Pinchas: Offerings for ourselves, and offerings for the world

Sacrifices are incredibly uninteresting. They have no relevance to the lives that we lead, even if we strive to fulfill all our religious obligations. Despite that fact of life, the most often repeated sections of the Torah deal with sacrifices. The second half of Parashat Pinchas deals entirely with the cycle of sacrifices for special days: Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh, and all the holidays; we read the appropriate passages from these chapters on every applicable holiday (except for Shabbat, when it is recited as part of the Tefillat Musaf.)

We likely pay little attention to the specifics of these sacrifices, but there is something interesting about the pattern that we find here.

A couple of notes are in order. First, the daily offering was made on all of these days. If any holiday fell on Shabbat, then the Shabbat offerings were included as well. Rosh Hashannah included both the daily and Rosh Hodesh offerings, as well as the Shabbat offering if it were to fall on Shabbat. Second, the goats are for the Hattat (sin) offering, which explains why they remain a constant.

Most of these offerings seem very simple in structure. But then we get to the seven days of Sukkot. What can explain this enormous sacrificial inflation that we see in the sacrificial scorecard above?

Sukkot celebrates the fall harvest and the onset of the winter rainy season in Eretz Yisra’el. It is understandable why Israel would want to celebrate with all its bounty, in the hope that Hashem will bless the land with appropriate rains for the year ahead. Yes, that may be a factor in the increase.
But there is something interesting about the Sukkot pattern that is hard to ignore. The numbers of rams and lambs offered are doubled on these days from those offered on all other holidays. And then we get to the bulls. On day one we start with 13, and on each successive day we reduce the amount by one.  This adds up to 70 bulls offered during these seven days. Finally, on Shmini Atzeret, we return to the schedule that applied to the holidays that took place at the beginning of the month.

Of course, the Torah never explains specifics of sacrifices, but rabbis looked for clues in the text to explain the oddity here. Jewish tradition, based on the genealogies of Gn 10-11, maintained that 70 nations descended from Noah. Next, Nu 29:35 describes Shmini Atzeret in an unusual way:

בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם

The eighth day shall be an assembly for you...

Why is this day for you? Rashi’s comment on this verse explains:

ומדרשו באגדה: לפי שכל ימות הרגל הקריבו כנגד שבעים אומות ובאין ללכת, אמר להם המקום: בבקשה מכם עשו לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה מכם

Its explanation in the aggada: because during each day of the festival they made offerings to correspond with the 70 nations of the world and they would go, Hashem said to them: I ask of you, make a small feast so that I can enjoy you.

This is an abridgment of the explanation found in the Talmud (bSukkah 55b):

א"ר <אליעזר> [אלעזר] הני שבעים פרים כנגד מי? כנגד שבעים אומות. פר יחידי למה? כנגד אומה יחידה. משל למלך בשר ודם שאמר לעבדיו: עשו לי סעודה גדולה. ליום אחרון אמר לאוהבו: עשה לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה ממך. א"ר יוחנן: אוי להם <לעובדי כוכבים> {לאומות העולם} שאבדו ואין יודעין מה שאבדו! בזמן שבהמ"ק קיים מזבח מכפר עליהן, ועכשיו מי מכפר עליהן

R. Eleazar stated, To what do those seventy bullocks correspond? To the seventy nations. To what does the single bullock correspond? To the unique nation. This may be compared to a mortal king who said to his servants: Prepare for me a great banquet; but on the last day he said to his beloved: Prepare for me a simple meal that I may enjoy you’. R. Yohanan said: Woe to the {nations of the world}, for they lost something and they do not know what they have lost. When the Temple was in existence the altar atoned for them, but now who shall atone for them?

I have no way of knowing if any other people in the ancient world would adopt a practice of engaging in worship on behalf of other peoples. But here we have a tradition where the word of Hashem was interpreted to demand such engagement on behalf of every nation. The comment of Rabbi Yohanan elaborates that these offerings served an expiatory function for those nations, but it is more likely that it had a more general function. If it were strictly for the purpose of atonement, then we might expect the offerings to be made of goats, not bulls, as the goats were used for the Hattat offerings as mentioned above.

The context of this section makes this even more interesting. A few chapters earlier, in last week’s parasha, we read about the failed efforts to curse Israel by a neighboring nation, and then the efforts to lead Israel into apostasy through lust. This parasha opens with a commendation of Pinchas for his act of zeal against a flagrant act of apostasy by spearing the Israelite man and Midianite woman. The sacrificial calendar follows a census and the allocation of tribal lands, all of which are mentioned in preparation for the impending arrival in their patrimonial land. If anything, all these things would point more towards an inward focus, not an outward one.

Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah (21:24) offers an interesting twist on the verse:

זש”ה: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני ואני תפילה. את מוצא בחג ישראל מקריבין לפניך שבעים פרים על שבעים אומות העולם. אמרו ישראל: רבונו העולמים, הרי אנו מקריבין עליהם שבעים פרים והיו צריכים לאהוב אותנו, והם שונאים אותנו, שנאמר: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני. לפיכך אמר הקב”ה: עכשיו הקריבו בעצמכם ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה לכם

The verse says: In return for my love they are my accusers; but I give myself to prayer. (Ps 109:4) You find that on the festival [Sukkot] Israel offers You seventy bulls for the seventy nations of the world. Israel said: Master of Worlds, we offer seventy bulls for them and they should love us, but they hate us, as it says: In return for my love they are my accusers. Hence, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, said: Now,  offer on your own behalf on the eighth day, an assembly for you...

The verse in Psalms is interpreted as a reference to Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret, that the offerings of the  seven days of Sukkot were on behalf of the nations who, despite this, despised Israel, but the eighth day focused on Israel alone.

The lesson is fairly evident. As Jews, we cannot ignore that we live in a world inhabited by other peoples, and to some extent, especially today - for better or worse - we will interact, perhaps become interdependent, on others. Yes, there are times when we are in conflict with others, but the welfare of others, even those who despise us, is also our concern. Why bother? Because all these peoples were created by Hashem, and eventually they will all come to recognize Hashem and adopt a Godly way of life. Zechariah (14:16) foresaw Sukkot as the holiday that would be eventually celebrated by all peoples:

וְהָיָה כָּל־הַנּוֹתָר מִכָּל־הַגּוֹיִם הַבָּאִים עַל־יְרוּשָׁלָם וְעָלוּ מִדֵּי שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֹת לְמֶלֶךְ ה’ צְבָאוֹת וְלָחֹג אֶת־חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת

It will be that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall make pilgrimage there from year to year to worship the King, the Hashem of hosts, and to keep the festival of Sukkot.

We will live in a world that suffers from conflict, and sometimes we will be party to those conflicts. It is nevertheless our responsibility, even in our own communities or our own land, where some might choose to cloister themselves from all others, to not do that, to not engage in cursing others as Balak and Bilaam tried, but the opposite: to be a source for blessings for all peoples, whether or not they like it, and whether or not they realize it.

Parashat Balak: When a Blessing can become a Curse

This week we read how Balaam is sent by Balak, a king of the Moabites, to lay a curse on Israel. Israel is on its trek to Canaan; Balak fears that Israel would defeat his people in battle and overrun his territory. Balaam, a powerful soothsayer, knows some of the limits of his powers, and learns more about the limits of his vision along the way. None the less, he is told by Hashem to go along with Balak’s delegation and attempt to do what they ask of him. Balaam makes several attempts, but instead of casting curses upon Israel, he utters words of praise. That is the story in a nutshell.

The first of these blessings raises a question. We read the following:

הֶן־עָם לְבָדָד יִשְׁכֹּן וּבַגּוֹיִם לֹא יִתְחַשָּׁב

There is a people that dwells apart, among the nations not reckoned. (Nu 23:9)

How, exactly, is this a blessing? In a literal sense, it can refer to security. Balaam sees them alone in their world, and the blessing is one to remain unencumbered by the designs of others. If only things could have turned out that way. For the land promised to Israel is one that was forever at the crossroads of history. It was always the junction between Europe and Asia Minor, and Africa, eyed by empires as an invaluable piece of real estate. To this day, it is the most fought over piece of territory that exists. Even if its mercantile and military value is not what it once was, its spiritual, emotional, and political value is unquestionable.

But there is another way of reading this verse. Israel, as a people, should remain separate from the world around it, unconcerned by the world outside of it.

