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So welcome to Madlik. I am broadcasting live from Tel Aviv, Israel, and I'm joined by Rabbi Adam Mintz in New York City. So we are combining both in traditional Jewish fashion, Israel and the Galut. And I must say that I got to Israel maybe a week, a week and a half after Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel Independence Day and, and all of the flags are still streaming from balconies, and from trees and from cars. And I'm reminded that in Israel, something very strange happens on Independence Day. First, there's Yom Hazicharon (Remembrance Day), which is probably the saddest day of the year, where those of you who have been in Israel, the most moving profound ceremony, ritual takes place where for one minute, the sirens are blasted. People literally stop their cars on the highway and stand at attention and respect (for the fallen soldiers) next to their cars. And then the next moment the day is over, and the happiest day of the year occurs. And I will call that for today's purposes, life after death. So we are not talking about the afterlife. As I said in the introduction, we are talking about life, and we're talking life in the shadow of death after death with death. And with that, we are going to jump right in to this week's parsha it's potshat Emor. And it's Leviticus 21. God said to Moses, speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron and say to them, none shall defile himself or any dead person among his kin. לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ לֹֽא־יִטַּמָּ֖א בְּעַמָּֽיו, except for the relatives that are closest to him, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother. And then it goes on to say, They shall not shave, smooth any part of their heads or cut the side growth of their beards, or gash their flesh, they shall be holy to their God, and not profane the name of their God, for they offer God's offerings by fire, the food of their God, and so must be holy. And those rules apply to any profit to any priest or Cohen. But then in verse 10, it goes on to say, the priest who is exalted above his fellows, הַכֹּהֵן֩ הַגָּד֨וֹל, the high priest, on who's had the anointing oil has been poured, and who has been ordained to wear, the vestments shall not bear his head in warning or rent his vestments, he shall not go in where there is any dead body, he shall not defile himself, even for his father or mother. So correct me if I'm wrong, Rabbi. But really, this is the first time that the Bible in this cycle of the reading is addressing head on the laws of impurity. And the most basic cause of any impurity in Judaism is coming into contact with death. And it's so much of a taboo that a normal Cohen cannot go to a funeral of a cousin. He cannot mourn for a friend by going to a cemetery. The high priests can't even mourn and come into contact with his own parents. So first of all, am I right that the source of all impurity in the Bible is death, and two here we are what can we make of this?

Adam Mintz  04:40

So, first of all, this is an amazing beginning of the of the weekly parsha. Yes, the source of all impurity in Judaism in the Torah is death. You see, Judaism is a religion of life. The Torah says Ve'Chai Ba'hem, you should live by the laws, and therefore death is the opposite of that. And therefore death. Death is impurity. It's interesting that the idea of life versus death comes up, I'll just talk about in another context, and we'll bring it back to the Cohen. You know, we're told to choose life, That's why if someone puts a gun to your head and says, I'm going to kill you, unless you violate Shabbat, or unless you eat not kosher, you're supposed to eat not Kosher or violate Shabbat. Rather than die. Ve'Chai Ba;hem we live by the Torah, the Torah wants us to live not to die. There are only three exceptions to that. That's idolatry, adultery and murder. But those are just exceptions, basically, you're supposed to live. And here the Cohen. Who himself in this case, it's basically men, because they are the ones who worked in the temple, they are required to remain holy, to remain holy means that you are not allowed to come in contact with death. It's interesting actually, that a regular Coben is allowed to come in contact with death for a close relative, the high priest is not allowed to come in contact with death, even for a close relative. And I wonder Geoffrey, which is more surprising, is it more surprising that the Cohen is allowed to come in contact for a close relative or that the Cohen Gadol is not allowed to come in contact with a close relative, I would suggest maybe that what's surprising is that the regular Cohen can come in contact with, with death in any situation, because the Cohen needs to stay away from death, since the code needs to always be available to work in the temple.

Geoffrey Stern  06:53

You know what's amazing to me.... And I think to answer your question about the different gradations here, I think that these are paradigms. In other words, the exceptions are and exceptions probably come from just human social concerns. I mean, a normal priest is a normal priest. He's not quite at the level of the high priest. So he can make an exception to the rule, the Cohen Gadol the high priest can make no exception to the rule. But what the statement that it's saying, what strikes me is that it associates this with being holy. Last week, we had the Parsha called Kedoshim and we talked about what holiness was. And the last thing we mentioned, was, we didn't say that holiness is not coming into contact with death. So this is really a profound statement of not simply, as you say, that Judaism is very this worldly, and, you know, you can you can almost do any sin, it says ve'chai ba'hem And when we raise up our glass, we say, L'Chaim, I get all that. But this is a level deeper a letter for a level farther, because what this is saying is part of God's message, or maybe the core of God's message is you don't need death. And the interesting thing is, I think that the classic rabbinic sources kind of take up upon this. I mean, if you think about this, the purpose of religion, normally when we talk about what is religions, most primary function, it's to explain to us the unknown. It's to comfort us when we need comfort. It's when we face the abyss, it is literally to answer the question of death. And here we are saying that in God's book, holiness, is to not dwell, not focus on death. And here's how the rabbinic sauces in my mind kind of approach it. They take the verse that is right before our verse at the beginning of our portion Leviticus 20: 27, A man or a woman who has a ghost or a familiar spirit shall be put to death; they shall be pelted with stones—and they shall retain the bloodguilt.. And the Tanhuma says, Why are those verses put right before the verses that we just read? It's because God says to the Jewish people, do not inquire of ghosts. Remember, many people, even up till today, will look for inspiration amongst the spirits of those who are dead with those who are past a necromancer. And what God says is you don't have that choice. I am your God, you come to me, You shall not inquire of spirits and in a sense, I think that's explaining the connection between God being holy, that his temple is holy and an aversion to dwelling, inquiring focusing on death. Do I have a leg to stand on here?

Adam Mintz  10:11

I mean, I think you do that's interesting that you connect the two. Let's let's talk bigger picture, the connection between this week's portion and last week's portion. Kedoshin means to be holy means not to be impure, not to come in contact with death. So the entire parsha actually, last week was about life, how you live your life, what you need to do fear your parents keep the Sabbath do all of those things. And then this week, it's about stay away from death. It's the flip side isn't?

Geoffrey Stern  10:55

It? Is it is there's no question about it. And you know, I'd like to focus a little bit on your insight that you said, Why is there an exception for your parents, and in the case of the Cohen Gadol even that exception doesn't exist. It's fascinating that the rabbi's say that once Rabbinic Judaism began, they say that you can make an exception also for righteous people. And for scholars. It says אין טומאה לצדיקים ולא לחכמים, and that's in the Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus. But they say that at Yehuda HaNasi's funeral, even Kohanim came and felt that because he was so righteous, they could defile themselves. So I think you're right, in asking that question. There is an aspect of this, that while we don't linger, while we don't focus on death, because we have this amazing connection with God, there are certain people that have a valid right to that connection as well. And that's our parents, both, our physical parents, but also the righteous. So I think there is the exception is real. And that's kind of fascinating.

Adam Mintz  12:16

That is fascinating that Midrash is actually fascinating that the exception is extended to righteous people. I think there are two ways to say and if you want to be Talmudic about it, you could say that those people don't have ritual defilement. Or you could say that you're allowed to ritually defile to those people. And I think the second is correct, meaning a Cohen, in the time of the temple, who went to their father's funeral, would then have to go to the mikveh, to the ritual bath, and be sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, they would have to go through a purification process. It's not that becoming tameh, to your parents doesn't make you tameh, it makes you to tameh, it's just that your obligation to your parents overrides the prohibition against becoming today. I think that's a nuance, but I think it's an important nuance.

