As we head into the month of Elul, here are some thoughts on Hannah and Peninna – every year I ponder the Hannah Narrative anew, the haftarah for Rosh Hashanah
Category Archives: Commentary
Parashat Sh’lach — Caleb: Ruach Acheret and Sacred Norms
Wherever we travel in the Jewish world, we can see the positive effects of efforts to bring human laws, lives, and communities into line with divine standards of justice and loving-kindness. But those who don’t fit communal norms know the downside of this ideal: its tendency to cast an aura of sanctity over flawed and even oppressive social structures and to frame efforts to make communal norms more inclusive as threats to the essence and existence of the community….
The emphasis on sacred normativity in Judaism and the Jewish community harms those, like LGBTQ Jews, who don’t fit established norms. It also harms the Torah by obscuring the queerness on which its moral and spiritual vitality depend. — Joy Ladin
Parashat Sh’lach (Numbers 13.1 – 15:41) tells of fear and courage at the border between wilderness and homeland, spells out a set of sacred norms about sacrificial offerings, relates the tale of a man who is stoned for gathering sticks on Shabbat, and commands the wearing of the tzitzit. At the border crossing, Moses sends twelve spies to reconnoiter the land. One of them, Caleb, is recognized by the divine as a man with ruach acheret. His “different spirit” carries within it the queerness of the divine, and life lived in the non-normative lane. Joshua, a strong and effective leader, has ruach, but it is not “different.” His accomplishments on the field of battle in the book of Joshua fit into the normative communal pattern of kill and conquer, of obey God or die. The laws of sacrificial offerings are in line with Joshua’s directions to the people. The struggle for even balance between Caleb’s ruach acheret and Joshua’s just plain ruach, between living true to one’s nature and obeying norms, could be a good lesson about existing in the non-binary – holding two extremes in tension. Or would be, if it were not for the horrifying story of the stoning of the wood gatherer, and norms run amok. The commandment of the wearing of the tzitzit is oddly jarring after the stoning.
As Parashat Sh’lach opens, we find ourselves recovering from the temporary exclusion of Miriam from the camp, and at the brink of entering into the land of Canaan, which God has promised to the children of Israel. The way in which Miriam challenged authority and normativity is not the subject here and would take us astray. Nevertheless, keep in mind that we are standing at the brink of Eretz Israel, with the fresh memory of the unsettledness of Miriam’s banishment and our week long wait for her to return.
Before we can enter Canaan, God commands Moses to send one man from each tribe to spy out the land and its inhabitants. The spies return after forty days and present their report. The text says “they told” Moses that though the land flows with milk and honey, it is full of fierce people from enemy nations living in fortified cities [Num 13:27-28]. It appears to be a consensus report by all the spies – until Caleb speaks up. His report is diametrically opposed to that of his fellow spies; he undertakes – one person – to stand against the entire community in favor of going up into the land at once. [Joshua does not speak here but will join Caleb’s cause later]. Furthermore, Caleb stills the people towards Moses, saying that they most assuredly can possess the land. He grasps the people’s unease at once, and determines to make them hear the truth.
Rather than instilling courage, Caleb’s speech provokes the other spies to an even greater effort to keep the children of Israel from entering the land. They bring forth an evil report about giants and a land that eats its inhabitants. “We looked like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we appeared to them.” [Num 13:33]. The people raise up their voices and weep all night. They murmur against Moses and Aaron, and complain that God brought them out of Egypt only to die by the sword. “Let us make a captain and return to Egypt,” they say [Num 14:4].
This is a disaster. The people are in open rebellion, not only against Moses and Aaron, but against the Divine itself. Moses and Aaron try to intervene, falling on their faces in front of the assembly. Caleb and Joshua make a mighty effort. They rend their clothes and testify that the land is tovah meod meod – very, very good land, and that they must not rebel against God. The people refuse to listen; they determine to stone Moses and Aaron (to death). God appears in the divine aspect of kavod (glory) [Num 14:10]. God as kavod entered the tabernacle when it was completed [Ex 40:35], and now appears as glory or majesty, with a voice, but without body, without gender. God as kavod called out to Moses upon entering the tabernacle, securing Moses’s good counsel for the journey across the desert [Lev 1.1]. Now God takes counsel with Moses. How long will these people despise me, God asks of Moses? “I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them and will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” [Num 14:12]
Moses argues convincingly that God needs to maintain the reputation garnered by rescuing the people from Egypt with a mighty hand. God is slow to anger and full of lovingkindness, Moses reminds God. He presses God to pardon the iniquity of this people. What exactly is their iniquity? Rebelling against God [Num 14:9], despising God and not believing in God [Num 14:11]. We are reminded of Naomi, who accused God of making her lot bitter, of dealing harshly with her, and bringing misfortune upon her [Ruth 1:20-21]. “For the hand of YHWH has struck out against me,” she says [Ruth 1:13]. Yet Naomi was rescued by Ruth, and this people will not be rescued. As Moses has requested, God pardons the people, which means that they do not immediately die; however all those of the older generation are doomed to wander forty years until their dead bodies drop in the wilderness. Ten of the spies are not pardoned. God subjects them to deadly plague. But God saves alive Caleb and Joshua.
