Month: May 2021

Parashah Ponderings

Can’t we be more like elephants than riffraff? Beyond individualism to community, covenant and courage.

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Beha’alotcha 5781
פרשת בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ
Torah Portion: Numbers 8:1-12:16 

Why can’t people be more like elephants?
Consider these facts about elephants from the World Wildlife Federation: 

THEIR TRUNKS HAVE MAD SKILLS
  • Elephants have around 150,000 muscle units in their trunk.
  • Their trunks are perhaps the most sensitive organ found in any mammal – Asian elephants have been seen to pick up a peanut, shell it, blow the shell out and eat the nut.
  • Elephants use their trunks to suck up water to drink – it can contain up to 8 litres of water.
  • They also use their trunks as a snorkel when swimming.
THEY’VE GOT THICK SKIN
  • An elephant’s skin is 2.5cm thick in most places.
  • The folds and wrinkles in their skin can retain up to 10 times more water than flat skin does, which helps to cool them down.
  • They keep their skin clean and protect themselves from sunburn by taking regular dust and mud baths.
CALVES CAN STAND WITHIN 20 MINUTES OF BIRTH
  • Amazingly, elephant calves are able to stand within 20 minutes of being born and can walk within 1 hour. 
  • After two days, they can keep up with the herd. This incredible survival technique means that herds of elephants can keep migrating to find food and water to thrive.
AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS
  • The elephant’s temporal lobe (the area of the brain associated with memory) is larger and denser than that of people – hence the saying ‘elephants never forget’.

Their noses do so much more than ours. They have thick skin. They don’t need to worry about their babies crawling on dirty floors. And they have awesome memories. I think it would be pretty neat to be an elephant.

ELEPHANTS CARE ABOUT THE WELL-BEING OTHER ELEPHANTS

I learned something else about elephants this week. A video of elephants in Israel’s Safari Ramat Gan, a zoo near Tel Aviv, shows how elephants put aside their own self-interest to care for their young in times of danger. The video was brought to my attention by Daniella Yitzchak, our congregation’s office manager, who wrote about it in her weekly email message. 

Daniella writes: “Filmed during a rocket attack in Israel last week, the video shows the moments when an air raid siren is sounding and an explosion is heard in the distance. During that time, five female elephants move towards little Pele (meaning wonder in Hebrew), a 14-month-old elephant calf, and form a protective circle around him, facing outwards in all directions to ward off any threats.

“Ramat Gan zookeeper Guy Kfir explained that the behavior during the siren is likely due to elephants having much better hearing than people, and their ability to detect seismic vibrations through their feet. He continued to explain that it’s very common for elephants to respond this way when facing danger… When recognizing a high risk situation, elephants gather their young and form a protective shield around them. This also happens when an elephant is giving birth. What a moving demonstration of love and commitment as well as courage!”

Those of us who are parents can certainly relate to the elephants’ instinct to protect their young. When our children are in danger, we take extraordinary measures to keep them safe. Or, at least, we should.

But unlike the elephants who form a protective shield around someone else’s baby, we aren’t always so good at caring for other people’s children. In fact, sometimes we are so focused on our own needs and desires that we turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, regardless of who those “others” might be.

The challenges of ego-centrism, self-interest and rugged individualism that pervade our society today are not unique to our day and age. Wandering through the wilderness toward the land that God was to give to them, the Israelites imperil their very lives when they start focusing on their individual needs at the expense of the greater good.

Miriam and Aaron challenge Moses’s leadership. “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has God not spoken through us as well?” (Num. 12:2). Hungry for a share of Moses’s leadership, Miriam and Aaron initiate a rebellion against him. For her role in demeaning Moses, Miriam is stricken with a skin disease, for which she was shut out of the Israelite camp for seven days. Meanwhile, Moses, the epitome of humility, pleads to God to heal his sister.

Perhaps Miriam and Aaron had gotten caught up in the popular revolt that we read about several verses earlier. There we find the people were complaining bitterly against God. They objected to the structure of the camp, which was designed to ensure the safety of all the people. They separated themselves from God. They, too, challenged Moses’s leadership. 

What’s more, we read: “The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!” (Num. 11:4-6)

They’re objecting to the very sustenance that God had miraculously provided them! They grow nostalgic for their days as slaves when they had more variety in their diet.

For thinking only of themselves, God sends them more quail than they could possibly eat on their own and they stuff their faces. And while they still have quail between their teeth, God causes a fire to break out in their midst and strikes them with a severe plague (Num. 11:33). 

