Vaykheil-Pekudei: Witnessing the Divine

The book of Exodus/Shemot ends this week with a double portion, Vayakheil (And he assembled) and Pekudei (Inventories). The Israelites eagerly donate materials for the mishkan (the portable dwelling-place for God), and for ritual garments for the new priests. They make all the parts of the mishkan, and Moses assembles them. At the end of the book, God’s glory enters the Dwelling.

High Priest, Bible
card by Providence
Lithograph Co., 1907

The portion Vayakheil begins: And Moses assembled the whole community (everyone who would witness) among the children of Israel. (Exodus/Shemot 35:1)

The portion Pekudei begins: These are the inventories for the Dwelling, the Dwelling of the Testimony of God. (Exodus 38:21)

kol adat = all the witnesses of, the whole community of

eidut = report of a witness, testimony (from the same root as adat)

ha-eidut = The testimony (This form is used for the testimony of God.)

In Vayakheil, the community of witnesses is also the community that donates and makes the mishkan. Women as well as men are specifically included in this group. In Pekudei, when Moses assembles all the parts of the mishkan, he puts God’s testimony, ha-eidut, into the ark, then inserts the carrying-poles into the rings at its corners, and puts the golden cover on as a lid. The Torah does not specify what the testimony inside the ark actually is. Classic commentary is divided on whether it consists of a parchment scroll on which Moses wrote down the first part of the Torah, or the stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God with the commandments (both the intact pair of tablets and the shards of the broken pair), or both the scroll and the tablets.

Either way, The Testimony is something the Israelites already have. And Moses has already told the people that God is with them. But seeing is believing. The Israelites need to witness Moses putting God’s “testimony” into the ark, and then they need to witness God’s visible presence. On their journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, they followed a manifestation of God as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. But the pillar disappeared when they arrived at the mountain, and clouds of smoke and fire appeared only at the mountain’s peak. This was not enough for the Israelites; when Moses was gone too long, they made a golden calf. And soon they will have to leave Mount Sinai and journey on to the Promised Land. How can they know God is really with them, and God’s testimony is really secure?

Their memories of God’s miracles in Egypt and manifestations after that are not sufficient. The Israelites are like witnesses with poor recall. In order to remain fully aware of God’s presence and God’s investment in them, they have to build a visible, tangible place for God to dwell, and then they have to witness something that indicates God’s presence in that dwelling-place. Only then can they fend off their fear of abandonment.

This plan works. The book of Exodus ends:

…and Moses completed the work. The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of God filled the Dwelling … For the cloud of God was upon the Dwelling by day, and fire was in it by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel on all their journeys. (Exodus 40:33-38)

Today, our world has many sanctuaries designed to make people feel the presence of God, including many synagogues, cathedrals, and mosques. (We also have a plethora of buildings intended for religious worship whose architecture is no more inspiring than a high school gymnasium—but that’s another story.) Many religions also have fixed prayers or mantras, with words to be recited or sung at specific times, words designed to help people feel the presence of God.

Nevertheless, God’s presence is not concrete enough for most humans today to attest to it as witnesses (and those who do have no corroboration). And the written “testimony” we have, however accurately copied, was written down by fallible human beings, which means that, at best, something was lost in translation. We have no ark, we have no mishkan. We know that if we discovered the ark, buried away somewhere, and attempted to duplicate the mishkan described in the Torah, God would not manifest in it the same way. We live in another time, millennia away from the ancient peoples who built the Dwelling for God on their journey across the wilderness.

Yet so many people, including myself, yearn for something ineffable, something so hard to name that we call it “God”. Some find an anthropomorphic idea of God helpful. Some find the idea of a being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent helpful. I am one of those who use the words “God” and “soul” when we want shorthand ways to talk about the mysterious feeling that there is some huge extra meaning in the universe and in ourselves.

No matter what phenomena I observe, I can always generate counter-explanations that prevent me from being a witness for “God”, whatever that word means. Nevertheless, I have discovered that I can help my sense of a divine presence to grow. I can build an imaginary mishkan inside my mind, and witness some spirit of the divine, in the form of mystery and exaltation, obscurity and light … cloud and fire.

May we all discover some of the divinity that dwells inside us.

Ki Tissa: Observing Shabbat

It’s Friday, I’ve had an exhausting week, and besides finally writing this blog and catching up on my work, I’m determined to clean the bathroom before sunset.

Any Jewish readers observe or try to observe Shabbat, Shabbes, the Sabbath, are smiling now. It sounds wonderful to make one day a week a holy day of rest. And the importance of keeping Shabbat comes up over and over again in the Torah, in the Talmud, and in the writings and talks of sages and rabbis for thousands of years, to this day. Yet observing Shabbat can be so hard … and not just because it takes some preparation every Friday. Even Jews committed to strict observance have to figure out how to carry out the letter of the law recorded in the Torah, which was written at a time when our lives today were unimaginable. Jews who want to carry out the spirit of the law of Shabbat observance, in addition or instead of the letter of the law, also have a lot of figuring out to do.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa (When you lift up), begins with God’s final instructions to Moses before God hands over the first pair of stone tablets popularly known as the Ten Commandments. After God finishes telling Moses how to make the mishkan, the portable sanctuary that will make God’s presence manifest, and all the sacred objects in it, God says:

And you, you speak to the children of Israel, saying: Nevertheless, guard my shabbatot, because that is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, in order to know that I, God, am making you holy. (Exodus/Shemot 31:13)

shabbatot (שַׁבָּתֹת) = sabbaths, stopping-days

In other words, Shabbat is even more important than creating the sanctuary. Every seventh day, the Israelites must stop doing the holy work God commanded, and do something different. And after the sanctuary is built, the descendants of the Israelites, every generation, including Jews in the 21st century, must stop and do something different on Shabbat. The Torah continues:

And you shall guard the shabbat because it is holy for you; whoever desecrates it will certainly die, for anyone who does melakhah on it, that soul shall be cut off from among its people. (Exodus 31:14)

melakhah (מְלָאכָה) = tasks, job, crafts; creative work, productive work; project, enterprise.

What counts as melakhah? The Hebrew bible gives six concrete examples of activities forbidden on Shabbat: cooking manna (Exodus 16:23), lighting a fire (Exodus 35:3), gathering wood (Numbers 15:32), carrying burdens into Jerusalem or out of your house (Jeremiah 17:21-22), treading grapes for wine (Nehemiah 13:15), or buying and selling (Nehemiah 10:32).

From these examples, as well as from the multiple meanings of the word melakhah, and from lists of tasks necessary to build the sanctuary, Jewish commentary from the Talmud to today extrapolates so many different arguments about what you shouldn’t do on Shabbat that my head spins.

But desisting from certain kinds of work is not all it takes to observe Shabbat. This week’s Torah portion says that Shabbat is a sign that God is making us holy. When we stop and rest on the seventh day, what do we do to realize that holiness?

I found two good clues in the Torah. One comes from the book of Isaiah:

… turn back from stepping on Shabbat/ Doing whatever you want on My holy day/And instead call the Shabbat a delight/ The holy (day) of God an honor … (Isaiah 58:13)

Instead of stepping all over Shabbat by doing whatever you want, including melakhah, we should make Shabbat a delight and an honor to observe.

Another clue comes at the end of the warning about Shabbat in this week’s Torah portion:

Between Me and the children of Israel it is a sign forever, that for six days God made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day It stopped and was refreshed (shavat vayinafash). (Exodus 31:17)

shavat (שָׁבַת) = he/it stopped, ceased, desisted. (From the same root as Shabbat)

vayinafash (וַיִּנָּפַשׁ) = and refreshed his/its soul, and recovered himself/itself, and re-animated himself/itself.

Here, God is refreshed by a day of rest. Earlier in the book of Exodus (Mishpatim, 23:12), Israelites are required to desist from work on Shabbat so that all of their dependents (by example, the son of a maidservant) and the strangers living among them could be refreshed.

So how can I observe Shabbat in a way that will result in my being refreshed, re-animated, re-ensouled? I confess that I am still trying to figure this out. (For example, singing prayers with my congregation re-animates my soul, but driving an hour to where we meet—and back—wears me out.)

I do know that my spirit is brighter when I don’t have to look at a dirty bathroom. So please excuse me now; Shabbat begins at sunset this evening, and Friday afternoon is all too short.

Tetzaveh: Divining

What should I do?

Usually human beings carry on with their habitual behavior, but sometimes we have to make a deliberate decision. And we do not know whether a particular choice will lead to good or evil, or to happiness or disaster. If only we knew ahead of time!

The longing for foreknowledge has been with us for millennia. Most cultures have had their own methods of divination, of gaining knowledge that is normally outside the human realm.

In the Hebrew Bible, leaders and kings ask the high priest to consult the urim and tumim tucked into his breast-pouch. These mysterious items are introduced in this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh (“You shall command”), but we do not learn their purpose until the book of Numbers/Bemidbar, when God tells Moses what Joshua must do after Moses has died. Since Joshua, unlike Moses, cannot hear God directly, he must ask the high priest for divination when he needs to decide whether to go out to battle:

He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, and ask him for the ruling of the urim before God. (Numbers 27:21)

urim (אוּרִים) = firelight? illumination?

But the book of Joshua never refers to the urim. The only time the Torah says someone actually consults them is in the first book of Samuel:

And Saul inquired of God, but God did not answer him, either with dreams or with urim or with prophets. (1 Samuel 28:6)

Several other times in that book both Saul and David “inquire of God” in the presence of a priest, and when David receive yes/no answers, we can assume the answers are indicated by the urim. But no description is given.

This week’s Torah portion describes everything else the high priest wears, from his headband to his underpants. Over his sky-blue robe, the priest must wear an eifod, a kind of tabard with shoulder-straps and sewn-in ties at the waist. A chosen, a square pouch, will hang from the shoulder-straps of the eifod, secured on the high priest’s breast. This breast-pouch will be folded at the bottom, and twelve gems will be set into the front. Each gem will be engraved with the name of one of the tribes of Israel.

And into the breast-pouch of the law you will place the urim and the tumim; and they will be over the heart of Aaron when he comes before God, and Aaron will carry the law of the children of Israel over his heart before God constantly. (Exodus/Shemot 28:30)

tumim (תֻּמִּים) = ? (a noun probably based on the adjective tamim, תָּמִים = whole, flawless, blameless.)

Obviously a high priest could not carry firelight and wholeness in a pouch on his chest; the names of the actual items are symbolic. But what do they mean? In Ezekiel, ur is a destroying fire. Throughout the book of Isaiah, urim means “fires” or “firelight”, not an object worn by a high priest. Everywhere else in the Hebrew Bible, the word urim refers to the item worn by the high priest.

Traditional commentary says the word urim means light, illumination, clarity, because it has the same root letters as the word or = light. Some modern language scholars speculate that urim is derived from nei-arim (נֵאָרִים) = cursed, inflicted with a curse. In that case, urim and tumim would mean “cursed” and “blameless”. In other words, one object indicates a bad outcome and the other indicates a good one.

Rashi (11th-century rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki) suggested that the two words urim and tumim were written on a single piece of parchment, and the high priest would look down through the open top of his breast-pouch to see which word was facing up.

In the Talmud tractate Yoma 73b, the rabbis seem to use the phrase “urim and tumim” interchangeably with the phrase “breast-pouch of the law”. Some speculated that the names of the twelve tribes were inscribed on the urim and tumim, and the letters lit up or moved around to create an oracular message. Others said that the urim and tumim caused the stones on the front of the breast-pouch to light up, and the message could be deciphered from the pattern of flashing lights. The important thing was that both the person with the question and the high priest had to direct their minds toward God.

Some passages in the Torah appear to forbid using any kind of divination, along with any other kind of magic. For example:

No one must be found among you who sacrifices his son or his daughter in the fire, or who reads omens, a cloud-conjurer or a diviner, or a sorcerer; or a charm-binder, or a medium who consults ghosts or a medium who possesses a familiar spirit, or who questions the dead. For anyone who does these is an abomination of God, and on account of these abominations, God, your god, is dispossessing them before you. You shall be whole with God, your god. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 18:10-13)

Here Moses is banning all the divination practices of the people surrounding the Israelites. In other places, the Torah approves of a few practices for getting a bit of divine knowledge.

The two most common ways that God shares foreknowledge with humans is through dreams, and through communication with prophets. In the absence of dreams or prophetic utterances, a person can take the initiative by casting lots, or by consulting the high priest’s urim and tumim.

When this week’s Torah portion introduces the urim and tumim, it says “they will be over the heart of Aaron when he comes before God”—like the gems representing twelve tribes of Israel. Maybe the primary purpose of the urim and tumim is not to enable divination, but to keep light and wholeness in the high priest’s awareness whenever he approaches God.

Even today, people who want to make the right decision resort to dubious divination methods. Instead of reading omens in entrails or conjuring clouds, they flip a coin, or buy something from a New Age shop, or consult a medium who channels the spirit of a dead person. It is hard to accept that we cannot have foreknowledge, only good guesses.

Yet we can answer the question “What should I do?” without knowing the outcome of our choice. And when our intuitions are not clear, we can use approaches similar to the kind of “divination” the Torah approves of. Dreams still help by connecting us with hidden parts of ourselves that are connected with the divine. And we can improve our conscious thought by keeping certain ideas in our awareness, carrying them upon our hearts like high priests. We can consciously stay in touch with urim, the light shed by the fire of our passions; tumim, the continual effort to complete ourselves and become whole; and on the outside, the gemstones of our own tribes, our own families, friends, and communities.

