Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Much later in the Torah after our parasha, T’rumah, we read of the prohibition against wearing shatnez, fabrics made from combining wool and linen. Thus, without taking the entire Torah in context, one might not be aware, when reading this parasha, that fabrics considered shatnez are used for the mishkan and even the ephod.

Sages and scholars offer many explanations for the biblical prohibition against wearing shatnez. The surrounding context in both references to shatnez, Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11, also include prohibitions against other types of mixtures (Hebrew: kilayim) such as interbreeding and planting different crops together.

A midrash (Midrash Tanhuma B’reishit) traces the prohibition back to the story of Cain and Abel. The brothers each brought an offering to G”d. G”d accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s offering (for no apparent reason.) The midrash speculates that Cain brought an offering of of flax seeds, and Abel brought wool. Jealous, Cain slew Abel, and G”d henceforth decreed that the offering of a sinner (Cain’s “linen”) should not be mixed with the offering of the innocent (Abel’s wool.)

Maimonides suggests that Canaanite priests wore garments of made from a combination of plant and animal materials, and this was the reason the Torah forbade them being worn by the Israelites. At first glance there might seem to be a glaring contradiction here. However, from the beginning, the rabbis noticed that the High Priest’s garments could be shatnez, and had already determined that shatnez could only be worn in holy service. (Did you know that tzitzit can be made of shatnez? They can, as long as the tzitzit are also made using t’khelet, the blue dye. You can also use wool tzitzit on a linen garment. More technicalities abound. Some believe linen can only be defined as such when it is made from flax, and wool can only be defined as such when it comes from sheep. Thus cotton linen and camel’s wool could be mixed and worn. This wasn’t always the case. In times when it wasn’t as easy as it is today to determine what is woven into a fabric, the rabbis generally prohibited any fabric mixtures based on the precept of marat ayin – how it might look. I it looked like shatnez, people might think it was shatnez, and that’s a good enough reason to prohibit it. Modern technology has allowed the rabbis to relax these standards.)

So clearly the rabbis find no contradiction with what it says in T’rumah. Shatnez is prohibited elsewhere precisely because it is reserved for only very holy usages like the coverings of the mishkan and the garments of the priests.

That rings a little hollow for me. For one thing, if the Rambam is correct, I find it very odd that G”d wanted the priests to wear garments containing shatnez when it was also a custom of the heathens. If the midrashic explanation of shatnez is correct, it is even more puzzling why the coverings of the mishkan and the priestly garments contained shatnez.

I’m not insistent on linearity in the Torah. That the prohibition against wearing shatnez comes much later in the Torah than the verses here in T’rumah that describe how part of the mishkan and priestly garments were made using materials that is shatnez does not trouble me. (I will admit I would find it more troubling if the order were reversed. Or perhaps not. If the prohibition against shatnez came before parashat T’rumah it would be easier, I think, to assert the case that a special exception was being made here for the mishkan and the priests. It might then be the case that what is written in T’rumah serves to amplify and explain the prohibition against shatnez as being related to shatnez being intended to serve only holy purposes. However, I am hoisted on my own petard here, since, if I insist on a non-linear reading of Torah, why does the order matter? Each piece of Torah text informs every other piece of text that came before it or comes after it.)

Modern commentators have offered all sorts of reasons for prohibiting the wearing of shatnez. Among those is the idea that linen is generally the product of cultures that live near rivers and waters where flax and other plants used to make linen grow, whereas wool is more associated with desert and nomadic cultures. So it’s Egypt and Israel, not to be mixed.  If that is indeed the case, then it doesn’t help explain why the mishkan and priests are adorned with shatnez.

So where does this leave me? Scratching my head, as always. Perhaps we’ll use Ockham’s razor and accept the simplest explanation as best. When it comes to G”d, and matters related to religion however, Ockham’s razor might not apply, as Kierkegaard and other philosophers have suggested. William of Ockham himself saw that his razor, in scientific terms, would suggest that G”d does not exist, and suggested that theology relies on faith, not science.

Sorry, but faith alone is not going to help me come to terms with why the priests and the mishkan can be adorned with shatnez. Neither will science alone. Yet I am hesitant to suggest that the answer might be found be creating yet another form of shatnez, or more specifically, kilayim (mixtures,) that of science and faith.

My answer may come in recognizing the realities of shatnez itself. The halakhah does not prohibit one from wearing a wool garment on top of a linen one (or vice versa.) I need not mix the science and the faith. They can work together without being blended. I can wear them both.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

T’rumah 5771 – TorahLeaks
T’rumah 5770 – Finessing Idolatry, or Outgrowing It?
T’rumah 5769 – Planning for Always
T’rumah 5767-You Gotta Wanna – The Sequel
T’rumah 5766-No Tools Allowed
T’rumah 5765-Ish Al Akhiv
T’rumah 5764-Redux 5760-Doing It Gd’s Way
T’rumah 5763-Semper Paratus
T’rumah 5762-Virtual Reality or Real Virtuality?
T’rumah 5760-Doing It Gd’s Way
T’rumah 5761-You Gotta Wanna

This Shabbat marks the first of four special Shabbatot that lead up to Pesakh, Shabbat Shekalim. (Yes, I know it’s hard to  imagine thinking Pesakh when Purim is still 18 days away.)

The concept of the half-shekel census tax from Exodus 30:11-16 is clear. Rich and poor alike – all must give the same amount. This is a reminder that all are obligated to contribute to the upkeep of the community. I would extend this obligation to beyond the Jewish community, yet for the purposes of this musing, it is support of the Jewish community with which I am concerned. (I’d rather not get into an argument about progressive/regressive/flat tax codes. Let’s just say for now that I don’t think that, taken as a whole, in context, the Torah really means to tell us that a progressive tax code is wrong.)

According to the rabbis, in Temple times in Israel, the 1/2 shekel annual census tax specified in Exodus 30:11-16 was announced on the first of Adar. The thinking was (according to the convoluted thinking of the rabbis, IMHO) that reminding people to pay their half-shekel tax at the start of Adar insured the priests had a supply of new shekalim with which to purchase the animals to be sacrificed starting at the beginning of Nisan. Why it mattered that the sacrificial animals for Nisan needed to be purchased with new money instead of what was already “in the accounts” of the priests is an interesting discussion in and of itself, but we’ll just sidestep that for today.

By Temple times, there was a system in place that recognized four different kinds of payments that the priests received. There was the annual payment of the half-shekel census tax from Exodus 30:11-16, the payments for vows specified in Leviticus 22, all other gifts like those mentioned in parashat T’rumah and elsewhere, and lastly, monetary substitutions for required animal sacrifices (for guilt and sin offerings.)

In this special haftarah, King Jehoash is asserting his control over the first three types of funds collected by the priests. The priests have made themselves an easy target for this. At the start of his reign, aware of the physical deterioration of the Temple, he ordered the priests to utilize the funds coming in the make repairs and maintenance.  Some years later, it was noticed the priests had not arranged for any repairs or maintenance, so the King ordered what was effectively a giant pushke/tzedakah box be placed in the Temple into which all donations were placed. Every time the box filled up, the King’s scribe (finance minister?) and the High Priest would empty the box, count the money, bag it up, and deliver it directly to the overseers of the contractors working on the repairs. (The text is silent on who actually ordered the repairs – the priests or the King.) Perhaps suspecting that the priests were resistant to his initial request to use Temple income to make repairs because they saw it as a threat to their own income and lifestyle, the King specified that monies given for guilt or sin offerings did go to the priests directly.  (Remember, Levites and priests do not own land – well, technically. I suspect a number of priestly families, through shell ownership, or in blatant defiance of the Torah, had themselves nice little estates and nest eggs saved up.)

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the rabbis needed to come up with an alternative use for Shabbat Shekalim. They turned it into an occasion for making donations to funds to insure the welfare and continuity of the Jewish community. (That annoying appeal for funds from the bimah that many of you hear during the High Holidays is really meant to be given on Shabbat Shekalim. What a sad commentary on the state of Jewish affairs.)

Just as during the time of Jehoash, how can we be sure that the funds we give are being used by those who receive them to do the things we expect them to be doing?  The fact is, without the sort of accountability that Jehoash set up, we can’t.

Why was the Temple in disrepair when Jehoash ascended the throne? How is it that the priests, the people, and prior Kings had not noticed? Or had they noticed but not cared?  Are we in a similar situation?

