Matot: From Genocide to Gentleness

The Israelites perpetrate genocide in this week’s Torah portion, Matot (Tribes).

God spoke to Moses, saying: Take vengeance, the vengeance of the children of Israel, against the Midianites; afterward, you will be gathered to your people. (Numbers/Bemidbar 31:1-2)

For this last military action before Moses dies, he sends out a detachment of 12,000 men, a thousand men from each non-Levite tribe. With them he sends his grand-nephew, the new priest Pinchas, who skewered the Israelite man and the Midianite woman in the act of fornicating to worship the god of Peor. (See my last two blogs, Pinchas: Aromatherapy, and Balak: Wide Open.)

To further emphasize that the coming battle is a religious one, rather than an ordinary battle for conquest or defense, Moses sends Pinchas with signal trumpets and (unspecified) holy objects.

The Israelite detachment succeeds without losing a single man. They kill all the Midianite men, and bring back the women, children, livestock, and other booty as spoils of war.

The Women of Midian Led Captive by the Hebrews, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

And Moses became angry with the military orders given by the officers of the thousands and the officers of the hundreds, the ones coming from the armed battle. And Moses said to them: You let the females live! Hey, they were here leading Israel in the matter of Bilam, to choose unfaithfulness to God in the affair of Peor; and the pestilence happened to the community of God! So now kill every male among the small children, and every woman who has known a man by lying down with a male, kill her! But all the small children among the women who have not known lying down with a male, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers 31:14-18)

Whoa! Are Moses’ orders as awful as they sound? It depends on the level of interpretation. Jewish Torah commentary is often divided into four classifications: peshat, “spreading out” the literal interpretation; remez, the application of “hints” in the text to related situations; derash, the “investigation” of how mythical elements in the text apply to human psychology and ethics; and sod, the “hidden” level that finds mystical symbolism in the words.

Peshat

On the literal, peshat level, Moses carries out God’s request for “vengeance” by treating the action against the Midianites in Moab as different from all previous military actions. This is a religious war against a people who seduced the men of Israel into worshiping a false god. That’s why the priest Pinchas leads the army, bringing holy objects with him. The Israelites kill all the Midianite men in combat, without losing one of their own men, because God is on their side.

But then they follow standard wartime procedure by returning with all the women and children as part of their booty. Moses declares that since the Midianite women were the ones who seduced the Israelite men into worshiping the god of Peor, through both sex and animal sacrifices, they are guilty and must then be killed. It is not clear which Midianite women seduced Israelite men, so Moses orders all the non-virgins killed.

As for the young boys, they must be killed to prevent them from growing up and avenging their fathers. But the young girls are considered safe, because (according to traditional commentary) they will be converted by their Israelite husbands.

Remez

So on the literal, peshat level, Moses has a rationale for the genocide. But when I look on the remez level for what the text hints at, I notice the assumption that Israelite men have no willpower to resist seduction. All the blame lies on the Midianite women, rather than on the men who succumb to their invitations. And since the Midianite women seduce the Israelite men openly, it is a fair assumption that the Midianite men are complicit. That’s why God orders vengeance against all the Midianites in Moab.

If the Israelite men were held responsible for their own sex acts, the story would be different. The vengeance or punishment would be left up to God, who has already afflicted both Israelites and Midianites with a pestilence. And Moses would exhort the men of Israel to leave Moab behind them, rejecting any future seductions from Midianite women. No war or genocide would be necessary; the Israelites do not intend to conquer Moab, and their men must learn to resist seduction by worshipers of foreign gods.

So in my remez interpretation, the story of genocide becomes a tragic illustration of what happens when women get all the blame for seducing men into bad behavior.

Derash

Moving toward the derash level, modern commentators have noted that Moses himself was married to a Midianite. Moses’ wife Tzipporah has nothing to do with the seduction in Moab; he married her decades earlier, she belonged to a group of Midianites living far away on the Sinai peninsula, and her father was the Midianite priest Jethro (Yitro), who mentored Moses and worshiped the same god.

Nevertheless, Moses might feel self-conscious about his Midianite wife, and therefore insist on being especially severe with the Midianite women in Moab in order to prove his complete aversion to them and their alien religion.

Going deeper into a derash investigation, I find the basic human conflict between what Freud called the id and the superego. The id side of a human being wants to indulge in any pleasure that comes along, and avoid the pain of saying no, setting boundaries, refusing to go along with other people. This is the side that is seduced by Midianites into worshiping the wrong god. The superego side of a human being wants to do the right thing, earn self-respect and inner peace, and go for the long-term reward of a good reputation. This is the side that must utterly reject the Midianites. And this utter rejection is expressed metaphorically by the extermination of all the Midianites in Moab—except for the young girls.

