Thursday, December 28, 2017

The First Zioness

Since it’s my bar mitzva portion, I’m quite partial to this week’s reading, Parashat Vaychi (Genesis 47:28-50:26). It’s far more poetic and fast-paced than its predecessors as it describes Jacob’s passing. However, the final chapter does drag a bit, as it painstakingly describes the funeral arrangements. But when you learn it by heart, you start to notice some interesting twists in the text.

So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s house. (50:7-8)

And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who went up with him to bury his father. (50:14)

The Torah states that “his father’s house” went back to Canaan to bury Jacob — who would that be? His brothers are mentioned; “the house of Joseph,” presumably his sons, are mentioned as well, so who could this be? And why, when they go back to Egypt, do he and his brothers return, but not “his father’s house”?

At least one view in the Midrash argues that Jacob did in fact have a child who died in Canaan, unlike Joseph and his brothers: their sister Dinah.

And the Rabbis say: Simeon took [Dinah] and buried her in the land of Canaan. (Genesis Rabbah 80:11)

He buried her in the Land of Canaan, for it was there that she died; aside from her, none of Jacob’s children died in the Land of Canaan. This is why she is referred to (46:10) as “the Canaanitess.” (Mattenot Kehuna, ad loc.)

There is no doubt that Dinah went down with her brothers and her father to Egypt, as she is one of the 70 souls counted. However, alone among them, she returns to Canaan at some point. The most logical point would be after the death of Jacob. Indeed, Dinah’s return after Jacob’s passing would be a lot less perplexing than her brothers’ decision to remain in exile in Egypt.

This may explain a famous biblical enigma: when Joshua conquers the land, he defeats the kings of 31 city-states, but Shechem is not among them. If Dinah returns not just to Canaan, but to Shechem, site of her greatest trauma, it would go a long way towards explaining why Joshua never needs to reconquer the city.

This midrashic view would make Dinah the first to return to the Land of Israel from national exile. The idea that Jacob’s family maintains a physical connection to the Land is extremely significant. Indeed, in every subsequent exile — Babylonian, Persian, Edomite (Roman) — there is always a remnant. We might say that since the day Jacob was renamed Israel, there has never been a day that the Land of Israel was devoid of the People of Israel.

Aunt Dinah, as it were, kept the light on for us. It’s only appropriate that Israel’s capital has finally named a street after her.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Trans Tribes

 How many of the children of Israel were trans? I mean that literally. In this week’s Torah portion, Jacob’s household grows by four wives, 11 sons and one daughter. The Talmud has some interesting things to say about that daughter, Dinah, whose name is not explained in the Torah.

R. Joseph challenged this: “And afterwards she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah” (Gen. 30:21). What is meant by ‘afterwards’? Rav said: After Leah had passed judgment (dana din) on herself, saying, ‘Twelve tribes are destined to issue from Jacob. Six have issued from me and four from the handmaids, making 10. If this child will be a male, my sister Rachel will not be equal to one of the handmaids’. Forthwith the child was turned to a girl, as it says, “And she called her name Dinah!”

(BT Berachot 60a)

According to the Talmud, Dinah’s very name alludes to the fact that she was changed from male to female, due to her mother Leah’s prayer during her seventh pregnancy. Midrash Rabba states this even more starkly, as Rabbi Abba states: “The root of her creation was male, but she was turned into a female through Rachel’s prayers when she said, ‘The Lord add to me another son (v. 24).'” Rabbi Hanina adds: “All the matriarchs assembled and prayed: ‘We have sufficient males; let her [Rachel] be remembered'” (Genesis Rabba 72:6). The Jerusalem Talmud (Berachot 9:3) concurs.

While these sources differ as to whose prayers change Dinah’s sex and when, everyone agrees that Jacob’s only daughter started out male.

One source goes even further, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the verse as follows:

Before God, Leah’s prayer was heard, and the fetuses were switched in their wombs; Joseph was placed in Rachel’s womb and Dinah in the womb of Leah.

This is actually cited in halachic works, such as Responsa Tzur Yaakov (Rabbi A.Y. Horowitz of Probizhna), which explains (ch. 28):

Certainly, this means that Joseph’s body in Leah’s womb was transformed into a female, while Dinah’s body in Rachel’s womb was transformed into a male, and their souls were transferred from each womb to the other.

According to this view, not only was Dinah a trans woman, but Joseph was a trans man! At least Jacob still had enough cis boys to make a minyan…

Indeed, Dinah does exhibit some traditionally male behavior, such as “going out to see the daughters of the land” (Gen. 34:1), while Joseph exhibits some traditionally female behavior, as the Midrash notes (Genesis Rabba 84:7): “He exhibited girlish behavior: he would make up his eyes, turn up his heel and fix his hair.”

Midrashic exegesis is not meant to reflect the simple meaning of the text, but it is meant to teach us important moral lessons. Going back to the days of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, we see that gender is not as simple as we might have been led to believe in Parasha class.

We Jews, especially those of us who are more traditionally observant, have a long way to go before we grasp what it means to accommodate the LGBTQ community in the spirit of the Torah. The approach at this link would not be it. The first step is acknowledging that this community is part of our society — and has been since the very beginning.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Eshcol to arms

 My wife started a new job recently, which is great. That also means commuting, which is less great. It’s much less great (that can’t be right!) when it’s a demo day.