I’m not generally an alarmist, and I’m not predicting the decline and end of Judaism anytime soon, but I am concerned that just as in Jehoash’s time, we have a deteriorating Temple.  If we think of Judaism itself (or perhaps the state of affairs of Judaism, and/or the Jewish community) like the Temple, then it is definitely in need of repair. we have allowed our priests to not utilize the shekalim we give them to repair what needs repairing. Lots of money seems to be going in, but I’m not seeing all that many signs of the necessary repairs being made. We have allowed our priests to not utilize the shekalim we give them to repair what needs repairing. I see lots of signs of the modern equivalent of the priests – those who control the monies that come in, be they rabbis, CEOs, Boards, fundraisers, philanthropists – simply insuring their own (or their organization’s) continuity, without concern for the entire edifice that is Judaism and the Jewish community. They work to protect their own little space inside, while the entire building is starting to crumble around them.

At the same time, I do see lots of contractors eager to do the work of making the repairs that the Jewish edifice needs. While there are modest efforts underway to funnel funds to those people, it’s but a mere trickle. The funds are going in to our “Temple” but they’re just not being used to fix the things that truly need repairing.

We have no King to step in for us and insure that our priests are using the money as needed. So it is up to us – each of us – all of us – to insure that the money gets to the contractors who actually will do/are doing the work needed.

First, we much each be certain that we are giving our due half-shekel. We must be contributing to the community. (I am a proponent of “sweat equity) so it doesn’t always and only have to be money. Teach. Serve on a committee. Work for a social action or community organizing organization.) Then we must be active participants in insuring that our half-shekel, along with all of the others, gets collected, bagged up, and sent to those who are actively doing the repair and maintenance work that is needed to our virtual Temple.

It’s interesting to note that the King and his surrogates became the watchers of the priests to insure they did what they were supposed to do. When it came, however, to someone to watch over the recipients – the overseers and the workers – no watcher was deemed necessary. Like the worker in the ancient story, we hope that their attitude isn’t “I’m earning a living,” or “I’m supporting my family,” or “I’m laying bricks,” or “I’m carving wood,” but rather “I’m building a Temple” or, in this case “I’m repairing the Temple.”

My prayer is that this penultimate line from the haftarah proves true in our own time.

16 No check was kept on the men to whom the money was delivered to pay the workers; for they dealt honestly.

Let’s repair our Temple.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
© 2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other Musings on This Parasha:

Mishpatim 5771 – Getting Past the Apologetics
Mishpatim 5770 – Divine Picnic
Mishpatim 5769 – Redux 5757/5761 Change from the Inside
Mishpatim 5768 – Justice for All
Mishpatim 5767-To See, To Behold, To Eat, To Drink
Mishpatim 5766 – Mishpatim with a Capital IM
Mishpatim 5765-Eid Khamas (revised)
Mishpatim 5764-Situational Ethics
Mishpatim 5763-My Object All Sublime
Mishpatim 5762-Enron Beware!
Mishpatim 5761-Change from the Inside
Mishpatim 5760-Chukim U’mishpatim
Mishpatim 5759-Eid Khamas-Witness to Violence

“I am Ad”nai your G”d who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage…”

In the midst of struggling yet again with this “do it because daddy says do it, or daddy will punish you” theology, I read a most enlightening blog post on this very subject, for this very parasha, from Rabbi Menachem Creditor. You can read it on his blog. His words have given me a handle, after all these years, to redeem this most troubling of theologies, by standing it on its head (or side.) I won’t give it away. Go read it and see what you think.

So I decided to take this week’s musing in another direction, also based on something I’d read. A colleague posted to Facebook the first of many links I expect to see this year to the good folks at Sabbath Manifesto promoting this year’s National Day of Unplugging. I commented on her post, shooting from the hip, explaining why I had some reservations about endorsing this idea. Then it struck me that here in the parasha we read for the first time the fourth commandment, a rather explicit commandment regarding Shabbat. Here was an opportunity to expand on my thoughts about that. Herewith, those thoughts.

It seems like such a great idea. A national day of unplugging. I’m not convinced that this is such a great idea, and I’m not certain I would want to participate in it (I haven’t participated in either of the previous two years, and it wasn’t for lack of knowledge of the event. However, I can’t say that, until now, I didn’t participate by deliberate choice.)

For some of you, dear readers, this isn’t even an issue on your radar screen. Your Shabbat observance may or may not routinely exclude the use of technology. Perhaps you make your Shabbat choices based on the standard embraced by the Reform movement and other forms of liberal Judaism – that of informed choice. You don’t need the folks at Sabbath Manifesto telling you what to do to make Shabbat more meaningful, even though you might agree with some of what they say. Your choice is not determined by rabbinical fiat. If your leanings are Reconstructionist, perhaps you apply the Kaplan standard of giving the past a vote but not a veto. If you’re in the Conservative fold, you may be struggling to see how halakha might evolve to deal with our ever increasing dependence upon and relationship with technology. There was a time when I might say that an orthodox Jew has no issue with this either-they just observe the halakha and don’t use technology on Shabbat – so they are already unplugging. (But not literally-witness the KosherLamp, Shabbat elevators, and more.) However, times are changing. Witness the increasingly present idea of “Half-Shabbos” adopted by young orthodox youth eager to use their smartphones on Shabbat afternoons.

I’ve always considered myself somewhat cross/multi/post-denominational Aspects of all the various modern Jewish philosophies are part of how I determine how I live. On this issue, I don’t know that my understanding of Shabbat and its purpose must, perforce, involve disconnecting from the world through avoiding/unplugging technology. Yes, there is value in focusing on the immediate world, but I also believe there could be value on Shabbat in staying connected. They ask “can you survive a day without technology?” as if we were a society of addicts. Yes, aspects of technology are addictive. Nevertheless, I ask why survive a day without technology? Will this automatically make someone a better person? Of that I remain uncertain. The other nine points of the Shabbat Manifesto make sense. It’s just that first one that has me concerned. Consider that maybe what we need is a Shabbat Plugged-In.

What’s the motivation behind those proposing the day of unplugging? I don’t doubt for a second that it is, in part, a sincere effort to help people discover the everyday wonders around them, to give people a chance to slow their lives down for a moment, to assist them in connecting with their understanding of G”d. The folks behind the Sabbath Manifesto, the folks from Reboot, are not dogmatic. They make it very clear that it is up to every individual to interpret and utilize their ten principles. They offer different examples of what it might mean to refrain from using technology, to be mindful of one’s health, etc.

So I want to make it clear that I have no argument with the folks from Reboot, and I genuinely encourage you to engage in your own dialog with their principles/proposals and see how they might work for you. I have, and in so doing, have come to the conclusion, at least currently, that the first principle, “avoid technology” on Shabbat, doesn’t ring as true for me as the other 9 principles. I accept that this just might be my own gut reaction, an assumption, that, however unintentional, the principle harkens back to an obeisance to a tradition simply because it is one. A rabbinical interpretation of an uncertain commandment. A rigid adherence to a worldview that may no longer apply. Technology is no longer ancillary to our daily life. For better or worse, technology has become integral to our way of life.

Avoiding technology on Shabbat sounds to me as if it could be just another bone thrown to tradition as a result of the collective Jewish guilt of liberals Jews who continue to believe that there is something not genuine about their Judaism because they do not do everything that traditional Jews do and/or not do on Shabbat, because they are not shomer Shabbat.

Religion is not automatically pro-simple. There’s very little that is simple about Judaism. Asceticism exists in many religions but it is only one of many ways to be religious. Now, that’s a drastic comparison. Living the life of an ascetic, an Essene, so to speak, is not at all akin to taking a day off from the use of technology once a week, or even once a year. The idea of a national day of unplugging is not entirely anathema to me. I can certainly see value in stepping away from technology once in a while. I even try to do that whenever I am using my computer – planned breaks. Where things fall flat for me is the linkage to Shabbat. Especially so because I believe that my use of technology on Shabbat can actually enhance my Shabbat experience.

(The day is coming, my friends. We’ve had electronic/digital siddurs for over a decade. A bit clumsy to use on phones-I remember how tricky it was on my PDAs from Palm and HP, and later my first true smartphone, a Motorola Q, to try and use the electronic siddur and Tanakh I had on them. Now we have siddur and Jewish text apps for phones and tablets. There have been traditional siddurim and texts available electronically for years. Now the Reform movement, somehow always behind Chabad and the orthodox world when it comes to utilizing the latest technology (and I say this as someone who was active in the early days of the Reform movement’s first forays onto the web, even serving on an Internet committee) has finally made their new siddur, Mishkan Tefillah, available on iOS.

(Sidebar: As an Android user, and a working class Jew who can’t afford Apple’s always higher pricing, I sometimes wonder why there is this stereotypical idea that Jews and iOS go together. It’s an almost deliberate denial of the “Jews as cheapskates” stereotype – because there’s little doubt, at least in my mind, that Android gives more bang for the buck than iOS. “We’re not cheap. We only buy from Apple!” Has anyone ever done an actual survey to see if more Jews own iPhones than Android, Blackberry, or other devices?) I have digressed from my digression, so back to my original digression before we get back to the main topic!)

