When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests.

The idea that others would examine and report on intimate details of our bodies—that such things would be of communal concern, and subject us to institutional regulation—may seem archaic. But as transgender people know, when it comes to gender, this kind of surveillance is alive and well.

Every trans person has experienced gender surveillance—the ongoing scrutiny of bodies, clothing, voices, and gestures to determine if we are male or female. Gender surveillance happens in stores, on the street, in the work place; it is conducted by strangers and friends, bosses and employees, police and people who are homeless, doctors and accountants. Wherever we go, whomever we encounter, others, consciously or unconsciously, are looking at us to determine whether we are male or female—which is why the therapist who helped me through gender transition instructed me to always carry a letter, addressed “To whom it may concern,” in which she assured whoever was reading it that I was not presenting myself as a woman in order to defraud or otherwise harm others.

I am not only an object of gender surveillance; I participate in the communal monitoring of gender. When I see someone, I immediately try to determine if they are male or female, because so many of my habits of understanding and relating to others are premised on determining who they are in terms of binary gender. I have lived my entire life engaging in gender surveillance, subjecting everyone—myself included—to that binary-enforcing gaze.

The spate of “bathroom bill” legislation in North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere—laws designed to force trans people to use the restrooms that correspond to the sex on our birth certificates—has drawn national attention to gender surveillance. “Bathroom bills” require people whose bodies visibly vary from the norm to undergo intensive, intrusive examination and, if our differences are officially found to be defiling, to be expelled from communal spaces and publicly stigmatized.

 commands similar responses to bodies whose differences are officially deemed “leprous”:

As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, “Impure! Impure!” He shall be impure as long as the disease is on him. Being impure, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp ().

In , the Torah expands the range of bodies that are to be expelled because they are considered defiling:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Instruct the Israelites to remove from camp anyone with an eruption or a discharge… Remove male and female alike; put them outside the camp so they do not defile the camp of those in whose midst I dwell. The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp (vv. 1-4).

The image of organized searches for those whose bodies may “defile” their society may seem like an outgrown relic of Iron Age notions of ritual purity. But as Jews found out during the Holocaust, and, as Latino communities in the U.S. targeted for immigration “sweeps” can attest to today, human beings have never left such practices behind.

To my knowledge, trans people have never been subjected to this sort of formal “removal” process. Until recently, most of us have lived in hiding or “below the radar”: too few and too scattered to inspire formal searches and “removals.” But many trans people know what it’s like to be seen as defiling our families, homes, workplaces, and communities, and forcibly removed as a consequence—expelled, sometimes violently, because the “eruptions” of our transgender identities are seen as a threat to communal health, harmony, religious life, or social order.

The removals of defiling bodies commanded by the Torah are in many ways less harsh than the removals many transgender people endure. The Torah’s commandments target temporary physical conditions that may affect anyone, rather than singling out a specific minority for discrimination. Unlike today’s gender-based removals, the Torah’s laws don’t stigmatize those who are removed from the camp, or suggest that they are guilty of moral failing, sin, or crime. (While leprosy was later interpreted and stigmatized as divine punishment, “eruptions and discharges” are common events.) And while the Torah allows those who have been removed to rejoin the community after completing rituals of purification, such as those detailed in , many transgender people are exiled for years, decades—sometimes for the rest of our lives.

The Torah is often cited as the basis for religious communities to exclude, exile, and stigmatize transgender people—and even to deny us urgent medical care—but the Torah never commands, approves, or encourages such things. Even when Moses declares that those who cross-dress are “abhorrent” to God, he does not claim that God demands that they be “removed from camp.” Though there have always been people who do not fit into the categories of male and female, the Torah says nothing about us. It does not portray us as a threat or an abomination; it doesn’t declare us unclean or unfit to participate in communal worship or activities; it doesn’t demonize us, curse us, punish us, relegate us to the margins or the shadows, order gender surveillance to guard against our entry into the community or the Tabernacle, or organize searches to locate and expel us.

The Torah’s silence opened the door for the rabbis of the Talmud to adapt halakhah to enable intersex Jews to participate in Jewish communal life, and, more recently and locally, for Yeshiva University to tolerate my presence as an openly transgender professor. But because the Torah does not acknowledge that there are human beings who are not simply male or female, it shrouds us in silence and incomprehensibility.

