Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech / פרשת נצבים־וילך
Deuteronomy 29:9 – 31:30

This Saturday night, in synagogues throughout the world, Jews will gather to recite penitential hymns in preparation for the Ten Days of Repentance, which come upon us next week. The S’lichot (literally “forgiveness”) service alerts us to the work of teshuva, or repentance, that awaits us from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur. Like the shofar blast heard each weekday during the month of Elul before Rosh Hashana, the S’lichot service stirs within us an awareness of our mistakes and motivates us to seek forgiveness and, ultimately, to change for the better.

The Torah reading this week, then, is nothing if not timely. In his final discourse to the Children of Israel, Moses prophesies that Israel will thrive in the Land they are about to enter but will then stray from God and God’s commandments. Israel’s sins will be grave and God’s punishment will be harsh, but God will be ready to receive Israel back into God’s goods graces once Israel turns again to heed God’s word. This process of turning back to God — this teshuva (literally “turning” or repentance) — is the very process that you and I are to undertake in coming days.

Moses assures his followers that the “Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach” (Deut. 30:11). There is no secret to teshuva, Moses insinuates. God gave the Torah to Israel as a road map to connect with God. All Israel need do is follow that map.

So, too, with us. Though personal transformation does not happen quickly and without great effort, the truth is that God has endowed us with the capability to exam our souls, determine the ways we want to change, and effect the change we desire. With our own inner resources and with the guidance of Torah, we can, in fact, turn our lives around. We imagine even that during the Days of Awe God is poised to inscribe us in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death. The extent to which we perform teshuva with full sincerity tips God’s pen in our favor.

How beautifully our experience of turning back to God parallels that of our biblical forbears, who also had Life and Death set before then. “I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity,” Moses tells them. “For I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, to walk in God’s ways, and to keep God’s commandments, God’s laws, and God’s rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess…. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life — if you and your offspring would live” (Deut. 30:15-19).

If Moses’ words sound like they were meant for our ears today, they were. Indeed, his message of hope and faith was intended not only for his generation but for all future generations of the Jewish People as well. Our tradition teaches us that God lovingly longs as much for our return as God longed for the return of Israel millennia ago. God truly yearns to reconnect with us, to fill our lives and our world with the goodness of the Divine Presence. Know this day, therefore, that we do have a choice. Through teshuva, let us turn toward Life.

Parashat Ki Tavo / פרשת כי־תבוא
Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 26:1 – 29:8

This week’s Torah reading offers an important lesson on gratitude. Speaking to the Israelites, Moses instructs them that, upon entering into the Land of Israel, they are to bring some of the first fruits of their soil in baskets to the Levites at a place of God’s choosing. Once they have set their offerings on the ground in front of the altar, they are to recite these words, which have become familiar to us through the Passover haggadah:

My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me. (Deut. 26:6-10)

Through this ritual, the Israelites will express their gratitude to God for having brought them out of bondage to a place of safety in their own land. The words they will recite focus succinctly on the grace that God had bestowed upon them. With this gesture of thanksgiving, Israel will go on to thrive in the Holy Land.

Given Israel’s history of complaining about hardships throughout during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, how refreshing it is that the narrative Israel will recite focuses solely on the loving kindness that God has bestowed upon her. Before we credit the Israelites with a stark change of attitude, though, we should note that Moses prescribes the exact words they are to say. Moses doesn’t assume that his people will naturally set aside their troubles and wax sincerely in gratitude before God. He provides the script that he hopes will lead to the attitude adjustment that God desires of them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had such a script in hand at times when we’re inclined to rant on about all our suffering, to run through a litany of all that we lack? My daughter recently melted down, proclaiming that she has the worst life of anyone in the world. After listening to what was upsetting her, my wife and I affirmed her feelings and then asked her about all the good things in her life. Soon enough, Katie saw that life was not nearly as bad as she imagined it just moments ago, and she was in a place where she could feel grateful for all she has, even if she didn’t lay a basket of fruit on the ground before our feet.

As the New Year approaches and we take stock of our lives, we should know that is alright to express our regrets and setbacks from the previous year. At the same time, however, we need to keep a sense of perspective, and balance the negative with the good. Should we be stuck in a dark place, unable to express gratitude for our bounty, we should seek out someone like Moses who can hand us a rosier script that is as true as the script we find coming out of our mouths. Sometimes we, like our ancestors, just need to be reminded how good life is in order to carry on and thrive in our own lands.

