Drash Tzaria-Metzora 5769: Am I a Murderer?

Moving from all the death of Animals and children of last week, this week we get birth and disease. 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 Tzaarat, what in later time would be mistakenly called leprosy. This week, much of the text is about the clinical symptoms of Tzaarat, not only on humans, but on clothing as well. Finally we have the procedures for dealing with the Tzav, someone who has a sexually transmitted disease.

Chapter 12, which covers the birthing, reads:

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. 4. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying for thirty three days; she shall touch no consecrated thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. 5. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying sixty six days. 6. And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, to the door of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest;

Why is there a sin offering? Genesis 1:28 reads: And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. How could a fulfillment of a commandment be a sin, particularly when the contrary position not having a child, is considered a really big sin? We read in the Midrash:

Ben ‘Azzai lectured: He who refrains from procreation is as though he shed blood and impaired [God's] likeness.[Genesis rabbah 34:14]

Someone who chooses to not have kids is for all intents a murderer according to tradition. So why is there a sin offering for fulfilling be fruitful and multiply? Twice in this section about birth we read in the days of her menstruation, shall she be impure. Leviticus 15:19 tells us that a woman is in menstrual impurity when she has a blood discharge. At the end of the seven-day period of the discharge she has to give an identical sin offering to this one at a birth. (Lev 28:30)
What is ta'amei, or impure, among animals, humans, buildings and clothing is all covered among chapters 11 through 15 in Leviticus. Such things as non-sacrificial animals and disease make sense, but what of menstruation? The blood of menstruation and childbirth is not voluntary; it comes with being a fertile woman and the process of birth. But it is in a very literal sense the shedding of blood, and it is that blood that renders the woman ritually impure. The loss of any body fluid is considered something defiling, and thus requiring a sin offering. The male equivalent of this is wasted seed, and this too is bloodshed, but again it may happen involuntarily, and thus is not punished like murder. Sin offering is for the sins we due to ignorance or lack of control. The worst punishment is the price of a pigeon.
This brings us back to ben Azzai and his quote about bloodshed. If this is outright murder then the death penalty applies. And as soon as ben Azzai says these lines he is called a hypocrite:

Said R. Eleazar to him: Teachings are becoming when they are uttered by those who practice them, but you, son of ‘Azzai, preach well, but do not fulfil your teaching! That is because I desire to study Torah, he pleaded, while the world can be preserved through others.[Genesis Rabbah 34:14]

Ben Azzai was too busy studying to actually have children and left the preservation of the world to others. Ben Azzai however meets an untimely end. Ben Azzai using meditative means enters the higher realms. With nothing to ground him in this world, his soul does not return, killing his body. The executioner in such cases is not a human one but God.
This really worries me. If one takes this literally, it means I am a murderer and will meet an untimely end. A few years ago just after starting my master’s degree in Jewish Studies, I made a very agonizing and very personal decision to pursue my studies to the exclusion of having children. My view is that I could do one or the other well, I could not do both effectively. According to ben Azzai, that is a death sentence.
I am not alone here in my death sentence. Every Jew who decides not to have children is in this same conundrum. While the rest of the world has to worry about population growth, American Jews are concerned about population shrinkage. We are in a very real sense diminishing the Jewish people. Such is also true of intermarriage, as by traditional accounting when a man marries a gentile woman, there will be no more Jews from him, killing the people.
Only four times in all of Talmud, Mishnah, and Midrash, was ben Azzai called a rabbi though he is referenced over two hundred times. He was the perennial student, always studying or arguing with his teachers, like R. Akiba, but never really doing anything with his learning outside of the academy. Baba Metzia 33a, however reads:

If [a man's] own lost article and his father's lost article [need attention], his own takes precedence. [if] His own and his teacher's [then] his own takes precedence; [if] his father’ s and his teacher's [then] his teacher's takes precedence, because his father brought him into this world, whereas his teacher. ‘who instructed him in wisdom, brings him to the future world.

And in K'rithot 28a,

So it is also with the study of the law; if the son has been worthy [to sit] before the teacher, the teacher comes before the father in all places, because both a man and his father are bound to honour the teacher.

Even though the Ten Commandments and much of Torah says to honor you mother and father, one is to honor your teacher more, because a teacher is a parent of the good soul, and can teach physical parents too. In the end of tractates Berakoth, Yebamoth, Nazir and K'rithoth, we read a saying by R. Eleazar, who also pointed out ben Azzai's hypocrisy, pointing out a solution:

R. Eleazar said in the name of R. Hanina: The disciples of the Sages increase peace in the world, as it is said, And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children(Is. 54:13) . Read not ‘thy children’ [banayik], but ‘thy builders’[bonayik]. [K'rithoth 28b]

There are many ways to kill the next generation or build it up. One is by bodies in this world and one is by souls for the world to come. Both the physical and the spiritual need to be addressed, neither by itself is enough. Those not addressing one must address the other. Ben Azzai, who was so stuck in his books he did not teach, rarely seemed to do this. Those of us who do not have the children to save the Jewish people should at least try to save the soul by teaching and inspiring. Too many parents are too busy trying to raise their children to teach them the Shema, as it is written and you shall teach them to your children. That is where those us who do not have children come in, and where we can change from murderers to respected builders and builders of builders, of children from 2 to 92.
I am not a murderer. On the side of my desktop computer, I have a sign in Aramaic to remind me of that every day: R.Samuel b. Nahmani said in R. Jonathan's name: He who teaches his neighbor's child Torah, Scripture ascribes it to him as if he had begotten him. [Sanh. 19b] In my mind, and in many ways in the minds of the rabbis, the best way for some of us unable to have children is to Teach and inspire. I have made my decision to be a teacher, and I believe in perfect faith that this is what God intended for me. May it be the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that I and many others inspire others to the beauty that is Torah.

Shmini 5769: A Diet of Alien Fire

This week we have the last of the sacrifices for the dedication of the Mishkan with a glorious ending. But then tragedy strikes:

1. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered alien fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. 2. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.[Leviticus 10]

