Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse Friday June 25th as they identify the miracle of the Talking Ass as a singular gratuitous miracle which serves as neither a sign or lesson, punishes the wicked or provides a victory to the children of Israel. We use this as an excuse to explore the refreshingly ambivalent attitude of the Torah and Rabbinic Judaism to miracles.
Link to Sefaria Source Sheet here: www.sefaria.org/sheets/331556
Transcript:
Geoffrey Stern
Welcome to Madlik on clubhouse every Friday at four Eastern. This week's parsha is Balak, which is about a Moabite king who looks out into the desert and sees the children of Israel on their way about to cross over his country on the way to the promised land. And he is concerned he's scared. The actual word that is used for him being scared is "vayagar", which is interesting, because it's the same root as the word for stranger. But fear of the stranger we'll leave for another time. What interests me today is that he sent out some messengers to hire a Moabite prophet named Balaam. And the messengers go to this Balaam and ask him to curse the Jewish people. And Balaam says, Well, I have to sleep on it. And he truly speaks to the Lord our God that night. And the Lord says, You can't curse these people, they are blessed. And he goes back and forth with these messengers, and they offer him more and more money. So he takes another night. And finally he cajoled the Lord into letting him go to at least meet with the King Balak. And on the way there, he's riding his donkey, and his donkey sees an angel at the end of the road, maybe they were on a bridge. And much like the story of the Black Beauty, the donkey turns to the side, and Bilaam whips the donkey. The donkey sees the angel again turns to the other side, this time he scrapes the leg of Bilaam. And now Bilaam is really angry and hits her again. And finally "the Lord opened the ass's mouth. And she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times? Balaam says to the ass, you have made a mockery of me. If I had a sword with me, I'd kill you. And the ass said to Balaam Look, I am the ass that you have been riding all along until this day, have I been in the habit of doing this to you? And he answered No." And so we have a story of a donkey talking. And what is remarkable to me is that it's just part of the story. Bilaam doesn't doesn't say: "Wow, I didn't know that you could talk" he responds to the donkey. And so I'd like to use this as an opportunity to understand and to explore the function, the place, the value of miracles, in religion in general, and in the Jewish and ancient Isralite traditions in particular. And we will explore all the different variations of miracles that appear in the in the text. But to me, this is striking in just kind of being gratuitous. Being there, for no good reason could have been the angel himself talking to Bilaam. So the question that I raise is what is the function of the donkey in this story. And then in general, what is the place of the miraculous in Judaism
Adam Mintz
The Torah is full of miracles, the receiving of the Torah, the splitting of the Red Sea and the 10 plagues. What's interesting is talking animals. The only other talking animal, that we have is the snake at the beginning of the Torah, where the snake talks to Eve. And it's fadinating to compare the snake talking to Eve to the donkey, talking to Bilaam. First of all, it's interesting about the choice of animals. Now I'm not an animal person. So to me, all animals are the same. So I don't know why in one case, you choose to snake and in the other case you choose a donkey, just choose one animal so I don't understand why there's a different type of animal. But look at the first case of the animal speaking, the snake tries to trick Eve. The second time, the donkey actually tells the truth to Bilaam. What's the purpose of the animal speaking, both to trick Eve and to tell the truth to Bilaam. I find that to be an interesting question.
Geoffrey Stern
I like your comparison. I would like to kind of broaden the question not so much of animals speaking, but of nature being changed of breaking the rules of nature. But I do think that even if you look at it from that point of view, there are different types of miracles that we see in the Bible. There are miraculous salvations, the splitting of the sea of Reeds. Clearly, when this small band of Jews wins a battle, that's a miracle. But it's a functional miracle. And there are other miracles that we'll explore today. But to me, what strikes me about maybe both of these miracles, besides the fact that there are animals talking is it almost seems like it's gratuitous? You know, you sometimes you see a movie, and you say, you know, they didn't need that sex scene, it was a gratuitous sex scene. In this case, I don't think you really needed the donkey to talk, I think that maybe the angel could have spoken. It almost doesn't seem to be inherent in the story in the case of the snake. So the snake really was tempting Eve. And of course, this was very early on, in the kind of the segmentation of the animal world and the human world. So you can even make a case that maybe the snake sheds its skin, so it's immortal, or it was immortal in the old world. Oreven better yet. Let me try this distinction between the snake and the donkey. This snake could very easily be associated with Satan. And the donkey, as you said, was speaking from a good place, from God. It doesn't surprise us. If Satan goes.... the evil in the world goes and breaks the rules. But the question of why this donkey spoke of why we needed it to speak. And is it unique from that point of view, from our point of view of gratuitous miracles, if you will? What do you do about that distinction?
Adam Mintz
That's a great question. So the snake has a job, because the snake is there to trick Eve. And maybe you needed something out of the ordinary, to trick Eve. She wasn't going to be tricked in a normal way. But what role did the donkey play? Actually, Geoffrey, you can ask in a more basic question, just in the story of this week's parsha. What role does the donkey play? If you were to delete the word donkey, would it change the story at all?
Geoffrey Stern
I totally agree. And that's why I you can call it superfluous. You can call it gratuitous. And it doesn't even seem to get the reaction one would expect. Bilaam doesn't say oh, my God, a talking donkey! He just answers it. He says you've made a fool of me. Like he talks to donkeys every day. So I want to suggest that this is not strange only to us. There is a passage in Pirke Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers) that talks about 10 things being created on the eve of the first Shabbat right after creation had been finished, at twilight, Ben Hashmashot. And it lists a bunch of miracles. It says the mouth of the earth which I assume is a relationship to Korach, the mouth of the well. The mouth of the donkey which is a clear association with the the donkey in our story. The rainbow the manna, the staff of Moses, I guess when he was in front of the magicians in Egypt. And the bottom line of it is this mishnah in Avot. First, 2nd, 3rd Century AD has a problem with miracles. And what it is ultimately saying unless I'm reading it wrong, is that every time one of these miracles happened, it's almost like an algorithm or a hack written into creation. So that donkeys did not speak. But somehow they threw a little piece of code into the donkey heritage that at that moment on that bridge that donkey was going to speak and it's far fetched, but what's not far fetched is they're clear unhappiness and unwillingness to accept that the rules of nature change. And what makes that remarkable to me is, these are rabbis, these are members of a religion, and is not religion based on breaking the laws of nature on a higher authority ..... on miracles? To me, this bias against changing the world and for nature, and the rules of nature is very impressive. What's your read of this Mishnah?
Adam Mintz
I think I want to take it back for a minute. It says here that these things were created Ben Hashmashot. What do you make of that? They were created in the last moments of Friday? It's almost as if they're not part of the normal creation. They were snuck in at the last minute when nobody was looking. Right? That's the first question you have to ask. It's telling you that they don't quite fit into nature. But what is the idea of Ben Hashmashot?
Geoffrey Stern
To me, it's, as you say, the code was written, the the product was created. And somebody in this case God threw in a few secret back, (if I was a programmer, I would know the right word). But back codes, that at the precise moment that they were necessary, they would do what was needed to be done. But ultimately, it was pre ordained, it almost smells like either God cannot or will not make changes in the laws of nature besides these 10 or 11 changes. That to me is what is impressive, but the hashmashot, the Twilight part of it is, this is a fuzzy area. This is whether it's an afterthought, or a little tweak, or Twinkle, I don't know.
Adam Mintz
Good. I think that that's good. But I think that what we're actually doing Geoffrey, logging up all of the oddities of this talking donkey. When he was created, what he did, how was he different than the snake? Right? And it's all gratuitous. It's not necessary. So not only does the Torah make a big fuss about something that doesn't need such a big fuss, but the rabbi's seem to make a big fuss about something that doesn't need such a big fuss does not interest you also?
Geoffrey Stern
Well, well, it does. I mean, it's hard to say that the Manna was gratuitous. So I don't think that they are lined up necessarily against gratuitous stuff. But what they are saying is it's a very strong, I would say, an powerful expression of the rabbi's dedication and commitment to the laws of nature, that we do not live in an arbitrary world where either God or other spiritual forces can play with it. And I think that you could actually make a case that this kind of general approach, which I would love to characterized as being either neutral towards miracles, or almost anti miracles, led to great scientists coming out of our tradition, such as my Mainmonides, who clearly picks up on this discussion in many of his writings. Who believes that there is a science out there, there are laws of physics and laws of chemistry and all that, it's not arbitrary. It's like Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe". So that's on a scientific level. But even on a spiritual level, it seems to me they didn't get a rise from the miraculous. And in fact, they had to go out of their way to come up with this theory, to downplay the miraculous and from a spiritual community and from a 2000 plus year old religion, whether now but certainly in the past where we lived in a magical world and there was magical thinking and many times it was associated with religion, they didn't seem to buy into it, and that's what strikes me as so interesting.
Adam Mintz
Good, I like that. I like that connection to Maimonides. This is really the clash between miracles and science. This is how you started when you asked me, are there miracles? And the answer is, yes, there are miracles. But how do you explain miracles in the light of science? Now, Geoffrey, when you talk about miracles? Would you say that this story of the talking donkey is like the splitting of the sea?
