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In the Midst, All at Once: A Torah for Pride 5782

This was the D'var Torah I gave for Parashat B’haalotcha on June 18, 2022.

When the same passage of Torah comes at you from four different sources the same week, you have to pay attention.

I always look forward to Parashat B’haalotcha because it’s the start of the frisky Torah, the Torah of complaining. It’s the beginning of the Torah’s textbook on group dynamics once the community of Israel starts moving out from Sinai toward the promised land. It’s easy to see our groups in these next few Torah readings. That’s the lens I usually bring. But I was thinking particularly this week about Pride Month, and I had said that I’d speak related to that on this Shabbat, since I plan to be away next week. And from some Torah e-mails I subscribe to and podcasts and such, about four times I found myself face-to-face with this from the parasha:

It was the first anniversary of the Exodus and Moshe instructed the people to observe Pesach and to offer the Pesach sacrifice. Then this (Numbers 9:6-8):

וַיְהִ֣י אֲנָשִׁ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר הָי֤וּ טְמֵאִים֙ לְנֶ֣פֶשׁ אָדָ֔ם 
וְלֹא־יָֽכְל֥וּ לַֽעֲשֹׂת־הַפֶּ֖סַח בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֑וּא 
וַֽיִּקְרְב֞וּ לִפְנֵ֥י מֹשֶׁ֛ה וְלִפְנֵ֥י אַֽהֲרֹ֖ן בַּיּ֥וֹם הַהֽוּא:
וַ֠יֹּֽאמְר֠וּ הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֤ים הָהֵ֨מָּה֙ אֵלָ֔יו 
אֲנַ֥חְנוּ טְמֵאִ֖ים לְנֶ֣פֶשׁ אָדָ֑ם 
לָ֣מָּה נִגָּרַ֗ע לְבִלְתִּ֨י הַקְרִ֜יב אֶת־קָרְבַּ֤ן יְיָ֙ בְּמֹ֣עֲד֔וֹ בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל: 
ויֹּ֥אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֖ם מֹשֶׁ֑ה עִמְד֣וּ וְאֶשְׁמְעָ֔ה מַה־יְּצַוֶּ֥ה יְיָ֖ לָכֶֽם:

"There were people who were ta’meh [usually translated “impure” but we’ll get back to that] -- ta’meh for the human soul." And they were not able to do the Pesach on that day. So they came up close in front of Moshe and in front of Aharon on that day. And these people say to him: We are ta’meh for the human soul. Why are we held back, why are we subtracted, from bring close the close-up offering of the Divine in its time among the Children of Yisrael? And Moshe said to them: Stand, and I will hear what the Divine will command for you."

Lamah ni’gara. Why are we subtracted. Why are we not included.

We, who are in a state of tum’ah for life of a person. This requires some elaboration. At first blush this group seem to be held away from the Sanctuary because they had recently been in contact with a dead body and need to go through a purification ritual and the passage of a certain amount of time.

Tradition broadens the interpretation to all matters of tohora and tum’ah, which are usually translated as “purity” and “impurity.” Better to understand them, however, in terms of our embodied human experience and our attraction to the Divine.

Tum’ah and tohora are all about cycles and blood and child-birth and intimacy. These are intensely spiritual and we experience them through our bodies, our gender, our sexuality, our relationships. How is it, they ask Moshe, that these would take us away from Pesach. Why should we be the ones deprived of the Pesach offering -- the offering of freedom, the sacrifice whose blood is compared to the blood of the covenant. How could our embodied experience cause us to be held back from the Divine Sanctuary, the holiest place.

We aren’t complaining to you, Moshe, like the others who kvetch about the desert food or challenge your leadership. We’re not complaining about you or your religion or your rituals or your teachings. On the contrary, we want in. We want it all, b’moado b’toch b’nai Yisrael --  at its proper time, in the midst of all the community of Yisrael. Lamah ni’gara. Why should we be substracted. Why should we not be included.

I think we can see something even in their phrasing -- "we are tam’eh to the soul of a person". Move from seeing us as “impure”, toward seeing us as “the soul of a person.”

