Achrei Moth- Kedoshim:  Dying for sins

This weeks double parsha is contextualized after the death of  the sons of Aaron, when they, uninvited,  approached  to face Gd.  Immediately thereafter, Moshe instructs Aaron to enter the inner sanctum only on the Yom Kippur after a chorigraphed foreplay ritual.  Entry into the inner sanctum requires Gd's consent, and that is scheduled for Yom Kippur.  The visit to the Holy of Holies  must be done for the purpose  of expiation, with smoke and animal blood.  Doing it in any other way, for any other reason, can be fatal.  Deviations from the formula had led to the deaths of two of Aaron's sons. 

Nadav and Avihu had died for a sin they did not know.  The warning about unwelcome advance into the sanctum had not been expressed prior to their erroneous adventure. The danger of their action was unknown to them, they died for their sins without warning. Presumably, the inner sanctum, on most days, is naturally toxic - in the absence of  preparation.  It is the nature of the place.  Their warning was the ancient tradition: trespass is forbidden and dangerous This is an admonition passed down from parent to child, echoing back to Adam in the garden. 

The second parsha, Kedoshim, hints at the  dual sources of instruction: parents and the Sabbath.אִ֣ישׁ אִמּ֤וֹ וְאָבִיו֙ תִּירָ֔אוּ וְאֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַ֖י תִּשְׁמֹ֑רוּ

You shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My sabbaths:

The Sabbath is an exemplar of the Divine ordinances, as stated in the Torah.  And it is more.  It is also an interpretation of nature, a way to organize.  The weekly day of rest is also a method of self preservation .  The Sabbath unifies the stories of creation and  liberation with the flow of time. 

This introductory verse states the two (or more)  valid  sources tradition.  Parents and Torah inform us of the boundries, and thus preserve us safe. It is our job to explore, but we need to be aware of the danger. 

Be careful. Be polite.  Be true to yourself

Thazriah - Metzorah: Signs, symptoms, semiotics

At first,  it seems quite strange.  These untranslatable words, relating to skin lesions.  White spots that appear deep, below the surface; red and green spots on cloth, on houses.  The signs of tzorath, a disorder translated as leprosy by the King James Committee. 

The problem is the consequences.  Having these signs means a brief imprisonment.  Do the spots spread? Do they fade? Do they remain?   And if the wrong thing happens, the object -  the cloth or the house - is destroyed.  And of it is a person - he is isolated from the camp, she must cover all of her body and announce his contamination. 

To an oncologist, this is not so strange.  A swollen lymph node on the left shoulder points to malignancy in the abdomen.   A black spot  on an arm with a swollen gland in the armpit means that the angel of death is lurking. A bloody nose in an Ebola area warns of contagion.  We call this science.  We can show the connections, aided by Google images.  The idea that certain signs, in themselves trivial,  indicate  a significant issue was the basis of the medical diagnostic mystique.  The interpretation of these signs made doctors  appear prophetic - from Hippocrates to Dr. Zorba to House. 

We have lost the circuit diagram. The connection between spots and tahara ( purity?) is lost.  I do not really understand the meaning of tahara.  There is some hint that  is related to clarity, perhaps transparency.  In the book of Exodus, the description of a glimpse of heaven

 וְתַ֣חַת רַגְלָ֗יו כְּמַעֲשֵׂה֙ לִבְנַ֣ת הַסַּפִּ֔יר וּכְעֶ֥צֶם הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לָטֹֽהַר׃

contains the tahor word.  It evokes  cleanliness.undisturbed uniformity, the absence of spots.

I would like to think that tahara, heavenliness, does not depend upon the crass judgments based upon appearance and smell.  I think of a disheveled, old person, with her distinctive aroma that emanates from foul emissions,  as a paradigm of purity - tahara.  I am reminded that the cleaning of the (rotting) dead is called tahara. 

I do not understand the world.  Here are the instructions.  The translation does not work

Shemini: Ownership

This is the week of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust remembrance day. The story of the death of Nadav and Avihu, described in this week's parsha, is one of the religious paradigms used to soothe the feelings elicited by the Holocaust. The comfort derives from the reaction of Moshe and Aaron to this unexpected tragedy, a  death associated with the performance of the sacred service.

 בקרבי אקדש ועל־פני כל־העם אכבד וידם אהרן

Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD meant when He said: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent.

The verse is a knock out punch.

