Naso: insecurity

Naso:  insecurity

The drama in the middle of Naso is the Sota, the woman accused of straying.  That story  admits that the accusations may be false.  It pays no attention to the feelings of the ministering Cohen. He may sense the emptiness of the accusation, but the show must go on. We know where this accusation comes from.  It is the husband's sense of inadequacy that starts this ritual of intimidation.  The Omniscient stages a trial by ordeal?  Who is the audience?

The Nazir does not trust his will to abstain from wine.   His wild, long hair becomes the symbol of his thwarted desires. He is forbidden contact with the dead. Fear of death cannot be his motivator. 

Then comes the Priestly Blessing. ,

 וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ: Blessing is not enough, the blessed need to be guarded ( perhaps from what they will do with the blessing) 

 וִיחֻנֶּךָּ If the light is shed you ( if your heavenly file is opened), you need grace   

יִשָּׂא: The theme of the parsha. Lift. Bear the burden of being counted, do what your supposed to do. 

Finally 12 Nesiim each bring the identical inaugural gift to the Mishkan.  Uniformity is an excellent way to handle insecurity. When you don't know what to do, do what everyone else does. 

Bamidbar: do I count?

This weeks parsha is called Bamidbar because it is introduced with the statement that Gd spoke to Moshe at  a post Sinai event, in the dessert. In the desert you can remember your name 

The King James committee calls the book Numbers.  It is called Numbers, in part, because it begins with numbers, enumerations of the tribes leading to a sum  of the military aged men in Israel.  This is probably a military tactic to frighten enemies. These numbers annonymize the people. You can not tell one from the other. All you need to know is that they are a big army.

The Talmud refers to this, the fourth book of Moses, as Sefer Pikudim. One could, like they King  James committee,  translate that as numbers, but pikudim carries a sense of individual assignment.

The Ramban  points this out .עניין "פקידה" זיכרון והשגחה על דבר,י,  The term PKD implies rememberance and attention to a matter   PKD conveys  a relationship between an individual and an obligation.  It is the antithesis of a statistical  ( insurance) truth, something that happens because the aggregate number  is large enough.  Sefer Pikudim  is a story, Numbers is a statistic. Numbers are the tattoos of Aushwitz. 

We have an expression: "Does it count?" : Is it  to be part of the record?, Will it make a mark in history?
The parsha brings me to that question for myself.  When I am gone, did I count?

The parsha tells us that everyone counts, everyone has a special place in her family and in his work for the community. 

Do I count?

Oh, I want to be in that number

Bichukothai: What part of obey don't you understand?

This weeks parsha, the finale of the third  book, is shocking .  We are introduced to the blessing and  threat  paradigm for  eliciting obedience.  This model  will be repeated in the remaining books of the Moshe. Generally a few verses about how wonderful it would be  if the  commandments were kept  is followed by a long passage that describes the consequences of breaching the commandments in holocaust-like detail.

The images this evokes include the shtetl (the time of joy in obedience?) and the death camp ( where you eat your children) and the kibbutz ( the reconciliation).  In the shetetl, the ordinances were commonly observed  extraordinarily carefully.  But the rules are (purposely) vague,  Errors are  made; every heart is rebellious. The rules can never be followed perfectly.  So the punishment is always deserved.  And the punishment leads to resentment and more punishment. Until the cycle is complete.  Until Aushwitz and Treblinka and the founding of the state of Israel. 

Toward the end of the parsha,  the monetary value of a human, as a function of gender and age, is stated.  Humans have value.  It can be expressed in shekels. 

Behar: economics

 Rashi says:  מה ענין שמיטה אצל הר סיני : What does Shmitah have to do with Mount Sinai, why are we informed that the laws of the Sabbatical year were given near Mount Sinai? Weren't all the laws given on Mount Sinai,? But the details of Sabbatical  and Jubilee were given at Mount Sinai.

These laws of land use , land-lordship, and social welfare were given  to liberated slaves in a desert, 40 years before the land was conquered.  The law is  not ad hoc.  A welfare state ( Gd provides Manna and guidance for camping) anticipates its capitalist  ( perhaps feudal) evolution A situation in which people possess land is one in which there are rich and poor, masters and servants, owners and the bought.  But these rules are set in advance of that, no vested interests  (Even if they were actually recorded later, they are projected in this way to convey the idea of  disinterest.)

The laws protect the inheritance of land.  The land cannot be sold, it reverts to the ancestral owner ( Joshua's assigned, not the Canaanite)  at the jubilee.  The (rented) land is protected from depletion by the Sabbatical year.  The land is protected by prohibitions.

The poverty ( which, presumably, accompanies the loss of land) is to be fixed by voluntary acts ( positive commandments),. A less secure arrangement.

Workers on the bottom
Bosses on top
This kind of stuff
Has got to stop.
You know , yow know,
we need a Revolution now

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Emor: Defection

Emor: Defection

What  is this blasphemer who  appears at  the end of the parsha? We are immediately told that he is the son of an Egyptian father and Israelite mother..  There is an argument with a ( pure?) Israelite and he violates (Nokav) the holy name , a capital offense with the stoning  carried out by those who have heard the offense.  Here is a capital imperfection in a chapter filled with the limitations of the defective.

All of the descendants of Joseph come from an Egyptian mother. The mother  of Pinchas, heir to the high priesthood, is a Midianite. The mixed origin of this blasphemer is not a genetic problem.  It is a problem of reversion, a problem of return to the enslaving values, the actions that are negated when the Torah repeats that the Mitzvoth come from the Gd who took us out of Egypt.

The blasphemer is confused about  his allegiance.  He is a subversive.  He recognizes his alienation, an alienation that might be understood as a defect.  He lashes out. He defects.

Last night, I went to a small conference on lymphoma. The discussion was dominated by people from the Fred Hutchinson.  I blatantly pointed out inconsistencies in some of the reasoning.

An example: Lymphoma in the brain is treated with high doses  a  drug, Methotrexate.  This drug is used because it is one of the few that penetrates the "blood brain barrier".  When given intravenously, enough of the medicine enters the brain and the special fluids that surround the brain ( Cerebrospinal fluid) so that it reaches a theoretically effective dose.  No one would consider trying to cure  a lymphoma outside the brain with this medicine.  Studies have shown that relapse is inevitable when this medicine is used alone. Does the fact that a lymphoma is in the brain make methotrexate more effective? Now that we have medicines that can cure lymphomas elsewhere in the body in a form that can penetrate the blood brain barrier, shouldn't we be trying them as well?
This was heresy!

I escaped before I was stoned.