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.
Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/392354
Listen to last week’s episode: Oops I did it again
First Fruits – First Prayers
parshat ki tavo – Deuteronomy 26
Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on September 15th 2022. As we approach the high prayer season we trace the evolution of the oldest prayer preserved in the Torah. The First Fruits Declaration, a once iconic prayer made by a farmer on Shavuot; the Harvest Festival. We see how this prayer was censored, repurposed and reinterpreted up until today and wonder what license it provides to us.
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 at 8:00pm Eastern and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. As we approach the high prayer season, we trace the evolution of one of the oldest prayers preserved in the Torah. The Bikurim or First-Fruits Declaration, made by a farmer on Shavuot; the Harvest Festival. We explore how this prayer was censored, re-purposed and re-interpreted and wonder what license it provides to us. So grab a bowl of fruit and a siddur and join us for First Fruits – First Prayers.
more
Well, welcome back another week. And as we said, in the pre-show, the High Holidays are coming, they’re coming. They’re coming. They’re not waiting for us. And that’s what I meant when I referred to the “prayer season”, because isn’t that actually what it is, I mean, there’s no time of year that we pray more, that we are engaged with our liturgy. And before we get to the exact text from our parsha, that I want to discuss, and the Parsha is Ki Tavo in Deuteronomy, it just seems to me, Rabbi that Deuteronomy is the source of many prayers, much of our liturgy, I mean, the most famous Shema Yisrael is in Deuteronomy 6: 4. Last week, while not liturgy, we talked about the paragraph that says that you have to remember what Amalek did to you. And I referenced that there is a whole Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor, that we focused just on saying that little chapter in public, and some say, that’s one of the rare occasions that literally by Torah law, we have to make that declaration. So am I wrong here? There’s little avoid liturgy comes from the Chumash, The Five Books of Moses itself, but that that does, there’s a lot in Deuteronomy.
Adam Mintz 02:34
So you’re absolutely right. And the fact that Shema, not only the paragraph of Shema. But the second paragraph of the Shema Vehaya Im Shemoa וְהָיָ֗ה אִם־שָׁמֹ֤עַ also comes from the book of Deuteronomy (11: 13), I think the reason is probably a simple reason. And that is Deuteronomy is the kind of the summary, the review of the Torah. So, it has paragraphs that have a lot of different ideas all together. Like in the paragraph of Shema, you have belief in God, you have study Torah, you have Tefillin and you have Mezuzah. Yeah, you have all these things, you have reward and punishment. It’s all there in one paragraph, you don’t have that in the rest of Torah. So actually, in terms of prayers, and in terms of kind of covering all the bases, Deuteronomy is a great place to get prayers from.
Geoffrey Stern 03:22
And you know, I would kind of add, and I’ve said this before, that, modern scholarship believes that Deuteronomy was probably written closer to when Ezra came back from the exile, we’re talking about a period where there was maybe no temple anymore, the synagogues were starting to be formed. But even if you don’t buy into higher criticism the whole angst of Deuteronomy is when you come into the land. And certainly, coming into the land, the central Mishkan was over. And there was this beginning of what we could see as decentralized Judaism. And certainly, it had a prophetic sense of there would be a time where Jews would need to pray and our religion would change. So, I think from all different perspectives, there is no question that Deuteronomy is a great source for later liturgy. I think we’re on the same page there.
Adam Mintz 04:28
Good. I think that’s 100%. Right. And I think you know, that just makes the point stronger, but you know, whatever the explanation is just making the point is interesting, right, just realizing that so much of our prayer service and the Shema itself comes from Deuteronomy is a super interesting point.
