Shemini: Confusion

Shemini: Confusion

This week's parsha, Shemini, is the middle of the Torah. It contains the midpoint by letters: the vav of gichon, the vowel (unnecessary) letter in the word meaning belly. In context it refers to the  the belly upon which the serpent crawls. The conversation in Eden between the woman and the serpent is evoked. The gichon, the crawling on the belly was the curse imparted on the serpent for his act of seduction. 

 אֶֽל־הַנָּחָשׁ֮ כִּ֣י עָשִׂ֣יתָ זֹּאת֒ אָר֤וּר אַתָּה֙ מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָ֔ה וּמִכֹּ֖ל חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה עַל־גְּחֹנְךָ֣ תֵלֵ֔ךְ וְעָפָ֥ר תֹּאכַ֖ל כָּל־יְמֵ֥י חַיֶּֽיךָ׃

And the Lrd Gd said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

The next appearance of the word in the Torah ( there are 3 in all) is in Shemini: 

כֹּל֩ הוֹלֵ֨ךְ עַל־גָּח֜וֹן וְכֹ֣ל ׀ הוֹלֵ֣ךְ עַל־אַרְבַּ֗ע עַ֚ד כׇּל־מַרְבֵּ֣ה רַגְלַ֔יִם לְכׇל־הַשֶּׁ֖רֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵ֣ץ עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ לֹ֥א תֹאכְל֖וּם כִּי־שֶׁ֥קֶץ הֵֽם׃ 

You shall not eat, among all things that swarm upon the earth, anything that crawls on its belly, or anything that walks on fours, or anything that has many legs; for they are an abomination.

The demotion of the serpent, from a being whose power of speech (parseltongue?)  altered the course of history, to a dust eating abomination is the midpoint, the crux, of the Torah

The parsha opens with : 

וַֽיְהִי֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁמִינִ֔י 

On the eighth day

The eighth day also evokes the creation.  It is the first day after creation. Now we will see how the system that Gd set in place evolves.  It is the day when the serpent persuaded the woman to violate the prohibition and eat of the forbidden fruit. A newborn calf may not brought into the sacrificial rite until the eighth day. The eighth day is the time set for the circumcision of a son.  In our parsha, the eighth day was the culmination of the dedication of the mishkan, the tabernacle, the locus of Gd meeting. 

The ritual to sanctify the mishkan included  sacrificial animals brought by Aaron and has sons, as the priests; and other animals brought by the community.  A calf, and eygel, was included in each set.  The animal whose  graven image had motivated the shattering of the tablets at Sinai was to be brought by both groups.  That sin was to be remembered from both perspectives: the community that insisted on a visible god and the high priest who accommodated them. 

Ambiguous intentions with fatal results is the central story of the parsha. The inauguration of the Tabernacle and the priests is nearly complete. The drama of the debut is near the climax. Aaron and his four sons are close to graduation into their roles as priests of the sacrificial service. Nadav and Avihu , the two eldest sons of Aaron, perform an unsolicited service. They enter the dark sacred space with a fire of their own making. Nadav and Avihu are struck dead. The motive  of Nadav and Avihu is not specified.  Did they want to curry favor from the Almighty? Did they want to generate another phantasmagoria, like the one brought by the prescribed ritual? Did they want to modify the ritual? Were they intoxicated?  All unknown.

The haftorah points to the centrality of this story by relating a similar narrative. King David ordered the  tablets from Sinai in the gold plated, Cherub decorated, ark moved to Jerusalem – his new capitol city. The ark had been in the house of Abinanab (since its rescue from the Philistines). Abinadab   had two sons: Uzzah and Achio. These were people more familiar than most with the ark and its power. When the oxen stumbled, upsetting the ark, Uzzah reached out to protect the ark from falling, and was struck dead for his action. Certainly, Uzzah knew the story of Nadav and Avihu; he knew that unsanctioned interaction with the ark was dangerous – possibly lethal. But Uzzah was just trying to help! He was not trying something new.  

The lethal danger associated with the ark is entangled in its sanctity.  The Holy is dangerous and the more holy, the more dangerous. These stories deter the curious from invading the sacred space. They help justify some of the rewards of priesthood as danger pay. The risk adds to the status of the rite.

The parsha brings me back to creation: the eighth day, the gichon of the serpent. The transgression of  eating of the tree of knowledge was a similar violation of the sacred in a state of confusion. 

Holocaust remembrance day happened this week.  Like the death of Nadav and Avihu  is the center of the Torah, the Holocaust is the center of my Judaism.  It is a stark ambiguity. The events happened. The Jew hating deniers emphasize its reality, its importance, and the orthogonal universe available to the bigot. The complexity of its history and morality is beyond human understanding ( I would certainly not trust AI). 

We live in a world that we can not understand.  Be careful!

