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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Parashat Ha'azinu

Parasha: Ha’azinu – Deuteronomy 32:1 - 52
Haftara: 2Samuel 22:1 – 22:51
Reading Date: 11th October 2008 – 12th Tishrei 5769


The greater part of the Torah reading of Haazinu ("Listen In") consists of a 70-line "song"
Calling heaven and earth as witnesses[1], Moses exhorts the people to "Remember the days of old[2] / Consider the years of many generations / Ask your father, and he will recount it to you / Your elders, and they will tell you" how YHVH "found them in a desert land," made them a people, chose them as His own, and bequeathed them a bountiful land.
The Song also warns against the pitfalls of plenty -- "Yeshurun[3] grew fat and kicked / You have grown fat, thick and rotund / He forsook YHVH who made him / And spurned the Rock of his salvation" -- and the terrible calamities that would result, which Moses describes as YHVH "hiding His face [4]." Yet in the end, he promises, YHVH will avenge the blood of His servants and be reconciled with His people and land.
The Parasha concludes with YHVH's instruction to Moses to ascend the summit of Mount Nebo, from which he will behold the Promised Land before dying on the mountain. "For you shall see the land opposite you; but you shall not go there, into the land which I give to the children of Israel."
I will end with the true life account of Tzippora Unger[5]. It is the story of her struggle with her identity as a Jew. I think that there are many within the Roots movement that can identify with her story.

Shabbat Shalom


[1] Deut. 32:5
His people Israel, on the contrary, had acted corruptly towards Him. The subject of “acted corruptly” is the rebellious generation of the people but before this subject there is introduced parenthetically, and in apposition, “not his children, but their spot.” Spot (mum) is used here in a moral sense, as in Prov. 9:7; Job 11:15; Job 31:7, equivalent to stain. The rebellious and ungodly were not children of YHVH, but a stain upon them. If these words had stood after the actual subject, instead of before them, they would have presented no difficulty. This verse is the original of the expression, “children that are corrupters,” in Isa. 1:4. (Keil & Dilitzsch)

[2] Deut.32:7
“Remember the days of old, consider the years of the past generations: ask thy father, that he may make known to thee; thine old men, that they may tell it to thee!” With these words Moses summons the people to reflect upon what YHVH had done to them. The days of old (עֹולָם), and years of generation and generation, i.e., years through which one generation after another had lived, are the times of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, including the pre-Mosaic times, and also the immediate post-Mosaic, when Israel had entered into the possession of Canaan. These times are described by Moses as a far distant past, because he transported himself in spirit to the “latter days” (Deut.31:29), when the nation would have fallen away from YHVH, and would have been forsaken and punished by YHVH in consequence. “Days of eternity” are times which lie an eternity behind the speaker, not necessarily, however, before all time, but simply at a period very far removed from the present, and of which even the fathers and old men could only relate what had been handed down by tradition to them.

[3] YESHURUN – The name given to Israel by YHVH in the time that they are in His perfect will. The name means ‘righteous’ in its simplest form. The Septuagint implies ‘beloved one’ as an explanation.
Yeshurun-The Upright One (Spouse)
In the Re-gathering of the Tribes of Israel, they will be called Yeshurun, meaning “upright or straight”. The nations will acknowledge the greatness of Israel and Ya’akov/Israel will be metamorphosed into Yeshurun.
The wicked ways of Ya’akov will become straight when Messiah returns and they are resurrected and stand upright in His image
and likeness.

Isaiah 44:2 This is what YHVH, who made you, and formed you from the womb, Who will help you says: "Don't
be afraid, Ya’akov my servant; and you, Yeshurun, whom I have chosen.
Deut 33:4-5: Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance for the assembly of Ya’akov. He was king in Yeshurun, When
the heads of the people were gathered, All the tribes of Israel together. [Showing Moshe as a type of Messiah at the
regathering of the tribes of Israel]

Song of Songs 6:3 I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies.
The name, Yeshurun, is the final manifestation of the blessing given by Yitzchak to Ya’akov. This final tikkun olam (the final redemption and transformation of mankind must await the return of Messiah.

Because Ya’akov received the blessing and became known as Israel, that consciousness will take precedence over physical and draw the Light of Messiah into this world. In the resurrection Israel will fulfill its destiny to become Yeshurun, the Upright One, and the Beloved of YHVH.
[4] Darkness. There different types of darkness. There is darkness that is beautiful, darkness that is transparent, darkness that is liberating, darkness that is necessary, darkness that is creative, darkness that is challenging, darkness that is horrifying, darkness that is illuminating and the darkness that is the space for Him to fill.
[5] Growing up in the Sixties and the Seventies as an American Jew was a confusing experience, to say the least. We were the "baby-boomers," the post-war generation who had known no Depression, educated to meet the challenges of the space age, the generation which--it was assumed--would continue the spiral upwards in material success. In this we were completely American.
The Jewish part was the source of the confusion. Yes, we should be completely assimilated into our public schools. But go to Hebrew School afterwards. We were taught to get along with everyone--but don't date non-Jews.
At home, everyone ate chicken soup on Friday night, but the chicken wasn't always from a kosher butcher. And everyone ate pizza out. If you "kept kosher" you just told them to hold the pepperoni.
This nebulous Jewish identity had somehow been enough for our parents' generation. They still remembered a parent or grandparent who had had stronger ties to Judaism, memories of anti-Semitism which had left their mark, a feeling of the "old neighborhood" which they had left for the better part of town and then suburbia. Jewish food was a piece of their heritage, so chicken soup made from non-kosher chicken was still comforting to them if there was enough schmaltz floating at the top.
But mine was the generation that scoffed at schmaltz. For the most part, my peers have rejected the ersatz Jewishness of our parents. Many have rejected their own Jewishness as a result. Others are now in Israel, consoling themselves by practicing secularism among other Jews. And the lucky ones have rediscovered the source of their parents' emotions, the kashrut that had been rendered into mere schmaltz, and have reversed the process.
I count myself among the lucky ones.
The message I received growing up at home was somewhat schizophrenic. I was expected to act like everyone else but to feel Jewish. My home was relatively observant. We kept kosher. We went to Hebrew School. We went to Temple every Friday night and Saturday morning. We were discouraged from bringing non-Jewish friends home. My mother lit candles every Friday night at six oclock--summer and winter.
My father believed in G-d and wanted us to believe in Him too. But if his faith was purer because it lacked intellectual understanding, it was all the poorer in its transmissibility to his children.
I knew that I was different because I was Jewish. My parents never quite made it to the suburbs so by the early sixties we were in a gentile neighborhood by virtue of social immobility. I read a lot and wanted to read about Jewish things. But there were no Jewish books in the local branch of the public library. My first attempt at writing came at the age of nine; I tried to write a Jewish version of the Bobbsey Twins. I only wrote two pages and then I had to quit. A book has to have action; and while I knew that the Jewish Bobbseys would feel differently than the originals, I didn't quite know how they would act differently.
When the sixties reached their peak, I was still in high school. The initial message of the sixties wasn't bad: one should find absolute truths and guide one's life by them. That message lasted about ten minutes. Then it became formulated into generalities like peace, love, and brotherhood. The final equation looked like this: peace = burning down the campus; love = indiscriminate distribution of one's bodily favors; brotherhood = rejection of established morality/religion as a divisive factor.
The social law established in the sixties was: Thou shalt not follow any rules.
The intellectual result of the sixties milieu was not nearly so direct nor easy to see through. On the one hand, intellectuals pursued the goal of finding the absolute truths of social science. On the other hand, one could prove himself only by proving that someone else's absolute truths were false. Academic success required total arrogance and the ability to convince others that the arrogance was justified. Belief in anything higher than ones own intellectual ability was a badge of shame and dishonor. Finding a reason to disagree with anything and everything was the ultimate sign of brilliance.
As I entered college in 1973 I planned on being intellectually successful. But world events collided with my plans, and the feelings that I had never understood took over.
I had (as had everyone) been influenced by the sixties. I knew my parents did not possess absolute truths and therefore I had to find my own way--with all the arrogance, stubbornness, and obnoxiousness of my generation.
Jewish youth had produced its own particular questions. There had been a few heroes presented to us. Meir Kahane with his shout of "Never Again!" led us to recognize that we were part of a people. Elie Wiesel was my personal choice. While his books never advised Jews to act differently, they were based on the assumption that the Jewish experience had made Jews into a people who felt differently, who asked different types of questions, whose natural state was to be somewhat alienated from the general world.
Acting on those feelings, I dropped out of college in my first semester and went to Israel to be a kibbutz volunteer in wartime. Ten thousand American kids went that year, most against the wishes of their parents who thought such Jewish identification to be a bit extreme. And why? Because we knew that our people were in trouble and we chose to be with them. Ahavat Yisrael ("love of a fellow Jew") drove us, although we boned up on Zionist philosophy to claim a rational basis to our actions.
Our parents still identified more strongly with America than with other Jews. Their hopes were pinned on their children achieving success professionally and financially, and they were all uneasy about the prospect that we might just decide to stay in Israel. Jewish peoplehood was not a big deal to them; they felt chicken soup should be enough.
So I spent six months on a communist kibbutz in the Negev as an act of Jewish identification. I had thought that Israel would be the place where I would feel relaxed as a Jew, but instead found that the ideology of the kibbutz was to rid the Jew of any feelings of being different. If there are no gentiles to make you feel alienated then you can feel comfortable acting like a gentile. I didn't act Jewish on the kibbutz; I acted less Jewish than I had in America.
So it was with a secret sense of relief that I went home to my angry parents, and back to school. I felt Jewish--but wished I could feel better about it.
I decided to major in History. Somehow, I felt that by understanding the past I could understand where I stood in the world.
The Holocaust is the obsession of any self-respecting Jewish history buff and I was no exception. But Jewish history in the University curriculum rejects a priori the reality of Judaism. All topics of study are based upon the assumption that the best thing a Jew can do is escape from Torah.
In the pursuit of the Jewish past, I immersed myself in the study of the Haskalah movement, the Enlightenment as pursued by Jews. The irony of it was that the individuals and movements I studied were those that advocated the rejection of Judaism, while I was trying to find it.
There were Torah-observant Jews around. There was a Chabad House; I knew the rabbis and some of my friends went there. But my academic training indoctrinated me to believe that anybody who could keep the laws of a Medieval religion in the twentieth century had to be intellectually deficient or crazy or both. I would have nothing to do with them.
So I devoted myself to the writings of Jews who dealt with modernity: atheists, reformists, humanists, communists, etc. Each admitted that he was a Jew, but felt that Jews had to be something else in the modern world. And of course I studied anti-Semitism. It is paradoxical that I somehow thought I could come to grips with my own identity by wading through the thoughts of intellectuals (some of them Jewish) who had devised new and different ways to revile my great-grandparents.
Most of these courses were offered under the heading: "Judaic Studies." One class in particular shook me to the core. It was a seminar on German-Jewish intellectuals, taught by two very eminent Jewish professors who had themselves escaped Germany in the thirties.
It was toward the end of the semester that we read Freud's Moses and Monotheism. For those who have had the privilege of avoiding this polemic, it theorizes that the Jewish people originated as a low-class rabble led by an incestuous Egyptian prince.
Something snapped in me. Yes, I was a rationalist. Yes, I believed in evolution and the A scroll and the J scroll and all that stuff anthropologists said about the Bible. But this was too much. I knew in the pit of my stomach that my ancestors had not suffered for two thousand years because they had been deluded by an egocentric Egyptian con artist.
"Freud went too far," I said through clenched teeth. The student near me, a German-born son of a Nazi, smiled. We had argued all semester and now he had me. "What's the matter?" he sneered. "What are you? A FUNDAMENTALIST!"
There it was. The dreaded word of the intellectual world. Everyone literally gasped in horror. It meant you believed there might actually be something higher than the human mind, even higher than the mind of a professor. If I was a fundamentalist then I was an academic heretic.
I took a deep breath. I said nothing. I didn't owe him an explanation. This son of a Nazi had, quite possibly, in his German accent, inadvertently taught me a truth. If he was the opposite of a fundamentalist, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be.
Mine was the generation that hungered for Jewishness, but couldn't believe in G-d. I was taught to pray to Him, but was also taught that the entire Torah had been written by imaginative men who invented miracles and an afterworld to make people behave better. So if the rabbis we grew up with didn't believe that G-d had ever really talked to anybody, why should we believe He existed at all?
Something inside of me began to loosen up. I began to realize that people who kept the mitzvot of the Torah were not necessarily stupid. And just maybe they weren't crazy.
I had come to what was one of the most humbling realizations of my life.
It was two and a half years before I decided to make a firm commitment to Torah Judaism. Somewhere along the way, I began to suspect that when things didn't go right in my life it was because I was doing something wrong. And the more I began to associate with Torah-observant Jews, the more I liked the lifestyle. It had order. It made sense. It was better than anybody else's lifestyle.
So I made a sociological decision to adopt the lifestyle and beliefs of my ancestors. I then decided to go and study at Bais Chana Women's Institute in Minnesota so that I could really fit in.
The first few days were wonderful. The classes were interesting, the company was good, the food was great. Then it hit me. This was not a sociological exercise. After telling myself for years that I was looking for truth, I came face to face with it.
There really was a Creator of the Universe who expected us to behave in a certain way. And I had spent the last 23 years not behaving that way. I couldn't choose to change my lifestyle. I had to change.
I cried.
I was horrified.
I survived.
Because despite the blow to my ego when I realized that I was not my own clever creator, that the entire value of my intellectual training lay in my rejection of it, it was a relief.
I wasn't schizophrenic--my education was. America has raised three generations of Jews to feel like Jews--but to think and act like gentiles. So when popular novelists and filmmakers portray Jews as neurotics, they aren't really distorting the picture; they're telling the embarrassing truth: the secular Jewish identity promotes schizophrenia.
When one Jew gets another to do something Jewish, to do a mitzvah, he's promoting mental health.
And that, Dr. Freud, is a fundamental truth.

Reading for Yom Kippur

Special reading for Yom Kippur
Leviticus 16,18; Numbers 29:7-11; Isaiah 57:4-58; Micah 7:14-20; The book of Jonah


Following the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, who "came close[1] to YHVH and died," YHVH tells Moses to instruct Aaron
...that he should not enter, at all times, into the holy, inside the Parochet (the "veil" that separated the "Holy of Holies" from the rest of the Sanctuary), before the Kaporet (cover) that is upon the Ark -- lest he die; for in a cloud I appear above the Kaporet...
Only on the holiest day of the year -- Yom Kippur -- and after bringing a series of specially ordained offerings, should the Cohen Gadol ("high priest") purify himself, put on white linen garments[2], and enter the chamber housing the Ark:
He shall take a pan-full of fiery coals from atop the altar that is before YHVH, and the fill of his hands of finely-ground ketoret (incense), and bring them inside the Parochet.
And he shall place the ketoret upon the fire before YHVH; and the cloud of incense shall cover up the Kaporet that is on [the Ark of] the Testament...
The Torah then goes on to detail the service performed by the Cohen Gadol on Yom Kippur to secure atonement for his people. Among the offerings of the day were two male goats:
And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot forYHVH, and one lot for Azazel.
The goat that which the lot determined to be "For YHVH" is brought as an offering and its blood is sprinkled in the Holy of Holies. The one deemed for "Azazel" is "dispatched by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness; and the goat shall bear upon it all their sins to a barren land."
And he shall make atonement for the holy place, over the defilements of the children of Israel, over their transgressions in all their sins. And so shall he do for the Tent of Meeting, which dwells amongst them in the midst of their defilement...[3]
And this shall be an everlasting statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, the home born or the stranger that sojourns among you.
For on this day He will atone for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before YHVH... once a year.

Well over the fast!



[1] After the death of the two sons of Aaron who came close to G-d and died (Leviticus 16:1)
They approached the supernal light out of their great love of the Holy, and thereby died. Thus they died by "divine kiss" such as experienced by the perfectly righteous; it is only that the righteous die when the divine kiss approaches them, while they died by their approaching it... Although they sensed their own demise, this did not prevent them from drawing near to G-d in attachment, delight, delectability, fellowship, love, kiss and sweetness, to the point that their souls ceased from them.
(Ohr HaChaim)

[2] And he shall bathe his flesh in water, and clothe himself in them (16:4)
On that day, the Cohen Gadol immersed (in a mikveh) five times, and washed his hands and feet from the kiyyor ("basin") that stood before the Sanctuary ten times: each time he changed his clothes, he was required to immerse once, and wash twice (once before removing the first set of clothes, and again after dressing in the second set).
For there were five sets of services performed by him on that day: 1) The regular morning services, performed in the "golden garments" (worn by the Cohen Gadol throughout the year). 2) The special services of the day (reciting the confession over the Yom Kippur offerings, casting the lots, entering the Holy of Holies to offer the ketoret and to sprinkle the blood of the Yom Kippur offerings)--performed in the linen garments. 3) The two rams brought as "ascending offerings" and the day's musaf offerings--in the golden garments. 4) returning to the Holy of Holies to remove the pan of burning incense--in linen garments. 5) the regular afternoon services--in the golden garments.
(Talmud, tractate Yoma)

