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CHUMASH CANDESCENCE and ACHAREI (below) RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL This quotation is from this week's Haftorah found in Ezekiel 37:1-14. It was established as this In circa 500 CE, when the Talmud was written down, after being oral for at least 1000 years, long after the Greek Empire had fallen to the Romans, the question of the origin of the afikomen was still debated By refraining from boiling a kid While every piece of food on the Passover seder plate has meaning, the Rabbinic sages wanted to understand about matzah. We should learn to be like matzah, humble and not puffed up with chometz (leavening, ego). As modern spiritual Jews searching our homes for crumbs of chometz, we need to instead be doing an accounting of our lives to rid ourselves, with God's aid, of ego, and the selfishness, selfcenteredness, resentments, and fears that it carries with it. The time-honored tradition of helping those in need on Peasch is called Ma-ot
SPECIAL PARASHA "SEGMENTS" =
EXODUS 33:12-34:26 and
NUMBERS 28:19-25
"Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dried Bones"
"God ...set me down in the valley, which was full of bones...they were
very abundant... they were very dry...Oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord:
I will bring spirit into you and you shall live. I shall put sinews...and
flesh...and skin over you. I open your graves and raise you from your
graves...and I shall bring you to the Land of Israel."
Sabbath's reading from the Prophets due to its parallel to Passover, our
redemption from Egypt and the promise of being brought to the "promised
land." The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin 92B says that this was a dream
about a parable. The later Midrashem say it was a
miracle that actually did occur. Since miracles are what our traditional
teachings say Pesach is about, there is this additional theme as well in this Haftorah.
Because this Shabbat falls on Passover, as does next Shabbat, this weekend, we read Acharei, but next Shabbat, the Torah portion that would normally follow last
week's parasha is not read until two weeks from now. We read two sections from
the Torah that relate to this holiday as well as the Haftarah described
above. So this week I will present both this Shabbat's and next Shabbat's Torah readings.
Rashi sites an overlooked verse in the Chumash that he says states that
200,000 members of the tribe of Ephraim left Egypt early under the
leadership of a false savior. They were killed by the Philistines as they took a
direct route along the sea to Israel. Rashi says that these bones are from the
tribe of Ephraim and when resurrected will complete the Passover redemption.
Since Ezekiel wrote this during the exile in Babylon and after the First
Temple's destruction, a rational interpretation is that it is a tale to inspire
national hope to our dispersed and depressed people.
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, shall be a
Pesach-offering to God" (Num. 28:16). This refers to the roasted lamb
that we are to cook over a fire, not to boil in water and not to keep any
leftovers. "The fifteenth day of this month is a festival; for a seven day period
matzoth shall be eaten" (Num. 28:17). This of course refers to a
second holiday called the Festival of Matzah or the Spring holiday (Ex.
34:18).
Pesach as a spring festival is very old, and Hebrews observed a spring
holiday long before our deliverance from Egypt according to Rabbi Hayyim Schauss.
When Moses asked Pharaoh to let the Hebrews leave Egypt, he first asked
permission for them to go and celebrate the spring holiday and sacrifice
(Ex. 3:18, Ex. 10:09). When some of us were nomadic shepherds and our flocks' lambs and kids
were born we observed a feast at the time of the spring's month full moon
(circa 14-15th of the month). Every member of the family took part. We
sacrificed a lamb or kid before nightfall. It was forbidden to break any bones or
leave any part uneaten. The chief of the tribe daubed the tent posts with blood
of the slain animal as an antidote to illness and plagues. Some Bedouin
tribes do this custom today. Anthropologists posit that holidays start as
nature festivals, and as cultures' mature people give a deeper meaning to the
festival.
The meaning of the name Pesach remains obscure. Exodus 12:13 says it
means to spare, while Exodus 12:23 says it means to skip, to pass over. Perhaps it
alludes to the skipping spring lamb that is the zodiac sign of the
Jewish month of Nissan. The zodiac signs certainly predate the holiday of
Passover.
When others of the Hebrew tribes lived by tilling the soil, they
developed another spring holiday called the "the festival of unleavened bread." The
grain harvest began in the spring with the cutting of the barley and
ended with the reaping of the wheat. This season lasted about seven weeks.
Before the start of the barley festival the Hebrews would get rid of their sour
dough, which was fermented dough used instead of yeast to leaven bread.
