madlik

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Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey
Stern,

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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

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on your favorite podcast platform and now
on YouTube and Substack.

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We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria,

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and a link is included in the show notes.

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This week we read Parshat Shoftim and we
read the fourth haftarah

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of Consolation leading up to the high
holidays.

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So join us for Wake Up and Rejoice as we
discover a Jewish wake up call that
invites

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us not simply to rise up, but to dance.

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Rabbi, it's gonna be Rosh Chodesh Elul by
the time this podcast airs,

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so I guess we're getting into the spirit
of the holidays.

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That's exciting. There's nothing better
than getting into the spirit

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of the High Holidays. So let's take this
haftarah and let's see how

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it connects to the upcoming High Holidays.

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And it's also a little bit of new
territory for us because normally we focus

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on the parsha itself in the five books of
Moses.

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And today we're going to look at the
haftorot,

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which were sections from the prophets that
were linked thematically

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or calendar-wise with the parsha.

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So this week's haftarah is by Isaiah.

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It's the fifth book of the prophets,

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and it's known for its visions of
universal peace and renewal.

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It was written during the period of the
first temple,

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so this is BC, against the backdrop of
rising Assyrian Empire and Israel

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on the decline. Of course, the temple had
been destroyed.

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Isaiah rebukes Israel for abandoning God
and pursuing corruption.

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He calls for change and warns the nations of
their ultimate downfall.

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But more importantly to us, the third of
the book contains comforting prophecies

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about returning to Jerusalem and
redemption.

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And that's why it's used a lot in these
haftarot of consolation,

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which starts with Nachamu Nachamu,

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which comes from Isaiah itself.

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So these haftarot.

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are linked less to the parsha, but more to
the time of year that we're in.

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Is that correct?

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That is absolutely right. Right.

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So you know, since the last ten weeks of
the year have haftarot that

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are linked to the calendar.

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The three weeks before Tisha B'Av,

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we have three Haftarot of destruction.

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And then the seven weeks after Tisha B'Av,

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we have seven Haftarot of consolation.

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So even though usually the haftarah is
linked to the weekly portion,

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but these last ten weeks of the year,

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they're linked to the calendar.

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Okay, so it is just poetic and lyrical.

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We are in Isaiah 51, twelve,

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and this is how the haftarah begins.

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We're gonna see there's a lot of
repetition of two words.

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We've already focused on a few in the
intro.

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It says, Anochi, Anochi,

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hu menachemchem. I am the one emphatically
who comforts you.

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What ails you that you fear man who must
die?

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Mortals who fare like grass.

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so just as grass is fleeting,

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it grows and it disappears.

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it already is talking about the
mortality,

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but it's also talking about Menachem.

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It says in the fourth word that he's come
to comfort us,

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to console us. and it has this emphasis of
saying,

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I, I, this relationship.

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with God then we go to Isaiah 51 the
same chapter

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16 through seventeen and there it says the famous words that I quoted

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it says I have said to Zion you are my
people rouse rouse yourself

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it says rouse yourselves rouse Jerusalem

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"Tzion, ami atah. Hit'oreri, hit'oreri,
kumi Yerushalayim."

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You who from God's hand have drunk God's
wrath filled cup,

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you who have drained to the dregs the
bowl,

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the cup of reeling. So it's not ignoring
the past,

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it's not ignoring the tough times that
preceded,

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but it is emphatically saying that number one,

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God has a relationship with this people,

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and two, you are my people, and this is
a moment to get up.

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And to arise. But hit'oreri,

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hit'oreri is is just beautiful.

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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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Let's just continue a little bit more.

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then it goes to Isaiah 52 1 through 2,

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and it says, awake, awake, O Zion.

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Clothe yourself in splendor.

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In Hebrew, that is uri uri livshi
uzechotzon.

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And then it goes on with other words
that will be familiar

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to us hitna'ari me'afar kumi.

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So it says, Awake, awake,

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O Zion, clothe yourself in splendor.

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Put on your robes of majesty, Jerusalem,

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holy city.

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For the uncircumcised and the impure shall
never enter you again.

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This was a moment where they had been
conquered.

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Arise, shake off the dust,

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sit on your throne, Jerusalem,

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loose the bonds from your neck,

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O captive ones, fair Zion. It's you can
almost feel the tremors of emphasis here.

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it's really coming out you. in Isaiah
52 7,

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it says, How welcome?

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On the mountains are the footsteps of the
herald,

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announcing happiness, hearing good
fortune,

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announcing victory. Tell Zion your God
reigns.

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And so here too, as it finishes,

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it's talking about come back to the
mountaintops of Judah

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and your God reigns. You almost feel as
if you have to say again or anew,

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or He's back, so to speak.

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And then finally in 52:11,

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it says, Suru, suru, again for emphasis,

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turn away, turn away, touch nothing impure as
you depart from there,

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keep pure as you go forth from there,

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you who bare the vessels of God.

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So now he's talking to those who are still
in exile in Babylonia,

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and he's asking them to come back and to
leave all of that which

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is impure.

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behind. and as I mentioned before,

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we would remiss, we'd be remiss if we
didn't have Isaiah's line of Nachamu,

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Nachamu, nachamu ami, yomar Eloheichem,

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the first of the Haftarot of
Consolation.

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There's a lot of emphasis, there's a lot
of waking up

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and shocking the people awake.

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to where they are. Just kind of
remarkable words on their own,

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but especially if you know our liturgy.

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Yeah, I mean that's amazing and obviously
we'll talk about this.

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The word nachamu, the idea of comforting,

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is a Torah word.

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in a number of contexts the
Torah uses the word Nachamu.

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So that's really that's really the you
know the powerful word

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of these seven haftarot. And actually the
Shabbat after Tisha B'Av

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has a special name and it's called Shabbat
Nachamu,

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the Shabbat of Consolation based on the
Haftarah.

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So clearly that's the word that you know
everything centers around that word.

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And it would seem that from that,

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because I think that's probably the only
haftarah that gets first billing

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throughout the year, that Shabbat is
the beginning of reading

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these haftarot of consolation.

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So I just want to quote a few of the
contemporary commentaries who are trying
to put

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These verses that I just read into
context.

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The first is the Etz Hayim Chumash,

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that's the Chumash used mostly by the
Conservative movement.

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It says each part of this haftara,

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a divine pronouncement of comfort to Zion
and the nation,

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features a pattern of double proclamation.

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After God tells the people at the outset
that I am he who comforts you,

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remember we said I, I am he who comforts
you,

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Jerusalem, also known as Zion,

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is exhorted to rouse, rouse herself from
travail of sorrow and to awake,

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awake to her new destiny of splendor.

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Finally, the exiles are called on to turn
turn away from Babylon

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and begin the journey to the homeland.

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These repetitions intensify the divine
commands and spotlight

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the haftara's three themes of divine
presence,

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national transformation, and return from Zion,

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or I should say return from exile to
Zion.

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And then in some of the other
commentaries,

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this one is from the Anchor Yale Bible by
Joseph Blenkinsopp.

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He said the repeated verb or uri, hit'oreri
can signify a call to battle.

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and he brings a reference to Deborah the
judge,

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a summons to a special mission,

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such as when God aroused the spirit of
Cyrus.

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Or to a prophetic calling, and of course
he's bringing verses for all of these,

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or finally a gathering up of spiritual and
physical energies

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for decisive action. So I think that's
kind of echoes what I was saying before

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is you can get a sense almost that this is
a moment.

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and he's trying to seize the moment.

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The repetition itself indicates a sense of
urgency and conveys the impression that

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a critical point has been reached.

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And he says again, the repetition
further along,

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urging departure, presumably from
Babylonia,

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connects structurally with the first
passage which is Nachamu Nachamu.

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another modern commentary,

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J. Alec Motyer says, awake, awake is an
example of

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reduplication for emotional intensity.

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In the rich anthropomorphism of the Bible,

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and he references Exodus.

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Suggests sudden divine recollection after
a prolonged lapse of memory.

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I'm not quite sure who's being woken up
here.

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So here to the human eye, it seems as if
the Lord has gone to sleep over

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his promises. In other words, the
anthropomorphism calls on God to act with

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the same dispatch and urgency that would
follow if,

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in our experience, we woke to the sudden
recollection of a forgotten duty.

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it's just fascinating how rich this
repetition is,

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and of course especially so because you
have it so many times one after the other.

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Right. So let's just say that,

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you know, we you pointed out at the
beginning that we're doing something

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different this week. We're looking at the
haftarah,

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and the style of the prophets is very much
different than the style of the Torah.

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You don't have this kind of repetition in
the Torah.

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So he's really making a point that the
prophet uses repetition,

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it's kind of poetry, but uses repetition
in order to emphasize,

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you know.

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to emphasize the point. And of
course,

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you know, the idea of arise, arise,

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that's good. But it starts with nachamu
nachamu.

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You think about it, the first
haftarah,

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why does it have to say nachamu twice?

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Just say comfort.

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Right, be comforted. Nachamu, Nachamu ami.

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My people be comforted. But the fact that
it says it twice,

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Nachamu, Nachamu Ami, is clearly for
emphasis and it almost sets

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up the subsequent six weeks are gonna be
repetition.

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It almost like highlights
for us.

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Look for the repetition.

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Cause that's gonna be the key of all the
haftarot.

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And I think that that's the idea of arise,

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arise. And of course, Shlomo Alkabetz in
Lecha Dodi,

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he picks that up also. He understands
that's the that's the call to action.

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And of course, what better way to begin
Shabbat than with that call to act?

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And I will say we do have some repetition.

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We have tzedek, tzedek tirdof.

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Yeah, that's just yeah. We also have,

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and this comes up in the High Holidays,

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Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun.

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So what really is striking is it's not as
if they're creating a new grammar,

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but the fact that they're using it so
much,

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you really get a sense of intensity.

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and I think

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before we start with the Lecha Dodi,

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in some of the kind of the commentaries or
treatments of Jewish liturgy that I've

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come across, they all point to the
Lecha Dodi as almost the peak,

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as almost the climax of the Friday night service.

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and there is this sense

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of great emphasis. lacha dodi likrat kala pane shabbat nekabla.

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That just means welcome your bride to
create to welcome the bride

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of shabbat the face of the shabbat
we welcome

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Let's just explain for a minute.

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Shabbat is seen as the bride.

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Shabbat is seen as a queen. Shabbat is
seen as the feminine.

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So we go out to greet the same way that
the groom goes to greet the bride.

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We go out to greet the Shabbat.

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And of course, in Tzfat, they used to go
out to the,

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you know, they used to go out on the
mountains,

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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,

260
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.

270
00:17:08,193 --> 00:17:12,503
we will see, depending on how much of
the material we get to.

271
00:17:12,972 --> 00:17:16,463
That in the Isaiah text that we're
reading,

272
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,

274
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.

278
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,

281
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.

332
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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00:25:15.214 –> 00:25:18.965
inevitably led to authoritarianism and utopias

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00:25:19.077 –> 00:25:22.250
that justify violence. So there’s a little bit of

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00:25:22.362 –> 00:25:25.776
relativism here, but what it’s saying is that every nation

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00:25:26.433 –> 00:25:29.863
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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00:25:41.035 –> 00:25:44.690
benchmarks, and we recycle them and recycle them,

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and we move forward without leaving them

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00:25:48.489 –> 00:25:51.792
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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00:26:10.611 –> 00:26:14.266
because we made them ourselves, whereas only God

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00:26:14.362 –> 00:26:17.199
can fully understand the natural, physical world.

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00:26:18.049 –> 00:26:21.319
Isaiah Berlin felt that he really was creating

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00:26:21.351 –> 00:26:25.038
sociology, economics—the human sciences, so to

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00:26:25.038 –> 00:26:28.693
speak. And what Vico was arguing is

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00:26:28.725 –> 00:26:32.300
that, through verum factum, we humans

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00:26:32.572 –> 00:26:36.355
can understand human history better than anything else. Yeah, that’s

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00:26:36.355 –> 00:26:39.914
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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00:26:43.297 –> 00:26:46.583
concept, where it’s a part of the human body, but

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00:26:46.663 –> 00:26:50.446
it’s something through which we can truly understand how we

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00:26:50.446 –> 00:26:54.245
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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00:26:58.221 –> 00:27:01.892
that, to understand the past, we cannot use mathematical formulas.