Following the aftermath of Nadab and Abihu’s death, we have the prohibited and permitted species to eat, the core of the rules of kosher food.
I’ve looked at this portion in so many ways, as a food safety person, and as an exegete trying to figure out what Nadab and Abihu were doing. Yet, there is something that I’ve never written about when it comes to this portion, tying together those two seemingly different ideas. It has to do with pants.
I just bought my first size 40 waist pants. Now individual bodies change and vary so what size pants any given person never wanted to own might be different. But for me it was a 40. It was upsetting, as upsetting as realizing the reason I felt uncomfortable all the time is that none of my clothes fit. So I’m going on a strict diet.
I did this once before, and in the last five years have been slowly slacking off. But that diet was successful, losing 35 pounds rather quickly, maintaining that weight for three years, and then gaining them back over the last two. Thinking of what I did then and what I’m going to do now made me think of aish zarah, alien fire. I’m thinking of Nadab and Abihu’s alien fire differently. Aish zarah is what we don’t have to offer or do. It’s the kind of fire that is superfluous. Removing alien fire is really the most basic weight loss diet – literally.
Basically, calories measure fire, they measure the amount of fuel burned. Different kinds of foods have different amounts of fuel, and contribute to the fire that is our life force. In such a view alien fire would be the calories we don’t need. My first attempt at a diet happened around the same time as the Atkins Diet craze. While I did not do the Atkins diet, Atkins did focus on what I thought might be a target for a diet: my intake of carbohydrates. What I did do was limit my intake of carbohydrate to a specific limit. I had found I have a very large intake of carbohydrates. Most of the things that I was eating I really didn’t need to eat. Much of my carb intake was aish zarah, so I focused on cutting that, with rather stunning results.
The first time I did this diet, I thought of carbs in a parallel to the last part of this portion, the permissions and prohibitions of eating different species. Very much like a pig in this week’s portion, carbs for me were a spiritually forbidden food. To look at a piece of cake was like looking at bacon. Not only were they forbidden, they weren’t even appetizing or even something that made sense to eat. And so, stripping hundreds of grams of carbohydrates a day from my diet, I lost most of the weight in a mere three months. I kept to that philosophy of excessive carbs as trief. In the months after that, such an attitude kept me at a low weight. Eventually I somehow faltered however, and lost my way, only to slowly gain everything back.
In the wake of a Passover that fell during Easter I’ve though a lot about eating, and the significance of our eating patterns and how we get ourselves into the inconsistencies that got me heavy again. For Passover, we change our normal patterns of eating. For some this could easily become a very simple low carb diet. Eat the one required piece of Matzah a day, and restrict all other carbohydrates and you’re observant of the Mitzvah. Instead, any given way of using potato starch and eggs shows up in recipes. But what really gets me is the people who in being Passover observant, go out and order a lobster dinner but refuse to have a bread basket on their table. Of those who did go to Easter events, how many ate ham while munching on their matzah? Such absurdity happens all the time. My favorite personal example was the time, many years ago, when I picked the bacon out of my clam chowder. Picking out the Bacon in a prohibited cream base with prohibited shellfish simply doesn’t make sense. It was in the wake of that I changed some of my own observances.
My own current observance of kashrut is far from strict or traditional observance. I eat no red meat for example, even kosher red meat as I more strictly adhere to “you shall not eat its blood” Yet I do eat poultry and fin fish, though I do not eat shellfish. I follow the logic of a minority opinion in the Talmud that of Yossi of the Galilee who believed the prohibition of dairy mixing with meat did not extend to poultry. It may not be according to the rules we read in this portion, but in my observance, and in my own way I say “I love you God” by not eating these things.
As much as I enjoyed bacon and lobster when I was far younger and rather agnostic, I don’t either crave them or miss them now. They are food for other people in my mind, not for me. So too I must think about the excessive things I put into my body. Many of them taste incredible, like a big hot fudge brownie sundae. But to have one frequently is alien fire, and damaging to me. I can enjoy myself, and can find things that taste good, and are indeed on my diet such as a small piece of 70% dark chocolate, or a sprig of broccoli.
One of the big problems with diets is our insistence that the things we are giving up are good, when often their long term effects is about as opposite from that as we can get. But maybe by looking at “I can’t live without Bacon” or “I can’t live without chocolate cake” we are looking at the issue wrong. Hillel taught that our bodies are the vessels for a bit of the Divine which is our souls. It is up to us to care for that vessel, out of respect not just for ourselves, but for its passenger, the nefesh, that bit of God in us. To eat healthy is to say “I love you God” as much as not eating Ostrich or Ham or a Cheeseburger.
I guess for the last two weeks I’ve been saying the same thing: Do not complain that you cannot eat something, but bless that you have the ability and holiness to refuse to eat it.

Passover 5769: The Bread of Affliction?

As I was driving home last week I saw a sign on a synagogue that disturbed me. On one of those outside announcement signs that usually say something like “JUF FUNDRAISER APR 1” or LEVY BAR MITZVAH AUG 30 I read the following: HAVE AN EASY PASSOVER.
I don’t normally get angry at signs, but this one really bothered me. It read too much like another sign which you sometimes see around Yom Kippur: HAVE AN EASY FAST. Now I’ll be the first to admit the fast of Yom Kippur is not an easy one, but for the observant in the northern hemisphere, it’s a piece of cake (so to speak) compared to the longer fast of Tish B’Av. Passover is far from a fast, indeed for two Seders and all those leftovers one could easily be stuffed. Many a Seder I feel like God’s angry retort to the people complaining manna isn’t enough, they will be so stuffed it will be coming out of their noses. [Numbers 11:20] To be honest I’m very happy I’m that stuffed.
I’ll also admit there is one very difficult task that happens before Passover: getting ready for Passover. Cleaning the house, preparing the food for the week and changing the dishes is not an easy task by any means. For me that means cleaning a small studio apartment, paper plates and preparing my Yemenite Haroset, and that is hard enough compared to what family households have to do. But the sign did not say Have an easy preparation for Passover. It was implying Passover is hard. Eating Passover foods and prohibiting the seven species of grains for one week is some kind of affliction on our lives according to that sign. I have a problem with that.
Right at the beginning of the Seder, we read about Matzah as an affliction in the Haggadah:

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. All who are starving come to eat. All who are needy come to the Passover meal. This year here. For the year to come in the land of Israel. This year as slaves, for the year to come as free men.

As one of the Aramaic passages in the Haggdah, I expected to find the passage quoted in Talmud Balvi. In looking up this passage, I could find no Talmudic mention of the passage. Medieval sources such as the Rambam and Ramban quote it completely. Wherever its original source, It is based on a biblical passage indicating the procedures for Passover:

3. You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. [Deuteronomy 16]

While the Talmud did not explicitly mention the haggadah passage, the idea of such a passage does come from a Talmudic source

Samuel said: Bread of [‘oni] [means] bread over which we recite [‘onin] many words. It was taught likewise: ‘Bread of [‘oni]’ means bread over which we recite [‘onin] many words. Another interpretation: ‘Bread of [‘oni]’: ‘ani [poverty] is written: just as a beggar generally has a piece, so here too a piece [is taken]. Another interpretation: just as a poor man fires [the oven] and his wife bakes, so here too, he heats and she bakes. [Pes 115b-116a]

In a series of word plays on the word for affliction,’oni, the rabbis note that the word for affliction could also mean poverty and recitation. They made the conclusion it could mean both. We are to recite many words over the matzah to tell its story and why it is so significant. Read another way, we are to not bless over a whole matzah like a rich man but like a poor man. We are to have only a piece, which is why we break the middle matzah in two. Finally a poor man has little wood and has to bake very quickly, so too we need to bake in haste as though we are poor men.
The Talmud also mentions another passage which I find instructive. To answer the four questions, the Talmud instructs to so in the following way:

According to the son's intelligence his father instructs him. He commences with shame and concludes with praise; and expounds from ‘a wandering Aramean was my father’ until he completes the whole section.[Pesachim 116a]

The text tells us to use a passage from Deuteronomy, related to the first fruits offering:

5. And you shall speak and say before the Lord your God, A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard slavery; 7. And when we cried to the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression; 8. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesomeness, and with signs, and with wonders; 9. And he has brought us to this place, and has given us this land, a land that flows with milk and honey…11. And you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the stranger who is among you. [Deuteronomy 26]

Today’s Haggadah not only recites this passage, but the whole story of the Exodus, with many commentaries along the way. The recitation of Deuteronomy 26:5 gets expanded but now reads An Aramean tried to destroy my father, a reference to Laban by changing the meaning of the word for wandering to destroy. But the point of the Seder and Passover is found in verse 11. We are to rejoice in every good thing in our lives. We are to remember that God blessed us. One of the most powerful of those blessings was freedom. We ate matzah because we were leaving affliction behind, not that Passover is an affliction, like that synagogue sign seemed to imply.
To say Passover is an affliction is to be like the people in the desert of Numbers 11, who were whining things were so much better in Egypt, the same ones that God wanted stuffed to their nostrils. The status quo of slavery for them was apparently better than being free and eating manna. They were saying that the freedom we were granted by God on Passover is not worth anything. That sign said the same thing. It was saying the bounty that is on our tables for Passover is not worth anything. Is a few muffins, oatmeal and a slice a bread so horrific to go without?
Through the Passover story, the bread of affliction transforms into a bread of freedom. As, the bread of affliction the passage relates, it is the transformation from slavery to freedom, from starving to full. Like the people in the desert we too can be slaves to the status quo. Like them, it is then we suffer and perish.
Passover, like the first fruit offering, is about counting the blessings we have been given. Passover is the most observed Jewish holiday. It is not the most observed holiday because it competes with other holidays, as does Hanukkah. It is not due to some deep meaning of praying for our soul like Yom Kippur. Passover is the ultimate home holiday, the one where we surround ourselves with family and friends and celebrate all that we have. Every bite of matzah is not an affliction, but a blessing of having all of this around us. It is a blessing in hearing the noise of the kids, the blessing of making all that food, it is a blessing in hearing a young one saying the four questions, or belting out Dayenu off key. It is a blessing in trying to stuff too many chairs into too little space for all those people to be there. It is the blessing of having that first Hillel sandwich, and chicken soup with matzo balls. While the seders may go on for two evenings, Passover goes on for seven days, which might seem a lot, but each one has its blessing. Everything that is traditional for Passover, even refusing foods, is a celebration. Freedom is not just that oppression had ended but that we can now choose what we do. To choose not to eat hometz is a choice we can make that is demonstrating our freedom. We show that we will not give to the oppression and slavery of craving or habit.
It is also a reminder not everyone does have those blessings in their lives, and our responsibility to help those who need the help, to bring those people blessings as well. Maybe this year is bad for them; next year will be good for them with our help. A Hasidic rabbi once stated that “Next year in Jerusalem” is not about a place but a state of mind. We are in a state of blessing, as though we were at the temple in Jerusalem. Next year in Jerusalem is not about just us, but about everyone being there, and about bringing everyone to such a state.
So when we read in the Aramaic, Ha lach-ma Anya, remember the week of Passover is not one of affliction, but of celebration.
May everyone have a joyous Pesah, filled with blessing.