Terumah: Heavy Metals

The Torah portion Terumah (“raised donations”) begins with God telling Moses to ask everyone whose heart is so moved to donate materials to make a sanctuary: three kinds of metals, three colors of expensive dye, linen, wool, two kinds of hides, wood, oil, incense spices, and gems. Then God says:

They shall make for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. (Exodus/Shemot 25:8)

God has already promised to be the god of the Israelites and their fellow-travelers. But, as we see in the golden calf incident two Torah portions later, the Israelites cannot believe God is still with them without some visual aid. God refuses to inhabit a golden statue of a calf. Instead, the people will be reassured by the sight of the sanctuary.

The list of materials for this sanctuary begins:

And this is the raised donation that you will take from them: zahav, and kesef, and nechoshet … (Exodus 25:3)

zahav (זָהָב) = gold.

kesef (כֶּסֶף) = silver; the common currency in the Middle East.

nechoshet (נְחֺשֶׁת) = copper, brass, bronze. (From the root verb nicheish, נִחֵשׁ = practiced divination.)

Gold and Silver

We know why the Israelites had gold and silver to donate. After the final plague in Egypt, they followed God’s order to “ask” their Egyptian neighbors for silver items, gold items, and clothing. The Egyptians complied.

Besides using silver and gold for ornamental vessels and jewelry, Egyptians and other peoples in the Middle East made idols (statues for gods to inhabit) out of precious metals. That is why, after the revelation at Mount Sinai, God says:

With me, do not make gods of silver or gods of gold; you shall not make them for yourselves. (Exodus/Shemot 20:20)

Accustomed to thinking of gold as the metal of highest status, the Israelites would feel reassured that their donated gold would go into all the holy objects in the inner chamber of the sanctuary: the lamp-stand, the table, the incense altar, and the ark itself. Silver was less precious, so it is not surprising that God tells Moses to use silver for the sockets in the framework around the inner chamber. This framework supports the curtains and tent-roof, and is made of wood planks plated with gold.

The use of gold and silver reinforces the high status and the holiness of the sanctuary’s inner chamber of the sanctuary. I believe the requirement that these two metals be donated also has a psychological value. After all, the people know that the gold and silver objects do not really belong to them; the Egyptians handed over the objects when they were desperate to end the plagues. And the gold is also a reminder of the golden calf. Donating their gold and silver for God’s sanctuary would relieve the people’s guilt on both counts.

Once the inner chamber of the sanctuary is assembled, the people see only its outer walls—the gorgeous curtains fastened to the gold-plated planks that are fitted into silver sockets. Only priests are allowed into the area with the incense altar, table, and lamp-stand, and only Moses and the high priest, Aaron, can enter the innermost Holy of Holies, where the ark is concealed. But everyone knows that God manifests and speaks in the empty space above the gold-plated ark.

Bronze

Another area of the sanctuary is open to every Israelite: the outer courtyard, which contains the altar for animal sacrifices. This altar, and all its tools, are made out of copper or bronze.

Where does the copper come from? The Israelites only took silver, gold, and clothing from the Egyptians. The word for copper, nechoshet, appears only once before this in the Torah: the list of Cain’s descendants includes Tuval-Kayin, who made cutting tools out of nechoshet and iron.¹

The book of Exodus is set in a historical period when the Bronze Age is ending, and iron is just beginning to come into use. Bronze, an alloy of copper and zinc, was the most common metal for tools and blades. It was also the most common metal for making mirrors, since bronze reflects well when it is polished. And mirror-like surfaces were used for divination, the type of magic practiced by people who want to see the future.

The snake in the garden of Eden is a nachash, נָחָשׁ, another word from the root nicheish. The role of the snake is to arouse a desire in Eve for a different kind of knowledge, the knowledge that God has. Only after her conversation with the snake does she taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.²

When Moses first demonstrates God’s power to Pharaoh, his staff turns into a nachash. He is trying to give Pharaoh knowledge about God, though Pharaoh is too defensive to pay attention. Pharaoh’s magicians turn their own staffs into crocodiles, but Moses’ snake eats them.³ (Later, in the book of Numbers/Bemidbar, Moses halts a plague of poisonous snakes, nechashim, with a bronze snake on a pole, a nechash nechoshet.⁴)

In the book of Genesis, both Lavan and Joseph claim to practice divination when they are trying to impress their troublesome relatives.⁵ But in Deuteronomy/Devarim, God warns the Israelites not to practice divination, or any other kind of magic. One must not try to force information out of God.⁶

Traditional Jewish commentary explains that the altar in the courtyard of God’s sanctuary is made of copper or bronze because it is a third-rate metal, less valuable than gold or silver but good enough for the area that is merely holy, not the Holy of Holies. Another explanation might be that the tools for the altar had to be bronze so they would hold an edge, and it seemed appropriate to make the altar itself out of the same metal.

Or maybe the Israelites needed to surrender not only the silver and gold they took from the Egyptians, but also their own snakiness, their own desire for divination and divine knowledge.

Maybe even today, we need to give up the idea that we can predict and control the future. Can we accept that we are not gods, and we cannot make our own gods? Can we resist the promise of magic? Can we donate what knowledge we have, all our copper and all our serpentine wisdom, to building a sanctuary for the whole world? If we can, then maybe God will dwell among us.

—

Genesis 4:22.
Genesis 3:1-6.
Exodus 7:8-13.
Numbers 21:9.
Lavan in Genesis 30:27, Joseph in Genesis 44:15.
Deuteronomy 18:10.

Mishpatim: Passionate Arson

Last week’s Torah portion, Yitro, begins with the reunion of Moses and his father-in-law, then moves into the mind-bending revelation of God at Mount Sinai. This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Laws) gives a long list of laws, then ends with a vision of God’s feet on a sapphire pavement. (See my blog “Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something”.)

I’m always tempted to rush straight from the vision of God as fire and thunder to the vision of God’s feet. But imagine someone who had two mystical experiences in a row, with no time in between to come down to earth. Their mental balance would be hard to recover. It would actually be a blessing to spend an interval on practical matters, in between mystical experiences. Maybe reading case law in between the stories of visions at Mount Sinai serves an analogous purpose for Torah scholars.

So this year I paid attention to the case law, and found one law that might addresses unbalancing mental states.

