Chukat: Doesn't Everybody Get the Reference?

Ordinarily, we don't think of history as being the kind of thing that can change much. It already happened, right? A moment passed, an event took place, and nothing (short of time travel...) can subsequently affect
what occurred. And yet, because time is constantly moving, and because *we* are always growing and shifting and evolving, our perspective on history changes. Oddly enough, this actually does make the history itself morph as well. An oral account of something momentous progresses from "do you know what I just did?!" to "did I ever tell you what my grandmother did?" to "once upon a time...". and the story takes on a life of its own. I got to thinking about all of this, because of one verse in a Torah portion about Israelites wandering in the desert, and one half-sentence in a history book about Jews living in the city of Chester, PA.

When I went back in my blog archive, I was surprised to discover I haven't written about this line from Parashat Chukat before, because it's actually one of my favorite verses in the entire Torah. In and of itself, it ain't all that spectacular, but it's the "glass floor" that it accidentally reveals that I especially adore! In the midst of talking

about the Israelites waging war against various enemy tribes, the narrator of the Torah pauses briefly for a cross reference: "Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord, 'Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of the Arnon...'" (Num. 21:14) Seems straight-forward enough, right? The author is telling us, if you want to read more about these territories and the battles waged there, just go look it up in "The Book of the Wars of the Lord." Only problem is, we have no such book. We have no idea what this text is, nor what happened to it. What I really love about our verse, is that it opens up a TON of new questions: What happened to this book? When was it written? And how recently was it SO well known that the Biblical author could just assume the reader's knowledge of it, and yet now it is totally lost in the annals of history? What else was written back then, that is now lost to us? Are there copies somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered? I have so many new questions. Do you see how the rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper???

For purposes of comparison, I want to mention a modern example of a similar phenomenon. Maybe not as dramatic, but fascinating nonetheless. In Ohev Shalom's monthly Lunch n' Learn program, we just started a new topic this past Thursday. In honor of Ohev's centennial celebration, we are

going to delve into the history of the Jewish community in Delaware County, and more specifically in Chester, PA. A lot of our information will be drawn from a commemorative book that the synagogue produced at the dedication of our current building in 1965. The book begins with telling the history of Jewish life in Chester, and there, while mentioning a family that lived in our area in the 1800s, the author offers a brief "modern-day" reference point: "For many years the Brandeis family ran a dress shop at the site where Stotter's now stands." To the reader in 1965, this was an easy and obvious geographical note about the well-known department store, Stotter's. Well, it closed in 1972, and the building was torn down in 1975; I had to look all that up online, just to find out its fate. That reference is entirely outdated, and makes our Ohev Shalom history book a historical artifact itself!!

None of this is unique to the Torah or our synagogue archives. At any given moment in time, we can both look back and label what happened before as history, and also acknowledge that this very instant in which we have decided to pause and reflect is ALSO a historical moment (or will be very soon...). And how we choose to

evaluate (and judge) the past and present changes all the time. As soon as I hit "Publish" in the top-right corner of this blog page, what I'm writing now becomes history. Some day - God willing - I'll look back and marvel that we were once only JUST at the synagogue's centennial! :-) Perspective is therefore also a gift we can give ourselves, every one of us. Take a moment to appreciate where you are, where you've been, and where you're going. One day, perhaps, our story will be like the Book of the Wars of the Lord - a mysterious tale that COULD unlock an entire bygone world... yet the only thing that remains of it is the title. For now, however, our book is wide open, and many pages have yet to be written. So keep writing all the time; remember, you're making history!


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Michael Shaheen on Flickr
2. InSapphoWeTrust on Wikimedia Commons
3. OldChesterPa.com
4. Bellamar2010 on Wikimedia Commons