The Assembly of Masorti Synagogues - St Albans Masorti Synagogue

KI TAVO

18th Elul 5770 ~ 28th August 2010

By Rabbi Markus Lange

A Vision of New Light in the World

This week’s Haftarah talks about messianic changes that put everything into a different light: "Arise, shine, for your light has dawned; the Presence / kavod of the Adonai has shone upon you!" (Isa.60:1) And toward the end, we read: "No longer shall you need the sun for light by day, nor the shining of the moon for radiance by night; for Adonai shall be your light everlasting." (Isa.60:19)

Rabbi Hertz comments that "of course we are here in the region of pure ecstasy and mystic symbolism." He reminds us that these words are poetic and express the idea that the world should be radically different from the way it is now. But what will we see in that new divine light? What will be substantially different?

The prophet answers with another image: "I will appoint Well-being as your government, Prosperity as your officials." (Isa.60:17)

Rabbi Plaut states -similar to Rabbi Hertz- that we are looking at "a picture of material wealth, drawn in dream-like contrast to the misery of the day." Both Hertz and Plaut agree that Isaiah's vision is far from reality. But how far way are we from Isaiah’s dream? And what is our role in respect to his prophetic vision?

The Reality of Blessings and Curses

Ki Tavo is famous for its long list of blessings and curses, of which the curses are traditionally recited swiftly and in an undertone. Those curses talk about unpleasant things, such as agricultural disaster, exile, illness, abuse, robbery and oppression. The blessings mention well-being, prosperity, sustenance and security.

Those blessings and curses are reflections of reality, they mirror back to us our choices in life. Depending on how we act as a global community, we may cause one or the other. Looking at those curses in particular, I do not believe that God causes those horrible things. Those "curses" are usually human-made. I find it even immoral to thing that God sends disaster, war and oppression. As long as there is oppression, illness, hunger and war in the world, it is our duty to do good deeds, to turn curses into blessings, and to replace darkness with light. It is up to us to shed light onto what is unjust, and only we can bring the oppressed, the abused, the ill and the neglected out of the dark.

Let us not forget: The price for our economical blessings may be paid by people someplace else on this globe who perceive their daily life as a struggle and their working conditions as painful and harmful - or even as a punishment. Someone's blessing may well be someone else's curse. And also nature and our precious wildlife suffer from the way we tread our world. Fair trade, ethically monitored production and products, ecologically sound forms of trading and transportation as well as smart use and re-use of our natural source are of paramount importance when we want to prevent the bad and promote the good.

In sum, Ki Tavo provides us with the insight that the mentioned blessings and curses are possibilities of reality, and that it is our responsibility to do what is right and just. If we take action and work on creating a new reality, then we may promote the prophet's vision of a world filled with God's light. May our deeds bring more blessings into this world. Then our gates shall always be open, well-being and prosperity may reign and "the cry 'Violence!' shall no more be heard in your land." (Isa.60:18)

Mazal Tov to Rabbi Markus Lange on recently receiving Semicha.

Markus is Resident Chaplain to the Marie Curie Hospice, Hampstead

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country. (Deuteronomy 28:3)

Rav said: “Blessed shall you be in the city” – that your home will be close to the synagogue (Yalkut Shimoni 28). There are people whose behaviour at home is far from their behaviour in the synagogue. In the synagogue they observe all the smallest details of the law, but not so at home. Their homes are far from the synagogue, and the synagogue has no influence on their life at home. This is the blessing that your home should be close to the synagogue – that the spirit of the synagogue will saturate your home as well. Meged Yerahim, cited in Itturei Torah, Rabbi Aharon Yaakov Greenberg
“In the city”: by the reward for the commandments that you observe (publicly) in the city. (Midrash) Some people observe their Judaism and perform its commandments within the walls of their own homes, but are ashamed of their religion when they go out among people, fearing that they might be called “fanatical,” “old-fashioned,” and such. Therefore Scripture says: “Only if you will not be ashamed to observe the commandments even in the city, when you are among others, will you receive the blessings.” Divrei Shaarei Hayyim -Rabbi Hayyim Sofer) [1821-1886, Hungary]
The late 19th-century Russian Jewish thinker Yehuda Leib Gordon coined what might be called the motto of the Enlightenment: “Be a Jew in your home and a man on the street.” He was saying that for Jews to make our way in the world, we must keep our Jewish identity private, secluded, in the confines of our homes or the privacy of our backyards. For my grandparents and immigrants like them, in order to make it in America they cast off their Jewish observances in exchange for material and social success. Jewish practices that they kept were relegated to the seclusion of private spaces, or the synagogue, JCC, or federation. Gordon's notion of a bifurcated identity is less pertinent today where we are blessed with the privilege of living in a pluralistic and open society. Politicians, artists, business people, and others are more public as Jews in their professional lives and on the street. Ironically, many are less Jewish at home in a world that allows and even celebrates multiple, partial, and constructed identities. On the street, they can label their actions “Jewish” as a positive and public expression of identity, whether or not their private lives are enriched with Jewish learning and practice. Professor Lisa D. Grant, “The Front Porch,” Sh’ma, A Journal of Jewish Responsibility, June 2009

Sparks for Discussion

What does it mean to be Jewish “in the city?” One of our commentators says it refers to public observance; another says it refers to private observance. Which makes more sense to you? Have you encountered people who try to impress others with their punctilious public observance? Do you know people who are uncomfortable with public displays of Jewish identity? Do you think this is because they are ashamed? Could it be that they fear discrimination?

Professor Grant says that our modern, multicultural society no longer requires Jews to hide our identity to succeed. Do you agree? Do you think there are some types of Jewish observance that are still problematic “in the city?”

KI TEZE

11th Elul 5770 ~ 21st August 2010

By Rabbi David Soetendorp

Ki Tetze is one of the concluding chapters in the Torah in which Moses leaves the people of Israel with his most important legacy: a commitment to the highest ethical standards in all that applies to living as a nation in Eretz Yisrael.

Some of what we read in this sedrah is controversial, such as the obligation for parents of “a rebellious son to present him to the city gates for stoning” The many commentators on this instruction appropriately are in agreement that this Torah obligation ought to be treated with a pinch of salt. In fact there is no evidence that this horrifying act ever to take place.

The same approach does not a apply to the instructions with which the sedrah commences. In the commandments at the beginning of the sedrah we are told that “when soldiers fighting the People of Israel’s enemies are victorious, and then want to takes the enemy’s women back home with them, they must treat them with the utmost respect and consideration for their feelings.

If we take into account that, tragically, the conduct of victorious soldiers towards the women of defeated enemies is but too often recorded in human history as particularly savage, we can rightly take pride in how victorious Israelite soldiers are commanded here to conduct themselves in their treatment of those they defeated

During two millennia of the Jews living in exile from Eretz Yisrael, what Ki Tetze taught them about standards of conduct at time of war was of no practical concern. Jews were devoid of any power and national independence. They were really only ever the victims of ill treatment at the hands of their enemies. To be instructed regarding the moral obligations of how to treat defeated enemies, was to generations of Jews only of symbolic significance.

For the past 62 years Jews have been blessed with the experience of owning their own land. Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, has had to depend ever since its coming into being on maintaining a strong army, able to defend the nation’s borders against a perennial enemy.

In 1967, when in the aftermath of the Six Day War large sections of land adjoining the original borders of Medinat Yisrael came under Israeli administration, Ki Tetze’s teaching about the treatment of a defeated enemy has become very relevant. The erstwhile enemy living in that conquered and now under Israeli administration land ought to be able to expect to be treated with the highest respect and concern for their welfare and dignity as taught tin our scriptures. Ki Tetze is only one of several sederot in Devarim in which the Israelites, about to enter the Land and take it into possession, are instructed by the Almighty concerning the highest moral obligations with regards to the treatment of defeated enemies.

The existence of Medinat Yisrael gives the Jewish people, especially those living in Israel, serving in its defence forces, and supporting them from the Diaspora, an added opportunity to recognise, understand and adhere to the ethical obligations of Ki Tetze, with commitment and urgency.

Collectively, as Jews living as citizens of Medinat Yisrael and as Jews living in the Galut, we should take the teaching of Ki Tetze to heart and respect it.

David Soetendorp is visiting Rabbi to the Almere community in the Netherlands

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

When you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not put off fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will require it of you, and you will have incurred guilt; whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing. You must fulfill what has crossed your lips and perform what you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, having made the promise with your own mouth. (Deuteronomy 23:22-24)

The Torah warned you to be careful before making vows, and remember that though they constitute an incentive to bring a sacrifice, if you do make a vow there is always the danger of committing a sin through neglecting or deferring its fulfilment, while if you do not vow at all, you have committed no sin. Ramban—Rabbi Moses ben Nachman [1194-1270, Spain]
Rabbi Dimi, the brother of Rabbi Safra, stated: Whoever makes a vow, even though he fulfils it, is called a sinner. What is the scriptural source for this? “Whereas you incur no guilt if you refrain from vowing” – but if you do not refrain, there is guilt.” Talmud Nedarim 77b
Behold, it is proper that your word be trustworthy with all. However, that which you vow to God, not only are you obligated to pay it, but, in addition, the payment must be made without delay. For if you delay payment, He will collect it from you against your will. And that which you do pay in this manner will still carry with it punishment for the delay. Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, [1475-1550, Italy]
As Maimonides explains: “By this injunction, we are commanded to fulfil every obligation that we have taken upon ourselves by word of mouth.” . . . Although this verse seems to be speaking of someone who has made a formal vow to do something, subsequent Jewish law regards it as obligatory to fulfil whatever you have said you were going to do. Therefore, keep your word, particularly if someone is relying on it, and even when it is inconvenient to do so. Not infrequently, we offer to do someone a favour. At the time we commit ourselves, we really intend to do it. Later, however, we realize that the favour is more inconvenient or time-consuming than we originally thought, and we are tempted not to follow through. Nonetheless, we remain obligated to carry out our word. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics: You Shall Be Holy, p. 411
One should not promise a child something and then not give it to him, because as a result the child will learn to lie. Talmud Sukkah 46b

Sparks for Discussion

None of our commentators doubts that people make vows and promises with sincere intent. Why are they nevertheless so opposed to the making of vows? What happens when circumstances beyond our control prevent the fulfilment of a vow or promise?

Imagine you have a friend who pledged to donate $5,000, an amount well within her means, to a synagogue, federation, or other organization. She then loses her job and has no immediate prospects for new employment. Is she still obligated to pay the pledge? Was she wrong to make the pledge rather than writing a cheque on the spot? What would you advise her to do?

SHOFETIM

4th Elul 5770 ~ 14th August 2010

By Vicky Fox

This week’s sedra is about power, justice and communal responsibility. As the Jewish people prepare to enter the land of Israel, Moses instructs them on how to build a society.

Shoftim (translated as “judges”) outlines the separation of powers that is echoed in most modern societies today. The principle of judicial independence is fundamental to this system and Moses instructs the judges to judge everyone equally, regardless of their position in society. Shoftim opens with the commandment to establish a just and effective judicial system that shows no favouritism and accepts no bribes.

The famous Torah injunction found in Shoftim - “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof” is hard to translate accurately. Usually translated as ”Justice, Justice you shall pursue”, this is not quite enough to convey the true meaning of tzedek or the closely related word tzedakah. Tzedek conveys many shades of meaning: justice, charity, righteousness, integrity, equity, fairness and innocence. It certainly means more than strictly legal justice.

According to traditional Biblical interpretation, when a word is repeated it is to imply either emphasis or the fact that the word may be construed in alternative ways. So the phrase could be understood as “LISTEN! This is really important – you shall pursue justice”. Alternatively, some commentators understand the repeated “tzedek” as meaning that there are two types of justice one should pursue: righteous action and equity. There are times when disputing parties may have equal rights to something and the only way to resolve the dispute is to find a compromise or some equitable middle ground. Others suggest that that the words are repeated to explain that it is intended for two audiences - the responsibility of ensuring a just society falls not only on the judges but upon the community as whole.

The Sfat Emet (a 19th century Chasidic scholar) takes issue with a different part of the phrase.is more concerned with the word “pursue” and explains that the primary obligation is to pursue justice rather than achieve it. The Sfat Emet's emphasis reminds us that a just world is not something easily achieved but it is not incumbent upon us to complete a just world, only to pursue this goal to the best of our ability.This shift in emphasis reminds us that we can not simply observe the world as it is, or allow ourselves to succumb to moral exhaustion or a sense of failure at the scale of the task.must always “pursue,” even when we may feel that our contribution is too small in a world with so many problems.

We have now entered the month of Elul, our services now include Psalm 27 and we prepare for the season of repentance. Shoftim reminds us of the centrality of justice in Judaism, a justice that does not belong in the courts alone.Whichever meaning of tzedek one takes, it is each and every person’s responsibility to commit to making a more just world – whether through social justice, political activism or simple acts of loving-kindness.

Vicky Fox is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

You must be wholehearted [tamim] with the Lord your God. (Deut. 18:13)

“You must be wholehearted”... perfect and complete with Him. Even when you seek to inquire as to the future you shall inquire of none other than Him, through a prophet or the Umim and Tumim. Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, [1475-1550, Italy]
And you are only to consult Him, not the dead. Seeing that the existence of necromancers is a form of God’s testing the faith of the people in Him, He enabled the spiritually negative elements in this world, the demons, to possess some apparent powers to reveal the future. Rashbam—Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir—Rashi’s grandson, [1080-1158, France]
You should know that the precepts of the heart imply a complete harmony between our inner and outward actions, as regards the service of the Lord, till the heart and tongue and other limbs will be at one with each other, each one justifying and bearing witness in favor of the other, neither contradicting nor belying each other. This is what Scripture refers to in the term “wholehearted,” when it admonishes us to be “wholehearted with the Lord your God.”... It is well known that a man whose conduct is contradictory, his words being at variance with his deeds, is not trusted. People do not believe in his sincerity. If we are similarly insincere in our dealings with God, the intention of our hearts being contradicted by our words, and our inner conscience by our outward actions, our service to God cannot be perfect, since He does not accept insincere service. Hovot Ha-levavot—Bahya ibn Pekuda [1050-1120, Spain]
There are only two commandments that must be performed “with the Lord your God.” One is “You must be wholehearted with the Lord your God,” while the other is “Walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). The reason why the Torah stresses this in these two commandments is because in both it is very easy to fool others. A person can act as purely innocent and yet be involved in all types of devilish schemes, or he can pose as the most humble of all men while pride rages within him. The Torah stresses that in both the cases God Himself, as it were, tests you, and while you may be able to fool others, you cannot fool Him. Rabbi Pinhas Shapiro of Koretz, [1726-1791, Ukraine]
Walk with Him in wholeheartedness and depend upon Him and do not seek into the future; but whatever befalls you, accept it with wholeheartedness and then you will be with Him and His portion. Rashi—Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak [1040-1105, France]
This verse enjoins us to trust in the Almighty. A question that can frequently arise is what is considered normal hishtadlus [effort], that is, human efforts that we have an obligation to make and what is considered a lack of trust?... Having trust in the Almighty will give a person peace of mind and serenity. But one should never use a claim of trust in the Almighty to condone laziness or rash behaviour. There is a thin line between the virtue of bitochon [trust] and the fault of carelessness and lack of taking responsibility. Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, Growth Through Torah, p. 431

Sparks for Discussion

This brief verse is not so simple to understand. The word tamim, translated as “wholehearted,” can also mean perfect, innocent, sincere or trusting. Does this verse mean that by engaging in sorcery we betray our faith in God? Is it an admonition that we must make sure our words and deeds are honest and trustworthy? How would you explain this verse? How might Rashi’s comment be used to our detriment? How does Rabbi Pliskin address this concern? What does it mean to be tamim with God?

RE’EH

27th Av 5770 ~ 7th August 2010

By Andrew Levy

Chambers English Dictionary defines the word “Hyperbole” as “a rhetorical figure which produces a vivid impression by extravagant and obvious exaggeration”. Given that Greek and Jewish thought are seen so often to be polar opposites, it is perhaps ironic that such an obviously Greek word should describe perfectly one passage in this week’s Sidrah.

A slave is about to be set free by a master who provides adequately for his upkeep as he plans to liberate the slave: “And it shall be that if he says to you, ‘I’m not leaving you’ because he loves you and your house since he is happy with you, then you should take a nail and thrust it through his ear and through the door and he shall be your eternal slave – and you shall do likewise for your female slave.” (Devarim 15, 16-17).

First things first – this passage makes it very difficult to accept any view arguing that the Bible must be taken literally. Surely here is the passage which shows in all its obvious, naked overstatement that the literal Bible reader misses the point entirely.

So how then should we read this text? At its most obvious in context, it appears to be about never forgetting the importance of freedom - gained as a result of the Exodus. Yet here we are entering the second week of August reading a passage which on that basis should have formed one of the most central points of our Seder service in April (which of course it did not).

This text is surely about more than the importance of freedom as a concept. Why give such a concrete, hyperbolic example if it were only about a concept? This passage, it seems to me, is more about psychology than anything else. Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously introduced his “Social Contract” with the oft-quoted words: “Man is born free, and everywhere is in chains.” Less quoted is the sentence immediately following: “One believes himself the others’ master, and yet is more a slave than they”.

Slavery is all too real and appalling but the opposite of slavery is not freedom. The opposite of slavery is not the lack of shackles, fundamental as that unfettered state may be. As Rousseau rightly said, masters can be slaves too.

The opposite of slavery, rather, is a mind freed from slavish thoughts, dependence and fear of the new. We are all inherently cautious; and caution is no bad thing at the right time. Yet a life without risk is hardly worth living. In Jewish tradition, the “Yetser ha’ra” (the evil inclination) is interpreted as the creative force within which moves us on in our lives and without which our existence would be sullen.

The freedom we have, away from the nail of pained-eared slavery, is a balancing act between caution and risk. It is a high-wire act with a vertiginous drop either side. I could not encapsulate the liberty dilemma which Judaism poses better than in quoting the title which the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas gave to a collection of Jewish essays - “Difficile Liberté”.

Andrew Levy is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Follow none but the Lord your God, and revere none but Him; observe His commandments alone, and heed only His orders; worship none but Him, and hold fast to Him. (Devarim 13:5)

“Follow none but the Lord your God” … and not in new (incorrect) ways that the prophet or dreamer shows, with the intent of leading you astray from the (proper) way. “And revere none but Him” Even though that prophet was already (accepted) among you as an important and revered person, (yet if) he now exaggerates (his prophetic powers), then nullify your reverence of this prophet before the reverence of God, the Blessed One. “Observe His commandments alone”... but not new commandments devised by a prophet, especially idolatry which is contradictory to all the commandments of God, the Exalted One, because He commanded His covenant forever, He will not exchange it or change it. “And heed only His orders” … that which He commands you through His prophets, in order to preserve His Torah and sanctify His name, as we find with Elijah on Mt. Carmel – but (one is not to hearken) to the voice of he who nullifies all the commandments of God, the Exalted One. “Worship none but Him”... Him alone and none other with Him... “And hold fast to Him” The purpose of all your actions shall be to do His will, and your animosity toward this (false prophet) shall not be motivated by a prior hatred. Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, [1475-1550, Italy]
“Follow none but the Lord your God” – this refers to (following the pillar of) cloud – “and revere none but Him” – meaning that the awe (of the Lord) shall be upon you – “His commandments” – referring to positive commandments – “observe” – including (the implied) negative commandments – “and heed only His orders” – meaning the voice of His prophets – “worship none but Him” – serve Him according to His Torah and in His Sanctuary – “and hold fast to Him” – separate yourselves from idolatry and cleave unto the Lord. Sifrei, Piska 85
Rabbi Hama ben Rabbi Hanina said: “Follow none but the Lord your God” [literally, After the Lord your God shall you walk] But is it possible for a man to walk right behind the Presence? Has it not already been said, “The Lord your God is a consuming fire” (4:24)? Yes, but what the verse means is that you are to follow the ways of the Holy One. He clothed the naked: “The Lord God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them” (B’reishit 3:21). So should you clothe the naked. The Holy One visited the sick: “The Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre” (B’reishit 18:1). So should you visit the sick. The Holy One buried the dead: “He buried [Moses] in the valley” (D’varim 34:6). So should you bury the dead. The Holy One comforted mourners: “After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac” (B’reishit 25:11). So should you comfort mourners. Talmud Sotah 14a

Sparks for Discussion

Our commentators offer three different ways to interpret this verse. Sforno interprets it in context, elaborating on the laws of the false prophet. The Sifrei understands it as a general reference to the obligation to worship only God and shun idolatry. The gemara in Sotah interprets it as a call to engage in acts of chesed (loving-kindness). If you were giving a d’var Torah, which interpretation would you use? Why? What balance of mitzvot bein adam laMakom (between a person and God) and mitzvot bein adam l’haveiro (between one person and another) do you believe is required for a meaningful Judaism?

