What Do You Give to the G-d Who Has Everything?

Here we go! Five weeks in a balloon of intensive involvement with the construction of the Mishkan, starting now with Parashat Terumah. A balloon, it seems, since we’ve just been at Sinai and receive an entire corpus of civil and criminal law with which to found a society in Eretz Yisrael, and we’re told we’ll be accompanied by Hashem’s angel on the way, so you’d think the next stage would be to set off.

Not so fast! The Mishkan and all it entails and implies for the life of the people of Israel will be our subject clear through until the third parashah in B’midbar (!), when we finally do get going. This Mishkan, the most elaborate construction project undertaken by humanity to date as recorded by the Torah (the Tower of Babel was aborted, and the Egyptian store-houses merely required a huge supply of adobe bricks), allows us to fulfill our promise as created in the image of Hashem. Hashem creates a world, and we, imitating Him, create a symbolic world.

But for now, we’ll leave aside the powerful spiritual associations of the Mishkan and turn the focus on beginning of the parashah: the gathering of raw materials.

Hashem says to Moshe: Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me an uplifted-donation; from each generous-hearted man you (pl.) shall take My uplifted donation.

That’s how the parashah begins, followed with a list of thirteen types of raw materials to be collected. At the end of the list, the dispensation of these materials is indicated:

And they shall make for Me a sanctuary and I will dwell within them. In accordance with everything which I am showing you – the form of the IndwellingHouse and the form of its furnishings/utensils, and thus you shall do.

One might think that regarding something so central, so indispensible for the life of Am Yisrael, everyone, bar none, would be obligated to participate in its construct. And, at first, that’s how it seems: Speak to the children of Israel, that they take… No one is excluded. And yet, right afterward, we read: From each generous-hearted man whose heart volunteers him. Evidently, we were wrong; it’s only those moved by spirit who are tapped to give. No external compulsion is to be used, not even a Divine command.

In fact, the Talmud indicates there are actually three separated collections, reflecting the three usages of the word terumah in the opening verses – and the initial collection of the raw materials is the voluntary one.

But doesn’t that mean that some people will be left out, and will not have a part in the Mishkah? And what about us, who live at such a temporal remove from the Mishkan – what part can we hope to play in a construction which brings out the image-of-G-d within us?

Let’s look at what the term “generous-hearted”. The Hebrew is asher yidvenu libo. “whose heart volunteers him”. The heart is the core of the person. Whether we take it literally, to mean “heart”, or we understand it figuratively, to mean “mind”, or “spirit”, as it often does, there is no doubt that the heart is, well, the heart. It is the source of a person’s being, his will, his sense of self. So what the heart wills and wants IS the substance of one’s life. The heart can hardly want except for what it is – and so people always want for themselves. How can we want otherwise? It’s not just cynical to say that altruism is ultimately motivated by a selfish concern for our image, more real to us in some ways than our very bodies. So how can actually truly give anything to anyone, without some existential string attached?

On the other hand, what do we HAVE that we can give? If we are serious when we say that “The world and its fullness belongs to Hashem”, then, with David, we must say, “Give Him what is His, for you and what is yours is His”. So, what is it precisely that we own that we CAN give to Hashem?

When we give something truly, we’re really giving it back to where it ultimately belongs. Everything we have, everything we are, is on loan. When we acknowledge that everything is Hashem’s, and not ours, then that acknowledgement is a giving over of our very selves to Hashem. We thereby emulated Hashem, Who wills His overflowing essence to spill out into the beauty of creation. We can actually give anything of our own, except this spilling over into the acknowledgement of Hashem – and even THAT ability – that act of seeming free-will – is a gift of G-.d.

So we build the Mishkan NOT so much with gold and silver and copper, etc., but with and from our freewilling self-giving – the deepest, rawest material of the universe.

And that is why it says, at the end of the passage quoted above, “And thus shall you do”. Those dangling words, seemingly out of place, are explained by Rashi to mean “For future generations”. Rashi truncates the Talmud’s interpretations of those few words – there understood to include the making of the implements for the Temple in the time of Shlomo – to allow the following understanding:

When we give ourselves fully to one of Hashem’s mitzvot, when we pour into it our everythingness, WE become the raw materials, beyond the constraints of time and space, from which the Mishkan, that is, Am Yisrael, is ever being constructed.

Separate Dishes!?

How do you get from “Don’t seethe a kid in it’s mother’s milk” to two sets of dishes? I mean, three, if you include pareve? Oh, make that six, for Pesach? Plus add in the the treif set from the olden days, for the non-Jewish servant, and we’ve got our magic number – seven sets of dishes!!

