Ki Thavo: Exile

 

Ki Thavo: Exile

 

The title of this week's parsha, derived from the first few words, כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא, meaning "when you enter" is ironic.  Most of the parsha actually deals with exile. The parsha is notorious for the long list of horrors that will befall the nation if they fail to keep the Divine ordinances. They culminate in the debasement of the conquered and exiled people. 

Once the nation is settled on the land, the inhabitant brings a basket of first fruits to the Cohen and recites a formula of gratitude.  It is a passage that is recited as part of the Passover seder explaining how our ancestors came to Egypt:  

אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, וַיְהִי שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, עָצוּם וָרָב.

"An Aramean was destroying my father and he went down to Egypt, and he resided there with a small number, and he became there a nation, great, powerful and numerous."

Onkelos identifies this Aramean as uncle Lavan.  When Jacob was banished from his home because of the anger of his brother, Esau (father of the Romans), he ran to Lavan and started a family in his employ. Although the story that is related in the subsequent chapters has Jacob and his children return to Canaan and ultimately leaving the territory of the Promised Land because of famine; the story has them choose to go to Egypt, in part  because their long lost, betrayed brother Joseph and his accomplishments are there.  This verse summarizes and telescopes  the  events into fleeing to the oppression of Egypt in order to escape from  the destructive force of the Aramean.

 This is the model of choosing where to flee when the local situation becomes unbearable.  Egypt leads to the descendants of Jacob growing into a great, powerful and numerous nation. That nation, identified as the “us”, is enslaved and persecuted. To the Egyptians “we” are “them,” a people from elsewhere. The Egyptian bondage is, in part, a haven from the annihilation offered by the alternative.

The shoah also has its roots in an exile prompted by Esau (Rome).  The Jews who fled to the north, to Europe, flourished. As in the Bible story, when the Pharoah decrees that all the male Hebrew babies be killed, the ascendance of the Jews in Europe prompted a reaction to try to suppress the foreigners that culminates in their mass murder.

 

The terrifying curses that are listed at the end of Ki Thavo evoke the holocaust, but they do not descend to the level of that recent historic event. The Torah does not include

“and they will have you dig your graves and line you up and shoot you into the pit

And they will beat the heads of your children against a wall until they die

And they will create gas machines that smother hundreds at a time

And systematically herd you in 

And shovel out your corpses

And burn them.

Is this a failure of prophecy to see far enough into the future?

Today’s daf yomi, Sukkah 51  talks about peak experiences. It is interesting in this context:

The Sages taught: One who did not see the Celebration of the Place of the Drawing of the Water, never saw celebration in his life. One who did not see Jerusalem in its glory, never saw a beautiful city. One who did not see the Temple in its constructed state, never saw a magnificent structure. The Gemara asks: What is the Temple building to which the Sages refer? Abaye said, and some say that it was Rav Ḥisda who said: This is referring to the magnificent building of Herod, who renovated the Second Temple.

…

It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yehuda says: One who did not see the great synagogue [deyofloston] of Alexandria of Egypt never saw the glory of Israel.

Here it is, where do the Jews thrive? Neither of these choices are the expected Temple of Solomon.  The one in (Roman occupied) Jerusalem is the product of a disqualified, gentile, pretender king of Judea.  The other is in the land of bondage, mentioned at the very end of the great admonition in our parsha:

  וֶהֱשִֽׁיבְךָ֨ ׀ מִצְרַ֘יִם֮ בׇּאֳנִיּוֹת֒ בַּדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֣רְתִּֽי לְךָ֔ לֹא־תֹסִ֥יף ע֖וֹד לִרְאֹתָ֑הּ וְהִתְמַכַּרְתֶּ֨ם שָׁ֧ם לְאֹיְבֶ֛יךָ לַעֲבָדִ֥ים וְלִשְׁפָח֖וֹת וְאֵ֥ין קֹנֶֽה׃ {ס}      

   The LORD will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you: you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.

Here we are in the post holocaust (semi)exile.  There is a land of Israel, but there is enough confusion about the meaning and the mission that any leader is a pretender to the majority.  We thrive in America, the new Alexandria (or Alexander Platz) but for how long, and at what cost.  Most of Jewish history is a tale of exile, overcoming its hardships until the ascent attracts too much attention…

The haftarah, one of the chapters of consolation recited in this season, ends with

וְעַמֵּךְ֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם צַדִּיקִ֔ים לְעוֹלָ֖ם יִ֣ירְשׁוּ אָ֑רֶץ נֵ֧צֶר (מטעו) [מַטָּעַ֛י] מַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָדַ֖י לְהִתְפָּאֵֽר׃

And your people, all of them righteous, Shall possess the land for all time; They are the shoot that I planted, My handiwork in which I glory.

