Bamidbar: who counts

The Talmud designates Bamidbar ( in the desert) as the book of Piqudim. The parsha  involves counting, it repeatedly uses the root word  פְקֻדָ֑ PQD, which the targum ( official translation) renders מִנְיָ MNY, count.  Presumably, that is why the  fourth Book of Moses was designated Numbers in English. The talmudic designation of the other books are:  Sefer Yashirim (book of the upright) for Breshith, Sefer Yitziath Mitzraim ( the Exodus from Egypt) , Torath Kohanim  (Vayikra, Leviticus) and Mishneh Torah (Devarim, Deuteronomy).

PQD,  פְקֻדָ֑ means more than tallying the number, it has a strong connotation of assignment. Each tallied individual has a special role.  The first use of the word (Genesis 21:1)  is Gd remembering the childless Sarah  In this case, Onkelos translates  the word,   פָּקַ֥ד PQD  as   דְּכִיר , remembered.  We can see a relationship.  Counting makes a person or a thing significant.  It counts.

We, in the current Coronaworld, are in the midst of a numbing counts, the infection rates and the death tolls.  The numbers are beyond comprehension, their meaning comes from a place in our consciousness that is very different from the enumeration of eggs in a dozen.  These are industrial, scientific, political numbers.  No one ever counts that high. Yet, they represent the sufferings and deaths of individual people, all of whom were significant [figures], all of whom counted. These calculations are an overwhelming problem for the mind's computation system. These are the kinds of numbers that pit abstraction against sensitivity.

The parsha contains an extraordinary omission:  Moshe's children Gershom and Eliezer. After stating that the offspring of Aaron and Moshe are about to be enumerated, all of Aaron's sons, whether dead or alive, are named.  Moshe is left blank. Moshe's children did not count! This is the ultimate anti-nepotism.  In the midst of establishing lineages with hereditary privileges, Moshe's legacy is excluded. It leaves us wondering: what are the inclusion criteria?

There are now more than 5 million, 5,000,000, Cornoavirus cases worldwide, There were 603,550. Israelite men in the first post Exodus census [all but 2 died before entering the Promised Land], Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.  My parents survived. They all counted.

I wank the PQD of rembering.

Oh, I want to be in that [favored] number

similar 2014

more on PQD

Bahar-Bechukothei: Time and Money

Bahar-Bechukothei: Time and Money

These two parshioth begin with the laws of the sabbatical year (every seventh year, agriculture ceases)  and ends with the dire consequences of abrogating this command וְהָאָרֶץ֩ תֵּעָזֵ֨ב מֵהֶ֜ם וְתִ֣רֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתֶ֗יהָ בָּהְשַׁמָּה֙  For the land shall be forsaken of them, making up for its sabbath years by being desolate of them.  The land has a right to its Sabbatical years.  Payment will be extracted, even if means eviction. The Sabbatical year is a hidden law of nature.  The land requires it. 

Is that what is happening now? Is this period of economic rest a payment for the ceaseless whirring of business that preceded it? Is the coronovirus shutdown  paying back the missed Sabbaths of the last several hundred years? I hope that we are, at least, gaining that.

Time is money. Is this an equation? The intent of the phrase is that wasting time is costly, that any period of time can/should be spent in the pursuit of money. Much of these parshioth deals with time  valuation: the redemption price of a person depends upon age, the redemption price of a field depends upon the time to Jubilee. Money is temporal ( a word that carries both an anti spiritual meaning and a relationship to time).  These parshioth are transactional, dealing with monetary worth. 

The idea of the temporal, that our world of money and possessions, is tied to time, is seen in the talmud
אמר רב קטינא שית אלפי שני הוו עלמא וחד חרוב Rav Ketina says: Six thousand years is the duration of the world,

תניא כותיה דרב קטינא כשם שהשביעית משמטת שנה אחת לז' שנים כך העולם משמט אלף שנים לשבעת אלפים שנה
It is taught in a baraita in accordance with the opinion of Rav Ketina: Just as the Sabbatical Year abrogates debts once in seven years, so too, the world abrogates its typical existence for one thousand years in every seven thousand years,

This world is temporary, it will be cancelled. The significance of possessions is called into question by the ephemeral nature of everything we (think we) understand.

The coronatine (corona quarantine) is an irony. For the moment, many  have  a surfeit of time, In Bunshke Schvieg, Y. Peretz's  parable about silence in the face of suffering, the title character comes for his reward, but he has lost the drive to advocate for himself, he cannot find the wherewithal to formulate his invoice. I have all this time.  Why can't I use it better?

Emor: Equal under the Law

The parsha begins with emor and ends with vayidaber.  It begins with the purifying restrictions on the priests and ends with the stoning of a half Egyptian man.  It is a parsha of contrasts asking for definition.  

The final section of the parsha tells the story of  the blasphemer.  The protagonist of the story is described as a "ben", a son which leads me to imagine that he was young.  He is the son of Shlomith (the daughter of Dibri [from the root: dbr]of the tribe of Dan[judgement]).  This is his Israelite mother.  His Egyptian father is not named, but his heritage is clear. 

In the midst of an argument, this (young) man pierces ( וַ֠יִּקֹּב ) the (sacred) Name.  A citizen's arrest is made, the man is brought before Moshe.  Moshe  asks Gd what to do. He is told one who blasphemes should be put to death.  A set of  Hamurabi-like laws follows, culminating in  מִשְׁפַּ֤ט אֶחָד֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם כַּגֵּ֥ר כָּאֶזְרָ֖ח יִהְיֶ֑ה, You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike: for I the LORD am your God.  The law is the same for all. The blasphemer is then stoned;  the Children of Israel have done as the Lrd commanded Moses. 