Tzav 5769: Fires, Bridges and Bottles

This week’s portion has near the beginning:

5. And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out; and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 6. The fire shall be burning always upon the altar; it shall never go out. [Leviticus 6]

This is one of two places we read of a fire not going out. The other is the lamp:

20. And you shall command the people of Israel, that they bring you pure beaten oil olive for the light, for the lamp to burn always. 21. In the Tent of Meeting outside the veil, which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord; it shall be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the people of Israel. [Exodus 27]

Two fires burned continually in the Mishkan, one on the altar and one on the lamp. Even today all synagogues keep a lamp lit continually, a ner tamid. When last week it was pointed out to me the verses we read this week in the synagogue, I had a lot to think about continual burning, about having these fires there all the time.
Interestingly, the altar is tended to in the morning and the lamp in the evening. For the night the attention is to the lamp, in the day to the altar. Why all this light and fire, besides the use of keeping the sacrifices burning?
Once again I believe this is a case of communication with God. In the past week I overheard a few conversations in various places which made me pause to think. A week ago I was in a coffee shop listening to two of the counter help talk about their cel phone use. One describes how she calls her boyfriend, he then answers and they carry their cell phones around with an open connection all day even though they don't say anything to one another. They might even watch two different television shows at the same time, once in a while making a comment to the other. At the time I thought it was a bit of a waste.
When I bought my cell phone plan I never expected to use up 99 text messages. I never saw the point. I watch people much of the time texting away and truly wondering what was so important that they couldn’t dial the person, have a short conversation and hang up. Why spend the whole day going back and forth on text messages?
My first inkling of what was going on came with my use of the internet messaging system known as Twitter. Twitter is comprised of small messages of no more than 140 characters which are sent out to a huge pool of messages. People can filter those messages by “friending” the sender, and thus become part of the conversation. Most users of Twitter may have many people they have friended, and may continually get into conversation with them. The compact size of Twitter messages, or tweets, make them ideal for mobile platform like iPhones and Blackberries while allowing for quick, short interactions. Yet as I learned, it is way too easy to leave up the Twitter connection and listen and converse all day, every day, as I experienced over the last week of December being the only one in the office all week. Twitter was on nonstop all day so I could have a connection to someone else in the lonely office. I’ve thought about this as well looking at the volume of e-mails I’m sending out lately and where most of them are headed to. I’ve also lately been getting closer to that 99 per month text message limit. I’ve been having a need to connect with someone lately and often.
Human beings are not meant to be alone. However, John Donne was wrong, all men are islands. Every human being is isolated from everyone else. Yet these islands are close enough that we can build bridges or send messages in bottles. As the classic song Message in a Bottle by the Police describe it:

Seems I’m not alone at being alone
Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home

Bridges to other islands take many forms, as do message in bottles. Even if a bridge is not used, there is a sense of comfort in having the bridge always there. All that electronic communication by cell phone, text message or Twitter all points to the same thing: our need to connect off of our own little island. The bridge's importance is not in its use, but that the bridge is there to be used if we want to. A cell phone with silence, but the knowledge that some will talk to you if you speak into it is more of a comfort than many will be prepared to admit.
For humans of course there are more than electronic methods of communication. Nothing beats face to face contact. Sitting down by someone and merely looking at them is a far more powerful experience than anything done on an internet service. Being in the room makes a huge difference. Judaism often makes sure there is such contact, from the minyan required for the recitation of Kaddish, to the Passover Seder, to shiva calls and visiting the sick, to the debate of a hevruta. Face time is important and vital to our well being. Yet, what about God, who we cannot see face to face and live?
Like the electronic bridges and bottles of a cell phone or Twitter, just leaving the line open is a connection. One such connection is found in the eternal fire. It is the carrier signal, the sign that communication is open between the Divine and us. It is the hiss in the background of an open cell phone connection. Even if we are silent, there is connection and communication. In light and smoke, it is a statement that we want to communicate, if only we had something to say. In tending the fire and adding the firewood, the priesthood kept the connection going to God who is looking to us as a partner in creation and communication.
Yet today we have no altar. A continual fire is only in the ner tamid of the synagogue. Or is it? While it may not be continual in the sense of never going out, there may be something to replace the altar. One can remain on the internet non-stop, receiving information. Or at a specific time every day one can get on and check e-mail and chat. Just the act of that one daily ritual may accomplish the same thing as nonstop communication. Checking in with one regularly may indeed be even more powerful as we do not take the connection for granted, which we might for a nonstop connection. In my mind at least, the lighting of candles before Shabbat, Passover or any holiday is that periodic reconnection. By doing it under regular circumstances, we make the connection forever, yet we do not take it for granted. It becomes far more precious. The fires of Shabbat candles are as sacred as the altar. We connect with God and make those bridges with the lights of those candles. The eternal fire continues, not in one altar in one place, but candles everywhere at sacred times.

Vayikra 5769: Offerings and Giftings.

This week we begin the book of Leviticus. A friend of mine who coordinates Lay led Torah discussions at our minyan every Saturday morning has often noted that this is the hardest book of Torah to find discussion topics for. His point is well taken: Like water in the Sinai, the easily interpreted stories are few and far between in this sefer. Leviticus is mostly mitzvot, various laws centering on the priestly duties. This week starts with the instruction for various types of sacrifices

1. And the Lord called to Moses, and spoke to him out of the Tent of Meeting, saying, 2. Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, If any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the cattle, of the herd, and of the flock. 3. If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the Tent of Meeting before the Lord.
10. And if his offering is of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring a male without blemish.
14. And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord is of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.[Leviticus 1]
1. And when any will offer a meal offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense on it;[Leviticus 2]

In the text, there is a successive list of procedures from the most to the least expensive offerings: Livestock, poultry, doves and pigeons, and finally flour. As contemporary Jews, such things still present us with issues of course since there are no burnt sacrifices anymore. This is of course not a new issue. On the 9th of Av in 70CE, the second temple was destroyed and with it any possibility of Temple sacrifices. Much of parshat Vayikra and the first few chapters of the book of Leviticus have been obsolete for 1900 years. Jews from the time of the destruction of the temple have been dealing with that issue.
One breakaway group of Jews, Christianity, was critical of the whole temple system to begin with. The aggadah of Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers, those who converted money into one of the permitted sacrifices above is only one example of the polemic against that system. The money changers were an integral part of the system, mandated by Torah to handle the problems of transporting animals far distances. Yet these merchants often abused their position by severely overcharging visitors, most especially poor women, to the temple for the necessary sacrifices.
A great rabbinic mind also got angry about the money changers, but he did something different.
It once happened in Jerusalem that the price of a pair of doves rose to a golden denar. said R. Simeon b. Gamaliel, by this sanctuary, I shall not go to sleep to-night before they cost but a [silver] denar! [K'ritot 8a]
Simeon B. Gamaliel then made a ruling that destroyed the demand for doves used for sacrifices, killing the market, the price of a pair of birds then dropped to quarter of a [silver] denar each.
Such abuses were only one problem for the circle which Shimon b. Gamaliel belonged to. Another was far more problematic. What to do when you no longer have somewhere to give an offering? Their answer, which forms a large basis of the Talmud, is to transform the offerings into something else. Elements found in the Talmud had already existed for centuries. Much were popular practice, as many found it so difficult to get to the Temple to give those offerings. Prayer, home ritual, charity, and observance of the laws of Torah replaced the Temple sacrifices.
As early as the Prophets, the actual act of giving sacrifices had its critics:

11. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? said the Lord; I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.[Isaiah 1]
19. Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil upon this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words, nor to my Torah, but have rejected it. 20. To what purpose comes to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices sweet to me. [Jeremiah 6]

The problem is not the sacrifice, but the intention it was given with, and the actions that follow it. Isaiah and Jeremiah, along with Asaph in Psalm 50, all point to the idea that God doesn’t want a sacrifice as some automatic, emotionless thing. One needs to follow the laws and ethics of Torah as well. The old cliché comes to mind: it's the thought that counts. It's the heartfelt intention of giving the gift to God, the kavvanah that is as important as the offering itself.
I've been thinking a lot about this idea of gifting in my own life, and in a far more practical way. My sweetheart and I are serious gift givers, not just to each other but to everyone around us. We do often share our love with other in little things we give each other. I might give her one half of a his and hers matching set of pins for example. She gives me some expensive soap, I give her some books on biblical Hebrew. Some things cost nothing, and a gift comes from listening to the other after a very bad day, sometimes followed by a well needed neck rub. But we also get things for others. She always brings thing back to her office from her visits with me. When she met my family she brought gifts for my nieces and nephew. All of which was received with wide eyes of appreciation. When I am with my nephew, the most wonder gift I can give costs as much as a sheet of paper. I’ll fold him a paper airplane and he is thrilled beyond belief. The glow on his face is worth every second needed to fold that simple white sheet.
I think it is easy to confuse an offering with a bribe. A bribe has a goal in giving the gift. An offering's only goal is to delight someone else. The delight of seeing someone delight in something is a high I think Sweetie and I would agree is like no other. It's not about the cost, but the personal value of connection and sharing the joy. The pagan gods were bribed for favors. In that we are different. Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu wasn't looking for bribes, but the message “I love you.” As the prophets very often remind everyone, they are offering God's own creation and property to God – not much of a bribe. It’s a lot like bribing a king with his own money. It is the actions and intentions that count in the offering. God wants to hear a heartfelt “I love you” by following mitzvot in Torah. If one sings a song to the king, that’s a far more precious gift, coming from the heart. Since we cannot make a sacrifice any more, we sing Ashrei and Psalm 145. Sweetie and I say “I love you” with our little gifts and things we do for each other, and in that way we strengthen our relationship by delighting and acknowledging one another. God wants to be in the relationship with us. Offerings are about making good relationships, not about goals and outcomes.
God gave a sliding scale of offerings not that one could impress with the offerings but one could do the act of giving in a way that allowed everyone to participate. That was what got Shimon b. Gamaliel and others so upset. The greedy money changers prevented poor women from being in a relationship with God. Today we have to think differently of course. Charity is one form of offering to God, by making sure someone else can continue surviving. Prayer and home ritual have transformed the Temple service into something family and community find themselves in relationship to God and to each other. Vayikra may be obsolete in many ways, but under the surface, one can learn a lot about giving.

So, how do you give?

Vayakhel-Peukedei 5769: Shabbos

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 Betzalel 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 for a small percentage of Jews, it is impossible to follow these rules as closely as the rabbis. My own considerations that 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 the 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 rule all the time just would 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 when you can. Do not use electronic devices-no Internet, iPods, or TV. Only relate to others by voice on your iPhone. 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 for 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 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. While my list has changed, mostly with additions and dealing with issues like what functions of my iPhone am I allowed to use, it has been close to a constant for close to a decade. When I really follow 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.

Ki Tissa 5769: The Spice of Death, Used for Life

I have an obsession. It started with sex, but ended up as my breakfast. Every morning, I usually get up, get dressed and drive to a Starbuck's close to where I will be working for the day. Every day, I order the same thing for breakfast: A venti coffee and oatmeal. While I drink the coffee black, I do add something to the oatmeal. Since the first time I have done so, I have I’ve noticed something. What I added to my oatmeal is mentioned in this week’s portion, though it is far from edible.

23. Take you also to you the best spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, 24. And of cassia five hundred shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive a hin; 25. And you shall make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound according to the art of the apothecary; it shall be a holy anointing oil.[Exodus 30]

This is to be the oil which all of the vessels of the temple are to be anointed with. There are debates as to the mass of the shekel, making conversion into modern units difficult. 9, 11, 14, and 17 grams are commonly possibilites. Adin Steinstalz in his Talmud: A Reference Guide defines a shekel as 9 grams, and in the lack of any better conversion factor we can come up with a formula of dry ingredients:

Myrrh 500 Shekels (4500gr)

Cinnamon 250 Shekels (2250gr)

Sweet calamus 250 Shekels (2250gr)

Cassia 500 Shekels (4500gr)

This spice power was then suspended in a hin of olive oil. A hin of olive oil is also debated, but this might be 7.1 liters. That would mean if the dry ingredients were added directly to the oil there was 1.9 grams/ml of spice, an amount which would be closer to a paste than flowing oil.
The Talmud however, notes the dry ingredients was extracted by heating this mixture, and the resultant extract was what was added to the oil [K’ritot 5b]. The Talmud also makes adjustments by adding 250 shekels more of sweet cinnamon [K’ritot 5a-b].
Looking at these concentrations, I have for long time suspected something about the anointing oil for the vessels. Part of my suspicion comes from the punishment for using the stuff.

32. Upon man’s flesh shall it not be poured, nor shall you make any other like it, after its composition; it is holy, and it shall be holy to you. 33. Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it upon a stranger, shall be cut off from his people.[Exodus 30]

While it is a sacred material, I’ve wondered about such warnings which sound very much like the warnings of a chemical manufacturer when warning a consumer. When I first wondered about this about ten years ago, I was researching the large number of botanical references found in the Song of Songs. Cinnamon, myrrh, and calamus all occur in one verse:

14. Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices; [Song of Songs 4]

Translating the Song I wondered if this was not just a metaphor for some very expensive imported plants, but something more, an herbal pharmacopeia. In the Song of Songs I was looking for aphrodisiacs, but what I found was far more interesting. As I did my research I found out several things about each of these spices:
Cinnamon and Cassia: As far as modern trade names are concerned these are both cinnamon. However, Cinnamon or sweet cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) is the imported Indian and Sri Lankan species, and cassia (Cinnamomum cassia) is from China, sometimes called Chinese cinnamon. While both have in common the chemical cinnamaldehyde making up 65-80% of its volatile oil, Cassia has less of other active chemicals than Cinnamon, including the antimicrobial o-methoxycinnamaldehyde.
Cinnamon in Hebrew is Kinmon and cassia in Hebrew Kidah. However the Aramaic translation of Exodus 30 has k’tziata, which sounds a lot more like cassia. Kidah and Kinmon has only three occurrences each in the biblical text. The use of the two types of cinnamon do have a sensual side to them, as noted in the Song of Songs (4:14) passage and in the Seductress of Proverbs (7:17) both times associated with anther of the ingredients of the anointing oil, Myrrh. Cassia and Calamus also occur together in Ezekiel 27:19 in terms of being an item traded from afar.
In laboratory experiments, cassia and cinnamon both have been found to retard microbial growth including a wide variety of disease-causing bacteria and fungi. Other research has pointed to other uses. Its folk use as a remedy for abdominal pain seems to have some evidence. Lab tests on animals describe the relaxation of intestinal linings when exposed to cinnamon. The German Commission E, the German government commission given responsibility over herbal supplements in Germany, found evidence it was as effective as cimetidene in controlling gastric problems. However research has also shown it has little to no effect on Helicobacter pylori, the cause of many ulcer related problems. Cinnamon has shown a its greatest promise as a food preservative to retard E. coli and Salmonella among other food pathogens.
Myrrh: While the other three ingredients have only three occurrences, Myrrh had fifteen. Eight are in the Songs of Songs and may have meaning more in its extraction as much as its use. Myrrh is the sap of a tree of genus Commiphora found primarily in the Middle East. Which species is anyone’s guess, because all have similar properties. To harvest Myrrh, one has to massage out the whitish or reddish sap from a slit made in the tree’s twigs, suggesting one of its sexual connotations particualy in the scene in Chapter 5 of the Song of Songs. Myrrh’s other sexual connotation may be hinted themost in its one mention in the book of Esther. One of the precautions given about myrrh in virtually every folk tale and pharmacopeia about it and in several academic journals is its uncanny ability to initiate menstruation. Thus all sources forbid the use of myrrh with pregnant women due to the possibility of miscarriage. Therefore in the case of Esther 3:12 the six months, or two trimesters of Myrrh treatments may be a case of an induced abortion and contraception to assure any child born of the woman chosen queen was a legitimate heir to Ahasuerus’ throne. I could even speculate in one other case about such an abortion: the bitter waters rite for a woman suspected of adultery. Such a rite required the dust from the Mishkan, the same dust the Myrrh infused anointing oil dripped. When ingested, the high concentration of myrrh in the dust on the Mishkan floor might have caused an abortion from an illicit affair, what the text refers to as her thighs falling [Numbers 5:27].
But once again, Myrrh or Mor in Hebrew most documented use in medical literature is as an antimicrobial and fungicide. It was one of the items used in embalming fluid of the Egyptian mummification process, and does wonders in killing all kinds of molds. Apparently it also stimulates the human immune system as well. Due to its difficult harvesting methods and the scarcity of the plant, it is very expensive to use. Thus there is not a significant amount of modern research into its properties.
Sweet calamus: Called Kaneh in both Hebrew and Aramaic, there have been many debates as to what it really is. Most authorities including Israeli biblical botanist Zohary agree it probably is one of the grass species Cymbopogon, with Zohary championing Cymbopogon marinii, commonly known as ginger grass, even though there is another species indigenous to Israel. There is evidence of its use from Egyptian tombs by the smell reported of ginger grass still evident when sealed tombs are opened. People today probably know the East Asian species best, Cymbopogon citratus or lemongrass. As Ezekiel 27:19 and Jeremiah 6:20 seem to indicate Kaneh was an import to Israel, probably from India. One extract from Cymbopogon nardus is citronella, known for its insect repellent properties. All species of Cymbopogon are bactericidal, and there is some laboratory evidence that some may also be antiviral.
There is a consistent pattern among all of the spices of the anointing oil. All, in one way or another are demonstrated antimicrobials. When the raw spice was concentrated into essential oils then placed in an olive oil suspension this became one of the first recorded sanitizers. It purpose was not one of directly of life, but of death to microorganisms. Given the amount of blood and animal carcasses that were part of the priestly sacrifices, killing microorganisms on surfaces makes sense as a way to limit illness from contamination. It is not coincidental that right before the anointing oil God tell Moses to build a handsink, and that Aaron and his sons are to “wash with water, that they do not die” [Exodus 30:20] The health and safety of the priests depended on good decontamination procedures from their daily tasks. The anointing oil was probably the worlds first recorded antiseptic.
But like the bleach we use today, it was not made for human consumption. While all of these ingredients were edible in small quantities, at the concentrations in the anointing oil they might very well be toxic. While some of the others have potential for contact dermatitis, cinnamon and cassia essential oils can cause burns to human skin if left on for prolonged periods. In an oil base this is very likely, demonstrated by cases where it is suspended in petrolatum, and thus another reason for the prohibition of placing on a human being. When we read the phrase “cut off from his people” the rabbis understand this not as a literal ex-communication, but a death penalty meted out by God. Put another way, when that phrase occurs, there is the potential for lethal consequences. In the anoiting oil, toxic levels of cinnamaldehyde alone could cause painful burns.
We tend to think of many of our advances in science as happening in only the last 500 years, and tend to forget that there were people observing the natural world far before that. Some of what those people found was wrong, but more and more, we are finding evidence that was thought superstition was effective cures. I’ve not had problems with gastritis or heartburn since I started eating my cinnamon oatmeal every day. Instead of swallowing Tagamet, I think I’ll keep enjoying a little cinnamon in my oatmeal.

Tetzaveh 5769:Aaron Clothed, Esther Naked

There is a huge irony thematically between this week’s reading of Tetzaveh and the book of Esther. In Tetzaveh, this week we continue with plans for the Mishkan, including the oil for the lamps, the garments of the high priest, and the incense. There are also instructions on how to give a sacrifice on the altar. Early in the text we read:

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.

A few days after Shabbat, when reading the book of Esther, we will read:

10. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbonah, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, 11. To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the royal crown, to show the people and the princes her beauty; for she was beautiful to look on. 12. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command by his eunuchs; and the king was very angry, and his anger burned in him. [Esther 1]

Later in the Megilah we will read:

1 And it came to pass on the third day Esther clothed herself in royalty, and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, opposite the king’s palace; and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal palace, opposite the gate of the house. 2. And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she found favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the scepter. [Esther 5]

Nowhere in the text do we read that Vashti is summoned in the nude, merely in royal crown. The Rabbis later interpret this to mean in crown and nothing else.

Some said, The Median women are the most beautiful, and others said, The Persian women are the most beautiful. Said Ahasuerus to them, The vessel that I use is neither Median nor Persian, but Chaldean. Would you like to see her? They said, Yes, but she must be naked [B. Megilah 12b]

Which of course begs the question of what Esther entering the court of the King clothed in royalty means:

Esther, as it is written, Now it came to pass on the third day that Esther clothed herself in royalty. Surely it should say,’royal apparel’? What it shows is that the Holy Spirit clothed her. It is written here, ‘and she clothed’, and it is written in another place. Then the spirit clothed Amasai, etc.(I Chron. 12:19) [B. Megilah 14b]

The crown was the only thing Vashti was supposed to wear when ordered to the court. Refusing to do so, she was executed. In the flip-flop nature of the book of Esther, Esther entered clothed only in the Holy Spirit unbidden to the King’s court, with the threat of execution over her for entering the court. Esther survives a situation that should have gotten her killed, one thing that might have made it possible was her bare skin clothed only in Ruach Hakodesh.
We also have Aaron and his sons, who get a whole set of various clothing items to wear, from the ephod to linen underwear. While Esther naked and Aaron fully dressed seems not to be related I think they are.
Back in late December I began a relationship with an incredible lady. There is a picture of me from June while I was at a professional conference that she particularly likes. When we went out for dinner on Valentine’s day, I wore the shirt in the picture, and she was delighted. In my paintings, I’ve also noted lately how I’m not so interested in my usual subject matter, scantily clad women. Since I’ve been in a relationship with her, they just don’t thrill me the same way they did before.
Many in modernity might look at this week’s chapter as one that has little meaning, since the outfit of Aaron is obsolete without a temple. I don’t think it’s about the outfit as much as why one is wearing it. There are times we do things for people we love. We know they like a certain shirt for example. By wearing that shirt of our own free will, we non-verbally make a statement of “I love you” because we like to delight our partner.
Of course, there is the possibility that a partner demands something from you. While she never would, my sweetie could demand or require me to wear that shirt. This changes the relationship, to one of dominance and submissiveness. For some, this might work, but for others such a relationship leads to drifting away from the relationship, as these constraints are too much to bear.
The women I’ve painted for so long out of such things as Victoria Secret catalogs and fashion magazines are about desire. Showing of skin, whether a little or a lot, is about unfulfilled lust and cravings, the same way a picture of a hot fudge sundae dripping molten chocolate inspires hunger. The way the Rabbis envision Esther, she knew exactly what she was doing. In all commentaries, it’s clear Esther never slept with the king, while all her other ‘competitors’ did. The rabbis never say it directly, but portray Esther as a tease, and she used that to her people’s advantage. The king’s unfulfilled lust of Esther got her the job as queen and even his willingness to give her anything up to half the kingdom, and eventually to save the Jewish people. His wanting to finally feel good at the hands of Esther clouds all other judgment.
I believe these three ways of wearing clothes explain three different ways of approaching the mitzvot of Torah. We can look at the commandments as commands from a king, one we as the lowly subject must obey. We might also find some kind of unfulfilled spiritual lust satisfied by their observance.
The one I find best is putting on that shirt on for Valentine’s Day. I showed my love for my sweetheart. By doing the mitzvot, we show our love for God. Torah in this light has a different meaning than mere obedience. Mitzvot are the things that delight God, they are the ways that we tell God how much we love and cherish the Divine. I can’t hug or kiss God, but I can refrain from eating pork, not work on Saturdays, and mount a mezuzah on my door. It’s not about lust or obedience, but being in relationship with someone special, someone we deeply love. It’s a lot like that classic line from William Goldman’s The Princess Bride. “As you wish” really means “I love you.” So too can we approach our loving relationship with God.

Terumah 5769: Table Conversation

I'm a little behind in everything due to a series of deadlines and a lot of travel. So here is a revision of a 2005 Shlomo's Drash which I had posted only privately before, though a huge part of my own theology.

