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?

Metzora & Acharey Mot: Doubles

(This blog was first posted on April 13, 2010.)

Gird your loins! This is a double blog, covering two weeks, two double Torah portions, two birds, and two goats!

The double Torah reading for the week culminating on Shabbat April 17 (Leviticus 12:1-15:33: Tazria and Metzora) deals mostly with tzara-at, a discoloring skin disease. The double Torah reading for the week ending on Shabbat April 24 (Leviticus 16:1-20-27: Acharey Mot and Kedoshim) covers the rituals for atonement on Yom Kippur, forbidden sexual unions, and a series of ethical and religious laws.

This year I noticed a connection between the two double Torah portions. The first week’s reading includes a mysterious ritual using two birds, while the second week’s reading includes a remarkably similar ritual using two goats. What does this parallelism mean?

Birds vs. goats

The reading for the week ending April 17 includes this passage about the ritual for making someone with the skin disease tzara-at ritually pure:

Let Go the Living Bird, by Paul Hardy ca. 1900

And the priest will give an order, and he will take for the one who is being ritually purified two living, ritually pure birds, and a stick of cedar, and crimson stuff, and [a branch of] oregano. And the priest will give an order, and he will slaughter the first bird in a pottery vessel, over living water (water flowing from a natural source). He will take the living bird, the stick of cedar, the crimson stuff, and the oregano, and he will dip them into the blood of the slaughtered bird, over the living water. And he will sprinkle upon the one who is being ritually purified from tzara-at seven times; thus he will purify him, and then he will send out the living bird over the face of the open field. (Leviticus/Vayikra 14:4-7, Metzora)

tzara-at (צָרַעַת) = a technical term for several specific skin conditions, one of which seems to be vitiligo.

And the reading for the week ending on April 24 includes this passage, part of the annual Yom Kippur ritual for purifying the whole community:

And from the assembly of the children of Israel, he (the high priest) will take two hairy male goats for a guilt offering and one ram for an elevation offering. He will take the two goats and stand them up before God at the opening of the Tent of Meeting. And Aaron will place lots on the two goats, one lot for God, and one lot for Azazel. Then Aaron will bring the goat that received the lot for God, and he will make it a guilt offering. But the goat that received the lot for Azazel, it will be stood alive before God, for making atonement over, by sending it out to Azazel to the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:5-10, Acharei Mot)

Both rituals use two animals, which must be the same species and equal in value. In both rituals, one animal is chosen randomly to be sacrificed to God, and the other is set free at the end of the ritual, sent out away from human habitations. In both rituals, the blood of the sacrificed animal is sprinkled seven times on the person or place to be purified. Other rituals described in the Torah employ sacrifices of birds and goats, and sprinkling of animal blood, but only in these two passages does the Torah require that one of a pair of animals is slaughtered and the other pair is set free.

Individual vs. community

Why are these two unique purification rituals so similar, when they seem to be performed for such different purposes?

Let’s look at who or what is being purified. In the first reading, the metzora (the person who had the disease of tzara-at) is ritually purified after a priest has declared that the affliction is over. Since someone with tzara-at must live in isolation, in a tent away from the community, the purification ritual is necessary for the ex-metzora to move back and rejoin society.

In Torah and Talmud, a metzora is not someone who just happened to develop a disease. The appearance of an unnaturally white patch of skin is considered a physical manifestation of a flaw in the metzora’s moral condition. Commentators have written that since the “treatment” for tzara-at is segregation from the community, and the ritual restores the metzora to society, the moral flaw of the metzora must be some anti-social behavior, such as slander. A skin disease is an appropriate sign of immoral behavior toward society because the skin is the boundary between one person and another. (See my post Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance ).

Isolation protects the rest of the community from being infected by the metzora’s bad behavior. It also gives the metzora time to reflect and repent. If the skin discoloration shrinks or disappears, the priest knows that the metzora has repented and can rejoin the community safely. But first he must perform a public ritual establishing that the ex-metzora is now acceptable and accepted back into society.

In the second reading, from Acharei Mot, the blood of the sacrificed goat is sprinkled on the curtains around the innermost chamber of the sanctuary, and on the lid of the ark in the center. The high priest performs this ritual once a year, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), to purify the Israelites’ focus of worship from their own cumulative ritual impurity. This purification also atones for their misdeeds, particularly their pesha-im, their rebellions against the social order.

The implication, I think, is that while only some people are so egotistical that they pay no attention at all to the good of the community (and therefore get the mark of tzara-at on their skin), nobody is perfect. We all rebel occasionally against the need for good social behavior. These small misdeeds accumulate, tarnishing the purity of our focus on the holy. So once a year, according to the Torah, two goats are brought to the high priest. He slaughters one, and sprinkles its blood on the atonement-lid of the ark in the Holy of Holies. He confesses the sins and misdeeds of the Israelites over the head of the other goat, and a designated man sets it free in the wilderness. This public ritual establishes clearly that the whole community is acceptable to God once again.

Killing vs. setting free

The details of the two rituals are parallel, and both are performed to address immoral behavior against the community. But why, in each case, is only one animal sacrificed, while its double is set free?

