Parashat Chukat

Tammuz 10, 5772 ~ June 30, 2012

by Joel Ackerman

In the middle of this parasha, we fast forward 38 years from the events surrounding the death of Korach and his followers in the previous parasha.   The Torah is silent about this time. No information is given here on any events that occurred during this period.  Instead, we pick up the story in the 40^th year in the desert with the deaths of Miriam and Aaron and, finally, the movement of the Israelites towards the Land.  One wonders what this lengthy period was like.

After the incident of the spies, Moses had told the people that G-d had decided that they would not enter the Land until all those aged twenty and above had died (Bamidbar 14:28-35).  G-d did not mince words:  “Your children will roam in the wilderness for forty years and bear your guilt, until the last of your carcasses in the wilderness.  Like the number of days that you spied out the Land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities – forty years – and you shall comprehend straying from Me.”

Sholem Asch describes the mood among the people at the beginning of that period in his novel “Moses”:  “They went about with bowed heads, shrouded in sadness.  Until now they had had, in the midst of all their tribulations, an aim and purpose… But now what prospect was there?  For themselves, only death; and for their children, freedom.  Very rare were the spirits among them who could rise to this challenge: to live out all their remaining lives in privation and suffering for the sake of their children.”

And Asch describes Moses’ own state:  “What would be his own fate?  Was he not one of the grown persons who had come out of Egypt?  Was he not himself of the first generation?  The thought made him tremble. He could not entrust the B’nai Israel into other hands.  He must see them into their land.  G-d would be merciful to him and let him live long enough to complete G-d’s work.  And perhaps G-d would relent and shorten the sentence of forty years, hasten the growth of the B’nai Israel, prepare them sooner for the conquest.  He would not cease to pray. 

He would exert himself to keep the B’nai Israel close to the borders of the Promised Land.   He would not force them back into the horrible desert.   He would wander with the tribes between Ezion-Geber and Kadesh Barnea, push his way through to the borders of the Promised Land.”

As we know, G-d did not shorten the sentence, but He was merciful – to a certain extent - for those thirty-eight years.  He did not desert His people.

G-d had told Moses after the incident of the spies: “Tomorrow, turn and journey toward the wilderness, in the direction of the Sea of Reeds” (Bamidbar, 14: 25).  But Moses fudged, and G-d did not call him on it.  Again, Sholem Asch.  Moses prayed for the people and “God vouchsafed to Moses the light of his justice.  And Moses said in his heart that he would not compel the B’nai Israel to leave Kadesh Barnea; he would not compel them to break up camp. Nor, indeed did the cloud above the sanctuary rise in sign of departure.  And even though G-d had bidden Moses to turn back into the wilderness on the morrow, Moses interpreted the word ‘morrow’ to mean ‘after a time.’” He interpreted “in the direction of the Sea of Reeds” to mean “any part of the Red Sea”, and kept close to that arm of this body of water that extended  to Ezion-Geber (i.e., modern Eilat) rather than return to that part near Egypt.

And G-d accompanied his people and found ways to be merciful to them so that they should not become totally overwhelmed with despair.  Rashi comments on the list of places in the journey of the Israelites in parashat Masei (Bamidbar 33:1-49): “Why were these journeys written?  To make known the acts of kindness of the Omnipresent.  For although He decreed upon them to move them about and make them wander in the wilderness, you should not say that they were wandering about from journey to journey the entire forty years and had no rest…. During the entire last thirty-eight years they only journeyed twenty journeys.”

The Torah further states (Devarim 28:4) that neither their clothes nor their shoes wore out.  And in this week’s parasha, our translation of the Torah reports that when the people complained about lack of food and water, G-d sent fiery snakes and serpents that bit them, and many died.  However, Nehama Leibowitz teaches that this translation is incorrect; that the word “vayeshalach” does not mean “sent” but rather “let go”, “released”.  In other words, what occurred here was not that G-d took an action and sent snakes against the people, but that the snakes had always been present and threatening to attack, but G-d had restrained them up to then – but then He stopped restraining them – temporarily, perhaps - to remind the Israelites  that all that time He had been protecting them.