What’s a demo day? If you grew up in a reasonably temperate climate, you’ve probably heard of a snow day. If you live or work in Jerusalem, those are pretty rare, but demo days — when protestors shut down the roads — are all too frequent. Your 40-minute bus or car ride just became two hours. Schools and businesses may close early in anticipation of the impassable.

Now, many demonstrators protest for many reasons, but if they’re actually closing down roads in the capital, it’s probably a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) protest. If you ask me, they have a pretty sweet deal: no army service, voluntary unemployment, stipends to learn in yeshiva. And if you ask them, that only makes sense, because Torah study and prayer are what REALLY get results. Unless you want to protest the government, because then you have to leave the study hall and block some roads, throw some rocks, maybe burn some dumpsters.

Some will say that the roadblockers are the extremists, which is of course true. However, the policy they support, of wholesale opposition to the draft for haredim, is THE position of haredi society. There have been a handful of haredi MKs with short-lived careers who have suggested otherwise–Tzvia Greenfield (Meretz), R’ Haim Amsalem (Am Shalem), R’ Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid)–but notice that none of them belong to haredi parties or are in Knesset anymore. In fact, the most powerful haredi politician of this generation, Finance Committee Chair Moshe Gafni has stated that it’s impossible to be haredi and work.

Now, if these fine bochurim manage to make their way back to the study hall, they might read in this week’s Torah portion about our Patriarch Abraham, who hears his nephew Lot has been captured in a war against Sodom (Gen. 14:13-14):

A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Emorite, a brother of Eshcol and Aner, all of whom were Abram’s allies. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 disciples born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

Abraham goes out to war; his disciples go out to war; even his Emorite allies go out to war. When the battle is won and the King of Sodom offers Abraham the spoils, he replies (ibid. v. 24)

“I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

Centuries later, a fateful split occurs among Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites. After the Exodus from Egypt, Moses sends scouts to survey the land, and ten of them reach the decision that they cannot defeat their enemies on the battlefield, with two dissenting. This ultimately leads to a decree of death for the generation that left Egypt and four decades of wandering. And where does the fateful split among the scouts take place? Wadi Eshcol, echoing the name of “Eshcol, boon companion of Abraham” (Num. Rabba 16:16).

If the students of Abraham left their yeshiva for the battlefield, I would not dare to reckon myself better than them. If Eshcol the Emorite and his brothers enlisted for the cause, shouldn’t a fellow Jew do the same? After all, we do not want to reenact the scene at Wadi Eshcol, where God’s promise to accompany us into combat was rejected.

Our nation is worth fighting for.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Kol Yisrael Aravot

The tale is told of a group of 19th-century yeshiva students who got into a physical interaction with some maskilim (students of the Enlightenment). Their rosh yeshiva demanded to see them in his study to explain their actions.

 

The leader said: “Rebbe, did our Sages not say that the Four Species of Sukkot mirror the Jewish people? The etrog, which has a pleasing taste and smell, reflects those who have both Torah and good deeds, while the odorless, tasteless aravot represent those who have neither Torah nor good deeds. Well, don’t we beat the aravot on the ground on the last day of Sukkot? That is what we were doing to the maskilim!”

 

The rebbe frowned and replied: “Since you have twisted words of Torah to justify bad acts, it appears to me that you lot are the aravot!”


That may be my favorite traditional tale, possibly because I made it up yesterday. However, I think the moral still applies. The Midrash Rabba on Leviticus 23:40 does say the aravot represent those Jews who have neither the wisdom of Torah nor the compassion of good deeds, but it also says they could represent our Matriarch Rachel.  Or her son, Joseph. Or the stenographers who record the rulings of the Sanhedrin. Or God Himself.

Still, the most popular interpretation is undoubtedly the one in which taste represents Torah and smell represents good deeds. The lulav has the former, hadasim the latter, the etrog both and aravot neither. God binds them all together so that each may atone for the other.

It is a stirring message of ahdut, unity. But as often happens with ahdut, the underlying assumption has a certain undercurrent of condescension. We may paraphrase the Talmudic phrase “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh be-zeh” as: Kol Yisrael aravim zeh be-zeh. Each group considers the other to be deficient, but in the name of unity, the aravot/ aravim are tolerated. (Aravot is the plural in Mishnaic Hebrew, aravim in Biblical Hebrew.) Is that really ahdut? If we view others as less, as inferior, as here only by our sufferance, how much is that vision of unity worth?

In Temple times, everyone would approach and dance around the altar with aravot. No one would be so brazen as to consider themselves an etrog, or even lulav or hadasim. Everyone took humble aravot, every day of Sukkot, to come before God. Because if God is found in the aravot too, we can at least aspire to that level.

Yes, we do beat them at the end of Sukkot, not out of anger or contempt at the other, but to realize our own failures, the times we lack wisdom or compassion, with the hope that we will grow over the course of the next year. And yet, we never quite get there, as we always need a Yom Kippur to purify us before rejoicing before God on Sukkot.

Sometimes we’re the etrog, sometimes we’re the aravot. True ahdut means that we embrace Godliness, in ourselves and in others, even on the worst of days.

