Ve'ethchanan: Listen!

In the  parsha, Gd  tells people to shut up and listen.

Moshe pleads for entry into the promised land. He is silenced and given a viewmaster.

When we are told Shema, listen, isn't the shut up implicit? ( Later it is explicit   Deut 27:9).  I bristle at that kind of address.  Here is this invisible past telling me to shut up!

One of the useful approaches  that is derived from orthodoxy is the assumption of perfection. It is an exercise: treat the system- the Torah text, Gd, Moshe, the rabbis- as if they are infallible.  Shut up  and listen is the best possible advice.   If you listen hard enough, sincerely enough, you can get the message.  If you interrupt and talk, express your own desires, you lose some part of the benefit bestowed by the listening.

Throughout  much of Devarim, the mitzvah is singular and not clearly identified,  Listening would seem to be close to it;

As I listen to the 10 commandments I try to understand the fist commandment:  Gd says: It is all about Me.   Just as in Genesis, the first creation encompasses all of creation, the first commandment encompasses all  The summary precedes the details.

 The interplay between the fourth ( honor parents)  and fifth  ( Shabbath)  commandments is interesting.

Back in Vayikra ( 19:3) we are told: 

Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and ye shall keep My sabbaths. 

The relationship between parents and the Shabbath  is mentioned.  That verse, in Vayikra, was taught to me as a message to give the word of Gd ( as interpreted by the rabbis) priority.  Yet the Shema instructs the parent to teach the child about Gd and the mitzvah.  On cannot hear two voices ( Megilla 21b) even if they are saying the same thing! Perhaps listening to the Shabbath corrects the message of the parents.  Perhaps listening to the parents corrects the message of Shabbath.

The story of the people of Israel standing before Sinai is retold.  The people beg for the voice to be silenced.  Let Gd speak to Moshe and let the law trickle down to the people. The voice is lethal! But a way must be found to listen. 

Devarim: knowledge

Devarim: knowledge

The parsha introduces Devarim, musings.  We begin to hear the story that was told in Shemoth and Bamidbar , now through the eyes of Moshe.  We are told a version  of events as perceived  ( and edited)  by a participant.   The human, tainted by the fruit of knowledge, reports. 

 There was an expectation: an 11 day journey from Sinai to the border of the Promised land. It  took 40 years. The delay is attributed to the gathering of intelligence about the Promised Land. 

That process of gathering information and reporting on the land has similarities to the first  act of gathering intelligence- from the tree of knowledge. Both stories take place in wondrously magnificent lands.  In both stories, fruit is taken from the land.  In both stories the acquired knowledge leads to long exile.  Perhaps it is the informatoin and the response to it, replacing faith  with calculation, that  spoils the grand plan.

Often, I deal with people who have a poor prognosis,  Any calculation produces a low probability of survival,  If the  patient adopts the reality of his hopeless situation, she can make a better informed decision about the direction of his care,  But the cost is hopelessness. Sometimes,  an edited simplification of  this calculation  is used to guide the patient to  a (less costly)  therapeutic approach.  I try to be careful about this,  I  try to state the probabilities as clearly and accurately as I can.  I ask the patient about pain and suffering and try to sort out who ( patient, family, society, payer) is doing the suffering. I try to respect the patient's perspective,  But decisions based on limited knowledge are often misguided.

During these 9 days that start Av, I remember how my parents beat the odds, did not look at the odds, to survive the holocaust and its aftermath. Faith triumphed over reason.

Reason is only a tool. It needs to used with wisdom. It is at the service of faith. 

Matoth- Masei: Promises Promises

It is a  coincidence of parshath hashevuah and daf yomi.  The current  tractate of the talmud is Nedarim, vows.
Vows are a major theme in both parshioth.  In Matoth, explicit vaows are dealt with .  In Masei the vow is more subtle, perhaps more problematic,

Matoth starts with the requirement of keeping one's vows Gd requires that the (Kellog-Briand)  treaty be kept. This obligation is immediately followed by some of the conditions in which a (girl's) vow is invalidated.  In the talmud, the invalidation of vows is a major subject, almost always an option,

The vow of  the tribes of Reuben and Gad, to lead the vanguard for the conquest of the promised land, despite their prior settlement outside the (original) borders is the model for valid agreement: stipulating the benefits of keeping the oath and the penalty for a breech. Devorah tells us that Reuben did not participate in the battle against Sisra. ( Judges 5:16).

Gd took forty years to fulfill the Promise of the Land, and then there were people living here, people to displace by force of arms.  Funny promise.

The daughters of Zelophechad are adjured to marry into their own tribe.  But in Taanith (30a) we are told that this edict of endogamy was revoked, and its revocation is a source of joy, a source or the 15th of Av ( the anniversary of meeting my  Karen), the day of joyous pairings in Israel, the day that remediates the first 9 days of Av.  A revocation of  Gd's commandment and ordinance is the source of joy.

Is no vow sacred?   

