Parashat Korach, Numbers 16:1-18:32

The tug of war over the priesthood is just the most obvious problem in Parashat Korach.

Next Tuesday is a significant anniversary. In Canada we will be celebrating Canada Day marking the establishment of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. While this will be celebrated with barbecues and fireworks, most Canadians are unaware that July 1st is also the anniversary of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, one of the significant battles of World War I. The horror of trench warfare was recorded by the poet John Edward Masefield the following year:

For a moment, they saw the parapet with the wire in front of it, and began, as they ran, to pick out in their minds a path through that wire. Then, too often, to many of them, the grass that they were crossing flew up in shards and sods and gleams of fire from the enemy shells, and those runners never reached the wire, but saw, perhaps, a flash, and the earth rushing nearer, and grasses against the sky, and then saw nothing more at all, for ever and for ever and for ever.

John Edward Masefield, The Old Front Line

The first day of fighting resulted in 58,000 casualties, one-third of whom "saw nothing more at all, for ever and for ever and for ever." This still remains the largest number of British casualties in a single day. Though this battle was eventually declared a strategic success, it remains controversial.

At the center of the debate stands Sir Douglas Haig, a cavalry man. He didn't think much of newfangled machinery like the tank, or that "overrated weapon," the machine gun. Ninety-two years later, we can still ponder what these views say about his leadership and that of his superiors.

This Shabbat we read about Korach, a Levite who was a cousin of Moses and Aaron. Despite the family ties, or perhaps because of them, Korach took exception with his cousins' leadership. Joined by Dathan, Abiram and 250 elders, they challenged the established leadership: You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord's congregation? (Numbers 16:3) Is it not enough that you brought us from a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, that you would also lord it over us? (Numbers 16:13)

What follows the challenge of these rebels is a test of leadership, in which the Divine clearly supports Moses, and, even more dramatically, affirms Aaron's role.

The tug of war over the priesthood is just the most obvious problem in Parashat Korach. The rebellion and its aftermath provide a glimpse of leadership in transition and the upheaval caused by the change to something new:

Texts that focus on the priesthood shift authority away from the family’s head toward the central sanctuary and its priests. … The inclusion of the wives of Dathan and Abiram reflects the role that women played within the clan system

Thus, Numbers 16 is not only a story of infighting among families that ultimately champions Aaron and his descendants; it also tells a story about the seeming demise of an important notion of the "biblical family." The deaths of Dathan, Abiram, and their wives at the entrances to their tents (16:27) make the point painfully clear: after all, the entrance to the tent is a place associated with theophany and judgment in the clan system and, hence, also a symbol of authority (Genesis 18:1; Deuteronomy 22:21). Together, Dathan, Abiram and their wives represent the clan system that must be erased—swallowed whole—in order to establish the authority of the priesthood.

Amy Kalmanofsky, The Torah: A Woman's Commentary,
Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L Weiss, ed., p. 909

Korach and the rebels were the biblical equivalents of World War I generals using old strategies. With everything that had happened up to this point, wasn't it clear that Moses and Aaron were the leaders and that the priesthood was God's chosen method? What further proof did Korach, Datan and Abiram need? Apparently, something overwhelmingly tragic was the only thing that would provide a wake-up call, something that, unfortunately, took many innocent lives as well: the ancient equivalent of the trenches of the First World War. It is only after the rebels and their families were swallowed by the earth that the priestly leadership is dramatically upheld:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and take from them — from the chieftains of their ancestral houses — one staff for each chieftain of an ancestral house: twelve staffs in all. Inscribe each man's name on his staff, there being one staff for each head of an ancestral house; also inscribe Aaron's name on the staff of Levi. Deposit them in the Tent of Meeting before the Pact, where I meet with you. The staff of the man whom I choose shall sprout, and I will rid Myself of the incessant mutterings of the Israelites against you.

Moses spoke thus to the Israelites. Their chieftains gave him a staff for each chieftain of an ancestral house, twelve staffs in all; among these staffs was that of Aaron. Moses deposited the staffs before the Lord, in the Tent of the Pact. The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Pact, and there the staff of Aaron of the house of Levi had sprouted: it had brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms, and borne almonds. Moses then brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the Israelites; each identified and recovered his staff.

The Lord said to Moses, "Put Aaron's staff back before the Pact, to be kept as a lesson to the rebels, so that their mutterings against Me may cease, lest they die." This Moses did; just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did.