Monday, October 2, 2017

Don't let them

 Don’t let them tell you it’s too soon. The fact is that it’s too late for the next massacre, and the one after that, and the one after that. The stockpiling is ongoing. But we want to mitigate the first massacre of 2020.

Don’t let them say it’s not terrorism. When the public is so scared and intimidated that it throws up its hands and says, “Nothing to be done!”– that is the textbook definition of terrorism.

Don’t let them talk about rights. The unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness precede all others.

Don’t let them parse the classes of weapons. There is a reason we hand soldiers assault weapons, not rocks or pillows.

Don’t let them strawman you over self-defense or sports. Setting aside how sporting gunplay is or is not, setting aside the likelihood of homeowners being shot with their own weapons, this is not our goal. It never has been. Toddlers and suicidal people will still have free access to the guns in their homes, have no fear.

Don’t let them act shocked when weapons designed for no other purpose than to slaughter dozens of people are used to slaughter dozens of people.

Don’t let them offer thoughts and prayers. When those are cynical substitutes for plans and actions, they are far more abhorrent than silence.

Don’t let them pretend that they will hold off the artillery, ordnance and nuclear firepower of a superpower with their pea-shooters.

Don’t let them blame cable TV or video games or any other media. Imaginary guns are not implements of death.

Don’t let them perpetrate the myth of the “good guy with a gun.” Off-duty law enforcement officers and military personnel aside, it’s a myth.

Don’t let them ignore the experience of the rest of the planet.

Don’t let them portray an extremist minority as the moral backbone of the nation.

Don’t let them distract with talk about mental health (which they have no interest in addressing either) or domestic abuse (ditto) or international politics (of countries they can’t find on a map).

We are stronger. We are many. And we will prevail.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Kippurfest!

 You’d think the week leading up to Yom Kippur would be the time for Jews to be less judgemental, what with us all being Judged.

However, the raging topic on Frumbooki.e., religiously observant social media, is Rabbi Aaron Potek of GatherDC’s Alternative Yom Kippur service at Sauf Haus Bier Hall & Garten. Many were so shocked they let go of the chickens they were swinging over their heads! (BTW if you don’t spread the entrails on the roof like the Rema says [OH 605:1], aren’t you basically a goy anyway?)

Look, Rabbi Aaron Potek isn’t trying to poach any of your congregants. No one who was headed to your seven-hour morning service is skipping out to Dupont Circle at 11 A.M. This is specifically designed for people who are intimidated by the synagogue setting, a concept which is nothing new in Israel, where many community rec centers hold services at the beginning of Yom Kippur for Kol Nidrei and its conclusion for Ne’ila. Yes, the same place folks were doing yoga and meditation just a few hours earlier. (Sauf Haus has those too.)

But they’re making Yom Kippur into a frat-house party, you say: fasting is the most important part! Halakhically, that’s true. And the fasting of all adults is equal. So I hope you give as much respect to a 12-year-old girl fasting as some rosh yeshiva with a long, flowing white beard. And you always stress that is far better for a husband and father to never set foot in a synagogue on this day if that’s what his wife needs to bear fasting in her pregnant, postpartum or nursing state? Or an elderly parent to do the same? And if someone’s health is genuinely in danger and they MUST eat halakhically, do you tell them they’re not really keeping Yom Kippur?

The fact is, if you bother to read past the headline, you’ll see that there’s no food or drink served. Attendees will not be accosted by guards pawing through their bags, but the nourishment offered is purely spiritual in nature.

Ah, but the location! What sort of hipster nudnick of a “rabbi” would be caught in such an inappropriate place on Yom Kippur, of all days?!

Funny you should mention that:

Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel said: Never were there any more joyous festivals in Israel than the 15th of Av and the Day of Atonement, for on them the maidens of Jerusalem used to go out dressed in white garments–borrowed ones, however, in order not to cause shame to those who had none of their own. These clothes were also to be previously immersed, and thus the maidens went out and danced in the vineyards, saying: Young men, look and observe well whom you are about to choose…(Mishna, Ta’anit 4:8)

Wow, that Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel must have been some upstart iconoclast, Notorious RSBG, right? Actually, he was as establishment as you can get, the Nasi (Prince), direct descendant of Hillel and father of Rabbi Judah the Prince, author of the Mishna. He knows the tradition that Yom Kippur was the day Israel finally achieved atonement for the hedonistic dancing around the Golden Calf. He concludes that it’s a perfect day for doing so, but in holiness and purity.

As a child, he witnessed the violent repression of the final of three Jewish revolts in less than a century. His generation was the first to realize that unlike the First Temple, which was rebuilt after only seventy years, the Second Temple would lie in ruins far longer. He would not see a High Priest perform the Yom Kippur service. Nevertheless, he finds the joy and vitality. To put it bluntly, he makes Yom Kippur sexy again. In the vineyards.