Joshua is destined to carry on Moses’ work. Further on in the text God tells Moses to lay his hands on Joshua as successor. He is “a man in whom there is spirit – ish asher ruach bo” [Num 27:18]. His ruach serves mainly to hold up the communal norms – to lead the conquering and killing of the inhabitants of Canaan, as well as to remind the people of the dangers of forsaking the covenant and of serving foreign gods. [See the book of Joshua] But Caleb is different; in this text he does not champion norms. He plays Ruth to the suffering Israelite Naomis.
Although Caleb does not succeed in convincing the people of the goodness of the land, God saves Caleb “because he had ruach acheret and has followed me fully” [Num 14:24]. This may be the only instance of ruach acheret in the Hebrew Bible. Ruach holds the meanings of spirit, animation, vivacity, vigor, maybe prophetic spirit. Acheret means other, another, different. Together they suggest a powerful life spirit, not like any other. The prophets are said to have ruach. See for example 2 Kgs 2:9 where Elisha asks Elijah to give him a double portion of his ruach. So Caleb perhaps has a unique knowledge of the divine, of the people around him, and of himself. It may be his ruach acheret that enables him to experience and to follow the divine fully. Caleb does not speak the language of Joshua, of covenant, of adherence to the norms. Rather he is dissenter, cheerleader and truth teller. We are well able to overcome the dangers, he says. [Num 13:30] The land is exceedingly good. YHWH will bring us to a land flowing with milk and honey. Only don’t rebel because YHWH is with you. [Num 14:8-9]
I suggest that Caleb’s appeal, like Ruth’s, is to hearts of the people, meant to remove their fear and to fill them with courage. YHWH is with you. Not to frighten them with dire punishment as Joshua does. Joshua says, “You cannot serve YHWH [with other gods]; for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgression nor your sins. If you forsake YHWH, he will turn and do you evil and consume you” [Josh 24:19-20]. This is a scary prospect for the person who for whatever reason doesn’t fit in.
The emphasis on sacred normativity in Judaism and the Jewish community harms those, like LTBTQ Jews, who don’t fit established norms. (Ladin)
Ruach acheret is by definition different from Joshua’s ruach; it does not emphasize normativity but rather courage and heart. I argue that in the leaderships of Caleb and Joshua we can see the tension between sacred normativity and queerness; between those bound by the strictness of law and those who live outside the norms. Norms are important, but queerness is that “on which [the Torah’s] moral and spiritual vitality depend.” (Ladin) I do not mean that appealing to hearts and souls as Caleb does implies queerness in the common sense of gender identity, but in the sense of appealing directly, outside of rules and constraints, to the finest in the humans around him. Caleb tries to imbue them with moral and spiritual vitality.
Caleb fails in his mission to re-turn the people to YHWH. But he is rewarded for his different spirit and for his efforts by being admitted to Canaan, and by receiving a portion in the land of Israel. As further evidence of his different spirit, he is gifted with an extraordinary daughter. When he gives Achsah in marriage [see Joshua and Judges], she demands that her marriage portion of land contain water, ie the best of his land. A rarity in the Bible, she speaks directly to her father making this request. Her action is not unlike the daughters of Zelophehad who boldly ask to inherit the land of their father.
If our parsha ended here, we might wonder if our discussion of ruach acheret in Caleb is a bit far-fetched. What – Caleb as queerness and Joshua as normative? Perhaps the contrast in leadership is not so great we might say? There is an interesting writing by Chana Tolchin, in which Caleb represents dissent and Joshua continuity. Both important qualities of leadership, but quite different.
The two prototypes of leadership that Calev and Yehoshua represent each hold unique value. Calev as an independent leader realizes the problems around him and possesses the strength of character to dissent and be a mouthpiece of truth. Yehoshua, on the other hand, represents continuity. When Moshe changes Yehoshua’s name at the start of the mission, he ensures that no matter what goes wrong in this group of people, one individual will certainly embody the values of Hashem. Throughout the episode, Yehoshua is Moshe’s representative. While Calev merits entering the land because of a “ruach acheret,” Yehoshua enters because of an established ruach that is greater than himself but that he has been chosen to embody for the next generation entering Eretz Yisrael. Yehoshua stands for a type of leadership in which one pays deference to the leaders and systems of the present for the sake of serving as the vehicle for continuity in the future. —– Chana Tolchin
If we understand Caleb and Joshua as leaders who represent the poles of dissent/truth telling and deference/continuity, we can find deeper understanding of the other three sections of this parsha. Chapter 15:1-29 presents the rules of sacrificial offerings – a version of holy/sacred order. After the terrible news about carcasses to fall during a forty year period of wandering in the desert, these rules serve to settle the narrative and give hope of survival. Yet they come with a dire warning to those who defiantly or willfully break the commandments, to those who live outside the norms. Whoever will despise the word of YHWH and break the commandments, their soul will be utterly cut off from their people [Num 15:30-31]. This is similar to Joshua’s warning in Josh 24:19-20. There is none of Caleb’s understanding of the feeling of fear and alienation in the wilderness.
As if to demonstrate the threat that arises when we “cast an aura of sanctity over flawed and even oppressive social structures” (Ladin), the list of sacrifices and the warning are followed by the deadly punishment of a (no doubt) poor wood gatherer who picks up sticks on the Sabbath. This is deeply disturbing. One is commanded not to work on the Sabbath, but our text here is normativity run amok. God Godself orders the people to stone the wood gatherer to death [Num 15:32-36]. Surely the wood gather could have been taught to follow the rules without capital punishment. Perhaps he was simply cold, or desperately in need of selling a few sticks of firewood to buy food. Perhaps he did not believe in (or know about) the Shabbat laws. God rewards ruach acheret in Caleb, for seeking a way forward without punishment for his compatriots, but we nearly stone Aaron and Moses, and we kill the wood gatherer. This is the harshness of slavish adherence to form. As queer Jews we know about the stoning of the wood gatherers. As people in general with a sense of the strictures of normativity, we all know about and can fear the stoning of the wood gather.
To close out our parsha, as if this horrible stoning had not occurred, God commands the wearing of fringes as a reminder to do all God’s commandments [15:37-41]. This is a call to holy normativity; it again settles the narrative as it shows that there is a definite path to holiness. Yet we are left with the terrifying thought that if they will stone the wood gatherer, they may come for any one not conforming to communal expectations.
Our text is in tension between “the positive effects of efforts to bring human laws, lives, and communities into line with divine standards of justice and loving-kindness” (Ladin) and the need to make room for those living outside the norms. At its best the two can live in a non-binary harmony; taken to extremes, the non-normative are destroyed by the norms. Ruach acheret may not stop the tide of human misery altogether, but it may help. In the words of Rabbi Tarfon “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”
So that we may not be left at the end with the picture of the death of the wood gather, I close with the words of Rabbi Camille Shira Angel regarding Caleb and ruach acheret.
As long as queers are not grasshoppers in our own eyes, we can use this passage to cultivate within ourselves ‘a different spirit,’ the spirit that brings with it the intrinsic qualities of compassion, courage, and perseverance. As Jews, we take inspiration from our primary narrative about crossing the boundary between slavery and freedom. As queers, our experiences of wrestling the giants without and within help shape not only our memories of the past but also our actions in the present and our visions for the future. – Camille Shira Angel
Sources
Drinkwater, Gregg, Joshua Lesser, and David Shneer, eds. Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. NYU Press, 2009. Camille Shira Angel “Parashat Shelach”
Ladin, Joy. “Both Wilderness and Promised Land: How Torah Grows When Read Through LTBTQ Eyes.” Tikkun 29, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 17–20.
Tolchin, Chana http://drishaparshablog.blogspot.com/2011/06/parshat-shlach-calev-versus-yehoshua.html
Celebrating Diversity – Refashioning our Synagogues and our Minds
Celebrating Diversity – Refashioning our Synagogues and our Minds
A small synagogue that I once belonged to has a ramp, an accessible bathroom, a large print siddur, and a braille siddur especially prepared with the order of service they customarily follow on Friday nights. The ramp was constructed a few years ago with a huge amount of work and good will and fundraising among that community. The accessible bathroom was built as part of a major renovation to the sanctuary a year later. The braille siddur was prepared by a blind woman who visited for a couple of services and offered to make it. The membership committee prepared the large print siddur.
