Tohu Bohu

Boy, it’s been a while since YHB looked at a Haftorah, hunh? Well, today’s reading is 2 Samuel 22: 1-51, and David as usual is doing some serious trash-talking:

And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day [that] the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: And he said, The LORD [is] my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: [he is] my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

I will call on the LORD, [who is] worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry [did enter] into his ears.

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness [was] under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, [and] thick clouds of the skies. Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled. The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them. And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters; He delivered me from my strong enemy, [and] from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me. They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me. The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments [were] before me: and [as for] his statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore the LORD hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight. With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, [and] with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright. With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury. And the afflicted people thou wilt save: but thine eyes [are] upon the haughty, [that] thou mayest bring [them] down. For thou [art] my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness. For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall.

[As for] God, his way [is] perfect; the word of the LORD [is] tried: he [is] a buckler to all them that trust in him. For who [is] God, save the LORD? and who [is] a rock, save our God? God [is] my strength [and] power: and he maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds’ [feet]: and setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip. I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them; and turned not again until I had consumed them. And I have consumed them, and wounded them, that they could not arise: yea, they are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength to battle: them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. They looked, but [there was] none to save; [even] unto the LORD, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, [and] did spread them abroad.

Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people, thou hast kept me [to be] head of the heathen: a people [which] I knew not shall serve me. Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me. Strangers shall fade away, and they shall be afraid out of their close places.

The LORD liveth; and blessed [be] my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation. It [is] God that avengeth me, and that bringeth down the people under me, And that bringeth me forth from mine enemies: thou also hast lifted me up on high above them that rose up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name. [He is] the tower of salvation for his king: and sheweth mercy to his anointed, unto David, and to his seed for evermore.

The text is quite close to Psalm 18; I’m not sure why it’s in twice. It’s what I think of as typical David braggadocio: I’m the best, I’m the most ut, I killed the most bad guys, I was in the worst catastrophe and came out on top, I’m the humblest and the meekest and the mildest, and don’t nobody ever forget it. I’m not a big fan of David.

One thing that is interesting about the Samuel version is that when David is on about how clean his hands are, it’s in the middle of Samuel. I mean, a couple of chapters later, David is on about having sinned greatly and done foolishly (2 Samuel 24:10. Not to mention 12:13, where David says to Nathan I have sinned against the Lord. It’s different in Psalms, where it’s in amongst a bunch of, well, a bunch of Psalms. Here in Samuel, when David boasts of clean hands and uprightness and righteousness, the reader has to stop a minute and think whoah, Nellie, just a minute, here.

So what are we left with, in this Song of David? How should we react to his boasts about being righteous and upright? Well, I imagine a current political and military leader, a General Petreaus or a Robert Mugabe or a Hu Jintao, claiming after some victory that the Divine rewarded him according to his righteousness. Scary. The only way for me to make this less scary when applied to David is to take David into an entirely different category. Alternately, I can take his boasting as a combination of his flawed nature (part and parcel of the reason he isn’t allowed to take those stockpiles and build the Temple) and as a sort of wish-fulfillment, where he is holding himself up as an ideal for himself as well as for others to live up to. Does that work? At all?

Well, I try.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So. YHB had the choice, at Beth Bolshoyeh, between the traditional service or the alternative service, that is, between Papa Rabbi or an acoustic guitar. I chose the guitar this year, because it couldn’t possibly be as irritating as Papa Rabbi, right? Of course, right.

Anyway, I wanted to talk a trifle about some of the Rosh Hashanah prayers. But before I begin on those seems like an appropriate place to talk about adonai, s’fatai tiftach, ufi yagid t’hilatecha, a prefatory phrase that is slipped in front of the Amidah. I don’t think it was ever said out loud when I was growing up in a conservative shul. When I was in Virginia, the Rabbi would chant it in a quick loping tone while those of the congregation that tended to do that sort of thing would mumble it underneath and the rest would listen. I didn’t know that it has become popular, at least among the Reform synagogues, to make an actual song out of it. I suspect that it’s a very old idea, and that my Conservative shul didn’t do the undignified chasidic business of singing before the Amidah as a reaction, but I don’t really know.

Our cantor has taught the kids a lovely nigun for it. TSOR didn’t turn up the tune for y’all’s listening pleasure, which means you won’t get a sense of it. For those who will be able to guess (and any Gentle Reader who knows the tune from his or her own shul please let me know) something close to the tune from this, it goes: ya-la-la-la-la-la-la-la adonai, ya-la-la-la-la s’fatai tiftach, ya-la-la-la-la ufi yagid, ufi yagid t’hilateh-eh-cha-ah, ya-la-la-la-la-la-la-la adonai… and so on, around and around. I love it as a separate prayer, as a swaying ecstatic song. The words are simple: Divine, open my lips, so that my mouth can declare your glory.

It’s a prayer of supplication, asking for the ability to pray in praise. Usually in such prayers we pray for strength or courage or patience, things that will help us in our daily lives. Or we ask for tangible things, our daily bread or a pony. I recently found out that one common Yiddish prayer said over the Shabbat candles included a petition for the family to prosper enough that the men wouldn’t have to profane the Shabbat by working; that struck home, of course, because YHB works on Saturday. But this is more direct: Give me the ability to praise the Divine. And where should such an ability come from? Where else but from the Divine directly?

I find myself singing that tune over and over again. Partially because it’s just an earworm, of course; ya-la-la-la-la-la-la-la adonai, ya-la-la-la-s’fatai tiftach. But also as a prayer for myself and for Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe.

Hm. And just as I am using it as its own prayer, rather than as a lead-in to the Amidah, evidently I’ve made this its own note, rather than as a lead-in to talk about the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Which seems right.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Humble Blogger was away last weekend, and so did not write about the Haftorah. This is significant because last weekend was the first of the three special readings chosen for the period leading up to Tishah B’Av, the Fast Day commemorating the destruction of the Temple. This period is known as the Three Weeks; some Jews observe it by refraining from wedding, shaving, dancing, traveling for pleasure or buying new clothes. I traveled for pleasure, I attended a wedding, I shaved, I danced. I didn’t buy any new clothes (not counting diapers for the Youngest Member).

As has been mentioned here in the past, I consider myself a Diaspora Jew. The Judaism I identify with and celebrate is not Temple Judaism. I don’t like Temple Judaism. I do understand and to some extent sympathize with the impulse to mourn the Temple; I think it’s important to recognize the merit and beauty even in the passing of bad old ages. But I don’t like Tisha B’Av.

Shim’u, the second reading of the Three Weeks, is Jeremiah 2:4–28, 3:4, 4:1–2:

Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where [is] the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. The priests said not, Where [is] the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after [things that] do not profit.

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead. For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed [their] gods, which [are] yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for [that which] doth not profit.

Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. [Is] Israel a servant? [is] he a homeborn [slave]? why is he spoiled? The young lions roared upon him, [and] yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant. Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head. Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way? And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river? Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that [it is] an evil [thing] and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear [is] not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

For of old time I have broken thy yoke, [and] burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, [yet] thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD. How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: [thou art] a swift dromedary traversing her ways; A wild ass used to the wilderness, [that] snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, Saying to a stock, Thou [art] my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned [their] back unto me, and not [their] face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us. But where [are] thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for [according to] the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou [art] the guide of my youth? If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove. And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.

The Divine here is very petulant and cross, and although I suppose one mustn’t blame the Divine for being short-tempered now and then, still, it’s not the sort of Divine you want to spend a lot of time with.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s reading, the haftorah for Pinchas, is I Kings 18:46−19:21, Elijah’s crisis of faith.

And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do [to me], and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time. And when he saw [that], he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which [belongeth] to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I [am] not better than my fathers.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise [and] eat. And he looked, and, behold, [there was] a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise [and] eat; because the journey [is] too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD [came] to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?

And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, [even] I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; [but] the LORD [was] not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; [but] the LORD [was] not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; [but] the LORD [was] not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was [so], when Elijah heard [it], that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave.

And, behold, [there came] a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, [even] I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael [to be] king over Syria: And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint [to be] king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint [to be] prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, [that] him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left [me] seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who [was] plowing [with] twelve yoke [of oxen] before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him.

And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and [then] I will follow thee.

And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.

The marvelous bit here, of course, is 19:11-12, which I will attempt, lamely, to transliterate:

v’henay adonai oveyr v’ruach g’dolah v’hazeyk…, lo varuach adonai. v’achar ha-ruach ra’ash, lo vara’ash adonai. v’achar hara’ash aysh, lo va-aysh adonai. v’achar ha-aysh, col d’mamah kadah.

It’s a lovely bit, the shift from ruach to ra’ash to aysh; the sounds from wind to earthquake to fire don’t cut it (although, of course, the sound of Earth, Wind and Fire is pretty good, particularly that late 70s stuff). And the pun of col which sounds just like the word for everything—a silent, starving everything. But aside from the poetry, what is going on? Why did the Divine send the tornado, if it was not to indicate the Presence? And what does it mean that the Divine is not in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire? How could the Divine not be in it?

But really, I wanted to say something else about Elijah the prophet. Elijah, rather famously, or I assume famously, does not die but is assumed bodily into Heaven in a chariot of fire. Not having died, he is considered to be still around, and is by tradition going to reappear to warn us of the Messiah’s time. In the meantime, he is considered to be present at every Passover Seder and at every bris.

So. Rabbi Eliezer talks about Elijah, very much a minority view, but one that I just came across today and I think is fascinating. Rabbi Eliezer starts from the question of just what Elijah is on about, when he whines to the Divine that the children of Israel have forsaken their covenant, and just kill me now, Lord, kill me now. What covenant have the children of Israel forsaken? Follow this: the word for covenant is bris (or brit, for the Sephardim out there). The reason the circumcision is called a bris is because it is the physical mark of the covenant; the ceremony is more correctly or formally called bris milah, the covenant of circumcision (or of cutting, if you prefer). For shorthand, rather than choosing the second word, which has the specific action, we chose the first one, which has the important part. Covenant. This, then, is what Rabbi Eliezer says Elijah is on about: the children of Israel have forsaken the covenant of circumcision.

I have been very jealous on Your behalf, says Elijah, kanah kanah, my face has turned red on Your behalf. Fine, sayeth the Divine. From now on, you are in charge of the bris. Every bris. Forever.

When the Youngest Member joined the covenant of cutting, there was (as is traditional) a place set aside for the Prophet Elijah. This was explained to me as a precaution just in case this one, this eight-day-old baby, was the Messiah. I didn’t want my little one to be the Messiah, I said. Tough shit, said my Rabbi (more or less). My Rabbi didn’t mention this other reason for the presence of Elijah: it’s his punishment for being a pain in the ass of the Divine. Or his reward. Both, really, the ways these things are.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

This week is Balak, Numbers 22:2-25:9. The haftorah, Micah 5:6-6:8, comments on it fairly directly:

And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver [us] from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots: And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds: And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no [more] soothsayers: Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands. And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the LORD. Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, [and] bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, [or] with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn [for] my transgression, the fruit of my body [for] the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

What Balaam said to Balak in the Torah portion was that the tents of Jacob were goodly, and so were the tabernacles of Israel. Ma tovu yochalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisro’el. Balaam is particularly memorable because he prophesied out his ass. But what happened with our old friend Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Let’s look in Second Kings: he wars against Israel, and Israel smote them, yea verily, with great smiting and smoting and crunchings and munchings and getting ready to sack the city, and then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab “took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him [for] a burnt offering upon the wall.”, and Israel left and returned home.

Hunh? Shall I give my firstborn [for] my transgression, the fruit of my body [for] the sin of my soul? That’s what Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab does, and it works out very well for him. And in fact Jephthah, that paragon of idiocy, holds up Balak (the son of Zippor, king of Moab) as a role model for the leaders of the nations. And if you don’t like Jephthah (and who does), why not look at Ruth, the epitome of the ger, the righteous stranger among us, who is, yes, a Moabite.

What’s going on here? Is Micah calling to mind this Moabite akedah, to reject it in favor of justice, mercy and humility? If so, does that not apply to Isaac? Is this a specific response to Balaam? Anyone?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week’s haftorah is Judges 11:1-33, which is very interesting, and I somehow had never really noticed that Chukat had the story of Jephthah curiously cut off:

Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he [was] the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou [art] the son of a strange woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.

And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.

And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?

And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those [lands] again peaceably.

And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon: And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon: But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh; Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken [thereto]. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not [consent]: and Israel abode in Kadesh. Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab: for Arnon [was] the border of Moab. And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place. But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. And the LORD God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan. So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it? Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess. And now [art] thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that [be] along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover [them] within that time? Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me: the LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.

Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him. Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over [unto] the children of Ammon.

And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, [even] twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.

I always think of the Jephthah story as being about the Foolish Vow, because that’s the really memorable thing. For those that don’t read Judges as bedtime stories, the Foolish Vow turns out badly: Jephthah’s daughter is the first thing that comes out of the doors of his house, and he does, in fact, offer her up for a burnt offering, in direct violation of all tradition and norms of behavior. I talk about it (from Leviticus Rabbah) with Caleb, Saul and Eliezar as the Four Foolish Vows; this is the one that ends badly. I should probably add that many people interpret the sacrifice as essentially putting Jephthah’s daughter in a nunnery, which I have to say is not in the text, but rather sweet. Anyway, the focus in the discussion of the sages, as well as in all the discussions I’ve ever had about Jephthah, is on the sacrifice of the daughter. In Haftorah Chukat, they take out that bit (but, oddly, leave in the vow part).

By telling the story of Jephthah without the part that I always think of as the story of Jephthah, it disorients me, and makes me look at the text again, which is usually a good thing. What stands out for me right away is the expulsion and the gang of toughs he winds up leading. They are vain only in that they are worthless, literally empty of value. But he makes quite a name for himself as a gang leader, evidently, because when trouble comes, they go to him for the rough stuff. But here’s the wild part: the guy they go to for the rough stuff starts with not one but two attempts to avoid the war through diplomatic means. True, he is not so much negotiating as blustering, but still, the text goes to some length to detail his speech, and then gives short shrift indeed to the description of his fighting.

I’m curious, now, about Jephthah as a person. The expulsion by his half-brothers, reminiscent both of Ishmael and Joseph. The years in the land of Tob, which, by the way, is tov, which means good. A fertile land and therefore good? Or does he go away from Gilead and live in the Land of Good? Is it relevant that his father is named Gilead, or is it just a common name for people in that area? I mean, if I were writing a story with somebody who flees from family strife, and that person’s father is named, oh, Chicago Slim, and the son is brought back to the town of Chicago—well, I’m just saying.

And here are the elders of Gilead making what is clearly a Foolish Vow, telling him that if he takes command of the army, they will let him rule them afterward in peacetime. Well, no surprise there that there isn’t much peacetime; after winning the first war they start on a second one right away, this time against Jews. Which they win, of course, due in part to Jephthah’s manipulation of ethnic and language distinctions between what you might think of as his co-religionists, although he clearly doesn’t consider them his equals. Anyway, does the vow of the elders of Gilead turn out well?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Humble Blogger has been mome for a week, visiting at the house of one who it would be accurate to call my Next Best Reader. We had what I have come to think of as the Standard Vacation with Kids, where the days are spent carting the kids to playgrounds and commenting to each other how wonderful they are, and the evenings after the kids are in bed are spent drinking red wine and commenting to each other how horrible they are. And, since both of us are Shakespeare-mad, watching films of Shakespeare. This time, we included the Shortish Scottish, a version which gets the entire cursed thing done in less than ninety minutes, with some good points and some bad points.

Another thing we watched was Looking for Richard, a sort of documentary/performance hybrid where Al Pacino and a bunch of his friends spend their off days over four years filming Highlights from Richard III. Some of the performances are quite good (others, not so much) but I found the documentary utterly annoying. It’s stated purpose was to make Richard III accessible; Mr. Pacino and his buddies spend a lot of time at the beginning talking about how confusing and complicated the plot is. Hunh?

Richard III is a very simple play. Well, there are a fair number of people to keep track of, but you don’t really need to keep track of them all if you don’t want to. You just need to keep them into three categories: People who help Richard, people who flee from Richard, and people who Richard has killed. There’s some overlap, of course, but the point is that you don’t really need to remember who Stanley, for instance, is, or that he is Richmond’s stepfather, just that in one scene he is helping Richard, and then he’s fleeing from him. And the main thrust of the play, the story of it, is very simple indeed.

So, the morning after watching Mr. Pacino’s film, I found myself with two six-year-old girls, and I decided to tell them the story, to see if they found it complicated at all. They did not. They seemed to like it. The version I told, more or less, with the style changed and the question-and-answers removed (my storytelling style with children involves a good deal of question-and-answer of the Do you think that was a good plan? or What do you think he did then? variety, along with longish pauses for the children to jump in and provide the next bit that they have cleverly figured out) went something like this:

Once upon a time, there was a civil war in England. And the best general on the winning side was named Richard. He was the younger brother of the man who became King. There were three brothers: The king was the oldest, and his name was Edward. The second brother was George, and the youngest was Richard. He was a terrific general, and a great warrior, but he didn’t look very nice. He had a crooked back, and a club foot, and an arm that was all withered and useless. And he was a wicked man, very wicked and mean.

As long as the war was going, everybody was nice to him, because he was such a good fighter. But when the war was over, the new king didn’t want to have any more fighting, just parties and dancing and things like that. And Richard wasn’t any good at those. So he decided that the thing to do was to make more fighting. And to become King himself.

Now, the King, Edward, was very sick. But if he died, Richard wouldn’t become King, because Edward had two young children, and the oldest child, the Prince, would become King. And even if the children wouldn’t become King, there was still George, who was older, and so would be before Richard in line for the throne. So Richard, who was very tricky and smart, convinced Edward that it was George who wanted to be King, and got George locked up in prison. And then, when the King wanted to let George go, Richard gave a pass into the jail to some murderers so that they could kill him, and then told Edward that it was his idea. Well, Edward was very sad, and he made everybody promise that there wouldn’t be any more fighting, and they all promised. But Richard didn’t mean it. He told a lot of lies.

He got people to help him out by promising them things that he never intended to give them. And he told a lot of people that the Princes, weren’t really the Princes at all, but were fakers. And then when the old King died, he had the Princes sent to jail, and he told everybody it was so they could be protected, but it wasn’t, really, it was just to keep them in jail. And then, he had himself made King.

But he wasn’t a very good King, because he was so mean, and he told so many lies. And nobody wanted to be his friend anymore, because he didn’t give them the things that he said he would, and because he was so mean. So they all left him. And after he had the two little Princes killed, then really nobody wanted to be his friend anymore. And they all decided that they wanted somebody else to be King, somebody who wasn’t so mean. So they joined a man named Richmond, who had been in France, and they all made a big army to fight against Richard. And Richard called all his army together, but since nobody liked him, hardly anybody came. And there was a big battle, at a place called Bosworth Field, and Richard lost, and he was killed. And Richmond became the new King. The End.

Now, the point here, well, there are two points, now that I think about it. Well, three, if you count how easy it was to leave out all the female characters; afterward, I offhanded mentioned that I had done just that, and then the girls pestered my Next Best Reader until she told them about King Richard’s mother, who was crazy but could see the future, and about Lady Anne and the other one, Edward’s wife, I guess. No, the two points were these: later that day, one of the two girls went back on a promise that had been convenient at the time but was hard to keep, and my Next Best Reader said “you wouldn’t want to be like that bad King Richard, would you, who had all his friends leave him?” So that’s all right.

And the second point, is that Haftorah Korach is First Samuel 11:14−12:22, which is when Saul is anointed, and Samuel calls the people together and says, in effect, you were very very bad, and you asked for a King, which was even worse, so the Lord has given you a King, which serves you right.

And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the LORD thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins [this] evil, to ask us a king.
1 Sa 12:19

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week’s haftorah reading is Joshua 2:1-24, the story of Rahab the harlot and her vicious and cowardly betrayal of the King of Jericho.

And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there.

And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they [were]: And it came to pass [about the time] of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate.

And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof; And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that [were] on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard [these things], our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he [is] God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token: And [that] ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.

And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house [was] upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way. And the men said unto her, We [will be] blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made us swear. Behold, [when] we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee. And it shall be, [that] whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood [shall be] upon his head, and we [will be] guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood [shall be] on our head, if [any] hand be upon him. And if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear. And she said, According unto your words, so [be] it.

And she sent them away, and they departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window. And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until the pursuers were returned: and the pursuers sought [them] throughout all the way, but found [them] not. So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all [things] that befell them: And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.

The Torah portion for the week is Shelach, Numbers 13:1-15:41, the spies sent in to the land of Israel and returning with the huge cluster of grapes, a report of milk and honey, and wild stories of marauding giants. The obvious theme between the two readings is of the spies sent ahead. The spies in Numbers bring back a report that has some truth and a great deal of falsehood; the spies in Joshua do as well. Where the spies in Numbers are fearful, and warn against the invasion, the spies in Joshua are confident, and bring back a report that the inhabitants faint at the mention of their name. In fact, when Joshua comes to the city, rather than surrendering, the inhabitants hole up for a siege, and Joshua needs to miraculously knock down the walls of Jericho and slaughter every man jack in the city except for the immediate family of Rahab the harlot (rahab, by the way, means broad, which I think is very funny, because, you know, I’m that way). So the intelligence was wrong, and the people were not greeted as liberators, after all. Funny how that happens.

Another interesting connection between Numbers and Joshua here is the reputation of the Lord, particularly concerning the Exodus from Egypt. After the intelligence reports come back with terrifying stories of giants, the people of Israel panic and curse the Divine. The Divine, then, gets all cranky and threatens to kill them all with a pestilence and start again with Moses and a new people. Moses, however, points out that the Divine has a reputation to protect, and that if the people Israel were delivered from Egypt all the way to the border of Israel, only to all die in a pestilence at the very border, it would be seen as a sign of weakness (Numbers 14:13-16). The Divine rather grudgingly agrees to refrain from immediate slaughter, preferring in the end to send them out into the wilderness for a generation, until all those who left Egypt have died of natural causes (well, most of them of natural causes) and then bring an entirely different group of people into Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, a generation later.

When Joshua comes in, or rather when he sends his agents in, the reputation of the Divine is there. A generation later, Rahab is still in terror of the people of Israel and their Lord. Or at least that’s what she tells them; much of what she tells them turns out to be false, as I said. But clearly the reputation is there, the reputation that restricts the actions of the Lord in the reading from Numbers, and protects the spies in Joshua.

One more connection, from later in the Torah portion, where we are commanded to put fringes on our garments, Numbers 15:37-41. Why do we do that? That we should look upon those fringes and remember the mitzvot of the Divine, and not follow merely the urges of our own hearts and eyes after which we use to go a whoring. et oculos per res varias fornicantes, if you like the Vulgate. Joshua sends out the two men to use their eyes, and they follow those eyes to a whorehouse, yes? It’s the same word (zanah, harlot, prostitute, fornicator) in both places, and it should be, because of course they go to a whorehouse the moment they get into Jericho. The question is whether they were still wearing their tzitzes. Honestly, with the quality of spying in these stories, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, and here’s the tricky part. The Haftorah for Parshah B’haalot’cha (Numbers 8:1−12:16) is Zechariah 2:14−4:7, which we have seen before:

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.

And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: [is] not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments.

And the angel of the LORD stood by. And the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they [are] men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone [shall be] seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.

And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all [of] gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which [are] upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one upon the right [side] of the bowl, and the other upon the left [side] thereof. So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What [are] these, my lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This [is] the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. Who [art] thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel [thou shalt become] a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone [thereof with] shoutings, [crying], Grace, grace unto it.

It’s the special Haftorah from Shabbat Chanukah, which we read back in December. This week, we read it in its normal spot in the liturgical calendar. Ah, well.

Joshua, by the way, is not the Joshua of the book of Joshua, the inheritor of the Mantle of Moses, but a different Joshua, the post-exilic High Priest. He stands before the messenger of the Lord in dirt and rags. Why? Because of his sins? The Rabbis attribute it to his sins, or rather, to the sins of his sons, which demerit accrues to him as well. However, the Lord rebukes Satan for accusing Joshua, so should we not learn from this? Let’s not accuse Joshua ourselves; he is a brand from the fire.

Or it is the rags of exile, of Diaspora, of wandering? Well, not so much wandering, of course, as the exiles in Babylon seem to have been pretty comfortable (considering) and stationary. But metaphorically, the exile could well appear as traveling clothes, dirty from the road. But then, why doesn’t he change? Why doesn’t he preserve a pristine priestly robe, and clothe himself in glory before he stands before the messenger of the Lord? Or has he been dragged away, perhaps by the Adversary, without opportunity to prepare himself for the trial? Or, perhaps, has he rushed to the Messenger of the Lord of his own eagerness, not taking the time to change his clothes?

Or, again: are the garments tzo’im (used only in these two verses in Scripture) only in comparison to the raiment of angels? Is the filthy robe they strip from him the clothing of This World, and the princely robe and mitre they give him the clothing of the World to Come? I’m not a big fan of such interpretations, but there does seem to be something of that in the scene. The Adversary, the Judgement, and the new raiment and crown.

I suppose I should set up a poll: Why do you think Joshua the Priest is wearing a dirty robe? Pick one: Mortality, Sin, Exile. But one of the things that I like about Scripture is that I don’t have to pick one. I can leave the image unbound, for the moment, until the next time I come to it, and see what strikes me about it then. And if I were to choose, now, I could choose again, later.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Parshah Naso contains (among other things) the rules for the trial of the sotah, the wife accused of infidelity, and the rules for the Nazarite, the ascetic set aside for the Lord. The haftorah, Judges 13:2-25, begins with a wife who is secluded with a man not her husband, and ends with a famous Nazarite:

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name [was] Manoah; and his wife [was] barren, and bare not. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou [art] barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean [thing]: For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance [was] like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he [was], neither told he me his name: But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean [thing]: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. Then Manoah intreated the LORD, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah her husband [was] not with her. And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed her husband, and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the [other] day.

And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, [Art] thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I [am]. And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and [how] shall we do unto him? And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. She may not eat of any [thing] that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean [thing]: all that I commanded her let her observe. And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he [was] an angel of the LORD. And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, What [is] thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honour? And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it [is] secret? So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered [it] upon a rock unto the LORD: and [the angel] did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.

For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on [it], and fell on their faces to the ground. But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he [was] an angel of the LORD.

And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these [things], nor would as at this time have told us [such things] as these. And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

I don’t think we’ve talked about Samson here at all, or the annunciation to his unnamed mother. It’s a bizarre scene, isn’t it? The Scripture makes a point of Manoah being thick as two planks, and his wife being comparatively sensible; at makes his discomfiture at her conversation with the Messenger seems unthreatening and buffoonish. Not, however, after reading the portion where they describe the sotah being forced to drink the bitter curse-bearing water, and the appalling afterthought that if she dies from the brew, then she was clearly sinful and the man is absolved of any responsibility for her death.

Also, when we’ve just read about the restriction on the Nazarites, who not only must avoid grapes, wine and strong drink, and do without haircuts, but avoid touching corpses, it’s hard not to think about the corpses that Samson will pile up, heaps upon heaps. I guess he’s exempted from that particular rule, for some reason.

What I noticed this time, though, was the Messenger going up in the smoke of the offering to the Divine. The text seems very specific: he ascends in the flame of the altar. Does the Messenger catch a ride on the smoke? If Manoah had not thought to bring a kid (and had not caught on to the rather heavy hinting of the Messenger), would the Messenger have been able to return? And another thing, when Mrs. Manoah says that the man looked like an angel (very terrible, or awesome or scary), how did she recognize that look? Why did he inspire such fear, first in her, then in him?

It’s a screwed-up annunciation for a screwed-up hero. The reaction of the barren woman and her husband fall conspicuously short of elation, and the foretold hero falls conspicuously short of any reasonable behavioural norms, even if he does rid the people Israel of the Philistines. Who, you know, are back by the beginning of Samuel.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Parshah Bemidbar, the beginning of Numbers, has for its Haftorah Hosea 2:1-22; the numbering is different in the Christian Old Testament than in the Tanakh, just to confuse you all. Here’s the text:

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye [are] not my people, [there] it shall be said unto them, [Ye are] the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great [shall be] the day of Jezreel.

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother, plead: for she [is] not my wife, neither [am] I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they [be] the children of whoredoms. For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give [me] my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find [them]: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then [was it] better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, [which] they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax [given] to cover her nakedness. And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These [are] my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and [with] the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

I’m not a big fan of Hosea. It is, I’ll admit, an arresting image, the marriage to the harlot, the children with their names of ill-omen. I can’t help, somehow, thinking of the kids going to school, the little boy called Not-mine and the girl Not-loved, the other kids in the class taunting them, or ostracizing them, the mother a harlot, the father a lunatic. Of course, you can take the whole story as fiction, that Hosea wrote as if he had married a harlot, to make the literary point. But somehow, I have the feeling that he made that point with his life. And his wife’s life, and the lives of his children (by the way, you might take the name Jezreel as naming the kid Gettysburg or Verdun, something like that, although with Jezreel there’s the added and hopeful pun that the name of the valley means The Divine sowing, because of the fertility of the land). There’s a ruthlessness to the prophets, a sense that whatever pain they inflict on themselves or others in the passing along of the message of the Divine is not only acceptable but to be desired. As I say, I’m not a big fan.

I do, however, like the image of the Divine betrothing himself to us, not only in righteousness (b’tzedek) not only in judgement (b’mishpat), not only in lovingkindness (b’chesed), not only in mercy (b’racham), but even in faithfulness (b’emunah).

The first place that we see emunah in the Scripture is in Exodus 17:12, in the story of the battle against the Amalekites. While Moses raised his hand, remember, the Israelites were winning, but when Moses lowered his hand, the Amalekites would gain the upper hand. But Moses’ hands were heavy and the day was long, so Aaron and Hur went to him, one on each side, and held his hands up for him. And his hands were steady until the sun went down. What we see here as steady in the KJV, or steadfast in Young, is emunah, sometimes translated as true or, as in Hosea, faithful. The Divine betrothes himself to us in emunah, in steadfastness. As Aaron and Hur held the hands of Moses, so does the Divine hold up our hands, to achieve victory over our generation’s Amalekites. But so, to, do we hold up the hands of the Divine, in steadiness, in our our lovingkindness, in our own judgement, in righteousness, and even in mercy.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week is parshah Bechukotai, the end of Leviticus. The Haftorah is Jeremiah 16:19 – 17:14; I won’t paste the whole thing in, if that’s all right with you. I’ll just put in 17:7-17:10 for a taste:

Blessed [is] the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and [that] spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings.

Mostly, I read this and I wish I understood this old Hebrew well enough to pick up connotations and puns. Frankly, I wish this old Hebrew were in decent shape; in William L. Holliday’s Commentary, he writes about 17:1-4, “Exegesis must be based on a convincing text, and there is no way to be sure of the text of at least some of this passage; the interpretation must therefore be tentative.” These verses are a little better, but still pretty obscure. In v. 7, the KJV has trust and hope, but the word is the same root, batakh, although in a different form. Lots of translations keep trust in both places: Mr. Holliday has Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, so that Yahweh becomes his trust. That’s awkward too, though, as in English trust as a noun has very different connotations than the verb.

In 17:9, Mr. Holliday has The mind is devious above all else, perverse it is/who can understand it? It’s a hard sentence. Seven words. The word leyv is definitely heart, but then the idea of the heart as the seat of love or emotion was not one Jeremiah would have had. That was the kidneys, the kilyot from v. 10 that Mr. Holliday translates as heart, and that the KJV calls the reins (I assume based on the Vulgate, who knows what they were up to). So what is it that is deceitful above all things? The heart? The mind? The self? Whatever it is, it’s deceitful, or devious, and perverse, or perhaps corrupt, or sick, or wicked, or incurable. Akov ha-leyv micol, v’anush hu. Mi yayda’ehnu?

That last bit is reminiscent of a song we sing at the Seder: echod mi yoday’ah? Who knows one? One is the Lord, of course, and then who knows two? and three? And four? My Perfect Non-Reader knows all the way up to thirteen, or did on the First Night, and I can usually remember most of them. echod mi yoday’ah? Echod ani yoday’ah I know one. mi yayda’ehnu? Who knows us? ani YHVH khokair leyv, bokhain k’lyot. I, the Lord, search out the heart and prove the soul.

Oh, and verse ten is one of those verses that has words that I know from services and brachas, but that I don’t recognize here in these forms and context. v’latain, from natan, a gift, which becomes the name Nathan. l’ish for a man. Kidrachav, from derech, a path, which I know from the aitz hayim, in which the paths of the Divine are paths of pleasantness. kipri, from p’ri, fruit, which I know from the blessings over the fruits of the vine and the tree and the earth.

