Chukath-Balak: Journey

It is only outside the Land of Israel that two parshioth are read together. This brings the exiled and the arrived communities into sync. Since Shavuoth, when the diaspora fell behind, Israel has been one parsha ahead. Now we catch up.

Reading the two parshioth together has a slightly different meaning. The second chapter, Balak becomes a story within the  stories that end Chukath. Chukath begins with the ritual of the red heifer, the source of the ashes that purify those contaminated by contact with the dead. The designation of Elazar, son of Aaron, as the executor, is a presage to the theme of the first half of Chukath: the death of a generation including Miriam, Aaron and, eventually, Moses. The exodus is coming to an end.

 The parsha transitions to approaching the Promised Land. The king of Arad takes some captives. His nation is destroyed in retribution.  But this land is left in ruins, not settled by the Israelite nomads. A request for passage through Edom, the realm of brother Esau, is rejected and the nation detours. Sihon, when asked for permission to traverse his land, confronts the Israelites with a battle. This land is seized, as is the land of Og, who also tried his hand at a military solution. The settlement of the Promised Land has begun. The journey is culminating

Then we come to Balak, the most parabolic chapter in the Torah. I imagine it as a campfire story, the plot colored by the current events of the wanderers confronting their odyssey.  Balaam, the great prophet and magician, is summoned from Aram  by the Moabite – Midianite  cabal to fend off this feared, powerful Israelite force. Balaam comes from Aram, the birthplace of Abraham, the source of the claim to the Promised Land.

A delegation comes and offers Balaam great reward if he will come to Canaan and maintain the Moabite claims against the invaders. Balaam consults the Divine through a dream, and he is instructed to turn down the offer. He does turn them down [the dream of Abraham at the Covenent between the pieces (Genesis15) takes precedence]. Another, more prestigious delegation comes. The same offer is made. Balaam has the audacity to question the previous decision, resulting in a change of plan. Balaam will accompany the delegation, but he can only voice what he is told.

Balaam proceeds on his donkey. The donkey strays from the road, the donkey crouches and won’t move forward. The donkey sees threats, and grand concepts, invisible to Balaam. The Israelites have sojourned in the desert for forty years. For most of that time their leader has been silent. They have gone in directions that made no sense… to those from whom the threats are hidden.  The silent and, generally obedient can, at times, have the greater insight.

Granting speech to the donkey is not necessary for the story. Were we informed that Balaam now saw the angel of obstruction and told that the donkey was aware of the invisible threat, the story could proceed without this challenge to credibility.

 

Avoth 5:6

עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן, פִּי הָאָרֶץ, וּפִי הַבְּאֵר, וּפִי הָאָתוֹן, וְהַקֶּשֶׁת, וְהַמָּן, וְהַמַּטֶּה, וְהַשָּׁמִיר, וְהַכְּתָב, וְהַמִּכְתָּב, וְהַלּוּחוֹת.

 

Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they: [1] the mouth of the earth, [2] the mouth of the well, [3] the mouth of the donkey, [4] the rainbow, [5] the manna, [6] the staff [of Moses], [7] the shamir, [8] the letters, [9] the writing, [10] and the tablets.

 

The donkey’s words are so necessary, they were tacked on, as an afterthought to Creation. Question your vision before you impune the loyalty of your compatriots, your leaders, your employees, those who love you.

 

Balaam questions his mission and proceeds. Under the circumstances,re-examination seems appropriate.  How does this contrast with the Israelites? When they question their mission, they are punished for their lack of faith. A story can justify error. Balaam proceeds, the Israelites proceed.

 

Balaam can evoke the powerful words of Gd. He cannot control what is said. He cannot fulfill the mission of execrating the Hebrews. He was clear from the beginning, he managed expectations. The boss is disappointed.  Gd had punished the Israelites so many times. They had sinned so grievously with the Golden calf, the cowardice surrounding the spies, the demand for meat, the threats of return to Egypt, Korach’s challenge to authority, and most recently the fiery serpents as retribution for dissatisfaction. Each event had been chastened.  Why couldn’t Balaam invoke these to bring continued exile? Balaam’s words of praise and prophecy are followed by yet another incident of infidelity that leads to the death of 24,000 Israelites. Every penalty is partial. Nothing can stop destiny. Gd keeps the promise made to Abraham. It is still taking shape.