Behind the multiplication of the plates is a serious question, however. This week’s parashah, Mishpatim, is much more than a jumbled collection of laws regulating capitol and civil offenses. Not only is it not jumbled at all (hint: compare the progression of themes in the various sets of laws in Mishpatim with those of the storyline in parashat Shemot!), it contains some of the most powerful “one-liners” in Jewish tradition. “Na’aseh v’nishmah”, for example, is uttered by the people in THIS parashah (and not in Yitro, as some people mistaken think). The definitive reference to the unity of the written and oral Torah also appears herein. But probably the verse which is most closely associated with daily Jewish life is the verse forbidding mixing milk and meat.

But how does that verse prohibit basar bechalav? After all, isn’t it just some poetic flourish brought as a coda to the Book of the Covenant – the term used by the Torah itself (as understood by the Ramban) to refer to the legal codex presented in Parashat Mishpatim? It can’t actually mean two sets of dishes, can it?

Ah, but the verse is repeat two more times in the Torah. Once, in Parashat Ki Tisa, as the concluding phrase of yet another “covenantal” passage, in which Hashem re-offers the covenant, functionally rejected by the people as they revel before the Golden Calf. And a second time in Devarim, where the verse as a coda to the repetition of the laws of animal prohibited and permitted for eating. Clearly, a verse so frequently and prominently intoned must have some overarching significance.

And indeed, the Sages in the Talmud interpret the three-fold repetition of “don’t seethe…” to be teaching three separate prohibitions:

1. Don’t consume a meat-and-milk mixture.
2. Don’t cook a meat-and-milk mixture, even though you won’t eat it.
3. Don’t derive benefit from a meat-and-milk mixture (such as reselling cheeseburgers for fun and profit).

The dishes are another story – absorption and re-emission of flavors by cooking vessels is considered to be substantial and not incidental.

But our question remains – given that the repetition of the verse means something – whence do the Sages get the notion that it is precisely these three things being prohibited by the Torah, and, perhaps more importantly, how does such a practice make us into more refined servants of Hashem?

Let’s take a step back. After giving over to Moshe an entire ethical-legal corpus which forms the core of legal traditions and societal structures the world over to this day, Hashem turns to task at hand. For, that ethical-legal corpus is written from a standpoint which presumes a society settled in its land. And that has yet to be accomplished. The land still needs to be conquered, the morally bankrupt people still lingering there is yet to be disposed, and, perhaps of central importance, their idolatrous, violent and corrupt religious civilization has yet to be eradicated, to be replaced by a people constantly yearning to ascend to Oneness.

Imagine all the people, living for the One. Leaving aside their worldly occupation to join as one in the place Hashem will choose to cause His Name to dwell there, three time a year: On Pesach, the feast of springing anew into life; on Shavu’ot, the first-harvest feast of the firstfruits/firstborn – first to arrive at adulthood, and at Sukkot, the feast of the ingathering of all our works – animal and vegetable – from the field, and eight-day ending-of-a-cycle festival joyously awash with meat and drink (for there is no real joy save sacrificial meat and wine, say our Sages), all that physicality transmuted through boundless joy into Divine service.

Now read this:

And everything which I said to you guard carefully; do not mention the names of other gods – let them not be heard upon your mouth.

Three festivals shall you celebrate for Me each year.

• ·Keep the festival of matzot – seven days shall you eat matzot as I have commanded you, on the occasion of the spring month, for in it you emerged from Egypt; let there not be seen hametz in your houses.
• ·And the harvest festival, the first fruits of your works which you shall sew in your fields;
• ·And the ingathering festival at the going-out of the year, when you gather your works from the field.

Three times each year all your males shall be seen/see the Face of the Master, Hashem.

• Do not slaughter the blood of my sacrifice upon (i.e., while) chametz (is yet to be seen) and do not allow the fat of My festival offering to linger until morning;
• The first of the firstfruits of your land bring to the House of Hashem;
• Do not seethe a kid in its mothers milk.

Shemot 23:13-19

The parallels are clear: We all gather in Yerushalayim at three points in the agricultural year, laden with symbolism. We are commanded to be careful regarding three specific commandments, one for each holiday:

On Pesach, we must be precise regarding the Pesach sacrifice – we must neither sacrifice it too early, when chametz is still to be found, nor may we leave it/its fat parts unconsumed past the following dawn.

On Shavu’ot, we must stand before Hashem and, surrendering the first products of backbreaking labor in the field, we stand with the Kohen in the Temple courtyard, waving our offering and proclaiming we have arrived in the fullest sense (See Parashat Ki Tavo).

