Shabbat: Parsha Behaalotecha

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Behaalotecha, Numbers 8:1-12:16.


Behaalotecha is one of the darkest parshiot in the entire Torah, full of wrath, suffering and mistrust. At the core of the parsha is a overarching commentary about family, and more specifically how we can all get on the nerves of those we love. Some of the scenes in this portion seem disproportionately harsh or graphic, but even the intense punishments visited on the Israelites have a narrative purpose. In the middle of the parsha, Moses numbers the men of Israel at over 600,000, meaning that an estimated two million people travel with the camp. If the punishments are to have a significant impact on an entire nation, they must be on such a grand scale.

But before the drama begins, Bahaalotecha reiterates the mitzvah of keeping Passover. The reason for this repetition is twofold. First, the parsha addresses what a person is supposed to do should they be incapable of observing the holiday for one reason or another. The solution is rather simple. If an individual has a good reason for not observing Passover (such as ritual impurity or being abroad), that individual is obligated to do all of the requirements of the holiday one month later.

The other reason for a reiteration of the Passover mitzvah is to reveal another mitzvah, that of inviting the stranger to celebrate the holiday as well. Every year at Passover, we read in the Haggadah that we are supposed to invite outsiders into our homes, often interpreted as inviting non-Jews to enjoy the feast with us. The basis for that mitzvah is in this parsha where the people are told to observe Passover even with the stranger. Of all the holidays for a non-Jew to experience, Passover is clearly the best. It is a re-telling of the Exodus on which so much of our religion is based, but it's also an enjoyable and interactive experience with food, drink, songs and games. By revealing Judaism to outsiders as a lively faith based on family, friends and inviting traditions, we can assure them that we're not so foreign and mysterious.

Later in Behaalotecha, the Israelites start complaining again. This time they whine that they never get to eat meat or other fine foods, recalling the plentiful fare of Egypt. Of course, when the Israelites complain, Moses is the one who has to listen to them. After being nagged for meat, Moses cries to God that the burden of leadership is too much for him. He's actually rather dramatic, saying that death would be easier to accept than all this responsibility. God, in turn, is actually rather comical. God literally says that if the people beg for meat, they will have so much of it that they'll eat it until it starts coming out of their noses. The humor ends there, though. The lusting of the Israelites, whether for meat or something else, results in God's wrath spreading fire throughout the camp, then later disease.

In more family-related stories, one of Moses's fathers-in-law (he had several wives) says that he is going to leave the camp to go to his homeland. Moses pleads with him to stay. That story ends abruptly and is followed by a sort of "family court" moment when Miriam and Aaron team up against Moses for marrying a foreign woman. They use that point of contention to bring some jealousy to the surface over God choosing only Moses to be a prophet. In a very interesting moment, God explains that Moses isn't actually a prophet. Under God's definition, a prophet receives divine communication through dreams and visions, while Moses speaks to God directly. In that sense, Moses is more like Abraham. Following this, God essentially plays the role of a parent to these three, disciplining these bickering children who have bigger things to worry about than family squabbles.

Behaalotecha is a really loaded parsha with far too many details to cover in one shabbat. It's like a novel unto itself with all of its drama and layers of metaphor. It's at times like this that we're reminded why we read the Torah, front to back, every single year. There's just too much to talk about. It's a subtle reminder that a year really isn't that long. If the Torah is the Tree of Life, it may even be a reminder that life itself can be too short to do all we have to do.

Person of the Week: Abraham ibn Ezra

The term "dark ages" is rather Europe-centric. While many of those territories formerly under the control of the Roman Empire saw several hundred years of lost knowledge, troubled governments and failing health, other parts of the world thrived. The Muslim world was particularly active in that period. From Persian, Arab and Moorish territories such innovations as algebra, advanced architecture and modern poetic forms arose. In the Muslim world's Jewish threads, some of the greatest thinkers traveled and wrote extensively during this time. Among them, few were as important as Abraham ibn Ezra.

