Parshat Korach 5767: Too Rational to Live

Numbers 16:1-18:32

This week we have the story of the Korach rebellion and its aftermath. Korach, Dathan and Abiram, along with 250 of the leading figures in the community rebel against Moses and Aaron, and want to be included as priests.

3. And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you lift up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? 4. And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face; [Numbers 16:1-4]

Moses tries to dissuade them, but is unsuccessful. In a contest the next morning, the rebels light incense in their censers, to determine who is chosen by God. Korach, Dathan and Abiram are swallowed up by the earth, literally going straight to hell, and the 250 men are burned alive by a fire from God.

Something bothers me about this story. Korach is too rational to live.

Korach is making a good rational argument. Before the revelation on Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell the people you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation [Exodus 19:6]. God also states I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God [Exodus 29:45]. If this is true, argues Korach, then they should all have the duties of the priesthood, not an elite. Nice rational argument, yet it leads to the death of the conspirators. Korach was too rational, and did not see the irrational, which was just as important.

For a little over a year I’ve been on a strange journey which has taken me to some rather unexpected places. It started with a sex scandal involving someone I knew. At the time I wondered how such a thing could happen.

I’ve done a lot of research since then. I’ve studied seduction, pick up artists, and social psychology. I learned a few magic tricks. I’ve read dozens of marketing books and books on influencing people’s decisions. While they all have their own themes and ideas there’s one thing that I find true of all of these books and workshops I’ve experienced in the last year. Man is not completely rational. Ironically, one of the most irrational things humans do is believe they are rational. Pick up artists, con men, salesmen and politicians all exploit this. I’ve learned the more we think ourselves rational the more submissive to mind control we become.

There is more to life than rational. But it would be a mistake to believe that we are totally irrational either. Completely emotional, experiential situations can be just as dangerous. Reading case studies about the mass suicide of members of the People’s Temple in Guyana or cult indoctrination strategies, I realize how far people will go to irrationally follow the lead of another.

In one story that has become one of my favorites in the Talmud, the two sides of this in Jewish thought become clear.

R. Abbahu and R. Hiyya b. Abba once came to a place; R. Abbahu expounded Aggada and R. Hiyya b. Abba expounded legal lore. All the people left R. Hiyya b. Abba and went to hear R. Abbahu, so that the former was upset. [R. Abbahu] said to him: ‘I will give you a parable. To what is the matter like? To two men, one of whom was selling precious stones and the other various kinds of small ware. To whom will the people hurry? Is it not to the seller of various kinds of small ware?’ [Sotah 40a]

In Jewish thought we have two ways of thinking. One is Agada, the story. The other is law, Halacha. R. Abbahu compares these to ceramic jars and diamonds. Abraham Joshua Heschel in God in Search of Man describes them differently:

Halacha represents the strength to shape one's life according to a fixed pattern; it is a form-giving force. Agada is the expression of man's ceaseless striving which often defies all limitations. Halacha is the rationalization and schematization of living; it defines, speci­fies, sets measure and limit, placing life into an exact system. Agada deals with man's ineffable relations to God, to other men, and to the world. Halacha deals with details, with each commandment separately; agada with the whole of life, with the totality of re­ligious life. Halacha deals with the law; agada with the meaning of the law. Halacha deals with subjects that can be expressed literally; agada introduces us to a realm which lies beyond the range of ex­pression. Halacha teaches us how to perform common acts; agada tells us how to participate in the eternal drama. Halacha gives us knowledge; agada gives us aspiration. (336)

Yet neither is sufficient by itself. “Halacha without agada is dead, agada without halacha is wild.” Heschel writes. They are not mutually exclusive, but instead a polarity. Neither dominates and within one is the seed of the other. It is a blending and balance of the two which is optimal.

Everything has it place. Rationality may let us look at an issue with diamond clarity. But rationality does not allow us to be in awe of the world around us, to ask new questions, only derive answers from old answers. It is not rational to say WOW! Proverbs 9:10 describes the polarity: The Awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of holy matters is understanding. Understanding may be rational knowledge, but wisdom comes from the irrational, from what Heschel calls it radical amazement: being able to say WOW!

Neither Korach nor any of his party could say WOW! When exposed to the ultimate WOW! Korach and the rest could not withstand such an event, and died. Trying to define and categorize that which cannot be defined leads to confusion. It is something quantifiable logic cannot handle. To those who try to quantify, they fail, and might even lose their mind and life.

