Shlomos Drash Tzaria-Metzora: A Woman Comes First

Moving from all the death of animals for food and death of offspring in industrial accidents of last week, this week we read the rest of the biblical public health code in a double portion. We start with the procedure for a mother after giving birth, we then move into the beginning of a rather long two portion discussion of the issue of what in that text is called tzarat and at a later time would be translated leprosy, both of people, clothes and of buildings. We end with the procedures for the disease Tzav, today regarded as an STD. Yet this time it is a rather odd little bit of Talmud related to the beginning of the parsha that caught my eye. We read this week:

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2. Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives, and bears a male child; then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her menstruation, shall she be unclean. 3. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

Circumcision of course was first commanded of Abraham back in Genesis, so there is not much new there. It is the phrase “if a woman conceives, and bears a male child” that is the interesting part. And the word for which our portion is named Tzaria which is the critical word the Rabbis of the Talmud play with to write a rather startling little passage found in Niddah 31a:

R. Isaac citing R. Ammi stated: If the woman emits her semen first she bears a male child; if the man emits his semen first she bears a female child; for it is said, If a woman emits semen and bears a man-child. (Leviticus 12:1)

In Hebrew, the root word for seed is Zayin-Resh-Ayin. Its meaning changes between agricultural seed and the word for semen. It can be a verb that could mean to emit or plant seed. In the human case that would be male ejaculation, and thus orgasm. Parallel to this, it means for women is for them to conceive. The Rabbis in our Talmud text, however, imply that the multiple meanings of the word means that both conception and the female emission of seed, orgasm, are the same thing. In short, through playing with the word tzaria and its usual meaning of conception when used concerning women, the Rabbis changed it to orgasm: If you want a boy, a woman comes first.

Word play was not a sufficient proof text for the rabbis however, as they continue on Niddah 31b.

Our Rabbis taught: At first it used to be said that ‘if the woman emits her semen first she will bear a male, and if the man emits his semen first she will bear a female’, but the Sages did not explain the reason, until R. Zadok came and explained it: These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore unto Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah, (Gen 46:15) Scripture thus ascribes the males to the females and the females to the males.

Unsatisfied with the lack of a strong proof text, R. Zadok teaches that Genesis 46:15 is the proof text. Genesis 46:8-14 gives the names of Leah’s sons and grandchildren ascribing them to Leah. Yet in Genesis 15 it ascribes Dinah, Leah’s only daughter, not to Leah but to Jacob. This Zadok concludes, is the proof text that if a man ejaculates first he has a daughter, and if a woman does he has a son.

R. Zadok’s proof text has quite an implication, however. With twelve sons and one daughter, Jacob was quite the lover, able to satisfy not just one, but four women. We know from Genesis 26:8-9, Jacob’s parents Isaac and Rebecca both had an active sex life, with either a streak of exhibitionism in it, or such desire they forgot to close the window shades occasionally. In the episode where Abimelech finds Isaac and Rebecca together, it is interesting to note that it is not sex they are caught doing but Isaac is fondling and exciting Rebecca. Though the word for fondling might be also translated they were merely joking around, it is clear by context they were making out. They were not caught in the act of intercourse, but in foreplay.

Foreplay gets a big underlined comment from Rashi. Rashi interprets another passage in B. Shabbat where R. Hisda cryptically instructs his daughters on what to do with their husbands, adding to Hisda’s comments:

When your husband caresses you to arouse your desire for intercourse and holds the breasts with one hand and “that place’ [that is the vagina] with the other give the breasts [at first] to increase his passion and do not give him the place of intercourse too soon until his passion increases and he is in pain with desire (Rashi on b. Shabbat 140b “he had a pearl in his hand”)

Rashi probably was indirectly instructing his male students what to do with their wives in this passage. Others, such as the authors of the medieval German Piest work Sefer Hasidim quoted the Talmud passage about making a woman emit seed first almost verbatim. Another medieval work, the Iggeret ha Kodesh goes even further. Most noted for its passage in chapter two which refutes Maimonides that sex is bad, it is by far no mere sex manual. Instead based on Niddah 31a, the Talmudic discussion of onah, and the cryptic comments of R. Hisda in Shabbat 140b, the whole book is how to have the perfect and holy intention that when one has sex so that a father does not have just a boy, but the child ends up a Torah scholar.

Yet that is not the only meaning of the Iggeret ha Kodesh. It is one of the early works of the circle of Moses de Leon, the group of mystics we call today the early Kabbalists. To the Kabbalists, this has meaning about the way to excite holy energies which are enumerated by gender. One had to excite the female energies before the male ones in order to provide the proper holy union. And one had to be careful how one did that, for there were two types of female energies, good and bad. Thus all this sexual talk, for the Kabbalists, was not about this world, but the world above. Yet the Kabbalists also maintained that what happened in this world affected the world above, thus the sexual union of man and wife effected the unifications of these energies in the heavens.

I wonder when all these sages engaged in sex with their wives, how much they care about their wife and how much did they care about Torah? Did one eclipse the other? I believe that the rabbis of the Talmud, as holy as they were, also were enormously practical people. They saw that there were two issues about sex and both were vitally important. The first and foremost was procreation. The second, was the psychological and sexual well being of a husband and wife. Without the sexual well being of a wife, who had no legal way to express her sexuality, she would turn to illegal and immoral promiscuous acts. A healthy and frequent dose of satisfying sex with her husband was required to keep women from straying and committing adultery. Adultery, in turn makes procreation and inheritance a more complex issue. Yet between a husband and wife, it could not be mindless procreation either, otherwise there would be no sexual satisfaction, and the need to turn to adultery or other promiscuous acts would be there. So the Rabbis I believe combined the two in our odd little passage about making sure women orgasm first. In their misogynistic world, men wanted a boy as both an heir and as the person they could teach Torah to; girls could have neither. In order to get what the husband wanted in sex, he had to give the wife more than just sperm.

Much had changed in the last two millennia. The status of women, their role in modern inheritance, and their ability to learn Torah, and for many movements even the ability to become a rabbi and Torah scholar have all changed. What the majority of modern Jews would consider immoral from the Talmudic Rabbis standpoint is different as well. Most of course do not believe in such superstitions. Yet there is still that odd little desire to determine the gender of one’s children. There are some people, both Jews and non Jews, who go to certain extents to determine the gender of their children, including exploiting supposed differences in behavior of X and Y chromosome sperm. I had originally thought to write about that issue, but instead I keep thinking about something else: Sexual satisfaction, and the very odd thought for a guy that women need sexual satisfaction.

And what I mean by odd is that through the self-protecting behavior of women, our entire social ritual of dating, and a commercial system which requires us not to fulfill those needs in order to buy consumer goods to replace or try to fulfill them, men generally are clueless of what a woman really wants. Indeed as men are generally the ones in the relationship who repeatedly had to be rejected, many men, including myself, end up intimidated into initiating anything. A whole subculture has arisen of pick up artists, men who have spent most of their lives totally intimidated by women, in reaction, subverting the system and objectifying women to fulfill their own immediate sexual needs. Their fascinating, and rather disturbing subculture was chronicled in Neil Strauss book The Game. Yet, I think it is this little passage in B. Niddah which puts all the sex manuals and pick up books into perspective. From the biblical stories of Eve, Rebecca and the rest, it becomes clear that sexual satisfaction for women is always an issue, that mere intercourse was never enough, but as Rashi makes clear desire increases for both through the loving use of all the body, through foreplay. Women really do want this with the right guy.

For a guy who is still afraid to ask for a phone number, or ask a woman out for a cup of coffee, because he is certain it will end in rejection, this is a surprising and encouraging message.



For more about the mitzvah of onah, and female sexual satisfaction, see my commentary for Parshat Mishpatim 5766

Shlomos Drash Shimini 5766 - Clean or Contaminated?

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. As the text states: (Lev. 10:3).

Then the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu each took his censer and put in it fire. They put on it incense, then brought near strange fire before the Lord which he did not command them. Fire then came out before the Lord and consumed them so they died before the Lord. Moses said to Aaron: this is what the Lord said as follows: In my drawing near I will sanctify and over the face of all the people, I will honor. And Aaron was silent.

The rest of the Leviticus 10 then gives the aftermath of this tragedy and a prohibiton aginst priests making sacrifices while intoxicated. We end with the laws of prohibited and permitted animals for eating, the basis of the kosher laws.

I had a classmate in my Biblical Hebrew class for a while who worked for a government regulatory agency. As part of the training sessions he gave those he regulated, he would regularly start his session with the story of Nadab and Abihu, calling it “the first recorded industrial accident.” As I’ve commented on this portion a few years ago, Nadab and Abihu might have been heroes. One of the safeguards, the incense had been forgotten in these sacrifices, and they rushed to replace it before it was too late, though sacrificing their lives by coming up with a homebrew solution.