Numbers 17:16-26

Without a doubt, parashat Korach is a lesson in leadership. Tradition tells us that in saying all the people are holy Korach spoke the truth, but not the whole truth. Korach wanted to lead but for his own reasons. He was selfishly focused on personal needs and desires. So too were the other rebels; and they were rejected because of their motives. Certainly enough has been written about the World War I generals who were so caught up in themselves, so confident that they knew best, fighting the last war while blind to the evidence before them. Clearly, these leaders were all too human, with flaws that proved fatal to others.

Yet a good leader, a true leader is by no means a saint. Moses, Aaron, Miriam, the prophets and the kings were all flawed individuals. It is because they were so human that we can look up to them. The model for us may be of an extremely high standard, but it is not beyond our reach. A true leader does not act for personal gain but rather for the greater good as clearly demonstrated by both Aaron and Moses in this episode. A true leader says things that are difficult to hear, but which must be heard. All too often, a true leader is never fully appreciated or rewarded in his lifetime.

Tradition tells us that the days of the prophets are long gone, as are the days of the priests. The question is, do we still have true leaders? We live in a time with no Moses, Aaron or Miriam, yet Korach's rebellion endures in our days. People who have great leadership potential face tremendous obstacles.

In large measure, this is our own fault. The single most important lesson we can learn from Korach is how to judge true leadership. It is the individual who sees beyond the self, who tells us what we need to do instead of what makes us comfortable, and who empowers others to fulfill their potential. We know such people exist. Our greatest challenge is not finding such individuals; it is recognizing them and allowing them to fulfill their potential.

There is an additional lesson we can learn about leadership, be it in the workplace, in our personal lives, or in the greater community. When faced with leaders who give us cold, hard, uncomfortable truths, leaders who struggle to transform us, we tend to turn against them. Far too often we are Korach.

Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Shlach Lecha, Numbers 13:1-15:41

The human being is the challah of the world.

Why is the price of bread so important? What is the value of a loaf of bread? Bread is a commodity in the consumer price index of many nations. The price of bread is used as a comparative measure of the standard of living. Are you better off than a medieval peasant? A comparison of what you pay for bread and what the peasant paid for a similar loaf will let you know. Bread lines form when wages disappear, and in desperate times the bread lines can turn into bread riots. The Speenhamland allowance system, enacted in England in 1795, was meant to avoid such rioting by supplementing the breadwinner's ability to feed his family. During the Weimar Republic in 1920’s Germany, hyperinflation raised the cost of bread from less then one mark to trillions of marks. We all know how this affected the political scene.

Because bread is such a basic necessity, its importance is more than physical or material. Lack of bread can topple governments, cause wars and mark a person for life. In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables stealing a loaf of bread to feed a hungry relative kept Jean Valjean imprisoned for years and marked him as a thief. An overflowing breadbox can keep you in power, as David demonstrated in his celebration of bringing the Ark to Jerusalem: And he distributed among all the people – the entire multitude of Israel, man and woman alike – to each a loaf (challat) of bread…(2 Samuel 6:19). Surely one of the strongest bonds created among people is by "breaking bread;" and what would Shabbat be without challah?

In the book of Genesis, bread is the result of hard work, though the description of how it is obtained is presented as a punishment accompanying the exile from Eden:
By the sweat of your brow
Shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground —
For from it you were taken. (Genesis 3:19).

As we've already seen elsewhere in the Torah, bread represents God's bounty, and the lack of bread is punishment for transgressions. For us, bread is symbolic of good times (challah) and bad (matzah), but in the Torah both leavened and unleavened bread have positive connotations and are offered to God. And if you bring a sacrifice of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes (challot) of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers (rekikot) anointed with oil. (Leviticus 2:4)

Why focus on bread this week? After all, Shlach lecha contains the dramatic events surrounding the scouts’ exploration of the land of Israel and the report they bring back: It's a wonderful land, but it is beyond our abilities to get there. The people are powerful, and in comparison to them we're grasshoppers (Numbers 13:31). We say this not in the affectionate way the blind Shaolin master addressed David Carradine in Kung Fu. We mean that these folks are big and they'll stomp us. To paraphrase the King Fu instructor: We are not ready, Grasshopper. Okay, we've got an attitude problem and the next chapter deals with addressing it, mainly by condemning the generation that displays this attitude to perish in the wilderness.