This verse is used to introduce the weekly study of Ethics between Passover and Shavuoth, as spring turns to summer.  But it is put in a context:

כָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְעַמֵּךְ֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם צַדִּיקִ֔ים לְעוֹלָ֖ם יִ֣ירְשׁוּ אָ֑רֶץ נֵ֧צֶר מטעו [מַטָּעַ֛י] מַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָדַ֖י לְהִתְפָּאֵֽר

All of Israel has a stake in the world to come, as it says:  And your people, all of them righteous, Shall possess the land for all time; They are the shoot that I planted, My handiwork in which I glory.

 

The sentence justifies the idea that the Jews have  a portion in the world to come, in Heaven

How do we bring Heaven to earth?

 The ultimate exile is the banishment from Eden

 

 

 

 

Ki Thetze: Reality Sandwiches

 

 The parsha opens, talking, as it often does in its datedness, to men: 

כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֥א לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ וּנְתָנ֞וֹ     בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ שִׁבְיֽוֹ׃ When you take the field against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive,

וְרָאִ֙יתָ֙ בַּשִּׁבְיָ֔ה אֵ֖שֶׁת יְפַת־תֹּ֑אַר וְחָשַׁקְתָּ֣ בָ֔הּ וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ לְךָ֖ לְאִשָּֽׁה׃ and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife,

You have gone into war, risked your life for the vision of victory and you have captured a fantasy; a dream of lust (and perhaps love). A month-long disfigurement ritual is prescribed before the the kidnapper  is permitted to fulfill the remnant of that passion. See a bit of the reality before you finally act on the dream, you are given a chance to give up the fantasy before embarking on the next set of consequences, including the abhorred child who cannot be disinherited. (next section) 

Much of the parsha can be read as a caution against trying to live dreams. In A Thousand Brains,  a book that is introduced by Richard Dawkins ( the author of the meme and the great prophet of the new Atheism), human perception of reality is postulated as the best fit to any of hundreds of preconceived models. I see these presupposed models, released from the checking function, as dreams. The Torah is trying to extend the checking function, reminding us of the pitfalls, but allowing for giving in to the dream. Life is but a dream (Songwriters: Hy Weiss / Raoul J. Cita)

When America was great (the 1950's [actually, it is the last time baby boomers were immature enough to believe it]) the challenge to the perception of America (and the Capitalism for which it stands) as a force of pure good was challenged from within.  It is understood that such challenges could only occur in a Free nation. Allen Ginsberg led the charge that was subsequently taken up by Bob Dylan (and Kanye West?). He sharpened the rapier of poetry and slashed society's image of itself.  He brought the personal dream to the fore and showed how empty were the public claims of equality and caring for the downtrodden. 

    we eat reality sandwiches.

 But allegories are so much lettuce. 

    Don't hide the madness.

The tooth goes through the bread.  The bread is the (relatively bland) necessity of food.  It then comes to the lettuce: Stuff that is not needed, takes up space, appeals to those with a taste for it.  It is the last potential stop before biting into the substance of the matter, which contains... the madness. It has become a world in which we can afford the madness: The second wife, (v.15) the wayward child (v.18) … bring it on.  John Lennon wrote anthem for atheism, aptly named: Imagine. 

There is a chiastic structure to the parsha.  The end reflects the beginning.  The parsha opens with a victory against an unidentified enemy.  It ends with the obligation to obliterate the memory of Amalek. 

זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃ Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—

It is significant that the attack of Amalek occurred just after the Exodus. It sought to cancel the glory of the moment. At the moment that the slaves, the most subjugated were freed, the enemy 

 וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כׇּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחֲרֶ֔יךָ  cut down all the stragglers in your rear.

The Exodus allowed for the rise of the downtrodden.  The parsha validates the various gleanings that are left for the poor on the basis of remembering the slavery in Egypt. We must leave the corner of the field, the forgotten sheaves, the fallen grapes, etc. to undo the time when Pharaoh instructed the enslaved Israelites to find their own straw.  Perhaps we cannot abolish the exploited, but we can ease their struggles. 

The Amalek of my parent's generation. the Nazis, tried to annul the material progress the Jews had achieved.  As the Jews were emerging from their oppression of disenfranchisement in Europe, now able to achieve their newfound dreams; just as they were seeing the European enlightenment as an alternate path to the Old Torah that taught them to eternally hate Amalek, the force of cancellation rose (again?) to create another eternal enemy, whose memory must be erased and can never be forgotten. 

