Haftarat Tazria—2 Kings: Subordination

Would you rather read a procedure manual or a story? This week’s double Torah portion, Tzaria and Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:32), provides a detailed manual for priests regarding a skin disease called tzaraat. But the two accompanying haftarah readings are stories about people with that disease.1

The haftarah for Tazria stars Naaman, a rich Aramaean army commander who goes to the kingdom of Israel to cure his tzaraat. He is healed only after he humbles himself to the prophet Elisha. (See my blog post: Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance.) But without the kindness of his subordinates, his mission would have failed.

A kind servant: the Israelite girl

Those with power can use it to be benevolent to their subordinates. But how can subordinates be benevolent to their superiors? The story of Naaman gives two examples of servants who help their masters without exercising power. The first is an Israelite captive who has become a slave.

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man lifnei his master, and high in favor because through [Naaman] Y-H-V-H had granted victory to Aram. And the man was a powerful landowner metzora. And Aramaeans went out in raiding parties, and they brought back from the land of Israel a young adolescent girl, and she became lifnei Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress: “If only my master were lifnei the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would take away his metzora.” (2 Kings 5:1-3)

lifnei (לִפְנֵי) = before, in front of, subordinate to. (The prefix le,לְ־  (to, toward, at, in relation to) + penei, פְּנֵי (face of—a form of the noun panim,  פָּנִים= face, front). Therefore literally, lifnei = in relation to the face of.)

metzora (מְצֺרָע) = stricken with tzaraat (צָרַעַת), a skin disease (formerly and inaccurately translated as “leprosy”) characterized by one or more patches of scaly dead-white skin. These patches might also be streaked with red, and/or lower than the surrounding skin.2

Naaman is a very important person; he is subordinate to, lifnei, only the king of Aram. The captive young Israelite is a female slave, the most subservient rank in the Ancient Near East. She is subordinate to, lifnei, Naaman’s wife. A girl in her position might resent being seized by soldiers, taken to a foreign land, and forced to serve as a slave. She might well hate the husband of her mistress, who is a military commander and may even have led the raiding party that captured her.

On the other hand, most females in the Ancient Near East grew up expecting to be under the control of a male head of household, whether he was their father, husband, adult son (in the case of widows), or owner. Many girls in impoverished families were sold as slaves. The Israelite girl might be relieved that she is now living in comfort in a rich man’s house. And perhaps Naaman is true to his name, which means “Pleasant One” in Hebrew (from the root verb na-am, נָעַם = was pleasant, was agreeable.)

The Israelite girl is kind-hearted enough to wish that her master were cured of his skin disease, and she knows that tzaraat rarely heals. So she mentions a wonder-worker to her mistress: the prophet in Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel. When she says “If only my master were lifnei the prophet!” her  Aramaean mistress assumes she means “If only my master were in front of the prophet!”, and passes on the information to her husband.3

Kingdoms circa 900 BCE

Refusing subordination: Naaman

In the kingdom of Israel, anyone whom a priest certifies as having tzaraat is ritually impure and must live outside their town until they recover (if ever). Being metzora is easier in Aram. The disease is not considered contagious; we learn later in the story that the king of Aram leans on Naaman’s arm when he goes into the temple of Rimon in Damascus.4 And tzaraat does not prevent Naaman from living in Damascus, the capital of Aram, or from leading his troops. Yet his skin disease is unsightly, and may be unpleasant in other ways as well. Naaman wants to be cured. So he takes chariots, horses, men, gifts, and a letter from his king to Israel.

And Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and he stood at the entrance of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent to him a messenger saying: “Go, and you must bathe seven times in the Jordan. Then your flesh will be restored, and you will be ritually pure.” (2 Kings 5:9-10)

Just as the word lifnei sometimes indicates a subordinate position in Biblical Hebrew, someone who stands and waits in front of someone else is a subordinate (or is temporarily assuming a subordinate position as a polite gesture). Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house riding in a chariot, but when he stands waiting at the door he is in a subservient position. By refusing to see Naaman in person, Elisha underlines the idea that he outranks the Aramaean commander.

Then Naaman became enraged, and he went off and he said: “Hey, I thought he would certainly go and stand and call in the name of Y-H-V-H, his god, and wave his hand at the place, and he would take away the tzaraat. Aren’t Amanah and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I bathe in them and become pure?” Vayefen and he went away in a rage. (2 Kings 5:11-12)

vayefen (וַיֶּפֶן) = and he faced away, and he turned away. (From the same root as panim and lifnei.)

Naaman knows he is a very important person. He expects the prophet to treat him as at least an equal.Elisha ought to invite the commander inside his house and stand waiting in front of him. After that, Naaman thinks, Elisha ought to personally wave his hand over the diseased patch of skin as he calls on his God.

In his resentment that Elisha is acting like his superior, Naaman also interprets Elisha’s order to bathe in the Jordan as an assertion that Israel’s river is superior to either of the two small rivers in Damascus.

Naaman is willing to be subordinate to the king of Aram, but not to the prophet in Israel. So he stops waiting lifnei Elisha’s door. He turns his face away in rejection.

More kind servants: Naaman’s retinue

The Cleansing of Naaman, Biblia Sacra Germanica, 1466

When Naaman walks away, his own attendants try to make him see reason. They are not in a position to order him to follow Elisha’s orders. But they can offer a reasonable argument.

Then his attendants came forward and spoke to him, and they said: “Sir!” They said: “[If] the prophet said to you [to do] a big thing, wouldn’t you do it? And yet he only said to you: Bathe and be pure.” (2 Kings 5:13)

Naaman listens, swallows his pride, and does the sensible thing.

Then he went down and he dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had spoken. And his flesh came back like the flesh of an adolescent boy, and he was ritually pure. (2 Kings 5:14)

Choosing subordination: Naaman

Then he came back to the man of God, he and his whole camp [of men]. And he came and he stood waiting lefanav, and he said: “Hey! Please!  I know that there is no god in the whole world unless it is in Israel. So now, please take a blessing from your servant!” (2 Kings 5:15)

lefanav (לְפָנָיו) = to his face, in front of him, subordinate to him.

When one important person in the bible speaks to another, he often calls himself “your servant” to be polite. Here Naaman also stands waiting in front of Elisha, in a  subordinate position. And he acknowledges that he (and everyone else) is subordinate to the God of Israel.

Naaman has brought silver, gold, and ten outfits of expensive clothing5 to Samaria so he could pay the prophet for a cure. But now the two men stand in a different relationship. They are not buyer and seller, but a man of God and a witness of God’s power.  So Naaman begs Elisha to accept a “blessing”. They both know he means a tangible gift, not just words of blessing.6

Choosing subordination: Elisha

But [Elisha] said: “By the life of Y-H-V-H, whom I stand waiting lefanav, if I take—” (2 Kings 5:16)

Elisha declares that he is subordinate only to God. His unfinished oath is a polite way of saying that he refuses to take anything from Naaman. Since Elisha works only for God, he does not sell his services. He caused Naaman’s healing in order to prove a point, not for any material benefit.

After the Elisha refuses Naaman’s second offer of a gift, Naaman asks him for a gift: as much dirt as two mules can carry. He explains that then he can go home to Aram and create a patch of Israelite ground where he can worship Elisha’s god. Naaman promises he will never sacrifice to any other god again, and hopes the God of Israel will forgive him for continuing to provide an arm for the king of Aram to lean on when the king enters the temple of Rimon.

And [Elisha] said to him: “Go in peace.” And he went away from him some distance.  (2 Kings 5:19)

“Go in peace” is a polite way for a superior or father figure to give permission.7 Thus the haftarah ends with the new pecking order, in which Naaman has become a willing subordinate to God, and perhaps to God’s prophet Elisha, as well as to the king of Aram.

The insubordinate subordinate

Although the haftarah reading ends there, the story of Naaman continues in 2 Kings. Elisha’s servant Geihazi thinks his master was wrong about not taking anything from the rich Aramaean. So he runs after Naaman and his retinue. Naaman steps down from his chariot to greet him. And Geihazi lies to him, saying:

“My master sent me to say: Hey, now this: two adolescent boys just came to me from the hills of Efrayim, from the disciples of the prophets. Please give them a kikar of silver and two changes of clothing.” (2 Kings 5:22)

Geihazi Asks Naaman for a Reward, by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, 1430

Geihazi does not dare claim that Elisha changed his mind and now wants the entire gift, but he is clever enough to invent a pretext for getting part of it. Naaman insists on giving him twice as much silver as he asked for, and dispatches two of his own servants to carry the clothes and the two bags of silver  back to Samaria. At the city gate Geihazi takes the goods. If he had wanted to leave Elisha and set himself up with his own farm or business, he should have exchanged them at the marketplace then and there. Instead he brings the silver and clothing into Elisha’s house.

And he entered and he stood waiting before his master, and Elisha said to him: “From where, Geihazi?” (2 Kings 6:25)

Geihazi claims he did not go anywhere, but his master knows he is lying. Elisha accuses him of taking money from Naaman to buy things for himself, and adds:

“The tzaraat of Naaman will cling to you and to your descendants forever!” And [Geihazi] went away from lefanav, metzora like snow. (2 Kings 5:27)

Insubordination is not always punished so severely. Yet after rereading the whole story of Naaman, I am in favor of being a helpful subordinate, like Naaman’s attendants and his wife’s slave. If your superiors do you no harm, why not be kind and improve their lives—without  stepping on their toes?

And if your superior is not benign, it is better to quit the job altogether than to lie and connive behind the boss’s back. Quitting is easier now, in a world where slavery has become rare, though finding a new job can still be hard. But if you do not respect your superior, you should still act so that you can respect yourself. Otherwise, even if your skin looks good, your soul will be disfigured.

  1. The haftarah for Metzora features four starving Israelites forced to live outside the city walls because of their disease. See my posts Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: Insiders & Ousiders and Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: A Response to Rejection. 
  2. Leviticus 13:2-3, 13:10-22, 13:18-28, 13:42-44. Cf. Numbers 12:10-12.
  3. Ancient Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew are closely related Semitic languages, but it would take a while for the Israelite girl to master Aramaic, and nobody would expect her to express subtle shades of meaning.
  4. 2 Kings 5:18.
  5. 2 Kings 5:5. Cf. the fancy tunic Jacob gives Joseph in Genesis 37:3-4, and Joseph’s gifts of clothing to his brothers in Genesis 45:22.
  6. Cf. Jacob’s “blessing” to Esau in Genesis 33:11.
  7. 2 Kings 5:19.
  8. Cf. Exodus 4:18, where Moses’ father-in-law says it before Moses leaves him and returns to Egypt..
  9. 2 Kings 5:20-27.

