Naso: Blessing our children

 

Adonai will bless and protect you

Adonai will deal kindly and graciously with you.

Adonai will bestow God’s favor upon you and grant you peace.  (Num 6:24-26)

God tells Moses to tell Aaron and his sons (the Priests) to raise their hands and speak those words specifically and bless the people.  Known as the Priestly blessing, these simple phrases appear in this week’s parasha Naso, and also at Shabbat tables around the world when they’re used to bless the children on Friday nights.  Good thing, too.  The practice of blessing your children each and every week that you gather around a table does tend to sweep away the most recent annoyance that has cropped up between you and your kids.

This weekend our second child is graduating from college.  It’s a landmark weekend, to be sure, as any parent of a college graduate will tell you.  Yes, she’s still on our insurance, and yes, we’re still paying her car insurance, and yes, so is her sister on both counts.  Yet, this transition is different from when she went off to school four years ago.  Like her sister, she won’t come home for breaks, because there are none.  There are no built-in times to reconnect any more.  Any trips home are because of taking “vacation days” or because she wants to.  And, one always hopes, for the holidays.   And the fairly safe, stand-by conversation starter, “How are classes going?” has been taken away.

Bekhor Shor (12^th c France) said that this priestly blessing was a gift, not a response to an offering, that “sometimes a gift is given with good intentions, yet in a way that makes everyone but the recipient upset.  Here, however, everyone will be delighted with the gift [of the blessing]”. Another commentator said that “blessing means increasing the good in one’s life.”  (Gersonides, 14^th c France, also a philosopher.)  So true. That’s exactly what we wish for our loved ones when we bless them.  It’s interesting that these words used to be said exclusively by the Priests, the Cohanim, in the wilderness and during the times of the Temple; we’ve all appropriated them now.  Maybe we all need more blessings in our lives, that without the regular rituals of offerings and priesthoods, we have to find our blessings more intentionally.

Although Rashbam (another 12^th c France….France was quite the hotbed of Talmudic scholars!) said that one shouldn’t make up a blessing of your own, in truth,  we wrote our own blessing for our children when they were very young.  We hadn’t read Rashbam; what did we know?  We recite it in Hebrew and English, and inevitably, since after all these years, we still haven’t memorized it, if we miss a word, the kids correct us. Truthfully, they wait for it.  (And truthfully, maybe we help them out, just to see them roll their eyes and laugh at each other.) These days, I sort of wish we had incorporated both ours and the traditional one, because I think as they’ve gotten older, the very specific pleas for protection, kindness and favor seem to mean more as they’re further and further out on the end of that one, long-letting-go that is raising a child.

So, for this weekend I’ll share both blessings with not only my newly minted college graduate, but her one-year-out sister, and their younger brother.

“May you grow to seek God in the world. Meet and accept challenges.  Find teachers of value and inspiration.  Make the world a better, cleaner, happier place.  And influence others for good and beauty.  May it be God’s will….May God bless you and protect you.  May  God’s face be turned to you and deal graciously with you.  May God bestow favor and grant you peace.”

Congratulations  and hearty Mazal Tov to all the other graduates’ parents out there.

Bamidbar: On the move – what to bring with?

The Mountain becomes the Tabernacle becomes the Temple becomes the Synagogue.

This is the wandering of Bamidmar, in the wilderness.  This is the progression, the journey, the move, the trek, the way we got through moving from one place, and the way we arrived at another.

When the book of Bamidbar begins, the Israelites are still at the mountain.  Still there, in the place where Moses came down with the tablets holding the Ten Commandments, still there where they heard the teachings and responded that they will do and they will hear, still there where they built the Golden Calf and betrayed (cheated) on God by setting up a new god, still where they were a group of slaves who escaped with their lives….and a lot of animals.

But now it’s time to go.  Poor Moses!  How do you move that many people in an orderly fashion? And even more important, how do you maintain the emotion and the power of the experience, as the grinding day-to-day existence of moving through the wilderness wears you down?  How do you make the experience of Sinai portable?

This  has been the challenge of Judaism since Sinai, and especially since the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.  If you think about it, it’s odd that we don’t really know the exact location of Mt Sinai, the very spot where the group of ex-slaves was transformed into a nation.  If we knew where it was, surely it would have become a place of pilgrimage.  There would be some instruction in our tradition on how often to visit that place, and what to do there.

