parshat Vayikra (leviticus 4)
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for a discussion on Clubhouse recorded on March 10th 2022. With the first mention of the Hebrew word for a mistake (Shegaga) we explore the Biblical and Rabbinic idea of the stain, intention and the etiology of sin either as a deficiency in character or treatable condition.
Transcript:
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 clubhouse every Thursday and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. Today we start the book of Leviticus which deals primarily with the sacrifices. At the end of the day, the temple sacrifices fulfilled religion’s primary function. How do we deal with our shortcomings, our guilt, and yes, our joy. How do we deal with the human condition. We encounter the first mention of the Hebrew word for a mistake: Shegaga…. Which comes from the same word as Meshuga. So join us today, with all your imperfections and idiosyncrasies as we say: Oops I did it again!
Well, welcome to another week of Madlik. It is great to have you all here. It's just a few days before Purim. And we are starting the book of Vayikra, as I said in the intro, and I think we will touch upon both subjects. So let me dive in. We're going to focus on really just one verse actually one word that occurs for the first time in the Bible, we've been reading it for a bunch of months and two volumes, and we've never had this word and Leviticus for two it says, "Speak to the Israelite people, thus, when a person unwittingly incurs guilt in regard to any of God's commandments about things not to be done, and does one of them." And then of course, it goes on and describes what you do to bring a sin offering when you make a mistake. And as I said in the introduction, it says "ki techte b'shegaga", someone who sins "'Het" we've had before "B'Shegaga" means, by mistake, inadvertently, in error. And it's a Hebrew word. And it hasn't really occurred till now, which is kind of interesting. And it struck me as fascinating rabbi, what are your thoughts on Shegaga?
Adam Mintz 02:24
Well, the first thing you point out is that the idea that it hasn't appeared yet, is very interesting. It does appear later "Ki L'chol Ha'am B'Segaga", that one of the one of the ways that you kind of whitewash a sin is to say that it wasn't intentional, but rather it was by accident. Now, I think that the idea of by accident, is really an interesting idea. What does it mean by accident? You know, there are different types of accidents, you know, someone who violates the Shabbat, or let's take a different example, someone who eats a Hametz; bread on on Pesach. Now, they didn't know that it was Passover. So they knew that you weren't allowed to eat meat on Pesach. But they didn't know that it was Passover. That's what you call a Shegaga. It was a mistake. But you know, when I hear about that, you know what I think to myself? Silly, why didn't they know it was Pesach That was their mistake. So actually, it's a mistake, but it's an avoidable mistake. And I think we have to make a distinction between mistakes that are avoidable, and mistakes that aren't avoidable.
Geoffrey Stern 03:49
So I love the fact that you started with that verse that resonates from the Yom Kippur service. He was B'chol Ha'am Besegaga" if I recall
Adam Mintz 04:00
Its from the Kol Nidre Service
Geoffrey Stern 04:01
Yes. And in a sense, it takes this concept of "it was a mistake", as the ultimate defense. And when all is said and done when all the briefs and the arguments have been made, if all else fails, you say it was a mistake. And I get where you're coming from where, how many mistakes can you make? You forgot that you're not allowed to eat Hametz on Pesach, you forgot that it was Pesach, you forgot that you were eating. But at the end of the day, this is a very powerful arguments that we are given. And I started by talking about the human condition. And I think to a large degree, the the Bible is recognizing the human condition in have enough a board sense with all of the sacrifices that we give, let's face it, you know God doesn't need our sacrifices. But somehow people turn to religion, when bad things happen to good people when there are inadvertent circumstances, when tragedy occurs, or when they fail. And this concept of on Yom Kippur on Kol Nidrei, it says, you know, we're human at the end of the day. There's there's two verses, and I just basically looked at a concordance. For those of you who don't know what a concordance is, you can look up a biblical concordance and look at the occurrence of every word in the Bible. And that's why I felt confident in saying that this word hadn't occurred till now. And it does occur occur later in places like Ecclesiastes; Kohelet. It says, "Don't plead before the messenger that it was an error, but fear God", and that's kind of in line, the way you were talking, you shouldn't have to fall onto this crutch. But nonetheless, it does say that is the ultimate crutch where you say to God, you know, we're clay in the hands of the potter, You created us, we are imperfect. In Ecclesiastes 10. And again, the word Shegaga, is not used all that much, other than in reference to this sacrifice. It says, "There's an evil I have seen under the sun as great an error as committed by a ruler." So that somehow rulers are permitted to make mistakes. You know, we all hope that Putin wakes up one day and says, I made a mistake, I control the press, I can call this thing of victory, and walk home. And we would love if he would take advantage of that loophole. But in a sense, the Bible by giving us this sacrifice of Shegaga, by recognizing that we can commit mistakes, is making us all of those rulers and maybe this is a no a new interpretation of a kingdom of priests and a Holy nation.
Adam Mintz 06:28
I mean, I think all of that is true. And it's interesting, you say you looked at the concordance. I mean, it's it's an interesting thing, how the Torah looks at sin. You know, whenever you look at sin, you're gonna have the idea of Shegaga, because that's obviously the way you define sin is either intentional sin, or unintentional sin. What's interesting about the first two books of the Torah, is they don't really look at sin. Now, the Jews did sin when they worship the golden calf. But there was no issue there that it was Shegaga. Moshe doesn't say to God, hey, forgive the people. Because you know what? They didn't mean it. They did mean it. Right. That wasn't that wasn't a good, I wasn't a valid argument to say they didn't mean it. So I think Geoffrey, sometimes we have to take into consideration the fact that Shegaga is not always a good excuse.
