Beha'alotcha 5773

A Lamp of The Lord is the Soul of Man

This week’s Torah portion, Beha’alotcha, opens with God’s instructions to Aaron about how to light the lamps of the menorah in the Mishkan – which raises a difficult question: why does Aaron light the menorah only here, more than halfway through the Torah, instead of earlier – in parashat Pekudei, when the Mishkan was set up, or in parashat Shmini, when it was dedicated?

We are familiar with the use of light as a metaphor for spiritual experience; the book of Proverbs tells us, For the mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah is light (6:23). And light, as we know, has special qualities. Only light can travel vast distances, literally across the universe, without ever slowing down or weakening.  And only light – specifically, candle light – can spread without diminishing the original light.  If you take a cup of water and divide it into two cups, you have half as much water in each cup; but take a candle and light a second candle, and you have twice as much light as before.

The menorah is lit now, after the census of the Israelites at the beginning of the book of Numbers, to remind us – again, in the language of Proverbs – that A lamp of the Lord is the soul of man (20:27).  Aaron is only able to light the lamps in the Mishkan after each and every Israelite has been accounted for, because each person is God’s lamp, bringing divine light into the world.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman

Terumah 5773

Terumah 5773

Our rabbis are perplexed by a particular verse in this week’s parsha, Terumah. We read,

שמות כ"ו:ט"ו וְעָשִׂיתָ אֶת־הַקְּרָשִׁים לַמִּשְׁכָּן עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים עֹמְדִים

You shall make the planks for the Tabernacle of acacia wood, upright.

A verse that, on its surface, is simple, stating that the Israelites built the Mishkan out of acacia wood. But the rabbis wonder, where did all of this acacia wood come from? After all, there was no Home Depot in the desert! Where did they find all of this wood?

The rabbis craft a creative narrative to solve this problem (Tanhuma Terumah 9). They flashback to the end of Genesis, when Yaakov our ancestor left Israel to join his children in Egypt. Our rabbis tell us that Yaakov planted the trees as he walked on his journey. They imagine Jacob announcing to his family, “My children! You are destined to be redeemed from Egypt, and when you are redeemed, the Holy One will command you to build a Tabernacle. Help me plant these trees now, so that when our descendants are to make a tabernacle, the trees will be on hand.”

What are the seeds that we are planting right now for ourselves, for our friends, for our families, like Yaakov did before us? What are we setting in motion now that will build our community?

We spend our time at Anshe Emet planting seeds. We have extensive adult education, Shabbat activities, time to gather socially and more. The entire point of all this is to help us all, as individuals and as a community, to blossom and grow. What are you looking for, for yourself and your family? And how can we make that happen? Please be in touch with me, and anyone on the synagogue staff team and clergy, so that we can plant seeds and grow together, as our ancestor Yaakov and his children did so many years ago.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Russo

Mishpatim 5773

Justice and Tzedakah

From time to time, I like to take a step back from the weekly Torah portion and think about the broader sequence of events – how does the sequence of parshiyyot lead us to a deeper understanding of the values of Torah? 

The placement of this week’s Torah portion, in particular, is hard to understand.  Overall, the sequence of the Book of Exodus goes like this: slavery and liberation from Egypt, the covenant at Sinai, and the construction of a Holy Space, the Mishkan.  That much makes logical sense: God frees us from bondage, we join God in covenant, and we construct a Mishkan, a holy dwelling for God.  The puzzle is that, right in between the covenant and the Mishkan, we have parashat Mishpatim: fifty-three commandments about mundane, every-day matters like theft, rental property, personal injury, and the needs of the poor, widows, orphans, and strangers.  Why are these mitzvot inserted here, apparently interrupting between the covenant and the construction of the Mishkan, rather than appearing later in the Torah after God’s sanctuary is in place?

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (Belarus, 1820-1892), great-grandfather of the famous American Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, points us in the direction of an answer.  He writes that parashat Mishpatim, with its laws of social justice, comes before the building of the Mishkan in order to teach us that before we give tzedakah, we must first make sure that our money is not tainted by ill-gotten gains.  

Put differently, the means do not justify the ends.  Even as the Torah presents the Mishkan as God’s dwelling place on earth, the Divine Palace, the placement of this week’s Torah portion between the covenant and the Mishkan reminds us that justice must always come first; a physical structure for the community – be it a Mishkan, a Temple, or a synagogue – might help remind us of God’s Glory, but the mitzvot in this weeks’ parshah, the mitzvot of social justice, are the prerequisite for any honor we might offer to God.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman