madlik

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Welcome to Madlik.

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My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish
text or tradition.

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Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast
platform and now on YouTube and Substack.

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We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria, and a link is included in the show notes.

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This week we read Parshat Ha’Azinu, Moses’ final song.

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It begins by calling upon heaven and earth, retells the creation of Israel in language
that echoes the creation of the world, and ends with three deeply

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ambiguous words, ve-khiper admato amo, and he will cleanse his people’s ground, or perhaps
he will cleanse the ground of his people.

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Ha’Azinu suggests that Israel’s story recapitulates humanity’s story.

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Adam was placed in Eden to serve and protect it, as was Israel placed in the promised
land.

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Neither humanity nor Israel possesses its home unconditionally.

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Both are stewards and both are subject to eviction when they betray what was entrusted to
them.

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As we approach Yom Kippur, the day of kapparah, we generally ask whether God will cleanse us.

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Ha’Azinu poses a much more unsettling question.

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What if the earth must be cleansed from us?

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So join us as we discuss and the earth will be cleansed, Ha’Azinu, Yom Kippur, and the point
of no return.

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And if Madlik lights a spark for you, please subscribe on YouTube, Substack, or your
favorite podcast platform, and share this episode with someone who enjoys looking at the

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Torah from a different angle.

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Rabbi, Rosh Hashanah is over, and here we are.

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Today is Tzom Gedaliah, and we’re back to Devarim.

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how are you, Shanah tovah?

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Shanah tovah, this is a big one because of course this Shabbat is the last, the last
portion that’ll be read on a Shabbat.

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The last portion of V’Zot HaBracha is read, of course, on Simchat Torah.

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So this is a big one, everybody.

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Let’s get going.

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And this is a song.

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And most of us will know in the morning liturgy we sing the Shirat HaYam, the song of the
Red Sea.

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Maybe some of us know the song of Devorah, but this is a big deal when the Torah puts
inside of itself

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A song.

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So I’m gonna backtrack just a few pesukim before our portion begins, because the
introduction to it actually is contained at the end of last week’s parsha.

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So in Devarim 31:19, it says, Therefore, write down this poem, this Shira, and teach it to
the people of Israel.

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Put it in their mouths in order that this poem may be my witness against the people of
Israel.

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Ha-shirah ha-zot le’ed bivnei Yisrael.

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When I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey that I promised an oath to
their fathers, and they eat their fill and grow fat and turn to other gods and serve them,

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spurning me and breaking my covenant, and the many evils and troubles befall them, then
this poem, this Shira, shall confront them as a witness, since it will never be lost from

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the mouth of their offspring.

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For I know what

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plans they are devising even now before I bring them into the land that I promised an
oath.

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This was truly one literary unit.

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It was a song.

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And Moses had the confidence to say that you’re gonna remember this song.

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Forget about everything else that I’ve said.

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Somehow you’re gonna take this piece of poetry with you.

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And most of us will recognize the beginning of it at least.

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but it is a beautiful, but as I learnt this year, it’s a powerful song.

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But shirah is important when it has one of these literary units.

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Of course, now if we know that there are only two poems of the Torah, this and Oz
Yashir, when the Jews cross the sea.

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So that just highlights the fact that this is special.

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And in the Torah scroll itself, the only two places where it’s not written just as
paragraph form, but it’s actually written in two columns as

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As a poem is again Oz Yashir and here it has.

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So if you get called to the Torah, this Shabbat, you will see that the Torah it looks
different in the scroll, which is amazing.

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Perfect.

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So it starts Ha’Azinu, Hashamayam V’adabera, give ear, O heavens, let me speak, let the earth
hear the words I utter.

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May my discourse come down as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like showers on your
growth, like droplets on the grass.

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For the name of the Eternal I proclaim, give glory to your God, the rock, the
Selah, whose deeds are perfect, yea, all of whose ways are just, a faithful God never

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false, true and upright indeed.

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So he’s really called the celestial powers, the whole earth, as a witness.

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And then he begins really what he’s going after, which is this is a warning to take with
you, as we saw in the introductory verses.

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Unworthy children, that crooked, perverse generation, their baseness has played God false.

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Do you thus requit God or dull and witless people?

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Is not this the Father who created you, fashioned you, and made you endure?

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So we’re getting many touch points, as I said in the intro, that will kind of make us feel
that we’re playing with creation.

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When you bring heaven and earth to bear on you.

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When you talk about rain and dew falling on new growth and grass, he says, remember the
days of old, consider the years of ages past, ask your parent who will inform you, your

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elders who will tell you.

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So it’s paternal and maternal also.

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When the Most High gave nations their inheritance, at his dividing the human race,

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He stationed boundaries for peoples by the number of gods.

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In our Masoretic Text, it says that by the number of the children of Israel, we’re going to see
that in other versions it says the children of gods.

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But now he’s hearkening back to what we’ll be reading in a few weeks when the earth was
divided into different languages.

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And there was a tradition that there were angels that took.

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care of every nation.

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in verse 9, it continues for the eternal’s portion is this people, Jacob, God’s own
allotment.

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God found them in a desert region, in an empty, howling waste.

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When he refers to this howling waste of the desert, it says, b’tohu, which again, those
of us who are preparing for two weeks from now, we refer to Genesis, where—

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in the beginning—God created the world—it was tohu va-vohu.

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So he’s really talking about creating the world, but also creating the Jewish people out
of nothing in the desert, then engirded them, watched over them, guarded them as the pupil

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of one’s eye, like an eagle who rouses its nest, gliding down to its young.

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We’ll see that Ibn Ezra says “yerachef” recalls “merachefet”, that God’s spirit hovered
over the planet and its young.

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God spread wings and took them, bore them along on pinions.

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So there’s a lot of imagery here that harkens back to the big story, the big story of
creation.

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It’s really powerful.

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Amazing.

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I just want to say, Uve-tohu yelel yeshimon, that the word tohu has not been used since
the first chapter of Bereishit, which is really remarkable.

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Wow.

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That makes it that much more powerful for sure.

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So I based a lot.

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Of my readings on the JPS commentary of Jeffrey Tigay, a real scholar.

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And he makes note that this poem is different than the rest of Deuteronomy,
and it should be because it’s a Shirah, it’s a different format.

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he says that the theme of covenant is not which is central to Deuteronomy, is not
mentioned here.

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He’s hearkening back to creation more than covenant.

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the frequent Deuteronomic references to Exodus and the patriarchs and the fact that
God promised the land has no echo here.

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The conception of the punishment is also different.

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We’re going to get to that in a second.

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In Ha’Azinu it’s limited to war and natural disasters in the land, whereas elsewhere in
Deuteronomy there is exile and return.

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And the point that he’s trying to make is not only is Ha’Azinu independent in its
composition, he feels it’s older than the rest of Deuteronomy.

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We’ve come across this concept before.

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Shirat HaYam is considered older because it’s brought into the text.

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The Bikkurim that we visited a few weeks ago, it’s considered older because again, it’s a
formula that you’re reciting.

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he says the concluding description, which we haven’t gotten to yet, about Israel’s
deliverance implies it was probably composed after a particular disaster to offer an

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explanation of hope and deliverance.

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Quite likely it was adopted by Deuteronomy because it explained a disaster in theologically meaningful terms.

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He says that the poem is older than Deuteronomy, is also suggested by its affinities with
several other books in the Bible.

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Among them parallels in the book of Hosea.

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So he brings down a bunch of prophets that also talk about I bring to witness the heaven
and the earth and all that.

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And what he argues is several prophets and psalmists were influenced by one classic poem.

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Since they’re all saying something similar, you can make the case they all
saw the Mona Lisa because all of their art kind of reflects a different variation on what

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they all saw together.

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Correct.

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That’s really good.

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Okay, very, very good.

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So this is something old and it’s something that stands on its own.

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Even Josephus says that Moses read them a poetic song which was composed in hexameter
verse and left it to them in the holy book.

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He goes on to say he delivered these books to the priests with the ark into which he also
put the Ten Commandments written on two tablets.

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He delivered them to the tabernacle.

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So we have a tradition that this Shira was almost housed in its own scroll, that it was
set beside the Ten Commandments, and I would say the fragments of the Ten Commandments

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that were in the tabernacle.

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It really did have an independent power to it.

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And Tigay says something that struck me.

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He talks about how this was used in later times and he does reference Josephus, but he goes
on to say that rabbinic sources report that the Levites read parts of the poem in the

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temple while the additional Musaf offering was made on Shabbat.

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They completed it over a six week cycle and then began again.

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This is something that I was not aware of, that this really on its own.

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Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s great.

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Okay.

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And then he goes on to say that in one of the Qumran manuscripts that they found with the
Essenes, it apparently contained only this Shira, only this poem, and was not part of a

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longer Torah scroll.

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So it really was independent.

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Well, I didn’t know that.

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So that this stood on its own for the people in Qumran.

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That’s fantastic.

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Yep.

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Perhaps it was used for the reading the poem on some similar occasion.

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And then he goes on, nowadays Ha’Azinu or the preceding Torah portion, Vayelech is read on the
Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and this I did not know.

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In the Sephardic liturgy, it is read on the ninth of Av during the morning service in
place of Shirat HaYam, in place of the song of the sea, and

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That I did not ever realize.

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I didn’t know that either.

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That’s amazing.

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So we learn a lot from Edot HaMizrach.

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we did last week and we’re learning this week as well.

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What that means is that number one, they inherently understood it stood on the same level
as Shirat HaYam, but it had a different function.

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And when you are talking about Tisha B’Av and the destruction of the temple, and you wanna
say this is what happens, it’s not time for Shirat HaYam, where we

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see the manifestation of God and miracles.

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It’s for this song, which we will see, was very humbling, very profoundly unsettling.

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but I love that they absolutely replaced Shirat HaYam with Ha’Azinu on Tisha B’Av.

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Yeah, that is fantastic.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I mean and you see that it’s the two songs.

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They’re very familiar with it.

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One replaces the other because they’re both the songs of the Torah.

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Okay, let’s take it away and let’s see about exile.

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And now back to our podcast.

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So we’re not going to quote the whole shirah, but we’re gonna pick up at verse 15, pasuk 15,
it says, and then Yeshurun grew fat and kicked, you grew fat and gross and coarse.

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So really, this is according to those that say this was very old.

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It was before.

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The Israelites were even exiled.

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But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t rebelling.

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And it doesn’t mean that they weren’t suffering military defeats or natural disasters and
they were trying to make sense of them.

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You guys got too comfortable.

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You were fat and gross and coarse, you forsook God, spurned the Rock, the rock of your
support.

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You kindled wrath with alien things, provoked anger with abominations.

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They sacrificed to demons, no-gods, gods they had never known, new ones who came but
lately, who stirred not your father’s fears.

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You neglected the rock who begot you, forgot the God who labored to bring you forth again,
these kind of creation and birthing metaphors.

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God saw and was vexed and spurned these sons and daughters.

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God says, I will hide My countenance from them.

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And see how they fare in the end, for they are a treacherous breed, talking about the
Israelites, children with no loyalty in them.

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They incensed me with no-gods, b’lo El, vexed me with their futilities.

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I’ll incense them with a no-folk, b’lo am.

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Very poetic and very kind of almost modern and contemporary in the languages.

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You want a no god, I’m gonna give you a no nation.

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vex them with a nation of fools, for a fire has flared from my wrath and burned to the
bottom of Sheol, the pit’s consumed the earth and increased, eaten down the base of the

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hills, will sweep misfortune upon them, use up my arrows on them.

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and so really this is a hard message that Moshe is giving.

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This Shira is not a song to dance to.

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and then it goes on towards the end and it says, See then that I, I am He.

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There is no God beside me.

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I deal death and give life.

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Sounds a little bit like what we’ve been doing over the last few days.

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Ani amit va-achayeh.

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I wounded and I will heal.

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No one can deliver from my hand.

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It fits perfectly that the cycle of reading the Torah comes right between Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur.

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And we hear God speaking in this manner.

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I raise my hand to heaven and I say, as I live forever, when I wet my flashing blade and
my hands lay hold on judgment, vengeance will I wreak on My foes, will I deal to those

200
00:17:58,650 –> 00:17:59,440
who reject me?

201
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I will make my arrows drunk with blood.

202
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this is real strong language of taking.

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00:18:05,222 –> 00:18:08,165
revenge for those misdeeds.

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It’s not a hundred percent clear if it’s our enemies or if it’s us, as my sword devours
flesh, blood of the slain and the captive from the long haired enemy chiefs.

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00:18:17,593 –> 00:18:19,914
O nations, acclaim His people.

206
00:18:19,914 –> 00:18:30,733
Now he’s clearly talking about the nations of the world who will learn the lesson, for God
will avenge the bloods of those servants, wreak vengeance on opponents, and this is where

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00:18:30,733 –> 00:18:31,344
it ends.

208
00:18:31,344 –> 00:18:33,826
The punchline is in our text

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00:18:33,826 –> 00:18:52,181
Ve-khiper admato amo and cleanse this people’s land or cleanse the land of the people, or we
will see all of the various different interpretations because it’s not clear who the

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subject is and who the object is here.

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00:18:55,965 –> 00:18:56,645
Correct.

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And you know that we use that verse every Shabbat in the prayer of Av HaRachamim.

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00:19:02,850 –> 00:19:08,792
Which is the memorial prayer for those who were killed in the crusades, the kiper
admato.

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00:19:08,792 –> 00:19:16,376
Somehow the death, the suffering of the Jewish people is in itself a form of atonement.

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00:19:16,376 –> 00:19:22,368
And of course, we have to mention kiper comes from the same root as the word we use on Yom Kippur.

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00:19:22,368 –> 00:19:23,338
Correct.

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00:19:23,338 –> 00:19:32,362
So it can mean cleanse, and it can mean the day of a judgment, it can be

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00:19:32,566 –> 00:19:34,767
to get forgiveness.

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00:19:34,817 –> 00:19:38,209
it’s a profound word that affects us all in these days.

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00:19:38,209 –> 00:19:44,313
so Rabbi Zev Farber writes an article in TheTorah.com.

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It’s called Ha’Azinu the Song’s Enigmatic Climax.

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00:19:48,415 –> 00:19:53,278
And he brings all of the different texts.

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00:19:53,278 –> 00:19:59,852
He says the Torah, the text that we have ends with the phrase, Ve-khiper admato amo

224
00:19:59,852 –> 00:20:03,804
This final phrase is doubly ambiguous.

225
00:20:03,804 –> 00:20:12,369
Both the subject and the object of the verb kaper, which means to atone or
cleanse, is unclear.

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00:20:12,369 –> 00:20:15,891
Who exactly will be cleansing what?

227
00:20:15,891 –> 00:20:19,082
He says it as succinctly as you can.

228
00:20:19,082 –> 00:20:23,815
he says we need to consider three possible subjects here.

229
00:20:23,815 –> 00:20:29,278
It could be God that is cleansing the land and the people.

230
00:20:29,298 –> 00:20:37,155
And true enough, he claims that Onkelos, this is the interpretation that he gives, he
combines the two of them.

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00:20:37,155 –> 00:20:44,591
And he says, God atones or cleanses his people and his land, or his land and his people.

232
00:20:44,591 –> 00:20:49,154
But it’s not clear from the language itself if that’s the case.

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00:20:49,154 –> 00:20:58,740
a variant reading is in the Samaritan Pentateuch and in the version found in Qumran.

234
00:20:59,594 –> 00:21:07,917
In the Dead Sea scrolls, it says “me-amo”, he will cleanse the land of his people.

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00:21:07,917 –> 00:21:10,138
Rabbi, that is revolutionary.

236
00:21:10,138 –> 00:21:12,478
Right, that’s a whole peshat, correct.

237
00:21:12,478 –> 00:21:14,518
That is totally different.

238
00:21:14,518 –> 00:21:25,012
And in the Septuagint, which is what our Christian brothers and sisters base their thing
on, it says, and the Lord shall purge the land of his people.

239
00:21:25,026 –> 00:21:32,270
Really something that should to use biblical language should set our teeth on edge.

240
00:21:32,270 –> 00:21:35,002
And that’s what the scholar before said.

241
00:21:35,002 –> 00:21:41,876
It doesn’t talk of exile, but it talks of expunging the Israelites from the land.

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00:21:41,876 –> 00:21:45,878
Very, very powerful and unnerving.

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00:21:45,878 –> 00:21:53,002
So my argument is going to be that Ha’Azinu in a brilliant manner.

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00:21:53,156 –> 00:22:05,146
marries the creation of the world and God creating the world for humankind and the
creation of the Jewish people and God creating the promised land for them.

245
00:22:05,146 –> 00:22:19,486
And in both cases, what he’s arguing on a macro and a micro level is if we don’t clean up
our act, if we don’t act in accordance with his desire when he created us,

246
00:22:19,486 –> 00:22:23,466
We should not think that everything revolves around us.

247
00:22:23,466 –> 00:22:28,674
he created the world and he put us in there to watch over it.

248
00:22:28,674 –> 00:22:32,717
And if we don’t watch over it properly, we will get lost.

249
00:22:32,717 –> 00:22:35,999
the world might continue, but it will be without us.

250
00:22:35,999 –> 00:22:37,501
Without us, right.

251
00:22:37,501 –> 00:22:40,743
Which is a fascinating, I would say, paradigm shift.

252
00:22:40,743 –> 00:22:49,280
So what I wanted to go through is quickly go through some of the commentaries who really
pick up on the I would say, hints.

253
00:22:49,280 –> 00:22:52,092
That the beginning is talking about creation.

254
00:22:52,092 –> 00:23:02,467
When it says “esev” that God put his presence down like dew and watered the land, a single
stalk is called “esev”, says Rashi.

255
00:23:02,467 –> 00:23:06,960
similarly, each species of herbs by itself is called “esev”.

256
00:23:06,960 –> 00:23:18,146
And he compares, at least the translator compares us to look at Rashi on Genesis 1:11,
where it talks about the vegetation on the face of the earth.

257
00:23:18,288 –> 00:23:33,077
Ibn Ezra, when it describes God hovering like an eagle over its young, says that “yerachef” is related to the word

258
00:23:33,077 –> 00:23:39,951
“merachefet” in Genesis 1:2. The cloud of glory did likewise when Israel journeyed.

259
00:23:39,951 –> 00:23:46,216
He makes an exact parallel between God creating in the desert and protecting.

260
00:23:46,216 –> 00:23:49,848
And the creation story.

261
00:23:49,848 –> 00:24:05,197
And finally, you know, I will say that even the word create, it says God found
him in the wilderness, yimtza’ehu be’eretz midbar, uve-tohu yelel yeshimon, yesovevenhu yevonenehu, yitzrenhu ke-ishon

262
00:24:05,197 –> 00:24:06,117
eino.

263
00:24:06,117 –> 00:24:09,269
He guarded him as the pupil of his eye and surrounded him.

264
00:24:09,269 –> 00:24:15,262
This “yitzrenhu”—“formed him”— evokes the formation of Adam.

265
00:24:19,165 –> 00:24:29,482
So clearly the beginning of this thing is putting us all on notice, whether as a human
being or as an Israelite, that we were all created by God.

266
00:24:29,482 –> 00:24:33,525
He protected us, he watered the earth upon which we live.

267
00:24:33,525 –> 00:24:36,559
and that’s who is talking to us.

268
00:24:36,559 –> 00:24:40,599
we are being addressed by the creator.

269
00:24:40,840 –> 00:24:44,074
So I’ll just say that this idea.

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00:24:44,074 –> 00:24:54,059
That there this connection to creation is really the idea that the purpose of creation is
for the Jews to enter the land of Israel.

271
00:24:54,059 –> 00:25:04,403
So we use all of the verbs from creation here to say that God created the world in order
that the Jews should come to the land of Israel.

272
00:25:04,403 –> 00:25:10,668
In the Yom Kippur davening, there’s a part of the Yom Kippur davening in the afternoon in the
Musaf.

273
00:25:10,668 –> 00:25:12,769
Which is a which is a very hard part.

274
00:25:12,769 –> 00:25:14,399
It’s the poetic part.

275
00:25:14,399 –> 00:25:18,599
It talks about the service of the high priest in the Holy of Holies.

276
00:25:18,599 –> 00:25:25,122
Yom Kippur was the one day a year where the high priest actually went into the Holy of
Holies and asked God to forgive the Jewish people.

277
00:25:25,122 –> 00:25:32,524
And in as an introductory paragraph that actually was written about a thousand years ago,
what talks about this service.

278
00:25:32,524 –> 00:25:34,885
And it does an amazing thing, Geoffrey.

279
00:25:34,885 –> 00:25:38,966
It starts by talking about creation, Adam and Eve.

280
00:25:38,966 –> 00:25:41,668
And it goes to the story of creation.

281
00:25:41,668 –> 00:25:52,437
And it gives you the impression that the reason that God created the world was so that
the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur.

282
00:25:52,437 –> 00:26:03,756
So that literary technique of connecting things to creation, giving the impression that
the entire purpose of creation is this.

283
00:26:03,756 –> 00:26:11,729
Whether it’s the Jews entering the land or the high priests entering the
holy of holies, it’s a very it’s a similar strategy, which is amazing.

284
00:26:11,729 –> 00:26:15,651
A strategy that’s used by the Torah and later on used by the rabbis.

285
00:26:15,651 –> 00:26:22,834
And I think that it’s amazing and I can’t wait to focus on that piyyut or
that argument.

286
00:26:22,834 –> 00:26:26,475
But what it does, rabbi, is it also raises the stakes.

287
00:26:26,475 –> 00:26:33,478
Because that means that if we don’t fulfill our promise and we don’t live up to our
tafkid,

288
00:26:33,478 –> 00:26:37,061
our role—what we’re supposed to be doing, we can lose it all.

289
00:26:37,061 –> 00:26:40,063
We can lose the land of Israel and we can lose the earth.

290
00:26:40,063 –> 00:26:42,245
It raises the stakes.

291
00:26:42,245 –> 00:26:57,196
And I want to make an argument that this sense of the land being cleansed of the people
because they didn’t live up to their potential and actually did damage is actually a very

292
00:26:57,196 –> 00:26:59,968
strong thread in in the Torah.

293
00:26:59,968 –> 00:27:06,410
We all know obviously about Adam and Eve and God in the Garden of Eden and being expelled.

294
00:27:06,410 –> 00:27:14,142
and we can talk about in search of Eden and back to Eden, but the truth is it was a
one-way street.

295
00:27:14,142 –> 00:27:18,218
We were expelled, mortality was created.

296
00:27:18,218 –> 00:27:20,104
It was.. you’ve lost it.

297
00:27:20,104 –> 00:27:28,926
And I wanna say that there’s a strong thread, even in the halakhah, that if we don’t treat
the land properly, we will be expunged.

298
00:27:28,926 –> 00:27:37,253
So the most obvious one is in Leviticus 25, and it’s talking about the laws of the
sabbatical, the Shemitah.

299
00:27:37,253 –> 00:27:42,506
And it says, But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is mine.

300
00:27:42,506 –> 00:27:46,266
you are but strangers resident with me.

301
00:27:46,266 –> 00:27:56,786
and then you know it says ki li ha’aretz, and then it says that speak to the
Israelite children.

302
00:27:56,786 –> 00:28:03,269
and say to them, When you enter the land that I assign you, the land shall observe a
Sabbath day.

303
00:28:03,269 –> 00:28:07,431
We could easily make this a turn of phrase, something poetry.

304
00:28:07,431 –> 00:28:12,493
But I want to give ourselves the humility here that we all think the world is created for
us.

305
00:28:12,493 –> 00:28:20,036
Sometimes we have to think the world was created and we were given the obligation to be
stewards of it.

306
00:28:20,046 –> 00:28:25,090
and in this case, if you read the peshat, it says the land.

307
00:28:25,090 –> 00:28:27,151
Has to keep its Shabbat.

308
00:28:27,351 –> 00:28:40,159
And it goes on to say that when I scatter you among the nations, in Leviticus 26, it says,
and I will unsheath the sword against you, your land shall become a desolation and your

309
00:28:40,159 –> 00:28:41,120
cities a ruin.

310
00:28:41,120 –> 00:28:42,540
Here’s the punchline.

311
00:28:42,540 –> 00:28:49,665
Then shall the land make up for its Sabbath years through the time that it is desolate,
and you are in the land of your enemies.

312
00:28:49,665 –> 00:28:52,162
Then shall the land rest and make up.

313
00:28:52,162 –> 00:28:53,984
For its Sabbath years.

314
00:28:53,984 –> 00:29:02,171
It really does focus on the power and the principle of the land itself in these laws.

315
00:29:02,171 –> 00:29:12,641
In Leviticus eighteen, again it says, Thus the land became defiled, and I called it to
account for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants.

316
00:29:12,641 –> 00:29:18,616
Va-taki ha’aretz et yoshveha, and it goes on in verse 27.

317
00:29:18,616 –> 00:29:30,236
For all those abhorrent things were done by the people who were in the land before you,
and the land became defiled, so let not the land spew you out for defiling it, as it

318
00:29:30,236 –> 00:29:32,718
spewed out the nation that came before you.

319
00:29:32,718 –> 00:29:38,182
This really connects it in a way that Exodus story does not to the Canaanites.

320
00:29:38,182 –> 00:29:45,849
The Canaanites—you only had a right to take the land from the Canaanites because
they are doing what you’re doing now.

321
00:29:45,849 –> 00:29:47,886
They didn’t live up.

322
00:29:47,886 –> 00:29:50,128
To the promise of the land.

323
00:29:50,128 –> 00:29:54,972
it’s really powerful and fascinating.

324
00:29:54,972 –> 00:29:58,174
And in numbers it actually uses our language.

325
00:29:58,174 –> 00:30:05,580
You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land and the land
can have no expiation.

326
00:30:05,580 –> 00:30:07,621
It says “lo yekhappar”.

327
00:30:08,108 –> 00:30:17,691
For blood that is shed on it, except for the blood of the one who shed it, you shall not
defile the land in which you live, in which I myself abide, for I, God, abide among the

328
00:30:17,691 –> 00:30:18,721
Israelite people.

329
00:30:18,721 –> 00:30:27,984
It’s a powerful way of looking at the creation, but also of the world, but also creation
of the land of Israel.

330
00:30:27,984 –> 00:30:32,025
That we are stewards, and if we don’t live up to our promise, we’re out.

331
00:30:32,786 –> 00:30:33,730
Amazing.

332
00:30:33,730 –> 00:30:42,555
This is such a good topic and such a good way to wrap up the Torah or to get to the last
the last chapter, which will get ready for Simchat Torah.

333
00:30:42,555 –> 00:30:49,279
So Yekhuppar, kipper, kippurim, the purpose of creation is us.

334
00:30:49,279 –> 00:30:51,980
Really beautiful Yom Kippur ideas.

335
00:30:52,280 –> 00:30:56,803
And one of the Midrashim that I came across was fascinating.

336
00:30:56,803 –> 00:31:03,156
In Kohelet Rabbah, it says, see the work of God for who can mend what He has warped.

337
00:31:03,156 –> 00:31:09,092
Re’eh et ma’aseh ha-Elohim, ki mi yukhal letakken et asher ivveto.

338
00:31:09,092 –> 00:31:10,794
It says, See the works of God.

339
00:31:10,794 –> 00:31:21,204
When the holy one, blessed be he, created Adam the first man, he took him and showed him
all the trees in the Garden of Eden, and he said to him, See my creations, how beautiful

340
00:31:21,204 –> 00:31:22,890
and exemplary they are.

341
00:31:22,890 –> 00:31:25,411
Everything I created, I created for you.

342
00:31:25,411 –> 00:31:29,373
Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy my world.

343
00:31:29,373 –> 00:31:33,850
For if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you.

344
00:31:33,850 –> 00:31:39,277
I kind of think the end of Ha’Azinu, Rabbi, is almost like a mic drop.

345
00:31:39,277 –> 00:31:47,341
It’s almost like, and the earth will cleanse itself of you; full stop.

346
00:31:47,341 –> 00:31:48,401
This is the moment.

347
00:31:48,401 –> 00:31:50,104
This is the moment of Ne’ilah.

348
00:31:50,104 –> 00:31:51,785
Ne’ilah—we have to fix it.

349
00:31:51,785 –> 00:31:57,789
We look around the world we live in and there are so many things that need our fixing,
global things.

350
00:31:57,789 –> 00:32:03,684
I don’t know if it’s… whatever the issue, because I don’t want to be stuck in
environmentalism.

351
00:32:03,684 –> 00:32:05,125
It’s much bigger than that.

352
00:32:05,125 –> 00:32:08,287
It’s the way we’re acting.

353
00:32:08,287 –> 00:32:18,456
It’s almost as if Ha’Azinu is making this move from the individual to the many.

354
00:32:18,456 –> 00:32:26,313
From the people of Israel writ small for what the humanity is writ large.

355
00:32:26,313 –> 00:32:31,778
And it makes a wonderful parallel that if we fail, there is no recourse.

356
00:32:31,778 –> 00:32:36,022
There’s no next year, there’s no return from exile.

357
00:32:36,022 –> 00:32:38,964
And that makes it so unique and special.

358
00:32:38,964 –> 00:32:45,550
And I think that’s what gives it such an edge, and it makes it so fascinating that it

359
00:32:45,550 –> 00:32:47,631
comes right before Yom Kippur.

360
00:32:47,631 –> 00:32:51,192
It uses the word kapparah of cleansing, but guess what?

361
00:32:51,192 –> 00:32:53,372
It’s not cleansing us.

362
00:32:53,372 –> 00:32:55,893
It’s cleansing the world of us.

363
00:32:55,893 –> 00:32:59,214
And that has to be a powerful mirror to look at.

364
00:32:59,214 –> 00:33:04,936
And we have to say, are we gonna fix ourselves or is there no one left to fix it?

365
00:33:04,936 –> 00:33:06,556
And that’s powerful.

366
00:33:06,596 –> 00:33:07,716
Amazing.

367
00:33:07,716 –> 00:33:09,517
Shabbat shalom everybody.

368
00:33:09,517 –> 00:33:13,110
G’mar chatimah tovah have an easy and meaningful fast.

369
00:33:13,110 –> 00:33:15,692
And we look forward to circling back to you after the fast.

370
00:33:15,692 –> 00:33:21,897
This was a perfect pre-Parshat Ha’Azinu, pre-Yom Kippur learning together.

371
00:33:21,897 –> 00:33:25,741
We’ll see you all next time when we finish the book of Devarim.

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00:33:25,741 –> 00:33:30,905
So have an easy fast, a meaningful fast, and we’ll all see you.

373
00:33:30,905 –> 00:33:31,875
Is it next week?

374
00:33:31,875 –> 00:33:35,108
Do we have No, I think next week is before Sukkot.

375
00:33:35,108 –> 00:33:38,991
It’ll be in two weeks before Simchat Torah will finish up the Torah.

376
00:33:38,991 –> 00:33:39,702
Amazing.

377
00:33:39,702 –> 00:33:42,644
Shabbat shalom and tzom tov.

378
00:33:45,582 –> 00:33:54,567
So let me ask you personally, what do you think is the existential issue facing us today,
as human beings or as Jews?

379
00:33:54,627 –> 00:34:03,892
What will determine whether we can still change and be cleansed, or whether we’ve waited
too long and the earth needs to be cleansed of us?

380
00:34:04,112 –> 00:34:06,313
I’d really love to hear what you think.

381
00:34:06,313 –> 00:34:10,135
So please share your answers in the comments.

382
00:34:10,156 –> 00:34:12,657
And have a shanah tovah.

9
00:01:03,116 --> 00:01:04,327
Welcome to Madlik.

10
00:01:04,327 --> 00:01:10,633
My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish
text or tradition.

11
00:01:10,633 --> 00:01:18,060
Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast
platform and now on YouTube and Substack.

12
00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:23,785
We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria and a link is included in the show notes.

13
00:01:23,785 --> 00:01:29,780
If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe and feel free to give us a star or two.

14
00:01:29,794 --> 00:01:43,706
This week we read Parshat Ki Tavo and encounter Mikra Bikkurim, a first-person script that
begins the Exodus before Pharaoh and carries it forward into every generation.

15
00:01:43,706 --> 00:01:48,871
So join us for liberation, personal, and recurring.

16
00:01:48,871 --> 00:01:53,364
Well, Rabbi, it's almost Rosh Hashanah, and we're talking about Passover, as usual.

17
00:01:53,486 --> 00:01:54,019
Perfect.

18
00:01:54,019 --> 00:01:54,552
You know what?

19
00:01:54,552 --> 00:01:58,189
That just shows the Jewish calendar goes round and round.

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And I think maybe at the end we'll tie it into Rosh Hashanah.

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00:02:02,775 --> 00:02:06,928
So if you're in a Rosh Hashanah state of mind, stick with us.

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00:02:06,928 --> 00:02:18,285
So as I said, in Deuteronomy 26:1, it says, When you enter the land that the eternal your
God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle it.

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I mean, that's what Deuteronomy is all about.

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Instructions for when you actually get into the land.

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00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,564
You shall take some of your first fruit of the soil.

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00:02:27,564 --> 00:02:39,147
Which you harvest from the land that the Eternal Your God is giving you, put it in a
basket, and go to the place where the Eternal Your God will choose to establish the divine

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name.

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00:02:39,918 --> 00:02:53,351
You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, "I acknowledge this day
before the Eternal Your God, that I have entered the land that God swore to our fathers to

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assign us."

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00:02:55,234 --> 00:03:01,836
The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of
the eternal your God.

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00:03:01,836 --> 00:03:06,257
You shall then recite as follows before the eternal your God.

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00:03:06,257 --> 00:03:09,178
"My father was a fugitive Aramean.

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00:03:09,178 --> 00:03:13,459
He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there.

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00:03:13,579 --> 00:03:17,380
But there he became a great and very populous nation.

35
00:03:17,380 --> 00:03:20,581
The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us.

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00:03:20,581 --> 00:03:23,702
They imposed heavy labor upon us.

37
00:03:23,702 --> 00:03:31,929
We cried to the Eternal, the God of our ancestors, and the Eternal heard our plea and saw
our plight, our misery and our oppression.

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00:03:31,929 --> 00:03:42,577
God freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power and by
signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with

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milk and honey.

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00:03:43,798 --> 00:03:49,642
And so I now bring the first fruits of the soil that You, O Eternal, have given me."

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00:03:49,702 --> 00:03:59,575
You shall leave the basket before the eternal your God and bow low before the eternal your
God, and you shall enjoy together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst all the

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00:03:59,575 --> 00:04:04,706
bounty that the Eternal Your God has bestowed upon you and your household.

43
00:04:04,706 --> 00:04:16,579
So the reason I say that this is I'd say iconic, but also an outlier, and I try to
emphasize the "I" is because it really is a formula.

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00:04:16,579 --> 00:04:18,690
Gerhard von Rad,

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00:04:18,690 --> 00:04:22,352
Was a great biblical critical scholar.

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00:04:22,352 --> 00:04:30,317
And he called this a little historical creed, or as he said in German, kleines geschichtliches Credo.

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00:04:30,317 --> 00:04:39,302
He believed it was an exceptionally early liturgical formula, subsequently incorporated
into Deuteronomy.

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00:04:39,302 --> 00:04:42,624
His argument rests on several observations.

49
00:04:42,624 --> 00:04:46,018
It has the compact form of an oral formula.

50
00:04:46,018 --> 00:04:53,442
Now, if you weren't following the screen, even in our translation, it puts the two
statements in it in quotation marks.

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00:04:53,442 --> 00:04:58,515
Rabbi, it really is a formula, kind of like a berakhah that you would do today.

52
00:04:58,515 --> 00:05:04,168
You would hold up your berakhah card in front of you or your siddur and you would read from
it.

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00:05:04,168 --> 00:05:06,369
It's a quote.

54
00:05:06,369 --> 00:05:07,630
It's compact.

55
00:05:07,630 --> 00:05:14,840
The declaration reduces Israel's foundational story to a short sequence: an Aramean
ancestor.

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00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:23,232
Descent into Egypt, multiplication into a nation, Egyptian oppression, Israel's cry, God's
deliverance, entrance into the land.

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00:05:23,232 --> 00:05:34,035
And for those of you who are knowledgeable with the Haggadah, if I had read it in
Hebrew, you would have recognized it from the Haggadah, where every phrase becomes a touch

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point for a comment.

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00:05:36,596 --> 00:05:43,882
It maintains no names, no dates, no genealogies, or narrative details.

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00:05:43,882 --> 00:05:55,816
says von Rad, because it's compressed, it has a rhythmical character, as typical of
something memorized and repeatedly recited in worship, rather than composed as ordinary

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00:05:55,816 --> 00:05:57,566
historical prose.

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00:05:57,566 --> 00:05:59,847
It is also attached to a ritual.

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00:05:59,847 --> 00:06:08,716
So these are all reasons that this scholar said there's something unique about this and he
thought it made it very old.

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00:06:08,716 --> 00:06:19,590
And of course, we do have in the Torah, such as, correct me if I'm wrong, Rabbi, Az Yashir
Moshe, which is the Song of the Sea, that scholars will say.

65
00:06:19,590 --> 00:06:21,240
It seems to be older.

66
00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,511
It's a text that was brought in.

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00:06:23,511 --> 00:06:29,593
And of course the Torah itself makes references to Sefer Milhamot, Sefer Melakhim.

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There is an understanding within even the Torah, even if you don't buy into biblical
criticism and the fact that some editor came along, clearly it does reference

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00:06:40,956 --> 00:06:44,077
pre-existing phrases, formulas.

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00:06:44,077 --> 00:06:46,817
And I think that's what he's kind of saying here.

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He thought this was very old.

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00:06:48,910 --> 00:06:49,280
Also

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that's for sure right.

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00:06:50,811 --> 00:06:53,314
Az Yashir is like this recitation.

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00:06:53,314 --> 00:06:55,396
It's not part of the story.

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00:06:55,396 --> 00:06:57,057
It's not part of the narrative.

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It's separate from the narrative.

78
00:06:58,649 --> 00:07:00,621
Az Yashir comes in the middle.

79
00:07:00,621 --> 00:07:03,473
Here also it's a recitation.

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00:07:03,473 --> 00:07:04,444
Where does that come from?

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00:07:04,444 --> 00:07:07,196
So that's kind of separate from the story.

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Absolutely.

83
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It's like Az Yashir Moshe.

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00:07:10,321 --> 00:07:13,244
They make it sound like this was a pre-existing song.

85
00:07:13,244 --> 00:07:15,667
Here it's a pre-existing formula.

86
00:07:15,667 --> 00:07:28,240
But the other things that become fascinating as we'll see is it's written for the future
because it's a formula that Moses is giving to the people that they will say in the future

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00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:30,732
and they will recite themselves.

88
00:07:30,732 --> 00:07:42,529
The farmer is explicitly instructed to say these words while presenting the first fruits
at the sanctuary, because first fruit offerings were presumed to be very old, von Rad

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00:07:42,529 --> 00:07:43,449
reasoned.

90
00:07:43,449 --> 00:07:48,192
That the accompanying recitation might also preserve an early cultic tradition.

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You know, clearly, if in an agrarian society, the most basic thing that you do if you believe that God is responsible for any sort of

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success on your end is you thank God with your first fruits.

93
00:08:04,900 --> 00:08:08,742
It seems like it's a very seminal moment.

94
00:08:08,742 --> 00:08:19,907
He conceded that there was no objective chronological marker, but argued that the
formula's concise, simple form and its connection to an ancient ritual brought it close to

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00:08:19,907 --> 00:08:23,408
Israel's earliest formulations of its history.

96
00:08:23,609 --> 00:08:26,890
What makes it interesting is the formula moves from

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00:08:26,890 --> 00:08:34,657
Exodus directly toward the land without mentioning Sinai, the covenant at Horeb, and
without mentioning Moses.

98
00:08:34,657 --> 00:08:38,200
Sounds like when we talk about the Haggadah and we say what's missing.

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00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:42,124
Clearly in the Haggadah we say doesn't mention Moses.

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00:08:42,124 --> 00:08:49,480
I think this kind of sensitized me to say, hmm, it actually in the Haggadah doesn't
mention giving the Torah at Mount Sinai either.

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00:08:49,742 --> 00:08:57,967
I think it's more significant that it doesn't mention Sinai because we know that the book
of Deuteronomy is basically first person Moses.

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00:08:57,967 --> 00:09:00,849
So he's the one who's telling them what to do.

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00:09:00,849 --> 00:09:03,831
So it's not so surprising that Moses isn't there.

104
00:09:03,831 --> 00:09:08,734
But the fact that Sinai's not there, that's a good dvar Torah for everybody's Seder.

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00:09:08,898 --> 00:09:09,438
Yeah.

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00:09:09,438 --> 00:09:21,653
And of course, because Von Rad was a biblical critic, meaning to say that he felt that the
Torah was comprised of edited documents put together at a later time, his argument was why

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00:09:21,653 --> 00:09:23,764
was it not mentioning Sinai?

108
00:09:23,764 --> 00:09:34,349
He argued that the Exodus land tradition, was one group of texts, and the Sinai
tradition were circulated separately and were combined only later.

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You can buy it and you can you can take it or you can leave it.

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00:09:38,082 --> 00:09:43,066
But the point was that he clearly identified that Sinai was missing.

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00:09:43,066 --> 00:09:54,786
And then he says, this thing about my father was an Aramean seems to preserve an unusual
ancestral memory, which rings true because every year we twist our heads and our

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minds to know what's going on here.

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00:09:56,797 --> 00:09:58,799
Who is this Aramean?

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00:09:58,799 --> 00:10:00,440
It it's old.

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00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:07,458
The other commentaries, and I'm gonna quote a little bit from Jeffrey Tigay.

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00:10:07,458 --> 00:10:10,640
Who wrote the JPS commentary on Devarim?

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00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:15,034
He says the Hebrew Arami Oved Avi is alliterative.

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00:10:15,034 --> 00:10:15,965
What does that mean?

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00:10:15,965 --> 00:10:25,231
It has a repetition with the same starting sounds in a group of nearby words, which would
facilitate memorization of this phrase.

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00:10:25,232 --> 00:10:33,697
I've seen explanations before that say we use this because people knew it, because farmers
used it.

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00:10:34,036 --> 00:10:38,970
Everything had to be memorized because, as Sharon will be happy to tell you, there were no
books.

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00:10:38,970 --> 00:10:43,654
And so you had to write it on, you know, on parchment and that was too expensive.

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00:10:43,654 --> 00:10:46,776
So something like Arami oved avi had to be known.

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00:10:46,776 --> 00:10:51,720
And of course, that's why it's chosen for the Haggadah, because they didn't have Haggadot
in those days.

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00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,642
These things had to be known to the people.

126
00:10:55,872 --> 00:11:04,145
And the idea was that you were talking about your old, old ancestors that maybe
you have forgotten.

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00:11:04,145 --> 00:11:05,855
They were vulnerable migrants.

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00:11:05,855 --> 00:11:12,888
They were poor people, and here you were celebrating the shefa, the richness of the
moment.

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00:11:12,888 --> 00:11:14,888
makes perfect sense.

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00:11:14,888 --> 00:11:16,589
He adds something else.

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00:11:16,589 --> 00:11:19,712
He says that not only would

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00:11:19,712 --> 00:11:30,931
This keep the memory of Israel's landless beginnings fresh in the farmer's mind, but he
continues: this clause of saying that your forefather was an Aramean probably was very

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00:11:30,931 --> 00:11:43,250
ancient, for it is unlikely that Israelite tradition would have chosen to describe
Israel's ancestors as Arameans once Arameans of Damascus became aggressive toward Israel

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00:11:43,250 --> 00:11:45,361
in the 9th century BCE.

135
00:11:45,361 --> 00:11:46,264
So again,

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00:11:46,264 --> 00:12:00,031
There are many scholars, both critical, or in the case of Jeffrey Tigay, more classical,
more traditional, who are arguing that there's something unique about this and it's

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00:12:00,031 --> 00:12:01,373
possibly old.

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00:12:01,373 --> 00:12:02,523
So let's look at

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00:12:02,523 --> 00:12:06,747
about the historical point about what the role of the Arameans was.

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00:12:06,747 --> 00:12:07,659
Okay.

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00:12:09,426 --> 00:12:16,408
So let's look at the classical rabbinic commentaries and who they say this wandering
Aramean was.

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00:12:16,408 --> 00:12:20,359
The Ibn Ezra says that it refers to Jacob.

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00:12:20,359 --> 00:12:26,511
I think that's typically what we think of in the Haggadah because we see him fleeing from
Laban.

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00:12:26,511 --> 00:12:31,012
So he says that he was poor and had no money.

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00:12:31,012 --> 00:12:38,168
So again, echoing what I said a second ago, that we will find later the Mishnah talks
about going from Gnut to

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00:12:38,168 --> 00:12:45,642
From maybe embarrassment to shevach, to being very successful.

147
00:12:45,642 --> 00:12:46,633
Here it's very simple.

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00:12:46,633 --> 00:12:52,766
He was poor and had no money, and here you're bringing this basket of rich first crop.

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00:12:52,766 --> 00:12:59,750
And it says its import is I did not inherit the land from my father, for my father was
poor when he came to Aram.

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00:12:59,750 --> 00:13:02,992
He was also a stranger in Egypt, he was few in number.

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00:13:02,992 --> 00:13:07,714
The Rashbam says, Arami oved avi.

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00:13:07,714 --> 00:13:16,080
he says it means my father Avraham, who was an Aramite, lost in exile from his
birthplace, Aram.

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00:13:16,080 --> 00:13:22,525
We dealt with this a lot in a very popular segment where we talked about the use of
Aramaic.

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00:13:22,525 --> 00:13:25,447
and everybody comes from Aram.

155
00:13:25,447 --> 00:13:28,259
The meaning of the word Oved here is similar.

156
00:13:28,259 --> 00:13:34,786
the root used to describe wandering without specific objective, almost like walking
because one is lost.

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00:13:34,786 --> 00:13:38,048
We also find the word in this connection in Jeremiah.

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00:13:38,048 --> 00:13:41,591
My people were lost sheep, their shepherd led them astray.

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עמי רועיהם התעום

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I find the reference to Jeremiah important because remember that Jeremiah is a prophet in
the future of exile and return.

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00:13:53,479 --> 00:13:58,066
And so just as our forefathers were lost.

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00:13:58,066 --> 00:14:09,956
exile wandering, so too when we bring up that basket of first fruits, we're referring
in the instance where sometime in the future will be again refugees.

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00:14:09,956 --> 00:14:11,557
We come from refugees.

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00:14:11,557 --> 00:14:12,919
Don't, don't worry about it.

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00:14:12,919 --> 00:14:14,059
You can get over it.

166
00:14:14,059 --> 00:14:17,198
and then of course I love the Shadal.

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00:14:17,198 --> 00:14:21,703
By the way, that the word, my father was a wandering Aramean.

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00:14:21,703 --> 00:14:27,400
So we always focus on the word Aramean, but the word wandering is a very interesting term,
right?

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00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:28,851
That my father was a wanderer.

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00:14:28,851 --> 00:14:29,592
That's what you say.

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We're always refugees.

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00:14:31,734 --> 00:14:34,315
And we're always referring to that in good times and bad.

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00:14:34,315 --> 00:14:35,696
And I think that's powerful.

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00:14:35,696 --> 00:14:44,380
Shadal says, My father, this includes all the patriarchs as one, for they wandered from
nation to nation.

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00:14:44,380 --> 00:14:48,682
And he says, the Rashbam, who said it was Abraham, was on the right track.

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00:14:48,682 --> 00:14:57,688
What I'm trying to get to, Rabbi, very similar to what we did last week with Isaiah, where
he tried to broaden our history.

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00:14:57,688 --> 00:15:01,581
To Noah, to Adam and Eve, to Abraham and Sarah.

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00:15:01,581 --> 00:15:12,292
Here it's becoming irrelevant who we're referring to with this ambiguous term Aramean,
because its import is that it could be any one of our relatives.

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00:15:12,292 --> 00:15:15,756
It could be any one of our patriarchs and ancestors.

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00:15:15,756 --> 00:15:18,979
And that's why I love that Shadal says it's all of them.

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00:15:18,979 --> 00:15:22,242
It takes away the historic.

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00:15:22,242 --> 00:15:29,509
historical antecedents of one Exodus, of one leader of Moses, and it broadens it out.

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00:15:29,509 --> 00:15:32,896
And I think that too makes it much more important.

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Fantastic.

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00:15:36,736 --> 00:15:40,288
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And now back to our podcast.

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00:16:42,582 --> 00:16:45,343
So the Exodus prototype precedes Egypt.

200
00:16:45,343 --> 00:16:49,325
it doesn't e start with Egypt, it goes farther back.

201
00:16:49,325 --> 00:17:01,740
and I think that if you argue with those who argue that this is an older text, even
as some who say that the present declaration

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00:17:01,740 --> 00:17:13,854
belongs to the late monarchic or exilic Deuteronomic period, or others who propose reading
it in relation to returning exiles and those who had remained in the land, it makes

203
00:17:13,854 --> 00:17:15,126
perfect sense.

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00:17:15,126 --> 00:17:22,508
I love the fact that almost the rabbis and the biblical critics are saying this
statement

205
00:17:22,508 --> 00:17:28,687
becomes so useful because it's not relational to one particular period.

206
00:17:28,687 --> 00:17:35,617
It could be very old or it could be literally at the moment that Isaiah, who we were
reading last week, was talking.

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00:17:35,896 --> 00:17:39,036
Well and of course and we use it every year at the Seder.

208
00:17:39,036 --> 00:17:41,492
So it kind of—it's above time.

209
00:17:42,688 --> 00:17:43,639
It is.

210
00:17:43,639 --> 00:17:55,206
And I love that you brought that up because I'm going to segue now into the Seder because
I'm going to argue today, and we do this many times at Madlik, where we say, you know, the

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00:17:55,206 --> 00:18:00,910
biblical critics and the rabbis definitely recognize the same problems.

212
00:18:00,910 --> 00:18:04,713
And in this particular case, they came out with the same solution.

213
00:18:04,713 --> 00:18:08,956
So the rabbis of the Haggadah are writing a document.

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00:18:08,956 --> 00:18:12,436
Most of us would agree it was made for exile.

215
00:18:12,436 --> 00:18:16,510
It certainly was made for a post-temple time.

216
00:18:16,510 --> 00:18:30,122
They didn't need a Haggadah when you were bringing your Passover sacrifice, but they
wrote it for transitional periods, and they went and picked this same ceremonial

217
00:18:30,122 --> 00:18:39,682
formulaic statement that a farmer says when he brings his crops, and they modeled the
whole Haggadah after it.

218
00:18:39,682 --> 00:18:43,045
So this is what they say in the Mishnah in Pesachim.

219
00:18:43,045 --> 00:18:50,072
He begins, matchil b'genut u'mesayem b'shevach—he begins with the Jewish people's disgrace.

220
00:18:50,072 --> 00:18:52,914
I would say better, humble beginnings.

221
00:18:52,914 --> 00:18:57,250
I don't know why we say disgrace, and concludes with their glory.

222
00:18:57,250 --> 00:19:01,412
He expounds from the passage, an Aramean tried to destroy my father.

223
00:19:01,412 --> 00:19:03,853
That's Deuteronomy 26, 5.

224
00:19:03,853 --> 00:19:12,397
And here the Mishnah is telling us what to do at the Seder at the moment of Maggid, that we
are required to tell the story.

225
00:19:12,397 --> 00:19:20,241
The declaration one recites when presenting the first fruits in the temple, until he
concludes explaining the entire section.

226
00:19:20,241 --> 00:19:22,962
So that's why we are discussing.

227
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Passover today because it is literally our paragraph in the Torah portion of this week
that provides the basis, the proof text that we use in the Haggadah.

228
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In terms of the traditional Talmudic explanations of what it means to begin with genut,
with what I call our humble beginnings.

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Rav says it's idolatry and Shmuel says it's slavery.

230
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But again, if you look at the context, it's clear as any entrepreneur who is successful
and talks back to his humble beginnings that this is part of this wonderful formula.

231
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I started, my dad had nothing, and this is what God gave me and created this wonderful shefa.

232
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I'll just say that Jewish tradition teaches us always to go back to our humble beginnings.

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I wonder if that comes from the Haggadah.

234
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That's just part of our DNA, that that's our tradition, that you always you start
from our humility.

235
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Yeah.

236
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Yeah.

237
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And it's and it's very powerful, but we think of it so many times as something it's kind
of the right thing to do.

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But I think what we're going to take away today is, but it's a powerful, empowering
thing to do.

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Because if your beginnings are humble and you were a wanderer, guess what?

240
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If you're a wanderer again, you're going to take solace from that.

241
00:20:53,548 --> 00:20:56,209
You're going to say, I've been here before.

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I've seen this movie, and I know we can get out of it.

243
00:21:00,570 --> 00:21:07,772
so again, the key question is why not go to the book of Exodus to base the Haggadah on?

244
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Why go to Deuteronomy?

245
00:21:09,373 --> 00:21:16,194
And the answer seems to be that Exodus contains all the details of the events.

246
00:21:16,194 --> 00:21:22,076
But Deuteronomy contains a speech in which an Israelite is commanded to retell those
events.

247
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Exodus is third-person narrative.

248
00:21:24,897 --> 00:21:29,098
The Israelites were enslaved, God heard them, God brought them.

249
00:21:29,168 --> 00:21:31,450
but here it's first-person.

250
00:21:31,450 --> 00:21:36,044
He saw us—and look, it comes right from the Haggadah.

251
00:21:36,044 --> 00:21:40,347
Vayare'u otanu ha-Mitzrim, va-nitzak, va-yotzieinu, va-y'vieinu.

252
00:21:40,347 --> 00:21:42,949
It happened to me, says this farmer.

253
00:21:42,949 --> 00:21:44,030
It brings it

254
00:21:44,030 --> 00:21:46,111
into the present.

255
00:21:46,111 --> 00:21:48,771
And that's of course what the next Mishnah says.

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B'khol dor va-dor chayav adam lir'ot et atzmo k'ilu hu yatza mi-Mitzrayim.

257
00:21:54,333 --> 00:22:04,676
Therefore, each person, and they took that right from the farmer, because the farmer is
standing there reciting a formula that Moses provided in the book of Deuteronomy on the

258
00:22:04,676 --> 00:22:12,208
banks of Moab, that he was to say in the future to relive the moment.

259
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I think it's magical.

260
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It's fantastic.

261
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:17,602
Well, that's the most famous line of all, right?

262
00:22:17,602 --> 00:22:20,294
We have to imagine that we left Egypt.

263
00:22:20,294 --> 00:22:26,588
We have to imagine ourselves as slaves and we have to imagine ourselves as achieving our
freedom.

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Yes.

265
00:22:27,658 --> 00:22:39,943
And of course, it therefore tells the next most famous thing, which is that therefore we
need to look upon ourselves as if we went out.

266
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And then it goes on to learn from Laban, and it says therefore we went down to
Egypt and resided there just a handful of souls, and there we became a nation large and

267
00:22:53,209 --> 00:22:53,869
plenty.

268
00:22:53,869 --> 00:22:56,920
It feeds right into the story of

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The Haggadah.

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And I would say that it becomes now very similar to what we were stretching for last
week.

271
00:23:04,902 --> 00:23:08,694
And this becomes, therefore, an outlier for another reason.

272
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If you recall, last week we said you'll never find Moses talking about Abraham.

273
00:23:14,195 --> 00:23:17,216
You'll never find Moses talking besides the covenant.

274
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You'll never find him talking or referencing Noah.

275
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You'll never find him talking or reference Adam and Eve.

276
00:23:22,978 --> 00:23:33,887
But here by using this word Aramean, which is in the book of Deuteronomy, it opens up
permission for us to say this story goes way back.

277
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And as a result, and this is key, it goes way forward, that it will be with us all the
time.

278
00:23:40,793 --> 00:23:47,522
And that's why we can say, V'hi She'amda, that it is in every generation.

279
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That they stand up against us.

280
00:23:49,503 --> 00:23:51,163
That's literally what it's saying.

281
00:23:51,163 --> 00:23:54,565
It's saying that the Exodus story was not a one-off.

282
00:23:54,565 --> 00:24:01,607
The Exodus story was a model, a template, that we can repurpose going forward.

283
00:24:01,607 --> 00:24:09,930
So it's, I think, fascinating to look at this in the context of what we were discussing
last week with regard to Isaiah.

284
00:24:10,188 --> 00:24:12,679
That's that is actually fantastic, right?

285
00:24:12,679 --> 00:24:15,140
To look forward, to look backwards.

286
00:24:15,140 --> 00:24:24,443
yeah, I mean, the question to me is why is it that we need to see it as if we left
Egypt?

287
00:24:24,443 --> 00:24:31,485
What do we gain by acting as if we were slaves and we were free?

