Shabbat Hol Ha-Mo'ed Pesach, Exodus 33:12 - 34:26, Numbers 28:19 - 28:25

There are two sides to the humble matzah.

Browsing through a bookstore the other day, it was interesting to note that the most popular display was for board games. Remember those? There is no joystick, no remote control, no nunchuk, no hookup to a screen, and batteries aren't included because they're not necessary. Some of these games have been around for decades. The second most popular area in the store contained books and magazines about simplifying your life: i.e., getting by with less in tough economic times.

Welcome to Pesach. Despite the exorbitant grocery bill for kosher for Passover products, Pesach is about simplicity. At any rate, it used to be. The Torah reading for Shabbat Hol Ha-moed (the intermediate days of) Pesach simply instructs us: You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread--eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I have commanded you… (Exodus 34:18). Unleavened bread is mentioned a second time in this portion: You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened; and the sacrifice of the Feast of Passover shall not be left lying until morning (Exodus 34:25).

That's it. Nothing about sponge cake, macaroons, or the oxymoronic Passover bagels; just matzah plain and simple. Matzah is all about simplifying life. The Haggadah refers to it as ha-lachma anya, the bread of poverty. Nonetheless, there is actually something called matzah ashira meaning rich bread, and containing eggs, oil, and sometimes even a sweetener. However, the word matzah is quite literally simplicity itself.

By way of explanation, the Maharal of Prague, in Gevurot Hashem, his teachings on Pesach, draws our attention to a Talmudic passage describing animal hides:

Come and hear: Rabbi Hiyya ben Ammi said on Ulla's authority: There are three types of hide: matzah, hippa, and diftera. Matzah, as its name implies, is neither salted nor treated with flour or gall-nut .

Shabbat 79a

In this excerpt, matzah refers to the untreated animal hide, pure and simple.

The Maharal goes on to relate simplicity to freedom (Gevurot Hashem, 51). Ironically, a wealthy individual is burdened by his possessions and can be considered enslaved by them. In this view, it is only the individual who has no possessions who is truly free.

Well, I can't say that I fully agree. Poverty is also enslavement. When your belly is grumbling, it is difficult to think of anything other than finding a morsel to eat. No wonder when we eat the bread of poverty at the seder, we invite all who are hungry to come and eat.

Still, the idea of simplicity is an important one in a spiritual sense. Possessions do enslave us and distort our perception of things. When trying to keep up with the Joneses, we don't really get to know the Joneses at all; such competition stifles basic human contact. We see them for what they have, not for who they are.

Material simplicity brings with it a spiritual cleansing. Matzah is our back-to-basics reminder. Last week we touched upon a traditional view that matzah represents the yester ha-ra (evil inclination). One week a year, munching on matzah serves as a reminder to focus on ridding ourselves of all the bad habits that we have eased into over the course of the rest of the year.

But there are two sides to the humble matzah. It is also the bread of freedom, hurriedly baked in preparation for redemption. How you view unleavened bread depends on which side of the matzah you butter:

To be fully realized, an Exodus must include an inner voyage, not just a march on the road out of Egypt. The difference between slavery and freedom is not that slaves endure hard conditions while free people enjoy ease. The bread remained equally hard in both states, but the psychology of the Israelites shifted totally. When the hard crust was given to them by tyrannical masters, the matzah they ate in passivity was the bread of slavery. But when the Jews willingly went from green fertile deltas into the desert because they were determined to be free, when they refused to delay freedom and opted to eat unleavened bread rather than wait for it to rise, the hard crust became the bread of freedom. Out of fear and lack of responsibility, the slave accommodates to ill treatment. Out of dignity and determination to live free, the individual will shoulder any burden.

Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays,  p. 47

The irony is that we who live in freedom willingly accept the chains of possessions. Slowly, without our realizing it our materialism enslaves us. Funny, this sounds like a lesson about Sukkot. Isn't that the time of year when we remind ourselves that with the exception of some basic essentials, material possessions are trivial? Well, here is another week-long holiday half a year later which gives us the same message as "food for thought”: The material is immaterial.