         

And so it went for thirty-eight years.  The older generation lived with the fact that they would die in the wilderness, and so they did, bit by bit.  Their children had to watch this, constantly aware of both the death sentence passed on their parents and the fact that they themselves could not progress until that sentence had been fully carried out.   

And it was not just parents and children.  There was no generation gap.  Those young men 20 or 21 years old were under that death sentence, but those only slightly younger - 18 or 19 - were not.  They waited, conscious of their close call, and they matured under G-d’s protection to become the elders and leaders of the next generation.  

It was a strange and tense time, yet somehow the people worked their way through this, somehow survived it.  Somehow Moses kept at his self-assigned task of leading them and preparing them for that next step.  And as we learn in this parasha, when the time came, they were ready to move.

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Shelach-Lekha

Parashat Shelach-Lekha

Sivan 26, 5772 ~ June 16, 2012

by Marshall Schwartz

This week's parsha, Shelach-Lekha, begins with the story of the twelve spies sent across the Jordan to investigate the Land of Israel.  Actually, we are presented with only part of the story here – more details are provided at the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy.  Further, our haftarah relates the story of the second time spies were sent into Eretz Yisrael, this time by Joshua.   Comparing the differences among the three tales can be quite informative.

“Send for yourself men to spy out the Land of Canaan,” Hashem instructs Moshe at the start of this parsha – or, as Rashi explains, “not for me”, but if you want to, then go ahead.  A simple reading of the text would seem to indicate that this idea originated with Hashem.  It's not until the next book of the Torah that we get the full story, as Moses begins his final instructions to B'nei Yisrael:

All of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us, and let them spy out the land, and bring word back to us: the road on which we should ascend, and the cities to which we should come.”  The idea was good in my eyes, so I took from you twelve men, one man for each tribe.”  [Deut. 1:22-23]

Only here do we learn that the impetus for sending spies came from the people themselves – not from Hashem, and not even from Moshe.  But Moshe takes their proposal and subtly modifies it in two important ways.  First, Moshe himself selects the spies – unwilling to follow B'nei Yisrael's request to “let us send men ahead of us”, lest they choose individuals of weak character who, out of fear, might bring back a less-than-glowing report about the land that Hashem had promised would be “flowing with milk and honey”.   Secondly, while the people had wanted only a report of information important to their impending military campaign, Moshe expands the scope of the mission:

See the land – how is it?  And the people that dwell in it – are they strong or weak?  Few or numerous?  And how is the land in which they well – is it good or bad?  And how are the cities in which they dwell – are they open or are they fortified?  And how is the land – is it fertile, or is it lean?  Are there trees in it or not?  You shall strengthen yourselves and take from the fruit of the land.  [Num. 13:18-20]

Gathering military information before battle is standard procedure – Joshua does it (as related in our haftarah), and Moshe himself does the same just two parshiot from now, when “Moshe sent [men] to spy out Jazer”  [Num. 21:32].  But what Moshe adds to the spies' task is decidedly non-military – he requests a report on the fertility, the bounty of Eretz Yisrael, so that the wavering, spiritually-weak tribes would be heartened by a report confirming Hashem's promise. 

         

But Moshe's hopes are soon dashed.   When the spies return, they show the assembled B'nei Yisrael the magnificent produce they brought back with them, and inform  Moshe that Eretz Yisrael  indeed “flows with milk and honey”.  This is what Moshe expected to here.  Immediately, however, dark clouds cover this picture, as the spies turn to military matters:  “The people that dwells in the land is powerful, the cities are fortified and very great, and we also saw there the offspring of the giants [yelidei ha'anak].  Amalek dwells in the south; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites dwell on the mountain, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and on the bank of the Jordan” [Num. 13:28-29]. 

