Pinchas

Numbers 25:10−30:1

Pinhas in America?

The Torah portion deals with intermarriage, a problem we know all too well today.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch

In 1962 I graduated rabbinical school and entered the army for a two-year stint as a chaplain.

Such national service was then still required of all JTS graduates before they could take a pulpit. After completing chaplaincy school in New York, I drove to my first assignment at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I arrived in the late afternoon and decided to visit the Jewish chapel where I would preside without delay. That was my first mistake.

Outside the door paced an agitated, well-dressed gentleman in civilian clothes looking for a Jewish chaplain. I revealed my identity all too quickly and smugly, my second mistake. In the office I would occupy for less than a year (the army would reward my stellar work at Fort Dix by sending me to Korea), he unloaded on me an impassioned account about his daughter who was going to marry a young Greek in basic training at Fort Dix. I couldn't tell exactly whether the father, a wealthy man from Connecticut, was furious because the kid was Christian or poor and uneducated. In fact, the father suspected him of seeking to marry his daughter for her money. He insisted that I call in the kid to disabuse him of his folly, and I, by now floundering in my inexperience, reluctantly agreed. To my surprise, the young man came when I summoned him and turned out to be good-looking and charming. Despite great discomfort, I carried out my futile task and never heard from him or his nemesis again.

Continue reading.

Balak

Numbers 22:2-25:9

Spirit Strength

Balak intuited an important truth about the Israelites: Their strength was spiritual, not military.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch

After two impressive victories against the Canaanites of the Negeb and the Amorites in Transjordan, the looming military might of Israel throws the leaders of Moab into a panic.

Only the land of the Moabites separates Israel from the Jordan River and the conquest of Canaan. Balak ben Zippor, King of Moab, knows that he is next.

In desperation, he takes recourse in an unconventional pre-emptive measure. He summons Balaam son of Beor, a sorcerer from Mesopotamia to curse Israel, making it susceptible to defeat on the battlefield. Though Balaam comes, God frustrates the plan. Within the monotheistic framework of the Torah, Balaam can utter only what God imparts to him. Hence he ends up in rapturous praise of Israel, to the consternation of Balak.

In an imaginative midrash, the Rabbis expatiate on what brought Balak to seize on this particular tactic. Awestruck by Moses, he inquired of the Midianites, among whom Moses had once found refuge when fleeing Pharoah's wrath, as to the man's strength. They responded that Moses' strength resided in his mouth, that is, his prayers were able to move God to act in his behalf. To neutralize that weapon, Balak turns to sorcery. Balaam's strength also resides in his mouth. His curse will trump Moses' prayers. Without divine assistance, Israel is eminently beatable (Rashi on 22:4).

Continue reading.

Hukkat

Numbers 19:1–22:1

This week's commentary was written by Dr. Barry W. Holtz, dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education and the Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education, JTS
This week's Torah reading opens with one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible rituals in the entire Bible. Numbers 19:1–22 describes the ritual of the red heifer—the complex practice that allows a person who has come in contact with a dead body to become "purified" of the contamination (tu'mah) that accompanies connection to those who have died. A red heifer is slaughtered, its body and blood are burned in a fire with certain woods and plants, and the ashes that remain after that burning are used in a mixture with water to create a kind of paste that is sprinkled on those who have come in contact with a corpse. The sprinkling of this "water of lustration" (in the New Jewish Publication Society translation) allows the contaminated person to return to the community freed from the tu'mah related to contact with the dead. Adding to the mystery is the fact that those who are impure become purified, but those who are already pure and then come in contact with the ashes of the heifer become impure (Num. 19:10).

This passage in the Torah has troubled interpreters throughout the ages, going back to the earliest figures of rabbinic Judaism. There is, for example, a famous story (Numbers Rabbah 19:8) about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai (the great Sage who lived around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple), who was asked by a pagan about the ritual of the red heifer. Isn't this a form of witchcraft, the pagan remarked? Yohanan replied that in fact it is something very much familiar to the pagan himself: it is a kind of Jewish version of an exorcism ritual. Yohanan's explanation satisfied the pagan, but once the pagan left, Yohanan's students pressed him further: "Master, you brushed him off with a piece of straw! But what are you going to say to us?!" Yohanan answered them: "It is not the dead that defiles nor the water that purifies! The Holy One, blessed be He, says: 'I have laid down a statute (hukkah), I have issued a decree. You are not allowed to transgress my decree'; as it is written: 'This is the ritual law (hukkat ha Torah) that the Lord has commanded'" (Num. 19:2).

Continue reading.

Korach

Numbers 16:1−18:32

The Ultimate Self-Help Guide 

Amidst seemingly mundane laws, valuable lessons emerge.

By Rabbi Marc Wolf 

A colleague and friend who shares my fascination with golf as well as my plague of performing poorly, recently gifted me with a book entitled, Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.

It is another one of the ever-expanding genre of self-help books in sheep's clothing in which the subject, in this case, golf, is viewed as a microcosm of life.