Haftarat Shemini—2 Samuel: Consolidation of Power

The Consecration of Aaron, Holman Bible, 1890

Religious and secular authority are combined in a new power structure both in this week’s Torah portion (Shemini, Leviticus 9:1-11:41) as well as in the haftarah reading (2 Samuel 6:1-7:17). In the Torah portion, Moses (the prophet and de facto ruler of the Israelites) consecrates his own brother Aaron as the first high priest. In the haftarah, King David installs the Ark of the Covenant in his new capital and serves as a priest.

Both stories include a reminder that the religion of the Israelites is perilous. After Aaron’s four sons are consecrated as priests, two of them bring incense into the tent-sanctuary without permission, and God kills them. (See my post: Shemini: Fire Meets Fire.) When King David is bringing the ark to Jerusalem and one of the ark’s priestly attendants steadies it with his hand, God kills the man instantly. (See my post: Shemini & 2 Samuel: Segregating the Holy.) Yet the consolidation of religious and secular authority is apparently worth the danger to both Moses and David.

In Leviticus, Moses is following God’s instructions for creating the priesthood and inaugurating the tent-sanctuary. But in 2 Samuel, David figures out what to do on his own.

The king before David

David became the second king of Israel after a career as a musician, a warrior—and a rival of the first king, Saul.

Saul was a tall, handsome young man searching ineffectually for his father’s lost donkeys when the prophet Samuel secretly anointed him king. Samuel then told Saul to walk to a meeting of tribal leaders.

Saul Prophesies with the Prophets, sketch by James Tissot, circa 1900

“And … you should come to the Hill of the Gods, where there is a Philistine outpost. And it will happen as you enter the town there, you will encounter a band of neviyim coming down from the hill-shrine, preceded by lute and drum and flute and lyre. And they will be mitnaviym. And the spirit of Y-H-V-H will come over you powerfully, vehitnaviyta along with them, and you will be transformed into another man.” (1 Samuel 10:5-6)

neviyim (נְוִיאִם) = professional ecstatics; prophets. (Singular נָבִיא.)

mitnaviym (מִתְנאבְּאִים) = speaking in ecstasy, raving, acting like an ecstatic; speaking prophecy.

vehitnaviyta (וְהִתְנַבִּים) = and you will act like an ecstatic.

It happened just as Samuel predicted.

And [Saul] finished meihitnavot, and he entered the hill-shrine. (1 Samuel 10:13)

meihitnavot (מֵהִתְנַבּוֹת) = from raving, from speaking in ecstasy.

The neviyim who came down from the hill-shrine were not prophets like Samuel, but professional ecstatics who were moved by the spirit of a god connected with the hill-shrine.1 Saul was moved by the spirit of Y-H-V-H, the God of Israel. Religion in the hill-country of Canaan at that time seems to have been a mixture of practices prescribed in the Torah and the customs of indigenous polytheists.

After Saul arrived at the meeting, he was chosen king by lot, and then everyone went home. But the next time a belligerent chieftain attacked an Israelite clan, Saul rallied the disorganized Israelite tribes, led a united army to battle, and won. Apparently his experience of raving and/or dancing in public had indeed transformed him.

Saul began a long campaign against the Philistines, who had been migrating in from the Mediterranean coast and capturing the hill country where the Israelites lived. But he did not follow Samuel’s orders closely enough for the prophet’s satisfaction, and Samuel secretly anointed a new king, a boy named David. Saul began having episodes of mental illness, and he hired David to soothe him at those times by playing the lyre. Then David volunteered for single combat with the Philistine giant Goliath. He became a successful and popular warrior and military leader, and Saul became insanely jealous. Saul ordered David’s murder, and David fled.

After King Saul died in a battle against the Philistines, David became the king—first of Judah, then of all the territory of Israel. He captured the southern part of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his new capital, the City of David.

David as king, ecstatic, and priest

Meanwhile, the prophet Samuel has died, and there is no one in the land with his religious authority. King David, always inventive, figures out in this week’s haftarah how to acquire some religious authority himself.

His first idea is to move the Ark of the Covenant into the City of David. Back when the prophet Samuel was a child, the Philistines had captured the ark in battle. But when they brought it home, it destroyed one of their own idols and caused two plagues, so they returned it to Israelite territory. During all of King Saul’s reign, the ark remained near the border in a private Israelite household at Kiryat Yearim. (See my blog post Pedudei & 1 Kings: Is the Ark an Idol?)

Then David and all the troops that were with him got up and went … to bring up from there the ark of God … And they mounted the ark of God on a new cart. (2 Samuel 6:2-3)

And David and the whole house of Israel were dancing before God with all their might, with lyres and with lutes and with drums and with castanets and with cymbals. (2 Samuel 6:5)

In other words, they were acting like the band of ecstatics that Saul had joined on his way to become king.

19th-century engraving featuring a sedate David with robes instead of eifod

The cart tips, and the attendant walking beside it lays a hand on the ark to steady it. He dies instantly.

And David was afraid of God that day, and he said: “How can the ark of God come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9)

King David leaves the ark at a nearby house. But three months later he is told that the household has prospered because of the ark. David returns and escorts the ark the rest of the way to the City of David. Once again he behaves like an ecstatic overcome by the spirit of God, “whirling with all his might” (2 Samuel 6:14). This time he wears a priest’s linen tabard (eifod).2 King David is deliberately combining a priest’s garment with ecstatic dancing.

And they brought the ark of God, and they set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David brought up rising-offerings and wholeness-offerings in front of God. And David finished bringing up the rising-offering and the wholeness-offering, and he blessed the people in the name of God of Armies. Then he distributed to all the people, to all the multitude of Israel, to every man and woman, one round loaf of break, and one pan cake, and one raisin cake. And all the people left, each to his house. (2 Samuel 6:17-19)

Burning the animals offered to God is a priest’s job. So is blessing the people in the name of God; the high priest Aaron blesses the people in the inauguration in this week’s Torah portion.3

When David first fled from Saul, the priest Ahimelekh gave him and his men some of the priests’ bread.4 But King David has more resources than a priest, and distributes largesse like a king.

Thus the crowd at the ceremony in the City of David sees David as an ecstatic and a priest as well as a king. Secular power and the religious power of priest and prophet are consolidated in one person.

It is understandable that David wanted to cement his position as king by becoming a religious authority as well. But in today’s heterogeneous world, that kind of consolidation is dangerous.

The idea of “a wall of separation between church and state”5 has been promoted since the 17th century in northern Europe and America as a means to ensure religious freedom. All citizens must obey the laws of the government, but the rules of a particular religion must not become the law of any government.

This hands-off approach would have been unthinkable in the Ancient Near East, where every city and country had its reigning deity. And according to the Hebrew Bible, religion was inseparable from government in Israelite kingdoms. Many of God’s laws concerned relations between individuals. Citizens were defined by their inherited religion, and even resident aliens were required to refrain from work on Shabbat.6 But they were not required to make offerings on Israelite holy days.7

Later in the Hebrew Bible, kings sometimes keep tame prophets to say that God supports the government’s position. But God makes other prophets speak out against the policies of kings.

I am an American and a Jew, and I worry about recent calls for making some of the rules of conservative Christian religions (such as those on abortion) the law of the land. When a government and a particular religion are consolidated in the modern world (as in Iran and Saudi Arabia), the result is usually the oppression of minorities and dissenters.

May we all avoid taking King David’s path.

  1. Later in the bible God wants every hill-shrine (bamah, בָּמָה) destroyed (cf. 1 Kings 13:2, 2 Kings 17:9-11, 2 Kings 23:8-20, and Ezekiel 6:1-6). But these shrines pass without comment in the two books of Samuel.
  2. But he apparently omits the linen breeches priests must wear; one of his wives complains later about how he exposed himself (2 Samuel 6:20-22). See my blog post Haftarat Shemini—2 Samuel: a Dangerous Spirit.
  3. Leviticus 9:22.
  4. 1 Samuel 21:4-7.
  5. Thomas Jefferson, 1902, on the First Amendment to the United States constitution.
  6. Exodus 20:10, 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14.
  7. Numbers 9:14.

Pesach: Four Questions

Question: Why do Jews celebrate Passover?

Answer: To teach children the story of the exodus from Egypt.

This answer is in both the Torah and the Talmud, along with the need for adults to recall the story of liberation in an unforgettable way.

Two rituals in Exodus

Passover/Pesach begins this Wednesday at sunset. Jews around the world will gather at dinner tables and perform an elaborate ritual that is quite different from the two observances required in the book of Exodus.

In the book of Exodus, God orders the Israelites to gather in their houses for dinner on the 14th of the month of Nisan, which begins at sunset. That night, God will afflict Egypt with the last of the ten plagues: death of the firstborn. Each Israelite household must slaughter a year-old male lamb or goat; smaller households should combine and share one.

Painting the Blood, History Bible, Paris, c. 1390

And they must take some of the blood, and they must put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they will be. And they must eat the meat on this night, roasted in fire, and matzot on bitter herbs they must eat. You must not eat it raw, or cooked by boiling in water, but rather roasted in fire, its head on its lower legs and on its entrails. And you must not leave any for yourselves until morning; and [any] leavings from it in the morning you must burn in the fire. And thus you must eat it: your hips girded, your sandals on, and your staffs in your hand. And you must eat it in haste. It is a pesach for God. (Exodus/Shemot 12:7-11)

matzot (מַצּוֹת) = plural of matzah (מַצָּה) = unleavened bread; dry flatbread baked quickly to avoid sourdough action.

pesach (פֶּסַח) = “Passover” offering. (From the verb pasach, פָּסַח = hop (in 1 Kings 18:21); protect (in Isaiah 31:5); skip over, spare (in Exodus 12:23).)

Presumably the Israelites were enacting this ritual on the first night of Passover when Exodus was written down.  As God’s instructions continue, the ritual about daubing blood and eating a whole lamb standing up is followed by seven days of eating matzot:

Seven days you must eat matzot; indeed, on the first day you must remove the leaven that is in your houses, since any soul eating leaven must be cut off from Israel from the first day through the seventh day. (Exodus 12:14-15)

Pilgrimage festivals ceased after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. But the seven days without leaven is still a widespread Jewish observance during the week of Passover.