Parashat Ki Teitzei / פרשת כי־תצא

Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19

This weeks Torah portion, Parashat Ki Tetzei, contains more mitzvot (commandments) than any other parashah: 74, to be precise. Mitzvot can be divided into two categories. The first category is called “ben adam l’havero” or “between one person and another person.” These mitzvot include ethical instruction that guides us in our treatment of our fellow human being in business, at home, and out in the world. An example of this would be treat all your children equally (Deut. 21:15). Mitzvot ben adam l’havero also comprise civil and criminal legislation that tell us what to do if someone should commit a crime, kidnapping, for instance: If a man is found to have kidnapped a fellow Israelite, enslaving him or selling him, that kidnapper shall die; thus you will sweep out evil from your midst (Deut. 24:7)

The next set of mitzvot are “ben adam lamakom,” or “between a person and God.” These mitzvot deal mostly with ritual, Shabbat, keeping kosher, and the like. They address issues of how we worship, celebrate and honor God. An example of a mitzvah between a person and God from elsewhere in the Torah would be to keep the Sabbath holy.

In the midst of the litany of mitzvot this week, all of which pertain to ben adam l’havero, we find one that, on the face of it, doesn’t seem to fit into either category:

If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life (Deut. 22:6)

This mitzvah clearly deals with how we treat animals. It doesn’t tell us how to interact with another person, nor does it address how we relate to God. Do we need a third category of mitzvah for this mitzvah and others like it?

I would contend that this mitzvah is, in fact, a mitzvah ben adam l’havero and ben adam lamakom. How so? In directing us to shoo away the mother before taking her little ones or her unhatched eggs, this and similar mitzvot inculcate in us a sense of compassion and empathy. If we should care enough to shoo away the mother so she won’t see us taking her progeny, even more so should we care about the feelings of human beings. From this mitzvah about ethical treatment of animals comes an awareness of how ethically to treat human beings.

In what way is this mitzvah about us and God? By shooing away the mother, we protect her from being captured or hurt and we allow her to go on reproducing. In the future, some of the mother’s eggs will hatch and bear fledglings, who themselves will live long lives and also reproduce. Thus, this mitzvah enables us to be stewards of God’s creation and so deservedly belongs in the category of ben adam lamakom.

Ki Tetzei reminds us that all the natural world of which we are a part is integral to our existence as human beings. The way we interact with the world reveals something about how we interact with each other. Mitzvot pertaining to our treatment of animals, we have seen, also shape our treatment of human beings by sensitizing us to the feelings of creatures around us. At the same time, our relationship with nature also reveals something about our relationship to God. Any mitzvot that guide us in our interactions with nature, likewise encourage us to be mindful of our partnership with God, while also helping us realize that all the universe truly is God’s kingdom. As citizens of this kingdom, we ought to strive through mitzvot to build a world of love and trust for all, including for those who soar in the skies above.

Parashat Shoftim / פרשת שופטים
Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9

In this week’s Torah reading, Moses focuses on the theme of justice as he continues his final speech to the People of Israel before they enter the Promised Land:

You shall appoint magistrates (shof’tim) and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just.  Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:18-20)

On the face of it, it appears as if the shof’tim, commonly translated as “judges”, are the stewards of the just society that God intends for Israel in the Holy Land. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” says Moses, intimating that it is through the shof’tim that justice will be established. The shof’tim, we learn, are to govern justly, judge without prejudice, and uphold the highest ethical standards. The law, in effect, resides in the hands of the shof’tim.

As we read on, however, we discover that the shof’tim are not the only arbiters of justice. In times of doubt, the judges are to appeal to an even higher authority, the Levitical priests. In addition to overseeing the Temple and the sacrificial rites, the priests are to resolve “matters of dispute in our courts,” such as controversies over homicide, civil law or assault (Deut. 17:8-9). The Torah envisions times when justice will elude the judges, thus, requiring them to defer to the priests.

Beyond the judges and the priests, there are still two more players in the pursuit of justice: kings and prophets. The former, which God permits Israel to enthrone only on the condition that God alone choose the king, must remain impartial in his governance and reject trappings of power, such as possessing many horses and having many wives. More to the point, however, the king must remain faithful to the Torah, keeping his own copy of God’s teaching to read throughout his life (Deut. 17:18-19). “Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel” (17:20). Through consulting the Torah and in his own dealings, the king himself is so to embody and uphold Israel’s ideals of justice.