Geoffrey Stern  13:19

You know, so far, we've talked about these laws almost in a vacuum. We've said that, you know, any religion is there to explain death, any religion talks about how you react with those who have passed into the nether world. And, we really said that if you read this text as straightforwardly, it's making a stand. It's saying that we Jews have a direct connection to God. And therefore, we push back from the dead and the nether world and all that, but I want to explore something that has always fascinated me. And this week, I actually explored it because it seems so obvious to me in terms of a historical context, you know, the Jews came out of Egypt. And you don't have to be an Egypt scholar, to know what the Egyptian religion was all about. I mean, the pyramids are the wonders of the world, you have to believe that every citizen of the Near East knew about Egyptian metaphysics and the Egyptian belief in the next world. And then if you look at the Jewish people, and after all, what were we building? We were building pyramids, which were literally to take the pharaohs and the upper class to the next world. So I said to myself, isn't this a rejection also, of all that Egypt represented? We have that theme throughout the Bible. So I look back and you know, the first interesting thing About the Cohanim, the priests in Egypt, is that they had land, and our priests have no land. So if you look at a Genesis 47, and it talks about Joseph, taking away all the land of all the people as they had to come and get food for the seven year famine, it says in 47: 22, only the land of the priests רַ֛ק אַדְמַ֥ת הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים, he did not take over for the priests had an allotment for Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment. So here we definitely have this contrast already, between the priests in Egypt, and the priests, in Judaism in biblical Judaism, where they never had any land. And then you start to think about other parts of our verses. For instance, if you noticed by the high priest, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it says, You shall not shave, you shall not cut the corners of your beard. And all of us who have ever seen pictures of the Egyptians, as opposed to Babylonians, who had a healthy beard, and Persian kings, they were saved. So it seems to me that part of this is a rejection of all that Egypt represented. And before I asked you for your opinion, you know, Rabbi, one other data point was when Joseph died, and it said that he was embalmed. But he was it was done so in a way that ensured, not that he would go into the nether world, but that he could be taken with them. So it just seems to me that there were these minor reference points to facts about the Egyptian religion, and that if one was reading it from this context, this is just one more rejection of everything that Egypt represented, does that resonate with you?

Adam Mintz  17:22

It's fantastic. Actually, I mean, the idea of connecting the Cohan of Egypt, with the Jewish Cohen, I think, is a really interesting thing. First of all, you have to know the Torah never makes that connection. I mean, the Torah talks about Cohanim. But the Torah never makes that connection. But what you're saying is that our priesthood is actually the opposite of the Egyptian priesthood. And that the purpose of our priesthood is to show that the Egyptians did not have it, right. Meaning we don't have a priesthood where the where the priests owns everything. It's a priesthood where the priest has nothing. So the purpose of the introduction of priests and the tau raise to show what's important in Judaism. That's a great idea isn't that we kind of we kind of undermine the pagan society.

Geoffrey Stern  18:21

Well, but it's not only pagan, if you think I mean, the easiest, I'm sure I could pick any religion. But if you look at the Catholic religion, for instance, what is the power that the church has over the people? It's the pearly gates, it's damnation, or it's go to heaven. And literally, it is the biggest cudgel, the biggest stick of that religion. And I argue that Egypt again was all about that. It was all about the afterlife. And here we have a religion that yes, that's why the Kohanim in Egypt and it uses the same word. We always think of Cohanim like Cohen... Cohen's a nice Jewish name. But Cohanim means priests. And when the Bible refers to Egyptian priests, it refers to Kohanim but no wonder they had land because they had all the power. They controlled everything and here we have, the Jewish Priest doesn't have that land doesn't have that power. And to me, the punch line if you'd look at the opposite of the pyramids, is Deuteronomy 34: 6 and God buried him meeting Moses in the valley in the land of Moab near Beth poor, and no one knows his burial place to this day. Here our leader, and in the Bible at times it says Moshe was like a god Moshe was like a pharaoh. Here our leader is buried in an unmarked grave. You cannot but have a takeaway from This, that this is a radical rejection of all that was Egyptian and that's kind of natural, is it not? We were freed slaves.

Adam Mintz  20:08

Yeah. Good. I think that's all good and I gotta make one additional point, the story of Hanukkah, right B'yemai Matityahou ben Yohanan Cohen Gadol.  The story of Hanukah was actually the victory of the Cohanim. And what happened was after the story of Hanukkah, the Cohen, the High Priest actually became the king. And Ramban, Nachmanides says that that family was punished, because the Cohen is not allowed to be the king. There's a separation between church and state, the Cohen is not allowed to be the king separation of church and state, that's not great.

Geoffrey Stern  20:48

Well, absolutely. And you can almost equate the downfall of [Temple] Judaism. That was the beginning of that slippery slope, all the way to Herod. And all that when we we gave up that separation of literally, of church and state, you're absolutely correct. That absolutely amplifies what I was saying. I mentioned a few minutes ago, that the rabbi's kind of took away from these biblical verses some lessons and the first lesson they took was that you can defile yourself for a teacher. And that there's something profound in Judaism in terms of the respect we have for our parents for our past, and for the education and the transmission of our tradition, that is at the same level, possibly, or gets close to the same level as this relationship that we have with God. But the rabbi's went even further, and I'd like to explore some rabbinic texts that relate to the way they valued life. So one interesting, and this is a piece of Talmud that I searched for, because I knew it was there. And I said, you know, it's the old question of you know, two guys walk into a bar. What happens if a funeral possession and a wedding possession meet on a crossroad. In Ketubot 17a it says the sages taught one reroutes the funeral procession for a burial of a corpse to yield before the wedding possession of a bride. מַעֲבִירִין אֶת הַמֵּת מִלִּפְנֵי כַלָּה And the reason they do that is because the wedding represents the future. And the burial is the past. And again, I put it within the context of other religions, that deify, that make this realm of the afterlife as the fulcrum that guides our observance, and just a very simple rule like this is a profound statement, is it not?

Adam Mintz  23:08

It really is. These great Talmudic statements where you have one thing versus the other, you know, they have a case where yet where you have a chance to save your father or your teacher, who do you say first. What is considered to be more important, a funeral or a wedding, which is considered to be more important. I always like to study those pieces of the Talmud by asking the following question, what would we have thought if the Talmud hadn't given us an answer? What would you have thought to a bit in the right answer?

Geoffrey Stern  23:38

I don't want to get into social commentary. And maybe this doesn't apply to your synagogue and to modern, Orthodox, observant Jews, but I belong to a conservative synagogue. And I know that around the holidays, they will say services begin at this time, and Yizkor is at this time. Even Lincoln Square synagogue has a free Yizkor service. Yizkor is when we remember those who have passed away and it seems that even till today, even within our Judaism, we focus upon that aspect because we know that's what brings in people to our religion, but at the end of the day, those of us who are involved in our religion 365 days knows that it's really the wedding's not the funerals. It's really the Simchat Torah and the Purim and the Hanukkah, but nonetheless we default to using the hook of the afterlife the Netherworld? Am I wrong, am I being facetious and cynical?

Adam Mintz  24:54

What about the fact that what brings people to shul is Kaddish? Right?.

Geoffrey Stern  25:00

Yeah. And neither one of us is putting it down obviously. But nonetheless, you can ask the question: Why is Kaddish such a draw and not? You know, listening to the Torah? You know, why did you say the Torah reading begins sharply at 10:00?

Adam Mintz  25:18

We know the answer and I guess that's the that's the problem, right?

Geoffrey Stern  25:22

Yup. So I want to dig a little bit deeper. We it's very trite to say that the rabbi's were this worldly, and they loved life. But there's another thread that I find fascinating and Ketubot 103b It says: When Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi fell ill, Rabbi Ḥiyya entered to be with him and found him crying. He said to him: My teacher, for what reason are you crying? Isn’t it taught in a baraita: If one dies while laughing, it is a good sign for him; while crying, it is a bad sign for him?... Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to him: I am crying for the Torah and the mitzvot that I will be unable to fulfill after I die. The sense that only someone of flesh and blood can feed the poor, can put tephilin on his arm can make the decision whether to be faithful to his wife or not, can study the Torah, this lack of looking at the next world as the ultimate goal and reward. It's absolutely lacking here. This gives religious substance to our life on Earth. Is it powerful?

Adam Mintz  26:44

Very powerful. So what do you make of that statement? I think it's great.

Geoffrey Stern  26:48

I think you can only take it at face value that just as those of us who come into contact with, with a friend or family who passes away, and we walk out we go, you know, we got to savor every moment on this beautiful earth. It's as good as it gets. There's such a focus on the only thing that we can do is in this world. You know, it reminds you of that Midrash where the angels were arguing with God, saying, why God are you giving the Torah to Moses, give it to us we're pure. And all the arguments are because Moses can sin and he's human, and he's hungry, and he has to work and he has to make sure he's ethical. You don't have any of those issues. That's kind of the way the Rabbi's, especially in a text like this are looking at the next world. Maybe it's a place for reward. But it's not a place for spiritual growth. It's not a place where you can learn one day what you didn't know the day before.

Adam Mintz  27:49

Yeah, I think that that's all good. I mean, the idea of this world versus the next world, how do we live our life? Are we supposed to worry about this world? Are we supposed to be concerned about the next word?

Geoffrey Stern  28:03

You know, and you don't even have to go to rabbinic sources. If you go to the psalms that we read when we sing Hallell it says lלֹ֣א הַ֭מֵּתִים יְהַֽלְלוּ־יָ֑הּ וְ֝לֹ֗א כׇּל־יֹרְדֵ֥י דוּמָֽה. The dead cannot praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence. I shall not die but live and proclaim the works of the LORD. The LORD punished me severely, but did not hand me over to death.

Adam Mintz  28:28

I mean, King David knew the answer, right?

Geoffrey Stern  28:31

So you could look at it from the point of view of someone who's in pain and someone dying. But from the perspective that we're looking at, it's no this is the best life that we have. And it's fascinating that when the rabbi's did put together an afterlife, it was Techiyat Hameytim it was coming back with a body they were so focused, so committed to life as we know it. I just want to share one law that actually is in the Misheneh Brura and the Shulchan Aruch till today and the Gomora Berachot says one may not walk in a cemetery with tephilin on his head and a Torah in his arm and read from it. If one does so he commits a transgression due to the verse. He who mocks the poor blasphemed his creator. לוֹעֵג לָרָשׁ חֵרֵף עוֹשֵׂהוּ And there are other laws. In the Mishna Brura  that says you can't wear ztitzit, a talit in a cemetery. And again, it harps on what Rob Yehuda HaNasi said, You can be the biggest tzadik in the world buried and visited by by 1000s of Hasidim. But you can't do mitzvot anymore. And so if somebody shows up to a beit kevarot to a cemetery wearing tephilin, he is mocking the dead. And the flip side of that is that every breathing moment that we have the obligation but the privilege of being alive.

Adam Mintz  30:04

I think that's the best thing. That's the best word so far. And that is, we have the privilege to do all these things. Isn't that a great thing? We have the privilege to do these things. Once you die, you no longer have the privilege to do these things anymore.

Geoffrey Stern  30:21

Yep. And and, and it comes across, not as some sort of ethical message or a drash. But it goes all the way through to the Halacha and the fact that when you leave the cemetery, you wash your hands, we give great respect for the dead. And I should say that the laws even for a Cohen, if there's no one else to bury somebody, you got to do it. It's called a Meit Mitzvah.

Adam Mintz  30:49

I'll tell you another interesting thing about respect for the dead, you know, some people wear their tzitizit out of their shirts, you know, they wear they wear their tzitzit hanging. You know, that when you go into a cemetery, you're not allowed to have your tzitzit hanging out, because that would be embarrassing for the dead. We take that so literally, that would be considered embarrassing for the dead. Isn't that interesting?

Geoffrey Stern  31:13

It's interesting. But again, it's a it's a little trivial example of a profound message.

Adam Mintz  31:20

One more example of the same message.

Geoffrey Stern  31:24

And that love of life that we have isn't just a simple L'Chaim. It's a love of everything that we can do with every breath that we have in every blessed moment that we have. And that ultimately, is why a rejection of death is something that is holy, and it is an affirmation of our relationship with God and life and that to me is an amazing message.

Adam Mintz  31:51

Fantastic. Enjoy Israel. Shabbat shalom, everyone else Shabbat Shalom and we look forward next week to returning to our regular scheduled time at 8pm Shabbat Shalom everybody

Geoffrey Stern  32:00

Shabbat Shalom to everybody. Bye bye

So welcome, Rabbi, another week of Madlik disruptive Torah. And I was all prepared to say to you, you know, maybe the reason why leprosy was compared to speaking evil was because there was a quiet week in the parshiot and no one had anything to talk about, you know,  especially in this cycle where we have, it have Tazria and Metsorah, two portions that are just very hard to connect to. I mean, they talk about houses that get mold in them and all sorts of stuff that we can hardly relate to. And then as I started doing my research, I said, you know, this is a little bit more than just filling in the white space, the amount of texts that are invested in making the association between this skin condition which is called leprosy and the English translation probably isn't quite that. And the evils of speaking evil slander are all over the place, the sections that you go to when you do a search, don't have an isolated paragraph they go on and on. So I think we're actually in for a little bit of a treat. It's not something that most people have not heard of, I think it's fairly common knowledge that leprosy and lashon hara are identified. But I think we might be a little bit interested and surprised by how deep, profound and maybe even directions are taken that we weren't expecting. So let's begin with Leviticus 14, 1-3. And it says God spoke to Moses saying, this shall be the ritual for a leper at the time of being purified. When it has been reported to the priests, the priests shall go outside the camp. If the priest sees that the leper has been healed of the scaly affection. And then it goes on to describe different types of this dermatological ailment, and different levels of purity. But one thing is pretty clear that it is done outside of the camp, it is done outside in the open. And somehow it piqued the interest of the moralists who connected it to speaking evil. So let's stop here. Do you think a simple drash, hermeneutics that the connection was made? Do you think its inherent in the text? How do you explain it?

