Dvar Torah: Yom Kippur Morning (UIUC Hillel)

It was not an easy decision to start walking with a kipah six or seven years ago. I wanted it to be a constant reminder that l was walking in God's presence, that I am here to serve the world and not the other way around, that the people I interact with, from the prospective student to the University president, from Hillel's largest donor to the beggar at the street corner, from my newborn baby to my 100-year-old grandmother, we are all created in the Divine image and we deserve to be treated with dignity. It was also a symbol to the rest of the world, showing that l was serious about my engagement with my Jewish tradition, and that l was studying to become a rabbi. My reluctance, on the other hand, had to do with expressing what kind of religious Jew I was becoming, a message that was not carried by my kipah, even when I tried a gorgeous pink one.

 

But back to acknowledging God’s presence in all moments of my life, which was a huge factor in the decision. What about the moments in which I don't want anyone with me? Times in which I am about to do something that I know is wrong ‐ or simply, when I want to go the bathroom? Yeah.... The bathroom was one of my big crisis with my kipah for quite some time and it took me two or three years to stop taking my kipah off when I went there. Let’s acknowledge: there is the beauty of religion, the intricate poems we read and the lofty sermons we hear at services - and there is the messiness of life, with bathrooms and dirt, and poverty, and wars; and we are all much better served if we can keep these two worlds (the synagogue and the real world) as separate as possible.

 

Except that this approach is the very opposite of what the Jewish tradition has to say on the matter. Judaism, as a way of living, is not limited to the four walls of this room. If Torah is really meant to become a tree of life, it needs to encounter life, and this encounter can only happen when we open our whole lives to the values we talk about during religious services.  Without being with us when we meet our daily lives and dirt, and poverty, and wars, Judaism loses much of its power and significance. 

 

And before we get to the topic of sex, let me start with a story and a request. First, the story:

 

A few months ago, Lisa Brown, a Michigan State Representative, was suspended from speaking on the House Floor because she mentioned the word "vagina." Does anyone here know what she said before she got to the word vagina? Here it is the text:

 

Yesterday we heard the representative from Holland speak about religious freedom. I’m Jewish. I keep kosher in my home. I have two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for dairy, and another two sets of dishes on top of that for Passover. Judaism believes that therapeutic abortion, namely abortions performed in order to preserve the life of the mother, are not only permissible but mandatory. The stage of pregnancy does not matter. Wherever there is a question of the life of the mother or that of the unborn child, Jewish law rules in favor of preserving the life of the mother. The status of the fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother. The status of the fetus as human life does not equal that of the mother. I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?

And finally Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina but no means no.

 

Regardless of your position on the abortion debate, Rep. Brown was making a thoughtful claim for religious freedom in this country - and, yet, most people don't have any idea of what she said, and she is now famous nationally because of one word: vagina.

 

So, this is my request: today we are going to talk a bit about sex but, more importantly, we are going to talk about human dignity. Keep that in mind. Don’t let the word "sex" prevent you from listening to the values that we will discuss here today.

 

And, for the record, before my speaking privileges are also revoked for speaking about sex on Yom Kippur ‐ I am not the one who made the choice of topic. It's part of the traditional liturgy for this day. The text that is traditionally read on Yom Kippur afternoon is Leviticus 18, which you will find in your blue booklets and deals with rules of proper sexual behavior. There we find prohibitions against incest, and against sexual acts practiced as part of pagan religious ceremonies, and against sex with animals. We also find the following statement: “do not lie with a man in the ways of lying down with a woman; it is an abomination.” (verse22) This verse had been used as textual proof that homosexuality [at least male homosexuality) is absolutely forbidden by the Jewish religion.

 

Now... let me go on a detour and give you some background for how I think we need to read this text, and all of Torah for that matter. I do not see Torah as a lesson plan, a document telling me how to conduct my life, step by step. God created us in the Divine image and gave us the intellect and the capacity to discern right and wrong, good and bad and, therefore, make our own decisions. To stay within the realm of metaphors in the field of education, I see Torah as a set induction. Set induction are the activities the teacher does in the beginning of a class to stir people’s interest in the matter.