The Torah’s detailing of defiling physical differences ensured that these differences could be recognized, spoken of, and understood by communities as part of being human. In order to fully include transgender people, Jewish communities have to follow the Torah’s example—to speak frankly about transgender identities, to recognize and pragmatically address our differences, and to face up to, and change, the communal policies, practices, and habits that, intentionally or not, lead so many of us to be removed, or to remove ourselves, from the camp.

When this d’var Torah was first published in 2017, so-called bathroom bills—laws criminalizing trans people’s use of public restrooms that fit the gender with which we identify—were relatively new and, to me, surprisingly unpopular. Now, nine years later, this kind of anti-trans legislation has metastasized. Thousands of trans people and their families have become internal refugees, moving from state to state in search of health care, equality, and safety; others, including me, have either fled or are preparing to flee the country. All of us are waiting to find out if we will be subject to the invasive processes described in Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5: inspecting our bodies, officially designating us as “unclean,” and forcibly removing us, as lepers and other “unclean” Israelites were, from American society. 

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

Parashat Masei (at ) contains what we might call a map in prose. This map describes the extent of the Promised Land that the Israelites will soon enter. The boundaries are defined as follows:

• The southern boundary runs through the Negev Desert about 30–45 miles south of Beersheva, so that the northern part of Negev is within the Promised Land.
• Much of the western boundary consists of the Mediterranean Sea. Moving southward, the western boundary continues along the riverbed called the River of Egypt (נחל מצרים), Wadi El-Arish today, which runs west of the Gaza Strip.
• The northern boundary runs through current-day Lebanon, probably starting slightly south of Beirut and extending east.
• The eastern boundary’s northern flank is somewhere to the east of Damascus. It then moves westward to Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), and continues south along the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.

But next week’s parashah, at , provides a different description of the Promised Land’s borders, also found in more detail in . According to the map those passages share, the Promised Land is considerably larger:

• The western boundary is still the Mediterranean and the River of Egypt.
• The northern boundary is not clarified with great specificity, but it seems to extend up to Asia Minor (today’s Turkey).
• The eastern boundary is the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria.
• The southern boundary is not spelled out, but it may extend all the way to the Gulf of Eilat.

The most important difference between the two maps involves Transjordan, which was inhabited in ancient times by two and a half Israelite tribes: Reuben, Gad, and part of Manasseh. Several passages elsewhere in the Bible agree with one or the other map. , and 22 describe how each of the twelve tribes received their own territory under the supervision of Joshua. These chapters assume the map from this week’s reading in Numbers, treating Israelite tribes in Transjordan as residing outside Israel’s territory. But other passages agree with  and , regarding the Transjordan’s inhabitants as within the Promised Land (, , , and ).

How can we account for the presence of these two “maps” in the Torah? Modern biblical scholars such as me believe that the Torah was formed when scribes combined several documents that had been written by groups of sages, priests, and prophets from ancient Israel. All of them were mediating and interpreting messages from God and traditions they received from their ancestors. The more limited map of the Promised Land from this week’s parashah stems from the Priestly school of ancient Israel, whom we call the P authors. The other map appears in Deuteronomy, which was written by Levites, and in sections of Genesis and Exodus written by scribes called the J and E authors.

The differing opinions regarding borders lead each school of thought to view certain events differently from the other. Where did God change Jacob’s name to Israel? J and P both remember this important event: In J (), this event happened at Penuel, in Transjordan. But that version of the story is problematic for the Priestly authors, because in their view, Penuel is located outside the Promised Land, and one would assume this momentous event took place inside the Land. In a P passage (), God bestows the name Israel on Jacob and his progeny at Bethel, on the west side of the Jordan River.

Similarly, in this week’s Torah reading: when P tells us about the tribes of Reuben and Gad settling in Transjordan, they make it clear that their settlement there it is a concession. God permits them to live there only if they help conquer the Promised Land too (:16ff.); the key word repeated in verses 20, 23, 29, and 30, is אם, “if.” When Deuteronomy tells us about this same event at the end of next week’s parashah (3:12ff.), the tribes’ settlement there is neither conditional nor a concession. The land east of the Jordan is God’s gift to those tribes; the key verb is נתתי, “I have given you” (vv. 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, and twice in 20). The men from these tribes still fight in the Israelite army, but their receipt of their land in Transjordan is not contingent on their doing so.

We can notice a consistent מחלוקת or debate in the Torah about the extent of the Promised Land. The Torah provides two conflicting maps of the Land, along with two sets of texts that consistently view events through the lens provided by the one map or the other.

