The art of argument / Korach

I would love to see the movie version of Korach’s rebellion. The graphics gurus would do a great job depicting the earth opening up to swallow the rebels; it would be impressive on the big screen.

Korach, a second tier priest, gathers two lieutenants, Datan and Aviram, and some 250 followers to challenge Moses’ and Aaron’s authority, saying, You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord's congregation?(Numbers 16:3). On the surface, their statement is correct: the entire community is holy, as God instructs Moses to tell all the Israelites: Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be hold, for I, the Lord your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:1). But this is only on the surface. Their real intent is a power grab.

The question Korach and his followers raise is legitimate. It is worth discussing and debating. But it is not their true agenda. When the debate is unrelated to the genuine agenda, this is not an appropriate machloket (argument). The Rabbis point this out:

A machloket le-shaym shamayim (controversy for the sake of heaven) will have lasting value, but a controversy not for the sake of heaven will not endure. What is an example of a controversy for the sake of heaven? The debates of Hillel and Shammai. What is an example of a controversy not for the sake of heaven? The rebellion of Korach and his associates. (Pirke Avot 5:19)

Korach and his followers are driven by blind ambition. They seek personal gain and power. They have only their egotistical and selfish interests in mind.

Debate is an art. But argument is something different: it’s emotionally fraught and more than one’s intellectual acumen is at stake. Debate and argument have something important in common, however. There are rules for both. In the context of marriage and family, there is a moral way to argue; it is defined by the rules of  “fair fighting.” (There are many formulations of the rules; here are three: 1, 2, 3, 4.) When one party wins and the other loses outright, the fight has not been fair. When the topic of argument is unrelated, or only tangentially related, to one party’s genuine agenda, there can be no machloket le’shaym shamayim.

We all run into at least one Korach in our lives. The Korachs of the world leave a trail of misery, frustration, and wounded feelings. For them, all life is a zero-sum game: they must win and others must lose. We live happier and healthier lives if we learn to recognize the Korachs and avoid them.

We are driving full-throttle through a political season. The airwaves and media are filled with argument. Are we hearing machloket le-shaym shamayim (controversy for the sake of heaven -- that is, for a worthy purpose, toward the end of benefitting people), or are we hearing the echoes of Korach, disputants engaged in ad hominem attacks rather than substantive discussion of issues? Korach doesn’t argue issues; he attacks Moses’ character. Do the candidates whose faces and words dominate screens and print media address issues in any serious, thoughtful way, or do they merely run attack ads? Are they Moses or Korach?

Pirke Avot illuminates a basic truth about human nature that applies on both the personal and societal levels: there is a world of difference between legitimate argument about issues in a search for truth, or solutions, or policy, and illegitimate argument focused only on assaulting the character of another in order to gain power.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

God made me do it! / Shelach Lecha

Once -- Emo Philips says -- I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!" Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

Emo Philips is a comedian. And like all great jokes, there is a kernel of uncomfortable truth: the reality of our world is that people have committed enormous violence in the name of religion, entangling religion with their political and economic agendas, or their hate and resentment. Sadly it would not be challenging to create a Jewish or Muslim version of this joke.

There’s an exceedingly disturbing passage toward the end of parashat Shelach Lecha that seems to exhort religious violence:

Once, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, they came upon a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him as he was gathering wood brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the whole community. He was placed in custody, for it had not been specified what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death: the whole community shall pelt him with stones outside the camp.” So, the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death -- as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Numbers 15:32-36)

Where to begin with this one?! It is absolutely horrifying to imagine that there is a God who would decree that a man be stoned to death for gathering sticks on shabbat. It is more horrifying to think there are people who believe there is a God who would command this. And it is even more horrifying that people today -- in the 21^st century -- could take the words of an ancient text, however sacred, and use them to condone violent and murderous behavior. Yet it happens time and time again.

The words of Scripture -- our Tana”kh, the Christian New Testament, the Qur’an -- have been used to justify bigotry, cruelty, and unspeakable violence. Combined with claims to absolute truth, demand for blind obedience, the conviction that the ends justify any means, and the overarching claim to be doing “God’s will,” words of Scripture can be highly toxic.