All of these statements properly fulfill the spies' mission, as given to them by Moshe.  Then Caleb, dismayed by the negative review the other spies have given about the strength of the people that Israel is supposed to conquer,  asserts himself and declares, “We shall surely ascend and conquer it, for we can surely do it!” [Num. 13:30].   And that's when the rest of the meraglim (except for Joshua) exceed their mandate, departing from a straightforward reconnaissance report to instead pour out all their fears and lack of faith in Hashem's promises:

“We cannot ascend to that people, because they are stronger than us!”  They brought forth to B'nei Yisrael an evil report (dibat) on the land they had reconnoitered, saying, “The land through which we passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants!  All the people that we saw in it were huge! There we saw the Nephilim...; we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes! [Num. 13:31-33]

This was the true sin of the ten spies (and of the mass of Israelites who believed their self-debasing report):  They rejected Hashem and the land he had promised to them, overwhelmed by the fears and sense of powerlessness wrought by centuries of slavery in Egypt. They are so distraught that they declare, “Our wives and our young children will be taken captive.  Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?...  Let us appoint a leader and let us return to Egypt!” [Num 14:3-4]  For this rejection, Hashem imposed the severe punishment of barring their entry into Eretz Yisrael – only their descendants, those younger than 20, plus Caleb and Joshua, would inherit the land.

When told of Hashem's decree against them, the people repent, and in the morning they declare themselves ready to march onward and conquer the land.  They persist in this design even after Moshe tells them that they will fail utterly, because Hashem is not with them and this effort transgresses Hashem's command.   Only after they suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Amalekites and Canaanites do they desist.  Only then have they learned the lesson that without Hashem's assistance they are indeed powerless, but with his help they can conquer all, even “giants”.

Joshua has kept silent during this confrontation.  [Some midrashim suggest that this was a deliberate plan, that Joshua expected that, after Caleb's outburst, the other spies would turn to him – as Moshe's long-time aide de camp – for support, whereupon he would win the day by announcing his complete agreement with Caleb.  But the opportunity never came.]  But he learned an important lesson from this incident.  When faced with the task of conquering Jericho, as related in our haftarah, there is no public selection of men to reconnoiter.  Without fanfare, Joshua selects two men (according midrash, Caleb and Pinchas – whose zeal for Hashem is shown by his actions at the end of Parshat Balak, which we read in three weeks) for the task.  They discover that the inhabitants of the land are in dread of the Israelits, having heard of their departure from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, and their overwhelming defeat of Og and Sichon.   All this less than 40 years after B'nei Yisrael rejected Hashem and the land.  It leads one to believe that the original group of spies never even spoke to any of the people living in the land during their 40-day exploration of it, else they would have discovered at least some of the fear evinced during the time of Joshua.  It was clear that Israel's  all-too-human weaknesses, exacerbated by generations of numbing servitude, overwhelmed the awe they felt at the splitting of the sea and at the foot of Mount Sinai.  Only true faith in Hashem can allow us to overcome our frailties.

Parashat Beha'alotcha

Parashat Beha'alotcha

Sivan 19, 5772 ~ June 9, 2012

by Irwin Kaplan

Beha'alotcha provides a great deal of information about the people, circumstances and organization of the children of Israel as they traverse the desert. This is the Parsha that includes in 10:35, Vay’hi binsoa Ha’Aron, vayomer Moshe….(familiar to all of us as the Torah is being removed from the ark.) As the ark travels, Moshe calls upon the Lord to clear Your enemies out of Your way (not, our enemies out of our way, which I suspect has been the subject of many interpretations).

But strewn throughout are compelling stories, made even more powerful by the almost casual way they are woven into the narrative. What follows is a personal (and obviously subjective) view of those that are most meaningful and the thread that weaves them together.

8:14 The matter-of-fact clarity with which the Lord speaks of “taking the Levites to Myself” to be in service to the Children of Israel, in lieu of the first-born. The Lord states very clearly that the first-born of man and beast of the Children of Israel were sanctified to Him, as of the day He smote the first-born of the Egyptians. The juxtaposition makes it clear that the “taking of the Levites” was the quid pro quo, conveying the impression that although the Egyptians were our oppressors, we are all the Lord’s creation and our first-borns are no more precious to us than their first-borns were to them.