Pinchas: rules and exceptions

Pinchas:  rules and exceptions

Pinchas is the culmination of a section of Bamidbar  that began in Korach. Korach and his band  ( who are mentioned again in this weeks parsha, Pinchas) question the distribution of the heritable, the heritage. This band  seeks an alternative to the established order: a hereditary priesthood assigned to the descendants of the elder brother of a legislatve leader who holds his position by virtue of a special relationship with  Gd.  Korach et al question both the hereditary title of priesthood and the popular ( democratic, demogoguic, magical) election of Moshe. 

In Chukath, the changing of the guard begins with the passing of Miriam and Aaron  The conquest of  (areas ouside) the promised land begins. israel becomes a military ( world) power  A high degree of organization, led by  the surviving Moshe. is needed. 

In Balak, the invocation of Devine is shown to have limits.  Bilam can petition Gd, but not change Gd's will. 

 At the end of Balak, there is the Midianite transgression, a rebellion couched in the lewd.  But the choice of tribe, the Midianites, is so significant.  Moshe was inroducted to Gd when he was a Midianite. Moshe married a Midianite.  Pinchas' mother was a Midianite. The Midianites were relatives. Pinchas part Midianite, struck the blow against ( further) mixing  with the Midianites. He provoked their Archduke.  And for this act, he is rewarded.

Pinchas is rewarded with the wish of Korach. Pinchas is made the Priestly heir, dispite his prior disqualification because of his  birth prior to Aaron's induction into the pristhood ( perhaps, prior to the implementation of additional marrital restrictions on the Priests).  The rules are changed for Pnchas.  Merit prevails over birth`. 

Similarly, the courage of the daughters of Zelophchad raises  the women's issue  of its day.  Gd makes the decision. Gd says that the daughters of Zelophchad speak properly! The daughters of the shaddow of fear won! ( Should they have asked for more?)

 The law is fluid. 

Ask Gd. 

Balak: Mad Men

Balak: Mad Men

A lot depends on how you say it.  This parsha is about a mouthpiece, a hired communicator, a lobbyist to the Highest Authority. His words had power, they could influence the outcome .

There is a lot of repeating in the prasha.  The messengers of Balak repeat Balak's offers to Bilam. The first messengers repeat the Bialm's reply.  Bilam repeats what Gd has told him, to the chagrin of Balak. 

When Bilam is asked, in his dream, about the princes of Moab who have come to hire him, he describes the mission in some of  the same  prejudiced words of his potential sponsor. 

הִנֵּ֤ה הָעָם֙ הַיֹּצֵ֣א מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם וַיְכַ֖ס אֶת־עֵ֣ין הָאָ֑רֶץ עַתָּ֗ה לְכָ֤ה קָֽבָה־לִּי֙ אֹת֔וֹ אוּלַ֥י אוּכַ֛ל לְהִלָּ֥חֶם בּ֖וֹ וְגֵרַשְׁתִּֽיו׃

The Israelites are described as the (landless) people who left (the place where thy belong) Egypt and are now "covering the face of the earth."  Their population is too dense for their location, they are an invasive species, they reproduce too fast, they  are  like locusts ( Exodus 10:15, uses the same phrase to describe the locusts)...covering the face of the earth.  Covering the eye of the earth, the most delicate and precious part. 

They are a horror.  It would add to Gd's glory to eliminate them!

But the Almighty has sales resistance. Gd says don't go to do this, a solution that would save Bilam from  the trial ( the journey to Moab) and error ( the attempt to curse the Israelites)..  But persistence is one of the key devices of advertising. Bilam's dreamworks concoct a way for him to go.  He may contract for Balak, but stipulate that the statements are beyond his control. Legalese.

Bilam, Balak: these are angry men, mad men The statements of Bilam are  hate redirected to admiration The hate itself  came form admiration. A nation that could leave Egypt  and conquer mighty kings, a nation with a moral code as its constitution, a nation unified by a Gd that  is the same for everyone and does not change is admirable and threatening. So the text tells us
וַיָּ֣קָץ מוֹאָ֔ב Moav abhorred Israel.  The antisemitism of envy is born.

Now, on the threshold of the three weeks of mourning for the downfall of Israel from its glory, we look at these recorded blessings of Bilam  We, in America, where the Jews have flourished , deal with another competing and complementary constitution.

  I, the son of holocaust survivors wonder about the second blessing:
מִ֤י מָנָה֙ עֲפַ֣ר יַעֲקֹ֔ב וּמִסְפָּ֖ר אֶת־רֹ֣בַע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל תָּמֹ֤ת נַפְשִׁי֙ מ֣וֹת יְשָׁרִ֔ים וּתְהִ֥י אַחֲרִיתִ֖י כָּמֹֽהוּ׃

Who hath counted the dust of Jacob, Or numbered the stock of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let mine end be like his!

Now we understand the dust: it is the ashes of Treblinka. Which death did he mean: gassing?

But we are the children of the survivors.  Gd spare us from the envy of Mad Men