#parsha
the mishkan is a body.
it’s anointed with blood on its extremities to make it fit for service (shemot 29:12); the kohanim are anointed with blood on their extremities to make them fit for service (ibid, v.20)
it’s clothed in scarlet and purple and blue (26:1) and so are they (28:6).
it has regular bloodflow, it consumes grain and meat and wine and oil, it has recognised agents who may enter and serve and it has foreign pathogens which are destroyed.
it has an element of the divine which inhabits and sanctifies it.
the mishkan is a body.
something is stored in the mishkan, which needs to be atoned for on a yearly basis (30:10).
i don’t think it’s moral-ethical, cheshbon hanefesh-y, elul, type of atonement. the altar can’t sin! it’s made of metal and wood. and we have established other ways to atone for things.
we need an intertext to figure this one out, and it’s found in the gemara in zevachim 88b: the ketonet atones for shfichat damim, the michnasayim for gilui arayot, the mitznefet for arrogance, the avneit for hirhurim. the choshen mishpat for mistaken judgment, the efod for avoda zara, the me’il for lashon hara, and the tzitz for azut fanim.
again how can that be? the kohanim, if they had engaged in shfichat damim, would as far as i know be psulim to serve… and surely few of them were committing gilui arayot or avoda zara. why are these clothes on these people’s bodies doing this work?
i think what it means is, things we think we have worked through, or repress and are never aware of their impact on us in the first place - these things get stored in the body. they bubble up in ways and places we didn’t expect, disconnected from the scene of the crime.
“the body keeps the score.”
this is what it means that the bigdei kehuna are doing this purgatory work - our sins bubbling up through into the persons of the kohanim, their bodies. and this is what it means that the altar needs atonement.
all our sins - and remember, the mishkan, its gold and blue crimson purple, is from the money of the whole jewish people! - we think we work through them, and we do!, but they are stored like sex hormones in fat, like winter in the growth rings of trees, in the centre of us - the sins are stored in the mishkan.
this week i had to give a d’var torah at short notice and had these three elements (bigdei kehuna, atoning for the altar, the mizbeach is a body) rattling around and remembered the title of the book “the body keeps the score”, which i have never read.
i think it all came together nicely when i spoke and am posting it here to have, for critique, and so i can go back and source more stuff.
ShlachorShlach Lecha (”Send for you”) is parsha 37 out of 54. Parsha #4 in Bamidbar (Numbers)
Main topics:
* Sin of the twelve spies - Moshe sends spies to scout the promised land. After 40 days, the spies return with fearful tales. Israel asks to go back to Egypt. God wants to wipe out the nation, but Moshe begs Him to reconsider. Instead, they are sentenced to wander for 40 years in the desert (a year for every day the spies spent in the land)
* Some commandments - including Challa (dough offering), Tzizit
* Israel find a man violating the Sabbath, and turn to God to know what to do with him
Texts
Parsha:Numbers 13-15
Haftarah:Joshua 2- Joshua sends spies to scout Jericho
This post originally appears at Kevah.org.
What is holiness?
The concept of holiness (or ‘sanctity’) is central to Jewish theology, but commentators have struggled throughout the ages to give it precise definition. The word in Hebrew, kedusha(קדושה), has the connotation of ‘distinct,’ or ‘separate.’ Hence the first usage of the term in the Torah, to describe the Shabbat:
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it (vaykadesh oto), because on it God ceased from all the work of Creation that he had done.(Gen. 2:3)
וַיְבָרֶךְאֱלֹקיםאֶת-יוֹםהַשְּׁבִיעִי,וַיְקַדֵּשׁאֹתוֹ: כִּיבוֹשָׁבַתמִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ,אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָאאֱלֹקיםלַעֲשׂוֹת.
Holiness also seems to have something do with closeness to God, who is the source of the sacred. This is the impression we get from the first appearance of the word in the Book of Exodus. In Moses’ encounter with the Burning Bush, God tells him:
Do not come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.(Exod. 3:5)
וַיֹּאמֶר,אַל-תִּקְרַבהֲלֹם;שַׁל-נְעָלֶיךָ,מֵעַלרַגְלֶיךָ–כִּיהַמָּקוֹםאֲשֶׁראַתָּהעוֹמֵדעָלָיו,אַדְמַת-קֹדֶשׁהוּא.
