Madlik Podcast – Disruptive Torah Thoughts on Judaism (Geoffrey Stern)

Parshat Vetchanan (Deuteronomy 6) Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Roy encounter the iconic call to Faith of the Shema Yisrael to explore the complexity of faith and especially the contribution of the Musar Movement

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/337360

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

And today, we are going to discuss the one sentence that pretty much I think every Jew knows about has heard is our calling card and it is this Shema Yisrael that's found in in Deuteronomy 6: 4. And I'm sure we could just spend the whole afternoon just talking about what Shema means to you and means to me, and we definitely you're going to do that. But we're also going to use it as an excuse to look into my background in terms of the Yeshiva, I studied in a Musar Yeshiva. And there were certain insights that I got into the moment of Shema that I want to share. But let's start by saying Roy, what does? The Lord is our God, the Lord is one Shema Yisrael. Why is it so iconic? And what what does it mean to you when you say it twice a day.

Roy Feldman 

I mean, the simple meaning is that it's accepting the yoke of heaven. It's a declaration that is kind of unambiguous, that we accept God as the sole creator and sole ruler of the universe, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad. It's very unambiguous. It doesn't waver at all. Even if we have, you know, some thoughts about theology or different feelings about God or, you know, wrestling with God in some ways, at different times, twice a day, we kind of just set those aside and say Shema Yisrael twice a day where we don't waver and don't have any compunctions about saying that. And that's an important way to bookend the day. It really, opens the day, and it closes the day. We say Shema in the morning and at night, before we go to bed. And so I think that's  the real statement of the Shema that whatever happens in the middle of the day, and whatever thoughts we might have, we bookend the day with this declaration that we accept God,

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that's absolutely correct. This sense of accepting the"Ol Malchut Shemayim", the kingship of God. And I love the fact that you say that it's kind of a moment of intense focus and acceptance. And that serves as a wonderful segway to the story that really impacted me and will serve as the crux of this conversation. So I went to a Musar Yeshiva... the Musar movement was started, I believe in about the 1700s, 1800s, about the same time as the Enlightenment, and possibly as a response to the Enlightenment in Eastern Europe by a rabbi called Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. And I was fortunate to go to a Yeshiva, that was headed by Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, who studied under the alter from Mir, Rav Yerucham Leibovitz. And he told this story as follows. He said, once a student was saying the Shema and Robbi Yerucham came up to him. And he said to him, so did you say the Shema with Kavanah, with intention? And the student replied, Well, of course, Rebbe..  totally. And he said, so. Let me get this straight. When you said this Shema, you accepted this yoke of heaven, on your feet, and everywhere that you're going to go the rest of the day and the rest of your life and on your tongue, in terms of everything that you're going to speak, your hands and all of your actions, your mind and all of your thoughts, your heart and your emotions. And let me ask you something, did you feel like rebelling? And the students stopped and he paused? And he says, Rebbe, Hash Veshalom! God forbid, I never felt like rebelling. And Reb Yerucham turn to him and said, my boy, you've never said the Shema in your life. I found that story is so powerful. And I guess representative of what the Musar movement is, because it took something that should have such a purity of intention. And as you were saying this kind of focus [and unambiguity]. It even includes in it the word "One" "Echad" what word could we pick that represented harmony any more than the word "One"? And here this Reb Yeruchum introduced that if you didn't have the unharmonious feeling of rebellion. If you didn't feel a twitch of unacceptance then you probably haven't said Shema with intention at any time in your life. Roy before I give you a little bit more of my further reflection on that story, what what does that story say to you?

Roy Feldman 

It's an amazing story that actually brings to mind a similar or a parallel ... that if you don't wrestle with God.... What the story is really saying is that if you don't wrestle with God, that you don't really believe in God, you don't really have the real feeling of Shema. Eliezer Berkovitz, who was a Jewish philosopher who passed away a couple decades ago, in Chicago, has a book called Faith after the Holocaust where he kind of tries to account for having faith, in light of the terrible evil that was the Holocaust. And in the introduction to that book, Berkovitz writes that if you did not have questions of faith, if when you were faced with the death camps, and with the murderous Nazis, you didn't say, "Where is God now?" Then you yourself, don't really believe in God? Because how could you not have a problem with God, if we believe in that great God, that's all good and all knowing, and all powerful and just wants good for us? If that's the God that we believe in, then when faced with such evil, if you really believe in God, then you have to question God at that moment. And that's very similar to the story that you were just telling, with, with the questions of saying the Shema, but wrestling with Shema, rebelling against God. Each one of us faces, difficulties in life, whatever our difficulties may be, and some are greater than others. But at any point in our lives, we are faced with situations in which we really have to ask "Where is God for us now?" And why is God doing this? or What does God intend by doing that? And I think that's really the crux of that story about the Shema.

Geoffrey Stern 

I couldn't agree more. You know, even if we just focus on the the wording, what started as a simple expression of faith, when when Rashi looks at it, he says, Well, no, actually, there's a progression here. Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, and the intention there is maybe the God of the Jewish people, one day will be the one God meaning will be accepted by the whole world. And so even in that there's maybe less of a sense of conflict. But there is a sense of resolution. And that faith is not something that static, that's faith is something that has to grow. And I think you and I would both agree that probably the the biggest catalyst for growth in faith is turmoil, is the sweat, the work of building one's faith,  whether on a national universal level, or more importantly, on on a personal level. So even baked into the phrase, he's not all together, he or she is not one yet. We have to work at it.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, I think that's absolutely. That's absolutely right.

Geoffrey Stern 

The other thing that's kind of interesting, and of course, clubhouse, and a podcast is an audible network. But if you have the Torah sitting in front of you, you'll see that the word Shema, the Ayin the last letter of the word Shema is a very large, and the Dalit at the end of Echad is also very large and the rabbi's explained that the reason for this is if you change the letter of Shema to an Aleph it means Shemma...  "maybe". And if you change the letter, Dalet at the end of the Echad, which means "one" to a Resh, which looks very similar, it means "acher" it means "others" and of course it makes you think of "Elohim Acherim" other gods. So it's almost as though the Masoretic text and the tradition that we come from is looking at this very simple positive formulation of faith and baking into it all the possibilities for hearing wrong,  misunderstanding it. If you listen to a traditional Jew say the Shema at the end they go "Echaaaaaaa D" and again, that tradition comes from stressing the fact that it's a Dalet and not a Resh. It's it's kind of fascinating, isn't it?

Roy Feldman 

It is fascinating and not only do we do stress that Dalet at the end to make sure it's a Dalet and not a Resh, but many traditional Jews are also more careful about pronouncing all of the words of the Shema correctly, even more so than they are about the rest of the service for that same reason to make sure that we're saying everything exactly right and as intended. So there'll be no questions about what we're saying with the Shema. I think another interesting thing about the Shema is that we call it the most famous prayer in Judaism, but in reality, it's not a prayer. We've been saying it's a declaration, and it's really a declaration that precedes the prayer. The rabbi's in the Tractate Berachot in the Babylonian Talmud, note that one is always supposed to proceed the Shemona Esrai with the blessing of Go-al Yisrael, which is really the final blessing after the Shema itself. I think that one of the meanings of that is that in order to pray in order to stand before God, and make requests for good health, and for a livelihood, and for sustenance, and for for peace, and for all of these things, before that, we have to make a declaration that we accept God. So it's interesting that many people think of it as a prayer, but it's really not a prayer. It's a declaration of sorts.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Although, it could be aspirational, especially if you take it from the perspective of what Rashi said, and the fact that It reflects a hope and a desire, as opposed to a reflection of the current state. But I want to discuss a little bit further this really talent that the rabbi's, but I would say the Jewish people have for seeing in a statement both itself and its opposite. And I think that's what Rab Yeruchem was saying in terms of "and you never rebelled". You know, the flip side of faith, real faith is this radical sense of rebellion. And if you don't have one, you don't have the other. And it's the summertime and I'm thinking back to when I was a camper at Camp Tovah Vodaas. And that was not a Musar Yeshiva, it was a more of a Hasidic Yeshiva. And the spiritual head of that Rav Moshe Wolfson, we used to take us students out into nature. And as many of us are this weekend in nature, and he quoted a paragraph in Pirkei Avot;  the Ethics of the Fathers. And it says "if one is studying while walking on the road, and interrupts his study and says, how fine is this tree? Or how fine is that newly plowed field, the Bible accounts to him as if he was mortally guilty".  "ke-iIlu Mitchayev beNafsho" as if he had done the worst sin. And sitting there in nature, the rabbi said to us, how could that possibly be? And he said, so here's the correct interpretation. He says, if you are studying Torah, and you look at nature, and you think that that's an interruption, you are guilty and your soul is guilty. It's not that it is an interruption that you interrupt your study, but that you think that it's an interruption that you don't understand that the beauty of God can be found in the Torah in the revealed law, but it can also be found in nature. And I thought that it contained in that little story, too, is a wonderful lesson to us. But the bigger thing is how you can take a phrase and turn it on its head, how you can find an insight that goes 360 degrees in the opposite direction. And this is really Jewess approach of Yeah, you're right and you're also right... Elu V'Elu Devrai Elohim Hayim.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, that remark reminds me of the expression, "don't let school get in the way of your education". that's similar to the the Rabbinic passage that you just quoted. That is don't  let the law and wonder of nature, which is really God's creation, be an interruption to your learning. It really is part and parcel of your learning. Just as there are many elements in education that aren't formally part of school, but they really are an integral part of one's education. And we see that in so many different areas of where something seem like they might be a distraction. And some things really are a distraction, let's not pretend like there's no distractions, but don't let things that seem like a distraction but can really be valuable sources of spiritual growth or intellectual growth get in the way of what we perceive to be the formal learning.

Geoffrey Stern 

Absolutely. So so I want to go back to the Musar movement and use my experience there and to share with with you what my insight is into the Musar movement. Most people translate the Musar movement as an ethical movement in Judaism, a focus on ethics. And I think that there's a very, very small part of that, which is true because all of Judaism focuses on ethics and being a good person. I think what sets the Musar movement apart is that one constantly is working and working, and sweating the details of even the most obvious thing like God is one. Like, we need to be observant and learn from all things, whether nature or not. There's a verse in the Torah that says that "im Bechukotai Telechu"  that you should walk in my laws and the Sifra, the commentary explains that walking in God's laws means "amaylim B'Torah" it means struggling with the Torah. So if I had to represent the Mussar movement, it really looks at all of Judaism and says you have to struggle with everything. You can't take any obligation [at face value].  You know, when I was at that Yeshiva after a year you were invited into a Va'ad that might meet at midnight, twice a week. And you might take the simplest concept, you might take the concept of being thankful of being hopeful, the concept of belief, and we would literally spend six months focused on it. The Masgiach , Rabbi Wolbe would give us actual [thought] experiments that we had to do in terms of understanding what it means to be thankful and not being thankful and when that thankfulness is self serving, and I think that really, what I would love to share with you all today is this sense of, if you've never questioned what thankfulness is, then you've never been thankful if you've never understood what pain is and hardship is from both sides. I think that's what the Musar movement really... is the magic of it, that it gave to me. And that I have found the most intriguing part of my love affair with Judaism is that nothing can be only be taken at face value. And there's always this struggle in a good way. We can't forget that the word "Yisrael" is the name that Jacob got after struggling with the angel. Matt. Welcome to the platform. What what's on your mind today?

Mathew Landau 

Hi, everyone. great conversation. Thank you. Well, I'm just back from Italy. And I was in too many churches. And it's sort of when I was davening on Tuesday, I was looking at the liturgy again, and I had a question I want to be a Musar for a second and sweat a detail .... when you talked about the Shema (I may be misquoting you, but you suggested something like the whole world will come to no one God). So in the Aleynu prayer, that paragraph that begins Al Keyn Nikaveh l'cha". "Therefore, we put our hope in you" and it goes on to say that very soon that you'll remove all detestable idolatry from the earth and false gods will be utterly cut off. I was curious from a maybe a Talmudic perspective or what Roy thinks about that interpretation. I spoke to one religious friend of mine that he knew of one Talmudic track. That that meant that that's when the Messiah will come and I won't name names, but I think there's some people we know that may wish to put the whole messianic concept of Judaism to the side. And so therefore, does it mean when we're davening this part of Aleynu that we're thinking that everyone's going to come around to either being Jewish or just being their own thing? But having no idolatry? I'm curious. Thank you.

Roy Feldman 

Yeah, I think that's that's a great question. That's the famous part of the liturgy, so often sung at the end of Alynu, and the people who come to synagogue know that part of the liturgy, I think the key to understanding that line is understanding the word "Shem". Beyom ah'hu yiyeh Hashem Echad u'shemo echad"  , God will be one, and his name will be one. And what's "Shem" usually means in the Bible is  translated a reputation. For example, the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, he was the master of a good name, that means he was a master of a good reputation, he had developed a good reputation for himself as being a spiritual counselor, so to speak. And that's if you look throughout the Bible and see what that when the word shem or name is used, name means reputation, how you're known, and we use that in English, too. He has a good name in the community means reputation. So I think when we save that line of the Aleynu prayer, what it means is, on that day, God will be one, which he already is, God is already one, and his reputation will be one, meaning everybody in the world will understand that God is one. It doesn't mean everybody's gonna be Jewish, it doesn't mean. I don't know what the Messianic undertones of it are. I can't you know, messianic era could be a very generic phrase, that means sometime in the future, when the world is at peace, and there are simply no problems in the world. That's the era towards which we hope the world is going. And so that's the simplest interpretation of "on that day God will be one and his name will be one". Not only will he be one, which is, you know, the metaphysics of it. He already is one. But his reputation will also be one ... there won't be a time when everybody kind of acknowledges that.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that it is clear that if you look at Rashi's comment, he's probably talking along the lines that both you, Roy and Matt are talking in terms of Messianism. But I think it's so obvious there is so many religions and practices of spirituality that are looking for the ultimate harmony, the ultimate one, you know, the Buddhist comes to the hotdog stand and they asked, What do you want on it? And he goes, I want one with everything. So that we all want ultimately, to find a world that lacks dissonance, that truth is obvious. And I think that's a way that you can harmonize what Rashi is talking about, which is the struggle for oneness, is a struggle. And it's a continuum over time, but it's an aspiration for harmony, and whether that harmony is personal, whether it's national, whether it's universal, I think it's how you take it and how it works for you. Elise welcome to the bima

Elise Meyer 

Hi, Shabbat Shalom, everybody. I love that you were talking about harmony because the point that I wanted to make is that I recently was called upon to write a haiku in honor of a friend for one of these horrible zoom birthdays. And in doing a little bit of research about Haiku, which is the Japanese poetry form where five syllables are followed by seven syllables and then five syllables. These are poems that are used to connect a person to nature and to the universe. Most of them are related to the seasons or some sort of natural phenomenon and it occurred to me that "Shema Yisrael Adnoey Elohenu Adonai echad"  is a perfect Haiku...  She ma Yis ra el, Ado noy el o hey nu, ado noy ech ad" .

Geoffrey Stern 

Wow, we heard it first here on Madlik. That's That's beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing that Elise.

Elise Meyer 

Well thank you for everything that you do to bring us to a higher level.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I would like to finish up..  we were we talked Matt about you were going into churches and we talked a little bit about haikus and Buddhism. When I think of how I would characterize the Musar movement, this struggling with Torah, I actually think of a Lutheran theologian, a German theologian, who actually was very much against Hitler, and he was, he was killed, sent to a concentration camp and then ultimately hanged for being part of the plotters to kill Hitler. And he came up with an amazing phrase and the phrase is "Cheap Grace", cheap or costly grace and he like thinkers similar to like the Kotzke Rebbe or Kierkegaard spent his whole life arguing against religion without the fiz, platitudes. Just blind faith mumbled over and over again. And I believe that this this Cheap Grace, Cheap Belief, nothing comes easy and the beauty in the struggle and the joy that I think is reflected in the Shema. And Shema has a very rich history of being with the Jewish people and individual Jews at heights of joy and at depths of sorrow. But what it is, is that it's not cheap, is that it represents inside of it in one little phrase, as you say Elise, a Haiku, but also an aspiration, this struggle between the notion of one God and many gods of dualities and harmonies. And I really do believe that the story that we started with about if you can say it and accept everything in it and not rebel, then you've never said it is so true. So I thank you why for joining us, Matt, Elise for coming up to the bima I wish us all an amazing Shabbat. This is Shabbat Nachamu, which again is the flip side of mourning of Tisha B'Av. And now comes the the joy. If you plant in tears, you reap in joy type of thing. So let's all be joyous. Let's all have Shabbat and make sure that for many generations Shema Yisrael Adonoi Elohenu adonai Echad.

Roy Feldman 

Amen. Thank you so much for inviting me, Geoffrey, this was a wonderful conversation. Thank Mathew and Elise for joining us.

Geoffrey Stern 

Thanks so much.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse Friday July 30th as we wonder whether the practice of Judaism outside of the land of Israel just that…. practice? We explore a Rabbinic opinion that the land of Israel is so central to the religion of Israel that the religion can only be observed in the Land. In so doing we question whether the practice of Judaism in and outside of Israel is different in kind rather than degree and what this says about the nature and relationship between the two communities?

Sefaria Source Sheet Here: www.sefaria.org/sheets/338763

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

Welcome to Madlik disruptive weekly Torah. So it turns out that today is kind of a third in a series and it wasn't an intentional series. But the truth is, if you recall, about two weeks ago, we talked about Tisha B'Av and we talked about how in the second paragraph of the Shema, it does something unique, where it says to the Jews, if you don't fulfill the commandments, I'll cast you out of the land. And we talked about the implications of that. And then last week, we talked about the Shema itself, that iconic call to faith, and what its implications are. So this week, that second paragraph in the Shema that we read, or traditional Jews read twice a day, is actually part of the weekly portion. And it it starts by saying, as we've quoted in the past, "and if you don't keep these commandments, the Lord's anger will flare up against you." This is Deuteronomy 11: 13 - 21, "there'll be no rain, the ground will not yield the produce, and you will perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you." And that's kind of where we stopped. But then it does something kind of remarkable. And it says, and I'm using the translation here, the standard [JPS] translation, "therefore impress these words upon your very heart, bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead." And most of you who have seen traditional Jews and seeing what is called the phylacteries, or Tefilin, knows that this is not allegorical, this is actually traditional Jews. And they have samples of these going back to the caves of the zealots of bar kochba, actually, would attach and strap these phylacteries; boxes containing these particular verses onto their arms, and as frontlets between your eyes. But what is interesting is that especially in the English translation, I don't see it so much in the Hebrew, but it connects it "therefore" impress these words. There's a connection between being kicked off of the land and putting these Tefilin these phylacteries on your arms and on your forehead, the third eye maybe. And Rashi picks up on this, and he does see the connection and that's why maybe the translation is true to this. He says that even after you have been banished, make yourself distinctive. The word in Hebrew is "hayu Metzuyanim b'mitzvot" , that the mitzvot the commandment should distinguish you by means of putting on the Tefilin and putting the mezuzah on your door posts, so that these shall not be novelties to you when you return. And then he quotes a verse from Jeremiah, which says, set thee up distinguishing marks, which in Hebrew is "hatzivi lecha tziunim'. So what is actually remarkable, at least to me, and we'll see if Rabbi Adam you are in agreement to me, is, although the commandment of Tefilin had already been commanded, in the Bible, what Rashi is doing either to justify the repetition of the commandment, or to just explain the context of putting it right after the threat of being exiled, he makes a connection and says something that, to me is dramatic. That actually, the command is only if you live in Israel. But if you are outside of Israel, you nonetheless should do what we consider to be basic Jewish traditions of putting on the tefillin so that you won't forget them when you come back, so that you should distinguish yourself. It almost makes the most basic practice of Judaism into literally a practice, practice until you return to the land. Am I reading it correctly? Rabbi Adam.

Adam Mintz 

So I want to say that the verse, the Rashi that you picked up is such an important Rashi because the impression that Rashi gives is that the ultimate purpose of performing mitzvot, of doing the commandments is only in the land of Israel. And then everything outside the Land of Israel is just practice. Now, that's almost a scary idea. Because that really means the Judaism is only Judaism in the Land and everything that you do outside the land is only practice. But that's what Rashi seems to say. And he says that the Tefilin specifically, are something that we do outside the land, to remind us of the commandments, so that when we return to the land, we'll be ready to continue performing the commands. The question to me really is does Rashi really mean that? Rashi, who lived his whole life in France, who never made it to the land of Israel.. Do you think he believed that Judaism is only practiced in the land of Israel, that it's only practice outside the land?

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, this is such a radical idea that I just want to just give Rashi's source, so we're very clear about it, he quotes the Sifrei. And in this source sheet, the Sifrei is quoted completely. And it even gives an analogy. It says a king was angry with his wife, and she returned to her father's house, the king said, continue wearing your jewels so that when you return, they will not be new to you. And so, again, I don't think that you can read it any other way. I would say, and I think you'll agree with me, Adam, that, we're looking at an opinion here, the the Sifrei, even Rashi, who's quoting the opinion, this is a thread, this is a way of looking at Judaism, clearly not mainstream. But I'd like for the rest of the day to explore it, because it is so radical. So you ask whether given this, is it possible that Rashi thought he was just playing house, so to speak his whole life? That he never really put on Tefilin, but he was only practicing putting on Tefilin? So I think that in itself raises a question. You know, I love the expression in yoga, where it's a practice, I love the use of the word practice, when somebody is a practicing physician, for instance, you know, maybe what we're doing is we're detracting by asking that question, of the value of practice. And maybe the idea is, and this is what might be radical, that at least outside of Israel, you are constantly trying to get to a further point, if that's what practice is, and maybe that's not so bad. How does that strike you?

Adam Mintz 

That is interesting. The idea of practice? Well, let's take it back a step. Your first point, which I think you made at the beginning a couple of minutes ago, which was really good was that actually, the Tefilin follows the fact that were thrown out of the land. So in a sense the Tefilin is a punishment, means you're thrown out of the land. So you have to wear your Tefilin, since you can't really fulfill the commandments properly, at least wear your Tefilin which are practice. Now, if you take it that way, practice is really an important piece of it. But practice is a sad piece, because that's what we have to do, because we're being punished by being thrown out of the land.

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, but can one really take it as a punishment in the sense that I think the assumption is that wearing the Tefilin and keeping the commandments in Israel is something that is completely authentic and sui generis, you do it for its own sake, it has its benefits, and it's only outside of the land of Israel, that it becomes something that is a practice. So I'm not sure I can see it as a punishment. Unless, when you really get a little contrived in saying, well, you have to do it, even though it's really not the real McCoy. But you got to do it anyway, either as a punishment or something to keep you distinctive. I mean, I think what I'd like to take from your question is, let's look at the flip side. What does therefore wearing Tefilin in Israel mean? And again, if part of the wearing of Tefilin is to make you distinctive, and anyone who's ever seen anybody wearing Tefilin, it is very distinctive. If you ever are about to knock on the door, the first thing I always do is look to see if it's a Mezuza to see if it's a member of the tribe, so to speak. So these are two commandments that distinguish the Jew very much in exile. So maybe the flip side of that is, well, then what do you even need them for in the land of Israel? That to me is is, is an interesting question as well.

Adam Mintz 

Good. That is an interesting question. Let's take both points that you make. The first point you made is that both mezuzah and Tefilin are visible, highly visible, meaning the mezuzahs on the doorpost, you can identify a house as being a Jewish house. And Tefilin is on the person. We all know that to see a Jew wearing Tefilin, it's distinctive. Wow. Like, that's exactly the right word, Geoffrey. It's distinctive, it makes them special, it makes something different. And I think that's an important idea. Now, according to the way Rashi is presenting it, Tefilin plays a much more minor role in Israel than it does in the diaspora. Because the whole idea of remaining distinctive is not important in Israel, because by definition, we're distinctive in Israel. So that I wonder about that, I wonder what Rashi would say about that. So I don't think we're necessarily going to solve this problem. But I think the crux of the question is a whole other layer? And that is, is Judaism, in Israel and outside of Israel, one and the same thing? Or is there a total distinction between observing these commandments when one is outside of Israel and one is in? Now we all should know that there are commandments that are called "Teluyot B'Aretz", that are dependent on the land. So it's clear that if there is a rule of letting the land life fallow every seven years, the sabbatical law, that only applies in the land of Israel. And this is a very mainstream idea that that commandment is not applicable outside of the land. What this particular train of thought is saying is that really, every commandment when practiced in Israel, is different in kind, not in degree when practiced in Israel, and practiced outside. And I think the fact that we're struggling with how Tefilin is meaningful in Israel and how it is meaningful outside of Israel, maybe tells us that we're not even showing a bias. That Tefilin might mean one thing, Shabbat might mean one thing in Israel, and it might mean something outside of Israel. But clearly, this particular midrash commentary is raising a very important question. Even that is very timely, in a time where the communities living in Israel and outside of Israel, see things so differently. So now you're raised another point. And that is what is the difference between Judaism in Israel and Judaism in the diaspora, Jewish observance in Israel and Jewish observance in the diaspora? You know, there is a theory, Geoffrey, that's become very popular, which is that the observance of commandments is much less important in Israel than it is in the diaspora. Because in Israel everybody's Jewish. So therefore, you don't need  to observe the commandments. It's only the diaspora that you have to observe the commandments. What do you think about that?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, again, it's it's part and parcel of this whole impression that we have. For instance, there are many secular Jews that go to Israel for the first time, and they leave kind of disappointed. They were expecting everybody to be dancing the Hora and wearing a kippa. And even though they're not traditional, they expect Israelis to be traditional. It's as much the question of perceptions of the two communities of each other. And I do believe that there are Israelis who will argue that as you say, once you're in Israel, you you don't have to "work it" so much. Whereas a family like mine living in Connecticut must put its foot down, the kids can't go out Friday night, we have to keep a Shabbat  Friday night dinner in order to retain our character. In Israel, if the kids go out, they're going to be with other kids, and they'll keep Shabbat in this similar way. But you can say the flip side of that argument too that there are Jews living in Israel, that believe that Judaism in Israel is hyper-Judaism, that you are so close to the source that you're able to practice on a higher level. So I take your comment only as one of many different lenses that we see this distinction between Judaism in and outside of Israel, I would just love to add my favorite aspect of this in terms of the one community looking at the other. In vernacular, Hebrew or Yiddish. If you call somebody an Am Haaretz , it typically means an ignoramus. But modern scholarship, academic scholarship has shown that the truth is it was a term formed in the Babylonian exile. We all know the Babylonian exile was one that kind of reinvented Judaism, wrote the Babylonian Talmud, and they would come back to Israel, and they would see the arm Haaretz, the people who were living on the land, the the ones that didn't go into exile, and many of the innovations or higher emphasis on maybe purity, and tithing and stuff like that were not followed by those who had remained in Israel. So it's almost the first instance of the two communities, the Diaspora and the resident community, seeing Judaism differently, developing Judaism differently, and maybe being a little bit presumptuous [pejorative] about how to define each other.

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on all of that. I think that that's all interesting. Now, how that relates to the fact that Tefilin is a reminder, and kind of, from observance to culture, but maybe that's a good job, maybe that's interesting.

Geoffrey Stern 

You know, I'm also kind of reminded of the, the Zionist thinkers, and each one of them had their own kind of take on this. But all of them said that the life that the Jew has led 2,000 years in exile was an anemic existence. So if you went to Aleph Dalet Gordon, who was a labor Zionist, he would say how, for 2000 years, Jews did not work with their hands did not toil the soil, because they were not permitted to, but they lived this artificial, anemic existence. And if the Jewish people are ever to become naturalized, become a whole, they need to go back to their land, and rediscover the fullness of human activity. And there were other thinkers, like Achad HaAm who wanted a revival of Jewish culture and language. Ben Yehuda would say the same thing about a people who basically kept alive its language in prayer, but didn't speak it anymore. And so I do think that from their perspective, kind of living in exile was very much this practice and wherever we could we try to retain as much of the aspects of national identity that we could. But ultimately, these aspects of our natural human life, social life would only be true if we came back to the land. So it's kind of an interesting parallel between the religious thinker who's behind this midrash between Rashi's comment, and the secular Zionists who also felt that living outside of Israel was anemic and therefore was pretty much just playing religion, playing culture, playing language,

Adam Mintz 

Its interesting, the secular Zionist. Why did they think the living outside the land was anemic? It wasn't because of an observance of mitzvos. They somehow felt as if Judaism, just by the very definition needed a homeland?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, I think with regard to religion, their argument would be similar to the one you made a few minutes ago, which is that because we didn't have a language because we didn't have an economy, because we didn't have all of the accoutrements of a natural life, what we could develop was our religion. And therefore we developed this religion way beyond where it should have been, relative to the other aspects of our lives. And that, therefore, when we come back to the land of Israel, religion has to reassume its, relativity to the other forms of life. And I think from that perspective, yes, that would be where that argument comes from. But again, it seems to me even today, when you have, and I see this, especially amongst liberal progressives, and I count myself guilty, as charged as a progressive, but sometimes it's very different, what a progressive will say, who lives outside of Israel, and one that lives inside of Israel. And the most basic difference is the one that lives inside of Israel probably has a son or a daughter, in the army. And Ben Gurion made the statement that his ideal was one day, we would live in our land, and we would have thieves and prostitutes just like anybody else. And what he meant to say, what he meant to say is, in Israel, all of this ideology that we had, and especially progressive ideology, the rubber has to hit the pavement, it's one thing to talk as a consultant. And it's another thing to run a company, it's one thing to write an ideology, and to talk about universalism. And then it's another when you have your own backyard, and when you're worried about the safety of your children, and you have your own love for the land, and they are conflicts and things are not as black and white. And things are not as clean and crisp and clear. But to the Zionists that was the challenge. That's the challenge of moving from practice, to the actual hard work of, not only building a state, but living a life as a citizen of a country and of a culture, so forth and so on.

Adam Mintz 

I think that point is really a beautiful point. And what's amazing is that how we've come full circle from that Rashi that basically says that we wear Tefilin as a sense of a punishment, or as a sense of retaining our distinctiveness, even in the diaspora, to come to this idea of an appreciation of the land is really a beautiful idea. I think Rashi would love that idea. Do you want to open it up, Geoffrey to the audience and see if someone has some thoughts on some of this,

Geoffrey Stern 

I'd love to I'd love to hear whether on this subject we're talking about right now or even Judaism as a practice or Judaism, both rooted in land and above time and space. Anybody who's listening? if you are Israeli too, I'd love to hear your perspective on how sometimes you see the difference between our traditions as practiced in Israel, and outside of Israel. But as we wait, I want to go back to those Zionists who argued about this anemic existence. And that I really do believe that those who are super critical of Israel, even those who love Israel, but are super critical of Israel. You know, it's not an argument from the perspective of unless you live in Israel, you don't have a right to criticize. It's more of a perspective of if you don't live in Israel. It's hard for you to understand what it's like in the same fashion, as it's hard to understand what celebrating a holiday is in the land where it took place, from celebrating it as a reminiscence, or as a reminder, and I think that's kind of part and parcel of this discussion today. We're not taking the moral high road, we're just saying that it's clear from this Midrash, that existentially living in the land; being being there. And I can't help but use the metaphor of "not in my backyard", where so many people take a position, but you really don't know what their position is, unless it does happen in their backyard. There's an amazing podcast from the New York Times, that talks about a group of people that petitioned the city to move a public school into their neighborhood so that it could be more integrated. And when the school was ultimately moved, none of them, not one to a T sent their kids there. And these are radical progressives. So I do think this is an invitation for us all, to look into the mirror. And to ask ourselves, and this is moving away from even the Israel situation, if you don't live in the land, if it's not your backyard, is your vision, is your perspective going to be the same as if you are there?

Adam Mintz 

I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that's, that's the challenge. And the answer, of course, is that your perspective is different in Israel; good and bad, right? I don't know that you want to say that it's better. It's just different when you're there.

Geoffrey Stern 

Hello, Michael

Michael Posnik 

Once again, thank you very much, gentlemen. Just a number of things. I don't know if they're all connected. But the first thing that came to mind at the beginning of the event today, was that practice makes perfect. And it may well be that all the practice that's going on here is aimed at a kind of perfection, but the practice itself is moving towards perfection, always. So that's one thing that comes. On the other hand, Carnegie Hall might be compared to Israel in this discussion. The other thing that came to mind was something I was studying with Misha about Nehemia. And when they came back, and Ezra built the wooden tower and read the Torah, to the people, which people you called Am Haaretz which is such a beautiful understanding of that phrase, not dismissive at all, just the people who live there. They cry, the people who are listening to the Torah and it's not clear whether they're crying, to hear the law again, and to be reminded of the law, or they're crying because they neglected or did not have the opportunity to practice or to live in the law.  And Nehemia says to the people don't cry, just listen. I guess that listening is also a very profound practice as well. So again, thank you, just a couple of pieces of something to consider.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that's a beautiful thought. And it takes me back to this concept of, we're not necessarily saying one is better than the other. I mean, this concept of practice. By definition, you mean to say that you're going somewhere you're striving. And if the flip side of that is a certain level of smugness, and a certain level of I've already arrived, then I do think that I don't necessarily take the comment by Rashi as one of punishment as a as much as fact. But I do want to bring one more piece of Talmud that has always fascinated me, and it's at the end of the Tractate Ketubot. And it says that those who live in Israel "Keilu Yesh Lo Eloka", those who live in Israel, it's as if they have a God, and those who live outside of Israel. It's as if they don't have a God, and I think on the superficial level, that ultimately means that in Israel, you're closer to God and outside of Israel, you're far away. But it does say,"keilu" as if, and I wonder sometimes whether those living in Israel, and I see it when they come here, and they come out into the diaspora, and they see how hard Jews in the diaspora work on preserving the traditions work on preserving the identity. And in a sense, there's a sense sometimes of awe, and I think that the two different cultures and can literally benefit from each other, and the culture, you know, outside of Israel, .... and I won't even say Israel anymore, outside of the land of comfort, outside of the land of having arrived as opposed to the land of wanting to arrive, striving to arrive, those people, it's as if they don't have a God, because they're striving for that God, and the ones that feel rooted in the land as if they've already arrived, and they have nowhere further to go. It looks as though they have a God, but maybe they don't. And that to me is what lies at the bottom of this whole concept of belonging and not belonging, of arriving and not arriving, of totally feeling, comfortable. We were in Morocco, and the Moroccan community divides itself into two. One is the "Mityashvim", the people that live there belong there, those were our Jews that arrived with the Romans, and were there before the Spanish Inquisition, and the others are the "Mitgarshim", those who were exiled from Spain and came there. So they have in the same country these two concepts. And I would suggest, and maybe this is the thought that we should take with us, is that we both need a little bit of both, we both need to be able to have that comfort level. But we also have to feel a level of striving and practice trying to get to the promised land. And if we ever get to a promised land and feel we've arrived, we're probably dead in the water. So you always have to have I think both aspects.