What do we learn from all this?

First, of all, it is significant that the debate occurs at all. The boundaries of the Land of Israel according to the Bible are not set in stone; there is more than one biblical view of its correct or ideal boundaries. Similar flexibility regarding the boundaries shows up in the Book of Kings. After Hiram the king of Tyre provides lumber and gold with which Solomon had the Temple built, Solomon transferred twenty towns in the Galilee to King Hiram to pay for these materials (). This story gives rise to another disagreement, however. Later biblical historians who wrote the Book of Chronicles regarded the idea that the king of Israel could give up parts of the Promised Land in the conduct of international diplomacy as problematic, and so they altered the story so that Hiram granted the towns to Solomon (). (However the later version does not quite explain why Hiram would pay Solomon in return for goods that Hiram sent to Solomon!)

The variety of views grows even larger in rabbinic literature. The Mishnah asks what areas are covered by the laws of shemittah, the command to let farmland lie fallow every seventh year (). It rules that the Land of Israel within which land must lie fallow does not correspond to either biblical map. Instead, these laws are fully in effect only in the limited area settled by the Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile. In areas that had been settled by the Israelites centuries earlier in the time of Joshua, the laws of shemittah are partially in effect. And what of areas of the Land (according to either biblical map) that were not settled by Israelites at all—that is, Syria and Lebanon? The Mishnah rules that the laws of shemittah are not in effect there at all. For the Sages of the Mishnah, political realities play a role in defining the extent of the Land for halakhic purposes.

There is some flexibility regarding the boundaries of the Land. The Torah gives more than one map. The Mishnah assumes that the boundaries change over time.

But the whole debate is premised on a bedrock assumption: although the boundaries can shift, there are boundaries. Whatever their disagreements over details, all the biblical authors agree that there is such a thing as the Promised Land, and it’s located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Some Jews in modern times (for example, in Germany in the 19th century) wanted to eliminate notions of Promised Land and sacred space from Judaism. For the varied authors of the Torah, such a purging is just not possible. Like it or not, land matters to Judaism. There’s flexibility regarding where and how it matters, but not on the question of whether it matters at all.

This lesson goes beyond geography. The same basic idea that comes out of comparing this week’s Torah reading with next week’s applies more broadly in Judaism: There are boundaries. We can debate where they should be located; sometimes, they move. But the debate starts from the acknowledgement that boundaries are important to us as Jews.

This lesson is one that has particular import for Conservative Jews. The project of our movement is to bring Torah and its observance into the modern world. As we do so, it’s crucial to recall that in מַסְעֵינו, in our journeys, we’re not free as Jews to go anywhere at all. This is something Jews on the right and on the left both need to accept. Jews on the right need to realize that boundaries can be flexible, and the Bible is okay with that. Jews on the left need to realize there are boundaries, so that not every change we want to make is acceptable.

One might have thought that a list of geographic place-names, a map in prose, might be a little, well, boring, or even irrelevant. But a careful look at what seems boring in this week’s Torah reading turns out to be instructive. In the ways they differ, and in the ways they don’t, the Torah’s varied maps of the Promised Land serve as instruction, as guidance, as Torah for us modern Jews.

This Commentary was originally published in 2019.

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

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period—
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to thee.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay—

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

The double parashiyot of Tazria and Metzora are devoted in their entireties to the Biblical notion of tumah, usually translated as “impurity.” In them, we learn three of the major sources of tumah: childbirth (); a condition known as �ٳ�������’a��, which can manifest on skin, clothing, or the walls of one’s house (); and bodily secretions (). The two other primary sources of tumah are touching or carrying the carcasses of certain animals () and contact with a human corpse ().

But what is the essential nature of tumah, and what does it have to do with Emily Dickinson’s poem? The great Hasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk (1787–1859) offers an especially beautiful reading.

The Kotzker’s teaching is based on a Talmudic passage, from the beginning of masekhet , identifying three phenomena which God attends to “personally,” without resort to an intermediary:

Rabbi Yohanan said: Three keys remain in the Holy Blessed One’s own hand, and have not been entrusted to any messenger, namely, the key of rain, the key of childbirth, and the key of the revival of the dead . . .

