Terumah: Heavy Metals

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

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

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

The list of materials for this sanctuary begins:

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

zahav (זָהָב) = gold.

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

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

Gold and Silver

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bronze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

Mishpatim: Passionate Arson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gadish = a stack or heap of grain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bo & Beshalach: Clouds and East Wind

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that’s a plague.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Becoming a Maggid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vayeishev & Mikeitz: Symbols of Authority

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

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

The Story of Judah and Tamar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Story of Joseph and Pharaoh

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

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

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

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

merkavah (מֶרְכָּבָה) = chariot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

Vayeitzei: Guilty Conscience

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

Isaac Blesses Jacob, by Gustave Dore, 1866

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bereishit & Toledot: Seeing Red

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

Blood red

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

The Killing of Abel, Providence Lithograph Co., 1905

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

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

Red man, red stew

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

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

admoni (אַדְמוֹנִי) = reddish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lekh-Lekha & Vayeira: Going with the Voice

The phrase lekh-lekha appears only twice in the Torah. Both times God is telling Abraham to do something radical.

The first time God says lekh-lekha is in his first request of Abraham, at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion (called “Lekh-lekha”):

God said to Abraham: “Lekh-lekha , away from your land, and away from your birthplace, and away from the house of your father, to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis/Bereishit 12:1)

lekh (לֶךְ) = Go!

lekha (לְךָ) = for yourself, to yourself.

lekh-lekha (לְךְ־לְךָ) = Go for yourself! Go to yourself! Go, yourself! Get going!

God’s final request to Abraham, in the Torah portion Vayeira (“And he appeared”), contains the same phrase.

And [God] said: “Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac; and lekh-lekha to the land of the Moriyah, and bring him up there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell to you.” (Genesis 22:2)

God’s first request seems difficult but relatively benign. Yes, Abraham leaves his father and his familiar life. But he takes along his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, a number of servants or followers, and his wealth in livestock. Although he is venturing into a strange land to find himself, he has the benefit of both resources and companions of his choosing. He also has the reassurance of knowing his brother Nachor has remained in Charan to take care of their elderly father, Terach.

Sacrifice of Isaac, French, 13th century

God’s final request, on the other hand, seems impossibly horrific. Abraham must cut the throat of his son and heir, and burn him up as an offering to God. In dire circumstances, chieftains in the Middle East did sacrifice their own sons to prevent national disaster.¹But at this point in the story of Abraham, his small clan is living peacefully at Beer-sheva, with no threat in sight.

So Abraham knows that although he will prove something to God and himself by sacrificing Isaac, his own people and his neighbors will probably think he is a lunatic. He also knows that his wife Sarah is so attached to Isaac that she will either die of shock or become his bitterest enemy. Nevertheless he leaves early in the morning with his son and three servants, without speaking to Sarah and without telling the servants what kind of offering he is planning.

God’s final request leaves Abraham without aid or comfort from anyone. At this point Abraham only has two family members at home: his wife Sarah, and their son Isaac. (He has already sent away his concubine Hagar and their son Ishmael. His nephew Lot separated from him long ago.) By sacrificing Isaac, Abraham will lose the rest of his family: his wife and his remaining son.

Yet God’s two requests, one benign and one disastrous, are related. Not only do both requests use the unusual term lekh-lekha, but both of them also use a series of phrases that increase Abraham’s emotional stake in obeying. In the first request, God asks Abraham to leave not just his country, but also the culture he grew up with, and even his own birth family. In the final request, God asks Abraham to sacrifice not just his son, but his only child (now that Ishamel is exiled), the son he loves.

Both sentences with the phrase lekh-lekha also leave Abraham’s destination a mystery. The first time, God does not even tell Abraham that he should head for Canaan; he must blindly go to “the land that I will show you”. The second time, God tells Abraham to go to the land of Moriyah (a place name that may be related to the word marah, “something shown”) and promises to point out the right mountain to Abraham when he arrives. Both times, Abraham must start out on his mission trusting God to reveal where it will end.

Furthermore, both of God’s orders come at times when Abraham has a settled life and there is no emergency. When Abraham first hears God say lekh-lekha, he is simply living in Charan with his extended family. (Later commentary invented stories about his dramatic youth there as an idol-smasher, but the Torah itself says nothing.) And when Abraham hears God say lekh-lekha again, he and his people have been living at Beer-sheva for “many years”.

Both times, when nothing in particular is happening, Abraham hears God speak to him out of the blue. Maybe lekh lekha does mean “Get going!”, since both times Abraham responds by rousing himself and taking an action that changes his whole life.

Rashi wrote that lekh-lekha meant “Go for yourself”, i.e. for your own benefit.² He pointed out that God promised Abraham many descendants, a famous name, and blessing in return for leaving Charan and going to God’s undisclosed destination.

But surely Abraham would not benefit from sacrificing Isaac, his son and heir.

The sacrifice is not completed; an angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, when he is holding his knife over Isaac’s throat. But Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son causes lifelong psychological trauma for Isaac. Although Abraham arranges a marriage for his younger son, there is no indication in the Torah that he and Isaac ever see one another again.

