The Sultan's Parsha

Chanukah - One Spark

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:56:00 +0000

The battle of the Maccabees and the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days are often treated as discrete phenomena. What after all does a military victory have to do with oil burning for eight days. The Al Hanissim prayer hardly mentions the miracle of the oil, instead it focuses on the military victory in the following terms. "Gibborim beyad Halashim veRabim BeYad Meatim", the strong fell into the hands of the weak and the many into the hands of the few. Only then could the lights be lit in the holy temple.

Last week's parsha, Parshas Vayeishev begins with a curious Rashi. After the previous parsha's conclusion had described the descendants of Edom and all the kings of Edom who had ruled before a single king had ruled in Israel, Parshas Vayeishev mentions the Toldos of Yaakov as being Yosef. And the Rashi uses a parable to explain that.

A flax merchant led a caravan of camels through the street loaded with flax. A blacksmith standing by the side of his small shop wondered out loud, "Anah yikones kol hapishtan hazeh?" Where will all this flax go. There's no room for it.

"Hayah pikeach echad meishiv lo," "One wise man told him", "Nitotz echad", one spark emerging from your forge would burn it all. But what kind of answer is this? The blacksmith wants to know where all the flax will go, and the supposed wise man tells him that a spark from his forge would destroy it. That doesn't answer his question.

Yet Rashi brings this down to explain the long list of Edomite kings in relation to Yaakov's much smaller family. "Mi yachol likevosh et kulon?" Yaakov wondered. And so Rashi quotes Ovadiah, "Vehayah Beit Yaakov Eish, uBeit Yosef Lehavah". And the House of Jacob will be flame and the House of Yosef a firestorm.

Often enough Jewish leaders had a similar reaction to confronting a massive empire. When the descendants of Yaakov left Egypt, the Meraglim toured the land and pulled back asserting that no one could possibly conquer it. Yehoshua, who was a descendant of Beit Yosef, asserted that with divine help we could. He was one of two men, a minority within a group from a small nation, and yet forty years later, Nitzotz Echad, that one spark consumed the land of Canaan.

A few centuries before Chanukah the Persian Empire decided to give the order for all its conquered peoples to wipe out the Jews. And at the gate sat one descendant of Binyamin. And when all of Haman's plans had come to naught, his wife and advisers warned him, "Im Mizera HaYehudim Mordechai HaYehudi Asher Hinhalta Linfol Lefanav, Lo Tuchal Lo Ki Nafal Tipol Lefanav". And the viceroy of the Persian Empire failed to prevail against that one spark.

Once again on Chanukah the few faced off against the many, against the forces of an empire and its collaborators. How could they possibly prevail against it? Like the poor blacksmith they stood studying the caravans of flax and wondering where it would all fit. But this was the advice of the wise man. The nature of flax is different than the nature of fire. A single spark outweighs all the flax.

Maccabee stood for Mi Kamocha Baeilim Hashem, their battlecry was Mi LeHashem Eilai. That spark was what consumed the flax. It was what burned for eight days. Flax is inert. Once it is loaded on a camel it is another dead substance. But flame has energy. As long as it is exposed to air then it is attached to its source of life.

Evil is described as already dead. "Reshoim Behayeichem Kruim Meitim, Tzaddikim BeMitatam Kruim Chayim" The wicked are considered dead even while alive and the good are considered alive even while dead. Yaakov was considered alive even after death, while Esav was considered dead even while alive. Why is that? Because evil has cut itself off from the source of life that is G-d, while good remains attached to it even in death. That is the source of the Nitotz Echad that can burn oil for eight days or armies of empires alike.

Time and time again the Nitotz Echad has emerged and the flax has gone up in flames, whether it is the armies of Sancheriv or the armies of seven arab nations. It takes only a single spark to rout evil. But the important thing is to remember it is there.

The enraptured blacksmith was too busy looking at the scale of the flax to realize its nature and to remember the flame that he possessed. It took the Pikeach, the wise man whose eyes were open, to remind him of him that. While you stand gazing at the flax, back in your shack is a flame that will put all that flax to shame, that would consume it all if you only remembered what it is capable of.

Parshas Beshalach - Through the Word of G-d

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:24:00 +0000

Moshe's leadership of the Jews in the wilderness is bookended by two incidents, that in Parshas Beshalach after the Jews have left Egypt when the people clamor for water and toward the end of their journey through the wilderness in Parshas Chukas where once again the people clamor for water.

What does water represent? Life. While people can survive for a time without food, they cannot live at all without water. Especially in a desert. Food is therefore livelihood and the manna represented explicitly livelihood, which is why it was not harvested on the Shabbat. But no such stipulation was made for the well. People always need water. Water is life.

The journey through the wilderness was a journey of faith. By depending on G-d for their life and their livelihood, their water and their food, they were meant to learn faith. Demanding water from Moshe both times demonstrated a lack of faith.

In Parshas Beshalach, we are told that they journeyed Al Pi Hashem, on the word of G-d. And so when they demand water, Moshe berates them for testing G-d. But in Parshas Chukas, there is no mention of G-d in their arrival. Yet when the people demand water, they call themselves Kahal Hashem, the congregation of G-d. After all these years, the people had come to see themselves not as a mob, but as a Godly congregation. So while both times it says Vayarev Ha'am, but in Chukas it says VaYekahalu, which means that they assembled as an assembly.

And so in these two times, G-d calls on Moshe to carry out two similar but different miracles, based on the context. The first He tells Moshe to strike the rock. The second time to speak to it.

What is the difference? To strike a rock is a wonder, similar to those that Moshe performed for the children of Israel. And a wonder has to be performed for people who lack faith and need a visible show that G-d is powerful and that Moshe is his servant. This is the Mofait or the wonder. But toward the end of their journey, the people of Israel had become elevated enough that they did not need a wonder in order to believe in G-d, they needed a sign that their journey was still being done Al Pi Hashem. Through the word of G-d.

And so G-d told Moshe to speak to the rock with the Pi Hashem, not to strike it. But Moshe was angered, and called the people of Israel rebels, treating them as if they lacked the faith for a sign and deserved nothing more than a wonder, and struck the rock instead.

When G-d reproves Moshe, He says, "Lo Heemantem Bi", not that the people of Israel did not believe in me, but you did not believe in me.

We are told that the first incident took place in Midbar Sin, the sin desert, while the second incident took place in Midbar Tzin, the desert of Tzin. Samech and Tzaddek are only a few letters apart in the aleph bet. The numerical difference between them is 30. But Sin is spelled with a Yud adding another ten. And so the difference between them is twenty or chaf.

Add the Chaf to Sin and you end up with Pe or Pi, the mouth of G-d. The difference between the two incidents was that the people needed the Word of G-d, not to be struck with a staff.

Both places are named after strife. Rephidim and Mei Meriva both suggest conflict. But there's still a difference. Kadesh was the location, and though there was strife over the waters, the Mei Meriva, when the section is completed, we are told that the place name derives not from the waters, but from something else. VaYeKadesh Bam. Though the people of Israel were still lacking, G-d was still sanctified through them.

The difference between striking a rock and speaking to it may seem like a small thing, but it is the same as the difference between striking and speaking to a human being. It's easy to resort to the stick, but G-d is made holy through the word.

Parshas Vayechi - The Life of the Land and the People

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:52:00 +0000

Parshas Vayechi begins with Yaakov asking his son Yosef to swear a specific kind of oath to him, that he will take him out of Egypt and bury him in the land of Israel. The only other time we see such an oath applied is when Avraham obligated Eliezer to do the same, to swear to him that he would not allow Yitzchak to intermarry, that he was to take a wife only from his own people and that he would not take Yitzchak out of Israel.

Both oaths were applied when Avraham and Yaakov were nearing their end. Of Avraham it says, VeAvraham Zaken Ba Bayamim. And Avraham was aged in years. Of Yaakov it says, VaYikrevu Yemei Yisrael Lamut. And the time had come for Yisrael to die. Both of the fathers of the Jewish people, when nearing their end, looked to preserve their legacy and their heritage. To unite the past with the future. And though both men were nearing their end, the oaths are applied in Parshas with the word Chai in their title.

Avraham causes Eliezer to swear to him in Chayei Sarah. Yaakov causes Yosef to swear to him in Vayechi. Though both parshas narrate the end of their lives, they are described using Chai, because through these oaths, they lived on.

The common denominator between both oaths was the integrity of the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Avraham calls on Eliezer to provide a Jewish future for his son. A future in which he would marry a wife from his own kinfolk, while still remaining in the land that G-d had given him. Yaakov asks Yosef to bring him back to that same land, to the resting place of his forefathers. Both men were not just serving their own needs, but making a definitive statement about the unity and continuity of the land and the people.

The Jewish people could not exist had Yitzchak intermarried or abandoned the land. And it could not exist if the Jews had come to think of Egypt as their own land. That is why Avraham and Yaakov both applied the oath to the Brit, with which G-d had sealed an eternal covenant with Avraham that He would make him into a family of nations. The covenant depended as much on Yitzchak not intermarrying and remaining in the land, and on Yaakov returning to Hevron accompanied by his children, as it did on the Brit itself.

And it is why Yaakov only blesses Yosef's children after the oath, and treats them as his own sons, after the oath was taken. Because only by showing that commitment to the land and the people, could Yosef be considered worthy enough to have his children become tribes of Israel.

But one question remains. Why did Yitzchak not apply a similar oath to Yaakov, when the latter was sent off to find a wife with Lavan? Yaakov was both leaving the land and going off into a situation in which he might follow his brother's example and marry inappropriately outside his parents' supervision.

There were three conditions that caused the oaths to be applied. The first condition was that the one swearing had to have emotional resistance to carrying it out. Eliezer wanted Yitzchak to marry his own daughter. Yosef wanted his father to be with him even in death, and worried about triggering Pharaoh's wrath. The second condition was that fulfilling the oath required overcoming physical resistance by getting permission from a third party. Eliezer had to get permission to take Rivka with him. Yosef had to get permission from Pharaoh to bury his father in the Maarat HaMachpelah. The third condition was that it would take a miracle to accomplish the oath. For Eliezer it was the miracle of the well. For Yosef, it was the miracle of the Caanani kings standing aside to allow the burial to proceed. The oath of the brit invoked G-d as a partner in seeing that the oath was fully carried out.

But Yaakov had no emotional resistance to doing what his father told him. He needed no one else's permission to do it. He could carry on the Jewish mission with a perfect purity. But he did need a miracle. After leaving his father's house, he experiences a dream on Har HaMoriah, where Avraham sacrificed Yitzchak and where his own children would build the Beit Hamikdash. This bridge between the past and the potential future, the covenants of heaven and earth, formed the ladder. Here G-d repeated the covenant that his children would become a multitude and that he would be brought back to the land when all that G-d had spoken of would be fulfilled.

