Chukat: Sapped

And the Israelites came, the whole congregation, to the wilderness of Tzin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadeish, and Miriam died there and she was buried there. (Numbers/Bemidbar 20:1)

It is the first new moon of the fortieth year since the Israelites left Egypt, and almost all of the adults in that exodus have died. They spend their final year in the wilderness traveling from the desert of the northern Sinai peninsula to the Jordan River in this week’s Torah portion, Chukat (Numbers 19:1-22:1).

The men of the new generation were all under twenty when they left Egypt with their parents. They reached the southern border of Canaan about two years later (including a long layover at Mount Sinai). But then their fathers refused to cross the ridge and attack the natives.¹ God decreed that the Israelites would have to spend another 38 years in the wilderness, for a total of 40 years, while everyone who had refused to cross the border died—the entire older generation, except for Caleb and Joshua. Only then would God would let them conquer the land of Canaan.

During most of the waiting period they camped in the relative comfort of the oasis of Kadeish-Barnea in the northern Sinai peninsula.² But thirty-eight years is a long time to spend waiting, and the people got cranky and restless. So did Moses, who did not even want the job of leading the Israelites in the first place when God recruited him at the age of 80.³

Now it is finally time to head for Canaan again. But this time they must cross a different border. Instead of returning to the southern border, the nest generation of Israelites must march east to Edom, then north along the east side of the Dead Sea until they reach the Jordan River, and see Canaan on the other side.

The Israelites refused to cross from Kadeish Barnea to Chormah, then change their minds and lose the battle (Numbers 13). 37 years later they travel to the Jordan River (Numbers 19-21).

They set off across the wilderness of Tzin. But even before they reach Edom, things start to go wrong. First Miriam dies (presumably of natural causes, since at this point she is more than 130 years old). The Torah gives no details about the people’s reaction, but Miriam was a prophet and a leader in her own right, not merely the sister of Moses and Aaron, so she must have been universally mourned.

Whining about water

Next they camp in a place where there is no water. This has not happened since Exodus 17:1, when the Israelites camped at Refidim, the last stop before Mount Sinai.⁴At Refidim, the older generation of Israelites demanded water from Moses, and complained:

“Why this bringing us up from Egypt [only to] to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3)

Now the younger generation makes a similar complaint.

And there was no water for the congregation; then they assembled against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses, and they said: “If only we had expired when our kinsmen expired in front of God! Why have you brought God’s assembly to this wilderness to die there, we and our cattle? And why did you bring us up from Egypt to hand us over to this evil place, a place with no grain or figs or vines of pomegranates? And there is no water to drink!” (Numbers 20:2-5)

At least this generation of Israelites knows that it is God’s assembly. Yet the people complain against their human leaders, Moses and Aaron, who have no control over desert conditions. And 38 years after Refidim they still do not trust God to make sure they do not die of thirst.

At Refidim, back in the book of Exodus, God told Moses to take the staff he had used to initiate miracles in Egypt, and walk ahead to Mount Sinai with some of the Israelite elders.

“Here, I will be standing in front of you there on the rock at Chorev [Mount Sinai]. And you must strike the rock, and water will go out from it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did this before the eyes of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:6)

This time around, in the Torah portion Chukat, God gives Moses different instructions:

“Take the staff and assemble the community, you and your brother Aaron, and speak to the rock spur before their eyes, and it will give its water. And you will bring out water for them from the rock spur, and you will provide drink for the community and their beasts.” (Numbers 20:8)

The lack of water is real, and God calmly calls for a demonstration of divine compassion. But Moses is not listening carefully or thinking clearly—perhaps because he is still grieving for his sister. He takes the staff out of the sanctuary tent, where it has been kept “as a sign for recalcitrants”⁵ ever since God made it miraculously sprout and flower following the rebellions in the portion Korach. (See my post Korach: Quelling Rebellion, Part 2.)

Moses Strikes the Rock, by James Tissot, circa 1900

Then in his emotional reaction to the current rebellion, Moses forgets that the flowering staff is supposed to remind rebels that God put Aaron and Moses in charge. He also forgets God’s command to speak to the rock, instead of hitting it like last time. Without thinking, Moses yells at the rebels and hits the rock with the staff.

And Moses and Aaron assembled the assembly in front of the rock spur, and he said to them: “Listen up, recalcitrants! Must we bring out water for you from this rock spur?” Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock spur twice with his staff. And abundant water came out, and the community and its beasts drank. (Numbers 20:10-11)

Thus God exercises compassion and gives the people water even though they did not trust God to provide for them. The whining Israelites are off the hook—for now. But Moses should have trusted and followed God’s instructions to the letter, and when he started to say the wrong thing, Aaron should have intervened.

And God said to Moses and to Aaron: “Since lo he-emantem bi, to treat me as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assembly to the land that I have given them.” (Numbers 20:12)

lo he-emantem bi (לֺא־הֶאֱמַנְתֶּם בִּי) = you did not exhibit trust in me; you did not rely upon me. (Lo (לֺא) = not. He-emantem (הֶאֱמַנְתֶּם) = you believed, you considered reliable, you relied upon, you put trust in, you had faith. Bi (בִּי) = in me, on me.)

Perhaps there had been a tacit understanding that Caleb and Joshua were not the only two men from the old generation who would survive to enter Canaan. After all, why would God exclude Moses and Aaron, who had been equally loyal to God’s agenda at the southern border of Canaan?

Now God explicitly dooms Moses and Aaron to die without entering Canaan, on the grounds that they disobeyed God’s orders about getting water out of this second rock in the desert. Although the most likely cause of their disobedience was the emotional exhaustion that follows the death of a close family member, God points out that nevertheless they should have relied entirely on God’s orders to them.

In the past, Moses and Aaron have sometimes had good ideas that went beyond God’s instructions. And Moses has successfully argued with God for a change in a divine decree. Perhaps the lesson this time is that when they are not able to think clearly, their job is to simply follow God’s instructions to the letter.

Moaning about manna

The next part of the journey toward Canaan does not go well, either. Moses asks the king of Edom permission to go through his land, and promises that the Israelites will stay on the king’s highway, leave the fields untouched, and refrain from using any water from the wells. But the king of Edom refuses. So the Israelites have to circle around Edom and head north through the wilderness beyond Edom, land unclaimed by any country.

Next Aaron dies, and all the Israelites stop and mourn for him for thirty days. When they continue their journey skirting the kingdom of Edom, they get short-tempered.

… and the nefesh of the people became too short on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread and there is no water, and this wretched food makes our nefesh gag!” (Numbers 21:4-5)

nefesh (נֶפֶשׁ) = throat, appetite, animating soul, life, personality, mood.

The people’s comment that there is no water seems to be an automatic reflex; there is no indication of an actual water shortage. And their complaint that there is no bread does not mean there is an actual food shortage; they still get daily rations of manna from heaven—which they now call “wretched food”.

The Israelites are not in any danger. They are simply tired of the conditions they have endured all these years while dreaming of a better life in Canaan. And now, just when they are finally heading to Canaan, they discover they have to take the long way around. They are like young children who missed their nap and, as they are being dragged along by their parents, moan: “When are we ever going to get there? I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! It’s too far!”

Except that these children have lost two of their three “parents”. Aaron’s son Elazar replaced him as high priest, but out of the original three siblings who led them out of Egypt, only Moses is left.

The Israelites have not complained about the manna for 37 years. The last time was a disaster.⁶ This time, Moses does not even react. He is grieving for his brother now, as well as his sister. And he may feel overwhelmed with guilt, or perhaps bitterness, because God punished him for hitting the rock. He is in no condition to make any decisions.

But God, who exercised forbearance when the people complained about the absence of water in the desert of Tzin, does not hesitate to punish them this time.

Then God sent burning-serpents against the people, and they bit the people, and many of the Israelites died. (Numbers 21: 6)

The sadder but wiser Israelites realize they blew it again. They come to Moses and say:

Moses and the Brazen Serpent, Bible card by Providence Lithograph Co.,1907

“We did wrong because we spoke against God and against you. Pray to God, and he might remove the serpent from upon us!” And Moses prayed for the benefit of the people. Then God said to Moses: “Make for yourself a burning-serpent and put it on a pole. And it will be that anyone who is bitten and sees it will live.” And Moses made a brass serpent and put it on the pole, and it happened: if a serpent bit a person and he looked at the brass serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:7-9)

Even in his deep depression, Moses responds when his “children”, the human beings he is shepherding through the wilderness and its hazards, admit their error and ask him for help. He prays for them, and then follows God’s instructions for saving their lives.

Even worn-out children can learn from their mistakes. And even worn-out parents with their own woes, who are too exhausted to think straight, can rush to help someone with an actual need.

May we all receive extra strength when we are sapped of energy, so we can rise to meet the most important needs for ourselves and others.

Numbers 13:31-14:35.
See my post Shelach Lekha: Courage and Kindness.
Exodus 3:11-18.
The 38 years without complaints about water (but with plenty of complaints about other things) led to a story in the midrash that a magical well of water traveled along with Miriam, and disappeared when she died. This popular legend was recorded as early as the 2^nd century C.E., in Sefer Olam Rabbah.
Numbers 17:25.
Numbers 11:5-34.