Furthermore, after the attempted sacrifice, the next story in the book of Genesis is about the death of Abraham’s wife Sarah.³ Although Abraham eventually remarries, the death of Sarah probably weighs on him.

Lekh-lekha!

How do you know whether the apparently divine voice in your head is summoning you to an adventure, or to a nightmare? How do you know whether it is ethical to follow that call?

Maybe you experience a divine call as an urgent need to change your life, even though you do not know where the need comes from, or where you will end up if you act on it. Suppose you ignore this inner voice, this inner god. Will you feel ashamed for the rest of your life that you did not rise to the challenge?

Suppose you do heed the call. Will you become a revered leader and the founder of a new way of life, like Abraham? Or will you become a crazy person ready to sacrifice his own child—like Abraham?

Listen carefully.

—

For example, in 2 Kings 3:27, when the king of Moab is losing to the invading armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom, he sacrifices his son and heir as a burnt offering, and the invaders retreat.
Rashi is the acronym of 11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac is Genesis 22:1-19. Then there is a brief genealogical interlude, Genesis 22:20-24. The story of Sarah’s funeral begins with Genesis 23:1.

Bereishit & Noach: All Flesh

Light and dark, good and evil, heaven and earth, spirit and matter—the narratives as well as the religious laws in the Torah often speak in terms of opposites. In this universe of contrasting pairs, humans are a unique combination of the heavenly and the earthly. This concept of humankind begins in the second chapter of Genesis:

Creation of Adam, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

And God formed the human out of dirt from the ground, and blew into its nostrils the soul of life, and the human became a living being. (Genesis/Bereishit 2:7)

Humans are a combination of dirt and God’s breath—a vivid way of saying we are a combination of body and soul (in the English idiom), or basar (flesh) and ruach (spirit) in the biblical Hebrew idiom.

basar (בָּשָׂר) = flesh; muscle; all the soft tissue of a human or other animal, the part that can decay, be eaten, or be burned up; all mortal creatures

ruach (רוּחַ) = wind; spirit; temperament; divine movement or impulse

The word ruach appears right at the beginning of the Torah, at the beginning of the first creation story:

… and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the ruach of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

The word basar first appears when God divides the primordial human into two sides, and refashions them into two independent creatures:

Then God cast the human into a supernal sleep, and took one of its side, and closed the basar. And God built the side that It took from the human into a woman, and It brought her to the human. And the human said: This time, it is bone from my bone, and basar from my basar; this one will be called woman, because this one was taken from man. (Genesis 2:21-23)

Eleven generations and about a thousand years later, God observes that the human combination of flesh and spirit has led to a lot of bad thoughts and actions.

And God saw that the evil of the human on the earth was abundant, and all the shapings of its inventions were only evil, every day. (Genesis 6:5)

How were they evil? The next Torah portion, Noach (a resting place, serenity; as a proper name, “Noah”) gives us only a hint.

God looked at the earth, and hey! it had become spoiled, because all basar had spoiled its ways upon the earth. So God said to Noach: “An end of all basar is coming, because they have filled the earth with outrage; so here I am, about to spoil the earth.” (Genesis 6:12-6:13)

When God warns Noah about the flood, God predicts the end of all basar. But when God proceeds to flood the earth, the Torah describes the end of the ruach of humans and the other land animals.

Everything that had the soul of the ruach of life from God’s nostrils, out of all that was on dry land, died. …and God wiped them away from the earth, and kept safe only Noach and those with him in the ark. (Genesis 7:22-23)

Apparently the evil does not lie exclusively in either the basar (flesh, which is the “dirt” or inanimate matter that God brought to life) or the ruach (which means either wind or spirit: God’s movement inside us). The evil may be in a spoiled relationship between flesh and spirit.

Medieval Jewish commentators said the problem was sexual immorality (one of their favorite topics). The 19th-century rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explained that a righteous person refrains from sexual immorality by subordinating the physical, sensual drives of the flesh to the divine will of God’s spirit. If, on the other hand, the spirit is subordinate to the flesh, then a person’s thoughts and actions will tend toward immorality, and be “spoiled”.

Jews have little or no monastic tradition, and even medieval rabbis carefully distinguished between morally desirable sex and immoral sex. Today some of us might draw the line in a different place, but we still draw a line, and expect a decent human being to have enough self-control to refrain from immoral sexual acts.

And sex is not the only area in life where humans experience a conflict between the flesh and the spirit. For example, sometimes we crave food or drugs that we know will have bad results for ourselves and other humans who depend upon us; if our flesh is not subordinate to our spirit, we act on our cravings. Sometimes we have trouble giving up a material comfort our “flesh” is attached to, for the sake of a higher good.

It’s easy to condemn other people for not trying hard enough, when their spirit loses the struggle with an undesirable desire of the flesh. But when I look deeper, I see people who find dieting manageable condemning those who try to diet without success; people who already have sexual self-control condemning those who succumb to temptation; people who can afford to buy hybrid electric cars condemning those who drive old gas-guzzlers.

