In this week’s parsha, PINCHAS, we see Moshe passing on the leadership of the Jewish people to his successor. Given that the Torah portion is named after Pinchas, it would seem to make sense to think that the next leader is Pinchas. But that is not the case. Even though we may admire the passion and zeal of a Pinchas, we know that those qualities are not sufficient to make someone a leader. So, instead, Moses confers smicha on Joshua.
We’ve seen Joshua before—in the story of the Golden Calf, he’s the one who points out to Moses that the crowd seems to be riled up. We know that he was also one of the 12 spies, and he is one of the two to have the faith that the Israelites can conquer the land. Midrash also tells us that Joshua learned Torah directly from Moshe. And something you may not know: our sages have said that the face of Moses was like the sun, but that the face of Joshua was like the moon.
Think about that. What is the difference between the sun and the moon?
One rabbi tells us that the sun is the heavenly body that lights up the entire universe, but the moon allows other heavenly bodies to shine. That’s a nice distinction when we think about the differences between Joshua and Moshe. Moshe is the leader who speaks directly with God; he is an almost overwhelming presence, and there’s a lot of evidence that that aspect of his personality kept him separate from the Jewish people, even from his own family.
But Joshua is like the moon. Joshua lets others shine. He allows others to step forward and share in the glory. Moshe, as a brilliant leader and strategist, must have realized that the Jewish people needed a different kind of leader. It was time for the Israelites to be in their promised land, and to take more responsibility for their own actions. They have lived with Moshe and one miracle after another. The time has come for them to experience a new kind of leadership and a new phase in their history. The true leader is the one who can share leadership, and in so doing, can help others also become leaders. Like the moon in the sky, a true leader does not dominate but is able to delegate and share the glory. The Jewish people, with Joshua at the helm, will have to grow up. They are entering a new phase of maturity, leaving behind miracles and a direct connection to God. This is the phase we continue to find ourselves in. It remains our challenge to find and sustain a connection with God.
There is a Midrash that states that Pharaoh was deliberating what to do with his “Jewish problem” in Egypt. He had three advisors: Bilaam, Job, and Yitro. Bilaam gave him advice and ultimately was killed; Job remained silent during the deliberations and was consigned to suffer the punishments that are outlined in the book that bears his name and Yitro fled, earning the merit of having his descendants sit adjacent to the Sanhedrin. Bilaam witnessed everything that occurred, even at the Splitting of the Sea, and made no attempt to reach any conclusion, contrary to the experiences of Yitro. Near the end of today’s Parsha, even as he has failed to curse Bnei Yisrael, Bilaam offers advice which causes many Jewish people to sin and lose their lives.
“Behold it is a nation that dwells alone and is not counted among the other nations” (23:9). The Beit HaLevi noted that Bilaam realized that B’nei Yisrael can only exist as a nation if it does not assimilate with other nations. Truly they must be a “nation alone” – only then will it continue to dwell and exist. However, “among the other nations” – if B’nei Yisrael attempts to become like other nations, they will not be counted! When Jews attempt to become like non-Jews of the world, they do not gain respect in the eyes of the Gentiles. To the contrary, they are looked down upon and reviled.
According to the Midrash, Bilaam was a prophet who curses, and he offered himself out for hire. The Midrash states that Sichon hired Bilaam and Bilaam’s father to curse Moav. Hence we see something that Rashi alluded to in the beginning of today’s parsha when Moav sent messengers to Midian so that the two countries can work together against Bnei Yisrael. Normally these two countries hated each other, but in order to fight Israel they made peace. We see this repeatedly in Jewish history. Several years ago, when Iraq and Iran were conducting a war against each other, but when it came to fighting Israel they become friends and allies. The Moabites, Midianites and Amorites hated each other, but when it came time to face what they perceived as a common enemy they would work together. When the enemy is the Jewish people, we have that unique ability to inspire people to get along with each other!