Rav Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Spain, probably in 1089 CE. His cousin, Moses ibn Ezra grew to be a famous philosopher and poet in his own right, but Abraham is the more prolific and impressive of the two. Rav ibn Ezra was supposedly very good friends with another great Jewish theologian, Yehuda Halevi. There is also strong evidence that ibn Ezra married Halevi's daughter.

ibn Ezra was, like many of the great Jewish thinkers of his time, a globe-trotting writer. By the middle of his life he had very little family. Three of his four sons had died, while the fourth converted to Islam. At that time, doing so would have meant a complete separation of the communities in which father and son lived. At that point, ibn Ezra began his travels and essentially didn't stop until his death at an unknown date and in one of several potential places. In his wanderings, ibn Ezra carried knowledge which he took it upon himself to distribute through Jewish communities all over the world.

Though an incidental philosopher and an accomplished poet, Abraham ibn Ezra was more interested in concrete systems. His two greatest contributions were in linguistics and (indirectly) in mathematics. In the latter case, he brought the advanced mathematical principles of his Muslim homeland to Jews in Christian-controlled Europe. Such concepts as the decimal system and the use of zero found their way into Jewish communities thanks to ibn Ezra, who used Hebrew letters to represent numbers in a unique system, much of which remains in modern Israel.

As a linguist, ibn Ezra is largely responsible for solidifying the understanding of Hebrew grammar. He wrote several key texts concerning the Hebrew language and how it is used both in the Torah and in other sources. He also translated several important Arabic books into Hebrew, making them accessible to a much larger portion of the Jewish population of Europe and Asia.

Rav ibn Ezra also penned a well-regarded series of biblical commentaries. His works concerning the Torah are as respected as those of great Talmudic scholars like Rashi. ibn Ezra's approach was often to find the most straightforward meaning in the stories of the Torah rather than to dig for the more complex, reference-heavy ideas preferred by most theologians. He never really constructed midrashim to explain his views on the Torah. Instead he deconstructed word usage.

This interest in language almost got ibn Ezra into trouble. Some of his views bordered on high controversy, such as his insinuations that the Torah was written by multiple authors over a long period of time, rather than transcribed by Moses all at once. In his writings he used a particular phrase, "The intelligent will understand" whenever he approached an idea that went against the grain, so he never ruffled anyone's feathers hard enough to endanger himself.

It is suspected that Abraham ibn Ezra died in 1167, though where exactly he passed is a matter of debate. Some sources have him in London, others in Jerusalem or in Rome. Regardless, he left behind a vast library of important works and a legacy of language-driven exegesis that scholars follow to this day.

Shabbat: A Return to Parsha Naso

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. Because of Shavuot last week, the Torah readings are a bit staggered, so Naso is this week's portion as well. That suits me just fine because there is a very interesting segment in Naso that we just didn't have time to cover last week. Two things, actually, though the two are placed back-to-back in the same chapter, so there is a likely link between them.

The first item I would like to talk about today is the concept of the Nazir. This is a highly unusual thing for Judaism. A Nazir is, in plain terms, an ascetic, a person who seeks spiritual purity through physical self-denial. I say this is unusual because Judaism typically doesn't promote the idea of enlightenment through suffering and detachment. There is no tradition of Jewish monasticism and indeed many physical pleasures are (in the right quantities and circumstances) known as mitzvot. Yet, in chapter 6 of parsha Naso, God describes the Nazirim as being holy in their self-denial.

There are no special duties or customs of the Nazir as far as the Torah is concerned. If Nazirim did anything specific for society, those details have been lost to time. The only thing that makes one a Nazir (or Nazirah for a woman) is to abstain from drinking wine, eating grapes or consuming anything else related to vine fruit. This can be extrapolated to include all finery in general, but that's just building a fence. In addition, a Nazir is not allowed to cut his or her hair during the entire course of his or her vow. Also, a Nazir is not permitted to come into contact with the dead, as that would make them ritually impure.

The Torah says that when a Nazir is ready to relinquish his or her vow, or if he or she accidentally comes into contact with a dead body, the Nazir must shave his or her head outside of the Tent of Meeting, bring the hair into the tent along with a variety of offerings and burn the hair on the altar. After that point, all the restrictions placed on the Nazir are lifted.

This calls up some heavy questions. Is the Torah telling us that we can attain spiritual enlightenment through asceticism, or at the very least make ourselves holy through it? Not necessarily. After all, in Judaism wine is a sacrament and a symbol of prosperity. To say that abstaining from wine makes one holy is to invite the possibility that drinking wine is inherently sinful. Rather, the thing that makes the Nazir holy is the vow itself. A person who consciously chooses to give up something that is otherwise common and routine would likely be constantly conscious of the spiritual motivation to do so. This is also why the Nazir is not permitted to cut his or her hair. It is a constant physical reminder of one's dedication to spiritual contemplation. By cutting the hair at the end of the vow, the Nazir experiences a milestone of sorts. The point is not the pain of denial, but the thoughts the denial brings to mind.