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00:27:02.228 –> 00:27:05.915
We must use active, empathetic imagination—fantasia—

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00:27:06.220 –> 00:27:09.810
to enter the minds of past cultures. Berlin saw this as

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00:27:09.923 –> 00:27:13.642
the true birth of modern social science, cultural

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00:27:13.754 –> 00:27:17.425
anthropology, and genuine historical sympathy.

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00:27:18.002 –> 00:27:21.320
It’s just truly amazing. The second thinker that

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00:27:21.769 –> 00:27:25.440
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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00:27:41.230 –> 00:27:44.788
universal. It needs to find that which is particular

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00:27:44.788 –> 00:27:47.962
about it—those prisms,

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00:27:48.475 –> 00:27:52.130
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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00:28:00.321 –> 00:28:03.511
word, eikev, and looking at all the baggage that it has,

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00:28:03.944 –> 00:28:07.471
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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00:28:11.222 –> 00:28:14.684
there is something unique about the Jewish

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00:28:14.845 –> 00:28:17.890
vantage point on history. And I think it’s

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self-fulfilling. It truly is our best

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00:28:21.177 –> 00:28:24.671
guarantee that, as our verse says,

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eikev—because we have remained

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00:28:28.855 –> 00:28:31.484
loyal to this evolving

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00:28:32.077 –> 00:28:35.331
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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00:28:43.202 –> 00:28:46.841
understand history better than anything else because we live it. I

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00:28:46.841 –> 00:28:50.672
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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us a whole new, I think, toolkit for when

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we study our texts—how we go through that

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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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something else in another age, and will mean something

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still more for our children’s children. And we need

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to take the time, as Vico argued and Herder

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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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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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for Eikev. We’re ready for Rosh Hashanah, for Simchat Torah. We

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can go on vacation. What do you mean? We’re ready to sell

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our chametz. Fantastic. Shabbat shalom, everybody. This is

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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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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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00:14:00.022 --> 00:14:03.318
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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and gold have increased and everything you own has prospered. It doesn't say

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give it away. It doesn't say it's going to blind you. It says,

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beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God. That's right.

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forget God who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.

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Beware that you don't look and appreciate

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those people who don't have it as good as you. It's really

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a nuance of a change, but it is connected to this thing of

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flaws. Flaws are important. They will always exist, and they

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are there for us to learn from, as Rabbi Sacks says, and

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it's there for us to tweak and fix, not

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disappear. But they are never there for us to

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absolutely laud. what I am going to share

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with you is an amazing scholar that I discovered this

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week named David Flusser. He was an

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immigrant from Czechoslovakia.

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He studied at Charles University. He was taken

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under the wing of a professor. He was fascinated in religion

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and a professor of Christianity, and he fell in love with Christianity.

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He comes to Israel, he makes Aliyah, and he actually

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becomes an Orthodox Jew, and he's teaching at the Hebrew University.

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And one of his main motivations in life

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is to show that Jesus was like Hillel in a sense. He was a

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great leader. He was a great thought leader. And so he

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connects what Jesus says to strands within

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Judaism. Listen to what he does with the Sermon on the

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Mount. He connects it to the Essenes,

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the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the desert.

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He says, contrite of spirit, ani ruach,

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the Sons of Light called themselves evionei

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chaschesed, paupers of grace. So

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he's taking the word that said, you who are poor of spirit.

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These appellations are characterized by a paradoxical

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combination of a term depicting the abject state of

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the sect in the present with a second one which proclaims

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triumphantly the plenty of God's grace bestowed on his

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elect. So Rabbi, if we had a sect in Judaism

435
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that celebrated poverty, that celebrated living in the

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desert without everything, with giving away possessions, it was

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the Essenes. And what he's showing is that this

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paradoxical contrast between the present plight and

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persecution of the blessed and their future glory

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in the kingdom of heaven is also the main burdens of

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what Jesus was saying on that mount. Right.

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What he is saying is that these aniim, these poor,

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poor of spirit, I should say, are endowed with the

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supreme gift of divine bliss with the Holy Spirit.

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He says, I have tried to show that one of the central doctrines of the

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sect was that only the elect, the members

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of the sect, have the Holy Spirit bestowed upon them. It is

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the Spirit, that Spirit, that makes them different from

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others. So it was in the Essenes, according to this

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scholar, that all of a sudden, All right. All of a sudden, being poor,

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being persecuted, being downtrodden

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became an entitlement. They were special.

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They were the children of light. The notion that the poor endowed with

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the Spirit are participants in the true

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eschatological community therefore fits.

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It is well known that Jesus and our community of purpose saw in

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poverty a way to attain salvation. So the

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truth is those who read into this a

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radical statement that having

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flaws actually gains you a seat at the

461
00:29:11.410 --> 00:29:14.704
table were not far from the source.

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Wow. Now, I will say that

463
00:29:18.785 --> 00:29:22.272
Martin Luther actually read the text in a

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00:29:22.272 --> 00:29:25.678
similar fashion. And what Martin Luther says

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that the poor in spirit are those who know and feel their

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spiritual poverty, that they have nothing of their own before

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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

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00:29:44.813 --> 00:29:48.395
realize, as in Va'etchanan, that Moses says, I have

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00:29:48.508 --> 00:29:52.074
no chance. I have to pray to God. Right. He took

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this to the extreme. A man will find out that he is so

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depraved that no strength, no works, no merit of his own

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will ever deliver him from his guilt. Therefore, he must utterly

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despair of himself and seek outside of himself the righteousness

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00:30:07.112 --> 00:30:10.703
of Jesus. So the point is that whether this was

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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

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00:30:21.556 --> 00:30:25.327
they said that the New Testament Jesus identifies himself with the

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hungry, the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. This is the source of

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what we call populism today, that the masses know

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00:30:33.314 --> 00:30:36.938
more than the leaders because the masses are more flawed than the

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leaders. They don't excel at anything. To the contrary, the less

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00:30:40.706 --> 00:30:43.878
they excel, the more they are entitled. It's a

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00:30:43.878 --> 00:30:47.236
fascinating switch. And it's a

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00:30:47.236 --> 00:30:51.012
Christian switch. I mean, they don't think of

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00:30:51.012 --> 00:30:54.532
it that way, but that's where it finds its source. This is

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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

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00:31:06.266 --> 00:31:08.719
ideas from the beginning of Christianity.

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So one of the young political, and

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00:31:13.704 --> 00:31:16.862
I would say Jewish people who were

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00:31:16.926 --> 00:31:20.693
behind -Graham Platner; Rebecca Katz says, the era

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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

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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

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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

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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

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00:32:34.518 --> 00:32:38.016
believe that he's hitting the nail on the head. And the distinction

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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

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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

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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

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familiar. Haven’t we heard these stories before? The Exodus,

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Sinai, the spies, the wilderness, wanderings. It’s all

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repetition. But maybe repetition isn’t a flaw.

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Maybe it’s the point. Why does Moses spend his

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final weeks retelling a story everyone already knows? Why do

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the rabbis praise the student who reviews a lesson

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101 times? And why does Ben Bag

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Bag famously teach turn it over and turn it over,

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for everything is in it? Two thousand years ago, the

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Roman philosopher Seneca warned that reading too many

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scrolls too quickly would leave us distracted, restless, and

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unable to think deeply. Sound familiar? In an

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age of endless scrolling and shrinking attention spans,

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perhaps Deuteronomy has something surprising to teach

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us about the art of paying attention.

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Welcome to Madly. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a

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spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with

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Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite

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podcast platform and now on YouTube and

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Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria,

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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

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the Art of Attention and discover why Moses

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final retelling of the Torah may offer the oldest and

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perhaps the best antidote to our modern

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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

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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

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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

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was, for instance, in Be’er Yaakov, where the

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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

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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,

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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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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,

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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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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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known as reconsolidation, which ensures that

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those ideas remain relevant to our life as time

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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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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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report that students now have difficulty watching feature length

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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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talking. And I think the overwhelming

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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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Seneca and the Talmudic

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rabbis is amazing. One thing I will say for

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the rabbis that as much or as little

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as they reflected what they read in Seneca,

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their traditions have stayed the test of time. Whereas

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Seneca needs a New York op ed to

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remind him back. Because truly what

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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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close to us, to discover who we are, to meet old

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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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Have a meaningful Tisha Bav and we will see you guys all next

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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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all next week.

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Before you go, I’d love to hear from you. Ben Bag Bag

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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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one song that you’ve returned to again and again?

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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.

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 on Pashat Pinchas, we celebrate the independence of Artzot Habrit, the United States. So welcome to Zelophehad’s Daughters of the Revolution. Rabbi it’s going to be Shabbos.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:12]:
Shabbos, July 4, 250 years to the United States. What could be better than that?

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:18]:
And what a better excuse than to look through our texts with a new lens. So here we are in numbers 26 1, and it starts by saying when the plague was over. And of course, this has to do with Pinchas, who has the name of the Parsha named after him. But once again, the Israelite community has sinned. They’ve been punished, and it’s time for a new census. God said to Moses and Eleazar, son of Aharon the priest, take a census of the whole Israelite community from the age of 20 years up, by their ancestral houses, all Israelites able to bear arms. So Moses and Eliezer the priest, on the steps of Moab at the Jordan near Jericho, give instructions about them, namely those from 20 years up, as God has commanded. Moses, the descendants of the Israelites who came out of the land of Egypt were Reuben, Israel’s firstborn descendants of Reuben. And now we’re going to start seeing him parse down to names that maybe thousands of years ago made sense to anybody. And they: “I knew that guy, I knew that clan, I knew that family”. But for us, what they’re showing is how material this was, how we were really going into the weeds. Descendants of Reuben: [Of] Enoch, the clan of the Enochites; of Pallu, the clan of the Palluites; of Hezron, the clan of the Hezronites; of Carmi, the clan of the Carmites. Those are the clans of the Reubenites. You really get a sense of disparate people joining together. There were 43,730 born to Pulu, Born to Pallu: Eliab. (9) The sons of Eliab were Nemuel, and Dathan and Abiram. These are the same Dathan and Abiram, chosen in the assembly, who agitated against Moses and Aaron as part of Korah’s band when they agitated against GOD. So, Rabbi, it’s not only going into the weeds in terms of families and clans, and you get this sense that they’re putting them together, but where appropriate, it’s even given a little bit of their baggage, their history, their culture. Yes, the Reubenites, those were the guys who brought us Dathan and Abiram. It is kind of fascinating. But if you throw yourself into it, maybe even put on your cap of the Constitutional Convention, you’re starting to see different groups, different states, different jurisdictions, different places throughout the country, and they’re all kind of coming together. It’s amazing, isn’t it?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:05:12]:
It is amazing, yeah. I mean, it really makes this part of the Parasha, which in a way is kind of the dry part of the Parasha, it makes it really come alive.

Geoffrey Stern [00:05:21]:
Well, we’re going to see in context. It absolutely provides the context that we need. So Emek Davar says, why does it start by saying it came to pass after the plague? The principal purpose of this census was to prepare for the apportionment of the land, as will be explained later. Therefore, the Torah first notes that it took place after the plague because those who remained alive were precisely those who would stand to inherit the land. That’s the Ibn Ezer’s view as well. But, Rabbi, it seems to me this is not the first time that we’ve had one of these lists. I mean, we started on Parashat Numbers itself, Bamidbar, and it started with a list.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:06:03]:
What do you mean? The book is called Numbers because all it has is a list of numbers of people. Right. So that it gave the book the name.

Geoffrey Stern [00:06:12]:
So I think we’re going to see that first of all, there’s a little bit of an exception here because it doesn’t only include the landowners. We’re going to see it actually lists 13 tribes because it brings in the Levites too, who didn’t get land, presumably. But also this coming after the plague, it almost seems, and this is what I’m going to argue, that at a parashat drachim, at episodes, at discrete moments where calamity has occurred, where something is heard, the group has to regroup and almost in a sense recount, but maybe also rededicate themselves to this federation of tribes, make sure everybody’s counted, everybody’s a flag holder, everybody’s a card carrying member. And presumably especially after a plague, after hardship hits. And that’s what I am going to argue. But it is important to note that the classical commentators do not gloss over the fact that it all starts by saying, Vayehi Acharei HaMagefa.. so now we get to another one of the recitations and it says, these were the descendants of Gilead, Isaiah, the clan of Israelites, of Helak, the clan of Helakites. I mean, it almost sounds out of a comic book. And where we’re hearing names like Superman came from (Krypton), these sounds so foreign, all these names, these clans. Shechem, the clan of Shechemites, that rings a cord. Shmida, the clan of the Shmidites. Heifer, the clan of the Heiferites. And then in 26: 33 it says now Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons, only daughters. The names of Zelophehad’s daughters were Mahla, Noah, Hagla, Milcha and Tirzah. We are going to see that these women are mentioned three times in our verses. But again, it’s adding some of the baggage, it’s adding some of the color. And we’re not going to go into the description of every one of these clans and tribes, just the ones that give us a little backstory. So God in 52 said to Moses saying, among these the aforementioned, shall the land be apportioned as shares according to the listed names, with larger groups increase the share, with smaller groups reduce the share. Each is to be assigned its share according to its enrollment. The land wherever is to be Apportioned by goral, by lot. And the allotment shall be made according to the listings of their ancestral tribes. Each portion shall be assigned by lot, whether for large or smaller groups. So this too, what we’re showing is. Rabbi, this is not some sort of de facto, some kind of just formulitic division of the land. We can imagine again if we put on our three sided constitutional congress hat they were discussing what’s fair, what’s right, how do we divide things up?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:09:29]:
Isn’t it interesting that they use a lot? Right. They use something that’s totally by chance so that they want to make sure that it’s fair and even, I mean, that’s the over.