In this Parsha, we read of the death of Miriam who was Moshe’s sister, but, even more, his confidante. She provided the ear that he needed to be able to manage the challenges of leadership. I think that Miriam told him the truth. She was even willing to suffer God’s wrath when it came to speaking her mind. Soon after her death, Moshe committed the sole sin of his life-striking the rock in order to obtain water from it.
We all need a confidante. For some of us, it’s a spouse. But sometimes that’s a problem. Why? Well. Because there may be times when we might want to speak about our spouse. So, a friend, someone we can be honest with, who can tell us when we’re not being true to ourselves, that kind of friend is so precious.
I had a friend like that, a friend whom I told virtually everything to. I trusted him, and he never judged me, no matter how off the wall I might have been at the time. Jason passed away, and now, looking back, I think that, like Moshe and Miriam, I did not have the time to mourn him appropriately. It was Pesach, and I had sermons to write and services to lead. I was moving my residence. I was overwhelmed with grief, and like many men, I didn’t know how to express that grief. So, I exploded during a family Seder, damaging relationships within the mishpacha for years. I can’t help but connect that event with Moshe and Miriam.
We need to give ourselves time to grieve. We need to recognize the vacuum that the loss of a beloved friend leaves in our lives. We need to be patient with ourselves when we experience feelings of loss and disorientation and grief.
Of course, for those whose faith is strong, God can be a confidante. Praying to, speaking to God in times of difficulty can give us great comfort. But I suspect that there are times when we really need someone who talks back to us, someone who can nudge us back to where we want to be and where we should be. This is not an either/or—we can fill our lives with God AND with the friends so dear to us. Friends are mortal and we have to recognize that they will not be with us forever. But the story in our Parsha makes clear-as crazy as it may seem-that sometimes God is not enough-we need a friend.
The Parsha of Korach describes a mutiny against Moshe and his authority, an authority bestowed upon him by God. It has led our rabbis to comment that this conflict exemplifies an argument “not for the sake of heaven.” Such an argument, we are told, is one whose issues do not endure. Because they do not endure, like Korach and his followers, those arguments are swallowed up by the earth. They disappear, having never had any credibility in the first place. In contrast to such arguments, the Talmud makes it clear that the halachic debates between Hillel and Shammai were in the name of heaven and therefore enduring.
As we consider these different sorts of arguments, we can’t help but think about this distinction-between arguments that endure and those that are lost in time-might be a useful one by which to consider other questions. For example, think, back to the Lincoln/Douglas debates and the issue of slavery. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight, we can now see very clearly that that argument was not for the sake of heaven. Its issues have not endured. Every civilized person acknowledges that slavery is immoral and unjust. Perhaps even incomprehensible. Like Korach, those ascribing to the opposite view have been consigned to the earth’s depths. In fact, there was probably even evidence for this perspective back in the mid-19th century or even before. The founders of this country, rather than defend slavery, worried about the impact of so radical a change on the young country’s formation. Our Constitution never even mentions ‘slavery,’ perhaps an indication pf the moral embarrassment we hope our forefathers felt about the practice. Likewise, 19th century defenders worried about the economic losses the South would suffer if slavery were to be abolished. Such indirection, again we hope, may suggest discomfort with such a vile practice.
Similarly, no one challenges the right of women or people of color to vote, However long and divisive those struggles were, we look back and wonder how anyone could have defended the opposite view. Not for the sake of heaven.
Where, then, is a Machloket L’Shaym HaShamayim, an argument for the sake of heaven? I’m sure we cal all come up with different examples-and as Conservative Jews, we are likely to have different examples than our Reform or Orthodox counterparts. But some occur to me: What characterizes the next life? Why is there evil in the world? How do we understand the nature of the soul? We may never-at least until the Mashiach comes-have the true answers to these questions, but the debates themselves will never be swallowed up by the earth because reasonable people can entertain differing points of view on these subjects. These are indeed Godly discussions and perhaps, regardless of our views on these issues, we can all learn something from them and even from those with whom we disagree.
When Moshe charges the spies to check if there are trees in the Promised Land, Rashi interprets the tree as a reference to righteous individuals who could protect the inhabitants against invasion. Different trees represent different qualities in a human being. The fruit of the tree also would indicate various positive qualities. A leader who is compared to a vine possesses a combination of wisdom and taste. The person is unique in his stature. These were qualities both Yehudah and Yosef had in some fashion. An Eshkol is a cluster of grapes and here you have fruit that is combined together to indicate greater strength and perfection of quality. This individual being compared to an Eshkol is an individual who possesses many good qualities. Our Sages refer to Anshei Ha’Eshkalot : the early Sages whose wisdom was all-encompassing. The further statement by our Sages is that the word Eshkol is an acronym for Ish Shehakol Bo, a man in whom everything exists. This is a person who has good deeds and merit and would stand by his people and by his descendants for many years to come. This comment by our Sages gives us a tremendous insight into the qualities of a true friend and comrade of Avraham’s, a man by the name of Eshkol, mentioned in the Torah narrative. Is it possible that the Eshkol mentioned here is a reference to that Eshkol of Avraham’s time? Is it possible that Eshkol’s merits were still alive in the country so that he was the one who could offer protection and defense against an invasion? We can look at all of these entries in the narrative and put together that Eshkol’s relationship with Avraham would indicate transference of the merits to Avraham’s descendants and not to Eshkol’s.
The text tells us that the spies ascended into the Negev desert area and then he came to Chevron (13:22). The obvious question is why the verb changed from plural to singular in the text. All the spies came to the Promised Land but only one of them went to Chevron, and that one, according to the Gemara (Sotah 34b) was Calev. In that Talmudic reference Rava teaches us that Calev departed from the body of spies and went to pray at the patriarchal graves so that he would be saved from the evil counsel of the spies. The essential teaching of Rava’s statement is that it is possible for one individual to stand up and be against the current when the majority of people are going in the wrong direction. To swim against the current is a very difficult thing to do. There is no question that Calev was seeking divine inspiration and strength from his ancestry in order to fight the current. The usage of the ancestors here is quite appropriate. Not just because we have a concept of the merits of the ancestors, but also because each of our patriarchs swam against the current. Nobody else had an idea of monotheism at that time. They went against the grain of society. That is why they were called Ivrim. They came from the other side of the river. They truly stood out and chartered their own course in life. Consequently, the statement here that the rabbis are teaching us is not only to compliment Calev but also teach us a lesson that it is necessary for the Jewish people to stand up frequently.
In an episode toward the end of this Parsha, Miriam and Aharon were rebuked by Hashem for slandering Moshe. There is much misunderstanding as to exactly what took place and how Aharon – who was a Rodef Shalom, a pursuer of peace – could be involved in a slander; and of his brother no less. Rashi explains that at Mt. Sinai, Hashem commanded Moshe to separate from his wife so that he might constantly be in a state of Tahara – purity – so that Hashem's words could come to him without advanced notice. Moses informed only his wife of this. Because of his great humility he refrained from notifying his brother and sister of this personal commandment lest he portray himself as a superior prophet to them. Moshe's wife, however, was no longer able to contain herself and confided in Miriam who, in turn, went to Aharon, the pursuer of peace, to save this marriage. She claimed that, "we too are prophets and yet Hashem did not command us to separate from our spouses; why does Moshe hold himself superior?" Although this complaint about Moshe may have been well intended for the purpose of saving a marriage and for the benefit of Moshe's wife who was a "Kushite" – beautiful and well mannered – and, therefore, unworthy of this treatment, Hashem still considered this to be slander because it was against Moshe who was "more humble than any man on the face of the earth." The worst punishment, which they both received, was: "and Hashem's anger was upon them and He departed." There is no punishment worse than the departure of Hashem's presence.