9: The rules of conduct for Passover.

In sentences 9:6, 9:7, two related issues are voiced by men who approach Moshe, concerned that they would be precluded from making the “sacrifice to the Lord at its appointed time” and that they would not be able to make the sacrifice “among the children of Israel.” The cause for their concern is translated as their defilement by virtue of being with a corpse (nefesh adam) which would preclude them from making the Passover sacrifice. Moshe asks them to stand by so he can hear what the Lord will command them. 

In 9:10 The Lord’s response is that if a man is unclean in spirit (using the same word “nefesh,” but in a context that would appear to mean spirit or soul) and on a distant road (an issue that had not been raised by the men who approached Moshe), they and their subsequent generations (an issue also not raised) shall also make Passover for the Lord. (Note: The word “spirit” and “soul” are used interchangeably in this Drash to allow the narrative to flow more smoothly, but they are intended to mean one and the same.)

And the Lord goes even further in 9:14, stating that if a stranger who dwells among you makes Pesach according to the laws and the statutes, the same statutes will apply to the stranger as to those who are born in the land.

In addition, the Lord says in 9:13, that a person who is pure in spirit (using the same word, “nefesh,” but there is little ambiguity in the meaning of the word as it is used here) and who has not been on the road does not make the Pesach, that soul (not person) will be cut off from its nation and that person (not soul) shall bear the sin. In this passage, the Lord speaks to the issue of community, but not in the context of the question as was originally raised.

The Lord’s response encompasses several substantive issues, but raises the question, what is the relevance of the Lord’s response to the issues raised by the men who approached Moshe? The question put before the Lord is narrow, translated as defilement by virtue of being with a corpse. But there are ways to become defiled (tomay), other than by being with a corpse. And why would the Lord raise the issue of the ability of future generations to participate in the making of the Passover sacrifice, if we are dealing only with defilement by virtue of being with a corpse? What is the relevance of being on the road? Being on the road, by itself, would not seem to restrict one’s ability to make the Passover sacrifice. (After all, aren’t we all on the road?) Why introduce the issue of a stranger who may dwell among you?

In the context of the setting of Mt. Sinai to deliver a commandment to make the Passover sacrifice to commemorate the significance of going from slavery to freedom, it would seem that the case brought to Moshe is only one of many issues that could be raised about who is or is not permitted to make the Passover among the children of Israel.

It would appear that any question of the relevance of the Lord’s response to the issues raised to Moshe could be resolved by translating “nefesh” as soul throughout these passages and “on a distant road” as metaphor. A first impression would be that the Lord’s response goes beyond the question posed by the men who approached Moshe, introducing such concepts as “a distant road” and “future generations,” but if “nefesh” is translated as soul or spirit throughout, the question posed to Moshe would then become, “We are mortals impure in spirit, why should we be denied the ability to make the sacrifice to the Lord at the appointed time within the midst of the children of Israel?” Everything would then fall into place. It would change the meaning from the narrow and the specific to the general and universal and in so doing, would become relevant to all of us. The larger question would acknowledge our humanity, in that our souls may stray and our actions may take us on a distant road. (Who among us, at one time or another in our lives, would be exempt?) The response addresses this human condition by saying that if we find our way back, or even if we are strangers who are pure in spirit, we are welcome. It is an all-embracing message that welcomes the pure in spirit, regardless of how they arrived, but makes it equally clear that purity of spirit without the actions to support it, is not enough.

12:1-12:15 And then there is the episode where Miriam’s and Aaron’s racial prejudice against Moshe’s wife and apparent indignation with the Lord for not having consulted with them as well, comes to the Lord’s attention. What follows again makes it clear that the Lord values ones spirit, emphasizing the importance of looking at people and situations in depth and not to make judgments based on the superficial, by referring initially to Moshe’s complete dedication as the frame of reference. (Sentence 12-3 stands alone, stating, almost parenthetically, that there is no more humble person than Moshe “on the face of the earth.”) The Lord then states angrily that they should have been afraid to speak against the Lord’s trusted servant Moshe, to whom the Lord speaks face-to-face and not in riddles, conveying the inappropriateness of their expectation that the Lord should have consulted with them on this matter. The issue is important enough for the Lord to speak directly to Aaron and Miriam, underscoring His message by striking Miriam with leprosy, “white as snow,” requiring her to be outcast for seven days before she could return to the encampment, as if to say, “How does it feel to be judged by the color of your skin?”

11:1 – 11:35 And as the complaining continues, Moshe intervenes on the nation’s behalf. As they travel through the desert on their way to the land that was promised to them, their necessities were met with the manna that was given to them, but they cried for the luxuries of meat, as well as the fish that were free in Egypt and the vegetables that were available to them in slavery.  Once again, it is a story of human behavior, the victim of circumstance who accepts the comfort of the familiar, even though it does not serve him well, preferring it to the unknown and unsettling prospects of change. Although they are on their way to the land that was promised to them, venturing into the unknown is a test of ones faith. What is faith, but the ability to go forward, not knowing? (Remember Avram in Lech Lecha? Where he leaves the comfort of the familiar and goes unquestioningly “to the land that I will show you.” And the Akedah, the ultimate act of faith?)  And as the responsibility for what appears to be a “nation of complainers” becomes too burdensome for Moshe, he turns to the Lord and says that “I cannot carry all this nation by myself,” stating simply that if this is the way it is to be and “if I have found favor in your eyes, then kill me.” In response, the Lord tells Moshe to assemble seventy elders of Moshe’s choosing who will share the burden of responsibility with Moshe, so that he does not have to carry it alone. And by the way, the Lord says to Moshe, tell the people they will have a month’s worth of meat, until it is coming out of their nostrils and is hateful to them, because they have become angry with the Lord who is among them, crying, why did you take us out of Egypt? (Moshe asked if it is possible to deliver enough fresh meat, fowl and fish to feed 600,000 people for a month and the Lord, in the Jewish tradition of answering a question with a question, asks Moshe if he doubts the Lord, which, of course, ends the conversation.) The quail were blown in from the sea (to a depth of about two cubits, so no one had less than ten chomers, conveying that there was much more than enough for everyone) and the people spent a couple of days (and a night) gathering them up and proceeded to gorge themselves, at which time the Lord hit them with a serious plague from which those who lusted after the meat died. (The poetic justice might have been even more evident and universal if the deaths had simply been attributed to indigestion from gluttony, rather than a plague from above.)

For the brief period they were assembled, the seventy elders were imbued with the spirit, but two, Eldad and Medad, continued to be imbued with the spirit and prophesied in the camp. When Joshua, who was serving Moshe heard about this, he told Moshe and said they should be locked up. Moshe suggested that Joshua might be jealous on Moshe’s behalf and that it could be an entire nation of prophets, if the Lord would spread His spirit among them. Once again, Moshe’s humility and wisdom are evident, protecting Joshua’s dignity by saying that he might be jealous on Moses’ behalf, while conveying the importance of rising above the superficial that enslaves us.

What weaves all these pieces together for me, is the “wandering” in the desert. It is a story of wandering through trial and error, of taking two steps forward and one step backward, of making choices and mistakes. The dramatic events of the Exodus captures the imagination, but is the introduction to a very human story of making the laborious and difficult transition from the victim mentality of slaves to the freedom of individuals responsible for their own actions (forty years is not a long time to effect such dramatic cultural change). It is a story of leaving behind enslavement to the transitory and superficial, a prerequisite toward the liberation of spirit as we come to understand and accept ourselves as we really are. It is a story of the humility that life thrusts upon us, not the humility to which we aspire. It is a story of the building of community based on shared beliefs, bound together by core values that endure (the issuance of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, the event that changed the world forever). It is a universal story of the personal Exodus that transforms each of us, as we move from childhood to adulthood, finding the way through the desert of our own experience.