Seizing upon this notion, the Kotzker says that at the moment when a woman is giving birth, God is present in an intensified, heightened way—in the Kotzker’s language, “higher holiness rests there.” He continues:

But afterwards, when the infant emerges into the atmosphere of the world, automatically the Shekhinah and incumbent holiness withdraw. And therefore, in this place, tumah “is born.” Because everywhere where there is a withdrawal of holiness, tumah is born in its place, as in the tumah associated with death, which arises for the same reason.

(Ohel Torah, Parashat Tazria)

Here, the forms of tumah associated with human birth and death are a spiritual condition arising in the aftermath of a particularly intense encounter with the Divine. Note that this is not a state of unusual distance from God (and certainly not a complete absence of God, as no place is devoid of the Divine); rather, it’s an experience of relative distance, a reduction to “normal” levels of holiness and Godliness. Tumah is the psycho-spiritual let-down after a heightened experience of holiness, which in turn creates a vulnerability— perhaps to negativity or sin, or disaffection or doubt.

This magnificent reading points well beyond literal birth and death and the biblical category of tumah. Liminal moments of many kinds are often accompanied by an intensified experience of God’s presence, or a heightened sense of vitality and meaning. This is true whether the moment is predominantly joyful or sad (as births and deaths often are), or—like most profound, transformative changes—a combination of joy, sadness, excitement, anxiety, and gratitude. The intensity of such moments inevitably fades, creating a kind of grief that leaves us vulnerable.

We may be vulnerable to disillusionment, demoralization, or cynicism. Perhaps we’ll never experience that closeness to God again; perhaps it wasn’t even real. We may feel a loss of vitality, even a collapse of meaning. We may feel foolish for having believed. Or our vague sense of disappointment might manifest as retrenchment or fear. What if the transformative moment I felt was only momentary, and proves unsustainable? Perhaps nothing really changes at all. Things may feel too alien, or not different enough, or not different in the ways we’d hoped. Or the return of (or increase in) our quotidian responsibilities may feel like an affront to the holy: a moment ago I witnessed someone’s first or last breath, I witnessed the sacredness and preciousness of life, how can I now just go back to work?

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

The narrative of the Exodus from Egypt is a prime example. The Hasidic masters understood the exile in Egypt to be an experience of tumah —not necessarily sin per se, but lifelessness, hopelessness, a culture of death and sameness. Our redemption from Egypt was an act of tehiyat hemetim, the raising of the dead, one of the three “keys” that the Talmud said God reserves for God’s self. “Then Adonai took us out of Mitzrayim. Not by an angel. Nor by a seraph. Nor by a messenger. Rather, the Holy Blessed One, God’s self, in God’s glory,” our Haggadah reads. But the sense of the immediacy of God’s presence fades. Immediately after they cross the sea, they grumble and complain—resentful, anxious, unsure—“Is Adonai among us or not” (). Tumah manifests again.

What are the consequences of this loss, this tumah? Among other things, when the Tabernacle or Temple stood, one who was tamei (impure) could not enter the holy precincts, until he or she was again purified. Perhaps this debarment was an external manifestation of the internal state: the exclusion from the Temple representing the loss of prior closeness with the Divine. Or perhaps there was a risk that in the wake of the immediacy of God’s presence at a moment such as childbirth, even the holiness of the Temple service would pale in comparison.

Today, tumah has no practical consequence, but the Kotzker’s insight serves as both warning and comfort for the life of the spirit.

The warning: the Kotzker’s understanding of “impurity”doesn’t entail immorality, but it does involve a vulnerability to error and sin. So in the let-down after intense moments, we would do well to be extra careful. We might be inclined to be self-indulgent, to shake off religious constraints, to succumb to laziness or carelessness. Alternatively, we might seek to recapture the lost “thrill” through behavior that is morally or physically dangerous.

The comfort: this kind of tumah isn’t something to be avoided at all costs, and it’s not a sign that something is wrong. On the contrary, the particular contexts the Kotzker singles out—giving birth and contact with a corpse—are instances of tumah arising inevitably from a life of mitzvot. So too, vague disappointment or malaise are a natural part of the life of the spirit—hard to bear, but normal. May we be blessed from time to time with the immediacy of God’s presence—with that light that “exists in Spring.” And when “it passes and we stay,” may we bear the resultant “quality of loss” with renewed commitment.

This commentary was originally published in 2018.

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 Deuteronomy 14:22, Israelite farmers must tithe the produce of their field שָׁנָה שָׁנָה, shanah shanah, which at first glance means “year, year.” Later in the parashah, Deuteronomy 15:20, we are told that firstborn animals shall be eaten at God’s chosen place שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה, shanah veshanah, which apparently means “a year in a year.” What does the repetition mean in these two verses?