The Seder Table, Ukrainian print from Lubok, 19th century

However, painting your door frame with blood, eating a whole lamb including the head and entrails, and/or eating standing up with a staff in hand are rare today. Instead, on the evening of Nissan 14 (and sometimes on subsequent evenings during the week of Passover), Jews sit around the dinner table going through a Haggadah (הַגָּדָה = telling), a guide to saying blessings, singing songs, telling traditional stories, doing show-and-tell rituals, and eating ritual foods (as well as dinner). The event is called a seder (סֵדֶר= order, arrangement) because all these ritual acts are done in a prescribed order.

The reason for doing this is not only to remind ourselves of the story about God bringing us out of slavery in Egypt, but to teach it to our children.

Children in the Torah

The section of the Haggadah called “The Four Sons” or “The Four Children” paraphrases questions and answers in the Torah, imagining a different type of child corresponding to each answer.1 Three of the four biblical instructions on what to tell children are given in Exodus on the eve of the final plague and the liberation from Egypt:

When a child asks why we paint blood on our doorframes every year on Nissan 14, say:

“It is a pesach slaughter-sacrifice for God, who pasach over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when [God] afflicted the Egyptians, but saved our households.” (Exodus 12:26)

When everyone has to eat matzot instead of leavened bread for a week, say:

“On account of what God did for me, when I went out of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8)

When a firstborn son is ransomed in a ritual at the beginning of Passover, say:

“With a strong hand God brought us out from Egypt, from the house of slavery …” (Exodus 13:14)

The first of the Four Children in the Haggadah is based on the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses posits a son who asks about all the rules God has given. What Moses (unlike the Haggadah)2 tells you to answer begins:

“We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God brought us out …” (Deuteronomy 6:20)

But the biblical questions and answers are not enough. Before the Four Children section, the Haggadah makes sure children are engaged with a section called “The Four Questions”.

The Four Questions in the Talmud

Most of the traditional Haggadah3 is described in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Pesachim, including the Four Questions, which appear in the older part of the tractate, the mishnah.4  The mishnah dates to the early third century C.E. and records what the Israelites in Babylonia were already practicing; therefore the Four Questions, like the Four Sons, has been an important part of the Passover ritual for about 2,000 years.

And for about 2,000 years, the purpose of the Four Questions has been to make the children at the seder pay attention.

Asking the Four Questions, German Haggadah c. 1460

All four questions are amplifications of the basic question:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

But the content of the four amplifications has changed somewhat since Talmudic times.

The original Four Questions (or amplifications) in the Talmud are:

On all other nights, we eat leavened bread or matzah, but on this night only matzah.

On all other nights, we eat other vegetables, but on this night only bitter herbs.

On all other nights, we eat meat roasted, stewed, or boiled, but on this night only roasted.

On all other nights we dip [vegetables] once, but on this night we dip twice.

The mishnah continues: “And according to the son’s understanding, his father instructs him.”5 (Perhaps this remark inspired the creation of the section traditionally called “The Four Sons”.)

By the 10th century C.E., the question about how the meat is cooked had been dropped from the list, and replaced with a different question:

            On all other nights we eat sitting up or reclining, but on this night only reclining.

Reclining instead of sitting up was already a requirement by the time the mishnah of Pesachim was written.6 The Talmudic rabbis cited in the gemara (the part of a Talmud tractate written during the 3rd through 5th centuries C.E. as commentary on the mishnah) argued about the technicalities of reclining. They agreed that:

Lying on one’s back is not called reclining. Reclining to the right is not called reclining, as free men do not recline in this manner. People prefer to recline on their left and use their right hand to eat, whereas they find it more difficult to eat the other way. (Pesachim 108a)

After some argument, they also agreed that reclining was necessary not only while eating matzah, but also while drinking each of the four cups of wine, since only free and independent people got to recline while drinking—the opposite of “We were slaves” in the retelling of Exodus. But nobody had to recline while eating the bitter herbs.

When the requirement about reclining replaced the method of cooking meat in the Four Questions, the order of the questions also changed.6 During the last 1,000 years, the most common order has been:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

  1. … but on this night we dip them twice.
  2. … but on this night only matzah.
  3. … but on this night only bitter herbs.
  4. … but on this night only reclining.

Today, after we pour the second cup of wine and come to the page in the Haggadah with the Four Questions, all the questions are sung by the youngest person at the table who can manage it. Some children relish the job; others complain. But someone has to do it.

And if even his wife is not capable of asking or if he has no wife, he asks himself. And even if two Torah scholars who know the halakhot of Passover are sitting together and there is no one else present to pose the questions, they ask each other. (Pesachim 116a)

The Talmud offers additional ways to prompt children to ask about the unusual things they see in the dining room. Following Rabbi Akiva, Pesachim recommends giving the children roasted grains and nuts, “so that they will not sleep and also so they will ask the four questions at night.” (Pesachim 109a)

Another technique was to grab the matzot and wolf them down, “so that, due to the hasty consumption of the meal, they will not sleep and they will inquire into the meaning of this unusual practice.” (Pesachim 109a)

One prompt in the Talmud is to actually remove the dinner table from the room before the main meal!

Why does one remove the table? The school of Rabbi Yannai says: So that the children will notice that something is unusual and they will ask: Why is this night different from all other nights? The Gemara relates: Abaye was sitting before Rabba when he was still a child. He saw that they were removing the table from before him, and he said to those removing it: We have not yet eaten, and you are taking the table away from us? Rabba said to him: You have exempted us from reciting the questions of: Why is this night different [ma nishtana], as you have already asked what is special about the seder night. (Pesachim 115b)

Another rabbi quoted in Pesachim, Rab Shimi bar Ashi, explained:

Matza must be placed before each and every participant at the seder. Each participant in a seder would recline on a couch at his own personal table. Likewise, bitter herbs must be placed before each and every participant, and ḥaroset must be placed before each and every participant. And during the seder, before the meal, one shall remove the table only from before the one reciting the Haggadah. The other tables, which correspond to the seder plates used nowadays, are left in their place. (Pesachim 115b)

I have never been to a Passover seder in which each person reclines on a couch at a separate table, as at an ancient Greek symposium. And since we are all sitting at one big table (leaning to the left uncomfortably at the appropriate times), I have never seen the table removed.

But I have witnessed other devices to keep children—and even adults—awake and asking questions. If you were leading a seder, what would you do?

  1. See my post Pesach: Changing Four Sons.
  2. The reply to the first son (or child) in the Haggadah is to summarize only the rabbinic rulings (halakhah) about Passover, up to the ban on eating anything after the afikomen, the final piece of matzah.
  3. Modern Jews have added new ritual elements to the seder, and therefore new pages of text and songs in the Haggadah, while retaining all the important elements of the traditional Haggadah that is still used by more orthodox Jews.
  4. Pesachim 116a. (All translations from tractate Pesachim in this post are from The William Davidson Talmud on www.sefaria.org.) The mishnah in each tractate of the Talmud is the oral law collected by Yehudah HaNasi at the beginning of the third century CE.  Later rabbinic commentary on the mishnah, the gemara, was added over the next few centuries.
  5. Pesachim 116a.
  6. Pesachim 108a. The question about reclining is added to the Four Questions in the writings of both Saadiah Gaon  (10th-century rabbi Saadiah ben Yosef Gaon) and Rambam (12th-century philosopher Moshe ben Maimon, a.k.a. Maimonides).
  7. This is the order of the four questions according to Saadiah Gaon, Rambam, and the first extant printed haggadah (Soncino, 1485).

Tzav & Jeremiah: Smoke vs. Altruism

(Last week’s Torah portion was actually Vayikra, the first portion in the book of Leviticus/Vayikra. This week I am back on sync with the calendar of Torah readings.)

What gives God pleasure?

This week’s Torah portion, Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36) and its haftarah, the accompanying reading from the Prophets (Jeremiah 7:21-8:3 and 9:22-23) give two different answers. In Leviticus, God is infuriated when any Israelites violates one of God’s many rules, even inadvertently; but smoke from a burning sacrifice improves God’s mood. In Jeremiah, God is bitter and destructive because the Israelites abandoned God and worshipped other gods; and smoke does nothing to improve God’s mood. 

Pleasure in smoke

The first five books of the bible are full of people making animal sacrifices to God. The first humans in the Torah to worship God with burned offerings are Cain and Abel.1 Noah loads some extra animals on the ark, and when he burns them after the flood has receded, God’s attitude toward humankind improves.2

Noah’s Sacrifice, by James Tissot, circa 1900

Throughout Genesis and Exodus, individual men continue to thank and worship God by building altars and burning animals. The first two portions in the book of Leviticus, Vayikra and Tzav, give God’s instructions for making animal and grain offerings as part of the new cult that relies on priests.

For any type of offering, Leviticus explains, the donor who brings the animal to the altar leans a hand on its head before slaughtering it,3 thus identifying the animal as his gift to God and making sure God gives him the credit. For example, in the Torah portion Tzav, a ram is burned during the ceremony in which Moses consecrates the first priests, Aaron and his four sons.

Then [Moses] brought close the ram of the olah, and Aaron and his sons leaned their hands on the head of the ram. And he slaughtered it, and Moses sprinkled the blood on the altar all around. (Leviticus 8:18-19)

olah (עֺלָה) = offering in which the animal is completely burned. (From the root verb alah, עָלָה = rise up.)

After the altar is splashed with blood, Moses butchers the animal, and all the pieces are roasted on the fire of the altar.

When an offering is made to atone for transgressing one of God’s laws, even unintentionally, a priest removes all the fatty parts of the animal and burns them up into smoke; then he and other male priests may eat the remaining meat. The smell of the smoke soothes God’s temper and inclines God toward forgiveness. (See my post Pinchas: Aromatherapy.) When an offering is made to thank God for well-being, the donor and his guests also get to eat some of the meat, but the fatty parts are still reserved to be burned up into smoke for God.

Humans get two benefits from an offering that is not an olah: they eat high-protein food, and God is pleased or appeased. But other offerings require that the entire animal is burned up into smoke for God. During the consecration of priests in Tzav,

… Moses turned the whole ram into smoke at the altar; it was an olah, for a soothing scent; it was a fire-offering for God, as God had commanded Moses. (Leviticus 8:21)

An olah must be offered not only on special occasions such as a consecration or a holiday, but also every day, so there is always something smoldering on the altar.

The smoke from the burning animal rises up to the sky, where God normally lives. (Hebrew uses the same word, shamayim, שָׁמַיִם, for both “sky” and “heavens”.) Then God enjoys the “soothing scent” of the smoke, and relaxes. The God-character in the Torah is hot-tempered, and needs a lot of soothing. Even part of the daily grain-offering is mixed with oil and frankincense and burned, so that its smoke will please God.4

Against burning animals

Yet the haftarah reading from the book of Jeremiah declares that the directions for animal offerings are useless.

