Our parashah characterizes the people contributing their gifts to the Mishkan using some language that has become familiar to us and some that is new.

ְחוּ מֵאִתְּכֶם תְּרוּמָה לַה׳ כֹּל נְדִיב לִבּוֹ יְבִיאֶהָ אֵת תְּרוּמַת ה׳ זָהָב וָכֶסֶף וּנְחֹשֶׁת׃

Take from among you gifts to ה׳; everyone whose heart is so moved shall bring them—gifts for ה׳: gold, silver, and copper; (Exod. 35:5)

This formulation is similar to what we encountered a few weeks ago in Parashat Teruma, introducing the idea of generosity stemming from the heart.

And let all among you who are skilled come and make all that ה׳ has commanded: (Exod. 35:10)

:וְכׇל־חֲכַם־לֵב בָּכֶם יָבֹאוּ וְיַעֲשׂוּ אֵת כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ה׳

This passage introduces a new term, ״חכם לב״ (literally, “wise of heart”), which appears only one other time in the Torah, in Parashat Ki Tissa in a slightly different form. Most translations, including JPS and Etz Hayim, opt for “skilled.” This reading is bolstered by Ibn Ezra’s explanation that the artisans who came forward to volunteer their gifts were ״בקיאים באמנותם״, “expert in their craft.” So why the use of ״לב״ ? Is this simply for the sake of symmetry with the previous phrase?

The focus on the heart demands our attention. Pure wisdom, or reason, might build a highly functional and efficient Mishkan, but it might not be beautiful. It might not awaken the spirit or welcome the indwelling of God. The Mishkan requires not only artisans with technical skill. “Wisdom of the heart” communicates the spiritual aspect of art and artists. We can also read this as emotional intelligence, a more profound and more nuanced understanding of what, and who, is needed to create deeper holiness.

As the narrative continues, it introduces two new descriptors for those who answered the call to contribute to the Mishkan:

וַיָּבֹאוּ כׇּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־נְשָׂאוֹ לִבּוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר נָדְבָה רוּחוֹ אֹתוֹ הֵבִיאוּ: אֶת־תְּרוּמַת ה׳ לִמְלֶאכֶת אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וּלְכׇל־עֲבֹדָתוֹ וּלְבִגְדֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ׃

And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit was moved came, bringing to ה׳ an offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting and for all its service and for the sacral vestments. (Exod. 35:21)

 ״נְשָׂאוֹ לִבּוֹ״, which is commonly translated in terms of technical skill, “excelled in ability,” can be more literally translated as “anyone whose heart was lifted or carried.” This is reinforced by the next descriptor, נָדְבָה רוּחוֹ, whose “spirit was moved.” Ramban explains that none of the people who stepped forward to volunteer had actually been formally taught these skills. Rather their hearts were lifted–they felt in their hearts that they were drawn to this work and were inspired to excel in it.

These phrases remind us to take care to articulate the value of different kinds of wisdom and different kinds of skill–emotional intelligence, inspiration, and dedication.

As citizens engaged in our Jewish and civic communities, we need to enlist not only our minds and our technical skills, but also our hearts and our spirits to become empathic and creative teachers and leaders. Like the Mishkan, which was constructed with a myriad of materials, colors, and techniques, brought by many contributors, men and women (Exod. 35:22), we must open ourselves to recognize the gifts we bring and those we need others to bring. Being called to do sacred work takes many forms. With dedication, divine inspiration, and recognizing the holiness of all of humanity, we can rise to create tremendous beauty and meaning.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

According to sociologist Harmut Rosa, the main role of rituals is to produce axes of resonance, through which we not only affect but also open ourselves to being affected by God, people, and even things around us. In conceiving of Jewish prayer, our ancient rabbis indicate a concern with creating resonance, by balancing “affecting” and “being affected.”