Adam Mintz 

 Geoffrey you couldn't end on a better note, the idea the necessity to strive, and the idea that if we ever think we get there, then we fail. I wish everybody a Shabbat shalom. We should continue to strive. You know, the summer months, Geoff and I were talking at the beginning of the know, these parshiot we don't talk about them enough because it's the summer but there's such amazing material here. And I think in this paragraph of the Shema, we have the idea of striving. Let's all strive, let's have a Shabbat Shabbat shalom. Thank you, Geoffrey, and we look forward to seeing everybody next week. Parshat Re'ea, be well everybody.

Geoffrey Stern 

Shabbat Shalom.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. This week’s parsha is Behar, which means “at the Mountain”. While Rabbi Mintz is not at the Mountain, he is in Israel and will share impressions of his recent visit to the only Haredi Hesder Yeshiva. The Talmud suggests that we set aside specific times for Torah study and we will use the Sabbatical year referenced in the parsha to focus on different ways that our tradition has offered for integrating study into civil society and military service.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/566480

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/05/22/times-for-torah/ 

Parshat Bamidbar - Was Ben Gurion's vision of a People's Army which united the country and created a melting pot for Israeli Society foreshadowed in the Bible? Does the elimination of a militant and ideologically pure Priestly cast from the Biblical army have lessons for us today?

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Parshat Vayeilech - We review the septennial Hakhēl convocation where the Torah is read publicly as an opportunity to explore the revolutionary nature of the Hebrew Alphabet from both a social and technological perspective. In so doing, maybe we shed some light on the proliferation of alphabetical acrostics in the Psalms and later liturgy and piyyutim.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/346294

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

Welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah. We are every Friday at four o'clock here on clubhouse Eastern time. And we go ahead and record this. And then we post it as a podcast called Madlik. And it's available on all of your favorite podcasting channels. And if you like what you hear today, go ahead and listen to it as a podcast and share it with your friends, and give us a few stars and say something nice about us, in any case, this week portion Vayelech. And it's Deuteronomy 31, for the most part. And in Deuteronomy 31, verse nine, it says, "And Moses wrote down this teaching, and he gave it to the priest, sons of Levy, who carried the Ark of the Lord's covenant, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses instructed them as follows, every seventh year, the year set for shmitah, at the Feast of Booths, which will start in another week or two, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, you shall read this teaching aloud, in the presence of all Israel, gather the people, men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities that they may hear. And so learn to revere the Lord your God, and to observe faithfully every word of this teaching. Their children too who have not had the experience shall hear and learn to revere the Lord your God, as long as they live in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan to possess." And then a few verses down, it finishes off by saying, "When Moses had put down in writing, the words of this teaching to the very end "ad tumam" , Moses charged the Levites to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord saying, Take this book of teaching and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, and let it remain there as a witness against you." So Wow, this is a pretty fundamental law, it touches upon a public reading of the Torah, it touches upon the seventh year, the cycle of the shmita, of the sabbatical year that we are starting as we speak. And it also talks about placing that Torah scroll, if you will, into the ark right next to the 10 commandments. So rabbi, what says this to you?

Adam Mintz  02:47

So I want to go to the end, it's so interesting that the Torah scroll plays a role here, it all seems to be about strengthening our commitment to Torah and to God, and therefore everything has a Torah scroll that is right in the middle of it. And I think that's really, really interesting. At the end of each shmita cycle, they used to gather all the people in Jerusalem, the men, the women, the children, and the king used to read the Torah. So really, even the sabbatical year, is about strengthening our commitment to Torah.

Geoffrey Stern  03:28

I totally agree. But I have to confess that when I tell people, and I've been telling everybody I can, trust me, that this is the sabbatical year, unlike the Sabbath that occurs every seven days. And I'd like to think, we can discuss this on another afternoon. I'd like to think it was one of the Jews greatest contributions to culture and society, a day of rest. It's actually a statement of human rights because you rest your servants rest to animals were at rest, that everybody kind of gets whether they keep the Sabbath on a Saturday or Sunday or a Friday, or they just understand they have to reboot once in a while. But the idea of the seventh year cycle, the sabbatical that has only really survived in academia. And I hope it's still the case where academics take off a year to broaden their horizons, to travel to see other academics and maybe go out into the field. It struck me when I read this portion, that Wow, there actually is a connection because mostly when we think of the sabbatical year, we think of letting the land life fallow, and all of the other things I discussed before, but there is clearly an intellectual aspect of this and that's what you were talking about Rabbi in terms of both faith and understanding The idea was in this sabbatical year, we all have to give ourselves a chance to be exposed to that which is important to us. But it kind of works both ways. Because on the Sabbath, we also read from the Torah publicly, and the rabbi's understood the connection between this because those of you who have been in an orthodox synagogue and know that the first Aliyah, the first calling up to the Torah, is for the Cohen. And the second one is for the Levi The Tom wood learns it literally from this verse, if you will call. It says that, in verse nine, that Moses wrote down this teaching, gave it to the priests the kohanim, sons of Levi. From here, the rabbi's learned that the colon gets the first Aliyah and the Levi gets the second. And then of course, the Israelite gets the third and onward. But I'm much less interested in the law. And I'm more interested in the connection the rabbi's took from this annual reading or the I should say, the seven year cycle of reading it in the sabbatical year, and reading it every week. In both cases, we're kind of doing this amazing public discourse of our most important texts.

Adam Mintz  06:20

Yes. I mean, and I think that's a super interesting thing. The fact that the Torah, even though study is an individual act, we do it by ourselves, we do it with a havruta (study partner), with one other individual. But actually, the reading of the Torah is always a public act. That's something fascinating, isn't it? Geoffrey.  Right, the Torah  is a public act, we read it in the temple, we read it in this Synagogue, it's always public.

Geoffrey Stern  06:50

I totally agree. And we're going to get a little bit more into that in a second. But before we do, the other thing that is kind of interesting to me is that the reading of it is also a conduit into the future. And you see that in two ways. If you recall, in verse 13, it says, and their are children who have not had the experience shall hear and learn. And the idea is, even though they were speaking in the present tense, and as it said, they were crossing the Jordan into the promised land. This was not to be limited to the people in the room, so to speak. This was the vehicle for transmitting this experience into the future, this interactive, maybe immersive reading of our sacred texts in public, placing them in a tactile form on the side of the shattered and full 10 commandments was an amazing, both commentary and commitment to what the written and spoken word can do in terms of transmitting ideas and values into the future.

Adam Mintz  08:05

I couldn't agree more with that. I think that that's a very important thing. And that's why you know, we're kinda not focusing on this, but this is the end of the Torah. This is the third to the last portion in the Torah.  We have Ha'azinu next week, and then on Simchat Torah, we finish the Torah with Zot HaBracha. This is the end Geoffrey. So whatever is going on now is a lesson forever.

Geoffrey Stern  08:32

I love the fact that you say it is the end, this is it got it both gives this statement more importance. But it also raises another fascinating Talmudic discussion. And that is: the last six or eight verses of the Torah are written after, in the narrative, after Moses dies. So the question comes, how can it be in our verses that Moses gives the complete Torah to the priests and the tribe of Levi? If in those last few verses are things that clearly he could not have written? And the Talmud gives two answers. One answer is: You're right. Moses, wrote everything except the last eight verses and Joshua wrote the book under his name, the Book of Joshua, and the last eight verses, but what I find so dramatic and those of you who were with us last week know how much drama there can be in our wonderful Torah. I love the answer. That was Rabbi Shimon's. And he says, Is it possible that the Torah scroll was missing a single letter, but it has said take this Torah scroll. Rather until this point, the Holy One blessed be He dictated and Moses repeated after him and wrote the text, from the point where it says that Moses has died, the Holy One, blessed be he dictated, and Moses wrote with tears", just an unbelievable image of someone waiting their own obituary, so to speak. But again, the reason I bring it up is because it really parallels this concept of having the children who had not experienced listen to it. Even in the ending of the Torah, it is understood that the writing of the Torah either continues in this hand of other people like Joshua, or that we are all part of a narrative, and we can't experience every part that we're in. But by hearing it and listening to it, we become a part of that narrative. And to me, Moses writing and tears streaming down his cheeks, it's just almost too much to bear.

Adam Mintz  11:04

I mean, Geoffrey, you're not so surprised, because as we all know, if you're anybody, The New York Times has your obituary on file, right? famous people get their obituaries written ahead of time. So it's interesting, the whole idea of, you know, writing your own obituary, I'll just tell you that there was a rabbi, his name was the Vilna Gaon, a great Rabbi in Lithuania, in the 1700s. And he says that the word for tears "Dema" can also be translated as the word "demua", which means mixed up. And he says that what happened was that God commanded Moshe, like a Scrabble board to take all of the letters that would appear in the last eight verses at the Torah, but not to arrange them in order. And Joshua was the one who arranged them in order.

Geoffrey Stern  12:01

Wow, that absolutely blows me away. And we are going to come back to it but to give you a little taste of how we're going to come back to that is, so much of the Yom Kippur liturgy has to do with that alphabet that you just described. Whether it's the "Ashamnu"  that is an alphabetic acronym and has our alphabet or whatever. So this story that you just told of the Vilna Gaon explanation of Joshua putting the letters together is something that really resonates with me and we are going to come back to. Michael Posnick welcome to the Bimah.

Michael Posnik  12:45

Pleasure to be here. I just have a question. Is it possible that the word for tears could be from "dom"  from the"demama" that Moses wrote this?

Adam Mintz  12:59

Like in in "Unetaneh Tokef"  "v'Kol demamah daka yishoma"

Michael Posnik  13:04

That's right that he wrote it in silence...

Adam Mintz  13:06

It's nice. Technically speaking, the root of the word dema is Dalet Mem Ayin, the root of the word 'dimama" meaning silence. is Dalet Mem Mem. These are two different words. It's a nice sermon. But technically speaking in terms of language, it's not really the same word.

Geoffrey Stern  13:32

And of course, you have Aaron who after his two sons died, it says "vaYidom", and  normally translated as silent. Is that the word that it should be translated?

Adam Mintz  13:44

The word "dom" is "demama"  We say in Unetana Tokef, We blow the mighty Shofar "vekol demama daka Yishama" But the sound that we hear is a silent or quiet sound.

Geoffrey Stern  14:06

Fantastic. The truth is, and this will also come up in our discussion, that there are those who believe and I think the the most prominent proponents of this theory, were Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig. And their current student who's a professor named Everett Fox, who believes that much of the Torah has to be listened to as much as read. And therefore it gives you a little bit more, I think, flexibility and wiggle room -  poetic license if you will, to make some of these connections. But even if, from a strict grammatical point of view, there are limitations. Then there's also the pun and I think that the biblical text and certainly Talmudic texts We're very sensitive to words that might have been different, but sounded alike that conjure up certain emotions and certain responses. So I think there's no question that the connection that you made Michael is is there at some level.

Adam Mintz  15:14

Yeah, very nice. And especially because it relates to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur with Unetana Tokef. It really is just right. So thank you so much, Michael.

Geoffrey Stern  15:23

So let's, let's move on a little bit. The title of today's episode, if you will, is the Aleph Beit Revolution. And the reason why it is a revolution is there are scholars...  the one I most recently read is somebody named Joshua Berman, who wrote a book Created Equal - How the Bible Broke with Ancient political thought, who believe that what happened when the Aleph Beit was created in Canaan was as revolutionary as the printing press when it was created in Europe. And we all know what happened when the (Guttenberg) printing press was created. within a very short time, not only did people for the first time get to read their Bible, because that was the first book that was written and popularized publicized. But they were people like Luther, who were able to get out a mimeograph machine, so to speak, and start posting things on the doors of the church. And all of a sudden, our whole revolution occurred within Christianity. And you could even argue maybe the Judeo-Christian tradition, because people were all of a sudden exposed to text in ways that they never were. And these scholars argue that when the Jews, the Israelites were in Canaan, they were surrounded by two empires who pretty much used cuneiform and  hieroglyphics. These are highly intricate ways of expressing whether it's numbers or events, or narratives or stories, using pictures, and the vocabulary was so large, that only the professional scribes could, could master it. So it was something that was never given to the general public. And even when they had, like the Gilgamesh epic, or Homer and Euripides, these were things that were written on stele on stone, they were hidden within the temple, even during the New Year ceremony that we discussed before called Akitu in Babylon. It was literally the king who read these things in private in the Holy of Holies, if you will, and what these scholars are saying about the alphabet, which has 22 symbols, the word that we use for the alphabet in Hebrew is "otiot". And those of you who are sensitive to the Hebrew knows the power of the word "Ot", it is a symbol, but from those symbols, you can ultimately put together any sort of concept. And all of a sudden, the written words of the Torah, were now publicly available to the congregation. And notice here it says, men, women and children who are here and who are not here, it was literally a revolution. As big as the revolution we discussed in prior weeks, where God says, You have no other kings besides me, I'm your only King. You don't worship anybody else here too, you get your information directly from the source, and you can interact with that information. And this was an amazing revolution that is on par with anything else that came out of Canaan and the ancient Israelites and included with Hebrew was Akkadian and Ugaritic, and Phoenician and actually, the Greeks got the 22 letter alphabet, from the Phoenicians, they've said it themselves. When we talk about the Delta virus, we have alpha, beta, delta, there are no words like that in Greek, those are words that come from the Aleph Beit gimel dalet, dalet, is delta, Aleph is alpha. As we approach the new year. This is revolutionary with a capital R.

Adam Mintz  19:56

Yes, I mean, I'm not an expert in alphabet, but yeah, this is all All fascinating material fascinating.

Geoffrey Stern  20:02

And it puts into a totally different perspective, this concept of the public reading of the text.  We think read, you need someone who is literate, who can literally read. But in the Torah, the word that we use is "Li'Kro". And "Li'kro" is similar to what I was saying before, when I talked about Buber and Rosenzweig, it equally applies to reading as it applies to listening or hearing...  to calling out. And so really, I think that the this image of the Torah ending, and it's saying that every seven years, and by extension, every seven days, the Torah is to be read in a vernacular, which literally means a people's language, and can be discussed, really ties into so much that we've been talking about on Madlik in terms of the ability for man to own and introduce and interact with our holy texts.

Adam Mintz  21:19

Michael, You actually began this conversation? With your discussion of the word to my mind? Do you have any thoughts on this?

Michael Posnik  21:30

Just a few come up, I've had the good fortune to be studying Nehemiah. And there, when it's described, when Israel read the Torah, it was read in four different ways. It was read exactly as the text presents it. And then there was someone who did the vernacular so that people could understand that if they didn't know the Hebrew, and then there were two other ways, which are not quite clear what's meant. And on Rosh Hashanna I attended a service of the New Shul, which was outdoors, a couple 100 people in a park in Brooklyn, and, and the Torah was read was held up by two gentlemen, and a 13, or 14 year old girl layned (chanted). And then she layned a couple of pesukim (verses). And then a man, a man with a beautiful voice sang the translation of those pesukim And then Frank London, the trumpeter played the emotional life. On his trumpet. It was very, very, very powerful. So it goes out to the mind, it goes out to the heart, it goes out to the body in the sense that if you listen to it, you might act differently, which would be a great benefit for all of us.

Adam Mintz  22:55

Hey, Geoffrey, that's amazing, because that's really what you said. And that is the experience of reading is actually much deeper than the way we understand reading. But it's about listening. Reading and speaking is where you didn't even discuss the fact that reading is music. And Geoffrey we can actually talk about the fact that the Torah is read in a special tune. And actually on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that tune is a little different reflective of a more somber kind of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur spirit. I mean, it's extremely striking; the tune for the Torah reading. On Rosha Hashannah and Yom Kippur at least to me is one of the highlights of Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kipper.

Geoffrey Stern  23:40

Absolutely I have to echo what you said, Michael, I went to an African American synagogue in Chicago outside of Chicago. I believe the rabbi's name is Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. (an African-American rabbi, who leads the 200-member Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago, Illinois) He's literally a cousin of Michelle Obama. And they read the Torah exactly as you describe. And it's exactly as the Talmud describes it, it was with a "Mitargaminan" with a translator. So the person would read the verses "Bereshit Barah Elohim et aha Shamayim ve'et HaAretz"  And in the same chant, someone would say, "In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth." And it was such a moving experience because we forget so many times when we read from the Torah publicly, what an empowering spiritual, and I would say, revolutionary, democratizing thing that we are doing in terms of "you need to understand this". This is not something that's hidden. This is not something that we don't want you to understand. We want you to ask every question and to provide your novel explanation. And there's the music, you're absolutely right, you can approach it on every different level.

Michael Posnik  24:56

What you said before, about reading is also listening And the question is for each of us, what are we listening to? While that's going on. What are we hearing? And how deeply does the listening go? In in real terms, what are we actually hearing? or listening to? When we hear the words of the Torah? This is a real question, I think for all of us, and not just the Torah, the davening (praying)  all of it, what are we really, really listening to? What are those words? Really? How deep do those words go? Because they come from a deep place. Do we hear it? how deeply do we go?

Geoffrey Stern  25:42

I totally agree. The only thing that I would add and I want to pick up on Rabbi Adam's earlier comment about the Vilna Gaon saying that when Joshua wrote the last eight verses of the Torah that describe Moses death, Moses had actually scrambled it, Joshua put out the letters, and had the letters combined. And for those of you who know, Hasidic stories, about the High Holidays, you probably have all heard one version or another of the beautiful story.  It's the last service on the holiest day of the year of Yom Kippur. And the name of the service is Ne'ilah, because the gates of prayer are about to close. And everybody is thirsty and hungry, and waiting for those gates to close, and for the shofar to be sounded so they can all go home and eat. And there is the great Hasidic rabbi, whether it's the Ba'al Shem Tov or the Maggid of Mezrich, who knows who is standing and waiting and waiting, and the stars come out, and the sun goes down, and he's waiting, and he's waiting. And finally, 20 minutes after he should have closed the ark, he closes it. And all of the students come and the people say what happened. And he said, there was a little peasant boy in the back, and the peasant boy had never gone to a Cheder, never gone into Hebrew school, never learned anything except the Aleph bet. And all he was doing was repeating over the letters of the alphabet of the Aleph Bet, and saying, God, you put them together into the prayer, and the Ba'al Shem Tov said, we've been here for 24 hours, we've been here for 10 days, we've been here for the whole month of Ellul, and we haven't been able to break through the gates of prayer, and the purity and the intensity of this child's repeating over the Aleph Beit (in the same way that Joshua repeated it over, according to the Vilna Gaon story) is what has opened up the gates of prayer. And I just have always been struck by that question, because yes, Michel, it is the depth of the message. But sometimes, it's just the sound of the letter possibly, or in this case, coming from my kind of research in the last few days. Maybe it's just the revolution of that alphabet, the fact that we all have the right and the ability to portray ourselves and to express ourselves. But I love that story. And I love the fact that yes, it's at every level.

Adam Mintz  28:33

I mean, that story captures really, what, what it means to to appreciate experience. I mean, here, Geoffrey, you're really jumping from reading to experiential. And I think that's probably what Buber meant. You need to experience the text, not just to read it.

Geoffrey Stern  28:54

Yeah, the prayer that we say that really comes to mind is the Ashamnu new prayer. It's the prayer where we confess all of our sins, it's only said on Yom Kippur, and it's in alphabetical order. And according to Buber, who you just mentioned, the reason why the Ba'al Shem Tov explained, is he says, if you're doing your sins, there's no end to it. So luckily, the alphabet has only these 22 letters. So we can we can end somewhere. But again, it just seems throughout the whole day, and I encourage all of you to pay attention to the machzor to the prayer book. There seems to be such an emphasis on the alphabetical acrostics, whether it's in the poems in the Piyuttim, or whether in the Ashamnu prayer, and there's something special there. There's something special about the alphabet and I'm not talking even on a mystical level, just that we revolutionized the world and we were part of that revolution, in giving every Jew and every human being the ability to decode the meaning of past generations and make their contribution into the future. And that's an awesome responsibility, but also an amazing capability that we have

Adam Mintz  30:19

Amazing. So how are we going to bring this back to, to the shmita? and to the Torah that was placed in front of the people. How did how does all this relate to that Geoffrey in our last minute?

Geoffrey Stern  30:33

Well, it just seems to me that the fact that this rule was brought up at the very end of the Torah, almost as the climax, shows how important it is the contribution of our tradition, that the Torah and the words that are written on it, are so so valued. Anybody who comes to a synagogue is so impressed by the fact that there are no images but the ark opens up and we worship our book, we are called the People of the Book. And that's our contribution that the value of the written word and the spoken word and the heard word and the transmission of that word. And the conversation is ultimately one of our most proudest and most awe inspiring contributions to the world. And to me, it's something that we have to rejoice in and also be obligated by

Adam Mintz  31:35

that's a beautiful thought Geoffrey, as we enter Yom Kippur, I want to wish everybody a Shabbat Shalom, thank you, Geoffrey, and g'mar Hatimah Tovah. Everybody should have an easy and meaningful fast and we look forward to next Friday. So on Yom Kippur, you can be looking forward to your Madlik class the following day, that we're going to be talking the parsha of Ha'Azinu next week. Shabbat Shalom, everybody.

Geoffrey Stern  31:58

Shabbat Shalom and an easy fast and a wonderful Shabbat to you all. Look forward to seeing you next week.

Join Geoffrey Stern and rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. We invite Berel Dov Lerner the author of recently published: Human-Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures to discuss his book and his premise of Covenants and Cross-Purposes. We’ll use a simple basin made of pedestrian copper found in the Tabernacle as our point of departure.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/547714 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/02/29/human-divine-interactions/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on November 3rd 2022. We discover that when the younger son Isaac is chosen, the older son Ishmael’s banishment in some way endears him to his father and latter Rabbinic and Muslim commentators. By being rejected Ishmael may actually provide an alter ego of the Jewish people. We will discuss…

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/442342

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/11/02/call-me-ishmael/ 

Sinning for God

Esther            

Esther sent a message to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night and day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go in to the king, not according to the custom” (Esther 4:16). Rabbi Abba said: It will not be according to my usual custom, for every day until now when I submitted myself to Ahasuerus it was under compulsion, but now I will be submitting myself to him of my own free will. And Esther further said: “And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). What she meant was: Just as I was lost to my father’s house ever since I was brought here, so too, shall I be lost to you, for after voluntarily having relations with Ahasuerus, I shall be forever forbidden to you. (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 15a)[i][ii]

לך כנוס את־כל־היהודים הנמצאים בשושן וצומו עלי ואל־תאכלו ואל־תשתו שלשת ימים לילה ויום גם־אני ונערתי אצום כן ובכן אבוא אל־המלך אשר לא־כדת וכאשר אבדתי אבדתי עד אשר לא כדת אמר רבי אבא שלא כדת היה שבכל יום ויום עד עכשיו באונס ועכשיו ברצון וכאשר אבדתי אבדתי כשם שאבדתי מבית אבא כך אובד ממך

Tamar            

Ulla said: Tamar engaged in licentious sexual intercourse [with her father-in-law, Judah (see Genesis, chapter 38),] and Zimri ben Salu also engaged in licentious sexual intercourse [with a Midianite woman (see Numbers, chapter 25).]  Tamar engaged in licentious sexual intercourse and merited that kings descended from her and she also merited to be the ancestor of prophets [e.g., Isaiah, who was related to the royal family]. Conversely, with regard to Zimri, several multitudes of Israel fell due to him.

Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said: Greater is a transgression committed for its own sake, i.e., for the sake of Heaven, than a mitzva performed not for its own sake.

The Gemara questions this comparison: But didn’t Rav Yehuda say that Rav said: A person should always occupy himself with Torah and mitzvot even not for their own sake, as it is through acts performed not for their own sake that good deeds for their own sake come about? How, then, can any transgression be considered greater than a mitzva not for the sake of Heaven?

אמר עולא תמר זינתה זמרי זינה

תמר זינתה יצאו ממנה מלכים ונביאים זמרי זינה נפלו עליו כמה רבבות מישראל

אמר ר"נ בר יצחק גדולה עבירה לשמה ממצוה שלא לשמה והאמר רב יהודה אמר רב לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ובמצות אפי' שלא לשמן שמתוך שלא לשמן בא לשמן

Yael                

Rather say: A transgression for the sake of Heaven is equivalent to a mitzva not for its own sake. The proof is as it is written: “Blessed above women shall Yael be, the wife of Hever the Kenite, above women in the tent she shall be blessed” (Judges 5:24 Etz Hayim p 425), and it is taught: Who are these “women in the tent?” They are Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Yael’s forbidden intercourse with Sisera for the sake of Heaven is compared to the sexual intercourse in which the Matriarchs engaged.[iii]

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: That wicked one, Sisera, engaged in seven acts of sexual intercourse with Yael at that time, as it is stated: “Between her feet he sunk, he fell, he lay; between her feet he sunk, he fell; where he sunk, there he fell down dead” (Judges 5:27). Each mention of falling is referring to another act of intercourse.

אלא אימא כמצוה שלא לשמה דכתיב (שופטים ה, כד) תבורך מנשים יעל אשת חבר הקני מנשים באהל תבורך מאן נשים שבאהל שרה רבקה רחל ולאה

א"ר יוחנן שבע בעילות בעל אותו רשע באותה שעה שנאמר (שופטים ה, כז) בין רגליה כרע נפל שכב בין רגליה כרע נפל באשר כרע שם נפל שדוד

Lots Daughters         Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Avin said that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korḥa said: A
                                   person should always come first with regard to a matter of a mitzva, as in reward of the one night that the elder daughter of Lot preceded the younger for the sake of a mitzva, she merited to precede the younger daughter by four generations to the monarchy of the Jewish people. The descendants of Ruth the Moabite ruled over the Jewish people for four generations: Obed, Yishai, David, and Solomon, before the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam, whose mother was Naamah the Ammonite. (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Nazir 23:b)

א"ר חייא בר אבין א"ר יהושע בן קרחה לעולם יקדים אדם לדבר מצוה שבשכר לילה אחת שקדמתה בכירה לצעירה

זכתה וקדמה ארבעה דורות בישראל למלכו'

Eve     

Starting with Eve and that damned apple, women have been depicted (and mostly condemned) as the willful and wily seducers of men: …Even the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, a woman who is the apparent victim of rape, is blamed by some of the more misogynistic rabbinical sages for provoking her rapist. And a minority tradition in the rabbinical literature reaches a similar conclusion about Lot’s daughters: “Lot is a warning example to men to avoid being alone with women, lest [they] should entice them to sin, as did Lot’s daughters.”

However, “an open-eyed reading of the Bible reveals that women play a crucial and dynamic role in the destiny of humankind, in both Jewish and Christian tradition. Inevitably, a woman figures decisively in the recurring theme of “the birth of the chosen one,” starting with the matriarchs of the Hebrew Bible and culminating with the Virgin Mary in the Christian Bible. As we have already seen, Lot’s daughters and Judah’s daughter-in-law are examples of how the bearer of the “chosen one” is not passively impregnated with the seed of a patriarch; rather, these women take it upon themselves to defy the will of powerful men and sometimes God himself in order to bring about the crucial birth. Indeed, the Bible frequently singles out “the woman as initiator of events,” as Ramras-Rauch puts it. “From Eve through Sarah and Esther, women have shaped sacred history through word and deed.””[iv]

Contemporary Feminist Interpretations of the “Sin” of Eve [v]

Mieke Bal[vi] does not see the action of eating the fruit as sin. Rather, Bal views the woman’s choice to eat as a way to gain the wisdom that will make her like God. Ironically, her choice also fulfills God’s intention of humanity made in the divine image (Gen. 1:27). By choosing to eat and gain knowledge, including sexual knowledge, the woman makes the continuance of the species possible, even though the individual will not be immortal. Her choice is a choice for reality. Her choice puts an end to the fantasy of individual immortality. It opens up reality as we know it.

Lyn Bechtel asks, why, if humans were created immortal, were they also created sexual? If they were created immortal, why were they made of finite clay? Why after eating the fruit do the humans fear their nakedness rather than death? Why is it considered punishment for Adam to be sent into the world to be a farmer, when Genesis 2:5 tells us that humans were intended to cultivate the ground? Bechtel interprets the Adam and Eve story as the story of human maturation…. Thus it is better to interpret this to mean that those who eat will become aware of the reality of death. That is what gradually happens as we mature. … After the humans mature, they are ready to enter the world where they will take up their life’s work, the work God intended them to do from the beginning. Although Bechtel sees the story as androcentric, she does not believe it is sexist. In addition, her reading has the advantage of placing life in the real world in a positive light. It is not a punishment for sin, but the world God created for mature men and women to share as partners.

Dutch scholar Ellen van Wolde discusses this problem in her treatment of the Adam and Eve story, which is similar to Bechtel’s. She sees the clue to the whole story in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” She writes: As man leaves his father and mother to become independent, so man, male and female, leaves YHWH God by means of his transgression of the prohibition in 3:1–7 to become independent. . . . The realization that verse 2:24 presents man’s process of development in a nutshell and the realization that a similar behavior can be observed in man’s attitude towards YHWH God, makes the reader aware of the fact that Gen 2–3 is really one extensive description of this growth.  Van Wolde sees the transgression as a necessary disobedience, because freedom is the one thing that God could not build directly into the universe. Freedom cannot be conferred. It can only be grasped.

Carol Meyers, one of the most important recent interpreters of the Adam and Eve story, treats Genesis 2–3 as a narrative of human origins, as a story that explains why certain human conditions are as they are, and as a parable or wisdom tale.  … The prominent role of the female rather than the male in the wisdom aspects of the Eden tale is a little-noticed feature of the narrative. It is the woman, and not the man, who perceives the desirability of procuring wisdom. The woman, again not the man, is the articulate member of the first pair who engages in dialogue even before the benefits of the wisdom tree have been produced. This association between the female and the qualities of wisdom may have a mythic background, with the features of a Semitic wisdom goddess underlying the intellectual prominence of the woman of Eden.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on as we meet a man named Nachshon ben Aminadav. A man with only a insignificant walk-on role in the text of the Torah but an iconic presence in Jewish religious and secular thought, culture and mythology.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/410450

Transcript on episode web site: https://madlik.com/2022/06/01/nachshon/ 

parshat yitro - Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on January 20th 2022 as we discuss the Torah portion that includes the Ten Commandments but is named after a non-Jewish priest. A priest who blesses God, successfully offers sacrifices, shares a sacred meal and, with God’s sanction, establishes institutions of jurisprudence for the Jewish People. For a religion that is known for exclusivism, we use this realization to explore inclusive and exclusive tendencies in Jewish tradition.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/377219

Transcript in episode web site here: https://madlik.com/2022/01/19/is-judaism-exclusive-or-inclusive/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on Thursday April 7th 2022 as we explore how the affliction of Leprosy became identified with slander in Rabbinic texts. We’ll watch our tongue as we revisit the theme of Mitzvot as symbol, language and metaphor.  We'll see that the Rabbinic concept of slander covered a lot more than idle gossip and included character assasination, questioning the idealistic intentions of others, bigotry and even anti-Israel bias.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/398050

Transcript on episode webe site: https://madlik.com/2022/04/06/loose-lips-and-leprosy/

Link To Source Sheet on Sefaria: www.sefaria.org/sheets/227396 

Passover at a time of Corona: What the biblical provision for celebrating a second Passover teaches us about celebrating Passover under extenuating circumstances.

2.

3.

4. The Marranos of Belmonte Portugal

Despite being forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497 many of the Jews of Portugal continued to practice Judaism in secret. Today, residents of the village of Belmonte practice an amalgam of Christian and Jewish rituals.

Lighting Shabbat candles in secret closet. © Frédéric Brenner

Belmonte Marranos Celebrate Passover in Secret © Frédéric Brenner 

The day of the Lord - the Day of the Great Forgiveness - (O Dia do Senhor) and the Holy Feast - the Easter - (A santa Festa) are the great holy days that remain; some still light the Sabbath lamp. Passover, the most important and most elegant holiday about a month after its actual date in the Jewish calendar, a memory of the Inquisition. The box of unleavened bread is the main ritual, which is performed in secret, at home. We see him here for the first time. Dressed in white, the participants sanctify the piece by throwing water and purging prayers of purification. They invoke God's protection from various evils, don't torture. During the Holy Feast they consume no meat or coffee and eat no bread other than unleavened bread. Then the Marrranes leave the city, in groups, and will pick bitter herbs (maror in The Jewish tradition); men and women whip the river with plants abseiling from the Red Sea crossing by Moses during the Egyptian Exodus. These ceremonies are preserved thanks to the photographs of Frederic Brenner for the first and perhaps the last time.

Prof. Yosef Haim Yerushalmi Introduction to Marranes (H.COL.BEAUX ART) (French Edition) (French) Paperback – 1992 by Frédéric Brenner (Author) p42

For once these Marranos of Belmonte expose themselves, a historic moment and a turning point in their becoming; they overexpose themselves to the camera. They make of their secret an archived invisible visibility. They are the only ones, in this series of photograms, to keep the secret that they exhibit and to sign their belonging without belonging. More than for all the others, I ask myself “who” they are and what they are thinking, in their for intérieur, as we say in French—that is, in their “heart of hearts.” (What is their for intérieur? What do they finally know of their secret, of the secret that keeps them before they keep it?) What do they think of what is happening to them, including the forgiveness asked by Mário Soares (“In the name of Portugal, I ask forgiveness of the Jews for the persecutions they suffered in our country”)? The film The Last Marranos bears witness to the fact that those named in the title are undergoing the loss of their secret. They are forgetting it, paradoxically, in the very movement and moment in which they are reappropriating their memory in an “authentic,” assumed, “normal” Judaism: another “normalization” on the agenda, after the avowal, or rather let us say the confession, and then, finally, the repentance of the guilty ones.

— JACQUES DERRIDA Diaspora: Homelands in Exile (2 Volume Set) Hardcover – September 30, 2003

by Frederic Brenner Vol 2 Voices, p65

 Please see Video: The Last Marranos on YouTube here and here at point where they describe previous practice of Pesach Sheni.

9.

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הגדה של פסח, נערך ע'י הרב יוסף קישוטים וציורים מאת ברורית אונה ,אומנות' ירושלם

14.

15. Deprived: From the fact that they nevertheless did demand, “Why should we be deprived” we learn a wonderful lesson. When a Jew feels that he is missing something in Torah and mitzvos, some aspect of fear of Heaven, he relies on no one — not on Moshe Rabbeinu and not even on G‑d (so to speak). Instead, he cries out and demands, “Why should we be deprived!” 

Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson Pesach Sheni 1984

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded in front of a live audience on Clubhouse. The book of Deuteronomy known as the Second Torah, is not only spoken in the first-person voice of Moses but is also a reworking and reinterpretation of earlier events. This is nowhere more apparent then in the retelling of the story of the spies where, in our disruptive reading, the spies and their generation are not blamed for being too meek, but rather…. for being too militaristic.

Sefaria source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/582307 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/08/07/just-war/ 

This week on Madlik, we’re diving into Parashat Vayeshev and exploring the Joseph story through a unique lens. Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we unpack this pivotal narrative that bridges Genesis and Exodus.

We’ll be taking a hard look at the uncomfortable truth at the heart of this parasha: human trafficking. It’s not just about Joseph in Egypt – we’re talking about the profound implications of ethnic groups selling their own people into slavery.

We’ll also examine how this story fits into the broader context of biblical literature. Is it a court legend? Wisdom literature? Or something entirely different?

Plus, we’ll discuss how the sale of Joseph has echoed through Jewish tradition, from Yom Kippur liturgy to modern-day rituals. It’s an approach that might break the oppressor/oppressed lense used by so many today.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/612024 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/12/19/joseph-slave-trade/

Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QkhOPS54nfc 

Join Geoffrey Stern recorded on clubhouse on October 12th 2022 for Madlik Disruptive Torah. In a previous podcast called Architecture in Time we’ve discussed Judaism’s unique concept of the holiness of time. This coming Shabbat is Shabbat Sukkot so find yourself a temporary booth and join us as we explore Judaism's unique concept of holiness of place.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/437526 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/10/12/fallingsukkah/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse.  As the State of Israel is polarized by the role and authority of the Supreme Court we read the Biblical injunction to provide Judges and pursue Justice. We will study the primary sources and we wonder ….. why both sides are claiming the mantle of Democracy but no one in the Jewish State is discussing Judaism! So join us for Courting Justice.

Sefaria source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/505087 

Transcipt: https://madlik.com/2023/08/16/courting-justice/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded live on Clubhouse on January 26, 2023. God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. We ignore the question of free will and God’s omnipotence and instead we ask: “What makes a man’s heart so hard that it can’t be softened?

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/462193 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/01/25/hard-hearts/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we discuss: “You shall not oppress a stranger, … having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” and wonder why the motif of loving the stranger is not found in the Haggadah.  Along with other members of the Madlik family we discuss whether this is a valid question or not and we also explore where in the Haggadah a discussion of loving the stranger is appropriate.  Finally, we follow the advise of the Mishnah and read the parsha of Bikurim until the end… and discover that the Stranger is actually the punch line of the Magid section and that loving the stranger is the Praise and being a stranger is the shame, of which the mishnah speaks.

Passover has finally come to an end and we are putting away our Passover plates and unboxing our Hametz.  What a great opportunity to revisit one of our favorite episodes recorded in 2021 where we challenge our Rabbis and ourselves to re-imagine our Synagogue Services after Covid.  Join us for a replay of Prayer and Services and the Sickness unto Death.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/313001

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. We explore the enigma of the Urim and Thummim; the priestly breastplate, especially within the context of the Torah’s explicit rejection of sorcery and divination. And we wonder …. We wonder about contemporary incarnations of divination and prophesy in the form of opinion-polling and social media engagement.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/546029 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/02/21/the-sorcerers-apprentice/ 

The Maidservant's Vision: Redefining Jewish Experience and Philosophy

Our latest Madlik Disruptive Torah episode challenges conventional wisdom about Jewish history and philosophy. Exploring the concept of "root experiences," we delve into how a simple maidservant's vision at the Red Sea can reshape our understanding of Jewish thought and practice.

Background and Context

The episode centers on Parashat B'shalach, specifically the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:1. This iconic moment in Jewish history is recited daily in morning prayers, underscoring its significance. Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz examine various interpretations of this passage, focusing on a particular Midrash that claims a maidservant at the Red Sea saw more than even the greatest prophets.

This seemingly innocuous Midrash becomes the springboard for a profound discussion on post-Holocaust Jewish philosophy, drawing on the works of Emil Fackenheim, Martin Buber, Elie Wiesel, and Yitz Greenberg.

Key Insights and Takeaways

1. The Power of Collective Experience

The episode emphasizes the unique aspect of Jewish tradition that values collective experience over individual revelation. Unlike other religions founded on the visions of a single prophet, Judaism's foundational moments involve the entire community.

This perspective challenges us to reconsider the importance of communal participation in religious and cultural experiences.

2. Redefining historical perspective and theology

The Midrash's assertion that a maidservant saw more than the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel challenges traditional hierarchies of religious knowledge. It suggests that direct experience can trump even the most sublime visions.

Geoffrey explains Fackenheim's interpretation: "After the Holocaust, we can no longer run away from those... inconvenient truths of good and evil, those inconvenient truths of what happened to God's chosen people. We cannot escape into the world of philosophy and Kabbalah."

This idea invites us to question our assumptions about wisdom and authority, especially in the face of profound historical events.

3. The Concept of "Root Experiences"

Fackenheim introduces the idea of "root experiences" - pivotal moments in Jewish history that shape the collective consciousness. These experiences are characterized by:

- Involvement of the multitude

- Transformation of earthly reality, not just heavenly visions

- Ongoing impact on future generations

- Inspiring action and change

This framework offers a new lens through which to view Jewish history and tradition, emphasizing the ongoing relevance of past events.

Challenges and Practical Advice

1. Embracing Contradiction

Fackenheim argues that Jewish thought, particularly Midrashic thinking, thrives on contradiction. Rather than seeking to resolve these tensions, we should embrace them as reflective of the complex nature of human experience.

Fackenheim writes: "Midrashic thinking cannot resolve the contradictions in the root experience of Judaism, but actually expresses them. Midrashic thought, therefore, is both fragmentary and whole."

This perspective challenges us to move beyond black-and-white thinking and embrace the nuances of our traditions and experiences.

2. Balancing Tradition and Contemporary Challenges

The episode grapples with the challenge of honoring Jewish tradition while remaining responsive to modern realities. Fackenheim warns against making Judaism "absolutely immune to all future events except Messianic ones," arguing that this approach dismisses the challenges of contemporary events.

Instead, we're encouraged to engage with our traditions in a way that allows for growth and adaptation in response to new circumstances.

3. Redefining the Importance of Historical Events

The discussion suggests that the literal historical accuracy of events like the splitting of the Red Sea may be less important than how these stories have shaped Jewish consciousness over time.

Geoffrey explains: "What makes the Jewish people, what guarantees its future, what gives us hope and faith, is that we can still look at the Red Sea event and look at it from the perspective of 2000 years of Jews who have reacted to it, 2000 years of Jews who can talk about it without even talking about the historical event."

This perspective invites us to engage with our traditions not as fixed historical facts, but as living, evolving narratives that continue to shape our identities and values.

What We Learned About Jewish Philosophy and Experience

This episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah offers a profound reimagining of Jewish thought and experience. By exploring the concept of "root experiences" and the power of collective memory, it challenges us to reconsider our approach to tradition, wisdom, and contemporary challenges.

The discussion invites us to:

- Value collective experiences over individual revelations

- Recognize wisdom in unexpected places

- Embrace contradiction as a source of depth and meaning

- Engage with tradition in ways that remain responsive to modern realities

- See our sacred texts and stories as living, evolving narratives

As we grapple with the complexities of modern Jewish identity and the ongoing impact of historical traumas like the Holocaust, and ongoing conflicts, these insights offer a framework for engaging with our traditions in meaningful, transformative ways.

Whether you're a scholar of Jewish philosophy or simply curious about new perspectives on tradition and experience, whether you're secular or religious, this episode provides valuable food for thought. We encourage you to listen to the full discussion and continue exploring these ideas in your own study and practice.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/622215

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2025/02/06/root-experiences-beyond-philosophy/ 

Parshat Pinchas - A live recording of Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Clubhouse as we use the intriguing case of the Daughters of Zelophechad to explore Patrilinear and Matrolinear decent in Judaism.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/332756

Transcript: 

Geoffrey Stern 

Welcome, everybody. This week's portion has a story that is typically referred to as Zelophehad's daughters. And you'd figure because they always called daughters that they don't have names. They don't have identities. But the Bible in Numbers 27 says the daughters of Zelophehad, and it says their names: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. So they did have a name and what they came to Moses for was that they did not have a father. Their father had passed away in the wilderness. And they were worried about the allotment of land in the holy land that was divided up amongst the 12 tribes. And they were worried that since the portion that you received was passed on from father to son, that since their father did not have a son only had five daughters, that their allotment, their inheritance, their legacy would be lost. And they said: "let not our father's name be lost to his clan, just because he has no son." So I'm going to stop right there and ask you, Rabbi, what does this story mean to you? Is it a woman's lib story?  Is it a purely transactional story? What does it mean to you?

Peter Robins 

So I mean, on a basic level, it's transactional, of course, just how they divide the land. It's women's lib, but it's also the ability of people standing up to Moses, and saying to Moses, this is not fair. To me, that's even more interesting. Now, the fact that it's women doing it makes it more dramatic in the 21st century. But actually, from our perspective, just the ability to stand up to Moses and to say, Moses, this isn't fair, we deserve to have our share in the land is really an amazing thing.

Geoffrey Stern 

I love the fact that that's the point that you You touched upon, because I started to think to myself, how unique is this situation? And I came up with two other cases, I'd be curious to know whether I missed any but the first case is when Jethro, the father in law of Moses shows up in camp, so to speak, when the Jews get out of Egypt, and there he sees his son in law, Moses adjudicating from early in the morning, to late at night. And he says to him, in Exodus 18, "the thing you are doing is not right, you will surely wear yourself out. And these people as well for the task is too heavy, and you cannot do it alone." So here's a situation where maybe he doesn't confront Moses, maybe Moses doesn't go and say, Well, let me ask the boss. But ultimately, it is also an outsider, if you consider women kind of on the fringe, here this father in law, who's not Jewish, uses his powers of observation, and says this is not sustainable. And the other instance, and this is an instance that we went into in detail is right before the first Passover, when the unclean Israelites came to Moses, and said, How could it be that we will not be able to experience the holiday? And that's when Moses minimally gave them Peach Sheni, a makeup Passover, and maximally adjusted the whole calendar? So my first takeaway from your comment and from this list is, is this the complete list? And two since in each case, God or Moses was so accommodating? I say, isn't it a shame that they didn't come and ask Moses more questions and push him further?

Peter Robins 

Yeah, that's kind of an interesting take on it, is why they stopped there?

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, it just shows you the power of being engaged. You've got to ask and maybe that's the first lesson that we should learn from the daughters of Zelophehad, that if something doesn't seem fair, something bothers you, go ahead. And if it has to do with Judaism, we have a very receptive religion. God loves to hear from us write Him a note ask him a "Sheaylah"  , send in a question.

Peter Robins 

We joke about that, but that actually is what makes this story so sore story so special, the idea that you can actually ask God a question or that Moses has to ask God a question, you know, is something that's so surprising. That's just not the way the rabbinic system works. The rabbinic system is based on the fact that God doesn't really play a role. It's the rabbi's who play the role. But here we have God being an integral part of making this decision.

Geoffrey Stern 

Absolutely. The other thing that occurred to me is that all of these three instances have something in common. Unlike Korach, who was splitting hairs and making an argument, these three instances seem to have in common that they are arguments from sustainability. The argument is, this is not going to last, this is not a practice that can continue over time. So whether it's the daughters of Zelophehad, who said, you know, we've just kind of revealed a crack in the system. If this will continue. It's it's not even about us. It's about keeping the integrity of the tribal allotment. In the case of the Passover. It was a question, in my mind, a big question about the Hebrew calendar, and how does one fix it and in the case of setting up a court system, clearly, that was something that was again, I think Jethro says it the clearest when he says, This can't go on. And so I'm wondering what what you anyone in the audience thinks about this question of sustainability. In other words, if we have a practice, I've brought this subject up before, for instance, the the, the issue of taking interest on a loan, it might work in some societies, but an agrarian society where you have to buy your crops and your seeds and stuff like that. It just wasn't sustainable. And and even though the Bible rants against it, the rabbi's went ahead, and they created a loophole. And so I'm wondering what can we learn from this about changing the law, modifying and modulating our practice, based on the argument that if we continue at this rate, we won't continue to exist, that we'll be throwing out maybe the baby with the bathwater.

Peter Robins 

I mean, sustainability is an interesting idea generally, how the Torah deals with with sustainability? I mean, are you talking about sustainability in terms of fairness of law, or you're talking about it in terms of dividing the property?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, I mean, again, Jethro says it the best, you know, he says, that, if you continue doing this, you wear yourself out and the people as well, the task is too heavy for you, you cannot do it. So I'm not talking about sustainability and a fairness mode. And I'm certainly not talking about it in an ecological way. What I'm talking about is an institution, a custom, a practice a law, that if one continues doing it, life will cease as we know it. Other issues, the case of interest where either the farmers will not be able to run their businesses, or they'll be forced to break the law. In the case of Zelophehad's daughter, as you point out, the whole integrity of the tribal system, and the allocation will not last. So you have a choice, either you say, Well, this is the way it's written. And we'll have to give up on this sense of having the allocation for each tribe. The point is, you can't have it both....  it's a catch 22 it's, it's a social institution that cannot persevere, it cannot continue. going in the direction that it's going. It's not practical. Maybe it's an argument from practicality that I'm trying to say,

Peter Robins 

yeah, maybe the word is practicality rather than sustainability.

Geoffrey Stern 

So is there is there something there there? I brought the example of taking interest but are there other instances?  I've brought up this concept of "Tircha D'Tzibur" (incoveiencing the community) or "gezera she lo hakehilah yachol l'amod bo"  , there are there are rules that are given that if the determination is made. It's too difficult. It's too stark. We can't go on this way. Is that more widespread in the development of Jewish law in your mind?

Peter Robins 

I think that that's a very important idea in Jewish law, the idea that people can't handle it, you can't Institute such a law is a very important principle in Judaism. That's what you call practicality and sustainability, if the system is not sustainable, because the people just can't rise to the occasion, you know, Geoffrey, take the simplest example, you know, in, in the diaspora,  for whatever reason, we have two days of every holiday, except for Yom Kippur. Why don't we have two days of Yom Kippur? It's because it's not sustainable. People can't fast for two days of Yom Kippur. Right? That's a perfect example. We should have two days of Yom Kippur, but it's not practical. The system couldn't,  can't survive that way.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yeah, I think that's a wonderful example. It's kind of where the, the rubber hits the road, so to speak. And it makes you wonder, and again, you know, this is it. This is a question that people will have to use nuance for, when when does it become something that is too difficult? You know, clearly, if you have a rule that maybe was fine in the past, but people are finding too difficult. That's another question, can something become unsustainable? I see that Peter Robins is here. So Peter, you are on the stage. And I'd love to hear your opinion.

Peter Robins 

I think you're going down a slippery slope. Where it is mutability, sustainability, and slippery slope are intermingled. And I give kudos to your definition of rigid laws being changed, because they're not sustainable. But I start out by asking the question, if you ask God a question, how do you know what the response is and where I end up is? That your conscience becomes the response? The question of sustainable and immutability, though, is a slippery slope. And I just wonder how diluted the tenants become when they become changed?

Geoffrey Stern 

I think you're asking two questions. And they're two great questions. You know, the easier question is, how do you know that it's God speaking? Is this just a ruse? Is this just a face saving technique that can be used? And when can it be used? Does it disappear with the end of prophecy? Or is there a statute of limitations? I think that's a great question. And and of course, the slippery slope, part of it, is the question of used and abused, you know, who decides, and at what point do Jews come and say, you know, walking to Shul is not sustainable. We used to live in urban areas, or we used to live before the car and the highway, and now we're spread out. And, you know, can we ride to shul? And of course, I think there are movements within Judaism that have argued that that's precisely where one has to use a an argument like this, but clearly, it is a slippery slope, especially if you're an orthodox rabbi. So Adam, what what do what is your response?

Peter Robins 

I mean, slippery slope is a tricky business. You know, I understand what Peter is saying, you know, you have to be able to draw lines, but you also need to have flexibility. If you don't have flexibility in the system, then the system is going to fall apart. So you talk about walking to shul. You know, the Conservative movement in 1960 decided that the movement was not going to survive, unless they allowed for driving to shul on Shabbat. 60 years later, they now write and they say that the Conservative movement made a mistake, that they lost community and orthodoxy maintained community because people had to live close by.  The Conservative lost community there. So they made a mistake in the sense of figuring out the slippery slope, or whether it was practical. And I think that's so interesting that that's the consideration. That's what we think about now. Did they go too far? Did they fall down that slippery slope? What do you think Geoffrey, did you think the Conservative movement fell down that slippery slope?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, I do think that, in addition to being a slippery slope, there is the issue of unintended consequences. And I think that there is no question that if one was to make a determination, that riding to synagogue is a necessary evil, one would have to do it with their eyes wide open. And when I say that, I mean, that clearly the optimal situation is that maybe we have smaller synagogues that people even in a suburban or rural area, can live closer to, and if you are too far away to walk, you start another synagogue. And I do think that that is a solution that is, is very positive. So there are alternative solutions to every problem. And definitely, one needs to think but I think my answer to you is, sometimes you need an experiment like that. In other words, you cannot always know what the unintended consequences are. And so you need to be flexible enough to try something and then have the self confidence to admit when a mistake was made.

Peter Robins 

That's a big deal, Geoffrey, that's not so easy for people, you know, to admit mistakes, is hard.

Geoffrey Stern 

Especially if you're in the God business, I guess.

Peter Robins 

I guess that's right. Peter, what do you want to say?  Yeah, Geoffrey and rabbi, I think that slippery slope is I think, harsh. My takeaway from the conversation between and among the two of you, is that survival of the religion and its people, trumps any type of rigidity, that morphing into adaptability becomes the imperative.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think maybe it's more of an art than a science. And I do think that the takeaway for me is that you have to ask, you have to speak up, no matter how, what position in the society you hold. You don't have to be a leader, you can be a woman, you can be on the periphery, you can be well meaning non Jew, you can be someone who's quote, unquote "unclean". That's the takeaway to me, and that you need to be flexible and try. And if there's a mistake that gets made, I think that you just have to have the self confidence to admit it. I do think, though, that if we're going to talk about something that is very meaningful, and relates very much to the ability of the Jewish people to survive, we have a another direction that we can go in our discussion today, in terms of the daughters of Zelophehad. And the direction that I want to take us in, is this is the first instance of women arguing for a matrilineal society, meaning to say the assumption of these daughters was that they lived in a patrilineal society, and their father died, and there was not going to be any inheritance to them. And his name would no longer go on, and that you certainly couldn't pass on his tribal affiliation through them. And I know the traditional answer will be, well, whether you are Cohen, Levi or Yisrael goes through your father, but whether you're Jewish, goes through your mother. And what I would love to spend the rest of our afternoon discussing is the fact that that's not altogether clear, number one, and number two, that you could make a case that this is the only instance that we see in biblical Judaism and Torah Judaism, that women were given some ability under certain circumstance to be able to exercise a matrilineal descent. And I'd like to quote a Mishnah. And, of course, the Mishnah is First / Second century, so many, many years after this instance (of the daughters of Zelophehad). And again, you'll hear in the in the Mishnah, that matrilineal descent is only for certain circumstances. So the Mishnah says as follows "Every place that there is a Kidushin (marriage) , and there is no sin, the child goes after the male. And it goes ahead, and it gives many examples..... the ones that I just gave where the father is a Cohen, where the father is a Levite, so forth and so on. And then it goes on to say, however, in a case where there is a sin, whether it's a question of a Cohen, who's not allowed to marry a divorced woman, or a widow, or someone who marries somebody who's a Gibonite. it makes a whole long list. And at the end of the list, it says, that "this one who engages with forbidden intercourse, according to the Torah and cannot join in marriage with that person. In that situation, the child goes after the mother." So if you if you hold in your mind, the situation of Zelophehad's daughters where they were in a situation where it could not continue through that the males. So it had to be tweaked to go through the females, (and of course, this is not the place to have a very deep textual understanding of the text). But what the text actually is saying that any case where the Kiddushin the marriage cannot be fulfilled, such as marriage with a non Jew, in that case, the child goes after the mother. And so this is absolutely radical for us, because we seem to believe that in every instance Judaism goes through the mother, where the Mishnah is saying that similar to the case of Zelophehad's daughter that was an exception with extenuating  circumstances. So too Matrolinear descent, is based on  extenuating circumstance. And now I'll paint it in much more social context. A girl gets raped. And she's not accepted by the the Canaanites or whatever. And rather than have her not affiliated with anybody, the Rabbis say your child is yours, and it's Jewish. And that, to me is the clear reading of this text. So rabbi, what is your sense of the history of this unquestionable belief that we seem to have that Judaism in all cases goes after the mother?

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, so that is of course, fascinating. Now, you have to believe that the reason for matrilineal descent goes back Geoffrey is something you said at the beginning. And that is about being practical. And that is you always know who the mother is, you don't always know who the father is. Right? That's a very important consideration. So if you had to determine  what the lineage is, I know what the lineage to the mother is. I don't necessarily know what the lineage who the father is. So therefore, the default seems to be that you go through the mother matrilineal rather than patrilineal. descent.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I think that that's an explanation that I've heard before, and clearly, correct me if I'm wrong, but when somebody is, God forbid, sick, and we make a prayer for them for the reason that you just raised we say it after the mother because we know who the mother is.   So there's no question that there was a strong basis for your argument. Alternatively, you cannot say that passing on one's tribal affiliation is meaningless. So, if in fact, we are willing to overlook this surety that we get from the mother when it comes to all sorts of things inheritance law, tribal affiliation, one could ask, why was there this disconnect for being Jewish? And of course, you could argue, well your religion is much more important. But I would argue that while it's a good argument that you're making, it's clear from this text, that When the rabbi's instituted this situation or instance of matrilineal descent, it was for this specific instance. And I just want to say that when I grew up and the Reform movement came out, and said that they were willing to accept patrilineal descent meaning to say that in Reformed Judaism, I think I'm correct in saying that whether your father is Jewish or your mother is Jewish, if one of the parents is Jewish, the kid is Jewish. We all went up in arms, we said that they were going to rip Judaism apart, and so forth and so on. It was a higher bar then when they said, you know, maybe you can light a fire on Shabbat or something. When I did some research, I found and it blew me away that the Reform movement actually wrote a traditional responsa. And in their responsa, they quoted the piece of Mishnah that I just said, and one other, and they said, "the report offers a sociological interpretation of the reason for matrilineal descent. In illicit unions, the woman with a child had no recourse but to return to her own people." So it's amazing to me, number one, I have to give credit to the Reform movement for actually going to the trouble of writing a traditional responsa. But I also believe that they were saying something that, just as the case of Zelophehad's daughters, a social situation prompted us prompted God prompted Moses his spokesman to make a change. In the case of matrilineal descent, it was a beautiful thing, and it stayed. But it somehow totally eclipsed, the more natural, the more widespread patrilineal descent and I was a member of Rabbi Riskin's, synagogue, Lincoln Square at that time, and I remember and I've googled articles that he wrote against these Reform rabbis. Fast forward 30 years, Rabbi Riskin is now living in Israel. And an Israeli soldier whose parents came from the Soviet Union, was tragically killed in battle. And his name was Lev Pascale. And he died in the Lebanon War. And he was about to be buried in the military cemetery, which is a Jewish cemetery. And all of a sudden, the military rabbi said no, his mother was not Jewish, he cannot be buried. And unlike a situation that might have occurred like this, in any other town or instance, in Israel, when it came out to the public, the public universally around Israel said here is a man, a young boy who gave his life for the State of Israel. And you are trying to deny him the the ability to be buried in the military cemetery. And at that point, rabbis, such as Rabbi Riskin, started to delve into the texts, and lo and behold, they started to come up with arguments that there is something to patrilineal descent, I'm going to stop before I actually start bringing some of the arguments. But rabbi, where were you in this in this argument? Is this something that is dynamic at this point, is this is there some movement here?

Adam Mintz 

So I mean, that story that Rabbi Riskin story is a very powerful story. I mean, I think the answer is, is it dynamics? The answer is, yes, it's dynamic. But I wanted to go back, Geoffrey, to how you started. And you said that when you were a member of Lincoln Square Synagogue, and the Reform movement said that they accept either patrilineal or matrilineal descent that everybody was up in arms. The reason they were up in arms is because they were afraid that all of a sudden, we were defining Judaism differently for different groups of people means you could be Reformly Jewish, but not Conservative or Orthodox Jewish, and they became very much afraid of that. That at the very least the definition of what it means to be Jewish needs to be standard for everybody. So I think that even though of course, what Rabbi Riskin found out and the fact that there is room for patrilineal descent, but I think the idea that when you go out on a date, you have to wonder, are you Jewish, according to the Reform movement, Jewish according to the Conservative movement, or Jewish according to the Orthodox movement, I think makes it complicated. Doesn't mean it's impossible, and maybe long term. American diaspora Judaism is gonna have to address these issues, because these are the issues that have to be talked about by everybody. Because we can't have a situation where you're Jewish for one and not Jewish for another.

Peter Robins 

Can I ask a question here?

Geoffrey Stern 

Of course,

Peter Robins 

what is the definition of a Jew under the Law of Return?

Geoffrey Stern 

I believe it's one grandparent. And I'll go further than that, and say that the State of Israel took the same law as l'havdil eleph havadlot, Hitler took. Hitler would kill you if you had one Jewish grandparent. And I don't know if there's a connection or not, but the State of Israel would accept you if you have one Jewish grandparent.

Peter Robins 

Why wouldn't the religion take the same point of view?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, because the religion Church and State in Israel are divided and close at the same time. And of course, the religion follows the halakhic, the legal thinking, and one has to formulate a legal argument. So we only have a few more minutes. Let me just tell you what Rabbi Riskin came up with, he found that the first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, made the following ruling. He said, if your father is Jewish, and your mother is not, you can't look at that person the way you would look at someone who had no connection to Judaism at all. And when that person decides to come back, "Hozer haYeled l'ikar zaro"  that child is coming back .... he's coming home. And so unlike when someone converts, they have to go through all these classes. And they have to agree to accept all the laws and all of that. This rabbi said, it's different. And of course, Rabbi Riskin said, and that is the way it should be in Israel for a soldier, but it doesn't work in the diaspora. The point that I'm trying to make is, this is an area like any area in Judaism, that you can ask questions, and you can get surprising answers. And I think that, ultimately, is the lesson that we have to learn from the daughters of Zelophehad. And more to the point we don't ask just intellectual questions, but questions that affect people's lives. And I think in with regard to intermarriage, clearly, in terms of American Jews, the new Pew study came out. And if you take away the Orthodox community, 75% of the Jewish community is now inter-marrying. But more than a point, more than 50% of them are raising their children in some level of Judaism. So I think in terms of sustainability of our people, but also the human issue, the social issue we are entitled to ask these questions, to have these discussions, and to know that there is never a black and white answer, and that is my takeaway from the Zelophehad.

Adam Mintz 

Thank you. That was really a very good takeaway. I thought this was a great conversation. Thank you, Geoffrey, something to think about for all of us. Shabbat Shalom, everybody. Happy July 4th. I look forward to seeing everybody next week.

Geoffrey Stern 

You got it ... Shabbat Shalom. Thanks for joining.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on January 5th 2023. Jacob, upon his reunion with Joseph exclaims: לֹ֣א פִלָּ֑לְתִּי “I had never imagined” that I would see my son again. The word he uses for imagining is the same word we use for praying, so we imagine prayer as a form of imagining.

Link to YouTube Vidio of Esther Peterseil z'l at Auschwitz-Birkenau: https://youtu.be/C98M8IaHGNQ 

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/456805

Transcript on Podcast webpage: https://madlik.com/2023/01/04/imaginary-prayer/

This Shabbat Hanukah Madlik episode explores the intriguing parallels between John Lennon's iconic song "Imagine" and traditional Jewish concepts. Delving into the Shabbat zemirot "Ma Yedidut," Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz uncover surprising connections between Lennon's utopian vision and Judaism's aspirational views of Shabbat and the World to Come. The discussion challenges the notion that Judaism is solely particularistic, revealing its universal and redemptive aspects while also recognizing the conecpt of preferential love. How does the Jewish tradition balance particularism with universalism? Discover the unexpected interplay between modern secular ideals and ancient Jewish wisdom.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/613636

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/12/27/imagine-and-the-jews/ 

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u6xn990AcCw

A Thanksgiving Meal –  סעודת הודיה

This week in the US we will be sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal, so what better opportunity to explore the sources and traditions of a Seuda Hodaah – סעודת הודיה  a thanksgiving meal in the Jewish tradition… and survey a collection of Thanksgiving sermons…. We’ll even explain why turkey is called Hodu… which means “thanks” in Hebrew…

If you like the madlik podcast please subscribe at iTunes.  And for your Andoids, the podcast is now available on Google PlayMusic and Stitcher.  For easy links go to madlik.com

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In the Bible: After the battle of the five kings: Genesis 14: 18

RASHI:

The weaning of Isaac:

Genesis 21: 8

8 And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

                                חוַיִּגְדַּ֥ל הַיֶּ֖לֶד וַיִּגָּמַ֑ל וַיַּ֤עַשׂ אַבְרָהָם֙ מִשְׁתֶּ֣ה גָד֔וֹל בְּי֖וֹם הִגָּמֵ֥ל אֶת־יִצְחָֽק:

RASHI: and was weaned: At the end of twenty-four months. — [from Gen. Rabbah 53:10, Keth. 60a]

 ויגמל: לסוף עשרים וארבע חדש:

a great feast: for all the prominent people of the generation were there: Shem, Eber, and Abimelech. — [from Tan. Buber, Vayishlach 23] Cf. Gen. Rabbah 53:10.

משתה גדול: שהיו שם גדולי הדור, שם ועבר ואבימלך:

חיי אדם כלל קנ”ה סעיף מ”א ומשנה ברורה סי’ תר”ע סק”ט בשם המהרש”ל

The Thanksgiving Sacrifice: Leviticus

Vayikra Rabbah 9:7

ר' אלעזר ור' יוסי בר חנינא ר' אלעזר אמר: שלמים הקריבו בני נח. רבי יוסי בר חנינא אמר עולות הקריבו בני נח  ...  מתיב ר' אלעזר לרבי יוסי בר חנינא (שם יח): ויקח יתרו חותן משה עולה וזבחים לאלהים. דא מה עבד לה רבי יוסי בר חנינא? עבד כמאן דאמר לאחר מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. איפלגו רבי חייא בר אבא ורבי ינאי חד אמר: לאחר מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. וחד אמר: קודם מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו. אמר רבי הונא: ולא פליגי. מאן דאמר קודם מתן תורה נתגייר יתרו, כמאן דאמר, שלמים הקריבו בני נח.חת

Rabbi Pinchas, Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Yochanan [said] in the name of Rabbi Menachem from Gallia: In the time to come, all sacrifices will be annulled - but the sacrifice of thanksgiving will not be annulled. All prayers will be annulled, but the prayer of gratitude will not be annulled. This accords with what is written [Jeremiah 33:11]: "The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say 'Give thanks to the LORD of hosts' etc." - this is the prayer of gratitude. "Those who bring [the sacrifice of] thanksgiving to the House of the LORD": this is the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thus David said: "I owe You vows and will offer you thanksgivings" [Psalms 56:13] - not "thanksgiving," but "thanksgivings," [indicating both] the thanksgiving prayer and the prayer of gratitude.

In the Talmud: Tractate Berakoth  46a

1. Zera once was ill. R. Abbahu went to visit him, and made a vow, saying, If the little one with scorched legs1 recovers, I will make a feast for the Rabbis. He did recover, and he made a feast for all the Rabbis.

Modern Times:

Chabad Hasidim celebrate the 19th of Kislev to commemorate the release of the first Lubavitcher Rebbe;  Schneur Zalman from jail…. also considered to be the Rosh Hashana of Chassidus.  Also the day the Rebbe walked out of his room for the first time since his heart attack on shemini atzeret (1978)..for the Chassidim this was huge and still is for them as they feel that this day is hodoo of his recovery and hence his subsequent relationship to the hasidim.  Also 12 tammuz the previous Rebbe release from prison in Russia. (all events that allowed the next frame to occur which leads to today )

The 30th day of Nissan

See a reference in a luach (הלכה יומית) here to the custom to have a  on the anniversary of the UN Vote for the partition of Palestine and the resulting birth of Israel:

א‘ ל‘ ניסן. מה משמעותו של יום העצמאות

יום היום בו הוכרזה המדינה בשנת תש“ח, הינו יום שמחה ותודה לבורא עולם, על הנס הגדול שעשה לנו בהקמת המדינה. אף על פי שאויבנו לא רצו בהקמת המדינה היהודית, הכריזה המועצה הזמנית על הקמת המדינה היהודית, ונחתמה מגילת העצמאות

יש לקיים סעודת הודיה ביום זה, ולברך את ה‘ על כך

Prayers:

See Alan Brill’s: The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: notes on Jewish theology and spirituality.

Service for Thanksgiving Day 1905- In Commemoration of 250 Years of Jews in the US.

by Rev H. Pereira Mendes of the Spanish- Portuguese synagogue of NY offered in 1905 at a special convocation to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the settlement of Jews in the United States.  2005 was 350 years….

Throughout the past ages Thou hast carried Israel as on eagles' wings. From the bondage of Egypt, through the trials of the wilderness, ….From nation to nation Thou didst lead us, until the hand of the oppressor was weakened and the day of human rights began to dawn

Thou hast opened unto us this blessed haven of our beloved land. we lift up our hearts in gratitude to Thee, in that two hundred and fifty years ago Thou didst guide a little band of Israel’s children who, . seeking freedom to worship Thee, found it in a land which, with Thy blessing, became a refuge of freedom and justice for the oppressed of all peoples.

O Lord, look down from Thy holy habitation from heaven and bless this Republic. Preserve it in the liberty which has been proclaimed in the land, and in the righteousness which is its foundation. Bless it with prosperity and peace. May it advance from strength to strength and continue to be a refuge for all who seek its shelter. Imbue all its citizens with a spirit of loyalty to its ideals. May they be ever mindful that the blessings of liberty are safeguarded by obedience to law, and that the prosperity of the nation rests upon trust in Thy goodness and reverence for Thy commandments.

Bless the President and his counselors, the judges, lawgivers, and executives of our county. Put forth upon them the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. May America become a light to all peoples, teaching the world that righteousness exalteth a nation.

Our Father in Heaven, Who lovest all nations, all men are Thy children. Thou dost apportion tasks to peoples according to their gifts of mind and heart. But all, are revealing Thy marvelous plans for mankind. May the day speedily dawn when Thy kingdom will be established on earth, when nations shall learn war no more, when peace shall be the crowning reward of a world redeemed by justice, and all men shall know Thee, from the greatest unto the least.

