Parasha of the Week

There are many varied halachot (laws) in his week’s Sidra that it almost seems like a hodgepodge of disparate ideas all mixed into one reading.  From a rebellious child who refuses to listen to eggs taken from a nest to captives from a war the parasha is almost dizzying with its assortment of issues.  Perhaps this mixture of halachot is purposeful: just like life instances when we are called upon to make moral judgments cannot be planned in advance.  We need to know how to behave in every interaction with people and nature.  Yes, everything matters.  The Torah insists that we pay attention to the cries of a fledgling mother bird to the spoils of war. This underlies what it means to be Jewish.  God cares about what we do.  He did not shoo us out of the Garden and leave us to make up life’s rules as we wandered around.  The Torah details 613 mitzvot but there are many more than that when the rabbis expande...

This week’s sidra contains and interesting admonition, “Do not plant for yourself an  Asherah .” 16:21 An  Asherah  was a type of tree, well-known among the people of the middle east which was tall, leafy and often worshipped.  Numens were thought to inhabit the tree and people worshipped at their base. The Torah’s warning is not merely concerned with worshipping nature but demeaning God.  God’s essence inheres in all things but that does not mean all things are god.   God is above nature, the orchestrator of planets, life and ultimately unknowable.       Why is this an important idea?  The  Asherah  is connected with the elevation and stature of humankind.  When we accept our limitations, know that we are fallible, often prejudiced, quick to be insulted and hurt we know that we, and nothing on this earth, is God. It is good to appreciate the gifts of the Almighty throu...

“See this day I set before you blessing and curse,” warns god.     Both depend upon the way that we behave, how we follow God’s laws.     Our ancestors stood on mountains opposite one another and swore to obey God mitzvot (commandments). After a long series of blessings and curses God begs us to “choose life.”  Choose life?  Of course we would make that choice.  But the meaning is far deeper.  What God means when he tells us to choose life is that we choose to do the things that infuse ourselves and others with a sense of purpose, in consonance with God.  “Life” is more than breathing and eating.  It means for the Jew that we make the world more whole, remove some of the suffering, follow the footsteps of our ancestors.  ---------------------       --------------------     --------------------- “ If there is among you a poor man of one of your brothers inside any of your gat...

When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was still a young man, before his fleeing the Shoah and before he became known as one of the leading spiritual voices of the middle of the twentieth century, he wrote: “Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me.” For the rest of his life Rabbi Heschel taught that cultivating a feeling of wonder is essential for living a life of meaning and holiness.  Moses has hit his stride in his exhortations to the Children of Israel, seeking to prepare them for the next stage of their journey, their entry into the Promised Land. In his direct address to the people, calling on them to faithfully love God, he emphasizes their personal experience of God’s might and God’s love for Israel. His words ring forth: “Know this day that it is not to your children, who do not know and who have not seen the message of the Eternal, your Almighty God – His greatness, His strong hand and outstretched ar...

The Faithful Shepherd was Moshe rabbenu (Moses our Rabbi).  In fact, the mystic tradition always refers to Moshe this way, as the “ faithful shepherd.”  He was the shepherd who kept faith throughout all his trials in Egypt and in the forty-year sojourn in the desert.   Leadership was thrust upon him.  Unlike a political leader who runs for office for personal aggrandizement or for altruistic reasons wanting to change the world for the better Moshe tried hard to evade the call of leadership.  Humility was Moshe’s hallmark and he argued with God against become the man who would confront the mighty Pharaoh to deliver his people.   Why Moshe?  Why did not God choose someone more ambitious, perhaps a bit more assertive and aggressive with a drive to fight against tyranny? The midrash tells us that when he was a young man tending the flocks of his father-in-law in Midian, he found that the tiniest of ewes was...

Pinchas was a man of instinct and full of zealotry.  He was moved by what he saw wrong with his people and acted forcefully, violently. In the aftermath of his actions, Pinchas was given a permanent “covenant of peace.”  Interesting that Pinchas, the zealot was given an award that did not jibe with his disposition.  Yet a great lesson inheres in this week’s Torah parasha.  There are times when we are on the right side of history but not behaving in a way that we want others to emulate.  For example, wars are often fought but they should never be glorified.  Wars may be necessary to protect lives that that does not mean we exult when people die.  The same can be said of any kind of suffering or punishment. In fact, the whole idea of jailing someone for crimes is unknown in the Torah.  What is the purpose of placing someone in jail?  To satisfy society?  As an act of punishment for wro...

What we say matters.  It matters so much that there is a whole tractate in the Talmud on the import of the words that we speak.   In this parasha there are two particular kinds of speech that are given attention.  The first is a neder .  A neder is a personal vow that we made to and for ourselves.  It may be that we make a neder to not eat bananas, or study Torah, or give tzedaka.  That neder is heard Above and God accounts it to us as if it were a contract.  That is why once a year we have a service called Kol Nidrei , which is about all the vows we said we would undertake but did not fulfill.  We beg God to forgive us for being unfaithful with our speech and promises. The other kind of speech mentioned in Mattot is when we swear.  Swearing involves invoking the name of God and declaring that such and such is true (like in a court of law).  When we make such an oath (shavua, in...