The haftorah ends:

“You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
And what GD requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your Gd

 

Korach: Which side are you on?

I remember the discussion of Korach at Fabrengen in 1983. Farbrenegen, a Yiddishoid word, means a gathering, but refers to a Hassidic gathering. Wikipedia claims that the word is used exclusively by Chabad (other Hasidim call it a Tisch). In Washington D.C., Fabrengen was the name of a Jewish Renewal congregation in the Kalorama neighborhood. The highlight of the Shabbath service there, was the Torah discussion. The discussion of Korach stands out for me. 

Parshath Korach is a story of dissent. Korach challenges the authority of Moses and Aaron. Korach claims that the entire community is holy

 כִּ֤י כׇל־הָֽעֵדָה֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם קְדֹשִׁ֔ים.

 

A group of 250 aristocrats assembled to assert their overlooked status. At Fabrengen, there was overwhelming support for the upstarts, very little for Moses.  I was confused and uncomfortable. 

 

How could it not be so? The Fabrengen community, by its existence and founding principles, constituted a rebellion against the authority of the traditional. Fabrengen was democratic; respected the rights of women, minorities, non-Jews, alternative beliefs. Its philosophy corrected the errors of antiquity. Judaism was a club open to all, but with numerous passwords and secret handshakes that were best learned in childhood. I continue to believe this. I have always doubted this. 

 

To me, Judaism was (is?) a great mystery. There is an awesome, dangerous, precious, delightful, and most important secret. It must be approached by several roads simultaneously: Through the sympathy and pain of the heart; through the gymnastics of the mind that wrest truth from perception; through the control of action and motive; through the cleansing and wringing of the soul.  I cannot assume that I understand Judaism; correcting the tradition is beyond dangerous. Yet, it must be done! The caution required exceeds that of a surgeon or a bomb disposal expert. Any tampering will damage the goods. 

 

The story in the parsha evolves. First, there is the core group of four: Korach, Dathan, Avirom and Ohn. They head a delegation of 250 men of prominence. Korach is swallowed by the earth and the 250 men are consumed by a heavenly fire while they are offering incense.

 

וַיִּלֹּ֜נוּ כׇּל־עֲדַ֤ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ מִֽמׇּחֳרָ֔ת עַל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה וְעַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֖ן לֵאמֹ֑ר אַתֶּ֥ם הֲמִתֶּ֖ם אֶת־עַ֥ם יְ

 

Next day the whole Israelite community railed against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You two have brought death upon Gd’s people.”

 

There is a groundswell of support for the upstarts! The election was stolen.  January 6,2020 was a peaceful demonstration. A large segment of the nation feels unfairly treated, under-represented.  They are clinging to an alternative set of values; rules that empower them, the forgotten downtrodden.

 

In the parsha, there are no elections. Gd decides who will interact with the Divine. Gd threatens to destroy the people to enforce that will; it is only the pleading of Moses, aided by Aaron’s administration of the powerful (potentially lethal, but now lifesaving [chemotherapy of]) incense that rescues the people from the plague.

 

Democracy is another hidden secret. We have lived through, and learned of, times when it has turned on itself. The powerful and the loud and the clever can manipulate the vox populi, the  apparent will of the people. Plato was not a fan of democracy. Aristotle called it the rule of the downtrodden. Karl Marx voted against it. It elected Hitler. It is not the ultimate value and it  needs constraints.

 

Who were these people? Korach was without hair. Nothing hid his ambition.  He is the son of Yitzhar: he was an oil man; he was notoriously rich (reich vie Korach – as rich as Korach- is the Yiddish idiom). Dathan’s name echoes the story of Joseph and his brothers. Dathan is where the brothers went, and, per the Midrash,  decided to depose Joseph from his special status.  Aviram means my father is (also) great.

 

The new revelations illuminate the ancient gems. The tradition provides a way to understand the present. Frenemies.

 

 

Shelach Lecha: the test

A scouting party is sent to probe the land; a preparation for the fulfillment of Gd's promise to the ancestors of these liberated slaves. The Israelites had been living from miracle to miracle; from the plagues that brought expulsion from Egypt, to the splitting of the sea that vanquished the most powerful army on  earth, to the manna and the quail. Now they are to become normal people who farm for food and negotiate with competitors. But first, they needed to find a way to settle in a  land currently occupied by previous invaders. What was the land like? What was the flora and fauna? Were the cities fortified?

