Category Archives: Commentary

Parashat Shemini 2024

Posted on by

Dvar Torah  Shemini  March April 6, 2024 B’nai Brith Somerville

Good Shabbos.  I am again honored to be able to bring words of Torah to you.
I dedicate this dvar torah to my brother, Robert Weinberg, of blessed memory whose yarhtzeit is this week.

Our torah portion this Shabbat is Shemini, Leviticus Chapter 9-11. Chapter 11 goes into great detail on kosher and non-kosher animals.   It is helpful for understanding the background for Jewish kashrut.  On Shabbat Ha Chodesh, which we have today, we also read Exodus 12:1-20 in preparation for Passover. Today,  I am focusing only on Leviticus chapters 9 and 10, on the enigmatic and mysterious story of Nadav and Avihu, who offer outsider fire – Eish Zarah – Continue reading →

Parashat Yitro and Disability Torah

Posted on by

Banner is “Revelation at Mt. Sinai,” Moravian Haggadah, 1737, engraving, facsimile courtesy of Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Chicago. Found here

In this commentary, I approach Parashat Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23, through the lens of disability torah. To define disability torah I refer to a conversation between Dr. Judith Plascow and Rabbi Julia Watts Belser.  Dr. Plascow has been writing and speaking about Jewish feminism since the early 1970s and is the author of several works on feminist theology.  Rabbi Belser is a rabbi, scholar and spiritual teacher working at the intersections of disability studies and queer feminist Jewish ethics and environmental justice. Continue reading →

Shemini – Strange Fire and Flaming Queers

Posted on by

This Dvar Torah was given at Temple Beth Israel, Waltham, MA, on March 26, 2022.  It was delivered orally, as strongly emoted sermon.  It is best read aloud with much feeling.

Our torah portion this Shabbat is Shemini, Leviticus Chapter 9-11.  Chapter 11 goes into great detail on kosher and non-kosher animals.   It is helpful for understanding the background for Jewish kashrut, but will not detain us today.  Instead, I am focusing on chapters 9 and 10, on the enigmatic and mysterious story of Nadab and Abihu, who offer strange fire – Eish Zarah – on the alter, and are devoured by holy flame.  Last week we looked at an eternal fire, this week we look at a strange fire.   I will have reference to the teaching Rabbi David brought us by Noach Dzmura on The Eternal Flame [“HaNer Tamid, dos Pintele Yid v’ha Zohar Muzar: The Eternal Flame, the Jewish Spark and the Flaming Queer” in Torah Queeries], as well as to a commentary by Reuven Ben Amitai called “Eish Zarah.”   Dzmura is concerned with compassion and caregiving in the doorways (e.g., death, conversion) of our Jewish communities, especially with respect to gender differences.   Ben Amitai self describes as a reluctant mystic, rabbinical student, and trans southern ex-pat, whose interests include Trans theology, holy heretics, Queer (ing) Jew, and strange fires.  Both are trans and bring a special knowledge of, and deep compassion for, lives lived outside the gateways of normative society.  For further discussion of living inside and outside the gateways, I invite you to read two books: Trans-Forming Proclamation: A Transgender Theology of Daring Existence by Liam Hooper and The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective by Joy Ladin.

I am drawn to this story of strange fire because I, too, am strange, a person whose thought patterns, family circumstances, cultural upbringing, and life history are not in concert with most of the people I know, and never have been. I was over 55 before I began to lean into my queer and Jewish soul, and to nudge my way into more compatible circles.

Now: the text.  In Chapter 9 of Leviticus, Moses assembles Aaron and his sons, along with the elders, to command them regarding the sacrifices to be offered by both the priests and the Israelites.   The instructions encompass the whole congregation.

In verse 9:7,  Moses directs Aaron to make atonement for himself and for all the people.  This will involve blood, animal parts, death and fire;  meal offerings, sin offerings, oxen, rams, and goats.   It is a major celebration marking the beginning of the priestly lineage.  At the end of the offerings, 9:22, Aaron lifts up his arms and gives a blessing, which according to Rashi is the Priestly Benediction.  In 9:23, Moses and Aaron go in and out of the Tent of the Meeting and bless the people together, and the divine appears to all.   At the conclusion of this very big and very grand public event, fire issues forth from the presence of the divine and consumes the sacrifices.   When the people see this, they give a great shout of joy and fall on their faces.   I mean, how would you feel in the presence of a holy roaring fire?

Following, in Verse 10:1-3 (my adapted translation).

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered before HaShem eish zarah, which [the divine] had not commanded them.  And there came forth fire from the presence of HaShem, and devoured them.  And they died in front of HaShem.  Then Moses said to Aaron: This is what HaSham spoke, saying “Through those who are near to me, I will be sanctified, and in the presence of all the people I will be glorified.”   And Aaron remained stock still (va’yadom Aharon).”

I call your attention to the Hebrew phrases eish Zarah and va’yadom Aharon.  First va’yadom Aharon.  This is generally translated as Aaron was silent, or kept his peace.   But it actually means that Aaron stood stock still, transfixed, not moving, his whole body reacting.  In Joshua 10:12-13, Joshua speaks to HaShem to ask that the Sun stand still upon Gibeon (shemesh b’givion dom) and the sun stood stock still (vayidom hashemesh).  For the sun to stand still is a quite remarkable phenomena and we should think of Aaron as if he were the Sun stopped in its tracks.   Another interpretation.   In Amos 5:13 we find this line: “Therefore the prudent keep silent (yidam) in such a time; for it is an evil time.”  So we might say Aaron is rooted to the ground in the face of evil.  Whether that evil is the action of his sons or their death or something else, is a matter for debate.

Now: eish zarah.  I thank Ben Amitai for drawing my attention to the fact that the phrase eish zarah, strange fire, appears in the Hebrew Bible only in conjunction with Nadab and Abihu. The root suggests stranger.  The noun form, zar,  is sometimes translated as lay person or outsider (see Lev 22.13).  In and of itself, therefore, that fire is not offensive.  It is just misplaced, not in it’s rightful home, an outsider, a stranger, not invited in.   Do you see where I am going?   This is me, often, in the past, and still today.  Is it you?

Why did Aaron’s sons initiate this strange fire?  The previous priestly activities, in Ch 9, had been expressly commanded by HaShem or Moses.   This strange fire was “not commanded them.”  They did it on their own. Were they ignorant?  Were they overeager to do their priestly duties, rushing ahead of instructions?  Were they willfully flouting authority?   When they saw  how the people joyfully greeted and bowed down in front of the great holy fire of HaShem – did they imagine it would be liberating, holy, mystical, to draw down that fire upon themselves?  This last intrigues me and Ben Amitai brings us a rabbinic teaching on the matter.