But there isn’t.  Judaism was created in the wilderness, Bamidbar.  This was a place of emptiness, a silent place.  And to fill that empty space, we were told to build the Tabernacle, or Mishkan.  God was on the mountain, but we couldn’t stay there, so we were told to build the Tabernacle, so God could come off the mountain and travel with us.  The Mishkan  was a portable Sinai.  The people couldn’t come close to the mountain, and they couldn’t just walk right up to the Tabernacle either.  Much pomp and ritual surrounded the Tabernacle, which is what a lot of our last book of Leviticus is about.

Since the time of Bamidbar, the wandering in the wilderness, we have come to the Land, build two Temples that became the focus of Jewish life for that time, and left the Land again.  Again, we built portable places to pray, only this time they were called synagogues.   No more offerings of animals and incense, just the offerings of our hearts and our words.  And for many years, especially here in America, the synagogue became Sinai, where we could gather and re-live the experience from the wilderness.  The synagogue has its own share of pomp and ritual; some more, some less.

Not all of us go to synagogue; in fact, only those that do go regularly are in the minority.  Yet I think there is still a desire to recapture that Sinai experience, feel that communal ground-shattering event forge invisible connections between us.

Something happened out there in the Wilderness, at the mountain, something that we recall every year at this time.  The holiday of Shavuot brings us back to Sinai, where tradition tells us that all Jews were present – even Jews from the past and the future.

The Mountain became the Mishkan, became the Temple, became the Synagogue….becomes us, each of us an individual place where we can encounter God in silence, from the wilderness inside our own souls.  We still need community, though, still need to gather together at the Mountain and experience the profoundness of that time and place.

See you at Sinai.

Behar/B’chukotai: No one is hungry

You know you’re really attached to a piece of land when you start making laws that apply the same to people as they do to real estate.  Welcome to Behar, the first of this week’s double parasha Behar/B’chukotai.  The Israelites, who are still camped around Mt. Sinai, by the way- they haven’t moved on since Exodus, just still at the base of the mountain, camping and listening to Moses give out the rules of Leviticus – have already heard about keeping the Sabbath.  Work six days, take the seventh day off.  Got it.

Well, it’s the same for the land.  Work the land for six years, and take the seventh year off. It’s called shmita, and during the shmita year, debts are forgiven, land lies fallow, private land yields become open to all, and food is generally redistributed so everyone gets enough, and no one goes hungry while crops are left alone.

It’s not widely believed that shmita, with all its contractual real estate intricacies, was ever really observed fully.    What is interesting, however, is the body of language and law that surrounds this one commandment to let the land lie fallow.

Suddenly we get all this wonderful social commentary.  What would the business of agriculture look like if you had to leave land alone for a year?  How do you distribute food when ownership is given a year off?  How do you make sure everyone has food?  When do you buy land, and what happens to land prices if you know your ownership is time-limited?  The land is to be left “free for all”…how does that change community responsibility, making sure no one goes hungry?  Whose land is it anyway?  What if you’re in debt, or you can’t pay your bills without the crops that come from the land?

These are real problems, especially today.  None of us has to work too hard to imagine a family that has come on hard times, with underwater houses and bankruptcy filings backed up for years.  In this section of text, we read about what to do if “a kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his holding, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his kinsman has sold” (Lev 25:25)  That is, if someone is in such need that s/he has to sell everything just to stay above water, someone (and the Bible usually assumes this to be a relative) has to come forward and help that person keep his/her home.  And no buyer can prevent this, just to collect a debt, says Rashi, the great 12^th c French sage.  You can’t strip a person of everything they own.  We must always protect the dignity of an individual, even if they are the poorest of the poor.  And you still have to make sure they eat.

In fact, Rashi continues, when verse 26 says, “if a man has no one to redeem for him….”, he asks quite pointedly if there is any such thing as a person who has no one to redeem for him?  Is anyone so alone in the community that there is no one to help?

The kind of community we need to create is one where the answer is a resounding, “No!”  Whether or not it’s the year off for the land, we must be aware of those in need, those who must be “redeemed”, those who must be given an opportunity to get on their feet again.  This is what makes an am kadosh, a holy community.  The laws of shmita help point us in that direction.  It’s up to us to make it real.

Emor: Laying our communal hands

Now here’s an odd story in this week’s parasha, Emor,  not that there aren’t a few odd stories in our Torah.  One day, “There came out among the Israelites one whose mother was Israelite and whose father was Egyptian.  And a fight broke out in the camp between that half-Israelite and a certain Israelite.  The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the NAME in blasphemy and he was brought to Moses” (Lev. 24:10-11).   The man’s mother was from the tribe of Dan, and he was placed in custody until God made a decision as to what to do with him.

