When Your Child Asks You

by Eliezer Segal

Exodus 13:1-16

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, [both] of man and of beast: it [is] mine. 3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this [place]: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. 4 This day came ye out in the month Abib. 5 And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month. 6 Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day [shall be] a feast to the Lord. 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters. 8 And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, [This is done] because of that [which] the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. 9 And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. 10 Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year. 11 And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee, 12 That thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males [shall be] the Lord’s. 13 And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem. 14 And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What [is] this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage: 15 And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem. 16 And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt.

During the current season, Jews throughout the world are reading the book of Exodus, recalling the saga of our ancestors’ liberation from enslavement in ancient Egypt. The centrality of that event in the shaping of the Jewish religious consciousness can hardly be exaggerated. At virtually every turn in our religious lives we confront reminders of the Exodus—These are not restricted to the obvious historical commemorations like the Passover, but are extended—to take some random examples—to the command to take a weekly Sabbath from our labours and the moral obligation to show compassion and fairness to the strangers among us.

Indeed, the oppression of Egypt and the deliverance from it are not depicted in the Bible as obstacles to Israel’s historical mission, but as integral to it.

Already in Genesis 15, when the Almighty established a covenant with Abraham, the patriarch was informed that his yet-to-be-born progeny would be enslaved in a strange land. One wonders initially how Abraham took this distressing news, and why God considered it so essential to include this piece of news on an occasion that was supposed to be joyous and encouraging.

Jewish tradition over the generations has understood that the consciousness of being a liberated people is a crucial part of our spiritual identity. It would be nice if the ideal of freedom could be proclaimed on a theoretical level. The Bible however has too realistic an understanding of human character to believe that such a situation would lead to more than platitudes devoid of content.

The truth is that nobody can meaningfully understand the value of freedom unless they have personally experienced slavery. From God’s perspective, the people of Israel would not have been the same people had they not suffered the oppressions of Egypt.

The Jewish sages formulated the ideal in an ambitious programme: “In each generation, people must regard themselves as if they personally had participated in the exodus from Egypt.”

Now this might work well for those generations that actually felt upon their flesh the oppression—and we are all aware that the passion for freedom breathes most strongly among those individuals who have personal experiences of oppression, whether in times of old or in our own times. (Some Jewish communal leaders find themselves stifling an unutterable wish for further historical trials that might help forge a weakening religious identity—but this is clearly not something we can realistically wish upon our children). How, therefore, can a historical episode that occurred four thousand years ago continue to shape the spiritual character of those of us who know it only as a story?

This problem has been of considerable concern to Jewish tradition. In fact, in their meticulous study of the Bible texts, our teachers realised that the question of transmitting the religious experience of liberation was a central worry even at the time of the original events. On no less than four occasions does the Torah speak of how the lessons of the Exodus are to be taught to children who have grown up in lands of Milk and Honey, for whom the story threatens to be nothing more than a far-off legend.

In keeping with a principal of rabbinic interpretation that God (unlike, say, University professors), does not waste holy words by repeating things needlessly, our sages came to realise that the Torah was not guilty of redundancy in its four-fold return to the question. Underlying the multiple exhortations to teach the message of the Exodus is a truth familiar to all parents and educators: that effective instruction must be tailored to the needs and abilities of the particular student who sits before us. The teaching will vary in accordance with the student’s personality.

Thus, in a passage that still occupies an honoured place in the traditional Passover meal liturgy, the sages observe that “the Torah addressed four different types of child.”

In Deuteronomy 6:20 it states “When thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying; What mean the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord hath commanded you?”

The verse seems to presuppose an extensive familiarity with the tradition, it serves as the model for a “wise” child with a demonstrated knowledge of and interest in the tradition. The teacher’s role here is the simplest and most immediately satisfying. Reinforce the child’s quest for truth and meaning, and help channel the interest into fruitful directions.

Exodus 12:26 presents a different version of the encounter: “And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you: What mean ye by this service…”

The Jewish sages imagined the impudent child placing an emphasis on the last words “What mean ye“—mplying that he has excluded himself from the tradition. In the vocabulary of the Passover liturgy, such a child is “wicked.” One who can no longer identify with the values of the group will be unable to transmit those values, rendering futile the entire purpose of the Exodus experience. The Rabbis insist that the challenge cannot be ignored. The parents must react forcefully showing their displeasure, the moral dangers that emerge from such an attitude. 

Exodus 13:14 refers to a simple child: “And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying: What is this?” This child has an intuitive feeling that there is something to learn, but does not have the cognitive sophistication to formulate a meaningful question, let alone search for a relevant answer. When faced with such children, the sages say, we must take them by the hand and lead them step by step until they realised their full potential.

Exodus 13:8 says “And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying…” This is applied to the child who is not even aware that there are questions to be asked.In such case, say the Rabbis, it is up to the parent or teacher to take the initiative and introduce the subject. You cannot always wait for the child to raise the topic.

The above lessons can of course be transferred to other areas of education and family life. An additional portion of Jewish educational lore from which we can profit is that teaching and learning are not restricted to words and ideas. As a medieval Hebrew author attempted to epitomise the underlying theory behind Jewish religious practice: “The mind follows after the body.” Actions, good habits, tangible symbolic rituals and ethical examples provide a more effective means for handing down religious traditions than the mere recitation of texts and opinions. It is this philosophy that governs the Passover festival meal, whose participants—in the way they sit and the foods they eat as much as in the words they proclaim—attempt the paradoxical task of reliving at once the experiences of slavery and liberations.

The present lection passage includes several examples of such “lived” teachings: 

Firstborn children must be symbolically redeemed from God in appreciation of the fact that they were spared from the horrible consequences of the final Egyptian plague.

Jews are commanded to wear “tefillin”—boxes containing Biblical texts recalling the Exodus and other key beliefs—on our heads and arms, as a physical representation of the commitment to devote thought and action to God’s way.

The hope is that by continually reliving the historical experience of our people, there will be forged a strong chain of continuity. 

It is no accident that the Prophetic reading on the Sabbath before Passover includes Malachi`s vision of an ideal future in which the prophet Elijah will return to “turn the heart of the parents to the children and the heart of the children to their parents.” Only through such a reconciliation can the ideal of freedom maintain its relevance for future generations.

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Guest sermon delivered at South Calgary Inter-Mennonite Church, Calgary, January 19 1997

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My email address is: [email protected]

The Repha’im, the Emim, the Zamzumim…and Us

by Eliezer Segal

In the parashah D’varim the Israelites are admonished not to provoke the children of Esau, Ammon or Moab on their way to their homeland. In that connection, the Torah digresses into complicated pre-histories—of the territories in question and of obscure nations who previously inhabited them. 

Regarding the Moabites it says in Deuteronomy Chapter 2:

10 The Emim dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim; 11 Which also were considered Repha’im [“giants”], as the Anakim; but the Moabites called them Emim.

Then, when telling about the land of Seir or Edom it says:

12 The Ḥorim also dwelt in Seir previously; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them.

Similarly, with respect to the land of Ammon:

20 That also was considered a land of Repha’im: Repha’im dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim; 21 A people great, and numerous, and tall, as the Anakims; but the Lord destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead: 22 As he did to the children of Esau, who dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Ḥorim from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day: 23 And the Avim which dwelt in Ḥazerim, even unto Gazah, the Caphtorim, who came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.

The commentators were divided about why the Torah chose to include all this arcane trivia about ethnic groups that had already disappeared from history and have no direct bearing on the the history of Israel, which is the Torah’s normal concern. 

Most of the traditional interpreters read these passages in connection with the competing claims of Israel and the other nations over those territories. 

