Friday, July 18, 2008

Parshat Pinchas

Parshat Pinchas
July 18, 2008/ 15 Tammuz 5768


"And God said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest: 'Take a census of the whole Israelite community, from the ages of twenty years up, by their ancestral houses..." (Numbers 26:1-2)

Parshat Pinchas marks a significant turning point in the Torah. In Chapter 27, God instructs Moses to appoint a new leader for the Israelites—Joshua the son of Nun. Joshua, not Moses, will lead the People into the Promised Land and guide the next phase of their development as a free nation.

Rashi, the great medieval French commentator, sees this drama beginning a little earlier. In Chapter 26, Moses takes a census of the whole Israelite people, ostensibly to determine how many of them are fit for the forthcoming battle with Midian. Rashi, however, finds a hidden pathos underlying this simple action:

"A parable: It is like a shepherd and his flock…when the People left Egypt they were entrusted to Moses' care by number. Now, with his death and the time for returning them drawing near, he hands them back by number."

In Rashi's eyes, the census is a symbol for the end of Moses' leadership. Moses is effectively setting the nation's affairs in order, before he must relinquish control and turn them over to someone new.

In many ways, Moses is a tragic figure. He orchestrates the mass exodus of his entire people from Egyptian slavery, he watches over them through forty perilous years of wandering, he instructs them, bullies them, loves them, and guides them. And yet, at the end of the story, Moses is destined to die before seeing all his dreams for them fulfilled. Someone else will shepherd his flock into the Promised Land.

I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for Moses to step back from leadership. I imagine his silent raging at the unfairness of it all—his raging at God whom he knew face-to-face. I imagine his heartfelt pleading: "I am their leader, how dare You take them away from me?! How will they survive without me? What in the world am I going to do without them?"

And yet, in Moses' pain, I hear the simple human reality of any parent or teacher. A parent brings a child into the world and devotes herself wholeheartedly to nurturing and protecting that new life through a million decisions and hurdles. A teacher invests himself deeply in the lives of his students, coaxing and pushing them, delighting in their progress, worrying about their missteps. And then a child leaves for college, and then the final bell rings in June…And parents and teachers are left with the same questions as Moses: What will they do without me? What will I do without them?

Rabbi Milton Steinberg addresses this challenge in a wonderful essay entitled: "To Embrace With Open Arms." He teaches that one of the basic paradoxes of human life is the desire to hold onto those we care about and the recognition that the intersections of our lives are ultimately temporary. This tension can feel like a tragedy, but it need not be so. We know that holding on forever is untenable—it is simply not the way of the world. And yet, we can discover that this hard reality need not diminish the power of our embrace. We can truly learn to hold with open arms.

Moses was a guide, a teacher, a shepherd, and a parent to the People Israel for a long, long time. Ultimately, not even Moses could hold onto them forever. And so, beginning in Parshat Pinchas, he begins to take the steps to let them go-- to hand them back over to the One whose embrace goes on forever.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Parshat Balak

Parshat Balak
July 11, 2008/ 8 Tammuz 5768


"Then Balaam said to Balak: 'Stay here beside your offerings while I am gone. Perhaps the Lord will grant me a manifestation, and whatever He reveals to me I will tell you.' And he went off alone." (Numbers 23:3)

Balaam, the Gentile prophet, was hired by King Balak of the Moabites to curse the Israelites. He agrees to the mission, but first he tells the King that he needs some time alone in order to receive a "manifestation" of God and to ascertain the exact content of his prophecy.

What happens next is stunning. In his solitude, Balaam finds a completely different message than the one he was seeking. He discovers that he cannot speak a curse, but rather can only offer blessing upon blessing to the Israelites.

I am both intrigued and challenged by the idea of self-isolation as a means of attaining this sort of insight.

Solitary pursuit of spiritual truth is well attested in Jewish tradition. Many of the great mystics— from the Talmudic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, gained spiritual enlightenment during periods of solitary reflection. In the Hasidic literature this practice gained a name: hitbodedut.

Indeed, hitbodedut predates any of these figures. Many of our most prominent Biblical personalities are recorded to have had their most profound revelations of God in moments of solitude. Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven while sleeping in a field. Moses encountered a burning bush "beyond the wilderness" herding sheep in Midian. Elijah heard the Divine voice while hunkered down in a desert cave.

On the other hand, there is a strong prejudice in the Jewish tradition against isolating oneself from others. Prayer, an activity that might seem best suited for moments of rapturous solitude, can only be done as part of a minyan-- a gathering of ten adult Jews. Torah cannot be publicly read except in a community. Even study is not a solitary pursuit in traditional Jewish communities—rather, study almost always takes place in chevruta, a pair that seeks to unlock the essence of a text through vigorous debate and exchange. As it says in Pirke Avot (The Ethics of the Fathers): "One must not separate himself from the community!"

Balaam's isolation gave him the opportunity to perceive God and to transform his message of destruction into one of blessing. However, we learn from our Tradition that isolation from the community can deprive one of the spiritual opportunities presented by deep relationship with other human beings. We are left with a tension: Should one seek the kol demama dakka, the still, small voice of God, in the silence of the desert or the cacophony of the world?

It seems to me that as with most questions of spirituality, the answer to this question is probably yes and yes. Spirituality requires both stillness and relationship. Insight comes from both peaceful, solitary reflection and from boisterous, holy debate. The trick it seems is making space in our hectic, stress-filled lives for both.