Author: Eve Posen

Bless You – Parshat Naso 5781

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I have certain voicemail messages saved on my phones – ones that hold particularly special meaning to me. Two of them are from my father. He left them a week apart (on consecutive Fridays) about two months before he died. I was working as an intern in Chicago, and he called to ask how I was doing and what I was learning, and because it was Friday, he’d end with a word about Shabbat. Part of his Shabbat message was asking how I was celebrating Shabbat with my roommate and friends, and he ended each of the voicemails with the priestly blessing. 

Part of what makes these messages memorable is that growing up, my parents did not bless us each week at the Shabbat table. We had Shabbat dinner, complete with Kiddush and Hamotzi. We had friends over and celebrated Shabbat regularly, but for some reason that one small ritual wasn’t a part of our celebration. My mom later told me that my dad always regretted that decision, and so when I moved to Los Angeles for rabbinical school, he decided to send me an email blessing each week. I still treasure those emails, but the voicemails are prized possessions. I can still hear my father in his own voice and words give me a blessing anytime I need it.

I’ll admit it was especially hard to listen to those voicemails when I was in early grief. To hear my father say “May God grant you peace” while I was angry at God for my father’s death seemed incongruous. To hear him say “May God turn His face towards you and see you” when I felt so unseen seemed empty. But the blessings were still his to me.

As we read Parshat Naso this week, we read about the Israelite society trying to move forward after leaving Egypt and about the establishment of a successful community. The narrative picks up with a second counting of the people; laws about how we are to treat one another and the property that we own; the blessing of the priests to the people; and the laws of the Nazir, detailing how we might dedicate ourselves directly to God. Among these laws is the notion of connection to a community, to God, and to the greater “people.”

The most well-known piece of this text is the Priestly Blessing in chapter 6, verses 24-26. The blessing of the priest unto the people ends with the words “May God turn God’s face in your direction and put upon you peace.” The K’tav Sofer, a 19th century German commentator, remarks that peace begins in the home, then extends to the community, and finally to all the world. In other words, this moment of blessing one another is the locus of spreading peace, and it requires that we turn our heads toward each other first in order to start a movement of peace that radiates through our surroundings and into our community. 

Pay close attention to the words that describe the action in this blessing: “turn God’s face in your direction.” More important than the blessing itself is simply the idea that there is no peace unless all of us are seen. Just as God cannot grant us peace without first facing us as we are, we too cannot create peace among ourselves until we are all seen, until we are all heard. Just like those few minutes my father carved out for me in the beautiful messages I still have, granting someone that love and attention is perhaps the greatest blessing you can offer.

Collector’s Item – Parshat Bamidbar 5781

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When I was a little girl I was a collector of Madame Alexander dolls. I had an entire shelf dedicated to these beautiful dolls that I was not allowed to play with. There they sat, their boxes neatly packed away, clothes unruffled. Every once in a while I would take one down and admire it, then carefully place it back on the shelf. Did you have a collection like this? Maybe yours was comic books or baseball cards. With these precious collections the story tends to be the same. You search out and finally acquire a new special item. The first day that it’s part of your collection, you admire it, and then carefully, gently place it into the protective covering for safe keeping. Occasionally you might take out this item or others in the collection to have a look, and then neatly pack it away once more. 

While it sounds like this type of hobby wouldn’t hold a child’s interest, there’s something special and powerful about having something you take such good care of. This act of protecting, guarding, and checking in takes both dedication and self control. 

This week we begin the fourth book of the Torah, Sefer Bamidbar. The Israelites are now in the desert, and the groundwork for the structure of their future has been laid. Army leaders are appointed to lead alongside Moses and Aaron, a census is taken of the people, and we learn that the camps are situated in a specific order, each with a flag in the center that tells us which tribe is there. The time spent in Egypt is a distant memory at this point.

As the Israelites are in their wilderness experience, God instructs Moses to count the whole Israelite community. The language used by God for this process is “lift the head.” In other words, each person is to lift up their head and direct their eyes and heart toward the heavens so that they can be counted. Lifting of a head also connotes a certain pride in who they are, and who their ancestors were. This act in this moment asks the Israelites to actively see themselves as connected to God.

