Impressions: A Rabbi's Commentary and Contemplation

These days we are witness to an enormously difficult and tense time in Israel: The Iran war, the continuing fighting in Gaza, the hostages, the international pressures – surely we understand these days why 10 of the 12 spies said “We cannot conquer this land.”

But we can also understand their mistake – and Joshua and Caleb’s courage – by examining a single word. Moses instructs the spies “latur ba’aretz” – to travel in the land. Many commentators note this is the same verb we know from the Shema – “v’Lo taturu” – you should not “tur.” What is the lesson?

In the shema it says – you should not go after your eyes and your heart, which lead you astray. In other words, do not be guided by impulse or superficial impressions. The world rarely yields its meaning easily – it demands study, attention and humility.

Today, too many judge Israel as tourists browse souvenirs, glancing at a 30 second video, quoting yesterday’s self-appointed “expert” parroting slogans without knowledge. I remember the journalist who asked student protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” which river and which sea. They had no idea. They were ideological tourists – wandering from cause to cause without roots or responsibility.

Joshua and Caleb paid close attention to the land and kept in mind the history of the promises made to the Jewish people by God. Their impressions were shaped not by fear but by faith.

To understand Israel takes a serious effort to grasp the history of a people exiled but never entirely gone, seeking peace but in a region rife with conflict, demonized but still dreaming. Tourists cannot understand – one must come as a pilgrim, admitting wonder and beauty. The spies skimmed the surface, while Joshua and Caleb sought the soul.

Judaism teaches us to grieve the death of any innocent person and to pray for a swift end of conflict. No prayer is repeated as often in our liturgy as that of peace. May God grant peace to Israel and all her neighbors. And may the vision of true pilgrims – those who walk the land with resolve and reverence – be fulfilled in our day.

We do complain. It is an ancient art, and Jews have developed something of a specialty in it. The ‘kvetch’ – the indignant half-whine that expresses a real grievance, has long been a constant in the Jewish rhetorical arsenal.

Like our ancestors we also have things to complain about. In this week’s Torah portion the Israelites are complaining, but can we really blame them? Yes, they were liberated from slavery, but wandering in the desert is not a pleasant task, and for all of the wonders – the cloud by day, the pillar by night, even the manna – who among us would not prefer a seaside bungalow?

Even though the parasha is associated with complaint however, it begins with the menorah and the purification of the Priests. This is a theme that persists throughout the Torah and indeed throughout Jewish history. At the same time as we face challenges, difficulties and trials, there is a drive toward light and purification and purpose.

The Jewish community is going through difficulties that have us preoccupied and even frightened. No one among us is certain as to the best course for the multiple challenges that face Israel and Jews worldwide. Yet as I travel throughout the Jewish world, I find exactly what we find in the parasha: Yes, we all fret and wonder what to do to combat hatred. But the Jewish community is also building institutions, supporting schools and camps, working through our synagogues and federations – in other words, bringing light. The very words you read are part of that effort: The ADL did not only wish to speak of our challenges but to offer words from our tradition.

The kinds of problems we face are not those that will dissipate in a week, a month or a year. Our challenges are spread across the political and social realm. Along with our allies in this work, we will have many lamps to kindle – and many complaints to offer. But the one thing our ancestors in the desert never did, for all their kvetching, was refuse to move forward. Step by step, kvetch and kindle, we shall too. Be strong, have courage, keep moving forward: “Beha’alotcha” means “when you ascend.”

It may be the most poignant question in the entire Bible, though asked by someone not distinguished for his wisdom. In the haftorah this week, after an angel appears to a barren woman and promises a child, her husband Manoah begs for another appearance of the angel. For he wishes to know, “What shall we do with the child to be born to us?” (Judges 13:8).

What parent has not wondered the same, looking at a child and trying to understand how to raise that child to adulthood responsibly and well? Here the child born is Samson.