Accordingly, the sport is given a philosophical reach that outdistances any drive from the tee. It is filled with pithy moral teachings such as "Golfers must learn to love the challenge when they hit a ball into the rough ... the alternatives--anger, fear, whining, and cheating--do no good." Through tangible advice on the game, it subtly links such challenges as hitting a 40-foot putt to reaching for personal and professional goals. Books like this one and others of this ilk by sports personalities like George Forman and Michael Jordan tend to see an ecumenical relevance in seemingly mundane activities.

Our culture is filled with such moral tomes. And while I am sure I can learn a lot from George Forman's lesson of picking yourself up off the canvas when you're down, the aisles of Barnes and Noble are not necessarily the first place we should go in search of ethical teachings. There is much our own tradition teaches us about living life morally, beyond our expected ritual obligations.

Continue reading.

Sh'lach L'cha

Numbers 13:1−15:41

Fringe Story 

A reminder to participate in, and not just observe, the world around us

By Rabbi Lisa Gelber 

When I close my eyes to picture my grandfather, he is standing beside a long olive green bookcase, swaying and shokeling [swaying in prayer], his slight frame enfolded within his tallit, tefillin protruding from his forehead and wrapped about his arm, deeply engaged in conversation with God.

At those moments, it always seemed that he had been transported to a different place and time. Perhaps it was that magic cape, I thought, the one with the strings attached.

As a little girl, I yearned to wear a tallit, and so it is no surprise that some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting with my grandfather in shul on Shabbat and sharing his tallit. Throughout the service, I would play with the tzitzit, enjoying the feel of the fringes as they slipped between my fingers, methodically adding new knots and removing them again before the conclusion of the service, each knot a blessing for myself or my family. My grandfather was a humble man, dedicated to his store, his family, and his God. He embodied a love for education and humanity. I knew that those cornerstones of his existence were somehow bound up within those carefully constructed knots.

It was not until some years after my grandfather's death that I learned the third paragraph of the Shema, recited twice each day, morning and evening, and found in this week's parashah, Shlah, commanding us to wear the tzitzit.

"Adonai said to Moses as follows: Speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make for themselves fringes, tzitzit, on the corners of their garments throughout their generations; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all of Adonai's commandments and observe them so that you do not follow your heart and eyes and be seduced or led astray. Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God. I, Adonai, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I, Adonai your God" (Numbers 15:37-41).

Continue reading.

B'haalot'cha

Numbers 8:1−12:16

 Sometimes, There Are Second Chances 

Of "Second Passover," Rabbi Akiva, and adult bat mitzvahs 

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch 

One of the most compelling new rituals in the Conservative synagogue is the adult bat-mitzvah.

The impulse is egalitarian, the result religious empowerment. The women who participate enjoyed no bat-mitzvah ceremony in their youth. Years later they seek to fill the void. Usually in small groups of up to a dozen, they study with their rabbi and cantor for a period of at least two years.

The practice is so widespread today that the Women's League for Conservative Judaism has produced a carefully articulated curriculum to enhance the meaningfulness of the experience. Learning to read Hebrew is required. Biblically based yet religiously encompassing, the study period culminates in the preparation of a specific parashah and haftarah [prophetic reading] to be chanted in the synagogue on a Shabbat morning. There is definitely comfort in numbers. Doing the bat-mitzvah as a group lessens the tension of performing in public. Each participant must master only a part of the whole.

A few years ago, a large Solomon Schechter elementary day school appointed its first rabbi-in-residence, a post vital to intensifying the religious atmosphere and programming of the school. A number of the women on the faculty approached her about preparing them for an adult bat-mitzvah. She readily agreed provided that the ceremony be held in the school. After two years of serious study, the teachers celebrated their bat-mitzvah in a service attended by all the students in the school. The event was role modeling at its best. To see their teacher and colleague reach for holiness transformed students and teachers alike.

Continue reading.  

Naso

Numbers 4:21−7:89

Surrogate Judaism 

Some try to "outsource" their Judaism, but this approach has severe limits. 

By Rabbi Joshua Heller
 

This week's parashah, Naso, includes one of Judaism's most time-honored liturgical texts, the priestly blessing:

"May Adonai bless you and keep you

May Adonai cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you

May Adonai turn His face towards you, and grant you peace"
(Numbers 6:24-26).

These three short, beautiful verses, which God commanded Aaron and his sons to use to bless the Jewish people with the gift of God's presence, indeed God's face, are deeply ingrained in Jewish cultural memory.

They also pose some important questions about the balance between the value of personal participation and the role intermediaries play in religious life.

An Old Blessing The verses of the priestly blessing are certainly among the oldest in continuous liturgical use. Archaeological evidence confirms their use even in the biblical period--their words were etched on silver scrolls found in tombs from the seventh century BCE. By the time of the Second Temple, their place in the ritual was confirmed as part of a series of blessings recited after the morning sacrifice (Mishnah Tamid 5:1), and, it is believed by many scholars to be one of the nuclei around which the current liturgical framework of the Amidah [the "standing" prayer] coalesced.

Continue reading.