IT WAS AFTER THE PLAGUE, THAT THE LORD SPOKE TO MOSES AND TO ELEAZAR THE SON OF AARON THE PRIEST, SAYING: TAKE A CENSUS OF ALL THE CONGREGATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL FROM TWENTY YEARS OLD AND UPWARDS, FOLLOWING THEIR FATHERS' HOUSES, ALL THAT ARE FIT TO GO OUT TO WAR IN ISRAEL.

(Bamidbar 26:1-2)

 

It was after the plague This can be compared to a shepherd whose flock was intruded by wolves who killed some of them [his sheep]. He counted them to know how many were left. Another interpretation: When they left Egypt and were entrusted to Moses, they were delivered to him with a number. Now that he was close to death and would soon have to return his flock, he returns them with a number.

(Rashi ad loc, Judaica Press translation)

 

all that are fit to go out to war in Israel - as for Rashi's formulation, "as they tell the executioner: cut off so-and-so's head" I do not know why they interpreted the verse in a negative light; perhaps because they died in the wilderness, and in reference to the tribe of Levi it says pekod (3:15) [count, rather than our verse's formulation, se'u et rosh - take a census, literally, raise up the head] because they were not included in the decree [of the generation that would die in the wilderness]. However, in the second census of those who were to enter the Land, the expression is used: Take a census [se'u et rosh] of all the congregation of Israel (26:2)! The aggadah brought by Vayikra Rabbah interprets the expression in a positive light: "Se'u is always an expression of greatness," as in the verse, Pharaoh shall lift up your head and returned you to your status. The Holy One blessed be He said to Israel: I exalted you over all the world's inhabitants, for it says Yours is the kingdom and [You are He] Who is exalted [mitnasei] over everything as the Leader (I Chronicles 29:11); so too, I exalted you, for it says raise up [se'u - based on the same verb as mitnasei] the head of all the congregation of Israel, in order to fulfill that which is said and lifts up the horn of His people (Psalms 148). And is also says, And the Lord your God will make you supreme over the nations of the earth (Devarim 28:1). And again I find in Bamidbar Rabbah (1:9) that they said: "Rabbi Pinhas said in the name of Rabbi Idi: Why does it say lift up the head - s'eu et rosh - in the beginning of the book? It does not say exalt the head or make great the head, but rather lift up the head, as one would say to an executioner, "cut off so-and-so's head." Here He gave Moses a hint, se'u et rosh: that if they merited it they would rise to greatness, as it is written Pharaoh shall lift up your head and returned you to your status, but if you do not merit it, you shall all die as it is written, Pharaoh shall lift [yisa] your head off you and hang you on the gallows (Bereishit 40:19). This expression is to be interpreted in a positive light when referring to the good people, and since it is an expression of greatness and is used in the first census it was also use in the second census.

(RaMBaN Bamidbar 1:2)

 

The Torah of Truth Was in His Mouth

Sparks of light

From the soul of Rav ShaGaR

Shmeul Reiner

The story of Pinhas raises many thoughts concerning the way and the nature of the truth. By killing Zimri ben Salu and Kozbi bat Tzur, Pinhas sets up a different truth that stands in opposition to the normative halakhic truth. In his independence, Pinhas is an "Other": he represents the truth of the zealot, which is a truth different from and sometimes even opposed to the halakhah's truth - the truth of the majority.

In Sanhedrin 82b we read:

And Pinhas saw - What did he see? Rav said : He saw the deed [of Zimri] and remembered the halakhah. He [Pinhas] told him, "Moses, brother of my father's father! When you descended from Mount Sinai did you not teach us that if one has sexual intercourse with a gentile woman - the zealots kill him?" He told him: "The one who read the message is the one who should execute it." And Shemuel said: "He [Pinhas] saw that There is neither wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord (Proverbs 21:30) - anywhere where there is desecration of the Name, deference is not paid to the Rabbi!"

Both opinions recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, that of Rav as well as that of Shemuel, depict Pinhas as creating a norm. The Babylonian Talmud relates to this norm as "a halakhah which is not taught," while the Jerusalem Talmud will describe the situation as "not in accordance with the wishes of the Sages." Nonetheless, the Torah accords Pinhas a place of honor and praises his deeds: Pinhas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest has turned My anger away from the children of... Therefore, say, "I hereby give him My covenant of peace (Bamidbar 25:11-12). This despite the fact that to one degree or another Pinhas disagreed with Moses' position and represents a different truth.

In Pinhas's story we encounter something of the questions that haunt today's beit midrash [house of study]. I refer to the debate that continues to take place in our religious world regarding the possibility that different truths exist; the conflict between the traditional and the novel, between the traditional and the cultural, and between those two and the ethical, etc., etc. Pinhas's story is a "sample" of the post-modern confusion which extinguishes and rekindles the light in our beit midrash and confounds those who study within its walls.