Samson is a prodigy of physicality. He sees a woman and decides he wants her. He punishes those who offend him by catching 300 foxes and affixing torches to them to burn his victim’s fields. He sleeps with a prostitute, and upon arising, tears the gates of the city off their hinges. No character in the Bible so represents the muscle-rippling heroism of Hollywood movies and Greek myth as does Samson.

His strength, however, is not strength of character. In Samson, the flesh is strong but the spirit is weak. He lacks judgment, reflection and restraint. Delilah essentially nags him to reveal the secret of his strength, which he finally confides. The same man who can conquer a city cannot conquer his own impulses.

What lesson did Manoah need from the angel to offer to his children? The answer is in the Torah portion. Naso tells us, “On the day Moses finished setting up the tabernacle” (Numbers 7:1). But was it not Bezalel who built the tabernacle? The Rabbis teach that it was Moses’s merit that drew God’s presence into it – therefore, he is credited with building it.

When facing challenges, and especially when confronted by continued attacks such as happened in Colorado, Samson’s lesson is what parents – and society – need to teach: true strength is strength of character. Physical power matters – we must be able to defend ourselves – but we seek the strength of Moses, not Samson, guided by wisdom, grounded in tradition, determined to prevail – and inspired by God.

This weekend begins the holiday of Shavuot, the holiday on which we celebrate the giving of the Torah. If you read about the event in the Torah, however, the people were not only celebratory; they were fearful. They trembled, and according to one legend the terror was so great that their souls left their bodies and had to be restored.

Fear arises when the future is uncertain. Our imaginations rush in with frightening images. For the former slaves, revelation was a shattering event and they could not know what it meant or where it might lead them.

A very different kind of fear took hold of the American Jewish community this past week. The murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky struck our community very powerfully. We were reminded that there is a very thin membrane between antisemitic agitation and savage action.

Hearing the news, I was immediately reminded of Feb. 25, 1996, when two young American Jews, Sarah Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld, were killed by the bomb of a Hamas terrorist in the streets of Jerusalem. They were students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, where I was teaching at the time, on a year studying in Israel. They were about to be engaged.

Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were shot and killed on the streets of Washington, D.C. They too were about to be engaged.

In both cases young lives filled with promise were cut short. In both cases, communities grieved, and institutions stepped up security, gripped by the ancient fear that shakes our souls.

That is where the fear of Shavuot meets the fear of the present moment. What calmed and sustained the Israelites then? We are told by the great commentator Rashi that all of Israel stood “as one person with one heart” at Sinai (Ex. 19:2). In unity there was comfort and strength.

Throughout Jewish history, solidarity has been our enduring answer to those who seek to harm us. We must remember that we stand as one people. We are not alone. We stand together and with allies of goodwill and conscience.

Even as we mourn, we will also celebrate. We will rejoice in the gift of Torah, the “tree of life”, still sheltering and inspiring us. In that shared celebration we will find courage and resilience, as our ancestors did so long ago.

When I was a child in Philadelphia, we took class trips to see the Liberty Bell. On the bell is inscribed a verse from this week’s Torah portion: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Leviticus 25:10). It is not happenstance that the symbol of American liberty contains a quote from the Torah. Judaism was intertwined with the founding of America.

Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams proposed imagery referencing the biblical exodus from Egypt. Jefferson suggested the motto: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God,” recalling gathering biblical story of liberation from Egypt.

In 1790, George Washington wrote a famous letter to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. Washington wrote: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” That last phrase was taken from the prophet Micah (4:4).

The founders of our nation were deeply steeped in Hebrew Scriptures. Although throughout the history of the United States there have been incidents and outbreaks of antisemitism – the ADL was formed in response to one such outbreak in 1913 – Jews have enjoyed unprecedented prosperity in this land and have been instrumental in crafting its attitudes and values.

After WWII, the U.S. army, having liberated so many from the camps of Eastern Europe, asked the survivors what they needed. They answered that they wished to study. So in an effort unique in the annals of secular government, the U.S. army printed a number of sets of the entire Babylonian Talmud. The sets were printed in Hamburg, on presses that previously printed propaganda for the Nazi cause. The grateful receipts wrote the dedication to the army, which “played a major role in the rescue of the Jewish people…the Jewish DPs (displaced persons) will never forget the generous impulses and the unprecedented humanitarianism of the American forces, to whom they owe so much.”