John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey, writes in The Sins of Scripture (2005) that the Bible has been used to support the divine right of kings; justify the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust; condemn Galileo and Charles Darwin; support slavery in America and elsewhere; and argue in favor of segregation and apartheid. Today it is a weapon in the arsenal of pastors and politicians who seek to deny the civil rights of homosexuals, reverse the progress and reproductive freedom of women, justify ransacking the environment, and interfere with the science curriculum in public schools by demanding that “Intelligent Design” be taught alongside evolution.

Not surprisingly there has been a spate of anti-religion books in recent years: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God is Not Great by Christopher Hutchins, and The End of Faith by Sam Harris jump immediately to mind. These books argue that religious ideas and texts are dangerous and responsible for untold suffering and incalculable deaths. (They conveniently fail to mention that Stalin’s purges, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and Pol Pot’s killing fields brought death to millions -- and these were secular movements.) It is easy to criticize Dawkins, Hutchins and Harris. They read scriptural texts “literally” and presume everyone reads them in that manner; they provide no empirical data to support their arguments; and they make no distinction between liberal and conservative theologies, or account for interpretation of texts. With one broad brush, they condemn all religion as dangerous to the individual and to society. Dawkins, Hutchins, and Harris lack the sophistication to distinguish between religious ideas and the political institutions they spawn which too often, bent on power and control, use Scripture as a bludgeon to attack those who disagree.

Sacred text, whether we see it as coming from God, inspired by God, or sanctified by generations must -- like every text -- be interpreted. There is no avoiding that. How it is interpreted, and how it is used, is the moral responsibility of those who do the interpreting. The passage concerning the man who gathered wood on shabbat is a case in point. Do we now institute the Shabbos Police to ferret out even the least infraction of what has been interpreted to be halakhah (Jewish law is yet another level of interpretation)? Or do we reach for the highest values of our tradition and view the text through that lens?

Let me try the latter for you. The account of the wood-gatherer  -- clearly an anecdote -- precedes the paragraph about tzitzit (fringes), which is also the third paragraph of Shema, recited thrice daily. The purpose of tzitzit, Torah tells us, is to serve as a reminder of one’s religious obligations. It’s a helpful “string around the finger” in an age without calendar books and smart phones. The very premise of the tzitzit is that it is difficult to remember one’s obligations, so here’s a device to help. In this context, the story of the wood-gatherer, rather than encouraging the institution of Shabbos Police, assures the one who wears tzitzit that they will help prevent serious violations.

Examining the anecdote closely, we see that when the people bring the wood-gatherer before Moses, he does not know what to do. Moses cannot make the decision himself. He consults God, and it is only by God’s specific decree -- about this case, and this case alone -- that the wood-gatherer is stoned. There is no generalized mandate to stone other shabbat violators. To the contrary! That Moses needs to consult God, that God needs to make a decision in this case, and that no general law is promulgated all tell us that this is not an event to be replicated. We cannot consult God directly. God does not speak directly to any human being. There is no license to stone someone for what the Rabbis came to decide -- through their interpretations -- were violations of shabbat. The message we can learn is that such behavior is forbidden: We are not Moses, and God does not speak directly to us about such cases.

Religion is not the reason for bigotry, violence, and murder. It is, tragically, often the excuse for it. Any religious idea or text can be hijacked and misused to spew hatred and foment violence. That’s not the responsibility of the text or the religion. It’s the responsibility of the people who choose to interpret the texts as they do and behave as they choose. Other choices are available.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

 The Wood Gatherer, Vincent van Gogh (1884) sketch and study

The opposite of loneliness / B'haalotcha

In an essay distributed at Yale University's 2012 commencement exercises, graduating senior Marina Keegan writes, “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.” Struggling for the right term, she says, “It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community.” She’s right. I would suggest that the opposite of loneliness is connection -- deep and abiding connection.

Torah teaches us how to live so as to forge deep and abiding connections with family, community, and society. The term “loneliness” from “alone” suggests that the opposite is a sense of oneness, a merging. Merging too far, too much, is dangerous. Think of parents who live vicariously through their children, and co-dependent couples who have lost sight of the boundary between self and other.

