Radical Torah

Posted by Rabbi Brant Rosen

In this week’s Torah portion, Balak, King of the Moabites sends for Bilaam, a sorcerer-type who is reputed to have remarkable powers: whomever he blesses becomes blessed and whomever he curses becomes cursed. Impressed by his reputation, Balak recruits Bilaam to curse the Israelites and seal their doom.

What ensues is brilliant Biblical satire. Bilaam sets out on his mission and is toyed with by God at every turn. Bilaam, the great seer cannot even see what his own ass (pardon the expression) sees:

(Bilaam) was riding on his she-ass, with his two servants alongside, when the ass caught sight of the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. The ass swerved from the road and went into the fields; and Bilaam beat the ass to turn her back on to the road. (Numbers 22:22)

When Bilaam finally arrives at the Israelite camp, his humiliation deepens: try as he might to curse the Israelites, God makes sure that he can only bless them. Ironically, his blessings over Israel are among the most powerful Biblical poems of praise (including the famous verses “Mah tovu ohalecha ya’akov” - “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob!” which have since become a permanent part of the Jewish morning liturgy.)

Though some commentators view Bilaam in positive terms, the conventional understanding of this story is as a monotheistic polemic against pseudo-prophets. Indeed, although Bilaam blesses Israel in the end, his blessings are the product of divine manipulation, not authentic piety. It is difficult to read this story and not, on some level, view Bilaam as something of a fraud.

The story of Bilaam raises many issues, not least of which is the role of flatterers and sycophants in society. Are blessings truly blessings if they come to us through circumstance or with ulterior motive? Who are the Bilaams in our midst today, whose words of support only serve to mask a deeper and possibly darker motive?

For the Bilaam of the 21st century, I cast my vote for Christian evangelical pastor John Hagee, founder of the Christians United For Israel - a religious leader who has been embraced by many quarters of the Jewish community for his staunchly pro-Zionist views. Though Hagee and his followers are amassing impressive political clout and raising increasing amounts of dollars that fill the coffers of Jewish Federations around the country, there is certainly ample reason to question whether his “blessing” to the Jewish community is one we should be so eager to accept.

Hagee’s preaches a Biblically-based version of Zionism that views Israel as God’s gift to the Jewish People and is an avowed opponent of the peace process. Even more troubling, however, is his apocalyptic prescription for Mideast “peace.” In his bestselling book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” he advocates a preemptive strike against Iran and posits that the West will soon become engaged in nuclear war with “Islamo-fascists” which will eventually initiate Armageddon, the final earthly battle described in the Book of Revelation. Hagee further claims that this battle will conclude with the death of countless Israeli citizens and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Some Jews argue that we have cannot afford be choosy, that in desperate times we must find our friends where we can - even if they are among the Bilaams of the world. But are such alliances truly in our best interest? Indeed, as we learn in this week’s Torah portion: motives matter. We would do well to avoid “crisis mode thinking” that could lead us to ill-advised relationships with pseudo-prophets such as Hagee - and unwittingly help create circumstances that will eventually make Armageddon a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(For more about Hagee and the growing Jewish relationship with the Evangelical Right, check out this article from The Jewish Week.)

This is a parsha of contradictions. Balak, king of Moab, fears the Egyptian Hebrews and seeks help from the powerful prophet, Balaam. YHWH goes back and forth as to whether or not Balaam can go to Moab. He finally goes and (according to some rabbis) tries to curse the Hebrews, but is only able to bless them. Along the way we meet the Torah’s second most famous talking animal.

In parsha Balak, YHWH is indecisive and capricious, but pulling all the strings nonetheless.

Shabbat Shalom,

a & s

Posted by Rachel Barenblat

This week we’re in parashat Balak, in which Balaam is called-upon to curse the Israelites, but upon opening his mouth discovers he can utter only blessings.

Looked at through a certain lens, this parsha reads like slapstick. Balaam, on the road toward the place of the cursing, is temporarily thwarted by his donkey, who refuses to do his bidding — and then talks back to him, giving him tsuris for whacking her with a stick. Shades of Shrek; can’t you just hear the donkey speaking in Eddie Murphy’s dulcet tones?

Once Balaam gets to the place where he’s meant to offer curses, he opens up his mouth and the wrong thing comes out. (In this moment I imagine Balak as a kind of Homer Simpson figure: “D’oh!”) Balak drags him to a different mountaintop — maybe the cursing will work from here! — but, once again, Balaam succeeds only in saying what God wills. At that point Balak, exasperated, orders him to stop: “Don’t curse them and don’t bless them” — just stop talking, because you’re ruining my plan! But Balaam offers blessings a third time.

Now Balak gets really mad, and vows to send Balaam away without payment. Balaam shrugs — fine, he’ll go home; he didn’t want to come here in the first place — but before he goes, he offers yet more praises for the Israelites, and while he’s at it, damns a couple of enemies for good measure. Take that, Balak. See what happens when you dare to try to bring down curses on a people favored by God.

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Posted by Rabbi Brant Rosen

In this week’s Torah portion, Hukkkat, we read of the death of Aaron:

Moses stripped Aaron of his vestments and put them on this son, Eleazar. When Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, the whole community knew that Aaron has breathed his last. All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days. (Numbers 20:28-29)

It is noteworthy that Aaron was mourned by the entire people of Israel - and that their period of mourning lasted for thirty days rather than the traditional seven. According to the Midrash, this reflects Aaron’s status as an unusually and universally beloved leader - even more than Moses:

Only the men showed lovingkindness to Moses, as it is said, “And the sons of Israel wept for Moses.” (Deuteronomy 34:8) (But) the men and women and children showed lovingkindness to Aaron.

Why? Because he loved peace and pursued peace, and passed daily through the entire camp of Israel and promoted peace between a man and his wife and between a man and his neighbor. Therefore all Israel showed lovingkindness to him, as it is said, “And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.” (Pirke De’Rabbi Eliezer 17)

The Midrash thus presents us with a decidedly “revisionist Aaron.” While the Aaron of the Torah is the venerable High Priest of Israel, the archetypal Aaron of Rabbinic tradition is portrayed as the quintessential “Ohev V’Rodef Shalom” - “Lover and Pursuer of Peace.” Witness also this well-known verse from Pirke Avot:

Rabbi Hillel said, be a disciple of Aaron: “loving peace and pursuing peace, loving all people and bringing them closer to Torah.” (Pirke Avot 1:12)

Who are today’s disciples of Aaron? Invariably they are the one’s whose love and pursuit of peace comes at great personal cost. In honor of this week’s Torah portion, I’d like to spotlight the work of one courageous peacemaker:

Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient who has spent more than ten of the past seventeen years in some form of imprisonment or detention under Burma’s military regime. Like many important peacemakers (she has cited MLK and Mahatma Ghandi as personal influences) Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle for justice and human rights is grounded in a profoundly spiritual vision. Here is an excerpt from one of her writings, which was quoted in her Nobel Prize Presentation Speech:

Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace. That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundations of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power.

The Burmese associate peace and security with coolness and shade:

The shade of a tree is cool indeed.
The shade of parents is cooler.
The shade of teachers is cooler still.
The shade of the ruler is yet more cool.
But coolest of all is the shade of the Buddha’s teachings.

Thus to provide the people with the protective coolness of peace and security, rulers must observe the teachings of the Buddha. Central to these teachings are the concepts of truth, righteousness and loving kindness. It is government based on these very qualities that the people of Burma are seeking in their struggle for democracy.

Do you know of other Disciples of Aaron? I encourage you to write and share the stories of those whose efforts are contributing to a more just and peaceful world.

Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was not mentioned in this week’s parsha, though the Greeks did, for a time, occupy Palestine. His appearance as YHWH’s confessor is a device to let us put words in her mouth about how she might have felt about this week’s shocking turnaround in her relationship with Moses.

