Balaam’s story is an unusually good place to watch that interpretive dynamic unfold, because his own character becomes a shared (and contested) reference point in both Jewish and Christian reading to think about dangerous speech and false prophecy. The New Testament already references Balaam as a polemical tool (Rev. 2:14, Jude 11, II Pet. 2:15), while rabbinic traditions often interpret him as a paradigmatic wicked gentile prophet. But despite these categories established early in both textual communities, Balaam resists easy binaries. He is neither an Israelite nor entirely outside God’s purposes; he is simultaneously an outsider, participant, critic, and unwilling witness. So perhaps the more interesting question to ask is not whether Balaam is good or evil, prophet or fraud, insider or outsider, but this: What does it take to see what has been there all along?

One small detail in the Torah’s description of Balaam at the beginning of his speech, a phrase about his eye, became a hinge for generations of interpreters thinking about what it means to “see”:

Num. 24:3

וישא משלו ויאמר נאם בלעם בנו בער ונאם הגבר שתם העין

He took up his discourse and said: The declaration of Balaam son of Beor, and the declaration of the man shetum ha-ayin [meaning unclear].

Explaining the unusual Hebrew phrase shetum ha-ayin, appearing only in this chapter, Rashi draws on BT Sanhedrin 105a’s aggadic interpretation that the Torah’s use of the singular “ayin” (eye) indicates that Balaam was blind in one eye. Whatever the philological merits, the exegetical point is vivid: the man who claims visionary authority is marked by partial sight. He sees, but only out of one eye; he knows, but not fully.

Balaam’s failure, therefore, might be interpreted as not merely wickedness, but self-certainty. He assumes that because he is a seer, he sees; however, it is the donkey’s attentiveness that actually perceives the angel in the road. The beauty of biblical commentary is that no one reader sees everything fully. Jewish readers, Christian readers, medieval readers, modern scholars — all are, in some sense, seeing some things clearly and missing others. In the study of texts, traditions, and their long histories of encounter, the donkey’s careful attentiveness is the rarer gift. But what makes sight possible at all?

Thinking beyond Balaam’s physical condition and character, this narrative might be read about our human perception itself.

Num. 22:31

וַיְגַל ה’ אֶת־עֵינֵי בִלְעָם

And the Lord uncovered Balaam’s eyes.

Rabbi Tobiah ben Eliezer, an eleventh-century contemporary of Rashi’s from the Byzantine Empire, writes in his Lekah Tov:

ויגל ה׳ את עיני בלעם – מלמד שכל העולם כולו בחזקת סומין עד שהקדוש ברוך הוא מגלה עיניהם כיוצא בו ויפקח אלהים את עיניה ותרא באר מים. יש הרבה דברים ואין כח בעיני האדם לראותם עד שיגזור הקב״ה

And the Lord uncovered Balaam’s eyes – this teaches that the whole entire world is presumed blind until the Holy One, blessed be He, uncovers their eyes. Similarly [of Hagar]: “And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water” [Gen. 21:19]. There are many things, and the human eye has no power to see them until the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees it.

Ben Eliezer’s movement from Balaam to Hagar is especially striking: in both cases, God opens non-Israelite eyes to something already there. The well and the angel may be miraculous, but the deeper wonder is that both were present before humans could see them. Moreover, Lekah Tov does not make this a story only about Balaam’s flaws. The limit is simply human: “the whole entire world is presumed blind” until God uncovers our eyes. Read this way, the parsha is not mainly warning about wicked outsiders, but is asking insiders to admit how much of reality (textual, moral, spiritual) we regularly pass by without noticing.

There is something subversive, and I think genuinely hopeful, about a tradition that builds a central lesson about vision and divine wisdom around a non-Israelite prophet and a talking donkey. For an educated modern public living amid confident claims from every side, Parashat Balak offers a counter-discipline to our New Yorker “see something, say something” instincts, encouraging us to move through the text with less certainty about what we already “see,” and more willingness to have our eyes uncovered before we speak. For if even Balaam can be made to speak truth, and even a donkey can notice what the prophet misses, then our task together is to become the kind of readers – and neighbors – whose attention makes room for truths we did not expect to hear, maybe even occasionally from people we did not expect to trust.

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

Neither of these approaches is entirely satisfying. I tend to be sympathetic to the perspective that Korah’s challenge doesn’t merit being swallowed alive. His desire for a fully egalitarian society is, if perhaps impractical, certainly understandable. And the response to his group seems to prove his point: surely a just society ought to be open to hearing challenges and taking them seriously, rather than smiting those who are troubled by the existing power structure. Yet how can we fully take Korah’s side if his devastating punishment comes from God?

I want to suggest that instead of siding with Korah and defending the actions of his group, or siding with God and coming up with a rationale for Korah’s harsh punishment, a more satisfying response to this story’s challenge might come from the rabbis, who are themselves conflicted inheritors of the tradition.

The rabbis rewrite Korah’s story in a number of different ways, some more sympathetic than others. In one version presented in Bemidbar Rabbah, Korah’s challenge is not about the general leadership structure but rather relates to the particulars of certain mitzvot. Korah asks Moses whether a garment entirely made out of tekhelet (the sky blue dye commanded for biblical tzitzit) would be exempt from tzitzit, and when told that it would not be, objects, “A tallit that is entirely made of tekhelet doesn’t exempt itself, but four threads [of tzitzit] exempt it?!” He then asks whether a house full of Torah scrolls would be exempt from needing a mezuzah on its doorposts, and when again told that it would not be, objects, “The two hundred and seventy-five chapters of the Torah don’t exempt the house, but the one chapter that is in the mezuzah exempts it?!” He then proceeds to accuse Moses of making the whole thing up.

Korah’s questions in this version of the story pose a serious challenge to the seeming arbitrariness of the halakhic system, and for this reason they remind me of the way the rabbis present another famous questioner who happens to be one of their own: a sage named Rabbi Yirmiyah. Like the rabbinic version of Korah, Rabbi Yirmiyah likes to ask questions about why halakha is the way it is, and similarly like Korah, asks about hypothetical cases to demonstrate the arbitrariness of the law. Most famously, he asks about the legal ruling for a lost chick who is found with one foot within fifty cubits of its coop, in which case it would need to be returned to its owner, and one foot outside fifty cubits, in which case it would belong to its finder—and he asks several other such questions throughout the Talmud. Of course, the rabbis also like to use hypothetical cases to test halakhic principles, so Rabbi Yirmiyah’s questions are not so far outside the pale. Nonetheless, he becomes a kind of scapegoat within the tradition for the rabbis’ ambivalence toward their own intellectual project. As punishment, he is not swallowed up into the earth, but he is famously kicked out of the rabbinic study hall (BT Bava Batra 23b), which for a rabbi in late antiquity is basically just as awful.

A lesser-known fact about Rabbi Yirmiyah, however, is that after being kicked out of the study hall, he later returns to the intellectual community (BT Bava Batra 165b). His colleagues realize that they still need his wisdom, and they send him some questions, which he answers with a combination of sagacity and deep humility. Upon realizing that he is not the threat they at first perceived him to be, his colleagues welcome him back, and though the text does not say so explicitly, I imagine that he is thrilled and relieved to return.

Parshat Korah presents the story of a question perceived as a communal threat that is met with complete suppression, one that we may never fully make sense of. But the rabbinic tradition offers us two helpful resources: first, a tradition in which Korah is seen as someone whose questions may be deeply challenging but nonetheless stem from real intellectual engagement; and second, through the R. Yirmiyah narratives, an alternative tale of what a community can do, at least at a minimum, to take questioners seriously, even if they at first raised some hackles. Each of us knows what it is like to hear a challenge to our commitments that makes us deeply uncomfortable. I hope we can learn from the stories the rabbinic tradition offers us about considering new models for what curiosity, and even repair, can look like.

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

The popular bulletin Shabbaton welcomed the change, arguing that the iconic illustration distorts the verse “וישאהו במוט בשנים”, as most commentators understood it. Indeed, following Sotah 34b, Rashi believed the cluster was carried by no less than eight people. Furthermore, the grapes symbolise a sin, which the iconic image blurs.

The spies’ illustration epitomizes the power of images but also their hermeneutic limitations. Of the complex story that Parashat Shelah Lekha relates concisely, the grapes are a central motif in the visual tradition that illustrates it. For a biblical story to become an image, the artist must focus not only on the sayable but also the seeable. Hence, throughout history, images have often been presented alongside words. For example, the depicts the two spies, along with the inscription במוט בשניים”.[1]“

During the Renaissance, words were increasingly excluded from pictures; thus, the bible’s illustrators had to find other ways to signify their themes. Since Biblical paintings have no definite visual tradition to draw on, artists often chose a prop to make their pictures identifiable. When Giovanni Lanfranco painted Moses and the Messengers from Canaan (1621-1624), he depicted the former with his staff and horns, not to recall a miracle or divine radiation, but to indicate who is shown. It is perhaps for these practical reasons that the grapes became the visual emblem of the spies’ narrative.