The second element of Numbers chapter 6 that interests me is the first mention of what we know today as the Priestly Benediction. It is not so much a prayer as a reassuring mantra. The Kohanim are supposed to tell congregations of Israelites:

"Adonai will bless you and protect you. Adonai will shine the divine visage upon you and be gracious to you. Adonai will lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

This mantra is said at very special occasions and on high holy days. It is unlike any other prayer or phrase in Jewish liturgy. The question is, why is it here in Naso? Why does it directly follow the laws of the Nazir? To answer this question, we need only ask ourselves why someone would choose to become a Nazir in the first place. Those who are already at peace don't need to seek holiness through asceticism. The self-denial most likely springs from an internal disquiet. The Torah, in recognizing that some people will experience such intense spiritual yearning, makes a provision for a period of deep reflection in the life of a Nazir. Yet it also follows that provision with a reiteration of God's unconditional love. The Priestly Benediction does not say "God will bless you if and only if (condition)..." it simply says that God will bless you. This chapter of the Torah is letting us know that spiritual tumult is a part of life, but that inner peace is always a possibility, and it is denied to no one, especially those who actively seek it.

Person of the Week: Abba Eban

It happens all too often that the ongoing debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reduced to broad terms. People take one side or the other, or more accurately they presume that the issue is so simple that there are only two sides to take. The constant, sensational news about the region and especially its violence distract people from the nuances of a very complicated story. Only through thorough study of the region's history, especially in the 20th century, can we be properly informed about how to pursue a lasting peace. The most important thing to remember is that history is made by people, by extraordinary individuals who devote their lives to great developments. In the story of Israel/Palestine, few individuals have been as important as Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban, also known as "Abba" Eban.

Born in South Africa and raised in England, Eban was a true practitioner of applied knowledge, a scholar who lived in the very marrow of human culture. By the time he took his first post in the newly-formed United Nations, he was fluent in several languages and highly experienced in the customs of many different societies. He had an impressive secular education going through Queen's College at Cambridge, graduating with high honors. In addition, Eban received a thorough Jewish education through his family, including learning Hebrew. His university studies focused on Oriental languages, which would include Semitic varieties such as Hebrew and Arabic. Eban was fluent enough in Arabic to translate whole novels. These linguistic skills would prove to be instrumental in his role as a lifelong diplomat.

Abba Eban was, like many politically active Jews of his time, a dedicated Zionist. As a student he was heavily involved with the Federation of Zionist Youth, an organization that promoted (and continues to promote) a multicultural approach to the region of Israel-Palestine. This would come to inform the policies Eban supported during the formation of the State of Israel in the late 1940's.

Abba Eban served as an intelligence officer for the British military in World War II. His main role was as an intermediary between Allied forces and the organization of Jewish settlers in the British Mandate of Palestine, known as The New Yishuv of Palestine. This diplomatic position brought Eban to New York City where he worked for the Information Department of the Jewish Agency. While there, he was one of the most vocal and important figures in the creation of UN Resolution 181, the plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two sovereign nations, one a Jewish state and the other an equal Arab state, with the city of Jerusalem being declared an international territory controlled by the UN itself.

The Partition Plan was a highly contentious issue. Extremists on both the Jewish and Arab sides opposed the plan and made several attempts to circumvent it. Though the United Nations approved Resolution 181 and allowed the two emerging states to form governments, the peace was almost immediately violated when a combined military force from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria invaded the newly-established Jewish state, thus beginning the Arab-Israeli War. The ensuing conflict lasted for a year with the occasional short-lived truce, finally ending with a decided victory for the Jewish state and a significant increase in its overall landmass. The region was simply not ready to accept a two-state solution to the problem.

After Israel won its independence, Abba Eban remained a liaison to the UN and also took up the post of Israel's ambassador to the United States. He was eventually elected Vice President of the UN General Assembly, holding that position for seven years. At the end of the 1950's, Eban took up residence in Israel and spent much of his life in various roles at the Knesset, Israel's parliament. While there he served as the Deputy Prime Minister under David Ben-Gurion, as well as the Minister of Education and Culture, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He later took the position of Minister Without Portfolio, which allowed him to cast a vote in the parliament without being affiliated with any particular party or coalition.

Abba Eban officially left public service in 1988, spending the remaining 14 years of his life dedicated to his writing, as well as taking guest lecturer positions at the Universities of Princeton, Columbia, and George Washington. Eban died in 2002 and was buried in Israel.

Abba Eban was a man who spent his life in the difficult world of international politics. Though he worked for reasonable, peaceful solutions, like so many others of his time he had to work against irrational, violent forces. Few individuals have done more for the fragile State of Israel or for Jewish culture around the world. He was a diplomat hero, a man of letters and a true inspiration.

Shabbat: Parsha Naso

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Shavuot Tov, and Welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Naso, Numbers 4:21-7:89.


Naso picks up where last week's parsha left off. God instructs Moses to continue assigning tasks to specific subsets of the Levite tribe. The Levite men between the ages of 30-50 are divided up by their home region of Egypt and given particular elements of the Tabernacle to guard and carry. Later the parsha names and enumerates the key individuals involved.

There are two very strange parts of this parsha that come in between the segments about the Levites. One is the center of an ongoing Talmudic debate, the other is often (in my opinion, incorrectly) dismissed as archaic superstition. Unfortunately, I only have space to address one of these things, so I'm going to go for the more flashy one. So, let's jump right in.

Believe it or not, The Five Books of Moses are rather light on superstition, especially for a text coming out of the ancient world. There is very little talk of magical things, and those stories that do contain some measure of magic usually fold out into a tidy metaphor with very little prodding. So, when mumbo-jumbo pops up out of nowhere, it's naturally meant to be suspect. As I've said before, coming to a place in the Torah that gives you pause for whatever reason is not an opportunity to dismiss the book outright, but a chance to delve deeper into what is more likely than not an intentional speed bump. In the case of the sotah, the bump is pretty big and the pause requires some mental gymnastics to get to a satisfactory answer.

The sotah can be defined as the wife who is suspected of infidelity without any actual evidence. The Torah's instructions for the sotah are for her to come before the priest and drink what basically amounts to a mixture of sand, water, and ink supposedly carrying a curse for any woman who has been unfaithful to her husband. The Torah says that an innocent woman will not only be unaffected by the curse, she will actually become healthier and more fruitful. A woman who is guilty, however, will suffer a horrible fate, with her belly filling with water, ending in her death.

Now, I know this seems rather strange and out-of-place for the Torah. That's because it is. There is a certain cleverness to this law, though. It's a morbidly funny, roundabout way of actually surmising whether or not an infidelity has occurred. The important part isn't whether or not the curse will work, which all reason says it won't, but that all parties involved believe that it will work. A woman who is guilty will have to fear for her life. It's no coincidence that the outward physical signs of guilt and innocence are the same. A belly slowly filling with water and a belly expanding with a child would look identical. A guilty woman might naturally assume that the curse has taken hold and in her despair confess her crime. A woman who is innocent will think herself blessed.

Of course, this leads us to question of what happens when the expanding belly ends up being a child, as it always would be. This is the real genius of the "curse". If a child was going to happen regardless of guilt, this "curse" provides a method of relieving the child of a broken home. Assuming a guilty wife doesn't confess, the suspicious husband, seeing a child result from the ritual, will believe his wife to have been faithful. The child is what's important here, not the quarreling couple. Being born into a harsh wilderness is hard enough without having to deal with parents who don't trust one another.

The curse of the sotah is an example of how superstition can have value in a very real, human way. It requires some digging and some non-traditional thinking, but the moral core is still there.

Shavuot

This week, Jews around the world will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. This holy observance commemorates the time when the Israelites received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. It is not as well-known in the non-Jewish world as holidays like Channukah and Passover, but it is still a very important day in Judaism.

Shavuot, a Hebrew word literally meaning "Weeks" is one of the few festivals explicitly described in the Five Books of Moses. It falls on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. The term "Weeks" refers to the days in between the first night of Passover and Shavuot which are counted by a special calendar called the Omer. This calendar marks 49 days, with the 50th being Shavuot.