Zeus is also our way of emphasizing one of the things we notice most in this year’s parsha reading, the VERY polytheistic nature of our Torah. But that is for another discussion and perhaps another god.

Shabbat Shalom,

a & s

In Kedushat Levi, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev offers some striking insights into this week’s Torah portion of Chukat, riffing off of the first verse in the parsha, “This is the law of the instructed-ritual that YHVH has commanded, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel, that they may take you a red cow, wholly-sound, that has in it no defect, that has not yielded to a yoke[.]’” (Numbers 19:2, transl. Everett Fox.) Levi Yitzchak writes:

In our world, it appears to us as if we were created to engage in the things of this world. But in truth, that is not the case. The primary reason that we were created was so that we might come to recognize the unity of the Holy Blessed One…

That is the sense of “This is the law of the Torah:” there are mitzvot that reason compels us to perform. When we do them, we do not sense so strongly that we are performing them because the Creator commanded these mitzvot. That is why the Blessed Creator gave us commandments that reason does not comprehend. When we do them, we more readily recognize that we do them only because of God’s commandment.

It’s easy to understand why ethical commandments are important. How we treat one another matters. But ritual commandments, especially ones (like the red heifer) which don’t make much sense — those can be harder to cherish. For Levi Yitzchak, the illogic of a chok (a commandment which can’t be made to fit our sensible paradigm) is precisely what makes it important. In accepting the chukim, we accept the “yoke of heaven” and acknowledge God’s sovereignty.

There’s something beautiful about that. It affirms that there are things in this vast universe which are beyond our comprehension and beyond our control. That life isn’t all about us. That, as Levi Yitzchak writes, we were created for an ineffable purpose — recognizing the fundamental unity of infinite God! All of our strivings and disagreements and philosophical ruminations are not the point. Performing chukim has an impact on our spiritual awareness. They’re devotional practices, not intellectual exercises.

There’s also something difficult about it. The red cow becomes a kind of red flag. Maybe especially for women, who may feel that we are always already trying to break free from the expectation that we will submit ourselves to priorities which come from someone else. The world is too full of hierarchy and power-over, and siting ourselves in a position of submission to incomprehensible mitzvot can feel like another iteration of the same old song and dance.

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Posted by Rabbi Brant Rosen

As this week’s Torah portion opens, a prominent Israelite named Korach ben Yizhar, together with two hundred and fifty chieftains, publicly revolts against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Korach’s grievance is articulated as a populist call to arms:

They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourself about the LORD’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3)

The rebellion ends ignobly: at the climax of this episode, the earth opens up to swallow Korach, his followers, their families and all of their possessions.

Korach’s is not the first rebellion experienced by the Israelite community, but in some ways it is the most complex and disturbing. For one thing, we cannot help but be struck by the fact that Korach’s grievance seems to be quite valid: he voices a kind of proto-democratic sentiment that speaks to the intrinsic value of every Israelite citizen (contrasted with the more “hierarchical and “elitist” leadership embodied by Moses and Aaron). Many commentators have pointed out, however, that Korach’s populism might not be all it’s cracked up to be. While he speaks the language of the masses, the traditional take on Korach is that his “democratic commitment” is somewhat less than pure.

Though this story was written centuries before the political concept of liberal democracy was ever dreamed of, Korach’s rebellion has a special resonance for the 21st century world. Indeed, what do we mean when we speak of our commitment to the “global spread of democracy?” What do we make of world leaders, like Korach, who speak the language of the masses, but clearly harbor their own anti-democratic agendas? How do we feel when, in our own country, our leaders talk passionately about spreading our democratic values abroad yet show little regard for the Constitution here at home?