Geoffrey Stern 07:58
You know, I think you're right. And I think the words that we've had till now, describe the action. So an "Averah" is when one is "over" one passes over the line. One breaks the rule. "Het has the same kind of connotation. Shegag is less involved with the action, and more involved with the intention. And that's why I think it's so fascinating because it reflects more on who we are, and what brings us to the kind of the etiology of sin. And that's why I think it's so fascinating. But you're right, it appears only here. And it appears only now that we have this institution, this vehicle that somehow enables us to deal with the sin. I want to quote on Nachmanides this verse, and he picks up on the fact that it says, If a soul shall sin in error, "nephesh ki tecta b'shegaga", and it says, Since the process of thinking is centered in the soul, and it is the soul which commits the error, Scripture mentions here "nephesh" soul, the reason for the offerings for the erring soul is that all sins even if committed, unwittingly, produce a particular stain "Mum Ba", and of course, I was reminded of Philip Roth's novel called The Human Stain. But we've kind of moved from the Act, which is the activity which is the Avera or the 'Het and the Shegaga, which is the intention and now we're talking a little bit about the outcome of sin. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are in that regard, forgetting about sinning against somebody or breaking a rule? What does it do to our soul is what I think Nachmanides brings on to the discussion table.
Adam Mintz 10:02
So that is an interesting question. And that is that sin, Nachmanides says, sin is bad for the soul, even if it's B'Shegaga. And that's why you need a sacrifice. We've got a bit all around this. But we haven't actually talked about how it comes up in our parsha. It's that something B'shegaga also requires a sacrifice. That, in a sense, is surprising. Why should something that's B'shegaga require a sacrifice? I would think actually the opposite, that if it's B'shegaga there shouldn't be a need for a sacrifice, because you didn't do it on purpose. But the answer is no, you still have to give a sacrifice, because it does something bad to the soul. That's an interesting idea. I don't know if that idea is so obvious, but that's an interesting idea.
Geoffrey Stern 11:02
But I think it raises our consciousness to a degree because if you sin on purpose, it's almost less likely that you're going to have the anguish and the psychological challenges of someone who is otherwise pure and well intentioned, who does or is forced to do, or finds themselves in extenuating circumstances. So I think you're right, it is strange, but if you think about it a little more deeply, it actually makes a lot of sense. You know, there are many verses and rules that we've come across already, that say, if you break the Sabbath, here's your punishment, you get the lashes, you know, whether you've ever repented or not, is another question, maybe you're even forced to bring a sacrifice. But it seems to me the real anguish is that middle market of people who find themselves in extenuating circumstances, who have a very high code of conduct, but then it comes to a family member that they had to help, or it comes to providing food or saving themselves, and you can't do it all. And that is the area to me of shegaga and it can make you crazy, and that's where Meshuga comes from.
Adam Mintz 12:25
That's funny, because we need clarity, things need to be clear, they either are or they aren't, the minute the minute, you're not quite sure, then you get crazy
Geoffrey Stern 12:37
And this this sense of the stain of sin. So yeah, you know, you could kind of think in terms of the easy stuff. So if you eat non kosher food, and you believe that non kosher food almost creates a filter it dulls the soul. So yeah, you can go on a diet, you can purge, you can say, I'm not going to eat that non kosher food anymore. But maybe the residue is there. It's like, you know, smoking that pack of cigarettes or being exposed to a virus or a toxin, it has an effect, whether you wanted it or not. And that also is part of the anguish, even if you are 100% well intentioned. And again, it back gets back to when when bad things happen to good people, we always think of that in sense of, they get punished, or they lose their money or their house burns down. But what happens if that bad Is these the circumstances that force them to to do things against their moral code? There, you bring up something else? And that is, what does it mean to sin? Is to sin to violate a ritual? Or is to sin to violate a moral code? Or both? When it says shegaga, have you violated a moral code? Or have you just violated the Shabbat? And and to pick up on your original example of eating the Hametz on Pesach? And maybe not knowing it's also the sin of ignorance enters into it as well. But I mean, from a technical point of view, the the sacrifice of the shegaga is brought what, by volition, or is it assigned? How does that all work?
Adam Mintz 14:33
How do you define whether it's a Shegaga? The court actually has to define whether it's a shegaga and a lot of it has to do with your own admission. Because again, you eat hametz on Pesach, but you say it's a shegaga, because I forgot it was Pesach. Now, that's really in your own head. You could be lying, but the Torah seems to take your word for it. Isn't that interesting? I didn't think of that ,bBut isn't that interesting?
Geoffrey Stern 15:04
Absolutely. And that's where the intentionality comes up. So there's a karban hatat, which is a sin offering. And then there's the one that we're talking about, which is for a mistake or an unintentional.