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Service for Thanksgiving Day 1940 – Rabbi Joseph Lookstein at Kehilath Jeshurun in New York

We thank Thee for the beauty and utility of Thy creations, for the flowers which are the stars of the earth even as the stars are the flowers of heaven; for the fertility of the soil and the abundance of its products; for the food that is borne within its bosom and the waters that flow from its deep and inner fountains; for the air that surrounds all creatures and that holds within its invisible self the secret and power • of life.

Almighty God, we pray that we may remain true to the destiny for which we were created. We pray that the dignity of human per­sonality may be preserved and the reverence of man for man may continue. We pray that the beautiful heavens that Thou didst spread over our heads may not be darkened by the clouds of hate and that the magic carpet which is earth may not be disturbed by the tramp of hostile feet. We pray that man’s inhumanity to man may forever end and that human genius may continue to strive for greater perfection and for nobler fulfillment. Let man come to understand that he is closest to God when he is nearer to man, that he worships at Thy holy throne when he serves Thy creatures and that he is within Thy holy shrine when he is at one with his fellow-beings.

We pray sincerely for America and the ideals of democracy and freedom that are here enshrined. May she be strong to withstand all the currents that assail her and all the forces of evil that would invade her sacred precincts. A tower of light to her own citizenry, may she cast a steady beam and light up all the dark areas of the world and show to a perplexed and straying humanity the path of freedom, of life and of peace. 

Rabbi and Congregation. 

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to Thee, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. 

Cf Leonard Cohen “if it be your will” 

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1951 The Faith of America: Readings, Songs and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays by Mordecai Kaplan; Williams, J. Paul; Kohn, Eugene Kaplan

Intro

THANKSGIVING DAY: a day devoted to a grateful awareness of the blessings of American life. A blessing not appreciated is easily lost. If we take for granted the blessings that we enjoy by virtue of our living in a land of almost boundless opportunities and take no thought to the moral foundation on which the welfare of our people rests, those blessings will sooner or later be lost. Thanksgiving should be used to make us aware of those moral foundations, of our dependence on divine justice and love for the continued enjoyment of the blessings of American life. 

Prayer 

The Significance of the Day 

OUR GOD AND FATHER, it is good to give thanks to Thee and to acknowledge Thy blessings. Only thus

can we savor them to the full. In the hurried pace of our lives and in our preoccupation with the petty and the trivial, we are prone to take Thy gifts for granted. Oblivious of thy bounties, we sinfully waste the opportunities they afford us for living the good life. Therefore, do we set aside this day for thanksgiving. 

We thank Thee for the land and for its fruits by which we live. We thank thee for the vigor of body and mind that enables us to exploit the fertility of our country’s fields and forests and the buried treasures of its mineral wealth. We thank Thee for the varied beauty of its landscape, for the grandeur of its mountains, the hospitality of its plains and prairies, and the gleaming vistas of ocean from its coasts. 

We thank Thee for the inspiration of our country’s history—for the courage and hardihood that sustained its explorers and pioneers, for the heroism that inspires its fighters for freedom and equality, for the enterprise that builds its teeming cities, for the arts that express the beauty and meaning of its way of life, for the just laws and free institutions that enable its people to work together in peace and harmony. 

Grant, O God, in Thy grace, that we may perfect our national life to the measure of Thy bounty. Grateful

for the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, may we use them to extend the area of freedom, justice, and good-will among men. May our use of Thy, gifts bear. Witness to mankind that life is good when lived according to Thy benign will, O gracious Giver of all good. AMEN. 

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George Washington – Thanksgiving Proclamation Issued on October 3, 1789

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us)

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In hard times

A THOUGHTFUL MIND will perceive propriety in a service of thanksgiving on the ground, not only of any exceptional benefit, but of the continuance of those ordinary blessings which give its gladness and beauty to life. The preservation of our life itself from casualty or from disease, which might have fallen upon it, is no less a sign of God’s goodness than a narrow escape from what seemed certain death. And so, though any given year may not have been marked by what we should call conspicuous blessings, it is right and proper that we should meet to give thanks for that bounty of heaven which has not failed, for our personal life, and health, and happiness, for the undisturbed serenity and tranquility of our homes, for the maintenance of public order, content and liberty, for the peaceful progress of industry, for the regular and beneficent operations of nature. The hand of God is in all this, as well as in the events which more strikingly exhibit His goodness and His power . . .

The year that is ending has not been what we commonly call a “good” year. It has been rather a bad year in the history of other nations, in business and in politics within our own borders.

How then shall we meet the call which invites us to give thanks today to God for His goodness. We might try to banish from our minds these gloomy facts….
And yet it is more likely to be useful to look at the facts as they are and to ask whether, if we should judge them aright, we should not find, not in spite of them, but in them, traces and tokens of God’s goodness and occasions for praise. We mourn, for example, the decline of our material Prosperity, but it is a shallow view of things which regards material prosperity as an unmixed good for a man or for a nation. The psalmist who said, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” uttered a truth which finds abundant confirmation in national as well as in personal history. Look at your neighbor whom you knew as a poor boy and who now is worth his millions. . . . He used to be considerate of others, helpful to those who needed help, nobly generous with what little he had to give. Now he seems to think that poverty is a crime, and it is easier to get a flame out of an iceberg than a dollar out of his purse. Once he judged men by their moral character. Now he speaks of them as “worth” whatever their property would sell for in the market. . . . What has made the change in him? Nothing but his success. . . .
And the same thing is equally true of a nation. The unparalleled development of the material resources of the American people in recent years has astonished the world, but it has also awakened the gravest solicitude of thoughtful minds. The ever rising tide of wealth, the vast increase and wide diffusion of luxury, the reckless extravagance and waste which have been common, the senseless rivalry in vulgar display, the growing tyranny of money in the hands of rich men and rich corporations, the wild fever of speculation, the prostitution of public office to an unrestrained desire of wealth, the increased inequality, and, in consequence of this, the deepening animosity of the classes of which society is composed, the swift and shameless spread of corruption in politics, the intrusion into the place of legitimate and honest business of the methods and morals of the gambling room, the growing frequency of gross violations of trust—all these things . . . have come as the direct and inevitable fruit of the era of prosperity which now—for a time at least, is ended. . . .
As you try to gather up your reasons for thanksgiving, do not turn your thoughts away from the things which at first seem dark. . . . Look at them, rather, frankly . . . and see if the goodness and the mercy of God are not manifest in them. So may your sorrows be turned into joy, and your sore disappointment into confident hope. So may you gain the height of adoring trust whereon he stood who long ago declared: “I will bless the Lord at all time: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

• Edward B. Coe

Turkey

The guinea fowl bears some resemblance to the then-recently found American bird. Though it is native to eastern Africa, the guinea fowl was imported to Europe through the Ottoman Empire and came to be called the turkey-cock or turkey-hen. When settlers in the New World began to send similar-looking fowl back to Europe, they were mistakenly called turkeys.

Every language seems to have radically different names for this bird. The Turkish word is hindi, which literally means “Indian.” The original word in French, coq d’Inde, meant rooster of India, and has since shortened to dinde. These names likely derive from the common misconception that India and the New World were one and the same. In Portuguese, it’s literally a “Peru bird,” and in Malay, it’s called a “Dutch chicken.”

Hodu – India

הֹדוּ Hôdûw, ho'-doo; of foreign origin; Hodu (i.e. Hindustan):—India.

India = "flee away" or " give ye thanks" Strongs Lexicon H1912

parshat ki tavo (Deuteronomy 26) a recording of a discussion between Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Clubhouse as they explore the roots of the concept of the Chosen People looking at the Favored sons and wives of Genesis and at the concept of Covenant and antecedent Hittite suzerainty treaties. Join us as we ask whether Tevya was right and should God choose someone else for a change?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/343219

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:00

This is Madlik, and we do disruptive Torah, which means that we look at one specific verse or thought in the weekly portion, and maybe look at it with new eyes, new lenses, and maybe taking it in a new direction that's not totally traditional, or that is not the one that we all grew up with. But today, I'm hoping to be very interactive, because the subject matter today cuts to the core of the Jewish project. And that is this question of being a chosen people. And my guess is that whether personally, or as a part of the Jewish people, all of us have, in one way or the other had to address what it means to be chosen, and therefore should have an opinion, on what chosen is, and and that opinion can go all the way from, it's a wonderful thing to it's probably the worst idea that we ever had. And I think Tevya summed it up very well, as he many times does. And he turned to God and he said, "Dear God, couldn't you choose someone else for a change?", because he understood the dark side of being chosen. But in any case, we begin on Deuteronomy, chapter 26: 18-19. And what will be surprising is how rare it is, for Chosenness, to even be mentioned. So it says, and the Lord has affirmed this day that you are as he promised you, his treasured people, "Am Segula", who shall observe all his commandments, and that he will set you in fame and renown and glory, high above all the nations that he has made, and that you shall be as he promised a holy people to the Lord your God." So in this one verse, we have this rare mention of "Am Segula", and I'll explain how rare it is. It only occurs in four other verses in the five books of Moses, we have a linkage to observing the commandment. So there's an obligatory aspect of being chosen. And then to us moderns, I think we have the most challenging part of being chosen. And that is that he will set you in fame and renown and glory high above all the nations. And that is the triumphalism, the exclusionism, of what it means to be chosen. And then it finishes and says that you will be a holy people. So I'm going to start with you, Rabbi.

Adam Mintz  02:58

So thank you, Geoffrey. It's a great topic. And I wonder about the relationship between being chosen, and being holy, the Torah tell us in the book of Vayikra (Leviticus), that we should be holy, "Kidoshim Tehiyu" . And the question is, does God choose us because we're holy? Or does God choose us, in spite of the fact that we're not always holy? Now, first of all, I think we need to break this down an to say, what does it mean to be holy? Rashi says, on the verse that says we should be holy, holy means to be separate Holy means to recognize that we're not like everybody else. We don't do like everybody else all the time. Sometimes we have to be different. We need to be holy, we need to be seperate. But what's interesting, and this is an idea that's emphasized on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That is the idea of the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that promises that even though you're not always holy, even though you're not always going to do the right thing, I have chosen you to be my people. I have chosen you to be my people in good times and bad times. In return for that, you choose me to be your God. So I think I'd like to talk about that today. And that's the idea. Does God choose us even when we don't deserve to be chosen? And I think what's amazing about the story is if you read the Torah, that seems to be that God chooses us even if we don't actually deserve to be chosen.

Geoffrey Stern  04:44

Well, that is certainly going to come out today as we explore the sources. But certainly, whether we are distinct because we are holy or we are distinct because we are better none the less inherent in the idea of this chosen people is in fact that we are different in some way. And that we should take that as somehow either a compliment or an obligation. So I said that it's mentioned just very few times in the Bible, in Exodus 19. It says, "Now, if you obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession, "Li Segula" among all the peoples, indeed, all the earth is mine." So here we have another element to this concept of being a chosen people. And that is this concept of a covenant. You know, a covenant is a legal term. It's between two parties, and it has certain conditions. And again, it means that as you were saying, and you raise this question of not always being holy, I would add to that, the question of not yet being holy meaning to say, is this choseness, is this part of developing relationship? Is it a reward? Is it kind of like, seeing the potential, and all of these things are going to come up today, as we kind of look at the sources, before we delve into the sources, the other two times that "Am Segula" is mentioned are both in Deuteronomy. And it's one of these unique occurrences that doesn't happen very often, where the same verse is word for word,  verbatim, repeated twice. It says, "for you are people consecrated to the Lord your God of all the peoples on earth, the Lord your God chose you to be his treasured people." And the only other time that I can recall that we have word for word, the same kind of formula repeated is the 10 commandments. And so it kind of ties into this concept of a treaty of a covenant of a Brit. And so what we're going to do today is actually indulge me into two different ways of looking at this chosen people that have always intrigued me. One is looking at the story of Genesis. You could read Genesis from the beginning till the end, and say, This is a book about show choosing, choosing one son over another, choosing one wife over another, it is all a narrative, all of the complex kind of soap opera type of drama, is all caused by the same dynamic that we run into when we talk about our chosen people. So I always was thinking that's where I would look. And I was hoping someone would write a book. And lo and behold, I did a search. And someone wrote a book exactly on that subject, which is to use the concept of election and choseness in the narrative of Genesis as an insight into what actually it means to be chosen. And the other thing that I was exposed to maybe 30, 40 years ago, is they discovered these Hittite treaties between the king and his vassals. And they saw that they resembled very much the kind of Brit or covenant ceremony that we have in the Bible. And the question was, how did they bare light on this whole concept of being chosen? So with your permission, what I'd love to do is to start looking at Genesis from a totally new perspective. And we're doing that to a large degree, the writings of a guy named Joel Kaminsky at Smith College, and he wrote a book in 2007 called "Yet I love Jacob, we're claiming the biblical concept of election". So the first drama that we get in in Genesis is Cain and Abel. And you all know this story. Cain is the older Abel is the younger, Abel brings a sacrifice of meat because he is a herder. And Abel brings a sacrifice of vegitation and wheat because he is a farmer, and God accepts the sacrifice of Abel of the meat, and doesn't accept or rejects the sacrifice of Cain. And of course, the first thing that we know is based on our prior weeks of discussion where we see the Bible has a real good bias for vegetarianism over meat is we would have thought God would have made a different decision. So maybe the first takeaway as we look at how God chooses is that "Strange are the ways of the Lord" , you never know what's gonna determine a Divine choice. The second thing that happens is those of you who have read the story know that Abel is not a big part of the story. The dialogue is with Cain, who after his sacrifice is rejected. God speaks to him and says, you know, don't, don't don't be concerned about this. You know, it's okay. He realizes that Cain's face has dropped, and the focus on the first election in the Bible is not on the chosen, it's on the unchosen, and that is fascinating. And then of course, we know that Cain kills Abel does a terrible sin, genocide, if you will, because there are only two people on the earth in those days, besides Adam and Eve, and maybe Seth, and he does not get therefore the blessing of Divine Will, and having God looked down upon him favorably, but the dialogue continues. He's a wanderer. He says to God, God, they're going to kill me. So again, it is rather strange or illuminating. That the first instance of God choosing someone, the narrative focuses more on the one that was not chosen than the one that was chosen. Have you ever thought about that? I had never thought about that rabbi.

Adam Mintz  11:52

So I want to tell you, Geoffrey, that is an amazing idea. I have never thought about that. I mean, of course, it's right there. It's obvious. But what does that mean? That God focuses on the unchosen God focuses on giving the unchosen a chance. I mean, if you want to be dramatic about it, Geoffrey, you wonder if Cain had given a different answer. Maybe he would have been saved somehow. And we wouldn't have had the story the way we haven't. Maybe God was giving him a chance, now in the end, he didn't observe it, and he killed Abel and that was the end of it. But maybe God has the conversation with the unchosen, because the unchosen is the one who needs the help. Abel didn't need the help. He was he was okay, he was covered, Cain needed to help.

Geoffrey Stern  12:45

Absolutely. And of course, and we're gonna see more of this later. We cannot but ignore the fact that Abel was not the first born.  We always say Cain and Abel. That's because Cain was the firstborn. And in God's first choice, he picked, not the obvious, not following the rule of primogeniture. And he picked the second son. And to me, I never thought of Cain and Abel as the first election story. Michael, I'd love to hear your comment.

Michael Posnik  13:31

As always, as always, a Hiddush (novel interpretation) somewhere in there, but I do have a question. Is this the very first time we encounter death in the TaNaCH (The Biblical Canon)? It seems as I recall, there's no other moment of death. And I remember a theater piece that George Henkin did a long time ago, when Cain and Abel are wrestling, and Cain kills Abel, but doesn't know what he's done. He tries to shake him awake, he tries to lift him up. But we don't have death yet in the TaNaCH. So that's all.

Geoffrey Stern  14:08

I think that's a great insight. I mean,  we had death as a hypothetical we had, if you eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you will die. And we have the curse of death. But this is probably the first instance of actual death. Would you agree Rabbi?

Adam Mintz  14:26

There's no question that that's right. I mean, the question is, what do you make of that? I mean, that of course is right. Now what's the "therefore" Michael?  This is the first  incidence of death. I mean, we learn a lot from the first instance of death. Let me say it another way. It's fascinating that the Torah doesn't wait very long to talk to give us a death story. Chapter 3. It's already at the beginning. You have the story of the of the expulsion from The Garden of Eden. There's not going to be death in the Garden of Eden because the Garden of Eden is perfection. So actually, if you want to take it this way, Geoffrey, the very first story in the Torah is the story of death is the story of killing, Man leaves the Garden of Eden and they kill ... and there's death.

Geoffrey Stern  15:21

So I'd like to add to that, and I think it's a really insightful insight is that not only does death first come up, but death first comes up as a result of a choice and a choice (favoritism) made by God, if you will, and so, you know, my first inclination is, this whole concept of a chosen people really does suck....  Aren't we all loved in the in the eyes of God,... so forth and so on. And I have to say that some of the traditional commentaries, even say the same thing, if you look at the Seforno on Deuteronomy our verse. "it says, to be a treasured nation, so that he may achieve with you what he hoped to achieve with mankind, when He created man saying, Let us make man in our image." This Seforno to me is brilliant, because it does say that the ultimate goal had actually been not to make a choice, that everybody's beautiful in his own way or her own way. But nonetheless, the second you start making choices, you start getting jealousy. And in the extreme, you have death. So let's go to the next story that this book brings up, which also includes death. And it's the story of Ishmael and Isaac, or Hagar and Sarah. And in two weeks time are going to be in synagogue or zooming in and listening to the Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashannah, and it's hard to believe, but the first Torah reading that we read, on the first of the ten holliest days of our calendar, is about, again, the rejected son. It's about  Sarah kicking out Hagar, and her son is Ishamel she's threatened by them, because she feels that her son is the chosen one. And this story then takes the point of view of Hagar, and Ishmael and Ishmael is about to die of thirst. And then God goes ahead and saves him and blesses him. So it is again.  it's so illustrative that in the second big story of choseness, we have, again, the concepts of life or death. And I should have mentioned that we have a new theme here. And the new theme here is, you could say it's a difficult consummation, it's a difficult birth. Or you could say it's a miraculous birth. So Sarah, and Abraham, who are the chosen are having difficulty bringing a child in, they have their firstborn son, Ishmael through a maidservant named Hagar. And then they believe that it is Isaac, who's the fully chosen one. So you have this concept. And I once heard that there was an adoption agency for a Jewish children, and it was called Chosen Children. And whether it's true or not, it's an amazing name. Because I think part of this theme is that if you are born miraculously, or if you survive a death defying moment, whether it's being thirsty, as Ishmael survived, or Isaac almost being slaughtered in the binding of Issac The Akedah, in a sense, you belong to God. And so you are an adopted child. But again, we have this sense that if you are chosen, coming with it comes a lot of pain and struggle. I just love the way this book and I encourage any of you who are interested in tracing these concepts to get it. But again, these themes come up over and over again, in all the future themes. We're going to have this question of a difficult or miraculous birth, we're going to have the sense of the one who is not chosen is nonetheless blessed in his or her own way. And we have the sense being chosen isn't a walk in the park. It's difficult for all concerned.

Adam Mintz  20:07

I mean, let's let's, let me take your last point first. And that is the fact that choseness is difficult, choseness is opportunity. But choseness is also obligation. And I think that's really the point you're making. And that's a huge point. You started the half hour with a discussion of Tevya. You know, "couldn't you choose somebody else", he understood that being chosen is obligation. I'll just tell you something. When you convert somebody to Judaism, the way the conversion process works is that the conversion candidate studies all the laws or many of the laws, then you take the conversion candidate to the mikvah, and you kind of give them a kind of formal test. And then they get ready to go into the mikvah. And the very last thing that you say to the conversion candidate, before they go into the mikvah before they become Jewish, what you say is, you should know that you're now joining a chosen people, and being chosen has a lot of responsibilities. And not everybody in the world understands and appreciates the fact that we're chosen. It's always struck me that that's what we tell the Convert at the last minute.

Geoffrey Stern  21:35

And of course, the Convert is literally choosing to be a part of our people.

Adam Mintz  21:42

In spite of the fact that choseness is a challenge.

Geoffrey Stern  21:49

One of the ideas that I was thinking of is, is choseness a choice, and certainly in the sense of a convert, they are choosing to be part of our chosen community. You know, you can't help but realize when we talk about Ishmael, that we on the first day of Rosh Hashannah are going to be hearing his story, and not the story of Isaac. But there are billions of followers of Islam, who actually believe that Ishmael was the son who was taken by Abraham to the binding, and they substitute Ishmael for Isaac. So it seems to me that one of the questions that is raised in my head is; Is this our narrative of being chosen, and are others are permitted and almost encouraged to have their own narratives of being chosen? But certainly whether you answer that question in the affirmative or not, even in our own tradition, we've had two instances. So far, we're the one who has not chosen almost becomes the center point of the story, at least that part of the story that we've looked at, which to me is just absolutely fascinating. So let's move on to the next story. And that is Jacob and Esau. And here, unlike the previous story, where you had two mothers, you had Hagar and Sarah, and I should say that this concept of choseness is known to disrupt people, so that maybe Ishmael and Isaac did not have the best relationship. But we can't but realize that it spilled over to their mothers who didn't have a good relationship. This choseness tears families apart. Now we get to Jacob and Esau, and we have a single mother with twins in her womb. And in Genesis 25. It says, "and the Lord answered her two nations are in your womb, to separate people shall issue from your body, one shall be mightier than the other. And the older shall serve the younger." So if we thought that there was a trend and from two episodes, you can't have a trend yet. But if we started to sense that Cain and Abel, it was Abel, who was picked, he was the underdog. He was the second born. In the story of Isaac and Ishmael Isaac was the second born. Now we have the Bible actually say it, that it is going to be Jacob, who is the second born, who will rule over the older. And this choice by God is very disruptive. And it is disruptive in the sense that it goes against the traditions, the concepts, the assumptions of the ancient Near East, and even our own Bible were in Deuteronomy 21. It says if you have two sons from two wives, and One is loved and one is not, "he must accept the firstborn, the son of the unloved one, and a lot to him a double portion of all he possesses." So the choices that God and His agents are making in Genesis are flaunting the assumptions and the norms of the ancient Near East. And in that sense, we have a new element to choseness. And that is a sense of radicalism.

Adam Mintz  25:32

I love that. I love that idea. radicalism.  Choseness is radicalism, because of the way that it developed. Let's just again, take a step back choseness doesn't have to be radical, because it could be that the older one is chosen. But the way the Torah represents it, the older one is never chosen, you're chosen on merit, not on birth order. And that is radical in the Torah. And you're absolutely right, Geoffrey the Torah wants that to be radical. The Torah wants you to sit up straight and say, Wow, the Torah is breaking the rules. And it might be what you quoted from last week's parsha, that if you have two wives, and you have to still respect the son of the older son that's a technicality. That's in laws of inheritance. But what they talk about in the book of Genesis is not the laws of inheritance. That's really the concept of who's gonna continue the Jewish people. And that was not based on birth order that was based on merit. And the Torah is very radical, that the younger one seems to always merit. By the way, it doesn't end in Genesis, Moses is the one who merits to be the leader, even though clearly Aaron is the older one. And Aaron doesn't get it, Aaron gets a consolation prize. He is the high priest, but he's not the leader of the Jewish people.

Geoffrey Stern  27:13

We're so engrossed in this conversation, the minutes are running by, but I would like to pose and this I have not seen in writing. And so in a sense, this is a little bit original. But we always think the opposite of chosen, this is not being chosen (rejected). And I would like to suggest that the opposite of being chosen, is being entitled. And I think the adopted child is the best example that one could pick. The idea that the firstborn, and that is whether it's the firstborn in a family, or it's an established hierarchy of class or nobility, that they are entitled to have (power) certain things. The fact that the Bible shows an absolute bias, and it's outspoken. It goes all the way through Joseph's story...  Joseph is the son of Rachel, Rachel is the daughter of Laben. She's the second born daughter, this doesn't only refer to men, when Jacob picks her And Laban switches the vail,  Laban winks at Jacob the next morning and says, We don't do things that way. Here. We honor the firstborn. Jacob was rejecting the first born when he picked Rachel, Jacob, who loved Joseph was loving the youngest over over Judah. So this is a rejection of the entitlement, and an embrace of and I won't say someone who deserves it, and that's where we get to the crux of the message, and we're running out of time. So I'd love to talk about the Joseph's story a little bit. It's very clear in Joseph that when he is young, not only does his father make a mistake in picking him and giving him this beautiful toy of a wonderful multicolored coat, but he doesn't understand what it is to have certain powers, certain abilities. He taunts his brothers with his dreams, you will bow down to me he is an immature chosen person, and his brothers are no less immature by selling him. He goes on to Egypt. And again, he's chosen .... this guy is on the make, he's going to rise to the top. And it's only after he's in jail, that he's called on to interpret a dream for the first time, does he say, and God has given me this ability, and he's gotten the humility. So I think we learned from this part of the story That, in fact, being chosen is as much of a challenge, is as much of seeing the potential that one needs to pick. And I will say that part of it has to be choosing to be chosen. And that's where I kind of want to end and I'm happy to extend our conversation. But these Hittite treaties that I referenced earlier on, were between the main King, and a bunch of different vassals, and they sounded very much like our 10 commandments, because they start by the king saying, I did this for your parents, and I took you from here, and I brought you to here, and therefore you have to be loyal to me. And what the radical difference .... we've used this term already today, with the covenant of being chosen, is that God gets rid of the ruling class, and he doesn't pick another king. And we've discussed this before he picks the children of Israel. And he says to each person, I have this relationship with you. And that, I think, is what was radical about the choseness and the covenant that we see. And in fact, this whole concept of being chosen? Is it a difficult concept? Yes. Is it one that comes chock full of suffering? Absolutely. But I'd like to say that, to my mind, the idea of being chosen is the idea of not being entitled, The idea that if you choose to be part of our movement, and it was a movement of unaffiliated "apiru", which became "ivrim" who came into the land of Canaan, who rejected all of the ruling class, and decided to make a new society, if you choose to join us, you are chosen. And if you choose to live by the old rules of entitlement and class, then maybe you're going to have your own blessings. But the blessings of this choseness are unique. And that's kind of what I come away with. It's a very challenging concept. It's one that we can debate forever. But it's also one that is chock full of ideas that that relate to all of us who have families, who have sibling rivalries, .... it's very grounded in real life.

Adam Mintz  32:27

Thank you, Geoffrey. I think that's great. I'll just add one little point and that is, and even when you choose to be chosen, the road is bumpy. And Joseph is the best example of that. Nothing is simple, right? The decision to be chosen is difficult. And then the road of choseness is difficult. This was a great topic. It's a great topic before Rosh Hashannah. We look forward to seeing everybody we still can get it one more Shabbat before Rosh Hashannah. So next week, "Nitzavim" have a great Shabbat Have a great week, everybody enjoy the last week of summer. And we look forward to see you next Friday.

Geoffrey Stern  33:03

Anyone who wants to stay on and continue the discussion are welcome to do so. But this was very special, I hope you all enjoyed. And that each in your own way will choose to be chosen and to choose and empower others as well. As we go into Shabbat, the only thing that I will add is that the blessing that we say over our children on Friday night is the blessing that that Jacob made to Joseph's two children, Ephraim and Menasheh And to the form, he moved his hands in two different directions. And he put his right hand on the youngest son, and true to form Joseph said to him, Hey, Dad, that's not the way we do things. And the real reason I believe that we make the blessing on Menasheh and Ephraim on Friday night is number one, it's a blessing from  grandparents to their grandchildren. And when you bless your grandchildren, you know that the continuity of some of the ideas that you hold, near have a future. but also, we have no record of Ephraim and Menasheh so in a sense, it is a little bit of the resolution of the whole challenge of choseness, that here were two brothers. Clearly one had different talents than the other. One got the main blessing, the other got another blessing, but they all live together and at the end of the day, that I think is the biggest challenge of being chosen. Shabbat Shalom.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. Noah has been denigrated for saving only himself and his family and not for saving all of humanity. In a world where victims and survivors of terrorism are vilified and protecting ones life and the security of ones family a sin, we look at Noah differently and learn something about ourselves and our enemies.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/518474

Transcript on Episode Web page: https://madlik.com/2023/10/18/a-tzaddik-in-peltz/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern recorded live at the Conservative Synagogue of Westport, Connecticut with guest appearences of Madlik Faithful Henry Feuerstein, Martin Rosenfeld z'l, Martha Rosenfeld, Judy Shapiro and others.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/594972 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2016/10/01/whats-new-with-the-jewish-new-year/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz, recorded on Clubhouse. Moses uses a title for God he uses in only one other place and which is not used again in all of Tanach: "God of the spirits of all flesh". This name for God strikes us as very universalist, even humanistic and we explore.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/576389 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/07/03/the-spirit-of-all-flesh/ 

Parshat Chayei Sarah - Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on October 28th 2021 as they explore the Bible’s euphemism for death: “and he was gathered unto his people” as an opportunity to question our assumptions regarding the biblical view of the afterlife … with much appreciation to Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/357282

For a full transcript of the podcast go to the podcast web site here: https://madlik.com/2021/10/27/life-is-with-people-and-so-is-death/

it all started when two rebbes sat in a sukkah ....

Source Notes

--------------------

a cathedral in time – a tabernacle in space

1.

Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. Unlike the space­minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, quality­less, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals; and our Holy of Holies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able to burn; a shrine that even apostasy cannot easily obliterate: the Day of Atonement. According to the ancient rabbis, it is not the observance of the Day of Atonement, but the Day itself, the “essence of the Day,” which, with man’s repentance, atones for the sins of man.

-------

Note: Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 1:3

The essence of Yom Kippur brings attonement for thos who repent as it says: “For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before the LORD. Leviticus 16:30

""כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם  עצמו של יום הכיפורים מכפר לשבים שנאמר

------

Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant forms in time, as architecture of time. Most of its observances–the Sabbath, the New Moon, the festivals, the Sabbatical and the Jubilee year–depend on a certain hour of the day or season of the year. It is, for example, the evening, morning, or afternoon that brings with it the call to prayer. The main themes of faith lie in the realm of time. We remember the day of the exodus from Egypt, the day when Israel stood at Sinai; and our Messianic hope is the expectation of a day, of the end of days.

------

Moed – Holiday

Ohel Moed – Ten of Meeting

------

In the Bible, words are employed with exquisite care, particularly those which, like pillars of fire, lead the way in the far­ flung system of the biblical world of meaning. One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word kadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar? It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word kadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness.

This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that, after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place–a holy mountain or a holy spring–whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first. When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time. When at Sinai the word of God was about to be voiced, a call for holiness in man was proclaimed: “Thou shalt be unto me a holy people.” It was only after the people had succumbed to the temptation of worshipping a thing, a golden calf, that the erection of a Tabernacle, of holiness in space, was commanded.

The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses. While the festivals celebrate events that happened in time, the date of the month assigned for each festival in the calendar is determined by the life in nature. Passover and the Feast of Booths [Sukkot], for example, coincide with the full moon, and the date of all festivals is a day in the month, and the month is a reflection of what goes on periodically in the realm of nature, since the Jewish month begins with the new moon, with the reappearance of the lunar crescent in the evening sky. In contrast, the Sabbath is entirely independent of the month and unrelated to the moon. Its date is not determined by any event in nature, such as the new moon, but by the act of creation. Thus the essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space. The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

The Sabbath (FSG Classics) Paperback – July 28, 2005 by Abraham Joshua Heschel

2.

After the destruction of the Second Temple there … was no High Priest, no sacrifice, no divine fire, no Levites singing praises or crowds thronging the precincts of Jerusalem and filling the Temple Mount. Above all there was no Yom Kippur ritual through which the people could find forgiveness.

It was then that a transformation took place that must constitute one of the great creative responses to tragedy in history. Tradition has cast Rabbi Akiva in the role of the savior of hope. The Mishna in Yoma, the tractate dedicated to Yom Kippur, tells us in effect that Rabbi Akiva could see a new possibility of atonement even in the absence of a High Priest and a Temple. God Himself would purify His people without the need for an intermediary. Even ordinary Jews could, as it were, come face to face with the Shekhina, the Divine Presence. They needed no one else to apologize for them. The drama that once took place in the Temple could now take place in the human heart. Yom Kippur was saved. It is not too much to say that Jewish faith was saved.

Every synagogue became a fragment of the Temple. Every prayer became a sacrifice. Every Jew became a kind of priest, offering God not an animal but instead the gathered shards of a broken heart. For if God was the God of everywhere, He could be encountered anywhere. And if there were places from which He seemed distant, then time could substitute for place. “Seek God where He is' to be found, call on Him' where He is close” (Is. 55:6) -— this, said the sages, refers to the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh HaShana to Yom Kippur (Yevamot 105a). Holy days became the surrogate for holy spaces. Yom Kippur became the Jerusalem of time, the holy city of the Jewish soul.

Koren Sacks Yom Kippur Mahzor (Hebrew and English) Hardcover – August 15, 2012 by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks  pp xv-xvi

During Sukkot, we add a prayer: “May the All Merciful establish (raise) for us the fallen Sukkah of David”

הרחמן הוא יקים לנו את סוכת דוד הנופלת

The notion of the “fallen Sukkah” come from the prophet Amos (9:11)

In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old;

 בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, אָקִים אֶת-סֻכַּת דָּוִיד הַנֹּפֶלֶת; וְגָדַרְתִּי אֶת-פִּרְצֵיהֶן, וַהֲרִסֹתָיו אָקִים, וּבְנִיתִיהָ, כִּימֵי עוֹלָם

From the first day of Elul until the last day of Sukkot we read Psalm 27 every day.

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the graciousness of the LORD, and to visit early in His temple.  or He concealeth me in His pavilion (lit. Sukkah) in the day of evil;
He hideth me in the covert of His tent; He lifteth me up upon a rock.

אַחַת, שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת-ה'--    אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ
שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-ה',    כָּל-יְמֵי חַיַּי;
לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם-ה',    וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלו

כִּי יִצְפְּנֵנִי, בְּסֻכֹּה--    בְּיוֹם רָעָה:
יַסְתִּרֵנִי, בְּסֵתֶר אָהֳלוֹ;    בְּצוּר, יְרוֹמְמֵנִי

Musical notes:

Achat Sha’alti mei’eit Adonai otah avakeish (2x)

Shivti b’veit Adonai kol y’mei chayai

Lachazot b’no’am, b'no'am Adonai ul’vakeir b’heichalo (2x)

This melody, written by Israel Katz. See The Chazzan’s Tisch here and Velveteen Rabbi here for an Hebrew/English version and some background into Israel Katz the composer.  Here’s the track I play on the podcast 1:10 seconds in and available on iTunes here

Cho Rachman (Rebuilt) composed and sung by Shlomo Carlebach on his 4th LP, In The Palace Of The King (Vanguard, 1965) and available on Amazon here.

Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz in conversation of Madlik Clubhouse.  Recorded on the weekly 4:00pm Eastern disruptive Torah group and a continuation of re-evaluating Jewish institutions with fresh eyes after the plague of Covid-19. This week we look at the home and towards the time when we will re-open our home as we re-open our temples. We explore the relationship between the home and the temple. The Mishkan and the Mishkan Ma'at. Which came first. Which holds the secret to the perseverance of the Jewish People... and what we can do about it.

Link to Sefarioa Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/314697 

The Art of Stealing: Unraveling the Complexities of the Eighth Commandment

"Thou shalt not steal" seems straightforward, but is it? This week's episode of Madlik delves into the intricate world of Jewish law and ethics surrounding theft, revealing surprising insights that challenge our assumptions about this fundamental commandment.

Background and Context

The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of Judeo-Christian ethics, but their interpretation is far from simple. In this episode, we explore the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," uncovering layers of meaning that go far beyond the obvious prohibition of theft.

Rabbi Adam Mintz and Geoffrey Stern guide us through a fascinating journey, examining rabbinic interpretations that span millennia. From the Talmud to Maimonides, we discover how Jewish scholars have grappled with the concept of stealing, expanding it to encompass a wide range of ethical considerations.

Key Insights and Takeaways

1. Kidnapping vs. Theft

Contrary to popular belief, the rabbis interpreted "Thou shalt not steal" in the Ten Commandments as referring specifically to kidnapping, not theft of property. This interpretation stems from the context of the other commandments, which deal with capital offenses.

> "Scripture here is speaking about a case of one who steals human beings, whilst the command in Leviticus, 'you shall not steal,' speaks about a case of one who steals money from another person's property." - Rashi

This distinction highlights the gravity with which Jewish law views the theft of a person's freedom, placing it on par with murder and adultery.

2. The Spectrum of Stealing

While the Ten Commandments may focus on kidnapping, Jewish law expands the concept of stealing to cover a wide range of actions:

- Theft of property

- Deception (geneivat da'at)

- Stealing sleep (gezel sheina)

- Unfair business practices

- Plagiarism

This broad interpretation encourages us to consider how our actions might "steal" from others in less obvious ways.

3. The Psychology of Stealing

Maimonides warns against stealing even in jest or with the intention to return the item:

> "It is forbidden to steal as a jest, to steal with the intent to return, or to steal with the intent to pay, lest one habituate oneself to such conduct."

This perspective emphasizes the importance of cultivating ethical habits and avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

4. The Social Impact of Theft

Nachmanides (Ramban) connects the prohibition against stealing to the broader social fabric:

"If you do any one of the Thou Shalt nots in the second tablet, you are breaking the social network that is formed by saying God created everyone in His image, and your parents are partners in that."

This interpretation encourages us to view ethical behavior not just as individual actions, but as part of maintaining a harmonious society.

Challenges and Practical Advice

1. Redefining Theft in the Modern World

As our world becomes increasingly digital and interconnected, we face new challenges in defining and preventing theft. Consider:

- Intellectual property rights

- Data privacy

- Time theft in the workplace

Action Step: Reflect on your digital interactions. Are there ways you might be "stealing" that you haven't considered before?

2. Cultivating Ethical Habits

Maimonides' warning about habituating oneself to stealing applies to many areas of life. How can we build positive ethical habits?

- Practice mindfulness in your interactions with others

- Regularly reflect on your actions and their potential impact

- Seek feedback from trusted friends or mentors on your ethical conduct

3. Balancing Intent and Impact

The rabbinic discussions highlight the complexity of ethical decision-making. Sometimes, good intentions can lead to harmful outcomes.

Challenge: Think of a situation where you tried to help someone but may have inadvertently caused harm or discomfort. How could you approach similar situations differently in the future?

What We Learned About Stealing

Our exploration of "Thou shalt not steal" reveals that this commandment is far more nuanced and far-reaching than we might have assumed. It challenges us to:

1. Consider the broader implications of our actions

2. Cultivate ethical habits in all areas of life

3. Recognize the interconnectedness of individual ethics and social harmony

By delving into these ancient texts and interpretations, we gain valuable insights that can guide our ethical decision-making in the modern world. The Jewish tradition's expansive view of stealing encourages us to be more mindful of how our actions impact others and to strive for a higher standard of ethical behavior.

As we navigate the complexities of modern life, let's carry these insights with us, always striving to uphold the spirit of "Thou shalt not steal" in its fullest sense.

Ready to dive deeper into this fascinating topic? Listen to the full episode of Madlik for more insights and join the conversation about ethics, law, and the timeless wisdom of the Jewish tradition.

Please also find Sefaria Source Sheet link here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/623551

Background and Context

The Torah is often viewed as an all-encompassing legal code, dictating every aspect of Jewish life. However, Umberto Cassuto, writing in the newly formed state of Israel, presents a revolutionary perspective. He argues that the Torah's laws should be understood in the context of existing legal traditions in the ancient Near East.

Cassuto's approach is groundbreaking. He suggests that to truly understand the Torah's legal sections, we must examine them alongside other ancient legal codes, such as the Code of Hammurabi. This comparison reveals the Torah's unique contributions and its transformative impact on existing legal norms.

Key Insights and Takeaways

1. The Torah as a Responsive Document

Contrary to the idea that the Torah created a legal system from scratch, Cassuto argues that it responds to and builds upon existing legal traditions. This perspective challenges our understanding of the Torah's role in ancient Israelite society.

2. The Religious Nature of Torah Law

While other ancient Near Eastern legal codes were primarily secular, the Torah introduces a religious dimension to law. As Rabbi Adam Mintz points out:

"What's surprising in Judaism is the laws come from God. And the reason for that is because they practice monotheism... Monotheism allows for religious law. Idolatry doesn't allow for religious law."

3. Three Ways the Torah Interacts with Existing Laws

Cassuto identifies three primary ways the Torah engages with existing legal traditions:

- Introducing amendments

- Opposing or invalidating certain aspects

- Confirming and elevating worthy aspects

This nuanced approach shows how the Torah acts as a catalyst for change while acknowledging existing societal norms.

4. The Sanctity of Human Life

One of the most significant innovations of Torah law is its emphasis on the sanctity of human life. Geoffrey, quoting Cassuto highlights this point:

"The Torah wishes to affirm and establish the principle in the name of divine law that human life is sacred, and whoever assails this sanctity forfeits his own life, measure for measure."

This principle leads to more compassionate laws, even for those who have committed crimes.

Challenges and Practical Advice

1. Rethinking Biblical Interpretation

Cassuto's approach challenges us to reconsider how we interpret biblical texts. By understanding the historical and legal context, we gain new insights into the Torah's teachings.

2. Balancing Tradition and Innovation

The Torah's interaction with existing legal codes provides a model for how we can approach societal change today. It shows us how to respect tradition while pushing for ethical improvements.

3. Applying Ancient Wisdom to Modern Challenges

Umberto Cassuto's work offers a fresh perspective on the Torah's legal sections. By viewing them in the context of ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, we gain a deeper appreciation for the Torah's innovative and transformative nature as well as it’s limitations. The Torah laws were not meant to replace or undermine all existing norms, customs and social behavior.

This approach provides a model for how religious traditions can respect, engage with and elevate societal norms. It challenges us to think critically about the interplay between religious teachings and secular laws in our own time and in general and in the State of Israel, in particular.

As we continue to grapple with complex ethical and legal issues in the modern world, the Torah's example of building upon existing foundations while introducing higher ethical standards remains profoundly relevant.

To dive deeper into this fascinating topic and hear the full discussion, be sure to listen to the entire episode of Madlik and check out the Sefaria Source Notes https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/626312

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on August 11th 2022. Moses pleads with God to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. God is cross with Moses. When should we ask for more? When do we ask for too much? That is the question.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/424108 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/08/10/enough/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on January 19th 2023. The Rabbis learn from Moses the importance of Hakarta HaTov; recognizing good and showing gratitude even to inanimate objects. We explore this character trait as it relates to personal conduct and current Israeli politics.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/460393

Transcript on episode web page:

https://madlik.com/2023/01/18/thank-the-donkey-of-the-messiah/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on July 14th 2022. We read the story of Balaam and note the selective use of the generic “God-Elohim” and the particular name of the God of Israel – “YHVH”. We wonder if it is simply stylic variation or does it have significance. In the process we compare traditional Rabbinic solutions to the so-called Documentary Hypothesis and consider whether the Torah is comprised of different literary voices edited together.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/418965

Transcript on episode web site: https://madlik.com/2022/07/13/god-whats-in-a-name/

Mixed Marriages – In or out?

Join us as we imagine how Jewish Law and accepted practice could adjust to the alarmingly high rate of intermarriage in the USA and the subsequent loss of households identifying with the Jewish people.

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Notes

1. The Pew Survey Reanalyzed: More Bad News, but a Glimmer of Hope – by JACK WERTHEIMER AND STEVEN M. COHEN 

2. It's time to allow Conservative rabbis to officiate at interfaith weddings By Seymour Rosenbloom April 4, 2016 

3. Jethro

נָבֹל תִּבֹּל גַּם אַתָּה גַּם הָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עִמָּךְ כִּי כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר לֹא תוּכַל עֲשׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ

You will surely wear yourself out both you and these people who are with you for the matter is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Exodus 18: 18 

4. Daughters of Zelophechad

לָמָּה יִגָּרַע שֵׁם אָבִינוּ מִתּוֹךְ מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ כִּי אֵין לוֹ בֵּן תְּנָה לָּנוּ אֲחֻזָּה בְּתוֹךְ אֲחֵי אָבִינוּ

Why should our father's name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us a portion along with our father's brothers. Numbers 36

Rashi: because he had no son: But if he had a son, they would have made no claim at all. This teaches us that they were intelligent women. — [Sifrei Pinchas 15, Sifrei Pinchas 13]

5. Usury 

Exodus 22:24 (25)—If thou lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest. 

אִם-כֶּסֶף תַּלְוֶה אֶת-עַמִּי, אֶת-הֶעָנִי עִמָּךְ--לֹא-תִהְיֶה לוֹ, כְּנֹשֶׁה; לֹא-תְשִׂימוּן עָלָיו, נֶשֶׁךְ

 Deuteronomy 23:21 (20)—Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all that thou puttest thy hand unto, in the land whither thou goest in to possess it. 

לַנָּכְרִי תַשִּׁיךְ, וּלְאָחִיךָ לֹא תַשִּׁיךְ--לְמַעַן יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכֹל מִשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ

Heter Isaka see How Does a Heter Iska Work? By Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff

6. Heter Mechira, In the modern era, as Jews started to return to the land of Israel, the struggling farmers trying against all odds to eke out a marginal existence were confronted with the biblical law of shemita.. the requirement to let the land lie fallow every 7 years. In 1888 a bunch of the most esteemed Europeanrabbis (and the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa) came up with an innovative idea which has become known as the heter mechira (literally: permission to sell). They proposed, that just as on Passover we sell our Hametz to a non-Jew, for the Sabattical year of rest, the entire land of Israel may be sold to a gentile, so that the Jews could work the land. …By the time the next shmita cycle came around in 1895-1896, the rabbinic authorities had joined a united front permitting the sale of the land for that sabbatical year. The rabbis concluded that reality dictated a need for such action because the people could not observe the laws of shmita. In the years of 1910 and 1911, Rav Kook allowed for the sale of the land as well, reaffirming that although it was not ideal, it served an important purpose. …In the years that followed, the decision to sell the land was reevaluated before the arrival of each shmita cycle. Once the State of Israel was established, the Rabbanut (Chief Rabbinate) accepted the sale of the land every year until as recently as 2007-2008. (See Whose Land is it Anyway? By: Nava Billet published in the Yeshiva University Student Newspaper). 
7. Gathering pace, rogue Israeli conversion court racks up new Jews
8. Assimilation is here’ says Tzohar chairman Rabbi Stav
9. Rabbi: Conversion Panel to Prevent Intermarriage
10. Ger Katan in the Talmud: see Hebrew and here in English
11. Tircha DeTzibut – טורח ציבור    Undo Duress to the community 

אין גוזרין יותר משלש עשרה תעניות על הצבור לפי שאין מטריחין את הצבור יותר מדאי דברי רבי

Taanit 14b

12. A decree that a majority of the community can live with

גזירה

אין גוזרין גזירה על הצבור, אלא אם כן רוב הצבור יכולין לעמוד בה. קודם הנהגת תקנות וגזירות, על בית דין לבדוק אם רוב הציבור יכול לעמוד בה. עבודה זרה לו, א

When a court sees it necessary to issue a decree, institute an edict, or establish a custom, they must first contemplate the matter and see whether or not the majority of the community can uphold the practice. We never issue a decree on the community unless the majority of the community can uphold the practice. 

See Maimonides Code Mishne Torah Mamrim - Chapter 2 especially laws 5 - 9 

13. On Status and Identity 

See: Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa 2012 by David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis 

See: On Proving Jewish Identity Oct. 2011 by Rabbi Reuven Hammer 

The Rambam in Isurei Biah 19:17 cites the rule in Kiddushin 76b above and states: 

All familes stand in the presumption of fitness and may enter into marriage from the very beginning.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on June 1st 2023. We compare and contrast the Biblical Sotah (Suspected Woman) and the ritual of the bitter waters to the trial by ordeal found in ancient societies up until the Salem Witch Trials. We ask, what we can learn from this primitive form of justice.

Sefaria Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/492460

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/06/01/truth-or-dare/ 

Parshat Beha'alotcha - (Numbers 9: 2-13) Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse Friday May 28th 2021 as we uncover the relationship between the Biblical Pesach Sheni (2nd Passover) and the later instituted Shana M'Uberet (Leap year). We hypothesize regarding the theological and social ramifications of correcting an irregular calendar based on a seemingly imperfect planetary system.

Source Sheet on Sefaria: www.sefaria.org/sheets/326069

Transcript below:

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.  We also host a clubhouse every Friday at 4:00pm Eastern time and this week, along with Rabbi Adam Mintz We uncover a relationship between the Biblical Pesach Sheni (2nd Passover) and the shana meuberet, the leap year. We hypothesize regarding the theological and social ramifications of tweaking a calendar created by a seemingly imperfect planetary system.  So join us on a date as we explore the Jewish Calendar and hacking the universe.

G Stern [00:00:00] Welcome to Madlik, where every week Friday at four o'clock Eastern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and I, Geoffrey Stern, do a little disruptive Torah learning. And by that I mean we look at subject matters either in a an unorthodox manner, certainly not with a capital O, but in a different manner to get our hearts and minds thinking about Judaism a little bit differently. This week's parsha B'eha'lotcha is in the book of numbers. And the subject that we're going to discuss today is one that those who have listened to the podcast know I love and value so much. And that's the idea of the second Passover "Pesach Sheni". And for the first few minutes, we'll discuss it in very traditional ways. But then we're going to dig a little bit deeper. So let me set the stage. It's literally the Jews are in the desert and it is, I believe, the first time that they will be celebrating the Passover. It's the first or the second anniversary. And the people are instructed to keep the Passover. "b'moado" in it's set time and the verse goes on to say, you shall do it on the 14th day of this month at twilight, "b'moado" in its time and of course, those of us who know Passover is in the month of Nisan. And believe it or not, the very first commandment that the Jewish people were given was not to keep Shabbat and it was not not to steal, it was to make sure that "Hahodesh ha'ze l'chem", that the month of Nisan should be the beginning of the months. So it was a commandment to do with the calendar. In any case, that we understand why whenever it talks about Passover and today's section is no exception, it makes sure that everyone understands it has to be in the spring, it has to be in the month of Nisan. Which leads us to great surprise when Moses is confronted by a bunch of people who come and they say that we are impure and we cannot keep the Passover in its associated time, we don't want to be left out of this iconic annual celebration and what can we do? So Moses said to them, "Stand by and let me hear what instructions the Lord gives about you." It almost sounds like you're talking to an operator at a service bureau and she goes, hold on, I got to talk to my manager. So Moses escalates the call and then he says, speak to the Israeli people, saying, when any of you or your posterity who are defiled by a corpse or on a long journey, would offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord. They shall offer it in the second month. And he goes on to say that for now and forever, that if for whatever reason and there are a few caveats, but for most reasons that are beyond your control, if you could not observe the Passover ceremony in all of its details in the month of Nisan, you can do it exactly a month later. And so what I would like to Adam is to ask you, what do you think this message tells us about both Passover, but more importantly about Judaism?

A Mintz [00:04:03] I think the idea of giving a second chance is an unbelievable idea. And it's amazing that the Torah teaches it in such a strange way. But it's really about getting a second chance and it's about the fact that people don't want to be left out. They felt that they lost out, that they were able to give up the first Passover. So they got a second chance wiyh the second Passover. And what an amazing lesson about giving back, getting second chances.

G Stern [00:04:31] You know, I totally agree. And that's I think one of the reasons it's so fascinates me. But again, I want to emphasize that, you know, you could say you got a second chance if you forgot to put on tefillin in the morning, you can put it on in the afternoon, or if you forgot to give to tzedaka, you can do it later. But the lesson here is so emphatic because it picks the one holiday that in numerouse places in the tTorah, in the Bible that says you got to do it on time, you got to do it, "b'moado", in its fixed time, and it's precisely that one that it gives that wonderful message that you make reference to, which is you have another chance. You never miss the boat. Don't you think that's remarkable?

A Mintz [00:05:20] It is more I think yes, it is remarkable.

G Stern [00:05:25] So it seems to me though that it's remarkable. But it also raises a question because clearly the message could have been given on another holiday on Sukkoth and it could have been given for another mitzvah. It's almost like there's a conflict, a contradiction in terms that it's speaking from both sides of its mouth. It's saying you've got to do it in its right season. All these guys need to have it at another time. You can do it at another time. And I think that's one of the things that really intrigued me about this and made me starting to think about the Jewish calendar. And the way I want to introduce my thoughts on the Jewish calendar is with a joke. The joke goes as follows. There's a Hasidic rabbi and he's getting on to the flight and he sees that he's sitting next to a nun. And, you know, everybody is traveling home for the holidays. It's in December. And he says, you know, I don't want her to think that we are so insulated that we can't carry on a conversation. So he says, what should I talk to her about? And finally, it dawns on him and he turns to her and he says, So, Miss, are the holidays early or late this year? And of course, that's a joke for Jews who every year before either the high holidays at the end of the summer or before Passover, we ask, are the holidays early or late this year? And the concept of the holidays being early or late, I think is something that is essential and that only Jews who follow what is a combination of the solar calendar and the lunar calendar can understand because we have a calendar that literally follows the moon. So if you follow the stars or the Zodiac, you know that every main Jewish holiday occurs when the moon is full and the 14th of the month and we are very tied into the tides, the warp, the ebb and flow of the of the lunar year. But on the other hand, we follow the seasons or the temps of the the calendar of the year. So it's adjusted. And every year, every so often, every three or four years, we have what's called a leap year in Hebrew. It's an iber shana or shana m'uberet, a pregnant year, so to speak. And that's why Jews have this question of is it early or late? And I would say no obvious biblical source for this. I'm going to argue that maybe "Pesach Sheni" , the second Passover can shed some light on the lunasol leap year. Maybe it has something to say about this hybrid lunar and solar calendar. But, Rabbi, have you ever given that thought in terms of 1) how unique our calendar is and 2) whether there is any biblical source for this very complex fixing of the calendar?

A Mintz [00:08:45] Well, so let's talk about the calendar. We have a calendar baced on the moon, and that's the way our calendar works every month is either twenty nine or thirty days because the lunar month, the month based on the moon is twenty nine and a half. Whereas the year based on the moon is two hundred and fifty four days. The year based on the sun is three hundred and sixty five days. Every single year we lose 11 days. What does that mean loose 11 days? Means that the holidays as your joke has it Geoffrey, the holidays fall out 11 days earlier than they fall out the year before. That happens every single year. That happens to the Moslems, too. That's why Ramadan is never fixed. Ramadan, there's no corrective. Each year. Ramadan falls out eleven days earlier than the year before. So sometimes Ramadan is in the summer. Sometimes Ramadan is in the winter. Just depends. In the Jewish calendar. We have a corrective because we lose eleven days. The problem, with losing 11 is that the Towra describes Passover as taking place during the spring, every three years we lose Passover because 11 days every year, thirty three days, it's a month early, it ends up before the beginning of spring. So therefore, seven times in 19 years, we add a leap month as the corrective. Next year, 5782 is going to be a leap year. Rosh Hashanah. Actually, again, your joke is the night of Labor Day can't be earlier, but Passover is going to be the end of April. It's going to be a very long winter next year because of the correction of the calendar. So that's why we have a unique calendar, because it's not like the  Gregorian calendar, which is based on the sun, but it's not like the Moslem calendar that's based only on the moon. It's a combination of the two.

G Stern [00:11:19] That was an amazingly good explanation. I do think that this concept of early or late and we can joke about it is intimately involved with what is unique about the Jewish calendar. As you said, the Christian calendar follows the Roman calendar and was totally solar based. So that Christmas and Easter they occur pretty much based on the Solar calendar and whether the moon is in ascent or not, whether the stars are in a particular alignment, it has no bearing. It doesn't have that connection to that aspect of nature. And the Muslim calendar is intimately connected with the lunar phases, but loses the sense of the trapos of the tropical change of the seasons and is not connected to agriculture. And then obviously it's not connected to times in history happened at a particular period. So I think we can truly say that the Jewish calendar is unique among the Abrahamic religions. And as usual, it's a little bit harder to defend something that is not here or not there. But I think at the most basic level, the idea of being early or late is not a scientific term. You'll never hear in math or in science early or late. If a phenomenon needs to happen, it happens when it needs to happen. And I think getting back to the message that we started with about Pesach Sheni, the second Passover, the make-up Passover, I think baked into our calendar is in fact this concept of it's never too late. But I would add to that and say maybe it's never too early. In other words, not trying to be Einsteinian, but time is relative and there are openings on either side. But in any case, what I have never realized before I started preparing for this week, I had always felt that PesachSheni. the second Passover was for individuals, but it was not for the whole nation. And as a result, I felt that there was no connection between the Second Passover and where literally you are taking Passover and you're saying it's not this month, it's next month, which is what you do in a leap year. And I thought there was no connection to this corrective nature of the Jewish calendar. But I discovered in the Book of Chronicles a story about Hezekiah, who at the time when the Jewish people had been conquered and had fallen into idolatry, there was a religious revival. And he summoned everyone over the Land of Israel for Passover. And it says that the king and his officers and the congregation in Jerusalm had agreed to keep the Passover in the second month. So here is a leader, a king who takes the whole nation of Israel and decides, and he gives an explanation that there wasn't enough time, they didn't have enough time to get purified. They didn't have enough time to come from the suburbs, so to speak. But for whatever reason, he decided that the whole nation should celebrate Passover not this month, but next month, that this month was not going to be the Nisan of the Passover. It was going to be next month. And so a bell rang in my head and I said to myself, well, maybe this is a biblical source for the correction that we do in the Jewish year and maybe some of the lessons that we take away from Pesach Sheni, the second Passover and the leap year are one in the same. And as I said before, it's not only never too late, but never too early either. And what intrigued me further was that there was a sense of sin involved with this. In other words, the the priests who went ahead with the king's decree and celebrated Passover the second month. It says about them that they they they felt bad, they felt ashamed. And the commentaries say they felt the shame because they had caused a leap year. And the king himself brought a sacrifice for atonement, so the rabbis of the Talmud take this and they say that, in fact, he did make a Pesach Sheni slash a leap year for the whole nation. And so, in a sense, from this story, there is a direct connection between the two. And that, to me was exciting. Plus the fact that we kind of have this sense that making this change, after all, it's human beings, we make the change. We decide when there should be a leap year. And there's a sense of kind of, I wouldn't say sinning, but there's a sense of admitting the imperfection of the moment. Rabbi, your thoughts?

A Mintz [00:17:16] The idea of imperfection is such a fascinating idea, the idea that the system isn't perfect the way it is, but the system needs a correction and that is something that really resonates with me. Again, the Moslem calendar doesn't have that. The Moslem calendar believes that it's just the calendar based on the moon and however, it falls it falls. But Judaism is willing to accept the fact that it needs a correction. And I think the idea of looking to make things perfect is really a very important lesson from this whole discussion of the calendar.

G Stern [00:18:06] So I'm a big believer in comparative religion. We've talked a little bit about Christianity, but I'd like to pick up on something that you just said about the Muslim religion doing what I would call it the pure path. They only follow the moon. And there are a lot of studies that Muhammad studied and heard both Christian and Jewish preachers before he wrote the Koran. And I want to read you one part of the Koran that literally talks about this element of sin in terms of correcting God's calendar, correcting or what I call in terms of the subject, hacking the calendar or hacking the universe. And he writes in the Koran, he says, and by the way, in the Koran, the the word for leap year is NASI. And we're going to get to that in a second. But he says, indeed, the Nasi, postponing our sacred month is an increase in disbelief by which those who have disbelieved are led further away. They make it lawful one year, an unlawful another year to correspond to the number made unlawful by Allah and thus make lawful what Allah has made unlawful. Made pleasing to them is the evil of their deeds, and Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. And in their commentaries they talk about those who use this nasi, this adjustment of the calendar to wage wars when a month doesn't permit them to wage war. So they just push it off to the next month, to do business, to build roads, to do all of these things. And I think this gives you a wonderful perspective in terms of what was, in fact radical, both about Islam, which rejected this hybrid calendar. But I would argue also radical about what the Jews did in terms of having a calendar that was understood to be imperfect and needed man to perfect it. And the key word is that he uses the word Nasi. And if you know about the Jewish doctrine, it says, who can decide when the leap year should be? And it says only the Nasi, only the prince, only the leader of the Jewish people. So clearly, Mohammed was aware of what the Jews had done, understood what its implications were, and rejected it. And I would say, by contrast, there was at that time the Jews understood what they were doing and the power of their adjustable calendar. And this, again, brings up this element of sin that we saw with Hezkiahu who felt that, yes, he had to make a change in the calendar, man had to be involved with this corrective action. But nonetheless, we did it with regret because the world was not perfect.

A Mintz [00:21:27] I mean, I think that says at all that idea of the calendar reflecting the fact that the world is not perfect. And number 2) the fact that we have the ability to help make the world perfect, we're not helpless standing by and watching. We're actually part of the process. I think that's an important, extremely important element also.

G Stern [00:21:53] And I think it gives us insight into a very strange story that some of us might be aware of, but maybe not. And that was the rabbis in the Talmud were having a discussion about what witnesses to accept in terms of when the new year was to begin. And in beautiful Talmudic fashion, witnesses came, procedurally, everything that they said was correct, the new moon was announced, which meant based on this new moon, Yom Kippur would be at a designated day. And then the next day, the evidence showed that those witnesses were incorrect. And one of the rabbis, Yehoshua, made the obvious argument. He says, if you claim that a woman is not pregnant and the next day she shows up and her belly is is swollen, you know, you're wrong. But the rabbis didn't accept his argument and they objected to the fact that he was arguing from scientific empirical evidence and they were using the God-given ability to determine what the calendar was. And this is what they did. And it's a remarkable story. The Nasi, Rabbi Gamliel, sent a message to this Rabbi Yehoshua, and he says, I decree against you that you appear before me with your staff and with your money on the day on which Yom Kippur occurs, according to your calculation. So he said to the guy, I need you not only to let us continue, you need to show publicly that the day that you want to be Yom Kippur, is not Yom Kippur. So it just shows you how important this sense of man communally can decide when is holiness.  You know, Heschel used to say that Shabbat, which comes every seven days without exception, is a cathedral in time. You know, I would argue that what this is saying about holiness of man made time is it's a pop up in time that it's when we determine it. And this you couldn't get a more powerful allegory story to portray that.

A Mintz [00:24:20] I think that's an amazing story. I mean, what does that story say to you, Geoffrey?

G Stern [00:24:27] It says a number of things. It shows me that the rabbis were talking in a realm that goes beyond empiricism, like I said before, that there is an early and that there is a late and that there are shades of gray. It talks about Rabbini authority that has to be accepted because it's the basis of the social structure. I feel sad for Rabbi Yhoshua who had to show up on his Yom Kippur.

A Mintz [00:25:00] Well that's the worst part, right? Yeah. I mean, that's the problematic part. Why did he force them to show up like that? That's the problem.

G Stern [00:25:12] It gets back to my question about sin. You feel like they had to do it in order to to cement and to support this notion of what a Jewish holiday is and Holiness is. But on the other hand, they had to sin against Rabbi Joshua because what he said was probably right. And it really goes to the heart of what I'm talking about in terms of agreeing that maybe perfection is imperfection, agreeing that although we always talk about you have to be there at the right time, at the right moment, that there is no right time, that we by convention, not by design, make those magical moments. Maybe that's the lesson. But I definitely feel for Rabbi Joshua

A Mintz [00:26:06] Right , we make the right time. it's about human initiative in the process.

G Stern [00:26:14] Yes, yes, and it also raises, again, this issue of of sin, how much in religion, how much in the Torah has baked into it, these kinds of situations.  Here, we believe in an infinite, infallible, all knowing God who created this amazing world and here we are and we're fixing it. And here we are, God created it, maybe "as if to say"  to teach us this lesson but nonetheless, a world was created that was not perfect. And you know, you can't but not think about the excommunication of Galileo and Copernicus and getting back to Christianity, how the whole world was tied to this, this sense of the sun rotating around the earth and all of the theological implications.  Today we don't think in those terms about the theological implications of the stars, of the calendar. But in those days, this was serious, serious stuff. You know, there was one of Copernicus's co-scientists, and he wrote a famous quote. It says, "Had God had consulted me before embarking on creation, I would have suggested something simpler." It's so amazing, but this is what they were doing, what the humility that it teaches us in terms of men of God, women of God, theologians, to have to go into the back room and tweak the system a little bit to get it to work. Copernicus himself said, "the theories of my predecessors were like a human figure in which the arms, legs and head were put together in the form of a disorderly monster." I mean, these guys were excommunicated for their observations and for them kind of reconstituting the whole metaphysics of the day. And I think from that perspective, at the end of the day, that's what Pesach Sheni is about. It's a holiday in time. It talks about the sanctification of time, the first commandment that we have deals with the calendar. And yet and yet we have to tweak it. And that humbles both us, but it also humbles us in terms of understanding any divine reason and divine obviousness of any plan.

A Mintz [00:29:03] So the calendar actually reflects the integration of God's world and human initiative, God's plan and human initiative. It can't work one without the other. God's plan doesn't work on its own, but we can't have human initiative without God's plan.

G Stern [00:29:25] Absolutely. And I think there were scholars who are looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls and you know, there were different groups there. They all kind of rejected the religion of the day. They were out there for purity reasons. And some of them had 60 day cycles in their calendar. But they literally talked about the heavenly calendar and the earthly calendar. And I think that really we're talking about heavenly and earthly and the fact thatit is not a a simple puzzle that fits so nicely together and that it needs tweaking and that our measly senses and brain power are not enough to understand the design. And maybe that's the most basic lesson. And the lesson of  "HaHodesh ha'zeh l'chem" that "this should be your month". And of course, we can't ignore the fact that Hodesh, which is month, also means "Hidush" "renewal", it means "invention". And maybe that's ultimately at the source of of what we need to do in our calendar on a daily basis. We need to try to adjust to the forces that we can control and meet and bring together heaven and earth in some fashion.

A Mintz [00:30:59] I really love that, I love the way we put this all together. I think that's great.

G Stern [00:31:04] Thanks. Are there any questions or any comments among our faithful that I can entertain or should we finish early? As the saying goes, we're twenty nine minutes into the half hour, so we're not going to finish too early. But maybe that's the takeaway, that sometimes we can finish early and that because everything has been said that needs to be said. Alice Meyer is invited to come up.

E Meyer [00:31:38] I just wanted to say thank you. That was fabulous.

G Stern [00:31:42] Well, thanks for joining us. It was fabulous to have you. I know you know how much I love "Pesach Sheni".

E Meyer [00:31:48] Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

G Stern [00:31:51] But this week and this week and this week, I went a little deeper.

E Meyer [00:31:56] Was it was I just really I love I love the way you started it. And this was a great session. Thank you so much.

G Stern [00:32:04] Thank you, Elise. Michael, how are you today?

M Stern[00:32:07] I'm great. And another great session. And you go God's will, man's will, Geoffrey Stern, say, shall we end it a minute early? And here we are at four thirty. And just an example of that happening in real time right now.

G Stern [00:32:26] Love it. Love it.

M Stern [00:32:29] Thank you. Thank you, Rabbi. It's great listening to you both. Thank you so much. Shabbat shalom to everybody.

G Stern [00:32:36] Shabbat Shalom. One and all.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for a new episode of Madlik Disruptive Torah. We’ll explore the Torah’s preeminent use of a hue of blue called Tekhelet in the construction of the Tabernacle and in the Priestly garb. This rare and dear dye; extracted from a non-kosher mollusk, was also used on the four-cornered tallit of every simple Jew.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/383005

Transcript: Episode web site: https://madlik.com/2022/02/09/why-blue-and-white/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. Deuteronomy, and only Deuteronomy stipulates … over 20 times, centralized worship in what ultimately became Jerusalem. The Samaritans accepted this centralized approach but substitute Mt. Gerizim for Jerusalem. The Essenes rejected Jerusalem and its corrupt priests and power-brokers and moved to the desert to achieve spiritual purity. Finally the Rabbis ….. chose Yavneh and it’s scholars… and we discuss....

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/503844 

Transcript on episode webpage: https://madlik.com/2023/08/09/next-year-in-yavneh/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on Thanksgiving 2022. Isaac and Jacob choose brides from Aram. Aramaic is the chosen legal and liturgical language of the Rabbis and the lingua franca of the Ancient world. Why is Laban vilified and should we slander or offer our gratitude to the Arameans?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/448278

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/11/23/lost-found-in-translation/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded in front of a live audience on Clubhouse. The three week mourning period commemorating the fall of the first and second Jewish commonwealth reminds us of the divisive nature of zealotry. And it is zealotry that lies behind the story of Pinchas taking the law into his own impulsive hands. The Pinchas model was problematic to the Rabbis and has been used by zealots until today to justify vigilantism and extrajudicial activities. We discuss.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/580008 

Transcript on episode web page.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as they explore the creation myth. There are those who would have us believe that in Creation, God made unity from chaos and that the Torah’s end game is to find that unity, tikkun and nirvana once again. We explore an alternative, counterfactual approach, where God created through division and with a goal of creating a world where divisions are emphasized, managed but definitely not erased.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/598674 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/10/24/splitting-the-adam/ 

Join us for a conversation with Elimelech Crystal; one of the leaders of Beyahad Em Lochamey Kippur 1973, an organization dedicated to supporting Israel's combat soldiers while at the same time protesting the current government.

