Parshat Teruma: The Beit HaMikdash

In this week’s parsha, Parshat Teruma, we are given detailed instructions on the building on the Temple in Jerusalem.  While there are many laws and rules involved, Sefer HaHinnuch wraps it all up into one mitzvah: to build the Beit HaMikdash.  All the details are meant for only one thing: to purify ourselves through our actions.  “The physical self becomes qualified through its actions.  As good actions are multiplied , and as they are continued with great perseverance, the thoughts of the heart become purified, cleansed, and refined.” 

The case of the Beit HaMikdash truly is an example where, as the saying goes, the beauty is in the details.  

Parshat Mishpatim: God and Man's Search for Unity

This is at the core of all Biblical thoughts: God is not a being detached from man to be sought after, but a power that seeks, pursues, and calls upon man.  The way to God is a way of God.  It was not an invention of man but a creation of God; not a product of civilization, but a realm of its own.  Man would not have known Him if He had not approached man.  God’s relation to man precedes man’s relation to Him. 

-          Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

In this week’s parasha I cannot help but be reminded of this book by Heschel.  This week’s parasha is one of laws.  A justice system is set forth to govern the Jewish nation.  Slaves, murder, adultery, theft, property, monetary, and even psychological law are all laid forth.  But these are more than laws to govern our nation.  They are the way of God; they are a way to God.  They are an outcry of God to His people: this is My way; this is how you must live to come close to Me.  The inspiration of Mount Sinai will not last forever, the plagues and splitting of the sea will not happen again.  The time has come, God says, for My people to live Godly lives in order to come close to Me. 

Some moral foundations of the world are also laid down.  Caring for the poor, looking out for women and children, righting your wrong, acting fairly, and acting with integrity are both directly and indirectly behind the entire Torah portion.  Mixed into the judicial and moral foundations of our nation, however, is almost a sense of loneliness, if indeed we are able to apply such a feeling to God.  There is a searching voice, pleading with His people. 

There is the law: If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep or goat, and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five cattle in place of the ox, and four sheep in place of the sheep.

There is the morality: You shall not taunt or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in a foreign land.

And there is God’s need for man: One who brings offerings to the foreign gods shall be destroyed – to God alone!!

God has given us the Torah, the foundation of our lives.  He has given us structure for a productive society, a strong community, a healthy family, a loving relationship.  It is only through the Torah that we can actualize ourselves; only through the Torah can we become Rambam’s vision of Adam – where we achieve a state in which we perceive God and are concerned only with Him, only with True and False.  Only through Torah can we sense the Divine Blueprint in everyone, in everything.  But the Torah is not only for Man to connect with God, but for God to connect with man. 

There is the law: A man who strikes a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death.  But for one who had not lain in ambush…I shall provide you a place to which he shall flee.

There is the morality: If you take your [poor] fellow’s clothing as security [for a loan], you shall return it at sunset, for it alone is his clothing.  It is his garment for his skim; In what else shall he sleep?

And there is God’s need for man: Three pilgrimage festivals shall you celebrate for Me during the year…you shall not be seen before me empty-handed.

God contracted during creation, making room for the world to be created.  He is removed from the world.  We are the keilim, the vessels, by which His presence can reenter the world.  Without us, it is as if He does not exist.  God searches for Adam and Eve: Where art thou?  God called out to Moses: Moses, Moses. God chases Job: Thou dost hunt me like a lion (Job 10:16).  Yehuda HaLevi found God coming for him: And going out to meet Thee, I found Thee coming toward me. 

But this is precisely the way God meant it to be: It is not a invention of man but a creation of God.  He imbued us with a part of Him.  Our spirit is a part of Him that longs to be reunited.  And just as our neshama wants to reunite with where it came from (i.e. become one with God), God’s neshama longs to collect all the pieces of His being that have been dispersed throughout the world.  It is never a one-way pull.  We may feel completely detached, but our soul is always searching for something more.  And its missing piece is likewise searching.  As Heschel says, our soul does not always penetrate our mind but it is always trying.  Because of this fundamental problem, the problem that we cannot always be inspired; that we cannot always be immersed in faith; that we cannot always be spiritually “tapped in;” it is because of this that we are given the Torah through which to constantly be expressing our Faith.  Even when we do not experience faith, we can express it.  We can express, over and over, the experience of faith that we have had without ever experiencing it again. 

Man is not for the sake of good deeds; the good deeds are for the sake of man.  Judaism asks for more than works, for more than opus operatum.  The goal is not that a ceremony be performed; the goal is that man be transformed; to worship the Holy in order to by holy.  The purpose of the mitzvoth is to sanctify man (Heschel). 

The mitzvoth do indeed have the power to transform us.  During a conversation about food at work, a co-worker asked me last week: “What do Jews have to look forward to?”  I initially thought she meant, “it sucks that you can’t eat so many things,” but she clarified: “We Catholics have Jesus Christ, our savior, and look forward to the second coming.  What do Jews have to look forward to?”  I responded with an explanation of the Jewish concept of the messianic era, of Olam Haba (the world to come), and the purpose of man to perfect the world.  But in reality, while that is something I look forward to, Judaism is a way of life that provides so much more than a picturesque vision of the distant future.  For the “Torah is not a legal system that concerns itself solely with the heavenly, to the complete exclusion of the day-to-day survival” (Rav Elon).  As a Jew, I do not merely keep Shabbat; I take time to focus on what is really important in life, to spend time with friends and family, and myself.  I do not merely eat kosher; I teach myself to have self control and that even a physical act can be done with spirituality.  I do not merely pray; I become a better person by understanding the words of our tefillot.  I do not merely avoid eating chametz on Passover; I attempt to purge myself of spiritual filth, I remember to treat others the way I want to be treated.  I do not merely give tzedakah, I make time to help those who are less fortunate.  I don’t merely say Modeh Ani (Thank you to God) every morning; I try to make my life really have meaning.  I don’t merely say “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered or provoked me or sinned against me” before bed every night; I truly try to remove any trace of jealousy, hatred, or anger from my heart.  I don’t merely avoid being rude to people; I try to make people’s day a little brighter.  And weaving it all together is my desire to become closer to God and, yes, God’s desire for me to become closer to Him.  

For a long time I was confused by some verses in Hallel, but no longer.  In Ma-ashiv, we say: “Truly, Lord, I am your servant.  I am your servant, son of your maidservant.  You set me free from my chains.”  We are God’s servant, but He has set us free.  Yet still, “to You I shall bring a thanksgiving-offering and call on the Lord by name.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the House of the Lord, in your midst Jerusalem.  Halleluya!”  Why is it that as a free man, I return to You, my God?

It is our very freedom that gives us ability to be God’s servant.  God set us free in the world, he gave us free choice; we are the ones that can bring God in to the world, into our lives, and make ourselves subservient to His will.  Because after all, by doing God this ‘favor’ we are able to realize the truth: that “The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.”  The mitzvoth dictated in this week’s parsha are the building blocks to a life full of meaning and happiness, a life for which we will sing out: “You are my God and I will thank You” with my own free will.  “You are my God, I will exalt You” because following in your ways has given me more joy than I knew I could have.  

Parshat Yitro: Moses' "Family"

New names are always popping up in the Torah: a family tree here, meeting a relative there, a random passerby somewhere.  Whenever a new name pops up I try to ask myself: who is this person?  And, more importantly, why are they mentioned?  Where are they expounded upon in Jewish literature, if anywhere? 

This week, it was Gershom and Eliezer – the sons of Moses – that pop up and, just as quickly, get washed out of the Torah’s narrative.  Gershom was mentioned once before, during his birth (Exodus 22:22), but when they (along with their mother, Moses’ wife, Tzippora), are reunited with their father it is hardly a noteworthy even in the Torah.  Indeed it is even odder, given the emphasis on family and relationships in Bereishit, that the personal life of Moses is not present in the Torah.  Fortunately, Professors Adrian Ziderman and Nathan Aviezer of Bar-Ilan University both had similar curiosities into the lack of emphasis on the family of Moses. 

