Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Ki Tissa: Pausing for Sanctity

In her introduction to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s magnificent work The Sabbath, Heschel’s daughter Susannah describes the way in which her father prepared for Shabbat evening at home.  She writes:

“The sense of peace that came upon us as we kindled the lights was created, in part, by the hectic tension of Fridays...My father came home from his office an hour or two before sunset to take care of his own preparation, and as the last minutes of the workweek came close, both of my parents were in the kitchen, frantically trying to remember what they have might have forgotten to prepare...Then, suddenly, it was time: twenty minutes before sunset.  Whatever hadn’t been finished in the kitchen was simply left behind as we lit candles and blessed the arrival of the Sabbath.  My father writes, “The Sabbath comes like a caress, wiping away fear, sorrow and somber memories” (Susannah Heschel, Introduction to The Sabbath, viii).   

Susannah Heschel’s introduction portrays what I consider the central call of Shabbat, that each of us might take a pause from the week of work, and allows us to encounter the divine.   While Shabbat is mentioned at several points in the Torah, parshat Ki Tissa contains God’s hint as to how Shabbat provides a unique opportunity to understand God’s sanctity in ways we might never imagine.   

God’s command in Parshat Ki Tissa regarding the observance of Shabbat includes a curious addition, one that ascribes a particular purpose for the Israelites’ observance of Shabbat.   The parasha states (emphasis mine):

“You shall keep my Sabbath, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations to know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.  Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep Shabbat, to observe Shabbat throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.   It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever” (Shemot 31:13,16-17).

For our rabbinic commentators, the Torah’s assertion that one should observe Shabbat “to know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you” is a curious statement, for the Torah text does not outline the specific linkage between Shabbat observance and divine sanctification.    For our rabbinic commentators, the question of sanctification will play a critical role in what the rabbis teach us about the function of Shabbat in our lives.

In a talmudic interpretation of this passage, our early rabbinic sages use a parable to describe the relationship between Shabbat and knowledge of God’s divine sanctity.  The Talmud states:

“For it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations to know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”  Said Rav: He who gives his friend a gift must notify him as it is written: “to know that I am the Lord who sanctify you.”  We have also learned: “to know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”   Said the Holy One Blessed be He to Moses: I have a goodly gift in my treasury to bestow on you called Shabbat and I ask you to give it to Israel.  Go and let them know...” (Talmud Shabbat 10b).

In this passage, the Talmud views Shabbat as God’s gift to the Jewish people, for Shabbat provides a constant recognition of God’s divinity for all to witness.   As a result, each time a person makes Shabbat a serious priority, they are cherishing that gift the Talmud states was given to the Israelites at Har Sinai.

When we reach the Medieval Period, our classic commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra analyzes the verse from Parshat Ki Tissa with an eye toward the practical, emphasizing that the actual activities performed on Shabbat express God’s sanctity.  He writes:

“The phrase “to know” implies that you should know that you are sanctified to Me.  We may detect here an allusion to the obligation of every Jew to study Torah...For on Shabbat the men and women would visit the prophets and sages to hear Torah” (Ibn Ezra on Shemot 31:13).   

In this commentary, Ibn Ezra asserts that we must understand Shabbat as a day to refrain from the worldly pursuits of the week, and instead focus on the higher purpose of Torah study.   By extension, since Torah study is the religious and intellectual means by which a person can encounter the divine, Shabbat provides us greater opportunity to “know” that God is sanctified by means of exploring the meaning of that sanctity through study.

Finally, similar to Ibn Ezra’s approach, but with a greater emphasis on the spiritual, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Kohen Kook writes in his Shabbat Ha-Aretz that the actual time of Shabbat is a spiritually distinct from the rest of the week, and every person can recognize their full divine potential if and only if they make Shabbat an essential part of their weekly rhythm.  Rav Kook writes:

“The weekday existence does not allow the national genius and the Divine goodness residing within it, with all its spiritual aspirations to justice and righteousness, tranquility and peace, to be fully realized.  The bustle and confusion of everyday affairs stifles the spiritual majesty of the Divine soul (residing in the nation) whose luster is prevented from illuminating the predominant material reality.   The quality of life can only be improved by affording a breathing space from the bustle of everyday affairs.   In this way the individual recovers from the influence of the mundane at frequent intervals, every Shabbat day” (Rav Abraham Isaac Ha-Kohen Kook, Shabbat Ha-Aretz).

Reflecting both of the commentaries of the Talmud and Ibn Ezra, Rav Kook’s commentary asserts that Shabbat is a gift that God gives to us precisely because it provides us an opportunity to transition from the worldly pursuits of the week and focus on something deeper and more essential to our humanity.  Therefore, when we fully actualize Shabbat’s potential for our lives, we will be spiritually transformed, thereby allowing each of us to know the true nature of God’s sanctity.

While there is no question that instilling a strong worth ethic remains one of the central goals of education, our Jewish tradition places importance on the value of taking a pause, and using rest to achieve a sanctified purpose.   As our parasha reminds us, Shabbat demonstrates our awareness of God’s role in our world, and may each of us merit to take the gift of Shabbat and allow it to remind ourselves and our children of the power of taking a pause and making Shabbat a part of us.