If a fire goes forth, and it finds thorn-bushes, a heap of grain or the standing grain, or the field, and they are consumed, the burner who starts the burning shall certainly make complete restitution. (Exodus/Shemot 22:5)

On a peshat (simple) level, this law refers to legal responsibility for negligence in a certain farming practice. On the next level of traditional Torah interpretation, remez (alluded extension), the Talmud tractate Baba Kama (60a) treats this law as a paradigm for all cases in which someone deploys a fire, an animal, a tool, or anything that is not fixed in place, and then it causes damage because the person did not keep it under control.

Going up another rung, at the level of drash (investigation), I see that the law embodies two ethical principles: that we should make every effort to avoid doing any harm through negligence; and that if it happens anyway, we must make restitution.

At the fourth level of Torah interpretation, sod (secrecy, intimacy), the verse speaks to our own psychological and spiritual condition. In the Torah, as in colloquial English, fire and burning are often used to describe human passions such as anger, or lust, or even an overwhelming longing for God. Any consuming passion is likely to get out of control. Unless people in the throes of passion pay attention and take special care, their negligence can result in significant damage, both to themselves and to others.

Let’s look at the verse again, to see what the fire of passion might consume.

If a fire goes forth, and it finds thorn-bushes, a stack of grain or the standing grain, or the field, and they are consumed, the burner who starts the burning shall certainly make complete restitution.

kotzim = thorn-bushes, thorns. (A verb with the same root is kutz = awaken; feel sick and tired of.)

gadish = a stack or heap of grain.

hakamah = the standing. (Standing grain is implied in a simple reading of the verse.)

hasadeh = the field (cultivated or open); the plot of land owned by an individual; the domain of a city.

bo-eirah = burning, kindling or maintaining a fire; sweeping away; being stupid as a cow.

In a reading at the sod level, if a fiery passion is not guarded, it first consumes thorn-bushes. Applied to your own soul, the burning anger or desire is at first beneficial, eating up those annoying, thorny habits of thought that you are sick and tired of. Your passion is so strong, it sweeps aside the inner voice that keeps saying “You’re not good enough”, or the one that always says, “It’ll never work”, or—well, we each have our own mental habits. When a passion sweeps them away, it feel as if you are waking up to a new and better self.

But your consuming passion also burns up the people around you who are thorns in our sides, the people whom you are sick and tired of. Speaking from rage, or passionate conviction, or overwhelming desire, you impatiently mow right over the people you find difficult. In the long run, this is not beneficial to either you or them.

Next, your inner conflagration burns up the grain you have cut and stacked for future nourishment. In the heat of the moment, preserving the other aspects of your life seems unimportant. All that matters is the pursuit of the object of your anger or desire. Yet if you are not careful, you can damage a relationship or a job or even your own body.

After that, the fire can destroy your own standing—both your reputation, and your uprightness or moral compass. It is tempting, in the heat of passion, to cross lines you would never cross in your cooler moments. And with uncontrolled, passionate speech, you may also destroy the reputation of others, or incite them to react in a way that they will feel guilty about later.

Finally, if your passion continues unchecked, you will cross the line in another way, failing to respect the boundary between yourself and another human being. The whole word looks as if it is lit with fire, so it all appears to be part of the same passion that is consuming you. Of course the person you are talking to feels the same way you do! Of course they want the same things! Of course they will do exactly what you want! Of course they will be happy if you make it easier for them to do what you want by interfering with their lives!

Most of us know about the hazards of unchecked anger or lust. Most of us do not want to be negligent when these passions seize us. We work on paying attention and controlling ourselves.

But the Torah focuses most often on the passionate desire for God, which rises like a flame. And the Torah’s most common metaphor for God is fire. Sometimes God manifests as a fire that does not consume, like the one Moses saw in the burning bush (which, by the way, was not a thorn-bush). But often God manifests in the Torah as a fire that does consume, and sometimes kills.

When we are filled with a passion that seems as if it comes from God, because we are burning for justice, or for a religious experience, that is when we are most in danger of being negligent and causing unforeseen damage to ourselves and others.

The law in this week’s Torah portion rules that the person who starts a fire and fails to control it must make complete restitution for all damages. But some damage cannot be repaired.

May each of us be blessed with the ability to pay attention when we feel any passion, even the most righteous passion, begin to consume us; to remain aware of everything we would normally consider; and to control our speech and our actions so we do no harm. May we burn brightly without consuming, and without being stupid as a cow.

Bo & Beshalach: Clouds and East Wind

This is the d’var Torah I delivered as part of my graduation as a maggidah:

Blood. Frogs. Lice. Beasts. Livestock disease. Boils. Hail. Locusts. Darkness. Death of the Firstborn.

Today’s Torah portion picks up with the plague of locusts, goes into darkness, and brings death to the firstborn. Then, finally, Pharaoh releases the children of Israel.

Why locusts? One morning when I was in college in California, I stepped outside and—crunch! The ground was blanketed with crickets. They covered the lawns, the sidewalks, the flowerbeds. Their bodies were so close together, you couldn’t see the ground. Every time somebody opened a door, crickets jumped inside the building.

Those crickets on campus didn’t eat a lot of vegetation before they died. They were a wonder, but not a plague. They were amateurs compared to the locusts in Egypt.

And Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and God guided a an east wind into the land, all that day and all the night … (Exodus/Shemot, Bo, 10:13)
And the locust-swarm went up over the whole land of Egypt … (Bo, 10:14)
It covered the sight of all the land, and the land went dark. It devoured all the vegetation … and all the fruit … that remained after the hail. And there was no green left, in the trees or in the field, in all the land of Egypt. (Bo, 10:15)

Now that’s a plague.

You can watch a locust-swarm flying on YouTube. When the sun shines on it, millions of locust-wings glitter like a sea of sparks. And when the locusts swirl in front of the sun, they make a dark cloud, like a gigantic billow of smoke.

This reminds me of how God manifests as a pillar of cloud by day, and fire by night, in next week’s Torah portion. While the pillar of cloud and fire is leading the Israelites out of Egypt, Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them. They meet at the Red Sea. Then the pillar of cloud and fire circles back, to stand between the Israelites and the Egyptians. And, the Torah says,

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and God made the sea move with a strong east wind, all the night … and split the waters. (Exodus/Shemot, Beshalach, 14:21)

Both times, God humbles the Egyptians and frees the Israelites with a moving, swirling cloud that sometimes glitters and sometimes darkens.

Both times, God also brings in a ruach-kadim. Ruach means wind—or spirit. Kedem means east—or the place of origin. So the “east wind” is also the “spirit of the beginning”.

The first east wind brings in a vast cloud of locusts that finishes off Egypt’s plant life, and dooms Pharaoh to rule over a dead land. This east wind is Pharaoh’s enemy because he cannot accept the “spirit of beginning”. He is unable to change his ways and make a fresh start.

The second east wind parts the sea so the Israelites can escape from the Egyptian army and live. The east wind is their ally because, once they get over their initial despair, they embrace the “spirit of beginning”. They leave Egypt, ready to make a fresh start.

I think the holy “spirit of beginning” touches our lives, too—whether we see the swirling cloud or not. When we are really stuck, unable to choose anything new, we risk being devoured by a cloud of locusts. But—we have the ability to cast aside that mood, and follow the pillar of cloud and fire instead.

May each one of us receive the strength to embrace the spirit of beginning, and make a fresh start.

Becoming a Maggid

I am preparing for my certification on January 29 as a maggid (or maggidah, the feminine form in Hebrew). So I decided to look up what a maggid does in the Torah. The word first shows up when Pharaoh tells Joseph his two dreams: one about seven scrawny cows eating up seven fat cows, and one about seven withered ears of grain eating up seven fat ears of grain.

And I spoke to the soothsayers, but none of them was a maggid for me. (Genesis/Bereishit 41.24)

maggid = telling; an announcer, reporter, explainer, interpreter (from the root verb naggid = to tell)

Joseph’s interpretation of the dreams rings true for Pharoah, so he is a good maggid.

The word maggid does not appear again until the book of Judges, when Samson poses a riddle to 30 guests at his wedding party. If they guess the answer to the riddle by the end of the seven-day party, he will give them 30 suits of clothing, but if they fail, they will give Samson 30 suits of clothing. The guests learn the answer by cheating, and Samson, in a rage, kills 30 men in another town and strips off their clothing to give the wedding guests.

… and he took their clothes and he gave the sets of clothing to the tellers (maggidai) of the riddle. (Judges/Shoftim 14:19)

In this reference, as in the story of Joseph, a maggid is someone who interprets a mystery. But we get another meaning of the word maggid in the second book of Samuel, which refers several times to messengers describing events to King David. A young Amelekite maggid brings David the crown of King Saul, and gives his eye-witness account of how Saul was fatally wounded in battle, and asked someone to finish him off. The maggid claims he himself did the deed—a mistake, since David responded by having the maggid killed. Later David explains that the maggid thought he was bringing good news, but David did not see it that way. This is a good reminder to me that the same story will be received differently by every listener.

Someone bringing news is called a maggid twice during the struggle between David and his son Absalom for the kingship. One maggid reports to David that the hearts of the Israelite men are turning toward Absalom; David takes this bit of interpretation seriously and flees Jerusalem. Another maggid reports to David’s general Joab, describing how he encountered Absalom riding a mule, and when Absalom ‘s long hair was caught in some tangled tree branches, his mule kept on going, leaving Absalom hanging by the hair. Joab takes this comic story seriously, finds Absalom hanging by the hair, and stabs him to death.

The book of Jeremiah also uses the word maggid to mean a messenger who tells the news orally. But the word acquires more gravity in the book of Isaiah, where God calls Itself a maggid.

I told of the first things, and they came to be; now I am a maggid of new things, before they sprout up, I announce. (Isaiah/Yeshayahu 42:9)

I am God, speaking rightly; a maggid of uprightness. (Isaiah 45:19)

I am a maggid from the beginning to the end, and from the origin of things that had not happened. (Isaiah 46:10)

So in the Hebrew bible, a maggid interprets dreams and riddles; tells eyewitness stories of real events; and (when God is a maggid) foretells the future—or speaks the future into reality.

In the Talmud, a maggid told stories (aggadah, an Aramaic word from the same Hebrew root word as maggid) to communicate subtle truths, while a darshan explained religious laws and technical points in the Torah. The book that Jews still read at Passover is the haggadah (also from the same root as maggid) and everyone at the table who helps to to tell the story of the Exodus is a maggid.

By the Middle Ages, a maggid was an itinerant preacher who quoted from the Torah and offered his own interpretations, and also told other Jewish stories, in order to inspire uneducated Jews to become more devout. A darshan gave the equivalent of a sermon at Jewish services, speaking about the weekly Torah portion and finding an inspiring message for the congregation.

The work of the maggid reached its greatest glory in Eastern Europe during the 17th through 19th centuries, when the chassidic movement fostered leaders who combined the jobs of maggid, darshan, and rabbi.

The old Eastern European model of the maggid faded away during the 20th century. But now a new interest in the maggidic calling is rising, and I know of at least two formal programs to train maggids. I am one of seven women who are completing the first two-year training program offered by Rabbi David Zaslow and professional storyteller Devorah Zaslow.

In some ways I have already been serving as a maggid. This blog, now in its third year, is a series of
drashot (or “drashes”, in colloquial American Jewish parlance): commentary on Torah portions that explores meanings we can consider today. I have also been a darshan (one of many!) for my congregation, P’nai Or of Portland, for many years. And my Torah monologues are a creative form of drashot. The only part of a maggid’s job that I used to lack was Jewish storytelling. During the last two years, while I have been studying with David and Devorah Zaslow, my drashot have become deeper, and I have learned how tell traditional Jewish stories. (I always rewrite the stories to make them more interesting or meaningful to me and my audience—but that, too, is part of the Jewish storytelling tradition!)

This January 27-29, in Portland, Oregon, the seven of us graduating from the maggid program will lead both Friday evening and Saturday morning Shabbat services, using both traditional liturgy and some creative approaches to prayers, and giving seven drashot on different pieces of the Torah portion for that week, Bo (Come!). That Saturday evening we’ll tell Jewish stories in a storytelling concert, and on Sunday we’ll have our graduation ceremony.

Because I need to spend all my spare time the next two weeks preparing for the big graduation weekend, I will not be posting any blogs on the first two Torah portions of the book of Exodus/Shemot. If you would like to read my previous blogs on the Torah portions Shemot and Va-Eira, go to http://www.mtorah.com and click on the tab “Blogs by Torah Portion”.

And for my next blog? Part of my preparation will be writing a four-minute drash on one of the inner meanings of the locust plague in Bo. Look for it in blog form at the end of the month!

Meanwhile, I have become more aware that human beings not only need to tell stories, but we need to hear and read stories to help us interpret our own inner stories, to help us interpret our dreams and our mysterious yearnings and the personal histories we are continually rewriting for ourselves. Ultimately, maybe good stories have the same purpose as good religion and good psychology: the discovery of meaning in our lives.

Vayeishev & Mikeitz: Symbols of Authority

Visible tokens of your public role help to remind everybody of your authority. Who would obey a police officer in street clothes, without even a badge?

Visible symbols of authority can also seduce you, and others, into forgetting the difference between one’s public identity and one’s personal, inner self. The Torah addresses this problem in the first two Torah portions that tell the story of Joseph and his brothers: Vayeishev (“And he settled”) and Mikeitz (“In the end”).

The Story of Judah and Tamar

In this week’s portion, Vayeishev, one of Joseph’s older brothers, Judah, convinces the others to sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt instead of killing him outright. (See my post Vayeishev: What Drove Them Crazy on why Joseph’s brothers hated him.)

Then Judah moves away from his family and starts a new life. He becomes a prosperous shepherd with his own household, including three sons. Judah marries his oldest son, Eir, to a Canaanite woman named Tamar. Eir dies soon after, and Tamar is not pregnant. So according to the custom of yibum, or “levirate marriage”, Eir’s brother (or closest male relative) must impregnate his widow. If her baby is a boy, he will inherit her late husband’s property, and she will be have economic security and status through her son.

Judah sends his second son, Onan, to Tamar. But Onan refuses to do his duty; why should he mess up his own inheritance? Then he dies, too.¹

Judah superstitiously delays giving Tamar his youngest son, Shelah. He uses his authority as the head of his household to return Tamar to her father’s house. Here she must live as a widow who cannot remarry as long as the yibum is pending.

Tamar waits for years. Shelah grows up, and Judah’s wife dies. Judah finishes mourning for his wife, and heads off to the annual sheep-shearing. Tamar slips away from her father’s house, dresses as a veiled prostitute, and sits by the road where Judah will see her. Not recognizing her, and feeling festive, he propositions her.

When Judah promises her a kid goat in payment for sex, Tamar demands a pledge to keep until the goat is delivered.

And he said: “What is the pledge that I must give to you?” And she said: “Your chotam and your cord and the matteh that is in your hand”. And he gave them to her, and he entered her, and she conceived. (Genesis/Bereishit 38:18)

chotam (חֹתָם) = a seal. (A common kind of seal in the Middle East was a carved cylinder worn on a cord around the neck. To authorize a document written on a damp clay tablet, a man rolled his seal over the clay as a signature.)

matteh (מַטֶּה) = a staff, a walking stick, the symbol of a tribe or clan or its chieftain.

453px-Babylonian_-_Cylinder_Seal_with_Three_Standing_Figures_and_Inscriptions_-_Walters_42692_-_Side_D — Cylinder seal *(chotam)*

Tamar is asking Judah for the symbols of his public authority—his signature (which is how a seal was used) and his corner office! And he loans them to her, as if he were using a credit card to buy sex now and pay later. It does not occur to him that this veiled woman might use his seal and staff to run a scam or to blackmail him. He is so accustomed to ruling his extended household, and to judging and sentencing anyone under his control, it does not occur to him that anything could jeopardize his position.

Later, Judah’s best friend and confidant searches for the “prostitute” to give her the kid goat and retrieve the seal and staff. But she has disappeared. Then Judah gets nervous about losing status in the community, and he asks his friend not to tell anyone that he left his seal and staff with a prostitute.

Eventually Judah learns that Tamar is pregnant. He knows that his son Shelah is not the father, so he calls her a harlot and sentences her to burning. As Tamar is taken away, she sends Judah his pledge with this message:

I am pregnant by the man to whom these belong. Please recognize who owns these, the chotam and the cord and the matteh. (Genesis 38:25)

At that point, Judah says: “She is more right than I am” (Genesis 38:26), thus becoming the first person in the Torah to admit he is wrong.

Judah is acknowledging both that he is the father, and that he was wrong to thwart Tamar’s right to get pregnant by a relative of her late husband.

This story also demonstrates that Judah’s personal desires—to protect his last living son, and to enjoy sex after his own wife is dead—are in conflict with his duty as a clan leader. But he is so accustomed to his position of power, he does not at first realize there is any difference between his private desires and his public role. By taking away the symbols of his public authority, and then returning them at the crucial moment, Tamar shocks Judah into seeing the difference.

When he takes back his chotam and matteh, Judah also commits himself to doing the right thing as the man in charge—even if his private wishes are different. This is a major step forward in ethical development.

The Story of Joseph and Pharaoh

Meanwhile, in next week’s Torah portion, Mikeitz, Judah’s little brother Joseph is transformed in one day from an imprisoned slave to the viceroy of Egypt.

The pharaoh has two troubling dreams that his own wise man cannot interpret. His butler mentions a dream interpreter he met when he was in prison awaiting trial, a slave from Canaan. Pharaoh commands that Joseph be brought to him. He is impressed with Joseph’s divinely inspired interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams as warnings about a coming seven-year famine, as well as with his proposal for solving the problem—so impressed that he puts Joseph in charge.

And Pharoah said to Joseph: “See, I have placed you over all the land of Egypt!” And Pharaoh removed his taba-at from upon his hand and he put it on Joseph’s hand, and he clothed him in linen garments, and he put the gold collar on his neck. And he had him ride in the merkavah of his second-in-command, and they called out before him “Avreikh!”; thus he appointed him over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 41:41-43)

taba-at (טַבַּעַַת) = a signet ring. (A king’s ring in Egypt was a signet ring with the king’s seal carved into it. Like the cylindrical chotam that a Canaanite man such as Judah wore on a cord, the signet ring was pressed on a damp clay document as a signature of authorization.)

merkavah (מֶרְכָּבָה) = chariot.

Avreikh (אַבְרֵךְ) = (Translation disputed. It might be an unknown Egyptian word, or “I command kneeling!” in Hebrew.)

The pharaoh is smart enough to realize that Egyptians will not treat a foreigner and ex-slave like a viceroy unless he has plenty of visible symbols of his new public identity. Pharoah also gives Joseph an Egyptian name and a high-ranking Egyptian wife. Joseph’s word is then taken as law, and he successfully prepares Egypt for the coming famine.

But Joseph loses some of his own personal identity when he gains these symbols of his new public identity. When his first son is born, Joseph says: “God has made me forget all my hardship and all the household of my father.” (Genesis 41:51) He retains his religion, but otherwise he speaks and dresses and rules as an Egyptian. He never writes home. He is happy to live his role—until his ten older brothers come to him to buy food during the first year of famine.

Joseph recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. He speaks Egyptian, dresses as an Egyptian, has an Egyptian name, and wears the gold collar and taba-at of the pharaoh. His public role completely hides his private identity.

Inside, Joseph bears a personal grudge against the brothers who sold him into slavery, and he cannot forgive them until he knows whether they have changed. I can imagine him wondering whether he should take them aside, drop his mask, and confront them directly; or stick to being the Egyptian viceroy, and simply sell them food along with all the other purchasers from Canaan. Then he thinks of a way to test them.

Joseph invents a charge against his brothers, accusing them of being spies, and throws them in prison for three days. He retains one brother, and sends the rest home with an order to bring back their youngest brother, or else. (Jacob’s youngest son, Benjamin, was a child at home when Joseph’s older brothers sold him into slavery.) When starvation forces them to return with Benjamin, Joseph inflicts more tests on his older brothers, all while maintaining the persona of an Egyptian ruler. Although he hides his personal identity, his private past affects his behavior as a public official.