The postmodern world replaces exclamation marks with question marks, and question marks with exclamation marks, over and over again. It demands of you: "Tell me your story, your personal story which expresses that which is unique to you." It consistently subverts the common truths, the certainties inherited from grandfather's home. In this it poses a genuine threat to our religiosity, since certainty is one of our religiosity's foundations. The religious world, which contends with the spirit of our times and with the contemporary voices, wages a total war against the "post" phenomenon by ridiculing and strongly criticizing postmodernism's cultural product. It tries with all its might to expel this "cultural disease." This spiritual stance has little chance of offering valid and convincing answers. In addition, it is apt to pay a weighty price for failing to offer a relevant interpretation of the religious life; it even creates serious distress over lost freedom.

A short time ago Rabbi ShaGaR (Shimon Gershon Rosenberg), the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Siah Yitzhak, was taken from us. Rabbi ShaGaR tried to contend with the challenge of postmodernism - and not from a defensive position. I would say that in some ways he even "rejoiced at the prospect of battle" due to a feeling that this arena may harbor an opportunity for a great religious renewal. He did not ask how and by what means this evil might be destroyed. Rather, he asked how a religious Jew who fears Heaven and loves Torah might appropriate the postmodern world. How do we build a beit midrash within the space of postmodernism, a space in which anything can be said? Rabbi ShaGaR felt that there is a great truth here and that it must therefore become a foundation stone of the beit midrash and perhaps even serve to widen the borders of the Oral Law.

Old-fashioned religious Zionism emphasized the need to include secular Zionism, to bear its yoke - including its various political, social, and cultural elements - happily and enthusiastically. With time, this obligation, which was presented as Rabbi Abvraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook ztz"l's spiritual legacy, faced serious difficulties. A different and very troubling reality stood opposite the great vision. It climaxed these past years with the consolidation of a well-formulated secular Israeli identity. The disengagement was the climax of all climaxes. Disappointment severely fractured the national-religious worldview. Amidst this spiritual chaos could be heard the voice of Rabbi ShaGaR, offering an alternative which emphasized the world of the individual, the heartbeat and feelings of each and every one of us. This alternative demanded honesty. It also called on each of us to reject self-effacement, to refuse to become someone else's victim, and instead to remain "myself." This finds its primary expression in the significance that we attribute to our own lives; it is expressed in Torah study, it refreshes our relationship with our Father in Heaven. This position renews the religious Zionist worldview by setting up a new ordering of priorities regarding the present.

Rabbi ShaGaR's student stands chin-up in the postmodern world; in one hand he carries Likkutei MoHaRaN, a bookmark at section 64, "Come to Pharaoh." That discourse of Rabbi Nahman proclaims a deep expression of religion through silence. This is not the silence of ignorance or unknowing, but rather the silence that takes aboard profound questions; it does not recoil from them and is prepared to live with them. There are questions that have no answers. Religious honesty places the student in the position of one who remains silent. This position does not engender weakness nor does it dampen religious fervor. In his other hand he holds the Babylonian or Jerusalem Talmud, of which he does not ask merely "What is written here?" but also "What does this say to me?" When he has no answer, he possesses the patience to wait and to wait…

The Archimedean point from which Rabbi ShaGaR wished to lift up the world was the beit midrash. There study was different; it sounded a new melody and added new aspects to the Torah - aspects of freedom and creativity. Now, deep Talmudic discussions also create the feeling that they genuinely touch the deepest strata of the soul. All of this without relinquishing even a single detail of the halakhah. This great spiritual freedom does not deny commitment to the Mishnah Berura's dictum, "he who fears Heaven will see fit to be strict."

Here is what Rabbi ShaGaR writes in his introduction to the book Te'einim Metukot - Osafim be'Hassidut Kefi she'Lamadeti me'HaRav ShaGaR, lessons that were transcribed by his student, Rabbi Shlomo Shuk:

We learn from the AdMuR that there is an advantage to transforming Torah discourses into poetry, paralleling R. Nahman's MiBrestlov's call to transform discourses into prayers in order to move the Torah on to the plane of personal existence and change the idea into an ideal. So, too, the transformation of discourses into poetry moves the Torah from the intellectual plane to the poetic place, transforming it into an object of aspiration and yearning.

This transformation is wont to bring forth new aspects of the Torah; it makes difficult the identification of the poem and its source. However, such is the nature of the grounds of the Torah. In contrast to the laws of wisdom, they are free and creative. Its nature makes impossible the differentiation from each other of creator, translator, and his creation. Many find that the poetry of Torah is a conduit for connection to the Torah.

