Month: February 2021

Parashah Ponderings

Dressing for Honor and Splendor

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Parashat Tetzaveh 5781 / פרשת תְּצַוֶּה
Torah Portion: Exodus 27:20-30:10

We learn in this week’s Torah portion that what we “wear” matters. It matters because our clothing says something about how we see ourselves in relation to God and the people around us.

We read in Parashat Tetzaveh, “God says to Moses, ‘V’asita vigdei-kodesh l’Aharon achicha l’chavod u’l’tiferet. Make sacral vestments for your brother, Aaron, for honor and splendor’” (Ex. 28:2).

In looking at the words, kavod and tiferet, honor and splendor, two medieval biblical commentators, Nachmanides (1194-1270) and Sforno (1475-1550), argue across the centuries about for whose benefit these vestments are to be created. Nachmanides says, “to honor the Kohanim, the High Priest, for these garments were similar to the garb of royalty.” Sforno, on the other hand, says “the vestments were for the glory of God and to lend splendor to the Kohen Gadol as the teacher of the nation, so that he would be revered by the tribes, whose names he bore on his breast and shoulders.” (Stone Edition Humash, p. 465). 

I believe there’s truth in each of these interpretations, but I also believe the garments were intended to glorify the People of Israel. In addition to showing honor and casting splendor upon God and the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), these vestments also show honor to the community who helped fashion them. After all, they are the ones who contributed the gold, the gems, and yarns that went into its creation, and it was the wisest and most creative of the people who actually assembled the items into a magnificent uniform for the Kohen Gadol. Additionally, by wearing these special vestments Aaron would have been mindful of the central role he played in connecting the people to God and God to the people. With such a burden upon his shoulder, could he not help but feel the utmost respect for the People of Israel?

Now, imagine that you are Aaron, the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol. You are adorned in the finery that has been sanctified for service to God and Israel. How would wearing these vestments affect the way you see yourself in relation to God and the community? This not an entirely theoretical question, for we are taught that we are to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” As such, is it not incumbent upon each of us to don the High Priest’s garb, if not physically then metaphorically?

In our role as priests, we are to wrap ourselves not in fine linen, gold and gems but in those human attributes that give glory to the Divine, that do honor to ourselves as partners with God in creation, and that show reverence for the community of humanity of which we are a part. What are these attributes? Kindness, compassion, love for our neighbor, a yearning for justice, and the passion and willingness to act to make the world whole. These are the garb of our priesthood in today’s world.

As we conjure up images of Aaron and his sons entering the Holy of Holies adorned in the magnificent robes and accessories we read about in this week’s Torah portion, let us realize that we are inheritors of a tradition of showing up dressed and ready to do the work of God and humanity. May we, too, adorn ourselves in kavod and tiferet — honor and splendor — for the sacred work that awaits us each and every day.

Parashah Ponderings

Mining the Torah for Gems: The Case of Parashat Terumah

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Parashat Terumah / פרשת תרומה
Torah Portion: Exodus 25:1 – 27:19

In this week’s portion, Parashat Terumah, God gives Moses instructions to build the ark that would contain the tablets of the covenant between God and Israel, the menorah that would stand in the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle itself. The word “terumah” refers to the voluntary offerings of materials – minerals, stones, fabrics, dyes, oil and spices — that Moses was to take from the Israelites to build these things and other holy objects. If you’re into lists, you’ll love this week’s reading!

The lists and instructions in Terumah, however, may very well cause some readers’ eyes to glaze over. Unlike the narrative components of Torah, the details of the Tabernacle do not provide the most engaging reading. To be sure, Terumah is just one of many portions dedicated to seemingly mundane or esoteric topics relating to the priestly system, much of which can be difficult to access without a full appreciation of their significance to biblical Israel or to us today. Without the willingness to discover transcendent meaning in the details of the Torah, the Torah itself will appear to many people as a massive rock that cannot be penetrated, when in truth, the Torah is an endless mine of precious gems.

Don Isaac Abravanel, a 15th century Spanish commentator also known simply as Abarbanel, feels the pain of those who try to find meaning in Torah but fall short when they encounter the complex, drier sections of Torah, such as we have in Terumah. Speaking to the Jewish community of his own day, Abarbanel writes:

Do not think that the commandments about the Tabernacle, which do not apply to us here in the exile, or the laws that are valid only in the land of Israel, or the laws of priestly purity, have not value for us today. The Torah is a book of elevated wisdom and divine teaching. What we understand of these matters today, in terms of their allusions to higher things, is of as much value as when they were in practice. The same is true of all Torah matters. The Torah is a tool to prepare the way for us to become “like God, knowing good” (Gen. 3:5), to keep us alive in every place and at all times.[1]

Clearly, we are not the first generation to struggle with the Torah’s density, but as Abarbanel suggests, there’s much to be learned from the Torah if we’re willing to look closely and patiently at the text and, I would add, be a little creative.