There were three survivors of the Korach rebellion however. They do the opposite of Korach: They get irrational. In Numbers 26:11 we will read but the Sons of Korach did not die. They were musicians. Their lyrics we still have preserved in the book of Psalms.

As the deer longs for water streams,
So does my soul long for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my bread day and night,
While they continually say to me, Where is your God?

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul;
How I went with the multitude,
leading them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
A crowd keeping the festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
Why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall again praise him
for the help of his countenance. [Ps 42:2-6]

This is not rational thinking but emotional longing, it is not logical and objective but personal and subjective. Most of the songs of Korach’s sons are in a similar vein, often about the longing of the soul to cleave to God. Yet they also wrote

My mouth shall speak of wisdom;
And the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

I will incline my ear to a parable;
I will open my riddle to the lyre. [49:4-5]

They understood the polarity, that wisdom and understanding are related to story and song. We move seamlessly from one to the other. There is knowledge and law, there is story and ethics. Both are necessary, both are needed by the other. We live interdependent lives, a tapestry of all things. Our lives are full when we remember that. When we forget this, as did Korach and his rebellion, we are headed for disaster.

Parshat Shimini 5767: Of Cows and Love Letters

Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47

This week, we have three major parts of our portion; we continue the sacrifices started in last week’s portion. It is the eighth day of sacrifices, and everything goes so well God performs a wonder and fire from the Lord devours the sacrifices. But things then turn tragic. Two of Aaron's sons offer alien fire and are consumed by the fire of the Lord themselves. The rest of Leviticus 10 then gives the aftermath of this tragedy and a prohibition against priests making sacrifices while intoxicated. We end with the laws of prohibited and permitted animals for eating, the basis of the kosher laws. Those start in chapter 11 with

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, 2. Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which you shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

While much of what we’ve read from the book of Leviticus has been mitzvot that has been rather impractical in post temple times, in the next few chapters of Leviticus many mitzvot will deal with public health. This all starts with the backbone of the kosher dietary rules in Leviticus 11.

Yet this is not the first time we have heard of the rules of kashrut. Two of its most significant rules were given earlier:

It shall be an everlasting statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that you eat neither fat nor blood.[Lev 4:17]

The first of the first fruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.[ Ex 23 19]

As a public health and food safety professional I can appreciate those like Maimonides who see health issues in kashrut. But in my religious life I see things very differently. The way I deal with kosher as a Jew has a lot less to do with health and a lot more with the mitzvot. When we look at the mitzvot we can categorize them in many different ways, but one of the easiest is of course as the negative (i.e. don’t) and positive (do) mitzvot. Of course, we have both in this parsha. For example here is the positive mitzvah of eating red meat:

What ever parts the hoof, and is cloven footed, and chews the cud, among the beasts, that you will eat. [Lev 11:3]

Torah then tells us the negative mitzvot of eating red meat, with examples.

4. Nevertheless these shall you not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those that divide the hoof; the camel, because it chews the cud, but its hoof is not parted; it is unclean to you. 5. And the coney, because it chews the cud, but its hoof is not parted; it is unclean to you. 6. And the hare, because it chews the cud, but its hoof is not parted; it is unclean to you. 7. And the swine, though its hoof is parted, and is cloven footed, yet it chews not the cud; it is unclean to you. 8. Of their flesh shall you not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean to you.[Lev 11:1-8]

The examples in verses 4-7 are actually underlining the negative mitzvah. It makes sure we know that if only one of the conditions is true, it is still prohibited. Positive and negative mitzvot in the simplest sense tell us what is permitted and what is prohibited. Yet one might ask if this means I have to eat a steak at every meal. Not quite. There are really three states for a mitzvah instead of just positive and negative. We can split positive into two categories, permitted and obligatory. “Observe the Shabbat” is obligatory for example. Eating red meat is permitted, though only under the obligations of an animal with split hoof and chews its cud. While you have to observe the Sabbath you don’t have to eat red meat, you could eat chicken or tofu. Thus we have three categories of Mitzvot: obligatory, permitted, and prohibited. Much of Jewish law since Sinai has been trying to determine which of these categories any specific act happens to be.

We then take the mitzvot, and find the halakah, the ways we accomplish those mitzvot. And this leaves many schools of thought of how to find the halakah and whether each of the halakah are obligations, permissions or prohibitions.

The Jewish tradition has a way of finding the halakah, by deriving it from the biblical text, and from other halakot. But at its core, it isn’t the result of the mitzvah which is important but the deed, the act of doing it. As part of Jewish thinking we are searching for God, and as Heschel points out, God is in a search for us. When God asked Adam “where are you?” in the Garden of Eden, he was not asking Adam, he was asking Humanity. Like the protagonists of the Song of Songs, Jews and God are unrequited lovers searching and pining for each other. They might find each other for moment, then the moment is gone. It is like a princess who is kept hidden in a castle, except for a little crack in the castle wall. Her lover, who she can rarely see, tries to slip love notes through the crack in the wall, just saying “I love you” to let her know he is still there. But she might not be at the crack at that time so she only sees the love note on the ground in front of the hole. If he can slip enough love notes at one time the two lovers can know each other are there and peer at each other through the crack, a tiny glimpse of each other. So too we try to slip love notes to God. Those notes are the mitzvot. We do the mitzvot because they are like a list of the things that we know please our partner.

In orthodoxy, the halakah of those mitzvah are set, primarily in the codification by Joseph Caro and Moses Isserles. The rules are rigid and all must conform. Yet we all write love letters differently. Circumstance changes as do people. While it does create simplicity in following halakah, I do not agree with codification. Until the arrogance of Maimonides to codify the Talmud, there really was no codification. The rabbis declared that only in dire emergencies could a prophet declare a new mitzvah. Halakah was fluid, agreed on by a teacher and a community, which is why the Talmud wrote the minority opinion alongside the majority ones. Several places in the Talmud we are told to follow the custom of the local community, which then give the minority practice of eating chicken with milk of R. Yosi of the Gallilee, who reckoned that hens have no milk and are thus permitted [Shabbat 130a]. Yet later codification would take the majority view as immutable law, and Chicken with cheese was banned forever.

Fundamentalism often takes a stringent ossified view of the Law, while there may be a lenient fluid view of halakah as well. For me however, I think the halakah should remain fluid, but should be based on the works of the past. Our ancestors put a lot of thought effort and experience into their innovations of halakah, one I do not think should be ignored. While we may not come to the same conclusions, we must use the same methods.

As an example we can once again take the issue of eating red meat. I am not a vegetarian, nor do I have any social action or environmental agenda to my diet. I also never want one, because it would diminish what I am doing. I do not eat red meat purely as a love note to God. I did in essence prohibit it, but not from an ethical standpoint but a stringent use of the following negative mitzvah:

17. It shall be an everlasting statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that you eat neither fat nor blood.[Lev 4:17]

While the traditional Jew is slightly more lenient in their halakah, I am more stringent, prohibiting red meat on the basis I cannot remove fat and blood to the extent there would be none in the food and still keep it edible. So I simply skip red meat from my diet. It was with such a strict interpretation of the requirement for two witnesses in a capital punishment case that the rabbis pretty much minimized the death penalty to non-existence. On the other hand, I do eat poultry, and in accordance to R. Yosi’s lenient halakah will allow dairy with my chicken. In most of my love notes to God, my performance of the mitzvot, I have done the same kind of finding my own halakah. Even if I derive it from classical sources, what I end up with may not be anything near conventional.

Yet in some I do not derive my own. When I am in my prayer community I follow the communal halakah. My own halakah and traditions can be strongly unconventional. When praying alone, I pick the tunes and the liturgy. When praying together I use the communal liturgy and the communal halakah. There is stability and continuity to the communal setting, a very stable foundation for the rest of my practice, which may disagree in fundamental ways with the communal. The foundation may be used by more than me, and to build other personal halakot, yet tying all of us down to a place where it remains authentically Jewish.

I often wish that foundation, that religious community was also more of the meeting and study place to exchange ideas about halakah, but I’ve yet to find such a place. Some may have the knowledge but ossify the halakah, some are fluid with the halakah, but are either ignorant or reject the knowledge. I’ve never found somewhere with both.

I do not fully know what God intended with the mitzvot, how we really got them or even if they should all be followed. All I can do is follow as many as I can for no other reason than following a single mitzvah I try (but don’t always succeed) in reciting every morning: V’ahavta et Hashem b’kol l’vavcha…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might. I do this because I love God and desire to be close to God, and know that a paradoxically transcendent but lonely God feels the same for me. The more Mitzvot I do means the more love notes I send. When I say the Shema, or decline a hot dog, I am really saying the same thing.

God, I love you.

Parshat Ki Tissa 5767: One Particular Harbor

Exodus 30:11-34:35

I have a real fixation.

For a very busy portion, I can’t seem to stop writing on one topic, but then again I’m not alone. After two weeks with not much action, there's a lot of story this time. Moses receives the last of the commandments on Sinai, then proceeds down the mountain, where he meets up Joshua, who thinks there's fighting in the camp. It turns out the people are worshipping a golden calf. Both Moses and God get upset, then Moses tries to save the people by telling God he'd look pretty bad in the eyes of the Egyptians if he kills everyone. The people repent, Moses goes back up to get another set of ten tablets, since he broke the first set. Moses asks to sees God's face, but only gets to see his back, sort of. God inscribes another set of tablets, and reiterates several commandments. After this second time, Moses keeps his face covered, unless he was in the Mishkan.

Our portion mentions one particular mitzvah not just once, but twice. At the very end of the first ascent on Sinai, we read

31:12. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 13. Speak you also to the people of Israel, saying, Truly my Sabbaths you shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that you may know that I am the Lord that does sanctify you. 14. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy to you; every one who defiles it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work in it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant. 17. It is a sign between me and the people of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

After the golden calf, Moses ascends Sinai once again, and we read:

34:21. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing and in harvest you shall rest.

As many know, Exodus 31:15-17 has made its way into the Shabbat liturgy as a song sung in Hebrew V’shamru. There are many melodies for this, yet I once did something rather strange and put this passage to the melody for Jimmy Buffet’s famous drinking song Margaritaville, changing it into a new song Shabbosville. But that’s not the only Jimmy Buffet song that resonates with me about Shabbat and describes this place called Shabbosville:

I know I don't get there often enough
But God knows I surely try
It's a magic kind of medicine
That no doctor could prescribe

…there's this one particular harbor
So far but yet so near
Where I see the days as they fade away
And finally disappear

Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book The Sabbath describes the seventh day as an island in time (Heschel, 15). Other religions have their monument in space, the shrine of this, the cathedral of that. The cathedral of other religions celebrates space, with vaulting ceilings and decorative architectural elements. But Jews have a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time, using an architecture of time (Heschel, 8) For six days we spend our lives in a secular world of space. But on the seventh we change our view to a world of time, a world where the senses appreciate every moment. Our cathedral is Shabbat as a time. (ibid.) As Heschel describes:

Unlike the Day of Atonement, the Sabbath is not dedicated exclusively to spiritual goals. It is a day of the soul as well as the body; comfort and pleasure are an integral part of the Sabbath observance...To observe is to celebrate the creation of the world and to create the seventh day all over again the majesty of holiness in time "a day of rest a day of freedom" a day which is like "a lord and king of all other days" a lord and king in the commonwealth of time.

The first time I read The Sabbath, I was struck by Heschel’s image of an island in time. In my mind, the Sabbath is not a cathedral as much as a lazy quiet harbor on a tropical island with some really good fish restaurants and beautiful red sunsets. It’s a place where I kick back and do nothing that has to do with work or anything else. Often I sit watching the sunsets, or the harbor, sipping coffee and painting portraits of all the beautiful women who walk by. Since I visited it last year, when I see Shabbosville in my mind it looks a lot like Kona, Hawaii.

Of course Kona is about a ten (with a stopover in Honolulu fourteen) hour flight from where I’m writing this in Chicago. There is snow falling out of the seamless grey skies for the umpteenth time this winter. This place, Shabbosville, is only in my mind, but it is there though my practice. I stop working and try to relax. It is my tradition to go out to eat and have a wonderful meal on Friday night, painting those beautiful women not as they walk by on the boardwalk or beach but from photographs. I light candles at the first opportunity on Friday. Rather early on Saturday morning I sit with a cup of coffee and reflect on the week. Saturday afternoon is the traditional Shabbos schluff, doing recreational reading or a little more artwork. I keep the TV, Computer, and iPod off, and listen and see sounds that are already there. I may not be as observant as some, yet I carve out Shabbat as a special time as a time to va-yinafash, to re-soul myself.

There is one other aspect of Shabbat observance as well of course, and that is going to services. About ten years ago, I began to attend Erev Shabbat services regularly, and being in a prayer community was a wonderful experience, one I extended into my dietary practices, my Shabbat observance, and to my study of Torah in earnest. Given the situations they were in, the congregation only had two Fridays a month. Eventually due to some things I tried we ended up with three Fridays a month. For quite a long time, I even took the Shabbosville metaphor one more step: instead of the traditional Lurianic Kabbalah advocacy of white for Shabbat, I wore brightly colored Hawaiian Shirts to services. But that was all I did in one month, and it was wonderful. I would eventually switch to another congregation and there too due to their less than permanent situation I would go to services only a few Fridays a month.

This all changed a year and a half ago in my latest prayer community. It was a larger well-established Reform synagogue, though known for its tendency towards innovation since its inception. Here were both Friday and Saturday services, and in keeping with the halakah, I began to attend both every week. It too has been a wonderful and holy experience, one where I celebrated not just one but two aspects of Shabbat in worship in two very different minyans, and followed mitzvot even more than before, particularly a more regular reading of Torah. Yet as I wrote back in Yitro this year, I have been overwhelmed. Many weeks even when attending services, and doing all that stuff that was to get me to Shabbosville, I never made it there: I got lost somewhere at the security line at terminal H-K of O’Hare Airport and my plane left without me.

All this came to mind shortly after I wrote Parshat Yitro when I learned of an initiative to make Erev Shabbat more family friendly starting in March. One critical change was the synagogue changed services from 8:00 to 6:30. At first, I was angry that in order to attend services it would now be impossible to have that good dinner. The bayside fish restaurant on the tropical Island had to be replaced by the strip mall McDonald's in order to make 6:30 services. Alternately, I could go to dinner later, and wait and hour or so to get into a good restaurant. Yet as I thought about this I realized something that I hadn’t thought about, something that made me rather uncomfortable. Maybe it is not the dinner that needs to come out of my Erev Shabbat observance but the Service itself. As I thought about this I realized how much stress there is to trying to get to services at a synagogue so far from both my apartment and my work every week. I realized that over that last month or so, I found it very difficult to even keep my eyes open at Friday services. What I realized is that the practices of the halakah and mitzvot had overruled the mitzvah of stopping and resting. I had ended up not observing Shabbat properly because I did too much on Shabbat – I was not in Shabbosville, nor did I even feel it holy.

So starting last week, I stopped going to Friday services, and emphasized my morning Shabbat minyan more in my practice as my communal practice. I changed my Fridays to enjoy that fish dinner. While I do drive in the mornings, like many unable to get to services I pray at home now, from a Friday night liturgy I created a few years ago. Last Shabbat, despite a snowstorm, that was rather fun, and I felt better than I had in a while.

Yet I feel guilty about not being at services every time I can. To be honest I struggle with this change of practice, yet realize from a physical standpoint, it is necessary: running around to any synagogue would result in the same stress. But there is that idea, one even strongly underlined in Heschel’s own works, that it is the deeds itself that is important not how comfortable they make me feel. I still feel I should be doing more.

Yet there is a key word, even found in the word Shabbat itself. It is the word stop. Shabbat is the place in Time where we practice no-doing, we refrain from doing. The rabbis actually made a list of thirty nine prohibitions to make this clear. Even the positive mitzvot of Shabbat really should be done with an intention and energy that I seem not to have lately. So I continue to struggle, knowing I should go more often, yet also knowing to observe Shabbat fully, To be in Shabbosville I need to relax a little. I am like the man so busy getting all his work done over e-mail and cell phone on vacation, he forgets the vacation. All too often I don’t feel holy on Shabbat from all the running around.

Like many of these personal reflections I post here, I feel many of us are like this, too busy to just stop and rest and enjoy one day a week. We need that Island in Time; we need that change in mental Latitude to have a change in Attitude. It is not just for our physical well being but for that deep connection to God through observance of the mitzvot.

As the chorus for Shabbosville I put this well.

Resting away again in Shabbosville
Taking off the last day of the week
Some people claim that I’m just lazy today
But I know, its Torah I keep.

We may all not think of Shabbat as a tropical vacation. There are many metaphors that one can use. But the important thing that needs to be done is the resting.

So may you all find a wonderful holy rest on Shabbat.

Note: Last year I started a web page www.shlomosdrash.com/shabbosville.html dedicated to Shabbosville. It’s still up, complete with the song, though I’ll admit I haven’t had much time to maintain and expand it. However, one part of that project which I still want to do for anyone interested is post people’s visions of Shabbat and their observance. If you are interested, e-mail me at shlomo@shlomosdrash.com.

Note #2: Since I got it out so late I’m leaving the Esther e-book offer up for one more week. Go to http://shlomosdrash.blogspot.com/2007/03/hag-sameach-whole-megilah-e-book.html for more information.