EKEV

20th Av 5770 ~ 31st July 2010

By Allan Myers

Why is this night different from all other nights? Don’t worry, I haven’t got the wrong time of year. It’s just that questions seem to abound amongst the Children of Israel as they win their freedom.

But this is to be expected. After all, once you have freedom, all sorts of questions crop up. What are we going to do, now? How are we going to live? Is this a good situation for us?

Joining the Masorti movement was a bit like getting my freedom. For the first time, I was able to ask lots of questions – questions that wouldn’t have been well received in some other environments.

And when I started teaching at a Masorti cheder, we had to do whatever we could to get the children to ask as many questions as possible. Many of the questions started with an interrogative, like “what”; in Hebrew, “mah”.

In this week’s sedra, Moses continues his reprise of the biblical story so far. One of the first things that he reminds the people about is the Manna.

“Manna” is a “what” question. The word comes from the expression, “Man Hu”, “What is it? In this reading, the Manna is portrayed as a mystery.

Alternatively, in Rashi’s view, “Manna” means some kind of food preparation. In this reading, the Manna is portrayed as some kind of Providence. Whatever the manna is, its precise nature or form is unknown.

The S’fat Emmet (the head of the Hasidim of Gur in the nineteenth century) says it was God’s intention that the children of Israel wouldn’t know what it was – it was just “the bread that God commanded” He goes on to say, “The purpose of knowing is to realize that we do not know”. Or, as Aviva Zornberg puts it, “without a real question, there can be no real answer…the understanding of the limits of the questioner’s knowledge is fired by his sense of another world of knowledge, intimated but never penetrated”

Mei Hashiloach, (the Ishbitzer Rabbi of the nineteenth century) notices that the children of Israel didn’t call it Manna because they didn’t know what it was – rather, they saw what it was but couldn’t understand how it could help them. This is exactly what Moses tells them – “God subjected you to hardship, and then gave you manna…which teaches you that man does not live by bread alone but on everything that He decrees”. [Deut 8:3

So the Manna sustains us by making us think! We get something we were not expecting, suggesting that the Manna is not just Providence - there is some mystery involved in our understanding and this must deepen our spiritual life.

Allan Myers is a member of KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

The Lord your God who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers had never known, in order to test you by hardships... (Devarim 8:16)

Whether they will keep the commandments which are associated with it, that they should not leave any of it over and that they should not go out on the Sabbath to gather. Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105, France] on Sh’mot 16:4
...whether you would do His will when He grants you sustenance without pain (without effort). Rabbi Ovadia ben [Jacob Sforno, 1475-1550, Italy]
The situation in which the Israelites were placed regarding the manna represented a great trial for them since they entered a desert without food of any sort and with no way out. They were totally dependent on the daily portion of manna which rained down and melted in the heat of the sun. They hungered for it greatly, but bore all their suffering in obedience to God who might have led them through an inhabited route. He chose, however, to confront them with this trial in order to test their eternal loyalty to Him... Ramban [Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, 1194-1270, Spain]
[God said] it is essential that I find men for whom it suffices to be provided for wife and family for each day by itself. Men who can cheerfully and happily enjoy today, carry out their duties for today and leave the worry for tomorrow to Him Who has provided for today and Who can be trusted for tomorrow. Only such unreserved confidence in God ensures the fulfilment of His laws against infringement out of supposed or actual concern about material necessities. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, [1808-1888, Germany]
Everyone knows that life is a test. We struggle to make a living, to raise our children, to build up our communities. Nothing comes easy, and our test is to deal with the hardships and frustrations in the best way possible. But what if our livelihood were served up to us on a silver platter? How wonderful that would be! No more worries about how to pay for the children’s tuition or the new roof. What if everything we needed came to us like manna from heaven? Would we consider this a test? Hardly. We would consider it a blessing. The Torah, however, seems to say otherwise. Sforno explains that the test is to see if the Jews would still follow the Torah when they do not have to worry about their livelihood. Yes, there is a great test in “bread raining down from heaven.” Affluence without effort is a dangerous thing. It comes with a great amount of leisure time and freedom of action. What do we do with that leisure time and that freedom of action? Do we use our leisure time and freedom of action to taste the forbidden? This is the great test of the manna. We are all aware of the test of poverty. We are all aware of the trials and tribulations of being poor. However, says Sforno, affluence also comes with great temptations. It puts a tremendous responsibility on a person. This is the test of the manna, and it is the test for many Jews in these affluent times. Rabbi Yissocher Frand, [“Rabbi Frand on the Parsha”]

Sparks for Discussion

In what way was the manna a test? The commentators offer several suggestions for what was being tested – obedience, faith, dealing with poverty or affluence. How do you understand the test of manna? Is it possible that it tested different people in different ways – some struggled with faith, others with obedience? How do you think the test of manna would challenge you? Do you believe that God tests human beings? How? When God does test people?, is He gathering information about us or trying to teach us lessons about ourselves?

VAETCHANAN

Shabbat Nachamu

13th Av 5770 ~ 24th July 2010

By Marc Shoffren

The second parasha of D’varim is a roller coaster of a ride. It starts with an application from Moses to enter the promised land (rejected), a repetition of the ten commandments, the liturgical text we recite as the first paragraph of the Shema, the section incorporated into the haggadah in answer to the wise son’s question, and a lecture against intermarriage. However one of the most interesting verses is one that is not in the parasha…

Many will know that although the shema text is taken from Devarim 6 (vs 4-9), the second line of the liturgy (Barukh shem kavod…) does not appear in the biblical text. In traditional communities this line is recited in a quiet voice, except on Yom Kippur, when we can reach the levels of the malakhim (angels) and speak the words at full volume. For the rest of the year, whether recited or read, this line is said under our breath. One midrash explains that when we recite the shema we reenact Jacob’s teaching to his sons. In the midrash Jacob / Israel lays on his death bed, as his sons gather around him. They recite together ‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheynu Adonai echad’ – ‘listen father (Israel), Adonai is our God, Adonai is one’. Then Jacob, the dying father whispers his reply, barukh shem kavod… blessed is God’s name forever more.

As well as explaining the insertion of the extra line into the liturgy, the midrash seems to suggest something more powerful: that the idea of worship involves dialogue between humans, as much as it involves dialogue between God and humanity. This is something that resonates for me, for as Karen Armstrong explores, our ideas of God rarely arrive fully formed in our heads. More often, they are the results of discussions with others, encounters with new concepts and reactions to challenging situations.

In the parasha the Israelites are in the valley of Beit Peor, where earlier some of the camp had been unfaithful to God, and where they now receive an extended discourse on the futility of idol worship. In addition to commandments forbidding the worship of sculptured images in any form, the Israelites get a clear set of warnings forbidding them from worshipping heavenly bodies. The repeated presence of such warnings in the Torah is testament to the seductive powers of such ideas. It is, in all truth, easier to fix our spiritual focus on solid objects in front of us, or even on objects such as stars that we can only regard at a distance, than it is to engage in the metaphysical and abstract ideas of an intangible God. It is often hard to find our mental way to a God we can’t touch or see, and it is frustrating to engage with a God which is beyond our understanding.

Perhaps that is the importance of that extra line introduced into the liturgy, a reminder that despite our public confidence about our understanding of God, there is also a need for a quiet personal voice, the need for a dialogue either internally or with others. The quiet voice is a reminder that God is present in our dialogue with other, in our contemplation and moments of reflection.

Marc Shoffren is a member of KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. (Devarim 6:4)

Alternate translations:Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. (Hertz Humash)Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our God, Hashem is the One and Only. (Artscroll Stone Humash) Hearken O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH (is) One! (Schocken, Everett Fox translation) Listen, Israel: YHWH is our God. YHWH is one. (Commentary on the Torah, Richard Friedman translation)
The precise meaning of the Shema is uncertain. The four Hebrew words “YHVH eloheinu, YHVH ehad” literally mean “YHVH our God YHVH one.” Since Hebrew does not have a present-tense verb meaning “is” to link subject and predicate, the link must be supplied by the listener or reader. Where to do so depends on context and sometimes is uncertain. Grammatically, “YHVH our God YHVH one” could be rendered in several ways such as (1) “YHVH is our God, YHVH alone”; (2) “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (literally “YHVH our God, YHVH is one); (3) “YHVH our God is one YHVH.” (Dr. Jeffrey Tigay, “The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy,” Excursus 10)
Another interpretation: “The Lord, our God,” over us (the children of Israel); “the Lord is one,” over all the creatures of the world. “The Lord, our God” in this world; “the Lord is one,” in the world to come, as it is said, “The Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day shall the Lord be one and His name one.” ([Zechariah 14:9] Sifrei, Piska 31)
“The Lord is our God” The Lord alone is our God, there is no other kind of divinity that is a partner to Him... “The Lord alone” He alone, and Him we will serve without resorting to any man-made intermediary such as charms, etc. Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir), 1080-1158, France, (Rashi’s grandson)
“The Lord” Who gives existence and is the Creator. “Our God” He is the Chosen One of all who are separated (from matter), and Him (alone), not through any intermediary... “The Lord alone” Now, being that He granted existence from total nothingness, it is understood that there does not exist any kind similar to Him and that He is separated in kind from all that exists in the world... (Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, 1475-1550, Italy)
The rabbis say: God said to Israel: My children, all that I have created I have created in pairs; heaven and earth are a pair; the sun and the moon are a pair; Adam and Eve are a pair; this world and the world to come are a pair; but My glory is one, and unique in the world. (Devarim Rabbah 2:31)

Sparks for Discussion

This verse is at once perhaps the best known in the Torah and one of the most difficult to translate and interpret. How do you usually translate it? Which of the alternate translations or explanations to you find appealing? Do you find any of them unsettling? What exactly do you mean when you say Shema?

DEVARIM

Shabbat Chazon

6th Av 5770 ~ 17th July 2010

By Rabbi Michael Foulds

On Tuesday it is Tisha B’Av when we shall remember, and mourn, the destruction of the first and second temples. This shabbat takes its name from the first word (chazon – vision) of the Haftarah which is always read on the shabbat immediately preceding Tisha B’Av. The Haftarah, Isaiah 1: 1-27, is chanted with the same mournful melody as that for the book of Lamentations (Eicha) which is read on Tisha B’Av itself.

For the Talmudic rabbis, nothing ever happens by pure chance. Everything takes place in accordance with God’s knowledge and will. So why then were the two temples destroyed? The rabbis had little doubt concerning the first temple: it was destroyed, they say, because of the idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed that was prevalent then. However, they found it more difficult to explain why the second temple was destroyed as, at that time, the people were occupying themselves with Torah, observance of the mitzvot, and the practice of charity (Yoma 9b). Faced with this difficulty, the rabbis offered various answers. Jochanan said it was because the rabbis ruled in accordance with the strict rule of the law. They were not compassionate in their rulings and did not go beyond the requirements of the law, according to the principle of lifenim mishurat ha-din – inside the line of justice (Baba Metzia 30b). Abaye said it was because of the desecration of Shabbat; Abbahu, because of neglecting to recite the Shema; Hamnuna, because of the neglect of the education of school children; Ulla, because the people were totally shameless; Judah, because scholars were despised there (Shabbat 119b). However, the commonly accepted reason of the rabbis is that the second temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam – gratuitous hatred. The Talmud states that despite all the engagement with Torah, observance of the mitzvot, and the practice of charity, sinat chinam prevailed and this was considered as serious as idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed together (Yoma 9b). The Talmud tells of the effect of sinat chinam in the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza which contains the account of the over-scrupulous ruling of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas who placed a minute aspect of the law over the more desirable and important pursuit of peace. The story recounts the trivial beginning and the subsequent train of events which led to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (Gittin 55b-56a).

Did sinat chinam end with the second temple? It appears not. It has manifested from time to time in our history and, I believe, is evident today. Recently we have heard of stones being thrown by the ‘orthodox’ at the windows of Masorti shuls in Israel and of a physical attack on a young woman by a man in orthodox dress, allegedly because her arm retained the marks shown by the tefillin shel yad she had worn that morning. In this country maybe physical rocks are not hurled, but certainly verbal ones are thrown at us. The ever stricter positions adopted by some of the so called Torah observant amongst us accompanied by increasing hostility and intolerance is, I believe, sinat chinam. Such attitudes are very likely to lead to damaging and deeply undesirable splits and divisions both within communities here and within Israel, within the wider Jewish world, and also between Israel and the Diaspora. These could be as profoundly, damaging, and dangerous as were the results of that first emergence of sinat chinam.

Michael Foulds is rabbi at NEMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

What food you eat you shall obtain from them for money; even the water you drink you shall procure from them for money. Indeed, the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings. He has watched over your wanderings through this great wilderness; the Lord your God has been with you these past forty years: you have lacked nothing. (Devarim 2:6-7)

“You have lacked nothing.” Hence, they will realize that you are not buying necessary things, but your purchases are motivated (solely) by brotherly feelings, so that they might have benefit (from you). Another reason is that they will come to your (camp) and observe the deeds of God and His wonders. Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, [1475-1550, Italy]
“The Lord your God has blessed you.” Therefore do not be ungrateful for His kindness by appearing as though you were poor, but show yourselves wealthy. Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105, France]
“In all your undertakings” Even those things that you did not receive directly from God, like manna and water, such as clothing, etc., He paid attention to your wanderings in the wilderness and directed His protective care thereto. The descendents of Esau shall get an idea of God and His unlimited powers by their contact with this people, who had been provided with everything by God during the whole of their 40 years wandering through the wilderness and their consequent behaviour, so contrary to all that had been expected and feared from them. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, [1808-1888, Germany]
The Torah teaches good manners. If a man travels in a strange country and has his food and drink with him, he should, nevertheless, not eat and drink what he has brought with him, he should put it aside and buy what he wants from the shopkeepers, in order to improve trade. And so Moses said to the king of Edom, “The well is with us, but we will not drink its waters; and the manna which we have, we will not eat. You shall not say that we are nothing but trouble to you for you will do business for yourself.” (Tanhuma (Buber) Hukkat)

Sparks for Discussion

Our commentators wonder: If God had provided for all the material needs of the Israelites for 40 years, why does He now tell them to buy their provisions from the descendents of Esau? Was it to make the residents of Seir more favourably disposed to this large population because it would be a source of significant profits? Was it to be an outreach effort, showing them how well God treated those who served Him? Or, as Rashi suggests, was the lesson meant for the Israelites – namely, that spending can be an act of gratitude?

These days we hear a lot about buying locally, largely in connection with buying food at farmers’ markets and similar places to reduce the environmental impact of packaging and transportation. What other good reasons might there be for buying from local merchants and producers? Today, it’s easy to use the internet to find not only low prices but also almost endless variety for almost everything we buy. What happens to local merchants – and Council tax revenues – when more and more people do most of their shopping online? What about the ethics of using local stores to investigate products and then, once you know exactly what you want, going online to buy it at the lowest possible price? Is it a mitzvah to do a least some shopping locally?

From: United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism. More can be found on their website http://www.uscj.org

MATTOT/MASSEI

28th Tammuz 5770 ~ 10th July 2010

By Rina Wolfson

This week’s double parsha of Mattot-Massei is one of the most challenging, and the most chilling, of the entire Torah. Whilst there are certainly elements that are uplifting and inspiring, such as the stand made by the daughters of Zelophchad for a share in their father’s inheritance, there is a great deal that is disturbing to the modern reader. Mattot begins with an example of blatant gender inequality. A man’s vow is to be strictly honoured whilst a woman’s vow can be annulled by her father or husband. The parsha goes on to describe an incident of gruesome bloodshed. Acting in the name of revenge, Moses sends thousands of troops to invade the territory of Midian, killing every male. When he hears the battle report, Moses is furious that the women have been spared, and orders the troops to finish the job, leading to the deaths of all the adult women as well as the young boys. What makes the story more unsettling is that Moses’ wife, Zipporah, and his father-in-law, Yitro, were themselves Midianite. Later, in Parshat Massei, the text foretells the process of the systematic dispossession of the resident Canaanites from their native land.

What does the modern reader do with these stories? It is tempting to ignore them, and focus instead only on those passages which confirm our own moral values and sense of justice. Or we can try to sanitize the text, so that problematic events are creatively refashioned to suit our modern sensibilities. But neither of these approaches is satisfactory, and there is something slightly dishonest about treating our sacred texts in this way.

The issue is particularly problematic because we have a tradition that the Torah is a source of blessing and peace. The Book of Proverbs maintains, in a phrase that should be well-known to all members of NOAM “Her ways are very pleasant (noam), and all her paths are peaceful (shalom)”. How can we harmonise the stories in Mattot-Massei of sexism, genocide and dispossession with shalom?

Perhaps the answer lies in an understanding of the word shalom. It’s usually translated as ‘peace’, but that’s a bit deceptive, since peace assumes an absence of conflict or dispute. However, the root of the word shalom is shalem, which denotes wholeness, completion. Shalom is not a state of unchallenged tranquillity. Rather, it is a state where we are open to embrace the completeness and the wholeness of a given situation, in its entirety. Shalom is possible only when we are open to seeing all sides of a situation; when we try to ignore aspects that we find unpalatable, shalom becomes impossible.

It is tempting to ignore the stories in this week’s parasha. But, if we avoid the texts that are challenging, distressing or even shameful, we only see part of the picture, and that prevents shalom. Ironically, when we are brave enough to face the disturbing passages of the Torah, even at the risk of generating feelings of revulsion, despair or anger, we come closer to that state of shalom. (Inspired by Sam Berrin Shonkoff)

Rina Wolfson is a member of KNMS and the AMS Education Coordinator

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Then they stepped up to him and said, “We will build here sheepfolds for our flocks and towns for our children.” (Numbers 32:16)

They had consideration for their wealth more than for their sons and their daughters, for they mentioned their cattle before their little ones. Moses said to them: Not thus shall you do. What is of primary significance (should be) primary, and what is secondary (should be) secondary. Build for yourselves cities for your little ones first, and afterwards folds for your sheep (32:24). Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105, France]

In the case of the children of Gad and the children of Reuben, you find that they were rich, possessing large numbers of cattle, but they loved their money and settled outside the Land of Israel. Consequently they were the first of all the tribes to go into exile, as is borne out by the text, “And he carried them away, namely, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh” (I Chronicles 5:26). What brought it on them? The fact that they separated themselves from their brethren because of their possessions. From where can we infer this? From what is written in the Torah, “The Reubenites and the Gadites owned cattle in very great numbers” (32:1). (Bamidbar Rabbah 22:7)

Rabbi Aharon Kotler writes that the two tribes’ intentions may have seemed commendable. With abundant grazing land for their livestock, they would not have to work as hard as farmers, and they would have more time to devote to Torah study. However, in fact this was not their true motivation. Their decision was induced by the wealth that Transjordan would bring them... As we have noted, the accounts in the Torah are intended for teaching and guidance rather than history. We have so many waking hours that we allot to prayer, Torah study, and work. Which of these gets the lion’s share? Is it proper that we often make short order of our morning prayers in order to get to the office as early as possible?... We would do well to rethink our priorities. (Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., Twerski on Chumash, p. 345)

Sparks for Discussion

Our commentators fault the tribes of Reuben and Gad for placing money and possessions – their cattle – before their families, their community (the other Israelite tribes), and God. Today, when technology allows us to be in contact with the office, clients, and co-workers 24/7, the problem has grown worse. Particularly in the current recession, when many people have lost their jobs and many more worry that they may, it is even more difficult not to make work our priority. Do you work to live or live to work? What do our commentators teach us about what our priorities should be? Are there mitzvot that can help us see our lives in the proper perspective? If you knew that you only had a few days or weeks left to live, how would you spend your time?

PINCHAS

21st Tammuz 5770 ~ 3rd July 2010

By Alex Stein

"And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Get thee up into this mountain of Abarim, and behold the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, though also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered; because ye rebelled against My commandment in the wilderness of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify Me at the waters before their eyes….” [Numbers 27: 12-14]

Such are the perils of power. Moses, the exalted leader who led the Jewish people out of slavery, finds himself denied entry into the holy land at the last, all on account of one temper tantrum while carrying out the arduous task of leading his people through the desert. This seems to be the norm of political authority: no matter how great the leader, disgrace always seems to be lurking round the corner.

Transgression – however uncharacteristic – is swiftly punished. God, the mob, the football club chairman, the electorate: we are all quick to depose those who disappoint us. On the other end of the spectrum lies indulgence. It takes time to settle into a job, it takes time to implement change, Rome wasn't built in a day. According to this approach, we should not deify our leaders. Instead, we should patiently nurture them, and not just lash out when mistakes are made, even if they are critical ones. But how can we know which of the approaches is more suitable? It certainly seems that God was unduly harsh on Moses, or – to use a more fashionable term – disproportionate. Because of this, many commentators have argued that Moses's sin went much deeper – that in striking the rock he was trying to play God, or that he had suffered from a breakdown after hearing the spies' reports.

This seems to be an apologetic approach. The God of the Bible is no stranger to intemperate outbursts of his own, and it seems more appropriate to focus on his strange behaviour throughout this episode, rather than Moses. Did he respond to Moses's temper tantrum with one of his own? And did his ego drive him to it? We are constantly told not to apply anthropomorphic traits to God's behaviour, but – all too often – he seems to perform deeds that would be condemned if carried out by mere humans. Perhaps it's time to cast a more critical eye on the seemingly irrational deeds of our creator.

Alex Stein is a former NOAM movement worker now living in Israel

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Moses spoke to the Lord, saying, “Let the Lord, Source of the breath of all flesh [alternate translation – God of the spirits of all flesh], appoint someone over the community who shall go out before them and come in before them, and who shall take them out and bring them in, so that the Lord’s community may not be like sheep that have no shepherd.” (Numbers 27:15-17)

1. “Moses spoke to the Lord, saying:” The verse proclaims the excellence of the righteous: even when about to depart from the world, they set aside their own needs and occupy themselves with the needs of the community. (Sifrei)

2. “Let the Lord, God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint someone over the community.” When Moses saw that his sons were not worthy to succeed him in the dignity of his office, he wrapped himself in his tallit, and standing up in prayer before the Holy One, said: “Master of the universe, the disposition of every one of them is revealed to You – the disposition of one is not at all like the disposition of another. After I depart from them, when You will be setting another leader over them, I beg you, set over them a leader who will put up with each and every man according to his particular disposition. (Yalkut, Pinhas 776)

3. When Moses saw how great Pinchas was, he was afraid that he would be chosen as the leader, and he was not pleased with the prospect of having such a zealot as the leader of the Jewish people. He therefore asked of God that the leader be a tolerant man and not a zealous one. (Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, 1787-1854, Poland)

4. “Who shall got out before them” That he not act like others, who have their legions go forth while they themselves remain in their homes; that he not lead them out in myriads and bring them back in thousands, or lead them out in thousands and bring them back in hundreds. (Sifrei Zuta)

5. A true leader must “go out before” his people and not trail behind them. He must raise them to his level and not allow himself to descend to theirs. He must “go out before them” and “come in before them,” always at the head of his people. He must have them follow him and not keep looking back to see what they want and follow their wishes. A leader who truly leads his people will raise them to his own level. He has a chance to “take them out” from corruption and to “bring them in” to holiness (as Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter of Ger explains it). A leader who trails behind his people will finally be dragged down by them to their own low level. (Avnei Ezel (Rabbi Alexander Zusia Friedman), 1897-1943, Poland)

Sparks for Discussion

What qualities do our commentators see as essential for leadership? Do you agree? Are there other qualities you would add? Do you think this is a good prescription for leadership in the modern world – for a president or prime minister? for a CEO? for a rabbi? How would you explain the difference between a leader and a politician?

CHUKAT

7th Tammuz 5770 ~ 19th June 2010

By Alan Orchover

This is one of the most problematic sidrot in the Torah. It is often read together with Balak, although any link between the two is tenuous. First we have the commandment of the Red Heifer taken as a special maftir several weeks before Pesach (Shabbat Parah) as the rabbis considered it emblematical of the exceptional purity required in connection with the preparation of the festival. The ashes of an unblemished totally red heifer mixed with certain additions were sprinkled on the third and seventh days on the person who had come into contact with a corpse. This purified that person but the priest who carried out the process and the person who burnt the cow became defiled and were not clean until the evening of that day having in the meantime washed themselves and their clothes. Therefore, those who purified others became themselves defiled. A Midrash states that even King Solomon could not explain the ritual. Maimonides, however, did explain it at some length. It is a Chok – a statue for all time, although it was abolished by the rabbis after the destruction of the Temple. There are some groups in Israel today who would wish it to be reinstated as apparently unblemished red heifers are being bred!

The Sedra then suddenly goes forwards 38 years to nearly the end of the wanderings. Miriam dies and is buried at Kadesh. The people then grumble at Moses and Aaron for water. God instructs Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock to yield water. Moses and Aaron assemble the people in front of the rock. The text states “He said (probably Moses although it is unclear) listen you rebels shall we get water for you from this rock?” Moses struck the rock twice and water came forth copiously. God said to Moses and Aaron “Because you did not trust me enough to affirm my sanctity in the sight of the people, you shall not be allowed to enter into the Land of Israel.” These are the waters of Meribah (waters of strife) also known as Ein Mishpot (Well of judgement).

It seems that a minor transgression committed in frustration and justifiable anger could wipe out a lifetime of merit and service. The commentators have a field day endeavouring to justify God’s excessive punishment. Aaron dies soon thereafter and Moses will die within a year of Aaron. The punishment does not appear to fit the crime. However, the anger of “listen you rebels” showed lack of leadership and publicly expressed wrath and leadership do not go together (Ibn Ezra). Maybe they had sinned in some other way that was edited out to safeguard their reputations. It cannot be proved either way.

The best epitaph for Aaron was composed by Hillel centuries later who stated “Be like the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow men and bringing them near to the Torah.”

Alan Orchover is a member of EMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: What is the size of an olive, the standard unit of measurement, according to Halacha?

Answer: Measuring is central to any legal system. How fast is ‘speeding’? How much drink is intoxicating? Jewish law is also based on a system of measurements; some units of measurement, such as the cubit, go back to the bible. Some come from the Romans, such as the Parsa and some come from nature, such as the egg and the olive.

How big is an olive? An average olive is around 3 to 4 cubic centimetres, but halachic olives are much larger. Most authorities consider the size of a halachic olive to be around 28 cc – some go as far as 56cc. How did this come about, and what is the real size of an olive in Jewish law?

There is no definition of the size of an olive in the Talmud, amongst the Geonim. (Babylon, 6th-10th century), or among the Spanish Rabbis. The Rabbis of Ashkenaz are the first to address the question in detail. Olives are not native to Ashkenazi countries and Ashkenazi Rabbis would never have seen an olive. The question of how to estimate the size of an olive was a serious question for them.

Although there is no direct discussion of the size of an olive in the Talmud, it is possible to deduce its size from places where it is mentioned. There are two such instances. In tractate Kritut the sages discuss how much food a person can swallow in one gulp. The sages stated that the throat cannot hold more than two olives. Elsewhere, the sages estimated that the throat cannot hold more than a chicken’s egg. From here we can deduce that an olive is half the size of an egg.

It is possible to deduce the size of an olive using a different method. Rambam, [MT, Hilchot Eiruvin 1:9] states that a dried fig is one third the size of an egg. The Talmud [BT Shabbat 91a] states that an olive is less that the size of a fig. From here we can deduce that an olive is no bigger than one third the size of an egg.

Based on these calculations, the Ashkenazi Rabbis adopted two different standards. R. Yitzchak of Dampierre (France, 12th century) ruled that an olive is the size of half an egg. Rabbeinu Tam of Remerupt (France, 12th century) ruled that it is the size of one third of an egg. The Shulchan Aruch simply states: “The size of an olive – some say it is around half an egg”. [OH 486:1] This odd wording indicates that he is not expressing his own opinion, but the strict view of others. Finally, R. Yechezkel Landau (Prague, 18th century), trying to reconcile measurements that were given in eggs and in fingers, came to the conclusion that in biblical times eggs were much larger than the eggs of our time. He writes “It is clear to me [that] a whole egg of our day is only half the size of an egg that was used for the Torah quantities. Thus the size of an olive grew from 3 to 28 and then to 56 cubic centimetres. There is no reason to believe that olives today are any different from the olives in the time of the bible or the Talmud. There are 2000 and 3000 year old trees still living in Israel that testify to this fact. Based on this, the size of a halachic olive is the average size of a common olive today – roughly 3 to 4 cc. All other measurements are based on a misunderstanding and are not the original intention of the Torah.

Based on: The Evolution of the Olive. Rabbi Natan Slifkin

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

KORACH

Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

30th Sivan 5770 ~ 12th June 2010

News from the past (?)

By Annette Boeckler

The revolt in the Israelite camp reached its climax at a mass meeting of the rebels. The majority of the speakers were from the tribe of Reuben. In their so far sharpest attack the rebels questioned Moses and Aaron and held them guilty for usurpation and severe mismanagement. They called for an immediate return of the people to Egypt and warned clearly that under the continued leadership of Moses the people of Israel would be led into disaster. One of the speakers said: “Nobody believes in the empty promises that this man has uttered. We will never see a land of milk and honey, but only desert.” The speaker suggested choosing new leadership and returning to Egypt. Among the rebels is the famous singer songwriter Korach from the tribe of Levy, who became famous by performances in the sanctuary with his sons.

Bulletin: We have just received the news that Korach and his supporters, who took part in the rebellion against Moses, died this morning in a tragic manner. In front of thousands of people, who watched terrified, they literally sank into the ground, as a rift broke up and dragged the men, whom Moses had told to stand at that place, into the depth. No trace could be found of the rebels so far. Among the missing are Dathan and Abiram, the leaders of the tribe of Reuben. Strangely the sons of Korach had just composed a song saying “You have put me at the bottom of the Pit” (Ps 88:7). They probably would never have thought that they themselves would actually experience this.

The enquiries so far prove that the strange disappearance of Korach and his fans was very likely caused by a divine interference, as the revolt was about the question whether Israel is holy, which means set apart. The rebels had claimed that the whole people of Israel are holy. This opinion was new, as Moses had so far always preached that one should strive to become holy, one should strive to be a moral and religious people. Moses published some guidelines to help this striving. The rebels had sharply attacked Moses' position and had proclaimed, the whole people of Israel as it is, is holy. They understood holy as being special, with no need of guidance in religious matters. It looks, as if God had now had separated the rebels from the rest of the community, to avoid the spread of their teachings.

A different topic. Religious institutions need your support; this was revealed in a recently published law by Moses. The law says that 10% of one’s income should be given to support the house of God. Responsible for the administration of the donations and also for the religious services in general will be the family of Aaron.

Our information is based on Parashat Korach, Numbers 16-18 and was published first as Leo Baeck College D'var Torah.

Annette Boeckler is lecturer/librarian at the Leo Baeck College and is a member of KNMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Is vegetarian cheese kosher?

Answer: The Mishnah in tractate Avodah Zara [2:4] lists a number of foods that must be made by Jewish people. Cheese is on this list. The Talmud does not explain why cheese needs to be produced by Jews. It is usually understood that the production of cheese is particularly susceptible to inadvertent mixing with non-kosher ingredients. This is the reason given by Maimonides [MT Forbidden Foods 3:13]. The demand that cheese be produced by Jews is to guarantee that the cheese has remained kosher.

Cheese is made by the curdling of milk fats. Specific enzymes are used to promote the curdling process. Different cheeses are made by using different enzymes. The most common enzyme used is rennet, which is found naturally in an animal’s stomach. Since cheese was historically made by setting the milk to curdle in the stomachs of non-kosher animals, the Rabbis decreed that we should only use cheese made by Jews.

Animal rennet is not used in the making of vegetarian cheese. The Tosephot [BT Avodah Zara 35a Hada] report that many places permitted ‘non-Jewish’ cheeses because they were made with flowers. They also record that the sages of Narbonne permitted cheese that was produced by non-Jews in their area because they used plant based enzymes. This would suggest that vegetarian cheese should be permitted, and is the reason some people choose to eat unsupervised vegetarian cheese.

However, both Maimonides [ibid] and Joseph Karo [Shulchan Aruch YD 115:2] rule that all cheeses need to be produced by Jews. Why is vegetarian cheese included in a ban on cheese made in animal stomachs? There is a Talmudic principle called ‘Lo Plug’, which literally means – ‘do not differentiate’. This principle states that when establishing a law, the Rabbis prefer those that cover broad, readily recognised categories rather than many specific rules which may be confusing. Following this principle, the halacha prefers a rule that all cheese needs to be produced by Jews – rather than set separate rules for different types of cheese.

Civil law adopts the same principle. For example, the Highway Code sets the speed limit in built up areas as 30 mph. Theoretically, it could have decided that on sunny days the speed limit is 35 but in the fog it is 25; that younger drivers with quick reflexes can drive at 40, whereas older drivers can only drive at 20. A law like this would be confusing and hard to enforce. Legal systems prefer to keep it simple. And once a rabbinic decree has been introduced, it generally remains law even when circumstances change.

There may be an exception for white curd cheeses, such as cottage cheese, which are not made with rennet at all. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein [USA, 20th century] [Iggrot Moshe, YD 1:49] suggests that as they are not made with rennet, these cheeses may not be considered ‘cheese’ from a Halachic point of view, and therefore may not be included in the general ban against cheese made by non-Jews.

Most Kashrut authorities rule that all cheeses, including vegetarian cheese, require supervision. Some allow white curd cheeses without supervision.

Based on Moshe Feinstein, Iggrot Moshe, Yoreh De’ah 1:49

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

This study sheet is available as a regular email newsletter. To sign up and receive your copy, send an email to chaimweiner@gmail.com. This study sheet is sponsored by Jewish Journeys Ltd. For details email: jewishjourneys@supanet.com.

SHELACH LECHA

23rd Sivan 5770 ~ 5th June 2010

By Eva Frojmovic

The colour of the evening sky

The bulk of the Parashah is taken up by the story of the twelve spies and the aftermath of this tragically botched act of espionage, the parashah then continues with a series of laws concerning sin-offerings. The enunciation of these laws is interrupted by the short narrative about the man gathering sticks on Shabbat and his capital punishment. The Parashah ends with the commandment of Tzitzit. This last passage is of course a passage recited regularly as the third section of the Shema, and is thus familiar.

As a Parashah, this assemblage of narrative and legal texts poses a problem of coherence. Like many parts of the Torah, it shows the holy book to be a text composed of texts. Paradoxically, this composite nature has provided a spur to interpretation over many generations.

Some of the Rishonim considered that the laws followed the story of the spies in order to reassure the children of Israel that despite the spies’ rebellion and the divine punishment (they said they would rather die in the desert than fight against the Canaanites, so God lets the present generation die in the desert by prolonging the time of their wanderings by forty years), they would indeed one day settle the promised land. The reassurance rests in the opening of this section of laws: “when you will come to the land of your dwelling places that I give you…” (Num 15:2).

The final commandment given in this segment is that of Tzitzit. Rashi, at the end of his own commentary, has transmitted precious excerpts from an older scholar, Moshe ha-Darshan (Moses “the commentator”) from Narbonne, a great centre of learning between Ashkenaz and Sefarad. Moshe ha-Darshan’s treatise is now lost except for the extracts copied by Rashi and other medieval admirers.

In the extract transmitted by Rashi, Moshe reflects on the connection between tzitzit and Exodus from Egypt – why is it invoked in this commandment? The answer is alluded to in the choice of vocabulary: “‘on the corners’, literally wings (kanfei) ‘of their garments’, corresponding to ‘I carried you on eagle’s wings’. On four corners, but not on [a garment] which has three corners, nor on one with five, corresponding to the four expressions of redemption which were said of Egypt: I shall take out, I shall rescue, I shall redeem, and I shall take (Ex 6:6-7).” Then, Moshe undercuts any triumphalism that might arise: “A thread of Tekhelet” (Num 15:38), because of the bereavement of the [Egyptian] firstborn: the Aramaic translation [Targum] of bereavement is Tikhla [i.e. Tekhelet and Tikhla would echo each other, in this piece of imaginative etymology]. And that plague happened at night; and the colour of Tekhelet resembles a sky which grows dark towards evening. And the eight strings in it correspond to the eight days that Israel waited from when they left Egypt until they recited the song at the sea.” With this exhortation to mourn the enemy, the Narbonnese rabbi quietly commented upon the great (forgotten) clash of civilisations in his own time, when Christian armies were pouring south to expel Muslims from Andalusia. His attitude of compassion for the enemy’s suffering is worth rescuing from the “dark ages”.

Eva Frojmovic is a member of LMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Does a Rabbi need to be present when a female convert immerses in the Mikvah? If not, how can a conversion without witnesses be Kosher?

Answer: In the Book of Leviticus [Lev. 5:1], the Torah talks about the sin of withholding testimony. It includes one who “although able to testify as one who has either seen or knows of the matter, does not give the information”. The Talmud [BT Shavuot 34a] elaborates upon this verse. “R. Jose the Galilean said… of such testimony as may be established by seeing without knowing, and by knowing without seeing, the verse deals.” This statement establishes the principle that one may be a witness to actions that one knows about without actually having seen the action, if the circumstances are such that one is absolutely certain that the testimony is true. This principle has been applied to many areas of Jewish law. Ritual immersion is one such instance. The Talmud [BT Yevamot 45b] discusses the Jewish status of a woman who had not formally converted with a Bet Din, but who had immersed in a Mikvah. R. Yosef accepts her as a Jew. The Tosephot [10th-13th Century, mainly France and Germany] debate how the woman’s status could be confirmed. Even if she had previously immersed, the Bet Din did not witness the immersion! They suggest two possible answers: 1) a Bet Din is not required for every stage of the conversion. It is required when the convert accepts the obligation to observe the Mitzvot, but not for immersion in the Mikvah. 2) Even if the Bet Din is required for immersion, they don’t actually have to see the immersion. It is enough for the Bet Din to know for certain that the immersion took place for them to count as having witnessed the immersion.

This principle has also been evoked to certify the Kashrut of milk. The Mishnah [Avodah Zara 2:6] declares that one is not allowed to consume milk unless a Jew was present at the time of the milking. This is because milk from a non-Kosher animal could easily be mixed into the Kosher milk. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein [20th Century, USA] rules that in a country where the government conducts regular inspections, it is permitted to consume any milk. Since we rely on the government inspections we ‘know’ that the milk has not been mixed, and this counts as if we had witnessed the milking ourselves.

At the root of this question lies a deep philosophical issue – what does it mean to know something? It is rare that we have the absolute certainty that comes from witnessing something ourselves. For society to function, we need a way to also accept ‘quite certain’ as being good enough. Jewish law is the law of life. It has established reasonable expectations of what needs to be done in order to know. There are many different ways to ascertain that a proper immersion has taken place. Female witnesses that the Bet Din trusts are present at the immersion. Rabbis witness the convert entering the Mikvah room and subsequently returning with wet hair. As long as the Bet Din is convinced that a proper immersion took place, the conversion is Kosher.

Based on Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe YD Part 1, 47.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

BEHA’LOTACHA

16th Sivan 5770 ~ 29th May 2010

By Rabbi Joel Levy

At the end of this parasha we find the disturbing story of Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ siblings, expressing their bitter jealousy:

Bemidbar Chapter 12 verses 1-3

“And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Kushite woman. And they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only with Moses? Has he not spoken also with us?” And the Lord heard it. And the man Moses was very humble (“anav”), more than any other man upon the face of the earth.”

The issue with the Kushite is hard to understand, but the editorial insertion insisting that Moses was in fact humble (“anav”) leads us to think that his siblings were accusing Moses of some particular arrogance; either in his marriage or in his relationship with God.

But what does it really mean to be “anav”? This is in fact the only use of this word in its singular form in the whole Tanach. It appears multiple times in its plural form: “anavim”, especially in the book of Psalms, but there in the book of Psalms it refers to a whole social class; the downtrodden, disadvantaged and impoverished, rather than to an elevated moral quality.

The Siphrei, a compilation of early midrashim on Numbers and Deuteronomy, explores the meaning of “anav” in the story of Moses and his siblings. It actively rejects the very reasonable assumption that “anav” is just the singular form of “anavim” as found in the rest of the Tanach:

Siphrei B’Ha'alotecha Piska 43

“And the man Moses was very humble” – He was humble in his consciousness (“da’at”).