What healthy soul doesn’t want to see him or herself as distinctive and unique? We treasure our individuality. John Stuart Mills correctly noted that despotism crushes human individuality. He warned: “But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency of personal impulses and preferences.” (On Liberty, chapter 3)

Henry Ford noted:

All Fords are exactly alike, but no two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything just like it before, never will be again. A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth. Society and schools may try to iron it out of him; their tendency is to put it all in the same mold, but I say don't let that spark be lost; it is your only real claim to importance.

Parshat B’haalotcha describes the maintenance of the menorah in the Tabernacle -- a symbol of individuality wrapped in a great unity.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him, “When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand.” Aaron did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the lampstand, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Now this is how the lampstand was made: it was hammered work of gold, hammered from base to petal. According to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses so was the lampstand made. (Numbers 8:1-4)

The seven-branched candelabrum in the Mishkan is the oldest, and most authentic Jewish symbol. It is described in detail in Exodus 25:31-40. Three curved branches extend on either side of the straight central shaft, each ending in a cup to hold oil and a wick. All seven receptacles are the same height.

It has been symbolically identified with the Creation and the burning bush. Historically, the menorah served as the symbol of the Hasmoneans, descendants of Aaron, the first High Priest, who reclaimed the Temple in the days of King Antiochus Epiphanes IV; the festival of Chanukah is the yearly celebration of their victory. Josephus reports that when the Romans destroyed the Temple, Titus bore the menorah to Rome. To this day, its depiction can be seen on the Arch of Titus on the Via Sacra. The Seal of the State of Israel prominently features the seven-branched menorah. From the victory of the Hasmoneans, to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, to the establishment of the State of Israel, the menorah has accompanied the Jewish people throughout its historical travels. The menorah bespeaks Jewish distinctiveness.

Our Sages, too, laud individuality and distinctiveness. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5, explaining why only one human being was created initially, tells us:

… when a human being strikes many coins from one mold, they all resemble one another, but the supreme Ruler of rulers, the Holy One, blessed be God, fashioned every person in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles another.

In the minds of the Kabbalists, however, the menorah imparts a different truth: our individuality, as important and necessary as it is, is superseded by an even greater truth: the unity of everything.

As early as the 15^th century, the Kabbalists envisioned and graphically represented Psalm 67 as a menorah, its seven verses the seven branches of the candelabrum.

 Presented in this way, Psalm 67 is much like a mandala, a geometric pattern that serves as a metaphysical “map” of the cosmos. It is a tool to help us see what is beyond our visual range, understand what is beyond our normal cognitive ability, and envision what we can envision only when our minds are open and our souls are spiritually focused. The mandala takes us beyond ourselves -- beyond our distinctiveness and individuality -- to see what our egos cloud from view.

In depicting Psalm 67 as a menorah, the Kabbalists identified each verse with a sefirah  (an emanation from God, an attribute of divinity), corresponding to the content of the verses, as follows:

Psalm 67

For the leader; a psalm with instrumental music, a song.

1 (Chesed/loving kindness)                  May God be gracious to us and bless us;

                                                                  may He show us favor. Selah.

2 (Gevurah/might)                                 So that Your way become known on earth,

                                                                  Your deliverance among all nations.

3 (Tiferet/harmony)                              Peoples will praise you, O God;

                                                                  all peoples will praise You.

4 (Netzach/victory, endurance)            Nations will exult and shout for joy,

                                                                  for You rule the peoples with equity,

                                                                  You guide the nations of the earth. Selah.

5 (Hod/splendor)                                   The peoples will praise You, O God;

                                                                  all peoples will praise You.

6 (Yesod/foundation)                            May the earth yield its produce;

                                                                  may God, our God, bless us.

7 (Malkhut/sovereignty)                       May God bless us, and be revered

                                                                  to the ends of the earth.

