse 37:13, the Netziv explains why throwing Joseph into a pit to die is preferable to killing him with an instrument.  The Zohar explains that the pit was full of snakes and scorpions, yet Reuben was not afraid that Joseph would die because he knew Joseph was a righteous man and God would save him. But Reuben was afraid that Joseph would die if the brothers laid hands upon him, why? Wouldn’t God save him then too? The Netziv writes, No, human free will is beyond divine Providence. It can reverse God’s plan. God can choose to override human free will but only exceptional circumstances.  The very meaning of human free will is that we can act even where God would not want us to.  If human free will were limited to acting according to a divine plan (or even within certain alternate design plans), then man really would have no free will. We would be only deluding ourselves in thinking we have free will. Our freedom would be circumscribed by God’s plans.

This question broadens greatly into serious theological issues. First we can ask does providence conflict with human free will?  Then we can ask does omniscience conflict with human free will?  There are those who will answer, not like the Netziv that human free will can never conflict with the divine plan because what ever happens God will rework the plan to achieve the same results in a different way.  That really makes no sense since the plan might be the Shimon will become king.  Can Reuben then kill Shimon? So there must be a conflict at some level, albeit that God can choose the override human free will in certain cases.  So therefore we would need to say there are multiple divine plans, depending on human decisions. We would then be left with a less absolute concept of Providence.

As far as omniscience and free will, there are several approaches. Basically, if God knows what I will do tomorrow, then I may feel I have free will tomorrow to do what I want, I really cannot do anything but what God knows I will do.  We can solve this problem by either negating free will or limiting God’s knowledge in some way. Maimonides chooses the latter. First of all, since God exists outside of time, we cannot truly say he knows anything before it happens since before only makes sense when talking about a being that exists in time. So his knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past, neither of which affects the events.  Human future knowledge, as in a prophet’s knowledge, would present a problem, but prophets never have exact knowledge.  A second way Maimonides solves this problem is by saying the God and his knowledge are one, and just as the former is incomprehensible so is the latter. (See Hilchot Tshuva 5:5, Guide 1:57) So God’s knowledge is something we cannot comprehend, and is unlike human knowledge in any way, and so it cannot be a problem theologically. His third solution is that when we talk about omniscience, we only mean knowledge of things that are knowable. In saying God is omniscient we never intended to say that God knows things that are unknowable because they are contingent on free will choices. For example, God knows what is in my refrigerator, but he does not know what I will eat from their tomorrow morning.

In book 5:20 of the Kuzari Yehudah Halevi seems to hold like the last option given by Maimonides, i.e. that knowledge of a future potential does not cause it to occur.

In the Guide 2:48 Maimonides brings the earlier words of Joseph to his brother, “God sent me before you” (45:7) as an example of an action performed by intermediate causes, i.e. the brother, which is nevertheless ascribed to God since he is the primary cause of all.  (See also Hilchot Tshuva 5:4 where God’s will is explained to include the permission for man to act freely)  So perhaps Joseph is telling the brother what they want to hear. He is letting the brothers believe he views this as God’s works, but he really only means it is God’s will for man to act freely.

Recivilizing after Shechem – Parshat VaYishlach

11 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Parsha

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Chapter 34 of Genesis recounts the story know as the Rape of Dina.  The prince of Shechem (himself also named Shechem) captures and rapes Dina, the daughter of Leah and Jacob. Hamor, Shechem’s father and the king comes to ask Jacob to let his son marry Dina. Shimon and Levi conceive a plan to consent and then kill all the inhabitants of Shechem. They justify their plan, which they do implement, because they cannot let their sister be treated this way with impunity. The city’s population has passively permitted their prince to violate Dina and therefore they are also guilty.

Once the decision is taken, it is it actually makes sense to kill all the inhabitants however cruel that is. It is wise because were they to leave a remnant, that remnant would one day organize and take revenge. By killing everyone, Shimon and Levi ensure that their clan can live in peace. Jacob, however, is still afraid that the people of Shechem had military pacts with their neighbors and the neighbors would come and attack him and his family. This does not happen because although there may have been some military agreements, once Shechem is entirely wiped out, there is no incentive for any other tribe to attack Jacob. They stand to gain nothing and only risk losing the battle. A pact is only useful as long as both parties exist!

So perhaps Shimon and Levi’s attack on Shechem was justified. But it had other consequences which were very damaging to Jacob’s family.

Years later in the story of the family the brothers come down to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph decides to lock up Shimon as a guarantee that the brothers will return with Benjamin. Rashi explains why Joseph chose to lock up Shimon. Shimon was the brother who threw Joseph into the pit. See Rashi on 42:24.  Even if the violence of Shimon and Levi was legitimate, it had a bad affect on them. Shimon and Levi learned that violence solves problems, and it solves them maybe too well. They then used violence against their own family, against Joseph, to solve what they perceived as a problem. Their former actions corrupted them.

Golda Meir famously said,

“When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. “(London 1969)

Killing corrupts the killer and teaches him that violence works. He may come use violence to solve his problems also in his civilian life and in his family life. This is a danger and a problem society faces after every war. A soldier needs to go through a detoxification process where he learns to make a mental separation between his behavior in war and his behavior back home.

Unfortunately this did not take place in time for Shimon and Levi. What did eventually happen was the harnessing of this violent tendency for good in the case of Levi. When the people built and worshiped the golden calf in the times of Moses, it was Levi that came in at God’s behest to killed the trespassers.  Perhaps Joseph locked up Shimon with this in mind, that his time in the Egyptian jail would serve as his detox.