Decision made, this is what they were told to do:  “Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and let all who were within hearing [of him saying the NAME] lay their hands upon his head, and let the whole community stone him.”  (Lev. 24:13)

Now, putting aside the issue of stoning for a moment, there are a few other interesting aspects to this story.  This individual had violated a community standard in a significant way by pronouncing the NAME of God, one that only Moses had used.  This person crossed a line, and greatly offended the people; since he had offended the entire community, his punishment needed to be communal as well.

There are several interpretations of the “let all who were within hearing lay their hands upon his head” line.  Rashi (12^th c France) said that by laying hands on him, they’re saying “Your blood is on your own head. We’re not to be punished for your death, since you brought it on yourself.”  Bechor Shor (also 12^th c France) said by laying hands on the blasphemer’s head, as one does with an offering of say, the goat that absolves the community’s sins,   the members of the town absolve themselves from the sin of that one individual, making them innocent of taking part in a murder; he is indeed guilty, not they.

However, I believe there’s another way to look at this.  Without saying that the community is responsible for the one who went too far, that wrongdoing on an individual’s part is somehow the entire community’s fault, I do think that when everyone must take part in both the conviction and execution of the, well…execution, the community must take notice.  By laying hands on the condemned criminal, as individuals, they are taking responsibility for what’s about to happen.  It’s not happening behind a door – just the opposite, this is supposed to take place in the presence of the entire community, all those who heard him and were affected by his behavior.   This is not to be taken lightly, or ignored, or somehow missed.

We routinely experience individuals in our midst that go too far, stepping over the line of what society has laid out to be offensive behavior. We call it breaking the law.  But at a certain point, when a particular crime is so often repeated, society must ask itself why.  When too many corporations are caught “blaspheming” (ripping off customers or polluting water), we put laws in place to stop the behavior. Today, we moan and cry about the astounding level of gun violence in the country.  Children are gunning down children, and have been for far too long.  We have some laws about this, we arrest the offenders, try them in court, and with our metaphorical hands on their heads, we pass judgment.

I’m not writing in favor or communal death penalties here.  I am, however, saying that the holes in the gun laws are big enough to shoot through. Literally.  And those holes must be closed, shut up tight, so that the legal-blanket better protects the community, as it is supposed to.

Recently, the US Senate acted shamefully by voting down (and it wasn’t even voted down!  There was a majority in favor.  Apparently, it depends on what “majority” means ) closing those loopholes that would have offered protection.  It wasn’t a great bill….I would much prefer that it go further in removing assault weapons and  accessories from the community…but it sure was a start.  By failing to pass the legislation, the Senate placed its communal hands on the wrong heads – the heads of those who gave such grave offense by their blasphemous behavior, saying as Rashi said, “You brought this on yourself.  We are not to blame.”  With great respect, Rashi, I disagree.  The US Senate cannot absolve itself from the responsibility. The Senate is very much to blame, and will remain so until and unless they lay their hands on the heads of those shot down,  to comfort and protect them, not the ones who supply the shooters.  Surely those shooters have offended God by taking lives away,  and they are indeed responsible for their actions.  But the “camp” bears some responsibility in a larger sense, too.

Those of us in the community need to be aware of where our hands are being laid, and it shouldn’t be on the heads of the blasphemers’ partners, those who help keep the holes in the protective blanket wide open.  No, our hands need to create that protection by keeping the blasphemers from bringing their poison into the community in the first place.

This week’s parasha is called Boston.

Acharei Mot/Kedoshim.

You will be holy because I am holy.  (Lev. 19:2)

To be holy. To be whole.  Or to be filled with holes – filled with more empty spaces than not.  To be not-whole, not holy.

This week there are huge holes in our souls, souls filled instead with the bomb blasts that blow holes in our souls, runners’ soles.

I believe the person who blew away the whole-ness will be caught.  I really don’t care why s/he did what s/he did.  Leaders may talk about finding out the who and the why – I only care about the who because I can’t begin to fathom the why.

This week’s double portion is Acharei Mot/Kedoshim.  

Acharei Mot – after death.  Whose deaths?  Aaron’s sons, for having brought a strange fire into the Tabernacle.    Kedoshim – holiness-es.  Whose holiness?  God’s, and because of God’s, ours.