Geoffrey Stern [00:09:40]:
You can’t not but make any other conclusion. It’s not drash, it’s here. Rashi says the names of the tribes were written on 12 tablets and those of the 12 districts on 12 tablets. They mixed them up in an urn and the prince of a tribe inserted his hand into it and took out two tablets. They came up in his hand, the hand of the tablet bearing the name of the tribe and the tablet relating to the district that had been declared by the Urim and Tummim to be intended for it. And ultimately what it is a combination, a hybrid where the land was not divided by measurement alone. So they didn’t say 50 acres. 50 acres. 50 acres because one district is superior to another, but it was divided by estimating its fertility. A bad piece of land sufficient to sow a Kor was regarded as the equivalent of a good piece of land sufficient to sow a seir, all dependent upon the value of the soil. Rabbi, I don’t think Rashi’s reading stuff into here. The rabbis understood that this division, first of all, this bringing in of all of these clans and then this division of the apportionment that they were going to get was very thought out, very meticulous and fair. Overriding a term here, there’s no question about it.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:11:09]:
Yeah, I mean, that’s it. It was fair. It didn’t, it didn’t allow for favoritism. All the things that we could imagine in terms of trying to build order into a system of 3 million people where it’s very hard to create order.

Geoffrey Stern [00:11:25]:
And it wasn’t cookie cutter either, because if you notice before it did say it was apportioned larger land to more people. This was almost representative government. I mean, Rashi has picked to talk about agriculture, but you can imagine other factors entering into it, sociological and things like that. Then in 26 and this is why I said, we really have 13 tribes here. These are the clans of Levi, the clan the Libnites, the clan of the Hebronites, the clan of the Machlites, the clan of the Mushites, and the clan of the Korah, Achites, Kohat Begat, Amrah. Their enrollment was 23,000, comprised all males from a month up. They were not part of the regular enrollment of the Israelites, since no share was assigned to them among the Israelites. So they get honorable mention, but they are mentioned. And we’re going to see that the number 13 has significance to us on July 4th. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ramban says, and these are they that were numbered of the Levites, he says, I don’t know why he commanded the Levites should be counted here, what purpose it served now by counting them since they did not receive any portion in the land, answers the Ramban. Perhaps they were counted because it was only to these Levites that they gave the 48 cities to dwell in and their open land for their cattle and not to those who were born afterwards. Rabbi, the different tribes had different functions. We have something called Washington D.C. it does not have senators. I had to Google that. I had to look that up. It doesn’t have representation. The point is they lived in different types of areas, but they were all counted here after this Magefa in terms of creating this federation of clans of tribes. Now let’s get to the stars of our show. The daughters of Zelophehad. The daughters of Zelophehad of Manasseh family, son of Chefer, son of Gilad, son of Machia, son of Manasseh, son of Joseph, came forward. This is in 27 1. The names of the daughters were Machla, Noah, Hagla, Milka and Zirach. It names them a second time. They stood before Moses, Eleazar, the priests, the chieftains and the whole assembly. It’s a constitutional congress at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And they said, our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korach’s faction, that banded together against God, but he died for his own sins. A little bit of color, a little bit of context, and he has left no sons.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:14:09]:
That’s an interesting verse, right? That he wasn’t a bad guy. He may have been a sinner, but he wasn’t a bad guy. He wasn’t a rebel.

Geoffrey Stern [00:14:19]:
But again, the way I take it is, and I said in the intro, the disenfranchised. Here you have a constitutional congress 3,000 years ago, if you had to pick the lowest of the low, you might pick five daughters. You know, clearly women were. This was not a matriarchal society. And then not only were there five daughters, they were five daughters of a self proclaimed sinner. They’re coming up and they’re showing it all. They’re saying we are the disenfranchised. They say that. But the problem is you have just created this amazing methodology of dividing the land equally and fairly. We got a little question here and it relates to us because what is going to happen, happened to our father’s portion. Now, I know many people are going to read women’s lib into this and clearly, as I said before, the fact that these are women making the first constitutional argument is definitely significant. No one can take that away from the text. But what they’re arguing for is not women’s rights. What they’re arguing is they have punctured a hole. They found an inconsistency in this rule of dividing up the land because their father’s portion will fall through the cracks.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:15:39]:
Right. I mean that, that’s correct. I mean they, they found a problem in the law. And that’s so interesting because the Torah is the book of the law. And these women have found the fact that have found, you know, the case that’s not covered. We do that all the time. We study Talmud all the time. It’s all about cases and what cases are covered and what cases are not covered. But here it’s the Torah itself, which almost sounds like the Talmud. These five women almost sound like they’re rabbis who were sitting and studying the Talmud.

Geoffrey Stern [00:16:16]:
And I think there’s a piece of Talmud that says just that, that they were brilliant and they got it right. And of course, God said to Moses, the plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just, you shall give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen, transfer their father’s share to them. Like any constitutional law or ruling from the Supreme Court, there are some conditions. In numbers 36, 6, it says, provided they marry into a clan of their father’s tribe, no inheritance of the Israelites may pass from one tribe to another. So again, Rabbi, putting on my constitutional hat, when you were trying to get those 13 states to join the union, that was not the time to get a little soft and say, but there are some times where Rhode Island is going to get diluted because its daughters are ….

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:17:11]:
No, you have to be strict to dilute the tribe.

Geoffrey Stern [00:17:15]:
They Were not. So I want to point out something that I’ve kind of been hinting at. There are many women in the Torah who we have no clue what their names were. Noah’s wife, no name, but she features in, Lot’s wife, no name. Pharaoh’s daughter, Jephthah’s daughter, who drove a stake through the Sirach’s head. We don’t even know her name. And here we have these five women who are mentioned three times. It is unbelievable. I mentioned in the introduction that these were not only women, but they were daughters of a Sabbath desecrator. Where did I get that from? So as regards what the sin of the father was that the daughters refer to, Rabbi Akiva said that he was the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. Rab Simon said he was the one of those presumed to disobey God command. But again, Rabbi, I think if you’re trying to make a case that everybody in this clan, everybody in these families, from the highest to the lowest, is representative, I don’t think you could have picked a better case than five daughters who had no brother, no man running the house. And their father was a famous sinner. He was the guy gathering those sticks on Sabbath that was put to death. It’s quite remarkable, quite remarkable.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:18:38]:
Now the second opinion is that he was from the Mapilim. That does relate to the case of the spies. But you know, the Mapilim were the people who went up, they try to conquer the land of Israel on their own. In a way they were just overly aggressive. But you know, what they would wanted to do was not altogether bad.

Geoffrey Stern [00:18:59]:
I love that it brings in different potential narratives, but each person has an identity here. These are not numbers. If that is something that comes across in this narrative, I think it’s because it’s intended. 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 leyning, capturing grandpa’s favorite tune, or recording Chad Gad Yah in a voice that matters, go to voice.gift, that’s http://www.voice.gift and use code MADLIK for 15% off. Thanks. And now back to our podcast. Let’s go a little bit further. Before we move on to the Constitution in July 4th, I just thought it would be helpful to put a period in Zelophehad’s Constitutional query. We are about to celebrate Tisha B’Av. People might not realize that while Tisha B’Av is the saddest day of the year, a few days later, the 15th of AV, it’s like Valentine’s Day in Rabbinic Judaism, that girls used to go dancing outside, and it was considered one of the most happy days. This was the day, according to the Talmud in Taanit, in which the members of different Tribes were permitted to enter one another’s tribe. So literally, it goes back to Zelophehad and it says, you know what? We’re not Rhode island joining the 13 anymore. We’ve lived in the land. People feel a little bit more comfortable. And maybe what defines us is less that we belong to that clan, but more that we, I don’t know, we’re a New Yorker or we’re a New Englander. There are other things that define us that we won’t be challenged by a woman marrying outside of a historic clan. These laws developed, these identities of the different clans developed. And I just think it’s precious.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:21:47]:
Absolutely precious. Fantastic.

Geoffrey Stern [00:21:50]:
So now we’re going to get into federalism. And in the first Parsha of Bamidbar; Numbers, we talked about a scholar named Daniel Elazar who makes a case that the two greatest examples of what he calls federalism occurred in the ancient Israelite federation of tribes and the 13 colonies. And it’s going to be July 4th in a few days. What better time to bring this up to date? So he says federalism has to do with the need of people and polities to unite for common purpose, yet remain separate to preserve their respected integrity. It is rather like wanting to have one’s cake and eat it, too. Politically, a covenant involves a coming together of basically equal humans who consent with one another through a morally binding pact, establishing a new framework. Rabbi I think it is sublime that the Hebrew word for the United States is our Artzot Habrit.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:22:57]:
You love that, don’t you?

Geoffrey Stern [00:22:58]:
It is the land of the covenant, the person, Yehuda Halevi, whoever Ben Yehuda, who formulated that, understood the subject matter of today’s podcast. The covenant idea has within in it the seeds of modern constitutionalism, writes Daniel Elazar mutually accepted limitations on the power of all parties. We had that with the bnot Zelophehad for the good of keeping the Constitution. They couldn’t marry out for a few generations. But it is to preserve and that’s what they were arguing for, to preserve this federalism. So we’ve all seen the play Hamilton in Federalist paper number nine. He talks about the definition of a Confederate republic seems simply to be an assemblage of societies. The extent, modifications and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. So long as the separate organization of the members be not abolished, you have to keep your identity so long as it exists by a constitutional necessity for local purposes through it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority. Literally what they were imagining was this type of federalist association of the different states. And I will argue for the people within those states, whether those people are families, clans or individuals, constituent parts of the national sovereignty. So I said to my good buddy ChatGPT, were there any speakers during the constitutional era who actually made a reference to the 13 or 12 tribes and reflected on them and the states? So There was a Reverend Joseph Huntington, pastor of the First Church in Coventry, Toland College, Connecticut. And he says “these 13 United States or tribes of Israel”, making a clear comparison in language to the civil structure between America and Israel. Good old Thomas Paine says that the Hebrew form of government was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes and that it was sinful to acknowledge a king other than God. Rabbi One thing they all agreed upon is when we get to the book of Samuel and Israelites pick a king, that was the end of it. They were picking their [King] George. But until then they were a shining light on the hill. There was another preacher named Samuel Langdon, and he actually became the president of Harvard from 1774 to 1780. Langdon recounted how God had commanded Moses to bring 70 men chosen from among the elders and officers and present them at the tabernacle so that they might share the burden of government with him. Remember Yitro? That’s what Yitro is about. Thus the American preacher concluded a senate was constituted as necessary for the future government of the nation. Like Huntingdon before him, Langdon purposely conflated the American (or rather Latin) and Hebrew nomenclatures Let’s have a drum roll. Senate with Sanhedrin. exegesis was foreseeable. The Hebrew government I never would have dreamed. Rabbi but these. There are scholars that say that the senate took its name as much from the Greek [and Roman] Senate as from the Sanhedrin. So every tribe, Langton pointed out, had elders and a prince with which Moses did not interfere. Those tribal leaders had an acknowledged right to meet and consult consent of the congregation to do whatever was necessary to preserve good order and promote the common interest of the tribe. In short, according to Langdon’s interpretation, the tribes resembled the American states under the Constitution. They were quasi autonomous, semi sovereign entities. Also, as in the United States, the local government of the Israelite tribes was structurally very similar to the general government. Each had a president and senate at its head, while the whole of the Hebrew people assembled and gave their voice in great matters. Instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen states of the American Union. That is a quote.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:27:46]:
That’s a quote. That’s amazing.

