Parshas Pekudei

Editorial note: having received complaints about ever-less-decipherable transliterations, I have decided to indulge my Ashkenazic roots. Hope it helps.

Those who follow the weekly parsha may have noticed that this week and last contain more than trace echoes of parshios past, specifically the detailed descriptions of the mishkan and the various accouterments of service. Why the extensive repetition, rather than a simple statement that everything was carried out as earlier commanded? I believe that one answer helps to resolve a long-standing difficulty I have had with the treatment of idolatry in traditional Jewish sources. On the surface, there seems to be a tendency toward creating a straw-man, a simplistic caricature of idolaters as if they literally worship the works of their hands. This is far from the theory behind any system of veneration of images that I am familiar with. Rather, idols serve as tools for worship, taking some less accessible divine and making it more immediate. One response is that the idolatry that we encounter is not full-blown biblical idolatry; that after Anshei Knesses haGedola (the men of the Great Assembly) slaughtered the urge for idolatry, the pagans developed more philosophical rationalizations for the traditions they inherited, but that feels like a cop-out. Rather, let us return to our doubled mishkan, and the aureous bovine that splits the first instance from the latter.

There are two main opinions regarding the purpose of the mishkan. First, it is an extension of Sinai, a point of interface between the Jewish nation and HaKadosh Barukh Hu and an enduring symbol of the entirety of the covenant. Second, it atones for the sin of the golden calf. I see these two ideas as different sides of the same concept. What motivated the Jews, fresh from the most impressive series of miracles since the flood if not before, culminating with the direct encounter with the divine mere weeks before, to turn aside in such a dramatic fashion? In truth, I do not think it is so very strange, if we take them to be the more philosophical sort of idolaters described above. When they stood at har Sinai and heard the unmediated word of God, they were overwhelmed and requested that Moshe play the role of mediator; at that time, Hashem approved of their desire for a physical intermediary in their service. If Moshe could no longer serve as that intermediary, should he not be replaced? The calf was not meant to draw worship from the Lord, but to enable worship of the Lord. Indeed, that is what the mishkan will be, a physical space and physical objects that are sanctified to serve as the focus and medium of avodas Hashem. That parallel is half the reason that the mishkan makes atonement for the sin, but clearly there must be difference as well as similarity, else no atonement would be needed.

This is where the double description of the mishkan and every item associated with it becomes essential. First it is commanded, and then it is carried out scrupulously, meticulously, in every detail. Again and again in this week's reading, the refrain is repeated, "kaasher tziva Hashem es Moshe" (as Hashem commanded Moshe). Just as will be reiterated when Nadav and Avihu meet their fate, and again when Korach and his followers stage their challenge to Moshe and Aharon, there is a fundamental difference between service that is commanded and service that is not, however superficially similar. What is that difference? Is God simply an obsessive control freak? Not at all. The difference has to do with the very essence of mediation and relationship. These things must be two sided. If we decide to serve God without reference to revelation, we deny God any role in our service. No longer mediating a mutual relationship, the worship becomes a pious veneer on self-expression. Having cut God out of the picture, we substitute a false "image" of God as the object of veneration (and make it an object indeed, not a co-subject at all). In this way, even the most sophisticated philosopher is indeed worshiping nothing but his own creation as long as he fails to allow God as much stake in the intermediary as he claims for himself. So, ultimately, the caricature of the pagan that so bothered me is vindicated, far more subtle than it first appeared. 

Of course, this has lessons for us also in our earthly relationships. In sefer Yechezkel (the book of Ezekiel), the careful and precise measurement of the Beis haMikdosh is juxtaposed with an exhortation to care and precision in our obligations towards our fellow people, scrupulosity and reciprocity the basis of connection in this case as well. Just as we cannot invent our own order of sacrifice and call ourselves pious, so we cannot invent our own schedule of payments for debts and call ourselves honest. Faithfulness, emuna, is as indispensable for the one as for the other. 

Gut Shabbos!

Pareshath Teruma

Warning: this post is highly speculative. That is, I make a bunch of stuff up based on chains of tenuous symbolic equivalences with, at best, tangential support from traditional sources. I do this without pretense to rigor. It will also range and drift rather widely and may end up the longest yet by far. That, at least, is justified: the mishkan is a microcosm of all creation. I have been in something of a fey mood lately.

I have heard it said that a good rabbi can use the paresha of the week to speak on any topic, and a bad rabbi will actually do so. Thus, I will talk about why women should learn gemara, why sex should not be in public, and why kos Miriam should not be added to the seder. And some other things related to that topic. After all, that is not what I set out to write, but that is what jumped out at me from this week's reading. Let me at least try to begin reasonably, before this goes off the rails.

As I read, I found one glaring difficulty impossible to ignore. I speak, of course, about the mizbeaḥ hazahabh, the golden alter for the incense. Now, some of you may think, "Eytan, you have surely skipped too many weeks and become confused. We are in pareshath Teruma, not Tetzawe. The mizbeaḥ hazahabh does not appear until next week." To which I respond, precisely! What is it doing way over there? Why not here, with the other kelei kodhesh (holy vessels)? Indeed, of the four primary keilim within the mishkan, if one were to be separated from the other three, I would have expected the outlier to be the aron (the ark), the one that is physically separated by a curtain and kept in the kodhesh hakedhoshim (the holy of holies), and the only one to have no particular 'abhodha (service). Surely, the other three make such a unit, it is hard to understand the interposition of the details of the mishkan itself, the mizbeaḥ haḥitzon (the outer alter, distinct in many ways from the other keilim), the bighdei kehuna (the priestly garments), not to mention the paresha break.

In response to this difficulty, I would like to jump to a pair of pesukim (verses) from the second paragraph of the shema' and drash them out in a way that I am completely unqualified to do. Consider Debharim 11:14-15 (Wenathati metar-artzekhem be'ito, yore umalkosh; weasaphta dheghanekha wetiroshekha weyitzharekha. Wenathati 'asebh besadhekha libhhemtekha; weakhalta wesabha'ta. And I shall give the rain of your land in its time, early and late; and you shall gather your grain, your wine, and your oil. And I shall give grass in the field to your animals; and you shall eat and be satisfied). Here we see a brief summary of God's promised blessing, conditional on whole-hearted upholding of our covenantal obligations. Given that Rav Hirsch reads Shemoth 25:8 (we'asu li mikdosh, weshakhanti bethokham; and they shall build for me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them), at the beginning of our paresha, as an indication that the mishkan and its kelei kodhesh symbolically represent the whole of those obligations and the blessings that follow, I have some reason to make the connection, although I depart from his interpretation of particulars. Allow that these two verses correspond to the kelei kodhesh. The second mentions consumption in a way that bothers some commentators, seeming slightly out of place. I will take that as a remez (hint) to the mizbaḥoth (the alters), the grass of the field to the ketoreth (incense, brought on the inner alter), and the animals to the korbanoth (sacrifices, brought on the outer alter). True, the menora also has an 'abhodha with a consuming fire, but there the consumption is not the ikar (the essential nature), rather the light produced is the ikar. As we see by the miracle of ḥanuka, when the fire is lit but does not consume the oil, that is a great fulfillment of the 'abhodha. The first verse, by contrast, mentions rain, which carries connotations of tephila (prayer) and shepha' (influence flowing from God to creation), and seems more appropriate to the other kelei kodhesh, the shulḥan (table), the aron, and the menora, corresponding to the grain, the wine (compared to Torah), and the oil. 

Now we have a set of three. Obviously, the natural thing to do is connect this with every other set of three things in the Torah. Most proximately, and taking two with one shot, there is a midrash that assigns the three primary miraculous supports by which God sustained the nation in the wilderness to the merit of the three siblings who led them. In the merit of Moshe, we received the mon (manna). In the merit of Miriam, we received the water from the rock. In the merit of Aharon, we received the 'ananei hakabhodh (clouds of glory). Mon, and thus Moshe, clearly and naturally corresponds to grain and the shulḥan. Oil generally represents glory, and the 'ananei hakabhodh also lit the way for the people, guiding and sheltering them in the midhbar; the menora is also particularly associated with Aharon in midrash Tanḥuma, as his special merit after the princes offer their sacrifices on behalf of the various tribes at the dedication of the mishkan. Further, the menora is ornamented with almond blossoms, and Aharon's election is confirmed through the flowering almond blossoms of his staff at the time of Koraḥ's rebbellion. Water and wine are two halves of the same symbol, representing joy, life, and Torah, and so the aron goes to Miriam. In particular, her miracle is water (Torah) flowing from a tzur (a hard, flinty rock). I believe that Sinai is often identified with tzur; certainly, when Moshe prays to see God between the first and second ascents, God says he may stand in a cleft in the tzur. For further evidence, why were the Jews brought out from Egypt? There are basically two classic answers. One, on the merit of the women. The other is sometimes phrased as the fulfillment of the covenant with the abhoth, but can also be said as, "in order that they might receive the Torah". Put them together, the Torah was only given on the merit of the women, and Miriam was the leader, teacher, and representative of the Israelite women at the time. 

However, all is not said and done. Miriam does not get the Torah all to herself. The Torah is not just water and wine. Surely, it is also our guiding light and crowning glory! Aharon and the menora also represent an aspect of Torah. Note that the symbolism connecting Aharon to the menora was extraordinarily clear, almost heavy-handed, whereas Miriam's identification with he aron relied on an odd double symbol of water and wine, and most of the direct involvement with the aron and with Torah goes through Moshe; that is part of the symbolic message. The menora rests in the outer portion of the mishkan and shines forth radiantly; the aron takes its treasure and keeps it under a cover and behind a veil. One easily accessible, outward oriented; the other hidden and inward. In tractate Sanhedrin, Rav Yirmiya teaches that the Talmud Yerushalmi is light, and the Talmud Bavli is darkness. The Bavli meanders between halakha and aggadeta, leaving questions open and raising doubts and difficulties. The Yerushalmi follows closer to the tradition of the mishna, in seeking to give clear rulings. The carrying poles of the aron are never to be removed, teaching that it always travels with us. When the aron was captured by the Pelishtim, they found that they could not keep it, and were forced to return it. The menora, on the other hand, was the great prize for both the Babylonians and the Romans, carted back as the chief of the spoils. Exile can strip us of the outward glory of Torah, cloud our easy understanding of its laws, but the inward portion is ours eternally. The hidden part requires struggle to access; the tzur must be struck, Yitzḥak must dig well after well against the contention of the Pelishtim (I may have neglected to mention: Abhraham-ḥesedh-Aharon-'ananei hakabhodh-oil-menora-etc; Yitzḥak-din-Miriam-well-wine-aron-etc; Ya'akobh-emeth-Moshe-mon-grain-shulḥan-etc. Clear, right? Fits birth order, traditional association of masculine with ḥesedh, feminine with din, gives ultimate primacy to balance and emeth. Every set of three is connected.) But it is through that toil in the hidden things that true intimacy is found. The aron is not just more inward, but in a place of greater holiness, for there the divine presence rests and meets humanity.

This point leads me to a reversal of my previous understanding of the relationship between ḥesedh/din and transcendence/immanence. I had thought that the relation to God as all powerful master and creator of the universe, the relation of yira, was naturally one of din. Similarly, I saw the relation to God as caring partner in covenant, the relation of ahabha, as naturally one of ḥesedh. I now think that there may be greater subtlety in the opposite formulation. For those who have read The Lonely Man of Faith (and for those who haven't, do so), Adam I represents the relation of yira and transcendence. Yet, in his awe, he is confident and conquering, seeking to understand and master creation to engage the creator in his works. Creation is the ultimate act of giving, and he is the beneficiary. Adam II represents the relation of ahabha and immanence. In his intimate relationship with God, he experiences fear and trembling. We rejoice on Rosh Hashana when the King dispenses judgment and are overcome on Yom Kippur when we are nearest heaven. This seems to me to be psychologically sound. Assuming in both cases that we trust in God's benevolence and wisdom, what is truly to be feared? Any punishment from a distant king is ultimately for our own benefit. But when we disappoint those we love, when we undermine that relationship, that is a prospect to induce paḥadh (terror, associated with Yitzḥak's relation to God). Relationship involves risk and vulnerability in a way that insignificance cannot.

This may be running a little longer than anyone wants to read. Feel free to figure out for yourselves pesaḥ-matza-marror, pesaḥ-shavu'oth-sukkoth, melekh-kohein-nabhi, 'abhodha zara-giluy 'arayoth-shephikhuth damim, etc etc. Also, note that couplets are often relevant to triplets of the form thesis-antithesis-synthesis, as above with Yerushalmi-Bavli and ahabha-yira, so consider ḥanuka-purim, written Torah-oral Torah, reason-revelation, and more! Everything is connected!

So, in conclusion, women should be disenfranchised, because masculine, visible, outward roles are the only ones that matter, but we make up nonsense about feminine, subtle, inward roles to keep them happy in their slavery.

Ḥodhesh Tobh! Shabbath Shalom uMebhorakh!