288
00:24:31,485 --> 00:24:35,232
I think it means that we appreciate Jewish history.

289
00:24:35,232 --> 00:24:37,423
And that's what Isaiah is, right?

290
00:24:37,423 --> 00:24:45,949
That if we understand that experience of going from slavery to freedom, then we are we fit
into every period of Jewish history.

291
00:24:45,949 --> 00:24:48,830
B'khol dor va-dor—in every generation.

292
00:24:49,322 --> 00:24:50,583
I totally agree.

293
00:24:50,583 --> 00:24:55,006
And what I'm trying to say, I guess, is we know when Isaiah lived.

294
00:24:55,006 --> 00:25:05,393
Isaiah lived at, you know, some of what he wrote, he might have written even in Babylon,
and some when he came back to Israel and was hoping that others would follow him.

295
00:25:05,413 --> 00:25:08,055
The rabbis, we know when they wrote the Haggadah.

296
00:25:08,055 --> 00:25:15,581
It was after the temple was destroyed, probably even after the Jews were exiled from the
land.

297
00:25:15,581 --> 00:25:17,812
So imagine the audacity.

298
00:25:17,812 --> 00:25:32,133
Of picking a paragraph that a farmer who farms the Holy Land, the Promised Land, says, and
you're asking a community that is no longer in that land to take power from it.

299
00:25:32,133 --> 00:25:44,472
But again, what it shows is that the power of this, these phrases were literally not for
when we saw the liberation or were living the liberation.

300
00:25:44,472 --> 00:25:50,446
But when we were backsliding into some sort of golah or exile.

301
00:25:50,446 --> 00:26:01,552
And I think that's therefore—I would even say—that almost gives a little bit of
strength to the argument that this might have been written at the same time as Isaiah or

302
00:26:01,552 --> 00:26:04,224
edited and brought in at the same time as Isaiah.

303
00:26:04,224 --> 00:26:05,983
That supports that idea.

304
00:26:06,178 --> 00:26:12,501
But certainly, whether you buy into that or not, it becomes powerful in those
instances.

305
00:26:12,501 --> 00:26:15,922
And I think that is what makes it l'dor va-dor.

306
00:26:15,922 --> 00:26:21,805
It makes it something that transcends a particular moment or a particular time.

307
00:26:21,805 --> 00:26:32,119
And of course, what that means is that the rabbis take it from the temple to the home,
from the pilgrim's basket to the Seder table, from possession of the land to life in

308
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:32,989
dispersion.

309
00:26:32,989 --> 00:26:34,962
it makes it

310
00:26:34,962 --> 00:26:39,166
so much more powerful going forward.

311
00:26:39,166 --> 00:26:52,917
And I think that it to me, this convergence of criticism, biblical criticism, and the
rabbinic interpretation really proves to me that there aren't really any

312
00:26:52,917 --> 00:27:03,166
conflicts here, that we can look at these timeless texts and we can look at them ha
hafokh bah va-hafokh bah, from every different perspective, and we come out many times

313
00:27:03,166 --> 00:27:05,287
with the same language.

314
00:27:05,287 --> 00:27:10,148
but at the end of the day, all of these texts give us a grammar.

315
00:27:10,148 --> 00:27:13,289
And the grammar has two components to it.

316
00:27:13,289 --> 00:27:15,250
On the one hand, it's personal.

317
00:27:15,250 --> 00:27:20,291
I emphasized when I read the text how it says I, I, I.

318
00:27:20,291 --> 00:27:22,892
It is a single individual farmer.

319
00:27:22,892 --> 00:27:29,154
and the other part is because it separates it from a particular exodus.

320
00:27:29,154 --> 00:27:35,960
From a particular Moses or a Jacob or an Isaac or an Abraham, it means that it's a
recurring pattern.

321
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:44,487
It doesn't really matter who the key players are, because in every generation it has
meaning for us.

322
00:27:44,487 --> 00:27:51,332
So this first person script is something that we started by saying makes it unique, but it
becomes very important.

323
00:27:51,332 --> 00:27:55,916
And the recurring pattern, I think this idea of Bikurim too is important.

324
00:27:55,916 --> 00:27:58,360
It wasn't done on a particular holiday.

325
00:27:58,360 --> 00:28:03,173
There's an open season, so to speak, for bringing bikkurim.

326
00:28:03,173 --> 00:28:06,715
This wasn't the kind of bikkurim that we think of on Shavuot.

327
00:28:06,715 --> 00:28:12,039
It is bikkurim that was brought whenever you got those new crops.

328
00:28:12,039 --> 00:28:19,924
You were empowered then to come to the place that God chose and present these
gifts.

329
00:28:19,924 --> 00:28:22,966
So I think it's a wonderful, wonderful message.

330
00:28:22,986 --> 00:28:24,347
A fantastic message.

331
00:28:24,347 --> 00:28:25,708
It's really, really good.

332
00:28:25,708 --> 00:28:30,852
And connecting it to Isaiah and what we've done the past two weeks is also wonderful.

333
00:28:30,852 --> 00:28:33,824
This is week number six of the seven haftarot.

334
00:28:34,082 --> 00:28:34,683
Yes.

335
00:28:34,683 --> 00:28:41,127
So now I want to get back to the open question that Von Rad opened, which is what about
Sinai?

336
00:28:41,127 --> 00:28:44,570
Why do we not mention Sinai, therefore, in the Haggadah?

337
00:28:44,570 --> 00:28:50,454
Why do we not mention Sinai in the Bikurim formula?

338
00:28:50,454 --> 00:28:55,918
Sinai is so important, even in the Haggadah.

339
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,371
You might say we do mention it in Dayenu.

340
00:28:58,371 --> 00:29:02,032
We say, had you not given us the Torah, would it have been enough?

341
00:29:02,032 --> 00:29:09,210
But ultimately, there is an article in TheTorah.com that literally asks this question.

342
00:29:09,210 --> 00:29:16,656
and it comes up with numerous answers, none of which I find particularly appealing.

343
00:29:16,656 --> 00:29:22,518
It seems to me, Rabbi, and this I'm gonna go out on a limb and I want to know what you
think.

344
00:29:22,518 --> 00:29:31,444
I think that while Exodus repeats itself over and over again, this kind of revelation at
Sinai might have been a one-off.

345
00:29:31,444 --> 00:29:35,267
In other words, we don't want prophets coming and making new laws.

346
00:29:35,267 --> 00:29:38,748
The law was given at Sinai once.

347
00:29:38,748 --> 00:29:51,854
Yes, we re-listened to that law, but that moment where we had this kind of public
opening up of heaven and getting God's opinion, getting God's laws.

348
00:29:51,854 --> 00:29:53,402
It happens only once.

349
00:29:53,402 --> 00:30:00,909
It happens once, and it's unlike Exodus, where we can make the case that it can become
very personal.

350
00:30:00,909 --> 00:30:04,673
I, we argue against private epiphany.

351
00:30:04,673 --> 00:30:12,500
We don't want a Paul walking on the way somewhere and saying, Hey, I just got this great text from God.

352
00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:13,861
It's gonna change.

353
00:30:13,861 --> 00:30:19,006
And I think that the rabbis understood that in the famous Talmud of

354
00:30:19,006 --> 00:30:20,227
the Oven of Akhnai.

355
00:30:20,227 --> 00:30:26,813
They said, “Lo ba-shamayim hi,” quoting Deuteronomy: the Torah is not in heaven.

356
00:30:26,813 --> 00:30:34,619
They said, Rabbi Yirmiyah says, since the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we do not
regard any divine voices anymore.

357
00:30:34,619 --> 00:30:37,341
It's nitnah livnei adam.

358
00:30:37,341 --> 00:30:43,146
So maybe, maybe that is the answer of why Sinai is not connected.

359
00:30:43,146 --> 00:30:48,202
And I'll go one step further because I did promise to tie things into Rosh Hashanah.

360
00:30:48,202 --> 00:31:00,127
On Rosh Hashanah, right after we recite this iconic paragraph that's used to get to teshuvah,
that's get that gets us absolved.

361
00:31:00,127 --> 00:31:01,728
“Adonai, Adonai.”

362
00:31:01,728 --> 00:31:08,551
In the Selichot, we say, “We have all sinned—aval anachnu va'avoteinu chatanu.” [We and our fathers]

363
00:31:08,551 --> 00:31:17,356
Again, there we're using this same tool, which is to say that we've been sinning from time
immemorial.

364
00:31:17,356 --> 00:31:23,472
We were sinning before, we're sinning today, and we're going to sin in the future, and we know
how to deal with this.

365
00:31:23,472 --> 00:31:25,995
We were given tools to deal with this.

366
00:31:25,995 --> 00:31:37,125
I think it's the same type of comforting context where we connect ourselves with the past
that gives us power into the future.

367
00:31:37,186 --> 00:31:37,987
Think that's great.

368
00:31:37,987 --> 00:31:44,812
I just say that you know, this declaration is very much tied into bringing us to the land.

369
00:31:44,812 --> 00:31:51,716
You know, Sinai is important, but Sinai is like a parallel train track to going into the
land.

370
00:31:51,716 --> 00:31:56,860
Sinai is independent, you're obligated to keep the law even outside the land.

371
00:31:56,860 --> 00:31:58,771
Going into the land is something else.

372
00:31:58,771 --> 00:32:02,184
So I think also, in light of what you said, I think we understand that.

373
00:32:02,184 --> 00:32:03,545
Sinai is something else.

374
00:32:03,545 --> 00:32:05,606
This is about getting into the land.

375
00:32:06,686 --> 00:32:07,727
perfect.

376
00:32:07,727 --> 00:32:21,216
So anyway, another Shabbat as we get ready for Rosh Hashanah and Passover, but one
which really teaches us these timeless tools that the Torah provides or people, in order

377
00:32:21,216 --> 00:32:31,442
to repurpose stories from the past, traditions from the past, laws and truths from the
past to give us strength today and into the future.

378
00:32:31,608 --> 00:32:32,271
Fantastic.

379
00:32:32,271 --> 00:32:33,526
Shabbat Shalom, everybody.

380
00:32:33,526 --> 00:32:34,892
We'll see you next week.

381
00:32:34,892 --> 00:32:36,780
We're getting close to the end of the Torah.

382
00:32:36,780 --> 00:32:37,820
Be well, everyone.

383
00:32:41,336 --> 00:32:47,429
Do you agree that the Exodus repeats itself while Sinai happened only once?

384
00:32:47,489 --> 00:32:52,252
Or do you believe that revelation can also occur in our personal lives?

385
00:32:52,492 --> 00:32:56,975
I'd love to hear your thoughts, disagreements, and questions in the comments section.

386
00:32:56,975 --> 00:33:05,139
Please also share other questions about Jewish texts and traditions that you'd like us to
explore in future Madlik deep dives.

00:02:10,999 –> 00:02:12,280
Welcome to Madlik.

23
00:02:12,280 –> 00:02:18,784
My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish
text or tradition.

24
00:02:18,784 –> 00:02:27,554
Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast
platform and now on YouTube and Substack.

25
00:02:27,554 –> 00:02:35,479
We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria, and a link is included in the show notes.

26
00:02:35,660 –> 00:02:47,999
Join us for Sing Without a Song as we explore how Isaiah reintroduced Genesis into the
Jewish imagination, how the rabbis made consolation grow progressively more joyous as Rosh

27
00:02:47,999 –> 00:02:49,580
Hashanah approaches.

28
00:02:49,856 –> 00:03:01,059
And why the Pesikta de-Rav Kahana hears in one barren woman’s voice the voices of Sarah,
Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Hannah, and Zion herself.

29
00:03:01,180 –> 00:03:09,494
Sometimes we sing because redemption has arrived, and sometimes we sing to make room for
it.

30
00:03:09,494 –> 00:03:14,276
So, Rabbi, usually I don’t sing the haftarah, but it is my parashah.

31
00:03:14,276 –> 00:03:25,240
So I’m gonna look straight into the camera and say, “Rani akarah lo yaladah, pitzchi rinah
v’tzahali.”

32
00:03:25,240 –> 00:03:29,641
I am not known for doing the tunes correctly, but that line I can do.

33
00:03:29,641 –> 00:03:32,362
So here we have repurposing.

34
00:03:33,088 –> 00:03:42,005
So, as I said, this week is, what, the fifth week of the consolation haftarot.

35
00:03:42,026 –> 00:03:54,056
And it says, Sing, O barren one, thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing and
cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child.

36
00:03:54,056 –> 00:04:01,302
For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, says the
Lord.

37
00:04:01,302 –> 00:04:08,806
I mean, that sentence is just—I was too young at 13 to appreciate the power of that
sentence.

38
00:04:08,806 –> 00:04:17,831
I mean, it’s basically telling someone who, in the biblical tradition, a woman who was
barren and could not have children, that was like about the worst thing that could happen

39
00:04:17,831 –> 00:04:18,652
to someone.

40
00:04:18,652 –> 00:04:27,557
And it’s asking that woman to sing, and that woman to believe that she is luckier than the
children of the married wife.

41
00:04:27,557 –> 00:04:30,368
It’s really radical.

42
00:04:30,368 –> 00:04:33,388
In terms of what Isaiah, the hope

43
00:04:33,388 –> 00:04:38,059
That he’s trying to convey to these children of Zion.

44
00:04:38,059 –> 00:04:46,172
It goes on: Enlarge the site of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling, do not stint;
lengthen the ropes and drive the pegs firm.

45
00:04:46,172 –> 00:04:53,384
So he’s saying, Come on, build up the temple, build up the land, for you shall spread out
to the right and to the left.

46
00:04:53,384 –> 00:04:58,165
Here we go again with Lecha Dodi: “Yamin u’smol tifrotzi.”

47
00:04:58,165 –> 00:05:01,740
Your offspring shall dispossess nations and shall

48
00:05:01,740 –> 00:05:08,454
People the desolate towns, fear not, you shall not be shamed, do not cringe.

49
00:05:08,454 –> 00:05:20,920
“Ki lo tevoshi v’al tikalmi”—again in the Lecha Dodi—you shall not be disgraced, for you
shall not forget the reproach of your youth, and remember no more the shame of your

50
00:05:20,920 –> 00:05:26,023
widowhood, for the one who made you whose name is God of hosts.

51
00:05:26,023 –> 00:05:31,636
So, again, and then it goes on to say—and we’re using now the grammar

52
00:05:31,636 –> 00:05:33,026
of marriage.

53
00:05:33,057 –> 00:05:36,329
the God of hosts will say, I will espouse you.

54
00:05:36,329 –> 00:05:40,511
The Holy One of Israel who is called the God of all the earth will redeem you.

55
00:05:40,511 –> 00:05:48,616
So it’s basically talking about redemption and God reuniting maritally with His
people.

56
00:05:48,616 –> 00:05:53,098
God has called you back as a wife forlorn and forsaken.

57
00:05:53,098 –> 00:06:00,514
Can one cast off the wife of his youth, said your God, For a little while I forsook you

58
00:06:00,514 –> 00:06:03,938
But with vast love I will bring you back.

59
00:06:03,938 –> 00:06:12,867
In slight anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with kindness everlasting I will
take you back in love, said God your Redeemer.

60
00:06:12,867 –> 00:06:23,400
And now in verse 9 it says, For this to me is like the waters of Noah, as I swore that the
waters of Noah nevermore would flood the earth.

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00:06:23,400 –> 00:06:34,188
So I swear that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you, for the mountains may move and
the hills be shaken, but my loyalty shall never move from you, nor my covenant of

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friendship be shaken, said God, who takes you back in love.

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And I think it’s so appropriate that we’re reading this combined with Deuteronomy because
what occurred to me, Rabbi, was the four books of Moses, meaning if you take away Genesis.

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How many times is there a reference to Adam and Eve?

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How many times is there a reference to Noah?

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Even when there’s a reference to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, it’s not about the stories
of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

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It’s about the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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By reading this combined with the fifth book of Moses, we really have an aha moment and
said yes.

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This is the first time that we are getting references to those wonderful foundational
stories in Genesis.

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It really just hit me between the eyes this year.

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So the fact is that the haftarah is both for Noach and for Ki Tetze, but it’s
for different reasons, meaning it’s for Ki Tetze because of the beginning of the haftarah, and

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it’s for Noach because of the end of the haftarah.

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So you’re right, you know, it’s used in both ways.

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And the fact that it tells the story, but that’s really independent of the Deuteronomy,
and that’s interesting how you connect both pieces together.

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And I have to say, I was lockstep with you until I started thinking a little bit more
about it.

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Because we’re gonna find, if I am successful with my argument, that Noah is not the only
isolated case of a reference to Genesis.

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And, you know, the modern biblical scholars will say that the book of Genesis was just
being edited in the fifth century BC when Isaiah was written.

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That doesn’t interest me so much.

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What interests me is that Isaiah is the first one of the Nevi’im who is referencing our own
books and referencing our own traditions and referencing our own stories and doing what we

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do with Midrash every week, which is bring the story of Noah up to speed with now, with a
people that is waiting for a God to keep his promise.

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Or Adam and Eve, who are in the Garden of Eden, and he’s trying to promise the people
that you are going to return to a new Eden.

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It’s just amazing to me that we haven’t realized it.

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But from Isaiah, we’re going to see that not only does rani akarah have a reference in the eyes of
the rabbis to the barren women of our tradition who gave birth, and that’s all in Genesis

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pretty much, but also mei Noach.

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So again, I would be remiss if I didn’t quote Genesis 8:1, which says, “Vayizkor Elohim et
Noach.”

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Now, when we, in a few weeks, are in synagogue and we are going through the Zikhronot, we will
have 10 verses that prove that God remembers.

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And correct me if I’m wrong, Rabbi, this is the first one.

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The earliest verse of God remembering a promise that He made, a commitment that He has,
is to Noah.

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And I feel that comes directly out of the fact that Isaiah was able to contemporize Noah
for his day and age, and the services on Rosh Hashanah are contemporizing it

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for our day as well.

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So, the fact that you said about how Isaiah contemporizes the story of Noah—when you
think about it, remembering Noah is even more important than

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remembering Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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Because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a covenant, but Noah actually means to save the
world.

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I absolutely love it.

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It’s both.

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No, people talk about Isaiah as universal.

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You know, he’s the one who has the big picture, the ideas.

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Let’s look at a little bit of this modern scholarship, because it’s really contemporary.

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Thanks.

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And now back to our podcast.

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So there’s a book that came out in 1998 by Benjamin Sommer, and the book’s title
is A Prophet Reads Scripture.

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It’s an allusion to Isaiah reading Bereshit, reading his own Torah, so to speak, our own
Torah.

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There’s another scholar that I quote in the Sefaria source notes, and it’s called—it’s
by Richard Schultz, Building on the Beginnings of

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Isaiah’s diverse use of Genesis, and it explores the ways in which Isaiah reuses various
traditions and reinterprets various texts of Genesis.

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And then finally, I’ll quote Klaus Westermann, who says, Isaiah looks back into the past
in search of a turning point comparable with the one which confronted Israel.

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He has to go further back to the turning point in primeval times, which marked the end of

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catastrophic events involving the whole human race!

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He puts an exclamation after the whole human race, as you said a second ago.

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Several contextual comments are pertinent.

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As with God’s promise with regard to the waters of Noah, the divine promise here has
implications that extend beyond national Israel.

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The covenant of peace announced in Isaiah 54:10.

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corresponds to the covenant made with Noah and all living creatures.

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00:13:18,223 –> 00:13:33,807
And he goes on and talks about how he is taking this story which predates Abraham and
the birth of our people and uses that along with marriage, which again is a universal

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example of taking one’s estranged wife back.

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Now let’s look a little bit at Abraham and Sarah.

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In last week’s reading, a few verses before the reading began, in Isaiah 51, it says,
Listen to me, you who pursue justice, you who seek God.

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Look to the rock you have hewn from, to the quarry you were dug from.

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Look back to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who brought you forth.

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For he was only one when I called him, meaning Abraham, but I blessed him and made him
many.

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Again, this is Isaiah doing something that Moses never does, but we never realized it.

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Does Moses ever say to the Jewish people, Why are you so upset?

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What about Abraham?

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He went through similar type things.

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He doesn’t, but Isaiah does, which is absolutely fascinating.

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In Isaiah 51:3, it says, Truly God has comforted Zion, comforted all her ruins, made
her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of God.

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Again, you would never have Moses doing this.

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He’s reading those texts that we’re gonna start all over again in a month and a half.

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And he is rounding the circle, so to speak, rounding the square.

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It’s just unbelievable because we take it so for granted that we kind of missed the
references in the last four books of Moses.

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I was just blown away, I think, with that thought.

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Okay.

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So you know, this is a perspective.

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The Isaiah from so many hundred years later is able to have a perspective.

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And see things from perspective, you have a whole different view.

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I’ll just I’ll

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veer a little bit to say the following.

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That’s what we do in the Haggadah.

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You know, in the Haggadah, the book of Exodus.

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In the Haggadah, we tell the story from the book of Deuteronomy.

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Because when you look back on something, you remember it differently.

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Right?

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Even little things.

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Like you think about the Knicks winning the championship.

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So you know you live those games.

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And now you think back.

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I was just watching the last couple of minutes, a couple of nights ago, and
you remember differently a few months later.

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Even a few months makes such a difference in terms of perspective.

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Absolutely.

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And and again, that’s what, in a sense, repurposing is when you take something you saw
once and you’re using it slightly different, or it means slightly different things to you

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when you see it again.

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But again, getting back to our haftarah of rani akarah, when these modern-day
commentaries talk about Abraham, they only refer to

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to this one verse that actually talks about Abraham.

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But if you look at it through these lenses—and we’re gonna get to the Pesikta in a
second—they actually saw in rani akarah: God finally brought life from what seemed to be

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two sterile bodies.

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They look back at the whole magic of Genesis because you could read Genesis from Adam
and Eve until Joseph and his blessing Manasseh and Ephraim as a struggle to give birth.

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As a struggle to continue your line, so to speak.

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And that’s what rani akarah is doing.

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It’s saying to these people then and now that this is what we’ve always been up against,
and we have survived.

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so let’s go.

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the thing that I struck in this week, and I couldn’t pull myself away from looking
at this whole, what you call, this Haggadah

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of reading the haftarot in kind of as a commentary as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah.

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So, there is a Tosafot, which is a commentary on Rashi and the Talmud, that actually
talks about, and it’s in Megillah, and it actually talks about these seven haftarot that

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we say after Tisha B’Av.

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and it says we get this.

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From the Pesikta—we follow the Pesikta.

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It argues with people that change the order because it says that it is the nature of
these consolations to become progressively greater and more praiseworthy.

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So if every week we step

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Up another level.

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This week we’re talking about using Genesis.

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It’s because they’re supposed to grow dramatically.

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just like in the Haggadah, they have Detzach Adash Be’achav to help us memorize the ten plagues.

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There is a similar mnemonic for remembering these seven haftarot.

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And it says this practice, established according to the Pesikta, should never be

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Altered.

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Now, I have to tell you, Rabbi, and this is kind of an interesting story.

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When I was young, I guess I was a yeshiva bocher, and my parents were visited by the head
of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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actually, he wasn’t the head then, but he was like the main fundraiser.

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And his name was Bernard Mandelbaum.

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And he must have heard that I was a yeshiva bocher because he gave me his two volume highly scientific.

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textual emendation of the Pesikta, and it’s based on an Oxford manuscript, which he argues
is the best one.

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Did he actually translate it?

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He wrote it, he did it, and he gave it to me.

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And I have it sitting here.

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And I pulled it out of my library because in his introduction, he says the following.

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Well, first of all, I have to say the Pesikta is a relatively early collection.

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it was written in the fifth or sixth century AD, which is early.

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00:19:38,125 –> 00:19:41,357
we have Midrash [Rabba] on Genesis.

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many, this is an early one.

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And what it does, exactly as you say, Rabbi, is it works on each haftarah of the seven
weeks up to Rosh Hashanah, and it gives a running commentary.

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And hopefully we’ll have time to look at one or two of its commentaries.

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But he has a strange question.

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Ha-she’elah ha-ikrit.

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And the question is the place of the last two chapters, which are the repentance chapters.

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After the consolation, we get to the repentance chapters.

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And there’s a big problem because the problem is the Pesikta actually begins like you
would expect with Rosh Hashanah.

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It’s already covered Rosh Hashanah in the beginning.

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So why, when it ends the year, would it come back to Rosh Hashanah?

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So what he says is—and this might be a little bit too much in the weeds for some of
our listeners, but he says the chapter.

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of Dirshu, which is the first haftarah of repentance, is completely missing from the
Oxford manuscript.

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00:20:46,386 –> 00:20:50,908
And Shuvah is in its proper order between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

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So what he argues is that they were later additions, which actually gives a lot more power
to my argument from last week, which is: if you want to prepare for Rosh Hashanah, forget

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about Teshuva.

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Think about the consolation, the joy, the radical joy of being a wife who gets returned to
her husband.

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So I

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That’s great.

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I’m gonna support you with the following.

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00:21:17,749 –> 00:21:23,703
The haftarah of Dirshu is actually not a haftarah from a Shabbat.

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The

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Dirshu—the day after Rosh Hashanah is a fast day, you know.

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It’s called Tzom Gedaliah.

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In the afternoon of Tzom Gedaliah, we read the haftarah of Dirshu, which is about
repentance.

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But it’s not, Geoffrey, connected directly to this whole thing.

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I’m surprised that it even comes up.

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I guess the Pesikta is talking about all the different haftarot.

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If you ask me, that’s just by chance that there’s a fast day.

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By the way, that has nothing to do with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

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So I think that just strengthens your point.

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And it’s not the Pesikta; it’s different versions of the Pesikta.

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The Oxford Pesikta doesn’t have it.

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So now let’s go back to our two haftarot, because we’ve begun a journey together.

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If you think about Isaiah 51, it has Abraham and Sarah, the barren couple, become a
multitude.

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Isaiah 51:3: Eden—the wasteland becomes a garden.

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Isaiah 54:1: The barren woman is ordered to sing.

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That’s our haftarah.

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And Isaiah 54, the catastrophe ends with an everlasting promise.

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We’re taking them all together.

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Isaiah is using the whole book of Genesis to teach Zion how to begin again.

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But now let’s read the Pesikta for our parashah.

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And again, try to think of it as if we’re reading the Haggadah.

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So it says, “Sing, O barren woman.”

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It establishes the barren woman in a home as a joyful mother of children.

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00:23:02,292 –> 00:23:12,051
It quotes Psalms and then it says, There are seven barren women: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel,
Leah, the wife of Manoah, Hannah, and Zion.

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What it is saying is this is not an

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isolated, trivial reference.

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This is the core of our narrative.

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00:23:21,338 –> 00:23:25,520
And it says, “He establishes the barren woman in a home.”

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This refers to our mother Sarah.

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Now, Sarah was barren—exactly like the Haggadah would do it.

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It brings a prooftext.

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As a joyful mother of children, as it is written, Sarah has nursed the children.

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It goes on and talks about Rebecca.

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Again, Rebecca is joyful.

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It talks and it gives verses for Rachel, but Rachel was barren.

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And then it says, as a joyful mother of children, as it is written, but you shall conceive
and bear a son.

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And it goes all the way from these individual women to Zion.

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And it says, when it gets to Zion—it says, quoting our verse—

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And it says another interpretation.

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00:24:09,139 –> 00:24:12,060
He establishes the barren woman in a home.

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00:24:12,060 –> 00:24:17,821
This refers to Zion, as it is written, “Sing, O barren woman who has not given birth.”

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00:24:17,821 –> 00:24:23,083
So it’s taking another midrash and it’s bringing it to our pasuk.

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00:24:23,083 –> 00:24:33,632
But now we get really interesting because now, in the next Pesikta, it says Rabbi
Reuben interpreted, “Sing, O barren woman.”

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00:24:33,632 –> 00:24:40,385
And it says he read the word rani, sing, as the Greek word eirene, meaning peace.

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00:24:40,385 –> 00:24:45,068
He’s quoting Greek, and it’s universal—it’s peace.

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00:24:45,068 –> 00:24:48,029
Peace will come to you, O barren woman.

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00:24:48,029 –> 00:24:54,012
Rabbi Meir said, “Do not read akarah, barren, but akurah, uprooted.”

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She is the nation whom the nations of the world uprooted.

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00:24:58,166 –> 00:25:08,376
Which is what Scripture says in Psalms Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of
Jerusalem’s fall, how they would raze it, raze it down to its foundations.

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00:25:08,376 –> 00:25:21,612
And now we get to Abba bar Kahana, who said the principal guests, the most prominent
descendants, came from Leah, yet Rachel was regarded as the principal one, ikar.

