Parasha Chukat -- Building Up or Tearing Down?

This week’s parasha is beloved by rabbis around the world because is so much in it to sermonize about! The parasha opens with the ritual of the red heifer. It is a mysterious Biblical sacrifice that has the power to purify a person who comes into contact with the dead.  Nobody understands how this mitzvah works. How can the ashes of a red cow, mixed with water, hyssop and red dye, have the power to purify? There is a great story about this in the Talmud. An idolater once challenged R. Johanan b. Zakkai, "These rites that you perform look like witchcraft,” he said.  “You bring a heifer, burn it, pound it, and take its ashes.  If one of you is defiled by a dead body, you sprinkle upon him two or three drops and you say to him, 'Thou art clean!' I never heard of a more ridiculous thing in my life. "

R. Johanan asked him, “What do you do in your religion when a person is seized by madness?” “Well,” replied the idolater, “We need to get rid of the demon that has possessed him. So, we bring roots and make them smoke under him. Then we sprinkle water upon the person and the demon flees.' Said R. Johanan to him, "Did you hear what you just said! This is precisely what we are doing. The Water of Purification is sprinkled upon the person and the unclean spirit flees.' The idolater was satisfied with the answer and departed. When he had gone, R. Johanan's disciples said to their master, 'Master! That was a good story to tell him, but what explanation will you give to us?' Said he to them, “There is no rational explanation. It is simply G-d’s law.”

Such a law in Hebrew is called a “Chok” or a mitzvah that defies understanding. We just do it because it is a divine law. It is written that even King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, could not discern how this ritual could possibly be effective. In this week’s parasha, in addition to the death of Miriam and the death of Aaron, we have G-d’s decree that Moses will not live to enter the Land of Canaan. Commentators have puzzled for literally millennia to figure out what great sin Moses committed to warrant such punishment. If a “chok” is a law without a reason, this seems like a punishment without rhyme.  Some commentators point out that Moses was commanded by G-d to speak to the rock to bring forth water and satisfy the people’s thirst. Instead, he struck the rock with his rod. Others say that he took credit for bringing forth water from the rock, instead of giving G-d credit. The 17^th century Italian rabbi Shmuel David Luzatto writes that listing all the commentaries on this yield thirteen sins that Moses may have committed. He himself declined to investigate the matter further lest he find even more sins committed by Moses and further besmirch his reputation.

My own thoughts on this matter are that Moses most likely suffered from what we would call today “burnout”. He has become angry and frustrated by a people that he has been carrying on his back for forty years. He is not longer able to encourage them, to inspire them, to support them. “Listen, you rebels,” he says to the people of Israel, “You want me to get water out of a rock?” G-d needs a leader who will reinforce the good in people, who will emphasize their strengths rather than remind them of their faults as they face the enormous challenge of conquering the Land of Canaan.

Consider this poem, titled "The Wrecking Crew". It asks us to look at ourselves honestly and answer the question -- do we build others up, or do we tear others down? 

“I stood on the streets of a busy town,

Watching men tearing the building down;

With a ‘ho heave ho,’ and a lusty yell,

They swung a beam—and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman of the crew,

‘Are those men as skilled

As those you’d hire if you wanted to build?’

‘Ah no,’ he said, ‘no indeed,

‘Just common labor is all I would need.’

‘I can tear down in a day or two

‘As would take skilled men a year to do.’

And then I thought as I went on my way,

Just which of the two roles am I trying to play.

Have I walked life’s road with care?

Measuring each deed with rule and square?

Or am I one of those who roam the town,

Intent with the labor of tearing down?”

Which are we?  Do we encourage and support others, or do we bring a critical and negative attitude to our relationships?  Are our remarks fashioned to help others to grow, or do our conversations with them belie our envy of their success and their ambitions? Do we bring an optimistic disposition to our interactions with others, or is our mindset cynical and disparaging? I am afraid Moses had tipped to the negative pole of these opposite traits, and that is why he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Shalakh Lekha: The Rewards and Challenges of Listening to Others

Billy Planer is the director of Etgar, which means “challenge” in Hebrew. I learned about him, online, through his participation in the ELI talks, a Jewish version of the TED talks. Etgar is a summer camp that takes Jewish teens to different locations in the United States. These teen agers meet people who are quite unlike them, people from different socio-economic backgrounds, different religions, different races,  as well as different ethnicities and political views. Billy Planer developed this idea after thinking about all the trouble we have in our world – the war, the terrorism, the discrimination in all its pernicious forms. What if, he thought, instead of acting out of fear, mistrust, and ignorance, people put their energies into trying to understand one another? Would we be able to make the world a better place? The object of these trips is to expose adolescents to different points of view, to teach them to dialogue with those with whom they might disagree, and to challenge their preconceived notions of what is true. It also gives these campers the opportunity to challenge others, and to help find things in common with those who at first seem to be so much unlike them.