 

So, when I read the verse “do not lie with a man in the ways of lying down with a woman; it is an abomination," I do not read it as an absolute condemnation of same sex relationships, I read as an invitation to discuss the ethics of intimate relationship and get to conclusions that are relevant to me, my generation, my values and the world I live in. Homosexuality might even be one of the topics of the conversation, but it is certainly not the only one - and while Iwant Jewish values at the center of this process, I have the right to get to conclusions that are not the traditional ones. In the words of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, one of the most influential Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, "Tradition has a vote, but not a veto.”

 

It might sound revolutionary, but it is the traditional rabbinic way of reading the Torah. In Deutoronomy 21:18-21, parents are instructed to take their rebellious children to the gates of the city, so they could be stoned to death. I have met many rebellious children in my life (and I might have been one myself.) but I have never heard of anyone being stoned because of this. The rabbis understood that the text was an invitation to discuss relationships between children and their parents - not a free card to physical punishment as a form of education. A rabbinic text from the 2nd century asks why these commandments were included in the biblical text and the answer is, so that you can learn it, discuss it , and be rewarded through your growth.

 

Many Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative communities have, for many years, abstained from engaging in this conversation. Different from the perspective I am trying to transmit here, it was understood that this passage was not an appropriate reading for Yom Kippur. You won’t find it in your Reform Machzor. But this approach has been challenged in the past 10 or 20 years. In the words of Jewish Feminist Theologian, Judith Plaskow,

 

As someone who has long been disturbed by the content of Leviticus 18, I had always applauded the substitution of an alternative Torah reading - until a particular incident made me reconsider the link between sex and Yom Kippur. After a lecture I delivered in the spring of 1995 on rethinking Jewish attitudes toward sexuality, a woman approached me very distressed. She belonged to a Conservative synagogue that had abandoned the practice of Leviticus 18 on Yom Kippur, and as a victim of childhood sexual abuse by her grandfather, she felt betrayed by that decision. While she was not necessarily committed to the understanding of sexual holiness contained in Leviticus, she felt that in quietly changing the reading without communal discussion, her congregation had avoided issues of sexual responsibility altogether. She wanted to hear her community connect the theme of atonement with issues of behavior in intimate relationships, to have it publicly proclaim the parameters of legitimate sexual relations on a day when large number of Jews gather. (Judith Plaskow, ”Sexuality and Teshuva: Leviticus 18" in Beginning Anew, p. 291)

 

I don't want to scare anyone, but I find it important to talk about some of the statistics of sexual violence on college campuses:

•   One in five women are raped during their college years.

•   In two third of the cases, the attackers were classmates or friends. In 25%, they were boyfriends or ex‐boyfriends.

•   More than one in 5 men report "becoming so sexually aroused that they could not stop themselves from having sex," even though the woman did not consent.

•   In a survey of students at 171institutions of higher education, alcohol was involved in 74% of all sexual assaults. http://wwwnyu.edu/shc/pmmotion/svstat.html

 

We simply cannot afford not to have this conversation or to claim that this is not a Jewish issue! Risks are simply too high ‐ there is too much at stake.

 

Remember my kipah and my attempt to be always reminded that every person I meet was created in the Divine image and deserves to be treated with dignity. Treating with dignity, in my view, involves not humiliating or hurting another person; not manipulating people for our own satisfaction; recognizing their feelings, thoughts and desires as much as we recognize our own. Are you being treated  with dignity when you go out at night, or when you are in a loving relationship? Are you treating other with dignity? How would you define dignity? What role can Judaism have as you think about these questions?