They got rid of any product connected with last year's crop. This was done as
a talisman of their faith that they would be granted a good crop in the
coming season. In the Midrash the rabbis teach that while Lot was
living in Sodom, he served the angels matzah because they visited him
during the unleavened bread feast.
Pesach and the Feast of Matzot were originally two separate and distinct
holidays as indicated by the verses quoted above . The were both celebrated in early spring.
Pesach is the older holiday. It was from our desert shepherding customs. The holiday of the unleavened bread is
the newer of the two, developed after we had settled in Israel and began to
farm.
Originally the spring holidays were a deliverance from
nature. They later became associated with our deliverance as a nation.
Finally the two merged with spiritual connotations for the symbols that presently
adorn our seder plate.
Further development in the Passover holiday came when we were ruled
harshly by the Romans and our second Temple fell. Pesach became an allegorical
holiday for a future redemption from Rome just as Ezekiel's book was a
parable with hopes to release us from Babylon. We discarded our nomadic
customs and inserted the Greco-Roman rites of reclining sofas and of
drinking many cups of wine. We also began to eat our meal leisurely and not in the hurried
manner commanded in the Torah.
We reformed the injunction to eat the Pesach lamb with "loins
girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and...eat
in haste" (Ex. 12:11). Our Karaite cousins who do not accept any Talmudic
laws, still eat their meal in this fashion. Their matzah is made only
with barley flour. We even took the Greek custom of the afikomen and
incorporated it into our seder.
We tend to teach our children that afikomen means dessert in the Greek
language. You will not however see it on any menus in Athens's Plaka.
The famous sixteenth-century grammarian, Elijah Levita, discovered that the Greek
practice of drunken, sometimes orgiastic revelry that followed their academic
symposia was called an epikomon. What we might not have learned in our
university symposia is that in Greek, the word means an entertainment
characterized by drinking, music and intellectual discussion. Syn means
together and pinein means to drink in Greek. Since we could not eat
chometz desserts, we ended our meal with a piece of matzah that took on the name of afikomen.
in Tractate Pesachim, daf (folio) 119b.
"You shall not break a bone" of the Pascal lamb (Ex. 12:46). Rabbi
Chinuch says this alludes to kings and queens not breaking bones to suck out the
marrow of every hidden piece of meat, as they had plenty to eat. But as
we learned from above, the idea of us relaxing and reclining like royalty is
a Talmudic one, not a Torah one. We are given a glimpse into why this rule
is given, especially when we are commanded to eat the whole lamb before
sunrise of the next day without keeping leftovers. Stuck in the middle of the
Passover "bbq'ed" lamb rules is the prohibition of cooking this lamb in
its mother's milk (Ex. 34:26). Clearly, this is part of the Passover rules.
It refers to the Pascal kid and not other meats cooked at other times. If
we combine the idea of an ancient spring holiday during which we thank God
for his continued blessings of a successful harvest and a good flock, with the
idea of a national redemption with His promise to continue to protect us, we
can arrive at a possible answer.
We can see how we are taught to respect the life forces of marrow's blood
and mother's milk as symbols of the spiritual, physical and national life
that God graciously bestows upon us daily. By giving up eating the blood in
the marrow of broken bones we remember that we are eating from a once-live
animal which we have sacrificed to sustain us.
in its mother's milk we remember that life is precious and fragile. God
granted us life. We are obliged to remember that we are our brother's
keeper. That is part of the covenant. God brought us out of captivity and "sustained us
through our festive seasons." Our job as good people is to help bring others who
are held captive, who are having their spiritual marrow sucked from their
bones, and who are having no mothers' sustenance, into a redemption as well.
Chittim. Those of us that are lucky enough to celebrate the Passover can surely find
time and resources to help lift up those with dried bones, to breathe spirit back
into their lives, to feed their weak flesh and to put clothes over their
naked skins.
A Joyous Pesach To All Y'All!!!
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL The canard "by allowing gay or lesbian couples on our
CHUMASH CANDESCENCE
PARASHA ACHAREI
LEVITICUS 16:00 -18:30
"May He Proclaim Freedom for ALL His Sons and Daughters, and Keep You as the Apple of His Eye...De-ror yik-ra le-vein im bat, ve-yin-tsore-chem ke-mo va-vat."
Our parasha this week includes verse 18:22 from Leviticus, which has put
liberal Judaism in the news and even on the front page of the New
York Times. "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a woman." This
law is repeated in 20:13 with the addition of teaching us the penalty for
transgression, which is death. As we read in this web site's recent
d'var Torah, expounding on verses in a manner that ignores their
historical context, can have consequences that affect us still today.