Yes, for many of us, Yom Kippur is shaped by liturgy written a millennium after RSBG, sung to tunes only a few centuries, or even decades, old. Is that “traditional”? It certainly may be for you. But every tradition starts with a shattering of norms. And this one has quite a pedigree.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Firstfruits: Giving Women a Voice

 The bikkurim (firstfruits) open this week’s Torah portion, as landowners are commanded to bring the premiere of their yield to the altar and make a declaration recognizing the long journey from “My father was a wandering Aramean” to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 26:5-9). In fact, we all expound these verses (at least the first four) at the Passover Seder. (Haggada is the term for both recountings.) But whose mitzva is it? The Midrash (Mekhilta Exodus 23:19) expounds the verses in our passage thusly:

Which the LORD swore to our fathers” excludes gerim and [freed] slaves. “To give to us” excludes women, the intersex and the androgynous. The implication is that they are excluded from bringing and excluded from reading, but the verse says “You shall bring” [including all]. So what is the difference between these and those? These [native-born freemen] bring and read, while those bring but do not read.

Everyone who has produce, the Mekhilta makes clear, fulfills the mitzva of bringing bikkurim; the limitation to the traditional landowning class (freeborn male Israelites) only applies to the declaration.

However, over the course of the generations, the mitzva evolves. Consider the priests and Levites, who do not receive territory, but only cities scattered throughout the land. Nevertheless, in the Tosefta (Bikkurim 1:4), Rabbi Jose says that although his colleague would exclude members of the thirteenth tribe, he includes priests, Levites and Israelites equally in this mitzva.

Gerim — sojourners in Scripture, converts in rabbinic literature — also overcome their exclusion, as the Jerusalem Talmud (Bikkurim 1:4) explains:

It has been taught in the name of Rabbi Judah: “The convert himself may bring and read. What is the reason? ‘You shall be the father of a multitude of nations (Genesis 17:4)’ — in the past you were the father of Aramea, but now, henceforth, you are the father of all nations.”

But what about women? Their exclusion from landownership, after all, has a famous caveat, as stated in Num. 27: daughters inherit when they have no brothers. This would seem to indicate that they are included in the command “To these you shall apportion the land” (Nahmanides ibid. 26:46 says this explicitly), and such an heiress could certainly say: “The LORD swore to our fathers to give to us.”

Indeed, when one sage in the Jerusalem Talmud (ibid.) questions how a person whose father is not biologically Jewish makes the bikkurim declaration, “Does he not mean Abraham, Isaac and Jacob [when saying “The Lord swore to our fathers”]? Were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob their fathers? The Holy One, blessed be He, swore only to males!” the laconic response is “Perhaps to females.”

The clearest indication is the teaching of the Talmud (Gittin 47b): “‘And to your house’ — this teaches us that a man brings the firstfruits of his wife and recites.” 14th-century French Talmudist Rabbenu Crescas explains:

This case is different, as it says “And to your house.” This is no mere allusion, but a biblical decree. Even though the husband possesses no land of his own, his wife is like his body.

Five centuries later, Tiferet Yaakov sharpens the point:

By Torah law, the husband has no right to the fruits [of the land she brings into the marriage], but it is solely a biblical decree: a woman does not recite, and an agent does not recite, but a husband bringing his wife’s first fruits may bring and recite, as he could have a portion in the land and may bring and recite on his wife’s behalf with the status of an agent, because his wife is like his body, and it is as if she were reciting. On the contrary, in his view the language is quite precise: “This teaches us that a man brings the firstfruits of his wife.”

Facing a culture unused to a woman’s voice in public, the rabbis deputize her husband to be her mouthpiece–an elegant solution, despite the hermeneutical gymnastics it requires.

This is just one example of the true breadth of expounding and expanding the Torah: a millennia-long journey to widen the circle and hear the voices of all segments of society.

For more sources, see my parallel article at TheTorah.com, Between Bringing and Reciting: How the Rabbis Made Bikkurim More Inclusive.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Game of Throes

This has been a difficult week for many people who consider themselves to be in touch with bedrock principles of morality, as they ask the question: Am I OK with incest now?
Incest, after all, is supposed to be something we can all agree on. This week's Torah portion takes hot stepmoms off the table: "A man shall not take his father's wife, so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness" (Deut. 22:30). It's repeated and expanded on next week (27:20-23):
‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his father’s wife, because he has uncovered his father’s nakedness.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen. 'Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
However, the world's most popular television show (though some authorities rule "It's not TV, it's HBO") has a different view on the issue of incest. Game of Thrones' premiere episode ended with a boy thrown out a window for witnessing a man having sex with his twin sister (daughter of his father AND daughter of his mother). And that man, Jaime Lannister, is arguably the hero of the show, or at least the one who has exhibited the most growth over seven seasons. His sister Cersei is now the first ruling Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
Still, audiences were supposed to be repelled by that relationship. Surely, in the finale of the penultimate season, we wouldn't witness a Game of Throes of passionate incest between our two noblest heroes, Dany and Jon? Well, here's the thing: turns out Dany is Jon's aunt. Oops.
But is it really such a shanda? After all, you've probably heard of a guy named Moses. His parents (Exodus 6:20) were aunt (Jochebed) and nephew (Amram). And the very founders of Judaism, Abraham and Sarah, were brother and sister (Genesis 20:12)--or, at least, uncle and niece (Talmud Megilla 14a). And the Davidic line traces all the way back to Judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law Tamar (Genesis 38).
Still, all that is pre-Sinai. It's not like anyone would suggest keeping it all in the family in a post-Revelation world, right?
Concerning him who loves his neighbors, who befriends his relatives, marries his sister's daughter and lends a sela' to a poor man in the hour of his need, Scripture says (Isaiah 58:9), Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry and He will say: 'Here I am'. (Talmud Yevamot 62b)
I know what you're wondering: but that's my sister's daughter, what about my brother's daughter? That's a matter of some dispute among medieval Talmudists (Tosafot ad loc.):
R. Samuel b. Meir says the same applies to his brother's daughter; it merely mentions his sister because she plies him with words and it common for him to marry her daughter.
Rabbenu Tam says that it is specifically his sister's daughter, for she shares a temperament with him, as we say, "Most children are like their mother's brother."
To make this even more awkward, these two rabbis were brothers. No word on whether they married each other's daughters.
We get that Game of Thrones portrays a fictionalized medieval feudal society. But how often we forget that the greatest Torah minds of the past millennium actually lived in the real versions of those societies.
So if you want to ship Jon & Dany (on a ship), I get it. But let's hold on to the sexual morality we've developed over the centuries, in which consent and respect are the most sacred values. Otherwise, our journey of ethical evolution will end with the realization that we know nothing.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Pure SJW Territory