Should Israel live in isolation and seclusion? Obviously, there are those who believe this should be so; let us live alone, away from everyone else. Let us do our own things in our own way. We have nothing for you, and you have nothing for us. This is the ideal of the Jew who opts for the ghetto. It will, forever, be us against the rest of the world, both spiritually and politically, and so we should separate ourselves from all others. For those who see the world in those terms, this verse can be read as a blessing of isolation.

But is that what the Torah intends for us? And if so, is this really a blessing?

If that is the intention, then the verse would have to be removed from the context of Balaam’s oracles. In this first one, Israel lives in secure isolation, but in the succeeding oracles, Israel emerges increasingly triumphant and powerful. It becomes clear that isolation cannot last for long, regardless of how good it appears.

The verse makes use of the word לבדד to signify Israel’s aloneness. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his recent book, Present Tense, notes that it has a negative connotation. In Bereshit we are told, following the creation of man, לֹא־טוֹב הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּו, it is not good for man to be alone. (Gn 2:18) The opening verse of Eicha says אֵיכָה | יָשְׁבָה בָדָד הָעִיר רַבָּתִי עָם הָיְתָה כְּאַלְמָנָה, How solitary sits the city once full of people. (Lam 1:1) We find it taking on a positive dimension only when it speaks of Hashem, who is One and always alone.

If this verse advocates Jewish isolation as a blessing, then it is one founded in negativity. Humans are social beings; as individuals, as families, as nations, we cannot survive in isolation. Time has taught us that we are interdependent beings, and that we must interact. It can lead to mistrust of all others and narrow self perceptions, all of which can lead to dangerous outcomes when, inevitably, we do come to interact with others.

But what is even more important is the outcome of the second half of this passage: וּבַגּוֹיִם לֹא יִתְחַשָּׁב - among the nations not reckoned. How is this consonant with the task of the Jewish people? As Jews, we are chosen - yes, chosen (so many Jews shudder at the thought of a chosen people without any understanding of what it means!) - to perform a task: to make Hashem’s presence known, to bring Godliness into this world. That is the role of a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, a kingdom of priests and a holy people. If we are to be a people that is not to be reckoned, then we cannot become the fulfillment of what Hashem promised to Avram when He told him to leave his homeland:

וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵה בְּרָכָה:  וַאֲבָרְכָה מְבָרֲכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה

I will make you into a great people, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and  you will be a blessing. I will bless those that bless you, and those who curse you I will execrate, and all the families of the land will be blessed through you. (Gn 12:2-3)

Remaining alone may be fine for the insecure or inferior, but for a proud people with a mission, it is a sentence to a solitary confinement. Torah offers us strength to face the challenges of this world, even of those who wish to deny us our role and our destiny.

Balaam was no friend of Israel. He would have been happy to utter curses, and when he had the opportunity to create a crisis, he did, as we read at the end of the parasha with the incitement at Ba’al Pe’or. If Israel were to be blessed by self isolation, the only beneficiaries could be those peoples who could only live by values that are antithetical to Godliness. While the Jewish people have had to deal with much ostracism over the years, we can always look to our strengths and achievements, and to the blessings that the world has benefitted from our blessings, most of which have been realized not in isolation.

תמוז תש’’ע/June 2010

Parshat Chukkat: The Death of Aaron

I have been derelict in my writing of these Divrei Torah in the 10 weeks since my father died. It has not been easy to concentrate, to muster the energy to get some things done. What follows was written last week, and had I not been caught in traffic on Friday afternoon it might have been shared before Shabbat. I share it now because I think there is something to learn from this. What’s more is that my dad’s Hebrew name was Aharon, and like his namesake, he was a kohen. The lesson that I derive here is very much in tune with the way my dad lived and believed.

There is a phrase that is used by mourners when referring to the one for which they mourn, particularly when repeating Torah that was learned from them: הריני כפרת משכבו, which can be translated as “I am an atonement for his resting place.” (B. Kiddushin 31b) When we say הריני כפרת משכבו, we ask that we should be seen as agents acting on their behalf. When a loved one dies, we try to think of them in a positive light. We also try to carry on their legacy in this world. If that   person taught us to do good in this world, then it is clear by our actions that we have learned from that person. I hope that I am up to fulfilling that duty, one that I accept with great love. - MM.

Parshat Chukkat: The Death of Aaron

As we read the account of the death of Aaron, the older brother of Moshe and the first High Priest, many commentaries are struck by one seemingly insignificant word. The verse describing the reaction to Aaron’s death states:

ויראו כל־העדה כי גוע אהרן ויִבכו את־אהרן שלשים יום כל בית ישראל

The entire community saw that Aaron had died, and the entire house of Israel mourned him thirty days.

There is nothing particularly striking about anything in this verse. Why wouldn’t the entire community mourn the passing of its high priest? A reader familiar with the Torah would recall one of its concluding verses, relating the public mourning following the death of Moshe:

 ויבכו בני ישראל את־משה בְערבת מואב שלשים יום ויתמו ימי בכי אבל משה

The children of Israel wept for Moshe for thirty days in the plains of Moab, and they concluded the days of weeping, the mourning of Moshe.

There is a sense of a conspicuous absence of the adjective כל, denoting the entirety of Israel. Can we not assume that the entire house of Israel would mourn for Moshe as they would for Aaron?
The rabbinic tradition attributed a particular characteristic to Aaron. We read in Mishna Avot (1:12)

הלל אומר: הוי כתלמידיו של אהרון: אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, אוהב את הברייות ומקרבן לתורה

Hillel taught: Be like the disciples of Aaron: Love peace, pursue peace, love living creatures and attract them to Torah.

The Talmud elaborates on this (b.Sanhedrin 6b):

וכן משה היה אומר: יקוב הדין את ההר. אבל אהרן אוהב שלום ורודף שלום ומשים שלום בין אדם לחבירו 

Moshe would say: The law pierces the mountain; but Aaron would love peace and pursue peace, and would make peace between people.

It is easy enough to derive a lesson about the importance of promoting peace and interpersonal harmony above and beyond the strict rule of law. But there is another interesting aspect to the character of Aaron in relation to his role as high priest. Anyone familiar with the role of the temple priest would sense that it was the keeper of the more detailed aspects of religious life. Parashat Chukkat itself opens with the details of the red heifer, which gives only a minimal look at the minutiae with which the high priest and his associates were concerned. Scholars of the biblical criticism developed what is known as the “documentary hypothesis” of the authorship of the Torah, a theory that divided it into 4 sources. One of the sources was known as “P”, the Priestly source, characterized by its interest in record keeping and distinct orderliness. In Freudian terms, the priesthood would be associated with the anal-retentive aspects of religious life. This is hardly the type of characteristic one would associate with a peacemaker. But it is true that the keepers of the Temple service had to deal with very strict and orderly rules and regulations.
What does this tell us about Aaron? We can derive that Aaron was able to maintain a sense of balance. On the one hand, he was responsible for the minutiae of the maintenance of the mishkan and the duties of the priesthood, but the strict detail associated with his duties did not overwhelm his humanity. While Moshe may have had a strict law and order orientation (which is the implication of the passage in Sanhedrin, above,) Aaron could deal with people as people, knowing how to bring them together when circumstances might have otherwise torn them apart knowing the ultimate value of peace in an otherwise dangerous world.

A well known verse in Mishle (Proverbs) offers the following maxim:

דרכיה דרכי-נעם;    וכל-נתיבותיה שלום

The ways [of Torah] are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. (3:17)

Sometimes, in our desire to fulfill our religious duties, we overlook the larger picture, our duty to make  Hashem’s presence in the world manifest through our example. But if we do so only by looking at the strict letter of the law and disregarding the value of peace, we take it a step backwards.

תמוז תש”ע/June 2010

Albert Mulgay, 1923-2010

One of the vivid memories that I have of my dad is from when I was around 8 years old. We were living in Peekskill, NY, in Westchester County, at the time; my dad was serving as Cantor in a congregation there. We were in his car, and for whatever reason, maybe my own curiosity, we were talking about death. He explained death to me using the metaphor of an overcoat: we may wear a coat for many years, but after a while it starts to show wear and tear, and after many years it is no longer useful to us as a coat and it gets discarded. So it is with our bodies: after years of use, it gets worn out, it shows signs of age, wear and tear, and at some point we need to discard it. Its wearer, however, remains; it lives on in some way.

My dad wore his coat for 86 years. His coat had numerous tears and had to be mended on several occasions. It weathered many storms, but it also saw its share of sunny days. It was a well worn coat, but at some point at around 8:00 AM on Monday, 12 April, he had to leave that coat behind for good.

Not many people get to be blessed to take off their coat the way he did, in the comfort of his own home; all too often it is in an institutional setting, with tubes and wires connected, with monitors beeping and people in scrubs milling about. My dad was sitting in a chair in the living room, listening to classical music with headphones on. Music was very much a part of his life; for over 50 years he served as a Hazzan, a cantor, in synagogues around the world. I learned so much of what I know about leading any synagogue service simply from listening to him practice and sing around the house. I had no interest in following in his professional footsteps, but I have always taken great pleasure in stepping up to the amud (lectern) of the synagogue and serving as shaliach tzibbur (emissary of the congregation) to lead any service.

Early childhood, Frankfurt am Main

First day of school, Frankfurt am Main

He was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on 6 August 1923, to a middle class German Jewish family whose lives would soon face turmoil but would miraculously survive the horrors of the Third Reich. As a child, he looked more Aryan than Jewish; during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, he was told by Nazi guards not to enter Jewish owned establishments because this was not the place for a German child to enter. Once, when stung by a bee, it was a Nazi officer who pulled out the stinger.


He also remembered playing with an older kid named Heinz, whose father, Mr. Kissinger, went to school with his father.

When he was 14, he had a severe case of empyema that kept him hospitalized for months. Years later, he saw a doctor who treated him at the time, and he was told that it was a miracle that he survived that illness. But there would be more miracles to follow.


My dad painted a vivid picture of Kristallnacht, the massive, state sponsored pogrom of German Jews of 10-11 November 1938. His synagogue, a large, impressive building, was burned down, but the shell took days to destroy. It had two towers that, after that night, made him think of two arms reaching upwards towards heaven, crying out to God. He spoke of the woman who was the superintendent of the building in which his family lived. They thought that this brusque woman would certainly turn them in to the Nazis, but to their surprise, she faced the Nazis, blocked the entrance to the building, saying that there were no Jews to be found there, knowing that there certainly were Jews in her apartments.

With his mother, June, 1938

Portrait, December, 1938

He was fortunate to get a scholarship and visa to travel to the United Kingdom shortly after Kristallnacht, to study at the Yeshiva in Gateshead, England. It got him out of Germany, but his stint at Gateshead didn’t last very long. Two weeks after arriving, he packed his bags and left without telling anyone. Coming from the broad minded Breuer Kehillah (community) of Frankfurt, he could not tolerate the intolerance of Gateshead, which did not allow listening to radios or reading of newspapers. He left for London, knowing not a soul, except for his elderly grandmother. He took numerous jobs, finally landing one in the publicity department of Twentieth Century Fox, an opportunity that allowed him to meet many celebrities. He also participated in the civil defense of London during the Blitzkrieg, watching for enemy planes from rooftops and rescuing people from bombed buildings (he once delivered a baby during an air raid). He also served as the German voice of the BBC for a short while.

At 20th Century Fox Film Studios, London, 1943

For most of the war, he had no idea if his parents and two younger sisters were still alive. His elderly grandmother had no doubt in her mind that she would not die before she saw her daughter, his mother, again. They did survive, making the trek from Frankfurt to Belgium where they found a place to hide, in the same way Anne Frank’s family did, in the home of a righteous gentile. When Belgium was liberated, his father sent him a note through a British soldier at the last address he had for him, and luckily my dad received it. The note, written in French, told him that everyone survived, and they all signed their names to it. My family had the good fortune of surviving the war, though it had its share of narrow escapes. As for his grandmother, she did live to see her daughter once again. She died three days later.

With his mother and sisters in Brussels, September, 1946

Rachel Peters, the woman who sheltered his parents and sisters in Brussels

I believe it is fair to say that the very existence of the Mulgay family today is something miraculous, considering the odds of a family surviving the Holocaust intact were probably quite slim.

Within a few years, they all came to America, settling in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn. Having an interest in music, he studied cantorial arts under some of the best known cantors of the day. He was drafted into the US Army and served “overseas” - on Governors Island in the New York Harbor. He met my mom one Shabbat through their mutual friendships with the siblings of Jackie Mason. My dad was not as close with Jackie, but one day they ran into each other on the Subway, and Jackie told him that he had decided to become a comedian. My father remembered thinking to himself that was the funniest thing Jackie had ever said; I guess Jackie got the last laugh there!

On the porch of his parents' apartment in Boro Park, Brooklyn

Wedding Portrait, June, 1958

My dad chose another route. Already in London, he studied voice at the London College of Music, and he held a position of Cantor for a synagogue in Manchester, where he also taught in its school. After coming to the US he held other cantorial and teaching positions, mostly part time opportunities. He went into the cantorate full time after he married my mom in 1958, when they moved to Des Moines, IA, but that proved to be a disappointing experience. He returned to New York, from where he would take holiday pulpits over the following years. I remember, when I was very small, how he would sometimes go away for holidays while mom and I would stay with my grandparents. He returned to the full time pulpit in 1967, when I was 6 years old. We moved across the country, to Portland, OR, for one year, followed by Peekskill, NY, for two years, and then Bayonne, NJ, for five. In all these pulpits, my dad not only led services, but also taught Jewish music in the synagogue schools, served as advisor to teen groups, taught boys and girls for their becoming bar/bat mitzvah, visited sick congregants in hospitals, and entertained residents in nursing homes. While hospital and nursing home visitations were not contractual obligations back then, they were things that he felt he needed to do because it was the right thing to do. I remember going with him to the nursing home in Portland on occasional visits.

Newspaper clipping, 1967

We left Bayonne in 1975 and moved to Summit, NJ, where he served the Summit Jewish Community Center until his retirement in 1991. Bayonne’s aging Jewish demographics no longer demanded a full time cantor, and it was a good time for making a move, as I was about to start high school.

My Bar Mitzvah, December, 1973

Of all his cantorial duties, I think his favorite was working with bar/bat mitzvah students. Unlike many cantors, he refused to teach them in a class setting, preferring to work with each child individually, knowing that each one came with his or her own strengths and needs. For some, he had to teach them how to read Hebrew from scratch, even though the student may have spent years in a synagogue school. He developed relationships with each child individually, using his sense of humor to make them feel at ease. He would often joke that if a kid didn’t practice on his own, he would have to use the whip hidden in his office. One of his students, while on vacation, brought him a souvenir that she came across on her travels: a bull whip! His methods produced results, and he was always proud of his students, many of whom would occasionally be called upon to read Torah or lead services at other times subsequent to their day in the sun.

Honored at retirement from Summit JCC, 1991

He loved being around people, and he was always himself, unpretentious, never interested in the spotlight. He always seemed comfortable in his own skin, and most people tended to appreciate him for the person he was.

Last year, he was informed that he would be honored by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America with a Doctor of Music, honoris causa. The diploma arrived, coincidentally, on the day of Ari’s bar mitzvah last June.

After his retirement, he and my mom decided to move close to me. For many years they would enjoy the benefits of the Boston area, visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, taking day trips along the North Shore, and attending local concerts. But the best benefit of the move was to be around when their grandsons, Noah and Ari, were born, and to play an active part in their upbringing. In his final years, as various ailments got the better of him, nothing would bring him as much joy as they could; his face would light up when they entered the room. As Noah’s eclectic interests in music started to include synagogue music, he told Noah that he could have his collection of cantorial music books that Noah found of interest. And he took a special pride as he would watch both Noah and Ari daven, bentsch, or sing zemirot.

From trip to Frankfurt am Main, June, 1999

In 1999, my dad received a long awaited invitation to visit his native Frankfurt, part of the city’s program to bring back its refugees from the Holocaust era. My father looked forward to this trip for a long time; he never harbored ill will towards the people of Germany, and he was anxious to return to the home of his youth. It was a meaningful trip for him and my mom, something I wish I could have participated in myself. He spoke of that experience often, remembering it even days before he died.

83rd Birthday, with Noah and Ari, August, 2006

84th Birthday, with my mom, Noah and Ari, August, 2007

Shortly after that trip, his health started to wane. The coat that lasted through many difficult times was starting to show signs of wear and tear. He developed spinal stenosis that affected his ability to walk. His hearing declined. He suffered from other anomalies, and had several bouts with congestive heart failure. But he retained his mental acuity to the very end, reading the daily newspaper, maintaining an intellectual curiosity that he held throughout his life, and always with an opinion on what was going on in the world. He always had books open, among them always a book of Jewish interest. Despite his poor hearing, he could listen to music with headphones on, something that brought him much comfort. And it was while listening to music that he died, peacefully, drifting off to sleep, his eyes closed. It was a death that seemed like a blessing to a man who lived through so much.

84th Birthday, August, 2007

I learned so much from my dad, inheriting many things that cannot fill one’s pockets. He taught me a love of davening from my earliest years when I would watch him put on his tefillin in the morning, to learning how to conduct every possible service simply by listening to him practicing at home. He gave me a love of books and of learning, of intellectual curiosity and open mindedness. But most important was his ability to not allow the past to become a hindrance to the future, his ability to forgive past wrongs, to not hold grudges or maintain anger when it might have been much easier to do so.

My son, Noah, wrote the following poem shortly after he learned the news of his Zady’s death. I closed my words at the funeral with his poem, which he has allowed me to share openly here.

For you, I would give all.


Would that I were not so young
Would that I’d nothing to live
Would that I were alone
That there were something I could give


That I could still see you
Speak with you
Not merely remember you
Would that you were here still


Even if it were that I could only say good-bye


To Albert Mühlgay, 1923-2010
Beloved Husband, Father, Grandfather, and Friend
To all who knew you, you shall be missed.

יהי זכרו ברוך לחיי העולם הבא.

May his memory be a blessing for him for a life in the World to Come.

Mark Mulgay, 6 May 2010






Photos:
Early childhood, first day of school - Frankfurt am Main.
With his mother, June 1938. Portrait, December 1938.
At 20th Century Fox Film Studios in London, January 1943.
Rachel Peeters, the woman who sheltered his parents and sisters in Brussels. With his mother and sisters in Brussels, September 1946.
On porch in Brooklyn apartment, undated. Wedding photo, June 1958.
Newspaper clipping, 1967.
Photo from my Bar Mitzvah, December 1973.
Honored at retirement from Summit JCC, 1991.
Trip to Frankfurt am Main, June, 1999.
83rd birthday, August 2006. 84th birthday, August 2007.
Undated portrait.

The Problem With Pouring Out Wrath

Jews often find it very easy to condemn their own tradition for things that upset them or disturbs their universalist sensibilities. The only problem with those condemnations is that they often stem from a lack of knowledge, a lack of depth of understanding, or an inability to contextualize what they see within the vast whole of Judaism.


This is often the case during Pesach, when we come to the following passage in the Hagaddah:

שׁפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא ידעוך ועל־ממלכות אשר בשמך לא קראו 

כי אכל את־יעקב ואת־נוהו השמו 

שפך־עליהם זעמך וחרון אפך ישיגם 

תרדף באף ותשמידם מתחת שמי ה

Pour out Your wrath upon those nations that do not know You,
and upon those kingdoms that do not call out in Your name.
For they have devoured Jacob and they have destroyed his habitations. (Ps 79:6-7)
Pour out Your anger upon them, and let your fury overtake them. (Ps 69:25)
Pursue them with fury and destroy them from under Hashem’s heavens. (La 3:66)

Superficially, these verses are disturbing. At best, they are explained as late inclusions to the Haggadah, dating back to the Crusades starting in the 11th Century, when many Jewish communities across Europe were destroyed and Jews murdered in the campaign to bring the Cross back to Jerusalem, then in the hands of the Moslems. But are these words reasonable in today’s world?

Often one hears a call to remove this “offensive liturgy” from the Hagaddah, as can be seen in a recent article that appeared in the Huffington Post ( http://tinyurl.com/ylhstsb ). That reference to “offensive liturgy” recalls the flap with the Vatican just two years ago, when the pope allowed the recitation of the Latin Tridentine Mass on Good Friday, a liturgy that contained some passages that were offensive to Jews (see my post, http://tinyurl.com/yau724h ). But, the idea that there is a central authority that can control what Jews recite as part of any liturgy is thoroughly ludicrous. We do not have anything analogous to the Vatican that can control what may be legitimately recited and what can be excised from our liturgy.

Rather than focusing on the slightly impractical objective of the article, let us look instead at why the claim is wrongheaded.

Judaism, as a rule, does not look kindly on the idea of vengeance. While the Torah recognizes that this is a part of human nature, it offers means of protecting one who committed manslaughter. Throughout history, we find few incidents of revenge taken against those who killed Jews. This could be explained practically; Jews were often powerless in the face of their foes who greatly outnumbered them. Even after the Holocaust, such incidents were rare.

Instead, Jews tend to take a larger view. We have an abiding faith in Divine justice, and we look to Hashem as the ultimate arbiter of that justice. We do not seek to take the law into our own hands, nor do we seek tend to send crowds into the streets looking for an eye for an eye. (That is not to say that it doesn’t happen, but it tends to be the exception, not the rule.) The Syrian born psychologist, Wafa Sultan, said it eloquently in a debate aired on Al-Jazeera Television:

“The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling... We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.” (http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1050.htm)

But the matter goes further than this. On the seventh day of Pesach we read the concluding chapter in the saga of Egyptian slavery, the story of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the drowning of the Egyptian charioteers, and the song sung by Moshe and the Israelites. It is a moment that we recall daily in our morning shacharit and ma’ariv liturgies. And still, we find the following midrash recorded in the Talmud:

... שאין הקדוש ברוך הוא שמח במפלתן של רשעים

דאמר ר’ שמואל בר’ נחמן

אמר ר’ יונתן

מאי דכתיב: ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה? - שמות יד:20

באותה שעה בקש מלאכי השרת לומר שירה לפני הקב’’ה

אמר להן הקב’’ה

מעשה ידי טובעין בים ואתם אומרים שירה לפני

...The Holy One, Blessed be He, is not happy with the downfall of the wicked.
For R. Shmuel ben R. Nachman cited R. Yonatan:
What is the meaning of the verse: “And one did not approach the other all that night.” (Ex 14:20)
At that time, the ministering angels wanted to sing praises before the Holy One, Blessed be He,
But the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them:
The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you want to sing praises to me?!

This midrash seems at odds with what we read in the Torah. If this is the case, why do we even bother reciting the song at the sea every morning, and otherwise recalling the splitting of the sea both at morning and at night? This midrash takes its cue from the prooftext cited in it: ולא קרב זה אל זה כל הלילה, And one did not approach the other all that night. (Ex 14:20) The verse is talking about the Israelites on the one hand and the Egyptians on the other. But the Rabbis saw a clue in the phrase זה אל זה, this one to the other one, a reminder of the Isaiah’s theophany, what is recited in the introduction to the Kedushah: וקרא זה אל זה ואמר קדוש קדוש קדוש וגו, “And one would call to the other and say: ‘Holy, holy, holy...’” (Is 6:3) זה אל זה reminded R. Yonatan of the ministering angels, and he saw a dual drama taking place: one on earth between Israel and Egypt, the other in the heavenly abode, where the angels were prevented from singing praise.

Underlying this is an ethos found in the following verses in Proverbs:

בנפל אויביך [אויבך] אל־תשׂמח וּבכשׁלו אל־יגל לבך  

פן־יראה ה’ ורע בעיניו והשׁיב מעליו אפו

If your enemy falls, do not exult,
If he trips, let not your heart rejoice,
Lest Hashem see it and be displeased,
And avert His wrath from him. (24:17-18)

Hashem does not want us to rejoice in the downfall of our enemies; such rejoicing could lead Him to giving them the upper hand. And yet, our midrash recognizes that as humans we are frail enough to seek vindication, to want the satisfaction of justice done. We, however, are charged with patience, that justice is not always as swift as we would wish it to be. We cannot have the satisfaction of tasting revenge, but we can put our faith in Hashem, that he will execute justice in the grand scheme of things.

שפוך חמתך expresses just that. We do not call on our fellow Jews to take guns in hand and kill those who have wronged us. We turn our faith towards Hashem to do justice and to vindicate Israel for its suffering throughout the generations.

However, there is an interesting counterpoint to this. In a Haggadah that dates back to 1521 from Worms and attributed to a grandson of Rashi, we find the following inclusion:

שפוך אהבתך על הגויים אשר ידעוך

ועל הממלכות אשר בשמך קוראים

בגלל חסדים שהם עושים אם זרע יעקב

ומגינים על עמך ישראל מפי אכליהם

יזכו לראות בטובת בחירך

ולשמח בשמחת חגיך

Pour out your love on the nations who know You
And on kingdoms who call Your name.
For the good which they do for the seed of Jacob
And they shield Your people Israel from their enemies.
May they merit to see the good of Your chosen
And to rejoice in the joy of Your nation.


While this passage lacks the scriptural basis of שפוך חמתך, we can see how it represents a discomfort with the idea of seeking only vengeance and justice, for we know that Hashem’s love extends beyond Israel, and that throughout our history we have known of many righteous people among the nations of the world who have dealt kindly with, and even risked their lives for, us. In their honor, perhaps this שפוך אהבתך should be read alongside שפוך חמתך and ought to be included in future editions of the Haggadah.

Tzav - The Offerings of a Broken Heart

One particular text that I have wanted to spend more time with is Vayiqra Rabbah. It is, for the student of midrash, a fascinating work. Like all classical rabbinic midrashim of the amoraic (talmudic) period, it is a product of the sages of Eretz Yisrael. As a literary work, it tends to follow structures, and its contents are largely homiletical: one can imagine that its contents were originally sermons in ancient synagogues (unlike exegetical midrashim, which tend to interpret a specific verse or phrase ad seriatim.) It also takes the contents of a book that was no longer applicable to the day to day life of Jews in the post Temple era and derived lessons that were relevant to ongoing Jewish life.

(N.B. One often sees references to the Midrash Rabbah. There is no such thing as the Midrash Rabbah, and even though you may see books with that title, it does not really exist. It is the invention of publishers who thought that the diverse works with the name Rabbah were part of a unified whole, but they are distinct works that were compiled at different times by different editors following different rules of composition.)

זבחי אלקים רוח נשברה... תהילים נא19

אמר ר’ אבא בר יודן

כל מה שהפסיל בבהמה הכשיר באדם

מה פסל בבהמה? עורת או שבור... ויקרא כב:22

הכשיר באדם: לב שבור ונדכה אלקים לא תבזה תהילים נא: 19

אמר ר’ אלכסנדרי

ההדיוט הזה, אם משתמש בכלי שבור, גניי הוא לו

אבל הקב”ה, כל כלי תשמישיו שבורין הן

דכתיב: קרוב ה’ לנשברי לב שם, לד:19

הרופא לשבורי לב שם, קמז: 3

ואת דכא ושפל רוח להחיות רוח שפלים ולהחיות לב נדכאים. ישעי’נז:15

A broken spirit is a sacrifice to Hashem... (Ps 51:19)
Rabbi Abba bar Yudan said:
Whatever was disqualified from the animals (for the purpose of sacrifices) was permitted from man (in his service of Hashem).
What is disqualified among the animals? Anything blind or injured... (Lv 22:22) –
But is permissible among man: Hashem will not despise the broken and crushed heart. (Ps 51:19)
Rabbi Alexandrai said:
If the simple servant used a broken utensil, it would cause him insult,
But to Hashem, all the utensils who serve Him are imperfect,
As it says, Hashem is close to the broken hearted, (Ps 34:19)
It is He who heals the broken hearted, (Ps 147:3)
[He is] with the crushed and dispirited, to revive those of fallen spirit and to revitalize crushed hearts. (Is 57:15)

What are we to make of this statement? Here are a few thoughts.

As I mentioned, Vayiqra Rabbah takes a book that largely relates to the sacrificial service of the Beit Hamiqdash and deals with the reality of a time where such service is no longer tenable. This was a harsh reality in the first centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; after all, the sacrifices were ordained by the Torah, Hashem’s word and expectations. For many, this reality was too hard to take, and this lead to a spiritual crisis. The brilliance of the sages of the centuries that followed is that they successfully enabled and empowered Jews to rebuild a spiritually meaningful existence based on personal and communal practice, and on the powerful element of hope. Jews may have despaired because they could not fulfill the mitzvot connected to sacrifice, depressed by their ritual imperfection. Rather than dwell on this imperfection, the sages pointed to verses like Hosea 14:3,  ונשלמה פרים שפתינו, our lips will compensate for bullocks, making prayer, the service of the heart, a powerful replacement for the sacrificial service.

But this homily goes a step further. In looking at the sacrifices, we see that they tended to be animals without blemish, examples of physical perfection. Yet, those of us who would offer sacrifices were anything but perfect. Despite our best efforts, imperfection is endemic to the human condition. In the end, the perfect gets offered as a sacrifice on the altar, burned to ashes, but we live on.

It matters not just in the way we look at ourselves, but also in the way we perceive those around us. Hashem accepts us as broken utensils, doing our best to fulfill His will in the best way that we can, as long as we make that effort and reach for the bar. We are often too willing to judge the actions or motivations of others, expecting them to live up to a standard that may work for ourselves, but the Ultimate Judge will make the final determination.

The lemma for this homily is from Psalm 51, a psalm attributed to David after he was confronted by Nathan after he acted on his lust for Batsheva (v. 2; see 2 Sam 11-12 for the story.) It is a powerful example, how the great king, progenitor of the dynasty from which the messiah will come, could despair his own failings and seek the compassion of a merciful God. This verse, זבחי אלקים רוח נשברה, לב שבור ונדכה אלקים לא תבזה, A broken spirit is a sacrifice to Hashem; Hashem will not despise the broken and crushed heart, has come to my attention several times in connection with Jewish prayer. Tanakh does not hide the failings of its heroes, and we can learn from them. But when we take an example like that of David, we can learn how we can turn those failings around, looking at our actions as offerings to Hashem in our efforts to make better of our imperfect selves. In our efforts to reach up to that bar that is always just above us, we bring ourselves that much closer to Hashem, and achieving that closeness is the ultimate meaning of קרבן - offering, approaching, coming nearer.

Passover - A Festival of Memory

The following appeared as an unsigned Editorial in the Jewish Journal - Boston North in the March 18, 2010 issue. http://tinyurl.com/ygrqvhl

The festival of Passover celebrates one of the formative events in the life of the Jewish people. It would be tempting to call it a celebration of history, but there is a difference.


 The Haggadah tells us, “In every generation, each of us must see ourselves as if we personally had come out of Egypt.” We are to personalize the experience, to internalize it. The Torah tells us, on numerous occasions, to remember the exodus, to remember that we were once slaves in Egypt.




There is a difference between history and memory. History is largely an exercise in taking events from the past and analyzing them, maybe for an educational exercise, maybe as a means of preventing the recurrence of past mistakes. History is impersonal, and the past always remains the past, never brought up to date.





Memory is different. We see this through a variety of rituals in Jewish traditions, especially the seder, when we reenact the exodus and the slavery in Egypt. Past is made present, and we are there. There is no past, present or future. Time is stratified, and we are inserted into those events that we recall from millennia before. The past is virtually present and alive, a part of our being. And it has relevance in our present lives.






For Passover celebrates redemption, enjoining us in a belief that there is always a better day ahead for the Jewish people. It celebrates freedom, a concept that seems hard wired into the mindset of the Jew, who has always treasured freedom not only for himself, but for anyone shackled and enslaved.




 And it celebrates responsibility, the oft repeated mitzvah that we are to show love and concern for the stranger, because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.






But unless we take an active part in passing this memory and our connection to it on to the next generation, this memory will be lost. We are all responsible for bringing this memory to life in our homes and throughout our community, to insure that this memory is not forgotten.

Vayiqra - Adam and Opportunity

On the surface, much of the book of Vayiqra contains the type of details that will make one’s eyes glaze over. The idea of sacrificial worship is virtually meaningless today, as it has been for close to two thousand years. These technicalities, however, did not prevent exegetes from looking at it at a deeper level, allowing them to derive many pearls of wisdom from its arcane verses.

The book opens with an interesting and unusual comment:

אדם כי־יקריב מכם קרבן לה

When/If an individual among you should bring a sacrifice unto Hashem...(Lv 1:2)

This is the general introductory comment to the laws of sacrifices. But why begin with the word אדם? As we continue reading this parasha, we will see passages like this again and again; however, no where else will we see אדם. We will see נפש, and elsewhere we will find איש. What is the significance of this usage here?

There is something striking about the usage of אדם here. The noun in itself is symbolic of the limitations of mortality. Throughout the narratives in the first chapters of Genesis, the first man is referred to as האדם, the man - אדם first appears as a proper noun in the genealogy in Ch. 5 - making the name appear more as an afterthought. The name is derived from אדמה, earth, as in dirt, from which man was created. (I sometimes translate אדם as earthling, though admittedly with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)

אדם conjures the image of the solitary, primordial man, created alone, naked, and unashamed, apart from the social animal of איש (you can have a plural of איש, but never of אדם unless you append בני to it.)

We know one thing about אדם - that his solitary nature is not good. ויאמר ה’ אלקים לא־טוֹב היוֹת האדם לבדוֹ - Hashem said: it is not good for man to be alone. (Gn 2: 18) While nearly everything created was described as good, כי טוב, this is the one thing that is not good, לא טוב. With this, the woman, אישה, is created, and אדם is now referred to, for the first time, as איש.