 

Talking about these issues is not easy - and the topic itself is a complicated one. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, who is nowworking at the Fiedler Hillel in Northwestern University, wrote,

 

Jewish sexuality is nothing if not complex. And, perhaps, Jewish sexuality ‐ or, at least, our understanding of it - may be more complex now than ever before. Over the last generation or so, the effects of postmodernism, feminism, and queer libration have become all too keenly felt, creating something of a sea change in how we address sex and sexuality. More people than ever are talking about how to maximize sexual empowerment between consenting adults, and the belief that sexuality itself is a societal construct worthy of examination is becoming increasingly widespread. As a result of work both in the academy and in people's real lives, a whole new set of questions with which to address our time-honored traditions has become apparent. There are new ways to challenge the tradition's underlying assumptions, to think about how an ancient idea might speak to our current, ever evolving understanding of human potential, and perhaps to offer thorny sources a little sexual healing.

 

Our tradition teaches לא עליך המלאכה לגמור ולא אתה בן חורין לבטל ממנה. It is not upon you to finish the work, but you are not fee to desist from it. We are not going to finish addressing these questions here today - but l wanted to instill the seeds for this conversation to continue happening and Hillel is interested in creating the framework - a safe space for thoughtful, honest and respectful conversation on the topic of Jewish sexual ethics, aiming at both learning and getting to your own conclusions. If you would like to be part of it , please come talk to me or send me an email.

 

Gmar Chatimah Tovah - may we all be inscribed and sealed in the book of life for a year full of joy, happiness, growth and engagement with the world.

My journeys into the rabbinate (metaphoric and literal)

 

My long journey into the rabbinate started almost exactly thirteen (!) years ago, when Rabbi Dan Pratt (then, "student rabbi" Dan Pratt) gave a dvar Torah at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv on parashat Korach. His approach to the text was radically different from what I had learned to expect from an encounter with a traditional and sacred text and from the role of a rabbi in that encounter. Rabbi Pratt's approach allowed me to question the way I had interacted with our tradition and started the process that eventually led me to rabbinical school. How poetic, then, that thirteen years later, I attended my first conference as a rabbi on the week of parashat Korach!

This week, the one that follows Korach, I am in a different kind of journey. Our relocation to Champaign-Urbana ended up being much more complex than we had planned. On Sunday, after we finished loading the container we had planned to use for our moving, we still had 20% of our stuff in the apartment. Karin and I rapidly considered the options and decided to get a U-Haul trailer to transport all that stuff and I would drive the 1,200 miles between Newton, MA and Chicago (with a stop in Champaign-Urbana to leave the trailer).

It seemed easy, except that I had to drive additional 230 miles in order to get the hitch installed in Portland, ME (no-one else in New England seemed to have a hitch for a Honda Fit) and we had been told already we needed to change our car's tires and brakes. All that took most of Monday and Tuesday (besides finishing packing and loading the trailer - HUGE thanks to our neighbors at Herrick House.) I finally left on Tuesday at 5:30pm. I am now writing from New Paris, OH, my second and last overnight stop before I reach Champaign-Urbana and Chicago. Karin and the kids are flying tomorrow, as it seemed totally unfair to ask a 3-year-old and 2.5-month-old to stay in the car for the 20+ hours that this trip is going to take...

So, it's just me, driving for long hours every day thinking about how life has changed in the last 6 years. Despite having been ordained almost a month ago and the rabbinic conference I attended last week, I left Boston still feeling a rabbinical student. The closer I get to Champaign-Urbana, though, the more I feel like Rabbi Cukierman. It will not take me quite 40 years to get from Hebrew College in Newton, MA to my board meeting in Chicago, but it feels that, alone in my car, I am going through the transformation my people experienced in the desert all those many years ago. Singing Yehuda Poliker and Shlomo Artzi, I have been acknowledging how fortunate I have been - especially for the people we met in the last 6 years and for having found in Karin someone as meshugah (crazy) as me, my soulmate and perfect partner.

I just pray that in this new step of our lives we keep up with meeting amazing people and experiencing new things, but that we stop collecting so much stuff!

 

Dvar Torah on Parashat Boh -- A final assignment for a Midrash Halakhah class

 “Mah ha-avodah ha-zoht LACHEM”, “what is the meaning of this ritual TO YOU?” – to “you” and not to “us”, this child asks. And you know what kind of answer the “evil” child that would ask such a question deserves. Or, at least, you think you know.