Anticipating the foibles of human nature and the corruption that would inevitably creep into the systems of judges, priests and kings, God sets up the prophet as the final line of defense for the just society:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself; him you shall heed. This is just what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb, on the day of the Assembly, saying, “Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God any longer or see this wondrous fire any more, lest I die.” Whereupon the Lord said to me, “They have done well in speaking thus. I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him… (Deut. 18:15-18).

Whereas judges, priests and kings, in their pursuit of justice, rely to a great extent on their own abilities to interpret God’s word, the prophets are asked simply to speak the words that God puts in their mouth, just as Moses had done. Theoretically, there is no interpretation involved; the prophets convey God’s intentions in their purest form. Beyond the prophets, there would be no other defenses. Should Israel fail to heed a prophet’s message to mend its ways, Israel would suffer dire consequences, which it does time and again.

It is this last point that I find most shocking. Despite the seemingly redundant, foolproof nature of Israel’s checks and balances to ensure justice in its society, the system routinely fails. On more than one occasion, Israel is exiled, its Temple left in ruins, its people battered. The system doesn’t work!

Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, human beings are not perfect and the margin of error in Israel’s system of checks and balances is great. While the system presumes that all the players know what justice looks like and that they can discern God’s will through various means, the judges, priests and kings simply can’t and don’t know God’s will all the time.

But what of the prophets? Even after hearing from the prophets exactly what God wants, Israel sometimes chooses to stay a course of self-destruction. Perhaps Israel often fails to know a true prophet from a false prophet and, therefore, dismisses the prophets as delusional. More tragically, though, Israel may simply be too stiffnecked, too self-interested to care; the prophet’s message falls on deaf ears.

Are we any different from our biblical ancestors? Not really. We do not always know what constitutes justice or what a just society looks like. Even if we are committed to living justly, we are often faced with difficult decisions about how to do that. We may desire to use natural resources in a way that we consider just; but what are the best ways to produce and use energy, for example, given current technologies and competing economic, ecological, and biological interests? In the case of our relationship with nature, our actions almost always come with consequences that some in our society consider unjust. What’s worse, too often our commitment to  justice isn’t there. We become too wedded to our own notions of what’s right and refuse to consider alternatives, or we simply become consumed by power and greed. Even if a true prophet came on the scene tomorrow, it’s not likely that he or she would be able to get the attention of enough people to make a difference. The world would continue to be in the same mess then as we find it today.

Because justice is often elusive, the Torah commands us emphatically to pursue justice actively, not to wait for justice to burst forth from heaven or “roll down like waters” (Amos 5:24). True, the pursuit of justice is difficult, and we’re destined to fail from time to time. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us to maintain the pursuit with open hearts and open minds, to remember that all life is interconnected. We mustn’t forget the words that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in 1962 from a jail in Birmingham: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” As we witness terrible injustices occurring daily both close to home and far away, let us recommit ourselves to the pursuit of justice for all.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Re’eh / פרשת ראה
Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17

Sandwiched between an extensive listing of blessings and curses, on hand, and a reminder about Israel’s sacred festivals, on the other, is an expression of the Torah’s and Judaism’s core value of caring for the poor, needy and vulnerable in our society. As I studied Parashat Re’eh this week, an article by Rabbi Shai Held, Co-Founder, Dean and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mechon Hadar, touched me deeply. To gain insight on the centrality of caring for the less fortunate, please read and discuss Rabbi Held’s article — Opening Our Hearts and Our Hands: Deuteronomy and the Poor — with friends and family.

Here is an excerpt from the opening paragraph:

None of the Five Books of Moses is more passionately concerned with the plight of the vulnerable than Deuteronomy, and no chapter in Deuteronomy more powerfully expresses that concern than chapter 15, which focuses on remission of debts and manumission of slaves…. As always, Deuteronomy makes a claim on our hearts as well as our deeds. When confronted with the sufferings of the needy, Deuteronomy wants us to act decently and also, crucially, to care deeply.

May we heed the directives of this week’s reading and work to create a society in which all people feel God’s love.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Matot / פרשת מטות

Numbers 30:2 – 32:42

This week’s Torah portion deals with the complicated matter of vows and oaths. As this portion follows on the heels of a command regarding votive or voluntary offerings, most commentators say that vows refer to the promises people make to God in the form of offerings or sacrifices, e.g. “If I make it through this ordeal, God, I will give $18 to tzedakah.” Oaths are any promises made in God’s name, i.e. “I swear by God I’ll never eat shellfish again.”

On Yom Kippur we pay homage to commandments regarding vows when we recite Kol Nidre. The legalistic formulation of Kol Nidre emerged in the Middle Ages when many Jews took vows of allegiance to the Catholic church in order to save themselves from the horrors of the inquisition. Kol Nidre imagines each of us standing before a heavenly tribunal being released from any vows we may have made in the past year (or, depending on the version in your prayerbook, that we may make in the coming year) either willingly or under duress. In this way, even apostasy for the sake of saving one’s life is forgiven. To this day, many descendents of “conversos” from the Middle Ages rely on this forgiveness as they prepare to rejoin the Jewish people proudly and openly.

What we learn from this week’s Torah portion above all is to take our words seriously. While the Torah may be speaking narrowly about vows and oaths, we should extrapolate from this discussion the broader lesson that words and intentions really do matter. We ought not to make promises to God or to others that we don’t mean or that we know we are unable to keep.

On the other hand, if we find ourselves in a position where we must make such a vow or oath to preserve a life or we find that circumstances prohibit us from fulfilling a vow or oath, we must contritely acknowledge where we are. To “profane God’s name” in these situations is to not care, to take our promises lightly. On the other hand, we sanctify God’s name when we use these moments to ask for forgiveness or to contribute tzedakah as is appropriate. We sanctify God first by refraining from making vows and oaths in God’s name entirely. But, after the fact, after the vow or oath has been made, we infuse our promises with sanctity when we realize that sometimes our words express sacred commitments that we may not be able to avoid or that we legitimately may not be able to fulfill.

 

Parashat Pinchas / פרשת פינחס

Torah Portion: Numbers 25:10 – 30:1

 

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Pinchas, is disturbing on many levels as it touches on nerves frayed by recent events in Israel. Last week, we read that Pinchas, son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, the high priest, ruthlessly kills Zimri, an Israelite of the tribe of Simeon, and Cozbi, a Midianite woman, when he sees them pass before Moses and enter a tent ostensibly to engage in sexual relations. A casual read of this incident reveals Pinchas acting on his own on behalf of God. If this is the case, how do we reconcile our love for Torah with our contemporary abhorrence for murder in the name of a higher cause, especially in light of the recent tragic murders of three innocent Israeli teens and one Palestinian teen in Israel? Is our tradition condoning vigilante justice?

First, some context: Just prior to that aforementioned event, Israelite men had en masse been “profaning themselves by whoring with the Moabite women, who invited the people to the sacrifices for their god. The people partook of them and worshiped that god” (Numbers 25:1-2). Incensed that Israel was straying after a foreign god, God instructed Moses to “Take all the ringleaders and have them publicly impaled before the Lord, so that the Lord’s wrath may turn away from Israel” (25:4). It was just after Moses issued God’s command to Israel’s officials from the opening of the Tent of Meeting that Zimri, in the sight of all, brings Cozbi over to his companions en route to a marital tent.[1]

At the moment that Pinchas rushes after Zimri and Cozbi and runs them through with a spear that a plague, which had taken the lives of twenty-four thousand people, ceased. God instantly rewards Pinchas (25:10-13):

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Pinchas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My passion. Say, therefore, ‘I grant him My pact of friendship. It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time, because he took impassioned action for his God, thus making expiation for the Israelites.'”

In other words, God establishes a unique pact with Pinchas and his descendents, a brit shalom, a covenant of peace or friendship, and guarantees the priesthood of Pinchas and his line for all time.

What? Pinchas murders two people in cold blood without having been instructed to do so by Moses and now he’s a hero? How could God possibly have made a brit shalom with someone who acted so violently? Why would God have also ensured the perpetuity of the priestly line from Pinchas? To my eyes, what Pinchas did was just plain wrong. What if others followed suit and resorted to vigilante justice because they felt it was the right thing to do? Could there be peace then? It seems to me that a harsh rebuke, at the very least, is in order.

While it is the case that most commentators have seen in Pinchas a model of fidelity to God and willingness to act when others wouldn’t and, thus, worthy of God’s praise[2], others have been more critical of Pinchas and have offered interpretations of the Torah that suggest that God’s intentions are more complicated than simply rewarding Pinchas for a job well done. For example, in the 3^rd century C.E. Rav Abba, aka “Rav” in the Talmud, condemns Pinchas for failing to follow Moses’ instruction (Fields, p. 76):

He holds that Pinchas sees what Zimri and Cozbi are doing and says to Moses, “Did you not teach our people when you came down from Mount Sinai that any Israelite who has sex with a non-Israelite may be put to death by zealots?” Moses, says Rav, listens to Pinchas and responds, “Let God who gave the advice execute the advice.”

According to Rav, Pinchas may have acted within the law, but that he should have heeded Moses’ instruction and trusted that God would, indeed, execute judgment in God’s own way.[3]

That the tradition has not always viewed Pinchas favorably is further supported by the insights of Rabbi Jack Reimer, who shows that the brit shalom was more a necessity for Pinchas’ own protection than a divine reward for exemplary behavior. In his essay My Covenant of Peace, Rabbi Reimer writes[4]:

…Abravanel says that God had to promise Pinchas peace in the sense of protection because the relatives of the one whom he had killed would be out to get him. The inference of Abravanel’s comment is that violence only leads to counter‑violence, that when a man takes the law into his own hands he only starts a chain reaction of revenge that goes on without end.

The Talmud offers a different explanation of what “My covenant of peace” means. It says that Pinchas needed protection, not so much from the relatives of the person he had killed, but from Moses, and Aaron, and the Sanhedrin. They were the ones who wanted to punish him and disqualify him from the priesthood for he had taken the law into his own hands. If God had not intervened to protect him they would have punished him for murder, or at the least, taken away his priesthood for taking the law into his own hands. This is a bold midrash for it changes the whole character of the biblical story. For the midrash Pinchas is not a hero but a criminal for if every man were to take the law into his own hands society could not stand.

The third explanation of what “My covenant of peace” means comes from the Netsiv, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin. According to his commentary, God had to bless Pinchas with the covenant of peace so that he would be protected, not only from the relatives of the one he killed, and not only from the courts, but from himself. For when a man has killed, whatever the reason the act of killing inevitably has an effect upon his soul. There is the danger that he may used to it and become casual about it, and there is the danger that his conscience may drive him mad with guilt. This is why God had to promise him “My Covenant of peace.” God had to promise to help him recover from the damage to his own soul that the murder had done. What the Netsiv is suggesting is that violence not only harms the victim and society but also the soul of the one who does. It makes him less stable, less sensitive and less human.

Against this argument by Rabbi Reimer, my friend Rabbi Gideon Estes shares a traditional view that Pinchas was not a vigilante, but rather a person of authority among the Israelites who was carrying out God’s earlier command conveyed by Moses to impale all the Israelites who had gone astray. Furthermore, Rabbi Estes explains that the “tent” into which Zimri and Cozbi entered was the Tent of Meeting, not a private abode, making their sin all the more heinous and deserving of Pinchas’ extreme response.[5] Rabbi Estes, thus, suggests that Pinchas’ action was understandable and even justifiable.

I believe as contemporary Jews we must hold both interpretations of this story to be True. On one hand, we have a story told in hyperbole about the responsibilities of Jews to perform mitzvot and to intercede when we see sins being committed. On the other hand, though, we have a story of zealotry gone tragically awry, a story in which one man’s action is roundly criticized. Pinchas’ act, like all acts of violence, merely begets further violence. It instills anger and pain in the families of the ones he kills and in the wider community and also compromises his own soul. Both stories are True.

It is my hope that as we read Parashat Pinchas this week we are able to see both sides of the story. Pinchas’ extremism in the defense of God’s word may be no vice from one perspective, but we mustn’t overlook the horror of his action, either. The lesson, I believe, is that as devotees to any ideal we must check ourselves and ensure that our actions truly serve the cause of peace. May this lesson sink into the hearts of all those caught up in conflict around the world.

 

[1] Jacob Milgron, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 215.

[2] See Harvey Fields, A Torah Commentary for Our Time: Volume 3, Numbers and Deuteronomy (New York: UAHC Press, 1993), 77-78. Fields points to Samuel, head of the academy in Nahardea, Moses Maimonides, and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch as staunch defendants of Pinchas and God’s response.

[3] Ibid., p. 77.

[4] http://www.americanrabbi.com/my-covenant-of-peace-by-jack-reimer/ Accessed by subscription, 7/10/2014.

[5] Conversation held on 7/9/2014.

Parashat Balak / פרשת בלק

Click HERE to read Torah Portion: Numbers 22:2 – 25:9

For an insightful commentary on this week’s intriguing and humorous Torah portion, check out The Lampooned Prophet: On Learning From (and With) Balaam by Rabbi Shai Held.

I’ll return with my own commentary on the Torah reading next week. Have a safe and happy Independence Day weekend!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dan