Acting out of fear, mistrust and ignorance is nothing new. In our Torah portion for this week, Moses confronts a rebellion led by Korach, Datan and Aviram. Taking advantage of the collapse of morale following the failure of the Israelites to enter the the Land of Canaan, they attempt to depose Moses and Aaron as leaders. Moses tries to talk to them, to understand their concerns – which, on the surface seem legitimate -- and perhaps help them to understand his side. In other words, Moses wants to dialogue, and to speak words of peace. But, the Torah tells us, they refuse to talk.

As we also know, the Talmud is full of disputes between the sages. This evening I want to tell you about two of the Talmud’s most famous friends and adversaries -- Rabbi Yochanan and his student, Reish Lakish. Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish come from totally different backgrounds. Rabbi Yochanan began his studies as a child under the greatest rabbi of his time, Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi. He grew up immersed in Torah learning. Reish Lakish, on the other hand lived the life of an outlaw. He was reputed to have had great physical strength as well as a wild, even violent nature. A chance meeting with Rabbi Yochanan led Reish Lakish to abandon his life as a bandit to study Torah. The two men, teacher and student, became fast friends. Reish Lakish even marries Rabbi Yochanan’s sister.  He matures into a formidable scholar in his own right, and his reputation as a great man grows. One day Rabbi Yochanan encounters Resh Lakish in the study house lecturing students on a matter of halacha. Rabbi Yochanan disagrees with Resh Lakish's conclusions. The argument over the point of Jewish law between the two becomes heated and insults begin to fly.  Both men become physically ill. Reish Lakish’s wife is called to the House of Study. Seeing her husband so sick, she pleads with her brother, Rabbi Yochanan, to pray on his behalf. But Rabbi Yochanan, still angry with Reish Lakish refuses. Reish Lakish died.

When Rabbi Yochanan realizes what has happened he became inconsolable. His colleagues wonder what they could do for him. “Send Rabbi ben Pedat, a brilliant scholar, to sit with him,” suggests one of them. So, Rabbi ben Pedat goes to study with Rabbi Yochanan. Whenever Rabbi Yochanan would say something, Rabbi ben Pedat would bring a text to support his teaching. But this makes Rabbi Yochanan miss Reish Lakish all the more. “When I would say something to Reish Lakish,” he would say “he would bring me 24 objections to which I would give 24 solutions. All you do is bring me texts that support me. Don’t you think I know I am right?”

The Talmud is silent about the underlying feelings that might have led to the disagreement that fateful day.  Ruth Calderon, an Israeli scholar, suggests that Rabbi Yochanan may have felt a growing resentment for his student’s reputation as a teacher, and his popularity among the students of the beit midrash. Perhaps his student Resh Lakish had a charisma that his teacher Rabbi Yochanan envied. At the same time, she posits, Reish Lakish may have begun to realize how much of his personality, that part of himself that enjoyed the freedom and mischief of being an outlaw in his younger years, had to be submerged in order to be accepted in these scholarly circles. The feelings of both men, long submerged, erupt suddenly and unexpectedly, with tragic results.

Engaging with those who have opinions different from our own can be a rewarding experience.  As we can see in this story, Rabbi Yochanan values Reish Lakish precisely because the two hold very different points of views. Those respective differences could very well have stemmed from their coming from totally different backgrounds.  When the sages try to find Rabbi Yochanan another study partner, Rabbi Yochanan rejects him. He doesn’t want someone to agree with him. He wants someone to challenge him.

Exposure to different points of view, reaching out to those who are different from us, can be a highly rewarding experience.  It can help us grow as people, sharpen our intellect, expand our horizons, bring us closer to the truth, and foster understanding and peace. But whether it is a marriage, a friendship, a business partnership or teens reaching across the socio-economic or religious divide, exposure to different points of view is not without its perils, its risks and its pain. It can be a challenge in more ways than one. It is, nevertheless, imperative – for the future of our community, for the future of our nation, and for the future of the world -- that we try. Hate cannot drive out hate, said Martin Luther King ….. only love and understanding can do that.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Shelakh Lekha -- Is a Tree Like a Person?

My father hated to go to the movies. My mother, who loved the movies, would go with friends when she wanted to see a film.  I can remember only once in my childhood when we went to the theater to watch a movie as a family.. That movie was called “The Longest Day”. When it came out in 1962 my father, who had served overseas in the army, wanted to see it. So we piled into the car and went to the West Side Theater in Scranton, Pennsylvania to see that movie. Afterwards we went to the ice cream parlor for sundaes. It is one of my favorite and  precious childhood memories,

Many of you know this movie. ‘The Longest Day” captures the day in 1944 when the US Army and Allied forces send a huge force to invade Normandy.  With heroic efforts and great loss of life, the troops made it on to Omaha beach and entered deep into French territory. This week marks the seventy fourth anniversary of that invasion of Europe by the allies, known as D- Day.  

Our Parasha for this week opens with preparations for another invasion -- the invasion of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites. Moses sends spies --  one from each tribe -- to reconnoiter Canaan. Moses asks them to return with specific information. Are the cities fortified or out in the open? Are the people armed and prepared to defend themselves? These are questions that any responsible military leader would need to answer before preparing for successful invasion. Then Moses asks a peculiar question. Moses  asks the spies to report back if there are any trees in the land. Can you imagine Eisenhower asking if there were any trees in Europe? Why would Moses need this information?  G-d already told him that the Land was flowing with milk and honey, that it was a fertile land with rivers and forests.

Rashi answers that Moses, in asking about trees, was really asking if there were any righteous people living among the Canaanites who, through their connection to G-d, might help defend the Canaanites against an invasion by the Israelites. Righteous people providing leadership to the Canaanites would make conquest of the land all the harder. There would need to be additional preparations to meet that contingency. Later on, in the Book of Deuteronomy, trees will again be compared to people. When the Jewish people are laying siege to a city, the Israelites are commanded not to cut down any fruit trees. “For is a tree like a person, that it can run away?” asks the Torah. It is a rhetorical question. The answer of course is, “No” -- a tree has no way of defending itself against the ax. Therefore we ought not to destroy it. It would run away if it could!

But would a tree know that it was in danger? It turns out that trees are a lot more like people than we would think. Both trees and people have crowns. Both have limbs that move and trunks from which the limbs come. Trees breathe, like people. Trees thrive when they live in communities, which we call forests. Recent research into the life of trees has shown that trees communicate with one another through their root systems and through fungal systems that connect the roots of one tree to the roots of another. Older trees are able to communicate their experience to younger trees, which help the younger trees to prepare for adverse conditions. In other words, trees have their own Torah that they pass down through the generations. Professor Susan Simard, who has studied the communication system that trees use, has dubbed this the “wood wide web”.

The Talmud compares a person whose wisdom exceeds their good deeds to a tree whose branches are numerous, but whose roots are few. The wind comes and uproots it, and turns it upside down.

This serves as a metaphor that alerts us that there are people who are very intelligent, very gifted and highly skilled in their fields. These individuals might display the outward trappings of success as defined in our culture. They show they have lots of “branches” and “leaves” -- they have big homes and flashy cars, they wear expensive clothing and take lavish vacations.  We might envy these people, but we should not, for we cannot see what lies below the surface. If we use our gifts, our intelligence, our skills only for selfish reasons -- to accumulate more “things” -- we may look pretty good on the outside -- but according to the Talmud, our roots may still be shallow. We are neither planted firmly in a community nor connected to others. In times of trouble, we might feel extremely vulnerable. Without an ethical tradition to  guide us, without a community to support us, without a heritage to look to, our lives can easily be turned upside down by the inevitable storms that come along in life.

The Talmud also teaches that a person whose good deeds exceed their wisdom is like a tree with few branches but with a healthy root system. Even if all the winds in the world were to blow against it, they would not move it from its place. Here the Talmud is describing a person who uses their intelligence in the service of others. They may, or may not, have many “branches”, or outward signs of wealth and success, but unseen, underneath, they are rooted in their tradition and to their community. In times of pain, loneliness, and sadness this person draws on their faith, on their community, on their sense of belonging and this will in turn help them in times of trouble.

Seventy four years ago this week American soldiers sacrificed their lives on Omaha Beach so that we could build a world into which we could grow deep roots. Our job is to continue to build the kind of families, the kind of congregation, the kind of nation from which we can draw nourishment and sustenance to live healthy, productive lives -- lives that can weather the vicissitudes of life that are sure to come our way.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Naso: Counting on Us

Last Saturday night, we gathered in the library for our Tikun Lel Shavuot study. Rabbi Edward Friedman of Temple Bnai Israel, and Rabbi Steven Peskind of Elgin joined me and CBS member Anna Lelko and 16 others for a night of study. The practice of studying the entire night of Shavuot is based on a kabbalistic tradition. The Torah notes that Moses gave the people of Israel three days’ notice that G-d would come down Mt. Sinai, in the sight of all the people. In preparation, Moses instructs the people to prepare themselves. They are not to lay even a hand on Mt. Sinai, they are to wash their clothing, bathe, and refrain from intimate relations -- all in preparation for the big day which is  G-d’s debut! You would expect everyone to be afire with excitement. I mean, think of the journalists and “royal watchers”  lining up in front of St. Mary’s Hospital in London in anticipation of the birth of William and Kate’s third child. Some of them had been in line for two weeks! They brought blankets to wrap themselves in and cushions to sleep on just to have a front row seat when William and Kate emerged from the hospital with their newborn in their arms. One would think that an extended appearance by G-d would call for endless lines to form early at Mt. Sinai. One would think that crowd control would be a major issue. Yet, according to the midrash, when Israel was about to receive the Torah on Shavuot morning, everyone was still sleeping! G-d had to wake everyone up with lightning and thunder. Moses, says the Midrash, had to rouse people to the meeting with the Supreme Being. Therefore, in order to make amends for our ancestors, who overslept that morning, we study all night, in order to show our enthusiasm and eagerness for accepting the Torah.

And at Congregation Beth Shalom we indeed showed our enthusiasm. Rabbi Friedman shared a provocative poem by Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai entitled “My Father was G-d”.  Our fellow congregant Anna talked about four Jewish authors who have had an enormous impact on her life. She also led us in a brief meditation. I shared a short story by Israeli scholar Anna Calderon based on a story in the Talmud. Dr. Calderon brings these ancient stories alive for the modern reader, and in doing so elicits meanings that are latent in the Talmudic texts. She shows how a Talmudic story about a young teacher who is able to bring rain in a period of drought contains an implicit critique of the traditional power structure in the Jewish community. The story also presents an alternative definition of masculinity. We will study another of her stories tomorrow morning at 9:00 am in our library. Rabbi Peskind taught us about the conception of G-d held by the rabbis of the Talmud, an understanding of the nature of G-d which might be surprising to the modern Jew.

This brings us to the Book of Numbers. It begins by telling us that on the first day of the second month in the second year after the exodus from Egypt, G-d commanded that Moses make a census of the Israelites. The careful reader will discover that back in the book Exodus G-d asks Moses to take a census only a month before, the day the Tabernacle is erected. Why back to back censuses only a month apart? Furthermore, there are two other times when G-d counts the Jewish people -- the first immediately after they leave Egypt, again after the incident of the Golden Calf -- Four times in one year!

Many of us have been taught the “Three Oes” about G-d -- G-d is Omnipotent, [all powerful] Omnipresent, [always there] and Omniscient [all-knowing]. We might ask, “If G-d is Omniscient, why the need for the counting at all?” Doesn’t G-d know, without counting? Rashi explains that G-d counts the Jewish people all the time, not because He needs to, but because He likes to, because we are all precious to Him.

This interpretation of Rashi’s counteracts our tendency to think that G-d is so concerned with the big picture, the larger sweep of human history, that G-d loses sight of us as individuals. We may need G-d, but does G-d need us? Who am I to be considered by G-d? What do I matter? Why should G-d take notice of my insignificant life?

That question reminds me of the story about a crowd of people who have gathered on a hill by the sea to watch a great ship pass by. A young child is waving vigorously. One of the men in the crowd asks him why. He says, “I am waving so the captain of the ship can see me and wave back.” “But,” said the man, “the ship is far away, and there is a crowd of us here. What makes you think that the captain can see you?” “Because,” said the boy, “the captain of the ship is my father. He will be looking for me among the crowd.”

Judaism teaches that the relationship between G-d and the individual is a reciprocal one. If the captain of the ship does not see his child waving in the crowd, he will miss him. None of us is just a face in the crowd to G-d. The Talmud teaches that when a person goes regularly to synagogue, and then does not come for one day, the Blessed Holy One makes inquiries about them. That is what it means when it says, “May G-d bless you, be gracious to you, shine G-d’s light upon you and smile upon you”, the priestly benediction that appears in this week’s parasha. It means that G-d takes notice of us. That G-d cares.

Shabbat Shalom