Life is but a dream, It's what you make it. We eat our reality sandwich, biting through the premonitory lettuce and swallowing the delicious but (somewhat) poisonous meat.  It is madness. There is still a place for the ancient advice. 

 

 

Shoftim: The Axe of Justice 

There is a  hidden thread  in the parsha.  The obvious theme involves authorities: judges,  [police] officers, the priesthood, a king, a prophet, town elders.  The hidden message is the axe of justice. 

The parsha opens with

שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔י  You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all your cities

The fourth sentence in this chapter seems a non-sequitor: 

לֹֽא־תִטַּ֥ע לְךָ֛ אֲשֵׁרָ֖ה כׇּל־עֵ֑ץ אֵ֗צֶל מִזְבַּ֛ח 

You shall not plant for yourself an asherah, [or] any tree, near the altar of the Lrd, your Gd, which you shall make for yourself.

Three sentences later, we return to the activity of the legal system. 

At the end of the parsha,  the tree reappears , in a very unusual verse: 

כִּֽי־תָצ֣וּר אֶל־עִיר֩ יָמִ֨ים רַבִּ֜ים לְֽהִלָּחֵ֧ם עָלֶ֣יהָ לְתׇפְשָׂ֗הּ לֹֽא־תַשְׁחִ֤ית אֶת־עֵצָהּ֙ לִנְדֹּ֤חַ עָלָיו֙ גַּרְזֶ֔ן כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ תֹאכֵ֔ל וְאֹת֖וֹ לֹ֣א תִכְרֹ֑ת כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה לָבֹ֥א מִפָּנֶ֖יךָ בַּמָּצֽוֹר׃

When you besiege a city for many days to wage war against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them, for you may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Is the tree of the field a man, to go into the siege before you?

The tree has returned; this one  has an unknown provenance, it has a clear  potential function in the situation, but it is off limits, it is is a foil to to the forbidden tree near the altar, it may not be felled

The use of the wood to make a battle ax ( or the use of an ax to fell the tree for its wood) echoes to the middle of the parsha.  There, the complexities of the legal systems are exemplified by the negligent homicide, typified by the poorly secured ax blade: 

וַאֲשֶׁר֩ יָבֹ֨א אֶת־רֵעֵ֥הוּ בַיַּ֘עַר֮ לַחְטֹ֣ב עֵצִים֒ וְנִדְּחָ֨ה יָד֤וֹ בַגַּרְזֶן֙ לִכְרֹ֣ת הָעֵ֔ץ וְנָשַׁ֤ל הַבַּרְזֶל֙ מִן־הָעֵ֔ץ וּמָצָ֥א אֶת־רֵעֵ֖הוּ וָמֵ֑ת ה֗וּא יָנ֛וּס אֶל־אַחַ֥ת הֶעָרִים־הָאֵ֖לֶּה וָחָֽי׃  a man goes with his neighbor into a grove to cut wood; as his hand swings the ax to cut down a tree, the ax-head flies off the handle and strikes the other so that he dies. That man shall flee to one of these cities and live.—

  The last scenario in the parsha deals with the unsolved murder.  The ax in this ritual is hidden.  The crux of the ceremony is the decapitation of a calf: 

וְהוֹרִ֡דוּ זִקְנֵי֩ הָעִ֨יר הַהִ֤וא אֶת־הָֽעֶגְלָה֙ אֶל־נַ֣חַל אֵיתָ֔ן אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹא־יֵעָבֵ֥ד בּ֖וֹ וְלֹ֣א יִזָּרֵ֑עַ וְעָֽרְפוּ־שָׁ֥ם אֶת־הָעֶגְלָ֖ה בַּנָּֽחַל׃

and the elders of that city shall bring the calf down to a rugged valley, which was neither tilled nor sown, and there in the valley, they shall decapitate the calf.

Rashi cites the details: 

וערפו AND THEY SHALL STRIKE OFF [THE HEIFER’S] NECK — i.e. one breaks its neck with a hatchet. (Sotah 46a).

Humans and trees have a relationship that stretches to the Garden of Eden.  Calling one the Tree of Life casts the other, the Tree of Knowldge ( or, perhaps Artistry), as its alternative ... death. Trees are representative of an alternative natural world  that lives on a different physiochemical economy and on different time scales.  In an anthropocentric world view,  trees are fundamental providers of oxygen, food, and the raw materials for comforts... and killing. The judges appointed at the start of our parsha cannot take on the tree's perspectives: life that continues for hundreds of years, the dead are fertilizer. new leaves will sprout next year.  They must have a human perspective.  Every person has a unique, fragile and limited life.  The society of humans set laws and interprets Divine laws in this human context.  Is the tree of the field a man? Is a person a tree of the field?