This week, Moses is on Mount Sinai beginning the Forty-day period of receiving the Torah. God starts with the design plan of the Mishkan, the portable temple that will be the center of Israelite practices until the time of Solomon. God starts holy and works his way out, giving plans for the Ark of the convenant, noting about the Ark: .

And there I will meet with you, and I will talk with you from above the cover, from between the two kerubim which are upon the ark of the Testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the people of Israel.[Ex 25:22]

It is from here that all divine revelation of the prophets comes. When the temple is destroyed divine revelation disappears. God continues our parsha with the plans for the Table, on which would be put what is usually translated the shewbread.

23. You shall also make a table of shittim wood; two cubits shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 24. And you shall overlay it with pure gold… 30. And you shall set the bread of display upon the table before me always.[Ex: 25:23-30]

We read much later in Leviticus 24:5-9, what this shewbread is and how it is used. The shewbread was loaves of bread that were placed on this table sitting in front of the Ark. They sat there for a week, from one Shabbat to another. At the next Shabbat, they were replaced and the old loaves were eaten by the Priests at this table. The Talmud mentions a miracle about this bread. The bread was as fresh as when it came out of the oven the entire week. On Yom Kippur, part of the service was to lift it to the crowds and declare [Yoma 21a-b] “Behold how beloved you are of God, for it is as fresh when it is taken off as it was when put on, as it was said: 'To put hot bread in the day it was taken away.'(I Sam 21:7)”

I once came down with a stomach flu. The evening I got sick I was sitting an Italian restaurant and a weird thought popped into my head. There is a quote in the Mishnah I have been quoting a lot lately, and thinking a lot about.

If three have eaten at one table, and have spoken thereat words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten at the table of the All-Present, Blessed be He

However, I could not remember the proof text. For those not familiar with rabbinic logic, nothing exists unless it has some quote in the Tanach to back it up. As I left the restaurant, I stopped at a bookstore that was across the parking lot to see if they happened to have a copy of Jacob Neusner’s translation of the Mishnah, or some other translation of Pirke Avot which would have the proof text. Oddly enough, for a predominately Jewish neighborhood, they didn’t. While in the bookstore, my tummy rumbled, and went to the restroom. The beginnings of my flu erupted in Diarrhea. I got home, and spent most of the night with something coming out of one end or the other. By the morning, decimated, dehydrated, and exhausted, I was sitting in bed and that thought about the proof text popped up again. Being the Torah geek I am, it just so happens that I have a copy of the Mishnah by the bookshelf next to my bed. Although the book seemed to weigh a million pounds I did get it off the shelf and looked up the full quote

Mishnah Avot 3:3. R. Simeon said: if three have eaten at one table and have not spoken thereat words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten sacrifices [offered] to the dead, for [of such persons] it is said, ‘for all tables are full of filthy vomit, [they are] without the all-present.’(Isaiah 28:8) but, if three have eaten at one table, and have spoken thereat words of Torah, [it is] as if they had eaten at the table of the all-present, blessed be he, as it is said, ‘this is the table before the Lord’.(Ezekiel 41:22)

I looked up the quote in Ezekiel 41:22, which actually wasn’t a lot of help, though it was related to this week’s portion.

The altar of wood was three cubits high, and its length two cubits; and it had corners; its length and its walls were of wood; and he said to me, This is the table that is before the Lord.

The table, though twice as tall as the Mishkan’s, is the table for the shewbread. Ezekiel was getting a preview of the third temple, the one to be built in the time of redemption, and here was the shewbread table in this temple.
That was nice but meant nothing to me, so once I felt better, I started digging. It turns out there was an oft quoted saying of two great rabbis in the Talmud who explained that verse:
[Berachot 55a] ‘The altar of wood three cubits high . . . . and he said to me, This is the table that is before the Lord’ [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
Where the Shewbread table used to be our connection to God, since the destruction of the Temple it is our own dining room tables, indeed anywhere we sit down and have a meal. As our text this week says, the shewbread table is before the Ark, where God meets with us. Therefore the shewbread table is God’s dining room table, and every meal we are invited to dine.
But the beginning of the verse interested me as well, which seems a little graphic, and given my illness, a little personal as well. Its proof text is Isaiah 28:8, which one needs a few more verses to get the context:

8. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. 9. To whom shall one teach knowledge? and whom shall one make understand doctrine? Those who are weaned from the milk, and removed from the breasts. 10. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; 11. For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. 12. To whom he said, This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing; yet they would not hear. [Isaiah 28:8-12]

Even with small pieces of study building on one another, no one in the Northern Kingdom listened. It would be like being invited to someone’s house, grabbing some food, and never speaking to the host, let alone thanking or acknowledging his or her presence. It’s mind bogglingly rude, as rude as intentionally puking and defecating on the table. R. Simeon was outraged that people would behave that way at God’s table.
Therefore, for one to say words of Torah at the table is to be God's personal guest and honor your host, to not say words of Torah is to insult your host. But why did I need that quote from the Mishnah? In Sannhedrin 37a, there is parable related to why life is so precious. Most people who mint coins mint them with a face of a king, and every coin has a face of that king. But the King of Kings, when he mints coins, “Fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow.” And of course of the first man, he “fashioned in his image.”(Genesis 1:27) We all are the faces of God, yet completely unique. It is interesting that the word in Hebrew for Shewbread is lechem panim. Literally this means the bread of faces. Since no translator can figure out whose faces, the usual translation in English is to revert to the verb, which means to turn. One turns to show the bread thus Showbread. Panim can also mean face to face. It could also mean the bread was face to face, lfnei Elokim, before God. What if those faces are the faces of those eating it? All faces are unique expressions of the God-image. When they sit eating bread, and discuss words of The Lord of Hosts the divine in each of us to combine to form a more complete connection to God, and as our portion says “And there I will meet with you, and I will talk with you”. In a collective we find divine revelation.
There is the old expression “Two Jews, three opinions” Often taken as sardonic humor one must ask where the third opinion comes from. The third is the synthesis of the two, the one that comes out of holy discussion, not a discussion of “I’m right your wrong” but of “Here is one case” and “here is another.” Together they make a third, one that we could easily call God’s opinion. When two Jews sit down at a meal, and talk words of Torah, there will their own opinions and together they will reveal the opinion of the Holy One Blessed Be He.
May your tables have holy conversations

Mishpatim 5769: Peanut Butter and the Goring Ox

How does contaminated peanut butter stand up to Jewish civil law? This week’s portion is primarily the civil law given at Sinai. Much of Jewish civil law is no longer binding but provides an interesting way of understanding how much more esoteric religious law was derived by the rabbis. While “an eye for an eye” is well known, lesser known but far more intriguing is the case of the goring ox:

28. If an ox gores a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be acquitted. 29. But if the ox was wont to gore with its horn in times past, and its owner had been warned, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. 30. If ransom be laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid upon him. 31. Whether it has gored a son, or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done to it. 32. If the ox shall gore a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. [Exodus 21]

As this can invoke the death penalty for both the owner and the ox, the case is tried not as a monetary compensation case but a capital crimes one:

The ox to be stoned is tried by (a capital crimes court of ) twenty-three, as it is written, the ox shall be stoned and its owner shall be put to death — as the death of the owner, so that of the ox, can be decided only by twenty-three.[M. Sanhedrin 1]

As I noted last week, this usually means neither will die as actually carrying out the death penalty is very rare when one of these cases comes to court. Using verse 21:30, there is the possibility of a monetary penalty instead of a death. What is interesting however is that the ox is considered a life form here, one that can be tried the same way as a human.

Yet critical to the case against the owner would be if the ox was tam or mu’ad. A tam ox is one that has less than three incidents of injury prior to the incident that kills someone. This is the ox which is tame and docile, but through unforeseen circumstances charged someone. On the other hand there is the mu’ad ox, the one that has had three warnings of danger, and the owner did nothing to prevent them as mentioned in Exodus 21:29.

By the early middle ages much of Jewish civil and criminal law was superseded with the law of the land. But I thought it would be an interesting thought experiment to see what would happen if it were still in operation. As a food safety consultant, I’ve been following the current Salmonella outbreak case. While the way it will play out in the courts of the United States will be interesting, I’m also wondering how it would play out in Jewish law, and how would one actually deal with this case.

