Shemoth: Definition

Shemoth: Definition

This is the first parsha of the second book of the Torah: Shemoth.  Shemoth are names.  Names convey identification, a fundamental understanding of the named entity.  The book of shemoth describes Gd. In our parsha, Gd is a champion of justice for the persecuted  nation, the source of miracles.  Gd is the master of history: it can only unfold as predicted. Later in the book, Gd is the source of law, the judge of the people and the object of worship in the sanctuary. 

The story begins with the unification of the people through persecution.  This is a theme that I can identify with. The new Pharaoh wants to restructure society.  He has to deal with the terrible  immigration  policy of the former ruler, a policy that allowed a foreign people to settle in the land and grow, through an unrestricted baby boom, into a potential threat to the current order.  The new Pharaoh wants to Egyptify the nation. They will eliminate all Hebrew males! But the obstetrical staff will not participate in this effort because they fear the E. The midwives answer to a power that is above the Pharaoh. They will not follow orders.  This is a model for all generations and all peoples. 

Thus, even before Gd is revealed to Moshe, the (scattered) belief in a greater entity ( or principle) can mold behavior , even in the face of danger.  The midwives probably expected to be killed for disobeying, but they were not. ( How often was this the case in later persecutions?)  The Pharoah was so crazy, he extended the edict of male infanticide to all of Egypt.  This was a  Dr Strangelove act.  Reproduction was to be  limited to the elite males ( and a large pool of females). 

At the end of the parsha, Gd instructs Moshe to go to Pharaoh and ask for a holiday for the Hebrews.  This request results in extraordinary demands on the enslaved Hebrews, embittering  their lives.  They protest against Moshe and the harm he has brought upon them.  Moshe complains to Gd that since starting on the mission he has only increased the suffering of the people.  But now the people are more unified by their common persecution.  This is the Yuval Harari  moment, when the common cause of liberation becomes apparent - and it will be done in the name of ...

Vyechi: Legacy

In The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Snyder posits opposing theories of history.  The conservative view (Vladimir Putin) is that history is an endless repeating cycloid, an eternal battle among tribes for dominance.  The liberal view ( Steven Pinker) is that the human condition is constantly improving as values become universal. 

Vyechi, this weeks parsha, is a self contained unit.  It begins by telling us that Yaakov spent his last 17 years in Egypt and that he lived a total of 147 years. The parsha ends elaborating on Jacob's funeral and contains a coda about the the death ( and reburial  plans) of Joseph.   The 17 years mentioned here echo back to parshath Veyeshev ( 37;2), the section that talks about Jacob living in the Promised Land after overcoming the challenge of Esau.  There we here that:אֵ֣לֶּה ׀ תֹּלְד֣וֹת יַעֲקֹ֗ב יוֹסֵ֞ף בֶּן־שְׁבַֽע־עֶשְׂרֵ֤ה שָׁנָה֙ Joseph was the legacy of Jacob, and at age 17, he was separated from his father.  

The book of Bereshith, which ends with this week's parsha, Vyechi, contains a strong current of sibling rivalry as a  recurring theme. .  The first murder is based upon the envy of  Cain  for his brothers Abel's success (in pleasing  Gd).  The sons of Abraham compete ( to this day) for the title of heir to the legacy and land. Isaac's sons had a relationship filled with envy and murderous rage. Now Jacob's offspring are evaluated and graded according to their blessings. Cycloid.

The family finds itself in Egypt, the dominant civilization of the time, by virtue of the accomplishments of Joseph.  Joseph is the Abel of his time.  He had been thrown into a pit with murderous intent and sold into servitude by his resentful brothers.

 Joseph is the Jew who rises to inordinate success in the Gentile world.  He is the Einstein, the Rothscild, the Haber of his age, the agent of human progress.  He is a  credit to his people and the  reason the family is in Egypt, the goldene medina of its time. Even Jacob, who risked his life to lay claim to the Promised Land in Canaan has descended to Egypt. 

This parsha is about Jacob's death and dying. The four wives of Jacob make for a messy situation.  To Joseph, Jacob declares that Rachel, his mother, was the true wife. Joseph , Rachel's first born, is given the double portion of the firstborn by virtue of assigning full tribal status to each of his two sons.  Jacob also assigns the firstborn status to the younger of Joseph's sons. What a trickster!

Jacob blesses the other 11 sons.  These blessings look more like final grades, evaluations, expressed in code or poetry.  Reuben's sins are reviewed, Shimon and Levi are critically dismissed , Judah is assigned a blood stained scepter  of majesty .  The statements become increasingly obscure.

When Jacob dies, Joseph is in attendance.  He kisses his father's still warm corpse.  I had that privilege with my own father.  When my father died on an airplane, flying toward the most American part of this goldene medina ( Seattle, Washington), per his stated desire, I did CPR- including the kiss of mouth to mouth resuscitation. His dying kiss will always be with me.

Like Joseph, I took his body to Israel for burial, next to his wife.   Plots for Karen ( my only wife) and I, are reserved nearby. Are we reliving the story? Maybe we can learn something from the precedents, and progress to a better world.

