Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Balak: Enduring Relationships

When I read Parshat Balak, I remained fascinated by the dissonance between God’s actions in this week’s parasha and the Israelites’ overall conduct  in Sefer Bemidbar.   While God thwarts Balaam’s attempts at cursing the Israelites in a variety of way, one wonders as to why God chose to stand up to a people who had a rebelled against Moses at some point in the previous sections of the Torah.    

In an essay entitled, “Beginning to Teach,” Herbert Kohl writes that building an enduring educational relationship requires a long-term commitment on the part of the teacher for the student.   He writes:

“Of course, people are not buildings and that’s what makes observing their growth so interesting. Buildings do not build themselves, but people do. Understanding the complex relationships between self-growth and nurturing growth is essential to becoming a good teacher. Further, the love of nurturing and observing growth in others is essential to sustaining a life of teaching. This implies that no matter what you teach or how you present yourself to your students, you have to be on the learners’ side and to believe that they can and will grow during the time you are together. I am not sure of how that belief develops, yet it is characteristic of every fine teacher I’ve known” (Herbert Kohl, The Herb Kohl  Reader: Awakening the Heart of Teaching, pages 16-17).   

According to Kohl, good teaching requires that teachers commit themselves to growing along with the learner, and recognizing that an enduring relationship requires that both parties commit to one another, in spite of whatever twists and turns may take place over time.   Similarly, when we read Parshat Balak in the context of the other rebellions and complaints the Israelites brought against God and Moses, it is interesting to note the parallel nature of the relationship between God and the Jewish people, and the ideal relationship between teacher and student.   

For my final Dvar Torah of the year, I would like to share three rabbinic commentaries on Parshat Balak that view the story of Balaam through the prism of God’s relationship with the Jewish people.  First, when Balaam saddles his soon-to-be famous donkey, Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotzk, the great Hasidic Master, notices a parallel between Balaam’s journey and Abraham’s journey in the Akedah:

“How can we compare Abraham our Father to Balaam?   God said: “Abraham arose early in the morning and saddled his own donkey in order to fulfill God’s will, and nothing came of it, for I did not allow him to sacrifice Isaac, since I want this nation to exist.  Do you think that your [Balaam’s] desire to harm the children of Israel will not be disturbed by Me!?!?” (Menahem Mendel of Kotzk on Bemidbar 22:21, Torah Gems- Bamidbar, 210).   

This commentary notes that both Balaam and Abraham saddle a donkey to begin a journey to fulfill a morally questionable mission, yet in each case, ultimately God knew that he would cause these journeys to take twists and turns for the purpose of protecting the divine partnership with the Jewish people.  In each case, God needs the character to make this journey, yet the journey itself re-affirms God’s commitment to protect his people.

Second, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, a medieval grammarian and philosopher from France, argues that God demonstrated his love of the Jewish people not only by prohibiting Balaam from cursing them, but by turning the intended curse into a blessing.  Kaspi writes:

“A true friend will save his colleague any pain, even if he knows that no danger will ensure.  Similarly the Almighty, out of the abundance of His love for Israel, prevented Balaam from cursing them them, though He was aware that his curses were impotent.  But the Almighty did not rest content with this.  He went so far as to make Balaam bless the people to give them pleasure...” (Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Tirat Kesef).   

In this text, Kaspi recognizes that any curse offered by Balaam is, to some extent, moot, since God would never allow someone to curse the Jewish people.  Instead, the story of Balaam teaches us about God’s commitment to the Jewish people by way of the fact that an intended curse became a blessing.

Finally, a midrash from Bemidbar Rabbah notes that Balaam’s blessing itself is an acknowledgment of the enduring relationship between God and the Jewish people.   The midrash states:

“Balaam too looked at them and his eye came out as he gazed upon them; for he could not touch them, as it is stated: “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel”--implying their standards.  He began to say: Who can harm such people?  They know their ancestry and their families (their family life is pure), as it is stated: “Dwelling according to his tribes.”  From here we understand that the standards were a source of greatness and protection to Israel (from promiscuity, since the standards implied a recognition of their family identity)” (Bemidbar Rabbah 2:3).   