Sod

What do the young, virgin girls stand for? Moving into the sod level of interpretation, I think they represent our more innocent impulses toward pleasure and sociability. Human beings should not be total killjoys. Instead, we should let our love of physical and social pleasures enrich our moral activities and bring a gentle joy into our lives. Young girls are often romanticized as gentle, happy creatures.

Rebirth of Torah Sparks and Torah Monologues

This is my new site for my blogs on the Torah portion of the week, “Torah Sparks”, and my website for my Torah Monologues and creative midrash workshops.

I’ve been working on this new site for more than a month now, while outside sprouts slowly push out of their seeds or bulbs and up through the dirt, until finally they reach the open air and the sun turns them green.

And my dear and computer-savvy husband, Will, transferred “www.mtorah.com” to this new site just before Passover (Pesach in Hebrew). How delightfully appropriate! Not only is Passover a spring holiday, but it celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from their old life of slavery in Egypt, and how they (and everyone else who decided to join them as they left Egypt) began to learn a new way of life on the other side of the Reed Sea. In their new life, they were all to become priests and priestesses, a holy nation. And that takes a lot of learning and a lot of practice.

I’ll address what “holy” means in my next regular blog, on the Torah portion named Kedoshim (Holiness).

I hope this new site will make it easier for you to find sparks of inspiration, and easier for me to continue the “holy” work I’ve taken on.

Toledot: Opposing Twins

(This was my first “Torah Sparks” blog post, published on November 17, 2009. I made a few small additions before reposting it in 2020.)

Birth of Esau and Jacob, by Francois Maitre, ca. 1480

And [Rebecca’s] days for giving birth filled, and hey! Twins were in her womb! And the first one emerged red all over, like a robe of fur; and they called his name Eisav. After that, his brother emerged, and his hand was holding onto the akeiv of Eisav, so he called his name Ya-akov. (Genesis/Bereishit 25:24-26)

Eisav (עֵשָׂו) = (“Esau” in English.) Doer? (Probably from the verb asah, עָשַׂה = did, made. Aso, עֲשׂוֹ = to do.)

akeiv (עָקֵב) = heel. (From the verb akav, עָקַב = grasp by the heel, cheat.)

Ya-akov (יַעֲקֺב) = (“Jacob” in English.) He grasps by the heel.

Isaac and Rebecca name the first one Eisav, and he grows up to be a hunter and a man of action. They name the second one Ya-akov because he was born holding onto his twin brother’s heel . Clearly this heel-holding is important. But what does it mean?

The traditional Jewish interpretation is that Jacob is trying to pull Esau back, because even in the womb Jacob knows that he, not Esau, should receive the inheritance and the blessing that belong to the firstborn. Since he fails to switch places with Esau at birth, the adult Jacob resorts to trickery to get the rights of the firstborn.

But what if Jacob is hanging onto Esau because he cannot bear to be separated from his twin? Esau has always been with him, since they were conceived. Rebecca noticed the agitation in her belly as the brothers struggled, or wrestled, or perhaps danced inside her. Then suddenly Esau was gone. How could Jacob stand the sudden loss?

The birth process separates the twins, and also separates them into two halves of one person, dividing the traits of a human being between them. Esau is a physical man, hairy like an animal, focused on eating, taking wives, and killing. Jacob is an intellectual, a smooth-skinned smooth-talker, focused on cooking up the future and getting words of blessing.

That’s why neither Jacob nor Esau can be whole until he takes on some of his brother’s characteristics. In next week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, Jacob becomes interested in taking a wife and acquires physical strength when he sees Rachel and rolls the big stone off the well (Genesis 29:10). And in the following portion, Vayishlach, Esau learns to think well enough to become a leader of a tribe (Genesis 32:7). But neither twin can be at peace until they finally meet again in old age, and kiss and weep together (Genesis 33:4).

Va-eira: Shortness of Ruach

(This blog was first posted on January 10, 2010.)

And Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, from kotzer of ruach and from avodah kashah. (Exodus/Shemot 6:9)

Moses asks Pharaoh to give the Israelite slaves a leave of absence to spend three days in the wilderness worshiping their god. Pharaoh responds by accusing the Israelites of laziness and giving them extra work: they must collect their own straw to mix with clay, and still make the same quota of bricks. The slaves complain to Moses, who then complains to God that now the people are even worse off than before. This week’s Torah portion,Va-eira (“And I appeared”), opens with God reaffirming the divine plan to rescue the children of Israel from Egypt.

