Mishpatim, Ki Tisa, & 2 Samuel: Soul Recovery

The curious verb nafash shows up only three times in the whole Hebrew Bible. The first occurrence comes in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Laws):

Six days you shall make your makings, and on the seventh day you shall shavat, in order that your ox and your donkey will rest in tranquility, veyinafeish, the son of your slave-woman and the resident foreigner. (Exodus 23:12)

shavat (שָׁבַת) = desist, cease, stop an activity. (From the same root as shabbat = day of stopping, not-doing.)

veyinafeish (וְיִּנָּפֵשׁ) = and he can refresh his soul, recovered himself, and reanimate himself. (From the same root as nefesh = soul, the soul that animates the body, inclination, appetite.)

Hebrew has several words for “soul”; nefesh means the soul at the level that animates the body. It also means an individual person, or an inclination or appetite. The corresponding verb nafash implies resting to recover one’s personal energy and self-direction.

Shimi throws stones at David (artist unknown)

This definition certainly applies to the only use of the verb nafash in the Hebrew Bible excluding the book of Exodus. In the second book of Samuel/Shmuel, King David and his men have endured a long march while Shimi, a member of Saul’s clan, walked beside them hurling insults, dirt clods, and stones. Finally they leave Shimi behind, and camp at the Jordan.

The king, and all the people who were with him, arrived exhausted; and he veyinafeish there. (2 Samuel 16:14)

King David and his men are used to marching; they are not exhausted physically, but their souls are exhausted by enduring the abuse. They rest to recover their animation and their inner selves.

The drudgery and daily misfortunes of life can wear down anyone’s soul at the nefesh level. So Mishpatim orders us to share our shabbat with humans less fortunate than we are—including those who work for us, or who are alienated in our society—get one day a week to refresh their energy and recover their individual selves.

detail from The Harvesters, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

The two elements in this shabbat process are desisting from productive work, and refreshing the spirit. The Hebrew Bible specifically prohibits lighting a fire (Exodus 35:3), gathering food or wood (Exodus 16:23-30, Numbers 16:32-36), carrying burdens outside (Jeremiah 17:21), treading in a winepress (Nehemiah 13:15), and selling or buying food (Nehemiah 13:15-18). Apparently the Israelites needed extra reminders not to do any work related to getting food to the table.

Other activities prohibited on shabbat can be inferred, but are not actually stated in the bible. Later, the Talmud multiplied rules about what a Jew cannot do on shabbat. The 312-page Talmud tractate Shabbat discusses every finicky prohibition the rabbis of the first few centuries C.E. could imagine. Although many orthodox Jews today observe shabbat according to strict and complex rules that evolved from the Talmud, I know that if I tried to imitate them, I would spend the whole day worrying. My anxiety and resentment would make shabbat a day to dread, and I would look forward to the six weekdays when I could relax and refresh my soul!

Fortunately, the Torah itself offers a more attractive and interesting view of Shabbat for unorthodox people like me. Desisting from creative work is connected with recovering the soul in a passage from the upcoming portion of Exodus called Ki Tisa. (It is also part of the Shabbat liturgy.)

The children of Israel shall observe the shabbat, to make the shabbat for their generations a covenant for all time. Between Me and the children of Israel it will be a sign forever, because for six days God made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day (God) shavat vayinafash. (Exodus 31:16-17)

vayinafash וַיִּנָּפַשׁ)) = and he refreshed his soul, recovered himself, reanimated himself. (Also from the same root as nefesh.)

I am awed by this portrayal of a god that changes through time, breathing life into the universe and then stopping to catch its breath and recover the divine soul. That is how I experience life, the universe, and everything—not as a static abstraction, but as the changing rhythmic flow of heartbeats, breaths, lifespans, seasons.

The Torah says that in order to be holy to God, we humans must add another rhythm to our lives: a seven-day cycle of work and rest, creative production and cessation. For six days we may pour out our energy and creativity into productive work, but on the seventh day we desist from creative work to re-center and re-animate our inner selves.

