Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on December 30th 2021as we use an innocuous reference in Rabbinic Literature to Pharaoh’s personal hygiene to explore the unique disposition of Judaism to the physical body and bodily functions and contrast it to other religions and cultures.

With special guest appearances by Josephus Flavius, Karl Marx, Ernst Becker and the Rabbis of the Talmud

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/372485

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2021/12/30/holy-crap-2/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse as we discuss Judeo-Christian Magical Thinking….. Moses encounters a miraculous burning bush, receives a magical rod and learns an incantation of the name of God. But the Rabbis of the Talmud call Jesus a magician…. We explore the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic Judaism’s uniquely ambivalent attitude to the miraculous.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/371145

Transcript on Episode web site: https://madlik.com/2021/12/22/moses-reluctant-magician/

Parshat Vayechi - Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse December 16th 2021 as we recognize that Jacob introduced the handle #TwelveTribes. The book of Genesis ends, as does Deuteronomy with blessings over these iconic Twelve Tribes of Israel but the count is unclear. Joseph is at times counted as one tribe and at times subdivided. Shimon and Levi are likewise alternately diminished or removed. What are we to make of these inconsistencies and of Jacob’s desire to share the future? Join us as we discuss who’s in and who’s out and what it all means for us.

Special guest story - the rape of Dina or the tragic romance if Dinah and Shechem...

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/369304

Transcript on episode web site: https://madlik.com/2021/12/15/members-of-the-tribe/

Parshat Vayigash - A live recording of Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on December 9th 2021 as they ask: What if our Prince of Egypt, was not an ancient-day Paul Samuelson using science and economic theory to serve society? What if Joseph and his Pharaoh were the villains and the new Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” was an Egyptian patriot and liberator who saved the Egyptians from foreign exploitation? How would that change the message of the Exodus?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/367055

Transcript on episode web page here.

Parshat Miketz- Shabbat Hanukkah - Food Fights-Gastro Diplomacy. Ancient Egyptians wouldn’t break bread with Hebrews and were known to have rigorous dietary restrictions..... How does this play out in the Exodus narrative and what does it mean for us? Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for a live recording on Clubhouse December 2nd, 2021 for the first Madlik lunch & learn as we discuss the social power of food.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/365771

Transcript on Episode website: https://madlik.com/2021/11/30/food-fights-and-gastro-diplomacy/

Parshat Vayeshev - Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and friends. Recorded on Clubhouse on November 25th as they explore how the story of Joseph and the patriarchal origins of the Exile to Egypt is interrupted by the story of Tamar and the matriarchal origins of redemption through the Davidic bloodline. They wonder whether we might re-read Genesis as Her Story?

With special “guest” appearances from Jonathan Kirsch (author of The Harlot by The Side of the Road) and Harold Bloom (the author of The Book of J).

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/365002

Transcript on podcast website here: https://madlik.com/2021/11/24/genesis-as-her-story/

parshat Vayishlach (genesis 32) Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded live on Clubhouse on November 18th 2021 as they discuss arguing with God in the Bible and later Rabbinic texts and Jewish Literature. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel which we are told means to struggle with Man and God. How do we live up to this name?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/363352

Transcript on episode web page here

Parshat Vayetzei - The Rabbis learn from the multiple use of the word MAKOM - Place in the story of Jacob's Ladder, that God is the Place of the World, but the World is not His Place. What can we learn from the Rabbis?

Special "Guests" Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza and the Kotzker Rebbe

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/360797

Transcript on Podcast Website: https://madlik.com/2021/11/10/hamakom-place-no-place/

Recorded live on Clubhouse on November 4th from Tzofar in the Arava of the Negev Desert in Israel with Rabbi Adam Mintz in New York, we explore Yaakov's name and career path and struggle with his twice stolen blessing. We ask how parents could give a child a name such as "heel-sneak" or "heal grabber' and how Israel could emerge from such crooked timber?

Special "guests" include Shmuel Yoseph Agnon and Isaiah Berlin

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/358410

Transcript on Episode Website here.

Parshat Chayei Sarah - Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on October 28th 2021 as they explore the Bible’s euphemism for death: “and he was gathered unto his people” as an opportunity to question our assumptions regarding the biblical view of the afterlife … with much appreciation to Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/357282

For a full transcript of the podcast go to the podcast web site here: https://madlik.com/2021/10/27/life-is-with-people-and-so-is-death/

A live recording of Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse with Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we ask: Was it the Binding of Isaac or the Sacrifice of Isaac and what difference does it make?

We use the seminal story of the miraculous birth of Isaac and the hints at the Sacrifice and Resurrection of Isaac in the biblical and later Rabbinic texts to explore the meaning of these themes in Judaism and Christianity. 

Other "guests" include, Søren Kierkegaard, Jon D Levenson, Daniel Boyarin, Shalom Spiegel, Seth Daniel Kunin and some surprising Rabbinic Midrashic texts.

Sefaria Source Sheet:  www.sefaria.org/sheets/356011

Transcript of the episode webpage here: https://madlik.com/2021/10/21/the-miraculous-birth-and-resurrection-of-isaac/

Recorded live on Clubhouse on Friday October 15th 2021 Parshat Lech Lecha - Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Rabbi Abraham Bronstein explore various ways of viewing Abraham's epic journey and how it reflects our own.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/354270

Transcript (excerpt):

You know, I could make the argument that Abraham was the first atheist. And what I mean to say is, if you look at Abraham from the perspective of Terach, or if you follow the story of Nimrod, who puts him into a fiery furnace? Here is a guy who's saying that everything the world believe was a God does not exist. He says, No, the sun has no power, the stars have no power, this Totem, this animal, it has no power. And and what he was claiming, was, in fact, of a power and of course, this is all a projection of the Midrash, or of Maimonides or of the Zohar was this hidden this unseen, untouchable thing from the perspective of the landed powers that be he was denying God, he was denying all that they believed in and from that perspective it leads all the way to Spinoza, who was excommunicated by saying God is no way but God is everywhere. Maybe he was the first secularist.

Avraham Bronstein  20:13

You remind me of Peter Brown. So Peter Brown, the great historian of the Roman Empire, and one of his books about religion in the ancient Roman Empire, or the classical world, talks about how the Judeans, the original Jews were seen as atheists by the more polytheist, pre Christian Roman Empire at the time, because they couldn't comprehend how Jews maintain the belief not in their God, but in a god. It didn't make any sense to them.

Geoffrey Stern  20:44

Fantastic. Yochanan welcome to the bima

Yochanan  20:48

Thanks, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. By the way, Rabbi Maza, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, 400 years ago, he says what you just said. So he says that Abraham was a kultur b'kalim . He was like, like you said, he was the first secularist or atheists to to deny all the deities, all the old the religions of the environment.

For full Transcript: https://madlik.com/2021/10/14/abrahams-epic-journey-and-our-own/

Parshat Noach - Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Pastor Dumisani Washington of IBSI - Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel and Christians United For Israel for a live recording of a discussion on Clubhouse Friday October 8th with the Pastor regarding his book Zionism and the Black Church: Why Standing with Israel Will Be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century. We follow a less traveled path down Noah’s family tree. We discover the Biblical Mission of Africa and the bond between the Children of Shem and the Children of Ham.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/352058 

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

[To Reverend Dumisani Washington] Thank you so much for being with us. On on our clubhouse when you come up to the platform, we say first of all that you're coming up to the bimah [the podium or platform in a synagogue from which the Torah and Prophets are read from]. And then second of all, when we make you a presenter, we give you smicha... So that means that you are ordinated. So instead of Reverend, we'll call you Reb. Is that okay?

Dumisani Washington  00:20

That sounds good to me. Sounds good, no problem.

Geoffrey Stern  00:23

So anyway, welcome to Madlik. Madlik is every week at four o'clock, and we do record it and post it as a podcast on Sunday. And if you listen to it, and you'd like what you hear, feel free to share it and give us a few stars. And what we do is disruptive Torah. And what we mean by disruptive Torah is we look at the ancient text of the Torah, with maybe a new lens, or to see a new angle. And today, I'm delighted to say that we're not only looking at it through a new lens, but we're looking at it through another lens, a lens of a pastor, of a man of God, who we will learn about his mission. I heard about it on clubhouse one evening, I was scrolling, and I stumbled upon you Reverend, and you're on a mission and you see Judaism and you see Zionism from a whole new perspective. So I want to thank you for coming on. And I want to say that, as I told you, in my email that I sent you that you know, every week about Saturday on Shabbat, on Sunday, I start thinking about what I'm going to pick as a subject matter for the coming Madlik session. And I purchased your book maybe two months ago, and it was sitting by the side of my bed, and for some reason, and of course, I'm sure there are no coincidences in this world. I picked it up this Shabbat. And it starts with our portion of Noah, it starts by talking about the line less traveled by us Jews of Shem's son Ham. And I should say that nothing is written for no reason in the Bible. And when it gives you a genealogy, it's because of what comes in the future. And many of us Jews will look at the genealogy in Genesis 10. And focus on Shem... with Semites. And that's where the name comes from. And we go down that path, and your book starts. And of course, I should say that your book is called "Zionism and the Black Church, Why Standing with Israel will be a Defining issue for Christians of color in the 21st Century". And it begins by traveling down this path less taken, of Ham. Welcome to Madlik.  But if you could begin by touching upon our portion of the week, no off and and and discussing what you see in it, and maybe your mission.

Dumisani Washington  03:06

Absolutely. And thank you, again, Rabbi for having me on. Yes, there are six chapters in "Zionism in the Black Church". And the first chapter is entitled The African Biblical Tie to Israel. And so we as I say, in the book started the beginning, right, we start at the beginning of the Scriptures, and so as you know, between the two portions of "Bereshi"  I believe whether the towards the end is when Noah was first introduced, but of course in "Noach" there's the explanation of the nations where all the nations of the earth come from, from Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Jafet. And so we recognize that in the Scriptures, it is said that Ham has four sons. And there's a couple of unique things as you know, you read the book, that the scriptures that in the law of Moses deals, Psalms and some of the prophets, there's a term that's given several times in the scripture about Ham's descendants harms the sentence differently, then either Jafet or Shem.  The land of Ham is actually something that's in the scriptures. And I don't know what that Hebrew word is ... "Aretz Ham" ... I never looked at that part of it, Rabbi but it talks about that, which is really interesting because there's not, to my knowledge, and I've kind of looked at for a little while, a similar rendering like the Land of Japhet or Land of Shem. Right? We're obviously the genealogy is there, right? But there's not the same thing that deals with the land and the peoples .... interesting and we've come to know that of the four sides of Hem, which are in order Kush, which you know, is where obviously the Hebrew for later on Ethiopia I believe is a Greek word, but from that region Mitzrayim, which is Egypt. Fut or Put which is Libya, and then Canaan, which is Canaan, right? So those four sons who come from him. But interestingly in the scriptures when it says land of Ham, it almost exclusively refers to Egypt and Ethiopia, what we would call today, Africa, right? This region. And again, you're talking about an antiquity these regions were much broader in size. And they are today if you look at the map today, you see Egypt as a small state and go down to the south, west, south east, and you'll see Ethiopia then you see Yemen, you see Kenya, well, obviously all those states weren't there that happened much later in modernity is particularly after the colonial period where those nations were carved up by a few states in Europe, and they were given certain names everything right, but these were regions in the Bible. And so Kush, the land of Kush, and the land of Mitzrayim, they're actually dealt with many, many times. Right? After the words obviously "Israel" and "Jerusalem". You have the word Ethiopia, I believe one of the Ethiopian scholar says some 54 times or something like that the word Ethiopia actually comes up in the Bible, obviously not as many times as Israel or Jerusalem but more than virtually any other nation other than Egypt. Right? So Egypt obviously that we know too. Africa plays a huge role in Israel's story right? The 430 years in slavery is in Africa, right? The Torah was received at Sinai: Africa. All these things happen in Africa. At some point God tells Jeremiah during the time of the impending doom, the exile that will happen at the hand of of Nebuchadnezzar and God says to to the Israelites to the Judeans, and "don't run down into Egypt, Egypt won't be able to save you." Why does he say that? Well, because historically the Israelites would go to Egypt when it until it got safer, right? For those Christians who may be on the call, you'll know that in the New Testament, Jesus, his parents take him down into Egypt because Herod's gonna kill him. Right? So there's this ongoing relationship between Ham and Shem, that's very intertwined. Moses, his wife, or his second wife, depending on how you interpret it....  Some of the sages. She's Ethiopian, right? She's kushite. So you have this interchangeable thing all the time, throughout the scriptures, but actually starts with the genealogy. And I'll say just one last thing, rabbis ..... we're opening up. This is also unfortunately, as I mentioned, the book as you know, the misnomer of the quote unquote, "Curse of Ham", as we know in the text, Ham is never cursed for what happens with Noah it is Canaan that is cursed. And he actually says, a curse that Canaan become a servant of servants shall he be, even though it was Ham who however you interpreted.... I've heard many different interpretations of "uncovered the nakedness he saw his father, naked," but somehow, for whatever reason, Noah cursed Canaan, not Ham.  Who is Canaan...  is one of him so's, his fourth son, as we know those who are listening, you may know that it is The Curse of Ham, quote, unquote, that has been used sadly, unfortunately, among many other things as a justification of the slavery of Africans. Right? That somehow, Africans are quote, unquote, "Cursed of Ham", therefore, the transatlantic slave trade, the trans Saharan slave trade, those things are somehow...  God prescribed these things in the Bible, the curse was making him black. That's why he's like all those things that are nowhere in the text whatsoever, right? skin color is not in the text. slavery as a descendant of Ham. None of those things are in the text. What's in the text? Is that Canaan is cursed for that? And so we start there, Rabbi, and from there trying to walk out this whole Israel Africa thing.

Adam Mintz  08:47

First of all WOW... thank you so much. I just want to clarify in terms of color, I think that's a very interesting thing. It's very possible that in the biblical period, everybody was dark.

Dumisani Washington  09:00

Yes, sir. I mentioned that in the book as well. But yes, sir. Yes, yeah. All right. Sorry,

Adam Mintz  09:04

I didn't see that in your book. But that's important, you know, because a lot of people are caught up in this color thing. Did you know that there's a distinction, we don't know it for sure but it makes sense that everybody was dark in those periods. So that the difference in color was not significant. So when, when Moses marries goes to Ethiopia, maybe is king of Ethiopia, and marries an Ethiopian. And the idea is that he marries a foreigner. The fact that she's darker may or may not have been true.

Dumisani Washington  09:39

Yes, absolutely. No, thank you Rabbi. And I do touch on that, as well. We say in the terms in this modern term, even in my book, I use the term Christians of color and I don't usually use those terms just in when I'm speaking. I did it that way in the title so that it would be presented in a way that is going to deal with some provocative things but hopefully the people that they read it they'll see what I mean by that and if you're talking about the Israelite people, the Hebrew people they are what I call an afro Asiatic people. Israel is still at that at the point of where those two continents meet right Southwest Asia northeast Africa is landlocked with Egypt I tell people God opened up the Red Sea because he wanted to right ... He's big and bad and he can do what he wants to do but you can literally; I wouldn't recommend it obviously, but you could literally walk from Egypt to Israel and you always have been able to for 1000s of years that has always been the case and so you have a people that in terms of skin tone or whatever... Yes, absolutely, they would be what we would call today quote unquote people of color right and so unfortunately particularly in our country we all know race and colorism is such a huge topic and it's often so divisive and it's used in so many different ways and we know much of that goes back to whether slavery, Jim Crow, people being assigned work obviously based on how dark or light they are all of those things but the problem as you all know is that those things aren't in the Bible right? There's no God likes this person doesn't like this person, this person's dark this person's like, that type of thing. But again, that's what men do, we are fallen creatures, we read what we want to read into the text, and then we use it unfortunately, in a way that's not helpful. Let me just say and pause here, I can tell you that as a Christian pastor, over the years of my just delving into what we often call the Jewish roots of our faith, by studying Torah with rabbis and with other Jewish scholars, my faith has been more important to me than ever in that it helps me understand even more so right, what is the Hebrew in this word here? What do the sages say about that, that's been a fascinating journey for me, over the last 30 some odd years since I've been doing this particular work.

Geoffrey Stern  11:58

So I just want to jump in, you said so many things. But there is in this verse that we are reading today, the word "ashkenaz", he was one of the children of of Shem, and you quote, an Ethiopian Rabbi named Ephraim Isaac, and this is a sample of some of the humor in your book or the sense of discovery. And somebody said to him, You don't look Jewish. And he said:, "Ethiopia is mentioned the Bible over 50 times, but Poland not once." And I feel like that was, that was a great line. And what it really talks to is our preconceptions, and your book, and your vision, and your mission breaks preconceptions of what it is to be a Jew, what the mission of a Jew is, but most importantly, what the relationship is between the Jewish people and the African people. And one of the things that you touched upon was the sense of Mitzraim and Kush , and in your book, you really talk about how many times they're interchangeable, because really, it is the same area and those of us who think about Mitzrayim, or Egypt, we focus on the Exodus story, we focus on the pharaoh story. But as you mentioned, the prophets later on, we're having to talk to the Jews about not going back, because ultimately, the experience in Egypt was always favorable, it was our neighbor, and it was our place of refuge. Abraham goes down there with Sarah twice, Jacob sends his kids down there during a time of famine. The relationship and the reference to a Ham and to Mitzrayim  and to Kush is a very positive one. And yes, it does say in our week's parsha of all of the children, it says, "b'artzetam v'goyehem" , that they have a special language, and they have a family and they have a land. So the fact that we are neighbors is so important in the biblical context. So I said if we were going to walk down this wonderful path, and I would love for a second to talk about your mission about reuniting our two peoples and some of the challenges that you have. Clearly you don't speak to groups like us very much, although I think that I'm going to have an opportunity later to say that I think you should, because there's so much that we can learn. But what is your mission? How did you discover it? And what are your challenges?

Dumisani Washington  14:40

Well, I'll do it concise, just because I don't want to take up too much time to firstly touch as much as we can. I am the founder and CEO of an organization called The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. I started it in 2013 but for about nearly seven years, I was not as active I started it. I did a lot of touring and a lot of speaking throughout the United States, churches, sometimes synagogues as well. And with this mission, it was a mission that was really placed in my heart. Actually in 2012, my first trip to Israel, I went as a guest of Christians United for Israel, I would come later on to join the staff with CUFA. But I was a guest pastor, I knew some friends who were part of the organization. And the short version of that story was my first tip ever, I'm in Israel, I'm at the Western Wall of the kotel. And I have a very intense experience in which I feel although Africa and Israel were passions of mine already, but the fusing of those two things together and a real work in which we continue to strengthen the alliance between Israel and Africa. And then obviously, in the States in the black and Jewish community. And there and finished the first edition of the book now, what you have there Rabbi is the second edition. And we started this organization for that very purpose to do both of those things continue to strengthen the black Jewish relationship, and also the Israel Africa Alliance. And so the challenges have been probably more than any other thing disinformation, right? There's a lot of false information that's there, when it comes to those things that would seek to divide and separate when you're talking about whether Africa Israel, now we're talking about the modern state of Israel, obviously, the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Israel's close ties with African nations throughout the continent, starting especially with Golda Meir, the foreign minister, all the way up into the 70s, where you have, as I mentioned in the book, Israel has more embassies throughout Africa than any other nation other than the United States, African economy, some of them are thriving, a great deal. You have a lot of synergy between the African nations and Israel. And after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, like never before Israel's enemies target that relationship between Israel and its African neighbors for different reasons. One of those is voting in the United Nations, right? And that became very much of a challenge. So one of the greatest challenges is, is information. What we share in the book and when we do our organization, we teach what we call an organization "Authentic History” is really simply telling what happened, how did something [happen]. Whether we're talking about biblically, whether we're discussing the parsha or we're talking about historically, right? We're talking about what the relationship was, and is. Why those connections there? And I'll just give one quick example if you're talking about black Jewish synergy in the United States, not just Dr. King's relationship with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in the civil rights community, not that it happened, right? But why, what was that synergy about? Right? So we've delve into that. We share from the documents from the Rabbinical Assembly; Dr. King's most famous words regarding Israel that were recorded 10 days before he was killed, right, why? And as a pastor, what we call a prophetic moment. Why 10 days before he's taken from us, is he telling the black community in the world to stand with Israel with all of our mind and protect its right to exist? Why is he saying these things? What's so important about it. And even the generation before? Why was it a black and Jewish man who changed the trajectory of this nation, Booker T. Washington, and Julius Rosenwald; millions of now first and second generation, slave; free slaves, right? but who had no access to education, not in a broader sense, and why that synergy saw some 5400 Rosenwald schools built throughout the segregated south. We touch on those historical points, and we delve into why that black Jewish synergy has been so powerful for so many people for so long. So that is our mission to strengthen those ties, because we believe that there's a great future ahead.

Geoffrey Stern  19:05

You did such amazing research. I mean, I can tell you I never knew that Herzl said about Africa, "that once I have witnessed the redemption of Israel, my people, I wish to assist in the redemption of the Africans." And that is taking a small quote out of a full paragraph where the histories of the two people are so similar. I mean, it comes to us as a pleasant surprise, these synergies but it shouldn't because both our peoples have really traversed and continue to reverse the same pathway. And you quote Marcus Garvey and even Malcolm X and William Dubois. Malcolm X says "Pan Africanism will do for the people of African descent all over the world, the same that Zionism has done for Jews. All over the world." there was a sincere admiration for this miracle of a people returning to its land, we were talking before you came on about this whole kind of image of an ark. And it reminds you of Odesyuss... and it reminds you of all of these stories of man going on this heroic journey to find their their roots to come back, gain, experience and come back to their homeland, to their Aretz.. On the one hand, your job should be very simple. I guess, like any other fights, the closer you are, the bigger the friction can be. And there's nothing bigger than the friction between brothers. But it's such a challenge to address, as you say the misinformation.

Dumisani Washington  20:51

Absolutely. And this is, again, why that's our primary goal. And then as part of what our mission is, we have launched here just recently, an initiative called The PEACE initiative. And PEACE is an acronym for Plan for Education, Advocacy, and Community Engagement, and the short version of that, again: We recruit young, black American and African young people from certain cities throughout the United States, a group of them, they go to a 16 week study course having some of the same conversations we're having now, including the modern state of Israel, ancient Israel, the United Nations, all these things that intersect when it comes to the black Jewish relations, then they will travel to Israel for about 10 days, and returned to the cities from where they've been recruited, and be the hub of black Jewish synergy in their communities. We believe with our organization that one of the reasons for the synergy that we've seen in the past, whether it was at the turn of the century with Booker T Washington, and Julius Rosenwald, or the mid part of the century with Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, right now we are in different challenges, there are challenges that face particularly the more vulnerable black communities. And we see that that synergy could really address so many issues, whether it's education, whether it's jobs, those types of things, they can be really be addressed in a very holistic way. And really harnessing that synergy between the black and the Jewish community. And this is what we are doing. An Israel advocacy that is also rooted in these communities. And it's amazing. We see already rabbis and black pastors are working together all over the country. So that continues to happen. But we want to highlight those things even more and go even further in meeting some of the challenges what we call MC ambassadors will be leading that in different cities across the country.

Geoffrey Stern  22:02

That's amazing. I want to come back to this sense of self-discovery and pride. And we always talk about it from our own perspective. So if you're African American, you want to make sure that your children believe that black is beautiful, that they come from an amazing heritage to be proud of who they are. And if you're Jewish, you want the same thing. But it seems to me, and you kind of cage the question in this way, "Why standing with Israel will be a defining issue for Christians of color", when we as Jews can see ourselves in the black community as we did during the civil rights movement that redeems us. And that empowers us. And I think what you're saying, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but the same thing works in reverse. That in a sense, when the African community can recognize in Israel, its own story. It also can find a part of itself. Is there any truth there?

Dumisani Washington  23:50

I believe so Rabbi. I believe that that's exactly as a matter of fact, what we saw was the synergy. So let me use the example and go back to the early 1900s with Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald. The way that story happens, as you may know is that Booker T Washington writes his seminal book "Up From Slavery". Julius Rosenwald, who lives in Chicago at the time, is very active in his community. As a matter of fact, he was active, using his wealth; of those of you who don't know of Sears Roebuck fame, he is the one who took his company to this whole different level, economically and everything. And so with his wealth as a businessman, he's helping the Jews who are being persecuted in Russia. And one of his own testimony, I don't say this part of the book, but I kind of alluded to it, that here he is driving to work from the suburbs to where his factory is where his store is, and he's passing by throngs of black people who've left the South, right? looking for a better life, but they're living in very, very bad conditions, a lot of poverty and everything. And he says to himself, basically, if I'm going to do all of this to help Russian Jews right, way over the other side of the world, and I have this human crisis right here, where I live, I want to be able to do that and his, his Rabbi was Emile Hirsch, one of the founding members of the NAACP. Right? So his Rabbi encourages him. And we see this with our Jewish brothers and sisters all the time, see yourself, do help, do use your wealth, use your ability, right? To help. And so he reads Booker T. Washington's book he's taken with him, they begin to correspond. And Booker T. Washington says, Here's how you can help me I'm trying to build schools for my people who don't have access. And Rabbi to your point. Here is this man, this Jewish man who is very well aware of his history, he knows his People's History of persecution and struggle and triumph, right? Very much sees himself in that black story, and then he uses his ability. It's amazing even what he does; there's a Rosenwald film about Rosenwald schools, I believe his children were the ones who produced it. And they were saying that what he actually did was pretty ingenious, he put up a third of the money, the black community raised a third of the money, and then he challenged the broader white community to partner with them and bring the last third and that is how those Rosenwald Schools began.  Because what he wanted to do, he wanted to see people come together, he wanted to see them all work together. Even though Booker T. Washington passes away only three years into that, right, that venture continues on Julius Rosenwald goes and sits on the board of the Tuskegee college, Tuskegee University, right? There's this long connection that's there. So in that struggle, the black American community, and he connected with this black American leader, the one of the most prominent of the time, Booker T, Washington, and they, like I tell people, changed the world. Like, can we imagine what the United States would have been if you had those millions of now freed slaves, right? with no access, and particularly those who are living in the Jim Crow South, no access whatsoever to education, Would the Harlem Renaissance have become what it become, with the black Wall Street, whether it was in Tulsa, whether in Philadelphia, these things that explode because of the access to education to now these first and second generations of people coming out of slavery, right? So I believe that that's the case and which is why I'll say again, here today, some of those challenges are there, some of the challenges are different than they were, obviously 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago, but we believe in organization that those challenges can be met with that same amazing synergy between the black and the Jewish community.

Geoffrey Stern  27:26

A lot of people would argue that the rift or the change of the relationship between the African American community and the Jewish community was when the Jews or Israel stopped being looked at as the David in the Goliath story and we won the Six Day War. And how do you ensure that the facts are told, but also as you climb out of the pit, and as you achieve your goals, you shouldn't be necessarily punished for being successful. Success is not a sin. It's an inspiration. But it seems to me that's one of the challenges that we have, especially in the Jewish community for our next generation of children, who really do see ourselves not as the minority and don't see ourselves anymore mirrored in the African American community.

Dumisani Washington  28:25

But one of my favorite things about the Jewish tradition of the Seder, is that you all lean and recline in the Seder today, and you tell your children, when we had the first one, we sat with our sandals on, our staff, in our hand, our belts ....because we were slaves leaving slavery, but now we are no longer. And that whole ethos of telling children, right? There's a strong parallel in the black American community, right? The whole point of going from struggle to a place where you can live in peace or at the very least, you recognize and realize the sacrifice of the people who came before you right? And I won't step into the controversial for lots of different reasons, we'll be able to unpack it, but let me just say this, for the black American experience when you're talking I often teach this in our sermons and other things that arc .... and let me say again, no, people are monolith. Obviously we just kind of put that on the table, all the Jews arent' alike all black Americans aren't alike..... Having said that, there is an overarching story when you talk about black Americans, who, from slavery to Jim Crow, segregation, black codes, all of those types of things to the modern era. And that story cannot accurately be told without talking about God and His people. In other words, when you're talking about the spirituals "Go Down Moses". "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" and I talked about that in the book, these songs that are rooted in the scriptures, most of the time in, in the Tanakh, our Jewish brothers and sisters’ side of the Bible. I mean, sometimes in the New Testament, most of the time, these songs are being sung in hope. And that hope was realized, right? It's not an Negro spiritual song technically, but I put it in that category, part of the greatest one ever. I mean, how it culminates would be "Lift Every Voice and Sing" us a song that today has all these political things connected to it for lots of different unfortunate reasons. But when James Weldon Johnson wrote that song, wrote it as a poem? Those stanzas and anybody listening to this, I want to tell Google that Google Lift Every Voice and Sing"; just read the words. And this was a very powerful, very, very much God and God's love, and our hope and our faith and our trust, and our honoring the people who came before us; all of those things. And he talked about being free. Now, it's written in 1899. Right? You still have questions. I mean, there are no laws against lynching there going on, it's still crushing racism. However, he as a father in the black community is not only acknowledging what God has done, there's amazing things that are happening. One of the economist's that I quote, in my book, Thomas Sol said that the black community after slavery, and less than 50 years after slavery went from 0% literacy to almost 50% literacy, in that half a century, something economic historians say has never happened before. And now you're later on, you're talking about the black Wall Street, you're talking about black oil barons and landowners and factory owners, right? You're talking about this black middle class emerging. There's been no civil rights bill, right? There's been no Pell grants for school. These things don't even exist yet. We're talking about the 19 teens and the 1920s. You're talking about black people who had previously been slaves for hundreds of years. Why am I saying all that we as a people know full well; if we know our history, know full well what it is to come from all of those dire situations into a place of blessing, even though there may be struggles just like our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are convinced an organization that as we know, as a black community, particularly younger people that we are talking with, and teaching, as we know and appreciate our history, not the history that's regurgitated in terms of media and, and for political purposes. But truly our history, there is a great deal to be proud of about that. And to see, as I said in the sermon a couple of months ago, not only does it not a victim narrative, I descended from superheroes, my people went through slavery, Jim Crow, and still build on Wall Street still built the Tuskegee Institute. Still, we're soldiers who fighting for their own freedom in the Civil War. I mean, you're talking on and on and on things that they should have never been able to accomplish. When I consider what they accomplished with not very much help often. I recognize the greatness of the heritage that I come from, then that allows me to see an Israel rise like a phoenix from the ashes and not spurn that but recognize that our Jewish brothers and sisters have gone through millennia of this and Israel then to be celebrated, not denigrated.

Adam Mintz  33:12

Thank you. We want to thank you. Your passion, and your insight is really brought a kind of a new insight to our discussion here. We really want to thank you, you know, we at Madlik we start on time and we end on time, Shabbat is about to begin in just a little while. Hopefully we'll be able to invite you back in the future as we continue this conversation. But I know I join Geoffrey and everybody on the call and everybody who's gonna listen to the podcast. Thank you for joining us and for really your insight and your passion. You really leave us with so much to think about as we begin the Shabbat.

Dumisani Washington  33:51

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Adam Mintz  33:53

Thank you Geoffrey, Shabbat Shalom, everybody,

Geoffrey Stern  33:55

Shabbat Shalom. And Reb Dumisani, you mentioned the songs. There's a whole chapter in your book about Negro spirituals. And as the rabbi said, w are approaching the Shabbat. And as you observe the Sunday we observed Saturday, but you know that the secret of living without a land or being on a difficult mission is that Sabbath, the strength of the Sabbath, and the connection between Noah and the word Menucha which is "rest" is obvious. And there was a great poet named Yehuda halevi. And he wrote a poem about the Yona; the dove that Noah sent out of the ark to see if there was dry land. And he he said that on Shabbat. Yom Shabbaton Eyn L'shkoach, "the day of Shabbat you cannot forget"  Zechru l'reach Hanichoach"  He also uses Reach Nichoach which is a pleasing scent,Yonah Matzah Bominoach, the yonah, the dove found on it rest v'shom ynuchu yegiah koach  and there in the Shabbat , in that ark of rest on that ark of Sunday or Saturday is where we all gain strength. So I wish you continued success in all that you do. And that this Shabbat and this Sunday we all gather the strength to continue our mission. But I really do hope that we get another chance to study Torah together. And I really hope that all of the listeners go out and buy your book, Zionism in the Black Church because it is an absolute thrill. And I understand you're coming out with a new book that's going to talk more about the Jewish people and the various colors and flavors that we come in.

Dumisani Washington  35:55

Hopefully to put that out next year sometime. Absolutely.

Geoffrey Stern  35:59

Fantastic. Well thank you so much so Shabbat Shalom and we are we are in your debt.