So yes, the day is coming. People will be worshipping using eReaders, tablets, phones. When this is all people are using – when the printed book has become a rare sight – what will we Jews do on Shabbat? Will Reform congregations allow their use on Shabbat, while Orthodox shuls not? Will the Conservative movement’s committees endlessly debate the topic while the movements members and synagogues simply choose for themselves, but only hire clergy who follow the halakha as it stands?  Will Reconstructionist congregations see the already prevalent divide between traditionalists and modernists often inherent in their congregations become wider and perhaps lead to a fractious schism? (The Renewal types will either be busy meditating, and trying to stay out of the fray. There, have I been an equal opportunity offender?) Will the Institute for Science and Halacha, that venerable bastion of modernist traditional Judaism, that gave us Shabbat elevators, work with scientists and engineers to help create the eSiddur equivalent of the KosherLamp that can be used on Shabbat? Will we find a way to create a fully digital “sefer Torah” (and yes, there could be an inherent oxymoron in combining the words digital and sefer-unless we expand the definition of what sefer means in an all digital age.) The day will come, like it or not, when we Jews will certainly be using some forms of technology on Shabbat, because there will be no alternative, and our religion will have evolved to adapt to that. What will the Sabbath Manifesto of that future time ask us to consider in order to enhance our Shabbat experience? I’m not sure “avoiding technology” will be in the mix.

That’s enough digression for now. Now back to the main topic!

To know how to deal with the use of technology on Shabbat, we must first ask ourselves what, exactly, we are supposed to do/not do on Shabbat? It says in the ten commandments (and in the creation narrative) that G”d rested, but it doesn’t say that we must or should rest. It only says what we shouldn’t do: M’lakhah. Therein lies the rub. What, exactly, is m’lakhah?

Now to be fair, a bit later, we come upon Exodus 31:12-17

And Ad”nai said to Moses: Speak to the Israelite people and say: nevertheless, you must keep My sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout the ages, that you may know that I, Ad”nai have consecrated you. You shall keep the sabbath, for it is holy for you. He who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does work on it, that person shall be cut off from his kin. Six days m’lakhah may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a {sabbath of complete rest} holy to Ad”nai…

From there it goes on to the “v’shamru.” Now you tell me where that says we must rest? Maybe that {sabbath of complete rest} thing? It’s in brackets because we don’t really know what the text means. It merely says it is a Shabbat Shabbaton, a sabbath of sabbaths. A ceasing of cessation, or a cessation of cessations. Could the text be any more obtuse? Let’s face it: though we’re used to using it that way, the Hebrew word Shabbat doesn’t really translate directly to mean rest. Stopping or ceasing may be better translations.

So as far as I am concerned, it is not at all clear that we are commanded to actually rest, in the modern meaning of the word, on Shabbat. What we are commanded is to not do any m’lakhah.

The word m’lakhah is defined in scholarly biblical lexicons in many ways. Among those definitions are:

• a trade mission or business journey
• business or work
• handiwork or craftsmanship.

The word is generally used to describe work in the sense of things that one needs to do to live or earn a livelihood. As usual, the rabbis took a different tack to define it. Working from the creation story, they noted that it says that G”d “rested” (really just another form of Shabbat, vayishbot) from G”d’s m’lakhah. Assuming this meant G”d rested from all the work required for creation, they linked m’lakhah with creative acts, thus creating a different category (for there can be business work that isn’t necessarily creative.) Since m’lakhah appeared both in creation and the ten commandments, the linkage was obvious, they thought. Nice, but then they gummed up the works by linking it all to the creative acts involved in building the beit hamikdash, the Temple, in addition to the basic acts required by human beings just to survive (like baking bread, making clothing, writing, building shelter or a house.) Thus was born what we now see defined as m’lakhah according to halakhic principles.

Thirty-nine specific areas of creative effort are noted. I won’t get into a specific discussion about each of them here, though I will note I find some of them strange. The prohibition of “putting the finishing touch on something” (makeh bapatish, literally, striking with a hammer) seems particularly odd, considering that Shabbat is the recognition of G”d doing exactly that-putting those last finishing touches on creation. In fact, I might be so bold as to suggest that this is why the Torah says (in Gen. 2:2) that on the seventh day G”d finished the work that G”d was doing – words which have vexed readers of the Torah from the start. So it seems to me that putting the finishing touch on something on Shabbat is to honor and recreate what G”d did! How and why have we turned this upside down?

Heschel suggests that the concept of kadosh, holy, is central to Shabbat. The concept of holy is first introduced in reference to Shabbat:

And G”d blessed the seventh day and called it holy.

Now many might cite Heschel as support for the idea of an unplugged Shabbat. I suspect Rabbi Heschel himself would be a supporter of Sabbath Manifesto and a day of unplugging. After all, Heschel’s take is, simply put, that Shabbat is about being in time, rather than being in space, which we do the rest of the week. The festivals, Heschel argues, though they celebrate events in time, are fixed to timings in the natural world – moon phases, seasons, and thus, he says, tings in space. Shabbat is independent of anything in nature and space – it is a celebration of time. He says:

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world. (A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning For Modern man)

Is there something inherent in technology – computers, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, etc. that make them about space, rather than time? Perhaps. However I would also argue that these technologies might actually allow us to transcend and hallow time. Technology, for example, allows us to be places we are not, and to be in more than one place at the same time (albeit virtually.) Technology allows us to be in our own time and the past simultaneously. Technology just might be exactly what is needed to be celebrating time rather than place.

I’ve written many times about the anamnesis prevalent in Jewish ritual – ways of making the past present. Technology is a wonderful tool for making that happen. With technology, we could be at our Seder table and at Sinai or the Reed Sea at the same time!

As I stated near the beginning of this musing, it’s a matter of what you do online or with the technology, not that you are just using or not using it. I might use the technology to study, to engage in social action activities, to be part of an extended virtual community. Instead of the false dichotomy of “during the week we use technology and on Shabbat we don’t” why not “during the week we use technology for all sorts of things, but on Shabbat we use technology only for a higher purpose, in service to G”d and the spirit of G”d’s Shabbat.” I do not believe it has to be either/or. Item two on the Sabbath Manifesto is “connect with loved ones.” is that connection any less worthwhile if it is done using technology, as that might be the only way to do it?

During the week I utilize computers to deal with the tyranny of work. On Shabbat, might I not use a computer in a way that is totally free of how I use it for work? Maybe I’ll use it to create a song, or a poem. (Oh wait, that’s creative isn’t it? Well, as I said before, I’m not sure the rabbis got that right anyway.) Maybe I’ll use it for something that, for me, enables me to totally experience the idea of “Shabbat Vayinafash” which I like to think of, as I’ve written in musings before, of G”d’s refreshing or re-souling G”d’s self. Who am I judge judge how another experiences Shabbat? If playing Angry Birds help you be in the spirit of Shabbat, then why not play Angry Birds? If reading is something you usually do on Shabbat, does it really matter if you use a Kindle or a Tablet instead of a book?

I’ve often heard even shomer Shabbat Jews refer to a Shabbat recharge. Now there’s irony in this simile/metaphor. (For you purists, I might argue that it is not at all clear if this is a simile or a metaphor. It can be the simile “Shabbat is like a battery being recharged” but it could also be the metaphor “Shabbat is a recharging.”) Can there be recharging without violating prohibited m’lakhah? Certainly not in a physical, scientific sense. What about in a spiritual sense? If using technology helps provide my spiritual recharge for Shabbat, is that truly wrong?

What about mitzvot and Jewish values? The rules for Shabbat permit some violations for the sake of saving a life. If I turn my cell phone off, I might never know of that opportunity. My cell phone might enable me to perform an act of kindness or support for another on Shabbat. Maybe someone I know has an emergency, or a car accident, or a death in the family. Maybe a friend is feeling down and needs cheering up. Maybe a family member needs my assistance. Maybe a friend is studying Torah alone and needs a partner. If someone is alone and needs community, they could attend one of the virtual synagogues on the web. Is this truly wrong? We arrange for shut-ins to see services through live streaming (some synagogues have done this for decades just by phone, by the way.)

If I go to services and get inspired, by traditional standards, I’d just have to keep the ideas in my head until Shabbat is over. I couldn’t write a note, record a voice memo, make notes on my smartphone or tablet. Chances are by the time havdallah came around I’d have forgotten. If I used technology to help me remember, I could perhaps make my life, or that of someone else, or even the whole world, better.

Now, all this being said, I will state that my own Shabbat practices have varied widely over the years. For many periods in my life, I did refrain from using technology on Shabbat, from answering the phone, checking email, writing articles, etc. I did refrain from doing commerce or business on Shabbat (though there’s that catch involving anyone who is a Jewish professional and what it is that they actually do on Shabbat to meet the needs of the congregation or community.) I found ways to unplug during Shabbat.

Now I have reached a point in my life where I find that technology allows me to experience my Shabbat in ways that actually enhance it. So I’m not sure I’ll unplug on March 23/24 for the National Day of Unplugging. I may unplug on other occasions or other Shabbats. I may even unplug that Shabbat – but not because it is the National Day of Unplugging, but rather because I choose, that Shabbat, to do so.

So consider this my little plug for not unplugging on the National Day of Unplugging for the wrong reasons. Technology is not inherently evil, not inherently contradictory to the goals of Shabbat. Technology is a tool, and it can be used for good or evil. Maybe, if we focus on only using it for good on Shabbat, we can help bring about a world in which technology is always used only for good all week long as well.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Yitro 5771/ Redux Beshalakh 5762 – Manna Mania
Yitro 5770 – Special Effects
Yitro 5769 – Evolution Shabbat
Yitro 5768-B’Kol HaMakom-In Every Place
Yitro 5767-Kinat Ad”nai
Yitro 5766-Top Ten?
Yitro 5765-Outsiders (Updated from 5759)
Yitro 5764-Outsiders II
Yitro 5763-El Kana
Yitro 5762-Manna Mania
Yitro 5761-From Cheap Theatrics to Impossible Possibilities
Yitro 5760-The Rest of the Ten Commandments
Yitro 5759-Outsiders

וַיּ֨וֹשַׁע יְהוָ֜ה בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֛וּא אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִיַּ֣ד מִצְרָ֑יִם וַיַּ֤רְא יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶת־מִצְרַ֔יִם מֵ֖ת עַל־שְׂפַ֥ת הַיָּֽם׃
      וַיַּ֨רְא יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַיָּ֣ד הַגְּדֹלָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֤ה יְהוָה֙ בְּמִצְרַ֔יִם וַיִּֽירְא֥וּ הָעָ֖ם אֶת־יְהוָ֑ה וַיַּֽאֲמִ֙ינוּ֙ בַּֽיהוָ֔ה וּבְמֹשֶׁ֖ה עַבְדּֽוֹ

“Thus the L”rd delivered Israel that day from the Egyptians. Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And when Israel saw the wondrous power which the L”rd had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the L”rd; they had faith in the L”rd and His (sic) servant Moses.” (JPS)

Feh. I want nothing to do with this. I am troubled to be an adherent to a religion which has this as part of its core narrative. We had faith in G”d because G”d did everything possible to cause the Egyptians to suffer more than they probably needed to suffer, in order that G”d might demonstrate G”d’s power? It’s just ugly. Bordering on unconscionable. The Torah shows us how people can be faithful to G”d for all the wrong reasons.

I believe my faith would have been greater if G”d had managed to have the Israelites delivered out of their bondage without anyone having to suffer. For that matter, how about our never having gone into bondage in the first place. Can’t we move directly from the covenant with the Patriarchs to receiving the Torah and inheriting the promised land?

Yes, it’s less likely we’d value something that came easy. Yet did we really need to go through all that? For that matter, did all those who suffered, both Israelites, Egyptians, and others need to go through all that?

I’m of extremely short stature. As you can imagine, this was not easy for me as a child. I wasn’t really in a position to protect and defend myself from bullies. So I learned to negotiate, to use my intellect to get out of a threatening situation. As a result, I respect all those who choose the non-violent path through a situation. (Would my attitude have been different if I were of normal stature, or even tall and athletically built? It’s hard to know. It is the body that makes the person?)

Thus, the best G”d of my understanding is a G”d that would find non-violent and peaceful solutions to every situation. A G”d that would simply reason with Pharaoh and win. A G”d that would talk Amalek out of it. A G”d that would convince the good people of Sodom and Gomorrah to straighten up and fly right. A G”d that would have found a better way than a flood wiping out all life as a solution for G”d’s own screw up.

However, there’s something about how this universe is structured (and do we hold G”d responsible for this?) Whether it is free will or something else, there is violence in this universe. Even the Hindu concept of ahisma, not doing harm to any living thing through action or words has an exception for self-defense. The venerable Dalai Lama himself has declared that today’s terrorism cannot be dealt with through non-violence.

(Judaism’s own supposed preference for non-violence is, at least based on the textual record, somewhat of a latecomer, and often observed more in the breech than in the keeping. This charge of being violent can, of course, be leveled at pretty much every religion. I may not agree with the likes of Hitchens-I do believe that religion has contributed much good to society, but it has also disproportionately contributed to the violence in the world.)

So, criticizing my own position, I might argue that I am being unrealistic in my expectations (of G”d and of human beings.) Arguing about a fantasy world in which there is no violence, and in which G”d has no need of employing violence (or encouraging/supporting it on the part of human beings) is engaging in mental onanism.

I was reminded by my muse, when working on this musing, that in order for G”d to communicate with human beings, G”d must do so in a manner that is comprehensible to those human beings. I have made this same argument in other musings over the years. Using this idea as a framework, we can see G”d’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, the killing of Egypt;s first born,a nd the mass drowning at the Sea of Reeds as necessary parts of bringing the Egyptians to the understanding that G”d truly is G”d. Reasoning with them, even if the reasoning was done by G”d, may have been ineffective. Demonstrations of might, superiority, and miraculous acts were the currency of communication by the deity in those times. Both the Egyptian and the Israelite paradigms may have required G”d to act the way G”d did. We can certainly extend this argument to include earlier biblical times like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc.

However, can we ever truly understand the mindset of our ancient predecessors? Yes, the historical record does show us that human beings have been stubbornly consistent in their flaws and failings from the beginning, with, sadly, little and rather slow evolution in morals and behaviors over time. How do we know that what actually happened wasn’t a regression-that our ancestors were morally, ethically, and intellectually superior, and might have responded to a G”d who merely reasoned instead of utilized violence? In fact, maybe if the human race were to speak to its therapist, that therapist might suggest that the very violent ways of its G”d during humankind’s childhood are the source of their own violent tendencies as adults. G”d as toxic parent. Maybe we weren’t so badly behaved after all, but, for whatever reason, we weren’t living up to what “G”d/Daddy Dearest” wanted, and G”d felt the constant need to punish us, put us down, abuse us. So maybe the way we are today is not because our ancestors were like us, but because G”d treated our ancestors abusively and we are the adult children of abused children. (If I were crazy like L. Ron Hubbard, I might consider creating a religion out of this idea, sort of like a 12-step group – “Adult Children of G”d.” ACOG. Has a nice ring to it.

Maybe the Torah is not the record of how we really were in biblical times, but G”d’s record, as the abusing parent, of how we were. Time to write our own recollection? Oh wait, we’ve been doing that all along. The oral Torah, the Talmud, the midrashim, the commentaries, the tshuvot (responsa) – are they not attempts to otherwise correct, amend, or explain the Torah? It’s a theory I’ve not considered before-that the inconsistencies in Torah exist because our collective recollection as a race is different from the recollections attributed to us in the Torah.

Now there are all sorts of holes in this argument. If we accept human authorship of Torah, we have a problem. (If we accept Divinely-inspired human authorship, then we can at least accept that G”d inspired the authors to be less than frank and write G”d’s own agenda, G”d’s own messed-up view as an addict, abuser, and toxic parent.)

So here I am, stuck with competing understandings –the practical and the fantasy. As Judaism is, indeed, focused on the here and now, I supposed my efforts are better spent trying to work in the worlds as it is, striving to make it a better place, rather than pining for a world which does not (yet) exist.

Though The Torah shows us how people can be faithful to G”d for all the wrong reasons, I can seek better reasons to be faithful. I can have my vision of what olam haba could be, and try, each and every Shabbat, to get that little forshpeis, that taste, of what a world without violence on anyone’s part, including G”d’s, might be like.

So that’s how I can be thankful for even the worst of what Torah has to offer. That’s how I can turn being thankful for all the wrong reasons into being thankful for all the right reasons.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
© 2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Beshalakh 5771 – Praying That Moshe Was Wrong
Beshalakh 5768 – Man Hu
Beshalakh 5767-March On
Beshalakh 5766-Manna Mania II
Beshalakh 5765-Gd’s War
Beshalach 5763-Mi Chamonu
Beshalach 5762-Manna mania
Beshalach 5760-Moshe’s Musings
Beshalach 5761-Warrior Gd

Random Musing Before Shabbat – Bo 5771 – Cover of Darkness

The question seems so obvious that this week even a 1st-grader asked it. That could be a good thing, but perhaps not. More on that later.

Here’s the chain of events: locusts, darkness, slaying of the first-born, exodus. “Why,” the 1st-grader asked, “didn’t the Israelites sneak out of Egypt while it was dark?” “yeah,” another chimed in. “You told us it got so dark the Egyptians couldn’t see anything.” Another chimed in “It got so cold they were frozen in place.” “Yes,” I answered. “The Torah says ‘v’lo kamu ish mi takhtav’-no man got up from his place’, and the rabbis tell us the Egyptians couldn’t move. And a midrash says that the Egyptians could hear noises all around them-doors opening, footsteps, etc-it was the Jews, checking out the beautiful things the Egyptians owned that they knew Hashem had promised they would be taking with them when they left Egypt.” “But how could they see?” I answered, “the rabbis tell us that the Jews, wherever they went, there was light, and they could see, but no Egyptian could see.” “So why didn’t the Jews just leave Egypt?” my original questioner asked.

It’s a good question. The rabbis have a few answers. The most obvious one is that G”d had not yet told the Israelites it was time to leave. G”d needed to work that final, awful plague to be sure Pharaoh on the Egyptians-and even the Jews themselves, learned of G”d’s awesome power and learned that G”d was in charge. That’s the classic answer I offered the students in this rather traditional Day School where I teach. But when one teaches, one is also a student, a learner, and I wasn’t even fully satisfied with that answer. The rabbis also tell us that the Jews needed to collect the spoils of Egypt when they left, and that needed to wait until later. But there’s a problem with that solution too. The Jews could just as easily taken the Egyptian’s gold, silver and other valuables under the cover of darkness and then snuck out of Egypt while the Egyptians were frozen in place and blind.

Now, who I am to question G”d? Well, I am one of G”d’s creations, endowed with the very ability to do so-so I assume my creator wants it that way. It wasn’t enough to decimate the Egyptian economy with these plagues. G”d had to go ahead and kill all those first-born sons of Egypt. and later on, G”d wipes out most of the rest of the sons, drowning them in the sea! Was all that killing really necessary to make the point? How much punishment is enough?

“If all the first-born were killed, why wasn’t Pharaoh killed?” asked another student. “A good question,” I answered. “Of course, Pharaoh might not have been a first-born, but we all know Kings usually leave their kingdoms to their oldest sons, right? The rabbis tell us Pharaoh was left alive because someone had to be around to tell the story of Hashem’s great power.” A classic answer but yet one that troubles me. Even with all the decimation, might not leaving Pharaoh alive make it look to the Egyptians that perhaps Pharaoh, after all, did have some G”d-like powers? But no, Pharaoh had to still be there- to face that ultimate humiliation and tell Moshe to take the Jews and get out of Egypt. And to be alive for that ultimate defeat at the sea of reeds. Ah, the old “puppet master” G”d. Not particularly satisfying.

But G”d, even with such ultimate power and unfathomable plans recognizes that human beings need to have things demonstrated in terms they can understand (something I wrote about in a last week’s musing.) And sometimes human beings need to encounter things in terms they can’t understand, so the mystery that is G”d can remain. And we have all that here in our parasha. Plainly understandable and totally incomprehensible at the same time.

Perhaps all this killing and destruction was a necessary part of our history, a necessary part of G”d’s plan. Perhaps the Jews not sneaking out of Egypt under cover of darkness was part of all that. The same for Pharaoh not being slain as a first-born, if indeed he was. But I would be less than the creature the G”d made me if I didn’t wonder if that really was all necessary. A moot point, since that’s how it happened and it’s how we got to where we are today? Perhaps. But maybe what G”d really wants us to do is to ask these question anyway. And ask them I shall. I won’t live like an Egyptian in total, utter darkness. My questions are perhaps the light that I, like the Jews in Egypt, carry with me at all times to help me illumine at least a little bit of Gd. May our questioning always fuel our inner and outer light.

These words speak for themselves and bear repeating. However, I want to add to them, and question another case of “cover of darkness.” Our parasha tells us the the last plague came “in the middle of the night. It’s tempting to ask whether G”d chose the middle of the night because even G”d was feeling a bit guilty about having to kill all these Egyptians. Then again, my opinion of whether G”d would be so concerned or considerate is tempered by the fact that Torah makes a point of telling us the all Egyptians, from the Pharaoh himself, to the lowest prisoner in the dungeon. I presume this also means from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor – poor, that I might add, had probably been made serfs and poor through G”d’s servant Joseph when he acquired their land in exchange for food during the famine. Talk about a double-whammy. Was that really necessary? Where is the love and compassion for the downtrodden? Then again, we are talking about the G”d who didn’t spare Sodom or Gomorrah, and as I have speculated before, may have done so knowing there actually might have been 10 or more righteous people in them.

I don’t like this G”d. This G”d who finds it necessary to harden Pharaoh’s heart, to make the suffering of the Egyptians so great, who shows no compassion or mercy except when it’s convenient. This G”d who singles out the children of Israel and keeps them safe whilst plaguing everybody else. While killing others. Directly.

We sanitize our G”d. We have the rabbis and the midrash to help with the whitewash.  Why is it that we have a story of G’”d chastising the angels for celebrating at the Reed Sea, reminding them that many Egyptians died. Where is the same outcry for the indiscriminate, darkness-hidden slaying of the first born?

Tell me – when you spill your drops of wine at your Seder, are you thinking of just the soldiers who drowned in the sea, or are you thinking about all of G”d’s victims in the Passover story? All of G”d’s victims throughout the biblical texts? For that matter, all of G”d’s victims, at any time, past, present, or future.

I believe, with almost absolute certainty, that G”d could have accomplished what needed to be accomplished without so much death. If that’s not the case, then I call into question how G”d structured the universe.

G”d calls upon us to be pursuers of peace. G”d tells us we should not murder. Yes, it doesn’t say we should not kill, so G”d gives us, and even G”d, an out. Yet how can one look upon the tenth plague or the drowning at the Reed Sea (or Sodom and Gomorrah, or the biblical flood, or our violent takeover of Canaan) and not consider those not just killing, but murder? Is there one standard for G”d and a different one for human beings? Apparently so, but I reject that and will not accept that.

As long as we allow G”d to hide these deeds, these murders, under the cover of darkness, we allow G”d to get away with them. We must not allow the G”d of light to hide misdeeds in the darkness. We must not stand by idly while our neighbor bleeds. J’accuse, G”d. Are you ready to stand trial at my Seder this year?

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2012 by Adrian A. Durlester. Portions ©2001 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Bo 5771 – Keretz MiTzafon-Again! (not the same as 5769)
Bo 5769-Keretz MiTzafon
Bo 5768 – Good Loser (Redux 5763)
Bo 5767-Teach Your Children Well (Redux 5762)
Bo 5766 – Random Disjunctions and Convergences (Redux 5760)
Bo 5765-Four Strikes and You’re…Well…
Bo 5764-Keretz Ani
Bo 5763 -Good Loser
Bo 5761-Cover of Darkness
Bo 5762-Teach Your Children Well

—–begin 2001 thoughts——–

Sometimes, there are things that are beyond a persons comprehension. Sometimes, we humans can’t see outside our paradigms. Therefore, interacting with people often requires us to work within a framework that others can understand. If this is true for one human to another, how much more so it must be true for an incomprehensible deity.

Sometimes, the deity needs to maintain the mystery. “Eh’yeh asher eh’yeh,” is the deity’s answer to Moshe’s question “who shall I tell them has sent me?” At others times, it’s in the best interests of the deity to be more direct. “I am the L”rd. I appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov as Kel Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by my name, [the tetragrammaton].” But for you, dear Moshe, I have revealed my true name (at least as much as I wanted you to know.) At this time, it was important for Moshe to comprehend the deity, at least as much as was humanly possible. So G”d personalized things a bit.

The question is always asked-why did G”d put the Egyptians and the Israelites through this whole plague thing when, as an all-powerful deity, G”d could have just freed the Israelite people without a hitch or hassle. We all know some of the well-worn answers to this-some attested to in the Torah itself-that G”d wanted to demonstrate absolute sovereignty over all, and so needed some effective demonstrations. Or that nothing worth having should be easy to get. Or that G”d really needed to hear the Israelites cry out in their despair-a despair so deep they could not hold back any longer, could not be complacent or silent.

Whichever of these reasons you choose, the simple fact is that G”d was choosing to operate in a manner which could be understood by all the parties involved. Oh, the truly wise might have seen how great G”d was from a simple one-step act of freeing the Israelites from slavery, but the average Israelite & Egyptian needed something less abstract.

So G”d gives us Moshe, a human being, to carry out G”d’s plans-putting a human face on it all. No big mysterious deity, but a real flesh and blood person through whom G”d could demonstrate power.