Thus said God of Armies, God of Israel: “Add your olot onto your slaughter-sacrifice and eat the meat! Because I did not speak with your forefathers, nor command them at the time I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning matters of olah and slaughter. Rather, with this word if commanded them, saying: Heed my voice, and I will be your god, and you—you will be my people. And you must walk the entire path that I command you, so that it will be good for you.” (Jeremiah 7:21-23)

olot (עֺלוֹת) = plural of olah; offerings in which the animal is completely burned up into smoke.

Some commentators have explained Jeremiah’s outburst as sarcasm. Others have written that Jeremiah meant the wicked were assuming they could get away with their transgressions by making the appropriate guilt-offerings.5

I think Jeremiah is challenging the whole idea that the way to keep God happy is to keep making sacrifices and providing smoke for God to smell. In the chapter before this week’s haftarah, Jeremiah quotes God as saying:

“Your olot are not acceptable, and your slaughter-sacrifices do not please me.” (Jeremiah 6:20)

Pleasure in altruism

Then what does give God pleasure in the book of Jeremiah?

Shortly before this week’s haftarah begins, God says:

“For if you really make your way and your acts good; if you really do justice between a man and his fellow, if you do not oppress an immigrant, orphan, or widow, and you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place, and you do not go after other gods—to your own harm; then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your forefathers forever until forever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7)

In other words, the only way to please God is to be fair, to help the needy, and to avoid other gods.

The end of this week’s haftarah is the following poem:

Thus said God:

            “May the wise not boast of their wisdom,

            And may the powerful not boast of their power.

            May the wealthy not boast of their wealth.

            Rather, in this may the boasting boast:

            Understanding and knowing me.

            Because I, God, do kindness,

            Justice, and altruism in the land.

            Because in these I take pleasure,”

Declared God. (Jeremiah 9:22)

Every year I approach the portions Vayikra and Tzav with dread; they are particularly unpleasant reading for someone like me who does not eat mammals and does not want to see or imagine their cut-up corpses. Nor do I like the idea of a God who normally has a hair-trigger temper, but calms right down under the influence of smoke from sacrifices.

As I write this I am sipping a cup of cocoa, because the taste of chocolate calms me down. But I disdain a concept of God that assigns the deity that much human frailty.

The God in Jeremiah is not as temperamental as the one in Leviticus. Yet this God is fixated on destroying Judah and Jerusalem in order to punish the Israelites for both serving other gods, and persisting in doing evil to other human beings. Only a thorough change in the people’s behavior will satisfy God. Only then will God let them return in peace to their ancestral land.

What would it take to please God—or to occupy our world in peace—today?

  1. Genesis 4:3-4.
  2. Genesis 8:20-21.
  3. The Hebrew in Vayikra and Tzav is veshachat (וְשָׁחַט) = and he will slaughter, with “he” referring to the one who leans a hand on the animal’s head.
  4. Leviticus 6:8.
  5. For example, Rabbi Bachya ben Asher wrote circa 1300 C.E.: “When the prophet spoke about G’d not commanding us to bring animal sacrifices he meant that the animal sacrifices were not meant to be in lieu of penitence and proper conduct on our part. This is what Samuel had already said many hundreds of years previously to King Saul (Samuel I 15,22) “heeding My commands is much preferable than to offer Me good meat-offerings.” (Translation of Rabbeinu Bachya on Leviticus 7:38 by www.sefaria.org.)

Pekudei & 1 Kings: Is the Ark an Idol?

The ark and the curtain in front of it are the last two things Moses puts into the new Tent of Meeting in this week’s Torah portion, Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38). Then the portable sanctuary that will be God’s new dwelling place is complete.

Then Moses finished the work. And the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the kavod of God filled the Dwelling Place. And Moses was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud rested on it and the kavod of God filled the Dwelling Place.  (Exodus/Shemot 40:33-35)

kavod (כָּבוֹד) = weight, magnificence, honor, glory.

Thus all the Israelites who made things for the portable sanctuary, from the golden ark to the woven walls, did it right. God approved, and manifested inside.

The last thing King Solomon puts into the new permanent temple for God in this week’s haftarah (the reading from the Prophets that accompanies the Torah portion) is the ark. Then the first permanent temple for God in Jerusalem is complete.

Glory fills Solomon’s
temple, artist unknown

And it was when the priests went out of the holy place, and the cloud filled the house of God. And the priests were not able to stand and serve in the presence of the cloud, because the kavod of God filled the house of God. (1 Kings 8:10-11)

Thus all the people who built and furnished the temple for King Solomonalso did it right; God approved, and manifested inside.

In both the tent and the temple, the ark is brought into the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber in back. In both Exodus and 1 Kings, the ark is a box or chest with a lid and four feet. In both stories, it is carried by means of two poles that run through the rings attached to its feet. And in both stories, the ark contains the two stone tablets Moses brought down from his second forty-day stint on Mount Sinai.

Yet the two stories do not seem to be talking about the same ark.

The ark in Exodus

The master artist Betzaleil makes the lid of the ark in last week’s Torah portion in the book of Exodus, Vayakheil:

Then he made a kaporet of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And he made two keruvim of gold; he made them hammered out from the two ends of the kaporet. One keruv out of this end and one keruv out of that end; from the kaporet he made the keruvim, from its two ends. And the keruvim were spreading wings above, screening off [the area] over the kaporet with their wings. And they faced each other, and the faces of the keruvim were toward the kaporet.(Exodus 37:6-9)

kaporet (כַּפֺּרֶת) = the lid of the ark in Exodus and Numbers; the lid of the ark as the seat of reconciliation or atonement with God in Leviticus. (From the root verb kafar, כָּפַר = covered; atoned, made amends.)1

keruvim (כְּרוּבִים) = plural of  kervuv (כְּרוּב) = “cherub” in English; a hybrid supernatural creature with wings and a human face. (Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, keruvim are guardians, steeds, or part of God’s heavenly entourage.)2

Moses and Aaron Bowing Before
the Ark, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

The bodies of the gold keruvim in Exodus are never described. Since each keruv sculpture has only one face, which gazes at the lid of the ark, it represents a different sort of hybrid creature from those in Ezekiel’s visions. The book of Ezekiel describes a keruv as having four faces, four wings with human hands under them, a single leg like a calf’s hoof, and eyes covering its whole body.3

The two gold keruvim on the ark in Exodus face one another, but they are looking down at the center of the lid. They might be guarding the stone tablets inside, or they might be guarding the empty space above the lid and below their wings. Earlier in the book of Exodus, God tells Moses:

And I will meet with you there and I will speak with you from above the lid, from between the two  keruvim … (Exodus 25:22)

That means the gold keruvim in Exodus are not idols. In the Ancient Near East, an idol was a sculpture of a god that the god sometimes entered and inhabited. At those times, worshiping the idol was the same as worshiping the god.

But Exodus is careful to explain that God will not enter the ark or the keruvim sculptures on top of it; God will only manifest in the empty space between kaporet and the wings of the keruvim.

The ark and its lid are only two and a half cubits long—just under four feet (just over a meter)—so the empty space for God is not large. According to Exodus, God manifests there as a voice, but according to Leviticus 16:2, God appears there as a cloud.

The two small keruvim that Betzaleil hammers out of the extra gold on the ends of the lid of the ark are not mentioned again anywhere in the Hebrew Bible except once in the book of Numbers:

And when Moses came to the Tent of Meeting to speak with [God], then he heard the voice speaking to him from above the kaporet that was on the Ark of the Testimony, from between the two keruvim; thus [God] spoke to him. (Numbers/Bemidbar 7:89)

Here, too, the Torah clarifies that neither the keruvim nor the kaporet nor the ark are idols.

The ark in 1 Kings

Many generations pass before David creates the first kingdom of Israel, and his son Solomon builds the first permanent temple for God.  By the time King Solomon brings the ark into his new temple, there do not appear to be any keruvim on its lid. The first book of Kings reports the two large statues of keruvim in the Holy of Holies, and small keruvim decorations carved into the walls of the rest of the temple, but no keruvim on the ark.

Solomon has two colossal wood statues of keruvim brought into the Holy of Holies before the ark is carried in. Each keruv is ten cubits, about 15 feet (four and a half meters) tall, with a ten-cubit span from wingtip to wingtip.4

Then he placed the keruvim inside the House, in the innermost [chamber]. And the wings of the keruvim spread out so the wing of one keruv touched the wall, and the wing of the second keruv was touching the second wall, and in the middle of the chamber their wings touched. And he overlaid the keruvim with gold. (1 Kings 6:27-28)

Meanwhile the ark remains in King David’s tent of meeting, in another part of town, until the rest of the temple and its furnishings are completed.

That was when Solomon assembled the elders of Israel—all the heads of the tribes, chiefs of the fathers of the Children of Israel—before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant from the City of David … And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests lifted the ark. (1 Kings 5:1-3)

Solomon Dedicates the Temple,
by James Tissot, 1902

King Solomon leads the sacrifice of livestock on the altar outside the new temple.

Then the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of God into its place, into the back chamber of the house, to the Holy of Holies, to underneath the wings of the keruvim. For [each of] the keruvim was spreading a pair of wings toward the place of the ark, so the keruvim screened off the ark and its poles from above. (1 Kings 8:6-7)

Here the empty space reserved for God is larger than in Exodus, since the gap between the lid of the ark and the wings of the colossal statues of keruvim is about 11 feet (three and a half meters). Yet the Hebrew Bible does not mention God speaking from this space. Nor does a cloud appear there after God’s inaugural cloud of kavod has faded.

The contents of the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple seem to be merely symbolic. There is no mention of God manifesting in the empty space between the wings of the keruvim and the ark. Neither a statue nor the ark becomes an idol that God inhabits. According to one Talmudic source, ordinary Israelites can see the ark and the keruvim without any harmful consequences.5

Perhaps 1 Kings emphasizes that God does not inhabit the ark inside the new temple when it says:There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets that Moses set down there at Chorev [a.k.a. Sinai] which God cut … (1 Kings 8:9)

The ark as an idol

Exodus and 1 Kings reflect two different traditions about the relationship of the ark to its guardian keruvim. Current scholarship suggests both books were written in the 6th century B.C.E., and the descriptions of the Tent of Meeting in Exodus were modeled on the descriptions of Solomon’s temple, with adjustments to make the tent-sanctuary smaller and more portable. The descriptions of the ark in Exodus through Numbers are also more awe-inspiring than the bare mention of the ark in 1 Kings.