The narrative appeals to the readers sense of order. There is a prize to acquire, a goal. Investigating the obstacles and opportunities is a rational preparation. It was not merely the land and enemy that was probed. It was also the spies, who are described as  

כֻּלָּ֣ם אֲנָשִׁ֔ים רָאשֵׁ֥י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל הֵֽמָּה׃

all of them were heroes, the heads of the Israelites. 

These were the people who would lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. They were charge with bringing back a report. They brought back the physical evidence of fecundity. They had also come to a conclusion: conquest is impossible. 

The report of the scouts was a test. There is no doubt that an ordinary military conquest would have been improbable, the odds of success were vanishingly small. But they had seen how a demand for meat in the desert could be  instantly fulfilled from an unanticipated source. The truth of the situation was not in question. It was the unsolicited conclusion of hopelessness that constituted the failure of these heroes. 

I am reminded of other hopeless situations. My father's escape in the Treblinka uprising had odds of survival -  with hope in the unforeseen - of0075%, 75 in a million. The odds of survival without hope were  much closer to zero.  I have treated patients whose demise from cancer was guaranteed  with similar odds; and they were  rescued by unanticipated discoveries: new medicines. Hopelessness is the prophet that assures doom.  

The  multitude was tested  by the report. Could they resist the spin, the easily credible theories, that the reporters presented? Perhaps the era of wonders would end when  they crossed into the new, settled, land. Perhaps the people there  had a different, more powerful, magic than their own. Which theory of the unknown should prevail? Unfortunately, it was not the belief that  faith in the Gd of the exodus would follow through  an finish the job. That model did not win the day.  The people failed. They found the wrong truth. 

Could Moses have handled the charge to send the scouts better?   Rashi summarizes the Midrashic view that that the decision to send the scouts was a test for Moshe. 

שלח לך. לְדַעְתְּךָ, אֲנִי אֵינִי מְצַוֶּה לְךָ, אִם תִּרְצֶה שְׁלַח; לְפִי שֶׁבָּאוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמְרוּ נִשְׁלְחָה אֲנָשִׁים לְפָנֵינוּ, כְּמָה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם" וְגוֹ' (דברים א'), וּמֹשֶׁה נִמְלַךְ בִּשְׁכִינָה, אָמַר, אָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם שֶׁהִיא טוֹבָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר "אַעֲלֶה אֶתְכֶם מֵעֳנִי מִצְרַיִם" וְגוֹ' (שמות ג'), חַיֵּיהֶם שֶׁאֲנִי נוֹתֵן לָהֶם מָקוֹם לִטְעוֹת בְּדִבְרֵי מְרַגְּלִים, לְמַעַן לֹא יִירָשׁוּהָ (תנחומא):

שלח לך

 SEND THEE (more lit., for thyself) — i.e. according to your own judgement: I do not command you, but if you wish to do so send them. — God said this because the Israelites came to Moses and said. “We will send men before us etc.”, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 1:22): “And you approached me, all of you, [saying, We will send men, etc.]”, and Moses took counsel with the Shechinah (the Lord), whereupon He said to them, I have told them long ago that it (the land) is good, as it is said, (Exodus 3:17): “I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt … [unto a land flowing with milk and honey]”. By their lives! I swear that I will give them now an opportunity to fall into error through the statements of the spies, so that they should not into possession of it (the land) (Sotah 34b; cf. also Rashi on Sotah 34b:8 מדעתך and Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 5).

Could Moshe  have refused to send them? The people demanded a report. How could Moshe say no to such a logical request?  It would have invited another rebellion, perhaps more threatening  than the last. How could the truth be harmful? It is all in the spin. Moshe took the bet: he thought the spies, accompanied by his disciple Joshua, would not fail. The people would discern how things really work: by the will of Gd. Only Caleb and (eventually) Joshua spoke up for faith. It is always a bad idea to bet against a far superior intelligence. 

Ultimately  the reader  is tested by the story.  We have thousands of years of history to help contextualize the nature of the Promise, the ultimately methods of its fulfillments, and the wanderings that take up most of the landscape. But can we appropriately accept the lessons? 