Starting back on Novebmer 10, 2008 13 cases of Salmonella typhimurium caught the eye of the Centers for Disease Control. . Further investigation followed as the case load increased. On January 12, 2009 Minnesota department of health found a commercial container of peanut butter which definitively linked peanut butter to the Salmonella Other heath departments followed, confirming the links Minnesota found. The originator of the product initiated a recall. As of February 19, 2009, 654 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 44 states and there are over 2500 products recalled which contain products from two plants run by this manufacturer. Among persons with available information, 23% reported being hospitalized. Infection may have contributed to nine deaths:

What has also become clear in FDA’s investigation is that the product did have lot numbers that were shipped out either before it was determined the product contained no salmonella or when there had been a positive test. In one noted case of metal contamination it was shipped out of the U.S. to a Canadian producer, but the Canadian plant sent it back as unacceptable. When coming back into the U.S. FDA would not let it cross the border due to the excessive contamination.

This has me wondering something. Is a corporation which harms consumers considered a goring ox? Should we treat a corporation the same? In a thought provoking chapter in his book The Golems Among Us Byron Sherwin explains that in a legal sense corporations through the courts have given themselves the legal status of people without the consequences. In a sense they are a man made souless creature, a Golem. In his book, Sherwin compares golems like the legendary Golem of Prague to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein monster. Both Golems and the Monster were made by man as essentially soulless creatures, but there the similarities stop. Fundamental to this discussion is that Frankenstein’s monster is left unchecked for its primary purpose of running amok, while the golem, who primary purpose is to help humanity, could hurt people if left unsupervised. A golem requires safety measures. Golems are very much like the goring Ox. Oxen have their domestic purposes, but often require preventative measures to keep people safe around them. If those preventative measures are ignored, they might hurt someone. Furthermore, it’s clear from Tractate Sanhedrin that oxen are tried for murder just like humans are tried for murder.

Here we delve into speculation and many questions. We apparently have a company which internally knew of a problem, had far more than three warnings and their only action was to cover it up. Is a corporation a goring ox, and if they do such things are they a Mu’ad ox? In a corporation, who is the owner and what is the ox? If the corporation is Mu’ad how do you stone a corporation to death? In the case of a tam corporation, is death without benefit necessary? While the death penalty can be commuted to a financial penalty for the owner what does that mean?

This case has one more wrinkle, which was not true when I started thinking about all this. The company who made the peanut paste has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. What if from the time the case starts to the time the case ends, the Ox dies, or the owner hides it or kills it himself?

I have no answers here, I’m interested in some interesting discussion.

What do you think? If we used Talmudic and biblical law, what should be done in this case?

If you happen to be around Evanston Illinois this Saturday, February 21, 2009, I’ll be leading the Torah Discussion at Beth Emet Kahal services on this topic.

Drash Yitro 5769: Jethro’s Gift of the Courts.

The Ten Commandments are not the most important part of this week’s portion in my mind. While most will remember this portion for the preliminary smoke and fire and the recitation of the Ten Commandments by God, there is something far more significant. While moving towards Sinai, Moses’ father in law Yitro catches up with the Israelites bringing Moses’ sons Gershon and Eleazar and wife Tzipporah with him.
Yitro notices the long line of people that want to talk to Moses and ask for judgment in one kind of case or another. Moses looks totally frazzled by the long lines, and Yitro begins to notice the people on the line are not too happy either. Yitro pulls over his son-in-law and gives some sagely advice:

19. Listen now to my voice, I will give you counsel, and God shall be with you; Represent the people before God, that you may bring the causes to God; 20. And you shall teach them ordinances and laws, and shall show them the way where they must walk, and the work that they must do. 21. And you shall choose out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens; 22. And let them judge the people at all seasons; and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they shall judge; so it shall be easier for yourself, and they shall bear the burden with you.

Moses enacts this system, creating a judicial bureaucracy. However it alone does not go far enough. As we will read in Numbers, Moses burns out over a second complaint about the food:

14. I am not able to carry all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. 15. And if you deal thus with me, kill me, I pray you, at once, if I have found favor in your sight; and let me not see my wretchedness. [Numbers 11]

God then creates one more council, a court of seventy elders along with Moses to deal with the bigger issues Moses cannot do alone.
Rabbinic law changed and transformed this system, but the judicial system became the backbone of an entire order of the Talmud: Nezikin. In one of its tractates Sanhedrin, the organization and operation of the courts is discussed:

Monetary cases [must be adjudicated] by three judges… capital cases are adjudicated by twenty-three…a tribe, a false prophet and a high priest can only be tried by a court of seventy-one. War of free choice can be waged only by the authority of a court of seventy-one.[M. Sanhedrin 1]

Unlike the system of population to decide cases this system is based on the type of litigation. Interestingly, all three courts have a prime number of judges, there is no way any set of parties could have an even split. There can be no hung juries, even by multiple factions. What is also clear is that for capital cases and more important national matters the courts are so large they would have a hard time convicting anybody where there is the slightest doubt, as deliberation would go on forever. Indeed in capital cases this is made explicit in Tractate Makkot:

A Sanhedrin that effects an execution once in seven years is branded a destructive tribunal; R. Eliezer b. Azariah says, once in seventy years. [Makkot 7a]

This is despite the huge number of capital crimes found in the Torah. These even include several of the Ten Commandments such as murder, desecrating the Sabbath and insulting one’s parents, all of which should be relatively easy to find people guilty of. Yet very few are convicted, because of the court procedure in such cases, with a few exceptions, is not directly noted in Torah. Human beings, namely Rabbis and Judges came up with the system of jurisprudence found in Tractate Sanhedrin that made it near impossible to enact capital punishment.
This is the gift Yitro gave us before the revelation at Sinai. While Mitzvot are of Divine origin, how we implement them is a very human thing, requiring a very human process of questioning and finding solutions to dilemmas using a system of debate. This is core to what we might call Jewish thinking. It is not just Mitzvot that we follow, but the Halakhah, the derived rules that our ancestors debated and found, and the Halalka we derirve today and that our descendants will derive in the future. The Oral law may have been given at Sinai as well, but it has been adapted many times over millennia for new circumstances. The Oral law is never closed, never complete.
What Yitro did in suggesting to Moses was far more than delegation. In Egypt, Pharaoh’s word was absolute, and the slaves obeyed or were punished, On the way to Sinai, Moses’ word was absolute, because the people had no one else, and thus followed the Pharaoh model. What Yitro did was change everyone’s thinking from one person dictating policy, to ten percent of the population deciding its formation, and all the people able to ask questions to create the conditions for change. All of this was based on the original framework of Mitzvot in Torah. For former slaves this might have been a near impossible task, but the existence of order Nezikin proves that it was a successful one. While it is not the democracy of the Greeks it is democracy nonetheless: it is a democracy founded not in legislation, but in jurisprudence. For one of the minority religions on the planet, the assumptions behind that system have let Jews survive for thousands of years all over the globe, being one of the oldest continuous religions on the planet, constantly adapting to new conditions when necessary.
It builds on the system of God’s partnership with humanity, Mitzvot and Miracles are the realm of God, and God’s participation in this world. We through Halakhah and Aggadah contribute to creation, filling the gaps left by God in Torah for us to fill. This was not revealed at the top of Sinai by God, but by Moses’ father in law at the foot of the mountain, a gift we should be eternally grateful for.

Beshallah 5769: Back in the Harbor Again

In this week’s portion, there are a few verses in the biblical text that often gets lost in the excitement of the crossing of the Sea, The Song of the Sea, the battle of Amalek and the Manna. Yet it has the greatest impact of all, indeed repeated on Sinai itself.
The lost verses happen on the sixth day after Manna becomes standard food for the Israelites. While the people are told not to collect more than they need, the Israelites collect double portions as there seems to be double portions produced. The elders are puzzled and go to Moses.

