Parashat Shemini

Leaders for our Time

One of the most troubling episodes in the entire Torah is found in this week’s parasha. I am referring to the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Abihu. They have just been initiated into the priesthood and have been instructed about the proper conduct of worship in the Tabernacle. Something goes terribly wrong. They offer what the Torah calls an “alien fire” to the Tabernacle and are consumed by it. They are totally immolated.  The Torah itself is very mysterious about this. It does not tell us what exactly was “alien” about this fire, or what the motivations were of Aaron’s two sons in offering it. One of my rabbinic colleagues found 45 possible reasons that he gathered from various commentators as to why Nadav and Abihu brought this alien fire into the Tabernacle and why they died. The reasons range from their passionate desire to serve G-d, to their jealous ambition to usurp the role of their father, Aaron, in the priestly hierarchy. 

What an enormous tragedy for this family. What should have been one of the proudest days of Aaron’s life – the ordination of his four sons into the priesthood – turns, instead, into a day of mourning for two of them.  What is equally perplexing   is the reaction of Aaron’s brother, Moses to this loss.   For Moses says to Aaron, “This is what G-d meant when He said, ‘Through those near to me I show myself holy, and gain glory before all the people.”

Over the centuries, Rabbis have debated the meaning of Moses’ words. We are not sure what they mean, and we are not sure what that meant to Aaron. The Torah, however, records Aaron’s reaction – “And Aaron was silent.” Some believe that Aaron was silent because he was simply dumbfounded by Moses’ insensitivity during his time of grief. Moses seems to be offering an explanation for the inexplicable, a theological justification for what just happened. In preparing this sermon I was reminded of reading, some years ago, about the sudden death of Leonard Fein’s 30 year old daughter from cardiac arrest. You might recognize Leonard Fein as a well-known Jewish writer, publisher and social activist. He wrote that of all the many rabbis who contacted him or visited him in the aftermath of his daughter’s sudden death, among these many prominent theologians, not one of them offered a theological explanation for what had happened. Not one of them tried to explain why G-d would take his 30 year old daughter so suddenly from him. Leonard Fein wrote that he was grateful for this and for their simple acts of condolence.

Let us return to the Biblical story.

Later on in that tragic day, Moses, who is diligently keeping track to make sure all of the sacrifices in the Tabernacle are properly offered, discovers that Aaron has not handled the peoples’ sin offering according to regulation. He seems to lose his temper with his brother. “Why did you not eat the sin offering in the sacred area?” he asks of Aaron. “After all that has happened to me today,” replies Aaron sadly, “had I eaten the sin offering, would G-d have approved?” Moses then understood that this was not the day to hold Aaron accountable for the details of the sacrificial offerings. 

Clearly, for all of Moses’ greatness, he is not the most sensitive in interpersonal relationships. He is not, as we say in our day, “a people person”.  The midrash tells us that Moses’ motto, the philosophy by which he led and lived, was “Let the law pierce the mountains”.  That is to say, that Moses believed that the letter of the law must prevail, even if it involves great loss or sacrifice to the individual or to the community.  Moses is a master of the law, and the kind of leader that the people of Israel needed in their time. The question for tonight is, “What kind of leaders to the Jewish people need in our time?”

Rabbi Adin Steinsalz, one of our greatest contemporary rabbis, explores this issue in a recent op-ed for the Times of Israel, entitled, “Who Will Be our Rabbis?” He notes that a century ago, people expected and wanted their rabbis to be halakhic masters, rabbis who could guide them in the proper ways of living a Jewish life. But, hardly anyone consults rabbis about Kashrut anymore.  Who are appropriate rabbis today?  He cannot point to anyone in particular, but he answers, in typical rabbinic fashion, with a story:

It happened that the Maggid of Mezeritch, a Chassidic Master, gathered his disciples and told them that he was ill and would die within the year.  They needed to seek another rebbe. They asked him, “How can we tell who to follow, who is a rebbe?”  He replied that they should ask the person they are considering for a way to fight vain pride. If he gives them advice, then he is worthless. If he says, “G-d will help” then they should follow him.

The rabbis of our time, Rabbi Steinsalz is saying, need not be, and should not be, like Moses, who offers an answer in response to his brother, Aaron’s unfathomable tragedy. Moses has an answer for everything, and what he doesn’t know, he asks G-d directly. The rabbis of our time need to be comfortable with saying, “I don’t know” and be able to be with people in their pain -- a pain which no simple formula, no heartfelt prayer, no wise advice, can banish.  The Book of Numbers, Rabbi Steinsalz reminds us, calls the leaders of our people “the heads of the thousands of Israel”. Thus, the true leader is like a head, that part of the body that knows what is happening to all the other parts, and can feel the pain of each and every one of them.

Shabbat Shalom

 

Shabbat Zachor

Mistakes Christians Sometimes Make about Jews

In our megillah reading tomorrow night, Haman says to King Ahasverus, “There is a certain people- scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws….”  Those “certain people” are, of course, the Jewish people who Haman wishes to exterminate. Of course, Haman is, at best, misunderstanding the nature of the Jewish people – that we are xenophobic and misanthropic and do not obey the laws of the country in which we reside.  Haman is an anti-Semite, pure and simple. Some of us might be surprised to learn, however, that some of the people in our lives – those who love and respect us – misunderstand Judaism even today.  Of course, one can misunderstand Judaism and NOT be an anti-Semite.  I want to make that perfectly clear.  However, I daresay that even many Jews share these same misunderstandings about Judaism!!  This evening I want to share with you a talk that I attended with Amy Jill Levine. She is s a professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. Her talk was entitled “The Top Ten Mistakes Christians Make about Jews.” I think you are going to find this subject as interesting as I do. However, tonight I am only going to comment on three of those mistakes.