Moses passes on this communication to the Israelite slaves, but they do not listen to him. Why not? The brief explanation ending the sentence in Exodus 6:9, “from kotzer of ruach and from avodah kashah“, can be translated in many ways. Below are some possibilities; pick one from each list to make your own translation.

kotzer = shortness. being stunted. despondency. impatience.

ruach = wind. spirit. breath. motivation.

avodah = labor. service. ritual. worship.

kashah = difficult. heavy. stubborn. severe.

Some translators choose a physical interpretation, writing that the Israelites did not listen to Moses out of shortness of breath and hard bondage (Robert Alter, following Rashi). How can you listen to someone promising an unimaginable future when you’re working so hard that you’re panting? Ramban says physical exhaustion made the people impatient and sapped them of the strength to hope.

Other translators take a psychological approach, writing that the Israelites did not listen to Moses because of a constriction of the spirit (the Zohar) and because of the heathen service which weighed heavily upon them (the Targumim, according to Elie Munk). Their suffering was so continuous that they were reduced to animals who could only think about their daily physical needs; they did not have enough human spirit to imagine anything else. Lacking imagination and believing themselves powerless, they paid homage to the Egyptian gods of their slave-masters. This idol worship also prevented them from listening to any communication from their own god.

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, in The Particulars of Rapture, wrote: “To hear is to open oneself up to vulnerability, change, contingency.” Pharoah the hard-hearted cannot consider even the idea of change, so he refuses to hear out Moses. Pharoah afflicts his Israelite slaves with the same deafness, by making their lives so hard that they cannot stop and listen to any revolutionary ideas. Thus Egypt, which in Hebrew is called Mitzrayim, “Narrow Places”, is the place of constriction for both master and slave. It is the place where people are stunted, cut short—“kotzer”—from the freedom of thought that make us human.

In Kabbalistic terms, the children of Israel are stunted in the ruach level of soul. Like animals, they exist from day to day with only the nefesh, the level of soul that animates the body. They have neither time nor energy to access their ruach and neshamah levels of soul. (The neshamah is the soul level where one can hear one’s calling and receive inspiration. The ruach is the level where one is seized by the drive and motivation to seek that calling, to do something new.)

In the story of creation at the beginning of Genesis, the ruach—wind or spirit—of God hovers over the face of the waters. Throughout the Torah, certain humans are seized by the irresistible power of the ruach of God, which turns them into prophets or madmen, or perhaps both. A human being’s own ruach may not be as enormous as God’s ruach, but it is still a motivating force that can be ignored only by rigorous denial.

Pharaoh is the king of denial. He does not listen to the word of God because his ruach is stunted; he refuses to believe that change is unavoidable. The children of Israel do not listen to the word of God because their ruach is imprisoned by continuous suffering; they refuse to believe that change can happen to them.

I’ve been in that constricted place, too. I’ve cried over more than one unbearable situation in my life, unable to believe that I could do anything about it or that it would ever change. But each situation did change. Sometimes I heard a different inner voice, and I found a way out. Other times the change happened without an action on my part, by the grace of God, and all I had to do was to respond, to gird my loins and go with it.

But what about when you’re still trapped in the suffering? How do you find the voice you haven’t been hearing? Does it take a temporary break—a deep breath, a real Shabbat, three days in the wilderness—to hear the voice of freedom? Or do you need someone, or something, to lead you out of your Egypt whether you’re ready or not?

Vayiggash: Reuben the Jerk

(This blog was first posted on December 20, 2009.)

These are the names of the sons of Israel, the one coming to Egypt, Jacob and his children: Jacob’s bechor, Reuben. (Genesi/Bereishit 46:8)

bechor (בְּכֺר) = firstborn.

Throughout the book of Genesis, the firstborn son, who is supposed to be the future leader of the clan, is portrayed in a bad light. Avraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, is exiled for inappropriate “playing with his younger brother Isaac. Esau, Isaac’s firstborn son, is portrayed and easily duped, stupid, and impulsive compared to his brother Jacob. Jacob’s firstborn, Reuben, comes across as a shmendrick, an ineffectual jerk.

Right after his father Jacob’s second and favorite wife, Rachel, dies in childbirth, Reuben lies with Bilhah, who is Rachel’s servant and Jacob’s concubine. (Genesis 35:22) Jacob is not at all happy about this, and brings it up years later on his deathbed. (Genesis 49:4). Is Reuben overcome with passion, and unable to see the obvious consequences? Or is he making a foolish attempt to become the family’s leader through the ancient custom by which the new ruler assumed his office by having sex with the old ruler’s concubines?

The next time we see Reuben, he is arguing with his brothers about what to do with Joseph, Rachel’s firstborn and their father’s favorite son. Joseph’s older brothers hate him, and now that he is approaching them in a place far from home, far from Jacob’s protection, the brothers conspire to kill him and throw him into a pit.

But Reuben says, “Let’s not strike down his life. Don’t shed blood! Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” (Genesis 37:21-22) The Torah adds that Reuben says this “in order to rescue him from their hand, to return him to his father”.

If we take Reuben’s words at face value, he does not mind if Joseph dies in the pit—which Rashi (11th-century rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki) said was filled with scorpions. He just does not want to be responsible for breaking the taboo against shedding a brother’s blood.

On the other hand, if we believe the explanation the Torah adds, Reuben does want to save Joseph’s life; he just doesn’t have the guts to directly contradict his brothers. He is the bechor, and therefore the eldest, but he is afraid to stand up to the brothers he should be leading.

It gets worse. Reuben goes away for some unspecified reason. In his absence, the brothers, led by Judah, sell Joseph to a passing caravan as a slave. The early rabbis invented reasons for Reuben’s absence; Rashi said either it was his day to go home and wait on his father, or he was fasting in penitence for lying with Bilhah. But neither explanation exonerates him from a charge of criminal neglect.

Reuben returns to the pit, sees that his Joseph is gone, and asks his brothers, “And I, where will I go?” (Genesis 37:30) Reuben does not ask what happened to Joseph; he is only concerned about what will happen to himself, once his father finds out Joseph is missing.

The brothers trick their father Jacob into believing that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. While Jacob mourns, Reuben does not say a thing to alleviate his father’s pain or expose the truth.

The next time Reuben shows up in the story, the ten oldest of Jacob’s twelve sons have gone to Egypt to buy grain during a famine. The governor of Egypt (whom the brothers do not recognize as their long-lost little brother Joseph) accuses the ten men of being spies. He imprisons Simon, then orders the rest of the men to go home and bring back their youngest brother, Benjamin. The brothers decide this must be divine punishment for selling Joseph into slavery. And Reuben says, “Didn’t I speak to you, saying— Don’t sin against the boy— but you didn’t listen.” (Genesis 42:22) As if Reuben were innocent! As if it did any good now to say “I told you so”!

It gets worse. When the brothers go home and explain the situation to Jacob, he refuses to part with Benjamin, his favorite son since Joseph disappeared. Reuben tries to persuade Jacob by saying, “You can kill my two sons if I don’t bring him (Benjamin) back to you. Put him in my hands, and I myself will return him to you.” (Genesis 42:37)

In this one sentence, Reuben shows that he is both callous about his own sons, and stupid about human relationships. He is callous because he cannot be sure of Benjamin’s safe return, no matter how carefully he guards him, yet he is willing to risk the lives of his own sons anyway. And he is stupid because he assumes Jacob would consider killing two of his own grandsons a satisfactory revenge!

That is the last time Reuben speaks in the Torah. But his name comes up again in this week’s Torah portion, Vayiggash (And he stepped forward), in a genealogy. (Genesis 46:8). Like the genealogy right after Reuben lies with Bilhah in 35:23, the Torah specifically refers to Reuben as the firstborn, though none of the oldest sons in subsequent generations are listed that way. In fact, many other genealogies in the Torah don’t use the word bechor, firstborn, at all.

This may be a clue to the reason why Reuben is a jerk. He is Jacob’s firstborn; he is supposed to inherit the mantle of authority, to be the leader of his generation, to serve as the family’s religious leader after Jacob is gone. But he just does not have the personality traits of a leader. When Prince Shechem offers to marry Dinah (see my blog on Vayishlach), Simon and Levi speak for their brothers and lead the action. When Benjamin is in danger, Judah speaks for the brothers and becomes their leader. Reuben knows he should act like the firstborn son, but he cannot; he is either too afraid of his younger brothers, or too self-centered to care about the lives of others, or too stupid to see the big picture and the consequences of his actions.

What happens today, when someone is given a leadership role but does not have what it takes to succeed? Some people can rise to the occasion and grow into leaders. But some cannot, no matter how good their intentions are. I know people who are too self-centered to be fair parents or bosses, perhaps because they suffered childhood trauma beyond their control. I know people who simply were not born with the mental ability to make complicated long-term decisions. I know that in the past I myself have failed other people because I was too afraid to stand up for them.

The world is full of Reubens. Once again, the Torah shows us that no human being is perfectly good, and no human being is completely evil. We are all shmendricks sometimes.

Bo: Serving God with Possessions

(This blog was first posted on January 17, 2010.)

And also mikanu will go with us—not a hoof will remain—because we will take from them to serve Y*h, our god; and we ourselves will not know with what we will serve Y*h until we come there. (Exodus/Shemot 10:26)

miknanu=our possessions, our property—usually livestock

Moses does not ask Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go free. He only asks Pharaoh to let them go out into the wilderness for a three-day holiday to serve their god. The implication is that then the slaves will all return to their jobs in Egypt.

Yet God has told Moshe that in the end, after the tenth and final plague, Pharaoh will drive the Israelites out of Egypt altogether. Then God will lead them to the promised land.

In this week’s Torah portion, Bo (Come), Pharoah reacts to plague number nine, darkness, by telling Moshe that all the Israelites can go to serve God in the wilderness, even the children—but they must leave their livestock behind. Moshe refuses with the explanation—or rationalization—that “from them we will take to serve Y*h, our god, and we ourselves will not know with what we will serve Y*h until we come there”.

The Israelite slaves do not possess much except for the descendants of the cows, sheep, and goats their ancestors brought down from Canaan. But Moshe insists they must take all their possessions with them for the three-day holiday. Pharaoh rightly suspects his slaves are planning to escape, instead of return. He also seems to suspect that worshiping their god with sacrifices is merely a pretext for leaving.

In that, I believe, he is mistaken. Moshe makes sure that the exodus focuses on religious service, not for three days but for forty years. And the Israelites do worship God with sacrifices. As well as sacrificing livestock, they sacrifice their security. Even a bad situation seems secure if it goes unchanged long enough. Now the Israelites exchange their familiar Egyptian masters for a new and unpredictable master, a god who can create terrifying plagues, a god who might ask anything of them.

Today, many of us serve God by following ethical rules, praying at the right times, and observing other rituals. This kind of service can be a conscious effort, even a sacrifice. Or it can be lip service, not service of the heart. What do we do when our inner world changes and we need to hear and follow the call of the divine, but we don’t know how anymore?

We can look over our possessions, and ask God what needs to be sacrificed. Are we too attached to our “livestock”, our material goods? Are we clinging to our present status—high or low? To the security of our present life? To something else that keeps us enslaved in a narrow place?

What do we need to sacrifice in order to free ourselves to leave our Egypts and enter a new world?

Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something

In this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, God tells Moses:

“Come up to God, you and Aaron, Nadav, and Avihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and bow down from a distance.” (Exodus/Shemot 24:1)

Aaron is Moses’ brother, and Nadav and Avihu are Aaron’s two oldest sons, who will later be initiated as priests. The seventy elders are judges and the de facto representatives of the Israelites.

And Moses went up, and Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel, and under [God’s] feet something like brick-work of sapphire, and it was exactly like the heavens latohar. And [God] did not stretch out {God’s] hand against those singled out from the children of Israel. And they beheld God, and they ate and they drank. (Exodus/Shemot 24:9-11)

latohar (לָטֺהַר) = for the ritual purity, for being acceptable for sacred purposes.

Brickwork in Ishtar Gate of Babylonia (Staatliche Museum, Berlin)

Seventy-five men see God in a transcendent vision. Then, overwhelmed by this spiritual

experience—they take out their lunches and have a bite to eat? What’s that supposed to mean?

The commentary on the portion called Mishpatim (“Laws”) is divided.

latohar = for the purity; for being acceptable for sacred purposes

First God tells Moses to climb at least partway up Mount Sinai with his brother Aaron, his nephews Nadav and Avihu, and 70 elders. When they do so, they see God in a transcendent vision, and then, overwhelmed by this spiritual experience—they take out their lunches and have a bite to eat? What’s that supposed to mean?

The commentary on the portion called Mishpatim (“Laws”) is divided. Some modern commentators explain that since the Israelites have just received the Torah, or at least the Ten Commandments and a number of laws, the elders are now engaged in the sort of feast that marks a covenant or treaty.¹They probably shlepped some meat from sacrificed animals up with them for the concluding feast.²

I find this approach disappointing, because it downgrades the vision of God’s feet to merely part of cutting a covenant, the ancient Israelite version of a signing ceremony.

Other commentary claimed that it was not actual, physical food; the elders were feasting upon their contemplation of the divine glory. In the Talmud, Rav even said that in the “World to Come” humans will be nourished only by their appreciation of God’s glory.³ In other words, none of that nasty physical chewing will be necessary.