Adam Mintz  03:26

Well, first of all, you started by saying that we have two weeks of this, which is fascinating, right? We have two weeks of these kinds of pashas, which are hard to kind of find relevance. But I think the idea of biblical diseases is a fascinating topic. And what I mean by that is, I think we may have mentioned last week, when you think about, you know, the characters in the Bible, nobody dies of disease. How is that possible? Right? Nobody dies of cancer. Nobody has a heart attack. Everybody seems to die of old age. The one exception in the book of Genesis is that Rachel dies in childbirth. But that's not exactly sickness. Why doesn't anybody gets sick? I think the answer is that according to see in the pre penicillin era, when they couldn't cure diseases, they had to somehow get their arms around desease. The only way they knew to get their arms around disease was by saying that the disease was a punishment for a sin. So no, it's not inherent in the text. But basically, the text has no choice, but to suggest that there's a reason for it. And the reason has to be a sin. Mitsora, sounds like Motzzi shem Rah, which is The Hebrew word for gossip. That's really where it's a similarity of, of words, it's a similarity of hearing of, of, you know, a pronounciation. That's really the connection.

Geoffrey Stern  05:17

So I love the fact that you make us aware that in the Bible till now, yes, there are people that are killed as a punishment, they're swallowed into the earth, things like that. But in terms of especially the main characters, the pivotal characters, they just die. And you know, they were beautiful euphemisms for that they are gathered into their people. And we focused a little bit on that. But you're right, there is no particular disease. And as someone who has just this past week, experienced death in a hospital, you know, you got to put something in the death certificate, you can say, this 95 year old person died of old age, it's got to be something conjunctive heart disease, pulmonary failure. And you're absolutely right, that, although this doesn't necessarily talk about death, but it does focus on a disease on an ailment. And the Rabbi's, as you say, in Erochin 15b Reish Lokish says, this is the law of the leper. This means this shall be the lowest of a defamer motsi shem rah. So on the one hand, you kind of scratch your head and say, Well, if it was that, why didn't you say it? But on the other hand, I think what he's doing is tied into what you talked about. And this is kind of controversial, because in a sense, what we're saying is bad things happen to bad people. And that's a very scary concept. On the one hand, in terms of morality, and edification, it's nice for us to think if we do something bad, we might get punished, our bodies might misfunction, whether if we abused them by eating the wrong thing, or saying the wrong thing. So it is a slippery slope. But let's talk first about the positive side that it's trying to take a moral message or moral meaning from an ailment, such as what is called leprosy. And I think what we can certainly do is focus on what directions, the texts kind of take this for now. And maybe later, we'll come back to the other aspect of it. Which is, are you really saying that bad things only happen to bad people, and that if someone who seems to be righteous gets a skin ailment, you can assume that he must have been speaking Loshon Hora?

Adam Mintz  07:54

Right. I think that that really is the question of the parsha. If you had to get the parsha down to one question, though, that really is the question about how you connect Loshon Hora to this skin ailment. There's another question by the way, what exactly is the ailment? So in the title, you called it leprosy? But you said that it's not really leprosy. Most of the scholars identify it more with psoriasis. You know, it's interesting leprosy. You know, until very recently, the Western world was scared of leprosy on Roosevelt Island, there's actually a leper hospital. It does not use this a leper hospital anymore. But there's a building that is a leper hospital. A leper hospital means that the people were afraid of lepers. They thought that leprosy was contagious. And therefore people who got leprosy were literally put in a hospital away on Roosevelt Island away from everybody. People were afraid of leprosy. Isn't that interesting? I wonder whether that's connected to our parsha?

Geoffrey Stern  09:09

Well, I do think that leprosy or any type of dermatological skin ailment is distinct from other ailments. You can be walking around with heart disease and no one knows it. You can have any sort of disease of internal organs, no one knows it. I think what's unique about whatever this is, whether it's leprosy or some other variation, is that you can see the disease. You're wearing it on your shirt sleeves, so to speak. And I think that is what possibly guides the rabbi's and some of the commentaries that say, not only is it a punishment, but it's a punishment for something that somebody does in private and has implications to the public, and therefore the punishment is made to fit the crime, midah keneged midah, and you are punished in public for something that you did to hurt somebody in private. And that I think, is a little bit of a clue as to why the rabbis thought that leprosy had to do with Motzei Shem rah. Motzei means like, in Yetziat Mitzrayim, taking something out into public and Shem Rah obviously, we know from Wisdom literature for Mishlei, that the most important thing that anybody has is a good name. So am I correct in saying that the rabbi's kind of make that connection here,

Adam Mintz  10:50

They definitely make that correction. And you're right Shem Rah is the opposite of a Shem Tov. Actually, the Misheneh in Pirkei Avot says that what you need the Keter shem tov oleh al gabeyhem.  That the most important thing of all was to have a good name. And that's really that's important idea.

Geoffrey Stern  11:12

So I think we've established that one of the connections besides the play on word, which is probably a little artificial, One of the connections is this public private space. But the other is, is in the narrative itself in Numbers 12, we learn of Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, because of the Kushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they had a problem with either her being a Cushite, or something to do with their marital relationship. And then it goes on in verse 10. And when the cloud was removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aahron looked upon Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And the commentaries and the Midrash start to do something that we're now going to encounter, which is, this is a sin that is full of nuance. This is a sin that scholars up until the great Chofetz Chaim who wrote a complete book, just on the laws of lashan hora, were totally aware. How do you distinguish between saying lashon Hora and listening to it? How do you respond if you hear it? So here in this particular case, the Ibn Ezra, and also the Gemora says that Aaron was punished t0o because he listened to it. But in any case, I think here is a clear connection between speaking bad of somebody speaking bad of somebody's private affairs, marital affairs, maybe even race and the affliction of this dermatological condition.

Adam Mintz  13:02

I think that that is absolutely correct. Now, there is an interesting question about why turning your skin turning white is the appropriate punishment for Lashan Hara. I think that's a good question to ask. And I think probably the answer is that when you speak Lashon, Hara, you want to harm other people. And, you know, like you're acting as if you're superior to other people. If I gossip about you, I'm feeling superior to you. And, you know, the way to handle someone who appears to feel superior is to embarrass them publicly. And if their skin turns white, they're embarrassed publicly. So that's also an interesting twist on all of this, that actually the punishment, we would say the punishment fits the crime.

Geoffrey Stern  13:56

Well, I think that normally we think of white as something that's pure. When the thread on Yom Kippur turns from red to white, we know that our prayers have been answered. But what you raise is this issue of embarrassing someone and in Hebrew, it's Malbin Panei chavero. So those of you who know Hebrew Malbin comes from the word Lavan, which is white. And the concept is if you embarrass somebody in public, the blood leaves their face, they turn white, and maybe there's that connection.

Adam Mintz  14:33

Good. I liked that also, that's good. Malbin Pnei Chavero, So you embarrass them, they turn white, so your skin turns white too. The other thing that's interesting is what happens to you if you get this disease and what happens is that you have to leave the camp. Badad Teashev. Now that's very relevant to us. Because we have a term for that these days, you call it quarantine, right? You have to leave the camp, you can be with other people. Now, everybody knows everybody who's had COVID knows how depressing it is to be in COVID quarantine. And here, this is what they did, they put them in quarantine, they had to go outside the camp, they couldn't interact with anybody in the camp, that's also very relevant to the sin that they violate.