[3] Following the Torah's account of the revelation at Mount Sinai and Moses' ascent to the top of the mountain to receive the Torah from YHVH, come 16 chapters -- comprising the Torah sections of Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ki-Tisa, Vayak'hel and Pekudei - -in which are related:
a) YHVH's instructions regarding the building of the Sanctuary (Exodus 25-31, covering the sections of Terumah, Tetzaveh, and the first part of Ki-Tisa);
b) The sin of the Golden Calf and the granting of the Second Tablets (Exodus 32-34, all in Ki-Tisa);
c) The people's donation of the materials for the Sanctuary (Exodus 35) and the Sanctuary's construction, erection and sanctification (Exodus 36-40; these comprise the sections of Vayak'hel and Pekudei).
In keeping with the rule that "There is no earlier and later in Torah" (i.e., the Torah does not necessarily relate events in the order in which they occurred), the biblical commentaries differ as to the chronology of these events. All told, there are no fewer than three different versions of the time-frame of the Mishkan's making vis-a-vis the making of the Golden Calf.
The following timeline, spanning a period of almost ten months, is agreed to by all:
1) On Sivan 6 (or 7, according to Rabbi Yossi), YHVH revealed Himself to all of Israel and proclaimed the Ten Commandments; on the following day, Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah from YHVH.
2) Forty days later, on Tammuz 16, the people made the Golden Calf, and rose early the next morning to worship it. On Tammuz 17 Moses descended from the mountain carrying the Tablets of the Testimony; upon seeing the people dancing around their idol, he smashes the Tablets at the foot of the mountain.
3) On Tammuz 19, Moses ascended Mount Sinai for a second 40 days to plead for forgiveness on Israel's behalf. At the end of this period, YHVH tells him to carve two new tablets, upon which He will inscribe the Ten Commandments, to replace the broken tablets.
4) On the 1st of Elul, Moses ascended the mountain with the tablets he carved for a third forty days, which concluded on the 10th of Tishei (Yom Kippur). On that day, Moses received the Second Tablet from YHVH and YHVH expressed His full forgiveness of Israel's sin.
5) The construction of the Mishkan's components and vessels was completed 2 1/2 months later, on the 25th of Kislev (the first day of Chanukah). But the Mishkan was not set up until more than three months after that, on the 1st of Nissan (preceded by a week of "initiation," Adar 23-29).
The above is derived by the Talmud from the Torah's account. The point of contention between the commentaries concerns YHVH's instructions regarding the Mishkan and the people's donation of its materials.
Nachmanides is of the opinion that these occurred in the order in which they appear in the Torah. Thus, YHVH's instructions to Moses regarding the Sanctuary (recounted in Terumah and Tetzaveh) came immediately after the revelation at Sinai, during Moses' first 40 days on the mountain. Their implementation, however, was delayed by Israel's sin and the need for Moses to obtain YHVH's forgiveness and a second pair of Tablets, so that the donation of the materials described in the beginning of Vayak'hel (Exodus 35) occurred on Tishrei 11, the day after Yom Kippur, followed by the Mishkan's construction and erection as per above.
Rashi (who follows the Midrash Tanchuma), notes the many Scriptural and Talmudic indications that the Sanctuary was in response to, and an atonement for, the sin of the Golden Calf. Accordingly, Rashi is of the opinion that the divine instructions contained in the sections of Terumah and Tetzaveh were communicated to Moses on Yom Kippur, following Israel's repentance, YHVH's (full) forgiveness, and Moses' receiving of the Second Tablets.
A third opinion is that of the Zohar, which states that both YHVH's instructions and Israel's donation of the materials occurred before the sin of the Golden Calf. (Thus, explains the Zohar, the people had to "unload the golden earrings which were in their ears" to provide gold for their idol, since their gold had already been donated for the making of the Mishkan.) According to this, the making of the Sanctuary was not a result of Israel's sin and their repentance thereof, but a mitzvah that was commanded, and begun to be implemented, before the incident of the Golden calf.
The Tzaddik, the Baal Teshuvah and the Sinner
Schneerson points out that these three versions describe three different states of the people commanded and empowered to make an abode for YHVH.
According to the Zohar, the commandment to make a Mishkan was directed to a nation of tzaddikim, perfectly righteous individuals untainted by sin or wrongdoing (in accordance with the Talmudic statement that, at Sinai, the people of Israel were born anew, and thus as pure of guilt or an iniquitous past as a newborn infant.) The dedication of the materials of the Mishkan was likewise by tzaddikim. This implies that the making of a physical home for YHVH was possible only because the materials for its construction were dedicated (and thus sanctified) by a people still not tainted by that corruptive use of their gold, and that only such materials could have been fashioned into a home for YHVH.
According to Rashi, the commandment to make a Mishkan was directed to baalei teshuvah ("returnees" or "penitents") -- individuals who had fallen prey to the corruptions of the material, but had rebounded from their downfall to forge a new, invigorated bond with YHVH. Indeed, the implication is that had the people of Israel not sinned by making and worshipping a calf of gold, there would not have existed the necessity -- nor the opportunity -- for a physical structure to house the Divine presence in the Israelite camp.
The common denominator between these two approaches is that the sin of the Golden Calf did not actually interject (as it does in the text) between the commandment to build the Mishkan and the donation of its materials by the people: according to the Zohar both occurred before Israel's worship of the Golden Calf, and according to Rashi both came afterwards. In other words, both approaches share the notion that the commandment to build the Mishkan would not have "survived" Israel's sin. Indeed, such was the case with the very covenant forged between YHVH and Israel: the Tablets were broken, and a new set had to be hewn and inscribed following the reconciliation of YHVH and Israel. Indeed, there were several marked differences -- for the better and for the worse -- between the two sets of Tablets.
In this lies the uniqueness of Nachmanides' approach, which insists on a "straight" reading of the text and an interpretation of the events that places YHVH's instructions for the making of the Mishkan before the sin of the Golden Calf, and the beginning of their implementation began after the sin and Israel's repentance. According to Nachmanides, the command and empowerment to build a home for YHVH remained in force even as the people worshipped an idol of gold. Unlike the Torah itself (!), the command to build the Mishkan was not revoked, and no "second edition" was necessary. This means that the ability to make a Sanctuary for YHVH rests also with a nation of resha'im, sinners and transgressors of the divine will!
In other words, Schneerson says, the different interpretations of the Torah's account put forth by the Zohar, Rashi and Nachmanides revolve around the following question: Who can make a "dwelling for YHVH in the physical world"? The perfect tzaddik? The unique personality of the baal teshuvah? Or even the iniquitous rashah?
There is an approach that says that only a tzaddik can take lowly objects such as gold, wood or animal hides and transform them into an abode for the divine presence. True, the spiritual tzaddik has no real connection with these materials: the glitter of gold means nothing to him, nor is he moved by the comforts of fine linen or the beauty of artistically woven tapestries. But precisely this is what qualifies him as a builder of a Mishkan. Because he is aloof from the enticements of the material, he can uncover the spiritual potential within the "lowly realm" without being ensnared by its lowliness. This is the approach of the Zohar, which sees the building of the Mishkan as having been possible only with materials donated by the perfectly righteous.
A second approach argues that only the baal teshuvah, who has fallen prey to the corruptions of materiality, can truly exploit its divine potential. Only the baal teshuvah knows the material world "from within," having himself been very much a part of it; only the baal teshuvah is a living example of the transformation of lowly into lofty, as one who has exploited the momentum of his fall to attain even greater heights of connection to YHVH. Thus, goes this line of thinking, if Israel had not fallen to the nadir of material corruption by worshipping an idol of gold, the making of a home of gold for YHVH would not have been possible. This is the concept behind Rashi's interpretation, which dates the divine commandment to build the Mishkan on the 10th of Tishrei, following Israel's return to YHVH and the renewed covenant it produced.
A third approach rejects the entire concept that making a "dwelling for YHVH in the physical world" requires any particular state or spiritual condition. Is this not the very purpose of YHVH's creation of the world? Is this not the essence of man's mission in life? Man never loses this capacity, for it is integral to his very being. This aspect of the Torah is never revoked or "broken": in whatever situation a person finds himself, even that of a still-unrepentant sinner, he can make his material existence a home for "He who dwells amongst them in the midst of their impurities" (Leviticus 16:16). This is the conception behind Nachmanides' reading of the chapters of the latter half of Exodus, by which the commandment to build the Mishkan remains in force throughout the ups and downs of Israel's relationship with YHVH, even as the rest of the Torah is shattered to pieces.

All True
"These and these are the words of the living YHVH" says the Talmud of differing interpretation of Torah by its sages. YHVH's dwelling on earth can, and must be, all three: a home for YHVH built by the pristinely righteous, an abode build by the transformative power of teshuvah, and a divine inhabitation of every human effort to serve Him, no matter how lowly its origin.
Indeed, Schneerson points out, the Ark in the original Mishkan contained the first, broken Tablets as well as the second set. Thus it housed: a) the First Tablets, granted to a nation of tzaddikim; b) these, however, were broken, representing the depths of iniquity to which Israel had descended in the interim; c) the Second Tablets, embodying the power of teshuvah.
Thus the divine command to make for YHVH a dwelling out of the materials of physical life is addressed to the tzaddik, to the baal teshuvah and to the rashah.
To the tzaddik it says: You are never too holy, too spiritual, too pure, to engage in the task of making Me at home in the lowliest elements of My creation. Indeed, because of your holiness, spirituality and purity, there is a dimension of My home on earth that only you can create for Me.
To the baal teshuvah it says: When you agonize your your iniquitous or merely negative past (as you should), remember this: it is that very past that makes you the builder of a most central component of My home on earth. You, and only you, can achieve a true transformation of materiality into G-dliness.
And to the rashah it says: No matter how distant your daily behavior is from My program for life, no matter how it conflicts with My will, when you do a single Mitzvah -- a single deed that I have commanded -- that part of your physical life shall become an home for My presence.