"And the man Moshe was very humble..." (12:3.) Rav Moshe Feinstein once was walking along a street in his neighborhood when he heard a voice calling, "Moshe, Moshe!" Looking up, he saw that the voice was that of an acquaintance, who was behind the wheel of his car. Without blinking an eye, Rav Moshe walked over to the car. Upon realizing that Rav Moshe had assumed that he was being called, the man turned crimson with embarrassment. He said, "I was calling my son, who happened to be in the street as I drove by. I would never dream of addressing the Rosh Yeshiva in such a disrespectful manner. Besides, if I had something to discuss with the Rosh Yeshiva I would have gotten out of my car and gone over to him. I would not have dared to ask the Rosh Yeshiva to come to me." Rav Moshe assured the man that there was nothing to be concerned about. "It is already many years that these things mean nothing to me." He was exhibiting the anavoot, the humility, for which that we so admire Moshe Rabeynu.
This week’s Parsha has a Haftorah assigned to it that tells us about the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer. I’d like to share a story told by my colleague Rabbi Jack Reimer:
I read a wonderful some time ago, a story that is, for me, the key to understanding the strange story of Hosea and Gomer.
The story is about a young Rabbi who was traveling on the 'D' train from Brooklyn to Manhattan in New York City. As the train rattled its way towards its destination, he sat quietly, reading a book, as do most of the other travelers. Two young men, six feet tall, in gang jackets, entered the train with a big boom box blasting away.
Near the Rabbi sat a little old lady who probably tipped the scale at eighty pounds and who might have been five feet tall, if she stretched. The little old lady didn't like the noise coming out of the boom box, so she yelled out, "Who's going to make them turn it down?" Everyone hunkered down in their seats, taking a deeper interest in what they were reading and pretending that they didn't hear her . . . including the Rabbi.
One of the young toughs said to the woman, "Lady, if you don't like this music, you can try to turn it off." She shuffled across the subway car with her hand in front of her, ready to take his dare. The ruffian put down the boom box and hauled back to deck her. Up jumped the Rabbi and blocked the tough guy's punch.
The guy was puzzled and he looked down at the Rabbi, who was about a foot shorter than he was and probably weighed only half as much, and said to him, "What's your problem, boy?" The Rabbi replied with a timid smile, "I have no problem, but just don't hit the lady, please." He returned to his seat and went back to his reading. The lady shuffled back across the car.
The young tough flipped the power switch on the boom box again and inundated the entire subway train in full-force, deep-based, woofer and tweeter enhanced, penetrating unmitigated, raucous, deafening noise.
The old lady cried out, "Who's going to make them turn it off?" Everyone on the train reread their previous sentence with increased concentration. The young tough grinned and invited her over. The little old lady shuffled over and once again, reached to turn off the power switch on the boom box. The young tough hauled back to hit her, the Rabbi jumped up to block. The young tough looked confused, and said, "Now you're getting on my nerves, boy."
The Rabbi smiled and said, "Sorry . . . just don't hit the lady," and returned to his seat. The little old lady shuffled towards the Rabbi's seat and stood with her back to him. And the two young toughs thankfully got off at the next station.
As the Rabbi settled back into his book, he glanced up at the back of the little old lady and thought, "Gee, I just risked my life, not once, but twice, to protect her . . . and she didn't even thank me." And then, after two minutes of self-righteous indulgence, the Rabbi stopped in his tracks with an incredible realization. "God just performed not one miracle, but two, to save my life, and did I stop to thank Him?"
That story is the key to understanding this week's Haftorah. The prophet, Hosea, had a wife named Gomer, who betrayed him, who took his gifts and gave them to her lovers. At first, he was filled with a towering rage. And then he realized that what she had done to him, we all do to God! God has given us so many gifts - health, wealth, harvests - and what do we do with them? Instead of thanking Him, we spend His gifts on vanities and give them to false gods - to pride, to vanity, to war. If we don't appreciate the gifts that God has given us and the favors God does for us, how can we be angry at those who don't appreciate the favors we do for them?
Those two toughs on the subway train probably did not know much about the Bible. I bet they didn't even know that the story of Hosea and Gomer is the Haftorah for this week. But nevertheless, they and the old lady taught the Rabbi a lesson that he tried to remember when he came to 'shul' on Shabbat Bamidbar and that he tries to remember all the time.
Shouldn't we try to remember this lesson too?
Parshiyot Behar/Bechukotai hold a special place in my heart. These Sedrot were in fact my bar mitzvah portions many years ago. When I was going through my notes to prepare for this D’Var, I not only found my bar mitzvah speech; I even found the typed two-and-a-half page draft of the speech with my mother’s (z’l) handwritten comments on it. Most of her comments were editing corrections, but on the back of the first page here’s what she wrote:
“This paragraph contains a very important idea. Unfortunately, it cannot be developed in a very few sentences. Hence you have two choices: 1. Develop it adequately. 2. Omit it. I doubt whether you have time to develop it in such a brief message. Hence you probably should omit it.”
God bless my mother. Reading this makes me miss her so much. First, who says “hence” not once but TWICE? Second, what wise and gentle feedback. Needless to say, I took her advice and omitted that paragraph.
But I thought that in this D’Var, I would share that paragraph with you, and hope that my mother was right-that the idea it contains is, as she put it, “very important.” Here it is:
“In the midst of the curses that could befall the Jews, the Torah points out a very interesting fact: God has just delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt and in Bechukotai, God holds out exile as a punishment. This is a grand display of God’s greatness. He can destroy his own work, and yet attain His goal, disregarding the past.”
This parsha is full of horrible curses. After some brief passages recounting all the blessings that God will bestow on us if we obey Him, we read about two columns of all the curses that will befall us if you “disobey me and remain hostile to Me.” We are supposed to read this section as quickly and as quietly as we can because the curses there are so terrifying. I sometimes wonder if Yiddish curses got their sting from these examples because there’s so much similarity. Let me try a few on you. And in researching these Yiddish curses, I was really shocked at just how nasty they are. So many of them I won’t even share with you, especially not here on Shabbat. But a couple will make the point for me.
One is: LAcheN ZOLe ER MIT YASHTERKES.
This translates roughly has “He should laugh with lizards.”
Here’s another one:
ALa TSEYN ZOLN BAY IM AROYSFAIN, NOTe eye-NER ZOL IM BLYBN OYF TSON EVETUNG.
That translates as : All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer.
And here’s a final favorite:
MIGULGL ZOL ER VERN IN A HENGLAYHTER, BY TOG ZOL ER HENGEN, UN BAY NAKHT ZOL ER BRENEN.
“He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by light.”
These curses show great creativity as well as a deep understanding of human desire and weakness. They also, according to one expert, are different from curses in other cultures. For example, Anglo-Saxon curses often deal with body parts. I’ll leave it to all of you to think about what that might involve. Catholic curses in contrast usually go for blasphemy, and in the Far East people apparently curse by insulting their adversaries’ ancestors. But Yiddish curses are different—they PROPHESIZE. It takes its time to get to us. It lulls the listener into thinking it’s about to hear something positive—what could be wrong with being a chandelier, after all?—and then—WHAM—you are cursed. And you are left to try to imagine how awful your life would be if in fact that curse were to materialize. If I say to you, “may you turn into a centipede with ingrown toenails,” that’s quite an image. OR: “may you own one hundred houses and each house has 100 rooms, and may you have a stomach ache in every room.”
Likewise, God’s curses are future-oriented. They are prophesies—and they are both graphic and poetic. These curses—the tochacha—shock us with their unrelenting intensity and their extremes. “I will cast a faintness in their hearts, and the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight,” God tells the Israelites. Or this one, which really sounds like a Yiddish curse: “Ten women will bake your bread in a single oven; they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.” Seven times your sins will God punish us, he says. “I will wreak misery upon you—I will cause the eyes to pine and the body to languish.” On some level, perhaps worst of all is God’s announcing that “I will not savor your pleasing odors,” rayach neechoach, which most scholars interpret as God’s way of telling us that he will reject our attempts to offer sacrifices to Him.
These curses are truly terrifying. And these are only a small sample of the examples we read in B’Hukkotai. Some of them seem truly prophetic , and many of them have already come to pass. For example, God tells the Israelites, “I will scatter you among the nations,” and we do indeed know that we Jews are a diasporic people, even as we cherish and support the state of Israel.
Is there any silver lining here? I think there is. At the end of the list of curses, God seems to pause. I can’t help but wonder if He remembers in that moment a number of other commitments He’s made in the Torah. One was to Abraham—I will make your people as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Or when he also tells Abraham—I will make your number as many as the grains of sand on the beach. And think, even before Abraham, about God’s promise to Noach. What does He commit to then? He promises never to destroy the world again. And he repeats it TWICE. The first time, God responds to the “pleasing odor” of Noach’s sacrifice. Think back to that curse I read earlier—when God threatens NOT TO savor the odor of our sacrifices. Well, here in Noach, we hear God proclaim:
As long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and Heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night
Shall not cease.
And later in the same Parsha, God tells us again: I will maintain my covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Now I suppose a cynic could hear these words, and note that God is being a little cagey here. Right? God tells us He won’t destroy the world by flood—but does that leave FIRE or EBOLA as another possibility? I have to say: I don’t think so. I think God, despite his threats and his curses, is committed to our survival. To the survival of the Jewish people in particular.
At the end of B’Hukkotai, God seems to move from rage to reassurance. He tells Moses: “Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling my covenant with them: for I the Lord am THEIR GOD.” God remembers his covenants with our fathers Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. And he ends with “I will remember in their favor the covenant with the ancients, whom I freed from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God: I, the Lord.”
A parent doesn’t stop being a parent just because a child has been stubborn or has misbehaved in some way. A good parent knows that the child needs time, and needs time to come to his or her own t’shuvah. We don’t reject our children because they have disappointed us. We continue to try to encourage and to guide them to the extent that we can. Ultimately, we are creatures with free will and we know that we can use that freedom to do mitzvot or to sin. God is like that kind of parent—the threats are there but so is the love. I doubt that we would have survived as a people these thousands of years without that love.
It has taken many years, but I have finally answered my mother’s call to explore this Parsha more deeply. I pray that her memory and example will inspire me to continue to study Torah at the level she knew was possible.
Shabbat Emor, May 1, 2021
Triennial Reading, Leviticus Chapter 22, verse 17 though Chapter 23, verse 22.
We find a momentous passage at the end of this week’s Torah portion. It is a reiteration of law first set forth in Mishpatim: Shever Tachat Shever, Ayin Tachat Ayin, Shane Tachat Shane, a break for a break, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or was it first set forth somewhere else?
When Hammurabi’s Code was re-discovered in the early twentieth century, many scholars noted the resemblance to Mosaic law. After all, it predated Moshe by at least 400 years! Many of the stories of Breishit conform to references in Hammurabi’s code. And there are no less than 24 instances of resemblance between the two codes-in regard to the laws of kidnapping, burglary and assault. The most obvious parallel, though, is Lex Talionis, break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. This seems to support the supposition that the Torah relies on the Code for its legal underpinnings.
Many people, however, challenge this conclusion. They say that the common points can be attributed to the shared geography of the two civilizations and to common human experience which is much the same everywhere.
The best proof of the independence of Torah law from Babylonian code is this passage we read today, the law of taliation. Hammurabi’s law understands this concept as a cold, literal maxim. If a man causes the tooth of a man who is his equal to fall out, one shall make his tooth to fall out. If a house builder causes the death of the owner by poor construction, he is killed, but if he causes the death of the child of the owner, he is not killed, but his child is.
In contrast, the Torah’s mitzvah is interpreted as a call for monetary compensation in the case of bodily harm to a person. This is begun even before the Rabbinic period as we can see from a sentence in Numbers, “You shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer that is guilty of death.” This makes it clear that other, lesser offenses would yield to money compensation. There is no instance in recorded Jewish history of the literal interpretation being implemented.
Torah law also is a principle applied to all in society. John Michaelis, a dean of modern Torah exegesis, states that this law is appropriate only for free people because the poorest inhabitant has the same rights as his most aristocratic assailant. It deems the tooth of the poorest peasant as valuable as that of the nobleman, even more so perhaps, because the peasant must bite crust, while the nobleman eats cake.
The idea of inflicting punishment on children for the acts of their parents is alien to Torah law. This is illustrated in a section dealing with an ox that gores others. The passage concludes, “Whether it has gored a son or a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done to him.” Later, the Torah states in even clearer language. The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin,”
Hammurabi’s Code, therefore, can be seen as a precursor to Torah law. It deals with the same societal problems of crime and punishment, but in markedly different ways.
The Torah places great emphasis on Midah K’Neged Midah, measure for measure. Abraham is a party to a lasting covenant of kindness from God because of his own deep reservoir of kindness. Joseph treats his brothers harshly in Egypt to awaken them to their treatment of him in Canaan. But the Torah also prohibits revenge, which was clearly in Joseph’s power had he chosen that course. We are bound to answer goodness with goodness and respond to crimes with just and appropriate punishment. This is what sets Judaism apart from the Babylonians, and what makes it a pioneering philosophy for all moral societies.
This week, we have the privilege of reading two Parshiyot, Acharei Mot and Kedoshim. The theme of the second Parsha, Kedoshim, as its name suggests, is holiness. Modern Jews all too often associate the concept of holiness with a realm far removed from daily life. Rabbi Joseph Hertz writes in his commentary, “Holiness is thus not so much an abstract or a mystic idea as it is a regulative principle in the everyday lives of men and women…Holiness is thus attained…by the spirit in which we fulfill the obligations of life in their simplest and commonest detail…”
Afew questions to consider:
1. According to the opening verse in Parshat Kedoshim, the Jew strives to be holy in order to be more like God. How is it possible for a human being to be like God? What is it about God that makes God holy and what is it about the human being, according to this Parshah, that makes a human being holy?
2. One of the earliest systems of social welfare is to be found in Parshat Kedoshim. In Chapter 19, Verses 9-10, we are commanded to leave the corners of the fields as well as any forgotten fruit for the poor. What does the Torah accomplish by allowing the needy person to work in the field in order to receive his daily food? Would such a system be practical today? How could the law of the corners be applied in our society?
3. It is interesting to note that Chapter 19, Verse 13 makes an association between three different laws-oppression, robbery, and delay in the payment of salary to laborers. What is the connection between these three prohibitions? Why were they all included in one verse? Note that Maimonides defines robbery as, “He that takes property of a man by violence, and oppression as involving something which reaches a person without the owner’s consent. When the owner claims it back the other withholds the property by force…”.
4. Chapter 19, Verse 14, “You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind’ is given a broad range of interpretations in the Talmud and in later Jewish literature. Almost all Jewish scholars understood that the expression “the blind” is not to be interpreted literally. A person can be “blind” if he or she is ignorant of a particular situation. To what situations in your daily life can you apply this ruling? In what ways does the modern advertising industry sometimes place a “stumbling block before the blind?
5. The Torah commands us, “Thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people”. (Chapter 19, Verse 8). There are times, however, when it is only natural for a person to be nary and even hold a grudge against another person. The Talmud claims that in monetary matters when a person has a moral right but no legal right to collect fees owed to him by another individual, he or she can only complain (have a grudge). Are there situations in which a person is justified in holding a grudge? Why or why not? Why is this law applied only to fellow Jews and not to all human relations?
“YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF, I AM THE LORD” (Leviticus 19:18)