When Yaakov asked his son to swear, he was making him into a partner in carrying out G-d's promise. Just as Avraham had made Eliezer into a partner in carrying it out. By bringing Yaakov back to Avraham and Yitzchak, he was marking a place on a physical and spiritual map, not only an individual resting place, but a national rallying point. A plan that connected the future of his children at the end of days, with the first work of his fathers. All part of the greater covenant into which the oaths flowed. The oaths which stated that the life of the land and the people were one. That the Jewish people could not exist without a land. And the land of Israel could not exist without its people.

They might be separated at times through exile, but they would always return. Out of exile, even in death, they would return.

Parshas Miketz - Not Recognizing Your Own Brother

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Parshas Miketz sees Yosef finally released from prison, given power over all of Egypt and what does he do with all that power? He prepares for a vast regional famine, yet seems to give no thought to his family. When his father finally sends his brothers down to Egypt to buy food, he puts them through a prolonged psychological torture session. Was it a need for revenge or something else? Did Yosef need to make the dreams come true so badly that he put his brothers and his father through hell? What was he really after?

When Yosef first encounters his brothers in Egypt, it tells us twice that he recognized them, and once that they did not recognize him. Why repeat that he did not recognize them twice?

First it says, וַיַּרְא יוֹסֵף אֶת-אֶחָיו, וַיַּכִּרֵם And Yosef saw his brothers and recognized them. First he saw them then he recognized them. He saw his brothers, but he did not yet recognize them as brothers. His first reaction was emotional. They had sold him into slavery in a far-off land and taken him away from his father. He saw them, he recognized them, but he did not accept them as brothers.

Then it says, וַיַּכֵּר יוֹסֵף, אֶת-אֶחָיו; וְהֵם, לֹא הִכִּרֻהוּ And Yosef recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. Now Yosef recognized them as brothers. But they did not recognize him at all. Not as a man. Nor as a brother.

What happened in between these two recognitions? Yosef asked where they came from. They told him that they had come from Canaan to buy food. With that response, Yosef knew that they still did not recognize him at all. They were here only to stock up their larder. They had not come to bring him back home. They didn't even know who he was.

When the brothers had seen him coming from afar, they had not called him their brother, but the Baal Halomot, the Master of Dreams. When they had cast him into the pit, they had not called him anything at all. When Reuven came back to retrieve him, he had called him Yeled, a child. Only when Yehuda had proposed taking him out of the pit where he been thrown to die of hunger and thirst, did he call Yosef a brother. His main argument for selling Yosef was that he was a brother.

When Yosef made them choose between slavery and starvation, he was echoing Yehuda's proposal. That is why the brothers immediately recognized in prison that they were being punished for what they had done to Yosef. Mida Keneged Mida. But Yosef was not in place of G-d, a point that he makes to the brothers later on. It is not his place to punish them. Only to make them come to the same recognition that he had. A recognition vital to the survival of the Nation of Israel.

The descent of the children of Israel to Egypt began with the arrival of the brothers, who are described as Bnei Yisrael, they are the sons of Israel in a national sense. Their descendants would be a minority in a mighty nation, eventually enslaved and broken down in every way. They would have to survive those trials and torments as a united people.

The enmity between brothers had led them to sell Yosef into slavery in Egypt. If the sons of Israel were to survive the centuries of slavery, Yosef had to know that they could put enmity aside. And so he set a simple test for them. Would they agree to escape slavery by leaving the brother that they had the least in common with in the chains of Egypt while they return home. Or would they refuse to leave a man behind.

The test that he placed for his brothers was a test of brotherhood pitted against the peril of slavery. It was only a test, but after the death of the brothers, it would become a reality. Would the sons of Israel do the bidding of their Egyptian masters and betray one another to gain more favorable treatment? Would the Pharaohs be able to pit tribe against tribe, and family against family? If that were to happen, there would be no nation to emerge from Egypt.

Despite everything he had gone through, Yosef was able to recognize his brothers as 'brothers'. He needed them to show that they would do the same for Binyamin even in the face of slavery-- setting an example for their descendants to stick together as brothers no matter what the pharaohs would do to try and break them.

Throughout the enslavement of the people of Israel, we see examples of such passive resistance, the midwives refuse to murder Jewish children, the taskmasters refuse to beat Jewish slaves. In each case, they put the welfare of the nation above their own. On the other hand we have Datan and Aviram who later play a role in instigating a tribal revolt in Levi and Reuven to gain power for themselves. When they refused to recognize Moshe's authority, they proclaim, הַעֵינֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵםתְּנַקֵּר--לֹא נַעֲלֶה Even if you put out the eyes of these men, we will not go up. But Yosef sought to open the eyes of his brothers and his own. He wanted to see that mutual recognition that they were all Bnei Ish Echad Anachnu, the sons of one man, not just in words, but in deeds.

And while the brothers did show they would stand up for Binyamin, their descendants would later war with one another. And throughout history the test of Yosef has not yet been fully met. We have still not recognized our brother. Or are willing to stand up for them even in the face of slavery and death.

Parshat Vayetzei - The Hands of Esav

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:50:00 +0000

At the very end of Parshas Vayetzei, Lavan confronts Yaakov and warns him that it is in the power of his 'hands' to do him harm, but G-d of your father 'spoke' to me and warned me against speaking to you for good or ill.

The obvious question is, if G-d had warned Lavan, then why did Lavan claim that it was in his power to do Yaakov harm. Lavan appears to be making a distinction between doing Yaakov physical harm through his "hands", and another sort of harm involving speech. Why then does G-d only warn Lavan against speaking to Yaakov, and not against physically harming him?

In the last Parsha, Yaakov disguised himself as his brother Esav and went to his father seeking his blessing. The disguise went smoothly, until Yaakov mentioned that he had come so quickly through the aid of G-d. Then Yitzchak became skeptical, wondering why he felt the "hands of Esav", but heard of the "voice of Yaakov". Nevertheless Yitzchak gives him the blessing of Esav, that of material prosperity and success. Later he also gives him the blessing of Avraham.

What was the difference between the two blessings? The first is the blessing of prosperity and power. The first blessing which Yaakov received through the wearings of the "Hands of Esav". The second blessing he received openly as the "Voice of Yaakov", was the spiritual blessing of Avraham, passed down to him by Yitzchak, which gives him the Land of Israel as a national inheritance.

When Yaakov worked for Lavan, the latter attempted to rob him in material wealth. But since Yaakov had received the blessing only in disguise through the "Hands of Esav", he had to receive material wealth in disguise as well. So he was forced to resort to a trick involving the marked and unmarked animals.

But that was not all Lavan tried to do, when he played a trick with Leah and Rachel, he was also attempting to interfere in the "Voice of Yaakov" blessing. And here he had no power. This is why the Haggadah interprets Arami Oved Avi with a second meaning of "An Aramean Tried to Destroy My Father".

When Lavan confronts Yaakov, the latter expresses worry only over Lavan seizing his family, which goes to the "Voice of Yaakov" national blessing inherited from Avraham, that he would become a great nation with many descendants that would inherit the land.

Lavan informs Yaakov that he has the power in his "hands" to do Yaakov harm. This refers to seizing his material goods. But G-d has already warned him against trying any attack on the "Voice of Yaakov" blessing, by interfering any further with his family. Instead Lavan offers Yaakov a treaty, which effectively cedes the land of Israel to Yaakov, while retaining the land on the other side of the boundary for Lavan.

Throughout history, Yaakov and his descendants might lose the material blessing of the "Hands of Esav", but they would always keep the "Voice of Yaakov" blessing of national survival and the eternal inheritance of the Land of Israel itself, which they might be exiled from, but always return to.

Parshas Lech Lecha - Shield of Avraham

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:56:00 +0000

In Parshas Lech Lecha, G-d appears to Avraham after the battle with the kings, and says to him, "Anochi Magen Lach", "I am your shield."

We incorporate this three times into our daily prayers (four times on Shabbat) in Shmone Esre, in the very first of the eighteen brachot, remembering our three forefathers (avot) Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. But the concluding blessing only uses one of them, Magen Avraham, Shield of Avraham. Why only Magen Avraham?

This particular blessing is so important that failing to concentrate on it requires repeating the Shmone Esre. What of the other Avot? What is so special about Avraham and about G-d's role as Magen Avraham, Shield of Avraham?

Let us look at the three descriptions leading up to it of G-d as, Melech Ozer, Moshia UMagen, the King who Aids, Saves and Shields. Each of these praises rises in stature, as is appropriate when praising G-d, by going from the lesser to the greater.

G-d as the one who aids us is the least of these. What does that mean? If we're in trouble, we call out for help, and G-d helps us get through the difficult situation. For example we're driving a car that skids out of control on a wet road, and with G-d's help, the accident isn't too bad, and after a few weeks of physical therapy, things are back to normal. We praise G-d for aiding us, because if not for Him, we would be dead or crippled.

Then there's G-d as the one who saves. So when we find ourselves in trouble, we call out to Him, and he saves us from our troubles without a scratch. So when that same car begins to slip, it pulls to a stop, with no harm done.

Then finally there's the G-d who shields. And when He shields us, we never even experience the crisis. We just drive on, never even experiencing any portent of danger. Because G-d is shielding us all the way. Now obviously this is the ideal experience. And that is why the G-d who shields is the highest level of praise.

But Shield of Avraham also requires the highest level of faith. When we experience G-d as aiding us through a difficult situation or saving us when we're in danger, it's easy to see His handiwork and know that He's protecting us. But when He's shielding us, it takes a lot of faith to remember that when nothing goes wrong, it's because of G-d acting as the Shield of Avraham.

Now let's look at each of the three Avot and how they match up to these three praises. Avraham was shielded by G-d. As a result he was never faced with any real physical threat. When he fights the kings, G-d appears afterward to tell him that he is being shielded. There is no mention of any actual danger.

On the other hand, Yitzchak does experience imminent physical danger at the Akeidah, but he's saved from it at the last moment. He experiences Hashem as Moshia. Yaakov not only experiences physical danger, he actually experiences physical harm. He's crippled by the angel, his children are abducted twice, but Hashem as the Ozer, helps him get through these troubles.

Yet if we look at the reward that G-d promises Avraham, when He tells him that "Anochi Magen Lach, Sharcha Harbeh Meod", "I am your shield, your reward will be very great", it is a long way off. Because the reward is Yitzchak, and Avraham has to wait for most of his life for that. Yitzchak has to wait for children, but less time than Avraham did. Yaakov has to wait the least amount of time (depending on which dating system you use) for children.

That is because Emunah Schar Emunim, Faith is the Reward of the Faithful. Because Avraham merited to experience G-d as a shield through his high level of faith, he was also given the privilege of living by that faith and waiting to see G-d's promise fulfilled. As it says in Habbakuk, VeTzaddik BeEmunotoh Yihyeh, The Righteous Shall Live by his Faith. Each of the forefathers embodied that in a different way.

When we recite Magen Avraham in Shmone Esre, we are reminded that we should be thankful not only for the times that G-d visibly saves or aids us, but for His shield over us, as it says later in Magen Avraham, Al Nisecha SheBekol Yom Imanu, For Your miracles that are with us daily. And so we aspire to the faith of Avraham, while praising G-d as the Shield of Avraham, who protects us from harm and peril even when we do not realize it. And if we forget, we are obligated to go back and recite the verse again, to be reminded of something that is very easy to forget, and yet so very important to remember.

Parshas Ki Sisa - A Bridge to G-d

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:31:00 +0000

Parshas Ki Sisa begins with the commandment to raise up the heads of the people of Israel by having them contribute a half shekel of silver. How does this contribution raise them up?

The phases of the Mishkan had involved first raising up Aharon as the Kohen Gadol, then the Kohanim as a whole, then the sons of Levi, each Kiper uplifting the designated group to a new higher state. This was the turn of the Jewish people as a whole.

As the Kohanim were analogous to the Kodesh HaKedeoshim, the Leviim were analogous to the interior of the Mishkan whose vessels they bore on their shoulders, the people of Israel were analogous to the walls of the Mishkan itself, creating the border and boundary of the House of G-d.

So the Jewish people were raised up by contributing the half-shekel of silver. This silver was used to form the sockets that held the beams that formed the wall of the Mishkan. So while the Kohanim and Leviim might minister within it, it was the Jewish people who were its walls. With them there was a House of G-d. Without them there was no house.

And the amount was designated as half a shekel because it was not the individual contribution that counted, but the willingness to join with each other. Together they formed the people. Just as each wooden plank alone formed nothing, so too alone we are only individuals. It is together that we have form and substance.

But the half shekel had a larger meaning as well. Because in the aftermath of the revelation of Har Sinai, the overwhelming experience left open the question for the Jews of how to connect to G-d. They had seen and heard incredible things, but those things seemed to them beyond their ability to relate to. G-d as they understood existed in a spiritual state, they existed in a physical one, and there was no bridge between them.

So when Moshe ascended the mountain, they came to believe that he would not return, because to reach such a high state was to be cut off from the physical world. And so in despair instead they turned to the gross physical deities of Egypt again.

But the silver half-shekel, as well as the sacrifices and the shalos regalim, showed them how the physical could be made spiritual. The silver half-shekel upholding the atzei shitim omdim, the acacia wood planks standing, turned their physical substance into an act of holding up the walls within which the spirit of G-d resided.

But what does one do when one has fallen too low to have the chance to physically connect to G-d in that way? As the greatest of prophets, Moshe could speak to G-d, Panim el Panim, face to face. When the Beit Mikdash stood, the Jewish people could visit and bring their first fruits and sacrifices up to G-d's "face", as it says, Velo Yerau Panai Reikam. But what about when this isn't possible?

The sin of the Het HaEgel demonstrated another way through Moshe's pleading. When G-d agrees to show him His glory, He places Moshe in the cleft of the rock. Vesmticha Benikrat HaTzur. Just as a moment before He says, VeKarati BeShem Hashem. The cleft of the rock in which Hashem places Moshe is Tefila, prayer.

Even when the Jewish people had sinned and were not worthy of seeing the face of G-d, they could reach the Tzur that is Hashem through the cleft through which Tefilot travel. And in doing so they might not see His face, but they would see Him from behind and gain his mercy.

Thus Hashem taught Moshe the Shalosh Esra Midot, the Thirteen Midot, which begin with the double repetition of Hashem's name. The first is to indicate that he is a merciful G-d before man sins. The second that he is merciful even after the sin. And though in this state man may not be able to see "His Face", but they can still reach him and gain his mercy.

Thus Parshas Ki Sisa serves as an education in how to reach G-d. Its beginning shows how to see his face by physically contributing to the projection of his presence on earth. Its conclusion shows how to reach him even when we cannot see him, through the cleft of the rock, in prayer. By these two means, the Jews were taught how to bridge the realm of G-d with their own.

Parshas Tetzaveh: Purim and Purity

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:01:00 +0000

Parshas Tetzaveh begins with the words,

וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה אֶת-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ שֶׁמֶן זַיִת זָךְ כָּתִית--לַמָּאוֹר לְהַעֲלֹת נֵר, תָּמִיד

And you will command the children of Israel, that they will bring you pure olive oil, pressed to be burned, to be lit, eternally.

Why first of all is the entire Jewish people being directed in the performance of the mitzvah of providing oil for the menorah, which is lit by the Kohanim.

Secondly, why do we need Shemen Zayit Zach Katit, pure olive oil of only the first drop of oil squeezed from the olive, if it's only going to be burned anyway. The answer to that is in the rest of the pasuk. Lehaalot Ner Tamid, we need only the purest oil for it to create a truly eternal light.

The Kohanim were expected to set an example in the purity of their behavior, down to the smallest of details. That is why their elevation is described as Kaper, a word usually used for atonement, because their elevation requires them to achieve a higher standard of behavior so that even their former actions which seemed accessible as Yisraelim, now require atonement in light of their new elevated responsibilities.

And now let's turn for a moment to Purim, which intersects with Parshas Tetzaveh.

The story of Purim is an uncomfortable one for modern audience, and not just because it ends with bloody fighting. But its "heroes", Mordechai and Esther seem too passive and self-effacing. By contrast, Ahasverosh, Haman are far more colorful characters.

But that too is the point. The modern sensibility celebrates egotism, and Haman and Ahasverosh were arrogant and egotistical figures, who knew what they wanted. And modern audiences are much more comfortable with them, which is what is behind postmodern revisionist reinterpretations of Vashti as a feminist heroine or of Ahasverosh as a romantic hero in the movie One Night with the King. Just as the movie, The Ten Commandments, turned the humble and self-effacing Moshe, into an arrogant posturing romantic hero in tune with the Hollywood ideal, so too modern audiences demand heroes who will exemplify egotism, rather than humility.

But egotism and arrogance taints the mixture. Everything that Haman and Ahasverosh did, they did for selfish reasons. Haman's hate emerged from a personal insult. Ahasverosh stops Haman, but only when he feels that Haman is threatening what is "his", his crown and his queen.

By contrast Esther and Mordechai repeatedly sacrifice and risk themselves. When Mordechai saves the king's life, Esther gives him the credit. Esther in turn risks her life to confront the king and expose Haman, though she would have been safe and well off in the king's palace. And when the battle is won, the Jews reject the spoils, thus leaving their victory untainted, and allowing us to celebrate it with the personal indulgence of the Purim festivities.

Esther and Mordechai were the pure drops of oil, who had to be pure in order to kindle an eternal light. The light of the Menorah was not merely a physical light, but also a spiritual one. Its power depended on the purity of its oil. This is not only the meaning of Chanukah, but also the meaning of Purim. Because the "oil" must come from the Bnai Yisrael, which is why Hashem commands Moshe to tell them to bring the oil. The fuel for the Menorah, as well as for all deeds, comes from us. And the extent to which they are pure, is the extent to which we put selfishness aside to become fuel for the light of G-d.

Parshas Bo - Kill Your Gods

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:03:00 +0000

Parshas Bo begins with a command, now the urgent time has come when events will come together to finally bring Israel's Egyptian slavery to an end. Yet before they leave, the Jews are expected to slaughter a sheep, the Korban Pesach. Unlike the Matza, which resulted when unleavened dough did not have time to leaven because of the speed with which the Jews had to leave Egypt, the Korban Pesach was eaten at leisure. In fact it was forbidden to eat it quickly.

What is the difference between the Korban Pesach and the Matza, both of which were obligations that one had to perform on the Seder night of the first day, or one had not fulfilled his paschal obligation.

During the Haggadah we say, "Korban Pesach Zu Al Shum Ma, Al Shum shePasach Hakadosh Baruch Hu..." What is this Paschal regarding, because the Holy One Blessed Be He passed by our houses when he came to slay the Egyptian first born. What is the significance of the entire event. Why the first born and why the lamb and the blood that marked the doors of the houses.

Did G-d not know otherwise which of them were Jews and which were Egyptians? To the contrary, G-d had demonstrated repeatedly that even with the earlier plagues, very fine distinctions could be made between Egyptian and Jew. There would be darkness for one and not the other. Hail for one and not the other. Wild animals for one and not the other. Certainly this night was no different.

Why then was this night different from all other nights and why were the First Born different from all others? To begin with, let us answer the question of why a lamb. The Jews had come to Egypt as shepherds, an abomination to Egyptians who worshiped the sheep. The Jews ate lamb, the Egyptians did not, so when the brothers visited Joseph, the Egyptians would not eat what they ate. So too when Pharaoh suggests that Moshe and the Jews bring their offerings to G-d in Egypt, he points out that they could not slaughter the deity of Egypt, and not be slaughtered themselves by the Egyptians.

Yet on this night everything changed. On this night, the Korban Pesach, whose service would involve the participation of a Kohen (though it could be slaughtered by anyone) but then involved the Jewish First Born, would be slaughtered inside Egypt itself. And while that happened the Egyptian first born who had led the service would be slain by G-d himself. The blood of the lamb would mark the doors of Jewish homes to demonstrate their rejection of the idolatry that had pervaded Egypt. By this act, the Jews demonstrated their difference vs the Egyptians, so that when the angel of Egypt at the sea complained, "These are idol worshipers and these are idol worshipers," the Korban Pesach was G-d's reply.

This was why the Korban Pesach was the first Mitzvah given and why the month of Nissan is also the first month. For Tishrei which contains Rosh Hashana is the month that marks the calendar's progression, as accepting G-d as king is required before we can proceed onward, but Nissan is counted as the first month, as before accepting G-d, we must first abandon the worship of all other things.

By killing the gods of Egypt, the Jews demonstrated that they were prepared to make a clean break with all that Egypt represented, and only then could they go free.

This too is why the Korban Pesach took place at leisure, with four days to prepare for it, and an extensive meal, for it is the groundwork that has to be completed before the redemption can happen, which is a slow process. But when that is done, the redemption itself can happen in an instant, which is symbolized by the Matza, the dough that had no time to leaven.

In Galut today, we do not have a Korban Pesach, or the means to lift ourselves up properly, and so we cannot do what we must. Instead we have the Matza, the waiting for that instant of redemption in which without warning, the world will change around us.