Both descriptions of the ark and the pair of keruvim make it clear that these furnishings are not idols. Yet other stories in the Hebrew Bible do treat the ark like an idol inhabited by God.

In the book of Joshua the priests carry the ark across the Jordan River, as the Levites had carried the ark (always covered from view by three layers of fabric)6 from Mount Sinai to the eastern bank of the Jordan. But then the priests carry it in a military parade around the walls of Jericho until God destroys the city.7

After the Israelites are unexpectedly defeated in a battle later in the book of Joshua, the ark apparently sits on the ground out in the open, rather than inside the tent-sanctuary:

And he fell on his face on the ground in front of the ark of God until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. (Joshua 7:6)

In the first book of Samuel the ark is inside a sanctuary again: the temple at Shiloh, which has solid walls and doors, but a tent roof. However, the sons of the priest Eli take the ark out of the temple and onto the battlefield, where it is captured by the Philistines. In Philistine territory, the ark initiates two plagues and smashes an idol of the Philistine god Dagon.8  The God of Israel is working magic through the ark, which functions as an idol.

Ark Sent Away by the Philistines,
by James Tissot, 1902

The Philistines send the ark back into Israelite territory, where its magic power kills at least 70 Israelite men who look inside. The ark is removed to a private house where the owner’s son is consecrated as a priest to guard it.9

This version of the ark can be safely seen from outside, but must not be opened—or touched, except by its attached carrying poles. When King David sets out to retrieve the ark and transport it to Jerusalem, its two current priests load it on a cart. Partway to Jerusalem the oxen pulling it stumble, and the priest who touches the ark to steady it dies instantly.

And David was afraid of God that day, and he said: “How could I bring the ark of God to myself!” (2 Samuel 6:9)

Although it is possible to interpret this verse as indicating David’s fear of a remote God who chooses to kill anyone who touches the ark, it makes more sense if David conflates God and the ark, treating the ark as an idol God is inhabiting. Fear of God and fear of the ark are the same thing.

Three months later King David succeeds in bringing the ark the rest of the way to Jerusalem, and installs it in the new tent-sanctuary he has set up there for God.10 This is the ark that King Solomon brings into the Holy of Holies in his new temple, and positions under the wings of two new statues of keruvim. At that point the ark is no longer an idol, but merely a sacred object, the most sacred object in the temple.

Which version of the ark appeals to you the most:

The holy work of art in Exodus and Numbers, which only a priest is allowed to see?

The idol that travels around naked in Joshua and the two books of Samuel, zapping people right and left?

Or the piece of furniture in 1 Kings, which must be treated as sacred because it contains the two stone tablets, the way an ark in a synagogue today is treated with respect because it contains the Torah scroll?

  1. The only occurrence of the term kaporet  in the bible outside Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers is when 1 Chronicles, written about 200 years later, says King David gave his son Solomon plans for the temple including “the shrine of the kaporet” (1 Chronicles 28:11). This is not a locution used in Exodus through Numbers.
  2. Keruvim are definitely guardians in Genesis 3:24 and Ezekiel 28:14-16. A keruv is a steed for God in 2 Samuel 22:11, Ezekiel 9:3, Psalm 18:11, and 1 Chron. 28:18. Keruvim are part of God’s large supernatural entourage in Ezekiel 1:5-14, 10:1-20, and 11:22.
  3. Ezekiel 10:1-20 and 1:5-14.
  4. 1 Kings 6:23-26.
  5. Talmud Bavli, Yoma 54a.
  6. See my post: Bemidbar: Don’t Look!
  7. Joshua 3:3-4:18, 6:4-13.
  8. 1 Samuel 4:3-6:12.
  9. 1 Samuel 6:19-7:1.
  10. 2 Samuel 6:13-17.

Judges, Jeremiah, and 1 Samuel: More Dancing

Warli painting of a chain dance, India

Dances called mecholot (מְחֺלוֹת) seem like an innocent way to celebrate. In this type of dancing, people form a line behind a leader, with each dancer using one hand to touch the next. The line moves in a circle, a spiral, or some other curving pattern as the dancers copy the steps of the leader. In the Hebrew Bible, the dancers chant and shake tambourines as they dance.

Song of Songs 7:1 celebrates a dancer’s beauty in a double row of mecholot. Chain dancing is cited as the opposite of mourning in Psalms 30:12, 149:3, and 150:4, and in Lamentations 5:15. And when Miriam leads the Israelite women in mecholot on the shore of the Reed Sea in Exodus 15:20-21, they are relieved and grateful to God for saving their lives.

But elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, mecholot are not as innocent as they appear.

In last week’s post, Beshalach & Ki Tisa: Dancing, we saw that when the Israelites start dancing mecholot in front of the golden calf at Mount Sinai, they think they are celebrating the return of God, but they are actually worshiping an idol.

Thanking God for the grape harvest and celebrating the return of victorious generals by dancing mecholot also turn out to be dubious activities.

Thanking God for grapes in Judges

The Dead Concubine at Giveah

A traveling Levite and his concubine spend the night in the Benjaminite town of Giveah. The men of the town rape and murder the concubine, and the Levite rallies men from all the other tribes to destroy Giveah. These men assemble at a watchtower in Benjaminite territory, and besides planning the battle, they vow in the name of God that none of them will marry their daughters to a Benjaminite. 

The war escalates. Men from throughout the territory of Benjamin join the war on Giveah’s side, but the other tribes defeat them so thoroughly that the only Benjaminite survivors are 600 men who escaped into the wilderness. All the women and children die when the attackers burned down their towns.

Then the victors regret their vow, since it means that one of the twelve tribes of Israel will die out. How can they give the 600 men of Benjamin wives, so they can rebuild their tribe?

The elders point out that it is time for the annual festival in Shiloh in which adolescent girls perform dances to thank God for the grape harvest.

And they directed the Benjaminites, saying: “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards. And you will see them, and hey!—if the daughters of Shiloh go out lachul in the mecholot, then you go out from the vineyards and seize them, each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go back to the land of Benjamin.” (Judges 21:20-21)

lachul (לָחוּל) = to go around in succession; to dance in a circle. (A form of the verb chal, the root of mecholot.)

And the Benjaminites did so, and they made wives for their number from the dancers who they took away by force… (Judges 21:23)

Who knew that chain dancing could be so dangerous for women?

The book of Judges does not say whether the girls were warned ahead of time about what was going to happen to them. But even if they were told, they had little recourse; the male head of household arranged the marriages of all the females under his control.1

Thanking God for grapes in Jeremiah

Much later in the history of the Israelites, Jeremiah delivers a divine prophecy that someday God will bring the defeated and exiled people of Israel and Judah back to their lands, and Israelite women will once again dance in the vineyards.

“I will definitely build you up again, maidens of Israel! Your tambourines will be in your hands again, and you will go out in a mechol, playing. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria … (Jeremiah 31:4-5)

Jeremiah expands the good news to include men in the dancing.

That is when the maidens will rejoice in a mechol, and young men and old ones together as one. (Jeremiah 31:13)

We do not know whether he means that men will dance with women, or that women will form their own chains, and young and old men will join together in other chains. Either way, everyone will get to dance. And the dancing God promises in the future definitely celebrates a harvest from God, not rape.

Celebrating victory in Judges

A story in the book of Judges about General Yiftach (Jepthah in English translations) shows him swearing a vow to God before he crosses the border to attack the Ammonites:

“If you definitively give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever happens to go out from the door of my house to meet me upon my safe return from the Ammonites will become God’s, and will be offered up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31)

by James J.J. Tissot, ca. 1900

The Torah warns against making rash vows.2 But starting with Jacob after his ladder dream3 and continuing to the present day, believers in an anthropomorphic God often try to bargain with their deity, promising to do what they think God wants if God gives them what they want.

When Yiftach makes his rash vow, he forgets that women customarily celebrate the return of victorious soldiers with drumming, singing, and mecholot. He returns home victorious.

And hey! His daughter went out to meet him, with tambourines and with mecholot! (Judges 11:34)

Yiftach’s daughter must be accompanied by some female friends, since the word for tambourine is in the plural. But as the general’s daughter, and his only child, she would lead the chain dance. That means she would come out the door of his house first.

Yiftach tears his clothes (an act of mourning), and tells her he cannot retract his vow.

Celebrating victory in 1 Samuel

In the first book of Samuel, the dancing women have the last word. When King Saul and his general, the future king David, return triumphant from a battle against the Philistines,

… the women went out from all the towns of Israel for song and mecholot, to greet King Saul with tambourines and rejoicing … and they chanted: “Saul struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands!” And made Saul very angry, and this matter was bad in his eyes. And he said: “To David they gave tens of thousands, and to me they gave thousands. The only thing he lacks is the kingship!”  (1 Samuel 18:6-8)

King Saul takes out his anger on David, not on the women. After Saul makes a number of attempts on his life, David flees into Philistine territory.

… and he came to Akhish, king of Gat. And the servants of Akhish said to him: “Isn’t this David, king of the land? Isn’t he the one they chanted about in the mecholot, saying: Saul struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands!” (1 Samuel 21:11-12)

David pretends to be insane, scratching on the door and drooling, so the King of Gat turns him away, and he escapes.

I bet the Israelite women who sang the chant while dancing mecholot gave it a catchy tune, so no one could forget it.

Why is chain dancing—the opposite of mourning—often associated with disaster in the bible?

From my own experience, I know that the form requires attentive cooperation; you have to concentrate to make sure you keep the right space between the dancer in front of you and the dancer behind you, and also do the steps in time to the music. Collaboration, physical energy, concentration, and singing all make the experience of dancing mecholot exhilarating.

Building a tragic tale around a well-known emotional high is good storytelling. And these stories caution us not to take anything for granted. Maybe the golden calf is not such a good idea. Maybe men and women are working at cross purposes; while women are dancing, men are making rash vows or getting jealous.

Today, when men are more thoughtful, we can safely enjoy a dance of celebration.

  1. One tradition based on the betrothal of Rebecca in Genesis 24:58 gives a girl veto power over a particular match, at least if the marriage means leaving her home town. But this tradition does not seem to be in play in the book of Judges.
  2. E.g. Deuteronomy 23:21-23, Proverbs 20:25.
  3. Genesis 28:20-22.