On Sukkot, … hmm, what is this mother-and-kid non-reunion? Ramban writes (davka on the repeated verse in Parashat Ki Tisa) that when the first-born animals were brought as sacrifices to the Temple, their mothers came along for purposes of nursing the young animals, right up until the time of the sacrifice. But Ramban doesn’t specify that this is happening on Sukkot. In fact, he might be referring to the holiday of firsts – Sukkot.

I’d like to suggest a slight twist on the Ramban’s take. The first of Elul is one of four Jewish new years, the new year for tithing of the animals born that year. One of each ten new-born sheep, goats and cattle would be designated as the tenth, the ma’aser, releasing all nine others to the realm of the secular. The ma’aser animals would be offered as sacrifices at the Temple and their flesh would be consumed by their owners in purity, anywhere throughout the city. When would this most naturally be done? On the next trip to Yerushalayim, of course, since zerizim mak’dimim lamitzvtot – the zealous jump at the chance for mitzvot. And this would be…Sukkot.

Sukkot, the blow-out holiday-to-end-all-holidays, as time dies and new time is born, eight days more meat, more drink, more dancing, more music, more spectacle and more holy indulgence than we can really imagine. Just the time to fall over the edge into the REAL spiritual seductions of ultimate unboundedness.

Rambam understands the prohibition of milk and meat as an anti-idolatrous practice – THEY horrifically cooked kids in mothers’ milk, you must not do this. They allows life to bleed into death, to conjure a self-contained and self-perpetuating cycle where life and death are yin-yanged into one another, a boundless self-invoking myth of existence leaving no room for the truly transcendant. You shall not do this in your holiness.

This should imply that the kohanim should not behind like idolatrous priests. They should not consume the holy sacrificial flesh in its delicious, saturated-with-meaning self-sauce at the propitious time of connection. But what about regular Jews.

All three of the holiday practices are really on the threshold of the “kohanic”. Non-kohanim are allowed to slaughter a sacrifice, but not to collect the blood nor dash it upon the altar in atonement, and on Pesach, with so much work for the kohanim to do, that’s precisely what they did. On Shavu’ot, the Jew bringing his basket of first-fruit entered into the Temple as deeply as he was allowed and, waved, with Kohen’s hands upon his, his offering before Hashem. And on Shavu’ot, the Jews ate holy meat in amounts fit for only for a Kohen, with the lactating mothers bleating outside in the courtyard. It’s sooo good, and, with the Rambam, it only has its anti-pagan symbolism at this time, in this setting, so the rest of the year, back home in the kitchen…

“You shall be for Me a nation of priests, a holy people”. The “extension” of the prohibition of mixing milk and meat, with its undeniable ethical and spiritual implication, in inherent already in the first appearance of the verse. When it is brought again a third time in Devarim, that “extension” is complete – every Jew is in a certain sense a kohen, aware of the incredibly powerful spiritual reverberations of every act, the symbolism that is more that symbolism, echoing its implications throughout the universe.

It is stated in the Talmud, “when there is no altar operative, a man’s [comportment at his ] dining table atones for him. Separating meat and milk can, should and needs to be a way of separating from a life lived in a realm of linear, cause-and-effect superficiality to re-engage that same life as one constantly on the dizzying edge of the holy.

Now about that seventh set of dishes…

Brain-Link Fence

Is Mt. Sinai under construction in this week’s parashah? One could be forgiven for thinking so, since Hashem’s intructions to Moshe regarding preparation for His revelation to Am Yisrael include the erection of a fence around the mountain!

You say you don’t remember any fence? Take a look at the verses leading up to the the Ten Commandments: “Hashem said to Moshe, ‘Go down, give testimony before/warn the people, lest they destructively break through to Hashem to see, and many fall (i.e., die) from amongst them. Even the priests, who draw close to Hashem, must sanctify themselves, lest Hashem break out amongst them.” Moshe said to Hashem, the people are not able to ascend the mountain, for You warned us saying, ‘Set up a boundary around the mountain and sanctify it.”

Hmm, the people aren’t able to ascend, something is preventing them – there’s a boundary there, set up precisely to avoid rash, impulsive spiritual overload. Clearly, this boundary can’t be made merely of stern warnings taken to heart, since Hashem knows that whatever they see at the moment of revelation is likely to overwhelm their caution and good sense. He insists on an extra level of protection, while Moshe insists it’s unnecessary, since the boundary constructed stands firm.

Of what was this boundary constructed? Let’s go back to the initial passage a few verses earlier, where Hashem gives instruction as to the preparations to be made in advance of Matan Torah:

Hashem said to Moshe: Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothing. Be ready for the third day, for on the third day, Hashem will descend upon Mt. Sinai before the people’s eyes. Bound the people around, telling them, ‘Guard yourselves from ascending the mountain, or even touching its edge. Whoever touches the mountain will surely die”.