As a regulator of sorts myself, though usually internal to a company, I’ve run into homebrew solutions more than once, and I’m usually not happy with them. As a food safety inspector, one of the issues that comes up frequently is the issue of whether equipment is commercially approved or not. I’ve more than once run across a restaurant who had bought a home toaster or refrigerator. I’ve also watched as that toaster from some discount store has changed color once a week as they break in succession, or in one case seen the smoked and brunt wall when one caught on fire. I’ve seen those cheap dormitory refrigerators used for milk and coffee condiments in restaurants frost up so badly that there is no room for a pint container, let alone the temperature inside the unit is the same as outside the unit. Homebrew might work in a pinch, but it never does the job completely.

Very often, it’s the stuff we can’t see that is the problem, such as bacteria and viruses which are hiding, or have the potential to hide in a home brew solution. We know Nadab and Abihu used the wrong king of fire to light their censers. Interestingly, this small story punctuates a major change in the content of the book of Leviticus. For the next few parshiot, we change in topic from procedures for conducting a sacrifice to a comprehensive public health policy, all based on one concept and word which continually shows up in these passages: tamei. While many translations have a meaning of unclean I usually translate as contaminated. In food safety, we are concerned with three types of contaminants: biological agents like bacteria, chemical agents like rat poison, and physical objects such as glass. And while there a many parallels in Leviticus 10 through 15 to one of these three, I tend to talk of tamei as a fourth type of contamination, spiritual contamination.

One of the many issues I lecture on to public Health Departments is this issue of spiritual contamination. In many faith-based food facilities there may be sources of contamination that the inspector doesn’t know about or doesn’t care about, yet those who eat the food may be upset about. These sources may be of important concern to the people making the food or people eating the food. Islamic Halal, Kosher, and Hindu Vegetarianism fall into this category. In each of these cases, the theology changes. Therefore, how and where one finds this spiritual contamination changes greatly. For Hindus for example, one reason for vegetarianism is the issue of transmigration of the soul, that one might be eating one’s long deceased grandma. Yet from 16th century mystical thought on transmigration, the kosher prepared fish and meat for Shabbat, when eaten, moves the Jewish soul trapped in the animal to a higher level than a cow or fish. In short, what is or is not contaminated spiritually is completely determinate on belief. So an unaware health inspector who walks in the door and stats poking kosher or Halal beef with his thermometer he’s used on pulled pork is going to get himself in trouble with a lot of people.

In this light, it is interesting to note the prohibitions of Leviticus 11, which defines inherently spiritually contaminated species. We are allowed to eat land animals which have both split hooves and chews its cud. We are allowed seafood which has both fins and scales only. We are prohibited many species of birds, which by interpretation permits only chicken, domestic duck, and goose. No insects rodents or other creepy crawlies please. Animals must be alive healthy and intact at the time of slaughter. I don’t, like others assign rhyme or reason to these, nor do I substantiate my own diet to these biblical prohibitions outside of the literal reading of the text. AS far as I’m concerned they are Huquim, mitzvot without human reasons, though there are parallels to healthy eating. Maimonides was the first to claim that Kosher was healthy eating, and pig was very bad for you but living in a Islamic world, nobody except the occasional Christian ate pig, which allowed Maimonides to declare “everybody know this.” I do follow this list of prohibited and permitted species, not because it is healthy eating, but as many of Maimonides critics pointed out, but because it makes me more Jewish. I know some like to force their political or personal “homebrew” viewpoint of diet on others be they liberal or conservative saying “the bible says so.” I’m always uncomfortable with that. From Glatt to Vegan, what ones decides to eat I believe is a personal choice. Only two people it needs to substantiated with: God and oneself. Anything else is egotism: validating one’s own point of view by forcing another to observe it. It is why I rarely state my own dietary observances to anyone, which while more observant than most, are far from completely observant. It’s between me and God. Only those who might prepare food for me and respect what I believe have some idea. And their reactions are ones of understanding and compassion. Some might warn me to stay way from some dishes, others might make something special for me, and others might just not take offense if I refuse to eat something. At a gathering like the Passover Seder, there are many such issues, and each must be addressed with sensitivity and compassion. At my family seders, where ther are several such issues, it usually is, but all too often I see otherwise.

The death of Nadab and Abihu may have been an industrial accident where unapproved sources of fire were used for a procedure, and that source carried a form of contamination which killed them. Yet spiritual contamination may also be the way we determine what is holy and what is not, or in short what defines us as Jews. The number of stories about what happened with Nadab and Abihu are a beginning of a debate which continues today. What is clean and wholesome, what isn’t, and whose definition do we use?

I still have no idea for anyone but myself.

Shlomos Drash - Passover 5766 the Fifth Child

Passover 5766 - The Fifth Son

This week we begin the celebration of Passover with our Passover Seders. One of the earlier parts of the Seder is the story of the four sons, one wise, one wicked, one simple and one who does not know how to ask. Last year, while researching the issues in writing the Haggadah, I could not figure out the history or the halakah of this passage being included in the Seder. All I could find was the passage in Maimoindes’ Mishnah Torah noting we should say it. As to where it came from, I had no idea.

But in the year that followed, I took Rabbinic Hebrew, and learned much not just about the nuances of the language, but about other texts I had never heard of before. Among these were some midrashic texts that were relatively unknown to those of us who only know English. Indeed they are so unknown they are not even considered “standard” midrashic texts and hard to find even in Hebrew collections. Our standard and primary midrash, easily found in English, is Midrash Rabbah, which is commentary to the texts of the torah and the Megillot. Yet there are others, some of which concentrate on legal commentary instead of story, as does midrash Rabbah. Two of these, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, and P’sikta Zutra, indeed have the passage of the four sons. In my research this year I also learn how to access and read these books, and thus learned more about the four sons.

The first occurrences are in these midrash, written during the time of the rabbis of the mishnah, making the passage almost 1900 years old. It does find it’s way into early liturgy, including the close to 1000 year old Mazhor Vitry one of the oldest records of liturgy of early Ashkenaz in Germany and France, contemporary with Rashi among others. While there is not a complete translation yet of this work, the author of the recently released novel Rashi’s Daughters is currently translating this medieval prayer book and guide to living a Jewish life. The four sons is also included a few hundred years later in Maimonides works, indicating this was not only a tradition among the Ashkenaz but even the Sephardic Jews as well.

In all of these there have been mere cosmetic changes or additions in the text of the four sons for close to two thousand years. Within the last forty, there have been changes, from very different sources. From those concerned with gender inclusion, there has been movement to change “sons” in translation to the more gender neutral “child” which, in the case of Hebrew is a valid translation. Yet the bigger change has been the inclusion of a fifth child.

I first became aware of a fifth child in the mid 1980’s, when My mom brought home an article from a Jewish magazine that had a piece to include in Seders called The Fifth Son. Written by Irving Greenberg (and can be found in Appendix B of his book The Jewish Way) it was a piece intended to be read before Elijah was let in. However, in our family we always placed it in the position of a fifth child.

This fifth child was the victim of the holocaust, who did not survive to ask the question. The piece quotes another part of the Haggadah which records a debate about why we mention Passover at night we celebrate Passover, taken from B. Brachot 12b

The exodus from Egypt is to be mentioned [in the Shema’] at night-time. Said R. Eleazar b. Azariah: behold I am about seventy years old, and I have never been worthy to [find a reason] why the exodus from Egypt should be mentioned at nighttime until ben Zoma expounded it: for it says: that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. [had the text said,] ‘the days of thy life’ it would have meant [only] the days; but ‘all the days of thy life’ includes the nights as well.

The night of the Haggadah and Talmud becomes the Night of Elie Wiesel in this piece, the darkest times of our existence. We must celebrate both in the good times and bad, Greenberg argues, to honor the memory of the victims of the holocaust.

Another kind of fifth child came from an entirely different source, that of the late Lubabvitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn. As early as 1957 he mentioned the fifth son of the Passover Seder, the one who refused to be there. He noted that all the children, even the wicked son, showed up at the table with very different views and ideas and learning styles Yet more and more often there were those who just weren’t there. In the 1960’s he laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the civil religion of Judaism, the Jewish Federation and their brand of secular Judaism. But his concern was not to scorn the fifth children, but to do what was necessary to bring back those children to the Seder table and religious observance, before everyone was a fifth child.

I came across Reb Schneersohn’s writings on the subject many years ago when I was researching my own meditation on the four sons. Given the words of total scorn and rejection that my family’s Haggadah had against the son who asked the question “What does this service mean to you?” Every Passover, I always felt I didn’t belong at the table nor did I deserve to leave Egypt had I been there, given the questions I did ask of our religion. Yet, the Rebbe’s words were in many ways soothing that indeed I did belong there. Since Sinai, we all did.