Perhaps we need such a reminder twice a year. We're pretty forgetful. Just look at what happened after that wonderful redemption from Egypt: We melted our valuables and formed the Golden Calf, which led Moses to shatter the tablets and go back up Mount Sinai, where we find him this week in the Torah reading used for both Hol Ha-moed Pesach and Sukkot. Our actions post-redemption placed us in quite predicament, which Moses is trying to solve: Moses hastened to bow low to the ground in homage, and said, "If I have gained Your favor, O Lord, pray, let the Lord go in our midst, even though this is a stiffnecked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!" (Exodus 34:8-9)

How did we end up in that situation so little time after the euphoria of redemption? We were dependent on things, in this case on idols. What is the end of result? God forgives us and has Moses write another set of tablets containing the covenant. The covenantal ceremony between God and Israel will take place fifty days after Pesach on Shavuot. We're all invited.

As we munch on our matzah and detoxify for Shavuot, chew on this lesson: Possessions are meaningless, relationships are priceless.

Moadim le-simcha and Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel

Shabbat Pesach Seventh Day, Exodus 13:17-15:26, Numbers 28:9-25

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Karen Teasdale.

It is a short road from gnawing on the bread of affliction to suggesting to others "let them eat cake."

Every year I am amazed with the growing array of kosher for Passover products: muffins, bagels, pasta, even pizza. This is ha-lahma anya, the bread of affliction? Even traditional matzah ain't what it used to be, now that you can choose wheat, rye or spelt matzah. Then, of course, there's shmura matzah, the traditionally watched and hand-baked item that reflects the bread of poverty in looks but not in price.

Matzah is as elemental a symbol of the staff of life as can be found: just flour and water, minus the fermentation. We are told that during the Exodus there was no time to let the bread rise; hence we omit the fermentation or leavening agent. Perhaps leaving out this one item is another symbol of leaving Egypt behind, since scholars believe that fermentation was discovered in Egypt making it the birthplace of bread and beer.

Bread was used to pay the workers' wages in ancient Egypt. Those who toiled received grain or simple loaves of bread made from flour and water. In contrast, the rulers dined on bread that contained honey, fruit and nuts. The difference between the haves and have-nots was abundantly clear in the edifices built for the rulers. Pharaonic tombs contained food to sustain the occupant in the afterlife. These tombs contained more wealth and foodstuff than a worker could ever dream of having. What could be more symbolic of a hardened heart, than the food placed in tombs by a worker who could never hope to consume such delicacies?

Bread's relationship to wages is found in English is well. Bread used to be a common slang expression for money, probably derived from the Cockney rhyming slang expression "bread and honey" which rhymes with "money." Fans of old gangster movies will recall dialogue where bank robber would demand the "dough."

While the Torah does remind us that man does not live on bread alone (Deuteronomy 8:3), the Hebrew language appears to have an unusual association with the word for bread. Lechem, the Hebrew word for bread, is the same root as lochem, to do battle. What is the common element? Dr Joseph Lewin offers an intriguing possibility:

What can you say about a culture that uses the same root lamed, het, mem) — for both bread and war, milhama? Do lehem and milhama really come from the same root? It's a good question, and to answer it one must invoke a third use of the root. It seems that laham means not only "he did battle" and "he ate bread" but also "he joined together."

Using this third meaning, Ludwig Koehler, in his 1953 Dictionary of the Hebrew Old Testament, opines that our root originally had the connotation of "to be closely packed together" and that that meaning is the common denominator. In war, says Koehler, soldiers often engage in hand-to-hand combat in close quarters. Voilà for war, milhama. Bread, he adds, suggesting perhaps that it is considered highly nutritious, is "compact food." Voilà for bread, lehem.

Joseph Lewin, A Hebrew Lesson (l-h-m), Jewish Heritage Online Magazine

Another connection between bread and battle has nothing to do with grammar and everything to do with food fights. People go to war over food and sources of food. The silent film classic Battleship Potemkin begins with a group of sailors rebelling when they are fed maggot-infested meat. Or think of the words attributed to Marie Antoinette when told the peasants had no bread: Let them eat cake.

Significant as it may be as a Pesach symbol bread (albeit in its unleavened form) is in the background on this last Shabbat of the festival. The battle between the God of Israel and the god of Egypt is the focal point.

The Torah constantly points out that Pharaoh's hard was hardened – he stubbornly ignored the suffering around him. This is part of the battle between God and Egypt's ruler.

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, "What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?" He ordered his chariot and took his men with him; he took six hundred of his picked chariots, and the rest of the chariots of Egypt, with officers in all of them. The Lord stiffened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he gave chase to the Israelites. As the Israelites were departing defiantly, boldly, the Egyptians gave chase to them, and all the chariot horses of Pharaoh, his horsemen, and his warriors overtook them encamped by the sea, near Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.