Shabbat Shalom!

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Terumah: A Sanctuary of Learning

In Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Reed Larson found a disturbing number of teenagers who primarily associated time in the classroom with boredom.   The authors wrote:

“Compared to other contexts in their lives, time in class is associated with lower-than-average states on nearly every self-report dimension.  Most notably, students report feeling sad, irritable, and bored; concentration is difficult; they feel self-conscious and strongly wish they were doing something else” (Being Adolescent, p. 204-205).

While this passage may be shocking, it is not terribly surprising, as it gets to the root of the challenge of keeping students engaged in any educational setting.  In a classroom, a teacher must challenge themselves to make the student the central nervous-system of the learning, so that the teacher is attuned to how each student is connected to what taking in class on any given day.   As a result, an ideal educational setting is one in which there is a constant sense that the teacher and the learner are in-sync with one another, a paradigm that is envisioned in Parshat Terumah’s command to construct the mishkan.

Parshat Terumah opens with God idrawing a connection between the importance of the Israelites building this mishkan, and God’s ability to remain a constant presence.  The parasha states the following (emphasis mine):

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart makes him willing you shall take My offering.  And this is the offering which you shall take of them: gold, and silver, and brass; and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair; and rams’ skins dyed red, and seal-skins, and acacia-wood; oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate.   And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell amongst them’” (Shemot 25:1-8).

For our rabbinic commentators, the question was asked as to what is the connection between the revelation of laws and principles received by the Israelites at Har Sinai in the previous parshiyot, and the command to build the mishkan in Parshat Terumah, a construction that will occupy the rest of Sefer Shemot.   

In many cases, our rabbinic commentators view the command in Parshat Terumah to build a mishkan as intimately connected to the experience of standing at Har Sinai, yet each commentator draws a different lessons as to what we can learn from that connection.   The Ramban writes in his Torah commentary that the mishkan itself contains an esoteric allusion to the mount of receiving the Torah at Har Sinai.  He writes:

And the esoteric meaning of the Mishkan is that divine glory that dwelt on Har Sinai will in a hidden way dwell in it. And just as it says, “And the glory of God dwelt on Har Sinai,”… so it says with regard to the Mishkan, “And the glory of God filled the Mishkan.” And within the context of the Mishkan, the glory revealed to Israel at Har Sinai remained with them … and just as it says, “From the heavens He sounded His voice”… so too by the Mishkan, “And he heard the voice speaking to him from above the kaporet from between the keruvim” (Ramban on Shemot 25:1)

According to Ramban, since God’s presence would also remain within the mishkan itself, the construction and use of the mishkan would provide a constant link for the Israelites to the revelation at Har Sinai.

In a modern commentary, the Italian rabbi and scholar Umberto Cassuto argues that while the mishkan certainly alludes to the experience at Har Sinai, the construction of the mishkan also addresses the potential danger for the Israelites to lose their connection to God as they journeyed throughout the desert, thereby necessitating the construction of a portable vessel in which God’s presence remains.  Cassuto writes:

“we must realize that the children of Israel, after they have been privileged to witness the Revelation of God on Mount Sinai, were about to journey from there and thus draw away from the site of the theophany.  So long as they were encamped in the palace, they were conscious of God’s nearness; but once they set out on their journey, it seemed to them as though the link had been broken, unless there were in their midst a tangible symbol of God’s presence among them.  It was function of the Tabernacle to serve as such a symbol” (Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967, page 319).

Cassuto’s commentary alludes to the universal spiritual challenge that everyone faces when they feel physically distant from God.  As moderns, it is certainly a common concern that since God no longer reveals himself as he did during the age of the exodus from Egypt or even in the age of the prophets, we might draw the conclusion that God is no longer present at all.   This modern concern was not lost upon the Torah, and our rabbinic commentators, for, as Cassuto argues, “The nexus between Israel and the Tabernacle is a perpetual extension of the bond that was forged at Sinai between the people and their God,” forever providing the Israelites the opportunity to recognize God’s closeness in their journey through the wilderness (Ibid.).

Finally, in her psychological approach to the weekly parasha, Aviva Zornberg argues that the mishkan’s construction provides the Israelites the opportunity to transition from receiving God’s world-making presence at Har Sinai to creating a spiritual world on earth that they themselves must construct.  She writes:

“The aim of Exodus is to help its participants to take apart a private world that has held them captive.  In the end, after their physical release from slavery, a new recognition of inner conflict, even of potentially tragic inner conflict, will be the key to experiencing themselves as active “makers” of the world” (Aviva Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, 322).

Zornberg’s perspective appears to diverge from the perspective of the Ramban and Cassuto, yet she is actually addressing a similar concern.  According to Zornberg, while the experience at Har Sinai marked the climactic moment when the Israelties’ experience in Egypt was forever shattered, the building of the mishkan is meant to mark the first moment when the Israelites begin constructing their own world.  However, in construct this new world, the mishkan represents a space that will keep the Israelites and God forever connected to one another.