Haftarat Korach—1 Samuel: Is it Tohu?

If you already have a leader chosen by God, what more do you need?

This week’s Torah portion is Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32), in which Korach and 250 other Levites demand equal power with the high priest, Aaron, on the grounds that they are just as holy. Meanwhile Datan and Aviram, chieftains of the tribe of Reuben, argue that they would be better leaders than Moses. Never mind that God picked Moses and Aaron. The rebels see the responsibilities of their two leaders as privileges, and they want the same privileges. (See my post Korach: Quelling Rebellion, Part 1.) Since God is not on board with this, they all die.

The accompanying haftarah reading is a passage from the first book of Samuel (1 Samuel 11:14-12:22) in which the Israelites get their own king. For years Samuel has served as a prophet and the chief judge for the scattered Israelites communities, and God has sent an ad-hoc general in times of war. (See my post Haftarat Korach—1 Samuel: Ultimate Power.) But when Samuel gets old, and his sons turn out to be bad judges who accept bribes, the Israelites no longer accept this arrangement. They want a king, like every other country.¹

King from Hazor, 15th-13th century BCE (photo by MC)

But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s voice, and they said: “No! Because if a king is over us, then we, too, we be like all the nations. And our king, shefatanu and go out before us and fight our wars.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

shefatanu (שְׁפָטָנוּ) = he will make decisions for us, he will judge us, he will arbitrate for us, he will determine the law for us. (From the same root as shofeit, שֺׁפֵט = judge.)

The Israelites have mixed motives for their request for a king. On one hand, they want Samuel’s successor as the chief judge to be someone better than Samuel’s corrupt sons. On the other hand, they view the institution of kingship as a privilege that other nations have, and they lack. Although they do not mention it, the Israelites might also be afraid that the next time there is a war and they need an ad-hoc general, God might not provide one. With a human king, they would have a permanent chief judge and commander-in-chief.

Samuel Anoints Saul, by W. Werthmann, 1873

Samuel checks with God, then inaugurates the first king of Israel: a young Benjaminite named Saul whose only outstanding quality is his height. In this week’s haftarah, Samuel expresses his unhappiness about the new arrangement. Until now, he has been the only one “walking in front of” the Israelites, i.e. their only leader.

Then Samuel said to all Israel: “Hey, I have heeded your voices in everything you said to me, and I have set a king over you. And now, hey! The king will be walking in front of you. And I have grown old … And I have been walking in front of you from my youth until this day.” (1 Samuel 12:1-2)

Samuel reminds the Israelites that God is their true king. Then he cannot resist calling for a miracle before he steps aside as a judge. (He remains a prophet, with power over King Saul, until he dies many years later.) Samuel announces:

“Now station yourselves and see this great thing that God will do before your eyes. Is it not the wheat harvest? I will call to God, and [God] will send thunder and rain. Then you will realize and see that what you did was very wicked in the eyes of God, asking for a king for yourselves.” (1 Samuel 12:16-17)

The time of the wheat harvest is early summer, when it almost never rains. Furthermore, although winter and spring rains are essential, when the wheat is ripe a heavy rain would impede and reduce the harvest.

Then Samuel called to God, and God sent thunder and rain on that day, and all the people were very frightened of God and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel: “Pray for your servants to God, your God, so we will not die! For we have added to all our offenses the wickedness of asking for a king.” (1 Samuel 12:18-19)

Confronted with divine power, the Israelites panic. This is the effect Samuel wanted, according to the 15^th-century rabbi Isaac Arama:

“The people had to be disabused of the idea … that their troubles were due to their not having a king to lead them, rather than to the fact that they had been disobedient to God. Samuel spelled out to them that a king’s success would be contingent on their being obedient to God’s laws. He added that in the event of disobedience to God by either the king or the nation, they would not only have to suffer the yoke of foreign oppression but also the yoke of their own king.”²

Then Samuel said to the people: “Do not fear. You have done all this evil; however, do not veer away from following God, but serve God with all your heart. And do not veer away toward following the tohu, which cannot do any good nor rescue you, since it is tohu. For God will not abandon [God’s] people, for the sake of [God’s] great name, since God has undertaken to make you [God’s] people.” (1 Samuel 12:21-22)

tohu (תֺהוּ) = nothing, emptiness, void; unreality; chaos; worthlessness.

The noun tohu occurs in 19 verses of the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in the second verse of the book of Genesis, where it is something that existed before God began to create the world: either a primordial undifferentiated substance,³ or a void with potential. According to 16^th-century rabbi Ovadiah Sforno:

“The first raw material was something entirely new. It is described as tohu to indicate that at that point it was merely something which had potential, the potential not yet having been converted to something actual.”⁴

Tohu means a condition of unreality not only in Genesis 1:2, but also in Jeremiah 4:23, Job 26:7, and four places in Isaiah.⁵ Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, tohu refers to a desolate trackless waste, either empty or chaotically ruined—the worst sort of desert.⁶

And four times in Isaiah the word tohu means complete worthlessness, a waste of time.⁷ This is probably the meaning of tohu in this week’s haftarah, when Samuel warns: “Do not veer away toward following the tohu, which cannot do any good nor rescue you, since it is tohu.” He is urging the Israelites not to disobey God, and unless otherwise specified, disobeying God usually means idol-worship—which is useless anyway. Samuel also reminds the people that they do not need idols of other gods, because God has adopted them and will not utterly abandon them. Underneath that message is the implication that the king they have requested is also tohu, a waste of time, since the Israelites were doing fine with God as their king and Samuel as their prophet and judge.

Will the king be a shofeit, a judge who enforces order, law, and justice in the land after Samuel has died? Or will the king be tohu whose majesty is an unreal fiction, a worthless leader who makes life more chaotic?

That is the question that confronts everyone facing a big change in the government, in an organization, or in personal circumstances. We all depend on the justice and mercy of other people. How can we know whom to trust, when we are not prophets and cannot get an answer from God?

1 Samuel 8:1-5.
Isaac ben Moses Arama, Akeidat Yitzchak, translation by www.Sefaria.org.
Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, 1160–1235) equated the tohu in Genesis 1:2 with the water mentioned at the end of the verse: something without definite, solid dimensions.
Translation by www.Sefaria.org.
Isaiah 29:21, 40:17, 40:23, 41:29.
Deuteronomy 32:10; Isaiah 24:10, 34:11, 45:18; Psalm 107:40; Job 6:18, 12:24.
Isaiah 44:9, 45:19, 49:4, 59:4.

Shelach-Lekha: War and Peace

Beha-alotkha: Waving Levites

Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, the leaders of the Exodus from Egypt, were born into the tribe of Levi.¹ When the Israelites are wildly worshiping the Golden Calf, Moses calls out:

“Whoever is for God, to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. (Exodus 32:26)

Numbering of the Israelites, by Henri P.E. Philippoteaux, 19th century

The male descendants of Levi obey Moses’ order to go through the camp killing the calf-worshippers. But the Levites are not specifically mentioned again until the book of Numbers, which begins with a census of all the men of Israel who are twenty years old and above and are able to bear arms. The three priests (Aaron and his two surviving sons, Elazar and Itamar) and the tribe of Levi are excluded.

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Indeed, you must not muster the tribe of Levi; you must not lift their heads [i.e. count them in a census] among the sons of Israel. You must assign the Levites over the Sanctuary of the Testimony, and over all its gear, and over all that belongs to it. They will carry the sanctuary and all its gear, and they themselves will guard it and they will camp all around the sanctuary.” (Numbers/Bemidbar 1:48-50)

The “Sanctuary of the Testimony” is the portable tent-sanctuary the Israelites made for God in Exodus, with the “Ark of the Testimony” in its rear chamber, the Holy of Holies. This sanctuary is also called the Tent of Meeting, since Moses and God converse there.

Later in the first Torah portion of Numbers, Bemidbar, God adds:

“Bring forward the tribe of Levi and station them in front of Aaron hakohein, and they will wait on him. And they … serve the service of the sanctuary.” (Numbers 3:6)

hakohein (הַכֹּהֵן) = the priest (usually the high priest). Kohein (כֺּהֵן) = priest, and kohanim (כֺּהֲנִים) = priests.

The book of Numbers establishes three categories of people: priests (Kohanim), Levites (Leviyim), and Israelites (Yisrael). Even today, when Jews give their Hebrew names at services, those descended from the Kohanim add “hakohein” and those descended from the Leviyim add “halevi”.² All other Jews are in the Yisrael category.

The priests (kohanim) and the Levites (Leviyim) get their ordination in two different books of the Torah. This week’s Torah portion, Beha-alotkha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) ordains the Levites in a ceremony that treats them like an animal offering.

But the first priests are ordained in the book of Leviticus, when the altar is inaugurated.³ Their ordination ceremony treats them like the altar.