Geoffrey Stern  15:31

So obviously, this concept of you think you hurt somebody with just language. But it has physical consequences. And I think there's that connection as well. Not only is there that momentary loss of face color, so to speak, but you can do infinite damage. I mean, we all know, unfortunately, from what happens on the internet, where there are companies designed to help you clear your name, you know, the old story that I believe came from the Chafetz Chaim . And that says that speaking evil is worse than any other sin. Because it's like a pillow full of goose feathers, that once you open it up, you can't control where those goose feathers go. And if you want to repent and you're asked to retrieve all of those goose feathers, it's almost impossible. So the idea is you start by speaking.... speech only. And then you end up by creating hurt that is not easily retrieved or taken back, it leaves an indelible mark,

Adam Mintz  16:49

That is a great image. I mean, that's a famous Chofetz Chaim. But that idea of you can't control. And we all know it, right? Once you start once something's on the internet, it goes places you never would have imagined, you know, what, what do they say, don't put anything in an email that you wouldn't say, to the whole world that you wouldn't publish in the New York Times. Because potentially that's what's gonna happen to it. And that's really the image of the Chofetz Chaim long before there was email.

Geoffrey Stern  17:20

And the Hebrew expression is HaChosed BeKesharim loke begufo. Someone who is "choshed" who suspects somebody of being evil, and they are kosher, they get hurt bodily. So there's, you know, it's, it's when I started, I forgot all of these nuances. And I said, you know, we all sit around the table on Friday night and somebody says, Did you hear what happened to this one? And we all say, don't say lashon Hora. Let's not get down there. You see the side of a bus in Israel. And if you Google the word loshen horah, when you look at the images, it's amazing. People have bumper stickers that say don't speak loshon horar. But loshon hara  taken by the rabbi's and parsed by the rabbi's gets into all sorts of things. There's the story of Rav Kook who would see a car driving on Shabbat and instead of throwing a stone, he would say Mazel Tov, because in his mind, why else would you be driving a car on Shabbat if you weren't going to have a bay? So that's the "dan lekav zechut" That's when you think that whatever anybody does, there must be some righteousness in it. It's the opposite of "Choshed bekasherim" We've we've come across this concept of listening. Aaron, according to the Midrash was also punished with leprosy. It came and it went faster, but he just created an audience for it. So there's that aspect of it. But the one fascinating point is that all of the commentators, as they begin to speak, say, although this is not a commandment, and of course, there is a commandment that says "lo telech rachil b'amecha", you should not go about and speak. Raheel will, he looked is certainly a synonym to LaShan Haoran, but because of the context that it's in, and it talks about judging and showing favor to the poor and deference to the rich, and it talks about judgment, the actual use of Raehilut it is probably more legal. It has to do with giving evidence when you have to say something bad about somebody and where that's not necessary, where a judge who leaves the court doesn't necessarily have to say, well, it's not that all of us agreed that he was blameless. But nonetheless, there's this commandment, quote unquote, commandment that has definitely taken root within Judaism in a very impactful way, even though it's truly not one of the 613 commandments. And what does that say about sometimes you need to be commanded? And sometimes maybe you should figure it out in your own.

Adam Mintz  20:31

Yeah, I mean, that's also interesting, that, you know, right, you know, sometimes it's better not to be commanded, right?

Geoffrey Stern  20:40

Yeah, we've definitely come across that, even with the two sons of Aaron, who were killed in service, so to speak. So there is that tension there. But this certainly became very mainstream. The interesting thing about the word Racheel, and where he looked, that is different slightly from LaShawn Hara is Rashi. In the verse in our numbers that I just quoted, he goes on to talk about why does it say "holech racheel", and he starts making comparisons between sellers of merchandise and tailbearers. And so now he's talking about those people who almost make a living out of exposing other people's private lives. And that's certainly something that rings true to us today, where, you know, if you say something bad, it's gonna get a lot more hits than if you say something that's nice. In this whole weather, it's the National Enquirer, this whole element of character assassination, that seems to be so part and parcel of our politics. You know, it's the more you think about it. This is a profound aspect of social life. And it ultimately is a blemish in terms of social mores. It's at the basis of so many bad things that affect us.

Adam Mintz  22:20

That is absolutely correct. I mean, it's interesting how we started with with tsarat, with leprosy, and we kind of are able to connect it all the way through to all these fascinating ideas.

Geoffrey Stern  22:33

Well, and I think in a sense, that's why leprosy is not a bad translation, not because medically it's correct. But because, as you mentioned, yes, this this thing of calling out leper leper, maybe it was considered contagious. And that is clearly something that speaking bad, or even nurturing a society that lives off the secrets of others, that lives off the talking about others. Is something that is clearly contagious, you know, you get into I think I came across an article from Rabbi Sacks of a teenager who committed suicide because of what people was saying about her. We live in a hyper situation with regard to these these visceral attacks, and visceral impact of words.

Adam Mintz  23:36

Yeah, I mean, obviously, that's true. I mean, the internet makes these things so much more complicated, doesn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  23:45

It certainly does.

Adam Mintz  23:47

Because all of these things, we're talking about the the feather pillow, the the idea of "rachil", you know, the word rachilut, comes from the word rachil, the word rachil means a merchant. And the way they explain it is that a merchant goes from place to place. And that's what our Lashan Hora does, it goes from place to place; the same idea, is it not a powerful image? That actually comes from Rashi.

Geoffrey Stern  24:19

It actually does. And the other thing that while she says is he quotes a French word, which comes from spy "espiement". The idea is not simply to come across this foul secret, but to look for it to make an industry of it. Let's get back a second to the episode of, of Miriam and Aahron. So the commentaries have, you know, tried to figure out what was the content of Miriam's loshon hora. So if you recall when I quoted it, there were two things that come to mind. One is she said Moses, his wife was a Cushite. And I thought for sure that a Cushite means an African or black person. And I was sure that I would find in the commentaries, a level of bias of bigotry. I was sure that I would find something that harken back to us discussion with the Reverend Washington, way back when of the of the sin of Ham. And the reason I was so sure about it is because I remember as clear as day having an argument with my study partner at the Yeshiva where he was talking about listen, black people, you know, it's no compliment. Look what happened with Miriam, and to my grand satisfaction. And maybe it's because I didn't have enough time, I did not find one classical commentary that read into this a racist remark. What they all focus on, is that she was distinctive, like a Cushite, because actually, in the Bible, it says that she was a Midianite that he married a girl from Midian. So they explained that she stuck out in the crowd, her beauty was so striking. It was like a dark skinned person amongst white skinned people. But one of the things that Reverend Washington told us and I think some of us learn is that skin color as a derogatory characteristic is a fairly new phenomenon. But again, I was pleasantly surprised on the one hand, but I think I cannot say conclusively, but anecdotally, I do find in certain circles of Jews, that there is a high level of bigotry and bias. The word Shvarter is used in a negative way. And I know that Lushan hara and the laws that we're talking about today a studied in detail, but I think this core essential aspect of it seems to have lost thieri attention, whether it's even Jews of color, Sefardin and some members of Haredi society. And again, we all have it, we all have this, but I would like to think one of my takeaways from today's discussion is that on the one hand, talking in a bigoted fashion, whether you believe in bigotry, or you're just using the words of the past, is lashon hara, and it needs to be called out. And that the the types of conversations that we have where the youth is getting too hypersensitive (politically correct) , and you can't get hypersensitive about lashon hara, if the Chofetz Chaim taught us anything, he wrote a book on every aspect of it. And he said, The Power of Words is profound.

Adam Mintz  28:05

There is no question that that's right. I mean, and obviously, that's right, in terms of bigotry. And it's terrible, that we live in a world where there is so much bigotry. But what's fascinating is the Torah kind of goes out of its way to not be bigoted there, it'd be easy to be bigoted there. Right, it'd be easy to say that they were worried about was the fact that he married a woman of color, but they go out of their way to say no, that's not what we're talking about. It's almost as if they're sensitive to that very point.

Geoffrey Stern  28:43

I couldn't agree more. The other commentary as to what Miriam was saying that was negative was that she said, she overheard a conversation of two people who had become prophets and had separated from their wives, and overheard Moses's wife say, Yeah, I know what that's about. So they were getting into the private marital affairs of Moses. And I think that to the aspect of lashon hara, that many times we can ignore it sexually and in you, innuendo. And this is the kind of core case history everything else becomes commentary. So I think that's another takeaway. We're running out of time, I would like to focus a little bit on the first instance, of leprosy in the Bible. And that goes back, believe it or not to the burning bush, in Exodus 4. If you recall, Moses is striked by the fact that the Bush is burning and not consumed. And he says, What happens if the people of Israel don't listen to me? So the first thing that God says is grab the staff and throw it down. (5) “that they may believe that ה', the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did appear to you.” (6) ה' said to him further, “Put your hand into your bosom.” He put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, his hand was encrusted with snowy scales!  (7) And [God] said, “Put your hand back into your bosom.”—He put his hand back into his bosom; and when he took it out of his bosom, there it was again like the rest of his body.— So this is the first instance of leprosy that is related to something that Moses said, the traditional commentary say, he doubted the people of Israel, He said to God, they're not going to believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is there for them. And for that sin, he was punished. And isn't it interesting that we have Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, three siblings who all all kind of case studies in tsoras.

Adam Mintz  30:57

So let me tell you what's fascinating to me about that story. It's amazing that Moshe gets leprosy for speaking lashon hara before the Torah tells us that you get leprosy for speaking lashon hara. The Torah hasn't gotten there yet. But Moses gets it anyway. It seems to me from that story, that this was a common belief in the ancient world that the punishment for lashon hara was leprosy. In Jewish and Egyptian culture in all cultures, everybody knew if you get leprosy, I know what I did wrong. It's like if you wake up tomorrow, and you have COVID, God forbid, so you know, you're exposed to somebody with Covid. If you wake up tomorrow with a white skin disease, you know, you spoke lashon hora. And that's what happened to Moshe, the Torah doesn't need to tell us that that's what happened. That's an automatic. That's why you get leprosy. Isn't that interesting?

Geoffrey Stern  31:56

It is interesting. It's also interesting, that from this perspective, Lashon hara is when you speak badly of a people. So in a sense, when Israel is the only nation in the United Nations that gets blamed for crimes that it does possibly do, or where it falls short. But it's one amongst the family of nations, that's loshan hora also. And for those of us who are can can talk about a whole people in in one broad stroke, and say that they are thus and they are the other that also lashon hora. So it seems to me that the more your journey through our texts, you see the profound effect that words can have to both heal, but also to hurt. And I think at the end of the day, this brings it back to the Egypt story. This brings it back to a story of believing in our people, ultimately believing in ourselves, it comes down to national pride, and it comes down to giving that same pride to other peoples and to other nationalities, and that the Exodus story therefore is so universal,

Adam Mintz  33:14

and you know what it goes to show that the most irrelevant of parsha's is also the most relevant of parshas. I want to wish you Shabbat Shalom. And the next two weeks there is no parsha because the next two weeks is Pesach so therefore, we look forward to seeing everybody three weeks from now when we continue with another great parsah the parsha of Acharei Mot. Hg Sameyach everybody enjoy and look forward to seeing you in a few weeks Chag Samayach.

Geoffrey Stern  33:43

Chag Sameyach, Shabbat Shalom and I love it Madlik Spring Break. See you all in three weeks.

So Michael, I am so overjoyed that you are here with us. Because I think we're all going to benefit from your insight. This week's pasta is a tough one. We've spent weeks in Leviticus, with dry subjects about sacrifices, we've tried to make them relevant, and about a tabernacle and a temple as a holy place. But here is where the drama begins. This is a real tragedy that occurred. And I was surprised as one should be every year when one reads these texts, one needs to find something new. And when I mentioned to you a few minutes ago that we were going to discuss this, you said are we going to discuss the silence? Well, let me read the verses and I'm going to pick something slightly different. But we'll see in just a few words, how it's not only the silence, but what is said that is so haunting. So in Leviticus 10, 1-3 it says "Now Aaron, Sun Nadav and Avihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it, and laid incense on it. And they offered before God, alien fire, which had not been commanded upon them, and fire came forth from God and consumed them. Thus they died at the instance of God. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what God meant by saying through those near to me, I show myself holy and gain glory before all the people. And Aaron was silent." And I have always focused on the "Eish zar", the foreign flame, the fact that the sacrifice was not commanded. And of course, I've always focused on Aaron's response, but what I neglected to focus on and what I would love to discuss today is Moses his response. And Moses says, This is what we mean when we say "bekrovai ekadesh" , by those that are near me, I am made holy "ve'al pnai kol ha'am echabeid" And through all of the people, I will be given honor. We spent so much time Michael talking about what was the sin of Nadav and Avihu. And Moses, his response doesn't even indicate that they did anything wrong, Moses response to say, look, here's an example of how we can sanctify God. What could this possibly mean?

Michael Posnik  03:42

It's a that's the big question. What is strange fire? What did they think they were doing? What does it mean to offer a sacrifice without being commanded to offer a sacrifice? And finally come back to Aaron's question? What might he have said, had he not been struck dumb in some way? And then like you say, Moses doesn't even answer, doesn't even dwell on the question.

Geoffrey Stern  04:11

So let's look for a second at our old buddies, the traditional commentaries, because again, I have never focused on Moses response. But if you look at the traditional commentaries, like Rashi, Rashi says, And he quotes, the Midrash, Moses said to Aaron, this is what God meant by saying, so he's quoting somewhere else, like, Hey, this is a textbook case of something that we've heard before. And Rashi says, the verse that he's quoting, is there I will be met by the children of Israel in the tabernacle, and shall be sanctified by my glory. This is a verse in Exodus. So way back in Exodus, God is saying that one day I'm going to have a temple, it will be Sanctified by my glory. And the Midrash says read not by my glory Bechvodi, but read "b'michvodi"  with my honored ones. So, Moses said to Aaron my brother, Aaron, I knew that this house was going to be sanctified by those who are beloved of God. And I thought that it would be either through me or through you. Now I see that those; the sons are greater than me and then the end, they were the ones who made this house holy. So here we are, we believe we we have a tradition that despises rejects, human sacrifice, especially the most obvious form of human sacrifice, sacrificing one sons. And here we have Moses saying, You know what, I thought we; you and me, Aaron, we're going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice. And in fact, our children are greater than us. So Rashi doesn't shy away from this reading, to him, it's it's the most obvious it's a case of martyrdom, which is exactly what the subject of today's talk is. Because if we feel that martyrdom, and sacrifice in the sense of giving the best and the brightest and the best of ourselves, is abhorrent, we have to be able to confront it when it occurs. And maybe by reading this, we're struggling with the texts, but Moses was right in it. How else can you read Moses?