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00:25:21,612 –> 00:25:31,173
So now he’s taking akarah, which normally would mean barren, and he’s slightly changing it
to ikar, the most important.

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00:25:31,254 –> 00:25:39,643
But Rachel was barren. Rabbi Isaac said Rachel was the mainstay, the ikarah of the
household, as it is written.

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00:25:39,643 –> 00:25:41,996
But Rachel was barren, akarah.

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00:25:41,996 –> 00:25:43,737
Read it instead as:

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00:25:43,737 –> 00:25:45,948
Rachel was the mainstay.

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00:25:45,948 –> 00:25:50,049
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: Because everything depended on Rachel,

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00:25:50,049 –> 00:25:52,412
The children of Israel were called by her name.

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00:25:52,412 –> 00:25:54,913
Rachel weeps for her children.

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00:25:54,913 –> 00:26:06,569
What they are literally doing is, Rabbi, in a few weeks, when we read Bereshit and we
start talking about the major themes in Bereshit, and we start talking about the theme of

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the barren woman, Isaiah is giving us a pedestal to stand on.

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00:26:11,958 –> 00:26:19,761
He is saying that’s the way he read it, and that’s the way he read it to a people that
felt that they had been deserted.

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00:26:19,761 –> 00:26:34,146
And it’s just, to me, it’s just amazing, and I think it really does tie together the fact
that these same parshiyot, these same words from the prophets, can be read in the context

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00:26:34,146 –> 00:26:35,266
of Genesis.

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00:26:35,266 –> 00:26:40,869
But they can also be read in the context of the haftarot of consolation.

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00:26:40,869 –> 00:26:47,192
Because in a sense, he’s using Genesis and the stories of Genesis and the stories of our
past.

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00:26:47,192 –> 00:26:55,337
We haven’t even touched on when he talks about Rosh Hashanah and the New Year and the
narratives of creation.

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00:26:55,337 –> 00:26:56,908
Maybe we’ll get that next week.

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00:26:56,908 –> 00:26:58,118
I don’t know.

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00:26:58,306 –> 00:27:00,522
We have a few more weeks to go before we get there.

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00:27:00,522 –> 00:27:01,555
We’ll be good.

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00:27:01,994 –> 00:27:10,289
Anyway, I just found it so unbelievable, this year’s reading of these haftarot,
because it’s really a book.

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00:27:10,289 –> 00:27:14,184
The haftarot are being quoted in sequence.

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00:27:14,184 –> 00:27:17,956
And they’re using it to build a case, I believe, for Rosh Hashanah.

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00:27:17,956 –> 00:27:25,219
And now we know where it comes from, whether it came from the Pesikta or whether the
Pesikta was the first to codify it.

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00:27:25,219 –> 00:27:27,570
This is an ancient tradition.

294
00:27:27,570 –> 00:27:34,603
And we are fortunate to be following in those footsteps as we prepare for Rosh
Hashanah.

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00:27:34,663 –> 00:27:35,433
Fantastic.

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00:27:35,433 –> 00:27:39,025
Thank you so much, everybody, and have a great week.

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00:01:43,062 --> 00:01:46,224
Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey
Stern,

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00:01:46,224 --> 00:01:51,326
and at Madlik, we light a spark or shed
some light on a Jewish text or tradition.

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00:01:51,326 --> 00:01:54,968
Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host
Madlik Disruptive Torah

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00:01:54,968 --> 00:01:59,251
on your favorite podcast platform and now
on YouTube and Substack.

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00:01:59,251 --> 00:02:02,252
We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria,

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00:02:02,252 --> 00:02:04,934
and a link is included in the show notes.

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00:02:04,934 --> 00:02:09,716
This week we read Parshat Shoftim and we
read the fourth haftarah

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00:02:09,716 --> 00:02:12,678
of Consolation leading up to the high
holidays.

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00:02:13,196 --> 00:02:19,113
So join us for Wake Up and Rejoice as we
discover a Jewish wake up call that
invites

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00:02:19,113 --> 00:02:22,438
us not simply to rise up, but to dance.

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00:02:22,438 --> 00:02:29,345
Rabbi, it's gonna be Rosh Chodesh Elul by
the time this podcast airs,

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00:02:29,345 --> 00:02:32,090
so I guess we're getting into the spirit
of the holidays.

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00:02:32,674 --> 00:02:36,150
That's exciting. There's nothing better
than getting into the spirit

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00:02:36,150 --> 00:02:39,396
of the High Holidays. So let's take this
haftarah and let's see how

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00:02:39,396 --> 00:02:41,420
it connects to the upcoming High Holidays.

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00:02:42,272 --> 00:02:46,346
And it's also a little bit of new
territory for us because normally we focus

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00:02:46,346 --> 00:02:49,459
on the parsha itself in the five books of
Moses.

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00:02:49,459 --> 00:02:52,672
And today we're going to look at the
haftorot,

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00:02:52,672 --> 00:02:58,238
which were sections from the prophets that
were linked thematically

44
00:02:58,338 --> 00:03:02,562
or calendar-wise with the parsha.

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00:03:02,562 --> 00:03:06,366
So this week's haftarah is by Isaiah.

46
00:03:06,786 --> 00:03:08,557
It's the fifth book of the prophets,

47
00:03:08,557 --> 00:03:12,408
and it's known for its visions of
universal peace and renewal.

48
00:03:12,408 --> 00:03:15,849
It was written during the period of the
first temple,

49
00:03:15,849 --> 00:03:21,611
so this is BC, against the backdrop of
rising Assyrian Empire and Israel

50
00:03:21,611 --> 00:03:24,602
on the decline. Of course, the temple had
been destroyed.

51
00:03:24,602 --> 00:03:28,754
Isaiah rebukes Israel for abandoning God
and pursuing corruption.

52
00:03:29,016 --> 00:03:33,510
He calls for change and warns the nations of
their ultimate downfall.

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00:03:33,510 --> 00:03:38,175
But more importantly to us, the third of
the book contains comforting prophecies

54
00:03:38,315 --> 00:03:40,837
about returning to Jerusalem and
redemption.

55
00:03:40,837 --> 00:03:47,643
And that's why it's used a lot in these
haftarot of consolation,

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00:03:47,643 --> 00:03:50,046
which starts with Nachamu Nachamu,

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00:03:50,046 --> 00:03:52,488
which comes from Isaiah itself.

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00:03:52,488 --> 00:03:54,360
So these haftarot.

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00:03:54,602 --> 00:03:59,793
are linked less to the parsha, but more to
the time of year that we're in.

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00:03:59,793 --> 00:04:00,793
Is that correct?

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00:04:01,014 --> 00:04:02,895
That is absolutely right. Right.

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00:04:02,895 --> 00:04:08,939
So you know, since the last ten weeks of
the year have haftarot that

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00:04:08,939 --> 00:04:11,060
are linked to the calendar.

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00:04:11,060 --> 00:04:13,141
The three weeks before Tisha B'Av,

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00:04:13,141 --> 00:04:15,502
we have three Haftarot of destruction.

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00:04:15,502 --> 00:04:17,803
And then the seven weeks after Tisha B'Av,

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00:04:17,803 --> 00:04:21,005
we have seven Haftarot of consolation.

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00:04:21,005 --> 00:04:25,688
So even though usually the haftarah is
linked to the weekly portion,

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00:04:25,688 --> 00:04:27,969
but these last ten weeks of the year,

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00:04:27,969 --> 00:04:29,150
they're linked to the calendar.

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00:04:30,538 --> 00:04:33,961
Okay, so it is just poetic and lyrical.

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00:04:33,961 --> 00:04:36,983
We are in Isaiah 51, twelve,

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00:04:36,983 --> 00:04:40,241
and this is how the haftarah begins.

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00:04:40,241 --> 00:04:44,209
We're gonna see there's a lot of
repetition of two words.

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00:04:44,209 --> 00:04:47,951
We've already focused on a few in the
intro.

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00:04:47,951 --> 00:04:51,114
It says, Anochi, Anochi,

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00:04:51,114 --> 00:04:56,338
hu menachemchem. I am the one emphatically
who comforts you.

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00:04:56,630 --> 00:04:59,552
What ails you that you fear man who must
die?

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00:04:59,552 --> 00:05:03,435
Mortals who fare like grass.

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00:05:03,435 --> 00:05:07,127
so just as grass is fleeting,

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00:05:07,127 --> 00:05:09,109
it grows and it disappears.

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00:05:09,109 --> 00:05:12,121
it already is talking about the
mortality,

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00:05:12,121 --> 00:05:14,933
but it's also talking about Menachem.

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00:05:14,933 --> 00:05:18,666
It says in the fourth word that he's come
to comfort us,

85
00:05:18,666 --> 00:05:22,639
to console us. and it has this emphasis of
saying,

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00:05:22,639 --> 00:05:24,660
I, I, this relationship.

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00:05:25,314 --> 00:05:31,078
with God then we go to Isaiah 51 the
same chapter

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00:05:31,078 --> 00:05:37,122
16 through seventeen and there it says the famous words that I quoted

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00:05:37,362 --> 00:05:44,087
it says I have said to Zion you are my
people rouse rouse yourself

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00:05:44,087 --> 00:05:48,530
it says rouse yourselves rouse Jerusalem

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00:05:48,530 --> 00:05:54,674
"Tzion, ami atah. Hit'oreri, hit'oreri,
kumi Yerushalayim."

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00:05:55,362 --> 00:06:00,043
You who from God's hand have drunk God's
wrath filled cup,

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00:06:00,043 --> 00:06:02,824
you who have drained to the dregs the
bowl,

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00:06:02,824 --> 00:06:06,275
the cup of reeling. So it's not ignoring
the past,

95
00:06:06,275 --> 00:06:09,886
it's not ignoring the tough times that
preceded,

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00:06:09,886 --> 00:06:14,897
but it is emphatically saying that number one,

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00:06:14,897 --> 00:06:18,528
God has a relationship with this people,

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00:06:18,528 --> 00:06:24,470
and two, you are my people, and this is
a moment to get up.

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00:06:24,672 --> 00:06:27,714
And to arise. But hit'oreri,

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00:06:27,714 --> 00:06:31,127
hit'oreri is is just beautiful.

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00:06:31,127 --> 00:06:35,550
We'll see for those of you who don't know
it from the Kabbalat Shabbat

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how this should resonate with so
many of us.

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00:06:39,813 --> 00:06:42,855
Let's just continue a little bit more.

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00:06:42,855 --> 00:06:49,600
then it goes to Isaiah 52 1 through 2,

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00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:52,722
and it says, awake, awake, O Zion.

106
00:06:53,070 --> 00:06:56,173
Clothe yourself in splendor.

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00:06:56,173 --> 00:07:01,698
In Hebrew, that is uri uri livshi
uzechotzon.

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00:07:01,698 --> 00:07:05,541
And then it goes on with other words
that will be familiar

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00:07:05,541 --> 00:07:08,984
to us hitna'ari me'afar kumi.

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00:07:08,984 --> 00:07:12,107
So it says, Awake, awake,

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00:07:12,107 --> 00:07:14,890
O Zion, clothe yourself in splendor.

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00:07:14,890 --> 00:07:18,463
Put on your robes of majesty, Jerusalem,

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00:07:18,463 --> 00:07:19,463
holy city.

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00:07:19,566 --> 00:07:23,389
For the uncircumcised and the impure shall
never enter you again.

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00:07:23,389 --> 00:07:26,461
This was a moment where they had been
conquered.

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00:07:26,461 --> 00:07:30,053
Arise, shake off the dust,

117
00:07:30,053 --> 00:07:32,615
sit on your throne, Jerusalem,

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00:07:32,615 --> 00:07:34,957
loose the bonds from your neck,

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00:07:34,957 --> 00:07:41,791
O captive ones, fair Zion. It's you can
almost feel the tremors of emphasis here.

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00:07:41,791 --> 00:07:46,945
it's really coming out you. in Isaiah
52 7,

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00:07:46,945 --> 00:07:48,386
it says, How welcome?

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00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:51,802
On the mountains are the footsteps of the
herald,

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00:07:51,802 --> 00:07:54,534
announcing happiness, hearing good
fortune,

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00:07:54,534 --> 00:07:57,756
announcing victory. Tell Zion your God
reigns.

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00:07:57,756 --> 00:08:01,279
And so here too, as it finishes,

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00:08:01,279 --> 00:08:06,663
it's talking about come back to the
mountaintops of Judah

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00:08:07,043 --> 00:08:13,768
and your God reigns. You almost feel as
if you have to say again or anew,

128
00:08:13,768 --> 00:08:17,010
or He's back, so to speak.

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00:08:17,344 --> 00:08:20,797
And then finally in 52:11,

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00:08:20,797 --> 00:08:24,230
it says, Suru, suru, again for emphasis,

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00:08:24,230 --> 00:08:28,924
turn away, turn away, touch nothing impure as
you depart from there,

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00:08:28,924 --> 00:08:31,906
keep pure as you go forth from there,

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00:08:31,906 --> 00:08:33,967
you who bare the vessels of God.

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00:08:33,967 --> 00:08:38,792
So now he's talking to those who are still
in exile in Babylonia,

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00:08:38,792 --> 00:08:44,917
and he's asking them to come back and to
leave all of that which

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00:08:44,997 --> 00:08:46,078
is impure.

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00:08:46,498 --> 00:08:50,079
behind. and as I mentioned before,

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00:08:50,079 --> 00:08:55,241
we would remiss, we'd be remiss if we
didn't have Isaiah's line of Nachamu,

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00:08:55,241 --> 00:08:57,602
Nachamu, nachamu ami, yomar Eloheichem,

140
00:08:57,602 --> 00:09:02,283
the first of the Haftarot of
Consolation.

141
00:09:02,283 --> 00:09:07,485
There's a lot of emphasis, there's a lot
of waking up

142
00:09:07,485 --> 00:09:09,716
and shocking the people awake.

143
00:09:10,152 --> 00:09:15,239
to where they are. Just kind of
remarkable words on their own,

144
00:09:15,239 --> 00:09:17,386
but especially if you know our liturgy.

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00:09:18,306 --> 00:09:21,110
Yeah, I mean that's amazing and obviously
we'll talk about this.

146
00:09:21,110 --> 00:09:24,495
The word nachamu, the idea of comforting,

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00:09:24,495 --> 00:09:26,028
is a Torah word.

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00:09:26,284 --> 00:09:30,556
in a number of contexts the
Torah uses the word Nachamu.

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00:09:30,556 --> 00:09:34,178
So that's really that's really the you
know the powerful word

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00:09:34,278 --> 00:09:40,001
of these seven haftarot. And actually the
Shabbat after Tisha B'Av

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00:09:40,041 --> 00:09:43,582
has a special name and it's called Shabbat
Nachamu,

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00:09:43,582 --> 00:09:46,694
the Shabbat of Consolation based on the
Haftarah.

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00:09:46,694 --> 00:09:50,786
So clearly that's the word that you know
everything centers around that word.

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00:09:52,258 --> 00:09:54,129
And it would seem that from that,

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00:09:54,129 --> 00:09:59,460
because I think that's probably the only
haftarah that gets first billing

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00:09:59,460 --> 00:10:04,537
throughout the year, that Shabbat is
the beginning of reading

157
00:10:04,537 --> 00:10:07,149
these haftarot of consolation.

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00:10:07,149 --> 00:10:13,714
So I just want to quote a few of the
contemporary commentaries who are trying
to put

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00:10:13,994 --> 00:10:17,175
These verses that I just read into
context.

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00:10:17,175 --> 00:10:19,716
The first is the Etz Hayim Chumash,

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00:10:19,716 --> 00:10:23,158
that's the Chumash used mostly by the
Conservative movement.

162
00:10:23,158 --> 00:10:25,769
It says each part of this haftara,

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00:10:25,769 --> 00:10:29,241
a divine pronouncement of comfort to Zion
and the nation,

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00:10:29,241 --> 00:10:32,362
features a pattern of double proclamation.

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00:10:32,820 --> 00:10:37,653
After God tells the people at the outset
that I am he who comforts you,

166
00:10:37,653 --> 00:10:41,295
remember we said I, I am he who comforts
you,

167
00:10:41,295 --> 00:10:43,497
Jerusalem, also known as Zion,

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00:10:43,497 --> 00:10:49,460
is exhorted to rouse, rouse herself from
travail of sorrow and to awake,

169
00:10:49,460 --> 00:10:52,242
awake to her new destiny of splendor.

170
00:10:52,536 --> 00:10:57,330
Finally, the exiles are called on to turn
turn away from Babylon

171
00:10:57,430 --> 00:10:59,411
and begin the journey to the homeland.

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00:10:59,411 --> 00:11:04,055
These repetitions intensify the divine
commands and spotlight

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00:11:04,055 --> 00:11:07,918
the haftara's three themes of divine
presence,

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00:11:07,918 --> 00:11:13,622
national transformation, and return from Zion,

175
00:11:13,622 --> 00:11:18,326
or I should say return from exile to
Zion.

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00:11:18,886 --> 00:11:22,207
And then in some of the other
commentaries,

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00:11:22,207 --> 00:11:27,369
this one is from the Anchor Yale Bible by
Joseph Blenkinsopp.

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00:11:27,369 --> 00:11:33,801
He said the repeated verb or uri, hit'oreri
can signify a call to battle.

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00:11:33,801 --> 00:11:37,312
and he brings a reference to Deborah the
judge,

180
00:11:37,312 --> 00:11:39,753
a summons to a special mission,

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00:11:39,753 --> 00:11:43,814
such as when God aroused the spirit of
Cyrus.

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00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:48,732
Or to a prophetic calling, and of course
he's bringing verses for all of these,

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00:11:48,732 --> 00:11:54,094
or finally a gathering up of spiritual and
physical energies

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00:11:54,214 --> 00:11:58,836
for decisive action. So I think that's
kind of echoes what I was saying before

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00:11:58,836 --> 00:12:02,277
is you can get a sense almost that this is
a moment.

186
00:12:02,277 --> 00:12:05,199
and he's trying to seize the moment.

187
00:12:05,199 --> 00:12:10,841
The repetition itself indicates a sense of
urgency and conveys the impression that

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00:12:10,841 --> 00:12:12,882
a critical point has been reached.

189
00:12:13,306 --> 00:12:16,898
And he says again, the repetition
further along,

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00:12:16,898 --> 00:12:20,310
urging departure, presumably from
Babylonia,

191
00:12:20,310 --> 00:12:25,913
connects structurally with the first
passage which is Nachamu Nachamu.

192
00:12:25,913 --> 00:12:28,895
another modern commentary,

193
00:12:28,895 --> 00:12:33,091
J. Alec Motyer says, awake, awake is an
example of

194
00:12:33,091 --> 00:12:37,039
reduplication for emotional intensity.

195
00:12:37,039 --> 00:12:40,481
In the rich anthropomorphism of the Bible,

196
00:12:40,481 --> 00:12:42,162
and he references Exodus.

197
00:12:42,442 --> 00:12:47,964
Suggests sudden divine recollection after
a prolonged lapse of memory.

198
00:12:47,964 --> 00:12:50,645
I'm not quite sure who's being woken up
here.

199
00:12:50,645 --> 00:12:55,888
So here to the human eye, it seems as if
the Lord has gone to sleep over

200
00:12:55,888 --> 00:13:01,430
his promises. In other words, the
anthropomorphism calls on God to act with

201
00:13:01,430 --> 00:13:05,012
the same dispatch and urgency that would
follow if,

202
00:13:05,012 --> 00:13:10,594
in our experience, we woke to the sudden
recollection of a forgotten duty.

203
00:13:11,075 --> 00:13:16,847
it's just fascinating how rich this
repetition is,

204
00:13:16,847 --> 00:13:21,428
and of course especially so because you
have it so many times one after the other.

205
00:13:21,742 --> 00:13:23,353
Right. So let's just say that,

206
00:13:23,353 --> 00:13:26,134
you know, we you pointed out at the
beginning that we're doing something

207
00:13:26,134 --> 00:13:28,925
different this week. We're looking at the
haftarah,

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00:13:28,925 --> 00:13:35,288
and the style of the prophets is very much
different than the style of the Torah.

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00:13:35,288 --> 00:13:38,770
You don't have this kind of repetition in
the Torah.

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00:13:38,770 --> 00:13:42,962
So he's really making a point that the
prophet uses repetition,

211
00:13:42,962 --> 00:13:47,964
it's kind of poetry, but uses repetition
in order to emphasize,

212
00:13:47,964 --> 00:13:48,964
you know.

213
00:13:48,544 --> 00:13:51,516
to emphasize the point. And of
course,

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00:13:51,516 --> 00:13:53,617
you know, the idea of arise, arise,

215
00:13:53,617 --> 00:13:57,339
that's good. But it starts with nachamu
nachamu.

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00:13:57,339 --> 00:13:59,780
You think about it, the first
haftarah,

217
00:13:59,780 --> 00:14:02,041
why does it have to say nachamu twice?

218
00:14:02,041 --> 00:14:03,352
Just say comfort.

219
00:14:03,586 --> 00:14:06,007
Right, be comforted. Nachamu, Nachamu ami.

220
00:14:06,007 --> 00:14:09,348
My people be comforted. But the fact that
it says it twice,

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00:14:09,348 --> 00:14:14,580
Nachamu, Nachamu Ami, is clearly for
emphasis and it almost sets

222
00:14:14,580 --> 00:14:18,792
up the subsequent six weeks are gonna be
repetition.

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00:14:18,792 --> 00:14:21,313
It almost like highlights
for us.

224
00:14:21,313 --> 00:14:23,074
Look for the repetition.

225
00:14:23,234 --> 00:14:25,347
Cause that's gonna be the key of all the
haftarot.

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00:14:25,347 --> 00:14:27,820
And I think that that's the idea of arise,

227
00:14:27,820 --> 00:14:31,264
arise. And of course, Shlomo Alkabetz in
Lecha Dodi,

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00:14:31,264 --> 00:14:35,789
he picks that up also. He understands
that's the that's the call to action.

229
00:14:35,789 --> 00:14:39,474
And of course, what better way to begin
Shabbat than with that call to act?

230
00:14:41,106 --> 00:14:43,708
And I will say we do have some repetition.

231
00:14:43,708 --> 00:14:45,989
We have tzedek, tzedek tirdof.

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00:14:45,989 --> 00:14:49,811
Yeah, that's just yeah. We also have,

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00:14:49,811 --> 00:14:51,522
and this comes up in the High Holidays,

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00:14:51,522 --> 00:14:55,294
Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun.

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00:14:55,294 --> 00:15:01,098
So what really is striking is it's not as
if they're creating a new grammar,

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00:15:01,098 --> 00:15:04,189
but the fact that they're using it so
much,

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00:15:04,189 --> 00:15:06,831
you really get a sense of intensity.

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00:15:06,831 --> 00:15:08,482
and I think

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00:15:08,914 --> 00:15:11,697
before we start with the Lecha Dodi,

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00:15:11,697 --> 00:15:18,153
in some of the kind of the commentaries or
treatments of Jewish liturgy that I've

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00:15:18,383 --> 00:15:21,907
come across, they all point to the
Lecha Dodi as almost the peak,

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00:15:21,907 --> 00:15:26,351
as almost the climax of the Friday night service.

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00:15:26,351 --> 00:15:28,834
and there is this sense

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00:15:29,174 --> 00:15:35,062
of great emphasis. lacha dodi likrat kala pane shabbat nekabla.

245
00:15:35,062 --> 00:15:40,669
That just means welcome your bride to
create to welcome the bride

246
00:15:40,889 --> 00:15:47,638
of shabbat the face of the shabbat
we welcome

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00:15:48,162 --> 00:15:49,883
Let's just explain for a minute.

248
00:15:49,883 --> 00:15:52,925
Shabbat is seen as the bride.

249
00:15:52,925 --> 00:15:57,249
Shabbat is seen as a queen. Shabbat is
seen as the feminine.

250
00:15:57,249 --> 00:16:02,813
So we go out to greet the same way that
the groom goes to greet the bride.

251
00:16:02,813 --> 00:16:05,835
We go out to greet the Shabbat.

252
00:16:05,835 --> 00:16:08,549
And of course, in Tzfat, they used to go
out to the,

253
00:16:08,549 --> 00:16:10,248
you know, they used to go out on the
mountains,

254
00:16:10,248 --> 00:16:11,720
they used to go out into the fields,

255
00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:14,922
and they used to actually bring in the
Shabbat.

256
00:16:15,042 --> 00:16:18,513
And that's what
the image is.

257
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:21,091
So I'm gonna go to the English,

258
00:16:21,091 --> 00:16:25,974
but when appropriate, you or I will throw
in the Hebrew so that everybody recognizes

259
00:16:25,974 --> 00:16:28,455
it. But clearly, as you were saying,

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00:16:28,455 --> 00:16:33,318
we have Talmudic times where Rabbi
Chanina used to robe himself

261
00:16:33,558 --> 00:16:37,221
and stood at sunset on the eve of the
Sabbath and exclaimed,

262
00:16:37,221 --> 00:16:40,242
Come let us go forth to welcome the
Shabbat Queen.

263
00:16:40,242 --> 00:16:44,655
Rabbi Yannai garbed himself in festive
attire on Shabbat and exclaimed,

264
00:16:44,655 --> 00:16:46,046
Come, bride, come, bride.

265
00:16:46,356 --> 00:16:48,967
And this is in the tractate of Shabbat.

266
00:16:48,967 --> 00:16:54,188
So this is not new. What the author of
this piyyut that was then

267
00:16:54,468 --> 00:17:00,210
put to multiple tunes did was he made it
into a liturgy and into a song.

268
00:17:00,210 --> 00:17:05,692
And what he starts by saying is Shamor
v'Zachor b'dibur achat,

269
00:17:05,692 --> 00:17:08,193
preserve and remember in a single
utterance.

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00:17:08,193 --> 00:17:12,503
we will see, depending on how much of
the material we get to.

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00:17:12,972 --> 00:17:16,463
That in the Isaiah text that we're
reading,

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00:17:16,463 --> 00:17:19,615
it's not quite clear who's speaking when.

273
00:17:19,615 --> 00:17:23,597
Sometimes the verbs are in the female
singular,

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00:17:23,597 --> 00:17:28,949
sometimes male. What I take, preserve and
remember in a single utterance based

275
00:17:28,949 --> 00:17:33,701
on the Midrash, that Zachor v'Shamor are
in the two renderings

276
00:17:33,701 --> 00:17:36,042
of the Ten Commandments, is we don't,

277
00:17:36,042 --> 00:17:39,734
there are so many people that could be
speaking here.

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00:17:39,734 --> 00:17:40,734
It could be very

279
00:17:40,814 --> 00:17:42,636
personal welcoming the Shabbat.

280
00:17:42,636 --> 00:17:45,719
It could be welcoming the Shabbat as a
nation,

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00:17:45,719 --> 00:17:50,324
as a world. I think that kind of greets
into it.

282
00:17:50,324 --> 00:17:54,889
Then it goes Mikdash melech, ir meluchah.

283
00:17:54,889 --> 00:17:58,954
all of a sudden it goes from something
very personal

284
00:17:59,214 --> 00:18:02,515
To the sanctuary of the king royal city
arise.

285
00:18:02,515 --> 00:18:07,078
And this clearly comes right out of the
verses in Isaiah that we've just been

286
00:18:07,078 --> 00:18:11,580
talking about. too long have you dwelt
in the valley of weeping.

287
00:18:11,580 --> 00:18:14,831
You are going to be will show you,

288
00:18:14,831 --> 00:18:17,142
he's going to be good to you.

289
00:18:17,142 --> 00:18:20,123
And then in the next stanza it says,

290
00:18:20,123 --> 00:18:25,656
Hit'oreri take the dust off
of yourself.

291
00:18:25,918 --> 00:18:28,620
Arise, dress up in your garments of glory,

292
00:18:28,620 --> 00:18:32,032
literally quotes from Isaiah here.

293
00:18:32,032 --> 00:18:37,246
And it says, My people, though the sons of
Yeshai the Bethlehemeth draw near

294
00:18:37,246 --> 00:18:42,128
my soul and redeem it. So it's talking now
the national story.

295
00:18:42,128 --> 00:18:45,972
And then it says, Hit'oreri, Hit'oreri,

296
00:18:45,972 --> 00:18:48,433
wake up, wake up, for your light has come.

