Shabbat Chol Ha-Moed Pesach: How Did We Pass Over This One Before???

It doesn't matter how many times you read through the Torah, it can still blow your mind. Don't believe me? Well, brace yourself. I'm on Year Ten of writing this Torah commentary, and I wrote a weekly column as a rabbinical student for my congregation in North Carolina before that.

I've led Pesach Seders a whole bunch of times by now, and I've participated in the holiday festivities since I was born. So I didn't necessarily think the Torah text could surprise me all that much. Well, I was wrong. You know how the name of the holiday comes from the night that God sent the tenth - and final - plague against the Egyptians? How the Angel of Death slew the firstborn child in every Egyptian home, but PASS(ED) OVER the homes of the Israelites? It's in the Hebrew as well; God will see the lamb's blood on the doorposts of the Israelite homes, "U'fasachti" - "And I will pass over you" (Ex. 12:13). "Fasachti" comes from the root "PeSaCH." And yet, somehow (and quite shockingly), that isn't the origin of the holiday name at all...

Our Conservative Movement Chumash, the Etz Hayim, just throws out this gem in the commentary, like it's no big deal at all: "The Hebrew noun 'pe-sach'... is
assumed in this narrative to be an immediately understandable term, so it too must have a history that predates the Exodus." WHAAAA???? The author then goes on to suggest it's actually related to an Akkadian (!!) root meaning "to appease," and says this notion of "passing over" is only one of three traditions as to what this word is really trying to convey. The other two possibilities are "to have compassion" and "to protect." Again, I've celebrated Pesach for close to four decades now; I NEVER before heard that the term "Pesach" predated the entire Exodus story, came from an Akkadian word, and might actually have had nothing to do with passing over anything. Mind. Officially. Blown.

But while we're already exploding old narratives, why stop there? The Etz Hayim has yet another lovely little nugget to share with us as well. In Exodus 12:14-20,
the Torah first tells us that "this day," namely the 14th of the month of Nisan, will be a day of remembrance for all time. It will be celebrated with the Paschal offering. THEN the text starts talking about the 15th of Nisan being the start of a seven-day holiday, known as the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, the commentary then states: "Without doubt, throughout the biblical period this celebration remained distinct from the one-day paschal rite." Oh, sure. Didn't we all just KNOW that once upon a time there were TWO, separate holidays, one called Pesach and the other 'The Festival of Matzah'??? I mean, geez, who didn't know THAT?!?!

I hope you know I'm being facetious here. I didn't know any of this. Just as I didn't know the name of the holiday predates the festival itself. But I never mind learning
this kind of stuff. I absolutely LOVE that the Torah can still surprise me with new and substantial realizations after years and years of study. The Talmud has a famous saying: "Shivim Panim La-Torah," meaning "The Torah has 70 faces." So I guess if I learn a new face/nuance/approach/interpretation each year, I've still got a little more than 30 yet to learn!! :-) We could spend more time on these two startling new insights. But for now, my main point is, our text is even more ancient than we sometimes give it credit AND it can surprise us even when we least expect it! Maybe next year, when we're preparing for the Seder, we'll try on yet another face(t) and see what we think. Then we'll only have 30 more left to try on... :-) Happy Passover!!


CC images in this blog post courtesy of:
1. @GwynethJones on Flickr.com
2. pxhere
3. Avital Pinnick on Flickr.com
4. Wikimedia Commons

Metzora (Shabbat Ha-Gadol): I Thought I Knew What Gossip Can Do...

This week, I want to thank Andy Szabo - a congregant, former Ohev president, and a good friend - for blowing my mind regarding this week's Torah portion. But I'll get to that

in a sec. The ancient rabbis did a very silly thing with our parashah. You see, we've arrived at one of (if not) the most cringe-worthy and unpleasant sections of the entire Torah. Metzora tells us about skin diseases, bodily discharges, and weird growths. It ain't pretty, folks. The Torah also gives us all kinds of sacrificial and purification rituals to employ in a Temple-based society to "cure" these afflictions. But even our most ancient rabbinic leaders were living in a post-Temple world, and they - like us - had no context for these funky ceremonies either! So they just "passed over" it altogether (Ha, ha!). They say that the name, Metzora, is a contraction of the Hebrew phrase, "Motzi-Sheim-Ra," which means "to draw out a bad name," i.e. gossip. Therefore, they assert, what we're really talking about here is punishment for slanderous speech. Physical illnesses were Divine penalties for inflammatory and/or defaming rhetoric. Well, that just doesn't sound right, does it?

Every year, this seems like such a cop-out to me. They just didn't want to talk about yucky rashes! The rabbis engineered the text to say something else entirely; what cheaters! And besides, we know that physical ailments do not come from gossiping; that's just silliness. That's not how life works;

nor is it how illness and health work... right? Enter Andrew Szabo... Andy wrote to me and also acknowledged the patently false statement that Lashon Ha-Ra, malicious speech, causes skin diseases: "Today, science has taught us to know better." But then, Andy pointed out the current national crisis of anti-vaccinations, or the groups sometimes referred to as "anti-vaxxers." He wrote: "Yet in today's world, the gossip of anti-vaccers [sic] are causing another form of leprosy, [namely] measles and mumps and chicken pox." And indeed, I completely concur, and I am so grateful to Andy for this fabulous insight. Gossip isn't just limited to "I saw so-and-so cheating on a test!" There is also a much, much more insidious form of gossip, and it is plaguing us all right now.

I find it tremendously upsetting and infuriating to hear about some of the misinformation that has been willfully spread about the "dangers" of vaccines. These range from

injections causing autism, to tissue from aborted fetuses being used in vaccines, to monkey, rat, and pig DNA being part of the serum injected into children. What is particularly toxic is that there sometimes is a kernel of truth somewhere deeeeeep inside this propaganda, which is then magnified into a massive conspiracy, often specifically targeted at enclave communities that are distrustful of outsiders and not always well-educated. This health crisis is indeed a real-life, modern-day manifestation of the rabbinic idea of "Motzi Sheim Ra" leading to Metzora! Hard to wrap your head around, I know, but here we are. The spreading of lies, misconstrued data, and debunked myths have indeed led to physical diseases. I won't list here all the reasons why the anti-vaxxer movement is incredibly dangerous and scary, but please do read about it online, if you aren't already familiar or aren't sure what to think.

Perhaps the most important lesson from Metzora is that we all live in a society. Our decisions affect what happens to others. We increase everyone's opportunities to survive and thrive when we work together.

We can do SO much good! And we can cause tremendous harm as well... especially when selfish behavior leads to disastrous decisions. Remember that we share our communities, and we share this planet. It doesn't just matter what's best for YOU and YOUR family. We all rely on one another, and we need to take that responsibility very, very seriously every, single day. This is also a startling, yet important, reminder that our words MATTER. What we say and share and post and tweet and promulgate; these can have real-life, direct, and serious consequences. Our definition of "gossip" needs to change, and so does our vigilance against allowing it to spread... and we need to start right now.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. mohamed hassan on pxhere.com
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wikimedia Commons
3. pixnio.com
4. Cavernia on Wikimedia Commons - picture of how "herd immunity" works...

Tazria (Rosh Chodesh & Ha-Chodesh): To This Day, I Can Still Remember It!

Memory is a very, VERY powerful force. Your own personal memories of your childhood, education, relationships, life experiences; these all join together to form a very foundational core of individual identity.

The same is actually true for groups and entire communities. A shared narrative around how *we* came into existence, what we've been through, and how that memory is passed down from one generation to the next; these are also essential principles for collective identity. Right now, as we get ready to celebrate Passover, we are arguably reviewing the most central, epitomizing, and formative memory that we're all meant to share: Slavery in Egypt, God punishing our enemies and freeing us from oppression, and our subsequent coalescing into a nation, a people, during our time baking in the desert sun for 40 years. But what if, metaphorically-speaking, we DON'T remember?? What if this story has no meaning or impact on us, or we simply do not see how it's supposed to still be relevant? What then?

The hard truth is, no one can MAKE a person embrace someone else's memory. Our theme this year is "Radical Honesty," right? If you don't see the value in this

shared narrative, then I'm not going to waste my breath (or typing) trying to beg, plead, and implore you to take it on. Every one of us has to CHOOSE to make meaning of our tradition... or not. The Pesach Seder can be a transformative, time-traveling, value-centering, memory-making, tradition-bequeathing, powerful, crescendo-to-the-entire-Jewish-year type experience... or it can be dinner on a Friday. One thing is for sure; the Torah, the ancient rabbis, and all of Jewish ritual, pedagogy, and storytelling-ability is working overtime to try to make this story relevant to YOU. The Passover narrative is SO important to us. We tell and retell and retell and retell this communal memory (possibly ad nauseam...) so that even the very act of reciting the story should convey how much we care about it!!

This weekend, we have arrived at the last of four special Shabbatot before Pesach (though actually there's one more to come...). Each of the four comes with a special Maftir reading, which is tacked on to the end of the regular Torah portion.

This Shabbat, known as "Ha-Chodesh," draws its unique reading from Exodus 12:1-20, which illustrates my point about collective memory quite perfectly. God is speaking to Moses and Aaron while still in Egypt. That part is important. God gives them the basic rituals of the Seder - most of which we still retain "to this day" - and God also emphasizes that "you shall celebrate it as a festival to Adonai throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time" (v. 14). The text deliberately goes back and forth between talking to an audience (supposedly) still in slavery in Egypt, and every subsequent generation ever; including you and me in 2019. It interweaves rituals unique to the literal slaves in literal Egypt, with customs that are meant to be repeated by metaphorical "slaves" in metaphorical "Egypt." Rabbis, throughout the millenia, then mimic that behavior, constantly addressing a specific audience wherever and whenever they lived... AND adding traditions and practices that are meant to stand the test of time. And yes, we're still doing that "to this day."

Now, I keep putting "to this day" in quotes, because that phrase is used multiple times in our Maftir reading, and indeed throughout the Bible. But also because that phrase itself is a metaphor. When was the original "this day" about which

they're talking? Who knows? And frankly, who cares? "This day" is TODAY. On Friday, April 5th, 2019, if that IS when you're reading this, or any subsequent day when you get to this blog post, and any other day for that matter. The point is, all of Jewish tradition wants YOU (yes, YOU-YOU) to take ownership of this memory, of the Exodus from Egypt. I still can't make you do it. You can still "just" go have dinner on Friday, April 19th. But please know that this was important enough to *all* our ancestors, and to *all* our teachers past, present, and future, to want to keep passing it along to every new generation. Despite oppression, despite apathy, despite a million other things competing for your attention and time; Judaism wants you to know: THIS. STORY. MATTERS. So maybe you can do me one small favor? Before you make a decision one way or another, just think back for a second, really, really hard... You sure you weren't there, leaving bondage in Egypt and wandering through the desert??? Are you 100% sure? I could have sworn I saw you there... Oh well. And hey, if you don't remember it on "this day," maybe one day you will.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. BnB on Pixabay
2. Corey Seeman on Flickr
3. Pxhere
4. ColumbiaStahrArtwork on Wikipedia