Transcipt on episode web page:  https://madlik.com/2024/03/30/veterans-of-the-yom-kippur-war-are-heard/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz reorded on Clubhouse on July 28th 2022 as we look at the configuration of the Israelite tribes through new eyes… the eyes of modern scholarship that suggests that the conquest of the Land of Israel by the freed slaves from Egypt also included the uprising of local tribes. Together they formed a confederation of tribes, united in their rejection of the existing class structure and the sovereign-vassal subjugation of Egypt and later empires.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/421369

Transcript on episode website: https://madlik.com/2022/07/27/the-united-states-of-israel/

The Red Heifer purifies the defiled and defiles the pure and is universally taken as a commandment that defies reason and logic. According to science, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction so where's the illogic? Even according to Rabbinic scholars such as Saadia Gaon and modern scholars such as Jacob Milgrom there is nothing unreasonable about this enigma. So why is the ḥoq of the Red Heifer so troubling. Why does it keep God up at night?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/330146

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

So welcome, one and all, to Madlik, another week of disruptive Torah. And this week the parsha is parshat Chukat, which we're going to find out what it means but Chukat is "the law". And the law that is under discussion is the law of the red heifer. And those of you who know your Old Testament know that the laws of purity are a big feature of biblical Judaism, temple Judaism, and those laws of purity relate mostly to impurity that is gotten from death or anything to do with death. And the red heifer is, as we are told in Numbers, 19 is the antidote. And what what happens is the priest takes this pure red heifer that has never carried a yoke and slaughters it, and sprinkles the blood and then mixes the ashes, with some water and hissop and cedar wood, in Crimson stuff. And then it is set aside and used to sprinkle miraculously, on those people who have come into contact with death. And that should be a pretty straightforward thing. It might sound very strange to us moderns but many things in the temple in terms of a sacrificial cult sounds strange. But for some reason, and that's what the subject matter of today is, this one is singled out as being stranger than strange. And therefore, the focus is on the word that God says, numbers 19:2 this is the ritual law that the Lord has commanded zote chukat hatorah, and all of the commentators and we are going to struggle with the fact that the the sense, this is a strange Chok. This is the showcase, the poster child of a law that has no rationale, in fact, is a irrational. And you have to obey, because God commanded it. And I should add the key point that the Cohen who goes ahead and prepares the sacrifice of the red heifer, and his helpmate, who cleans his garments, anybody involved in the preparation of this elixir, who is going to take away the impurity of death, himself becomes impure. And so I'm going to open it up to discussion. Rabbi, what about this struck all of the commentators as so strange that it had to be singled out as an example of a law that has no logic?

Adam Mintz 

So that that is such an interesting question, the idea of a chok, of a law that has no logic, the idea that the same thing that makes people pure, make people impure, I think really bothered the rabbi's. They could not get their arms around that. Because basically, purity and impurity are opposites. So how was it possible that the very same thing that can make you pure can also make you impure? I think that really bothered the rabbis. And I think that that's what led them to call this thing of Chok. By the way, the word Chioke in the Torah doesn't always mean something that you can't understand. Sometimes it just means a law. So Para Aduma the red heifer is really a unique situation, a unique case. And it's this idea, this kind of confusion between purity and impurity. And I think that's a key term, the idea of confusion.

Geoffrey Stern 

So first of all, I mean, I love the fact that you talk about a confusion, but what came to my mind and I wasn't actually even going to talk about this is isn't there a fine line between the profane and the pure. In other words, whether we've talked about it before the pride of following God's laws and the pride in oneself, you know, a harlto a temple harlot is called the Kadesha which comes from the same word as Kadosh. I mean, you could you could say, well, doesn't this happen all the time that something that is close to pure doesn't quite make it actually becomes profane. But if we look at the commentators like Rashi is the first one, he doesn't seem to imply that it was troubling  so much to the rabbi's, as it was to our detractors. He says, Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel saying, What is this commandment? And what reason is there for it? On this account, we say it's a Chok that God using the word Choke, all the commentary say it's also something that you kind of niche into stone you Chok Chaakti? I have kind of carved this this rule. It's not for you to question. But do you think there's an aspect of this that isn't so much that it was troubling to the rabbis, as it was troubling, or it was a it was a point of polemical discussion where people would come to the Jews? And say, this thing is so strange, your religion makes no sense.

Adam Mintz 

 I'm thinking about that for a minute. You think that maybe we're worried about what other people will say about us? Do you think that generally, Torah is worried about what other people will say about us? You know,

Geoffrey Stern 

You wouldn't think so.

Adam Mintz 

I'm surprised that you suggested that because I wouldn't have thought so.

Geoffrey Stern 

So, I mean, if you look at bamidbar rabbah, which is another source in the source sheet, it says a Gentile asked Rabbi Yohanan Ben zakkai. These rituals you do they seem like witchcraft, you bring a heifer burn it, take it's ashes. And if you read that whole thing, his thing is not so much that something that is impure becomes pure and defiles the the person who's doing it, he seems to be bothered by sprinkling some water and puff, you're instantaneously pure. So there were two instances in the commentaries. Both of them have this polemical aspect to it. And that's why I don't think I came up with it on my own. I was struck by that myself, when I was looking at the sources, and before I let you respond, do the rabbi's care what the nation say? I think, yes, there's a verse in Deuteronomy that says "Ki hi Chochmatchem ubinatchem b'enai hagoyim", that the Torah is the wisdom of the Jews in the eyes of the nations. The amount of times that Moses argues with God, when God's ready to blot out the Jews. And he goes, God, what's everybody gonna say? You took us out of Egypt, and you killed these people. So I do think there is a strong element what will the goyim say, certainly in the discussion about this law, but in general,

Adam Mintz 

You see, I guess my question is like this, Are we worried about what the goyim will say? Or is that just a midrashic trick to kind of emphasize a problem that we have with these laws? And we kind of then put it in the mouths of the goyim. I don't know how much difference that makes, but I'm just raising that as a possibility.

Geoffrey Stern 

When we say what will the goyim think we're really speaking like, Jews who have lived in exile for 2000 years? I don't think that would be fair for this young movement of Jews in the desert. But they did feel that they had a movement I believe, and the rabbi's too, we're in a world where maybe Judaism already because it was parleying itself as the believer in this one invisible God, maybe it was even taken to a higher standard. But in any case, there seems to be a question of the benchmark, the level of Judaism and does this somehow conflict with it. And I think you touched upon that by saying, we like to have an ideology we like to have a religion that is squeaky clean, everything fits into it's place. And this is not so not so understandable. I think the other aspect of it that came up in my research is what big of a problem it is. And this, of course, is the famous Pesikta, which says that Moses goes up into the heights of heaven. You know, there are a few Midrashim that say, what did Moses do 40 days and 40 nights when he was up in heaven. And so here is one of the renderings, he goes up and he sees the Holy One, blessed be he is engaged in the study of the Torah. And he's studying the passage of the red heifer, citing a law in the name of the sage who stated it. And Moses said before ahim:  Master of the Universe, worlds above and worlds below are in your domain, yet you sit and cite a law ascribed to flesh and blood. And Michael, I know you love the drama and you love the theater of the Torah. This is a play, I think, of going up to heaven and seeing God number one studying man's Torah. Well, is it man's Torah? It was Torah that God wrote and gave to man. But here he is engaged in the study of the red heifer.  It, so to speak, keeps God up at night. What do we make of that? And either a theological level or in terms of the discussion that we're having?

Adam Mintz 

I want to just add to that question, Geoffrey.  Why does the heifer have to be red? I mean, does that seem significant? Is it just because a red heifer is so rare? So therefore, it wants to show you that you have to go out of your way to find the red heifer? Is that what it's about? Or is there something deeper in there?

Geoffrey Stern 

I mean, last week, I said that Techelet, it was the Pantone color of Judaism. And now this week we're discussing red. In my mind anyway, this has to do with life and death, there's no question about it. And one is using the red have to take away whatever it is that death tarnishes us with; the impurity that we get from death. And so in my mind, whether it's the blood or whether it's the color of the heifer itself, that's my natural association was with the blood. But again, the fact that it impurifies the pure, it's the fact that you take these drops of water, and magically make somebody pure. And then there's the other element, which is that it's outside of the temple. All of those three things, you almost get the sense that this is a solution, in search of a problem. It's almost as though there's something strange about this law, what is it? It keeps God up at night? the nations of the world taunt us with it? The problem of the problem is almost harder than the problem itself. To me, that's what kind of struck me.

Adam Mintz 

Well, I mean, to rephrase what you just said, Geoffrey, it seems like the Torah makes the red heifer a lot more complicated than it has to be. We could accomplish the same thing, by having a ritual that was much more direct, and much more simple. Why are rituals generally complicated? You know, you think about the Pascal Lamb, you have to put the blood on the door post, you have to eat the whole thing. There are a lot of details in these sacrificial rituals. You think that's important, or you think that's just the way it was?

Geoffrey Stern 

Michael, what are your thoughts?

Michael Posnik 

My thought right know is this. I find that this question of the red heifer with all the energy we have to try to quote "figure it out", is an opportunity for a little humility. Certain things we say we understand, they seem to fit in with the entire system, we're content about that, but here is the exception, which in a certain way, proves the rule. And so I would say that it's not to be solved in that sense, because it is outside the possibility of solution, it is a way of acknowledging the fact that there is a space is a place for us to not know. And to either just accept or to surrender to it, or to let it go. So that's my thought right now, it's not to solve the problem. It's simply to say, Alright, we'll make an effort. But it's a place where I have to surrender what I think I know what my mind thinks it knows. So that's, that's my thoughts are right now. I like the fact that it's a puzzle not to be solved. No matter how hard you bang your head against the wall, it's not going to be solved.  You have to surrender to it, if you want to.

Adam Mintz 

Definitely a nice explanation, that the complexity is a reflection of the need to surrender. If we understood it, there wouldn't be as much surrender because what you understand you don't surrender to you understand it, but if you don't understand it, then you have to surrender I like that a lot.

Michael Posnik 

You want to understand everything? N

Adam Mintz 

No, I like that.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I would like to play the devil's advocate a little bit and continue along the trend that I was looking at is that the problem of the Red Heifer is not so apparent and that we might be misguided in in what we understand the problem to be. For instance, if we look at the Law of Conservation of Matter for every reaction, there is an equal and opposite counteraction. Saadia Gaon says I don't get what is so complex about this whole rule. He says that you know, heat can make certain foodstuffs soft, but you boil an egg, it gets hard.  Food can be beneficial to someone who's hungry and detrimental to someone who's already eaten a meal. Certainly medicine can benefit the sick and hurt the healthy. The world is full of things that can affect different people in different ways. He doesn't use this example but you know, it's a known  saying in the Torah that for those who are zocher (privledged), the Torah is a sam hachaim It's a medicine of life. And for those who are not zocher, it's a som haMavet. It's, it's a poison, we can study the same text, we can be exposed to the same revelation, and we can take away from it. Two different opposing things. And I think that's an amazing, beautiful lesson. Maybe it's sophisticated enough to become a little bit of a mystery. And something that is not obvious at first glance. We were talking a little bit before we started today, I'm reminded of the wonderful expression that's attributed to pretty much everyone out there of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, you know, is that the role of a leader of a Rabbi of a journalist so I think that at a certain level, it's it's not necessarily something that is so far beyond our ability to fathom, it's certainly not something that would keep us awake at night in terms of something being bothersome. It's a sophisticated point of the world that it means different things to different people, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so I just wonder, what is it that Michael or you Rabbi feel, is so complex about this message that something can make one person impure and the other pure?

Michael Posnik 

Just I was thinking before about wine, for example, something really simple even though we don't understand what it is exactly. You can use wine for purity and you can use wine for impurity. And then I was thinking about language, Geoffrey, we can use this gift of language to bring death to people we can embarrass and shame people which I think the Talmud equates with killing someone really and we can use language as we are here to uplift and nourish and raise. In that sense, the ambiguity or the complexity is in a certain way, practically how it's used. I don't know if this relates exactly to the question of the heifer. But it strikes me that we have a certain responsibility to use what we have, in an appropriate way, if we know that there's an appropriate way. So that's, what comes up for me. I'm not, I'm not seduced by what you call complexity. I think, as I said before, I think recalling complexity is just something that the mind says, Oh, this is complex, because I don't understand it. I'm perfectly happy to not understand. And then I have a choice where as I say, whether to do it or not do it. So that that's where I'm coming from today.

Geoffrey Stern 

I love the fact that you brought it back to death, and you talked about, you know, sometimes the stakes are high. And if you embarrass somebody, the Talmud says it is like killing him. And so I think that, to me, the secret of the the challenge of the Parah Adumah cannot be far away from the challenge of death itself. And I don't want to raise the stakes too high. But to me, one of  the clues is in a piece of Talmud, that ends the story of the Parah Aduma. And the next story that follows the story of the parah Aduma, is the death of Miriam. And Rabbi Ami says, Why was the Torah portion that describes the death of Miriam juxtaposed to the portion dealing with the red heifer to tell you just as the red heifer atones for sin, so too the death of the righteous atones for sin, and it seems to me that what is keeping kivi'yachol, as if to say, God up at night, and what is making the challenge here is that in the world that the Torah is operating in, there seems to be this inextricable connection between salvation and death. So that it comes out of a world where there was child sacrifice, and obviously, it has a whole life of sacrifice itself in the temple. And somehow, if you've sinned to redeem yourself, something has to be killed. And getting back to your point, Rabbi Adam, about the question of the red here, it seems that in order this whole notion that the death of the righteous atones, I think we're really at a crossroads here, that both Judaism and Christianity at the same moment that that Roman was saying, this sounds crazy. This sounds strange was struggling with how do you get salvation? Do you need someone to die in order for someone else to live? And you know, there are books that have been written lately. Jon Levinson wrote a whole book about the idea of the death of the son in Old Testament as opposed to only in Christianity. He says, this didn't come up [out of no where] the idea that a God or righteioous person has to die, in order for salvation to be reached. And he traces it through the Akeda, the sacrifice of Isaac. But the idea again, that someone has to become tuma, in order for someone else to become tahur. It's not so much just a kind of cognitive or an intellectual question or mystery. It's something that really hurts home. There's so much in religion in general, but certainly Old Testament Judeo-Christian religion, about this need for something bad to happen in order for something good to happen, whether it's "ha zorim bedima brina yikzaru" (You plant in tears and reep in joy) or whether it's that a generation has to die in order for a new generation to go into the promised land. That's what I kind of saw as the real challenge here. It wasn't the intellectual inability to understand how some things can become pure and some things impure. But it was like this Gordian knot between the necessity for your purity to come at the expense of somebody else's impurity. That's kind of what struck me. And that I will agree with you, Michael, that is a mystery that does not have a solution. I'd like to break the knot. But it seems to somehow be written deeply into our DNA.

Michael Posnik 

That's really beautiful, about the dynamic of what we call life and death. And their relationship, and whether they're interdependent on one another, or they simply happen, we witness it, and try to see the connections between these things. You say God was up studying this passage, he might have been enjoying himself. Just really having finding pleasure in something that becomes a poem, rather than a piece of text, or a piece of text. He might have just enjoying the wonderful conundrum of that. The unknowability of it, still stay with that.

Adam Mintz 

Complexity is what makes it so exciting.

Michael Posnik 

You like it!

Adam Mintz 

The complexity is what gives it meaning. If it's not complex, it doesn't really have meaning. If it's too simple, it doesn't have real meaning. An interesting idea, Geoffrey. I mean, from my perspective, if you look at the word Chok, and you know, you can look at any lexicon and it will tell you every word how it's used throughout. I think the most common usage for it is that it is something that is written in stone. It's a law of nature. In Jeremiah, it talks about Chukat Yoreach ve'kochavim" the law of the moon in the stars. If you look at other places, Kings "B'chukat haGoyim", these were established rules. And my sense is here that the tension here the thing that intrigues us so much, and intrigued the rabbis and intrigued those who were polemisizing with them, is how can you break this? How can you change this, and in a sense to me, it wasn't simply that God was studying the Torah. And I don't see any reason why he wasn't enjoying himself. It doesn't say he was upset. But he was in studying the Torah. And he was studying it because there was going to be some sage, because he was studying the Torah of man. So he wasn't studying what was written in His Torah, but the Oral Tradition that came out of it, and, and to me, it's almost as though the mystery the puzzle of this Red Heifer this Chok that seems to be written in stone. I'm not sure what great sage he was referring to. I would like to think that it was Rabbi Akiva. And Rabbi Akiva at a certain point says something that is sung from the top of one's lungs at L'og B'Omer It's considered a very kabalistic thing, but it's a beautiful thing that he said. And Rabbi Akiva said, How fortunate Aae you Israel before whom you are purified? And who purifies you? It is your Father in heaven, and I will sprinkle purifying waters upon you and you shall be purified. And he says, "Ma Mikveh Metahir et ha Temaim, Af Hakadosh Baruch metahir et Yisrael", just as the ritual bath purifies the impure. So too the Holy One, bless it be he purifies Israel. And from the context that we're studying, it's almost in contradistinction to the red heifer, where the mikveh, for the pure waters of the mikvah do not become impure when one is sprinkled with them. And of course, if God ultimately is the one who purifies us, God does not become impure by purifying us. And I don't know, I don't know if this was all part of the tension at this moment in history, where the temple was destroyed. were, theyre were new possibilities and there were needs to break out of the old mold. Because I don't think that either Christianity or Judaism successfully broke out of it. Martyrdom was very big in in Judaism and part of the martyrdom was to bring the salvation. And that's the sad part of it. It's one thing to die because one has to for one's faith, but to do it in order to bring salvation to believe that there has to be a connection between death and giving up one's life in order to bring salvation is what so troubles me. And this Rabbi Akiva beautiful, saying, seems to me to point at a possible way out.? A possible way out of what? Of the complexity.

Geoffrey Stern 

His model, if you look at it, from the perspective of our discussion, does not have anything that is impurified by purification. I think if you look at this saying that it says how fortunate are you Israel, to know who purifies you, and the idea is that you can be purified, you can have salvation, without the need for whether it's the Egel Arufah, the red heifer, but also this cycle, this Gordian knot,  of sacrifice and of death in order to to create the potential for life. It kind of came to me as I was reading over this and saw this the saying of Miriam's death and the death of a tzadikim could bring life. And knowing even that Rabi Akiva himself was a martyr. It gives you another route out. But it also makes you understand, I think, what the mystery, the challenge and what the turmoil of the whole question of the red heifer.

Adam Mintz 

I like that a lot. I like turning the complexity of the Red Heifer into martyrdom. I think those are related topics. I think that's really, really interesting. Thank you so much, Geoffrey. This was an amazingly interesting topic today.

Geoffrey Stern 

Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you, Michael.

Adam Mintz 

Shabbat Shalom, everybody I'm looking forward to next week.

Geoffrey Stern 

You got it Shabbat shalom. See, well then.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on May 11th 2023 on Clubhouse. We marvel at how Rabbinic Judaism modified if not totally abrogated explicite Biblical injunctions against selling land in perpetuioty and taking interest on loans. Using the Pruzbol and Heter Iska as case studies we explore the audacity of Rabbinic Judaism.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/486023 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/05/10/prozbul-and-iska-llc/ 

This week on Madlik, we're diving into a fascinating exploration of the Jewish calendar - a topic that's not just about marking time, but about renewal, liberation, and the very essence of what it means to be Jewish.

In our discussion of Parashat Bo, Rabbi Mintz and I unpack the significance of the first commandment given to the Israelites as a nation: establishing their own calendar. We examine how this seemingly simple act was actually a radical departure from other ancient calendars, and how it embodied core Jewish values of human agency and imperfection.

Some highlights from our conversation:
- Why the lunar-solar Jewish calendar was seen as revolutionary by other cultures
- The deeper meaning behind witnessing the new moon
- How the Essenes and early Muslims viewed the Jewish calendar
- The beautiful tension between divine perfection and human imperfection in our timekeeping

This episode really drove home for me how our calendar reflects so much about our worldview as Jews. I hope it sparks some thoughtful reflection for you too.

Tune in for a mind-expanding journey through time, Torah, and Jewish thought!

Please also be sure and give the Sefaria Source Sheet Link in the notes: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/620499

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on August 25th 2022. The Torah prohibits us from adding or detracting to its directives and also against rewriting history. It even predicts that there might be a time where our leaders will try to reinvent our past. We discuss.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/426413

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/08/24/a-time-that-never-was/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Avraham Bornstein recorded on Clubhouse on March 24th 2023. This week’s Torah portion is Vayikra. Vayikra is a call to action. In every generation we are admonished to imagine ourselves overthrowing the Pharaoh of our day and liberating the People of Israel.  Today we’ll survey haggadot that take this challenge to heart and re-imagine the Haggadah in their time and for their time. As Israelis take to the streets, we challenge ourselves to join this tradition and write a new Hagaddah.

Sefira Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/475511 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/03/23/protest-haggadah/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse as we discuss Judeo-Christian Magical Thinking….. Moses encounters a miraculous burning bush, receives a magical rod and learns an incantation of the name of God. But the Rabbis of the Talmud call Jesus a magician…. We explore the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic Judaism’s uniquely ambivalent attitude to the miraculous.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/371145

Transcript on Episode web site: https://madlik.com/2021/12/22/moses-reluctant-magician/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. 

We usually think of Tishrei and the Fall as a marathon of Jewish holidays, but if you count Rabbinic and Israeli holidays, the seven weeks of Spring win the holiday race with ease. Pesach, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmut, Pesach Sheni, Lag ba’Omer, Yom Yerushalyim and Shavuot. We use Leviticus 23 which has the most complete summary of Biblical holidays to explore the dynamic of adding new holidays and adding meaning to existing holidays.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/564540 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/05/14/ki-ba-moed-the-time-has-come/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse December 29th 2022. Even if you are not a proponent of numerology you cannot ignore the repeated claim of the Torah that seventy souls went down to Egypt. The implied significance of the number 7 and its variants 70 and 49 provide a unique lens to view the Biblical narrative. Join us as we explore Gematria, rules of Biblical interpretation and the number Seventy in the Bible.

Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/455577 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/12/28/seventy-faces/ 

A conversation in Jerusalem with Professor Daniel Polisar, co-founder of Shalem College and his assistant, Hannah Liberman. We talk about the miraculous and sui generis emergence of the Hamal Yerushalyim; The Jerusalem Civilian Command Center at the beginning of the October 7^th War. We also try to quantify and comprehend the IDF’s cataclysmic failure to provide basic protective gear for Israeli troops.

Transcript here: https://madlik.com/2024/04/05/where-have-all-the-helmets-gone/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on December 22nd 2022 on Clubhouse. The human act of bowing plays a major role in the dreams of the young Joseph. The people of Egypt actually call Joseph: “Abrek” a name shared by Hosni Mubarak and Barak Obama which means both blessed and bow-worthy. Join us as we explore the relationship between blessing and bowing; prayer, praise and body movement in the Bible and latter Rabbinic texts…. and on this festival of rededication, wonder how we can bring more physical movement back into our prayers.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/454638

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/12/21/body-language/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded in front of a live audience. God, so to speak, “joining the Jewish People in Exile”, is a radical Rabbinic concept that in the words of Rabbi Akiva would have been blasphemous had it not been supported by Scripture. We explore the source of “God in Exile” (Shechinta B’Galuta - שְׁכִינְתָּא בְּגָלוּתָא) in Rabbinic texts and ponder its ramifications for modern-day Jewish Thought.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/592663 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/09/25/god-in-exile/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest Shikh Muhan Fares for a discussion recorded on Clubhouse.. We celebrate Yitro and our Druze brothers and sisters. We marvel at the superlatives that the Torah uses to describe Jethro and how the same characteristics of loyalty, leadership and integrity are showcased by Israeli Druze today…. and maybe in the process, we learn a little bit more about the Druze and about ourselves.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/541621 

Transcript on episode webpage: https://madlik.com/2024/01/31/jethro-and-the-druze/ 

This week on Madlik, we’re exploring how Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers offers profound insights for our own lives. At a time when many of us make resolutions and fresh starts, this episode couldn’t be more timely.

We’ll examine how Joseph and his brothers navigate the complex dynamics of forgiveness, rehabilitation, and moving from a paradigm of grievance and victimhood to challenge and opportunity… Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz discuss the psychological aspects of sin and redemption, drawing parallels to our own experiences with failure and the challenge of moving forward.

We’ll also touch on the fascinating concept of “making lemonade from lemons” and its American/Jewish roots and the contribution of Julius Rosenwald and the Tuskegee Institute.

Whether you’re grappling with personal setbacks or seeking inspiration for the year ahead, this episode offers valuable insights on turning adversity into opportunity and embracing a narrative of ambition and success.

Join us for another thought-provoking discussion that bridges ancient wisdom with modern life. Remember, whatever your resolutions may be, stumbling once or twice doesn’t define you – it’s how you harness those moments that truly matters.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/614569

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2025/01/03/making-lemonade-from-lemons/ 

View episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/WE3Jd7otrCk

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on February 16th 2023. We continue our discussion of Sinai with a focus on the negative aspects foreshadowed even at the climactic moment of revelation. We survey the Rabbinic tradition as preserved in our texts and surprisingly in the Koran. Finally we wonder whether Israel and God have entered into a relationship at Sinai that neither one can resist?

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/467460 

Transcript on episode website: https://madlik.com/2023/02/15/shadows-of-sinai-cont/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. Jacob, now called Israel, approaches is estranged brother with trepidation. He splits his clan in half in order to minimize any losses and he sends gifts and otherwise tries to appease Esau. We explore appeasement and compromise in the Torah and Rabbinic Literature.

Sefaria Source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/528058 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/11/29/appeasement-in-its-time/ 

Join Rabbi Adam Mintz and Rabbi Avraham Bronstein recorded on Clubhouse.  This week while Geoffrey is Island hopping in Greece Madlik hosts a lively discussion between his two favorite co-hosts as they discuss the dramatic episode of Moses seeming disregard for God's command to talk to the rock and his fatal decision to strike it.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/497433

Transcript on episode page: https://wordpress.com/post/madlik.com/4231

Join Geoffrey Stern ansd Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on April 27th 2023. This week’s Torah portion is Achrei Mot-Kedoshim.  It contains what is known as the Holiness code which describes and prescribes pretty much every sexual deviation. It is the perfect opportunity to celebrate and review a radical responsa that was published earlier this year. It was written by Rabbi Jeffrey Fox, and called Gay Women (Nashim Mesolelot) A Teshuva and published by Maharat Yeshiva. So join us for Women who love women who love Torah.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/482838 

Direct Link to the Responsa: https://www.yeshivatmaharat.org/gay-women-teshuva 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/04/26/women-who-love-women-and-the-torah-a-responsa/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. As Hamas finally achieves its goal of massacring thousands of Israelis, we reconsider the Talmudic saying that man was created single to teach that for anybody who destroys a single life it is counted as if he destroyed an entire world. So join us as we mourn and Study Torah....

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/516652 

Transcript: https://madlik.com/2023/10/11/a-single-life/ 

Parshat Bechukotai - Judaism, along with most religions, favors consistency in practice and steadfast faith… or does it? Focusing on a single verse that has been used to support this position (Leviticus 26: 21) we argue for an alternative. Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz explore happenstance, serendipity, temporarily fealty, chance, accident, the unintentional, the unexpected, or as the King James translators have God put it ”adventures with Me”. We contrast those who acquires their share in the World-to-Come only after many years of toil, and those who do so in one moment. בשעה אחת

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Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on April 28th for Madlik Disruptive Torah. A goat is thrown off a cliff to atone for our sins. A troubling rite with a rich history for the Jewish people and for Christianity that believes in a Savior who died to expiate the sins of mankind.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/401839

Transript on Podcast web page: https://madlik.com/2022/04/27/scapegoating/ 

Recorded live on Clubhouse on November 4th from Tzofar in the Arava of the Negev Desert in Israel with Rabbi Adam Mintz in New York, we explore Yaakov's name and career path and struggle with his twice stolen blessing. We ask how parents could give a child a name such as "heel-sneak" or "heal grabber' and how Israel could emerge from such crooked timber?

Special "guests" include Shmuel Yoseph Agnon and Isaiah Berlin

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/358410

Transcript on Episode Website here.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. The Book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is also called Torat Cohanim (The Priestly Torah) and has traditionally been the first book to be studied by children in the Cheder. Today there is a growing and no longer fringe group of Mikdashnikim who want to rebuild the Temple. So today, from the mouth of babes up until the present we will trace and try to understand the unique place these laws play in Jewish theology and modern Israeli politics.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/553283 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/03/20/torat-cohanim-then-and-now/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz in conversation regarding the weekly Torah portion. What happens when language becomes both a bridge and a barrier? In this episode of the "Madlik Disruptive Torah Podcast," the duo delves into Parashat Noah, exploring the Tower of Babel's tale and its implications on linguistic diversity. They unravel how the division of languages shaped rabbinic texts and Jewish tradition, posing questions about unity and communication. Discover how ancient narratives explain modern phenomena, and consider the power of translation in preserving and transforming sacred texts. Is the multiplicity of languages a divine gift or a source of chaos?

Explore the Sefaria source sheet www.sefaria.org/sheets/599916 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/10/31/words-without-borders/ 

Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KtJ-aPx1Kfc?si=zNV9Fdfj6lT_UCSA 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we explore the intriguing theological debate where Abraham challenges God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Unlike typical moral or ethical arguments, Abraham's stance is deeply rooted in his understanding of God's nature. He questions whether it would be Godlike to act in a manner that contradicts his perception of the divine. Profaning God's name is a major them in the Torah but in this first instance, it is God Himself who is accused of the crime. Come and learn!

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/603675 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/11/14/god-forbid/ 

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/RMPRRuil5lY 

If the rejection of idolatry is the essence of the Biblical project, why does it not appear in the Genesis account of the founders?

 

 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Michael Posnik recorded on March 24th 2022 on Clubhouse as we ask: Was the death of the two sons of Aaron a tragedy or the ultimate sanctification of God’s Name…. or both? We explore the concept of martyrdom in the Bible and Rabbinic texts and into modern times with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the creation of the State of Israel.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/394321

Transcript: https://madlik.com/2022/03/23/no-martyrs-no-more/

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and Rabbi Hirsh Chinn on Clubhouse Friday May 21st at 4:00pm (ET). The Torah is ambivalent with regard to the sobriety of the Nazarine. Is the Nazir a holy man striving for greater spirituality or an addict seeking rehab for a moral shortcoming… or both? Rabbi Hirsh Chinn was Geoffrey’s roommate at Yeshivah Torah Vodaath. He was a student of the recently deceased Rabbi and Dr. Abraham J Twersky, who according to his obit in the New York Times was “the descendant of several Hasidic dynasties. Yet he was also a psychiatrist and a respected authority on addiction who was drawn to the 12-step approach central to Alcoholics Anonymous, a program whose origins are Christian….. (see more here). Rabbi Hirsh actually edited a Hagadah written by Dr. Twerski which is based on the premise that “The original passage from bondage to freedom, Exodus, is equated to a person with a substance abuse problem and their passage to freedom through recovery. (see here)

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sefaria Source sheet here.

An exploration of traditional Jewish sources regarding weddings held on or before the Sabbath and how they might guide us as we recreate Jewish wedding rituals for contemporary times and culture.

Sources:

לא חולצין ולא מיבמין ואין כונסין ולא מקדישין ולא מעריכין ולא מחרימין ולא מפרישין תרומות ומעשרות ואין פודין הבן ואין מגרשין אלא אם כן הוא גט שכיב מרע {{רמ"א|(דתקיף ליה עלמא)}}. וכולם אם נעשו שוגגין או מזידין או מוטעין מה שעשוי עשוי

The following is a responsum of the Remah, explaining his decision to perform a wedding late on Friday night long after Shabbat had begun. Although he rules that marriages should not take place on Shabbat, he holds that there are a few exceptional authorities such as Rabbeinu Tam and Rabbi Moshe of Coucy who permitted. “Although it is not the law that we may hold marriages on Shabbat we have these two exceptional opinions to rely upon in times of emergency; for great is the principle of protecting the honor of human beings, and at times the parties are unable to agree on the dowry until Friday night and the wedding is then held.”

וגדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה דלא תסור מכל הדברים אשר יורוך

and shalt not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deuteronomy 24:18

“I heard behind me the sound of a great noise. Voices passed through the camp saying, Look at that man Moshe (Exodus 33:8).”

After the Golden Calf when Moses separated himself from the people…..

It concerned the action taken by me recently when I arranged a wedding in the usual way. All knew the state of the bride as she entered under the wedding canopy. It was in the dark of night on Friday evening, an hour and a half after night had fallen. The circumstances which impelled me to this action are clear. It is known to all who live in our city and this is what happened:

There was a poor man in our land who had betrothed his elder daughter to a suitable mate. During the period of the betrothal, which was of considerable duration, the father went to his world and left life to all of Israel. The daughter was left bereaved, without father and mother, except for relatives who lived far from her. They shut their eyes to her plight, all except one relative, the brother of her mother, who brought her into his house, for she had no relatives closer than he.

Then, when the time came for her marriage and it was time to prepare for the feast and the requirements of the wedding canopy, she did not see anything of the dowry and the other needs which the relatives had promised her. But she was told to take her ritual bath and prepare herself for the marriage, and that the dowry would be forthcoming. This maiden then did as the women neighbors commanded her. They deck her with the veil on the sixth day, as virgins are decked. When the shadows of the evening began to fall and Shabbat was approaching, her relatives who were to give the dowry closed their fists and refused to give a sufficient amount, so that at least a third of the dowry was still lacking. Then the groom absolutely refused to marry her. He paid no attention to the pleas of the leaders of the city that he refrain from putting a daughter of Israel to shame for the sake of mere money. He refused to listen to them, “as a deaf serpent does not hear the voice of a charmer (Psalms 58:5).” Nor did the voice of the Rabbi move him.

Because of these quarrels, time drew on; as the saying goes, “There is no marriage settlement without dispute,” and the work of Satan prompted them until the time mentioned above came. Then they finally agreed and the groom consented to enter under the wedding canopy and no longer to shame a worthy daughter of Israel. Thereupon I arose and conducted the marriage at that hour.

Now, since people are complaining against me, I have come now to remove their complaints from me and to bring the proof and the reasons upon which I relied in this matter, saying: In this way beholden and sanctified.

Thus says Moshe, the son of my father and teacher, Israel of blessed memory, the one called

Moshe Isserles of Krakow (Translation Rabbi Simcha Weinberg See)

For Hebrew text and discussion of The Orphan Bride see: קידושין בשבת    הרב אביעד ברטוב -

בטעם האיסור דאין מקדשין וכונסין אשה בשבת

שולחן ערוך אורח חיים שלט ד

משנה ברורה על אורח חיים שלט

Under the Chuppah: Rabbinic Officiation and Intermarriage

Rabbeinu Tam

Moses Isserles

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Musical Selection: Avi Perets - Boi Kallah - An Aaron Teitelbaum Production - אבי פרץ - בואי כלה

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we explore the nativity of Moses in Parashat Shemot. Delving into the dramatic birth story of the Jewish people’s greatest leader, we uncover parallels with other ancient “savior” narratives, includoing a home bathed in light, three wise men, astologers reading the stars, danger, murder, flight and return of the hero. The birth story of Moses clearly mirrors other “savior” narratives, including those of Abraham and Jesus, highlighting its broader cultural significance. Why does this pivotal tale seem isolated within the larger Exodus narrative? We discuss the tension between hero worship and the emphasis on collective redemption… all while pondering the significance of what’s left unsaid in the Torah’s account. Discover how this foundational story sets the stage for the epic journey of the Israelites from slavery to freedom.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/617755

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2025/01/16/the-nativity-of-moses/

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iJQldtucNxU

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on  December 15th 2022 on Clubhouse. Joseph is the first and only biblical personality characterized as a success. With a nod to Max Weber who wrote the iconic socioreligious study; The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, we take this opportunity to explore the Biblical and latter Rabbinic definition of financial and other success.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/453456 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/12/15/joseph-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism/ 

Parshat Ha'Azinu - With the Yom Kippur liturgy fresh in our minds we explore a disturbing, persistent and infantile argument for forgiveness… that God forgive us for His sake. Using equal measure of Chutzpa and shaming, we argue that God, as our Father and as our Creator is ultimately responsible for our sins, the sins of his children/creations. We ask: How does God Respond? How should we respond?

Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/347781

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern  00:01

Welcome to clubhouse Madlik disruptive Torah every week at four o'clock eastern. And we are recording this session and we will publish it on your favorite podcast platform as Madlik. So go ahead and give a listen. And if you do, please give us a star a two and a good review and feel free to share it with your friends. This week's parsha is Ha.azinu, And it is Moses's swan song to the Jewish people. And at times it can be pretty rough on the Jewish people. So it's in Deuteronomy 32. And there were three themes that I want to focus on today. But let's go ahead and read the verses in question. So it begins "Do you thus requite the Lord O dull and witless people. Is not he the father who created you, fashioned you and made you endure? Remember the days of old consider the years of ages past, ask your father, he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you." So it starts by referring to a concept we've seen before, which is God, the Father, and God, the Creator of you. And then it goes on to say, "and he said, I will hide my countenance  from them, and see how they fare in the end, for they are a treacherous breed, children with no loyalty at all." So again, the focus is on children, who just do not follow in the footsteps of their parent, their Creator. And God introduces this concept of "hester panim", hiding his countenance from them, and says, see how they fare in the end. And the third theme is finally God says, You know, I would have destroyed you "I might have reduced them to no it made them memory cease among men, but for the fear of the taunts of the foe, their enemies who might misjudge and say, our own hand has prevailed. None of this was wrought by the Lord." And this is another argument that we've seen before, where Moses on many occasions says to God, if you destroy this people, what will the goyim say, what will the non Jews say? What will the Egyptian say? What will the world who has been watching this amazing project of taking a ragtag group of slaves, giving them freedom, bringing them into the desert, and building a new vision for social justice and society? What will happen if they are destroyed? What will everyone say about you and your project? So we have these three themes, God, the Father, God, the Creator, God, saying, I've had enough, I will hide my face from you and see what becomes of you. And finally, you know, I would have destroyed you, if not for what that will do to my street cred to what the world will say about you. And I want to pick up these themes, because they are so primal, to the story of the Bible, the five books of Moses, which were ending, so it's only natural that we can go back to the beginning, and look at the very first sin that was ever perpetrated. And of course, that is the sin of Eve, when she ate of the apple. But when God comes and confronts Adam, with this sin, what does Adam say? What is the response of man, of humanity to being confronted with sin? Genesis 3: 12, "the man said, the woman you put at my side, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." And as Rashi says, Here, he showed his ingratitude, "Kofer b'tovah". The idea that when man is caught sinning, the first thing he does is he blames his creator, he blames that being who gave him the break, who gave him that wife to be at his side, it's precisely there that he says, if you had not given her to me, I would not have failed. And this is a recurring theme that we're going to pick up throughout the Bible. And it's clearly to me in any case, a troubling one. In terms of blaming God or defining God, I should say, you have even Abraham, if you remember before Sodom, and he's saying to God, how can you destroy these people if you find 50 if you find 40 if you find 10 and he finally says "Far be it from you, Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?" It's again, he's not blaming God in this case, but he certainly is talking to God in a very assertive manner, saying that listen, God you have street creds, you are supposed to be this just being you can't act unjustly. I mean, even that smacks a little bit of, let me say it Chutzpah.

Adam Mintz  05:36

There is a very fine line between chutzpah, and the way that he speaks to God, I would agree 100%. You know, you kind of get the impression that God was much more human in the Torah, And therefore they could speak to God like this.

Geoffrey Stern  05:55

Yeah, and of course, we all know that the Torah speaks in the language of man "lo dibra Torah ela b'lashon b'nai adam". So whether it's God being more human, or the text and our Holy Writ being written in a way that we can understand, it's irrelevant. But I think you're absolutely correct. In the sense the Bible, gives us something that we can wrap our arms around, and in our perception of God, we perceive God to be just, so he has to act just and if he doesn't, we can complain against him. And that's a good message. But later on, when the children of Israel are in the desert. And they start complaining whether it's when the mana falls or when there's not enough meat, or when the spies come back. And at one point, the Gemora in Avada, Zahra puts the words into Moses as saying, "Moses said to the Jewish people, ingrates, children of ingrates, when the Holy One bless it be he said to the Jewish people, who would give that he had such a heart as this always... the point is that according to this piece of Talmud, every time that the Jews complain, and they say, God, you took us out of Egypt, you bought us here. It's all your fault. Or the reason it says ingrates son of ingrates is because he refers back to what Adam said to God. There's this overriding sense, not because God is the only one to complain, but maybe he's the biggest target, that children of Israel actually act almost like children who are constantly coming back and saying, not that we failed, but that you failed us. You created us, you bought it, you own it type of thing. This ingrates, children of ingrates Kofi Toba Benei, Kofu Tova.

Adam Mintz  08:08

Yeah, you're like that? That's a very strong image isn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  08:12

Absolutely. And it's, it just seems like a strange way to kind of move forward. Nothing good can can come out of it. Unless I'm missing something, you know. We were talking before how the the Torah is written in the language of man, but we still can control how we perceive things and how we represent things. And we're representing a situation where God yes, sometimes can inspire us, but on the other hand becomes a straw dummy or pinyatta that we can just batter.

Adam Mintz  08:56

I think the word is a target.

Geoffrey Stern  08:59

Absolutely. With a capital T. ..... And, and, you know, that's why this this recurring notion of what will the Egyptians say? What will the people of the world say? It's kind of a hybrid argument. It's not only God, you put us in this situation, but because you put this in this situation, you know, have to protect your flank, because people are going to say you started this program, this experiment. You took this raggle rap of a people out of Egypt, you said that slaves could be free people, and we're failing. And so it not only is it your fault, but humanity will cast blame on you as as a failure at the most lowest level. But as Someone who has given up and walked away.

Adam Mintz  10:04

That's an important idea, by the way, the idea that God will be a failure. I think there's something to that. God is very worried that people will think him a failure. "lama Yomru Mitrayim laymor" Right? Why should the Egyptian say that God took us out to kill us in the desert? It's a very strong idea.

Geoffrey Stern  10:33

And I think, stepping back for a second, what it really reminds us of is that this whole project, the project of the Bible, is for all humanity. We've touched upon this theme in previous episodes, where God says, You know, I tried with Adam, I tried with Noah, it failed. I really wanted this for all humanity. I didn't want to have chosen people. But this became my plan B, or C, or D, my default strategy. But ultimately, it's important what happens in this program, because the world is watching. And I think that's the most maybe favorable way that we can characterize this argument of what will the rest of the world say? But certainly, I find it a little pathetic. I have to say,

Adam Mintz  11:34

That's interesting. Pathetic. Tell everybody. Why do you think it's pathetic?

Geoffrey Stern  11:38

Well, again, .... you were given great opportunities. And the Jewish people, certainly while they came from a very troubled background, they were given by this God amazing opportunities, they saw the Red Sea part, they saw the revelation at Sinai. And given that, and given the opportunities that they've been given, to dream about going back to Egypt, and to blame God for putting them in this situation does smack of .... I can't say it better than Rashi: ingratitude.

Adam Mintz  12:21

Right. I mean, that's the word ingratitude. And that's the word of the parsha is ingratitude. Let's just to go back to the parsha, the way you introduced it for a minute. It's interesting that everything's going to work out, okay. That ha'azinu ends on a high note, .... that you're going to find God and then everything's going to end up working out. Okay. We know that that's not always the case. Things don't always end up end up. Okay. It's kind of interesting, isn't it?

Geoffrey Stern  12:55

Well, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, again, here's a case where the Jews are being put on the spot, put on trial and being castigated, and they come back and they say, well, it's all your fault. You put us in the situation, you're talking about those situations where no one's castigating them, but life is tough. And again, they go back, and they blame their parents so to speak, I want to pick up on that theme of the Father, because in Numbers, so we're not talking midrash,  we're not talking commentary. We're talking the book of Bamidbar/Numbers. Moshe is in one of these situations that he's in multiple times, where God says, let's just cut the cord, I will destroy this people, and I'll begin afresh with you. And Moses turns back in Numbers 11, verse 12, he said, "Did I conceive all this people? Did I bear them that you should say to me carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant, to the land that you have promised on oath to their fathers?" You can't but take away from this, that Moses is almost, again saying to God, I'm not their father, you're their father, you cannot put on me this blame and this responsibility of carrying them. But again, it comes back down to if I were the father, or in this case, God, you are the Father, you gave birth to them, you created this project. You need to fulfill your promise, even if they let you down. So the two themes are kind of inextricably connected.

Adam Mintz  14:50

You know, I saw an amazing story before Yom Kippur. The story is of a man who sits down before Yom Kippur and he takes out his book And the book has a list of all his sins. I did this wrong, and I did this wrong. And then he opens another book. And the other book has a list of all the things God did wrong.... you know, you killed this person, this person died of cancer. And there was a flood and there was a hurricane and all these things, and the man looked up to heaven, He says, God, I'll make you a deal. If you forgive me, I'll forgive you.

Geoffrey Stern  15:27

Well, you know, that sounds like one of these wonderful Hasidic stories.

Adam Mintz  15:33

it is Yeah, but it's kind of related to your point.

Geoffrey Stern  15:37

It is. And I would go, one step further. Some of the Hasidim, especially the Breslevers,  would go out into the woods, and they would pray to God and call Tata, tata, my dad, my dad, they focused on the real parent child relationship. And I assume that that has good aspects of it. And it also has some negative aspects too,

Adam Mintz  16:04

right? For sure. I mean, it's just, you know, like all these Hasidic stories, it's just to kind of give you an impression, but it's a strong impression, I think.

Geoffrey Stern  16:14

I agree. I was thinking about this during all the liturgy and prayers of Yom Kippur. And I was really struck by the fact that this argument that we have kind of uncovered the one of slight ingratitude slight chutzpah, where the sinner turns around and says to the accuser, in this case God, Hey, buddy, you put me in this spot. It's actually very well presented in the liturgy. So the most famous prayer is Avenu Malkenu. And Barbra Streisand does a great job of singing it. We all love it. In the Talmud there's an amazing story about a situation where there was a drought, and a rabbi was unsuccessful. Rabbi Eliezer was unsuccessful in getting the rain to come. And Rabbi Akiva, one of our buddies and friends went ahead, and he invented this prayer. And he said, Avanu Malkenu lmancha Rachem aleynu" which means God our Father, for your sake, have mercy upon us. And of course, you could say that I'm kind of picking words here. But there was no question that later when they added to these verses, they said, if not for us, then for your sake, but it's clear from the perspective that he gave it number one calling god father and emphasizing that fatherly relationship, and then saying again, it's for your sake, do it? Does he mean for your sake? Because you gave birth to us? Is it because for us sake, because of what others will speak? Well, this question of in the Avinu Malkenu which is such a significant part of our prayers, Rabbi Akiva introduces both the "avinu" part that God is our father, but also this this little insight that we've been working on, which is because your our father, it's lamancha do it for your sake. And I think that, that's very key to the argument. The other place where it comes up is the most beautiful poem and prayer that we have, it's like "Clay in the hands of the pot potter". And it seems like just a beautiful little story based on verses in Jeremiah and other prophets. "We say like clay in the hands of the potter, if he wills, he can expand it, if he wills he can contract it. So too, we in your hand, preserver of kindness, heed the covenant and not the accuser. Like stone in the hand of the Mason." It's a beautiful, beautiful poem, but is it not doing the same thing? Is it not basically saying, hey, God, we're the Golem and you fashioned us. We are the statue. We are the rudder. We are the gem. Call us what you want. But at the end of the day, you made us You made a covenant with us. You need to protect us against the accuser. Is it not the same argument?

Adam Mintz  19:59

The answer is it does sound like the same argument doesn't it? What you're saying Geoffrey is it's chutzpah?

Geoffrey Stern  20:11

Well, I am and I always thought it but then I was reading Jonathan Sacks' Machzor and he actually brings up Shemot Rabba, which is a midrash. Where it says, What is the meaning of We Are the clay, you are the potter. And it says "Israel said, master of the universe, you have caused it to be written about us like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel, therefore do not leave us even though we sin and provoke you for we are merely the clay and you are the potter, consider if a potter makes a jar and leaves a pebble in it. When it comes out of the furnace, it will leak from the hole left by the pebble and lose the liquid poured into it, who caused the jar to leak and lose its liquid, the potter who left the pebble in the jar as it was being made. This is how Israel pleaded before God, Master of the Universe, You created us with an evil inclination for my youth, as it says for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth. And it is that that has caused us to sin, since you have not removed from us the inclination that instigates us to sin." And Rabbi Sacks points out that the whole argument is based on a plan words. We talked about "atah Yotzrenu" that you created us and we are homer b'yad haYotzer". We are material in the hand of the Yotzer. And there's the Yetzer HaRah" So it makes the case that all of our deficiencies be blamed on our Yotzer on that who created us. So it's it's not only what I hear, I think the rabbi's heard this as well,

Adam Mintz  22:07

That's very, very good. That's a nice idea. Where does Rabbi Sacks say that?

Geoffrey Stern  22:11

Well, he says it in his introduction to the Yom Kippur Machzor, he has a whole paragraph on clay in the hands of the potter. And it's in the in the notes for that for this session. But he quotes Shemot Rabbah and of course, it's the rabbi's who who make this case. And he goes even further to say that, maybe, and this is something that a theme that I have not brought up, is that maybe we don't need to attribute this to a parental relationship, rebelling against one's parents or blaming every deficiency on one's parents. Maybe it's just dawggone chutzpah. And he says the Gemora in Sanhedrin says that when it comes to prayer, you need some chutzpah so it's complicated. It's complicated, like parent children relationships. And we probably can't get away from it. But certainly to identify this issue of constantly blaming God for our deficiencies, or blaming our parents for our deficiencies is something that has its place but also can be played out a little bit. I think.

Adam Mintz  23:36

I think that's really nice. I mean, I think that's a that's a really beautiful idea. You know, We miss Rabbi Sacks, this is just about a year since his passing, and we miss Rabbi Sacks. And you see the amazing insight he has to this is really beautiful.

Geoffrey Stern  23:51

Well, absolutely. The third theme that I brought up was this question of God hiding his face. And I just wonder, I don't want to put any of our listeners on the spot. But if anyone is a psychologist who can talk about parent children, relationships, that would be insightful. What do you do with a child who constantly blames you for all of their deficiencies? We've gone through half an hour where the Jewish people say, hey, God, you took us out of Egypt, you put us into this situation. We are just a bunch of raggle taggle slaves. We have no idea what freedom and responsibility is. It's all you're to blame. We all said yesterday, we are clay in the hands of the potter. God You made us You must have left a marble in the dough, because we didn't turn out so well. It's your fault. And I would love to give as a suggested answer is at a certain point, God says "haster panim". I will hide my face the best thing that I can do Is to wean you of that relationship, is to pull away. And I think that's the third element here, that God says to the Jewish people in the song of ha'azinu. He says, you, you blame me for everything, you forget that I'm your parent in a good way. So "I will hide my countenance from them, and see how they fare in the end". And I think this question of seeing how they fare in the end is normally taken as part of a punishment. Like, we'll see what happens to you now, you know, .... this is what you want, you want that new car or you want that, to do it your way, you don't want to listen to me, well, let's see how that works out. But on the other hand, it might be a blessing. And God might be saying, Listen, I have no choice, I have to pull back. You need to learn on your own, to stand on your own two feet, to stop casting blame going backwards to those who have empowered you. And I'll see how it turns out. And maybe God is saying, hopefully, with a sense of hope, we'll see how it turns out.

Adam Mintz  26:15

I think that's beautiful.

Geoffrey Stern  26:17

I mean, I think that the question of how Sukkot and Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanna all come together, is maybe part of this, this answer, where we're literally moving out of our house, God (our dad) is kicking us out. And we go into the sukka. And we only have selves, and maybe a few pieces of branch or straw protecting us. The the word that the Psalms talks about is the same word as God uses when he hides his face. It says that you shall be (and this is from the Psalm that we read all through the High Holidays and into Sukkot). And that is "and he will shelter me in his sukka, on an evil day", we create our own shelter. We create our own life, we have to stand on our own two feet. We are surrounded by the beauty of nature and the crops that we have grown. And maybe that's part of the answer. But that certainly is part of the answer for those of us who may be it doesn't resonate. In terms of the liturgy in the services that we do in the synagogue, where we try the blame game, and maybe after Ne'eela we're ready to step outside, and to welcome our new selves with a smile and the simcha that you talked about Rabbi a few weeks ago.

Adam Mintz  27:45

I think that's beautiful. And I just want to wish everybody Shabbat Shalom, and enjoy hag samayach. And look forward to seeing everybody next week. Maybe next week Geoffrey, since it's Shabbat Hol HaMoed, and we read the book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, we could choose something from Ecclesiastes.

Geoffrey Stern  28:02

That's a great idea. Okay, let's let's think about that. Shabbat shalom. And for those of you including Stav and Yohanan, and anyone else who wants to continue the conversation, welcome to the after party. Stav. How are you my friend?

Stav Stern  28:20

Oh, good. Geoffrey. I'm live from California, from Los Angeles traffic. And you just brought up, I came in a little late. But you just brought up something in me because I was thinking during this Yom Kippur for the first time, I have fasted wholeheartedly in a while. And I was thinking a lot about forgiveness. And then I realized that most people or I usually think about asking forgiveness on Yom Kippur. But this time, I was really into also the idea of giving forgiveness. And, you know, when you talked about blaming God for making us imperfect, with the yetzer hara, and all that I was thinking, is also part of the ideal, so to forgive God in any way for that, and just came up to me and I wonder your thoughts?

Geoffrey Stern  29:20

I definitely think that's part of it. I mean, there's another prayer that says at the end of it "aval anachnu v'avotenu Hatanu", that we and our parents have sinned, and I always was curious, why does it say we and our parents have sinned? Again, is it part of this strategy of saying, hey, it's not just me, it's it's my parents also. Or are we talking about that God (our Father in) heaven? The is the avotenu... Hey, God, were both not blameless here. If we're talking as a nation, you freed us You put us in the desert, we didn't have a clue about freedom and responsibility. If it's talking about us as individuals, it's a it's a real heavy load that that we're asked to do as we kind of journey and navigate through this world. And while it's probably not healthy, to totally blame God, I do think that the relationship is such whether it's because of Avinu Malkenu that he's both our king and our parent, but he's also a member of a covenant. And the covenant is two ways. So I think that's a wonderful insight. I am so into Sukkot right now, it's amazing how you can switch gears, but I'm ready to move out of the house. I'm like a little kid who's moving out of the house for the first time. And I look at my, my father, both in life and in heaven. And I just smile and I say, you know what, Bygones are bygones. I'm out. Now, I'm going to make my own way. And you're going to be a part of it. I think you kind of go through the whole process. But I do think that forgiving God is, as as dastardly as it sounds, it's, it's probably part of the process as well.

Stav Stern  31:24

Thank you, Geoffrey.

Geoffrey Stern  31:26

Thank you Stav. Okay. Well, unless there's anybody else who has any suggestions or questions. I am going to wish everybody a wonderful year, a Shabbat Shalom, and get out there, build a sukkah or find a tree to sit underneath this shade. And just enjoy these early days of Fall. And be thankful for the two feet that you can stand on and the air you can breathe, take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And maybe that's the ultimate reason why Sukhot is the final the final day of forgiveness and rejuvenation that were given. So Shabbat shalom. Thank you all for joining

Join Geoffrey Stern in conversation with Ruth Calderon. In Israel while the war in Gaza rages on and with over 100 hostages still in captivity, we sit down with Talmud scholar and founder of Amla; Ruth Calderon to discuss the need to reclaim Jewish texts and create a shared cultural language in Israel..... now more than ever.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/554640

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/03/27/the-next-day-with-ruth-calderon/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. This week we start the fourth Book of the Torah and it is also my grandson Ari’s Bar Mitzvah. As the Torah quantifies and qualifies its members, there is nothing new with the emphasis on the genetic lineage of the tribes. What is surprising, is a strategically placed Rabbinic comment that whoever teaches Torah to another, Scripture regards it as though he had given birth to him. So, what is Ari celebrating… his membership in the tribe or his choice to be reborn as a student of Moshe Rabenu and his teachings. In short, is it Nature or Nurture?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/569859 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/06/05/jewish-identity-nature-or-nurture/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded live on Clubhouse. God threatens to scatter the Israelites among the nations. The Septuagint, in its Greek translation, coins a new word, maybe a new concept. A Greek word used, not for migrants but to reference a people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere. The word is Diaspora, a seminal concept in Judaism and a word that has spawned such concepts as alienation, ethnicity, repatriation and redemption. Modern day Diaspora Studies may ignore the Jews but Disapora may lie at the heart of what is the enigma of the Jews…

Sefaria source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/567783 

Transcript on episdode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/05/29/diaspora/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on May 19th 2022. The earth is the Lord’s resonates throughout the Torah nowhere stronger than in the laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. We explore what a Promised Land means when land ownership is only temporary.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/406956

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/05/18/this-land-is-my-land/

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest Rabbi Menachem Bombach recorded on Clubhouse. This year Yom Hazikaron; Israeli Memorial Day, will be different for many reasons and from many perspectives. We invite Rabbi Menachem Bombach, a maverick visionary in the Haredi community to join us for a conversation about the meaning, history and halachic significance of this day for Israelis in general and for the ultra-Orthodox in particular.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/563501 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/05/08/yom-hazikaron/ 

A live Clubhouse recording of Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz as we explore the origins of ritual slaughter, the implicit bias of the Torah to vegetarianism and the origins and limitations of carnivorism in Judaism.  We also highlight the contribution of Judaism of mindfulness when it come to our food supply and where we go from here.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/340004

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

So welcome to Madlik disruptive Torah and this week is Parshart Re'eh and in two, little verses it pretty much makes the only biblical reference. And maybe not even a reference but a kind of an allusion to laws that practicing Jews take very, very seriously. And that is the laws of kashrut; of slaughtering animals. And I must say that when I first stumbled upon this, I was amazed by how little is there. So let's jump right into it. It's Deuteronomy 12. And it says, "When the Lord enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, I shall eat some meat, for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat, whenever you wish. If the place where the Lord has chosen to establish His name is too far from you, you may slaughter any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord gives you, as I have instructed you, and you may eat to your heart's content in your settlements." So clearly, this was written at a point where if you take it into the context that it's supposed to be written in, which is when the Jews were first coming into the land, and they where already understanding that they were going to enlarge, they already somehow had an intuition that there was going to be a centralized temple. And that's what the references to the place where the Lord has chosen to establish his name. But what is assumed here is that, number one, you can only eat meat in that chosen place at the temple. And as many of you know from the Passover sacrifice, that was a sacrifice that sacrificed to God, but eaten by a group of people. So eating of meat, one can assume there was a time where you could only eat it around the temple. And here is the permission to eat it if you're too far away to eat it in the temple. And it doesn't give any rules for slaughtering it. It just says an illusion, "as I have instructed you" Kasher Tziviticha. So I'm going to stop now, before we dive into the many nuances of this. But rabbi, what what did these two sentences mean to you?

Adam Mintz 

Well, the first thing is very important again, that meat was only eaten as part of the sacrifices, meat was considered to be a tremendous luxury. You couldn't eat it just be yourself. It had to be part of religious of religious experience. That's a huge transition from eating meat as part of a  sacrifice to eating meat for dinner and having a hamburger, having a barbecue at home. That might have been the biggest transition that the Jews experienced when they entered the land

Geoffrey Stern 

I think you're correct.... both when they entered the land, and possibly when they first entered the land with a traveling tabernacle. And before the temple was built. This also and I kind of alluded to, we don't know exactly when it was written, you know, when there was a tabernacle in Shilo. And there were other places that had these tabernacles the religion was more distributed. But when it became centralized in Jerusalem at the temple, that was also a moment just like coming into the promised land was a moment. And so what we're seeing is ..... as if we didn't know that the practice of Judaism evolve .... clearly evolved, whether from the days of the desert into the promised land, or from the days when it was a decentralized tribal conglomerate to when it becomes centralized in Jerusalem. But I want to focus for a second on a word used. The English is "if you desire" "you may eat meat when you have the urge to eat meat." In the Hebrew it's "Ochla basar ki toevah nefsha" if you desire to eat meat, because your soul craves for it. The word "Ta'aiva"  is it carries baggage I believe in Hebrew, if you called somebody "Ba'al Ta'aivah", it's a glutton pretty much. It's someone who's driven by their desires, even in the Bible itself. In the desert when there was the the Riff Raff, the Erev Rav, and they were complaining. It says in Numbers "ve'tayavu Ta'aivah" they had this gluttonous craving. And when they were punished and killed for their craving, the name of the place that they were buried "Kivrot HaTaiaivah"  was "the Place of the Gluttony". So I wonder, and I ask you, Rabbi, when we read this, is there that sense of social criticism? And is this sort of a concession? Or am I just taking this out of context?

Adam Mintz 

No you are definitely not. I would just tweak what you said Geoffrey to say. I think the Torah doesn't say that every time you eat meat, that it's bad, that it's gluttony. I think the Torah is concerned that it has the potential to become gluttony. You I have to be very careful. Originally the way the Torah was careful said that you only are allowed to eat meat, if part of that meat is going as a religious sacrifice. So therefore you're not going to be irresponsible, if it's going as a religious sacrifice. So I think being a "Ba'al Ta'aivah" is connected to meat. And therefore they needed to restrict, and to limit the ways in which you are allowed to eat.

Geoffrey Stern 

Yeah, and I forgot to mention another important one in the 10 commandments, right after it says "do not covet your neighbor's wife. It says You shall not crave your neighbor's house "Lo Tai'avah Beith Re'echa"  so it definitely has this sense. And it does carry some social baggage.  I hear what you said. But I have to say also, that what we have is a juxtaposition here of meat that is sanctified and sacrificed in the temple, and meat that is "basar Ta'eivah". And it could mean meat outside of the temple that any meat outside of the temple is, "Ba'asar Ta'eivah" . All I think what you're saying, which is interesting is that when you do eat meat, outside of the temple, you have to make sure that there was a religious or spiritual element to it.

Adam Mintz 

That is what I'm saying, because that that will protect you against the "Ta'Aivah" issue.

Geoffrey Stern 

We're going to get into maybe the history of, of eating meat, and in the approach of the Bible to eating meat in a second. But before we do, it is a good case study in how the Bible, the Torah deals with the less than perfect characteristics that we humans have. In other words, it understands that people have these desires, and we don't live in a black and white world. And I think this becomes then kind of an interesting case study. So before we dive into the development of eating meat, let's also use this as an opportunity to understand where the laws that we have of "Shechita" came from. So Rashi focuses on this verse. And the fact that in verse 21, God says, "you may slaughter the sheep, and the cattle that the Lord gives you, as I have instructed, you" "Ka'asher tziviticha" ,  And Rashi says that, from here, we learn that there must be an Oral Tradition because if you read The Five books of Moses backwards and forwards, you will never find any of these laws there. You know, there's a joke that I once heard, that says that in Rome, they found some copper sthreads one foot down in an excavation. And they said, This proves that the early Romans must have had a phone system. And the Greeks didn't want to be outdone. And they dug down two feet, and they found some threads made of glass and they said, Well, we must have had a fiber optic system in our day. And then the Israelis didn't want to be out done and they dug down four feet and they found nothing. And they said, Well, we must have had a cellular network. So this is a situation where we have nothing in the written law about the laws of Shechita. And the laws of Shechita are very extensive, and Rashi wants to bring from here a proof. He doesn't simply say that, Oh, well, those are commanded in the Oral Law. He says from here the fact that it was referenced, an Oral Law or commandment was referenced. We know that the Oral Law exists. So that is kind of an interesting maneuver. But it does speak to how much of the the regular practice of Judaism is contained in the Oral law.

Adam Mintz 

Yeah, well, the interrelationship between the Oral Law and the written law is an amazing topic isn't?

Geoffrey Stern 

It certainly is. And for those who study the Talmud, they know that there was so many diverse opinions, that sometimes you can go back and find an opinion that was not a mainstream opinion. But it certainly means that nothing is written in stone. But that, in fact, these laws that are so critical to the lifestyle of so many Jews are not contained in the written law. And it's always important that you know, your sources so that you know that something is based on Torah, in terms of the Written Torah. And some things are based on the Oral tradition. And so you got to give credit,

Adam Mintz 

Geoffrey you make an interesting point now, and that is to know the difference about whether it's biblical or whether it's rabbinic. And somehow if it's biblical, it's more important. I'm going to tell you a little secret. The rabbi's often tell us that the rabbinic law is more important, because they were afraid that people would be lax on the rabbinic law. So they try to make an extra effort to make a big point about the rabbinic law, which is a very, I mean, obviously, it's self serving. But it's interesting

Geoffrey Stern 

Abolutely. And in this case, you got to give them credit for acknowledging that it's [only] in the Oral Law. And I think that's something that I was also found important, they might emphasize the importance of the law, but they also emphasize full transparency. Noy, welcome to the platform. I'd love to hear from you.

Noy 

Hi. Hi. I just have a question. Are you Orthodox Jews?

Adam Mintz 

This is a wonderful discussion, because this is not orthodox, conservative or reform. We're just studying the text. Everybody is equal in this conversation.

Noy 

Yeah, yeah. But I wanted to know.  Just wondering, Thank you. We're all equal in this conversation. We don't make distinctions.

Geoffrey Stern 

And I think that in general, when it comes to studying the texts, it's not important who you are, or what you believe, but that you're studying.

Noy 

We all believe in God. Hasdhem.

Michael Stern 

Thank you Shabbat shalom. I have a question. Its as if we were if we say that we're Chosen and we were given this information 100, hundreds of years ago, that eating meat has to be in "midah", in some sort of balance and not gluttony, as you said. And so now we're discovering on documentary movies, how the meat farming, meat raising industry is causing, I think, 50% of the issues with the carbon dioxide....  one of the largest factors in climate warming. And I'd like to ask you guys, if we were given this information that raising of meat for eating, and not for some maybe religious sacrificial purpose, which sounds good to me now, compared to the eating industry of meat, that we would not have climate change challenges, and what role we as Israelites and Jews have in bringing this wisdom and knowledge to humanity as the chosen people who could say, Hey, guys, it's been told 1000s of years ago, or whenever the Torah and all this information was passed down. So if somebody could address this, that would be great. So

Geoffrey Stern 

I think that you're absolutely correct. And before we go into the history of vegetarianism, .... because I think you're gonna see that the bias of the Torah is very much towards vegetarianism. But before we leave these verses, I think one of the things that's so exciting to me about this discussion, and I alluded to it before by saying it's not black and white, that there are degrees, and that one of the rabbi's said about this verse, that it says, when you expand your territory, he said the Tortah taught that it is a desired behavior of a person should consume meat due only due to appetite, meaning to say you should never eat meat, pell mell, as just, you know, I have meat and potatoes every lunch, that's the way I'm built. That's the way we are, you should save it for special situations where you have a craving, and that craving could be psychologically based. It could be nutritional based. But I think what you was saying, Michael, in terms of in "midah" in moderation, in context and in exerting a certain self discipline. And I think that's the the flip side of gluttony is not abstention, the flip side of gluttony is to do things using using moderation. And I do believe that it's a striking example. I don't know how many other examples in the Torah there are like this.   Many times in the Torah, it's either "assur" it's forbidden or "pator" , it's permitted. But how many times does it say it's good in moderation. And I think we are seeing something here. And the environmental issues that you raise are critical. Meaning to say that there was certain things that we really have to moderate. And we have to do them thoughtfully.

Michael Stern 

So why have that's great, but why haven't we used our brilliance and our influence...  we're great influencers... take it out of the study room and say, Wait, this is a mission? I mean, to say, "wait, this is a proving that it's self sabotaging humanity, this planet could explode in 50 years. And all this talk if we are the people that God spoke to, we have a responsibility, and not to be worried about fighting for land, or maybe let's fight for the land and fight for the planet. What I don't understand how we don't take it out of the discussion room and say, "Planet God has spoken to us."

Adam Mintz 

So Michael, I just want to say your question is better than my answer. But I want to tell you that the yeshiva and Riverdale Chovavei Torah at the end of July, just last month, a couple of weeks ago, they had an entire day that was dedicated to climate control. And they dealt with these issues. And there were many people at that conference who believe Michael, exactly what you said is we need to take it out of the study hall and we need to, you know, we need to teach the world about what the Torah's laws are and how the Torah wants to protect the environment and what we need to protect the environment. So I wouldn't say that it's it's mainstream Michael, but it's no question that the issues that you raise are issues that are being raised now in the Jewish community, and you know, the things that people are talking about.

Michael Stern 

That's great to know. Thank you Rabbi

Geoffrey Stern 

And I think part and parcel of that is that Judaism gave the world something which I think is amazing. And that is thoughtfulness..... eating thoughtfully. And that is a gift that we've given. But I think what is happening in the last 100 years at least. And it's accelerating every week, is that society is passing Judaism by because Judaism spent a lot of time looking at the food chain... if you want to look at "Shechita" ritual slaughter as looking at the food chain, that has become much more important. If Judaism has used the laws of kashrut to talk about the quality and the qualifications of people involved with the slaughter of animals, again, modern society is starting to look at ethical issues. Do you pay your employees at the slaughterhouse properly? Do they have health benefits? When we buy food, we are more interested now than ever, not only in the nutritional value, but on the whole supply chain. And sometimes being the early adopter of something, the first mover is an advantage. But sometimes you get overcome with your own achievements. And I think that now and we're seeing movements along this, there's a movement that talks not about Kashrut, but about "Yashrut" meaning being Yashar is straight being ethical. And this is an organization that will say, you know, maybe the meat is slaughtered in a humane way. But you also have to make sure that the workers are paid. And if it's not, it's not kosher meat. I think that is the real challenge, it might start at the study hall, but it means opening up the parameters of the discussion, Mike, welcome to our platform, what's on your mind,

mike 

I ws thinking about what you said. Real quickly, my background is, I grew up in a, very moderate Chabad Lubavitch family I'm not Chabad any more, but you know, growing up to seeing my family, the way they do things when it comes to like Kashrut. They'll pay attention to all these details about okay, we have this and has a "K" on the box, we'll buy this meat. But they won't think about the fact that this meat has all these hormones injected into it and all these other things that make the meat just terrible products, whether it's meat or processed food, it seems that I'm not just picking on an orthodox, but it seems that we as a people have got our values just totally misplaced. That's why I was all I wanted to say for now.

Adam Mintz 

Okay, I mean, Thanks, Mike, for your comments. I mean, that's, you know, Michael has brought that up. And we appreciate that. And we understand that maybe the Jewish community has a responsibility. And I think to Geoffrey's credit, the choice of, this idea of Kashrut and Yashrut, this is only one piece of Kashrut and Yashrut  ... this conversation that we're having today, and it's recorded and everything, and we have a whole bunch of people who were listening, maybe this is going to make this a point of conversation, which will allow other people to, you know, to join in to understand some of these issues. We have Ethan on the line. Would you like to join the conversation?

Ethan 

So I'll try to keep this brief so we can keep the conversation moving. When we were talking about the opposite of gluttony, not being abstention, but moderation. I guess my question is, does that tie back to when we were discussing in previous weeks when you're going to be a Nazir and you have to bring a karbon Hatat at the end of the period of Nezirut. And while there are different different explanations, one of the explanations for why you bring a Korban Hatat is that you decided to entirely abstain from partaking of wine and you forbade yourself, you know, some of what is available to enjoy in the world.

Geoffrey Stern 

I think it's definitely related and I was thinking of that as well. Moderation they used to attribute it to Maimonides, the golden rule. So to speak, not not too far to the right, not too far the left, but moderation. And I do believe that in this particular law, we can call it a concession. We can call it the Crooked Timber of Humanity. But yes, we do have desires and any any form of law or religion that doesn't take into account those desires, I think, ultimately rings false. And so whether it's the ability for someone to become a Nazirite, if they have an issue with some substances, or whether it's someone to end their abstention. These are all beautiful things that are written into the Torah law that has become a part of culture, I think, and we can be proud of it. But I think we also have to understand that these should empower us to go further. And that's, I think, what's so fascinating about the discussion that we're having, and the question of how we can go farther. So I want to just move forward a little bit and talk about the history of meat eating in the Torah. And the truth is that, in Genesis, when the world is created, it does not give men permission, to eat meat, to take the soul from an animal. In fact, it says, all of the foods and the plants that I give you shall be for you for food. It's only at the time of Noah, that when Noah took those animals Two by Two into the ark, that in a sense, Noah was given sort of our rights, because he had  saved the world that he could then eat. So in Genesis 9, it says "every creature that lives shall be us to eat as with the green grasses", so it's referring back to the earlier part of Genesis where all mankind could eat was the green grasses. Now you can eat animals. And that's why, even by Jewish law, we have 613 commandments, but Jewish tradition believes that people who descended from Noah which is pretty much everybody has been descended from Noah because he was the only survivor of the flood. They cannot eat a limb from a live animal. It's called "Ever Min Ha"chai" so this was the first dietary constraint associated with being  Corniverous, eating meat. And I'd like to wonder what everybody else's takeaway in terms of Noah's loophole, so to speak, for for eating meat, I should say that nature kind of changed after the flood, maybe people didn't live as long anymore. So it's kind of a recognition in the Bible of a new epoch, a new transition. And maybe meat was necessary at that point. But certainly there are two sides in my mind, because on the one hand, Noah saved all the animals and therefore has certain rights. But I believe once you save somebody, you also have obligations. And I think that that's where these laws of supply chain and sources of our foods and how we harvest our foods come into play? What are your thoughts on that?

Adam Mintz 

So thank you very much, Geoffrey The idea that no one is given permission to eat meat is very much connected to the question of authority, before the flood, man wasn't in control. And that's what led at least the way God understood it to complete anarchy, after the flood, there's a more organized system, and the organized system is that man controls animals. And in a sense, you know, the Torah tells us at the end of chapter two, that Adam couldn't find a mate. And if you read the Torah carefully, it sounds like Adam went on a date with every single animal. And he didn't find a good mate. And therefore God took a woman from his side. But it seems like the relationship between animals and humans was one of equals. After the flood, God realized that was a bad way to be, and therefore he gave people dominion over animals.

Geoffrey Stern 

and I would just add that with Dominion comes responsibility. And that's why I never understand why evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christians don't take environmentalism more seriously because it's so natural for someone who believes in The Genesis story who believes that God created the world and made us the guardian of the world, that we have to take that guardianship so seriously. I think that the the takeaway from today's discussion of these verses is at the most basic level, we have to be thoughtful about what we eat, and where our supply chain is. And I also believe that when Jesus talked about on the laws of Kashrut, he said something that could have been in the Talmud, he said, "it's more important what comes out of your mouth than what goes into it". But I think what what he was saying was very similar to the discussion that we're having. And that is that these rules, and this goes to Mike's point, should never be about reading labels only, and should never be about crossing T's and dotting "i"s, that would sell it so short, it's about our evolution, it's about our growth, it's about our ability to, to become better guardians of ourselves and of the world. And to not only take into account the fact that we have certain desires, and to master those desires, but I think also to use those desires in a good way. It's such a powerful weapon that we have, we wake up in the morning with a bounce in our step because we desire to do something and we have to harness that power, and the food that we eat in a in a way that's sanctified. And I think that if you do look at Judaism, while I am surprised that vegetarianism isn't more widespread, given the history of it. You know, why great scholars and great pietists and religious leaders don't focus on vegetarian more. But what we do have is that the time to eat meat is in a sanctified moment,  on Shabbat for instance. There zemirot talk about on Shabbat we have meat. There were people who were vegetarian by necessity not by desire, who were poor, but on Shabbat, they would have that Basar Ta'aivah" that meat of desire. So I think all of that says there's so much for us to learn about the laws of kashrut in their larger sense and I wish us all a Shabbat Shalom, of fulfilling any "taiaivah" that we have, and harnessing it in a good direction.

Adam Mintz 

Amazing. Thank you, Geoffrey. Thank you, everybody. Shabbat shalom. Look forward to next week.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse June 23rd, 2022 as we discuss parshat Shelach.  We ignore the headline story of the spies who lacked vision. We overcome the urge to defend the מְקֹשֵׁ֣שׁ עֵצִ֑ים the gatherer of sticks on Shabbat.  We even pass up a chance to enjoy the blue indigo of the tzitzit. Instead, we focus on the lowly loaf of challah and explore how it saved the Jews. So join us as we Make Challah!

Sefariah Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/415522

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/06/22/making-challah/ 

Forget Exodus - the key to understanding matzah lies in Leviticus.

As we approach Passover, it's time to challenge our assumptions about one of the holiday's most iconic symbols: matzah. What if I told you that the true significance of this unleavened bread goes far beyond the rushed exodus from Egypt? In this episode of Madlik, we explore a revolutionary interpretation of matzah that will transform your Seder experience.

Key Takeaways

1. Matzah as a Poor Man's Offering - the purity of intent from those with little to give.
2. The act of breaking matzah is a universal gesture of creating reciprocal relationships.
3. Reinterpreting the Seder as a call to action

Timestamps

• [00:00] - Introduction and setting the stage for the discussion
• [02:15] - The traditional understanding of Matzah in Jewish history
• [05:08] - A new perspective: What Matzah symbolizes beyond its basic meaning
• [07:42] - Comparing interpretations from different Jewish texts
• [10:55] - How historical context shapes the evolving meaning of Matzah
• [14:21] - The contrast between Matzah as affliction vs. Matzah as redemption
• [18:03] - Personal reflections: What Matzah means today
• [21:17] - The significance of Matzah in Jewish rituals and practice
• [25:12] - Modern applications of the Matzah symbolism
• [28:30] - Final thoughts and closing remarks

Links & Learnings

Sign up for free and get more from our weekly newsletter https://madlik.com/

Safaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/637051

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2025/04/02/matzahs-hidden-meaning/

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded in front of a live audience on Clubhouse. The Book of Deuteronomy presents the Torah’s various rules and regulations as a corpus. It uses a unique expression; כׇּל־הַמִּצְוָ֗ה variously translated as “All the commandment” or “instruction”, the “entire mitzvah”. It is mitzvah in the singular … not in the plural as we would expect. So, we explore how the concept of a corpus of 613 commandments as well as the value of a single mitzvah developed in Rabbinic thought and Jewish practice.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/584896 

Trancript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/08/21/the-whole-mitzvah/ 

Parshat Ki Teitzei - When was the last time you listened to the lyrics, poetry and sounds of the mitzvot? Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest poet, Haim Nachman Bialik in a live recording of our weekly disruptive Torah on Clubhouse.  We are told that there never was nor never will be a case of the Biblical Rebellious Son and that we are simply to be rewarded for its study. We explore how all of the commandments provide similar rewards for those willing to listen to their lyrical nature.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/342083

Transcript:

Geoffrey Stern 

Madlik is weekly disruptive Torah on clubhouse. But we record every week. And we then publish as a podcast. And we're available on all of the major podcast platforms. And you are welcome to give us a few stars and give us a review. And this week, I want to thank our faithful listener Bob, for doing just that giving us some stars, five stars, you can't get better than that, and a beautiful review. So thank you, Bob. And I invite all of you even if you've been on the clubhouse, to check out Madlik on your favorite podcast platform, and give us a review and a few stars and thank you for that. So this week, the name of the Parsha is Ki Teitzei  and as Rabbi Adam said in the introduction, it has more commandments more Halachot and mitzvot than any other parsha. And I am only going to focus on one Halacha and it might be considered the most unique Halacha in the Torah and before I tell you why it's unique. Let me read it to you. It's called Ben sorer u'morer otherwise known as the Rebellious Son, and it goes as follows in Deuteronomy 21. "If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them, even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town, this son of ours is disloyal and defiant. He does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard, thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst, all Israel will hear and be afraid." Boy, that's a powerful one, especially this week when we are reading about the Taliban. It certainly brings parallel to a very fundamentalist strict notion of the law and how one keeps people observant. So why is this unique? It's unique because the Talmud in Sanhedrin says that there has never been, and there will never be a ben sorer u'morer; a rebellious son, it was given to us this halacha, this law, this practical injunction was given to us so that we made "darosh umekabel schar" we may expound and receive reward. So first of all, Rabbi, is this a mainstream opinion? Or is this a unique opinion? And what's at issue here?

Adam Mintz 

So, first of all, it's a great topic. I mean, there's nothing like ben sorer u'morer. The idea that you have a wayward son, and that you put him to death, actually, before he commits any crime, because better he should die innocent than die guilty. That the first point which is amazing. But the second point is that it never happened. And the reason we studied isDrosh vekabel schar, which really I would translate to mean, let's learn a lesson from it. What lessons can you learn from how you handle a rebellious son? But it happens to be Geoffrey that if you go on in that Gemora, the opinion of Robbie Yochanan, who was a rabbi who lived in Israel in Tiberius, around the year 400, he says, quote, "ani rei'iti" I saw a wayward son in my life, "veyashavti al kivro". And I sat on his grave, meaning it did happen. And he was punished. So actually, there were two opinions. I don't know which opinion is more prevalent. But there were two opinions. One opinion is it never happened.... And one opinion is yes it happened, and I saw it with my own eyes, and I sat on his grave. And I thought we were going to talk about what are those two opinions.  They're so different in their views? One opinion is that it never happened. The other opinion is I saw it and I sat on his grave, how do you come two such different opinions?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, and that also begs the question of what does it mean to "sit on his grave"? Did he sit on his grave and cry? So the question then becomes this that we say, "never happened and never will happen? Is that descriptive or is it prescriptive? Is it to say it never should happen. And it reminds me of the Mishnah actually in Makkot that literally talks about the death penalty in general. And you know, those of you who have read the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible know that it is full of Mot Yamut "Die you shall certainly die". But this is what the Mishnah says in Sanhedrin. "It says the Sanhedrin that executes someone once in seven years, is characterized as a destructive tribunal. Rabbi Eliezer b. Azaria says, once in 70 years, Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, if we had been members of the Sanhedrin, we would have conducted trials in a manner whereby no person would have ever been executed." So here too I don't know whether the Talmud that you quote, which is beautiful, about the rabbi who said he actually saw a ben sorer u'morer whether that is distinct from or an agreement with, because of the fact that he sat on his grave. And at least in my mind, I think he cried.

Adam Mintz 

Good. I liked that a lot. Now, of course, the question of whether or not they ever actually carried out the death penalty is the same debate that we have in 2021. whether or not we're in favor of death penalties. And basically, what the rabbis say is that we don't want to actually carry out the death penalty. But we want you to think that if you violate Shabbat, you deserve to get the death penalty, we're not going to kill you. Because that's not what we do, because that is counterproductive to kill you. We want to try to rehabilitate you. But the idea is that we have the death penalty on the books. And maybe that's what Rabbi Yohanan says, I saw, I sat on his grave, I cried. It really happened. Or maybe it didn't really happen. The point is that we need to know that we need to rehabilitate those kinds of children.

Geoffrey Stern 

So so far, we've really discussed, I would say, black and white, life or death. But in this parsha that you so aptly said, contains so many laws, many of the laws refer to personal status. And the one word that I think, puts shudders down, anyone who follows Jewish laws of identity is the word bastard or Mamzir. And that occurs in Deuteronomy 23. And basically, it says that someone who is a Mamzir, and that we'll describe in a second, cannot enter into the congregation, even to the 10th generation. And it is as close to a social death sentence as you can get. And just as you brought up the death penalty is something that reflects on a current discussion, it's a very heated area of debate, even till today, in Israel, this law of status where a child is born, and maybe the parents didn't get a proper divorce and had a child and the child is then called a Mamzir. Again, it is something that there are many, many people that look at and say, well, it's a law, it's on the books, and it has to be enforced. And of course, like anything that relates to power, there's the potential for it to be misused. And in the in the source papers that I shared with you, Rabbi, I had heard many years back and I think it was in a lecture by Rabbi Riskin, the colloquialism or the phrase Ain Mamzerim B'Yisrael"  that there are no bastards in Israel. And what was meant by that was that any Rabbi worth his or her salt would find a way, some way, any way to make sure that this law was really in the same category as the rebellious son in the sense that it might be on the books, but it never was put into practice. Have you heard this notion of "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" and even if you haven't, does that resonate with you in terms of Jewish learning?

Adam Mintz 

Geoffrey, that I heard that phrase "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" from the same source you did: Rabbi Riskin and when you asked me earlier this week, to find the source, so I was able to do something that we weren't able to do in the early Rabbi Riskin days. And that is I googled it to see where'd Rabbi Riskin come up with it. And, you know, he's very creative and very good Rabbi Riskin, but I couldn't find it anywhere. So I think that the explanation that you gave is really right on the mark, what Rabbi Riskin was telling us  "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael" It's not a comment about sexual relations between man and woman and whether they got divorced or whether they didn't get divorced, or all of that. Nothing to do with any of that. What it has to do with is about the rabbis, Are the rabbis willing to be creative and courageous enough to always find a way to get people not to be called Mamzerim. I think that's a very, very important voice. And what Rabbi Riskin was saying was exactly like you said, if you're worth your salt, you can figure out how not to have someone be a Mamzer. And that's exactly the same idea. As if you're worth your salt, you're going to make sure that there's no such thing as a Ben Sorer u'morer and maybe Geoffrey, that even follows to the other opinion. "I saw a Ben Sorer u'morer" , and I sat on his grave, and I cried because I wasn't able or the rabbi's weren't able to get him out of that status. And that's a tragedy, because "Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael", the rabbi's need to have the ability, the creativity, the courage to get these people out of that situation.

Geoffrey Stern 

And I would like to interject a personal story an account that I have that puts some meat on this concept of if you are worth your salt. I have a friend a roommate from yeshiva came from a town. Norwich Connecticut, his father was the Orthodox Rabbi there. And about 15 years ago, he was living in Israel, he came to see me and I said, Well, what are you up to? He says, Well, I'm going to Norwich, Connecticut. And I'm going to make a marriage improper to disallow a marriage. And he explained to me, and this is just I think, interesting. So we can all understand how these things work. A student showed up to the yeshiva, and his parents had been remarried. And his mother's first marriage was in Norwich, Connecticut. And he had not gotten an orthodox divorce. So my friend Shmuel was going back to his hometown, and he found people who knew one of the witnesses for that first wedding. And he wanted to invalidate the marriage by invalidating the witness... And he would ask, Well, did he ever gamble? Did you ever see him playing cards, and he would find some way that would make the first marriage nullified. And again, you have to do what you have to do. And the Halacha is something that can be and seem very splitting of hairs, full of minutia and technical, but in a sense, what he was doing was full of humanity. And the challenge, of course, is there aren't enough rabbis who have the learning, who are dedicated to doing it for not only a student that shows up at the Yeshiva, but for any Jew. And that's and that's really the challenge.

Adam Mintz 

Well, Rabbi Riskin would love that story. Because"Eyn Mazmzerim B'Yisrael", your friend had the courage to make sure that this child was not going to be called a Mamzir.

Geoffrey Stern 

We could spend probably the rest of the half hour just talking about how maybe Judaism, or laws that seem more rigid or dated or even Taliban-like, have been nullified and changed. And that would be a perfectly good use of our time. But I want to take the discussion in a totally different direction. Because I am intrigued by the fact that the rabbis said that this Halacha of the rebellious son was there only for us to discuss and learn. And it seems to me that there's an aspect of what some consider the dry halakhah or the daily practice of the Jew, that we all need to listen to, that it is a language in and of itself, looking at the Halacha at Jewish observance, as a language more than even a religion or a code. And every Shabbat when I say my prayers, there's one verse that I say after the Shema, that I think of in this regard, and it says Ashrei Ha'Ish Shyishma l'mitzvotecha"  "Happy is the person who listens to the commandments". And what I want to do for the balance is to explore not only capital punishment and not only questions of status and these earth-shattering laws, but potentially how every one of the Jewish traditions and customs can be looked at in a whole new way. And we're given a license by this kind of takeaway, throwaway comment of the rabbi's to look at the whole corpus of Jewish observance as a lyric as a language as something that we can smile to, dance to, struggle with, but interact with in the way that we do maybe with a poem.

Adam Mintz 

Okay, great.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I'm inviting a third player to our to our panel today. Unfortunately, he's not alive, but his name is Haim Nachman Bialik. And he was considered the national poet of Israel. He actually made Aliyah, lived in Israel, but he died in the 20s before the state. But what you might not know about him is that he started as a very observant Jew, he went to the Yeshiva in Velozhin. And he actually went there. So his grandfather would think that he was studying and then he went, and he became the great poet that he was. And he saw in the paper that they closed the Yeshiva in Velozhin, and so he had to rush home because he knew his grandfather would know that he wasn't at the Yeshiva so to speak. But he in his later days, when he was no longer observant, wrote a three-volume tome on the Aggadah. And the Aggadah is the legends of the Jews. The Aggadah is always contrasted to the halakhah. There's the law and there's the fable, there's the practice, and there's the narrative and the stories. So you would expect that someone like him, would really be a major fan of the legends of the Jews, and not so much for the Halacha. But he has an article that he wrote called the Halacha and Aggadah, and in the source feet, if you if you go to the podcast when it issues early in the week, you'll see the source sheet there. I have the full text in both English and Hebrew, and it's worth reading. It's very lyrical, but in it, he actually makes an argument that the Halacha is as much a song, a poem a lyric as anything else. So with your permission, I'm going to read a little bit and then I welcome all of us to to kind of discuss, he says "halakhah and Aggadah the law and the legends are two things which are really one two sides of a single shield. The relation between them is like that of speech to thought and emotion or the action and sensible form to speech. Halacha is the crystallization the ultimate and inevitable quintessence of the Aggadah legend. The legend is the content of Halacha. The legend is the plaintive voice of the heart's yearning as it wings its way to its Haven, Halacha is the resting place where for a moment the yearning is satisfied and stilled. As a dream seeks its fulfillment in interpretation, as will in action as thought in speech as fruit. So Aggadah in Halacha. But in the heart of the ruit, there lies hidden the seed from which a new flower will grow. The Halacha which is sublimated into a symbol and much Halacha there is, as we shall find becomes the mother of a new Aggadah, a new legend, which may be like it or unlike it, a living and healthy law is a legend that has been or will be. And the reverse is true. Also, the two are one in their beginning and their end." So it's really so lyrical. And I had to read it in his words because he is a poet. But here was a man who literally and we'll see he gives some concrete examples of how he saw the song in the minutiae of the law. Does this resonate with any of you in terms of the music in Jewish custom and activity?

Adam Mintz 

I think what he's telling you is that Halacha means the way we live. The minute you describe the way we live, all of a sudden, that's a legend. All of a sudden, that's a story. That's the tradition. Everything in this week's parsha...  all these 77 laws are part of the way we live. If it's the way we live, it's a legend. This week's parsha tells us if you get divorced, you have to write a get (divorce document) if you get married, you go through the formalities of a marriage ceremony of a Chuppah? Those aren't laws, those are legends. So it's the stories, how many stories have come out of those two laws? And he can't distinguish between the two? Is it a law? Is it a legend? Is it a legend? And is it a law. And the truth of the matter is that the law leads to the legend. And then the legend leads right back to the law. I feel exactly what he says.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I was thinking of this, when a week or two ago, we discussed vegetarianism. And this whole concept of eating meat Basar Ta'aiva" (meat of desire), only on special occasions. And again I was struggling with the fact that so much in the Bible seems to lean towards vegetarianism. And I was wondering, where does it bear itself out? Where does it come through? And then I started thinking of all the laws that I've studied whether it's for Hanukkah, whether it's for Shabbat, of if you have limited resources, what do you spend it on? If it's on Shabbat? Do you use the money that you have for the candle for the wine for the meat? And it seemed to me that again, this was looking at the life of the Jew. And you really understood then, in ways that you and I never could, what Baser Ta'aiva"  what the meat of desire... that moment of when every pintela Jew, every poor little peasant could feel something and it was that treat, not a part of everyday life. So to me that was an example of where the minutiae of the Halacha that might be dealing with something very monotone and trivial, actually bore within it, a whole weltanschauung of the Jewish people and their relationship, to poverty, to spirit to a little treat once in a while. And to me, it was the answer. I really felt that in my heart that no, our tradition has spoken about the place of eating meat at special times at Holy times. And it's spoken loud and clear, even if I don't find one piece of prose, or one piece of narrative that directly touches upon it.

Adam Mintz 

I think that's a beautiful example. I mean, I think right off the mark, poetry and prose, narrative and law. What he's saying is, those are just words, really, they merge into one entity, and that's really Jewish life.

Geoffrey Stern 

So I'll give one more example that he brings. And he talks about a law of carrying on Shabbat... you're not allowed to carry in a public domain. And it says, a man may not go out on the Shabbat with a sword or a bow or a shield or a club or a spear. Rab Eliezer says, they are ornaments, and therefore may be worn. But the sages say they are only a disgrace, as it is said, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Here we have, and this is Bialik. Here we have ideas about beauty and ugliness in dress-and whence are they taken? From the words of the sweet singer and the great seer. And in what connection? In connection with carrying on the Sabbath. So again, what he's saying is that in these minutia, if we listen to the commandments, .... and let's not neglect to say that there's no question that Judaism is an orthopraxy it's correct practice more than an orthodoxy correct belief. And so much of what we do is dictated by how we do it and what we do but in that seems to me to be just a beautiful song. And I think that's the flip side of saying that some laws are just written on the book. They're just for us to study. And actually, isn't that what we do on Madlik?

Adam Mintz 

That's right. I mean, it's hard, though, Geoffrey to know how you distinguish between the different kinds of laws?

Geoffrey Stern 

Well, absolutely. But I would argue that really, we should not relegate this to different laws, but that every law has this element within it. And that's, I think, what my big takeaway is. Bialik goes on to say, he says, "not all laws, Halachot are equal or are the same and unproductive. Another bears fruit and fruit that reproduces itself. one is like an empty vessel that is put away in a corner till it is wanted. Another is like a vessel that is uninterrupted use, always being emptied and filled again with something new." So I think what we do is we look through our narrative to find practices that have fallen into disuse, or misunderstood or taken in one direction. And we have the license to take it in a totally new direction. Lately, I've been very stiff. And I've been doing a lot of yoga. You know, many of the yoga teachers give you a thought to think about and give you a practice to aim for. And I just thought wouldn't it be magnificent to combine yoga and Tefilla, I want to call it yogafilla. The idea is to take the bowing that we do already in the tefilla. It's there, ... When we are thankful we say "modeem anachnu Lach" and we bend our knees and our knees are "berchayim", which is the same word for "bracha" to bless. So I'm just saying this is kind of little things that have come up in my past week, where I look at the Halacha, I look at the practice at the minhag. And I'm saying these are vessels that might have been emptied. But they're there for us to fill up.

Adam Mintz 

I think that's right, first of all, tell you that I think there's a synagogue on the west side, Romamu where they have yoga on Saturday morning, followed by tefilla, so come to the west side. And you can do yoga and tefilla.  But the idea is really exactly right. And I think that's the idea that the law, what you sometimes think of ..... you needed to relax. So you're doing yoga. And what Bialik would say is no follow the Halacha. Because even though the Halacha feels rigid, but actually the Halacha gives us the ability to play out that narrative, and to live our lives in a special way. Jessica, you asked to come up?

Jessica 

Oh, I just wanted to quickly say that the Cantor from Romamu is here on Fire Island. And she's amazing. So that's all thanks. I

Adam Mintz 

Send her our regards and tell her she got a shout out on Madlik this afternoon.

Jessica 

I will do that. Thank you.

Adam Mintz 

So Geoffrey, the ability and the choice of Bialik's poem this week, when the Parsha  is so filled with laws. I think it's so special, and really gives us something to think about. We started today with ben sorer u'morer and whether or not that really happened. And we go from there to the question about generally, about what the role is of law within the halakhic system. And Bialik really gives us kind of a poetic view of what law is all about. And I think we can use that in ben sorer u'morer, and we can use it in so many other places.

Geoffrey Stern 

I totally agree. And if you haven't sensed from the tone of my voice, I discovered Bialik recently, but it's so personal with me. He has a poem that he calls "Before the Book Closet". And it was written while the secular Jew was spending three years aggregating all of the Aggadot and it's coming back to the Beit Midrash, to the study hall. And he says "Do you still know me? I am so and so. Only you alone knew my youth. You were my garden, I learned to hide in your scrolls." And then at the end of the poem, he says, "and now after the change of time, so my wheel of life has brought me back and stood me once again before you hiders of the closet, and once more my hand turns among your scrolls and my eye gropes tired among verses." And so with me, I studied Torah in my youth. And when I study Torah at this stage in my life, it is revisiting my youth and I am trying to see if I have that relationship. But I would argue that all of us studied our texts when we were young. And we need to find ourselves and to see if we are recognized once again in those texts. And that is, I think, the invitation that the rabbi's give us about the ben sorer u'morer.. . And the last thing that I will say is, you know, Bialik, was a rebellious son. He was told by the head of the Velozhin Yeshiva as he left, just don't write anything bad about us. But the truth is, we are all also rebellious sons, even though the rebellious son doesn't exist and if we aren't, maybe we should be, but we have to rediscover ourselves and rediscover the mystery and the magic of our ancient texts. And with that, I bid you all Shabbat Shalom.

Adam Mintz 

Shabbat Shalom, Geoffrey. That was an amazing discussion today and Bialik was beautiful as he always is, and  ben sorer u'morer. Shabbat Shalom to everybody. Enjoy and we look forward to seeing everybody next week. Be well, Shabbat Shalom,

Geoffrey Stern 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Bo - A live recording of Madlik Disruptive Torah recorded on Clubhouse with Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz, Rabbi Abraham Bronstein and “The Haftorahman”, Reuben Ebrahimoff on January 6th 2022.

Can Biblical commandments evolve and have alternative meanings at different times and to different people? Mitzvot; for some an obligation, for others a political, cultural or fashion statement and for still others a magical charm. In Exodus 13 we are introduced to the first formal commandments given in the Torah; a book of Law. These laws relate exclusively to the celebration of the first and subsequent Passovers. Out of nowhere we also find the first reference to what was to become the commandment of Tefillin. We explore the classical commentators and modern scholarship to discover the multiple layers and nuances behind tefillin and possibly all mitzvot.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/373717

Transcript on episode web page here.

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on clubhouse on August 18th 2022. Much in this parsha relates to the correct and incorrect attitude. The Israelites are described as “stiff necked” and “rebels” (mamrim). They are warned not to attribute their success to their own power and commanded to bless God even when satiated. Finally, they are told that all God wants from them is their fear. We explore the power of disposition and attitude in Jewish thought.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/425215

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2022/08/17/attitude-is-everything/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded live on Clubhouse. This week’s parsha iis as much about water as it is about Chukim or challenging rules. It starts with the death of Miriam and her well, segues into Moses fatal sin in striking the water rock and concludes with the Red Heifer and its purifying water. Today we focus on the ability of sprinkled water or emersion into water to purify in Judaism and later Christianity and up onto today.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/577579 

Transcript on episode website: https://madlik.com/2024/07/10/holy-water/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on June 8th 2023 on Clubhouse. Pesah Sheni, the makeover Passover has been adopted by the Orthodox LGBTQ community as a Biblical holiday to accept different pathways, identities and evolutions amongst the Jewish People. We review the sources and celebrate!

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/493778

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/06/07/kosher-queer/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest, the Reverand Dumisani Washington recorded on Clubhouse. As the rubber meets the road and the Torah begins to translate its vision of liberation into practical rules and regulations, we sense a pattern. The Torah starts by addressing a legal institution close to home; slavery, and provides laws of emancipation. Next the Torah begins to create social solidarity amongst this previously persecuted multitude. Finally the Torah addresses a natural inclination towards a victim mentality and a lens that sees only privilege and victims. We use this opportunity to invite our friend Rev Dumisani Washington to discuss the current state of the Black Church and its relationship with Israel.

Sefaria source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/543156 

Transcript on podcast web page: https://madlik.com/2024/02/07/the-black-church-and-israel/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. As we complete the book of Genesis, we look at a few verses that have been interpreted by both Jewish and Christian exegetes and explore how these commentaries may have been a conversation rather than a polemic. In the process, and without ignoring the divisive nature of religion, we wonder at the power of scripture and the potential for religion to bring us together.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/533990 

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/12/27/until-shiloh-comes/ 

Parshat Vayechi - Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse December 16th 2021 as we recognize that Jacob introduced the handle #TwelveTribes. The book of Genesis ends, as does Deuteronomy with blessings over these iconic Twelve Tribes of Israel but the count is unclear. Joseph is at times counted as one tribe and at times subdivided. Shimon and Levi are likewise alternately diminished or removed. What are we to make of these inconsistencies and of Jacob’s desire to share the future? Join us as we discuss who’s in and who’s out and what it all means for us.

Special guest story - the rape of Dina or the tragic romance if Dinah and Shechem...

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/369304

Transcript on episode web site: https://madlik.com/2021/12/15/members-of-the-tribe/

Join Geoffrey Stern and rabbi Adam Mintz, recorded on Clubhouse. Moses links the rights the Israelites have to occupy their homeland with the radically contingent nature of those rights. We marvel at how when asked what is the most important concept in the Torah, Israelis almost always answer ‘am segulah’ … a Chosen People, or the like and the Americans almost always answer ‘tikkun olam’ or the like. So, join us as we attempt to unravel this riddle.

Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/502940

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2023/08/02/jewish-homeland-or-homeland-for-the-jews/ 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for another week of Madlik Disruptive Torah. We explore the biblical narratives surrounding Jacob and Abraham, the sanctity of places in the Ancient Near East and Jewish tradition, and the ongoing relevance of these themes in contemporary discussions about Jerusalem. The conversation highlights the deep connections between history, identity, and spirituality, emphasizing the importance of understanding the layers of meaning associated with sacred sites.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/608262

Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/12/05/scaling-the-temple-mount/ 

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/RHv0rHLtqXs 

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded July 7th 2022 on Clubhouse. In a parsha dedicated to death and with much attention on the enigmatic law of the Red Heifer we also witness the death of Moses and his siblings; the primary protagonists of the Exodus. Miriam dies in two verses and Moses and Aaron are sentenced to death with Aaron quickly dispatched. Which leads to the age-old question: Who Done it and why?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/417920

Transcript on Episode Website: https://madlik.com/2022/07/07/murder-in-the-desert/ 

What if the biblical tribes of Israel were more radical than we ever imagined?

At the heart of our discussion is the high priest's breastplate, described in Exodus 28. This ornate piece of priestly attire wasn't just a decorative element—it was a powerful symbol of the entire Israelite nation.

The breastplate featured 12 precious stones, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes of Israel. This was a profound representation of a radical social structure God was establishing for His people.

"The stone shall correspond in number to the names of the sons of Israel, 12 corresponding to their names. They shall be engraved like seals, each with its name for the 12 tribes."

This description emphasizes a crucial point: every tribe had equal representation on the breastplate. There was no hierarchy, no favored position. Each tribe, regardless of size or perceived importance, had its place. Even one missing letter would render it unusable - every tribe mattered.

Key Takeaways

1. The high priest's breastplate represented all 12 tribes of Israel, symbolizing a unique social structure that united diverse groups under one ideology and legal system.

2. The tribal confederacy of ancient Israel was a radical departure from typical city-state models, creating a flexible yet cohesive society bound by shared beliefs rather than physical structures.

3. The concept of equal tribes working together remains relevant today, offering insights into how modern societies can function without clear majorities or hierarchies.

Timestamps

• [0:00] Intro to Madlik Disruptive Torah
• [3:05] Exploring the radical tribal confederacy
• [6:30] The high priest's breastplate and tribes
• [11:01] Functionality and symbolism of the Urim Vitumim
• [15:33] Importance of representing all tribes perfectly
• [19:16] God, Torah and people coming together
• [25:22] Norman Gottwald's analysis of Israelite society
• [29:59] Radical nature of tribal structure then and now

Links & Learnings

• Sign up for free and get more from our weekly newsletter https://madlik.com/
• Sefaria Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/629914
• Transcript on episode web page: https://madlik.com/2025/03/05/tribal-revolution/