In Biblical Hebrew, repetition conveys a sense of plurality often translated as “every,” “each,” or “any.” Joseph resisted the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife יוֹם יוֹם, yom yom, “every day” (Genesis 39:10). Samson awoke from his sleep thinking he would again break free from Delilah as he had done כְּפַעַם בְּפַעַם, kefa’am befa’am, “each time” (Judges 16:20). We are told that אִישׁ אִישׁ, ‘ish ‘ish, “any man” who curses his parents shall be put to death (Leviticus 20:19).

Returning to our parashah, what do the phrases שָׁנָה שָׁנָה, shanah shanah, and שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה, shanah veshanah convey? They mean the Israelites were supposed to visit God’s place “every year.” This phrase has a similar meaning to לְדֹר דֹּר, ledor dor, in Exodus 3:15, in which God reveals his name to Moses “for every generation.” As the years and generations pass, God is still waiting to be served.

If we look closely, sometimes we find syllables repeating themselves within a single word. This has a slightly different nuance. Instead of meaning “every,” “each,” or “any,” this type of repetition occurs when a great plurality is to be imagined. The תַּלְ-תַּלִּ-ים, taltallim, “locks of hair” in Song of Songs 5:11 convey a full head of hair with bountiful locks; עֲ-קַלְ-קַלּ-וֹת, ‘a�첹���첹�����dz�, “twisted” in Judges 5:6 suggests a road with frequent turns; עַפְ-עַפַּ-י, ‘a��‘a��貹��, “my eyelids” in Psalm 132:4 connotes blinking repeatedly; the name דַרְ-דַּר, dardar, “thistle” of Genesis 3:18 warns of its many thorns; and the גַלְ-גִּלָּ-יו, galgillav, chariot “wheels” in Isaiah 5:28 implies spinning round and round.

With this knowledge we can better understand a noun in the second half of the parashah:

‏ אֶת־זֶה תֹּאכְלוּ מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר בַּמָּיִם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־לוֹ סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת תֹּאכֵלוּ��

This you all shall eat from everything in the water: everything that has fins and scales you all shall eat.

(Deut. 14:9)

Whereas the plurality of שָׁנָה שָׁנָה, shanah shanah, means “every year,” the repetition of קשׂ-קשׂ in קַשְׂקֶשֶׂת, kaskeset, conveys the hundreds, if not thousands of individual scales on each fish. The repetitive form suggests abundance.

Looking beyond the parashah, repetition can be found in some of the most well-known verses in the Tanakh. For example, the angels surrounding God are described in Isaiah  as follows:

‏ וְקָרָא זֶה אֶל־זֶה וְאָמַר קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת מְלֹא כָל־הָאָרֶץ כְּבוֹדוֹ׃

And each one called to another “kadosh kadosh kadosh” is the Lord of Hosts, his honor fills the entire world!

(Isa. 6:3)

What does kadosh kadosh kadosh mean? Most translations have something like “holy, holy, holy!” but our approach adds new meaning to the repetition, rendering it “holy in every way” or “infinitely holy.” This happens to be the understanding of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, which adds that God is “holy” in the heavens, “holy” on the earth, and “holy” for all eternity. God is holy in every conceivable way.

In next week’s parashah we will read that judges must be fair and righteous:

‏צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדֹּף לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה‏ וְיָרַשְׁתָּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ׃

Pursue tzedek tzedek so that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you

(Deut. 16:20)

What does tzedek tzedek mean? Some translations have “justice, justice,” but our approach suggests “every type of justice.” Justice for the rich and the poor. Justice for your friend and your foe. As it turns out, this is the approach of the King James Bible, which translates tzedek tzedek as “that which is altogether just.” The way to say “altogether” in Biblical Hebrew is to repeat.

Repetition is so uncommon in the English language it is underlined in red in Microsoft Word. This is not the case in Biblical Hebrew. As we have seen, some of the most familiar and influential verses contain repetition, and our approach can be applied to each and every one. All you have to do is repeat, repeat.

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 sacrificial system we read about this week confronts this human failing head-on. How archaic, yet how contemporary! In listing the categories of sacrifices that may be offered on the altar of the just- finished Tabernacle, the Torah introduces the purification offering, in Hebrew, hattat. Though we shall come across it many times again in the Torah, this first instance is particularly striking and relevant, because we are dealing with a case of ritual inspired by morality.

The hattat is to be brought by someone guilty of violating one of God’s commandments inadvertently. We are not talking of a willful transgression, but an honest mistake made out of ignorance or poor judgment. When discovered, the act must be atoned for by a rite of public contrition that serves to purge the sacred space of the Tabernacle of any contamination left in the wake of a sin. Interestingly, the Torah takes up the more prevalent case first, transgressions committed unwittingly rather than wittingly. The assumption is that most members of the community will do their utmost to abide by the standards and practices of the community. Human weakness and not subversion is the greatest threat to the well-being of the whole. Inadvertent mistakes abound, yet to admit them requires an act of self-transcendence.

To the Torah’s lasting credit, it starts at the top of society and not the bottom. Before it comes to the private behavior of the ordinary Israelite, it takes up the public behavior of the high priest, the community as a whole and the chieftain. How incredibly frightening to apologize for a deed done while in the limelight as a religious or political leader of the nation! Still, the Torah demands that the high priest or chieftain bring a purification offering when they unknowingly have misspoken or led astray. Even the entire nation must atone if it has collectively stumbled into a policy or pursuit fraught with moral ambiguity. “My country, right or wrong” is a mind set that militates against concession and contrition.

The Rabbis deepen the demand for humility. They note the unusual use of the adverb asher in verse 4:22: “When (asher) the chieftain does wrong by violating any of the Lord’s prohibitive commandments inadvertently…” Since the more common word used throughout our parasha is im, “if,” the anomaly stimulates an inspired midrash by Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, who led the battered Jewish community of Palestine after the destruction of the Second Temple by daring to reconfigure Judaism without a central cult: “Fortunate (reading ashre as opposed to asher) is the generation whose leader is prepared to bring a sacrifice for his or her inadvertent error.” The statement grants an illuminating insight into Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s conception of leadership. He knew that the times called for bold action, but he was also acutely aware that grave mistakes could be made. The correct pose was not to avoid any initiative, but to act assertively in a spirit of humility. A sense of fallibility ought to deter leaders from defending acts of omission or commission when the evidence shows that they were deeply flawed. A leader who never errs never grows. With the end of the sacrificial cult, things have gotten more complicated. Bringing a hattat offering spared one the need for a confessional statement. The ritual said it all. In our day we must put remorse into rhetoric, as well as deeds, and if the words are uttered begrudgingly, parsimoniously and selectively they remain ineffectual, the stain of moral contamination endures.

It is for this reason that the Vatican’s long awaited “Reflection on the Shoah,” more than a decade in the making, is such a disappointment. The prior deeds of Pope John Paul II, his visit to the Warsaw Ghetto Monument in 1983, his visit to the synagogue in Rome in 1986, his extension of diplomatic recognition to Israel in 1994 and his hosting of a concert at the Vatican in April, 1994 to commemorate the Shoah, had primed world Jewry to expect a more pained admission of Church passivity in the midst of the Nazis’ war against the Jews. Crafted in the spirit of an apologia rather than an apology (to quote The New Republic), the document lacks the magnanimity and moral passion that have come to characterize the remarkable leadership of this pope.

The use of the Hebrew vocabulary for Holocaust, “Shoah,” and repentance, “teshuva,” cannot offset the all-too frequent recourse to distinctions that limit Church culpability in the dark history of Jewish persecution. For example, the implied chasm in the Middle Ages between a Church preaching love and a mob practicing pogroms ignores the Church’s own vast legal and rhetorical arsenal of contempt for Judaism. Nor was the Jewish struggle for emancipation in Europe over “by the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.” It had barely begun, and the Church, especially in France and Poland, would bitterly oppose any change in the exclusion of Jews from the body politic.

And that Church legacy of resistance to equality and integration for Jews makes the distinction drawn by “The Reflection” between traditional anti-Judaism and modern racist anti-Semitism too pat and self-serving. It may be that Hitler and his idealogues were driven by a pseudo-scientific Jew-hatred that was equally anti-Christian (though Hitler was astute enough to generally conceal the fact), but they surely benefitted from the still prevailing anti-Judaism, which silenced the majority of bystanders who witnessed the revoking of Jewish equality in the 1930s and the elimination of Jews from society in the war years. Had churchmen condemned the brutal reversal of emancipation in Germany after 1933 with the same vigor and courage they later aimed at the Nazi policy of euthanasia, they might have registered a similar victory. But at the time, their concern did not extend beyond the fate of converted Jews threatened by the Nazis’ racist legislation reordering society.

Precisely because totalitarian regimes are threatened by dissent and unrest, silence often becomes a form of complicity. Until the Vatican is prepared to confront forthrightly the judgment of Pope Pius XII to remain silent throughout, as it fails to do here, it will not be able to convince Jews or anyone else of its implicit claim that “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done (Deuteronomy 21:7).” The cause of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation and the moral stature of Pope John Paul II deserved more than this halfhearted hattat.

Shabbat shalom u-mevorach,

Ismar Schorsch

But the new calendar was not only to be a practical, national institution. It was to have its spiritual side as well, as Samson Raphael Hirsch, the 19th century commentator, points out: “[God] began the construction of the inner life of His people by the institution of an “ot”. This regular, periodically recurring sign was always to draw the looks and the thoughts of the people afresh up to Him. It was to summon them to ever fresh rejuvenation out of the darkness of error and depravity, and so to ensure a constant rebirth to truth and purity that would forever protect Israel from Egyptian spiritual and moral insensibility. Just as God told No·ah to turn his looks away from the earth which had just been regiven to Man, and direct them to heaven, and, showing him the rainbow, said “zot ot habrit” – this is to be the sign, the guarantee, of My covenant with the new future which I promise to humanity – in the same way, in Egypt, at the threshold of the new Jewish future, He called Moses and Aaron into the open, showed them the silver crescent of the new moon, and said: “This renewal is to be to you a beginning of new-moons (literally a beginning of renewals, or revivals) … “

Hirsch is rightly concerned that the recurring sign of the new moon would be for the Israelites (and their descendants, the Jewish people) a way to renew themselves to choose the moral and true path in their lives. In Hirsch’s time, in the time of the Israelite enslavement in Egypt, and in our own time, without periodic reminders of the true and good path, one could easily slip into spiritual and moral insensitivity, or as Hirsch suggests, depravity. And the Jewish calendar – following the waxing and the waning of the moon – certainly provides us with constant reminders of God’s festivals and our moral obligations on those festivals – especially to our community and to the poor.

But the renewal of the moon, which almost disappears and then grows bright again every month, speaks to me of other, more personal renewals as well. The constancy of the moon reminds us that life moves in cycles. In our deepest, darkest moments – the renewal of the moon reminds us that we won’t always feel despondent. In the moments when we feel most forlorn and most abandoned, the moon reminds us that brighter days will come again. Just as there has been sadness, there will also be happiness. Just as there has been despair, there will also be healing. Just as there has been bereavement, there will also be new life.

May we be inspired by each “new moon” to renew ourselves and our commitment to living moral and ethical lives – and to know that when we feel surrounded by darkness, there will be light again.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 KOLLOT: Voices of Learning commentary has been made possible by a generous gift from Sam and Marilee Susi

Midway through the building of the Tabernacle and the making of the priests’ garments, the Torah tells us that Moses stopped to take an inventory of the precious metals collected for both purposes: “These are the records (pekudei) of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of the Pact, which were drawn up at Moses’ bidding-the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar (not my Hebrew name, which is Yitzhak), son of Aaron the priest (Exodus 38:21).” There follows then a financial accounting of just how much gold, silver and copper the people had contributed and what was actually used in the construction. Remember, the Tabernacle was funded entirely by voluntary gifts which poured in with such gusto that Moses was compelled to end the campaign early (another biblical miracle! Exodus 36:5-7).

I doubt whether this inventory would attract our attention, except to ask skeptically how the Israelites came by such wealth. The Rabbis, however, noted the behavior of Moses. What prompted him to undertake an audit? God had not instructed him to do so. Viewed from the perspective of Moses, the inventory gave rise to some remarkable comments on the standards to which leaders should be held. Thus one midrash proclaims that “an individual is obligated to do right by others no less than by God (ha-makom ).” And the basis for this admonition is Moses, himself. Despite the fact that God speaks of him as ‘trusted throughout My household (Numbers 12:7),’ Moses sought to do right by others (i.e. the Israelites) because, when the work on the Tabernacle was over, he said to them:’These are the records of the Tabernacle (Torah Shlemah, vol. 23, p.55).’