Maybe the two birds, and the two goats, represent two courses of action for human beings. We can sacrifice our egos (while retaining the “blood”, the juiciest part, in the pottery bowl over living water) in order to be kind and cooperative; then we will be full members of society. Or we can refuse to make any sacrifice; then we will be free—but we will also be sent away from the community, like the bird and the goat. Even today, individuals who are not willing to sacrifice their own egotism, at least enough to avoid doing harm to other people, will be driven out of society. If they are not kicked out of a group explicitly, they will still find themselves isolated and friendless … out in the wilderness.

And what if the freed bird or goat comes back? Well, that’s one of the questions “the designated man” asks in my Torah monologue!

Ki Tavo: Cursing Yourself

Today Mount Gezerim and Mount Eyval stand over the city of Nablus. In the Hebrew Bible, the same two hills frame the ancient Canaanite city of Shekhem. Although Moses has never been to Canaan, in the book of Deuteronomy/Devarim he knows about Gezerim and Eyval.

Mt. Gezerim (left), Nablus, Mt. Eyval (right)

Moses knows how the slopes that face one another curve to form a natural amphitheater, so anyone who stood in the middle of the valley and shouted could be heard by people standing on both slopes. He gives the following order in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo (“When you enter”):

These shall stand for blessing the people upon Mount Gerizim, when you have crossed the Jordan: Simon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin. And these shall stand for the cursing on Mount Eyval: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. And the Levites shall testify, and they shall say to every man of Israel in a loud voice: “Arur is the craftsman who makes a carved idol or a cast idol, an abomination to God, or the one who sets it up in a hiding-place.” And all the people shall answer and say: “Amen.” (27:12-15)

arur (אָרוּר) = accursed; isolated and ruined.

amen (אָמֵן) = Supported! Confirmed! (A formula indicating acceptance of a curse, oath, message, deal, or religious tenet.)

The ritual continues with eleven more curses:

demeaning one’s father or mother
moving another’s boundary marker
making a blind person go astray
skewing justice concerning a stranger, orphan, or widow
having sex with one’s father’s wife
having sex with any animal
having sex with one’s sister or half-sister
having sex with one’s mother-in-law
hitting a person in private
taking payment to murder someone
not upholding the words of the Torah.

Commentators have pointed out that these curses deal with acts done secretly or privately, acts that society is not likely to discover and punish. Ten of these acts concern treating other human beings badly, even when no one else knows. The other two are about cheating on one’s religion.

Of course, more secret vices could be added to the list, but since the Israelites had twelve tribes, these twelve secret sins serve as examples.

By saying amen to the curses, the Israelites are internalizing an aversion to, or fear of, transgressing God’s ethical and religious rules.

The ritual Moses prescribes would have a major psychological impact on people just entering their new homeland. Instead of proudly celebrating their military victories, they must dedicate themselves to being considerate with other humans and honest with God.

Why two mountains?

Mount Gerizim, which represents blessings, was thickly wooded in the biblical era. Mount Eyval, which represents curses, was bare and stony. Doing the right thing, therefore, would mean choosing the blessing of abundant life. Doing the wrong thing would mean choosing an accursed life, a life of emptiness and spiritual death.

By saying “Amen” after the Levites recite each curse, the people affirm that this is the choice they must make.

Twelve Blessings

The twelve blessings are not listed in this week’s Torah portion, but according to the Talmud they are simple inverses of the curses, e.g. not making and secretly setting up an idol, etc.

However, it is easy to extrapolate active behaviors that lead to being blessed: worshiping only God; honoring one’s parents; respecting others’ property; guiding the blind; being just to people who are at a disadvantage in society; having sex only with appropriate partners; refraining from violence even when you could get away with it; putting life ahead of profit; and promoting the rules in the Torah.

The blessings and curses still apply to us today. Every time an individual faces a decision between doing something they know is wrong, and doing the right thing instead, that individual stands between Mount Eyval and Mount Gerizim.

Thanks to our inner Levites, we know that if we do something wrong in secret, we will still be accursed: we will suffer from guilt, we will feel degraded, and we will isolate ourselves. If we do something good in secret, we will still be blessed: we will feel full of life, right with the world and right with our souls.

(This blog was first posted on August 23, 2010.)

Noach: Babble and Meaning

(This blog was first posted on October 5, 2010.)

And all the earth was of one language and one set of words … And they said: Come let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower with its head in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered all over the face of the earth. And God went down to see the city and the tower …

And God said: Hey! One people and one language for all, and this is what they begin to do? … Come let Us go down there and scramble their language, so that they will not understand each other’s language. Then God scattered them from there over the surface of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore He called its name Babel, because there God scrambled the language of all the earth, and from there God scattered them over all the surface of the earth. (Genesis/Deuteronomy 11:1-9)

Babel = Babylon, from the Sumerian Babilim, “Gate of the God” (both city and region)

balal = scramble, confuse; thoroughly mix oil into grain for a meal offering

Obviously the people of Babel are doing something wrong—something that isn’t horrible enough for God to destroy them with a flood, but is serious enough for God to investigate and correct their mistake.

What is their mistake? Three theories are: that they don’t follow God’s order to scatter; that they enforce conformity and suppress individuality; and that they try for permanence in a world God created for change.

1) They refuse to scatter.

After the Flood, God tells Noah’s descendants to be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. But the traumatized people are afraid of being scattered. There is comfort in numbers—and in being able to see that nobody is engaged the kind of outrageous sins that led to the Flood. I can imagine the anthropomorphic God in this story heaving a celestial sigh, wondering what it will take for humans to get with the program. Then God scrambles their minds so they have different languages and different sets of words—i.e., different concepts. This time, when God scatters the humans, they have so much trouble communicating that they stay scattered.

2) They suppress the individual.

The people of Babel speak only in the plural, and appear to be in perfect agreement. No individuals are named in the story. Whether this counts as cooperation, or conformity, it’s not what God has in mind. Sforno (Rabbi Obadiah Sforno, 16th century) wrote that if everyone held the same beliefs, including the same beliefs about God, then no one would seek the true God. Only when people find out about religious differences do they develop a desire for deeper understanding. Martin Buber (1878-1965) wrote that only a person with a well-developed sense of self is able to connect with God.

In the allegory of Babel, after God scatters the people and gives them different languages and concepts and cultures, individuality and variety return to humankind. Then we are again able to learn and change.

3) They crave permanence.

Permanence is a continuing issue in Genesis/Bereishit. Although subsequent chapters focus on the desire for a sense of permanence through one’s descendants, the book has already addressed the issue of death. The result of eating from the Tree of Knowledge in Eden is personal mortality; God removes Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and places them in our own world, where they will eventually die. Noah and his family witness the death of their entire world, and must start all over again when the Flood waters recede.

What is the meaning of life when, sooner or later, you will die? One possible response is to create something that will outlast you, that will be a monument down through the ages. This is difficult to do alone. So the people act collectively to make a name for themselves, by building a city and a tower so high that its head is in the heavens. (In this part of the Torah, the heavens are eternal, while the earth is always changing.)

Of course their plan fails. God, or the nature of the universe God created, will not let anything on earth endure forever.

The answer is to give up on permanence, and find a different meaning of life.

Each human must find his or her own individual meaning. But the book of Genesis offers some suggestions. We can “walk with God”, which I interpret as behaving morally for its own sake. We can raise and teach children. We can love another person, as Isaac loves Rebecca and Jacob loves Rachel. We can wrestle with ourselves and develop our own hidden potential, like Jacob wrestling and finding new courage at the ford of Yabbok.

What other ways can we find meaning in a life without permanence? I welcome your comments.

Chayyei Sarah: A Peculiar Oath

(I first posted this essay on October 24, 2010, then added footnotes and illustrations in 2019.)

Which body part does Abraham’s steward place his hand under when he swears an oath to his master?

Abraham and steward, Abraham’s Solemn Charge,, by Pedro Orrente, 17th century, detail

Now Abraham was an elder, coming on in days, and God had blessed Abraham in everything. And Abraham said to his servant, an elder of his household, the one who governed all that was his: Please place your hand under my yareikh, and I will make you swear by God, god of the heavens and god of the earth, that you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites amidst whom I am dwelling. Because you must go to my [former] land and to my relatives, and [there] you must take a wife for my son, for Isaac. (Genesis/Bereishit 24:1-4)

yareikh (יָרֵךְ) = hip, upper thigh, buttocks, genitals.

Only two times in the Torah does someone ask another person to place his hand under the yareikh and swear an oath: in this week’s Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah (“Life of Sarah”), and in Genesis 47:29, when Jacob makes his son Joseph swear not to bury him in Egypt.

In both cases, the person requesting the oath believes he will soon die. He will not be there to make sure his wishes are carried out, so he deputizes a man he trusts and asks him to swear a serious oath.

Abraham is 137 years old when he requests this oath. Neither he nor his steward Eliezer¹expect him to live long enough to give further instructions if Eliezer cannot find a wife for Isaac in Abraham’s old home, the city of Charan in Aram. (Ironically, it turns out that Abraham lives another 38 years.)

He asks his steward, who will be in charge after he dies, to swear an oath while his hand is placed—where, exactly?

19th-century rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch argued that it was the patriarch’s thigh or buttock: the first place to touch the ground when one rests. Therefore, he wrote, the man about to swear the oath shows the dying man that he can rest in peace, trusting to the power of the swearer’s hand.²

Yet in other parts of the Torah, the word yareikh is a euphemism for the genitals. A rabbi in the Talmud declared that Abraham’s servant grasped his circumcised penis, since oaths administered by a court require one to hold a sacred item in the hand while swearing.³ Rashi⁴ confirmed this opinion, and his commentary is not known for flights of fancy. Rabbi Elie Munk pointed out that the book of Genesis is set in a time before the giving of the Torah, so a circumcised penis was the only sacred object available.⁵

Other commentators have noted that the English words testify, testimony, and testicles all come from Latin words based on the root “testis”, and claim that this may reflect a Roman practice of taking an oath on the genitals.

If the male genitals are a symbol of creative power, they refer to God the Creator. If they represent the covenant with God, they refer to holiness. Either way, the oath-taker is asked to place his hand in a position underneath a symbol of the sacred.

Throughout the Torah, the hand is a metaphor for the power to act, to do things in the world. So in this ancient ritual, the one swearing the oath places his own power to act underneath, below, subservient to, the sacred object of the other man. In other words, he is promising he will do everything in his power to carry out the other man’s will as if it were the will of God. A potent oath!

A vow made to a dying person is one-sided, obligating only the person swearing the oath. If unforeseen circumstances arise after someone is dead, is the other party still obliged to carry out a mission that now looks like a bad idea? Or should the survivor be free to change course to address the new circumstances?

In the book of Genesis, Abraham’s steward Eliezer has little trouble bringing back a bride for Isaac from Aram. (In the other example of this oath, Joseph easily gets Pharaoh’s permission to bury his father in Hebron instead of Egypt.) My impression is that Eliezer enjoys carrying out his oath by matchmaking.

Not all deathbed requests are that easy, or that benign. Yet human nature tends to put a high value on a deathbed promise; for example, people go to great lengths to carry out a deceased person’s wishes regarding burial. There is also psychological pressure to reassure a dying person. In that situation, is a promise really freely given?

Suppose you “knew” that a certain thing had to happen, and you doubted you would live long enough to make sure it did happen. Is it right to ask someone else to swear to make it happen? What if the person you are asking agrees to carry our your mission even though they do not share your belief in its necessity? What if the circumstances change after your death?

Is it right for a living person to be bound by the desire of someone who is dead?

—

See Genesis 15:2.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshit, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2000, p. 514.
Talmud Bavli, Shevuot 38b.
Rashi is the acronym of 11th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
Rabbi Elie Munk, The Call of the Torah: Bereishis, Mesorah Publications, 1994, p. 626.

Toledot: Why?

(This blog was first posted on November 1, 2010.)

Isaac prayed to God, in front of his wife, because she was barren; and God was moved by the prayer to him; and his wife, Rebecca, conceived. But the sons pushed and crushed one another inside her. And she said: “If thus why this I?” And she went to question God. (Genesis/Bereishit 25:21-22)

im kein lamah zeh anochi = literally: “If thus why this I?”

“If it’s like this, why me?”

“Why am I this way?”

“If so, why do I exist?”

In last week’s Torah portion, Rebecca is portrayed as remarkably strong-willed and hospitable to strangers (hauling water for the camels of Abraham’s steward until they’ve drunk their fill); decisive and courageous (deciding she will leave at once to marry a stranger in a strange land); and impressed by a man who prays (falling off her camel when she sees him, and then, upon discovering the man is her fiancé Isaac, instantly donning her wedding veil).

This week’s Torah portion, Toledot (Histories) opens when Isaac and Rebecca have been married almost twenty years, and are still childless. Isaac prays, and Rebecca gets pregnant, but the violent movements in her belly alarm her. She says something cryptic, then becomes the first person in the Torah to seek out and question God.

Even Abraham waits for God to speak to him before venturing to ask God any questions. But although Rebecca lets her husband do the praying for conception, she does not ask Isaac to find out about the battle in her belly. She goes straight to God.

At least that’s what the text says. Some medieval commentary says she went to the school of Noah’s sons Shem and Ever, who were somehow still alive and running the world’s first yeshiva (Jewish seminary). Some modern commentary speculates that she actually went to a professional oracle. But the remaining commentary credits her with going directly to God. I suspect Rebecca goes to the nearest holy spot—perhaps the well where Hagar heard God—and stands there alone, asking her question from her heart until she gets an answer.

What is her motivation for this unprecedented act? It depends on the interpretation of her cry, Im kein lamah zeh anochi. If she means “If it’s like this, why me?”, Rebecca questions God because she wishes some other woman were carrying the painful burden and risking miscarriage or her own death. Why can’t Isaac have his sons by a concubine instead? (c.f. Abraham Ibn Ezra, 12th century; Obadiah Sforno, 16th century). Is God punishing her because there’s something wrong with her? (c.f. Talmud, tractate Sotah 12a).

If Rebecca means, “Why am I this way?”, she just wants to understand why her pregnancy is so unusual (c.f. Radak–Rabbi David Kimhe, circa 1200; 19th-century rabbi S.R. Hirsch). What can she expect when it’s time for the birth? What will happen after that?

But if Rebecca means, “If so, why do I exist?”, she seems to be close to despair, wondering if her painful pregnancy is worth living through (c.f. 13th-century rabbi Moses ben Nachman). Going to God is a last-ditch effort to find a reason to carry on.

I don’t think the “Why me?” attitude fits Rebecca’s character. Would someone that hospitable to a stranger want to inflict pain or death on a concubine? Would someone that self-confident wonder if she had some horrible hidden flaw?

“Why am I this way?” makes more sense. Rebecca might well have a practical motivation for questioning God. She is fundamentally a woman of action, and now that something strange and alarming is happening, she can no longer stay in her tent and leave things up to her adored husband. She has to find out what will happen next, so she can be prepared to respond to any emergency. Later in the Torah portion, when she overhears that Isaac is about to give the blessing to the wrong twin, she reacts with a decisive emergency response, as if certain that her desire matches God’s will.

Yet is also possible that even a strong woman like Rebecca might come close to despair after 20 years of watching her husband pray for a child right in front of her, followed by a pregnancy that tortures her and seems likely to end in death. She would be desperate to find some meaning in life, some reason for it all—desperate enough to seek out God.

Many of us reach a moment when we wonder: “Why am I this?” Is there some reason for everything I’ve gone through? What is my purpose in life? What is the meaning of it?

I believe the worst thing to do, when that moment comes, is to accept the answer of an authority figure: someone in a pulpit, on a book jacket, on television, on a calendar page or refrigerator magnet. Someone else’s idea of the meaning of life might bring me temporary comfort, but how can it answer a cry from the depths of my soul? No, I have to seek God on my own, like Rebecca. I have to keep questioning God, even though I don’t know what God is, until my answer comes.

I think I am beginning to feel my purpose in life, but it’s too amorphous to put into words. And I believe, without any rational reason, that there is meaning in life, but I don’t know what the meaning is. Since I’m a modern woman, I get my incomplete and mysterious answers in the form of vague intuitions, instead of in the form of riddling prophecies like the one Rebecca received.

Maybe a complete answer will never come to me. That’s okay. I’ll keep on seeking God, I’ll keep on questioning. For me, the search is what’s important.

Beshalach: Pillar of Cloud and Fire

Humans often hear God’s voice in the Torah, but there are only two verses where humans might be seeing part of God: when the elders climb Mount Sinai and behold God’s feet in Exodus 24:10, and when God lets Moses see his back in Exodus 33:23. The rest of the time, God becomes manifest through two kinds of supernatural messengers (called angels in many English translations). One kind looks like a human being, and the other kind looks like an annatural fire.

One of these supernatural fires is the pillar of cloud and fire that leads the Israelites from the border of Egypt all the way to the Jordan River. This pillar first appears in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (“when he was sending out”).

After the tenth plague, Pharaoh finally sends the Israelites out of Egypt. When they cross the border of Egypt and head into the wilderness, the Torah says that God “went before them”. Then it describes the messenger that actually went before them:

And God went before them; by day, in an amud of cloud to lead them down the road, and by night, in an amud of fire to give light for them, for walking by day and night. The amud of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never withdrew from before the people. (Exodus/Shemot 13:21-22)

amud (עַמּוּד) = pillar, column, upright support. (From the verb amad. עָמַד = stand, take a stand.)

Pillar of Cloud, by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, 1731

The commentary is divided on whether there is one pillar or two. But if the pillar of cloud is replaced by a separate pillar of fire for the night, what does the changing of the guard look like? The Torah never describes it.

Pharaoh changes his mind about releasing the Israelites, and sends an army unit of charioteers after them. The Egyptians catch up with the Israelites just as they have pitched camp on the shore of the Sea of Reeds.

Then the messenger of God pulled out, the one going before the camp of Israel, and it went behind them; thus the amud of the cloud pulled out from before them, vaya-amod behind them. Thus it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel, and it was the cloud and the darkness, and it lit up the night, so that this one did not come near this one, all the night. (Exodus 14:19-20)

vaya-amod (וַיַּעֲמֺד) = and it stood, and it stationed itself. (A form of the verb amad.)

Moses follows God’s instructions and raises his hand over the sea, and God uses a strong east wind to dry up a swath of the sea. The Israelites walk across, between the two walls of water. But the Egyptian charioteers are stuck behind the pillar of fire until dawn.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, a 16th-century Italian commentator, wrote that the angel, the pillar of cloud, and the pillar of fire were three separate things, and the messenger or angel came down to direct the two pillars, which both circled around to stand behind the Israelites, between their camp and the camp of the Egyptian army. But the text itself contradicts his interpretation:

And it was in the morning watch when God looked down on the camp of Egypt from an amud of fire and cloud, and it put the camp of Egypt into an uproar. (Exodus 14:24)

Here the Torah says that God is in “a pillar of fire and cloud”, which sounds like one pillar containing both elements. I picture a pillar that looks like a column of fog in the daylight. As it gets dark, people see sparks of fire in the cloud, and at night only the column of sparks is visible. When dawn comes during the “morning watch” of the night, the cloud can again be seen through the sparks. Since the pillar itself is God’s messenger, God looks down from the amud.

This pillar can only be divine. A whirlwind can form a temporary pillar of cloud, a bonfire can make a pillar of sparks, and an erupting volcano can do both. But a continuously moving pillar of cloud and fire is a miracle.

And this pillar not only controls the movements of the Egyptians, but also communicates a message to both camps: that God stands up for the Israelites, protecting them from the Egyptians. Looking down from the pillar of cloud and fire, God puts the Egyptian army in an uproar by making their chariot wheels get stuck or fall off. Only then, when it is too late, do the Egyptians recognize that God is waging war on them, and decide to flee.

The amud continues to serve more than one purpose in the books of Exodus and Numbers. When the Israelites are traveling, rather than camping, the pillar is a guide showing them which way to go. It is also a reminder that God is with them—that God is “taking a stand” for them, and they must “take a stand” for their god.

Furthermore, fire naturally inspires awe and fear. A cloud, on the other hand, is usually made of fog. In the desert, moisture is a welcome caress on the skin, a gentle gift, a reminder of God’s kindness. God’s kindness is confirmed later in the story by the fact that even after the Israelites do things that enrage both Moses and God, even after they make the Golden Calf, the pillar of cloud and fire returns to lead them.

No matter how visible the reminder of God’s presence in our world, people will ignore it if they are fixated on having their own way. It’s a replay of Pharaoh’s refusal to take the miraculous plagues seriously. When we are determined to solve a problem by eliminating it, we override any inner qualms, whether they appear as cloud, the heart-softening temptation of kindness, or as fire, the nagging fear that we are playing god or doing something wrong.

But if we try to be holy people, metaphorically taking a stand with God, we can recognize both kindness and awe as manifestations of the divine, inspiring us to take the right path. We have a better chance of noticing when we are fixated on killing a problem. We can look around for other solutions, other ways of dealing with the problem, even other ways of working with problematic people.

Instead of getting stuck in the muck and drowning, we can continue on our journey, guided by the pillar of cloud and fire within.

(This blog was first posted on January 9, 2011, and revised in January 2023.)

Yitro: Not in My Face

Moses, frieze on U.S. Supreme Court building, by Adolph Weinman

Terrified by a direct experience of God, the people ask Moses to be their intermediary and tell them God’s orders. So God gives Moses the “Ten Commandments” in this week’s Torah portion, Yitro. Both “Ten” and “Commandments” are designations invented by commentators; the Torah merely introduces the set of fundamental obligations with:

And God spoke all these words, saying— (Exodus/Shemot 20:1)

The next sentence is:

I am God, your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves. (Exodus 20:2)

Some commentators count this as the first commandment, and Exodus 20:3-6 as the second commandment, prohibiting other gods and idols. But the reminder that the God of Israel delivered the people from slavery in Egypt does not sound like a commandment to me. I agree with commentators who count Exodus 20:3, prohibiting other gods, as the first commandment, and Exodus 20:4-6, prohibiting physical objects as idols, as the second commandment.

The verse prohibiting other gods reads:

You must have no elohim acheirim al panai. (Exodus/Shemot 20:3)

elohim acheirim (אֱלֺהִים אֲחֵרִים) = other gods; gods of others.

al (עַל) = on, upon, over, above; besides, in addition to; over against; concerning; because of. (The most common meaning of al is “on: or ”over”, but verse 5 explains that you must not worship anything else but God—so verse 3 cannot mean that it’s okay to serve other gods as long as they are below God. )

panai (פָּנָי) = my face, my presence, my surface, my visible side, my identity.

Here are five literal translations of this ambiguous commandment:

You must not have other gods besides My presence.

You must not have gods of others in addition to My presence.

You must not have gods of others in addition to My visible side.

You must not have other gods over against Me.

You must not have other gods in My face.

First let’s look at the difference between “other gods” and “gods of others”, two phrases that are identical in Biblical Hebrew. If the Israelites can’t have “other gods”, they are forbidden to worship not only the gods of others, but also any gods they happen to think of or notice on their own. Therefore they must not worship any manifestations of God, such as angels or the stars or nature. Modern commentary sometimes adds that we must not make a god out of wealth, or having a perfect body, or any other value exalted by our culture. We may only have one God.

On the other hand, if the Israelites can’t have “gods of others”, the focus turns to the kind of gods worshiped by Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Canaanites. These peoples made idols in an effort to entice gods to come down out of the heavens or up from under the earth and inhabit their statues, the way humans inhabit their bodies. A god living in a statue is easier to communicate with, and easier to appease and honor and butter up so it will act for your benefit.

Throughout the Torah, God may appear as a humanoid angel or as fire or a cloud, but what we see is God’s choice of manifestation, not the work of our own hands. The vision may disappear at any moment; it is not solid; it cannot be set on a table or paraded through town. Therefore God is not like the gods of others.

Reading elohim acheirim as “gods of others” leads right into the next three verses in this week’s Torah portion:

Do not make yourself a carved idol or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or of what is in the land below, or of what is in the water beneath the land. Do not prostrate to them and do not serve them. Because I am God, your god, a jealous god, calling to account the wrongdoing of fathers upon children over the third and fourth (generations), for my enemies; but doing kindness to the thousandth (generation) for those who love me and who observe my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

This continuity supports the theory that Exodus 20:3 and Exodus 20:4-6 are one “commandment”, but it makes the list of what the people must do and not do add up to nine instead of ten.

The ambiguity is not over. What about the last two words of Exodus 20:3, al panai?

If the phrase means “over against Me”, or even “in My face”, it is a warning that God would be offended if you worshiped any other gods. After all, God is the one who rescued you from slavery (Exodus 20:2). And God is a “jealous” god, i.e. passionately exclusive (Exodus 20:5).

However, if al-panai is translated as “in addition to My presence” or “besides My presence”, it means simply that the Israelites must worship and serve only the one god. Some commentators who have translated the word panai as “My presence” have interpreted it as meaning that God is present everywhere and at all times, so don’t think you can get away with having another god without the One God noticing.

But since the next verse in Exodus begins “Do not make yourself a carved idol”, I think panai means both “My presence” and “My visible surface”. The Torah contrasts the carved idols that are supposedly inhabited by the gods of others with the presence of the God of the Israelites, which is sometimes visible as a vision of an angel or a fire, and sometimes invisible, as when God speaks from the empty space above the cherubim in the Holy of Holies.

Similarly, sometimes the God of the Torah is audible to everyone, as a sound like thunder or the blowing of rams’ horns. And sometimes God is audible only to one person, who “hears” the words that God speaks inside him or her.

The commandment in Exodus 20:3 not only orders us to refrain from serving other gods, but also asks us to serve our God. How do we do that?

How can we honor the face of God, when God cannot be contained in a statue, a synagogue, a church, a mosque, or even the Holy of Holies? What can we do when God makes its presence known unpredictably, when you never know where, when, or who will become aware of God for a moment?

And how can we serve our elusive God when even the Ten Commandments give us only a general idea of what we are supposed to do? And when half of the more specific laws in the Torah were dropped as inapplicable more than 1,500 years ago in the Talmud?

Does anyone today have the authority to tell us how to serve God? What actions and attitudes can we take that count as service?

I’m working on some answers to those questions. It will take me the rest of my life.

(An earlier version of this blog was posted on January 16, 2011.)

Ki Tissa: Out Came This Calf!

(This blog was first posted on February 16, 2011.)

While Moses is having a 40-day conversation with God on top of Mount Sinai, the people down below are wondering if they’ll ever see their leader again.

Thanks to his special relationship with God, Moses got them out of Egypt and as far as Mount Sinai. He climbed up the mountain several times to communicate with God, and finally God and the people made a formal covenant. At the end of that ritual, the 70 elders climbed halfway up Mount Sinai, met God, and sat down to eat. (See my post Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something.) Then Moses climbed the rest of the way up Mount Sinai.

The 70 elders came down and reported that everyone should stay at the foot of the mountain, and whoever had matters to speak about should approach Aaron or Chur (the two lieutenants who supported Moses’ arms for the victory over Amelek). Seven days after that, the people see the glory of God like a fire on top of Mount Sinai. (See my post Mishpatim: Seeing the Cloud.) But Moses does not come back down.

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa (“when you lift up”), the people despair of ever seeing their leader again.

The people saw that Moses was taking too long to come down from the mountain, and the people gathered against Aaron, and they said to him: “Get up! Make for us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

They are asking for a replacement for Moses, not a replacement for God. They need an intermediary to “go before” them, to show them both where to walk and how to behave. The pillar of cloud and fire that led them across the Reed Sea is gone (transmuted, perhaps, into the cloud and fire that appears at the top of Mount Sinai). Now Moses is also gone. So they want a new guide: “gods”, elohim, idols.

And Aaron said to them: Strip off the gold rings that are in the ears of your women, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. … And he took from their hand, and he shaped it with the chisel, and he made a bull-calf of metal-work; then they said: These are your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt (Exodus 32:2, 4)

cheret = chisel, stylus, engraving tool; an item used by an Egyptian seer or magician

Alas, when Moses descends after 40 days with the stone tablets from God, the people are having an orgy in front of a golden idol. He flings down the tablets and shatters them. He grinds up the calf, dumps the gold dust in water, and makes the Israelites drink it. Then he asks Aaron: “What did these people do to you, that you brought such great guilt upon them?” Aaron’s answer is revealing.

They said to me: Make for us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him. And I said to them: Who has gold? They stripped it off themselves and they gave it to me. So I flung it into the fire, and out came this bull-calf. (Exodus 32:23-24)

Aaron’s first sentence repeats the Torah’s earlier account word for word. But then, instead of admitting that he personally shaped the gold into a calf, Aaron gives what sounds like a child’s lame excuse. Why doesn’t he confess?

Classic commentary, including Vayikra Rabbah and Rashi, points out that Moses put Aaron and Chur in charge while he was up in the clouds listening to God—and Chur is never mentioned again. Therefore, the subset of the people who wanted idols must have come to Chur first, and killed him when he refused to cooperate. Next the gang approached Aaron. Aaron was afraid they would kill him, too, and the Israelites would incur guilt before God for a second murder. So he cooperated, but proceeded as slowly as possible, hoping at each step that Moses would return and stop the people before they did anything worse. When Moses did return, Aaron gave him a brief, vague answer so as not to implicate anyone else in the crime.

I have an alternate explanation: The 40 days that Moses is on top of Mount Sinai are a surreal time for Aaron. He is still exalted by the vision of God on a sapphire pavement that he and the elders were granted halfway up Mount Sinai. But many people lose hope and demand idols. Chur refuses, and Aaron is shocked by his murder. How can the glory of God and the murder of a respected elder coexist in the same world? And how can God use Moses as his right hand, and then (apparently) let him die on Mount Sinai with the job of transforming history unfinished?

With despair, Aaron concludes that this religion of Moses’ doesn’t work. You can’t count on God, and you can’t control anything God does. Magic works better. If you do magic right, you can count on the right result. No wonder the priests of Egypt coaxed their gods into inhabiting idols!

Numbly, Aaron offers to melt gold for the rebels and see what happens. Maybe the God of Moses will manifest again. Or maybe there will be a sign.

When the fire cools, the amorphous mass of gold looks vaguely like a calf. If he squints, Aaron sees the four legs, the head, the body. The second commandment forbids him from making a metal image from scratch, but this crude calf seems to have coalesced by magic. Someone hands Aaron a stylus, a tool taken from an Egyptian magician the night before the exodus. Aaron discovers he can easily make the mass of gold look even more like a calf.

And Aaron’s golden calf works like magic. The people take heart again. When Aaron uses the four-letter name of the God of Israel to call for animal sacrifices and feasting, the people rejoice; they are confident that the golden idol will replace Moses as their intermediary with God.

Later, when Moses questions Aaron, he tells the truth: “I flung it into the fire, and out came this bull-calf.” It was magic.