Much of their discussion focuses on the Repha’im, who made a previous appearance in B’reshit (ch. 15), in the context of the B’rit bein ha-Betarim, the “Covenant between the Pieces” where they were included in the list of nations whose lands were promised to Abraham’s descendants. That pledge seems to contradict what it says here: that the Israelites are advised to keep away from Ammon and Moab — who presently have possession of the Rephai’im’s former domains — and we are to make no claims on their land. 

Rashi resolves these apparent inconsistencies by proposing an interpretation that contains an implied reassurance to Israel: He says that all those conquests and displacements have altered the political status of those places, and therefore the Repha’im and other nations as they exist in his time are not the same ones whose lands had been promised to Abraham. The territories of Ammon and Moab can therefore legitimately be left in the hands of their current inhabitants without implying that the promise to Abraham has been annulled or diluted. 

Other authorities—including Ramban, Abravanel and Malbim — took issue with Rashi, maintaining that his explanation had no convincing basis in the actual wording of the Torah. Some argued that in fact the children of Esau and Lot (that is: Ammon and Moab) were included in God’s original promise to Abraham when he was told: “To your descendants I give this land”; and that Moses here is explaining that our “cousins”’ right to their territory should therefore be respected as part of that original divine mandate to Abraham’s descendants. 

In the context of the book of D’varim, which describes Moses’s instructions to the people on the threshold of their entry to the promise land, this detail could also serve as a morale-booster: If those heathen peoples were allowed to retain their claims on their territories by virtue of their link to the covenant with Abraham — even though their possession was preceded by that of great and powerful nations — then the children of Israel are surely entitled to feel confident that they will also be successful in inheriting their land in spite of the apparent military advantage enjoyed by its current inhabitants. 

It would indeed be nice to think that Moses was trying to boost morale and offer reassurance to his flock. Unfortunately, as we shall be seeing in the coming weeks, this is not the dominant mood of his discourses in the book of D’varim. 

He is much more concerned with rousing the people out of their complacency in the wilderness, where they have been living under the direct guidance of God and Moses; and with making sure that the routines of daily life in a normal society will not blunt their commitment to the ideals commanded by the Torah.

I am therefore inclined to favour the reading proposed by Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a cantankerous Israeli thinker whose tirades against the moral lapses of his society very often resonate with those of his biblical namesake. He argues that the real reason why the Torah provides so much superfluous detail about forgotten foreign nations — how each one vanquished another and was subsequently overthrown by yet another -— is precisely in order to remind us that, from the standpoint of what is conventionally regarded as observable “history,” there is no essential difference between Israel and the other nations of the earth. The cycles of political triumphs, military conquests and eventual defeats that Israel experienced over the ages — were no different from those that were experienced by the Repha’im, the Emim, the Ḥorim, the Zamzumim, the Avim and those other undistinguished Near Eastern tribes. They conform to Voltaire’s well-known definition of history as: “a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times.”

“If Israel is special,” writes Prof. Leibowitz, “it is not because of its having conquered the land or having inherited it or having taken the place of other nations, but because of the duties imposed upon it in this land : in the obligations which it was given and which were not given to other nations, for whom, too, God displaced other nations, so that they might inherit their lands.” 

Israel’s right to the land and to its holy city is not founded on its military, economic or technological supremacy. Rather, it is made conditional upon fulfilling the duties and obligations to which we are committed under the covenant that defines our mission as a people. 

What are those duties and obligations that define Israel’s right to inherit the its land?

As the prophet Isaiah rages in today’s hafṭarah (ch. 1), what is of primary importance is not so much how we observe kashrut, shabbat, holy days or prayer. 

On the contrary, God cries out:

11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?  13… incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies… 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15 …when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

What is really crucial is the establishment of justice, of maintaining a society that deals compassionately with its most vulnerable segments: 

17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

What sealed Jerusalem’s doom was the corruption of its leaders:

23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loves gifts, and follows after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come unto them.

A society that does not aspire to these basic ethical standards has no more guarantee of durability than those ancient states that rose and faded into oblivion.

Indeed, in God’s original covenant with Abraham, it was foretold that his descendents would return from their exile only in the fourth generation “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” The implication is that the Almighty cannot displace even a heathen nation until they have brought the defeat upon themselves through their iniquity. Although the omniscient God knew perfectly well that this would eventually happen, that could not justify the removal of the Amorites and Canaanites — even for the sake of his beloved Abraham — until they had corrupted themselves enough to deserve removal from the land. As the prophet tells us in today’s hafṭarah, the same principle applies to the nation of Israel itself.

Unfortunately, Isaiah’s distressing assessment of his own society sounds jarringly like our own reality, whether in Israel or in North America. Some of us can still recall, as recently as 1987, how Sen. Gary Hart, a promising contender for the American presidency had to withdraw his candidacy because he was involved in an extra-marital affair. Six years later, when Bibi Netanyahu confessed to a similar indiscretion, that fact did not have any visible effect on his political career. The vices of su—bsequent officeholders no longer even succeed in raising an indignant eyebrow. 

And sad to say, those sleazy politicians can often count on the endorsement (or at least the silence) of “religious” leaders in return for support for their institutions or partisan causes. Rabbis and politicians are likely to be rubbing shoulders in Israeli prisons where they serving sentences for embezzlement, accepting bribes, welfare fraud money laundering and other assorted mitzvot.

All of this sounds disturbingly similar to the situation that was decried in our hafṭarah, of a community that was infected with corruption and with indifference to the suffering of the most vulnerable segments of their society: “Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: everyone loves gifts, and follows after rewards.”

As citizens of democratic states we have both the ability and the responsibility to do our parts in correcting these moral blemishes. As committed Jews, we are equally obligated to putting our own house in order and to holding our leaders to standards of uprightness. Tonight, on Tish’ah beAv, as we listen to Eikhah and the Kinnnot, we will be reminded of the horrible price that was paid when the prophets’ admonitions were not taken to heart. 

If we content ourselves with being no better than any other nation, then our destiny might well end up the same as that of the Repha’im, the Emim, the Ḥorim, the Zamzumim or the Avim.” 

At this point, we may be longing for those messages of reassurance that Rashi and Ramban were able to extract from the Torah text. 

There is in fact something in that spirit that may be found in the words with which we conclude reading the book of Lamentations (5:21), that we sang just now as we placed the Torah in the ark:

הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהוָה אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה, חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם.21  Make us return to you, O Lord, and we shall return; renew our days as of old.

Even with all the gloom that seems to dominate our moral horizons these days, we are enjoined not to despair. With a little help from the Ḳadosh Barukh Hu, we can be transformed, and help transform this dismal-looking world into one that is worthy of our hopes for moral renewal.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, July 21, 2018.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Loosen Your Grip

by Eliezer Segal

Deuteronomy 3 23 And I besought the Lord at that time, saying,  24 O Lord God, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works, and according to thy might?  25 I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.  26 But the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.

A friend of mine once responded to to his kids’ impatient nagging (I assure you that this is not about my own kids or grandkids) by insisting that they submit their requests in a more respectful form, quietly and with appropriate “please”s and “thank you”s. When the kids had calmed down and offered their newly drafted, courteous version of the request, the father answered with a simple “No.” 

For good measure, my friend (who is also a distinguished Jewish scholar and educator) added: “And now you can begin to understand how prayer works.”

This sometimes painful lesson—that even the most sincere prayers uttered by the most righteous of worshippers provide no guarantee of success—is one that Moshe Rabbeinu had great difficulty in learning at the beginning of this week’s Parashah.

