On June 18, 2011, just 10 weeks after I stepped from the mikvah, I was privileged to give the d'var Torah at my husband's childhood synagogue. The parsha was Shelach. At this point in the Torah, the Israelites have made it to the borders of the promised land, and they send in 12 spies to scope out the situation. The spies find a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey, with grapevines so large that it takes many men to carry them back to the camp. But they also find a land filled with formidable inhabitants. Ten of the spies report back that the land is good, but not worth the fights with the “giants” (Numbers 13:32) who live there. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, insist that settling the land will be worth it and that with God's help they can settle there. The people side with the ten spies, and for this lack of faith, God dooms them to 40 years wandering in the wilderness.
Unfortunately, I've lost the copy of the d'var Torah I gave in 2011, but I remember that it was about fear, wandering, and finding your place in the world. We moved a lot at that time in our lives - for jobs, for grad school, and then for jobs and grad school again. Between 2010-2015, we lived in 4 cities and 6 apartments. We've been settled in the DC-area for over ten years now, and with our wandering days behind us, it seemed like a good time to revisit the themes of that old d'var Torah.
The Israelites let their fear keep them from the life God had promised. They saw themselves as small and insignificant, “like grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:33), and let their own insecurities cloud their judgement. The 40 years of wandering was a punishment that helped to reshape their thinking. A people who can survive a nomadic life in the desert can do anything. While not a punishment, my own years of wandering helped clarify my values and strengthen my community ties. Nashville and Birmingham taught us the value of small, engaged Jewish communities. Philadelphia showed us the power of walkable communities. We learned the differences between areas with many transplants and those with more homegrown populations, and the importance of pride of place. Everywhere we went, we joined a synagogue, defying the demographic trend of young 20-somethings not embracing memberships. We didn't let the possibility of moving away in the future keep us from engaging in the present. In each place, we built relationships, celebrated holidays, and did the daily work of discovering who we are and what we wanted from life.
Now, more than a decade into our time in the DC area, I see how those wandering years were not just transitional, they were formative. They taught us to be brave enough to try something new and grounded enough to keep showing up. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we learned who we were as we traveled. Looking back, I think the heart of that long-lost d'var Torah was this: fear tells you to wait, but faith tells you to begin. Wandering gave us the wisdom to know when to pause and when to move forward. And now, as we stand more firmly rooted in the life we've built, I’m grateful for the places we’ve been and the courage it took to journey through them.
Showing posts with label Numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Numbers. Show all posts
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Ritual Cleansing and the New Normal
The beauty of reading the Torah on an annual cycle is that, while the words remain the same from year to year, we do not. Our reading each year should be deeper, informed by who we are now and the times in which we live. This year, the times certainly make for some interesting reading.
My husband goes grocery shopping approximately every two weeks, or when we run out of milk. He brings the groceries home from the store, places them all on the front step outside our door, and wipes everything down before we bring them inside. We wash our hands. Our offices are closed and we work from home. Our kids' daycare is closed and our toddler is blowing through every movie on Disney Plus (she likes Moana and Finding Nemo and does not like Toy Story). We video chat with our parents and attend zoom happy hours with our friends. We held a baby naming for our second daughter on zoom. We wash our hands some more.
This is our new normal. This is the world in which we live.
Three and a half months into the Coronavirus pandemic shut down in the US, we're reading parsha Chukkat this week and for the first time the dry account of ritual purification grips me as I read it. The painstaking detail of selecting and slaughtering a perfect red cow, and the subsequent descriptions of the cleansing rituals required of all those involved in the process, is a slow and somewhat repetitive read.
"The kohen shall wash his garments and bathe his flesh in water, and then he may reenter the camp, and the kohen shall be unclean until evening. The one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water and cleanse his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. A ritually clean person shall gather the cow's ashes and place them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be as a keepsake for the congregation of the children of Israel for sprinkling water, for cleansing. The one who gathers the cow's ashes shall wash his clothes, and he shall be unclean until evening." Numbers 19:7-9
Why? Why do we go through this elaborate ritual for cow's ashes? Because the ashes are essential to purify people who have encountered death: "he who touches the corpse of any human being shall be impure for seven days," "when a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure seven days," "and in the open, anyone who touches a person who was killed or who died naturally, or human bone, or a grave, shall be impure seven days." Numbers 19:11-16
Parsha Chukkat is filled with death. Miriam and Aaron die, and Moses is sentenced to death. In a normal year, these deaths would be the focus of my attention. Leaving aside the details of sprinkling cow's ashes for purification, I would ponder these individual deaths and what they tell us about the ways we mourn family and the ways we mourn community leaders. But this is not a normal year. Instead, I wonder about the everyday Israelite who encounters death unexpectedly in a tent or in the open, and how their ritual of sprinkling cow's ashes and bathing is so familiar to my own cleansing routine of disinfecting groceries and washing hands.
As if to reinforce the comparison, parsha Chukkat also features a plague of deadly serpents, which kill many people. God sent the serpents to punish the Israelites for complaining (again) about leaving Egypt for the desert. In response to the serpents, the Israelites begged for mercy. "The people came to Moses and said, 'We sinned by speaking against God and against you. Intercede with God to take away the serpents from us!' And Moses interceded for the people." Numbers 21:7. God, as always, showed mercy, but God did not take away the serpents.
The serpents didn't miraculously disappear with a change in the weather.
Instead, God instructed Moses to create a copper serpent staff, which would heal anyone who looked at it. The serpents became part of their new normal.
This year, I see us all in this text. I see us wearing face masks, wiping down groceries, washing our hands more frequently and more vigorously, holding ourselves apart from each other, waving instead of shaking hands, giving air hugs from six feet apart, quarantining. We do this to protect ourselves and to protect each other. I do this so that when I take my baby to the doctor, I can answer "no" when the nurse at the door asks her screening questions: "Do you have any flu-like symptoms? Cough, fever, difficulty breathing? Have you tested positive for the Coronavirus? Have you been in contact with anyone who has tested positive for the Coronavirus?" We do this because our world is encountering death every day and, like the Israelites, we need to protect ourselves and our community.
As I write this, the number of US deaths from Covid-19 is near 130,000. I know people who have gotten sick and recovered. I know people who have lost loved ones. I'm sure you do too. Our new normal is alternatingly scary (will I or someone I love get sick today?) and monotonous (what day of the week is it?). I take comfort from parsha Chukkat in the fact that society has survived and adapted to pandemics and plagues before, and I have to believe we can do it again.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Omer 2016 Day 30: Zelophehad's daughters
Day 30: Gevurah in Hod, Justice in Glory
Zelophehad's daughters appear three separate times in the Tanakh, each time listing all five of their names: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. As we have seen from some previous days of the Omer, many women's names were not recorded, so it is remarkable in and of itself that Zelophehad's daughters were all named and that their names were repeated each time they were mentioned in the Tanakh.
But wait, there's more!
They are also remarkable for their contribution to Israelite society. Their father, Zelophehad, had died and had no sons, so according to Israelite law before Numbers 27, his property would have been divided among his clan, leaving his daughters with nothing and effectively erasing his name. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah believed that to be unfair and petitioned Moses for the right to inherit their father's land. They won that right, not only for themselves, but for any daughter whose father died without a male heir.
So, they maintained their father's name and gained glory in their own right through their pursuit of justice. You can read their whole story in Numbers 27:1-11, Numbers 36:1-12, and Joshua 17:3-4.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Grasshoppers
In the past week's Torah portion, Shelach, God told Moses to send 12 scouts into Israel to check out the land. They returned with the following pronouncement, "Yeah, the land is definitely flowing with milk and honey and it's pretty awesome, but it's full of big scary Anakites, Amalekites, and Canaanites." Two of the scouts (Caleb and Joshua) disagreed with this assessment, but the other ten had already managed to incite fear and panic. The result? God said, "Fine, you can stay in the desert then."