The Israelites had lost sight of the calf, if you will. Perhaps the calf was the Ark that moved with the Israelites in the center of their camp. Perhaps the calf was God, the one who had freed them from Egypt. Perhaps the calf was the Israelites themselves, the collective, the People who had recently united around Mt. Sinai and made a covenant with the Holy One, vowing to be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation. All of a sudden, the higher cause for which God brought them together was being neglected.

We can sympathize with the people’s desire to want something new and interesting. We can relate to Miriam and Aaron’s envy of Moses’s exalted place among the people. Yet, Torah demands that we curb our appetites and appreciate what we have. We are to practice self-restraint and cultivate an attitude of gratitude every day.

Just imagine what the scene would have been like if the Israelites in our story this week were more like elephants. They would have accepted their responsibility for one another. They would have circled around God, Torah and Israel. They would have protected the proverbial calf.

In today’s world, we, too, need to do a better job of protecting the calf, of setting aside our individual wants, our personal liberties, which we mistake for God-given rights. What a world it would be if we thought about the common good, if we went to extraordinary lengths to protect the most vulnerable in our midst. 

May we strive to be more like elephants. Though we might not be endowed with the qualities that make elephants such magnificent creatures, we can, at least, choose a life of community, covenant and courage. Imagine what the world would like then. We have the power to bring that world about.

Parashah Ponderings

May God Bless You and Protect You: A New Look at Material Prosperity

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson 1 Comment

Parashat Naso: Numbers 4:21 – 7:89

 The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron and his sons:

Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them:

May the Lord bless you and protect you!

May the Lord deal kindly and graciously with you!

May the Lord bestow God’s favor upon you and grant you peace!

Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

(Numbers 6:22-27)

One of the most familiar passages of Torah is found in this week’s parashah. In the days of the ancient Temple, the fifteen Hebrew words of the three-fold priestly blessing (Numbers 6: 24-26) were spoken daily by the kohanim (priests) as they blessed Israel in God’s name. These words are repeated in our own day in our daily, Shabbat, holy day and High Holy Day liturgies and at life cycle celebrations such as weddings and b’nai mitzvah. Many parents offer this blessing over their children each Shabbat. In addition, we often hear these words spoken by priests, rabbis and ministers at interfaith gatherings.

Focusing on the first of the three blessings – “May the Lord bless you and protect you” – we find a surprising lesson. Biblical commentators look at this verse and ask two questions: “May the Lord bless you with what? May the Lord protect you from what?” While some suggest God will bless us with happiness, long life, success in learning and other noble gifts, there is general consensus that the blessing here refers to material wealth and that God will protect our wealth from evil spirits and thieves.[1][2]

In reality, Judaism does value material success even while maintaining that such concerns ought to be secondary to spiritual success. In fact, elsewhere in the Torah we find that if we follow God’s ways we will be blessed with bountiful harvests, abundant flocks, success in business ventures, for example.[3] To be clear, though, all abundance is seen as a gift from God. Even our material wealth today should be considered a gift from God and not solely the result of our own labor or ingenuity.

In addition to valuing material wealth as a gift from God, the tradition also considers material wealth as central to allowing us to perform the mitzvah (commandment) of tzedakah (monetary contributions for the sake of justice) and to study Torah. We have a teaching in our ancient text known as Ethics of our Ancestors (aka Pirkei Avot) that says, “Im ein kemach, ein Torah. If there is no kemach, there is no Torah (Mishnah Avot 3:21). Kemach here means “flour” or “dough”, but it also indicates that which sustains us financially. Where there is no financial sustenance, then, individuals haven’t the time to study Torah nor can the community afford teachers or schools. When we are blessed with prosperity, we are also blessed with Torah. In other words, enjoy your riches from God AND also put them to Godly use.

