Giants In The Land: Sh'lach L'cha

Giants In The Land

D’var Torah for Parashat Sh’lach L’cha (Numbers 13:1—15:41)

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

“Adonai spoke to Moses saying, ‘Send out for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.’”)

Some scholars wonder if the Exodus from Egypt ever really happened.  They bring whatever archeological finds have been unearthed in the last couple of decades as evidence that there’s simply no proof for any of it.  No plagues, no Death of the Firstborn; no Parting of the Sea and no Passover to celebrate.  It’s all a figment of our imagination.

But there’s imagination and there’s imagination.  There’s the kind of imagination that scares you half to death, where evil is distinct and ever-present and about to pounce on you, gaining strength with each piece of you that it consumes. 

This kind of imagination is false.  It conjures terror of things that might happen, but that probably won’t.  It evokes two reactions in us:  We become numb to our fears, floating from one disaster to another, trying to survive as best we can.  Or else we turn with violence and hatred to it, in useless effort to conquer or at least subdue the evil that we imagine around us.

But then there’s another kind of imagination, the kind that begins where our knowledge ends, and continues by a series of logical procedures.  Dmitry Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table, was able to correct past errors and also predict the discovery of new elements.  He wasn’t a prophet—at least not in the common sense of the word.  He was a seer, however, a person who saw fundamental laws when no one else did.  He didn’t see dead people; he saw the elements of life and understood them as such, as logical procedures and processes that recur cyclically in the universe.   And he had faith that history would prove him right.

Seeing things as they truly are is critical to our survival.  We gauge the forces around us and, using our power to envision and imagine, construct our response to the reality we face. 

This kind of constructive imagination leads us to discovery.  Many of the old science fiction stories we used to read—before they started making movies of fantasy characters—were not only surprisingly correct about the future they predicted, but actually led us on to take the dreams they envisaged and make them real.  Think Ray Bradbury and Jules Verne, or a handful others who didn’t follow Hollywood formulas but rather created new realities based on the ones they observed around themselves.

We fear what we don’t know.  That’s axiomatic.  The dark, as much as it beckons, is also rife with danger, with creatures we can only imagine.

That’s how the twelve spies sent out by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan saw the Promised Land.  It was enticingly rich and luscious.  The fruit they cut as evidence and brought to Moses and Israel—grapes, figs and pomegranates—are, and always were, pregnant symbols, representing the potency of life embedded in this land.

But there were also giants in the land, they reported.  Mythical, evil, iron-clad nations that would just as easily kill off this startup nation, Israel, as squash a bug.

A bug.  That’s how ten of those twelve spies saw themselves—and, moreover, imagined that was exactly how the natives of that land, the Cyclops, the Gogs and Magogs, monsters of all sorts and kinds, saw them, too. 

Their terror was infectious.  Like a disease, it took hold of the people and debilitated them.  Suddenly, that’s all they could see.

In its first season, the current TV hit series, Modern Family, had an episode in which its characters had to face their fears.  Maybe that’s how the creators of the show hoped to make us sympathize with their characters:  By understanding what they feared and, hopefully, by learning from how they resolved their fears.

Would that we could all resolve such conflicts in our lives in half an hour!

The Israelites learned their lesson from the story of the 12 spies.  Only it took them 40 years.

40 years to shake off the fears and learn to size reality up in a more rational way.  40 years of trial-and-error, of finding their way in the wilderness, led on by more than just the light of the sun and stars—though these did provide points of orientation.  40 years of discovery of an unwavering truth, of learning how to use it as much as how to be guided by it.  In a way, the Israelites went beyond imagination, beyond all that can be learned or known, into a new realm called Faith.

The details may be somewhat different, but there must have been an Exodus.  There must have been a moment in the eternal span of time and space that a people emerged out of the ordinary flow of uncaring, unknowing nature and declared that there was a constant law that prevailed throughout the universe.  This people discerned a giant force, wielded by some giant existence beyond existence, yet one that was not to be feared, but rather embraced. 

Moreover, this people recognized not only the great forces outside itself, but also its own strength.  They recognized and declared that that they—and all human beings—are endowed with a kind of imagination that does not terrorize, overpower or debilitate, but rather empowers and enables.  It’s faith, a light within that guides you from the wildernesses of ignorance and fear to a place where the force of life flows abundant and powerful. 

Maybe there are giants out there, but that’s not the lesson we must take from this week’s Torah portion.  Rather, it is to use our minds in measuring, calculating and planning our route into the future. 

We may be infinitesimally small in the larger picture of the universe.  But love and education rather than fear and superstition—these should be our guidelines as we move from one situation into another.  That and the faith that these rules will indeed provide a constant and steady foundation for our steps. 

It is this combination of knowledge, imagination and faith has led our people to many places, always onward toward the Promised Land. 

There may be no archeological evidence for this, but it is true nonetheless.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

Taming the Wilderness: Naso

Taming the Wilderness

D’var Torah for Parashat Naso

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21—7:89) is the completion of the perfect picture that the previous weekly portion, Bamidbar, painted.  Everything is in its place; everybody knows their role and function.  The twelve tribes are arranged by size and strength around the Tabernacle.   The Levites form an inner circle of protection, with the kohanim (priests) at their head.  The Israelites have their marching orders, all part a procedure so smooth and orderly that nothing can go wrong.

But, of course, we are dealing with human beings here; and, let’s not forget, we are in the Wilderness.  In the Wilderness everything can go wrong, from the elements to the creatures that furrow in the sand, from enemy tribes that we might cross paths and swords with right down to the passions that all-too-often rule our personal lives.

Naso provides us with rules meant to temper human nature.  In the Torah’s ideal vision of the way things ought to be, the tribes’ leaders aren’t vying with one another for leadership; one doesn’t try to undercut or outdo the other.  None can claim that they are better, more observant or religious than another and therefore deserve God’s blessings more than anyone else.  As the tribes’ leaders ponder what sacrifice they might bring to the Tabernacle’s upkeep, they are told by Moses to bring exactly the same thing as the other leaders.  Nothing more, nothing less. Absolute equality before God is the lesson they must teach the people.  Judah, the largest and bravest of the tribes, is no more important in this larger scheme than Benjamin, the youngest and smallest.  All are equal before God.

Two human passions are considered next in the portion.  Both basic to the human soul, they are cousin emotions:  jealousy and zealousness.  In these examples of passion gone awry, loyalty and devotion, good in themselves and actually important to the social fabric, are stretched to an extreme level.  They become obsessions that can take over a person’s life, ultimately causing mayhem and chaos.  Through involved and complex rituals described in the portion, these passions can and must be defused before they turn into domestic abuse and violently religious zeal.  The rituals themselves are by now antiquated and obsolete, yet their purpose hasn’t changed in thousands of years. Fervor must be controlled before it becomes rage.

For the rest of us, during those long stretches of time when we are not in the throes of passion, personal responsibility for the common weal is a constant requirement.  If one individual falters, or is fined but cannot afford to pay the fine, a relative must step up to help out.  We are each other’s support.

It’s all a question of doing the right thing in the first place.

But it’s also the lesson of how to right the world again when things go wrong.

Though the picture is perfect, the metaphor isn’t too difficult to understand.  Naso contains the secret of how to tame the wilderness around us as well as inside us.  We are, after all, still wandering in the wilderness.  We find ourselves somewhere on a winding path between two points—one which we left far behind us, and another, equally far but—oh! —so much better than the first, towards which we are headed.  Seeing that we’re going to be spending a long time in the Wilderness (forty years at least), we might as well try to make the best of the situation and try to find the beauty right around us.

It is so that we tame the wilderness.  We don’t—in Joni Mitchell’s words—pave Paradise.  Nor do we construct grandiose structures that help us pretend we’ve conquered the desert.  Rather, we learn to live in harmony with the elements around us and within us, to weave our lives with emotion and passion as only two threads within a larger tapestry.

It is no wonder that in Parashat Naso we find the ultimate blessing, the Threefold Blessing bestowed by God on the Israelites in the Sinai Wilderness and, from that moment on, by priests and rabbis to this day:  “May God bless you and keep you; may God make God’s face shine on you and be gracious to you; may God turn God’s face toward you and grant you peace” (Num. 6: 24-26).

Shalom doesn’t mean only “peace.”  Shalom implies wholeness and completion, with nothing missing and everything in its place.  Everyone knows his and her role, function and direction; everyone does the right thing, just so, and nothing is remiss.

It’s an ideal picture, one that may exist for only fleeting moments in our lives.  Yet, in our imagination, it is as vibrant and exultant as it was when Moses first presented it to us, wanderers in the Sinai Wilderness, no longer slaves in Egypt but not yet wholly free in our Promised Land either.  For all its impossibilities, it’s a vision still worth sustaining and working towards, a vision of serenity and peace, of true and blessed shalom.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman

A Delicate Balance: Bamidbar

A Delicate Balance

D’var Torah for Parashat Bamidbar

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

On a radio program I listened to this afternoon, they were interviewing Saul Perlmutter, the astrophysicist who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for proving not only that the universe was expanding, but that the rate of this expansion was actually accelerating. 

The cosmic picture Prof. Perlmutter painted was of galaxies, and even clusters of galaxies, all held together by one force—the force of gravity—while at the same time struggling with yet another force, a sort of “dark energy” that was forcing the whole structure to pull apart, to spin up and away from the black hole that lay at the bottom of the downward spiral.

As the interview proceeded with humor and intelligence, the audience was made to realize that this process, this conflict of contraction and expansion, is measured on a scale of billions of years, while we, finite mortals that we are, concern ourselves with what might happen tomorrow or the day after.  It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.

And yet, the cosmic lesson is actually not inappropriate to our own, infinitesimally tinier, existence.  We may not perceive the motion of the earth beneath us, but we are not unaffected by the chaos that often results. 

Chaos is all around us—and in fact actually seems to increase at an alarming pace!  Of course, it could all be an illusion.  Maybe human existence never was calm, now or ever.  Wars, revolutions and other human conflicts have always competed with natural phenomena to see which would result in greater adversity.  Could it be said about any age, that in such and such a time people lived in absolute peace and security, without fear of chaos erupting all around them? 

I think not.

The annals of history are filled with scenes of war, terror and brutality.  Along with major cataclysmic events there are also everyday struggles with neighbors or even family members.  Life has always been, and always will be a precarious balance. 

It is against this harsh reality that the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers (Bamidbar, “in the wilderness”), is set.  A shimmering jewel in an otherwise forbidding wilderness, the first portion of this book (also called Bamidbar, chapters 1:1—4:20) is a picture of an impossibly ideal world.

It’s a world where everybody has a place, everybody has a role; a world where everybody counts and everyone has a valuable purpose.  In such a world, no one is disgruntled or dissatisfied.  Everybody knows what is expected of him or her, and everybody does just so.  “Thus the children of Israel did; according to all that Adonai commanded Moses, so they did (Num. 1:54).

It’s a perfect world, a world that is perfectly impossible.

And yet, one that exists.  If only for a moment, suspended in time, hanging precariously in the balance between collapse and expansion, there are examples of flawless existence, where everything is in place, everything exists in its time.

I remember a time many years ago, when I was serving in the Israeli army.  I was a medic, and fortunate enough to have served only during peacetime.  Yet, that particular day was especially harrowing as I recall it.  At the end of the day I felt fatigued and frazzled, and still ahead of me was all the paperwork I needed to do before I could go to sleep: so many people seen in the course of the day, so many pills dispensed, so many injections administered.

I turned on my little transistor radio.  The tinny sound that came out of it was nothing compared to the sound systems we carry around in our pockets today.  Yet the music it played had an unexpected effect on me.  Without really listening to it, even as I was busy filling the ledger’s columns with names and numbers, I felt its calming effect.  The piece—I remember it well—was a set of fugues by J.S. Bach set for a string quartet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The orderliness of the lines in the Bach compositions—the “civilized conversation between civilized people,” as Albert Schweitzer described Bach’s contrapuntal style—blended seamlessly with the sweet and gentle timbre of the violins that Mozart gave these lines to.  Slowly drawing me into the fold of this beautiful soundscape, the music calmed my frayed nerves.  Orderliness, compassion, harmony and beauty—these were the components of the music I was hearing.  It was a perfect balance, a perfect moment, suspended animation hanging precariously between instances of a more chaotic reality.

When I arrived home this afternoon, still thinking about Prof. Perlmutter’s lesson in astrophysics, I was still facing a series of chores.  I’m watching my son’s two dogs this weekend, in addition to the one of our own.  All three would probably need a walk, or at least to be let outside.  Then there were the many little details still waiting to be done before Shabbat came in.

I let the dogs out, and then I gave myself a gift:  I stayed out with them for a few moments.

Today was a beautiful day.  The night’s rain had cleansed the air some, and the sun shone just right, angled just so, its rays highlighting the spring colors rather than blinding you with the intensity that will come later this summer.

I watched as the three dogs roamed in the yard, taking in the sounds and sights.  From their perspective, it was a perfect moment.  Sniffing each blade of grass, they stretched out on the ground to become one with the cool freshness of the earth. 

It was a perfect moment for me, too, as I watched them.  For just an instant, motion stopped; the to and fro tug of the day’s business ceased.  It was just what I needed.

