Two-Minute Torah: Early Israelite Feminists

According to Torah law, inheritance of land and property went only to sons and not daughters. Presumably, the daughter would be supported by her eventual husband, and of course, that husband would be heir to his father.

But in this week's Torah portion, Pinchas, a man (Tzelofchad) dies who has five daughters and no sons. The daughters find it unfair that they cannot inherit and that their father's property will pass on instead to their uncles and cousins. They bring their case to Moses, who seems to agree with their concern but also be powerless to do anything about it, since he has already received the law from God. He agrees, however, to discuss their case with God.

The Sifrei, a late Midrash from the Land of Israel, explains how it was that the daughters of Tzelofchad felt they had a chance of changing a law they thought unjust: When the daughters of Tzelofchad heard that the Land of Israel was to be divided among the tribes, and not among the daughters, they took counsel together and said: “The mercy of God is not like the mercy of human beings. Human beings treat better than their daughters, but the Holy One, Blessed be He’s mercy is equally distributed to all, male and female, as it says (Psalms 145): ‘His mercies are on all of his creations’“

I find this recognition that the tradition's non-egalitarian nature reflects human tendencies and not divine desires to be quite interesting. As it happens, God ultimately agrees with the daughters of Tzelofchad, and they are allowed to inherit their father’s property.

Two-Minute Torah: Holiness Throwdown

The Food Network has a show called "Throwdown" where chef Bobby Flay shows up, unannounced and unexpected, to challenge another chef on his or her own turf. Flay and his opponent both make the dish for which the challenged chef is known, be it fajitas or Pad Thai or pizza or matzah ball soup. Often the challenger wins, but not always.

Perhaps the producers got the idea for "Throwdown" from this week's parasha.

Briefly, Korach -- a relative of Moses and Aaron, and a Levite -- calls Moses and Aaron to task for exalting themselves above the rest of the congregation. After all, Korach says, all the congregation is holy and God dwells in their midst.

Moses responds by challenging Korach and his followers to what is in essence a holiness throwdown. Everyone is to bring incense and fire pans, and God will show who is holy and who not. But the result is not what Korach expected; the earth opens up, swallows him and his followers, and they go down to Sheol alive. End of challenge.

For those of us who have imbibed our country's democratic and meritocratic ethos, the story of Korach is a challenging one. The sages are aware of the problem. Because after all, we are in fact taught that all of the congregation is holy and God resides in and among each one of us. Shouldn't we have a meritocratic system? Rabbinic Judaism evolved at least in part to answer Korach's challenge by affirming its validity. You get to be a rabbi not because of inherited status but because of education and devotion to certain ideals. You get to be a synagogue lay leader the same way, by willingness to roll up your sleeves and do the job.

This is why the rabbinic tradition found it necessary to portray Korach as a demagogue. One can uphold the right ideals for the wrong reason. Korach used the language of democracy and equality. But that was not really what he was after -- he saw the use of such rhetoric as an opportunity to get himself and his buddies in a position of power instead of Moses and Aaron. He was the Willy Long of his generation.

In a later parasha, Shoftim (Deut. 16:20) we are taught tzedek tzedek tirdof -- "justice, justice shall you pursue." Why "justice, justice"? Because the pursuit of justice must be through just means and for a just cause. You can be right and still be a demagogue.

Two-Minute Torah: Espionage Fail

When I studied international relations as an undergraduate a long time ago, I learned that there are two different aspects of foreign intelligence. The first is gathering information, the second is analyzing that information. They are two distinct tasks, though related. It is not enough for me to know what my potential adversary is doing. I also have to know why he is doing it and what it means. My intelligence-gathering effort can be highly accurate, but if I analyze my data wrong, I am still likely to blunder.

In this weeks Parasha, Shelach-Lecha, Moses sends 12 spies to scout out the Land of Israel. They come back, and their report throws the populace into a panic. They've concluded -- well, ten out of the 12 have concluded -- that the current inhabitants of the Land are strong and thus the Land is unconquerable.

How do they know this? Because, they report, the cities are well-fortified. Well-fortified cities mean a strong population.