Geoffrey Stern 04:46
Great. So, we’re going to start with one of the most iconic little prayers; declarations if you will, certainly something that we’ll see ended up in our liturgy by way of the Haggadah. It is a farmer’s declaration of bringing the first fruits of the harvest to the temple. And it starts in Deuteronomy 26: 3 it says, You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, I acknowledge this day before your God that I have entered the land that God swore to our fathers to assign us. The priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down in the front of the altar of your God. You shall then recite as follows before your god, my father was a fugitive Aramean he went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there. But there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us they imposed heavy labor upon us. If this sounds familiar to any of us, it’s because it is quoted in the Haggadah. And what the Hagaddah does is literally take every one of the words that I just said, … when it says the Egyptians dealt harshly with us. When it says that we became לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב when it says they oppressed us וַיְעַנּ֑וּנוּ it has a standing commentary, which actually becomes the most fundamental core part of the whole Haggadah-Seder moment. And it says, We cried to God, the God of our ancestors, and God heard our plea. God heard our plea. You’ll see in the Passover Haggadah, it says, When God heard our plea, he understood what they were doing to us. Maybe he was separating men from women. It goes into this running commentary in the Haggadah, he saw our plight, our misery and our oppression. God freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, you remember in the Haggadah talks about what does it mean by בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ by an outstretched arm וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה and awesome powers and by signs and portents…. So, this is as far as the Haggadah goes, but the literary piece the parsha of Bikkurim continues, bringing us to this place, וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of soil which you God have given me, you shall leave it before your God and bow low before your God, and you shall enjoy together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, and all the bounty that your God has bestowed upon you and your household. And then if you were looking at this text in a Sefer Torah, there is an end of literary piece, the end of Parashat Bikkurim, we have finished. So this clearly is a very old piece. It is in a sense quoted, you are literally quoting what the farmer says in front of the Cohen. So Rabbi, how many prayers like this do we have that are verbatim? And what does it mean to you?
Adam Mintz 08:48
Well, you said a mouthful here. The first interesting thing is that this is probably the earliest prayer that we have, which means that this was said as a prayer. In the time of the Torah, when they brought the first fruits, they recited this as a prayer. We just a minute ago, talked about Shema. Now Shema in the Torah is not written as a prayer, meaning that Moshe tells the people to believe in God and to put on tefillin and to put up a mezuzah, but he doesn’t say recite this every day. It wasn’t a prayer. We took it to become a prayer. But this actually was a prayer. And that’s really interesting. It’s interesting because what you see is that we have prayers, from the very beginning of time we have prayers, there are very few prayers in the Torah. There’s one another example of a prayer when Miriam, Moshe’s sister is sick. So Moshe says to God וַיִּצְעַ֣ק מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶל־הֹ’ לֵאמֹ֑ר אֵ֕-ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ (Numbers 12: 13) , God, please cure her. It’s the shortest prayer in history. But that’s an example of a prayer and here we have another prayer. So, it’s interesting that the Torah recognizes the value of prayers, and even gives us some prayers that we actually recite.
Geoffrey Stern 10:10
You know, you saying that reminds me of the key prayers of the High Holidays? הֹ’ ׀ הֹ’ אֵ֥-ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם וְרַב־חֶ֥סֶד וֶאֱמֶֽת. This is something we’re going to start saying Selichot on Saturday night. These prayers are not only old, but because they’re old. They almost seem to have power, don’t they? If you really can count on your fingers, whether their prayers like this one, or whether like the Shema we’re quoting verses, I mean, some of the other ones that come to mind is with Ballam מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב (Numbers 24: 5). We start our service every day with that we quote, How goodly are the tents of Jacob”, it’s maybe written over the ark. We have the prayer that maybe parents say on their children on Friday night, יְשִֽׂמְךָ֣ אֱ-לֹהִ֔ים כְּאֶפְרַ֖יִם וְכִמְנַשֶּׁ֑ה (Genesis 48: 20) which is what Joseph said. But you’re absolutely right. This is, along with רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ which is with Miriam is one of the few places where, at least in the Chumash, The Five Books of Moses, you have actually texts of prayers.
Adam Mintz 11:27
Yeah, that is interesting in the history of prayer. That’s interesting that prayer is biblical. That’s not the prayers we say. The prayers we say are basically rabbinic. The Amidah that we recite is not found in the Torah, the Amidah that we recite the rabbi’s made up. So, we generally think of prayer as being rabbinic. But the truth is a prayer is biblical. There is a biblical source for prayer.
Geoffrey Stern 11:51
I mean, I think if you look at for instance, the Shemoneh Esrey, the Eighteen Benedictions, the Amidah, the Silent Prayer, a lot of stuff is taken from Psalms, Psalms is a rich source of if not prayers, but at least phrases or expressions; ways of talking about the, you know, healing people or making them stand up straight or reviving them in the morning. But here, actually, it’s very few times that in our liturgy, we have stuff directly from the Five Books of Moses. But there are a few cases. And this is a very, very old prayer, no question about it.
Adam Mintz 12:36
Right that so so that’s, that’s the beginning of what’s interesting here. Now, the text of the prayer is also interesting, because what the prayer is, is it’s kind of a review of Jewish history, to allow us to be grateful to God, recognizing not only that God gave us new fruits, but that God gave us everything beginning with taking us out of Egypt.