Look here!
No, seriously, that's what this week's Torah portion, Re'eh, literally means: Look! See! Observe! Over its 126 verses (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) and 55 mitzvot, Re'eh covers a lot of ground. And much of it is pure SJW territory.
"SJW," which in online insult "culture" stands for Social Justice Warrior, has become an epithet for liberals and leftists. Caring for the less fortunate is controversial nowadays, so why not mock people for it?
But the title of this post could very well stand for: Social Justice -- Why That's Frum. Frum, religious, mitzvah-observant, traditionally Jewish... these are terms which, for some odd reason, are considered to be antithetical to Social Justice Warrior status, but it is quite thetical. OK, that's not a word, but let's talk about the words which do pop up, over and over, in Re'eh.
PartsHand17
Eye8
Heart4
ParticipantsBrother/ Sister10
Sons10
Daughters6
Manservant11
Maidservant5
Levite (Teacher)
7
Pauper6
Stranger4
Orphan3
Widow3
Poor2
Foreigner2
ParticiplesGiving10
Rejoicing7
Remitting6
Granting/ Lending6
Opening4
It's not that Re'eh doesn't talk about ritualistic aspects of Judaism; it's just that everything in it has a social-justice element. The idolatry which is harshly condemned throughout the Torah is finally explained (13:29): "You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every taboo (to'avat) thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods." The fight against ancient paganism is not about theological debates, but the abuse of the defenseless. Just as God's angel told Abraham on Mt. Moriah "Set not your hand against the boy," we must do the same as God's children and representatives (14:1-2).
The laws of keeping kosher are set down, but they are bookended in the following way (14:3, 21): “You shall not eat anything taboo (to'eva)... You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the stranger who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not cook a kid in its mother's milk." The dietary laws are not about creating an ethnically pure society, but inculcating values.
How punctilious we frum are when it comes to separating meat and milk, when it comes to denouncing foreign forms of worship. But when it comes to matters of social justice, should we mock and deride? Re'eh should make us open our eyes.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

PTSD

Every year, as the Hebrew calendar flips from Tammuz to Av, we turn the mourning up to nine--The Nine Days, from the New Moon until after the Fast of 9 Av. "When Av enters, we reduce our joy" (Mishna, Taanit 4:6).
But that same source indicates that the twin tragedies of Tammuz and Av far predate the destruction of the Temple, or even its construction: to the Sin of the Golden Calf during the Israelites' first Tammuz in the desert and the Sin of the Spies thirteen months later, respectively.
This brings us to a famous question: what makes ten of the twelve Spies sent by Moses defame the land? Their bad report when they return on 8 Av spells disaster for their entire generation, but forty days earlier, as they set out, we are told "They were all men who were heads of the Israelites" (13:3) -- terminology denoting conspicuous virtue, according to the Midrash (Tanchuma 4). So what happened? When and why do they go bad?
Halfway through their mission would have been day twenty. Counting back from 8 Av, that would be... 17 Tammuz. The first anniversary of the Sin of the Golden Calf. The yahrtzeit of thousands of Israelites.
This is the part of the Golden Calf tale that we usually ignore, but it's quite brutal (Exodus 32:26-29):
 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
As the Talmud (Yoma 66b) notes, this death toll only takes into account those who were killed directly, by the sword. Many more die from drinking the water into which the Golden Calf had been ground (ibid. v. 20) and still more the from the ensuing plague (v. 35): "And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made."
Marking the first anniversary of that solemn occasion on a scouting mission, far away from family and friends, would have been extremely difficult. What makes it worse is the fact that the tribe wielding the executioner's axe is conspicuously absent. No Levite goes on this mission. Nevertheless, they are supposed to report back to Moses and Aaron, the latter of whom made the Calf and the former of whom ordered their loved ones' deaths for worshiping it. Nor is the situation improved by the two loyalists among the group. Joshua is Moses' aide-de-camp, while Caleb's grandfather Hur was a strong ally. Is it any wonder that the ten Spies who have no reason to be loyal to Moses, who have every reason to defy him, succumb to their post-Tammuz stress disorder?
Trauma begets trauma, on the individual and the national level. It is only natural for Tammuz to give way to Av. To break the cycle of tragedy takes uncommon courage, but that is the only way we can put an end to our mourning.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

How do you say "terror"?

