Terumah: Cherubs Are Not for Valentine’s Day

“And they shall make me a holy place, and I shall dwell among them.” (Exodus/Shemot 25:8)

Ark from Tutankhamun’s tomb with poles, but a different lid

With this promise, God begins telling Moses how to make the portable tent-sanctuary. In this week’s Torah portion, Terumah (“Donation”), God begins by describing the ark to be placed inside the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the sanctuary. The ark will be a box or coffer made of gold-plated wood, with gold rings for permanent carrying-poles. Inside the ark will be the testimony, e.g. the stone tablets with the commandments. The lid of the ark will be made out of pure gold. The Torah calls this lid the kaporet (כַּפֹּרֱת) = atonement-cover; reconciliation, atonement.

And you will make two keruvim of gold; you will make them hammered out of the two ends of the atonement-cover. You will make one keruv at one end, and one keruv at the other end; from the atonement-cover you will make the keruvim, on both of its ends. And the keruvim will be spreading their wings upward, sheltering the atonement-cover with their wings; and their faces will be turned one another; the faces of the keruvim will be turned toward the atonement-cover. (Exodus/Shemot 25:18-20)

keruv (כְרוּב), plural keruvim (כְרוּבִים) = a winged hybrid beast, usually with a human head and an animal body. (Cherub in English.)

Two stone lions crouch on either side of the main entrance to a library, a civic building, or a mansion. Usually they face the person who approaches, looking stern and regal, but sometimes they face one another. Architects have used flanking statues for centuries, the world over, to make entrances more impressive.

Door guardians from palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (photo by MC)

In ancient Mesopotamia, the colossal statues on either side of an entrance were hybrid winged beasts with human heads, called lamassu in Sumerian and shedu or kuribu in Akkadian. Scholars say the word kuribu is related both to the Akkadian word karabu, “to pronounce formulas of blessing”, and to the Hebrew word keruv.

Now imagine two winged beasts facing one another, guarding neither a city gate nor a door into a building, but a portal into another world, another reality. Science fiction? No, Torah.

The Torah portion Terumah explains that when the sanctuary is finished, God will speak to Moses from the empty space between the two keruvim.

“And I will speak to you from above the atonement-cover, from between the two keruvim that are upon the Ark of the Testimony, everything that I am commanding you and the Israelites.” (Exodus 22)

This is neither the first nor the last place where the Torah mentions winged figures called keruvim. The first reference is when the first two human beings are banished from the Garden of Eden.

And [God] drove out the human, and stationed at the east of the garden of Eden the keruvim and the flame of the sword of the continually-transforming, to guard the way to the Tree of Life.(Genesis/Bereishit 3:24)

An image of keruvim flanking a tree of life is not unusual in the Ancient Near East. But in the Torah, the keruvim are also guarding the entrance to a world called the garden of Eden.

Phoenician sphinxes and the tree of life

When the ark is carried into battle against the Philistines, it is referred to as: “the ark of the covenant of the God of Armies Sitting on the Keruvim.” (I Samuel 4:4) Here the keruvim are not guarding an entrance, but are flanking an invisible God. The army hopes, in vain, that the ark with its keruvim will guard the soldiers from their enemies.

When King Solomon builds a permanent temple, he places two colossal gilded keruvim in the innermost chamber. Their anatomy is not described, but their wings touch in the center of the room. (I Kings 6:23-27) Keruvim are also used as a decorative motif in the temple walls, as they are in the woven curtains around the inner chamber of the portable sanctuary.

The four mysterious hybrid creatures in vision of the prophet Ezekiel are also called keruvim. Ezekiel’s keruvim have four wings each, human hands, calves’ hoofs, and four faces each (human, lion, ox, and eagle). The throne where God’s glory appears hovers above them. (Ezekiel 1:4-12 and 10:1-21)

Psalm 18 paints a metaphorical picture of God descending from the heavens to rescue King David from his enemies, and borrows a Canaanite image of the sky god riding on a winged steed.

And [God] rode on a keruv and flew,

And swooped on the wings of the wind. (Psalm 18:11).

What do these references to keruvim mean? If we look behind the descriptive details borrowed from neighboring cultures, keruvim seem to define a location for the appearance of God’s glory or presence. The location might be between the keruvim, as in this week’s Torah portion, or above them, as in Ezekiel and Psalm 18, or behind them, as in Genesis.

Keruvim combine the traits of many animals, including humans. Yet they are supernatural, existing somewhere between our reality and the transcendence of God. Therefore they mark the dividing line between our world and a divine world we can neither enter nor understand.

Yet in Torah this dividing line is not a wall, but a gateway. As long as we live in this world we cannot pass through the gate. But we can imagine the entrance to the Garden of Eden. And we can imagine God speaking to Moshe through the empty space between the keruvim above the ark, even if we can never enter the Holy of Holies ourselves.

One effect of this invisible portal to another reality, this gap in our universe, is that human beings feel a yearning that can never be satisfied by the things of this world. The yearning keeps us searching—for love, for beauty, for the good, for the divine. That is what it means to be human.

Maybe Adam and his counterpart Eve are not really human until they are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Only then can they feel yearning.

Today we human beings still yearn for the ineffable. And we are still responsible for using the passion of our yearning to fix the world we live in and make it more like the world we yearn for.

(This blog was first posted on February 7, 2010.)

Vayikra: Fat Belongs to God

(This blog was first posted on March 14, 2010.)

And the priest will make them go up in smoke, a food offering by fire, for a soothing fragrance. All fat belongs to God. A law for all time for your generations: You will not eat any fat, nor any blood, in any of your settlements. (Leviticus 3:16-17–Vayikra)

chalev = fat, especially abdominal fat

dam = blood

The blood and the abdominal fat of livestock are reserved for God in chapter 3 of the book of Leviticus/Vayikra, which provides instructions for making zevach shelamim, the animal sacrifices that are offered by an individual for the sake of shaleim, “wholeness”. This type of offering is made to express gratitude to God, or to confirm peace with the people invited to share the feast afterward.

In brief, a man brings an unblemished cow, sheep, or goat to the altar, leans his hand against the animal’s head, and then slaughters it. The priests splash the animal’s blood against all four sides of the altar. The priests burn the fat covering the entrails, liver, and kidneys. The fragrance of the smoke from the burning fat is the donor’s gift to God. Then the donor and his guests eat the meat in celebration (and according to Leviticus 7:31-35, the priests are given the breast and the right thigh to eat).

Splashing blood is certainly a dramatic ritual, and fat burns well. But fat and blood are not merely reserved for the ritual at the altar. The Torah prohibits the people from eating any abdominal fat, or any blood, anywhere. Even far away from the altar, even in a time when there is no temple, abdominal fat and blood are reserved for God. Why?

A reason for not consuming blood is given in Leviticus 17:14: “You may not consume the blood of any flesh, because the nefesh (soul, animating force) of all flesh is its blood.” Genesis 9:5-6 also links blood with the nefesh of a human or animal, and forbids humans to eat flesh with the blood still in it. Ramban (13th-century rabbi Moshe ben Nachman) wrote that someone who eats an animal’s blood dilutes his own nefesh and becomes less spiritual, more animal.

So blood is equated with the nefesh, the animating force that makes a creature alive. What does abdominal fat stand for?

Rabbi R.S. Hirsch wrote in the 19th century that the blood of an animal is its essence, while the fat is what it produces for its own needs. The essence of an animal must never become a human being’s essence, and the needs of an animal must never become a human being’s needs. Human nature must not be equated with animal nature.

I would add that abdominal fat is stored up as a reserve calorie supply against a hungrier time. It’s like a pot of silver buried against hard times; in modern terms, it’s like a stock portfolio. Stockpiling resources can be a good strategy. But we must not become so attached to our stock portfolios that we despair when the market plunges. We cannot really control our savings, so in a way they do not really belong to us. The fat belongs to God.

Similarly, it’s good to tend to our health, to enjoy each day of life, to “choose life” for ourselves and others. But my life, my nefesh, ultimately belongs to God.

Metzora & Acharey Mot: Doubles

(This blog was first posted on April 13, 2010.)

Gird your loins! This is a double blog, covering two weeks, two double Torah portions, two birds, and two goats!

The double Torah reading for the week culminating on Shabbat April 17 (Leviticus 12:1-15:33: Tazria and Metzora) deals mostly with tzara-at, a discoloring skin disease. The double Torah reading for the week ending on Shabbat April 24 (Leviticus 16:1-20-27: Acharey Mot and Kedoshim) covers the rituals for atonement on Yom Kippur, forbidden sexual unions, and a series of ethical and religious laws.

This year I noticed a connection between the two double Torah portions. The first week’s reading includes a mysterious ritual using two birds, while the second week’s reading includes a remarkably similar ritual using two goats. What does this parallelism mean?

Birds vs. goats

The reading for the week ending April 17 includes this passage about the ritual for making someone with the skin disease tzara-at ritually pure:

Let Go the Living Bird, by Paul Hardy ca. 1900

And the priest will give an order, and he will take for the one who is being ritually purified two living, ritually pure birds, and a stick of cedar, and crimson stuff, and [a branch of] oregano. And the priest will give an order, and he will slaughter the first bird in a pottery vessel, over living water (water flowing from a natural source). He will take the living bird, the stick of cedar, the crimson stuff, and the oregano, and he will dip them into the blood of the slaughtered bird, over the living water. And he will sprinkle upon the one who is being ritually purified from tzara-at seven times; thus he will purify him, and then he will send out the living bird over the face of the open field. (Leviticus/Vayikra 14:4-7, Metzora)

tzara-at (צָרַעַת) = a technical term for several specific skin conditions, one of which seems to be vitiligo.

And the reading for the week ending on April 24 includes this passage, part of the annual Yom Kippur ritual for purifying the whole community:

And from the assembly of the children of Israel, he (the high priest) will take two hairy male goats for a guilt offering and one ram for an elevation offering. He will take the two goats and stand them up before God at the opening of the Tent of Meeting. And Aaron will place lots on the two goats, one lot for God, and one lot for Azazel. Then Aaron will bring the goat that received the lot for God, and he will make it a guilt offering. But the goat that received the lot for Azazel, it will be stood alive before God, for making atonement over, by sending it out to Azazel to the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:5-10, Acharei Mot)

Both rituals use two animals, which must be the same species and equal in value. In both rituals, one animal is chosen randomly to be sacrificed to God, and the other is set free at the end of the ritual, sent out away from human habitations. In both rituals, the blood of the sacrificed animal is sprinkled seven times on the person or place to be purified. Other rituals described in the Torah employ sacrifices of birds and goats, and sprinkling of animal blood, but only in these two passages does the Torah require that one of a pair of animals is slaughtered and the other pair is set free.

Individual vs. community

Why are these two unique purification rituals so similar, when they seem to be performed for such different purposes?

Let’s look at who or what is being purified. In the first reading, the metzora (the person who had the disease of tzara-at) is ritually purified after a priest has declared that the affliction is over. Since someone with tzara-at must live in isolation, in a tent away from the community, the purification ritual is necessary for the ex-metzora to move back and rejoin society.

In Torah and Talmud, a metzora is not someone who just happened to develop a disease. The appearance of an unnaturally white patch of skin is considered a physical manifestation of a flaw in the metzora’s moral condition. Commentators have written that since the “treatment” for tzara-at is segregation from the community, and the ritual restores the metzora to society, the moral flaw of the metzora must be some anti-social behavior, such as slander. A skin disease is an appropriate sign of immoral behavior toward society because the skin is the boundary between one person and another. (See my post Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance ).