“According to Sifra Shemini Mekhita deMiluim 99:5:4, Nadab and Abihu took their offering in joy, for when they saw the new fire come from g-d in the immediate proceeding verse – “A fire came from before HaShem … and all the people saw, rejoiced aloud, and fell upon their faces” – they went to add one act of love to another act of love.”

The question of what drove Nadab and Abihu is unsolvable, but would be well worth our time to consider and argue.  And all the more so: was the immolation a punishment or a reward?

What if it was a punishment?  Recall the haftarah for Shemini, at 2 Samuel 6:6 where, in Ben Amitai’s words:

“Uzzah is killed for the simple act of trying to prevent the Ark from falling onto the ground, an act of devotion and love.  However, despite the love and care intent within the act, that brush against the Ark brings swift retribution from on high… This is a terrifying thought, that even our best intentions and our most personal offerings could result in such cruel retribution.”

Now me speaking again: In these harsh passages, in the story of Nadab and Abihu, and of Uzzah, we have a lot of room for struggle, for questioning, for finding meaning, for finding our own ways.   A lot of room for our singular and out of the norm experiences to provide tools to unpack meaning.

I would like to close with the end of Ben Amitai’s commentary.  When you listen to this, please hear my voice as well, for I while I am not identical to Ben Amitai, I am also on this path that many may judge, or consider not sacred.   And also when you listen to this, raise your eyes or your minds to that small bulb burning in front of the ark, that small ner tamid that, as we learned from Noach Dzmura last week, stands in for all the holy and eternal fires and lamps from Exodus to the Maccabees.   It is a small and weak bulb, but carries deep symbolism if we really receive it and if, as Dzmura adjures us, we keep this flame well-tended.  Now, Ben Amitai takes us out:

“I identify with Nadab and Abihu and their unidentified offering, this strange fire that no one knew. I identify with these two who out of ecstatic joy or confusion or chutzpah or all of them together offered something new to HaShem. I am a trans Jew, a queer Jew, a convert. So much of what I have to offer is somewhat new, is often unsure, is always strange.

I do this joyfully, full in the knowledge of possible death, full in the knowledge that some of my fires are “against” traditional Judaism and “traditional” Abrahamic morality. I do this aware that my Jewish life is – by many – not considered to be sacred. I do this mindful that my path may even be seen as not just un-sacred, but as innately unholy. There are some who may wish me consumed by an angry fire and others who judge my motives to be unrighteous and impure.

And yet, here I still stand – a Jew. These strange fires are the fires that burn within me. I will place my incense upon it and offer up what I have.”

Shabbat Shalom

Banner: Nadab and Abihu offer unholy fire and die (coloured woodcut) – German School, (15th century) in Paris, Mus.des Arts Decoratifs

Note the MIStranlsation.   Zarah is strange, but NOT unholy.

How to Read the Bible (Ear Like a Hopper)

Posted on by

I wrote this in 2009 as part of my capstone paper.   Recently went looking for it and thought it would be worth posting.

Close study is a corrective to the view of the 19th century feminists that the Bible (only) denigrates women.  Reading against the grain, placing the text in historical and cultural perspective, we can find traces of the voices of women who played significant roles in the creation of the Jewish people.  Women’s stories in the Bible are fascinating and meaningful.  Female characters are rich and there is a wide variety of interpretations given both by contemporaries and by the Jewish (male) tradition.  The interpretations may be contradictory, but the rabbinic tradition itself teaches us to stretch our minds to find meaning in seemingly opposing interpretations.  In the Talmud, when some disciples of the wise pronounce one thing and other disciples pronounce the opposite, a person asks

How in these circumstances shall I learn Torah?….“And God spoke all these words.”  Also do thou make thine ear like the hopper and get thee a perceptive heart to understand the words of those who pronounce clean and the words of those who pronounce unclean.[i]

The questioner is confused because he hears from one wise person that an item is clean, and from another that the same item is unclean.  He wonders, how can he learn Torah if there isn’t one objectively true answer?  He is told to open his hears ears wide like a hopper, to hear all points of view, and to open his heart to understand both sides.

The interpretation of biblical texts involves listening to ancient voices as well as finding one’s own voice in a “circular activity of reading and making meaning. [ii]  Halivni writes that we should communicate with the text, ponder over it, mediate on it, and discover its many nuances.[iii]  According to Uriel Simon, the prerequisites for getting to the peshat are “philological exactitude, common sense, intellectual honesty, an open mind, and an awareness of the distinctiveness of the ancient text.”[iv]  One must “enter into a dialog with the text, and thereby enhance one’s ability to listen to it on its own merits.”[v]  Furthermore, “methodological awareness must go hand in hand with hermeneutic awareness that a text may tolerate more than one interpretation.”[vi]  Tolbert writes that the idea of an “objective” reading of the text is a “fiction.”[vii]  Charles Taylor writes that our grasp of a subject depends not only upon the object being studied, but also upon the student.[viii]  We are reading ancient texts whose history is not well-understood, using the lens of our own experience. [ix]

One might ask: is the goal to uncover historical information, hear the voice of the text, discern the purpose of the author, imagine the response of the contemporary audience or draw moral/ethical/theological lessons for the reader and/or contemporary society? [x]  Does one read the Bible as Scripture or as literature?  Does the study have a normative function, or is the scholar interested in the influence of the Bible as literature upon society?[xi]   Interpreters “may never agree on the purpose and function of the text, or on its usability for their different projects,”[xii] but understanding will be enriched by hearing many interpretations, by opening one’s ears “like a hopper” and getting a “perceptive heart.”

[i] bT Hagigah 3b.

[ii] This volume, then, hopes to be a self-critical reflection on the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of studying the Bible.  The task of interpreting biblical texts, as we understand it as feminists, involves not just listening for ancient voices of various timbre, but also the discovery of one’s own voice as an interpreter engaged in the circular activity of reading and making meaning.  Fontaine, preface to Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds.  A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies.  Sheffield, England:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1997 pg 13.

[iii] There is more to a text than meets the eye.  Deliberation, indeed meditation on a text, yields not only new nuances that have not been contemplated before, but may also affect the very direction and purport of the text….Communication with a text means pondering over it long enough until it opens up and reveals the many and varied allusions that otherwise would have remained buried beneath the surface.  Ochs, pg 30, quoting from Halivni, David Weiss.  “Contemporary Methods of the Study of Talmud,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979) pp 192-201, at 193.

[iv] Simon,  Simon, Uriel.  “The Bible in Israeli Life.”  In The Jewish Study Bible.  Oxford and New York:  Oxford University Press, 1999.  pg 1998.

[v] Simon, pg 1998.

[vi] Simon, pg 1999.

[vii] I suggest that the fiction of an objective reading of a text asserts itself when the biases guiding the interpreter match closely the biases undergirding the evaluation group.  Tolbert, Tolbert, Mary Ann.  “Defining the Problem: The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics,” Semeia, No  28, p 113-126 (1983) pg 118.

[viii] Our grasp of the other, construed on the model of coming to an understanding, is doubly party-dependent, varying not only with the object studied but also with the student:  with the object studied, because our grasp will have to be true to them in their particular culture, language, and way of being.  But it will also vary with the student, because the particular language we hammer out in order to achieve our understanding of them will reflect our own march toward this goal.  It will reflect the various distortions that we have had to climb out of, the kinds of questions and challenges that they, in their difference, pose to us.  It will not be the same language in which members of that culture understand themselves;  but it will also be different from the way members of a distinct third culture will understand them, coming as they will to this goal through a quite different route, through the identification and overcoming of a rather different background understanding.  Taylor 1985 ,Taylor, Charles. Philosophical Papers: Volume 2, Philosophy and The Human Sciences.  Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press, 1985 pg 133.

[ix] Whether our focus is on what the authors or editors intended or on what we understand the text to mean, we are dealing with historical texts in ancient languages that cannot be understood without a knowledge of how the ancients used language.  Thus all interpretation of biblical texts must be somewhat historically oriented.  On the other hand, all readers view the ancient texts through the lens of their own experience.  Thus, all interpretation is, to some degree, reader-response oriented.  Nevertheless, some interpreters [30] are more interested in historical matters, others in literary questions, and others still in the psychological, sociological, and other factors that influence readers’ understanding of biblical texts.  Bellis, Bellis, Alice Ogden. Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew
Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994
pg 29.

[x] We consider the fundamental question at stake in the discussion: does the text have a voice of its own, which can be heard only if one suppresses one’s own;  or, is the text itself mute, capable of being heard only through the diverse voices of those who read it?…To my mind the answer is not an “either/or.”   Rather, it requires a more complex model of the relationship between interpreter and text.  Readings from a variety of social locations not only reflect the minds of the readers,…but also bring to light or illumine different aspects of the text.  Further, to read out of one’s own identity and social location does not make one incapable of hearing and learning from the readings of others…My own experience in biblical interpretation, and my readings of the work of others, have convinced me that reading from an “invested” perspective does not, in fact, render us incapable of hearing the voice of the text, of imagining the way in which the text might have been heard or read by its earliest audience, or of considering its impact on a contemporary reader who is unlike oneself.  Reinhartz: Reading the Bible, Reinhartz, Adele.  “Feminist Criticism and Biblical Studies on the Verge of the Twenty-First Century.”  In Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds.  A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies.  Sheffield, England:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1997  pg 34.

[xi] To some scholars the Bible is both cultural product and religious literature – that is, Scripture.  To them, the text of the Bible offers more than interest, education or entertainment;  it exercises a normative function within their lives, thoughts and scholarship.  They seek to elucidate the theological relevance of the biblical writings within the framework of their own religious and cultural contexts.  To others, the importance of the Bible is located in the influence its texts and their interpretation has on almost all modes of human discourse, personal, socio-political and ideological.  They see to lay bare for scrutiny the means by which the texts of the Bible can be used to manipulate human behavior.  Their wish is that the Bible will exert authority only where its meaning has been fully understood and accepted.  McKay,  McKay, Heather A.  “On the Future of Feminist Biblical Criticism.”  In Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds.  A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies.  Sheffield, England:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1997 pg 60-61.

[xii] A feminist commentary must take into account many of the terms and concepts developed by feminist thinkers concerning the ways in which one can understand the texts that are being critiqued.  There is no agreement among feminists as to the most important tool-kit of the feminist interpreter because feminist scholars hail from different disciplines, and are interested in answering different questions when approaching a text.  Thus, for example, the literary critic will be interested in exposing the subtle literary techniques used to portray women in the text and to reveal the function of these representations within the literary creation.  A social historian, on the other hand, would want to know to what extent these texts represent a historical-social reality, and to what extent they can be used to reconstruct women’s past.  The two may never agree on the purpose and function of the text, or on its usability for their different projects. Ilan, Ilan, Tal et al, eds.  A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud: Introduction and Studies.  Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2007 pg 4.

 

Ki Tisa as a Song of Longing and Danger

Posted on by

Parashat Ki Tisa is a Song of both longing and danger.  To understand the longing, we need to look back.  Previous to our parsha, the people had been witness to the awesome presence of God on Har Sinai, to thunder, smoke,  lightening, and shofar blasts when God revealed God’s commandments (Ex. 19:16-20:18).  This had followed on the miraculous parting of the Sea of Reeds to permit the Israelites to escape from their former slave-masters in Egypt (Ex. 14-15).

When Moses arrives at the top of Mt Sinai to accept the stone tablets, entering the cloud of God’s presence (Ex 24:18), God gives instructions for Moses to pass to the people regarding the building of the sanctuary and the priestly vestments and consecrations.  The instruction lasts for 40 days, while the children of Israel wait expectantly at the foot of Mount Sinai for Moses to return.   They do not yet know that Moses will bring them a blueprint for building a Mikdash where God’s Shekhina שְׁכִינָה can dwell amongst them שכנתי.  Ex 25:8  Let them make me a sanctuary  וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתֹוכָֽם Ve-asu li mikdash, Ve-shachanti be-tocham.  But as the period of time is coming to an end, the people are restless and bewildered.  They can remember how God appeared at the Sea of Reeds and on the mountain top, and we can readily imagine the sense of loss and of longing for God to return.

In their loneliness, they crave a holy presence, “for this Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!” (Ex 32.1 Everett Fox translation).  They go to Aaron, brother of Moses, and say to him, “Make us a god who will go before us!” (Fox).   There follows the well-known story of the creation of the golden calf from the gold rings of the people, and of the people eating, drinking, and dancing wildly around their creation.   We may reasonably understand that the people are yearning, and that perhaps it is a quest for holy presence that leads them to create the golden calf, not the desire to blaspheme, to worship idols, or to turn against their God.

But herein lies the danger in Ki Tisa.   When Moses discovers that the Israelites have created their own form of worship in his absence, he initially pleads with God to spare their lives and God does so. (Ex 32:7-14).  However, when he descends among the people,  Moses orders the Levites to assassinate 3,000 of the Israelites. (Ex. 32:26-28).  Furthermore, although Moses successfully pleads with God not to destroy the people entirely (Ex. 32:31-34), nevertheless God sends a plague upon the people (Ex. 32:35). If the people were expressing longing for God, how do we understand a world in which they can be punished for doing so?