What I say next may get a bit technical, but hang in there with me. In the Hebrew, the seven verses (in word length) form a chiasm: 7-6-6-11-6-6-7.  Verse 4 is both the central and longest verse, suggesting that its message is the one all others point to. The sefirah associated with verse 4 is Netzach, which means “victory” (or endurance, fortitude, and patience); these are the attributes needed for personal spiritual growth. The victory it exalts is that of the self over obstacles that keep us tethered to trivialities, vanities, and materialism -- all concerns of the ego that wants to see itself as distinct. Presenting Psalm 67 as a menorah suggests that many aspects of divinity radiate from the central core of Netzach: the oneness of God gives rise to multiplicity. This is as it ought to be: we cannot function and live our lives without a sense of individuality and distinctiveness.

From a Kabbalist perspective, however, there is a higher level of awareness, a greater overarching truth to be claimed. The menorah, Torah tells us, was made of one piece of hammered gold -- it was in itself a unity. So, too, when we see beyond our individuality, we are able to comprehend the unity of all -- us, the flora and fauna of this planet, mountains, forests, glaciers, and deserts that support life, the planets in our solar system, the cosmos altogether, all of it. There is unity in multiplicity.

For those who are neither mystics nor Kabbalists, and who are deeply grounded in science and rationalism, the message is pretty much the same, perhaps expressed with a different vocabulary: There is a unity to the universe, and a deep web of interconnection between our lives and everything in the cosmos, described by the laws of physics, and observable every day.

Most of us have no trouble identifying our distinctiveness, our uniqueness. But can we grasp unity? The view from unity -- when we can glimpse it -- provides a wholly different perspective on the issues in our lives, communities, and society, from how we treat those we come into contact with on a daily basis, to how we organize ourselves and run our institutions, to how we interact with the environment. It’s all there. When we truly comprehend that, wonderful things will happen. Perhaps the menorah can help point the way.

(Note: Marina Keegan wrote that she found meaningful connection at Yale. Tragically, she died in a car accident five days after her graduation. Zichrona livracha - may her memory be a blessing.)

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Community camping / Parshat Naso

The Israelites’ trek through the Wilderness is like an extended camping trip. They don’t travel light. Parshat Naso describes in minute detail how the Mishkan is disassembled and carried along the journey.

A week after my husband and I arrived in Israel for our senior year of college, we set out to go camping in Ashkelon, equipped with a tent, two sleeping bags, and very little food. We planned to buy food when we arrived, but the shuk had closed up and the supermarket was closed due to a strike. We set up our tent amidst a sea of large, olive drab, flat-topped canvas tents (some with several rooms!) inhabited by families that moved in for the summer. We soon found ourselves surrounded by Israelis who were fascinated by our tiny, blue nylon wonder. People exclaimed over it. Several offered to buy it on the spot. The tent looked something like this:

As the sun dipped below the horizon, one family took special notice of us. In those days, people brought low-wattage bulbs to the campground and plugged them into outlets secured to the trees. They rented one for us so we would be able to read at night. When dinnertime arrived and they saw us eating food from a can, they invited us to eat with them. The following day, they fed us breakfast and lunch, and in the afternoon took us for a tour of Ashkelon, including a visit to Yad Mordecai.)

Yad Mordecai

Another family told me: They always take care of people, but if they hadn’t, we would have taken care of you. What began as a misadventure (an entire weekend without food) turned into a marvelous experience.

(As an aside: Our host family came from Romania. They had arrived in Israel in the 1950’s, but more than that they refused to discuss. It was years later that the story of the rescue of Romanian Jews by Israel was told. Israel paid $1000 to $3000 per person in the 50s and 60s, as much as $50,000 in the 70s, and sometimes in livestock and even one factory to bring them to freedom. You can read about it here and here and here.

As we open the Torah to parshat Naso this week, we find the Israelites engaged in the monumental task of creating a cohesive, caring, and moral community in the Wilderness. They do not wait until conditions are optimal: a time in the distant future when they will have their own land and establish themselves as a nation among nations. They begin immediately.