Fareed Zakaria, in his important book “The Future of Freedom” articulates the current challenge well:

Modern democracies will face difficult new challenges - fighting terrorism, adjusting to globalization, adapting to an aging society - and they will have to make their system work much better than it currently does. That means making democratic decision-making effective, reintegrating constitutional liberalism into the practice of democracy, rebuilding broken political institutions and civic associations. Perhaps most difficult of all, it will require that those with immense power in our societies embrace their responsibilities, lead, and set standards that are not only legal, but moral. Without this inner stuffing, democracy will become an empty shell, not simply inadequate but potentially dangerous, bringing with it it the erosion of liberty, the manipulation of freedom, and the decay of common life.

…As we enter the twenty-first century, our task is to make democracy safe for the world.

(”The Future of Freedom,” p. 256)

We’re in Israel for part 2 of the Israeli/Palestinian Comedy Tour! This has been a whirlwind. With show locations ranging from Haifa to Be’er Sheva, including Ra’anana, Tel Aviv, the Ambassador Hotel, Jerusalem and on and on. The show was nicely blogged on Jewschool. We also made TWO trips to fabulous West Bank city of Ramallah. This round of touring has been so fast and furious we were not able to create a new comic this week. We hope, however, that you’ll be a least mildly amused by our take on this same parsha, Korach, last year.

- SHABBAT SHALOM! - a & s

This week, in parashat Korach, Korach dares to argue that all of the community is holy and therefore the Kohanim don’t deserve a monopoly on their priestly role. In response, the earth opens up and swallows Korach and all of his followers. This is one of the most fascinating, powerful, and problematic stories in Torah. It draws me and repels me in nearly equal measure.

If you’re looking for insightful commentary on Korach, allow me to recommend Rabbi Yehonatan Chipman’s Korah and Determinism, which explores questions of predestination, awe of heaven, and free will by reading Korach through the lens of the Ishbitzer Rebbe. I brought that text to my weekly hevruta group, and after a close reading of Rabbi Chipman and the Ishbitzer, we wound up talking about how each of us sees the story of Korach, and how our understandings have changed over time.

I’ve long identified with Korach, who can be read as a proponent of democracy, of grassroots activism, of empowerment. The entire people is holy, he says; power shouldn’t be consolidated in the hands of an élite; each of us should be able to draw near to God. We aspire to holy community, don’t we? And what could be more holy than a community in which everyone takes responsibility for her or his own relationship with God? That’s part of why I entered rabbinic school — in order to learn how to empower people to fully inhabit their relationship with Jewish tradition and with God.

It’s easy to read this story as a conflict between Korach — the wild figure who finds holiness in all people and who insists people can relate to God on their own — and Moses and Aaron, the staid and stodgy representatives of the status quo, promulgators of hierarchy and order. Given that dichotomy, I’ve always been more of a Korach type. (Except, of course, that Korach is ultimately swallowed up by the earth — not exactly the kind of future I’m looking for.)

Funny thing, though. As I settle more firmly into rabbinic school, I’m starting to relate more to Aaron and to Moses. My inner Korach still calls out for an egalitarian commitment to the holiness of the whole community — but now he’s answered by the growing voice of my inner Moshe.

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Turning point! This week B’nai Israel finds itself within spitting distance of the Promised Land. But to YHWH’s apparent annoyance they send spies to check out the scene. The spies’ report makes the Hebrews feel worse than Chicago Cubs fans in August. They, as usual, begin to question the whole wilderness crossing project. YHWH, also as usual, throws a Holy Hissy Fit. She declares, “game over,” that the tribe should turn around and head back toward the Red Sea and that everybody who doubted her, as in the whole generation She took out of Egypt, will die in the desert. Sounds like she was getting advice from Dick Cheney.

- SHABBAT SHALOM! - a & s

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Shelach Lecha, Moses sends scouts into Canaan, charging them to observe the land and its inhabitants and report back to the Israelites. Ten of the scouts bring back a discouraging report:

“(The) people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large…We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we…We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” (Numbers 13:28-33)

While the Torah’s portrayal of the conquest of Canaan teaches us nothing about appropriate attitudes toward indigenous peoples (as I regularly comment to aghast Torah Study students), this particular episode does offer profound psychological insights on collective fear and the ways it can impact upon our view of the world. Many commentators point out, for instance, that the spies’ negative assessment of the land and its inhabitants is based upon decidedly skewed and mistaken assumptions about what they actually saw in Canaan. According to Rashi:

“How were they (the scouts) to know (the Canaanites) strength? (By looking at their cities) - were they walled or fortified? If they live in unwalled cities, they are strong and trust in their own strength. If, however, they live in fortified cities, they are fearful and insecure.” (Rashi on Numbers 13:28)

A powerful rejoinder for a post 9/11 world: it is only a weak and fearful people that builds fortifications between itself and the outside world; a truly strong people doesn’t need to hide behind walls.

In this week’s parsha, Shlakh-Lekha, we read about the spies sent to investigate the land of Canaan. They go forth and scout the land, and what they find there distresses them. Enemies abound; the people are powerful, the cities are large and fortified. Even the grapes they cut down are enormous: so large they have to be carried on a frame, by two grown men, as one might carry a deer. They say, “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have seemed to them.”

Hearing this report, the people quail in fear, and rail (again) at their leaders for having brought them out of Egypt. They threaten to pelt Moses and Aaron with stones. In the midst of this wailing, God too becomes incensed, and contemplates disowning the children of Israel — but Moses argues on the Israelites’ behalf, and instead of striking them down, God decrees that none of this generation will live to see the land which they have been promised. None, that is, save Joshua and Caleb, who returned from the scouting trip with full faith in God.

The Israelites have experienced two great miracles — the parting of the Sea of Reeds, and the revelation of Torah at Sinai — but, faced with the prospect of moving into a strange place where they may have to struggle for survival, they panic. They’re clearly not ready to take the leap of entering the land. And how does God respond to their fear? By threatening to wipe them off the face of the earth! Only when Moses argues, with great kavanah, that God should be merciful does God relent (with that beautiful phrase, selachti kidvarecha, “I pardon, as you have asked,” which we recite each year during Yom Kippur)…but the punishment is still harsh: the entire generation will die before the Israelites can reach the culmination of their wandering. Doesn’t that seem like a little much?

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As delicious as meat may be to some people, there are serious environmental implications for a carnivorous diet. While global warming has been making headlines in recent months, I believe most people have a limited understanding of some of the causes. On some level it has become a one-dimensional issue; the more I drive, the more I contribute to the slow death of the planet as we know it. But, in fact, according to a 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, what we eat is actually more important that what or how much we drive. It states that animal-based agriculture causes approximately 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming, an amount greater than that caused by all forms of transportation on the planet combined (about 13.5%).

There are numerous explanations for the laws of Kashrut and the intricate processes required of us if and when we choose to eat meat. These are based on the seemingly simple commandment not to cook a kid in its mother’s milk. One reason given for this statement is that the milk is the life source to the newborn kid. To take its source of nourishment and survival and turn it into the vehicle by which this animal is killed, would be truly disrespectful. I understand the laws of Kashrut as tools towards awareness and mindfulness that there is a life that was taken in order that we may eat. We must recognize the impact of our choices.

So where is the line? When does the impact become so great that we simply decide that we cannot, in good conscience, continue to eat meat? According to Dr. Richard Schwartz, over 70% of the grain grown in the United States is channeled to livestock. The land use practices of the meat industry generally lead to overuse of fuel and water, degrade the land and pollute the water around it, contributing to additional environmental and health problems.

In Schwartz’s article “Global Warming isn’t Kosher,” co-authored by Dan Brooks, it states, “An animal-based diet also uses energy very inefficiently. It requires 78 calories of fossil fuel for each calorie of protein obtained from feedlot-produced beef, but only 2 calories of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of protein from soybeans. Grains and beans require only 2 - 5% as much fossil fuel as beef. The energy needed to produce a pound of grain-fed beef is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.”

There are numerous studies and articles making a strong case for a vegetarian diet based on moral, environmental, political, economic and spiritual reasons. A few of these are linked below. These sites contain more than just facts but also loads of resources, recipes and information to make this transition smooth. And if you are someone who does eat meat, the shift can be gradual. Become a “meat reductionist” by reducing your meat consumption by one meal a week, and then go from there.

But I also think that the shift to a sustainable and plant-based diet is more than just practical; it is philosophical. It means that we move away from feeling entitled to eat whatever we like, but rather reintroduce the awareness that was required of the Israelites when they were first explained the intricate laws of Kashrut. It means we recognize that we are part of something much larger than our own narrow perspective allows us to see, that we educate ourselves about the repercussions of our lifestyle, and make better, more informed choices.

Signing off,
Nati Passow

Nati Passow is a carpenter, writer and educator living in Philadelphia, PA. He is Co-Director of the Jewish Farm School .

Check out these websites for facts, videos and other resources on the benefits of a vegetarian diet. JewishVeg.com, The Meatrix, GoVeg.com and the E Magazine article, “Another Inconvenient Truth.”

As this week’s Torah portion opens, Aaron and Miriam unexpectedly disparage their brother Moses:

When they were in Hatzerot, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Cushite woman!” (Parashat Beha’alotecha, Numbers 12:1)

Moses’ siblings’ comment is confusing on a number of levels. In the first place, it’s not quite clear who this “Cushite woman” actually is. Cush is commonly understood to refer to ancient Ethiopia (in Genesis 10:6 we read that the Cushites descended from Ham, the son of Noah.) However, the text makes it clear that Moses’ wife Zipporah is a Midianite, not a Cushite. As Rashi would say, what’s the deal here?

Commentators have handled this discrepancy in different ways. Some suggest that Zipporah and the Cushite woman are the same person. (Many point out that Habbakuk 3:7 refers to a Midianite tribe named Cushan). Other Biblical scholars posit that the reference to the Cushite wife is a fragment of a larger (essentially lost) literary tradition. These theories are interesting as far as they go, but in the end they fail to address the most troubling dimension to this episode: namely, the patently racist nature of Miriam and Aaron’s words.

Indeed, whatever else might be going on in this strange Biblical narrative, it seems clear that it is, at least in part, an anti-racist polemic. Though Miriam and Aaron later indicate their anger at Moses also stems from their resentment of his being chosen by God to lead the Israelites, the text judges their prejudiced words with undeniable harshness. It is notable that after disparaging their brother for marrying a black woman, Miriam is stricken with tzara’at - the infamous Biblical skin disease that manifests itself with “snow-white scales.” (12:10) In a sense, God seems to be saying to Miriam: “You like white, I’ll show you white!”

Classical Jewish commentators famously understand tzara’at to be a physical manifestation of the sin of lashon harah - negative speech, or gossip. This interpretation is less compelling as theology (i.e. illness understood as divine punishment) than it is as a metaphor for the virulent nature of harmful words. Taking our cue from the rabbinic commentators, we might well extend this insight to address the radically infectious nature of hate speech and racism.

Indeed, just like a virus or infection, racism has the very real potential to spread through society if left unchecked. This is no less a reality for us today, centuries after these Biblical words were written. To be sure, the infectious nature of racism has “mutated” in new and frightening ways as we enter the 21st century. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has remarked:

Despite decades of efforts to eradicate it, the virus of racism continues to infect human relations and human institutions in all parts of our globe. Today, the old strains of this disease, such as institutionalized discrimination, indirect disadvantage, racist violence, hate crimes, harassment and persecution, are compounded by new forms of discrimination, seemingly defying many of the gains we have made. The Internet is used for the propagation of racism, the number of victims of human trafficking is growing, xenophobic arguments in political discourse are on the rise, and innocent people are “racially profiled” in the name of distorted notions of security. Even anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head, six decades after the liberation of extermination camps in which the entire world saw the barbaric extremes to which racism, if not confronted, can lead.

As we learn this week, our penchant for racism and intolerance has been with us from time immemorial, even as it finds ever new and more insidious forms of transmission. What will we do to address the pandemic?