Learning to recognize these moments and to take advantage of them is no easy matter for us today.  Busier than ever, we rush from one point to another, converging at home for an hour or two before setting out again on yet another errand or mission.  Always coming, always going, we are not unlike the universe around us, always expanding yet always also collapsing.  Parashat Bamidbar is a lesson exhorting us to appreciate the treasures we actually have and possess.  As we stop to make each second count, we learn to appreciate the orderliness with which life actually progresses, the regular heartbeat, the flow of day into night, of the workweek into Shabbat.

Without ignoring the world around us, Bamidbar teaches us to value the moment we live in and to appreciate its potential.  It’s a share in the eternal struggle between being and non-being, and it’s ours.  For ever so long or so short a time, the potential is ours, too.  Caught in the balance, our life is a statement we can give shape and meaning to.  Within its bounds, we are free to make of it anything we want. 

Learning to make this moment the very best we possibly can is the lesson of Bamidbar.

© by Boaz D. Heilman

The Word Carved Into The Rock: B'har-B'chukotai

The Word Carved Into The Rock

D’var Torah for B’har-B’chukotai

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

One of the most powerful images in the entire Torah appears in this week’s parasha (actually, B’har-B’chukotai, Leviticus chapters 25-27, is a double portion, comprising the final three chapters of the book of Leviticus).  This image is part of a series of punishments God threatens to bring upon those people whose hearts are so hardened that they fail to follow the requirements of holiness God demands of us:  “I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze” (Lev. 26:19).

Set at Har Sinai—Mount Sinai—when the Israelites are still wanderers in the wilderness, B’har envisions a potential reality, not an actual one.  The portion begins with a rich description of the earth’s fruitful bounty (a beautiful vision to a people lost in the desert).  The time of harvesting and threshing will last so long that it will merge with the following season of sowing and planting, with all having more than enough to eat and drink.  Yet this harmony between the earth and humanity is conditional.  It is based on our willingness to follow God’s ways—that is, to sanctify life, to live with justice, fairness and compassion as our guidelines.

These principles, however, are not limited only to our behavior with our fellow human beings.  They must provide the basis for our relationship with the very earth, in return for the earth’s blessings of nourishment and sustenance.

Shabbat symbolizes God’s presence in time—our time, the time allotted for our existence.  It is a day not only of rest, however, but also of reflection on our relationship with what we call Sacred.  Similarly, parashat B’har now instructs us to devote a similar measurement of time in recognition of God’s presence in space.  For six years we may cultivate the land, reaping, sowing and harvesting again; but the seventh year must be set aside as a time for rest and renewal for the earth. 

The laws of sh’mitta, the Sabbath of the land, are many and complex.  Ostensibly a way to restore agricultural balance to an overworked land, sh’mitta is also that much more.  It represents our acknowledgment of the holiness inherent in the earth, not because it is in itself divine (a pagan belief), but rather because it contains God’s blessing, the gift of life.  It is a gift we enjoy but that we must also share with all other inhabitants of the planet.

The soft, pliant earth can take the seed we plant in it, absorb rain water and the sun’s warming rays, and turn right around and give us its bounty in the form of grain and fruit.  The heavens exhibit a similar gentle softness, giving and accepting breath, wind and water.

But earth and heavens can turn on us, too.  Pollution, abuse and misuse of nature’s resources erode the once-plentiful reserves.  Fertile lands can turn into desert; seas can disappear; the sky chokes with pollutants. 

Just as a heart hardens and turns into rock when we ignore the plight of the persecuted, so can the soft, fertile earth.  Sanctity is a common denominator between us and our environment.  The way we treat other living beings and the way we treat the earth will be our portion in return.

Recognition of the gifts inherent within us and around us does not give us permit to waste them.  Knowing that these represent a loan rather than an outright gift, we must understand that the payback God expects from us is that we share the earth’s bounty with those less fortunate than us; that we return some of the resources back to the air, land and sea around us; that we leave some of the yield unharvested for the benefit of the homeless and defenseless.

It is so that the book of Leviticus closes, with laws of righteousness and compassion that we must engrave into the very rock.  Embedded within the rock, the word is Holiness.  It is to be a permanent reminder of the potential of the rock to turn into soft soil, a source of life and blessing; or to harden and turn into iron and bronze, becoming a weapon of cruelty and oppression. 

The choice is ours.

Chazak, chazak v’nit-chazek—be strong, be of courage, and we shall all be strengthened.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman