Nitzavim/ Va Yelech
Précis: Moses comes toward the conclusion of his final address to the People: You stand (nitzavim) this day before Adonai. In his final words to the People, Moses recounts the wonders Adonai has done for the people, and calls upon them to remain loyal to God through the covenant. The extent of the covenantal relationship is explained: it will survive exile and captivity with a return to the Land. The Torah is an “open book” that is accessible to all the People. A blessing and a curse have been set before the People, and they are to choose their path. Moses urges them to choose the blessing, to choose life, so that they may inherit the Land which God has sworn to their forefathers.
In Va Yelech, as the death of Moses approaches, he transfers his mantle of leadership to Joshua as his successor. Moses orders regular reading of the Law, and then transfers the written Torah into the hands of the Levites for safekeeping, in the Ark of the Covenant.
Deuteronomy 30:3 “Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you."
JTS Chancellor Schorsch writing in his Parashah Commentary (9/11/04) focuses on this verse. After the terrors of the prior parasha's curses, we come to this promise: after exile, God will bring the People back to the land.
As a result of the destruction by the Assyrians in the 8th Century BCE of the Northern Kingdom and its 10 tribes, that part of the Jewish People was lost forever. The promise of this verse does not seem to have been fulfilled for the 10 Lost Tribes.
When the first Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Exile began in 586 B.C.E. how could this remnant (Kingdom of Judah) of the Jewish People survive, given that their central mode of worship and identification, the Temple itself, was now gone, and they were faced with the kind of exile which ended the existence of their Northern brethren? How could they keep their belief in the promise of this verse?
Writing 1,500 years later, Rashi offered an answer: As Schorsch explains, “the Hebrew verb for restore ("God will restore your fortunes") is intransitive rather than transitive, meaning that "God will come back with you out of captivity…’From this verse our sages learned that God's presence (shekhina) dwelled with Israel in the torment of its exile. And when they were redeemed, it is as if God ordered redemption for Himself, that He would return with them’."
The midrash cited by Rashi is an expression of God’s compassion and identification with Israel. God suffers along with Israel. This helped the Jews of Babylonia to re-imagine Jewish theology: God was not limited to the Land of Israel, but was Universal. God could be worshipped anywhere. It is ironic that the birth of Judaism can be traced to the loss of the Jewish national home. The sacrificial cult was to be replaced by study of Torah, acts of righteousness, and prayer. This was the beginning of the change from a sacrificial cult centered on sacred space to a religion centered on sacred text, which, over the following thousand years, came to fruition with the Mishnah and Talmud.
This is not, in any way, to diminish the centrality of the Land of Israel from the religious life of Israel: in fact, it is the central point of the restoration of the “fortune” as promised in this week’s verse. What it also shows is that Jews did not await the redemption from Babylon passively: they created a religious way of life and communal institutions that prepared them to fulfill the promise of this verse: to be restored to the land from among all of the peoples among where God had scattered them.
We in the Diaspora have a repsonsibility to support the restoration of the Jewish People to the land. As we come to the New Year, let's resolve to make sure that our support for Israel remains constant.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
In Honor of Labor and Torah
This week’s reading coincides with Labor Day in the United States, a time when we should all remember that it is because of laboring men and women in general, and the labor movement in particular, that we live in a society where ideas like minimum wages, health, safety and child labor laws are assumed to be there because they are the “right thing.” These, along with Social Security, the 40 hour work week, Medicare and (in great part) Civil Rights for all are the legacy of the labor movement.
Whether one maintains that labor unions are “no longer needed” or (as I maintain) essential for the economic security of all working people, one cannot reasonably deny the incredibly beneficial impact that the unions have had on American society.
As a segue, this week’s reading has something to say on the importance of protecting the rights of the powerless and unprotected.
Ki Tavo
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
Précis: The parasha continues, from the last reading, numerous religious concerns regarding the formation of a civil and moral community (including tithes of first fruits, and tithes to support the Levites). The People are promised that if they follow God’s instructions, they will be transformed into a holy people. They are further instructed that they have a choice in their own destiny: there are blessings and curses (The Admonition), and they must to choose between them, and bear the consequences. The parasha ends with Moses reminding the People about all that Adonai had done for them in bringing them from Egypt, providing sustenance, defeating their foes, and giving them the Land.
Deuteronomy 27:18-19 “Cursed be he who misdirects a blind man on his way, and the People shall say Amen. Cursed be he who subverts the right of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and the People shall say Amen.”
The scene is set: the 12 tribes are to arrive in the Promised Land, and set themselves on two facing mountains: Gezeirim and Ebal. Then, the Levitical Priests pronounce a series of curses to which the People respond “Amen.”
As noted in Etz Hayim, the 11 specific sins listed among the curses are commonly committed in secret, or they are difficult for the victim to publicize the sin. The People say “Amen” as each sin is recited, as a way of saying, in effect “we agree” and also as a way of promising not to commit the error themselves.
In Biblical literature, the phrase “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” is often shorthand for those within society who lack a protector. In a nomadic society, or even in the early urban society of our ancestors, an individual without a protector was subject to attack and to harm from all comers (see, for example, Lot’s protection of the “travelers” in his home in Sodom before its destruction). It is our responsibility to avoid harming the powerless and the unprotected. Neither are we permitted to stand idly by when they suffer.
On Labor Day Weekend, we should remember that with union membership at historically low levels (because of the power of anti-union management to prevent organizing under existing labor laws, in my humble opinion) many employees in America are powerless and unprotected. The right to "protected activity" - the right of individual employees to join together to fight for security and improvements of their wages, hours, and conditions of employment – is exactly the kind of “protection” that our ancestors were urged to provide when they stood on Gezeirim and Ebal.
And the People shall say “Amen.”
Shabbat Shalom, and happy Labor Day
Whether one maintains that labor unions are “no longer needed” or (as I maintain) essential for the economic security of all working people, one cannot reasonably deny the incredibly beneficial impact that the unions have had on American society.
As a segue, this week’s reading has something to say on the importance of protecting the rights of the powerless and unprotected.
Ki Tavo
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
Précis: The parasha continues, from the last reading, numerous religious concerns regarding the formation of a civil and moral community (including tithes of first fruits, and tithes to support the Levites). The People are promised that if they follow God’s instructions, they will be transformed into a holy people. They are further instructed that they have a choice in their own destiny: there are blessings and curses (The Admonition), and they must to choose between them, and bear the consequences. The parasha ends with Moses reminding the People about all that Adonai had done for them in bringing them from Egypt, providing sustenance, defeating their foes, and giving them the Land.
Deuteronomy 27:18-19 “Cursed be he who misdirects a blind man on his way, and the People shall say Amen. Cursed be he who subverts the right of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and the People shall say Amen.”
The scene is set: the 12 tribes are to arrive in the Promised Land, and set themselves on two facing mountains: Gezeirim and Ebal. Then, the Levitical Priests pronounce a series of curses to which the People respond “Amen.”
As noted in Etz Hayim, the 11 specific sins listed among the curses are commonly committed in secret, or they are difficult for the victim to publicize the sin. The People say “Amen” as each sin is recited, as a way of saying, in effect “we agree” and also as a way of promising not to commit the error themselves.
In Biblical literature, the phrase “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” is often shorthand for those within society who lack a protector. In a nomadic society, or even in the early urban society of our ancestors, an individual without a protector was subject to attack and to harm from all comers (see, for example, Lot’s protection of the “travelers” in his home in Sodom before its destruction). It is our responsibility to avoid harming the powerless and the unprotected. Neither are we permitted to stand idly by when they suffer.
On Labor Day Weekend, we should remember that with union membership at historically low levels (because of the power of anti-union management to prevent organizing under existing labor laws, in my humble opinion) many employees in America are powerless and unprotected. The right to "protected activity" - the right of individual employees to join together to fight for security and improvements of their wages, hours, and conditions of employment – is exactly the kind of “protection” that our ancestors were urged to provide when they stood on Gezeirim and Ebal.
And the People shall say “Amen.”
Shabbat Shalom, and happy Labor Day
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