Trumah: the sanctuary

Trumah: the sanctuary

My idea of a sanctuary is a place inside my self.  A core from which my essence emanates.  The sanctuary protects.  The sanctuary entombs.  The Aron is  a coffin.  The essence is so fragile and mysterious that it must be encased ( like a mezuzah or Tfillin).

The sanctuary is a private place, where the I can be with Gd and we can do the things that are done in private!

The aron is never opened.  The contents of the tablets are well known, but the originals can never be consulted.

Gd speaks to Moshe from between the Cherubim, angelic creatures ( intermediaries between man and Gd), beautiful ( truth is beauty?), guardians that block  the path back to Eden ( innocence?).  The cherubim are the mediators and distorters of the message, the essence.

 

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Mispatim starts with laws concerning ...

Mispatim starts with laws concerning the freeing of slaves.  This build on the theme of liberation that  is included in the first "commandment."  The idea that any slave can be liberated is a revolutionary idea.

 

A major theme in Mishpatim are asymmetric relationships: slaves, children, spouses, lenders, animals, Gd.

Associated with this are things that are not completely under a person's control: fire, lust, democracy, slaves, children, spouses, lenders, animals, Gd.

 

 

N.B Vashti makes an appearance as we get ready for Adar and Purim. ( 23:31). You can find Mordechai, but that takes the secret decoder ring.

Mispatim starts with laws concerning ...

Mispatim starts with laws concerning the freeing of slaves.  This build on the theme of liberation that  is included in the first "commandment."  The idea that any slave can be liberated is a revolutionary idea.

 

A major theme in Mishpatim are asymmetric relationships: slaves, children, spouses, lenders, animals, Gd.

Associated with this are things that are not completely under a person's control: fire, lust, democracy, slaves, children, spouses, lenders, animals, Gd.

 

 

N.B Vashti makes an appearance as we get ready for Adar and Purim. ( 23:31). You can find Mordechai, but that takes the secret decoder ring.

Yithro: whose religion?

Yithro: whose religion?

 

Parshath Yithro consists of :

Yithro comes to Moshe, reacquainting himself  as his father in law. ( Note that subsequently the Torah prohibits having one's son marry out of the faith for fear that the children will follow the faith of the wife's father).

Yithro advising his son-in law about the administration of the law. ( Moshe had spent many years with Yithro and his sense of the law may have come, in part from that experience) [ The Rabbinic controversy about whether Yithro approached Moshe before or after Sinai is a reaction to this issue]

Moshe accepts yithro's advice.

The Yithro (democratic) solution means that there is a public body of law, and the credibility of that law is based upon the law's divine origin; the divine origin must be demonstrated... hence the fire, cloud, trembling and voice from Sinai. 

The ten commandments are a demonstration that a law that covers every situation can be summarized in a small number of statements ( like the postulates of geometry).  Thus the public body of law is possible!

The Sinai experience is preceded by a purification and followed by laws of the altar.  The altar law is interesting in the context of the rite of Adonis (a local avodah zara) which involved the castration of the priest.  The altar law forbids the sword from any involvement in the altar, the sword that was used to castrate the priest; and it includes a requirement to keep the genitals covered, implying that they are intact. 

 

 

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Who would think that the ten commandments are a tool for democracy?  But What happens when you make the rules public and simple?: then the lowly can point to rules that the mighty must abide by.  Thus, public rules are a liberating force, they fight slavery and tyranny:

Thus: I am the Lrd who(se rules) took you out of Egypt

There is no appeal to another set of rules ( no other Gds)

 

Beshalach: attribution and the Magic ...

Beshalach: attribution and the Magic wand

 

 

 The staff of Moshe (the magic wand) plays a very significant role in Beshalach. It is the described as the staff with which [Moses} hits the water.  It splits the sea and it causes the waters to return to heir previous strength, drowning the Egyptian pursuers.  It brings water from the rock.  It brings victory to the Israelites in their battle with Amalek.

 

Beshalach is packed with miracles and problems of attribution.  It starts with crediting Pharaoh with  a role in the Exodus and relegates Gd to planning a route to the promised land that is not too threatening for the Israelites.

 

Then there is the splitting of the sea ( with the aid of the staff) and the staff is used to drown the Egyptians. That story is confusing. Moses splits the sea and Gd  hardens the hearts of the Egyptians.  Another strange division of labor ( or attribution).  I am disturbed that Gd had Moshe drown the Egyptians.  Perhaps when Moshe  told the Israelites that they would never see the Egyptians again he forced Gd to make it happen ... so Gd had Moshe fulfill his promise.

 

The song of the Sea attributes the power that rescued Israel to Gd.  This explains the gemarrah (The Sages of the Talmud declare that the Holy One Blessed be He wished to make King Hezekiah the messiah, and Sennacherib Gog and Magog (the last battle before the final redemption, according to the Prophet Ezekiel). But the Measure of Justice declared before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, how is it possible that after you did not make David King of Israel - who sang so many songs and praises before you - the messiah, you could even think of making Hezekiah the messiah - he who did not sing a praise to You even after You did these many miracles for him? (B.T. Sanhedrin 94a). ).  Note that Hezekiah destroyed the Copper Snake ( Caduceus) and the book of cures.  He rejected the intermediaries, the magic.

 

The waters of Mara are sweetened with some other wood, not the staff. 

The staff extracts the water from the rock.

It brings victory to the Israelites in their battle with Amalek.

 

Why set up this intermediary? Did the staff really wield the power?
Perhaps the story of the drowning of the Egyptians is the most telling.  The miracles have consequences and the wielding of the staff demonstrates the human involvement, hence the human responsibility, for the consequences.  In our day we have miracles of communication and transportation, but the junk that they create are reminders of our participation  in those miracles.  Think of nuclear fall out!