Tzav: Process

Tzav: Process

This weeks parsha has a lot of orders.  The word tzav appears quite often .  And all of the orders are carried out as prescribed.

Our culture is oriented toward results.  The  process is just a way to get to the desired result.  But a particular process  can become the only way, and from there the process  can become the the purpose onto itself, superseding the result. 

Following orders. without a clear idea of the purpose, means that one has faith in the entity that issues the orders.  It means that one submits to the will of another who sees a more comprehensive picture. It is an admission that one does not see the whole picture.  It is an act of servitude and humility, 

  In medicine guidelines often become rituals.  This is not always a bad thing.  Performing the ritual  assures that certain acts are done, and not left out. Sometimes the answer to a problem comes from an unexpected source, a piece of information that is revealed only by adherence to the ritual.  The travel history can reveal the possibility of an important infection, the fingernails  can reveal surprises.

In this season, before Passover, we are preparing for a ritual shared by most Jews, the Seder. The point of much of the Seder  is not obvious and the attempt at explanation is part of the ritual itself.The process  is the point of the seder; and through the repetition  the past is brought to life and there is new discovery

Vayikra: Industry

Vayikra: Industry

The closest I ever came to an animal sacrifice was shlaging kaporoth, the expiation ritual, traditionally done on the day before Yom Kippur   I did it twice, 

The first time, I did it in Brooklyn, NY.  I went to the live poultry market on Belmont Avenue. Belmont Avenue is really in Brooklyn, not Brooklyn, NY.  Belmont Avenue was the street that was impervious to progress.  It was the last street to have pushcarts - horse drawn wagons without the horse, pushed by peddlers, parked at the curb, selling "notions", "foundations", fruit, anything.  Belmont Avenue was the  home of the last live poultry market- where there were all kinds of winged beasts: chickens, geese, turkeys, and especially, lice. 

We ( Allen Mansfield was there [and he will undoubtedly correct the story]) went to Abe Levy's live  poultry market and each of us got  a chicken,  The chickens were assigned, not selected.  The chickens were not white, they were multicolored.  We  wore  hats. I  held my  chicken by the legs and when I swung him over my head, saying Ze chalifathi, this is my exchange, the bird flapped his wings. ( More experienced kaparoth shlaggers hold the wings, too)  After three sets of  three circular swings, I handed the chicken to the shochet, He checked the knife ( it looked more like a straight razor [what the Gentiles use to shave themselves]).threw back the head of the chicken to expose the neck and slit the throat,  A drop of blood dripped out.  The chicken went from living to dead. More blood, the chicken convulsed, the blood was covered with sawdust ( kisui hadam), the dead chicken was taken away and a plucked, cut up;  the chicken carcass was returned in high quality  wax paper.  I took the chicken meat home.  My mother prepared it.  It became part of the pre-Yom Kippur feast.  After Yom Kippur, I became a vegetarian.  I had seen how small and simple is the death of an animal, my exchange chicken. 

The next time I shlaged kaporoth was in Seatle.  I was with a group of the wilder Seattle Orthodox men  We got the chickens from the Pollack Poultry Processing Company.  The chickens were white.  This time, I held the wings  while the chicken orbited around my head.  Rabbi Benzaquen  shechted the chicken, a simple, silent  slit, followed by the convulsion, the covering of the blood.  This part was all done in the BCMH parking lot ( when it had a patch of dirt and grass),  In Seattle there was no one to pluck the chicken. After some discussion, we took the chickens to the poultry processing plant.  

(The processing had to be changed.  Usually, the dead chickens are showered with hot water to loosen the feathers for the plucking machine. But, that would make the meat treif, the blood had not been removed and the blood would be cooked with the meat.  So the  hot water was turned off.)

Then I beheld industrial  proultry rocessing.  Crates of identical, live, white chickens, each containing about 10 chickens, are handled by 2 workers  Each worker removes two chickens at a time and hangs each  chicken, by its feet on restraining,  not penetrating, hooks on a conveyor belt.  The belt lifts the chickens and they move along until the conveyor turns a corner.  At  the corner is a rotating razor that slits the throat of the bird.  A basin beneath catches the blood.  The machine  then processes the chicken,  All the parts are collected and used.  Chicken Treblinka. 

Vayikra begins the description of the sacrificial rite. It was Belmont Avenue, but I  imagine that there were so many, a line outside the mishkan.  Was it industrial, too? 

Vayakeil_ Pikudei: talent and accomplishment

The assembly of the Miskan required materials, talent, skill and enthusiasm.   It is the great construction and contrasts with all the other  constructions  and projects: the tower of Babel, Noah's ark, the store cities of Pithom and Ramses, the golden calf.

The mishkan is a triumph of talent, skill, and  organization. The Torah tells us that all who were skilled, chacham lev, took part. Bezalel and Ohaliav are singled out. Bezalel is filled with the spirit of the Almighty ( Ruach E) .  This Ruach E first appeared in the third verse of Genesis, when it hovered over the primordial waters. It  preceded the call for light,   That seems like quite a creative force that filled Bezalel.

