Sh0$hanaNitzavim: choices

Nitzavim has some of my favorite lines in the Torah.  It is the parsha for the YAhrtzeit of my father Shmuel Chaim ben Zelig U'Bracha z"l. 
My father's name fits the Parsha: "Listen to Gd about life, O son of the soul and blessing"

What does GD say about life? Choose it.  uvochartah bechaim.

Rashi takes this to mean that choosing do perform the mitzvoth  is the path to life.

I experience people for whom the choice is real.  Life ( and pain) or death (and quiet).

Should one take the advice - to choose life- literally in this context?  Maybe not always, but the encouragement of this statement is uplifting.

 

My father ( and mother) told me that there were times when death was  an appealing alternative to the horror of his "life" in Treblinka ( or the woods).  We do not regret that they followed the precept - choose life.

 

 

Ki Thavo: Reward and Punishment- Blessing and Curse

 

 

Is there a difference? Is a reward a blessing and a punishment a curse?

The reward and punishment are limited in scope.  Payment is a reward.  The payment is done and the reward is over.

A Blessing is ongoing,  a state of being imparted by the blesser.  Thus Bracha is related to the act of replanting the shoot of the vine so that it will become a new vine.  A bracha accumulates dividends.

Similarly a punishment is measured to fit the crime.  A curse sticks to the accursed and cannot be shed.

Punishment removes the evil ( be'arta hahara) the curse continues, it fails to expiate.

Gd tells his people to punish the wrongdoer, but Gd curses those who offend Gd.

 

 --------------------

הָאִישׁ הָרַךְ בְּךָ וְהֶעָנֹג מְאֹד תֵּרַע עֵינוֹ בְאָחִיו וּבְאֵשֶׁת חֵיקוֹ וּבְיֶתֶר בָּנָיו אֲשֶׁר יוֹתִיר.  נה מִתֵּת לְאַחַד מֵהֶם מִבְּשַׂר בָּנָיו אֲשֶׁר יֹאכֵל מִבְּלִי הִשְׁאִיר-לוֹ כֹּל בְּמָצוֹר וּבְמָצוֹק אֲשֶׁר יָצִיק לְךָ אֹיִבְךָ בְּכָל-שְׁעָרֶיךָ.

 

The most tender and delicate man among you, will begrudge his own brother and the wife of his embrace and the rest of his children, whom he will leave over,

55. of giving any one of them of the flesh of his children that he is eating, because not a thing will remain for him in the siege and in the desperation which your enemies will bring upon you, in all your cities.

 

Rashi: Another explanation of הָר‏ ַבּ‏ְ : The merciful and tenderhearted will become cruel because of the intense hunger, and they will not give the flesh of their slaughtered children to their remaining children.

----------------------

 

The Holocaust was a manifestation of a curse, its generation was cursed- whether  a person experienced the persecution directly and/or witnessed it - because there is an eternal guilt about not doing enough- the stain of the Holocaust is indelible, the stain is a curse.

 ------------------------

The parsha reflects the great Jewish ethos: when you arrive at the goal, when you get what want, trouble is around the next corner. " When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door" ( Grateful Dead).

Hizkiahu could have been Moshiach, but he failed to sing Shirah.

 

 

-------------------------------

Gd's assurance is no insurance.  If the US government fails will Gd buy AIG?

 

Welcome to hell.

Ki Thetze: Moving Boundaries

 

 

 

 

When you go out…( to war).  Going out means that the normal boundaries are breached.  You have gone out.  How are the boundaries redefined?  How do the boundaries move with you?
The fences are named.  The parapet.  The hung criminal cannot be left overnight;   Even the captured wife… you may not sell her, she is booty but not chattel.

Boundaries are challenged.  The captured wife, the wayward son, the leverite marriage, Amalek 

 

_________________________________

 

 ---------------------------------------------

The chiasm of the parsha, the end that relates to the beginning:
1. when you go out to war- remember Amalek ( and war against them)

2. When you bring home a woman- the leverite marriage ( yibum)

 The going out, the breaching of the boundary, does not remove all boundaries, does not exile the transgressor, it generates a new set of boundaries! 

Now that's Torahs!

Shifrah and Puah

Shemoth 1:15

 

I reviewed this pasuk with my daughter, Esther.  This  activity almost always yields insights..

 

 

Rashi reminds us of the gemarrah in Sotah (11b) which tells us that the names Shifrah and Puah reflected the activities of the midwives.  Shfrah beautified the newborn and Puah cooed it so that the baby stopped crying.

The significance of these acts must be taken in the context of  the mother being  a slave; a woman with a bitter life, bringing a new  baby into that bitter life.  She was burdened by the newborn, which now added to her already impossible burdens.  Shifrah made the newborn more appealing to her, cuter, and allowed her natural love for the baby to be magnified. Puah demonstrated to the mother that the situation was manageable, the baby ( and mother) could be consoled.

 

The scene evokes the idea of natural love for the offspring and how that can be distorted by societal pressures and how it can be aided by unrelated caring people.  In this context, the idea that Shifrah and Puah were actually Egyptian midwives who cared for the Hebrew women is even more appealing.  The ambiguity of the nationhood of the midwives is a peek at the ambiguity of Moshe and their actions in this context are like Torah -  a practical application of goodness that fosters life.

Shoftim: Perception and Reality

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Maybe I am bringing this to the parsha rather than deriving it from the parsha - I admit it.

There are all of these realities: the judges sort out truth from lie, define justice from litigation . That becomes deriving truth from codes in the text, misspelled words, imperfect repetitions. THe truth is the statement of the torah. Reality - a mere shadow, metziuth -transient, mutable and therefore false.

All of these takes on reality! The ritual reality of the Kohanim ( fed by the foreleg and tongue of every slaughtered animal [see Mishnah Yomit, Chulin 10:1], etc). The political reality of the king (his horses and men). The extraterrestrial reality of the prophet { what is a prophet ( vis a vis a fortune teller). The lies of the fortune tellers and wizards

An interesting Rashi: 18:13 Scout out the future but don't search for it.

The judge creates the reality of law out of the fantasies of the litigants and criminals. Their ideas of justice are corrected.

Idol worship (17:2-5) is fundamentally an error in the interpretation of reality

The testimony of 2 witnesses establishes reality ( 17:5-7). Thus, the agreement of the two is the test in testimony ( don't forget the money)

The willful actor (17: 11) is the enemy of truth.

the king, the priest and the prophet all battle for the true pronouncement and each sees and preaches his own reality and each has his own temptations that distort the perception.

Cities of refuge identify intentionality as the key reality. No one denies that one person killed another, but guilt is a question of intent and the redeemer is in a good position to carry out retribution but not a good judge of culpability,

The war is a redefinition of reality. Us vs them. Peace must be an option. And don't hurt the trees.

The tree that appeared at the beginning of the Parsha. The tree that was forbidden near the altar.

Ideas of sustenance cannot cloud justice

Finally the unsolved murder. How responsible is the community? After the tragedy the community wonders what it could have done to prevent this. The elders would tear their hair out and cut themselves ( but this has already been prohibited). So they do the ritual of the broken neck calf and wash their hands of the matter... And pledge to repent. Not everything is in their control, but it is hard to find the boundary.

Now, in Elul, the struggle to find reality and the battle against our internal drives is refocused. Hard to find the boundary, and if you find it , don't move it.

last year