Shavuot, like many ancient holidays, is closely tied to agriculture. It falls on the period of time when the first harvest of the year would have happened for the Israelites. In fact, there are several biblical euphemisms for Shavuot that directly reference the "first fruits". These days, Shavuot has stopped being a harvest festival and is focused almost entirely on the giving of the Torah.

Though it is described in the Torah, there are very few specific observances taken from the Torah for Shavuot. Most of the modern customs are later additions that hope to embrace the spirit of the holiday. Many are small observances stemming from the Eastern European customs of the Ashkenazim, such as eating special dairy products like cheese blintzes and decorating one's house with various forms of greenery.

One of the more intense customs on Shavuot is the practice of Tikkun Leil Shavuot. This is a special nighttime service that consists of several key readings from the Torah. Segments from each of the Five Books are read back-to-back with the complete list of the 613 mitzvot described by the Talmudic scholar Maimonides, as well as several other readings. The practice of the Tikkun Leil Shavuot comes from a 16th century custom of engaging in an all-night session of Torah study. Many modern synagogues have a slightly less extreme version of this, holding a long study session that runs for four to six hours after sundown.

Because Shavuot happens to fall conveniently in the late Spring when school-age kids approach the end of the year's studies, many congregations choose to hold their Confirmation services around the same time as Shavuot. Jewish Confirmation takes place three or four years after a young person's bar or bat mitzvah and it marks the end of the individual's primary Jewish education. This is largely an American Reform tradition, though not exclusively. Unlike the bar and bat mitzvah, Confirmation occurs for an entire class of students, not just individuals.

Shavuot 2009 begins at sundown on Thursday, May 28th and ends the following day at sundown. Whether you decide to stay up into the wee hours in group study or opt for a more leisurely night at home indulging in some tasty cheese blintzes, Judeo Talk wishes a Chag Shavuot Tov and a hearty Shalom to everyone.

Shabbat: Parsha Bamidbar

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Bamidbar, Numbers 1:1- 4:20.

After the long slog through the specifics of the law in Leviticus, we finally come to the book of Numbers. Now is as good a time as any to discuss the difference in the names of the books of the Torah. "Bamidbar" doesn't translate as "Numbers". In fact, none of the English names for the books are translations of the original Hebrew names. In this case Bamidbar (all parshiot at the beginnings of each book share the name with the corresponding book) translates as "In the wilderness". The reason for this name is not thematic, but merely where the word resides in the book. All of the Five Books are named for what I will call the first "strong" word in the opening portion. In the case of Numbers, the opening line is, "God spoke to Moses in the wilderness." There is hardly a more common phrase in the Torah than "God spoke to Moses". If we counted that phrase as being strong enough for a name, a significant chunk of the parshiot would be called "yidaber Adonai el-Moshe".

This naming convention is simply a culture-specific thing. When the Torah came to the West, Greek and Roman sources gave them names based on general themes, even if they got the themes wrong. While "Genesis" is a fairly accurate theme-title for the story of how everything began, the name "Exodus" really only covers the last little fragment of the story. Indeed more time is spent in the book of Exodus getting in to Egypt that is spent escaping from it. The name "Numbers" comes from the general trend of this book to count the people of Israel and assign them tasks.

Parsha Bamidbar does a few important things. First, it gives us the rough number of Israelites traveling through the desert at the two-year mark after leaving Egypt. The number is something of an estimate, though. God tells Moses only to count the war-able men over the age of 20 from each tribe. Counting women, children and the physically disabled, we can assume they numbered well over one million.

From this census, God appoints the nassim, the princes of the tribes. It is unclear what authority these princes would have, but that's not really the point right now. The most conspicuous element of this parsha is the fact that the entire tribe of Levites has been set aside. They weren't counted among the regular census because God has a special task for them. Originally, the physical components of worship, i.e. the tabernacle and the menorah, were put under the care of the first born of every tribe. The Torah reasons that since this system resulted in the fiasco of the golden calf, it was probably too chaotic. Now the accouterments of ritual have been put under the guardianship of the Levites. Because there are more first-born than total Levites, the remainder of first-born are forced to pay a tithe for the release of responsibility.

At this point in the Torah, we have the beginnings of a caste system. The Kohanim, descended from Aaron, have been dubbed the priests. The Levites have essentially now been enlisted as templars. They protect the holy items of the culture and make sure that no unauthorized individuals come into the tabernacle. They will never be called to war as a result. They will march and camp in a specific formation, each particular House in the tribe given its own holy item to protect.

Once again, we find the Israelites moving closer to order in the chaos of the wilderness. While caste systems are unnecessary in the modern day, they had an appeal to them in ancient times. With no concept of universal, standardized education, most people learned their professions by training from a very young age. By allotting tasks to entire tribes, the Israelite caste system made sure that important jobs were performed properly. In the old system, only the first born son of a first born son would have hope of proper training. The lesson of this parsha is to always be aware of your resources and do your best to apply them effectively. The lesson may not have much heart, but practicality has its place in life.

Person of the Week: Perry Farrell

When people think of rock and roll, they usually don't think of Jewish culture, but they should. Like all other areas of show business, Jews have had a significant impact in the development of the art and business of rock, and of pop music as a whole. Indeed some of the most influential performers, producers and promoters come from Jewish backgrounds. Many of them end up adopting stage names to hide the heritage that may distract from their talents, an unfortunately necessary tradition as old as show business itself.

In the 1990's, no Jewish rock musician had a greater impact than Perry Farrell. He was born Peretz Bernstein in Queens, New York in 1959. In 1962, Ferrell's mother took her own life. His family would later move to Miami, Florida. Young Peretz grew up listening to the revolutionary rock of David Bowie and The Velvet Underground, the musical pioneers of the 1970's. From them he adopted a sense of theatrics and high-energy performance.

Living his post-high-school days as a beach bum in California while holding odd jobs in the food service industry and as a construction worker, Peretz Bernstein soon found his way into the West Coast music scene. He began as the front man for a short-lived gothic rock band called Psi Com out of Los Angeles. After the breakup of Psi Com, Peretz took the stage name Perry Farrell. He never completely dropped his birth name, though. He still occasionally performs as the electronic musician DJ Peretz. Together with Dave Navarro, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins, he formed the popular alternative rock band Jane's Addiction.

Perhaps his greatest contribution to music in the 1990's, Farrell partnered with producers and promoters in the industry to create the Lollapalooza Festival in 1991. The original concept for the festival was simply an elaborate farewell tour for Jane's Addiction. As more bands and other entities got involved, Lollapalooza evolved into a spectacular traveling show. It featured not only music from the modern alternative rock scene, but also comedy, dance and a sort of wandering market for crafts. Later additions included technology exhibitions and extra stages for up-and-coming bands to get a moment in the spotlight.

Perry Farrell has also been an incredible humanitarian, using his fame and fortune to combat serious human rights problems throughout the world. In his most stirring contribution, he and the other members of Jane's Addiction organized a concert from which the proceeds would pay for the freedom of over 2000 Sudanese slaves. Such is the very definition of living mitzvah.

Perry Farrell continues to make music, pursue political causes and engage in the art of stage performance. He works with his wife, a singer and dancer named Etty Lau Ferrell, in the performance group The Satellite Party. In 2006 they even put together a one-off Jewish musicians showcase cheekily titled PurimPalooza. He is a living example of how music can be used to reach a world full of people and even create great change in it. Perhaps with pioneers like Farrell as icons, Jewish performers of today and tomorrow will keep their names with pride.

Shabbat: Parsha Behar-Bechukotai

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Behar-Bechukotai, Leviticus 25:1-27:34.

This is what I like to refer to as a "loaded" parsha. There's a lot of great content here, most of it entirely new. While Leviticus is mostly concerned with laying out laws and reiterating important concepts, this particular reading gets to the core of Jewish philosophy.

The first big thing in this parsha is the law of Jubilee. This is one of the most interesting, curious practices mentioned in the Torah. Put simply, the Jubilee is a divine decree that every fifty years all of society will essentially reboot. Debts will be forgiven, servants will be released from their bonds, property may return to its original owner and grudges must be dropped. It's a sort of super-sabbath, a giant sigh that affords all people, regardless of station, a chance at renewal.

Imagine for a moment what life would be like in the modern world if everyone observed the Jubilee. The cycle of poverty and privilege would essentially grind to a halt twice every century. Granted, the ancient Israelites didn't have a complex credit system and a global economy on their hands, but the principle behind the Jubilee is the important part anyway. It is the philosophy that people should not be doomed to perpetuate their own bad circumstances forever. No child should have to inherit a socio-economic station without the means to transcend it and no person should have so much power over another that they own not only the individual, but the individual's future.

The second big thing in this parsha is the first iteration of what is known as Blessings and Curses. This is a soul-shaking promise from God that those who follow the Torah will prosper, but those who go against it will suffer greatly. These passages are graphic and terrifying. They promise such horrors as being forced to eat the flesh of one's children and being denied the very rain to grow crops. While this section can be read to be a simple iteration of rewards and consequences, I don't really think that's where the value resides.

The problem with the above interpretation is that it posits a causal chain that is inconsistent with the moral core of the Torah. To say that God will punish you for not following the rules is really just too simplistic. In reality, bad things don't happen arbitrarily, they can all be traced to a source. What Blessings and Curses is really saying is that being mindful and doing good will create the circumstances for more good things to happen, while pursuing harm and wickedness will create an atmosphere of strain and mistrust.

We must remember that we are reading a poetic document when we read the Torah. Eating the flesh of one's sons and daughters? Where in the Torah do we have any example of something so horrible happening in the literal sense? It is far more meaningful to read such things as metaphor. Simply, if we commit wrongdoing today, we will suffer from the ill it causes tomorrow. By creating an unsustainable world based on greed and malice, we create a future in which self-destruction is the only option.

Putting these two ideas together, the Jubilee and the Blessings and Curses, we close the book of Leviticus by professing the very reason why we have laws and morals. It is the perfect endcap to Leviticus, the book of law and ritual, because it reminds us why we pursue order. These words are about our very survival, the potential of our future. We need to remember the value of leading just lives and we also need the opportunity to correct our mistakes, lest they build upon one another.

Person of the Week: Tamar Manasseh

When I was 16 years old, I attended religion school at my synagogue for the Confirmation-level class, basically the "senior year" of a Jewish education. My father taught Confirmation and always capped every year with a class trip to a city with Judaic significance. Most Confirmation classes end up going to Washington D.C. or New York City, but my class took an unusual trip to Chicago, Illinois. Why Chicago? Why not? It's home to a number of historic synagogues, the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies and its connected museum, and many Jewish entertainers got their start with the Second City improvisational comedy troupe. On the Saturday morning of our class trip, we walked to shabbat services at a prominent downtown synagogue. We had to go through parts of town where, to put it bluntly, we were the only white people in sight. Race has always been something of a sticking point in Judaism, and in the 21st century Chicago is where the dialogue about the role of Judaism in race relations is happening in real time.

Chicago is where Rabbi Capers C. Funnye has his pulpit at Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken, a synagogue at which essentially all of the congregants are black. One of those congregants is Tamar Manasseh, a young woman studying to be a rabbi herself. It is likely that Manasseh will be one of the first black females to ever be ordained as a rabbi. While this is certainly cause for celebration, it is also an event that should raise some questions. The first that comes to my mind is, why has it taken so long for this to happen?

The sad fact is that Jews have been an isolated people for far too long, culturally and genetically. In the latter case, we have become so isolated that there are certain genetic disorders associated with our population, especially for those of Ashkenazi descent, including Tay-Sachs Disease, Canavan Disease, Gaucher Disease, and Cystic Fibrosis. Despite the lack of philosophical support, it has been a sad fact for countless generations that to be Jewish meant being white and often explicitly forbidden to associate with people based on skin color.

The ascent of Tamar Manasseh to a position of leadership in the Jewish community indicates that we are living in an age of social opportunity. She may be the first black female to become a rabbi but she most certainly will not and should not be the last. It is my hope as a Jew and as a social progressive that Manasseh's high-profile pursuit opens up a continued discussion of the role Judaism plays in the development of modern society. The world can ill afford a lack of diverse perspectives, especially in stations of power and leadership.

It is only consistent with Jewish philosophy to embrace any and all who seek Torah. There are those who would point to biblical passages as evidence for the support of racial segregation, though it takes little scrutiny to discredit them. The Torah does prohibit the mixing of two unlike things, including the interbreeding of animals and the blending of fabrics. To equate mixed-race social relations to these passages is tantamount to calling someone a different species based on skin color.

For too long we Jews have been a self-segregating people. It should be our mission in the 21st century to eliminate the destructive barriers we have supported, embracing the value and the necessity of multi-ethnic unity. We cannot acheive tikun olam, the repair of the world, if we ignore most of the people living in it.

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