This spirit evoked chochma (skill) thevuna ( artistry) daath ( knowledge) machshava ( creativity) lihoroth (communication skills) - all of the engineering talents


The  first human construction is the fig leaf clothing, produced in reaction to the effects of the Eitz Hadaath ( tree of knowledge).  This was a product of such  poor quality,  Gd replaced them with leather  garments, as a gift. The sacred garments of the Priests contained no leather, although the covering of the Mishkan includes  ram and Tachash hides.

The first human construction was an altar. The leads  to the great altercation : Cain killed Hevel.  The danger of the sacred

Then Cain builds a city for his son. Cities begin with the outcast

In the description of the tower of Babel, there is an emphasis on the building material: bricks. This is the beginning of the assembly line, interchangeable parts, plug and play. The Tower of Babel involved a process that demeaned.  It was overmanaged.

The golden calf was an economic bubble.  Everyone was running to invest in the new, new thing.

So what is this Mishkan, this resting place for the Shechina?  A Gd  camper?
Perhaps it is just a creation, a valid cooperation between Gd and humans, a manifestation of the Ruach E through human engineering.  This is just what the Ruach does: it creates, it produces. Those who host it cannot do otherwise

The product lasts. The mishkan continues to exist ( on paper)  and in the imagination.

Ki Thisa: democracy and leadership

The parsha begins with the great (democratic) poll tax.

In Capital in the Twentieth Century, Thomas Piketty extols  the virtues of taxation.  He explains that  taxes allow for a detailed view of history, especially demographics.   That is one of the ways in which the half shekel  tax  in our parsha is used.  It is a census of adult males over the age of 20.  The accounting  of the utilization ( in Pikudai) is  a confirmation of  the 600,000 count. .

There are several taxes in Torah.  Some, like the tithe (maaser) are gradulated, a proportion of the agricultural production.  Others are undefined ( ayn lahem shiur)  and contain a voluntary component, depend, in part ,on the generosity of the  donor. 

By our standards, the half shekel tax ,described here, is regressive.  it is not sensitive to means or situation.  It is a huge burden for the poor and trivial for the rich. The flat tax pretends that everyone has the same opportunity.  It gives everyone an equal share in the great enterprise.  In that sense, it is maximally democratic. 

Perhaps the half shekel is part of the Jewish" bar", the minimum achievement demanded of every  ( male) member of the tribe.  That is not, necessarily, a bad thing.  Personally I  feel that bar ( somewhat higher than the annual half shekel)

The common project, to which everyone contributes equally,  is in contrast to to the  Socialist credo: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  Our parsha explores the extremes  of these ideas. 

The crucial act in the parsha is the creation of the Golden Calf, the idol demanded by the leaderless people.  In the absence of Moshe ( the man that they never understood: כִּי־זֶ֣ה ׀ מֹשֶׁ֣ה הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הֶֽעֱלָ֙נוּ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְנוּ מֶה־הָ֥יָה לֽוֹ׃) the crowd ruled, we have a purely "democratic" situation. Everyone is "equal"  The result is unfortunate, idolatry.  

וַיַּ֣רְא הָעָ֔ם כִּֽי־בֹשֵׁ֥שׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה: This is translated :"And when the people saw that Moses delayed",  But the usual translation of Boshesh is embarrassed.  I think that this  word reflects the people's  low self esteem ( the same attutude that that let the spy's say that they looked like grasshoppers in the eyes of the Canaanites).  They felt that Moshe was not like them, and in his absence they demanded that they be (the worst of) themselves: hence the Golden Calf. 

When Moshe descends  with the second tablets, the distinction between Moshe and ordinary people is clearer.  Ordinary people cannot even look at Moshe, because of his glow.  He must wear a veil and live outside the community. 

 The people's virtue is to accept Moshe  as the leader and law giver. 

There will never be another like him. 

Megilla: Purim supplemt

The megilla story revolves around the battle between Haman and Mordechai. It is a story about (divided)  loyalty, government, human rights, laws,  racism, and antisemitism.

Haman, the villain of the story has an interesting name.  In Hebrew, it means the Manna, the free delicious food that rains down from heaven.  Something for nothing.  Perhaps his name reflects the idea of the free lunch.  An idea that made Google one of the richest companies in the world, an idea that maintains governments all over the world - benefits.

All Haman asks for providing for everyone is the courtesy of the bow. Mordechai, whose name means rebellion, cannot do this.  The Halacha that drives him to this  misdemeanor is not clear.  Others have apparently followed the protocols of government before. Moreover, this act of dissent touches upon an issue implicit in the Megilla story - the loyalties of people from diverse lands in a huge empire.

The megilla attributes the globalization of Haman's resentment, his project to annihilate the Jews,  to his arrogance.  A single man is too small a target for a great man like Haman.  This arrogant globalization  may be more common than we want to believe.

The idea of state visits is also prominent in the megilah story, and speaks  to current events.  Coming to the seat of government without an invitation is a capital offense in the story,  With Obama and (ish Yemini) Netanyahu, an uninvited visit elicited  threats of deterioration in the relationship.   Esther did not like the timing, she would have preferred to deal with the problem when she was summoned in the usual way, but the situation did not allow for delay.  Was it the same now.  I don't know enough of the details to say.