But wait a minute! I used to need a day off from my bookkeeping job to recover my self. But a lot of the creative work I do now—including writing this blog—re-energizes me. When I finish writing an essay or a story, I feel joy, and a sense of purpose, and the re-centering that comes from returning to my own soul. Why should I deprive myself of creative work once a week?

One answer is that I cannot keep creating endlessly without pause. Even God, in the story of creation that opens the book of Genesis/Bereishit, divides the job into six separate days, completes each day of creation before starting the next, and then takes a break at the end. I need to finish a piece of work and then stop to pay attention to where I am and where God is. I can believe that I need not only those moments of stopping every day, but also a whole day of stoppage every week. a whole day to reconnect with myself and the holy.

Alas, I still have not developed a steady practice for spending the day of shabbat in tranquility, restoring my soul. Merely refraining from certain activities doesn’t do it for me. Joining my congregation in prayer is uplifting, and following or leading Shabbat services does remind me of what to focus on. Yet all too often, the long drive and the personal interactions disturb my ability to focus on anything.

Nevertheless, I have not given up on establishing a shabbat practice. Any suggestions, readers?

Beshalach: High-Handed

As a child I was a natural victim, the target of any bully who needed to humiliate someone. So I can imagine how the Israelites might feel in the book of Exodus/Shemot when they finally leave Egypt on the morning after God’s tenth and final plague:

Our god beat the pharaoh! We asked our Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold, and they just handed it over to us! Yesterday we were slaves, and today we are free! We can do what we please, and we never need to be afraid of Egypt again!

Pillar of Cloud, by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, 1731

The Israelites leave the city of Ramses unchallenged at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (“When sending out”). They march for three days in military formation, following God’s spectacular pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. For three days, they feel on top of the world.

God leads them to the Reed Sea, rather than by the main road to Canaan, which passes through the land of the Philistines.¹ When the Israelites reach the shore of the Reed Sea, God stages one last showdown with the pharaoh.

God strengthened the heart of the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and he chased after the children of Israel, while the children of Israel were going out beyad ramah. (Exodus 14:8)

beyad ramah (בְּיָד רָמָה) = with a high hand. Yad (יָד) = hand; power to do something. Ramah (רָמָה) = high, exalted.

What does it mean to march “with a high hand”? When I first read this passage, I pictured the Israelites raising their hands as if they were trying to get the teacher’s attention. But this image is the opposite of the spirit of beyad ramah.

In both Biblical Hebrew and English, the word yad or “hand” is used in many idioms. After all, we accomplish things primarily with our hands. Twice in the Torah portion Beshallach Moses raises his hands in order to channel divine energy. At the Reed Sea, God tells Moses:

And you shall be hareim your staff and stretching out your yad over the sea and splitting it, and the Children of Israel shall come into the middle of the sea on dry land. (Exodus 14:16)

hareim (הָרֵם) = raising, lifting up. (From the same root as the adjective ramah.)

Battle with the Amalekites, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860

Later in this week’s Torah portion the people of Amaleik attack the Israelites, and Moses influences the course of the battle by stationing himself on a hill and raising his hands.

And it happened that Moses yarim his yad, then Israel was mightier, but when he rested his yad, then Amaleik was mightier. (Exodus 17:11)

yarim (יָרִים) = he would raise. (From the same root as ramah.)

The Israelites win the battle because Aaron and Hur help Moses hold up his hands when he gets tired. This confirms that holding up his hands is how Moses channels God’s power; he does not have power of his own.

But the idiom yad ramah refers to acting as if you have power to accomplish things by yourself. It appears only four times in the Torah, and two of these appearances refer to the way the Israelites leave Egypt (in Exodus 14:8 above, and in Numbers/Bamidbar 33:3). The other two appearances help to clarify the idiom’s meaning.

But a person who does it beyad ramah, whether citizen or foreign resident, is reviling God; so that person will be cut off from among the people. (Numbers 15:30)

In this passage, the Torah has just ruled that if someone inadvertently fails to obey one of God’s laws, he can atone by offering a goat as a sacrifice. But if he does it on purpose, acting “with a high hand”, the consequence is more severe: he is banished or dies. When someone transgresses deliberately, beyad ramah, he is acting as if he has more authority than the religious law.

The fourth occurrence of yad ramah in the Torah comes in Moses’ parting poem to the Israelites. In his long final warning, Moses quotes God’s response to their ingratitude and idolatry:

I said: I would have cut them to pieces,

I would have made the memory of them disappear from men,

If I had not feared for the provocation of enemies—

lest their foes would misinterpret,

lest they would say: “Our yad was ramah, and it was not God Who accomplished all this!”

(Deuteronomy/Devarim 32:26-27)

Here, the “high hand” is the arrogance of Israel’s enemies, who will falsely assume that they have the power to destroy Israel on their own, without God’s collaboration.

Similarly, in English “high-handed” persons assume they have all the power, and arrogantly do something without considering the concerns of others.

So why do the newly freed slaves in the portion Beshalach leave Egypt beyad ramah? Dazzled by their new higher status, they may well imitate the arrogance of their former masters. If they had a chance, they might even try to bully or enslave someone less fortunate. But God does not give them a chance.

In this week’s Torah portion, after “the children of Israel were going out beyad ramah“, the pharaoh sends a troop of charioteers after them.

And Pharaoh came closer, and the children of Israel raised their eyes, and hey! Egyptians! Pulling out after them! And they were very frightened, and the Children of Israel cried out to God. And they said to Moses: “Are there no graves in Egypt, that you take us to die in the wilderness? What is this you have done to us, to take us out from Egypt?” (Exodus 14:10-11)

At once the Israelites are struck with fear of their old owners, the bullies who tortured and subjugated them. They cry out to God, but there is no immediate response. Their belief in God’s protection is too new and fragile to withstand their reflexive fear. They cringe and despair. They are caught between the sea and the chariots. At that moment, they think they will always be victims.

Yet when they complain to Moses, they make a sarcastic joke: “Are there no graves in Egypt, that you take us to die in the wilderness?” Thus Jewish humor is born.

Would you rather be an arrogant bully, like the pharaoh in the book of Exodus, treating people with high-handed disregard, too habitually hard-hearted to learn compassion?

Or would you rather be like an Israelite in Egypt, never certain of your status and power—but resilient enough to keep your sense of humor? If so, then be careful about when you act with “a high hand”.

—

Exodus 13:17-18.

Bo: The Dog in the Night

To me, dogs are pets. Most dogs have appealing personalities, and the love between dog and human is real. I rarely cry, but I cried when our dog died.

In the Torah, dogs are bad news. The ancient Israelites did not domesticate dogs until late in the First Temple period, even though their neighbors had long been training dogs for hunting, herding, and guarding. So most of the 24 references to dogs in the Hebrew Bible view them as disgusting feral scavengers. Calling a man a dog (or worse, a dead dog) means that he is the lowest of the low.

The first appearance of the Hebrew word for dog, kelev, is in this week’s Torah portion, Bo (“Come”).

Moses said: Thus said God: In the middle of the night, I Myself will go out in the midst of Egypt. And every firstborn in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne, to the firstborn of the slave-woman who is behind the millstones, and every firstborn beast. Then there will be loud wailing in all the land of Egypt, the like of which has never happened, and the like of which will not happen again. But as for all the children of Israel, not a dog yecheratz its tongue against man or beast; in order that you shall know that God makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. (Exodus/Shemot 11:4-7)

yecheratz = will cut, will sharpen, will use a sharp instrument, will decide

On the night of the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, not a dog will use its tongue as a sharp instrument against the Israelites. In other words, while God is killing Egyptians, not even a dog will snarl or bark to threaten the Israelites.

The verses translated above include two contrasts between the highest and the lowest. First, God says all the firstborn of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne, to the firstborn of the slave-woman who is behind the millstones. The phrase “slave-woman behind the millstones” is a translation of a phrase that an Egyptian document uses to indicate someone of the lowest possible social class. In other words, God will make no exceptions; everyone belonging to Egypt will suffer, regardless of social position, and regardless of guilt or innocence.