When the ax head flies off the handle because it was not perfectly secured, how do we judge human responsibility for  the fatal error? Not with the passion of the avenger, nor with limitless mercy.  We are to treat it with the uncertainty and ambivalence of internal exile. The refuge cities must be close enough and accessible enough for the killer to have a good chance of escaping  the passion for retribution, but it cannot be a certainty.  The ax wielder must remain removed from most of society until the most public of deaths substitutes for  the fate that might have been appropriate for all the banished. This indecisive  penalty replaces the necessary uncertainty of the judgement. Yes...but.

When the municipal elders carry out the decapitation ritual of the unsolved murder they recite the formula: 

וְעָנ֖וּ וְאָמְר֑וּ יָדֵ֗ינוּ לֹ֤א (שפכה) [שָֽׁפְכוּ֙] אֶת־הַדָּ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵינֵ֖ינוּ לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ׃כַּפֵּר֩ לְעַמְּךָ֨ יִשְׂרָאֵ֤ל אֲשֶׁר־פָּדִ֙יתָ֙

And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.Absolve, O LORD, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

 This is the antithesis of Cain's query, "Am I my brother's keeper." The declaration of the elders assumes the correct answer: YES. It also states regret at the failure to do the job.  There weren't enough street lights or police; there weren't enough social workers or schools; there weren't enough masks or vaccines; misinformation was out of control.  WE HAD NOT DONE OUR JOB. We did not secure the ax  securely enough to the handle. This death of the  stranger had an element of negligence. May the ritual substitute for the true  punishment: exile. 

Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

---------------------------------------

 (I add the line)

And what I make from that tree

Will both liberate and enslave me.

re'eh

Re'eh: 

רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃  See, this day I set before you blessing and curse:

Why re'eh? It is beyond superfluous. The meaning of the sentence, "I place before you a blessing and a curse," does not change in its absence.  But it is worse than that. There is nothing to see! The speech occurs thousands of years ago, the reader cannot be there. Its contemporaries can't see concepts in the physical sense.

This seeing is not a matter of light waves stimulating the retina.  This is the real seeing, making sense of the stimuli, creating a model and checking it against the inputs (seeing is believing). The sentence includes the idea of the existence of the blessing and the curse; they are incorporated into the model. In our world, we are taught to see the world without  value judgements; Moses is giving them to us. Actions have consequences that need to be foreseen

Leading with "see" implies  that the good and bad are instinctive and obvious; you just have to look.   But the pronouncement:

{ח} לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּן כְּ֠כֹל אֲשֶׁ֨ר אֲנַ֧חְנוּ עֹשִׂ֛ים פֹּ֖ה הַיּ֑וֹם אִ֖ישׁ כָּל־הַיָּשָׁ֥ר בְּעֵינָֽיו׃ You shall not act at all as we now act here, every man as he pleases,

denies this personal value system.The good of this parsha is not personal, it is not relative; it is absolute.  It is absolute, in part, because of its shared nature.  It is the common good.   Not like here (in the wilderness) where everyone does what is right in her own eyes, rather, the service is to performed at the designated location, the  conceptual center. 

The nature of "the good" is democratic, the people keep it as a common; and that good supersedes personal taste and bias.  The people as a whole keep the ancient message, they check each other for the accuracy of transmission.  The people as whole modify that message as necessitated by circumstances, especially circumstances that physically remove them from that center, the exile that alienates

This  is also an instruction that defies the situation.  That central place, its geographic and  tribal location, have not been defined.  That is not the important part. The fact that it had these properties, that it is not a concept, that it has  coordinates and terra firma beneath it are important. We retrofit Shiloh and Jerusalem, but the text comes in a context that predates these settlements.  Later events, the kingdom of David,  fixed Jerusalem as an eternal Zion. I am struggling to understand what that means now; I am certain it has not meant unity. The holiness of Jerusalem today is the inscrutable sanctity that I do not understand

It is said  that  at one time, the sacrificial rite, the ritual slaughter of animals and sprinkling their blood, was the core Hebrew ritual activity. To many modern individuals, this is a distasteful idea, the prayers for the restoration of these rituals are said with ambivalence.  These rituals served to unify the people.  They brought a significant portion of the nation together in one place, where they could renew their relatedness.  They provided the nation with a set of activities that are theirs's alone. They established uniqueness.

The parsha contains other methods for the maintenance of Hebrew distinctness:  kashruth and the  festivals of Passover, Shevuoth and Succoth.  These are sets of customs that have unified and differentiated the Jews for hundreds of generations.Is the distinctiveness of the Jew important? Is it a “good. ”

רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃  See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: