The first commandment in this week’s parasha is the machatzit hashekel, the taking of the half-shekel from every male Israelite, age 20 and over. The Torah states explicitly that this taking of one coin from each and every army-eligible Israelite (how’s that for a string of vowels!) constitutes the proper means of taking the census. As parshanim explain, although they perhaps need not, all Moshe has to do is count his half-shekel coins, and it’s as good as counting Israelites. These half-shekels will also, the Torah tells us, be used as atonement money, and will be donated to Service in the Tent of Meeting.
What’s the connection between atonement, donation to the Ohel Moed, and the census? Says Sforno, the great Italian Torah scholar, counting and atonement for sins are intrinsically linked. God does not put them together here – rather, they always go together. To paraphrase that great German non-Torah scholar, Karl Marx, existence is sin. (One of Marx's witticism's, I believe, was that property is theft). When we count the numbers of extant Israelites, we are counting the number of those who sin. As we see in the incident of the Golden Calf in this week's parasha, sometimes those sins can be quite stunning. Since the very act of enumeration recalls our existence, and hence our sins, such an enumeration should contain the seeds of our forgiveness. In other words, before God has a chance to get really angry at us – and before we have a chance to get really angry at ourselves – for all of our human imperfection, we launch an atonement campaign with the half-shekel.
It is certainly nice to reflect upon God’s great kindness that seeks to forgive us even before we are finished uncovering our sins. However, we are still left with the idea that to exist is to sin. Sforno focuses (in my reading) on the use of the half shekel for atonement, but the half shekel has another function as well: it is a donation to God, to be used in the Tent of Meeting. I would therefore like to suggest a different equation, one that could be thought of as the opposite side of the triangle formed by the census, atonement, and donation to the Ohel Moed: To exist is to contribute.
This equation is actually made quite manifest by the details of the half-shekel mitzvah. Every army-aged Israelite must give a coin, and each Israelite, poor or rich, gave exactly a half-shekel, no more no less, which was donated to the Tent of Meeting. In other words, the very act of recognizing an individual’s existence contributed to the holy endeavors of the Tent of Meeting. The same is no doubt true in our own lives. Sin is part of human existence, but an equal, and probably greater, part is made up of the contributions that we make everyday to other people and to God.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2007
Tetzaveh 5767 -- Moses und Aron
Why was Aharon chosen to be the kohen gadol, and not Moshe? The kohen gadol conducted the most direct and intimate service of God, and so one would think that Moshe, who spoke with God "face to face" would have been the most appropriate for this honor.
The Ibn Ezra gives three reasons why Aharon was chosen over Moshe. The first I do not understand, and would be grateful for your comments, the second seems trivial, even to the Ibn Ezra and the third suggests something deep about what it means for humans to relate to each other and to God.
First, the Ibn Ezra says that Aharon was chosen because of the honor of the family of Nachshon, because the kohanim would later conduct the Temple services that would bring atonement to the Jewish people. I understand neither the connection between Aharon (as opposed to Moshe) and Nachshon, nor between Nachshon and atonement for the Jewish people.
Second, the Ibn Ezra suggests that Moshe couldn't have been a Kohen because his wife, Tziporah, was not born Jewish. As one of the halakhot of the kohanim is that they may not marry divorcees, widows, or converts, Moshe and his entire line would have been disqualified from the kahuna before it even began (particularly when we recall that Moshe married Tzipporah years before the revelation at Sinai). However, as the Ibn Ezra admits, Moshe didn't have much of an option to marry an Israelite woman, as he spent his marryin' years on the run, away from the Jewish people. This is therefore not a very good reason.
Third, the Ibn Ezra suggests that Moshe simply did not have the time or wherewithal to serve as kohen gadol. Moshe was already devoting himself to teaching the mitzvot to all of Israel, and to judging all of their disputes, aided by the sanhedrin. But this seems to beg the question: given that Moshe knew all the laws well enough to teach them over and over again to hundreds of thousands of people, wouldn't he have been the very best choice to be the kohen gadol? Given his amazing knowledge and talents, shouldn't he have been -- if he'd really pushed himself -- able to be the kohen gadol as well?
I think that this is a trap that many of us get ourselves into, when we've worked hard and developed skills or experience. We think that not only are we a better qualifed candidate than anybody else for X, Y, or Z, but also that we should, among all the other challenges in our lives, be able to taken on X, Y, and Z! This is problematic in both a vertical and horizontal dimension. It is vertically problematic in that only God can do everything. We are, no matter our talents, limited; when we forget this we forget some of our humanity, and end up no place good. It is horizontally problematic in that such an expansive sense of self tends to crowd out our fellow human beings. When we believe that only we can do something, we forget about that wonderful network of self-reinforcing humanity of which we are a part. The sense that only we can do anything, and that we therefore must do everything is a recipe for existential loneliness. God establishes the opposite paradigm here: we should be comfortable sharing the work and glory, and trusting others, in the worthiest of pursuits. This, I think, is the profound lesson that the Ibn Ezra brings us.
The Ibn Ezra gives three reasons why Aharon was chosen over Moshe. The first I do not understand, and would be grateful for your comments, the second seems trivial, even to the Ibn Ezra and the third suggests something deep about what it means for humans to relate to each other and to God.
First, the Ibn Ezra says that Aharon was chosen because of the honor of the family of Nachshon, because the kohanim would later conduct the Temple services that would bring atonement to the Jewish people. I understand neither the connection between Aharon (as opposed to Moshe) and Nachshon, nor between Nachshon and atonement for the Jewish people.
Second, the Ibn Ezra suggests that Moshe couldn't have been a Kohen because his wife, Tziporah, was not born Jewish. As one of the halakhot of the kohanim is that they may not marry divorcees, widows, or converts, Moshe and his entire line would have been disqualified from the kahuna before it even began (particularly when we recall that Moshe married Tzipporah years before the revelation at Sinai). However, as the Ibn Ezra admits, Moshe didn't have much of an option to marry an Israelite woman, as he spent his marryin' years on the run, away from the Jewish people. This is therefore not a very good reason.
Third, the Ibn Ezra suggests that Moshe simply did not have the time or wherewithal to serve as kohen gadol. Moshe was already devoting himself to teaching the mitzvot to all of Israel, and to judging all of their disputes, aided by the sanhedrin. But this seems to beg the question: given that Moshe knew all the laws well enough to teach them over and over again to hundreds of thousands of people, wouldn't he have been the very best choice to be the kohen gadol? Given his amazing knowledge and talents, shouldn't he have been -- if he'd really pushed himself -- able to be the kohen gadol as well?
I think that this is a trap that many of us get ourselves into, when we've worked hard and developed skills or experience. We think that not only are we a better qualifed candidate than anybody else for X, Y, or Z, but also that we should, among all the other challenges in our lives, be able to taken on X, Y, and Z! This is problematic in both a vertical and horizontal dimension. It is vertically problematic in that only God can do everything. We are, no matter our talents, limited; when we forget this we forget some of our humanity, and end up no place good. It is horizontally problematic in that such an expansive sense of self tends to crowd out our fellow human beings. When we believe that only we can do something, we forget about that wonderful network of self-reinforcing humanity of which we are a part. The sense that only we can do anything, and that we therefore must do everything is a recipe for existential loneliness. God establishes the opposite paradigm here: we should be comfortable sharing the work and glory, and trusting others, in the worthiest of pursuits. This, I think, is the profound lesson that the Ibn Ezra brings us.
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