The game does not end until Judah confronts the unjust viceroy in the Torah portion Vayiggash and volunteers to enslave himself to spare his father and youngest brother.²

Judah is able to step up and speak to the Egyptian viceroy because, thanks to Tamar, he has already recognized and addressed the conflict between his personal feelings and his public role. He has repented of both selling his brother and denying his daughter-in-law. He has dedicated himself to justice and compassion.

Hearing him, Joseph weeps and reveals his personal identity—after sending away his Egyptian servants to make sure they will not lose respect for his authority. He never apologizes for testing his brothers by lying to them; nor does he explain to them why he did it. He does send for his whole extended family, introduces a few of them to the Pharaoh, and arranges for them to live in Egypt, where there is food. But he makes these arrangements as the gracious viceroy of Egypt, without every admitting he was wrong about anything.

Perhaps he cannot integrate an old private identity that he hates (persecuted son of Jacob) with his new public position of authority (viceroy of Egypt). But those who adopt their public roles as their only guide to behavior cannot have a change of heart.

—

Genesis 38:8-10.
Genesis 44:1-34.

Vayeitzei: Guilty Conscience

At the end of last week’s Torah portion, Toledot (Histories), Jacob runs away to his uncle Lavan’s house in Charan. The official reason for his trip east is to get a wife. But his more urgent reason is to avoid being murdered by his twin brother Esau.

Isaac Blesses Jacob, by Gustave Dore, 1866

Jacob has just tricked their blind father in order to “steal” the blessing that Isaac intended for Esau. The twins’ mother, Rebecca (who instigated the scheme to divert the blessing), finds out that Esau is so enraged he is vowing to kill his brother. So she privately tells Jacob:

Flee for yourself to my brother Lavan, to Charan! And stay with him a few days, until your brother’s rage turns away… from you, and he forgets what you did to him; then I will send and take you away from there. (Genesis 27:43-45)

Rebecca does not mean a few days literally; it would take at least a week just to travel to Charan and back. But she does indicate that Jacob’s stay in Charan will be brief. This is reasonable, since we know Esau is a man whose emotions, though overwhelming, are short-lived. (See my post Toledot: Seeing Red.)

Officially, Jacob is not running away at all, but following Isaac’s instruction to go to Charan and take a wife from among the daughters of Rebecca’s brother, Lavan. But Jacob does not wait for his wealthy father to give him a bride-price, riding animals, and servants for the journey. Instead, he dashes away with only his walking stick.

I think Jacob is determined to leave his past behind, and never again try to take anything from his father: neither an inheritance, nor a blessing, nor even a bag of silver.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei (“And he went”), Jacob arrives in Charan, and Lavan takes him in.

And he stayed with him a month of days. Then Lavan said to Jacob: Is it so, that you are my kinsman, and you serve me without compensation? Tell me what is your maskoret! (Genesis/Bereishit 29:14-15)

maskoret (מַשְׂכֺּרֶת) = wage, pay for hired labor.

And Jacob loved Rachel, so he said: “I will serve you for seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.” (Genesis 29:18)

Seven years? Jacob has already been tending Lavan’s flocks for a month. Why does he offer to serve for seven years?

Many commentators have written that seven years of labor is the bride-price Jacob pays for Rachel. Yet Jacob’s family is wealthy. When his father sends him off to get a bride, he would normally send him with riding animals, servants, and gifts for the bride’s family—just as Abraham did when he sent his steward to Charan to get a wife for Isaac.¹ And even though Isaac learned how Jacob had tricked him, he still gave Jacob a generous parting blessing, showing no desire to deprive him of anything. So Jacob should be well equipped to pay a large bride-price to Lavan on the spot.

Yet he is not. The text does not say any servants are traveling with him; when he stops for the night he is alone and sleeps on the ground with a stone for his pillow.² And he travels on foot:

Then Jacob lifted his feet and he walked toward the land of the easterners. (Genesis 29:1)

Lavan puts him to work as soon as he arrives, treating him as a poor relative rather than as a guest, so we can infer that Jacob did not carry any valuable gifts in his pack. And in next week’s Torah portion, Vayishlakh (And he sent), when Jacob heads back west, he says:

“With my walking-stick I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.” (Genesis 32:11)

Why does Jacob leave without the servants, riding animals, and gifts that his father must have provided for his journey?

I believe Jacob is punishing himself, perhaps subconsciously, for tricking his father and cheating his brother. Instead of coming to Lavan as a guest and a wealthy prospective bridegroom, he arrives as a poor relative who volunteers to serve Lavan as his master.

The 20th-century commentator Shmuel Klitsner³ has pointed out that although a hired laborer is paid a daily wage and is free to leave his employer at any time, a Hebrew slave serves his master without fair wages for up to seven years.

If you buy a Hebrew slave, he will serve six years, and in the seventh he will go out as free, without compensation. (Exodus/Shemot 21:1)

Jacob gives himself the maximum number of years of slavery as a punishment for stealing Esau’s blessing. Since his father has not sentenced him to any punishment, he has to punish himself. It is the only way he can cope with his guilty conscience.

Later in the Torah, Moses sets up a system of animal sacrifices as guilt-offerings; the animal’s owner not only suffers the loss of the valuable property, but also lays hands on the animal before the priest slaughters it, symbolically transferring his guilt to the animal about to be killed for God. In the book of Genesis, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and later Jacob himself, do offer animal sacrifices to God. But they are never guilt-offerings, and never for the purpose of expiating sin or wrongdoing.

If Jacob cannot atone for his bad deed through a guilt-offering, and his clan leader and father will not punish him, what else can he do to resolve his guilty conscience? Today, we might ask him to apologize to both Isaac and Esau, and find a way to make restitution. That is precisely what Jews are expected to do every year before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

But although the people in the book of Genesis sometimes confess their wrongdoing to God, they never think of apologizing to one another. Jacob’s grandfather Abraham never apologizes either to Sarah, or to the two kings he hoodwinks, for passing off his wife as his sexually available sister. Neither Sarah nor Hagar apologizes after they abuse one another. Rebecca does not apologize to anyone for masterminding the trick on Isaac, which also hurts Esau and makes Jacob flee for his life. And Jacob does not apologize to Esau, either for talking him into trading his birthright for stew, or for cheating him out of his blessing. In his family, in his whole experience, people do not apologize to each other.

I am tempted to conclude that we are better off today, when rabbis, teachers, and parents train us to confess and apologize whenever we do something wrong. Yet I know it’s not that easy. Sure, I can apologize for an inconsiderate remark to someone who understands and forgives me, and then I feel relieved. But I also know from personal experience that few things are harder than apologizing to someone whom you believe will neither understand nor forgive you. It takes not only courage, but also an ability to accept that your effort may fail, and the only reward you will get for doing the right thing is the knowledge that you did the right thing.

This knowledge may not seem like much of a blessing at the time. But it does save you from having to run away from the person you wronged, and punish yourself by becoming a slave for seven years.

Genesis 24:21, 24:53.
Genesis 28:10-11.
Shmuel Klitsner, Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis, Urim Publications, Jerusalem, 2006.

Bereishit & Toledot: Seeing Red

The book of Genesis/Bereishit explores a series of conflicts between brothers, and one between sisters. Two of these conflicts feature an especially hot-blooded, emotional brother, and both of these use various permutations of the word for the color “red”: adom, אָדֺם.

Blood red

After Cain kills Abel in the first Torah portion of Genesis, Bereishit, God tells Cain:

The Killing of Abel, Providence Lithograph Co., 1905

“What have you done? The voice of the damim of your brother is crying out to me from the adamah!” (Genesis/Bereishit 4:10)
damim (דֱָמִים) = shed blood. (plural of dam, דָּם = blood.)
adamah (אֲדָמָה) = ground, dirt, earth.

Both Hebrew words come from the same root as adam (“human”, also the name of the father of Cain and Abel, whom God makes out of dirt in Chapter 2). To be human is, among other things, to be red. Dam, “blood”, is obviously red. And traditional commentary explains that uncultivated earth (at least in the world described by the Torah) is red clay.

Red man, red stew

This week’s Torah portion, Toledot (“Histories”), tells the story of the twins Esau and Jacob, from their conception until they are in their forties and Jacob flees because Esau is threatening to kill him.

Then her days of pregnancy were completed, and hey! –twins were in her womb. And the first one went out, admoni all over like a fur robe of hair, and they called his name Eisav. And after that his brother went out, and … they called his name Jacob.. (Genesis 25:24-26)

admoni (אַדְמוֹנִי) = reddish.

Eisav (עֵשָׂו) = Do it, get it done. (From the verb asah, עָשָׂה = do.) “Esau” in English.

The text is not clear about whether he has ruddy skin and is covered with hair, or whether his fur-like hair is reddish. Either way, he is born red, like blood, and hairy, like a beast.

Since Esau is born a moment before Jacob, he counts as the firstborn son. In the world of the Torah, when the patriarch of an extended family dies, his firstborn son inherits a double portion of his father’s possessions, and also becomes the family’s priest. Yet in this story, when Esau grows up and becomes a hunter, he does not care about the role of the firstborn. Jacob, who stays in the tents, cares very much.

Jacob stewed a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. And Esau said to Jacob: “Please let me gulp down some of the adom— this adom— because I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. (Genesis 25:29-30)

Edom (אֳדוֹם) = a people who later lived in the hill country east of the Jordan river valley, supposedly descended from Esau. (From the same root as adom = red.)

Esau Selling His Birthright to Jacob, by Rembrandt, 17th c.

Jacob takes advantage of his incoherent brother’s request by charging an exorbitant price for the stew.

And Jacob said: “Hand over, as of today, your right as firstborn to me”. And Esau said: “Hey, I am going toward death, so what is this to me, a firstborn right?” Then Jacob said: “Swear to me, as of today!” And he swore to him, and he handed over his firstborn right to Jacob. And as for Jacob, he gave to Esau bread and a stew of lentils. And he ate and he drank and he got up and he went. Thus he belittled the right of the firstborn. (Genesis 25:31-34)

On a literal level, this story amuses me, because I often make stew from red lentils, and it always comes out a golden color. Other kinds of cooked lentils are dark brown or green-brown—but never red. Did someone who never cooked write down this story, and get the detail about lentils wrong? I prefer to assume that Jacob is so clever, he adds an ingredient to his stew that will make even lentils look red enough to attract Esau’s attention.

Esau sees food and the color red. He does not notice the lentils. He cannot even find the word for stew. The 19th-century commentator Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote that the color red delights Esau because it reminds him of the blood on an animal when his arrow hits it.¹

The 20th-century psychologist Helen Luke wrote that red is the color of instinct, impulse, and emotion. She added that Esau, who is controlled by the color red, is in danger of losing all civilizing tendencies and becoming evil. Jacob, his opposite, is in danger of repressing or denying all instinct and emotion, and becoming evil.²

Neither Cain, the man of blood-red violence, nor Jacob, the bloodless schemer, is a good candidate for the spiritual role of the firstborn, the one who speaks with and makes offerings to God.

I think Jacob sees the world as black and white, divided between losers and winners. Since he sees the firstborn as the winner in the family, he applies his intelligence to acquiring that role. He suppresses any emotional impulses in order to carry out first his own scheme for taking his brother’s birthright, then his mother’s scheme for stealing his brother’s blessing. Jacob may not savor his food as much as Esau, but he knows how to plan ahead.

Esau sees only red. Carried away by one emotion after another during the Torah portion of Toledot, he carries out his impulses and lives for the moment. In the passage translated above, he gives away his birthright to appease one day’s feelings of hunger and despair. Later in the Torah portion, he weeps like a child when he finds out Jacob has stolen the blessing their father intended for Esau. Then he becomes so angry he threatens to kill Jacob as soon as their father dies.

Jacob flees from him, and (in the Torah portion Vayeitzei) he meets his match in his cold, calculating uncle Lavan—whose name means “white” in Hebrew. Yet some color finally comes into Jacob’s black-and-white life, as he falls in love with Lavan’s daughter Rachel. Gradually he succeeds in becoming the leader of his own clan, through a combination of sensitivity to others’ emotions and rational long-term planning.

Meanwhile, Esau leaves home and learns how to be a leader. When he hears that his twin and nemesis is coming his way (in the Torah portion Vayishlach), he plans ahead by bringing 400 men to meet Jacob on the road. But he retains his emotional instincts, and when he sees Jacob bow to him, he runs over and embraces his brother. The two older and wiser men pull off a peaceful reunion.

We all have some of Jacob’s black-and-white rationalism and some of Esau’s red emotionalism. We can only be whole human beings when those two sides embrace.

Furthermore, in order turn our whole personality toward peace rather than toward evil, we must learn from the evolution of both brothers. Jacob learns to use his black-and-white intellect to lay plans for the good of everyone, instead of for just his own advantage. And Esau learns to move beyond seeing red as the blood shed in killing, and see red as the blood of life, shared with other humans.

If we can widen our vision enough, through both our intellects and our emotions, we will recognize that all human beings share the same blood; we are descendants of Adam, אָדָם = the human, humankind. (From the same root as adom = red.) Then we will all truly deserve the right of the firstborn to speak with and offer gifts to God.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshis, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2002, pp. 561-562.
Helen Luke, Kaleidoscope, Parabola Books, New York, 1992, p. 225.