Adam Mintz 15:17
Now, there are a lot of different mistakes in this week's portion, there's a mistake of the individual, there's a mistake of the Nasi of the head of the people. There's a mistake of the Cohen Gadol, there are a lot of different kinds of mistakes. Not all mistakes are the same. Now, that is super interesting. We also understand that. You know, if the President makes a mistake, that's different than an average person making a mistake. Think about Ukraine, think about the pressure on President Zelinsky. Right. I mean, if he were to make a mistake, that would have catastrophic, consequences. But a regular person makes a mistake. It's much less catastrophic. So there are different kinds of sacrifices, depending on what the mistake is.
Geoffrey Stern 16:03
So, you know, I come back to looking at the institution of the temple and looking at the institution of the sacrifices in a whole new way. Looking at them almost from the perspective of a psychoanalyst, where, this is where people come to deal with the different issues that they've encountered. Some are forced to come some come of their own. And that I think, is fascinating to me, because many people find the whole book of Vayikra, of Leviticus as a nonstarter. It's so far removed from us, it's so remote from the world that we live in. So that's that's kind of an insight I walked away a little bit with as I started focusing on this one concept of Shegaga. But But I would like to move forward a little bit in terms of this dynamic between; is it better not to have ever sinned not to have what Nachmanidis has called the stain of sin, or this other concept that is so part and parcel of Judaism which is to tshuva, which is returning. And the Gemara in Berakot 34b relates as follows. "That Rabbi a Abbahu holds that penitentes are superior to the righteous as rabbi or Abbahu said in the place where penitent stand, even the fully fledged righteous do not stand. B'makom she'baale teshuva omdin tzadikim gemurim aynom omdim" It's a radical statement and he brings a verse to prove that it's true, because it says "Peace Peace upon him who is far and for him who is near" (Isaiah 57: 19) "Peace in greeting is extended first to the one who is far the ba'al Teshuvah, the penitent and only thereafter is peace extended to him who is near; the full fledge righteious.. So this really hits on their head, this concept of the stain of sin. And according to this one rabbi rabbi Abbahu , it would almost be you know, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. If you've lived a life where you might have failed, but you've done Teshuva, you've come back. Even the most righteous pietic person who's never encountered any sin can stand in your fur amos.
Adam Mintz 18:39
So that of course is a very, very famous Gemara. I always wondered about that Gemara does that Gemara mean that we should all try to sin. Because if we sin and then we do tshuva, then we repent, then we're in a higher level than the person who never sins. It can't mean that. It just can't mean that. It means you know, it's it's kind of written as a way to make the person who's the penitent feel better, that they're on a higher level. But I can't believe that they really think that if you're perfect, that you're on a lower level, I'll just tell you, just talking about the idea of sinning. There's a very, very famous Midrash that talks about perfect people. And it says that there were only four perfect people in history, only four perfect people. Benjamin was the brother of Joseph Amram, who was the father of Moshe Yishai, who was the father of King David and Kilav who was the son of King David. Now that's an interesting Midrash to begin with. Because what you see is that great people can never be perfect But great people need to be connected to perfection. So Moses, his father was perfect. Moses had to know perfection. But Moses himself couldn't be perfect. David was connected to perfection, his father was perfect, but he himself couldn't be perfect. So the idea is more a statement of reality. Nobody is perfect. And therefore you should know that where the penitent sits, that's the highest level, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind when you quote that Gemara.
Geoffrey Stern 20:33
So my take from what you just said, is that, you know, we can talk about who is far who is near, but for having peace, and it does say peace, peace, you need both, you need the benchmark, and then you need the one who might stray and in return, so to speak. You know, you said that it can't possibly be the golden rule that you sinned first, then you repent, I believe it was St. Augustine who once uttered his famous "insincere prayer", "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." And so I think he nodded. He nodded to that, which is the experience of the world. And again, that talks to the different stages of life, and that maybe we do need to go through the stages. So you said that you thought this Berachot Talmud was written to assuage the guilt or the bad feeling of the repentant. And this kind of gives you a motivation, where somebody says, I'm so down in the hole, how can I ever, you know, make my way back up? And then you bring Abuhuhu's whose opinion and you say, no, no, no, you're going to be right next to the pearly gates so to speak, because God loves penitents. There was a great Hasidic rabbi, whose job in life was not make people feel comfortable. He was the Kutzke Rebbe and he was known for saying things that were very harsh and abrasive. The Kutzke Rebbe was asked, so why can't that Tzadik Gomer stand in the four cubics of the ba'al Teshuva? The Kutzke Rebbe said, "because it stinks too much". And, and he was getting back to this concept of the stain of sin, that we can give all these consoling words. But ultimately, you know, at the end of our lives, we're battered we're torn and yes, we are maimed by some of the the moral failings that we've had in the mistakes that we've made. And I just love this Talmud because it engenders this kind of conversation. And it does have you know, two totally different aspects that you could read into it. But again, it focuses on the stain of sin, which I would like to call the the Human Stain and I love it for that.
Adam Mintz 23:14
That's a great Kotzke. I didn't know that Kotzke, but that Kotzke is what I'm saying. He's known for turning everything on its head. So that that Talmud from Berakot suggests that the Ba'al Teshuva is on a higher level. And the Kotzke kind of cynically says can be right. That's not what it means and reinterprets it, so that's nice. I like that Kotzke. I'm gonna use that Kotzke.