From the Liberty Bell to that unique inscription, the United States has been a cherished home for the Jewish people. May this blessed partnership for good continue and strengthen in these often difficult days.

Mark Twain was one of the great writers of American literature, and surely one of the funniest. He was also a famously obscene conversationalist. Helen Keller reports being shocked by how many vulgarities Twain used in everyday speech. Twain’s wife devised a strategy to cure her husband of this tendency: one day she surprised him by letting loose a stream of curses herself to show him how it sounded.

“Honey,” said Twain, “you have the words, but you ain’t got the music.”

In Jewish tradition there are words one is not supposed to say. In this week’s Torah portion, we are told the blasphemer should be put to death (Leviticus 24:16). That words could be fatal was taken very seriously.

The tale of Judaism and blasphemy is more complicated than it may appear – about the words and the music.

In the Talmud, the rabbis posit that one who hears blasphemy should tear his garment. Then Rabbi Hiyya adds: “One who hears a mention of God’s name in a blasphemous context nowadays is not obligated to make a tear, as if you do not say so, the entire garment will be full of tears” (Sanhedrin 60a). In other words, blasphemy, from being a rare breach, had become rampant.

Building on biblical precedent, the rabbis were not slow to challenge God. Making a play on the verse “Who is like You among the gods?” (elim) the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught, “Who is like You among the mute?" (illemim) (Gittin 56b). God does have a disconcerting habit of not speaking even when the Divine voice seems needed. Still, labeling God as silent is pretty daring, and could certainly be seen by some as blasphemy.

Listening to objectionable speech is part of the natural linguistic immune system. In the same way that letting kids play in dirty fields builds up their resistance, understanding the force of words while upholding freedom of speech teaches us how to grapple with ideas of all kinds. A free society takes great care with what it censors. Remember that the Talmudic practice was to preserve the rejected as well as the accepted opinions.

After all, the central declaration of the prayer service is not to speak, but to listen.

This week’s Torah portion begins: “After the death of Aaron’s sons.” But Aaron’s sons died back in Leviticus 10. Now we are in Leviticus 16, after a long detour through laws of skin disease and impurity. The narrative resumes with a jolt – reopening Aaron’s wound – just as Moses is instructed to teach Aaron the ritual of Yom Kippur.

Why revisit Aaron’s grief before introducing the Temple ritual?

First, Aaron understands that even after heartbreak, life continues. This truth, bitter as it is, underlies the seudat havra’ah, the mourner’s first meal after burial. The mourner often doesn’t wish to eat, but the meal marks a boundary: yes, my loved one has died, but I have not. I must live in spite of the agony of loss.

Second, Yom Kippur enables all of Israel to repent. In other words, Aaron is told it is ultimately not only about him. Grief feels singular, but it is not solitary. Others have journeys that matter as well.

Grief is egocentric. Pain shrinks the world to a single point. Stub your toe, and for a moment, it blots out everything else. In loss that flash becomes a lasting condition. God’s command gently reorients Aaron – “there is pain beyond yours, and people depend on you.”

Moreover, the kind of task is important. Yom Kippur is about sin and suffering and death and repentance and rebirth. In guiding the nation through its own reckoning, Aaron finds his. He stands with Israel in their sorrow and thus finds footing in his own.

This wisdom is contained in the words we speak to the mourner in the house of shiva – “May God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” Our first thought may be – why do I need to hear about the mourners of Zion? Yet to know one’s grief is shared is both a comfort and the beginning of the wisdom needed to return to life.

The pain of loss does not vanish. As with all of us, for Aaron, there is a wound that never entirely heals. But he is able to continue, to contribute and to lead, so that when Aaron himself dies “all of Israel mourned” (Numbers 20:29).”