You say it means in his da’at – but maybe it means in his body (i.e. he was physically weak!)

The Torah says (Numbers 21:34) “(And the Lord said to Moses, Fear him not; for I have delivered him into your hand, and all his people, and his land;) and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites”

He fell upon Sihon and killed him as he fell upon Og and killed him.

Alternatively:

“..Very humble” – He was humble in his da’at.

You say it means in his da’at – but maybe it means in his finances (i.e. he was poor!)

[The Torah says (Ex. 11:3) “(And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians.) Moreover the man Moses was very great (in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight of the people.)”

If we were going to learn the meaning of “anav” from its plural form “anavim” we would have to assume that Moses was a member of a downtrodden, disadvantaged and impoverished social class. This midrash goes out of its way to assure us that he was in fact physically powerful, a king-killer, and considered wealthy, even amongst the Egyptians. The Rabbis systematically read “anavah” (humility) as a special quality that can really only be found amongst the wealthy and the politically powerful. Who else do they describe as “anav”? Saul, Jonathan, Hezekiah, Hillel, Shimon Ben Gamliel, Judah HaNasi to name but a few - all leaders of their respective generations. The downtrodden are not humble – they are just oppressed – “anavim”. Only a person of wealth, power and stature has the possibility of transcending their power and becoming “anav”.

Joel Levy is rabbi at KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

They marched from the mountain of the Lord a distance of three days. The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord travelled in front of them on that three days’ journey to seek out a resting place for them. (Numbers 10:33)

This is the ark that went out with them to war, and in it the broken pieces of the tablets lay; and it went before them a distance of three days to prepare for them a place of encampment. Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105, France])

Rabbi Yehudah ben Lakish said, there were two arks, one that stayed in the camp and one that would go out with them to war, and in it were the fragments of the tablets [that Moses broke], and is said, “the ark of the Covenant of the Lord travelled,” and the one that was with them in the camp had in it a sefer Torah, as is written (Numbers 14:44), “Neither the Lord’s ark of the Covenant nor Moses stirred from the camp.” (Baraita d’Melechet HaMishkan, chapter 6, cited in “Torah Sheleimah,” Rabbi Menahem Mendel Kasher)

Show respect to an old person who has forgotten his learning through no fault of his own, for we have learned that the fragments of the tablets were kept alongside the tablets in the ark of the Covenant. (Talmud Berakhot 8b)

It is natural for old people to be despised by the general population when they can no longer function as they once did, but sit idle and have no purpose. The commandment “Honour your father and your mother” was given specifically for this situation. (Melekhet Mahshevet (Rabbi Gur Aryeh ha-Levi), 7th century)

One whose father or mother has become demented should try to behave with them according to their mental state until He will have mercy on them [until they recover or die], and if it is impossible for him to bear because of their altered condition, he should go and leave them and appoint others to care for them as is fitting. (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 240:10 [Laws of Honouring One’s Father and Mother])

Sparks for Discussion

Some commentators teach that there were two arks, some that there was only one, but all agree that the broken fragments of the first set of tablets were placed in the ark. Why was this done? Why do you think the Talmud compares these fragments to an elderly person suffering from dementia?

As our population continues to age, the number of seniors in our families and communities will grow. Some of these people will remain active and engaged well into their eighties and beyond; others will slow down a bit and experience an occasional “senior moment.” And some, sadly, will develop Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. What do our communities owe to these “broken” elders? How can we support those who care for them? What does the Shulchan Aruch want us to understand about caring for elders suffering from dementia?

NASO

9th Sivan 5770 ~ 22nd May 2010

By Michael Alpert

Chapter five of Naso contains the so-called ‘Ordeal of Jealousy.’ What is to be done with a wife suspected of infidelity ? She is brought before a priest, a Cohen, who mixes some earth from the Temple floor with water and gives her a solemn warning. If she is innocent, the ‘water of bitterness’ will be harmless. But, if not, her belly will swell and her thighs rot. The Cohen writes the words on a scroll and dissolves it in the water which the wife must drink.

The ordeal of jealousy was less cruel than similar rituals in other cultures, such as when a suspected witch was thrown into water with her hands and feet bound. If she floated she was a witch; if she sank she was innocent, although she might well have drowned before being pulled out. In the test described in the Torah, drinking the water would do no harm to an innocent wife, while a guilty woman might be so frightened that she would confess. On the other hand, she might be brazen enough not to allow the priestly curse to frighten her. She might even take a chance and not confess infidelity because her husband would be obliged to divorce her. This may be why the ritual was discontinued.

The ordeal of jealousy is discussed in the Mishna (the codification of Jewish law written down in about 200 CE) in the section called Sotah or ‘the straying wife’. In Chapter 9 of Sotah, the reason given for abandoning the ordeal of jealousy was that by the time the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE there was so much immorality around that there was no longer any point in continuing the procedure (perhaps because husbands tolerated unfaithful wives).

Chapter 7 of Sotah is, however, of practical significance even today, because it discusses which texts must be uttered in Hebrew and which in any language that is understood by the hearers. One may utter the curse in the ordeal of jealousy, the Shema’, the Birkat Ha-Mazon - Grace after Meals -, and certain oaths, in any language that the participants understand. The public reading of the ‘Amidah, however, must be conducted in Hebrew as must the Blessing that the cohanim give from the Bimah.

Yet, though it may be derived from this that Torah and the daily and Shabbat services may be read in people’s daily language, there is little evidence that this was ever done . One or two items (notably kaddish) are said partly in Aramaic, which was the daily language when kaddish was introduced, and some Yiddish prayers were composed for women, who did not usually know Hebrew. In the Spanish and Portuguese tradition, the Aramaic translation or Targum of the Haftarah on Tish’a Be’Av - is recited in Spanish. This however is all, and it is in Hebrew that our historic liturgy has been recited everywhere and throughout the centuries. We should strive to read and understand it.

Michael Alpert is a member of NLS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: When coming across God’s name in a passage of Midrash or Talmud, should God’s name be pronounced, or is it better to use a different appellation such as Hashem or Adoshem?

Answer: The Talmud [BT Brachot 21a] records a debate concerning the status of a person who is ritually impure: R. Nathan b. Abishalom says: He may expound the Talmud, provided only that he does not mention the divine names that occur in it. Rashi explains that this refers to names that appear in the verses of scripture that are quoted in the Talmud, i.e. a person who is ritually impure should avoid pronouncing God’s name when studying. If only one who is ritually impure is prevented from pronouncing the Divine name, we can deduce that everyone else is permitted.

Furthermore, the Talmud states [ibid]: Words of Torah are not susceptible to uncleanness. … as it says, Is not My word like as fire. Just as fire is not susceptible to uncleanness, so words of Torah are not susceptible to uncleanness. This means that we are no longer concerned with questions of ritual purity when it comes to the study of Torah. Anyone is permitted to pronounce God’s name during their study. In spite of the widespread custom of saying Hashem instead of pronouncing God’s name, there is strong Halachic support for the opposite opinion. Rabbi Yaakov Emden [Germany, 18th Century] relates that as a young child studying with his father [also a famous Rabbi, the Chacham Tzvi], the students would sometimes use one of the other appellations, rather than pronounce God’s name. His father, using the Talmud reference quoted above, would admonish the students and insist that they pronounce the name correctly. Many later scholars adopted this view. Furthermore, the use of the word Adoshem, which is a corruption of God’s name, is considered disrespectful, and therefore if using an appellation, it is always preferable to use Hashem rather than any other alternative.

All of the above only applies to saying God’s name when quoting verses. If when studying one comes across a proper blessing, i.e. the formula that starts Baruch Ata …, there are different considerations. It is forbidden to recite a blessing without cause. Saying a blessing without a proper reason is regarded as taking God’s name in vain and is strictly forbidden. Therefore, if one comes to a blessing while studying, one should say Hashem or Elokim, rather than recite a proper blessing without cause. Here the concern for not reciting an improper blessing takes precedence over pronouncing God’s name properly.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 3, 13.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

BEMIDBAR

2nd Sivan 5770 ~ 15th May 2010

By David Kosky

The Book of Bamidbar opens with a reference which is at first sight strange:

“And God spoke to Moses in the desert saying…”

Why does the Torah need to mention where this communication happened? We already know where the Children of Israel are travelling. Why is it necessary to introduce the Fourth Book of the Torah in this way?

Midrash Rabbah provides an answer. “Anyone that does not make themselves into a desert, barren and ownerless cannot acquire wisdom and Torah. Therefore it says, ‘God spoke to Moses in the desert’”

It can be no coincidence that the three Abrahamic religions were all forged in the Desert. Anyone who has been privileged to trek on foot in the desert, cannot fail to understand the deeply spiritual ethos of the Desert and the awesome realisation of one’s own insignificance in its vast emptiness and infinite antiquity.

The Midrash and Gemarah clearly state that considering ourselves as a “Midbar” is a necessary pre-requisite to acceptance of the Torah. This is surely not a reference to adoption of a “Midbar” lifestyle in a physical sense. Rather it is a reference to our natural inclination to selfishness which on the one hand is responsible for our struggle for survival but which on the other hinders the making of meaningful personal relationships. To be successfully engaged in a relationship with another party one must suppress the focus on self and break down the emphasis on one’s own ego. If this is true in personal relationships, how much more necessary can this be in our relationship with God. To engage in a relationship with God we must view ourselves as in a “Midbar”, barren and empty. Only by realisation of the insignificance of our own ego, can we understand the nature of dependence upon and make room for God in our lives.

In Parshat Bamidbar the Twelve Tribes are divided into four groups of three with the Mishkan in the centre. The banner of each tribe is directed towards the Mishkan. One would have thought that the natural place for the Mishkan would be right at the front. According to Bamidbar Rabbah, Moses feared that each tribe would complain of its position. The solution he was told, was to have the Mishkan at the centre. In the desert, as in life people can complain about their position, the division of their roles, and their lot and standing in the community only if their “self” is at the middle of the camp. When the Mishkan is at the centre their focus is directed to their relationship with God.

David Kosky is a member of EMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Kashrut authorities seem to be increasingly concerned about checking for insects in salads and vegetables. How concerned do we need to be about this?

Answer: Eating any kind of insect in forbidden. The Torah specifically commands: All the things that swarm upon the earth are an abomination …you shall not eat … anything that crawls on its belly, or anything that walks on fours, or anything that has many legs; for they are an abomination. [Lev. 11:41-42] Therefore one must take great care to remove all insects from food before it is consumed.

The concern about eating insects is further complicated by the rules of Kashrut that deal with mixtures. In general, if a forbidden substance is mixed into permitted food we may disregard a very small quantity. Depending on the circumstances, the proportion of the forbidden substance in the mixture must usually be less than 1:2 or 1:60. However, this rule does not apply to whole creatures. Therefore, although a tiny drop of milk may become nullified in a meat mixture, a small insect is never considered nullified, even in a very large salad.

The issue of insects became acute with the development of means to extend our vision using magnifying glasses or microscopes. We now know that with strong enough magnification, it is possible to find living creatures everywhere – in every food and every surface. The question is: at what point do we stop being concerned about the existence of these creatures, even when we know they are there?

The simple rule is that we are only concerned with those things that can be seen with the naked eye. This is obvious from the fact that the entire Halachic literature assumes that we all need to eat and drink – but this would be impossible if we were to pay attention to microscopic creatures. The standard position is summarised by Rabbi Yechiel Epstein [19th Cent., Lithuania] in his book Aruch HaShulchan [YD 84]. “I have found written in the name of scientists that one who looks through a magnifying glass will find hundreds of worms in the vinegar – but vinegar is not forbidden … and I have also heard that in water, particularly rain water, there are hundreds of small creatures that cannot be seen with the naked eye. In my childhood I heard about a person who found hundreds of thousands of small creatures in water – but should we say that we must not drink water? The truth is that the Torah does not forbid things that cannot be seen with the naked eye, for the Torah was not given to angels.”

This rule has far reaching consequences. If we look hard enough, we would certainly find blemishes in every Etrog, holes in the lung of every animal (rendering the meat non-kosher) or flaws in the ink on every mezuzah or Torah scroll. The principle “The Torah was given to people and not angels” is a plea for a reasonable approach to observance.

Therefore, one should certainly check for insects in food. But there is no need for special equipment to find the smallest bug – for if it can’t be seen, you do not need to worry about it.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 6, 47.

BEHAR/BECHUKOTAI

24th Iyar 5770 ~ 8th May 2010

By Deborah Silver

It’s spiritually fashionable to live in the present. T-shirts, coffee mugs (!), websites and the messages at the end of people’s emails proclaim the merits of living in the moment, zoning in rather than zoning out.

There’s even a section about it on wikihow

(http://www.wikihow.com/Live-in-the-Moment).

Perhaps the intention is to curb our human urge towards impatience. Many of us at times resemble Juliet eagerly anticipating her wedding night:

...so tedious is this day

is the night before some festival

an impatient child that hath new robes

may not wear them....(Romeo and Juliet, III:2)

Yet, when we arrive we find, in the words of Elizabeth Smart, ‘the event that too much anticipation has fingered to shreds’ (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept).

Given this, it is a little strange that each year, at this time, we follow the commandment:

‘You shall count seven complete Sabbaths from the day after the Sabbath, from the day of waving the omer of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to God...” (Vayikra 23:15-17)

What happens to ‘living in the moment’ while we are counting the Omer? The text from the Torah seems clear - we are to count forwards, towards a specific end. Based on Shakespeare and Elizabeth Smart, aren’t we ruining both the time in between and the end itself by doing so?

The Sfat Emet - the Gur Rebbe, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Lieb Alter, says we aren’t. He teaches, in relation to the mention of Har Sinai at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, that both the shemittah year - the year of release - and the Jubilee, the fiftieth year after seven cycles of seven shemittah years - represent a standing outside of the rules of nature, in which we rest and prove that we are not subservient to them. But we are not capable of standing entirely outside of nature, and so we must count towards these goals. Each act of counting, he teaches - the seven years of the shemittah cycle, the seven times seven years of the Jubilee cycle and the seven weeks of the Omer cycle - draws all of the time within the count towards the desired end. In that way we are able to reach towards the source of all life and draw energy from it, overcoming the restrictions of nature and achieving the status of angels, like we once did at Sinai.

If so, living in the moment is over-rated. Instead, according to the Sfat Emet, we draw our greatest spiritual strength from looking and reaching forward towards a goal. And the goal, in its turn, sheds its influence back over the time preceding it. If we count with dedication, with intention, with patience and attention, we will not finger the event to shreds. Rather, the closer we get to it, the more energy we will draw from it.

Isn’t that a great image for our journey to Sinai?

Mazal Tov to Deborah Silver currently a rabbinic student at the University of Judaism LA and a member of Assif who receives Semicha next week.

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: There are those who recite the words “Baruch Hu U’Varuch Shemo” whenever they hear a blessing. What is the source of this custom and when should this be recited.

The roots of this custom are in the bible. When Noah is first introduced in the Torah the verse states [Gen. 6:9] : “These are the generations of Noah – Noah was a righteous man …” Why are we told that he was a righteous man? Rashi explains the principle – zecher tzadiik levracha - whenever a righteous person is mentioned his praise is also mentioned.

This principle is applied also to God. At the beginning of the Ha’azinu song, Moses states: For the Name of the Lord I proclaim; Give glory to our God [Deut. 32;3]. … the Talmud explains [BT Yoma 37a] For the Name of the Lord I proclaim; Give glory to our God: Moses said to Israel: When I mention the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, ascribe greatness unto Him.” The Sefer Haredim [Eliezer Azikri, Tzafat, 16th Cent.] interprets this obligation as meaning that one should recite ‘Baruch Hu U’Varuch Shemo’ whenever one hears God’s name.

The specific custom of reciting ‘Baruch Hu U’Varuch Shemo’ upon hearing a blessing is first mentioned in the Tur [Jacob ben Asher, Spain 15th Cent.] [OC 124], who states “I have a tradition from my father, the Rosh, that it was his custom that each time he heard a blessing he would recite ‘Baruch Hu U’Varuch Shemo’.

Not everyone has approved of this custom. God’s name is mentioned so frequently in our prayers, that taken to the extreme, it would be impossible to concentrate on the meaning of the prayers and it would render almost any prayer unintelligible.

Ma’asei Rav writes in the name of R. Elijah of Vilna [Lithuania, 18th Cent.] that one should not say this recitation during the repetition of the Amidah, for frequently it means that one misses hearing the end of the blessing and thereby does not fulfil his obligation. In his siddur The Vilna Gaon writes that it is forbidden to recite the ‘Baruch Hu …’ because one must concentrate only on the blessings he is hearing and on reciting amen at the end of each blessing.

The common practice is to recite this praise, but only in places where it is not disruptive to the flow of the service. We recite it at the end of a blessing – where there is a natural pause after God’s name, but not at the beginning of blessings, where God’s name is in the middle of a phrase. The ‘Baruch Hu…’ is not recited at any point of the service where it is forbidden to interrupt the flow. This means that we do not say it during the Pesukei D’zimra, during the recitation of the Shema and the surrounding blessings until the end of the silent Amidah. We also do not recite the ‘Baruch Hu’ if someone else is reciting a blessing on our behalf – such as the public recitation of the Kiddush or the Hamotzei. It is commonly recited during the repetition of the Amidah by those who are listening to the service leader. The leader should pause slightly after saying Gods name – to leave time for the praise.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 4, 9.

EMOR

17th Iyar 5770 ~ 1st May 2010

Shabbat begins in London at 20.08 and ends at 21.17

By Harriet Oppenheimer

Emor sets out rules and order about the purity of priests and their families, purity of those connected with offerings, and rules associated with Shabbat and the festivals.

On the face of it these rules appear to set out an order that is formulaic and theoretic in its neatness. Not only are the priests held to the highest standards of purity, but so are their families, hence the custom that kohanim do not marry those who have been divorced. And not only must the priests be scrupulous in all matters concerning offerings, but so must any person connected with them – descendants of Aaron who have any physical infirmity are not qualified to offer sacrificial food to God. And then the festivals follow, according to God’s “fixed times”.

The orderly societal laws described in Emor are exemplified at the end of the parasha with the story of a man whose mother was Jewish but whose father was Egyptian. Immediately we understand that this man does not fit into the normative order of society, and indeed we find out that during a fight he profanes God’s name, an act which has been explicitly prohibited at the start of this parashah. This is brought to Moses’ attention to pass judgement. God tells Moses that the punishment should be that the man is taken outside the camp and stoned by the people – he is expelled for his unnatural sin, and physically expunged, annihilated by the people to whose societal laws he does not conform.

But there’s more to these laws in Emor than just this reading. When God sets the standard for the purity of the kohanim, God enumerates the range of human conditions that are not acceptable, makes reference to the defiled daughter of a priest, their disabled or diseased children – these too are part of the Jewish people, even if not the chosen priests. The ideal of the normative society is clearly part of God’s vision, but situated within the wider realities and diversity of the people of Israel.

And so too for the “fixed times” of the festivals. The Talmud tells a story of a dispute between the Rabbis on how to calculate the calendar, which culminated in Rabban Gamliel, the supreme rabbinic authority, summoning his disputant Rabbi Yehoshua to visit Rabban Gamliel bearing a staff and money on the date which Rabbi Yehoshua held to be Yom Kippur. Rabbi Yehoshua was distressed. But Rabbi Akiva reassured him, citing the verse in this parashah “...the festivals of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions”. The date of Yom Kippur, said Rabbi Akiva, was not a matter of objective fact, but rather it was when the authorities say it is. Rabbi Yehoshua agreed and went to see Rabban Gamliel on the date required. In other words the timing of the festivals too, though it may appear to be an absolute standard imposed from without by God, in fact is determined by fallible, disputatious human beings

Harriet Oppenheimer is a member of NNLS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: What is the proper way to use ovens and stoves on Shabbat, when either reheating or serving food that has been left on the flame from before Shabbat? The Shulchan Aruch (OH 253:5) states: “It is permitted to place a previously cooked dish on top of a pot in order to heat it, because this is not a usual method of cooking”. Elsewhere the Shulchan Aruch (OH 318:8) states: “It is permitted to place a cold dish on top of a hot pot which is on the fire on Shabbat, for anything which is permitted to be placed near the fire on Shabbat, such as a dry dish, may be placed on top of a pot which is on the fire”.

