THE WHOLE COMMUNITY BROKE OUT

EGYPT!

(Bamidbar 14:1-3)

She weeps, weeps in the night (Lamentations

1:2)

– Why

does she weep twice? Ravah said that Rabbi Yohanan said: Once for the first Temple, and once for the

second Temple. In the night – regarding matters that occurred at night,

for it is said, the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people

wept that night (Bamidbar 12:1).

Ravah said that Rabbi Yohanan

said: That night was the night of the 9^th of Av.

God

told Israel: You wept needlessly – I will establish [a night of] weeping for

you that will last through the generations. Another opinion: [She weeps…]

in the night – that any weeping at night induces weeping in those who hear

it.

 (Sanhedrin 104b)

For if you will not give heed, my soul will weep bamistarim [in a

hidden place] (Jeremiah 13:17).

Rabbi

Shemuel bar Inyah said in Rav's name: God has a place called mistarim…

But

could there be weeping before God? After all, Rav Pappa said: There is no sorrow before God, for it is said: Glory

and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His place (I Chronicles

16:27)!

There

is no contradiction: This refers to [what happens in] inner dwellings, that

refers to outer dwellings…

The

Rabbi taught: God weeps for three every day: For he who could study Torah, but

does not, for he for whom it is impossible to study Torah yet does, and for the

leader who lords over the community.

(Hagigah 5b)

One Torah and

One Law

Nahem Ilan

The expression one Torah appears

four times in the Torah: Once in reference to the Pessach

sacrifice, where it is said, there will be one Torah for the citizen and for

the stranger who dwells among you (Shemot

12:49);

once to mark the priest's equal right to both guilt and sin offerings – the

guilt offering and the sin offering – the same Torah applies to both, it

shall belong to the priest who makes expiation thereby (Vayikra 7:7); and twice in our parasha,

Shelah. First it is said in reference to the stranger's

equal standing vis-à-vis the burnt offering, sacrifice, and peace

offering – Congregation! There shall be one law for you and for the resident

the stranger shall be alike before the Lord (Bamidbar

25: 15-16). Finally, regarding one who sins by accident, it is

written: For the citizens among the Israelites and for the stranger who

resides among them – you shall have one Torah for anyone who acts in error (25:29).

The Sages learned various laws from

these verses. The great majority of them deal with different sacrifices – I

will not touch upon them here. I will also not deal with the contrast between

deliberate and accidental sins which they derived from these verses. Instead,

let us focus our attention on an aspect that is not particularly associated

with the sacrifices, and whose roots go back to the early laws of the Tannaim. The Mekhiltah

De-Rabbi Yishmael makes an aside while treating

the laws of the Pessah sacrifice:

…I only see the stranger's status

begin counted as equal to that of the citizen in connection with the Pessah sacrifice; how is this established for all of the

other commandments of the Torah? We learn it from the verse, there will be

one Torah for the citizen and for the stranger – here Scripture equates the

stranger with citizen regarding all of the commandments of the Torah. (Mekhiltah De-Rabbi Yishmael,

Horowitz-Rabin edition, Jerusalem, 5730, Massekhta

De-Pascha 15, pg. 57).

This deduction is very important because

it expresses how the Tannaim dramatically altered the

meaning of the biblical word ger ("stranger").

In Scripture, ger means "stranger,"

but in the Tannaitic halakhah,

a ger is precisely that person who is no

longer a stranger. He is one who has fulfilled all of the requirements and has

completed the established procedure for joining the Jewish People. This halakhah which was studied in the school of Rabbi Yishmael describes the Jewish community's complete and

total acceptance of the ger. This acceptance

is expressed by the ger's equal status

vis-à-vis the commandments, a status that creates many duties and endows

few rights. In short: Rabbi Yishmael contends that

the profound equality enjoyed by the various members of the community regarding

ritual matters overwhelms in importance differences of class and origin between

members.

However, legislation alone cannot shape

culture and identity. Law defines the ideal rather than the reality. Along the

way it often points out the deviant, the criminal; the one who does not follow

the law. May statements found in Talmudic and post-Talmudic literature

demonstrate that it was difficult for the public to abide by this law; in practice,

the ger was often not related to as an equal. Even

when the letter of the law was preserved, it was hard to obey its spirit, many

times too hard to obey. I will mention just one example, which to my

eyes is a literary and moral gem; RaMBaM's responsum to Rabbi Ovadia the Ger

(It may be found in Blau's edition of Tshuvot HaRaMBaM, Jerusalem,

5720, vol 2, pp. 725-8). This responsum

shows us how difficult it was for Rabbi Ovadia's

rabbi to relate to him as an intelligent and literate person, eventually provoking

the RaMBaM's critical comments.

Let us attend to an additional literary

expression, one which lends meaning to our parasha's

inner structure. The transition from the narrative of chapter 14 to the laws of

chapter 15 is not self-explanatory, and it invites comment. In the course of

discussing the role of God's mercy in His treatment of Israel, Seder Eiyahu Rabba says the

following:

…At that very hour [in which the

people grieved over their disaffection Bamidbar 14:39) God

told him: Moses, go and comfort those poor people, they have lost heart.

