Our Matriarchal Torah

On Mother's Day, I find the following thoughts from Rabbi Yehiel E. Poupko particularly relevant:

This beautiful stained glass image is from Pinar&Viola.

Many think of the society of the Torah as Patriarchal. After all Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are active and complex figures. They are involved in great dramas. However, this is only one part of the picture. The fact is that Sarah, not Abraham, appoints Isaac as Patriarch, and Rebecca, not Isaac, appoints Jacob as Patriarch. Left to their own devices Abraham and Isaac might well have appointed the other sons, Ishmael and Esau. What about the most complex of the three families, Jacob's four wives and 13 children and their various tragedies? There is the tortured response to the assault on Dina and then the kidnap and sale of Joseph. The career of the founding families almost comes apart with Jacob and his children and their conflicts. The most salient feature about both of these Jacobean tragedies is that there is no Matriarch to guide the family. Rachel has died and Leah has just slipped away. When there is a Matriarch she determines succession.

...

What are we to make of this pattern of Matriarchal determinism? It begins at the beginning. God teaches Adam that his wife Hava will become the mother of all life. She surely is the mother of all life. She is, after God, the first creator, and declares as much when she says, that in imitation of God she has created life in Cain and Abel. She signals that mother and Matriarch share something utterly unique with God, the creation of life itself. Both are creators. Inherent in the act of creation is the responsibility to care for the life created, materially and spiritually. These Matriarchs know that they are God's partners, nay, even more than that. They are as creators central to God's work. This work is not just the creation of life itself in the child that they will birth. They know that the child they are bringing into this world will be a critical actor in God's drama of sacred history. They, who know that child and live with that child from the very moment of conception, are uniquely endowed to make certain decisions about the future assignment of that child. The Torah does believe in the assignment doctrine; the notion that every person in this world has a specific assignment and has a task to accomplish. The Matriarch has that special knowledge for she knows with whom she shares creation.

Don't miss the opportunity to perform a mitzvah today...honor your mother!

This post is dedicated to my mom:
Mom, you were the first one to teach me about love, and you have consistently demonstrated that love to this day! You continue to inspire me in many ways. I am so grateful to have you not only as my mom but also as a close friend. Happy Mother's Day!

Two articles for Yerushalayim Day

Today Gathering Sparks brings you two articles in honor of Yerushalayim Day.

The first, from Dr. Rachel Zohar Dulin in JUF News, discusses the Many Names of Yeru-sha-la-yim. It includes the following etymology:

Most scholars believe that Yru-shalem was the original name of the city. The name consisted of the verb ya-ra meaning 'to lay a foundation' and Shalem, after the name of the Canaanite patron god of the city. Thus, Yrusalem meant 'The Foundation (to the temple) of the god Shalem.'  Jewish midrash took a different view. Basing it's etymology on biblical sources, the midrash made a synthesis between Shalem, the old name of the city (Gen 14:18), and yir-eh, meaning 'will see,' the name Abraham gave to the hill inYeru-sha-la-yim where he was prevented from sacrificing his son Isaac (Gen 22:14). Thus the name Yeru-sha-lem, according to this midrash, is a tribute to both the king who ruled The City with righteousness at the time of Abraham and the Patriarch's own faithfulness (Br. Raba 56:16). Furthermore, in Jewish lore the name Yeru-sha-la-yim also means the 'foundation of peace.'  This lofty meaning is based on the root sh.l.m which means 'complete' or 'whole' and out of which the Hebrew word shalom is derived.

Dr. Dulin concludes with a spirited reminder:

It is important to mention in this context that the name of the capital of Israel is Yeru-sha-la-yim; not Jerusalem or any other foreign pronunciation which corrupts the Hebrew origin of the name. For a name is a word affirming existence. If the name Yeru-sha-la-yim is mispronounced her recognition as our capital is at peril. Let us not condone it by indifference.

The second article is from the May 3, 2013 edition of Yisrael HaYom, by writer Yochi Barnedas, whose study of Jerusalem in Scriptures "caught her off guard." This article was brought to my attention by the Caspari Center, whose summary I'll quote:

“You say Jerusalem, you say division,” she writes, explaining that she had always assumed that the ultimate biblical vision for Jerusalem is that it will one day be completely Jewish. “I knew that the multi-national vision of Jerusalem was in Scripture, but I was sure that next to it I would find the dream of a Jerusalem that is entirely Jewish. I never imagined that I would not find a single verse that justified this approach. ... And yet, there are many verses that say exactly the opposite. ... Jerusalem is described in Scripture as God’s eternal city, not ours. The right to live and pray in this place is granted first and foremost to Israel ... but also to the Gentiles.” Barnedas quotes several passages to demonstrate this point, concluding her article by saying that “the sight of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious figures gathered together in the city of God, praying to him, is a fulfillment of the Bible’s prophetic vision. Our sages dreamed of this; for us, it is a daily reality.”

In these two articles we see both the particularistic and the universalistic dimensions of Yerushalayim--both worth keeping in our thoughts today.

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John Fischer on Hebrews 13:13's "Let us go outside the camp"

Rabbi Dr. John Fischer writes in one of his chapters (entitled "Yes, We Do Need Messianic Congregations!") of Zondervan's 2003 release How Jewish Is Christianity?: 2 Views on the Messianic Movement (p. 54):

The phrase "outside the camp" ... is misconstrued and therefore misused. "Outside the camp" in Exodus 33:7 describes the very heart of Judaism, the original Test of Meeting. when God revealed himself to his people at Mount Sinai, he met them "out of the camp (Exodus 19:17). "Outside the camp" is the place of ceremonial cleansing with the ashes of the red heifer (Numbers 19:9) and the location of significant elements of the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) ritual, as the bodies of the sacrifices are taken here and the scapegoat is released here (Leviticus 16:21-22, 27). So "outside the camp" serves as the core of Judaism and does not imply a separation from it.

Local student publishes graphic novel set during the Holocaust

I was very impressed by Christopher Huh, a local seventh-grader whose response to learning about the Holocaust was to create a graphic novel. From Washington Jewish Week:

Photo from
Washington Jewish Week,
attributed to Dahlia Huh

When Christopher Huh's seventh-grade history class turned to the topic of the Holocaust, the thirteen-year-old was riveted. The story of the systematic persecution and attempted genocide by the Nazis of Jews and other groups shocked him deeply.
"I had never seen anything like it," Huh said. 

The class completed their unit on the subject and moved on, but Huh still had it on his mind. He started checking out books and looking up information online about the Holocaust, the Nazi movement and related subjects, amassing more and more knowledge as he went. 

"I was very interested in learning more about the Holocaust," he said.
Huh wanted to express his feelings about what he had learned as well as organize some of what he learned in a way that would be easy to understand. He turned to the idea of drawing, one of his other interests, as a way to do just that, creating an illustrated fictional account of a Holocaust survivor and his family. 

"It helped a lot with remembering what I learned," he said. 

"We stood speechless at what we saw.
(from page 25)"
www.keepingmyhope.com

As the story he created began to grow, Huh showed some of his story to friends and family, who encouraged him to work on it more and turn it into a whole book, something he could share with others, especially others his age. 

"I wanted to share what I had learned," he said. 

A year and a half later, Huh's book, titled Keeping My Hope, was complete. The book is the result of long hours of reading, museum visits and other research as well as countless hours of illustration that took a lot of dedication Huh remarked. 

"I went to the drawing board that I have every day and drew," he said. 

"(from page 78)"
www.keepingmyhope.com

Keeping My Hope tells the story of Ari, a teenager in Poland when the Nazis come to power, and of the upheavals he and his family experience as they face the daily horrors of the Holocaust. The story is told by the much older Ari to his granddaughter in a first-person account that lends real immediacy to the story that although fictionalized comes from the all too true trials that millions faced. Ari's story covers many aspects of life for Jews under the Holocaust. Propoganda, ghettoization and life in the concentration camps are all discussed. 

"So many terrible things happened, I still find it hard to understand," Huh said. 

Even more than the basic facts, the hardship of daily life, dealing with the black market and how the Nazi's forced some concentration camp inmates to do some of the looting of the prisoners are all a part of the story. The corruption of the Nazi regime was one of the many aspects of the story that Huh said he found particularly interesting to learn and write about in his book. 

Huh said he plans to keep writing and drawing in the future and would like to see his book perhaps make its way into the curriculum of Montgomery County schools as a way to get and keep students interested when they study the Holocaust. 

"It's really important to keep people from forgetting what happened," he said.

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Reuven Hammer on Vayikra

I found the following comments on Vayikra by Reuven Hammer in The Daily Rabbi, an online pluralistic Jewish magazine:

The reputation of the Book of Leviticus, which we begin to read this Shabbat, has suffered from ups and downs in the public eye. In traditional Judaism it was considered so important that the education of little children began with the study of Leviticus. “Let those who are pure come and study the laws of purity” was the common saying. In the nineteenth century, however, Leviticus was severely criticized by non-Jewish Biblical critics, who considered it to be a primitive book, concerned only with dry ritual, far from the high ideals of the prophets. 