These are all excellent starting places for accommoda Continue reading
Ruach HaYam: Why We (Still) Need Queer Jewish Space
This essay was first published on September 15, 2017 on the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Blog
Ruach HaYam: Why We (Still) Need Queer Jewish Space
A few years ago I started a group in Boston aimed at providing space for LGBTQ Jews to gather for learning and worship in a way that would enable us to bring our full selves to the table. We named ourselves Ruach HaYam, Spirit of the Sea, after the sea surrounding us in Boston, and for the sea across which Miriam and Moses led the children of Israel. Ours was not a unique idea at the time, but as we are completing our fifth year at Ruach HaYam, I find it becoming harder, and therefore more essential, to find spiritual community dedicated to queer Jews. Continue reading
Vayikra: Why Is It Important To Be Called?
Parashat Vayikra, the first portion of the book of Leviticus, is foreign to our modern ears, with its rules for animal sacrifice, detailed requirements for what to do with each type of animal for different offerings, and rules about eating the fat and the blood. How can we understand this ritual? Nancy Jay [see sources at end of paper] points out that the way to understand ritual is not to try and find a meaning identical to the ritual actors, but to build a kind of bridge, “not to accurately decode their meaning, but to make what they do and say intelligible for us.” One way to do this is to consider that the ritual of sacrifice as presented in Leviticus some 2500 year ago is a method of creating a holy routine – instructions about how to bring holiness into our lives through sacred norms. As modern Jews, we don’t bring order through sacrifice, but we do bring order through our own ritual practices.
Although this seems like a satisfying meaning, there is a drawback. Continue reading
Unrighteous Anger – Queen Vashti and the Erasure of Transgender Women
This article was written by Mischa Haider and Penina Weinberg and was first published in Tikkun Daily Blog on May 13th, 2016.
Image: Queen-Vashti-Refuses-to-Obey-the-Command-of-Ahasvuerus
The night after Purim the two of us sat feasting – a queer Hebrew bible scholar and a trans woman activist. The book of Esther was on our minds, as we read Esther every year on Purim, the festival when we celebrate the brave Jewish queen who saves her people from annihilation in Persia. Also on our minds was the “bathroom panic” gripping the nation over the perilous prospect of transgender women using women’s restrooms.
Elijah in the Desert
I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the painting Elijah in the Desert by Washington Allston. http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/elijah-in-the-desert-30844
A great deal of my time is spent viewing digital photos and images. In fact, I found the image of this painting through a google image search for Elijah. As a small jpg, the picture is stunning enough – a stark portrayal it seems, of Elijah in the throes of despair. I used this image as a banner for a study session I’m leading called “Elijah the Prophet: Zealotry, Despair, and Hearing kol d’mama daka.” By great coincidence, the original hangs in the MFA. In fact, it was the first ever acquisition for the MFA. In 1870, Allston was such a highly regarded American painter that the donor of the painting suggested naming the museum after Allston. I did not know this prior to seeing the painting. I just thought it would be a good idea to see the original.
It’s so easy (for me at least) to forget how powerful a painting is in the original. I sat in front of Elijah for maybe an hour, looking from all angles, up close, far away, to the right and to the left, sitting, standing, letting thoughts and feelings run through me. People passed through the gallery, mostly cruising past the room full of paintings, only infrequently stopping for more than a couple of minutes for anything. So the first observation was: how easy it is for humans to walk without taking in impressions, without feeding on the painter’s laborious and careful work. Similar to speed reading through novels, without enjoying the precise language crafted by the writer.
It was a treat for me to have the time to sit and absorb this one painting, and to have knowledge of the text behind it (1 Kgs 19) (17:1–7 according to MFA). Here is what I saw. The sunlight breaking through over the mountains is striking and brilliant. It appears to highlight Mt Horeb (Sinai) in the distance. It breaks through the clouds of despair. It lands brightly on Elijah’s head as if to convey a message to him (from the divine) that all is not lost. The raven, too, carrying food to Elijah, into the light, may be a beacon of hope and comfort. Yet it’s not clear in the painting if Elijah can see the raven, or the light, any more than it’s clear in the text if Elijah can hear kol d’mama daka, that strange, stringent, quiet, ice-breaking voice of God. The painting illuminates the central question of the text: is Elijah grateful and learning, or is he unable to hear God’s voice? I kept wanting to get my eyes right in front of Elijah’s face, but could not. The painting was tantalizingly out of my reach, as is the meaning of the text.
Vashti and Esther in Images
Purim is a time when we remember to think about Esther and perhaps learn to think about Vashti. I present here a small picture gallery. Images have the power to convey ideas very quickly.
I hope you will enjoy this visual tour and that this will stimulate thoughts about Esther, Vashti, gender politics, the meaning of Purim, and your own identity.
The first image is by Gustav Dore and can be found in digital format in the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. Notice Vashti’s power, independence and command. She is recognizably a woman, but on her own terms.
Queen Vashti Refuses to Obey the Command of Ahasvuerus
Now we have Dore’s Esther, version one. Here we see Esther in similar command, accusing Haman before the King Ahasvuerus. Notice how Esther dominates both King and subject. Like Vashti she is a woman on her own terms.
Esther Accusing Haman
Dore has another view of Esther. I believe in this case he is illustrating a verse from the Greek version. Note how Esther has lost her power and how King Ahasvuerus dominates. In her aspect as woman she is now subject of male gaze, vulnerable, not in command.
Esther Faints
And finally, one more modern illustration from Athalya Brenner’s book, A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna. The illustration is by Leonard Baskin and is discussed on the page. This version of command is strikingly different in quality. Brenner calls it “pillar-like.” It seems to lose characteristics of gender altogether. Even more so, seems to lose characteristics of being human.
Escape to Canada: A Rabbinic Consideration
Headline: Escape plan: How to Move to Canada if the Election Doesn’t Go Your Way
A Personal Response with the aid of Rabbinic Tradition
Talk about escaping to Canada if one’s preferred candidate does not win the election is plentiful. It has been plentiful before, when George Bush was re-elected, after 9/11 and so on. No doubt escape hatches will be touted again and again. This calls to my mind rabbinic commentary on the story of Elimelech and his wife Naomi. What follows is not a political statement, but a rumination on where the consequences of escape touch upon my personal life.
In the book of Ruth, in the space of the first 5 verses, we learn the following: There was a famine in Bethlehem, in the land of Israel; Elimelech and his wife Naomi leave Bethlehem with their two sons to sojourn in Moab; Elimelech dies; their two sons die without offspring; Naomi survives alone. This is clearly a tragedy. The text tells us how tragic by this: “And the woman was left of her two children and of her husband” (Ruth 1:5). Naomi was so bereft that in losing her husband and her two children, she lost her identity, indeed her very name. She is left like a remnant. “R. Hanina said: She was left as the remnants of the remnants [of the meal offering].” (Ruth Rabbah). I mention this so that we don’t overlook the fact that the real tragedy of this moment is on the shoulders of Naomi, who is embittered and alone.
The rabbis interpret that the deaths were a punishment for Elimelech (and I would add Naomi and the children) for leaving the land of the famine. “Why then was Elimelech punished? Because he struck despair into the hearts of Israel… He was one of the notables of his place and one of the leaders of his generation. But when the famine came he said, ‘Now all Israel will come knocking on my door, each one with his basket [for food].’ He therefore arose and fled from them.” (Ruth Rabbah). Elimelech left behind those suffering from famine, rather than taking responsibility for the people of his country.
As I said, talk of escaping to Canada brings this story to my mind, but whether those who might flee this country (now or in the future) are unsafe in remaining, entitled to a better future, or should be frowned upon for leaving behind those less fortunate, is not for me to judge and is not the point of my re-telling. The story leads me personally to my relationship to my Jewish community, to the shul wherein I daven and take on various leadership roles. Two years into my president emerita status and I feel very much like escaping, if not literally from the campus, internally from all responsibility. There are many things I don’t like about how the organization is run, how volunteers are recruited and nourished, and how visions are created (as in NOT). In fact I have been internally escaping for some time.
The response of the rabbis to Elimelech pulls me up short. Not because I am afraid of punishment as such. But I need to think very carefully about my responsibility to the people in my own small country, the land of my shul. These are folks who have nourished me, and whom I have nourished. According to the teaching in Ruth Rabbah, one does not flee from those whom want might be able to help. Is this a moment to double down on my efforts to work with others to create a better community? Or is the a moment to go sojourn in Moab? Not sure about this yet, but I do know I’m not moving to Canada any time soon.
Ki Tisa as a Song of Longing – Ex 30:11 – 34:35
Parasha Ki Tisa is a Song of both longing and danger. First, the longing. Previous to our parsha, Moses has gone up to the top of Mount Sinai, entering the cloud of God’s presence, to remain with God for 40 days (Ex 24:18). While Moses is up on Mount Sinai encountering the Divine, the children of Israel wait expectantly at the foot of Mount Sinai for Moses to return with God’s prescription for a holy life.
