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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.

Ki Tetze -- Learning from a Vigil at ICE

These are fairly unprocessed reflections, on a day when I went up to the Federal office building in Manchester, NH, to be part of an interfaith prayer vigil. Today, as on many days, people are being summoned to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to show they have plane tickets to leave the country, or they will be detained. My understanding is that the first family we saw this morning got a reprieve until March. Otherwise today, the parents would have had to leave and their children would have been taken home by someone else. They were in tears when they came out of the building, after a harrowing experience no doubt.

The Torah portion opens: Ki tetze lamilchama al oy'vecha... "When you go out to war on your enemies." Today it strikes me why the Torah uses wording that seems extraneous. Who else would you war against, if not your enemies? What else should you do against your enemies, but go to war? The Torah says -- war and fighting is for enemies, and enemies alone.

But in fact, today we get confused about who our enemies are. Immigration politics for over a century has been about turning groups of people into enemies. That happened to Jews, as in the 1940s during and after World War II, when the arrival of Eastern European Jews was resisted because we were accused of being not refugees but Nazi (!?) or communist infiltrators.

But when people in any group actually adapt to America, contribute not just economically but by becoming part of the community, become grateful patriots of this country -- those people are not our enemies. One person drove by our vigil and a car, a young man in his late 20s, and asked us why we want to commit suicide by bringing in people who want to destroy our faith. He doesn't know that the family in the Federal office building is not our enemy. There is a real issue of law, and people are working to reform our laws and figure out how to enforce existing laws. But we have to distinguish between who is our enemy and who is not.

This week I have been reading a book that I have mentioned almost annually on the High Holy Days the past few years, called Countrymen, by Bo Lidegaard. The book is about the safe escape of the Jews of Denmark during World War II after the Nazi authorities called for their deportations to camp. I'm only about a third of the way through. The part of the story that current grabs me is the specific day when Danes generally and Danish Jews particularly began to process the Nazi charge that Jews were enemies and not Danes.

For both Jews and non-Jewish Danes, there had been through the 1930s and early 1940s no language to even talk about "the Jewish problem", no language of separation even though Jews were Jews and other Danes weren't. It's heartbreaking to see Jews facing this question about themselves, and wondering about what other Danes would think and do under pressure. It's also illuminating, and inspiring, to see how many Danes rose to the occasion, and not just the infrequent "righteous gentile." Something was going on that enabled a whole society to refuse to see Jews as the enemy, despite being told so by propaganda backed by force.

This same society was clear about the difference between citizens and war refugees, or between patriotic citizens and totalitarians, whether Nazi or communist. It's possible to define your enemies, and fight specifically against them.

I know the language of enemies is harsh, but the Torah uses it. It's not a language of hate. Most of what we did this morning was a "Jericho Walk" around the block of the Norris Cotton Federal Building, seven times around the block in silence. This gave me the chance to take in everything -- the families we were there for, the flags of the USA and the state of New Hampshire and what they stand for, the fire station nearby, the ICE agents trying to do their jobs and enforce the law. The people who talked to us with encouragement, or honked horns. The people who laughed and jeered at us casually, who aren't neo-Nazi activists. There is nothing to hate here. There are some battles to fight, and some specific enemies.

May we have the wisdom to know the difference between enemies and not. May we have the courage to fight the right wars.

 

Dvar Torah: Reflections on the 9/11 Anniversary

Here is the text of my Dvar Torah last week on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack.

Parashat Ki Tetze: Reflections Before 9/11

On the Shabbat the day before the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, we read Parashat Ki Tetze.  It opens:  "When you go out to war upon your enemies..." (Deuteronomy 21:10).  It concludes:

Remember that which Amalek did you along the way, when you went out from Egypt:  he came upon you along the way, cut down all the stragglers at your rear, and you were tired and worn out -- not fearing God.  And it shall be:  when Adonai your God gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the land that Adonai your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens.  Do not forget!  (Deut. 25:17-19)

The ta'amei hamikra -- the trope, the notes that tell us how to chant the Torah -- tell their own story about how painful it is to look back even from a distance at a terrible crime.  The Torah reading is almost without rhythm, out of step, as it tells how in the future to deal with the memory.

So the first word Zachor -- "Remember" -- is given a long note, as if to say how hard it is to summon the actual memory.  (Click on them to hear how they sound chanted.)  The next word in Hebrew, et , is a word without any content, and yet it also gets a long note.  Then, as the attack on the Israelites by Amalek is recounted, the words just rush out.  Many, long words are compressed into the cantillation normally used for just a few.  Hard letters, gutterals and stops.  Then a deep breath, and drawn out:  V'haya, "and it shall be, in the future"...and the strange command.  To blot out the memory of Amalek, yet never to forget what they did.

We need to remember, and want to forget.  We recall in detail -- what we say, where we were -- and are ashamed when we realize that the images that transfixed us on TV were the dying moments of three thousand people.  We want the revenge, to blot out Bin Laden and his followers, and also to have rest from all our enemies.  We want to deny al-Qaeda the dignity of even being known.  Yet we have to tell the story, if we are to have any hope of building a world that will be without them forever.

Are we doing justice to the memory of those who died, on September 11 and in the wars since then?  Are we changed, as people or Jews, as Americans or free people?  These are the questions to remember, even as we return to the first moments in our memories.  My own answers I will give in shul this Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom -- May it be a Shabbat of peace, as we recall that day of war.

 

Parashat Ki Tetze: War, Muslims, and the Manhattan Mosque

The first words of this week's parasha announce two themes.  Ki tetze lamilchamah (Deuteronomy 21:10) means literally, "when you go out to war."  War is obviously one theme.  "Going out", according to the commentaries and Jewish philosophy, is much more than the words first seem to suggest.  Going out is associated with coming of age (the words are used in connection with Yaakov and Moshe), challenging conventional assumptions (Moshe again).  According to a Dvar Torah I heard from Jane Goodman this week at our Religious School Committee, going out means confronting what is hidden within ourselves, and what we most yearn for.

I don't usually use these weekly Divrei Torah on-line to comment directly on current affairs.  But like a lot of us, I have been thinking about the proposed Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan.  I'm trying to find some kind of centering point for thinking it through.

One writer I came across this week -- and I can't for some reason find the source just now -- reminds us that the context for the Islamic center is not simply 9/11, but the ongoing wars.  The ones that have American soldiers conducting operations in Muslim lands, to help mostly Muslim people find security, liberty, and prosperity.  The violent reaction of so many Americans to the Muslim center so close to Ground Zero has included a great deal of slander of Islam.  How can that not confirm the worst suspicions that Muslims over there have about us and our motives?  How can we ask Muslim leaders to address our security needs, to explain that the civilian deaths our military causes are unintentional, to value an alliance with America, when this is what they read about us?

So I think, in the spirit of ki tetze, that we -- Americans generally, Jews particularly -- have to look hard at our response to Islam.  Few of us know any Muslims well, or have studied Islam in even the rudimentary way most of us know Christianity.  Here is the exercise:  every time we hear something, anything, referring to Muslims in a negative light, substitute "Jew" and think about how it would feel.

At the same time, I have come to believe that the spirit of ki tetze -- of surfacing what is hidden, of challenging assumptions -- is required of American Muslims as well.  As Jews, we know well how accountable we are for the actions of the worst of us.  Just in the last couple of years, it's been Bernie Madoff or the selling of vital organs, all the old canards about Jews and money.  Each time a Jew does something heinous, it is required that we actively dissociate ourselves.  It's not good enough to say, these people have nothing to do with us.

For American Muslims, it is necessary to say out loud that they do not support the tyrannies that govern so much of the Muslim world, or terror against the West, against civilians, against innocents anywhere.  It is necessary for them to account for every dollar raised in support of the Manhattan center, and to reject any money that comes with any association with terror groups, or foundations that support the social services provided by Hamas or Hizbollah.  That is the only way that they can point to their humanitarian projects as clear proof that the true Islam is a religion of peace.  That is the only way that someone skeptical will know.

I think this is the same standard that Jews are held to when it comes to the actions of Israel or of Jews.  It is a high standard, and an unequal one perhaps in America.  But true faith means going beyond the minimum expectation.

There's no question in my mind that the group organizing the Cordova/Park51 project has the legal right to do it as long if they obtain the proper approvals.  There is no question in my mind that many Muslims are kindred spiritual souls of mine.  But like us, they have to answer for their crazies and their criminals.  In confronting their demons, they will do a great deal to help non-Muslims confront our own.