Now, אדם is followed by another interesting word, כי, a conditional particle way too easily overlooked, but that can convey two possible messages. It can mean when (as a relative, not an interrogative, adverb,) or it can mean if. We have two very different possibilities: One takes an offering for granted, when he makes an offering, the other a possibility, if he makes an offering. Under both circumstances, we read this first offering as a voluntary one, not one that has conditions of obligation attached to it.

Let us look back at the choice of אדם here as opposed to איש. As I said, אדם exists alone, but איש lives in a social domain. He lives in a world of order and hierarchies. Likewise, איש can have a master, but אדם has no master, other than God. And with this understanding, we can determine how we might understand the use of כי in this verse.

אדם is the essential existential individual, who alone is presented with an opportunity. He can act, or he can ignore. He can engage in worship, in praise, in fulfilling mitzvah, in offering service to Hashem. Everything that אדם, that lonely human, does is predicated on כי, if. For him, everything is volitional, and he accounts to no one except Hashem alone. But אדם does not exist in a vacuum. He is given opportunities, and it is up to him to chose whether or not to respond to the opportunity presented to him.

לא טוב היות האדם לבדו - It is not good for man to be alone; he cannot exist in this world as a solitary individual. He cannot remain aloof of others, but must engage in a world that makes demands of him, and of which he will make demands as well. This is particularly true of the religious person. Religion, which is supposed to act as a civilizing force in life, is not intended to isolate, but to integrate the individual into the larger framework of life. We can derive a lesson from this verse as follows: אדם, כי יקריב - מכם When an individual makes an offering, he becomes one from among you. His commitment to worship, by the very nature of that worship, makes him part of the greater whole, something larger than himself.

If we look carefully at the content of Jewish liturgy, we find the truth to this. Because Jewish prayer does not focus on the needs of the individual, but on all of us. The Amida, the core of Jewish liturgy, is composed of prayers that are all first person plural.

Ideally, the individual transitions from אדם to איש, and once he steps beyond his own limitations, his approach to worship changes. He is no longer isolated in his existential bubble, and his prayer is no longer a matter of כי - if, but כי - when. Because he is now an inhabitant of a world where he is no longer an אדם, a finite human being limited by his singularity or his own mortality, but as one נפש among many, one איש among others.

In this world that Hashem created, we serve Him best when we reach beyond ourselves, when we care for others, when we find a mate, and engage in others as created בצלם אלקים, in the image of Hashem, as He created each one of us.

Vayaqhel/P’qudei - Building a Tabernacle in Time

The Torah lacks non-sequiturs. It is carefully constructed, well planned in the same way that an architect makes certain that no brick or beam is redundant or out of place. My analogy is intentional in introducing this week’s Torah reading, which deals mostly with the details for the construction of the Mishkan, the tabernacle which became the center of sacred service during the years of desert wandering and the years of conquest of Canaan, a reading that opens with the following passage:

א וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה ה’ לַעֲשׂת אֹתָם: ב שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם קֹדֶשׁ שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן לַה’ כָּל־הָעֹשֶׂה בוֹ מְלָאכָה יוּמָת: ג לֹא־תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ בְּכֹל משְׁבֹתֵיכֶם בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת

Moshe gathered the entire community of the children of Israel and he said to them: These are the words that Hashem has commanded you to fulfill: You shall perform work for six days, but the seventh day shall be sanctified for you, a Sabbath, wholly unto Hashem. All who work on that day shall die. Do not kindle fire in any of your habitations on the day of the Sabbath. (Ex 35:1-3)

The rabbis of the Talmud made sense of this juxtaposition by associating the use of the word מלאכה, labor, in this passage with its use in the description of the work of creating the Mishkan in order to determine what was considered prohibited labor on Shabbat.

It is an association that makes sense on several levels. With exception of this passage, which delineates the kindling of fire, an earlier passage on gathering and cooking food (cf. Ex. 16:21-26), and a later narrative that speaks of the man who violated Shabbat by gathering wood (cf. Nu 15:32-36), we would not know what else can or cannot be done on Shabbat. Likewise, with the building of the Mishkan, which was understood as a symbolic reenactment of the Creation, anything that would go into its creation would be likened to acts of Creation, and would thus be prohibited on the day on which we are to cease from creative labors, just as Hashem did.

As humans, we have a tendency towards putting value on tangible things. We can easily grasp the concept of sanctity of material items and space, but it is difficult to get one’s hands around the idea that time can be imbued with value and sanctity. The idea of sacred time was an innovation of Judaism. The very first mention of sanctity in the Torah relates to Shabbat, and that alone, of all things created, was sanctified by Hashem. We never find mention of anything else being sanctified by Hashem; all other sanctifications are the result of human designation.

Shabbat enjoys a place of preeminence among the mitzvot. There is only one exception for which it may be violated: to save a human life. Even though the Mishkan was to be constructed as Hashem’s dwelling in Israel’s midst, any act related to its construction was also prohibited on Shabbat.

In order to make the sanctity of Shabbat somewhat easier to grasp, Shabbat can be contextualized. It may be compared to that tangible item which was about to become the sacred core of the Jewish people - the Mishkan itself. And from this association, we can draw a concept of Shabbat, treating time as if it were tangible. We can look at Shabbat as if it were a Mishkan in time.

This analogy is not entirely mine; in his book The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel called the Shabbat “A Palace in Time.” Not that there is a spatial quality to the day, but it gives us an opportunity to appreciate time in a way that is similar to the way we value space, or what takes up space. For our lives are spent in pursuit of things material, starting with the basic needs for survival, but soon going beyond needs and into wants. Humans, by nature, are engaged in a continuous conquest of matter and space. But ultimately, there is one thing that we can never conquer but we can easily squander, and that is our most precious commodity: time.

So, for one day in the week, for 25 hours, we treat time as if it were our Mishkan. We approach her singing the psalms of David in Kabbalat Shabbat. We greet her with the joy and anticipation of a groom awaiting his bride under the chuppah through the poetry of Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz in L’cha Dodi:

בּוֹאִי בְשָׁלוֹם עֲטֶרֶת בַּעְלָהּ

גַּם בְּרִנָּה וּבְצָהֳלָה

תּוֹךְ אֱמוּנֵי עַם סְגֻלָּה

בּוֹאִי כַלָּה, בּוֹאִי כַלָּה

לְכָה דוֹדִי לִקְרַאת כַּלָּה

פְּנֵי שַׁבָּת נְקַבְּלָה

Come in peace, O crown of her husband,

Come with song and jubilation,

Into the midst of the faithful of the treasured people,

Enter, O bride! Enter, O bride!

Come, my Beloved, to greet the bride;

Let us welcome the presence of Shabbat. (L’cha Dodi)

In many rites, we include a passage drawn from the Zohar that describes the mystery of Shabbat:

וְכָל שׁוּלְטָנֵי רוּגְזִין, וּמָארֵי דְדִינָא כֻּלְהוּ עַרְקִין, וְאִתְעַבְּרוּ מִנָּהּ

וְלֵית שׁוּלְטָנָא עִלָּאָה אָחֳרָא בְּכֻלְּהוּ עָלְמִין בַּר מִנָּהּ

וְאַנְפָּהָא נְהִירִין בִּנְהִירוּ עִלָּאָה, וְאִתְעַטְּרַת לְתַתָּא בְּעַמָּא קַדִּישָׁא

וְכֻלְהוֹן מִתְעַטְּרִין בְּנִשְׁמָתִן חַדְתִּין

Then all powers of wrath and all other rulers flee and vanish from before her.

No power other than her’s rules in all the worlds.

Her face radiates a supernal light, and in [this] world below she is crowned with her holy people,

all of whom are crowned with new souls... (Raza d’Shabbat; Zohar 2:135)

We make our meals festive events, spiced with wine and seasoned with delicacies. Our tables are adorned with two loaves of bread, a reminder of the miracle of the manna in the wilderness, and the double portion given on Friday to feed Israel for that day and the next. The Shabbat candles transform the power that fire has, to create and destroy, into a source of warmth and light, a glow that brings delight into our hearts. We sing songs to words of medieval poets expressing joy, faith, and love, along with a hope for a future of which the Shabbat is just a preview:

מֵעֵין עוֹלָם הַבָּא יוֹם שַׁבָּת מְנוּחָה

כָּל הַמִּתְעַנְּגִים בָּהּ, יִזְכּוּ לְרֹב שִׂמְחָה

מֵחֶבְלֵי מָשִֽׁיחַ, יֻצָּלוּ לִרְוָחָה

פְּדוּתֵֽנוּ תַצְמִֽיחַ, וְנָס יָגוֹן וַאֲנָחָה

A foretaste of the world to come is the day of Sabbath rest.