 This is how Torah instructs to answer this question: “It is the Passover sacrifice to Adonai, because God passed over the houses of Israel in Mitzrayim when God struck Mitzrayim, but saved our houses.” (Ex. 12:26)

When commenting these verses, it is not clear to the Mekhilta whether it is a good sign or a bad one. To the rabbinic mind, on the one hand, it is problematic that your children won’t know the meaning of this ritual anymore, but on the other hand, it should be celebrated sign that many generations in the future, you will have children who will be in contact with your rituals. In any case, there is no sign of the contempt that characterizes the answer to the ‘so-called” rashah. 

 

That harsher approach is developed by Mekhilta when commenting a second occurrence of a child asking about the meaning of the rituals (Ex. 13:14). In that midrash, we get the story of the four children that we know from the haggadah: chacham, rashah, tam, and she-einoh yodeah lish’ol. Three of the children receive answers that seem appropriate to their interests, but the “rashah” is all but excluded from the community: “if you had been in MItzrayim, you would not have been redeemed.”

 

The difference between what the Biblical text says and the way the Rabbis interpret it is astonishing! As we saw, the question that the Rabbis considered “evil” received a fairly innocent answer in the Torah.  There, it was the child that doesn’t ask a question that received the tougher answer (Ex. 13:8.) And nowhere we are instructed to teach the detailed norms of kashrut le-Pesach, the answer that the midrash assigns to the “good” kid.

 

A professor of mine, Rabbi Stephen Pasamaneck, used to say that “the Torah means whatever the Rabbis say the Torah means”, but it is easier for me to accept when they transform “an eye for an eye” into financial compensation than when they transform texts that instruct us to transmit the story of the formative event of our communal history into an attack on the challenging members of our own community. 

 

I don’t know why the Rabbis were so angry at their challenging children and their constant pursuance of meaning, but I find the message carried by this midrash dangerous. If I have learned anything from being a parent is how inappropriate and counter-productive this kind of chastisement is and I want to publicly reject it. I keep it at my Passover seder, as the starting point of a conversation about othering and inclusion, and how to embrace those in our communities who don’t feel totally comfortable with part of our tradition and how to create the safe space for them to explore their questions. 

 

An environment not so different from the one we live in right now in the Jewish community. Last year, Abby Backer, an undergraduate student at Columbia University, visited a synagogue in Stamford, Connecticut, together with JStreet’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami. Abby tells that, as she was leaving the place,  

 

An elderly woman confronted [her] in the synagogue lobby. “I should spit on you!” she yelled at [her] in front of a group of shocked onlookers. “Excuse me?” [Abby] replied. Glaring, she taunted: “Are you a Palestinian? You must be a Palestinian!”[1]

 

Another professor of mine, Rabbi Reuven Firestone, who is a scholar of Islam, told us that we would be shocked if we searched our holy literature for expressions of lack of tolerance for diversity. The midrash of the four children is certainly one of these expressions, and the reaction Abby experienced in Stamford is a result of the mentality it might engender. 

 

“You are either with me, or against me.” Having grown up in a country that was ruled by a dictatorship, this kind of position is neither unknown nor tolerable to me. Denying the right of members of our community to wrestle with our tradition, with our communal policies, and with Israel, will only result in their alienation and total disengagement from the Jewish community. As a self-fulfilling prophecy, by threatening the “rashah” with exclusion from the community, we are actually sending them away.

 

As we count the days for matan Torah and, as do many of us here, for matan semichah, may we be blessed with the wisdom and the ability to foster communities that open their doors wide and welcome everyone who wants to engage.

---

[1] . http://www.jstreetu.org/latest/exclude-me-at-your-own-peril

In defense of Jewish pluralism

(cross-posted from the Official Blog of Hillel at the University of Florida)

Jeff Kaplan, UF Hillel's program director, posted a message with doubts about the value of pluralism (click here to read it). This is my reponse to him:

-------------------

Dear Jeff,

This is a long answer to a very provocative post, so bear with me...

One of the things I am most passionate about our Jewish tradition is its respect for multiple (and sometimes competing) claims for truth.