Isolation protects the rest of the community from being infected by the metzora’s bad behavior. It also gives the metzora time to reflect and repent. If the skin discoloration shrinks or disappears, the priest knows that the metzora has repented and can rejoin the community safely. But first he must perform a public ritual establishing that the ex-metzora is now acceptable and accepted back into society.

In the second reading, from Acharei Mot, the blood of the sacrificed goat is sprinkled on the curtains around the innermost chamber of the sanctuary, and on the lid of the ark in the center. The high priest performs this ritual once a year, on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), to purify the Israelites’ focus of worship from their own cumulative ritual impurity. This purification also atones for their misdeeds, particularly their pesha-im, their rebellions against the social order.

The implication, I think, is that while only some people are so egotistical that they pay no attention at all to the good of the community (and therefore get the mark of tzara-at on their skin), nobody is perfect. We all rebel occasionally against the need for good social behavior. These small misdeeds accumulate, tarnishing the purity of our focus on the holy. So once a year, according to the Torah, two goats are brought to the high priest. He slaughters one, and sprinkles its blood on the atonement-lid of the ark in the Holy of Holies. He confesses the sins and misdeeds of the Israelites over the head of the other goat, and a designated man sets it free in the wilderness. This public ritual establishes clearly that the whole community is acceptable to God once again.

Killing vs. setting free

The details of the two rituals are parallel, and both are performed to address immoral behavior against the community. But why, in each case, is only one animal sacrificed, while its double is set free?

Maybe the two birds, and the two goats, represent two courses of action for human beings. We can sacrifice our egos (while retaining the “blood”, the juiciest part, in the pottery bowl over living water) in order to be kind and cooperative; then we will be full members of society. Or we can refuse to make any sacrifice; then we will be free—but we will also be sent away from the community, like the bird and the goat. Even today, individuals who are not willing to sacrifice their own egotism, at least enough to avoid doing harm to other people, will be driven out of society. If they are not kicked out of a group explicitly, they will still find themselves isolated and friendless … out in the wilderness.

And what if the freed bird or goat comes back? Well, that’s one of the questions “the designated man” asks in my Torah monologue!

Ki Tavo: Cursing Yourself

Today Mount Gezerim and Mount Eyval stand over the city of Nablus. In the Hebrew Bible, the same two hills frame the ancient Canaanite city of Shekhem. Although Moses has never been to Canaan, in the book of Deuteronomy/Devarim he knows about Gezerim and Eyval.

Mt. Gezerim (left), Nablus, Mt. Eyval (right)

Moses knows how the slopes that face one another curve to form a natural amphitheater, so anyone who stood in the middle of the valley and shouted could be heard by people standing on both slopes. He gives the following order in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo (“When you enter”):

These shall stand for blessing the people upon Mount Gerizim, when you have crossed the Jordan: Simon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin. And these shall stand for the cursing on Mount Eyval: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. And the Levites shall testify, and they shall say to every man of Israel in a loud voice: “Arur is the craftsman who makes a carved idol or a cast idol, an abomination to God, or the one who sets it up in a hiding-place.” And all the people shall answer and say: “Amen.” (27:12-15)

arur (אָרוּר) = accursed; isolated and ruined.

amen (אָמֵן) = Supported! Confirmed! (A formula indicating acceptance of a curse, oath, message, deal, or religious tenet.)

The ritual continues with eleven more curses:

demeaning one’s father or mother
moving another’s boundary marker
making a blind person go astray
skewing justice concerning a stranger, orphan, or widow
having sex with one’s father’s wife
having sex with any animal
having sex with one’s sister or half-sister
having sex with one’s mother-in-law
hitting a person in private
taking payment to murder someone
not upholding the words of the Torah.

Commentators have pointed out that these curses deal with acts done secretly or privately, acts that society is not likely to discover and punish. Ten of these acts concern treating other human beings badly, even when no one else knows. The other two are about cheating on one’s religion.

Of course, more secret vices could be added to the list, but since the Israelites had twelve tribes, these twelve secret sins serve as examples.

By saying amen to the curses, the Israelites are internalizing an aversion to, or fear of, transgressing God’s ethical and religious rules.

The ritual Moses prescribes would have a major psychological impact on people just entering their new homeland. Instead of proudly celebrating their military victories, they must dedicate themselves to being considerate with other humans and honest with God.

Why two mountains?

Mount Gerizim, which represents blessings, was thickly wooded in the biblical era. Mount Eyval, which represents curses, was bare and stony. Doing the right thing, therefore, would mean choosing the blessing of abundant life. Doing the wrong thing would mean choosing an accursed life, a life of emptiness and spiritual death.

By saying “Amen” after the Levites recite each curse, the people affirm that this is the choice they must make.

Twelve Blessings

The twelve blessings are not listed in this week’s Torah portion, but according to the Talmud they are simple inverses of the curses, e.g. not making and secretly setting up an idol, etc.

However, it is easy to extrapolate active behaviors that lead to being blessed: worshiping only God; honoring one’s parents; respecting others’ property; guiding the blind; being just to people who are at a disadvantage in society; having sex only with appropriate partners; refraining from violence even when you could get away with it; putting life ahead of profit; and promoting the rules in the Torah.

The blessings and curses still apply to us today. Every time an individual faces a decision between doing something they know is wrong, and doing the right thing instead, that individual stands between Mount Eyval and Mount Gerizim.

Thanks to our inner Levites, we know that if we do something wrong in secret, we will still be accursed: we will suffer from guilt, we will feel degraded, and we will isolate ourselves. If we do something good in secret, we will still be blessed: we will feel full of life, right with the world and right with our souls.

(This blog was first posted on August 23, 2010.)

Chayyei Sarah: A Peculiar Oath

(I first posted this essay on October 24, 2010, then added footnotes and illustrations in 2019.)

Which body part does Abraham’s steward place his hand under when he swears an oath to his master?

Abraham and steward, Abraham’s Solemn Charge,, by Pedro Orrente, 17th century, detail

Now Abraham was an elder, coming on in days, and God had blessed Abraham in everything. And Abraham said to his servant, an elder of his household, the one who governed all that was his: Please place your hand under my yareikh, and I will make you swear by God, god of the heavens and god of the earth, that you do not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites amidst whom I am dwelling. Because you must go to my [former] land and to my relatives, and [there] you must take a wife for my son, for Isaac. (Genesis/Bereishit 24:1-4)

yareikh (יָרֵךְ) = hip, upper thigh, buttocks, genitals.

Only two times in the Torah does someone ask another person to place his hand under the yareikh and swear an oath: in this week’s Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah (“Life of Sarah”), and in Genesis 47:29, when Jacob makes his son Joseph swear not to bury him in Egypt.

In both cases, the person requesting the oath believes he will soon die. He will not be there to make sure his wishes are carried out, so he deputizes a man he trusts and asks him to swear a serious oath.

Abraham is 137 years old when he requests this oath. Neither he nor his steward Eliezer¹expect him to live long enough to give further instructions if Eliezer cannot find a wife for Isaac in Abraham’s old home, the city of Charan in Aram. (Ironically, it turns out that Abraham lives another 38 years.)

He asks his steward, who will be in charge after he dies, to swear an oath while his hand is placed—where, exactly?

19th-century rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch argued that it was the patriarch’s thigh or buttock: the first place to touch the ground when one rests. Therefore, he wrote, the man about to swear the oath shows the dying man that he can rest in peace, trusting to the power of the swearer’s hand.²

Yet in other parts of the Torah, the word yareikh is a euphemism for the genitals. A rabbi in the Talmud declared that Abraham’s servant grasped his circumcised penis, since oaths administered by a court require one to hold a sacred item in the hand while swearing.³ Rashi⁴ confirmed this opinion, and his commentary is not known for flights of fancy. Rabbi Elie Munk pointed out that the book of Genesis is set in a time before the giving of the Torah, so a circumcised penis was the only sacred object available.⁵

Other commentators have noted that the English words testify, testimony, and testicles all come from Latin words based on the root “testis”, and claim that this may reflect a Roman practice of taking an oath on the genitals.

If the male genitals are a symbol of creative power, they refer to God the Creator. If they represent the covenant with God, they refer to holiness. Either way, the oath-taker is asked to place his hand in a position underneath a symbol of the sacred.

Throughout the Torah, the hand is a metaphor for the power to act, to do things in the world. So in this ancient ritual, the one swearing the oath places his own power to act underneath, below, subservient to, the sacred object of the other man. In other words, he is promising he will do everything in his power to carry out the other man’s will as if it were the will of God. A potent oath!

A vow made to a dying person is one-sided, obligating only the person swearing the oath. If unforeseen circumstances arise after someone is dead, is the other party still obliged to carry out a mission that now looks like a bad idea? Or should the survivor be free to change course to address the new circumstances?

In the book of Genesis, Abraham’s steward Eliezer has little trouble bringing back a bride for Isaac from Aram. (In the other example of this oath, Joseph easily gets Pharaoh’s permission to bury his father in Hebron instead of Egypt.) My impression is that Eliezer enjoys carrying out his oath by matchmaking.

Not all deathbed requests are that easy, or that benign. Yet human nature tends to put a high value on a deathbed promise; for example, people go to great lengths to carry out a deceased person’s wishes regarding burial. There is also psychological pressure to reassure a dying person. In that situation, is a promise really freely given?

Suppose you “knew” that a certain thing had to happen, and you doubted you would live long enough to make sure it did happen. Is it right to ask someone else to swear to make it happen? What if the person you are asking agrees to carry our your mission even though they do not share your belief in its necessity? What if the circumstances change after your death?

Is it right for a living person to be bound by the desire of someone who is dead?

—

See Genesis 15:2.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshit, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2000, p. 514.
Talmud Bavli, Shevuot 38b.
Rashi is the acronym of 11th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
Rabbi Elie Munk, The Call of the Torah: Bereishis, Mesorah Publications, 1994, p. 626.

Toledot: Why?

(This blog was first posted on November 1, 2010.)

Isaac prayed to God, in front of his wife, because she was barren; and God was moved by the prayer to him; and his wife, Rebecca, conceived. But the sons pushed and crushed one another inside her. And she said: “If thus why this I?” And she went to question God. (Genesis/Bereishit 25:21-22)

im kein lamah zeh anochi = literally: “If thus why this I?”

“If it’s like this, why me?”

“Why am I this way?”

“If so, why do I exist?”

In last week’s Torah portion, Rebecca is portrayed as remarkably strong-willed and hospitable to strangers (hauling water for the camels of Abraham’s steward until they’ve drunk their fill); decisive and courageous (deciding she will leave at once to marry a stranger in a strange land); and impressed by a man who prays (falling off her camel when she sees him, and then, upon discovering the man is her fiancé Isaac, instantly donning her wedding veil).

This week’s Torah portion, Toledot (Histories) opens when Isaac and Rebecca have been married almost twenty years, and are still childless. Isaac prays, and Rebecca gets pregnant, but the violent movements in her belly alarm her. She says something cryptic, then becomes the first person in the Torah to seek out and question God.

Even Abraham waits for God to speak to him before venturing to ask God any questions. But although Rebecca lets her husband do the praying for conception, she does not ask Isaac to find out about the battle in her belly. She goes straight to God.

At least that’s what the text says. Some medieval commentary says she went to the school of Noah’s sons Shem and Ever, who were somehow still alive and running the world’s first yeshiva (Jewish seminary). Some modern commentary speculates that she actually went to a professional oracle. But the remaining commentary credits her with going directly to God. I suspect Rebecca goes to the nearest holy spot—perhaps the well where Hagar heard God—and stands there alone, asking her question from her heart until she gets an answer.

What is her motivation for this unprecedented act? It depends on the interpretation of her cry, Im kein lamah zeh anochi. If she means “If it’s like this, why me?”, Rebecca questions God because she wishes some other woman were carrying the painful burden and risking miscarriage or her own death. Why can’t Isaac have his sons by a concubine instead? (c.f. Abraham Ibn Ezra, 12th century; Obadiah Sforno, 16th century). Is God punishing her because there’s something wrong with her? (c.f. Talmud, tractate Sotah 12a).

If Rebecca means, “Why am I this way?”, she just wants to understand why her pregnancy is so unusual (c.f. Radak–Rabbi David Kimhe, circa 1200; 19th-century rabbi S.R. Hirsch). What can she expect when it’s time for the birth? What will happen after that?

But if Rebecca means, “If so, why do I exist?”, she seems to be close to despair, wondering if her painful pregnancy is worth living through (c.f. 13th-century rabbi Moses ben Nachman). Going to God is a last-ditch effort to find a reason to carry on.

I don’t think the “Why me?” attitude fits Rebecca’s character. Would someone that hospitable to a stranger want to inflict pain or death on a concubine? Would someone that self-confident wonder if she had some horrible hidden flaw?

“Why am I this way?” makes more sense. Rebecca might well have a practical motivation for questioning God. She is fundamentally a woman of action, and now that something strange and alarming is happening, she can no longer stay in her tent and leave things up to her adored husband. She has to find out what will happen next, so she can be prepared to respond to any emergency. Later in the Torah portion, when she overhears that Isaac is about to give the blessing to the wrong twin, she reacts with a decisive emergency response, as if certain that her desire matches God’s will.

Yet is also possible that even a strong woman like Rebecca might come close to despair after 20 years of watching her husband pray for a child right in front of her, followed by a pregnancy that tortures her and seems likely to end in death. She would be desperate to find some meaning in life, some reason for it all—desperate enough to seek out God.

Many of us reach a moment when we wonder: “Why am I this?” Is there some reason for everything I’ve gone through? What is my purpose in life? What is the meaning of it?

I believe the worst thing to do, when that moment comes, is to accept the answer of an authority figure: someone in a pulpit, on a book jacket, on television, on a calendar page or refrigerator magnet. Someone else’s idea of the meaning of life might bring me temporary comfort, but how can it answer a cry from the depths of my soul? No, I have to seek God on my own, like Rebecca. I have to keep questioning God, even though I don’t know what God is, until my answer comes.

I think I am beginning to feel my purpose in life, but it’s too amorphous to put into words. And I believe, without any rational reason, that there is meaning in life, but I don’t know what the meaning is. Since I’m a modern woman, I get my incomplete and mysterious answers in the form of vague intuitions, instead of in the form of riddling prophecies like the one Rebecca received.

Maybe a complete answer will never come to me. That’s okay. I’ll keep on seeking God, I’ll keep on questioning. For me, the search is what’s important.

Beshalach: Pillar of Cloud and Fire

Humans often hear God’s voice in the Torah, but there are only two verses where humans might be seeing part of God: when the elders climb Mount Sinai and behold God’s feet in Exodus 24:10, and when God lets Moses see his back in Exodus 33:23. The rest of the time, God becomes manifest through two kinds of supernatural messengers (called angels in many English translations). One kind looks like a human being, and the other kind looks like an annatural fire.

One of these supernatural fires is the pillar of cloud and fire that leads the Israelites from the border of Egypt all the way to the Jordan River. This pillar first appears in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach (“when he was sending out”).

After the tenth plague, Pharaoh finally sends the Israelites out of Egypt. When they cross the border of Egypt and head into the wilderness, the Torah says that God “went before them”. Then it describes the messenger that actually went before them:

And God went before them; by day, in an amud of cloud to lead them down the road, and by night, in an amud of fire to give light for them, for walking by day and night. The amud of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never withdrew from before the people. (Exodus/Shemot 13:21-22)

amud (עַמּוּד) = pillar, column, upright support. (From the verb amad. עָמַד = stand, take a stand.)

Pillar of Cloud, by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, 1731

The commentary is divided on whether there is one pillar or two. But if the pillar of cloud is replaced by a separate pillar of fire for the night, what does the changing of the guard look like? The Torah never describes it.

Pharaoh changes his mind about releasing the Israelites, and sends an army unit of charioteers after them. The Egyptians catch up with the Israelites just as they have pitched camp on the shore of the Sea of Reeds.

Then the messenger of God pulled out, the one going before the camp of Israel, and it went behind them; thus the amud of the cloud pulled out from before them, vaya-amod behind them. Thus it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel, and it was the cloud and the darkness, and it lit up the night, so that this one did not come near this one, all the night. (Exodus 14:19-20)

vaya-amod (וַיַּעֲמֺד) = and it stood, and it stationed itself. (A form of the verb amad.)

Moses follows God’s instructions and raises his hand over the sea, and God uses a strong east wind to dry up a swath of the sea. The Israelites walk across, between the two walls of water. But the Egyptian charioteers are stuck behind the pillar of fire until dawn.

Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, a 16th-century Italian commentator, wrote that the angel, the pillar of cloud, and the pillar of fire were three separate things, and the messenger or angel came down to direct the two pillars, which both circled around to stand behind the Israelites, between their camp and the camp of the Egyptian army. But the text itself contradicts his interpretation:

And it was in the morning watch when God looked down on the camp of Egypt from an amud of fire and cloud, and it put the camp of Egypt into an uproar. (Exodus 14:24)

Here the Torah says that God is in “a pillar of fire and cloud”, which sounds like one pillar containing both elements. I picture a pillar that looks like a column of fog in the daylight. As it gets dark, people see sparks of fire in the cloud, and at night only the column of sparks is visible. When dawn comes during the “morning watch” of the night, the cloud can again be seen through the sparks. Since the pillar itself is God’s messenger, God looks down from the amud.

This pillar can only be divine. A whirlwind can form a temporary pillar of cloud, a bonfire can make a pillar of sparks, and an erupting volcano can do both. But a continuously moving pillar of cloud and fire is a miracle.

And this pillar not only controls the movements of the Egyptians, but also communicates a message to both camps: that God stands up for the Israelites, protecting them from the Egyptians. Looking down from the pillar of cloud and fire, God puts the Egyptian army in an uproar by making their chariot wheels get stuck or fall off. Only then, when it is too late, do the Egyptians recognize that God is waging war on them, and decide to flee.

The amud continues to serve more than one purpose in the books of Exodus and Numbers. When the Israelites are traveling, rather than camping, the pillar is a guide showing them which way to go. It is also a reminder that God is with them—that God is “taking a stand” for them, and they must “take a stand” for their god.

Furthermore, fire naturally inspires awe and fear. A cloud, on the other hand, is usually made of fog. In the desert, moisture is a welcome caress on the skin, a gentle gift, a reminder of God’s kindness. God’s kindness is confirmed later in the story by the fact that even after the Israelites do things that enrage both Moses and God, even after they make the Golden Calf, the pillar of cloud and fire returns to lead them.

No matter how visible the reminder of God’s presence in our world, people will ignore it if they are fixated on having their own way. It’s a replay of Pharaoh’s refusal to take the miraculous plagues seriously. When we are determined to solve a problem by eliminating it, we override any inner qualms, whether they appear as cloud, the heart-softening temptation of kindness, or as fire, the nagging fear that we are playing god or doing something wrong.

But if we try to be holy people, metaphorically taking a stand with God, we can recognize both kindness and awe as manifestations of the divine, inspiring us to take the right path. We have a better chance of noticing when we are fixated on killing a problem. We can look around for other solutions, other ways of dealing with the problem, even other ways of working with problematic people.

Instead of getting stuck in the muck and drowning, we can continue on our journey, guided by the pillar of cloud and fire within.

(This blog was first posted on January 9, 2011, and revised in January 2023.)

Yitro: Not in My Face

Moses, frieze on U.S. Supreme Court building, by Adolph Weinman

Terrified by a direct experience of God, the people ask Moses to be their intermediary and tell them God’s orders. So God gives Moses the “Ten Commandments” in this week’s Torah portion, Yitro. Both “Ten” and “Commandments” are designations invented by commentators; the Torah merely introduces the set of fundamental obligations with:

And God spoke all these words, saying— (Exodus/Shemot 20:1)

The next sentence is:

I am God, your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves. (Exodus 20:2)

Some commentators count this as the first commandment, and Exodus 20:3-6 as the second commandment, prohibiting other gods and idols. But the reminder that the God of Israel delivered the people from slavery in Egypt does not sound like a commandment to me. I agree with commentators who count Exodus 20:3, prohibiting other gods, as the first commandment, and Exodus 20:4-6, prohibiting physical objects as idols, as the second commandment.

The verse prohibiting other gods reads:

You must have no elohim acheirim al panai. (Exodus/Shemot 20:3)

elohim acheirim (אֱלֺהִים אֲחֵרִים) = other gods; gods of others.

al (עַל) = on, upon, over, above; besides, in addition to; over against; concerning; because of. (The most common meaning of al is “on: or ”over”, but verse 5 explains that you must not worship anything else but God—so verse 3 cannot mean that it’s okay to serve other gods as long as they are below God. )

panai (פָּנָי) = my face, my presence, my surface, my visible side, my identity.

Here are five literal translations of this ambiguous commandment:

You must not have other gods besides My presence.

You must not have gods of others in addition to My presence.

You must not have gods of others in addition to My visible side.

You must not have other gods over against Me.

You must not have other gods in My face.

First let’s look at the difference between “other gods” and “gods of others”, two phrases that are identical in Biblical Hebrew. If the Israelites can’t have “other gods”, they are forbidden to worship not only the gods of others, but also any gods they happen to think of or notice on their own. Therefore they must not worship any manifestations of God, such as angels or the stars or nature. Modern commentary sometimes adds that we must not make a god out of wealth, or having a perfect body, or any other value exalted by our culture. We may only have one God.

On the other hand, if the Israelites can’t have “gods of others”, the focus turns to the kind of gods worshiped by Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Canaanites. These peoples made idols in an effort to entice gods to come down out of the heavens or up from under the earth and inhabit their statues, the way humans inhabit their bodies. A god living in a statue is easier to communicate with, and easier to appease and honor and butter up so it will act for your benefit.

Throughout the Torah, God may appear as a humanoid angel or as fire or a cloud, but what we see is God’s choice of manifestation, not the work of our own hands. The vision may disappear at any moment; it is not solid; it cannot be set on a table or paraded through town. Therefore God is not like the gods of others.

Reading elohim acheirim as “gods of others” leads right into the next three verses in this week’s Torah portion:

Do not make yourself a carved idol or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or of what is in the land below, or of what is in the water beneath the land. Do not prostrate to them and do not serve them. Because I am God, your god, a jealous god, calling to account the wrongdoing of fathers upon children over the third and fourth (generations), for my enemies; but doing kindness to the thousandth (generation) for those who love me and who observe my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

This continuity supports the theory that Exodus 20:3 and Exodus 20:4-6 are one “commandment”, but it makes the list of what the people must do and not do add up to nine instead of ten.

The ambiguity is not over. What about the last two words of Exodus 20:3, al panai?

If the phrase means “over against Me”, or even “in My face”, it is a warning that God would be offended if you worshiped any other gods. After all, God is the one who rescued you from slavery (Exodus 20:2). And God is a “jealous” god, i.e. passionately exclusive (Exodus 20:5).

However, if al-panai is translated as “in addition to My presence” or “besides My presence”, it means simply that the Israelites must worship and serve only the one god. Some commentators who have translated the word panai as “My presence” have interpreted it as meaning that God is present everywhere and at all times, so don’t think you can get away with having another god without the One God noticing.

But since the next verse in Exodus begins “Do not make yourself a carved idol”, I think panai means both “My presence” and “My visible surface”. The Torah contrasts the carved idols that are supposedly inhabited by the gods of others with the presence of the God of the Israelites, which is sometimes visible as a vision of an angel or a fire, and sometimes invisible, as when God speaks from the empty space above the cherubim in the Holy of Holies.

Similarly, sometimes the God of the Torah is audible to everyone, as a sound like thunder or the blowing of rams’ horns. And sometimes God is audible only to one person, who “hears” the words that God speaks inside him or her.

The commandment in Exodus 20:3 not only orders us to refrain from serving other gods, but also asks us to serve our God. How do we do that?

How can we honor the face of God, when God cannot be contained in a statue, a synagogue, a church, a mosque, or even the Holy of Holies? What can we do when God makes its presence known unpredictably, when you never know where, when, or who will become aware of God for a moment?

And how can we serve our elusive God when even the Ten Commandments give us only a general idea of what we are supposed to do? And when half of the more specific laws in the Torah were dropped as inapplicable more than 1,500 years ago in the Talmud?

Does anyone today have the authority to tell us how to serve God? What actions and attitudes can we take that count as service?

I’m working on some answers to those questions. It will take me the rest of my life.

(An earlier version of this blog was posted on January 16, 2011.)

Ki Tissa: Out Came This Calf!

(This blog was first posted on February 16, 2011.)

While Moses is having a 40-day conversation with God on top of Mount Sinai, the people down below are wondering if they’ll ever see their leader again.

Thanks to his special relationship with God, Moses got them out of Egypt and as far as Mount Sinai. He climbed up the mountain several times to communicate with God, and finally God and the people made a formal covenant. At the end of that ritual, the 70 elders climbed halfway up Mount Sinai, met God, and sat down to eat. (See my post Mishpatim: After the Vision, Eat Something.) Then Moses climbed the rest of the way up Mount Sinai.

The 70 elders came down and reported that everyone should stay at the foot of the mountain, and whoever had matters to speak about should approach Aaron or Chur (the two lieutenants who supported Moses’ arms for the victory over Amelek). Seven days after that, the people see the glory of God like a fire on top of Mount Sinai. (See my post Mishpatim: Seeing the Cloud.) But Moses does not come back down.

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa (“when you lift up”), the people despair of ever seeing their leader again.

The people saw that Moses was taking too long to come down from the mountain, and the people gathered against Aaron, and they said to him: “Get up! Make for us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

They are asking for a replacement for Moses, not a replacement for God. They need an intermediary to “go before” them, to show them both where to walk and how to behave. The pillar of cloud and fire that led them across the Reed Sea is gone (transmuted, perhaps, into the cloud and fire that appears at the top of Mount Sinai). Now Moses is also gone. So they want a new guide: “gods”, elohim, idols.

And Aaron said to them: Strip off the gold rings that are in the ears of your women, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. … And he took from their hand, and he shaped it with the chisel, and he made a bull-calf of metal-work; then they said: These are your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt (Exodus 32:2, 4)

cheret = chisel, stylus, engraving tool; an item used by an Egyptian seer or magician

Alas, when Moses descends after 40 days with the stone tablets from God, the people are having an orgy in front of a golden idol. He flings down the tablets and shatters them. He grinds up the calf, dumps the gold dust in water, and makes the Israelites drink it. Then he asks Aaron: “What did these people do to you, that you brought such great guilt upon them?” Aaron’s answer is revealing.

They said to me: Make for us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don’t know what happened to him. And I said to them: Who has gold? They stripped it off themselves and they gave it to me. So I flung it into the fire, and out came this bull-calf. (Exodus 32:23-24)

Aaron’s first sentence repeats the Torah’s earlier account word for word. But then, instead of admitting that he personally shaped the gold into a calf, Aaron gives what sounds like a child’s lame excuse. Why doesn’t he confess?

Classic commentary, including Vayikra Rabbah and Rashi, points out that Moses put Aaron and Chur in charge while he was up in the clouds listening to God—and Chur is never mentioned again. Therefore, the subset of the people who wanted idols must have come to Chur first, and killed him when he refused to cooperate. Next the gang approached Aaron. Aaron was afraid they would kill him, too, and the Israelites would incur guilt before God for a second murder. So he cooperated, but proceeded as slowly as possible, hoping at each step that Moses would return and stop the people before they did anything worse. When Moses did return, Aaron gave him a brief, vague answer so as not to implicate anyone else in the crime.

I have an alternate explanation: The 40 days that Moses is on top of Mount Sinai are a surreal time for Aaron. He is still exalted by the vision of God on a sapphire pavement that he and the elders were granted halfway up Mount Sinai. But many people lose hope and demand idols. Chur refuses, and Aaron is shocked by his murder. How can the glory of God and the murder of a respected elder coexist in the same world? And how can God use Moses as his right hand, and then (apparently) let him die on Mount Sinai with the job of transforming history unfinished?

With despair, Aaron concludes that this religion of Moses’ doesn’t work. You can’t count on God, and you can’t control anything God does. Magic works better. If you do magic right, you can count on the right result. No wonder the priests of Egypt coaxed their gods into inhabiting idols!

Numbly, Aaron offers to melt gold for the rebels and see what happens. Maybe the God of Moses will manifest again. Or maybe there will be a sign.

When the fire cools, the amorphous mass of gold looks vaguely like a calf. If he squints, Aaron sees the four legs, the head, the body. The second commandment forbids him from making a metal image from scratch, but this crude calf seems to have coalesced by magic. Someone hands Aaron a stylus, a tool taken from an Egyptian magician the night before the exodus. Aaron discovers he can easily make the mass of gold look even more like a calf.

And Aaron’s golden calf works like magic. The people take heart again. When Aaron uses the four-letter name of the God of Israel to call for animal sacrifices and feasting, the people rejoice; they are confident that the golden idol will replace Moses as their intermediary with God.

Later, when Moses questions Aaron, he tells the truth: “I flung it into the fire, and out came this bull-calf.” It was magic.

Magical thinking is still easier for us than religion. Maybe only a small child believes that on Passover, an invisible prophet Elijah actually drinks the wine in Elijah’s cup. But how many adults, in a desperate moment, pray to God by promising they’ll “be good”, they’ll do anything, if only God will give them what they’re asking for? And how many of us interpret mysterious events and coincidences as “signs” that something we’re reaching for is “meant to be”, intended by God?

We just fling our gold into the fire, and out comes a calf.

Pekudei & Vayakheil: Basin of Mirrors

(This blog was first posted on February 27, 2011.)

He (Moses) put the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and he placed water there for washing. Moses and Aaron and his sons washed from it, their hands and their feet. When they came into the Tent of Meeting, or when they came up to the altar, they washed as God had commanded Moses. (Exodus/Shemot 40:30-32)

The last Torah portion in the book of Exodus/Shemot, Pekudei (“Inventories” or “Commissions” or even “Searches”) lists once again all the items made for the sanctuary and the priests’ garments, this time including the weight of the donated gold, silver, and bronze. Moses assembles all the parts, and then God’s cloud appears and fills the new Tent of Meeting. The portable dwelling-place for God is complete.

Its front half is a roofless courtyard surrounded by curtains, and contains the altar where slaughtered animals and grain are burned. The back half is the new Tent of Meeting, which is both curtained and roofed, and contains the holiest objects: the gold incense altar, the gold-covered bread table, the solid gold lamp-stand, and the gold-covered ark inside its own curtained alcove. Only priests, and Moses, can enter the Tent of Meeting.

The wash-basin in front of the entrance to the Tent is critical for the transition between the public courtyard and the inner sanctum. Washing in water symbolizes inner purification, the mental preparation necessary to enter a space where there will be closer communion with God. In the Torah, hands stand for action and power. By washing their hands, Moses and the priests dedicate their power and actions to divine service. Feet are related to one’s path in life, the direction one is going psychologically as well as physically; the greatest men in the Torah are described as “walking with God”. By washing their feet, Moses and the priests rededicate themselves to walking with God.

The wash-basin where this ritual takes place is made of bronze—but it’s not the same as the bronze donated by all the people with willing hearts and melted down to make the altar and its utensils. Last week’s Torah portion says the basin is made out of bronze mirrors:

He (Betzaleil) made the basin of bronze, and its stand of bronze, with the mirrors of the army (of women) who mobilized at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (Exodus/Shemot 38:8)

nechoshet = bronze, copper. From the same root as nachash= snake; and nicheish = practice divination, seek omens.

marot = mirrors; apparitions. (Mirrors in the ancient Middle East were made of highly polished bronze, and were luxuries for the rich.)

tzav-u = mobilized, went to war, served in the cult, joined in public service

The unusual donation of mirrors led to a story in Midrash Tanchuma, a 5th-century commentary, that when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, the women used mirrors to entice their husbands into lying with them and producing more children. Moses hesitated to make a holy object out of mirrors, which are instruments of vanity. But God overruled him on the grounds that the women had used their mirrors for the good deed of multiplying the children of Israel. And the master-craftsman Betzaleil used the mirrors to make the wash-basin.

This fanciful story was accepted by many subsequent commentators. But I think it is inconsistent with the descriptions in Exodus/Shemot of the Israelite slaves as poor and oppressed. Surely they could not afford anything as expensive as bronze mirrors! The only time in the book of Exodus when the Israelite women could acquire mirrors is the day before they leave Egypt, when Moses tells them to take gold and silver jewelry from the Egyptians.

So why does the Torah say the wash-basin at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting is made out of bronze mirrors?

It’s always possible that an odd detail in the Torah refers to some ancient practice that occurred outside the story, perhaps in the cult of another group of people. But what I notice is that a priest washing his hands and feet at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting would see a double reflection: a reflection on the surface of the water, and a reflection from the polished bronze basin.

Samson Raphael Hirsch, a 19th-century rabbi, wrote that the language in this verse might mean the mirrors were not even melted down, but only welded together in a form where they could still be recognized. Perhaps the basin would even show a different reflection in the surface of each mirror.

Furthermore, the basin was made by Betzaleil, whose name means “In the Shadow of God”. A shadow provides protection from the harsh sun of the Middle East, so some commentary notes that Betzaleil is under God’s protection. But a shadow is also a type of reflection; the original thing casts a shadow on the ground, just as the original thing casts a reflection in a mirror. The Hebrew word for shadow, tzeil, is the root of the word tzelem, which means “image”.

So when a priest steps up to the bronze basin, he sees multiple reflections of the sky and of his own body, and perhaps multiple reflections of the heavens, his own soul, and other aspects of God. After all, the basin was made by “In the Shadow of God”, and the word for “bronze” comes from the same root as “divination”. All of these reflections from the basin, besides reminding him that he is preparing to come closer to God, provide food for the priest’s inner reflections. Has he been using his body the right way? Has he been mired in harmful thoughts and emotions? Or has he been acting like someone made betzelem elohim, in the image of God?

After he has reflected, the water from the basin purifies him as he washes and rededicates himself to the path of holy service.

We could all benefit from washing at a basin of mirrors before we pray, or meditate, or take a moment to reflect on our lives.