While Habad theology and my own are very different, this idea has stuck with me all this time, along with the silence Greenberg’s Shoah piece had. Last year while doing a re-edit of the Haggadah my family uses, I combined the pieces together into one piece about the fifth child, replacing the many inserts we had been using at this point. While the child who does not know how to ask is there but silent, a silence of presence, the fifth child is a silence of absence and all the more quiet.

As I wrote this, I got an interesting e-mail from the Chicago tribune asking fro an interview. After arraigning a time for a phone conversation, the reporter asked me some questions about outreach, spirituality, drum circles and the song Shabbosville. When the reporter asked whether I felt “Spiritual” while involved with a drum circle or in other situations, I noticed something I hadn’t before. All of my answers to this spiritual question were the same. Spiritual for me is about connection, about divine connection, but even stronger, about connection within a community. The community is the connection to the divine connection. When I drum in a drum circle, or get into a discussion group, there is something special that happens within that group. For me any kind of spiritual is about that connection. As our tradition notes in many ways spirituality is something that is to be done in a group. Whether it is the requirement of a minyan for Kaddish, or the statement in the Perkei Avot that three who speak words of Torah at a table dine at the table of Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu, we are told over and over again community is holy. We can remember the story of the five Sages of Bnei Brak who got into the Seder’s spirituality so much through discussion, they lost track of time.

So when we sit down to our Passover Seders, we one again meet in community. My family’s Seder has over time turned into community event, with many who would not otherwise at the table for a religious observance attending and helping us tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. The table is community, and community is what really is spiritual. And it is in that light that makes the fifth child so much more tragic. Not only are there the silence of those who died in the Shoah, and those who endanger Jewish religious continuity, but those who do not live in the divine connection of community, even for one or two nights a year. We left Egypt not as individuals, but as a holy community.

As the Seder is community, let us remember to appreciate that at our own Seders and pray and work towards making sure all can feel the spirituality of such a communal meal.

Have wonderful Seders and a very happy Passover.

Shlomos Drash Tzav 5766 - Treif?

This week covers more procedures for the sacrifice in the Mishkan, and then the record of those first sacrifices. Like many of these chapters about the sacrificial procedure, it is seemingly irrelevant to things today: indeed it was seemingly irrelevant to the world of even the Rabbis who didn’t have a temple either.

But yet, there are some things which stand the test of time. This week we read:

19. And the meat that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burned with fire; and as for the meat, all who are clean shall eat of it. 20. But the soul who eats of the meat of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that belongs to the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people. 21. Moreover the soul who shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the meat of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which belongs to the Lord, that soul shall be cut off from his people. 22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,23. Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no kind of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat. 24. And the fat of the beast that dies of itself, and the fat of that which is torn by beasts, may be used in any other use; but you shall in no wise eat of it. (Leviticus 7:19-24)


While the context of the passage above applies to the temple service, it was not hard to extend it to all eating, as other passages elsewhere give details of this prohibition. If meat comes into contact with impure things it is not to be eaten. If a person is clean, that they didn’t touch impure things, such as an infection on a human, or a pig, they may eat it. The fat of the animal was not to be eaten. Other forms of unclean included where an animal dies on its own or is torn by another animal the food animal is not clean enough to eat. But one can use that fat for other purposes, say axle grease.

The word for impure is tamei. And while the word unclean is a common translation, I tend as a public health person to call it contaminated. While tamei often parallels contamination from biological, chemical and physical sources, it really is another type of contamination: spiritual contamination. In some way which is not completely explained, certain acts render a person contaminated, and in a way that such contamination can transfer between a contaminated object and a person or a person and the food they consume. I actually use the translation of spiritual contamination when talking to public health officials about faith based eating practices and how they conduct food inspections of faith based facilities. While what the actual contaminant is, and why we shouldn’t eat it change by faith, whether I’m dealing with the Islamic Hallal/Haram food codes, Kashrut, Hindu vegetarianism, or certain prohibitions among Christian sects, all can understand someone’s reluctance in terms of a contaminating agent.

But through an evolution of things, and based on our passage, when Jews talk about spiritually impure foods that is not the word we use. Instead we use the term treifa. Treifa actually means torn, and really applies to one case of tamei, that of one animal tearing up another animal. But we can see in that case it means the meat is unclean and prohibited from being eaten. While our passage in Leviticus 7:24 refers to the fat of a treifa animal, Exodus 22:30 mentions the flesh and Leviticus 22:8 prohibits eating any part of the animal. By rabbinic times it referred not only to kosher animals that were torn by beasts, but animals that were torn by anything. This is a big reason why hunting is not a common Jewish recreation. From a standpoint of kosher, no one could eat any animal damaged from traps, arrows or bullets. But as treifa became one of the common standards to determine the suitability of an animal, it began to be used for any animal which was unfit for kosher slaughter, thus including such things as “downer” animals that were too ill to be slaughtered or could not walk. From there, instead of referring to just the status of meat, it began to be used for any other food that was not considered kosher, essentially replacing tamei. In the Yiddish vernacular glatt, which really meant the organs in a kosher animal had no tumors, eventually meant strictly kosher and its opposite was Treif, not kosher.

But the term treif did not end with just food, but often is now used to talk about anything not kosher. I find it interesting that the term has become a derogatory term often used by ultra orthodox to talk about other Jews not following the same observances as themselves. Having it waged against myself, and having some close relatives who once had to endure it on a daily basis, it has bothered me that a term meant to describe a specific status of a food product is used for lashon hara. In one poetic sense I can see the point. Something holy is rendered unholy by the attack of a belligerent third party. The holy Jew, is torn by the secular world, and thus becomes non observant. But the imagery falls apart when we realize that any such attack is non voluntary. The cow does not go out to meet the wolf to be torn; the Deer does not choose to remain still while the bear mauls him. In this understanding, Treif is not derogatory, but tragic -- the treifa animal is a victim, not a volunteer. I doubt anyone would have the chutzpa to call a holocaust survivor treif, but in many ways, they are victims of wild aggression, bearing the tears and scars.

And thus I notice a total reversal in the term Treif. Used as lashon hara, it renders not the non-observant but the observant unacceptable for involvement in the sacred. While the live and healthy cow or goat might be, under proper circumstances, considered kosher, holy enough for consumption, the wolf and bear, the wild beast, never is. To use such a term, to fall to such a level of hate is to render an attacker completely unholy as the wild beast, is to admit one is a wild beast and never was a holy creature. As I have seen in my own experience, those who are attacked verbally about their lack of observance tend to not repent due to such attacks, but turn away even more. They will not just turn away themselves, but will turn their descendants away as well, never having a Jewish home for their children. Such Lashon Hara is not just a sin, but it also kills the Jewish people.

As is all too often the case, Lashon Hara does not benefit anyone. So let’s not use it, Shall we?

Parshat Vayikra 5766 Sacrifice - So What???

This week we begin Vayikra, or in English Leviticus, which starts with the procedures for different types of sacrifices. We learn how we are to essentially deplete farmyards of animals for different types of sacrifices, some for transgressions, and others for thanksgiving. For vegetarians we learn that only one type of plant material, grain, is burned while all others are not. First fruits are not to be burned according to the text, but part of the meal offering is. Different classes of sins are then enumerated.

Every year I get to this point and I ask myself the same question -So what? If one were to summarize the first two chapters of Leviticus, between the meat and grain offerings it would be a simple recipe for fajitas, though without the grilled onions, peppers and guacamole of course. For the last 1900 years or so, there has been no way any of this makes sense. Thus the question one must ask is why this is important to us today, so far away in time from animal sacrifices. One answer, of course, championed by some Orthodox, though by no means all, is that wee need to be ready for the days of the Messiah, when the Temple is restored and we will once again be killing animals to atone for sin. Yet this doesn’t sit well with me. I have another way of looking at this text historical in its outlook.

Further into Leviticus we will read about the practices of other religions, including bestiality and child sacrifice. Given the context, this not just the practices of other lands but their sacred practices. The Medieval commentator Maimonides believed that the Israelites were not yet ready for no sacrifices at all, and so God created a system of sacrifices which was a lot less damaging - animal sacrifice. Yet as we read in the text of Leviticus we are to bring this sacrifice “before the tent.” This was fine during the Exodus when everyone was surrounding the Mishkan every day. Getting to the tent was an easy walk. When the Israelites settle in the land, things are not so easy. To get from the territory of Dan to Shiloh where the Mishkan was would be quite the journey - particularly for every sin. So the people adapted a native Canaanite practice for their own use. Called bamot or high places, these were local community altars where sacrifices were taken for the community. Sometimes, however, the bamot would end up also making pagan sacrifices, or having ashera, idolatrous trees plated around them. Such was the situation in the story of everyone favorite biblical pyromaniac, Gideon, who cuts down the ashera of his father’s high place to Baal to use as firewood in a sacrifice to God (Judges 6:25-26). Yet Gideon does use the high place as an altar to God, and later so does Elijah, who repairs a high place of the Lord at Mount Carmel in his contest with the priests of Baal (I Kings 18:30). In either case the bamot were acceptable because the sacrifice itself was either ordered by God or accepted whole heartedly by God.