297
00:18:48,433 --> 00:18:49,433
Kumi

298
00:18:49,556 --> 00:18:54,269
Or get up and shine. I realized reading
this that rise and shine,

299
00:18:54,269 --> 00:18:58,172
that that that song that we sing to our
kids to wake them up in

300
00:18:58,172 --> 00:19:01,775
the morning probably comes from this in
Isaiah:

301
00:19:01,775 --> 00:19:06,858
awaken, awaken, utter a song, the glory of
God is revealed upon you.

302
00:19:06,858 --> 00:19:12,742
So, in a song, the paytan is saying that
we need

303
00:19:12,742 --> 00:19:17,726
to break into song. That is how wonderful.

304
00:19:18,086 --> 00:19:23,730
this moment is getting back to this
consolation it says feel

305
00:19:23,730 --> 00:19:29,525
not ashamed or humiliated why are you
bowed down why do you moan in

306
00:19:29,525 --> 00:19:33,498
you will take refuge the poor of my people
the city will be rebuilt

307
00:19:33,750 --> 00:19:40,134
As in ancient times, they will be ravaged
those

308
00:19:40,134 --> 00:19:44,096
who ravaged you. They will be cast off
while you devour.

309
00:19:44,096 --> 00:19:49,979
Your God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom
rejoices in the bride.

310
00:19:49,979 --> 00:19:56,203
And then it goes to the final climax
where

311
00:19:56,203 --> 00:20:02,036
we all stand up and we turn around as if
physically welcoming the Shabbat.

312
00:20:02,146 --> 00:20:07,430
bride. And this is where I saw in the
Sephardic siddur that I

313
00:20:07,430 --> 00:20:10,592
took the Sefaria translation.

314
00:20:10,592 --> 00:20:16,416
It says, "Bo'i V'shalom ye'amar adam
b'simcha atzumah ad me'od."

315
00:20:16,736 --> 00:20:21,139
That "Bo'i V'shalom" has to be said in
exceedingly great joy.

316
00:20:21,339 --> 00:20:24,822
Even more.

317
00:20:24,822 --> 00:20:30,986
he can't find the adjectives
to describe the joy.

318
00:20:31,266 --> 00:20:36,809
That is the uplifting sense of how
this is said.

319
00:20:36,809 --> 00:20:42,201
And what I'm trying to do in emphasizing
this feeling of Lecha Dodi is

320
00:20:42,201 --> 00:20:44,182
I'm going to make an argument today,

321
00:20:44,182 --> 00:20:49,235
as I said in the intro, that you can
easily transfer the same message

322
00:20:49,355 --> 00:20:54,147
to the High Holidays. And while many
people would totally agree with

323
00:20:54,147 --> 00:20:55,878
me and understand that the

324
00:20:56,622 --> 00:21:03,236
Overwhelming emotion on a Friday night
when you welcome in the Shabbat is this
joy,

325
00:21:03,236 --> 00:21:06,538
this uplifting, casting off your garments,

326
00:21:06,538 --> 00:21:08,410
the old garments, putting on the new.

327
00:21:08,410 --> 00:21:11,712
I am gonna make an argument that this
parsha,

328
00:21:11,712 --> 00:21:16,755
this haftarah, and using Isaiah is going in
the same direction for the High Holidays.

329
00:21:16,755 --> 00:21:19,717
I have to work on proving my
case,

330
00:21:19,717 --> 00:21:21,278
but that's the direction.

331
00:21:21,570 --> 00:21:27,815
that I'm going and that's why I really
want to focus on simcha atzumah ad me'od.

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00:21:27,815 --> 00:21:31,308
This has to be just unbounded joy.

333
00:21:33,824 --> 00:21:36,876
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Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

349
00:22:37,737 --> 00:22:43,078
Let's talk about some of the elements that
we find in

350
00:22:43,078 --> 00:22:48,881
Lecha Dodi that maybe didn't come up in
our specific haftarah.

351
00:22:48,881 --> 00:22:52,642
So in Isaiah sixty two it says

352
00:22:53,082 --> 00:22:56,605
that you never shall be called forsaken,

353
00:22:56,605 --> 00:22:59,187
nor shall your land be called desolate,

354
00:22:59,187 --> 00:23:04,752
but you shall be called a delight in her
and your land espoused.

355
00:23:04,752 --> 00:23:09,796
in Isaiah 62, it literally uses the
language

356
00:23:10,197 --> 00:23:14,060
of a deserted woman, of a woman who is
cast off.

357
00:23:14,060 --> 00:23:18,543
Lo ye'amer lach, it will no longer be said to
you in the feminine,

358
00:23:18,543 --> 00:23:21,586
od azuvah, that you are a

359
00:23:22,116 --> 00:23:27,093
a rejected woman, lo od shemamah, ki lach yikarei
Cheftzi-Vah,

360
00:23:27,093 --> 00:23:30,338
my desire will be you,

361
00:23:30,338 --> 00:23:37,067
ul'artzeich be'ulah and the land will be
your engagement,

362
00:23:37,067 --> 00:23:38,770
will be our marriage.

363
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:40,811
And then it goes on to finish,

364
00:23:40,811 --> 00:23:45,012
your land shall be espoused, using the
language of marriage.

365
00:23:45,012 --> 00:23:50,093
As a youth espouses a maiden, your son
shall espouse you.

366
00:23:50,093 --> 00:23:54,695
So now we're talking about both God and
Zion and the homeland.

367
00:23:54,695 --> 00:23:58,076
And as a bridegroom rejoices over his
bride,

368
00:23:58,076 --> 00:24:02,367
so will God rejoice over you. So it
says,

369
00:24:02,367 --> 00:24:04,577
u'mesos chatan al kallah, yasis alayich Elohayich.

370
00:24:06,950 --> 00:24:09,063
again, I was at a wedding last night,

371
00:24:09,063 --> 00:24:12,468
they sang Lecha Dodi. it's all
connected,

372
00:24:12,468 --> 00:24:18,477
but you can see again how the paytan took
inspiration to merge

373
00:24:18,477 --> 00:24:21,641
all of this imagery and this sense of
Lecha Dodi.

374
00:24:21,641 --> 00:24:23,444
It's quite wonderful, is it not?

375
00:24:23,980 --> 00:24:29,012
Well, so let me just say that you quoted
from the Sephardic siddur that this needs

376
00:24:29,012 --> 00:24:34,314
to be said bit b'simcha atzumah ad me'od
with total happiness.

377
00:24:34,314 --> 00:24:38,196
And of course that's the image
of the bride and the groom.

378
00:24:38,196 --> 00:24:42,058
Because when you want to think of what's
the ultimate happiness.

379
00:24:42,410 --> 00:24:46,453
It's a bride and a groom. So it's all it's
all connected.

380
00:24:46,453 --> 00:24:51,076
And that's so they take the image of
the bride and groom from Isaiah,

381
00:24:51,076 --> 00:24:56,090
they apply it to Shabbat, and they take
the image of the happiness of

382
00:24:56,090 --> 00:24:59,422
the bride and the groom, and they apply
that to Shabbat as well.

383
00:25:00,408 --> 00:25:05,981
So I think that is a pretty good anchor
for where Lecha Dodi takes this sense

384
00:25:06,221 --> 00:25:09,213
of a bride and groom as a metaphor,

385
00:25:09,213 --> 00:25:13,245
motif. The other one that I want to focus
on a little bit is this idea

386
00:25:13,245 --> 00:25:17,507
of taking off the old clothing and putting
on the new clothing.

387
00:25:17,507 --> 00:25:20,139
In Isaiah 51, six through eight.

388
00:25:20,139 --> 00:25:25,812
So that is a few lines before I believe
our haftorah actually begins.

389
00:25:25,812 --> 00:25:29,094
It says, Raise your eyes to the heavens
and look upon the earth beneath.

390
00:25:29,304 --> 00:25:31,285
Though the heaven should melt away like
smoke,

391
00:25:31,285 --> 00:25:34,298
and the earth wear out like a garment,

392
00:25:34,298 --> 00:25:36,781
and its inhabitants die out as well.

393
00:25:36,781 --> 00:25:39,013
My victory shall stand forever,

394
00:25:39,013 --> 00:25:41,215
my triumph shall remain unbroken.

395
00:25:41,215 --> 00:25:45,588
he says, Listen to me, for you who care
for the right,

396
00:25:45,588 --> 00:25:47,990
or people who lay my instructions to
heart.

397
00:25:47,990 --> 00:25:50,453
Isaiah is talking to the believers,

398
00:25:50,453 --> 00:25:52,955
the followers, the people that follow him,

399
00:25:52,955 --> 00:25:56,498
and he's talking about taking away the

400
00:25:56,770 --> 00:26:03,072
Old clothing, which kind of it strikes
us of the dead,

401
00:26:03,072 --> 00:26:05,673
the worn out, the moth-eaten.

402
00:26:05,673 --> 00:26:09,274
In verse eight, he says, for the moth shall
eat them up like a garment,

403
00:26:09,274 --> 00:26:11,555
the worm shall eat them up like wool,

404
00:26:11,555 --> 00:26:14,235
but my triumph shall endure forever.

405
00:26:14,235 --> 00:26:17,846
So again, this sense of taking off the
garment and putting on a

406
00:26:17,846 --> 00:26:22,638
new garment for Shabbat or for the
redemption is very strong.

407
00:26:23,050 --> 00:26:28,474
And then the way he ends this whole
thing is

408
00:26:28,474 --> 00:26:33,759
to say sason v'simcha yimatzei vah, todah v'kol zimrah

409
00:26:33,759 --> 00:26:38,673
he says God has comforted Zion,

410
00:26:38,673 --> 00:26:40,564
gladness and joy shall abide there,

411
00:26:40,564 --> 00:26:43,647
the thanksgiving and the sound of music.

412
00:26:43,647 --> 00:26:49,612
So you can clearly see how this was an
inspiration for the paytan.

413
00:26:49,612 --> 00:26:52,134
and we see

414
00:26:52,544 --> 00:26:58,677
I'm gonna quote a little bit from a
commentary on Lecha Dodi written

415
00:26:58,677 --> 00:27:04,269
by Reuven Hammer, who I believe became the Minister of Education for a while

416
00:27:04,269 --> 00:27:09,021
in Israel. and he talks about how even
in Lecha Dodi,

417
00:27:09,021 --> 00:27:12,603
we go from the individual in the beginning
and the end,

418
00:27:12,603 --> 00:27:17,125
and then we go to the national.

419
00:27:17,125 --> 00:27:18,826
but he says

420
00:27:19,138 --> 00:27:21,780
The prophets utilize the language of
marriage,

421
00:27:21,780 --> 00:27:25,952
love, and faithfulness to describe
exclusive relationship God's demands

422
00:27:25,952 --> 00:27:29,624
of the people. and it as shown in the
Shema,

423
00:27:29,624 --> 00:27:33,066
love the Lord your God v'ahafta et
hashem elohecha.

424
00:27:33,066 --> 00:27:39,250
And he talks about how this merging of
the national

425
00:27:39,370 --> 00:27:43,492
and the personal became so important.

426
00:27:43,492 --> 00:27:46,714
So I wanna end by going.

427
00:27:46,934 --> 00:27:49,555
To Unetaneh Tokef of all things.

428
00:27:49,555 --> 00:27:54,246
Unetaneh Tokef is the famous kind

429
00:27:54,246 --> 00:28:00,978
of emotion-laden moment where the chazan
talks about we're

430
00:28:00,978 --> 00:28:05,119
all passing in front of God to be judged
like sheep.

431
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:09,800
And in it he talks about we come from dust
and return to dust.

432
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:14,942
Remember the dust in the vision of Isaiah
that was being

433
00:28:15,352 --> 00:28:18,785
thrown off from us. I see that here.

434
00:28:18,785 --> 00:28:21,067
We labor by our lives for bread.

435
00:28:21,067 --> 00:28:24,691
We are like broken shards, like dry grass.

436
00:28:24,691 --> 00:28:30,156
That same sense that what in the world is
passing passes like grass

437
00:28:30,156 --> 00:28:35,481
or a withered flower, or beautifully like
a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud.

438
00:28:35,481 --> 00:28:40,146
He's not saying that to talk to us
about

439
00:28:40,426 --> 00:28:43,648
The the finitude of mortality,

440
00:28:43,648 --> 00:28:48,090
I think what he's trying to do is lift us
up to cast off that stuff,

441
00:28:48,090 --> 00:28:52,252
as Isaiah was saying, about cast off the
withered grass.

442
00:28:52,252 --> 00:28:54,253
That's what will happen to your enemies.

443
00:28:54,253 --> 00:28:58,485
but you will have your eternal king.

444
00:28:58,485 --> 00:29:04,118
the idea of taking on God and the
eternity of our history.

445
00:29:04,448 --> 00:29:09,862
And of our narrative and of our journey as
something that uplifts you

446
00:29:10,183 --> 00:29:13,385
and makes you want to shout and dance,

447
00:29:13,385 --> 00:29:16,968
I think, is what clearly comes here.

448
00:29:16,968 --> 00:29:19,871
And as we know, in Nehemiah,

449
00:29:19,871 --> 00:29:24,494
the people are very sad on the beginning
of Tishrei.

450
00:29:24,494 --> 00:29:27,627
And he tells them not to mourn or weep.

451
00:29:27,627 --> 00:29:30,679
He says, 'Go eat choice foods and drink
sweet drinks,

452
00:29:30,679 --> 00:29:33,742
and send portions to whoever has nothing
prepared.'

453
00:29:33,954 --> 00:29:36,009
For the day is holy to our sovereign.

454
00:29:36,009 --> 00:29:40,610
Do not be sad, for your rejoicing in God
is the source of your strength.

455
00:29:41,042 --> 00:29:44,315
And then all the people went and ate and
drank and sent portions

456
00:29:44,315 --> 00:29:48,848
and made great merriment. You would never
think this is a description of Rosh Hashanah.

457
00:29:48,848 --> 00:29:53,091
You'd think it was Purim, for they
understood the things that they were told.

458
00:29:53,091 --> 00:29:57,775
You know, we quote the Mishnah in Ta'anit
about the fifteenth of Av to show

459
00:29:57,835 --> 00:30:01,387
how the daughters got back. But what the
Mishnah really says is there

460
00:30:01,387 --> 00:30:04,059
are two times of the year that are the
happiest.

461
00:30:04,059 --> 00:30:07,542
One is the fifteenth of Av, but Yom Kippur
is the other.

462
00:30:07,786 --> 00:30:10,689
Again, most people would not associate
that.

463
00:30:10,689 --> 00:30:14,812
And I think what I'd like to finish on is
how does that resonate with

464
00:30:14,812 --> 00:30:17,665
you and your experience with your
congregation?

465
00:30:17,665 --> 00:30:23,320
you know, many congregations finish Yom
Kippur and they're dancing the hora,

466
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,542
and there's this sense, I think,

467
00:30:25,542 --> 00:30:29,285
of we survive judgment. But I think this
is more than that.

468
00:30:29,285 --> 00:30:34,290
This is really about the fact that
Hit'oreri Hit'oreri.

469
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,112
It's God who's asking us to rise up and in
rejoice.

470
00:30:38,112 --> 00:30:42,424
The way I'm gonna focus this year is when
I say my Rosh Hashanah prayers,

471
00:30:42,424 --> 00:30:45,916
I'm gonna say, How would it sound if it
was Friday night and

472
00:30:45,916 --> 00:30:48,517
I was standing welcoming the Shabbat
bride?

473
00:30:48,517 --> 00:30:50,738
That's my takeaway this year.

474
00:30:50,744 --> 00:30:52,855
That's fantastic. I add one word,

475
00:30:52,855 --> 00:30:56,216
and that is happiness and the sense of
confidence.

476
00:30:56,216 --> 00:30:58,507
You know, you stand up to judgment.

477
00:30:58,507 --> 00:31:00,978
Someone who goes before a judge,

478
00:31:00,978 --> 00:31:05,400
you could either be insecure or you could
be confident that you're gonna win.

479
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,140
And we all know that, you know,

480
00:31:07,140 --> 00:31:11,803
the judge can read you. And sometimes when
he sees insecurity,

481
00:31:11,803 --> 00:31:15,584
he or she sees insecurity, so they play on
that insecurity.

482
00:31:15,584 --> 00:31:18,649
But if they see confidence, if you're
confident,

483
00:31:18,649 --> 00:31:20,096
then they believe that you're right.

484
00:31:20,406 --> 00:31:25,289
And that's the way I always understood the
the verses in Nehemiah.

485
00:31:25,289 --> 00:31:30,033
Be confident means you know you may have
sinned when nobody's perfect,

486
00:31:30,033 --> 00:31:33,235
but be confident that God is gonna be good
to us.

487
00:31:33,235 --> 00:31:35,496
And if we're confident, then we're happy.

488
00:31:35,496 --> 00:31:39,599
Because the confidence leads to a
confidence that God is gonna forgive us.

489
00:31:39,599 --> 00:31:42,561
So I agree with you that idea Friday
night.

490
00:31:42,561 --> 00:31:45,814
I'm not sure that on Shabbat it's so much
confidence.

491
00:31:45,814 --> 00:31:49,056
I think on Shabbat it's more in a sense of
bride and groom.

492
00:31:49,398 --> 00:31:52,483
I think on Rosh Hashanah, in addition
to that,

493
00:31:52,483 --> 00:31:57,883
we have a feeling or we kind of a
charge that we should be confident that
things

494
00:31:57,883 --> 00:31:58,883
are going to work out.

495
00:31:59,402 --> 00:32:04,617
I, I love it. the only tweak that I would
make is I think you wanna have GIVE

496
00:32:04,617 --> 00:32:08,480
confidence, meaning to say that on Friday
night after a tough week

497
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:10,171
of being battered and bruised,

498
00:32:10,171 --> 00:32:14,035
you have confidence like a bride does that
her husband loves her.

499
00:32:14,035 --> 00:32:17,738
And I think that's the idea here that you
get

500
00:32:17,902 --> 00:32:23,762
confidence from the very exercise and
liturgy and

501
00:32:23,885 --> 00:32:25,925
the holiness and happiness of the day.

502
00:32:25,925 --> 00:32:30,227
But either way, it's a very refreshing
message,

503
00:32:30,227 --> 00:32:33,229
which it should be because it starts with
Hit'oreri,

504
00:32:33,229 --> 00:32:36,300
Hit'oreri, wake up, wake up and be refreshed.

505
00:32:36,738 --> 00:32:41,560
Fantastic. Okay, great. So the haftarah
plays on the images,

506
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,562
is borrowed by Shlomo Alkabetz for
Shabbat,

507
00:32:45,562 --> 00:32:50,765
and now we take it one step further that
it really is a lead-in

508
00:32:50,865 --> 00:32:52,896
to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I love

509
00:32:54,070 --> 00:32:56,044
Amen. Well, we'll see you all next week,

510
00:32:56,044 --> 00:32:57,938
Rabbi. Have a safe trip back from Israel.

511
00:32:57,944 --> 00:33:01,182
See you back in North
America looking forward.

512
00:33:02,132 --> 00:33:03,827
Okay, Shabbat shalom. Bye-bye.

513
00:33:07,714 --> 00:33:13,349
And now a question for you. What if we
modeled the high holiday services

514
00:33:13,349 --> 00:33:16,341
on Kabbalat Shabbat? Not only in joy,

515
00:33:16,341 --> 00:33:20,344
song, and celebration, but also in length!

516
00:33:20,344 --> 00:33:22,036
Something to think about.

517
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:28,960
Yeah.

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast platform and now on YouTube and Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria, and a link is included in the show notes. This week’s Parsha is Ra’eh. Is Judaism really a religion of reward and punishment, or is it something far more profound? A religion about becoming. Join us for Becoming Good. Rabbi, you’re in Eretz Yisrael, in Jerusalem, the holy city of Jerusalem. How are you today or this evening?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:01:50 – 00:02:03]

I’m great. Jerusalem is great. It’s a wonderful— it was a hot day today. today, but a wonderful, cool evening. And we had sushi because what more Jewish food could you have than sushi for dinner? So let’s get down to Becoming Good.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:05 – 00:02:20]

Sounds great. The Rabbi and I were davening in the same Beit Knesset, Beit Chaverim, in the holy city of Westport, Connecticut, this last Shabbat. So it’s rare that we’re in the same room, let alone the same shul together. But that was a lot of fun.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:20 – 00:02:21]

That was a treat.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:22 – 00:02:50]

It was. So we’re in Deuteronomy 11:26, and it says, see, this day I set before you blessing and curse. Blessing if you obey the commandments. We’ll get to that in a second because it’s not quite “if”. Of the Eternal your God that I enjoin upon you this day.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:50 – 00:02:51]

Verse 28.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:51 – 00:03:58]

And curse If you do not obey. Here, when it gets to the curse, it says the word we’re expecting to hear. Vahakalalah im lo tishma’u. If you do not obey the commandments of the Eternal, your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin you this day and follow other gods whom you have not experienced. So it’s a big moment. We’re going to end up looking at 2 different mountains. You’re going to be given a choice between good and bad, blessing and curse. But as I said, the word for the blessing is strange. Everett Fox says, the blessing that you hearken to. So he has to add in parentheses, the blessing provided that you hearken to. We are expecting on both sides of the coin this conditional if, but we don’t find it in the Hebrew. It sounds as if asher tishma’u, that you will, keep. It’s very positive leaning, but it’s not what we expect.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:03:59 – 00:04:08]

It’s interesting that Everett Fox wants to add the word “provided” that, because, again, that’s not what you would expect, but that’s not the impression you get from the text itself.

Geoffrey Stern [00:04:10 – 00:04:55]

But by putting it in parentheses, at least he lets us read it true to the text. The blessing that you hearken to, it’s just descriptive, not prescriptive, not contingent at all. Rashi says, Et ha bracha al manat asher tishma’u. He is not pulling any punches. He is saying, on condition that you should obey. The translator says that’s— he’s translating asher tishma’u. But I think the translator is not off the mark. Rashi is really trying to explain what it means. But no one seems to focus on the fact that it actually says it when it comes to the Klalah (curse).

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:04:55 – 00:04:55]

Yeah.

Geoffrey Stern [00:04:57 – 00:05:48]

Shema’u. So now we get to our friend the Ibn Ezra. And the Ibn Ezra says as follows, the blessing, if ye shall hearken. For if you hearken, behold, you are blessed. A blessing means an addition of the good. A curse means a diminution. The word klala, curse, is related to the word kala, light. So he almost sees it as an additive, as a progression. The klalah, the curse, is you’re going to be— there’s going to be mass taken away from you. And on the other hand, a blessing means that you have an addition, a hosafa, if you will.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:05:48 – 00:06:04]

Isn’t it interesting that the Ibn Ezra sees it in mathematical terms, right? That you’ll add or you’ll subtract. And the word Klalah from the word Kala, which means to decrease in number. That’s a fantastic explanation.

Geoffrey Stern [00:06:04 – 00:06:52]

I think so. But also the Hebrew is great because it says, ki b’shma’chem, in the listening, hinei atem mevorachim, you are blessed. We heard the sermon in the synagogue we were at this Shabbat talked about how many times, and we’ve talked about this too, the word Shmiyah, the word listening, is mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy But what I love here is, what’s the expression about that? It’s not the proof is in the pudding or the truth is in the eating. The point is, ki b’shmachem, with listening, hinei atem mevorachim, you are blessed. He does try to finesse the fact that it’s not conditional, but it’s actually kind of, it’s organic, if you will.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:06:52 – 00:07:51]

You know, I just want to tell you, based on the sermon that we heard, Sharon asked me a question. She said, shouldn’t the Torah rabbis than focusing on listening, focus on action? Why is listening good enough? Shouldn’t it say, if you do, this is the blessing, with the condition that you shall obey, but not listen, but actually obey? What’s interesting in the translation of Rashi that I just noticed now is that Rashi is sensitive to Sharon’s question because it says, with the condition that you should obey. That’s not what Rashi says. Rashi says, asher tishma’u, with the condition that you should listen. But Rashi doesn’t like that, you should listen, because listen is not enough. Rashi makes it— well, the translation of Rashi makes its own interpretation, which is listening is not enough. Listening is only helpful if it’s the first step towards obeying. That’s great. Sharon’s going to love this.

Geoffrey Stern [00:07:52 – 00:09:55]

Okay. And I think maybe some of the material that we’re going to get to later are going to get into this concept of praxis as opposed to doxis, as opposed to listening and belief, this concept of actually doing and the effect that it has. But let’s move on with our wonderful texts. So, of course, this concept that Ibn Ezra is hinting at, and I think that the Hebrew naturally intones this And that is the blessing, goes to— reminds me of Ben Azai in Pirkei Avot 4:2. He says, be quick in performing a minor commandment as in the case of a major one, and flee from transgression. For one commandment leads to another commandment, and transgression leads to another transgression. For the reward for performing a commandment is another commandment. Or in Hebrew, it comes off much better. The reward for performing a mitzvah, a good deed, deed of doing good is to do more good. And the reward for committing a transgression, doing an aveira, is another transgression. That, to me, resonated a little bit. What the Ibn Ezra was saying was that it’s not as though the blessing is external to the activity. It is the activity. And the reward is, again, not external. It is doing more of the same thing. I did note that similar to Ekev, where Rashi starts talking about using your heel to go over minor commandments, we do have this sense of be careful of the small acts. The small acts are like that drop of water in a puddle. They make ripples and they have an effect. But I do believe that this Pirkei Avot, Ben Azai text is relevant. Don’t you think so?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:09:55 – 00:09:57]

Yeah, there’s no question. That’s a great text.

Geoffrey Stern [00:10:00 – 00:11:19]

So there’s one more in Pirkei Avot that I was thinking of, and that’s in Pirkei Avot 1:3. It says, Antigonos, a man of Socho, received the tradition from Shimon the Righteous. He used to say, do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward. אלא הווי כעבדים ושמשים את הרב שלא על מנת לקבל פרס, but rather be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving an award, and let the heaven be upon you. There is definitely a very strong thread in our tradition, Rabbi, that goes against this whole concept of reward and punishment, and there’s a very strong thread that the reward. is the reward, and the punishment is the punishment. You pick your tale, you make the bed that you sleep in type of thing. But it’s not a quid pro quo. It is what it is. And you shouldn’t be doing these commandments in order to receive that award. And so the reading of our parsha should actually be not im, because im implies unconditioned.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:11:19 – 00:11:19]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:11:20 – 00:11:35]

If it really should be in asher, that. And that’s where I’m sensing this resonance, both in terms of the interpretation of the verse, but also in the rabbinic tradition.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:11:35 – 00:12:04]

Yeah, well, that’s interesting about what your reason for fulfilling the commandment should be. Should you have an ulterior motive? We all have ulterior motives, right? We go to work so we can make a lot of money. We go to school so we can be smart. We get married because we want a big family. Everything’s with an ulterior motive. It’s really surprising to say that you should serve God without an ulterior motive. I just want to point out how surprising that is, how out of the ordinary that is.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:04 – 00:12:11]

Maybe the word you’re looking for is radical. Clearly, in the world of religion—

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:12:11 – 00:12:17]

What do you mean, Geoffrey? Disruptive is the word you want. Radical.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:17 – 00:12:48]

We’re all on the same page. Yes, it is absolutely radical. But I think to read it back into our “asher” is the most exciting part. But nonetheless, to recognize, because let’s not fool ourselves, Rabbi, there are plenty of rabbis in the rabbinic tradition that talk about tzchar and onesh, about (reward and) punishment. You know, some of them will say, why do bad things happen to tzaddikim in this world? Because they’re going to get their rewards in the world to come.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:12:48 – 00:12:49]

In the world to come.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:49 – 00:13:27]

And vice versa. There’s plenty of that. But what I was focusing on, whether we call it radical or disruptive, is this very strong sense that for some of them anyway, it wasn’t about brownie points and it wasn’t about getting a frask in panim, a slap on the face. It was doing it for no ulterior motives, as you said a second ago. So let’s go to the Mishnah Torah, Maimonides’ Rules of Repentance 5:4. And this, of course, is very apropos as we start now traversing into the holidays.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:13:27 – 00:13:28]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:13:29 – 00:15:32]

Yes. So he writes, if God would decree for a person to be righteous or wicked, or if something existed in a person’s nature that would pull him in a certain path, or to a certain opinion, or to a certain characteristic, or to certain action, like the stupid astrologers make up. In other words, you’re predestined. predestined, how could God command us through the prophets, do this and don’t do that, improve your ways and do not follow your wickedness, when from the beginning of his creation, it was already decreed for him, or his nature pulls him towards something that he cannot escape? And what place would there be for the entire Torah? Good question. So what Maimonides comes out to say is that virtues we acquire by first having actually practiced them. This is what’s going to resonate with Sharon. It’s about how you act. Just as we do the arts, we learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when we have learned it. For instance, men become builders by building houses, harpers by playing on the harp. Similarly, we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. So this I just quoted from Aristotle, actually. But if I go back to Maimonides, he says, therefore, we judge a person according to his action. If he did good, we will do good by him. And if he did evil, we do poorly by him. As the prophet says in Isaiah, this is from your Malachi, this is your own doing, and they have chosen their own ways. So Maimonides, a true Aristotelian, believes that it is praxa, it is what you do that That basically makes who you are. And I think that is a very, very strong Jewish belief, is it not?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:15:32 – 00:15:54]

It sure is. And again, that requires some analysis that we’re going to do in terms of what’s the relationship between listening and practice. Now, the Rambam is aware of this question, as we’ll see in a minute. The Rambam believes that you can’t do if you don’t first listen. Right. You can’t be a good doer if you’re not a good listener.

Geoffrey Stern [00:15:55 – 00:17:26]

Correct. Absolutely. So let’s look at Mishnah Torah in repentance. In 3:4, he says, therefore, a person needs to see himself all year long as if he is half innocent and half guilty, and also see the whole world half innocent and half guilty. If he sins one sin, he has tilted herself and the whole world to the side of guilt and caused its destruction. If he does one mitzvah, he has tilted herself and the whole world to the side of innocence and caused redemption and rescue, as it says. So we talked a second ago about the small little acts, even the small commandments that somehow or other the commentaries seem to be focused on week in and week out. I think it comes from this aspect as well, that if it is actions that aaffect who our character ends up being, then even the smallest action can become a tipping point. And I think that is amazing about this concept of being— how you be is how you will become. And therefore, you have to watch even the small things. I love this concept that the whole world could be on the tipping point. And I am using Sefaria’s translation. And I love the fact that It’s in the feminine. It says herself.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:17:26 – 00:18:18]

Yeah, I hadn’t realized. When you were reading the feminine, I was sure that this was some liberal Connecticut thing. But it turns out that you’re following Sefaria. That’s very funny. Now, let me just say, of course, that this Maimonides is based on a famous mishnah in the Tractate of Sanhedrin that says that’s why human beings were created as one, that everybody comes from Adam. Where everybody comes from Adam and Eve. That if you save the whole— if you save one person, it’s as if you saved the whole world. And if you kill one person, it’s as if you killed the whole world. And if you do one good act, then you save the whole world. Means it’s an amazing thing to think of 8 billion people in the world and then to think about the fact that the world was started by one person. So therefore, we need to take— we need to look at each individual person and each individual act as if they are the entire world.

Geoffrey Stern [00:18:18 – 00:18:18]

Yeah.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:18:18 – 00:18:24]

That’s an absolutely remarkable idea.

Geoffrey Stern [00:18:24 – 00:19:00]

It is. And again, getting back to this gender issue, if you read the Hebrew, the Hebrew is written gender neutral, which is unbelievable that the person who made the translation picked up on that. Chita echad, one person sins, harei hachuya et atsmo ve’et kol ha’olam. So this is an example of a small little action, how you translate a word, can change generations, can make us look at the Rambam and read him in the Hebrew text all over again. I just love it.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:19:00 – 00:19:07]

Geoffrey, the next Sefaria dinner, we’re going to have to make a point about how that— what they changed with that little translation. That’s fantastic.

Geoffrey Stern [00:19:08 – 00:20:10]

You got it. And now a word from our sponsor. If there’s one thing we value at Madlik Podcast, it’s reading texts and talking about them. That’s why I’m excited to share something I created called VoiceGift PLAY. It fits in the palm of your hand like a remote control and clips onto any book. It’s inspired by those old-school museum audio guides, but this is personal. VoiceGift PLAY stores up to 10 hours of audio across 999 numbered recordings. You simply enter a number to record a comment, memory, or explanation, and enter the same number to play it back. It’s perfect for B’nai Mitzvah practicing their laining, capturing Grandpa’s favorite tune, or recording Chad GadYa in a voice that matters. Go to voice.gift, that’s http://www.voice.gift, and use code MADLIK for 15% off.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:20:11 – 00:20:12]

Thanks.

Geoffrey Stern [00:20:12 – 00:23:08]

And now back to our podcast. So anyway, this concept of small little things is brought up again in the Talmud in Yuma, which comes from Yom Kippur. That is the tractate that deals with the high holidays of Yom Kippur. And the sages taught the following with regard to the verse, and do not impurify yourselves with them so that they should not thereby become impurified. A person who impurifies himself a bit, they impurify him greatly. There is, getting back to these small little acts, there is a multiplier effect. You take a little step and the rest of the step is taken for you, with you, supportive of you. If a person purifies himself by his own volition below on earth, they purify him all the more so in heaven. I love this idea that not only is doing a small act of good or bad capable of tipping the scale, but it is also— it’s a trigger, and it’s a trigger for other forces. And all of these concepts These concepts, I believe, and I’m arguing, are concepts that create the velocity and the movement and the progression of doing good without a quid pro quo. It’s this sense of maximizing. It’s the sense of naturally moving a little and it becomes a tipping point, moving a little and it becomes taken to the next power. But of course, Of all the sources that I found today, the one that most surprised me and blew me away was from the Sefer HaChinuch. And the Sefer HaChinuch, I’ve talked about it before, is written by a dad to his son who moved away from home. And basically what he does, he goes through the parshiot, the readings of the week, and he identifies every commandment of the 613 commandments for his son. That’s his lens that he looks at each parsha. So we get to the 16th commandment, which is, do not break a bone for the Passover sacrifice. And the author of the Sefer HaChinuch takes this to mean, again, small little actions have profound effects. He says, it is fitting for us to do acts that show within us the great stature which we achieved at that time. And in the act and reenactment that we do, this thing is placed in souls for eternity. So kind of as the opposite of what maybe Lenin said about to make breakfast, you have to break a few eggs. Here we’re saying is—

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:23:08 – 00:23:10]

Is Lenin the one who made that up?

Geoffrey Stern [00:23:10 – 00:23:14]

I think it was Lenin or Trotsky or one of those guys.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:23:14 – 00:23:19]

That’s pretty funny. Now they call it Elon Musk who says that. Okay, that’s okay.

Geoffrey Stern [00:23:19 – 00:25:21]

Good. No, it definitely wasn’t Elon So, so the idea of not breaking the bones, of dealing with this delicately, we’re eating our revolutionary meal called the Paschal Sacrifice. And he says, because the act, a reenactment of what we do, is placed in our souls for eternity. He goes on a few paragraphs later. You must know, he says to his son, that a man is acted upon according to his And his heart and all his thoughts always follow after the actions that he does, whether good or bad. And even he who in his heart is a complete sinner, and all the desires of his heart are only for evil, if his spirit shall be enlightened and he will pull his efforts and actions to persist in Torah and commandments, even if not for the sake of heaven, he shall immediately incline towards good. Good. And from that which is not for its own sake comes that which is for its own sake, for the hearts are drawn after the actions. So this is the answer to Sharon’s question, I believe. But there is no question that this is clearly not a quid pro quo. This is clearly not paying one’s penance to get redemption. There is a natural organic process that happens when we start doing things in the right way. You know, there are people that look at Israel today and they see how open they are to the LGBTQ community. And some people have the audacity to call that pinkwashing. In other words, they’re pretending as if they’re open to the gay community to get their liberal progressive brownie points. And to that, I always respond, maybe the rest of the Muslim and Arab world should pinkwash for a generation or two. Because if they did it for a generation or two, it would be true.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:25:21 – 00:25:22]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:25:22 – 00:25:45]

There’s nothing wrong with aspirationally acting above your class, aspirationally trying to act as though you could be better than you are. And that’s what this is all about. And that’s, I think, what this Asher is. It’s a beautiful Sefer HaChinuch. What can you tell us about him? Had you known this one before? I had never seen this.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:25:45 – 00:26:57]

Yes. So let me just first tell you what you said, of course, is that he wrote it for his son. He lived in northern Spain in the 1200s, and he had a son the way we all have children, and he wanted to make sure that he stayed connected to Judaism. So what he did was he tried to make the parsha something that was interesting to him. And that’s an amazing idea that after the action our hearts will move. For the hearts are drawn after the actions. And that’s what he tells his son. That’s what each generation tells the next generation, that do good things, even if you don’t mean it, do good things because our hearts are drawn after the actions. Sometimes our kids say, I don’t want to do that. I don’t really believe in it. I don’t want to to do it. Don’t do it. Go to shul, study some Torah, study the weekly portion. Watch Madlik every single week. What’s it going to mean? I don’t know. But the Chinuch thought that after the hearts are drawn, the hearts are drawn after the actions.

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:57 – 00:28:10]

I just think the way that the text itself is worth visiting. If you’re listening to this and you have access to the Sefaria notes to see this in the original, especially if you’re a Hebrew reader, as the rabbi quoted from it, is just beautiful. And of course, we’re touching upon behavioral psychology, if you will. But what I wanna do is to to now take it into the present in terms of contemporary philosophy of ethics. There is an amazing concept of something called dispositional ethics, dispositional understanding of reality. And to explain that to you, there’s something called conditional. We all know that if Newton taught us, and David Hume, the great empiricist, taught us, you know, if A hits B, then B will follow that force. Everything is conditional. There is a train of thought in philosophy called dispositional. So to put it into the language of our discussion, conditional would say, if you obey, then God will bless you.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:28:10 – 00:28:10]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:28:11 – 00:28:50]

That’s the im. Dispositional would mean listening is itself the disposition that constitutes and generates blessing. So one of the contemporary, the early contemporary proponents of dispositional thinking was someone called Gilbert Ryle. And he says, to possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state or to undergo a particular change. It is to be bound or likely to be in a particular state or undergo a particular change when a particular condition is realized. You’re ready. You have the potential.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:28:50 – 00:28:50]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:28:50 – 00:29:44]

To say that glass is brittle is not to describe something presently occurring in the glass. You’ll only know glass is brittle if you break it. But it has that disposition in it. It is to say what it would do under certain conditions. Another one of these thinkers, Brian Ellis, said the essential properties of things are dispositional. So classic science will say as follows. Classic science will say A causes B, so there is an external sequence. A dispositional view is different. Things possess powers, tendency, or dispositions. A seed is disposed toward becoming a tree. A magnet is disposed to attract iron. A knife is disposed to being sharp when our finger touches it.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:29:44 – 00:29:44]

Right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:29:46 – 00:30:09]

sandpaper is rough. It’s only rough in the instance that something smooth is scratched on it. So modern philosophy has increasingly challenged Hume’s thought of the world as a chain of external causes and effects. This kind of reminds you of the Maimonides that he was talking about. Are we born bad or are we born good?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:30:09 – 00:30:09]

That’s funny.

Geoffrey Stern [00:30:10 – 00:32:34]

So philosophers from Gilbert Ryle to Elizabeth Anscombe and Brian Ellis have argued that the deepest features of reality are not merely events, but dispositions, virtues, and powers. So that is so similar to some of the texts that we looked at. And the Torah’s grammar in this asher hints at something richer. Blessing is not merely conditional, it is generative. A mitzvah does not simply earn blessing, it creates the kind of person for whom blessing becomes natural. Modern philosophers could call this a dispositional account of reality. Ben Azai said it centuries earlier, schar mitzvah, mitzvah. And I always knew about this dispositional philosophy, but I was reminded of it when I was reading Shai Held’s book about Judaism is about Love. So to give you an example, because we’re talking about hearing, he’s talking about how can you command somebody to love his fellow? V’ahaftah re’acha kamocha. And so he says, notice that we’re not seeing two passages from Maimonides, whereas the first holds that love your neighbor refers to concrete kindness we perform for others. Okay, so Maimonides in that position says you can’t command love, but you command actions of love. The second position of Maimonides maintains that his concern is with what we wish for others. In one place, then, Maimonides seems to belong to the positive action school, but in the other, he appears to belong to the emotional school. Which one is it? asks Shai Held. Does he think love your neighbor refers to emotions or to actions? asks Shai Held. And Shai answers, my sense is that he thinks it refers to both. For Maimonides, love is a disposition, a quality of character, and as such, it is both emotional and actional dimensions. I want only good for my neighbor and I act accordingly. And I think that sums up my read of what asher means. It’s not conditional. It is behavioral. It is dispositional. You create the conditions for doing another mitzvah and for listening to the mitzvot.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:32:36 – 00:33:13]

And actually, you were clearly walking home with us on Shabbat afternoon because that would have answered Sharon’s question. And that’s what it means. Asher tishnu’u vehaya im shamoa. That’s not the end. That’s just creating the situation that will set up the next mitzvah. And once you have the next mitzvah, then skar mitzvah, mitzvah. The reward of doing one mitzvah is performing another mitzvah. This is great. Parashat Re’eh, each one of these weeks, Geoffrey in the dvarim, one is better than the next. And this one is really, really good today.

Geoffrey Stern [00:33:13 – 00:33:26]

Well, Shabbat Shalom. Let us all wish that we shall all be disposed to having a Shabbat Shalom and to making of ourselves what we want Shabbat shalom, and we’ll see you next week.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:33:26 – 00:33:29]

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem. See you next week. Be well.

Geoffrey Stern [00:33:33 – 00:33:55]

The Torah’s question isn’t only whether we’re doing the right thing today, it’s whether today’s actions are creating the person we’ll be tomorrow. So here’s my question for you: what is one habit in your life that isn’t just changing what you do, but is changing who you are. I’d love to hear from you.

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Sacks. Welcome to Madlik. My

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name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a spark and shed some light

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on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we

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host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite podcast platform

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and now on YouTube and Substack. We also publish a

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source sheet on Sefaria, and a link is included in the show

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notes. This week’s parsha is Eikev, and we’ll explore how

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the Jewish story is neither a circle nor

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a straight line. It is history that rhymes.

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Somehow, Rabbi, I feel like we’ve touched on this before, but

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I couldn’t resist. It’s a good topic.

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I don’t know if we have or we haven’t, but it’s a really good topic. Let’s take it away.

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And it’s rare that I stop on the second word of the parsha and go,

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“That’s it. That’s what we’re going to talk about.”

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The parsha is called Eikev because it usually gets named after one of

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the early words in the parsha. And our parsha

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begins, “V’haya eikev.”

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V’haya has a

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sense of future focus, and eikev is

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enigmatic. So the Metsudah Publications

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translation translates it as follows:

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“In the future, as a consequence of your heeding

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these laws and your guarding and fulfilling them, Hashem,

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your God, will guard for you the covenant and the kindness

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that He swore to your forefathers.”

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Everett Fox translates it,

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“Now it shall be…”

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Again, it’s a word that speaks about the future,

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because that’s how he translates eikev—

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“because of your

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hearkening to these regulations by keeping and observing them,

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Hashem will keep for you the covenant of loyalty

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that He swore to your fathers.”

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So if you look at

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Targum Yonatan, the Aramaic translation

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of the Torah,

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it says, “V’haya halaf”—

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“in the future,” “as a consequence,”

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“in exchange for.”

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Rabbi, I think when I sell my chametz,

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or when I got married and wanted to transfer the value of my ring,

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there’s something called chalifin, is there not?

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Yes. That is correct. You learned about that in yeshiva.

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It’s an exchange.

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You hold up a token or a handkerchief,

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and you make a symbolic exchange.

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I’ll explain how chalifin works.

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It’s an exchange, but not an equal exchange.

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You give me your chametz and I give you my pen.

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Your chametz could be worth $10,000. The pen is worth fifty cents.

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But symbolically it shows that we’re serious,

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because we’ve exchanged the pen.

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So chalifin means to exchange.

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Targum Yonatan therefore understands

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the verse as a consequence or exchange for

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your heeding these laws.

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There really is a sense of quid pro quo,

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of causal relationships.

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Rashi says…

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“If you will hear the heel.” Eikev

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also means “heel,” the bottom of your

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foot. If even the lighter commandments, which a

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person usually treads on with his heels,

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which a person is inclined to treat lightly, you will hearken to

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them. So now the plot thickens,

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because there’s another problem besides the first two words

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of this verse. The other problem is

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that it says mishpatim. It doesn’t say mishpatim v’chukkim.

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So they’re trying to figure out: What is this consequence?

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And Rashi goes—you know you have an enigmatic word

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when we go out of the lane, so to speak,

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and say, “No, no, no. Eikev has nothing to do with quid pro quo or

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causal relationships or a

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trade. It has to do with a body part—your heel—and

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it has to do with, as a consequence of your

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keeping even the lowly commandments, which you

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might tread upon.” We’re really—I don’t know if you can call

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this peshat or midrash—but definitely it’s an inkblot test.

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People are coming at it with different theories.

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Yeah, well, I mean, it’s so great because it’s the first word.

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It’s the word after which the parsha is named. We

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have no idea what it means, and that

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means it’s going to get fun. So Ibn Ezra

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says eikev, “because,” has the same meaning as

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eikev, “reward forever.” He brings a

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verse from Psalms that says, “Natiti libi

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la’asot chukecha le’olam eikev.” I am

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resolved to follow Your laws to the

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utmost, forever. And in the translation that

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Sefaria gives, it’s uncertain. The Hebrew is uncertain.

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So now it means

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some sort of reward, but kind of a

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destiny—a kind of reward

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clearly in the future. You know, the Psalm that

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he quotes is translated as “the utmost” or “forever.”

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Very, very interesting that all of this baggage

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or nuance is being piled onto this

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one word. It’s fantastic. This is a

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fantastic word. So in

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Sefaria, you can click on any word and a dictionary comes up.

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So in that dictionary, eikev means consequence,

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gain, reward, end; as an adverb, as a

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consequence, because, consequently. So there clearly is

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this causal relationship, this reward

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for proper behavior. It’s

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future-oriented. When you say a causal relationship, it’s

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something that goes from now to the future. Clearly,

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there’s a lot in this one word. And now we’re going to

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go to a Ramban, Nachmanides, that

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I found to be just a

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kind of journey through this word, connecting all of

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these different meanings that started me thinking:

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What is history? What is Jewish history? And I think, as we read through

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it, maybe you’ll also have that same feeling. So

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Ramban says eikev means “because.” So also,

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“Eikev—because of the fact that Abraham hearkened to

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My voice.” So he quotes a use of the word

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in Genesis with Abraham. Rashi says, “If you will hearken

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even to the lighter commandments, which a person usually treads

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upon with his heels, those commandments which a

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person is inclined to treat lightly, then God will

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keep His promise to you.” And the commentators have said that the meaning of the

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word eikev is that, in the end, there will be a

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reward. So that was kind of like the last, Ibn Ezra.

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Similarly, “In keeping the ordinances of God,

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eikev rav, there is great reward.” So he

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quotes another verse. The verse here is thus stating:

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“And the end, the ultimate consequence of your hearkening to the

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ordinances and of your observing them, is that God shall keep the

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covenant and the mercy, and He will love you.”

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So I love this “ultimate consequence.” We are looking at

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the arc of history. And so Ramban now says, “This is

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correct, for in the sacred language, the beginning of anything is

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called rosh, ‘head.'” As it is said, rosh,

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the beginning. Rosh Hashanah is now around the corner.

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That’s the head of the year. So also, the leader of the

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generation is called the head of the people. The head of the

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yeshiva is called the Rosh Yeshiva. That was—I

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put that in; Ramban did not. Similarly, the

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conclusion of any matter is called eikev, “heel,”

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as the sacred language adopts these figurative expressions

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from the human body. And thus, the head of the people—

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That’s very interesting. And the heel is the end,

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right? That actually is fantastic, isn’t it? So now

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he is linking what Rashi said, which I said was taking

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a left turn off the highway. And

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Ramban is saying, “No, no, no. There is something there”—that the

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heel is a body part that is used for the

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end. So we do have this kind of time

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element to eikev. Scripture also speaks, says

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Ramban, of the head and the tail. Of course, we all know that

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from Pirkei Avot. And Onkelos rendered the word

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eikev as chalaf, “in exchange for,” like

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chalef, “in return for your service.” Onkelos

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thus made it an expression of something roundabout—the

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end result of a series of events—derived from the

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verse, “V’haya he’akov lemishor—the crooked shall be

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made straight.” That is, the circuitous road that goes

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roundabout will become a straight, level path. So

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before we get to that unbelievably profound

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verse in Isaiah, because we already mentioned Rosh

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Hashanah, now we’re going to have to mention Simchat Torah—

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hakafot, when we dance around. So

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what our rabbi is taking from chalifin is not

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simply an exchange. It’s a circle

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through which it flows. Right. It’s a perpetual

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exchange. It’s like the—what is one of the

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Newtonian laws? That energy is conserved.

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The metaphors are just piling

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in, each becoming more fascinating than the other. But

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yes, let’s get back to the verse in

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Isaiah: “The crooked shall be made straight.”

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Again, this is a wonderful short story by

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Agnon that you all have to read. But basically,

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what it’s saying is that, at the end of days, all

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these circuitous pathways that we’ve taken, all

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these detours that we’ve taken, all these compromises that we

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might have made—everything will be straightened out.

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Again, Isaiah is talking about the end of days. So

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now you can see why I’m reading history, and I’m

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reading an insight into Jewish history from here.

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Ramban continues. He uses other

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metaphors for hakafah, eikev, and being

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surrounded. He says, “The verse here is thus stating, according

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to Onkelos, ‘And it shall come to pass that the

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effect caused by your hearkening to the ordinances

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and your performing them will be that God will keep His covenant with

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you.'” “He has explained it well,” says Ramban about Onkelos.

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A similar expression is biglal, “for the sake of this thing,”

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which means “on account of,” from the word v’galelu,

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“and they rolled the stone.” If you hear the word gilgal (reincarnation) in

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there, you’re not off the mark. And he

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says these are expressions of rolling and circling.

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Therefore, they called Jacob Yeshurun, from the root

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yashar, “straight” and “upright,” because the

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opposite of the deceitful one is he who is upright.

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So now we’re getting into the moral arc of

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history. Right. It’s different. A circle is

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different from being upright. You said a circle is more

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about this perpetual movement.

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Upright is more about there being a direction—and this is

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upright. I’ll go one step further.

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We started by talking in the introduction about the

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Greeks, who thought everything was cyclical. Everything just

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repeats itself. And maybe the rationalists, like Descartes and others,

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who looked at history and said everything was a straight line.

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Here I am going to take a little bit of liberty

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with “deceitful” being the opposite of

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yashar, in the sense that it’s not straight—

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that it wiggles. It goes serpentine, if you will, from

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that great movie called The In-Laws. It’s not

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direct. It can be deceitful, but it can also

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be the ugly truth of the way

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we plod through life. And that, I think, is the dichotomy

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that Ramban is now adding to the baggage. Similarly,

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the end part of the foot is called eikev, as it is said, “And his

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hand seized b’eikev, the heel of Esau.” So now we’re bringing it

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back home. Jacob grabbed

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Esau’s heel, and that’s why he got his name. But his name

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is also, in a sense, because he was

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deceitful—he bought the birthright, and so forth and so on.

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Yeah, I mean, that heel—and Ramban is always well known

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for that. What’s the connection between

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“V’haya eikev tishme’un,” the beginning of this week’s

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Torah portion, and the story of Esau and

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Jacob, and holding on to the heel? It’s the same

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Torah. It’s the same story.

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And now, a word from our sponsor.

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Thanks. And now, back to our podcast.

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So I’m going to make an argument that all of these

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words and concepts are being thrown

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into the cholent of Jewish historiography.

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In other words, what appears straight can sometimes

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be crooked. What appears aimless is going toward some

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future.

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What seems unintentional is intentional.

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He’s bringing a lot into this.

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And I do believe, though, that he feels that

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eikev, if you look at it even in our verse, is

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saying: Because, through better or worse, through thick or

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thin, through direct or indirect progress, you have kept those

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commandments and have reached this point in history, God will be

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loyal to you. Right. So he says, “So

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also is the expression, ‘They came upon him ba’akifin,'”

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meaning with circuitous and subtle arguments. The word

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akeivin—as these two letters, the bet and the peh, were considered

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interchangeable. So he’s really bringing it full circle. If you think that the

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arc of history has a morality to it, what

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ultimately he is, I think, intoning is the fact

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that you get to the end. It’s not quite “the ends justify the means,”

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but it is the fact that, to get to the end,

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it’s not always a straight path. And the straight path might

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not get you to the end, but the circuitous route

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that is the history of the Jewish people will get you

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there. I just find it a totally amazing

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Ramban. Well, I’d say—and of course, it’s true—

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Ramban lived through a very difficult period in

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Spain, when the Jews were challenged.

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He participated in a famous disputation with a Christian in

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1263. He understood the

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circuitousness of Jewish history. And

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we’re not going to get into it—we’ve covered it so many times before—but

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Ramban is the one who also championed ma’aseh avot

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siman la-banim—that what happens to previous

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generations gets repeated later.

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Rabbi, you and I heard a lecture from Shai Held

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this past Erev Pesach, and he said something

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from Tehillim (Hallel) that really had my mind spinning. In

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Tehillim, we say, “Mah lecha hayam ki tanus, haYarden

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tisov le’achor?” What is with you, sea,

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that you flee? That means the splitting of the Red Sea. And the Yarden, the

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Jordan, turned backward when the Jews were entering the Promised Land.

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So even the splitting of the Red Sea was a kind

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of prequel to the splitting of the Jordan. So really,

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Jewish history does repeat itself. But each

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time, it’s a different and unique situation. Yeah, very good. And I

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think that’s what he meant by ma’aseh avot siman

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la-banim. So, I mean, to give you that

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60,000-foot review of history in

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terms of what I think the consensus is, the Greeks—especially

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Plato, the Stoics, and Polybius—held a cyclical

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view of history, while the Hebrew Bible is distinctive in insisting

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that history moves forward toward a goal: creation,

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covenant, redemption. What is unique about the Torah is not simply

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that it combines linear and cyclical time, but that

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recurring historical patterns occur within a purposeful

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historical journey. And I am going to be

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arguing that, in this one Ramban, you kind of find

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it all. Yeah, well, that’s why Ramban is so great. You know, he

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is kind of a collector of material, but he also

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has a strong point of view himself. So

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recently I’ve been rediscovering—or discovering—Jonathan Sacks,

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because I think that we on Madlik tend to bring in

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contemporary thinkers and such, and I think Sacks does as well.

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This is what he writes in his introduction to

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Covenant and Conversation: Genesis. He says, “According to

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many anthropologists and historians, a quite new and

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different form of time was born in ancient Israel. Often this is

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called linear time. I prefer the phrase covenantal

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time. The Hebrew Bible is the first document to see time

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as an arena of change. Tomorrow need not be the same as

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yesterday. There is nothing given, eternal, and immutable

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about the way we construct societies and live our lives together.

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Time is not a series of moments traced on the face of a watch,

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always moving, yet always the same. Instead, it is a

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journey with a starting point and a destination, or a story with a

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beginning, middle, and end. Each moment has meaning, which can

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only be grasped if we understand where we have come from

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and where we are going. This is time, not as in

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nature, but as in history.” So

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this is a thought very similar to Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi:

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that the Jews, because they saw time

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differently, actually made history differently.

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It was a living history. History was a

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part of memory and really

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a part of our ritual. Another example

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that is brought—I saw something by Ismar Schorsch—and he says:

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Take mo’ed. Ohel Mo’ed is a Tent of Meeting.

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But what he says is that Judaism

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replaced nature with history. So mo’adim used to be

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agricultural holidays based, in fact,

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in nature, in the material world, and Jews

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made them into history. So Passover

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became the Exodus story. Shavuot, which is the first

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grain harvest, became the giving of the Torah. It’s a

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fascinating way of looking at how we treat history.

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Of course. But it’s history as memory. It doesn’t

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matter whether the sea split. That’s not what it’s about.

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It’s about the fact that we remember that the sea split.

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And as I said in the beginning, we use that as a

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paradigm and a lens to understand what’s happening to

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us in the present. And it becomes a

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part of our present

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vocabulary. And I think that’s a little bit of what happens at the Seder, when we

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have to say that we must see ourselves as though we

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left Egypt. But we are still “we” — So I want to

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introduce our listeners to a thinker from the

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1700s called Giambattista Vico,

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whom I came across through Isaiah Berlin. And

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he saw history not as a straight line of progress,

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but as a dynamic, spiraling journey. What he called it

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was corsi e ricorsi, a dance of

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rise and fall, creation and decay. And he

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really was unlike the Enlightenment thinkers, who believed

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in inevitable progress. Vico thought history

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advances through recurring patterns—not circles,

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but spirals. And what intrigued

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Isaiah Berlin was, first of

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all, that every age has its own way

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of evolving. You never go back to where you started at the

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beginning, even though there is this cycle, and that’s what makes it

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a spiral. And then the other thing that

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is fascinating—as an aside—he (Vico) said all of this

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applies to everybody except the Hebrews. And most

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people think that he (Vico) was protecting himself from the Roman Catholic Church.

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It was such a radical idea that, of all the people he

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spared from history as a spiral, it was the Jews. And

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I’m arguing that that’s exactly who he was talking about.

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That’s amazing. But anyway, what Isaiah

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Berlin loved about it was that it

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challenged monism—

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the idea that there is only one single objective truth or perfect

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system for how human beings should live. Isaiah

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00:25:12.025 –> 00:25:15.214
Berlin was terrified of monism because he believed it

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inevitably led to authoritarianism and utopias

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that justify violence. So there’s a little bit of

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relativism here, but what it’s saying is that every nation

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goes through its own corso e ricorso. In

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the case of the Jewish people, we have

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Creation, we have Genesis, we have

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the Exodus. We take these concepts, these

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benchmarks, and we recycle them and recycle them,

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and we move forward without leaving them

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behind. And he found that to be

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extremely insightful. But what I could

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00:25:55.927 –> 00:25:59.630
not really believe were the

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00:25:59.630 –> 00:26:02.868
two kinds of theories that Vico had.

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One was called the verum factum principle. It says

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that humans can truly understand society and history

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because we made them ourselves, whereas only God

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can fully understand the natural, physical world.

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Isaiah Berlin felt that he really was creating

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sociology, economics—the human sciences, so to

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speak. And what Vico was arguing is

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that, through verum factum, we humans

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can understand human history better than anything else. Yeah, that’s

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right, because we live it and we make it. It is truly

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ours. And I think that takes that eikev

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concept, where it’s a part of the human body, but

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it’s something through which we can truly understand how we

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meander through history, taking a left turn and a right turn. The

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00:26:54.373 –> 00:26:58.221
other thing he argued for was fantasia. Vico argued

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that, to understand the past, we cannot use mathematical formulas.

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We must use active, empathetic imagination—fantasia—

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to enter the minds of past cultures. Berlin saw this as

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the true birth of modern social science, cultural

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anthropology, and genuine historical sympathy.

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It’s just truly amazing. The second thinker that

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Berlin loved was Herder, and Herder did talk about the Jews.

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00:27:25.937 –> 00:27:29.784
Herder was a Lutheran minister and

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00:27:29.784 –> 00:27:33.503
was German. He argued for the emancipation of the Jews, but he

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00:27:33.631 –> 00:27:37.478
also argued for the return of the Jews to their promised homeland. Because,

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00:27:37.478 –> 00:27:40.989
again, he saw that every society does not need to become

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universal. It needs to find that which is particular

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about it—those prisms,

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that mythology—and build upon it. And

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00:27:52.867 –> 00:27:56.266
language was very important to

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00:27:56.394 –> 00:28:00.225
Herder. And if we’ve proved anything today by using one

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word, eikev, and looking at all the baggage that it has,

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we’ve proven the point that different words can trigger

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00:28:07.471 –> 00:28:10.885
different results. But I think, really,

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there is something unique about the Jewish

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vantage point on history. And I think it’s

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self-fulfilling. It truly is our best

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guarantee that, as our verse says,

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eikev—because we have remained

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loyal to this evolving

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historical narrative—we will survive.

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Right. God will keep His promise to us.

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I just love this insight that humans can

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understand history better than anything else because we live it. I

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mean, it’s fantastic. I mean, you really end here

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with Yerushalmi again. It’s really Yerushalmi’s notion

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that history is what you live. It’s not what happens

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to you, but how you live it. And it gives

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00:29:01.957 –> 00:29:05.708
us a whole new, I think, toolkit for when

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00:29:05.885 –> 00:29:09.427
we study our texts—how we go through that

463
00:29:09.427 –> 00:29:13.034
layered approach of commentary and commentary and commentary. We’re

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actually looking at concepts that were

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created and meant something in one age, and will mean

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00:29:20.643 –> 00:29:24.324
something else in another age, and will mean something

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00:29:24.661 –> 00:29:28.261
still more for our children’s children. And we need

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00:29:28.293 –> 00:29:32.053
to take the time, as Vico argued and Herder

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00:29:32.133 –> 00:29:35.975
argued, to understand what it meant in all of those different periods,

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to be able to process it,

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to be inspired by it, and to be guided by it. And that,

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at the end of the day, is this kind of chalifin

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and these hakafot and all

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of these wonderful words and language that we came

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00:29:54.200 –> 00:29:57.560
across today. Fantastic. This is really, really

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00:29:57.560 –> 00:30:01.120
good. We’re ready for Eikev in Westport. We’re ready

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00:30:01.120 –> 00:30:04.720
for Eikev. We’re ready for Rosh Hashanah, for Simchat Torah. We

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00:30:04.720 –> 00:30:08.520
can go on vacation. What do you mean? We’re ready to sell

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00:30:08.520 –> 00:30:12.260
our chametz. Fantastic. Shabbat shalom, everybody. This is

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00:30:12.260 –> 00:30:14.960
great. I look forward to next week. Shana tovah.

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Shabbat shalom. See you all next week.

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Here’s a question I invite you to consider: If

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history truly does rhyme and is created by people

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rather than impersonal forces, what role does each of us

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00:30:32.558 –> 00:30:36.296
play in writing the next chapter? I’d love to hear from you.

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Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik,

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we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition.

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Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your

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favorite podcast platform, and now on YouTube and Substack.

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We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria, and a link is included

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in the show notes. This week's Parsha is V'yetchanan.

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Join us as we explore the Torah's revolutionary portrait of

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flawed leadership and ask what happens when a culture moves

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from acknowledging human weakness to celebrating it.

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Why does Judaism preserve the failures of its greatest heroes

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without ever turning failure into a virtue? And

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what might that teach us about leadership, morality,

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and ourselves? So another— that was a mouthful. That's another week. That's it.

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What a great topic. Here we go. Let's go.

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So Va'etchanan means that Moses

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was pleading with God in Deuteronomy 3:23. He

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pleaded, O my sovereign God, you who let your servants see the first

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works of your greatness and your mighty hand, who has

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power whose deeds no God in heaven or earth can equal. So he's laying

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on the praise. Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good

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land on the other side of the Jordan. This is his on-the-mountaintop

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moment. That good hill country and the Lebanon.

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But God was wrathful with me on your account. Now he's

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turning to the children of Israel. It's because of you guys. And would not

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listen to me. God said to me, enough. Never speak to

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me of this matter again.

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It's too much.

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Don't speak to me of this matter again. Go up to the

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summit of Pisgah and gaze to the west, the north, the

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south, the east. Look at it well, for you

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shall not go across yonder Jordan. Give

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Joshua his instructions, imbue him with strength and courage,

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for he shall go across as the head of this people, and he

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shall allot to them the land that you may only

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see. God definitely rubs it in. You're only

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gonna see it. This is as good as it gets. But really, this is a

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question of Moses's mortality,

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Moses finishing his life's mission,

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and Moses confronting the fact that he's not

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perfect, that he did something wrong. I mean, you even sense in it he's still

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blaming the Jewish people. It's still— he's a little bitter.

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It's all there. It's sad.

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But on the other hand, We're not taking away,

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as we'll see with the rabbis, from the greatness of Moses. But

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it is what it is. Right. Well, that's for sure. And you

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have to remember that it wasn't the people's fault that he

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hit the rock. That was his own decision. So he blames the

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people. That's just what frustrated people do, is they blame

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others rather than taking responsibility for themselves, on themselves.

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So that's not such a good It's not. The

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flaws are still there. We are who we are. You know, they say it's

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hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I guess that

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applies to all of us, even if we are Ein Moshe

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Kemoshe. I mean, he was the greatest, but nonetheless. So

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in Bamidbar Rabbah, it says, Rav l'chem b'nei Levi,

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it's too much for you, the son of Levi. That is a quote from

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Numbers. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, you struck with a rod,

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and with you struck you are stricken, he

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said, it is too much for you. Rav Lachem, tomorrow you will

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hear. So again, the Midrash picks up

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on this Rav Lachem, it's too much, and it

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focuses on 2 instances. One was with

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the sons of Levi. This was Korach's rebellion. And

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it says, just as Bnei Korach, the Levi,

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overreached, you're also overreaching. In Sotah, Rabbi

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Levi says, Moses proclaimed to the Jewish people when

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rebuking them with the term rav, and therefore it was

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proclaimed to him with the term rav that he would not

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enter the land of Israel. The Gemara explains he proclaimed with the

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term rav when speaking with the congregation of Korach, you take too

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much upon yourselves. So it's even interesting

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that they're not totally focused on which

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crime that Moses committed that

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was responsible for him not seeing his

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life's mission fulfilled. Was it actually hitting the rock,

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or was it the way he talked to the children of Israel? Which is

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interesting, right? Means his frustration with the people

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may have ultimately been his downfall.

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But clearly, I love the fact that it says rav lachem.

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Rav, I guess most people would listen to it and say it means rabbi.

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But rav is like rov. It means like many. You're

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taking too much. Too much, right? Right.

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And I would say the word here is overreach. We're

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humans at the end of the day, and we can't necessarily— we'll

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see Rav Sacks in a second— we can't necessarily fulfill our life's mission.

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We can't necessarily do it all ourselves in one generation,

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and we are not perfect. So let's focus a little bit

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on some of the other rabbinic material. In Devarim Rabbah,

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it says, I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying—

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Rabbi Yochanan said, from here you learn that no creature has

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any claim on its Creator, as Moses, the master

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of all the prophets, came only with an expression of plea.

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So he's focused on the word Va'etchanan. And what he's

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saying is, this is the real difference between us humans,

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even the greatest prophet who ever lived, the greatest leader who

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ever lived, we are not gods. And at the end of the day,

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we can only get down on our knees, as the case may be,

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and plead with God. But I think this is what he's saying, the way

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my takeaway is, this is the boundary between

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humans, creations of God, and God, him

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or herself. Right. There's no question that that's right. Okay,

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great. Let's see why. Great Midrash right here. So here's a

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fascinating Midrash. So God is figuring out how

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is he going to give the bad news to Moses and who's going to

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deliver the— who's going to give him the death kiss, so to speak.

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And what I found in it, in one of the dialogues, and I'm taking this

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just a little moment, is something

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fascinating. So I believe it was Shmuel who was

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sent; the prophet Samuel. And Samuel says to Moses, I

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came to take your soul. He, meaning Moses, said to him, who sent you?

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He said to him, the one who created all creations. He said to him, meaning

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Moses said to Samuel, you will not take my soul. He said to him,

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anyone who comes into the world, their souls are given to me. Moses

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said to him, I have greater strength than anyone

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else who comes into the world. Wow. He said to him, what is your

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strength? He said to him, and this could have been

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the myth of Moses, and that's why I'm quoting it.

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Moses says, I am the son of Amram. I

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emerged circumcised from my mother's womb.

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There was no need to circumcise me. So if getting

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circumcised is kind of a fix, fixing the mold,

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Moses says, I was born pure, complete.

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On the day that I was born, I was able to speak. I walked on

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my feet. I spoke with my father and my mother, and I did not

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even suck milk. This almost sounds like a typical

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Near Eastern myth of a deity being born,

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a perfect human being. When I was 3 months old, I

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prophesied, said Moses, and said that I was destined to

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receive the Torah from fiery flames. When

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I was walking outside, I entered the king's palace. He goes

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on and on and talks about everything that he did. I received the

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Torah from the right hand of the Holy One, blessed be he. I taught it to

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Israel. He says, I caused the sun and the moon

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to stand still in the heights, and I struck with the staff in my hand

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and I killed them. Who is there among those who come

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into the world who can do that? So if you want to talk

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about a flawed personality, in this particular

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Midrash where Moses is addressing Samuel, he's saying,

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I'm not that guy. I was as close to perfection as you

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get. Go from here, wicked one. You must not say that.

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Go flee from me. I will not give my soul to you. And so what

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was the takeaway? That God himself had to come

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and take Moses away, which on the one hand is a

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great honor, the kiss of death, so to speak. But

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on the other hand, you have this vignette and you realize how

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this story could have gone. And it makes, I think,

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The absolute unanimity

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amongst our commentators, and I would say

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the legend of the street, that we look at our

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most famous, our most quote-unquote perfect

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leader, and we find the imperfections. We don't shun away

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from them. We don't varnish it. It is what it is, and

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it makes it that much more profound, I believe.

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Fantastic. I mean, that's it. To recognize their

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failings is to appreciate them as human leaders.

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So Jonathan Sacks wrote a book on leadership. I have a link to

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an article that he wrote. He goes, for us as Jews, and by the way,

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I quote Jonathan Sacks, but I think you will agree with me, Adam,

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that there is kind of unanimity about the

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failure of our leaders. There is no one who takes the

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crash course from you to becoming a Jew,

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who probably doesn't hear from you to explain that, unlike maybe other

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religions whose founders or leaders

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are perfect, we do not shellac, we do not

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varnish our leaders. So that's a very important

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point about the need to have your leaders be

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perfect. You say, like, Christianity has that.

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The leader needs to be perfect. Judaism never had it.

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Recently, obviously, the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox,

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are in the headlines. The

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ultra-Orthodox tend to deify

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their leaders. They follow their leaders.

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They don't ask any questions. Whatever the leader says, that's

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what they do. The leader cannot be wrong. We know

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that Hasidic sects are like that. And I think, Geoffrey, it's a

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very important point to say that that's not really

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the Jewish way. That's a much more

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modern phenomenon because they feel as if they were

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being attacked by secular culture. So they

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need to fall into themselves and make their

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leaders perfect. But I think that's a critical point,

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especially now, to keep in mind about what's happened

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in certain sectors of Judaism. I love it. You heard it first here

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on Madlik from Rabbi Adam Mintz himself.

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Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

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So now we continue with Jonathan Sacks and his

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rendering of this, but it's not unique. For us as Jews,

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humanity at its highest is still human. We are mortal. We are creatures

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Of flesh and blood. We are born, we grow, we learn, we mature,

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we make our way in the world. If we are lucky, we

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find love. If we are blessed, we have children. but we

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also age. The body grows old, even if the spirit stays

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young. We know that this gift of life does not last forever,

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because in this physical universe, nothing lasts forever, not

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even planets or stars. Now he's focused on the mortality

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aspect of what's going on in Moses's mind. For each of

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us, therefore, there is a a river we will not cross,

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a promised land we will not enter, and a

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destination we will not reach. Even the greatest

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life is an unfinished symphony. Moses's death on the

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far side of the Jordan is a consolation for all of us.

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None of us should feel guilty or frustrated or angry or

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defeated that there are things we hope to achieve

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but did not. This is what it is to be

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human. Okay, so now he has the second thing. It's you can't

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finish it all in your one generation. Nor should we

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be haunted by our mistakes. That, I believe,

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is why the Torah tells us that Moses sinned. Did it

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really have to include the episode of the water, the stick, the rock, and

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Moses's anger? It happened. But did the Torah have to

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tell us it happened? It passes over 38 of

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the 40 years in the wilderness in silence. It does

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not report every incident, only those that

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have lessons for posterity. Why

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not then pass over this too in silence, sparing

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Moses's good name? What other religious literature

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has ever been so candid about the

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failings of even the greatest of its heroes? That's, by

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the way, a good question. I mean, you'll never hear the traditional

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commentators ask that question, because if the Torah has it, the Torah

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wants to have it. But that's his question. And that is, why

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bother? What do you need to hear about Moses's failings for?

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Wouldn't it be a better picture of Moses not to have those

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failings? Even the greatest human being made mistakes,

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failed as often as they succeeded, and had moments of black

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despair. What made them great was not that they

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were perfect, but that they kept going. They learned from every error,

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refused to give up hope, and eventually accepted the great gift that

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only failure can grant. Namely humility. They understood

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that life is about falling 100 times and getting up again.

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It is about never losing your ideals, even when you know how hard

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it is to change the world. It's about getting up every morning and walking

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one more day toward the promised land, even though you know you may

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never get there, but knowing also that you helped

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others get there. I think about what's going on in

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this moment, but again, I want to focus on today's

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episode less on the mortality aspect, which is

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critical, less on the intergenerational aspect, which

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is you can't do it all. We all need to create our own Joshua,

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but focus on the flawed part of it, that there is a

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profound Jewish benchmark lesson

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that we learn. If we— you asked, why does it have to

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mention it? And by the way, the Abarbanel asks the same thing. It's

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because the lesson is too important to miss, that even if it

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detracts a little bit from Moses' kavod, the lesson takes precedence. Right.

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Which is remarkable. Let's say it. That's remarkable. And you

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notice that Rabbi Sacks, that Jonathan Sacks, wrote this in a dvar

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Torah for Vezot HaBerachah, which is about the mortality of

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Moses, the fact that he died. So you understand why he's focusing on

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mortality, even though we're interested in something else. Yeah.

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And I'll just add, Nahum Sarna is another one. In his book on

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Genesis, he talks about Abraham and Isaac and all their

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failures, passing their wives off as sisters

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and all of that. Really does say that if you compare this to

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other mythologies in the ancient Near East,

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it is striking how different it is. This was

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something that was very unique. But now I want to talk about the

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flawed part, because the argument that I'm going to

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take today is that it's a very nuanced

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argument, and there's a big difference between

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recognizing failure in our leaders and

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idealizing failures. There's a difference between

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saying that our leaders have flaws and

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saying that a flaw is their ultimate credential.

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And I think I want to do is compare it to the Sermon on the

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Mount, and not necessarily the pashat of the Sermon on the

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Mount, but certainly a way that it has been taken

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or mis-taken. So let's just read the Sermon on the Mount a little bit.

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And of course, Jesus goes up onto the mountain. And he says what they call

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the Beatitudes. It's really, blessed are the poor in spirit.

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Think of blessed as ashrei. Ashrei ha'ish shelo yish

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gachecha. So happy are those who are poor

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in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed

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are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the

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meek, for they will inherit the land. So

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it's almost as though, Rabbi, you could take it to mean that the

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poor in spirit are going to go to the head of the line. Yes.

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Those who mourn will go again ahead of those who

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simply are living a normal life. And those that

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are meek, they will be the ones. They become

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almost the ideal. Blessed are those who hunger and

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thirst for righteousness. Now, I must say that if you ask the

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typical man on the street, they're going to forget about poor

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in spirit and think it's poor. They will think less about

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those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and think of those who are hunger—hungry,

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right? Right. Blessed are those

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who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is

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the kingdom of heaven. Again, the argument that I will be

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making is there are those who believe that something like this is

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teaching us that if you're persecuted, by right you

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must be better. You must— it's almost a

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badge of entitlement, if you will.

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And now what we're going to see is how

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this has been interpreted, because I think the first

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thing that we have to understand is in one aspect, it comes

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right out of Judaism, and it's really a nuance. So if you

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look at Isaiah 61, the Spirit of God is upon

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me because God has anointed me. He says, I have been

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sent as a herald of joy to the humble,

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levasar anavim shalchini,

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to bind up the wounded of the heart, to proclaim release of

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the captives. But as a Jew reading this, you know what

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it means. If you find somebody poor, make him less poor. If you

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find somebody who's captured, release him. It doesn't

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mean to say when it says that I am celebrating these

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people that they have more inherent worth. In

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Isaiah 61:1-3, it says,

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I have been sent as a herald of joy to the humble, to bind up

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the wounded of the heart, to proclaim release to the captives, to

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comfort all who mourn, to give them a turban

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instead of ashes, the festive anointment instead of mourning,

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a garment of splendor instead of a drooping spirit. They

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shall be called oaks of victory. You could

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really interpret this as saying that they go to the head of the

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line. But as a Jew, when we read it, we know what it means.

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It's to pick them up and bring them into the

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community, to give them the same tabernacle of victory

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that all of us are entitled to. But it is a nuance, Rabbi.

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Yes. Now, this is obviously, you know,

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that the Sermon on the Mount is based on these

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verses in Isaiah. It's not that it just happens to be

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similar. What they did is they took the verses in Isaiah

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and they reformulated them as the

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fundamental principles, tenets of

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Christianity. So the point that you're making isn't

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just an interesting point. Yeah. It actually is the difference

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between Judaism and Christianity back to the origins of

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Christianity. And exactly. And

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if in fact the reading of those who

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argue that the Sermon on the Mount is the

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celebration and the idealization of those

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who are today's, who are suffering, shall today

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be the leaders. It comes from a change, a

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slight change of, I would say, emphasis. So in

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Psalms it says, but the lowly shall inherit the land.

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You and I would read this and we would say they get a plot of

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land along with everybody else. It doesn't mean that they will

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inherit the land as opposed to everybody else. Correct.

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It's so fascinating because you're right, Jesus was speaking

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to fellow Jews, and whether he made this

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paradigm shift or it was made— it's what they

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heard, there's no question that there was this shift

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in the Hebrew Bible, the poor are

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blessed because God hears their cry and society must

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restore them, not because deprivation itself is

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inherently superior. The goal of the Exodus is not

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permanent marginality. It's freedom, land,

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abundance, national flourishes. If you read the

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Bible, there are 2 things that I want to bring out. Number one, in

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Devarim, the book that we're in, it says, there shall be no needy among

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you. And then a few verses later, it says, for there will never

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cease to be needy ones in your land. And that's not a contradiction.

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It just means that the obligation is on us to

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make sure that those who fall through the cracks are pulled up and

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brought with us. It wasn't a

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transformation. And then the other thing

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is the Bible celebrates success. The

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Bible celebrates prosperity. It never

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idealizes poverty. So in Deuteronomy 8:10, it

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says, when you have eaten your fill,

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Give thanks to the Eternal your God for the good land given to you. You

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have to be thankful for the good. You never put it down. When you have

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eaten your fill and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and

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flocks have multiplied, it says in Deuteronomy 8, and your silver

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00:25:16.610 --> 00:25:20.319
and gold have increased and everything you own has prospered. It doesn't say

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00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.244
give it away. It doesn't say it's going to blind you. It says,

401
00:25:24.761 --> 00:25:26.796
beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God. That's right.

402
00:25:26.940 --> 00:25:30.482
forget God who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.

403
00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:34.506
Beware that you don't look and appreciate

404
00:25:34.506 --> 00:25:38.161
those people who don't have it as good as you. It's really

405
00:25:38.257 --> 00:25:42.008
a nuance of a change, but it is connected to this thing of

406
00:25:42.040 --> 00:25:45.695
flaws. Flaws are important. They will always exist, and they

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00:25:45.791 --> 00:25:49.478
are there for us to learn from, as Rabbi Sacks says, and

408
00:25:49.510 --> 00:25:53.261
it's there for us to tweak and fix, not

409
00:25:53.261 --> 00:25:56.756
disappear. But they are never there for us to

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00:25:56.932 --> 00:26:00.717
absolutely laud. what I am going to share

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00:26:00.717 --> 00:26:04.214
with you is an amazing scholar that I discovered this

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00:26:04.471 --> 00:26:07.872
week named David Flusser. He was an

413
00:26:08.001 --> 00:26:11.290
immigrant from Czechoslovakia.

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00:26:11.867 --> 00:26:15.445
He studied at Charles University. He was taken

415
00:26:15.621 --> 00:26:19.199
under the wing of a professor. He was fascinated in religion

416
00:26:19.488 --> 00:26:23.306
and a professor of Christianity, and he fell in love with Christianity.

417
00:26:23.643 --> 00:26:27.189
He comes to Israel, he makes Aliyah, and he actually

418
00:26:27.189 --> 00:26:30.924
becomes an Orthodox Jew, and he's teaching at the Hebrew University.

419
00:26:31.069 --> 00:26:34.511
And one of his main motivations in life

420
00:26:35.012 --> 00:26:38.819
is to show that Jesus was like Hillel in a sense. He was a

421
00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:42.519
great leader. He was a great thought leader. And so he

422
00:26:42.600 --> 00:26:46.274
connects what Jesus says to strands within

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00:26:46.387 --> 00:26:50.103
Judaism. Listen to what he does with the Sermon on the

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00:26:50.103 --> 00:26:52.737
Mount. He connects it to the Essenes,

425
00:26:55.921 --> 00:26:59.625
the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the desert.

426
00:27:00.090 --> 00:27:03.520
He says, contrite of spirit, ani ruach,

427
00:27:03.953 --> 00:27:07.319
the Sons of Light called themselves evionei

428
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:11.054
chaschesed, paupers of grace. So

429
00:27:11.070 --> 00:27:14.853
he's taking the word that said, you who are poor of spirit.

430
00:27:15.398 --> 00:27:18.957
These appellations are characterized by a paradoxical

431
00:27:19.326 --> 00:27:23.109
combination of a term depicting the abject state of

432
00:27:23.109 --> 00:27:26.924
the sect in the present with a second one which proclaims

433
00:27:26.956 --> 00:27:30.695
triumphantly the plenty of God's grace bestowed on his

434
00:27:30.792 --> 00:27:34.384
elect. So Rabbi, if we had a sect in Judaism

435
00:27:34.593 --> 00:27:37.976
that celebrated poverty, that celebrated living in the

436
00:27:38.056 --> 00:27:41.728
desert without everything, with giving away possessions, it was

437
00:27:41.841 --> 00:27:45.384
the Essenes. And what he's showing is that this

438
00:27:45.384 --> 00:27:49.070
paradoxical contrast between the present plight and

439
00:27:49.166 --> 00:27:52.990
persecution of the blessed and their future glory

440
00:27:53.103 --> 00:27:56.846
in the kingdom of heaven is also the main burdens of

441
00:27:57.039 --> 00:27:59.378
what Jesus was saying on that mount. Right.

442
00:28:01.742 --> 00:28:04.985
What he is saying is that these aniim, these poor,

443
00:28:05.740 --> 00:28:09.047
poor of spirit, I should say, are endowed with the

444
00:28:09.047 --> 00:28:12.499
supreme gift of divine bliss with the Holy Spirit.

445
00:28:13.125 --> 00:28:16.449
He says, I have tried to show that one of the central doctrines of the

446
00:28:16.449 --> 00:28:20.254
sect was that only the elect, the members

447
00:28:20.286 --> 00:28:24.108
of the sect, have the Holy Spirit bestowed upon them. It is

448
00:28:24.204 --> 00:28:27.785
the Spirit, that Spirit, that makes them different from

449
00:28:27.817 --> 00:28:31.124
others. So it was in the Essenes, according to this

450
00:28:31.124 --> 00:28:34.511
scholar, that all of a sudden, All right. All of a sudden, being poor,

451
00:28:35.056 --> 00:28:38.152
being persecuted, being downtrodden

452
00:28:38.425 --> 00:28:42.195
became an entitlement. They were special.

453
00:28:42.436 --> 00:28:46.238
They were the children of light. The notion that the poor endowed with

454
00:28:46.286 --> 00:28:48.949
the Spirit are participants in the true

455
00:28:49.253 --> 00:28:52.911
eschatological community therefore fits.

456
00:28:53.424 --> 00:28:57.242
It is well known that Jesus and our community of purpose saw in

457
00:28:57.339 --> 00:29:01.126
poverty a way to attain salvation. So the

458
00:29:01.126 --> 00:29:04.485
truth is those who read into this a

459
00:29:04.501 --> 00:29:07.746
radical statement that having

460
00:29:07.859 --> 00:29:11.410
flaws actually gains you a seat at the

461
00:29:11.410 --> 00:29:14.704
table were not far from the source.

462
00:29:15.170 --> 00:29:18.319
Wow. Now, I will say that

463
00:29:18.785 --> 00:29:22.272
Martin Luther actually read the text in a

464
00:29:22.272 --> 00:29:25.678
similar fashion. And what Martin Luther says

465
00:29:26.016 --> 00:29:29.422
that the poor in spirit are those who know and feel their

466
00:29:29.422 --> 00:29:32.972
spiritual poverty, that they have nothing of their own before

467
00:29:33.085 --> 00:29:36.684
God. So if Christianity believes that you can only get redemption

468
00:29:36.796 --> 00:29:40.636
through God, you have to feel that you've lost every other chance.