Parshas Vaeira - Generations of Redemption

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Parshas Vaeira begins with G-d informing Moshe, in response to Moshe's agonized appeal that his attempt to speak to Pharaoh had only worsened conditions for the Jewish people, that he is Hashem;

וָאֵרָא, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם אֶל-יִצְחָק וְאֶל-יַעֲקֹב--בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי; וּשְׁמִי יְהוָה, לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם

and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by My name Hashem I did not reveal to them

The question commonly asked of course is that we see many times when G-d did indeed address Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov as Hashem. Furthermore how does G-d answer Moshe by telling him this.

To answer this we need to look at why Moshe is upset. Yes conditions have gotten worse for the Jews, but to our way of looking at it, this is only a temporary phenomenon soon to be relieved by the Exodus. Did Moshe Rabbeinu have so little faith that he had to challenge G-d on this score?

To understand Moshe's problem, we have to remember that he had a different timetable than we do. Moshe's timetable was the one given to Avraham in the Brit Bein Habetarim, which said that the Jews would be in Egypt for 400 years. For all Moshe knew, his duty would be to spend the time remaining of those 400 years, which could be as much as a 190 years, appealing to Pharaoh and trying to inspire faith in the increasingly downtrodden Jews.

While this might seem unlikely to us, keep in mind that Noah had to spend almost as much time building the ark and warning his generation that the flood was coming. And the prospect of his people enduring two centuries of increasing suffering that might destroy their faith entirely, was too much for Moshe.

Now in that light let's look at the answer Moshe received from Hashem. To the Patriarchs, G-d had revealed himself as El Shaddai, setting borders and timelines for the events of the world. As El Shaddai, G-d had said to Avraham Avinu, that the Jews would have to be in Egypt for 400 years. But to Moshe and now to the Jews, G-d revealed himself as Hashem, who went beyond those limits to act out of mercy and compassion.

While Avraham and Yitzchak and Yaakov knew Hashem, they had not seen him transcend boundaries in this way. Moshe and the Jews however now would. Let us now look further at just how this phenomenon was expressed in both eras and how it can be reconciled fully with the covenant G-d made with Avraham at the Brit Bein Habetarim.

This Shabbat was also the Yahrtzeit, the anniversary of the death of Avraham Avinu. This week's Parsha Vaeira, carries an obvious echo in its name of Parshas Vaera, in which G-d appears to Avraham. What happens in Parshas Vaera, word is carried to Avraham by way of three angels that after all these long years, his wife Sarah will finally give birth and give Avraham the child he always wanted. The child that would begin the transmission of what would become the Jewish people. So too Yitzchak and Rivkah would have to pray and wait for their own children to be born. So too Yaakov and Rachel would have to wait a long time for Yosef to be born.

In nature, Sara, Rivka and Rachel could not give birth. It took an extensive amount of waiting and pleading for that to change. Eventually the limit was reached and El Shaddai granted them all children for G-d loves the prayers of the righteous. There was only one exception to this rule, Leah, who had children, quickly and easily.

Why did Leah have children quickly and easily, because as the rejected wife, she was oppressed and in pain already. And so G-d was merciful to her and she had many children, almost without limit. But unlike the Avot, their descendants, the Jews in Israel begin multiplying rapidly, because like Leah, they were suffering and oppressed. But how much of a divine kindness was this really, to create more children at a time when the Egyptians are degrading and oppressing the Jews?

Now let's take a look at the Brit Bein Habetarim again, in which G-d tells Avraham Avinu that the Jews be enslaved for 400 years and that they will return in the 4th generation of Egyptian slavery.

In the attribute of El Shaddai the Jews were destined to be slaves for 400 years. But in the attribute of Hashem, the covenant would still hold so long as it was in the 4th generation. But in response to the Egyptian oppression of the Jews, Hashem made them be fruitful and multiply. While naturally it might indeed have taken 400 years to have 4 generations, due to the oppression, Hashem made the people numerous and 4 generations was reached in barely half that time.

When Moshe arrives before Pharaoh and informs him that Hashem ordered that the Jews be released, Pharaoh replies that he does not know Hashem. As far as he's concerned the deadline is still 400 years. So Pharaoh knows El Shaddai, as a G-d of strict limits, but not one of mercy. And so Moshe accedes, and speaks of Elohei Haivrim. Having forfeited his right to mercy, by rejecting Hashem, Pharaoh must now deal with the absolute power of Elohei Haivrim.

And yet it is Pharaoh's own oppression that caused G-d to accelerate the generations so that the 4th generation is reached far earlier than it would have been under Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. But as it was under Leah in response to her own suffering. That is also why before Moshe addresses Pharaoh, we are interrupted to hear a partial genealogy of Leah's 3 elder sons. 3 of the 4 sons who were born easily and without delay. The partial genealogy lists four generations, beginning with Levi and down to Moshe and Aaron. With Moshe and Aaron, the four generations had been reached, and so it was they who stood before Pharaoh to tell him that by the word of Hashem the time had been reached and the Jews would be set free.

Parshas Shemos - The Increase

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:22:00 +0000

Parshas Shemos begins with an increasingly paranoid and oppressive Egyptian Pharaoh who does not know Yosef and proceeds to enslave and then attempt to exterminate the Jews. The germ of the problem can be found in the statement "Asher Lo Yada at Yosef", the new Pharaoh did not know Yosef.

Could it really mean that he had no idea who Yosef was? That seems unlikely, given that Yosef had died not that long ago, that he had been Egypt's second most powerful man, and that he had overseen the physical salvation and political and sociological transformation of Egypt. But rather it was a Pharaoh who did not know Yosef, his Hebrew name, only his Egyptian one, Tzafnat Paneach.

What was so significant about Yosef's hebrew name? The significance, as I said last week, is in the meaning. Yosef means to increase. And what is the source of that increase, the source is Godly. In his dealings with Pharaoh, Yosef had always stated that his achievements were achieved through God. It was God who sent the dream to Pharaoh. God who had sent the interpretation and prepared the remedy for it. And where to the old Pharaoh, Yosef was an emissary sent by God. To the new Pharaoh, there had been no God or Yosef, only Tzafnat Paneach, a man who had made some genuine national contributions, but was now dead, and his descendants and relatives had become a major problem.

What was it that touched off Pharaoh's paranoia over the Jews? The Torah tells us, that it was their numbers. The numbers of the Jews had increased greatly. And that made them a threat, because Pharaoh did not understand why they were increasing, because he did not know Yosef... did not know that their increase was a divine blessing.

The same Pharaoh who did not understand that Egypt's alternating increase in wheat and famine were of divine origin, did not understand that the increasing numbers of Jews, as the family of Jacob was being transformed into a nation, was of divine origin too. He was the Pharaoh who did not know Yosef and whose view was purely materialistic.

From a materialistic standpoint, the increasing number of Jews were a threat and an opportunity. Seeing them in materialistic terms, he chose to exploit them in a crudely materialistic way, by turning them into slaves. Since Pharaoh saw wealth as coming not from G-d, but from his economic system, more slaves would mean more prosperity.

And since the numbers of Jews were a problem, he addressed it in materialistic terms. First Pharaoh thought that the numbers of Jews were growing because of the unusual virility of the men, so he subjected them to harsh slavery. And when their numbers continued to increase, he decided it must be the fertility of the Jewish women, and attempted to wipe out the males, and leave the females so that Egyptians would marry the surviving girls and breed in large numbers. Yet both plans failed, for as Shifra and Puah told him, the Jewish women were not like Egyptian women. Beterem Tavoh Lachem Hameyaledet Veyaladu, even before the midwife comes to them, they give birth. Like living things, they are not dependent on the midwife, only on G-d.

At each stage both Pharaohs were guilty of fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the events going on around them, because they did not know Yosef, they did not know that the increase in all things comes from G-d. And in turn G-d demonstrated it to them by turning them into the mechanisms of their own destruction.

Every action taken by the Pharaohs created Moshe as the man he would become. Because of Pharaoh's decree, Moshe's parents were separated. Because of his attack on newborn Jewish baby boys, Moshe was cast into the Nile and wound up in Pharaoh's own home. Because of Pharaoh's continued oppression of the Jews, Moshe was forced to fight for them and then flee into exile. And so at each turn, Pharaoh's own cruelty made Moshe into the man that he was.

And once Moshe arrived in Egypt, each of Pharaoh's actions would perpetuate the plagues and rain further punishment down on Egypt. By this means Pharaoh's own arrogance and refusal to know who Yosef was, who had fed Egypt and made it great, who had shown his predecessors the future and who had made the nation prosperous and the Jews numerous-- would become the tool of his own destruction.

The question is often asked why G-d told Moshe to only ask Pharaoh for a trip of three days to worship G-d. Did G-d expect Moshe to lie to Pharaoh? And what was the point of such a charade.

Moshe's request to Pharaoh was indeed sincere. Because it was only in Pharaoh's power to grant the Jews a trip of three days. Pharaoh could not free the Jews from an exile that had been decreed by G-d. Only G-d himself could do that. Nor could the Jews on their own go beyond that three days.

Had Pharaoh agreed to Moshe's proposal at any stage, it would not have been an agreement that lasted beyond those 3 days. Past those 3 days, at Har Sinai, only G-d could have truly freed them from Egypt through the acceptance of his laws and his Godliness. And all of Pharaoh's legions would not have stood in His way, just as they did not stand in His way at the Yam Suf.

To increase their freedom beyond those 3 days, to take them out of Egypt once and for all, was not something that either Pharaoh or Moshe could do. It was something that G-d alone could do. Thus every single plague that Moshe raised his staff for failed to move Pharaoh to actually fully consent to the redemption. And every time Pharaoh agreed the resulting promises proved to be empty. Only when G-d himself "walked" the streets of Egypt, were the Jews taken out of Egypt with no one to stand in the way.

Yosef's original message to Pharaoh had been that G-d increases a nation's prosperity and takes it away as he sees fit, and that the wise ruler attunes himself to G-d. It was a message that that Pharaoh had understood, but that his successors had discarded, instead choosing to become rulers who did know Yosef or his G-d. And by forgetting the source of Egypt's blessings, they were instead punished with curses that emerged from their own actions.

And thus Egypt's rulers were forced to learn, that just as G-d could turn prosperity into famine, he could turn water into blood, send reptiles from the water to the land, place wild animals into the cities while destroying tame animals, raise the dust from the earth while bringing down fire and ice from the sky, bring night during the day and selectively kill only the first born, and halt the waves of the seas and then bring them down again. This was the G-d of Yosef who could undo all materialistic forms to show that Yosef, that increase in all materialistic things comes from him.