G”d also understood something about Pharaoh. Pharaoh thought he himself was a deity. And to Pharaoh, his courtiers and the Egyptians, the idea of some unseen, non-physical deity was simply too bizarre. So G”d appointed Moshe to the role of “god to Pharaoh.” Moshe (and Aharon) put a face, something tangible, to represent G”d so that Pharaoh could interact and play out G”d’s little charade.

This helps me understand something that has always puzzled me. Why was it necessary for Moshe to plead with G”d to stop several of the plagues once Pharaoh appeared to have agreed to let the Israelites go worship their G”d? Surely the omnipotent and omnipresent deity was aware of this.

So the theory is this: Pharaoh was, as they say, just not getting it. Pharaoh continued to see G”d as just another rival, a potentially more powerful deity than he was. But this Pharaoh did not have the foresight or open-mindedness of an Amenhotep IV or an Avraham, and comprehend the idea that there was only one all powerful deity. To compensate for this, Gd even went so far to accommodate the Egyptian ( and to some extent Israelite) world views, that, even though G”d was perfectly well aware of when Pharaoh had acceded to Moshe’s demands after several of the plagues, Moshe had to go plead with Hashem to stop them. Pharaoh could not comprehend otherwise. And I’m not sure that Pharaoh ever really “got it.” I’m not even sure we Jews have ever completely “gotten it.” But we try.

G”d is exceedingly wise. G”d’s understanding that sometimes we humans “just aren’t getting it” has enabled G”d to do some things necessary for us to be able to comprehend, in some form, Gd. It’s why we are not just a people with a covenant in thought and memory. We have a document-a physical something which Gd gave us so that we could have a form in which to understand and appreciate G”d, in the limited ways possible to us.

And we have Shabbat. A reminder, once every seven days, of the G”d who created us, who commands us, and watches over us. Shabbat is the perfect time for us when we are “just not getting it.” The workaday world, with all its trials, tribulations, disappointments, problems, bad things happening to good people, etc. With all that going on, it’s no wonder we sometimes can’t comprehend or understand G”d, the One who set it all into motion and keeps it going. No wonder we are “just not getting it.”

Using this gift of playing to the paradigm enabled Moshe to be G”d’s agent in freeing the Israelites from Egypt. We, too, can benefit from these gifts from G”d in forms we can comprehend. Torah. Mitzvot. Shabbat. Paths to “getting it.” Use them wisely, use them often, use them lovingly. And remember to offer thanks to the One wise enough to make them available to us.

—end 2001 thoughts—-begin additions for 2012—–

Wow. In hindsight, I have to say to myself: what a whitewash! It’s a lovely whitewash, but a decade later, it falls a little flat for me. I still have some credence in the thought that G”d may have been wise enough to work within human paradigms – and this helps explain a few things. In the end, however, it’s just a rationale. Now the thoughts in my head tend to worry less about Pharaoh not getting it, but about G”d not getting it. G”d may not truly understand G”d’s creations as well as G”d thinks G”d does. (Not that I object to gender neutral language, but boy does that make for a complicated sentence.)

Did we all really need this lesson in this particular manner? As an educator, I struggle with this all the time. I want my students to not just learn, but to understand. I even feel compelled to give rationales for rules of classroom behavior and demeanor. Yet sometimes, as I  face problems in classroom management, as all educators do, I realize that it’s not always the best idea to get into a lengthy discussion of things.It may be that sometimes it really is okay to say “that’s just the way it it, like it or lump it.” Now, I have to admit I have a hard time with that. I don’t ever think it is reasonable to expect anyone to adhere to a set of rules without their full comprehension and understanding of them. (This is what I think drives scientists to continue to try and understand what is behind all the rules of the universe.) Yet there are times when I just want to say (and when other professionals encourage me to say) “because I am the teacher and you are the student. Just do it.”

It seems G”d may have been as uncomfortable with that (at times) as I am. There are certainly plenty of examples in Torah of G”d just saying “that’s the way it is, deal with it.” Yet in this parasha and a few other places in the text we encounter a G”d who insists on offering explanations and rationales. The aseret hadibrot (ten commandments) are rife with explanations, as are many of the rules laid out in Torah. Yes, sometimes the rationale is a simple “ani Ad”nai,” because “I am G”d.” At other times it can be things like “so that you may long endure on this earth.”

Our long history of interpretative text – Talmud, Midrash, and later commentaries serves, among pother things, to satisfy our natural human need for understanding, for rationales to support things. The rabbis have always been happy to provide them. Rarely, if ever, would a great posek simply say “because G”d said so.”

So once again I ask, why wasn’t G”d plainer and clearer? The need for centuries of interpretation, explanation and provision of rationales seems to me clear evidence that G”d just doesn’t get us. 

Ah, but wait. What would our lives be like if G”d had laid it all out for us in plain language? We may have then been more like a totalitarian society – the trains would run on time, crime would be less rampant. Yet what would we lose in exchange? Some religions really do spell it all out for their adherents (or at least their adherents claim that they do) but Judaism, among others, certainly does not. We don’t have 613 rules. We have 613 (and more) things to try and figure out how and why to do. Life as a Jew is never boring. Other religions provide equally vexing problems, balanced with a dash of “just do it.”

Even if G”d always provided clear guidance, would that always work out? Let’s look at Gan Eden. G”d was pretty specific: eat anything you want except this. If Adam and Chava had followed the rules, what would humanity be like today? What I have often complained about as G”d’s bad parenting may just be G”d being wiley as a fox. Perfection will drive these creations crazy. I must find a way to challenge them and keep them occupied. I know, I’ll tell them they can do anything they want except this. They’re bound to do it. Just to be sure, I’ll even ask that serpent to help out.

I’m still not convinced that all the plagues and heart-hardening of Pharaoh was necessary, and I’m even still unconvinced by my own arguments from 10 years ago. Yet I’m willing to give G”d the benefit of the doubt.

Some people in the world need clear answers. G’d seems to have made provisions for them. Other people in the world thrive on trying to figure things out for themselves. G”d seems to have provided for them as well. G”d’s Torah seems to reach out to both types at different points.

Maybe G”d really gets us after all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
© 2012 and parts ©2001 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Va’era 5771/5765-Brighton Beach-Last Stop!
Va’era 5769 – Substitute
Va’era 5767-again, Crushed Spirits (Miqotzer Ruakh)
Va’era 5766-Why Tomorrow?
Va’era 5765-Brighton Beach-Last Stop!
Va’era 5764-Imperfect Perfection and Perfect Imperfection
Va’era 5763 – Pray for Me
Va’era 5761-Just Not Getting It
Va’era 5762-Early will I Seek You

Yes, there’s some evidence in Torah that G”d certainly experiences forms of human emotions and behavior – anger, petulance, jealousy, pride, arrogance, and more. Yet there is a very basic lesson that G”d didn’t seem to learn – that might for right is better than make is right.

Oh, one could easily argue that G”d’s cause is intrinsically right, therefore any action of might on G”d’s part is, perforce, for right as much as it is right. I think that’s pretty thin ice.

Let’s play the hypothetical game. What if G”d (through Moses, or even directly) attempted to use reason, and reason only, to convince Pharaoh that G”d was indeed the One true G”d and that Pharaoh should let the Israelites go? We don’t get the argument in this parasha, but we will soon, that the plagues, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, etc. were all necessary to make the event of enough significance. The rationale is that if it seemed or appeared to be a victory too easily won, it wouldn’t have been as meaningful.

Poppycock. We know the truth. G”d is an “ish milkhama” or better yet an “El milkhama” – a warrior G”d. The earth of G”d’s creation was a place where might made right, and G”d contributed to that overall sense of values.

G”d does things with a “yad hazaka” – a strong arm. Why not a G”d who does things with a strong intellect, or a strong and worthy cause?

Send the Israelites down to Egypt. Have Joseph assist Pharaoh in making the Egyptians all serfs. Ignore the Israelites for a few centuries. Suddenly harken to their cries and decide to bring them forth from their bondage – but not directly, rather through an intermediary.

“But wait,” I hear you cry. “Isn’t sending Moses sort of a way that G”d is trying to negotiate and reason with Pharaoh?” Let’s think about that. Really? Moses wasn’t sent to negotiate. He was sent to warn and threaten. He was sent to tell Pharaoh that might is right and might is G”d and G”d is might and G”d is right, and you are going to suffer, whether you like it or not. For good measure, G”d will make sure you suffer extra by hardening your heart. Yeah, that’s negotiating alright.

Yes, G”d could use a few lessons from Merlin, G”d ought to be convinced to use might only for right. (which would also require G”d to accept that just because G”d thinks something is right doesn’t necessarily make it right. Now there’s a conundrum.) G”d could learn to be more like Arthur.

“But wait,” I hear myself cry. The Arthur and Merlin of “might for right” is only a fantasy, a concoction from the brilliant mind of T. H. White. A brilliant concoction, no doubt – probably the finest work of fantasy ever written. However the Arthur and other characters of “Once and Future King” as as unlike their earlier portrayals in stories, myths, and legends as they could possibly be.

Prior to White’s version of the Arthurian legends, most tales portrayed Arthur and his knights in very negative ways. Arthur was often derided as the “do nothing King.” His knights were lechers and debauchers. There may have been a great table, but it wasn’t round. There may have been a sword, but it wasn’t Exacalibur. Go take a look at the medieval Welsh stories of the Mabinogion, or the historical writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Arthur we think of today is not the Arthur of the original sources, just as our understanding of G”d today is different from the G”d of understanding of our ancestors.

So how is it that the writings of an agnostic, alcoholic, sexually repressed, somewhat misanthropic British author provide for us lessons which we might dare suggest ought to be learned by G”d? It’s as cliché as the ending of the movie version of Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” when Cardinal Strauss suggests to Professor Langdon that G”d had sent him to help the church in its time of need.

Religious wisdom and insight often comes to us from outside the religious fold. Consider this great essay from Tablet Magazine in which the author derives some religious wisdom from Christopher Hitchens.  So why not from T. H. White?

For that matter, why not from Monty Python:

“And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it”

What does G”d need with Holy hand Grenades? What does G”d need with plagues? With sacrifices? What use does G”d have of war, armies, swords, battle?

Finally, now that I think about it, is might for right any better than might makes right? After all, there’s still might involved. Hard to argue with Hitchens. Religions have certainly wielded the sword with the idea that their might was for right just as much as they wielded the sword for might making right. Who gets to define what “right” is? As Pontius Pilate once asked a certain Jewish man, “What is truth?” Defining “right” is no easier.

So where does this leave us? Right where the Torah wants us. Confounded. Confused. Frustrated. Not frustrated enough to stop, just frustrated enough to be determined to keep looking, keep seeking, keep turning it and turning it.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Previous musings on this parasha:

Sh’mot 5771 – Free Association IV
Sh’mot 5767-Logic & Metaphysics
Sh’mot 5766-Free Association III
Shemot 5765-Why Us?
Shemot 5764-Uncomsumed-ness
Shemot 5763 – Free Association II
Shemot 5760-Tzaz Latzav, Tzav Latzav
Shemot 5761-The Spice of Life
Shemot 5762-Little Ol’ Me?

Vay’variekh et Yoseif vayomar: HaElohim asher  avotai l’fanaiv Avraham v’Yitzkhak; HaElohim Ha-ro’eh oti m’odi ad hayom hazeh; HaMalakh HaGoel oti m’kol rav, y’variekh et hana’arimv’yilarei vahem sh’mi v’shem avotai Avraham, Yitzkhak v’yid’gu larov b’kerev ha’aretz

And he blessed Joseph, saying: The G”d in whose ways my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked; The G”d who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day; The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm-Bless the lads, In them may my name be recalled, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they be teeming multitudes upon the earth. (JPS Gen. 48:15-16)

I’ve written previously about the Hamalakh HaGoel prayer, and I commend those thoughts to you, however today I am taking a somewhat different slant.

It’s important to recall the recipients of this blessing – Ephraim and Menashe, Yosef’s sons by his Egyptian wife. Now, Jacob’s blessing here doubtless confers upon these two sons membership in the tribe, and eligibility to be part of the continuing lineage of the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob clan. Even with this blessing, and from my modern lens, I still have trouble as seeing the “half-tribes” of Ephraim and Menashe as legitimate given how later Jewish tradition so twisted the concept of “who is a Jew?” How, on the one hand, can traditional Judaism still cling to the idea of matriarchal descent, cling to its strong opposition to inter-marriage, and overlook the fact that at least a goodly number of those who stood at Sinai were descended from an Egyptian mother?

Oh, I’ve heard all the arguments. It’s a pre-Sinai event. The advent of matriarchal descent became normative later. Jacob’s status as one of the patriarchs is alone enough to confer upon him the right to forever include these two children of an inter-marriage in the tribe, circumstances be damned. It was all part of G”d’s plan.

All of it is thin ice, a house a cards. In our post-Shoah world as we rail against assimilation and inter-marriage, we seem to have little trouble overlooking the fact that at least two of the twelve tribes had parents of mixed lineage. (Actually, chances are there was quite a bit of mixed lineage among the tribes.)

It’s time for us to get off our high horses and get realistic about Jewish survival. The Jewish world is replete with “gerim toshvim”,” with strangers who live among us and practice our ways. It is full of children who have only one Jewish parent. It is full of many children whose Jewish parent is not their mother.

For the sake of Jewish continuity, Jacob was able to overlook the mixed parentage of Ephraim and Menashe. Who are we to do any less?

In my other musing about Hamalakh HaGoel I wondered why Jacob invokes G”d in three ways- as the G”d of his father and grandfather; as the G”d who has been his shepherd from birth; and as the Angel who redeemed him from harm. I suggested that mention of the Angel recalls Jacob’s struggle. It occurs to me now that it might also reference Jacob’s internal struggle to bring himself to bless Ephraim and Menashe, knowing as he did that their mother was an Egyptian.

Like Jacob, we too are Israel, and we struggle. May we have the wisdom to learn from Yaakov and embrace all children and their parents who seek and strive to be part of Am Yisrael, regardless of their parentage and lineage. May we bless them. Then, perhaps, we will again be worthy to become teeming multitudes upon the earth.

Hazak, hazak, v’nitkhazeik.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©2012 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on this parasha:

Vayekhi 5771-Trading Places (Redux & Updated from 5759)
Vayekhi 5770 – Musing Block?
Vayekhi 5769 – Enough With the Hereditary Payback Already!
Vayekhi 5767-HaMalakh HaGoel
Vayechi 5766-Thresholds (Redux 5764 with Reflections
Vayechi 5761/5-Unethical Wills
Vayechi 5764-Thresholds
Vayechi 5763 – I Got it Good and That Ain’t Bad (Redux 5760)
Vayechi 5759-Trading Places
Vayechi 5762-The Wrong Good

Joseph calms his brothers’ fears, and tells them they need not be distressed as their past actions towards him. They were all merely pawns in G”d’s plan.
[Gen 45:5-9] 

The obvious inference from this is that the actions of
Joseph’s brothers in selling him into slavery were forgivable, as the end result was fortuitous? Such a teleological [outcome or end-result oriented]
ethic is surely a dangerous one. The people who come out on top always write the history. Hindsight is always 20/20. [Insert your own tired cliché here.]

Pharaoh could have used Joseph and then done away with him. Joseph could have slept with Potiphar’s wife (there are some who suggest he did!)  Of
course, if one accepts the idea of a Divine plan, then no deviations were really possible. More on this later.

Many interpreters of Torah support the viewpoint that good can come from evil, if it is part of the Divine plan. Yet this idea has been used by the
perpetrators of the most vicious crimes against humanity. Was the Shoah truly part of G”d’s plan? That medinat Israel is the phoenix that rose from
the ashes of the Holocaust seems little justification for the deliberate slaughter of millions.

To save Egypt (and that raises yet other questions about why Joseph was sent to “save Egypt” – another exercise in teleological thinking) Joseph had to make Pharaoh a slumlord and Feudal ruler. All Egypt became property of Pharaoh through the state’s control of the necessary resources to see the country through the famine. He could have been a ruler who simply gave the people the food they needed without extracting from them the price of the deeds to their property. Can we really say it was worth the price? Did the ends justify the means?

Some suggest that a “global view” of events facilitates the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers. This reconciliation, too, as a worthy end,
is further justification of the evil acts previously perpetrated.

We could play many “what if” games that might affect our willingness to accept that “good can come from evil.” Things certainly could have turned
out quite differently. Even Joseph’s brothers seemed to think so. In Vayechi, they will wonder if, after Jacob’s death, Joseph will finally take his revenge. [Gen 50:15] Maybe they weren’t buying Joseph’s “big picture” story after all.

But the “what ifs” didn’t happen. History unfolded as it did and none of us would be here if it hadn’t. Oh, really?  G”d wouldn’t have had realization of
the Divine plan if Potiphar had simply decided to kill Joseph? If Joseph’s brothers, fearing his retribution, simply fell upon him and killed him when he revealed himself to then, alone and exposed? The typical answer when such questions are raised is that when G”d’s plans are (apparently to us) thwarted by human choice/free will, then G”d just chooses an alternative. If not Joseph, then someone else and some other combination of circumstances would have led to the eventual slavery of the Israelites in Egypt and their ultimate redemption and covenant with G”d. All part of the plan, right? Any good manager or supervisor understands that it is an essential skill to be able to find alternatives when things gang aft agley. Better managers already have alternatives ready to go. Truly superior managers have the alternatives underway even while the main plan is proceeding apparently unimpeded.