Is there  מִשְׁפַּ֤ט אֶחָד֙, a single justice? Should such a severe punishment have been imposed upon a confused young man? How did this man relate to the Gd that had imposed ten plagues upon his father's people, culminating in Epidemic of the Eldest (aka plague of the firstborn)?  He had witnessed the degradation of gods before, was the current Gd of his mother different? 

The parsha had begun with laws that apply only to the priests, some only to the High Priest. The parsha began by telling us that there is a separate law for those who serve in the Temple rite.  Now there is a claim of democracy, one law for all? 

Equal application of a set of rules does not constitute equal justice. People come to  their offences from different backgrounds.  The same act can be a crime, a kindness, an act of desperation, and heroic... sometimes all at the same time.  But certain violations cannot be allowed to continue. People cannot be allowed to kill each other.  They cannot destroy another's property without compensation.  The rules for handing these felonies and misdemeanors must be uniform and applied without favoritism.  Apparently the same goes for the blasphemer, the budding revolutionary. 

At the creation, Gd used the emor to code the creation. I have seen that :Rabbi Elijah of Vilna (Aderet Eliyahu) suggests that DABER is used for commandments that are spelled out in the written Torah whereas AMAR is used for those commandments found in the oral Torah. Emor is open ended. ( It also contains the phoneme  אֱמֹ֥, mother. The idea that more will be generated) .  Look at the word daber: דַבֵּ֥ר  , it begins with a door (deleth)  followed by the bracket letter Beith, the letter that signifies an enclosure, a limit that cannot be breached, followed by the raish, the head, the interpretation that is common to both words.  We need to understand the uniformity of justice in both ways: the open interpretation that examines the circumstances of the act... and the closed absolute that that allows for community survival. 

Perhaps the blasphemer's mother had invoked the judgemental tradition of her tribe (Dan) and spoken to her son through Dibur, rather than as a mother with Emor. 

Acharei MoΘ -Kidoshim

The naming of this weeks double parsha is used as a witticism:  Acharei  moΘ - after death ... Kidoshim - (they are) holy (ones). I heave heard it used as a kind of holocaust joke implying that regardless of their behavior  prior to death, now that they have been murdered, we consider them as holy. The relationship to the holocaust may have come from my own background.  I can see how this may be used as a more general statement about how to think about the departed.  This week I lost three friends to covid and two patients to cancer.  Their sanctity had been established quite independently from their deaths

These words of  introduction to  Yom Kippur temple service, "after the death"  are stunning. This juxtaposition has been sermonized to imply that the deaths of Aaron's sons was an expiation, vaguely suggesting that the deaths of ancestors will help the supplicant as she prays for a good year  on Yom Kippur. 

  In the context of the instructions that follow, the death of Aaron's sons  is a warning about the danger of entering the inner sanctum at the wrong time.  The service is powerful and dangerous. It must be carried out in the prescribed manner at the prescribed time. The service is to be performed, not understood.  [My mother told me that: "You do not need to understand your wife, just love her"]

The second parsha, Kedoshim, is filled with appealing , often platitudinous, commandments. It is introduced with: 

 קְדֹשִׁ֣ים תִּהְי֑וּ כִּ֣י קָד֔וֹשׁ אֲנִ֖י

You shall be holy, for I, the LRD your Gd, am holy.

Many of the statements are followed by: "I am Hashem your Gd. "

We are barraged with a collection of instructions about interpersonal relationships: fear your parents, love your friend as you love yourself, welcome the immigrant, etc.  Interspersed  among these humanistic proverbs there are detailed ritual laws concerning the consumption of the leftovers of voluntary sacrifices and the maturation of fruit trees.  The unifying principle seems to be that these are all Divine commandments, I am Hashem your Gd. To the righteous mind, no more need be said. But there is a meaning to this faith based obedience. It is an answer to the question: How do you understand the world? 

Our culture emphasizes understanding over belief. We believe that someone understands the principles of nature and these principles predict how the world will behave, including the outcomes of our actions. I have studied some science. I know that this is not completely true. The idea of the unpredictable, the necessarily inexact (noise), is now incorporated into the dogma of science.  Humans cannot understand the world. Their brains were not designed for the task.  Following Gd's instructions is an ancient, tested and often productive, alternative. 

There is a rather ancient tradition of using the book of Viyikra, the third of the five books of Moses, as the starting point for the study of  Torah.  Young children begin their  (lifelong) analysis of the core texts with  a book that deals with animal sacrifices, blood and forbidden fats. They do not yet have ingrained beliefs about how the world works  ( Newtonian mechanics, the central dogma of molecular biology). They are still sacred (kedoshim). 

On some mythical level, I anticipated the Covid 19 pandemic.  Just before it started, I thought about a problem in evolution.  An underlying principle in evolution is  events: Given a sufficient number of events... everything will happen. That means that it should not be possible to breathe.  There are myriads of potentially harmful organism that are all evolving in countless directions. Some of these mutations will be lethal for humans.  Humans have a large, but limited capacity, to fight these germs.  By the numbers, there are more of them, each with a potential for variation that equals ours, than there are of us. The odds are stacked in favor of the germs.  Coronavirus is bad, worse must come. The only hope: Divine intervention.  I believe!