After the deaths of his sons, Aaron is told exactly how and when and where to take two goats, randomly choose one for slaughter and one for sending away.  Lay the sins of the community on the head of the one which has been chosen for exile, and send it out into the wilderness to die.  Remove the wildness from your midst.  Send away that which brings death/sin/unholiness into the community.   Then, after the un-holiness has been removed, Leviticus  lays out the way in which a just and fair society functions.  There are rules.  There are reasons for the rules – the community runs smoothly.  Who cares if it’s because God said so, or just because things run better this way? Just  be holy because God is holy.  And then we get lists and lists of how to act holy.

Don’t defraud your fellow.  Don’t rob him.  Don’t keep your workers’ paycheck until morning.  Don’t insult the deaf. Don’t put a stumbling block before those who can’t see.  Don’t favor the rich, or give preference to the poor.  Don’t reap all the way to the ends of your field – make sure you leave some for the poor and the stranger.

Don’t hate your kinfolk in your heart.  Love your fellow as you do yourself.  I am God.

Where is the holiness after the death and destruction of Boston?  Acharei Mot…Kedoshim.

Boston became a holy place.  Boston helped each other.  Boston opened  hearts and homes and veins.  Boston rid itself of the un-holiness so it could become whole again.

Acharei Mot…after death….Kedoshim….holiness.  This week the parasha is called Boston.

Tazria/Metzora: Staying on the life-side of the line

This week there is a double portion of Torah.  That is, we read two portions for the same Shabbat.  It happens other times in the year, so we can end up on Simchat Torah in the fall having gotten to the very end, ready to start over.

 

This is the Shabbat of Tazria/ Metzora.  The two portions deal with similar themes – the changing status of ritual impurity; how one lands in the “impure” status, and how to return to the default state of ritual fitness.   We’re reading the book of Leviticus now, remember, and it’s all about discernment and distinguishing lines between this and that.  Between kosher and not kosher.  Between sacred and ordinary.  And in Tazria/Metzora, it’s about the line between life and death.

That was a line very hard to discern and easy to cross, if you think about it.  This was a people in the wilderness, in the middle of enduring a treacherous journey between Egypt and their promised land.  They’d witnessed some astounding events, not the least of which were massive populations of both cattle and people dropping dead, the infections and infestations of lice, vermin, locusts, boils, etc.  Now, in the wilderness, water and food were precious and rationed.  Life itself was dependent on God’s help, and any moment could be one’s last.

No wonder they were concerned about life and death.

Now, Tazria/Metzora speaks to skin disease,  the priests’ roles in diagnosing ritually impure conditions of bodies, clothes and buildings, and then how one re-purifies these things.  Things like childbirth, bodily emissions, skin inflammations, etc. all render someone/thing ritually impure. Not impure at the core, like being a bad, horrible person.  This is a ritual impurity, rendering someone ineligible for taking part in the ritual life of the community, for the moment.   Usually, once your time apart is complete, you’ve done laundry, and had a bath, poof! You’re back taking part in your ritual life again.

The Torah is concerned about blurring the lines between life and death; contamination can occur when those lines are crossed indiscriminately.  Granted, medical and scientific knowledge may have clarified some of the assumptions in the Torah, like “leprosy” and other diseases.  But the idea that one can be contaminated by getting too close to something that can harm you is still around.

We keep our kids away from bad influences.  We don’t hang around toxic individuals, those who can drag us down into intolerance, disrespect, hatred.  We can be infected by those who inflict harm, whether physical, emotional, or psychological.  We make a space between us and them, to keep us on the life-affirming side of the line.  When we do come into contact with people like that, we need to re-draw that line with heavier ink.  We need to cleanse ourselves, our minds and souls, so that the “infection” doesn’t spread, and we can rejoin the life-affirming community around us.

There has been a lot written lately about  child abuse charges within the Orthodox community, specifically, from within Yeshiva University and its faculty. (see forward.com)    Certainly, few communities have been spared this pain.  Universities, seminaries, and more.    As with other faith communities, the pain is multiplied by the efforts to cover up for those who cause it, like the Catholic church.   It’s heart-crushing to imagine (primarily) men of faith engaging in such soul-crushing behavior….and then have it covered up.  Torah tells us we can’t cover up this kind of infection;  we must take this seriously, remove the infected ones from our midst; they are rendered impure and cannot take part in the life of the community.  In my opinion, this kind of infestation cannot be rendered pure again, and attention must instead be paid to restoring the victims to wholeness if possible.  They were never impure, though their suffering surely brought them to the line between life and death.