I would like to read the creation of the golden calf as the story of people who are yearning for God’s presence, and who do the best they can in their circumstances to fill that longing.  Amichai Lau-Lavie in Torah Queeries   sees their dancing around the calf as a “the shattering of the law,” as a  triumph of human spirit and sexuality over the “yoke of silencing law.”  But there is a real problem with either of these readings, and that is the punishment meted out by both Moses and God.

I propose to illuminate the sometimes sparse text by following the rabbinic tradition of reading the Song of Songs intertextually with the Torah.  But fair warning, the Song illuminates the danger as well as the longing.

When God reveals God’s commandments, the people bear witness to the awesome and physical presence of God on Mt. Sinai, to thunder, smoke, lightening, and shofar blasts (Ex. 19:16-20:18).  Aviva Zornberg comments “At the moment when God spoke at Sinai, a whole nation lost consciousness and regained it.” (The Murmuring Deep, pg 246).  She quotes from Shemot Rabbah 29:3, which provides a good illustration of how the rabbis read Song of Songs with the Torah.

Levi said: Israel asked of God two things – that they should see His glory and hear His voice; and they did see His Glory and hear His voice, for it says, “And you said: Behold, God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire” (Deut. 5.21). But they had no strength to endure it, for when they came to Sinai and God revealed Himself to them, their souls took wing because He spoke with them, as it says, “My soul left me when he spoke” (Songs 5:6).

Zornberg suggests that the people are destabilized by “the shock of God’s voice.”   Their souls have left them.  And in this destabilized condition, it now appears to them that Moses has left them for good.  Moses has learned from God that it will be possible (and necessary) for the Israelites to build a sanctuary, so that God may dwell amongst them.  But the people do not yet know about this.  Their souls have left them, and Moses has left them.  They erect the golden calf.

When Moses descends from Sinai, the the Israelites are dancing around the calf.   Joshua tells Moses that he hears the cry of war (kol milchamah).   However, Moses hears the following:

Not the sound of crying out in triumph,
and not the sound of crying out in defeat.
A sound of crying out I hear. (Ex 32:18, translation Robert Alter)

Moses hears the people simply crying out, neither triumphant nor defeated.  I read this as the people crying out from their souls, crying out for fulfillment, crying out for God’s presence.  This may remind us of Hannah’s prayer where she pours out her bitter soul, her empty and longing soul, before God:  I pour my soul out before YHWH וָאֶשְׁפֹּךְ אֶת-נַפְשִׁי, לִפְנֵי יְהוָה. .  (1 Sam 1:15).

Like R. Levi, we can read Song of Songs, but here we read a little further in the verse and find how the singer felt when her soul left her, how she sought but could not find her lover, and begged for help to find him, as the Israelites sought and could not find Moses or God.  In Chapter 5, the singer is called to the door by her beloved, but hesitates, and then

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had turned away, and was gone. My soul failed me [left me] when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.  (Song 5:6) I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, what will ye tell him? that I am love-sick. (Song 5:8)

As the lover called out, so too the Israelites call out with “the sound of crying out.”  They don’t yet know about building a Mikdash, so they gravitate to the one thing which they know about that might bring God’s presence – the golden calf.   In this reading, they do not have intent to blaspheme, to worship idols, or to turn against their God.  Yet, if they are expressing their longing for God in creating the golden calf, it seems harsh that they must be punished.   Is it for lack of faith?  It still seems harsh, yet very much like a reflection of the real world.

Listen to the Song in conjunction with the punishment of people at Sinai:

And he [Moses] said unto them: ‘Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel: Put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. (Ex. 32:26-28).

And YHWH smote the people [with a plague], because they made the calf, which Aaron made (Ex. 32:35).

Immediately after the singer of the Song laments over not finding her lover, she says:

The watchmen that go about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my mantle from me. (Song 5:7)

Who are these watchmen?  It is surely dangerous to walk about the city when the very guardians of public safety are liable to beat the walker.  Is the walker in a dream?  Is she beaten because she is dreaming?  Because she is yearning?  Because the search she conducts for her lover does not fit with the societal norms [in this case, of male pursuing female]?  The moment when the singer of the Song is beaten by the watchman, and the moment when the children of Israel are punished by God (and by Moses), are awful/awe-full moments.  Their hearts were full of longing, and then, wham!  There are other, and plentiful, times of joy, of success in finding.  But punishments are troubling and remind us that the world, then and now, is not always a safe place in which to be out and to follow one’s heart.

Here is the text of Song 5:2-8

(2) I was asleep,
But my heart was wakeful.
Hark, my beloved knocks!
“Let me in, my own,
My darling, my faultless dove!
For my head is drenched with dew,
My locks with the damp of night.” (3) I had taken off my robe—
Was I to don it again?
I had bathed my feet—
Was I to soil them again? (4) My beloved took his hand off the latch,
And my heart was stirred for him. (5) I rose to let in my beloved;
My hands dripped myrrh—
My fingers, flowing myrrh—
Upon the handles of the bolt. (6) I opened the door for my beloved,
But my beloved had turned and gone.
I was faint because of what he said.
I sought, but found him not;
I called, but he did not answer. (7) I met the watchmen
Who patrol the town;
They struck me, they bruised me.
The guards of the walls
Stripped me of my mantle. (8) I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem!
If you meet my beloved, tell him this:
that I am faint with love.

About the banner:

On the left you can see the longing inherent in building the tabernacle in the desert. And when they are delayed, the people reach out for alternate worship, the golden calf on the right.
Picture on left: Building the Tabernacle http://www.rjews.net/gazeta/Photo/hram.php3?id=1
Picture on right: Carrying the Golden Calf. Fresco Hall of the Saints Borgia Apartments – Appartamento Borgia, Palazzi Vaticani Rome by PINTURICCHIO 1454 -1513 Vatican Italy Frescoes

The Heart of Judah

Posted on by

From the 14th century “Sister Haggadah” Spain, Catalonia (Barcelona). 1325-1374 CE. Copyright: British Library [Public domain]

This is a story about the heart of Judah.   We will look at what may possibly form/transform Judah’s heart, and read an interesting rabbinic commentary that illustrates how Judah’s heart enables him to “draw near” to his estranged brother Joseph “in order to arouse Joseph’s love and spark his compassion.”

WOMEN WHO FORM JUDAH’S HEART

Judah has two formative women in his life who I would argue contribute strongly to the development of a great heart: his mother Leah and his daughter-in-law Tamar.

