Jeremiah & Psalm 139: Mind Versus Conscience

Jeremiah offers an insight on human psychology in the haftarah reading that accompanies the Torah portion Bechukotai in Leviticus this week. The haftarah (Jeremiah 16:19-17:14) warms up with one of Jeremiah’s predictions that the kingdom of Judah will be lost because its people lack trust in God and persist in worshiping idols. (Jeremiah lived through the Babylonian conquest of Judah and their siege and destruction of Jerusalem.)

Jeremiah adds that the people of Judah should not expect their own military power to save them.

Cursed is the man who trusts in humankind,

And makes human flesh his strength. (Jeremiah 17:5)

In other words, you cannot win a war with armies alone. Jeremiah goes on to say that only those who trust in God will flourish. (See my post Haftarat Bechukotai–Jeremiah: Trust Me.) Then he touches on another problem about trusting human beings. His two-verse gem on human psychology is rich in words that can be translated as either physical objects or psychological states. So I made three translations. The first one leaves the metaphors in the original Hebrew:

The leiv (לֵב) is more akov (עָקֺב) than anything,

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a leiv,

Testing the kelayot (כְּלָיוֹת),

And allotting to a man according to his drachim (דְּרָכִים),

According to the peri (פְּרִי) of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Next I translate the ambiguous words literally:

The heart is more a heel than anything.

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a heart,

Testing the kidneys,

And allotting to a man according to his roads,

According to the fruit of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Finally, here is a version with all the ambiguous words translated metaphorically:

The mind is more devious than anything.

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a mind,

Examining the conscience,

And allotting to a man according to his conduct,

According to the result of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Heart and Kidneys

In English, the heart is the metaphorical location of feelings, while the brain is the location of thoughts. In the Hebrew Bible, the heart is the seat of both feeling and thinking. The word for “heart” (leiv or levav) is used for the whole conscious mind—except for one mental function: our conscience. The awareness of what we ought to do is assigned to the kidneys in the bible. (See my post: Vayikra & Jeremiah: Kidneys.) Kidneys are often paired with hearts because, according to one commentary:

“The kidneys advise the heart, and the heart decides.”¹

If we are accustomed to following our “kidneys” (conscience), our decision-making is straightforward; we reject thoughts of gratifying our immoral impulses, choose the course of action God would approve of, and do it. But if we do not listen for the voice of our conscience, its advice is drowned out by conflicting desires, our “hearts” (minds) make less virtuous decisions, and we reflexively invent devious rationalizations for them.

“Who can understand it?” indicates that people cannot fully understand even their own minds, nor the minds of their fellow human beings. Only God can investigate a human’s psychology and understand everything inside, heart and kidneys.

Jeremiah: Examine me and my enemies

Biblical characters who believe they are virtuous, and their enemies are not, welcome God’s investigation of human minds. In two other poetic passages in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet urges God to examine and punish his enemies. Before this week’s haftarah, Jeremiah reports that God told him idolaters from his hometown, Anatot, were scheming to kill him in order to stop his prophesies.

Then God let me know, and I knew.

That was when you let me see their deeds.

And I was like a docile lamb who was brought to slaughter,

And I did not know that they had plotted plots against me …

So God of Hosts, righteous judge,

Who examines kidneys (conscience) and heart (mind),

Let me see your vengeance upon them!

For I bring my case to you. (Jeremiah 11:18-20)

In a passage after this week’s haftarah, Jeremiah is released from prison in Jerusalem but cannot stop speaking God’s prophecies, even though the city is full of informers. He uses similar language about these Jerusalemites:

So God of Hosts, righteous examiner,

Who sees kidneys (conscience) and heart (mind),

Let me see your vengeance upon them!

For I bring my case to you. (Jeremiah 20:12)

Psalm 139: Improve my thoughts

Psalm 139 begins:

God, you investigate me and you know me.

You know when I sit down or get up.

You see my thoughts from afar. (Psalm 139:1-2)

The psalmist marvels at everything God knows about a person, concluding:

Knowledge is too extraordinary for me;

It is too high; I am not capable of it. (Psalm 139:6)

The next verse is:

Where could I go from your spirit?

And where could I disappear from your presence? (Psalm 139: 7)

The 19^th-century commentator S.R. Hirsch elaborated on these two questions, filling in the context: “Where could I go to escape Your ‘spirit’ so that it might not move me, stir me, fill my heart and summon my conscience before Your judgment seat? And whither could I flee from Your ‘countenance’ where You would not see me, where Your rule would not touch me?”²

In other words, God is not an abstract omniscient deity to the psalmist; they feel God’s spirit move through their mind, move their own spirit, and summon their own conscience—which then reminds the mind of God’s judgment.

The next five verses expand on how there is no place to hide from God. The psalmist then explains:

Because you yourself produced my kidneys (conscience);

You wove me together in my mother’s belly. (Psalm 139:13)

After realizing the intimate relationship between the inner conscience and the judgement of God, the psalmist concludes by asking for God’s evaluation:

Search me, God, and know my heart (mind);

Examine me and know my thoughts,

And see if a distressing road (line of conduct) is in me;

Then lead me on an everlasting road (line of conduct)! (Psalm 139:23-24)

The conscience has won.

The human mind is devious, Jeremiah says in this week’s haftarah. When we become accustomed to avoiding the advice of our conscience, our excuses and self-deception become pathological. Only God can investigate a human’s psychology, see through the deception, and deal justice to evildoers.

The writer of Psalm 139 finds God’s attention to the human mind uncomfortably invasive at first, but then welcomes God’s correction through one’s innate conscience. It is better to give up transitory secret pleasures, the psalmist concludes, in order to lead a life dedicated to doing the right things.

Some people succumb to immoral impulses frequently, and deceive themselves as well as others about their motivations. As Jeremiah says, the human mind is naturally devious. But as Psalm 139 says, humans are born with a conscience.³ It is up to us to decide how much to listen to it, and how much to reject it and rationalize our decisions.

Midrash Tehillim (a collection of commentary on the Psalms completed by the 11^th century C.E.), Psalm 14:1 on Jeremiah 17:10.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Tehillim, translated by Gertrude Hirschler, Feldheim Publishers, Nanuet, NY, 2014 (original German edition 1882), p. 1107.
Except, perhaps, for the small percentage of humans who are sociopathic or psychopathic. It is still a matter of debate whether someone with a weak or nonexistent conscience is born that way, or becomes that way through certain kinds of early childhood trauma.

Psalm 73: When Good Things Happen

This week’s Torah portion is Bemidbar, the beginning of the book of Numbers/Bemidbar. But I am still pondering God’s promises of reward and punishment in the last portion in the book of Leviticus/Vayikra. This post will consider Psalm 73, a different take on divine recompense and retribution.

Next week I will write about the first two Torah portions in the book of Numbers, and catch up with the Jewish cycle of Torah readings!

Last week’s Torah portion, Bechukotai, quotes God as promising rewards to those who obey God’s rules and punishments to those who disobey them—with physical consequences here and now: food or starvation, health or sickness, peace or war, etc. (See my post Bechukotai & Jeremiah: Real Carrots and Sticks.) Yet often the good suffer and the wicked prosper, as Psalm 73 and the book of Job point out.