Geoffrey Stern
So I think not. And that's why I said, I find the story of the talking donkey unique because it's gratuitous....I was going to kind of parse different types of miracles that are in the Torah, you know, they say that Eskimos have 100 words for snow. Well, it seems to me the rabbi's have a bunch of words for the miraculous. There's a word called an "Ote" a sign. But again, it's not gratuitous, because we call Shabbat, an "Ote" a sign We call Tephilin, an "Ote" that you put on your arms. And from that perspective, where it was a change that caught your attention, the change was not significant because of the change, it was significant because it was a symbol, it was a sign. Another word that's used is a "Mofet" and that goes more in terms of things that are changes in nature, like the 10 plagues, like the splitting of the Red Sea, that inflicted God's wrath or power on sinners, I guess you could include with that. Even Korach, although we're going to get a second to the word use there (Nes). But again, these were very practical, and they didn't necessarily have to be impossible, they might have been improbable. This splitting of the Red Sea is is something that was miraculous because it came at the right time, at the right instant, but it could be explained. All of the magicians were able to explain everything that Moses did with the staff, which was included in our list. So besides "Mofet" and "Ote". The other one is "nes", which is I think a common word for miracles.
Adam Mintz
But what does the word "nes" mean? "Nes" is like a flag a marker.
Geoffrey Stern
It is but if you recall, when God tested Abraham before the the sacrifice of Isaac before the Akeda, it said "v'Hashem Nisa et Avraham", he tested him and Nachmanidies explains that it is a flag it is something that rises up, but it's also a test. In other words, it's an opportunity for us to reveal our strength or power, our perseverance. And there were more words for miracles and we'll get to them in a second. But for these most common words are symbolic, as much as they are changing nature. They are morally, ethically, spiritually edifying in case of testing Abraham, and being able to survive the test. So, again, I do think there is an issue of a gratuitous miracle. And the funny thing here is that it doesn't even refer to Bilaam's donkey talking as a miracle. It's so funny that it just kind of puts it into the narrative without making any changes. But again, if we're using this as an excuse to explore the biblical version of miracles, it too says with the rabbies, I think, very little value for gratuitous miracles. There's no point just impressing people, by changing nature and saying up there must be a god there must be a spiritual element. The changes in nature are either to protect, to defend, to punish or to edify and to serve as a symbol.
Adam Mintz
Okay, all this is great. Now, I have another question. What do you make about the fact that the Donkey spoke with non Jewish prophet? You think that's significance? Of all the all the ways to use the donkey? Isn't it a funny way to use the donkey?
Geoffrey Stern
I think it's beautiful that the prophetic power of Bilaam the Prophet is also taken for granted. And that teaches me that God speaks to all people. Why in this particular instance, was there a use of a donkey? I don't have an answer for you. What I'm more impressed with is that Bilaam is without any explanation, understood that he can go to bed at night and speak to our Lord, which is his Lord. But I don't have an answer about the donkey being used to speak to him in particular.
Adam Mintz
Now, Michael, I think has jumped up as a speaker.
Geoffrey Stern
which we will always welcome.
Michael Posnik
A question, What does Bilaam learn from that moment? when nature is upside down? What does he actually learn when everything he wants to do? According to his plan and his desires and strategies? What does he learn from something that is completely incomprehensible to him? What changes does that bring about in him?
Geoffrey Stern
If you read the text, his answer to the donkey is the only insight that we get. And what he says is you have made a mockery of me. And this is a parallel with the story of Black Beauty, the horse that saves the life of the rider. These horses and animals that save us, they all seem to get punished. But in this particular case, Bilaam is embarrassed. It almost seems as though he has this ability to be a prophet. He wanted to exploit it for money. He literally wants to do what he's asked to do, but he can't. And now he's embarrassed. And I think it gives us an insight into him. He's not our typical vision of a prophet in terms of being a pure person. He seems to be someone who can tap into these powers, and is able to exploit them. Rabbi what's your feeling?
Adam Mintz
I think Michael, I think you've identified a problem in this text, meaning what is the significance of that piece of the story? I just want to turn it and take some of what Geoffrey said, and some what Michael said. And I want to just pull back a minute, Geoffrey, to what you started with, about miracles. And I want to know where you think this miracle of the donkey speaking, falls in the Torah's kind of List of miracles? Is this a big miracle? Is this kind of, beside the point miracle? You called it gratuitous? That's something else. That has to do with the fact that it's unnecessary? What about in terms of like, changes of nature? Do you think having an animal talk is as big a miracle as splitting of the Read Sea?
Geoffrey Stern
So we're where I'm going, in my mind with this is using the donkey who is for better or worse, a universal symbol of a lowly creature, a creature of labor, a creature that gets no respect a cousin of a horse who is is a beautiful creature. And that kind of is is echoed in Bilaam's comment. You're embarrassing me, you know, maybe if you were a lion or something with more stature. We have to assume the donkey was picked with intentionality. And I think that the message that the donkey is sending, therefore, is very also humble, and down to earth. And I guess I promised that I wouldn't leave everybody in a cliffhanger as to how the whole story turns out. But I do at this point want to say that Bilaam ultimately, his arm is twisted, and he has to deliver some sort of blessing or curse and it turns out to be a blessing. So the blessing that he gives is in every synagogue as you walk in, it's "MaTovu Ohalicha Yaakov, Mishkenotecha Yisrael" "How goodly basically are the tents of Israel, which, again, a tent is as humble a life, pastoral nomadic life as you could ever have. And to me, the whole story is a celebration of the simple things in life if you want to be trite, it's helping us recognize that there's a miracle in the most simple things. So that to me kind of ties together why a donkey was used in this particular situation, and what the takeaway was either from Bilaam or from God through the mouth of Bilaam. Orna, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Orna Stern
The voice of God that was talking through the donkey because the same way whenever God wants to speak to us and he speaks through animals.... the snake and they are all lowly animals .... the humbleness of God that he talks to us. The message from the snake was beautiful message because that Adam and Eve should leave Gan Eden to go explore the world. And then Moses that he spoke to Pharoah also through the snake. And every miracle that happended like Isaac. The ram that was caught in the tree. It'a all about animals .. the voice of God. The message is so beautiful. It's also for nowadays. "Shevet Achim gam Yachad" We all need to love each other, to respect each other everywhere in this country oin Israel. With anti-semitism and everything.
Adam Mintz
I just want to say Geoffrey, I think it's important to say that, you know, given what happened in Florida this week (A collapse of a 12 story building with 150 souls killed), you think about "Ma tovu Ohalecha Yaakov" the blessing is the most simple thing. Where we live is the most simple thing. But we rely on it. And you see what terrible things can happen in even in the most simple thing that we have.
Geoffrey Stern
Absolutely. You see the images of, of children talking about their parents or grandparents or parents talking about their children. It's it's really just harrowing how this building was pancaked down into rubble. But it does remind you that in the structures that we live our lives and those lives are based relationships. And what I was thinking in terms of this kind of takeaway, in terms of ultimately Bilaam could have been used as a mouthpiece to give any message, but ultimately, the blessing that he gave related to just the simple community of these Bedouin/nomadic Jews in the desert. So I was thinking of another type of statement in the Talmud, I think I might have even quoted it before, where a woman matriarch asks a rabbi, "After God created the world", and I don't give her credit for knowing this, but not only created the world during the seven days of creation, but even during that Twilight period, after you did it all. "What do you do with yourself? Because she obviously understood that God is not changing nature on a regular basis. And the answer for those of you who know the stories is wonderful. And it says that God is making matches "Misadech Sheduchim" he is joining people together. And it's a wonderful story, and it goes on. But it reminded me of this song in Fiddler "Miracles of Miracles, Wonders of Wonders". And if you remember the lyrics to that song, it almost is identical "It says wonders of wonders miracles of miracles, God took a Daniel once again, stood by his side and miracle of miracles, walked him through the lions dead. And it goes down through the walls of Jericho, and it talks about the Red Sea splitting and it talks about every little miracle or large miracle that God did. But he says "but the most miraculous one of all, is that out of a worthless lump of clay. God has made a man of me today" My dad gave me a book called Wonders of Wonders by a Columbia professor. And it talks about everything that went into writing the play. And so I did a little research. And I looked for, were they aware of this midrash that God is misadech shiduchim. And I was surprised that the writers of most of the lyrics were Jews, but were very remote from the Jewish background. And literally, they came up with an idea of miracles. And according to this book, they were in a motel, and they grabbed the Gideon's Bible, and they started looking for miracles to put into lyrics. But to me, they were spot on. And maybe it's because this idea we Jews have that the real miracles in life relate to human beings, to the ability of us to find connections with each other, for the abilities of us to have hope when there should be no hope. Those are the true miracles. And to me, that's what Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov is all about.
Adam Mintz
That's really nice. I like that as an ending. I think that's a beautiful way to end a discussion. You said it was a little light today. I think talking about miracles is not light at all. I think there's a lot of real good substance in here.
Geoffrey Stern
Well, thank you for that. I agree. And I think that the the donkey certainly got his money's worth today, because he triggered this wonderful conversation.
The Red Heifer purifies the defiled and defiles the pure and is universally taken as a commandment that defies reason and logic. According to science, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction so where's the illogic? Even according to Rabbinic scholars such as Saadia Gaon and modern scholars such as Jacob Milgrom there is nothing unreasonable about this enigma. So why is the ḥoq of the Red Heifer so troubling. Why does it keep God up at night?