There are some words that modern Hebrew has given up on. The Academy of the Hebrew Language may eventually come up with official translations, but language is ultimately determined by the people (which is why its name in Hebrew is HaAkademiya).
"Terror" is one of those words. We refer to the people who commit acts of terror as mechabelim, but "terror" itself, the political/ military tactic, is untranslatable. Google טרור and you'll get more than two million results.
Yet there is a word for this concept in biblical Hebrew, as we'll read this Shabbat: "Do not be terrorized (taguru) by anyone." In the noun form, it's megora. These are the words used by Moses when he instructs the judges to carry out their holy work (Deuteronomy 1:17): "Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be terrorized by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it." The Sifre explains what this refers to:
Lest you say: "I am afraid of such a person--they may kill my children, they may set my haystack on fire, they may chop down my plantings" -- thus the verse says: "Do not be terrorized by anyone."
Thus said King Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19:6): "He told the judges, 'Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for mere mortals but for the LORD, who is with you whenever you give a verdict.'" "For judgment belongs to God."
Terror is not a new idea. It has always been the enemy of justice. It is only natural for a public official to think about the personal cost of a decision, the danger to their family, homes, fortune. All the more so when a ruling may imperil the lives and property of others.
But what does it mean not to give in to terror? To respond harshly, showing that we're not cowed? That's exactly what the terrorists want, to fan the flames, the proverbial haystack setting the whole field ablaze. To respond compassionately, to show that we will not lose our humanity or fail to see it in others? That seems like callow surrender; don't we sacrifice the humanity of the victims by ignoring their suffering? If we change our routines, the terrorists win; if we got about our daily lives as if nothing happened, we dishonor the victims.
Since we do not have the option of presenting our case to God's prophet, that means we have to inject the divine into our decision-making: That's the first part of the verse: "Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike." It's about impartiality; it's about listening to both sides. Ad hoc policy cannot solve endemic conflict.
This too shall pass, we tell ourselves. The exigent security needs and intolerable insults to the faith will fade and be forgotten. But if we fail to devise judicious and just policies, based on truth and peace, to address the next flashpoint, we will truly be giving in to terror.

Monday, July 24, 2017

King Omar

And so it ends, as it always does: after the bang, we whimper.
The saga of the metal detectors/ magnetometers is over, and we could have done without this retread.
As always, we futz around with the status quo for some noble reason, which leads to unreasonable and unreasoning outrage. So we double down. We're not backing down, they're not backing down. If any among us suggest that maybe we should reconsider--well, let's roll out the list of epithets: kapo, Judenrat, appeaser. And if some of those people are in fact in senior positions in the intelligence services, military AND the police? Well, they're too close to it. You can't talk to Mahmoud Abbas. You can't negotiate with King Abdullah. That would be a sign of weakness.
And then the protests, which will turn violent. They happen every Friday, but we usually ignore them. Three dead, as we heard going into Shabbat. Personally, I was consumed by dread, because I knew it would not end there. It never ends there.
And so we come out of Shabbat to the gory reality of triple slaughter in Halamish. I cannot help but think of the mother, my mother's age, who comes out of the hospital to bury her husband and two of her children, instead of the brit mila they were planning.
And still our government cannot come to a decision. Table it for another day. Take it under advisement.
And then something else happens. A 17-year-old Jordanian with a screwdriver attacks an Israeli embassy guard, who shoots and kills him. And hits his landlord, a doctor, as well. The latter dies in hospital. More death, more blood, more hand-wringing about moral equivalency. And now, since Jordan refuses to let the guard go, we have a hostage too!
My concern is the way people develop a siege mentality. It's very corrosive and counterproductive. I don't get my morality from CNN. If you've seen my posts, I think it's pretty clear that I do not morally equate the murder of the Salomons with the harsh tactics we use against Palestinian protestors. I went into Shabbat with a sense of dread because three Palestinian protestors had been killed, because I knew what would happen next.
Omar al-Abed is a terrorist and a murderer, and I hope he spends the rest of his life in a very small cell. But now our government has made him the Hero of Al-Aqsa, the man who forced Israel to remove the blasphemous metal detectors from Haram al-Sharif. And there's not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he'll go free in a prisoner exchange before my toddler is old enough to enlist.
So what is the message we're sending? That we'll do the smart thing, not the right thing, but only once enough Jews have been killed or taken hostage? I don't think that's what we want to say, but I don't see how anyone could hear anything else.
After the bang, we whimper.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

We the Sheeple

If Torah portions were countries, Matot would be New Zealand.
No, that has nothing to do with Middle-earth; it's just that Matot has a lot of sheep, more than people. Arguably, it should have a pretty epic Battle of the Five Armies too, but the five kings of Midian are eliminated pretty quickly in Numbers 31. (Down with the Pentarchy!) The Torah then spends 46 verses excruciatingly detailing the fate of the booty, which is tallied ewe first.
And the booty, being the rest of the plunder which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep (31:32).
Why is this so important? Counting sheep is a metaphor for an activity so boring it's guaranteed to put you to sleep. Could sheep represent something else? Many of the Prophets liken Israel to God's flock, from Amos to Micah, from Jeremiah to Ezekiel (36:37-38):
I will multiply their people like sheep. Like the sheep for offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem on her holidays, so will the ruined cities be filled with people like sheep.
Now, if Israel are sheeple (in the good sense), what would be the significance of the number 675,00? Fortunately, if we're looking to get arithmetical, Numbers is the Book for us.
Flip back a few chapters (to 26), and we find a census of the Israelites earlier that year, totaling 601,730. But the 23,000 Levites are counted separately, so let's call it about 625,000.
But immediately before the census, 24,000 fall in a plague (that, by the way, is the reason for war with Midian in the first place). That brings us to 649,000.
Ten chapters before, we are told that fifteen thousand perished in the Korahite rebellion and its aftermath. That makes 664,000.
Now we have to guesstimate. There are two massive plagues that take a bite out of the people: one in ch. 11 when they eat some bad quail ("a very great plague"), and one in ch. 21 when they are beset by snakes ("a great many people died among Israel"). Let's call it a thousand each, which would bring us to 666,000.
(I know, between the lamb metaphors and the 6-6-6, it's getting very New Testament-y in here. But bear with me.)
Now we have to skip back to the Book of Exodus and the first major catastrophe after leaving Egypt: the sin of the Golden Calf in ch. 32. Its worshipers are dispatched by three methods (see Talmud Yoma 66b): by drinking the water with ground-up Calf in it; by Levite swordsmen; by a plague directly from God. The verse only tells us about the death toll from the middle, immediate method, three thousand. But assuming the other two methods had similar casualties, that would bring us to 9,000. Add that to 666,000, and you get 675,000.
This is the heartbreaking part. The war with Midian is Moses' last hurrah. "Wreak the Israelites' vengeance upon the Midianites; afterwards you will be gathered unto your people" (Num. 31:2). It's only natural for him to record it in painstaking detail, especially the parts with echoes of the past: not only the generation whose children would fulfill their dreams, but the tens of thousands who never got that far. All those who never got to see the Promised Land weigh on Moses' soul -- until he too is buried beside them.W

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Wondy's Tzeniut

Said Rabbi Johanan: Had the Torah not been given, we would have learned modesty (tzeniut) from (cf. Talmud Eruvin 100b).
OK, that's a free translation. The Talmud actually refers to hatul, the post-biblical Hebrew word for cat. But in Scripture itself, hatul is the term for a wrap or cloak, and in this summer's Wonder Woman, Diana spends her time off the battlefield in a cloak. No Man's Land in November is chilly, remember.
Meanwhile, the public debate over issues of tzeniut is not cooling down at all. My social-media feed is swamped with disturbing articles about how hot some five-year-olds are, mansplaining pieces on sex separation at graduation ceremonies and Supreme Court cases over slut-shaming mayors. The Wailing Wall wailing is, at its root, about how immodest some men find women at prayer. The debate over dress codes (for women only) has spread from the Knesset to Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, actual sexual abuse at Tel Aviv's Belz Talmud Torah and the denunciation of halachic prenups by American Gedolim (Torah "greats") -- y'know, the stuff which actually sullies Judaism's reputation -- barely registers.
Maybe it's time for a refresher on what tzeniut really is. The favorite verse employed by the modesty police is Psalms 45:13/14:
All honor of the princess is within; her raiment is of golden interlacements.
Sounds a lot like Princess Diana's golden tiara, bracers and lasso -- but I digress. The Talmud invokes this verse three times. The first time, it is to explain why the women of Ammon and Moab are not on the hook for their husbands' inhospitality (Yevamot 77a). But the next two times, the verse provides a hava amina, a supposition, which the text immediately corrects.
You might think that even so she should not go about to earn a living because, as Scripture says, "All honor of the princess is within," but now you know [otherwise].(Gittin 12a)
Rather, this refers to the litigants. Now, do men come to seek justice and women not come to seek justice? You might suppose so... But why would you suppose so? You might say that is not the way of a woman, as it says "All honor of the princess is within," so it tells us [otherwise]. (Shevuot 30a)
In other words, the Talmud goes out of its way to correct the misapprehensions of this verse, lest tzeniut considerations lead us to exclude women from the courtroom or the workforce and saddle them with the responsibility of hosting guests.
And what about the battlefield? There's a verse for that, Joel 2:16: "The groom shall leave his chamber, and the bride her huppa." The Talmud (Sota 44b) says this refers to any war which is a mitzva.
Yes, some people will, in practice, limit tzeniut to a code of dress. They will clutch their pearls over Diana of Themyscira's short skirt and bare shoulders. But there's a reason for Wondy's functional attire. (In fact, the biblical "Gird your loins!" refers to pulling up your hem so your legs are free for battle.) She is the honorable princess, portrayed by an Israeli Jewess, and she will not be forced from the workplace, courthouse or battlefield. Instead, she's fighting for the three pillars of truth, justice and peace (Avot 1:18).
Sometimes you can learn a lot more about tzeniut at the movies than in the beit midrash.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Up Shittim Creek

Manspreading is a problem of biblical proportions.
In the final verse of this week's Torah portion, the Israelites arrive at their final station in the desert (Num. 22:1): "Then the Israelites traveled to the Plains of Moab and camped along the Jordan across from Jericho."

Yet the final chapter of next week's portion begins (ibid. 25:1): "Israel settled in the Shittim, and the men began to whore with Moabitesses." (Yes, men can whore; in fact, in the Bible, the verb is more often employed in the masculine than in the feminine.)
Wait, "in the Shittim"? What are they doing there? Lower-cased, shittim are acacia trees, but here it's a place name -- one we've never seen before. We have to skip ahead to the travelogue in Numbers 33 to understand that:
They traveled from the mountains of Abarim, and they camped at the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. And they camped on the plains of Moab along the Jordan from the House of the Wastes to the meadow of the Shittim. (vv. 48-49)
After 40 repetitions of the refrain "They traveled from [X], and they camped at [Y]," suddenly we have encampment without departure. The camp of Israel does not move, but the men of Israel do -- to the point of settling in Shittim.
The results of this are catastrophic, as the Israelites begin embracing Shittite culture, in particular the worship of Baal Peor. What makes this Baal so bad? The Talmud (Sanhedrin 64a) explains:
Rav Judah said in Rav's name: A gentile woman once fell sick. She vowed, 'If I recover, I will go and serve every idol in the world.' She recovered, and proceeded to serve all idols. On reaching Peor, she asked its priests, 'How is this worshiped'? They replied, 'People eat beets, drink beer, and then make diarrhea before it.' She replied, 'I would rather fall sick again than serve an idol in such a manner.'
However, the men of Israel lack the self-respect of this paganess, so "Israel adhered to Baal Peor, and the Lord's anger raged against Israel."
What follows is a plague that kills tens of thousands of Israelites, then a war of vengeance waged by Israel with even more casualties.
And that's why, when the time comes to decamp from the Plains of Moab, Joshua (2:1-3:1) sends spies "from the Shittim." They go to the house of a whore in Jericho, but the only thing they seek from her is information. In return, they spare her and her family, and the Israelites are able to cross the Jordan to the Promised Land -- with focus and purpose.
But this is not the last time Shittim shows up in Scripture. Joel 4:18 states: "In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord's house and will water the stream of Shittim."

Shittim represents the wild excesses of a young nation -- unruly, unbound, unmoored. The Temple, God's house, symbolizes divine inspiration: peace, tranquility, purity, purpose, justice.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could think about it in that way again?

Monday, June 12, 2017

Secret Jewish Origins of!

While Moses may sound like an Egyptian name, did you know that Moses was portrayed in the move History of the World, Part I by noted Jew Mel Brooks? What about Moe of the Three Stooges, birth name Moses Harry Horwitz? Oh, and bartender Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons is voiced by Hank Azaria... a Jew!
OK, I made that quote up. But let's be honest, you've probably seen a lot of these articles over the past few years. Jewish media need to be on top of trends, and you can't let a story go cold... or even a body. Did a beloved musician die tragically? Read The Forward's "The Secret Jewish History of Chris Cornell and Soundgarden." (There is none.) What about a terrorist attack? Look, it's The Forward again with "Can Kabbalah Help 'Broken' Ariana Grande Heal After Concert Bombing?" (Only if Madonna counts the sephirot backwards.) Maybe it's time to get political? Tablet screams: "Ivanka Trump Mistakenly Identifies the Western Wall as Judaism's 'Holiest Site.'" (The pedantic author also gets it "wrong.") And these are only from the last month!
But this star-kaker trend may have reached its nadir with an article from Haaretz, the reputed gold standard of Jewish/ Israeli media.
I refer to Nathan Abrams' "The Secret Jewish Origins of Wonder Woman," which is so much the epitome of anti-journalism I expected to see it in The Qwardian.
It starts off with a tiresome retread of the international hand-wringing over Gal Gadot: Is she white? Is she Zionist? Why does that matter? Actually, Abrams glosses over the third question, because he needs to get to his thesis, which is about Diana of Themyscira, not Gal of Rosh HaAyin--that she is secretly Jewish!
Wait, Wonder Woman had Jewish creators? No, but lots of Golden Age comic-book superheroes did, so...
Wait, the character is Jewish? Sure, she was molded from clay, and that's got to be a Golem of Prague reference, because there's no precedent in Greek mythology, right...
But her publisher, MC Gaines, was Jewish, so that counts via the Sandler Standard ("So many Jews are in showbiz/ Tom Cruise isn't, but I heard his agent is!").
I mean, tikun olam, fighting Nazis, feminism all seem Jewy, so... Case closed!

What really sticks in my Golden Girdle of Gaea is the rank ignorance and laziness of this piece. You see, there is a Jewish comic book legend who wrote Wonder Woman longer than anyone, a stunning run of over twenty years, from #22 in 1947 to #176 in 1968. His name is Robert Kanigher, son of Rebecca and Ephraim from Romania. You don't need to strain to make Bob Kanigher Jewish. Not only did he shape Wondy's story from the late Golden Age to the height of the Silver Age, he created iconic superheroines Black Canary and Rose & Thorn (not to mention Wonder Girl). He also created Ragman, the vigilante from Gotham City who actually turns out to be Jewish (and inspired by the Golem).
Jews have a lot to be proud of, in terms of our culture, art and science. The desperate need to make every hot celebrity or cause "Jewish" belittles that proud heritage. So raise a glass to Bob and Gal, but don't try to dunk a superhero made of clay in the mikveh!