Tractate Brachot (26b) speaks of two paradigms that have served as inspiration for the development of the Amidah, the core of the Jewish worship service. According to the first paradigm, תפלות אבות תקנום, the Amidah was instituted by the patriarchs and their distinctive ways of reaching out toward God. This paradigm underlines the “affecting” side of resonance, defining prayer as a particular response in the face of our unique life experiences. Under this model, through prayer, we put forth our concerns and desires in the hopes that they will catalyze some change around us, no matter how small it is.

According to the second paradigm, תפלות כנגד תמידין תקנום, the Amidah was instituted to correspond to the regular daily offerings at the Temple, and their communal choreographed aspect. This paradigm emphasizes the “being affected” side of resonance, defining prayer as a harmonious collective creation, just as the melody that the song leader back in the Shabbat retreat was inviting us to produce.

But how exactly do the תמידין, the daily Temple offerings, role model a disposition to being affected, which is so vital for resonance?

According to Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Parashat Tzav opens with the description of the daily communal offering, which is known in other places in the Bible as the עֹלַ֤ת תָּמִיד  (the regular burnt-offering) and which, in the Talmud, serves as model for the Amidah. Given this offering’s communal nature, it is surprising that in this parashah, the Torah singles out the individual priest who will be in charge of the offering, instead of addressing the collective בְּנֵ֨י אַהֲרֹ֤ן הַכֹּֽהֲנִים (sons of Aaron, the priests), like it does in other places: 

וְלָבַ֨שׁ הַכֹּהֵ֜ן מִדּ֣וֹ בַ֗ד  … וְהֵרִ֣ים אֶת־הַדֶּ֗שֶׁן אֲשֶׁ֨ר תֹּאכַ֥ל הָאֵ֛שׁ אֶת־הָעֹלָ֖ה עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֑חַ וְשָׂמ֕וֹ אֵ֖צֶל הַמִּזְבֵּֽחַ׃

The priest shall dress in linen raiment, … and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and place them beside the altar.

(Lev. 6:3)

Given that the Torah (Exod. 28:43) has already warned that all priests should wear special garments every time they approach the altar to officiate in the sanctuary, why does it repeat the garment requirement? Also, why in other places the Torah refers to the priest’s clothing as כֻּתֹּנֶת (kutonet/tunic), but here it refers to it as ֹמִדּ֣וֹ בַ֗ד (mido bad/linen raiment)?

Rashi explains that the requirement of the priest garment is being repeated here to specify that the tunic has to be made according to the exact measures of the priest’s body (therefore the name מִדּו/Mido, literally, his size). Noam Elimelekh reads this interpretation metaphorically: the priest has to come into this ritual wearing his personal and unique qualities (מִדּות).

Were the ritual dressing to stop here, with the priest bringing forward to the offering his particular self, it would be simply another expression of “affecting” and not have the necessary qualities of “openness to being affected,” so necessary for resonance to take place. But the Torah continues:

וּפָשַׁט֙ אֶת־בְּגָדָ֔יו וְלָבַ֖שׁ בְּגָדִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֑ים וְהוֹצִ֤יא אֶת־הַדֶּ֙שֶׁן֙ אֶל־מִח֣וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֔ה אֶל־מָק֖וֹם טָהֽוֹר׃

He shall then take off his vestments and put on other vestments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a pure place.

(Lev. 6:4)

Why does the priest take off one garment and put on another one prior to bringing the ashes outside the camp? And how is the second garment different from the first one?

According to Gersonides, the second set of garments are also holy garments, otherwise the Torah would not have gone out of its way to say that the priest should dress in them. However, the second clothes are פחותים מהראשונים (less than the first ones). Following Noam Elimelekh’s metaphorical reading of the clothes: throughout the ritual of disposing the ashes the priest needs to contract and readjust himself to a more balanced presence in the world.

In a society that privileges authenticity and self-expression, the second paradigm of prayer can be challenging and underappreciated. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han claims that such a society puts us in a habitual mode of production of the self, where we are constantly strengthening our persona. As a result, we become experts in the art of affecting, but compromise our ability to enter into relationships “outside the boundaries of the self,” in which we are open enough to be affected or reached by others. That creates a crisis of resonance and without resonance, we become isolated, lonely, even depressed.

According to Moshe Halbertal, the fact that so many rabbinic practices “modeled after the sacrifice, and kept its ethos and drive” indicates that there is something about sacrifice that is essential to human expression and life. When it comes to prayer, the תמידין, the daily Temple offerings, teach us the vital gesture of modulating ourselves so resonance and real connections can be made possible.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

When Moses finished speaking the words of God to the children of Israel, he placed a veil on his face (34:33). However, whenever Moses came into the presence of God, Moses would remove the veil (34:33) and immediately thereafter relay the commandments of God to the children of Israel, who would once again briefly behold Moses’s radiating face. Moses would then put the veil back on his face until the next time “he went in to speak with Him” (34:35).                                              

Moses’s actions are puzzling and confront us with two related questions: On the one hand, why did Moses need to place the veil on his face? And on the other, why did Moses remove the veil when going before God and when relaying God’s words to the people—only to replace it as described above? Biblical commentators offer some fascinating insights.

Interior World of the Leader

Keli Yekar (Shelomoh Efraim Luntschitz, Poland, Prague, 1550–1619) takes an approach focusing on Moses’s interior world—h���� psychological state. According to his interpretation, Moses placed the veil on his face because everyone was gazing at him. As we read in Numbers 12:3, “And the man Moses was very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth.” He was, consequently, embarrassed and uncomfortable when people were staring at his radiant face. By covering his face, he would be able to prevent them from seeing the shining countenance he merited by having been in God’s presence when receiving the Torah. Moses was more comfortable when he was not subject to the constant attention of others.

Why then did Moses remove the veil whenever he came before God? According to Keli Yekar, Moses had to literally and figuratively remove the veil of modesty when coming before God to receive words of Torah and instruction, for “he who is bashful cannot learn” (Mishnah Avot 2:6).

Humility vs Assertiveness

Interestingly, Keli Yekar presents us with a kind of values clarification exercise by juxtaposing two competing values: the highly regarded character trait of modesty on the one hand and the paramount value of unencumbered and even assertive Torah study on the other. He implicitly challenges us to consider situations in our lives where modesty may not be appropriate and where we must valiantly struggle against our natural inclinations. And he, of course, takes a strong stance in one situation: when studying Torah we will not be able to make sufficient progress in our studies if we are not willing to be assertive and challenging at times, even at the risk of seeming less than reverential. What makes this lesson so powerful and perhaps radical at first glance is that in this situation the teacher is God! So what Keli Yekar is implying is the following: since reticence is not in place when learning with God, all the more so when learning from teachers or engaging with leaders of flesh and blood.

This attitude may encourage independent thinking and a willingness to challenge fundamentalist or autocratic leaders and teachers. It could also protect a person and society from compliantly accepting dictatorial ideas or mandates which could lead to the sanctioning of unethical, illegal, and even violent behavior.

R. Akiva Eiger, Hungary, (1761–1837), like Keli Yekar, invokes the verse extolling Moses as “very humble, more than any person on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). Moses, he notes, comported himself submissively with utter humility and abasement. However, since Moses was the king and leader of Israel, it was his duty to conduct himself in a regal manner in order to preserve order and guard his honor. Moses, therefore, had to conceal his natural humble and submissive nature with the veil of royal demeanor. On the other hand, when Moses came to speak with God, he removed his veil of regal behavior and once again assumed his natural humble and modest demeanor. 

Public vs. Private Persona

Eiger’s comment highlights the issue of leadership, insisting that a leader must behave in a manner that instills awe of and respect for their position for the sake of the orderly conduct of government and for the leader’s own honor. Similarly, a teacher, parent, or employer must foster an environment that reduces the possibility of chaotic or anarchic behavior. If one is naturally reticent, or even permissive, one must battle against this natural inclination in order to maintain the order that is requisite for the conduct of government, a school, a home, a workplace.

Interestingly, Keli Yekar and Eiger are both dealing with competing values, and they both highlight the importance of struggling against our inclinations at times—in this case extreme humility—yet paradoxically they seem to reverse the situation. Keli Yekar suggests that Moses needed to overcome his humble nature when standing before God, while Eiger states that Moses needed to overcome his humble nature before the people.  