Geoffrey Stern 13:00
I mean, isn’t it amazing if you step back for a second, and the two prayers that we’ve identified as biblical and old, one had to do with healing, and the other one had to do with thanks and gratitude. And what more can you talk about thanks Then the harvest? You know, I think of he who sows in tears reaps in joy הַזֹּרְעִ֥ים בְּדִמְעָ֗ה בְּרִנָּ֥ה יִקְצֹֽרוּ (Psalms 26: 5), There is nothing more primal than the thankfulness and it comes all the way to the Puritans and the Thanksgiving festival and Sukkot that we’re going to have. You can almost track the three major festivals, the pilgrimage festivals, all around agriculture, which ultimately becomes that we are dependent on the earth we’re dependent on rain, we’re dependent on God. And the flip side of that is we are so thankful when we have a basket of fruit that we can we can bring to God to thank Him or Her.
Adam Mintz 14:09
Right. I think all that all that is exactly right. I think that’s, that’s wonderful here, and then the use of this prayer in the Seder also needs to be discussed. Why do we choose this verse? To make the question better? Let me ask it like this. The Seder on Passover, remembers the Exodus from Egypt. If we’re going to choose verses that talk about the Exodus from Egypt, why don’t we take verses from the book of Exodus that talk about the Exodus from Egypt? It seems kind of ridiculous that we choose verses from the book of Deuteronomy that talk about the Exodus from Egypt. We might as well choose to have the original story I might as well you know if I’m if I’m reading the story, I don’t know what your story the story of of the you know, of the I have the respect that they’re paying to the Queen. I might as well read it as it’s happening now. I’m not interested 10 years from now and they write a book about it, they IV the story in the moment is actually more accurate and more reflective of the way people are thinking later on, you kind of just have a perspective. So why do we choose the verses from Devarim? from Deuteronomy? And not the verses from Exodus?
Geoffrey Stern 15:24
So that is an amazing question. And I think that also will give us an insight into some prayers of the High Holidays. So, one of the commentaries on the Haggadah, that that I love, he claims he says that the Mishna wanted that …. and by the way, the Mishna in Pesachim actually dictates that these verses are said in Pesachim 10: 4 it says that, when teaching his son about the Exodus, he begins with the Jewish people’s disgrace, and concludes with their glory, מַתְחִיל בִּגְנוּת וּמְסַיֵּם בְּשֶׁבַח, וְדוֹרֵשׁ מֵאֲרַמִּי אוֹבֵד אָבִי, and he expounds from the passage an Aramean tried to destroy my father, which is our verse with a new translation we’ll find out in a second, the declaration one was cites when presenting his first foods at the temple. And here the Mishnah says until he concludes explaining the entire section. So the Mishna says you have to read it, עַד שֶׁיִּגְמֹר כֹּל הַפָּרָשָׁה כֻלָּהּ. The Mishna, in fact says to answer your question, not why, but that you have to say this whole section about bringing the first fruits on the night of the Seder from beginning to end. But the commentaries and modern scholarship, argue that the Mishna wanted to find a text and integrated commentary that was well known to the Jewish masses. And when we say well known to the Jewish masses, remember, there were many centuries, generations of Jews who did not even speak Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic, they spoke other languages. Because this prayer of giving the Bikkurim was so iconic, these scholars argue, we pick the one that people knew they not only knew the words in Hebrew, but they also kind of knew in a singsong way, the commentary on it. So, there was a great scholar named David Tzvi. Hoffman, who wrote a book called The First Mishna. And he actually uses the Haggadah and the way it goes from וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה, and it gives an explanation, בְּיָד חֲזָקָה and gives an explanation. He says, this is a prime example of Midrash Halacha, and the earliest use of reading the written law and adding ongoing explanatory Midrash and interpretations. So, his answer to your question is, there are many other verses that talk about the exodus of Egypt, that might do it in a more poetic way, in a more discursive way, but the rabbi’s of the Mishna picked these because as we started by saying, it was an old prayer that everybody knew. And clearly, this is a prayer unlike the Shema that is not household to every Jew nowadays. But there was a time …. you knew The Bikkurim, and that we could we could talk about…
Adam Mintz 18:50
Well, everybody had first fruits, everybody had a harvest. We don’t we don’t live in agricultural life anymore. But if everybody lived in agricultural life, you would all have it.
