Parashat Naso, Numbers 4:21-7:89

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Each individual's contribution to Jewish life is unique and valuable.

Study with Baruch Sienna

This week's portion is the longest in the Torah! It includes the famous 'birkat kohanim- priestly blessing' (see archives), the ordeal for the woman suspected of adultery, and the laws for the Nazirite.

This past week we celebrated the holiday of Shavuot that commemorates the giving of the Torah. Appropriately, I have just finished teaching the year long "Jewish Information Course" for individuals and couples considering conversion. For many Jews-by-Choice, Shavuot is probably their favourite holiday. We read of Ruth (a popular Hebrew name for many female converts), from whom King David himself is descended. The entire Jewish people are 'converted' in a manner of speaking, as they receive (and accept) the Torah for the first time. At Sinai, we all became 'Jews-by-choice.'

But is it 'choice?' The words 'betachtit hahar - at the foot or base of the mountain' (Ex. 19:17) can be read as 'under the mountain,' so the Rabbis imagine God holding the mountain over the Israelites heads:

Rav Avdimi bar Chama commented: ÒThey stood at the foot of the mountain" He said:
This teaches us that God held the mountain over [the children of Israel] like a barrel and threatened, "If you will accept the Torah, fine! But if you do not, here will be your graves; [the mountain will be dropped on you]."

(The Israelites wisely took God's final offer). Our final class dealt with this issue of choice and personal autonomy. The Reform movement's first official 'platform', the Pittsburgh 'Declaration of Principles,' (1885) articulated what Reform leaders believed at the time. In those early days of Reform Judaism, the ritual commandments regulating diet (kashrut) or dress (tallit) were rejected as primitive. For the earlier Reformers, Judaism had much of value when it came to ethics. However, all ritual laws had long since lost any meaning or value:

We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a system of training the Jewish people for its mission during its national life in Palestine, and today we accept as binding only its moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization.

There is still a vocal minority of 'classical' Reform Jews who are uncomfortable with traditional observance. (If for example, the cover image of Reform Judaism magazine shows an individual in a tallit (or heaven forbid- tefillin!) there is always a strong protest letter to the editor objecting to such a portrayal. Not only were ritual mitzvot considered not binding, but actually thought to be detrimental to one's religious life:

We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.

Personally, for me growing up, times had mostly changed. (I remember only being asked once to remove my head covering on entering a Reform sanctuary.) For the most part, my childhood Reform Judaism had the approach of "live and let live." In the sixties, it was much more acceptable to belong to an ethnic group, and take pride in one's ancestral heritage. T-shirts with "Black is Beautfiful" or "Kiss me - I'm Irish" created an environment where Jews too, could be visibly different. It was almost 'cool' to be Jewish. Mitzvot were still not obligatory, but a matter of personal choice. Autonomy continues to be a powerful tenet in Reform Judaism. I can imagine Reform Jews with bumper stickers "Nobody tells me what to do!"

This insistence of individual autonomy clashes with the image of God holding the mountain over our heads. Over the last 100 years, the Reform movement has evolved to a postion closer to the classical midrash. The latest platform, adopted in 1999 (again in Pittsburgh contains very different language: "We respond to God daily: through public and private prayer, through study and through the performance of other mitzvot, sacred obligations -- bein adam la Makom, to God, and bein adam la-chaveiro, to other human beings."

The framers of this platform could still not bring themselves to translate the word "mitzvah" as "commandment" choosing instead the phrase "sacred obligations". However, they no longer are afraid of "orientalism," and even included Hebrew in the document! "We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. "

Today's Reform Judaism no longer distances itself from ritual observance. And while many people erroneously still think of Reform Judaism as the "do-nothing, know-nothing" movement that doesn't make any demands on the individual, the latest articulation of the Reform movement makes it clear. We have an obligation not only to the mitzvot that address our individual needs, but those that relate to the community. Has the autonomy of the individual yielded to the demands of the community?

The importance of the individual that has been the hallmark of the Reform movement, together with a new respect for community standards is supported by this week's description of the chieftains' offerings. The six verses that describe the offerings are repeated twelve times, for a total of 72 verses, making this the longest chapter in the Torah! But since each offering was perfectly identical, why does the Torah repeat each one? A chasidic understanding of this is that when inidviduals do the [identical] mitzvot of their free accord, each performance is unique.

Each Jew must struggle with the tension between their own needs and the demands of community. It may be of some comfort that each individual's contribution to Jewish life is unique and valuable.

Shabbat Shalom

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