In 1908 David Ben-Gurion and Yizhok Ben-Tzvi  published a description of the land that would become modern Israel... in Yiddish.

 It is an attempt at a non-judgemental description of the geography and ethnology of the area. In the haftorah there are two good spies.  In the parsha there are two good spies. They believe that faith in Gd will carry the day. 

If you believe that you can, you could win. If you do not believe in yourself, any win is a miracle.

Bihaalothecha: direction 

A vignette in this middle of this  parsha  opens a window into one of its major messages. 

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֗ה לְ֠חֹבָ֠ב בֶּן־רְעוּאֵ֣ל הַמִּדְיָנִי֮ חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁה֒ נֹסְעִ֣ים ׀ אֲנַ֗חְנוּ אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמַ֣ר יְ

And Moshe said to Ḥovav, the son of Re῾u᾽el, the Midyanite, Moshe’s father in law, We are journeying to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for the Lord has spoken good concerning Yisra᾽el.

Hovav answers that he will not accompany the Israelites, but rather return to his people and home.  Moses continues the negotiation: 

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אַל־נָ֖א תַּעֲזֹ֣ב אֹתָ֑נוּ כִּ֣י ׀ עַל־כֵּ֣ן יָדַ֗עְתָּ חֲנֹתֵ֙נוּ֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר וְהָיִ֥יתָ לָּ֖נוּ לְעֵינָֽיִם׃

He said, “Please do not leave us, inasmuch as you know where we should camp in the wilderness and can be our guide.

This offer of the role of guide comes after the completion of the first journey of the camp. The cloud over the sanctum was guiding the camp.  Gd, through the visible cloud, was giving the Israelites their direction.  Why  did Moses offer a superfluous task to Hovav?

The trivial answer is that Hovav, a native in this perilous wilderness, knew the pitfalls to be avoided. The cloud would write the script, but the actual steps would benefit from the knowledge of an indigenous person as the director. The cloud could hover over obstacles, the people needed to walk around them. 

We met Moshe's father in law, then called Yithro, soon after the Exodus. Yithro observed that Moshe was the sole lawgiver and understood that this situation could not endure. Yithro suggested a hierarchy of judges; and the idea was adopted by Gd and the people. Yithro saw a vulnerability and offered a solution. He acted as a guide and, by means of a detour, maintained the course.  Could this be the kind of guidance Moshe was seeking from Hovav?  The request was not for mere geographic guidance, but as a source of advice.

 (Incidentally(?) the off-loading of leadership responsibility  is reproduced in this parsha when Moshe is faced with the demands of the populace for meat, leading to the unfortunate story of the toxic quail.  Many commentators  ( Rashi, Ibn Ezra, etc) identify a foreign element in the camp as the originators of these demands. A committee of 70 elders is selected to share the burden of leadership with Moses) 

Input from outsiders is a key issue.  In the parsha  Hovav (the beloved) , son of Reuel ( the one who sees the great power [Gd]) is a  Midyanite. This character echoes Yithro, the Cohen of  Midyan. Which of them is the father of 

 הָאִשָּׁ֥ה הַכֻּשִׁ֖ית אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָקָ֑ח כִּֽי־אִשָּׁ֥ה כֻשִׁ֖ית לָקָֽח׃

the Cushite woman,

the woman that Miriam and Aaron speak of at the end of the parsha?

Her identification as Cushite makes her non-Israelite status clear. She is not called a Midyanite, so perhaps she is not the  previously identified wife. Cushite may be a descriptor  of her appearance, as translated by Onkelos ( shapirta, beautiful) and echoed by Rashi. I think it also works to identify this woman as foreign. 

Miriam is raising  issues that are  important to woman, and the alien nature of Moses' Cushite adds to her question. Are the edicts issued by Moshe concerning women colored by his involvement ( or lack thereof) with a foreigner?

Cush comes to mean Ethiopia, implying that this woman with Moshe was black. That adds to the irony o f Miriam's punishment. She is stricken with  tzoraath, a disease that turns the skin a startling white. 

Ultimately, the Israelites take their direction from Gd. Gd is not and Israelite. Gd is not even human. 

The beliefs and direction of Judaism have evolved. The commitment to Judaism often involves a global dedication to kindness and caring. These ideas had, until recently,  grown to near universal acceptance. Have they become foreign ideas?