These are the steps recounted in parshat Naso, and my interpretation for our efforts to create -- and sometimes rebuild -- genuine community in our congregations and institutions:

• First, a census is taken of the levitical clans (Numbers, chapter 4). Each is assigned responsibilities related to the Tabernacle: dissembling for, and guarding during, travel, as well as assembling when the Israelites make camp. The very act of taking a census is a public effort to count everyone because everyone counts. The assignment of duties reminds us that everyone has a contribution to make and we should welcome and value their gifts. In fact, we should seek them out. Recognizing people’s talents and skills draws them closer.
• Next, ritual purity precautions are established to protect the community from those who might “defile the camp” (Numbers 5:1-4). While the ancient concerns about ritual purity no longer pertain as they did for our ancestors, I am reminded that there are people who “defile” our “camps” -- those who are undermining, toxic, and hurtful, those whose narcissistic tendencies wreak havoc. It is difficult to deal with such people in the context of a volunteer organization or a community, but far too often they are permitted to “remain in the camp” (in positions of authority) and do great damage. That should not be.
• We are next told that those who wrong others also wrong God, and must make restitution (Numbers 5:5-10). This law underscores the premium placed on personal responsibility, respect for others, and the rights of people. For a community to thrive, personal relationships of those involved must be civil and respectful. From my experience, this happens best when the standards for interaction are articulated clearly and often.
• We next learn the ritual of the Sotah, the suspected adulteress (Numbers 5:11-31). In the absence of police and jails in the Wilderness, the ritual of the Sotah offered a measure of protection to women whose husbands flew into potentially violent rages of jealousy. (Perhaps a better solution could have been found; this one comes at the cost of the woman’s dignity.) The ritual of the Sotah reminds us that jealousy is a dangerous emotion and can lead to violence. Jealousy is often at the root of community problems. We need to learn to recognize it, and like our ancestors, address it. We need to learn how to discern what people’s underlying motives and agendas are, especially when they derive from envy.
• Torah then proceeds to speak about a special case in the community: Nazirites, who made special vows over and above what Torah requires (Numbers 6:1-21). You’d think that Torah imposes a sufficient number of obligations, but Nazirites sought more. Every community has people with different perspectives and different needs. We need to recognize their individuality and address their needs as best we can. This brings us full circle: the census reminds us to count everyone.

The Israelites began shaping a functional, civil community in the wild and uncivil Wilderness. Community begins with people, not place. I saw that creation of community at a campground in Ashkelon. In the two years I lived in Israel, I camped in many places, all nice, but everyone in those days knew that Ashkelon was the best because the culture created by the people who camped there every summer was uniquely warm, welcoming, and caring.

Aaron and his sons are instructed to bless the people with a blessing we still cherish and use to this day:

May God bless you and protect you.

May God deal kindly and graciously with you.

May God bestow divine favor upon you and grant you peace.

(Leviticus 6:24-26)

Shalom (peace) means wholeness, completeness. This blessing, Torah tells us, will link God’s name -- God’s identity, values, holiness -- with the people of Israel. If we want that peace, we need to strive for shalom (wholeness) for everyone. We can do that by starting here and now -- not waiting until conditions are optimal -- just as people did in a campground in Ashkelon, as our ancestors did in the Wilderness.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

 Beach at Ashkelon

From wilderness to mountaintop / Parshat B'midbar and Shavuot

People who know how everyone else should live their lives astound me.  I find it’s a full-time occupation figuring out my own life. Maybe there’s a computer for this? The supercomputer “Deep Thought” in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is constructed by a race of hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings. Its purpose is to provide the “ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.” Good deal. Too bad it’s fiction.

This week we open the Torah to Sefer B’midbar, the Book of Numbers, which largely recounts the Israelites’ 40-year trek through the Wilderness in pursuit of answers to the questions put to Deep Thought. In addition, as we bid goodbye to shabbat, we usher in Shavuot, which celebrates Matan Torah (the Giving of the Torah) at Mt. Sinai. From the Wilderness to the mountaintop -- shall we say from questions to answers?

Ah, but it’s not that simple. Torah is not the Jewish version of “Deep Thought,” generating answers to any question posed. Torah is actually more than “Deep Thought.”