23. And he said to them, This is what the Lord has said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath to the Lord; bake that which you will bake today, and boil what you will boil today; and that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. 24. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm in it. 25. And Moses said, Eat that today; for today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you shall not find it in the field. 26. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. 27. And it came to pass, that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, and they found none. [Exodus 16]

Of course the people who went looking for manna on Shabbat doesn’t go over well with God, who makes his instructions more explicit:

28. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? 29. See, because the Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.’ 30. So the people rested on the seventh day. [Exodus 16]

In the Exodus 20:8-11 the Ten Commandments will make Shabbat explicitly a time to not do work. This passage,the first mitzvah of Shabbat makes different requirements. We do as God does in the Exodus 16 passage. Since God doesn’t cook on Shabbat, so too we don’t cook on Shabbat. To make sure we don’t do any gathering, we stay in our place and don’t carry anything in our out of our dwellings. Exodus 20 concerns work life while Exodus 16 concerns our home life.
What is meant by mimkomo “his place?” The text does not use the words moshavo for his habitation or beito for his house. Therefore “his home” might be the best definition. I realized the distinction between house and home about twenty years ago on my first job out of college. The job required six days on the road in a territory that covered anywhere from Pittsburgh to Omaha. I was so used to travel my apartment looked just like a suite at a Hampton Inn, down to the furniture and the sink outside the toilet room. Neither the hotel rooms I stayed at nor my apartment were home. Home was still my parents’ house, where I connected with my family. In that job, I connected nowhere else. After I left that job I did find a home not in my apartment, but in an old sports bar in a far northwestern suburb of Chicago. Here, home was having a few drinks and some munchies with other people in the pottery studio where I used to do my art. A few years later, I found Home in my synagogue life. For most of that time, Home would not be the four walls I paid rent to keep my bed and bookshelves in.
Home is more than just the shelter of a house. Home is about relationship, a place where one feels connected to others. Someone close to me was talking about being Home last week and even had given me a song by Jimmy Buffet about the subject, which made me think a lot about being Home.
I have before talked about Jimmy Buffett and how his song One Particular Harbor is my expression about Shabbat. But the harbor explains our passage as well. Boats spend their days out on the sea, freely moving with the wind, though rarely in communication with other boats. Yet every once in a while they come into harbor, and sailors talk on the docks and in the shops and bars that surround the harbor. Sailing is one thing but without being able to tell the story of your adventure, to relate with other sailors, it is an incomplete thing. So too with Shabbat. We work so hard during the rest of the week, we often forget to relate to our loved ones and friends. One day a week, we do nothing but bind those relationships closer together. Home is where those we care about are, and Home is where we spend Shabbat.
Heschel commented that Shabbat was not a place in Space but in Time. It is the time that we use for strengthening our relationships. We strengthen our relationships to God, to creation, to others in our spiritual community, our friends and our loved ones. It saddens me when those relationships break down on Shabbat, to me there can be no bigger desecration. Exodus 35:3 will command us to kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day. Not only is the fire in the hearth indicated here, but the fire in the heart. Controversy and fighting is not an appropriate activity on the Sabbath. We have six other days for such things. All too often, hurtful words are used and not only feelings but relationships are hurt. Home, whatever and wherever it is, sadly becomes a battlefield.

I try to avoid that. I think of Shabbat as that One Particular Harbor that Jimmy Buffett sings about:

And there's that one particular harbor
Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within.

We are told that Shabbat is a foretaste of the world to come, one sixtieth of the messianic era. In a week full of stress controversy and strife, I like Shabbat to be that time to rest and work on building relationships. Once a week sailing into the sheltered port of Shabbat from the storm of life is a delight, an Oneg. Having a world around me peaceful enough to witness creation and enter into relationship with it is the joy of the day, if not my week. While John Lennon naively wrote of atheism in his song, Imagine, I still believe the chorus applies to the world where all celebrate Shabbat as a day of rest and building relationships:

You may say I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one
Some day I hope you’ll join us
And the World will live as One.

Or as Zachariah prophesized in a passage which ends the Aleinu Prayer:

On that day the Lord shall be One, and his name One [Zech 14:9]

Bo 5769:Of Spamalot and Haggadot

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece for Parshat Bo comparing Monty Python to the Passover Haggadah. Since I've gotten behind in writing, I thought I'd post that piece this week, instead of something completely different.

In Parshat Bo, we have the last three plagues: locusts, darkness, and finally the death of the first born. Before the last plague hits, however, there is a lot of preparation done. God gives a set of directions to first chain up then kill a lamb, eating it all in the night of the plague, and spreading its blood on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites so to indicate whose house to pass over. Further instructions mentioned not eating leavened foods for seven days and eating Matzah instead. This was the first Passover.

Every year we go through a haggadah with the same words about this event. Many over the years have had their favorite parts memorized, and quote them even away from the Passover table. Oddly enough, there is little from parshat Bo that is actually included in the Passover seder. Although we celebrate this event told in the book of Exodus, the number of quotes from the book of Exodus in the liturgy of the Passover seder, the Haggadah, is rather small. But the lines that are mentioned everybody remembers.

Exodus 12:26. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say to you, What do you mean by this service?

Exodus 13:8 And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did to me when I came forth out of Egypt.

Exodus 13:14 And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is this? That you shall say to him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of slavery;

These of course are three of the four sons, who were formulated into different archetypes by the early rabbis. The rabbis of 1900 years ago, in creating the structure of the Passover Seder we celebrate today had a problem. Much of the ceremony required the Temple, but the Temple no longer stood. How would one use all the differing symbols and stories of the Exodus in a world where the primary thing necessary, roasting the lamb in the Temple, could not be done? We can even see the problem in the Mishnah, where the rabbis preserved the temple service:

They filled a second cup for him. At this stage the son questions his father;
If the son is unintelligent, his father instructs him [to ask]:
‘Why is this night different from all [other] nights.
For on all [other] nights we eat leavened and unleavened bread, whereas on this night [we eat] only leavened bread; on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, on this night bitter herbs;
On all other nights we eat meat roast, stewed or boiled, on this night, roast only.
On all other nights we dip once, but on this night we dip twice.’

And according to the son's intelligence his father instructs him. He commences with shame and concludes with praise; and expounds from ‘a wandering Aramean was my father’ until he completes the whole section.[Pesachim 116a]

One of the four questions includes roasted lamb, which is impossible without a Temple. How does the Haggadah deal with such problems? Of all the places to think about this, it was after watching a new musical on its way to Broadway that gave me insight into this problem. Of all musicals which had to deal with the problem it was Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When it was in it's pre-Broadway tour several years ago, I saw it in Chicago. Like a majority of the audience I had memorized every line of the movie, knew every joke and gag from beginning to end. Indeed, it is probably the most memorized film comedy ever. I kept wondering how former Python Eric Idle could put together a musical which could handle some of the material that was only possible on film, and could not translate into musical theater. Cutting in and out of Terry Gilliam's animation just could not happen, there could be no "problems" with the beginning credits, and the original ending of the film just couldn’t be done. Idle realized he could not translate Grail directly, so he changed many parts to create entirely new experience with the same cherished symbols of Python lovers, even some from other Monty Python sources such as Life of Brian.

Like Monty Python, how does the rabbis who no longer have their original medium, the Temple, deal with the issue of all the symbols around Passover? Like Holy Grail, everybody had memorized many of the words already, and they have special nostalgic meaning. The words of Exodus 12 and 13 had already been repeated over and over again for generations. Not only that, many of the traditions that had sprouted could not be simply put aside. Leaving out the four questions, four sons or the Haroset from the Seder, much of which had little or no biblical basis, was unthinkable. It would have caused the same disaster leaving out the killer bunny rabbit in Spamalot would have. In a qualitative study of moderately affiliated Jews by Cohen and Eisen, the primary factors why people keep Jewish tend not to be spiritual, but nostalgia and grandma’s cooking. The two holidays, which show the most observance, Passover and Hanukkah have home-made food associated with them. The rabbis even 1900 years ago understood that same problem all too well.

Sprinkled repeatedly in the text of Bo is the reason for this type of observance. The four sons, four questions, Hillel sandwiches and singing Had Gadya are there intentionally for one reason: to transmit the tradition from one generation to another easily. In a reference usually associated with tefillin, we are to do this with (13:9)“a sign to you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes.” We are to do this remembering experientially, with both actions and sights. The best place to find the children, to continue the nostalgia and food is at our own dinner tables. We change a large production number in the Temple to a smaller setting -the family dining table. Along the way there is need for changes to compensate of course, new things were added, some things were changed. The third question in the Mishnah about the roasted lamb would evolve into a question of reclining. The Haroset would in some sense become a substitute to the roast lamb in the Hillel sandwich. But the elements, many of which were probably from popular observance, were preserved for generations.

I still find it funny Eric Idle’s book for Spamalot is an analogy to the creation of the Passover Haggadah. But oddly enough it is. It is an important lesson: one can change things, but be careful of personal attachments to parts of what you are changing.