• In midrashim, one of the oldest forms of interpreting our sacred Torah, the expression "דבר אחר", "another opinion", is repeated over and over and over, bringing different interpretations in conversation with each other;
• The Talmud is basically a record of sages holding opposing opinions and debating them, sometimes reaching a common conclusion, sometimes not;
• One of the most traditional forms of publishing a chumash (the five books of Moses) is called Mikra'ot Gedolot, and it presents different commentaries side by side with the Biblical text: the opinions of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Ramban, Seforno and others. The amazing thing for me is that these commentaries will quite often disagree with each other – even Rashbam will frequently argue with the words of his grandfather, Rashi.

In the Jewish tradition, we don’t sweep these different perspectives under the carpet, we rather bring them to the forefront and thrive in learning from multiple points of view. As you can see, the Jewish tradition has always been very pluralistic in nature.

Pluralism is not about blending opinions and erasing differences; it does not require everyone to agree, or to hold to the same values. Pluralism is about honoring the differences, bringing them to talk to each other and growing from their encounter. Jewish pluralism is neither about asking egalitarian students to go to a minyan with a mechitzah nor about forcing Orthodox students to go to a minyan in which men and women pray side by side. Pluralism doesn't even require students to give up on their belief that a mechitzah is "the most egregious symbol of an 'oppressive and antiquated Judaism.'" (just to quote the way you defined a possible position.)

What Jewish pluralism, at its most elementary level, does ask from our students (and from us as part of the Hillel staff) is to recognize that Jewish choices very different from their/our own are also legitimately Jewish and belong in our building. A more sophisticated implementation of pluralism creates the space for people holding different opinions about the mechitzah (or the role of women in religious life) to talk with sincere curiosity about each other's point of view.

That does not mean that Jewish pluralism cannot have boundaries - the truth of the matter is that we always have them and it is very healthy to make these boundaries explicit. What are the positions that, if held by someone, would place him/her outside our tent?

At the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, the decision was made when the program was created eight or nine years ago that it would be pluralistic, yet religious and egalitarian. This decision, with which I don't necessarily agree, in practice prevented Orthodox and Secular students from joining our program. Despite that, it brings together an amazing breadth of opinions that makes for very interesting, sometimes challenging and difficult, conversations. Most of the time, you will find multiple perspectives on any subject you propose at our Beit Midrash (hall of study) - but the unifying factor that brings all of us together is our commitment to learning from each other and in holding the premise that we all have a seat at the table.

Another very good reason to be pluralistic is that it is much more engaging that settings in which everyone agrees. This week in school, for example, we heard about Israel from Danny Gordis and from Naomi Chazan, very different perspectives that illuminated our own and were very really thought-provoking!

Some years ago, before I started studying at Hebrew College, I learned a text that presented the process of Revelation at Sinai as a projection of the "Heavenly Torah" (a mystical object that God keeps for Godself) into our human reality. If you remember your physics' classes from high-school, projections depend not only on the object being projected (the Heavenly Torah, in our case) but also on the surface on which the projection is being cast (in our metaphor, the people present at Sinai served as the surface.) The fact that they were all different from each other made Revelation different for each one of them and for each one of us, perhaps the source for the honoring of different perspectives in our Jewish tradition. God did not ask people to get rid of their differences so everyone could receive the same message, rather God took advantage of the variations on the "projecting screen" to give us a more vibrant, colorful and engaging Torah than we would have had otherwise.

Likewise, our student denominational groups don't need to disperse for our Hillel to be truly pluralistic; they are co-responsible for the richness of the Jewish experience we provide to our students. As long as we all agree in honoring the different perspectives we bring to our Shabbat dinner table after services are over, our disputes will all be "for the sake of Heaven." (*) Let them continue and let's celebrate them!

(*) A famous text from Mishnah Avot 5:17 states that "Any dispute which is for the sake of Heaven, shall in the end be of lasting worth; but that which is not for the sake of Heaven, shall not in the end be of lasting worth."