So what happens when the Divine plan goes wrong? Don’t be ridiculous, some argue. G”d is G”d. How much impact can our free will have on the Divine plan? It all depends on our conception/construction of Gd…or does it? G”d is what G”d is, regardless of how we construct our ideas of G”d!

I remember how, as a child, I loved playing with erector sets, Lincoln logs, etc. Legos are the new equivalent.  I also remember how I would like to
throw a curve in the works-take something that wasn’t from the set, and fit it into my plan. I watch young children do this all the time. Perhaps G”d likes to do this too-and we, with our free will, perhaps provide some interesting curves for G”d in the plan for the universe? Perhaps G”d enjoys the chance in allowing humanity free will and the possibility of our interfering in Divine choice?

I also remember it was sometimes fun, and sometimes not, to create something with a friend. Ultimately, when the final shape deviated from my
plan too much because of a friends participation, I had several choices- knock it down and start again (the flood?)-restructure it the way I wanted (Torah?)-or revel in the beauty of having created something that neither of us could have done alone (covenant?) Perhaps you, my readers, can think of other examples where G”d chose options one two or three?]

One can take a modernist viewpoint and say that history is all hindsight, and write off any concept of Divine plan. Joseph got lucky, so he was willing to forgive and forget. After all, what cost to him to be a  nice guy? He can well afford it. The idea of Divine plan is so fraught with consequentialist ethics that it frightens me. Yet it also intrigues me. For a nihilistic [meaningless] view of life has little to recommend it.

My personal world view, at this point in time, incorporates the best of both worlds-Divine plan and free will. It is the “partnership with G”d” philosophy; that together we can finish the world. Joseph and his brothers seem to be merely pawns, yet surely Joseph is made of the stuff it takes to be a partner with Gd. It seems, however, that G”d was not yet ready to make such a covenant. So perhaps my answers aren’t to be found in Joseph’s story after all.

G”d does offer humanity choices. The clearest offering our of blessing and curse, death and life. [see Deut. 30:19] Nevertheless G”d gives us some advice: choose life!

In Mishna Avot 3.15, R. Akiba tells us that although there is a plan, man does indeed have free will.

Theologians go back and forth on these issues. A popular notion is the idea of a G”d who is persuasive but not all powerful. A less popular notion these
days in the “ineffable Gd.” Both theologies think they wrap up the problem with a nice little bow, but in reality, they succeed no better than other solutions to the question of teleology, divine plan and humanity’s free will.

Einstein didn’t like quantum mechanics. He didn’t like or accept a Universe in which G”d played dice, in which probabilities rather than certainties were the norm. Einstein didn’t want to accept “spooky action at a distance” either and spent most of his later life trying to prove that the idea of quantum entanglement was wrong. Modern physics has been able to demonstrate, albeit at only modest distances so far (though an experiment is underway that will attempt to demonstrate it across many miles) that quantum entanglement is indeed the reality of our universe, like it or not.

(The existence of quantum entanglement also provides a strong argument against teleological ethics. Choices we make at a local level have consequences that we might never see happening at a distance that might come back to haunt us.)

Einstein was wrong-G”d (or at least G”d’s universe) does play dice with the world. Human history as G”d’s crapshoot. Hmmmm.

There is much to understand, study, and question about Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers. While we may not find the answers we are seeking, as I often suggest, we will surely find the questions we need to be asking.

Shabbat Shalom to you and yours,

Adrian A. Durlester
©1998, 2001, 2011 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other Musings on this parasha:

Vayiggash 5771-Being Both Israels
Vayigash 5769 – He’s A-Cookin’-a-Somethin’-A-Up
Vayigash 5768 – G”d By the Light of Day
Vayigash 5767-Two Sticks As One?
Vayigash 5765-One People
Vayigash 5763-Things Better Left Unsaid
Vayigash 5761/5766-Checking In
Vayigash 5762-Teleology 101: Does Gd Play Dice With the World?
Vayigash 5764-Incidental Outcomes and Alternate Histories

When Joseph is appointed as Pharaoh’s second in command, he is paraded around town in a chariot (shades of Purim here)

41:43 He had him ride in the chariot of his second-in-command, and they cried before him, “Abrek!” Thus he placed him over all the land of Egypt.

The work “abrek,” (alef/patakh-vet/sh’va-resh/tsere-khaf sofit/sh’va, pronounced “a-brake” ) is one of about 70 hapax legomena in the Torah. This is a subject of some debate. There are probably about 1,500 words in the Tanakh that are candidates for being unique words, however more than two-thirds of such words have an etymology that can fairly readily be derived from some existing word or shoresh (root) leaving somewhere between 400-500 true hapax legomena in the Tanakh (of which some 67 or so are in Torah.)

As a brief sidebar, I am also curious as to why this word is transliterated as “Abrek” when, at least according to the vowelization of the Masoretes the second letter has no dagesh and would be pronounced as a “v” sound, and the final letter, khaf, even though the added sh’va sharpens and shortens the sound, would still not make it a true “k” sound but more of an abrupt “kh” sound.

Enough digression. As a true hapax legomenon, we cannot be sure of the word’s true meaning. We can make a lot of decent guesses based on the context – it is likely a word of honor rather than one of derision, and it is quite likely a word one would use to show obeisance.

We can certainly speculate. For one thing, some scholars argue that this word, too, is not a true hapax legomenon, and is easily derived from the Hebrew root “bet-resh-khaf” – the root that means “knee” and “to bend or bow” from which we eventually derive the words for “blessing.” Yet our context is Egypt, and this is a word that Egyptians would use for their leaders, making a Hebrew derivation somewhat suspicious (or not, depending on your views about where Hebrew actually comes from.) Strong’s Concordance says it is likely an Egyptian work meaning “kneel” (which makes it suspiciously like the Hebrew.) The venerable BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon) says the meaning is “dubious” and HALOT (Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament) says its meaning is uncertain but seems to buy into the connection to the Hebrew root. Of course these are resource works compiled mostly (but not exclusively) by Christian bible scholars.

The Septuagint (the Greek translation of Torah created by comparing the work of 70 (actually 72 in the original legend) elders of the Jewish community who separately translated the Torah into Koine Greek, each arriving, through G”d’s assistance, at the same translation) translates the word “Abrek” as “herald.”

Rashi suggests it could mean “father of the King” or, buying into the Hebrew root hypothesis, “bend the knee.” Modern scholar Nahum Sarna prefers thinking of it as an Egyptian term of uncertain meaning.

In his article on “Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Literature” that appears in the Plaut commentary, William Hallo seizes on the word “abrek” as a perfect way to illustrate how important the use of context can be in biblical exegesis. Hallo provides a wonderful exploration of the topic. He suggests that the Alexandrian Jewish elders who created the Septuagint would be likely to understand the word. He then goes on to cite recent evidence of an Akkadian origin of the word meaning “chief steward” and a later Assyrian meaning specifically designating a high official in an administration. Hallo then takes off on a great discourse on what significance may or may not be attributable to the presence of an Assyrian word in the context of this part of the Torah. I commend it to you.

Now I hear you asking “so what?” When the Torah has so much to say, so much to teach, why waste time and such an insignificant and seemingly unimportant word that hardly does much to contribute to or advance the narrative?

The rabbis would have us believe that every word in Torah is carefully chosen, and every jot and tittle matters. Hallo (and many other scholars) argue that we must consider the interconnectedness of the Torah and other Ancient Near Eastern texts. The various texts inform and shape each other (Hallo reminds us that we must not see the Torah as only a recipient of influence from other ANE texts.)

So, what do I argue for in this case? Simple. It’s just another mystery in the Torah put there to do just what it is doing. Causing us to wonder about it.

Were you expecting something more, something deeper? Dear reader, you know me better. This has all been one giant shaggy dog story of a pun to connect the title of this musing with its last words:

Gimme “Abrek.”

Shabbat Shalom and Khag Urim Sameiakh,

Adrian
©2011 by Adrian A. Durlester

Other musings on the parasha:

Miketz 5771-What’s Bothering…Me?
Miketz/Hanukkah 5769 – Redux 5763 – Assimilating Assimilation
Miketz/Hanukah 5768 Learning From Joseph and His Brothers (revised from 5757)
Miketz 5767-Clothes Make the Man?
Miketz 5766-Eizeh Hu Khakham?
Miketz 5757& 5761-Would You Buy A Used Car From This Guy?
Miketz 5763/5764/5765-Assimilating Assimilation