It’s those kinds of verses that make me think I really should be able to read Biblical Hebrew, if I just set myself down to do it properly. Sadly, this is utterly false.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Shabbat, the one before the beginning of Passover. It is traditional, among those that follow this particular tradition, for the community to gather and hear a sermon on Shabbat HaGadol, such sermon being specifically about all the things that we should be doing to prepare for Passover. Sadly, it’s too late. It’s Shabbat now, and by the time Shabbat is over, Passover will have begun. Let this be a lesson to us, along with the special haftorah Malachi 3:4-24:

Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept [them]. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye [are] cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, [even] this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that [there shall] not [be room] enough [to receive it]. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.

Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee? Ye have said, It [is] vain to serve God: and what profit [is it] that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, [they that] tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard [it], and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do [this], saith the LORD of hosts.

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, [with] the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

The numbering will be off if you are using a Christian Bible (as I am using the KJV); the Christians split Malachi into four, rather than three chapters, just to irritate YHB.

There’s a lot of paths to enter this text, but what strikes me today is this idea of robbing the Divine. How have we robbed the Divine? In tithes and offerings. But we don’t do tithing and offering at the Temple anymore, because there is no Temple anymore (praise be). So how have we robbed the Divine? In prayer, in avodah, in study, in tikkun olam?

This idea of robbing the Divine at all is not simple. After all, the Divine is everywhere, and everything belongs to the Divine, or is part of the Divine, depending on how you look at it. That doesn’t mean that everything is sacred (or at least it doesn’t for me, others will feel differently), but it seems counter-intuitive that it is within the power of people to take things away from the Divine. But then, with tithes and offerings, what is going on is not things being taken from the Divine, but promised things being denied to the Divine. Perhaps, then the robbing is not so much robbery as defaulting. And since this is one of those words that is only used in Malachi (and once in Proverbs, where it is translated despoil; I have a sense that everybody is guessing. Strong’s seems to think of it as hiding away something from someone who is looking for it.

I like that image. I like the idea that when we fail to pray (or to study, or to do deeds of lovingkindness, for those are the three legs upon which the world balances) we are hiding part of the Divine from Itself. If we want to stretch the metaphor, we could then say that the following image, where the Divine says If you bring me my tithes, I will open a window from Heaven and pour down so much blessing that it will overflow the storehouses is not so much (as it originally sounds to me) a sulky quid pro quo as an explanation, almost a yearning.

Imagine, then, the Divine as a buddy that we’re asking to give us a ride into town. The Divine would like to do you a favor, but the car keys are missing. If you get up and help the Divine look for the car keys, you will soon discover that they are in between the cushions of the couch, but as long as you are stretched out on top of them, the car isn’t moving, and you aren’t getting a ride. It’s not that the Divine doesn’t want you in the car, it’s that the keys are under your lazy ass, and you won’t get to town that way.

Not that the Divine, being Divine, doesn’t have spare keys. But that’s not the point, is it?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2 Kings 7:3-20

And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine [is] in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.

And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, [there was] no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, [even] the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it [was], and fled for their life.

And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid [it]; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence [also], and went and hid [it]. Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day [is] a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household.

So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, [there was] no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they [were]. And he called the porters; and they told [it] to the king’s house within. And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now shew you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we [be] hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city. And one of his servants answered and said, Let [some] take, I pray thee, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city, (behold, they [are] as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it: behold, [I say], they [are] even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed:) and let us send and see. They took therefore two chariot horses; and the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying, Go and see.

And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way [was] full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king. And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was [sold] for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. And the king appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria: And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, [if] the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died.

Y’all know that I’m fascinated by storytelling. My whole philosophy places storytelling, and story hearing, absolutely central to who humans are and how we survive. I have just picked up a book called The Story Is True, in which a fellow named Bruce Jackson mentions a couple of applicable things right at the beginning (which is as far as I’ve read). First, there’s the title, which alludes to the important point that whether the story is telling the truth, when a story is told, there’s an important truth that the story is being told; our repetition of this story of lepers and miracles and the death of a king is what is true, and it says something about us.

The second thing follows from that, and from the nature of storytelling, the teller and the told: there is more than one story that can be told from any sequence of events. Probably an infinite number of stories, in fact. Even within the Scripture, I think there’s a very different feel for this bit than if they had decided to include the first two verses of the chapter:

Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD, To morrow about this time [shall] a measure of fine flour [be sold] for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, [if] the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see [it] with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.

Or begin the reading at 6:24, where the city is besieged in the first place, and include the horrible stories of hunger, cannibalism and despair from chapter six. If you start at 7:1, it’s a story about Elisha and how the claims he makes in the name of the Lord come true. If you start at 6:24, it’s a story of how the Lord rescues the people from danger, with miracles and signs. If you start at 7:3, and we do, it’s a story about how some lepers saved the city, almost by accident.

Furthermore, there’s the great decision (imao) to tell about the miracle in the past perfect, if that is what I think it is. We begin with the lepers, who in their despair fill us in on the siege, and move to the empty tents of the Syrians, where we find out that a miracle has already taken place, to empty that encampment. We get filled in on the Syrian reaction, the story they tell themselves (in error) about the sounds they heard. The lepers tell their story in the city, and it is interpreted different ways, well and badly. It’s bracketed by the paired images of the empty tents and the king-trampling crowd at the gate, which is lovely and horrible, like the rest of the story.

What is this story about? Is it about the weakness of kings? The power of prophets? The value of the outcast? What does it tell us about the relationship of the Divine to the inhabitants of the city, many of whom are killed before the miracle occurs? What does it tell us about our own ability to interpret signs and wonders, stories and Scripture?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Temple Beth Bolshoyeh had an enormous Passover educational fair this weekend. The Sunday School kids had tons of stuff (my Perfect Non-Reader made a Seder Plate with fabric matzah and a fabric egg, construction paper parsley, charoset and bitter herbs, bubble-wrap salt water and a Milk-Bone^TM) and there were a bunch of samples of Passover desserts and juices, and a few educational opportunities for adults. I skipped the Pesach Pizzazz and the State of Israel ones as well as Papa Rabbi’s retelling of the Passover Story, but Baby Rabbi was doing a class on Mysticism and Matzah, so I went to that.

It was great. Did it ever occur to you (those of you with the Hebrew for it to be possible that it might have occurred to you) that the word chumetz is chet mem tzadi and the word for matzah is mem tzadi hay? So the difference between the two is the difference between a chet and a hay? Well, then, what is the difference between a chet and a hay? Why, that a chet is closed and a hay is open. So when we change our chumetz for matzah, we are opening ourselves to the Divine.

Also, the Talmud asks, why do we rid ourselves of chumetz for Passover? It answers with another question: why do people sin? Because the evil impulse is like the yeast in the dough. What is the word for sin? That’s right, chet. Because in sinning, we close ourselves from the Divine. But then, you may ask, why do we eat leavened bread all the year around? Well, if there were no evil impulse, there would be no children, there would be no progress of any kind.

It’s a contradiction, which of course is no bad thing. Matzah itself is a contradiction. It’s the bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate in Egypt. And it is the bread of redemption, which our forefathers ate after they left Egypt. It’s both. And of course matzah is made from chumetz, as we celebrate Passover even with the evil impulse within us.

Speaking of duality, we call the holiday Pesach the feast of Passover, to observe and memorialize how the Divine passed over our houses, visiting the plagues on the Egyptians but not upon us. But in the Torah, it’s called hag ha-matzot, the festival of unleavened bread, to commemorate our willingness to leave Egypt and slavery for the wilderness and the Divine. That is, we name the holiday out of love for the Divine, and what the Divine did for us when we were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. But the Divine names it out of love for us, and what we did for the Divine when we were slaves of Pharoah in Egypt.

One more thing, and then I’ll post it and let y’all talk about Passover and Matzah and Chumetz: you could guess that the tradition of Spring Cleaning predates the observance of Passover. But did it occur to you that in ancient times, when they wanted bread, they got their yeast the way that people in Northern California do now, by grabbing a bit of the starter dough they’d been keeping for that purpose. Sadly, of course, they didn’t have refrigerators, and for a variety of medical and aesthetic reasons it wasn’t a good idea to keep the starter dough going for years and years, they way they do it up there. There were evidently communities that adopted the quite sensible practice of throwing out all of that leavening every Spring as part of the cleaning…

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Shabbat HaChodesh, the last Shabbat of the calendar year. Our liturgical calendar is tricky, not only because it’s lunar rather than solar, but because the Head of the Year (Rosh HaShanah) is in the autumn, but the first month of the year is in the Spring. Just to keep you on your toes. In leap year particularly, the buildup through the merriment of Adar to the deeper joy of Nissan is a steady process marked by the four special Shabbats, where we screw with Your Humble Blogger’s plan some more. This is the last of them; Passover is nigh. Ezekiel 45:16-46:15:

All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel. And it shall be the prince's part [to give] burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meat offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the first [month], in the first [day] of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put [it] upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. And so thou shalt do the seventh [day] of the month for every one that erreth, and for [him that is] simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.

In the first [month], in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock [for] a sin offering. And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily [for] a sin offering. And he shall prepare a meat offering of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil for an ephah. In the seventh [month], in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of [that] gate without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening. Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the LORD in the sabbaths and in the new moons. And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the LORD in the sabbath day [shall be] six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish. And the meat offering [shall be] an ephah for a ram, and the meat offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And in the day of the new moon [it shall be] a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram: they shall be without blemish. And he shall prepare a meat offering, an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of [that] gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof.

But when the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against it. And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth. And in the feasts and in the solemnities the meat offering shall be an ephah to a bullock, and an ephah to a ram, and to the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.

Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the LORD, [one] shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he did on the sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth [one] shall shut the gate. Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the LORD [of] a lamb of the first year without blemish: thou shalt prepare it every morning. And thou shalt prepare a meat offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour; a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the LORD. Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat offering, and the oil, every morning [for] a continual burnt offering.

I like the idea that for the solemn feast days, you can’t go out of the Temple by the same gate you entered; you have to physically and logistically alter your path. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to actually do it, with a big crowd and all, everybody having to go all the way to the other side and out the other door, and then come back around the outside, with the peddlers and stalls set up to take advantage of the foot traffic. Feh. Of course, Ezekiel wasn’t actually doing it himself, what with the Exile. And if he is writing for me (as he must be), then the image and the metaphor is enough.

I’ve been really enjoying the four Shabbatot this year. Normally I don’t pay any attention to them at all. Even if I am in synagogue, it’s just a matter of a different Maftir and a different Haftorah. These are not holidays with observances, they are just names for the liturgical deviations of the calendar. And I don’t generally pay much attention to the Haftorah, to be honest. The year that I went every week, we skipped the Haftorah entirely, because we were spending so long discussing the Torah portion, and I liked that. I know the Haftorah portions themselves are often quite dull, with their ephas and their gates, but the cumulative effect, for YHB, is the build-up to Passover that is exactly what it is supposed to be. So score one for the liturgical calendar.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)