One of my favorite examples of this approach to Torah comes this week in relation to the construction of “an ark of acacia wood,” the portable container for the tablets of the Ten Commandments:

They shall make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold — overlay it inside and out — and make upon it a gold molding round about.  (Exodus 25:10-11)

The late 11th century commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Itzchaki, aka Rashi, helps us visualize these instructions:

Bezalel (the master craftsman, who oversaw the construction of the Tabernacle and its contents) made three arks, two of gold and one of wood. Each one had four walls and a bottom, and they were open on the top. He placed the wooden one inside the golden one and the [other] golden one inside the wooden one. He covered the upper rim with gold, thus it is found that [the wooden one] was overlaid from inside and from outside [with gold]. — [from Yoma 72b, Shek. 16b][2]

Rashi demonstrates that the ark is a complicated structure. Though God instructs Moses to build simply “an ark of acacia wood,” the ark is in fact three boxes, one made of wood, two made of gold.

The rabbis of the Talmud take this description of the ark and transform it into a lesson about the integrity of Torah scholars: Any Torah scholar who is not the same on the inside as on the outside, is no Torah scholar [Yoma 72b]. That is, as pure as one appears to be on the outside, one must also be in the inside. This is an ideal not just for Torah scholars, I believe, but for all of us.

There is yet another message to be found in the construction of the ark.[3] Why couldn’t the ark be made of just the two gold boxes? What need is there for the box of acacia wood as well? One answer is that in many respects human beings are most like this wooden layer. Unlike gold, which is a pure, unchanging metal, wood comes from trees, which grow and change over time. We may want to present ourselves to the world as pure in thought and resolute in belief, like the outer box of gold, which can be seen by all. We may want to present ourselves to God with similar purity and resoluteness, like the inner box of gold, which is closest to the tablets and seen only by God. On the way to achieving such purity and resoluteness, though, we humans need to be able to work out our ideas, acknowledge our doubts, and struggle with whatever keeps us from maximizing our intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual potential. That work of self-improvement is often done in solitude, out of the public eye. Furthermore, it is work made possible by the gift of free will; even God provides us the space to keep on growing.

There is much more to be learned from the Torah’s treatment of the ark and the Tabernacle than I can possibly touch upon here. Indeed, the mine of Torah never ceases to yield brilliant gems. Unless one is prepared to do the work to discover those gems, however, the Torah will always appear as a big, impenetrable rock.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Carasik, Michael. The Commentators’ Bible: Exodus. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005. p. 215.

[2] Ibid., p. 219.

[3] See, for example, http://www.aish.com/tp/b/sw/Holy-Inside-and-Out.html.

Parashah Ponderings

See God, See One Another

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson 1 Comment

Parashat Mishpatim 5781 / פרשת מִּשְׁפָּטִים
Torah Portion: Exodus 21:1-24:18

In this week’s parasha, Mishpatim, God privately reveals to Moses dozens of rules (mishpatim) that Moses would later convey orally to Children of Israel. Near the end of the parasha, Moses momentarily descends from Mt. Sinai before ascending once again to receive the stone tablets, upon which God would inscribe the Ten Commandments that God had earlier revealed directly to the people. During thes brief interlude at base of the mountain, Moses gathers his brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, all of whom would become Israel’s first High Priests, and 70 elders of Israel. He then has these 73 men bow to God from afar, for God has said, “Moses alone shall come near the Lord; the others shall not come near.” Nevertheless, we then learn that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the 70 elders do, infact, ascend the mountain together. Not only that, but upon ascending “they saw the God of Israel,… and God did not raise a hand against the leaders. They beheld God, and they ate and drank.” Despite God’s warning that you could not see God and live, all 73 survived their encounter on the mountain unharmed.

Biblical commentators throughout the ages have speculated exactly what the Moses and his guests saw on the mountain in that moment. One says they saw God in a prophetic vision as did the prophets Amos and Ezekiel (Abraham Ibn Ezra). Another says they saw God’s throne of glory (Saadiah Gaon). And another says they had a deep intellectual, mystical experience of “knowing” God, but they did not see God in the physical sense (Moses Maimonides). Though all three of these interpretations are possible, I am especially drawn to the last one because of the implications it has for those who experienced God that day.

These men were not just any men. They were the most esteemed, trusted and learned men of Israel. The seventy elders were most likely the leaders of the judges that Moses’s father-in-law, Yitro, had advised Moses to appoint so that Moses would not solely bear the burden of adjudicating Israel’s disputes and legal questions. These men constituted Israel’s equivalent of the Supreme Court.

The leaders of the judges ascended the mountain at a time when God was revealing to Moses all the ordinances of the Torah that they would be responsible for protecting. It wasn’t enough for Moses to simply tell the men what God had revealed to him, though. If that were the case, how could they possibly decided any cases that might pit one rule against another or that might involve considerable nuance. Rather, the men arose that day to learn the fullness of the law, not just the words, but their meaning and God’s intentions behind them. In effect, these men were attending law school. They were acquiring the skills, wisdoms and insights to fairly and competently interpret God’s laws for Israel. As they studied intently upon the mountain, they came to know God in a most intimate way. In Maimonides’s terms, they came to “see” God.

In bringing these leaders up to the mountain, Moses was inviting them to seek God’s “face,” that is, to understand what God wants of God’s people and how God works in the world. The elders would be charged with hearing the people’s questions and grievances and addressing them in ways that were “Godly.” This required that they know the law through and through AND that they had the capacity to see the individuals before them as reflections of God. All of them, after all, were and are made in God’s very image. Unless they could see that image of the Divine in each and every person, they would merely be going through the motions, and they would fail to truly uphold God’s law.

We are not High Priests or Judges of Israel, but the task of the 73 is our task, just the same. We are expected to “see” God in our lives, to discern what God wants of us and how God wants us to be partners with the Divine in the ongoing act of creation. We do not have to climb a mountain to see God, however, even though many of us do experience God’s presence in nature. Instead, we need only look into the eyes of those around us. Each and every human being is created in God’s image, after all. To see God, we must seek God’s face in our fellow human beings. Only then can we fully live our lives in faith both to God’s word and God’s intent.

This year we read Parashat Mishpatim on Rosh Hodesh Adar, on the first of the month of Adar, the month in which we celebrate Purim. On Purim we read about heroes and villains who have something to hide. Thus, we ourselves don masks on this holiday. Is this all that different from how we present ourselves in our everyday lives? Whether we intend to or not, we do not reveal all our secrets, all our pains and doubts, nor all our joys and certainties in a way that tells others exactly who we are and how they should relate to us. As a result, when encounter one another, we make all kinds of assumptions that shape how we interact. But many of our assumptions are wrong and, as a result, we hurt others in ways we can’t fully comprehend. To relate to one another in Godly ways requires us to recognize our assumptions, move beyond them, and to seek God’s face in one another.

We are all complicating beings who bear God’s image each in our own way. The lesson from the 70 elders of Israel (plus 3) is that we must take steps, both literally and figuratively, to see more of each other than meets the eye. Only when we see the fullness of God’s likeness in one another can we do the sacred work of caring for one another, which. at its core. was the work of the men who saw God at Mt. Sinai.

Parashah Ponderings

Rabbi Lauren Tuchman Introduces 2021 Jewish Disability Awareness, Advocacy and Inclusion Month!

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson 1 Comment

Parashat Yitro 5781 / פרשת יִתְרוֹ

 Exodus 18:1-20:23

It gives me great pleasure to share the devar torah with which that my colleague, Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, opened this year’s Jewish Disability Advocacy Month on Wednesday, February 3, 2021. Her words so aptly connect this week’s Torah portion to the issues we’ll be discussing as Jewish community throughout North America throughout February that I asked Rabbi Tuchman if I could share them in this space. I thank Rabbi Tuchman, the first blind female rabbi in the United States, for permitting to do so.

On her webpage, Rabbi Tuchman offers the following biography:

Rabbi Tuchman is a sought after speaker, spiritual leader and educator. Ordained by The Jewish Theological Seminary in 2018, she has taught at numerous synagogues and other Jewish venues throughout North America and was named to the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36 for her innovative leadership concerning inclusion of Jews with disabilities in all aspects of Jewish life. In 2017, she delivered an ELI Talk entitled We All Were At Sinai: The Transformative Power of Inclusive Torah. She has trained and continues to teach with Rabbi David Jaffe and the Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project, which provides a space for Jewish spiritual and contemplative practice for social justice activists. She is a participant of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Clergy Leadership Program. She serves on the board of JOIN for Justice, which trains Jews in community organizing for social change. In 2020, she was honored by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).

I encourage you to learn more about Rabbi Tuchman’s personal website at https://rabbituchman.com/.

Enjoy her teaching!

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I would like to begin by first thanking The Jewish Federations of North America for your kind invitation to speak tonight. It is an honor and a privilege to be with you all as we begin our month-long observance of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, of which our celebration tonight of Jewish Disability Advocacy Month is an integral component.In our Torah portion this week, Parashat Yitro, we encounter one of the most fundamental events in Jewish collective and historical consciousness—the revelation of Torah on Mt. Sinai. Our tradition teaches that this foundational event in our founding as a nation was at once a collective and an individual experience. We experienced revelation with all of our senses, all gathered, as one at Sinai.

We also each experienced the revelation, as we learn in a Midrash, in a way that we each, individually could comprehend. Put another way, the Torah has seventy faces, seventy, here, being a stand-in for infinite. Just as we all were together as one people to receive Torah, we each were able to receive this collective gift and blessing in a way that was comprehensible to us.

Our tradition understands that we are stronger when our differences are lifted up and celebrated as ways of being human that are and have always been with us. This past year has caused so much to be revealed that had been concealed before for so many, including the reality that stigma, discrimination and fear of disability communities and experiences is still very much a part of the fabric of society.

This Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, let us take our tradition’s at-once-radical-and-challenging call to heart. Revelation included all of us, in all of the varied ways in which we were able to receive Torah. So, too, do we know intrinsically that we are stronger when the richness of the tapestry of our lives and experiences are able to find their home in our communities.

And as we work tirelessly for advocacy priorities through Jewish Disability Advocacy Month, may we be strengthened and inspired in our efforts by our tradition’s insistence that all life is precious. May our work move us even closer to a society and world that allows all of us to thrive.