We continue to see references to holiness, here and there, throughout the Book of Exodus, and it becomes clear that this is a value to be pursued. So we are told that we are to be “holy people” to God (22:30), and even that the Israelites will be known as a “holy nation”(19:6).
Yet it is not until the construction of the Tabernacle and the appointment of the priesthood that holiness truly comes into center stage in the Biblical text. The Tabernacle, meant to serve as a dwelling place for God on earth, is called a mikdash, or sanctuary – literally a ‘holy thing.’ And the High Priest who will oversee the sacrifices offered there is to wear a golden headband, upon which we are told to engrave: ‘Kodesh L’Hashem’ - Holy to the Lord.
So by the time we enter Leviticus, which presents itself as entire book devoted to detailing the work of the priests and the rituals of the Tabernacle, we have fully entered into a religion of holiness. The sacrifices themselves are described, again and again, as ‘holy’; the inner chamber of the Tabernacle is ‘The Holy of Holies’; and the priests themselves, dressed in their ‘holy garments’ are the official representatives of this holiness. In fact, it is in our parsha that they receive the most explicit description of their role:
Parsha Poster #49 – Ki Tetze: Mercy’s for the birds
When you encounter the nest of a bird before you in the way, in any tree or on the ground, whether fledglings or eggs, with the mother crouching upon the fledgelings or upon the eggs, you are not to take away the mother along with the children. Send-free, send-free the mother, but the children you make take for yourself, in order that it may go-well with you and you may prolong (your) days.
— Deu. 22:6-7 (translation Everett Fox, Schocken Bible)
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Acting With Compassion
When we allow the “other” — any living being — to penetrate our heart, and we act with compassion, the results are never-ending. For a moment, we operate as if we are indeed one with all. Divisions disappear. There is only love. Very often, even simple acts of kindness, can profoundly alter the course of the recipient’s life. And we may not even know!
My husband Ely recently received a letter from a classmate on the occasion of their 50th high school reunion. His classmate, from PRESCHOOL had come into the class as a new student. His parents had just moved to New York from another country. Ely reached out to the new boy and reassured him, “All will be well and we will include you in our group of friends.”
Sixty-five years later, this man wrote my husband to say that he never forgot that kindness. He told him that it completely altered his experience of moving to new country and school. Ely had no idea that his simple welcome had made such a huge difference in that boy’s life.
Every act of compassion is significant, whether we can see its consequences or not. Our thoughtfulness and kind actions matter.
Every time we act as if we are one, a ripple effect resounds in the universe.
Rabbi Jill Zimmerman is the founder of The Jewish Mindfulness Network. Her work blends the sacred teachings of Judaism with mindfulness practice. Rabbi Zimmerman created Hineni: The Mindful Heart Community, which is a virtual ongoing community welcome to anyone interested in becoming more mindful through the lens of Judaism.You can find her at ravjill.com on twitter @RabbiJill and on Facebook.
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Parsha Poster #48 – Shoftim: Getting a witness
One witness shall not stand against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinned; according to two witnesses, or according to three witnesses, shall a matter be established.
— Deu. 19:15
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Let’s Teach Social Justice in an Effective Way
Done well, Jewish social justice education should create individuals and institutions for whom responsibility to the world is a central and integrated part of their Jewish lives, and who act publicly as Jews. This work should also lead directly to positive change in the world. Instead, we sometimes use social justice as a tool for engaging unaffiliated Jews, or we look for service opportunities that correspond to our own needs, rather than to the needs of the target community.
Take text and history seriously. This means engaging in a dialogue between Jewish texts and contemporary issues, in which we bring each to bear on our understanding of the other. We should dive deeply into Jewish civil law discussions about housing, poverty, worker-employer relations and other issues. We should not be afraid to deal with texts that seem difficult or even offensive, but should bring these texts into conversation with our experiences. This means allowing texts to challenge our assumptions about what we have seen or experienced, and also allowing our experiences to challenge our readings of the texts.