Geoffrey Stern 19:00
so so again, I think that it’s fascinating that when we look at prayers, and some prayers are so well known, and we don’t even remember the reason that we know them. I mean, I think, and I’d love your take on this. We come to services on the night of Yom Kippur, the holiest night of the holiest day of the year. And this service is named after a prayer that we all sing in the same tune, and we probably all get choked up over; it’s called Kol Nidrei. And it is basically a prayer that has to do with a legal formula for canceling your oaths that you made. And we might not even know the meaning of the words we might not know the meanings of a lot of words of prayers, but this one has lived way beyond its expiration date, but it still has all the power and the meaning. And that’s a fascinating insight, I think into prayer.
Adam Mintz 20:00
Yeah, that is an interesting point, the power of the prayer and you raise the power of the tune of Kol Nidrei. You know exactly what its history is not clear. The key is that everybody has been doing it. Right. And everybody sings the same tune. And that’s what’s so powerful.
Geoffrey Stern 20:22
Do you know if the Sefardim, the Mizrachim also have the same tune?
Adam Mintz 20:26
I don’t know if they have Kol Nidre, I think Kol Nidrei is an Ashkenazim thing?
Geoffrey Stern 20:31
Well, it’s certainly for the for the Ashkenazi him. And again, it’s a little bit like the beginning of the Seder, where we sing the Seder itself. It’s like singing the table of contents of a book. You’re right, it is the music. But I think the rabbis and the scholars who say that the reason Bikkurim was bought into the Haggadah are touching upon this aspect of some of our prayers, that a prayer can be more than the words that are written in it becomes like a mantra, it becomes something that we share with each other. And it goes beyond the meaning of the words or the original context. And I think that if we stopped right here, that would be a fascinating lesson about the power of prayer, or how prayer is used, or what its power on us is, don’t you think?
Adam Mintz 21:28
I think that that that really is a very interesting point. Now, I’ll just compare for a minute Kol Nidrei. And this prayer for the first fruit, you know, this prayer for the first fruit is biblical Kol. Nidrei is actually in Aramaic, right? I mean, it’s not even in Hebrew. So, some of the power is and you know, Aramaic is like English. That was the language that people spoke. So, you know, sometimes prayer in the vernacular is what’s so powerful. And obviously, we have that, especially in the kind of in the more liberal movements that you know, prayer in the vernacular has a certain power to it.
Geoffrey Stern 22:12
Yeah. And so there’s definitely this issue of lack of language. And those, those scholars who say that Bikkurim was something that people who didn’t speak Hebrew and Aramaic was their language, still new because it was so popular. That’s one message and what you said a second ago, which is to walk into a synagogue, where most of the services for the rest of the day are going to be in Hebrew, and you see something you hear something that’s in Aramaic is welcoming the codices in Aramaic. So the language is an important part. So I said in the beginning, that this was going to be a history of the censorship, and the reinterpretation of a prayer. So when I read the verses in in Deuteronomy itself, and I said, אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י. The translation was my father was a fugitive, Aramean. Oved is typically translated as someone who is lost and we’ll get a little bit into it for a second. In the Haggadah, however, it introduces before we get into this first fruits declaration, it says as follows and those of you who have been at a Seder will remember וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ, and this is what stood for our ancestors for us, since it is not only one person that has stood against us to destroy us, but rather each generation they stand against us to destroy us. But the וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם, God rescues us. So that’s the introduction to this prayer of the farmer. And then lo and behold, it changes the meaning. And in the Haggadah, it says, An Aramean was destroying my father Avood. I guess, when Esther was about to go in front of Achashveros when she wasn’t beckoned. She says וְכַאֲשֶׁ֥ר אָבַ֖דְתִּי אָבָֽדְתִּי (Esther 4: 16), Avood definitely can also mean, not lost, but lost in the sense of my life is in danger. And the rabbis in a sense, re interpreted this, this whole Parshat Bikkurim, this whole declaration of the first fruits in a different way. Do you agree? Before I asked that question Rashi in his interpretation on the Chumash actually goes out of his way to bring the Haggadah’s as interpretation, but if you look at the source sheet, most of the classical commentary say it’s clear that what he was talking about is we were wandering, landless people. And here I am a farmer living in my land, bringing my crop. So how do you account for this change of interpretation?