Geoffrey Stern 23:43
I'm happy. So so another source and another concept in Judaism and especially in Rabbinic Judaism is "Onus Rachmana patrei" That if you are forced to do something, if someone holds a gun to your head, or Let's call a spade a spade, the worst possible situation a rape, a sin is committed on her. And so, Robbie Bahama said that the Merciful One exempts a victim of circumstance beyond his or her control for punishment, as it is said with regard to a betroth woman who is raped. So actually the use case the primary case, that is brought for that is the one of rape and that's an important situation to know as long as we're talking about the stain of, of sin, because there are many places in the Torah where whether it's the bastard child or it's whatever where we find that stain of sin and it becomes very troubling. And I think as troubling as it is, I think the the gold standard Is that ultimately? No. If it's under duress, if it's beyond your control, we give you the sacrifices, we give you all the help, but you need to know the stain isn't there.
Adam Mintz 25:14
Yes, I think that, you know, can we go back to that Nachmanides, the idea of the stain of sin? What does that mean the stain of sin? How do you understand the stain of sin?
Geoffrey Stern 25:30
I mean, the word he uses his "Moom", which literally is an imperfection. But he's talking about the soul. And it really gets to the core question, which is, is the soul of humanity, which is ultimately God given? Is it something that can be misdirected? Is it something that can be kind of bruised? But is it ultimately pure? Or can the soul itself become something that is less than holy? And I think that's that's the real issue here. He focuses over us on the fact that it says, If a soul shall sin, and he talks about this is all about the soul and ultimately, the soul can be corrupted. But I think that's that's the real question here. You know, we're all given the same soul but we're not necessarily given the same chances in life and stuff like that. And it comes down to a really basic question why they're evil people. Or they're just people that act evily, I don't know, is the soul ultimately pure? Or can the soul become stained and blemished?
Adam Mintz 26:48
Good question. So Nachmanides was a Kabbalist. And Nachmanides as a Kabbalist believe that the soul can become stained. There's a direct correlation between the two things, right, the capitalists believe in this kind of mystical view of the soul, and the soul can actually become stained. And when the soul is stained, so what do you do? You bring a karban hatat and then that unstains soul, it's like it gives the soul a shower. But you know, that's an interesting idea. Maimonides doesn't accept that. Maimonides doesn't think it has anything to do with the soul. Maimonides was a rationalist. He says you need a sacrifice. Because if you violate something, then that's a bad thing. You did something wrong, you may not have intended it, but you did it wrong. And if you do something wrong, you need to bring a sacrifice. So my Maimonides has a whole different view. He has kind of the rational legalistic view and Nachmanides has the Kabbalistic view that your soal is stained. Interesting, both are legit. I think both make a lot of sense. But you have to know they're two different arguments.
Geoffrey Stern 28:09
So I think from the Talmud, the greatest argument against Nachmanides, is given in Sota 3a by Resh Lakesh. And he says, A man commits a transgression only if a spirit of folly enters him, "Eyn adam over avera ela im kein nichnas bo ruach shtut" those of you who know Hebrew, when your child starts doing silly little things in doodling, you say stop with that "Shtuyot" stop that silliness. And I think what he's saying is that at the end of the day, we're all pure. And if we sin, some craziness, ..... we get back to this Meshuga aspect of Shogeg. And this is a very important argument. For instance, here's where the rubber hits the road. In Israel today. I'm knowledgeable in an organization that's fighting drug addiction. And till today in the Israeli healthcare system, drug addiction is looked at as a shortcoming in character and not a medical condition that can be cured. And it comes down to this. Is it a Shetuyot is it something where something happened to this person, Thank God I'm not sitting in his shoes or haven't been in his situation, and I just have to cure it. I have to take away that Shetyot. I have to take the way that that stain and I think it's a it's a beautiful approach with regard to drug addiction. I think it's a driving mandate that we have to have. We can't look at certain people as sinners that have failed. We have to look at them as brothers and sisters who need our help and need to be given the same chances that we have,
Adam Mintz 30:02
I think that's beautiful. I mean, that's actually a nice way to kind of pull it around. And that is you know, nichnas bo ruach shtut" That's interesting. You've connected it to Shetuyot to silliness. I always thought nichnas bo ruach shtut is not silliness but stupidity. Right, you're being stupid. to sin is to be stupid. It's nuanced. But there's a little bit of a difference between being silly and being stupid. You don't say to your kids, you're stupid. You say you're being silly. But you know, but nichnas bo ruach shtut" is more critical than that. It says you're being stupid,
Geoffrey Stern 30:45
Or ignorant. But I hear what you're saying.
Adam Mintz 30:48
I'm saying all these words are interesting. But I think they're interesting, because each one of them should right Geoffrey's a little different.
Geoffrey Stern 30:54
Yep, they are nuanced. So I promised that we would tie this into Purim. And here's where it ties into poram. Esther is going to save the Jews. But in order to save the Jews, she has to sin. She has to, for the first time of her own volition, lie with the king. And that means two things. The rabbi's learn as she goes to Mordechai and says I want you to assemble all the Jews who live in to Shushan and fast on my behalf do not eat or drink. She says Then I shall go to the king through it is contrary to the law. And if I perish, I perish. Ka'asher Avadati Avadati, the most chilling words to my mind in the whole Purim story, and the rabbi's interpret that to mean since I am going now by my own volition, I'm not being forced to lie with this king. And since I am married to Mordechai, I will now not be able to return to Mordechai. So they say Why does it say Avadati twice the first time is because I'm going to sin against God. And the second is because the stain of what I'm going to do is going to impact my life. We don't need to even comment on it. The profundity the power of that statement drives home I think some of the issues that we've been, I wouldn't say playing with but dealing with this evening.