The Torah’s account of Moshe’s conversations with the Almighty here served as a catalyst for our sages to explore some profound and challenging questions about the the purposes of prayer in our spiritual lives.

I would like to share with you today the following intriguing passage from the MIdrash Sifré to D’varim in which Moshe gives a detailed account of the reasons that contributed to his frustration at God’s refusal to grant his prayer to enter the land of Israel. 

According to this midrash, Moshe began the negotiations by recalling how he had prayed for the Israelites when God threatened to wipe them out for worshipping the golden calf. Moshe describes that event as follows:

Sifré Deut.:

{Moses to God:}

You gave me an opportunity to stand and pray before you on behalf of your children at the time that they acted improperly in the episode of the golden calf; as it says {when he recalls the episode in next week’s parashah: God said:} “Loosen your grip on me, that I may destroy them” (הרף ממני ואשמידם).

{When God said “Loosen your grip on me”—did this imply that} Moses was literally clutching at the Holy One?! 

{Of course not!} Rather, this is what he was saying to him: Master of the universe, you were giving me an opportunity to stand and pray before you on behalf of your children. So I stood and prayed for them, and you listened to my prayer and forgave their sin. Therefore I now assumed that I was uniting with them in the prayer {asking that I be allowed into the Promised Land}— but it turned out that they were not praying on my behalf.

For should this not have been a logical certainty (קל החומר)? If {when I was praying that you pardon the people for the golden calf} you granted the appeal of an individual on behalf of the many—was it not obvious that you would have acquiesced all the more so to the prayers of the many that were being offered on my behalf?

In this attempt to reconstruct the reasoning of God and of Moshe,, we can discern how our sages were grappling with the essence of prayer. What is its function or purpose? Are human words really able to influence an all-knowing and perfect God, or is it directed principally at the worshipper, as God’s way of making us reflect more intensely on our values and priorities [as suggested by the Hebrew word להתפלל which translates literally as “to judge oneself”]?

I understand that this midrash is depicting Moshe as torn between different approaches to the question. His prior successes as a negotiator with the Almighty had instilled in him a confidence that he had perfected the formula for bending God’s will to achieve his objectives. If that was true, then the present challenge should have been a slam-dunk. 

And he does the math for us: In the previous case he had been working at a severe disadvantage, standing as a solitary individual while pleading the cause an entire nation—and yet his prayers had proven powerful enough to save them all from destruction! This time, on the other hand, it was a simple matter of submitting an almost trivial-looking request on behalf of a single person, himself. All he was seeking was a slight change in the scheduling of his departure from this world—a request in which he could presumably count on the support of his entire community.

The midrash points out at least one grave flaw in that calculation. In his assurance that the entire nation supported him in his demands, Moshe had not taken the trouble to consult with them. Like one of those hapless self-styled revolutionaries in a film comedy, he boldly stormed the fortress confident that his loyal masses were right behind—only to discover too late that he was standing alone and vulnerable. 

Evidently, we were meant to learn from this that the power that Judaism ascribes to congregational prayer is not just a technical matter of counting bodies for a minyan, but it should involve the creation of a meaningful consensus among diverse segments of the community. The midrash had the audacity to suggest that even our great leader and liberator Moshe was deficient in that respect and that he should have made a greater effort to explain his position and inspire the populace with sympathy and enthusiasm for his cause. This is a lesson that is of crucial relevance for all community leaders, politicians, clergy (—and maybe even for Gabba’im…).

At any rate, based on his successful track record and his understanding of the nature of prayer as a mechanism for cancelling divine decrees, we can readily appreciate Moshe’s stubborn confidence in his expected success—his metaphoric grasping at God’s lapels—and the devastating disappointment he felt when his appeal was summarily rejected—and he had to be forcibly shoved away (again: metaphorically) from the divine presence.

But when the midrashic Moshe recounts this story in our parashah as he approaches the end of his life, he reveals a more mature understanding of what really happened when he had prayed for the people’s lives at Mount Sinai.

He had come to realize that God’s true intention had never really been to destroy the Israelites. Rather, that was a posture designed to put a scare into Moshe, so that the prophet would be impelled to react by reasserting his devotion to his flock and urgently praying for their forgiveness. And when it came to giving his all for his people, Moshe did not disappoint. He stubbornly refused to back down until the Almighty relented—or, at least, appeared to be relenting.

In one of those many stories in which credulous ḥasidim vie to outdo each other in extolling the amazing powers of their wonder-rabbis, one haṣid boasts to another: “I come from Yechupetz, and there we are familiar with miracles: Our rabbi asks God to do something and God immediately obeys. Now that is a miracle!”

To this the other ḥasid retorts: Well, I come from {Toronto / Edmonton / insert appropriate locality}— and there things are different: when God asks our rabbi to do something and our rabbi obeys, then we consider that a miracle!”

It seems to me that a similar distinction underlies our midrashic version of Moshe’s prayers. He had to learn the hard way that prayer—even when we are begging for something that we desperately want—should not necessarily be perceived as a way of influencing the Almighty. That approach, beloved as it is to the tellers of tales about righteous miracle-workers, is often based on questionable assumptions about the power and wisdom of mortal humans, and the capricious whims of the Master of the Universe. 

I prefer not to presume that I know better than God or that I have a full grasp of reality that allows me to tell him what he should be doing for me. While requests for divine mercy might have their place in our spiritual lives, we might make better use of the time by doing our own reality checks.

The occasions that bring us to pray—whether they are halakhic obligations, threatening calamities, or appreciation of our good fortune—can be regarded as opportunities to reflect on our values in the light of those circumstances; giving serious thought to what objectives are worth praying for. What should be our response to the circumstances, whether from the perspective of Torah, of our spiritual growth, or of basic human morality? Should we be accepting them with gratitude or understanding? Should we be moved to indignation or disturbed by the unfairness of the world? Is the situation one that lies within our own power to improve or to sanctify, or must we resign ourselves to passive approval or dissatisfaction?

When forced to come up with an appropriate response to his people’s imminent destruction, Moshe decided that a faithful leader should be ready to take the ultimate risk and argue against the Almighty himself—as God hoped he would do. This is, perhaps, the most valuable kind of prayer.

Even when our Father in Heaven responds to our requests with a “No”—as he did to Moshe—we and our world might ultimately be a little bit better—by virtue the fact that we did participate in prayer.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, August 1, 2015.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Winter Quarters

by Eliezer Segal

In our family, there is one annual source of confusion that we have to cope with when the time comes to kindle the Hanukkah candles. It has to do with the directions in which the candles should be placed and kindled. It is our meticulously observed custom to forget the procedures from one year to the next.

The following is a typical example of the kinds of instructions that one finds in a standard guide to Hanukkah observance: “The candles are placed in the menorah from right to left. The flames are lit from left to right, with today’s flame being lit first.”

Even if I weren’t totally confused by those dizzying zigzags, the directions seem superfluously arbitrary. Why, indeed, should it make a difference?

The earliest halakhic authority I know of who dealt with this question was the thirteenth-century Rabbi Meir of Rotenburg, whose numerous responsa and works of liturgical custom are among the cornerstones of Ashkenazic practice. As was common among important rabbis in that society, his disciples paid careful attention to his personal practices and recorded them as normative precedents for posterity. They related that Rabbi Meir “would light the candles commencing at the left, and then proceeding towards the right.” His custom was adopted as authoritative by subsequent scholars in the Rhine valley, including Rabbi Jacob Moelin, the Maharil.

The rationale for this sequence was rooted in a rule that is found in the Talmud: “Whenever you turn, it should always be towards the right”—a rule that can best be carried out if one commences from the left. The talmudic principle is invoked in a number of ritual matters, for example to determine the proper route for a priest to encircle the altar when offering sacrifices (He takes the first right, to the east, after ascending the ramp from the south side). This was in line with the general preference that Jewish tradition (like most other world cultures) has always given to the right as the most auspicious side for beginnings. 