While I abhor the idea of giving publicity to hate groups, I sadly refer
you to the Westboro Baptist Gospel Church of Texas web site of
<<http://www.GodHatesFags.com>>.
Their "logical" syllogism takes the above Lev.18:22 verse and classifies
all homosexuals as an abomination. By quoting Psalm 5:05, "Thou hatest
all workers of iniquity," they believe that if God hates the homosexual,
so should we. They further quote Isaiah 66:24, which they translate as
saying that those who have transgressed against God will not have "their
fires quenched" and that this means that homosexuals will reside in hell
for all eternity. By referring to the death penalty of Lev. 20:13, they
justify the killing in Texas of Matthew Shepard. Their Westboro Baptist
Church actually proudly picketed his funeral. But if there is anything
of value about this deplorable web site, it is that they do list the liberal
temples on their list of "Fag Churches." These are places of worship
where homosexuals are welcome not only as congregants but as rabbis and
cantors and as place where they can stand before the Torah on the bimah
and have a commitment ceremony.
The Anti-Defamation League reports that violent crimes against gays and
lesbians are continuing to rise. The FBI says they are the third highest
targeted group for hate crimes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services says that gay and lesbian youth are at a four times higher risk
for suicide than their straight peers. According to the National Network
of Runaway Youth Services, 40 percent of the homeless teens on our streets are
homosexual.
The rabbis of Reform Judaism in a overwhelming vote,
approved a resolution to back any rabbi's decision to preside over a gay
union through "appropriate Jewish ritual." A compromise was reached to
recognize the diversity of opinion within that movement and to support
those who choose not to officiate at such ceremonies. Rabbi Paul Menitof
vice president of the CCAR, stated, "These are people who are subjected
to signals, subtle and not so subtle, that they are abnormal, sinful, less than
whole. Can you imagine the impact on them to finally hear a confirming
message after so many negative messages from all these religious groups?"
Please note that the URJ does not call these commitment ceremonies
marriages nor does it give them the status of kiddushin
(sanctification). But there is an ecclesiastic imprimatur that makes it
clear that their fellow congregants and God attach a holiness to their
union.
In 1990 the UAHC agreed to ordain openly gay rabbis. This vote comes
ten years later. Two weeks earlier on March 16, 2000, Vermont's House of
Representatives voted to recognize same sex unions, and Hawaii and Rhode
Island moved in this direction as well. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the
Netherlands, and France have created a special status called "registered
partnerships." It is interesting to note that for thirty-seven years the
rabbis of the Secular Humanist Jewish movement have performed same-sex commitment
ceremonies for both Jewish and intermarried couples alike.
There are some aspects of Jewish tradition that oppose homosexuality.
These need to be understood in the historical context of the need to have
children and the need to keep us from the bad habits of our neighbors.
Homosexuality was looked upon as a deviant behavior under one's control.
The authors of our laws were not aware of any biological or scientific
basis for homosexual behavior. They looked at it as something in one's
control, and hence an abomination of what was "normal." But just as the
ancient church had pro-gay writers such as St. Aelrod, Ausonius, and St.
Anselm, so did we.
Norman Roth, in his essay "Deal Gently with the Young Man," describes the
flourishing of homoerotic Jewish literature in Spain in the Middle Ages.
This essay, and his " 'Fawn of my delights'-Boy-Love in Hebrew verse"
quote many poems of this nature. Yishaq ben Mar-Saul of Lucena in the
eleventh century writes about his gay lover. "He has inflamed my
passions,
and consumed my heart with fire, like Joseph in his form, like Adoniah
his hair, lovely eyes like David, he has slain me like Uriah!" The Jewish
poet Isaac ibn Abraham twelfth-century Spain writes of his pain of
living in a "closet": "The secret of love, how can it be contained, the
heart and the tear are talebearers."
The Rambam (Maimonides), who was close to being a contemporary of both
above-mentioned poets, accepts Jewish homosexuals as not being violators
deserving of being on his list of apostates. He based this on Talmud Chullin 4a
and 5a, which clearly teaches that one who repeatedly violates a
particular commandment out of inner compulsion rather than to flout the
tradition is to be considered a functioning equal member of the
community. Ironically this same tractate, Chullin, also gives credit to
the pagans who practice homosexuality among themselves for not actually
marrying each other with a ketubah.
The rabbis declared in Talmud Kiddushin 82a that two Jewish bachelors
are permitted to sleep in the same bed because Jewish men are not
suspected of being homosexual. We saw in a recent d'var on this web site
that the same men were allowed to herd sheep because Jewish men are not
suspected of bestiality. Rabbi Harold Shulweis posits that the rabbis
clearly believed that gay behavior was a controlled willful act and
could be avoided if one wished to do so. But they were aware of other
inborn behaviors. According to Jewish law, activities that are
uncontrollable, even if they are prohibited, are patur aval asur, free of
culpability. Talmud Nadarim 33a teaches that God "frees one from
punishment who is coerced." Homosexuality is not a disease, not a
compulsion, and not a biological mistake, but the way, as some
researchers report, 10 percent of the population is "wired."
The Talmudic tractate Bava Batra 43a teaches that if we are to judge, we
are "to judge according to that which you see with your own eyes." If we
are to see gay men and lesbian women as deviants, sinners, in control of
their abominable behaviors, then we will continue to judge them in this
manner. But if we open our eyes to the scientific evidence and an
understanding of the history of the times when our laws were written, we
will see them as caring, loving folk who wish to stand on our bimah and
declare their love for each other before God, and we will therefore no
longer judge them.
If the rabbis of the Talmud knew that homosexuality was not a learned,
controlled behavior, I believe they would have reformed the Torah in the
same manner they reformed the laws requiring us to kill a rebellious son
(Deut. 21:18), torture the wife of a jealous man (Num. 5:12), and destroy
a city in which Jews worshipped idols (Deut.13:13). The Talmudic rabbis
called these laws theoretical and having no application to life: "Lo
hayah v'lo atid lihyot." If they knew that gays' sexual orientation was
not an act of their willing, the laws against homosexual behavior might
well have been set aside as well.
The rabbis also abolished another law. In Talmud Tractate Yebamoth 64a,
the law is given that after ten years of marriage, if the wife has not
given birth, it was grounds for divorce, as the purpose of marriage was
to have Jewish children. The rabbis nullified this. There is also a law
forbidding a man incapable of having children from marrying a Jewish
woman who is capable. But do we see any rabbi refusing to wed a healthy
woman to a man who had (God forbid) prostate, penile, or testicular
cancer, or who is paraplegic? We say that they can adopt and raise
Jewish children. And so can gay or lesbian partners, who can also
deliver biological children. Please also note that in Talmud Sanhedrin
54b, where the rabbis discuss this Sabbath's parasha verse, there is no
law against lesbianism.
Consider how much Judaism has reformed itself from the days of the
Torah to the days of our prophets. While I am not comparing gay men to
eunuchs, Deut. 23:2 says that a eunuch cannot enter into the
assembly of God. But Isaiah says in chapter 56, "As for the eunuchs who
keep My sabbaths, who have chosen what I desire and hold fast My
covenant, I will give them in My house and My walls, a monument and a
name. Better than sons and daughters, I will give them an everlasting
name which shall not perish." Isaiah, and hopefully we, would rather have
gay and lesbian couples among us who do good mitzvoth than heterosexual
couples among us who are mean-spirited.
None of us is pure. Few of us follow every halacha to the letter of the
law. Sabbath breakers, according to the Torah were to be stoned--as well
as homosexuals. Yet we do not vilify Sabbath violators today, keep them
from marriage, or call for their execution. The Rambam understood that
none of us is perfect. He reminded everyone of this by signing his
letters "Moshe Ben Maimon who transgresses three negative commandments in
the Torah every day." (He was referring to the prohibitions of a Jew
returning to and living in Egypt. The rabbis overlooked that Torah law
because of the mental anguish a forced move on the Jews living in Egypt
would cause.)
bimah, under a kuppah wedding canopy will 'cause' other people to become
gay" is just ludicrous. It is just as silly as saying that mentally
healthy gay men or mentally healthy lesbian women "recruit" children
while mental healthy heterosexuals do not. The URJ did not condone child
molestation. Thinking of homosexuals as perverts leads to horrible
consequences. When the CCAR openly allowed rabbis to welcome homosexuals
to our temples and to partake of every aspect of Jewish life, it was an
indication of another ideal of liberal Judaism of which we can be proud.
For more information on the struggles of Jewish gays and lesbians, please
check their web site at <<http://www.gayjews.org>>.
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
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