Next, the Torah says that everyone belonging to Israel will be safe from all threats: from the highest power possible–God Itself–to the lowest danger–dogs. In the middle of the night, while God is killing the Egyptian firstborn, and the Israelites are eating their Passover lamb, roaming dogs will not bite any Israelite humans or beasts. They will not even bark.

This reminds me of the dog that did not bark in the night in “Silver Blaze”, a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. Inspector Gregory asks Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident.”

Sherlock Holmes has deduced that the guard-dog was silent in the middle of the night because the intruder was not a stranger, but the dog’s owner.

The passage in Exodus/Shemot contrasts the loud wailing of the Egyptians with the silence of the dogs. Dogs get agitated when their owners start screaming and wailing, and they respond by whimpering and barking. The dogs who will not growl or bark during the night of the death of the firstborn clearly do not have Egyptian owners. The Israelites who wrote down the Torah thought of dogs as ownerless wanderers, so the silent dogs do not belong to the children of Israel, either. Whose dogs are they?

And it was at midnight when God struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on this throne, to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon, and every firstborn beast. (Exodus 12:29)

God goes from house to house in Egypt that night, skipping over only the houses of the Israelites. But the dogs roaming in the streets are silent, like the dog in “Silver Blaze”–because they recognize their owner.

I want to be like a dog. I don’t want to be the lowest of the low. But I do want to recognize my owner.

I have often wondered why the scout in the book of Numbers/Bamidbar who argues that the Israelites should go ahead and enter Canaan, and trust God to give them the land, is named Caleb, Kaleiv in Hebrew. His name comes from the same root as kelev, “dog”. Yet Caleb’s actions are all virtuous, not base and low, the way most dogs in the Torah behave. Perhaps Caleb is named after the dogs in Egypt—because he, too, recognized God.

Shemot: Holy Ground

Mount Sinai/Chorev, by Elijah Walton, 19th cent.

This week we open a new book in the cycle of Torah readings, the book of Exodus/Shemot (“Names”). The Israelites, who were welcome guests in Egypt at the end of Genesis/Bereishit, are now slaves under a genocidal pharoah. This week’s Torah portion, also called Shemot, tells the story of Moses from his birth to Hebrew slaves until his return to Egypt as God’s prophet.

His life story does not mention God until after Moses is settled in the land of Midian with a wife and child. He knows that he was born a Hebrew, and that his people have their own god, but he does not know the god’s name. Moses learns about Egyptian gods while he is growing up as the adopted son of the pharaoh’s daughter. He also learns about the gods of Midian, since he lives with the Midianite priest Yitro and marries one of his daughters.

In Midian, Moses leads a introspective life as a shepherd, deliberately taking his flock to remote places where he will be alone.

Moses was shepherding the flock of Yitro, his father-in-law, priest of Midian, and he guided the flock achar the midbar, and he came to the mountain of God, to chorev. (Exodus/Shemot 3:1)

achar (אַחַר) = behind, after, in the back, in the future

midbar (מִדְבָּר) = the wilderness. (A homonym is midbeir, מְדַבֵּר = speaking, speaker.)

chorev (חֺרֵב) = dry desolation; “Horeb” (in English), the name of a mountain and a region also identified as Sinai.

A simple translation is that Moses “guided the flock beyond the wilderness, and he came to the mountain of God, to (Mount) Chorev”.

Alternatively, maybe Moses “guided the flock to the future of the speaker, and he came to the mountain of God, to dry desolation”. The second translation is non-standard, but it does describe Moses’ psychological journey. He takes what he was given by his father-in-law the priest (literally sheep, but perhaps also theology), and goes beyond his accustomed life into his own future. He is about to become a prophet, a speaker for God. He is also about to feel dry and desolate, because he does not want the mission God thrusts upon him.

Meanwhile, God has noticed the groaning of the enslaved Israelites, and is about to recruit Moses as the instrument for liberating and leading the Israelites. But God does not suddenly speak to Moses, or appear in a dream, as God did with Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Jacob in the book of Genesis. Instead, God arranges a small miracle off to one side of Moses’ route.

Moses at the Burning Bush, by Rembrandt van Rijn

Then a messenger of God appeared to him in a flame of fire from the middle of the seneh; and he saw it; and hey! the seneh was burning in the fire, but the seneh was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2)

seneh (סְנֶה) = a particular type of bush

In the entire Hebrew bible, the word seneh appears only in this scene (five times), and once in Deuteronomy/Devarim. It is probably related to the Arabic word sina = thornbush, and the Latin senna = a family of woody flowering perennials with straggling branches, about knee-high. The seneh may or may not come from the same Hebrew root as Sinai (סִינַי), the other name for the mountain where Moses repeatedly meets God. But as Martin Buber pointed out, repeating the word seneh three times in one sentence certainly evokes the name “Sinai”.

Later in the book of Exodus, God manifests at Mount Sinai in volcanic fire and thunder. But here, God’s fire appears in a small plant, and burns quietly without consuming it. Why does God choose this manifestation?

The symbolic meaning of the burning bush according to Shemot Rabbah is that Moses is afraid Egypt will destroy Israel, just as a fire would normally destroy a bush. Since this burning bush is not consumed, it represents a promise that the Israelites will never be destroyed by their oppressors.¹

I agree with 20th-century scholar Nehama Leibowitz that the fire in the bush is an implausible symbol for the Egyptians; since God’s messenger (angel) speaks from the middle of this fire, the fire would more plausibly represent divine revelation.² According to 19th-century rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the burning bush means that anyone who opens their heart to God will not be destroyed by the divine power.³

Moses said: “Oh, I must turn aside so I will see this great sight! Why does the bush not burn up?” (Exodus 3:3)

The “messenger” of God is simply the sight of something outside natural law—and therefore numinous. Moses is a person who will notice something unusual and turn aside. Maybe he is curious about the nature of the universe; or maybe he is searching for God. After all, why did he take the flock beyond the grassy wilderness to this dry and desolate mountain, where there is nothing good for sheep to eat? His father-in-law the priest must have told him where to find the “mountain of the gods”. Now Moses is alert for any sign of the divine.

God does not speak to Moses until after he has turned aside to look at the bush. Apparently alert curiosity and a willingness to approach the numinous are essential traits that God requires in his prophet.

And God saw that he had turned aside to see, so God called to him from the middle of the bush, and said: “Moses! Moses!” And he said: “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:4)

That Moses hears God speak from a mere thorn-bush demonstrates that God is everywhere, even in the lowliest places: a scrubby shrub as well as a tall cedar of Lebanon, a small and barren mountain as well as a lofty peak.⁴

I have heard many of my friends say they feel God’s presence the most when they are out hiking and surrounded by tall trees or snow-capped peaks. I confess that I, too, feel touched by something numinous when I see the forest or the ocean here in Oregon. Yet I know that if we want to seek the divine, we need to look at straggly little plants as well as cedars, and pray in pre-fab rooms as well as cathedrals.

And God said: Don’t come closer to here! Take off your sandals from upon your feet, because the place that you are standing upon is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)

Moses cannot come closer to God right away. No matter how much he wants to understand the divine, he must learn about God during the course of a long relationship.

In my experience, that is also true for God-seekers today. A mystical experience can be a message, but it does not change your life, or even your soul. The next day, your old behaviors come right back (even if your feeling of transformation keeps you from noticing them). One experience cannot change you into someone who walks with God—someone who thoughtfully does the right things and remains aware of a larger view of reality. You have to change yourself over the course of many years, noticing when it is time to turn aside, noticing when you have made another mistake, and remembering over and over again that a divine fire hides in the weedy bushes of life.

At least that’s what I believe. So I take comfort from knowing that even Moses cannot walk right into the divine fire and become one with God. His encounter at the burning bush is only the beginning. But at least God tells him he is standing on holy ground. If only we could realize that we are all standing on holy ground!

Shemot Rabbah 2:1. (Written by rabbis of the first few centuries C.E.)
Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Shemot, translated by Aryeh Newman, The Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education, Jerusalem, 1996, p. 55.
Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemos, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2005, p. 31.
Mekhilta of R. Shimon b, Yochai, attributed to R. Eliezer b. Arakh, quoted in Leibowitz, p. 56.

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.