Yet a few generations after Elijah, King Josiah, after finding the dire consequences of disobeying God in a lost copy of Deuteronomy (II Kings 22), goes on a holy rampage and destroys everything, including the bamot, that could be idolatrous and centralizes sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem. (II Kings 23:8-9) Yet it was still difficult for people to go for every sin to Jerusalem to get expiated. Local communities came up with a substitute for the sacrifice and daily offerings. As Josiah was so obsessed with Deuteronomy, Passages of Deuteronomy would be read while standing together in an assembly of the community. Some of these included the Shema, and the Ten Commandments found in Deuteronomy. They also included a set of blessings which would be said while standing, a proto-amidah. Such were the beginnings of Jewish liturgy. When a generation after Josiah the first temple is destroyed, there was a system of prayer in place to take into exile. We read in Daniel 6:11 that Daniel prayed three times daily towards Jerusalem, thanking God. From the later Qumran documents of 1st century BCE there are pieces of the Qumran sect’s liturgy, including readings from the Ten Commandments and the Shema.

Yet when the second temple was built, and sacrifices returned, many people had forgotten much of the tradition. So as we read in Nehemiah 8, a Torah reading became part of the liturgy at the temple, including a panel of interpreters to explain the Ezra’s reading of the text. As this was easy enough to do anywhere, a community group would assemble in their own beit knesset, or in Greek a synagogue, and began to also read the text. Often one or two people would interpret the words there. There readers and interpreters became teachers and judges, in Hebrew rabbi. By the first century CE there was an established order of Rabbis involved in debate, most notably the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai. When Jerusalem was sacked and the temple destroyed in 70CE, there were no more sacrifices. Yet prayer continued to be used as a substitute, with the rabbis creating a more standard structure for the psalms, Shema and Amidah. But they also included something else:

The altar of wood three cubits high . . . . and he said to me, This is the table that is before the Lord (Ezek. 41:22) [Now the verse] opens with ‘altar’ and finishes with ‘table’? R. Johanan and R. Eleazar both explain that as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now a man's table atones for him. (B. Brachot 55a)

As we will do in a few weeks, the observance of the Passover lamb, which was supposed to be done in the temple, was transferred to a man’s dining room table. Symbol and signs like the maror’s bitterness and Haroset as clay were introduced to the Seder. All of this work of revising a world without a Temple became the corpus of literature knows as the Talmud, and its authors promoted among the highest of virtues studying this text, which of course took large amounts of time. Yet in 17th century Eastern Europe most Jews were exceedingly poor and unable to study regularly, if even able to read. Another movement which emphasized not just study but the deep intention to cleave to God came into being. Combining elements of 16th century mysticism and the Pietism of 12th century Germany, this new movement, Hasidism, once again arose to address the problem. In a much later time of the 19th century, the Enlightenment threatened Judaism in several ways. Technology was creating a world very different than only generations earlier, and science was finding new rationale behind how our universe worked. The new rational philosophy also created a few dilemmas for the Jews. Of most interest was the call by Immanuel Kant, whose definition of ethics defined Jews as amoral, and thus calling for their "euthanasia". Some reacted by making an ethical Judaism based not on the Law of Torah, but on the ethics found in the prophets and thus be ethical by Kant’s definition. Around the same time, many German Jews started moving across the Ocean to the new country of the United States of America, and took up residence in the new cities of the Midwest like Chicago and Cincinnati. Faced with being a more scattered and smaller minority than they were in Germany, in a world that was often highly anti-Semitic Protestants, they faced hard times from all sides. In this crucible many forged something that had not been there before: Reform Judaism. In the reform movement first statement of principles, the Pittsburgh platform of 1885, three of the planks read:

3. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.
4. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.
5. We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.
In essence the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 created a religion which looked and acted like any other patriotic American religion, rejecting much of Torah in the process, and believing that the new Israel was the United States, and there would never be resettlement of Israel. Others disagreed and while the burgeoning Zionist movement took a while to enter Synagogue life, it eventually did, due in part to the tragic events of the Holocaust. Even Reform, who’s first platform opposed it, would eventually change their mind.

Over and over in this story, from a cut up cow to Reform Judaism, things change. Yezekiel Kaufmann, the Great scholar of the history of biblical Israel indicated that the Jews created something that no there people before them had ever created: the idea that things don’t stay the same, that time moves on, and that things can change for the better: the Jews invented revolution. But in the style of the rabbis do not read revolution but “R. Evolution.” We are the people who for millennia believe not in a static world, but a dynamic ever-improving one. We do not die as a people because we can change and adapt. Reform Judaism’s view of Torah today reflects that change, as written into the 1999 Statement of principles reads in part:

We affirm that Torah is the foundation of Jewish life.
We cherish the truths revealed in Torah, God's ongoing revelation to our people and the record of our people's ongoing relationship with God.
We affirm that Torah is a manifestation of (image placeholder)(ahavat olam), God's eternal love for the Jewish people and for all humanity.
We affirm the importance of studying Hebrew, the language of Torah and Jewish liturgy, that we may draw closer to our people's sacred texts.
We are called by Torah to lifelong study in the home, in the synagogue and in every place where Jews gather to learn and teach. Through Torah study we are called to (image placeholder)(mitzvot), the means by which we make our lives holy.
We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of (image placeholder)(mitzvot) and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these (image placeholder)(mitzvot), sacred obligations, have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention as the result of the unique context of our own times.

Reform, revolution evolution for me they are all the same. A recent quote from a non Jewish source, Graphic novelist David Mack in his work Kabuki: The Alchemy (#6) for me describes Judaism in its answer to a question about revolution:

There is no finish to revolution. That is why it is always revolving. (Because it is evolving) revolution is evolution. The idea continues to adapt to reality. And the implementation should continue to adapt and change. There is no having made it. Forget about that. You are always making it. That is the entire point. The making is where you always want to be. To make something & try to maintain the status quo is against nature. That is what I’m fighting against. The revolution is the action not subject. Once the revolution becomes the institution, you have to revolt and revolve, all over again. Stagnation is death. Status quo is death. Celebrity is death. Once a government or agency is setup to worship itself and make itself richer & forget the ideas it is founded on, it is no longer for the people or by the people or of the people, but is very separate from the people. Just using them as pawns for its own gain.
When that happens, that institution is on the wrong side of history. History shows that a society on that path will crumble in on itself. --- Unless corrections are made from the inside out.

Judaism has always been in flux -- changing and re-inventing itself and in the process evolving, making those corrections from the inside out sometimes from new ideas and sometimes embracing traditions from the past. We are the only faith to my knowledge that whose sacred literature has stories which tell of our ancestors telling God to shut up and but out, (Baba Metzia 59b) which God finds hysterically funny, laughing “My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me!” That is Judaism -- in Torah study, prayer and practice, or social action -- Our three pillars which the world stands on, Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Hasidim continue the stand because they continue to change. The burnt cow, dove, goat, etc. of Leviticus is witness to how we don’t stay still, but do adapt, change and survive.

Shlomos Drash vayakhel 5766 - Shabbos Lists

This week we have Moses first giving the instructions for creating the Mishkan he learned on Sinai, employing the people to help in the construction with Betzalel as lead craftsman and architect. The people enthusiastically help out in its construction, so much so Betzazel has to ask for the donations to stop. When all the pieces are done Moses puts the components together for the first time, and the cloud of glory covers the Mishkan.

This is the end of the book of Exodus and, the last of my pieces on Shabbat for a while. Leviticus will take up other matters. Yet here is the first time Moses speaks the mitzvah of Shabbat, and includes in it a specific prohibition.

1. And Moses gathered all the congregation of the people of Israel together, and said to them, These are the words which the Lord has commanded, that you should do them. 2. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord; whoever does work in it shall be put to death. 3. You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day. (Ex 35:1-3)

In Torah and Tanach, we have very few specific prohibitions noting what kind of work is banned on the Sabbath. In Exodus 16, we are told not to collect Manna on the Sabbath day, to stay home, and to cook for Shabbat the previous day. Elsewhere in Tanach we have the prophets complaining about specific transgressions of the Sabbath, which by implication must have already been established. In Jeremiah 17:22 we have the prohibition against carrying things out of a house, in Amos and Nehemiah 13 lists several involving commerce:

15. In those days I saw in Judah men treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading them on asses; and also wine, grapes, and figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; and I warned them on the day when they sold food.16. Men of Tyre, who lived there, brought fish, and all kinds of ware, and sold on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, and in Jerusalem.17. Then I confronted the nobles of Judah, and said to them, What evil thing is this that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?