The second half of our blessing asks for God’s protection which suggests that, in terms of material prosperity, if God blesses us with abundance, then God also safeguards that abundance. The French Medieval commentator Rashi teaches: When one gives his servant a gift, the one who bestows the gift cannot protect it from all other people. So if robbers come and take it from (the servant), what benefit has he [the servant] from this gift? As for the Holy One, blessed be (God), however, (God) is the One who [both] gives and protects (Midrash Tanchuma Naso 10).[4]

An alternative way to interpret “May the Lord protect you” focuses not on the literal safeguarding of out possessions but on ensuring that we are not corrupted by them. Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, a prominent 19th century Polish scholar also known as the Netziv, teaches: A blessing requires guardianship so that it should not, God forbid, be turned to a wrong purpose. The Torah scholar requires guardianship to save him from pride and bringing the name of the Lord into disrepute, and the like. The businessman requires guardianship against his wealth becoming a stumbling block to him… (Ha-Emek Davar on Bemidbar 6:23). [5] In other words, with great possessions comes the risk of haughtiness. How appropriate then to ask God’s protection from that temptation.

To be honest, as a rabbi, when I bestow the priestly blessing upon a newborn child, upon a young person at the time of becoming a bar or bat mitzvah, or upon a couple under the wedding canopy, I am not thinking about blessing them with material possessions. Rather, I hope that God will bless them with a life of joy and happiness, a life filled with good deeds, and a life of peace. At sacred moments in people’s lives, those are the wishes that come most naturally to me and, I suspect, to others who care for the people undergoing rites of passage.

Perhaps, though, we can all learn from the sages this week who teach us to appreciate the abundance in our lives and remind us of the risks that come along with that abundance. When we pray the words “May God bless you and protect you,” let us give thanks for our material wealth that enables us to learn and grow and that enables us to help the needy and support just causes. And may we pray not only for the security of our abundance but also for the strength and courage to resist becoming spiritually and morally blinded by it. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dan

[1] Rashi (11th century, France), Abraham Ibn Ezra (12th century, Spain) and Obadiah ben Jacob Seforno (16th century, Italy and Spain) are in agreement on this matter. Ibn Ezra adds “long life.”

[2] Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, a prominent 19th century Polish scholar, suggests God will bless each individual with his/her particular needs: “to the student of Torah success in his studies; the businessman- in his business, etc.” See http://schechtertorah.blogspot.com/2013/05/divrei-rav-josh-parshat-naso-qualities.html accessed 5/28/2014

[3] Scherman, Rabbi Nosson, The Artscroll Chumash. (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1997), p. 762.

[4] See http://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading.asp?aid=39589&showrashi=true&p=4, accessed 5/28/14.

[5] http://schechtertorah.blogspot.com/2013/05/divrei-rav-josh-parshat-naso-qualities.html.

Parashah Ponderings

Different Perspectives. One People. One God.

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Bamidbar 5781 / פרשת בְּמִדְבַּר
Torah Portion: Numbers 1:1-4:20

This has been a trying week in Israel, to say the least. Rockets flying from Gaza and, earlier today, from Syria are a direct threat to the civilians whom they are targeting not just in the border towns with Gaza but in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Today I checked in with members of our CAA community who have family in Israel. Thank God all their family members are safe, but with frequent explosions and sirens splitting the air around them, they are forced to stay close to safe rooms and bomb shelters and many are fearful and stressed. Meanwhile, Israel’s response has been swift and decisive. Though the IDF has been literally laser focused on military and operational targets in Gaza and it continues its practice of announcing strikes on large buildings, its airstrikes have tragically and yet unavoidably resulted in the loss of civilian lives.

Those of us familiar with Israel’s modern history should not be surprised by this turn of events. After all, we are all too familiar with the cycle by which Israel is attacked by rockets from Gaza, Israel responds by demolishing Hamas’s military infrastructure, and then we all wait several years while Iran resupplies Hamas, at which time a fresh round of fighting begins, just with even more lethal technology than before. What is different this time around, though, is that the cities and neighborhoods that have always represented the ideal of Jewish and Arab coexistence in Israel are now being rocked by clashes fueled by extremists on both sides. Earlier today an Arab rioter torched a theater in the northern coastal town of Acco, a theater run by Arabs and Jews who consider themselves one family.

Back here, my inbox has been flooded with messages from every imaginable Jewish organization promoting their point of view and appealing for my support. It has just been crazy! As I’ve tried to find learn about the situation, I’ve been overwhelmed by all these often-contradictory voices. Even with my rabbinical association listserv my Reconstructionist colleagues debate how to approach this week’s conflict. But you know what they say: two Jews, three opinions.

What are we to think about what is happening? How are we to feel? How do we balance hesed and gevurah – lovingkindness and mercy with justice and might? Are we allowed to criticize Israel for its decisions or feel empathy for any of the families in Gaza who’ve lost loved ones, whether they are combatants or not? Do we side with Jewish settlers or with the Palestinians in the village of Sheikh Jarrah in their dispute over who has the stronger legal claim to the properties in which many hundreds of Palestinians have been living for decades?

The answer to these questions is that we must allow there to be space for all views. The Jewish camp is expansive, after all, and encompasses many perspectives. We see this exemplified beautifully in this week’s Torah portion, Bemidbar

This week we begin reading a new book of the Torah, Bamidbar or Numbers. Bamidbar comes from the first verse of the book where we read, “God spoke to Moses in the wilderness.” It is called Numbers because it opens with God telling Moses to take a census of all the men from all the tribes who are eligible for military service. In essence, we read of the military preparations of the Israelites as they embark on their then 38-year journey toward the very land making headlines this week.

What strikes me about Parashat Bemidbar is not so much the census as the placement of each of the tribes around the Ark of the Covenant. Each tribe inhabits a space to the north, south, east or west of the ark to protect it and themselves from would be aggressors. Implicit in the placement of each tribe is that each tribe would be responsible for either warding off aggressors who might attack its domain or back up the other tribes in their struggles. At the same time, all the tribes would also be oriented toward that which bound them together, the Torah.

In the Eytz Hayim chumash (p. 774) we read: “A tradition has it that the tribe of Judah, situated at the eastern edge of the camp, marched backward when the Israelites broke camp and traveled eastward, to avoid turning their backs on the Ark.” Even though Judah had its job to do, it remained focus on Israel’s covenant with God and with the community.

I know Israel can be a divisive topic and that we won’t all hear or respond to this week’s news the same way. We will have our differences. We will all bring our own perspective to the reality before us, just as each tribe would view the Ark from whichever vantage point it occupied on the march through the wilderness.

My hope is that wherever we stand, we will listen to all the voices around us and engage in civil debate but that we will follow the example of Judah and always orient ourselves toward one another, remembering our shared history, our shared values, and our One God.

May we all pray for the welfare of the State of Israel and those charged with defending it. May we pray for the safety of our loved ones and all innocents in the region. And may we live to see the day when all humanity will awaken to its common destiny, when all warfare and bloodshed will cease, when Peace will reign over all the earth and God’s name will truly be One.

Parashah Ponderings

Envisioning the Jubilee in America

Daniel Aronson's avatarDaniel Aronson Leave a comment

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai 5781 / פרשת בְּהַר־בְּחֻקֹּתַי
Torah Portion: Leviticus 25:1-27:34

 

Parashat Behar, the first half of this week’s double Torah portion, contains a visionary statement about land ownership and social justice that continues to speak to us today:

You shall count off seven weeks of years… so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the horn loud… you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family. (Leviticus 25:8-10)

Put plainly, every 50 years in biblical Israel the land would revert to its original owner, ensuring that no landowner could wield too much wealth or power over others and that no person would become permanently impoverished.[1] Rather than owning land outright, farmers purchased long-term leases, at the end of which, they handed the land back over to the families or individuals who had taken possession of the land at or shortly after entering into the Land of Israel after 40 years of wandering. They then let the land lie fallow for a year and sowed it only in the following year, having faith that God would provide for their needs during those years of waiting (Lev. 15:20-22).

There were two practical outcomes of the Jubilee (“yovel” in Hebrew). One was that families who had been evicted from their land due to foreclosure now had the opportunity to begin anew. They could return to their land, work it, and reestablish their credit. Another practical outcome was that “indentured Israelites, compelled to live on the estates of their creditors, would be free to return to their own homes” and regain their freedom.[2] In essence, the Jubilee amounted to a socio-economic reboot, a time to resort to the good old days when our ancestors appreciated that, after all is said and done, God is the true owner of the land and we are merely tenants.

One translation of these verses from the Torah is famously preserved upon the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The bell itself was ordered by the Pennsylvania assembly in 1751 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges, Pennsylvania’s original Constitution, which among other things assured its inhabitants of freedom of conscience. Later in its history the bell was aptly adopted by abolitionists as a symbol of the anti-slavery movement and ironically, after the Civil War, as a symbol of unity for the United States.[3]

Though the Hebrew word “d’ror” translated as “liberty” on the Liberty Bell, is better translated as “release,” the role of the Liberty Bell in history successfully captures the values inherent in the celebration of the Jubilee. Undoubtedly, the ancients would not have intended this form of release as a precedent for releasing foreign slaves, but rather only fellow Israelites. Still, the evolution of civilization has brought us to see all people as fully human and worthy of release from servitude.

The move from the “release” of debt mentioned in Torah to the freedom of slaves came very late in history, was met with much resistance, and may not even have been inevitable. Yet the progression from “release” to abolition makes moral and theological sense. All humans are created in God’s image, after all. Therefore, all humans are entitled to dignity and basic human rights. The line from the ancient Near East to 19th century America is not hard to draw.

But who would have thought that a symbol for the abolition of slavery could also be embraced by former slaveholders as a symbol of national unity? Not only were slave owners giving up what they perceived to be their rightful “property,” but they were also giving up their land. Were it not for the industrial revolution, the land would have been virtually worthless without a means to cultivate it and bring its yield to market. And, yet, as evidenced by Jefferson Davis’s visit to the bell in 1885, the ideas represented by the bell did, indeed, morph into a call for unity and reconciliation.[4]

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine under the British mandate, might have foreseen such a development. “Kook taught that the purpose of the jubilee was primarily spiritual, not economic. It came to restore the sense of unity that once prevailed in Israel…”[5] During his chief rabbinate Kook battled against Jewish opposition to Zionism as well as against forces of divisiveness within the Orthodox world. The Jubilee, for Rav Kook, represented a time when division would cease, a moment of reconciliation and brotherhood for all Jews.

If the Jubilee of the Torah could be a moment of reconciliation for Israel, than the Jubilee as represented by the words inscribed on the Liberty Bell might also serve as a reminder to all Americans after the Civil War that they were one nation. Just as biblical Israel saw their possession of the Land as Divinely ordained, so too did the founders of our nation consider the ground on which they stood to be a gift from God. For biblically knowledgeable survivors of the Civil War and their descendants, then, the Liberty Bell’s allusion to the Jubilee may have inspired them to cooperate and forgive and restore the “New Jerusalem” back to God.[6]

What does this lesson from the Torah and our own history books teach us? Just this: to the extent that the Jubilee presents a model for social justice in America, we have a lot of work to do to realize that vision. In the year 2021, we see an America divided politically, socially and economically. While we may all be free, we have yet to enjoy anything close to equality in the workplace or in the halls of decision-making. Moreover, we are as divided by ideology as ever. Equality and national unity remain elusive.

It is not realistic or, some would say, desirable in our country to enact the kind of reboot that the Torah dictates. After all, the “American dream” is as much about personal prosperity as it is about compassion. The truth is that these divergent ends will always stand in tension with one another. Americans don’t want to give up what they’ve earned, but neither will those in need be able to get by without the assistance of their neighbors.

Still, we need not accept a stalemate. The words of the Torah present us with an ideal for America. Circumstances may dictate against the full realization of that ideal in our day, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t strive to overcome social-economic disparity and religious and political divisions. As our sages taught us, “It is not incumbent upon us to finish the task, but neither are we free to desist from it altogether” (Pirkei Avot). At the very least, we can work to diminish the consequences of our divided society by ensuring that that the poor are cared for and given opportunities for economic advancement and by holding our lawmakers accountable for working together as civilly as possible for the common good. That would be a step forward.

In our liturgy we pray for a day when all suffering will be alleviated and all the world will live in peace. On that day, on the Jubilee of Jubilees, we will surely hear the loud blast of the shofar. Though that day may be further off than we can imagine, let us, nonetheless, dedicate our lives toward making it a possibility.

© Rabbi Daniel Aronson, 2021

 

[1] Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary, (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 2001), p. 738.

[2] Ibid., p. 172.

[3]http://www.ushistory.org/libertybell/ accessed 5/8/11

[4] An interesting footnote to history is that Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, visited the bell in 1885 in Biloxi, Mississippi, during one of its seven trips around the country from 1885 to 1915. In his remarks paying homage to the bell, Davis called for national unity: “I think the time has come when reason should be substituted for passion and when men who have fought in support of their honest convictions, shall be able and willing to do justice to each other.” See http://www.independencehall-americanmemory.com/the-liberty-bell/liberty-bell-journey-to-new-orleans/

[5] Etz Hayim, p. 738.

[6] Both the Puritans and the pioneers of the American frontier saw themselves as fulfilling the prophetic vision for a “New Jerusalem.” See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/puritans.html for the Puritan argument and

[6]http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/Quaderno/Quaderno5/Q5.C7.Taylor.pdf for the pioneer argument.