But this also raises the question why is God counting the people? Doesn’t God know who they are and how many to expect? What is the purpose of this inspection? As an answer, a midrash imagines God as a collector of precious jewels. From time to time this collector might take out their collection and inspect each one, relishing in their beauty and uniqueness, tallying them up to make sure every jewel is accounted for, even if the collector is well aware of how many there are. 

When we collect things we often keep them in treasure jars or a protective wrapping. Sometimes we take them out to admire them or even just to make sure they’re still there. The census in Parshat Bamidbar suggests that regardless how you view God, each of us is a unique “collector’s item” in the world’s collection of humans. It’s also a reminder that we should recognize the uniqueness in each other. How different the world might be if we all saw and admired the precious, one-of-a-kind jewel within every one of us.

Snowball’s Chance – Parshat Behar-Bechukotai 5781

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I despise snow in Portland. As I’ve shared with many of you, I was never really a big fan of snow when it happened in Michigan when I was growing up either. Primarily it’s because I don’t like to be cold, and I don’t like to be wet. Snow manages to combine both of those elements into one, and being cold and wet at the same time has never been my thing. In particular, I don’t like snow in Portland because it means the city will be shut down for who knows how long. It starts out beautifully idyllic, but then as things melt and freeze again, and the microclimates laugh at us for wanting any sort of consistency, we could be looking at two to four days without reliable transportation. The worst year had us trapped in our house for eight days, and that was with a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old. If you ask me, snow in Portland snowballs out of control. (HA!)

It’s actually the snowball effect, not the snow itself, that I’m reminded of in this week’s Torah portion. I’m talking about a situation that continues to build on itself until it’s out of control. Whether it’s a global pandemic or a cycle of systemic oppression, when enough “snow” builds up and starts rolling away from us, it can quickly get out of hand. 

Our double Torah portion this week, Behar-Bechukotai, warns us of the implications of the snowball effect in our own lives. Behar-Bechukotai focuses primarily on the laws of agriculture and land. What makes this section of text unique is that it takes the notion of land ownership and farming and uses that to create a society in which no one group holds complete control forever. We read about the 50-year land ownership cycle, in which we are required to allow the land to rest every seventh year. In the 50th year of the cycle, all land returns to its original owner. Imagine a farmer who falls on hard times because of a drought or poor crop. In order to sustain his family, he might sell off parts of his farm acre by acre. After 10 years he might have nothing left, and he might be forced off the land or have to find another way to make a living. According to our Torah laws, in the 50th year this farmer would receive back all his land and become his own landlord again.

In the midst of these laws, we read chapter 25, verse 35: “If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority, and you hold him as though he is a resident alien, let him live by your side.” The Sifra, a midrashic commentary on the book of Leviticus, reads this verse literally as “If your kinsman stumbles.” In other words, it’s easier to support a person when they first begin to stumble than it is to pick them up after they’ve fallen. Like a snowball, problems are easier to control when they’re manageable in size before they’ve snowballed out of control.

In all the words of these parshiyot we are made aware that working to solve a problem before it becomes a catastrophe is of the utmost importance in maintaining a thriving, supportive community. As for the literal snow, well, there’s not much we can do about that.

Off On a Tangent – Parshat Emor 5781

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I’m a tangential thinker. What I mean by that is that I can be in the middle of doing one task when something reminds me of another task I need to do, so I stop task one to either make a note of task two, or I actually go do task two before coming back to task one. Hopefully task two doesn’t remind me of a third task, otherwise it just spirals out of control from there.

For example, I can be writing one of my weekly Torah reflections (like I am now), when someone comes into my office and asks me a question. That question leads me to another task, and I totally lose my train of thought. To combat this, I’ve recently started asking people to wait when I’m writing so I can write down my thoughts and outline where I want to go so I won’t forget. While this strategy is only about 85% effective in keeping me on my current train of thought, it does help trigger my memory so I can mostly recall where I was going and how I wanted to get there.

We see tangential thinking happen all the time in the Talmud. The rabbis are engaged in a conversation about one topic when someone brings a proof text that reminds a rabbi of a different topic, and then they veer off course for a bit before returning to the original topic. It is how human beings often work in relationship with one another. It is less common in the Torah, where the narrative generally has a clear path from one part to the next. However, in this week’s Torah portion, we have a few of these moments of tangents. 

As we read Parshat Emor, we once again find ourselves deep into the commandments surrounding Jewish practice. Parshat Emor focuses on the rules and regulations for the priests, along with the obligations of the Israelites. It covers the observance of certain holidays, including mentions about the holiness of Shabbat, other holidays we are to celebrate throughout the year, and the ways in which we are to treat one another and even animals. The majority of these rituals are meant to be done in public, with the entire community a part of them.

The general flow of the text moves from one holiday observance to the next with clear understandings of how each holiday will be celebrated. But, when you get to the laws of Shavuot and the harvest season, followed by the transition to the laws for Rosh Hashanah, called the “Day of Remembrance” in the text, there is a single verse between them that is not a directive about either holiday specifically. In the midst of all the specific guidelines for holiday observance, we read chapter 23, verse 22: “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God.”

This verse speaks of the general harvest and cleaning and interrupts the list of festivals. Why? The Sifra, a Midrashic commentary on the book of Leviticus, suggests that perhaps it’s either because Shavuot itself occurs during a time of harvest, or because on Shavuot we read the Book of Ruth, which magnifies the principal in this verse. Yet a third reason could be because when you share your bounty with the poor, it is as if it were offered on God’s altar. 

A tangent it may be, but this tangential verse opens our eyes to the ways in which each task is connected, even if we may not see it right away. Shavuot is a holiday honoring God through the harvest, but the way we harvest can honor other members of our community. The opposite is also true in Judaism. In addition to our everyday blessings and prayers, every opportunity to lift each other up is another opportunity to honor God.

You Are the Tradition – Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5781

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While we’re not currently in the season of Hanukkah, a Mishnah that I love to teach about Hanukkah comes to mind as I read this week’s Torah portions. Hillel and Shammai, the great rabbinic sparring partners, have a debate about which way to light the candles. Should you add one each night or subtract one? At the same time, the Mishnah also introduces the concept that our rabbis taught that the mitzvah of Hanukkah is (for one person to light) one candle for the household. And for those who embellish, one candle for each and every member of the house. Then Hillel and Shammai get into the debate about eight candles and their significance. 

This debate is about more than a ritual. It symbolizes our desire to assign deeper meaning to the ordinary objects we’re using. In the case of Hanukkah, the candles represent something bigger than just glowing light. They represent ourselves, our community, our world.

This week we read a double parshah, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. Parshat Acharei Mot deals with what happens after Aaron’s sons have offered up “strange fire” to God and with certain forbidden relationships between human beings. The structure of this section of text pushes us to look at our relationships with both God and others and see the boundaries and intimacies of each relationship. Parshat Kedoshim deals with what is known as the “Holiness Code” that helps us to understand how we can walk in God’s ways and create a community of relationship and understanding.

In the context of these two Torah portions, we read about the way Aaron was supposed to prepare for Yom Kippur, specifically the public cleanse and purification for atonement. Aaron is to take a bull, a ram, and two goats, and wear (four) sacral linen garments. Leviticus Rabbah interprets each of these items and connects them to stories of Aaron’s past through his ancestors. The bull recalls the merit of Abraham’s offering when the messengers of God came to him. The ram is a reminder of Isaac’s readiness to be sacrificed at the Akeidah. The two goats symbolize the meal Jacob prepared for his father when he received his blessing instead of his brother. The four linen garments represent Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah. In essence, the midrash reads this offering as a way for Aaron to enter into his holy work knowing that he carries on the legacy of his forebears.

This brings us back to Hanukkah and the idea that the objects aren’t just objects. They are us. This concept of hearkening back and assigning human identity is part of contemporary Judaism on other holidays as well. On Shabbat we can light two candles, as has become tradition, or we can light one candle for each person in our house. When we atone at Yom Kippur, we know that we stand in atonement with the merit of ourselves and also the merit of those who have come before us in all generations. What’s so beautiful about Judaism is that you can look at our observance and see a lot of traditions, or you can look at our traditions and see a lot of us.