Using a hermeneutic principle called parat u’kalal on this passage, the Rabbis of the Mishnah determined what other prohibitions of work would not be allowed on the Sabbath. Our specific case of lighting a fire in the week’s portion, and the instructions for all things used to make the Mishkan that follow that prohibition, would imply that the activities that follow are also prohibited on the Sabbath. Given this logic, the rabbis go on to list thirty nine prohibitions

Mishnah. The primary labors are forty less one, [viz.:] sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads, the making of two meshes, weaving two threads, dividing two threads, tying [knotting] and untying, sewing two stitches, tearing in order to sew two stitches, capturing a deer, slaughtering, or flaying, or salting it, curing its hide, scraping it [of its hair], cutting it up, writing two letters, erasing in order to write two letters [over the erasure], building, pulling down, extinguishing, kindling, striking with a hammer, [and] carrying out from one domain to another: these are the forty primary labors less one.(M. Shabbat 7:2)

For observing the positive commandment of Shabbat there seems to be a lot of negative provisions. And for most except that small percentage of Orthodox Jews, it is impossible to follow these rules as closely as the rabbis. Considering my own situation where my synagogue is about ten miles from my own home put it in perspective. If I followed the rule about travel, and particularly lighting the fires that run the combustion engine in my car, I would never be able to go to the synagogue I go to now. Nor would I be able to sit in a Starbuck’s early Saturday morning before I go the Saturday morning services, and paint and people watch, which is a very sacred and precious time for me. That Saturday morning cup of coffee is so different than the other seven mornings of coffee, yet the Mishnah prohibits it on so many levels.

Yet as I discussed last week, what I do for Shabbat is still far more than most Jews do. As a friend of mine commented me recently, we tend to think of Shabbat in terms of all or nothing thinking. Even our euphemism for a very observant person, Shomer Shabbos, builds on that thinking. And so, if we believe we cannot do all of what the Mishnah or the Orthodox think is observance, we decide to do nothing.

Yet as we read on in this portion, Moses asks for donations of both materials and skill to help build the Mishkan. And the response is overwhelming:

21. And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering to the work of the Tent of Meeting, and for all his service, and for the holy garments. 22. And they came, both men and women, as many as were willing hearted, and brought bracelets, and ear rings, and rings, and bracelets, all jewels of gold; and every man who offered offered an offering of gold to the Lord. 23. And every man, with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, and red skins of rams, and goats’ skins, brought them. 24. Every one who offered an offering of silver and bronze brought the Lord’s offering; and every man, with whom was found shittim wood for any work of the service, brought it. 25. And all the women who were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. 26. And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats’ hair. 27. And the rulers brought onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate; 28. And spice, and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense. 29. The people of Israel brought a willing offering to the Lord, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for every kind of work, which the Lord had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses.

What I find so amazing about this passage is not everyone brought everything but individuals brought different things. It differentiates between man and woman, that all had a unique gift. Otherwise, verse 22-29 could have been skipped, and 21 would have said it all. What I believe this means is we are all individuals, uniquely crafted by God. We all bring something different to the building of holiness. So too with Shabbat, we all bring our own unique perspective and situation to the Island in Time. And just like a tropical resort on some island, if we all did everything exactly the same, it wouldn’t be much fun. Yes there are a lot of things we do alike at a resort like eat good meals and walk along the beach, yet not everything, and that is what makes the resort a better place. We all don’t play tennis and golf nor want to, nor do we all want just the beach or just the pool. Each has their preference. If we all did exactly the same things at the same time, many of the activities would be ruined. If everyone played golf or tennis at the same time, there would be too many players on the court or course to actually play the game.

When on retreat or in a predominately Jewish area, I have had the occasion to follow the more stringent rules, and I also agree they are somewhat satisfying for those short durations. But for me to follow all the rules all the time just wouldn't work for me -- I enjoy certain activities on Shabbat too much to give them up - I find things like painting, playing instruments or photography on Shabbat just as much a celebration and witnessing of creation as some find not turning on any electric switches. And it was in this spirit that when I first got back into Judaism about ten years ago, I created my own list of personal halakah for Shabbat, both positive and negative rules to follow. That list has changed over the years, but its current version is this one:

Shlomo’s Shabbos
Live Juicy one day a week. Celebrate it with candles. Read Torah and Talmud and contemplate them. Wear Hawaiian shirts. Do not use electronic devices-no Internet, iPods, or TV. Don’t buy anything but food or medicine. Eat a REALLY good meal. Love. If no one else is around love yourself. Don’t forget to hug! Dessert and sweets were created Shabbos!!! Try to walk. Be sensual. Use all your senses to consciously taste, smell, see, touch, and hear. Sense how wonderful everything is. Read and study. Read spiritual books and novels of imagination. Take naps. Paint the beauty in the world. Pray and Play. It doesn’t matter what or how -just play. Sing for the joy of singing, sing for the joy of God. With instruments, even if you can’t. Don’t do anything that has to do with work-unless someone's life is in danger. Spend time relating to other people. Have outrageous conversations. Bless yourself, everyone, and everything else.

My belief is that we all should have such a list, and we should all practice what we put down on our list. If you are doing nothing or have never written down a list like this, I challenge you to do so.

So here’s the challenge: pick five positive commandments to and for yourself to do every Shabbat, five things that you obligate yourself, with God as the witness, that you will do. Then pick five things you will forbid yourself from doing every Shabbat. If you would like a worksheet to do this on, I have made one up at my web www.shlomosdrash.com/shabbos_wksht.html which you can download or print out. You don’t have to use the form, but it is important to write them down - the act of writing them down makes them real. While my list has changed, mostly with additions, it has been close to a constant for close to a decade. Following this list, I really feel good about myself, and good about the world we live in. Your list may be different, and that is just as good and holy as mine, though you may use my ideas as well.* Like the holy place we build in this portion we all bring something different to Shabbat. Most of us cannot do all but we can do something. And only when we all bring what each individual especially can bring can Shabbat be particularly holy, so holy it may even build the third temple of messianic times.

Have a great Shabbat.


*In the spirit of building the Mishkan, I will also post to the Shabbosville website any lists that people send me at shlomosdrash@aol.com of their Shabbat practices, some already have. Mine will also be posted there as well; together we can build a list of ideas of how to make Shabbat a holy time, no matter one’s level of observance.

Shlomos Drash - parshat Ki Tisa 5766 Variations on V'shamru

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 eye of the Egyptians if he kills everyone. The people repent, Moses goes back up to get another set of ten tablets, after breaking 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 commandment 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.

And once again I struggle with Shabbat. Twice in the chapter 31 passage, including the verses including the piece of Liturgy we call v’shamru (31:16-17) we hear a definite death penalty (31:14, 15), and once the implicit death penalty of cut off from among the people(31:14) Twice we hear that Shabbat is a sign between God and the people Israel. Twice we hear that it is to be throughout the generations. This passage allows us to see the power of one of the Hermeneutic principles of the rabbis. Rabbinic logic, unlike Aristotelian logic allows for analogy by word phrases. Therefore if we have two places which have the phrase Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, (31:15, 34:21) then the rest of the phrases are connected. Therefore one can conclude if someone is found plowing or harvesting on the Sabbath, they are to be put to death. Similarly the Phrase Cut off from his people would therefore signify a death penalty. (31:15, 16).

But the rabbis, who were really squeamish about the death penalty given the numbers of people executed by the Romans, tried to avoid invoking the death penalty. And so, they came up with a rather interesting solution. While Cutting off did apply to the death penalty, they decided this was a death penalty that was executed not by humans but by God, referred to as Cutting or karet in Hebrew. The rabbis were able to use the logic above to come to a point where desecration of Shabbat could be a place where God will get you in the end. Granted, given the story in Numbers of the Stick Gatherer, there was a precedent for actually killing someone for doing things on the Sabbath. Yet in the end, the desecration of the Sabbath became one of the punishments which were executed by God, not man.