06:45

I don't know. I have a question for you. What does it mean sanctified by my honor? What is it? What does that mean to you? In plain, plain talk

Geoffrey Stern  06:59

in plain English, we talk all the time about something called a Kiddush Hashem. When you and I, Michael do something good when we help that old lady across the street, and we are wearing our kippah and our tzitzit are flying. Someone who sees us says, wow, is that must be a wonderful tradition that these guys are helping little old ladies across the street. And when God forbid, the opposite occurs. We talk about a Hillul Hashem, we are somebody who should be representing God. And by the way, one of the most beautiful interpretations I've ever heard of the concept of in the image of God, but Tzelem elohim is that we are all representatives of God. So when we human beings do something good. That's a Kiddush Hashem that honors God. And when we do something bad, it, it means it profanes God, and that's the typical modern-day translation and tradition. But what we are tapping in here to answer your question is Kiddush Hashem for many generations meant ultimately giving your life for God, which to us seems absurd and abhorrent. But we are going to explore texts today, where kiddush Hashem literally, the ultimate form means to sacrifice one's life. And that's something that I don't think we can be quiet. I don't think we have the luxury of Aaron, to be quiet. I think we need to speak up.

08:51

Yeah, thanks for the explanation of it. There's also a sense of that they were not commanded to do it. You know, so what are they? Are they trying to do more than the usual person are they trying to bring something strange or unacceptable to the Mikdash? How do you understand that?

Geoffrey Stern  09:21

So I think, you know, many of the traditional commentaries who focus on that are trying to find out what they did wrong to deserve being killed. And I think that's a very valid discussion. And the parameters go all the way from maybe they were drunk. Maybe there's this concept in the Talmud that says, It is more a value to do something that is commanded than something that is not commanded, which in a sense is counterintuitive. You know, when you asked me to pick you up from work, because it's raining and all that, and I do it that's one thing. But when I look outside the window and I see it's raining and I say I don't want Michael sitting out the rain and I'm waiting for you, you would think that someone who's lo mitzaveh is yoter then someone who is m'tzveh.   So the rabbi's discuss this, and ad nauseum. But again, what I'm intrigued by today is not to understand why this punishment happened to these two sons of Aaron, but to look at the traditional commentaries who don't stop with Rashi. They go to the Ibn Ezra to the Ramban, all of them are lined up and saying that these words, and one of the verse that are we to you shortly, is almost the source for this really, so foreign, and I would, I would almost say un Jewish concept of God wants us to sacrifice ourselves, or the highest form of sanctifying. God's name, is to give up one's life. And that, to me, is where I want to focus.

11:26

You see them as martyrs, as people are sacrificing their lives in the name of God B'shem Hashem.

Geoffrey Stern  11:34

Yeah. And so that's what verse 3 says, And Moses said to Aaron, and this is what God meant when he says, "Those near to me, make me holy", that these are my chosen, these are the apple of my eye "Bekrovei ekdesh: I won't be made holy by the punishment of my enemies, it's those that are close to me. And then it adds "ve'alpnei kol ha'am echabed' there are two elements hee... and it kind of gets back to tncept of the first fruits, and the choicest produce goes to God. And that's fine, I get that that's hidur mitzvah. But here we're saying, and we know where this comes from. This comes from what we thought, Judaism rebelled against. When months ago, we studied the binding of isaac Akedat Yitzchok. We explained that we Jews, for the most part refer to it as Akedat Yitzchak  becasue he wasn't sacrificed. He was just bound; it was just a test. And then we found that the Christians call it the sacrifice of Isaac. And in fact, they are even within our own tradition, in the Perkei d'rav Eliezer. It says that, actually, he was killed, and he was put back to life. And again, we say, if that's the case, how can we celebrate the Akeda? Again, it's a it's a story of a father sacrificing his sons, as Malach is, and we believe that Malach is exactly what we reject it. So what I'm what I'm struggling with what I'm what I'm wanting to explore today, is, how deep is this tradition? Is it staring us in the eye? And are we whitewashing it? Or is it and therefore, you know, like any other text until you recognize something, whether in your life, or whether in your holy texts, you can't really reject it until you see it first. And you and you see how it developed. And that to me is so fascinating here because it's  written exactly the way washy and the Ibanez was say it is that this is a source case, for God asking us to die al Kiddush Hashem, and that is how he is sanctified.

Michael Posnik  14:18

It's a pretty strong case.

Geoffrey Stern  14:20

It's a scary case.

Michael Posnik  14:22

And my mind keeps going back to what is meant by strange fire.

Geoffrey Stern  14:31

You You're still you're focused on a strange fire. And I think you're absolutely right, we can ignore that part of the story as we can't ignore Aaron being quiet. But I do think that to focus a second and what is said outright that Moses says "this is what is meant". So let me give you a little bit of a sense of how this worked out in in Jewish in Jewish history. So there's a tradition that there were 613 commandments. And as a result, there was a tradition of books written starting with Maimonides  on what those commandments are. And the Ninth Commandment, according to Maimonides, is that God commanded us to sanctify his name, said "Tzivanu l'kadesh et shmo". And he says, and where do we learn this from a little bit further in our book, Leviticus 22, where it says, and I shall be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel, very similar to our verse here. And it says that you are commanded to publicize our true faith in the world and in God, even at pain of being killed. But it says, but rather Maimonides rights, we must give ourselves over to dying and not deceive him to think that we have denied God, he be exalted in our hearts. And this is the commandment of sanctifying, God's name Mitzvot Kiddush Hashem and it was designated publication, this this concept here  to be Mefarsem , "Vyekashu et ashem brabim". And again, that came out of the second part of our verse where Moses said, I not only am I sanctified by those close to me, but then he goes on to say and gain glory before all the people that this is a show case. And it's a very, very troubling thought, if you go through Jewish history. So the question is, number one, what did it take for us to transition away from this? And what do we now need to see in some of the biblical texts that we never saw before? We call this Madlik Disruptive Torah. But this is certainly a disturbing, disruptive thought. And we can't hide from it.

Michael Posnik  17:08

Yes. Keep going, because this is all new material for me. And what is it? What does it really mean to sacrifice yourself for for God? Even if that's not your intention?

Geoffrey Stern  17:21

You know, I think and you would be the, the the authority on this. But in the Shakespearean tragedy, for instance, there too, you have this element of you know, from the beginning, something bad is going to happen. But it's a tragedy. I would say the heresy here. The heresy that Moses is speaking kivi'yachol, if you could say is that this is the sanctification of God's name.  not a tragedy. We're not Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. So here's an interesting thing. If you look up the Arab word for a motto, we all know it unfortunately, we all know it. It's a Shaheed so the word Shaheed comes from the same, Semitic source, as the Aramaic word for Sahadi, which means a witness. And in the Quran, the word Sahid is used predominantly as a witness, and it's only once used as a martyr. But again, I think what we learn from that is there's this element of somehow giving one's life for God. That means that one is giving witness to the power of God. That this is another nuance of not only are I sanctified by those close to me, the most precious, but by doing it in public somehow, it shows how great God is. And we can look at other nations such as Islam, and find that distasteful but it seems to be in our tradition too. This, this somehow, that sacrificing is something that can be turned into anything than it really is, which is a total desecration of life.