In other words, the conduct of Moses implied a norm of action for future leaders, indeed, for every Jew. Our behavior should be beyond suspicion. Piety does not grant us the right to spurn public opinion. Who would have dared to suspect Moses of impropriety? And yet he went out of his way to invite scrutiny of his disposition of public funds. Authority anchored in the divine does not permit leadership by fiat.

A related midrash cites the prohibition against entering the temple chamber to deposit priestly taxes while wearing bulky clothing. In the event that you become wealthy, you should be sure not to arouse the suspicion that you may have lifted money from sacred coffers. To drive home this point, the midrash quotes the exquisitely apt verse, “And you shall be deemed guiltless before the Lord and before Israel (Numbers 32:22),” as well as the example of Moses (Shemot Rabba 51:2).

Yet a third midrash starts with the principle that in matters of public money, authority is never to be exercised by fewer than two people. This time, the example of Moses is cited to contradict the principle. Didn’t he alone preside over the funds raised for the Tabernacle? But this impression derives from a careless reading of the text. The verb is actually passive (a pual form of pakad ) and not active, “which were drawn up at Moses’ bidding,” suggesting that Moses had the inventory done for him by Ithamar. Hence, to avoid the slightest suspicion of personal gain, Moses also heeded the principle of shared authority in financial matters (Shemot Rabba 51:1).

Halakhic practice translated these cautionary sentiments into ramified legislation. The Talmud required that charity for the poor should always be solicited in pairs in accord with the ideal of shared authority and distributed by at least three administrators as if it were a civil matter where three judges must adjudicate. Moreover, the two solicitors are never to be out of each other’s sight. In the event that there are no poor at the moment, those who raised the donations may use those coins to make change for other people but may not make change for their own use. Finally, in counting what they collected, the administrators must always count one coin at a time (B.T. Baba Bathra 8b). Clearly, all of these strictures were prescribed to protect the integrity of the charitable system.

Still, the Talmud adds that the public ought not to demand of those who run this system an accounting of their disbursements. Without a measure of trust, no system will long endure (B.T. Baba Bathra 9a). Interestingly, R. Jacob ben Asher in his monumental fourteenth-century legal code, tightens the exemption. While it applies only to those administrators without blemish (ha-kesherim ), it is preferable for all to issue reports that “they may be deemed guiltless before the Lord and before Israel.” Noting the restriction in his gloss, R. Joel Sirkes two centuries later, observes that R. Jacob was most likely moved to depart from the Talmud by the example of Moses in the midrash (Arba’ah Turim, Yoreh Deah, 257).

Though tempted, I shall not close on the obvious: that a pretense of piety is all too often accompanied by an absence of integrity. Corruption is not limited to sinners. Rather, I wish to raise one final midrash that points to the character of the righteous. It, too, deals with a prosaic detail of Tabernacle construction rendered luminous by the Rabbis. In their deep reading, they noticed that the ark for the Tablets made of acacia wood was to be covered with pure gold both inside and outside (Exodus 25:11). In the symmetry they saw a metaphor of great profundity: “‘From it we may learn,’ said Rava, ‘that any student of Torah whose inner and outer lives are not in sync is not a student of Torah.'” (B.T. Yoma 72b). Both ark and scholar serve as bearers of God’s word. Emblematic of their holiness is the symmetry between their internal and external states. Rava’s comment puts a premium on integrity. When that is lost, piety becomes but a pretext for power.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ismar Schorsch

Numbers 28:9-15

[Note: Below is the Maftir reading for when Rosh Hodesh falls on Shabbat. When Rosh Hodesh falls on a weekday, the full torah reading is Numbers 28:1-15.]

⁹ On the sabbath day: two yearling lambs without blemish, together with two-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in as a meal offering, and with the proper libation — ¹⁰ a burnt offering for every sabbath, in addition to the regular burnt offering and its libation. ¹¹ On your new moons you shall present a burnt offering to the Lord: two bulls of the herd, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, without blemish. ¹² As meal offering for each bull: three-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in. As meal offering for each ram: two-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in. ¹³ As meal offering for each lamb: a tenth of a measure of fine flour with oil mixed in. Such shall be the burnt offering of pleasing odor, an offering by fire to the Lord. ¹⁴ Their libations shall be: half a hin of wine for a bull, a third of a hin for a ram, and a quarter of a hin for a lamb. That shall be the monthly burnt offering for each new moon of the year. ¹⁵ And there shall be one goat as a sin offering to the Lord, to be offered in addition to the regular burnt offering and its libation.

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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