Ordination of priests

This ordination of priests begins when Moses washes Aaron and his sons with water, dresses them in their new vestments, and anoints both the men and the altar and sanctuary-tent with oil. Then Moses, acting as a priest for the last time, slaughters a bull and two rams. The second ram is the ordination offering. After Aaron and his sons have laid their hands on its head, Moses slaughters it, then applies its blood, mixed with oil, to the corners of altar as well as to the right ears, right thumbs, and right big toes of Aaron and his sons. (See my post Tzav: Oil and Blood.) In other words, the priests are consecrated the same way as the altar, with anointing oil and blood.

After the blood-dabbing, the new priests hold out their hands, and Moses gives them the fat parts of the ram, its right thigh, a loaf of bread, and two cakes.

And he placed everything on the palms of Aaron and his sons, vayanef them as a tenufah before God.” (Leviticus/Vayikra 8:27)

vayanef (וַיָּנֶף) = and he waved, moved back and forth. (A form of the verb nuf, נוּף = move back and forth, wave, lift.)

tenufah (תְּנוּפָה) = wave-offering. (A noun derived from the root verb nuf, but often translated as “elevation offering” because the offering is usually lifted in the priest’s hands before being waved.)

This is the first tenufah in the Torah, but a tenufah is prescribed for many types of offerings in the book of Leviticus. The object lifted and waved before being given to God is often, but not always, the portion of an offering reserved for the priests to eat. In this instance, Moses appears to be guiding the hands of the new priests in the correct waving movements.

Ordination of Levites

Serving as priest is a full-time job in the Torah. Someone else has to cover the remaining work to keep the religion going: the Levites.

In the first two Torah portions of the book of Numbers, the Levites are given responsibility for disassembling the Tent of Meeting, transporting the pieces (as well as the sacred objects, which the priests have wrapped), and re-erecting the tent and courtyard—every time the people travel to a new campsite. They must also guard the tent from intruders, and assist the priests as requested.⁴

The [Levite] Choristers, by James J.J. Tissot, circa 1900

When the second temple in Jerusalem is erected in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Levites are divided into singers and musicians, gatekeepers, and temple servants.⁵ Levites are also assigned the duty of collecting tithes (under the supervision of priests).⁶

The Levites are ordained in this week’s Torah portion in Numbers, Beha-alotkha. While the priests’ ordination treats them like the altar, the Levites’ ordination treats them like pieces of an offering at the altar.

Both ceremonies begin with washing for ritual purification, but the Levites do it a different way from the priests.

And God spoke to Moses, saying: “Take the Levites from among the Israelites and purify them. And this is what you will do to purify them: Sprinkle water of exoneration over them, and make them pass a razor over all their flesh; and they should wash their clothes and purify themselves.” (Numbers 8:5-7)

Animal offerings are already pure, since the animals must be not only kosher, but also without any physical blemishes.⁷

“And you must bring forward the Levites in front of the Tent of Meeting, and assemble the whole community of Israelites. And you will offer the Levites in front of God, and the Israelites will lay their hands on the Levites.” (Numbers 8:9-10)

Anyone who offers an animal at the altar first lays a hand on its head. But here, all the Israelites lay hands on the Levites—making the men of Levi their offering to God.

“Then the Levites will lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, and make one of them an exoneration-offering and the other a rising-offering for God, to make atonement for the Levites. Then you shall station the Levites in front of Aaron and in front of his sons, veheinafta them tenufah for God.” (Numbers 8:12-13)

veheinafta (וְהֵנַפתָּ) = and you will wave; and you have waved. (Another form of the verb nuf.)

At their own ordination ceremony, the priests wave choice parts of their animal and grain offering. But at their subordinates’ ordination ceremony, the priests wave the Levites themselves—after the Israelites have laid hands on them. The living men in the tribe of Levi are a tenufah from the Israelites to God.

We can only speculate about how these men were waved back and forth by the three priests. According to Kohelet Rabbah, “Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Aaron [picked up and] waved twenty-two thousand Levites on one day.”⁸

“And you will segregate the Levites from among the Israelites, and the Levites will be mine. And after this, the Levites will come to serve the Tent of Meeting, when have purified them veheinafta them as a tenufah. Because they were definitively given to me from among the Israelites to replace the openers of all wombs, the firstborn if all the Israelites, for me to take them.” (Numbers 8:14-16)

This quote from God reaffirms that the firstborn sons of various clans in every tribe will no longer run the family’s religious practice. From the portion Beha-alotkha on, religious positions in Israelite society are the sole prerogatives of hereditary priests and Levites.

Rabbis, rather than priests, have been the Jewish religious authorities since 70 C.E., when the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Today any Jew can study and be certified as a rabbi, regardless of ancestry. The ordination ceremony includes smichah, in which established rabbis lay hands on the heads of the new rabbis.

There are also a number of supporting roles to keep Jewish communities going, from cantors and other service leaders to kosher butchers; these, too, depend on training rather than ancestry. When there is a ceremony to recognize people taking on these roles, it might also include smichah, but I have never heard of anyone waving the initiates back and forth.

Religious practices in the Torah are full of blood and slaughter. I thank God that Jews no longer have a temple with an altar, that we have moved on to addressing God through words rather than through burning dismembered animals. But I would like to see Levites being waved.

Exodus 6:16-20.
Genetic research has shown that most men called kohanim today do share a genetic marker. The leviyim do not, but the designation is still handed down through the generations by tradition.
The ritual is prescribed in Exodus 29:4-29 and performed in Leviticus 8:1-9:24.
Numbers 1:50-51. See my post Bemidbar & Naso: Dangerous Duty.
Ezra 2:40-55, 3:10-11, 7:7, 7:24 and Nehemiah 7:1-46. (1 Chronicles 6:16-18 claims that King David appointed Levites to sing in front of the tent-sanctuary in Jerusalem before Solomon built the first temple, but Chronicles was written after the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, at least five centuries after the time of David. Rabbis in the Talmud claimed that some Levites were singers even in the book of Numbers, but there is no actual textual evidence. 1 Chron. 9:21-27 makes a similar specious claim regarding gatekeepers.)
Nehemiah 10:38-40.
See my post Emor: Flawed Worship.
Kohelet Rabbah 12:7:1, written 700-950 C.E./, translated in www.sefaria.org.

Bemidbar & Naso: Why Cover the Altar?

Moses assembles the tent-sanctuary for God at Mount Sinai at the end of the book of Exodus. At the beginning of the book of Numbers, the people prepare to leave Mount Sinai and head to Canaan—with their portable tent-sanctuary, where God is present. So God gives instructions for dismantling, covering, and carrying all the pieces of the sanctuary in the first two Torah portions of the book of Numbers: last week’s portion, Bemidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20), and this week’s portion, Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89).

Kohatites carry the ark, detail from “Israel Enters the Land of Promise” Bible card, Providence Lithograph Co,, c. 1907

The priests must hide the holy objects inside the tent-sanctuary from view before the tent can be dismantled. Aaron and his two surviving sons must take down the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the front chamber. They must cover the ark with the curtain, then add two more coverings. They also spread three coverings over the gold bread table, two over the gold lampstand, and two over the gold incense altar. The Levites are not allowed to touch, or even look at, these most sacred objects until they have been covered. Only they can they pick up the objects by their carrying poles and transport them to the next campsite.

The three priests must also cover the copper altar outside the tent.

And they must clean fatty ashes off the mizbeiach, and they must spread a cloth of red-violet wool over it. And they must place upon [the cloth] all the utensils with which they serve at it: the cinder pails, the meat-forks and the scrapers, and the sprinkling basins, all the utensils of the mizbeiach. And they must spread out over them a cover of tachash skin, and they must place its carrying poles. (Numbers 4:13-14)

mizbeiach (מִזְבֵּחַ) = altar for offerings. (From the root verb zavach, זָבַח = slaughter livestock, make a slaughter offering. Altars were built of stone in Genesis and the first part of Exodus. Then God asked the Israelites to make a copper altar to stand in front of the new tent-sanctuary.)

tachash (תַחַשׁ) = an animal that has not been conclusively identified. Its skin must be fairly waterproof, since it is used as the top layer of the tent-sanctuary roof as well as one of the coverings of all the sacred objects the Levites carry when the Israelites are traveling.

Levites carry the altar

The second Torah portion in Numbers, Naso, opens with a census of the Levite clan of Gershon, then assigns its men aged 30 to 50 the duty of carrying the mizbeiach, the outdoor copper altar, as well as the swaths of fabric and skin hanging in (and on) the wooden frameworks of the tent and the courtyard wall.

This is the service of the clans of the Gershunites, for serving and for carrying: They must carry the cloths of the mishkan, and along with the Tent of Meeting its [cloth] covering and the tachash covering that is over on top of it, and the curtain at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and the hangings [enclosing] the courtyard, and the curtain at the entrance—the gate of the courtyard that is around the mishkan and the mizbeiach; and their cords, and all the equipment for their service. (Naso 4:24-26)

mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) = dwelling place. (Usually God’s dwelling place, i.e. the portable sanctuary. From the root verb shakkan, שָׁכַן = settle, dwell, stay.)