He said to Him: Master of the Universe,

how shall I comfort them?

He said to him: Go comfort them with

words of Torah – When you enter the land in which you shall settle…and you

the Lord shall bring, etc. (15: 2-3).

At that very hour there was a dispute

between Israel and the gerim.

God said to Moses: Why do these

disagree argue with each other?

He said to Him: Master of the Universe,

You know!

He said to him: Did I not say, Congregation!

There shall be one Torah [and one law, etc.] (15:2-4).

From here they said: There are three

kinds of gerim… (Seder Eliyahu Rabba, Ish Shalom edition, Jerusalem 5729, pg. 146)

What is this colorful drasha saying? Firstly, it utilizes a psychological method

which deals with times of stress, depressions, and crisis by drawing the

sufferer's attention away from the problem at hand to some other, positive,

future-oriented concern, thus allowing the sufferer to regain confidence in his

own abilities. This renewal of self-confidence allows the sufferer to function

properly, live a better life, and overcome his crisis.

Secondly, the darshan

extends the compass of the exegetical connection between chapters fourteen and

fifteen all the way to the end of the passage involving a burnt offering of

pleasant odor (15:14), claiming that even its final verse is

of relevance to the story of the spies. In other words: In answer to the

challenge of connecting the story of the spies with the equality of status

between natives and gerim the darshan employs the narrative appendage, "At that very

hour there was a dispute between Israel and the gerim"

in order to forward an additional psychological claim. To his mind, crises are

accompanied by a shut-down of self-criticism and an inability to take

responsibility. The natural inclination in such circumstances is to transfer

responsibility – indeed to transfer blame – to someone else, especially if that

someone else is the "other." Scripture's ultimate "other"

is the ger qua stranger, whether he

remains a stranger, or merely was a stranger in the past. According to this drasha, the verse from chapter fifteen is intended to

confront the false charge that the unfortunate outcome of the episode of the

spies is the fault of the "other." One may hear a hidden claim in the

darshan's words, according to which if the ger is a citizen, one may read the equation

backwards as stating that every citizen is a ger,

at least potentially. These notions are not only appropriate to the search for

guilty parties in that ancient crisis – they have wider application, extending

beyond time and place of that particular concrete incident.

In every "citizen" lurks

something which, in certain circumstances, could transform him into a ger, into an "other." The fundamental

equality afforded by scripture to the ger's

status is a noble challenge, which is always and everywhere difficult to meet,

especially in times of crisis.

The passages from Mekhilta

DeRabbi Yishmael and Seder

Eliyahu Rabbah describe

ideals rather than reality. The Mekhilta

demands that we develop a religious consciousness that does not emphasize one's

pedigree or societal status, but rather has us see ourselves standing as gerim before our God. Seder Eliyahu Rabbah describes a

flawed world, in which the ger is not seen as the

citizen's equal. To his mind, the challenge is for every one of us to be aware

of the "otherness" of each of us, while also recognizing the

commonalties which allow us to function as a group. The equations ger = the "other," and the awareness that gerut [the state of being a ger]

= otherness constitute challenges we face here and today, as well as in the

past.

Dr.

Nahem Ilan teaches in the

department for interdisciplinary Jewish studies in Bar Ilan

University and in the Arabic Department in Haifa University.

Do not Follow Your Hearts: Two Perspectives on Human Nature

Look

at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord (Bamidbar 15:39): Remember that you are servants of

Blessed God, and that you received His commandments with a vow and oath. When

you see the tzitzit, which is like a king's

seal upon his servants, you will stop following after your hearts' inclination

to gain wealth and honor, even through theft.

(Seforno Bamidbar 15:39)

Man's

soul and its powers were created upright, and the heart naturally tends towards

the good. However, man spoils his nature, devising evil in his heart. That is

why it could not simply say velo teilkhu aharei levevkhem (do not go after your hearts), but

rather velo taturu

aharei levavkhem (literally:

do not go scouting after your hearts). If one were to walk according to

the paths paved by the heart in its original nature, his ways would be good and

straight.

 (Malbim on Bamidbar 15:39)

On the Torah and "Natural

Morality"

Morality

in its naturalness, in all of its power and deep majesty, must be established

in the soul to serve as the receptive ground for the Torah's great influences. Proper

behavior is the prerequisite [for the acceptance of] any part of the Torah. If

it [some aspect of the Torah] is a matter to which common sense and natural

integrity agree, it must go [into the soul] through the straight path, in

accordance with the heart's inclination and in agreement with the pure [good]

will imprinted in man. The Torah was given to Israel so that gates of light

that are brighter, wider, and holier than any of the gates of light associated

with man's natural understanding and with the spirit of natural morality, might

be opened for us, and through us, to the entire world.

(HaRAYaH Kook ztz"l, Orot HaTorah 69-71)

And if

Moses had Sent Women to Scout the Land?

He

specifically mentioned [that] men