Maerten de Vos’ illustration is set in a pastoral, hilly landscape (c. 1584). In addition to the two spies who crossed the Eshcol stream on a makeshift wooden bridge, he portrayed several figures that indicate, as the spies reported, that Canaan was populated. In the background, one can see one of the fortified cities that terrorized the Israelites. But the only feature in the picture that links it indelibly to the spies’ story is the grapes the duo carries.

Even in the 19^th century, when depictions of the story became more “realistic,” the grapes retained a

primary role. In Gustav Doré’s 1866 print, the scene appears in a desert landscape with “Oriental” costuming. However, here, even more than before, the grapes dominate the composition. Displayed on a small hill before the Israelites, they affirm the spies’ report. The illustration, however, departs from Numbers 13:27, where the fruits testify that Canaan flows with milk and honey. The rebellion occurs when the spies claim that the Canaanites are invincible. Thus, one may wonder whether Doré’s print brings to the fore an important trope or a relatively marginal theme.  

The Talmud, as discussed above, enlarges the grapes to unnatural proportions, making their symbolism ambiguous. The cluster may speak to Canaan’s abundance but also the otherness of a newly encountered land. In his commentary on Sotah, Rashi resolves this ambiguity: “its people are as strange as its fruits, tall and strong.” The images I discuss here, by contrast, preserve the grapes’ open-endedness. 

In Lanfranco‘s painting, the spies appear less rebellious than perplexed. Painted from a low angle, the scene emphasises hierarchy: Moses raises his hand while a spy bows before him. Holding a dark fig, the spy points towards the enormous cluster. His questioning look suggests bewilderment in the presence of the eccentric bunch of lush green grapes and dark, murky fruits. 

The grapes can thus be seen as a pharmakon, i.e., a signifier whose hermeneutic indeterminacy can only be settled by interpretive violence. While reading Plato’s Phaedrus, Jacques Derrida argues that the translation of pharmakon as poison or remedy “obliterates the virtual, dynamic references to the other uses of the same word in Greek.” Similarly, in Jewish classical texts, the grapes have several meanings. Psalms praise the wine that makes the human heart happy, but Proverbs warns that it bites like a snake. In Numbers 13, too, the grapes represent duality: fertility, but also, since such a large cluster does not grow in the wild, it speaks of the presence of other people.

As a pharmakon, the grapes do not destabilize the text’s meaning, nor merely bring forward hermeneutic pluralism, but embody its peculiar demand of faith. If the mission to Canaan was supposed to dispel uncertainty (Deuteronomy 1:22), the grapes retrieve the undecidability of standing before the divine. They call for a free decision, which  must “go through the ordeal of the undecidable.” In this vein, Derrida cites Kierkegaard, for whom “the instant of decision is madness.” The encounter with the incalculable warrants the intoxication of trust in God.

By the time the grapes were adopted in Palestine, they no longer harboured ambiguity. Instead, they symbolized agricultural fertility and, paradoxically, rootedness. The image was first used by Teperberg Winery, later Karmel Mizrachi, and finally the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.[3] This led to several copyright court cases, manifesting not only commercial but also political tensions. While the Teperberg Winery was part of the Old Yishuv, Karmel Mizrachi was an initiative of the First Aliya.

In this vein, one may read the decorative ceramic panel by Zeev Raban,[4] which shows the spies in Arab clothing, carrying an “Oriental” sword and a big rifle.[5] The figures recall the Second Aliya members of HaShomer who guarded the Jewish settlements. The artwork denotes the rootedness of those who defend the land. When the grapes became the Ministry of Tourism’s logo, they were an established national symbol.

The story’s lost ambiguity was recently revived by the Israeli musician Shlomi Shaban, portrays Moses and the spies as a squad of soldiers walking aimlessly in the desert. Although the grapes play a marginal role in this dramatization, they reverse the function of religious symbols in contemporary Israel. Joshua, who is referred to in the song as “yud,”[6] says, “My soul is thirsty not for revelations but wine.” Similarly, the song ends with insights that resonate with Rabbi Nachman of Breslov,[7] and postpones the return to Zion into an eternal future: “But there is no Canaan, Canaan is in the heart/ if we enter or not, it is the same… I am only a wandering Jew/ I was born to depart/ from ancient time and until the next year in Jerusalem.” 

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

[1] The mosaic, which was probably created in the 5^th EC, was discovered by archaeologist Jodi Magness and her team from the University of North California.

[3] Zeev Teperberg used the spies’ logo already in 1852 when he opened an agency for wine and drinks in the old city of Jerusalem, and later, of the winery his son Abraham Teperberg established in 1870. The winery is now known as Efrat Winery.

[4] The panel is now located in the old Beit Hava’ad of Beit Hakerem in Jerusalem.

[5] Raban follows a common practice of depicting the spies with swords (e.g., Maerten de Vos’ illustration and Poussin’s Autumn), but the edition of the rifle is unique.

[6] Throughout the song, Moses, Joshua and Caleb are suggestively called “mem,” “yud,” and “kaf” as intelligence personnel and special forces.

[7] Rabbi Nachman famously said, “Everywhere I go, I go to the Land of Israel.”

In Numbers 11, the Israelites protest their steady diet of manna and forcefully demand meat (11:4–6). God’s response unfolds in two seemingly unrelated steps. First, the appointment of a council of seventy elders (11:16–17), often understood as the precursor of the rabbinic Great Sanhedrin; and only afterward, the sending of a powerful wind to bring the quail that will feed the people (11:31). This sequence is surprising: how exactly does a new tribunal offer an adequate response to what appears to be a legitimate desire to diversify the menu?

The beginnings of an answer emerge from a careful reading of the verses. Actually, the text seems to point to a more complex motive on the part of the Israelites: rather than simply craving meat, they seem intent on rejecting manna itself.

“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Num. 11:4-6)

What, then, is the problem with manna? Moses’s anguished response (Num. 11:11–15) provides a hint. It suggests that the Israelites’ complaint is not directed at the manna as food, but at what it signifies: the rejection of manna emerges as a rejection of Moses himself.

“(…) Moses was troubled. He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? (…)I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.” (Num. 11:10-15)

Rabbinic tradition, characteristically attentive to the silences and nuances of the biblical text, makes the connection between Moses and manna even more explicit: the manna descended daily through Moses’s merit (BT, Ta’anit 9a), and with his death on the seventh of Adar, it ceased at once (BT, Kiddushin 38a).

From this perspective, the Israelites’ request for meat (and rejection of manna) catalyzes a reconfiguration of authority, shifting leadership away from Moses alone toward a broader structure embodied in the Sanhedrin.

Yet another element invites closer attention. The same biblical text simultaneously casts Moses in strikingly paradoxical terms, portraying him as a nurturing figure: a kind of wet nurse, even a symbolic mother.

Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? (Num. 11:12)

In this portrayal, Moses becomes a provider of “milk”, the very antithesis of “meat.” The biblical text further develops this motif by introducing two additional figures whose very names evoke the imagery of “milk”: Eldad and Medad (Num. 11:26). Counted among the seventy elders of the Sanhedrin, they nevertheless remain in the camp rather than assembling with the others, as if resisting full incorporation into the emerging structure of leadership.

In Hebrew, dad refers to the nipple, viz. the source through which a nursing infant receives milk. Thus, Eldad can be read as “toward the breast,” and Medad as “from the breast.” The symbolism is suggestive: it reinforces the depiction of Moses as the nurturing source sustaining Israel in its earliest stage of development. Even as the Israelites begin to move beyond a “Torah of milk,” Eldad and Medad, two otherwise minor figures, quietly echo the formative stage now being left behind.

Moses, then, is associated with manna and milk, which share important structural similarities. Both are forms of nourishment meant for those who have not yet reached maturity; both cater to the needs of those still in the process of becoming. An infant cannot yet digest solid food; its system is not ready. For a time, it must rely on a provisional, sustaining substitute. So too with the manna, the divine food provided in the desert during the infancy of the Jewish people.

Here again, the rabbis amplified some of these themes in the midrash: “Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate, they found in it many flavors” (BT, Yoma 75a). At the same time, if some flavors were absent from the manna (cucumbers, melons, leeks, …), it is because these foods were deemed harmful to nursing mothers (Sifrei Bemidbar 87).

This implies that the relationship between Moses, the man of milk and manna, and the Hebrew people was one of radical asymmetry: the recipients, still immature, required what we might call a “Torah of milk,” a Torah of pure revelation. Just like manna, everything flowed from God; human beings were only receivers. At the earliest stage of their formation, the Jewish people needed a form of divine communication given directly, without the mediation of human effort or interpretation.

The demand for meat and the rejection of manna constitute, in effect, a declaration of independence. It is the people’s way of asserting that they will no longer remain in a purely passive relationship with the divine. They refuse to stand only as recipients of revelation and instead seek a different posture, in which they become active partners, shaping and engaging their relationship with the Transcendent rather than simply receiving it.

It is precisely in response to this deeper demand that God initiates a decisive shift: the gradual move away from Moses as the singular, all-encompassing leader toward a more layered and participatory form of leadership: the Sanhedrin. The demand for meat was, in fact, a bold claim to autonomy, a rejection of unceasing Revelation as a form of dependence, and a declaration of the people’s desire to encounter and engage the Torah on their own terms.