In the Torah, God condemns and wipes out the whole human race except for Noah and his immediate family, and throws in millions of animals for good measure. After the flood subsides, Noah sacrifices the excess animals that God included in the ark at the last minute, in Chapter 7. By building an altar and completely burning up their flesh, Noah demonstrates that he values God more than animals, spirit more than flesh.

And God smelled the soothing fragrance, and God said to [God’s] heart: I will not again denigrate the ground on account of the human , for the tendencies of the human heart are bad from its youth; so I will not again strike down everything that lives, as I have done. (Genesis, 8:21)

Thus God decides to continue the experiment, continue with these strange combinations of physical flesh and divine spirit that we call adam, humankind. God pulls back from condemnation because of the mere scent of a better relationship between flesh and spirit.

If God can do it in the Torah, maybe we can do it here on earth. We humans all have bad tendencies, because we are all hybrid creatures of flesh and spirit. My most troublesome bad tendency may be different from yours. But I pray that I will notice what is good in you, and in myself ; that I will refrain from the impulse to condemn; and that I will become a humane human.

Vezot Habrakhah: Face to Face

And no other prophet arose in Israel like Moses, whom God knew face to face; for all the signs and the miracles that God sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all who served him, and to all his land; and for all the strong power and all the great awe that Moses carried out before the eyes of all Israel. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 34:10-12)

That’s the ending of this week’s Torah portion, Vezot Habrachah (And this is the blessing); of the book of Deuteronomy/Devarim; and of the Torah proper (the first five books of the Jewish canon).

In one sense, this passage is a eulogy for Moses, who died at age 120 “by the mouth of God” after liberating the people from Egypt and shepherding them for forty years until they were ready to cross the Jordan River into “the promised land” of Canaan.

But the passage also tells us something about God.

panim = face; indicator of mood; identity

panim el panim = face to face, directly, without an intermediary

The first place that the Torah uses the expression “face to face”, is at the end of the mysterious account of Jacob wrestling all night with an unnamed “man” who blesses him with a new name (Israel) at dawn.

Jacob called the place there Penieil (Face of a god), ‘Because I saw Elohim face to face, and my life was saved.’ (Genesis/Bereishit 32:31)

eil = God, a god

elohim = God, gods

The next place we see the phrase “face to face” is after the golden calf incident, when Moses pitches his tent some distance from the camp. Whenever Moses returns to the tent, now called the Tent of Meeting, everyone can see the pillar of cloud descend and stand at the tent opening. Then, the Torah says,

God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his neighbor. (Exodus/Shemot 33:11)

This verse uses the personal, four-letter name of God, so there is no ambiguity about whether the speaker is a god or the God. Moses is able to hear God’s speech “face to face”, as clearly as one man can hear his neighbor speak. Moses is able to hear God directly at the burning bush, and according to the Torah, this straightforward communication occurs repeatedly for the rest of Moses’ life. The ability to hear God is not unique to Moses; the Torah reports that many of the characters in Genesis, as well as all true prophets, also hear God speak. But Moses hears God’s voice much more often than anyone else, and only Moses can count on initiating a conversation with God.

Yet despite their close relationship, when Moses asks to see God’s kavod (glory, heaviness), God tells Moses:

You will not be able to see my face, because no human can see Me and live. (Exodus/Shemot 33:20)

Then what about Jacob, who said he saw God’s face and lived? I think Jacob neither saw nor wrestled with God’s real identity, but only with a few aspects of God, which he called elohim. He was grateful to live through the experience of beholding even one divine aspect, or angel, or god.

“Seeing” God’s face is different from having a face-to-face conversation with God. Like English, Biblical Hebrew often uses the verb for “see” to mean “understand”. If one’s “face” is one’s identity, then nobody can know God that intimately and live.

Two humans in an intimate relationship often watch one another’s faces for clues about what the other person is thinking and feeling inside. Yet anyone who has had a loving partner for decades knows that we can still get it wrong. The expressions on a well-known face indicate a fleeting mood, but the observer can only guess at the thoughts behind the face. Experience over time makes the guesses somewhat more accurate. Yet the innermost person is still inaccessible, unknowable.

In fact, we cannot even fully know ourselves, or even predict what choices we will make in every circumstance. Watching our own faces in a mirror is not much help. The face itself is an intermediary between the soul and the observer; a person’s inner identity is still hidden.

Does the conclusion of the book of Deuteronomy tell us that Moses finally saw God’s true “face” at the moment of his death? Not really. The Hebrew says that God knows Moses face to face, not that Moses knows God that way.

Since God knows Moses’ true “face”, his inner self, God knows that Moses has the potential to carry out all the signs and the miracles, and to demonstrate all the strong power that creates all the great awe, and moves the religion forward.

Whatever our notions about God are, if we are wise we know we can never see God’s “face”, as long as we live. But maybe it’s more important that God can see us.