Parshas Vayechi - A Dream of Exile and a Dream of Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:49:00 +0000

At the sunset of Yaakov's life he begins making the final arrangements for his burial and the future of his descendants. First he asks his son Yosef to bury him in the Maarat HaMachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron. And then unexpectedly the father bows to the son.

To understand why Yaakov bowed to Yosef we need to take a step forward first. As his father Yaakov has fallen ill, Yosef brings his sons, Menashe and Ephraim, to Yaakov for a blessing. And famously, their grandfather places his right hand on the head of Ephraim, the younger son, and his left hand on the head of Menashe, the elder son. Yosef objects, but Yaakov tells him, "Yaadati Bni, Yaadati. I Know My Son, I Know."

Why is Yaadati repeated twice? Yaadati Bni, Yaakov tells Yosef. Just as I knew you were my special son and gave you a special place, so too I know that Ephraim is the special son, and I have given him a special place as well.

What is the parallel between Yosef and his son Ephraim? When Yosef's first born son, Menashe was born, the name he was given meant, Ki Nasani Elohim Et Kol Amoli VeEt Kol Beit Avi, "For God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house".

This represented Menashe's role in helping his father and eventually uncles adapt to Egypt. Menashe served as Yosef's chief of staff, he made the Egyptian exile they were living in comfortable. With Menashe they were able to forget about the land they had come from and live comfortably in Egypt.

By contrast Yosef named his second son, Ephraim, Ki Hifrani Elohim Baeretz Oni, "for God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction". Hifrani echoes Yosef's own name, in that they both refer to increase. Yet unlike Menashe's name, Ephraim's name does not deny that this is the land of the exile, a land of affliction, Eretz Oni.

The primacy of Menashe and Ephraim was not a mere matter of ego, just as the primacy of Yaakov and Esav was not a mere brother's quarrel. Menashe and Ephraim represented different attributes and different futures. While Yosef gave primacy to Menashe who made the exile comfortable, Yaakov instead gave primacy to Ephraim, whose name foreshadowed the harshness of the exile to come and the great expansion that the House of Jacob would experience even in Egyptian slavery. As indeed God would make the Hebrew slaves fruitful, even in the land of their affliction.

Yaakov avinu understood that the future would speak more to Ephraim than to Menashe and that dark times were coming. The shelter that Yosef had provided would soon enough become a pharaoh's cage, and the land that had come to seem like a dream of exile, would become a nightmare of slavery and degradation.

It was the blessing of Ephraim that would keep the people alive in this exile and in future exiles. And since until the end of days, the times of exile would outnumber the years of homeland dwelling, the blessing of Ephraim and Menashe was set down in eternity for the sons of the Jewish people... with Ephraim placed first. For there may be times when we are comfortable in exile, the blessing of Menashe, but more often we must survive the exile by living another day despite the oppression placed on us, and this is the blessing of Ephraim. A blessing all the more poignant as Ephraim's exile has outweighed that of our own.

Now to return to Yaakov's bow. The bow was the final fulfillment of Yosef's dreams. The first dream involved the stalks of wheat, which was fulfilled earlier when his brothers had come to buy food from him. Now the second dream was waiting to be fulfilled. But unlike the wheat, this dream did not symbolize a mere material dominance, but a spiritual dominance. The stars represented the lineage of the family of Abraham as ascending to reach their spiritual potential. Stars rather than dust. For the sun that was Yaakov to bow to the star that was Yosef, more than wheat, more than miracles and more than even love was needed.

And so Yaakov made a request of Yosef that seems at once trivial, but that struck at the core of whether his son was worthy of leadership in the line of the Family of Avraham. Yosef had become great in exile as Viceroy to Pharaoh. His brothers had bowed to him and his work had fed all of Egypt and Canaan. And now Yaakov asked him to turn his back on that, to bury his father in Israel, and by doing so communicate what his true priority must be. When Yosef agreed to fulfill his father's wish, at the risk of being considered a traitor by Pharaoh, he demonstrated that he was more than a sheaf, he was a star by showing that he could look past the material glory and power, to see where his family's greater destiny lay. Only then did Yaakov bow to him and in doing so pass on his leadership to him, along with the later message, Pakod Yifkod, the message with which G-d would send their redemption from exile and into freedom.

Parshas Vayigash - Haod Avi Chai?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:52:00 +0000

When Yosef reveals his identity to his brothers, his first question to them seems almost a non-sequitur. For a while now the entire conversation had revolved around Yaakov and his pain at losing Binyamin. Yehuda had just finished delivering an entire speech hinging on precisely that point. And then Yosef reveals his identity and asks if his father is alive.

Obviously Yosef was not asking a question to which he had already been told the answer many times. The difference now was not in Yakov's state of being in between Yosef's pretending to be an Egyptian and his revelation of his true identity, but in the identity itself. The change had not taken place in Yaakov, but in how the brothers now saw Yosef, and his question must be seen in that light.

To understand Yosef's question, Haod Avi Chai, Does My Father Still Live, we need to take a step back and look at the dynamic of Yaakov's family. Ever since the confrontation with Esav when Yaakov had chosen to appease his renegade brothers, and with the kidnapping of Dinah, a rift had existed between Yaakov and the sons of Leah.

Yaakov's elder sons were the children of an unfavored wife. And they were more aggressive than Yaakov was comfortable with being. And they had taken the lead and stopped listening to Yaakov during the abduction of Dinah, when they took the lead, spoke before their father to Chamor, and defended their actions to him. Reuven's actions in moving Yaakov's bed fall into that category.

Essentially Leah's older sons had taken over the leadership of the family, and when Yosef's dreams seemed to threatened that leadership, they disposed of him. By acting in this way, they had removed Yaakov's authority and behaved as if their father was already dead.

Now Yosef's first challenge to them on the revelation of his identity connects right back to the original power struggle that caused him to be enslaved. Is Yaakov alive and their father, or is the elder sons of Leah, who in turn are unable to answer him.

If we look back or forward to the Haggadah, which quotes the Midrash, Arami Oved Avi Vayered Mitzraima, an Aramean (meaning Lavan) tried to destroy my father and he descended to Egypt.

The obvious question is how did Lavan's actions force Yaakov to descend to Egypt? The gap in time alone seems to render null and void any connection. But what did Lavan do to try and destroy Yaakov? He tricked Yaakov by giving him Leah in place of Rachel, thereby creating a divided household and a breach in the family. This breach caused Yosef to be sent to Egypt and Yaakov to follow after him.

But Lavan's actions that would cause Yaakov to go down to Mitzrayim, were ultimately the will of G-d. Thus Lavan's plot to undermine Yaakov's family would instead only go on to fulfill G-d's plan for them. What Lavan thought would destroy Yaakov, instead kept the entire family alive as Yosef was able to provide for them.

And Yosef's question marks a basic power shift in the family, as Yosef now takes charge and leadership of Bnei Yaakov. It is he who provides for them, designates where they should live and at whose table they eat. It is his sons who are split into separate tribes, giving him a limited parity with Yaakov.

Yosef's question affirms his leadership, by asking them to affirm Yaakov's leadership. Haod Avi Chai. By recognizing that it is their father who rules, they are able to submit to Yosef. Yosef in turn recognizes the divine providence and instead of ruling over them, brings them inside.

Parshas Mikeitz - Time's Up

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:56:00 +0000

Parshas Mikeitz begins with a title that informs us of the passage of time. But while telling us how much time has passed seems an ordinarily reasonable enough thing, the Torah previously and afterward had not been very focused on giving us that kind of information. Instead mostly the details of the passage of time have to be inferred from genealogies and events. Why then the grand pronouncement now of Mikeitz?

Mikeitz marks the departure of Yosef from prison and into ruling Egypt as Pharaoh's viceroy, almost in an instant he is plucked from prison, rushed through, given time only to shave and dress, and then rushed in to stand before Pharaoh. The significance of this is that Yosef had acted prematurely in the past. He had related his dreams to his brothers and father, long before the proper time. He had asked the cupbearer to intervene on his behalf, long before it was time. And now finally the time had arrived.

After 2 years in prison, echoing the 210 years that his descendants would be enslaved in Egypt, and the 2000 of the Great Exile, Yosef's time had finally come. And while another man might have given in to despair and abandoned any notion of a divine plan, on Yosef's first appearance before Pharaoh, he informed the ruler that any interpretation he gave would come from G-d and that the dreams illustrated the divine plan.

His experiences until this point had stripped away Yosef's youthful immaturity enabling him to recognize and take the long view. It was a skill that he would need for though Yosef was no longer a slave in prison, as a viceroy he was effectively the second most powerful man in Egypt, and yet a slave to Pharaoh. He was unable to leave the land of Egypt for more than a brief interval to bury his own father, and he would be forced to pass along a message across the generations to whoever might serve as G-d's messenger when it came time for his descendants and those of his brethren to be taken out of exile, to carry his body out of Egypt and back to the land that he been kidnapped from.

Yosef was effectively the first Hebrew slave of many, and his ability to wait until the Mikeitz arrived, until the time of slavery had ended, was to serve as a template for the Jews who would go on to be enslaved and in exile, in age after age, and land after land. Yet despite his sufferings or rather because of them, Yosef had learned to wait until the time of his redemption had arrived. And even in the darkest prisons, he could wait patiently for the divine plan to be fulfilled.

As the last day of Chanukah ends, we continue on in the cycle of the Hebrew calendar, the days, months and years, the commemorations and observances that mark the passage of time in our exile. Until our own Mikeitz arrives, and we are rushed out of our prisons, into the light, to stand before the Ruler of the World, and to know that at last the time when our dreams and prophecies have been fulfilled has finally arrived.

Parshas Vayeishev - A Light in the Darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:19:00 +0000

The conjunction of Parshas Vayeishev and Chanukah features two sets of brothers, the sons of Leah and the Macabees. And both also feature something that was thought to be hopelessly lost, being found again.

Parshas Vayeishev begins with Vayeishev Yaakov Baaretz Megurei Aviv וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב, בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו--בְּאֶרֶץ, כְּנָעַן., Yaakov wanted to dwell in the land where his fathers had sojourned. While his fathers had only sojourned there, Yaakov wanted to dwell there, which implies permanence. The famous Rashi mentions that Tzaddikim wish to dwell in peace, but G-d asks rhetorically why they are not satisfied with the rest of their afterlife, to want it here and now in this world.

There are two elements at work here. First Yaakov wanted to live permanently in the land, yet the second half half of the sentence informs us, Ba'aretz Caanan, that it was still the land of Caanan, not the land of Israel. It was not yet a place where Israel could live permanently, only sojourn. Secondly, Yaakov wanted to rest from all his troubles. Just as the story of Avraham's life had ended with Yitzchak's marriage, and Yitzchak's story had ended with Yaakov's departure, so too Yaakov thought that his story had ended with his sons. He could live out his years peacefully, without strife or struggle.

Instead the incident of Yosef occurred, because while Yaakov's sons would play major roles in what came next, Yaakov's own role had not ended. Avraham's role ended when he passed his mission on to his son Yitzchak. Yitzchak's mission ended when he passed on his own mission twice, through the blessings, to Yaakov. However Yaakov had yet to pass on his mission, and the role of his sons in this arrangement was as of yet unsettled.

It is a very human thing to want to be at peace, but achieving anything worthwhile in life requires struggling to overcome obstacle. Yaakov had not become a great man when he was an Ish Tam and a Yoshev Oholim, mild mannered and studious, his mission began when he was forced into exile, which developed the traits in him that made him great. And while Yaakov assumed that he would only have to endure one exile. In fact, like his descendants, he would be forced to endure not one, but two exiles. The second of which would last into the lives of his descendants, seemingly without end.

To want peace in this world is to give up the struggle for greatness and for truth. It is easy enough to be at peace by surrendering. And had the Macabees chosen to surrender, to give up their beliefs, they too could have lived at peace. But at what price. The Pasuk in Vayeishev tells us. It is only possible to dwell in peace, Vayeishev, on those terms, if you accept that it is Eretz Caanan. On the other hand if you want it to be an elevated place, you must stand for something, and that will force you to either be a Ger, to sojourn homelessly in the land, or to fight for the land. Yaakov wanted to do neither, he wanted to dwell in the land at rest, and that is only possible if you give up and accept that it is to be Eretz Caanan, and nothing more.

The Macabees refused to accept that it is Eretz Caanan. Just as we refuse to accept that it is Palestina. And so we cannot live there in peace, neither could they, without being willing to stand up and fight for what is right. And so Tzaddikim may wish to dwell in peace, but G-d tells them that the nature of this world is not such that they can dwell in peace in it, unless they accept that it is Eretz Caanan, at which point they will cease to be Tzaddikim. But if they wish to strive for it to be something higher, then this requires toil and struggle. Only in the spiritually elevated world of the hereafter can they dwell in peace.

And thus the events unfold. There is struggle and great darkness. Yosef, the 11th child, who makes the tribes complete, the bright star whose bright dreams seemed to light the way to the future is lost. He falls into darkness. He is thrown into a pit, given up for dead, sold into slavery in the most corrupted land on earth, and finally tossed into prison there, in the hands of his master, the Chief Executioner of Pharaoh.

The lad who had run and played with the younger sons of the maidservants,וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת-בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת-בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה, נְשֵׁי אָבִיו is exiled by his Leah's older sons (with whom he has a large age gap). And seemingly is lost. So too when the Macabees retake the Beit Hamikdash they find it hopelessly defiled, the walls pierced in 13 places, one for each of the tribes including Shevet Levi which conducts the priestly work, and each of the flasks of pure oil defiled. The Temple seems lost in darkness as well.

But though Yosef seems hopelessly lost and defiled, that one pure flask of oil survives, and lights the way for his father and his brothers, and for the survival of his people. So too the single flask of oil, out of all those that were lost and defiled, is lit and endures for eight days. Though both sets of brothers, the Tribes and the Macabees were imperfect, at the end God had prepared a single light found improbably in the darkness to lead them both.

And thus while the struggle for what is right may often seem hopeless. We may, as Yaakov did, wish to simply be left alone to dwell in peace, nevertheless are comforted by the knowledge that if we wish Eretz Caanan to be Eretz Yisrael, we must struggle on, and that for us too, the Lord God has prepared a light in the darkness, waiting for us when things look their worst.

As the preceding verses to Haftorah for the Parsha has God proclaiming of Joshua, the High Priest whose lineage had been tainted, "Is Not this Man a Brand Plucked Out of the Fire" הֲלוֹא זֶה אוּד, מֻצָּל מֵאֵשׁ , removing his dirty garments and replacing them with clean ones. And the Haftorah itself goes on to say זֶה דְּבַר-יְהוָה, אֶל-זְרֻבָּבֶל לֵאמֹר: לֹא בְחַיִל, וְלֹא בְכֹחַ--כִּי אִם-בְּרוּחִי, אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת "This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the LORD of hosts."

The brand plucked out of the fire, the clean flask of oil found amid the impure debris and the lost son sold into slavery found to rule as a viceroy, all these are a light in the darkness lit by God to show us that the struggle is not futile. And that though slavery in Egypt may await us, we should not give up and settle down to dwell in Eretz Caanan, but follow the light of God through the darkness wherever it may lead.

Parshas Vayishlach - Out of the Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Parshas Vayislach begins with Yaakov's encounter with Esav. Yaakov makes multiple preparations for this, but the bulk of it seems to involve appeasing Esav. Yaakov sends train after train of cattle to Esav. And he even calls this tribute, "Mincha Le'Esav", a term commonly used for Korbanot, Sacrifices to G-d. And worse when he meets Esav, he proclaims that seeing him is like seeing the face of G-d.

Satisfied that the blessings that Yitzchak gave to Yaakov, that he would dominate and rule over him, have come to nought, Esav hugs him and goes on his way. Yet what is the price that Yaakov pays for this tribute, for this Mincha Le'Esav?

The end of the Parsha lists in detail Esav's genealogy. Tribe after tribe, chieftain after chieftain. Why do we need to know all this information? We need to know it because it serves as a consequence. There in that moment stood Esav and from him would descend Amalek and Edom and Rome and Germany. In that moment so much evil might have been ended. Instead Yaakov paid him tribute. The Bracha of the firstborn that Yaakov had worked so hard for, was יַעַבְדוּךָ עַמִּים, וישתחו לְךָ לְאֻמִּים--הֱוֵה גְבִיר לְאַחֶיךָ, וְיִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְךָ בְּנֵי אִמֶּךָ "You will be master over your brothers and the sons of your mother will bow to you." Yet Yaakov had no confidence in that bracha or in Hashem's promise of protection at Beth El and so instead it was Yaakov who deferred to Esav.

From there Yaakov's family approaches a city only to have Dinah kidnapped and molested by Shechem, the son of the ruler of the city. Hamor, the ruler of the city comes with his son in tow, to ask for Yaakov's permission to legalize the rape by marrying his daughter. And Yaakov remains silent. After all what can he do, on the one hand the obvious answer, certainly the conventional 'frum' one is to do a Mincha Le'Esav, to flatter Hamor and tell him what a great Lord he is, to defer to him and offer him presents and money in exchange for his own daughter. But in the aftermath of what was done to his daughter, this is too bitter a pill to swallow and so he says nothing and sits there and does not know what to do.

And then Bnei Yaakov Bau Min Hasadeh, the Sons of Yaakov Came Back From the Field. But of course Pasuk Heih already told us that Yaakov's sons were in the field. Why tell us a second time? Let's look back at Yitzchak's blessing to Yaakov. He prefaces it by saying, "The Smell of My Son is As The Smell of a Field Which the Lord Has Blessed." Yitzchak had sent Esav out not to go into the barn and kill a sheep, but had told him וְצֵא הַשָּׂדֶה Tzeh Hasadeh, "Go Out Into the Field" and hunt food. Why the field in particular? Why hunt food? Because going out and hunting represents the conquest of the physical world.

When Yaakov's sons, particularly Leah's sons returned from the field, they had come back from wrestling with the physical world. And they did not remain silent. Instead they decided there would be no more Mincha Le'Esav. Not only would they not pay to get their sister back or to enter into any arrangement, instead they would recover their sister, slay those responsible and take their property as loot instead.

From the perspective of the Galut Yid this is an insane idea. Go out and fight? Kill? Are you crazy? Okay, so something terrible happened here. But what can we do about it? Nothing, we sit there and remain silent. Then maybe we make a deal with Hamor or with someone over his head, we write a letter, make up a petition and then we'll lock up our women even more closely, maybe shave their heads and pray it doesn't happen again. And indeed that's exactly what Yaakov furiously tells his sons, Look how the Caananites are going to think of me. There's a lot of them and a few of us. They'll gang up on us and kill us all.

And what do the sons of Yaakov who have wiped out an entire city reply? Hakezonah Yaaseh Et Achoteinu? Should our sister be made as a harlot? And the Parsha gives them the last word.

The name of Dinah derives from Din or Justice and Law. Dinah can be read as Din Hashem or G-d's Law. When Shechem took and assaulted Dinah, he was also assaulting G-d's law which prohibited such things. The Torah is considered the Sister as well. When the Sons of Yaakov proclaim, Hakezonah Yaaseh Et Achoteinu, they are also saying, Shall the Torah Be Made into a Prostitute? Shall G-d's law be allowed to be perverted?

What happens when those who are responsible for upholding the Torah offer a Mincha Le'Esav, they shake hands with evil, they literally prostitute the Torah because they show that G-d's law is for sale. And that is why only after Levi and Shimon carry out Din Hashem on the city, does G-d call out to Yaakov and tell him to come to Beit El and make an altar. Before that Hashem does not call him, as if to say "You offered Esav a Mincha and now you want to offer me one too. You compared his face to the Face of G-d and now you want to see my face." Only when Din Hashem was carried out, was Yaakov summoned to serve G-d again. And indeed it is the sons of Levi who carried out the killing who become the servants of G-d and sacrifice at his altars. It is Moshe from Shevet Levi who leads the Jews out of Galut. Because of the willingness of Levi to fight for G-d, they deserve most of all to serve him and be close to him.

And how G-d commands Yaakov is significant too, he mentions "The G-d Who Appeared to You When You Fled From Your Brother Esav." This serves as a form of reproof of Yaakov who fled from Esav, despite having a Bracha and who sent a Mincha Le'Esav a second time, even though he had two reassurances from G-d.

Now when Yaakov travels to Beit El we are told וַיְהִי חִתַּת אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הֶעָרִים אֲשֶׁר סְבִיבוֹתֵיהֶם, וְלֹא רָדְפוּ, אַחֲרֵי בְּנֵי יַעֲקֹב And the Fear of G-d Was On the Surrounding Cities And They Did Not Pursue the Sons of Yaakov. Why now was there fear on the cities and not before when Shechem had kidnapped Dinah? The answer that was they had known before that Yaakov had the blessing to be master of the land and inherit it, yet they also knew that he had humbled himself before Esav. Clearly the blessings did not amount to anything and so they felt free to do as they liked. Now when they saw that a few boys had executed justice on a city, they saw Din Hashem and so they were afraid of G-d now.