As Immanuel Kant famously observed, “enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” In Beha-alotekha, we encounter an analogous moment of transformation: a people in the act of growing up. Here, a nascent nation begins to assume a more defined identity, and with that maturation come far-reaching consequences, reshaping not only its inner spiritual posture but also its institutional life and structures of authority.

A Jewish Independence Day, as it were.

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

1. Elsewhere the Levites are listed in birth order—Gershon, Kohath, Merari (Genesis 46:11, Numbers 3:17)—but here Kohath is given priority.
2. The Kohathites are set apart from the other two clans by the division between Parashat Bemidbar and Parashat Naso, the latter of which begins with the enumeration of the other two clans.
3. The labor assigned to the Kohathites is described, without elaboration, as “Most Holy” (Numbers 4:4). explicates this as responsibility for the “the ark, the table, the candelabrum, the altars, the curtain, and the accompanying vessels.”

Some commentators attribute this foregrounding to the fact that Moses and Aaron were Kohathites themselves, their clan thus meriting extra distinction (Leqah Tov; Ibn Ezra).  Whatever the reason, their singularity comes to the fore in the Torah’s description in Numbers 7:6-9 of how the respective clans were supposed to carry out their work:

⁶Moses took the carts and the oxen and gave them to the Levites. ⁷Two carts and four oxen he gave to the Gershonites, … ⁸and four carts and eight oxen he gave to the Merarites, ….

וְלִבְנֵ֥י קֳהָ֖ת לֹ֣א נָתָ֑ן כִּֽי-עֲבֹדַ֤ת הַקֹּ֙דֶשׁ֙ עֲלֵהֶ֔ם בַּכָּתֵ֖ף יִשָּֽׂאוּ׃

 ⁹But to the Kohathites he did not give any; since theirs was the service of the [most] sacred objects, their porterage was by shoulder.[i]

(1288-1344) observes, “They are commanded here to carry their load by shoulder because of the sanctity of the ark and the other items they were carrying.” He goes on to discuss two later occasions when the ark was transported at King David’s behest.  In 2 Samuel 6:3-8, the ark was mounted on a cart and disaster ensued (see the haftarah for Parashat Shemini). That David learned his lesson from the incident is clear from 1 Chronicles 15:11-15, when he orders the priests and Levites to bring the ark to Jerusalem:

¹¹David sent for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites cf. 2 Samuel 6:7] …^{. 15}The Levites carried the Ark of God by means of poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded in accordance with the word of the Lord.

Levi concludes, “Nowhere else but here [in Numbers 7:9] does God command that they carry their load by shoulder.  David erred in this respect by having the ark mounted on a new cart.  That was the reason God burst out in Uzza (2 Samuel 6:3-8), and that was why David reverted to having it carried by shoulder by the Levites.”

The special privilege and responsibility of the Levites in general and of the Kohathites in particular is elaborated in the midrash 5:8:

How superior was the tribe of Levi to the other Israelites!  For the Israelites would walk about wearing sandals; the tribe of Levi, who would bear the vessels of the Tabernacle, would walk barefooted.^[ii]  Thus we learn that the tribe of Levi was superior to all the other tribes.  And pre-eminent within the tribe of Levi was the family of Kohath. An ordinary Levite would place his burden, whether it was the boards or the bars or the sockets or anything else, upon carts. The families of Kohath, however, bore their burdens on their shoulders: they were not allowed to place the ark upon a wagon as it says, “But to the Kohathites he did not give any… their porterage was by shoulder.” 

As if that were not distinction enough, the midrash continues,

In another respect also the [Kohathites] were elevated above all the other Levites.  The other Levites carried the vessels of the Tabernacle and walked in the normal way, facing in the direction they were going, but the sons of Kohath walked backwards,[iii] with their faces towards the ark, in order not to turn their backs on the ark.

This form of porterage, the midrash states, is a mark of humility.  The Kohathites were “subdued in the presence of the ark.  Why so?  Because there is no place for greatness in the presence of God.  So you must conclude that, though the family of Kohath was aristocratic, nevertheless when they carried the ark, they did so like ordinary slaves.”

And why is that? The midrash continues, “God said, The Torah is life, as it says, ‘She is a tree of life to those who grasp her’ (Proverbs 3:18); ‘They are life to him who finds them, healing for his whole body’ (Proverbs 4:22). Now the sons of Kohath have charge of the Torah, synonymous with life—namely the ark that they carry, in which the Torah is contained.”  They carry it in this unique manner “that they may live and not die” (Numbers 4:19).