During the 39 years the Israelites travel through the wilderness from Mount Sinai to the Jordan River, the mishkan and the Tent of Meeting are synonymous.

This is the service of the clans of the Gershunites regarding the Tent of Meeting, and their custody is in the hand of Itamar, son of Aaron the High Priest. (Numbers 4:28)

This week’s Torah portion assigns the remaining transport duties to two other divisions of Levites. The Kohatites will transport the holy furnishings inside the tent: the ark, table, lampstand, and incense altar. And the Merarites will transport the disassembled wooden frames of the tent and the courtyard wall.

Covering up

When the Israelites are encamped and the sanctuary is in place, only the priests are allowed to enter the Tent of Meeting. Only they may see the sacred objects inside. The Levites assist the priests outside the tent, and guard it from lay intruders. So it makes sense that the priests must cover objects inside, and insert their carrying-poles, before turning them over to the Kohatites to carry. That way, Levites cannot glimpse the sacred objects even when they are breaking camp. (See my post Bemidbar: Don’t Look.)

The copper altar, from Treasures of the Bible, Northrop, 1894

But why must the priests also cover the mizbeiach before it is carried off? The copper altar stands outside the Tent of Meeting. Everyone who enters the courtyard can see it. People bring animal and grain offerings right up to the altar, and watch the priests burn their offerings on it. The mizbeiach hardly needs to be hidden from sight when the Israelites are traveling.

Symbolic colors

The key, according to 19^th-century Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, is that the copper altar is covered with cloth dyed red-violet. Three colors of wool are used in the cloths the Israelite women weave for the mishkan and its courtyard: twilight blue (techeilet, תְכֵלֶת), red-violet (argaman, אַרְגָּמָן), and scarlet (tola-at shani, תוֹלַעַת שָׁנִי).¹ Hirsch wrote that scarlet represents the color of blood, and therefore life at the animal level. Red-violet represents life at the higher, human level. And blue, the color of the sky, represents the limits of our horizon, the divine.

The most holy object, the ark, is covered first with the curtain that normally screens off the back room of the mishkan, the Holy of Holies; in the book of Exodus, this curtain is embroidered using all three colors of wool yarn, as well as fine linen.² Then comes a layer of tachash skin, and after that a layer of wool cloth dyed with techeilet—an expensive blue dye made from murex sea snails.³. The first coverings over the bread table, the lampstand, and the incense altar are also wool dyed with techeilet. This blue, Hirsch wrote, is “close to God in highest holiness.”⁴

The first cloth covering the bread table is blue, but then after its utensils are placed on it, it is covered with a second cloth, this one scarlet. Hirsch explained, “The means of existence and prosperity are granted by God’s ‘Countenance,’ but all these ensure only “shani” [scarlet], animal-bodily life.”⁵

The copper altar, where the animal offerings are burned, does not get a layer of blue cloth. It is unique in that its first covering is red-violet wool.

Hirsch explained: “Argaman [red-violet], on the other hand, the higher, human level of life, is not granted by God. Rather, man must attain this level himself by freely mastering his own desires; he must harness all his animal-bodily powers and subordinate them to God’s will. This is symbolized by the offering altar and by the offering procedures performed on it.”⁶ Following Hirsch’s line of thought, the copper altar might be covered with red-violet cloth in order to illustrate that the sacrificial service at the altar is a method of achieving the human level, the level of free choice, which is symbolized by the red-violet color.

Honor

It is possible that the author of the Torah portions Bemidbar and Naso (which scholars attribute to the same Priestly source as most of Leviticus) found meanings in the colors of the coverings. But I propose a less symbolic explanation.

I think the priests cover the gold objects from inside the mishkan not only to prevent the Levites from seeing them, but also in order to treat God’s sacred objects with honor and respect. I can imagine them ceremonial spreading the blue cloth over each item.

They do not cover the copper outside altar with techeilet blue, but they do use cloth dyed with the next highest-ranking color. Red-violet cloth (also made from murex shells and also expensive) was used for the robes of the Kings of Midian and the seat of King Solomon’s throne.⁷ Covering the mizbeach with this royal color gives it honor and status. Using tachash skin as the top covering would also honor the altar, since the same kind of skin covers the roof of the mishkan.

When the Israelites are encamped, the mizabeiach is used to burn up the fat parts of cattle, sheep, and goats—and sometimes the entire animal—in order to make smoke rise to the heavens for God’s pleasure. This religious act is feasible only because God provides enough abundance so that surplus (mostly male) animals can be slaughtered and offered up.

Since the copper altar is used to honor God and thank God for abundance, it deserves to be honored itself. When the Israelites break camp, the priests honor the altar by draping an expensive royal red-violet cloth over it. This ritual was not as grand as the coronation of a king. But at least it was a way for the priests to show respect for God and their religion.

See my post Bemidbar: Covering the Sacred.
Numbers 4:5 and Exodus 26:31, 36:35.
Numbers 4:7-11.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Bemidbar, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, p. 51.
Ibid.
Ibid.
The kings of Midian appear in Judges 8:26. King Solomon’s throne is in Song of Songs 3:10.

Haftarat Bemidbar—Hosea: An Unequal Marriage

Everyone obeys God in this week’s Torah portion, the opening of the book of Numbers/Bemidbar (“in a wilderness”). Moses passes on God’s instructions for preparing to leave Mount Sinai and head off through the wilderness again. And the Israelites all organize themselves accordingly.

And the children of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses; thus they did. (Numbers 1:54)

The people’s compliance falls apart before they reach the border of Canaan. But for a while, in the wilderness, Israel and God enjoy a honeymoon.

Metaphors of courtship and marriage are often used later in the Hebrew Bible to express the covenant between God and the Israelites. Going by the order of the books in the canon, the first occurrence is in the book of Isaiah.¹ But going by the prophets in historical order, the first occurrence is in the book of Hosea, a prophet who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8^th century B.C.E.

In this week’s haftarah (the reading from the Prophets that accompanies the Torah portion), Hosea criticizes the northern kingdom for worshiping other gods. He calls the kingdom the “mother” of the Israelites, and declares that she has abandoned her legitimate “husband”, God. As God’s mouthpiece, he urges the kingdom’s children, the Israelite people:

Jezebel, by John Liston Byam Shaw, 19th c. (cropped)

Bring a case against your mother, a case!

For she is not my ishah,

And I am not her ish.

She must clear away the whoredom from her face,

And the sign of adultery from between her breasts.

If not, I will strip her down to her nakedness

And display her as on the day she was born.

And I will turn her into a wilderness

And make her like waterless land,

And let her die of thirst. (Hosea 2:4-5)

ishah (אִשָּׁה) = woman; wife.

ish (אִישׁ) = man; husband.

The kingdom of Israel and God had a covenant like a marriage. But Israel broke it by engaging with other gods, and now God, her husband, is rejecting her. “She is not my ishah, and I am not her ish” might be part of an ancient declaration of divorce.

At this point in Hosea’s poem, the God of Israel is still a jealous god, as in the Second Commandment:

You must not bow down to them and you must not serve them; because I, Y-H-V-H, your God, am a jealous god … (Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9)

Israel must clean herself up, like a prostitute who stops working and removes the make-up (whoredom) from her face, and the sachet of perfume (sign of adultery) from between her breasts.² If she does not clean up her act, God will humiliate her by stripping her naked. In Israel’s case, God will strip away her fields, orchards, vineyards, and even water sources, making the land a desolate wilderness. God will accomplish this by afflicting the kingdom with severe drought.

The drought will affect the children of Israel—all its residents. But God says:

And I will not feel compassion for her children

Since they are children of whoredom;

Since their mother whored.

She who conceived them acted shamelessly,

For she thought:

“I will go after my lovers,

Who give me my bread and my water,

My wool and my linen,

My oil and my drink.” (Hosea 2:6-7)

But Israel deceived herself about the source of her food, shelter, and clothing; it was God who gave her everything.

She will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them.

She will seek them, but she will not find them.

Then she will say: “I will go and return to my first ish,

Because it was better for me then than now.” (Hosea 2:9)

After Israel makes this cold and calculating decision, the prophecy says, God will continue to deprive her of grain, wine, wool, and flax for a while.

And I will make a reckoning against her for the days of the be-alim

For which she burned incense

And adorned herself with her nose-ring and her jewelry

And went after her lovers,

And forgot me!—declares God. (Hosea 2:15)

be-alim (בְּעָלִים) = different local versions of Ba-al (singular of be-alim), a West Semitic god of weather, fertility, and war. (Ba-al (בַּעַל) = master, husband, owner; a West Semitic god.)

The angry God-character in the Torah would probably tell Moses, once again, that it was time to start over and choose a new people to rule Canaan, and then Moses would have to talk God down again. But in the book of Hosea, God will eventually forgive. Once the kingdom of Israel has become a wilderness, God will woo Israel back.

Therefore, hey! I will be her seducer

And I will lead her through the wilderness

And I will speak upon her heart. (Hosea 2:16)

In the Hebrew Bible, speaking upon someone’s heart means changing their feelings. (See my post: Vayishlach: Change of Heart, Part 1.)

