Filed under: Thoughts of the Week
This first weekend of Summer 2007, we read several tantalizing stories on the voyage from Egypt to the promised land in a portion known at Hukkat – statue (Number XIX-XXII, 1). The third that we will read in our synagogue in Willimantic starts with the death of Aaron, the high priest and brother of Moses. Earlier in the portion, Miriam, the prophetess and their sister, died and there was no more water for the tribes to drink. The Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to speak to a rock to quench the thirst of the rebels. Instead Moses hit the rock in anger and without praising the Lord. His punishment, and Aaron’s, would be that they would not be allowed to enter the promised land. Soon after, Aaron “was gathered unto his people.” Moses and Aaron’s son, Eleazar, took Aaron up mount Hor, stripped him of his garments and had Eleazar dress as the high priest, and “Aaron died on the top of the mount.”
This week approved magic, mystical symbols and connections are discussed; among them – the passing of the high priest garments, the connection of the death of Miriam to the lack of water at Kadesh, the portion’s earlier discussion of the red heifer and its distillation into ashes as powder that would take away impurities, and Moses’ creation of a brass serpent to ward off illness from snake bites. If the mystical is not done as required, if one does not follow the procedures, then the results may be dangerous. Symbolism may be more important than results.
The portion we will read relates the initial conquests of place on the east side of the Jordan River, on the high plateau and steppes of the Moab region east of the Dead Sea. The people of Edom, the Redlands, would not allow the Israelites to travel across their borders. Pushed away, “Israel vowed a vow” to the Lord to “utterly destroy” the cities of other Canaanites if they were not able to pass through their regions. The portion includes songs of place and conquest from a “book of the Wars of the Lord.” The conquest of land by these former slaves is disturbing from the comforts of someone who lives away from war. We yet live in a world where military might is not used for problem-solving. Were the deaths worth the price of the conquest of place? Might symbolism, songs, and poetry had be used to change the relationships between the peoples?
The extra reading, the haftorah, introduces Jephthah the Gileadite, one of the “judges” or tribal leaders, between the early days of conquest of Canaan and the rise of kings in Israel. Jephthah was shun by his family for he was the son of another woman, not the son of the lawful wife. He joined with other outcasts in the land of Tov (Good). When the Ammonites made war on Israel, his brothers came to recruit him as their leader against the enemy. He agreed as long as he would be their head after the successful battle. In his negotiations with the Ammonites before the battle, Jephthah send a history lesson on the capture of land by the Israelites described in the Torah portion and asked why Ammon wanted to recover land in which Israel had dwelt for over 300 years. This reminds one of the land claims that still go on by warring borders, not only in the MidEast. Might there be another way to solve disputes that rest on history?
The reading ends with Jephthah vowing to the Lord that if they are victorious in battle, he would offer up as a burnt-offering whatsoever comes forth from the doors of his house to meet him when he returns. We learn that they are victorious but the reading ends without the rest of the story; that the first thing from Jephthah’s door was his daughter. This sacrifice of his daughter is puzzling for us; we wonder why he made such a vow, whether it parallels stories in Homer about pleasing the gods with human sacrifices. It seems out of place. Yet, it might be here to remind that war does require the sacrifice of the young and to raise the question about whether it is worth the losses.
Rav Jeremy will also be leading a discussion of the poetry of Dan Pagis this morning. Professor Pagis of Hebrew University was a Holocaust survivor who came to Palestine in 1946, after an early adolescence in the camps. We will be reading his Bestiary poems, poems of animals, balloons, and bipeds and their struggles with age and life.
The week for me was one of planning – advising probationary students on the courses they might take in the fall, planning for our summer institute for future teachers, for the Fulbright exchange with a professor at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. We decided on the date when our daughter will become a bat mitzvah – on next year’s summer solstices. I learned again that there is magic in life, but it does follow rules that we might not understand. I continue to marvel at the orderly passage of time – that the young grow, the old, if fortunate, fade slowly away within the love of their families. I wondered whether place – land or position in a family – are things worth the shedding of blood. And I studied that even from the depths of despair, flowers, poems, and songs may arise.
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