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/330146
Transcript:
Geoffrey Stern
So welcome, one and all, to Madlik, another week of disruptive Torah. And this week the parsha is parshat Chukat, which we're going to find out what it means but Chukat is "the law". And the law that is under discussion is the law of the red heifer. And those of you who know your Old Testament know that the laws of purity are a big feature of biblical Judaism, temple Judaism, and those laws of purity relate mostly to impurity that is gotten from death or anything to do with death. And the red heifer is, as we are told in Numbers, 19 is the antidote. And what what happens is the priest takes this pure red heifer that has never carried a yoke and slaughters it, and sprinkles the blood and then mixes the ashes, with some water and hissop and cedar wood, in Crimson stuff. And then it is set aside and used to sprinkle miraculously, on those people who have come into contact with death. And that should be a pretty straightforward thing. It might sound very strange to us moderns but many things in the temple in terms of a sacrificial cult sounds strange. But for some reason, and that's what the subject matter of today is, this one is singled out as being stranger than strange. And therefore, the focus is on the word that God says, numbers 19:2 this is the ritual law that the Lord has commanded zote chukat hatorah, and all of the commentators and we are going to struggle with the fact that the the sense, this is a strange Chok. This is the showcase, the poster child of a law that has no rationale, in fact, is a irrational. And you have to obey, because God commanded it. And I should add the key point that the Cohen who goes ahead and prepares the sacrifice of the red heifer, and his helpmate, who cleans his garments, anybody involved in the preparation of this elixir, who is going to take away the impurity of death, himself becomes impure. And so I'm going to open it up to discussion. Rabbi, what about this struck all of the commentators as so strange that it had to be singled out as an example of a law that has no logic?
Adam Mintz
So that that is such an interesting question, the idea of a chok, of a law that has no logic, the idea that the same thing that makes people pure, make people impure, I think really bothered the rabbi's. They could not get their arms around that. Because basically, purity and impurity are opposites. So how was it possible that the very same thing that can make you pure can also make you impure? I think that really bothered the rabbis. And I think that that's what led them to call this thing of Chok. By the way, the word Chioke in the Torah doesn't always mean something that you can't understand. Sometimes it just means a law. So Para Aduma the red heifer is really a unique situation, a unique case. And it's this idea, this kind of confusion between purity and impurity. And I think that's a key term, the idea of confusion.
Geoffrey Stern
So first of all, I mean, I love the fact that you talk about a confusion, but what came to my mind and I wasn't actually even going to talk about this is isn't there a fine line between the profane and the pure. In other words, whether we've talked about it before the pride of following God's laws and the pride in oneself, you know, a harlto a temple harlot is called the Kadesha which comes from the same word as Kadosh. I mean, you could you could say, well, doesn't this happen all the time that something that is close to pure doesn't quite make it actually becomes profane. But if we look at the commentators like Rashi is the first one, he doesn't seem to imply that it was troubling so much to the rabbi's, as it was to our detractors. He says, Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel saying, What is this commandment? And what reason is there for it? On this account, we say it's a Chok that God using the word Choke, all the commentary say it's also something that you kind of niche into stone you Chok Chaakti? I have kind of carved this this rule. It's not for you to question. But do you think there's an aspect of this that isn't so much that it was troubling to the rabbis, as it was troubling, or it was a it was a point of polemical discussion where people would come to the Jews? And say, this thing is so strange, your religion makes no sense.
Adam Mintz
I'm thinking about that for a minute. You think that maybe we're worried about what other people will say about us? Do you think that generally, Torah is worried about what other people will say about us? You know,
Geoffrey Stern
You wouldn't think so.
Adam Mintz
I'm surprised that you suggested that because I wouldn't have thought so.
Geoffrey Stern
So, I mean, if you look at bamidbar rabbah, which is another source in the source sheet, it says a Gentile asked Rabbi Yohanan Ben zakkai. These rituals you do they seem like witchcraft, you bring a heifer burn it, take it's ashes. And if you read that whole thing, his thing is not so much that something that is impure becomes pure and defiles the the person who's doing it, he seems to be bothered by sprinkling some water and puff, you're instantaneously pure. So there were two instances in the commentaries. Both of them have this polemical aspect to it. And that's why I don't think I came up with it on my own. I was struck by that myself, when I was looking at the sources, and before I let you respond, do the rabbi's care what the nation say? I think, yes, there's a verse in Deuteronomy that says "Ki hi Chochmatchem ubinatchem b'enai hagoyim", that the Torah is the wisdom of the Jews in the eyes of the nations. The amount of times that Moses argues with God, when God's ready to blot out the Jews. And he goes, God, what's everybody gonna say? You took us out of Egypt, and you killed these people. So I do think there is a strong element what will the goyim say, certainly in the discussion about this law, but in general,
Adam Mintz
You see, I guess my question is like this, Are we worried about what the goyim will say? Or is that just a midrashic trick to kind of emphasize a problem that we have with these laws? And we kind of then put it in the mouths of the goyim. I don't know how much difference that makes, but I'm just raising that as a possibility.
Geoffrey Stern
When we say what will the goyim think we're really speaking like, Jews who have lived in exile for 2000 years? I don't think that would be fair for this young movement of Jews in the desert. But they did feel that they had a movement I believe, and the rabbi's too, we're in a world where maybe Judaism already because it was parleying itself as the believer in this one invisible God, maybe it was even taken to a higher standard. But in any case, there seems to be a question of the benchmark, the level of Judaism and does this somehow conflict with it. And I think you touched upon that by saying, we like to have an ideology we like to have a religion that is squeaky clean, everything fits into it's place. And this is not so not so understandable. I think the other aspect of it that came up in my research is what big of a problem it is. And this, of course, is the famous Pesikta, which says that Moses goes up into the heights of heaven. You know, there are a few Midrashim that say, what did Moses do 40 days and 40 nights when he was up in heaven. And so here is one of the renderings, he goes up and he sees the Holy One, blessed be he is engaged in the study of the Torah. And he's studying the passage of the red heifer, citing a law in the name of the sage who stated it. And Moses said before ahim: Master of the Universe, worlds above and worlds below are in your domain, yet you sit and cite a law ascribed to flesh and blood. And Michael, I know you love the drama and you love the theater of the Torah. This is a play, I think, of going up to heaven and seeing God number one studying man's Torah. Well, is it man's Torah? It was Torah that God wrote and gave to man. But here he is engaged in the study of the red heifer. It, so to speak, keeps God up at night. What do we make of that? And either a theological level or in terms of the discussion that we're having?
Adam Mintz
I want to just add to that question, Geoffrey. Why does the heifer have to be red? I mean, does that seem significant? Is it just because a red heifer is so rare? So therefore, it wants to show you that you have to go out of your way to find the red heifer? Is that what it's about? Or is there something deeper in there?
Geoffrey Stern
I mean, last week, I said that Techelet, it was the Pantone color of Judaism. And now this week we're discussing red. In my mind anyway, this has to do with life and death, there's no question about it. And one is using the red have to take away whatever it is that death tarnishes us with; the impurity that we get from death. And so in my mind, whether it's the blood or whether it's the color of the heifer itself, that's my natural association was with the blood. But again, the fact that it impurifies the pure, it's the fact that you take these drops of water, and magically make somebody pure. And then there's the other element, which is that it's outside of the temple. All of those three things, you almost get the sense that this is a solution, in search of a problem. It's almost as though there's something strange about this law, what is it? It keeps God up at night? the nations of the world taunt us with it? The problem of the problem is almost harder than the problem itself. To me, that's what kind of struck me.
Adam Mintz
Well, I mean, to rephrase what you just said, Geoffrey, it seems like the Torah makes the red heifer a lot more complicated than it has to be. We could accomplish the same thing, by having a ritual that was much more direct, and much more simple. Why are rituals generally complicated? You know, you think about the Pascal Lamb, you have to put the blood on the door post, you have to eat the whole thing. There are a lot of details in these sacrificial rituals. You think that's important, or you think that's just the way it was?
Geoffrey Stern
Michael, what are your thoughts?
Michael Posnik
My thought right know is this. I find that this question of the red heifer with all the energy we have to try to quote "figure it out", is an opportunity for a little humility. Certain things we say we understand, they seem to fit in with the entire system, we're content about that, but here is the exception, which in a certain way, proves the rule. And so I would say that it's not to be solved in that sense, because it is outside the possibility of solution, it is a way of acknowledging the fact that there is a space is a place for us to not know. And to either just accept or to surrender to it, or to let it go. So that's my thought right now, it's not to solve the problem. It's simply to say, Alright, we'll make an effort. But it's a place where I have to surrender what I think I know what my mind thinks it knows. So that's, that's my thoughts are right now. I like the fact that it's a puzzle not to be solved. No matter how hard you bang your head against the wall, it's not going to be solved. You have to surrender to it, if you want to.
Adam Mintz
Definitely a nice explanation, that the complexity is a reflection of the need to surrender. If we understood it, there wouldn't be as much surrender because what you understand you don't surrender to you understand it, but if you don't understand it, then you have to surrender I like that a lot.
Michael Posnik
You want to understand everything? N
Adam Mintz
No, I like that.
Geoffrey Stern
So I would like to play the devil's advocate a little bit and continue along the trend that I was looking at is that the problem of the Red Heifer is not so apparent and that we might be misguided in in what we understand the problem to be. For instance, if we look at the Law of Conservation of Matter for every reaction, there is an equal and opposite counteraction. Saadia Gaon says I don't get what is so complex about this whole rule. He says that you know, heat can make certain foodstuffs soft, but you boil an egg, it gets hard. Food can be beneficial to someone who's hungry and detrimental to someone who's already eaten a meal. Certainly medicine can benefit the sick and hurt the healthy. The world is full of things that can affect different people in different ways. He doesn't use this example but you know, it's a known saying in the Torah that for those who are zocher (privledged), the Torah is a sam hachaim It's a medicine of life. And for those who are not zocher, it's a som haMavet. It's, it's a poison, we can study the same text, we can be exposed to the same revelation, and we can take away from it. Two different opposing things. And I think that's an amazing, beautiful lesson. Maybe it's sophisticated enough to become a little bit of a mystery. And something that is not obvious at first glance. We were talking a little bit before we started today, I'm reminded of the wonderful expression that's attributed to pretty much everyone out there of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, you know, is that the role of a leader of a Rabbi of a journalist so I think that at a certain level, it's it's not necessarily something that is so far beyond our ability to fathom, it's certainly not something that would keep us awake at night in terms of something being bothersome. It's a sophisticated point of the world that it means different things to different people, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so I just wonder, what is it that Michael or you Rabbi feel, is so complex about this message that something can make one person impure and the other pure?
Michael Posnik
Just I was thinking before about wine, for example, something really simple even though we don't understand what it is exactly. You can use wine for purity and you can use wine for impurity. And then I was thinking about language, Geoffrey, we can use this gift of language to bring death to people we can embarrass and shame people which I think the Talmud equates with killing someone really and we can use language as we are here to uplift and nourish and raise. In that sense, the ambiguity or the complexity is in a certain way, practically how it's used. I don't know if this relates exactly to the question of the heifer. But it strikes me that we have a certain responsibility to use what we have, in an appropriate way, if we know that there's an appropriate way. So that's, what comes up for me. I'm not, I'm not seduced by what you call complexity. I think, as I said before, I think recalling complexity is just something that the mind says, Oh, this is complex, because I don't understand it. I'm perfectly happy to not understand. And then I have a choice where as I say, whether to do it or not do it. So that that's where I'm coming from today.
Geoffrey Stern
I love the fact that you brought it back to death, and you talked about, you know, sometimes the stakes are high. And if you embarrass somebody, the Talmud says it is like killing him. And so I think that, to me, the secret of the the challenge of the Parah Adumah cannot be far away from the challenge of death itself. And I don't want to raise the stakes too high. But to me, one of the clues is in a piece of Talmud, that ends the story of the Parah Aduma. And the next story that follows the story of the parah Aduma, is the death of Miriam. And Rabbi Ami says, Why was the Torah portion that describes the death of Miriam juxtaposed to the portion dealing with the red heifer to tell you just as the red heifer atones for sin, so too the death of the righteous atones for sin, and it seems to me that what is keeping kivi'yachol, as if to say, God up at night, and what is making the challenge here is that in the world that the Torah is operating in, there seems to be this inextricable connection between salvation and death. So that it comes out of a world where there was child sacrifice, and obviously, it has a whole life of sacrifice itself in the temple. And somehow, if you've sinned to redeem yourself, something has to be killed. And getting back to your point, Rabbi Adam, about the question of the red here, it seems that in order this whole notion that the death of the righteous atones, I think we're really at a crossroads here, that both Judaism and Christianity at the same moment that that Roman was saying, this sounds crazy. This sounds strange was struggling with how do you get salvation? Do you need someone to die in order for someone else to live? And you know, there are books that have been written lately. Jon Levinson wrote a whole book about the idea of the death of the son in Old Testament as opposed to only in Christianity. He says, this didn't come up [out of no where] the idea that a God or righteioous person has to die, in order for salvation to be reached. And he traces it through the Akeda, the sacrifice of Isaac. But the idea again, that someone has to become tuma, in order for someone else to become tahur. It's not so much just a kind of cognitive or an intellectual question or mystery. It's something that really hurts home. There's so much in religion in general, but certainly Old Testament Judeo-Christian religion, about this need for something bad to happen in order for something good to happen, whether it's "ha zorim bedima brina yikzaru" (You plant in tears and reep in joy) or whether it's that a generation has to die in order for a new generation to go into the promised land. That's what I kind of saw as the real challenge here. It wasn't the intellectual inability to understand how some things can become pure and some things impure. But it was like this Gordian knot between the necessity for your purity to come at the expense of somebody else's impurity. That's kind of what struck me. And that I will agree with you, Michael, that is a mystery that does not have a solution. I'd like to break the knot. But it seems to somehow be written deeply into our DNA.
Michael Posnik
That's really beautiful, about the dynamic of what we call life and death. And their relationship, and whether they're interdependent on one another, or they simply happen, we witness it, and try to see the connections between these things. You say God was up studying this passage, he might have been enjoying himself. Just really having finding pleasure in something that becomes a poem, rather than a piece of text, or a piece of text. He might have just enjoying the wonderful conundrum of that. The unknowability of it, still stay with that.
Adam Mintz
Complexity is what makes it so exciting.
Michael Posnik
You like it!
Adam Mintz
The complexity is what gives it meaning. If it's not complex, it doesn't really have meaning. If it's too simple, it doesn't have real meaning. An interesting idea, Geoffrey. I mean, from my perspective, if you look at the word Chok, and you know, you can look at any lexicon and it will tell you every word how it's used throughout. I think the most common usage for it is that it is something that is written in stone. It's a law of nature. In Jeremiah, it talks about Chukat Yoreach ve'kochavim" the law of the moon in the stars. If you look at other places, Kings "B'chukat haGoyim", these were established rules. And my sense is here that the tension here the thing that intrigues us so much, and intrigued the rabbis and intrigued those who were polemisizing with them, is how can you break this? How can you change this, and in a sense to me, it wasn't simply that God was studying the Torah. And I don't see any reason why he wasn't enjoying himself. It doesn't say he was upset. But he was in studying the Torah. And he was studying it because there was going to be some sage, because he was studying the Torah of man. So he wasn't studying what was written in His Torah, but the Oral Tradition that came out of it, and, and to me, it's almost as though the mystery the puzzle of this Red Heifer this Chok that seems to be written in stone. I'm not sure what great sage he was referring to. I would like to think that it was Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Akiva at a certain point says something that is sung from the top of one's lungs at L'og B'Omer It's considered a very kabalistic thing, but it's a beautiful thing that he said. And Rabbi Akiva said, How fortunate Aae you Israel before whom you are purified? And who purifies you? It is your Father in heaven, and I will sprinkle purifying waters upon you and you shall be purified. And he says, "Ma Mikveh Metahir et ha Temaim, Af Hakadosh Baruch metahir et Yisrael", just as the ritual bath purifies the impure. So too the Holy One, bless it be he purifies Israel. And from the context that we're studying, it's almost in contradistinction to the red heifer, where the mikveh, for the pure waters of the mikvah do not become impure when one is sprinkled with them. And of course, if God ultimately is the one who purifies us, God does not become impure by purifying us. And I don't know, I don't know if this was all part of the tension at this moment in history, where the temple was destroyed. were, theyre were new possibilities and there were needs to break out of the old mold. Because I don't think that either Christianity or Judaism successfully broke out of it. Martyrdom was very big in in Judaism and part of the martyrdom was to bring the salvation. And that's the sad part of it. It's one thing to die because one has to for one's faith, but to do it in order to bring salvation to believe that there has to be a connection between death and giving up one's life in order to bring salvation is what so troubles me. And this Rabbi Akiva beautiful, saying, seems to me to point at a possible way out.? A possible way out of what? Of the complexity.
Geoffrey Stern
His model, if you look at it, from the perspective of our discussion, does not have anything that is impurified by purification. I think if you look at this saying that it says how fortunate are you Israel, to know who purifies you, and the idea is that you can be purified, you can have salvation, without the need for whether it's the Egel Arufah, the red heifer, but also this cycle, this Gordian knot, of sacrifice and of death in order to to create the potential for life. It kind of came to me as I was reading over this and saw this the saying of Miriam's death and the death of a tzadikim could bring life. And knowing even that Rabi Akiva himself was a martyr. It gives you another route out. But it also makes you understand, I think, what the mystery, the challenge and what the turmoil of the whole question of the red heifer.
Adam Mintz
I like that a lot. I like turning the complexity of the Red Heifer into martyrdom. I think those are related topics. I think that's really, really interesting. Thank you so much, Geoffrey. This was an amazingly interesting topic today.
Geoffrey Stern
Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you, Michael.
Adam Mintz
Shabbat Shalom, everybody I'm looking forward to next week.
Geoffrey Stern
You got it Shabbat shalom. See, well then.
Parshat Korach, Numbers 16 A “Talit that is wholly blue” (טלית שכולה תכלת); arguably the first fashion statement, has entered popular Jewish and Israeli folklore and culture. We use this popular account of the Korach rebellion to continue our exploration of the Bible’s rejection of class privilege, pride, entitlement, and the corruption that they invite and a democratized vision for Judaism and Israel.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/328788
Transcript:
Geoffrey Stern
So this is our first fashion edition of Madlik. And we are talking about, a story that probably emerged because of two texts sitting next to each other in the Bible. Last week's parsha/portion ends with a law about wearing a four cornered garment with tzitzit; with these little tassel strings that those of you who have seen ultra-Orthodox Jews walking around, and it's sticking out so well can see it because it is an antidote to following one's eyes. It's so that "lo taturu acharae levavchem... that you do not taturu. If the word taturu sounds a little bit like touring or tourist, that's because it's kind of connected to the story before it, which was the spies that we discussed last week, who did make the mistake of following their eyes and not their vision. But this week, on the other side of that obligation to wear the fringes ..... one of those fringes by the way was to be made of "techelet" which is a royal blue dye that we'll get into. But right after that in the Torah, the namesake of this Portion, which is Korah, rebels against Moses and he literally leads a rebellion against Moses. And basically in the Torah text itself. It says that he says you have gone too far. For all the community are holy... all of them. "Rav Lachem" too much for you. "Ki Kol HaEdah, Kulo Kedoshim" Lum kudos him. He makes what seems to be a very democratic argument that says why do we have, when it comes to spirituality when it comes to spiritual leadership.... Why should we have leaders? Are we not all holy? Is not every individual endowed with a spirit of God? But the Midrash Tanhuma spins from this, forgive the pun, a wonderful story. And what it says actually happened was that Korach was inspired by the four cornered garment with that one little thread of blue hanging down. And he said, you know, if you have a garment that is "Kulo Techelet" . That is all made of this beautiful royal blue dye, does it still need fringes to make it kosher, acceptable? And of course, the argument that he was making was that since every Jew is holy, the fabric of the Jewish people is one that is "Kulo Techelet" ... we are all royalty. We are all royal blue. So Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the mantle of leadership? And before I just ask you, Rabbi Adam, what your initial thoughts to this story are, I should mention that the story some stories in the in the Midrash are buried and forgotten. And some have entered the vernacular, have entered folklore that is widely known. And in modern day Hebrew, if you say about somebody that he is "kulo Techelet" or he's a "talit she'Kulo Techelet" , that he is a talit that is all blue. Basically what you're saying about him is that he is holier than thou, that he considers himself holier than thou. So this kind of story has lasted the test of time. What does this story mean to you? And why Rabbi? Do you feel that it has become part of the vernacular?
Adam Mintz
So I mean, I think just to answer your second question, first, it's become part of the vernacular. Because the themes of this story are so familiar and so popular. The idea that "Beged she'kulo Techelit" that you know that you're holier than Thou, that's a criticism is something that's so familiar, people have grabbed on to so I think that the idea here is the following Rabbi Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who was the rabbi in Boston and the head of the Yeshiva University for over 50 years. He always explained the following. He said, what was the argument? a garment that's completely blue? Why does it need Techelet. the second half of that midrash says, What about a room that is full filled with Jewish books? Does it need a mezuzah? Also the same idea "Bayit Maley Sepharim", does it need s mezuza? Common sense. The answer is Ironically, that yes, it needs in mezuza. And yes, a beged shekulo techelet requires tzitzit, even techelet tzitzit. And that is that not everything in life is common sense. Makes sense all the time. And therefore, Korach comes and he rebels against Moshe. And he says it's not fair. Everybody's holy. Why Moses have you taken the mantle of leadership? The answer is it's not fair says Rabbi Soloveichik. It's not logical. But God wanted a leader of the Jewish people. And therefore, what Rabbi Soloveichik calls this story is the Common Sense Rebellion? And the answer is that not everything is common sense.
Geoffrey Stern
I think that's a fascinating interpretation. And I love the fact that you bought in the other part of the Midrash, which talks about the holy books. And I think what I'd like to explore is that although it seems that Korach is a popularlist and wants to democratize our wonderful religion. The truth is that if you dig down into the story, this was an intertribal discussion, because he wasn't saying that all Jews, all humanity should be able to have access. He literally and this is the fascinating part of the story. He didn't make a hypothetical argument when it came to the talit like he did with the books, he literally went to a tailor. And he had fashioned hundreds of these blue garments, put them on, and they made a statement. But I think it's the first instance of someone who was feigning themselves as a populist, using popularist language, but was actually very elitist. He was arguing that why amongst the tribe of Levi, Aaron and Moses, are you claiming the mantle of leadership, we all have the same exclusive privilege. And we all of us Levis, should be in a power of leadership. So I think, in addition to the common sense argument that he was making, he actually was more couching his argument in common sense. But he actually had a very ulterior motive. And the other thing that I love about bringing in the books of the library, is, you know, when we dance on Simchat Torah, we raise the Torah. And sometimes if you don't have a Torah, you raise a book. And if you don't have a book, you raise a child. And I think the sometimes when you make an argument, the fallacy is embedded in the argument. And in this case, I think the common sense argument is that every Jew every "Pintela Yid" if you will, has holiness. But he was taking advantage of that. And I think, really, what I'd love to explore is the whole concept of Techelit itself, which is actually very expensive, and is literally Royal Blue. It was something that only people with stature and prestige and power could wear. And in a sense, God's commandment of having that one little strand of Royal blue. And worn by every Jew was actually a message that I think, went totally contrary to the intent of Korach if not to, at least the way he packaged it.
Adam Mintz
You find it fascinating that it's royal blue, that it was blue that was special for royalty, and the Korach claimed that that was allowed to be used by everybody. And shouldn't we have certain things that are only allowed to be used by royalty, by special people? I mean, that's an interesting question, Geoffrey, as it relates to today, because the question today is, is there still place for the British royalty?
Geoffrey Stern
I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask Michael to speak in a second. But before I do, I just like to address that point. The point that I was trying to make was that, in the big scheme of things, there was not going to be a priestly caste. And that when God says to the Jewish people, that you should be a "mamlechet Coahinim ve'goy Kadosh", you should be a kingdom of priests. He was literally saying every Jew as white and dowdy and simple as they are, deserves that little thread of royalty. And I think that Korach was trying to, hijack that message. But he wasn't earnest. And I think the reason in my mind in my interpretation that Korach was [considered] a sinner was not because he made the argument, you can call it from common sense, or the argument that all of Israel has a piece in the Torah was that he wasn't being earnest, and that the real lesson of that little thread of blue of roayl blue on every Jew, is that we're all we're all priests. But Michael, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.
Michael Posnik
I just have a question was rebelling against the God? Or was he rebelling against a political situation?
Adam Mintz
Well, that's such a good question. Maybe it's the same thing.
Michael Posnik
If it's the same thing, then he shouldn't have been punished.
Adam Mintz
Why rebelling against God is bad and rebelling against the political situation that God creates is also bad.
Michael Posnik
God is running. Forgive me, but God is running the political situation. God is in charge of the political side.
Adam Mintz
If Korach is rebelling against God's political situation, then Korach is sinning.
Michael Posnik
He seems to be rebelling against a political situation like we have currently against our king in Israel.
Adam Mintz
Except the king of Israel now has not been appointed by God.
Michael Posnik
Well, you have to ask him about that. I'm going to bow out and listen.
Geoffrey Stern
Well, my sense is that he was rebelling against Moses, and he was using arguments from the Torah that God gave. And so in a sense, he was like saying to Moses, who we all know was the most humble man. But he was saying to him, why Moses, did you take this power for yourself? When the Torah that God gave us says that we can have a kosher garment if it only has one little thread of techelet? And here I am. I'm completely techelet. So I personally would not take from this a mandate against rebellion. Rebellion can be done in in a proper sense. I think a "machloket l'shem Shamayim" an argument that is for the sake of good and heaven is acceptable? I think there are times where, Man, certainly Abraham showed a healthy ability to argue with God. I come back to the fact that this guy Korach was massaging the truth. He was using slogans. He was making himself to look like a popularizer. and he was trying to usurp. And I think to address your point, Michael, he gave a bad name to people who really want to rebel for the right intention. I don't think you can make a case against the Torah and against Rabbinics that they tried to dampen, differences of opinion and argumentation. And I don't think that's the takeaway from this story. But in any case, I do want to come back to this sense of the techelet, which in my mind, is kind of a little bit at the crux of these stories, both stories, the stories of the spies that was laid before it and the one afterwards. And Techelet if you want ... the Pantone color of the Torah, it would be Techelet..... it would be this amazing royal blue. It's the brand identity. And you know, I'm jumping ahead of myself in time and in commentary. But it's no big surprise that when they were heading to the first Zionist convention, somebody said we need a flag. And the flag that they came up with, by their own admission, was modeled after the simple talit, white background with a stripe or two of blue. And again, I think that this concept of the marriage between the white and the blue, between the simple and the pure, and that touch of royalty that we all share, to me is the essence of the argument against actually against Korach and co acts argument that he was a blue blood that he was part of he should have been in the ruling party test as well. That's that's kind of my takeaway. But, but i want to i, and I think maybe we can open that up for a little bit of discussion. It is amazing rabbi, that getting back to what I said earlier about the fact that this story, and this color has gone into the vernacular, that the blue of the tallied the blue of techelet it ended up into the national flag, and that this comment and this conjuring up this image of the story went into the national mindset. it's a really beautiful, I think, commentary on what the rebirth of the Jewish state and the Jewish people was that we kind of rediscovered ourselves, that we want to rule ourselves but what we want to rule democratically, we want to take the Torah, and we want it to belong to everybody. And obviously, the early Zionits were socialists, so it fell into that. What is your you, Michael, you rabbi, anyone in the in the crowd? What is your feeling about the popularization of the concept techelet?
Adam Mintz
I love your image of the techelet. Everybody has a little piece of trechelt. That you think that your blue blood, but the truth is that we're all Blue Bloods. And I think that's an important notion, being God's people make us blue blood a little bit. And you notice, today, some people have gone back to the techelet if you look at their talit, if you look on the strings, the fringes, there are eight strings on the fringes. The techelet is only one of eight. And I think Geoffrey, that's a powerful idea. The idea is that there's just a little bit of techelet in everybody. It's not completely techelet. People who think that they're completely techelet are going to get themselves in trouble.
Geoffrey Stern
I agree. And I think now we're literally on the same page in terms of what the lesson that Korach was trying to hijack, and he gave a bad name, too. But I think what you said about the reemergence of techelet today is a wonderful segue into the next wonderful story that relates to the history of the techelet. Well, first of all where does techelet comr from? it comes from a mollusk it comes from a shellfish, which in itself is amazing. You know, I once heard the reason that we have honey on Rosh Hashanah is because honey comes from a bee who's not kosher. And the idea is, as Shlomo Carlebach used to say, "You never know", "you never know where holiness can come from". So he had this beautiful blue, that sanctifies us all comes from a sea urchin, so to speak, that's number one. But number two, it mysteriously was hidden. Or maybe this is the first case of a species that that died, but in any case, the rabbi's of the Talmud said that we no longer have this blue techelet and that's why for so many 1000s of years, Jews have only had white fringes and you make reference to some modern Jews who believe they have rediscovered thetech elet and are using it again. And I think that's an amazing ecological story. It's it's an amazing story about what actually happened what was behind this disappearance of the mollusk.
Adam Mintz
Yeah, now that that's something, Geoffrey that we'll never know the answer to. But that's such an interesting question. Why did the mollusk disappear? Why was it important that for 2000 years, nobody found techelet? Then all of a sudden with the new State of Israel and with new technology, we all found techelet... I wonder about that. Michael, do have any thoughts about that?
Michael Posnik
I see Korach as the mollusk ..... he himself may have not have been kosher, but he was on to something very big.
Adam Mintz
That's a great littl D'var torah.
Geoffrey Stern
Michael, after all, I've said about Korach trying to usurp the thing you still like Korach? You're still on his side.
Michael Posnik
No, I don't take sides anymore.... I'm too old. But I do appreciate the back and forth. I just think that it's a mixing of worlds in a way. and that was the one I want to ask you, gentlemen, the response of Moses and Aaron to Korach's, rebellion. What do they do? What is their response?
Adam Mintz
Yeah, good question. It's hard to know, what is their response? They kind of take a response from God. And God says to stand up to them, and to prove that Moses and Aaron are the chosen one. But Michael, actually, your question is better than my answer. Cause you want to know what Moses and Aaron were really thinking.
Michael Posnik
I work in the theater. So I always wanted to know, what was the motivation? What was the motiviation behind falling on their faces?
Adam Mintz
Yeah. And I wonder, maybe Moses and Aaron were intimidated.
Michael Posnik
Maybe?
Geoffrey Stern
Well, certainly, if they are what we say they were, which is very humble, it's very hard to stick up for yourself. And, you know, that was a little bit of our discussion last week about getting guts. But I would like to suggest my own theory about how to techelet came to disappear. And I just came across this, this concept when I was young, and after I read the book on Masada. By Yigal Yadin, I read the book on the Bar Kokhba revolt. And this archaeologist slash general, slash Zionist statesman was first and foremost an archaeologist. And he found in a cave in the Judean Desert, a ball of wool that was dyed blue. And of course, his first response was, this is amazing that ....as tough as it was for the zealots. They were keeping the commandments and honoring this wonderful commandment. But being a scientist and being an archaeologist, he sent it to the Dexter Chemical Corporation of New York, and they did some testing and lo and behold, they found out that it was fake techelet... it was Indigo. And this General in a footnote, quotes the Talmud as saying that fake techelet fake die, [was the result of a ] a big black market for it. There was a lot of corruption involved. And he recounts two parts of the Talmud, one that talks about the tests that have to be made because this fake die was so far reaching and available. And the other one was in the section of the Torah, where it talks about, Damn you, if you change the scales, and you cheat people in the list of the great grievances of cheating people. One of them is to provide faketechelet. So my my pet theory is and of course, Yadin says clearly, the zealots thought they had real techelet. So we are, from an archaeological point of view, looking back 1000s of years and finding how how widespread the corruption that was created by and remember, this is roayl blue, it's expensive. Here is a mitzvah not like a piece orf challah, not like a glass of wine, but you need to use something that is roayl and we're giving a little bit of that royalty to every Jew. But guess what, we there's money, there's corruption. And my pet theory, and I have no basis for it was that due to the black market, the rabbis said, we've got to cut the legs out under this, and there is no more techelet. And they hid the techelet. meaning to say that if they had to weigh between putting the onus of purchasing this expensive die, and snuffing out a corrupt market, that was parleying in holy goods. If they had to put that on one side and cancel one of the 613 commandments, they chose to cancel the commandment. And so in fact, techelet was really extinct. And those who have quote unquote, refound it today are in good order, because maybe we we won't have another corrupt market. But that's my pet theory. And it goes so well, I think to the whole flow of the discussion, which is that the whole message of techelet is that it should be accessible to every Jew, that every Jew has that holy thread. And the second that message got tarnished and corrupted. The rabbi's threw it out. What do you think of that?
Adam Mintz
I love that idea. I think that's great. And I think that today, the fact that they found techelet and so to speak the rabbi's or God is giving us a second chance, a chance to all have a piece of that techelet, that royal blue is really a beautiful end to your whole theory.
Geoffrey Stern
Well, thank you, I have to say, personally, I went to what is called a Mussar Yeshiva, it's a whole long story. Maybe we'll deal with it another time. But it was part of a movement started around the same time as the Hasidic movement maybe a few years later, that stress the ethics. And when you came to my yeshiva, it was called Beer Yaakov and the head of it was someone called Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe. If you came into the Yeshiva, and you tucked your tsitsit into your pocket, which was kind of the nice compromise between making sure that your tsitsit could be seen. But on the other hand, you wanted to dress like a Westerner, and you didn't want to stick out too much. If you came to the Yeshiva, and you had those tzitzit in your pocket, and all of a sudden you decided to take them out. Rabbi Wolbe would call you over. And he would say, what happened to you, you became a Tzadik all of a sudden, now you can walk around with you, tzitzit out? And he really in that comment, really touched upon this holier than thou aspect of keeping religion. There's this kind of dialectic, that here, if we keep the laws of God, how do we stop ourselves flaunting it, wearing it on our sleeves, or in this case on the threads of taslit? And so I think really it that also kind of is enamoring to me, the sense of pride, but also humility, that is, is is imbued with this idea of to techelet
Adam Mintz
Well, the idea, Geoffrey, that the very thing that can make us arrogant, is also the thing that makes us humble is a very powerful idea.
Geoffrey Stern
Yup, always, always two sides to the coin. Right?
Adam Mintz
Right. So that the tzitit that go in your pocket, and remind you of God and therefore humble you there, they're flip side of tzitzit that we're flying around, Rabbi Wolbe didn;t like.
Geoffrey Stern
Yeah, I think to sum it all up to me, as I go through the whole arc of the five books of Moses, starting with the clear rejection of the firstborn and primogeniture of every one of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's kids, the rejection of the firstborn of Egypt and the priestly caste, this amazing statement that we are all a kingdom of priests. I think that this fits right into it and one of the most powerful messages to me of the Torah is it's an argument against entitlement against stratification and the monopolization of the holy and this radical, radical democratization and all Israel has a a Chelek (portion) in the Torah. And I think that's the most powerful message. And it's one that also is in the arc of Jewish history. I feel today we are democratizing study of Torah, who can study where you can study? I think in Israel, it has the potential for democratizing Judaism if we could only get the religion out of the government. That's that's the vision I find that to techelet screams to me.
Adam Mintz
Beautiful. I love it. Thank you so much.
Geoffrey Stern
Well, thank you and Shabbat shalom to everyone.
Adam Mintz
thank you so much. I'm looking forward to next week.
Geoffrey Stern
You got it. Let's all have that little Petil techelet, that little string of blue that lets us know that we have access to the holy and the divine as much as anyone else. Shabbat Shalom.
Parshat Shelach - Geoffrey Stern with Rabbi Adam Mintz, visit with Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and listen to a live recording or Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. We explore what the story of the Biblical Scouts teaches us about whining, Jewish Power, Jewish Nationalism, Zionism, Jewish Renewal, love and respect for authority? So gird your loins and take a deep breath as we Get Guts.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/327812
Transcript:
Geoffrey Welcome, everybody, to Madlik, our weekly disruptive Torah, four o'clock Eastern Time on clubhouse and later published as a podcast. If you do listen to this as a podcast and you want to like us or give us some stars, that would be well appreciated. Today, we are going to discuss, the following narrative. Picture the Jewish people in the desert coming out of Egypt. They're getting close to the border with the promised land, literally the land that was promised to them. And they sent out 12 either spies or scouts to scout the land. And there's one scout from each tribe and they're instructed to go to the country (Numbers, Chapter 13 and 14) to determine whether it's strong or weak, few or many. Are the people that dwell in there, good or bad are the towns they live in open or fortified. Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? Really a total fact-finding mission. And the story recounts how they get there. And it's harvest festival and they harvest some grapes that have become almost iconic in terms of how large they were. And then they lodge their report "and ten of them say, we came to the land you sent to us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey. And this is its food." And they showed them the grapes. However, and here's the however, the people who inhabit the country are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw anakites (giants) and they go on as they're talking. The other two was Joshua and a guy named Caleb, and he hushed the people before Moses and he said, let's just go up. We shall gain possession of it. So Joshua and Caleb were enthusiastic about going ahead to the Promised Land. But they continued speaking and they said we cannot attack that people for it is stronger than we. It is one that devours its settlers, Eretz ochelwet yoshveha... a land that literally eats its inhabitants and then they go back and they say the final punch line and it says, and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we must have looked to them. And ultimately the story ends with obviously God being extremely upset. Here is a people that he took the trouble of redeeming from slavery to freedom, and it ultimately is mired in a slavery; exile mentality. And can't make the switch. And they want to go back to Egypt. They would rather be taken care of and be slaves. And this story ends with God saying, let me get rid of them all, right, now and Moses, I will take you and Joshua and Caleb and the believers into the land. And Moses convinces him not to do that and God forgives them. And the language that he uses to forgive them is the penultimate forgiveness verses of the Torah that we use on Yom Kippur. And ultimately, that whole generation is to die out and a new generation is to come into the land. So I'm going to stop right here and ask you, Rabbi Adam and anyone else who wants to participate, what is the takeaway from this story at even the most superficial level?
Adam There is so much. Thank you, Geoffrey, for the for the introduction and for just kind of the background of the story, You know, at least one piece of the take away is that you need to trust. You need to trust in God and you need to trust in ourselves that the mistake that the people, the Jews made the desert was you know, there were a lot of different ways to understand the report of the spies, but they chose the way that it was the most scary, the most intimidating. They didn't trust in themselves. They didn't trust in God. And that's what got them in trouble. So I think the first lesson is a lesson about trust.
Geoffrey And faith and confidence
Adam Trust and faith I'm putting together correct That's my first take away
Geoffrey But of course, to move you forward, there is that kind of telling comment where they said they didn't say we'd looked like grasshoppers to them. They said we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and we must have looked like grasshoppers to them, too. What is that add?
Adam That means that if you're insecure, then, you know, that's your downfall. If you think that your grasshoppers, then other people can pick that up in a minute. And they saw themselves as being weak. And the minute they saw themselves as being weak, they were weak and they'll be able to take advantage of them.
Geoffrey So it's really as much about faith in God as it is about faith in oneself. Self-esteem.
Adam Right. And I'm a big believer that this story is not only about faith in God, it's about faith in oneself.
Geoffrey So to raise the bar a little bit, the midrash seems to have the consensus that this took place on a very perspicuous day in the Jewish calendar. It took place on Tisha B'Av and it's recounted Tisha B'av, as you probably all know, is the day the greatest calamity in the history of the Jewish people occurred. When the temple was destroyed. According to tradition, both temples were destroyed on the same day. And the midrash and the Mishnah gives a long list of other calamities that either foreshadowed or followed afterwards. But this took place on Tisha B'aV. And the Midrash says that when the people cried after hearing the report from the scouts, the Midrash says it was a Bechi Shel Chinam... It was an unjustified crying... a whining if you will. And because they cried, the Jewish people in the desert cried for no good reason. They would be destined to cry for good reason for the rest of the generations. And those of you who know Jewish tradition about Tisha B'av, cannot fail to hear in the bechi Shel Chinam... this crying for no reason, an echo of the traditional reason that the temple was destroyed. And that was because of sinat chinam.... of hatred that was unjustified .... person to person. So what do you make of this counterpoint between these two various reasons for the beginning of all the calamities of the Jewish people beginning at that moment and both using this unjustified emotion?
Adam Let's take that midrash, that Midrash that you quote, Geoffrey, that you cried for no reason. Great phrase... you whine because you whine, I'm going to give you a reason to really cry. What does that mean? What that means is that we need to take a certain amount of responsibility. And if we're going to whine, God is going to give us a reason to whine. We can't whine, we need to be strong, and we need to have courage. We need to have faith in ourselves and in God. And if we can't do that, then God is going to punish us. He's going to give us a reason to cry. I think that's such a strong idea.
Geoffrey And then all that is true. But I want to set it up as a counterpoint to "sinat Chinam". to blaming the destruction of the temple on the sins of the Jews. And what I'd love to do is to paint a picture that was inspired to me by Rav Abraham Yitzhak Kook, the first chief rabbi of the State of Israel, who actually took this midrash of baseless crying. And remember, this is an ultra-orthodox rabbi who breaks with the rest of the ultra-orthodox who believe that it is not up to man, it is not up to us to fabricate of faith and to take our land and to take the initiative. And he says, no, absolutely not that it is it is ours and it is our responsibility not to be small, but to be great. And this baseless whining, if you will, was the core of not only the narrative that we're reading about this Shabbat in this parsha, but is the core of the narrative of exile, of diminution, of oppression of the Jewish people through the ages. And I think if you add on to that context, part of that context is that the Jewish tradition for 2000 years of exile said that the Jewish people were exiled because they did something wrong. And this was something that was begun by the Jews, themselves in the prophets, Jeremiah and others, but clearly something that was literally embraced by the non-Jews who said if you are stateless, you must be deserving of this punishment. And so, in a sense, this baseless whining, this baseless diminution of yourself, I think is a counterpoint. And I don't want to focus less on the sin of hatred one against another and more on the fact of it's a sin that's keeping us away and that somehow or other we have to do something, maybe go to synagogue and pray, as opposed to taking our future into our hands and doing what Joshua and Caleb said, which is let's get up and go and take this land. Do you see that counterpoint Rabbi?
Adam [That’s a very interesting counterpoint. And I think that that's really the lesson of the whole scary counterpoint is the lesson. Right?
Geoffrey I think so. I think so. It's one also of sadness and joy and so Rav Kook, when he describes this, he describes it in the context of we should be rejoicing on Tisha B'av, because one day Tisha B'av is going to be the happiest day. And that day will happen when we take our fate into our own hands.
Adam I want to know what that means, taking fate into our own hands. What does that mean to you?
Geoffrey So I'd like to move forward to answer that question to another theologian who's actually still alive, named Yitz Greenberg. And Yitz Greenberg talks about the Third Era of Judaism. And he actually describes that before the Holocaust, we lived in a world where we were waiting for divine redemption, and we were trying to make ourselves purer so that we would deserve divine redemption. And he says after the Holocaust, many people would want to talk about the "hester Panim", the fact that God's divine presence was hidden. And he says that's the wrong syntax. He talks about after the Holocaust we now have to talk about "was man missing" and that man now has to take into his or her own hands their future. That's his takeaway from the absence of God, which is the positive flip side of that, which is the ultimate responsibility for the presence of man.
Adam What do you make of that? Let me turn it back to you, Geoffrey. What do you think about Yitz Greenberg's comment?
Geoffrey Well, I agree with him very much. And when I kind of felt it in my gut because I truly believe that the renaissance of the Jewish people and the revival of the state of Israel is not simply like the meraglim, the scouts, a story, an episode. I think it is the essence of the culmination of Jewish history. And so I try to make sense of it in terms of the arc of Jewish history. And actually, Greenberg talks in terms of what happened after the Holocaust, in terms of the UN and human rights and national movements and all that. He makes the context even larger. But it really does speak to me and it speaks to me in a sense that is core to who I am as a proud Jew. So it really does resonate.
Adam It's a great I think it's a fantastic argument by Itz Greenberg. And maybe what makes it the most powerful is it is kind of surprising you wouldn't have expected it.
Geoffrey In terms of who Yitz Greenberg is as an Orthodox Jew,
Adam correct,
Geoffrey I mean, I think in a sense what we're talking about is not something that we're kind of creating out of nothing. The truth is that Ralph Kook and especially but also Yitz Greenberg coming out of an ultra-orthodox background, saw it. They saw the real tension between the Judaism of the galut... of the exile and a new Judaism born after the ashes, so to speak, and the revival of the Jewish nationalist dream. It lived itself out, in other words. And I also came from a very ultra-orthodox background. And these are things that you study, and you learn. They're very much alive. This this sense of you talk about trust. It's a different type of trust and faith. It's a faith that God will take care of us. God will provide the answer. And it's ultimately one that I think I really do. I feel like I have to reject. And it's not almost a nostalgic old faith as opposed to a new one. it's a new faith that has an emphasis and an imperative to it.
Adam Yeah. That that idea of a new thing I think is very, very powerful. And that's really what Yitz Greenberg is talking about, is that we have to create for ourselves a new faith and that new faith is a faith that requires a tremendous amount of strength and courage. Can you imagine creating a new a new faith? Well, something that's so counter to everything that we were bought up with in our very orthodox backgrounds, isn't it?
Geoffrey Well, I mean, you know, we listen to whether it's the song of the parting of the sea where we say lo b'bekochi, that it is not with our power, not with our might, that we will survive, but only through God. And Greenberg has an amazing quote that is a variation on something I believe Santayana said, and its "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But absolute powerlessness corrupts the most". And I think what he was saying here is the powerlessness .... the lack of willingness to accept one's own fate, to accept power, to be a victim, to be a martyr, to play that role is really antithetical to the world and the renewal of Judaism and the state of Israel that we see. And I think it comes up in our discussions today, and I'm not preaching to anyone. I'm preaching to myself here. You know, as we see the discussion about Israel, especially in the last month, rive up and we feel, do we have to stand up for it or do we have to? What is the right balance between empathizing with the poor people in Gaza and the Palestinians and their national dream and ours? And I think that part of what this message told me this week as I studied it and as I read it, is you can care for other people, but you first have to care for yourself. You have to be in touch and understand your national dream before you can embrace someone else's national dream. You have to respect yourself. You can't be a grasshopper or a cockroach. That was the message I took away. And literally I was on the fence in terms of... Let this pass and do we really need to to stick up for ourselves and and make a scene and the take away from this parsha is that, you know, if not us, who then?
Adam Do you think that we all have to share the same dream?
Geoffrey No, no, absolutely not, and I think, if I hear you correctly, you know, would we ever want to totally lose the message of a Jeremiah who says if bad things happen to you, you need to be introspective and you need to look to see what you can do better with your life, both morally, ethically and spiritually? I hope we never lose that. But certainly when it goes to the extreme, when bad things happen to good people, it must be good people's fault. And we have to check on Mezuzahs. I think it is is a sickness. And I do believe we have to be comfortable in saying, damn it, we deserve a full life, too, and we deserve to live out our national and lifelong [national aspiration]. I was at a wedding earlier this week and I couldn't but stop to listen to all the words about one day we will be dancing in the streets of Jerusalem and the broken glass over Jerusalem. And I said to myself, we've been doing this for two thousand years. This is not a political statement. This is who we are. We are those scouts. We are that generation outside of the promised land. And we've got to fight for it. We’ll be respected. I think this was one of the messages of the Zionists, and it's only partially borne out... We'll be respected when we respect ourselves and when we stand on our own two feet and when we have our own army and we have our own language.
Adam Yeah, I mean, that was you know, that was the lesson of the state of Israel that we have to believe in ourselves if we're going to have our own state. If we don't believe in ourselves, then we don't have a chance. It's not that people have to believe in us. We have to believe in ourselves. I mean, that's really nice, Geoffrey because what you're really in this week of the elections and everything, in Israel and they make a government. And what you're really saying is that it's not about people believing in us. It's about us believing in ourselves.
Geoffrey And then I think it's like they always say, "Ve'ahavta l"rayacha Kwemocha" , love your neighbor as yourself. I really do believe that we can we are better when we respect ourselves. And it's trite, but I think it's true. I'd like to go on to another thought leader who is not normally considered a thought leader. He's thought of more as the Singing Rabbi. His name is Shlomo Carlebach. And a few years ago, I came across a recording of him talking about just this parsha. So I'm going to try something new on Madlik Clubhouse. And since it is an audio only platform, I'm going to try to play Shlomo Carlebach... I'm going to invite him, so to speak, on to clubhouse. And I think you'll all be as excited as I am to see the personal direction that he takes this into, because we've been talking a lot about nationalism and movements and he goes in a different direction that I think relates more to Jewish renewal. So let's see if I can get this to work.
Speaker Shlomo Carlebach I just want to give you a little vitamin pill and strength, everybody talking about the Meraglim so much and I'm sure it sunk into you. Anybody who comes back from Israel and tells anything bad about Israel, tell them, my dear brother, the spies destroyed Israel and they didn't lie it's true. Moshe Rabenu says to Yehoshua (Joshua) "God should give you strength not to listen to them. Now, listen to this. Who are the miraglim? The miraglim were the biggest Rebbes of the world 10 big Rebbes. Just imagine yourself, little schmendrick, like you and I. We're going on a mission ... 10 big rabbis. And Yeshua was mamash a pupil of Moshe Rabbenu. The most humble person in the world. Right. All the rabbis sit there, and they say, listen, I want you to know they tell each other it's a bad scene to go to Israel, forget it "A land that eats it's people" don't go there. Do you know, according to the Torah, the majority decides? The Torah! You ask a yid, Torah... right? I want you to know, friends, thousands of Jews would have stayed alive if they would have not listened to a lot of rabbis. I know a Yid in Williamsburg. He lived somewhere, had a wife and 12 children, 1937. He asked a Rebbe: "Should I go to Israel?" He says: "God forbid, Israel is not frum" . He would have had his wife and 12 children. You know why Yehusha is the one to conquer Israel? Because Moshe Rabbenu gave them strength not to listen to anybody. Have enough guts! if the Ribono shel olam shines something into me, that's it. I want you to know there is prophecy .. Eretz Yisrael is deeper than prophecy. Prophecy means I know what's happening. What will happen tomorrow. I know which gilgil (re-incarnation) I am in. It's all cute. It's not what I need to know? The greatest light of Eretz Yisrael is to have enough guts to listen to the deepest depths of my heart, the deepest, deepest depts of my heart. My friends, I bless you and me. If you and I want to conquer Israel, want to make our way to the Holy Land, make our way into Yiddishkite, let's have the guts not to listen to anybody. I want you to know something else. The saddest thing in the world is... I want you to know everybody when they get married, they built their Eretz Yisrael. The Huppah is their Jerusalem. I want you to know, you know, the walking to the Huppah, it's like Avraham Avenu, is walking in Eretz Yisrael. The standing under the Huppah is like Yerushalyim, As it says: Omdos Hayu Ragalenu Yerusalim..." I bless you, friends. Whenever you find your soulmate, please don't ask anybody. Conquer your Eretz Yisrael! Just listen to the inside of the inside. Listen to the great rabbi ... the Mraglim... you know what they said they felt like cockroaches and mamash a giant. Right? I thought you're the greatest rabbi in the world. You afraid? Yeah. To the truth. Jacob teitz, this is my Rebbe? I don't want a Rebbe who's afraid. I don't a Rebbe who's afraid of anything in the world. I need a rebbe who's not afraid. And you know something in exile. It's a cute Rebbe'la. He's afraid of this one. Afraid of this one .. in Exile you can make it. You can even make to receive manna from heaven. Eretz Yisrael, No! Friends, I Bless you to have guts. inside. Inside, inside, inside. When you find your soul mate, just do it. Friends, I tell you something. If you would have asked all the Rebbes. Should we make a little ruach here, a little get-together. They would have asked how big is the mechitza, where do you get the meat. And who is Gedalia, who is Noami? Who is Meyer? Forget me, I'm treif anyway. Hash V'shalom... you're not permitted to do it! and the meantime, Baruch HaShem, Gedalia had the privilege of bringing together 100's of thousands of people. OK friends, Good Shabbos Good Yontov and I bless you to make it to Eretz Yisrael this summer. Don't ask questions, just go Good Shabbos Good Yom tov.
Geoffrey Yeah. So had you heard that before?
Adam That was amazing.
Geoffrey Thank you. I was I was blown away. And by the way, it's edited. He also talks about women learning Torah and he says, are we going to ask a rebbe if we can study Torah? Women can study Torah. It really bridges the divide to the personal, personal, spiritual growth, and it bridges the divide to renewal of Judaism. And I was just blown away by it. So I. I just today came from a funeral of a Holocaust survivor. And her name is Esther Pederseil, and she was ninety-five and she had guts. And if we're talking about guts, I think that we have to definitely reference people like her who are survivors, they're not victims, they're survivors. And when her children spoke, they talked about her love of fashion and style, and they said that was her. That was her not.... Not her revenge, but her way of living. She wanted to live her life to the fullest and as much as she could she, showed that she was in the camp of Joshua and Caleb. And I just think that the lesson is really universal at the end of the day, it's a lesson for us personally. It's a lesson for every people who want to renew their future and get to their promised land. But it's certainly a lesson for us. And I think we should never whine, and we should only choose to conquer what we can conquer and to think highly of ourselves
Adam And to listen only to ourselves, not to listen to others. What a powerful idea.
Geoffrey Yeah, I, I when he kept on saying over and over again, I don't need a rebbe who's afraid, I mean it was very powerful. And he touched thousands, tens of thousands of people with his music but also with the message of renewal and renewal Judaism. And as you said before, what our promised land is, is open to interpretation. But I think the message that one has to grab that and to actively aspire and engage. That is a universal truth.
Adam Couldn't agree more. That was beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Geoffrey OK, well, Shabbat shalom, everybody.
Adam Shabbat Shalom everybody. Looking forward to next week.