Balak: What Hath Gd Wrought

Bamidbar 23:23 is a complex verse, part of the second pronouncement of Bilaam .  It ends with this line: What Hath Gd Wrought (in the King James translation). That is probably the translation the Samuel F.B.Morse knew, and hence the phrase that he quoted for the first telegraphic message ever sent. 

Quoting the verse from this weeks parsha was an act of humility.  An artifice had been created, using a force that was unknown to the ancients, controlled electricity. This invention could transmit information at unimaginable speed over thin wires.  Was this not a human creation? Where was the divine  in this? 

What Hath Gd Wrought is the name of a book I read this year.  It is a history of the United States from 1814 to 1848. The book emphasizes the interplay between technology and the expansion of the United States across the continent. The telegraph, carried along railroad lines, was a climax of that process.  Now that messages could be transmitted across great distances in minutes ,  it was possible to unify the continent under a central administration. In that sense, Morse was understanding Bilaam as meaning that Gd had promised the Israelites such greatness that it would amaze the onlooker.  Moreover, the greatness would come through a process that was previously unimaginable, a great innovation.

 Look at the beginning of the verse: כִּ֤י לֹא־נַ֙חַשׁ֙ בְּיַעֲקֹ֔ב וְלֹא־קֶ֖סֶם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל 

There is no enchantment in  Jacob, no divination in Israel. When people look on in wonder, the achievements  that amaze have come about without magic -  or did they? How different is science from magic?  It is a difference in the attribution of power. Magic ascribes the  power to the individual performers ability to manipulate forces that others cannot possibly understand.  Science makes these forces public.  The One Gd is the source of wonders, and they are available to anyone who can do the math.  (see psalm 20)

Marty Jaffee once told me this joke: 

Israel  was at war.  A chasid cries out among the troops:"Soldiers, don't rely on miracles -- say Tehilim ( psalms)!

Chukath: The Rules

The parsha starts with the preparation for the survivor of death.  Touching, carrying, sharing a space with death is a contamination that can never be completely cleansed. The most elaborate of rituals, the red hefer reduces the intensity so that the exposed person can re-enter  the community. 

The red heifer was a unique animal, hard to find, one of its kind ( only 9 have been offered).  It was the regent of its species- forbidden from work of any kind, totally separated form the mundane .  It is like the memory of the departed, pure and simple and holy; washed of the grime of reality.

The heifer is never brought into the temple.  A tribute of its blood is sprinkled, by the High Priest, in the direction of the temple, but the rite of this animal is outside.   All sacrificial rites must be performed in the temple. This  is not a sacrificial rite  This is the manufacture of  a product , a purifier.  The High Priest has a supervisory role, he is the Mashgiach.  The High Priest does not deal with death.

When Aaron dies the good death, his euthanasia, he ascends the mountain with Moshe and his son Elazar.  He transfers the holy vestments to the heir and does not descend with them.  The details are left to Gd.

The ashes of the red hefer were suspended in spring water. The final, irreducible  vestige of a living thing, a kind of dirt, is mixed with essence of clean.  The water is muddied, the ashes are cleaned.  The  ambivalent mixture  is sprinkled on the confused person,  who is recovering from her exposure to mortality.

The red hefer recovery ritual is prepared for the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, leaders of the people.  They were recognized by everyone, and they generated  a range of ideas and impressions throughout the nation.  Every person had to work through the memories and the loss.  That process needed to end with a purification. The ritual does not resolve conflict, it does not bring enlightenment, it just ends a phase and allows re-entry.

We have piles of ashes, not from heifers. They no longer generate memories, only history and ideas.
Are there enough ashes for our purification?

Korach: the Test

In Yiddish, enormous wealth is expressed in the phrase: Reich vi Korach, .  Korach was imagined by Chazal  to be fabulously wealthy.  Presumably, that wealth was an important component of his challenge to the leadership of Moshe and Aaron. 

Wealth can generate confidence.  The ability to pay people to do one's bidding can have an impact on self image.  It can be habit forming.  I can imagine that the boss, by virtue of his wealth, says that either things go his way or, " Your Fired!" Such a sense of entitlement is hard to muster in the poor,who are dependent on the resources controlled by the powerful.

Moshe had  a dose of power when he was raised as a prince in Egypt. The practice he had organizing an ordering subjects was probably useful in his career as prophet and leader.  Of course, later he wielded much greater, supernatural,  power with humility.

Korach's self assurance may have also had a component of self congratulation. It was his skill in the administration of Pharoah's ( Joseph's) treasury that put him in a position to acquire his enormous fortune.  He could believe that his own efforts had brought  him to his position.  Perhaps his father had started him off with a measly million, Korach had turned it into a real fortune and a reputation that would last forever.  Was it not reasonable to try to procure a position of leadership, a tax supported priesthood?  And it could all be done in form of a popular, democratic uprising.  The plebeians could vent their frustration with the current hierarchy.