The first mistake that some Christians have about Judaism is that Judaism is a religion of law, whereas Christianity is a religion of love. If anyone ever tells you this, please remember   that the Hebrew word for “love’ – “Ahava” is used over 250 times in Hebrew scriptures. Some Christians – and unfortunately many Jews, I might add – view Jewish law as a burden.  In fact, Jewish law is a grace, that is, a way for us to be close to G-d, a gift that G-d has given us.  It is a way for us to share common practices that bring us closer together, that cement our common bond.  Many of us had a first-hand experience of how this could work when we went on our family retreat two weeks ago. We had no problem following Jewish law – worshipping at the proper times, eating kosher food, reciting grace after meals, studying sacred texts, turning off all of our electronic devices, not traveling, or shopping and just enjoying being together.  Jesus was a Jewish man who followed Jewish law – he wore tsitsit to remind himself of the law, he kept the Sabbath, and he argued with others about what is the proper observance of the law. One doesn’t argue points of Jewish law if it is not important to you. Archeological remains from the time of Jesus show the presence of Shabbat lamps the existence o, mikvahs and an absence of pig bones, indicating there was widespread adherence to Jewish law. It was the way of life that most people were following. There is no evidence whatsoever that Jews were suffering under some terrible burden of Biblical commandments whose weight they could not bear.

Yet this does not stop the World Council of Churches from writing that at the time of Jesus, “Judaism had encased G-d in its laws and traditions and its ministers could not accept a concept of G-d that went beyond their own limits….” Catholics learn from one of the pre-eminent Catholic theologians of the 20^th century, Leonardo Boff, that “in the world as Jesus found it, human beings were under the yoke of the law. Religion was no longer the way that human beings expressed their own openness to G-d -- It had crystallized and stagnated in a world of its own – a world of rights and sacrifices.” Thus, first century Judaism is still portrayed as a fossilized religion in which Jews focused on fulfilling the minutiae of the law without any experience of the spiritual dimension of our faith.

A second mistake that Christians have about Jews concerns mitzvoth, that is, the commandments.  Some Christians are taught and believe that we follow the Torah in order to earn G-d’s love so that we can gain entrance to heaven. This makes us what is termed a “works righteousness religion”.  Based on this, Christians feel sorry for us because they gain heaven through faith alone.  They worry about those Jews who do not follow the mitzvoth – if they are not earning G-d’s love through practice of the mitzvoth, what will their ultimate fate be? This is a misunderstanding of the role of mitzvoth in the lives of the Jew. All Jews are assured a place in heaven, according to no less authority than Maimonides. The Mitzvoth are not given to us to earn G-d’s love – they are given to us as a way to show our love for G-d. This can be compared to the relationship between two spouses.  A husband does not, say, prepare a special dinner for his wife in order to earn her love.  He does it because he loves her. Similarly, we follow mitzvoth because we love G-d, not to earn that love, which has already been freely given.

I will conclude tonight with a third of the ten mistakes that Professor Levine spoke about.  A third mistake is a misunderstanding that Jesus invented the idea of a G-d who is in intimate relationship with human beings. Some even teach that Jesus was the first to call G-d “father”.  It is mistakenly taught that first century Jews worshipped a G-d who was “a remote judge condemning people for infractions over little rules”, as opposed to Jesus, who worships a G-d full of “grace, compassion, forgiveness and love.” That comparison was on one made by President Jimmy Carter on his Bible Tape. Of course, Jesus did not discover the G-d of grace, compassion, forgiveness and love. Jesus was already part of a tradition that understood G-d as a G-d of grace, compassion, forgiveness and love—the Jewish tradition!  He was Jewish, after all, and he knew his Jewish texts, for example:

“G-d is the father of orphans and the just judge of widows… who provides a home for the lonely”. (Psalm 68:5)

“He shall say to me, ‘You are my father, my G-d, the Rock of my Salvation.” (Psalm 89:27)

“Now, O Lord, you are our Father ….. we are the work of your hands.” (Isaiah 64:7)

“They shall come with weeping, and with compassion I will guide them, for I am ever a Father to Israel.” (Jeremiah 31:9)

Perhaps these misunderstandings stem from the fact that although Christians might know that Jesus was Jewish they do not authentically understand what that truly means in terms of his formative years, his development, his practices and the historical, cultural and religious contexts of his life. Unfortunately this is seldom taught or even noted in various religious communities. Scholars like Professor Amy Jill Levine are working to correct this by bringing it to the attention of seminaries that ordain religious leaders. She has written a book readily accessible to the non-expert, The Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, which expands on this line of thinking. It behooves us all to learn more about our religion, as well as what others say and teach about us, so that we are better prepared to meet the challenge of responding to misunderstandings about Judaism.

Shabbat Shalom