LEAH

First: Leah. When Jacob, who would be Judah’s father, sets out to take a wife, he choses Rachel, daughter of Laban. (Note, Rachel did not choose Jacob, but that’s a story for another time.)  He serves Laban 7 years to be able to marry Rachel.   Laban tricks Jacob into taking Leah for a wife before he can marry Rachel.  Rachel is from the beginning the favored wife, and Leah pines for Jacob to love her.   When her first three sons arrive, Leah gives them names which signify that God has seen her affliction (Re’uven/See, a son!), that God has heard that she is hated (Shim’on/ Hearing) and finally that the third son will join her to her husband (Levi/Joining). (Gen 29:32-34).  [Names as translated by Everett Fox].  Taken together, the names show that Leah is unhappily pining away, feeling unloved and alone.

When the fourth son arrives Leah stops giving birth for a time and gives thanks to God.  She calls the child Yehuda/Giving Thanks (Gen 29:35 Fox). None of the names are precisely written according to the meaning invested in them.  However, biblical names are often assigned a meaning in the text suggested by a word with similar letters.  By the explanations of the text, we may see that as she carries and births Judah, Leah is turning her attention away from affliction, hatred, and loneliness, and towards praise for the Divine.  Put another way, she stops thinking of herself in relation to how her husband neglects her and connects herself directly to the Divine. I suggest that Judah is born with this connection to the Divine instead of the negative emotions denoted in the names of the first three sons.  Furthermore, in the unwritten text we may as a result imagine a special bond between mother and son.  This bond based upon thanksgiving gives Judah the possibility of a compassionate heart. We understand already that he may be fated to outshine his older brothers in leadership and in fact be one of the progenitors of King David.   This is not to say that Judah is racking up good deeds as he grows up, but, to his credit, he is the brother chiefly responsible for keeping Joseph alive, sold into slavery instead of slain.

TAMAR

The second strong female who molds Judah’s heart is Tamar, his daughter-in-law.   Tamar is married in sequence to each of Judah’s older sons, Er and Onan, who die leaving her twice-widowed. Judah packs Tamar off to her father’s house with a vague promise to marry her to the third son, Shelah, when he comes of age.  This leaves the widow Tamar chained to Judah’s family, with no chance to find another husband.  At that time, a woman without husband and sons would have been in a precarious situation, as she would not inherit from her father.  Time drags on, Shelah grows up, and Judah does not make the marriage, perhaps because he fears that Tamar caused the death of his sons.  (The text indicates otherwise: that God took both sons for their wickedness).  Finally, after the death of Judah’s wife, Tamar waylays Judah when he is in a festive mood, appearing to him as a veiled woman available for sexual encounter.   Afterward, Tamar takes Judah’s signet, cord and staff as pledge for payment of a kid from his flock.  These articles would have been clearly identifiable as belonging to Judah.  When Tamar becomes pregnant, Judah finds out and is furious with her.  He threatens to burn her. Tamar produces his signet, cord and staff, proving that he is the father (Gen 38:1-25).   At this point, Judah realizes he was wrong to deprive Tamar of her rights and of her societal need to marry Shelah׃

And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She has been more righteous than I; because I did not give her to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more. (Gen 38:26)

Tamar teaches Judah to recognize a person more righteous than himself.  I suggest that this recognition turns Judah himself towards righteousness and enables him to enact love for his father, and to open up Joseph’s heart. Further, that the maternal/divine influence at birth enables Judah to take in the lessons from his daughter-in-law Tamar.

JUDAH AND JOSEPH:  THE HEART IN ACTION

The Joseph saga in our text is long and varied.  There are two key points which work together to show Judah’s heart in action:  Joseph’s withdrawal from his family and Judah’s tender outreach at their meeting.

JOSEPH’S WITHDRAWAL

When Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery, Joseph prospers in Egypt and becomes the Pharaoh’s right hand man, in charge of his stores.  Years go by, yet Joseph never sends word to his family that he is thriving in Egypt, nor does he reach out to them when famine hits.   Why doesn’t he do so? Aviva Zornberg suggests that Joseph’s forgetting is a matter of survival for himself after trauma.  God makes him forget, but also Joseph embraces the forgetfulness.  She expounds on Gen 41:51

  “..when he comes to name his first-born son, he calls him Menasseh – forgetfulness: ‘for God has made me forget completely my suffering and the house of my father’ (Gen 41.51).  Joseph has forgotten his history, himself… For if he is to survive his own unwitnessed death in the pit, he must forget his father’s house, his past, himself.”  Zornberg pg 302.

Joseph becomes unknowable and remains hidden – to himself, to his Egyptian friends and relations, and to his family.  He walks like an Egyptian.  Then the brothers come to visit and start to penetrate the wall of forgetfulness.  All the brothers but one arrive when famine hits in Canaan, Joseph’s homeland.  They leave at home Benjamin, the youngest, Joseph’s full brother, the only other child of Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel.  Jacob will not hear of Benjamin leaving home, not with Joseph already lost to him.

When the brothers arrive in Egypt, they do not recognize Joseph.

Gen 42:[7] And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spoke roughly with them… [8] And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.

Joseph knows his brothers but does not reveal himself, in fact he makes himself strange to them.  Zornberg suggest this is self-disguise.

“Beyond the asymmetrical drama of recognition and non-recognition, there is the enigma of ‘He made himself strange unto them.’ This reflexive verb suggests a more-than-tactical move of self-disguise on Joseph’s part.”    Zornberg pg 303

Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies (mirgalim – the word is repeated 7 times with 25 verses).  He demands that they return with their brother Benjamin to prove they are not.  In private, Joseph cries when he hears his brothers talk about their guilt in mistreating him and how it has lead to what they think is a requirement to pay for their transgression by bringing Benjamin (Gen 42:21-24).  The brothers go home, leaving Shimon behind, bound up, but do not immediately return with Benjamin.  Reuben offers to guarantee Benjamin’s safety by pledging that Jacob can slay Reuben’s two sons if Reuben does not return with Benjamin.  It’s a ghastly offer and Jacob does not accept (Gen 42:37-38)

When the famine becomes extreme again, Judah steps up to safeguard Benjamin’s return so that the brothers can revisit Egypt.  Unlike Reuben, Judah simply takes all the surety on his own shoulders.  (Gen 43:8-9).  Surely his heart, which has been expanded by the influences of Leah and Tamar, is feeling love for his father.   Rabbi Yitz Greenberg writes:

“[F]ar from reacting violently to Jacob’s total possessive love for Rachel’s youngest son, Judah will give up his own life in order not to break his father’s heart again.”

Jacob has no choice but to allow Benjamin to go.  When they arrive, Joseph’s heart yearns for Benjamin but he again remains hidden and cries to himself.  Joseph’s long years of hiding himself, of “self-disguise,” have crusted over his heart – made it difficult for him to reveal himself even now:

Gen 43 [29] And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother’s son, and said: ‘Is this your youngest brother of whom ye spoke unto me?’ And he said: ‘God be gracious unto thee, my son.’ [30] And Joseph made haste; for his heart yearned toward his brother; and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there.

Joseph sends the brothers home with bountiful food supplies, and a silver goblet hidden in Benjamin’s pack, then dispatches his steward to accuse them of theft.  The brothers swear that whomever has the goblet will be Joseph’s bondsman (Gen 44:9).   They find the goblet in Benjamin’s pack and Joseph threatens to keep Benjamin as a servant.   This is a disaster! The brothers fall on the ground in front of Joseph as if to plead for Benjamin.  Judah is their spokesman.  Then a remarkable thing occurs.  Judah draws near to Joseph.

JUDAH DRAWS NEAR – CRACKING JOSEPH’S HEART

Then Judah draws near to him [Joseph].  Vayigash elayiv Yehudah.  [Gen 44:18].

Why, the rabbis ask, did Judah draw near to the apparent stranger, when he was already in front of him?  What can be the meaning hidden behind text that appears to be a repetition of what is already known?  The text has already told us that Judah and his brothers have fallen prostrate on the ground in front of Joseph (Gen 44:14).

Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, (1730-1788) writes:

 “The Or ha-Hayyim [Ḥayyim ben Moshe ibn Attar 1696-1743] asks why the term and Judah approached is necessary [since we know Judah was already standing close to Joseph], appropriately explaining that the drawing near to Joseph took place within Judah’s heart, as in the verse ‘As face answers to face in water, so does one man’s heart to another’ (Prov. 27:19).  With these words Judah sought to inspire Joseph’s compassion, and therefore he approached him in his heart, drawing near to Joseph and truly loving him, in order to arouse Joseph’s love and spark his compassion.  The words of the Or ha-Hayyim are certainly wise and faithful.”  Green, pg 153 from Peri Ha-Arets

The Or ha-Hayyim interprets this verse to mean that Judah, in approaching with his heart the unknown Egyptian, who had “made himself strange,” was able to raise up the sparks of love and compassion from Joseph.  Judah pleads with Joseph to allow Benjamin to go home and to permit Judah to stay as the bondsman.  In response, Joseph opens his heart to all his brothers and reveals his true self.  Aviva Zornberg points to the verse where Judah breaks though Joseph’s crusted heart.

This is “the sentence that accesses Joseph’s pain…[Judah says] ‘For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me?  Let me not be witness to the evil that would befall my father.’ (Gen. 44:34).  Zornberg pg 306

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg describes the moment this way:

“Joseph’s blocking wall crumbles. He is flooded with yearning for the father who loved him more than life…. Joseph, moved to the core, reaches out to his father and family. He brings them down to Egypt and nurtures them lovingly through the famine and its aftermath.”

Judah performs the opposite of keeping the stranger at arm’s length. Judah’s compassion for Benjamin, and the loving way in which he approaches Joseph, breaks through Joseph’s Menasseh – his tactical amnesia.    We note that Joseph cried upon seeing his brothers, but prior to Judah drawing near, he did not reveal himself.  Had he wanted to unite with his family, he could have done that years ago.  But Judah drew his heart near to Joseph’s heart and melted the isolation which Joseph had built up around him.

FINAL WORDS

Judah’s heart is steeped in the maternal/divine connection with his mother Leah.  It is further tempered by Tamar’s lesson about righteousness.  Judah first leads his brothers in saving Joseph’s life, then demonstrates great love for his father.  In the end his heart reaches out directly to Joseph’s heart “in order to arouse Joseph’s love and spark his compassion.”

If your neighbor feels like a stranger to you, be like Judah: open your heart and bring the neighbor within arm’s length.  Rabbi Julia Watts Belser, who researches ancient texts in conversation with disability studies, queer theory, feminist thought, and environmental ethics, issues a clarion call:

Let us strive together to break down barriers within ourselves and our communities.  Let us refashion the crusted architecture of our minds that keeps the Holy at bay.” Belser pg 28-29

SOURCES

Belser, Julia Watts.  “God on Wheels: Disability and Jewish Feminist Theology.” Tikkun. 29. 27-29, 2014.

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. New York: Schocken Books, 1997.

Green, Dr Arthur, Rabbi Ebn Leader, Ariel Evan Mayse, and Rabbi Or N. Rose. Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachings from around the Maggid’s Table, Vol. 1. 1 edition. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights, 2013. [Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, 1730-1788 quoted Peri Ha-Arets] (pg 153)

Greenberg, Rabbi Yitz  “Can We Save the Unity of the Jewish People? Parashat VaYigash 5781” Accessed 12/27/20: https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/can-we-save-unity-jewish-people#source-9535

Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious. New York: Schocken Books, 2009.

Brief story of Judith

Posted on by

In the Septuagint (LLX), Judith is a bad-ass heroine, heartily accepted and lauded by her people after she saves them from Holofernes. She is portrayed as quite independent – relying upon her faith in God, but very inner directed, brave, and splendid. Lots of intertextual links to Jewish heroes, male and female. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (4th C CE) turns her into a chaste super pious widow who is basically following God’s direction – still a heroine, story much the same, but more directed – not so much agency – and not so fully respected. A story you would expect from a celibate Christian priest.

There is zero in Jewish tradition concerning Judith until about 1000 CE. Never was a Hebrew version of the LLX story. Jerome, in making the Latin Vulgate claims to have translated from Hebrew but this cannot be established. None of the Jewish historians, philosophers or rabbis mention her until she appears in the middle ages. Her story then is similar to LLX, but gets wrapped into multiple midrashic and liturgical stories of Hanukkah and Judah. She becomes quite prominent as a Jewish heroine (see first illustration – above), perhaps partly because it is a time of increasing nationalism (12th-14th centuries or so), perhaps in reaction to Christian adoration of the Virgin Mary. Judith remains a hero to the Jewish people over time (see second illustration).

Christian art in the 15th century mixed Judith up with quite misogynist views of women. The art in last frame shows that she was conflated with Salome and both were portrayed as rather vile seducers.

Why being queer in shul helps me to understand our institutional racism

Posted on by

Our shul has recently embarked upon a course of community-building around anti-racism and diversity.   We have employed trained facilitators to guide our conversation.  From my perspective as a queer Jew, I offered up a comment in our first session about how the way in which I interact with the shul gives me some insight into how systemic racism may operate in our congregation, not necessarily overtly, but as an institutional problem. 

A member asked me how I could say that there was a lack of acceptance for me as a queer Jew, when the Rabbi readily agreed to my request for the use of gender neutral pronouns when calling an individual up to read from the Torah.  This terrific question calls for a measured answer.

The Rabbi agreeing to gender neutral pronouns is a validating and good feeling thing, an individual act of kindness and recognition.  As an individual, people treat me with respect and acceptance.  Yet it’s the institutional things that are difficult.

In our services we make an effort to mic all speakers, which is radical for a Conservative oriented shul, and very helpful to me as a person whose hearing is somewhat limited.  We strive to accommodate with ramp and large print prayer books.  There are a good number of caring folks heading up and participating in our committees and Board.  And yet, it is an institution with a history, with habits of thought, with practices, with policies that may not speak fully to some of the marginalized constituents, be they queer Jews, Jews of color, patrilineal Jews, disabled Jews, Jews by choice, interfaith partners. 

Speaking for myself personally, during an in-person prayer service, I can tune out the masculinist prayer book, Siddur Sim Shalom, the old Conservative siddur from 1985, because I carry with me one or two of my personal prayer books:  Siddur Lev Shalem is the new Conservative siddur that has gone a long way to providing gender inclusive and matriarch inclusive language.   Siddur Shahar Za’av is a siddur published by a queer synagogue.  I can and do make individual accommodations for myself by tuning out what the congregation is reciting, while listening to and participating in the music.

Yet, the masculinist prayer book on Sat mornings is the unquestioned and unapologized nexus of Saturday prayer, it is part of the institution of the shul.  It annoys me.  It sets my teeth on edge in places.  As a representation of the institution where I am a member, it excludes me and my lived experience.   It shows me that no matter how welcoming some individuals are,  as an institution we have work to do to celebrate and include LGBTQ Jews.

What holds me in the community is the promise of greater inclusion and celebration.  In our weekly Shabbat Torah study sessions, I often bring in the teaching of queer and/or disabled Jews.  When given a chance to read from the Torah, I have been able to bring in a feminist and/or queer and/or disabled perspective to the Torah portion.  Reactions from congregants and the Rabbi are positive and heartwarming.

From this experience, I can now question:  in what way is our shul, as an institution, perpetuating racism, in the same way that the siddur perpetuates an institutional masculinist/patriarchal view of the divine? In what way are we as an institution expecting marginalized persons to do all the heavy lifting?   We have individuals who are queer, of color, disabled, in interfaith families, and we often are able to provide welcome and accommodation.  But the culture overall is white, Ashkenazi, and heteronormative.  Having one or two or even three members from any group does not make a culture.

I am proud to say that our shul is grappling with these questions of inclusion and celebration, of understanding systemic racism and biases. We can only move forward by truth telling, by asking ourselves and each other hard questions, and by sitting with some discomfort in the process.

Harsh Passages in Life:What I Learned from the Yahrzeit of my Mother this Year

Posted on by

When my mother died (May 29, 2014) I was present in the room, both in the hours before and the hour after.  She was 89 and had lived a long life, but this death was the result of accident, not old age, not illness.  My mom slipped and fell on the floor of the cafeteria in the nursing home where my father was living.  At that time his Alzheimer’s was profound, and in combination with Parkinson’s had brought him to a place in life where my mother’s daily ministrations probably did not leave her feeling that she was able to help him much.  My mother had sat with him day in and day out for hours at a time for several years.  Reading, talking, communicating.  On my twice yearly visits I sat with both of them too, but not as long.

I did not have an easy relationship with my mother ever.  There were many moments in our life together that could best be described as “harsh passages.”  I will explain that term shortly.  In the last four years of her life it was especially difficult because she was mostly distraught.   Not only was her husband slipping away, but we had lost son and brother in 2010 to a cancer which came on suddenly, although it gave us three months to accompany my brother as he prepared for death.  Shortly before my brother’s illness, I had finally made up my mind to work very hard to communicate with my mom, to invite us both to share the pains and disappointments and blames and recriminations between us and, I hoped, to forge a sweeter relationship. But with the tragedy of my brother’s premature death and my father’s illness, the best I could do was to hold my mother’s hand for her last four years.  I called her every week and listened.

When my mom fell in the nursing home, I was not there.  It took them several days to contact me.  By the time I heard from the hospital, they had already performed massive brain surgery, despite my mother’s strict wishes not to be resuscitated.  I flew from Boston to California immediately.  With the help of my parents’ extraordinary personal physician, we managed to convince the medical establishment that no, my mom would not like to wake up again in a vegetative or even bed-ridden state.   The brain surgeon, I may say, was livid, but that’s another story.  We moved her into palliative care, into a room with a beautiful view of an outside garden, and took no more extreme measures to keep her alive.  My mom did not wake up again and I accompanied her as she took her last breath.

At that final moment, a profound peace came over me.  I felt that my mother’s life had been very painful, particularly the last couple of years, and that she was now released.   I felt that I would have no further experience of the “harsh passages.”   Life, of course, is not so simple, but I am relating my feelings then.  I stayed with my mom in that room for an hour or so after she died.   As a Jew who came to Jewish practice late in life, I felt I should do something for my mom in that time.   I picked up the hospital-supplied Gideon Bible and read the psalms in English.  I knew that the traditional Jewish custom is to read Psalms in the interval between death and burial.  This was my way of honoring that tradition.  My mother was not Jewish, and probably would not have known the custom.  She was in fact an atheist, but only mentioned that to me once.   She had great respect for my dedication to Jewish learning.

In the years that intervened, of course many of my bitter feelings – of betrayal, misunderstanding, unhappiness etc – resurfaced, and warred with love and loss.  In the commemoration of my mom’s yahrzeit (anniversary of death) this year (2019, five years following death), I prepared to read from the Torah.  It was also my plan to speak about my mother on that Saturday morning.  I did not have a planned speech, but I wanted to speak in such a way as to open myself up for healing – not to talk about how difficult it was for me to think about my mom.   I made a particular point to go early enough for the recitation of psalms and prayers, because I understood them to be preparation for opening one’s heart to the Torah reading.

The Torah reading that morning was from Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34).  Although I was to recite only four verses, I studied the entire portion.  There is a section where God lays out the harsh curses that will fall upon the Israelites if they do not follow God’s commandments.  In short form, God says   “… if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments… I will wreak misery upon you”  (Lev 26:14-16).  These are harsh words.  This is a “harsh passage.”  Abraham Joshua Heschel devotes a section in God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism to “Harsh Passages.”  He writes, “We encounter… a serious problem in a number of passages which seem to be incompatible with our certainty of the compassion of God… We must… realize that the harsh passages in the Bible are only contained in describing actions which were taken at particular moments and stand in sharp contrast with the compassion, justice and wisdom of the laws that were legislated for all times.”   As we recited the Psalms that Shabbat morning, my thoughts went to the harsh passage.  The curses of Bechukotai are indeed “incompatible” with the God we praise in the Psalms.  Yet the recital of the Psalms prepares us to understand the harsh passages, the curses, as an action of “a particular moment,” not legislation “for all times.”