Parashat Vayelech

Parasha: Vayelech – Deuteronomy 31:1 – 31:30
Haftara: Isaiah 55:6 – 56:8
Reading Date: 4th October 2008 – 5th Tishrei 5769


The section of Vayelech (and the next two parashot of Haazinu and VeZot HaBrachah) describes the events and words spoken on the last day[1] of Moses' life:
And Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said to them: "I am a hundred and twenty years old this day, I can no longer go out and come in; and YHVH has said to me: You shall not cross this Jordan...
Moses entrusts the leadership of Israel to Joshua. He puts the Torah into writing[2], and commands them the mitzvah of Hak'hel ('gathering"): every seven years, on the Sukkot festival following the shemittah year, "Gather the people together, men, and women, and the babies, and your stranger that is within your gates"; the king shall then read from the Torah to them, "that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear YHVH, and observe to do all the words of this Torah."
Moses again warns of the hiding of the divine face[3] which shall occur when the people abandon the Torah; indeed, YHVH Himself predicts that this will be the case. "This song" must therefore serve as an everlasting testimony to ensure Israel's eventual return and rapprochement with YHVH.

Shabbat Shalom


[1] Said Moses to YHVH: "Master of the Universe! If it is because of Joshua that I must die, let me become his disciple."
Said YHVH to him: "If that is your wish, you may do so."
So Moses arose early in the morning to Joshua's door, and Joshua was sitting and teaching. And Moses bent his frame and covered his mouth, and Joshua did not see him... And all of Israel came to Moses' door, but found him at Joshua's door, and Joshua was sitting and Moses was standing. And the people said to Joshua: "Joshua! What has happened to you, that Moses our master is standing and you are sitting?" As soon as Joshua lifted his eyes and saw this, he immediately tore his garments and cried and wept: "Master! Master! Father, my father and lord!"
Said the people to him: "Moses our teacher! Teach us Torah."
Said he to them: "I have not license."
Said they to him: "We shall not leave you!"
Then a voice came forth from heaven and said to them: "Learn from Joshua!" and they accepted it.
Joshua sat at their head, Moses to his right and the sons of Aaron to his left; he sat and taught, and Moses did not understand his teaching.
After they stood up, the people of Israel said to Moses: "Moses our teacher, explain the teaching to us."
Said he to them: "I know it not." And Moses was stumbling and failing.
At that moment, he said to YHVH: "Master of the Universe! Until now, I asked for life. Now, my soul is placed in Your hand."
(Midrash Tanchuma)

[2] So that this song may be a witness for Me... And this song shall testify as a witness for them (31:19)
Thus the prediction that the people of Israel will abandon the Torah and will be punished for their sins, serves as a "witness" both for the people and for YHVH. For the people, that they have been forewarned of the consequences of their deeds. And for YHVH, that He should not be too harsh on them, since He Himself foresaw it all and said, "For I know their inclination, and what they do, even now, before I have brought them into the land of which I promised..."
(Malbim)

And Moses commanded the Levites... Take this book of the Torah, and place it to the side of the ark of the covenant of YHVH, that it may be there for a witness unto you (31:25-26)
Our sages debated in [the talmudic tractate] Bava Batra concerning this Torah scroll. There are those who say that a shelf extended from the outside of the Ark, and on it the Torah scroll was placed. And there are those who say that it was placed to the side of the Two Tablets [inscribed with the Ten Commandments] within the Ark.
(Rashi)

[3] And I, hide shall I hide my face from them (31:18)
There are times when YHVH hides His face. But then there are times when YHVH hides His face and we don't even realize that His face is hidden; we dwell in darkness, and think it is light. This is a double galut, a concealment within a concealment.
(The Chassidic Masters)

Reading for Rosh Hashana

Special reading for Rosh Hashanah
Genesis 21-22; Numbers 29:1-6; 1Samuel 1:1-2; Jeremiah 31:2-20
Reading for First Day of Rosh Hashanah


The Birth of Isaac
Exactly a year after the three angels visited Abraham and Sarah and delivered YHVH's promise that a son shall be born to them (as related in Genesis 18),
YHVH remembered[1] Sarah as He had said, and YHVH did to Sarah as He had spoken.
Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which YHVH had spoken to him.
The boy is named Yitzchak ("will laugh"), because, as Sarah declared, "YHVH has made laughter[2] for me, so that all that hear will laugh with me."
Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old[3], as YHVH had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born to him.
The Torah then tells of a great feast that Abraham made "on the day that Isaac was weaned."

The Banishment of Hagar and Ishmael
Abraham already had a son, Ishmael, born 14 years earlier to Hagar, the Egyptian maid whom Sarah urged him to marry in her barren years. As had been predicted, Ishmael grows to become "a wild man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him." Sarah, fearing Ishmael's negative influence upon her son, urges Abraham to "Banish this maidservant and her son: for the son of this maidservant shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac."
Abraham is reluctant to do so until YHVH intervenes, telling him: "In all that Sarah says to you, hearken to her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called."
Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Be'er-Sheva.
Their water, however, runs out quickly in the desert heat, and soon Ishmael is faint with heat and thirst; Hagar
cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went off...the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Let me not see the death of the child." And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
And YHVH heard the voice of the lad[4]; and the angel of YHVH called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her "What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for YHVH has heard the voice of the lad where he is..."
And YHVH opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.
And YHVH was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

The Covenant with Avimelech
Avimelech the king of the Philistines, who had earlier driven Abraham from his country, now comes seeking a covenant of peace with the Hebrew. "YHVH is with you in all that you do," says the king, "let us swear to each other that neither of us will show hostility to the other or the other's offspring."
Abraham agrees, and gives Avimelech seven sheep as a testimony to the resolution of a past controversy between them over a well that Abraham had dug. The place is thus named Be'er Sheva ("Well of the Oath" and "Well of the Seven").
Abraham establishes an eshel (wayside inn) at Be'er Sheva, where he "called the name of YHVH, YHVH of the World."

Reading for Second Day of Rosh Hashanah

The Binding of Isaac
And it came to pass after these things, that YHVH did test[5] Abraham. And He said to him: "Abraham!"
And he said: "Here I am!"
And He said: "Please, take your son, your only son, the one whom you love, Isaac; and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and broke up the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went to the place of which YHVH had told him.
Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men: "Stay here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you."
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife; and they went both of them together.
And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, "My father!" and he said, "Here I am, my son."
And he said: "Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
And Abraham said: "YHVH will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son." And they went both of them together.
And they came to the place which YHVH had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound[6] Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And an angel of YHVH called to him out of heaven, and said: "Abraham! Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am!"
And he said: "Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do anything to him: for now I know that you do fear YHVH, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked; and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place[7] Adonai-Yireh ("YHVH will be revealed"); as it is said to this day: "On the mount YHVH will appear."
The reading concludes with report of a granddaughter born to Abraham's brother, Nachor, named Rebecca (destined to become Isaac's wife).

Shana Tova!

[1] YHVH remembered Sarah (Genesis 21:1)
"Remembrance" is one of the three primary themes of Rosh Hashanah (the other two being "Kingship" and "Shofarot"). For it is the day on which "the remembrance of all of existence comes before You." In the words of the U'nesaneh Tokef prayer:
"On this day... You will remember all that was forgotten. You will open the Book of Memory--it will read itself, and everyone's signature is in it... and all mankind will pass before You like sheep. Like a shepherd inspecting his flock, making his sheep pass under his staff, so shall You run by, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; You will apportion the fixed needs of all Your creatures, and inscribe their verdict.
"On Rosh Hashanah it will be inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it will be sealed: How many shall pass on, and how many shall be born; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning; who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried; who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer; who will be impoverished and who will be enriched; who will be degraded and who will be exalted..."