Tzav/Hagadol: the cult of Elijah

The prophet Eliahu ( Ellijah) is tied to the Passover seder by tradition.  A cup, the fifth of the four cups of wine, is set aside for Eliahu.  Between the grace after the meal ( benching), which is done over  the third  cup of wine, and the Hallel, the psalms of praise that are capped by the fourth cup, there is a pithy  prayer is uttered. The Koren Hagadah, which is in Sefaria says: 

A cup of wine is now poured in honor of Elijah, and the door opened. 

שְׁפֹךְ חֲמָתְךָ אֶל־הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדָעוּךָ וְעַל־מַמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר בְּשִׁמְךָ לֹא קָרָאוּ. כִּי אָכַל אֶת־יַעֲקֹב וְאֶת־נָוֵהוּ הֵשַׁמּוּ. שְׁפָךְ־עֲלֵיהֶם זַעֲמֶךָ וַחֲרוֹן אַפְּךָ יַשִּׂיגֵם. תִּרְדֹף בְּאַף וְתַשְׁמִידֵם מִתַּחַת שְׁמֵי יְיָ. 

שְׁפֹךְ POUR OUT Your rage

upon the nations that do not know You,

and on regimes that have not called upon Your name.

For Jacob is devoured;

they have laid his places waste.

Pour out Your great anger upon them,

and let Your blazing fury overtake them.

Pursue them in Your fury and destroy them

from under the heavens of the LORD

When I was a boy, at our family seders the only person who said these words was my father, who davened the Hagadah.  He would read it rapidly in Hebrew without explanation. We had no awareness of the content.  We just sang the name, Elihu Hanavi again and again. We thought we were opening the door to let Elihu in. We would closely watch that special glass of wine and see a tiny sip removed. 

My holocaust survivor parents certainly understood the meaning. They were  justified to feel the sentiments expressed.   Later, when I leaned more of the song, I understood that it was a call for the prompt arrival  of the Messiah; that all our trials end soon. 

This year, Passover follows immediately after Shabbath.   The Shabbath that precedes Passover is designated Shabbath Hagadol, the Great Shabbath, and it has a special haftara. 

Shabbath Hagadol is different from the other four special Shabbatoth.  There is no special Torah reading, maftir is just repeating the last  four  verse of the  Tzav, the weekly parsha. Tzav, the word means command!, outlines the sacrificial ritual that initiated Aaron and his sons as the priests of the Temple service.  The idea of following commands, even if they are not understood ( as long as they do not harm others?) is paramount in this parsha.  The last 3 verses all repeat the word tzav, command. Doing things that are not understood clearly is positive in this context.

  The Haftara contains several oft-quoted passages.  Prominent among these is

הִנֵּ֤ה אָנֹכִי֙ שֹׁלֵ֣חַ לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֖ת אֵלִיָּ֣ה הַנָּבִ֑יא לִפְנֵ֗י בּ֚וֹא י֣וֹם יְ

הַגָּד֖וֹל וְהַנּוֹרָֽא׃ 

Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of GD.  

When our eldest daughter, Elisheva, was learning to play piano, she had a book of songs by Dvakus.  These were popular religious Hebrew songs: a genre she loved at the time. A song with this title was one of the first she learned. We mispronounced the title, written in Roman ( not Hebrew) characters, and we did not understand that the song was a recitation of this verse. 

We recently completed tractate Sanhedrin in the page of the day ( daf yomi) cycle. The last chapter deals with The World to Come, the world after this one. The world in which the dead are resurrected.  On the last page, Elihu appears. Elements of the story that appears at the end of Malachim A (Kings I) are analyzed.  The story is the culmination of the interaction between King Ahab and Eliahu.  Ahab boasts that Gd is not punishing his violations. Eliahu stands up for Gd's honor and declares a drought.  The drought happens.  The Talmud characterizes the action as Gd transferring the keys that control rainfall to  Eliahu. Eliahu is then confronted with the need to resurrect the son of  a woman who fed him  at a time of danger. The Talmud says that he forced to surrender the keys to rain for the key to resurrection. Too much power cannot be transferred to one prophet. 

When my wife, Karen Treiger was  a girl, I imagine her 9 or 10 years old, she learned of the tradition that a day would come when the dead returned to life. She told her  grandfather, Papa Jack,  a man who enjoyed the pleasures of this world and did noy always follow the rules, about  this. From then on, he would ask, "When is that guy coming? I will have to hide because when my father  finds out what I did with the business, he will be very unhappy." This is a rational understanding of the judgement that surrounds the resurrection. We will all need to look at what we have done and how it has impacted others.  

Eliahu appears throughout the Talmud.  Presumably he utilizes his key of resurrection. He saves and enlightens scholars. He will be the judge at the resurrection and he will bring that delightful miracle. 

As I go through the seder and all the Passover laws and traditions, I do not understand what I am doing.  I can see the benefits in unifying the family and unifying the people, but I know that I do not understand why am I doing this. I am doing a Tzav, a command that I do not comprehend. 

I have nostalgia for the time when I did not understand the words. Now that I do, I still see the wine decrease after we open that door and let Eliahu in. 

 Vayikra: the small aleph

The first word of this week’s parsha,א וַיִּקְרָ֖Vayikra, has a small aleph.  The parchment scrolls, the conservers of the tradition, in which no deviations are tolerated, have this unusual font. This typography emphasizes that the word ,וַיִּקָּ֥ר ,vayakor, meaning to “chance upon” is contained within Vayikra, which we translate as “and he called”  This is an invitation to  examine the word, and the text that follows, in terms of the  phonemes within the words.

Vayakor, וַיִּקָּ֥ר, brings us to the next book of the Bible, Bamidbar, and the story of Balaam. Balaam was a prophet for hire, commissioned by Balak, king of Moab, to battle the Israelites through mysterious spiritual forces.  To that end, animal sacrifices were brought.  These Gentile rituals were effective. After each,  the one Gd of the Torah would deliver a message to Balaam. The messages did not  convey the negative sentiments that Balak and Balaam had hoped for, but the offerings did bring the meetings, which, in the case of Balaam, are characterized as וַיִּקָּ֥ר, vayakor, no aleph, not even a little one.

The contrast between Moshe and Balaam is emphasized by the parallelism of the sacrificial rites. Balaam’s oblations are intended to set a meeting with Gd. In this week’s parsha, the sacrificial rite is outlined immediately after the erection of the mishkan, also called the “Tent of Meeting.”  These blood services are invitations, requests for meetings with Gd. They are not unique to the Hebrews, they are universally available.

 Cain and Abel brought sacrifices, and it seems to have led to murder. Noah brought sacrifices and thereby made a treaty with Gd to refrain from universal destruction.  Abraham erred in his understanding of Gd’s request and attempted to slaughter his son. These rituals can be productive, but they are dangerous.

The specifically Israelite rituals are outlined in this week’s parsha. The public knowledge of the activities involved in the sacrificial rite removes the occult.  It removes magic; it prevents an aspect of idolatry. The occult is part of the appeal of idolatry and necessary for its preservation. The hidden aspect prevents the exposure of the underlying errors and base motivations.

Knowing the details of the dismemberment of the carcasses does not remove the strangeness of these activities to the modern person.  The believer cleaves to the eccentricity as a proof of faith. We study these  rituals annually as an acknowledgement of our limited comprehension of the world and the conviction that they contain some great value… that we do not understand.

Mainstream Jews abandoned these rituals almost two thousand years ago. A tent of meeting became a pre-requisite for us, and the Temple was destroyed. What we have left is the words.

Having explored removing the aleph from Vayikra, I am tempted to look at the next level.  יִּקְרָ֖, yakar, which can be understood to mean precious, valuable. Rashi seems to draw on this meaning for the opening word of our parsha. Gd was addressing Moshe as wonderful. Rashi contrast that with the וַיִּקָּ֥ר, vayakar of Balaam, which he derives from מִקְרֶה , mikrah, which denotes “chance”, “occurrence”. There is a connection. Rare things are precious , an element of chance encounter is part of the value of gem.

The next sentence is a festival of the two-letter pair קְרָ֖, kar.

דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם אָדָ֗ם כִּֽי־יַקְרִ֥יב מִכֶּ֛ם קׇרְבָּ֖ן לַֽי

מִן־הַבְּהֵמָ֗ה מִן־הַבָּקָר֙ וּמִן־הַצֹּ֔אן תַּקְרִ֖יבוּ אֶת־קׇרְבַּנְכֶֽם׃

Speak to the children of Yisra᾽el, and say to them, If any man of you bring an offering to the Lord, of the cattle shall you bring your offering, of the herd, and of the flock.

This sentence emphasizes the verb יַקְרִ֥יב, yakriv, related to קׇרְבָּ֖ן, korban, sacrifice. Here, it could be translated as bring an offering. Yakriv, outside the context of sacrifices, means to approach, from karov, meaning close. Does the korban, the offering, bring one close? It seems to do that for Balaam and for the Israelites in the Tent of meeting.  Kar, the first two letter of karov, can mean “cold” or it can mean a”wall” The approach means confronting the possibility of rejection: a cold, stone wall. The sacrifice opens the door to the warm interior.

Sacrifices have various roles. Some are celebratory. There are special rituals for holidays. The shlomim sacrifice was primarily a feast to rejoice over a stroke of good fortune. Daily sacrifices were recognitions of the Divine role in everyday life.  This week’s chapter ends with sacrifices of expiation. Various transgressions required a sacrifice for Divine forbearance.  Transgressions, whether they involve the temple ritual or hurting other people, alienate the sinner from the Divine. They set up the cold wall. Somehow, the sacrifice re-established communication.

In the 17^th century, there was a recognition that “real” numbers, all the fractions and numbers that could not be expressed as fractions ( pi, e, etc) did not suffice to cover all possibilities. Complex numbers, a+bi were invented to deal with the problem of square roots of negative numbers. In most situations, the bi component, the imaginary component, of a number can be ignored. But it is out there, it is available if necessary.  The bi is a recognition of an unfamiliar world, but on some level, it exists. To me, that is where the sacrificial rite lives.