Beshalach & Ki Tisa: Dancing

How do you thank—or appease—the God of Israel? Burning offerings on an altar is the primary method in the Hebrew Bible. But for women, another way is to grab your tambourine and do a chain dance.

Celebrating the right way in Beshalach

As soon as the Israelites walk out of Egypt, Pharaoh pursues them with chariots in the Torah portion Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16). Then a wind from God dries out a path across the Reed Sea. After the Israelites cross over, God makes the waters return and drown the Egyptian army.1 

Miriam, by Anselm Feuerbach, 1862

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with mecholot. And Miriam sang call-and-response to them: “Sing to Y-H-V-H, for [God] is definitely superior! Horse and its rider [God] threw into the sea!” (Exodus 15:20-21)

mecholot (מְחֺלוֹת) = plural of mecholah (מְחֺלָה) or mechol (מְחוֹל) = chain dance or circle dance. (From the root verb chol, חול = go around in succession; do a circle dance or chain dance.)

In a mecholah, dancers form a line behind a leader, with each dancer using one hand to touch the next. The line moves in a circle, a spiral, or some other curving pattern s the dancers copy the steps of the leader.

In this first example of mecholot in the Torah, each woman on the shore of the Reed Sea is carrying her tambourine, but her other hand is free to touch the shoulder of the woman in front of her. Percussion and singing are integral to the dancing.

This first chain dance is a heartfelt celebration of a divine miracle that saved the Israelites from being killed. Even the words the women sing are a tribute to God.

Celebrating the wrong way in Ki Tisa

The Israelites also think they are celebrating God’s presence with the second mecholot in the Torah,which occur in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35). But they are deluding themselves.

A pillar of cloud and fire from God led the Israelites our of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, and all the way to Mount Sinai. But there the pillar disappeared, and God manifested as terrifying noises and volcanic fires. At least the people still had Moses as an intermediary—until after the revelation and covenants at Sinai, when Moses disappeared. From Moses’ point of view, God invited him into the cloud on top of the mountain for forty days and nights of divine instruction. But the Israelites below see only fire at the top of the mountain.2 When Moses has not returned after 40 days, they give up on ever seeing him again. How can they continue traveling to Canaan without either the pillar of cloud and fire or the prophet Moses to lead them?

And the people saw that Moses was shamefully late coming down from the mountain, and the people assembled against Aaron, and they said to him: “Get up! Make us a god that will go in front of us, since this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we do not know what happened to him!” (Exodus 32:1)

What the Israelites are asking for is an idol: a statue that a god will magically inhabit. After all, other religions in the Ancient Near East depend on idols inhabited by gods to grant good fortune to their worshipers.

Worshipping the Golden Calf, Providence Lithograph Co. Bible card, 1901

Aaron melts down the gold earrings that the Israelites took from the Egyptians on their way out, and makes a golden calf.

… and they said: “This is your god, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” And Aaron saw, and he built an altar in front of it, and he called out and said: “A festival for Y-H-V-H tomorrow!” And they rose early the next day, and they offered up burnt offerings and brought wholeness offerings. Then the people sat down to eat, and they drank, and they got up letzacheik. (Exodus 32:4-6)

letzacheik (לְצַחֵק) = to make merry, to have fun, to mock, to laugh, to play around.

Aaron should have known better. Yes, using the four-letter personal name of the God of Israel would at least remind the people which God brought them out of Egypt. And Aaron cannot be held accountable for knowing the second of the Ten Commandments, which forbids idols, since this list of commands is inserted into the Torah portion Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23) in the middle of the story of God’s frightening volcanic revelation.3

Nevertheless, right after the revelation God tells Moses:

“Thus you must say to the Israelites: You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the heavens. With me, you must not make gods of silver or gods of gold …” (Exodus 20:19-20)

A long list of additional rules follows.

Then Moses came and reported to the people all the words of Y-H-V-H and all the laws. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said: “All the things that Y-H-V0H spoke we will do!” And Moses wrote down all the words of Y-H-V-H. (Exodus 24:3-4)

So by the time Moses disappears for forty days, everyone, including Aaron, knows that God absolutely rejects gold idols. And they make one anyway.

In this week’s Torah portion, when Moses finally hikes back down Mount Sinai carrying the two stone tablets, he hears raucous singing.4

And he came close to the camp, and he saw the calf and mecholot. And Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the bottom of the mountain. (Exodus 32:19)

Naturally Moses would be angry at the sight of the golden calf, which was exactly the kind of idol God prohibited. But why was he upset by the sight of chain dancing?

Rashi5 proposed that the Israelites were dancing lewdly. He cited the first description of the Israelites’ revelry in front of the golden calf, which says “they got up letzacheik” (to play; see Exodus 32:6, above). The word letzachek, Rashi pointed out, has a sexual connotation in the book of Genesis, when Potifar’s wife accuses Joseph of attempted rape. She says: “… he came into our house letzachek with me!” (Genesis 39:17).

Yet the dances reported in this week’s Torah portion are mecholot, in which the only physical contact is between one person’s hand and the back of the next person’s shoulder. It is not even partner dancing. I think Moses is enraged to see the dancing simply because the people are celebrating the manufacture and worship of an idol, when they ought to feel ashamed of disobeying God.

Thousands of the dancers die in Ki Tisa6 because they convince themselves that they are celebrating the return of their God with perfectly acceptable acts of worship: burnt offerings, feasting, drinking, and innocent mecholot. They cannot bring themselves to believe what Moses told them: that their God, the God who brought them out of Egypt, is not the normal kind of god that inhabits idols.

Denial—pretending that a reality does not exist—is human nature. We often long for something we cannot have, and postpone doing what we must to make the best of it. Sometimes we get away with it for a while, and when we feel stronger we grapple with our problem again.

But some forms of denial are too extreme to get away with, even in a world without a Moses or a God to inflict direct punishment. Today we may die if we neglect clear warnings about our health. Our hopes and plans may die if we fail to face reality in our relationships, our jobs, our finances, our habits.

Before we join a dance of celebration, may we consider whether we are celebrating something real.

Next week: more dancing

I hope my Jewish readers had a happy Purim!

  1. See my blog post: Bo & Beshalach: Winds.
  2. Exodus 24:16-17.
  3. From the viewpoint of source criticism, the Ten Commandments were clearly inserted by a later editor. But even if the biblical narrative were a continuous whole with one author, there is no indication that anyone except Moses heard the Ten Commandments at that time.
  4. Exodus 32:18.
  5. Rashi is the acronym for 11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
  6. Three thousand are slain by Levites in Exodus 32:26-29, and an additional number are killed by a plague from God in Exodus 32:35.

Tetzaveh: Clothed in Three Reminders and a Warning

High priest vestments

During Moses’ first forty days and nights on the top of Mount Sinai, God expands the Israelite religion by giving Moses the plans for a portable tent-sanctuary, and calling for hereditary priests.1 Moses’ brother Aaron will become the first high priest, and his four sons will serve as priests under him. Before saying anything about the ordination or the duties of the priests, God describes the vestments of the high priest in this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:10).

“And you shall make sacred clothing for Aaron, your brother, for magnificence and for beauty.” (Exodus/Shemot 28: 2)

The garments God plans for Aaron are as magnificent and beautiful as the robes of an emperor. But they also contain reminders that the high priest is a holy human being, completely dedicated to God—and a device that lets everyone hear where he is.

Reminder stones on the shoulders

The first reminders God describes in this week’s Torah portion are two dark blue stones attached to the shoulder straps of the tabard the high priest will wear over his robe. (This tabard, called an eifod (אֵפֺד), consists of two rectangular pieces of cloth made with gold, deep blue, red violet, and crimson yarns. One piece covers the chest and one piece covers the back. The pieces are connected with wide straps over the shoulders, and ties at the sides.)

“And you will take two lapis lazuli stones and you will engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel: six of their names on one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the second stone … you will make them encircled with gold settings. And you will put the two stones on the shoulder straps of the eifod as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel. And Aaron will carry their names before God on his two shoulder straps for remembrance.” (Exodus 28:9-12)

The names of the twelve “sons of Israel” are the names of the twelve tribes of Israelites. These stones will remind Aaron that he must represent all the Israelites in his service to God. According to Rashi, the stones are also a reminder to God; their purpose is: “so that the Holy One, blessed be He, will see the names of the tribes written before Him and He will remember their righteousness.”2

Reminder stones on the pocket

The next reminder is on a large square pocket called a choshen (חֺשֶׁן), which will be attached with gold rings to the front of the eifod.3 Twelve different precious stones will be set into the front panel of the choshen, one stone for each tribe.

“Aaron will carry the names of the sons of Israel on the choshen of judgment, over his heart, when he comes into the holy place, to remember them before God constantly.” (Exodus 28:29)

By keeping the twelve stones over his heart, Aaron will be symbolically keeping all twelve tribes in his thoughts and feelings. (The ancient Israelites  considered the heart the seat of the mind as well as the emotions.) According to 18th-century rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. the twelve stones would also serve to remind all the Israelites that although God chose Aaron as the high priest, they were not rejected; God loves them, too.4

Reminder medallion on the forehead

The high priest will also wear a gold medallion on his forehead, in front of his turban.5

“You will make a flower of pure gold, and you will engrave on it [like] the engraving on a seal: Holy to God.” (Exodus 28:36)

This medallion will label the high priest as consecrated to God. The words on his forehead will also remind him of his role on behalf of the Israelites.

“And it will be on his forehead constantly, to win favor for them before God.” (Exodus 28:38)

One interpretation in the Talmud is that the words on the gold medallion propitiate God when the high priest accidentally makes an impure offering on the altar.6 It also reminds the high priest that everything he does must be dedicated to God. To make sure he remembers, he is supposed to touch the gold medallion on his forehead from time to time.7 Like the choshen, the high priest must wear the medallion “constantly”, i.e. whenever he is in the sanctuary. Without it, he cannot serve as a high priest.

Warning bells on the hem

Under his eifod and choshen, the high priest will wear a me-il (מְעִיל), a long sleeveless tunic that is reserved for priests and royalty in the Hebrew Bible.

“You will make a me-il of the eifod, entirely deep blue. …  And you will make on its hem pomegranates of deep blue and red-violet and crimson, all around its hem. And pa-amonim of gold among them, all around: a pa-amon and a pomegranate, a pa-amon and a pomegranate, all around the hem of the robe.” (Exodus 28:33-34)

pa-amon (פַּעֲמוֹן) = a small bell. (Plural: pa-amonim, פַּעֲמוֹנִים)

Gold pa-amon found in Roman sewer under Jerusalem’s old city

According to the Talmud, there were either 72 or 36 gold bells with clappers, and both these bells and the woolen pomegranates dangled down from the hem.8 Pomegranates were a common decorative motif; their many seeds made the fruits symbols of fertility. But what are the bells for?

“And Aaron will wear [the me-il] to wait on God, and its sound will be heard when he comes into to the holy place before God and when he goes out, so he will not die.” (Exodus 28: 35)

 The Torah does not specify whether the holy place is the whole sacred enclosure, or the tent-sanctuary inside it, or the Holy of Holies (the back room inside the tent). The Torah also does not specify who must hear the bells ringing.

Both Ramban (13th-century rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) and Rabbeinu Bachya (Rabbi Bachya ben Asher, 1255-1340) wrote that the sound of the bells must be heard by God and any ministering angels present inside the Holy of Holies. (After the death of Moses, only the high priest was allowed to come into the Holies of Holies, the locus of God’s presence on earth, and he would only enter once a year, on Yom Kippur. According to one Talmud tractate, the clappers were hung inside the bells only on that day.9)

The tinkling of the bells, these commentators explained, was a polite way both to ask God for entry, and to ask the angels to leave before the high priest came in. Without this courteous warning, he might be killed as an intruder by either an angel or the Torah’s anthropomorphic God.

On the other hand, Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya noted, the high priest must wear only linen when he enters the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, according to the Torah portion Acharei Mot in Leviticus.10 So the gold bells between the wool pomegranate bobbles must chime their warning while he is still in the front chamber of the Tent of Meeting—as if he were standing outside a door and ringing the bell. Then the high priest changes clothes before entering.

According to this scenario, God and the ministering angels in the Holy of Holies must need a lot of advance notice. In Leviticus, after the high priest changes into his pure white linen garments on Yom Kippur, he places lots on two goats, slaughters one of the goats and his own bull at the altar, collects the blood of each, scoops glowing coals into his fire-pan, and walks back into the tent, where he picks up two handfuls of incense before he steps behind the curtain.11

The tinkling of bells on the high priest’s hem might also serve as a warning to the other priests that their boss is approaching. Even on an ordinary day, he might want to be alone inside the tent-sanctuary.

In addition, whenever the Israelites standing in the courtyard outside the tent heard the bells, they would be reassured to know that their high priest was on the job, atoning for their misdeeds and keeping God happy.

But merely wearing a robe with bells sewn around the bottom is not enough, regardless of who is listening,. After all, the bells will chime only when the high priest is walking. If his is standing still, or tiptoeing carefully in and out of the sanctuary, the sound will be too faint to hear. He has to stride in and out.

Perhaps the instruction about the bells means that in order to do the highest service to God, one must not be timid. One must enter the sacred space of prayer, or any other spiritual practice, boldly and openly. Let the sound of your practice be heard. Other people will either join you gladly, or back away to avoid confrontation—which are both good outcomes.

Besides striding into your religious practice, it is also helpful to keep reminders of how you intend to use your religion for the good. It would be impractical to wear stones with the names of all the “tribes” in your world, but you might find another way to remind yourself that you intend to be their ally and emissary.

It would also be impractical to wear a gold plate engraved “Holy to God” on your forehead, but you might find another reminder that every action you take matters, and you can make your deeds worthy of a good God. Some Jews wear a kippah (also called a yarmulke) for this purpose.

What would work for you?

  1. See last week’s post, Terumah: Insecurity.
  2. Inside the pocket the high priest keeps the urim and tumim, two objects used for determining God’s answers to simple questions. See my post Tetzaveh: Divining.
  3. 11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki, a.k.a. Rashi, on Exodus 28:12, translated by www.sefaria.org. This interpretation is also implied in the earlier text of Shemot Rabbah and in 16th-century commentary by Ovadiah Sforno.
  4. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, Kedushat Levi, on Exodus 28:29.
  5. See my post Tetzaveh: Flower on the Forehead.
  6. Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 77a-81b and Zevachim 22b-23b, 45b, and 82a.
  7. Rashi, based on Talmud Bavli, Yoma 7b.
  8. Talmud Bavli, Zevachim 88b.
  9. Talmud Bavli, Yoma 44b.
  10. Leviticus 6:2-4, 6:13-14.
  11. Leviticus 6:5-13.

Terumah: Insecurity

Moses relays a long list of rules to the Israelites and conducts two covenant ceremonies affirming the Israelites’ allegiance to God in last week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). The portion ends with Moses climbing farther up Mount Sinai, then waiting seven days until God summons him into the cloud on top.

Then Moses entered the midst of the cloud and went up the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. (Exodus/Shemot 24:18)

During those forty days Moses listens to more instructions from God. But these instructions are not rules of conduct; they are plans for more religious ritual. This week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19), begins:

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the Israelites so they will bring me a terumah. From everyone whose heart prompts him, accept a terumah.” (Exodus 25:1)

terumah (תְּרוּמָה) = contribution; tribute (to God); something dedicated as holy by being elevated. (From the root verb ram, רום = be high, be exalted, be lifted up.)

The voluntary contributions that God calls for are gold, silver, copper, colorful yarns, fine linen, hides, acacia wood, oil, spices, and precious stones. After listing these materials, God says:

“And let them make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. Like everything that I myself show you, the design of the dwelling-place and the design of all its implements, thus you shall make it.” (Exodus 25:8-9)

The rest of the Torah portion consists of God’s explicit instructions for the design of the portable tent-sanctuary and its ark, bread table, lampstand, and exterior altar.1 In next week’s portion, Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20-30:9), God continues with instructions for the priests’ vestments, their ordination ritual, and the incense altar.

Why does God suddenly ask for all these appurtenances of a religion? Why is it no longer enough for the Israelites to follow God’s pillar of cloud and fire to Canaan, and act according to all the rules God commands through Moses?

A theory of jumbled time

One theory is that God’s instructions for a sanctuary are a response to the Golden Calf, the idol the Israelites make on Moses’ fortieth day in the cloud on Mount Sinai. The people crave a concrete object to represent God, preferably something that God will enter and be present in the way gods in other religions enter idols. So God provides a substitute for an idol: a beautiful building with precious ritual objects. And God promises to enter and inhabit this building, so God will be “dwelling among them”.

But why would God start giving Moses instructions for the sanctuary several weeks before the Israelites make the idol? Some commentators2 have responded with the declaration, “There is no before and after in the Torah”, a principle that the Talmud tractate uses to resolve discrepancies in dates within the Hebrew Bible.3 According to this Talmudic principle, the events in the book of Exodus were not written in chronological order anyway, so God actually did call for the sanctuary after the Golden Calf incident. The sanctuary was a concession to (and redirection of) the surviving Israelites after the most blatant Golden Calf worshipers were killed.

A theory of affection

Other commentators have countered that the events in the book of Exodus are arranged in chronological order. That means God wanted the Israelites to build a sanctuary all along; the making of the Golden Calf merely interrupted the divine plan for a while.

A less time-insensitive Talmudic approach states:

… God’s original intention was to build a Temple for the Jewish people after they had entered the land of Israel. … it is written “And let them make Me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them”, i.e. even while they were still in the desert, which indicates that due to their closeness to God, they enjoyed greater affection and He therefore advanced what would originally have come later. (Talmud Bavli, Ketubot 62b)4

Ramban (a.k.a. 13th century rabbi Moses ben Nachman or Nachminides) promoted this theory in the 13th century. Contemporary commentator Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg explained:

“In Ramban’s reading, the Israelites have been transformed by their encounter ‘face-to-face’ with God; they have received the basic commandments and committed themselves to fulfilling them; to affirm this, they have entered into a Covenant with God.  … In Ramban’s reading, the idea of a sanctuary for god in their midst is a token of transformation: after the Revelation and the Covenant, they have become fit vessels for the Presence of God.”5

A theory of second thoughts

I think God calls for a sanctuary and priests because God suspects something like the Golden Calf will happen—unless the people’s anxiety about God’s invisibility is addressed some other way.

Moses and the Ten Commandments, by James Tissot, 1896

At first the God character believes in the Israelites’ enthusiastic allegiance to God immediately after the revelation.7 That is why God invites Moses to hike back up the mountain for a permanent copy of the rules, not for a sanctuary design.

And God said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain, and I will be there, and I will give you stone tablets with the teachings and the commands that I have inscribed to teach them.” (Exodus 24:12)

But then, perhaps during the seven days while Moses is waiting for God to invite him into the cloud on top of Mount Sinai top receive the stone tablets, God reconsiders.

After all, the anthropomorphic God character in the first five books of the bible is not omniscient, and does not know what human beings are going to do. This God character is also moody, and sometimes has second thoughts.8

What if the people all promised to obey everything God said simply out of fear? After all, they were terrified by feeling the earthquake, seeing the lightning and smoke and fire, and hearing the thunder and the blare of horns.9 They could not even distinguish between seeing and hearing,10 and they begged to be excused from hearing God speak.11

Then the anthropomorphic God character might remember how before the Israelites and their fellow travelers arrived at Mount Sinai, any setback caused them to despair and lose faith that God would bring them safely to Canaan. Even the miraculous pillar of cloud and fire that led them to Mount Sinai was not enough to make them trust in God. They are too anxious and insecure.

When Moses and Aaron first presented their demand to Pharaoh, Pharaoh increased the workload of the Israelites who were slaving on his building projects. Moses tried to reassure that God still planned to rescue them,

… but they did not listen to Moses, out of shortness of wind and hard service. (Exodus 6:9)

After the ten plagues, a divine pillar of cloud and fire leads the Israelites out of Egypt.

And the Israelites were departing with a high hand. Then the Egyptians chased after them and overtook them [where they were] camped by the sea—all the horses of Pharaoh’s chariots and the riders and his force … And [the Israelites] were very afraid. And the Israelites cried out to God. And they said to Moses: “Was it that there were no graves in Egypt, so you took us to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:8-11)

Even after the Israelites have crossed the Reed Sea and watched the Egyptian army drown, they grumble on the journey to Mount Sinai whenever they get hungry or thirsty: at Marah,12 in the wilderness of Sin,13 and at Refidim.14 Each time God provides for them, but they do not trust God to provide the next time. At Refidim,

… they tested God, saying: “Is God in our midst or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

All this grumbling reflects an inability to believe God really will bring them to Canaan and give the land to them. The miracles God performs on demand have no long-term effect on these people.

Clearly something else is needed to cause the people to become confirmed God worshippers.

By the time Moses enters the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai, the God character has decided to give Moses instructions for making the new religion more compelling. So God calls for priests wearing impressive costumes, who will sacrifice offerings on a copper altar in front of a tent-sanctuary with walls woven out of blue, purple, and red yarn in a pattern of winged beasts. The priests themselves must remain in a state of reverence, so God assigns them additional rituals involving the gold objects inside the tent, which only they can enter.

And everything must be portable, because the Israelites need visible sacredness as soon as possible; they are too insecure to wait until they can build a permanent temple in Canaan.

These instructions take a long time to deliver. And by the time Moses descends at the end of the fortieth day, carrying the stone tablets, it is too late; the Israelites are worshiping the Golden Calf. It takes a lot of deaths before both the Israelites and the God character get back on track, and the people start making the sanctuary.

Recently I led a Friday evening service on Zoom. I sang the prayers, but everyone else was muted so I could not hear them singing with me. I spoke to the faces on my laptop about the Torah portion and the meaning of Shabbat. I chatted with a few people after the closing blessings. It was better than nothing, but I felt empty as I signed off.

I needed to be with real people in a sacred space. Like the Israelites, I needed a more three-dimensional religion.

  1. See my blog posts: Terumah: Wood Inside, Terumah: Tree of Light, Terumah:Under Cover, Terumah: Bread of Faces, Terumah: Heavy Metals, and Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day.
  2. Including Shemot Rabbah and Midrash Tanchuma circa 500 C.E., Rashi (the authoratative rabbi Shlonoh Yitzchaki) in the 11th century C.E., and Obadiah Sforno in the 16th century C.E.
  3. “Rav Menashiya bar Taḥlifa said in the name of Rav: That is to say that there is no earlier and later, i.e., there is no absolute chronological order, in the Torah, as events that occurred later in time can appear earlier in the Torah.” (Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 6b, translated by www.sefaria.org.)
  4. Translation by www.sefaria.org.
  5. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus,  Doubleday, New York, p. 316.
  6. Ibid, p. 320.
  7. Exodus 19:8, 24:7.
  8. One example is Genesis 6:5-6, when the God character regrets making the world and decides to destroy it with a flood.
  9. Exodus 19:16-20.
  10. Exodus 20:15 translated literally, says: Then all the people were seeing the thunderclaps and the flames and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking. When the people saw, they were shaken and they stood at a distance.
  11. Exodus 20:16.
  12. Exodus 15:22-25.
  13. Exodus 16:2-12.
  14. Exodus 17:1-6.

Mishpatim, Ki Tavo, & Joshua: Writing and Reading

After Moses tells the Israelites God’s “Ten Commandments”, he goes back up Mount Sinai and listens to God proclaiming 48 or more additional rules (depending on how you count them)—four in last week’s Torah portion, Yitro, and at least 44 in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1-24:18). The lengthy list includes religious observances, civil and criminal laws, and ethical guidelines.

Then Moses came and he reported to the people all the words of God and all the laws. And all the people answered with one voice, and they said: “The things that God has spoken, we will do!” (Exodus 24:3)

Apparently Moses has a phenomenal memory. And the Israelites are eager to obey all the orders he has passed on orally. But how will they remember these rules?

Moses speaks, writes, then reads

Then Moses wrote down all the words of God. And he got up early in the morning and he built an altar beneath the mountain, and twelve standing stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exodus 24:4)

The Covenant Confirmed, by John Steeple Davis, 1844-1917

What are “all the words of God” that Moses writes down at that point? The Torah does not say. I think the most reasonable inference is that Moses writes down the Ten Commandments and the 48 or so rules God has just given him. But according to Rashi,1 Moses wrote down the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus up to, but not including, the account of the revelation at Mount Sinai. Apparently he brought some parchment and ink with him from Egypt.

Then he took the seifer of the covenant and he read it out loud in the ears of the people. And they said: “Everything that God has spoken we will do and we will listen!” (Exodus 24:7)

seifer (סֵפֶר) = book (in scroll form), scroll, written document.

This time the Israelites respond with even more fervor, promising not only to obey God’s rules, but to listen to them, pay attention to them. Moses prepares a burnt offering on the altar, and splashes some of the blood on the people to seal their covenant with God.

After this, Moses follows another instruction from God, taking Aaron, two of Aaron’s sons, and seventy elders halfway up Mount Sinai. They get far enough to see God’s feet on a sapphire brickwork. (See my post Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something.)

Then Y-H-V-H said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you the stone tablets and the torah and the commandment that I have inscribed to instruct them.” (Exodus 24:12)

torah (תּוֹרָה) = teaching, instruction; law as a whole. (The word torah later came to mean the first five books of the bible.)

Moses and Joshua Climb Mt. Sinai, by James Tissot

Even God wants to create a written record for future reference.

And Moses took Joshua, his attendant, and Moses went up the mountain of God. And to the elders he said: “Wait for us here until we return to you …” (Exodus 24:13)

Moses takes Joshua with him. But the Torah reports only Moses entering the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai and staying inside it for forty days and forty nights.2 There God gives him lengthy instructions for building a sanctuary and ordaining priests. When Moses finally hikes back down with the two stone tablets, in the portion Ki Tisa, Joshua pops into the picture again.

And the tablets were God’s doing, and the writing was written by God, engraved on the tablets. Then Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, and he said to Moses: “A sound of war in the camp!” (Exodus 32:16-17) The Torah never says what Joshua was doing during those forty days, or exactly where he was on the mountain. God’s instructions in the cloud are addressed exclusively to Moses.

Joshua copies, then reads

Joshua remains Moses’ attendant until the end of the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses lays hands on him to make him the new leader of the Israelites, the one who will take them across the Jordan River into Canaan. Then God tells Moses:

“Here, the time draws near for [your] death. Call Joshua, and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, and I will give him orders.” (Deuteronomy 31:14)

There God speaks at length to Moses about the future of the Israelites, and teaches him a poem. Then God speaks to Joshua the first time:

And [God] commanded Joshua son of Nun, and said: “Be strong and resolute, because you yourself will bring the Israelites to the land that I promised to them, and I will be with you.” (Deuteronomy 31:23)

After Joshua hears this brief encouragement, Moses has more writing to do.

And Moses finished writing the words of this torah in the seifer until it was complete. (Deuteronomy 31: 24)

In the book of Joshua, God repeatedly gives Joshua instructions for the next step on his conquest of Canaan. But God does not tell him any new rules. Joshua faithfully carries out all the instructions he has received from both God and Moses.

Altar on Mt. Eyval, photo by Raymond Hawkins

When he reaches the two hills in front of Shekhem in Canaan, Eyval and Gerizim, he follows a set of orders Moses gave in the Torah portion Ki Tavo: writing on standing stones, then making offerings on an altar, then assembling the tribes on the two hills to say “Amen” after each curse or blessing the Levites call out.3 Moses started with the order to write on stones:

“Once you cross the Jordan to the land that Y-H-V-H, your God, is giving you, then you must erect large stones for yourselves and coat them with limewash. And you must write on the stones all the words of this torah …. You must erect these stones that I am commanding you about today on Mount Eyval …” (Deuteronomy 27:2-4)

All the words of which torah? The implication is that the Israelites should write down rules that Moses has passed down from God in the book of Deuteronomy—either all of them, or a subset. One logical selection would be the twelve curses that Moses then says the Levites should proclaim.

These curses are actually rules.  Each one begins “Cursed be anyone who—” and then states a deed that God forbids, such as making idols or accepting bribes. Eleven of the curses repeat rules that Moses has previously delivered. The twelfth is:

Cursed be one who does not uphold the words of this torah, to do them. And all the people shall say: Amen. (Deuteronomy 27:26)

Is “this torah” the instruction of the twelve curses, or what is written on the twelve stones?

When Joshua leads the Israelites to Mount Eyval, the priests are carrying the ark, which now contains the whole seifer Moses wrote. At first it sounds as if Joshua has the whole scroll copied onto the stones.

And [Joshua] wrote there, on the stones, a copy of the torah of Moses, that [Moses] had written in front of the Israelites. (Joshua 8:32)

But after Joshua conducts the ritual of curses and blessings, he reads out loud from Moses’ scroll.

And after that, he read aloud all the words of the torah, the blessing and the curse, out of all the writing in the seifer of the torah. There was not a word out of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read opposite the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and the little ones and the foreigners who went among them. (Joshua 8:34-35)

These two verses are difficult to interpret. At first it sounds as if Joshua is reading out the torah or teaching about the blessing and curse ritual they have just performed. But then it sounds as if Joshua reads the entire “seifer of the torah”, the record that Moses wrote at the foot of Mount Sinai in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, and subsequent additions. That scroll might take all day to read out loud.

The tradition of public readings of scrolls continued. In 2 Kings 22:8, the priests find a “seifer of the torah” when they are repairing the temple in Jerusalem. King Josiah summons all the people of Judah to listen to him read it out loud. Then he swears that his people will observe all of the commandments and laws in it. They do not respond with “Everything that God has spoken we will do and we will listen!” the way the people did at Mount Sinai. Nor do they say “Amen” then way the people did at Mount Eyval. Their response is positive, but muted:

And all the people stood up for the covenant. (2 Kings 23:3)

For more than two thousand years, Jews have been reading out loud from a seifer torah hand-lettered on a parchment scroll. Everyone who comes to services watches the scroll being unrolled, and hears someone chant all or part of that week’s portion in Hebrew. In the course of a year, the seifer torah is chanted from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy.4 And those who do not know Hebrew can follow along by reading a translation.

For Moses and Joshua, the advantage of a written record is that it can be read out loud later. The assumption is that people will learn God’s rules better if they hear them—repeatedly.

I know that today some people absorb information better by listening, while others absorb it better by reading it. I hope someday to accompany my blog posts with podcasts in which I read my own writing aloud. But I am no Moses, so this project will have to wait until I finish rewriting my book on ethics in Genesis.

There are other texts that everyone should be familiar with. For example, the United States still uses an amended version of its original constitution. Many Americans refer to the authority of the constitution without knowing what it actually says. It is easy to find a written copy of this document, but I believe it should be taught in schools again, article by article, amendment by amendment, along with some of the various interpretations. And maybe we should even read it out loud in public once a year, just so everyone will know the source text that inflames such passions today.

  1. 11th-century rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the most quoted classic Jewish commentator.
  2. Exodus 24:15-18.
  3. See my blog post Ki Tavo: Making It Clear.
  4. But some Jewish communities follow a tradition of reading a third of each Torah portion each week, so the five-books of the Torah are completed over the course of three years.