In the first sermon on Parashat Naso in his Torah commentary, Keli hemdah,[iv] Samuel Laniado (a leading rabbi in Aleppo at the turn of the seventeenth century) quotes the midrash and then adds a striking idea of his own. He writes,

Since all living things are capable of carrying themselves, holy things, which undoubtedly are imbued with the spirit of God, certainly would carry themselves.  It is as the sages say [in B. Sukka 35a], “the ark bears its bearers (הארון נושא את נושאיו),” so naturally it carries itself.

Laniado presents a tour de force in which he imputes a double meaning—literal and metaphoric—to several key terms in both the midrash and the biblical text that it quotes.  When the midrash says that the Levites were “elevated” (מעולים) above the Israelites, that means that they were both superior in stature, and also literally raised up by the nature of their service.  When the midrash depicts the Levites as “barefoot” (יחפים), the term is to be taken both literally and as a metaphor for their self-abasement and devotion to service (ההכנעה וההשתעבדות).  They were, paradoxically, elevated by their humility.

Laniado cites a variant version of the midrash[v] that says that the Levites were “borne by the vessels of the Tabernacle (טעונים בכלי המשכן).”  The variant substitutes the passive form טעונים/te`unim for the active טוענים/to`anim.  Instead of being “burdened” with the vessels, then, the Levites are “borne” by them!  He continues:

The reason for the use of טעונים is to teach that according to the grammar, the ark was carrying them…. In like manner, I explain the verse [Numbers 7:9], כִּי עֲבֹדַת הַקֹּדֶשׁ עֲלֵהֶם בַּכָּתֵף יִשָּׂאוּ, to mean that the ark carries them, and that is why it does not say בכתף נושאים or יִשְּׂאוּ with a shva. 

The form יִשָּׂאוּ/�⾱������’u, in Laniado’s view, is a passive Niphal (not an active Qal pausal form), indicating that the Kohathites literally were carried along by the ark (נשואים מהארון).

The image of the ark-bearers floating alongside their “burden” as it carries them through the wilderness is charming, but it also has a serious side.  Laniado’s discussion boils down to something like a riddle: When is a burden not a burden?  The answer: when it is the burden of Torah.  The biblical Levites humbly assumed the burden of the Tabernacle and they, in turn, were elevated in stature and literally transported for doing so.  Their ancient work was represented in Laniado’s day, and may be emulated nowadays, by what Laniado calls הטורח בעמל התורה, “exertion in the toil of Torah.”  For those who dedicate their full vigor to learning and practice, the Torah is a burden that is not a burden; she is the Tree of Life that sustains them.

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

[i] Note the final placement of the second-born Kohathites, again out of birth order.

[ii] See 2:6 on Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:5; cf. Joshua 5:15): כל מקום שהשכינה נגלית אסור בנעילת הסנדל, “Wherever the Divine Presence appears it is forbidden to wear shoes.”

[iii] Jacob Zvi Meklenburg painstakingly explains that they actually walked “sideways” ().  For an elaborate discussion of walking backwards from the Presence, see on Exodus 32:15.  In principle (with exceptions), in synagogue one should not turn one’s back to the Torah scroll (Rambam, Laws of Tefillin etc. 10:10; Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De`ah 282:1).

[iv] Jerusalem, 5743 (1983), pp. 14-21.

[v] See Israel al-Nakawa (d. 1391), Menorat ha-Ma’or, ed. Enelow, part 3, p. 237.

Ruth, who was a Moabite, is often described as a model convert, on account of her declaration to her mother-in-law, Naomi, “where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God” (1:16). Indeed, Ruth is referenced as one of the first “converts” to Judaism, after Abraham and Sarah (well, before their “conversion,” Abram and Sarai). It is for this reason that we in the Library of 91�첥 feature Ruth prominently in our current exhibition, “Your People Shall Be My People: Conversion to Judaism through the Centuries,” even naming the exhibition after Ruth’s declaration to Naomi. We chose to create an exhibition about conversion to Judaism at this time because in the modern age, many people have made that choice. In an age of fluid identities, when conscious choice becomes crucial, more people than ever (and there were such converts in the past, even despite laws that forbade such transitions) have chosen to affiliate with the Jewish path. But what do Ruth and what she represents have to do with Shavuot?

Shavuot—biblically a holiday marking the first harvest—came to be associated with the revelation of the law at Mt. Sinai. Indeed, it is described in our prayers as “the time of the giving of our Torah.” At Sinai, the people of Israel stood at the foot of the mountain, ready to accept the Law given to Moses as instruction for Israel for all generations. What kind of transition did the people undergo at Sinai? In what ways were the people different after that revelation than they were before?

