Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/markkirschbaum/page/10/)
The Tiferet Shelomo of Radomsk presents a reading that also stands as a proper critique of ideologies that claim to know best what is good for the “people”. He argues, a la Rousseau, that the spies decided that they knew better what was for the good of the people than did the people themselves, or Gd for that matter.
This week’s perasha is concerned with the revolt of Korach, a leading Levite, against the desert leadership of Moshe and Aharon.
What do we understand about desire? Other than being led around most of our life by desire, we have a hard time attempting to undestand it, and harness it.
The holiday of Shavuot is distinct among the major festivals of Jewish life in that it has no obvious distinctive ritual elements. Whereas Pesach has its seder and marror, and Sukkot has its, well, sukkot, Shavuot is not given any particular unique commandments, not in its Biblical textual source, nor in the halachic sources.
This perasha contains within it a series of commandments which have been largely unrelated to normative practice for the last few thousand years. At least regarding one of these episodes, this is probably a positive thing; I’m referring of course to the Sotah text, the depiction of the ritual trial of the woman accused by her jealous husband of adultery.
I. Come In Under the Shadow of This Red Rock (or, Shelter in the Wasteland)
Bamidbar 1:1- And Gd spoke to Moshe in the Sinai Desert within the Ohel Moed (the Appointed Tent) on the First of the Second Month in the Second year from the Exodus from Egypt saying… This week we begin the fourth of the books which comprise the Torah. This book, known most commonly as “Bamidbar”, “In the desert”, is also known as “Homesh Hapequdim” or as it is conveniently translated, as “Numbers”. In general, we have a return to the narrative of the wanderings in the desert of the Israelites, as well as some commandments, most of which, as pointed out by Ramban, are not of normative force today, though as usual we will attempt to derive emotive meaning from them as we encounter them.
Here we are, at the close of the book of Vayikra, the book of Holiness, concerned primarily with what was intended to be the highest service, in the Temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood. However, as the Bet Yaakov points out, this perasha does not begin as do most of the others, with a speech act to Moshe, that is, with the usual “And Gd spoke to Moshe”. Here, the perasha begins with ” Im behulotai tailaichu”, “if only you would walk in my ways and keep my commandments and make them happen”. This “if only”, then, is taken by the Bet Yaakov as describing not a command, but a prayer on Gd’s part, so to speak. It is not a command that is needed after the presentation of so much holiness, for a command can not actualize holiness; what is needed to make holiness happen is a prayer.
Keeping shemitta serves to realign our relationship to the world, to sever it from mere instrumentality, and demands from us recognition of the Other, even as we think we are acting in that Other’s best interest.
The idea that morality as a concept and practice is the result of forces of power in society is developed in Foucault and others. Is this definition of power = morality the case in Jewish thought?
The Seventh day of Passover is a holiday, much like the first day. It deals with redemption and also with another stage of the deliverance from Mitzrayim, that of the splitting of the sea which allowed the Israelites to cross, and then returned to its natural state in order to swallow Pharoah’s cavalry, which had been in pursuit of the former slaves.