According to other commentary, the Torah refers to real food and drink, but the elders on Mount Sinai raise their food to a more spiritual level. The kabbalist Isaac of Luria wrote that we raise the sparks of holiness in plants and animals by eating them with the proper devotion. 19th-century rabbi Samson R. Hirsch wrote that the sapphire brick in the elders’ vision is a metaphor showing that even a lowly brick acquires a heavenly purity when it serves the divine.⁴

But what if the elders are not thinking about raising sparks? What if they really do go from seeing a mystical vision of God to enjoying a nice snack? One way to explain their flexible outlook is to look at the previous clause, “And He did not stretch out his hand toward them”. Ovadiah Sforno interpreted that as meaning they are already seeing like prophets; God does not need to put them into an altered state of consciousness, the way God does with Saul, or Ezekiel, or the 70 elders themselves in Numbers 11:25-26.⁵

Maybe the consciousness of the elders is so integrated, at that moment, that they can find God in everything—in the taste of food as much as in a numinous vision.

I know some people who shun any hint of spirituality or mysticism. They would explain a vision of God’s feet on sapphire bricks as a mere hallucination due to some bodily malfunction. I also know people who love mysticism and cultivate spiritual ecstasy. They seem to view the practical details of life as inferior, and prefer not to pay much attention to what their bodies are doing (except, perhaps, when they’re engaged in ecstatic dance).

I like the middle way. I think an ideal world is one in which we are all like the 70 elders on Mount Sinai: we calmly accept whatever mysterious vision of God arrives, and we also savor the food, drink, and other physical gifts that God’s world provides. When we unite body and soul, we become whole.

(This post was first published on February 7, 2010.)

—

E.g. Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, p. 479.
Cf. 12th-century rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a.k.a. Rashbam, on Exodus 24:11, http://www.sefaria.org.
Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 17a.
Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumah: Sefer Shemos, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2005, p. 533.
16th-century rabbi Ovadiah Sforno on Exodus 24:11, http://www.sefaria.org.

Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day

“And they shall make me a holy place, and I shall dwell among them.” (Exodus/Shemot 25:8)

Ark from Tutankhamun’s tomb with poles, but a different lid

With this promise, God begins telling Moses how to make the portable tent-sanctuary. In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donation”), God begins by describing the ark to be placed inside the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the sanctuary. The ark will be a box or coffer made of gold-plated wood, with gold rings for permanent carrying-poles. Inside the ark will be the testimony, e.g. the stone tablets with the commandments. The lid of the ark will be made out of pure gold. The Torah calls this lid the kaporet (כַּפֹּרֱת) = atonement-cover; reconciliation, atonement.

And you will make two keruvim of gold; you will make them hammered out of the two ends of the atonement-cover. You will make one keruv at one end, and one keruv at the other end; from the atonement-cover you will make the keruvim, on both of its ends. And the keruvim will be spreading their wings upward, sheltering the atonement-cover with their wings; and their faces will be turned one another; the faces of the keruvim will be turned toward the atonement-cover. (Exodus/Shemot 25:18-20)

keruv (כְרוּב), plural keruvim (כְרוּבִים) = a winged hybrid beast, usually with a human head and an animal body. (Cherub in English.)

Two stone lions crouch on either side of the main entrance to a library, a civic building, or a mansion. Usually they face the person who approaches, looking stern and regal, but sometimes they face one another. Architects have used flanking statues for centuries, the world over, to make entrances more impressive.

Door guardians from palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (photo by MC)

In ancient Mesopotamia, the colossal statues on either side of an entrance were hybrid winged beasts with human heads, called lamassu in Sumerian and shedu or kuribu in Akkadian. Scholars say the word kuribu is related both to the Akkadian word karabu, “to pronounce formulas of blessing”, and to the Hebrew word keruv.

Now imagine two winged beasts facing one another, guarding neither a city gate nor a door into a building, but a portal into another world, another reality. Science fiction? No, Torah.

The Torah portion Terumah explains that when the sanctuary is finished, God will speak to Moses from the empty space between the two keruvim.

“And I will speak to you from above the atonement-cover, from between the two keruvim that are upon the Ark of the Testimony, everything that I am commanding you and the Israelites.” (Exodus 22)

This is neither the first nor the last place where the Torah mentions winged figures called keruvim. The first reference is when the first two human beings are banished from the Garden of Eden.

And [God] drove out the human, and stationed at the east of the garden of Eden the keruvim and the flame of the sword of the continually-transforming, to guard the way to the Tree of Life.(Genesis/Bereishit 3:24)

An image of keruvim flanking a tree of life is not unusual in the Ancient Near East. But in the Torah, the keruvim are also guarding the entrance to a world called the garden of Eden.

Phoenician sphinxes and the tree of life

When the ark is carried into battle against the Philistines, it is referred to as: “the ark of the covenant of the God of Armies Sitting on the Keruvim.” (I Samuel 4:4) Here the keruvim are not guarding an entrance, but are flanking an invisible God. The army hopes, in vain, that the ark with its keruvim will guard the soldiers from their enemies.

When King Solomon builds a permanent temple, he places two colossal gilded keruvim in the innermost chamber. Their anatomy is not described, but their wings touch in the center of the room. (I Kings 6:23-27) Keruvim are also used as a decorative motif in the temple walls, as they are in the woven curtains around the inner chamber of the portable sanctuary.

The four mysterious hybrid creatures in vision of the prophet Ezekiel are also called keruvim. Ezekiel’s keruvim have four wings each, human hands, calves’ hoofs, and four faces each (human, lion, ox, and eagle). The throne where God’s glory appears hovers above them. (Ezekiel 1:4-12 and 10:1-21)

Psalm 18 paints a metaphorical picture of God descending from the heavens to rescue King David from his enemies, and borrows a Canaanite image of the sky god riding on a winged steed.

And [God] rode on a keruv and flew,

And swooped on the wings of the wind. (Psalm 18:11).

What do these references to keruvim mean? If we look behind the descriptive details borrowed from neighboring cultures, keruvim seem to define a location for the appearance of God’s glory or presence. The location might be between the keruvim, as in this week’s Torah portion, or above them, as in Ezekiel and Psalm 18, or behind them, as in Genesis.

Keruvim combine the traits of many animals, including humans. Yet they are supernatural, existing somewhere between our reality and the transcendence of God. Therefore they mark the dividing line between our world and a divine world we can neither enter nor understand.

Yet in Torah this dividing line is not a wall, but a gateway. As long as we live in this world we cannot pass through the gate. But we can imagine the entrance to the Garden of Eden. And we can imagine God speaking to Moshe through the empty space between the keruvim above the ark, even if we can never enter the Holy of Holies ourselves.

One effect of this invisible portal to another reality, this gap in our universe, is that human beings feel a yearning that can never be satisfied by the things of this world. The yearning keeps us searching—for love, for beauty, for the good, for the divine. That is what it means to be human.

Maybe Adam and his counterpart Eve are not really human until they are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Only then can they feel yearning.

Today we human beings still yearn for the ineffable. And we are still responsible for using the passion of our yearning to fix the world we live in and make it more like the world we yearn for.

(This blog was first posted on February 7, 2010.)

Vayikra: Fat Belongs to God

(This blog was first posted on March 14, 2010.)

And the priest will make them go up in smoke, a food offering by fire, for a soothing fragrance. All fat belongs to God. A law for all time for your generations: You will not eat any fat, nor any blood, in any of your settlements. (Leviticus 3:16-17–Vayikra)

chalev = fat, especially abdominal fat

dam = blood

The blood and the abdominal fat of livestock are reserved for God in chapter 3 of the book of Leviticus/Vayikra, which provides instructions for making zevach shelamim, the animal sacrifices that are offered by an individual for the sake of shaleim, “wholeness”. This type of offering is made to express gratitude to God, or to confirm peace with the people invited to share the feast afterward.

In brief, a man brings an unblemished cow, sheep, or goat to the altar, leans his hand against the animal’s head, and then slaughters it. The priests splash the animal’s blood against all four sides of the altar. The priests burn the fat covering the entrails, liver, and kidneys. The fragrance of the smoke from the burning fat is the donor’s gift to God. Then the donor and his guests eat the meat in celebration (and according to Leviticus 7:31-35, the priests are given the breast and the right thigh to eat).

Splashing blood is certainly a dramatic ritual, and fat burns well. But fat and blood are not merely reserved for the ritual at the altar. The Torah prohibits the people from eating any abdominal fat, or any blood, anywhere. Even far away from the altar, even in a time when there is no temple, abdominal fat and blood are reserved for God. Why?

A reason for not consuming blood is given in Leviticus 17:14: “You may not consume the blood of any flesh, because the nefesh (soul, animating force) of all flesh is its blood.” Genesis 9:5-6 also links blood with the nefesh of a human or animal, and forbids humans to eat flesh with the blood still in it. Ramban (13th-century rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) wrote that someone who eats an animal’s blood dilutes his own nefesh and becomes less spiritual, more animal.

So blood is equated with the nefesh, the animating force that makes a creature alive. What does abdominal fat stand for?

Rabbi R.S. Hirsch wrote in the 19th century that the blood of an animal is its essence, while the fat is what it produces for its own needs. The essence of an animal must never become a human being’s essence, and the needs of an animal must never become a human being’s needs. Human nature must not be equated with animal nature.

I would add that abdominal fat is stored up as a reserve calorie supply against a hungrier time. It’s like a pot of silver buried against hard times; in modern terms, it’s like a stock portfolio. Stockpiling resources can be a good strategy. But we must not become so attached to our stock portfolios that we despair when the market plunges. We cannot really control our savings, so in a way they do not really belong to us. The fat belongs to God.