All who take delight in it will be worthy of great joy.

They will be delivered with relief from the birthpangs of the Messiah,

May our redemption spring forth, and sadness and sighing flee away. (Mah Yedidut)

Shabbat rest takes on much greater meaning than one usually associates with rest. It becomes an offering, a form of prayer; or to put it paradoxically, a service to Hashem:

אֱלֹקינוּ וֵאלֹקי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, רְצֵה נָא בִמְנוּחָתֵנוּ

Our God and God of our ancestors, may You find favor in our rest. (Shabbat Amida)

מְנוּחַת אַהֲבָה וּנְדָבָה

מְנוּחַת אֱמֶת וֶאֱמוּנָה

מְנוּחַת שָׁלוֹם וְשַׁלְוָה וְהַשְׁקֵט וָבֶטַח

מְנוּחָה שְׁלֵמָה שָׁאַתָּה רוֹצֶה בָּהּ

יַכִּירוּ בָנֶיךָ וְיֵדְעוּ כִּי מֵאִתְּךָ הִיא מְנוּחָתָם

וְעַל מְנוּחָתָם יַקְדִּישׁוּ אֶת שְׁמֶךָ

A rest of love and generosity,

a rest of truth and faith,

a rest of peace and tranquility, calm and trust;

complete rest in which You find favor.

May Your children recognize and know that their rest comes from You,

and that by their rest they sanctify Your name. (Amida for Shabbat Mincha)

Shabbat is a day to check every day concerns at its door as we find shelter from everyday worries within its walls.

אִם־תָּשִׁיב מִשַּׁבָּת רַגְלֶךָ עֲשׂוֹת חֲפָצֶיךָ בְּיוֹם קָדְשִׁי וְקָרָאתָ לַשַּׁבָּת עֹנֶג לִקְדוֹשׁ ה’ מְכֻבָּד וְכִבַּדְתּוֹ מֵעֲשׂוֹת דְּרָכֶיךָ מִמְּצוֹא חֶפְצְךָ וְדַבֵּר דָּבָר: אָז תִּתְעַנַּג עַל־ה’ וְהִרְכַּבְתִּיךָ עַל־בָּמֳותֵי [בָּמֳתֵי] אָרֶץ וְהַאֲכַלְתִּיךָ נַחֲלַת יַעֲקֹב אָבִיךָ כִּי פִּי ה’ דִּבֵּר

If you keep your feet from breaking Shabbat, and from pursuing your needs on My holy day, if you call the Shabbat a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way or attending to your own affairs, or speaking idle words,then you will find joy in Hashem, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the earth and to feast on the inheritance of Jacob, for the mouth of Hashem has spoken. (Is 58: 13-14)

I am fortunate to have observed Shabbat all my life. To observe it never meant a change in my lifestyle, but I first began to appreciate it best while in college. That was my only real break from my studies, when I would join with others and celebrate the joy of the day; and my appreciation has grown over the years. But I do envy those who did make the decision to make Shabbat a meaningful part of their lives; I cannot imagine it being an easy decision to make or to keep. But we now live in a time when we are faced by ever increasing demands. Time is precious, and it is ever fleeting. We need structures in our lives to bring sanctity into it, if for no other reason, to simply maintain our humanity. Life is precious, and those near and dear are precious, but we run the risk of losing sight of all those wonderful things if we don’t take time to stop and smell the roses. Shabbat really is not that difficult to do; all it takes is a willingness to put on the brakes, some family, friends, food, and wine, and a heart open to the joyful experience of simply being human and appreciating the many blessings provided us by Hashem. If you follow Isaiah’s advice, you may find yourself riding on the heights of the earth, and you may find yourself revisiting that tabernacle in time with greater joy and appreciation.

שבת שלום ומברך

See also http://marksblogspot.blogspot.com/2008/03/refuge-from-technology.html

For a wonderful version of L’cha Dodi sung by David D’Or, see http://tinyurl.com/yj62mje (or, for a shorter, non-video version, http://tinyurl.com/ybfng4d )

Ki Tissa - Where is God in Time of Peril?

It is precisely at those moments of natural disaster that we are most likely to question our faith in God. Five years ago, we witnessed Hurricane Katrina and the Southeast Asian Tsunami, and in the past several weeks, the severe earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. The question often goes: If there is a God, why do such disasters exist?

In the wake of the disaster in Haiti, we heard how some self-appointed spokesmen for God blamed the earthquake on how the people of that small nation sold their souls to the devil during their successful slave revolt more than a century ago. Those who are religious readers of James Carroll’s Monday columns in the Boston Globe (http://tinyurl.com/yglmmml) would see how effectively that argument can be disposed of from the perspective of a devout and thoughtful Catholic. This subject ties in well to a passage in this week’s Torah reading for a Jewish perspective.

The question of theodicy - the existence of evil in a world created by a benevolent God, is one of the oldest and most complex questions. At the end of the day, there can be no clear cut answer, for faith with safety nets loses its existential nature, and thus becomes less faith and more a matter of fact. Faith exists only in an environment where the most difficult questions are possible, sometimes even necessary. For the person of deep faith, the question “Why?” becomes a prayer, a search for understanding, and not a refutation of the divine will

At the time of Katrina and the Tsunami, my friend, Rabbi Nechemia Schusterman, taught an important lesson that stems from this week’s parasha. Moshe stands before God following the incident of the Golden Calf, engaged in a lengthy defense of Israel after its engagement in idolatry. Hashem is poised to “withdraw” from Israel, allowing them to go on with Moshe and a yet to be named angel to guide the way. Moshe bargains with Hashem, who agrees to take the lead. Moshe then asks Hashem:

וַיֹּאמַר הַרְאֵנִי נָא אֶת־כְּבֹדֶךָ: וַיֹּאמֶר אֲנִי אַעֲבִיר כָּל־טוּבִי עַל־פָּנֶיךָ וְקָרָאתִי בְשֵׁם ה’ לְפָנֶיךָ וְחַנֹּתִי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אָחֹן וְרִחַמְתִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אֲרַחֵם: וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא תוּכַל לִרְאֹת אֶת־פָּנָי כִּי לֹא־יִרְאַנִי הָאָדָם וָחָי: וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ הִנֵּה מָקוֹם אִתִּי וְנִצַּבְתָּ עַל־הַצּוּר: וְהָיָה בַּעֲבֹר כְּבֹדִי וְשַׂמְתִּיךָ בְּנִקְרַת הַצּוּר וְשַׂכֹּתִי כַפִּי עָלֶיךָ עַד־עָבְרִי: וַהֲסִרֹתִי אֶת־כַּפִּי וְרָאִיתָ אֶת־אֲחֹרָי וּפָנַי לֹא יֵרָאוּ: פ

And [Moshe] said: Show me your glory. He [Hashem] replied: “I will cause all My goodness to pass before you, and I will proclaim The Name before you, the grace that I grant and the compassion that I bestow.” [Hashem] added: “You will be unable to see My Face, for man cannot see Me and live.” Hashem said: “There is a place with Me; you will stand on that rock; when My Glory passes by, I will place you in the cleft of the rock, and I will shield you with My Hand until I have passed by. I will then remove My Hand, and you will see My Back, but My Face shall not be seen. (Ex. 33:18-23)

What exactly is going on here? R. Nechemia explained that Moshe was not asking for merely a visual, but something much deeper. What Moshe sought was to understand the very essence of theodicy, something so large and unfathomable that it is beyond the pale of human understanding. The key to this passage is in the the word צור, which means rock, but is also a strait, a siege, and trouble. In placing Moshe in the cleft in the rock, בנקרת הצור, He is placing him in the troubled space that so many have experienced throughout time. Hashem prevents Moshe from seeing the Divine Presence as it passes by while Moshe remains in that dire strait; it is only after He has passed, only in retrospect, that he may be able to see and understand some sense of what has occurred.

Tanakh offers us a few stunning examples like this one of those seeking a direct understanding of how Hashem allows bad things to happen. A notable example comes from the story of Elijah:

וַיָּבֹא־שָׁם אֶל־הַמְּעָרָה וַיָּלֶן שָׁם וְהִנֵּה דְבַר־ה’ אֵלָיו וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ מַה־לְּךָ פֹה אֵלִיָּהוּ: וַיֹּאמֶר קַנֹּא קִנֵּאתִי לַה’ | אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת כִּי־עָזְבוּ בְרִיתְךָ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־מִזְבְּחֹתֶיךָ הָרָסוּ וְאֶת־נְבִיאֶיךָ הָרְגוּ בֶחָרֶב וָאִוָּתֵר אֲנִי לְבַדִּי וַיְבַקְשׁוּ אֶת־נַפְשִׁי לְקַחְתָּהּ: וַיֹּאמֶר צֵא וְעָמַדְתָּ בָהָר לִפְנֵי ה’ וְהִנֵּה ה’ עֹבֵר וְרוּחַ גְּדוֹלָה וְחָזָק מְפָרֵק הָרִים וּמְשַׁבֵּר סְלָעִים לִפְנֵי ה’ לֹא בָרוּחַ ה’ וְאַחַר הָרוּחַ רַעַשׁ לֹא בָרַעַשׁ ה’: וְאַחַר הָרַעַשׁ אֵשׁ לֹא בָאֵשׁ ה’ וְאַחַר הָאֵשׁ קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה: וַיְהִי | כִּשְׁמֹעַ אֵלִיָּהוּ וַיָּלֶט פָּנָיו בְּאַדַּרְתּוֹ ...

[Eliyahu] came to the cave and stayed there. Then, the word of Hashem came to him and asked: Eliyahu, why are you here? [Eliyahu] said: I have been extremely zealous for Hashem, God of the Hosts, for Israel has despised Your covenant, they have destroyed your altars and killed your prophets by the sword, and now I am left alone, and they seek to take my life. And He said: Go out and stand on the mountain before Hashem. Hashem passed by, and there was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks before Hashem - but Hashem was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake - but Hashem was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire - but Hashem was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a soft, quiet voice. When Eliyahu heard this, he covered his face in his mantle... (1K 19: 9-13)

A brief recap of Elijah’s story is in order: Elijah prophesied during the reign of Ahab. Ahab was a powerful and ruthless king, known along with his quen Jezebel for their pagan excesses and moral lapses. Elijah had prophesied a drought that lasted 3 years, bringing the land to a standstill, one that ended only with the contest between him and the four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel. After the prophets of Ba’al had lost the contest, Elijah had the prophets seized and killed. Now, Elijah’s life was in danger, and he fled into the desert, going as far as Horeb, which we also know as Mount Sinai, the scene of the drama in this week’s parasha. Elijah was one of the few prophets of Hashem who escaped massacre at the hands of Jezebel, and he had good reason to take the threat on his life seriously. His fear and frustration is evident in this chapter: where is God amidst all this evil? In this laconic passage, we can imagine Elijah standing where Moshe stood, witnessing the passing of destructive forces, of wind, earthquake, and fire, but Hashem is not discernible in any of these. Hashem becomes apparent only afterwards, in the most subtle manner imaginable: the קול דממה דקה, the still, small voice, the one that we can hear only if our ears, hearts, and minds are tuned in to it.

Hashem’s answer to Elijah’s troubled protest is to go back and do what he has to do.

Where can Hashem be found in disaster? Hashem can be found among those who go and do, who heed the still, small voice of Godliness, who show compassion and caring by opening their hearts, those who give of what they have, those who pick themselves up from the comforts of home and help those who have nothing to give in return.

We cannot hope to understand why tragedy takes place in a world created by a good God. As God begins His long response to Job, He asks:

אֵיפֹה הָיִיתָ בְּיָסְדִי־אָרֶץ הַגֵּד אִם־יָדַעְתָּ בִינָֽה׃

Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understanding! (Jb 38: 4)

Some things are beyond our comprehension. That does not mean that we cannot ask the question “Why?” We can ask why, in the hope that we will, at some point, be privileged with some understanding, howbeit incomplete. And in looking at it from this perspective, asking why becomes not a protest, but a prayer.

Zakhor - The Essence of Remembering Amalek

זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָיִם. אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ, וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל-הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ--וְאַתָּה, עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ; וְלֹא יָרֵא אֱלֹהִים. וְהָיָה בְּהָנִיחַ ה’ אֱלֹהֶיךָ לְךָ מִכָּל-אֹיְבֶיךָ מִסָּבִיב, בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר ה’-אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם -- לֹא תִּשְׁכָּח

Remember [זָכוֹר] what Amalek did to you on the way when you left Egypt. How he surprised you along the way, and cut down all the stragglers in the rear while you were tired and weary, and he had no fear of God. Therefore, when Hashem, your God, gives you rest from all your enemies surrounding you, in the land that Hashem, your God, is giving you as hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory [זֵכֶר] of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget! (Dt 25:17-19)

The obligation to “blot out the memory of Amalek” is unique among the mitzvot of the Torah. We readily assume that it demands an act of genocide, mostly due to I Sam. 15, where Samuel tells Saul to eradicate every Amalekite and even their livestock. We can also derive that conclusion from the response to the original story of the Amalekite attack in Ex 17:8-16, especially:

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כְּתֹב זֹאת זִכָּרוֹן בַּסֵּפֶר, וְשִׂים בְּאָזְנֵי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ: כִּי-מָחֹה אֶמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם... וַיֹּאמֶר, כִּי-יָד עַל-כֵּס יָ-הּ, מִלְחָמָה לַה’ בַּעֲמָלֵק--מִדֹּר דֹּר

God said to Moshe: Write this as a remembrance (זִכָּרוֹן) in a book, and make certain that Joshua hears it, for I will utterly eradicate the memory (זֵכֶר) of Amalek from under heaven... And [Moshe] said, by hand on the throne of God, Hashem will battle Amalek in every generation. (vv.14, 16)

It should be noted that both of these passages, the one in Devarim and the one in Shemot, present a paradox: we are to blot out the memory of Amalek while remembering what Amalek did, or that God is to engage in eternal combat with the Amalekites. How are we to make sense of these passages given this paradox?

The very idea of זכרון, remembering, intensifies both the command and the paradox. Prof. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who died during the past year, authored his seminal monograph on the nature of memory in the Jewish tradition in the early 1980s. Jewish tradition has hardly a sense of history. This might seem a shocking, even heretical statement. But there is a difference between history and memory. History is largely a exercise in taking events from the past and analysing them, maybe for an educational exercise, maybe as a precaution to not repeat the mistakes of the past. But in history, the past always remains the past, and the past is never brought up to date.

Memory, and the Jewish obligation of זכור, is very different. We see this through a variety of rituals in Jewish traditions, especially the Passover Seder, when we re-enact the exodus and the slavery in Egypt. Past is made present, and we are there. There is no past, present or future - just as there is no past, present, or future tense in Biblical Hebrew. Time is stratified, and we are inserted into those events that we recall from millennia before. We are instructed in the Haggadah: בְּכָל־דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת־עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרָיִם, “in every generation, one is obligated to see himself as if he, himself, left Egypt.” The past is virtually present and alive, a part of our being. And it has relevance in our present lives.

זכר can also be a sensory act. We find the following usage in Hos 14:8: זִכְרוֹ כְּיֵין לְבָנוֹן, “his scent shall be like wine from Lebanon.” [I admit that there is some controversy to the accuracy of this translation, but work with me here...] There is something about some sensory acts, the Proustian memory, that involuntarily brings back a memory from time gone by.

How does this leave us with Amalek? Amalek’s acts are not to be thought of as simply the act of one attacker at one moment in time, but a state of mind that is filled with hatred and loathing, that takes advantage of the weak and weary, and that lacks any fear of Hashem.

In a literal sense, Amalek no longer walks in this world. But the spirit of Amalek is another matter.

Through these passages, Amalek represents all haters of Israel that have risen throughout the generations. The smallest of all peoples on God’s earth, we are also more despised per capita than any other, and we have probably suffered, and survived, more efforts at annihilation than any other people. For us, that comes with the territory. Despite that, we face the daunting task of being an or lagoyyim, a light unto the nations, a civilizing force. We must always be mindful of what Amalek did, and what its “spiritual” heirs continue to do.

On a larger scale, Amalek represents a reprehensible aspect of human nature, the will to take advantage over those who are weaker than us, to exercise power when it is possible. It is a part of our yetzer hara, our evil inclination.

In both cases, we need to remember and stand with those who have suffered, remembering what Amalek did to you - meaning, to us, as we left Egypt, putting our soles in the sandals of the weak and weary, so that we can understand, with empathy, why we must always remember to destroy Amalek once we reach our safe haven.