(Exodus 14:5-9)

Adding to the battle imagery is the fact that our ancestors are armed (Exodus 13:18) as they make their way out of Egypt and find themselves at the Sea of Reeds with Pharaoh and a cast of thousands giving chase. We all know how the story ends, we cross the Sea of Reeds, Pharaoh and his army drown, and we sing a song of victory to God our Redeemer.

But before we take the plunge a strange thing happens: Pharaoh is not the only one with a change of heart! Our ancestors saw Pharaoh and his troops approaching and they too had a change of heart. The text tells us that they thought they had made a fatal mistake; better to have stayed in Egypt under the yoke of the king. The term describing Pharaoh's approach is faro hikriv, Pharaoh drew near. The root is k-r-v, the same word as korban, sacrifice and often used to indicate drawing close to God. This is the understanding of the Midrash:

What is meant by "Pharaoh drew near"? He brought Israel close to the repentance they showed. Rabbi Berachiah said: Pharaoh's drawing near was better for Israel than a hundred fasts and prayers.

Exodus Rabbah 21:5

As if to stress the importance of this point, Itturei Torah, a collection of Hassidic teachings and Mussar, comments that it takes Pharaoh to bring Israel to repentance.

What is going on here? Pharaoh serves as a reminder of suffering; and that changes the people's will. They turn to God to find the strength to cross the sea and sing triumphantly to the God who redeemed them.

Yet at this moment of our great joy, our rabbinic ancestors wanted to make sure that our hearts would not be hardened and that we would never forget the tragic cost of this freedom: The countless Egyptians who died in the plagues and at the Sea of Reeds. To help us remember the lives lost, the Talmudic sages imagined how this event played out in the heavenly court:

In that hour the ministering angels wished to utter the song of praise before the Holy One, Who is Blessed, but God rebuked them, saying: My handiwork (the Egyptians) is drowning in the sea and you want to sing before me!

Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b

Throughout the festival of Pesach there are constant reminders to prevent us from developing a hardened heart. Remembering the suffering of the Egyptians is the reason we spill the drops of wine when recounting the plagues at the Seder; our joy is diminished by their suffering. For the very same reason we abbreviate the Hallel (Psalms of Praise) that we sing at services on the last days of Pesach. As we read this portion at the end of Pesach, we are reminded that our rejoicing must be tempered.

We were saved at the Sea of Reeds, the symbol par excellence of Redemption. But our redemption is incomplete. What we lacked when we stepped onto dry land, what we oftentimes still lack, is the awareness of the suffering of others. Even worse is the knowledge that others suffer and we do nothing. It is a short road from gnawing on the bread of affliction to suggesting to others "let them eat cake." It is the path of the hardened heart.

On the seventh day of Pesach, as we watch the Sea of Reeds recede in the distance, we know that a long journey still awaits us. Pesach is the beginning of redemption; this is as far as God takes us. Spiritually, this is as far as God can take us; the rest of the journey is on our own. Full redemption can only be achieved when we no longer need to be reminded of the suffering of others. When our heart is open to the suffering of others, and when we act to correct the injustices causing that pain, then all of us will truly be redeemed.

Chag sameach,
Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Acharei Mot, Leviticus 16:1-18:30; Shabbat HaGadol

In memory of Rosalyn White, beloved mother of Myra White and Adrienne Rosen, much loved Bubbe to Alana and Sally. We miss you so much.

The modern scapegoat represents the denial of sin.

One of the challenges of dealing with the text of the Torah in English is that every translation is an interpretation. In these weekly studies I rely on the New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation of the Torah which refers to God as "He," and the divine name as "Lord." The Torah: A Woman's Commentary tackles the issue of gender neutral language by always writing the divine name in Hebrew, allowing the reader to read it as Adonai, Hashem or "Lord."

As sensitive as we liberal Jews are to our language of prayer and study, we have it easy in comparison to the pioneers of Bible translation, who had to set the standards of translation for their descendants. And indeed, we have been greatly influenced by these pioneers. Why else would we think that Eve ate an apple? Or that things start "in the beginning," not "with the beginning" or "when God began to create?"

One of the greatest influences on the English language has been the King James translation of the Bible, responsible for our automatically saying "in the beginning." This translation, known for the beauty of its language, is not the first translation into English. That accomplishment is credited to William Tyndale, a 16th century Protestant reformer who was the first individual to translate the text from the original Hebrew into English. It is thanks to Tyndale that we say "let there be light," and "Am I my brother's keeper?" Tyndale is believed to have created English words when necessary to help in the translation. One such word is "scapegoat" referring directly to a ceremony described in this week's parashah, Acharei Mot:

Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before the Lord at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel. Aaron shall bring forward the goat designated by lot for the Lord, which he is to offer as a sin offering; while the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left standing alive before the Lord, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel.

…Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated man. Thus the goat shall carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

Leviticus 16:7-10, 21-22

While today a "scapegoat" is a person who bears the blame for others, for Tyndale this was the joining of two words (e)scape and goat – referring to the animal in the ritual that had the people's sin transferred to it and was set free for Azazel.

Jewish commentators didn't have it any easier just because they were dealing with the original Hebrew. It's not necessarily the ritual that bothered them (though it could be challenging to our modern sensibilities). What "got their goat" was the term Azazel. Since this word only appears in Leviticus 16, how is it to be understood?

The Talmud (Yoma 67b) describes Azazel as being "a hard and rough country" (Soncino translation), based on the word az meaning "strong" or "fierce." David Kimchi (12th century) explains it as being the mountain to which the goat was sent in the wilderness. Another interpretation is that it is a contraction of two words (goat) and azal (to go away), related to a description found in the Mishna (Yoma 6:2). From this one can see the development of the "scapegoat." Ibn Ezra relates it to "goat demons" mentioned in Leviticus 17:7. Baruch Levine points out that Azazel was the name given "to the demonic ruler of the wilderness."

The Torah: A Women's Commentary summarizes it best:

This is the name of the wilderness beyond the boundaries of settled life; most likely it originated as the name of a demon, Azazel in this case is best imagined as the antithesis of the Tabernacle/sanctuary, a place of disorder devoid of the relevant priestly distinctions. By carrying Israel's impurities to such a wilderness, the scapegoat effectively conveys the chaotic aspects of human life back to the place of origin.

The Torah: A Women's Commentary, p. 682

Most interesting are the commentaries relating the two goats to Biblical figures. Nachmanides, drawing on Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (65:10), through the use of puns identifies Esau as the goat that is sent away and Jacob as the one that remains. How so? Esau is described as hairy (sa'ir) which is a pun on another word for goat se'ir. This goat carries the Israelites' iniquities avonotam, punned as avonot tam, avonot meaning sins and tam meaning a person of integrity. Who is described as being tam? Jacob (Genesis 25:27). Take it a step further. Remember Jacob's disguise to fool daddy into thinking he was big brother Esau? Goatskin (Genesis 27:16).

Fast forward to late Saturday night, where, after noshing on kosher for Passover Tam Tams, we will be singing Had Gadya, One Little Goat. This ditty has been invested with allegorical meaning by Jewish commentators. Most popularly, we are told that the goat represents the people of Israel and all the other actors in the saga (except, of course, for God) represent nations throughout history that tried to destroy the Jewish people.

Yet more often than not, it is the scapegoat that has been associated with Jews. How ironic that this animal, symbolic of the cleansing of Israel's sins, has been associated with the Jewish people historically being burdened with the sins of others. Alas, we still see this in the world today.

In Leviticus the ritual with the two goats represents the public acknowledgment and acceptance of sins: the animal designated for Azazel symbolically bears them away. The modern scapegoat represents the denial of sin. We readily accept that this happens to our community on a global level. But let's get personal here. Let's face it; it is part of human nature to make excuses when we fall short of expectations. How often do we as individuals shift blame to others instead of accepting responsibility for our own actions?

So here we are on the Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Pesach, preparing to recount and relive the story of our deliverance from slavery to freedom. With that precious freedom come obligations, including the responsibility of owning up to our mistakes, shortcomings and transgressions. Pesach is sounding more and more like Yom Kippur! Let's not forget that hametz (leaven), prohibited on Pesach, is symbolically taken to be the yester hara' (inclination to evil). So Pesach, half a year after Yom Kippur, is another occasion to right wrongs. Consider this: there is nothing more liberating than 'fessing up to our sins. Pesach is a spring cleaning for the soul, an opportunity to fix the mess we have made. What are we waiting for?

Shabbat shalom.
Chag kasher ve-sameach,
MS