And I will give her grapevines from there,

And the Valley of Akhor as an opening for hope.

She will respond there as in the days of her youth,

As on the day she came up from the land of Egypt.

Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, by Simeon Solomon, 1863

And it will be on that day—declares God—

You will call me “my ish”,

And you will no longer call me “my ba-al”.

I will remove the names of the be-alim from her mouth,

and their names will no longer be remembered. (Hosea 2:17-19)

The statement that Israel will cease to call God her ba-al has a double meaning. Israel will think of God affectionately, as a husband who is her ish (her man), rather than her ba-al (her master). But also she will no longer call upon Ba-al, the Canaanite deity.

The haftarah ends with a marriage formula (which has become part of the prayer for putting on tefillin³):

I will betroth you to me forever,

And I will betroth you to me with rightness and with lawfulness,

And with loyalty and with mercy;

And I will betroth you to me with faithfulness,

And you will know God. (Hosea 2:21-22)

This strikes me as an amazing betrothal. In our modern world, when two human beings get engaged, we assume both parties want the marriage and are independently motivated to commit to it. But in this passage, all the commitment comes from God.

Are rightness, lawfulness, loyalty, mercy, and faithfulness the qualities that God is promising to exhibit as Israel’s future husband? Or are they the qualities that God intends to instill in Israel, so the marriage can last?

Either way, all Israel does is respond when God speaks upon her heart. God does not require any prior searching, repentance, or reform on Israel’s part. God will take care of everything. And then, the text promises, you will know God. The verb for “know” here, yada (יָדַ), is used for knowledge from direct experience, including sexual knowledge.

During the periods of my life when I felt lost in a wilderness, I continued to sing prayers, but I did not have the heart to passionately seek God. I recited the Shema, with its command: You must love God, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5). But I have never achieved it. I love my husband that way, but then, I know him much better than I know God.

I am acquainted with people who claim to know (have direct experience of) God. I have had a few fleeting transcendent experiences myself, but I would not presume to claim that they were direct experiences of God. And I am content with not knowing—as well as grateful for all the blessings in my life, whatever their source. Paradoxically, one great blessing is that I am able to engage with Torah and think about God.

Yet some people need more than that. So I pray that everyone who needs a personal commitment to God will be blessed to hear God speak upon their hearts, and to know God.

Isaiah 54:1-10.
See Song of Songs 1:13.
Tefillin (תְּפִלִין) is the Hebrew word for the set of two black leather boxes with straps which a Jewish man traditionally wraps around his head and none-dominant arm before praying. (The Hebrew word for prayer is tefilah, תְּפִלַּה.) “Laying” or wrapping oneself with tefillin is like putting on a wedding ring: a tangible sign of commitment.

Jeremiah & Psalm 139: Mind Versus Conscience

Jeremiah offers an insight on human psychology in the haftarah reading that accompanies the Torah portion Bechukotai in Leviticus this week. The haftarah (Jeremiah 16:19-17:14) warms up with one of Jeremiah’s predictions that the kingdom of Judah will be lost because its people lack trust in God and persist in worshiping idols. (Jeremiah lived through the Babylonian conquest of Judah and their siege and destruction of Jerusalem.)

Jeremiah adds that the people of Judah should not expect their own military power to save them.

Cursed is the man who trusts in humankind,

And makes human flesh his strength. (Jeremiah 17:5)

In other words, you cannot win a war with armies alone. Jeremiah goes on to say that only those who trust in God will flourish. (See my post Haftarat Bechukotai–Jeremiah: Trust Me.) Then he touches on another problem about trusting human beings. His two-verse gem on human psychology is rich in words that can be translated as either physical objects or psychological states. So I made three translations. The first one leaves the metaphors in the original Hebrew:

The leiv (לֵב) is more akov (עָקֺב) than anything,

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a leiv,

Testing the kelayot (כְּלָיוֹת),

And allotting to a man according to his drachim (דְּרָכִים),

According to the peri (פְּרִי) of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Next I translate the ambiguous words literally:

The heart is more a heel than anything.

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a heart,

Testing the kidneys,

And allotting to a man according to his roads,

According to the fruit of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Finally, here is a version with all the ambiguous words translated metaphorically:

The mind is more devious than anything.

And it is pathological; who can understand it?

I am God, who investigates a mind,

Examining the conscience,

And allotting to a man according to his conduct,

According to the result of his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Heart and Kidneys

In English, the heart is the metaphorical location of feelings, while the brain is the location of thoughts. In the Hebrew Bible, the heart is the seat of both feeling and thinking. The word for “heart” (leiv or levav) is used for the whole conscious mind—except for one mental function: our conscience. The awareness of what we ought to do is assigned to the kidneys in the bible. (See my post: Vayikra & Jeremiah: Kidneys.) Kidneys are often paired with hearts because, according to one commentary:

“The kidneys advise the heart, and the heart decides.”¹

If we are accustomed to following our “kidneys” (conscience), our decision-making is straightforward; we reject thoughts of gratifying our immoral impulses, choose the course of action God would approve of, and do it. But if we do not listen for the voice of our conscience, its advice is drowned out by conflicting desires, our “hearts” (minds) make less virtuous decisions, and we reflexively invent devious rationalizations for them.

“Who can understand it?” indicates that people cannot fully understand even their own minds, nor the minds of their fellow human beings. Only God can investigate a human’s psychology and understand everything inside, heart and kidneys.

Jeremiah: Examine me and my enemies

Biblical characters who believe they are virtuous, and their enemies are not, welcome God’s investigation of human minds. In two other poetic passages in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet urges God to examine and punish his enemies. Before this week’s haftarah, Jeremiah reports that God told him idolaters from his hometown, Anatot, were scheming to kill him in order to stop his prophesies.

Then God let me know, and I knew.

That was when you let me see their deeds.

And I was like a docile lamb who was brought to slaughter,

And I did not know that they had plotted plots against me …

So God of Hosts, righteous judge,

Who examines kidneys (conscience) and heart (mind),

Let me see your vengeance upon them!

For I bring my case to you. (Jeremiah 11:18-20)

In a passage after this week’s haftarah, Jeremiah is released from prison in Jerusalem but cannot stop speaking God’s prophecies, even though the city is full of informers. He uses similar language about these Jerusalemites:

So God of Hosts, righteous examiner,

Who sees kidneys (conscience) and heart (mind),

Let me see your vengeance upon them!

For I bring my case to you. (Jeremiah 20:12)

Psalm 139: Improve my thoughts

Psalm 139 begins:

God, you investigate me and you know me.

You know when I sit down or get up.

You see my thoughts from afar. (Psalm 139:1-2)

The psalmist marvels at everything God knows about a person, concluding:

Knowledge is too extraordinary for me;

It is too high; I am not capable of it. (Psalm 139:6)

The next verse is:

Where could I go from your spirit?

And where could I disappear from your presence? (Psalm 139: 7)

The 19^th-century commentator S.R. Hirsch elaborated on these two questions, filling in the context: “Where could I go to escape Your ‘spirit’ so that it might not move me, stir me, fill my heart and summon my conscience before Your judgment seat? And whither could I flee from Your ‘countenance’ where You would not see me, where Your rule would not touch me?”²

In other words, God is not an abstract omniscient deity to the psalmist; they feel God’s spirit move through their mind, move their own spirit, and summon their own conscience—which then reminds the mind of God’s judgment.

The next five verses expand on how there is no place to hide from God. The psalmist then explains:

Because you yourself produced my kidneys (conscience);

You wove me together in my mother’s belly. (Psalm 139:13)

After realizing the intimate relationship between the inner conscience and the judgement of God, the psalmist concludes by asking for God’s evaluation:

Search me, God, and know my heart (mind);

Examine me and know my thoughts,

And see if a distressing road (line of conduct) is in me;

Then lead me on an everlasting road (line of conduct)! (Psalm 139:23-24)

The conscience has won.

The human mind is devious, Jeremiah says in this week’s haftarah. When we become accustomed to avoiding the advice of our conscience, our excuses and self-deception become pathological. Only God can investigate a human’s psychology, see through the deception, and deal justice to evildoers.

The writer of Psalm 139 finds God’s attention to the human mind uncomfortably invasive at first, but then welcomes God’s correction through one’s innate conscience. It is better to give up transitory secret pleasures, the psalmist concludes, in order to lead a life dedicated to doing the right things.

Some people succumb to immoral impulses frequently, and deceive themselves as well as others about their motivations. As Jeremiah says, the human mind is naturally devious. But as Psalm 139 says, humans are born with a conscience.³ It is up to us to decide how much to listen to it, and how much to reject it and rationalize our decisions.

Midrash Tehillim (a collection of commentary on the Psalms completed by the 11^th century C.E.), Psalm 14:1 on Jeremiah 17:10.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Tehillim, translated by Gertrude Hirschler, Feldheim Publishers, Nanuet, NY, 2014 (original German edition 1882), p. 1107.
Except, perhaps, for the small percentage of humans who are sociopathic or psychopathic. It is still a matter of debate whether someone with a weak or nonexistent conscience is born that way, or becomes that way through certain kinds of early childhood trauma.

Emor & Job: A Sacred Name

A man who blasphemes the name of God is executed in this week’s Torah portion, Emor, in the book of Leviticus.

In English, “blasphemy” means insulting or showing contempt for a god, or for something sacred. In Biblical Hebrew, there is no word that exactly corresponds to “blasphemy”. Humans do not have the power to profane God, and our curses are only effective if God chooses to carry them out. We can, however, misuse sacred objects, making them chalal חָלַל = profaned, degraded by being used for an ordinary purpose. And we can insult or belittle God’s name, which is a type of blasphemy.¹ In Biblical Hebrew, one’s name also means one’s reputation.

Yet the idea of reviling God or God’s name was so abominable to the ancient Israelites that the bible usually indicates blasphemy through euphemisms or near-synonyms.

Blasphemy with a euphemism in 1 Kings and Job

Naboth’s Stoning in Front of the Vineyard, Anon., Prague, 14th century

The verb barakh (בָּרַךְ), meaning to bless or utter a blessing, appears frequently in the Hebrew Bible. But twice in the first book of Kings and four times in the book of Job, this verb serves as a euphemism for blaspheming or cursing God.

In 1 Kings, Nabot owns a vineyard adjacent to palace of King Ahab. Ahab offers to buy the land, but Nabot refuses. The king is so upset that his wife, Jezebel, schemes to kill Nabot so she can seize the vineyard for her husband. She writes orders in the king’s name telling the judges of the town to summon Nabot.

“And seat two worthless men opposite him, and they must testify, saying: ‘Beirakhta God and king!’ Then take him out and stone him so he dies.” (1 Kings 21:10)

beirakhta (בֵּרַכְתָּ) = you “blessed”.

The judges follow orders. The two worthless men use exactly those words, and everyone knows they really mean that Nabot reviled God and the king. Nabot is executed by stoning.

At the beginning of the book of Job, Job is so devout he makes extra burnt offerings for his adult children, saying to himself:

“Perhaps my children are guilty, uveirakhu God in their hearts.” (Job 1:15)

uveirakhu (וּבֵרַכוּ) = and they “blessed”.

Job not only worries that his children might have some negative thoughts about God, but even uses a euphemism for blasphemy when he talks to himself.

The action of the story switches to the heavenly court of the “children of God”—perhaps lesser gods or angels. The God character mentions how upright and God-fearing Job is. The satan (שָׂטָן = adversary, accuser) in the court points out that God has blessed Job with wealth and children, so of course the man responds with grateful service. He adds:

“However, just stretch out your hand and afflict everything that is his. Surely yevarakhekha to your face!” (Job 1:11)

yevarakhekha (יְוָרַכֶךָּ) = he will “bless” you.

Thus the satan in the heavenly court also uses blessing as a euphemism for cursing God. The God character gives the satan permission to run the experiment, and in four simultaneous disasters Job loses his livestock, his servants, and all his children. Job responds:

“Y-H-V-H gave and Y-H-V-H took away. May the name of Y-H-V-H be a mevorakh.” Through all that, Job did not sin and did not accuse God of worthlessness. (Joab 1:21)

mevorakh (מְבֺרָךְ) = blessing.

Here Job actually does bless God’s four-letter personal name. He does not use the word for “bless” to revile or curse God.

The God character points out to the satan that Job’s devotion to God has not wavered. The satan replies:

“But a man will give up all that he has [to save] his life. However, just stretch out your hand and afflict his bones and his flesh. Surely yevarakhekha to your face!” (Job 2:5)

Job and his Wife, Venice Codex, 905 C.E.

Again the satan uses blessing as a euphemism for blasphemy, and again the God character authorizes the experiment, asking only that the satan spare Job’s life. Job comes down with a painful inflammation from head to toe, and he sits in an ash-heap scratching himself.

Then Job’s wife utters her famous cry of despair, “Curse God and die!” But in the original Hebrew she expresses it this way:

“You still cling to your uprightness? Bareikh God and die!” (Job 2:9)

bareikh (בָּרֵךְ) = “bless!”

The reader or listener is expected to understand that “bless!” means the opposite, and should have the equivalent of air-quotes around it. Either Job’s wife does not want to go so far as to say “curse God” herself, or the author of the book does not.

Near-synonyms for blasphemy in Emor

People in the Hebrew Bible also commit blasphemy by using near-synonyms for “blaspheme”: verbs that mean curse, belittle, or revile, but count as blasphemy when they are applied to God or the name of God. The near-synonyms in this week’s Torah portion, Emor, are:

nakav (נָקַב) = pierce, put a hole in, designate, curse,
kalal (ַקַלַל) in the piel stem = belittle, insult, revile, curse.

One of God’s commands in the book of Exodus is:

Lo tekaleil God! (Exodus 22:27)

lo tekaleil (לֺא תְקַלֵּל) = you must not belittle, revile, curse. (lo, לֺא = not + tekaleil, תְקַלֵּל = you must belittle, insult, revile, curse; from the piel stem of the root verb kalal.)

Even though a human cannot actually inflict a curse on God, it is possible to belittle or revile God’s reputation. The word for “God” in this command is not God’s four-letter personal name, but Elohim (אֳלֺהִים) = God, a god, gods. The God of Israel does not want to be belittled or reviled by any name.

The command in Exodus is violated in this week’s Torah portion, Emor.

A son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man went out among the Israelites. And the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man scuffled in the camp. Vayikov the name, the Israelite woman’s son, vayekaleil, and he was brought to Moses. The name of his mother was Shelomit, daughter of Divri, from the tribe of Dan. (Leviticus 24:10-11)

vayikov (וַיִּקּב) = and he pierced, put a hole through, designated, cursed. (A form of the verb nakav.)

vayekaleil (וַיְקַלֵּל) = and he belittled, insulted, reviled, cursed. (A form of the root verb kalal in the piel stem.)

Does he curse God’s name? Or does he curse the Israelite man he is scuffling with, using God’s name in a curse formula?² We do not know; this week’s Torah portion adds vayekaleil (and he belittled, reviled) without a direct object. But whatever Shelomit’s son says, we know he is misusing God’s name.

And they put him into custody [to wait] for exact information for themselves from the mouth of God. Then God spoke to Moses, saying: “Take hamekaleil outside the camp, and all who heard must lay their hands on his head. Then the whole community must stone him.” (Leviticus 24:12-14)

hamekaleil (הַמְקַלֵּל) = the belittler, the insulter, the reviler, the curser. (Also in the piel stem of the verb kalal.)

Moses and some of the other judges in the community have already determined, on the testimony of multiple witnesses, that Shelomit’s son is guilty. They wait only for God to tell Moses what the sentence should be, and God obliges.

Next God provides a general rule about blasphemy:

“And you must speak to the Israelites, saying: Anyone yekaleil his eloha will bear the burden of his guilt. Venokeiv the Name of God, he must definitely be put to death; the whole community must definitely stone him. Resident alien and native alike, benakvo the Name he must be put to death.” (Leviticus 24:15-16)

yekaleil (יְחַלֵּל) = who belittles, insults, reviles, curses. (Also in the piel stem of the verb kalal.)

eloha (אֱלֺהָ) = god. (Singular of Elohim.)

venokeiv (וְנֺקֵב) = and one who curses. (Another form of the verb nakav.)

benakvo (בְּנָקְבוֹ) = when he curses. (Also from nakav.)

One way to interpret this command is that anyonewho reviles his own god is guilty and will be punished in some undetermined way; but anyone who reviles the personal name of the God of Israel must be executed.

The Talmud (6^th century C.E.) agrees that “For cursing the ineffable name of God, one is liable to be executed with a court-imposed death penalty.” But it interprets “anyone yekaleil his eloha” as anyone who reviles or curses one of the less sacred names of God, such as Elohim.³

Rashbam⁴ wrote in the 12^th century C.E. that God would deliver the punishment to someone who cursed a lesser name of God, so human judges did not need to take action.

The God character in the portion Emor immediately adds:

“And a man who strikes down the life of any human being, he must definitely be put to death.” (Leviticus 24:17)

There are other death penalties in the Torah, but this juxtaposition makes a point. Reviling God’s personal name is as bad as destroying a human being, who is made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).

Shelomit’s son in this week’s Torah portion might have had a good reason for cursing God’s name. According to Sifra, a 4^th-century C.E. commentary,

He had come to Moses asking him to render a judgment in his favor so that he could pitch his tent in the camp of Dan, his mother’s tribe. Moses ruled against him because of the regulation (Numbers 2:2) that the order of the encampment was to be strictly governed by the father’s ancestry. His resentment against the unfavorable ruling by Moses led him to blaspheme.⁵

In this addition to the biblical story, he curses when he is scuffling with an Israelite from the tribe of Dan who insults or excludes him.

I can sympathize with Shelomit’s son, and I think he should have been reprimanded, not executed, for expressing his anger with a curse.