However, Maharil’s application of this rule to the Hanukkah candle-lighting was not accepted universally. His own nephew Rabbi Jacob Gelnhausen challenged him as regards the appropriateness of the analogy. After all, he argued, the talmudic examples or turning to the right all involved cases where the person was actually ambulatory, so that he could literally be turning his body toward the right. The kindling of Hanukkah lamps, by contrast, is normally performed from a stationary position with only the arms in motion, and hence it would make better sense to fulfill the precept by starting the lighting from the right and then progress leftward.

Among other things, Rabbi Gelnhausen pointed out, this would be consistent with the precedent inherent in the Hebrew language itself: when a scribe sets to writing a Torah scroll, tefillin or a mezuzah, he naturally begins commences from the right margin and continues towards the left. 

Uncle Maharil, however, had little patience for this sort of hairsplitting distinction: “I can’t fathom what is compelling you to pass an elephant through the eye of a needle!”

Other authorities at that time had to deal with similar questions, and no clear consensus emerged with respect to either the normative practice or the reasons underlying it.

Rabbi Israel Isserlein was asked to choose between the two major options–Rabbi Meir of Rotenburg’s custom of proceeding from left to right, or of starting from the right in the first place. 

In response, he observed that the matter was subject to regional variations. Rabbi Meir’s procedure had become the norm in the Rhineland regions; whereas the Jews of Austria preferred to start from the right side.

In his attempt to account for the evolution of the divergent practices, Rabbi Isserlein linked it to another difference that he had noted between the observances of the two Jewish communities: the rooms where the Austrian Jews lit their menorahs did not usually have mezuzahs on their doorways, whereas those of the Rhine valley did.

This disparity, if it did in fact exist, was evidently rooted in the climatic conditions of northern Europe. Hanukkah (as some of you might have noticed, unless you happen to live in Australia or South Africa) falls during the coldest days of winter, a season when many people in the Middle Ages were forced to dwell in special “winter quarters,” rooms in their houses that were enhanced by the special luxury of heating. Furthermore, it was not then the universal practice to affix mezuzahs on  every doorway in a house, and therefore the winter quarters, which were not inhabited all year long, were often left without mezuzahs.

The presence or absence of a mezuzah has a definite impact on the positioning of the Hanukkah lamps. The Talmud (Shabbat 21b-22a) ruled that the candles should be placed on the left side of the entrance, because the mezuzah is on the right doorpost, and this would  create a situation in which people would be “surrounded” by religious precepts whenever they passed through the doorway. Subsequent authorities concluded that if there were no mezuzahs, then the preference should naturally default to the right side.

Thus, concluded Rabbi Isserlein, the disparity between the Rhineland and Austrian practices regarding the lighting of Hanukkah lamps may be traced to their differing conventions of mezuzah use. Though Rabbi Meir of Rotenburg was scrupulous to attach mezuzahs to every doorpost in his house, most Jews in central Europe did not keep mezuzahs on their winter quarters, and hence they had no reason not to begin their candle-lighting from the favored right sides of their doorways.

In reviewing this obscure halakhic dispute that took place almost a thousand years ago, it occurred to me that it epitomizes some of the different dimensions of Hanukkah, of our community, and of our general relationship to the observance of mitzvot.

Rabbi Jacob Gelnhausen based his position on an ideal theoretical position, in which the Torah can be observed in its full richness and in its proper climatic conditions. The lights of the menorah can be kindled in the public domain; the Jewish community is surrounded on all sides by an environment that promotes the values of Torah; and we are able to live our Judaism with all the limbs of our bodies. Therefore we may proceed with confidence directly “from the right side” to carry out our mission of making God known in the world and of contributing to the betterment of society.

On the other hand, Rabbi Meir of Roterburg and Maharil exemplify a type of Jewish existence that has been transplanted to the chilling winter of the exile. Here we have been removed from our normal habitat, and must shine our Hanukkah lamps from temporary annexes, from artificially heated “winter quarters.” We must make a conscious effort to affix a mezuzah to a structure that was not really designed for normal habitation. In this alien environment it demands a major exertion just to keep ourselves from freezing (I am speaking, of course, in a purely metaphoric sense), let alone to diffuse our light into a world that sorely needs it. This type of Judaism does not encompass all our limbs, but is restricted to some ritual gestures that we can perform from a (figuratively) stationary position.
In this situation, our spiritual energies must first be channeled into the proper direction for illuminating the world with the light of Torah. We must figuratively turn ourselves “from the left” by insuring our survival and our viability as a religious community; and only then can we proceed to our real task of enriching humanity with the warmth and luminescence of Torah.

It is indeed possible–and necessary–to radiate the light of the Torah even from the demanding surroundings of exile. Nevertheless, it is only natural that we should yearn impatiently for the time when we will all be able to replace these frigid and anomalous winter quarters with the bright, warm atmosphere in which the Torah can thrive in its authentic fullness.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, December 20, 2009.

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My email address is: [email protected]

You’re Poor—I’m Poor

by Eliezer Segal

Deuteronomy 15 4 But there will be no poor among you (for the Lord will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess),  5 if only you will obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment which I command you this day.  6 For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.  7 “If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,  8 but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.  9 Take heed lest there be a base thought in your heart, and you say, `The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye be hostile to your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and it be sin in you.  10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him; because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.  11 For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.

Back in the ’60s, many of us were inspired by the conviction that the Torah is above all else a programme for a just and righteous. Like Perchik in “Fiddler on the Roof,” we read the Bible –and it was not really so difficult to do so–as an tract exposing the oppression of the proletariat by unscrupulous employers, and calling for an equitable distribution of wealth.

Decades later, after surviving LBJ’s war on poverty and PET’s Just Society, and as my neck has been gradually reddening in the capitalistic Alberta environment, my faith in the social message of the Torah suffers a severe blow every year when we get to this week’s Parashah. For here we find a brief clause that seems to render the whole enterprise futile and meaningless: 

For the poor shall never cease out of the land (Deuteronomy. 15:11).

In these six Hebrew words, we have a divine promise that all our efforts will never succeed in eradicating poverty from the face of the earth! You may appreciate that I find this a very bleak and disturbing prospect.

Some of the commentators have touched on this difficulty, not so much as an ethical issue, but as an exegetical one. Their starting point in most cases is what appears to be one of the most glaring about-faces in the Bible: At the beginning of Deuteronomy Chapter 14, when setting out the rules about the sabbatical years, Moses admonishes us to refrain from collecting any debts from our brothers.

That which is yours with your brother your hand shall release. But there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it

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So according to this verse, we do not have to worry about poverty, because we can count on the divine blessings to ultimately remove the curse of poverty from our community.

What is going on here? Which scenario is the operative one? Can poverty be cured, or is it a permanent feature of the social landscape?

The most popular solution to this conundrum is found in a midrash quoted by Rashi, that both situations are possible, and when all is said and done, the matter lies in our hands. If you act in conformity with the divine will, then there will no longer be any poor among you. Otherwise, they will remain with you.

This approach has much to recommend it, especially if we interpret it not as a promise of reward for following the mizvot, but rather (as I tend to prefer) as a confirmation of the fact that any state that is built entirely on the the principles of the Torah will necessarily contain social institutions that will lift all its citizens above the poverty line. 

