Torah Thoughts on Tetzaveh

               This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh (Ex. 27:20 – 30:10) begins with the description of the ner tamid, the perpetual, or regular, light that burned in the Mishkan, the tabernacle in the wilderness. In the Torah’s instruction, the light is to burn “from evening to morning” (Ex. 27:21). In modern day synagogues, the ner tamid is an eternal light and it is kept burning all the time.  

                In his reflection on this passage in the Etz Chaim Torah Commentary, Rabbi Harold Kushner muses upon the frequent use of fire as a symbol for God. He writes, “…fire is not an object.  It is the process of liberating the energy hidden in a log or wood or a lump of coal, even as God becomes real in our lives in the process of liberating the potential energy in each of us to be good, generous and self-controlled”.  Kushner does not dwell upon what fire does when it is out of control. When controlled, fire can provide light and warmth.  When fire exceeds the boundaries of safety, it destroys and it kills.  

                We watch the nightly news with horror as the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria beheads foreign journalists, abducts Syrian Christians from their homes and kills them, and destroys irreplaceable ancient Mesopotamian statues.  These murderers claim to represent Islam in its purest form.  Rather, they are what happens when we allow the holy fire that God placed within us to burn unchecked.

Torah Thoughts on Terumah

This week’s Torah portion, Terumah (Ex. 25:1 – 27:19), begins the instructions God gives Moses for building the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the first sacred space that the Israelites will have to worship God.  “And let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst” (Ex. 25:8).

In March of 2006, I was privileged to lead a group of college students to the Gulf Coast to rebuild houses destroyed by hurricane Katrina.  One afternoon, we went to New Orleans and visited Temple Beth Israel, the only synagogue completely ruined by the hurricane.  As we approached the building, I noticed, above the waterlines, that same verse in Hebrew.  We entered the building.  One of the students was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and he was very embarrassed, saying over and over, “If I had known we were going to a synagogue, I would have dressed appropriately.”  It was almost laughable.  The only really appropriate dress for that building was a HAZMAT suit.  It was a wreck.  Black mold covered the religious school posters.  All of its Torahs and sacred books had been taken away and were awaiting burial – seven Torah scrolls and over 3,000 volumes.  Velvet Torah mantles and prayer shawls, faded and streaked and matted with dirt, had been hung out to dry on the sanctuary’s railings.  We met with the president of the synagogue and two other members.  One of them had to wear a safety mask, because he had spent so much time cleaning the building during the previous six months that he had breathing problems from the mold.  And yet, the student who felt underdressed had sensed the holiness in that place, so palpable that there was no doubt in any of our minds that God still dwelt there, even though the accommodations weren’t ideal. 

The Israelites in this Torah portion are about to learn about sacred space.  God wants us to set aside a holy place to come to meet God.  And as the words of Exodus suggest, if we do create such a sanctuary, God has promised to be there.

Torah Thoughts on Mishpatim

This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (Ex. 21:1-24:18) follows directly after the children of Israel retreat from the voice of God and ask Moses to get the rest of the Law for them.  God gives Moses the laws of a just society.  God sets forth laws of property and damages, lending, penalties for crimes and strict prohibitions against idolatry.  Moses tells the commands to the people, they respond with a resounding, “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do!” and Moses writes them down as the Book of the Covenant.  Animal sacrifices are made to God, and Moses reads the laws that he has written down.   This time, the people respond, “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will hear”.  

Do the people have the words backwards?  Would it not make more sense to say, “we will hear and we will do”?  Most of the classic commentators understand it as eagerness; we will do what God has commanded, and if God has more to command, we will hear that, too!  Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, however, brings a spiritual light on the phrase, saying,

“’We shall do” refers to the revealed—that is to the commandments that one can fulfill, on one’s own level.  ‘We shall hear’ refers to the hidden==that is, to things that one cannot grasp.  For around each commandment, there are other things, which belong to the class of the hidden.  The commandment itself one can fulfill; but the spiritual work that surrounds the commandment is largely unknown, hidden.  This too is the relation between Torah and prayer: the Torah can be known and fulfilled; while prayer is generated in that area that surrounds each commandment, which is enigmatic.  For hearing is a function of the heart, as in Solomon’s prayer: “Give your servant a hearing heart”.  And the heart expresses itself to God in prayer.

May we fulfill God’s revealed commandments, and may we come to know the hiddenness that surrounds them.  Shabbat Shalom.

Torah Thoughts on Yitro

This week’s Torah portion, Yitro, (Ex. 18:1 – 20:23) begins when Yitro, the father-in-law of Moses, brings Moses’ wife and sons to him at Sinai and continues with the preparations for the encounter between God and the Israelite people and that sacred encounter itself, the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.

The people Israel have seen God’s might in the plagues brought upon the Egyptians and in the splitting of the sea, but they are now about to experience God’s presence directly.  As the time approached, the mountain became covered in smoke, because God, says the Torah, descended in fire.  There is a display of thunder and lightning and the loud and prolonged sound of the shofar.   Upon God’s instruction, Moses warns the people against ascending the mountain or even touching it lest they die.  God makes sure that Moses takes precautions that, in their desire to be close to God, they do not endanger themselves.

But yet, after hearing God’s voice, they have had more than enough.  Some say that they heard God speak only the first two commandments, before they begged Moses to speak the rest.  Some say that God only got as far as the aleph, the first letter of “Anochi”, “I” before they could stand no more. “And all the people saw the voices and the torches and the sound of the shofar and the mountain smoking and when they saw it they stood at a distance” (Ex. 20:15) No more are they crowding at the foot of the mountain; they have literally been taken aback.  Many commentators have also pointed out the odd use of the verb “to see” to describe the experience of voices and the sound of the shofar.  Perhaps the experience at Sinai exceeded and crossed over the boundaries of the human senses. 

Today, humans still long for an encounter with God.  Perhaps the way the Torah describes God’s descent upon Mount Sinai is an appropriate metaphor, “Mount Sinai was altogether in smoke because the Eternal went down upon it in fire”.  Fire is life-giving and warming but it can also destroy that which comes too close.  When we set out to encounter God, we need to set a safe distance.