These two statements indicate that it is not permitted to place a cold dish directly on the fire in order to heat it up – there needs to be some distinction between the way things are heated up and they was that they are normally cooked. Therefore, even though reheating on Shabbat is permitted – placing things directly on the fire in the manner of normal cooking, is not.

The Shulchan Aruch is also concerned about the Talmudic prohibition of ‘Shema Yechate’ – lest one stirs the coals. The fear is that one who places something on a fire on Shabbat is likely to do something to adjust the temperature – which would directly violate the prohibition of fire on Shabbat. Any use of an oven or stove must ensure that it is impossible to use the controls to adjust the flame.

In our modern context, there are several ways to make sure that food is reheated in an ‘indirect’ manner. One way is the blech – a metal covering which is placed over a stove on Shabbat when the top is used for reheating. The blech must completely cover the gas hob, and also the controls for the gas to prevent any adjustments being made on Shabbat. The Shabbat Plata is an electrical equivalent. The electric heating element is completely covered by a metal box, and it has no temperature controls that can be adjusted.

Liquids may not be reheated on Shabbat, but may be left on the fire from before Shabbat comes in on Friday. The prohibition of Shema yechate also applies. A Shabbat urn is specifically used for keeping water hot over Shabbat. To meet Shabbat regulations the urn must be turned on and brought to a boil before Shabbat. A good Shabbat urn keeps the water just under 100 degrees – so that the water does not boil away. It should ideally have no adjustable temperature controls. Furthermore, there are other ways that the temperature of food left on the fire might be regulated on Shabbat. The Shulchan Aruch (OH 253:3) states: “One who rises in the morning and sees that his food is overcooked, and fears it will burn, may place an old empty pot on the fire and place his pot on top – but he or she must take care not to place his boiling pot on the ground”.

The fear of placing the pot on the ground is because moving a pot on and off a flame is a good way to regulate its temperature, and therefore too much like real cooking. One who places a boiling pot of liquid food on the fire from before Shabbat – may not return the pot to the fire once it has been removed and set down. It is permitted to temporarily take the pot off the fire to serve – as long as the pot is held until it is placed back on the flame. All these seem like pedantic details. But the Halacha is trying to bridge the gap between two different concerns. It wants to prevent us from cooking – which is one of the major prohibitions, but it knows that a good hot meal is the key to Shabbat enjoyment. The details of law enable to us to enjoy the meal without the preparation of the meal supplanting the enjoyment of the day. Shabbat Shalom! Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 4, 9.

ACHAREI MOT/KEDOSHIM

10th Iyar 5770 ~ 24th April 2010

By Alan Orchover

In the middle of Leviticus we suddenly come upon the story and commandments relating to Yom Kippur. This is quite surprising because, apart from Pesach, no other festival is given such lengthy treatment in the Torah.

The ancient ritual of Azazel, possibly pagan in origin, sets out in detail the story of the goat in the wilderness where, as part of an elaborate ritual, it is symbolically sent off and thrown off a cliff with all the sins of the people having been transferred to it. Not only ancient communal ritual but individual atonement was also required. This meant that , although the High Priest had an elaborate ceremony for removing the sins of the people, the latter were also required to show personal commitment.

Later, we have the statutory provisions for the day referred to as “Shabbat Shabbaton”. The Israelites are told “you shall afflict your souls” which is stated twice to show the importance of personal repentance on this day. Tradition has held that this is interpreted as referring to fasting, but the translation in the Plaut Chumash “you shall practice self-denial” and the contention that this chapter is not concerned with personal inner contrition cannot be right as it is not borne out by the text. Maimonides stated that the two occasions mentioned for “afflicting the souls” (which is the literal translation of the Hebrew) refer to fasting and teshuvah (return).

Azazel seems to mean dismissal or possibly removal and was also used to refer to the rock in the wilderness from which the hapless goat was hurled. Nachmanides stated that Azazel was the embodiment of evil which is why the peoples’ sins were transferred to

Unfortunately, the legend of the Azazel has been taken and distorted historically. The “scapegoat” has been replaced by the Jew as the sacrificial victim with all the alleged sins and ‘crimes’ including blood libels and calumnies thrown on the Jew through 2,000 years. The concept of the scapegoat has meant the suffering of the Jewish people since early Christianity made worse by the words of Matthew’s gospel, “His blood be on us and on our children.” This “travesty of Azazel” (Franz Rosensweig) through the ages led inexorably to the Holocaust.

Kedoshim, the second Sedra is usually read together with Acharei Mot, except for an occasional leap year when they are recited separately. It comes in the very centre of the Torah. In many ways it contains the heart of Judaism – the ethical mitzvot, culminating in the “Golden Rule” of Judaism “And you shall love thy neighbour as yourself.” It is one of the ironies of the history of our people that many Jews no longer realise that this comes from our own text in Leviticus. There is, perhaps, a lesson here for us; that we should know and take ownership of our own textual tradition. We can be proud of what we have given to humanity and, despite a history filled with tragic interactions, devote ourselves to work with people of all faiths and none to build a world with that rule at its very heart.

Alan Orchover is a member of EMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Is there a religious obligation to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah? If so, is there the same obligation to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah.

Answer: The Talmud [BT Kiddushin 31a] tells a story about Rav Yossef, who was blind. There is a discussion amongst the rabbis whether blind people are obligated to observe the Mitzvot – and R. Judah declared that they are exempt. According to the story, Rav Yossef says that when he first heard that the Halacha followed R. Judah (and that he was exempt) he wanted to make a big celebration for the Rabbis. He observed the commandments – and was sure that his reward for observing them, in spite of being exempt, would be great. Then he heard the teaching of R. Haninah the Great, who stated that “One who is obligated and observes is greater than one who is exempt and observes”. Therefore, when he heard that the Halacha didn’t follow R. Judah (and he was obligated), he wanted to make a big celebration for the Rabbis.

We learn from this story that being obligated to observe God’s commandments is a worthy cause for celebration. Based on this, Rabbi Shlomo Luria [16th century, Lithuania] rules that a Bar Mitzvah meal counts as a Seudat Mitzvah. Logically, there should be no difference between boys and girls. Just as we celebrate when our sons reach the age of commandments, so we should celebrate when our daughters do so.

In spite of this, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, a leading authority of 20th century Orthodoxy, (USA) wrote that there is no particular merit in celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. A Bat Mitzvah is no different from any other birthday. When questioned, he later explained that that there is a difference between a Bar Mitzvah and a Bat Mitzvah. The mitzvot that the boy observes are public in nature. From the time of Bar Mitzvah a boy is counted in the minyan, is called to the Torah and reads the haftarah. When a girl becomes Bat Mitzvah the differences are all private. Therefore, there is no obligation for a public celebration.

This opinion was rejected by most other authorities. Of particular note are the words of Rabbi Yechiel Weinberg (20th century, Lithuania / Switzerland) (Seredai Aish 3,93). After showing that it is proper to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah he adds: The intention of those who celebrate a Bat Mitzvah is to celebrate that their daughters have reached the age of commandments. This is a worthy purpose .… Those who oppose this practice, on the grounds that it is a recent innovation … are mistaken. In previous generations we had no need to publicly educate our daughters – girls were educated in the home, where they learned the fear of the Lord and proper conduct. In our generation the world has changed. The surrounding environment poses a huge challenge to our daughters’ commitment … both common sense and pedagogical principles say we must also celebrate when a girl reaches the age of Mitzvot, and that any discrimination between girls and boys is deeply hurtful.”

In our days the celebration of a Bat Mitzvah is a custom widely practiced throughout the Jewish world. May we see many such celebrations, and may we merit seeing our children grow in their commitments and obligations.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 2, 29.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

TAZRIA/METZORA

3rd Iyar 5770 ~ 17th April 2010

Shabbat begins in London at 19.44 and ends at 20.51

By Jackie Gerber

In the beginning of this week’s sedra we learn that one or two months after giving birth, a woman is required to make an atonement offering at the Temple. It is very unclear from the text for what sin exactly she is atoning. At first glance, one might be tempted to say that there is something inherently sinful about the process of reproduction and giving birth. In Genesis, Eve tempts Adam to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge and as punishment must bear the pains of giving birth. Perhaps the atonement offering relates to this first sin? However, once we think through the situation we see that the pangs of childbirth in and of themselves constitute a type of atonement, seeming to make an additional offering redundant and unnecessary. Furthermore, while the difficulty of giving birth might be punishment, the process of reproduction is actually a positive thing in the Bible and Jewish tradition. In fact, the very first commandment in the Torah, two chapters before Adam and Eve’s sins, is “be fruitful and multiply.”

If a woman is not atoning for Eve’s sin and there is nothing inherently sinful about the process of giving birth, for what is she atoning? The Rabbis asked themselves this same question and came up with a comedic yet very clever answer:

[The reason for these offerings is] that at the moment she bends down to give birth she rashly swears: “I will no longer have relationships with my husband.” -Niddah 31b

Inevitably, while in labour a woman is going to think and say things that she does not truly mean (I picture the typical scene in movies where a woman giving birth screams how she’ll never let her husband touch her again, yet as soon as the baby is born they cuddle up). Therefore the Torah builds in a system whereby a woman automatically atones after giving birth. This explanation seems funny and overly practical at first glance yet is actually brilliantly nuanced in its approach to sin. To begin with it acknowledges the inevitability of sin in certain situations. The Torah could take the approach of saying a given action is not always a sin (for example, false swearing is permissible while giving birth); however, it remains true to its values and statutes. We learn that even if you cannot avoid the sin, it is still a sin. However, the Torah takes a compassionate approach by mandating that all women make atonement after giving birth. If a woman has to make this offering after giving birth even if while in labour she spends the entire time thinking of rainbows and lollies, it gives her the space to say or think anything. There is no risk that some women will be ranked more pure than others based on whether they needed to make an offering or not. Worth noting however, this sin offering does have the potential to be dangerous as it removes the potential motivation to not swear falsely while giving birth. However, if we follow the assumption that virtually all women will inevitably say or think these things, the need switches from preventing sin to protecting those who cannot avoid it. By mandating this atonement offering, the Torah allows us to be real people, accepting that we may not live up to the perfection mandated by its decrees, and understanding that at times such perfection is impossible.

Jackie Gerber is the AMS Student Field Worker

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: What blessing does a person whose hand is in a cast, or who only has one hand, recite when washing before a meal?

Answer: At first sight it is tempting to compare this to a rule that was formulated in the Shulchan Aruch (Y.D. 120:3) which deals with the requirement to immerse utensils before using them for the first time. The Shulchan Aruch states that if one is immersing only one item, one should recite the blessing in the singular: al tevilat klee. If there are two or more items to be immersed, the blessing is recited in the plural: al tevilat keilim . Using this logic, one might think that a person who is only washing one hand should recite the blessing al netilat yad in the singular, instead of the normal blessing in the plural: al netilat yadayim.

This is not the case. The rule is that a person should use the normal formula of the blessing - al netilat yadayim – whether they have one hand or two. The same rule applies when donning tefillin in the morning. The word tefillin is plural – referring to both the box that goes on the arm and the one on the head. The singular form of the word is tefilla. If a person dons only one part of the tefillin – either on the arm or the head – we still use the blessingלהניח טפילין in the plural. This is because we always use the standard formula of a blessing, even in those cases where there isn’t a perfect match between the blessing and reality.

Behind this rule lies an important distinction between two different types of religious activity – prayer and liturgy. Prayer is a personal outpouring of the heart directed towards God. Prayer is usually spontaneous and personal. What we recite in the synagogue isn’t prayer – it is liturgy. Liturgy is a formalised service, like the service of God in the temple. Liturgy has fixed words – and there are always rules that guide the right way and the right time to recite it. Liturgies are passed down from generation to generation. Although we moderns have an instinctive attraction to prayer, there is a special magic to liturgy, which comes from familiarity and recognition. If you have ever been moved by the intensity of the Kol Nidrei service – then you have experienced the power that liturgy can hold over us.

Although there is room for personal prayer in the Jewish tradition, our regular prayers and blessings are liturgies. This can be best summed up by the statement of the Talmud: R. Yossi says: Anyone who changes the formulas that were established by the Rabbis has not fulfilled their obligation. [BT Brachot: 40b] Getting back to our original question – the fixed formula of the blessing is al netilat yadayim – and we recite this blessing whether we have washed one hand or two. We still need to ask, why does the formula of the blessing change when immersing vessels? Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef explains that it is not unusual to immerse only one pot or plate and therefore, the Rabbis established a standard blessing for this occurrence. Since we sometimes immerse one vessel and sometimes immerse many – there is a standard blessing for one and a standard blessing for many. It is extremely rare for a person to have only one hand and therefore there is no fixed blessing for this case. The standard form of the blessing is in the plural – and we use it whether we are washing one hand or two.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 2, 26.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

SHEMINI

26th Nisan 5770 ~ 10th April 2010

By Alex Stein

This week's Torah portion and Haftarah deal with Holy Space: In Leviticus 9 Moses consecrates the tabernacle; in the Haftarah David brings the Ark to Jerusalem. Nadab and Abihu are killed when they draw near to the Ark; Uzzah is killed when he puts forth his hand to the Ark. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, getting close to God's presence without his permission can be fatal.

Here in Israel, holy space can be equally fatal, although if God is to blame, he's doing it in very mysterious ways. There are frequent clashes at sites like the Temple Mount or the Tomb of the Patriarchs, religious spillage from the fundamentally political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Reflections isn't, of course, a place for politics. But it's worth reminding ourselves that holiness can't be distilled into any single space. Nadab, Abihy and Uzzah were attracted to the seductive but false notion that holiness can be embodied in a particular terrain or monument; their reward was death. I recently had the pleasure to climb Mount Sinai, or at least what's known as Mount Sinai. The real Mount Sinai, if indeed it existed, was probably further to the north. As I climbed up the mountain, I was proud that Jewish authorities have consistently downplayed its significance as a site of religious pilgrimage.

A few Haredim climbed with me, but they were there for curiosity and pleasure, just like me, rather than out of a sense of commandment. What matters isn't the place but the idea of what happened there. And so it goes today. The strengthening of devotional attachment to religious sites, whether it is the Western Wall in Israel or the Ayodhya Temple/Mosque in India, can only lead to conflict.

Religious leaders should concentrate their efforts in getting their followers to replicate the holy in their daily lives, and not on focusing their efforts on holy sites, at least if they don't want the surroundings to go up in flames like Nadab and Abihu.

Alex Stein is a former NOAM movement worker now living in Israel

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Is a person who has flown on an aeroplane obligated to recite the Hagomel blessing?

Answer: The Hagomel is a blessing recited to thank God for redemption from danger.

The Talmud [Brachot 54b] says: Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: Four are obligated to give thanks, one who has gone to sea, one who has travelled through the desert, one who was ill and has recovered and one who has been imprisoned and released.

All four of these circumstances can be derived from the verses of Psalm 107: Praise the Lord for He is good … Some lost their way in the wilderness … Others go down to the sea in ships … in their adversity they cried to the Lord, and He saved them from their troubles. Based on this, Maimonides, [ MT Brachot, 10:8] rules that people who have been on the road must recite the Hagomel blessing once they have reached civilisation.

In the early days of air travel there was some debate amongst the Rabbis as to whether travel through the air counted as being ‘on the road’. Now it is universally accepted that air travel is also included in this obligation.

A more interesting question, given current safety statistics and our attitude to flying, is whether air travel is dangerous enough to justify reciting a blessing. This forces us to consider what this blessing is really about.

Menachem HaMeiri [Catalonia, 13th century] writes, “There are those who say that the Hagomel is only required of one who was travelling through the desert and got lost, or went to sea and was caught up in a storm, or who was dangerously ill – for in all these cases there was a miracle. If, however, a person was in no real danger there is no obligation to say the blessing. Although the verses [of Psalm 107] support this commentary – I do not agree with it. For all roads are dangerous, and all travel has an element of risk.”

Behind this comment lies a different understanding of Hagomel. It is not a blessing about being saved from danger, but rather, it is a blessing about the precariousness of life. The blessing reminds us of the simple fact that we are frequently in situations of potential danger and that all life is uncertain. Hanging between heaven and earth in a plane, being hundreds of miles out at sea or lying under the surgeon’s scalpel are by definition dangerous – no matter how used to these experiences we may have become. It is at times such as these that we are expected to thank God for looking after us, and not only at those times when things have gone wrong.

Finally, we must consider whether all journeys require a blessing. The Talmud [Brachot 30a] tells us that tefilat haderech, (traveller’s prayer) is only recited if one is going a distance of at least one Parsa. This is approximately 4 kilometres. On foot that would take 1.2 hours. Following this reasoning, the obligation to recite Hagomel applies only if one has gone on a journey of at least an hour and 12 minutes.

Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 2, 26.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

SHABBAT CHOL HAMOED PESACH

19th Nisan 5770 ~ 3rd April 2010

By Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

The strictly textual reasons why we say the Song of Songs on Shabbat Chol Hamo’ed, the Shabbat in the middle of Pesach, may be a bit thin. Among them is the fact that the beloved is referred to in the Songs as a horse among Pharaoh’s chariots, (not what most of us today would consider a flattering or romantic comparison) and we read about that Egyptian cavalry on the seventh day of the festival. But the heart understands the connection between this most beautiful of poems and Passover. Pesach marks a decisive moment in the historical relationship between God and Israel; the Song celebrates the emotional and spiritual bond of love between us. Pesach is defined in the Torah as Chag Ha’aviv, the spring festival, and the Song of Songs rejoices in the beauty of life.

If we go out at this season into a park or garden we find it full of glory. In Britain the first rhododendrons flower at Pesach while the daffodils are still in bloom. The wild cherry turns from a darker to a paler pink, matching the blossoms of the crab apples. The blackbirds and thrushes search for worms; the birds are building and settling into their nests. At Pesach I don’t just say the shehecheyanu, I truly feel it.

The wonders of the spring make me even more grateful to be alive.

One of the most beautiful interpretations of the Seder I recently heard concerned the karpas, the green vegetables we dip in salt water, the original Jewish hors d'oevres. 'I look at the green and I see all the beauty of the world', this man said to me. 'Then I find in the salt water all the tears of so many people, including my own. I know that all the glory and wonder of life, everything we've ever loved, will inevitably be immersed in those tears, but I try to remember that it's still glorious, still marvellous to be alive'.

I don't believe in all those long academic debates about whether the Song of Songs is just a love lyric, or a pure, true, spiritual song of the soul before God. Why the 'either or' approach? Where's the contradiction? The Song of Songs is beautiful on every level; precisely that is it's secret. For once Judaism, so full of laments and elegies, allows us to rejoice with a whole heart, - in the scents or the garden, in the plants and animals of the land of Israel, in the energy and passion of the brief Mediterranean spring, in the joy and longing of human love, and in the relationship of the spirit to mysteries which elude it and transcend our comprehension, our relationship to the creator of all this wonder, to our God.

There's only one limitation: this season, life's joy, is all too brief. The Song of Songs captures the fleeting nature of intense joy in the repeated image of the deer which timidly approaches the fence and the window before it swiftly turns and springs away across the mountains. Suddenly it's gone.

Therefore, says the poet of the Song of Songs, 'Arise, my beloved' - and appreciate the garden while we can.

Jonathan Wittenberg is Rabbi of NNLS and Senior Rabbi of AMS

A Question of Jewish Law

By Rabbi Chaim Weiner

Question: Is it permissible to reheat food on Shabbat? If the reheating of food is permitted, does it matter how it is heated, or how hot it gets?

Answer: The prohibition against working is the central mitzvah of Shabbat. Cooking is one of the 39 master categories of work. From a halachic point of view, the question is whether reheating food is considered to be a form of cooking.

In the Mishnah [Shabbat 22:2] we read: Whatever was put into hot water before Shabbat may be steeped again in hot water on Shabbat; but whatever was not put into hot water before Shabbat may only be rinsed with hot water on Shabbat.

This means that any food which was cooked before Shabbat may be placed in boiling water and reheated on Shabbat, but food which had not been cooked before Shabbat may only be placed in warm water to prevent cooking from taking place. From this Mishnah we learn an important halachic principle – ain bishul achar bishul - there is no cooking after cooking. Once something is fully cooked it cannot be cooked again. Therefore cooked food can be reheated to any temperature without risk of transgressing the prohibition against cooking. This ruling is stated in the Shulchan Aruch [OH 318:15].