However, this does not seem to completely resolve the exegetical issue. The declaration For the poor shall never cease seems to be stated in absolute terms. Several of the commentators (for example, Rashbam and Sforno) understand this as if Moses was saying: Yes, you do have it in your power to eliminate poverty from your midst—however, I happen to know that you will never really realize that potential. You are doomed to perpetuate injustices, inequities and therefore, poverty.

Ramban was familiar with that interpretation, and objected to it with great indignation. It is unthinkable (he protested) that the Torah would ever say such a thing, that God has advance knowledge of our ultimate failure to live up to the Torah’s standards.

Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz takes up this objection, to launch into a valuable and impassioned tirade against those who read the words of the Nevi’im as if they were inexorable predictions of what will take place in the future: 

the connotation of a Divine promise is not like a pagan oracle, which tells us what will occur in the future. Had that been the case, that would not have a religious significance. A divine promise is always a demand made of man: this is the way things ought to be. This … has extremely profound significance specifically in the realm of faith: No prophet predicts but that which should be–and there is no guarantee that that is the way it will be. This applies equally to Israel’s redemption and its return to its land: all of this is what should be, but whether it will be that way depends, at least to some extent, on us.

The Ramban therefore proposes that we read the problematic verse about the persistence of poverty in a very specific manner: True, we are not guaranteeing you that you will fail to establish a just society —but, by the same token, we cannot give you an iron-clad assurance that some day, during the long course of Jewish history and in the infinite range of possible social, economic and and moral situations, the extinct phenomenon of poverty will not again rear its ugly head among us. If (God forbid!) that should occur, then do not forget the guidelines that I am setting before you here about how to deal with the needy with generosity and compassion.

Again, the interpretation is satisfying on the ethical and theological planes, but it seems to require too much tampering with the actual words of the text. 

With much trepidation, therefore, I would like to suggest a different path out of the difficulty, one that is more rooted in the logic of the biblical text. 

The statement that there shall be no poor among you appears (as noted previously) in the context of a plea to cancel debts on the sabbatical year. As paraphrased by the Riba (Rabbi Judah ben Eliezer): 

So that you should not say: How can I cancel my debts, since it will probably bring me to a state of poverty. For this reason it says ‘But there shall be no poor among you’: the Torah is assuring you that when a creditor cancels a debt, it will not reduce them to poverty.

The reference to poverty here is thus to that of the creditor who is being addressed by the Torah, 

On the other hand, in the statement the poor shall never cease out of the land, the reference is to the needy person who should be the recipient of the loan or the object of your generosity.

To my mind, this shift of perspective is a decisive one. The Torah is teaching us a modest, but valuable lesson: We must learn apply to ourselves stricter standards than we apply to others. The truth is that I (usually) have much clearer understandings of my own motives, psychology and thresholds for sufferings than I have for any other human being. Consequently, in the present instance, I should try not to attach great importance to my potential economic inconvenience, if it will prevent me from carrying out my philanthropic obligations towards others. On the other hand, however, when dealing with another human being, I should regard seriously their destitution, even if it might require me to give them the benefit of the doubt; I must recognize that their situation might be more painful to them than it would be to me. Therefore, as illogical as it might sound on the surface, another person’s needs should affect me more than my own.

This is a lesson whose applications are not confined to the realm of charity, but can be applied to all our interpersonal relationships. It is always a virtuous and wise policy to be forgiving to others, and to make allowances for mitigating circumstances; while holding oneself up to more demanding standards. It is certainly preferable to its opposite. If nothing else, it makes it considerably easier to deal with the shortcomings of others, and hopefully, it has the potential to make us into better people.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, August 11, 2007.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Counting Blessings

by Eliezer Segal

Genesis 24 1 And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in everything.

The sages of the Midrash, with their characteristic attention to scriptural detail, observed that the Hebrew word kol –“all” or “everything”–is applied to each one of the three ancestors of the Hebrew nation– to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

Regarding Abraham, it states in Genesis 24:1: 

“And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in everything“. 

Later, in Genesis 27:33, when Isaac discovers that he has been deceived into accepting Jacob’s gift of meat and conferring on him the blessing he had intended for Esau, the Bible relates:

“Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate from everything before you came, and I have blessed him?'”

And lastly, in Genesis 33:11 when Jacob meets up with Esau after years of separation, he appeals to his estranged sibling as follows: 

“Accept, I pray you, my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything.” 

Beyond the verbal similarity, it is hard to discern any meaningful conceptual pattern that would unite these three diverse occurrences of the word “everything.” Anomalies of that sort posed a special challenge to the traditional Jewish commentators.

Taking his cue from the first instance, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch understood that the three Hebrew patriarchs exemplified different stages in the recognition of the divine blessings in their lives. Each of these figures cultivated a different types of perfection of completeness, which corresponded to the different courses that their lives took. Central to Rabbi Hirsch’s interpretation is the premise that, while the presence of God’s goodness may be a constant and fundamental feature of reality, human beings vary in the degree to which they acknowledge those blessings in their lives.

Abraham represents the most basic type of awareness. In connection with him, the word kol is preceded by the preposition ba, meaning “Through everything.” This indicates that his life exemplified the quality of appreciating that he was in fact blessed. After all, Abraham’s life had been one of success and increasing public esteem. Therefore, it was relatively easy for him to be conscious of God’s blessings, since (notwithstanding his earlier trials and struggles) he achieved a state of prosperity and prestige. Under these circumstances, we might not consider it a sign of remarkable piety when Abraham acknowledged the Almighty’s generosity in bestowing the blessings upon him; nevertheless, his virtue can be appreciated to some extent when contrast Abraham’s attitude with those of lesser individuals, in our own times as well as in that spiritually primitive era, who are never satisfied even when they are enjoying material comforts and success. 

Isaac, according to Rabbi Hirsch, embodied a more advanced stage in the acknowledging divine blessings. In his case, the Torah uses the expression “from everything.” This suggests that Isaac cultivated the quality of actively transforming adversity into goodness. When Isaac was confronted by setbacks or afflictions, he knew how to transform them into positive opportunities to serve God and obey his will. 

Jacob exemplified the ultimate stage in this religious evolution. He declares simply “I have everything” without any qualifying prepositions. 

The highest blessing, and at the same time one that can be obtained in every station of life, is Jacob’s yesh li kol, he has everything because he wants nothing more than what he has. Because altogether what he wants is “to do,” not “to have.” Thus, even in the most depressing times that Jacob lived through, he is content and finds happy satisfaction with life.

According to this interpretation, Jacob’s was a life of complete equanimity. He reached a state of spiritual perspective in which there was no significant difference between the triumphs and the tragedies of life: from such an exalted vantage, everything is recognized as a divine blessing. Jacob does not complain about life. Though he, unlike his grandfather Abraham, was confronted with continual suffering and troubles, he never complained about his lot in life.

Rabbi Hirsch judged Jacob’s attitude to be a much higher, more sublime blessing than those of his predecessors. However, on my initial reading of the commentary, I was quite upset at his approach. The kind of passive acceptance of situations that he praises is not necessarily a virtue; it can often lead an insensitivity to suffering or injustice. 

Clearly, Jacob’s life cannot be understood so simplistically. The Torah’s account of his life does not depict him as a person who accepted everything without protesting or taking action. He confronted Laban, and chastised his sons over their massacre of Shechem and their treatment of each other. At the end of his days, when he summarizes his life to Pharaoh, he was obviously aware that it has not been a consistently happy one.

On further reflection, I realize that this might be precisely the point that Hirsch was trying to make. To recognize God’s blessings through adversity should not require us to deceive ourselves or to view the world through rose-coloured glasses. The highest level of spiritual awareness is when we are able to maintain a realistic awareness of life’s difficulties, injustices and trials–but not let that fact cause us to lose sight of the blessings that permeate our lives, whether in reality or in potential.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, November 18, 2006.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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No Miracles, Please

by Eliezer Segal

Numbers 16 31 And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:  32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.  33 They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.  34 And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also .  35 And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense…  46 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun.  47 And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people.  48 And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed… Numbers 17 8 And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.

This section of the Torah contains a relatively high quotient of spectacular miracles, which are performed in order to prove that Moses and Aaron have been divinely chosen to serve the leaders of Israel; and that the rebels who challenge their authority are acting in opposition to God’s will.

In this spirit, we are told about the ground opening to swallow up Korah and his congregation, and then closing itself to trap them them underneath. A supernatural fire was also produced to consume the two hundred and fifty men who offered up incense. And if that is not enough, then a plague was unleashed, and Aaron had to stop it by carrying incense into the middle of the infected congregation. The rod of Aaron, alone among those of the tribal princes, sprouted blossoms and almonds.

An innocent reading of the text would argue that these supernatural changes to the natural order are not just peripheral to the story, but are central to its message: 

And Moses said: Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works, and that I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, and be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent Me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the ground open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down alive into the pit, then ye shall understand that these men have despised the Lord. 

(Numbers 16:28-30)

It is therefore quite startling to observe how much of an effort was made my some of the medieval Jewish commentators to minimize the dimensions of the miracles, and to provide naturalistic explanations for what we would normally read as quintessentially supernatural occurrences. As we shall see, this approach was formulated in general terms by Maimonides; but it was applied more consistently by rationalistic exegetes in southern France during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such as Rabbi Levi ben Abraham (author of livyat Hen) and Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles (author of Ma’aseh Nissim).

Leading off this discussion is Maimonides in his commentary to Mishnah Avot 5:6. The Mishnah there lists the mouth of the earth that swallowed up Korah’s congregation among the ten things that were created at twilight on the eve of the first Sabbath. This Mishnah is central to Maimonides’ understanding of the place of miracles within the scientific order. For him, the Mishnah’s image of preparing a miracle in the last stages of the creation is a metaphor for the principle that nature is, in reality, permanent and unchangeable; as is the God who imposed those eternal laws on his creation. It is therefore inappropriate to imagine that God can change his mind capriciously by interrupting or altering scientific laws. Hence, we should understand that those events described in the Bible that appear to involve suspensions of scientific laws are, in actuality, programmed into the original laws when they were formulated. For this reason the rabbis said that on the sixth day God embedded it into the nature of the world that Korah and his congregation would be swallowed up, and that the well would emit water, and that [Balaam’s] ass would speak, and so forth”

Some interpreters of Maimonides understood him to be implying that an earthquake was scheduled to occur at that spot on that day; and that what was special here was that Moses was made aware of that fact in advance. 

Nahmanides was clearly aware that the event could be perceived as an earthquake, and he argued vehemently against such an interpretation. In particular, he claimed that natural earthquakes do not close themselves up, so that that fact is irrefutable proof that divine agency was involved here. Other commentators, however, went on at length to demonstrate that the closing up could be accounted for by conventional science, by the earth falling back into the chasm through the force of gravity, or through sand and dust being propelled there by the winds in a sandstorm.

Similarly, Rabbi Nissim of Marseilles proposed that when the Torah states And fire came forth from the Lord, and devoured the two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense, what it really means to say was that Moses, as an accomplished scientist and philosopher, knew how to insert a poison into the fire that would be spread by means of the smoke and kill of the insurgents. He even suggests that Ibn Ezra might have implied that such a scenario was possible. When commenting on the people’s murmurings against Moses and Aaron (16:41) You have killed the people of the Lord–Ibn Ezra interprets that as What evidence was this that the tribe of Levi was chosen and that Aaron was chosen as high priest? It is possible that you caused the burning of the offerers by means of your prayers or your expertise. Such an argument would not really have been conceivable if an obviously miraculous flame had consumed them. 

Rabbi Levi ben Abraham argued that the incense that was used to stop the plague was really a powerful disinfectant that was capable of counteracting the toxins in the air.

As regards the flowering of Aaron’s rod, some of the commentators tried to diminish the supernatural elements of this miracle as well. The Torah reports (17:8) behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds implying that it went through the entire maturing process in one night. Our philosophical exegetes limit the miracle to the claim that Aaron’s rod was the first to flower; but the more advanced stages of fruit-bearing did not occur until a later time. 

What is the point of advocating these kinds of explanations, which seem so out of step with the straightforward point of the Torah’s narrative? I think that what these philosophers were arguing was not so much that God could not perform real Technicolor miracles–but that he would not: astounding manipulations of nature are inappropriate to God as he is understood by rationalists.

Maimonides takes every opportunity to remind us that the existence of God, as well as whatever we are capable of understanding about his nature, can only be derived from a lifelong study of science and philosophy. The specific proofs that he offers for God’s existence are all based on the permanence, infinity and eternity of the universe; these all imply that the being that brought that universe into existence must also be eternal and unchanging. It was this ageless deity who established the laws of science and nature; and therefore every violation of those laws diminishes God’s absolute greatness. Once you accept that premise, it is understandable why Jewish philosophers were so determined to play down the role of miracles.

I confess that I have never been particularly sympathetic to that outlook. I have always felt more comfortable worshipping a personal deity with whom I can have a meaningful relationship, and whom I can trust to interact dynamically with his creatures.

Nevertheless, I am trying to enter empathetically into the mindset of the medieval rationalists, and to derive some practical lessons from this abstract conflict of world-views.

It seems to me that what the philosophers were seeking was an ultimate truth on which they could depend absolutely and unswervingly. This led them to prefer a God who is unchanging and eternal, who placed us in a universe that is also subject to fixed and permanent laws. In making this choice, the philosophers were well aware that there is an alternative perspective that is, in many respects, more attractive and personally satisfying: a world that is constantly amazing and surprising us, in which the earth might open its mouth, or flames pour down from the heavens at any moment. 

I will humbly sidestep the big theological question about whether a miracle-working God is preferable to an unchangeable one. However, I think the same approach can be applied to some more mundane areas of our daily lives. Here are a few that come to mind:

• As an educator, I am increasingly conscious of administrative pressures to capture my students’ lagging attention spans with sensational special effects. I am not yet convinced that the culture of edutainment is a valid long-term substitute for the instilment of basic learning skills and plain old hard work and studying, which are not always amusing or sexy activities. In the long run, Solid and Dependable are more important values than Startling and electrifying.
• The Hollywood paradigm of romance / marriage requires an uninterrupted fireworks show. When the relationship becomes too comfortable or demanding, that is portrayed as a sign of atrophy, and a hint that the relationship is ready for termination with the first argument. In this respect too, our theological debate teaches us to respect the virtues of Commitment and Fidelity that transcend the romantic superficialities.
• This insight might also have an impact on how we value our spiritual and congregational life. The culture of instant gratification has been extended to the religious domain, so that we claim entitlement to synagogues where every service brings us an immediate mystical experience, where every sermon is an electrifying masterpiece, where every cantor is a Carlebach or a Koussevitzky. Yes, it would be very nice if we could permanently maintain that level of spirituality, and we should not cease striving for it–but it cannot come at the expense of the humbler demands of Jewish religious life: the commitment to daily study, to showing up for weekday services, for all the countless menial routines without which a Jewish community could not function.

The generation who witnessed the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea and the revelation at Mount Sinai failed miserably when it came to internalizing the values of the Torah. It took forty years of uneventful living and learning in the desert to bring them to the stage where they could be counted on to create a functioning Jewish society. 

It is a daunting commitment, and it is not always accompanied by fireworks or earthquakes. Still, it’s the least we can do for a God who keeps our universe in dependable running order.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, July 1, 2006.

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My email address is: [email protected]

First Fruits

by Eliezer Segal

Exodus 23 19 The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

The ultimate philosophical question might very well be: Why is there something, rather than nothing? 
This is the unanswerable conundrum that turns scientists into philosophers, and sends philosophers looking for refuge in the realms of religion.
As overwhelming as this mystery might appear to the philosopher or scientist, the midrash suggests a solution that is sublime in its simplicity–or is it naïvité?

Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rav Mattenah: The universe was created for the sake of three things: hallah [the dough offering set aside for the priests], tithes, and first-fruits [bikkurim]; as it says (Genesis 1:1) in [or: for the sake of] the beginning [Hebrew: be-reshit] God created. Reshithdesignates hallah, as it is written (Deuteronomy 15:20): Of the first (reshith) of your dough; reshith designates tithes, as it is written (18:4): The first- fruits (reshith) of thy corn; and reshith designates first-fruits, as it is written (Exodus 23:19): The choicest (reshith) first-fruits of thy land, etc.

Genesis Rabbah 1:7

This homily employs some typical midrashic rhetorical devices: It plays around with the ambiguities of Hebrew inflexions, so that in the beginning is read as for the sake of the ‘first’; and it strings together disparate biblical passages based on a common word. However, beyond the clever rhetoric, it is difficult to discern any useful lesson in Rav Mattenah’s words. Granted that Judaism regards the observance of  mitzvoth–religious precepts–as the central expression of devotion, and hence perhaps, as a purpose of creation–the question still remains: What is so special about these three commandments that would elevate them to the status of that for the sake of which the universe was created?

A fascinating interpretation of this midrash was offered by Rabbi Löw of Prague (1525-1609)–the Maharal. The Maharal observed that the three commandments mentioned in this midrash represent three different kinds of blessings that the Almighty bestows on our world:

1. Hallah is taken from the dough that is used to make bread. Bread is traditionally regarded as the staff of life, and therefore stand for those things that are absolutely essential for basic subsistence.
2. Tithes are taken mostly from the fruits of trees. Fruits are not quite as essential as bread for minimal survival–but we would feel impoverished and incomplete if we had no fruits at all. This is a different level of blessing.
3. First-fruits constitute a special subset of fruits. Physically they are not really different from normal fruit, and yet their setting lends them a greater appeal for the farmer and the consumer. At the time of their appearance, they have been unavailable for several month, and therefore they are especially delectable and tempting. Some commentators have noted how the observance of this mitzvah requires extraordinary self-restraint when the owner overcome his natural instincts and offers those juicy new fruits to the priest. 

At these three distinctive levels, argues Rabbi Löw, these three specific commandments provide us with unique opportunities to emulate the divine creative process.

To return to our initial question of Why is there a world?–the spiritual and moral answer favoured by Maharal is: Because God is a being who is overflowing with blessings and goodness, and he needs something other than himself upon which to bestow all that goodness. The role of humans, as understood by the Torah, is not merely to receive the blessings, but to become part of a divine chain-reaction, as we continue to generate love and kindness to our society and our environment. In fashioning human beings, the Almighty has created instruments who are capable of initiating new flows of generosity and compassion, in dynamically loving universe. Lord know there are people in the world who are in dire and immediate need of our assistance to merely continue their physical existence in the face of human or natural threats. Our mandate, however, does not stop there. The symbolism of the bikkurim, the first fruits reminds us of our obligation to instill beauty and spirituality into the lives of our fellow inhabitants of the universe.

Conventional theologians have spoken at length about monotheistic belief, in the sense of denying multiplicity of deities, or even of multiplicity within God. In the light of these insights of the Maharal, I would suggest that there is a fundamental difference between the perception of God as one and as first. Divine unity invokes an image of absolute transcendence, completeness and self-sufficiency. On the other hand, it is only possible to be first in a relationship with others. When God is perceived as first rather than just one it necessarily defines him in loving relationship with his creatures. 

Accordingly, when we observe these mitzvoth we are striving to emulate that aspect of the divine personality and to carry out the divine plan for the universe: We receive the blessings in order that we may continue to exemplify the qualities of generosity, compassion and lovingkindness.

In bringing Bikkurim (as we pray that we will be able to do when the Temple is rebuilt in a redeemed Jerusalem), we remember that we are not only a singular people, like the unique God–but we are also a first nation in that our mission involves carrying forward the beautiful chain reaction of proliferating divine abundance throughout the world.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, June 3, 2006.

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My email address is: [email protected]

Just Say No!

by Eliezer Segal

Exodus 17 8 And Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. 9 And Moses said to Joshua, Choose out for yourself mighty men, and go forth and set the army in array against Amalek tomorrow; and behold, I shall stand on the top of the hill, and the rod of God will be in my hand.  10 And Joshua did as Moses said to him, and he went out and set the army in array against Amalek, and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.  11And it came to pass, when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed.  12 But the hands of Moses were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat upon it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on this side and the other on that, and the hands of Moses were supported till the going down of the sun.  13 And Joshua routed Amalek and all his people with the edge of the sword.

When faced with the first military crisis after leaving Egypt, Moses immediately turned to Joshua to lead the army. The Torah does not provide us with an explanation for this selection. Of course, we know that Joshua will later be singled out as Moses’ successor, but that will not occur for forty years, and after Joshua has distinguished himself as one of the two spies to carry out his mission with honour. This is, in fact, the first time that he is ever mentioned in the Torah. Even if we allow that Joshua had risen to a position of leadership in his tribe, Ephraim, there is no obvious reason why he or his trine should have been more suitablethan others for this mission. At this point, we know nothing about Joshua that would justify Moses’s decision to put him at the head of the first Hebrew army.

This is a question that was posed by the rabbis in the midrash, and they proposed various solutions. Several of their interpretations do not allude to any personal qualifications that Joshua may have had, but rather to his tribal identity. As a descendant of Joseph, he personified some of the qualities displayed by his ancestor.

In this spirit, we read the following comment in the midrash: 

Why “to Joshua”? –He said to him: Your ancestor said (Genesis 42:18) “For I fear God”; while with reference to this nation it says (Deuteronomy 25:18) “they had no fear of God.” Let the grandson of the one who declared “For I fear God” come and exact retribution from the one about whom it says “they had no fear of God.”

Now this kind of midrashic symmetry has an undeniable esthetic appeal to it, but it doesn’t quite resolve the difficulties. Although Joseph came up with the appropriate quote, he could hardly claim a monopoly on the fear of God, when compared with his illustrious forbears.

An extraordinary insight into this midrash is ascribed to the Maggid of Dubno. He reminds us that when the rabbis compared passages from the Bible, they were interested in something more than the similarities in the phraseology. In order to fully appreciate their comparison, we have to look carefully at the context.

The quote from Joseph appears in the context of his conversation with his brothers when he first recognizes that they have come to Egypt in search of food. At this stage of the narrative, they have no idea who the person is with whom they are dealing, and Joseph is pleased to maintain the appearance that he is a pureblooded Egyptian viceroy. It is therefore especially significant that Joseph, in spite of his concern not to expose his Israelite identity, felt that it was appropriate to openly profess his religious convictions.

Underlying that statement is the assumption that fear of God is a quality that is not expected only in Jews, but rather it is a universal human virtue. 

According to the Maggid, this is what the midrash had in mind when it said that Joseph’s spiritual heir was the most fitting person to lead the campaign against a nation that had not fear of God.

I think that this understanding of the issue is especially relevant in our world of multiculturalism and moral relativism. We have all been taught to respect the cultures and beliefs of others, and not to impose our values on those who differ from us. The battle against Amalek must stand as a reminder that there are limits to tolerance, and that at times we are commanded to take stands against positions that are simply unacceptable. The minimal standard of basic human decency is defined as “fear of God.” I don’t think it requires that people subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs or observances, but it does demand a fundamental moral sensitivity that arises from a recognition of the sanctity of human life. Fear of God is not to be equated with a theoretical belief in the existence of a deity; and I am certain that there are plenty of people around who invoke God’s name constantly though their behaviour does not attest to a deeply rooted fear of God; even as I have encountered deeply God-fearing individuals who insist that they are atheists. I’m not certain that I would be able to give a clear definition for that quality, but regrettably, there is no lack of instances where it is unquestionably absent. 

The liberal commitment to pluralism–an ideology with which I enthusiastically identify–can be taken to absurd extremes, to a degree that often translates into moral paralysis. I have heard intellectuals argue that we have no business interfering in the affairs of people, because in their culture it is perfectly legitimate to murder heretics, abuse women, submit to sadistic tyrants or to explode themselves in crowds of innocent civilians. “What right do we have to impose our Western values on other people’s traditions?”

Perhaps a similar lesson can be learned from the story of Mordecai and Haman. Presumably, Mordecai had no intrinsic objection to serving as a faithful courtier in the entourage of a non-Jewish king, even though Ahasuerus practiced a different religion– as long as the monarch conformed to basic principles of decency. However, he immediately recognized that Haman, the heir to the Amalekite outlook, was utterly lacking in fear of God–an assessment that was borne out in the effortlessness with which the villain would later condemn an entire nation to genocide. With such a person there was no possibility of cooperation.

Joseph, Joshua and Mordecai all serve as reminder to us that there are limits to toleration–as one of my teachers used to put it: If your mind is too open, it’ll catch cold! There are manifestations of cynical evil and godlessness that are utterly unacceptable, and must be combated.

In our post-modern culture, this is an imperative that is all too easy for us to forget.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, March 11, 2006 .

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My email address is: [email protected]

Singers of Songs

by Eliezer Segal

Exodus 14 19 Then the angel of God who went before the host of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them,  20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness; and the night passed without one coming near the other all night. Exodus 15 1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. 2 The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

At the heart of the current passage from the Torah stands Shirat Hayyam, the Song at the Sea. It is a passage that has always been singled out for special honour and interest. Our sages have expounded at great length about the extraordinary spiritual quality and inspired power that is embodied in its words and in the miracle that occasioned its original recitation.

This has led me to ruminate about the function of song or poetry in Jewish religious life (both these terms are rendered by the same Hebrew word shirah). What is so distinctive about the texts in the Bible that were designated as “songs”? Now that we no longer require the external forms of rhyme, meter and other technical features that used to distinguish poetry from prose, it is hard to define what it is that makes poetry a special form of human expression in English literature. True, biblical poetry has its own external structures–such as parallelism and the graphic spacing of the stanzas–but I cannot believe that these are what constitute the special essence of poetry, the supreme spiritual power that finds unique expression only on rare occasions like the miracle at the Red Sea.

Before dealing to this weighty question, I would like to digress a bit, to a well-known exegetical difficulty that relates to the narrative context of the Song at the Sea, as understood by the ancient rabbis.

A favourite quotation from the Talmud that we like to invoke as evidence for the Torah’s universalistic and compassionate outlooks is the tradition about how the angelic choirs were ready to burst into their songs of praise at the time of the miraculous parting of the Red Sea–but the Holy One stopped them, scolding them with the words “My creatures are drowning in the sea, and you want to recite songs!”

The proof-text for this tradition is Exodus 14:19-20: “Then the angel of God who went before the host of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness; and the night passed without one coming near the other all night.”

The closing Hebrew words of the passage, ve-lo qarav ze el ze kol hallaylah, refer according to the literal sense of the passage, to the distance between the Israelite and Egyptian camps. However, to the sensitive midrashic ear, it recalls the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the celestial angels (6:3): “And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory”–in Hebrew: “ve-qara ze el ze ve-‘amar.” It was this verbal similarity that inspired the association with angelic choirs.

There is something about the interpretation that is not altogether convincing. After all, if we are really so upset by the deaths of the Egyptians, then we should never have been allowed to to recite the magnificent song of thanksgiving that speaks so graphically and joyfully of the drowning of Pharoh’s hosts. And yet, not only was the song awarded a disginguished place in the Torah, but it was incorporated into our daily prayers. It is recited in full every morning before the Sh’ma, and verses from it form the basis for the “Redemption” blessings of the morning and evening services.

Whom do we think we are kidding? Our distress over the fall of our enemies does not seem sincere enough to prevent us from singing about it three times a day.

This question was posed by some of the traditional Jewish commentators. One way to solve the contradiction is by pointing to the decisive differences between the situations of the angels and of the Israelites. It was the angels’ singing that God refused to hear. For after all, what did angels have to sing about on that occasion? They had never experienced liberation or salvation. They had not suffered the tribulations of exile or the pain and humiliation of enslavement. The song that they would be singing would not be an outpouring of joyous gratitude for being delivered from peril or suffering, but only a vindictive gloating over the crushing defeat of the Egyptians. That kind of song was inappropriate, and had to be silenced. 

The Israelites, on the other hand, were celebrating their own rescue from slavery and from death. That was a fitting occasion to sing the praises of the Lord, and therefore they were allowed to sing. This, according to some exegetes, is the significance of the words (Exodus 15:2) “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation”–implying: I sing for my salvation, not for the defeat of my enemy.

The preceding discussion suggests an important clue in our quest for the essence of biblical poetry: A song is not separable from the singer. It is so deeply personal that what are ostensibly the same words will have a totally different significance for an angel and for a mortal Jew, for an individual and for a nation. Jewish traditions generally allows that much of our discourse should be neutral and objective, so that the personalities and biases of the readers and discussants cannot affect the content. What we speak or read in prose exists as an object outside of ourselves. This objectivity holds true for halakhic discourse, in which every opinion must be defended according to rigidly argued logic and proof-texts. In the rabbinic depictions of the “Heavenly Academy,” the Almighty himslef must conform to the same rules of rational debate as he and his heavenly entourage discuss the fine points of talmudic law with human scholars. The patriarch Abraham established the precedent for objective standards of justice when he challenged his Creator “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!” (Genesis 18:25).

Authentic song, on the other hand, is inextricably tied to our deepest being. If the act of singing does not affect and transform us, then it does not qualify as true song–even though it might possess all the external trappings of rhyme, meter and imagery.

This observation is not limited to the Song of Moses or to the poems that are recorded in the Bible. The familiar prayers that make up Jewish liturgy are also crafted as poems, and our sages in the midrash depicted the Israelites at the Red Sea as singing their song in the same manner as the recitation of the Shema or the Hallel in the synagogue. Accordingly, the rabbis of the Talmud insisted that the experience of prayer should not be reduced to a mechanical mouthing of words. They teach us that those who treat their prayers as a fixed routine are not participating in true supplication, and require that we always try insert something fresh in our prayers. I do not delude myself into thinking that this is a goal that we can achieve every time we recite the mandatory services–but we should not allow oursleves to lose sight of the ideal: Prayer is a form of song, and that means that it is not being done properly if we are not personally affected or transformed by the experience. 

When we are realizing our true spiritual potential, we are not only singing the song, but the song should be singing us.

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Delivered at Congregation House of Jacob – Mikveh Israel, Calgary, February 11, 2006 .

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My email address is: [email protected]