Michael Posnik  19:32

Right. A question comes up if you don't mind. What do you think the effect of Nadav and Avihu, what happened to them is on the people who are watching this,

Geoffrey Stern  19:47

So my gut reaction is fear. My gut reaction is and this again adds a nuance to our conversation is making God holy. We know there were many interpretations of what is holy. You know, one of the most simple interpretations is Kedoshim ti'hu, perushim ti'hu"  that which is holy is other than us. It's on a whole other level. And, you know, we moderns, we love to feel at home, in our synagogues, we love to feel at home with our rituals. And again, there's this whole other tradition, that this is something that is beyond our understanding beyond our power, and that we truly should be shitting in our pants, so to speak. And again, that's very distasteful to us. But I think there's definitely an element of Kodesh, you're standing on holy ground, step away from the mountain, so to speak. And we can't ignore that. I mean, if we're trying to be honest with how the language is used. So I mean, the truth is, in Jewish history, we we actually find instances where this Kiddush Hashem was taken to the very extreme that we see it, you ask, what was the takeaway from the two sons of Aaron, what did the people there? And what did history take from that? And I think that there was a very strong tradition, the Aleinu prayer, that we say at the end of services, traditionally, that was associated with martyrdom, and that was associated with a proclamation that my religion is the true religion, it is better than yours. There were instances where, during the Crusades, there were Jewish communities, who almost stood up. And in a spectacle, I took their own lives or gave themselves to martyrdom. It's hard again, for us to either comprehend, or to condone. But again, it's this very strong, I guess, urge, within a certain aspect of the, the religious mind, and maybe to make it more relevant to us, you know, how many times do we use religion and God to counter our own best interests and feel that somehow that is serving God? I mean, I think that's the real opportunity here, it gives us an opportunity to explore what the urges are, I mean, you know, I'm, I'm of the mind that, whether you believe in God or not, just as there is this instinct (capacity) for music and art that we can explain, we can't touch, but somehow there is a dimension of the human condition that has within it, the artistic feeling, and music, I think religion is the same. And so in a sense, we're all in this boat together, because we all have to address this desire to destroy in order to sanctify maybe that's the shortest way that I put it,

Michael Posnik  23:28

Say some more about that destroy in order to what is destroyed, in order for the sanctification to happen.

Geoffrey Stern  23:35

Well, well, in this case, and in the case of the sacrifice of Isaac, the concept was in order to prove one's fealty to anything, but in this case to God, one has to destroy what is the most precious to you? You know, I said in a previous episode, that the the Law that God is reading up in heaven when he was visited by Akiva was the law of the purification of the red heifer. And what really challenged God I believe, was that it's metaher et hatemayim umtamei et hatehorim. It purifies those who are impure, but it makes impure those who are pure. And it's this, this concept, that it's a zero sum game, that you somehow can't achieve holiness without losing something. And I think that's what I meant when I said, that you in order to sanctify, one needs to destroy and it's I'd like to think that it bothers God up in heaven and that's why he studied that text.

Michael Posnik  24:56

Geoffrey, what do we know about this in our lives? In your life in my life, what do we know about this? About destroying something in order to achieve a greater level of kedusha? What do we know about that?

Geoffrey Stern  25:14

When maybe the question is even bigger, you know, it's not so much a level of kedusha, but those of us who find ourselves sometimes being our worst enemy, our own worst enemy is the expression. And it's this sense of in order, in order to achieve something we have to break,  I don't know, but I think it's healthy to, to kind of confront it, to see that this was a very mainstream idea within our tradition. And if we reject it, like I think many did ...... there's a phrase within the ole knew, that talks that we have taken out of most of our ciders, but on the other hand has been retained. That talks about that we bow down to the truth, and you bow down meaning maybe Christians and Muslims to hevel and Rek sh'eyn Yoshia (to vanity and emptiness that doesn't save)  this, this competitive religion that's part of it also, in terms of doing it in public, so as to so that one, religion is better, I think maybe it's part of this zero sum game mentality. But what I'd like to do in the minutes that remain, is to my mind, to see how Jewish tradition has turned the corner and done it in a sense with eyes wide open. And in the source sheet, I bring the texts. I think that in Jewish history, the last time that martyrdom was discussed and given away was a combination between the Warsaw ghetto and the State of Israel, when Ben Gurion was very much against iconizing Masada. He thought that Masada was exactly the wrong message. Ben Gurion said not Masada and not Vishy. And by this he meant he did not want to get into a Masada type of struggle with the physical body of the nation could be destroyed in a desperate and hopeless battle. And, and when they went further, and he looked into the Masada story, he said that they actually killed themselves. And this is not what Israel is about. I mean, when we look at the Ukrainians to bring it home today, they're not looking to be martyrs. They're fighting for their land. On You know, the topic of the conversation today, I called No Martyrs No More, which was a play on "no war no more". Because there's a part of war where somehow, we feel we are sanctifying something and the truth is your sanctifying nothing. And that's not to say that there aren't things worth fighting for. And when necessary, there are things worth dying for. But I think that the modern state of Israel really was founded because they understood that there is no sanctification in Nadav and Abihu, and that, in a sense, they had to purge that in order to, to build something constructive. And I think that when I look at the Ukrainians today, and I'm so inspired, it's because they're finding within themselves something that they didn't even know existed, where they want to fight for their homeland, and they want to fight for freedom, but it's positive. And I just feel that we one of the takeaways that we need to have when we read these ancient texts, is to discover our own neurosis, so to speak, and by discovering it possibly be able to talk it through. And that's the discussion that I want to have. And I'm curious for your thoughts now that you've had half an hour to think about it. In literature in theater, does this also trigger any insight that you have

Michael Posnik  29:44

I'm thinking about a Tale of Two Cities that "It is a far far better thing I do", where he let himself be put to death force for the sake of somebody else? And I look at it also from a point of view of In order for us to achieve or come near or have access to the purest and most Tzelem Elohim of us, right? We have to sacrifice we have to get rid of stuff that's in the way. Every day we're trying to do that, it seems to me, we do have a sense that what's deep within us is pure, and good. And divine, if you will, or that Tzelem Elohim, the piece of that, that that each of us carries. It's not accessible to all to us all the time. It needs it needs to be, we have to see what's in the way. So and this may be related to what you're what you're speaking about, that something has to be removed in order for, if you will a producer to be revealed? Or the energy that was in the way has to be transformed into a greater energy, into a pure energy? That's what comes to my mind.

Geoffrey Stern  31:05

But it's a narrow path, it's it's very easy to make it perverse.

Michael Posnik  31:11

absolutely

Geoffrey Stern  31:11

I think at the end of the day, when when Aaron is quiet at the end, you know, I understand his, his not being able to respond to that.... for obvious reasons, but I don't think that we can be quiet, I think that we need to, we need to call it out, we need to call out tyrants. Who are you know.  Putin is going through a whole different algorithm here. But there are enough Holy Wars out there and there are enough people who feel that you've got to, you know, break the eggs to make breakfast. And I think by identifying it, we can hopefully find it within ourselves and get rid of it and focus on the real holiness that you were discussing, where we remove the impure.

Michael Posnik  32:06

That's what friends are for. That's what study is for prayers for to help us see what's in the way to what I call what's in the way but you said to crack the shell that's actually keeping the egg from nourishing us.

Geoffrey Stern  32:22

Amen. Well, so butts alone. And I look I look forward to continuing this discussion. I think today was as much a struggle as it was a discussion, but maybe, but from every struggle comes hopefully something positive so Shabbat Shalom to you all, and we'll see you all next week.