Vayigash: Social Contract ; Capital in the 14th Century (BC)

Vayigash: Social Contract
Capital in  the 14th Century (BC)

In this week's parsha is that the Israel family, which spawned the Israelite nation, emigrated to Goshen, a place near ( gosh means approach), or in, Egypt, This sets the stage for the foundational story of the Jews, the Exodus, the slave revolt of liberation.  

The Egyptian exile had been foretold to Abraham, in a trance, between animal halves,  after he had returned from his own messy sojourn there.   Didn't Abraham warn his grandson?  Would the warning have helped? 

What was the purpose of the bondage in Egypt?  Abraham's vision included the accumulation of wealth.  Abraham himself had achieved ( perhaps through dubious means) wealth in Egypt , and that may have helped him dominate Canaan upon his return.  It probably helped him raise his army  to rescue Lot in the war with the  Mesopotamian kings.  Abraham had gone to Egypt to survive a famine, his great grandchildren returned to Egypt for the same reason... but they remained

Joseph tells his family to move to Egypt, to leave the land for which  Jacob risked everything when he confronted Esau, the land bought from Hamor the Hivite (there is much more to that story).  They are to leave this land , פֶּן-תִּוָּרֵשׁ lest they become impoverished.  Does this justify American ( and all other  diaspora) Judaism despite the existence of a Jewish state in the Promised Land?  Is the  Egypt story, condoning expatriation for affluence,   part of the  Jungian structure that created the Judaism of the Pale of settlement? We know that the Hebrews will soon be enslaved.  They are immigrants and naturally fall to the lowest social rung.  Did their motivation for wealth enslaves them before they were put in chains?

The Haftorah deals with the unification of the descendants of Joseph and Judah. Had the 11 brothers not descended to Egypt it seems likely that the Josephites would have been separated from the rest of the nation, they would have had a different history.  Instead, they became slaves together, unified by the bond of shared suffering and shared liberation

The parsha ends with the restructuring of Egyptian society based upon Joseph's  grain stores.  In the modern models like those of  Marx and  Piketty , the starved people take what they need.  Those who need take from those that have. The ruler sustains the masses to prevent revolution.  This  Egyptian state, led by Joseph,  is the provider.  The people and the land become  Pharaoh's property based upon a sale under duress.  The starving people gratefully accept the sovereignty of their purchaser and accede to a permanent 20% income tax.  The system  derives its validity from  the will of every individual to survive.


The role of the Jew -  brilliant savior,  greedy interloper, subjugated low life, threat to society .   Has it changed? 

Miketz: seeing the future

Miketz: seeing the future

I prefer not to take this week's parsha at face value. What do we make of dream interpretation and the patterns left by wine dregs  as methods for predicting future events. I was taught to reject such techniques as alien to my culture...poo, poo, poo.

In this century, we, Jews,  are a people of science: the producers of 20% of Nobel Prizes, the victor's over polio, founders of Facebook. The dybuks are the subjects of movies with special effects.

The preservation of beliefs that I would now call magical is  a problem in some types of Orthodoxy.  Drawing the line between customs  whose significance we don't understand and  superstition can be challenging.   Preservation above understanding is an Orthodox principle,  it is a humility of spirit that demands obedience before analysis. Change requires the imprimitur of high authority, and the authorities are generally change averse.Communities vary in their Spectra of customs and magic, but we all have some.

There is a way to rationalize Miketz.  Although the classic nature of the story makes it seem as if Joseph's interpretation of Pharoah's dream is inevitable and correct, the text tells us that the scholars of the age were baffled. The dreams were open to a broad range of interpretations. Joseph's prediction of  bumper crops pushed down the price of grain in the first seven years.  In a time of surplus, the farmer needs to sell a lot of wheat to buy a tunic. The incessant working of the land depletes it, leading to famine. The speculators -who bought in the times of plenty- now have a dear staple.  The  interpretation of the dream has led to rescuing the people from a famine that the same interpretation generated.  It has also amassed all of the area's wealth to the Pharoah. What a great adivsor! The significance of a dream is in it's interpretation.(see Brachoth 55b)

I don't think that Pharoah was a gullible fool, either.  The story can be read as this weird, young man, Joseph, coming out of prison and presenting a brilliant dream interpretation.  But Joseph had a history. He had managed Potiphar's  estate and he had been extraordinarily successful.  He was the prison commissioner. He's had a great track record. He was no rookie.

I have previously talked about the unwritten challenges that Joseph overcame, preserving the  grain for years and the echo of Fritz Haber.

The parsha ends with the framing of Benjamin for stealing Joseph's chalice.  The text has Joseph saying that one should assume that a person in his position practices divination.  הֲל֣וֹא יְדַעְתֶּ֔ם כִּֽי־נַחֵ֧שׁ יְנַחֵ֛שׁ אִ֖ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר כָּמֹֽנִי׃ Rashi rescues us from hocus pocus, interpreting Joseph's words to mean that viceroy can figure things out logicality, including who stole the chalice.   הֲלֹא יְדַעְתֶּם כִּי אִישׁ חָשׁוּב כָּמוֹנִי יוֹדֵעַ לְנַחֵשׁ וְלָדַעַת מִדַּעַת וּמִסְּבָרָא וּבִינָה, כִּי אַתֶּם גְּנַבְתֶּם הַגָּבִיעַ Yay Rashi!

One of the best parts of the yeshiva model is meshing the texts and the traditions with evolving science... Without surrendering to it.