To provide some background, when Balaam sees how the Israelites organized themselves in their tents, which allowed each family to live in modesty and privacy, leading Balaam to praise the beauty of Israel’s tents, later made famous in the liturgical passage, “Ma tovu ohalekha Yaakov mishkenotekha Yisrael.”  However, what is unique about this midrash is that recognizes that when Balaam saw the tents, he recognized that the tents themselves embodied the Israelites’ commitment to God, and the way God affected the Israelites.   

In each case, our commentaries recognize the connection between the stumbling blocks that prevented Balaam from cursing Israel, and the power of the relationship between God and the Jewish people.   While Sefer Bemidbar is filled with moments that tried God and Moses’ patience, Parshat Balak reminds us that the covenant between God and the Jewish people endures because the relationship is deemed important.   As we close another year at Schechter, we must remind ourselves of the same lesson from our parasha, recognizing how the relationships that our students form with their teachers, one another, and with the broader Schechter community do not simply disappear with the passing of each year, but remain embedded in their consciousness and affect them for the rest of their lives.   We all merit for the power of that idea.   

In closing, this Dvar Torah will be my last one for the 2012-2013, as Schechter Torah takes a summer break.  Our new website received almost 9000 visits in the first year, and I cannot wait for us to expand what we offer in the fall.   May this summer be one of countless learning moments, where we take the time to think about what is most important, and how we might grow and develop in the coming year.   All the rest is commentary...go and study.

Shabbat Shalom!

Dvar M’Tzion: Parshat Hukkat: Primal Waters

I write this Dvar Torah at Kibbutz Ketura, a pluralistic kibbutz in the Arava Region of Israel.   As our seniors begin the final days of their Israel experience, it remains fascinating to observe the ways the emotions of individuals within the group affect the ability of the group to function.   In Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee write about how a leader’s emotional intelligence can shape the overall functionality of a larger group.  They write:

“…groups are smarter than individuals only when they exhibit the qualities of emotional intelligence. Everyone in the group contributes to the overall level of emotional intelligence, but the leader holds special sway in this regard. Emotions are contagious, and it’s natural for people to pay extra attention to the leader’s feelings and behavior.  So, very often it is the group leader who sets the tone and helps to create the group’s emotional reality—how it feels to be part of the team” (Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence, Kindle Edition).

While most of us are aware that emotions are contagious between individuals, the authors of Primal Leadership recognize that a leader’s emotional awareness within a group has a disproportionate affect on the overall group’s emotional intelligence, a lesson that we will learn within a sampling of commentaries on Moses leadership and the famous episode of striking the rock at Meriva.  

Parshat Hukkat describes the second time in the Torah when Moses drew water from a rock, only this second instance leads to harsh punishment, for after Moses strikes the water that provides the Israelites much-needed water, our parasha contains an admonishment God to Moses and Aaron:

“And the Lord spoke to Moshe and Aaron, Because you did not believe in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this congregation in to the land which I have given them. It is the water of Meriva; because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and He was sanctified by them” (Bamidbar 20:12-13).

Since these verses were first read, our biblical commentators struggled to understand why Moses’ conduct warranted exclusion from entering the land of Israel.   In truth, our commentators never agree on a single answer, yet a strand of commentaries argue that Moses’ inability to control his emotions ultimately lies at the root of his sin at the rock.

Comparing the two episodes in which Moses drew water from a rock, the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of midrashim on the Torah, writes that one can compare Moses’ approach to how a teacher ought to instruct students:

“Order the rock” (Num. 20:8) – it does not say “strike,” rather, “order.”   He said to him: When a lad is young, his Rabbi strikes him to teach him, but once he grows up, he reproves him with words.   Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses:  When this rock was young, you struck it, “Strike the rock” (Ex. 17:6), but now “order the rock”; teach it one lesson and it will give out water. (Yalkut Shimoni, par. 763- Text and translation from Bar-Ilan University).

In this midrash, just as one must change their teaching methods as students progress in maturity and understanding, Moses needed to change his approach to drawing rock from the water as he progressed in his role as a leader.   Because Moses did not show the leadership growth necessary to shepherd the Israelites at the next stage in their journey, Moses was prohibited from joining the Israelites when they enter the land of Canaan.

Focusing on Moses’ personal qualities, Moses Maimonides writes in his Shemonah Perakim that the episode at the rock in Parshat Hukkat was paradigmatic of a leader’s inability to show patience in the face of adversity. Maimonides states:

“…the sin of Moses lay in that he departed from the moral mean of patience to the extreme of wrath in so far as he exclaimed, "Hear now ye rebels" etc., yet for this God found fault with him that such a man as he should show anger in the presence of the entire community of Israel, where wrath is unbecoming.  This was a profanation of God's name…” (The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics, Trans. Joseph I. Gorfinkle, Columbia University Press, 1912, p. 67- Text and translation from Bar-Ilan University).

According to Maimonides, while it was not unreasonable for Moses to show impatience in a time of acute stress, the fact that Moses spoke harshly the Israelites, and struck the rock with his staff, revealed that Moses showed excessive impatience to both God and the Jewish people.    As such, Moses’ inability to control his emotions sowed the seeds of God’s punishment.

Finally, the Kedushat Levi, the Torah commentary of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, interprets this episode typologically, and argues that the words that Moses used in Parshat Hukkat are similar to the kind of destructive speech that draws a person away from God.   He writes:

“For there are two aspects of one who reproaches Israel that they should do the will of the Creator, blessed be He. The one who reproaches with positive words, that is to say, one who tells every man of Israel about his elevated level and the place of the source of his soul, that the soul of Israel is truly hewn from above the Throne of Glory, and the great pleasure that the Creator, blessed be He, derives, as it were, from the mitzvot of each man of Israel, and the great joy in all the worlds when a man of Israel performs the bidding of the Creator in this world. With this reproach, he inclines the heart of the people of Israel to do the will of the Creator, blessed be He, each man of Israel accepting upon himself the yoke of the heavenly kingdom. There is also one who reproaches Israel with harsh and humiliating words, to the point that they are compelled to do the will of the Creator. The difference between them is that the one who reproaches Israel with positive [words] raises the soul of Israel higher and higher, relating at all times the righteousness and greatness of Israel, how great is their power above. He is fit to be a leader of Israel. And the one who reproaches Israel with harsh words is not of this aspect” (Kedushat Levi, Parshat Hukkat- Text and translation from Yeshivat Har Etzion).

The Kedushat Levi argues that positive speech draws the Jewish people closer to the service of God, by stirring people’s hearts to do mitzvot.   However, Moses’ harsh words to the Israelites could only have the opposite effect, making the people feel as though they were worthless and ungrateful.    Therefore, even if Moses’ statement was technically accurate, the way in which the words were delivered contradicted everything that God desired for Israel.   

Although our rabbinic commentators never reach consensus on the single action that led to God’s punishment of Moses and Aaron, the above commentators provide us a window into the rabbis’ recognition of how a leader’s emotions can shape a group both positively and negatively.    While we teach our children about the relationship between emotions and shaping individual success, Parshat Hukkat reminds us about the equally important challenge of understanding the relationship between emotions and furthering group success.   Our task is to help our children learn how Moses’ mistake can provide us a roadmap to become patient, compassionate leaders, for leaders with those qualities will help create communities in that image, leading to a more patient, compassionate world.  

Shabbat Shalom!

Dvar M’Tzion- Parshat Korah: Selfless Leadership

I write this Dvar Torah overlooking the Kinneret, as I am traveling with our graduating senior class on their Israel trip.   As I watch our students come together to journey through our people’s homeland, I find myself thinking a great deal about what it means to shape Jewish leaders, and how Parshat Korah can provide as a paradigmatic example of what not to do as a leader.   For many people, the story of Korah is forever related to a famous text from Mishnah Avot, otherwise known as the Ethics of our Ancestors, which contrasts the conflict begun by Korah with the debates of Hillel and Shammai:

“When an argument is for the sake of heaven, the argument will lead to an established result. When an argument is not for the sake of heaven, it will not lead to any established result. What is an argument for the sake of heaven? That of Hillel and Shammai. What is an argument not for the sake of heaven? That of Korah and his group” (Mishnah Avot 5:17).

While this text is frequently cited to highlight the importance of making sure that a dispute is “for the sake of heaven,” the text reveals little about what precisely made Korah a person whose conflict was not worthy of heaven.  

A cursory reading of this week’s parasha exacerbates the above question, because the first time you read Parshat Korah, it would appear that the complaints offered by Korah are utterly reasonable.   The parasha opens:

“Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi took [himself to one side] along with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, descendants of Reuben. They confronted Moses together with two hundred and fifty men from the children of Israel, chieftains of the congregation, representatives of the assembly, men of repute. They assembled against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "You take too much upon yourselves, for the entire congregation are all holy, and the Lord is in their midst. So why do you raise yourselves above the Lord's assembly?" Moses heard and fell on his face” (Bemidbar 16:1-4).  

Because a first-reading of the Korah story does not reveal what precisely was wrong about Korah’s rebellion, we are required to interpret the subtle messages of the Torah-text to understand Korah’s true motivations, and see what lessons we might take from this episode.  Our rabbinic commentators argue that the evil intentions inherent in Korah’s rebellion were rooted in many different factors, three of which I will explore in this Dvar Torah, namely Korah’s selfish motivations, his ability to use charisma for a destructive purpose, and his willingness to take advantage of the Israelites in a state of vulnerability.  

First, a midrash tells us that Moses responds to Korah’s complaints by offering a personal reasonable explanation for why Moses and Aaron should be elevated above the Israelites, yet Korah is not interested in any explanation that would undermine his desire to foment rebellion.  The midrash states:

“Thus Moses said to them:  If my brother Aaron had seized the priesthood for himself, your complaints against him would have been well-put.  But since it was given him by the Holy One, blessed be He – to Whom belong greatness, might, and majesty – is not anyone who rises up against Aaron rising up against the Holy One, blessed be He?  Therefore it is written, “For who is Aaron that you should rail against him?””  (Bemidbar Rabbah 18:9).

In this midrash, Moses makes clear that Aaron’s position is given by divine mandate, yet Korah has no interest in any answers, no matter how logical.  By implication, this midrash concludes that Korah’s rebellion was evil precisely because Korah did not care about the answers to his pernicious questions, but rather wanted to cause trouble for Moses for the sake of causing trouble.  

Second, Rashi comments we know that Korah’s rebellion was of a sinister nature because the Torah says that Korah “took” a group of people into his rebellion. Rashi writes:

“And Korah took”-He took himself aside, to be separated from the congregation [so as] to rise up against the priesthood, and for this reason Onkelos translates [the word “took”] as “he separated himself”…Another explanation: “And Korah took”—He drew the judges among them with his words…” (Rashi on Bemidbar 16:1). 

This commentary takes the form of a “double-Rashi,” where Rashi offers two potential commentaries on a single verse, leaving the reader to either choose from the outlined options, or see each commentary as offering a distinct reading on the same text.    In either case, Rashi argues that when Korah took people into his rebellion, he made the deliberate decision to separate himself from the community, and use his stature to bring potential converts into his rebellious orbit.    As such, Korah’s evil is rooted in his ability to use power and charisma to undermine and Moses’ mission, and, by extension, God’s covenant with the Jewish people. 

Finally, in a modern commentary, Rabbi Jonathan Saks, the outgoing Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, writes that seeing Korah in his biblical context understands how Korah’s rebellion was really an opportunistic individual taking advantage of a vulnerable people.   Saks writes:

“As Ramban explains, it is no accident that the Korah rebellion happened in the aftermath of the story of the spies. So long as the people expected to enter the Promised Land, they stood to lose more than gain by challenging Moses’ leadership. He had successfully negotiated all obstacles in the past. He was their best hope. But as a result of the spies, that whole generation was condemned to die in the wilderness. Now they had nothing to lose. When people have nothing to lose, rebellions happen” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “Taking it Personally,” Covenant and Conversation, OU Torah, 23 JUNE 2011, http://www.ou.org/index.php/torah/_article/88286/).

According to Saks, Korah chose a moment when the Israelites were most willing to rebel against Moses’ leadership, and it is this calculated decision that lies at the core of Korah’s evil.    In truth, Korah chose to rebel at this particular time because it was opportunistic time to make a power-play, yet it is that decision that makes Korah’s rebellion what it was, namely a controversy far away from heaven.

Each of the above commentaries brings me back to the mishnah from Mishnah Avot.  The reason why Korah’s dispute was not for the sake of heaven was because Korah’s intentions in bringing about the rebellion were disingenuous and self-serving at their very core.   In contrast, transformative leadership, the kind epitomized both Hillel and Shammai, requires that a leader uses authority to achieve communal sanctity and divine purpose.   As our seniors take the final steps of their journey at Schechter, may we embrace the task of reminding them about what it means to take hold of Jewish community as their future leaders, engaging in the selfless, holy task of bringing people together to serve God and one another.

Shabbat Shalom!