Done in this way, social justice education helps students to find meaning in Jewish wisdom and practice, to build community among themselves and to gain the skills for a lifelong engagement in creating a better world.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. She is the author of Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community (Jewish Lights, 2011) and There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights, 2009). First published in the Forward Jan 20, 2010.
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Parsha Poster #47 – Re’eh: What’s for dinner
These are the beasts that you may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat; the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the antelope, and the mountain-sheep. And every beast that splits the hoof, and has the hoof wholly cloven in two, and chews the cud, among the beasts, that you may eat… These you may eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever has fins and scales may you eat… Of all clean birds you may eat…
— Deu. 14:4-6, 9, 11
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The chosen people choose
The chosen people choose
To inspect the food
That the mammal has chewed
When it comes time to meet your meat
This bovine has four stomachs and four feet
This woolen ewe grew fluffy fleece
From eating flowers for hours in peace
The hooves of these goats are split in two
Like the priests giving a blessing do
And though these birds nibble at grubs and worms
Their status is kosher enough for a turn
A swimming being with scales and fins
Can be drawn in as a kosher catch…even their skins
Kohenet Sarah Shamirah Chandler is the CCO (Chief Compassion Officer) and team leader at the Jewish Initiative for Animals where she works to support Jewish institutions to establish meaningful food policies rooted in Jewish ethics and animal welfare. She teaches, writes and consults on a national level on issues related to Judaism, earth-based spiritual practice, the environment, mindfulness, food values, and farming.
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Parsha Poster #46 – Ekev: Golden gods
Then I saw and behold, you had sinned to the Lord your God, you made yourselves a molten calf, you strayed quickly from the way that God commanded you. I held the two tablets and threw them from my two hands, and I smashed them before your eyes… I prayed to God and said, “My Lord, God, do not destroy Your people and Your heritage that You redeemed in Your greatness, that You took out of Egypt with a strong hand.
— Deu. 9:16-17, 26
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Golden Calf
Moses claims that You love only him,
that we were spared because he intervened,
that You do not like our offering.
Moses, who has never seen Your face—
not in the silent, steamy eyes of Tzipporah,
from whom he stays cloistered,
not in the bloody foreskins of his sons,
whom he ignores in the name of his holy work.
Moses, who doesn’t touch.
Moses, who doesn’t dance.
Moses, the bridegroom of blood.
Guide him please, Holy One of Compassion.
We don’t need another Pharaoh to lead us into freedom.
Love him doubly, forgive him his wrath.
He was taken as an infant from his mother.
Only You know what befell the lad in the palace,
but below, all we see is his sweltering rage.
Otherwise, as You surely can foresee,
generations will mistake
fervent worship for idolatry.
Rabbi Jacob J. Staub is Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Spirituality at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and co-author of Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach. He is also a spiritual director and a writer of contemporary midrash,of which this poem, published in Zeek, is an example. He can be reached at www.jacobstaub.net.
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Parsha Poster #45 – Va’etchanan: Fiery words
And you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of heaven, darkness, clouds, and thick gloom. And God spoke to you from within the fire; you were hearing the sound of words but you were not seeing a likeness, only a sound. He told you of His covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Declarations, and He inscribed them on two stone tablets.
— Deu. 4:11-13
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Get High
I’ve taken back my mother tongue,
each letter more humbling than the next,
breaking myself open against the words of sacred texts
to let G!d part my lips and
tongue-kiss me alphabetically.
Deep in my all-too-human bones I know
that lowly exile
Holds holy redemption.
My point of reference is shackles, chains, abuse and starvation.
I claw my way from bondage to liberation on the daily.
I step into the sea, then pray that it will part for me.
I cross the desert,
not knowing where I am going,
I stay rolling in clouds of glory,
I arrive at Mount Sinai
to tell it I survive.
I am alive.
PoetRachel Kann is a modern-day mystic who’s a resident writer for Hevria and been featured on Morning Becomes Eclectic on NPR and as The Weather on the podcast phenomenon, Welcome to Night Vale. This is an excerpt from a piece that was first performed at Write Club Los Angeles and first appeared in print on Hevria. Visit her at rachelkann.com
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Parsha Poster #44 – Devarim: Look out
On the other side of the Jordan, Moshe began explaining this Torah, saying: The Lord our God spoke to us in Chorev saying, enough of your dwelling by this mountain. Turn yourselves around and journey and come to the Amorite mountain and all its neighbors, in the Aravah, on the mountain, and in the lowland, and in the south, and at the coast; the Canaanite land and the Lebanon until the great river, the Euphrates River. See, I have given the land before you; come and possess the land that God swore to your forefathers, to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, to give to them and to their descendants after them.
— Deu. 1:5-8
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Wandering in the desert: a state of mind?
I walked in the desert alone once – setting out from Dashur on the edge of the Nile, past the ‘bent’ pyramid of Sneferu, until all signs of life; the flowering cacti, the desert fox, the vipers and the iridescent stinging green flies, were left behind and the solitary voice of my thoughts grew so loud as to overpower me into submission. How did Lawrence and Thesinger do it? How do the Bedouins do it? They must be able to turn off that internal voice and just ‘be’, something I’ve found hard to do even in a yoga class, quite frankly. And it is in that state, that ‘being’ that ‘un-self’ that revelations, visions and insights appear to drift into the mind from nowhere, from leftfield, from God.
And yet, even with all the noise of the city, I’m convinced that ‘walking in the desert’ is more of an attitude than a geographical necessity. Endless silence might help some shed their everyday concerns, limitless space might encourage directionless perambulations, but these prerequisites of deeper insight can also be achieved by developing mindfulness wherever we happen to be, by finding strategies and rituals and black spaces that for some replace the belief in answered prayers, but not the rhythm and ritual of praying.
Michel De Certeau in “The Practice of Everyday Life” said “The functionalist organisation, by privileging progress (i.e. time), causes the condition of its own possibility – space itself – to be forgotten; space thus becomes a blind spot in a scientific and political technology.” We need to find those blind spots, to create our own deserts: they are as important as our destinations and our goals and we should try to visit them daily, as in prayer.
Alan Rogers is a visual artist and a curator and project manager within arts development. Identity and place link these two areas of work. He draws on specific physical, historical and cultural environments to either inspire and locate his own work or to commission new projects for others.
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Parsha Poster #42 & 43 – Matot & Masei
Matot: The children of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their young children, and all their cattle and flocks and all their wealth they took as spoils… Moshe said to them, “Did you let every female live? Behold! It was they who caused the children of Israel, by the word of Balaam, to commit a betrayal against God regarding the matter of Pe'or, and the plague occurred in the assembly of God. So now kill every male among the young children and every woman fit to know a man by lying with a male, you shall kill.
— Num. 31:9, 15-18
Masei: These are the journeys of the children of Israel, who went forth from the land of Egypt according to their legions under the hand of Moshe and Aharon.
— Num. 33:1
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Parsha Poster #41 – Pinchas: Empowering questions
Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad… Machlah, Noah, and Choglah, and Milcah, and Tirtzah. And they stood before Moshe, and before Elazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, at the door of the tent of meeting, saying: “Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not among the company of them that gathered themselves together against God in the company of Korach, but he died of his own sin; and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he had no son? Give unto us a possession among the brethren of our father.” And Moses brought their cause before God. And God spoke to Moshe, saying: “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: you shall surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.”
— Num. 27:1-8
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The Daughters of Zelophehad
The notion that Jewish law is fixed in stone, unbending and unyielding and not subject to change is simply not consistent with the story of Zelophehad’s daughters. It is not consistent with the text of the Torah portion, with God’s actions, or with Moses’ words. After all, it is God himself who changed God’s own prior rule when God saw the justice in the daughters’ argument. And it surely isn’t consistent with the actions of the rabbis centuries later, when, recognizing the inherent dignity of women as individuals, they gave them equal inheritance rights under Jewish law.
That is the kind of change, the kind of tikkun olam, or repair of the world, that lies at the heart of our tradition. It is, I believe, what God commands of every individual, every community, even of the law, even of God.
Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan, a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul, Weiss LLP, successfully argued the case of her client Edie Windsor before the United States Supreme Court. Robbie is the author of the book Then Comes Marriage:United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA, published by W.W. Norton. She also is an adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School, where she teaches a course on Advanced Civil Procedure. This is an excerpt.
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Parsha Poster #40 – Balak: Beastly words
And the ass saw the angel of God, and she lay down under Balaam; and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the ass with his staff. And God opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam: “What have I done to you that you struck me these three times?” And Balaam said to the ass: “Because you mocked me; if were a sword in my hand, I would have killed you.” And the ass said unto Balaam: “Am not I your ass, on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Would I ever have done this to you?” And he said: “No.” Then God Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of God standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face.
— Num. 22:27-31
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Balaam
By Barbara D. Holender. Originally published on thejewishpluralist.net, and used here with permission of The Jewish Pluralist.
How can I tell you what came over me?
Not that the beast found her voice–
any simple sorcerer can pull that trick–
but that I, the most articulate of men,
lost mine. It was as if a spell seized me;
my mind was perfectly clear, I knew
exactly my mission and, being practical,
I always find for the one who pays my rent.
It was my own mouth betrayed me.
No surprise, then, that I missed the messenger
on the road. There was no messenger.
Not then. Not for me. My thoughts were fixed
on the perfect phrase, the lethal message.
He’s smart, that Jewish God, he’s hard
to get around. But I’ve matched wits with gods
from everywhere in the neighborhood
and bested them. Not Him. Not then, not now.
[Continue reading at eepurl.com/b-N0wb]
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Parsha Poster #39 – Chukat: Anger management
And God spoke to Moshe, saying: “Take the staff, and assemble the community, you, and Aharon your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes and it will give its water; and you will bring water to them out of the rock; so you will give the community and their cattle drink.” And Moshe took the staff from before God, as He commanded him. And Moshe and Aharon gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them: “Listen, you rebels; are we to bring you water out of this rock?” And Moshe lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his staff twice; and much water came out, and the community drank, and their cattle. And God said to Moshe and Aharon: “Because you didn’t believe in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
— Num. 20:7-12
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Why Moses Left
I watched a sheep die today.
Its pupils shrank and it collapsed
into a thicket.
There it was, a still creature
covered in wool and sweat—
a staff-rod away from the watering hole.
The flies started to eat its belly
so I burned it.
Aaron Samuels is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Blavity, a digital community for Black Millennials. When he is not at Blavity, Aaron is a writer, a nationally touring speaker, and an acclaimed facilitator of critical identity discussions. His debut collection of poetry, Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps was released on Write Bloody Publishing in fall 2013. Aaron Samuels is Black and Jewish.
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Parsha Poster #38 – Korach: Earthly appetites
And they assembled themselves together against Moshe and against Aharon, and said to them: ‘You take too much upon yourself, since if the whole congregation is holy, and God is among them; why do you lift up yourselves above the community of God?’ … And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who were with Korach, and all their possessions. And they and all their possessions went down alive into the pit; and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the community.
— Num. 16:3, 32-33
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Seeking Change
Can there never be change
to the iron-clad order?
If you were not born
in the right social group
will your longing to serve
be directly discounted?
May you never rebel
nor challenge authority;
is ability sidelined
in favor of caste?
If you have grown up
an outsider, other;
a woman, a convert or
openly gay,
must you forfeit your dreams,
your loftiest yearnings
or be wholly consumed
in darkening depths?
Elizabeth Topper lives in Jerusalem with her husband Jonathan and they are blessed with five sons and two grandchildren. Her early love of Torah was nurtured by her parents and manifests itself also in Hebrew calligraphy and paper cutting. She composes at least one poem a week derived from the parasha and the chagim, which can be found at parashapoems.wordpress.com.
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Parsha Poster #37 – Shelach: Clandestine vintage
And Moshe sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them: ‘Go up here into the South, and go up into the mountains; and see the land, how it is; and the people who live there, if they are strong or weak, if they are few or many; and how the land is that they dwell in, if it is good or bad; and what are the cities that they dwell in, if in camps, or in strongholds; and how the land is, if it is fat or lean, if there is wood there or not. And be strong, and bring from the fruit of the land.’ … And they (the spies) came to the valley of Eshkol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; and also from of the pomegranates, and from the figs.
— Num. 13:17-20, 23
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The Bible and You, The Bible and You, and Other Midrashim (15)
by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), as published in The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
Moses sent many spies to tour the Promised Land
and not just twelve, as it is written. They toured and snapped photos
with their eyes, felt up the trees and springs and stones with their hands,
measured the height of hills and houses, took the measure of pretty women,
strong men, ripe fruit, girls’ thighs.
Twelve spies returned to the desert. Ten brought back
a slander of the land. Two praised the land
and brought back a cluster of gigantic grapes, but they brought no giants, no pretty women, no grasshoppers.
And the story says nothing about the hundreds of spies who stayed behind
deep in the fat of the land of Canaan, who slept with the wives of the giants
and ate of the fruit on every high hill and under every green tree.
And they, who came to see the land in her nakedness,
sang into her and forgot the desert.
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Parsha Poster #36 – Beha’alotecha: Cloudy directions
And on the day that the Mishkan was erected, the cloud covered the Mishkan, which was a the tent for the Testimony; and at evening there was over the Mishkan the appearance of fire, until morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it, and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud went up from over the Tent, then after that the children of Israel journeyed; and in the place where the cloud settled, there the children of Israel encamped.
— Num. 9:15-17
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Clouds and Fire
Through the fourth aliyah (and into the fifth), the Israelites follow a cloud through the desert. It’s a captivating image, one more reminiscent of a French children’s film than Torah. Does the cloud frolic, and whistle happy little tunes? Comfort children when they fall and skin their knees? Sure, the cloud bursts into flames each night, but it’s probably some sort of campfire, right, with everyone dancing with timbrels and singing Maccabeats songs?
We adapted a childhood drink to reflect the innocent images of that passage. (Also, it’s been really hot, and we just wanted an excuse to consume ice cream (ice cream not pictured. Oops).
Recipe: Clouds and Fire (Num 9:16): In a blender, combine 2 scoops chocolate ice cream, 2 scoops vanilla ice cream, and ¼ c. hot fudge/chocolate sauce/etc. Add 1-2 shots each of cinnamon schnapps (or whiskey) and Kahlua (or equivalent. We hear that one of the kosher companies makes mock Kahlua, but that has not made it to the South Side). Top with a cloud of whipped cream, which we did make ourselves and should have made boozy. Camp out on a barstool and remember, no moving unless you’re following that whipped cream cloud.
Andrea Frazier is the self-appointed President of the Hyde Park Kiddush Club. Each week, she and her minyanaires-in-crime post the recipe for a drink inspired by the parsha at Tippling Through The Torah.
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Parsha Poster #35 – Naso: A jealous cocktail
Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If any man’s wife is suspected of committing adultery and being false to her husband… The priest shall administer an oath to the woman, saying to her, “If a man has not laid with you, and you have not defiled impurity under your husband, you will be free from this bitter cursed water. But if you have become defiled … God will make into a curse and an oath among your people, causing your organs to rupture and your belly to distend.” … The priest shall write these curses on a parchment and dissolve them in the bitter waters. He shall make the woman drink the bitter cursed waters, and the cursed waters shall begin to act.
— Num. 5:12, 19-21, 23-24
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How to Sail
Scrape the curse off the parchment. Stir the broken letters into a jar of water. Make a woman drink it: thus said Elohim. But why: thus said Molly, twelve years old. Now I was the teacher. We sat there, two black flames in a room of white fire. We were sailing on a wind that passed through the open window of a room next to the marketplace, two thousand years ago.
Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, composer, performer and Torah teacher. Her poetry book, DIVINITY SCHOOL, won the 2015 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Alicia tours internationally with her band, Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women.
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Parsha Poster #34 – Bamidbar: Plant your flag
The children of Israel shall camp by banner with the insignia of their ancestors’ houses, a specified distance from the tent of meeting shall they camp. Camping on the east side toward the sunrise shall be the divisions of the banner of the camp Judah; the prince of the children of Yehudah being Nachshon the son of Aminadav…
— Num. 2:2-3
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biographies in diaspora
life in diaspora is life in motion.
is writing the biography of a diasporic artist all that different from writing that of a diasporic object? in describing the magnes collection, i’ve left behind most conventions. artists no longer have “nationalities,” even when they do carry a passport (some carry more than one, others none at all). their biographies are told, sparsely, by the dates that frame their lifespan and, even more importantly, by the territories, countries, and sometimes cities, in which they lived and worked.
nationalities do not necessarily matter here. quite paradoxically, in diaspora, it is instead the sense of place that truly matters. the same is true of objects. material culture in diaspora always belongs to many a place. the very materials that make a ritual object often come from different parts of the world — among my favorites @magnes are torah ark curtains, one of which combines an inscription from ukraine with a textile from india, where it was used by jews from iraq… the biography of diasporic objects does not stop at their materials, though. it includes that of the (often unnamed) makers, of those to which the objects were dedicated (this is the case of many ritual objects), and of those who used them. and each of these biographies may very well bring together an array of places, of individual paths, of narratives.
the biography of objects and of people in diaspora is not a trajectory — from here, to there. it’s a network — a network of places.
Francesco Spagnolo, a multidisciplinary scholar focusing on Jewish studies, music and digital media, is the Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life and a Lecturer in the Music Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a host for the cultural programs of Italian National Radio (RAI) in Rome.
This post is adapted from his Mapping Diasporas project, exploring digital humanities approaches to diasporic culture through hands-on research focusing on cultural heritage objects held in The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Parsha Poster #33 – Bechukotai: Heavenly blessings and curses
If you follow in my laws and keep my commandments; I will provide you with rain at the right time, so that the land will bear its crops and the trees of the field will provide fruit… I will grant peace in the land so you will sleep without fear… I will walk among you, and I will be a God to you and you will be a nation to me…
— Lev. 26:3-4,6,12,
If you don’t listen to me and don’t follow my commandments… I will do the same to you, I will bring upon you feelings of anxiety, and also fever, destroying your vision, and making life hopeless. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat it… I will break your aggressive pride, making your skies like iron and your land like brass.
— Lev. 26:14,16,19
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Walking
The path leads further than the eye can see:
behind, it melts in darkness;
ahead it touches sky.
It cuts a swathe through rugged ground
en route to fertile land:
each one alone must seek the way.
Yet on this path, four cubits’ span,
where two can travel side by side
God asks of us to walk with Him.
Elizabeth Topper lives in Jerusalem with her husband Jonathan and they are blessed with five sons and two grandchildren. Her early love of Torah was nurtured by her parents and manifests itself also in Hebrew calligraphy and paper cutting. She composes at least one poem a week derived from the parasha and the chagim, which can be found at parashapoems.wordpress.com.
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Parsha Poster #32 – Behar: Give it a rest
Speak to the members of Israel saying: When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land will rest, a sabbath to God. For six years you will plant your fields, and for six years you will prune your vineyards, and harvest your crops. And on the seventh year the land will have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to God, your fields you will not plant nor your vineyards you will prune.
— Lev. 25:2-4
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Sabbatical Year
Dear current resident,
You are hereby summoned
To a septenial reunion of earthlings.
Dear terrestrian,
Your perfect presence is requested
At the great leveling of rich and poor,
An agrarian banquet for every beau and brute,
Beast and belle,
You are immaculately invited
To a year-long economic ceasefire.
For six years you have been sowing your fields,
Pruning your vineyards
Gathering your crops
As if the land belongs to you.
This night you step onto fallow ground,
You are asked to remember
That you belong to the land.
That you are formed of clay
And ocean salinity
And golden spirals
And lightning.
Rabbi Zoë Klein is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles. She is the author of multiple novels, including Drawing in the Dust, published by Simon and Schuster.
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