Chukkat
Shabbat shalom everyone. I will be in Vancouver over the weekend officiating at the wedding of Ben Rolph, son of Wendy and Glenn Rolph Ben will be marrying his beloved Anna Klenin. We wish them and their families mazal tov.
Chukkat, our Torah reading for this week, is one of the strangest sections in Torah. With shades of magical realism we encounter the פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה the parah aduma, the Red Heifer, and the נְחַשׁ נְחשֶׁת, the Copper Serpent coiled around the staff of Moses. It is always interesting to ponder both the original intentions (speculation) of these origin stories, and consider how they carry meaning forward from nascent Biblical Judaism through Temple/Israel Judaism through Exile and Rabbinic Judaism to our own Modern era. We have had many phases as a people and as a religious tradition. As we read these origin stories year after year, we hope to glean from their primal telling, a glint of application into our lives today.
The Red Heifer was a cow brought to the Kohanim, the priests, to be a sacrifice; its ashes were then used for the ritual purification of Tum’at HaMet (the impurity of the dead), to purify any Israelite who had come into contact with a corpse. The Heifer had to be perfectly red – every hair on its body red as the ground, adamah, as the first human, adam. This purity, of course, proved to be elusive, even death continued to be a source of tumah, of ritual impurity. We thus evolved other rituals involving the elements of water and earth to achieve states of ritual purity.
Similarly, the copper serpent that we read about later in Chukkat, incorporates in the Hebrew, an alliterative bonding, (נְחַשׁ נְחשֶׁת), even as the serpent is coiled around the staff. The Israelites were threatened by plague of serpents in the wilderness, after complaining yet again about their conditions in the Wilderness. Many died, and their only safety was for them to look at the copper serpent, in a homeopathic like-to-likeness cure.
These readings remind us in many ways that the wisdom of our Torah is literally grounded in connection of people and Land. Ritual purity and impurity calls to mind the theories of Mary Douglas, and her writings about cultures and dirt. In her book Purity and Danger, Douglas attempted to explain the cultural nature of taboos around what was considered unclean – or polluted (dirt). If death is a source of ritual impurity then there must be a cultural response, a mechanism for regaining ritual purity.
When the people Israel were confronted with death from the plague of serpents, they needed a mechanism of regaining control – and survival. By gazing into what was now a copper symbol of potential death, they lived.
Every day we awake and thank God for returning our soul. Sleep is understood to be like a mini-death, and to awaken is to live. And consider that whilst modern medicine has evolved over the centuries the symbol for medical doctors is this:
On July 19th our last Friday night service until September, Kolot Mayim will host a “Shabbat is in the Bag” dinner. Please RSVP, so we have a sense of how many members will join us for a traditional and fun Friday night dinner. We will begin at 6 pm, with Gary Cohen arriving for Kabbalat Shabbat at 7:30. The idea is for each family to bring their “dinner” in a container, as well as the utensils, plates, etc. you will need. When done, we will just pack up our bags to take home. No one needs to cook for 40 – and cleanup is easy. What could be better!! I will bring a surprise dessert! Looking forward to a Kolot Mayim Shabbat dinner with everyone.
It is so good to be home. My ordination weekend was spectacularly wonderful, emotionally moving and filled with moments I will remember to the end of my days. And I was so happy to be back at Kolot Mayim on Shabbat morning. We celebrated with Deena Kinarthy, and her family, Elior, Leah, and Ari, here in Victoria and beyond, and with Rowan Townshend and his parents and brother, Susan, Roger, and Isaac, from that other island – PEI. Then yesterday I was able to officiate at their wedding. I have celebrated a number of weddings by now, but this time was the first time as a Rabbi. Joy builds more joy.
Balak
July 16, 2019 by Lynn Greenhough • D'var Torah • Tags: balak •
Shabbat shalom
Hello everyone, thank you for coming to my Bat Mitzvah, especially to those who come from far away. I’m really excited to have everyone here. My parsha is Balak where we meet the original talking donkey, not the one from Shrek.
The Israelites are making their slow way to Moab. The Moabite King, Balak, feels that the Israelites are going to take over his land, that they might overwhelm and overpower Moab. The Moabites said, “Now the congregation (of Israel) will lick up our entire surroundings, as an ox licks up the greenery of the field.” In response, King Balak sent multiple messages to the wizard Balaam… to put a curse on the Israelites – but Balaam refused. He talked to God and God told him that, “You shall not go with them, you shall not curse the people for it is blessed.” Finally, Balaam agrees to go with the messengers, but he tells the messengers he will only speak the words that God puts in his mouth.
Balaam begins his journey while riding his donkey, who will soon be that talking donkey I mentioned earlier. God decided that He didn’t want Balaam to go to King Balak, so God sent an angel holding a sword to block their path. God only let the donkey see the angel, while Balaam only saw a clear pathway ahead. The donkey sensed danger, and it started to back up into a fence. Balaam started to strike his donkey. God then opened the donkey’s mouth and the donkey asked Balaam, “Why are you hitting me?” Balaam hit the donkey three times before he saw the angel holding a big sword. The angel spoke to Balaam, saying that Balaam should be grateful to his donkey because if he had gone any further the angel would have killed Balaam and let the donkey go.
What could possibly be the message that comes from this story of a talking donkey and a wizard? I think Balaam should have trusted his loyal donkey. But he didn’t – it is almost like Balaam was wearing donkey-blinders. Balaam finally saw the angel after he had beaten his donkey three times. The angel of God didn’t kill Balaam, and again Balaam said he could only speak the words that God put in his mouth. God through the angel gave Balaam a second chance, and Balaam finally recognized the donkey was seeing something he couldn’t. I think if someone has been truthful and loyal in the past, don’t lash out on them because of a misunderstanding. Maybe we find out later that we were at fault, that our eyes were closed to the truth. We are all humans. Or donkeys.
Maybe this section of Torah is trying to teach us to trust, just like Balaam should have trusted his donkey. Sometimes we may misunderstand what our friends are doing. It is important that we put ourselves in their shoes, to understand their actions. If this person has helped you, or been there for you or done anything else that has earned your friendship then they still deserve our respect depending on the mistake. Often times, their actions were to help you just like the donkey was helping Balaam.
Three years ago when we moved here from Toronto, we lost a couple of boxes in the moving process. One of the things that we lost were two very special challah covers. They were made by my great Bubbie – she sewed and embroidered these challah covers – we believed we would never see these precious challah covers again. Last year before Passover, we were grocery shopping at Congregation Emanu-El, the Conservative synagogue downtown. Before we left we decided to look in the gift shop for anything to add to our collection of Passover tchotchkes. There was a small basket of challah covers, and we found one that looked very familiar. We decided to buy it. We thought it might be one of the Hallah covers that we lost in the move. We asked for photos of the families other challah covers and we found it was the exact same pattern and exact same colours. We came to the conclusion that the moving company had delivered the box to the wrong house – the
people had given the cloth to Congregation Emanu-El and two years later we were there to find it and buy it back.
So how does this story of the lost-and-found challah cover tie in with the story of Balaam and Balak and the people Israel? I believe that our stories are linked because I feel like our eyes were closed to the challah cover and then re-opened – for a reason. That reason was to appreciate the challah cover even more – after it found its way back to us. To me it symbolizes our destiny, or to use a Jewish word – bashert.
Most of my family has a similar challah cover made by my great Bubbe. It feels like each of us were supposed to have one, it is a distinctive family treasure and every Friday night I think of my great Bubbe and how special it is that we got it back. After Balaam’s eyes had been opened and he had understood the donkey’s actions, he must have appreciated the donkey much more for being protective and saving
his life. The challah cover didn’t save our lives but it did make us
appreciate it and its story after our eyes had been opened and we had found it.
In conclusion, we can relate the story of Balak and the talking donkey to our everyday lives in so many ways. It teaches us empathy and kindness, to never assume someone else’s position and to try to be understanding of someone else’s position and situations