There are two ways that people feel the Fear of G-d. One is that G-d carries out miracles and wonders as he did over Egypt. The second is that those who serve G-d enforce justice in the land. Yaakov like Avraham bought land in Eretz Yisrael, yet this meant nothing as far as taking possession of it went. How does one take possession of the land? When Din Hashem is enforced on the land. When there is Justice and Law in the land, then the land has a Master.

Of the three Avot, two of them, Avraham and Yaakov had two wives. Both of these Avot were partly in Galut outside Eretz Yisrael. Only Yitzchak who never left Eretz Yisrael only had one wife. Of the two pairs of two wives, one represented the Wife of the Galut and one the Wife of Eretz Yisrael. By Avraham Avinu, it was clearly Sarah who was the Wife of Eretz and Hagar who was the Wife of Galut. By Yaakov Avinu, Leah was the Wife of Eretz Yisrael and Rachel was the Wife of the Galut.

How do we know this? Leah was the wife who was buried with Yaakov in Eretz Yisrael while Rachel was buried outside the land. It is Rachel who prays for her children going into Galut. It is Leah who gives birth to the majority of the Jewish people, including to the tribes of Yehuda and Levi, both of whom returned from the first Galut and endure until today. By contrast the larger Galut of the Ten Shevatim was marked as the Galut of Yosef and indeed Rehovam who split Yisrael from Yosef was from Ephraim.

While Leah represents the struggle for Eretz Yisrael, Rachel represents the comfort of Galut. For the first seven years, Yaakov worked for Leah, without even knowing it. He remained for the next seven years for Rachel. Rachel was beautiful to his eyes, as Galut is beautifully seductive to those Jews who remain in it. Like the "Pot of Meat" of Egypt or the rich comfort of Goshen to which Yosef would eventually bring the other Shevatim, she was appealing to the eyes. Yet Rachel was also Yaakov's tie to the Galut and the idols in her tent testified to that attachment.

Yaakov remained closest to his Wife of the Galut, even after her death and indeed he lived much of his life in Galut and descended down and died in Galut Mitzrayim. By contrast the sons of Leah were not of that character. They fought for their rights and resented the Sons of the Galut and drove Yosef out. The culmination of the struggle forced them to accept the Galut and Yosef's rule in Egypt, yet when the Jews are led out it is not by a Ben Rachel, but by the Bnei Leah. The Sons of Levi lead the Jews out. In Eretz Yisrael a Ben Rachel, Shaul is given a chance to rule, but like Yaakov he spares Edom and lets the King of Amalek and his cattle live. And so David of Yehuda replaces him instead. When the final Geulah comes, Moshiach ben Yosef dies and gives way to Moshiach ben David to end the Galut for good.

What perpetuates the Galut? The Mincha Le'Esav. Every time a Mincha is given to Esav, we worship Esav instead of Hashem. After Yaakov gave a Mincha to Esav, the Bnei Yisrael who approached Edom were told not to go out to war with Edom and to only buy food and water from them. It was as if G-d was saying, "You gave tribute to Esav, now give him some more." When we give a Mincha to Esav, HaKezonah Yaaseh et Achoteinu, we turn the Torah which is our sister into a prostitute. We demonstrate that Torah law and values are for sale and can be compromised. When we rise like the sons of Yaakov, but stripped of the anger which Yaakov cursed, but in the name of Din Hashem which has been defiled, we shorten the Galut by serving G-d.

Parshas Vayeitzei - Building a Flock into a Nation

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:03:00 +0000

One of the difficult things to understand in this week's parsha is the matter of the striped, speckled and ringed animals. It appears as if an angel bears a message for Yaakov Avinu telling him of a way to trick Lavan. This seems like dubious behavior for a great man. It is also unclear why so much space is devoted to it, first in Yaakov offering the deal to Lavan, Yaakov actually implementing it and then Yaakov relating the events to Rachel and Leah. What exactly is the importance of all this.

To understand that we need to begin with the importance of sheep herding. From Avraham on down to Moshe and Shaul and David Hamelech, the key leaders of the Jewish people were shepherds. Being a shepherd is a symbol for being a leader who uplifts men. The shepherd who can take care of flocks of sheep, can care for a nation of people. Yaakov did not trick Lavan out of money, but out of herds which symbolize people. The struggle between them was the struggle between two ways of life.

We are told Arami Oved Avi, that an Aramean tried to destroy my father. Arami Oved Avi can mean more literally though that an Aramean worked my father. When Yaakov makes the deal with Lavan, he asks when he will be able to work for his own house. Beiti. Yaakov is not merely being greedy, he wishes to begin building his own house, Beit Yisrael. By contrast Lavan wants Yaakov to continue working for him, to be part of his house. This is the means by which Lavan sought to destroy Yaakov and explains both meanings of Oved. Lavan sought to destroy Yaakov by enslaving him to serve him and become part of his family, rather than building a separate nation.

Vayetzei is the tale of how Yaakov came to be ensnared in Lavan's house, tricked into serving him and working for him, exploited, denied the ability to leave and pursued when he did try to leave. The birth of the nation of Israel, indeed giving the name of Israel to Yaakov, required that he first break free of Lavan. Before the exile and slavery of Egypt, came Yaakov's own exile and slavery in Lavan's house. As the Jews would be worked, first treated as honored guests and residents and then deceived into serving and finally enslaved, so too this happened to Yaakov. The Jews were enslaved in Egypt for over 200 years and Yaakov was in Lavan's house for 20 years. Yaakov escaped Lavan with deceit and attained safety through divine intervention as the Jews would later escape through deceit (a trip of three days) and attained safety through divine intervention.

But back to the sheep. What exactly was the significance of the sheep. If being the shepherd represents leadership, Yaakov was demonstrating a point to Lavan that was at the root of their conflict. Lavan believed that he could assimilate Yaakov. Yaakov intended to demonstrate otherwise. He directed Lavan to remove all the marked sheep, all the sheep that looked and appeared different from the rest. All the sheep that remained were the "assimilated" sheep. It should seem through the ordinary natural way of events that those sheep would produce similarly unmarked sheep, nevertheless Yaakov demonstrated that from these sheep would come the ringed, speckled and spotted sheep.

The Jews were regularly referred to as Ivrim, which refers to Min HaEver Hanahar, from the other side of the river. People who were strange and different from the rest of the world. What Yaakov did with the sheep demonstrated that he could make Lavan's sheep his own, as he had made his daughters his own. Not only had he not been and would not be assimilated, but that he could and would build his own house that was different from the rest of the world. No matter the exile, no matter how many sheep seemed to have been lost, carried off by wolves, blended into other flocks, they would be recovered and emerge again.

When the angel comes to Yaakov and shows him the mating animals, this is not G-d's way of showing him some trick to one up Lavan. It is the assurance of the survival of the Jewish people. "For I have seen all that Lavan does to you," the message finishes, a promise of protection in exile against all that the Lavans do from then onward to the present day. It manifests itself in Egypt when Pharaoh's decree demands the cessation of Jewish married life and the murder of Jewish children only to have a great multitude of Jews emerge from Egypt. It continues on throughout history where generation after generation of Jews goes into the flame and yet the Jewish people survive and maintain themselves from age to age while the peoples and ideologies who oppress them perish from the earth.

It is in the next verse that G-d then tells Yaakov to return home to Israel. His exile is finished. After three days when Lavan realizes Yaakov is gone, much as Pharaoh realized the Jews were escaping after three days, he pursues Yaakov. After a futile confrontation he signs a pact with Yaakov concluding the parsha. Yaakov is no longer only a man but a house, Beit Yaakov, a nation with whom Lavan and all the Lavans of the world must now reckon.

Parshas Chayei Sarah - Life and Death

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Parshas Chayei Sarah records three deaths. The death of Sarah and Avraham, our foremother and forefather, and the death of Ishmael. Even though Ishmael in actuality died a good deal later than Avraham, his death is recorded along with what little significance his life contained.

Where the description of Sarah and Avraham's deaths repeats the word Chai or Chayei twice, the death of Ishmael simply states it once. That is because where Sarah and Avraham had both a life in this world and a life in the afterlife, Ishmael had only his life in the world here.

Also because Ishmael's life was purely one dimensional physical life in this world, while Avraham and Sarah lived both a physical and a spiritual life. Hence their accumulation of years is described with the word Chai used twice, to indicate a fully lived life.

Hence it is said, Tzaddikim Bemitatam Keruyim Chaim, The Righteous in their Deaths are still called Living. Reshoim Bechayeichem Keruyim Meitim. While the Wicked even when Alive are considered Dead. That is because the good that people do lives on after them. The righteous may pass away from this world, but their contributions to it keep them alive in it. While the wicked are spiritually dead even when physically alive and contribute nothing to the life of the world.

Ishmael was dead even when alive, thus his death closes out Parshas Chayei Sarah, enumerated even while he was still alive. In contrast to Sarah whose death is told at the completion of her actual life.

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When Avraham goes to bury Sarah, he seeks out the Maarat Hamachpelah, a particular cave that would become known as the Cave of the Patriarchs.

He chooses the cave because it is also the site of the resting place of Adam and Chava, the first man and the first woman. To Ephron the Hittite however the cave is an afterthought for the field. And so Ephron throws in the cave for "free", while trying to sell Avraham the field, which he had not asked for.

A cave is a place of depth, to see it requires going beyond the obvious. Ephron did not have that ability. To him the field matter, not the cave or its hidden depths. To Avraham by contrast the cave mattered more than the field or the extravagant sum of money that Ephron finally demanded from him.

At the end when the purchase is made, the Torah writes, "VaYakam HaSadeh", "The Field Arose". It did not literally rise, but it gained dimension from its new place. Ephron had only seen it as a plot of earth, while Avraham had seen it as the resting place of his ancestors. Ephron had sold an ancestral plot of land for money, while Avraham had acquired one of the most significant places in the world without ever counting the cost.

By purchasing the Maarat Hamachpelah for Sarah's burial, Avraham had honored his wife by making her first person after Adam and Chava to be buried, and by using her death to gain title to one of the great cultural treasures of the world.

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How do we know from the first that Rivka is a greater prophetess than Yitzchak? While Yitzchak has to take her into his mother's house in order to understand who she is, Rivka understand who Yitzchak is even when she sees him from afar. Her ability to see further proved valuable in distinguishing Esav from Yaakov, allowing her to guide Yaakov earlier on. While Yitzchak only became aware of the difference between Esav and Yaakov when in the same room with them during the brachos.

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Rivka's family blessed her that her descendants should inherit the gates of their enemies. When did this happen? Shortly thereafter when Yaakov returned to Lavan's house, and managed to inherit both his daughters and most of his property, as Lavan's sons said that Yaakov had taken all that belonged to their father. Thus the blessing, quite possibly given insincerely by Lavan, wound up coming true at his own expense.