[2] And Sarah said: YHVH has made laughter for me, so that all that hear will laugh (yitz'chak) with me (21:6)
The concept of Rosh Hashanah as the day of YHVH's "coronation" as king of the universe explains a most puzzling paradox in the nature of the day. On the one hand, Rosh Hashanah is when we stand before the Supreme King and tremulously accept the "yoke of His sovereignty." On the other hand, it is a festival (yom tov), celebrated amidst much feasting and rejoicing--a day on which we are enjoined to "Eat sumptuous foods and drink sweet beverages, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared, for the day is holy to YHVH; do not be distressed, for the joy of YHVH is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).
But such is the nature of a coronation: it is an event that combines trepidation and joy, awe and celebration. For true kingship, as opposed to mere rulership, derives from the willful submission of a people to their sovereign. So the coronation of a king includes a display of reverence and awe on the part of the people, conveying their submission to the king; as well as the joy that affirms that their submission is willful and desirous.
(From the Chassidic Masters)

[3] Isaac and Ishmael were engaged in a controversy. Said Ishmael to Isaac: "I am more beloved to YHVH than you, since I was circumcised at the age of thirteen, but you were circumcised as a baby and could not refuse." Isaac retorted: "All that you gave up to YHVH was three drops of blood. But lo, I am now thirty-seven years old, yet if YHVH desired of me that I be slaughtered, I would not refuse. Said the Holy One, blessed be He: "This is the moment!"
(Midrash Rabbah)
Jewishness is not a matter of historical conscious, outlook, ethics, or even behavior; it is a state of being. This is the deeper significance of the debate between Ishmael and Isaac. When we are circumcised on the eighth day of life, we are completely unaware of the significance of what has occurred. But this "non-experience" is precisely what circumcision means. With circumcision we say: I define my relationship with YHVH not by what I think, feel or do, but by the fact of part in the Nation of Israel--a fact which equally applies to an infant of eight days and a sage of eighty years.
(From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)

[4] And YHVH heard the voice of the lad (21:17)
This teaches us that a person's prayer for himself is preferable to others praying for him, and is sooner to be accepted. (For though the verse speaks of Hagar's weeping, it tells us that it was Ishmael's cry which YHVH heard).
(Midrash Rabbah; Rashi)

[5] And it came to pass after these things, that YHVH did test Abraham (22:1)
Said Rabbi Jonathan: A potter does not examine defective vessels, because he cannot give them a single blow without breaking them. What then does he examine? Only the sound vessels, for he will not break them even with many blows. Similarly, the Holy One, blessed be He, tests not the wicked but the righteous.
(Midrash Rabbah)

[6] And he bound Isaac his son (22:9)
Can one bind a man thirty-seven years old without his consent?
But when Abraham made to sacrifice his son Isaac, Isaac said to him: Father, I am a young man and am afraid that my body may tremble through fear of the knife and I will grieve you, whereby the slaughter may be rendered unfit and this will not count as a real sacrifice; therefore bind me very firmly."
(Midrash Rabbah)

[7] And Abraham called the name of that place Adonai-Yireh (22:14)
Shem (the son of Noah) called it Salem, as it is written "And Melchizedek king of Salem" (Genesis 14: 18). Said the Holy One, blessed be He: If I call it Yireh as did Abraham, then Shem, a righteous man, will resent it; while if I call it Salem as did Shem, Abraham, the righteous man, will resent it. Hence I will call it Jerusalem, including both names, Yireh Salem.
(Midrash Rabbah)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Parashat Ki Tavo

Parasha: Ki Tavo – Deuteronomy 26:1 – 28:69
Haftara: Isaiah 60:1 – 22
Reading Date: 20th August 2008 – 20th Elul 5768


"When you come in[1] to the land," opens the Parasha of Ki Tavo, "...You shall take of the first of all the fruit[2] of the land... and put it in a basket; and you shall go to the place which the YHVH your G-d will choose to place His name there..."
Upon presenting the bikkurim ("first ripened fruits") at the Holy Temple, the farmer makes a declaration avowing his gratitude for all that YHVH has done for His people:
And you shall speak and say before YHVH your G-d:
An Arammian[3] nomad was my father, and he went down to Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
And the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and afflicted us; and they laid upon us hard bondage.
And we cried to YHVH, the G-d of our fathers; and YHVH heard our voice, and He looked on our pain and our toil and our oppression.
And YHVH brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awe; and with signs, and with wonders.
And He brought us to this place, and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which You, O YHVH, have given me.
And you shall set it before YHVH your G-d, and worship before the YHVH your G-d. And you shall rejoice in every good thing which YHVH your G-d has given you, and your household -- you and the Levite and the stranger that is among you.

Clearing the Tithes
The law of bikkurim is followed by the rules governing the separation of the various tithes the Jewish farmer sets aside from his crop (for the Levite, the poor, and for his own consumption in the holy city of Jerusalem. Every three years, any undistributed tithes must be "cleared from the house." Like the bringing of bikkurim, this, too, is accompanied with a "declaration":
When you have made an end of tithing all the tithes of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing; and you have given it the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within your gates, and be replete--
You shall then declare before YHVH your G-d:
I have removed the hallowed things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed your commandments, neither have I forgotten them.
I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I consumed any part of it when unclean, nor given of it for the dead; but I have hearkened to the voice of YHVH my G-d, and have done according to all that You have commanded me.
Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given us, as You did swear to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Mutual Regard
This day YHVH your G-d has commanded you to do these statutes and judgments; you shall keep them and do them with all your heart, and with all your soul.
You have avouched YHVH this day to be your G-d, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His decrees, and His commandments, and His judgments, and to hearken to His voice.
And YHVH has avouched you this day to be a people[4] for His own possession, as He has promised you; and that you should keep all His commandments.
And to make you high above all nations which He has made, in praise, and in name, and in glory; and that you be a holy people to YHVH your G-d, as He has spoken.

Inscribing the Torah
Moses then instructs the people on the particulars of the special "swearing in" ceremony -- mentioned earlier in the Parshah of Re'eh -- which they will conduct when they enter the Promised Land under the leadership of his disciple, Joshua.
A special altar, build from twelve stones (representing the 12 tribes of Israel) taken from the Jordan River, should be constructed on Mount Ebal; the stones should be plastered over, "And you shall write upon the stones all the words of this Torah very plainly."
The twelve tribes then divided into two groups: Shimon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin positioned themselves on Mt. Gerizzim, while Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali faced them across the valley on the opposite Mt. Ebal. The blessings (for those who uphold the Torah) and courses (for those who violate it) were then pronounced -- the blessings upon Mt. Gerizzim, and the courses upon mount Ebal.

Reward and Rebuke
Moses proceeds to spell out the blessings of a life in harmony with the divine will:
And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to the voice of YHVH your G-d, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command you this day; that YHVH your G-d will set you on high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall befall you, and overtake you, if you shall hearken to the voice of YHVH your G-d.
Blessed shall you be in the city[5], and blessed shall you be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts; the offspring increase of your cattle, and the young of your sheep.
Blessed shall be your basket and your store.
Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
YHVH shall cause your enemies that rise up against you to be smitten before your face; on one road shall they come out against you one way, and on seven roads shall they flee before you.
YHVH shall command the blessing upon you in your barns, and in all that you set your hand unto; and He shall bless you in the land which YHVH your G-d gives you.
YHVH shall establish you a holy people to Himself, as He has sworn to you; if you shall keep the commandments of YHVH your G-d, and walk in His ways.
And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of YHVH; and they shall be afraid of you.
And YHVH shall make you plenteous in goods, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your soil, in the land which YHVH swore to your fathers to give you.
YHVH shall open to you His good treasure, the heaven, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow.
And YHVH shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if you hearken to the commandments of YHVH your G-d, which I command you this day, to observe and to do them. And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
The very opposite, however, shall come to pass, "if you will not hearken to the voice of YHVH your G-d, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day. These curses shall come upon you, and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field...." and so on.
After spelling out the flip-side of the enumerated blessings, Moses launches into an even more detailed account (called The Rebuke) of the terrible calamities destined to befall the errant people -- ninety-eight "curses" in all, including the horrible scene (which came to pass during the siege of Jerusalem) of fathers and mothers eating the flesh of their children in their desperate hunger.

The Time of Recognition
And Moses called to all Israel, and said to them:
You have seen all that YHVH did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. The great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles.
Yet YHVH has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this very day....
Keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do

Shabbat Shalom


[1] You shall take of the first of all the fruit of the land... (Deuteronomy 26:2)
Everything that is for the sake of YHVH should be of the best and most beautiful. When one builds a house of prayer, it should be more beautiful than his own dwelling. When one feeds the hungry, he should feed him of the best and sweetest of his table. When one clothes the naked, he should clothe him with the finest of his clothes. Whenever one designates something for a holy purpose, he should sanctify the finest of his possessions; as it is written (Leviticus 3:16), "The choicest to YHVH."
(Maimonides)

[2] You shall take of... the fruit of the land (26:2)
Not all fruits are subject to the mitzvah of bikkurim ("firstfruits") -- only those from the Seven Species
[for which the land of Israel is praised]. Here, in our verse, it says the word eretz ("land"), and there (in Deuteronomy 8:8), it says, "A land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil-producing olives and honey[-producing dates]." Just as the earlier verse (Deut. 8:8) is referring to the seven species through which Eretz Israel is praised, here too, the fruits of which the verse speaks are those with which the Land is praised.
(Talmud; Rashi)

[3] An Arammian nomad was my father... (26:5)
This phrase -- Arammi oved avi -- also translates as "The Arammian [sought to destroy] my father," and is interpreted as a reference to Laban the Arammite's
attempts to harm Jacob. Thus we read in the Passover Haggaddah (which devotes several pages to commentary on the bikkurim declaration): "Go out and see what Laban the Arammite wanted to do to Jacob our Father! Pharaoh condemned only the males, while Laban wished to uproot all."

A number of interesting explanations are proposed by the various commentaries as to when and how Laban endeavored to destroy the people of Israel. The most basic explanation is that it refers to his desire to compel Jacob to remain with him in Charan, or at least leave his wives and 11 sons there, claiming (Genesis 31:43), "The daughters [i.e., Leah and Rachel] are my daughters, the sons are my sons, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine..." Another explanation is that it refers to his plot to poison Eliezer and thus prevent Rebecca's marriage to Isaac (in which case Jacob would never have been born. -- see the account of Eliezer's mission to Charan in the Parshah of Chayei Sarah). Yet another thesis is that it was Laban's deception of Jacob in marrying him first to Leah, instead of Jacob's chosen bride Rachel which created the situation in which Jacob regarded Joseph as his true first born and the leader amongst his sons, when, in truth, the leadership belonged to Leah's children. This led to the tragic schism which rent the people of Israel in two for much of their history.

[4] This day you have become a people (27:9)
The people of Israel are unique among the peoples of the world: their nationhood was forged not at the point at which they gained their own land, or developed a common language or culture, but on the day on which they pledged to uphold the Torah...
(Rabbi Samson Rephael Hirsch)

[5] Blessed be you in the city, and blessed be you in the field... (28:3)
In other words, don't be "a tzaddik in a fur coat"; rather, your goodness should influence your surroundings, in the "city" and the "field."
(There are two ways to get warm on a cold winter day -- build a fire, which warms everyone else in the room as well, or wrap yourself in furs, which conserves your own warmth but does not generate any heat or warm anyone else. Thus Chassidim would refer to a righteous person whose only concern is with his own righteousness as "a tzaddik in a fur coat.")
(Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa)

Parashat Ki Titze

Parasha: Ki Titze – Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19
Haftara: Isaiah 54:1 – 10
Reading Date: 13th August 2008 – 13th Elul 5768


The parasha of Ki Teitzei ("When you go out") contains a significant portion of the Torah's laws: no less than 74 mitzvot (out of a total of 613) have been counted by the halachic authorities as deriving from our parasha. The first of these is the law of the "beautiful captive woman":
When you go out to war on your enemies, YHVH your G-d shall deliver them into your hands, and you shall capture from them captives.

If you see among the captives a beautiful[1] woman, and you desire[2] her, you may take [her] for yourself as a wife. You shall bring her into your home, and she shall shave her head and let her nails grow. And she shall remove the garment of her captivity from upon herself, and stay in your house, and weep for her father and her mother for a full month. After that, you may be intimate with her and possess her, and she will be a wife for you.

And it will be, if you do not desire her, then you shall send her away wherever she wishes, but you shall not sell her for money. You shall not keep her as a servant, because you have afflicted her.
This law is followed by two others -- the law forbidding giving precedence to the son of a favorite wife:
If a man has two wives, one beloved and another despised, and they bear him sons, the beloved one and the despised one, and the firstborn son is from the despised one.
Then it will be, on the day he bequeaths his property to his sons, he may not give the son of the beloved [wife] birthright precedence over the son of the despised [wife] who is the firstborn. Rather, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the despised [wife], and give him a double share in all that he possesses, because he [this firstborn son] is the first of his strength; the birthright is his.
-- and the law of the "wayward and rebellious son":
If a man has a wayward and rebellious son who does not obey his father or his mother, and they chasten him, and [he still] does not listen to them,
his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place. And they shall say to the elders of his city, "This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not obey us; [he is] a glutton and a drunkard."
And all the men of his city shall pelt him with stones, and he shall die, and you shall eradicate the evil from amongst you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

This is followed by laws legislating the dignity of the dead[3] and the obligation to bring a body to prompt burial, the mitzvah to care for and return a lost object (if the owner can provide identifying signs), and the duty to help lift up a fellow's beast of burden that is "fallen on the road."

Also: "A woman shall not wear a man's articles, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so are an abomination to YHVH."

Sending Off the Mother Bird
If a bird's nest chances before you on the road, in any tree or on the ground, and [it contains] fledglings or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting upon the fledglings, or upon the eggs; do not take the mother bird together with the young.
You shall send away the mother, and [then] you may take the young for yourself; that it may be good for you[4], and that you may prolong your days.
It is your responsibility to ensure that you, or your property, do not cause damage for a fellow: "When you build a new house, you shall make a guard rail for your roof, so that you shall not cause blood [to be spilled] in your house, that the one who falls should fall from it."

Hybrids and Tzitzit
You shall not sow your vineyard with diverse seeds... You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together. You shall not wear a garment of diverse kinds, of wool and linen together[5].
You shall make for yourself fringes upon the four corners of your garment, with which you cover yourself.

Sexual Crimes and Restrictions
A person who libels his wife, claiming that she was unfaithful to him because he desires to divorce her, is fined a hundred shekels of silver, and he can never divorce her against her will. Adultery (relations between a man and another man's wife) is punishable by death, both for the man and the woman; a woman taken by force, however, is blameless. If a man forces himself on an unmarried woman, he is obligated to marry her (if she so desires) and cannot divorce her "all of his days."
The Torah also specifies a number of forbidden incestuous relationships, as well as a list of persons who are precluded from marrying into the community of Israel (e.g., a bastard). Ammonites and Moabites[6] "shall not enter into the congregation of YHVH, even to their tenth generation," but Egyptians and Edomites who convert are accepted after three generations.

More Laws
Also in our parasha: regulations to ensure the hygiene and spiritual purity in a military camp; the rule not to return an escaped slave to his master; the exhortation that "there shall be no female prostitute of the daughters of Israel, nor a male prostitute of the sons of Israel"; the prohibition against charging interest on a loan to a fellow man; the obligation to keep one's word and fulfill one's vows; and the commandment to allow an employee working for you in food production to "eat on the job" (later in the parasha, this rule is extended even to animals -- "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is threshing [the grain].")

Divorce and Marriage
When a man takes a wife and is intimate with her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he discovers in her an unseemly [moral] matter, and he writes for her a bill of divorce[7], and places it into her hand, and sends her away from his house,
and she leaves his house and goes and marries another man...
She may not remarry her first husband if she has been married to someone else in the interim.
Many of the laws of marriage are derived from the verses legislating the rules of divorce, which are also followed by the following rule:
When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken.

Kidnappers, Debtors, Paymasters
Kidnapping a person to sell him into slavery is a capital crime.
When taking possession of an object as security for the repayment of a loan, certain restrictions apply. It is forbidden to impound the debtor's tools of trade -- such as his millstones -- for then you "take a man's life as security." Also:
When you lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to fetch his security. You shall stand outside, and the man who is in your debt shall bring out the security to you.
And if the man is poor, you shall not sleep with his security. You shall return the security to him by sunset, that he may sleep in his own garment and bless you; and it will be counted for you as merit before the Lord, your God.
Pay your employees on time. Day workers must be paid within 12 hours of the conclusion of their workday or work-night (hence a night worker must be paid before sundown) -- "for he is poor, and sets his life upon it; lest he cry against you to YHVH, and it be a sin in you."

Justice and Charity
Fathers shall not be put to death because of sons, nor shall sons be put to death because of fathers; each man shall be put to death for his own transgression.
You shall not pervert the judgment of a stranger or an orphan, and you shall not take a widow's garment as security [for a loan]. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and YHVH your G-d redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing.
When you reap your harvest in your field, and forget[8] a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to fetch it. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow; so that YHVH your G-d may bless you in all that you do.
Also to be left to the poor are the "gleanings" -- the solitary grapes, olives, etc. that remain on the vine or tree after the larger bunches have been harvested.
The active transgression of a biblical prohibition is punishable by 39 lashes.

Levirate Marriage
If brothers reside together, and one of them dies having no son, the dead man's wife shall not marry an outsider. [Rather,] her husband's brother shall be intimate with her, making her a wife for himself, thus performing the obligation of yibbum (levirate marriage) with her.
And it shall be, that the firstborn which she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name shall not be wiped out in Israel.
If yibbum is not performed, the legal bond between the dead man's wife and brother must be released through the ceremony of chalitzah ("removal of the shoe"):
But if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, the brother's wife shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and say, "My husband's brother has refused to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel; he does not wish to perform the obligation of a husband's brother with me."
Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and he shall stand up and say, "I do not wish to take her."
Then his brother's wife shall approach him before the eyes of the elders and remove his shoe from his foot. And she shall spit before his face and answer [him] and say, "Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother's household!" And that family shall be called in Israel, "The family of the one whose shoe was removed."

Remember Amalek
The last of Ki Teitzei's 74 mitzvot are the commandments to remember the deeds of the most vile of Israel's enemies, the nation of Amalek, and "blot out their remembrance from under the heavens":
You shall remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you were coming out of Egypt.
How he met you[9] by the way, and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear YHVH.
[Therefore,] it will be, when YHVH your God grants you respite from all your enemies around [you] in the land which the YHVH, your God, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!

Shabbat Shalom


[1] If you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire her... (21:11)
Sometimes a most holy soul is imprisoned in the depths of the kelipot (the "husks" which conceal G-dliness in our world). Thus it comes to pass that the soldier is attracted to a captive woman, because his soul recognizes the "beauty" imprisoned within her. (This is why the Torah refers to her as a "beautiful woman," even though -- as the Sifri derives from the verse -- the same law applies if one is attracted to a physically ugly woman.) Hence the Torah provides the procedure by which she is to be cleansed of the impurity of the kelipot and "brought into your house" -- included in the community of Israel...
(Ohr HaChaim)

[2] If you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire her, and take her as your wife... (21:11)
The Torah is speaking only to counter the yetzer ha-ra (evil inclination). For if G-d would not permit her to him, [the soldier] would take her illicitly. [In essence, however, the Torah views this as a negative thing, and]
if he marries her, he will ultimately come to despise her, as it says after this, "If a man has [two wives-one beloved and the other despised]..." (verse 15). Moreover, he will ultimately father through her a wayward and rebellious son (see verse 18). For this reason, these [three laws] are juxtaposed.
(Midrash Tanchuma; Rashi)

[3] For a hanged person is a curse to G-d (21:23)
This is a degradation of the Divine King in whose image man is created, and the Israelites are G-d's children. This is analogous to a case of two identical twin brothers. One became king, while the other was arrested for robbery and hanged. Whoever saw him, would say, "The king is hanging!"
(Talmud, Sanhedrin 46b; Rashi)

[4] Nachmanides takes a different approach, arguing that there is no contradiction between his explanation and the Talmud's statement. The Talmud objects to explaining the reason for the mitzvah as YTHVH's compassion for the bird or animal; rather, it is to teach us compassion and prevent the trait of cruelty from taking root in our hearts. In the words of the midrash, "the mitzvot were given only to refine the human being." In this connection, Nachmanides also cites the verse (Job 35:6-7), "If you sin, how have you affected Him? If your transgressions multiply, what do you do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give Him? What can He possibly receive from your hand?" The things that YHVH commands us to do are not anything that He wants or needs, nor are the divine prohibitions things that "bother" Him -- He is above that all. The "reasons" for the mitzvot are the ways that they are beneficial to us, sanctifying our lives and refining our characters.

[5] We live in the age of unity. "Synthesis," "integration," "cohesion" and similar catchwords have come to dominate virtually every area of human endeavor, from business to art, from scientific theory to personal relationships.
No doubt, all this harmony is a good thing. But at times, something within us resists the call to break down yet another boundary, to erase yet another distinction. Something within us protests that certain things just don't mix, that the combination of two very different realities will often result in a hybrid that is neither here nor there, rendered useless or worse by its inherent contradictions.
Specifically, the Torah's kilayim laws forbid the hybridization of certain species of plants and animals. Three of these laws are enumerated in the 22nd chapter of Deuteronomy:
You shall not sow your vineyard with diverse seeds...
You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together.
You shall not wear shaatnez, [a garment fashioned of] wool and linen together.
Three Breeds of Hybrid
While the three prohibitions in the above verses all relate to the intermixing of species, each represents a different type of "hybridization."
The first law, which forbids the sowing of grain in a vineyard, is the most extreme form of kilayim among the three. When different plant species are planted in close proximity to each other, their roots intermingle and each derives nourishment from the other. The result is a true hybrid--a plant that has integrated into itself the characteristics of another species. The grape or kernel of grain might not be externally distinguishable from a "normal" grape or kernel, but it has been intrinsically altered, its taste, texture and other qualities affected by the fact that it shared soil and nurture with a different species. This places it in the same class as another form of kilayim (which the Torah forbids in Leviticus 19:19)--the prohibition to breed a hybrid animal by mating two different species to each other.
In contrast, yoking an ox and an ass to the same plow alters neither the ox nor the ass. Here, the "hybridization" is not in the species themselves, but in their action. A certain effect has been produced (i.e., a field has been plowed) that is the result of the combined actions of two species.
The third form of kilayim--the prohibition against wearing "shaatnez," a garment made of wool and linen--falls somewhere between the other two types. On the one hand, a tangible entity--the garment--has been created which is itself a combination of two different species. In this sense, the shaatnez garment resembles the hybrid plant produced by mixed sowing. On the other hand, unlike the hybrid plant, whose every fiber and cell has been altered, the wool and linen fibers remain distinct entities within the garment, which can conceivably be disassembled. In this sense, it resembles the second form of kilayim, in which a certain action or effect (in this case, the protection and comfort which the wearer derives from the garment) is jointly produced by two species which themselves remain distinct from each other.
On the face of it, it would seem that the shaatnez garment is an even more extreme form of hybridization than the other forms of kilayim, and ought to be proscribed by stricter, rather than more lenient, laws. The other forms of kilayim involve the intermixing of different plant species or different animal species; in the case of shaatnez, a plant product (linen) is mixed with an animal product (wool). This seems an even more severe violation of the boundaries of creation. Why, then, is the prohibition against shaatnez limited to the wearing of the mixed garment, while the actual creation of this hybrid entity is permitted?
But the very "severity" of shaatnez is the reason for its seeming leniency. Because wool and linen are so different, they cannot be truly combined, no matter how tightly they are intertwined. Two plants can be grafted to form a third, hybrid species; two animals can be interbred to make a third, mongrel breed. But a plant and an animal cannot be interbred; the only type of kilayim possible in such a combination is the "joint action" type. So until the garment is actually worn, no intermixing has taken place; the two elements are simply coexisting side by side. It is only when the wool and linen fibers act together as a garment that the conflicting forces contained in these two elements clash, disrupting the "peace"--the subtle balance of mutuality and distinctiveness--which Torah endeavors to implement in the world.
Spiritual shaatnez is the attempt to make a "garment" from an admixture of intellect and feeling. There is nothing intrinsically negative in such a composite per se--indeed, the attainment of a synthesis of mind and heart is one of the highest, if most difficult, achievements of man. But such a composite cannot be used as a garment. In all that regards our "encompassing" endeavors, our intellectual and emotional avenues of connection must each be pursued individually, without attempting to combine the "wool" and "linen" of our souls.

[6] An Ammonite or a Moabite... even to their tenth generation shall not enter into the congregation of G-d (23:4)
From here we learn that someone who causes a person to sin does worse to him than one who kills him; for one who kills him kills him only in this world, whereas one who leads him to sin removes him from both this world and the world-to-come. Therefore, Edom, who came forth against them with the sword, was not [completely] despised. Similarly Egypt, who drowned them. The Moabites and the Amonites, however, who caused them to sin (with the daughters of Midian -- see Numbers 25), were completely despised.
(Sifri; Rashi)

[7] If a man takes a wife... and it come to pass that she does not find favor in his eyes, because he has found a matter of unseemliness in her, he should write her a bill of divorce... (24:1)
The School of Shammai rules: A man should not divorce his wife unless he discovers in her an immoral matter...
The School of Hillel rules: [He may divorce her] even if she burnt his meal.
Rabbi Akiva says: Even if he found another more beautiful than she.

[8] And you forget a sheaf in the field... (24:19)
Certain opportunities and potentials are so lofty that they cannot be accessed by the conscious self; they can only come about "by mistake." An example of this is the mitzvah of shikchah, which can only be fulfilled by forgetting.
(The Chassidic Masters)
Thus if a person drops a sela, and a poor man finds it and is sustained by it, then he [who lost the coin] will be blessed on its account.
(Rashi; Sifri)

[9] Remember what Amalek did to you... How he met you by the way (25:17-18)
[The Hebrew word, karchah, "he met you," can also mean "he cooled you"; thus the Midrash says:]
What is the incident (of Amalek) comparable to? To a boiling tub of water which no creature was able to enter. Along came one evil-doer and jumped into it. Although he was burned, he cooled it for the others. So, too, when Israel came out of Egypt, and G-d rent the sea before them and drowned the Egyptians within it, their fear fell upon all the nations. But when Amalek came and challenged them, although he received his due from them, he cooled the awe in which they were held by the nations of the world.
(Midrash Tanchuma)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Parashat Shoftim

Parasha: Shoftim – Deuteronomy
Haftara: Isaiah 51:12 – 52:12
Reading Date: 6th September 2008 – 6th Elul 5768


The Torah reading called "Judges" (Shoftim) opens with the command to appoint "judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all your city-gates[1] that the YHVH your G-d is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show favoritism, and you shall not take a bribe, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts just words.

Justice, justice[2] shall you pursue, that you may live and possess the land YHVH your G-d is giving you.

This is followed by prohibitions again idolatrous trees[3] and monuments, and offering a blemished animal to G-d. Idolatry is to be punished by death, but as with all crimes, a conviction is to be brought only upon the testimony of two witnesses[4]. The courts and judges are also invested with the authority to interpret and decide all matters of

Torah law:
If a matter eludes you in judgment, between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, or between affliction and affliction, words of dispute in your cities, then you shall rise and go up to the place YHVH your G-d chooses.

And you shall come... to the judge who will be in those days[5], and you shall inquire, and they will tell you the words of judgment.
And you shall do according to the word they tell you, from the place YHVH will choose, and you shall observe to do according to all they instruct you.
According to the law they instruct you and according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left.

Appointing a King
When you come to the land YHVH, your G-d, is giving you, and you possess it and live therein, and you say, "I will set a king[6] over myself, like all the nations around me."
You shall set a king over you, one whom YHVH your G-d chooses; from among your brothers, you shall set a king over yourself...
Only, he may not acquire many horses for himself, so that he will not bring the people back to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, for YHVH said to you: "You shall not return that way any more."
And he shall not take many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; and he shall not acquire much silver and gold for himself.
The king should have two copies[7] of the Torah scroll made for him, one of which should accompany him constantly "and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear YHVH his G-d, to keep all the words of this Torah and these statutes, to perform them. So that his heart will not be haughty over his brothers, and so that he will not turn away from the commandment, either to the right or to the left, in order that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his sons, among Israel."

More Mitzvot
Moses reiterates some of the Israelites' duties toward the Cohenim and the Levites, including the gifts set aside from the farmer's produce, shearings and slaughtered cattle; the prohibitions against the various forms of sorcery and superstitions[8], the duty to obey the prophet, and the setting aside of "Cities of Refuge" for someone who kills unintentionally.
The stealing of land by surreptitiously moving back the boundary marker is strictly forbidden. False witnesses, if refuted through the process of zomemim (i.e., other witnesses testify that they were in another place and could not have witnessed the crime they claim to have witnessed), are subjected to the punishment they would have had inflicted on the accused.

Laws of War
A Cohen (called the mashuach milchamah, "anointed for battle") is appointed to the task of preparing the people for war. "Hear, O Israel," he announces to the people, "today you are approaching the battle against your enemies. Let your hearts not be faint; you shall not be afraid, and you shall not be alarmed, and you shall not be terrified because of them. For YHVH your G-d is the One Who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you."
The following are exempted from participating in the battle:
"Is there who has built a new house and has not yet inaugurated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he dies in the war, and another man inaugurates it.
"Is there a man who has planted a vineyard, and has not yet redeemed it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he dies in the war, and another man redeems it.
"Is there a man who has betrothed a woman[9] and has not yet taken her in marriage? Let him go and return to his house, lest he dies in the war, and another man takes her in marriage."
And finally:
"Is there a man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, that he should not cause the heart of his brothers to melt, as his heart."
Terms of peace must first be offered to a city, before attacking it. No fruit trees are to be destroyed to build siege towers -- only non-fruit-producing trees may be cut down (this is the source of the prohibition of Lo Tashchit, not to wantonly destroy[10] any useful thing). It is in this context that the Torah makes the famous analogy comparing man to "a tree of the field."

Egla Arufah (The Law of the Anonymous Murder Victim)
If a slain person be found in the land which YHVH your G-d is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who slew him.
Your elders and judges shall go forth, and they shall measure to the cities around the corpse. And it will be, [that from] the city closest to the corpse, the elders of that city shall take a calf with which work has never been done, [and] that has never drawn a yoke.
And the elders of that city shall bring the calf down to a rugged valley, which was neither tilled nor sown, and there in the valley, they shall decapitate the calf...
And all the elders of that city, who are the nearest to the corpse, shall wash their hands over the calf that was decapitated in the valley.
And they shall announce and say: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes[11] see. Atone for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, O YHVH, and lay not [the guilt of] innocent blood among your people Israel." And so the blood shall be atoned for them.
And you shall abolish the [shedding of] innocent blood from among you, for you shall do what is proper in the eyes of YHVH.

Shabbat Shalom


[1] Judges and officers you shall place at all your city-gates... (16:18)
Do not judge alone, for no one can judge alone but the One.
(Ethics of the Fathers 4:8)

[2] Justice, justice shall you pursue (16:20)
By virtue of three things the world endures: law, truth and peace.
(Ethics of the Fathers 1:18)
A judge, who judges with absolute truth, becomes a partner with YHVH in creation.
(Talmud, Shabbat 10a)

[3] You shall not plant for yourself an asherah, any tree, near the altar of YHVH (16:21)
This verse includes two prohibitions: not to plant an aseirah (idolatrous) tree anywhere, and not to plant any tree, or build any Tree on the Temple Mount.
(Sifri; Rashi)

[4] By the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses (17:6)
The testimony of two witnesses constitutes absolute proof; in this, two witnesses are like a hundred.

[5] If a matter eludes you in judgment... then you shall rise and go... to the judge who will be in those days... (17:8-9)
Can a person then go to a judge who is not in his days...? This is to teach us that although this judge may not be of the same stature as other judges who preceded him, you must listen to him, for you have only the judge who lives in your time... Samuel in his generation is like Yiftach in his generation (Samuel is regarded as the greatest of the prophets, equal to Moses and Aaron together; Yiftach, who served as Judge in 982-962 BCE, came from a lowly background and was guilty of many failings).
(Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 25b; Rashi)

[6] Judges and officers you shall place at all your city-gates... (Deuteronomy 16:18)
The human body is a city with seven gates -- seven portals to the outside world: the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and the mouth. Here, too, it is incumbent upon us to place internal "judges" to discriminate and regulate what should be admitted and what should be kept out, and "officers" to enforce the judges' decisions...
(Siftei Kohen)

[7] If the ordinary person needs one Torah scroll, a king needs two: because of his greatness, he has greater need to be reminded of the higher authority to which he must submit.
(Yalkut David)

[8] There shall not be found among you... a soothsayer, a diviner of times, one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, a pithom sorcerer, a yido'a sorcerer, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to G-d (18:10-12)
A soothsayer is one who takes his rod in his hand and says [as though to consult it], "Shall I go, or shall I not go?"
A diviner of times: According to Rabbi Akiva, these are people who determine the times, saying, "Such-and-such a time is good to begin a venture." The [other] Sages say, however, that this refers to those who "catch the eyes" [i.e., they deceive by creating optical illusions].
One who interprets omens -- e.g., bread falling from his mouth, a deer crossing his path, or his stick falling from his hand.
Charmer: One who collects snakes, scorpions or other creatures into one place.
Pithom sorcerer: The sorcerer raises the spirit of the dead, and it speaks from the sorcerer's armpit.
Yido’a sorcerer: The sorcerer inserts a bone of the animal called yido’a into his mouth, and the bone speaks by means of sorcery.
A necromancer is one who raises the dead spirit upon his membrum, or one who consults a skull.
(Talmud, Sanhedrin 65b)

[9] Is there a man who built a house... who planted a vineyard... who betrothed a woman... (20:5-7)
[The order in which the Torah lists these actions teaches us] that a person of character should first find work that earns him a livelihood, then build himself a house, and after that marry... [not like] the fools who first get married, then, if they can afford it, buy a house, and toward the end of their lives start looking for a job or live off charity...
(Maimonides)

[10] When you besiege a city for many days to wage war against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them, for you may eat from them (20:19)
One who breaks vessels, tears clothes, demolishes a building, stops a spring or disposes of food in a ruinous manner, transgresses the prohibition of Lo Tashchit.
(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 6:10)

[11] Our hands did not spill this blood, and our eyes did not see... (21:7)
But would it enter one's mind that the elders of the court are murderers? Rather, [they declare:] We did not see him and let him depart without food or escort.
(Talmud, Sotah 45a)
The principle behind the law of Eglah Arufah is that a person is also responsible for what occurs outside of his domain -- outside of the areas where he is fully in control. When a murdered traveler is found out in the field, the elders of the nearest city must go out there and bring the Eglah Arufah to atone for the crime, although it occurred "outside of their jurisdiction"; for it was nevertheless their responsibility to send the traveler off with adequate provision and protection.
The same applies on the personal level in all areas of life. A person never has the right to say, "This is outside of my element. I have no obligation to deal with this." If it is something that, by Divine Providence, one has been made aware of, that means that there is something one can, and must, do to positively influence the end result.
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)