Then we come to this morsel about bread:

When you enter the land to which I am taking you and you eat of the bread of the land, you shall set some aside as a gift to the Lord: as the first yield of your baking, you shall set aside a loaf as a gift; you shall set it aside as a gift like the gift from the threshing floor. You shall make a gift to the Lord from the first yield of your baking, throughout the ages.

Numbers 15:18-21

Food and land are tied together in the Torah. The challah, the loaf set aside as a gift, is incumbent upon us only in the land of Israel. The mitzvah we still perform by removing a measure of dough before baking is a rabbinic decree meant to insure that this commandment is not forgotten outside of post-Temple Israel.

It was only in the Middle Ages that challah became the term used for the special Shabbat bread. According to food writer Claudia Roden, this designation first appeared in South Germany. In our parasha, challah refers to a loaf. This is in contrast to other meal offerings that are in wafer form, such as the one found in Leviticus 2:4 that was cited above.

So far, challah is an offering made to God: the first yield of your baking, you shall set aside a loaf as a gift (Numbers 15:20). The term used for setting aside in the parasha is tarimu terumah. As Jacob Milgrom explains, this expression means that an item is transferred to the deity but unlike other offerings, the exchange is not "before" God, rather it is directly "to" God. (The Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary: Numbers, 15:19 p. 122) The verb tarimu means "you shall raise." This challah, this gift to God, is no mere exchange, it is an elevation. A humble piece of dough is much more than it appears. It is our connection to the Divine.

There is an underlying reciprocity in the act of taking challah. God sustained us with manna in the wilderness; when we enter the land we, in turn,give a portion of our bread to God. The connection between challah and manna is found on our Shabbat table every week. Two challot represent the double portion of manna that fell prior to Shabbat. There are those who extend the symbolism by pointing out that the cutting board represents the ground on which the manna fell and the challah cover represents the protective coat of dew over the manna.

The rabbinic imagination found profound inspiration in the act of taking challah. Genesis Rabbah, citing Numbers 15:20, claims that God too removed challah. When did God do this? When humanity was created. The human being is the challah of the world:

Rabbi Yossi ben Ketsarta said: Like a woman who mixes her dough with water and separates challah from the very centre, so too a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth (Genesis 2:6) followed by the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7)

Genesis Rabbah 14:1

The midrashic reading of Genesis is that just as dough is formed from grains of the earth mixed with water, God formed humanity from a combination of earth and water, not merely from the dust of the ground. Humanity is more than the Pillsbury doughboy; it is challah, physically separated from the rest of creation, the most important part of creation.

The psalmist reminds us that we are little less than divine (Psalm 8:6); our lesson here is that we are more than mundane. Not just earth, not just water – it is the combination of the two that makes something so basic and so unique. In kneading dough we are reminded of our position, elevated to be God's challah.

Now this begins to make sense when we read the beginning of the parasha. We are not grasshoppers, we are the dough that rises and is separated for a Divine purpose. Since entering the land, we are reminded of this every time we bake bread; in other words on a daily basis.

In extending the mitzvah outside the land of Israel, the sages consciously or not provided a lesson in perception that goes far beyond the obvious lesson of self-esteem. We know that mitzvot turn mundane actions into holy acts, but we are not always aware of their transformative power. Remember the bread that "helps build strong bodies twelve ways?" Challah applies this to the soul. In the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel: "To perform deeds of holiness is to absorb the holiness of deeds. " A tasty morsel to chew on this Shabbat.

Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Behaalotecha, Numbers 8:1-12:16

The more we have at our disposal, the less we are spiritually satisfied.

With summer fast approaching, the lines at amusement parks are getting longer, the prices higher, and the roller coasters taller. I know this because of my-son-the-roller-coaster-aficionado, who every year looks forward to the latest thrilling ride: How high, how fast; will it go upside down and backwards? I always wonder: when is enough, enough. He wonders if it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Our ancestors would answer "yes." At least that appears to be the case in Behaa'alotcha. In what could be termed a spiritual roller coaster ride, the parasha begins after the high of revelation at Sinai and quickly heads towards the low of our constant kvetching. As with much in Jewish life, it's all about the food. It seems that God's cooking isn't good enough for us: The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!" (Numbers 11:4-6) Okay, it was the same food day in and day out, but this was really not a case of "meatloaf, again!" With God doing the cooking, we know this was gourmet-quality food, yet the Torah still finds it necessary to point this out.

Why did the people complain about the manna, when the Torah makes a point of telling us how delicious it was? To feel prosperous, it is not enough for a person to have everything that is needed. One must have more than one's neighbors have. The manna was psychologically unsatisfying because everyone had it in abundance.

Jonathan Eybeschutz, Number 11:6, as quoted in Etz Hayim p. 828

Abundance detracts from value. If this is an emotional version of economic supply and demand, we are still having trouble dealing with it.

The classified sections of newspapers and Web sites such as eBay, Craigslist and Kijiji are full of advertisements posted by sellers trying to unload almost-new items. For the most part, these are not impulse buys but the fulfillment of a recurring itch or lifelong dream. The buyers have done their homework, they've shopped around.
So what went wrong?
Was the only-worn-once mink coat not warm enough? Was the driven-less-than-30-hours Jet-Ski not a smooth ride? Is German engineering not all it's cracked up to be?
Although some sellers will tell you they were saddled with a lemon, a few brave souls admit to something else. The item just didn't do what they thought it would do: It didn't change their life.

This Story is Classified: The boys and their toys: When will we learn that more stuff won't fix a hole in your soul? Rebecca Field Jager, National Post, May 24, 2008

The problem with this approach was discussed in the article by psychologist Dr Cheryl Ackerman:

The idea that a material thing can fix an emotional issue is a common mistake.
"Luxury items are associated with images of affluence, happiness, success, confidence and attractiveness," Ackerman says. "People think that if we get these things we will perceive ourselves -- and have others perceive us -- as having it made."
"If an individual is buying something to fill a personal or relationship void, the item will ultimately fail to satisfy and end up in the want ads. You can't resolve an emotional or spiritual issue with any material object."

This Story is Classified: The boys and their toys: When will we learn that more stuff won't fix a hole in your soul? Rebecca Field Jager, National Post, May 24, 2008

The great Mussar (ethics) teacher, Rabbi Israel Salanter made a similar observation when he said that "The luxuries we indulge in eventually come to seem to be necessities, as if we could not live without them" (as quoted in Everyday Holiness by Alan Morinis, p. 183)

Just when we think we're at the top, the roller coaster starts barreling down. In his ethical treatise, The Path of the Just, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto explored the trait of abstinence. Though today we tend to think of abstinence in sexual terms, Luzatto analysed it as dealing with material items where a lack of self-control sends you down a slippery slope:

You will eventually be forced to subject yourself to the clutches of the drive for livelihood and possessions so that your table could be set the way you would like it to be, which will lead you to wrongdoing and thievery, which themselves lead you to vain oaths and all sorts of transgressions that naturally follow these. Ultimately you will remove yourself from Divine service, Torah and prayer.

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, The Path of the Just, p. 119
(Jason Aronson, publisher, Yaakov Feldman translation).

The more we have at our disposal, the less we are spiritually satisfied. So what are we to do? We've got a greater problem than using material items to plug up the holes in our spiritual dams. While we can't seem to get enough material goods, we have built up a tolerance to other aspects of life. Cyclones, earthquakes and the suffering they bring hold our attention for a few short moments. How long has it been since the Myanmar cyclone or the Chinese earthquake? We made a donation. Move on to the next item. Too often, that pressing item that holds our attention is the latest gizmo that we think will make our lives better, more comfortable and more satisfactory. Given a choice of keeping up with the Joneses or improving the lives of the Smiths, we opt for the former.

Judaism does not preach asceticism, but it does encourage moderation. Who is wealthy, the one who is happy with his lot. (Mishna Avot 4:1) While our tradition teaches that we must take care of ourselves, it also demands that we be engaged with the needs of others. As Rabbi Israel Salanter noted, worrying about the material needs of another is my spirituality.

Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Naso, Numbers 4:21-7:89

That which is most sacred requires human contact.

I am always fascinated by the changes in language that slowly creep up on us. Words take on new meanings. Take "branding" for example. It used to be the way you marked your cattle; now it is refers to the image associated with a product. Or "product" which once referred to a manufactured item, the result of multiplying two or more numbers, or the stuff that is the end result of a chemical reaction. Today, "product" is the stuff the hairdresser rubs into my hair. My favourite word these days is "detailing" in the sense of "attention to particulars." Nowadays this attention is most often associated with a very careful car cleaning done by hand. In fact, almost anything done by hand, as opposed to machine, has gained in value because of the potential for detail.