Dvar Torah: questioning the passive acceptance of God’s words (final paper for Shemot class))

Many, many years ago, well before Rabbinical school became a possibility, I went to Shabbat services at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv. Rabbi Dan Pratt - then, the synagogue’s rabbinical intern - had been assigned to deliver his first sermon, on Parashat Korach. As you probably remember, in that parashah, Korach leads a rebellion against Moshe’s authority and, as a punishment, God makes the desert swallow Korach and his household. Dan approached the bimah and, reluctantly, told us about his discomfort with the fact that davka in the first time that he would address that community for a dvar-torah, it would be to say that in his opinion God was wrong in the way God punished Korach. The thought that anyone - not to say someone who was becoming a rabbi - could say that God was wrong challenged my way of understanding the biblical text, my relationship with tradition, and ultimately, my conception of God. Today, in this dvar-torah, I acknowledge my debt to Rabbi Pratt.

Parashat Boh (Ex. 10:1-13:16) contains some of the most famous episodes of the Torah: the last three plagues, including the death of the first-borns, instructions regarding the annual celebration of Passover, and eventually the release from Mitzrayim. The importance of this parashah can also be apprehended by the fact that Rashi, in his famous commentary on Bereshit 1:1, contemplated the idea that the Torah should have began on Exodus 12:1 “הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם, רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים”, when the first mitzvah is commanded to the Israelites^[i].

This parashah is also remarkable due to the fact that it has raised challenging theological questions, especially regarding free will and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and the killing of all the first-borns in Mitzrayim, including slaves and animals. These two issues have, for many Jewish families, led to interesting (and, sometimes, passionate) discussions on Passover seders, when the story of Israelite suffering in, and release from, Mitzrayim is annually retold. 

A third complex issue has not received the same popular attention, though; in most cases it is neither part of the Haggadah nor of religious schools’ curricula. In Shemot 11:2-3a, we read:^[ii]

^בדַּבֶּר-נָא, בְּאָזְנֵי הָעָם וְיִשְׁאֲלוּ אִישׁ מֵאֵת רֵעֵהוּ וְאִשָּׁה מֵאֵת רְעוּתָהּ כְּלֵי-כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב. ^גוַיִּתֵּן יְהוָה אֶת-חֵן הָעָם בְּעֵינֵי מִצְרָיִם

Ex. 11: ²“Please, speak in the ears of the people to borrow, each man from his fellow man and each woman from her fellow woman, objects of silver and gold.” ^3aAnd Adonai disposed Mitzrayim favorably toward the people.

This theme had already been introduced at the beginning of the book of Shemot (3:21-22), when God told Moshe what would happen in the future, and is revisited later, still in Parashat Boh, when the Israelites follow the instructions God had given to Moshe (12:35036).

Traditional commentators have dealt with the difficulties posed by these three passages. How could the Israelites borrow valuable objects from the Miztreem when they intended to leave Mitzrayim and never again come back to return the objects? How fair would be to ask something knowing that God had predisposed the Mitzreem to receive their request favorably? Many mefarshim, facing hostile environments in which these verses had been used to attack the honesty of the Jews, had to justify the behavior of the Israelites in the Biblical text. Rashbam wrote that the Israelites had asked to borrow the artifacts, but the Mitzreem gave them the best of their clothes and jewelry as gifts^[iii]. His grandfather, Rashi, described an even more incredible scene: the Mitzreem would give more that they were asked for, “one you say?! take two!”^[iv] Ibn Ezra, directly attacked those questioning the honesty of the Israelites, arguing that they were following God’s orders, which should never be questioned. “God created everything and can take it from one and give it to another. There is nothing wrong in this, for everything belongs to God.”^[v]

While these commentators certainly add color and flavor to the events preceding the Israelites’ redemption from Mitzrayim, they tend to justify the text more than struggle with it, and by doing so, fail to address some major theological issues: Why did God instruct the Israelites to request these artifacts from the Mitzreem? If the Mitzreem were not forced to do something they did not want to do, why did God asked Moshe to discreetly talk to the Israelites (“Daber na be-oznei ha-am”)? And, if God could dispose the Mitzreem favorably toward the Israelite, why not dispose Pharaoh favorably also, avoiding all the destruction and death caused to innocents?