Adam Mintz 32:26
That's really nice. That's a beautiful way to end it. I wish everybody a Shabbat Shalom and a Happy Purim. I will look forward to seeing you next week which will be right after Purim which will be super nice,
Geoffrey Stern 32:37
Shabbat Shalom Hag Samayach, let all our bad turn to good wishing you all well.
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Listen to last week’s episode: Temples with no cloud-cover
Purim, St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras & more
parshat Tzav (Leviticus 6 – 7)
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on March 17, 2022 on Clubhouse. Grab a drink as we explore this week’s Torah reading and how it relates to Spring Folly and Spring Cleaning. Exposed to the ingredients that are used in the sacrifices we realize that Hametz, Matzah and Bread (not to mention, hard liquor) have significance unrelated to the Exodus story and more related to the trials, violence as well as joys of life.
Transcript
Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and that 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 and clubhouse every Thursday at 8pm. Eastern, and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Today, the gods of folly are shining on us, as Purim coincides with St. Patrick’s Day so grab a drink as we explore Purim St. Patrick’s Day Mardi Gras, and more.
So welcome and l'chaim to you all. Thank you so much for joining us today. So Rabbi, are you struck as I am that here we have Purim the same day as St. Patrick's Day. And you know, Mardi Gras, which is I guess, before Easter, which is like Lent, and is also a kind of crazy, crazy holiday. And then I'm in LA with a lot of Persians and it's also Narouz. And so as far as I understand Narouz is also a New Year's holiday. It does have one interesting facet to it. I mean, it's a feast, a major feast, and I guess the Persians are like the Jews in that regard. The what's the point of celebrating if it doesn't include food. But it also includes an interesting aspect, which is shaking of the house where in some communities they actually take all the furniture out, they definitely shake the carpets. So there's an element in many of these holidays of both folly and maybe a little bit of alcohol and frivolry as well as a little bit of spring cleaning. Some refer to the beginning of Lent, as there's something called Clean Sunday. And they all obviously coincide with with spring. So is this a coincidence? Or do you like me think that there's some tzad Hashava, something that connects them all?
Adam Mintz 02:35
There has to be something that connects them. It's just like we've spoken in the past about the fact that in winter, everybody has a holiday of lights, whether it's Hanukkah, or Christmas or Kwanzaa, everybody has a holiday. And we understand that because it's when the days are short, and it's cold and it's dark, you need a holiday of lights, there must be something about the beginning of the spring that requires us to let go. And to start anew, there must be something there that connects all these holidays. And I look forward to exploring that with you tonight.
Geoffrey Stern 03:10
Absolutely. Now, I think the easy one for us because Christianity is so related to Judaism, is that certainly lent I understand the word comes from long, which is the days are getting longer. We just changed the clock for that very reason. And there's no question that we all know that Lent is a time where Christians are more observant, where Christians take upon themselves certain stringencies And I think the most obvious connection between Mardi Gras and Carnval in Brazil, and Lent is that this sort of a release before you begin TwshuvaI mentioned last week, St. Augustine said, you know, Lord, make me chaste, but not quite yet. And there's a little bit of that working here where you you go ahead and get wild and release. And then you get very serious. And I'm wondering, you spoke last Shabbat I believe in your synagogue between the connection between Purim and Pdsach. And I know that we're supposed to start studying about Pesach right after Purim ends, what was the connection between Purim and Pesach that you talked about?
Adam Mintz 04:34
So I what I talked about was the fact that Purim and Pesach both represent redemptions. Purim is one kind of redemption; Purim was the redemption of the Jews from Persia. And Pesach is a different kind of redemption, the redemption the Jews from from Egypt, but we made we put the two holidays next to one another. And the explanation that I talked about last week was The following that this year is a leap year. The Leap Year means that there are two Adars this year. And because there are two Adars is this year, the question is when to celebrate Purim? Should we celebrate Purim in the first Adar or the second Adar? And the Talmud says that we celebrate Purim in the second Adar so that we can connect the two redemptions to one another? So there's no question that they're connected. And another interesting thing that already you know, Purim has been over here in New York for about an hour. And already, there's talk that you have to start preparing for Pesach. The The Talmud says that 30 days before Pesach, you have to start studying the laws of Pesach. Maybe by talking about that law, we fulfill that obligation. And therefore tonight is 30 days before Pesach. Actually, four weeks from tomorrow night will be the first Seder. It's hard to imagine, but four weeks from tomorrow night will be the first Seder. In addition, some people have the tradition that they do not eat matzah, between Purim and Pesach. The Mintz family has that tradition. We're done with matzah. Until Pesach we are done with natzah we will not have matzah. And the reason is that kind of gets us excited about Pesach when we sit down and have Matza at the first Seder, it's something we haven't had in a month. So there definitely is a connection. Somehow poram builds up to Pesach somehow.
Geoffrey Stern 06:40
Do you think at all that drinking all of a scotch and beer is we're getting rid of the Hametz already 30 days before it is?
Adam Mintz 06:51
But I think that your question is a good question. And that is why is it that we drink on Purim? I think that is an interesting question. And you said that the Persian holiday also drinks. So where does the drinking come from?
Geoffrey Stern 07:10
So the Persian holiday is like I said Narouz, and they have something called “khooneh tekouni”, which means literally shaking the house, and that's part of their cleaning thing. I don't know whether they drink Obviously, today, so many Persians are Muslim, that they probably don't drink. But now Narouz is a pre Muslim holiday. It's really going back, which is kind of fascinating. again, I reset the room, and we're talking about basically holidays that come from Persia before Islam. We're talking about Christianity that came out of Judaism, and then obviously, Judaism, and they all have these two different themes. One is some sort of release. It seems frivolry, folly before you get very serious, and the other one is cleaning. You know, we because we know of Western Christianity. We know about Ash Wednesday. But as I said before, there is this Clean Monday and part of the Clean Monday in the Eastern Church literally has to do with doing Teshuvah, they read the same psalms that we do before we do Rosh Hashanna. There is definitely a build up to the climax of redemption which we share. That is Pesach. And you pointed out that there is this inextricable connection between Purim and Pesach. I mean this year, you could make the case that had we not had an "ibur Shana" a "Shana Me'uberet' a leap year, I would be talking to you right now at the Seder
Adam Mintz 09:05
There's no quetion that that's right.
Geoffrey Stern 09:05
This would be this would be the Seder. And so I think that there's there's something about Purim. One of the beautiful Midrashim, or words that people say about Purim is that Yom Kippur is a "Yom ki Purim" that Yom Kippur is like Purim and Yom Kippur clearly as the most serious holiday of the year. And poem is probably the most frivolous. And there's no question that one of the things that we need to talk about tonight is the connection between the two, that these are the two extremes and are the two extremes connected at all? Are there pathways for some people to find God and spirituality and redemption through very serious introspection and for others from pure undulated Joy, I think that's another wonderful question that we can discuss.
Adam Mintz 09:12
That is a very good question to discuss. Yes.
Geoffrey Stern 10:14
So so, you know, the fascinating thing is that one of the connections that we have is that on Pesach, they are very stringent laws about what you can't have. And you know, I said a second ago, that is there a connection between drinking the liquor which is basically Hametz because it is grain that has fermented, which ultimately is what Hametz is, and what you're not allowed to do on Pesach. And so, you know, really at Madlik, we discuss the pasha every week. And in this week's Parsha, we have a fascinating insight into things that we normally associate only with Passover, and that is leavened and unleavened bread. So if you look at Leviticus 6 and 7, it starts going through the different sacrifices and what I love about the different sacrifices. And I've talked about this before. I think that in our synagogue services, we need to modify our synagogue services so just like, there's minha service, which is the afternoon service, but which is actually modeled after a particular sacrifice called the minha sacrifice. They have to be services for different people at different times, feeling different emotions and having different spiritual needs. But in any case, we go through the different sacrifices that are bought. And we will see in a second that some of them have no unleavened bread. And some of them have a mixture of leavened and unleavened, and some of them emphasize the leaven. So it's again, a kind of variation on the theme that I think we're talking about which of these opposites, there's a place for the opposites. So in Leviticus 6, the first sacrifice that it talks about, and you can almost read these as recipes is the תּוֹרַ֖ת הַמִּנְחָ֑ה the meal offering and and again, we have a service that we do every afternoon, that is modeled after that. And it says in verse 9, it shall be eaten as unleavened cakes, in the sacred precept, they shall eat it in the enclosure of the Tent of Meeting, it shall not be baked with lemon. So those of us who believe that the whole Simbiology of Leaven has to do with the Jews leaving Egypt and not having time to bake their bread have to take a step back here, because obviously, we're being exposed to a grammar, to a vocabulary that says certain things about a sacrifice. When it says, and this one, you can't use Leaven, as opposed to the sacrifice of well being the זֶ֣בַח הַשְּׁלָמִ֑ים, and that is made of unleavened cakes with oil, unleavened wafers spread with oil and cakes of Choice flour, the offering with cakes of leaven bread. So here, all of a sudden, in this other sacrifice, we have a mixture of leavened and unleavened. And there's a wonderful commentary that kind of drills down into this and says, Well, you know, this is a זבח תורת שלמיו it's about your peace. It's about your wholeness, and thanks, and it has to have the leavened bread. And it's fascinating that he says that, you have to eat it very quickly, which causes you to invite more people. So many of these sacrifices had to be eaten. We always think of a sacrifice as something that gets burned and destroyed. But most of the sacrifice, at least many of them had to be like the Passover sacrifice. They had to be eaten with a bunch of people. And so the one commentary which is the Emeka Davar, which I have in the source sheet and didn't have chance to translate it, but it talks about number one, if you're celebrating you have to have leavened bread. And two that you have a time constraint, which requires you to share your joy with other people. So I think the takeaway from all of this is that there is a much more universal vocabulary of what leavened means and what unleavened bread means. And we have to kind of enlarge our universe of discourse when we discuss these things, and it will help us on Passover, but it will also help us the rest of the year. What does leavened and unleavened mean to you, Rabbi?
Adam Mintz 15:39
So you gave a great introduction. Thank you, Geoffrey. And obviously, this is relevant thirty days before Passover, generally speaking, the rabbi's understand leaven, as a sign of wealth. Now that comes from the Pesach story, that matzah is called the bread of affliction the bread of poverty, right? Poor people can't afford a whole piece of bread. So that's why we break the matzah. You know, at the Seder, just looking forward to the Seder we we make the afikomen how do we make the afikomen we break the middle matza in half right. That's the tradition everybody breaks the middle matza. One of the reasons you break the middle Matza in half is because matzah is the bread of poverty. Leaven; bread that rises is considered to be assigned of wealth, generally speaking, the rabbi's explain the Torah there are only two sacrifices that have leavened bread, the Toda the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and on Shavuot, on Pentecost, the Shtei halechem the sacrifice the represents the new crop. Those are the only two sacrifices the whole year that have leavened bread. And the way they explained it is as follows. Generally speaking, sacrifices are our sign of humility, as we stand before God. But two times you don't want to be humble. When we give thanksgiving to God, we want to throw everything to God, we want to give him the best, right? Because we're so thankful we want to give him even leaven bread. And the same thing with the sacrifice of the two breads, the Shei halechm, that's a celebration and we celebrate, then we want to do the best we can do we want to we want to kind of show off our wealth and our success. So actually, the idea of leaven and unleavened is very much connected to Pesach the idea of leaven being something, you know, wealth and prosperity and unleavened as poverty. But I think the key jump here is .... and this is a very important jump. And that is unleavened also means humility. And that you know, Passover is supposed to be a holiday of humility. They explain the Hasidic rabbis explained that Mitrayim, that's Egypt could also be a be pronounced the Mitzarim, which means tight places. Mitzrayim was tight places. It was a place where it was hard to get around, right with the Jews didn't have flexibility. They were slaves. They were in tight places. And only when they left were they able kind of to exhale. So the experience of slavery was was an experience of poverty, of difficulty of unleavened bread.
Geoffrey Stern 18:30
You know, I love the Hebrew Mitzrayim is like Metzar, which is a narrow place. Well, all of us know the the Yiddish or anglicized version of tzarot, Xtores, Gehakta tzores, it comes from the same word tzar, which is narrow. And then you talked about the bread, the Hametz is always associated with wealth, but the Hebrew word for wealth is Ashir Ashreynu also comes from that there's not always a negative connotation to being rich, because richness can be in material goods, but it can also be ASHRAE yoshveh vetecha those of us who are complete and whole and rich, in in spiritual things
Adam Mintz 19:28
And that's the idea of gratitude, that when we express gratitude, we want to be complete and rich and wealthy and give it up, give it all we got, I think is what we would say in English.
Geoffrey Stern 19:40
You know, it's amazing to me the part of the Haggadah called Maggid has only one requirement and it says in the Mishnah that you have to say the verses that are said, when you bring the Bikurim the Those loaves of the first, the first grain, which is amazing. If you think of it here you are at a meal that you are eating only Mtzah and not hametz. And you are quoting, you know, the part that begins with my forefather was a wandering Aramean. That is what somebody says, correct me if I'm wrong, when they raise up those the elevation offering two loaves of bread to thank god, is that also the a little bit of this duality here?
Adam Mintz 20:38
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. It's a tension is, I would say a balance. But I think the better word is a tension. And I think that's really interesting that there's a tension between the idea of humility, and the idea of gratitude, you know, with all that we have.
Geoffrey Stern 20:59
So you know, the word that is hametz, now that we've kind of pulled it away from the Passover Exodus story, and we talk in terms of, it's kind of a universal at least as far as the ancient Near East, it meant something, hametz meant something. And, and lechemmeant something. And I'd like to look at that for a second. The word Hametz can mean sour. You know vinegar in modern day Hebrew, is Hamutz. It's when something ferments, it also can mean something that has gone bad. It's deteriorated. It's gotten stale, so to speak. And I think one of the aspects that unites all of the responses to the spring is to kind of wipe away that which has kind of deteriorated over the winter, and look at the new crop and the new sproutings and spring has come. And I think there's a level of that is well here. You know, hametz has a sense of, you know, in the in the New Testament, they taught they criticize the Jews for being a hametz. And they took that right from our tradition, because in our tradition, the hametz obviously needs heat, which translates into passion to rise. It's been associated with redness with with the passion of anger and stuff like that. It's been associated. on the one hand we've seen with ashirut which is can be both richness in a bad sense. But clearly, richness also, in a wonderful sense. But then also, this aspect of the evil inclination and the passion of the moment, and then the deterioration and you want to wipe off the old and bring in the new.
Adam Mintz 23:28
Yeah, I mean, there's no question that That's right. And I think that's a tension that plays itself out in so many different areas. But sacrifices is one of those areas, and the holiday of Pisa is another one of those areas. On one hand, matzah is a bread of affliction. At the same time, matzah is the bread of freedom. How can it be that the matter of affliction is also the motto of freedom? The answer is that that's what we always that that's what we always, you know, have a tension between how to how do we look at things, you know, do we do we see things as our opportunity for leaven for opportunity for all of these things? Or do we say no, that we need to be humble? And I think the answer is it of course, both are true.
Geoffrey Stern 24:10
You know, and of course, bread, you know, takes us back to the sin of eating the apple. In Genesis 3, Adam is punished, and it says, By the sweat of your brow, shall you get bread to eat until you return to the ground. Every time we make a blessing over a challaha we say hamotzi Lechem min haAretz. And we are clearly making reference to this verse and again, it's a question Is this a curse? Is it a curse to work? Or is it the reality and the joy of being human? Because you know I'll never forget when the peace treaty was made between Begin and Sadat, the verse that Menachem Begin quoted was Hazorim b'dima yikzaru He who sows in tears will reap in joy. There's a part of our tradition that puts down labor. And there's a part of our tradition as we visited in recent episodes, that celebrates labor. And here too, there's this sense of struggle, we can not but admit the connection between Lechem and milchama... and war, the struggle of life, the struggle between crazy people like Putin, who want more bread, who have a desire for more who need to have that struggle. It's all in here. Is there a connection between milchama and lechem?
Adam Mintz 26:04
I never thought of it. But you know, maybe there is maybe, you know, maybe that's what we fight for. And you know, maybe that's part of the challenge, milchama, Lacham, the word lachamand the word Lechem. I mean, it's no question the word lacham, and the word lechem is the same word. I wonder what the connection is between the two. That's very interesting.
Geoffrey Stern 26:25
So the connection that that I made, I haven't seen that much, it seems clear to me, the connection that I think you find in the text of the Bible is the opposite. In other words, I go from war and conflict, to lechem which is the staple of life, and that at the end of the day, it's the fighting over territory, over turf. But the Bible goes the opposite direction. So in Numbers, when it talks about the spies coming back from seeing the land of Canaan, it says, כִּ֥י לַחְמֵ֖נוּ הֵ֑ם, they will devour us, they will eat us like bread. And they say אֶ֣רֶץ אֹכֶ֤לֶת יוֹשְׁבֶ֙יהָ֙ it's a land that eats its settlers. But there's no question that there is a connection between the struggle to eke out a living and to provide, and the struggle of limited resources. And war and conflict.
Adam Mintz 27:37
There is no question that that's right. I mean, and that, you see that so strongly, and you know, in what's going on in Ukraine, you know, what, what are we fighting about? Are we fighting lacham about Lechem is ultimately all war, about bread, about success, about you know, about being prosperous, is that what war is about is luck, calm and left him the same thing, or lacham and lechem opposite things?
Geoffrey Stern 28:09
So, you know, I think at the end of the day, this this conversation of lechem of bread and matzah and unleavened bread, and both of them have connotations that are very opposite. You know, as you mentioned, matzah can be both the lechem Oni, it can be the bread of the poor person. But it can also be the bread of the person who doesn't need those riches (whose self sufficient/fee) who's pure and doesn't require the passion has that that mindset of serenity. And the same goes for the bread, it it can be richness and material, but it can also be the ashrey Yoshvey the pure wealth of prosperity, and it can be this joy that people have when they bring the first fruits and they thank God for it. And I think this confluence that we see here in the sacrifices, but also in these traditions that we see that this connection between Purim and Passover. think there's a line between the two and we all have to find a spot on that line or spots on that line. It makes it so fascinating this, this wonderful month that we are entering now, we make this transition from the giddiness of drinking to excess, and then sitting down at the Seder and redemption is somewhere in there. It's to me I just, I love Purim, I have to say it's one of my favorite holidays. I've been at Purim meals, where people have gotten drunk fathers have talked to their children, their grown children, and just kind of share their soul with them as one would never hear. And it's a beautiful holiday. And it's a surprise....
Adam Mintz 30:30
That is really a good word for Purim is a surprise, right? You never know what to expect on for every holiday, you know what to expect, you know what Yom Kippur is going to bring? You know how you're going to feel you know what the davening is like, you know what shul is like? It's very much the, you know, expected Purim is always a surprise. That's a very smart idea.
Geoffrey Stern 30:57
A pleasant surprise, and it can be a troubling surprise.
Adam Mintz 31:01
It could be a bad surprise, surprise, right? You never know. And I think you need to build surprises it. I wonder whether that's what the drinking, what the frivolity. I wonder whether that's part of it, the idea of having a surprise?
Geoffrey Stern 31:19
Well, you know, certainly one of the themes of Purim is Vinehapachu which means to turn things on their head, you know, we know you're supposed to get drunk. So you don't know the difference between cursed be Haman and blessed be Mordechai. But I think our little exploration today that tied into to both the holidays that are celebrated by many different peoples on this day, and the Parsha that we're reading, certainly shared that with us. There's this delight that we can have this open tent that welcomes everybody, no matter what path they come from, whether it's joy or sadness, there's a message for all of you. And that's kind of also the message of the Parsha. As you read it this Shabbat, there's a sacrifice for everybody. And I think, again,I've been preaching that these aren't so much sacrifices, as ways of relating and ways of expressing different emotions at different moments.
Adam Mintz 32:21
I think that's beautiful. I want to wish everybody again, a Happy Purim for those people who still have for him a Shabbat Shalom, it's a confluence of Shabbat and Purim and all the good things right after Purim comes to Shushan Purim. In Jerusalem they're actually just beginning their celebration of Purim now, they celebrate the day afterwards, the 15th day of Adar. So Shabbat shalom. We look forward to next week to as we continue our travels through the book of Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus, Shabbat Shalom,
Geoffrey Stern 32:49
Shabbat shalom. Hag Purim samayach, to you all. We'll see you all next week.
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