Parshas Noah - On the Borders of Good and Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:39:00 +0000

In Parshas Bereishis, man begins by mixing good and evil in Gan Eden. By Parshas Noah, he has already sunk so low that the entire earth is no longer mixed, but almost entirely evil aside from Noah himself. What is evil? What does it mean to do evil?

Morality consists of boundaries, areas where we may go and where we may not good. Good is defined by staying within Godly boundaries. Evil is defined by crossing those boundaries and destroying them. Chaos and order. Good and evil. The Godly and the ungodly. These are the parameters of creation.

When God created the universe ex-nihilo, order was formed out of chaos through a series of divisions. When mankind sank into hopeless and irredeemable evil, those boundaries began to fray, and were finally collapsed completely.

Each boundary had been erected for the purpose of man and life on earth.

First the light was divided into day and night. Then the sky was divided into atmosphere and ocean. And then the ocean itself was divided to make room for dry land, where man and animals could live. The stars were created to govern the seasons and the passage of time. With the flood each of those boundaries was removed. Night and day ceased to function. The heavens poured down on the earth. The dry land was swallowed by the ocean. Seasons ceased to be.

As man tore down Godly boundaries, so too God tore down the boundaries he had erected for the benefit of man. And only the Godly boundaries that Noah and his family kept on the Ark saved them from becoming destroyed along with all other life. Only by keeping the Godly boundaries does humanity enable the maintenance a world where dry land is not flooded by the ocean, where the sky and ocean are divided, and night and day, and the seasons make life livable.

Just as the Sabbath is a boundary for the human week, so too does every commandment serve as a boundary for our thoughts and our actions. The commandments represent the way of God, and they are no different than the commandments imposed on the sea and the sky, the stars and all the world around. But the only difference is in us, that we can choose to keep them or not, and thereby face the consequences.

Parshas Bereshis - The Sacrifice of the Shabbat

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:30:00 +0000

The Torah begins with G-d creating the world. Day by day we are told what is created, and then on the seventh day after having created everything from all the stars in the universe to the tiniest bugs and finally man, G-d rests. But why does G-d rest? Is he a man that he becomes tired and needs to take a day off?

The Lord does not weary and falter. And the Sabbath is more than a day defined by negative, by the absence of work. The Sabbath is not merely the absence of work. It is the completion of work. All too often we tend to think of the Sabbath in terms of what we can't do, but that is not what the Sabbath is. The Sabbath is the culmination of a properly spent week. For six days G-d had brought material life into existence. On the seventh and final day he declared a rest from the material in favor of the spiritual.

The first week though marks the expulsion of man from the Garden of Eden, and the end of the first welfare state. And two curses are attached to that expulsion in measure to the sins that caused it.

Adam who sinned by disobeying G-d's command not to eat from the tree, is punished by having to work a cursed earth. He took from an agricultural product that he was not permitted to take, and in turn he is forced to work and sweat to produce agricultural products himself. He sinned by disobeying a negative commandment from G-d, and the earth refuses to obey his efforts to bring forth food from it. As Adam disobeyed G-d, the earth which he was once meant to rule, no longer obeys him.

Chava who sinned not by eating from the tree, a commandment that she was never given directly, but by causing Adam to eat from the tree in disobedience to G-d, committed a sin not against G-d, but against her fellow human being. As such her punishment was tied to her relations with other human beings, namely her husband and her children. Because she harmed others, she in turn would suffer through them.

But there is no curse that is an addition to what is, but rather is a subtraction from what was. In the Garden of Eden, Adam did not have to work and Chava bore children easily, and both of them lived with no threat or difficulties, because of how G-d had uplifted them. Their curses simply removed those benefits that they had formerly enjoyed, and forced them to live on a lower level without their former level of divine blessing.

Similarly the flood that drowned the world was the cause of G-d removing the Dai (enough), the barriers that He had erected when bringing forth the earth that prevented the water from flooding the land. When mankind itself showed no ability to say Dai, to say enough and control its appetites, the water in turn was unable to say enough, and flooded the land.

After Adam and Chava's expulsion, it fell to their descendants to try and undo the curses by raising themselves up to a higher level of closeness with G-d.

Kayin and Hevel both worked, and brought portions of their labors as a sacrifice to G-d. The purpose of sacrifice is to pay tribute to G-d, to recognize that our labors are a product of His labor, that all we have is a gift from Him, and that all our labors must be with the knowledge that we are serving Him.

Kayin and Hevel however were very different men and brought very different sacrifices. Kayin worked the cursed earth and he brought from among his harvest, not the best or the worst, but the average. In essence then Kayin was saying that G-d was a partner, but not a superior. This was foreshadowed by his name because when Chava bore Kayin, she claimed Kaniti Ish Et Elohim, I partnered with G-d to create a man.

Hevel by contrast offered to G-d the best that he had, therefore recognizing that G-d was his superior. Therefore G-d took from Hevel's offering, but not from Kayin's, because only Hevel was attempting to ascend to G-d, while Kayin presumed that he was on the same level as G-d. This was the same fallacy that had caused Adam and Chava to eat of the Eitz Hadaat in order to become equal to G-d. It was the same fallacy that would drive the Tower of Bavel.

Through sacrifice, man demonstrates that is dedicating a portion of what he has gained to G-d as a form of perfecting all of it. Thus the wheat we harvest is inedible until we set aside a portion for the Kohen who is the servant of G-d. Similarly Israel finds itself expelled from the land for failing to keep the Shemita cycle, losing all the harvests over the failure to maintain the Sabbaths of the land.

Many people misperceive sacrifice as being about atoning for sin. In fact the primary role of sacrifice is to draw men closer to G-d by demonstrating that He is present in all that we do. Sacrifice in the Torah primarily involves animals and agricultural products, because they mainly concerned a time when Jews were herders and farmers. As slaves in Egypt, the Jews brought no sacrifices of animals until they were freed and they had property again that was all their own. In exile and cut off from their land, the Jews too brought no sacrifices of animals or grain. But animals and agricultural products are not the only kind of sacrifice there is.

In the wake of the exile from the Second Temple, the fruit of the lips, prayers are one universal form of sacrifice, in which we set aside a portion of our time and thoughts to dedicate to G-d. And while most of us are no longer ranchers or farmers, we bring what we have as sacrifices to G-d. So businessmen set aside some of their profits for charity, scholars set aside some of their time for learning the Torah of Hashem, and so on and so forth.

But another and the first universal form of sacrifice is the Sabbath. For six days we work, and the seventh is set aside as a sacrifice to G-d. The Hebrew word for sacrifice is Korban, drawing close. We draw close to G-d through the Sabbath, a day when we rest from material things in favor of spiritual things, to mark the original Sabbath when G-d perfected the creation he had just made with its culmination in the Sabbath.

There is a Midrash that says, all days of the week each had a mate, a parallel day in which its creation was completed, for on the first day light was created and on the fourth day, the sun, stars and moon came into being to project and reflect that light.

On the second day, the waters were divided between the oceans and the sky, and on the fifth day, the seas and skies were filled with birds and fish. On the third day, dry land came into being as did all forms of vegetation. And on the sixth day, animals and man were created to live on the land.

The Sabbath though lacked a paired day which could fulfill it. That was the role of man. To do more than merely live on the land as the animals did, but to transcend the material as the Sabbath transcended the six days of material creation.

The Sabbath, like the sacrifices of animals and grain, or the Torah studied, charity given and good deeds done, is not about what we lose materially, but what we gain spiritually. Kayin stuck in the cursed earth could only see the material side of it and was unable to draw closer to G-d. Instead he allowed his animal instincts to rule him and became the world's first murderer. And then was forced to go from farmer to nomad, building cities he could never live in for long.

And the sacrifices of Kayin and Hevel are the last sacrifices mentioned in the Torah, until Noah returns to an empty world after the flood. Noah whose name expressed the hope that he would bring Manoah rest from the hard work of tending the cursed earth. But the rest that Noah brings is not the kind of rest they had in mind, for the world has become corrupt and Noah lacks the qualities needed to arrest that corruption.

Noah is described as a perfect man for his generation and he is, because he is obedient to G-d. However his influence does not extend beyond himself, not even to his own family. Noah is in isolation a perfect specimen, but he contributes nothing to others. This enables him to lift the curse of Adam, the curse of the earth, that came about because of disobedience to G-d. But the world is unworthy of benefiting from it, because it remains corrupt, and Noah does not influence them to change.

The rest that Noah brings is cataclysmic as the world is purged of all life besides Noah and his family and the animals he has brought along. In the wake of that tremendous global exile, Noah has the chance to begin anew, as the world has had a Sabbath of 40 days through the flood.

Noah's name has a meaning similar to Shabbat, both involve rest. And Noah was saved because he embodied the virtue of the Sabbath in its focus on the divine. But his descendants once again descend into making a corrupt world because while his service to G-d is intact enabling him to undo the curse of Adam, he lacks the ability to undo the curse of Chava by influencing others to do good, instead of evil.

It is only Avraham, an even number of generations later, who tackles the curse of Chava. As Noah's name referred to his service to G-d, Avraham's name refers to his influence on man, as the father of nations. And Avraham does what Noah could not do by influencing his fellow men to find G-d. Just as Sara's name refers to her parallel role as princess of nations.

As a result, Avraham shows the ability to nullify Chava's curse, when Sarah impossibly gives birth at an advanced age. So too in the next two generations, Yitzchak and Yaakov show the same ability, when Rivka and Rachel give birth, despite being seemingly barren.

Avraham's uniqueness lies in his ability to undo both the curse of Adam through his service to G-d and the curse of Chava through his influence on his fellow man. Adam's curse lay in his disobedience to G-d, which Avraham nullifies through a series of tests, beginning with his recognition of G-d to his sacrifice of his son. Avraham's sacrifices show his willingness to obey G-d and to live under His will.

Chava's curse lay in her causing others to sin, which is far graver matter, because a Hoteh Umahateh et HaRabim, causes sinfulness transcending their own private error. While sacrifices can atone for sins between man and G-d, by man coming closer to G-d, one cannot atone for sins against one's fellow man through sacrifice. This is why Chava's curse remained unaddressed until Avraham and Sarah atoned for it by reaching out to others to teach them to do good and not evil.

By doing so, Avraham transcended Noah by not merely observing the Sabbath, but creating a "mate" for the Sabbath in the form of people who could transcend the material to actually see the role of G-d in the world. Noah was unable to arrest the world's spiraling evil, because while he served G-d personally, he could not brings others to do so collectively. And so human evil which began in the Garden continued to spiral out of control. Avraham brought the first sign of hope that human evil could be checked and even reversed. Thus he became worthy to found G-d's nation.