I was able to make the connection that morning in shul because I had learned of the teaching of Abraham Joshua Heschel from Rabbi Victor Reinstein, the rabbi of the synagogue where I was reading Torah.  There is much more that can be said about harsh passages in the Bible. But what came to me as a new thought was that we have “harsh passages” also in life.   As I wrote at the beginning, there were many moments in my life together with my mom which could aptly be called harsh passages.  They were nowhere near the level of the curses in Bechukotai.  Yet they function in a similar way. At the moment of my mom’s passing, as I read the Psalms, I felt the lifting of the harsh passages.  But harsh passages don’t go away.  Often in the past five years they have sat heavy upon me.  It came to me in the reciting of the Psalms at shul that the difficult encounters in life need not be seen as legislation for all times.  Rather, I could begin to understand that they were of a particular moment, and that I can dig deeper and uncover and cherish the underlying part of the relationship which is for all times.  This will not chase the harsh passages away.

Rabbi Reinstein teaches, “On the surface of Torah there is often violence and strife, as in life. Sometimes on the surface itself, shimmering as a crystal fount, and sometimes beneath the surface, there is a river of peace that runs through Torah into whose flow we enter by engaging and wrestling with what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls the ‘harsh passages.’” (http://ssdsbostonblog.com/dvar-torah-rabbireinstein-vayeshev/ retrieved 6/2/19).  So too, I hope to find that river of peace with my mom, not by ignoring or hiding the harsh passages, but by engaging and wrestling with them in the secure knowledge that I can find again the peace that I knew in the moment of her passing when it seemed that all was resolved.

Parashat Vayeira (Genesis 18.1-22.24) Radical Hospitality and the Sanctuary Movement

Posted on by

Those of us who have an opportunity to participate in giving sanctuary to refugees in crisis know how critical it is to provide a safe haven for a person at risk of deportation to certain physical danger.  As volunteers providing round the clock witness, we are sometimes daunted when months stretch into years while our guests await relief in the courts.  Yet we know that the difficulty of our task is not to be compared to the discomfort of being confined day after day in a small space, not knowing when/if release will come.  Our job is to make the environment as hospitable as we can.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeira (Gen 18.1-22.24) teaches us about hospitality.  As the parsha opens, YHWH appears to Abraham as he sits by his tent in the midday heat.  When Abraham looks up, he sees three men, not immediately obvious as messengers of God.  Nevertheless, Abraham rushes to bring them water to wash their dusty feet, invites them to rest in the shade under the tree and brings them bread.  Abraham further prepares a tender young calf with curds and milk – a feast for the visitors.  The radical hospitality of Abraham is well known.  And what accompanies this hospitality is the pronouncement that Sarah will bear a child in her old age, an occasion for laughter and joy (and some trepidation).  This would be enough to teach the virtues of hospitality on its own.

However, our parsha goes on to additionally warn us of the drastic consequences of radical inhospitality.  In a master stroke of point and counter point, the narrative switches immediately from Abraham and Sarah and the message of new birth, to God sharing with Abraham that God will visit Sodom and Gomorrah to see if they are indeed as sinful as God has heard.  Implied is that God will sweep away the inhabitants of that land.  Abraham bargains with God to save Sodom from destruction if there are even ten righteous persons there.  Now certainly identified as malachim, (messengers/angels) of God, two men, presumably two of Abraham’s guests, go to Sodom.  Lot, nephew of Abraham, greets the malachim by falling on his face, with an offer of shelter and a place to wash their feet.  Lot, like Abraham, prepares a feast for his guests.

Lot is not a native of Sodom.  He is newly arrived, considered a ger, a resident alien, not permanent. Lot’s new neighbors do not hold to the same high standard of hospitality as do he and Abraham.  The men of the city, young and old, encircle Lot’s house and demand that he bring the visitors out so that they may know them.  While “knowing” here may have sexual overtones, and from this text for many centuries fanatics have claimed that the sin of Sodom is homosexuality, the sin is not homosexuality.   Whatever the neighbors want to do to the visitors has nothing to do with same sex love (or any love), and everything to do with force and violence.  Lot refuses to allow wickedness to be done to the men.  Unfortunately, Lot’s hospitality (and humanity) breaks down, as he offers up his virgin daughters to the neighbors.  Would there have been a better outcome if Lot had not offered up his daughters?  Perhaps the 10 righteous would have been found and the city saved.

Lot leaving Sodom, Woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicle

In the event, YHWH rescues Lot and his daughters, turns Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, and reigns brimstone and fire down on Sodom.  The conflagration is horrific.  The Genesis text is not specific about what the sin of Sodom is, but coming on the heels of Abraham’s welcome to strangers, we understand it may be in  refusing friendship to resident aliens (Lot and family), and threatening to swallow up strangers in violence.

The prophet Ezekiel gives us insight into the underpinnings/ background to the cruel way in which those of Sodom treat strangers.

This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, surfeit of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters; and she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49–50

Rabbi Steven Greenberg gives an overview of rabbinic commentary:

Among early rabbinic commentators, the common reading of the sin of Sodom was its cruelty, arrogance and disdain for the poor. The sages of the Babylonian Talmud also associated Sodom with the sins of pride, envy, cruelty to orphans, theft, murder, and perversion of justice. While the event which sealed the fate of the Sodomites was their demand for Lot to bring out his guests so that the mob might “know” them, this still was not seen so much as an act of sexual excess, but as hatred of the stranger and exploitation of the weak. Midrashic writers lavishly portray Sodom and the surrounding cities as arrogant and self-satisfied, destroyed for the sins of greed and indifference to the poor. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/keshet/the-real-sin-of-sodom/

Not to take in the sojourners or travelers crossing the desert in those days could doom them to great suffering and even death.  This is the action of a community which indeed practices cruelty, perversion of justice, greed and indifference to the poor.  The flaming destruction of an entire people is terrifying in our eyes, yet the symbol remains as a warning of the dire consequences of radical inhospitality.

The news these days is full of cruel practices and perversion of justice.  We hope and pray that there is a just reward to the perpetrators.  Meanwhile, like Abraham and Sarah, we can hold our sanctuary guests in warm embrace, assuring them of clean water, abundant food, and safe shelter.  And we can work against the real sins of Sodom in our present society, by standing up for the rights of transgender people, immigrants, people of color, and other marginalized groups.

May the pleasure and laughter of Sarah be our reward.  “And Sarah laughed.”  Genesis 18:12