However, many important commentators, including Rashi and the Rosh, rule that this principle only applies to dry food. They maintain that it is forbidden to reheat liquids. The reasoning behind this is quite simple. If you take a slice of bread and put it in the toaster it will become toast. If after you toasted it you let it cool down it will be cold toast. This is because dry food does not ‘uncook’ itself when it cools. However, if you boil a kettle of water it becomes boiling or ‘cooked’water. When you let the boiling water cool it returns to being cold water – just as it was before it was ‘cooked’. In this case, cooling returns the water to its previous state and if it is then reheated, it cooks again. Thus cooked dry food can be reheated without fear that it will cook again, but liquids cannot be reheated on Shabbat.

Whenever there is a difference of opinion among the main halachic authorities concerning a Torah Law (as in this case) the stricter view is adopted. Therefore, one is allowed to reheat dry food on Shabbat, but not liquid food. But what about combinations of dry and liquid foods – such as meat with gravy or a ratatouille sauce with lots of vegetables? Dry food is rarely completely dry – so when the Mishnah permitted reheating food it must have meant food with some liquid element. When determining whether something is a liquid or a solid - we must calculate the proportions of each . If more than 50% of the dish is dry it may be reheated. If more than 50% is liquid it may not be reheated on Shabbat.

The question of whether reheating is considered to be cooking, is not the only consideration when reheating food. There are other concerns, such as whether it is acceptable to use fire or other sources of heat on Shabbat. These will be considered in a forthcoming Halacha sheet. Based on R. Ovadia Yossef, Yachve Da’at, 4, 9.

Rabbi Chaim Weiner is head of the European Masorti Bet Din

TZAV

Shabbat HaGadol

12th Nisan 5770 ~ 27th March 2010

By Nahum Gordon

“[Moses] poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him...” (Lev. 8:12). What was this ritual? Part of an elaborate ordination ceremony? To sanctify Aaron? To complete his purification after washing him with water? To eternalise the High Priesthood in his family? To underline the unique role of Cohen Gadol? To acknowledge that the Anointed One was exalted above all other men? The Torah posits all these answers.

Creating priests is first mentioned in Exodus 28. Aaron and his four sons will need special vestments (2, 40). Then they must be anointed (41). Using oil is first referred to in Exodus 29:7, but only for anointing Aaron. Sprinkling sacrificial blood and oil on Aaron and his sons will make them and their priestly clothes holy (21). The oil’s composition is described in Exodus 30: myrrh, cinnamon, cane, cassia and olive oil, and is prepared by none other than God’s designated architect, Bezalel (Ex. 37:29). Then, on the 1^st of Nisan, Moses must erect the Tabernacle, place the Ark of the Covenant inside it, and anoint with oil the Tabernacle and everything within plus the altar for burnt sacrifices. Then Moses must anoint Aaron and his sons (Ex. 40: 1 -5).

But was oil-anointing really necessary? Who else was anointed this way and more interestingly who was not? After Aaron, the next explicit case is Saul by Samuel privately (1 Sam. 10:1), then David by Samuel relatively privately (1 Sam. 16:13), Solomon by Zadok in public (1 Kings 1:39), Jehu privately by one of Elisha’s acolytes (2 Kings 9:6) and finally Joash by Jehoiada in public (2 Kings 11:12). Five kings oil-anointed either by a Cohen Gadol (Zadok) or a Cohen (Jehoiada) or a prophet (Elisha’s disciple and Samuel who might also have been a Levite). But didn’t the kings have a semi-priestly role? Didn’t Saul offering a sacrifice to God, albeit without Samuel’s permission? Didn’t a king like Josiah read the Torah to his subjects (2 Kings 23:2) long before the weekly routine introduced by the descendant of Aaron-Eleazar-Pinchas-Zadok, the scribe Ezra?

And which prominent leaders were chosen divinely but not oil-anointed? Moses was spoken to directly by God, as were Samuel and Elijah, while Gideon and Samson were informed by angels. God’s choice of Joshua was formalised by Moses laying his hands on him; he became so “full of the spirit of wisdom” that the people were in awe of him (Deut. 34:9). So, absence of oil-anointing clearly did not impair his leadership skills.

There is one clue as to anointing’s primary function. Part of the priestly ritual involved Moses placing some blood on the right ear (diligent listening?), the thumb of the right hand (appropriate action?) and the big toe of the right foot (walking on the correct path?) [Lev. 8: 23-24]. Exactly the same format was prescribed to cleanse lepers (Lev. 14: 14-18). This suggests that anointing was designed to purify the individual. What a pity it did not confer immunity from spiritual contamination!

Nahum Gordon is a member of KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

And the flesh of his thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being shall be eaten on the day that it is offered; none of it shall be set aside until morning. (Leviticus 7:15)

Why was an offering of bread added to the offering of thanksgiving? In order that the donor might be able to share this, the tangible demonstration of his gratitude to God, with as many of his friends and neighbours as possible. (Klei Yakar (Rabbi Solomon Ephraim ben Aaron of Lunchitz), d. 1619, Poland)
When a person’s life was in danger and he was saved, it is incumbent upon him to bring a korban todah, a thanksgiving offering. Together with the offering he also brought 40 loaves of bread in four different forms. One of each kind was given to the priest. The remaining 36 were his to eat. There was a time limit of the remainder of that day and the following night. After that time they could not be eaten. Sforno [an Italian rabbi, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician, 1475-1550] comments that the purpose of this extremely short time period was to ensure that he would share the bread with others. This would publicize the fortunate event.

Note that the only time that such publicity was a part of the offering was in the case of good news. A person felt deep gratitude to the Almighty for His help and in this joyous state he shared his joy with others. When a person brought an offering for a sin, this was not publicized. When things were going wrong in someone’s life, he did not do this. Only when he had an event to be thankful for did he publicize it. This should be our model for choosing topics to speak about. Keep your main focus on the multitude of kindnesses the Almighty does for you. While there is definitely a need to share problems and difficulties with a sympathetic and understanding listener, the main areas to publicize are the good that happens to you. (Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, “Growth Through Torah,” p. 244-245)

Sparks for Discussion

Our commentators suggest that it is not enough for a person to express gratitude to God privately. Thanksgiving requires public expression. Why? The implication appears to be that when a person publicizes the good that God has done for him, others will be drawn closer to God. Do you agree? How do you think most people respond to news of another person’s good fortune? Why?

How do you answer when someone asks, “How are you doing?” Do you begin to complain or do you mention something you feel good about? How do you react to people who complain all the time? How can we learn to be more grateful on a daily basis?

VAYIKRA

5th Nisan 5770 ~ 20th March 2010

By Georgia Kaufmann

A recent exhibition at the British Museum on Moctezuma with its descriptions of human sacrifice and its images of the pyramidal temples built high to offer up the blood and hearts of the victims to the gods filled me with a cold dread. It reminded me of the Aztec exhibition at the RA in 2003 where I admired the bubbly texture of an outfit a statue was wearing until I read that this sculpted image was of a priest dressed as the god Xipe Totec and was wearing the inverted skin of a flayed man, a someone, who had been sacrificed. The bubbly texture must have been his fatty tissue. Well, thank goodness for the Akedah, that’s not the kind of thing that we do. But we did – not to humans – and in Vayikra we read in detail of our own bloodletting.

Nehama Leibovitz focussed her discussion of Vayikra on the dispute between Maimonides and Nahmanides. Nahmanides argued that there was an intrinsic purpose in sacrifice, that sacrifice is something that is positively desired by God, who enjoys the “sweet savour” of burnt offerings. He posits that by substituting an animal for ourselves, the act of seeing it cut open and having its blood dashed about will induce more meaningful penance in ourselves (there but for the grace of God go I?). For Maimonides there was no intrinsic value in it. He considered that the Israelites were incapable of giving up all the practices of idol worship and that by taking sacrifice (an ancient practice) and transmuting it into sin offerings to YHVH the Israelites could be encouraged towards prayer (which mercifully once the Temple was destroyed we got on with instead). The statutes in Leviticus channelled sacrifices in a specific direction and limited who could perform them and where.

Our ancestors offered up cattle, sheep and fowl for sacrifice on a regular basis and the Temple must have been awash with the hot, red blood. The way in which the sacrifices are described, the precise and orderly modus operandi of the priests, the specification of whether the blood should be dashed or sprinkled, all around the altar or just in front of the curtain of the shrine, the choice of animal: bull, sheep or fowl – I find these rituals impossible to identify with and can only relate to them with revulsion. How different would the blood-drenched Temple in Jerusalem have been from the Aztecs’ temple in Tenochtitlan? Yet Maimonides says that sacrifice was a way to help the Israelites forge a separate identity to the nations around them – because we were not sacrificing humans.

Hertz suggest that Vayikra is traditionally the starting point to teach Torah to children – because it is about purity. My daughter, Ruth, is Bat Mitzvah today. Faced with Vayikra she came to the conclusion that in taking on the Mitzvot she is choosing to make sacrifices for her Judaism. Not eating pork, not going to friends’ parties on Friday night, the myriad little offerings are what for her being a Jew means. As Maimonides suggests these small, bloodless sacrifices help her forge her identity. Perhaps Hertz was right, we teach this difficult parashah to our children – so that they can teach it to us.

Georgia Kaufmann is a member of KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

When it is a chieftain who incurs guilt by doing unwittingly any of the things that by the commandment of the Lord his God ought not to be done, and he realizes his guilt. (Leviticus 4:22)

Regarding the high priest, it says (4:3) “If it is the anointed priest who has incurred guilt.” And again, regarding the people as a whole, the Torah says (4:13), “If it is the whole community of Israel that has erred.” Why, then, in regard to the ruler, does the Torah say, “When it is a chieftain who incurs guilt.” The answer is that it is almost impossible for someone in a ruling position not to sin as a direct result of exercising his power. (Itturei Torah (Rabbi Aharon Yaakov Greenberg), 1900-1963, Poland and Israel)
An acknowledged leader must be even more careful than ordinary people not to fall into the trap of wrongdoing. Even sins committed unintentionally may lead others to do evil, for others are eager to point to such a person as their example when they sin. (Rabbi Jacob ben Jacob Moses of Lissa, 1760-1832, Poland)
Rabbi Yisrael Lipkin of Salant taught: What special merit does a generation have when the ruler of its time brings an offering for an unwitting sin? As is known, a person does not consider it a duty to bring such an offering. This is particularly so with a ruler who is elevated above the people and is often arrogant, since everything is permitted to a ruler and there is no one to question this ruler’s actions. That is why Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai teaches us that when the ruler of the people brings an offering for a sin and does not hide any failures, this testifies as to the greatness of the generation. The people did not flatter the errant ruler but pointed out the offense, assisting the ruler to do penance. Such an insightful generation is worthy of all praise because it is not only influenced by their leader but exerts an influence on their leader too, ensuring that all travel the right path. (Simcha Raz, “The Torah’s Seventy Faces: Commentaries on the Weekly Sidrah,” edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, p. 175)

Sparks for Discussion

Rabbinic tradition understands the “chieftain” of this verse to be the king. Our commentators see the use of “when” here as an indication that it is inevitable that the king will sin unwittingly. Why? Why is it so important that a ruler publicly acknowledge his errors? How might you apply this idea to our modern elected leaders?

Rabbi Jacob of Lissa suggests that the reason for this commandment is that rulers serve as role models. Do you believe that today’s role models – not only government officials, but sports stars, actors and musicians, and others – tend to behave as if they were above the law? How can we teach young people, in particular, to separate their heroes’ accomplishments from their sins?

VAYAKHEL/PEKUDEY

Shabbat HaChodesh

27th Adar 5770 ~ 13th March 2010

By Norman Bar

Moses reminds the Israelites to observe Shabbat and of the penalties for non-compliance. The Israelites give so generously towards building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) that Moses asks them to stop giving. Betzalel and Oholiav oversee the Mishkan’s construction by the skilled Israelites. The construction, materials, appurtenances, and priestly garments are detailed. Accounts are kept. God’s presence fills the Mishkan. A cloud by day and fire by night guide the Israelites’ travel. Shemot ends.

In Shemot 35:10 we read:

וְכָל-חֲכַם-לֵב, בָּכֶם, יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה.

And every wise-hearted person among you shall come and make everything that the Lord has commanded:”

An interesting but oblique and casual reference to wisdom in ‘wise-hearted’.

Hertz comments on “wise-hearted” in Shemot 28:3 and 35 :10 (used elsewhere e.g. 35:25 & 35, and 36:1 & 8): “In Bible psychology, the heart is the seat of intellect, not of feeling.” So Biblical wisdom is intellectual and rational. Thus Telushkin (Jewish Values p.43): “The rabbinic understanding (is) that one of wisdom’s main components is the ability to anticipate the implications of one’s words and acts” Thus if building a new house make a parapet for the roof, to avoid ‘bloodguilt’ if someone falls off. Yet Nechamah Leibowitz (New Studies in Bereshit p.448) describes Joseph’s wisdom as “that which (was) accompanied by Divine communion and revelation”: hardly intellectual or rational: clearly involving profound emotion.

Rabbi Louis Jacobs (The Jewish Religion pp. 588/9) echoes Hertz in describing chochma “usually translated as wisdom” as being used in Jewish literature to describe “mental processes and intellectual attitudes’, and in the Bible to mean ’skill’. The meaning develops. In the Wisdom literature and some late biblical passages, “the sage, (chacham) …….. has acquired ‘knowledge of the world and human nature, sharing his experience with others. … gives prudent advice and is the author of wise saws.” The meaning of wisdom alters further over time until (Rabbi Jacobs, p. 589) ‘ In everyday Jewish use hochma denotes wisdom of a deeper quality than mere cleverness. The hacham is not a clever know-all but a man capable of penetrating into the depths of the human situation and of seeing things as a whole.”

And here we more nearly approach the true meaning of wisdom. Wisdom involves insight, vision, seeing beyond the surface, far more than intellect, rationality or knowing facts. Who has not met clever and knowledgeable people who are anything but wise? Scholars perhaps, but lacking insight, understanding, compassion.

Is wisdom passé? Too subtle, too impractical? Are our scholastically pressurised young people encouraged to value those “capable of penetrating into the depths of the human situation and of seeing things as a whole”, including some who, though for many reasons denied formal education, are undoubtedly “wise-hearted”? In our bustling, ‘knowing’, competitive world, is there room or time for wisdom? There should be. As we read in Proverbs (31:26) “(The Ayshet Chayil) opens her mouth with wisdom; and the law of kindness is on her tongue.”

Norman Bar is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

The 100 talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary and the sockets for the curtain, 100 sockets to the 100 talents, a talent a socket. (Shemot 38:27)

The number of sockets needed for the sanctuary was one hundred, the same number as that of the blessings that must be recited daily. This implies that even as the sockets served as the foundation of the sanctuary, so the daily blessings represent the foundations for the sanctity of the Jewish individual. (Hidushei HaRIM [Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter, the Gerer Rabbi, 1799-1866, Poland])

Rabbi Meir said, a person is obligated to recite 100 Brachot every day, as it is written, “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you?” (Devarim 10:12) [Rabbi Meir reads mah (mem-hay, what) as me’ah (mem-aleph-hay, hundred)] (Menahot 43b)

A person should taste nothing before he utters a blessing. Since “the earth is the Lord’s, and all that it holds” (Tehillim 24:1), a person embezzles from God when he makes use of this world without uttering a blessing. (Tosefta Berakhot 4:1)

The berakhah, like most of Jewish prayer, is both a declaration of dependence and an expression of gratitude praising our Creator for the many gifts with which we are blessed. Prayer, which begins with the self, can move us away from self-centeredness and an unreflective routinization of life. Too often we take the world for granted. The berachah is a specific way of not taking the world for granted, of responding to each of God’s gifts with awareness, awe, and gratitude. (Siddur Sim Shalom, page xii)

Sparks for Discussion

Reciting 100 blessings each day seems daunting – however, a person who prays the three daily services and recites Brachot before and after eating will accomplish it easily. Do you think this minimum daily requirement of 100 Brachot should be taken literally? What point is Rabbi Meir trying to make? How often do you say Brachot outside of services or communal meals? How do you feel when you stop to say a berachah?

KI TISSA Shabbat Parah

20th Adar 5770 ~ 6th March 2010

By Markus Lange

“When you take a census of the Israelite people (bnei-Israel) according to their enrolment, every person shall pay the LORD a ransom for himself (v’na’tenu ish kopher naphsho l’Adonai) … a half-shekel as an offering to the LORD.” (Exodus 30:12,13)

In Parashat Ki Tissa we hear about the half-shekel. Everybody gives an equal contribution to the foundations of the structure of Mishkan, the travelling sanctuary, God’s mobile home. No distinction is made between rich and poor. The half-shekel contributions are designated to go for the sockets for the poles of the Mishkan.

Of course from the half-shekel alone the Mishkan could not be built, obviously more funds were needed. And further, both the rich and the poor giving the same amount sounds unfair. Therefore I suggest: let us understand the Half-Shekel symbolically. All are meant to carry out the project of building the ‘House of God’ together—supportively, emotionally, proudly—in ways different from material abilities and means.

What does the Torah tell us about the half-shekel? What does it do before and beyond going into the supportive elements of the building? The ritual and spiritual function of the half-shekel is that of kapparah, understood to mean ‘ransom’, ‘expiation’, ‘purification’, ‘cleansing’ in a physical sense. On an emotional level one can say, kapparah makes you feel good—good about the ritual you have just performed, about yourself, about the task ahead.

We see, the monetary aspect does not matter so much; rather the half-shekel highlights a spiritual quality. The foundations of the Mishkan are of special significance. The message of the half-shekel in the context of the building of the Mishkan now becomes obvious: make yourself feel good when you do your part in building a place for immediate encounters with God.

Biblical commentators have pointed out that the word ish (in this sense “every person”) underscores the fact that everybody’s life is involved in the building process. Built upon the foundations laid by all—made from everybody’s half-shekel contribution—the Mishkan is a structure which is then filled and furnished with sacred tools and objects to service God, and it is the work place of specialists and experts, professionals of all kind with various skills and responsibilities.

This was the case in the Mishkan where the priests and Levites—supported by all of the children of Israel—were entrusted to take care of that special connection with God. Today we also build our communities and places where we want to be in touch with God. Through prayer, companionship and the pursuit of loving kindness we take care of each other, of our neighbours and of all of God’s creation.

What best empowers the experts and specialists of our day to be effective? For the prayer leaders and youth workers, coordinators and administrators, chairs of committees and project managers it is the knowledge and strong sense that they are supported by all equally - rich and poor. In the same way that everybody’s half-shekel went into the foundations of the Mishkan, ensuring that the sacred tasks of the entire community can be done, mutual appreciation for each other’s share and contribution is vital to building and maintaining a sacred structure and community; a place and space where we encounter God in prayer and loving kindness.

Markus Lange is student rabbi at NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt – we do not know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)

Hur arose and rebuked them, “You brainless fools! Have you forgotten the miracles God performed for you?” Whereupon they rose against him and slew him. They then gathered against Aaron and said, “If you make a god for us, well and good; but if not, we will do to you what we have done to this man.” When Aaron saw the state of affairs, he was afraid... The people wanted to build an altar with him, but he would not allow them, saying, “Allow me to build it by myself, for it is not befitting the respect due to the altar that another should build it.” Aaron’s intention in this was to delay matters; he said to himself, “By the time I build it all by myself Moses will come down.” But when he had built it and Moses had not yet descended, we read, “Early the next day, the people offered up burnt offerings.” (Shemot Rabbah 41:7)
Aaron argued with himself, saying: If I say to them, give me silver and gold, they will bring it immediately; but behold I will say to them give me the earrings of your wives and sons and daughters and right away this thing will fail, as it is said, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters.” The women heard, but they were unwilling to give their earrings to their husbands, but they said to them, “[You want] to make an idol and an abomination that has no power to save – we will not listen to you.”... What did the men do? They broke off the earrings that were in their own ears and gave them to Aaron. (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 45)
The law is that a person must allow himself to be killed rather than to engage in idolatrous practices. Why then didn’t Aaron allow himself to be killed rather than build the people an idol? The explanation is as follows: the people never forced Aaron to engage in such idolatrous practices. All they asked was, “Come, make us a god,” make an idol that we will worship. The prohibition involved, as far as Aaron was concerned, was only that of lifnei iver – “placing a stumbling block in front of the blind,” i.e., enabling someone else to commit a sin. One is not required to lay down his life in order to prevent another from committing a sin. (Imrei Shefer [Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, 1785-1869, Croatia])
Hillel taught: Be a disciple of Aaron: loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow creatures and attracting them to the study of Torah. (Pirkei Avot 1:12)

Sparks for Discussion

How could God’s chosen high priest have made an idol? The various midrashim portray Aaron engaging in delaying tactics, hoping that Moses would return and defuse the situation. Why didn’t Aaron just say “No!”? How much blame does Aaron bear for the sin of the Golden Calf?