Some modern commentators have addressed these challenges, at least partially. Nehama Leibowitz^[vi] argued that it would have been understandable if the Israelites, after four hundred years of slavery, had taken the initiative for demanding artifacts from the Mitzreem, either as a compensation for their labor or as gifts. But the fact that God had instructed them to do so, revealing a premeditated Divine plan, is the source of our discomfort. Could God have instructed the Israelites to do something ethically dubious? 

Benno Jacob^[vii], a German commentator who lived in the first half of the 20th centtury, argued that the Israelites never had the intention of misleading the Mitzreem^[viii] and that the punishment of Mitzrayim was intended to teach both Mitzreem and Israelites not to oppress the stranger. Furthermore, the gold, silver and clothes were farewell gifts given by the Mitzreem to the Israelites before the tenth plague, not because of fear of an impending death, but out of sympathy with the Israelite suffering. Benno Jacob argues that the gifts should be understood as a public protest against Pharaoh’s actions, showing how the receptive hearts of the Mitzreem were contrasted to the Pharaoh’s hardened heart. The people remembered Joseph’s actions and were impressed by God’s power through the plagues. When God asked Moshe to instruct the Israelites to approach the Mitzreem (Ex. 11:2), the use of the word “na” in God’s instruction indicates God’s concern that the Israelites would feel so triumphant after the killing of the first-borns that they might reject the farewell gift offered by the Mitzreem. God wanted to ensure that the Israelites and Ha-Am Ha-Mitzri ended the episode in good terms, despite the dispute with Pharaoh. 

A similar reading was proposed by Yehuda Radday^[ix], a Bible scholar from the Technion, who was even more direct on his question, “How could God have commanded them to do what was not only far from perfect but prima facie immoral?” He notes that if the articles of silver and gold were meant to be wages for the Israelites’ work, they should have been demanded publicly and not a few hours before the Israelites left. His alternative interpretation is that the text includes several hints of a mutual relationship between the Israelites and the Mitzreem^[x] that led to an exchange of gifts at the time of departure. All God had asked from the Israelites was to accept the offer, to help the Mitzreem expiate their blame and shame and, thus, to save their land.

While I have a deep appreciation for the several ways Leibowitz, Jacob and Radday helped me get a better comprehension of this episode, I would like to propose an alternative reading. Just like Rabbi Pratt and his opposition to the way God dealt with Korach, I also disagree with God’s instruction to the Israelites. I believe Israel had a moral imperative of rejecting God’s command. Differently from Ibn Ezra, I think it is our religious duty to question God’s commandments, a duty that derives from our creation be-tzelem Elohim, with free will and the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. God did not create automatons who blindly follow orders, but human beings who should be held accountable for their actions even when following instructions. 

We, Jews, are called Bnei-Israel, the children of the one who struggled with Elohim, an indication that Judaism is not about accepting all of God’s instructions without questioning them first. At least two of the leading figures of our tradition dared to challenge God: Avraham on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Moshe on behalf of the Israelites after the golden calf incident. Interestingly, though, when God asks Moshe to instruct the Israelites (Ex. 11:2), the people are not called Bnei-Israel, but ha-am (the people). As a test to the people, God softly requested them to spoil Mitzrayim – and Bnei-Israel^[xi] failed the test. After the plague of darkness afflicted Mitzrayim, a moral darkness fell over Israel, and the people put their anger towards the Mitzreem above their obligation to act ethically, stripping Mitzrayim from valuable objects. 

Radday has noted that there are only four times in the entire Tanakh when God uses the particle “na” when addressing human beings: (1) when Avraham and Lot departed ways (Gen. 13:14)), (2) when Avraham complained that he was growing old and still did not have a son (Gen. 15:5); (3) when God instructed the Akedah (Gen. 22:2); and (4) when God instructed the Israelites to spoil Mitzraym (Ex. 11:2) – all episodes in which God requests tasks that cannot be fully understood rationally. The akedah, especially, has been often understood as a test for Avraham; one that commentators have not agreed whether he passed or not. The use of the same language in our passage corroborates the reading of this episode as God testing the Israelites.