We are surrounded by things that can bring death to our spirit, if not our bodies, and the Torah reminds us that to appreciate the life-giving sources around us, we need to protect them. Keep them separated from destructive pressures.   Though the language of Tazria/Metzora is odd and gross, foreign and easily dismissed, the value behind it is of keeping ourselves in a life-affirming place,  and keeping ourselves, our bodies, and our surroundings free from that which can drag us over the line.

That’s anything but easily dismissed.

Nadav and Avihu: Words may fail, but actions cannot

Well, it seems that I’ve gotten myself a week off on Torah portions.  Must have been Pesach that did it to me.  My apologies to those who noticed, and graciously didn’t fill my inbox with reminders.  To those who didn’t (and I count myself in there), thanks for not noticing.

Now, on to Shemini 2.0.    It’s good that I get to revisit Shemini, because there’s an amazing narrative right smack in the middle of all the details on offerings.  It is the heart-wrenching and puzzling story of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons.  These are Moses’ nephews, and along with Aaron and his others sons, Eleazar and Itamar, have just been installed as priests in the fledgling community of freed Israelites.

Recap: Leviticus, all about setting boundaries and discerning where they are.   About offerings (Hebrew: korbanot, from the root word “k-r-v”, which means to get closer).  Offerings are not “sacrifices”, they’re ways of getting closer to God.  Reasons to get closer to God? Guilt, thanksgiving, daily acknowledgement of God’s presence.  Detailed “recipes” on what to bring when, and how to handle the animals.    Aaron and sons get new clothes that they have to wear when they do their priestly thing.  Instructions very specific, very detailed.   Aaron and sons are given the awe-some responsibility of being very public, very honored (Hebrew word “k-b-d”, also means heavy….and isn’t being honored a heavy responsibility sometimes?)

Then, the sad tale of Nadav and Avihu.  The two sons entered the holiest spot in the Tabernacle, bringing their fire pans with them.  They offered a “strange fire” to God. Many have tried to explain what this aish zarah, strange fire, was, but who knows?  Then,  a fire came forth from God and zapped them right there, killing them instantly.  What had they done wrong?  Again, who knows?  Moses offered a cryptic statement, “This is what God meant when God said ‘Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people.” ‘(Lev 10:3)  And Aaron was silent.   Ibn Ezra (12^th c Spain) said that when Aaron heard what happened, he wanted immediately to drop his official duties and mourn his sons, but Moses told him he had to go on, and that Aaron had a unique job that wouldn’t allow for the public mourning.

So he was silent.

The word translated as “glory” is also from the same root “k-b-d”, honor, respect, heaviness.  All those things are laid upon those we raise up to leadership roles in our communities, and it’s not easy.  We watch leaders and their families mourn in public.  We think of Jackie Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, Ethel Kennedy who all bore their grief publically, and we can only imagine how heavy that burden was.

The story of Nadav and Avihu usually stops there, with Aaron’s silence.  But what happened after that is telling as it relates to public reaction, private grief, and action taken.  Normally, when the Israelites brought a particular sin offering, the priests ate some of it, as opposed to burning the whole thing up.  But when Moses asked about the offering, he found out it had already been burned.  At first Moses was angry with Aaron and his other sons that the procedure hadn’t been followed, but Aaron finally spoke, saying, “See this day they brought their sin offering and their burnt offering before God, and such things have befallen me!  Had I eaten the sin offering today, would God have approved?  And when Moses heard this, he approved.” (Lev. 10:19-20)

Moses realized Aaron was right.  He and his sons were in no frame of mind to fulfill their public responsibilities.  Something traumatic had happened, and it had to be acknowledged, if not in words, then in deeds.  Things were not normal just then, so “normal” behavior had to be suspended.   Aaron had to act differently.

It’s only a month since 26 people were gunned down in Connecticut, 20 of them children. Since then, so many more children and adults (someone’s children) have died in gun-related incidents. As the Newtown families grieved in private, the President had to grieve in public.  Like Aaron, he had no words at first, just the tears of a father.  But like Aaron, he also came to realize that action must be taken, acknowledgement must be made, and with the heaviness/respect that comes with leadership, he took action to change the laws of the land.  Personally, I support him and all the others who want to see these changes, especially the assault-weapons ban reinstated, and limitations on magazines.

Aaron’s grief at losing two of his children teaches us that even though words fail us at that time, our actions cannot.