Just as the Israelites were charged with the task of constructing a spiritual conduit between them and God in Parshat Terumah, each student at Schechter is faced with the daily task of connecting themselves to the learning that takes place in the classroom.  The challenge for each educator and member of our community is to help students see pathways to engage a learner’s curiosity and passions, so that each day is the opportunity to construct a new world of rich, robust learning.   May each be worthy of that task, creating links to learning that may each day a sanctuary of education for our children.

Shabbat Shalom!

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Mishpatim: Torah and Social Conscience

If I made a list of things that people tell me about Judaism that give me the greatest stress, on the top of the list would be when people tell me that Judaism is primarily a system of ritual behaviors, that the greatest concern of the Torah is that we perform commandments that demonstrate our devotion God, and with less emphasis on our devotion to one another.   In response, I would tell people that the Torah does not demarcate concern for God with concern for our fellow human beings; instead, the Torah attempts to embed social conscience into the performance of mitzvot themselves, a lesson we learn in this week’s parasha.

In Parshat Mishpatim, the Israelites are given that famous mitzvah about not oppressing the stranger, yet the mitzvah is juxtaposed to a harsh punishment that will befall anyone who does not observe the mitzvah.  The Torah states the following:

“You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in Egypt in the land of Egypt.  You shall not afflict any widow or orphan.   If you will afflict them in any way, and they cry at all unto Me, I shall surely hear their cry.  My anger shall burn, and I will slay you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (Exodus 22:20-23).

Upon first reading this passage, it may be surprising to see the statement that one must not oppress the stranger as not merely an ethical ideal, but a mitzvah with severe consequences.   However, when our rabbinic commentators examine this passage, they see this mitzvah and its consequence as arising out of the Torah’s desire to teach us a sense of compassion and identification with the Other.

Our medieval commentator Rashbam examines this passage contextually, and asks the question of why the Torah prescribes such a harsh punishment for anyone who oppresses the stranger.  He writes:

““Do not oppress him” to do your work since he has no champion as it is written: “I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them” (Exodus 3:9).  “For you were strangers” as explained in the very next verse: “For you know the feelings of a stranger, seeing as you were strangers.”  The severity of the punishment will match the intensity of his misery”  (Rashbam on 20:23).

According to the Rashbam, since the experience of the Israelites in Egypt was one where the Israelites as strangers were oppressed by the established majority, it makes sense that the Torah would similarly prohibit the Israelites from oppressing others when they are the majority people.    By extension, the mitzvah intends to teach of us the responsibility that comes with looking out for those who are strangers, for not forgetting that we might also be strangers, whether in the past, present, or future.

While the Rashbam’s limits his interpretation to the literary perspective of the mitzvah, the Sefer Ha-Hinukh, the medieval text that attempts to identify all 613 mitzvot and state the reasons for each, develops a more direct connection between the mitzvah and the importance of teaching compassion and understanding for those outside of the normative group.    The text states the following:

“This precept applies at all times and places both to males and females, and whoever transgresses it and causes suffering to strangers, or neglects to save them or their property, or makes light of them, on account of their being strangers and helpless, has thereby abrogated this positive precept.  Their punishment is severe indeed, since the Torah contains many such admonitions.”

“We should learn from this valuable precept to show compassion to any man not in his hometown, far from his friends, just as we observe that the Torah admonishes us to show compassion to all in need.   Through these moral qualities we shall merit the compassion of the Lord.  The text motivates the precept stating that: “You were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  It reminds us that we had already experienced the great suffering that one strange in a foreign land feels.   By picturing to ourselves the pain involved which we ourselves had already undergone, from which God, in His mercy, delivered us, our compassion will be stirred up towards every man in his plight” (Sefer Ha-Hinukh on “You shall not not oppress the stranger”).

According to the Sefer Ha-Hinukh, this mitzvah in Parshat Mishpatim commands us to recognize that just as we ask that God be compassionate to us, particularly in those moments when we feel most vulnerable, so too must we show compassion to those people we see in our community that feel, or are, vulnerable.

When we finally enter the modern period, biblical scholar Robert Alter asserts that the mitzvah of not oppressing the stranger is a specific command calling for compassion that demonstrates the Torah’s desire for us to be socially conscious, more generally.  He writes:

““Abuse...cry out...hear their outcry”: The terms used here pointedly echo the language used at the beginning of Exodus to describe the oppression of Israel in Egypt and God’s response to that suffering.  This law, then, like the previous one that explicitly invokes the Hebrews’ conditions of sojourners in Egypt, touches on the experience of slavery as an enduring prod to social conscience”  (Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: Translation with Commentary, 446).

According to Alter, the command to not oppress the stranger forces each of us to recognize that the Torah impacts us not only in our relationship with God, but also impacts our sense of social conscience.

One of the greatest dangers when teaching Torah to others is limiting our understanding of Torah to ritual behavior, assuming that the Torah only impacts us within a certain domain of our life.   Instead, the command to not oppress the stranger in Parshat Mishpatim reminds us that the power of Torah extends to every corner of our life, the spiritual, the ethical and the social.  May we challenge our students and ourselves to use Torah as a means of promoting compassion and social conscience, shaping a world that needs more people to care about the needs of the strangers amongst us.

Shabbat Shalom!