It’s curious that Torah takes us from the creation of the cosmos just up to the border of Eretz Yisrael. In all of Torah, with the exception of the ill-fated episode of the spies reconnoitering the Land, no one sets a toe in the Land of Israel. Perhaps that is because we’re always in the Wilderness -- always asking questions, always searching for answers: To what purpose our lives? Where should we invest our energies? What is the meaning of our experience? How do we make ethical decisions? And even when we think we’ve found some answers, we realize that they only generate more questions.

 

We might hope that Psalm 107:4-8 encapsulates our life experience:

Some lost their way in the wilderness, in the wasteland;

they found no settled place.

Hungry and thirsty, their spirit failed.

In their adversity they cried to the Lord,

And he rescued them from their troubles.

He showed them a direct way to reach a settled place.

Let them praise the Lord for his steadfast love,

His wondrous deeds for humanity;

For he has satisfied the thirsty,

filled the hungry with all good thing.

The seemingly simplistic mechanism described in the psalm is not how the world works. God doesn’t swoop down and solve our dilemmas. Torah doesn’t churn out answers to every question. But perhaps that’s not how we are to understand the poet’s verses.

Let’s start with our parashah. B’midbar devotes three chapters to a census taken in the Wilderness:

Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. (Numbers 1:2)

 The people are counted, tribe by tribe, clan by clan, and detailed tribal enrollment numbers are recorded. Why? Because, I would suggest, life is with people: living in family and community, forging relationships, and working them out. It is in the context of relationships that we find purpose and make our lives meaningful. It is in the context of relationships that we face the most challenging ethical conundrums and questions about meaning. We need to take a census of the people in our lives, the relationships that constitute our world.

But whence the answers? We might hope to find them in Torah. From the Wilderness to the mountaintop where one can see everything -- it’s a nice image but Torah is not “Deep Thought” for anyone who thinks deeply.

Zohar, the seminal work in Jewish mysticism, teaches that Torah will lead us to answers, but it’s not a simple computerized process.

R. Shimon said: “Woe to the human being who says that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words! If so, we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary words, and better than all of them. To present matters of the world? Even rulers of the world possess words more sublime. If so, let us follow them and make a Torah out of them. Ah, but all the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!... Woe to the wicked who say that Torah is merely a story! They look at this garment and no further. Happy are the righteous who look at Torah properly! As wine must sit in a jar, so Torah must sit in this garment. So look only at what is under the garment. All those words and all those stories are garments.  (Zohar 3:152a)

For the mystics, Torah holds answers, but they are secrets encoded in its words and available only through meditation and interpretation. For those of us who are not mystics, we can take this meaning from the Zohar: Torah is not a book of quick, easy answers. Its words must flow through us, enabling us to ask the right questions and find our own truths.

Parshat B’midbar affirms this. B’midbar concludes (chapter 4) with instructions on breaking camp. The levitical Kohathite clan is charged with porterage. The Tabernacle’s sacred objects are to be covered with blue, crimson, and purple cloths, and dolphin skins. The objects sit in garments, as the Zohar tells us Torah does. Coverings are tantalizing. They invite us to rip them off to find what is concealed beneath.

B’midbar ends with these words:

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Do not let the group of Kohathite clans be cut off from the Levites. Do this with them, that they may live and not die when they approach the most sacred objects: let Aaron and his sons go in and assign each of them to his duties and to his porterage. But let not [the Kohathites] go inside and witness [inside the sanctuary] lest they die. (Numbers 4:17-20)

We never see or know it all. We’re always “outside” to some degree. But did you expect all the answers before you die?

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, after 7.5 million years of continuous computation, Deep Thought returns the ultimate answer: 42. But the Ultimate Question remains a mystery! Perhaps Douglas Adams provides genuine Torah here: we may think we have the answers, but did we really ask the right questions? So too the Psalmist provides great wisdom. God provides food and drink, not in the conventional, simplistic way the Zohar warns against, but in a far deeper way: Torah, our mayim chaim (“life-giving waters”) helps us shape our questions, as well as find answers that generate more questions, sending us searching for more truths. We climb higher up Sinai, deeper into God. Perhaps that’s the whole point. The Jewish approach to truth is to cherish your questions even more than your answers.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

You are what you eat / Behar-Bechukkotai

Jews have a thing about food, but every ethnic group thinks it has a thing about food. For us, however, food and eating are integral to Jewish religious observance and moral values.

French lawyer, politician, and gourmet, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, published Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante two months before his death in 1826. It has never been out of print in the past 186 years. There you will find this quote: "Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." Translation: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Ronald Reagan was quoted in the Observer (March, 1981) as saying, "You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans."

“You are what you eat” suggests that there is a direct connection between the food we consume, and our physical health and state of mind. Torah would add that the food we eat both affects and reflects our spirituality; hence the extensive laws of kashrut we read a few weeks ago in Parshat Shemini. In this week’s parashah, Behar, Torah broadens the connection to an interactive triangle of land, food, and spirituality.

Torah speaks of the shemittah (sabbatical year), a year of complete rest for the land. Every seventh year the land lies fallow to regenerate itself.

Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. (Leviticus 25:3-4)

What is more, after counting off seven sabbatical cycles, the fiftieth year that follows is the Yovel (Jubilee year). Then, too, the land is allowed to rest.

You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep My rules, that you may live upon the land in security; the land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall live upon it in security. (Leviticus 25:18-19)

Long ago our ancestors understood the fundamental connection between the eco-system, the food we consume, and our spiritual lives. Torah affirms that human behavior -- especially unethical behavior -- pollutes the very land. For far too long, we have lost that connection, that sense of the land as a living, pulsing, vibrant part of our lives. We live in hermetically sealed homes, travel through the world in climate-controlled cars, and acquire food in cardboard and plastic containers, far from the fields in which it was grown. Our technological abilities -- which have brought so much good to our lives -- have another side. We have seen the dust bowl. We have seen the results of air pollution and water pollution.  We have seen the despoliation of rain forests. We have presided over the extinction of hundreds of species. We have also seen Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Auschwitz, and the Killing Fields.

Yet we have also seen the extraordinary view of our precious Blue Marble from the perspective of space and have come to see that we are not separate from the earth (or the universe, for that matter). We are integral to it, and dependent upon it. We have come to understand the imperative to take responsibility for the technology we build and unleash. Parshat Behar reminds us to keep land, food, and spirituality inseparably linked.

Thanks to many dedicated souls in the Jewish community, today we are reclaiming the crucial connection between the environment, kashrut, and the Jewish premium on social justice. “Eco Kashrut” and “Magen Tzedek” are leading the way.

Eco-kashrut, led by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and championed by the Renewal Movement, has for several decades advocated expanding our understanding of kashrut to include ecological concerns. For ancient shepherds and farmers, God provided rain so that the earth could support their flocks and herds, and yield fruits, vegetables, and grains. For us, however, coal, oil, electric power, and insecticides are part of our food production. Our food is delivered in plastics and papers -- rarely produced from recycled materials -- that draw on fossil fuels and forests, and most often end up in landfills.

Much has been written on the environmental impact of food production. Try this and this and this.

Eco-kashrut encourages us to expand our observance of kashrut by eating organic produce and purchasing from local growers for the sake of the environment on which we depend.

The Magen Tzekek certification program grew out of the Conservative Movement’s commitment to enlarge kashrut to encompass social justice concerns about workers and animals.  Here is how they describe their mission:

 

The Magen Tzedek Commission… combines the rabbinic tradition of Torah with Jewish values of social justice, assuring consumers and retailers that kosher food products have been produced in keeping with exemplary Jewish ethics in the area of labor concerns, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issues and corporate integrity.

The cornerstone of the program is the Magen Tzedek Standard, a proprietary set of standards that meet or exceed industry best practices for treatment of workers, animals, and the Earth; and delineates the criteria a food manufacturer must meet to achieve certification. Upon successful certification, the Magen Tzedek Commission will award its Shield of Justice seal which can be displayed on food packaging.

The Magen Tzedek seal is available only for products that currently carry a traditional Hekhsher seal from an authorized kosher certification agency. It is not intended as a replacement, but rather a complementary enhancement to a brand’s reputation.

 

It is past time to return to the wisdom of the Torah that understands that land, food, and spirit are interwoven.

“Upon creating the first human beings, God guided them around the Garden of Eden, saying, ‘Look at My creations! See how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! I created everything for you. Make sure you don’t ruin or destroy My world. If you do, there will be no one after you to repair it.’” (Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)

Our ancestors knew it. We have to relearn it.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Defective or whole? / Parshat Emor

Everybody’s life is circumscribed in some way or another. None of us can do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want… except in our dreams. Certainly, physics and biology impose limitations on us -- both conspire to prevent me from flying -- but so too my relationships with other people.  And just as our relationships impose limits and obligations on us, so too do we impose limits and obligation on others.

The priests, as described in parshat Emor are bound by a strict set of regulations: they may not come in contact with a corpse, with the exception of a close relative; they may not engage in some of the signs of mourning, specifically those related to the body; they may not marry a divorcee; they may neither go around bare-headed nor rend their priestly vestments. Then we get to a very troubling regulation concerning their physical qualifications to offer sacrifices in the Mishkan (Tabernacle):

No one at all who has a defect (kol ish asher bo mum) shall be qualified: no man who is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth in his eye, or who has a boil-scar, or scurvy, or crushed testes. No man among the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the Lord’s offering by fire; having a defect, he shall not be qualified to offer the food of his God. (Leviticus 21:18-20)

I cringe when I read these verses, not because of the physical deformities and impairments described, but because of the use of the phrase kol ish asher bo mum / every man who has a defect. One who has a defect is by definition “defective.” What makes me cringe is the very notion that a human being can be thought of as “defective”: damaged, deficient, incomplete.

Human perfection does not exist. If any of is “defective,” all of us are defective. Indeed, the very concept of human perfection is insidious because it suggests we all hopelessly miss the mark. (For that reason, I believe the Jewish notion of teshuvah/repentance is far superior. On the High Holy Days, I do not strive for perfection, which is impossible, but rather self-improvement, which is within my power.)

The notion of defect, which in turn implies the possibility of human perfection, generates a sense of inadequacy among many people. Whether it a physical matter or an emotional challenge, it makes them feel insufficient, less than, even intolerable. Imagine how much pain such thinking engenders. Every human being seeks shleimut/wholeness, a sense of completeness that brings in its wake serenity and equanimity (at least for short intervals). To describe a human being as asher bo mum / that he has a defect suggests that wholeness is beyond that person’s reach precisely because of how he or she deviates from “the norm.”

The concept of “defective” is dangerous and deadly when applied to a group of people, be it a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, or a tribe. To call a group “defective” -- just like labeling them a “virus” or a “cancer” -- is to brand them sub-human and therefore expendable. History has shown us far too often that such thinking leads to genocide.

Michael J. Perry, professor of law at Emory University, writes:

Some people have thought that to be black is to be, not merely different, but defective, it is to be a defective human being -- less than fully human -- because being white is normative… Some people have thought that to be female is to be a defective human being, because being male is normative. And some people have thought -- and think-- that to be homosexual, to have a homosexual orientation, is to be a defective human being, because being heterosexual (“straight”) is normative. Judge [Richard A.] Posner has observed that “[homosexuals,] like Jews, are despised more for who they are than for what they do…” (The Constitution in the Courts: Law or Politics? p. 176)

Our language and our thoughts are indistinguishable. Saying, “Well, that’s not really what I meant” doesn’t wash when what is on the line is the very humanity of a human being or a group of people. The Oxford English Dictionary has well over 250,000 entries; there are probably more words in the English language than in any other. There are ways to say what we truly mean. We must presume that people mean what they say. But before speaking, we would all do well to consider what we believe. It would behoove each of us to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we see those whose bodies and minds do not function in a way we are inclined to consider as “normal.” It may be that we need to challenge our own beliefs, however deeply imbedded in our psyches and backgrounds. It may help a bit to remember that if another is “defective,” so are we.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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