Professor Ziderman brings midrashic evidence to help us understand their absence:

Yitro said to him [Moses]: Where are you taking [Tzippora, my daughter, and my grandchildren]?  He replied: To Egypt.  Hi said to Him: Those that are already in Egypt seek to leave and you are taking them there!?  Moses replied: In the future, they are due to leave and stand at Mount Sinai to hear from the mouth of God, “I am the Lord thy God.”  Will my sons not hear this with the others!?  Immediately, Yitro said to Moshe, Go in peace. (Midrash Rabbah on Shemot 4:18)

…So Moses took his wife and sons…and returned to the land of Egypt (Shemot 4:20). 

When God charged Moses to be the leader of our redemption from Egypt, he packed up for the job with his wife and sons.  They were going to stick together as a family.  And, until we get to this week’s parsha, we can only assume that Moses and his family are still together.  But our parsha begins:

Yitro, the minister of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses, heard everything that God did to Moses and to Israel, His people – that Hashem had taken Israel out of Egypt.  Yitro, the father-in-law of Moses, took Tzipporah, the wife of Moses, after she had been sent away; and her two sons….  He said to Moses, I, your father-in-law Yitro, have come to you, with your wife and her two sons with her (Shemot 18:1-6).

At what point did Moses part ways with his family?  When did they return to Midian?  Did Moses send them away, did they leave, did God command them to leave?  We have a second Midrash, eerily similar to the first, that answers our question:

When God said to him in Midian, Go, return to Egypt, then Moses took his wife and sons…and Aharon went and they met at Mount Sinai.  [Aharon] said, Who are these? Moses replied: This is my wife whom I married in Midian and these are my sons.  He said to him: And where are you taking them?  He replied: To Egypt!  He said: We feel sorrow for the earlier ones and you want to add to their number?  Moses said to Tzippora: Go to your father’s house.  She took her two sons and returned (Mechilta). 

Similar to Yitro, Aharon advises Moses to avoid taking his wife and sons to Egypt.  Why does Moses heed the advice of his brother and not that of his father-in-law?  Professor Ziderman points to the different intent behind the two men’s appeal.  While Yitro was speaking logically about the practical matters of going to Egypt to leave it –wouldn’t it be easier to just stay out? – Aharon spoke out of compassion, wanting to spare more people the pain and suffering that the Jews were experiencing in Egypt.  For this reason, Moses listened to Aharon but not Yitro.  And – Rabbi Aviezer points out – the interactions of Moses, Aharon, and Yitro is not related in the Torah because they are family.  The Torah conveys the business part of their relationships, the part that shows leaders connecting, butting heads, joining or refuting ideas.  This is in sharp contrast to Bereishit, where there was a stronger emphasis on familial ties.  But Bereishit is gone and the rest of the Torah is focused on the Jewish Nation, not the individual. 

So now we have an answer to where Moses’ family was, why they were sent away from Egypt, and why they were not present at Mt. Sinai.  What might be the most important thing to note, however, is the undeniably huge impact that Gershom and Eliezer’s absence at Sinai had on our development as a nation.  Gershom and Eliezer, who are not again mentioned in the Torah, do not assume leadership roles, they do not become Kohanim (priests).  They are not able, it seems, to lead the people because of the fact that they missed Mt. Sinai; they missed the chance to hear God speaking to them, to feel God’s presence in the clouds of glory, to see his fire, to be overtaken by spiritual bliss.  I think this may also be the reason that Yitro in the Torah, and the Mechilta, call Gershom and Eliezer “her sons,” Tzippora’s sons, and not Moses’.  It was as if they were not Moses’ sons, as if they were even from another nation, because they were not present at the founding of our nation.  How could they be an integral part of the Jewish nation when they missed its defining moment?  The Torah answers: they cannot!  And hence they are relegated to merely a mention in the Torah. 

Let us not miss out call to hear God speak to us, in our lives, and act with the knowledge that God is there beside us.