Moshe implies that catastrophe was pre-ordained. Until now, we did not understand the meaning of  Gd's words. The death of Nadav and Avihu, the destruction of European Jewery -  with its Torah study and religious devotion - was predicted as the way to  demonstrate Gd's holiness.  Nadav, Avihu, the six million, they  were sacrifices, korbanoth ( that is what my parents called them).  They are  the krovai.

How comforting is that? We just don't understand how the world works. Welcome to the unfolding of the Divine plan.

The second word: ekadesh,  is translated as "will be holy"  We know that Nadav and Avihu  ( and many holocaust victims, and victims of war) were  killed by fire.  When the Torah forbids certain hybrids, it uses a form of  this word, tikdash.  In that context, it means consumed by fire.  Perhaps there is a hint of that meaning here, as well.  My parents also called the holocaust victims kedoshim: holy ones -  or burnt ones.

Aaron's reaction, vayidom, is translated as silence. He was struck dumb. But it is hard to avoid the other meaning of this phoneme - dam, blood. I can imagine the blood rushing to  Aaron's face, or draining from his body, as he hears this "explanation" for the death of his two eldest sons, as he realizes how dangerous this temple service is.

The first mention of sacrifices, the story of Cain and Abel,  results in the death of one of the supplicants and the ( silent)  blood, dam, of Abel cries out.  The blood of my ancestors is still screaming in my ears. 

The simple reading of  the story  is that  Nadav and Avihu  were presumptuous, they took the service upon themselves, they took too much ownership.  Later, in the story of Korach, we see the same qualities punished in the same way.  When Korach and his band demand a role in the service  that was no granted to them, they do exactly what Nadav and Avihu did: take firepans with incense - and they come to the same end: they die from the service, leaving behind sanctified pans.  Pretense is a fatal error in this religion business. 

That makes me wonder about Yom Hashoah, a holiday legislated by the Knesset  in 1959, not fully accepted by all Orthodox communities. Is this taking too much on ourselves?  Would Gd prefer us  bloody  and dumbfounded? 

Achron shel Pesach: The Splitting of the Sea

Achron shel Pesach: The Splitting of the Sea

The technology of this feat defies understanding.  That is the point.  It was so wondrous that it convinced the Israelites that their Gd was powerful enough to take care of them, permanently protect them from the Egyptians - or anyone else foolish enough to start up with the protected people.  If one understood the methodology, how the sea was split for a time,  it would be less invincible. But the lack of understanding for such an outrageous event- for the modern mind-  makes it  incredible.

Immanuel Velikovsky, in the 1950's,  presented a theory of cosmic catastrophe( Worlds in Collision, New York: Laurel)   as an explanation  for the plagues and other miraculous events, including the parting of the Sea,  in the Exodus. (Carl Sagan , and many other recognized astronomers found these explanations inconsistent with the established understanding of physics.)  Attempts at scientific explanation, like the far-fetched Velikovsky's, change the miraculous event, like the splitting of the sea, from an act of Gd into an amazing event in need of explanation. The pre-(pseudo) scientific society attributed the event  to the author of the amazing- Gd. This relegates Gd to, either, (1) a temporary explanation for the primitive mind, or (2) the creator of a miraculous nature. 

Actually, for most amazing things - from genetic engineering to nuclear physics- the vast majority of people have only a psuedo- understanding, a belief that some credible person understands it.  Someone understands how the light goes on when I flip a switch. Often the people who do "understand" the wondrous things appreciate miraculous elements  within the process.  Elements that can be describe, not explained.  By virtue of their comprehension, they are aware of questions that may never be answerable. 

From the other side, from the ancient, preservation side: Why was this fabulous story not relegated to myth? Why was treated differently from the feats of Zeus?

Certainly, maintaining the story as history reflects  a great deal on the people who keep it as a foundational story.  These people needed the idea and hope that a powerful Gd would  protect them from the onslaught  of persecution that characterized their history.  They needed this rescue to be fact. And for those that survived, it remained so.   I imagine that when my father threw himself into the Bug River, when he was running away from Treblinka ( after the uprising), the story of the splitting of the sea formed part of the complex thought process that gave him the courage to plunge into that dangerous water, not knowing how to swim.  He remembered the interpretation of the verse, when Moses, confronted by the sea, asked Gd what to do now, Gd answered: Go forward!.  This is interpreted by the Rabbis to  imply that the waters did not split until Nachshon, the first to take the plunge, was up to his neck in water.  So my father, like Nachshon threw himself in .... when he had nothing to lose.

Maybe, the story is just true.