Bamidbar
Bamidbar is the name both of this week's sidra and of the book in the Bible it starts (in English the book of Numbers). If you think of the most hair-raising table plan for a huge wedding or the biggest accommodation logistical nightmare for a Limmud conference, you're only beginning to understand the complexities described in this sidra. It describes the camp of Israel in loving detail of how many people there were in each tribe and where they were positioned in the camp.
In Praise of Teachers and Adoptive Parents – Greg Alexander
Greg Alexander is a graduate of Leo Baeck College in London and working at the moment as a consultant for the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education (ACAJE) in Philadelphia. He and his family are on their way to South Africa to take up a pulpit in Cape Town and begin sewing the seeds of Limmud South Africa.
Friends of mine have been trying to adopt a child from India. The process is long and complicated and there is no guarantee of a completion date or even a successful outcome. The child obviously would not be born Jewish, but conversion under a beit din of one's Jewish stream of choice will mean that an adopted child will take on a Jewish status (the Hebrew word used for adoption is ametz, which also means 'to make strong', a reference to the verse in Psalm 80, "Be mindful of this vine ... which Your right hand has planted, and the branch that You have made strong for Yourself"). But will the child be mine, really mine? Adoption is a complex issue and there are fortunately now a good selection of books on this issue from a Jewish and general perspective. But what does this have to do with Parshat Bamidbar?
There is a seemingly strange verse in our portion that states "These are the generations of Aaron and Moses..." (Num. 3:1) but then goes on to list Aaron's children only, not Moses'. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 19b) takes this as an opportunity to teach a powerful lesson:
R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in R. Jonathan's name: One who teaches the child of his neighbour the Torah, Scripture treats them as if they had given birth to the child, as it says, These are the generations of Aaron and Moses... (Num. 3:1); whilst further on it is written, These are the names of the sons of Aaron... (the next verse): This teaches you that Aaron begot and Moses taught them; so they are called by his name.
Wow, this is powerful torah for adoptive parents, but also for Hebrew school teachers, for bnei mitzvah tutors, Limmud scholars…for anyone involved out there in teaching torah. Your students are your children, you are their parent. You take responsibility for leading them through the wondrous orchard of the torah and giving them the knowledge and skills to help them navigate the rest of their lives. And perhaps even beyond that, as this Mishnah (Bava Metzia 2:11) says:
If a person goes to look for their own lost property and that of their parent, their own has priority; if their own and that of their teacher, their own has priority; if that of their parent and that of their teacher, their teacher's has priority, for their parent brought them into this world, but their teacher, who has taught them wisdom, brings them into the world-to-come.
Parents and teachers, may we all have the patience and learning to deserve the responsibility we are given – no less than shaping and moulding the lives of those in our trust.
Rosh Chodesh Sivan: My Favourite Jewish Text
Amichai Lau-Lavie is Executive and Artistic Director of Storahtelling: Jewish Ritual Theatre Revived. www.storahtelling.org
'There are seventy faces to torah: turn it around and around and it's all there.' (Midrash)
On a warm May morning I kiss my parents goodbye, and leave Jerusalem for the airport, heading home to New York. As I drive away I notice the unmistakable signs of the countdown to Revelation - in full swing. Men sport unkempt beards, children collect wood from construction sites for tonight's Lag BaOmer (33rd day of the Omer, which is a counting of the days from Passover to Shavuot) bonfire, and posters in giant fonts announce Shavuot All-Night study events. I watch the action on the streets, where once I too busied myself with religious pyromania, and note, with some sadness, that yet again I dropped out of the countdown, having missed more than one consecutive night of blessing the Omer, thus officially 'out of the game'. I can't even remember the last year I counted the Omer consistently, from 1-50, patiently and piously progressing from Egypt to Sinai, from Passover to Shavuot, from Spring into Summer.
I drive away from Jerusalem as I drove away from my parents' world almost twenty years ago, replacing orthodoxy with 'flexidoxy', searching, as did my ancestor Abraham, for the promised land of the soul that will somehow be shown to me, as it was shown to him.
The usual suspects line up inside me to give voice and answer my questions. Outside the car window Jerusalem stone is replaced with pine trees. 'You are sad', a voice says inside me, 'because you remember the sense of pride when accomplishing the full count, the satisfaction of persistence, the extra dimension of achievement that made Shavuot a more memorable moment – a mountain climbed with effort and intention'. 'It's not that easy,' another voice says – 'you are sad because failing to count the Omer becomes a marker of personal sloth – having nothing to do with religious observance or commitment to Jewish law. You are just lazy.' 'Or perhaps', another voice says, 'you are simply sad because you have left home, and now you are leaving again.'
Over the years since I moved to New York and embraced a lifestyle of personal choice and a liberal, liberated Jewish being, I have relished in the re-imagination of Jewish rituals, narratives, and traditions. In particular, I have focused on the creative act of translating Hebrew scripture and liturgy into contemporary, accessible English. I have retranslated the Passover Haggadah and recreated the Seder as a theatrical, interactive dinner party event. In recent years I have partnered with artists and educators to transform Shavuot night into a radical 'all-night-happening', where music, study, theater and ritual offer a new generation of seekers an ancient way to celebrate the sacred. And yet, somewhere in between the Night of Exodus and the Night of Sinai – the countdown stopped being accounted for, and the process of becoming was forgotten. Even with the fascinating mystical and inter personal interpretations that the counting of the Omer has been enriched with over the centuries and in recent years – the countdown simply ceased to matter for my personal being, an invisible marker on my calendar.
On the plane to New York I have a window seat, and next to me sits a young Orthodox woman with her six year old daughter, who sits between us adults, shy, and quiet, reading a book. Video screens in front of us announce the temperature, the altitude, and the countdown to our destination. The little girl tugs at her mother's sleeve: "9 hours and 30 more minutes, mommy!' The young mother, in a blond wig, smiles at her daughter and says, "No need to count, Shoshi, we'll get there when we get there, just sit still and enjoy your book."
And then, into my sadness, enters a calm smiling voice, that, like Shoshi's mother, remind me to be in the present, and focus on the now. 'There are many good reasons to feel sorry for not counting the Omer', the smiling voice says, 'but it's also OK to accept that you don't have to count fifty nights and plan carefully ahead in order get a taste of revelation. Maybe it doesn't have to be about accounting. Maybe there are other ways you choose to prepare for the sacred. And maybe you don't need to discount the Omer. Maybe next year. In Jerusalem.." I swear I can hear the smiling voice chuckle inside.
I sit there, quietly, while Shoshi falls asleep next to me with her head in her mother's lap, and I remember a quote from the Midrash:
'There are seventy faces to torah: turn it around and around and it's all there.'
And all the voices in my head, seventy or more, like old vinyl records, turn around and around, and in the middle, in the axis, on the top of my personal Mount Sinai, I sit, quietly, suddenly calm and no longer sad: Hineni ('Here I am').
In my temporary haven between heaven and earth, seat 24F, on the 33rd night of the Omer, between one home and another, I am exactly where I need to be, and that is all that counts.