Monday, July 28, 2014

Shabbat Hazon - D'varim

Deuteronomy 1:1−3:22

by Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

The book of Devarim consists of three major farewell speeches that Moses makes to the people as they prepare to enter the Land of Canaan and he prepares to die.

Though Moses has known for years that he will not be permitted to enter the land, now that they are on the other side of the Jordan River he acts in a very human way. As any of us might do, Moses pleads with God to allow him to enter the land. God's response is succinct and final -- rav lakh -- often translated as "this is enough." In other words, God tells Moses that it's no use complaining or trying to persuade God to change the decree. Moses will not enter the land. Yet, the exact meaning of "rav lakh" is unclear and can be translated in numerous ways. It literally means "this is much for you." In addition to understanding it as "enough!" it can also be translated, as Rabbi Analia Bortz does in her commentary in "The Women's Torah Commentary," as "this is much for you" or "you have achieved much." Though still implying that God's decision will not change, God is also trying to remind Moses that he has accomplished much during the 40 years of wandering.

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Monday, July 21, 2014

Masey

Numbers 33:1-36:13

By Rabbi Lewis Eron for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

Personalizing the Epic Narrative

 

The Torah portion, Masey (Numbers 33:1 – 36:13), which concludes Sefer Bamidbar (the Book of Numbers), brings us to the end of our ancestors’ journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Forty years have passed since the Exodus. A new generation, born in freedom, has replaced the last generation to experience slavery. This generation has proven itself in battle. It is proud, self-assured, and ready to engage in the struggle to win and hold a new land. It will not be held back by the fears that constrained its parents. Although in the future the comforts of settled life will tempt their descendants and challenge the coming generations to rediscover their unique Israelite heritage, this generation is a generation born to action.

The opening chapter of Parashat Masey (Numbers 33) is a tribute to the wilderness experience. In it Moses records the forty-two steps of Israel’s journey from Ramases in Egypt to Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab, across the Jordan River from Canaan for posterity. Moses recalls each march and each encampment with often no more information than they left here and went there.

There is no need to elaborate on what happened at each step in the journey. Moses’ list comes at the end of a well-known story. The events of our people’s travels from Egypt to Canaan were part of the living folk—memory of our Israelite ancestors and should be well known to us since we read the Torah every year. The mere mention of each place should evoke the memory of Israel’s experiences in the Wilderness.

Once, however, in this long list Moses does pause to recollect what happened along the way. In this pause Moses, for a brief moment, puts aside the mantle of prophetic leadership. He is no longer God’s faithful shepherd. Here, Moses exposes his humble humanity and gives us a glimpse at what it might feel like to be the last of a generation—the feelings of loss and of hope. By personalizing the journey, Moses transforms what might have been another list of God’s saving deeds into a moving recollection of his and his people’s real life experiences.

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Matot

Numbers 30:2-32:42

Rabbi Richard Hirsh for Jewish Reconstructionist Communities

The Importance of Re-Reading Torah


The Book of Numbers is in many ways the least cohesive of the five books of the Torah. Its narrative excursions and legal legacies are occasionally related, but more often discrete.

In Matot and Masey, which conclude the fourth book of the Torah, the narrators/editors of the Torah attempt to pull things together by accounts which summarize the forty years in the desert and anticipate the imminent entrance into the Land of Israel.

However, even before the Torah moves to prescriptions for social and religious regulation within the Land, it presents a narrative of proscription which is chilling. Beginning in Numbers 31, the text tells the story of the Israelite war against the Midianites. So brutal is the account that even Dr. J. H. Hertz, the preeminent apologist for the traditional rendering of the text, states in his well-known commentary that "The war against the Midianites presents peculiar difficulties...we cannot satisfactorily meet the various objections that have been raised...".

The text by itself is straightforward: "The Lord spoke to Moses saying 'Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites'... Moses spoke to the people saying 'Let men be picked out from among you for a campaign, and let them fall upon Midian to wreak the Lord's vengeance on Midian'". (31:1-3) The punishment is understood as retribution for the role of the Midianites in seducing the Israelites from their God and luring them into false worship and sexual immorality (see Numbers 25).

After slaying "every male", the Israelites "took the women and children of the Midianites captive, and seized as booty all their beasts, all their herds, and all their wealth" (31:9). Upon discovering this, Moses is extremely upset, and he orders the execution of all the women who are not virgins as well as all the male children.

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Monday, July 7, 2014

Pinhas

Numbers 25:10 - 30:1 127

By Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan for Reconstructionist Jewish Communities

Egalitarianism


This week's parasha is Pinhas. Towards the beginning of the parasha we read the story of the daughters of Zelophehad. After Moses instructs the people on the division of the Promised Land once they enter it he also informs them that the land will pass from father to son so that it will remain within the tribes. Upon hearing this the five daughters of Zelophehad confront Moses with the fact that their father died in the desert leaving behind only daughters. Given the new laws their land would be lost from their family. They believe that they deserve to inherit the land by stating "Let not our father's name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father's kin!" (Numbers 27:3-4). Moses brings their case before God who declares that their claim is just and that they should be allowed to inherit their father's share of the land. The law from that time on is that if a man dies without sons the land shall pass to his daughters.

Towards the end of Numbers/Bemidbar the tribe of Menasseh, to which Zelophehad and his daughters belong, complain that if the daughters marry outside the tribe the land will be lost from the tribal inheritance. Therefore the law is amended by Divine decree to include the provision that daughters who inherit must marry within their own tribe. Both decrees concerning daughters and inheritance insure that the land remains not only within the family, but within the tribe. Though at first it might seem that women's rights and equality are the main concern of the authors (and many have tried to make that point) the reality is that familial and tribal integrity are the overriding principles.

In discussing the daughters of Zelophehad the rabbis portray them (and the other women of their generation) in an almost saintly light. "For forty years in the wilderness, the men tore down fences and the women repaired them (Midrash Numbers Rabbah 21:10). Furthermore, tradition teaches that the women did not participate in the sin of the Golden Calf (for which they were rewarded with the monthly holiday of Rosh Hodesh -- the New Moon) and when the men lost all hope upon hearing of the negative report of the spies who scouted the land the daughters of Zelophehad came forward to claim their share of it. They had faith that they would indeed conquer the land so that they would be able to have a share of it.

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