The rabbis portray Aaron as the paradigmatic peacemaker, willing to go to extremes to heal conflicts or to prevent them. How much did this figure into the episode of the calf? Where does peace rank in the hierarchy of values? What happens when people decide there is no cause worth fighting (that is, killing or being killed) for?

TETZAVEH Shabbat Zachor

13th Adar 5770 ~ 27th February 2010

By Michael Gluckman

And you shall command the children of Israel, and they shall take to you pure olive oil, crushed for lighting, to kindle the lamps continually [Shemot 27:20]

Light is central in Jewish existence – at the very beginning of the process of creation the first to be created is light; God said, 'There shall be light,' and light came into existence. God saw that the light was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness [Bereishit 1:3-4]

In terms of our contemporary understanding of science, light is one of the key elements that have made life possible on this planet. Without it there would be no photosynthesis in plants, the process which produces the oxygen that is a prerequisite of life.

For Judaism light has become one of our central symbols. When we rise in the morning as part of Shachrit we bless God for creating light. We usher in Shabbat and all our Chagim by the kindling of light and use the extinguishing of a flame as part of the Havdalah ceremony which divides Shabbat from the rest of the week. Most famously of all we commemorate the miracle of the rededication of the temple by the Maccabees by kindling the Chanukiah. To many of us our mother lighting the Shabbat Candles evokes our deepest Jewish memories and of course we use light to preserve those very memories through the lighting of a Yarzeit candle.

In our tradition light and dark, as opposites parallel good and evil. The Havdalah blessing parallels holiness and secularity with light and dark and goes on to parallel Israel and the other nations and the Shabbat and the six working days.

The people Israel themselves are likened to a light – we should according to Isaiah be Or l’goyim – a light to the nations. That is our role as ”the chosen people” not to be better than anyone but being charged with a special responsibility to live in such a way that we bring God’s ways to the rest of the world by example. The spreading of that light is an awesome responsibility that devolves on us all. For that light to be most effective it requires the participation of each and every one of us.

What sort of qualities do we want ascribed to that light. Looking around our community we all shudder when we see people behaving in a way that gives a bad impression of what it means to be Jew. One of my teachers taught that God measures all the choices that we made through the year. Not the choices of which dress or car that we bought. Not the choice of what we ordered at a restaurant. But the choice of how we spoke to the shop assistant, how we behaved towards the waitress. Being that light lays responsibilities upon us. And if that light illuminates something unjust, something uncomfortable, in the world then it is our duty as Jews not to put on the dark glasses and just walk on by; rather to get involved and work to correct that injustice.

Michael Gluckman is Executive Director of AMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Aaron shall wear it while officiating, so that the sound of it is heard when he comes into the sanctuary before the Lord and when he goes out – that he may not die. (Exodus 28:35)

So that he does not sneak in on Me like a thief in the night. From this we learn good manners: One should not simply walk unannounced into someone else’s home, in case he is doing something that requires privacy. (Bechor Shor (Rabbi Yosef of Orleans), 1140-1190, France)
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai said: The man who enters his own house or, needless to say, the house of his fellow man, unexpectedly, the Holy One hates, and I too do not exactly love him. Rav said: Do not enter your city or even your own home unexpectedly. When Rabbi Yohanan was about to go in to inquire about the welfare of Rabbi Hanina, he would first clear his throat, in keeping with “So that the sound of it is heard when he comes in.” (Vayikra Rabbah 21:8)
“How fair are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!” (B’midbar 24:5). Because he saw that their doors were not directed one opposite the other. (Rashi [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105, France])
“As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped upon him” (B’midbar 24:2). What did he see? He saw that their tent openings were not facing each other, so that they could not peek into each other’s tents. Admiring their modesty and decency, Balaam declared, “People such as these deserve to have the shechina rest upon them.” (Bava Batra 60a)

Sparks for Discussion

We would all agree that it is wrong to snoop or invade the privacy of our neighbours -- even if we can’t always resist the temptation to do so -- but what about family members? Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai says that we must respect the privacy of those who live in our own home. Do you agree? Are there limits? Should spouses read each other’s email? Should a parent knock on a child’s door and wait to be invited in? Do parents have the right or even the responsibility to monitor their child’s on-line activity, to read her diary, or to search his room for drugs?

What responsibility does a person have to guard her or his own privacy? Today it’s hard to avoid hearing people’s cell phone conversations or seeing others’ embarrassing moments posted online. How do you keep your private life private?

TERUMAH

6th Adar 5770 ~ 20th February 2010

By Andrew Levy

The word chosen as the name of a parshah is one of the ways Jews have internalised the Torah. Traditionally, this is the first major word in the parshah. Because it is the first major word, the Rabbis had a choice. It sounds like a value-free choice; yet which word constitutes the first “major” word is surely itself a statement of ideology of sorts. If you analyse the words chosen, they tend to be either verbs of doing (Va’era, Bo, Beshallach) or proper names (Noach, Chayyei Sarah, Yitro). Only rarely are they, like today’s parshah, nouns of action and, as such, those actions have been stressed by the Rabbis as important.

So what is a “Terumah”? Reading the Torah chronologically, we don’t know because this is its first use in the Torah. It comes from the root “Ram” meaning high (often used for where God dwells) and shares this root, more significantly for the Masorti movement, with the word “Marom” meaning height. So the reader is being asked to associate it with something which is elevated. As the reader realises as s/he follows the Torah further, that is the meaning which it will take on. It becomes something “lifted off” as a sacrifice – the thigh bone to be sacrificed in the Temple service.

Yet that understanding sits very uneasily with its meaning here - the first time it appears in the Torah:-

“And God spoke to Moses saying – speak to the children of Israel so that they bring me a Terumah – from each person as their heart moves them to give shall you bring my Terumah” (Ex 25 1-2)

Here Terumah does not mean lifting off in any literal sense. Here it means something much more like “offering” or “contribution”. And this is how it has entered the Hebrew language; it came to mean the offering to be set apart for the Temple and used by the priests. However, as can be seen from its original context it also has a much wider meaning than that. The word means something contributed voluntarily and from the heart. So how does this link with the word’s root meaning of “high”?

Words in Hebrew often double up in their meaning – a word with a specific mundane meaning can also have an elevated meaning as well. So the word “Tzedakah” meaning charity comes from the word “Tzedek” meaning “just”. In other words for the Hebrew language charity is not what you do if you feel like it – it is nothing more and nothing less than what is right or just.

The same idea works for Terumah – a Terumah is more than an offering or contribution. It is also something elevated; in Hebrew, the word links with the notion of a God residing on high. So the making of a donation (Terumah) has an immediate association with God; that which “their heart moves them to give” is also divinely inspired.

Andrew Levy is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

You shall make the planks for the Tabernacle of acacia wood, upright. The length of each plank shall be ten cubits and the width of each plank a cubit and a half. (Exodus 26:15-16)

Where did the boards come from? Jacob our father planted them. When he came down to Egypt, he said to his sons: My sons! You are destined to be redeemed from here, and when you are redeemed, the Holy One will tell you that you are to make a Tabernacle for Him. Rise up and plant cedars now, so that when He tells you to make a Tabernacle for Him, these cedars will be on hand. So Jacob’s sons set to planting cedars, doing just what he told them. Hence Scripture speaks of “the planks,” the boards their father had arranged should be on hand. (Tanhuma Terumah 9)

One day, as he was walking on the road, Honi the Circle Maker saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked him, “How long will it take this tree to bear fruit?” The man replied, “Seventy years.” He asked, “Are you quite sure you will live another seventy years to eat its fruit?” The man replied, “I myself found fully grown carob trees in the world; as my forebears planted for me, so am I planting for my children.” (Taanit 23a)

Why of acacia wood? God set an example for all time, that when a man is about to build his house from a fruit-producing tree, he should be reminded: If, when the supreme King of kings commanded the Tabernacle to be erected, His instructions were to use only such trees as are not fruit-bearing – even though all things belong to Him; how much more should this be so in your case! (Shemot Rabbah 35:2)

Not only one who cuts down food trees, but also one who [purposely and impulsively] smashes household goods, tears clothes, demolishes a building, stops up a spring, or destroys food violates the command “You must not destroy...” (Devarim 20:19) (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Malachim 6:10 (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon), 1135-1209, Spain and Egypt)

Sparks for Discussion

The Biblical cubit is about 18 inches, so the planks mentioned here would measure some 15 feet by a little more than two feet. Where would the Israelites have found them? Why does the Tanhuma explain their origin in the way it does?

Shemot Rabbah uses our verse to teach an environmental lesson. What does it add to the concept of bal tashchit (do not destroy) as codified by Rambam? What are you doing to incorporate bal tashchit into your life? The passages from Tanhuma and Taanit remind us that concern for the environment means making long-term commitments. Do you think this is realistic? How can we encourage people to think in terms of generations rather than weeks or months?

MISHPATIM

Shabbat Shekalim

29th Shevat 5770 ~ 13th February 2010

By Allan Myers

What’s today’s Hebrew date? (No turning back the page!)

Two weeks ago today was Tu B’Shvat, the 15^th of Shevat. That was fourteen days ago so today is the 29^th day of Shevat. Shevat has thirty days, so tomorrow is the last day of Shevat and is the first day of Rosh Chodesh Adar.

In the time of the building of the Temple, the Jewish poll tax was collected during Adar. It was originally a way of counting the people. Later, it was called kessef kipurim (atonement silver).

It was half a shekel’s weight in silver per person and had to be collected by the end of the following month (Nissan).

This year, the last day of Adar is on Monday 15 March, the day when Council Tax bills will be going out all over the country to collect the British poll tax.

To mark the start of the Jewish poll tax month, on this Shabbat we read a special maftir and haphtarah about the first time the poll tax was levied in order to build the Mishkan, the sanctuary in the wilderness.

In today’s maftir, we read that the contribution is an anonymous, uniform contribution. Everybody, rich and poor, has to contribute the same amount. The money is used to buy public sacrifices which atone for the people as a whole and the silver donated is used to make the hooks and screws of the tabernacle – not the most decorative parts but the ones which hold it together. Without this contribution, it would collapse.

How is the half shekel linked to atonement? Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik says that the scapegoat, used in the Yom Kippur ritual, is one of the sacrifices bought with the half shekel levy. Karen Koenig Schochet, writing in JOFA, the orthodox feminists’ journal, takes this further. Noting that the half shekel is gathered as people pass by a collecting box, she compares it to Rosh Hashanah, when, as we read in the Unataneh Tokef prayer, “All mankind passes before God like a flock of sheep”.

Although everyone is judged individually, the act of passing before God like a flock of sheep means that no one is judged too harshly. Through contributing something anonymous and partial (only half a shekel) each individual joins the community, becoming part of a whole. As part of the community, which, as a whole, is deserving of life, the individual attains atonement.

Allan Myers is a member of KNMS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him. When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him. (Exodus 23:4-5)

A.  “Your enemy’s ox” – Rabbi Josiah says: This means of a heathen worshiping idols. For thus we find everywhere that the heathen are designated as enemies of Israel... Rabbi Eliezer says: This passage refers to a convert who has relapsed into his former evil predilections. Rabbi Isaac says: This passage refers to an apostate Israelite. Rabbi Jonathan says: The passage actually refers to an Israelite. How then can Scripture say: “Your enemy”? It is simply this: If one has beaten his son or has had a quarrel with him, he becomes his enemy for the time being. (Mekhilta Kaspa 2)

B.  Even your enemy’s ox. But it is a greater commandment to do it for your enemy than for your friend, in order to crush the evil impulse. (Bechor Shor (Rabbi Yosef of Orleans), 1140-1190, France)

C.  Moreover the halakhah sees in his unloading of the animal not only a duty you have to carry out towards your fellowmen in difficulty, but also towards the suffering animal, that tza’ar baalei hayim (the prevention of the suffering of living creatures) is a Torah commandment. To help his fellowman he would only be obligated “with him,” if the man is doing all he can himself. But for the animal’s sake, he must render assistance even if the master wrongfully and lazily stands there doing nothing and leaves the whole of the work to him. (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, 1808-1888, Germany)

D.  Rabbi Alexandroni said: Two ass drivers who hated each other were traveling along the same road. The ass of one of them fell down. The other saw it but passed him by. After he had passed by he said: It is written in Holy Writ “if you see the ass of your enemy... you must nevertheless raise it with him.” Forthwith he went back to help him with the load. The other began to think things over and said: So and so is evidently my friend and I didn’t know it. Both went into a roadside inn and had a drink together. What led to them making up? One of them looked into the Torah. (Tanhuma Yashan Mishpatim)

Sparks for Discussion

Why is the Mekhilta troubled by the phrase “your enemy’s ox?” What can we learn from this mitzvah? Our commentators suggest three possibilities – to control our natural tendency to avoid or ignore people we don’t like; to prevent the suffering of animals; or to work at turning enemies into friends. Which do you think is most important? Which can you imagine yourself doing – would you stop to help if you saw your unpleasant neighbour by the side of the road trying to fix a flat tyre? What is the appropriate way to deal with those we dislike?

YITRO

22nd Shevat 5770 ~ 6th February 2010

By Vicky Fox

This week’s sedra describes one of the most important, seminal moments in Jewish history - the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. So it is interesting to ponder the significance of the sedra being named after Moses’ father in law – Yitro – who opens the sedra with his advice on establishing a system of justice.

When Yitro sees large numbers of people bringing their disputes to Moses from morning until night he asks him why he alone is the judge. Moses explains that he acts both as judge to deal with the disagreements and as teacher, instructing the people in God’s laws. Yitro tells Moses that he is wrong and sets out instructions to establish a judicial system based on precedent, with judges appointed from the people and Moses as the senior judge.

The rabbinic commentators note Yitro’s deep concern when he sees Moses acting as sole judge from morning to night. What concerns them is not that Moses is overworked and at risk of exhaustion, but that Moses is exhausting the people. By insisting that he is the only one who can solve the disputes, he is forcing the people to wait for many hours waiting for him to reach their case. The Ramban comments that the trouble with Moses’ decision to hear all the disputes himself was not simply the frustration it caused the people, but the danger of increasing violence and injustice amongst them. As the people lost faith in Moses’ ability to hear their cases, they would start to take the law into their own hands. Rough justice would be the result.

Yitro’s advice to delegate authority and share the leadership meant that justice could be dispensed more quickly with the result that the people would be less frustrated and more willing to have their cases heard. The system established the rule of law and most legal systems today are loosely based on Yitro’s counsel to Moses.

This judicial system delegates and shares leadership amongst the people and puts responsibility on them to establish a fair system. The establishment of a judiciary drawn from the people leads to a more egalitarian system, with maximum access and "ownership" of the Torah by the people. Having a strong and wise leader such as Moses is important, but so is having people to help, because without all of that combined help, Moses’ efforts alone could not succeed.

I suspect it is no coincidence that we are reminded of the importance of justice and our responsibility in maintaining that system just before the revelation at Sinai. The order of this sedra suggests that we had to first establish and accept Yitro’s idea of a society based on a justice system before we were ready to enter the covenant with God. We had to acknowledge the fundamental principle of human responsibility to establish and maintain a fair and equitable justice system. Supporting such a justice system allows us to live a moral life and makes us worthy of our relationship with God.

Vicky Fox is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

"You shall not swear falsely by [literally, lift up/carry] the name of the Lord your God; for the Lord will not clear one who swears falsely by His name." (Exodus 20:7) Note: Traditional translation: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.
“You shall not swear falsely by My name” (Leviticus 19:12) What need was there for this text, when it has already been stated: “You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God”? You might have thought that one is not culpable except when His specific name [the Tetragrammaton] is involved. From where do we learn that the prohibition applies to all the names of God? The text adds: “By My name” – whatever name I have. (Sifra)
In any case, one who invokes God and does not keep his promise is as if he is denying God’s existence. For the point of mentioning God’s name is to say, “Just as God is truth, so is my word.” (Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, 1092-1167, Spain)
The text has been interpreted by our Sages to mean that it is forbidden to swear by the hallowed Name in vain, as for example, he that swears that something is or is not so, where the matter is self-evident – that the pillar is made of marble and he is standing by, and all can see that it is so. (Ramban [Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, 1194-1270, Spain])
The text also implies that he should not bear the name of the Lord who is his God in vain, indicating to all that he is a Jew and a servant of the Lord implying that he is one of His servants – when such is not the case. This prohibition also includes the one who regards himself as more righteous than he really is. (Or HaHayyim [Rabbi Hayyim Ibn Attar, 1696-1743, Morocco and Israel])
Do not take God’s name in matters which are in vain or false. Do not place an imprint of holiness on things which are totally repulsive, which appear as positive commandments but which are in reality serious sins. Indeed, it is the way of the Evil Inclination to deceive people by depicting grievous sins as the most sanctified commandments. Our Sages said (Shevuot 39a) that the entire world trembled when God said at Sinai, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” because all the most terrible crimes and murders are carried out under the cloak of truth, justice, and uprightness. (Duda’ei Reuven [Rabbi Reuben Katz, 1880-1963, Lithuania, United States, and Israel])

Sparks for Discussion

The translation of this verse found in Etz Hayim limits the commandment to the prohibition of false oaths, but our commentators understand it much more broadly. Surely false oaths are prohibited, but so are meaningless ones. Why? How is pretending to be more righteous than one actually is “carrying” God’s name in vain? Duda’ei Reuven warns against presenting sins as if they were mitzvot. How do you understand this? What examples can you think of?

BESHALLACH

Shabbat Shira ~ Tu b’Shevat

15th Shevat 5770 ~ 30th January 2010

By Michael Wegier

This weeks Sidra is divided into two equal parts. The first part tells the story of the crossing of the Red Sea and the defeat of the Egyptians. It is full of incredible miracles. The cloud and pillar of fire that guides the Israelites, the parting of the sea and the subsequent drowning of the Egyptians. This first part ends with the Song at the Sea which celebrates God's awesome powers.

The second half begins with Miriam's song but immediately afterwards, the Torah changes tone and we are drawn into the beginning of many complaints about the Israelites' situation. The food is no good, Egypt was better, there is no water to drink. Moses is accused of bringing them out in order to kill them. Moses is genuinely scared. He pleads with God to help him. Even though this second section also includes God's interventions, the tone of the text is characterised by complaint rather than the awesome power of God so prevalent in the earlier section.

The extraordinary change in tone cannot be coincidental. We must ask ourselves what the Torah is trying to tell us by juxtaposing these two elements against each other. It seems to me that there is a powerful lesson to be learnt. Religious civilization may be inspired and enriched by miracles but they are no guide for how to live today.

The Israelites who had just witnessed a massive display of God's power could not maintain their faith in His or Moshe's abilities within a small amount of time after crossing the sea. From the 10 plagues through to the killing of the Egyptians, it would be reasonable to assume that the people would continue to have faith in Moses and God for the foreseeable future.

In fact, the very recent miracles were insufficient to calm their fears or assuage their hunger. The Israelites needed practical (if God given) solutions then and there. The miracles were only relevant and essential for the actual problem they needed to address. As a factor in guaranteeing ongoing commitment they were useless.

Instead, the Torah and subsequent Jewish writing, highlights the role of Mitzva and Talmud Torah rather than the basking in miracle shown to our ancestors. For Judaism to be sustained, it is praxis and study which are needed and not contemplation of miracles.

There is great relevance here for our situation in Israel (where I am writing). I do not know if the creation of Israel and its subsequent development were divinely inspired (I have my doubts). But I am absolutely convinced that even believing it was a God given miracle is irrelevant to how we should construct our lives here. Israel's future and its place in Jewish history will be determined by how we create a just and culturally rich society notwithstanding the evil people who hope to destroy us. Ancient and modern miracles may have occurred. However we must rely on the very human application of the moral use of power, the wisdom of Judaism and the commitment to democracy.