The upstarts are put to the test. Can anyone be a high priest? Can anyone be an NBA star, an Albert Einstein? Assuming a role requires competence, and extreme competence requires talent. The acquisition of wealth can indicate a skill set, but those skills are not the same as what is needed for beneficent leadership.

   The outcome of  Korach's  test was predictable.  Aaron's sons had died through errors in the incense service. The danger of that activity had been demonstrated. Trying  that activity was clearly a mortal danger; it was an act of arrogance.

The Korach rebellion cost was about 15,000 (14,700 + 250) lives.  What will the current crop of posers cost?

Shelach: The Delivery

When the spies return, we expect them to tell the truth.  When they said they saw Giants, that is  what Rashi, quoting Chazal  says that they saw.  When they saw the earth  swallowing it's inhabitants, the report was again accurate, as confirmed by Chazal via Rashi. An attempt to conquer the land, by the ordinary means that they understood, at that time, honestly seemed impossible. This is confirmed, when Moshe pleads on the people's behalf.  He says that outside, objective, observers will say that entering the land was a task that was even beyond Gd. 

The report itself was not the problem.  It was the conclusions.  It was the despondent state, based upon the reports that generated Gd's genocidal anger.  It was honest and true to say that they saw giants and funerals, but the conclusion that entry is impossible was not justified. 

These people had experienced the Exodus and the splitting of the sea.  Even Moshe had thought that feeding 600,000 families meat for a month was outside the possible.  But they had all seen it, and tasted it..  How could they think that entry into the land was beyond the reach of  their guarantor? 

Perhaps there was an element of the availability heuristic.  Kahneman and Tversky, the scouts who explored the processes ( and errors) of decisions, showed that decisions are deeply influenced by the most accessible memories, like the most recent events.  The people had seen the splitting of the sea, but recent events were more frightening. The burning of the edge of the camp, Miriam's tzoraath.  Their memory of Sinai  included the Golden Calf, and the threat of annihilation. 

As a result of their despair, they cannot enter the Promised Land.  The decision to complain, this time, leads to a terrible, irrevocable consequence. 

As an oncologist, I deal with negative information daily.  The CAT scan shows progression, the laboratory numbers look bad.  I take a lesson from this story. The truth must be presented, but the conclusion must be left open.  I do not know every possible path to the future. 

When I send patients to research institutions, I try to immunize them against the errors of judgment that follow from despair. I tell them that the doctors at the research institution will probably paint a bleak picture.  The near hopelessness that follows from the dark predictions allows a person to volunteer for any study that is presented as offering a glimmer of hope, it can lead to a regrettable decision.  An outside expert should look at the offered clinical trial before signing on.  The data needs to be reviewed in detail, from the perspective of the patient, as well from the perspective of the study. 

I have participated in remissions that I thought were impossible.  Chronic myelogenous leukemia went from uniformly fatal to almost never fatal.  Melanoma  metastatic to brain and spine disappeared  with non-cytotoxic immunotherapy .  I am convinced that I do not know the full range of miracles that can occur.  I can not use the term hopeless, it has no objective meaning. 

Gd performs miracles.  They are, however, very rare. 

Behalothecha: Hope

Behalothecha: Hope

Hope is not a light, it is the dream of light. Hope is strongest in time of trouble. Aaron kindles the menorah in the desert.  There is light in a hostile  place without direction.  

As the travels through the desert proceed, the people become nostalgic for Egypt.  Nostalgia is the enemy of hope and progress.  It is a distorted memory that the past was better than the present and the future. For the nostalgic, things will likely get worse.  

The former slaves remember the free food. What free food? They were forced to produce a daily quota of bricks and  had to gather the straw on their off-hours.  When the slave remembers her food as free, there is a distortion of reality favoring the past.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I am often offered a free lunch.  It comes with a free educational opportunity , sponsored by a drug company.  Free. Nothing ain't worth nothing, but its free. 

Despite the absurdity of the confabulation, Moshe wants to satisfy this plea for meat in the desert.  But Moshe anticipates Malthus (consider the name).  The resources are not sufficient to the need.   There is not enough cattle and sheep and fish to feed 600,000 families meat  for a month.

 This perception of limit can have terrible consequences.  If the world's needs are greater than its resources, the nation must secure its own, even if it means others will starve.  According to Timothy Snyder, this was the motivation for Stalin and Hitler. Whether or not this distortion of survival of the fittest really motivated the villains themselves, I am certain it appealed to some of their constituencies. I see it playing in America now. 

Gd is the ultimate source of hope.  To the atheist in the foxhole, Gd is another name for hope.  Thus Gd is the road to peace

Learn from the past.  Hope!