At first glance, it would seem we’re not closer to finding the raw material from which the fence was constructed. In fact, it looks like the initial supposition, that the best de-fence is a good of-fence, is born out – the boundary is nothing more than the fear of divine punishment for those who, literally, trans-gress.

R. Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk, in his marvelous work MeSHeKh Hochmah, interprets the words, Bound the people around differently. The Hebrew reads Hagbel et ha’am saviv, with the word for people serving as a direct object to the causative verb, make a boundary. Thus, Hashem is telling Moshe, “Use the people as raw material for the fence”. Here are his words:

The Divine Presence and the attendant phenomenon of prophecy extended up to the place where Yisrael stood facing the mountain, as it is stated (Devarim): Face to face did Hashem speak with you at the mountain. Just like with the Beit Hamikdash, it was permitted to touch the walls of the courtyards but forbidden to come into their space, since the walls served as partitions between the Sanctuary of Hashem and outside of it, likewise here, Yisrael served as the partitions between the revelation of the Glory of Hashem and that which is otherwise. Thus, the mountain was forbidden to be touched, since the holiness did not end at the mountain. Therefore, it states that the Glory had a boundary, and what was that boundary? The people!

(There were a couple more paragraphs here, full of ideas that to me were really exciting, but Windows updated itself without adequate warning for a simpleton like me, and so lost them!! Can you cry over spilled Torah? But, not to end too abruptly, I'll reconstruct the gist of it and say…)

Nothing can exist in our realm w/o being manifest via a vessel; everything of the world is a vessel, and the Kodesh, ultimately not of this world, becomes manifest in a place/time/soul vessel called Am Yisrael at Mt. Sinai. The containment vessel which is Am Yisrael doesn’t merely enable the manifestation of the holy, but it also defines the secular (means literally: temporal) realm – a realm cleansed of the overwhelming, radioactively-dangerous wholly holy, a realm which IS space for that which is other than holy. Ultimately, the secular is created to be MADE holy, but the tension of, on one hand, keeping the sacred at bay, to allow for the human, and, on the other hand, transforming our OWN material to become more G-dlike, more holy, less “vessalic” and more penetratingly liquid with holiness – this tension is the exasperating blessing of Am Yisarel from Hashem, for the world. No surprise people might wish to run away from the mountain, as the midrash on Parashat Beha’alotecha teaches us. No surprise people might be carried away by the smidgen of eventual ecstasy they were allow to taste at Sinai and want to run up the mountain to attain the intimacy they felt they couldn’t bear to be without.

Ulysses was lashed to the mast by his crew to heart the Siren’s song. Hashem has lashed us to the mast of His world with the rope of our own will bending to do His in this as-yet-unredeemed realm. With the strong rope of his Torah – a Mobius strip that, followed to the end, will turn out to have been, all along, that holiness which we sought to hold back, now embracing us for eternity.

My G-d, a Navaho?

Shabbat Shirah, it’s time to sing. Standing on the edge of a Red Sea that has returned to its roiling nature, drowning the fleeing, terrified Egyptian charioteers, Am Yisrael is ecstatic and, with Moshe, breaks into song. They sang in unison a song that welled up from a prophetic vision of redemption that, our sages tell us, outstripped even the visions of Yechezk’el and Isaiah, both of whom “saw” Hashem enthroned on high. The song so permeated the very fabric of being that it is introduced with the imperfect mood of the verb – Az Yashir Moshe… “Then Moshe will sing”, as though the song is every ringing in the background of our Jewishness.

So what did they sing? Pure poetry, and therefore, as difficult to feel confident in parsing as it must be even to attempt to imagine what they were feeling at that moment. And yet, we reprise it every day in our morning prayers, as part of Pesukei D’Zimra. Every verse of this song is fit for deep reflection; I’ve chosen the following well-known verse to dwell upon this time around:

Zeh E-li v’anveihu, E-lohei avi va’arom’menhu

This is my G-d and anveihu (“I will ???); the G-d of my father and I will uplift Him

(As usual, left part of the verse untranslated so as not to prejudice the subsequent analysis.)

What is it that we are committing ourselves to doing here in this verse, as a response to the dramatic redemption of Israel from what they feared was sure death? The context might suggest that anveihu is a synonym of arommenhu, as is so often the case in the Biblical poetic convention of parallelism or symmetry. But let’s look closer at the root of the word, and see what the commentators have to say.

Onkelos translates: This is my G-d and I will build Him a sanctuary. This is based on understand our key word to stem from the root nun-vav-heh., meaning “abode, habitation”. The Beit Hamikdash is referred to as Naveh sha’anan, abode of tranquility.

Ramban is evidently uncomfortable with this approach, both because it violates the rule of parallelism and for reasons pertaining to his mystical understanding of precisely what it was that the people experience. Therefore, he preserves Onkelos’s linguistic derivation but with a twist: I will elevate to His heavenly abode the G-d of my fathers who revealed Himself to them as E-l Sha-dai, but now I will raise Him up to His “full-namedness”!

Rashbam goes in what seems to be a different direction. He understand anveihu as deriving from a related but different root, meaning “beautiful”. “This is my G-d and I will beautify Him” is how he translates the passage. He, too, wants anveihu to parallel arommenhu - both “beautification” and “uplift” being expression of honoring the divine.

The sentiments expressed in the interpretations of both the Ramban and the Rashbam are such a wonderful responses to the experience of being lovingly snatched from the jaws of destruction – quid pro quo, as it were; the only question is – how? How is this to be accomplished?

A midrash in the Gemara (Shabbat 133b) helps us with this last question:

“This is my G-d and anveihu: beautify yourself before Him with mitzvot – make before Him a beautiful sukkah, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful tzitzit, a beautiful Sefer Torah written in beautiful ink with a beautiful pen, by a skilled scribe, and swathed in beautiful silken cloths; Abba Shaul says: anveihu – become a semblance of Him: just as He is merciful and compassionate, so you be merciful and compassionate.

In the midrash on Shir haShirim, the splitting of the Red Sea is described as Yom Chatunato – Hashem’s Wedding Day, as it were. Am Yisrael is the Kallah. We must be clothed appropriately for the occasion, so that everyone who sees us will know, “there goes a bride!”. What garments are we to wear? Outer garments, meant for everyone, and inner garments, meant for our Beloved. The outer garments are the “ritual mitzvot”, the inner garments is the making over of our personal attributes in the image of Hashem. The outer garments are worn over the inner garments, mitzvot are done out of and through a fundamental sense of compassion and mercy for all Hashem’s creatures, and thus become expressive of those traits.

Thus do we bond to our Redeemer, our Covenantal Partner, our Might and our Song (“Ozi v’Zimrat – Kah!). Thus do we make the Name whole as we enthrone Him in His supernal abode, and take our own place up there even as we walk down here.

Anveihu - Aleph-nun –vav-heh-vav. Our mystics teach us that this word is in reality “clipped” form of Ani v’Hu – I and He. Bound together we are, as expressed in the everyday mystery of the union of ordinary and sacred, the here-and-now and the beyond-and-forever, in the act of mitzvah done out of self-transformation.

Aristotle identified symmetry as as key element of beautify. By invoking anveihu, we are summoning ourselves to enhance the beauty of symmetry in poetic expression, in song, by taking it to the level of actions, of soul states, of real being.

I learned from the detective novels of the recently departed Tony Hillerman that Navajo have a ceremony in which they recite the following;

In beauty may I walk
All day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons may I walk
Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk
With dew about my feet may I walk
With beauty may I walk

With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty

Maybe the stories about them being descended from Am Yisrael aren’t so farfetched afterall?

Primogeni-cure

The fruit is finally ripe for the picking. The Torah’s pre-occupation since creation with birth-order comes to a head in Parashat Bo. While in previous encounters with the privileges and problematics of primogeniture, the first-borns have been displaced one by one – Kayin, Yefet (perhaps), Yishmael, Esav, Reuven, Zerach, Menashe, Aharon – now the firstborns suffer the ultimate displacement – death. Even the firstborn of Yisrael would not have been spared, were it not for the Korban Pesach. No Egyptian firstborn is spared, however – from the firstborn of Par’oh, sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-woman sitting at the grindstone and the prisoner in the dungeon. Ironically, equality finally comes to all in Egypt, that stratified, ossified, firstborn of all ancient nations. As a result, we are instructed twice in this parashah to redeem our firstborns sons throughout all generations, as we offer the firstborn of our flocks as a sacrifice to Hashem.

What’s wrong with the firstborn that they are forever displaced? Complete disclosure requires me to reveal that I am a firstborn son of a firstborn son, father to a firstborn son (may he soon follow in our footsteps), so I have a very personal interest in uncovering what the Torah has in mind – and in store – for us!

To understand this, we start by how the Torah explains this plague against Egypt. Hashem says to Moshe on several occasions that he knows that Par’oh will not change, will not let Yisrael go, until He smites the firstborn. And, in speaking to Moshe as he heads down to Egypt in Parashat Shemot, Hashem puts these words in Moshe’s mouth to speak to Par’oh: “Thus says Hashem, ‘Yisrael is my son, my firstborn, and I say to you: release My son that he may serve me, yet you refuse to release him? Behold, I am killing your son, your firsborn!’ ”.

But wait, Yisrael is not the most ancient of peoples, we are amongst the youngest! Therefore, R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk explains (in Meshech Chocmah) that we merit being called firstborn in the sense that we are the first people to proclaim Hashem as One in the world, thereby admitting Him, as it were, to the realm of dimensionality. This is what Rashbi says in the Talmud, on the verse, “you are my witnesses…and I am Hashem, where he says, “as it were: if you are My witnesses, then I am Hashem, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am not Hashem”). A firstborn effects a transformation in the parent by making him into the parent, and thus the impact of the event of first birth is almost literally earth-shaking. It is so tempting to equate the wonder and newness that one feels inside oneself with the arrival of redemption and perfection. After all, didn’t Chavah say, upon the birth of Kayin – I’ve created a man – with G-d! The HUMAN active of procreation, as reflected upon from within our humanness, seems to be the fulfillment of the promised Divine Image in which we are created.

But we live on the plane of limitations, in the world of limitation, of “”this and not that”. Our first efforts are often premature, beautifully expressive of initiative and hope, of effort and belief, but, it must be said, imperfect. Physicality IS imperfection, even as it is the substrate for our strivings toward perfection. And yet that squirming, little ball of beauty IS perfect, is ME (O.K., and her), my first effort has to be right, perfect, doesn’t it, or else…

Or else, we’ll have to retool, and take the long shorter way to redemption. Every parent knows the blessings of the first time at every stage of growth granted them by their first-born, and the nightmarish fears of getting it wrong – time and time again. A crazy mixture of feelings – of undeserved blessings and of terror of messing things up irredeemably – visits itself on the new parent of any newborn, be it child of body, mind or heart. The temptation, turned into practice and custom by not a few societies in various ways throughout history: give it up, give it back ,give it away before you spoil it, before it’s all-too-human-therefore-imperfection spoils what YOU need from that child.

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression, and the question thus become not rhetorical, but real – perhaps such a sacrifice is indeed called for? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark than can only be its own atonement?

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark?

Hashem “demonstrated that there is another way. In creating the universe, He came on too strong, as it were, and shattered vessels unprepared for His too-much-perfection. But far from discarding His firstborn world, He redeemed it by a process of Tikkun that will ultimately achieve more than could possibly be imaged in a moment of rapturous firstborn perfection. And thus, though Canaanites might give their firstborn to Molech, we redeem our firstborn, we give five silver coins to the Kohen in charge of the realm of the Holy, and he restores our firstborn to us, no longer devoted to a realm beyond our ken, but now of this world. We re-understand the role Hashem has in mind for the firstborn, apropos of his/her particular set of talents and potentialities of body, mind and soul, and the trajectory set for him by his/her circumstances.

In doing this act, in first giving over the firstborn to the realm of the unblemished and then buying him back by giving over our silver – (kesef – yearnings – in Hebrew) for the gold of as-yet-unrealized potential that transcends the need for perfection now, we ultimately redeem ourselves. Or, more correctly, that first-born, pintele yid, soul-root, piece of G-d inside which is His firstborn, sitting stiffly, imprisoned on the Pharaoh-throne of need-for-me, waiting to recline amidst the leisurely plainness of each unsalted chew of matzah, each simply roasted taste of korban pesach, each moment releasing its savor, as we enter deeply into understand Hashem proclaimition: “I am first and I am last, and besides Me there is no god”.

Primogeni-cure

The fruit is finally ripe for the picking. The Torah’s pre-occupation since creation with birth-order comes to a head in Parashat Bo. While in previous encounters with the privileges and problematics of primogeniture, the first-borns have been displaced one by one – Kayin, Yefet (perhaps), Yishmael, Esav, Reuven, Zerach, Menashe, Aharon – now the firstborns suffer the ultimate displacement – death. Even the firstborn of Yisrael would not have been spared, were it not for the Korban Pesach. No Egyptian firstborn is spared, however – from the firstborn of Par’oh, sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the slave-woman sitting at the grindstone and the prisoner in the dungeon. Ironically, equality finally comes to all in Egypt, that stratified, ossified, firstborn of all ancient nations. As a result, we are instructed twice in this parashah to redeem our firstborns sons throughout all generations, as we offer the firstborn of our flocks as a sacrifice to Hashem.

What’s wrong with the firstborn that they are forever displaced? Complete disclosure requires me to reveal that I am a firstborn son of a firstborn son, father to a firstborn son (may he soon follow in our footsteps), so I have a very personal interest in uncovering what the Torah has in mind – and in store – for us!

To understand this, we start by how the Torah explains this plague against Egypt. Hashem says to Moshe on several occasions that he knows that Par’oh will not change, will not let Yisrael go, until He smites the firstborn. And, in speaking to Moshe as he heads down to Egypt in Parashat Shemot, Hashem puts these words in Moshe’s mouth to speak to Par’oh: “Thus says Hashem, ‘Yisrael is my son, my firstborn, and I say to you: release My son that he may serve me, yet you refuse to release him? Behold, I am killing your son, your firsborn!’ ”.

But wait, Yisrael is not the most ancient of peoples, we are amongst the youngest! Therefore, R. Meir Simchah of Dvinsk explains (in Meshech Chocmah) that we merit being called firstborn in the sense that we are the first people to proclaim Hashem as One in the world, thereby admitting Him, as it were, to the realm of dimensionality. This is what Rashbi says in the Talmud, on the verse, “you are my witnesses…and I am Hashem, where he says, “as it were: if you are My witnesses, then I am Hashem, but if you are not My witnesses, then I am not Hashem”). A firstborn effects a transformation in the parent by making him into the parent, and thus the impact of the event of first birth is almost literally earth-shaking. It is so tempting to equate the wonder and newness that one feels inside oneself with the arrival of redemption and perfection. After all, didn’t Chavah say, upon the birth of Kayin – I’ve created a man – with G-d! The HUMAN active of procreation, as reflected upon from within our humanness, seems to be the fulfillment of the promised Divine Image in which we are created.

But we live on the plane of limitations, in the world of limitation, of “”this and not that”. Our first efforts are often premature, beautifully expressive of initiative and hope, of effort and belief, but, it must be said, imperfect. Physicality IS imperfection, even as it is the substrate for our strivings toward perfection. And yet that squirming, little ball of beauty IS perfect, is ME (O.K., and her), my first effort has to be right, perfect, doesn’t it, or else…

Or else, we’ll have to retool, and take the long shorter way to redemption. Every parent knows the blessings of the first time at every stage of growth granted them by their first-born, and the nightmarish fears of getting it wrong – time and time again. A crazy mixture of feelings – of undeserved blessings and of terror of messing things up irredeemably – visits itself on the new parent of any newborn, be it child of body, mind or heart. The temptation, turned into practice and custom by not a few societies in various ways throughout history: give it up, give it back ,give it away before you spoil it, before it’s all-too-human-therefore-imperfection spoils what YOU need from that child.

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression, and the question thus become not rhetorical, but real – perhaps such a sacrifice is indeed called for? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark than can only be its own atonement?

“Shall I give my first-born, my sin; the fruit of my belly, the transgression of my youth?” This verse from Michah is poetic, and its simple sense is obtained by inserting the word “for” between “first-born” and “sin”, and likewise in its second half. The rhetorical verse implies that even our most precious possessions can’t affect atonement for our core transgressions. But is it so far fetched to hear in the verse, taken too literally, overtones of an equation of “firstbornness” with transgression? Perhaps the anticipation, the impulsiveness, the shattering that accompanies that first one always brings with it a missing the mark?

Hashem “demonstrated that there is another way. In creating the universe, He came on too strong, as it were, and shattered vessels unprepared for His too-much-perfection. But far from discarding His firstborn world, He redeemed it by a process of Tikkun that will ultimately achieve more than could possibly be imaged in a moment of rapturous firstborn perfection. And thus, though Canaanites might give their firstborn to Molech, we redeem our firstborn, we give five silver coins to the Kohen in charge of the realm of the Holy, and he restores our firstborn to us, no longer devoted to a realm beyond our ken, but now of this world. We re-understand the role Hashem has in mind for the firstborn, apropos of his/her particular set of talents and potentialities of body, mind and soul, and the trajectory set for him by his/her circumstances. In doing this act, in first giving over the firstborn to the realm of the unblemished and then buying him back by giving over our silver – (kesef – yearnings – in Hebrew) for the gold of as-yet-unrealized potential that transcends the need for perfection now, we ultimately redeem ourselves. Or, more correctly, that first-born, pintele yid, soul-root, piece of G-d inside which is His firstborn, sitting stiffly, imprisoned on the Pharaoh-throne of need-for-me, waiting to recline amidst the leisurely plainness of each unsalted chew of matzah, each simply roasted taste of korban pesach, each moment releasing its savor, as we enter deeply into understand Hashem proclaimition: “I am first and I am last, and besides Me there is no god”.

In Arm’s Way

And here come the plagues. With Parashat Va’era, the unfolding of a great divine lesson begins. Lesson, because the ten plagues are seldom referred to as such in the Torah. Over and over they are called otot umoftim “signs/letters and demonstrations/proofs” – acts of communication from Hashem designed to remedy Par’oh’s earlier response, “I don’t know Hashem, and (therefore) I also will not release!”.

An expected response on Par’oh’s part. After all, Hashem had told Moshe when He revealed Himself to Moshe at Mt. Sinai, “I know that Par’oh will not let you go, not until the mighty hand”. Hashem, of course, knew, and Moshe also should have known, having heard if directly from Hashem. Yet at the end of Parashat Shemot, we find Moshe, complaining to Hashem – after merely one Pharonic encounter – “ever since I’ve come to Par’oh to speak in Your Name, he has done worse to Am Yisrael, and saved? You haven’t saved Your People!”, As that parashah ends, Hashem reassures Moshe, as though he hadn’t previously informed him, “Now you will see, that through a mighty hand he will release them, through a mighty hand he will drive them from his land.”

Whose mighty hand? The commentators differ – most say the funny syntax is shorthand, what’s intended is G-‘ds Mighty Hand, i.e., the plagues. A few suggest it’s a double entendre, doubling as a wry reference to how how hysterically Par’oh will shove them out of Egype in the end.

For the time being, let’s leave aside the resolution of this textual problem and join Moshe as he sees the unveiling of this Mighty Hand, the teaching slap that will waken divine consciousness in Egypt – for many of them, only at the bottom of the sea, as well as for Israel. For, indeed, the communicative, revelatory function of the plagues is not limited to Egypt. As Hashem states at the beginning of Parashat Bo, before the last round of three plagues, the purpose of the plagues is also to so inculcate awareness of Hashem’s Presence and action in this world that Yisrael will relate the story of the redemption from Egypt from generation to generation, a sort of collective Jewish version, l’havdil, of Zen mind.

But there’s a question that has, yes, plagued me for years. IF the entire set of the ten plagues is of one piece, a divine lesson for each of the various players in the drama of Israel in Egypt, why not group them all together? Why does Parashat Va’era relate only the first seven plagues, leaving the last three for Parashat Bo?

To answer this question, let’s look at the last few verses of our parashah. With the seventh plague, hail, Hashem is no longer pulling His punches (well, He is, but…). Moshe introduces this plague in Hashem’s name by saying:

“This time, I am sending all My plague against your very heart, your slaves, your people, so that you should know that there is none like Me in all the land. I could have sent My hand and smitten you and your people, and you would have been wiped off the land, but for this reason have I maintained you – so that you would see My power, and tell [praise] of my Name throughout the land”. Shemot 9:14-16

And indeed, the plague of hail is as destructive as it is terrifying, and Par’oh quickly summons Moshe and say, for the first time, “I’ve sinned this time”, and, relenting, begs Moshe to intercede with Hashem and stop the plague, promising to let them leave unconditionally. Moshe agrees to beseech Hashem, stating, “When I exit the city, I will lift my hands in prayer and the thunder will cease and there will be no more hail, so that you know that the earth is Hashem’s”. But, this time, Moshe adds, “But, you and your servants, I know that you have yet to fear the Presence of Hashem, G-d”.

This is not a cynical remark dropped by Moshe, already accustomed to Par’oh’s zigzagging. Recall that the plagues are intended to teach everyone, Egypt, Yisrael…and Moshe too. Moshe heard and understood but did not really know that the plagues were not vindictive, that Hashem’s goal was not merely to redress an injustice, but to bring human beings to an awareness of the immediacy of the Divine Presence which permeates everything everywhere. Moshe, wielding staff and speaking grandly, would be the agency of this lesson for an idol-worshipping Par’oh, who must come to see Moshe not as sorcerer or magician but as agent of Hashem, transparent to His Will. Until Moshe can say, “I know” like Hashem said “I know”, Par’oh will continue not to know Hashem.

And indeed, it turns out that the early crops have been smitten by the hail, but the later crops, just under the soil’s surface, hold out hope and Par’oh’s heart is seduced by its own intransigence once again, and, continuing to misread his own reality, he recants, just like Hashem said by the hand of Moshe”.

Now we see whose hand is mighty. It’s Moshe’s hand, that hand which has taken itself by the scruff of its own stubborn, narrow neck and, slapping itself wide awake from its own presumptions and certainties, opened a wide thoroughfare for the awareness that “there is no other besides Him”.

And now we see Whose Hand is Mighty. For it would have been much easier for Hashem to dispense with the whole notion of human agency and do it all Himself. But He chose to wrestle with man, possessor of free will and evil urge, and coax him to allow Him into his heart. And He won. And we won. And He One.