Geoffrey Stern [00:27:48]:
You can find in the show notes the text of these speeches. The main speech by Langdon is called the Republic of the Israelites, an example of the American states. And this is not history in reverse. This was in 1780. He delivered this. But he was a lifelong believer in it. John Huntington also talks about. What he does is he actually shows that he’s a scholar. And he read Parashat Pinchas because he says, we find the nation by divine order, composed of a number of states, that is to say, 13, called the tribes of the children of Israel. Jacob had 12 sons, but then, you know, the tribe of Joseph was subdivided and became two tribes, that is the tribe of Ephraim and the tribe of manasseh, which made 13 united, free and independent states. They didn’t have to be. And they didn’t all make the direct connection. But it’s cute that this one did. It shows the level of knowledge they had of our scripture. I used to go to Public School PS6 in Manhattan, and we used to pledge allegiance to the flag every morning. I understand that in Congress they pledge allegiance every morning. I wish they would pay attention and have a little more Kavannah. But the history of the Pledge of Allegiance was written not in the 1700s. It was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, 27 years after the Civil War. אַחֲרֵ֣י הַמַּגֵּפָ֑ה And I put that in there. It was when our nation was broken, when the Constitution cracked, that he felt there had to be. And this was a minister, by the way, in the original verbiage, it was written for the youth. It did not include God’s name. He decided not to put that in because he didn’t want to divide people. It says, I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You have this one nation and you have liberty and justice for each individual. This kind of sums it up. And Rabbi, if it reminds you in Deuteronomy 20 when it says God says atem nitzavim hayom, you stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God, your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, the entire body of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from wood chopper to water drawer to enter into the covenant of the Eternal, your God, which the eternal your God is concluding with you this day with its sanctions in order to establish you this day. And we were on the steps of Moab, about to cross into the promised land as God’s people and in order to be your God as promised you. I think that 250 years is a good time to look at our declarations, look at the commitments, to pledge allegiance to this amazing concept of being united. Disparate people united by an idea that doesn’t detract from our individuality, but actually celebrates our individuality, but makes us one and united for a greater good.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:31:19]:
Love it. Happy July 4th. Happy 250. Here’s to another 250 and many more.

Geoffrey Stern [00:31:26]:
Yes, and we will survive any Magefa (plague). Actually, the silver lining of surviving a magefa, of going through a hard time is reconstructing and rededicating ourselves. And I think both in America and Israel, we are going through tough times. We need to rededicate ourselves.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:31:44]:
Amen.

Geoffrey Stern [00:31:45]:
Before we sign off, we’d like to leave you with a question. This week’s Parsha reminds us that unity doesn’t require uniformity, that tribes, families and individuals can remain distinct while sharing a common covenant. So here’s our question: what is the one value or commitment that can still unite people who profoundly disagree? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment below and let’s continue the conversation together.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:32:16]:
Shabbat Shalom, everybody. Happy July 4th.

Geoffrey Stern [00:32:19]:
Shabbat Shalom. Yom ha’atzmut l’Artzot Habrit Samayach . See you all next week.

My name is zGeoffrey Stern, and at Madlik we light a Spark and 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 we read Parashat Chukkat Balak, a summer parasha. We also month of Tammuz and have just crossed the summer solstice. We are about to begin the three weeks of mourning and the situation in Israel is once again uncertain. Welcome to a midsummer nightmare. So, Rabbi, it is interesting times that we live in, but I am sure that those who are very troubled by the current edition of the Iran deal will be talking about the three weeks and the bad news that occurs to the Jews during this period. Clearly, while other people are celebrating a midsummer’s night dream, we Jews in the middle of the summer are agonizing about our history and our future.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:41]:
I mean, that’s for sure true. I mean, obviously the fact that the temples were destroyed on the ninth day of that fell during the summer, the rabbis don’t make a point of the fact that it is in the summer, but we all know and it has a lot to do with summer camp and kids, that the summer is associated with Tisha B’av and the summer is associated with destruction and, you know, in Messiah and all those kinds of things. So it’s interesting the way that kind of evolved over time, even though in the earliest sources that wasn’t really such a big deal.

Geoffrey Stern [00:03:17]:
So we’re used to looking at the December dilemma where we compare maybe how we Jews celebrate the middle of the winter, the depths of darkness. But I don’t think we look enough at the summer solstice and how our culture celebrates, commemorates, lives through it, as opposed to what Shakespeare was clearly talking about. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is about a party. Makes sense. As I said in the intro, the sun is shining, we’re in the middle of the summer. You would think it would be a time to celebrate. But near Stonehenge, they seem to have now found. It was in the Times that I picked it up, they found 48 pits that are carbon dated 5,000 years ago. And based on what they found there, broken shards of dishes and jugs and food and bones that must have been eating. The idea is there was a celebration there as well. And if you’ve ever seen pictures of the sun peeking out through stoneheads, it’s on that longest day of the year and boom, it’s set up so that you see it. You can really see how it’s epic. And it is the pinnacle of something and something to celebrate. I mean, I think you don’t need. Need a philosopher to tell you that the way you observe and travel through the calendar obviously affects your mindset. But there are some scholars that I dug up, Jonathan Z. Smith, who really sees religion as an act of deliberate human ingenuity and imagination. And he focused a lot on sacred calendars. And we don’t do that maybe enough. But clearly the cycle of the year is a language in and of itself. It really impacts the way we think. And there were modern additions to that, like summer camp, as you mentioned.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:05:12]:
Now, I think first of all, you think about it for a minute. So yesterday was the longest day of the year. And there was a big music festival in Paris. Now, around the world, they had the celebration, the longest day of the year. When you think about it, today was a little shorter than yesterday. Each day is going to be a little shorter until December 21st. First. Now that’s a kind of frightening to think that we’re now on a downward trajectory until the coldest, you know, darkest time of the year. And here I’m here in Paris, and it was 102 degrees today. And you know, and it got dark. Shabbat was out at 11:04, so you can’t get any later than that. But that’s it, it’s over. Because now we’re starting to get shorter and shorter and shorter. And you’re 100% right. It’s a little bit depressing to think that December 21st is right around the corner.

Geoffrey Stern [00:06:09]:
So tell me, what were the celebrations like in Paris? How did you feel it? Because in New York you don’t feel it at all.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:06:14]:
We had a wedding, so we didn’t participate. I’ll tell you the only way we knew. They were worried that there was going to be traffic leaving the city because of these music celebrations. But, you know, but June 21st is a day of celebration. You know, it’s the pinnacle. We’ve reached the pinnacle, the longest day of the year. And again in Europe it’s more of a big deal than it is in America, because when it gets dark at 11 o’, clock, we finished dinner tonight at 9:30 and we started walking home. It really looks like 2 o’ clock

Geoffrey Stern [00:06:43]:
in the afternoon, so. So another scholar, Mircea Eliade, wrote actually a book, Sacred Time and Myths. And again, I’m wondering if how much of your feeling of it’s the longest day, which translates in tomorrow is getting a little shorter, is kind of something that’s written into your DNA as a Jew, or is this how everyone else feels? Or is there an alternative Eat, drink and be merry? It’s just something to celebrate. Stop with the worry already. I’m just curious because we’re going to look a little bit in our tradition where some of that is baked in. They did see the decline at that moment of the pinnacle.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:07:29]:
Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to know. I know that, you know, Shabbat candida lining this week, if last week in New York it was 8:14, so this week it’s going to be 8:13. Like it doesn’t really make any difference. But that’s, you know, that’s symbolic in the fact that we’re starting to get shorter.

Geoffrey Stern [00:07:47]:
You know, you just said something that triggered a thought in my mind because our religion and there are other religions I think that operate this way, but certainly ours is so set in the calendar at least once a week. You need need to know when the sun sets. It’s kind of like a built in Stonehenge. We take it with us. And you really feel that because you see the numbers. I’m wondering if that’s a part of it. I mean, Other religions, the secular calendar is midnight. There’s nothing in the universe that signals midnight. It’s something that you read on your clock. But we really do live by sunrise and sunset, whether it’s our prayers, whether it’s the weekly Shabbat, So maybe that enters into it for sure.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:08:32]:
I mean, and the Muslims are like that too, you know, I’ll just say something interesting, since we want to talk about other religions. You know, the Muslims have Ramadan, and Ramadan is they fast the daylight for 30 days. Now, Ramadan is interesting because Ramadan shifts to different periods during the year. Each year it jumps 11 days earlier. So some years Ramadan is in the middle of the summer and they fast till 9 o’ clock at night. And sometimes Ramadan is in December and they fast till 4 o’ clock in the afternoon. So they’re also very sensitive in terms of Ramadan to, you know, the period, the time of year.

Geoffrey Stern [00:09:10]:
So again, that would be a study worthwhile. Which. What happens when you have a culture where holidays are not linked to the solar cycle at all, such as the Muslims? You know, if the Christians followed a similar calendar, Christmas could be in August, one year. What does that do to your psyche? Is outside of our realm of expertise or wisdom. Maybe someone’s written about that, but with us, that’s an amazing segue into the one posse that really determined that we did have to adjust. The word is intercalate our calendar. So in Deuteronomy it says, observe the month of Aviv. Aviv means either spring or when the crop begins to bud and offer a Passover sacrifice to the eternal your God. For it was in the month of Abiyiv that God took you out of Egypt. Rashi says this means before it comes, watch whether it will be capable of producing ripe ears. So he takes the Aviv to be a fruit that blossoms, so that one may offer the omer meal offering during it. And if not. So if you’re at a time of year that you think is Aviv, but it’s not blossoming yet, if you don’t see that yet, then you have to intercalate the year, meaning add a month to the winter period. In Hebrew, it’s aver et. So we Jews kind of learn from this. There might be other places as well that we have a hybrid between a lunar calendar where every month is Mechadesh, it renews, and the solar calendar, which is the seasons of the year. And because of Passover for sure, maybe others as well, we have to adjust our calendar. But the solar year Therefore becomes important. Now that is also comes out in the commandments. We all know there are 613 mitzvot, but as they reference them that Rav Simlay taught in Makot 23B, he says 365 prohibitions corresponding to the days of the number of days in the solar year. So again, many people think that, that Judaism operates on a lunar calendar. Clearly the solar calendar entered into their symbolism, entered into their worldview. You can’t ignore it.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:11:41]:
Right? That’s for sure. I mean, that, that actually I mentioned before about Ramadan. That’s the difference between Judaism and Islam. Islam is completely lunar. Islam doesn’t incorporate the solar year, but Judaism incorporates the solar year. And since the lunar year is 11 days shorter than the solar year, and therefore the lunar year would jump earlier by 11 days. So every three years we need a shnata ibor. And you know, of course, the word ibor means pregnant. The year is pregnant because it has an extra month. So therefore the year is pregnant. Literally. You can’t beat that use of that phrase there.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:18]:
And we, of course, because we’re matlic, would say it’s also pregnant with meaning. Right? I mean, that’s just the way we think. But the point is that when I talk about the summer solstice, people shouldn’t look at me and go, are you kidding? That has nothing to do with Judaism. No, the solar year was important. And now we’re going to come across a piece of Talmud that really does, I think, kind of paraphrase what you were saying a second ago. When you felt the day after the solstice, you already felt a little bit of dread, you felt a little bit of the days are getting shorter. So this is what it says with regard to the dates of these festivals. The sages taught when Adam, that means the original Adam, the first man, saw that the day was progressively diminishing as the days became shorter. Here in the translation it says the autumnal equinox. But the truth is he could have seen it on June 23. He did not yet know that this is a normal phenomenon. And therefore he said, woe is me. Perhaps because I sinned, the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of tohu and vohu, of chaos and disorder. And this is the death that was sentenced upon me from heaven. He arose and spent eight days in fasting and in prayer. Once he saw that the season of Teyvet, the winter solstice, had arrived, and saw that the day was progressively lengthening after the solstice, he said, clearly the days become shorter and then longer, and this is the order of the world. So again, the rabbis in this piece of Talmud recognize that we are all affected by the shorter days and the longer days and that it’s natural to have those types of feelings that you kind of just vary from your, from your kishkas, from your gut said, this is how we all feel. And so like any great midrash, this translates something that become very natural, but I will argue maybe reflects a uniquely Jewish approach to how we view these seasons.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:14:36]:
It’s such interesting psychology because you’re right, I say, you know, a piece of me said that today’s a little shorter than yesterday and we’re getting close to December. But I, I’m not worried because I know when we get to December, the days will start getting long again. But Adam, Adam in the Garden of Eden, he was nervous because he didn’t know how that the cycle would continue. And I think that’s really beautiful. The cycle of the year is the cycle of life. And the greatest comfort we have when things are bad is the fact that things are going to get better.

Geoffrey Stern [00:15:09]:
Yes. And that’s how we typically feel, I think, certainly as Jews. And I would say that would be the gut response I would have when I repeat and retell this midrash around Hanukkah time. And I say that as we Jews are surrounded by darkness, we light a candle. That is Mosef v’holech. If you read the midrash that we just talked about a second ago, you will notice the language kind of resonates that he saw the days getting shorter and shorter and then ultimately he saw that they were mosefer choleg. So it kind of ties into that. And now a word from our sponsor. If there’s one thing we value at Dalik 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. Voice Give 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 laning, capturing grandpa’s favorite tune, or recording Chad Gad Yah in a voice that matters. Go to Voice gift. That’s http://www.voice and use code MADLIK for 15% off.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:16:51]:
Thanks.

Geoffrey Stern [00:16:52]:
And now back to our podcast. What we’re going to explore now is something that I hadn’t really given some thought to, and most of us, I don’t believe, do either, which is the opposite of that. We all know how we feel in the darkness of the winter and how we light that light, and that gives us hope. What we’re going to turn to now is what we feel in the lightness of the summer and how, at least from a Jewish perspective, we seem to find that feeling of dread and uncertainty. So first of all, let’s talk about the month that we’re in. I believe last week when we recorded Madlik, it wsas Rosh Hodesh Tammuz. We are in Tammuz now. There’s going to be a fast day coming up, Shiva aserbeh, Tammuz, the 17th of Tammuz, which marks the beginning of the three weeks of mourning. So Tammuz is the tenth month of the civil year, but the fourth, fourth month of the Jewish year, starting with Nisan. And just like the modern Assyrian calendar, Tammuz is the name, an ancient name in the ancient near east. It’s 29 days and the name of the month was adopted from the Syrian and Babylonian month Arab Damuzu, named in honor of the Mesopotamian deity Damuzid, Hebrew Tammuz, known to the Sumerians as Damuzid the Shepherd. And it’s an ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine deity associated with agriculture and shepherds, who is also the first and primary consort of the goddess Inanna, otherwise known as Ishtar. This becomes interesting, and so far I’m quoting from our good buddy Wikipedia. Tammuz is mentioned by name in the Book of Ezekiel. We’re going to visit that in a second and probably alluded to in other passages from the Hebrew Bible. In late 19th and early 20th cent century scholarship of religion, Tammuz was widely seen as a prime example of the archetypal dying and rising God. And that’s God with a small g. But the discovery of the full Sumerian text of Inanna’s descent in the mid 20th century appeared to disprove the previous scholarly assumption that the narrative ended with Dumuzid’s resurrection, and instead revealed that it ended with Damuzid’s death. However, the rescue of Dumuzid from the underworld was later found in the text return of Dumuzi translated 63 so Rabbi, there’s a little bit of a controversy about whether this fallen God who dies in the middle of Tammuz, actually is resurrected and comes back to life. Or it’s a real doubter and he goes down in the grave. But it is rather interesting that we have a month named after a pagan God, is it not?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:19:50]:
Yeah, very interesting. I mean, and obviously that’s something that happened later you say it’s mentioned in the book of Ezekiel, that’s something that happened after the destruction of the temple, during the time of the temple and the. And the verse in Zechariah says you refer to the fast of the fourth. So it’s the fast of the fourth month is this 17th day of Tammuz, which is the fast of the fifth month, which is Tisha B’Av during the fifth month. Month. So they describe these days not in terms of Thomas and ah, but in terms of fourth and fifth month. But that is interesting, right? And that’s. That shows, by the way, an evolution, we would say today, Geoffrey, an assimilation of the Jews into the culture and that they actually took the names of the month. Our Jewish months become the names. And I just was officiated a wedding yesterday, and in the ketuba we said Tammuz. What a crazy thing to say. Tammuz in the ketuba, which is after this, you know, this, this ancient God. Why do we say Tammuz? But that became part of our acculturated tradition that we adopted the names of these months. And if you ask any yeshiva Bacher, every Yeshiva bacher will tell you that Tammuz must be holy, right? There must be a name directly from God on that side.

Geoffrey Stern [00:21:07]:
I was talking to my brother the other day and he gave me from the Kabbalah Center the meaning of Tammuz. And trust me, it had not to do with an ancient deity. But anyway, this is what Wikipedia quotes is Ezekiel 8, 14, and it says, next God brought me. This means he brought Ezekiel to the entrance of the north gate of the house of God. And there sat the woman bewailing Tammuz. She was Mevachot, et ha Tammuz. And I was told, have you seen a mortal? You shall see even more terr abominations than these. So this is a fascinating pasuk, because on the one hand, number one, it shows that, and this should be no big surprise that there were Israelites and Jews who were still worshiping foreign gods. In this case, it’s Tammuz. But she was crying for Tammuz. Again, if you, if you connect the dots, you know, the Tammuz was someone who was a deity that was more at a certain period, I would assume, during Tammuz. And then if that’s not interesting enough, then Yechezkel says, and as a punishment, guess what? There are going to be more terrible things that happen than these. He’s almost precasting the terrible things that happen during Tammuz. Am I reading too much into this?

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:22:40]:
No, you’re reading it. That’s a very interesting verse. Verse, right. I mean, that’s a funny way to say it, right? You wouldn’t say. Doesn’t deserve the, you know, the proper article, the hey at the beginning. But that’s obviously with the way they referred to it. Anyway, it’s a great verse and.

Geoffrey Stern [00:23:03]:
And again, it’s like so many other things that forecast because the Jews cried in the desert, many bad things happened on that day here because they worshiped Tammuz. Again, they are going to have some real things to warn about. Interestingly, in Ezekiel 1, where Ezekiel has the famous Merakava vision, the vision of the chariot, the real vision of all that is in our mystical tradition, it’s in the 13th year, on the fifth day of the fourth month. It also happens to be in the month of Tammuz, which again, a kind of lit a light for me that in this Tammuz was bad, was tragedy, was going down to the depths, but also the ability to see the light, to see this.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:24:03]:
I want to just tell you that the verse says in Zechariah, Vitzom Hashvi, and the first of the seventh month and the first of the tenth month, which is the tenth of Taylor, it. They will be days of celebration. So even the fast days which are identified as these months will be. They will be days of celebration. So that’s interesting that you quote the verse from the beginning of Ezekiel, because that’s the same idea. And that’s the same thing as when the days get shorter and the days get longer. And that is that we believe the greatest consolation we have is that even when things are really bad, there’s only one way to go. And that is up.

Geoffrey Stern [00:24:52]:
Absolutely. And that. Thank you for adding that verse. Maybe text me the sukim for that and I’ll add it to the Sefaria show notes. But again, along with what you just said, is a tradition that I have the source in the show notes. But I think if you ask people, they will tell you that Tisha B’Av is the day that we sunk to the depths. But it’s also the day when the quote unquote Messiah will be born in Ekheraba. It Says there’s a conversation between a mother whose child is born on Tisha B’Av. It says, because my child has a horse. Fate. She says he said to her, the sage said to her, why? She said to him, because upon his arrival the temple was destroyed. The sage said to her, we rely on the master of the universe that upon his arrival it was destroyed, and upon his arrival it will be rebuilt. So again, again, this concept that you said a second ago, that we Jews can see the glass half full even as we are looking at the glass half empty, or completely empty in the case of Tisubov. So it is really kind of parallel to what we would think of in terms of Kislev and being in the depth of the winter. But I take away from this and I can’t but think of the current situation that we’re in, that in the heights of the summer when that light is streaming through Stonehenge and we look like we’re in the pinnacle. We Jews, based on this kind of narrative and this and our experience over that same 5,000 years as those people living in, celebrating in those pits, we’ve learned to think differently. And the way we think is that we never can afford to be at the pinnacle and that we always have to find and work at finding the real light and the real potential. And I think that’s the real lesson that we took from a Tammuz, which was a deity who perished at the height of. Height of the. Of the solstice. And we. We must have learned and eternalized a message in there that leads us to look for what’s not obvious with all of the light shed on all of the details. Things might look bad or they might look good, but we look for that which is kind of underneath that we need to kind of work on. And we do find the potential. We do have that gnawing feeling within our gut that when things look like they’re good, that we have to be on. On guard. And I think that’s just part of our calendar. But clearly we are affected by the solstice like any other culture. But I think we do it in a uniquely Jewish way.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:28:00]:
I think that’s beautiful. What a great way to enter the. These shorter days. They don’t get short by much right now, but it’s something to remember as we reach those shorter days. Days. So we want to wish you a happy summer to everybody. Shabbat Shalom . This week we read. We read a double parsha getting us ready for the fast, the 17th of Thamus. And we look forward to seeing everybody next week. Thank you, Geoffrey; Bonsoir to everybody. Good evening, good night, and look forward to next week.

Geoffrey Stern [00:28:30]:
Thank you so much. And we will see you all next week. Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom.

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 we read Parashat Korach. Join us as we jump into Korach’s crevasse and discuss creation and recreation in Judaism. I’ll tell you, Rabbi, my favorite verse, I would say, but it’s not a verse. My favorite sentence in all of our liturgy is ubetu mechadesh ma’aseh Bereshit, that God every day recreates creation. And here we have. We’re going to see the rabbis have a real problem with anything being created after the Genesis was over.

Adam Mintz [00:02:25]:
Yeah, I mean, it comes up a couple of times. I mean, it’s like the splitting of the sea. How can you have a splitting of the sea even though it breaks the rules of nature?

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:33]:
Good.

Adam Mintz [00:02:33]:
This is going to be an interesting exploration.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:36]:
And we’ve done Korach a few times, so who knew? I never knew this verse had the word Bria in it. So we start in Numbers 16:30. But if God creates a new creation and the ground opens mouth and swallows up them, all that is theirs and they go down in live in Sheol. So this is Moses talking. He says, then you will know that these men have scorned God. So it’s at the end of the rebellion and it’s almost like a test. But the Hebrew, as I said before, the Imbri, ah, yevra hashem. And if Moses says to God, you will create a new creation and create this crevasse to swallow them up. And then of course, it does use this word. Sheol means pit, I would say Everett Fox says sheol, the underworld, which in the Bible is a nondescript gray space, rather like the Greeks, Hades, and not the later heaven and hell of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So it’s not typically associated with Gehennom, which has that baggage. So we have those two kind of interesting words used in our verse.

Adam Mintz [00:03:48]:
That’s going to be a good. That’s going to be a good Madlik someday to talk about Shaol and Gehenna and hell and all those things. Okay, really good.

Geoffrey Stern [00:03:56]:
Well, we’ll touch upon it a little bit today. But first we have to get to the cowards. Ibn Ezra, he doesn’t want to have any part of it. He says bria. And if the word God will make a new thing. Some say that the word bria, a new thing, refers to bringing forth of something that was never in existence. He says, in other words, creation. I have already explained that the word bria is related to the word of Uvara. Hack in the hack of them, many cities have been split open and those who dwell in them have gone down to the pit. This guy is from California. He knows all about earthquakes and the earth opening up and creating a crevasse. He says there’s no issue here. It has nothing to do with creation. Just walk away from it. Right?

Adam Mintz [00:04:50]:
He’s forced to say that because he can’t imagine that there should be a new creation.

Geoffrey Stern [00:04:56]:
Okay. And it’s hard for us to understand how important this discussion is because frankly, for us, I don’t know, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. If God created the world and stopped, or if God created the world and kept on creating. But let’s look at the Mishnah, which is the earliest source we have, I think, for this, what seems to be a very profound philosophy. The Piuke Avot says in 5, chapter 5, 6, 10 things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are them. Number one, the mouth of the earth. So it lists 10 things, including some that our listeners are surely aware of. The mouth of the donkey, that relates to Bilaam, the rainbow, maybe for Noah the Manna but it starts with the mouth of the earth. And Rabbi, it starts with the mouth of the earth because of our verse and i only realize this year, if our verse did not walk along, use that word, Bria creation, it would not have triggered. It’s truly a trigger for this Mishnah. But what the Mishnah is implying, and we’re going to see how Maimonides reads it in a second, is that everything ceased to be created on the seventh day. And in that Ben Hashot, in that twilight time, God added a few extra things. But as we’ve said so in the past, it’s kind of like writing a program that has programming in it for the year 2000, has programming in it for a lunar eclipse. Everything was created and written into the fabric of the universe according to this Mishnah, in the seven days of creation or at the last minute, at twilight of the last day.