Rashi points out that the spies were successful in gathering information but performed very poorly in the analysis section. Well-fortified cities are not the sign of a strong populace, he says. Quite the opposite. Cities are surrounded by high walls because their inhabitants are fearful, not because they are strong. And we know from elsewhere in the Bible that the inhabitants of Canaan feared the Israelites. We read this in Exodus at the Song of the Sea, and we will see this again almost 40 years later, when the Israelites finally conquer the Land in the haftarah which we will read Shabbat morning.

Strong, self-confident people do not need to live behind walls. We often project onto others the characteristics we most dislike about ourselves. Ten of the twelve spies lacked self-confidence. Describing their sighting of the "giant" inhabitants of the Land, "we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, and thus we were in their eyes as well." How did they know that the Canaanites saw them as "grasshoppers"? They didn't, but because that is how they felt about themselves, they assumed that that is how they were perceived by others.

Robert Burns wrote a poem asking for the blessing of seeing ourselves as others see us. Perhaps no less important is to hope that others not see us as we see ourselves!

Two-Minute Torah: Learning by Doing or Seeing

There is a curiosity in this week's Torah portion, B'haalot'cha, right at the beginning. God instructs Moses concerning how the Menorah, the lampstand for the holy tabernacle, is to be lit. Then we find this statement: ”Now this is how the lampstand was made: it was hammered work of gold, hammered from base to petal. According to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so was the lampstand made. ”

In other words, God did not give instructions to Moses on how to construct the Menorah; instead, in some mystical way that commentators have struggled to understand over the centuries, he showed him what the Menorah should look like.

There are some things that cannot be described, they have to be experienced. For me, the classic example is baseball; if you've ever tried to explain the infield fly rule to someone who grew up in a country where baseball isn't played, or who never watched or played baseball as a child, you know what I'm talking about.

I believe the Torah in this small vignette is talking about Jewish education as well. In some sense, God was the first Jewish educator and Moses his student. Much of what God wanted to teach Moses could be taught frontally, through words, but some things just had to be experienced.

Many things in Jewish life are this way. Most people who know how to lead services learned to do so by attending services regularly. I have never successfully explained to someone how to wrap tefillin but if you have a pair of tefillin, I can show you how to wrap them.

Throughout most of Jewish history, Judaism was transmitted mimetically -- you learned how to do Jewish things by observing your parents and other adults. For all kinds of reasons, that mimetic tradition has been disrupted, and now we rely on formal and informal Jewish education (day schools, supplementary Hebrew schools, Jewish camps and campus Hillel Foundations) to transmit Jewish knowledge and identity. But sometimes, there is simply no substitute for learning by doing.

The Paranoia Gap

A few weeks ago I started teaching our 10th grade Confirmation Class. It’s a real privilege and a lot of fun. One of the things that strikes me about our teens is how utterly comfortable they are with their Jewishness and at the same time, how multicultural and multiethnic their groups of friends are. There is none of the discomfort that previous generations had, none of the wondering about how accepted they really are in the United States.

A couple of years ago I had the privilege to spend a day studying in a small group of rabbis with Prof. Barry Kosmin, the leading demographer of American Jewry. He introduced me to a term I had never heard before -- “the paranoia gap” -- which refers to his sense (there are no data on this) that the older a Jew is, the more likely he or she is to feel that antisemitism is widespread in American society.

There is good reason for this. The perceptions we have growing up tend to stick with us over time. There was a time when in many towns and cities, certain neighborhoods were closed to Jews. The best colleges and universities had Jewish quotas. Jewish lawyers started their own firms because the most prestigious firms would not hire Jews. Jewish hospitals were started, not as many believe in order to treat Jewish patients, but rather because Jewish doctors could not get residencies in other hospitals.

In purely religious matters, virtually every Christian denomination taught that Jews could not achieve salvation, since only through Jesus was salvation attainable. New Testament Bible readings and Christian prayer were common in the public schools, since “majority rules” and the majority of Americans were Protestant Christians. Incidentally, Jews were not the only ones affected by the dominance of Protestantism in public life; the Catholic parochial school system was a direct result of the public schools seeking to indoctrinate their students in Protestant Christianity.

Today all of this has changed. There is virtually no field or profession which is closed to Jews. Protestants are no longer the majority in America though they are still the plurality -- that is to say, there are more Protestants than any other religious group in America but they are now slightly less than half the population. There are NO Protestants on the Supreme Court, which today consists of six Catholics and three Jews.

Prof. Kosmin shared with us an interesting poll which was conducted for Time magazine in 2010 regarding how Americans view members of different religious groups. According to this poll, Jews are the group viewed most favorably by other Americans, though just barely. Seventy five percent of Americans have a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of Jews; the Protestants follow at 74 percent and the Catholics at 73 percent. The Mormons and the Muslims are not viewed as favorably; 57 percent have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of Mormons and 43 percent a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of Muslims.

And yet, I regularly receive forwarded e-mails warning me of the rising tide of antisemitism, often, frankly, based on false or misleading information. (As an aside, check the Internet hoax site www.snopes.com before forwarding a questionable e-mail.) Orthodox Rabbi Alan Brill, who teaches theology at Seton Hall, a Catholic university, recently wrote that “the ADL (Antidefamation League) fleeced American Jewry out of $54 million last year by arguing for the virulant Antisemitism everywhere.” (kavvanah.wordpress.com, accessed April 17, 2012). While “fleeced” may be too strong a word, I share Rabbi Brill’s feeling that antisemitism is not our main problem in America. Most of the money spent combating it would be better spent on Jewish education, Hebrew literacy, camps and day schools.

There is a Talmud text, Shabbat 63a, which deals with the question of what the world will be like after the Messiah comes. While there is certainly the more well-known opinion that the Messianic era will be filled with all sorts of supernatural phenomena, the Talmud also preserves the opinion of Shmuel that the only difference between the Messianic era and the present day is “servitude to the nations.” In other words, in Messianic times everything will be as it always was except that the Jews will be free to determine their own destiny.

Is this not the case now? To the extent we continue to believe that antisemitism is our main problem, we divert time and money from doing what is really necessary to insure the Jewish future -- building an educated, confident, and Jewishly-committed community. Our failure to do this, and not antisemitism, is what endangers our future.

Two-Minute Torah: Missing A Day's Count

Every evening towards the end of minyan at this time of year we “count the Omer.” The source of this practice is in this week’s Parasha, Leviticus 23:15: “From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD .”

What happens if you miss a day? According to Halachot Gedolot, one of the earliest halachic collections which dates from the 8th century or so, that’s it -- you’ve missed the mitzvah and you are done for the year. Why? Because the text says to count seven full weeks. Having missed a day, you can’t fulfill the mitzvah.

But Hai Gaon, who wrote at about the same time, says no, we are to “count off fifty days” and thus every single day is its own individual mitzvah. So if you missed a day, you missed the mitzvah of that particular day but that is all. Just as failing to put on tefillin one day doesn’t mean you can never put them on again, or missing one Shabbat doesn’t mean you can never observe Shabbat again.

Normative halacha follows Hai Gaon, although technically one is supposed to continue the count without saying the blessing if you missed a day. In our era, when people are sometimes selective or inconsistent in their observance, we need to remember that every mitzvah is independent of every other mitzvah. Whatever mitzvot you observe are worthwhile and stand on their own; failure to observe one does not invalidate the others.

Two-Minute Torah: Rebuke

Again this week we read a double Torah portion. The second portion, Kedoshim, contains Leviticus 19 which is known as the “Holiness Code.” It begins by telling us that we are to be holy as God is holy. It then goes on to tell us some of what that means.

A bit later we read the following: “17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.

18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Adonai.”

It is a standard principle of rabbinic interpretation that if two verses appear together they are in some way connected. Here we are told: don’t hate your brother; rebuke him if he does something wrong; don’t take vengeance or bear a grudge; love your neighbor.

Nachmanides, who lived in Spain about 800 years ago, says that the verse means the following: when we think someone has wronged us, we should not stay silent and get angry or bear a grudge. We should lovingly ask the person why they did what they did. Either they will explain why they did it, and we’ll understand and not be angry anymore; or they will realize they did something wrong and apologize. Nachmanides says that often the source of hatred and vengeance is in our failure to communicate.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sums it up this way:  “by being honest with one another, talking things through, we may be able to achieve reconciliation – not always, to be sure, but often. How much distress and even bloodshed might be spared if humanity heeded this simple command.”