469
00:29:41.294 --> 00:29:44.700
The more flawed you feel you are, the more you

470
00:29:44.813 --> 00:29:48.395
realize, as in Va'etchanan, that Moses says, I have

471
00:29:48.508 --> 00:29:52.074
no chance. I have to pray to God. Right. He took

472
00:29:52.123 --> 00:29:55.811
this to the extreme. A man will find out that he is so

473
00:29:55.811 --> 00:29:59.562
depraved that no strength, no works, no merit of his own

474
00:29:59.594 --> 00:30:03.089
will ever deliver him from his guilt. Therefore, he must utterly

475
00:30:03.121 --> 00:30:06.920
despair of himself and seek outside of himself the righteousness

476
00:30:07.112 --> 00:30:10.703
of Jesus. So the point is that whether this was

477
00:30:11.056 --> 00:30:14.021
the only reading of the Sermon on the Mount or not,

478
00:30:14.326 --> 00:30:17.644
certainly there were those, and I will say Christian

479
00:30:17.708 --> 00:30:21.491
socialists later on, read it this way, that

480
00:30:21.556 --> 00:30:25.327
they said that the New Testament Jesus identifies himself with the

481
00:30:25.327 --> 00:30:29.167
hungry, the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. This is the source of

482
00:30:29.506 --> 00:30:33.217
what we call populism today, that the masses know

483
00:30:33.314 --> 00:30:36.938
more than the leaders because the masses are more flawed than the

484
00:30:36.938 --> 00:30:40.706
leaders. They don't excel at anything. To the contrary, the less

485
00:30:40.706 --> 00:30:43.878
they excel, the more they are entitled. It's a

486
00:30:43.878 --> 00:30:47.236
fascinating switch. And it's a

487
00:30:47.236 --> 00:30:51.012
Christian switch. I mean, they don't think of

488
00:30:51.012 --> 00:30:54.532
it that way, but that's where it finds its source. This is

489
00:30:54.564 --> 00:30:57.898
part of what they call the Judeo-Christian tradition,

490
00:30:59.053 --> 00:31:02.531
that these political ideas of today are

491
00:31:02.739 --> 00:31:06.138
based on these religious

492
00:31:06.266 --> 00:31:08.719
ideas from the beginning of Christianity.

493
00:31:09.857 --> 00:31:13.528
So one of the young political, and

494
00:31:13.704 --> 00:31:16.862
I would say Jewish people who were

495
00:31:16.926 --> 00:31:20.693
behind -Graham Platner; Rebecca Katz says, the era

496
00:31:20.693 --> 00:31:24.508
of the perfect candidate is over. People are flawed and they not only

497
00:31:24.541 --> 00:31:28.099
forgive politicians who aren't perfect, but they relate more to them.

498
00:31:28.468 --> 00:31:31.530
That being flawed becomes the—

499
00:31:31.898 --> 00:31:35.201
it's not a glitch in the software, it is the

500
00:31:35.201 --> 00:31:38.743
software. It's fascinating, the world that we have

501
00:31:38.807 --> 00:31:42.190
moved into. And as Bret Stephens, and I'm going to

502
00:31:42.238 --> 00:31:46.069
finish with him, he says, a progressive movement ceases

503
00:31:46.181 --> 00:31:49.740
to be progressive when it becomes embarrassed by progress.

504
00:31:50.413 --> 00:31:54.084
When achievement is treated as exploitation,

505
00:31:54.437 --> 00:31:57.931
prosperity as moral compromise, resilience as

506
00:31:58.108 --> 00:32:01.458
privilege, and excellence as exclusion. A moral

507
00:32:01.570 --> 00:32:05.385
conviction of our time, especially prevalent on the cultural left,

508
00:32:05.674 --> 00:32:09.136
is that the powerful are presumptively bad while

509
00:32:09.345 --> 00:32:12.599
the powerless are presumptively good. These

510
00:32:12.695 --> 00:32:16.238
categories aren't just political, they are also social, economic,

511
00:32:16.382 --> 00:32:20.037
ethnic, and racial. It's why so many conversations today

512
00:32:20.229 --> 00:32:23.740
revolve around the concept of privilege, a striking

513
00:32:23.836 --> 00:32:27.331
redefinition of success that removes the presumption of

514
00:32:27.395 --> 00:32:30.715
merit from those who have it and the stigma of

515
00:32:30.747 --> 00:32:34.518
failure from those who don't. Rabbi, I

516
00:32:34.518 --> 00:32:38.016
believe that he's hitting the nail on the head. And the distinction

517
00:32:38.129 --> 00:32:41.306
between accepting flaws,

518
00:32:41.900 --> 00:32:45.495
accepting flaws in our leaders is one thing, and

519
00:32:45.495 --> 00:32:48.704
taking it to the extreme of making that a

520
00:32:48.945 --> 00:32:52.234
qualifier is something that has been a total

521
00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:55.588
misunderstanding of what you said a second ago is our

522
00:32:55.845 --> 00:32:59.120
Judio-Christian traditon. This is

523
00:32:59.168 --> 00:33:02.859
amazingly important. And this week we observe

524
00:33:02.908 --> 00:33:06.375
the fast day of Tisha B'Av, also as a time to think

525
00:33:06.375 --> 00:33:09.601
about humility and what that means and how we

526
00:33:09.826 --> 00:33:13.662
balance all those things. So we want to wish everybody a Shabbat Shalom. You should

527
00:33:13.662 --> 00:33:17.225
have a meaningful Tisha B'Av, and we look forward to seeing you next week where

528
00:33:17.225 --> 00:33:20.885
we will talk about Parashat Eikev. Thank you, Geoffrey. This is an amazing topic.

529
00:33:21.479 --> 00:33:25.296
Shabbat Shalom, and celebrate your flaws—but not too

530
00:33:25.329 --> 00:33:28.657
much. Shabbat shalom, and see you all next week.

531
00:33:30.334 --> 00:33:32.065
Shabbat

532
00:33:35.575 --> 00:33:36.627
shalom.

At first glance, it feels strangely

3
00:00:13.160 –> 00:00:16.560
familiar. Haven’t we heard these stories before? The Exodus,

4
00:00:16.560 –> 00:00:20.040
Sinai, the spies, the wilderness, wanderings. It’s all

5
00:00:20.040 –> 00:00:23.760
repetition. But maybe repetition isn’t a flaw.

6
00:00:24.000 –> 00:00:27.750
Maybe it’s the point. Why does Moses spend his

7
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final weeks retelling a story everyone already knows? Why do

8
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the rabbis praise the student who reviews a lesson

9
00:00:34.590 –> 00:00:38.110
101 times? And why does Ben Bag

10
00:00:38.110 –> 00:00:41.430
Bag famously teach turn it over and turn it over,

11
00:00:41.750 –> 00:00:45.550
for everything is in it? Two thousand years ago, the

12
00:00:45.550 –> 00:00:48.950
Roman philosopher Seneca warned that reading too many

13
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scrolls too quickly would leave us distracted, restless, and

14
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unable to think deeply. Sound familiar? In an

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age of endless scrolling and shrinking attention spans,

16
00:00:59.990 –> 00:01:03.590
perhaps Deuteronomy has something surprising to teach

17
00:01:03.590 –> 00:01:07.190
us about the art of paying attention.

18
00:01:09.110 –> 00:01:12.630
Welcome to Madly. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a

19
00:01:12.630 –> 00:01:16.470
spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with

20
00:01:16.470 –> 00:01:20.230
Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite

21
00:01:20.230 –> 00:01:23.440
podcast platform and now on YouTube and

22
00:01:23.440 –> 00:01:27.080
Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria,

23
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and a link is included in the show notes. This week’s Parasha is

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Devarim. Join us as we explore Deuteronomy and

25
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the Art of Attention and discover why Moses

26
00:01:38.320 –> 00:01:42.080
final retelling of the Torah may offer the oldest and

27
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perhaps the best antidote to our modern

28
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epidemic of distraction. Well,

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welcome back, Rabbi. We missed you last week, but it’s nice to be

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back. But you had a great conversation. It was truly

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illuminating. And one of the things that he said towards the end

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was, we’re finishing the Torah. And of course, he was right, because

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Numbers ends the Torah. And Mishneh Torah, the

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name for Deuteronomy, really means a copy

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of the Torah. And that’s where the Greek

36
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Deuteronomy comes from. Second law.

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So it really is a review, it’s a repetition. And

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that’s what we’re going to focus on today.

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In the yeshiva, we called it Chazorah. And

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in Yeshiva, Chazorah was important. And I think when it comes to

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the book of. The Book of Deuteronomy, that’s also important.

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I mean, to give you a sense of what Chazorah was. And I think I

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did come across it a little bit in college where you would have a

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professor give a class and then there was a TA and the teacher’s

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assistant would come out later and meet and smaller groups.

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But in the yeshiva, you would prepare for a

47
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shiur, a class bechavrusa. And then you would

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go over it, Bechavrusa. And at least my experience

49
00:03:02.810 –> 00:03:06.649
was, for instance, in Be’er Yaakov, where the

50
00:03:06.649 –> 00:03:09.850
Mashgiach gave most of his really exciting

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shmoozin on Shabbat, you couldn’t write it down. You couldn’t write it down.

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So you literally had to review it. And many of the

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great books that we have, for instance, on many of

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of the Hasidic great leaders, they never wrote it down. It’s their students who

55
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kind of wrote it down. So this is a big part of our tradition. Very

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important. Okay, let’s go for it. Okay, so it’s

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only in Deuteronomy 18, where it actually

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uses this word, Mishneh Torah. And there, of course, it

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is talking about the rules of the kings,

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and they shall have a copy of this teaching

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written for him, for the king. But again, this

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has been the traditional exploration, explanation of

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what Mishneh Torah is, this fifth book of

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the Torah. And of course, a lot of time is spent,

65
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Rabbi, on nitpicking and seeing how

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in the repetition, maybe the story changes,

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maybe how a different phrase is used, word is

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used. We’re going to explore just the story of the

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scouts in a few minutes. But of course, and I’m quoting

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from a Sefaria, a wonderful source that I discover,

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where he gives an introduction. And he says, the people, the scholars

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from the critical theory, obviously,

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who believe that Torah was written by many

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different authors, they will argue that that’s not a big

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surprise. Deuteronomy was edited by a different

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editor and different sources got inside.

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We find that even in the Mishnah, where

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we have the Mishnah and then we have a Beraita, and the Beraita

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maybe didn’t make the Mishna, but it’s a variation of it.

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It’s at the most basic level, this is varying

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texts. And that truly is something

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that is part of our tradition as well. We understood

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way back when there was no only recording. There were

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variations on everything. It’s really baked into our tradition.

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Amazing. Really good. So I do

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think, though, that even the classical commentators clearly, and

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I’ve always argued this, nothing that modern scholarship

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has brought up by way of a question or a problem that the

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classical commentaries didn’t already identify. And so,

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for instance, they will ask, so why were

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00:05:43.030 –> 00:05:46.590
they repeated? What laws were repeated? So by way of

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example, Ramban Nachmanides says

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this book is known to constitute a review of the

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Torah. He uses that same

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word, hasefer hazeh yadushu, Mishneh Torah,

96
00:06:02.370 –> 00:06:05.810
in which Moses, our teacher, explains to the generation

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entering the land most of the commandments of the

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Torah that pertain to Israelites. And he distinguishes that

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from the priests. The priests. Nachmanides, for

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some reason, says, they don’t need that much Chazorah. They got it the first

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time. But the rest of us, Pashut Yisraelim, we

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need to be repeatedly admonished.

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And he uses this word, yahzir otam,

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this word from Chazarah. We have to be reminded.

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Sometimes you have to repeat the things. Multiple warnings,

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so forth and so on. So again, Nachmanides

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recognizes what is going on. And his take is,

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this is like Cliff Notes. Before you go into

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the land, you know your mom told you everything. Then as you’re at the

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door about to go, she gives you the short version. Don’t forget this,

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don’t forget that. Interesting. Well, I

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mean, interesting and logical. I mean, it makes sense that that’s what

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they need. Especially. You see, repetition is important

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because Moshe is going to die. He’s not going to

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be there. And they’re on the banks of Moab, and they’re moving.

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It’s part of the transmission process. It’s part of creating

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something that lasts beyond you. I love that. So

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we’re going to take one example, but there will be many examples in the

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Book of Devorim where there are variations. So we’re

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going to talk about the seminal moment of sending

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the scouts. In Deuteronomy 1:22, part of our

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parasha, it says, then all of you came to me,

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says Moses, and said, let us send agents

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ahead to reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word.

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In 23, he says, I approved of the plan, and So

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I selected 12 of you, one representative from

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each tribe. So first of all, it just us. Right from the beginning,

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it tells us what we already know, which is the whole Book of Devorim is

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written in the first person. It’s Moses speaking. This is novel. This is

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not something that we’ve had. But more to that, you could say

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that Moses is looking at it from his perspective, right? Means he changes

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the story and gives it from the way he remembers it,

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or this is the way it was. And the other version is a different

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variation. That’s correct. It’s not. In numbers 13,

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this is the. The fourth book of the Torah, it says, God

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spoke to Moses, saying, sent agents to scout

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the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite

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people and someone of each tribe. In verse 3.

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So Moses, by God’s command sent them out from

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the wilderness of Paran. Rabbi, this is not a

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slight of hand. It’s clear in the Devorim text.

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It’s I, I, I. Moses is the one who’s taking

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responsibility, authority approach

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Moses. And in Numbers, God

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is the one who commands Moses to send the spies. The

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whole story is different. So just to give you an example

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of how these variations stimulate thought, I’m

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going to quote Rashi, not because I think he’s convincing, but because

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again, he shows you the type of,

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I think, gymnastics that have to be done if

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you want to reconcile the two texts.

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So Rashi in numbers says, according to your

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own judgment, I do not command

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you, but if you wish to do so, send them. So

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he’s caging here. He’s saying God didn’t tell Moses to do

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it. He simply gave Moses permission to do it.

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And that, of course, reconciles it with our verse

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in Deuteronomy. But I would argue

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that in fact, what we are seeing in front of us is two

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variations. And those variations elicit different

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approaches. And maybe you can say elu v’elu, that this

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one and this one, they’re both, both true from a certain perspective.

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Good. Okay. That’s an interesting approach, that they’re

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both true. It just depends how you look at it.

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They, you know, now it’s hard because God commands Moshe to send the

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spies and the people approach Moshe, you need to tell a different

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story. You need to say the people initiated it.

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And then because the people initiated it, God commanded

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Moses to send the spies. That’s a twist. And again,

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I’m sure if this was the subject matter of today’s

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discussion, we would find 5, 10, 15 other

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variations on this which were trying to

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reconcile. And maybe they would say, like me, that they’re different, but

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they’re both true. The point is that reading

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a story, or I would say telling a story at

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least twice, you’re going to get some variation. And

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that, I think, is the point. And that, I

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think, has gotten our attention. And today we’re talking about how

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do you keep attention and how. What is the

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best defense against attention disorder where you

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stop being attentive and you stop growing with the texts.

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So we’re going to go to the Mishnah in Avot, and

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I’ve quoted this before, it says, ben Bog

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Bog said, I’ll get to his name in a second, turn it over

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and turn it over for all is therein, and

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look into it and become gray and old therein and do not

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move away from it, for you have no better portion than

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it. So first of all, I could not but be amazed.

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Rabbi, I think I’m going to quote another Gemara

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from Hagigah in a second. And there we quote a Bar Hei.

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Hei. It is kind of funny that the two

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scholars who are talking about repetition, they’re not

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funny name not only funny, but the name repeats

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itself, right? It’s fascinating. But in any case,

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what does he say? He says a few things. He says hafachbo v’

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hofachbo, which really means to go in it over and over, turn

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it over, look at it anew each time. And then he

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talks about this being a life endeavor, grow gray and

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old with it. And then something that I had tried to ignore last

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time I mentioned this Mishnah, he says, don’t go to other sources,

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stay with this source and keep at it.

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Keep constantly going back to it. And I think again,

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this is part of the Mishneh Torah tradition

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that we are exploring today. But it’s a

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wonderful seminal expression, is it not? Yeah,

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well, and don’t move away from it, tell, you know, because that’s,

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that’s people’s, that’s what generally you do after

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you go through something and once or a few times you tend

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to move on to the next thing. And what they say is when it comes

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to Torah, don’t move on to the next thing, but continue to

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focus on this. Absolutely, absolutely. And

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I think that we are going to see and it is going to blow us

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away. I hope that Seneca, the Roman

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philosopher, said something very similar. And I’m curious

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to know whether anyone listening or you, Rabbi, think that there might

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have been some influence. But let’s continue. In Hagiga, the

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Gmorra records another discussion between Bar Hei Hei

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and Hillel. Bar Hei Hei said to Hillel, what is the

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meaning of that which is written? Then you shall again discern between

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the righteous and the wicked, between he who serves God and he who does

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not serve him. This is a verse in Malachi. There are

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two redundancies, the righteous who serves and the wicked.

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So what does he answer? He says one who

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reviews his studies 100 times is

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not comparable to one who reviews his studies

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101 times. And then I love the

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fact that they use the modern day equivalent

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of an Uber driver, the donkey

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drivers, as proof. And what they say is if

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you buy a pack of tickets from the donkey

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driver for 10 and you need to get an 11th

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ride, you’ve got to buy 20. So what they’re trying to say is

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it’s not incrementally. One more now you’re

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going into the next hundred of studying.

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But I think what they’re also saying, and I might be going out on a

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ledge here, is that this is practical. You can learn it

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from real life. You can learn it from donkey drivers.

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This need to repeat stuff is

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powerful tool for pedagogy and for learning.

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The idea is, of course, if you buy the extra, if you

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need the extra ride, you have to buy the extra. Tag is that you should

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always be looking forward, you know, always study more. You may not

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know yet that you need to study more, but always be looking

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forward to studying more. It’s a great image, right? It’s the Uber driver

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image. It’s a good image, though. We don’t buy Uber tickets. We don’t buy

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Uber tickets by the 10. No, not that. If they listen to

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the podcast, they might come out with that idea. It’ll be a new subscription

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model. But, you know, I didn’t put it in the show notes, but I think

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Malcolm Gladwell once talked about the difference

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between good to great is practice, practice. And he actually kind

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of documented how many times the Beatles practiced, how many times

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musicians and actors practice. There is no question

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that repetition is something that

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is coming across loud and clear in our

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tradition. And it’s worth stopping and focusing on, I

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believe so. In the Talmud, In Avodah Zarah 19A,

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it says the Gemara cites other statements relating

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to Torah study. Rava said that Rav Sephora said that

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Rav Huna says, what is the meaning of that which is written?

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Wealth gotten through vanity,

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Mehevl shall be diminished, but he who gathers little

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by little shall increase. It’s a verse

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in Proverbs. It says, what is the meaning if a

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person turns his Torah into many bundles,

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they take the word hevel and they change it into

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chavilot, which is in modern day Hebrew, when you come back from the

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grocery store with a bunch of packages, you’re carrying

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chavilot. By studying large amount in short

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period of time without reviewing his Torah will

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diminish. But if he gathers his knowledge little by

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little, by studying slowly and reviewing his

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knowledge, that shall increase. So here

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again, what they’re looking at in, in the yeshiva, we

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would call bekiyus and b’iyun

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a normal nomenclature we would call

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encyclopedic study and a study in

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depth. And that’s a good translation

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of terms that you really never ever translate.

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Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

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So it really is, I must say I tried to do Daf

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Yomi for about a year and a half. That’s all I lasted. You didn’t enjoy

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it because you couldn’t really understand it, right? I love to dive

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deep. I love to dive deep and not so wide. Me too. And

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that’s, and that’s what we do on Madlik week in and week

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out. But I love the fact that the rabbis are

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talking about pedagogy and they’re talking about

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it in a very profound way and

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they’re saying that you have to, you have

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to take your study in little bite

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sized pieces and then savor them and go over them and

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review them. And that is in fact

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the biggest, I think, way to ensure

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that they affect you and they change the way your life

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is. And you know, I have a friend who’s a,

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a defense lawyer for criminals and

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when it comes to the police and lawyers, they have

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techniques about making the

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potential criminal repeat the story over and over again.

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We all know they divide the people if there were two culprits

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to get variations of the story.

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But just having the same person repeat the story

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over again is to look for consistency

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they have getting new details. Asking an

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individual to walk through an event again often

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leads to reminiscence, remembering minor details that didn’t

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seem important in the first telling. I love this

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increasing cognitive load. So

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by by asking someone to recount the subject and

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write it over again, maybe outside of

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chronological order, increases the mental

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effort required, which makes people say things that they might not

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thought of before or make them slip. I think that it’s

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a fascinating mirror to look at how

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lawyers and police use

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repetition to try to get to

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the truth. And clearly there’s always going to be cross

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examination. But you have all of this in the way

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that our texts are studied. And I think what comes clear from this,

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I’d love to know your take is that we have nothing to hide. In other

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words, we are willing to

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project and to enable our texts to be

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looked at in multiple ways. We are not afraid of

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the variant readings. If you go back to that concept

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of different texts make it into the canon,

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I just think it’s a wonderful lens to look at this through

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in terms of the techniques we use.

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Torah is a. Is an old famous idea, right? There are 70

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faces to the Torah. So that’s interesting. Rabbi Lamb, who was the president

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of Yeshiva University, his book is called 70 Faces of

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the Torah, his collection of his sermons, because there are so many different

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ways to look at it. And that’s what’s so great. You know, Madlik is like

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the rabbi sermon. He gives a sermon on the same portion every

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single year. And the good rabbi knows how to turn it over and

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over 70 different, different ways. But again,

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I think the shivim panim l’Torah, that there were 70

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faces to the Torah. And the other phrase that I used

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that this and this. And what of course you’re referring to is,

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you know, the joke about the rabbi who talks to a husband and wife or

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having an argument, and he comes out and he goes, well, the wife is

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right. And then he listens to the husband and he goes, the husband is right.

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So his rebbitzin asks him, how can they both be right? And he goes, you’re

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right. Also, you’re. The point is that

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by saying shivim panimla Torah, especially

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when it comes to a sacred text, I think is

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radical because what we’re saying is that there,

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at least from our perspective, there is

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no ultimate truth. There are different faces,

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different lenses that we can look at and different

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reflections that. That reflect maybe the same kernel.

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But clearly, we submit is

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the word I was looking for. We submit our texts

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to the same type of critical review that I think

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is in a court of law, even if that’s capital punishment and

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criminal law. Fantastic. So

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what I discovered, and I discovered it from a

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amazing article. It was an op ed in

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the New York Times this past week. And

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what the Op ed was called is There’s an ancient

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solution to our modern crisis of attention.

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It was written BY A professor, S.J. Murray, who is a

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professor of great texts and creative writing at

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Baylor University. And he quotes

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Seneca. I had Never realized that Lucius

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Aeneas Seneca was. He lived in. He

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was born in Cordova, Spain in 4 B.C. i

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mean, Cordova is. You didn’t know that anybody was in Cordova Spain

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in 4 BC he wasn’t. And maybe what. He left

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a few things in the water because Cordova, what is.

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Is. Is a key city.

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Many great scholars passed through many. The Rambam was

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there from southern Spain. That’s where the Rambam was born. Yeah, it’s very

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important there. Okay, so there was something in the water.

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But again, putting it into context, this is before

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the rabbis of the Talmud. And I would say

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that Seneca could have been fairly widely read. Listen to what

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he says. And now I’m quoting from

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letters from a Stoic. Letter number two.

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Judging from what you tell me and from what I hear, I feel that you

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show great promise. I think he’s writing to a student.

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You do not tear from place to place and unsettle yourself with

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one move after another another restlessness of that sort

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is symptomatic of a sick mind. Nothing

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to my way of thinking is a better proof of a well

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ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop

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just where he is and pass some time in his own

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company. Be careful, however, that there is no element

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of discursiveness and desulteriness about his. This reading

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you refer to this reading of many different authors

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and books of every every description.

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You should be extending your stay among writers whose

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genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment

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from them. If you wish to gain anything from your reading that will

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find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere

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is to be nowhere. It’s a great phrase.

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People. He could have been an

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existentialist. People who spend their whole life traveling

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abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find

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hospitality, but no real friendships. The

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same must needs be the case with people who never set about

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acquiring an intimate acquaintanceship with any one

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great writer, but skip from one to another,

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paying flying visits to all of them. I mean, this

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is the second part of Hofach bo or Hofach bo

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that he says you’ve got even until your old age.

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These are your friends and you’ve got to come back to them

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over and over again. And then he says something

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that this op ed picks up on. And actually the

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professor says he literally uses it. And Rabbi, I

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have to say, because I prepare for Madlik every

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week, I end up doing this organically.

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He says each day to acquire

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something which will help you to face poverty or death

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and other ills as well. After running over a lot of different

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thoughts, pick out one. One to be digested

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throughout that day. This is what I do myself, he

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says. Out of the many bits I have been reading,

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I lay hold of one. So fantastic.

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So it’s like every week I tried to pick a nugget and

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I’ve got to say, you’re thinking about it. You have to do that.

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Because to be everywhere is to be nowhere. So if you

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just say I want to study the Entire Parsha, you won’t be anywhere.

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You have to pick out one thing.

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It’s truly amazing. So this is what this

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00:27:33.690 –> 00:27:36.810
professor writes in the New York Times. He says

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Seneca’s concept corresponds to what psychologists call

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deep processing. By returning to the same idea

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repeatedly, we signal to our brain that the idea is

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worth moving into the architecture of long term

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memory. Each time we retrieve an idea from memory,

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we also wrap wrap it in new associations, a process

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00:27:58.630 –> 00:28:02.310
known as reconsolidation, which ensures that

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those ideas remain relevant to our life as time

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00:28:06.070 –> 00:28:09.750
goes on. About 2,000 years ago, the

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Roman philosopher Seneca warned of a crisis of attention.

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The problem wasn’t caused by smartphones or TikTok, writes

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this professor. It was because papyrus had become more

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widely available. As a result, scrolls became

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plentiful and wealthy leaders had access more

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texts than ever before. Seneca

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observed that the minds of those who read too many

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scrolls too quickly became restless and

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unsteady. This kind of mind was less able, he

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00:28:41.170 –> 00:28:44.610
noted, to stay in one place and spend time with

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itself. Seneca did not have access to modern

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scientific studies or survey data. But he would

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not have been surprised by our plight. Professors

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00:28:55.290 –> 00:28:58.970
report that students now have difficulty watching feature length

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00:28:58.970 –> 00:29:02.190
films, let alone finishing books.

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Fantastic. And it’s right of course. So

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I just feel there were parts of the Talmud that

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I didn’t even reference. I think it was in Avodah

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Zora where they had different of the rabbis saying they

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finished reading the Parasha and one of them wanted to read Tehillim and

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another one wanted to read Mishle. And they were really

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00:29:24.990 –> 00:29:27.870
talking. And I think the overwhelming

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00:29:28.670 –> 00:29:32.170
approach was stick that you really

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believe in. Don’t go from book to book. But the

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parallelism of these two of

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00:29:39.010 –> 00:29:42.730
Seneca and the Talmudic

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00:29:42.730 –> 00:29:46.490
rabbis is amazing. One thing I will say for

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00:29:46.490 –> 00:29:49.930
the rabbis that as much or as little

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00:29:50.090 –> 00:29:53.450
as they reflected what they read in Seneca,

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00:29:53.690 –> 00:29:57.090
their traditions have stayed the test of time. Whereas

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00:29:57.090 –> 00:30:00.930
Seneca needs a New York op ed to

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remind him back. Because truly what

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00:30:04.720 –> 00:30:08.400
we do week in and week out is truly that it’s to

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review the same material over again, to hold it

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00:30:12.240 –> 00:30:15.840
close to us, to discover who we are, to meet old

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00:30:15.840 –> 00:30:19.640
friends again. And of course that’s what keeps

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our tradition alive, which is why it’s why it keeps going from

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generation to generation. Okay, so that’s

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amazing. This is great. Great. Enjoy Devarim, everybody.

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00:30:30.890 –> 00:30:34.450
Have a meaningful Tisha Bav and we will see you guys all next

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00:30:34.450 –> 00:30:38.210
week. Be well. Enjoy Mishneh Torah. Read it

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00:30:38.210 –> 00:30:41.930
again and read it once more. Shabbat Shalom. We’ll see you

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00:30:41.930 –> 00:30:43.370
all next week.

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Before you go, I’d love to hear from you. Ben Bag Bag

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00:30:49.730 –> 00:30:53.290
tells us to turn it over. Turn it over. Turn it over.

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What’s one book, one Torah passage, one prayer or even

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00:30:57.660 –> 00:31:00.820
one song that you’ve returned to again and again?

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00:31:01.380 –> 00:31:05.140
What did you discover the 10th time that you completely missed the first?

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Share it in the comments. I promise to read every one of them.