Michael Wegier is a former member of NNLS and director of Melitz

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

The Lord said to Moses, “why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.” (Exodus 14:15)

1. According to Rabbi Eliezer, the Holy One said to Moses: There is a time to be brief and a time to be lengthy. My children are in great distress, the sea is enclosing them, the enemy is in pursuit, and you stand here praying away! Tell the Israelites to go forward. (Shemot Rabbah 21:8)

2. Rabbi Joshua said, God said to Moses: All that Israel have to do is to go forward. Therefore, let them go forward! Let their feet step forward from the dry land to the sea, and you will see the miracles that I will perform for them. (Shemot Rabbah 21:8)

3. Rabbi Meir said: When the Israelites stood at the Reed Sea, the tribes were vying with one another, one saying “I will be first to go down into the sea,” and the other saying “I will be first to go down into the sea.”... Rabbi Judah said to Rabbi Meir: That is not quite the way it happened. In fact, one tribe said, “I will not be the first to go into the sea,” and another tribe also said, “I will not be the first to go into the sea.” While they were standing there deliberating, Nachshon ben Amminadav sprang forward and was the first to go down into the sea. (Talmud Sotah 36b)

4. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was accustomed to say that a Jew has to be a heretic to a certain extent, and if someone in need comes to him, he should not trust to God to help the person. Instead, he must do whatever he can to help a person in need.

5. Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on man. (Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, 1889-1967)

Sparks for Discussion

According to tradition, it was only after Nachshon leapt into the sea that the waters divided. What do you think would have happened if Nachshon (or someone else) hadn’t jumped? What do you suppose was in Nachshon’s mind as he leapt -- I have faith that God will save me? I’d rather die than go back to Egypt as a slave? Doing something – anything – is better than this endless debating? What moved Nachshon to act?

Cardinal Spellman makes the point nicely. How can we know whether the “miracles” we see are due to divine or human efforts? Do you believe it makes sense to keep trying in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles?

8th Shevat 5770 ~ 23rd January 2010

By Angela Gluck

We only get it twice—once here in Bo and once in K’doshim, a couple of books later: those two little words “kol adat”—the whole community.

Scores of times in the Torah God tells Moshe to “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them…” but at the beginning of K’doshim (Vayikra 19: 2), we have the interestingly small yet important insertion of “kol adat” in “Speak to the whole community of the children of Israel”. Moshe is to tell them all about the nature of God’s holiness and the nature of, as it were, human holiness: not so much the enactment of ritual but more the engagement with justice that we are to embrace as a response to The Holy One.

In Bo, “kol adat” comes at the end of all of the confrontations with Pharaoh after all the yes-you-can-go and no-you-can’t-go power plays, the making of Pharaoh ’s heart variously hard and heavy, when it’s all over and the Children of Israel will soon be leaving. The people have just learned that this is to be “the first of the months, the beginning of the months of the year for you”. Then comes this rare phrase “kol adat”—a slight variation on the version in K’doshim—in “Speak to the whole community of Israel…” (Sh’mot 12: 3) Moshe is to tell them about taking a lamb for each family on the tenth day of that month.

Why that extra phrase? Is it because Moshe—other than in these two instances—is only to speak to some of the people? There’s nothing to suggest that directly or indirectly. Indeed, we have an image of the whole community gathered to hear what he has to say or at the very least not being excluded from it. Aside from the few mitzvot that are given for identified groups and ‘types’—for example, the Leviim—we’re given to see all of the Torah as intended for all of the people.

Is it then because the mitzvot that follow “kol adat” are of supreme significance? That, too, is hard to fathom. “Kol adat” doesn’t appear before “Sh’ma” or “Choose life” or “Justice, justice you shall pursue” or even the Ten Sayings, with the commandment not to murder, so it can hardly be the case that they’re of relatively low importance.

So what, then, might be behind “kol adat” in these verses of Bo and K’doshim? It seems that there are clues to be spotted from a close reading of the two texts and a comparison of their contexts. While spoken in entirely different settings—one in Egypt to slaves, the other in Sinai to free, post-Torah people—they echo each other in unexpected ways.

One parallel is the date. K’doshim—like most of Vayikra—is given on the first of the first month, which we later came to call Nisan: while it’s not explicitly stated, as in Bo, it can be deduced from the Torah’s internal clock. That was quite some day for it marked the dedication of the Mishkan. Like the liberation from slavery, it’s a time of new beginnings—one year on. Another parallel is in the interweaving of ritual and theological elements with ethical and relational elements. In K’doshim, “I am God” is threaded through the list of mitzvot to give human action an ultimate direction and to infuse life with holiness. In Bo, these associations are more scattered. Yet on the point of the Israelites’ departure, their slavery and hardship are not mentioned and the original liberation movement has been transcended: Bo is no mere abolitionist tract. Moshe doesn’t play the human rights card with Pharaoh . He doesn’t say, “let us go because it’s wrong to treat people the way you do” but rather, “let us go because God is to be worshipped—and God has power!” And when the Israelites are ready to go, they’re told the implications of their freedom, one of which is about respect and decency and another is about God’s intervention: “I and not an angel… I and no other…”

Both Bo and K’doshim have an interesting and important place. K’doshim, the middle of the third book, is almost exactly mid-way through the Torah and can justifiably be seen as its heart. Bo is the parashah that launches the Children of Israel into peoplehood; it captures their defining moment; it records their founding narrative.

K’doshim may tell us what the Torah is about. Bo tells us what we are to be about: a people whom God has saved, made free for the Torah and bids to remember and relive and relearn this precious experience—every day, every week, every year. Little wonder that it’s for “kol adat”!

Angela Gluck is a member of NLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to the two doorposts. None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. (Exodus 12:22)

This tells us that the angel, once permission to harm is given him, does not discriminate between the righteous and the wicked. (Mekhilta, Pisha 11)
The reason the Israelites were forbidden to leave their homes during the plague of the first-born was because “If your enemy falls, do not exult” (Mishlei 24:17) – that they should not see the downfall of their enemies, and they should not become revengeful or cruel. (Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Tamrat, 1869-1931, Lithuania)
The Exodus from Egypt is a symbol of liberation and freedom for all times and in all generations, and “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (20:2) As such, there is no way that the Exodus would take place in the night, as if the Jews were stealing away. (Tzeror Ha-Mor (Rabbi Abraham Saba), 15-16th century, Spain, Portugal and Morocco)
The Holy Blessed One said: If I bring forth the Israelites by night, they [the Egyptians] will say, He has done His deeds like a thief. Therefore, behold, I will bring them forth when the sun is in his zenith at midday. (Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer 45)
Pharaoh said to Moses, “Up, depart from among my people.” Moses replied, “Are we thieves, that you expect us to get out during the dark of night? Thus has the Holy One commanded us: ‘None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning’ – we will not go out except with heads held high, in the sight of all Egypt.” (Tanhuma Bo 19)

Sparks for Discussion

Why were the Israelites commanded to remain in their homes until morning? Was it a safety precaution? Was it to prevent gloating? Or, as many commentators suggest, was it important that the Israelites leave Egypt in the full light of day? What does it mean when something is done under cover of darkness? Would the knowledge that events and actions in your life might wind up on the front page of the newspaper or on the internet change the way you behave in any significant way?

VAERA

Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1st Shevat 5770 ~ 16th January 2010

By Daniel Oppenheimer

In the first part of the parashah, God says a curious thing to Moses. “See, I have made you God (elohim) to Pharaoh, and Aharon your brother will be your prophet”.

The commentators tend to interpret the term “elohim” in this context as meaning “master” or “judge” – that Moses now has power over Pharaoh.

I would like to take the term “God” more literally, and read this as God elegantly making a point to both Moses and Pharaoh simultaneously – different points, each appropriate to the person concerned.

To Moses, God is referring back to the interchange between God and Moses in the previous week’s parashah, when God was giving Moses his mission. Moses’s response to God’s clear command to go back to Egypt was, instead of submitting to God’s clearly superior authority, to argue the toss. Now Moses is in the business of giving commands to Pharaoh – but just as Moses did not listen, so Pharaoh did not listen. We can see this verse as God saying with an ironic smile, so to speak, “I am now going to put you in the position that I have just been – namely, to have someone who ought to be obeying your command first time, arguing with you. You go and play the “God” role, and Pharaoh can play the “Moses” role. See how you like it!”

With regard to Pharaoh, God is making a much more humiliating point. The verse can be seen as part of the Torah’s ongoing project to ridicule and belittle idol worship, idol worshippers and political systems based on idol worship, whenever it gets the chance. In Pharaoh’s Egyptian worldview, it is Pharaoh who is a god and Moses who is the humble subject. God says “I hereby turn your world upside down, Pharaoh”. The descendant of slaves will now be God to the former god-king Pharaoh. And in fact, the belittling of Pharaoh is even worse when we bear in mind that of course Moses is not presented as being a particularly superior human being. If Moses is like God to Pharaoh, what does that say about the relationship of the actual God to Pharaoh? In particular, we can read this as God’s response to Pharaoh’s dismissive remark in parashat Shemot, when Moses first asks him to let the Jewish people go, “Who is this “Adonai” person, that I should listen to him?” The verse we are considering is God’s answer to Pharaoh. “Fine, you say you don’t know who I am. Then I’ll give you a God that you do know: this Moses, he will be God as far as you are concerned. How do you like that?”

Daniel Oppenheimer is a member of NNLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

"And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your rod and hold out your arm over the waters of Egypt – its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water – that they may turn to blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.” (Exodus 7:19)"

Rabbi Tanhum taught: Why were the waters not smitten by Moses himself? Because the Holy One said to Moses: It is not proper that the waters that protected you when you were cast into the river should now be smitten by you. As you live, they shall be smitten by none other than Aaron. (Shemot Rabbah 9:10)
Rabbi Tanhum taught: It is not proper that the dust that protected you when you killed the Egyptian should be smitten by you. Therefore, these three plagues [blood, frogs, lice] were brought about by means of Aaron. (Shemot Rabbah 10:7)
Water is an inanimate object that does not have free will. When something floats in water and does not sink, it would not occur to us to give thanks to the water for its buoyancy. Nevertheless, we learn from this verse that if a person derives pleasure from an object, he should show his gratitude by being careful not to cause harm or damage to the object, even though it would not suffer pain... Since this is true concerning inanimate objects, all the more so we must show gratitude toward people who have shown us kindness. (Rabbi Chayim Shmuelevitz) (Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, “Love Your Neighbour,” pp. 140-141.)
Don’t point to an institution’s imperfections as reason for not acknowledging the good it has done you. The Talmud teaches, “Cast no mud into the well from which you have drunk” (Bava Kamma 92b). Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik taught that if you studied at a school, even if you come to disagree with the school’s approach later, don’t “throw mud at it” and condemn it because of those aspects of the institution with which you now disagree. This dictum is relevant as well for those who have changed their religious orientation. For example, some Jews who grow up Orthodox later leave for other denominations, while others who grow up Reform, Masorti, or unaffiliated later become Orthodox. Such people often speak with bitterness of the movements in which they were raised, but they should also acknowledge whatever good they gained from their earlier experiences. (Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, “A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume I: You Shall Be Holy,” p. 107)

Sparks for Discussion

Hakarat ha-tov (acknowledging the good others have done for you) is not difficult when those to whom you owe thanks are well-loved friends and family. What do we owe to those who are no longer members of that group – an ex-spouse, an estranged relative, a former business colleague from who you parted on bad terms? How should we speak about them?

Rabbi Telushkin applies this notion to people who have changed the religious movement to which they belong. We might expand this idea to recognize that we have something worthwhile to learn from all the streams of Judaism even if we disagree with much of their philosophy and practice. What can we learn from Reform, Orthodox, Hasidic, and cultural Jews? What should we appreciate about our own less-than-perfect Masorti movement?

SHEMOT

23rd Tevet 5770 ~ 9th January 2010

By Deborah Silver

And so the curtain rises once more on the story of how our people stopped being just a family, albeit an extended one, and began to be a people instead.

Consider how a saga like this would be introduced in the cinema.

In his book Working It Out my friend Alex George had one of his characters summarize how she makes film trailers:

I get presented with two hours of dross and have to cut it down to two minutes of interesting and exciting footage which is going to fool people into spending their hard-earned cash to go and see it...you just take the best jokes and the most violent bits and stick them together...

So for the story told in the book of Shemot, there would be an introductory ‘hook’ line of some kind; some arresting images of slavery; a bush, alight; a close-up or two on some brooding (and probably male) faces; surging music; probably some thunder and lightening. Jokes? Perhaps not so many, but there are certainly enough violent bits to make up for the deficit.

Yet we tell the story over and over again, even though the adventure sequences must be predictable by now.

So let me offer an alternative focus, as we begin to read once more. In the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah, on page 11b, we find the statement: ‘It was as a reward for righteous women that our forefathers were redeemed from Egypt.’ (This is followed by an interpretation of exceptional beauty, which I invite you to read and consider for yourselves, since to write about it would take more than the word count here allows.)

Let us notice the female characters in the story, this year. Because if we do, we will find that it is women who drive the narrative. Without Jocheved’s courage and Miriam’s ingenuity, Moses would have been killed at birth. Without the initiative of Pharaoh’s daughter (who is nameless in the Torah, but whom the rabbis of our later tradition name BatYa), Moses would never have grown to adulthood. Without Zipporah’s quick thinking, Moses would have been killed in his encounter with an angel (this is a bit we do not normally read at Hebrew school).

And women continue to receive special mention. Indeed, the festival of Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the new month, is deduced by the Rabbis from a close reading of the episode of the Golden Calf.

So for this year, I invite us to approach that list of names with which the book begins with a readiness to see that the story is going to be told much more subtly than a film trailer would suggest. Rather, there is a huge cast of characters in the story of our evolution to nationhood, a cast in which all are represented.

Deborah Silver is a rabbinic student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of the American, Los Angeles.

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. Moses said, “I must turn aside to look at this miraculous sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:1-4)

A gentile asked Rabbi Joshua ben Karhah: Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, speak to Moses from the midst of a thorn bush? He replied: Had He spoken from a carob or a sycamore, you would have asked the same question, but I cannot let you go away empty-handed. Why [did God speak to Moses] from the midst of a thorn bush? It is to teach you that there is no place that is devoid of the divine presence – even a thorn bush. (Shemot Rabbah 2:5)
Sometime after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labours. (Exodus 2:11) The Holy One said to Moses, “You have put aside your work and have gone to share the sorrow of Israel, behaving to them like a brother; I will also leave those on high and below and speak with you.” Therefore it is written, “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look” – because God saw that Moses turned aside from his duties to look upon their burdens, “God called to him out of the bush.” (Shemot Rabbah 1:27)
Once the Kotzker Rebbe [Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, 1787-1859] asked his houseguests the following question: “Where does God abide?” The guests responded, “Surely the whole universe is filled with God’s glory.” The Rabbi of Kotzk answered, “God dwells wherever God is allowed to enter!” (Leket, From the Treasure House of Hassidism by Martin Buber)

Sparks for Discussion

Did God create the burning bush just for Moses, or had it been burning there all along? Had dozens of passersby seen it, thought “oh, a burning bush,” and kept right on walking? It’s not difficult to perceive the presence of God in the splitting of the sea, in the birth of a child, or in a spectacular sunset, but how can we learn to sense God in the ordinary and the everyday? What steps can we take to let God in?

From: United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism. More can be found on their website http://www.uscj.org

VAYECHI

16th Tevet 5770 ~ 2nd January 2010

By Rabbi Jeremy Gordon

The Biblical commentator, Isaiah Horowitz begins his commentary (called Shnei Luchot HaBrit) on Vayechi with an investigation of Jacob’s request that Joseph, ‘deal kindly [hesed] and truly [emet] with me.’ Jacob is looking for his son to take him back, after his death, to the Land of Israel. Horowitz enquires into the notion of hesed v’emet – acts of truth and kindness performed for those who have passed away. These acts receive tremendous acclaim in the hands of the Rabbis who believe that caring for someone after their death rejects any notion that the carer expects reward or recompense – pure altruism. One who engages in care of the dead is held to meet the great challenge of the proto-Rabbi Antigonus of Socho; ‘Be not like a servant who serves their master in the hope of reward, but rather like a servant who serves their master NOT in the hope of reward.’ (Avot 1:3)

Caring for the dead is certainly intense work, usually undertaken by an elite chevra kaddisha (burial or literally ‘Holy’ society) whose motives are deemed exceptionally pure. However, in his Biblical commentary, Horowitz explores whether or not Joseph’s motives really are pure. Following Joseph’s agreeing to perform this asked for hesed v’emet Joseph’s sons get a double blessing from their grandfather and perhaps Joseph saw that reward coming. Indeed maybe even the hesed v’emet of the chevra kaddisha is suspect. Maybe they are doing it for some otherworldly reward, or to appear pious, or maybe, even, in the hope that when their turn comes there will be someone to care for their own death.

I think the point is that is it possible to render any action suspect from the perspective of hesed v’emet – ultimate altruism. We are all one big jumbled up conflagration of competing motivations and inclinations, many of which we barely understand ourselves. Perhaps the secret is not to push too hard at this impossible goal of acting with perfect kindness in search of pure altruism. Maybe we would all do better looking for every inducement to do good and grabbing them en route to making the world a kinder and better place. A wise colleague (whose name I have forgotten) asked this question – why, if we are commanded to give Tzedakah, is there no blessing to accompany the performance of such an important Mitzvah? Maybe, he guessed, if there was a blessing, there would be Talmudic analysis, legal codification, Kabbalistic preparation and so on until the poor person, hand outstretched before us, would drop dead before we would get round to offering something. (Indeed it’s an answer based on a Talmudic passage where a poor person does indeed collapse while his potential benefactor gets himself ready to hand over something sustaining).

Acts of kindness should not be subjected to investigation until they can be demonstrated as being pure examples of hesed v’emet, they should be applauded and under-analysed, not over-analysed. We should be encouraged to act gratuitously in being kind. We should practice deeds of kindness wantonly. For, and this is a very Jewish thought, the path towards holiness begins with action.

Jeremy Gordon is Rabbi of NLS

Torah Sparks

By Rabbi Joyce Newmark

Simeon and Levi are a pair; their weapons are tools of lawlessness. Let not my person be included in their council, let not my being be counted in their assembly, for when angry they slay men, and when pleased they maim oxen. Cursed be their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless. I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel. (Bereisheit 49:5-7)

Simeon and Levi were zealous and their motives were pure. What they did to Shechem did not stem from a love of battle or war. They would not have risked their lives had it not been for the sake of Heaven. Yet in spite of this Jacob cursed their zealousness, for anger and zealousness are not good qualities, and a person should always refrain from them, even for the sake of Heaven and with good motives. (Mi-ginzeinu Ha-atik, quoting Rabbi Meir of Premishlan, cited in Itturei Torah, Rabbi Aharon Yaakov Greenberg)
Their anger will be lessened through their lowly state and hard life, caused by the fact that they will be divided and scattered. (Rabbi Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno, 1475-1550, Italy)
“They slay men” – that refers to Hamor and the people of Shechem; “they maim oxen” – that they wished to annihilate Joseph (Rashi). What is the connection between these two events? Rather, Jacob said as follows: When I saw their extremism and their zealousness in the episode of Shechem, where they killed the entire town after their sister had been defiled by Shechem the son of Hamor, I did not know if the source of their action was a holy one, in that they were zealous for God, or whether it was no more than simple revenge and murder. The second incident, then, that of the sale of Joseph, taught me that their first action had not been done out of pure motives, but because of their anger and their desire for revenge: because “when angry they slay men.” (Ma’ayanah shel Torah, Rabbi Alexander Zusia Friedman, 1897-1943, Poland)
The Chatam Sofer explains that the dividing and spreading in this verse refers to the previously mentioned anger of the tribes of Shimon and Levi. Shimon and Levi overreacted with violence. But the other tribes did nothing for the benefit of Dinah. This was improper, for they should have taken some action. Therefore Yaakov said, “I’ll take away some of the anger of Shimon and Levi and spread it among the other brothers, for they need more than they have now. Then they will all have this trait in a proper amount.” (Toras Moshe) Every trait is necessary. The only question is how much and in which situations it should be used. Someone without anger or zealousness will fail to take action to protest injustice. On the other hand, excessive anger is extremely harmful. It causes quarrels, hurt feelings, much pain and suffering. What is needed is the proper balance to be used according to the directives of the Torah... To be a complete person every trait must be used. Fortunate is the person who has mastered a proper balance. (Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, “Growth Through Torah,” pp. 133-134)

Sparks for Discussion

How do you understand Jacob’s “blessing” of Simeon and Levi?
Is anger ever justified? Under what circumstances?
When is anger appropriate? How should appropriate anger be put to use?
How can a person learn to control inappropriate anger?

From: United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism. More can be found on their website http://www.uscj.org