Adam Mintz [00:06:46]:
Fantastic.

Geoffrey Stern [00:06:48]:
So what does Maimonides say in his commentary on this Mishnah? He says, we have already mentioned in the eighth chapter, that’s one of his books, that they would not believe in creation by the divine will. At every instant they. I assume he’s referring to the rabbis. Rather, at the beginning of things, he placed into their nature that they should do everything that they would do in the future, whether they be things that would happen constantly, that being a natural thing, or whether it be something unusual, that it being a miracle, it is all one. Regarding this, therefore, they said on the sixth day he placed into the nature of the earth, that it would sink under Korach and his community. He goes on to say, and don’t think that these 10 miracles are all encompassing. If you have a miracle that happened is not included in this list, then it was actually just done during the first seven days. Get over it. But I think my first takeaway has always been one of amazing respect for the rabbis. So many religions are based on miracles that somehow when nature changes, it proves something, that somehow it’s a convincing argument and that somehow we want God to swoop down Deus ex machina and change things for us. And it seems that the rabbis, and this is amplified by Maimonides, have a real problem with miracles. And I’m proud to be part of that religion. What’s your take?

Adam Mintz [00:08:23]:
No, I mean, you know that I have a problem with miracles. The Judaism, at least the way we have it through the lens of Rambam, is a rationalist religion. And therefore the idea that there should be new creations, in a sense, that’s kind of a scary model. We we would prefer that Judaism makes sense for us.

Geoffrey Stern [00:08:44]:
So that’s on the one hand. But on the other hand, it does seem as though maybe if Maimonides had made this up by himself, I would say he’s over influenced by Greek philosophy. He’s over influenced by foreign philosophies that somehow have to understand how creation happened. It was a problem because it is miraculous, but they put it in a box. It was like the first power and the second power and then let’s move on. But we Jews, actually, if you read the whole Torah, God is very involved in humanity. He’s very involved with our lives. So I’m kind of torn between, on the one hand, loving the fact that there are no miracles and that we don’t emphasize or celebrate miracles, and on the other hand, that it kind of does say God’s role has kind of finished, at least as it relates to the physical world. Creation. That’s just something that’s kind of hanging over this discussion. Let’s go to the Talmud in Sanhedrin that actually talks about the episode that is under discussion in Sanhedrin 110a. It says, Rava taught. What is the meaning of that which is written? But if the Lord creates a new creation and the earth opens up its mouth, that is our verse says the Talmud, Moses said before the Holy One, blessed be he if Gehenna. Now, our readers, our listeners, need to know Gehenna is not mentioned in the Pasuk Gehenna. Am I right in saying it carries more baggage than Sheol?

Adam Mintz [00:10:37]:
It definitely does. Right. Definitely carries more baggage. It’s interesting that that’s the way they give it to us in the English here, because like Everett Fox said in the translation beforehand, Gehenna represents something that was important in Judaism and Christianity later. That’s not reflected in the Torah. Okay.

Geoffrey Stern [00:10:56]:
And it’s not simply the translation. The Talmud does say Gehennam. So this is what the rabbis are adding, right?

Adam Mintz [00:11:04]:
It’s already the rabbis, but it’s not in the Torah itself.

Geoffrey Stern [00:11:07]:
Oh, absolutely. So let’s pause it out. Second, as you said, we might dedicate a whole discussion to this one day. But Sha’ Ul basically means the pit. And up until this moment, if you go through the whole Torah, when somebody dies, he might be gathered to his people, he might bless them. There’s no talk of another world, and he goes down into the pit, into the earth. It’s pretty physical. Gehennom, I think, really does carry with it. It’s not quite the hell of the Christians, but it does Carry it a little more baggage. Am I correct in that?

Adam Mintz [00:11:45]:
There’s no question that that’s right.

Geoffrey Stern [00:11:47]:
Okay, but you’re right.

Adam Mintz [00:11:48]:
It’s from the rabbis. It’s the Roman period, the Greek period. It’s a whole different thing than what the Torah is talking about.

Geoffrey Stern [00:11:54]:
Okay, so this is what the rabbis put into Moses mouth. Moses said before the Holy One, blessed be he if Gehenna is already created, good. But if not, God should create it now. Now, if you just stop right there, that kind of fits into the narrative in an exciting way, because a rebellion just occurred. You could make a case that it was a unique rebellion. Maybe you could make the case that all of the shortfallings of the Jews until this moment were against God. We had the golden calf. We had murmurings. Here was a revolution against Moshe, and he needed some tools in his toolbox. He needed a fiery hell it to be able to hold that over somebody. And if you read that into this verse, it’s kind of into this sentence from the Talmud. It’s pretty good. He says, if God’s got a helm and a brimstone, I’m going to use it. And if he does it, he better create it. I just found that delightful.

Adam Mintz [00:12:57]:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Yeah, that is great. Okay,

Geoffrey Stern [00:13:02]:
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Adam Mintz [00:14:30]:
There are no new creations.

Geoffrey Stern [00:14:32]:
There are no new creations after the six Days of creation. So first of all, we all know Qohelet; Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature. And probably that was not the intention of the writer. He was talking about the way people use it in our actually language and literature. But the rabbis, good. They took it as this seems to be the source for where the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot came from. And they seem to take it as nothing can be created. Just kind of interesting.

Adam Mintz [00:15:06]:
Yeah, I mean, but that’s not surprising because the rabbis often take verses out of context. Not just from the book of Ecclesiastes, but generally they take things out of context. So I’m not so worried about that.

Geoffrey Stern [00:15:19]:
We’re not worried, but we do know that they felt compelled that there is this. They feel compelled to stop creation after creation finished. And they use this verse to amplify that. But you’re absolutely correct. What interests me more is that they felt compelled to do this. So what is their solution? Rather, Moses asked God to bring the opening of Gehenna close to there so that the assembly of Korach would be buried alive. So what it’s saying is he is talking to the staging. He’s saying, if Gehennom is here, fine. Otherwise I need you to send a truck to go get Gehenna. Because we need the opening in the earth tout suite, to swallow up these sinners.

Adam Mintz [00:16:09]:
Which is interesting, means that these things are created to. To. To solve a problem. Right? They. They needed to do something to the assembly of Korak. So therefore they. They made this new creation. No, God wouldn’t have made a new creation except that he needed it. The manna was a new creation, but he needed the manna because the Jews needed a way to eat in the desert.

Geoffrey Stern [00:16:34]:
Yes, yes. But what I love about this piece of Talmud is it mixes up a few things. There is no way that we cannot take Gehenna as an added layer to Sheol. It’s not a translation, it is an interpretation. It is an up to date ism where they. And they, therefore, I don’t think I’m stretching when they say in their mind, Moshe is actually asking for a new moral force. He’s asking for a new tool to hold over the sinners of Korach. And he says, if it exists, fine. Otherwise we better create it. They have a problem with that. So they mollify it by saying, we’re talking about transportation issues, not real creation issues. But I just love the mix of it all. So let’s go to the other extreme. This beautiful saying that say before the morning shema every day. And it says, hameer la’ arez veledarim oleh barachamim. He illuminates the earth and provides light for those who dwell on it with compassion. And it says, and his goodness renews every day continually the work of creation. So I did a little searching and I found the source for this is actually in the Talmud, in Hagigah and Resh Lockesh said, because sometimes you do wonder, rabbi, in our liturgy, was the liturgist making this stuff up?

Adam Mintz [00:18:10]:
I’d say in general, the answer is no. There always is an earlier source to

Geoffrey Stern [00:18:14]:
the liturgy, which again, and normally it’s a pretty obvious source, but here it’s not so obvious. So in Hagiga 12B Resh Lakish said. There are seven firmaments, and they are as follows. Vilon, rakia, shkalim, zehulun, ma’ on, mekon, and aravot. The gemara proceeds to explain the role of each firmament. Vilon, even in modern Hebrew, is a curtain is the firmament that does not contain anything, but enters at morning and departs in the evening and renews the act of creation daily, as it is said, who stretches out the earth as a curtain and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in it. So it’s actually it is God, because obviously these different firmaments are related to God, but it’s not that obvious or powerful. The liturgist deserves a lot of credit for taking that concept and giving it to you. Every morning when you wake up as if to say, today’s a new day, Adam. You’re waking up in the morning. You can do anything today.

Adam Mintz [00:19:35]:
I just want to say that, you know the way that the davening that the liturgy is arranged in the morning. So we have the Shema, which is the center of the liturgy, and the blessings around the Shema, actually correspondent to the paragraphs of the Shema. So the first thing of that God creates new things that corresponds to SHMA yisrael hashem, elokenu hashem. That is what God is. It says, listen, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. What does it mean? The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And so the. The blessing the liturgy comes to tell you what that means is that God creates everything. So you’re right to like that sentence more than any other sentence in the liturgy, because that really defines what God’s role in the world is, to create new things every day.

Geoffrey Stern [00:20:26]:
That’s amazing. I think we can end the podcast right now. We have a new kavanaugh. When we say the Shema, we need to focus on the fact that what that means to tell us is that God is creating the world every day. And every day when you wake up, it’s a new day. The world is an oyster. Anyway, anyway, let’s go and see. In the Psalms, there is one more kind of allusion to this. It says in Psalms 104, send back your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. Tishlach uchacha Yevraun Utah chadesh penei adama. Again, it’s just a beautiful interpretation. And I love the word for chadash, which of course comes also to us on the monthly cycle of Chodesh.

Adam Mintz [00:21:15]:
Today is Rosh Chodesh.

Geoffrey Stern [00:21:17]:
Beautiful. So it’s perfect. So there’s this sense always in Judaism of renewal and of creating all over again. I did kind of know that there was this concept of perpetual renewal. And I found it, of all places, highlighted in Chabad. It seems that there’s a link to the doctrine of perpetual creation. And according to this article that I found the great work of Jewish philosophy, such as Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed, Remarx Pardus Rimonim, Rav Yeshaya Ahurowitz Shalach and Rav Shmiel Zalman of Ladi and the Tanya, I should say, discuss this doctrine of perpetual creation and cite spiritual, logical and philosophical proofs that such is indeed the nature of existence. I don’t know if this is the polar opposite of saying that God stops creating at the seventh day. I just feel that both of them, you can kind of have both in both hands. On the one hand, Eyn Somchina al hanes is a beautiful concept in the Talmud, Never rely on miracles. Not even our philosophy and our religion is based on the miracles. And on the other hand, when you live your life every day, it’s as if the world was created on that day. It’s kind of similar to having the two polar opposites of “I am from dust, from ashes” in the one hand, and the other is “bishvili nivrah haolam. The will is created. For me, I love this polarity.

Adam Mintz [00:22:54]:
Yeah. I mean, that tension is what life is about. Right. You need to be humble, but you need to be self confident at the same time.

Geoffrey Stern [00:23:03]:
So I think that if you had. I really do feel, and I would love if we could find a source for really why the rabbis had such a strong problem with God continuing creation afterwards. Of course, you know, we’ve discussed this before. Vayechal Elohim et yom Hashvi’ I v’ Eichal is ending. There is this sense of ending. It’s a word, Rabbi. It could be interpreted. Anyway, I’m curious and I don’t know if we’ll find the answer today of what was driving the rabbis to start the infinite, omnipotent God from creating after creation. I’m curious to know what your thoughts are. But I do believe that in Judaism, if you had to take those two poles, I would say making renewal is a much more powerful, powerful.

Adam Mintz [00:24:03]:
I would agree with you. I think it’s protecting the six days of creation. If God can do everything. So if God created the world, God could do everything, including including create that which wasn’t yet needed for creation. I think it’s something like that.

Geoffrey Stern [00:24:20]:
But it’s a little bit of a mystery. You know, it’s also a little bit of a mystery. The rabbis clearly ended up believing, as did all of the Jewish medieval philosophers, in Yeshmi ayin creation ex nilo from nothing. If you read Beresheat itself, it’s not already clear. God started creation and he took pre existing matter, it almost seems. But this became something that was a stake in the ground. And I think this is one of those things. And I’m willing to say as long as it has no implications for how I think and how I live my life, I’m fine. And actually we already discovered some positive implications. This idea of not relying on miracles, I think is a beautiful idea and distinct to Judaism.

Adam Mintz [00:25:08]:
Really very, very good. Yeah, I agree with you.

Geoffrey Stern [00:25:11]:
So let’s just finish up by talking now about how the rabbis almost are tripping over themselves in that Talmud in Sanhedrin, because what they actually are doing is they’re saying there’s nothing new. You can’t create gehennim. Whether they’re talking in a material sense or a philosophical sense, but by saying the word gehennim, they’re creating this new concept, or at least they’re comporting it. You know, the Torah itself has a shadowy note ocean of the afterlife. You know, the dead go to Sheol, a neutral underworld. We don’t have any stories about people coming back from the underlying coming back to life. But the rabbis read into sheol. Sheol is gehennim. And that creates an interesting literary effect. The rabbis are reading a later doctrine back into the earlier text, not the first text. So you could say that this sugya kind of what if the rabbis are creating a moment here. So in the process of kind of distancing themselves from creation, they are actually creating something and trying to put it into. That’s pretty fun.

Adam Mintz [00:26:29]:
That’s pretty good. Okay.

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:31]:
It is kind of interesting. It’s not the first irony that we’ve had, but I do feel that there’s no question in the Rabbis minds Korach was sending… Moses was sending these people down to hell. And that’s not altogether clear in the text. As opposed to the Peshat, like we always used to say is he sent them to an untimely death when the earth opened up and sold.

Adam Mintz [00:27:02]:
Hell was not a factor in the Chumash. Right. It doesn’t matter whether it’s hell or not. He needed to get rid of them and he got rid of that.

Geoffrey Stern [00:27:09]:
So I want to end up by a famous slogan of the Chatam Sofer, the. As you know, and probably can fill in the blanks. Rabbi lived at the period of the Haskalah, of the beginning of the enlightenment of the Reform movements, where people were thinking outside of the box and really being Mechadesh, they were innovating and renewing. And he took, took an innocuous phrase of Hadash Yisroel min Hatorah that relates to what? The new crop. You can’t eat the new crop until a certain amount of time or until the second year. And he took that, as I would say, something that is an overarching directive of the ultra Orthodox community up until today, which is no more creation. Kadash is us from the Torah. And that’s even though we all know that the Talmud was full of creations, fixed prayer was not in the Bible. We had Kabbanot, the synagogue itself, the Passover, Seder, Ketubah, rabbinic holidays, and of course Gehennom itself was created.

Adam Mintz [00:28:27]:
It was a self serving concept of the Hasam Sofer because it was his way of rejecting the Reform movement.

Geoffrey Stern [00:28:34]:
Yes, but I think the takeaway that I have today from Korach is that we have always, we have always renewed ourselves and it is baked into us even when we have some conflicting conceptual issues that we have to deal with as we did in this Parasha. But it’s that that reimagining of Moses in Sanhedrit to me is just pristine, where Moses says, I need hell. And if you’re not going to, if you haven’t created it yet, you need to create it now. It’s just, it’s just wonderful. So once again at Madlik we have taken four innocuous words. We’ve dived down into the crevasse and discovered a lot of gems and things to think about. Wonderful.

Adam Mintz [00:29:28]:
Fantastic. Shabbat shalom, everybody. Enjoy. Parashat Korach next week. Week double Parasha Kukat balak.

Geoffrey Stern [00:29:36]:
Does that mean we’re catching up to Israel?

Adam Mintz [00:29:38]:
We’re catching up to Israel next week. Correct.

Geoffrey Stern [00:29:40]:
Fantastic. Okay. Shabbat shalom, everybody, and see you all next week.

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 in the US we read Parashat Sh’lach through Contemporary Eyes with Pamela Pelled. Welcome Pam, Yesterday there were bombs falling in Israel and had we scheduled yesterday we would not be here. So it really is great to see you.

Pamela Peled [00:02:03]:
Thank you. It’s nearly midnight in Israel at the moment and last night as you say, we spent dodging missiles. So I might be a little bit bleary eyed, but I apologize.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:02:18]:
Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

Geoffrey Stern [00:02:21]:
Absolutely. So the book that you wrote is actually was published I believe in 2011 and so from a certain perspective I felt like nothing had changed. It had kidnappings, it had press and media that were distorting the story. So I think the good news and the bad news is that your book could have been published today and maybe we’ll see. We would have to tweak it for TikTok and Instagram, but otherwise just like the Bible and the Torah portion, things never change.

Pamela Peled [00:02:55]:
I’m very happy to be connected to the Bible like that, but it’s true. It’s sad how the situation is possibly even worse today than it was during the Intifada.

Geoffrey Stern [00:03:07]:
Well, we’ll get into that, but let’s just because we are a parasha podcast, let’s start with the sources in numbers. And talking of the spies or the scouts, it says, thus they spread columnies among the Israelites. It’s really about spreading information. Literally. We always think it’s the content of the information, but from the get go, it’s this activity of disseminating and maybe repackaging information about the land they had scouted, saying, the country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. Clearly they were commentating as much as they were observing. All the people that we saw in it are of astonishing great size. Eretz Ochelet, Yoshevar. It is a place that eats its settlers, and they are Anshei Midot. We saw Nephilim there. I guess that’s some sort of giant. The Anakites are part of the Nephilim. And here’s the punchline. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them. So really we’re talking about perception. What. What do those verses mean to you? Pam?

Pamela Peled [00:04:29]:
It’s very difficult to talk about this at this point in time because we’re living through such a difficult time in Israel and we feel sometimes that it is a land that eats its inhabitants. Unfortunately, after three years of war and so many people we know dead and wounded, and, you know, I’m not sure how political we should become, but what feels to us like a government that’s just out to destroy us. And so these words are very resonate very deeply. But putting that aside for the moment, you know, this parasha starts when, when the spies come back and they say, and they told him, we came to the land to which you sent us. And indeed it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. And Rashi says that when you spread a falsehood, you have to start with something true and something positive, and then it becomes easier to disseminate the falsehood. But it’s very interesting, this parasha. I was looking at it again today, because the spies are actually telling their truth. They saying what they say saw, and they were frightened. And they weren’t actually cursed because they told their truth. They were cursed because of the implications that they gave to their truth. In other words, because they didn’t trust 100% that God could get them out of any mess. And that’s something that we could argue about for the rest of time, I think. You know, and it’s not really what I discuss in my book. I don’t put any. I don’t I don’t show the country through the divine lens of prophecy for the future. And I have to say that I think in my very humble opinion, but I have worked with this a lot. I think that one of the very big problems in Israel today is this messianic fervor and people thinking that if you say something wrong about the government or the country, you’re a traitor or the future of the country. You don’t accept the narrative. And it’s very, very frightening to me. I don’t know if you want me to get into that. The laws now being passed about to try and curtail the freedom of the press here and to put people into positions of power that toe the government line. But that’s a really a huge subject that I’m sure we can talk about at another time. I dealt with in my book, and I’m very conflicted this, I can say it. In the beginning, When I was 10 years old, the Six Day War broke out. So you can easily work out how old I am today. And I went to a Jewish day school in South Africa, in a very apartheid South Africa, I should add. And they broadcast the Six Day War, the news about the war, every day, which was broadcast in the corridors and in the classrooms. And I came home to my parents and I said, I want to go and live in Israel. And my parents were tremendously shocked. They were big Zionists, but, you know, they taught Zionism but hoped somebody else’s children would actually go and live there. But I never changed my mind from the age of 10. And when I was 16, my parents brought me to Israel to have a look at this country. And I said, that’s it. And I really, I was one of those crazy Zionists who said, how can we not be part of the biggest miracle of the millennium? So what if we don’t make the same amount? And my husband was the same, I must say, he was from London. And we used to go overseas to our friends and see that they were all much richer than us and they had better cars and their children were studying at prestigious universities. And we used to say, should we be there? And we always said, no, we are so happy and proud and privileged and lucky to be part of Israel. And I still really do believe that. But at the same time, we feel at the moment that the country has been hijacked, the country we know and love, by a government just wanting to stay in power and by the leader of the government not wanting to go to jail and not wanting to let

Geoffrey Stern [00:09:13]:
me Let me jump in here because what you’re saying is so fascinating to me. Number one, you started by saying we all, in a knee jerk type of way, look at the 10 spies who come back with a bad, a quote unquote bad report as the bad guys here. And I think I was going to quote a midrash that comes out because the other sin was that they cried during that night. And the Talmud says they cried bechi Shel chinam. And they did it on tish of night. So it puts this whole calamity in this same lens at level of institutional problem as the destruction of the Temple. But what I’m getting at is they cried for no reason. What you’re saying is by both focusing on them saying they said that the country eats up its people. Well, what happens if a time comes where the country actually is eating up its people, number one. And number two, what happens, And I’m going to coin a word here, if it’s not a Bechi shel Chinam, but a Bechi SHel M’chir, maybe it’s not pointless whining, but maybe it is a legitimate despair. And that is the moment that we’re in that makes us read this story in a totally new fashion, but also looks at us. I mean, I love the fact that you brought your strong Zionist background in because you were the Joshua. You and your husband were the Joshua and the Calebs, and you came and you raised a family. You’re living in the country and now you’re looking at it and maybe legitimately you’re saying this is a land that right now seems to be eating up its, its people.

Pamela Peled [00:11:11]:
That’s exactly. And we, we did, we did come here very young and we sent all our children not only to the army, but also for a year of service that they didn’t get paid for before the army. And I won’t get into the game of how many people we know have been hurt or killed in the army. And we’re living in a time, you know what’s going on now with the Haredim. You know what’s going on with, with how they refusing to go to the army. And Netanyahu and his government are completely bowing down before them because they need their votes so desperately. The Likud knows that the Haredim have to go to the army and work and pay taxes, otherwise the country will implode. They know Netanyahu himself has been saying it for many, many years, but suddenly, just today, they’re passing another huge budget for the Haridim. It’s crazy. But more crazy than that is that they’re calling people like me leftists. They sneer leftists and traitors. First of all, I’m not sure that I’m a leftist. What is a leftist? I think I’m a very sane center person. But you just have to open your mouth to disagree. And you called a traitor.

Geoffrey Stern [00:12:34]:
I mean, Rabbi, it is interesting how clearly this is contextual. There was a time when what they saw maybe didn’t merit their lack of faith. But there have to be times where you have to call a spade a spade.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:12:47]:
So I have a difference. So first of all, Pam, thank you so much for your insights and for your, you know, for your genuine. You got a very authentic view of what you know, what led you to move to Israel and you know, and how you feel. Now I’ll just say that several weeks ago we interviewed Adam Furziger.

Pamela Pellet [00:13:10]:
He was once my rabbi.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:13:13]:
Oh, you’re rabbi. So I’ll tell you a story about your rabbi, Rabbi Furziger.

Pamela Pellet [00:13:16]:
Just for a very short time, he was my Rabbi.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:13:18]:
Rabbi Professor Adam Furziger. So he tells he, he highlights Americans who moved to Israel, who made a difference. And one of the people who he highlights is Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein, who was a rabbi at Yeshiva University, who moved to Israel and started in Yeshivat Har Etzion and became extremely important in Israel. And the story he tells is as follows. He says that during the Six Day War, there was a bus that went from New York to a rally in Washington, which I guess was asking the government for funds or for arms during the war, literally to save the state of Israel. And the story he tells in the book is that when Rabbi Lichtenstein got off the bus back in New York, he came home and he said to his wife, I don’t want to be a spectator anymore. We’re moving to Israel. So it’s interesting that in that generation there were, you know, that people, you know, it’s exactly the same story as you are telling. What I have a different question based on our story of the Maraglim. When you went to Israel at 16 years old, having decided at 10 that you were going to move to Israel, were you like the maraglim? Did you see giants there who you weren’t going to be able to conquer, or was everything rose colored for you?

Pamela Peled [00:14:45]:
I wouldn’t say everything was rose colored, but I loved living in Israel and I always felt it was a great privilege and I was very happy to be part of the national journey. But it feels today that that is no longer the case because this particular government, for reasons of its own, like for example, today there was a photo being sent of Netanyahu’s face and saying, a rocket a day keeps prison away. So we don’t know anymore why are these wars being fought now. There’s lots of issues here at the same time as really, really fearing this government and fearing for the future of Israel as a democratic state. Really, really, really fearing. At the same time, we do have implacable enemies, there’s no doubt about it, who want us all dead. So we’ve always had, and we’ve always managed to fight them without losing faith in our own government. And there’s definitely, definitely an unfair, anti Semitic, anti Israel flood of feeling in the world today. I’m not so sure it’s wonderful to be a Jew in London or in New York at the moment, or in Toronto. I think it’s not. And I think I still would prefer to be here than anywhere else. But it’s not nice to be here and to be a part of the working, contributing, paying taxes side of the population and to send our kids to the army and to do all this. Where the money that should go to my daughter on the northern border. She lives right on the Lebanon border. They’ve had the most ghastly three years. Ghastly, ghastly. They’ve moved about 15 times and been whatever. So the money that’s supposed to go to her is, Is conditioned on a tax break for the settlers on the West Bank. And then so much money goes to the Haredim that there’s nothing over for them. That’s just ridiculous. You know, that’s what’s happening. So there’s all these intersecting whirlwind of things going on. I was just reading today, there’s a book by doctors, Doctors of Human Rights or whatever that organization is. They’ve just written a book and one of the. I can tell you who it was, if you like, one of the Norwegian physicians. His name is Dr. Mads Gilbert. He says the suffering and destruction that he saw in Gaza made Dante’s Inferno look like a tea party. What about mentioning the suffering in Kfar Aza where they came and shot women up their bodies and took their babies and cut off their… Really, you know, there’s definitely, definitely that side of Israel where people are happy and rejoice in Israel’s destruction. I would very much highly, highly, highly recommend to your viewers on this point to read Howard Jacobson’s searing new novel called Howl H O W L. A Howl of anguish of what it feels to be a Jew in London after the 7th of October. And I’ll skip Geoffrey if I may, to your next point, that you asked about Hasbara and you said what about internal Hasbara? To our own people. And for me, you know, this is the most terrifying thing. I don’t know how I would cope if I was living in America, a pro Israel, Zionist, proud Jew, and my children would go to “From the River to the Sea” demonstrations. It happened to someone we know, a very dear friend’s daughter, after 7 October, went to her from the river to the Sea demonstration in the States. And I called her and I said, you know, darling, you calling for my death when you say that. And she said, it’s metaphorical. It’s metaphorical. I’m not. So what does that mean? So everything is so crazy at the moment, don’t you think?

Geoffrey Stern [00:19:08]:
Yeah, it’s. It’s really a perfect storm. And we’re talking about two separate issues, but there actually is a connection between them. I mean, you are clearly someone who, who loves Israel to your core. On the other hand, you’re not rosy eyed. You see the reality, you’re living the reality. There is in your eyes, and I think I happen to agree with you, a very corrupt government. There’s a population that votes in that government over and over again. Let’s not forget about that. And then there’s the whole other question of, in other words, do we keep this to ourselves or can we talk about it? That’s more of an American Jew problem where we struggle. Can we critique the government from the outside?

Pamela Peled [00:19:58]:
And having said that, there still is a real, true problem, that whatever Israel does, no matter how justified the war is, we will get blamed and we will be called genocidal. It beggars belief that they talk about Israel’s genocide after the 7th of October. Beggars belief.

Geoffrey Stern [00:20:20]:
You know, I mean, I think sometimes I think about, I’d love to know what you guys think is that if you’re raising a child and everything that child does you say is bad at a certain point of time, the child doesn’t feel at all controlled by outside morality, outside rights, because the whole world judged them with a crooked measuring stick. And I think what it really emphasizes, our need to find our core. And that’s where you’re fighting the internal battle, Pam, because there are those, you can call them messianists, you can call them nationalists, people who feel we don’t have to answer to the world morality because there is no morality because we are criticized for whatever we do. And I think that’s the quagmire here. And you know, we love to have neat, clean answers, but it’s very hard to tell the difference between the Joshua and the Calebs and the 10 spies in a situation where we’re all trying to understand and process and explain and show the facts. 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 Voice Gift 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 layning, capturing grandpa’s favorite tune, or recording Chad Gad ya in a voice that matters. Go to voice.gift, that’s http://www.voice.gift and use code MADLIK for 15% off. Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

Pamela Peled [00:22:37]:
So for many years I’ve been teaching students to go out into the world and advocate for Israel. And one of the things that I’ve been teaching because having grown up in Apartheid South Africa, I can teach very reliably I think why Israel is not an apartheid state. Definitely not. And I. We don’t have to go into that Israel, I’m talking about Israel proper. Obviously it’s not. There were separate hospital, you know what Apartheid was. There were separate buses and separate hospitals and separate where you could live and Israel’s not in Apartheid state. But I have to say that in latter years with Ben G’vir and the, people going wild on the West Bank, it’s become very difficult to explain that you know and the provocation and the violence, the terrible violence that this, that the so called settlers perpetrate on a daily basis. So it, it actually, it’s a terrible thing to do. But it also really affects and does it, it does terrible things for Israel’s image and it seems so sad. So people like me and there are lots of people like me, I’d say half the country thinks like me. We just wonder if this government gets in again and keeps pouring money into a population that’s growing exponentially. The Haredin. Can the country actually survive never mind anything else can it survive economically? It’s a big question. So we’re just praying, you know.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:24:17]:
Thank you again for, you know, from. From an insider’s view. That’s what Geoffrey. That’s the title today, you know, is that this is an insider discussion. We all know how to read the New York Times, but this is an insider discussion. I want to go back to something that Geoffrey mentioned before, and that’s the source that we have from the Talmud. In Ta’ nit: atem bechitem bechi shel chinam, you cried needlessly that night. V’ani koveia alechem bechi ldorot, and I’m going to force you to weep in future generations. Which, of course, was the establishment of Tisha B’Av. So you talk about, you know, you talk about the problem of the Haridim, the problem of settler violence. And I just wonder, you know, bechi shel chhinam. Needless weeping. How do you define. What’s the distinction? When is it weeping? That has a value. And when is it weeping? That is needless.

Pamela Peled [00:25:20]:
I think it probably has a value if it can be changed. I think if there’s something that you can do to change it, then there’s a value to weeping. I mean, look, I think this is a discussion that’s beyond me, because why would God want his people? It’s too much for our brains. Why would God want his people to suffer for the rest of time? We think immediately of the Holocaust. Is that God? Is that because of the spies? Too crazy for me to. I would prefer to stick to what’s going on now. Those questions are questions of faith and questions of, you know, religion. And I don’t think anyone can answer them. Can you?

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:20]:
My read on Bechi shel chinim is inauthentic crying. There’s no question. A mother loses a son and cries. That’s authentic. No one would ever call that inauthentic or. I love the fact that it used chinam. Because we talk about Sinat Chinam is the source of Tisha B’Av.

Pamela Peled [00:26:44]:
Av.

Geoffrey Stern [00:26:44]:
Normally we say the reason why there was a Tisha B’ av is because people hated each other for no reason. And in a very fascinating sense, these two midrashim are connected. Because the crying over things needlessly, I think, speaks to both when people posture, when people use. Whether it’s the situation like what happened in Gaza and like what happened in Iran. The world is not looking at the West Bank. Let’s do what we want there. When people use the fact that no matter what we do, we’re disenfranchised from the world. So that gives us free reign. I think that there’s an inauthenticity here, and that is the source, I think, for future generations, meaning to say that’s our curse. And I don’t take it, Pam, as much as a curse that we have to carry that cross. I think it’s what we, Jews in particular, have to be concerned about. And when we see ourselves divided, we know we’ve lost too many Temples, too many times have we had a chance to make a go at it, and we’ve lost it. And I think that’s the challenge here, with no easy answers. I mean, I think just to give you a little insight, in some of the thinking that’s going on in the United States, where antisemitism is growing, there are people like Dan Sinor, who wrote Startup Nation, and Bret Stephens, who said the biggest answer to antisemitism is that we have to dive and invest more in ourselves and our own pride, whether it’s pride or whatever. I think the idea is, and this is what was so fascinating to me, is that we can’t solve the problem of hasbara. But clearly one of the sources, if this is in fact an issue of they went around re explaining facts. Hasbara begins at home. Hasbara begins inside of our own heart.

Pamela Peled [00:28:56]:
I agree with you 100%. And that’s the main thing that I would like to give to the listeners is our feeling of deep conflict at the moment. Because on the one hand, really, I love Israel. I’ve lived here my whole life. We’ve brought our children up here. My husband spent his whole life dedicated to working for Israel too. And we love it. But we feel that we are now branded as traitors to the country because we don’t like the government. And so we still see the unfairness of the way the world views Israel. We still feel that it’s the only place for Jews to be safe. And why wouldn’t anybody want to? I feel that we’re still so proud of our startup nation, but the startup nation people are leaving. People, doctors are leaving and the leaving for the first time ever, I think, I think double the people are leaving to who are coming. It’s never been before in the history of Israel. I don’t think. And you know, when your prime minister stands up and sneers at you that you’re a leftist because you want a commission of inquiry, as to why the 7th of October happened and sneers that you traitors that you want. It’s very hard to keep a balance especially when you’re under attack from Iran and on seven fronts at once and terrorism and it’s, it’s been dramatic and all we can say is that we actually holding our breath till the elections. And there’s this feeling that if it sane. If I told you what the government was busy with today on the day that we were being bombed, do you know they were busy discussing whether Tali Gottlieb’s immunity should be taken away. Tali Gottlieb is a member of Knesset who can only be described as. She screams, she pulls her hair, she’s peculiar, she screams, she doesn’t talk and she, at the beginning of the war wanted to get back at somebody who was protesting the war. So she revealed this woman’s husband’s details and he works for the security of Israel. She said his name, where he lived, she revealed it all and she’s up for treason or for threatening the security of Israel. So today that is what the Israeli government was dealing with. How to not get rid of her immunity so she won’t be tried for endangering the security of Israel because can you, can you believe it? Can you, can you actually believe that we turn on the TVs to see if our kids are going to go to school tomorrow. How many people have been killed? What’s happening? Are we at war again? And we see t got lip screaming and not one person from the Likud says a word about it.

Geoffrey Stern [00:32:02]:
So we’re getting to the end. I want to tell you and share with you what my takeaway is. My takeaway is that we read this story of the scouts coming back as if they’re tourists giving their travelogue. And yes, we see that there’s a Talmud that says this is on par with the destruction of the Temple. And it’s sometimes hard for us to understand the angst that was going on at that moment. But I think what you’ve done is to literally bring it into today’s moment. And it’s too easy for us, especially living here in the States, who read about this in a scroll or a newspaper to not understand that Israel in your eyes, and I personally share your view, is going through such a moment, such a do or die moment, such as is this generation going to make it or not moment. And I think you’ve really through just speaking your heart have put us into a little bit better mind frame to understand what this is all about. And we have to. If we’re talking about, you know, we all blatantly say, what’s new in Israel? This is literally a moment.

Pamela Peled [00:33:26]:
Well, I would like to believe, because I’ve been so. It’s been terrible here. It’s really with the bombs and the running to shelters and knowing people dying all over the place and our kids in Lebanon and in Gaza and just terrible, terrible stuff. It’s really been terrible. But I would like to end on a optimistic note because I do believe, I really do, that if the government changes and we get a sane and decent government moment, we are going to have such a restart in Israel. That’s what I’m praying for. And when they say that we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, we’ll learn to be grasshoppers that stand on our back legs. And Israel, there’s. We’ve got our energy and we’ve got our. We know how to jump as grasshoppers. Whatever. We’ll be okay. We just need to be gifted with not even great leaders, just leaders like we’ve always had, like Rabin, all our leaders until this time. Leaders who really put the good of the country in front of their own good. That’s all we need. You know, we didn’t always agree. I didn’t adore Begin, but I never believed that he put his own good in front of the good of the country. He obviously cared about the country. So that’s what we need. And I would like to be the Zionist that I once was and say that. Come along and join us. Normal people, come and vote. We need every vote. Just people who aren’t, you know, just crazy messianics and who live in the real world. Come and join us. Come and vote. Come and change our government and come and rebuild our beautiful, tiny, beleaguered, fabulous little country. That’s my takeaway.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:35:32]:
Thank you so, so much. This was really. Geoffrey this was really fascinating. Really an insider’s view. And please, God, again, we should be the grasshoppers standing on our back legs, proud of who we are and what we stand for. Shabbat Shalom, everybod, everybody in Israel, actually, they read Parashat Sh’lach this past week. This week they read Korah.

Geoffrey Stern [00:35:52]:
But, Pam, we will.

Rabbi Adam Mintz [00:35:53]:
We’ll leave the. We’ll leave the. The image of the grasshoppers for everybody. Grasshoppers on their back legs. Thank you so, so much.

Geoffrey Stern [00:36:01]:
Thank you so much, Pam. Great seeing you, Adam.