And in many ways I’ve always though about stress in exactly that way. With the amount of stress we put on our bodies by working seven days a week, we end up shortening our lives. It was Philo of Alexandria, who was trying to explain this rather odd practice of regularly taking a day off for Roman critics who really put this explanation into words for the first time. Others have taken other ways of looking at the Sabbath. One is the well known view of Resh Lakish, who uses our passage as a proof text:

For Resh Lakish said: Man is given an additional soul on Friday, but at the termination of the Sabbath it is taken away from him, as it is said, He ceased from work and rested [shabat wa-yinafash] that is to say, once the rest had ceased [shabat], woe! that soul is gone [wai nafash]. (Taanit 27b)

Resh Lakish in a word play, believes God grants us an extra nefesh, soul, at the beginning of Shabbat, one we lament at its end. Another rabbi, again using our text, describes Shabbat as a precious gift
Raba b. Mehasia also said in the name of R. Hama b. Goria in Rab's name: If one makes a gift to his neighbour, he must inform him [beforehand], as it is written, that ye may know that I the Lord sanctify you: It was taught likewise: That ye may know that I the Lord sanctify you: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, I have a precious gift in My treasure house, called the Sabbath, and desire to give it to Israel; go and inform them (Shabbat 10b)
Shabbat is a special time for those who observe it. It may feel like the Erev Shabbat Call of R. Jannai, immortalized in the liturgy as the last line of L’cha Dodi. : “boee kalah boee kalah, Come oh Bride come Oh bride.” For me that bride does come in the back of the synagogue every Friday evening and she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met. She is my bride and I am her groom standing at the Huppa. She is everyone’s mate one a week to those who are observing Shabbat. She is also tropical island resort in time, a place to kick back and take off the last day of the week, not just alone but with everyone we have a relationship with. A Presbyterian friend on mine commented about my busy schedule recently during a conversation about dating. She didn’t see where I could find time to actually date or spend time in a relationship. Then she answered her own question - I had the seventh day when there was nothing to do but relate; the Shabbath Bride is the room in my life for my own bride, who will be the only one more beautiful than the Sabbath bride. (May we meet soon!)

Yet for many that spiritual moment in L’cha Dodi and the sacred time for relationship with loved ones doesn’t happen. The National Jewish Population Survey of 2001 shows that a minority of Jews take Shabbat seriously. Across all denominations, only 27% of Jews attend services monthly or more and 28% light Shabbat candles. How many light them with their loved ones is not really known.

In light of this I find it ironic the counterpoint to this holy moment at Sinai. While Moses was receiving the eternal covenant of Shabbat on the top of the mountain, the people were building and worshipping the golden calf at the bottom of the mountain. Debauchery feasting and idolatry of a gold object replaced holiness. The golden calf incident did end in death, both with the Levites slaying 3000 men, and God invoking a plague (32:28, 35). Both human and karat death penalties were the punishment for the calf. Yet where is the punishment for the current generation? It may be, without transmitting the joy and holiness of the Seventh Day, of not transmitting the sign between God and the people of Israel, that the people of Israel, at least here in America, will cease to exist, to be assimilated into mainstream culture without any identity of their own. Shabbat has kept the Jews proportionally to Jews keeping and remembering the Sabbath. If some parents and teachers continue to set bad examples for their children, another generation is lost, ones who might look to Christianity or Buddhism for the identity that they could have found in the deeply sacred and spiritual beliefs of their ancestors. The same man who wrote of Shabbat as an island in time, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshel also lamented that while the Nazis killed our bodies, America kills our souls. And sadly it is seen most of all in Shabbat.

In a remark which may be either sarcasm or a hopeful goal for the future, the Talmudic rabbis noted that if all Jews celebrated two consecutive Shabbats, the Messiah would come. Obviously not every Jew, in whatever way they observe Shabbat, did then or does now But if more of us did, and found the Island in time, then we could have just one thing that connects us as a people. We may not agree on whether iPods or cars are usable on Shabbat, but if we believe that there is something sacred about stopping our work for one day and bother to look around us and talk to one anther for one day how sweet would our world be - how much would it be like messianic times!


Shabbat Shalom

Shlomo Teaching live - Haroset: A World History.

Hello Folks!

For those who want to have some quality learning time with me, learn about Passover halakah, and get some seriously interesting recipes you might be interested in the course I'm teaching a week from Tuesday (3/21/06)

This course follows the history of this Passover condiment from its rabbinic origins to the Seder table of today. What might seem like a simple story will turn into a journey where we will encounter many important texts from Tanach and Talmud through the work of Maimonides and Rashi determining the hidden significance of this observance. We will also discuss the Hillel sandwich from the Talmudic tradition to its modern incarnation and its relationship to Haroset. Recipes for haroset in various traditions will also be discussed and sampled.

Tuesdays, March 21 and 28 7:30-9 pm
Beth Emet The Free Synagogue 1224 Dempster Evanston, Illinois 60202
Members: $15, non-members: $20

Contact Mayta Spitz at (847) 869-4230 x630 to register and shlomosdrash@aol.com for more information on the content of the course.

Drash Tetzave 5766 More Masks

This week we have more commandments given to Moses on Sinai. While other things, such as the oil for the menorah and the procedures for sacrifices are mentioned, the main part of the text describes the garb of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. Last year, I wrote this about “game face” and in the year in-between I had a lot of time to think about that piece and the idea of game face. We read near the beginning of the portion

1. And take to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, that he may minister to me in the priest’s office, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons. 2. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother for glory and for beauty. (Ex. 28:1-2)

For those who do not remember my thoughts from last year, I wrote about the need for all that stuff the High Priest needs to put on. Items like the breastplate and the stone have symbols encompassing all the tribes, for example. This is less about utilitarian clothing and more about the symbol one sends to other humans. God, of course, being omnipresent and omniscient, sees us in our underwear and naked all the time. It is not therefore necessarily for God, but for humans. When we put on our professional clothes and go out to do our trade, we put on a face that is not completely our genuine selves, much like the face a professional poker player or basketball player- our game face, a mask over our true selves.

I’ve though about that mask in several ways over the past few weeks. Last weekend, I went on retreat with my synagogue to Oconomowoc WI. This Shabbat in a very uncharacteristic move for me, I left much of what I usually carry in pockets and belt loops in my room, and spent the whole day without any of this stuff. And strangely I felt much lighter, both physically and spiritually. Physically was rather surprising, though it shouldn’t have. When you add up a PDA, handheld internet device, cell phone, iPod, wallet, portable keyboard, digital thermometer and flashlight there is a real difference in weight. Internally, it was also interesting - without any of these things on my person, I didn’t think about them, they were not screaming at me to check voice e-mail or voice mail, or catch up on the podcasted news clips. In fact, I did not miss them at all, so much so that it was not after I had packed the next day to leave that I realized none of them were still on my person, and most of them had been packed away in my suitcase by mistake. I really felt the weight when I clipped all that stuff to my belt or placed it in the appropriate pockets.

Secondly was the theme of the retreat: the upcoming holiday of Purim, where here again the clothes (or lack of them) make the person. We start with Vashti, and here the issue is whether she will show herself in royal crown and nothing else (Esther 1:11). Then we move the Esther dressing minimally, in only the few things the king likes instead of heavy ostentation (2:15). Later when she appears before the king unbidden, Esther dresses in royalty(5:1), which could be interpreted as either royal apparel(Targum Sheni 5:1), or only in the glory of the Holy Spirit and a smile (Esther Rabbah IX:1). Mordechai twice appears in the apparel of the kind first as a reward for his informing on a conspiracy to kill the king(6:8,11), wearing royal robes and the crown. The second time is after he is given the late-Haman’s job (8:15) wearing royal
robes of blue and linen, and a big gold turban and a wrap of fine linen and purple.

Purim itself of course is about dressing up in a mask that is not your own. As I’m busy looking for a hula skirt and my lost shaker of salt, I thought about that, about getting to try on a face that is not how you define yourself on any other day. Yet after trying on this face, you might even want to change into that person. The shy kid I am around people gets to be a Parrothead - something I would never think to do at a real Jimmy Buffet show. Yet in the craziness of Purim turning things on their heads, you can throw your game face in the dust and pick up something else, at least to try, and somehow like throwing my PDA and laptop in my suitcase, it is somehow refreshing not to have your regular mask on.

I did not watch the academy awards, yet it was with interest I noted that more press time was spent on what stars were wearing than what they accomplished professionally. Those who wear masks for a living are only judged by the mask they wear that day, not by performance they gave on the screen. Yet that mask they had that evening, sets the masks we all wear. As an artist, I also perused those fashions with interest, as I do with all fashions. As I can’t afford live models and beautiful clothes to paint live models, I very often turn to fashion magazines and catalogs for photo references while I’m painting. Yet the stuff I see there often disturbs me as these magazines primary job is to sell a certain mask that we, as both men and women are to either accept or to buy. Even the one fashion issue of Sports illustrated, the swimsuit issue, in remembrance of Esther and Vashti’s dilemma, tries to answer in a disturbing way the question posed by Victoria’s Secret: What is sexy? And in all of these it is a daily mask we are forced into that most cannot fit into. It does not even fit the models photographed in these magazines, which I realized once after meeting Elsa Benitez, the cover model of the 2001 SI swimsuit issue at an event I was attending. She was not even close in appearance, She was a bony anorexic compared to the image in the magazine. The camera added a few pounds and in the painting I had made from that cover photo I had to add a few more to make her truly look sexy. No, not even cover models fit their own mask.

And it is here we need to look at the mask on Aaron and the high priest. In Torah, His brother Moses and Sister Miriam the text is very clear about their emotions, as in their stories their emotions are explicit. Yet for Aaron he is oddly silent, even when watching the death of his own sons. It must be the outfit. While not carrying a PDA or laptop laden backpack, he is carrying the Urim and Thummim on his outfit. He is also carrying the breastplate, the ephod, the girdle the miter the stones of memorial, gold chains connecting much of this outfit together and solid gold bells and pomegranates along the hem of the robe. Physically this outfit weighed a ton, and particularly after the death of his sons Nadab and Abihu it may have emotionally have weighed heavily too, knowing, like a diver’s scuba gear, a packed parachute, or a biohazard suit, if his outfit fails to be perfect, he dies. Yet the threat of death is less than half the weight. The bigger weight gives Aaron and every high priest after him the same mask we now give to the supermodel and movie star. They must be perfect, with no vulnerability, to give us the ideal look for all of us, one we cannot even hope to mimic, though we try.

In that trying to be perfect and beautiful, there is stress and tension. Like Aaron, we feel that daily; yet there needs to be a place to release that tension. Hence Shabbat and Purim. While Aaron might have to be in the monkey suit on the seventh day, we on Shabbat can get rid of it, and be free of both the emotional and physical weight of the stuff we carry to do our daily lives. Purim goes one further, our regular clothes, indeed even our gender, may be thrown away for one evening of Purim spiel. A person who tries to look professional virtually every day of the year can look like a total idiot for a wonderful evening when things are turned on their head.

So this weekend, and next week may you enjoy the opportunity to relax your mask.

Drash Terumah 5766 - Willing Hearts, Wise Hearts

When we last left Moses, he was ascending Mount Sinai at the request of the people that he would be the exclusive representative of the people, and he would teach the laws to them. This week Moses receives the plans in rather interesting detail of the items found in the Mishkan, such as the ark and the altar, and ending with the Mishkan itself. In my professional life as a health inspector, this is part of the plan review process, the process before construction begins of laying out the blueprint and finding out if any changes are necessary. Of course in something designed by God, the architect of the universe, there is nothing to find wrong. But one of the important parts of a plan review is the review of the materials used and the sources for those materials. And it is here that I found an interesting note, in the second verse of our portion

Speak to the people of Israel, that they bring me an offering; from every man that gives it willingly with his heart you shall take my offering. (Ex. 25:2)

The Hebrew for gives it willingly of his heart is yidvenu libo. The word for heart is simple as it is said in such liturgy as the Shema. Yet the word for willingly, when I first looked at it made me think of another word, the Yiddish davvenen, the word we use for prayer, or more accurately a specific methodology for prayer. I saw the DVN in the Hebrew and thought it was the triliteral root, which might have a link to the Yiddish. I got all excited about writing a Drash about this connection and going on an on about how to davvenen. But it was not to be.

Those who know Hebrew grammar you might have caught my mistakes in thinking that. For those who don’t and for sleepy heads like me, it was Rashi who reminded me, and probably a lot of other people who made this mistake of the true grammar of this word. In Hebrew, there is a tendency for many words to be based on three-letter roots. BRCh, for example is the root for the word to bless. By adding letters and vowels to this root, one can make up various verbs and nouns such as Baruch which is to bless in the present tense and brachah, a noun which means blessing. You can also add letters at the end to indicate possession or object pronouns like his or him. The difference between libo, his heart in our verse and levavecha, your heart is an example of suffixes on lev. Yet some words have problems with pronunciation with this system, and these include roots that that begin with the letter N. These words drop off the offending letter. Rashi reminded everyone in his commentary that this was such a word that started with a N. The root is really NDV, and added to the end of the word is the pronoun NU, it. There goes my poetic beginning of a Drash.

But since Rashi had to make a comment about grammar, it might mean there was more than a little confusion here, and there might still be some link between davvenen and yidvenu. However, it’s pretty clear, even on authority on YIVO, the organization dedicated to the study of Yiddish culture and language; no one has a definite clue on the etymology of davvenen. If you search the internet there are whole mailing lists doing nothing but arguing over the etymology of the word. No luck there.

But the general idea of the NDV root, to freely give of ones own will, still struck me as interesting. After Moses comes down from Sinai, and deals with the golden calf mess, he then begins to teach the people, starting with the directions for building the Mishkan, and repeats much of this he was told by God in Exodus 25 to the people in Exodus 35. Here too, he uses some version of the phrase Nadvat ha lev willing heart. Also he uses another phrase, Hochmat ha lev meaning wise heart. Exodus 25 differentiates between the willing, who supply resources, and the wise, who provide skills and labor. Our portion, at the beginning of the ascent of Sinai mentions resources. It is not till the end of the forty days, in Exodus 31 that Moses is told there will be people of wisdom of heart, led by Betzalel, to put the whole thing together. And interestingly right after that is the commandment for Shabbat, and the imposition of the death penalty for its desecration. In Exodus 35, Moses starts his first major lesson to the people with Shabbat and the prohibition of lighting a fire, and then mentions the donations of the Wise of Heart and the Willing of Heart.

It is from the Specific case of lighting a fire following the general case in Exodus 35 that the Rabbis of the Mishnah identified the 39 Shabbat prohibitions, essentially taking the argument that any thing that was required work to build the Mishkan was prohibited work. This is also paralleled, in the case of Exodus 31, where God assigns workers then starts the longest explanation of Shabbat in the Torah, including its punishment. The wise of heart, the skilled worker, is not allowed to apply their skill on Shabbat.

But what of the willing of heart? One word that comes from our root is the word NDVH for the freewill offering. And while the Halakah of the freewill offering is a difficult halakah to get through, I think it is two verses in Psalms which provides one answer:

119:108. Accept, I beseech you, the freewill offerings of my mouth,
O Lord, and teach me your ordinances.

54:8. I will sacrifice a free will offering to you;
I will praise your name, O Lord; for it is good.

In Hebrew poetry there is something called synonymous parallelism. This means that the first part of the verse means the same as the second. IN these verses, we can then interpret praising the name of God, and learning Torah, to be the freewill offering. The original freewill offering was a sacrificed animal in the Temple. Without a Temple, we can no longer do that. But we can speak and sing and teach without the Temple. We can pray, we can davvenen.

While I can’t etymologically link davvenen and yidbenu, I can functionally believe they are the same. Prayer and study is our freewill offering. But it is not a route effort, but one with something special, a deep willingness to pray and study. Yet as I wrote this, the difference between hochmat ha-lev and nadvat ha-lev has been an issue I have been grappling with. I am very much the type not to just freely give of my self and my skills but do it so enthusiastically the effort totally wipes me out. As I recently quipped, I am the type of guy who jumps in with all three feet, not caring that I only have two until it is too late.

As I wrote two weeks ago, I’m wiped out, and I also know it’s my own fault. There are so many things I got myself into that I completely sympathize with a recent cartoon about life balance. You have time in your life for three things say the cartoon, and work and holidays are two -- pick one more. After reading this, I quipped to someone the one I haven’t picked is sleep, that the spiritual and communal things I get myself into - my freewill offerings of my skills - are more important than sleep. I really didn’t need to complete a project I’ve been working on for five years this week, but given the use of that project at an upcoming retreat I did anyway.

In not mentioning hochmat ha lev in this week’s portion, and waiting for forty days on Sinai to describe Betzalel and the other craftspeople of the Mishkan, God is sending a very important message. Freewill offerings of our skills cannot be constantly intense, like prayer or study should be. Like every other type of work we do need to take Shabbat off or die trying to Do It All. Prayer on the other hand we should do every day and it should be our intention to learn and to praise the Name.

Without raw materials and plans, a craftsman is worthless. Our portion this week is about raw material and plans, not actual construction. Our raw material is praising the Name, our plans are Torah. But until we have sufficient enough of both, construction of our own spirituality cannot begin. One cannot lay any foundation of a building without cement and a set of dimensions. And when we do, like the golden calf we will read about shortly, the result is a disaster. While there is no Temple any more, and we do not give sacrifices, the objects of the Temple may give us plans to ourselves and to the Temple we should be. These plans in Terumah start in the most inner chamber, and build out from there. So too we should plan and build ourselves, from our own “arks” to the curtains on the outside.

Drash Mishpatim - Onah, Sex, and Touch

For the first time in the Torah cycle, there is very little narrative, found only at the end of the parsha. This week is a continuation of the same day as God reciting the Ten Commandments, and God gives directly to Moses a rapid-fire nonstop set of mitzvot, mostly covering civil and criminal law. It includes other things, such as a more elaborate explanation of the Ten Commandments including Shabbat, honoring parents, not murdering, not being a false witness, and not stealing. There also the famous line about witches, and the schedule for the three festivals. Towards the end of this portion, Moses writes down this week portion, and then ascends Sinai for the forty days and nights to receive the rest of the Torah and the tablets.