How does Eiger differ from Keli Yekar in his understanding of Moses’s relationship with God and by implication our own relationship with God as well? According to Eiger, Moses removes the metaphorical veil of assertive, regal leadership when speaking with God for there is no need of pretense or public image before God; God knows all—including our true nature. And furthermore, it is not appropriate to conduct ourselves assertively or regally before God. Submission before God is in order!

Yet, there may be an additional implied lesson in Eiger’s comment—one that is indeed comforting—there exists a place where we have an opportunity to feel secure, without wearing our veils: before God.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Moses’s response is to state that he now understands something God had said in the past:

Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD meant by saying: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, And gain glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent.

(Lev. 10:3)

What is Moses trying to convey to his brother in this moment of sudden tragic loss? Does he mean this to be comforting? Or is he simply musing to himself in the shock of the moment, much as Robert Oppenheimer did on July 16, 1945, in the aftermath of the Trinity nuclear test at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” (paraphrasing Bhagavad Gita 11:32). Is it not a moment so pregnant with power and potential, triumph and tragedy, that only such words will do?

But the mystery here is greater than at first glance. Even accepting Moses’s reverie as a natural human response, we are still left with the question: What was God’s original statement? There is no verse in the Torah that directly corresponds to Moses’s statement. So what did God say? And why had Moses been confused by it? How did the death of Aaron’s sons clarify it for him? The answer to these questions is the subject of a dispute in the Talmud (B. Zevahim 115b) where two verses are proposed as candidates for Moses’s conundrum. By looking at the Talmud’s two suggestions as to what God’s confusing statement was, we can gain insight into Moses and Aaron, understanding their reactions to this moment better. 

The first possibility the Talmud presents is that Moses is referring to God’s commandment in Exodus 19:21–22:

The LORD said to Moses, “Go down, warn the people not to break through to the LORD to gaze, lest many of them perish. The priests also, who come near the LORD, must stay pure, lest the LORD break out against them.”

Here God warns Moses that the people should not ascend Mt. Sinai during God’s revelation upon the mountain. The power and presence of Divine glory is so great, and the human form so weak, that the bodies of those who approach will be overwhelmed and destroyed. It does not seem that there is any moral quality to this prohibition, but simply anxiety over uncontrollable danger. God seems unable to hold back the inherent radiating power that Divine presence evokes. Like getting too close to the sun, or perhaps to a source of ionizing radiation, those who get too close to God’s immediate presence will inevitably perish because of the tremendous force of the radiating Glory.

This is very much akin to the story of Uzza ben Abinadab recounted in II Samuel 6:3–8 and :. Uzza and his brother were charged with driving the cart carrying the ark when David first tried to bring it up to Jerusalem. On the way, the animals driving the cart stumbled, leading the ark to slip, and Uzza reached out, catching the ark, and dying instantly on the spot. David was afraid to bring the ark any further and delayed bringing it into Jerusalem for three months. Uzza committed no moral transgression, only an instinctual error, and died from direct exposure to God’s power. If we accept this understanding, Moses means to tell Aaron something like: “Working this close to so much power is dangerous, and those closest (i.e., most physically proximate) to God will be the most exposed to the danger.” In other words, God’s power cuts both ways. It can grant great benefits, but it can overwhelm us and destroy us as well if we fail to take care.

The second possibility the Talmud presents is Exodus 29:42–43:

. . . a regular burnt offering throughout the generations, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting before the LORD. For there I will meet with you, and there I will speak with you, and there I will meet with the Israelites, and it shall be sanctified by My Presence (kevodi).

Here God alludes to the Divine glory (kevodi) as the “power source” of the desert sanctuary, namely God’s presence. What does Moses find mysterious or confusing about this? Well, even in the desert, God is represented by the kohanim; they make up at least a portion of God’s glory.  Can humans truly sanctify the Divine, when the Divine is already entirely holy? Here, the Talmud suggests that we read the word kevodi (lit. “My-glory”) as mekhubadai (“those who glorify me”). In other words, God’s presence is one and the same as the human beings who attempt to approach God. Those who reach out to God can come to represent God so completely that they are equivalent to God’s own presence.

With this interpretation, the Talmud links the act of Nadab and Abihu in bringing strange fire with more typical acts of martyrdom. The Talmud seems to be claiming that the two sons of Aaron chose to serve by dying for God in order to dedicate the sanctuary with their lives. This act of self-sacrifice would show the power contained in the sanctuary and make it a source of awe among the people. While this may be troubling to us, the Talmud’s interpretation attempts to fully demonstrate the strength of Moses’s words to Aaron: “Your sons did no wrong. They died doing a good thing, sanctifying the Divine name among the people.”

The raw, visceral potency of this understanding is undeniable, and I find its call a primal one. Though I know there will be many who find this second interpretation deeply disturbing, its demand that connection with God is worth giving up one’s life raises the stakes in religious life. When we fail to see that this power, majesty, and glory is one of the things that consistently attracts people to religion, we put ourselves in a very dangerous position. At some level, the tremendous mystery which awakens within us fear and trembling can be properly taken as the Divine voice calling out to us. On the other hand (and this is the thing that disturbs us so deeply), what we think to be a great mystery can simply be a moment of self-delusion, leading us into acts of nihilistic self-destruction.  One of our most central tasks as religious people is to sort out magical thinking and wish-fulfilling fantasy from God’s true demands, demands that lead to authentic holy deeds and actual moral imperatives.

I think this last thought is more aligned with the Talmud’s first interpretation, that all power, especially religious power, can be overwhelming and dangerous, and it needs to be contained in order to be safely employed for the betterment of the world. This is what happened at Mount Sinai when God told the people they should not ascend the mountain lest they die. Can we understand the purpose of the desert sanctuary similarly? Must we not keep Divine power contained in the midst of the people? If we are able to do so, becoming a community both containing and embodying holiness, we can approach God without fear. My blessing for us all is that we have access to God’s power, but safely and beneficially, not as a mighty storm, but as a gentle rain.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Death’s power is palpable and any encounter with death must be mediated through communal traditions. While these rituals demonstrate that those who have encountered the dead must exist on the margins, that status is temporary, and the path to returning to the community is clear. In a sense, the ritual normalizes the experience of death and provides clear guidance to all about how to navigate it. If death is a tearing apart, the ritual binds us up and offers hope of restoration.

By pairing the special Torah reading with the haftarah from Ezekiel 36, the Rabbis are moving away from physical defilement to spiritual defilement. Within the haftarah we hear echoes of the Red Heifer ritual. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean” (Ezek. 36:25). But then the text moves into new territory: “And I will give you a new heart, (לֵב חָדָשׂ) and put a new spirit (וְרוּחַ חֲדָשָׁה) into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put My spirit into you. Thus I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules” (vv. 26–27). The implication of these verses is that the purification is needed not because of the taint of death, but because of a moral taint. We need a new heart and a new spirit. The old is being rejected and something new must take its place. The imagery here conveys that God is in charge of these actions. God does the removing and God does the putting in. We might wonder about the role human beings play in the process.

The medieval commentator Rashi says that lev hadash, a new heart, is “the inclination that was renewed for good.” This inclination, yetzer, can be an inclination for evil or an inclination for good. Human beings are created with the capacity for both, which is why life involves endless choice. Rashi uses a reflexive verb form (נתחדש)  to shift the meaning of the words from “a new heart” to “a renewed heart.” The process of renewal is not the same as putting in something new. When we renew, we actually take something old and make it new again, we restore it. In a sense, it echoes the process of taking something that was made impure and purifying it. We don’t begin at the very beginning; we salvage what we have by finding the new in the old. The very imagery that was at work in the verse has been turned upside down. It’s not as clean as swapping out the damaged one for perfect new one. The renewal depends on probing the good in what was deemed bad, which I believe is a hopeful stance about the capacity for redemption.

Psalm 51 builds on the same theme when it says: “Fashion a pure heart for me, O God; create in me a steadfast spirit” (Ps. 51:12–13). While the translation uses the verb “create,” the Hebrew is “h��������”, more literally translated “renew.” Although God is the speaker in the Ezekiel passage, here the Psalmist is the speaker. The Psalmist is not passive, even daring to make a demand. the conjugation of the verbs conveys that the Psalmist is instructing, even ordering, God. While this could be seen as impudent, I choose to understand the Psalmist as being desperate. Somehow the speaker is depending on this pure heart, on this steadfast spirit. As we move to the next verse in the psalm we arrive at the final plea: “Do not cast me out of Your Presence, or take Your holy spirit away from me.” Without that renewed heart, the Psalmist will be cast out, will die. The greatest threat that torments the Psalmist is the threat of exile, an absence of Presence, which is the same as death.

Each of us possesses the ability to know when our heart is in need of renewal. It’s not just God who makes the determination that the old must be refashioned. We must follow the Psalmist’s lead and recognize when we need help from the Divine to reset our course. The fact that we need to be renewed is not the problem; that is an expected part of the human journey. The challenge is whether we will be emboldened enough to insist on help from the Divine. The stakes are high.

This week’s liturgy gives us another boost. This Shabbat is also Shabbat Mevarekhim Hahodesh, the Shabbat on which we say the blessing for the coming month (now the month of Nisan) which begins in the next week. Every month, this amazing blessing echoes the prayers that are associated with Rosh Hashanah. We pray that our lives will be renewed. In a sense, the new month reminds us all to focus on the possibility of the new heart and the new spirit. The liminal space of the new moon helps us to recognize the liminal spaces that we live in, wakes us out of any complacency that might have attached itself to us, and helps awaken our yearning for a new heart. The prayer reminds us to ask for that renewal, to know that it is always possible.

May this month be full of unexpected blessings of renewal in each of our lives.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The truly tragic figure in the Bible is not Jacob or King Saul, or even Job, but the Lord Himself, who is constantly torn between His love for Israel and His profound exasperation with them. The Lord, who in the optimistic and almost naïve glow of youth declares that the world is indeed “very good” (Genesis 1:31), is so profoundly depressed over the moral corruption of the man He created that He says, “I regret having made them” (Genesis 6:7). How much cosmic agony in this divine attestation of failure! He drowns sinful mankind in a watery holocaust – and lives to regret it: “I will not continue to destroy the world on account of man, for man’s instincts are evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). The naiveté of God’s original optimism and the depth of His subsequent pessimism are transmuted into what one may call a divine realism. God now realizes that one cannot expect perfection from man, and that human corruption is something He will have to make peace with. Man is not totally good nor is he totally bad, he is simply human. “Of Image and Imagination in the Bible”, J. James Tissot Biblical Paintings, 1982: Jewish Museum, 9).

My comment on the dietary laws, which appear for the first time in this week’s parashah (chap.11), is inspired by this original insight.

What humans might consume as food was of concern to God from the moment of creation. In the Garden of Eden, God had set the bar high. All creatures of the animal kingdom were to be vegetarian. Dietary needs could be met without shedding blood (Genesis 1:29-30). After the flood, however, and the decadence which triggered it, God lowered the bar. Animals would now be fair game for human consumption. In this less than idyllic world, the one remaining restriction forbade eating blood. The prohibition preserved a trace of respect for the sanctity of all life (Genesis 9:3-4).

Later at Mount Sinai, God partially withdrew the carte blanche he had extended to No·ah’s descendants. Israel would be held to a higher bar, removing much of the animal kingdom from its menu. The past, though, did not give God a lot of assurance that Israel would comply. Humanity since Adam had given scant evidence of an ability or willingness to curb its appetite and passions. And yet, civilization rests on self-denial for the benefit of the whole. With Israel God seems to be testing the waters, whether at least a sample of humanity could renounce enough of its combative instincts to forge a just and harmonious society. God was still learning.

In the special haftarah for Shabbat Parah, the prophet Ezekiel envisions the ultimate acknowledgement by God of failure. A long history of inconsistency and transgression had cost Israel its temple and sovereignty. God’s statutes did not lead Israel to hallow its land, but to defile it. Nevertheless, God would one day redeem Israel from the nadir of its exile to clear God’s own name among the nations. And then, in an extraordinary admission of inadequacy, Ezekiel has God promise to a restored and purified Israel, the ability to live fully by the lofty norms of divine law by virtue of a heart transplant! “And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put My spirit into you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). In other words, the endowment given to humanity at creation was simply insufficient to reach the stage of fulfillment originally envisioned. Even the revelation at Sinai did not rectify the situation entirely. For most, the Torah remained external. No amount of study and practice could fully and permanently internalize it. What Ezekiel yearns for is a mutation of human nature which will make us naturally and irreversibly good, a state in which the Torah will be encoded in our very genes. Only a second instance of divine creation would eventually yield a degree of perfection that eluded the first.

In the meantime, the Torah would continue to bring forth a few rare models who anticipate the grandeur of the end. For the rest of us, it would temper our baser proclivities with a regimen of holy deeds. In retrospect, the God of Israel is a mirror of human maturation, blending an unfolding sense of reality with the need to transcend it.

Shabbat shalom,

Ismar Schorsch

The publication and distribution of Dr. Schorsch’s commentary on Parashat Sh’mini are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z”l) Hassenfeld.

The sin of the golden calf is one of the great enigmas in the Torah. The children of Israel have just witnessed Divine revelation, in which God directly addresses the people from a thundering mountain, saying: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image…” (Ex. 20:2–4). Forty days later, the children of Israel make the sculptured image of a cow and declare, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

Perhaps we should not be surprised by their immediate and astounding backsliding. As Nehama Leibowitz argues, “One single religious experience, however profound, was not capable of changing the people from idol worshippers into monotheists.” In fact, Maimonides argues that the entire purpose of the Torah is to gradually wean Israel away from their idolatrous practices: “It is the object and center of the whole Torah to abolish idolatry and utterly uproot it” (Guide 3:37). For Maimonides, the battle against idolatry provides us with the rationale for many of the mitzvot in the Torah which we might not readily understand. This brings us to the matter of the red heifer.

The bizarre ritual of the red heifer is the classic example of a “hok,” a law which has no apparent reason. The rabbis identified two types of legislation in the Torah: (1) “mishpatim,” rational statutes such as “do not murder” or “honor your mother and father;” and (2) “hukkim,” irrational laws for which we can not ascribe a clear meaning, such as kashrut or the sacrificial system. In classical rabbinic theology, our observance of the irrational laws, the “hukkim,” is a special testament to our piety and faith in God: “It is more praiseworthy to do something solely because God commands it than because our own logic or sense of morality leads us to the same conclusion” (Sifra K’doshim). Maimonides, on the other hand, argues that every law in the Torah has a specific rationale (Guide 3:31). He claims that “most of the ‘hukkim,’ the reasons of which are unknown to us, serve as a fence against idolatry” (Guide 3:49).

So we may never fully understand the mysterious burning of a red cow and the sprinkling of its ashes upon an impure person. However, when we read these laws on the same Shabbat in which we remember the other bovine figure in our sacred history, it is tempting to make a Maimonidean association. If our inclination toward idolatry resulted in the disgraceful golden calf, then the “hukkim” of the red heifer may purify us from this abomination. This very connection is expressed in the beautiful midrash of Numbers Rabbah 19:8:

Why are all the sacrifices male and this one [the sacrifice of the red heifer] is a female? Rabbi Aibu explained: This may be illustrated by a parable. A handmaiden’s boy polluted a king’s palace. The king said: ‘Let his mother come and clear away the filth.’ In the same way the Holy One said: ‘Let the Heifer come and atone for the incident of the Calf!’

The publication and distribution of “A Taste of Torah” commentary have been made possible by a generous gift from Sam and Marilee Susi.