Ki Thisa: Leadership

The dramatic middle of the parsha, the interaction at Sinai - including the episode of the golden calf - is overwhelming.  The end of this portion, the new relationship between the people and the , now sanctified, Moshe is a fitting coda.  The beginning, an expiational poll tax, is appropriate in retrospect.  It establishes an equality among all the contributors. The unifying issue of this chapter is leadership. 

The trouble begins when Moshe is perceived by the people (or at least by the activists of the time) to be delayed.  Moshe had emphasized the danger of approaching the mountain, he had warned that any person or animal that touched the mountain would be stoned to death.  Perhaps Moshe's exemption to the rules had been revoked?  Maybe this response of the people  was similar to what my parents felt when I did not come home until the AM and they did not know where I was? 

The people ask Aaron to makes them an E, an entity that is variously defined by the commentators, to go before the people  in the absence of Moshe.   The Ramban says: 

What they needed was a new "man of God." ..."As long as you were gone, they needed a guide. If you should return, they would leave him and follow you, as they had done at first."

It was a leadership issue, not a metaphysical change of heart. 

The Bekhor Shor  ( 12th century) also interprets  the E as a judge:

 שופט דיין ומנהיג ודבר כמו נתתיך א' לפרעה וכמו עד הא' יבא דבר שניהם וחס ושלום לא נתכוונו לע"ז :

A judge  or leader, as the word (E) is used in ' I will make you a leader (E) to pharaoh' or as in ' the two of them  shall bring the matter to the judges (E) ' and heaven forbid, they did not have idolatry in mind.

He notes that the word is used to mean a master or judge in other contexts. 

Why were the people so desperate for a leader? So desperate that  they alienated the Gd who brought them out of Egypt.  What did the leader do for the people?

From the events described after the  golden calf , the special relationship between Moshe and Gd is revealed.  Moshe is able to deal with the entity of fatal visage (to look at Gd, even for Moshe, is death.)  Moshe, in his plea for the people and their continued close relationship to Gd  - a plea that includes an offer to sacrifice himself and his legacy - reveals at least one aspect of his entitlement for such a role:  He cares for his charges. 

The idea of Gd implies immense power. When the people ask for an E to lead them, they are both conferring and attributing this power. The leader helps the people direct the power at their disposal. 

Tetzaveh: kodesh

The word kadosh appears many times in this weeks parsha.  It is a word that has troubled me. Although I can translate it: holy, sanctified - I do not really understand those words, either. 

In the amida, the third blessing is all about the kodesh of  Gd.  I have come to think that kodesh in that paragraph is a surrogate for loyalty. The statements that Gd is kadosh and Gd's name is kadosh... informs the supplicant that  there is an entity with this property to whom prayer is directed.  It is a way to phrase the politically dangerous idea that allegiance is due to a power that is holier - and more powerful than - the state.  Gd belongs to a realm that  is separate from the mundane, avoiding a direct conflict with the temporal government. 

This also has the implication that the sacred generally supersedes the political.  When there is a call to war or revolution, the holy is invoked: the sanctity of the land, human rights...causes that are greater... and thus kodesh are needed to motivate strong actions. 

 In this week's parsha Aaron and the altars become kodesh. What does it really mean?

The parsha's kodesh centers about the limitation of access. Only the initiated, the priest, may enter the sanctum, perform the rite, approach the most kodesh.  To do these things he must be presentably dressed in the objects specified, and thus carry the names of the tribes on his shoulders and chest.  The priest surrenders his identity to represent the people before the otherwise unapproachable. 

He adopts that aloof quality and becomes an intermediate between the human and the (very dangerous) Divine. 

There is a sense that intense holiness can burn you up.  The use of the word in pen tikdash hamilayo, "lest the fullness of it  tikdash", in reference to the forbidden nature of hybrid grain, is explicated in the talmud to mean that it will need to be consumed in fire.  The sons of Aaron will have the souls burned out of them (spoiler alert)  when they approach the holy at the wrong time, in the wrong way, in the wrong condition.  Kadosh is dangerous. Caution ( and the right clothes) are required!

Teruma: Engineering

Teruma: Engineering

Teruma has the instructions for the Mishkan.  Dimensions are specified.  Materials are designated.   Visual images ( as was shown on the mountain) are referenced. Despite the details, a great deal of artistic leeway remains. The artisans can make it  beautiful or plain. This is a structure that must transcend style and trend. Given the source of the design, that is very likely. 

The Torah begins with instructions. Light, heavens, earth, seas, plants, animals, and sentient humans are all commanded.  Some, unidentified, entity is told to make these marvelous creations...and here we are.  The details of the instructions are not given. 

In our times, we can begin to imagine how this happens. At work, I talk into my "phone", words appear on my screen.  Instructions become available to those nurses and pharmacists who are tasked to carry them out. And they ( almost always) happen.

The biological view of instructions changed with the discovery of messenger RNA ( Sidney Brenner 1957) . Those experiments demonstrated that cells contain an instruction set, DNA that is transmitted through en ephemeral RNA messenger and then translated into protein using an intelligible code.  This system reliably produces all the uniformity necessary for the maintenance of life and all the variability needed to survive variations in circumstance.  It is a marvel of engineering and organization to which we do not attribute consciousness.  That is just the way it is. DNA is the emanation of Gd. Instructions are given, they are followed, the being lives - and flourishes. 

How much of life is following the instructions?  The instructions from Sinai are, as described in the parsha,  enshrined in the ark, covered by the kaporeth, behind the parocheth, in the inner sanctum of the temple. These are the DNA. They define limitations and some goals for our behavior.  Our choices are the variations that drive (progress) evolution.