Would the Sistine chapel be as wondrous as it is, had it been created with the aid of computers and machines? How interesting that one of the most popular details of this masterpiece is a close-up of the finger of God reaching out to touch the finger of Adam. This image alone has been reinterpreted and referenced in our time. A poster for the 1982 film ET: The Extra-terrestrial shows an alien finger touching a human one. In a way, hands define us as human, giving us amazing dexterity and epitomizing manual labour.

Such work is what we find at the beginning and end of this week's Parasha, Naso. It starts with yet another census, this one dealing with the various Levitical clans and their roles in dismantling and carting away the holy Tabernacle. They are divine shleppers. This is what we learn in Numbers chapter four. In chapter seven, the tribal chieftains bring offerings to dedicate the Tabernacle, including carts and oxen to pull the carts. These items becomes the property of the Levites, who can subsequently use these as moving vans. Lucky Levites. Well, not all of them. One group was left out of this distribution: But to the Kohathites he did not give any; since theirs was the service of the [most] sacred objects, their porterage was by shoulder. (Numbers 7:9) This clan was charged with transporting the most sacred objects in the Tabernacle. Precisely because they deal with such a precious cargo, it all must be done manually. No carts for the Kohathites. They carry the ritual items on shoulders; this then is literally the burden of holiness.

According to Rabbi Morris Adler

… we are being told not only about a detail of transportation but that we are also being instructed in a very important matter. When it comes to the very heart of religion, we must not try to find—and cannot really find—a substitute for our own shoulders. We cannot transfer to anybody else, or to anything else, the obligations that rest exclusively upon ourselves. There are things that others cannot do for us. …

Morris Adler, as quoted in The Torah: A Modern Commentary,
revised edition, W. Gunther Plaut, ed., p. 945

Menahem Mendel of Kotzk explained that in carrying the sacred items on their shoulders the Kohathites had to be completely committed to the task, concluding that "a person does not easily acquire even a spark of holiness without effort."

Naso contains an additional message of religious empowerment. We learn that despite the grandeur and glory of the Tabernacle, or later, the Temple, despite any beauty or technological innovations, that which is most sacred requires human contact. This is not a difficult lesson to understand. Anyone who has been hospitalized knows that contact speaks volume; touch nurses the soul.

Human contact is a theme that runs throughout this parasha. There are negative instances, such as the accusation of adultery that leads to the tests of Sotah, the woman accused of this misconduct. There is the avoidance of contact as practiced by the Nazirite, who must shun alcoholic products and contact with the dead. Positively, there is the priestly blessing that requires human contact to serve a Divine purpose. And then there is the role of the Kohathite clan, which literally has the burden of the holiest objects placed on its shoulders.

The importance of human contact, of touch, is something to keep in mind as we increasingly connect through other means. How often do we see youngsters sitting next to each other absorbed in their own electronic games? How often do we actually converse with someone on the bus, the train, or even on the treadmill next to us at the gym? All too often, we are each plugged in to our own personal entertainment device.

This past week I spent some time in a doctor's waiting room. This office includes a number of obstetricians as well as pediatricians; so many babies in such a small space! In addition to the usual pamphlets and magazines, the waiting room contained a number of computers connected to the internet. Every baby was in a carrier placed on the floor. Every parent was absorbed in interacting with the computer, whether watching an ad, surfing the net, or playing a game. I understand that parents need a break, but the pattern was disturbing. No child, whether awake or asleep, was being held by a parent, not even a finger touching the baby's skin.

I keep seeing the images from the Sistine chapel and from the film ET: hands reaching out, fingers straining to make contact. What a basic human need that goes back to our beginnings! In Southern France there are caves that were inhabited by some of the earliest people to walk this earth. They too had their Michelangelos and Spielbergs, bequeathing us works of art. One of the most striking paintings in the Chauvet Cave is also one of the simplest: an outline of a hand painted by blowing pigment on a hand held against the cave wall.

In an age when more on more of our contact with others is through technological means, we need to remind ourselves of the importance of direct human contact. This most simple act is also one that is most sacred. The importance of contact goes beyond the rabbinic dictum of not separating yourself from the community. We need to add to it: do not separate yourself from other individuals.

Jewish spirituality is not found on a mountaintop, it does not consist of meditating as a hermit in a cave. For us it is the simple interaction with others that is the gateway to the Divine.

Shabbat shalom,
MS