Does it really matter if we give God a bad reputation? Ancient Israelite society depended on respect for God and therefore obedience to God’s laws, so reviling God could be an incitement to insurrection. Modern multicultural societies depend on obedience to civil laws and respect for those who follow different religions from your own. Today, I believe, it matters if we give a religion a bad reputation.

May we all bless, not curse, one another. And may we refrain from belittling or reviling any human being, for the sake of the divine image in every one of us.

“God in principle cannot be hurt by any human act, but His name, available for manipulation and debasement in human linguistic practice, can suffer injury, and for this injury the death penalty is exacted, as here in the case of murder.” (Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, p. 652.)
One example of a curse formula appears in Psalm 109:20: “May this be God’s repayment to my enemies …”
Talmud Bavli, Shevuot 36a, translation by The William Davidson Talmud, www.sefaria.org.
Rashbam is the acronym of 12^th-century Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir.
Translation by www.sefaria.org.

Kedoshim: Ethical Holiness

It’s not easy to be holy.

The Torah portion called Kedoshim (“Holy”, Leviticus 19:1-20:27) begins:

And Y-H-V-H spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the whole assembly of Israelites, and you shall say to them: “You must be kedoshim, because I, Y-H-V-H, your God, am kadosh.” (Leviticus 19:1-2)

kadosh (קָדוֹשׁ), plural kedoshim (קְדֺשִׁים) = holy, consecrated; set apart for God; dedicated to a sacred purpose.¹ (From the root verb kadash, קָדַשׁ = be holy, make holy, consecrate, treat as sacred.)

All the Israelites must be holy, not just the priests. The first thing God asked Moses to tell the Israelites when they reached Mount Sinai was:

“And now, if you really listen to my voice and you observe my covenant, you will be to me a treasure among all the peoples, since all the earth is mine. And you will become to me a kingdom of priests and a nation kadosh.” (Exodus 19:6)

Objects are holy when they are reserved for use in the religion of the God of Israel. Animals are holy when they are reserved as slaughter-offerings for God. Human beings are holy when they listen to and obey all of God’s rules. A holy nation would be a nation obedient to God. Apparently God is holy by definition.

According to the Talmud there are 613 rules in the Torah,² although rabbis generally agree that only 271 of these can still be observed today, now that there are no more temple sacrifices in Jerusalem. Kedoshim, one of this week’s two portions,³ lists 40-50 rules (depending on how you divide them up).

Partway through Kedoshim there is a pause in the list of rules while God says:

Vehitkadishitem and you will become kedoshim, because I am Y-H-V-H your God. And you must observe my decrees and do them; I, Y-H-V-H, am mekadishkhem. (Leviticus 20:7-8)

vehitkadishitem (וְהִתְקַדִּשְׁתֶּם) = and you must make yourselves holy. (A form of the verb kadash.)

mekadishkhem (מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם) = the one making you holy. (A participle form of the verb kadash.)

In other words, human holiness is a joint effort. If we observe God’s decrees and do them, God makes us holy.

Eleven of the rules in Kedoshim are about ritual and religious practices—tthree to perform properly and eight to avoid doing.⁴ The rest of the rules are about doing what is right in relation to other human beings—in other words, ethics. We humans must be ethical to be holy.

A few of the ethical decrees in Kedoshim, such as You must not steal (Leviticus 19:11), appear in the ethical codes of almost all cultures. Nine of the thirteen rules about when or with whom sexual intercourse is forbidden are generally observed today. (The most notable exception is the rule that, in a plain reading, declares sex between two men taboo and punishable by death.⁵ This rule is the subject of much discussion and reinterpretation today.)

And some of the rules are challenging for any human being to follow.

Revering parents

One of these eternally challenging rules is the first one in the list:

Each man must revere his mother and his father. (Leviticus 19:3)

As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz wrote, “Anyone who has any experience in this knows how difficult it is. It is something that we are faced with every day, and it can be especially challenging when one’s father and mother are themselves not exceptionally holy people.”⁶

Nevertheless, in order to be holy—or truly ethical—we must treat our parents with utmost respect, regardless of our opinions. I think I achieved this most of the time during the last year of my mother’s life, but it made me a nervous wreck.

Rescuing from death

After several more manageable rules, we get another challenging command:

You mut not stand by the blood of your fellow. (Leviticus 19:16)

Early in the Talmudic period (around 300 C.E.) Sifra established that this law means you must not avoid taking action when someone’s life is in danger. Sifra’s three examples are that you must not remain silent if you can testify on someone’s behalf; that you must rescue someone you see drowning, or attacked by robbers or a wild beast; and that you must kill any man you see pursuing someone in order to kill or rape them.⁷

Saving an innocent person’s life or limb is certainly a good deed. But what if you see a person with a weapon pursuing a second person, who appears to be running after a third person? Is the first person a murderer or a rescuer? What if you get it wrong?

And should you put yourself in a situation where a potential murderer might well turn on you?

Loving your fellow

Kedoshim also contains the famous dictum:

You must love your fellow as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

Who is your fellow (or neighbor, in some translations)—the people you are acquainted with? All Jews? All human beings on earth?

Do you need to feel loving, or is it enough to act lovingly? How do you know what a relative stranger would consider a loving action? What if you do not love yourself? (I address some of these questions in my post: Kedoshim: Love Them Anyway.)

Is it enough to follow Rabbi Hillel’s rule: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor”⁸ and refrain from harming anyone? That alone would require constant attention and evaluation. Is it even possible to benefit everyone all the time, out of the goodness of your heart?

And more …

Other ethical challenges in Kedoshim include feeding the poor (Leviticus 19:10), being honest (19:11), not insulting “the deaf” (19:14), not putting a stumbling-block in front of “the blind” (19:14), not hating (19:17), and loving the immigrant as you love yourself (19:32-33).

I have to conclude that complete holiness is out of reach for most human beings. Yet I believe that to be fully human, we must stop and ponder what our ethical ideals should be, and then strive to come closer to meeting them. The ethical rules in Kedoshim are a good place to start the search for ideals, especially if we think about each rule. Is it an artifact of another culture, which we should discard today? Or is it a command we should embrace as one of our highest principles?

For a fuller discussion of what makes someone holy, see my post: Kedoshim: Reciprocal Holiness.
Talmud Bavli, Tractate Makkot 23b, says there are 613 mitzvot (divine commands or rules). The most famous list detailing what they are is in Mishneh Torah by Maimonides.
Since this is a short year in the Hebrew lunar calendar, this week Jews read a double portion in Leviticus: Acharei Mot and Kedoshim.
To do (with some elements of refraining): Leviticus 19:5-8, 19:23-25,19:30, and 20:25. To refrain from (with some elements of doing): Leviticus 19:4, 19:19, 19:26 (2 rules), 19:27, 19:28, 19:31 & 20:27, and 20:1-6.
Leviticus 20:13.
Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Talks on the Parasha, Koren Publishers, Jerusalem, 2015, p. 250.
Sifra, Kedoshim Chapter 4:8.
Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 31a.

Haftarat Tazria—2 Kings: Subordination

Would you rather read a procedure manual or a story? This week’s double Torah portion, Tzaria and Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:32), provides a detailed manual for priests regarding a skin disease called tzaraat. But the two accompanying haftarah readings are stories about people with that disease.¹

The haftarah for Tazria stars Naaman, a rich Aramaean army commander who goes to the kingdom of Israel to cure his tzaraat. He is healed only after he humbles himself to the prophet Elisha. (See my blog post: Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance.) But without the kindness of his subordinates, his mission would have failed.

A kind servant: the Israelite girl

Those with power can use it to be benevolent to their subordinates. But how can subordinates be benevolent to their superiors? The story of Naaman gives two examples of servants who help their masters without exercising power. The first is an Israelite captive who has become a slave.

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man lifnei his master, and high in favor because through [Naaman] Y-H-V-H had granted victory to Aram. And the man was a powerful landowner metzora. And Aramaeans went out in raiding parties, and they brought back from the land of Israel a young adolescent girl, and she became lifnei Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress: “If only my master were lifnei the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would take away his metzora.” (2 Kings 5:1-3)

lifnei (לִפְנֵי) = before, in front of, subordinate to. (The prefix le,לְ־ (to, toward, at, in relation to) + penei, פְּנֵי (face of—a form of the noun panim, פָּנִים= face, front). Therefore literally, lifnei = in relation to the face of.)

metzora (מְצֺרָע) = stricken with tzaraat (צָרַעַת), a skin disease (formerly and inaccurately translated as “leprosy”) characterized by one or more patches of scaly dead-white skin. These patches might also be streaked with red, and/or lower than the surrounding skin.²

Naaman is a very important person; he is subordinate to, lifnei, only the king of Aram. The captive young Israelite is a female slave, the most subservient rank in the Ancient Near East. She is subordinate to, lifnei, Naaman’s wife. A girl in her position might resent being seized by soldiers, taken to a foreign land, and forced to serve as a slave. She might well hate the husband of her mistress, who is a military commander and may even have led the raiding party that captured her.

On the other hand, most females in the Ancient Near East grew up expecting to be under the control of a male head of household, whether he was their father, husband, adult son (in the case of widows), or owner. Many girls in impoverished families were sold as slaves. The Israelite girl might be relieved that she is now living in comfort in a rich man’s house. And perhaps Naaman is true to his name, which means “Pleasant One” in Hebrew (from the root verb na-am, נָעַם = was pleasant, was agreeable.)

The Israelite girl is kind-hearted enough to wish that her master were cured of his skin disease, and she knows that tzaraat rarely heals. So she mentions a wonder-worker to her mistress: the prophet in Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel. When she says “If only my master were lifnei the prophet!” her Aramaean mistress assumes she means “If only my master were in front of the prophet!”, and passes on the information to her husband.³

Refusing subordination: Naaman

In the kingdom of Israel, anyone whom a priest certifies as having tzaraat is ritually impure and must live outside their town until they recover (if ever). Being metzora is easier in Aram. The disease is not considered contagious; we learn later in the story that the king of Aram leans on Naaman’s arm when he goes into the temple of Rimon in Damascus.⁴ And tzaraat does not prevent Naaman from living in Damascus, the capital of Aram, or from leading his troops. Yet his skin disease is unsightly, and may be unpleasant in other ways as well. Naaman wants to be cured. So he takes chariots, horses, men, gifts, and a letter from his king to Israel.

And Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and he stood at the entrance of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent to him a messenger saying: “Go, and you must bathe seven times in the Jordan. Then your flesh will be restored, and you will be ritually pure.” (2 Kings 5:9-10)

Just as the word lifnei sometimes indicates a subordinate position in Biblical Hebrew, someone who stands and waits in front of someone else is a subordinate (or is temporarily assuming a subordinate position as a polite gesture). Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house riding in a chariot, but when he stands waiting at the door he is in a subservient position. By refusing to see Naaman in person, Elisha underlines the idea that he outranks the Aramaean commander.

Then Naaman became enraged, and he went off and he said: “Hey, I thought he would certainly go and stand and call in the name of Y-H-V-H, his god, and wave his hand at the place, and he would take away the tzaraat. Aren’t Amanah and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I bathe in them and become pure?” Vayefen and he went away in a rage. (2 Kings 5:11-12)

vayefen (וַיֶּפֶן) = and he faced away, and he turned away. (From the same root as panim and lifnei.)

Naaman knows he is a very important person. He expects the prophet to treat him as at least an equal.Elisha ought to invite the commander inside his house and stand waiting in front of him. After that, Naaman thinks, Elisha ought to personally wave his hand over the diseased patch of skin as he calls on his God.

In his resentment that Elisha is acting like his superior, Naaman also interprets Elisha’s order to bathe in the Jordan as an assertion that Israel’s river is superior to either of the two small rivers in Damascus.

Naaman is willing to be subordinate to the king of Aram, but not to the prophet in Israel. So he stops waiting lifnei Elisha’s door. He turns his face away in rejection.

More kind servants: Naaman’s retinue

The Cleansing of Naaman, Biblia Sacra Germanica, 1466

When Naaman walks away, his own attendants try to make him see reason. They are not in a position to order him to follow Elisha’s orders. But they can offer a reasonable argument.

Then his attendants came forward and spoke to him, and they said: “Sir!” They said: “[If] the prophet said to you [to do] a big thing, wouldn’t you do it? And yet he only said to you: Bathe and be pure.” (2 Kings 5:13)

Naaman listens, swallows his pride, and does the sensible thing.

Then he went down and he dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had spoken. And his flesh came back like the flesh of an adolescent boy, and he was ritually pure. (2 Kings 5:14)

Choosing subordination: Naaman

Then he came back to the man of God, he and his whole camp [of men]. And he came and he stood waiting lefanav, and he said: “Hey! Please! I know that there is no god in the whole world unless it is in Israel. So now, please take a blessing from your servant!” (2 Kings 5:15)

lefanav (לְפָנָיו) = to his face, in front of him, subordinate to him.

When one important person in the bible speaks to another, he often calls himself “your servant” to be polite. Here Naaman also stands waiting in front of Elisha, in a subordinate position. And he acknowledges that he (and everyone else) is subordinate to the God of Israel.

Naaman has brought silver, gold, and ten outfits of expensive clothing⁵ to Samaria so he could pay the prophet for a cure. But now the two men stand in a different relationship. They are not buyer and seller, but a man of God and a witness of God’s power.So Naaman begs Elisha to accept a “blessing”. They both know he means a tangible gift, not just words of blessing.⁶

Choosing subordination: Elisha

But [Elisha] said: “By the life of Y-H-V-H, whom I stand waiting lefanav, if I take—” (2 Kings 5:16)

Elisha declares that he is subordinate only to God. His unfinished oath is a polite way of saying that he refuses to take anything from Naaman. Since Elisha works only for God, he does not sell his services. He caused Naaman’s healing in order to prove a point, not for any material benefit.

After the Elisha refuses Naaman’s second offer of a gift, Naaman asks him for a gift: as much dirt as two mules can carry. He explains that then he can go home to Aram and create a patch of Israelite ground where he can worship Elisha’s god. Naaman promises he will never sacrifice to any other god again, and hopes the God of Israel will forgive him for continuing to provide an arm for the king of Aram to lean on when the king enters the temple of Rimon.

And [Elisha] said to him: “Go in peace.” And he went away from him some distance. (2 Kings 5:19)

“Go in peace” is a polite way for a superior or father figure to give permission.⁷ Thus the haftarah ends with the new pecking order, in which Naaman has become a willing subordinate to God, and perhaps to God’s prophet Elisha, as well as to the king of Aram.

The insubordinate subordinate

Although the haftarah reading ends there, the story of Naaman continues in 2 Kings. Elisha’s servant Geihazi thinks his master was wrong about not taking anything from the rich Aramaean. So he runs after Naaman and his retinue. Naaman steps down from his chariot to greet him. And Geihazi lies to him, saying:

“My master sent me to say: Hey, now this: two adolescent boys just came to me from the hills of Efrayim, from the disciples of the prophets. Please give them a kikar of silver and two changes of clothing.” (2 Kings 5:22)

Geihazi Asks Naaman for a Reward, by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, 1430

Geihazi does not dare claim that Elisha changed his mind and now wants the entire gift, but he is clever enough to invent a pretext for getting part of it. Naaman insists on giving him twice as much silver as he asked for, and dispatches two of his own servants to carry the clothes and the two bags of silver back to Samaria. At the city gate Geihazi takes the goods. If he had wanted to leave Elisha and set himself up with his own farm or business, he should have exchanged them at the marketplace then and there. Instead he brings the silver and clothing into Elisha’s house.

And he entered and he stood waiting before his master, and Elisha said to him: “From where, Geihazi?” (2 Kings 6:25)

Geihazi claims he did not go anywhere, but his master knows he is lying. Elisha accuses him of taking money from Naaman to buy things for himself, and adds:

“The tzaraat of Naaman will cling to you and to your descendants forever!” And [Geihazi] went away from lefanav, metzora like snow. (2 Kings 5:27)

Insubordination is not always punished so severely. Yet after rereading the whole story of Naaman, I am in favor of being a helpful subordinate, like Naaman’s attendants and his wife’s slave. If your superiors do you no harm, why not be kind and improve their lives—without stepping on their toes?

And if your superior is not benign, it is better to quit the job altogether than to lie and connive behind the boss’s back. Quitting is easier now, in a world where slavery has become rare, though finding a new job can still be hard. But if you do not respect your superior, you should still act so that you can respect yourself. Otherwise, even if your skin looks good, your soul will be disfigured.

The haftarah for Metzora features four starving Israelites forced to live outside the city walls because of their disease. See my posts Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: Insiders & Ousiders and Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: A Response to Rejection.
Leviticus 13:2-3, 13:10-22, 13:18-28, 13:42-44. Cf. Numbers 12:10-12.
Ancient Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew are closely related Semitic languages, but it would take a while for the Israelite girl to master Aramaic, and nobody would expect her to express subtle shades of meaning.
2 Kings 5:18.
2 Kings 5:5. Cf. the fancy tunic Jacob gives Joseph in Genesis 37:3-4, and Joseph’s gifts of clothing to his brothers in Genesis 45:22.
Cf. Jacob’s “blessing” to Esau in Genesis 33:11.
2 Kings 5:19.
Cf. Exodus 4:18, where Moses’ father-in-law says it before Moses leaves him and returns to Egypt..
2 Kings 5:20-27.

Whining about water

Moaning about manna

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Ordination of priests

Ordination of Levites

Levites carry the altar

Covering up

Symbolic colors

Honor

Heart and Kidneys

Jeremiah: Examine me and my enemies

Psalm 139: Improve my thoughts

Blasphemy with a euphemism in 1 Kings and Job

Near-synonyms for blasphemy in Emor

Revering parents

Rescuing from death

Loving your fellow

And more …

A kind servant: the Israelite girl

Refusing subordination: Naaman

More kind servants: Naaman’s retinue

Choosing subordination: Naaman

Choosing subordination: Elisha

The insubordinate subordinate