Adam Mintz 25:20
I mean, that that’s easy, because the change the interpretation, because the new interpretation works out better within the Haggadah,
Geoffrey Stern 25:30
Especially after that introduction, Right, meaning the simple explanation, which is that we were wandering and now we’re in the land of Israel, and now we have our own fruits etc. and all that kind of stuff. That makes a lot of sense, given the context of the Chumash, but that’s not relevant to the Seder. The Seder wants the big picture, which is that Laban tried to destroy us אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, the word Avad, means from the word … tried to make us disappear, and therefore tried to get rid of I think, and we’ll see this comes up in another aspect of what the rabbi’s did. That there was a an evolution in the Haggadah itself. There is the Haggadah that was written and used in the land of Israel. And then when the Jews were exiled, it almost became a Haggadah of the exile. And so, the commentary that I have in the source sheet, it’s a by Joseph Tabori, he says as follows. He says while the temple existed, they understood the whole passage as truly representing their radical change in status. Remember, you’re in the land of Israel, you’re talking about the Exodus from Egypt, you actually parallel that farmer in a very profound way. The people had started out as fugitives, wandering nomads, and now they stood in their permanent home. But he says, After the destruction of the temple, there was no longer any parallelism between the lowly beginnings as nomads and their present status as people saved from persecution. And therefore, they talk about oppression rather than landlessness. So what he is saying and you can either buy it or not, is that the prayer itself evolved based on the needs of the time, and that when the mission of might have said say these verses of the first fruits, it might have been talking to people that their patriarchs, their ancestors had been in Egypt. Now they were in the land. They were spot on, like that farmer and the Seder was a question of being thankful just like the farmer, but when they were exiled, that message almost missed its mark, and therefore the rabbi’s put this introduction about how in every generation, they come to kill us, and it changed the interpretation of the verse. What do you think of Tabor’s theory?
Adam Mintz 26:12
That I love the idea that the that the interpretation of the verse evolves, and being grateful for it to having our own first fruit may not make sense if we don’t have our own land. I liked that a lot. That’s a really good explanation. Thank you.
Geoffrey Stern 28:37
So that explanation explained something else that I mentioned when I read the verses from our parsah, which is that in the Haggadah, it quotes are from our verses, but it doesn’t follow the advice of the Mishnah. It doesn’t read it till the end. It stops at verse 8. Verse 8 says, God freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand you will remember, that’s where the Haggadah says, What’s a mighty hand by an outstretched arm by awesome Power by signs and portents? There’s at least two pages in the Haggadah that talks about each one of these words, but get to verse 9, it says bringing us to this place. וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה no interpretation, giving us this land, no interpretation a land flowing with milk and honey, no interpretation, all the way till the end. And I’ve spoken about this before the last verse, it says, And you shall enjoy together with the Levite the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that God gave you. So, in the introduction, I talked about censorship, in a sense and Tabori goes on to say this for people that were once more in exile. You It would be almost too much to pretend that they weren’t, it would be almost too much to talk about coming into the land, a land of milk and honey, and therefore the Haggadah decided not to quote those verses, and not to provide this singsong commentary about it. And if we step back and we look at prayers, that means that the prayers do evolve based on our condition where we are. But it’s also an open question. And I would say an invitation, is it not?
Adam Mintz 30:36
I think that that’s 100%. right. I mean, I really liked to Tabori’s explanation, I think he got it right. It also is good for us. Because what it does is it links the Torah portion to the Haggadah. Usually, the Haggadah just borrows these verses, but they’re not really relevant. And what he does is he really connects one to the other. So, I like that also.
Geoffrey Stern 31:01
So at the end of my source sheet, I quote just one, one section from a whole Google Doc, which comes out of Israel from young scholars in Israel. But literally, there is a revival in the Haggadah today, where they continue and they say וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ who brought us in, and they say then is now as it is said, How I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to me in the same kind of tradition, this singsong thing they quote another verse, and אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה this place refers to the temple, and it comes from Rabbi David Mishlove, supplement for Seders in Israel. So here we have an example of a prayer that starts in the Five Books of Moses in Deuteronomy, that was changed, maybe censored out of sensitivity to people living in exile, and is today being rewritten, and re-positioned for a new generation of Jews who are in the land. And I just find that to be so. So fascinating.
Adam Mintz 32:14
I think that’s great. I think this was really the sources I give you credit, Geoffrey, because the sources tonight were really, really good.