Similarly, it’s good to tend to our health, to enjoy each day of life, to “choose life” for ourselves and others. But my life, my nefesh, ultimately belongs to God.

Tzav: Horns, Ears, Thumbs, and Toes

(This blog was first posted on March 22, 2010.)

And Aharon and his sons leaned their hands on the head of the bull of the purification offering. And Moshe slaughtered it. and took the blood and put it on the horns of the altar all around with his finger, and he purified the altar. And he poured out the blood on the foundation of the altar, and he made it holy for atonement. (Leviticus/Vayikra 8:14-15)

And Aharon and his sons leaned their hands on the head of the ram. And Moshe slaughtered it, and took some of its blood and put it on the rim of Aharon’s right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and the thumb of his right foot (i.e. his right big toe). Then he brought near the sons of Aharon, and Moshe put some of the blood on the rims of their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the thumbs of their right feet. Then he dashed (the rest of) the blood on the altar, all around. (Leviticus 8:22-24)

In Exodus, God tells Moses how to ordain the first priests, his brother Aaron and Aaron’s four sons. In Leviticus, in this week’s Torah portion, Tzav (Command), Moses performs the ordination ritual. The ritual involves elaborate costumes, consecration with oil, three sacrificial animals, purification with blood, and finally seven days spent at the entrance to the Holy of Holies.

During this ritual, whenever Moses anoints the future priests with oil, or purifies them with blood, he also sprinkles the oil or blood on the altar where future animal sacrifices will be burned. Thus the priests are identified with the altar.

The main function of both the priests and the altar is to facilitate animal sacrifices. Animal sacrifices are the primary means of worshiping God in the five books of Moses. (Prayer, according to Jewish tradition, is introduced by Hannah in the first book of Samuel.) Once the priests are ordained in this week’s Torah portion, the Israelite people bring their animals to the altar in front of the sanctuary, and there the priests officiate over the slaughter and over the burning of certain parts to create a fragrance pleasing to God. Thus both the priests and the altar are intermediaries between the people and God.

Moses consecrates all five future priests by sprinkling them with anointing oil (as well as pouring some on Aaron’s head). He sprinkles the same oil on the altar and the tools that will be used there. But the distribution of the blood of purification is more elaborate. The altar gets bull’s blood on the “horns” at its four corners, then at its foundation. The blood of a ram is dashed all around the altar. The men get ram’s blood on their right ears, right thumbs, and right big toes.

Is there any connection between where Moses puts blood on the altar, and where he puts it on Aaron and his sons?

Many commentators say that daubing blood on the future priests’ extremities, from top to toe, symbolically purifies their entire bodies. On this theory, applying blood to the altar’s top extremities and bottom foundation symbolically purifies the entire altar.

But why those particular extremities? Rabbi R.S. Hirsch wrote that the ear stands for hearing and understanding, the hand for creative work, and the foot for striving to advance — all of which are expected of a community’s spiritual leaders.

Why does Moses apply the blood to the right ear, hand, and foot, rather than to the left? The Torah associates the right hand with power. Probably this association extends to the whole right side. (Later, kabbalists associated the right side with active energy, and the left with restraint and judgment.)

The altar for animal sacrifices has neither ears nor hands, but Moses applies blood to its four horns and its foundation. The Torah sometimes uses the word for “horn”, keren, as a metaphor for a ray of light, or as a symbol of strength and power. The “horns” protruding from the top corners of the altar are probably a reminder of the horns of the cattle, sheep, and goats sacrificed there. But they also might stand for the altar’s connection with the divine, evoking the idea of powerful rays of light pointing up toward the heavens.

Moses also pours the blood of purification on the ground at the foundation, or footing, of the altar. Both the priests and the altar must be pure where they reach toward heaven, and also where they have their feet on the ground. Only then can they be holy intermediaries between God and the people.

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Kabbalists take note: Leviticus 8:15 uses the word yesod for the base of the altar. Yesod means “foundation”, but it is also one of the ten sefirot in kabbalah, the ten aspects of divine action in our world. The sefirah of yesod is associated with the ego, and also with creative, generative power. On the human body, it corresponds metaphorically with the sexual organs.

The Hebrew word for “foot”, regel, is sometimes used in the Torah as a polite synonym for a man’s sexual organ. In this Torah portion, Moses daubs blood on the future priests’ big toes on their right feet.

Do our own symbolic altars, where we sacrifice some of our animal aspects, need to be purified at the level of sex and ego? Does our own service to the divine, our own inner priesthood, also need to be purified at the level of yesod?