It is also a commandment in this portion which has been the case of a lot of my exhaustion I discussed last week, though regrettably only from the study of the mitzvah, and not fulfilling it. In the Talmud, we have the following story:

R. Kahana once went in and hid under Rab's bed. He heard him chatting [with his wife] and joking and doing what he required. He said to him: One would think that Abba's mouth had never sipped the dish before! He said to him: Kahana, are you here? Go out, because it is rude. He replied: It is a matter of Torah, and I require to learn.

In case not everybody got the Idea, the 11th century commentator Rashi clarifies on what he required means sex, using the interesting euphemism serving his bed. This euphemism is very often used to discuss one commandment in this week’s portion. (Ex. 21:7-11)

7. And if a man sells his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do…10. If he takes for himself another wife; her food, her garment, and her onah, shall he not diminish.11. And if he does not do these three things to her, then shall she go out free without payment of money.

There is this strange word, onah, which is a requirement in the text. The rabbis wonder what it means, and come to two conclusions, both with the same upshot. One makes onah mean time, that there is a certain time that is guaranteed for a wife. The second meaning is one that means strife or oppression, that there is something hurting the wife. The strife is described in the curse Eve receives in Genesis 3:16 your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. But the rabbis change the he to it. So it is not the husband who rules over, but her desire for the husband. Not fulfilling that desire with sexual pleasure causes extreme pain according to the rabbis. The rabbis believed it was proper for a man to contain his lust, his yetzer hara, since he was strong enough to do so. But women were too weak, and the pain of this desire was dangerous.

This rule in Torah was for a female slave, but the text says “another wife” in verse 21:10. So the rabbis believed that this was not about mere slaves, but instead about marriages. They essentially enacted a series of rules which made onah a critical part of marriage. In short they mandated a wife orgasm in marriage. They felt so strongly about this, onah is the only marriage requirement which cannot be waived in a marriage contract. The rabbis of the Mishnah even gave a schedule of how often a man is to give his wife sexual pleasure

The times for conjugal duty prescribed in the Torah are: for men of independence, every day; for laborers, twice a week; for ass-drivers, once a week; for camel-drivers, once in thirty days; for sailors, once in six months. These are the rulings of R. Eliezer. (M. Ketubot 5:1)

The rabbis go on to impose on scholars such as themselves the requirement of every Friday night, and few exemptions for students to go longer period when studying away. (B. Ketubot 62b) Along with this, there is the requirement that a woman must want the sex, a man must not force sex. Yet, a woman who refuses sex could also be divorced. And for the otherwise prudish rabbis who never want anybody to see another’s naked body, there is a rather startling ruling

R. Joseph learnt: Her flesh implies close bodily contact, viz, that he must not treat her in the manner of the Persians who perform their conjugal duties in their clothes. This provides support for [a ruling of] R. Huna who laid down that a husband who said, ‘I will not [perform conjugal duties] unless she wears her clothes and I mine’, must divorce her and give her also her ketubah. (Ketubah 48a)

Sensual touch of the whole body is necessary to satisfy the requirement of Onah. Not only that but it is onah that is in the center of another ruling: contraception. The rabbis allowed the use of some form of contraceptive sponge in the case of a woman who was either in physical danger or logistically unable to have a pregnancy. The rabbis separated be fruitful and multiply from onah.


In the 9th century, we have evidence that there was a downside. Jews in Islamic Persia wrote a parody of the Talmud known as The Alphabet of Ben Sira. And it is within this text we find the Story of Lilith. While there are records of the Lilitu in ancient Sumeria, and a few comments about Lilith in the Talmud and in 6th and 7th century amulets, no earlier source but Alphabet of Ben Sira have the story that Lilith was Adam’s first wife, and she divorced him over sexual power in the relationship. It is possible that the Alphabet criticized the sexual power inherent in the rabbinic rulings of onah, which pretty much left women controlling a disproportionate amount of sex between couples.

But others had other ideas. In the middle ages, a rabbi and vintner from Troyes, the capitol of the Champagne region of France spent most of his life commenting on both Talmud and Torah. Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac, known by the acronym Rashi, produced a phenomenal amount of commentary of virtually the entire Talmud and Torah. Rashi’s work is so incredible and comprehensive, it still is the prime commentary to this day. Rashi did qualify that the Talmudic discussion of onah was about sex. But he also went one step further. While in one Talmudic passage R. Hisda is admonishing his daughters to act modestly, Rashi’s comments on this verse is on the importance of foreplay by manual stimulation of the whole body before touching the genitals (b. Shabbat 140b)

Others, contemporary with Rashi’s grandsons and colleagues, also appeared. Some like the Rabad enumerated four permitted kavvanot for sexual relations with rewards in the world to come: for procreation, for welfare of the fetus, for a wife’s desire, and that a man has desire to act promiscuously and relieves that through intercourse with his wife. Yet the last one is a lesser reward, since the man should have had the strength to resist. If He does not show any strength, and has sex anytime he wants, this would not be rewarded.

To the south, in Spain and the Islamic world there were differing views. Their tastes included intellectual pursuits of the ancient Greeks. By the 12th century the rationalism of Aristotle were taken for granted. One Andalusian Jew, who after expulsions from Spain earlier that century was living in Egypt, championed the rationalists’ view of Aristotle. This or course was Maimonides. Maimonides, also known as the Rambam, saw everything as rational, and everything fit into a world of a rational God. Yet for Maimonides, the physical pleasure of touch was not rational, and thus was to be done away with.

We ought to limit sexual intercourse altogether hold it in contempt, and only desire it very rarely… I have already quoted the verbatim the words of Aristotle. He says: “The sense of touch which is a disgrace to us leads to indulge in eating and sensuality”, etc.

Maimonides and other rationalists saw sexuality and desire as an animal drive, not something for the rational man. Interestingly, Maimonides in his codification of Jewish law does not even mention onah.

There was a deep reaction to this about a generation after the Rambam. The growing movement of Kabbalah and other schools of the region had a negative reaction to this passage of Maimonides quoting Aristotle, referring to “the impure Greek” though given their tone it is not clear whether they are talking about Aristotle or the Rambam. The text this insult come from, The Iggeret Ha-kodesh continues:

But we who have the Torah and believe that God created all in his wisdom [do not believe he] created anything inherently ugly or unseemly. If we were to say that intercourse is repulsive, then we blaspheme God who made the genitals.

While this seems a relatively liberal attitude the rest of the Iggret Ha-kodesh outlines a very different view. Touch is necessary, not for onah but for pregnancy. Desire is still sublimated to an ideal holiness in the sexual union. The book main theme is how and when to perform the sexual act in order to have the ideal offspring: a male scholar for a child, a theme later repeated in the Kabbalists’ magnum opus the Zohar, though in this case emphasising unions in the upper spheres.

All of this today provides some food for thought. While the Law of Onah is on the books, it would be difficult for a woman to use it as grounds for divorce. Between Maimonides view and the view of the Zohar that onah is more about the man than the woman, the rule is know only as the mitzvah of sex on erev Shabbat.

But at its core, I believe is a piece of Wisdom here that cannot be forgotten, once that extends to far more than just sex. The three requirements of a bride, food, clothing and onah are requirements of our physical bodies; in that the Rambam was right. But where he and his contemporaries are wrong is that touch is an animal urge that is to be completely suppressed. Indeed we can go too far, and overeating is just as much as a problem as unbridled lust or inappropriate touch. Yet, touch is a need, something we must have to survive. This is true of not just women but men too. In a world where provisioning the family was the exclusive role of the male, then the rules of Exodus 21:10-11 were specifically directed at the female, for her to have the basic needs for survival. For the past 40 years or so, that assumption of male as exclusive provider is no longer as true, and the deeper wisdom, that both men and women have physical needs requires more thought. That the rabbis who had serious qualms of letting anyone see anyone else naked would mandate nudity for performance of onah is telling of the importance of touch. In a classic Modern experiment, infant primates were removed from their mothers and either given a surrogate mother made of cloth and fur or just fed like adults without any touch. The ones with the surrogate mother survived and grew up healthy, the one without a mother became withdrawn or psychotic.

Touch is important, be it hugging a teddy bear, petting a dog, or making love with our life partner. In our world it’s hard to touch, as we a never sure what is appropriate or not. But what this Law of Torah implies is that we must touch, that there is pain in not touching another. Whether we set up a schedule like the Talmudic Rabbis did for spousal satisfaction, or just have two people mutually agree to touch, such an act is as important as food for nutrition, and clothing to keep our bodies warm.


May you have a hug today.