Geoffrey Stern 32:20
Well, and I think it’s an invitation to all of us as we, as we begin this prayer season, as I call it. There are different ways to approach the prayers. You know, many of us just focus on what does this prayer mean. But I think tonight, we’ve really seen that there were so many other reflective and reflections that can have meaning to us beyond just the simple meaning of the words, and we’re gonna be in synagogue for so many hours. We need all the tools we can get.
Adam Mintz 32:50
Fantastic. And we still got one more next week. So well, Shabbat Shalom, everybody, and we’ll see you next Thursday. Looking forward. Be Well, everybody.
Geoffrey Stern 32:57
Shabbat shalom. Thank you, as always, Rabbi. And for any of you who have a comment. Oh, Miriam, I’m going to invite you on
Miriam Gonczarska 33:08
I posted something a little comment that we have another prayer in our siddurs from the Torah. Not from Deuteronomy but from Numbers and its יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהֹוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ (Numbers 6: 24)
Geoffrey Stern 33:32
Of course, the Priestly Blessing, the Cohen’s benediction. That’s, that’s perfect. We did miss that.
Miriam Gonczarska 33:39
Yeah, and I wanted to add that because I think it’s fascinating, although it’s not from sefer Devarim. But the beautiful part is it’s about Cohanim. It’s about temple, temple rituals. And we say it every day, every morning, but this is a beautiful, beautiful player.
Geoffrey Stern 34:07
Thank you for that. It is fascinating how few of our prayers come from the Torah itself, the rabbi kind of mentioned that. But those that do obviously have great power. And again, you look at Bikkurim It’s a prayer of a farmer being thankful with a historical memory. You look at the priestly blessing that you just mentioned, you know, it doesn’t talk about ritual, it talks about that God should bless you and keep you and shine his light upon you and give you peace. I mean, they’re just powerful.
34:42
Yes. And what is very interesting that apparently, archeologists in Israel found this prayer on a very early materials and there is this concept of biblical criticism, which we might like or not like, but they say that this is one of the oldest texts in the five books of Moses. It’s beautiful words, and that the entire idea that Hashem should bless you and keep you and turn his face and shine upon you and be graceful into you. I mean, there’s different translations, and there’s so much in this play of words, because it’s the וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ, you can translate it as chinuch (education), and Hanukkah, and there’s just so much written here plays so much, so much in this prayer. And again, it’s not from first book of Moses, it’s that from the fourth one. But the observation that you write I really liked that is that most of our prayers are from the sefer Devarim. That’s a fascinating observation and, and there is something very deep about it. Even if I found to be prayer here, taken from Bamidbar (Numbers)
Geoffrey Stern 36:05
So Miriam, if I remember you are a graduate, you got smicha Maharat, is that correct?
Miriam Gonczarska 36:10
Yes. And Rabbi Mintz is my teacher. I took all his classes.
Geoffrey Stern 36:15
And you serve the Polish community, if I remember correctly. So, what do you do during the High Holidays? Are you conducting services?
Miriam Gonczarska 36:26
No, it’s kind of public knowledge. So I can tell you I’m struggling right now with cancer. So I am in New York, but I am not able to be insured in a long you know, for long periods of time. So, I’m undergoing chemo right now. So, I’m laying low on the days themselves, but I teach online before I’m preparing my class, and I actually I want to teach this material to my students. So, I was so excited I need the source Sheet. I want to teach them in Polish. I’m going to translate parts of what you taught and teach it in Polish
Geoffrey Stern 37:07
Amazing! I wish you a life and vibrance and Refuah Shelema and all those good things that were included in Miriam’s Refa Na La
Miriam Gonczarska 37:23
So actually, definitely means knows about my illness, and it was extremely moving when he actually said it knowing that I’m in the audience and my name is Miriam. And I love this moment and it’s like, it’s my teacher, but it’s like this this you know, I was warm and fuzzy.
Geoffrey Stern 37:41
As you should have been.
Miriam Gonczarska 37:43
Yeah. It might be just accidental, but I love that type of accidents.
Geoffrey Stern 37:47
Yeah, there are no accidents. Right? Anyway, Shana Tova, Shabbat shalom. Thank you all for joining us. Thanks Miriam for coming on.
Miriam Gonczarska 37:56
And it was fantastic. Fantastic to talk to you and thank you for all the Torah that you’re sharing with Rabbi Mintz this is this a beautiful class and I’m so happy that there such a zchut for clubhouse to have such a high level Torah on this platform.
Geoffrey Stern 38:14
Thank you so much. Shabbat Shalom Thank you. Bye bye.
Miriam Gonczarska 38:17
Bye bye.
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