Two things really struck me about this portion on a personal level:
1. In describing the people who live in Israel, the ten doubtful scouts say they look like giants and that "we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them." (Numbers 13:33)
I think like this all the time. I don't tend to voice an opinion unless I feel like I have all the facts. By all the facts, I mean leaving no stone unturned and I pretty much always think that there must be something out there that I haven't read or haven't thought of. This kind of thinking generally leads me to belittle my own opinion as "uninformed" and if I'm unsure of myself, I think everyone else must be able to tell and must think of me that way too. So when the Israelites saw themselves as weak and small, I could relate. But as we learned in the Haftarah reading from Joshua 2:1-24, those "giant" Anakites, Amalekites, and Canaanites, saw the Israelites as a real threat.
My take-away: Don't assume that everyone else sees me the way I see myself and don't be so self-conscious. I should focus more on my strengths. Even if the Israelites were set on seeing themselves as grasshoppers, they should have noted that grasshoppers can be incredibly intimidating in numbers. Maybe all the excitement of crossing the Sea of Reeds, receiving the Torah, and building the ark made them forget that a swarm of locusts destroyed Egypt's crops not that long before (thanks, Plague #8).
2. If the Israelites had just had faith that God would be with them when they entered the promised land, they wouldn't have had to spend 40 years wandering around in the desert. Their fear immobilized them and left them unable to move forward into their land and to develop as a people. I tend to lean in the direction of the ten fearful scouts, though I don't like to admit it. Instead of trusting that everything will be fine, I worry that something will go wrong and then limit my activities in order to avoid those imagined scenarios. I have been getting better at ignoring those doubts and just having faith that I will have fun. The evidence backs me up - nothing ever goes wrong when I make the effort to hang out with friends or try something new and I even usually have fun. The Israelites had similar evidence in support of just heading into Israel on faith - the plagues, the Sea of Reeds, manna, clouds of fire and smoke, receiving the Torah! They forgot all of that in their fear that this time it wouldn't work out in their favor. I don't think anyone would say that was a smart move on their part.
In light of these insights, my goal this week is to be more like Joshua and Caleb - to have confidence in myself, to have a little faith, and to try something new.
Two things really struck me about this portion on a personal level:
1. In describing the people who live in Israel, the ten doubtful scouts say they look like giants and that "we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them." (Numbers 13:33)
I think like this all the time. I don't tend to voice an opinion unless I feel like I have all the facts. By all the facts, I mean leaving no stone unturned and I pretty much always think that there must be something out there that I haven't read or haven't thought of. This kind of thinking generally leads me to belittle my own opinion as "uninformed" and if I'm unsure of myself, I think everyone else must be able to tell and must think of me that way too. So when the Israelites saw themselves as weak and small, I could relate. But as we learned in the Haftarah reading from Joshua 2:1-24, those "giant" Anakites, Amalekites, and Canaanites, saw the Israelites as a real threat.
My take-away: Don't assume that everyone else sees me the way I see myself and don't be so self-conscious. I should focus more on my strengths. Even if the Israelites were set on seeing themselves as grasshoppers, they should have noted that grasshoppers can be incredibly intimidating in numbers. Maybe all the excitement of crossing the Sea of Reeds, receiving the Torah, and building the ark made them forget that a swarm of locusts destroyed Egypt's crops not that long before (thanks, Plague #8).
2. If the Israelites had just had faith that God would be with them when they entered the promised land, they wouldn't have had to spend 40 years wandering around in the desert. Their fear immobilized them and left them unable to move forward into their land and to develop as a people. I tend to lean in the direction of the ten fearful scouts, though I don't like to admit it. Instead of trusting that everything will be fine, I worry that something will go wrong and then limit my activities in order to avoid those imagined scenarios. I have been getting better at ignoring those doubts and just having faith that I will have fun. The evidence backs me up - nothing ever goes wrong when I make the effort to hang out with friends or try something new and I even usually have fun. The Israelites had similar evidence in support of just heading into Israel on faith - the plagues, the Sea of Reeds, manna, clouds of fire and smoke, receiving the Torah! They forgot all of that in their fear that this time it wouldn't work out in their favor. I don't think anyone would say that was a smart move on their part.
In light of these insights, my goal this week is to be more like Joshua and Caleb - to have confidence in myself, to have a little faith, and to try something new.
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