Fortunately the reputation of Leviticus has recently been restored by the work of two outstanding individuals: Rabbi Jacob Milgrom and the late Prof. Mary Douglas.. Rabbi Milgrom has written a magnificent commentary that has revealed the religious concepts that underlie the book. Prof. Douglas, a devout English Christian anthropologist, viewed the book from a unique perspective. In Leviticus As Literature she explained the purpose of Leviticus as follows: 

“Read in the perspective of anthropology the food laws of Moses are not expressions of squeamishness about dirty animals and invasive insects. The purity rules for sex and leprosy are not examples of priestly prurience. The religion of Leviticus turns out to be not very different from that of the prophets which demanded humble and contrite hearts, or from the psalmists’ love of God….The more closely the text is studied, the more clearly Leviticus reveals itself as a modern religion, legislating for justice between persons and persons, between God and His people, and between people and animals.” (Pages 1-2)

We often distinguish Messianic Jewish theology from historic Christian theology by emphasizing our approach to the Torah. But as I read through Leviticus, I wonder if we Messianic Jews don't also struggle to discern the relevance of the forms of worship described in this central book of the Torah. I wonder if what makes it seem dry to us isn't a nagging feeling that these rituals depend on a metaphysics that is strikingly different from our own? The idea of God being worshipped through animal sacrifice is itself a difficult one which Jewish thinkers have been wrestling with since the medieval period.

Currently I am reading a book which includes insights from the other scholar mentioned by Dr. Hammer, Jacob Milgrom. Yeshua Our Atonement, the newest effort from R. Derek Leman, offers a Messianic Jewish synthesis of Milgrom's work on Leviticus and Christian thinker Scot McKnight's work on atonement. Derek's book is the only book I know of which does this. So far I am finding it very helpful for working out a Messianic Jewish theology of Leviticus and of atonement.

This is a particularly timely study since we've reached Leviticus in the Torah cycle and we're drawing near to Passover. I hope to review further insights derived from Derek's book in the weeks to come. If you want to join me in learning about these topics, you can order a copy of Yeshua Our Atonement here.

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Leviticus! the game?

(Godcast, via Tablet)

Apple's app store has a new offering just in time for the beginning of Leviticus in this year's Torah reading cycle. From Tablet Magazine:

As the game begins, cartoon animals go flying in the air, and players must slash their throats by swiping a finger across the screen. Like many similar video games designed for the iPhone and the iPad—most notably the ubiquitous Fruit Ninja—this new game, too, is fast, fun, and unremitting: one misguided touch and it’s all over. But play for a moment or two, and you realize that the game’s rules—blemished animals must be spared, doves must be sacrificed by the pair—were set in place by the grandest designer of them all: The game you’re playing is based on the Bible’s most intricately detailed book. 

Titled Leviticus!, the game, as its title suggests, is both irreverent and deeply faithful to the source text—all that business about doves and cows and purity is right there in the book. But whereas Leviticus is too thick with rules to make for a very compelling read, it’s perfect when played.

The game's author explains:

“The whole book is a series of rules,” she said. “It’s all about how the priest should do this but shouldn’t do that, and if he did something a certain way, something will happen, and if he didn’t, it won’t. It’s just a bunch of rules with rewards and punishment, and that’s what games are.”

Interesting. The following comment about trivial personal choices and identity is also interesting:

When players of Leviticus! learn, for example, that swiping at that pig casually making its way across the screen means an automatic game over, this question of belonging arises in full force: Nothing delineates the boundaries of identity more sharply than being forced to make rapid, personal choices, even seemingly trivial and symbolic ones like whether or not to sacrifice a virtual pig in a video game. Put simply, to keep the game going, the player chooses not to touch that pig, and, by doing so, recalls that we’re the people who find pigs impure. This is how ritual works; it’s also the fundamental structure of good education.

So...is this a brilliant way to help kids (and adults) learn the laws of Leviticus Torah? Sacrilege? Ethically troubling? (What if kids start imitating the behaviors in the game?) Regardless, it sure gives new meaning to the term 'angry birds'...

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How to sing the havdalah blessings

In case you haven't learned it and would like to (or have friends that would), here is a video of the popular havdalah blessings song by Debbie Friedman.