Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesach (Exodus 33:12-34:26; Numbers 28:19-25) for April 15, 2006
This week's parasha study has been generously sponsored by Elliot Shapiro in loving memory of Goldie Weisbrod.
Nothing is wasted in nature or in love.
Study with Baruch Sienna
This year's cycle of weekly Parasha study explores what connections and insight we can find by examining the Torah portion together with the Haftarah.
The Shabbat that falls in the middle of Pesach interrupts the weekly cycle of Torah readings, and like first and second day, the holiday readings describe the celebration of Passover and the sacrificial offerings. Ezekiel's haftarah begins (36:37) comparing Jerusalem during the festivals when they are filled with flocks to Israel's ruined cities that will be fillled with people. The Haftarah is probably one of the most famous passages from the prophets: Ezekiel's image of the 'dry bones.' The idea that Israel would be restored was a message of consolation and comfort to the exiles of Babylonia. Different communities read slightly different verses: some read from Ez. 36:37, 38; 37:14; others read 37:1-17).
The prophet Ezekiel lived during the destruction of the First Temple at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (586 BCE) and was exiled to Babylonia. In the first half of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet warns of the imminent destruction of Jerusalem; in the latter half, he preaches a message of consolation and restoration. While Ezekiel still had hope that the Northern Kingdom would be restored and then united, in fact, this prophecy did not come to pass. The Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians over a hundred years earlier (722 BCE), and has disappeared from history.
The holiday of Passover marks the 'birth' of the Jewish people. The exodus narrative is filled with birth imagery: the midwives in Exodus, the narrow birth canal of the Red Sea, and the 'breaking of the waters.' Spring is also about birth; the natural world around us is filled with signs of life. In ancient religion, rebith, fertility and resurrection are themes associated with springtime. With the holiday of Passover, Israel's hot, dry summer season begins. The rainy season that began at Sukkot is now over. Dew, the only source of daily moisture for plants becomes associated with this rebirth. Starting on Passover, we replace the blessing "who makes the rain fall" with "who makes the dew fall" in our daily liturgy. The prayer for dew is inserted in the 'Gevurot,' the second paragraph of the Amidah, the prayer that speaks about reviving the dead.
Where does this idea of resurrection come from? The Torah certainly does not mention ressurection explicitly, or even any belief in an afterlife. In Genesis, Adam is told, "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19b). But the Torah does not have the final word. Slowly, the idea that death may not be the final stop evolves. By the time of Ezekiel, his prophecy of the dry bones becomes interpreted as a depiction of resurrection: dry bones reassembling, sinews and flesh appearing. His graphic description reads like science fiction, and I can just imagine how this could be realistically portrayed today with computer digital animation. Wow, what a special effect! Over the centuries, Ezekiel's message has been understood by many quite literally. Traditional Judaism, to the extent that it has any official 'dogma' considers belief in the resurrection of the dead as a key tenet. Maimonides lists it in his thirteen articles of faith, and it appears in the liturgy in the closing hymn of Yigdal: Meitim yehayeh eil...
But this may not have been Ezekiel's intent. He was addressing the exiles in Babylonia. The Temple had been destroyed. Their lives in Israel were over. Was this to be the end of the Jewish people (like it was the end of the Israelite northern kingdom which has vanished)? Ezekiel reassures them that their lives still have meaning. They can live with hope that although they are 'like dead', Israel will be revived. Today we have seen with our own eyes Ezekiel's vision on the national level come true. Six million Jews were murdered in the Shoah (Holocaust) and yet the State of Israel was re-established. Our bones have come to life.
Ezekiel can be read allegorically--as national/political renewal; we don't have to believe in a literal physical resurrection if we don't want to. In liberal prayerbooks, resurrection is often understood metaphorically, and 'who gives life to the dead' is changed to 'who gives life to all' (mehayeh hakol instead of mehayeh meitim), although newer liturgies are retaining the traditional language.
How are we to understand 'who revives the dead' on an individual level? I think the poet Laura Gilpin provides an answer to how the dead live on in her moving poem:
These things I know:
How the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them
so that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it
and in the spring, the rabbits find it
and build their nest
inside the dead tree
so that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.
Passover's message is that just as the earth continually is renewed, our lives too have the potential for redemption. Our festival of liberation teaches us that as life goes on, nothing is wasted in nature or in love.
Happy Passover and Shabbat Shalom,
BDS