Dumisani Washington  36:05

Thank you. Shabbat Shalom and looking forward to bye bye

Music: Lift Every Voice and Sing - Melinda Dulittle https://youtu.be/6Dtk9h1gZOI 

Parshat Bereshit - Exile and Return is a seminal Jewish theme we normally associate with Exodus and the narrative of the Jewish People. We discover this theme in the first chapters of Genesis and in so doing discover the Hebrew Bible's universal message regarding the trauma of birth, the anxiety of life and the rewards of creativity and expansion.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/349788

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

Welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah. And every week, we record half an hour of what I call disruptive Torah, where we kind of look at the Torah with a new lens and maybe from a new angle and try to share that sense of discovery with our participants. So thank you all for joining. And we are going to start with Bereshit. And for those of you who have been listening and participating in clubhouse, I think you already know that one of my favorite commentators is Rashi. He wrote a commentary on all of the books of the Torah, including the Talmud, the Mishanh, I just an unbelievable encyclopedic review of the Holy Writ of the Jewish people. But it's not the expanse, it's the detail and he always brings a midrash or a quotation that is absolutely insightful and actually kind of positions the whole discussion. So the first verse of the Torah we all know "In the beginning God created the heaven in the earth." And the first Rashi starts as follows: "Rabbi Isaac said, the Torah, which is the law book of Israel, should have started with Exodus 12: 2 the first commandment "This month shall be unto you the first of the months", which is the first commandment given to Israel. "What is the reason" asks this Rabbi Isaac "then that it commences with the account of creation?" Pretty good question. We'll discuss the question in a second and its premise. And he answers "because of the thought expressed in Psalms, "God declared to his people the strength of his works, in order that he might give them the heritage of the nations.".  Rashi continues, "for should the people of the world say to Israel, 'are robbers because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan', Israel may reply to them and say, from Psalms, all the earth belongs to the Holy One, bless be he. He created it, and gave it to whom he pleased, when he willed, he gave it to them. And when he willed he took it away from them and gave it to us." So Wow, what a way to begin studying the the narratives of the cosmology, the creation of the world, and our foreparents with a question of, well, what are we even reading this for? The Torah is a book of laws. It's a book that gives us the "hora'aot" the direction, the path that we should walk down. Why are we wasting our time with this mythology? And then he gives an answer, but let's stop for a second Rabbi and discuss the premise of his very question.

Adam Mintz  03:09

The premise is very problematic. The premise is that the only purpose of the book is to teach us laws. Ramban, Nachmanidies, the great Spanish scholar who lived in the 1200s. he disagrees with Rashi, here at the beginning of the Torah immediately. He says that the purpose of the book of Bereshit, of Genesis is not to teach us laws, but it's to teach us moral cause. He has a great phrase, the phrase is "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" "the actions of our forefathers our models to the children", and therefore that's the reason we have all the stories in Bereshit. Rashi seems to argue with that. Rashi seems to say that, no, it's not about morality, it's about law. And if you think it's about law, there's no reason for the book of Bereshit. So Rashi needs to explain that it's to teach us about our connection to the land of Israel. So in that very first Rashi, there actually is a fundamental question about the purpose of Torah.

Geoffrey Stern  04:22

So I love the fact that you quoted  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" which literally as you say means "the are stories of oure foreparents. "siman" is a sign for the children. And of course, you could expand and say "avot" could also mean as in "avot melacha" or "Pikei Avot", it could mean the most basic primary principles. So the stories of our roots, of our beginnings are is a siman is a sign for its children. But in a sense, "sign" is very similar to myth. Meaning to say that even Ramban quoting this Talmudic phrase, there's almost the recognition that we're not just telling stories here that either the stories actually occurred but they have deeper symbolic meaning. Or it's not that important that every one of them occurred because the symbolic meaning is what drives us. And if you think about that for a second, I'm not sure that is that different from what Rashi ends up answering, which is okay, the reason we need this is because these stories justify the Jewish people's coming from another place and coming into the land that was at the time that they came in occupied by another people. And the ethical, moral, or you could even say political message, the "siman" that we are getting from these stories is that you know what, no one owns anything. The earth belongs to the Lord. And he can give and he can take and that's a big message, I think for life. But but really they're all kind of on the same page from the fact that none of them, correct me if I'm wrong, is interested or believes that these stories by themselves as a historical record, belong in our holy book, they have to symbolize something, they have to inspire us in some way. Would you agree to that?

Adam Mintz  06:51

I would agree. Now, the idea of myths is a fascinating idea. I actually spoke about this right before Yizkor. There's the new book by Dara Horn. the book by Dara Horn is some title like people, "Why do people love dead Jews?" It's a provocative title. But she has a collection of essays. She raises the following idea, which is a great idea. You know, we're all brought up Geoffrey with the idea that the way that we all got our American names is our forefathers, our grandparents came to Ellis Island, and they only knew Yiddish. So they were asked by the by the representative at Ellis Island: "What's your name?" And they answered, "shoyn Forgesin", which means in Yiddish "I forgot". And the representative said, okay, your name is "Shawn Fergeson"And that's how everybody got their American names. They didn't know any English so they made up something and that became their American names. Dara Horn, the author points out that that is not true. We know that that's not true. What's true is that in the 1930s, we have multiple court records about Jews who actually went to courts in America, especially in New York, to change their names, because there was so much anti semitism in America, and they couldn't get jobs and they couldn't get into schools, and they couldn't get into colleges. And therefore they they asked to change their names. She said, Where does the myth come from? The myth comes from the fact that we as American Jews want to protect America, we want to protect the Jewish relationship with America. So therefore, that myth of Ellis Island is a much better myth than the truth. And I think Geoffrey, that's a very interesting idea here. When you talk about the myth of the stories in the book of Genesis. Did they happen? Did they not happen? The point is, it doesn't make any difference whether they happened or they didn't happen. But each one of them grapples with a moral issue. And not all of them are easily resolvable. Let's take Geoffrey the most difficult one of all, God says to Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son. Now, the question is not whether that actually happens, or not, the question is why Abraham said, Okay, I'll sacrifice my son. What right did he have to sacrifice his son even at God's Word? So the entire book of Genesis is made up of these  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" these stories, these myths that come to teach us a moral lesson. So I think Dara Horn is really on to something, that sometimes the myth is more important. Then the fact because it comes to teach us something important.

Geoffrey Stern  10:05

I think that's great. And clearly, these are myths that resonated, certainly when the Torah was edited, put together, and then re-read over and over again, these are myths that work picked for a reason. And then by simply being repeated so many times they take on a life of their own. And you get to see how different generations and different people react and interact with them. I have to say, as an aside here, that Elie Wiesel wrote a book on Rashi. And it struck Elie Wiesel that the first Rabbi that Rashi quotes is named Rabbi Yitzchok. And of course Rahi's name is Shlomo ben Yitzchak. So the truth is, this is a rabbi that comes from the Yalkut Shimoni it was not his father. But again, it does give another rendering to  "Ma'aseh avot, siman l'banim" that we are looking almost like a Rorschach inkblot at the same stories that were looked at, by our forefathers, our forbearers in the case of Judaism, by Christians, by Muslims, by scholars. And that's kind of fascinating, too, I just find that the term that the stories of our past are a sign to us is so so pregnant with meaning, and makes it all so exciting. And getting back to your point about the sacrifice of Isaac, you know, another way to look at myths, and we're gonna start talking about how the psychoanalysts looked at it is like a dream as well. And, you know, the thing about a dream, especially a nightmare, is it's made to resolve certain things, talking about it, hearing it, repeating it over and over again. And then we can manufacture the ending sometimes. So the ending does become important. So I've always thought that the punch line of the sacrifice, or the binding of Isaac was that he wasn't sacrificed. But that is a story that we are going to discuss in the future. What I want to spend the rest of today's discussion talking about is something that I thought about for the first time this year. And that is that when Rashi  brings up this point, that why do we need the stories? And he answers with a seemingly very provincial, national answer saying, well, it's in order that we should not be called colonizers, because we're going to come and we're going to, at a certain point in time, take this land that we admit, we are not originally from. And we need these stories to justify that land grab, so to speak. But what it really comes down to, and this is the insight that I want to spend the rest of the day talking about, is that the earth belongs to the Lord. And I would say, it's arbitrary that we own this, or we sit here or we live there. And then there's this other issue, which I really want to focus on, which is that none of us belong to a particular place in the sense we're all alienated from it. From the beginning of the Torah, we're going to see more than I think any of us ever expected. The theme of exile, over and over again in the first, just four chapters of Genesis. And Rashi is even here talking about this concept of exile and return that comes up much later in the narrative. But he brings it to the beginning of the Torah and that I think is not provincial is not partisan, but actually is one of the primary themes of the Bible. So in terms of the Bible itself, we all know that Adam in the second chapter, it has the story of man being created by himself. Maybe he was androgynous we don't know. But after looking for a helpmeet throughout the animal kingdom, God fashioned his rib in 2: 22 And it says, "and he had taken from the man into the woman, and he brought her to the man, then the man said, this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called woman." So here you have this beautiful image of the unity of mankind of a man cleaving to his wife. And then it goes on to say, "for from men, she was taken. Hence, a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, so that they shall become one." So we have already in the second chapter, the first instance of this tension between being unitary, whole, complete, and being separated. And there's almost this sense of the separation is a necessary part of our identity. Ever think, and I'm not even talking about the amount of times in the process of creation itself. We had God is doing "havdalah" where he's creating by separating Earth from land, sky from the abode. Have you ever thought about it this way Rabbi Adam?

Adam Mintz  16:21

Yeah, well, the idea of separating.... you brought up a whole bunch of different things here. Let's talk about the last thing, the idea of separating the entire story of the six days of creation, is the story about separating, separating night from day, light from darkness, animals from people, the sun and the moon, everything has its opposite. What do you make of that? Why do you think that's so important, that in the story of creation, everything has its opposite?

Geoffrey Stern  17:03

Well, I think again, it gives us an insight into the biblical mind, the mind of the Bible's sense of God. And so many things about Genesis is about either dividing or choosing and when you choose, you also are selecting one thing and rejecting something else. It just seems so written in to the fabric. You can almost make the case that creation itself was not so much out of nothing, which is a Greek term, a modern term, but was this act of separating and repositioning. And it does become something that if you use it as a lens, enables you to understand much about the different narratives. In this particular case. I focused first upon man and wife, which is kind of, you know, the beginnings of society, separate from their father and mother, who is the father and mother of Adam and Eve. It's God in a sense, and of course, that story gets picked up a few verses later, in chapter three, when the famous Original Sin occurs. And at this point, God says to the woman, I will give you birth pangs, "b'etzev tilady", you shall give birth in pain, when you bear children, and your husband will rule over you, but also will struggle to pull crops from the ground, "by the sweat of your brow, shall you have bred to eat". Some of the modern day psychologists look at this whole story as the beginning of the "trauma of birth", that here, man was first created without those birth pangs. And he was first created without needing to separate the crop from the earth and to create creation, so to speak. And the first story of creation is this major separation where we are thrown out of the Garden of Eden. So again, everything that we've been talking about till now has focused on this separation. You can even call it alienation That we are torn apart. And that's how on the one hand, you could make an argument creation happens. But certainly it's the source of a lot of anxiety.

Adam Mintz  20:12

I mean, there's no question that that's right. A couple of things you brought up, number one, the idea of Adam and Eve not having parents. But then you have the story in chapter three of the sin. And God really takes the position of Adam and Eve's parents in the sense that he's the one who reprimands them, and he's the one who punishes them. I was always wondering, Geoffrey, the rabbis say an amazing thing. The rabbis say that Adam and Eve were created, they were put in the Garden of Eden, but they never actually slept a night in the Garden of Eden. They couldn't even make it one night, before nightfall they had already sinned. Why do you think it is that there was somehow a need for the Torah to tell us that they sinned so quickly, that part of the nature of human beings is to sin? What do you make of that?

Geoffrey Stern  21:16

Well, it's certainly the source or the intention of that type of explanation of the myth would come from the fact that it was it was just a taste, it was just so fleeting. And it happened in an instant. And I think that what I kind of come up with is, first of all, how final the divorce, how final the expulsion from the Garden of Eden was, you have these Cherubim, you have these angels with a sword, standing guard over it. It almost sounds as if it was part of the birth pang. It was a rupture, it had to occur, that everything that lies ahead, is after this fact. And that this story was there less to tell you about the bliss of the Garden of Eden, but more to focus you on the project that begins after the expulsion. That's my read. But it's true. We don't spend a whole lot of time on the pearly gates, the beauty of the Garden of Eden, it's almost as though On the flip side, the Torah doesn't spend much time, or any time at all, I would argue on describing a heaven. on describing a pearly end it's all about what lies ahead of us..

Adam Mintz  23:08

That point is such a good point. Because the Garden of Eden is much more important symbolically as the place where they will go back to, right? When we say when somebody dies, "b'gan eden t'he menuchatam"  that their resting place will be in the garden of Eden. So the Garden of Eden becomes a place we're going back to not a place that we spend very much time in. That's a fascinating idea.

Geoffrey Stern  23:42

So that's a great segue for me to talk a little bit about the psychoanalytic analysts and Otto Rank, wrote two two books 10 years apart. One was called "The myth of the birth of the hero", and the other was called "The trauma of birth". And in the myth of the birth of the hero, he gives much credit to Freud and Freud actually, I wrote on this subject in a book he wrote called "Moses and Monotheism" and that is, and we'll discuss this when we get to Moses, is how almost to a "T" in every one of the ancient mythologies whether it's Romulus and Remus, or whoever. There's this story about the Royal heir, the prince who is expelled from the home, maybe it's because the father is afraid that he's going to come and usurp the throne, has to go out .... many times he's put into a raft through a boat,  is raised by animals or simple people. And then you have like Odysseus, a whole way of coming back. Ultimately, if you get to the Oedipus story, he then comes back and he kills his father. He gets his mother and all is resolved. And that's what Rank writes about in this "myth of the birth of the hero". But he makes a major change when he talks about "the trauma of birth". And what he says there is that there's something even more primal, then this, Oedipus and this hero, and what that is, we are all born of women, so to speak, we all are ruptured and thrown into the world. And we are separated from that warm place of our origins. And unlike the Oedipus myth, he claims and I think he's right, and that's why I'm bringing it up now is that it doesn't necessarily or it does necessarily not get resolved. In other words, none of us can go back into the womb. And he brings the Cherubim outside of Eden, because he does see the creation of Eve from Adam, as a way to, to kind of detour around the birth of of humans as it actually occurs. And he does talk about taking the apple off the tree as giving birth to it and separating it. And what he talks about is the whole sin, the whole original sin that all of us human beings have to try to address and not necessarily resolve is this original disruption in our lives. And what argues is that you do not go back to Eden. And I do think you're absolutely right, that we talk about "Gan Eden Mi'Kedem". And we talk about in our prayers going back to Eden, but Eden does not feature as much in Judaism as in Christianity, the Fall does not feature as much. But certainly, there's this sense that the trauma of birth is something that we can't put back, you can't put the genie back inside of the bottle. And that's what kind of is intriguing to me. And again, when we look at myths, some myths, you can wrap with a bow, and they resolve themselves, and others are ones that are just the human condition that we have to deal with.

Adam Mintz  27:29

Yes, that is right. And you say that here in the in the very beginning of the Torah, we're really introduced to different kinds of myths. Now we talk about myths. Then you talk about the story of fratricide where Cain kills Abel. That's very much not a myth. That feels very real, doesn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  27:56

Well, it absolutely does. But thank you for bringing it up. Because that, I would say is the fourth instance, in our parsha this week, where we have this sense of being a wanderer on the earth, the punishment that Cain gets goes back to the same thing that happened with Adam. It says, If in Genesis 412, it says, "If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you." So this birth process will no longer be natural. And then it says you shall become a ceaseless wanderer on the earth. "Na v'nad ti'hiye b'aretz" Then he goes on to say that I "geyrashta" I will divorce you from the face of the earth. And it uses the phrase that we discovered in Deuteronomy at the end of the story, and it goes "umipanecha Ester" and I will hide my face from you. So again, these themes that we thought developed all the way at the end, were there all the way at the beginning as kernels. And then finally, where does Cain go to live and This to me is discovering humor in the Bible as well. "veYashav b'eretz Nod", and he settled he dwelt in the land of Nod.  Nod is the same word for Na v'nad", that is he settled in the land of wandering.

Adam Mintz  28:05

Which means he never settled.

Geoffrey Stern  29:34

He absolutely never settled. He felt responsible for death, he had that guilt. And again, you can say yes, it's a real story. It's not a myth. But if you look at it in terms of all of the narratives that we've seen in Genesis, so far, through this lens, in the first four chapters, it's all about being sent into exile, alienated from one's source ripped away from whether it's the tree, whether it's the father, be it God or one's parents.... cleaving on to each other, to me, it just is so amazing that even though we're not talking about the story of the Jewish people that Rashi focused us on to, the idea is in humanity is this same trope of, of literally from the beginning, we are separated. And if you ask the same question that Rashi asks, from that perspective, then the answer is it needs to start here, because the journey is all about somehow regaining that unity that  wholeness, that, that completion. So what what I also discovered is this amazing essay by Bialik, and it's called "Jewish Dualism". And he looks at all of Jewish history, he picks up on where Rashi left off. And he says that, you know, we've been out of the land more than we've been in it. Every time we've left, we've expanded, we've grown. He talks about "a group which adapts itself to the ways of life of the whole world, but nonetheless remains a people dwelling apart." And that's part of the other narrative. And he talks about this strength that it gives us. And I think he wrote it in the same year, as Otto Rank, wrote his book, and they both come to an interesting conclusion. And that is that it's not all a negative thing, that from each expansion and contraction from each exile and return. We enrich ourselves and we enrich others. And Bialik, who is considered the poet Laureate of Zionism, even ends his essay with the following statement, which is mind blowing, he says "And who knows, perhaps after hundreds of years, [of living in the State of Israel], we will be emboldened to make another Exodus, which will lead to the spreading of our spirit over the world, and assiduously striving towards glory." So he really sees it as a pathway going forward of enrichment that is intrinsic to the biblical project. And Rank talks about artists and philosophers and religionists who are able to take this trauma of being born against one's will being passed out and separated from one's natural mother parents from God from this sense of unity and he sees it also as a potential for amazing creation. And He therefore doesn't call the hero the hero anymore he calls it the artist which is kind of fascinating to me so I really do think that the the question is a good one Why do we read these stories? It's a question we all have to ask ourselves and how we answer it really says a lot about ourselves and the direction we want to go in but certainly having multi generations talk about the same texts like Rashi and his father Yitzchok and like you and I and like our listeners is part of the creative project which I think brings us together so anyway, I just love discovering these themes of exile and return so early in the mythological narrative, and I hope you do as well.

Adam Mintz  34:11

What a good star Geoffrey. We thank everybody enjoy the parsha Bereshit, and we look forward to continuing Noach next week. And we look forward to a great year of studying parshiyot together with you on Madlik. So thank you, everybody. Shabbat Shalom and enjoy the parsha.

Join a live recording of Madlik disruptive Torah on Clubhouse with Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Rabbi Avraham Bronstein  as we use the book of Kohelet to explore the fundamental difference between the Torah given at Sinai and the Wisdom literature we share with our ancient Near Eastern neighbors. We explore the difference between linear and cyclical time and we wonder why we need a healthy dose of common sense, living in the moment and even cynicism after the Jewish New Year.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/348859 

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

So welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah every week at four o'clock on clubhouse eastern time, we have a half an hour discussion of the Parsha. And by disruptive we mean we look at things maybe from a slightly different angle and hopefully help our participants look at it slightly differently as well. And this week is no exception. So Rabbi Adam challenged me last week to talk about Kohelet Ecclesiastes and that is what we're going to do. And we're going to start with the first verse because in that first verse is so much of what is to follow, and it raises so many questions about authorship and about the  sense of the message. So this is how it begins The words of Kohelet, Son of David king in Jerusalem. utter futility, said Kohelet, utter futility, all is futile." And of course, the Hebrew is "haval havalim" And that translation of utter futility, or "vanity all is vanity" is from the King James Bible, and probably we've all absorbed it. So the question that really comes up is Who was this guy? Kohelet? Was it a real person? Or is it a nom de plume for the writer? And then of course, the other question is, what does it mean that all of life is vanity? So why don't I start right there and open up to the discussion of what are you guys thoughts on who is Kohelet what is Kohelet? Avraham? Why don't you store

Avraham Bronstein  01:45

The words after Kohelt are "Ben David Melech Yerushalyim". So whoever Kohelet is, he's the son of David king in Jerusalem. That kind of narrows it down. That's why the tradition is that the author King Solomon.

Geoffrey Stern  02:00

So I think you're absolutely right. Of course, we're all called B'nai Yisrael And Yisrael is not my actual father. So that's not totally true, in terms of necessarily making it Shlomo. And then I mentioned a second ago that we all read "Vanity of Vanities", and that comes from the King James Bible. And I hardly doubt that King James translated the Bible. But what he did was he financed a group of people to translate the Bible. So all of a sudden, we have a lot of complication, when it says, somebody wrote a book, did he actually write it? Or did he support it? And when it says, We are a child, does it mean a follower? Does it mean an actual child? Rabbi, Adam, where do you come in on this?

Adam Mintz  02:50

So there are a couple things. First of all, I want to bring everyone's attention, there's an amazing English translation of the Bible, written by a professor from Berkeley by the name of Robert Alter, and generally he's good, and his introductions to Kohelet is especially good. The first thing he says is what Geoffrey says. And that is Kohelet Ben David doesn't mean that he's the son of David doesn't have to be Solomon. And it means that he came from the Davidic family. Now, that's one thing. So we could be many generations later. And the scholars all think it was later. The other thing is, and I think this is interesting to consider when you write a book, and there's some kind of competition, whether or not your book is going to be included in the Bible. You very often want to give yourself some credibility. It might be to give yourself some credibility. You say, I'm William Shakespeare, I wrote this play. Like it was 500 years ago. I don't know if William Shakespeare wrote it, or William Shakespeare didn't write. But if I say that I'm William Shakespeare, then I give myself credibility. So it is possible that the author of go hell it is not indeed the son of David or a descendant of David. But he knew that if he wanted to get his book into the Bible, he needed to call himself a son of David. That's a little cynical, but I think it's something to consider.

Geoffrey Stern  04:31

Well, it gets but it does get even better because it's not as though he said my name is Shlomo. Like he did for the Song of Songs that he said Shir HaShirim asher l'Shlomo" he took on a Nom de plume, and he engendered this whole conversation that we're talking about him so it is kind of fun that way.

Adam Mintz  04:55

Not only a name that we've never heard before, but the structure Kohelet is a very funny structure. That's not the way you say it. If the word Kohelet means the one who gathers people, there's a way to say that in Hebrew "make'el" "he gathers people"  Kohelet is a very strange form of the term to gather people. So Geoffrey, it's almost as if he chose a name for himself, a Nom de plume and it's not even real, meaning that he just chose a name for himself. So I think that's interesting. "vanities of vanities" of course, the King James made that famous. Alter points out and this has been pointed out by many, many people, the word has really means breath. And "hevel havalim hakol hevel" really means that everything is no more than breath. The same way when you breathe in the cold, and you can see your breath, but it's really nothing. That's what life is have, "hevel havalim amar Kohelet" All life is like that. It's like the breath that looks like it's something but it's really nothing.

Geoffrey Stern  06:19

So we don't have a dearth of material today, that's for sure. So the word that he took forgetting about who he was, as you point out, Kohelet means to gather. It's one who assembles and even in the translation into Latin Ecclesiastes, which literally means someone who gathers an ecclesiastical court is a gathering. It's an assembling an audience. It can also mean gathering ideas, gathering truth, and different opinions. If you look at Kings 1, here it says, "Oz yikahal Shlomo", that Solomon convoked, the elders of Israel, and this is when he read, dedicated or he dedicated the temple on Sukkot time, those of us and I said this in the pre party, who remember the episode two times ago about the revolution of the Aleph Beit, we know that in the time of Sukkot, was this "VaYakel" this commandment to publicly read the book of the Torah. So I will almost venture to say my pet name for Kohelet is Mr. Sukkot, in a sense, because what he's doing is he's bringing the themes together, that we've kind of been discussing for a while, and we're going to get into how deep that is this idea of this short breath, I absolutely love Alter says it. Also, Rabbi Sacks, talks about it. And he says, everything to do with life in Judaism refers to a breath. So there's a "Neshama", which comes from the word "Linshom" to breathe. There's Nefesh. there's Ruach, which is wind. And what he says "hevel" is, is a very short breath. It's a very superficial breath. It's that breath of the fleeting breath. And what he is saying is that the sense that we're going to get from the book that follows is the fleetingness of life. But it comes at a moment where maybe that's it's all we have. And so I think all of these kind of themes come together. And if we think about Sukkot, there are so many words that have to do with in gathering. It just occurred to me You know, they always say the Eskimos have so many words for snow. Here we have Ketzir, the "hag Hakazir or the Hag Ha'assaf" these are the gathering of the crops. We have the lulav in the Etrog and the Arba minim (four species) that have to be bound together. We have the very word for moed, which is a holiday, but as "Ohel Moed" It's a tent of meeting. It's a time to come all together. So all of these concepts of binding of coming together of gathering of welcoming other thoughts all come to the fore at this moment, and that's why I say that maybe Kohelet is Mr. Sukkak.

Adam Mintz  09:41

Great. I love it. Now the question is, why is that so? Why is Sukkot the holiday of gathering?

Geoffrey Stern  09:51

so I'm going to call on Avraham before he leaves because he started talking about something that I really want to get into. He talked about the difference between cyclical time and linear time. And that short little breath. That was momentary time, where does that fit in Avraham?

Avraham Bronstein  10:12

So before I say anything I want to riff on what you were saying a second ago, that connection between Hakel and Kohelet that was great. Because if you continue in Devarim, right, what we read a few weeks ago where the mitzvah of Hakel is first kind of spoken about. The whole point is, everyone has to be there to hear the Torah being read. . "Lman yishmau ve lilmadu l'yira et hashem Elokehchem" the point ultimately, to arrive at "yira" reverence of God, which is actually the point of the entire book of Kohelet when it comes down to the very end after everything is said and done. "sof Davar HaKol Nishma" The point of Hakel is to arrive at Yira, the point of Kohelt is to arrive at the same place... a connection I never ever saw before or thought about before, but I think now is actually very compelling. So first, thank you.

Geoffrey Stern  11:09

You're welcome.

Avraham Bronstein  11:11

That's great. The second thing is to address what you just asked, maybe we can unpack this a little bit more based on what you said. But the overall sense of what Kohelet is trying to say in the first several verses, and then you get back to it again, is that everything always stays the same that people try to do things that people build things and they accumulate things that they expend effort, and they do all these different things. But ultimately, everything kind of repeats itself everything, the same generation comes generation goes nothing really changes it and to a degree. You know, you're reading this at the end of the year, when one agricultural season is ending and the next one is starting at the same time, the ingathering festival. So last year's harvest is coming in. But the farmers are all getting ready to plant next year's crop. They're already praying for rain for next year's crop. So again, your sense of time moving in a circle where you've arrived at the end but even while you're ending you're beginning again and your in the same place you were a year ago.

Geoffrey Stern  12:22

There is this sense of do Rosh Hashannah and do Yom Kippur and then "repeat". And the thing that really struck me in reading some of the thoughts of Rabbi Sacks is he also discusses the difference between happiness and joy between Osher and Simcha and he makes the difference, that Simcha like that short breath is absolutely momentary, and Osher we talk about Ashray Yoshvey vetecha... all throughout Psalms and other writings we're trying to look for a life well lived. And what he points out and again it kind of touches upon their sense of cyclical or lineal is that we land at this moment between the end of the last year and the beginning of the new and of course, for a farmer that comes where you're pulling the crops and I'm not a farmer, but I know the second you pull in the crops The next thing you do is start preparing the land for the next crop. And it's this sense of simcha is what we call it zeman simchataynu. He says that the simcha that we feel, the absolute joy, unadulterated joy that we feel is of the moment...  is that short breath, if we read the rest of Kohelet we're gonna see a sense of eat, drink and be merry type type of Simcha. It's something that's very special and distinct from that kind of linear progression of slow growth over time over maybe a lifetime that we are so accustomed to. We've binged on Judaism for the last two, three weeks, maybe even a month and a half. And this is a very special time that I think Jewish tradition kind of understood that somehow Kohelet, which is from the Wisdom literature, and we're going to get into that in a second, was able to grasp and able to convey more than traditional types of linear Torah texts that have a beginning in Eden and an end in Redemption might have is that the kind of area that you're going to be talking about a little bit. Rabbi Avraham?

14:59

A little bit. Yeah, kind of you're doing the same thing over and over again. But what are you doing a little bit differently this year as opposed to last year?

Geoffrey Stern  15:08

Interesting, I would, I would say that the argument of Kohelet is "not so different". His argument is very humbling from the perspective of someone who believes that the life of us as an individual, and life of us as a people, is a long project is a struggle has a beginning, a middle and an end, and a slow evolution, and investment. I think much of what Kohelet is about and we're not going to be able to read the book today. But stay tuned, go to synagogue and listen to it. It's literally almost a rebellion against that, or at least an alternative side of the coin, in terms of "you know what, it's just a moment and when things are good, take the good and when things are bad look forward to when the sun will shine again." What do you think, Adam?

Adam Mintz  16:06

So I wonder about a slightly different point. And that is what do you make about Kohelet come coming a week after Yom Kippur. When we take life so seriously, "mi Yichiye, Mi Yamut" who will live and who will die, who by fire, who by water, everything is very serious. And all of a sudden comes King Solomon or whoever it is; Kohelet and says haveil havalim hakol hevel. That everything is Vanity of vanities or breath or whatever the word may be. What do you make of that reading kohelet right after Yom Kippur?

Geoffrey Stern  16:51

I think that no one can say it's unintentional. That's the one thing I think I can safely say. But I do believe the intention is rather strong. And I do believe that your question is a wonderful segue into what I'd like to spend the rest or at least a large portion of the discussion discussing, which is that co Kohelet comes from Wisdom Literature. We all know that King Solomon was not referred to as a Torah scholar. He was referred to as a wise man. And that is not simply an adjective or a description. It is a trigger. In the Ancient Near East, there is much literature that is called Wisdom Literature. And those of you who know Shai Held he's a Rosh Hayeshiva at Hadar. Well, I took a course from his father at Columbia, and his name was Moshe Held, and he was an expert in Ugaritic and Akkadian and he explained what the difference is between wisdom literature and Torah, and you will listen to these three rules, and it will make you listen and read differently. When you study Kohelet, when you study Ecclesiastes, or Proverbs, or even the Song of Songs or Job. Number one, it's only about the individual, nothing to do with a nation, it's about a single person. Number two, it's unhistorical. There's no nationalism, the name of Israel is never mentioned, the only difference and I underline only, between the wisdom literature of our neighbors, the Sumerians, the Mesopotamians, and the Egyptians and us is that when they cry out to god, they might cry out to three gods, we cry out to one ... it's monotheism. But otherwise, you couldn't find something more stark, then wisdom literature as something that was shared by every nation and society in our neighborhood. It's practical, and Professor Held ends by saying that anybody, anybody who studies a book like Kohelet or Ecclesiastes and doesn't understand this difference is operating with a false eyeglass. And, unfortunately, we tend to break down that barrier and homogenize Wisdom Literature with Torah. But as you all know Torah talks about the people of Israel Torah talks about history in terms of Egypt in terms of Sinai, none of those terms would ever find themselves in wisdom literature and the real key is when we say Eitz Hayim hi L'machazikim ba"; "that it is a tree of life to those hold on to it" that comes from Proverbs. And we have homogenized that I would say kidnapped it. And we talking about Torah. But it's not about Torah. It's about Wisdom. When we read Proverbs, and we say "listen to the "Torat Imecha" listen to the Torah of your mother. It doesn't mean Torah, it means the wisdom of your mother. So Held and other scholars need us to understand. And this really relates to the question that you asked Rabbi Adam, about why are we reading this book, it's not only reading this book, it's reading a book from a totally different tradition than the Torah tradition. And it is included in our, in our canon, we call it TaNaKh, Torah, Nevi'im veKetuvim. Ketuvim is the written books of Wisdom Literature. So they're probably accepted as different as they are because they were written in Hebrew, and they were part of our culture. But it's a stark difference. And I think I'd love to hear your comments on this. But I think what it does is it raises the stakes in your question. It's not simply Why did we pick one of the 24 books to read on Sukkot when we had other choices? It's why did we pick one of the most representative books of the common wisdom, the common practical guidelines? And yes, the cynical and I would say fatalistic viewpoint that was shared by all humanity to read after such a Jewish month?

Adam Mintz  21:52

So I just want to I want to strengthen your question. There's a rabbinic teaching in something called Masechet Sofrim that was written around the year 800. And it says that on Shabbat Hol HaMoed Pesach we read Shir HaShirim (the Song of Songs) because Shir Hashirim is about a love story. It's about spring time, it's perfect for Pesach. That we read the book of Ruth on Shavuot, because it's about acceptance of mitzvot. It's about conversion, whatever that means. And it's perfect for Shavuot.  We read Esther on Purim, we read a Eicha (Lamentations) on Tisha B'Av. What's amazing about that teaching in Masechet Sofrim is it does not mention that we read Kohelet on Sukkot. That seems to be a later tradition. That was not part of the original tradition. And it might be that there's something in that Geoffrey, it was it was more communal, the community felt after the heaviness of Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur that we needed a book like Kohelet.

Geoffrey Stern  23:10

I think so. I'd like to just for the purposes of sharing my discovery that goes back 40 years about Near Eastern Wisdom Literature, to read some parallel texts. So in Ecclesiastes 1: 2 we read "Hevel Havalim, which now we know is a short breath, a short breath, otter futility, utter futility what real value is there for a man in all the gains he makes beneath the sun, one generation goes another comes, but the earth remains the same forever." Here's from The Epic of Gilgamesh, "Who my friend can scale Heaven, only the gods live forever under the sun. As for mankind numbered are their days, whatever they achieve is but the wind, even here though art afraid of death." There are stories about and parallels to this concept of riches that comes up, or even scholarly pursuits. Gilgamesh goes on, "do we build a house forever? Do we seal contracts forever? Do brothers divide shares forever, does hatred persist forever in the land. Since the days of yore, there has been no permanence, the resting of the dead how alike are they? Do they not compose a picture of death, the commoner and the noble?" These themes about the difference between us is less than what we have in common the Pauper in the king both end up in the same place, that riches won't give you anything. These are themes that are shared by all of humanity, and didn't change as a result of the revolution of the Jewish people. And if anything, if anybody knows anything, I believe in the in the past six months of Madlik, I believe that there is much that's unique about Judaism and we contributed so much. But we get to this moment. And we say, you know, it's all said and done, we've changed the way we celebrate the New Year. The other nations they make their earthly King into their ruler, we make God into our ruler we change the way we read our texts, other traditions hide it in a holy of holies. And let only the priestly caste read it. We democratize it, all of the changes that we've discussed, all of the revolutions that were led by the Hebrew project, when it's all said and done in Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashannah are all over. I think what we do is we make a an amazing stop. And we say, but at the end of the day, we're still human. At the end of the day, all we have is that short breath. And I think that, too, is an amazingly humbling, but also liberating concept. And maybe that's where the simcha comes in.

Adam Mintz  26:30

I think that's great. I think that that's really a nice, you know, a nice explanation, kind of for the evolution of Kohelet as almost a continuation of Yom Kippur. It's interesting that right after Kohelet that we have Simchat Torah which is really a celebration of the whole process, right? It's a celebration of the whole month, and that you can't have the celebration without having both Yom Kippur. And Kohelet. They're both part of the celebration, one without the other isn't good enough.

Geoffrey Stern  27:09

I mean, I totally agree. And it also makes us look a little bit differently at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashannah, which actually are not really in history, either. They're really about us, as a universal people (humankind). If you think about the themes that I described before that are unique to the wisdom literature and the wisdom world. It's kind of interesting. Now when you look back, that you can see that Rosh Hashannah is actually a very universal holiday, we celebrate the birth of the world, or some say the birth of man. We we discuss who rules us and who doesn't. And then on Sukkot, even though there's an attempt to tie it into the exodus from Egypt, and it's not a great attempt, you know, everybody argues and says, Did they really the Jews really live in thatched roof structures? Or did they live in actual tents. But the point is, that there's this temptation to try to bring so called back into the other Regalim, the other pilgrimage, holidays, and make it kind of historic, but on the other hand, it's in nature, it's out of the house. I mean, you have to believe even in the days of the temple, they moved out of the temple and went into this sukkah. It literally takes what makes us human. And it brings us outside and I have to say that one idea, one thought that I had you mentioned Simchat Torah. You know, I said a second ago that in wisdom literature, when you say to "torah", you don't mean the Torah that was revealed or given at Sinai. When you say "torat immecha", you mean the wisdom of your parents, of your elders, have prior generations of lives already lived? And I wonder whether we have the license to celebrate one or the other or both torot... meaning to say this this confluence of finishing the yearly public reading of the Torah which is an amazing democratizing event. But there's also simchat torah, Simcha as described by by Rabbi Sacks which is this momentary, just take life by the coattails and laugh when you can and cry when you have to. And that torah that wisdom the simchat torah.... I really just thought about it kind of this morning when I was thinking about simchat torah.  Do we have that license? Do you give me that license? Adam,

Adam Mintz  27:10

I give you that license. I love it.

Geoffrey Stern  30:09

So it's, it's, it's really an amazing book and amazing tradition and we Jews, who always talk about how distinctive we are and how different we are ... on the culmination.... And I think you really can refer to Sukkot as a combination as a climax. And the climax of the climax again, is shmini atzeret, which again, the word ottzer means to gather in to retain, to keep everybody around. But the climax at the end of the day is when all is said and done. And now I'm gonna sound like I wrote wisdom. Sof davar Hakol nishma... what do we have, we all have the same sun and sky over us, we have the same end. It's such a universal message. And it's such an unvarnished message because if you read the wisdom literature, whether it's Jewish or Sumerian, or Mesopotamian, it doesn't pull any punches ever. You know, we can beg for our lives and for rain on Yom Kippur. And Rosh Hashannah. But when you read the wisdom literature, it makes it very clear, you can beg all you want, but the God or the gods, they act using their own logic, and all we have is just what we can grasp in a breath.

Adam Mintz  31:40

I think that's great. I think that there are so many different pieces here. I think that that's great. You know, so many Roh hashannah and Yom Kippur piece. The idea of the breath, I think Rabbi Sacks really captures so much by talking about the fact that hevel means a breath, I think that's great.

Geoffrey Stern  32:00

So I couldn't finish without going to one of my favorite folk songs of the 60s, which is Pete Seeger's Turn, turn, turn. And it probably is the first, maybe only time that a writer literally took the words of Scripture, and turned them into a hit song, and turn turn turn really just captures both in the title. And also in the lyrics. You know what we're talking about, that when all is said and done, it's just a cycle in a sense. And all we have is the ability to go one step at a time, go forward, there's a time for love. There's a time for hate. There's a time for peace. And what he added was, "I hope it's not too late". And what what I was surprised to find out is that first of all why he wrote this song, his agent told him Pete, cut out the revolutionary songs, no one wants to hear any more about changing the world. And for some reason he had in his notebook, the words of Kohelet. And he submitted them, and in his mind, Kohelet was a guy with a long beard and sandals, who was definitely a rebel rouser. But the agent said, It's from Scripture. Finally, you gave me something that I want. And a few years ago, Pete gave 45% of the royalties from the song to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. So he made a political statement. He kept 50%. And then he said, 5%, he added on because he added, "I hope it's not too late". So those were his own words. But this story gave me simcha when I read it, and it showed us how we have to take the words that we study and that we read, make them our own dance to them, clap to them. And I just want to wish everybody an amazing Simchat Torah, whatever torah you're celebrating, and that we should all savor the moment and be able to savor those small little breaths that we make. And I have to say, Rabbi, it's been a wonderful few months I reading the Torah  with you. And one of the things that I will be celebrating is our partnership here every Friday, thank you so much.

Adam Mintz  34:47

You know, what more can we say next Friday. We get together to study Bereshit. That's an amazing thing. Rabbi Avraham talked about cyclical time and linear time. What an amazing thing that we go back to the beginning isn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  35:02

We start all over Turn, turn, turn.

Adam Mintz  35:08

Shabbat shalom. We are going to post this as a podcast. And I used to end every podcast with some music so you guessed it. This week, I will add a recording of Pete Seager singing, turn, turn, turn. And let's hope it's not too late. Shabbat Shalom and Hag Samayach.

Parshat Ha'Azinu - With the Yom Kippur liturgy fresh in our minds we explore a disturbing, persistent and infantile argument for forgiveness… that God forgive us for His sake. Using equal measure of Chutzpa and shaming, we argue that God, as our Father and as our Creator is ultimately responsible for our sins, the sins of his children/creations. We ask: How does God Respond? How should we respond?

Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/347781

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:01

Welcome to clubhouse Madlik disruptive Torah every week at four o'clock eastern. And we are recording this session and we will publish it on your favorite podcast platform as Madlik. So go ahead and give a listen. And if you do, please give us a star a two and a good review and feel free to share it with your friends. This week's parsha is Ha.azinu, And it is Moses's swan song to the Jewish people. And at times it can be pretty rough on the Jewish people. So it's in Deuteronomy 32. And there were three themes that I want to focus on today. But let's go ahead and read the verses in question. So it begins "Do you thus requite the Lord O dull and witless people. Is not he the father who created you, fashioned you and made you endure? Remember the days of old consider the years of ages past, ask your father, he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you." So it starts by referring to a concept we've seen before, which is God, the Father, and God, the Creator of you. And then it goes on to say, "and he said, I will hide my countenance  from them, and see how they fare in the end, for they are a treacherous breed, children with no loyalty at all." So again, the focus is on children, who just do not follow in the footsteps of their parent, their Creator. And God introduces this concept of "hester panim", hiding his countenance from them, and says, see how they fare in the end. And the third theme is finally God says, You know, I would have destroyed you "I might have reduced them to no it made them memory cease among men, but for the fear of the taunts of the foe, their enemies who might misjudge and say, our own hand has prevailed. None of this was wrought by the Lord." And this is another argument that we've seen before, where Moses on many occasions says to God, if you destroy this people, what will the goyim say, what will the non Jews say? What will the Egyptian say? What will the world who has been watching this amazing project of taking a ragtag group of slaves, giving them freedom, bringing them into the desert, and building a new vision for social justice and society? What will happen if they are destroyed? What will everyone say about you and your project? So we have these three themes, God, the Father, God, the Creator, God, saying, I've had enough, I will hide my face from you and see what becomes of you. And finally, you know, I would have destroyed you, if not for what that will do to my street cred to what the world will say about you. And I want to pick up these themes, because they are so primal, to the story of the Bible, the five books of Moses, which were ending, so it's only natural that we can go back to the beginning, and look at the very first sin that was ever perpetrated. And of course, that is the sin of Eve, when she ate of the apple. But when God comes and confronts Adam, with this sin, what does Adam say? What is the response of man, of humanity to being confronted with sin? Genesis 3: 12, "the man said, the woman you put at my side, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." And as Rashi says, Here, he showed his ingratitude, "Kofer b'tovah". The idea that when man is caught sinning, the first thing he does is he blames his creator, he blames that being who gave him the break, who gave him that wife to be at his side, it's precisely there that he says, if you had not given her to me, I would not have failed. And this is a recurring theme that we're going to pick up throughout the Bible. And it's clearly to me in any case, a troubling one. In terms of blaming God or defining God, I should say, you have even Abraham, if you remember before Sodom, and he's saying to God, how can you destroy these people if you find 50 if you find 40 if you find 10 and he finally says "Far be it from you, Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?" It's again, he's not blaming God in this case, but he certainly is talking to God in a very assertive manner, saying that listen, God you have street creds, you are supposed to be this just being you can't act unjustly. I mean, even that smacks a little bit of, let me say it Chutzpah.

Adam Mintz  05:36

There is a very fine line between chutzpah, and the way that he speaks to God, I would agree 100%. You know, you kind of get the impression that God was much more human in the Torah, And therefore they could speak to God like this.

Geoffrey Stern  05:55

Yeah, and of course, we all know that the Torah speaks in the language of man "lo dibra Torah ela b'lashon b'nai adam". So whether it's God being more human, or the text and our Holy Writ being written in a way that we can understand, it's irrelevant. But I think you're absolutely correct. In the sense the Bible, gives us something that we can wrap our arms around, and in our perception of God, we perceive God to be just, so he has to act just and if he doesn't, we can complain against him. And that's a good message. But later on, when the children of Israel are in the desert. And they start complaining whether it's when the mana falls or when there's not enough meat, or when the spies come back. And at one point, the Gemora in Avada, Zahra puts the words into Moses as saying, "Moses said to the Jewish people, ingrates, children of ingrates, when the Holy One bless it be he said to the Jewish people, who would give that he had such a heart as this always... the point is that according to this piece of Talmud, every time that the Jews complain, and they say, God, you took us out of Egypt, you bought us here. It's all your fault. Or the reason it says ingrates son of ingrates is because he refers back to what Adam said to God. There's this overriding sense, not because God is the only one to complain, but maybe he's the biggest target, that children of Israel actually act almost like children who are constantly coming back and saying, not that we failed, but that you failed us. You created us, you bought it, you own it type of thing. This ingrates, children of ingrates Kofi Toba Benei, Kofu Tova.

Adam Mintz  08:08

Yeah, you're like that? That's a very strong image isn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  08:12

Absolutely. And it's, it just seems like a strange way to kind of move forward. Nothing good can can come out of it. Unless I'm missing something, you know. We were talking before how the the Torah is written in the language of man, but we still can control how we perceive things and how we represent things. And we're representing a situation where God yes, sometimes can inspire us, but on the other hand becomes a straw dummy or pinyatta that we can just batter.

Adam Mintz  08:56

I think the word is a target.

Geoffrey Stern  08:59

Absolutely. With a capital T. ..... And, and, you know, that's why this this recurring notion of what will the Egyptians say? What will the people of the world say? It's kind of a hybrid argument. It's not only God, you put us in this situation, but because you put this in this situation, you know, have to protect your flank, because people are going to say you started this program, this experiment. You took this raggle rap of a people out of Egypt, you said that slaves could be free people, and we're failing. And so it not only is it your fault, but humanity will cast blame on you as as a failure at the most lowest level. But as Someone who has given up and walked away.

Adam Mintz  10:04

That's an important idea, by the way, the idea that God will be a failure. I think there's something to that. God is very worried that people will think him a failure. "lama Yomru Mitrayim laymor" Right? Why should the Egyptian say that God took us out to kill us in the desert? It's a very strong idea.

Geoffrey Stern  10:33

And I think, stepping back for a second, what it really reminds us of is that this whole project, the project of the Bible, is for all humanity. We've touched upon this theme in previous episodes, where God says, You know, I tried with Adam, I tried with Noah, it failed. I really wanted this for all humanity. I didn't want to have chosen people. But this became my plan B, or C, or D, my default strategy. But ultimately, it's important what happens in this program, because the world is watching. And I think that's the most maybe favorable way that we can characterize this argument of what will the rest of the world say? But certainly, I find it a little pathetic. I have to say,

Adam Mintz  11:34

That's interesting. Pathetic. Tell everybody. Why do you think it's pathetic?

Geoffrey Stern  11:38

Well, again, .... you were given great opportunities. And the Jewish people, certainly while they came from a very troubled background, they were given by this God amazing opportunities, they saw the Red Sea part, they saw the revelation at Sinai. And given that, and given the opportunities that they've been given, to dream about going back to Egypt, and to blame God for putting them in this situation does smack of .... I can't say it better than Rashi: ingratitude.

Adam Mintz  12:21

Right. I mean, that's the word ingratitude. And that's the word of the parsha is ingratitude. Let's just to go back to the parsha, the way you introduced it for a minute. It's interesting that everything's going to work out, okay. That ha'azinu ends on a high note, .... that you're going to find God and then everything's going to end up working out. Okay. We know that that's not always the case. Things don't always end up end up. Okay. It's kind of interesting, isn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  12:55

Well, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, again, here's a case where the Jews are being put on the spot, put on trial and being castigated, and they come back and they say, well, it's all your fault. You put us in the situation, you're talking about those situations where no one's castigating them, but life is tough. And again, they go back, and they blame their parents so to speak, I want to pick up on that theme of the Father, because in Numbers, so we're not talking midrash,  we're not talking commentary. We're talking the book of Bamidbar/Numbers. Moshe is in one of these situations that he's in multiple times, where God says, let's just cut the cord, I will destroy this people, and I'll begin afresh with you. And Moses turns back in Numbers 11, verse 12, he said, "Did I conceive all this people? Did I bear them that you should say to me carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant, to the land that you have promised on oath to their fathers?" You can't but take away from this, that Moses is almost, again saying to God, I'm not their father, you're their father, you cannot put on me this blame and this responsibility of carrying them. But again, it comes back down to if I were the father, or in this case, God, you are the Father, you gave birth to them, you created this project. You need to fulfill your promise, even if they let you down. So the two themes are kind of inextricably connected.

Adam Mintz  14:50

You know, I saw an amazing story before Yom Kippur. The story is of a man who sits down before Yom Kippur and he takes out his book And the book has a list of all his sins. I did this wrong, and I did this wrong. And then he opens another book. And the other book has a list of all the things God did wrong.... you know, you killed this person, this person died of cancer. And there was a flood and there was a hurricane and all these things, and the man looked up to heaven, He says, God, I'll make you a deal. If you forgive me, I'll forgive you.

Geoffrey Stern  15:27

Well, you know, that sounds like one of these wonderful Hasidic stories.

Adam Mintz  15:33

it is Yeah, but it's kind of related to your point.

Geoffrey Stern  15:37

It is. And I would go, one step further. Some of the Hasidim, especially the Breslevers,  would go out into the woods, and they would pray to God and call Tata, tata, my dad, my dad, they focused on the real parent child relationship. And I assume that that has good aspects of it. And it also has some negative aspects too,

Adam Mintz  16:04

right? For sure. I mean, it's just, you know, like all these Hasidic stories, it's just to kind of give you an impression, but it's a strong impression, I think.

Geoffrey Stern  16:14

I agree. I was thinking about this during all the liturgy and prayers of Yom Kippur. And I was really struck by the fact that this argument that we have kind of uncovered the one of slight ingratitude slight chutzpah, where the sinner turns around and says to the accuser, in this case God, Hey, buddy, you put me in this spot. It's actually very well presented in the liturgy. So the most famous prayer is Avenu Malkenu. And Barbra Streisand does a great job of singing it. We all love it. In the Talmud there's an amazing story about a situation where there was a drought, and a rabbi was unsuccessful. Rabbi Eliezer was unsuccessful in getting the rain to come. And Rabbi Akiva, one of our buddies and friends went ahead, and he invented this prayer. And he said, Avanu Malkenu lmancha Rachem aleynu" which means God our Father, for your sake, have mercy upon us. And of course, you could say that I'm kind of picking words here. But there was no question that later when they added to these verses, they said, if not for us, then for your sake, but it's clear from the perspective that he gave it number one calling god father and emphasizing that fatherly relationship, and then saying again, it's for your sake, do it? Does he mean for your sake? Because you gave birth to us? Is it because for us sake, because of what others will speak? Well, this question of in the Avinu Malkenu which is such a significant part of our prayers, Rabbi Akiva introduces both the "avinu" part that God is our father, but also this this little insight that we've been working on, which is because your our father, it's lamancha do it for your sake. And I think that, that's very key to the argument. The other place where it comes up is the most beautiful poem and prayer that we have, it's like "Clay in the hands of the pot potter". And it seems like just a beautiful little story based on verses in Jeremiah and other prophets. "We say like clay in the hands of the potter, if he wills, he can expand it, if he wills he can contract it. So too, we in your hand, preserver of kindness, heed the covenant and not the accuser. Like stone in the hand of the Mason." It's a beautiful, beautiful poem, but is it not doing the same thing? Is it not basically saying, hey, God, we're the Golem and you fashioned us. We are the statue. We are the rudder. We are the gem. Call us what you want. But at the end of the day, you made us You made a covenant with us. You need to protect us against the accuser. Is it not the same argument?

Adam Mintz  19:59

The answer is it does sound like the same argument doesn't it? What you're saying Geoffrey is it's chutzpah?

Geoffrey Stern  20:11

Well, I am and I always thought it but then I was reading Jonathan Sacks' Machzor and he actually brings up Shemot Rabba, which is a midrash. Where it says, What is the meaning of We Are the clay, you are the potter. And it says "Israel said, master of the universe, you have caused it to be written about us like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel, therefore do not leave us even though we sin and provoke you for we are merely the clay and you are the potter, consider if a potter makes a jar and leaves a pebble in it. When it comes out of the furnace, it will leak from the hole left by the pebble and lose the liquid poured into it, who caused the jar to leak and lose its liquid, the potter who left the pebble in the jar as it was being made. This is how Israel pleaded before God, Master of the Universe, You created us with an evil inclination for my youth, as it says for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth. And it is that that has caused us to sin, since you have not removed from us the inclination that instigates us to sin." And Rabbi Sacks points out that the whole argument is based on a plan words. We talked about "atah Yotzrenu" that you created us and we are homer b'yad haYotzer". We are material in the hand of the Yotzer. And there's the Yetzer HaRah" So it makes the case that all of our deficiencies be blamed on our Yotzer on that who created us. So it's it's not only what I hear, I think the rabbi's heard this as well,

Adam Mintz  22:07

That's very, very good. That's a nice idea. Where does Rabbi Sacks say that?

Geoffrey Stern  22:11

Well, he says it in his introduction to the Yom Kippur Machzor, he has a whole paragraph on clay in the hands of the potter. And it's in the in the notes for that for this session. But he quotes Shemot Rabbah and of course, it's the rabbi's who who make this case. And he goes even further to say that, maybe, and this is something that a theme that I have not brought up, is that maybe we don't need to attribute this to a parental relationship, rebelling against one's parents or blaming every deficiency on one's parents. Maybe it's just dawggone chutzpah. And he says the Gemora in Sanhedrin says that when it comes to prayer, you need some chutzpah so it's complicated. It's complicated, like parent children relationships. And we probably can't get away from it. But certainly to identify this issue of constantly blaming God for our deficiencies, or blaming our parents for our deficiencies is something that has its place but also can be played out a little bit. I think.

Adam Mintz  23:36

I think that's really nice. I mean, I think that's a that's a really beautiful idea. You know, We miss Rabbi Sacks, this is just about a year since his passing, and we miss Rabbi Sacks. And you see the amazing insight he has to this is really beautiful.

Geoffrey Stern  23:51

Well, absolutely. The third theme that I brought up was this question of God hiding his face. And I just wonder, I don't want to put any of our listeners on the spot. But if anyone is a psychologist who can talk about parent children, relationships, that would be insightful. What do you do with a child who constantly blames you for all of their deficiencies? We've gone through half an hour where the Jewish people say, hey, God, you took us out of Egypt, you put us into this situation. We are just a bunch of raggle taggle slaves. We have no idea what freedom and responsibility is. It's all you're to blame. We all said yesterday, we are clay in the hands of the potter. God You made us You must have left a marble in the dough, because we didn't turn out so well. It's your fault. And I would love to give as a suggested answer is at a certain point, God says "haster panim". I will hide my face the best thing that I can do Is to wean you of that relationship, is to pull away. And I think that's the third element here, that God says to the Jewish people in the song of ha'azinu. He says, you, you blame me for everything, you forget that I'm your parent in a good way. So "I will hide my countenance from them, and see how they fare in the end". And I think this question of seeing how they fare in the end is normally taken as part of a punishment. Like, we'll see what happens to you now, you know, .... this is what you want, you want that new car or you want that, to do it your way, you don't want to listen to me, well, let's see how that works out. But on the other hand, it might be a blessing. And God might be saying, Listen, I have no choice, I have to pull back. You need to learn on your own, to stand on your own two feet, to stop casting blame going backwards to those who have empowered you. And I'll see how it turns out. And maybe God is saying, hopefully, with a sense of hope, we'll see how it turns out.

Adam Mintz  26:15

I think that's beautiful.

Geoffrey Stern  26:17

I mean, I think that the question of how Sukkot and Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanna all come together, is maybe part of this, this answer, where we're literally moving out of our house, God (our dad) is kicking us out. And we go into the sukka. And we only have selves, and maybe a few pieces of branch or straw protecting us. The the word that the Psalms talks about is the same word as God uses when he hides his face. It says that you shall be (and this is from the Psalm that we read all through the High Holidays and into Sukkot). And that is "and he will shelter me in his sukka, on an evil day", we create our own shelter. We create our own life, we have to stand on our own two feet. We are surrounded by the beauty of nature and the crops that we have grown. And maybe that's part of the answer. But that certainly is part of the answer for those of us who may be it doesn't resonate. In terms of the liturgy in the services that we do in the synagogue, where we try the blame game, and maybe after Ne'eela we're ready to step outside, and to welcome our new selves with a smile and the simcha that you talked about Rabbi a few weeks ago.

Adam Mintz  27:45

I think that's beautiful. And I just want to wish everybody Shabbat Shalom, and enjoy hag samayach. And look forward to seeing everybody next week. Maybe next week Geoffrey, since it's Shabbat Hol HaMoed, and we read the book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, we could choose something from Ecclesiastes.

Geoffrey Stern  28:02

That's a great idea. Okay, let's let's think about that. Shabbat shalom. And for those of you including Stav and Yohanan, and anyone else who wants to continue the conversation, welcome to the after party. Stav. How are you my friend?

Stav Stern  28:20

Oh, good. Geoffrey. I'm live from California, from Los Angeles traffic. And you just brought up, I came in a little late. But you just brought up something in me because I was thinking during this Yom Kippur for the first time, I have fasted wholeheartedly in a while. And I was thinking a lot about forgiveness. And then I realized that most people or I usually think about asking forgiveness on Yom Kippur. But this time, I was really into also the idea of giving forgiveness. And, you know, when you talked about blaming God for making us imperfect, with the yetzer hara, and all that I was thinking, is also part of the ideal, so to forgive God in any way for that, and just came up to me and I wonder your thoughts?

Geoffrey Stern  29:20

I definitely think that's part of it. I mean, there's another prayer that says at the end of it "aval anachnu v'avotenu Hatanu", that we and our parents have sinned, and I always was curious, why does it say we and our parents have sinned? Again, is it part of this strategy of saying, hey, it's not just me, it's it's my parents also. Or are we talking about that God (our Father in) heaven? The is the avotenu... Hey, God, were both not blameless here. If we're talking as a nation, you freed us You put us in the desert, we didn't have a clue about freedom and responsibility. If it's talking about us as individuals, it's a it's a real heavy load that that we're asked to do as we kind of journey and navigate through this world. And while it's probably not healthy, to totally blame God, I do think that the relationship is such whether it's because of Avinu Malkenu that he's both our king and our parent, but he's also a member of a covenant. And the covenant is two ways. So I think that's a wonderful insight. I am so into Sukkot right now, it's amazing how you can switch gears, but I'm ready to move out of the house. I'm like a little kid who's moving out of the house for the first time. And I look at my, my father, both in life and in heaven. And I just smile and I say, you know what, Bygones are bygones. I'm out. Now, I'm going to make my own way. And you're going to be a part of it. I think you kind of go through the whole process. But I do think that forgiving God is, as as dastardly as it sounds, it's, it's probably part of the process as well.

Stav Stern  31:24

Thank you, Geoffrey.

Geoffrey Stern  31:26

Thank you Stav. Okay. Well, unless there's anybody else who has any suggestions or questions. I am going to wish everybody a wonderful year, a Shabbat Shalom, and get out there, build a sukkah or find a tree to sit underneath this shade. And just enjoy these early days of Fall. And be thankful for the two feet that you can stand on and the air you can breathe, take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And maybe that's the ultimate reason why Sukhot is the final the final day of forgiveness and rejuvenation that were given. So Shabbat shalom. Thank you all for joining

Parshat Vayeilech - We review the septennial Hakhēl convocation where the Torah is read publicly as an opportunity to explore the revolutionary nature of the Hebrew Alphabet from both a social and technological perspective. In so doing, maybe we shed some light on the proliferation of alphabetical acrostics in the Psalms and later liturgy and piyyutim.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/346294

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

Welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah. We are every Friday at four o'clock here on clubhouse Eastern time. And we go ahead and record this. And then we post it as a podcast called Madlik. And it's available on all of your favorite podcasting channels. And if you like what you hear today, go ahead and listen to it as a podcast and share it with your friends, and give us a few stars and say something nice about us, in any case, this week portion Vayelech. And it's Deuteronomy 31, for the most part. And in Deuteronomy 31, verse nine, it says, "And Moses wrote down this teaching, and he gave it to the priest, sons of Levy, who carried the Ark of the Lord's covenant, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses instructed them as follows, every seventh year, the year set for shmitah, at the Feast of Booths, which will start in another week or two, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, you shall read this teaching aloud, in the presence of all Israel, gather the people, men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities that they may hear. And so learn to revere the Lord your God, and to observe faithfully every word of this teaching. Their children too who have not had the experience shall hear and learn to revere the Lord your God, as long as they live in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan to possess." And then a few verses down, it finishes off by saying, "When Moses had put down in writing, the words of this teaching to the very end "ad tumam" , Moses charged the Levites to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord saying, Take this book of teaching and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you." So Wow, this is a pretty fundamental law, it touches upon a public reading of the Torah, it touches upon the seventh year, the cycle of the shmita, of the sabbatical year that we are starting as we speak. And it also talks about placing that Torah scroll, if you will, into the ark right next to the 10 commandments. So rabbi, what says this to you?

Adam Mintz  02:47

So I want to go to the end, it's so interesting that the Torah scroll plays a role here, it all seems to be about strengthening our commitment to Torah and to God, and therefore everything has a Torah scroll that is right in the middle of it. And I think that's really, really interesting. At the end of each shmita cycle, they used to gather all the people in Jerusalem, the men, the women, the children, and the king used to read the Torah. So really, even the sabbatical year, is about strengthening our commitment to Torah.

Geoffrey Stern  03:28

I totally agree. But I have to confess that when I tell people, and I've been telling everybody I can, trust me, that this is the sabbatical year, unlike the Sabbath that occurs every seven days. And I'd like to think, we can discuss this on another afternoon. I'd like to think it was one of the Jews greatest contributions to culture and society, a day of rest. It's actually a statement of human rights because you rest your servants rest to animals were at rest, that everybody kind of gets whether they keep the Sabbath on a Saturday or Sunday or a Friday, or they just understand they have to reboot once in a while. But the idea of the seventh year cycle, the sabbatical that has only really survived in academia. And I hope it's still the case where academics take off a year to broaden their horizons, to travel to see other academics and maybe go out into the field. It struck me when I read this portion, that Wow, there actually is a connection because mostly when we think of the sabbatical year, we think of letting the land life fallow, and all of the other things I discussed before, but there is clearly an intellectual aspect of this and that's what you were talking about Rabbi in terms of both faith and understanding The idea was in this sabbatical year, we all have to give ourselves a chance to be exposed to that which is important to us. But it kind of works both ways. Because on the Sabbath, we also read from the Torah publicly, and the rabbi's understood the connection between this because those of you who have been in an orthodox synagogue and know that the first Aliyah, the first calling up to the Torah, is for the Cohen. And the second one is for the Levi The Tom wood learns it literally from this verse, if you will call. It says that, in verse nine, that Moses wrote down this teaching, gave it to the priests the kohanim, sons of Levi. From here, the rabbi's learned that the colon gets the first Aliyah and the Levi gets the second. And then of course, the Israelite gets the third and onward. But I'm much less interested in the law. And I'm more interested in the connection the rabbi's took from this annual reading or the I should say, the seven year cycle of reading it in the sabbatical year, and reading it every week. In both cases, we're kind of doing this amazing public discourse of our most important texts.

Adam Mintz  06:20

Yes. I mean, and I think that's a super interesting thing. The fact that the Torah, even though study is an individual act, we do it by ourselves, we do it with a havruta (study partner), with one other individual. But actually, the reading of the Torah is always a public act. That's something fascinating, isn't it? Geoffrey.  Right, the Torah  is a public act, we read it in the temple, we read it in this Synagogue, it's always public.

Geoffrey Stern  06:50

I totally agree. And we're going to get a little bit more into that in a second. But before we do, the other thing that is kind of interesting to me is that the reading of it is also a conduit into the future. And you see that in two ways. If you recall, in verse 13, it says, and their are children who have not had the experience shall hear and learn. And the idea is, even though they were speaking in the present tense, and as it said, they were crossing the Jordan into the promised land. This was not to be limited to the people in the room, so to speak. This was the vehicle for transmitting this experience into the future, this interactive, maybe immersive reading of our sacred texts in public, placing them in a tactile form on the side of the shattered and full 10 commandments was an amazing, both commentary and commitment to what the written and spoken word can do in terms of transmitting ideas and values into the future.

Adam Mintz  08:05

I couldn't agree more with that. I think that that's a very important thing. And that's why you know, we're kinda not focusing on this, but this is the end of the Torah. This is the third to the last portion in the Torah.  We have Ha'azinu next week, and then on Simchat Torah, we finish the Torah with Zot HaBracha. This is the end Geoffrey. So whatever is going on now is a lesson forever.

Geoffrey Stern  08:32

I love the fact that you say it is the end, this is it got it both gives this statement more importance. But it also raises another fascinating Talmudic discussion. And that is: the last six or eight verses of the Torah are written after, in the narrative, after Moses dies. So the question comes, how can it be in our verses that Moses gives the complete Torah to the priests and the tribe of Levi? If in those last few verses are things that clearly he could not have written? And the Talmud gives two answers. One answer is: You're right. Moses, wrote everything except the last eight verses and Joshua wrote the book under his name, the Book of Joshua, and the last eight verses, but what I find so dramatic and those of you who were with us last week know how much drama there can be in our wonderful Torah. I love the answer. That was Rabbi Shimon's. And he says, Is it possible that the Torah scroll was missing a single letter, but it has said take this Torah scroll. Rather until this point, the Holy One blessed be He dictated and Moses repeated after him and wrote the text, from the point where it says that Moses has died, the Holy One, blessed be he dictated, and Moses wrote with tears", just an unbelievable image of someone waiting their own obituary, so to speak. But again, the reason I bring it up is because it really parallels this concept of having the children who had not experienced listen to it. Even in the ending of the Torah, it is understood that the writing of the Torah either continues in this hand of other people like Joshua, or that we are all part of a narrative, and we can't experience every part that we're in. But by hearing it and listening to it, we become a part of that narrative. And to me, Moses writing and tears streaming down his cheeks, it's just almost too much to bear.

Adam Mintz  11:04

I mean, Geoffrey, you're not so surprised, because as we all know, if you're anybody, The New York Times has your obituary on file, right? famous people get their obituaries written ahead of time. So it's interesting, the whole idea of, you know, writing your own obituary, I'll just tell you that there was a rabbi, his name was the Vilna Gaon, a great Rabbi in Lithuania, in the 1700s. And he says that the word for tears "Dema" can also be translated as the word "demua", which means mixed up. And he says that what happened was that God commanded Moshe, like a Scrabble board to take all of the letters that would appear in the last eight verses at the Torah, but not to arrange them in order. And Joshua was the one who arranged them in order.

Geoffrey Stern  12:01

Wow, that absolutely blows me away. And we are going to come back to it but to give you a little taste of how we're going to come back to that is, so much of the Yom Kippur liturgy has to do with that alphabet that you just described. Whether it's the "Ashamnu"  that is an alphabetic acronym and has our alphabet or whatever. So this story that you just told of the Vilna Gaon explanation of Joshua putting the letters together is something that really resonates with me and we are going to come back to. Michael Posnick welcome to the Bimah.

Michael Posnik  12:45

Pleasure to be here. I just have a question. Is it possible that the word for tears could be from "dom"  from the"demama" that Moses wrote this?

Adam Mintz  12:59

Like in in "Unetaneh Tokef"  "v'Kol demamah daka yishoma"

Michael Posnik  13:04

That's right that he wrote it in silence...

Adam Mintz  13:06

It's nice. Technically speaking, the root of the word dema is Dalet Mem Ayin, the root of the word 'dimama" meaning silence. is Dalet Mem Mem. These are two different words. It's a nice sermon. But technically speaking in terms of language, it's not really the same word.

Geoffrey Stern  13:32

And of course, you have Aaron who after his two sons died, it says "vaYidom", and  normally translated as silent. Is that the word that it should be translated?

Adam Mintz  13:44

The word "dom" is "demama"  We say in Unetana Tokef, We blow the mighty Shofar "vekol demama daka Yishama" But the sound that we hear is a silent or quiet sound.

Geoffrey Stern  14:06

Fantastic. The truth is, and this will also come up in our discussion, that there are those who believe and I think the the most prominent proponents of this theory, were Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig. And their current student who's a professor named Everett Fox, who believes that much of the Torah has to be listened to as much as read. And therefore it gives you a little bit more, I think, flexibility and wiggle room -  poetic license if you will, to make some of these connections. But even if, from a strict grammatical point of view, there are limitations. Then there's also the pun and I think that the biblical text and certainly Talmudic texts We're very sensitive to words that might have been different, but sounded alike that conjure up certain emotions and certain responses. So I think there's no question that the connection that you made Michael is is there at some level.

Adam Mintz  15:14

Yeah, very nice. And especially because it relates to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur with Unetana Tokef. It really is just right. So thank you so much, Michael.

Geoffrey Stern  15:23

So let's, let's move on a little bit. The title of today's episode, if you will, is the Aleph Beit Revolution. And the reason why it is a revolution is there are scholars...  the one I most recently read is somebody named Joshua Berman, who wrote a book Created Equal - How the Bible Broke with Ancient political thought, who believe that what happened when the Aleph Beit was created in Canaan was as revolutionary as the printing press when it was created in Europe. And we all know what happened when the (Guttenberg) printing press was created. within a very short time, not only did people for the first time get to read their Bible, because that was the first book that was written and popularized publicized. But they were people like Luther, who were able to get out a mimeograph machine, so to speak, and start posting things on the doors of the church. And all of a sudden, our whole revolution occurred within Christianity. And you could even argue maybe the Judeo-Christian tradition, because people were all of a sudden exposed to text in ways that they never were. And these scholars argue that when the Jews, the Israelites were in Canaan, they were surrounded by two empires who pretty much used cuneiform and  hieroglyphics. These are highly intricate ways of expressing whether it's numbers or events, or narratives or stories, using pictures, and the vocabulary was so large, that only the professional scribes could, could master it. So it was something that was never given to the general public. And even when they had, like the Gilgamesh epic, or Homer and Euripides, these were things that were written on stele on stone, they were hidden within the temple, even during the New Year ceremony that we discussed before called Akitu in Babylon. It was literally the king who read these things in private in the Holy of Holies, if you will, and what these scholars are saying about the alphabet, which has 22 symbols, the word that we use for the alphabet in Hebrew is "otiot". And those of you who are sensitive to the Hebrew knows the power of the word "Ot", it is a symbol, but from those symbols, you can ultimately put together any sort of concept. And all of a sudden, the written words of the Torah, were now publicly available to the congregation. And notice here it says, men, women and children who are here and who are not here, it was literally a revolution. As big as the revolution we discussed in prior weeks, where God says, You have no other kings besides me, I'm your only King. You don't worship anybody else here too, you get your information directly from the source, and you can interact with that information. And this was an amazing revolution that is on par with anything else that came out of Canaan and the ancient Israelites and included with Hebrew was Akkadian and Ugaritic, and Phoenician and actually, the Greeks got the 22 letter alphabet, from the Phoenicians, they've said it themselves. When we talk about the Delta virus, we have alpha, beta, delta, there are no words like that in Greek, those are words that come from the Aleph Beit gimel dalet, dalet, is delta, Aleph is alpha. As we approach the new year. This is revolutionary with a capital R.

Adam Mintz  19:56

Yes, I mean, I'm not an expert in alphabet, but yeah, this is all All fascinating material fascinating.

Geoffrey Stern  20:02

And it puts into a totally different perspective, this concept of the public reading of the text.  We think read, you need someone who is literate, who can literally read. But in the Torah, the word that we use is "Li'Kro". And "Li'kro" is similar to what I was saying before, when I talked about Buber and Rosenzweig, it equally applies to reading as it applies to listening or hearing...  to calling out. And so really, I think that the this image of the Torah ending, and it's saying that every seven years, and by extension, every seven days, the Torah is to be read in a vernacular, which literally means a people's language, and can be discussed, really ties into so much that we've been talking about on Madlik in terms of the ability for man to own and introduce and interact with our holy texts.

Adam Mintz  21:19

Michael, You actually began this conversation? With your discussion of the word to my mind? Do you have any thoughts on this?

Michael Posnik  21:30

Just a few come up, I've had the good fortune to be studying Nehemiah. And there, when it's described, when Israel read the Torah, it was read in four different ways. It was read exactly as the text presents it. And then there was someone who did the vernacular so that people could understand that if they didn't know the Hebrew, and then there were two other ways, which are not quite clear what's meant. And on Rosh Hashanna I attended a service of the New Shul, which was outdoors, a couple 100 people in a park in Brooklyn, and, and the Torah was read was held up by two gentlemen, and a 13, or 14 year old girl layned (chanted). And then she layned a couple of pesukim (verses). And then a man, a man with a beautiful voice sang the translation of those pesukim And then Frank London, the trumpeter played the emotional life. On his trumpet. It was very, very, very powerful. So it goes out to the mind, it goes out to the heart, it goes out to the body in the sense that if you listen to it, you might act differently, which would be a great benefit for all of us.

Adam Mintz  22:55

Hey, Geoffrey, that's amazing, because that's really what you said. And that is the experience of reading is actually much deeper than the way we understand reading. But it's about listening. Reading and speaking is where you didn't even discuss the fact that reading is music. And Geoffrey we can actually talk about the fact that the Torah is read in a special tune. And actually on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that tune is a little different reflective of a more somber kind of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur spirit. I mean, it's extremely striking; the tune for the Torah reading. On Rosha Hashannah and Yom Kippur at least to me is one of the highlights of Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kipper.

Geoffrey Stern  23:40

Absolutely I have to echo what you said, Michael, I went to an African American synagogue in Chicago outside of Chicago. I believe the rabbi's name is Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. (an African-American rabbi, who leads the 200-member Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago, Illinois) He's literally a cousin of Michelle Obama. And they read the Torah exactly as you describe. And it's exactly as the Talmud describes it, it was with a "Mitargaminan" with a translator. So the person would read the verses "Bereshit Barah Elohim et aha Shamayim ve'et HaAretz"  And in the same chant, someone would say, "In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth." And it was such a moving experience because we forget so many times when we read from the Torah publicly, what an empowering spiritual, and I would say, revolutionary, democratizing thing that we are doing in terms of "you need to understand this". This is not something that's hidden. This is not something that we don't want you to understand. We want you to ask every question and to provide your novel explanation. And there's the music, you're absolutely right, you can approach it on every different level.

Michael Posnik  24:56

What you said before, about reading is also listening And the question is for each of us, what are we listening to? While that's going on. What are we hearing? And how deeply does the listening go? In in real terms, what are we actually hearing? or listening to? When we hear the words of the Torah? This is a real question, I think for all of us, and not just the Torah, the davening (praying)  all of it, what are we really, really listening to? What are those words? Really? How deep do those words go? Because they come from a deep place. Do we hear it? how deeply do we go?

Geoffrey Stern  25:42

I totally agree. The only thing that I would add and I want to pick up on Rabbi Adam's earlier comment about the Vilna Gaon saying that when Joshua wrote the last eight verses of the Torah that describe Moses death, Moses had actually scrambled it, Joshua put out the letters, and had the letters combined. And for those of you who know, Hasidic stories, about the High Holidays, you probably have all heard one version or another of the beautiful story.  It's the last service on the holiest day of the year of Yom Kippur. And the name of the service is Ne'ilah, because the gates of prayer are about to close. And everybody is thirsty and hungry, and waiting for those gates to close, and for the shofar to be sounded so they can all go home and eat. And there is the great Hasidic rabbi, whether it's the Ba'al Shem Tov or the Maggid of Mezrich, who knows who is standing and waiting and waiting, and the stars come out, and the sun goes down, and he's waiting, and he's waiting. And finally, 20 minutes after he should have closed the ark, he closes it. And all of the students come and the people say what happened. And he said, there was a little peasant boy in the back, and the peasant boy had never gone to a Cheder, never gone into Hebrew school, never learned anything except the Aleph bet. And all he was doing was repeating over the letters of the alphabet of the Aleph Bet, and saying, God, you put them together into the prayer, and the Ba'al Shem Tov said, we've been here for 24 hours, we've been here for 10 days, we've been here for the whole month of Ellul, and we haven't been able to break through the gates of prayer, and the purity and the intensity of this child's repeating over the Aleph Beit (in the same way that Joshua repeated it over, according to the Vilna Gaon story) is what has opened up the gates of prayer. And I just have always been struck by that question, because yes, Michel, it is the depth of the message. But sometimes, it's just the sound of the letter possibly, or in this case, coming from my kind of research in the last few days. Maybe it's just the revolution of that alphabet, the fact that we all have the right and the ability to portray ourselves and to express ourselves. But I love that story. And I love the fact that yes, it's at every level.

Adam Mintz  28:33

I mean, that story captures really, what, what it means to to appreciate experience. I mean, here, Geoffrey, you're really jumping from reading to experiential. And I think that's probably what Buber meant. You need to experience the text, not just to read it.

Geoffrey Stern  28:54

Yeah, the prayer that we say that really comes to mind is the Ashamnu new prayer. It's the prayer where we confess all of our sins, it's only said on Yom Kippur, and it's in alphabetical order. And according to Buber, who you just mentioned, the reason why the Ba'al Shem Tov explained, is he says, if you're doing your sins, there's no end to it. So luckily, the alphabet has only these 22 letters. So we can we can end somewhere. But again, it just seems throughout the whole day, and I encourage all of you to pay attention to the machzor to the prayer book. There seems to be such an emphasis on the alphabetical acrostics, whether it's in the poems in the Piyuttim, or whether in the Ashamnu prayer, and there's something special there. There's something special about the alphabet and I'm not talking even on a mystical level, just that we revolutionized the world and we were part of that revolution, in giving every Jew and every human being the ability to decode the meaning of past generations and make their contribution into the future. And that's an awesome responsibility, but also an amazing capability that we have

Adam Mintz  30:19

Amazing. So how are we going to bring this back to, to the shmita? and to the Torah that was placed in front of the people. How did how does all this relate to that Geoffrey in our last minute?

Geoffrey Stern  30:33

Well, it just seems to me that the fact that this rule was brought up at the very end of the Torah, almost as the climax, shows how important it is the contribution of our tradition, that the Torah and the words that are written on it, are so so valued. Anybody who comes to a synagogue is so impressed by the fact that there are no images but the ark opens up and we worship our book, we are called the People of the Book. And that's our contribution that the value of the written word and the spoken word and the heard word and the transmission of that word. And the conversation is ultimately one of our most proudest and most awe inspiring contributions to the world. And to me, it's something that we have to rejoice in and also be obligated by

Adam Mintz  31:35

that's a beautiful thought Geoffrey, as we enter Yom Kippur, I want to wish everybody a Shabbat Shalom, thank you, Geoffrey, and g'mar Hatimah Tovah. Everybody should have an easy and meaningful fast and we look forward to next Friday. So on Yom Kippur, you can be looking forward to your Madlik class the following day, that we're going to be talking the parsha of Ha'Azinu next week. Shabbat Shalom, everybody.

Geoffrey Stern  31:58

Shabbat Shalom and an easy fast and a wonderful Shabbat to you all. Look forward to seeing you next week.

parshat nitzavim (deuteronomy 30)

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Theatre Director and Professor Michael Posnik in a live recording of Madlik Clubhouse as they explore the verse in Deuteronomy 30 that proclaims that the Torah is not in Heaven. We explore it in context and in the agada. We take a literary journey into the iconic story of the oven of akhnai.

Sefaria source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/345182

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

This week's parsha is nitzavim and you are listening to Madlik weekly disruptive Torah. And by disruptive, we mean Torah that hopefully makes you think about the Torah slightly differently, from a new angle, with a fresh pair of lenses, revisit old friends, as I often do, or meet new characters, new stories and react to them in a fresh way. And we record this clubhouse, and we post it as a podcast on all of your favorite podcasting platforms. So if you miss it, or if you want to share it with somebody, if you want to give us a few stars and a nice review, go check out Madlik. And so we want to get started, this is actually a very special week, because it's the last Shabbat, the last week of the year. So we have to finish dramatically. And today, I'd like to say this is the dramatic version of Madlik because we are going to be discussing a story in the Agadda, which is the material, I think I know it's been made into a play. But who knows, it could be even a movie coming to a theater near you, because it has so many turns to it. And so many different characters with character flaws and a storyline that is engaging. So, let us begin, we are reading from Deuteronomy 30. And the Torah says, speaking about the Torah, it says "It is not in the heavens that you should say, who amongst us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us that we may observe it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should save Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us that we may observe it." So it seems to be a pretty straightforward sense of the Torah is here. You don't have to go far. What do you think Rabbi is the straightforward meaning of "Lo Bashamayim Hi",  that the Torah our teaching our tradition is not in heaven, and it's not on the other side of the sea,

Adam Mintz  02:36

Firs tof all Geoffrey, thank you so much. It's a great parsha to end the year with. I think what it means is that the best excuse you can give his Torah is too hard observance is  too hard tradition are too hard. Tradition is for the Super religious, for the people who can appreciate all of this. The answer is absolutely not. It's not in heaven. It's not far away. It's in our hearts and inside our mouths, it's up to us. It's right there. For us. It's the word I like to use in this portion is it's accessible. And we have to remember the Torah is accessible. If Torah is accessible, then we can we can reach it also.

Geoffrey Stern  03:21

 I agree with you totally. And I would read translate the phrase "Lo Bashamayim hi"  that it is not in heave as it's not in the sky. In other words, I think if you look at the two verses together, one says it's not up in the sky. And the other says it's not beyond the sea. It's very temporal. It's saying you don't have to go look anywhere else. You don't have to go on a trip, you don't have to go on an experience. You don't have to go find yourself a yogi. And I think in the Devarim Raba, it gives a bunch of explanations, but one says "it is not in heaven". They said to Moses, our teacher, but hey, you said to us it's not in heaven. It's not in the other side of the sea. But where is it? He said to them in the place that is close in your mouths in your hearts to do it. It is not far from you. It is close to you all."  And I think that's exactly what you were saying. It's almost to say, you know, people searched the whole world to find something only to find. They had it all along.  I think that even looking at it and thinking of heaven in terms of a sense of heaven and hell or heaven as the abode of God. The truth is if you look up this word in the five books of Moses, it typically means sky. So, so that we are going to launch a journey that began In the Talmud, where all of a sudden, this simple verse of saying, hey, it's not a pie in the sky, it's not up in the sky, it's right in your own hand, transformed and became something very dramatic. And I think it's a great example of what we were talking about in past weeks, how everything in the Torah, whether it's the activities that we're commanded to do, or the texts that we read, can take on a life of their own and be different things to different people as we move forward. So there is a famous story. And it is considered, I think, one of the most favorite stories and one of the most famous stories in the Aggadah, which is the the tradition of allegory and of myth and of  stories in the Talmud, as opposed to strict laws. And it's known by the name of the oven that is the the subject matter. Its in Baba Mitziah 59b And it starts by talking about rabbis discussing a particular oven that was formed in the shape of a snake, you got to kind of think of yourself as forming a playdough snake and then making it into an oven. So there are lines or spaces in between, and the rabbi's are discussing something very technical as to whether it is kosher, or if it's "tahor", if it was pure or impure, and we don't need to get into the details. But we do need to know  that one of the rabbi's whose name was Rabbi Eliezer he said to them that he believed that it was kosher. And the rest of the rabbi's said, No, we think it's impure. And so on that day, Rabbi Eliezer, who believed it was kosher gave all the possible answers in the world and the rabbi's did not accept his explanation. So this is one Rabbi named Rabbi Eliezer. He has a against a bunch of rabbis. And then he went on to say if the law is like me, he says, Let the carob tree prove it. And sure enough, a miracle happened and the carob tree was uprooted from its place 100 cubics. Some people save even 400 cubits. And the rabbi's answered him and said one does not say bring a proof from a carob tree. So Rabbi Eliezer said to them, if the Halacha is in accordance with me, let this stream prove it .... the aqueduct prove it. And all of a sudden, the water on the aqueduct started moving in the opposite direction. And they said to him, one does not cite a proof from a stream.  Rabbi Eliezer started to get blue in the face, and he says if the halacha is in accordance with my opinion, let the walls of the study hall prove it. And sure enough, the walls of the study hall leaned inward and began to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua scolded the walls and said to him, if Torah scholars are discussing Torah with each other. What does it mean to you? What is your involvement? So the walls did actually not fall out of deference to Rabbi Yehoshua, but they didn't straighten up in deference to Rabbi Eliezer until today, they still remain leaning. Finally, Rabbi Eliezer came to the end of this thread, and he says, if the halacha is like me, if the law is with me, let heaven prove it. And a divine voice a "bat Kol", came down from heaven and said, Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer, the halaqa is always according to him. At this point, Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said, "Torah Lo Bashamayim hi", the Torah is not in heaven. What is the relevance of the phrase "it is not in heaven"? He said, since the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we do not regard a "Bat Kol"  a divine voice. And it says "Acharei Lerabim Lehatot", we go after the majority.... This is kind of like a Beatle song. There are many stops here. We could definitely stop here. But I'm going to go One more little insight before I stopped for our first discussion. The Gemora says Rabbi Nathan, one of the rabbis who had been arguing against Rabbi Eliezer happened to meet Elijah the Prophet on the street. And he said to him Elijah what was God doing when this discussion was happening? and Elijah the prophet said he smiled, and he said, "My children have defeated me. My children have defeated ME."Nitzchuni Bonai, Nitchuni Bonai". What a story and we're not even halfway through. Rabbi, Michael Posnik...., what do you think of this story?

Adam Mintz  10:18

So I, Geoffrey I'm also interested by the last line that you added, "my children have defeated me"? Is that good or bad? I mean, are we supposed defeat God? Or is that a criticism? What's the end piece? But I'm gonna turn it over to Michael, because Michael is gonna give us a dramatic insight into the story.

Michael Posnik  10:41

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's the only place in all of our literature where God smiles or laughs.

Geoffrey Stern  10:54

I hope that's not true. But

Adam Mintz  10:56

I don't think that's true. But you know what, but it's good anyway, even if it's not true it's a good insight.

Michael Posnik  11:03

if there's another one, then that would be nice to see that but so you asked if it was good or bad. Gods smiled or laughed. And I think he understood the picture and that he couldn't do anything about this. He gave the Torah and people have to address it according to their their needs. There's also a question here. I understand the oven as being really about the community and Rabbi Eliezer, because there seems to be a question about one of the stones or part of the oven was repaired. And because of the repair, the question was whether the odd stone or the odd stones that have been repaired, made that made the oven unclean, or unable to use it to kasher anything. And this to me, I read about as this community there are people in the community who are like the odd stones. Are are they to be counted in the minyan (quorum of 10 Jews), or not to be counted in the minyan and if they behave differently if they react differently? If they were kind of exiled. And the story unfortunately plays itself out. That Rabbi Akiva comes to Rabbi Eliezer who's now excommunicated, becomes into Herem, so he's out of the community, the community tosses him out.

Geoffrey Stern  12:42

Well, let's not jump ahead too much. We don't want to give away the surprise ending!

Michael Posnik  12:47

Well the surprise ending is a sad surprise. So those are just some thoughts that I think it is our responsibility to address the questions that come up in the Torah. I also wonder about the rabbi's need for power to hold the community together. And Rabbi Eliezer seems to be in the way to a kind of unified view in the community. These are massive questions that we're constantly dealing with, do we really go with the majority? Or is the minority view acceptable? This is today, this is in our world as well. So just some thoughts. nothing terribly dramatic, but just some thoughts.

Geoffrey Stern  13:31

Let me let me focus a little bit you mentioned about God smiling, let's let's take a second to look at some of the words that are used here. The word for smile is "Chiyuch". And inside of that, I believe is is Chai, which is life, and certainly humor. And this has a lot of irony in the story. It has a lot of tragedy, and God is all there in the drama and in the smile. The other word that I love here is "nitzchuni Bonai" , which is typically translated as having "defeated me, "netzach" can be to to be victorious, but as Rabbi Riskin pointed out, "Netchak", can also mean eternal "netzach Yisrael" and so Rabbi Riskin translates this as my children have defeated me, "my children have eternalized me." And before I open that up to discussion, remember when Rabbi Eliezer asked the walls of the Beit midrash" to prove him right? If you remember that was the only instance where the rabbi's jumped in and said to the walls of the Beit Midrash of the study hall. Don't listen to him Don't go all the way because we are engaged in the discussion of Torah the word that they used is "Amar Lehem Talmidei Chachamim nitzachim ze et zeh", that we are discussing, we are battling over Torah one with with the other. Again, the word netzach. Here. So I think, at the most basic part of the story, as we kind of pause, right here is yes, you have all of those elements that you described, Michael, you have the question of the individual, you have a question of the authority of the community, you have the question of, are we looking for truth? Or are we looking for compromise. But certainly, the reason a story like this lives forever, is because God is smiling, and we are doing what he wants us to do. And ultimately, that might be why the Torah is no longer in heaven. It's kind of like a father or mother who teaches their child something, and then has the Glee of watching their child take it somewhere that maybe they hadn't even thought of.

Adam Mintz  15:58

There's a lot there. You just said, I love the idea, Rabbi Riskin's famous idea that has been saying for many years, that my children have eternalized me, that arguing with the God is good, that shows that we're alive, that shows that we're thinking it's such an amazing idea, isn't it? "Nitzchuni Bonai..  they've defeated me, but they eternalize me by defeating ....it's the same word.

Geoffrey Stern  16:27

Absolutely. So we could stay here for the rest of the day. And I actually always thought that the story, as I just told it, was the key to the amazement and the beauty of this story, but it goes on. So now the rabbi's said, Okay, what do we need to do against Rabbi Eliezer, so the first thing that they they did is they put all the ritually pure items that Rabbi Eliezer said, were pure, and they burn them in a fire. And I know all of the images that that brings up amongst us. And then they said, Let's reach a consensus. And let's ostrocize him and lets put him in herem, the word that they use to put him in herem is kind of interesting. And it's one that a play that Michael was involved picked up on, instead of they say cursing, they say blessing, but it's understood that they just didn't want to utter the words of Herem of ostrasizng a Jew. So they they basically ostracize him. And then they have to figure out how we going to convey the message to him that he is ostracized. And so now we have another giant of the Torah raise his hand. And Rabbi Akiva says, I am his beloved disciple, I will go lets an insanely person go and inform him in a callous and offensive manner. And he would thereby destroy the entire world. They're going to excommunicate someone who can move carob trees and water in different directions. So what did Rabi Akiva do? He wrapped himself in black, he sat for cubics away from Rabbi Eliezer as you would sit from someone who is excommunicated, and the details are all there, I invite you all to go read them. And it goes dramatically. He rent his garments. He removed his shoes. Rabbi Eliezer said What happened? Who died, he started to cry, he shedded tears. And all of a sudden things in the world started to get afflicted and destroyed just because Rabbi Eliezer himself started to cry. And then the anger was great that day. And he finally realized that he was being excommunicated. You could not sugarcoat this message. And then the story goes on to Rabbi Gamaliel, who was the head of the Sanhedrin and was involved with this decision. And like the prophet Jonah, he's on a boat, and the water, the water is raging, and the boats about to sink. And he says to himself, he says to God, it seems to me that this is only for the sake of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hercanus This must be for what happened to him and he stood on his feet and he said Master of the Universe. It is revealed and known before you that neither was it for my honor that I acted in ostracizing him, nor was it for the honor of the house of my father, rather for your honor, so that disputes will not proliferate in Israel, and as a response to sea calmed from its raising, and Ima Shalom, we get a woman in the story. This is the wife of Rabbi Eliezer.  She knows that if Rabbi Eliezer ever put his head down on his arm and says the Tachanun Prayer where he cries out to God for that which has befallen him the world will be destroyed. And so she makes it her mission never to let him say the Tachnun prayer because, guess what her brother is Rabbi Gamliel. And sure enough she's  successful until one day, maybe it was because she thought it was Rosh Chodesh the new moon when you don't say Tachnun, maybe it was because a poor ani came to the door, but her attention was swayed, he said Tachnun. And the next thing we know a shofar blew announcing the death of Rabbi Gamliel. And the story ends and she says, Why did this happen? EMA shalom said, this is the tradition that I received from the house of my father, all the gates of heaven are locked, except for the gates of 'Ona'at Devarim' verbal mistreatment. And that is the end of this story. And as far as I can tell, the only pragmatist the only player in this story that is guiltless is possibly the walls of the Beit Midrash that compromised and didn't fall down. But every everybody else is so much to blame. What are your thoughts?

Michael Posnik  21:27

Geoffrey? It is truly a dramatic story. Because at the moment when God smiles or laughs, there's a lightness to the whole thing. And there's a sense of winning as it were, there's a sense of completion in the community. But that laughter turns to tremendous tragedy and grief and the death of the prince of the Sanhedrin and the murder, through Tachanun...  through prayer. It is a devastating tale. And I know the translation at the very end, which he says through the one who has been verbally abused. I know there are many other translations... I read one that said that all the gates are closed except the gates for the broken heart. And this story, I think, is a broken heart. It's not about an oven. I mean, it's about an oven, which is somewhat ironic and strange. But there's broken hearts all the way through this. And those rabbis who won the day as it were over God, they grieve. I think that oven was probably never used to get it's it's quite a powerful, dramatic story. I always think that the comic mask and the dramatic mask tied together with one string. It's not two separate masks. It's one and this story's really indicative of it. The last thing I want to say is Rabbi Akiva having to do that work. It's so close to the holiday now. It's so close to Rosh Hashanna, when we all must go and do work. That's difficult to do on ourselves and forgiveness, things like that with other people. So it's very moving moment. Rabbi Akiva going in black, and having to having to give this message. Geoffrey, you read very dramatically, I have to say I would cast you in a minute.

Geoffrey Stern  23:39

Was was this play ever performed? I know you sent me a script from a Daniel (Danny) Horowitz,. It's called a page of Talmud... was it ever performed?

Michael Posnik  23:48

It was performed when Donny wrote it in Tel Aviv sometime in the 80s. I produced it at the 92nd Street y with the Talking Band. And it was done. About a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. Yoni Oppenheim produced it downtown in the theater with a company of people. They did that one and Donny Horowitz also wrote the story of Kamtza bar Kamtza", which is also not a happy story. Needless to say but very powerful. Yeah, it was produced, and maybe other places too. I don't know.

Geoffrey Stern  24:28

Amazing

Adam Mintz  24:31

it is amazing. Michael, I want to just go back to your idea of putting together the comic with the dramatic. Is it an interesting interlude. The God is smiling, even though it's such a tragedy. Aren't you struck by that?

Michael Posnik  24:49

That's why I went into the theater. Because ou never can resolve that. And the theater and all poetry and really good art does not let you resolve things like we try to do in real life? Like we tried to win the day with a halacha or whatever like the rabbi's. The world is resolvable. And so we are bound to live in, in the midst, in between those two amazing powers, we have to come out whole in some way. Well, that's our job.

Geoffrey Stern  25:23

But to me, it's the question of when does that occur in this story, it occurs right before they break back to the present and start burning Reb eliezer's stuff, and before they excommunicate him, where he smiles, it's rather an amazing place. Because if you recall, they said two arguments. One is that the Torah is not in heaven. And 2, that we go Acharei L'Rabim L'hatot. that we go after the majority. And that's amazing. Because if you look at Exodus 23, which is what they quote, Exodus 23 says, You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong, "Lo acharei l'rabim" . And if you look at Rashi, on that, he says they are Halachik interpretations of the sages that go against the wording of the text. Athis is the part of the story that I think most people take away, and they don't get into the Sturm und Drang afterwards, that he was smiling, because his children had taken the text in a direction, either not meant, not intended, or even in a whole new directiion. And if it had ended there, maybe it would have been a nice story. But I think the challenge becomes when they therefore want to burn his vessels, or in his books, quiet him and stop him. And you know, the good of the, the whole, for that sake, that becomes a little dangerous. And Michael, you shared a text with me, which is absolutely unbelievable. It's from the Brothers Karamazov. And it's chapter five, the Grand Inquisitor, and there it talks about a regular day in Spain, where the Grand Inquisitor was killing some Jews burning them at the stake. And then all of a sudden, people look to the church and there's an infant that had died, and a holy person comes and brings that child back to life. And then Grand Inquisitor knows who it is. So he locks him up in jail. And literally, it's a similar parallel story to ours where the Grand Inquisitor says, I know you are Jesus the Lord. And you can't come back, you can come and change the rules because we don't need you. For 1500 years we clerics have been changing the rules because man cannot live with the freedom that you gave. So it's fascinating in terms of those who are supposed to be listening to the words of the Spirit can change it, and that can be good, but then they can silence it. And that is bad.

Michael Posnik  28:12

It's very interesting question also about the supernatural. All of the proofs that Rabbi Eliezer brings are supernatural and miraculous. And when the people asked Jesus to jump off the top of the synagogue, he refused, as he said, I don't want your faith to be in the supernatural. I want you to have faith because you have faith not because of something amazing... carob tree, or the water or the walls, or even a bat Kol. He wants people to believe so it's a very interesting conversation about how the super and how we live with quote the supernatural. And is there such a thing? And why do we keep longing for it? So the church, the Grand Inquisitor says, Yeah, we have them in the palm of our hand, you could have to but you didn't know you wanted them to be. You wanted them to be real mechen And not believe in something because of some kind of miraculous. Miracles aren't the whole thing. So in that sense, the rabbis saw one thing with the rabbis burning the stuff the burning the stuff is, is like the extra 500 people that were killed at the end of the Purim. Megillah.

Adam Mintz  29:30

Wow, Michael, there's a lot of stuff here that you're that you're pulling together. I think, Geoffrey, I appreciate that you brought Michael in because I think you're right. You really have to catch the dramatic moment. There's the religious moment. But there's the dramatic moment in this story. And it could it be that the dramatic moment is even more powerful than the religious moment.

Geoffrey Stern  29:52

So I totally agree. We only have a few more minutes, and I can't but ignore the parallels to The High Holidays that are coming upon us this sense of on'ah devarim you're right Michael It doesn't say onah devarim  it doesn't say, depriving somebody throughwords it just says on the app. And those of you sensitive to the language know that on Yom Kippur, the key is onitem et naphshechem.. that we should make ourselves kind of suffer. So there is a balance here that the worst thing that one can do is use the same words and if Rosh Hashannah and  Yom Kippur are about anything they're  words, they can save, but they can also they can also hurt. The real takeaway for me is, I always thought of this story from where we started and where we ended, and I never asked myself why was the story told? And maybe that's because in the Vilma Talmud, this literally forms on one page. But if you turn the folio and see how this all began, the rabbi's were discussing this sense of humiliating somebody, they said on the previous folio, it is preferable for a person to engage in sex with a woman who is possibly married, then humiliate somebody else in public "yalbim pnei haveru b'rabim. Then it goes on to say that Rav Hisda says all the gates of heaven are to be locked except for the gates of prayer for victims of verbal mistreatment. And then it goes on to say that apropos of this statement, we learned a story about a tanor (an oven) about Rabbi eliezer. So it isn't about where the Torah comes from. It's not about how we can change the Torah as much as we love that kind of stuff on Madlik. It's not about anything except what they did to Rabbi Eliezer.  About how after God smiled, they didn't know how to end the joke, and they had to become in the name of unity. They ostracized somebody, and as we head into the holidays, we have to know that yes, neilah is coming and the gates of prayer will be closed, but there's only one thing that can pierce those gates, and that is the cries of somebody who has been hurt and what that means is on the other side, that with words, we can provide solace and we can provide uplifting thoughts and support and maybe that will open up the gates too but this is an amazing pre Rosh Hashannah Pre yom kippur story, I believe.

Adam Mintz  32:46

Amazing. Geoffrey, thank you so much. Thank you, Michael, for your insights today. Shabbat Shalom, everybody we say Shana Tova, when we see you next year, we'll be in 5782. But the Torah continues, we're coming to the end everybody. Join us as Vayelech next week. A short portion, but short and sweet and it's a wonderful portion Geoffrey Shabbat Shalom and shana tovah to everybody.

Geoffrey Stern  33:10

Shanah Tova to you all.

parshat ki tavo (Deuteronomy 26) a recording of a discussion between Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Clubhouse as they explore the roots of the concept of the Chosen People looking at the Favored sons and wives of Genesis and at the concept of Covenant and antecedent Hittite suzerainty treaties. Join us as we ask whether Tevya was right and should God choose someone else for a change?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/343219

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

This is Madlik, and we do disruptive Torah, which means that we look at one specific verse or thought in the weekly portion, and maybe look at it with new eyes, new lenses, and maybe taking it in a new direction that's not totally traditional, or that is not the one that we all grew up with. But today, I'm hoping to be very interactive, because the subject matter today cuts to the core of the Jewish project. And that is this question of being a chosen people. And my guess is that whether personally, or as a part of the Jewish people, all of us have, in one way or the other had to address what it means to be chosen, and therefore should have an opinion, on what chosen is, and and that opinion can go all the way from, it's a wonderful thing to it's probably the worst idea that we ever had. And I think Tevya summed it up very well, as he many times does. And he turned to God and he said, "Dear God, couldn't you choose someone else for a change?", because he understood the dark side of being chosen. But in any case, we begin on Deuteronomy, chapter 26: 18-19. And what will be surprising is how rare it is, for Chosenness, to even be mentioned. So it says, and the Lord has affirmed this day that you are as he promised you, his treasured people, "Am Segula", who shall observe all his commandments, and that he will set you in fame and renown and glory, high above all the nations that he has made, and that you shall be as he promised a holy people to the Lord your God." So in this one verse, we have this rare mention of "Am Segula", and I'll explain how rare it is. It only occurs in four other verses in the five books of Moses, we have a linkage to observing the commandment. So there's an obligatory aspect of being chosen. And then to us moderns, I think we have the most challenging part of being chosen. And that is that he will set you in fame and renown and glory high above all the nations. And that is the triumphalism, the exclusionism, of what it means to be chosen. And then it finishes and says that you will be a holy people. So I'm going to start with you, Rabbi.

Adam Mintz  02:58

So thank you, Geoffrey. It's a great topic. And I wonder about the relationship between being chosen, and being holy, the Torah tell us in the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), that we should be holy, "Kidoshim Tehiyu" . And the question is, does God choose us because we're holy? Or does God choose us, in spite of the fact that we're not always holy? Now, first of all, I think we need to break this down an to say, what does it mean to be holy? Rashi says, on the verse that says we should be holy, holy means to be separate Holy means to recognize that we're not like everybody else. We don't do like everybody else all the time. Sometimes we have to be different. We need to be holy, we need to be seperate. But what's interesting, and this is an idea that's emphasized on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That is the idea of the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that promises that even though you're not always holy, even though you're not always going to do the right thing, I have chosen you to be my people. I have chosen you to be my people in good times and bad times. In return for that, you choose me to be your God. So I think I'd like to talk about that today. And that's the idea. Does God choose us even when we don't deserve to be chosen? And I think what's amazing about the story is if you read the Torah, that seems to be that God chooses us even if we don't actually deserve to be chosen.

Geoffrey Stern  04:44

Well, that is certainly going to come out today as we explore the sources. But certainly, whether we are distinct because we are holy or we are distinct because we are better none the less inherent in the idea of this chosen people is in fact that we are different in some way. And that we should take that as somehow either a compliment or an obligation. So I said that it's mentioned just very few times in the Bible, in Exodus 19. It says, "Now, if you obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession, "Li Segula" among all the peoples, indeed, all the earth is mine." So here we have another element to this concept of being a chosen people. And that is this concept of a covenant. You know, a covenant is a legal term. It's between two parties, and it has certain conditions. And again, it means that as you were saying, and you raise this question of not always being holy, I would add to that, the question of not yet being holy meaning to say, is this choseness, is this part of developing relationship? Is it a reward? Is it kind of like, seeing the potential, and all of these things are going to come up today, as we kind of look at the sources, before we delve into the sources, the other two times that "Am Segula" is mentioned are both in Deuteronomy. And it's one of these unique occurrences that doesn't happen very often, where the same verse is word for word,  verbatim, repeated twice. It says, "for you are people consecrated to the Lord your God of all the peoples on earth, the Lord your God chose you to be his treasured people." And the only other time that I can recall that we have word for word, the same kind of formula repeated is the 10 commandments. And so it kind of ties into this concept of a treaty of a covenant of a Brit. And so what we're going to do today is actually indulge me into two different ways of looking at this chosen people that have always intrigued me. One is looking at the story of Genesis. You could read Genesis from the beginning till the end, and say, This is a book about show choosing, choosing one son over another, choosing one wife over another, it is all a narrative, all of the complex kind of soap opera type of drama, is all caused by the same dynamic that we run into when we talk about our chosen people. So I always was thinking that's where I would look. And I was hoping someone would write a book. And lo and behold, I did a search. And someone wrote a book exactly on that subject, which is to use the concept of election and choseness in the narrative of Genesis as an insight into what actually it means to be chosen. And the other thing that I was exposed to maybe 30, 40 years ago, is they discovered these Hittite treaties between the king and his vassals. And they saw that they resembled very much the kind of Brit or covenant ceremony that we have in the Bible. And the question was, how did they bare light on this whole concept of being chosen? So with your permission, what I'd love to do is to start looking at Genesis from a totally new perspective. And we're doing that to a large degree, the writings of a guy named Joel Kaminsky at Smith College, and he wrote a book in 2007 called "Yet I love Jacob, we're claiming the biblical concept of election". So the first drama that we get in in Genesis is Cain and Abel. And you all know this story. Cain is the older Abel is the younger, Abel brings a sacrifice of meat because he is a herder. And Abel brings a sacrifice of vegitation and wheat because he is a farmer, and God accepts the sacrifice of Abel of the meat, and doesn't accept or rejects the sacrifice of Cain. And of course, the first thing that we know is based on our prior weeks of discussion where we see the Bible has a real good bias for vegetarianism over meat is we would have thought God would have made a different decision. So maybe the first takeaway as we look at how God chooses is that "Strange are the ways of the Lord" , you never know what's gonna determine a Divine choice. The second thing that happens is those of you who have read the story know that Abel is not a big part of the story. The dialogue is with Cain, who after his sacrifice is rejected. God speaks to him and says, you know, don't, don't don't be concerned about this. You know, it's okay. He realizes that Cain's face has dropped, and the focus on the first election in the Bible is not on the chosen, it's on the unchosen, and that is fascinating. And then of course, we know that Cain kills Abel does a terrible sin, genocide, if you will, because there are only two people on the earth in those days, besides Adam and Eve, and maybe Seth, and he does not get therefore the blessing of Divine Will, and having God looked down upon him favorably, but the dialogue continues. He's a wanderer. He says to God, God, they're going to kill me. So again, it is rather strange or illuminating. That the first instance of God choosing someone, the narrative focuses more on the one that was not chosen than the one that was chosen. Have you ever thought about that? I had never thought about that rabbi.

Adam Mintz  11:52

So I want to tell you, Geoffrey, that is an amazing idea. I have never thought about that. I mean, of course, it's right there. It's obvious. But what does that mean? That God focuses on the unchosen God focuses on giving the unchosen a chance. I mean, if you want to be dramatic about it, Geoffrey, you wonder if Cain had given a different answer. Maybe he would have been saved somehow. And we wouldn't have had the story the way we haven't. Maybe God was giving him a chance, now in the end, he didn't observe it, and he killed Abel and that was the end of it. But maybe God has the conversation with the unchosen, because the unchosen is the one who needs the help. Abel didn't need the help. He was he was okay, he was covered, Cain needed to help.

Geoffrey Stern  12:45

Absolutely. And of course, and we're gonna see more of this later. We cannot but ignore the fact that Abel was not the first born.  We always say Cain and Abel. That's because Cain was the firstborn. And in God's first choice, he picked, not the obvious, not following the rule of primogeniture. And he picked the second son. And to me, I never thought of Cain and Abel as the first election story. Michael, I'd love to hear your comment.

Michael Posnik  13:31

As always, as always, a Hiddush (novel interpretation) somewhere in there, but I do have a question. Is this the very first time we encounter death in the TaNaCH (The Biblical Canon)? It seems as I recall, there's no other moment of death. And I remember a theater piece that George Henkin did a long time ago, when Cain and Abel are wrestling, and Cain kills Abel, but doesn't know what he's done. He tries to shake him awake, he tries to lift him up. But we don't have death yet in the TaNaCH. So that's all.

Geoffrey Stern  14:08

I think that's a great insight. I mean,  we had death as a hypothetical we had, if you eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you will die. And we have the curse of death. But this is probably the first instance of actual death. Would you agree Rabbi?

Adam Mintz  14:26

There's no question that that's right. I mean, the question is, what do you make of that? I mean, that of course is right. Now what's the "therefore" Michael?  This is the first  incidence of death. I mean, we learn a lot from the first instance of death. Let me say it another way. It's fascinating that the Torah doesn't wait very long to talk to give us a death story. Chapter 3. It's already at the beginning. You have the story of the of the expulsion from The Garden of Eden. There's not going to be death in the Garden of Eden because the Garden of Eden is perfection. So actually, if you want to take it this way, Geoffrey, the very first story in the Torah is the story of death is the story of killing, Man leaves the Garden of Eden and they kill ... and there's death.

Geoffrey Stern  15:21

So I'd like to add to that, and I think it's a really insightful insight is that not only does death first come up, but death first comes up as a result of a choice and a choice (favoritism) made by God, if you will, and so, you know, my first inclination is, this whole concept of a chosen people really does suck....  Aren't we all loved in the in the eyes of God,... so forth and so on. And I have to say that some of the traditional commentaries, even say the same thing, if you look at the Seforno on Deuteronomy our verse. "it says, to be a treasured nation, so that he may achieve with you what he hoped to achieve with mankind, when He created man saying, Let us make man in our image." This Seforno to me is brilliant, because it does say that the ultimate goal had actually been not to make a choice, that everybody's beautiful in his own way or her own way. But nonetheless, the second you start making choices, you start getting jealousy. And in the extreme, you have death. So let's go to the next story that this book brings up, which also includes death. And it's the story of Ishmael and Isaac, or Hagar and Sarah. And in two weeks time are going to be in synagogue or zooming in and listening to the Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashannah, and it's hard to believe, but the first Torah reading that we read, on the first of the ten holliest days of our calendar, is about, again, the rejected son. It's about  Sarah kicking out Hagar, and her son is Ishamel she's threatened by them, because she feels that her son is the chosen one. And this story then takes the point of view of Hagar, and Ishmael and Ishmael is about to die of thirst. And then God goes ahead and saves him and blesses him. So it is again.  it's so illustrative that in the second big story of choseness, we have, again, the concepts of life or death. And I should have mentioned that we have a new theme here. And the new theme here is, you could say it's a difficult consummation, it's a difficult birth. Or you could say it's a miraculous birth. So Sarah, and Abraham, who are the chosen are having difficulty bringing a child in, they have their firstborn son, Ishmael through a maidservant named Hagar. And then they believe that it is Isaac, who's the fully chosen one. So you have this concept. And I once heard that there was an adoption agency for a Jewish children, and it was called Chosen Children. And whether it's true or not, it's an amazing name. Because I think part of this theme is that if you are born miraculously, or if you survive a death defying moment, whether it's being thirsty, as Ishmael survived, or Isaac almost being slaughtered in the binding of Issac The Akedah, in a sense, you belong to God. And so you are an adopted child. But again, we have this sense that if you are chosen, coming with it comes a lot of pain and struggle. I just love the way this book and I encourage any of you who are interested in tracing these concepts to get it. But again, these themes come up over and over again, in all the future themes. We're going to have this question of a difficult or miraculous birth, we're going to have the sense of the one who is not chosen is nonetheless blessed in his or her own way. And we have the sense being chosen isn't a walk in the park. It's difficult for all concerned.

Adam Mintz  20:07

I mean, let's let's, let me take your last point first. And that is the fact that choseness is difficult, choseness is opportunity. But choseness is also obligation. And I think that's really the point you're making. And that's a huge point. You started the half hour with a discussion of Tevya. You know, "couldn't you choose somebody else", he understood that being chosen is obligation. I'll just tell you something. When you convert somebody to Judaism, the way the conversion process works is that the conversion candidate studies all the laws or many of the laws, then you take the conversion candidate to the mikvah, and you kind of give them a kind of formal test. And then they get ready to go into the mikvah. And the very last thing that you say to the conversion candidate, before they go into the mikvah before they become Jewish, what you say is, you should know that you're now joining a chosen people, and being chosen has a lot of responsibilities. And not everybody in the world understands and appreciates the fact that we're chosen. It's always struck me that that's what we tell the Convert at the last minute.

Geoffrey Stern  21:35

And of course, the Convert is literally choosing to be a part of our people.

Adam Mintz  21:42

In spite of the fact that choseness is a challenge.

Geoffrey Stern  21:49

One of the ideas that I was thinking of is, is choseness a choice, and certainly in the sense of a convert, they are choosing to be part of our chosen community. You know, you can't help but realize when we talk about Ishmael, that we on the first day of Rosh Hashannah are going to be hearing his story, and not the story of Isaac. But there are billions of followers of Islam, who actually believe that Ishmael was the son who was taken by Abraham to the binding, and they substitute Ishmael for Isaac. So it seems to me that one of the questions that is raised in my head is; Is this our narrative of being chosen, and are others are permitted and almost encouraged to have their own narratives of being chosen? But certainly whether you answer that question in the affirmative or not, even in our own tradition, we've had two instances. So far, we're the one who has not chosen almost becomes the center point of the story, at least that part of the story that we've looked at, which to me is just absolutely fascinating. So let's move on to the next story. And that is Jacob and Esau. And here, unlike the previous story, where you had two mothers, you had Hagar and Sarah, and I should say that this concept of choseness is known to disrupt people, so that maybe Ishmael and Isaac did not have the best relationship. But we can't but realize that it spilled over to their mothers who didn't have a good relationship. This choseness tears families apart. Now we get to Jacob and Esau, and we have a single mother with twins in her womb. And in Genesis 25. It says, "and the Lord answered her two nations are in your womb, to separate people shall issue from your body, one shall be mightier than the other. And the older shall serve the younger." So if we thought that there was a trend and from two episodes, you can't have a trend yet. But if we started to sense that Cain and Abel, it was Abel, who was picked, he was the underdog. He was the second born. In the story of Isaac and Ishmael Isaac was the second born. Now we have the Bible actually say it, that it is going to be Jacob, who is the second born, who will rule over the older. And this choice by God is very disruptive. And it is disruptive in the sense that it goes against the traditions, the concepts, the assumptions of the ancient Near East, and even our own Bible were in Deuteronomy 21. It says if you have two sons from two wives, and One is loved and one is not, "he must accept the firstborn, the son of the unloved one, and a lot to him a double portion of all he possesses." So the choices that God and His agents are making in Genesis are flaunting the assumptions and the norms of the ancient Near East. And in that sense, we have a new element to choseness. And that is a sense of radicalism.

Adam Mintz  25:32

I love that. I love that idea. radicalism.  Choseness is radicalism, because of the way that it developed. Let's just again, take a step back choseness doesn't have to be radical, because it could be that the older one is chosen. But the way the Torah represents it, the older one is never chosen, you're chosen on merit, not on birth order. And that is radical in the Torah. And you're absolutely right, Geoffrey the Torah wants that to be radical. The Torah wants you to sit up straight and say, Wow, the Torah is breaking the rules. And it might be what you quoted from last week's parsha, that if you have two wives, and you have to still respect the son of the older son that's a technicality. That's in laws of inheritance. But what they talk about in the book of Genesis is not the laws of inheritance. That's really the concept of who's gonna continue the Jewish people. And that was not based on birth order that was based on merit. And the Torah is very radical, that the younger one seems to always merit. By the way, it doesn't end in Genesis, Moses is the one who merits to be the leader, even though clearly Aaron is the older one. And Aaron doesn't get it, Aaron gets a consolation prize. He is the high priest, but he's not the leader of the Jewish people.

Geoffrey Stern  27:13

We're so engrossed in this conversation, the minutes are running by, but I would like to pose and this I have not seen in writing. And so in a sense, this is a little bit original. But we always think the opposite of chosen, this is not being chosen (rejected). And I would like to suggest that the opposite of being chosen, is being entitled. And I think the adopted child is the best example that one could pick. The idea that the firstborn, and that is whether it's the firstborn in a family, or it's an established hierarchy of class or nobility, that they are entitled to have (power) certain things. The fact that the Bible shows an absolute bias, and it's outspoken. It goes all the way through Joseph's story...  Joseph is the son of Rachel, Rachel is the daughter of Laben. She's the second born daughter, this doesn't only refer to men, when Jacob picks her And Laban switches the vail,  Laban winks at Jacob the next morning and says, We don't do things that way. Here. We honor the firstborn. Jacob was rejecting the first born when he picked Rachel, Jacob, who loved Joseph was loving the youngest over over Judah. So this is a rejection of the entitlement, and an embrace of and I won't say someone who deserves it, and that's where we get to the crux of the message, and we're running out of time. So I'd love to talk about the Joseph's story a little bit. It's very clear in Joseph that when he is young, not only does his father make a mistake in picking him and giving him this beautiful toy of a wonderful multicolored coat, but he doesn't understand what it is to have certain powers, certain abilities. He taunts his brothers with his dreams, you will bow down to me he is an immature chosen person, and his brothers are no less immature by selling him. He goes on to Egypt. And again, he's chosen .... this guy is on the make, he's going to rise to the top. And it's only after he's in jail, that he's called on to interpret a dream for the first time, does he say, and God has given me this ability, and he's gotten the humility. So I think we learned from this part of the story That, in fact, being chosen is as much of a challenge, is as much of seeing the potential that one needs to pick. And I will say that part of it has to be choosing to be chosen. And that's where I kind of want to end and I'm happy to extend our conversation. But these Hittite treaties that I referenced earlier on, were between the main King, and a bunch of different vassals, and they sounded very much like our 10 commandments, because they start by the king saying, I did this for your parents, and I took you from here, and I brought you to here, and therefore you have to be loyal to me. And what the radical difference .... we've used this term already today, with the covenant of being chosen, is that God gets rid of the ruling class, and he doesn't pick another king. And we've discussed this before he picks the children of Israel. And he says to each person, I have this relationship with you. And that, I think, is what was radical about the choseness and the covenant that we see. And in fact, this whole concept of being chosen? Is it a difficult concept? Yes. Is it one that comes chock full of suffering? Absolutely. But I'd like to say that, to my mind, the idea of being chosen is the idea of not being entitled, The idea that if you choose to be part of our movement, and it was a movement of unaffiliated "apiru", which became "ivrim" who came into the land of Canaan, who rejected all of the ruling class, and decided to make a new society, if you choose to join us, you are chosen. And if you choose to live by the old rules of entitlement and class, then maybe you're going to have your own blessings. But the blessings of this choseness are unique. And that's kind of what I come away with. It's a very challenging concept. It's one that we can debate forever. But it's also one that is chock full of ideas that that relate to all of us who have families, who have sibling rivalries, .... it's very grounded in real life.

Adam Mintz  32:27

Thank you, Geoffrey. I think that's great. I'll just add one little point and that is, and even when you choose to be chosen, the road is bumpy. And Joseph is the best example of that. Nothing is simple, right? The decision to be chosen is difficult. And then the road of choseness is difficult. This was a great topic. It's a great topic before Rosh Hashannah. We look forward to seeing everybody we still can get it one more Shabbat before Rosh Hashannah. So next week, "Nitzavim" have a great Shabbat Have a great week, everybody enjoy the last week of summer. And we look forward to see you next Friday.

Geoffrey Stern  33:03

Anyone who wants to stay on and continue the discussion are welcome to do so. But this was very special, I hope you all enjoyed. And that each in your own way will choose to be chosen and to choose and empower others as well. As we go into Shabbat, the only thing that I will add is that the blessing that we say over our children on Friday night is the blessing that that Jacob made to Joseph's two children, Ephraim and Menasheh And to the form, he moved his hands in two different directions. And he put his right hand on the youngest son, and true to form Joseph said to him, Hey, Dad, that's not the way we do things. And the real reason I believe that we make the blessing on Menasheh and Ephraim on Friday night is number one, it's a blessing from  grandparents to their grandchildren. And when you bless your grandchildren, you know that the continuity of some of the ideas that you hold, near have a future. but also, we have no record of Ephraim and Menasheh so in a sense, it is a little bit of the resolution of the whole challenge of choseness, that here were two brothers. Clearly one had different talents than the other. One got the main blessing, the other got another blessing, but they all live together and at the end of the day, that I think is the biggest challenge of being chosen. Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Ki Teitzei - When was the last time you listened to the lyrics, poetry and sounds of the mitzvot? Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest poet, Haim Nachman Bialik in a live recording of our weekly disruptive Torah on Clubhouse.  We are told that there never was nor never will be a case of the Biblical Rebellious Son and that we are simply to be rewarded for its study. We explore how all of the commandments provide similar rewards for those willing to listen to their lyrical nature.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/342083

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

Madlik is weekly disruptive Torah on clubhouse. But we record every week. And we then publish as a podcast. And we're available on all of the major podcast platforms. And you are welcome to give us a few stars and give us a review. And this week, I want to thank our faithful listener Bob, for doing just that giving us some stars, five stars, you can't get better than that, and a beautiful review. So thank you, Bob. And I invite all of you even if you've been on the clubhouse, to check out Madlik on your favorite podcast platform, and give us a review and a few stars and thank you for that. So this week, the name of the Parsha is Ki Teitzei  and as Rabbi Adam said in the introduction, it has more commandments more Halachot and mitzvot than any other parsha. And I am only going to focus on one Halacha and it might be considered the most unique Halacha in the Torah and before I tell you why it's unique. Let me read it to you. It's called Ben sorer u'morer otherwise known as the Rebellious Son, and it goes as follows in Deuteronomy 21. "If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them, even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town, this son of ours is disloyal and defiant. He does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard, thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst, all Israel will hear and be afraid." Boy, that's a powerful one, especially this week when we are reading about the Taliban. It certainly brings parallel to a very fundamentalist strict notion of the law and how one keeps people observant. So why is this unique? It's unique because the Talmud in Sanhedrin says that there has never been, and there will never be a ben sorer u'morer; a rebellious son, it was given to us this halacha, this law, this practical injunction was given to us so that we made "darosh umekabel schar" we may expound and receive reward. So first of all, Rabbi, is this a mainstream opinion? Or is this a unique opinion? And what's at issue here?

Adam Mintz 

So, first of all, it's a great topic. I mean, there's nothing like ben sorer u'morer. The idea that you have a wayward son, and that you put him to death, actually, before he commits any crime, because better he should die innocent than die guilty. That the first point which is amazing. But the second point is that it never happened. And the reason we studied isDrosh vekabel schar, which really I would translate to mean, let's learn a lesson from it. What lessons can you learn from how you handle a rebellious son? But it happens to be Geoffrey that if you go on in that Gemora, the opinion of Robbie Yochanan, who was a rabbi who lived in Israel in Tiberius, around the year 400, he says, quote, "ani rei'iti" I saw a wayward son in my life, "veyashavti al kivro". And I sat on his grave, meaning it did happen. And he was punished. So actually, there were two opinions. I don't know which opinion is more prevalent. But there were two opinions. One opinion is it never happened.... And one opinion is yes it happened, and I saw it with my own eyes, and I sat on his grave. And I thought we were going to talk about what are those two opinions.  They're so different in their views? One opinion is that it never happened. The other opinion is I saw it and I sat on his grave, how do you come two such different opinions?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, and that also begs the question of what does it mean to "sit on his grave"? Did he sit on his grave and cry? So the question then becomes this that we say, "never happened and never will happen? Is that descriptive or is it prescriptive? Is it to say it never should happen. And it reminds me of the Mishnah actually in Makkot that literally talks about the death penalty in general. And you know, those of you who have read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible know that it is full of Mot Yamut "Die you shall certainly die". But this is what the Mishnah says in Sanhedrin. "It says the Sanhedrin that executes someone once in seven years, is characterized as a destructive tribunal. Rabbi Eliezer b. Azaria says, once in 70 years, Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, if we had been members of the Sanhedrin, we would have conducted trials in a manner whereby no person would have ever been executed." So here too I don't know whether the Talmud that you quote, which is beautiful, about the rabbi who said he actually saw a ben sorer u'morer whether that is distinct from or an agreement with, because of the fact that he sat on his grave. And at least in my mind, I think he cried.

Adam Mintz 

Good. I liked that a lot. Now, of course, the question of whether or not they ever actually carried out the death penalty is the same debate that we have in 2021. whether or not we're in favor of death penalties. And basically, what the rabbis say is that we don't want to actually carry out the death penalty. But we want you to think that if you violate Shabbat, you deserve to get the death penalty, we're not going to kill you. Because that's not what we do, because that is counterproductive to kill you. We want to try to rehabilitate you. But the idea is that we have the death penalty on the books. And maybe that's what Rabbi Yohanan says, I saw, I sat on his grave, I cried. It really happened. Or maybe it didn't really happen. The point is that we need to know that we need to rehabilitate those kinds of children.

Geoffrey Stern 

So so far, we've really discussed, I would say, black and white, life or death. But in this parsha that you so aptly said, contains so many laws, many of the laws refer to personal status. And the one word that I think, puts shudders down, anyone who follows Jewish laws of identity is the word bastard or Mamzir. And that occurs in Deuteronomy 23. And basically, it says that someone who is a Mamzir, and that we'll describe in a second, cannot enter into the congregation, even to the 10th generation. And it is as close to a social death sentence as you can get. And just as you brought up the death penalty is something that reflects on a current discussion, it's a very heated area of debate, even till today, in Israel, this law of status where a child is born, and maybe the parents didn't get a proper divorce and had a child and the child is then called a Mamzir. Again, it is something that there are many, many people that look at and say, well, it's a law, it's on the books, and it has to be enforced. And of course, like anything that relates to power, there's the potential for it to be misused. And in the in the source papers that I shared with you, Rabbi, I had heard many years back and I think it was in a lecture by Rabbi Riskin, the colloquialism or the phrase Ain Mamzerim B'Yisrael"  that there are no bastards in Israel. And what was meant by that was that any Rabbi worth his or her salt would find a way, some way, any way to make sure that this law was really in the same category as the rebellious son in the sense that it might be on the books, but it never was put into practice. Have you heard this notion of "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" and even if you haven't, does that resonate with you in terms of Jewish learning?

Adam Mintz 

Geoffrey, that I heard that phrase "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" from the same source you did: Rabbi Riskin and when you asked me earlier this week, to find the source, so I was able to do something that we weren't able to do in the early Rabbi Riskin days. And that is I googled it to see where'd Rabbi Riskin come up with it. And, you know, he's very creative and very good Rabbi Riskin, but I couldn't find it anywhere. So I think that the explanation that you gave is really right on the mark, what Rabbi Riskin was telling us  "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" It's not a comment about sexual relations between man and woman and whether they got divorced or whether they didn't get divorced, or all of that. Nothing to do with any of that. What it has to do with is about the rabbis, Are the rabbis willing to be creative and courageous enough to always find a way to get people not to be called Mamzerim. I think that's a very, very important voice. And what Rabbi Riskin was saying was exactly like you said, if you're worth your salt, you can figure out how not to have someone be a Mamzer. And that's exactly the same idea. As if you're worth your salt, you're going to make sure that there's no such thing as a Ben Sorer u'morer and maybe Geoffrey, that even follows to the other opinion. "I saw a Ben Sorer u'morer" , and I sat on his grave, and I cried because I wasn't able or the rabbi's weren't able to get him out of that status. And that's a tragedy, because "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael", the rabbi's need to have the ability, the creativity, the courage to get these people out of that situation.

Geoffrey Stern 

And I would like to interject a personal story an account that I have that puts some meat on this concept of if you are worth your salt. I have a friend a roommate from yeshiva came from a town. Norwich Connecticut, his father was the Orthodox Rabbi there. And about 15 years ago, he was living in Israel, he came to see me and I said, Well, what are you up to? He says, Well, I'm going to Norwich, Connecticut. And I'm going to make a marriage improper to disallow a marriage. And he explained to me, and this is just I think, interesting. So we can all understand how these things work. A student showed up to the yeshiva, and his parents had been remarried. And his mother's first marriage was in Norwich, Connecticut. And he had not gotten an orthodox divorce. So my friend Shmuel was going back to his hometown, and he found people who knew one of the witnesses for that first wedding. And he wanted to invalidate the marriage by invalidating the witness... And he would ask, Well, did he ever gamble? Did you ever see him playing cards, and he would find some way that would make the first marriage nullified. And again, you have to do what you have to do. And the Halacha is something that can be and seem very splitting of hairs, full of minutia and technical, but in a sense, what he was doing was full of humanity. And the challenge, of course, is there aren't enough rabbis who have the learning, who are dedicated to doing it for not only a student that shows up at the Yeshiva, but for any Jew. And that's and that's really the challenge.

Adam Mintz 

Well, Rabbi Riskin would love that story. Because"Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael", your friend had the courage to make sure that this child was not going to be called a Mamzir.

Geoffrey Stern 

We could spend probably the rest of the half hour just talking about how maybe Judaism, or laws that seem more rigid or dated or even Taliban-like, have been nullified and changed. And that would be a perfectly good use of our time. But I want to take the discussion in a totally different direction. Because I am intrigued by the fact that the rabbis said that this Halacha of the rebellious son was there only for us to discuss and learn. And it seems to me that there's an aspect of what some consider the dry halakhah or the daily practice of the Jew, that we all need to listen to, that it is a language in and of itself, looking at the Halacha at Jewish observance, as a language more than even a religion or a code. And every Shabbat when I say my prayers, there's one verse that I say after the Shema, that I think of in this regard, and it says Ashrei Ha'Ish Shyishma l'mitzvotecha"  "Happy is the person who listens to the commandments". And what I want to do for the balance is to explore not only capital punishment and not only questions of status and these earth-shattering laws, but potentially how every one of the Jewish traditions and customs can be looked at in a whole new way. And we're given a license by this kind of takeaway, throwaway comment of the rabbi's to look at the whole corpus of Jewish observance as a lyric as a language as something that we can smile to, dance to, struggle with, but interact with in the way that we do maybe with a poem.

Adam Mintz 

Okay, great.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I'm inviting a third player to our to our panel today. Unfortunately, he's not alive, but his name is Haim Nachman Bialik. And he was considered the national poet of Israel. He actually made Aliyah, lived in Israel, but he died in the 20s before the state. But what you might not know about him is that he started as a very observant Jew, he went to the Yeshiva in Velozhin. And he actually went there. So his grandfather would think that he was studying and then he went, and he became the great poet that he was. And he saw in the paper that they closed the Yeshiva in Velozhin, and so he had to rush home because he knew his grandfather would know that he wasn't at the Yeshiva so to speak. But he in his later days, when he was no longer observant, wrote a three-volume tome on the Aggadah. And the Aggadah is the legends of the Jews. The Aggadah is always contrasted to the halakhah. There's the law and there's the fable, there's the practice, and there's the narrative and the stories. So you would expect that someone like him, would really be a major fan of the legends of the Jews, and not so much for the Halacha. But he has an article that he wrote called the Halacha and Aggadah, and in the source feet, if you if you go to the podcast when it issues early in the week, you'll see the source sheet there. I have the full text in both English and Hebrew, and it's worth reading. It's very lyrical, but in it, he actually makes an argument that the Halacha is as much a song, a poem a lyric as anything else. So with your permission, I'm going to read a little bit and then I welcome all of us to to kind of discuss, he says "halakhah and Aggadah the law and the legends are two things which are really one two sides of a single shield. The relation between them is like that of speech to thought and emotion or the action and sensible form to speech. Halacha is the crystallization the ultimate and inevitable quintessence of the Aggadah legend. The legend is the content of Halacha. The legend is the plaintive voice of the heart's yearning as it wings its way to its Haven, Halacha is the resting place where for a moment the yearning is satisfied and stilled. As a dream seeks its fulfillment in interpretation, as will in action as thought in speech as fruit. So Aggadah in Halacha. But in the heart of the ruit, there lies hidden the seed from which a new flower will grow. The Halacha which is sublimated into a symbol and much Halacha there is, as we shall find becomes the mother of a new Aggadah, a new legend, which may be like it or unlike it, a living and healthy law is a legend that has been or will be. And the reverse is true. Also, the two are one in their beginning and their end." So it's really so lyrical. And I had to read it in his words because he is a poet. But here was a man who literally and we'll see he gives some concrete examples of how he saw the song in the minutiae of the law. Does this resonate with any of you in terms of the music in Jewish custom and activity?

Adam Mintz 

I think what he's telling you is that Halacha means the way we live. The minute you describe the way we live, all of a sudden, that's a legend. All of a sudden, that's a story. That's the tradition. Everything in this week's parsha...  all these 77 laws are part of the way we live. If it's the way we live, it's a legend. This week's parsha tells us if you get divorced, you have to write a get (divorce document) if you get married, you go through the formalities of a marriage ceremony of a Chuppah? Those aren't laws, those are legends. So it's the stories, how many stories have come out of those two laws? And he can't distinguish between the two? Is it a law? Is it a legend? Is it a legend? And is it a law. And the truth of the matter is that the law leads to the legend. And then the legend leads right back to the law. I feel exactly what he says.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I was thinking of this, when a week or two ago, we discussed vegetarianism. And this whole concept of eating meat Basar Ta'aiva" (meat of desire), only on special occasions. And again I was struggling with the fact that so much in the Bible seems to lean towards vegetarianism. And I was wondering, where does it bear itself out? Where does it come through? And then I started thinking of all the laws that I've studied whether it's for Hanukkah, whether it's for Shabbat, of if you have limited resources, what do you spend it on? If it's on Shabbat? Do you use the money that you have for the candle for the wine for the meat? And it seemed to me that again, this was looking at the life of the Jew. And you really understood then, in ways that you and I never could, what Baser Ta'aiva"  what the meat of desire... that moment of when every pintela Jew, every poor little peasant could feel something and it was that treat, not a part of everyday life. So to me that was an example of where the minutiae of the Halacha that might be dealing with something very monotone and trivial, actually bore within it, a whole weltanschauung of the Jewish people and their relationship, to poverty, to spirit to a little treat once in a while. And to me, it was the answer. I really felt that in my heart that no, our tradition has spoken about the place of eating meat at special times at Holy times. And it's spoken loud and clear, even if I don't find one piece of prose, or one piece of narrative that directly touches upon it.

Adam Mintz 

I think that's a beautiful example. I mean, I think right off the mark, poetry and prose, narrative and law. What he's saying is, those are just words, really, they merge into one entity, and that's really Jewish life.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I'll give one more example that he brings. And he talks about a law of carrying on Shabbat... you're not allowed to carry in a public domain. And it says, a man may not go out on the Shabbat with a sword or a bow or a shield or a club or a spear. Rab Eliezer says, they are ornaments, and therefore may be worn. But the sages say they are only a disgrace, as it is said, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Here we have, and this is Bialik. Here we have ideas about beauty and ugliness in dress-and whence are they taken? From the words of the sweet singer and the great seer. And in what connection? In connection with carrying on the Sabbath. So again, what he's saying is that in these minutia, if we listen to the commandments, .... and let's not neglect to say that there's no question that Judaism is an orthopraxy it's correct practice more than an orthodoxy correct belief. And so much of what we do is dictated by how we do it and what we do but in that seems to me to be just a beautiful song. And I think that's the flip side of saying that some laws are just written on the book. They're just for us to study. And actually, isn't that what we do on Madlik?

Adam Mintz 

That's right. I mean, it's hard, though, Geoffrey to know how you distinguish between the different kinds of laws?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, absolutely. But I would argue that really, we should not relegate this to different laws, but that every law has this element within it. And that's, I think, what my big takeaway is. Bialik goes on to say, he says, "not all laws, Halachot are equal or are the same and unproductive. Another bears fruit and fruit that reproduces itself. one is like an empty vessel that is put away in a corner till it is wanted. Another is like a vessel that is uninterrupted use, always being emptied and filled again with something new." So I think what we do is we look through our narrative to find practices that have fallen into disuse, or misunderstood or taken in one direction. And we have the license to take it in a totally new direction. Lately, I've been very stiff. And I've been doing a lot of yoga. You know, many of the yoga teachers give you a thought to think about and give you a practice to aim for. And I just thought wouldn't it be magnificent to combine yoga and Tefilla, I want to call it yogafilla. The idea is to take the bowing that we do already in the tefilla. It's there, ... When we are thankful we say "modeem anachnu Lach" and we bend our knees and our knees are "berchayim", which is the same word for "bracha" to bless. So I'm just saying this is kind of little things that have come up in my past week, where I look at the Halacha, I look at the practice at the minhag. And I'm saying these are vessels that might have been emptied. But they're there for us to fill up.

Adam Mintz 

I think that's right, first of all, tell you that I think there's a synagogue on the west side, Romamu where they have yoga on Saturday morning, followed by tefilla, so come to the west side. And you can do yoga and tefilla.  But the idea is really exactly right. And I think that's the idea that the law, what you sometimes think of ..... you needed to relax. So you're doing yoga. And what Bialik would say is no follow the Halacha. Because even though the Halacha feels rigid, but actually the Halacha gives us the ability to play out that narrative, and to live our lives in a special way. Jessica, you asked to come up?

Jessica 

Oh, I just wanted to quickly say that the Cantor from Romamu is here on Fire Island. And she's amazing. So that's all thanks. I

Adam Mintz 

Send her our regards and tell her she got a shout out on Madlik this afternoon.

Jessica 

I will do that. Thank you.

Adam Mintz 

So Geoffrey, the ability and the choice of Bialik's poem this week, when the Parsha  is so filled with laws. I think it's so special, and really gives us something to think about. We started today with ben sorer u'morer and whether or not that really happened. And we go from there to the question about generally, about what the role is of law within the halakhic system. And Bialik really gives us kind of a poetic view of what law is all about. And I think we can use that in ben sorer u'morer, and we can use it in so many other places.

Geoffrey Stern 

I totally agree. And if you haven't sensed from the tone of my voice, I discovered Bialik recently, but it's so personal with me. He has a poem that he calls "Before the Book Closet". And it was written while the secular Jew was spending three years aggregating all of the Aggadot and it's coming back to the Beit Midrash, to the study hall. And he says "Do you still know me? I am so and so. Only you alone knew my youth. You were my garden, I learned to hide in your scrolls." And then at the end of the poem, he says, "and now after the change of time, so my wheel of life has brought me back and stood me once again before you hiders of the closet, and once more my hand turns among your scrolls and my eye gropes tired among verses." And so with me, I studied Torah in my youth. And when I study Torah at this stage in my life, it is revisiting my youth and I am trying to see if I have that relationship. But I would argue that all of us studied our texts when we were young. And we need to find ourselves and to see if we are recognized once again in those texts. And that is, I think, the invitation that the rabbi's give us about the ben sorer u'morer.. . And the last thing that I will say is, you know, Bialik, was a rebellious son. He was told by the head of the Velozhin Yeshiva as he left, just don't write anything bad about us. But the truth is, we are all also rebellious sons, even though the rebellious son doesn't exist and if we aren't, maybe we should be, but we have to rediscover ourselves and rediscover the mystery and the magic of our ancient texts. And with that, I bid you all Shabbat Shalom.

Adam Mintz 

Shabbat Shalom, Geoffrey. That was an amazing discussion today and Bialik was beautiful as he always is, and  ben sorer u'morer. Shabbat Shalom to everybody. Enjoy and we look forward to seeing everybody next week. Be well, Shabbat Shalom,

Geoffrey Stern 

Shabbat Shalom.

A live recording of Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as they explore the Torah’s visceral disgust for the monarchy and how this rejection sheds light on the New Year Festival and it’s powerful message.

Link to Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/340788

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

This week's parsha is Shoftim. And it is the first time that the Jewish people ask for a king. And so I'm just going to go ahead and read Deuteronomy 17. Because this is the first time that not only is the Jewish people asking for a king, but frankly, we'll see in our discussion. kingship is not that much emphasized throughout the Bible till now. So again, we start almost like last week, trying to put it in the context of entering the land. It says, "If after you have entered the land, that the Lord your God has assigned you and taken possession of it, and settled in it, you decide, I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me, you shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the Lord your God, be sure to set as a king over oneself one of you own people, you must not set a foreigner over you who is not your kinsmen. And then it goes on to further limit what the king can do, you shall not keep many horses, or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since the Lord has warned you, you must not go back that way again. You shall not have many wives, you shall know amass silver and gold in excess, he shall have a copy of the teaching of the Torah written for him on a scroll, and he shall read it regularly. And then it goes on to say, thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows, or deviate from the instruction to the right. or to the left." We've seen many times where the Jewish people have gone to Moses, whether as a group or individuals and asked for exceptions to the rule. But I think this one is really striking, in that if you had to give one argument to Moses, or God, I think the last thing you would ever say is, I want to do something because the nations around me are doing it. I mean, that is a really bad strategy, seeing as so much of what Moses and God are trying to do is to create a distinctive narrative. But sure enough, that's what they do. And then God goes ahead and says, or, the Bible says you can have it, and then gives a bunch of limitations. So what is your read on this Rabbi, what what is going on here? Is this totally unique in terms of the type of give and take that we've seen, when the Bible, the Torah is being tweaked as the rubber hits the pavement and the Jews come into the land of Israel?

Adam Mintz 

First of all, thank you, Geoffrey, this is a great topic. And I think that you really hit on something that's so important, the uniqueness of the message of the Torah. And the fact that the Jews want to be like everybody else. You see, think about it for a minute. The Jews were slaves in Egypt, they've been 40 years in the desert. That is the unique story. Nobody else has the story. And finally, after all of this, 40 years of the desert, and all the all the trouble and all the this and all the that they finally have a chance to be like everybody else. Wow, what an amazing opportunity to be like everybody else. And they kind of slip up, because they tell God, hey, God, we want to be just like everybody else. And God basically says (the story doesn't play itself out here until the book of Samuel)  then you're not like everybody else. And you can't have a king, because God is the only king that you have. But the fact that the Jews want to be like everybody else really tells you what they've been thinking for 40 years. Enough is Enough of all these miracle stories. We just want to be regular people.

Geoffrey Stern 

You know, there's another clue here, where it says, "Do not keep many horses, or send people back to Egypt to add to the horses, because I have warned you You must not go back that way again."  It's almost a recognition that this is a full retreat from everything that's been accomplished till now. It's almost as though you're going back to Egypt, not so much with the horses, but with the whole endeavor, asking for a king, a Pharaoh, if you will. And you're almost surprised by the lack of drama here, it's almost a factual response: Okay, you want a King, this is what the limitations are going to be, you can't have a lot of horses, can't have a lot of riches can't have a lot of wives, and you got to read the Torah a lot. I think you're absolutely correct. This doesn't really play itself out until we get to Samuel. And in Samuel, it's almost as though we're reading two galleys of the same story. You know, I've talked a lot about when exactly the book of Deuteronomy was written, but we can put that to the side and look at Samuel, because in the version that we have with Samuel, it gets a lot more emotional. And they're they come to Samuel. And they said to him, also appoint a king for us to govern like all the other nations. And Samuel was displeased. And he, (like Moses, in the old days) went to God and say, God, what should we do? And God says, "It is not you that they have rejected, it is me they have rejected as their King." So God is saying, this is a total rejection of all that we've worked for. And the Hebrew term that he uses "ki lo otcha ma'asu ke oti ma'asu" ... if you know, yes, you know, the word meese or meeskite means something that is detestable. It almost works into the fabric of our story, you know the cornerstone that was rejected by the builders, "Even She'moasu habanim" in a sense, you are turning the table on God, and you are rejecting God outright by asking for a king. I think that there's so much emotion here that we have to stop almost, and wrap our hands around what is happening here? And how personally, if you can say that, God is taking it?

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, I mean, there's no question that God takes it very personally, I think that's not the surprising part. The surprising part is the fact that after 40 years, this is the case that makes the Jews kind of, you know, jump up and say, we want to be like everybody else. The idea of being like everybody else, is very much not a religious idea. to this very day. It's bad to be like everybody else. If you're religious, whatever religion you have you're defined by being different than everybody else. If you want to have a title for today, the idea of being like everybody else, is a very problematic idea in religion.

Geoffrey Stern 

If we were to stop here, you would be absolutely correct. And what I mean by that is, there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. But being different can kind of be like you dress in white, I'm going to dress in black, but in Samuel, he actually puts some meat and what is distasteful about having a king and a ruler and a monarch. So it's not simply, you are just trying to blend in and assimilate. It's really you're giving up on a whole set of values. Listen to what Samuel says, and he warns them, what will happen to them if they have a king, "he will take your sons and appoint them as charioteers and horsemen and they will serve as outrunners for his chariots. He will appoint them as his chiefs of his 1,000s and his 50's or they will have to plow his fields reap his harvest and make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters as perfumers cooks and bakers, he will seize your choice fields, vineyards and olive groves, and give them to his couriers. He will take the 10th part of your grain and vintage and give it to the unichs and courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, your choice young men and your asses and put them to work for him. He will take a 10th part of your flocks and you shall become his slaves. The day will come when you cry out because of the king who you yourselves have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you on that day." So it's really not so much that you're making  a mistake, because you're blending in and you're losing your cultural identity. You're really making a very profound mistake and you can't but hear in this, the clacking of the armour and the chariots there's war here there is putting people into subjugation. You are asking to give up. God, you're throwing him away, and you're taking on a ruler who's going to subjugate you.

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, I mean, that just makes it all that much worse. It just shows how near sighted the Jews are, that they just want the immediate power, or the sense that they're like every other nation, the long view, which is the God takes care of them better than anybody else that doesn't seem to figure in their minds.

Geoffrey Stern 

 Michael?

Michael Stern 

I was hearing it so different not to take a king of the material world in the physical world, but to gain and earn sovereignty over ourselves. And to, you know, in different programs, it's: have a higher power of my understanding. And if everybody met in their own higher powers and this kingdom over my hurt angry child that wants to wear armor and go out and kill people, my little girl that shamed for being in a man's body to other cultures, you mentioned we're the only one with that story of 40 years in the desert, I don't know how long the blacks were slaves. And they are having identity crisis too. How do we find the king within, for the sovereignty of our inner nation, so that we can see who's aho, who's sitting in the captain's seat, to watch over the domain and listen to the hurt child to the angry to the competitive, and so on. So I just wanted to say that's what I heard in the process.

Geoffrey Stern 

I love that. You've almost kind of artistically joined the two, two narratives together the distinctive one of remember who you were, and how unique you were, and that you were slaves, and that you were poor, and that you didn't have those horses. And I forgot to bring the punch line here where Samuel really combines it all. And he says, "We must have a king over us that we may be like all the other nations let our King rule over us and go out at our head and fight our battles." So it is fascinating that he kind of combines the fact that you want to be like everybody else. And everybody else is out there, seeing who has a bigger stick, and you want to join that and you're losing everything that makes you unique. So I think that one can only conclude from this, that the Torah is totally against the Monarchy, totally against having a king. And we all know how profound a distinction that made for the Jewish people in the sense that the temple was built by Solomon, ..... I just watched an episode or two of CNN called Jerusalem the other night. And, you know, this is when we became truly like every other nation, where we established our cultic Center, and we established a monarchy and a king. And the Torah in these two visceral paragraphs is so much against it, how do we take that as a commentary on what we've become? So much of what is in Judaism revolves around the monarchy and and and us becoming a nation amongst the others?

Michael Stern 

Well, I really love the different perspectives and if we're coming from a past that proves that we were like the other nations, maybe we need to adjust it because we still have presidents who are like kings and so on, and have self sovereignty and internalize the whole story. And hopefully the higher power is one, in my understanding.

Geoffrey Stern 

Thanks! I'd like to move move on a little bit and talk in terms of one of the solutions to this problem. A few paragraphs later in Samuel 9, they go out and they anoint the the new king, and the word that they use is anoint him ruler "Mischato le'nagid al amey Yisrael" and those of you who have an ear for the Hebrew knows that anointing meshiach is is the same word is used for the Messiah. And so I'd like to jump ahead, a little bit of time to Zacharia, and talk about what Zacharia's vision of this king, which is optimized, I would say, for lack of a better word, to get around all of the negative problems that we just described. in Zecharia 9 it says "Rejoice greatly fair Zion, raise a shout for Jerusalem. Lo your king is coming to you. He is victorious, triumphant, yet humble, riding on an ass on a donkey foaled by a she ass. He shall banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem. The Warrior's bow shall be banished, he shall call on the nations to surrender and his rule shall extend from sea to sea and from ocean to Lands End." And sure enough, that's the vision of Melech Hamashiach the king anointed the Messiah, who doesn't ride on a horse put on a donkey is not haughty, but is humble, and calls for the nations of the world to have peace. So I think as you look through our tradition, one of the answers to this problem of the rejected monarchy is the acceptance of another more enlightened monarchy. Do you see Rabbi a kind contiguity between this negative aspect of the political King, and the acceptance embrace of a redeemer King?

Adam Mintz 

I absolutely do. And it's great that you bring those verses, let's take the first point, the idea that Meshiach, the Messiah, is the anointed one. You know, it's not only in Jewish culture, that we appoint a king by anointing him, that seems to be the way in the ancient world that they used to appoint a king by anointing, which is interesting in itself, which means that other religions, other cultures may also have had a messiah type of figure, an anointed one. But clearly in those verses, what you see is, that kingship is not automatically bad. kingship is problematic, because it's political, because it's self serving. But if you have kingship that is religious, then there is no problem with that kingship. That point is a very important point. And that's what the Messiah leads to. You know, there's a question... Maimonides  writes, that when the Messiah comes, the world is going to be exactly the way it is, it's just the Jews will not be subjugated by another nation. So what you see is that the Messiah is not going to change a lot of realities. He's going to change only the fact that the Jews are not subjugated. So even the role of the Messiah, vis a vis the role of the king is kind of interesting to consider.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I prefaced my comment by saying, this is a direction that the commentators take it. It's not necessarily the one I believe in or I embrace. And those of you who know me know that I'm not a big fan of the concept of the Messiah. So what I would like to do as we move forward, is to say, yes, one way to fix this distasteful concept of a political King is to create a more spiritual King. But there's also another way out of this. And I think what I would like to explore is a comment made by one of the modern scholars that I was reading, who says, you know, the truth is, until you get to this moment, in Deuteronomy, God is never referred to as King. God is referred to as a father figure, as a spouse, as a parent, as a shepherd, but the truth is not very much referred to as a king. And the the commentator brings this in the context of our Rosh Hashanah,  Yom Kippur holiday season, where those of you who have attended know, especially on Rosh Hashanah, it's all about making God, anointing God, the king. We take prayers that we say every day of the year, the formula for a blessing is Baruch Atah Hashem... Melech Haolam"  King of the universe. And we make it even more impactful, we change words. In our prayers to say King instead of God, but at the end of the day, it's all because we lived in a world that was full of kings. And even though God did not embrace this formula, once the Jews came into the land and asked for a king, he or she had to back into it. And the modern-day historians and academics all say that the New Year holiday, whether it occurred in the Fall or the Spring, that was rampant in Babylonia, in Egypt, all were variations on making the king of flesh and blood, renewing his lease, so to speak, anointing him from God, and praying for the future (of himself and his people). And in a sense, if any of those Babylonians or Egyptians were to walk into our service, where we were making a kingship rite as well, they would be baffled, because there was no king to be found. Because what we were doing was making God the king. And so in a sense, one of the strategies, the most profound strategy that we have in our religion, to get around the corrupt notion and the corrupting notion of a political King, a king that rules over us, is to make God the king, replace the human King with the godly King, not necessarily a role that God asked for, or wants but a way of saying that no man rules us, only God rules us. And I think that's the best context for looking at our high holiday services, that we again, are taking an institution that was out there, this kingship, and we are turning it on its head, it's a major paradigm shift. How does that resonate with with all of you,

Michael Stern 

That resonates really well, that we are creating a new concept and that fits in with my understanding that God is within and we have a choice within and I have to find the path that aligns with my higher power, that King of my domain, and I have many citizens inside of me, I call it the captain, not with the ship of fools. And so it really fits in well. And I think this equality among people, and that the Jews won't be demoralized and killed, and homosexuals that was over 40 years, and that it was illegal and considered a crime. And the Blacks and there are so many that we could meet in a new place. So a new inner sovereignty. Sounds good.

Adam Mintz 

I like it. Also, Michael, I love kind of the rethinking of what King means and what Messiah means. I think your real issue is not so much in King. It's in the Messiah. And I just wonder just for a minute to think about what the relationship is between the Messiah. And the king as described in this week's parsha. You know, Geoffrey, you made a jump, you jump to Zacharia where King and Messiah seem to be interchangeable ideas. Actually, when you look in this week's Torah portion, though, the word Messiah doesn't come up. I know that the king is anointed. But like I said before, all kings are anointed. What's interesting is the idea of the fact that I think in today, in the Torah, reading tomorrow, there's no idea of a religious Messiah, there really is an idea of a king. what the people want, when they say, Asima alay melech...  place upon us as a king. They want a political King. They're not so worried about the religious King. They've had Moses as their religious King from the beginning. That's not so exciting. What they want is they want a political king. Asima alai melech.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I would agree with you to a degree. clearly one of the fixes is to have this king read the tTorah all the time and hold the Torah all the time. And that, again, is a concession. What I'm trying to say is, and I think that Erich Fromm said it the best, he said "obedience to God is also the negation of submission to man." In other words, when Samuel told God that they wanted a king, God said, You don't understand. They're rejecting me. And if you look at it, and you flip it, you can say the opposite as well, that by accepting God, you're rejecting any sort of leadership role or subservience to man. And it's almost as if, and this is the the feeling that I have on lRosh Hashanah when I say Ain lanu Melach ela atah", there is no king other than you. What I'm saying is I am radically free, that there is no power besides a God that I need to answer to. And you can just as easily do that. Almost from a secular point of view, you can say that the message of Rosh Hashanah is that we are radically free. You know, there's something that we do on Rosh Hashanah, we talk about the Malchiyut which is the kingship of God. And then we talk about this strange thing of blowing of the shofar, and remembering the blowing of that shofar. And a lot of commentaries go to great ends to try to figure out what the connection is between making God King and blowing the shofar. And I'm just going to let out what my theory is. My theory is that we are approaching a sabbatical year. And in the sabbatical year, every seven years, slaves are released, and they are released when the shofar is blown. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is a bell but the verse on it says, and you shall cry out, freedom throughout  the land. What ultimately happened, according to the Talmud, is that on the first day of the Rosh Hashanah, all of the slaves that were indentured servants were freed. And on the 10th day, the shofar was blown. And they literally walked out free. And I think ultimately, what Rosh Hashanah then becomes, is, yes, we're making God King. But the takeaway, the impact on us is that we are all those indentured servants who are listening to the sound of this so far, and being freed. And there's a responsibility clearly with that freedom. But ultimately, at the end of the day, that is the radical message of Rosh Hashanah. And I believe it's the radical message that the Jews in our parsha are rejecting. They want to go back to Egypt, they want a ruler they want somebody to serve, so to speak.

Adam Mintz 

First of all, that's a fascinating explanation. But it's interesting, Geoffrey, that when they say "asima alai melech"  "place upon us a king". They don't say we want to go back to Egypt. The Jews know how to say we want to go back to Egypt. They say it and they say it again. And they say it again. But here, they don't say it. Isn't that interesting? They just say we want a king. It doesn't seem to be related to Egypt.

Geoffrey Stern 

It doesn't. But it relates to the whole project, in a sense. I mean I think it's obviously much more flagrant when they say, you know, we used to have watermelons and good meat in in the fleshpots of Egypt. But here, if you really think about it, so much of the Exodus story from Egypt, was about rejecting the rule of the Pharaoh and his priests. And in a sense,here, as I said, before, a God is being ultimately rejected by this request. And the way I see it, because you asked about what I see is the connection to the Messiah. I think that even the Messiah is still saying that we need something we need somebody. In our tradition, the first four books of Moses God never refers to him or herself as a king, never needed that modality. And in a sense by asking for this political King, and embracing it, and getting Jerusalem and getting the monarchy and all that, we've gone on a very long detour, which includes having a humble king that can ride on a donkey and can solve our problems. But at the end of the day, this is where I stand, I stand that we're better off having no king at all, having this radical freedom and looking at our spiritual inner life, as Michael describes it, or as a godhead as that paternal maternal love-mate, child even. And ultimately we don't need a boss.  And this is the beautiful story of that indentured slave who after seven years says to his master, I don't want to go free. I like it here in my little Egypt, so to speak. And you take him according to the Torah to the doorposts and you pierce his ear. And Yohanan Ben zakkai says, Why do do you pierce his ears and inKedushin it says, "the Holy One blessed be he said, from a voice on Mount Sinai, that for me, the children of Israel are slaves, which indicates that they should not be slaves to slaves. And yet this man went and willingly acquired a master for himself, therefore, let his ear be pierced, "lo avadim l'avadim", ultimately, at the end of the day, if we accept God, as our only power, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we are free. And if we don't, we are slaves to some sort of slave. And I think that is ultimately the message of the rejection of the monarchy. And the acceptance of the message of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Adam Mintz 

That beautiful I'd say we're slaves to a slave, even if that slave happens to be a king. That the last irony of the whole thing, that we're slaves to a slave even if that slave happens to be a king,

Geoffrey Stern 

or a Messiah maybe

Adam Mintz 

or a Messiah. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Geoffrey. Thank you, everybody. Enjoy Shoftim. Have a Shabbat Shalom and we look forward to seeing everybody next week.

Geoffrey Stern 

Shabbat Shalom

A live Clubhouse recording of Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we explore the origins of ritual slaughter, the implicit bias of the Torah to vegetarianism and the origins and limitations of carnivorism in Judaism.  We also highlight the contribution of Judaism of mindfulness when it come to our food supply and where we go from here.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/340004

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

So welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah and this week is Parshart Re'eh and in two, little verses it pretty much makes the only biblical reference. And maybe not even a reference but a kind of an allusion to laws that practicing Jews take very, very seriously. And that is the laws of kashrut; of slaughtering animals. And I must say that when I first stumbled upon this, I was amazed by how little is there. So let's jump right into it. It's Deuteronomy 12. And it says, "When the Lord enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, I shall eat some meat, for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat, whenever you wish. If the place where the Lord has chosen to establish His name is too far from you, you may slaughter any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord gives you, as I have instructed you, and you may eat to your heart's content in your settlements." So clearly, this was written at a point where if you take it into the context that it's supposed to be written in, which is when the Jews were first coming into the land, and they where already understanding that they were going to enlarge, they already somehow had an intuition that there was going to be a centralized temple. And that's what the references to the place where the Lord has chosen to establish his name. But what is assumed here is that, number one, you can only eat meat in that chosen place at the temple. And as many of you know from the Passover sacrifice, that was a sacrifice that sacrificed to God, but eaten by a group of people. So eating of meat, one can assume there was a time where you could only eat it around the temple. And here is the permission to eat it if you're too far away to eat it in the temple. And it doesn't give any rules for slaughtering it. It just says an illusion, "as I have instructed you" Kasher Tziviticha. So I'm going to stop now, before we dive into the many nuances of this. But rabbi, what what did these two sentences mean to you?

Adam Mintz 

Well, the first thing is very important again, that meat was only eaten as part of the sacrifices, meat was considered to be a tremendous luxury. You couldn't eat it just be yourself. It had to be part of religious of religious experience. That's a huge transition from eating meat as part of a  sacrifice to eating meat for dinner and having a hamburger, having a barbecue at home. That might have been the biggest transition that the Jews experienced when they entered the land

Geoffrey Stern 

I think you're correct.... both when they entered the land, and possibly when they first entered the land with a traveling tabernacle. And before the temple was built. This also and I kind of alluded to, we don't know exactly when it was written, you know, when there was a tabernacle in Shilo. And there were other places that had these tabernacles the religion was more distributed. But when it became centralized in Jerusalem at the temple, that was also a moment just like coming into the promised land was a moment. And so what we're seeing is ..... as if we didn't know that the practice of Judaism evolve .... clearly evolved, whether from the days of the desert into the promised land, or from the days when it was a decentralized tribal conglomerate to when it becomes centralized in Jerusalem. But I want to focus for a second on a word used. The English is "if you desire" "you may eat meat when you have the urge to eat meat." In the Hebrew it's "Ochla basar ki toevah nefsha" if you desire to eat meat, because your soul craves for it. The word "Ta'aiva"  is it carries baggage I believe in Hebrew, if you called somebody "Ba'al Ta'aivah", it's a glutton pretty much. It's someone who's driven by their desires, even in the Bible itself. In the desert when there was the the Riff Raff, the Erev Rav, and they were complaining. It says in Numbers "ve'tayavu Ta'aivah" they had this gluttonous craving. And when they were punished and killed for their craving, the name of the place that they were buried "Kivrot HaTaiaivah"  was "the Place of the Gluttony". So I wonder, and I ask you, Rabbi, when we read this, is there that sense of social criticism? And is this sort of a concession? Or am I just taking this out of context?

Adam Mintz 

No you are definitely not. I would just tweak what you said Geoffrey to say. I think the Torah doesn't say that every time you eat meat, that it's bad, that it's gluttony. I think the Torah is concerned that it has the potential to become gluttony. You I have to be very careful. Originally the way the Torah was careful said that you only are allowed to eat meat, if part of that meat is going as a religious sacrifice. So therefore you're not going to be irresponsible, if it's going as a religious sacrifice. So I think being a "Ba'al Ta'aivah" is connected to meat. And therefore they needed to restrict, and to limit the ways in which you are allowed to eat.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yeah, and I forgot to mention another important one in the 10 commandments, right after it says "do not covet your neighbor's wife. It says You shall not crave your neighbor's house "Lo Tai'avah Beith Re'echa"  so it definitely has this sense. And it does carry some social baggage.  I hear what you said. But I have to say also, that what we have is a juxtaposition here of meat that is sanctified and sacrificed in the temple, and meat that is "basar Ta'eivah". And it could mean meat outside of the temple that any meat outside of the temple is, "Ba'asar Ta'eivah" . All I think what you're saying, which is interesting is that when you do eat meat, outside of the temple, you have to make sure that there was a religious or spiritual element to it.

Adam Mintz 

That is what I'm saying, because that that will protect you against the "Ta'Aivah" issue.

Geoffrey Stern 

We're going to get into maybe the history of, of eating meat, and in the approach of the Bible to eating meat in a second. But before we do, it is a good case study in how the Bible, the Torah deals with the less than perfect characteristics that we humans have. In other words, it understands that people have these desires, and we don't live in a black and white world. And I think this becomes then kind of an interesting case study. So before we dive into the development of eating meat, let's also use this as an opportunity to understand where the laws that we have of "Shechita" came from. So Rashi focuses on this verse. And the fact that in verse 21, God says, "you may slaughter the sheep, and the cattle that the Lord gives you, as I have instructed, you" "Ka'asher tziviticha" ,  And Rashi says that, from here, we learn that there must be an Oral Tradition because if you read The Five books of Moses backwards and forwards, you will never find any of these laws there. You know, there's a joke that I once heard, that says that in Rome, they found some copper sthreads one foot down in an excavation. And they said, This proves that the early Romans must have had a phone system. And the Greeks didn't want to be outdone. And they dug down two feet, and they found some threads made of glass and they said, Well, we must have had a fiber optic system in our day. And then the Israelis didn't want to be out done and they dug down four feet and they found nothing. And they said, Well, we must have had a cellular network. So this is a situation where we have nothing in the written law about the laws of Shechita. And the laws of Shechita are very extensive, and Rashi wants to bring from here a proof. He doesn't simply say that, Oh, well, those are commanded in the Oral Law. He says from here the fact that it was referenced, an Oral Law or commandment was referenced. We know that the Oral Law exists. So that is kind of an interesting maneuver. But it does speak to how much of the the regular practice of Judaism is contained in the Oral law.

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, well, the interrelationship between the Oral Law and the written law is an amazing topic isn't?

Geoffrey Stern 

It certainly is. And for those who study the Talmud, they know that there was so many diverse opinions, that sometimes you can go back and find an opinion that was not a mainstream opinion. But it certainly means that nothing is written in stone. But that, in fact, these laws that are so critical to the lifestyle of so many Jews are not contained in the written law. And it's always important that you know, your sources so that you know that something is based on Torah, in terms of the Written Torah. And some things are based on the Oral tradition. And so you got to give credit,

Adam Mintz 

Geoffrey you make an interesting point now, and that is to know the difference about whether it's biblical or whether it's rabbinic. And somehow if it's biblical, it's more important. I'm going to tell you a little secret. The rabbi's often tell us that the rabbinic law is more important, because they were afraid that people would be lax on the rabbinic law. So they try to make an extra effort to make a big point about the rabbinic law, which is a very, I mean, obviously, it's self serving. But it's interesting

Geoffrey Stern 

Abolutely. And in this case, you got to give them credit for acknowledging that it's [only] in the Oral Law. And I think that's something that I was also found important, they might emphasize the importance of the law, but they also emphasize full transparency. Noy, welcome to the platform. I'd love to hear from you.

Noy 

Hi. Hi. I just have a question. Are you Orthodox Jews?

Adam Mintz 

This is a wonderful discussion, because this is not orthodox, conservative or reform. We're just studying the text. Everybody is equal in this conversation.

Noy 

Yeah, yeah. But I wanted to know.  Just wondering, Thank you. We're all equal in this conversation. We don't make distinctions.

Geoffrey Stern 

And I think that in general, when it comes to studying the texts, it's not important who you are, or what you believe, but that you're studying.

Noy 

We all believe in God. Hasdhem.

Michael Stern 

Thank you Shabbat shalom. I have a question. Its as if we were if we say that we're Chosen and we were given this information 100, hundreds of years ago, that eating meat has to be in "midah", in some sort of balance and not gluttony, as you said. And so now we're discovering on documentary movies, how the meat farming, meat raising industry is causing, I think, 50% of the issues with the carbon dioxide....  one of the largest factors in climate warming. And I'd like to ask you guys, if we were given this information that raising of meat for eating, and not for some maybe religious sacrificial purpose, which sounds good to me now, compared to the eating industry of meat, that we would not have climate change challenges, and what role we as Israelites and Jews have in bringing this wisdom and knowledge to humanity as the chosen people who could say, Hey, guys, it's been told 1000s of years ago, or whenever the Torah and all this information was passed down. So if somebody could address this, that would be great. So

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that you're absolutely correct. And before we go into the history of vegetarianism, .... because I think you're gonna see that the bias of the Torah is very much towards vegetarianism. But before we leave these verses, I think one of the things that's so exciting to me about this discussion, and I alluded to it before by saying it's not black and white, that there are degrees, and that one of the rabbi's said about this verse, that it says, when you expand your territory, he said the Tortah taught that it is a desired behavior of a person should consume meat due only due to appetite, meaning to say you should never eat meat, pell mell, as just, you know, I have meat and potatoes every lunch, that's the way I'm built. That's the way we are, you should save it for special situations where you have a craving, and that craving could be psychologically based. It could be nutritional based. But I think what you was saying, Michael, in terms of in "midah" in moderation, in context and in exerting a certain self discipline. And I think that's the the flip side of gluttony is not abstention, the flip side of gluttony is to do things using using moderation. And I do believe that it's a striking example. I don't know how many other examples in the Torah there are like this.   Many times in the Torah, it's either "assur" it's forbidden or "pator" , it's permitted. But how many times does it say it's good in moderation. And I think we are seeing something here. And the environmental issues that you raise are critical. Meaning to say that there was certain things that we really have to moderate. And we have to do them thoughtfully.

Michael Stern 

So why have that's great, but why haven't we used our brilliance and our influence...  we're great influencers... take it out of the study room and say, Wait, this is a mission? I mean, to say, "wait, this is a proving that it's self sabotaging humanity, this planet could explode in 50 years. And all this talk if we are the people that God spoke to, we have a responsibility, and not to be worried about fighting for land, or maybe let's fight for the land and fight for the planet. What I don't understand how we don't take it out of the discussion room and say, "Planet God has spoken to us."

Adam Mintz 

So Michael, I just want to say your question is better than my answer. But I want to tell you that the yeshiva and Riverdale Chovavei Torah at the end of July, just last month, a couple of weeks ago, they had an entire day that was dedicated to climate control. And they dealt with these issues. And there were many people at that conference who believe Michael, exactly what you said is we need to take it out of the study hall and we need to, you know, we need to teach the world about what the Torah's laws are and how the Torah wants to protect the environment and what we need to protect the environment. So I wouldn't say that it's it's mainstream Michael, but it's no question that the issues that you raise are issues that are being raised now in the Jewish community, and you know, the things that people are talking about.

Michael Stern 

That's great to know. Thank you Rabbi

Geoffrey Stern 

And I think part and parcel of that is that Judaism gave the world something which I think is amazing. And that is thoughtfulness..... eating thoughtfully. And that is a gift that we've given. But I think what is happening in the last 100 years at least. And it's accelerating every week, is that society is passing Judaism by because Judaism spent a lot of time looking at the food chain... if you want to look at "Shechita" ritual slaughter as looking at the food chain, that has become much more important. If Judaism has used the laws of kashrut to talk about the quality and the qualifications of people involved with the slaughter of animals, again, modern society is starting to look at ethical issues. Do you pay your employees at the slaughterhouse properly? Do they have health benefits? When we buy food, we are more interested now than ever, not only in the nutritional value, but on the whole supply chain. And sometimes being the early adopter of something, the first mover is an advantage. But sometimes you get overcome with your own achievements. And I think that now and we're seeing movements along this, there's a movement that talks not about Kashrut, but about "Yashrut" meaning being Yashar is straight being ethical. And this is an organization that will say, you know, maybe the meat is slaughtered in a humane way. But you also have to make sure that the workers are paid. And if it's not, it's not kosher meat. I think that is the real challenge, it might start at the study hall, but it means opening up the parameters of the discussion, Mike, welcome to our platform, what's on your mind,

mike 

I ws thinking about what you said. Real quickly, my background is, I grew up in a, very moderate Chabad Lubavitch family I'm not Chabad any more, but you know, growing up to seeing my family, the way they do things when it comes to like Kashrut. They'll pay attention to all these details about okay, we have this and has a "K" on the box, we'll buy this meat. But they won't think about the fact that this meat has all these hormones injected into it and all these other things that make the meat just terrible products, whether it's meat or processed food, it seems that I'm not just picking on an orthodox, but it seems that we as a people have got our values just totally misplaced. That's why I was all I wanted to say for now.

Adam Mintz 

Okay, I mean, Thanks, Mike, for your comments. I mean, that's, you know, Michael has brought that up. And we appreciate that. And we understand that maybe the Jewish community has a responsibility. And I think to Geoffrey's credit, the choice of, this idea of Kashrut and Yashrut, this is only one piece of Kashrut and Yashrut  ... this conversation that we're having today, and it's recorded and everything, and we have a whole bunch of people who were listening, maybe this is going to make this a point of conversation, which will allow other people to, you know, to join in to understand some of these issues. We have Ethan on the line. Would you like to join the conversation?

Ethan 

So I'll try to keep this brief so we can keep the conversation moving. When we were talking about the opposite of gluttony, not being abstention, but moderation. I guess my question is, does that tie back to when we were discussing in previous weeks when you're going to be a Nazir and you have to bring a karbon Hatat at the end of the period of Nezirut. And while there are different different explanations, one of the explanations for why you bring a Korban Hatat is that you decided to entirely abstain from partaking of wine and you forbade yourself, you know, some of what is available to enjoy in the world.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think it's definitely related and I was thinking of that as well. Moderation they used to attribute it to Maimonides, the golden rule. So to speak, not not too far to the right, not too far the left, but moderation. And I do believe that in this particular law, we can call it a concession. We can call it the Crooked Timber of Humanity. But yes, we do have desires and any any form of law or religion that doesn't take into account those desires, I think, ultimately rings false. And so whether it's the ability for someone to become a Nazirite, if they have an issue with some substances, or whether it's someone to end their abstention. These are all beautiful things that are written into the Torah law that has become a part of culture, I think, and we can be proud of it. But I think we also have to understand that these should empower us to go further. And that's, I think, what's so fascinating about the discussion that we're having, and the question of how we can go farther. So I want to just move forward a little bit and talk about the history of meat eating in the Torah. And the truth is that, in Genesis, when the world is created, it does not give men permission, to eat meat, to take the soul from an animal. In fact, it says, all of the foods and the plants that I give you shall be for you for food. It's only at the time of Noah, that when Noah took those animals Two by Two into the ark, that in a sense, Noah was given sort of our rights, because he had  saved the world that he could then eat. So in Genesis 9, it says "every creature that lives shall be us to eat as with the green grasses", so it's referring back to the earlier part of Genesis where all mankind could eat was the green grasses. Now you can eat animals. And that's why, even by Jewish law, we have 613 commandments, but Jewish tradition believes that people who descended from Noah which is pretty much everybody has been descended from Noah because he was the only survivor of the flood. They cannot eat a limb from a live animal. It's called "Ever Min Ha"chai" so this was the first dietary constraint associated with being  Corniverous, eating meat. And I'd like to wonder what everybody else's takeaway in terms of Noah's loophole, so to speak, for for eating meat, I should say that nature kind of changed after the flood, maybe people didn't live as long anymore. So it's kind of a recognition in the Bible of a new epoch, a new transition. And maybe meat was necessary at that point. But certainly there are two sides in my mind, because on the one hand, Noah saved all the animals and therefore has certain rights. But I believe once you save somebody, you also have obligations. And I think that that's where these laws of supply chain and sources of our foods and how we harvest our foods come into play? What are your thoughts on that?

Adam Mintz 

So thank you very much, Geoffrey The idea that no one is given permission to eat meat is very much connected to the question of authority, before the flood, man wasn't in control. And that's what led at least the way God understood it to complete anarchy, after the flood, there's a more organized system, and the organized system is that man controls animals. And in a sense, you know, the Torah tells us at the end of chapter two, that Adam couldn't find a mate. And if you read the Torah carefully, it sounds like Adam went on a date with every single animal. And he didn't find a good mate. And therefore God took a woman from his side. But it seems like the relationship between animals and humans was one of equals. After the flood, God realized that was a bad way to be, and therefore he gave people dominion over animals.

Geoffrey Stern 

and I would just add that with Dominion comes responsibility. And that's why I never understand why evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christians don't take environmentalism more seriously because it's so natural for someone who believes in The Genesis story who believes that God created the world and made us the guardian of the world, that we have to take that guardianship so seriously. I think that the the takeaway from today's discussion of these verses is at the most basic level, we have to be thoughtful about what we eat, and where our supply chain is. And I also believe that when Jesus talked about on the laws of Kashrut, he said something that could have been in the Talmud, he said, "it's more important what comes out of your mouth than what goes into it". But I think what what he was saying was very similar to the discussion that we're having. And that is that these rules, and this goes to Mike's point, should never be about reading labels only, and should never be about crossing T's and dotting "i"s, that would sell it so short, it's about our evolution, it's about our growth, it's about our ability to, to become better guardians of ourselves and of the world. And to not only take into account the fact that we have certain desires, and to master those desires, but I think also to use those desires in a good way. It's such a powerful weapon that we have, we wake up in the morning with a bounce in our step because we desire to do something and we have to harness that power, and the food that we eat in a in a way that's sanctified. And I think that if you do look at Judaism, while I am surprised that vegetarianism isn't more widespread, given the history of it. You know, why great scholars and great pietists and religious leaders don't focus on vegetarian more. But what we do have is that the time to eat meat is in a sanctified moment,  on Shabbat for instance. There zemirot talk about on Shabbat we have meat. There were people who were vegetarian by necessity not by desire, who were poor, but on Shabbat, they would have that Basar Ta'aivah" that meat of desire. So I think all of that says there's so much for us to learn about the laws of kashrut in their larger sense and I wish us all a Shabbat Shalom, of fulfilling any "taiaivah" that we have, and harnessing it in a good direction.

Adam Mintz 

Amazing. Thank you, Geoffrey. Thank you, everybody. Shabbat shalom. Look forward to next week.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse Friday July 30th as we wonder whether the practice of Judaism outside of the land of Israel just that…. practice? We explore a Rabbinic opinion that the land of Israel is so central to the religion of Israel that the religion can only be observed in the Land. In so doing we question whether the practice of Judaism in and outside of Israel is different in kind rather than degree and what this says about the nature and relationship between the two communities?

Sefaria Source Sheet Here: www.sefaria.org/sheets/338763

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

Welcome to Madlik disruptive weekly Torah. So it turns out that today is kind of a third in a series and it wasn't an intentional series. But the truth is, if you recall, about two weeks ago, we talked about Tisha B'Av and we talked about how in the second paragraph of the Shema, it does something unique, where it says to the Jews, if you don't fulfill the commandments, I'll cast you out of the land. And we talked about the implications of that. And then last week, we talked about the Shema itself, that iconic call to faith, and what its implications are. So this week, that second paragraph in the Shema that we read, or traditional Jews read twice a day, is actually part of the weekly portion. And it it starts by saying, as we've quoted in the past, "and if you don't keep these commandments, the Lord's anger will flare up against you." This is Deuteronomy 11: 13 - 21, "there'll be no rain, the ground will not yield the produce, and you will perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you." And that's kind of where we stopped. But then it does something kind of remarkable. And it says, and I'm using the translation here, the standard [JPS] translation, "therefore impress these words upon your very heart, bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead." And most of you who have seen traditional Jews and seeing what is called the phylacteries, or Tefilin, knows that this is not allegorical, this is actually traditional Jews. And they have samples of these going back to the caves of the zealots of bar kochba, actually, would attach and strap these phylacteries; boxes containing these particular verses onto their arms, and as frontlets between your eyes. But what is interesting is that especially in the English translation, I don't see it so much in the Hebrew, but it connects it "therefore" impress these words. There's a connection between being kicked off of the land and putting these Tefilin these phylacteries on your arms and on your forehead, the third eye maybe. And Rashi picks up on this, and he does see the connection and that's why maybe the translation is true to this. He says that even after you have been banished, make yourself distinctive. The word in Hebrew is "hayu Metzuyanim b'mitzvot" , that the mitzvot the commandment should distinguish you by means of putting on the Tefilin and putting the mezuzah on your door posts, so that these shall not be novelties to you when you return. And then he quotes a verse from Jeremiah, which says, set thee up distinguishing marks, which in Hebrew is "hatzivi lecha tziunim'. So what is actually remarkable, at least to me, and we'll see if Rabbi Adam you are in agreement to me, is, although the commandment of Tefilin had already been commanded, in the Bible, what Rashi is doing either to justify the repetition of the commandment, or to just explain the context of putting it right after the threat of being exiled, he makes a connection and says something that, to me is dramatic. That actually, the command is only if you live in Israel. But if you are outside of Israel, you nonetheless should do what we consider to be basic Jewish traditions of putting on the tefillin so that you won't forget them when you come back, so that you should distinguish yourself. It almost makes the most basic practice of Judaism into literally a practice, practice until you return to the land. Am I reading it correctly? Rabbi Adam.

Adam Mintz 

So I want to say that the verse, the Rashi that you picked up is such an important Rashi because the impression that Rashi gives is that the ultimate purpose of performing mitzvot, of doing the commandments is only in the land of Israel. And then everything outside the Land of Israel is just practice. Now, that's almost a scary idea. Because that really means the Judaism is only Judaism in the Land and everything that you do outside the land is only practice. But that's what Rashi seems to say. And he says that the Tefilin specifically, are something that we do outside the land, to remind us of the commandments, so that when we return to the land, we'll be ready to continue performing the commands. The question to me really is does Rashi really mean that? Rashi, who lived his whole life in France, who never made it to the land of Israel.. Do you think he believed that Judaism is only practiced in the land of Israel, that it's only practice outside the land?

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, this is such a radical idea that I just want to just give Rashi's source, so we're very clear about it, he quotes the Sifrei. And in this source sheet, the Sifrei is quoted completely. And it even gives an analogy. It says a king was angry with his wife, and she returned to her father's house, the king said, continue wearing your jewels so that when you return, they will not be new to you. And so, again, I don't think that you can read it any other way. I would say, and I think you'll agree with me, Adam, that, we're looking at an opinion here, the the Sifrei, even Rashi, who's quoting the opinion, this is a thread, this is a way of looking at Judaism, clearly not mainstream. But I'd like for the rest of the day to explore it, because it is so radical. So you ask whether given this, is it possible that Rashi thought he was just playing house, so to speak his whole life? That he never really put on Tefilin, but he was only practicing putting on Tefilin? So I think that in itself raises a question. You know, I love the expression in yoga, where it's a practice, I love the use of the word practice, when somebody is a practicing physician, for instance, you know, maybe what we're doing is we're detracting by asking that question, of the value of practice. And maybe the idea is, and this is what might be radical, that at least outside of Israel, you are constantly trying to get to a further point, if that's what practice is, and maybe that's not so bad. How does that strike you?

Adam Mintz 

That is interesting. The idea of practice? Well, let's take it back a step. Your first point, which I think you made at the beginning a couple of minutes ago, which was really good was that actually, the Tefilin follows the fact that were thrown out of the land. So in a sense the Tefilin is a punishment, means you're thrown out of the land. So you have to wear your Tefilin, since you can't really fulfill the commandments properly, at least wear your Tefilin which are practice. Now, if you take it that way, practice is really an important piece of it. But practice is a sad piece, because that's what we have to do, because we're being punished by being thrown out of the land.

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, but can one really take it as a punishment in the sense that I think the assumption is that wearing the Tefilin and keeping the commandments in Israel is something that is completely authentic and sui generis, you do it for its own sake, it has its benefits, and it's only outside of the land of Israel, that it becomes something that is a practice. So I'm not sure I can see it as a punishment. Unless, when you really get a little contrived in saying, well, you have to do it, even though it's really not the real McCoy. But you got to do it anyway, either as a punishment or something to keep you distinctive. I mean, I think what I'd like to take from your question is, let's look at the flip side. What does therefore wearing Tefilin in Israel mean? And again, if part of the wearing of Tefilin is to make you distinctive, and anyone who's ever seen anybody wearing Tefilin, it is very distinctive. If you ever are about to knock on the door, the first thing I always do is look to see if it's a Mezuza to see if it's a member of the tribe, so to speak. So these are two commandments that distinguish the Jew very much in exile. So maybe the flip side of that is, well, then what do you even need them for in the land of Israel? That to me is is, is an interesting question as well.

Adam Mintz 

Good. That is an interesting question. Let's take both points that you make. The first point you made is that both mezuzah and Tefilin are visible, highly visible, meaning the mezuzahs on the doorpost, you can identify a house as being a Jewish house. And Tefilin is on the person. We all know that to see a Jew wearing Tefilin, it's distinctive. Wow. Like, that's exactly the right word, Geoffrey. It's distinctive, it makes them special, it makes something different. And I think that's an important idea. Now, according to the way Rashi is presenting it, Tefilin plays a much more minor role in Israel than it does in the diaspora. Because the whole idea of remaining distinctive is not important in Israel, because by definition, we're distinctive in Israel. So that I wonder about that, I wonder what Rashi would say about that. So I don't think we're necessarily going to solve this problem. But I think the crux of the question is a whole other layer? And that is, is Judaism, in Israel and outside of Israel, one and the same thing? Or is there a total distinction between observing these commandments when one is outside of Israel and one is in? Now we all should know that there are commandments that are called "Teluyot B'Aretz", that are dependent on the land. So it's clear that if there is a rule of letting the land life fallow every seven years, the sabbatical law, that only applies in the land of Israel. And this is a very mainstream idea that that commandment is not applicable outside of the land. What this particular train of thought is saying is that really, every commandment when practiced in Israel, is different in kind, not in degree when practiced in Israel, and practiced outside. And I think the fact that we're struggling with how Tefilin is meaningful in Israel and how it is meaningful outside of Israel, maybe tells us that we're not even showing a bias. That Tefilin might mean one thing, Shabbat might mean one thing in Israel, and it might mean something outside of Israel. But clearly, this particular midrash commentary is raising a very important question. Even that is very timely, in a time where the communities living in Israel and outside of Israel, see things so differently. So now you're raised another point. And that is what is the difference between Judaism in Israel and Judaism in the diaspora, Jewish observance in Israel and Jewish observance in the diaspora? You know, there is a theory, Geoffrey, that's become very popular, which is that the observance of commandments is much less important in Israel than it is in the diaspora. Because in Israel everybody's Jewish. So therefore, you don't need  to observe the commandments. It's only the diaspora that you have to observe the commandments. What do you think about that?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, again, it's it's part and parcel of this whole impression that we have. For instance, there are many secular Jews that go to Israel for the first time, and they leave kind of disappointed. They were expecting everybody to be dancing the Hora and wearing a kippa. And even though they're not traditional, they expect Israelis to be traditional. It's as much the question of perceptions of the two communities of each other. And I do believe that there are Israelis who will argue that as you say, once you're in Israel, you you don't have to "work it" so much. Whereas a family like mine living in Connecticut must put its foot down, the kids can't go out Friday night, we have to keep a Shabbat  Friday night dinner in order to retain our character. In Israel, if the kids go out, they're going to be with other kids, and they'll keep Shabbat in this similar way. But you can say the flip side of that argument too that there are Jews living in Israel, that believe that Judaism in Israel is hyper-Judaism, that you are so close to the source that you're able to practice on a higher level. So I take your comment only as one of many different lenses that we see this distinction between Judaism in and outside of Israel, I would just love to add my favorite aspect of this in terms of the one community looking at the other. In vernacular, Hebrew or Yiddish. If you call somebody an Am Haaretz , it typically means an ignoramus. But modern scholarship, academic scholarship has shown that the truth is it was a term formed in the Babylonian exile. We all know the Babylonian exile was one that kind of reinvented Judaism, wrote the Babylonian Talmud, and they would come back to Israel, and they would see the arm Haaretz, the people who were living on the land, the the ones that didn't go into exile, and many of the innovations or higher emphasis on maybe purity, and tithing and stuff like that were not followed by those who had remained in Israel. So it's almost the first instance of the two communities, the Diaspora and the resident community, seeing Judaism differently, developing Judaism differently, and maybe being a little bit presumptuous [pejorative] about how to define each other.

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on all of that. I think that that's all interesting. Now, how that relates to the fact that Tefilin is a reminder, and kind of, from observance to culture, but maybe that's a good job, maybe that's interesting.

Geoffrey Stern 

You know, I'm also kind of reminded of the, the Zionist thinkers, and each one of them had their own kind of take on this. But all of them said that the life that the Jew has led 2,000 years in exile was an anemic existence. So if you went to Aleph Dalet Gordon, who was a labor Zionist, he would say how, for 2000 years, Jews did not work with their hands did not toil the soil, because they were not permitted to, but they lived this artificial, anemic existence. And if the Jewish people are ever to become naturalized, become a whole, they need to go back to their land, and rediscover the fullness of human activity. And there were other thinkers, like Achad HaAm who wanted a revival of Jewish culture and language. Ben Yehuda would say the same thing about a people who basically kept alive its language in prayer, but didn't speak it anymore. And so I do think that from their perspective, kind of living in exile was very much this practice and wherever we could we try to retain as much of the aspects of national identity that we could. But ultimately, these aspects of our natural human life, social life would only be true if we came back to the land. So it's kind of an interesting parallel between the religious thinker who's behind this midrash between Rashi's comment, and the secular Zionists who also felt that living outside of Israel was anemic and therefore was pretty much just playing religion, playing culture, playing language,

Adam Mintz 

Its interesting, the secular Zionist. Why did they think the living outside the land was anemic? It wasn't because of an observance of mitzvos. They somehow felt as if Judaism, just by the very definition needed a homeland?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, I think with regard to religion, their argument would be similar to the one you made a few minutes ago, which is that because we didn't have a language because we didn't have an economy, because we didn't have all of the accoutrements of a natural life, what we could develop was our religion. And therefore we developed this religion way beyond where it should have been, relative to the other aspects of our lives. And that, therefore, when we come back to the land of Israel, religion has to reassume its, relativity to the other forms of life. And I think from that perspective, yes, that would be where that argument comes from. But again, it seems to me even today, when you have, and I see this, especially amongst liberal progressives, and I count myself guilty, as charged as a progressive, but sometimes it's very different, what a progressive will say, who lives outside of Israel, and one that lives inside of Israel. And the most basic difference is the one that lives inside of Israel probably has a son or a daughter, in the army. And Ben Gurion made the statement that his ideal was one day, we would live in our land, and we would have thieves and prostitutes just like anybody else. And what he meant to say, what he meant to say is, in Israel, all of this ideology that we had, and especially progressive ideology, the rubber has to hit the pavement, it's one thing to talk as a consultant. And it's another thing to run a company, it's one thing to write an ideology, and to talk about universalism. And then it's another when you have your own backyard, and when you're worried about the safety of your children, and you have your own love for the land, and they are conflicts and things are not as black and white. And things are not as clean and crisp and clear. But to the Zionists that was the challenge. That's the challenge of moving from practice, to the actual hard work of, not only building a state, but living a life as a citizen of a country and of a culture, so forth and so on.

Adam Mintz 

I think that point is really a beautiful point. And what's amazing is that how we've come full circle from that Rashi that basically says that we wear Tefilin as a sense of a punishment, or as a sense of retaining our distinctiveness, even in the diaspora, to come to this idea of an appreciation of the land is really a beautiful idea. I think Rashi would love that idea. Do you want to open it up, Geoffrey to the audience and see if someone has some thoughts on some of this,

Geoffrey Stern 

I'd love to I'd love to hear whether on this subject we're talking about right now or even Judaism as a practice or Judaism, both rooted in land and above time and space. Anybody who's listening? if you are Israeli too, I'd love to hear your perspective on how sometimes you see the difference between our traditions as practiced in Israel, and outside of Israel. But as we wait, I want to go back to those Zionists who argued about this anemic existence. And that I really do believe that those who are super critical of Israel, even those who love Israel, but are super critical of Israel. You know, it's not an argument from the perspective of unless you live in Israel, you don't have a right to criticize. It's more of a perspective of if you don't live in Israel. It's hard for you to understand what it's like in the same fashion, as it's hard to understand what celebrating a holiday is in the land where it took place, from celebrating it as a reminiscence, or as a reminder, and I think that's kind of part and parcel of this discussion today. We're not taking the moral high road, we're just saying that it's clear from this Midrash, that existentially living in the land; being being there. And I can't help but use the metaphor of "not in my backyard", where so many people take a position, but you really don't know what their position is, unless it does happen in their backyard. There's an amazing podcast from the New York Times, that talks about a group of people that petitioned the city to move a public school into their neighborhood so that it could be more integrated. And when the school was ultimately moved, none of them, not one to a T sent their kids there. And these are radical progressives. So I do think this is an invitation for us all, to look into the mirror. And to ask ourselves, and this is moving away from even the Israel situation, if you don't live in the land, if it's not your backyard, is your vision, is your perspective going to be the same as if you are there?

Adam Mintz 

I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that's, that's the challenge. And the answer, of course, is that your perspective is different in Israel; good and bad, right? I don't know that you want to say that it's better. It's just different when you're there.

Geoffrey Stern 

Hello, Michael

Michael Posnik 

Once again, thank you very much, gentlemen. Just a number of things. I don't know if they're all connected. But the first thing that came to mind at the beginning of the event today, was that practice makes perfect. And it may well be that all the practice that's going on here is aimed at a kind of perfection, but the practice itself is moving towards perfection, always. So that's one thing that comes. On the other hand, Carnegie Hall might be compared to Israel in this discussion. The other thing that came to mind was something I was studying with Misha about Nehemia. And when they came back, and Ezra built the wooden tower and read the Torah, to the people, which people you called Am Haaretz which is such a beautiful understanding of that phrase, not dismissive at all, just the people who live there. They cry, the people who are listening to the Torah and it's not clear whether they're crying, to hear the law again, and to be reminded of the law, or they're crying because they neglected or did not have the opportunity to practice or to live in the law.  And Nehemia says to the people don't cry, just listen. I guess that listening is also a very profound practice as well. So again, thank you, just a couple of pieces of something to consider.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that's a beautiful thought. And it takes me back to this concept of, we're not necessarily saying one is better than the other. I mean, this concept of practice. By definition, you mean to say that you're going somewhere you're striving. And if the flip side of that is a certain level of smugness, and a certain level of I've already arrived, then I do think that I don't necessarily take the comment by Rashi as one of punishment as a as much as fact. But I do want to bring one more piece of Talmud that has always fascinated me, and it's at the end of the Tractate Ketubot. And it says that those who live in Israel "Keilu Yesh Lo Eloka", those who live in Israel, it's as if they have a God, and those who live outside of Israel. It's as if they don't have a God, and I think on the superficial level, that ultimately means that in Israel, you're closer to God and outside of Israel, you're far away. But it does say,"keilu" as if, and I wonder sometimes whether those living in Israel, and I see it when they come here, and they come out into the diaspora, and they see how hard Jews in the diaspora work on preserving the traditions work on preserving the identity. And in a sense, there's a sense sometimes of awe, and I think that the two different cultures and can literally benefit from each other, and the culture, you know, outside of Israel, .... and I won't even say Israel anymore, outside of the land of comfort, outside of the land of having arrived as opposed to the land of wanting to arrive, striving to arrive, those people, it's as if they don't have a God, because they're striving for that God, and the ones that feel rooted in the land as if they've already arrived, and they have nowhere further to go. It looks as though they have a God, but maybe they don't. And that to me is what lies at the bottom of this whole concept of belonging and not belonging, of arriving and not arriving, of totally feeling, comfortable. We were in Morocco, and the Moroccan community divides itself into two. One is the "Mityashvim", the people that live there belong there, those were our Jews that arrived with the Romans, and were there before the Spanish Inquisition, and the others are the "Mitgarshim", those who were exiled from Spain and came there. So they have in the same country these two concepts. And I would suggest, and maybe this is the thought that we should take with us, is that we both need a little bit of both, we both need to be able to have that comfort level. But we also have to feel a level of striving and practice trying to get to the promised land. And if we ever get to a promised land and feel we've arrived, we're probably dead in the water. So you always have to have I think both aspects.

Adam Mintz 

 Geoffrey you couldn't end on a better note, the idea the necessity to strive, and the idea that if we ever think we get there, then we fail. I wish everybody a Shabbat shalom. We should continue to strive. You know, the summer months, Geoff and I were talking at the beginning of the know, these parshiot we don't talk about them enough because it's the summer but there's such amazing material here. And I think in this paragraph of the Shema, we have the idea of striving. Let's all strive, let's have a Shabbat Shabbat shalom. Thank you, Geoffrey, and we look forward to seeing everybody next week. Parshat Re'ea, be well everybody.

Geoffrey Stern 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Vetchanan (Deuteronomy 6) Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Roy encounter the iconic call to Faith of the Shema Yisrael to explore the complexity of faith and especially the contribution of the Musar Movement

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/337360

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

And today, we are going to discuss the one sentence that pretty much I think every Jew knows about has heard is our calling card and it is this Shema Yisrael that's found in in Deuteronomy 6: 4. And I'm sure we could just spend the whole afternoon just talking about what Shema means to you and means to me, and we definitely you're going to do that. But we're also going to use it as an excuse to look into my background in terms of the Yeshiva, I studied in a Musar Yeshiva. And there were certain insights that I got into the moment of Shema that I want to share. But let's start by saying Roy, what does? The Lord is our God, the Lord is one Shema Yisrael. Why is it so iconic? And what what does it mean to you when you say it twice a day.

Roy Feldman 

I mean, the simple meaning is that it's accepting the yoke of heaven. It's a declaration that is kind of unambiguous, that we accept God as the sole creator and sole ruler of the universe, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad. It's very unambiguous. It doesn't waver at all. Even if we have, you know, some thoughts about theology or different feelings about God or, you know, wrestling with God in some ways, at different times, twice a day, we kind of just set those aside and say Shema Yisrael twice a day where we don't waver and don't have any compunctions about saying that. And that's an important way to bookend the day. It really, opens the day, and it closes the day. We say Shema in the morning and at night, before we go to bed. And so I think that's  the real statement of the Shema that whatever happens in the middle of the day, and whatever thoughts we might have, we bookend the day with this declaration that we accept God,

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that's absolutely correct. This sense of accepting the"Ol Malchut Shemayim", the kingship of God. And I love the fact that you say that it's kind of a moment of intense focus and acceptance. And that serves as a wonderful segway to the story that really impacted me and will serve as the crux of this conversation. So I went to a Musar Yeshiva... the Musar movement was started, I believe in about the 1700s, 1800s, about the same time as the Enlightenment, and possibly as a response to the Enlightenment in Eastern Europe by a rabbi called Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. And I was fortunate to go to a Yeshiva, that was headed by Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, who studied under the alter from Mir, Rav Yerucham Leibovitz. And he told this story as follows. He said, once a student was saying the Shema and Robbi Yerucham came up to him. And he said to him, so did you say the Shema with Kavanah, with intention? And the student replied, Well, of course, Rebbe..  totally. And he said, so. Let me get this straight. When you said this Shema, you accepted this yoke of heaven, on your feet, and everywhere that you're going to go the rest of the day and the rest of your life and on your tongue, in terms of everything that you're going to speak, your hands and all of your actions, your mind and all of your thoughts, your heart and your emotions. And let me ask you something, did you feel like rebelling? And the students stopped and he paused? And he says, Rebbe, Hash Veshalom! God forbid, I never felt like rebelling. And Reb Yerucham turn to him and said, my boy, you've never said the Shema in your life. I found that story is so powerful. And I guess representative of what the Musar movement is, because it took something that should have such a purity of intention. And as you were saying this kind of focus [and unambiguity]. It even includes in it the word "One" "Echad" what word could we pick that represented harmony any more than the word "One"? And here this Reb Yeruchum introduced that if you didn't have the unharmonious feeling of rebellion. If you didn't feel a twitch of unacceptance then you probably haven't said Shema with intention at any time in your life. Roy before I give you a little bit more of my further reflection on that story, what what does that story say to you?

Roy Feldman 

It's an amazing story that actually brings to mind a similar or a parallel ... that if you don't wrestle with God.... What the story is really saying is that if you don't wrestle with God, that you don't really believe in God, you don't really have the real feeling of Shema. Eliezer Berkovitz, who was a Jewish philosopher who passed away a couple decades ago, in Chicago, has a book called Faith after the Holocaust where he kind of tries to account for having faith, in light of the terrible evil that was the Holocaust. And in the introduction to that book, Berkovitz writes that if you did not have questions of faith, if when you were faced with the death camps, and with the murderous Nazis, you didn't say, "Where is God now?" Then you yourself, don't really believe in God? Because how could you not have a problem with God, if we believe in that great God, that's all good and all knowing, and all powerful and just wants good for us? If that's the God that we believe in, then when faced with such evil, if you really believe in God, then you have to question God at that moment. And that's very similar to the story that you were just telling, with, with the questions of saying the Shema, but wrestling with Shema, rebelling against God. Each one of us faces, difficulties in life, whatever our difficulties may be, and some are greater than others. But at any point in our lives, we are faced with situations in which we really have to ask "Where is God for us now?" And why is God doing this? or What does God intend by doing that? And I think that's really the crux of that story about the Shema.

Geoffrey Stern 

I couldn't agree more. You know, even if we just focus on the the wording, what started as a simple expression of faith, when when Rashi looks at it, he says, Well, no, actually, there's a progression here. Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, and the intention there is maybe the God of the Jewish people, one day will be the one God meaning will be accepted by the whole world. And so even in that there's maybe less of a sense of conflict. But there is a sense of resolution. And that faith is not something that static, that's faith is something that has to grow. And I think you and I would both agree that probably the the biggest catalyst for growth in faith is turmoil, is the sweat, the work of building one's faith,  whether on a national universal level, or more importantly, on on a personal level. So even baked into the phrase, he's not all together, he or she is not one yet. We have to work at it.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, I think that's absolutely. That's absolutely right.

Geoffrey Stern 

The other thing that's kind of interesting, and of course, clubhouse, and a podcast is an audible network. But if you have the Torah sitting in front of you, you'll see that the word Shema, the Ayin the last letter of the word Shema is a very large, and the Dalit at the end of Echad is also very large and the rabbi's explained that the reason for this is if you change the letter of Shema to an Aleph it means Shemma...  "maybe". And if you change the letter, Dalet at the end of the Echad, which means "one" to a Resh, which looks very similar, it means "acher" it means "others" and of course it makes you think of "Elohim Acherim" other gods. So it's almost as though the Masoretic text and the tradition that we come from is looking at this very simple positive formulation of faith and baking into it all the possibilities for hearing wrong,  misunderstanding it. If you listen to a traditional Jew say the Shema at the end they go "Echaaaaaaa D" and again, that tradition comes from stressing the fact that it's a Dalet and not a Resh. It's it's kind of fascinating, isn't it?

Roy Feldman 

It is fascinating and not only do we do stress that Dalet at the end to make sure it's a Dalet and not a Resh, but many traditional Jews are also more careful about pronouncing all of the words of the Shema correctly, even more so than they are about the rest of the service for that same reason to make sure that we're saying everything exactly right and as intended. So there'll be no questions about what we're saying with the Shema. I think another interesting thing about the Shema is that we call it the most famous prayer in Judaism, but in reality, it's not a prayer. We've been saying it's a declaration, and it's really a declaration that precedes the prayer. The rabbi's in the Tractate Berachot in the Babylonian Talmud, note that one is always supposed to proceed the Shemona Esrai with the blessing of Go-al Yisrael, which is really the final blessing after the Shema itself. I think that one of the meanings of that is that in order to pray in order to stand before God, and make requests for good health, and for a livelihood, and for sustenance, and for for peace, and for all of these things, before that, we have to make a declaration that we accept God. So it's interesting that many people think of it as a prayer, but it's really not a prayer. It's a declaration of sorts.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Although, it could be aspirational, especially if you take it from the perspective of what Rashi said, and the fact that It reflects a hope and a desire, as opposed to a reflection of the current state. But I want to discuss a little bit further this really talent that the rabbi's, but I would say the Jewish people have for seeing in a statement both itself and its opposite. And I think that's what Rab Yeruchem was saying in terms of "and you never rebelled". You know, the flip side of faith, real faith is this radical sense of rebellion. And if you don't have one, you don't have the other. And it's the summertime and I'm thinking back to when I was a camper at Camp Tovah Vodaas. And that was not a Musar Yeshiva, it was a more of a Hasidic Yeshiva. And the spiritual head of that Rav Moshe Wolfson, we used to take us students out into nature. And as many of us are this weekend in nature, and he quoted a paragraph in Pirkei Avot;  the Ethics of the Fathers. And it says "if one is studying while walking on the road, and interrupts his study and says, how fine is this tree? Or how fine is that newly plowed field, the Bible accounts to him as if he was mortally guilty".  "ke-iIlu Mitchayev beNafsho" as if he had done the worst sin. And sitting there in nature, the rabbi said to us, how could that possibly be? And he said, so here's the correct interpretation. He says, if you are studying Torah, and you look at nature, and you think that that's an interruption, you are guilty and your soul is guilty. It's not that it is an interruption that you interrupt your study, but that you think that it's an interruption that you don't understand that the beauty of God can be found in the Torah in the revealed law, but it can also be found in nature. And I thought that it contained in that little story, too, is a wonderful lesson to us. But the bigger thing is how you can take a phrase and turn it on its head, how you can find an insight that goes 360 degrees in the opposite direction. And this is really Jewess approach of Yeah, you're right and you're also right... Elu V'Elu Devrai Elohim Hayim.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, that remark reminds me of the expression, "don't let school get in the way of your education". that's similar to the the Rabbinic passage that you just quoted. That is don't  let the law and wonder of nature, which is really God's creation, be an interruption to your learning. It really is part and parcel of your learning. Just as there are many elements in education that aren't formally part of school, but they really are an integral part of one's education. And we see that in so many different areas of where something seem like they might be a distraction. And some things really are a distraction, let's not pretend like there's no distractions, but don't let things that seem like a distraction but can really be valuable sources of spiritual growth or intellectual growth get in the way of what we perceive to be the formal learning.

Geoffrey Stern 

Absolutely. So so I want to go back to the Musar movement and use my experience there and to share with with you what my insight is into the Musar movement. Most people translate the Musar movement as an ethical movement in Judaism, a focus on ethics. And I think that there's a very, very small part of that, which is true because all of Judaism focuses on ethics and being a good person. I think what sets the Musar movement apart is that one constantly is working and working, and sweating the details of even the most obvious thing like God is one. Like, we need to be observant and learn from all things, whether nature or not. There's a verse in the Torah that says that "im Bechukotai Telechu"  that you should walk in my laws and the Sifra, the commentary explains that walking in God's laws means "amaylim B'Torah" it means struggling with the Torah. So if I had to represent the Mussar movement, it really looks at all of Judaism and says you have to struggle with everything. You can't take any obligation [at face value].  You know, when I was at that Yeshiva after a year you were invited into a Va'ad that might meet at midnight, twice a week. And you might take the simplest concept, you might take the concept of being thankful of being hopeful, the concept of belief, and we would literally spend six months focused on it. The Masgiach , Rabbi Wolbe would give us actual [thought] experiments that we had to do in terms of understanding what it means to be thankful and not being thankful and when that thankfulness is self serving, and I think that really, what I would love to share with you all today is this sense of, if you've never questioned what thankfulness is, then you've never been thankful if you've never understood what pain is and hardship is from both sides. I think that's what the Musar movement really... is the magic of it, that it gave to me. And that I have found the most intriguing part of my love affair with Judaism is that nothing can be only be taken at face value. And there's always this struggle in a good way. We can't forget that the word "Yisrael" is the name that Jacob got after struggling with the angel. Matt. Welcome to the platform. What what's on your mind today?

Mathew Landau 

Hi, everyone. great conversation. Thank you. Well, I'm just back from Italy. And I was in too many churches. And it's sort of when I was davening on Tuesday, I was looking at the liturgy again, and I had a question I want to be a Musar for a second and sweat a detail .... when you talked about the Shema (I may be misquoting you, but you suggested something like the whole world will come to no one God). So in the Aleynu prayer, that paragraph that begins Al Keyn Nikaveh l'cha". "Therefore, we put our hope in you" and it goes on to say that very soon that you'll remove all detestable idolatry from the earth and false gods will be utterly cut off. I was curious from a maybe a Talmudic perspective or what Roy thinks about that interpretation. I spoke to one religious friend of mine that he knew of one Talmudic track. That that meant that that's when the Messiah will come and I won't name names, but I think there's some people we know that may wish to put the whole messianic concept of Judaism to the side. And so therefore, does it mean when we're davening this part of Aleynu that we're thinking that everyone's going to come around to either being Jewish or just being their own thing? But having no idolatry? I'm curious. Thank you.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, I think that's that's a great question. That's the famous part of the liturgy, so often sung at the end of Alynu, and the people who come to synagogue know that part of the liturgy, I think the key to understanding that line is understanding the word "Shem". Beyom ah'hu yiyeh Hashem Echad u'shemo echad"  , God will be one, and his name will be one. And what's "Shem" usually means in the Bible is  translated a reputation. For example, the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, he was the master of a good name, that means he was a master of a good reputation, he had developed a good reputation for himself as being a spiritual counselor, so to speak. And that's if you look throughout the Bible and see what that when the word shem or name is used, name means reputation, how you're known, and we use that in English, too. He has a good name in the community means reputation. So I think when we save that line of the Aleynu prayer, what it means is, on that day, God will be one, which he already is, God is already one, and his reputation will be one, meaning everybody in the world will understand that God is one. It doesn't mean everybody's gonna be Jewish, it doesn't mean. I don't know what the Messianic undertones of it are. I can't you know, messianic era could be a very generic phrase, that means sometime in the future, when the world is at peace, and there are simply no problems in the world. That's the era towards which we hope the world is going. And so that's the simplest interpretation of "on that day God will be one and his name will be one". Not only will he be one, which is, you know, the metaphysics of it. He already is one. But his reputation will also be one ... there won't be a time when everybody kind of acknowledges that.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that it is clear that if you look at Rashi's comment, he's probably talking along the lines that both you, Roy and Matt are talking in terms of Messianism. But I think it's so obvious there is so many religions and practices of spirituality that are looking for the ultimate harmony, the ultimate one, you know, the Buddhist comes to the hotdog stand and they asked, What do you want on it? And he goes, I want one with everything. So that we all want ultimately, to find a world that lacks dissonance, that truth is obvious. And I think that's a way that you can harmonize what Rashi is talking about, which is the struggle for oneness, is a struggle. And it's a continuum over time, but it's an aspiration for harmony, and whether that harmony is personal, whether it's national, whether it's universal, I think it's how you take it and how it works for you. Elise welcome to the bima

Elise Meyer 

Hi, Shabbat Shalom, everybody. I love that you were talking about harmony because the point that I wanted to make is that I recently was called upon to write a haiku in honor of a friend for one of these horrible zoom birthdays. And in doing a little bit of research about Haiku, which is the Japanese poetry form where five syllables are followed by seven syllables and then five syllables. These are poems that are used to connect a person to nature and to the universe. Most of them are related to the seasons or some sort of natural phenomenon and it occurred to me that "Shema Yisrael Adnoey Elohenu Adonai echad"  is a perfect Haiku...  She ma Yis ra el, Ado noy el o hey nu, ado noy ech ad" .

Geoffrey Stern 

Wow, we heard it first here on Madlik. That's That's beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing that Elise.

Elise Meyer 

Well thank you for everything that you do to bring us to a higher level.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I would like to finish up..  we were we talked Matt about you were going into churches and we talked a little bit about haikus and Buddhism. When I think of how I would characterize the Musar movement, this struggling with Torah, I actually think of a Lutheran theologian, a German theologian, who actually was very much against Hitler, and he was, he was killed, sent to a concentration camp and then ultimately hanged for being part of the plotters to kill Hitler. And he came up with an amazing phrase and the phrase is "Cheap Grace", cheap or costly grace and he like thinkers similar to like the Kotzke Rebbe or Kierkegaard spent his whole life arguing against religion without the fiz, platitudes. Just blind faith mumbled over and over again. And I believe that this this Cheap Grace, Cheap Belief, nothing comes easy and the beauty in the struggle and the joy that I think is reflected in the Shema. And Shema has a very rich history of being with the Jewish people and individual Jews at heights of joy and at depths of sorrow. But what it is, is that it's not cheap, is that it represents inside of it in one little phrase, as you say Elise, a Haiku, but also an aspiration, this struggle between the notion of one God and many gods of dualities and harmonies. And I really do believe that the story that we started with about if you can say it and accept everything in it and not rebel, then you've never said it is so true. So I thank you why for joining us, Matt, Elise for coming up to the bima I wish us all an amazing Shabbat. This is Shabbat Nachamu, which again is the flip side of mourning of Tisha B'Av. And now comes the the joy. If you plant in tears, you reap in joy type of thing. So let's all be joyous. Let's all have Shabbat and make sure that for many generations Shema Yisrael Adonoi Elohenu adonai Echad.

Roy Feldman 

Amen. Thank you so much for inviting me, Geoffrey, this was a wonderful conversation. Thank Mathew and Elise for joining us.

Geoffrey Stern 

Thanks so much.

A conversation between Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Clubhouse where we explore the sanctification of powerlessness in Rabbinic Judaism and the internalization of failure. We discuss the tendency of Jews to seek fault in themselves as individuals and as a people as part of a harmful pattern that gave rise to anti-Semitism.

Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/335498

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

What are you going to be talking to your congregation about? Either on Shabbat or Tisha B'av or both?

Adam Mintz 

I'm going to give them a sermon that was written by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in 1855. And in 1855, Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Germany, the Orthodox Rabbi in Germany, talked about a preacher who 20 years earlier, you know, a rabbi Reform rabbi, who had ordered his congregation on Tisha B'av night to wear their finest, most beautiful clothing, and to come in to celebrate a Tisha B'av night in the synagogue, because he believed that mourning was over. There's no place for self evaluation and for mourning and for thinking about the past, it was a time of emancipation of hope. Hirsch's entire sermon was why that was wrong. That it's exactly when you're doing well, that you need to be humbled, and you need to fast addition.

Geoffrey Stern 

So that really ties into some of the things that I'm going to be discussing. So we're perfect. That's perfect. I remember one summer I was at Camp Torah Vadaas for Tisha B'av  and my dad came up with a friend to visit me. And we were sitting on the floor with ashes on our forehead. Yeah. And he you know, it from his perspective, it was probably very similar to when Franz Rosensweig walked into a shul for Kol Nidrei, you know, it was so dramatic. He always used to talk about it. And clearly, it is very dramatic. You would think, walking into a typical traditional synagogue on Tisha B'av that something terrible happened last week, not 1,900 years ago.

Adam Mintz 

That's right. Not not 2000 years ago.

Geoffrey Stern 

And I think the night that my dad came, it was thundering and lightning That's a good segway to say welcome to Madlik. And we are disruptive Torah every week at four o'clock Eastern. And we are recording, and therefore this recording will go on to the Madlik podcast, which typically gets published on Sunday, and becomes part of the record. So welcome, all of you. And that's not to inhibit any discussion. It just means that what you say will go down into posterity. So we normally talk about the portion of the week that is read in synagogues on a particular week of Shabbat. And this week, we have the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy Devarim, which has begun in the cycle. And we also have on Sunday, Tisha B'av. So I had wanted to talk about Tisha B'av, it's something that I've been given a lot of thought about for the last few years. But as I was also studying the book of Deuteronomy, the very first verse and the very first comment by the traditional classical sources,  formed an amazing introduction to what I want to talk about. So you should know whether you higher biblical critic, or you're a classical scholar of Judaism, somehow or other  the book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah, but somehow it's different. It has a different voice. It has a different perspective. The higher biblical critics think that it might have been even written at the time of Ezra during the Babylonian exile, and that'll become relevant later. But whether you believe that or not, it has a different function and a different purpose. And it recaps many of the things that were said in the prior four books of Moses. So in this sifrei Devarim, it says, "These are the words which Moses spoke", and it asks the obvious question, well, Moses has been speaking for the last four books. So what do you mean to say "these are the words that Moses spoke", and it says that we are there taught "Sheharay divrei Tochachot" that the words in the book of Deuteronomy are words of rebuke. So even this classical source is questioning the purpose, the function, the intention of The Book of Deuteronomy, and it's positing that the purpose of it is to rebuke, to check, to take castigate or forwarn the Jewish people. And then in Devarim Rabbah, which is also a very old classical commentary, it adds to that. And it says, In the name of Rav Acha the son of Rabbi Hanninah If you're going to rebuke the children of Israel, why have Moses do it? Why have a friendly do it? Why wouldn't you have Bilam rebuke? The children of Israel, enemies are much better at criticism. And it answers that it's was decided that because Moses loves them, he said, rebuke them, rather than to have the rebuke of our adversaries, if we're going to be held in check and account, let those who love us do it. So before we segway into that the commemoration of the destruction of the temple on Tisha B'av, that contains many texts of rebuke, I just want to open it up to conversation rabbi, in terms of the purpose of Devorim, the insight that I bought from these classical sources. Where do you stand

Adam Mintz 

it was really dramatic. First of all, Shabbat Shalom, and it's exciting. We're beginning the fifth book of the Torah. That's always exciting. And Devarim has been a problem, literally, since the beginning of time, exactly what is the role of Devarim, and that midrash that you quoted that classical source that you quoted, which tells us that Devarim is different  because it's rebuke, because it's Tochacha is really a very interesting idea. Because that really talks about I think, Geoffrey, what is the role of Moshe? Is Moshe, a defender of the people, or is Moshe a rebuker are of the people? And then let me just raise that a step, maybe being a rebuker is also part of being a defender. Maybe if I want to defend you, sometimes I have to be willing to rebuke you. So maybe that's really the tension here in Devarim. And that's what exactly is Moshe's role. At the end of his life. This is the last 30 days of his life. At the end of his life, what is his job, rebuker? Or defender? Or and/or, rebukr? are rebuker/defender, really two sides of the same coin?

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that's a great question. And obviously, we feel like we've been living with Moses. So many of the previous podcasts where he was totally surprised, totally undermined by the people that he really carried out of Egypt. There's a real dialectic here between the leader and the flock, so to speak. And so I do think that's a great question. I wanted to give an example of what one would mean by rebuke, or at least the way I take it, from something that everyone who is at all familiar with the prayer book would be aware, the iconic Sh'ma prayer begins with the call to faith, Sh'ma Yisrael. And then the first paragraph that we say, is all about you should Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul. And by the way, that comes from Deuteronomy. But then the second paragraph that we say, starts out in the same way that you should do it with all your heart and soul. But then in Deuteronomy 11: 16, it says, "Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them, for the Lord's anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you." And I think as I was trying to understand because I never thought of Devarim, of Deuteronomy, as necessarily full of rebuke. It's not simply rebuke, but it gives a sense of the tenuous nature of the Israelites, the Jewish people on this land, the really conditional nature of it, and that if you misbehave and if you don't follow the rules, and if you don't love your neighbor and take care of the the widow and all that you will be shucked out, you will be put into exile. And that to me again is a perfect segway into a commemoration of the destruction of the Temple, but it really was the destruction of the first and the second Commonwealth. It's where we lost our political independence. And sure enough, that is I think, and I'd love to hear what what you feel about it, Rabbi, that is the biggest leverage. That's the biggest stick that Moses and Moses as the spokesman of God is waving .... I'm taking you into the promised land, I might not be able to come with you. But be aware that if you do not fulfill your side of the bargain, you will be kicked out.

Adam Mintz 

I would agree with you. It's interesting, that exile is the classical punishment. And obviously, that's true. And I think you see, that's true, because what strikes me most about Tisha B'av, of all the traditions that we have, is the fact that according to tradition, both the first and the second Temples were both destroyed on the ninth day of aV, let's be honest, what is the chance of that? What is the chance that both temples are going to be destroyed oN exactly the same day? And I think the idea is that the date is not what's so important. It's the idea of emphasizing the fact that exile is the ultimate punishment, that whenever bad things happen, whenever you you don't behave properly, that you're going to get be exiled. There's a wonderful midrash that says that the reason that the temple was destroyed on Tisha B'av is because when the spies came back from their trip to Israel, and they gave a bad report, it says that the Jewish people cried that night. And  it says thatVaivku..  they cried and the rabbi's say about that, that you cried Bechiya shel Hiunam.. you cried an unnecessary cry. Because there was no reason for you to cry You should have trusted in God.   I'm going to establish a reason for you to cry. That's such a powerful idea. You cried for no reason, you cried that you're going to have to enter the land. And therefore as a punishment, you now are gonna have to be in exile. That's the punishment, exile is always the punishment.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I'd like to pick up on what you said about somehow the confluence of bad things on Tisha B'av, the First Temple and the Second Temple. And we can  we can say, okay, it was a coincidence. But at the end of the day, more and more things started to happen, a bad for the Jewish people in Tisha B'av. And in a sense, it wasn't so much self fulfilling prophecy. It is that word got out that this was the day of calamity. So if your Yemach Shemam... the Nazis wanted to beat the Jews, or there was a pogrom in the works, it was more likely than not that if it was around Tisha B'av, they would attack them on Tisha B'av.  In the nomenclature in the vernacular in Israel today. If you meet somebody and they have a long face in Hebrew, you don't say "What's with the long face"? You say what's with Tisha B'av face? The  newly elected President of Israel, Isaac or boogie Herzog coined a phrase, he was being critical of Netaniyahu, a number of years ago, and he was criticizing him for trying to scare and frighten the Jewish people and running a politics of fear in fright. And he called it the Tisha B'av syndrome. So even Jews and non Jews who do not observe Tisha B'av, they understand what a Tisha B'av face is, they understand the inport that it has for the Jewish people. So it's almost grown beyond the particular day. But you are right, it's focused, and it's focused particularly on one type of calamity. And that is the Jewish people losing autonomy, losing political autonomy and any control over their their well being and decisions that affect their life.

Adam Mintz 

And I think that's a very powerful point. Really, really powerful. The idea of exile. We don't think Geoffrey today about exile much. When you think about a punishment to a country, you talk about losing your autonomy. You know, you think about a country that doesn't do well, they're not going to be exiled. France is not going to be exiled from France, the UK is not going to be exiled from the UK, New Yorkers are not going to be exiled from New York. It's actually an idea that had its moment. I don't think exile is something that speaks to people the same way anymore. And that's why I think and this is an interesting question, that when we talk about Tisha B'av now, we kind of are using a language that is not so familiar to people, and therefore we try to talk about Tisha B'av, in a language that people will understand, even though exile is not something we really understand anymore.

Geoffrey Stern 

So so I'm going to say something rather radical, even for Madlik disruptive Torah. And it's really going to be the premise of the rest of our discussion today. And that is that, you know, we Jews, lovers of Israel today, are always asking the question, why when you criticize the Jews, or when you criticize Israel? Do you question its right to exist? Why can you criticize us like anybody else? There are plenty of progressives, who are critical of the way the US operates in Afghanistan, or how it treats minorities in this country. Never do they say, "and therefore you have no way to live there". Why is it always Israel that we question the right to exist. And what I want to say that is slightly radical is here, and I want to pick up on what you were saying a second ago, Rabbi, here, the lever that we introduce to the world is if we are bad, we become stateless. And we introduced this concept that we are unique, and that our connection with the land and our political autonomy is tenuous and contingent. And I think that we always throw up our hands, us lovers of Israel, and they go, why are they treating us differently? And what I would like to kind of explore for the rest is so many of the tropes of anti semitism, actually are the flip side of the arguments that we are seeing in our own tradition. And I'm starting with this argument that if you Jews are bad, you're going to be kicked out of your land.

Adam Mintz 

Right. Okay. And do you think that that resonates with people today?

Geoffrey Stern 

So so I think for me to make that argument, I've got to drill down and continue, because I do agree with you that it's fairly sophisticated to say, Oh, yeah, most people living on this planet know about the second paragraph of Sh'ma, where it says, if you don't behave, we're going to kick you out of the country. So let's delve into this a little bit deeper. My guess would be that if I asked the typical knowledgeable Jew, about why the temple was destroyed, specifically the Second Temple, they might tell me a story about two guys named Kamtza. They might go into the Talmud, and look for all of the reasons that different rabbis have given through the ages for why we lost the the Temple and the land. And I can assure you that not one of the answers given by those rabbis, is authentic or practical, because I believe the reason that the Temple was destroyed is because we got in the way of the Roman Empire. That's the long and the short of it. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about you. It was about the fact that Israel is somehow between Babylonia and Rome, and in the First Temple we got in the way of the Babylonian Empire, and in the second we got in front of Rome. The rest of my argument is going to be that we were very successful in teaching the world the perspective that we Jews have, that does relate our condition to our moral and religious adherence. And that everybody who was a follower of Christianity and a follower of Islam is aware?

Adam Mintz 

Good. So there is an awareness of this kind of punishment, and it's a religious awareness of this kind of punishment. It's not political. It's religious.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yes, yes,

Adam Mintz 

That's an important distinction. I think

Geoffrey Stern 

So there's two books and two thinkers that I want to really rely on, and one is Ruth Weiss, Professor, I believe at Harvard, who wrote a book called Jews and Power, and the other is Yitz Greenberg. But let's start with Ruth Weiss. The premise of her book is exactly the question that I just asked, which is, how did this happen? How did this become so persuasive? And she starts with Josephus Flavius now Josephus Flavius was a Jew, who moved over to the Roman side. And he asks, Why was the Tmple destroyed? And he gives a bunch of reasons. And one of those reasons even refers to "what caused the Romans to purify the temple". Now I get it. He was on the payroll of the Romans. He was a Roman historian. But he he lists again, just as the rabbi's of the Talmud do, a bunch of assassinations that were incurred by sectarian fighting. He talks about all of the corruption that was there. And Josiphus was translated into every language of the civilized world. He and the rabbi's were literally on the same page, in terms of ...  and this is a quote, "when the Romans came to purify thee from the internal pollution". And if you understand what the ramifications of that is, that not only the rabbi's and not only the Roman historians, but ultimately the the Jews themselves promulgated this concept that if bad things happen to the Jews, it's because we sinned. I think you can begin to see that, in fact, yes, every one of..... I wouldn't even call it the Abrahamic religions, I would call it the successionist religions, the religions that believe that they replaced the Jews. And that really did feed into their narrative that they replaced the Jews because the Jews had sinned. And proof evidence, number one is look at the Jews, take a look at that ghetto, take a look at these people who can't farm the land, (because we won't permit them to do it.) So I do believe there is a direct connection between our perception of what brought on the the trauma of Tisha B'av and the world's perception.

Adam Mintz 

I think that's a really, that's a powerful idea. I wonder...  you talk about the succesionist religions, do the other religions focus on exile the same way? The Muslims have the idea of exile.

Geoffrey Stern 

I'd love it if we have a historian and a comparative, either religion or archaeologist or a sociologist here. I think that getting back to the way I began the discussion with the rabbi's of the Midrash saying, if the book of Devarim is about rebuke, why not get the enemies of the Jews to mouth that rebuke? I think the knee jerk reaction is that civilizations are criticized by their enemies, and they are not at least (and now I'll get into washing one's laundry in public), certainly not publicly are they criticized in the ancient world in the medieval world in the world of the Middle Ages.  We can talk about modern times later. But no, I don't think that number one. Other religious cultures are so so self critical. And to answer your question, I don't believe especially because Christianity and maybe Islam too were not as rooted in a particular locality or location. But certainly even if one gets away from the location, it's really, the destruction of the Temple was more than just exile from a particular piece of land. It was the end of the Temple culture. It was, for a large degree, the end of a language. I mean, I believe that Rome even changed the name from Judea to Palestinia just to literally make Israel Jew-free.

Adam Mintz 

know or have an idea. I always say it that way, the end of an idea, Jewish autonomy, as reflected in the temple was a religious idea. We have been working for the past 2000 years to restore that idea, the prayer service, but we call davening is an attempt to restore what we lost on that day, in the year 70, when there was no longer a Temple, how do you get back to that idea of connecting to place and to God, without something. And that's what the prayer service did. Instead of sacrifices. We had a prayer service, we had this idea of three times a day, we had this idea of synagogue, you know, synagogues a new ideas, synagogue really only came about after the destruction of the Temple. Because when there was a Temple, you weren't allowed to have synagogues, because the synagogue was the Temple. But once there was no more Temple than all of a sudden they created synagogues. So we've been trying to restore that idea. Now, I think Geoffrey been interesting conversation, maybe for another time and to say, did we do a good job, because I would make the argument, we've done an amazing job, we actually have replaced that idea that it's not the same as having a Temple. But we have done very well in terms of unifying the Jewish people. And I think Tisha B'av is an example of that. The fact that Jews around the world know that it's Tisha B'av whether they fast or they don't fast, but they know that it's Tisha B'av , they know that it's Rosh Hashanna, they know that it's Yom Kippur means the idea is maintained.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I think that you you make a compelling argument for the fact that the rabbinical response, actually, was greatly beneficial. And the proof is in the pudding, we survived for 2,000 years of exile. Again, as long as we're talking about what makes the experience of the Jewish people unique, you can't say that about a lot of cultures or religions. So I would like to segway and use your question to segway a little bit away from Ruth Weiss and into Yitz Greenberg. Ruth Weiss is actually a conservative thinker and she is very into realpolitik, and as her book progresses, and I really think anyone who's interested in the subject, should read it. She's very critical. She writes at the beginning of her book, that her book is "against the tendency of Jews to seek fault in themselves as part of a harmful pattern, I hope to expose". So the whole purpose of her book, and she will look at a statement that you just made now, which is "Well, we survived didn't we?" She would critique that as the pacifism that we survived for 2,000 years bending over like Fiddler on the Roof, saying this too,will pass is what kept us in exile so long, but I want to go to a religious thinker. And Yitz Greenberg believes that if there were two epochs of Judaism before the Holocaust, meaning when we were in the land, then after we were expelled, that literally turned Judaism on a dime. I think that one of the things that you were just saying a second ago, is that the paradigm shift that Judaism went through, after the Temple was destroyed, was just just unheard of in the history of religion and of society. They the rabbi's literally changed the face of Judaism, and yet Greenberg believes that the Holocaust is a similar episode. It is the Third Epoch of in Judaism. And he argues that those who say that we all you know, It's it's bad, but look at all the other bad things that have happened to us. He points to instances such as the Spanish Inquisition that created the Kabbalah. He focuses on the Shabtai Tzi and the false messiah, as something that that totally created the Hasidic movement and all that. So we do have to react. And we do have to change Judaism. But in his case, the Holocaust is on a different level. And what he argues is that after the Holocaust, we can no longer follow.....and here he's in agreement with, with Ruth Weiss. And he's also in agreement with you the type of Judaism that enabled us to survive, to get through it, to persevere, under great odds no longer worked. He argues that without the State of Israel, there would probably have been another two Holocausts since 1945. His famous phrase is that "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and powerlessness is worse than all". And he makes a very compelling argument, that now we have to stop blaming ourselves, we have to take responsibility for our future that the God of maybe exile was the God who is hidden. The God after the Holocaust is a God who says you have the keys, you control your own fate. It's all up to you. So it's almost a religious push for the secular to take over the role of that. And again, you should read his work as well. But it's a fascinating turn. And it segways into what you will be talking about tomorrow, Rabbi, in terms of when do we celebrate Tisha B'Av? So before we talk about celebrating Tishas B'av? What are your feelings about Yitz Greenberg's approach? Do you feel that the Holocaust changes everything?

Adam Mintz 

I think the Holocaust changed everything. I think the question we have to ask is and I think that's a question that is really the next chapter in Yitz Greenberg's book is what's the therefore? So the Holocaust changed everything. The State of Israel changed everything. What are we supposed to do about it? I'll tell you a little story. in the service on Tisha B'Av, in the afternoon service, the Mincha service, there's a paragraph that we recite on Tisha B;Av, it's the only time we say it the whole year long mincha on Tisha B'Av. It's called "Nachem". And it says God should console us. And in Nachem, we talk about a Jerusalem that is destroyed. And many of the rabbis in Israel, Yitz Greenberg included, he changes the entire language of this paragraph. This paragraph talks about "and the city that is in sorrow, laid waste, scorned and desolate, that grieves for the loss of its children that is laid waste of its dwellings robbed of its glory, desolate without inhabitants." I don't know Geoffrey the last time you were at the Waldorf in Jerusalem, but that is not a description of the Waldorf in Jerusalem. And these rabbis have taken out that paragraph. And they basically said that that's just not true anymore, that the Holocaust changed everything. But we have to realize  that the traditions, the way that traditionally Tisha B'Av has been looked at is just not true anymore. And we have to be willing to recognize that. I'll just tell you one more story. Rabbi David Hartman ... the famous David Hartman, before he moved to Israel was a rabbi in Montreal in 1967. It was a Six Day War.... Israel reconquered Jerusalem in June. That Tisha B'Av, the tradition is that David Hartman in the afternoon of Tisha B'Av took his family on a picnic because he said we can't fast the whole day. Tisha B'Av is just not the way Tisha B'Av used to be anymore. We can't have Jerusalem and still observe Tisha B'Av the same way. I think those ideas are very powerful ideas.

Geoffrey Stern 

So Rabbi as usual, you created a greast segway for me to to finish up. But I think what everybody is kind of echoing is that even the rabbi's of the Talmud understood.. in Taanit they say whoever mourns for Jerusalem will merit to see her future glory. In the Tractate of Rosh hassanah it says that when there will be peace, that all of the fast days that are associated with the destruction of the Temple will be feast days that you won't be able to have a funeral on, you won't be able to do anything related to mourning, which seems kind of strange until you couch it slightly differently. Whereas on Tisha B'Av we mourn our powerlessness. On a Tisha B'Av that is commemorated after we have our own State. And after we have power without putting any silver coating on power, power is a responsibility. But we can celebrate our power as we mourned our powerlessness. And I think that's why we do have to start considering segwaying from a Tisha B'Av of mourning, where we mourn our powerlessness to a Tisha B'Av of celebration, where we celebrate respectfully, our ability to control our own destiny, and to take the future into our own hands.

Adam Mintz  

Thank you, I think that's beautiful. Shabbat shalom everybody. Have an easy and a meaningful fast, and we look forward Geoffrey to many years of celebrating Tisha B'Av in a smart and productive way, the way Yitz Greenberg talks about it.

Geoffrey Stern  

Amen, Shabbat Shalom to you all.

Adam Mintz 

Shabbat Shalom, everybody, bye bye.