Nahum Sarna suggests that the articles of silver and gold the Israelites received from the Mitzreem were probably used in the building of the golden calf. The implied message of one misdeed leading to another can hardly be overlooked and should be read as the biblical condemnation of the Israelites’ acts on plundering Mitzrayim. The Israelites certainly deserved being recompensed for the years of labor in Mitzrayim, but they did not have the right to act deceitfully to achieve that goal. Instead of openly demanding reparation from Pharaoh, they decided to take the short cut, accepting God’s offer to soften the heart of the Mitzreem while the Israelites “borrowed” their most valuable articles. Instead of establishing a new paradigm for the proper treatment of foreign workers in Biblical times, the Israelites’ attitude forever stained the Jewish people’s foundational narrative.

As the dvar-Torah I heard from Rabbi Dan Pratt years ago, Parashat Boh  teaches me not to settle for the plain meaning of God’s words. 

It is not easy, but being part of Bnei-Israel, the people that wrestles with God, requires sometimes even saying “No!” to God. It might be regarding the proper treatment of a rebellious son, of same-sex relationships, or of a patriarchal model that denies women their fair share in familial and communal leadership. The issues might be different for each one of us, but the claim of an ideological position as being the word of God - even when there are Scriptural foundations for that claim - should not imply a bypass of moral and ethical considerations. After having eaten from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, we don’t have any alternative but to make judgement calls on issues that are relevant to our hearts, and to consider not only what God demands, but also where good and evil are.

I want to encourage you to see Tanakh in a different way: what if, instead of being the book of all answers, it became God’s opening speech in a conversation we also have a saying? I now see our texts as inviting my questions, challenging me to engage in the dialogue and I invite you to try doing the same. Our parashah hints on asking as an important paradigm for living, when it tells of the child who asks “What do you mean by this rite?” (Ex. 12:26) - the rabbis labeled this as the wicked child, but the Torah is actually very compassionate in the answer this child receives. Let’s take asking from the Haggadah and from the seder into the world.

May we all be blessed with the wisdom, compassion and sense of justice to pass all of God’s tests, even when it requires taking bold theological stances.

---

[i]        . While commandments had been given before to the patriarchs (e.g. brit-milah  to Avraham), this is the first time that the whole community of Israel is addressed, as indicated by the plural form of “chodesh ha-zeh lachem”in Ex. 12:2.

[ii]       . My own translation.

[iii]      . Rashbam on Ex. 12:36. 

[iv]       . Rashi on Ex. 13:36.

[v]        . Ibn Ezra on Ex. 3:22.

[vi]       . Leibowitz, Nehama. Studies in Shemot (Exodus): Part I Shemot-Ytro (Translated and adapted from Hebrew by Aryeh Newman), Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization, Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 1983, pp. 183-192.

[vii]      . Jacob, Benno. The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus (Translated with an introduction by Walter Jacob), Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing, 1992, pp. 337-346.

[viii]     . A discussion resulting from the reading of “vaysh’alu” as “borrowing” the artifacts instead of “asking” them permanently.

[ix]      . Radday, Yehuda. "The Spoils of Egypt." Annual of Swedish Theological Institute XII, 1983, pp. 127-147.

[x]       . E.g. the reflectiveness implied on 11:2, “אִישׁ מֵאֵת רֵעֵהוּ וְאִשָּׁה מֵאֵת רְעוּתָהּ ” (“each man from his fellow man and each woman from her fellow woman”), and the particle “even” in the second part of verse 11:3, “גַּם הָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה גָּדוֹל מְאֹד בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בְּעֵינֵי עַבְדֵי-פַרְעֹה, וּבְעֵינֵי הָעָם”(“even Moshe was deeply esteemed in Mitzrayim among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people”)

[xi]      . On Ex. 12:35, when the action is actually performed, the people is referred to “בני ישראל”.