Magical thinking is still easier for us than religion. Maybe only a small child believes that on Passover, an invisible prophet Elijah actually drinks the wine in Elijah’s cup. But how many adults, in a desperate moment, pray to God by promising they’ll “be good”, they’ll do anything, if only God will give them what they’re asking for? And how many of us interpret mysterious events and coincidences as “signs” that something we’re reaching for is “meant to be”, intended by God?

We just fling our gold into the fire, and out comes a calf.

Pekudei & Vayakheil: Basin of Mirrors

(This blog was first posted on February 27, 2011.)

He (Moses) put the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and he placed water there for washing. Moses and Aaron and his sons washed from it, their hands and their feet. When they came into the Tent of Meeting, or when they came up to the altar, they washed as God had commanded Moses. (Exodus/Shemot 40:30-32)

The last Torah portion in the book of Exodus/Shemot, Pekudei (“Inventories” or “Commissions” or even “Searches”) lists once again all the items made for the sanctuary and the priests’ garments, this time including the weight of the donated gold, silver, and bronze. Moses assembles all the parts, and then God’s cloud appears and fills the new Tent of Meeting. The portable dwelling-place for God is complete.

Its front half is a roofless courtyard surrounded by curtains, and contains the altar where slaughtered animals and grain are burned. The back half is the new Tent of Meeting, which is both curtained and roofed, and contains the holiest objects: the gold incense altar, the gold-covered bread table, the solid gold lamp-stand, and the gold-covered ark inside its own curtained alcove. Only priests, and Moses, can enter the Tent of Meeting.

The wash-basin in front of the entrance to the Tent is critical for the transition between the public courtyard and the inner sanctum. Washing in water symbolizes inner purification, the mental preparation necessary to enter a space where there will be closer communion with God. In the Torah, hands stand for action and power. By washing their hands, Moses and the priests dedicate their power and actions to divine service. Feet are related to one’s path in life, the direction one is going psychologically as well as physically; the greatest men in the Torah are described as “walking with God”. By washing their feet, Moses and the priests rededicate themselves to walking with God.

The wash-basin where this ritual takes place is made of bronze—but it’s not the same as the bronze donated by all the people with willing hearts and melted down to make the altar and its utensils. Last week’s Torah portion says the basin is made out of bronze mirrors:

He (Betzaleil) made the basin of bronze, and its stand of bronze, with the mirrors of the army (of women) who mobilized at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (Exodus/Shemot 38:8)

nechoshet = bronze, copper. From the same root as nachash= snake; and nicheish = practice divination, seek omens.

marot = mirrors; apparitions. (Mirrors in the ancient Middle East were made of highly polished bronze, and were luxuries for the rich.)

tzav-u = mobilized, went to war, served in the cult, joined in public service

The unusual donation of mirrors led to a story in Midrash Tanchuma, a 5th-century commentary, that when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, the women used mirrors to entice their husbands into lying with them and producing more children. Moses hesitated to make a holy object out of mirrors, which are instruments of vanity. But God overruled him on the grounds that the women had used their mirrors for the good deed of multiplying the children of Israel. And the master-craftsman Betzaleil used the mirrors to make the wash-basin.

This fanciful story was accepted by many subsequent commentators. But I think it is inconsistent with the descriptions in Exodus/Shemot of the Israelite slaves as poor and oppressed. Surely they could not afford anything as expensive as bronze mirrors! The only time in the book of Exodus when the Israelite women could acquire mirrors is the day before they leave Egypt, when Moses tells them to take gold and silver jewelry from the Egyptians.

So why does the Torah say the wash-basin at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting is made out of bronze mirrors?

It’s always possible that an odd detail in the Torah refers to some ancient practice that occurred outside the story, perhaps in the cult of another group of people. But what I notice is that a priest washing his hands and feet at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting would see a double reflection: a reflection on the surface of the water, and a reflection from the polished bronze basin.

Samson Raphael Hirsch, a 19th-century rabbi, wrote that the language in this verse might mean the mirrors were not even melted down, but only welded together in a form where they could still be recognized. Perhaps the basin would even show a different reflection in the surface of each mirror.

Furthermore, the basin was made by Betzaleil, whose name means “In the Shadow of God”. A shadow provides protection from the harsh sun of the Middle East, so some commentary notes that Betzaleil is under God’s protection. But a shadow is also a type of reflection; the original thing casts a shadow on the ground, just as the original thing casts a reflection in a mirror. The Hebrew word for shadow, tzeil, is the root of the word tzelem, which means “image”.

So when a priest steps up to the bronze basin, he sees multiple reflections of the sky and of his own body, and perhaps multiple reflections of the heavens, his own soul, and other aspects of God. After all, the basin was made by “In the Shadow of God”, and the word for “bronze” comes from the same root as “divination”. All of these reflections from the basin, besides reminding him that he is preparing to come closer to God, provide food for the priest’s inner reflections. Has he been using his body the right way? Has he been mired in harmful thoughts and emotions? Or has he been acting like someone made betzelem elohim, in the image of God?

After he has reflected, the water from the basin purifies him as he washes and rededicates himself to the path of holy service.

We could all benefit from washing at a basin of mirrors before we pray, or meditate, or take a moment to reflect on our lives.