In the view of the Talmudic rabbis, the people of Israel converted at Sinai. Since, for the rabbis, to be a Jew is to be a person of the Torah, before the revelation the children of Israel were not “Jews” (the term is anachronistic here). They only became “Jews” when, at Sinai, they did what converts to Judaism must do: they immersed (the Talmud imagines this), the men were circumcised (the Torah reports this explicitly), and they accepted the “yoke of the commandments,” that is, the Torah. Indeed, as the Talmud, in tractate Yebamot, makes clear (and there is a fine 16^th century volume showing this in the Library exhibition), the children of Israel serve, for the rabbis, as the models for later conversions. The rituals a convert must undertake are precisely those executed by the people at Sinai.

Now, it is true that Jewish tradition also identified others as models for conversion. The model offered by Abraham (and, we would say, Sarah) is well known, and as we can see in the names of converts written on ketubbot (Jewish marriage contracts) in the exhibition, all converts are ultimately the sons or daughters of Abraham. And, of course, Ruth was also seen as a model for conversion. But the association of Ruth and Shavuot subtly makes another point: that there is no conversion without standing at Sinai. Because Shavuot is about the revelation at Sinai, it is also, inescapably, about conversion. It is this of which the reading of Ruth also reminds us.

There is a well-known rabbinic teaching claiming that all Jews, of all generations, stood at Sinai. Hence, we are all converts. The term the rabbis adopted for “convert” was the biblical word “ger”—“resident alien” or “stranger.” The Torah commands that we not oppress the ger, because we too were gerim in the land of Egypt. Whether converts or strangers, we have been both, and thanks to what we have learned from our experiences, we are obligated to welcome and protect the strangers and newcomers among us, for we are they. On this Shavuot, when we all stand again at Sinai, let us rededicate ourselves to this value, for ours is a world where it is often neglected.

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

“The Land” is a central character in Leviticus, receiving 23 mentions in the final two chapters, and 70 altogether in the second half of this central book of Torah. We think often of Leviticus as centered on the Sanctuary, and that it is, but the Land itself is a living character, offering blessings and curses to the people of Israel. If the people live faithfully, then the Land will receive blessed rains, produce its bounty, and provide security and satiety. But if the people act as if their title to the Land is absolute, if they fail to allow the Land to rest on the sabbatical year and recognize God’s ultimate title, then they will be forced into exile.

As Jacob Milgrom notes, the previous priestly account of pollution of the Land—the flood narrative of —requires ablution, the washing away of sin with water. (Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27, 2336)That solution is unavailable now for two reasons. First, God promised never to flood the earth again. Second, the sin that occupies Leviticus is not really one of pollution but of over-extraction of natural resources. The people have ignored God’s command to observe the sabbatical year; the only resolution is for the people to be pushed off the land so that it can rest and recover. Hence, the dreaded punishment of exile.

Toward the end of the devastating reproach section of our portion, the Torah predicts a future reconciliation when the exiles will humble their hearts, and their sin will be atoned. “Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the Land” (). This verse has several unusual features. It reverses the order of the patriarchs; it records Jacob’s name “full” with an extra letter (יעקוב, rather the Bible’s usual יעקב); and it leaves out “remember” for the middle man, Isaac.

Each element is interesting, but let us focus on the finale of the verse, where the Land itself becomes something like a fourth patriarch. God announces, “I will remember the Land,” making it not only the destination of return but also the very foundation of the covenant. As Midrash Sifra observes, “the Covenant is linked to the Land” (Behukkotai 2:8). Thinking back to , we recall that the covenant that God establishes with Abraham is all about the Land: “Then I will give to you and your descendants after you the land where you have dwelt, the Land of Canaan as an eternal possession, and I will be your God”(). The Land is not only a place to live, but an intermediary through which to encounter God.

Elsewhere in the Bible, the Land of Israel stands as a symbol of the virtue or lack of virtue of Israel. In a time of physical exile, Jeremiah imagines the Land itself lamenting its abandonment and asking why. Let the wise come and explain, “Why is the Land in ruins, laid waste like a wilderness, with none passing through it?” (). A land that is abandoned, in ruins, is evocative of the absent human life that once flourished there. Isaiah depicts the Land pining for its people and rejoicing upon their return ().

The Rabbis imagine the Land of Israel to be something like a tough nanny. On the one hand, she is a disciplinarian, noticing the failure of the people to observe her commandments such as the neglected sabbatical, and calling these failures to God’s attention. On the other hand, she is their caregiver. In Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says that it is like a king who has three sons and a nurse for them. If he wants to know about his sons, he inquires about the nurse. So too does God care about the children—that is, Israel—but inquires only about the Land (Behukkotai 36).

This Midrash views the Land as an instrument of reward and punishment, but perhaps the truth is deeper still. The Land is more like a teacher or a parent, socializing its students to express gratitude, self-control, and respect for others. Like an anxious child who grabs more food than they really need, the people of Israel are inclined to ignore the Sabbatical. This undermines awareness of divine title and cedes self-control, so that fear guides their way, all the way into exile.

German-Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas argued that pre-modern ethics was limited to a range of proximate concern—it was always assumed that earth would rebound from any damage that we could cause. Therefore, responsibility was only for direct damage, not for the cumulative harm caused over the course of generations. (The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, 5) That indeed seems to be the understanding in Leviticus: After a few years of exile, the neglected sabbaticals will be made up, and the people will be welcome to return. Our fear is that this is no longer true. Our destructive powers have grown too great, and the land may not recover from the harm that we cause.

Enjoyment of the land requires us to tread lightly on it. A walk in the park, a hike in the hills, a dip in the ocean—these simple pleasures restore our relationship to the land, reminding us that we are not its owners, but rather its temporary inhabitants. More than this is required—real reductions in carbon emissions and the willingness to let the land rest. As with the ancient neglect of sabbaticals, our contemporary abuse of our home is having direct and dangerous consequences. Reading this portion alerts us to that danger and motivates us to make the changes required to live in health and joy on all the good land that God has given.

This commentary was published originally 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).

Like much of Leviticus, Parashat Emor opens with yet more of these rules. But now the Torah needs to acknowledge that even when everything is in the right place, there is still death. What’s a priest to do when tragedy strikes? “Speak [Emor] to the priests, the sons of Aaron,” God tells Moses, “and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him” (Lev. 21:1). In order to stay pure, priests are limited in terms of when they can come near a dead body; even though they may mourn the death of another, the Torah says that they can only be near the corpse of a close relative. After a few terse verses about mourning practices, the Torah enumerates further rules that are meant to keep the priests and High Priest pure, with the upshot being that a priest is “holy to their God” (21:7).

As anyone following along in Leviticus until now knows—the priests are special. And in a ritual system in which impurity abounds and priests must remain on call to serve God, it is unsurprising to see the Torah set extra strictures to keep them pure. But what do we make of such passages today? While many of the practices listed at the opening of this week’s parashah are still observed by Jews who maintain priestly lineage, they can feel remote to the rest of us—rules for a religious elite in a Temple-era world that no longer exists.

R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801–1854), the founder of the Izhbitza-Radzyn line of Hasidic rabbis, read this passage in a way that allows it to speak not only to the priests, but to anyone. In his book the, “the Izbicer” reads this passage allegorically. First, the word “priest” can be understood—based on —not merely as a descendant of Aaron, but as anyone “who seeks to serve God,” an Oved Hashem.

Having made this first move, the Izbicer then reads the passage at the start of this week’s parashah as speaking not just about the specifics of corpse impurities, but about the challenges that face a religious person when they encounter death or other tragedies. “A person like this,” the Izbicer says of the Oved Hashem, “can become angry with God’s actions.” By contrast, someone who “thinks the world operates by chance” cannot be truly angry with God, “because they can say,” when dealing with a tragedy, that “it’s just happenstance.”

The Mei ha-Shiloach explains that this capacity for anger—for frustration with the way things are—is not a failure of faith but is actually an expression of faith. This is a striking inversion of how religious anger is often perceived. We tend to think of protest as a sign of weakened faith. The Izbicer suggests the opposite: that the person who cannot be angry with God has simply stopped believing that God is responsible for anything.

The frustration of the Oved Hashem comes from a place of care. To challenge the order of things is to believe not only that they can be different but that they should be, because ultimately there is an overarching ethics according to which the world should operate, that even God should be held to. Only someone who takes God seriously, who believes the world is ordered with intention and purpose, can be genuinely outraged when that order seems to fail. Indifference is the luxury of those who expect nothing.

As an educator teaching in a world full of ever more injustices, my greatest fear is not that my students will be upset with the order of things, but that they will stop caring at all. True faith carries with it the burden of expectation, and with expectation comes the possibility of disappointment. The Izbicer reminds us that we should hold on to that disappointment. Our disappointment—our own and that of our students—should inspire us to do good: to remain invested enough in the world to be troubled by it, and to fight and strive for something better.

Leviticus imagines a perfectly ordered world—one in which everything is in its right place. The Izbicer would say that the person of faith has internalized that vision. They know what the world should look like, and so when it doesn’t, they cannot simply shrug. To be frustrated with the world as it is, is to believe in the world as it ought to be.