Now the period of time is coming to an end and the people are restless, “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!” (Ex 32.1 Everett Fox translation). 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.
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. But there is a problem with this reading, and that is where the danger comes it. 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). Moses himself orders the Levites to assassinate 3,000 of the Israelites. (Ex. 32:26-28). If the people were expressing longing for God, how do we understand a world in which they can be punished for doing so?
We can illuminate the Exodus text by following the ancient rabbinic tradition of reading Torah intertextually with Song of Songs. But fair warning, the Song illuminates the danger as well as the longing.
Exodus shows us that the people bear witness to the awesome and physical presence of God on Mt. Sinai, to thunder, smoke, lightening, and shofar blasts when God reveals God’s commandments (Ex. 19:16-20:18). Aviva Zornberg says “At the moment when God spoke at Sinai, a whole nation lost consciousness and regained it.” (The Murmering Deep, pg 246). She quotes from Shemot Rabbah 29:3, which incidentally 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 appears to them that Moses has left them too. 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. Ve-asu li mikdash, Ve-shachanti be-tocham. (Ex. 25.8). But the people do not yet know about a Mikdash where God’s Shekhina שְׁכִינָה can dwell amongst them shachanti שכנתי. 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 (Ex 32:18, translation Robert Alter)
Not the sound of crying out in triumph,
and not the sound of crying out in defeat.
A sound of crying out I hear.
Moses hears the people simply crying out, neither triumphant nor defeated. I read this as the people crying out from their souls, for God’s presence. This may remind us of Hannah’s prayer:
I pour my soul out before YHWH וָאֶשְׁפֹּךְ אֶת-נַפְשִׁי, לִפְנֵי יְהוָה. Sam 1:15).
Like R. Levi, we can read Song of Songs with the Torah, but we read a little further in the verse and discover how the singer felt when her soul left her, how she sought but could not find her lover, 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)
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, because they made the calf, which Aaron made (Ex. 32:35).
Immediately after the singer of the Song laments over not finding her lover, the next verse 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 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 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 in its entirety.
| אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה, וְלִבִּי עֵר; קוֹל דּוֹדִי דוֹפֵק, פִּתְחִי-לִי אֲחֹתִי רַעְיָתִי יוֹנָתִי תַמָּתִי–שֶׁרֹּאשִׁי נִמְלָא-טָל, קְוֻצּוֹתַי רְסִיסֵי לָיְלָה. | 2 I sleep, but my heart waketh; Hark! my beloved knocketh: ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.’ |
| ג פָּשַׁטְתִּי, אֶת-כֻּתָּנְתִּי–אֵיכָכָה, אֶלְבָּשֶׁנָּה; רָחַצְתִּי אֶת-רַגְלַי, אֵיכָכָה אֲטַנְּפֵם. | 3 I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? |
| ד דּוֹדִי, שָׁלַח יָדוֹ מִן-הַחֹר, וּמֵעַי, הָמוּ עָלָיו. | 4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my heart was moved for him. |
| ה קַמְתִּי אֲנִי, לִפְתֹּחַ לְדוֹדִי; וְיָדַי נָטְפוּ-מוֹר, וְאֶצְבְּעֹתַי מוֹר עֹבֵר, עַל, כַּפּוֹת הַמַּנְעוּל. | 5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with flowing myrrh, upon the handles of the bar. |
| ו פָּתַחְתִּי אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי, וְדוֹדִי חָמַק עָבָר; נַפְשִׁי, יָצְאָה בְדַבְּרוֹ–בִּקַּשְׁתִּיהוּ וְלֹא מְצָאתִיהוּ, קְרָאתִיו וְלֹא עָנָנִי. | 6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had turned away, and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. |
| ז מְצָאֻנִי הַשֹּׁמְרִים הַסֹּבְבִים בָּעִיר, הִכּוּנִי פְצָעוּנִי; נָשְׂאוּ אֶת-רְדִידִי מֵעָלַי, שֹׁמְרֵי הַחֹמוֹת. | 7 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. |
| ח הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם, בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם: אִם-תִּמְצְאוּ, אֶת-דּוֹדִי–מַה-תַּגִּידוּ לוֹ, שֶׁחוֹלַת אַהֲבָה אָנִי. | 8 ‘I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, what will ye tell him? that I am love-sick.’ |