Thus a student sings to his rabbi:

For Rabbi ShaGaR

So meanwhile touch hard

Upon the extreme of possibility's reality

And learn to feel

To take pity

Upon the weathered body

Which rocks and rocks

From side to side

Slowly, slowly it will reach

The reserved places

As in a Shakespearian

Theater

They all die in the end.

Really,

Touch hard

Your eyes and remember to see

Your tongue and remember to taste

The chicken's drumstick

As it is.

Shlomo Shuk

I remember Rabbi ShaGaR from the years when, out of great love for Torah, it became poetry and poetry became Torah.

When his motto was "Torah shall come forth from me" - a new Torah shall come forth from me.

At his funeral I met one of the rabbis who taught Rabbi ShaGaR Talmud in his youth in the days when he attended the Netiv Meir yeshiva. He asked: What was Rabbi ShaGaR's special strength? I answered him that Rabbi ShaGaR possessed the secret of the "next thing." Ahead of us, he sensed what our spirits and souls would need in times to come.

He left in the middle of life, in the middle of his work and "The song of his life ended in the middle."

Rabbi Shemuel Reiner is a Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat HaKibbutz HaDati at Ma'alei Gilboa.

 

Despite the Difficulty - No Favoritism in Prophecy

Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.

(Jeremiah, 1:5)

 

The Holy One said to Jeremiah: Go and prophesy concerning Israel. He replied to the Holy One: I don't how to speak, for I am still a boy (Jeremiah 1:6). Because he did not want to prophesy severe prophecies upon them, until He said to him: Before I created you in the womb' I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations. Immediately he accepted the mantle of prophecy, and he thought that he was to prophesy only concerning the nations. Once he accepted the mission, the Holy One told him to take the cup of the wine of wrath, etc. (25:16). Jeremiah immediately took it, as is written, So I took the cup from the hand of the Lord, assuming that he was to serve the drink only to nations, and so said the Holy One, God and learn from general practice - Who is served the drink? Is it not he who sits at the head? See who sits at the head of all nations to be served? It is Jerusalem who sits at the head of all the nations. This is allegorically comparable to the sotah who enters the Temple precinct to drink the sotah waters, and the priest sees that she is his mother, immediately he is ashamed and turns around, crying out and weeping over his mother, so with Jeremiah when the Holy said to him "Give the drink to Jerusalem" he cried out and wept, saying to Him: " Master of the Universe, did you not say to me I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations - now I must prophesy first to my own people? You have enticed me, O Lord, and I was enticed; You overpowered me and you prevailed." (20:7)

The Holy One blessed be He said: "You have already accepted, and you cannot go back." Immediately he took the cup from His hand, and drank it all, even gnawing its shards, as is written, You shall drink it and drain it, and gnaw its shards (Ezekiel 23;34). Once Jeremiah saw that the fate of Jerusalem was sealed, he immediately cried out, and began to lament "Alas! Lonely sits the city.

At that time the Holy One said to him: Why do you stand? Immediately he answered: Thus said the Lord of Hosts: Listen! Summon the dirge-singers; let them come… Let them quickly start a wailing for us, that our eyes may run with tears. This is to tell you that whenever Israel suffers, The Holy One shares their suffering, as is written; In all their troubles, He was troubled (Isaiah 63:9).

(Midrash Zutta Eikha, Chapter 1)

 

Pleasing Odor, Nahat Ruah, the Will of the Lord

A pleasing odor - Nahat ruah [Nahat Ruah can be translated as "satisfaction," "gratification," "tranquility," "serene spirit," "pleasure"] - pleasure - for me, for I spoke and my will was executed.

(Rashi, Bamidbar 28:8)

 

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the reyah nikhoah [pleasing odor] , and the Lord said to Himself: Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.

 (Bereishit 8:20-21)

 

Reyah nikhoah does not mean "pleasant odor" but rather: the satisfaction of the request and aspirations of the other.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, Bereishit 8:21)

 

What need have I of all your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am sated with burnt offerings of rams and suet of fatlings, and blood of bulls; I have no delight in lambs and he-goats. That you come to appear before Me - who asked that of you? Trample My courts no more; Bringing oblations is futile, incense is offensive to Me. New moon and Sabbath, proclaiming of solemnities, assemblies with iniquity, I cannot abide.

(Isaiah 1:11-13)

 

What need have I of all your sacrifices - Rabbi Elazar said: Prayer is superior to all offerings, for it is written What need have I of all your sacrifices and it is written, And when you lift up your hands... Though you pray at length, I will not listen. Rabbi Yohanan said: Any priest who has killed someone shall not lift his arms [to bless], as is written, Your hands are stained with blood.

 (Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah 247:387)

 

 

 

 

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