If God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and just, then why do so many good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to the good? Theologians have struggled with “the problem of evil” for millennia. Their solutions include:

Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz, 18th-cent. author of Theodicy on the Goodness of God

Best of All Possible Worlds and Free Will: This imperfect world that God created is the best of all possible worlds; God could not improve it in one way without making it worse in another way. Furthermore, the best possible world is one in which human beings freely choose what is good. God created a world containing evil as well as good so that humans could understand the difference, and choose to increase the goodness in the world.¹

(This answer means that if God modified any natural disasters, there would be some unimaginable dire effect. So we should not blame God for all the natural disasters that happened before man-made global warming took effect.

(It also means that if God tweaked human psychology to make our thinking less short-sighted and compartmentalized, so we made fewer inadvertent poor moral decisions, it would turn us into monsters in some other way.

(And it means that if God eliminated sociopaths from our species it would create some disaster. All of this strains belief.)

The Reward Is in Heaven: God rewards every good person and punishes every bad person—not in this world, but in an afterlife.²

(This answer requires belief in one or two mysterious other worlds that “exist” outside space and time. It also requires belief in a soul that can magically retain the identity of an individual person after death without any physical correlates.)

The Long Run: God is unconcerned about individuals, but has a master plan in which all humans will be good and this earth will be a paradise—in the long, long run, after many millennia. Too bad so many good people have to suffer along the way.³

(This answer posits a God unlike the one in the bible, who shows personal concern for at least some individuals and groups, and commands human judges to be fair to individuals.)

“I do not understand wonders too difficult for me.” (Job 42:3): Humans are incapable of understanding divine justice, which is radically different from human justice.⁴

(This answer is self-defeating. If we are incapable of understanding what God considers “good”, God’s injunctions in the bible do not mean what we think they do. Then how can we judge what God wants in new situations? And should we do what we know is right, or what we are guessing God wants?)

Is the problem of evil insoluble, then? Or does God reward the good and punish the bad in some other way?

Psalm 73

Psalm 73 opens:

Surely God is good to Israel

—to those who purify their hearts.⁵

As for me, my feet had almost turned aside;

My steps had nearly slipped,

Because I envied the revelers;

I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:1-3)

The psalmist goes on to describe how fat and healthy the wicked are, despite the fact that they oppress people and speak with malice. They seem to be getting away with a selfish and cruel way of life.

They avoid the toil of other men,

And lo yenuga-u with [the rest of] humankind. …

Hey! These are the wicked, yet they are always complacent.

They pile up wealth.

Surely in vain have I kept my heart morally pure

And washed my palms with innocence!

For I was nagua every day,

And I was chastised every morning. (Psalm 73:5, 12-14)

lo yenuga-u (לֺא יְנֻגָּעוּ) = they are not afflicted, hurt. (lo = not + a form of the verb naga, נָגַע = touch, afflict, hurt, strike.)

nagua (נָגוּעַ) = touched, afflicted, hurt. (Another form of the verb naga.)

Job 1, by Ivan Mestrovic, 1943 (photo by M.C.)

We do not learn what the speaker’s affliction was, but elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible the “touch” of God often causes a disease or plague.⁶

While Job is sitting on the ash-heap scratching his putrid sores he says:

“Be kind! Be kind! You are my friends!

For the hand of God nagah me.” (Job 19:21)

nagah (נָגְעָה) = touched, afflicted. (Another form of the verb naga.)

Like Job, the speaker in Psalm 73 is innocent of wrongdoing, but nevertheless afflicted. The speaker considers telling the world that the wicked are rewarded and the good are punished, but then realizes:

If I said: “I will recount [this] exactly”

Hey, I would be backstabbing your children’s generation!

And when I evaluated and understood this,

It was trouble in my sight. (Psalm 73:15-16)

Unlike the wicked, the speaker cares about the welfare of the next generation, and feels responsible for promoting good behavior so that people will not harm each other.

The speaker’s second insight is that although the wicked think their path is smooth, it is actually slippery, and sooner or later they will fall.

Surely you set them [the wicked] on slippery footing,

You cast them down into destruction.

How they become a horror in an instant!

They reach the limit, they come to an end in terror.

Like awakening from a dream, my Lord,

The city finds their shadow contemptible. (Psalm 73:18-20)

Suddenly their wickedness will be revealed to everyone, and people will turn against them. Then their complacency will change into terror.

The psalmist does not tell us the nature of their terror. Are the wicked afraid that now “the city” will be as cruel to them as they were to others? Or do they recognize their own guilt?

The third insight is that mental agitation and pangs of conscience come from God.

When my mind was agitated

and my conscience was stabbed,

Then I was a dolt and I did not know;

I was [like] the beasts with you.

Yet I was always with you;

You held fast to my right hand. (Psalm 73:20-23)

Since God is always available, the wicked have to deliberately turn away from God and ignore their consciences in order to continue doing bad deeds. But the speaker did not pull away. The speaker’s affliction, as a “touch” from God, might even have led him or her to reflect deeply enough to feel the stab of conscience.

Through your counsel you guided me

And in the end, you will take me in honor. (Psalm 73:24)

Martin Buber explained, “God counsels by making known that He is present”.⁷

Unlike the wicked, the psalmist says, someone who follows God’s counsel will be honored after death. But Psalm 73 focuses on life in this world. And in this world the wicked travel so far from God that eventually nobody listens to them anymore.

Because hey! Those far away from [God] go astray;

Everyone who is unfaithful to [God] is silenced.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.

I place my refuge in my lord God, and I recount all of your works. (Psalm 73:27-28)

Doing the right things leads to an inner satisfaction, the good experience of feeling the nearness of God. This inner reward is a refuge when outer circumstances are difficult.

“The nearness of God is my good” is the best answer I know to the problem of evil. But it is incomplete. A thoughtful adult might well conclude that virtue is its own reward, and physical suffering is unimportant compared to the reward of a contented conscience. But what about the millions of innocent children who have suffered, physically and psychologically, and then died without growing up?

Must we believe that this is nevertheless the best of all possible worlds? Or that children who have been tortured will get a good “life” in a non-physical afterlife? Or that all the children destroyed by the Holocaust are unimportant compared to some ideal distant future? Or that a superior, divine point of view considers our outrage and empathy for these children foolish?

Even though doing the right thing is intrinsically rewarding, it is only a partial solution to the problem of evil in a world created by a God who is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and just judge.

We might ask whether this notion of God is a naïve concept.

—

Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz presented this argument in Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, 1710, and was satirized by Voltaire in Candide, 1759, in which Dr. Pangloss chirps that this is “the best of all possible worlds” at inopportune times.
This is Rabbi Yitzchak Abravanel’s answer to the problem of evil in his 15th-century commentary on Leviticus, as well as a common answer in Christian and Muslim traditions.
Cf. Isaiah 46:10-13; Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamozov.
Cf. the book of Job.
My translation is informed by 19^th-century rabbi S.R. Hirsch on the psalm’s use of the word bar (ּבַּר) instead of tahor (טָהוֹר) for “pure”. “A man may be לב טהוֹר by nature and disposition. However, the designation לב בר can be applied only to him whose purity of mind is a result of his own efforts at self-improvement.” (Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Tehillim, translated by Gertrude Hirschler, Feldheim Publishers, Nanuet, NY, 2014, p. 597)
Eg. Genesis 12:17, 2 Kings 15:5, Isaiah 53:4, Job 2:5, 2 Chronicles 26:20.
Martin Buber, Good and Evil, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1952, p. 43.

Sukkot & Kohelet: Rejoicing Without Justice

Life on earth is the only life humans get, according the Hebrew Bible (except the second-century B.C.E. book of Daniel¹). The souls of all dead humans, good and bad, go to Sheol, an underground place of oblivion. There is no reward or punishment for human deeds after death.

The reward for virtue in most of the Hebrew Bible is a long and healthy life with male descendants and a good reputation. The punishment for wicked deeds is an early death, the early death of one’s children, or being forgotten.

Do not get inflamed over evildoers;

Do not envy those who do wrong.

For quickly they will dry up like grass;

Like green plants they will wither. (Psalm 37:1-2)

In a little while the wicked one will be no more;

When you look at his place, he will not be there.

But the humble will take possession of the earth

And delight in abundant well-being. (Psalm 37:10-11)

For the wicked will be shattered,

But God supports the virtuous. (Psalm 37:17)

In the Psalms, God is omnipotent and just. If bad things happen to good people, they are temporary setbacks, and only those who have done something wrong suffer sickness and beg God for mercy.

At Yom Kippur services, Jews pray to a God who tempers justice with mercy. Besides begging God to forgive us for our misdeeds, we chant God’s self-description to Moses in the “thirteen attributes”, including “a compassionate and gracious god, slow to anger and abounding in kindness and dependability.”²

Four days after the sun sets on Yom Kippur we begin the week of Sukkot, when the Torah commands us to “rejoice before God, your God, seven days”.³ Rejoicing seems appropriate after the work of atonement is done, the last crops have been harvested, and the grapes have been pressed for new wine. Life is good.

But the Torah reading for Sukkot also says:

In sukkot you must dwell for seven days. All the citizens of Israel must dwell in sukkot, so that your (future) generations will know that I made the Israelites dwell in sukkot when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 23:42-43)

sukkot (סֻכֺּת) = temporary shelters; huts made of branches and mats to provide shade for harvesters in fields and vineyards, for travelers, or for cattle. (The roofs of ritual sukkot must provide more shade than sun, but still let in any rain.)

So we rejoice even though our shelters are temporary, our harvest is temporary, and our lives are temporary. During Sukkot we read the book of Ecclesiastes/Kohelet, which begins:

Haveil of havalim, said Kohelet.

Haveil of havalim! Everything is havel. (Ecclesiastes/Kohelet 1:2)

haveil (הֲבֵל), havel (הָבֶל), or hevel (הֶבֶל) = puff of air, vapor; ephemeral, futile, fleeting. (“Vanity” in the King James Bible. Plural: havalim (הֲבָלִים).)

All human achievements and human lives are as temporary as puff of air. Meanwhile the seasons go around forever, like the cycles of the sun, the winds, and the water.

And there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Furthermore Kohelet observes that wisdom and foolishness, virtue and wickedness, make no difference in the fate of human beings. Kohelet does not question God’s omnipotence, and refers to God as judging humans according to their virtue, but concludes that humans cannot change the quality or length of their lives through good deeds or religious observances. God has predetermined everything.

And I said to myself: The virtuous and the wicked God will judge … God sifts them out only to show them they are beasts. Because the fate of the sons of humankind and the fate of beasts are one fate, since this one dies and that one dies. The spirit of the human has no advantage over the beast, since everything is hevel. They all go to one place, they all come from the dust and they all return to the dust. (Ecclesiasters 3:17-20)

Humans die like beasts. But does God grant virtuous humans any of the biblical rewards during their lifetimes—

—by giving them longer lives?

I have seen everything in my days of hevel. There is a virtuous one perishing in his virtue, and there is a wicked one living long in his evil. (Ecclesiastes 7:15)

—by giving them descendants to inherit what they built?

And I hated everything I earned from my toil that I was toiling under the sun, that I would leave it to the human who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? But he will control everything I earned from my toil that I toiled, and that I gained by wisdom under the sun. This, too, is havel. (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19)

—or by giving them renown in the memories of those who follow?

There is no remembrance of the wise or of the fool. For it is already certain that in the days to come everything will be forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 2:16)

After examining what actually happens on earth, “under the sun”, Kohelet concludes that dispensing justice is simply not something that God does.

Then is there any point in avoiding evil?

Kohelet considers any pleasure in life an unpredictable gift from God.⁴ But he recommends against either drowning in despair or drowning in sensuality. The wisest course of action is to enjoy simple physical pleasures, friendship, and love.

Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a good heart, because long ago God was favorable … At all times let your clothes be clean and let your head be oiled. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-8)

Friendship is also valuable.

Better are a pair than one alone, for they get good recompense for their toil. For if they fall, one can raise his friend, but if one falls alone there is no second one to raise him. Also if a pair lie down together they are warm, but for one alone there is no warmth. And if one is attacked, the pair can stand against [the attacker]. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Succumbing to a woman who is a sexual predator leads to bitterness, not enjoyment.⁵ But if one happens to have a good spouse, that is another reason to rejoice.

Enjoy life with a woman whom you love all the hevel days of your life that have been given to you under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 9:9)

According to Kohelet, the only good that humans can do is to appreciate the good things in their ephemeral lives. But later Jewish tradition adds that in situations even when God is not righting wrongs, humans should do what they can to improve the world. Kohelet notes the violent oppression that humans commit, but does not advocate taking any action to reduce it.⁶ Nevertheless, Kohelet says:

All that you find your hand has the power to do, do it, because there is no doing or learning or wisdom in Sheol where you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

I believe that the best life, however fleeting, is one in which we not only enjoy the physical pleasure, friendship, and love that come our way, but also do everything within our own power to improve life for other humans, and for all living things under the sun.

—

Daniel 12:1-3 describes the resurrection of at least some of the dead, perhaps in messianic times. (See my post Vayeilekh: The End of Days.) Another work written in the second century B.C.E., the non-canonical Book of Enoch, describes the separation of virtuous souls from wicked souls in preparation for the resurrection of the virtuous and the torture of sinners. Only after the first century C.E. did the writers of the Christian New Testament and the rabbis of the Talmud imagine an afterlife in which good souls are rewarded in a heaven and bad souls suffer in a hell.
Exodus 34:6.
Leviticus 23:40. The Torah reading for the first day of Sukkot is Leviticus/Vayikra 22:26-23:44.
Ecclesiastes 3:12-14.
Ecclesiastes 7:26.
Ecclesiastes 4:1-3.

Psalm 130 & Yom Kippur: Waiting for Forgiveness

When we are guilty of harming another person, we can often acknowledge what we did, apologize to the person we wronged, offer to make amends, and promise not to do it again. Then our human victim may forgive us.

But what if we have wronged God, or the divine spirit within us? Is forgiveness even possible?

One answer is found in Psalm 130, traditionally read between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which begins this year at sunset on Wednesday.

Levites singing on the temple steps, by James J.J. Tissot

(A song of ascending steps.)

From the depths I called to you, God:

“My lord, hear my voice!

May your ears be attentive to the voice of my plea.”

If you kept a watch over avonot, my lord Yah,

Who could stand?

However, forgiveness is yours

So that tivarei.

I hoped for God,

My soul hoped,

And I waited for God’s word.

My soul [watches] for my lord

More than watchmen for the morning,

Watching for the morning. (Psalm 130:1-6)

avonot (עֲוֺנֺת) = wrongdoing, immoral activity, intentional sins. (Singular avon, עָוֹן.)

tivarei (תִּוָּרֵא) = you will be feared, you will inspire awe. (From the root yarei, יָרֵא = was afraid of, was in awe of, was reverent of.)

The speaker (whom I will call “they”) cries out to God from the depths of mental suffering due to guilt. How can they forgive themselves for deliberately doing something morally wrong? Their only hope is that God will forgive them. But at first they cannot quite believe God would grant forgiveness out of compassion. So the speaker hypothesizes two other motivations:

1) If God held every human being accountable for every avon, nobody would be left standing, left alive. Perhaps the speaker recalls that God swore not to destroy the world again after the Flood, even though “the inventions of the human mind are evil from youth”.⁴ Therefore God must look the other way sometimes.

2) Forgiveness is one of the ways God inspires awe. Being forgiven by God seems incredible to the speaker, so amazing they would be dumbstruck and trembling. And this is just what God wants; throughout the bible God asks to be regarded with fear and awe. Instead of rewarding awe with forgiveness, maybe God forgives in order to earn the awe.

The last two verses of Psalm 130 switch from a guilty individual to the Israelites as a whole. Being human, they have all transgressed in one way or another. But when the speaker steps back from their own need for forgiveness and embraces a larger perspective, they realize that God forgives out of kindness.

Israel will wait for God

Because with God is steadfast kindness

And abundant redemption.

And [God] will ransom Israel

From all its avonot. (Psalm 130:7-8)

Despite all the times the Israelites disobeyed God by worshiping idols, ignoring the poor, and committing injustice, God does redeem the Israelites from their captivity in Babylonia in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The speaker in Psalm 130 hopes that this means it is God’s nature to forgive. They wait and watch for the morning of a new day, a new life, that God will grant them.

If we have not already made atonement with human beings whom we wronged or who wronged us during the past year, Jews try to do it before Yom Kippur starts. We do not always succeed. I have found myself apologizing to people who don’t take me seriously, and to people who don’t remember the incident that I feel guilty about. Often the only people who ask me for forgiveness are the ones who have always been kind and respectful, while those who actually hurt me never apologize. But I do the best I can to make amends, clearing the way to seeking atonement with God on Yom Kippur.

How do we wrong God?

drawing by Dugald Stewart Walker (1883-1937)

In the book of Leviticus/Vayikra, the high priest atones for the whole community in the Torah portion Acharei Mot (which is chanted at Yom Kippur services) through a ritual involving two goats. (See my post Acharey Mot: Azazel.)

And Aaron shall both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess upon it all the avonot of the Israelites and all their insubordinations, for all their chatot, and put them on the head of the goat. And it shall be sent by the hand of a designated man into the wilderness. (Leviticus/Vayikra 16:21)

chatot (חטֺּאת) = wrongdoing, misdeeds, lapses, unintentional offenses. (Singular chatat, חַטָּאת or cheit, חֵטְא. The root of the noun is the verb chata (חָטָא) = missed the mark, offended, was at fault, was guilty.)

In Leviticus, rules for purity and rituals, as well as ethical principles, are labeled as avonot and chatot. These words for intentional and unintentional offenses are applied to everything from touching an animal that died of natural causes to hating one’s neighbor.¹

But in the liturgy for Yom Kippur, we wrong God only when we succumb to evil thoughts and unethical behavior.

Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, by Maurycy Gottlieb

On Yom Kippur, Jews chant two confessional prayers again and again: the Ashamnu and the Al Cheit, both extant in the 9^th century C.E.² The Ashamnu (אָשַׁמְנוּ = We have become guilty), is a list of 23 immoral actions that begins with betrayal, robbery, and slander, and ends with leading others astray. After confessing that we, as a group, have been wicked in all these ways, the prayer asks God to “make atonement for us for all our chatot, forgive us for all our avonot, and pardon us for all our insubordinations”.

The Al Cheit (עַל חֵטא = For the wrong) is a list of both immoral actions and bad attitudes (such as arrogance and recklessness) that lead to wrongdoing. Each line begins with:

Al cheit shechatanu lefanekha (עַל חֵטא שֶׁחָטָאנוּ לְפָנֶיךָ) = For the wrong that we have done wrong in your presence.

“Your presence” means the presence of God. Some people think of God as the ruler of the universe; for others, God is the “still, small voice” inside.³ Either way, God notices the bad deeds and wicked thoughts we are guilty of, even when no humans do. And our souls or psyches are affected.

After each group of six or more bad deeds or attitudes in the Al Cheit, we sing this refrain:

Ve-a’ kulam, Eloha selichot, selach lanu, machal lanu, kaper lanu! (וְעַל כֻּלָּם אֱלוֹהַּ סְלִיחוֹת סְלַח לָנוּ מְחַל לָנוּ כַּפֶּר לָנוּ) = And for all of them, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, reconcile with us!

We confess that we are guilty as a group, and we wait, like Israel in Psalm 130, for God’s forgiveness.

Yet it is impossible not to think of our individual moral failings when we spend all day praying for forgiveness.

How do we wrong God?

If humans are made in God’s image,⁵ then we wrong God both when we wrong other humans, and when we damage our own souls. I believe we degrade our souls when we treat other people as objects, when we selfishly or carelessly hurt or neglect or endanger any of our fellow human beings.

If we are lucky, we realize what we did wrong—maybe the same year, maybe many years later. Then we feel guilty. We can make any amends that are possible, and we can sincerely change our ways. Then we only need to wait until we hear the still, small voice of God releasing us from guilt.

May we all find our way to forgiveness.

—

See Leviticus 4:2-3, 4:13, 5:1-6, 7:18, and 24:15 on transgressing ritual laws, and Leviticus 18:6-25, 19:17, and 19:20-22 on transgressing ethical laws.
In the Siddur Rav Amram, compiled by Amram ben Sheshna, the Gaon of Sura.
1 Kings 19:12. When God crosses in front of the cave where the prophet Elijah is hiding, there is a windstorm, an earthquake, and a fire, but God is not in any of these things. After the fire Elijah hears “a thin, murmuring sound” or “a soft murmuring voice”, and knows God is there.
Genesis 8:21.
According to Genesis 1:27 and 5:1.

Psalm 27: Not Forsaken

The Hebrew month of Elul began Sunday evening. This is the month for Jews to listen to the wake-up call of the shofar (ram’s horn), add Psalm 27 to our prayers, and identify where we went wrong during the past year. We begin apologizing to the people we wronged, and repenting of our deeds that wronged God.

By the end of Yom Kippur (“Day of Atonement”) next month,¹ we hope to have made amends with both human beings and the divine spirit within us.

Psalm 27:1-9, promise and plea

The custom of reading Psalm 27 every day during the month of Elul began in the mid-18^th century.² How does that psalm help us in our work of self-review and repentance?

One answer is that we are begging God for forgiveness, and Psalm 27 includes both a promise and a plea about God’s response in times of trouble. It begins with the promise, a statement of faith that God will continue to help the poet:

God is my light and my salvation; whom would I fear?

God is the stronghold of my life; whom should I dread? (Psalm 27:1)

Later in the psalm, the speaker is less certain of God’s benign attention, and begs:

Listen to my voice, God, when I call!

And by gracious to me, and answer me! (Psalm 27:7)

Do not conceal your face from me, do not turn away from your servant in anger!

My helper you have been.

Don’t you cast me off, and don’t ta-azveini, God of my salvation! (Psalm 27:9)

ta-azveini (תַּעַזְבֵנִי) = you leave me, forsake me, abandon me, give up on me, set me free. (A form of the verb azav, עָזַב.)

Psalm 27:10, abandonment

Another answer is that Psalm 27 contains this couplet guaranteeing that God will accept anyone who sincerely repents:³

Although my father and my mother azavuni,

God ya-asefeini. (Psalm 27:10)

azavuni (עֲזָבוּנִי) = they have left me, forsaken me, deserted me, neglected me, set me free. (Another form of the verb azav.)

ya-asefeini (יַאַסְפֵנִי) = will gather me in, will take me in. (A form of the verb asaf, אָסַף.)

In other words, even if my parents kick me out, God will take me in.

The standard interpretation of this couplet is that all parents are attached to their children at first, but let them go at some point. God, on the other hand, is always ready to bring us in and take care of us, no matter how old we are.

For 16^th-century rabbi Obadiah Sforno, parents set their children free when they reach adulthood, and after that only God helps them. For some later commentators, parents love their children indefinitely, unless the children commit unforgivable acts; but even then, God is willing to forgive them.⁴ 19^th-century rabbi S.R. Hirsch rephrases Psalm 27:10 this way: “For even if I were so depraved that my own father and mother would abandon me and leave me to my own devices, God would still take me up and believe in my ability to mend my ways.”⁵

This interpretation of Psalm 27:10 follows the usual psychology of an abused or neglected child. Parents have absolute power over their children, so it would be devastating to believe that these god-like creatures were unjust, inflicting punishment for no reason. Therefore most abused or neglected children assume that they are the “bad” ones, that they deserve what they get, and that if only they can manage to do the right things, their parents will reciprocate with protection and affection.

Of course this strategy does not work, since the parents are defective because of their own psychological problems. So then it helps to believe that “Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, God will take me in.” Adult children who still feel as though anything that goes wrong must be their own fault can take comfort in this view of God as the supreme parent.

I can imagine people who grew up with loving, attentive, and empathetic parents either skipping over Psalm 27:10, or interpreting it as “Even when my father and my mother have [died and] left me, God will gather me in [like a good parent].” Perhaps they picture confessing a mistake to God, and God enfolding them in a forgiving embrace.

What about people whose parents were neither terrible nor excellent, but merely inadequate? What about those of us with parents who provided us with meals and clothing, some signs of affection, and punishments only for actual disobedience; but who made us feel like failures? Can we find encouragement in Psalm 27:10?

I know some people brought up by inadequate parents who think of God as an improved parent, an invisible presence who substitutes for what they missed. I take a different approach. I gradually learned to recognize my parents’ flaws and stop blaming myself, and I worked hard to be a better parent to my own child. Now I think of God not as a substitute parent, but as the inner inspiration that sets me free to choose my path.

As for Psalm 27:10, I take it as a goal for ethical behavior. If one of my fellow human beings is forsaken and deserted by others, I would like to welcome that person and offer my attention and kindness. I cannot be a substitute for a forgiving God; after all, I am not omnipotent, so I need to avoid outcasts who would put me in danger. But a harmless outcast might only need someone to talk to.

I regret the times this past year when I have ignored people. I hope to become someone who listens.

—

Yom Kippur is the 10^th of Tishrei, the month after Elul in the Hebrew calendar.
The recitation of Psalm 27 continues until Hoshanah Rabbah, the 21st of Tishrei. This custom was first recorded by Rabbi Ya’aokov Emden in Siddur Bet Yaakov, 1745.
Rabbi Nosson Scherman, The Complete ArtScroll Machzor: Yom Kippur, Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1987, p. xiv.
Including Scherman (ibid); and Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms, W. Norton & Co., New York, 2007, p. 93.
Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Tehillim, translated from German by Gertrude Hirschler, Feldheim Publishers, 2014, p. 237.

Vayikra & Vayechi: Kidneys and Faces

After a delay while I wrote a dialogue for Passover and addressed some family issues, I am back at work on my book on Genesis this week, considering the moral ramifications of Joseph’s version of pardoning his ten older brothers.

Joseph’s brothers make two attempts to get Joseph to forgive them for their shameful misdeed when he was seventeen and they sold him as a slave bound for Egypt. The second attempt happens in the last Torah portion of the book of Genesis, Vayechi.

Since their first attempt failed (see my recent post Testifying to Divine Providence )¹ they try a ploy that they hope will be more persuasive; they pretend that before their father, Jacob, died, he left the following message for Joseph:

“Please sa, please, the rebellion of your brothers and their guilt because of the evil they rendered to you. And now sa, please, the rebellion of the servants of the god of your father.” (Genesis/Bereishit 50:17)

sa (שָׂא) = lift up! pardon! forgive! (From the root verb nasa, נָשָׂא= lifted, raised, pardoned.)

Are they asking Joseph, who is now Pharaoh’s viceroy, to pardon them, or to forgive them? In English, pardoning means excusing someone who committed an error or offense from some of the usual practical consequences. A United States president can pardon someone who was convicted of a crime, commuting that person’s sentence, without having to list any extenuating circumstances. And the president’s feelings about the offender are irrelevant.

Forgiving, on the other hand, means letting go of one’s resentment against the person who committed an error or offense.

Biblical Hebrew, however, makes no distinction between pardoning and forgiving; it only distinguishes who is doing it. Soleach (סֺלֵחַ) means “forgiving” or “pardoning”, but it is only used in the Hebrew Bible when God is forgiving or pardoning one or more human beings.

Nosei (נֺשֵׂא) has several meanings, including pardoning, and it is something either God or a human can do. When God or a human is pardoning someone in the Hebrew Bible, the text says either nosei their head, nosei their face, or just nosei. The reader has to figure out from context whether it is a reference to forgiving/pardoning, or to one of the other meanings of nosei (such as taking a census for nosei their head, bestowing favor for nosei their face, or lifting and carrying an object for nosei by itself).

After Jacob dies, Joseph’s older brothers worry that Joseph might decide to take revenge on them after all. They are still carrying guilt in their kidneys.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, discusses burning the kidneys of an animal slaughtered on the altar. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, human kidneys are the seat of the conscience or moral sense. (See my post on the subject by clicking here: Vayikra & Jeremiah: Kidneys.) For example, Psalm 16 recognizes the kidneys as the source of a guilty conscience.

I bless God, who has advised me;

Even the nights my kidneys chastised me. (Psalm 16:7)

When your kidneys chastise you for wronging another human being, you long for your victim to lift your face in forgiveness.

—

Genesis 45:4-8.

Tetzaveh & Vayigash: Testifying to Divine Providence

What can you give God, when God has given abundantly to you?

Illustration from Northrop, Treasures of the Bible, 1894

Burning something is the standard method for expressing gratitude to God in the Torah. God loves the smell of smoke, whether it comes from animal fat burning on the courtyard altar, or incense burning on the golden altar just inside the Tent of Meeting.

In this week’s Torah portion, Tetzavveh, God tells Moses the ritual for consecrating both the courtyard altar and the new priests, a ritual that includes a lot of fat burning.¹ After burning the fat parts of a bull and all of one ram, the priests to be ordained must hold up the fat parts of the “ram of ordination”, along with its right thigh and three kinds of grain products.

Then you shall take them from their hands and you shall turn them into smoke on the altar, on top of the rising offering, for a soothing fragrance before God; it is a fire-offering for God. (Exodus 29:25)

The end of the Torah portion describes the construction of the incense altar and decrees that the high priest must burn incense on it twice a day.² Apparently God needs a lot of soothing.

Only a few psalms and the writings of a few prophets indicate that one can also worship God through words. See my post: Tetzavveh & Psalms 141, 51, and 40: Smoke and Prayer.

Serving God through words also has a precedent in the Joseph story in the book of Genesis. In the chapter in my book on the portion Vayigash, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and explains that they are not to blame for throwing him into a pit and selling him as a slave all those years ago, because it was all part of God’s plan to bring the whole family down to Egypt during the seven-year famine.³

He intends to reassure his older brothers, but they are not thrilled to hear that they have no free will. Joseph kisses them and sobs on their necks, but they merely become able to speak to him.⁴

The author of Psalm 40, like Joseph, expresses his religious attitude by giving verbal testimony about divine providence.⁵ Unlike Joseph, he later becomes insecure and reminds God:

I did not conceal your righteousness in the middle of my heart;

I spoke of your reliability and your deliverance.

I did not conceal from a great assembly your loyal kindness and your fidelity.

You, God, you will not hold back your compassion from me;

Your loyal kindness and your fidelity will always guard me. (Psalm 40:11-12)

Faith in divine providence is easy in hindsight, as it was for Joseph. But when troubles are still threatening you, you need to keep reminding yourself of your belief, like the author of Psalm 40. And when someone else tells you not to worry about your past crime because it all worked out for the best, you may feel cheated of a chance to make amends, like Joseph’s brothers.

—

Exodus 29:12-25.
Exodus 30:1-9.
Genesis 45:4-8.
Genesis 45:15.
We can assume the speaker is a man because he is allowed to speak to a “great assembly”, something no woman could do at that place and time.

Tazria & Psalms 38 & 88: Isolation of the Sick

Tazria

Four men with tzara-at plunder an empty tent in 2 Kings 7:8

Instructions for diagnosing the biblical skin disease of tzara-at (צָרַעַת) fill most of this week’s Torah portion, Tazria (“She makes seed”). The end of the portion finally says what happens to people who have tzara-at.

And the person marked with tzara-at, his clothes shall be torn and his head [of hair] shall be disheveled, and he shall cover his lips, and he shall call out: “Tamei!” All the days that the mark is on him he shall be continually tamei. Alone he shall dwell; outside the camp is his dwelling-place. (Leviticus/Vayikra 13:45-46)

tamei (טָמֵא) = contaminated, ritually impure, unfit for worshiping God.

Torn clothes, wild hair, and covered lips are all signs of mourning in the Hebrew Bible.¹ People afflicted with tzara-at are not dead. But like those who mourn a family member’s death, they mourn their separation from those they love. They can no longer live together, or even come within touching distance. Calling out “Tamei” keeps people away, since the condition of being tamei (though not the skin disease itself) is contagious. Being tamei also prevents people with tzara-at from approaching God in the sanctuary courtyard.

Once a priest diagnoses tzara-at, the person with the disease is isolated from the camp, the community, and the service of God. The isolation may not be permanent; next week’s Torah portion, Metzora, includes the rituals for removing the tamei status of those who have recovered from tza-arat and reintegrating them back into the community. Later in the bible are examples of two people healed by divine intervention,² four men who do not expect they will ever recover,³ and a king who has tzara-at until he dies.⁴

The Psalms never mention tzara-at, but two psalms consider the anguish of someone with a serious disease—not because of pain, but because of isolation.

Psalm 38

The bible generally assumes that disease is a punishment God inflicts when one has done the wrong thing. The speaker in Psalm 38 declares:

There is no sound spot in my flesh thanks to your curse,

There is no peace in my bones thanks to my error.

For my crimes pass through my head

Like a heavy burden, too heavy for me.

My wounds are making a stench

Through my own folly. (Psalm 38:4-6)

After complaining about a twisted body, burning guts, numbness, a violent heartbeat, and weakness, the speaker brings up another problem:

My loving ones and my friends stand apart from my affliction;

Those who are close to me stand meirachok. (Psalm 38:12)

Job, his Wife and his Friends. by William Blake, ca. 1785

meirachok (מֵרָחֺק) = at a distance, from away, staying far away. (A form of the verb rachak, רָחַק = was distant, drifted away from, kept far away.)

In the book of Job, the afflicted person’s “comforters” cluster around to tell him his sickness is his own fault, since God only sends disease to those who have sinned. In Psalm 38, the speaker believes the sickness is a well-deserved punishment, but the speaker’s friends stay away.

Meanwhile, the speaker’s enemies plot to take advantage of his illness, and the speaker is unable to hear or rebuke them. The only one left to listen to an appeal is God.

Because for you, God, I have hoped.

You will answer me, my master, my God.

Because I thought: “Lest they rejoice over me

When my foot staggers, magnify themselves over me!”

For I am certainly stumbling,

And my anguish is in front of me always. (Psalm 38:16-17)

The psalm ends:

Do not give up on me, God!

My God, do not tirechak from me!

Hasten to my aid,

My master, my rescuer. (Psalm 38:22-23)

tirechak (תִּרְחַק) = you stay distant, you keep away. (Another form of the verb rachak.)

The speaker is isolated from friends and family, who therefore cannot provide comfort; isolated from enemies, who scheme outside the speaker’s hearing range; and isolated from God, who does not seem to be present.

Psalm 88

Psalm 88 opens with a sick person’s plea to God.

May my prayer come before you,

Stretch out your ears to my cry!

Because my living body is sated with bad things;

And my life has reached the brink of death.

I am counted among those who go into the pit.

I have become a strongman without strength. (Psalm 88:3-5)

This speaker blames God—who made him sick—for isolation from friends.

Hirechakta from me those who know me;

You make me abhorrent to them;

Imprisoned, I cannot go out. (Psalm 88:9)

hirechakta (הִרְחַקְתָּ) = you removed to a distance, you kept (something) far away. (Another form of the verb rachak.)

Then the sick person offers God a motivation for healing, pointing out that only the living can praise God.

Do you do wonders for the dead?

Do ghosts rise and praise you? (Psalm 88:10)

Yet the speaker remains isolated from God as well.

Why, God, do you reject me,

Do you hide your face from me? (Psalm 88:15)

The psalm ends with the pain of isolation.

Hirechakta my loving ones and my friends from me,

Those who know me—[into] darkness. (Psalm 88:19)

The worst thing about death is that it cuts off any possibility of communication, with humans or with God.⁵

Some people today have visible diseases, irregularities, or deformities, like the people with tzara-at in the bible. Although we no longer have a law isolating them, it is human nature to stare—or to carefully avoid looking at them. Meeting their eyes, smiling, and starting a normal conversation is harder, especially when the defect is on the face. Doing so anyway is the only ethical approach; yet because humans are weak and easily spooked, these people still suffer isolation.

Others today have invisible diseases; I am one. Reading Psalms 38 and 88 brings tears to my eyes. I can pass for healthy, and engage in society and communal worship like a healthy person (except that I cannot make a living because I’d need too many sick days, and I have to pace my activities to prevent exhaustion). I am grateful that I am not isolated from human company, and I have dear family and friends.

But with my whole heart I can speak or chant those words begging God: “Do not give up on me! Hasten to my aid! Why do you hide your face from me?”

I do not believe God afflicts us with physical problems as a punishment for disobedience or wrongdoing. Sometimes, in our misery, we expand our own set of physical problems with unwise behaviors. On the other hand, we may benefit from new scientific knowledge that repairs some of the things that go wrong in our bodies.

Nevertheless, I know that often bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. There is no divine justice for individuals.

Then why do we beg God to heal us? Why do we fix our hope on God?

Who else is there?

—

Mourners customarily tear their clothes in Leviticus 10:6-7 and 21:10-11, leave their hair loose and disheveled in in Leviticus 10:6-7 and 21:10-11 and Ezekiel 24:17, and cover their lips in Ezekiel 24:17.
The bible only records healing from tzara-at when there is divine intervention. In Numbers 12:10-15 God afflicts Miriam with tzara-at and then heals her. In 2 Kings 5:1-11, the prophet and miracle-worker Elisha heals General Na-aman of tzara-at.
2 Kings 7:3-16. The four men with tzara-at must stay outside the city walls even when the enemy is approaching to attack the city.
2 Kings 15:5. King Azaryah lives in an isolated house while his son Yotam does the king’s business in the palace and on the battlefield.
Walter Brueggemann points out in The Message of the Psalms, Augburg Publishing, Minneapolis, 1984, p. 79: “This is the voice of a dying one crying out to the only source of life. ‘The Pit’ [see Psalm 88:5] is not final judgment or a fiery place of punishment. It is only beyond the range of communion. For this speaker, communion with God is clearly everything.” I would amend this statement to say communion, with both human beings and God, is everything.

(P.S. I am transferring my domain name today. Future posts will be e-mailed to everyone following my blog, as before. Thank you, subscribers!)

Shemini, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, & Psalm 131: Silenced

Something shocking happens after the first priests, Aaron and his four sons, consecrate the new altar in this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (“Eighth”).¹

The Two Priests Are Destroyed, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aaron, each took his fire-pan and he put embers on it and he placed incense on it. And they brought alien fire in front of God, which [God] had not commanded them [to do]. And fire went out from before God, and it devoured them, and they died in front of God. Then Moses said to Aaron: “It is what God spoke, saying: Through those close to me, I will be proven holy; and in the presence of all the people I will be glorified.” And Aaron, vayidom. (Leviticus/Vayikra 10:1-3)

vayidom (וַיִּדֺּם) = he was silent, he became quiet; he was motionless. (A form of the verb damam, דָּמַם = was silent, quiet, still, motionless.²)

Why do Aaron’s two older sons bring unauthorized incense into the new tent-sanctuary? Why did Moses tell Aaron, who has just watched his sons die, that God said, “Through those close to me, I will be proven holy”? Why is Aaron is silent and still?

I have offered some speculations in previous blog posts. (See Shemini: Fire Meets Fire and Shemini: Mourning in Silence.) This year I wondered why Aaron’s silence continues beyond the initial shock of the catastrophe. Does guilt tie his tongue? Is he too exhausted or frightened to make a move, except to obey an order? Or is it possible that he has a moment of enlightenment?

After the first shock, Aaron might be unable to move or make a noise because he is overwhelmed by guilt. Maybe he set a bad example when he made an alien idol, the golden calf. Maybe he should have stopped Nadav and Avihu the instant when they filled their fire-pans. Maybe God is punishing him for doing the wrong thing.
After the first shock, he might remain silent at some signal from his brother Moses. As soon as Moses has arranged for Aaron’s cousins to remove the bodies, he orders Aaron and his two surviving sons to refrain from mourning.³ Aaron obediently remains silent until a question comes up about an animal offering; then he has recovered enough to take initiative again.⁴
After the first shock, Aaron might realize that no one is safe, not even Moses’ family. He did not survive the episode of the golden calf because he was Moses’ brother, but merely because God had another plan. God chose all four of his sons to serve as priests, then killed two of them on their first day of service. This is life, and anything can happen. In a moment of non-attachment, Aaron waits quietly for whatever happens next.

All three of these attitudes can be expressed with silence, as we see in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Psalm 131.

Jeremiah and Guilt

In the book of Jeremiah, God declares through the prophet that all the people of Jerusalem will die because they are guilty of persistent wrongdoing. At one point, Jeremiah interrupts:

Fortress on a Hill, by Augustin Hirschvogel, 1546

Why are we sitting here?

Let us gather and enter fortified towns, venidmah there.

For God, our God, hadimanu,

And has made us drink venom,

Because we offended God. (Jeremiah 8:14)

venidmah (וְנִדְּמָה) = and we will be still and wait. (Another form of the verb damam.)

hadimanu (הֲדִמָּנוּ) = has silenced us. (Also a form of damam.)

Jeremiah repeatedly declares that the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem will succeed because God is punishing the people for their sins. They are guilty, so they must be silent.

Ezekiel and Obedience

Moses tells Aaron and his surviving sons that priests may not bare their heads or tear their clothing even if a close family member dies. All the other Israelites can wail and mourn, but not the holy priests.

Mourning is also silenced in the book of Ezekiel, a prophet from a family of priests (who would be priest himself if the Babylonians had not deported him from Jerusalem). Ezekiel reports that God told him:

Ezekiel (with head-dress), by Michelangelo

Human, I am here taking away from you by pestilence what is precious in your eyes. And you may not beat the breast, nor wail, nor shed a tear. Groan in dom. You may not do mourning rites for the dead. You shall tie on your head-dress and put your sandals on your feet, and you may not cover your lips, and you may not eat the bread of other men. (Ezekiel 24:16-17)

dom (דֺּם) = silence. (From the verb damam.)

Ezekiel’s wife dies that night, and he obeys God’s orders. When the Jews in his community in Babylon ask him why he is not mourning, Ezekiel replies that this is how they should act when the temple in Jerusalem falls and the sons and daughters they left behind die by the sword. Like priests, they must not exhibit mourning even when God lets their beloved city and their children perish.

However, they must also remember their guilt.

… you shall not beat the breast and you shall not wail. But you shall rot in your crimes, and you shall moan, each man to his brother. (Ezekiel 24:23)⁵

Psalm 131 and Acceptance

After Nadav and Avihu die, Aaron is silent and motionless, a powerless man with nothing to do but wait.

Quiet acceptance is the theme of Psalm 131, a short poem translated here in full:

A song of ascents for David.

God, my heart is not haughty

And my eyes are not arrogant.

I have not gone after greatness

Or wonders too difficult for me.

I have found equilibrium vedomamti my soul.

Like a weaned child on its mother,

Like a weaned child is my soul.

Wait, Israel, for God

From now until forever. (Psalm 131:1-3)

vedomamti (וְדוֹמַמְתִּי) = and I have made quiet. (Also a form of the verb damam.)

The speaker is humble, not striving to achieve. He or she is weaned from attachment and dependence, and has found equilibrium⁶ and an inner state of peace and quiet. Such a person can wait patiently for God to manifest.

Does Aaron become a quiet and humble man after God devours his two older sons? Does he reach a state of peaceful non-attachment? Perhaps; when God says Aaron must die without entering the “promised land”, Aaron, unlike Moses, does not make a fuss.⁷

What would it take for your soul to become quiet and peaceful after a disaster?

See my post Shemini: Prayer and Glory.
Some translators distinguish between damam I, which refers to silence and stillness, damam II, which refers to quiet sobbing or murmuring, and damam III, which refers to being destroyed or perishing. I believe this distinction is unnecessary. A word indicating silence and stillness can also indicate a noise that is barely audible, like the “still, small voice” (demamah, דְּמָנָה) of God in 1 Kings 19:12. And every time a word with the root damam has been translated as being devastated or perishing, it appears in a poetic passage that easily accommodates a translation in terms of silencing or stopping all motion. (See Psalm 31:18 and Jeremiah 25:37, 48:2, 49:26 and 50:30, and 51:6.)
Leviticus 10:5-6.
Leviticus 10:16-20.
The translation of וּנְמַקֺּתֶם בַּעֲוֹנֺתֵיכֶם as “and you shall rot in your crimes” comes from Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 2: Prophets, W. Norton & Co., New York, 2019.
Shiviti (שִׁוִּתִי) = I have leveled, I have made even, I have equated. Therefore my translation here is “I found equilibrium”.
Both men are doomed to die outside the “promised land” of Canaan in Numbers 20:12, although Moses is the one who shouts the words God finds offensive. Aaron quietly dies on Mt. Hor in Numbers 20:23-28. Moses complains about God’s decree in Deuteronomy 3:23-6.

Vayikra & Tzav vs. Isaiah & Psalm 40: Smoke vs. Words & Deeds

The book of Leviticus/Vayikra gets right down to business. The first Torah portion opens with God calling to Moses, then telling him more instructions for the Israelites—this time about conducting the rituals at the altar.

from Treasures of the Bible, Northrop, 1894

Speak to the Israelites, and you shall say to them: Any human among you who offers an offering to God, from the livestock—from the herd or from the flock—you shall offer your offering. If it is an olah he will offer from his herd… (Leviticus/Vayikra 1:2)

olah (עֹלָה) = rising-offering; an offering that is completely burned into smoke. (Plural: olot (עֺלוֹת).)

A person who offers an offering of minchah to God, fine flour will be his offering … (Leviticus 2:1)

minchah (מִנחָה) = gift of allegiance or homage; a grain-offering.

And if he offers a zevach as a thankgiving-offering … (Leviticus 3:1)

zevach (זֶבַח) = animal slaughter as an offering on the altar. (Plural: zivechim (זִבְחִעם).)

The text continues through this week’s Torah portion (Vayikra) and next week’s (Tzav) with instructions for a total of six kinds of offerings. (See my post Vayikra & Tzav: Fire Offerings Without Slaughter, Part 2.) The last four all involve slaughtering animals, burning parts of them so God can enjoy the smell of the smoke, and eating the remaining edible parts after they have been roasted on the altar.

The primary method of serving God throughout the Hebrew Bible is turning animals into smoke, “… a fire-offering of a soothing smell for God” (Leviticus 3:5). In the first twelve books of the bible (Genesis through 2 Kings) this method goes unquestioned.

Where does this idea come from? The Torah does not say, but I believe the ancient Israelites assumed God wanted animal sacrifices because the other gods in the Ancient Near East were worshiped that way.¹

Only when foreign empires began swallowing up the kingdoms of Israel did prophets and psalmists begin to question this approach. The first prophet in the book of Isaiah reports:

“Why your many zivechim for me?” God says.

“I am sated with olot of rams.

And suet from fattened animals

And blood of bulls and lambs and he-goats

I do not want!” (Isaiah 1:11)

“… And when you spread your palms

I am averting my eyes from you.

Even though you multiply [your] prayers

I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

Wash, become pure;

Remove your evil acts from in front of my eyes;

Cease doing evil!

Learn to do good!

Seek justice,

Make the oppressed happy,

Defend the orphan,

Argue the widow’s case!” (Isaiah 1:15-17)

Here God does not totally reject animal sacrifices, but God does consider good deeds and justice a higher form of service.

Psalm 40 declares:

[God] gave my mouth a new song,

A song of praise for our God.

May the many see, and may they be awed

And may they trust in God. (Psalm 40:4)

Zevach and minchah you do not want.

You dug open a pair of ears for me!

Olah and guilt-offering you do not request. (Psalm 40:7)

That is when I said:

Hey, I will bring a scroll of the book written for me.

I want to do what you want, my God,

And your teaching is inside my guts.

I delivered the news of right behavior to a large assembly.

Hey! I will not eat my lips. (Psalm 40:7-10)

The speaker in Psalm 40 maintains that God does not want smoke, only words of praise. Nothing can make this poet recant; he will not “eat his lips”. (See my post Tetzavveh: Smoke and Pray.)

What does God want? Most, but not all, of the Hebrew Bible assumes God wants offerings on the altar. Today we assume God wants words of prayer and blessing, as well as deeds of kindness and justice.

But why should we give God what we think God wants?

Suppose you want to thank a person for saving your life. You might speak to them, send them a card, send them flowers or a bigger gift.

Suppose you want to manipulate or appease a person who has power over you. You might speak to them, send them a card, send them flowers or a bigger gift.

The same human impulses apply to thanking or manipulating a semi-anthropomorphic God. In the bible, the Israelites slaughter their animals in order to give them to God, either in gratitude or in an attempt at appeasement.²

Today, do we pray and do good deeds to express gratitude? Or to appease God? Or to manipulate God into giving us what we want?

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For example, the odor of Utnapishtim’s burnt sacrifice gives the gods of Mesopotamia pleasure in Gilgamesh tablet 11, part 4. In the book of Numbers, Moabite women invited Israelites to worship Baal Pe-or with them through “zivechey their god” (Numbers 25:2). (Zivechey (זִבְחֵי) = slaughter offerings of.) In the book of Ezekiel, God complains that Israelites are flocking to foreign altars and burning sacrifices to give idols soothing smells (Ezekiel 6:13, 16:19, and 20:28).
Offerings of wholeness or thanksgiving (shelamim, שְׁלָמִים) are described in the portion Vayikra in Leviticus 3:1-16 and in the portion Tzav in Leviticus 7:11-21. Offerings to appease God after violating one of God’s rules (chataat, חַטָּאת, and asham, אָשָׁם) are described in Vayikra in Leviticus 4:1-5:22.