Moshe according to one commentary says to them: I am over the moon that you asked this question of me, and that you want this question asked of the Divine. And I too want to hear what the Divine has to say.

And the answer that came back at the time of our ancestors is what we call Pesach Sheni, a second Pesach. The message they understood, as recorded in the Torah written at that time, is that one month later, anyone who was ta’meh come and do the Pesach offering one month later, exactly as would have been done at its scheduled time. Not only they, but anyone who was on a journey too far away or someone who is a ger, a person within the community but who has not yet become a full citizen of the community. Each of you can do Pesach Sheni. This is how you will be included.

The Talmud says that being distant doesn’t mean just far, far away. Even someone who at the time of Pesach is just a step outside the area of the Temple where the sacrifice is done is far enough away for Pesach Sheni. If you’re not quite inside, physically. If you’re not let in, or don’t feel let in by the community, or if you’re not quite ready to come in fully -- you still are entitled to Pesach, to the celebration of the covenant.

I have been mulling over whether this Pesach Sheni is the answer to the question lama ni’gara, why are we not included. Part of me hears this as a bit of separate but equal, or as still “we” insiders who celebrate Pesach together on time and you others who will include with us.

So many of our people who are lesbian or gay or bisexual, transgender or intersex or nonbinary or queer, or any truer description that I still strain to know and understand -- so many have asked nothing more or less than to be b’toch b’nai Yisrael, to be part of the community of Israel full stop. Not to have to frame the matter in terms of lama ni’gara, why are we not included, how can we be included. To have to ask that way means we still are incomplete.

And the Torah recognizes this, because at the end of the teaching of Pesach Sheni the Torah says: chukkah achat yih’yeh lachem. One law there will be for all of you. As if to say -- Whatever you have just read, it is not one Torah for all of us yet. There is work yet to do. Keep working on it, now and in future generations.

This Pesach Sheni is a step forward, a step of inclusion, and it is not the final answer. Somehow, our Sanctuary needs to be spacious enough for all our people, for people who experience in all different ways love and intimacy and longing and connection. Who in all different ways understand ourselves as the image of God in our bodies and genders and sexualities and gender identities.  Where no one of those is the norm that others have to be compared to and have to ask to be included around, or justified in terms of.

That part of the Torah reading spoke about people coming close, toward the Sanctuary where the altar and the Ark were. A bit later in the parasha, we read how the Ark with the tablets of the covenant would go out into battle with the people, and then come to rest when battle would pause or end. 

The Talmud teaches that the biblical ark had both the broken tablets that Moshe had shattered after the Golden Calf, and the new set of whole tablets Moshe had carved on the mountain. Rabbi Yehudah ben Lakish taught that the whole tablets would stay back in the Holy of Holies, while the broken tablets would go out into battle.

It is so important for Torah to go out with us, as we battle to defend the lives of transgender youth, and all LGBTQ+ young people. As we battle for the rights and reputations of caring adults in schools who listen to them and try to be their mentors and advocates. As we battle against those trying to pit parents against teachers. It is so important for us to carry our religion into this battle, because others battle with theirs and claim to speak for God. So we have to speak in the name of our covenant as well.

It is so important as we do so to recognize that we are marching with broken tablets. That our own Judaism is not yet whole, we have not finished doing teshuvah for the ways we have not seen, for the times we have not stood by queer people of all ages and their family members. We have to carry honestly the broken hearts of our own community, the mourning over opportunities to do better and care better that we missed over the decades. When we work on matters of justice and safety and wellbeing for LGBTQ+ people in our lives, when we battle, we have to hold close the broken times, and our own brokenheartedness about times in the past we’ve each fallen short and our community and Judaism have fallen short.

It is so important to think about the ways the traditions of our past need to be creatively broken and rebuilt. The Talmud in one place praises Moshe for breaking the tablets. Because anything we have written down no matter how inspired is incomplete and could be used to shut down our vision, to say that this much progress is all we need. We need to challenge ourselves to see more like the Divine sees, to see every expression of human love and connection as an image of Divine ahavah v’chesed (love).

The broken tablets go out into battle, because it’s by fighting out of Divine love that we learn how to repair them. It’s by going out and learning from other communities that are full of love, religious and secular communities, that we find the light that helps us see better what is hidden in the crevices of the covenant we already have. It’s by going out with our tablets that we bring them and bring ourselves, who have in the past wondered if our covenant was at war with them. To them, we bring what is broken and ask to work together to refashion them and refashion ourselves together.

Our movement of Conservative Judaism has been confronting our brokenness over sexual orientation and gender identity for the past three decades. Every since possibly the lowest point our movement has ever touched in 1992, when I was a rabbinical student and watched the shameful deliberations on stage in the Seminary auditorium -- which slammed the door on lesbian and gay Jews seeking to live openly in our communities. To fifteen years ago last winter, when our Committee on Jewish Law and Standards made it possible for gay and lesbian Jews to become our rabbis, to have intimacy,to marry.

Even then, we only as a movement could talk about the G and the L. We have been trying to catch up since then, including in our shul and including myself. It’s not only ritual and rabbinical status, but relationships and love and intentionality in every realm. From changing the nomenclature on our membership forms to listening to young people we educate to changing our assumptions about people we meet of any age. I am still learning the language, carrying broken tablets, figuring out which ones to break still and refashion. I am proud, and more than that I am grateful, that we have lay leaders who have taken the intiative to make sure we have a Pride Shabbat as a matter of course, and that this year for the first time we will march and have a table at our city’s Pride Festival next weekend. What a way to carry the ark of our covenant where it needs to be seen, where its power is so needed.

I try to look at my own kids with wonder and openness, and to wait for them each to tell me I’m queer or straight, rather than make assumptions. And indeed I try to look at each of you that way too, not to assume what I don’t know.

Each of us carries Divine love, for us, and through us for others. Each of us, young and old, has our own way, spiritual and embodied all at once, to love and connect, to yearn and commit. We are all in the center. We are all part of the same covenant at the same time. We are all blessed.

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy -- A Map of Spring and Summer 2021

I've been wanting to get this down for weeks.... I’ve been very affected since March by Torah time – by how the cycle of reading the Torah in synagogue has mapped onto our experience of the pandemic since its one-year anniversary.

The first anniversary of the formal declaration of the pandemic and the massive shut-downs coincided with Jews’ reading the end of the book of Exodus and the start of the book of Leviticus. The Torah itself says that one year passed between the instructions Moshe received for the night of the Exodus, and the final assembly of the mishkan, the desert Sanctuary that would be a focal point for the Divine Presence. During that year in the Torah there had been war and thirst, a complete reorientation of the food distribution system to adjust to (i.e. manna), the new laws and covenant at Mt. Sinai, the in-fighting around the Golden Calf. Then finally a process of calming and reconciliation, and a collective project of building the “tabernacle.” Everyone gave something unique, with its own texture or color, from their life of that year – to be repurposed into a symbol of their unity. When the mishkan was finally assembled, the Divine Presence visibly infused it, with the cloud and fire that was going to lead the people ahead toward their new land and their new life.

That was what we read more or less on the first anniversary of the shut-down, as we were entering a new phase too – the ramping up of Covid-19 vaccination. I expected a turn toward dealing with the new ethical challenges of moving forward, the project of reconnecting and rebuilding a reality better than the one pre-pandemic.

But Leviticus opens with a cloud around the mishkan, and Moshe himself hesitating to approach it to hear these kinds of teachings. The cloud and fire do not in fact move forward. Something is not – was not ready.

Leviticus, the book that was the backdrop of our spring, is not actually a book of moving forward in the desert. And it’s not directly a book of society and ethical teaching, at least not for the first eighty percent or so. Leviticus does open with travel – but it does open with movement. It’s the motion of individuals coming one by one mostly, in a process the Torah calls korban or coming-closer, with offerings. People coming in closer, walking into the center, toward the cloud, with their offerings. Toward the cloudy place, with offerings occasioned by basic emotions – wellbeing, gratitude, guilt. Getting out and coming toward, to eat a sacred meal with a Kohen, to cleanse themselves of something, to burn up something completely and leave it behind.

Something got my attention in March, when I looked at the Torah and realized that it was telling me not to expect people to be ready to plunge ahead. Especially I shouldn’t expect people to be ready to engage in discussion about ethics and society fully just yet.

For a while, the Torah says n Leviticus, moving is just getting used to back and forth. It’s not one direction, from alone to together, from isolated to the Divine. It’s back and forth. Leviticus doesn’t command offerings from everyone on the same schedule. Yes, there’s some paying attention to right and wrong, sometimes you have to bring something in because of that. But mostly, we’re guided by ourselves, we know when to try moving. Closer and back out. The cloud and the fire are in the center and draw our eyes even when we’re still alone, to help us remember that there is something common even on the days we don’t bring anything. Do it like this for a while, move in your own directions, says the Torah for eighteen chapters, and then we’ll get back to ethics, and then we’ll try moving on together.

The commentaries on the opening verse of Leviticus focus on the last letter of its first word Vayikra. In the Torah scroll, the last letter alef is written as a small superscript. That alef has two dimensions. Its presence or absence changes the word from calling to happenstance. The letter alef signifies ani or anochi, “I” – which can stand for the ego in a strong sense or the Divine, “I am Adonai your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Leviticus opens with a cloud around the tabernacle and a spiritual teetering between calling and being just tossed around, between a sense of our own “I” and not having it. Reclaiming what “I” feel like, who “I” am, is what a lot of us were doing as the pandemic hit its first year and we contemplated the next phase ahead. We were, and surely still are, disoriented. Leviticus gives that spiritual state a name and a picture and a pacing.

That was most of Leviticus, and it turned out to be not just accurate but for me soothing.

By the time the book of Leviticus turned to its code of ethics in chapter 19, and its social vision in chapter 25, things had in fact changed around us quite profoundly. The accelerating progress of vaccination in many places led just at this time to the CDC’s revision of its mask guidelines for fully vaccinated people. It was time to open the book of Numbers – the book of the march forward, the organization of people toward the battle for the new land, and the conflicts and delays along the way. But at least it’s the book of moving together, even if together is starting and stopping, and quarreling among ourselves.

Leviticus and Numbers share the perception that not everyone is spiritually ready to move in the same direction at the same time. But at some point, there is something you could call movement of the group, catalyzed by leaders or critical mass. Numbers acknowledges that deciding to move is hardly all there is. You’ve got plenty of opportunities to grind to a halt. In the Torah, these include questioning leaders and their motivations; people getting focused on immediate ease vs. longer-term goals; issues of justice and inclusion; people defining the end of the road in different ways. This last particularly struck me when we read about the tribes of Reuven and Gad who wanted not to go all the way to the new land with the other tribes, but settle where they were. To declare the journey and the fight were over. They and Moshe had it out, and eventually figured out a way for the tribes to work on setting up the common future together, even though tribe by tribe they would separate and live differently both economically and culturally. We should be so fortunate. In Numbers, some 38 years pass and if you read the book you can’t see where they went.

That’s more or less where we got in the Torah by early/mid-July. Now it’s time for Deuteronomy. What’s coming is preparation for the new year – the Jewish new year which starts this year in early September, as does the new school year. The new Torah year starts a few weeks later. Deuteronomy is about getting to the cusp of the new land, the future. It is a book of review of the teachings, going over them for the first time in a long time. At long last, Moshe gets to focus on the ethics and laws and teachings. He gets to talk about them, and also to remind people to continue to learn and study and talk about them from the moment they enter the new land. The time for putting that off – for delaying our ethical conversations, or pushing them to the side or to a small group of interested people – we’re being asked to consider that time over. To be fully human, ready to live, is also to be accountable ethically and intellectually and spiritually. That is what the Jewish new year is all about, and the intellectual explorations in Deuteronomy coincide in the Jewish year with weeks of spiritual introspection. And since this is hard any year, and especially this year, the rabbis of our tradition long ago paired Deuteronomy with (Second) Isaiah, with words of comfort and encouragement, with a welcome of people back to the Divine, back from exile toward home and each other.

I’m waiting to see how Deuteronomy maps onto the end of the summer. But I wanted to get this spiritual journal of the Torah cycle down now, because I am so grateful I had the Torah in this way these past few months. I’ve had more than the Torah’s specific teachings, each verse or each week – I’ve had this structure. It has helped pace me, and see the moment I’m in and some weeks ahead. I have always paid attention to the seasonal flow of the Torah readings, but this year I have seen in the Torah’s pacing through the desert so much I hadn’t seen before. I am grateful, and hope I’ll be attentive to the same things in the weeks and months ahead.

E-Maggid: The Believing Game

Speak to Aharon and say to him, "When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the menorah." Aharon did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the menorah, as Adonai had commanded Moshe.  Now this is how the lampstand was made: it was hammered work (mik'shah) of gold... (Numbers 8:2-4).

The midrash teaches that Aharon is being noticed for constructing the menorah exactly as Moshe had conveyed God's instructions to him.  Doing so was apparently a challenge for both Moshe and Aharon.  The menorah was made of gold that was mik'shah -- hammered or beaten.  The midrash says this is a hint that the menorah's design was kasheh -- it elicited questions, challenges, discussion!  Kasheh is the Talmudic term for "open to an objection, subject to debate."  You may know it from Pesach -- the Fir Kashes or Arba Kushiyot are the Four Questions/Puzzlements.

 

Moshe and Aharon were the supervisors for setting up all of the ritual objects and procedures.  As such they were accustomed to back-and-forth with each other and with God.  They were among the founders of questioning and pressing one's own viewpoint, which are of course paramount Jewish values.

 

But here, the midrash observes that sometimes we can "hammer" our own perspective too hard.  Sometimes it's a matter of objecting, placing my point of view over yours.  Sometimes it is more subtle.  In an argument with a loved one or coworker, we listen but impose our own interpretation on someone else's words.  This is what Aharon could have done, but the midrash says he went the extra mile to implement God's instructions as they were intended.

 

Peter Elbow, longtime professor of English at UMass-Amherst, talks about two stances he calls the "believing game" and the "doubting game."  We are taught to play the "doubting game" with texts and ideas, to think critically about them.  But he advocates taking the time to play the "believing game" whenever we encounter an idea that is new, unfamiliar, or provokes our doubts.  The believing game entails doing everything possible to find and experience the truth in an idea.  What would it be like to believe this?  What does it feel like to be the person who said what I just heard?

 

We can apply the believing game to Jewish traditions and laws that strike us as outmoded.  We can apply it when we are mired in arguments with other people about things we care about.  It's not the easy or most natural thing to do.  We are wired to see things from our own perspective.  But following Aharon's lead in a difficult situation is a path of generosity.  It can help us bring the light of different lamps into a single illumination.

Parashat B'haalotcha: What is a Leader?

Most people think that leadership means a person (or group) who gets others to follow.  A leader knows the destination, or is sure of the path.  Through charisma, persuasion, or other "leadership skills", the leader gets out front and moves others.

In Parashat B'haalotcha, we see Moshe trying a much different way of leadership.  In the process, he opens himself up to challenges to his authority, and even the misunderstanding that he is not an effective or even a fair leader.

Moshe of course learned leadership first in the house of Pharaoh.  Pharaoh's leadership was, to say the least, traditional.  Pharaoh decreed, and the people obeyed.  When Moshe came of age, he tried it that way.  He thought if he saw injustice, he could force it out of existence -- slaying the taskmaster, trying to impose peace on the quarreling Hebrew slaves.  It didn't work.

So he ran away and became a shepherd.  Sheep don't follow the shepherd.  You have to be everywhere -- moving from side to side, front and back, inviting and cajoling and poking.

In B'haalotcha, Moshe's forward march starts to stall.  In chapter 11 of B'midbar, the people begin to complain about the bad quality of the food.  God instructs Moshe to gather seventy elders at the Tent of Meeting, in the center of the camp, where God would infuse them with the divine spirit.  Moshe would thus share the possibility of leadership with these representatives from all the tribes.

Inherently messy, getting so many people involved!  Two of the leaders, Eldad and Medad, are not at the Tent.  They are out in the camp when God's spirit comes, and they began to display the ability to prophecy.  Yehoshua, Moshe's assistant, is worried and perhaps jealous -- he suggests to Moshe that they be imprisoned.  But Moshe says:  "Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord put His spirit upon them" (11:29).

Moshe the shepherd is willing to understand the difference between his leadership and his authority.  Ron Heifitz, a professor of leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, makes this distinction in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Dr. Heifitz argues that when a challenge is not cut-and-dried, a group cannot be led simply by authority.  True leadership helps a group take on its major challenges.  Leadership even allows for stress and tension to build, for people other than the authority to take on moments of leadership.

So Moshe does not object to sharing the inspiration of leadership.  Obviously, he is risking his unique position.  Others will say, why does only Moshe enjoy God's communication, and serve as the authority?  Indeed, in chapter 12 his own siblings Aharon and Miryam make that claim.  Moshe himself -- humble Moshe -- is willing to live with that question. (God isn't!)

Moshe always maintains his authority.  He is the only one who can call on God for miracles, who can gather all the people to speak to them, who knows when there is too much uncertainty and pressure for people to function or move ahead.  All that is not leadership in itself. Moshe's authority helps him stabilize situations, and helps him set the stage to lead or to enable others to lead.

Alone, Moshe cannot lead, even with God's help.  Other figures, and all the people, will have to change before the Israelites can even move toward the promised land.  Moshe plays a key role.  Most often as teacher.  But he is also there on the side or even in the background, supporting Eldad and Medad, or Yehoshua and Calev, even Aharon and Moshe as they each emerge to help the Israelites grow and learn, so they can understand and complete the march to Canaan.

B'haalotcha -- Is Prayer Your Steering Wheel or Your Spare Tire?

On the sign in front of Gurney's Automotive on Broad Street, there is always an inspirational saying of some sort.  Last week (and today still) it reads:  Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?

The spare tire part -- that's easy to understand.  When something's broken or gone wrong, we might respond in part by praying.  We might not be conscious of prayer other than when we have a need, something specific to pray about.

How could prayer be a steering wheel, though?

I found one part of an answer studying Parashat B'haalotcha last week.  At the end of the reading, in chapter 12 of Numbers, there is an incident in which Miriam and Aaron, the siblings of Moses, badmouth his wife.  According to the commentaries, it wasn't an issue of spreading a false rumor.  They may well have been just passing judgment on something true about her.  God punishes Miriam.  It won't be long in the Torah narrative before all three of the siblings learn that their period of leadership is over and each will die.

In Judaism, lashon hara or bad speaking is not only about spreading falsehoods.  It's about speaking truthful things when they are meaningless, irrelevant, misleading, gratuitous.  Judaism teaches that we should in general just reduce the amount of talking about other people that we do.

How do we achieve that?  Prayer can be a steering wheel.  When we are engaged in prayer, we are speaking words in a very elevated way.  We recite words that have been carefully chosen and selected through the ages.  The subjects of our prayers are meaningful.  Before we say the Amidah, the part where we approach God individually with our prayers, we say "Adonai, open my lips so that my mouth will tell your praise."  Or -- God, help me shape this speaking I am about to do so that what comes out of my mouth is worthy.

At the end of the Amidah, we say, "My God, guard my tongue from doing-harm, from lashon hara."  As we emerge from prayer-speaking toward the end of the service where we will be talking with other people, we ask God to help us keep the speaking habits of prayer, so that we take that way of talking out into our regular conversations.  Our tongues need guarding, they are always threating to leap into action.  It's a great image -- hold my tongue in place when I feel it starting to move!

Whenever we come to pray in the synagogue, we should pay special attention to those words at the beginning and end of the Amidah.  They can become our steering wheel, a way that the routine of prayer can affect how we live our daily life.  If we make these phrases our own, we can start to notice when the tongue needs guarding.  There are so many moments when we begin to speak about another person and we can hold back for a moment, ask ourselves:  Do I need to say this next thing?

Guarding the tongue is not easy, but it is very rewarding.  It's purifying and cleansing to stop yourself from uttering even an innocuous word about a third party.

So notice that end of the Amidah when you get to it next time -- Guard my tongue from lashon hara, help me watch what I'm saying about company not present.  Take an extra 30 seconds before you sit down, and get comfortable behind that steering wheel.