Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 6 Tamuz, 5783

It’s a new week, and this week we have a DOUBLE portion!  We study Hukat and Balak this week.  Hukat as a parsha is REALLY interesting – it is all about this concept of the Suprarational Command.  These are mitzvahs that Hashem has given us where we don’t understand the “why?” They don’t always make sense.  This is the portion where the Red Heifer comes in.  The sacrifice of the red heifer isn’t something that makes a lot of sense. It seems random.

My takeaway is how often in life we get stuck on things that don’t make sense. In order to move on, we often need to know “why?”  If we don’t have a good answer to this question, we basically get stuck.  I mean, at least I do.  Learning to let go of this is a part of our healing journey.

And. I connect this with how our brains work. How we “fill in the gaps” of not understanding why.  We convince ourselves of why things happened – she broke up with me because I was unworthy – she broke up with me because she’s selfish.  But we don’t REALLY know why.

And sometimes.  SOMETIMES.  We do know why, but our brains can’t handle it – so we get stuck in NOT understanding why. We’ve been told why. But it doesn’t make sense to us.

• It could be because we can’t accept a reality different than what our brains has convinced ourselves of being true. We’ve been told why, but we can’t accept this explanation as being true.
• SOMETIMES it’s because the person telling us why isn’t self-aware enough to KNOW why they acted a certain way.
• SOMETIMES it’s because the person isn’t being honest with why.

When it comes to Hashem, we have to believe HE knows why he is asking us to do something. And we just aren’t meant to know.  We are just asked to trust.  How difficult is that?  It’s simple – but trusting Hashem and doing what we are called to do, even if we don’t understand it?  That’s scary.

How much more with our friends? Our family?  If we don’t understand the why, we can’t accept it.

Think about this when it comes to our trauma.  We repress our trauma because we don’t know WHY we experienced it.

• I’m a good person, why did I experience this trauma?
• This person who traumatized me – I believe they are a good person, why did their behaviors cause trauma?
• I need to know WHY I was traumatized!

I wrote about Post Traumatic Growth and Post Traumatic Resilience a few days ago.  I think Post Traumatic growth is connected with this idea of moving forward even when we DON’T know why.  Instead of waiting for an explanation to come. Closure to happen. Forgiveness to be sought.  The growth move is to say “I don’t need to know why.  I can be in this present moment – and let go of the question of why. I can keep walking forward and not get stuck at a point in time where I won’t move until I get what I want.”

This is healing. This is growth.  And this (in my opinion) is the lesson of the Red Heifer. We worship Hashem sometimes in a certain way ONLY BECAUSE he asked us to.  He doesn’t tell us why.  Can we do this? Or will we get stuck?

Now. I need to close with a caveat.  Hashem and the Torah asking us to do something without an explanation? That’s one thing.  A friend, spouse, partner?  That’s another. We are sovereign.  We can choose. We can choose to give our sovereignty to Hashem and do things because he asked us without us understanding them.  Or we can choose NOT to give our sovereignty to Him because we don’t.  That is a choice we make.

With someone else – it is the same choice.  Who we choose to give our sovereignty to. If anyone. Because maybe we are ONLY meant to give our sovereignty to Hashem.

Either way – the choice is ours.  It is much easier to make a choice knowing why. Sometimes in life, we must choose without knowing why.  And move forward anyways.

Let me know your thoughts.

TL:DR – “Post Traumatic Growth and Post Traumatic Resilience seem to be connected to letting go of focusing on understanding why trauma happened to us and instead feel the trauma, let it work through our hearts, and then release it so we can be free.  We don’t always need to know why. We won’t always get to know why.”

This seems important. What do you think?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 4 Tamuz, 5782

Good afternoon! I’m a little late getting my thoughts out; but it has been a very reflective morning.

Today we start a new Parsha – Parsha Hukat which means “Suprarational Command”

Remember we have discussed rational and suprarational commands prior. The suprarational commands are ones we don’t understand.

We start the portion talking about the Red Heifer.

God tells Moses that what He is about to tell Moses to relay to the children of Israel isn’t going to make sense.

And I have to stop for a moment and consider as a dad, there are moment I have to tell my kids; “this isn’t going to make sense, but I need you to do it.” And how there is both intention and trust required in that moment.

And God tells Moses to have them bring a red heifer without blemish and that has never had a yoke placed on it to Eleazar the priest. He would take it outside the camp and slaughter it.

Then Eleazar should take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it towards the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

Then the cow should be burned in his presence.

So far; seems relatively standard.

But here’s where it gets a smidge weird:

The priest should take a piece of cedar wood, hyssop and crimson will and cast them into the burning cow.

Okaaaayyyy.

Then, the priest should immerse his garments and wash his body in the water of a ritual pool. He will remain impure until evening and then he can go back into the camp.

The person who burns the cow (it didn’t have to be the priest) should do the same as the priest.

Then a ritually pure person should gather the cows ashes and divide them into three portions. One portion stays in the temple, another goes on the mount of Olives outside the camp in a ritually pure place and the third should Be placed just outside the wall of the temple courtyard as a secure reminder for the congregation of the children of Israel

The ashes are to be added to the sprinkling water used for ritual purification.

After gathering the ashes, the ritually pure person should Immerse his clothes in a ritual pool and he will remain impure until evening

This is an everlasting law both for the Children of Israel and the convert who lives with them.

I Want to stop here. There is more in the portion, but we can cover that tomorrow.

So many questions.

But something i want to share that has been prevalent for me, that I think this portion confirms.

The hard part of suprarational commands is not knowing “why?” We know “how?” and we know “what?” How often in life do we (I) get stuck knowing how and what, but not being willing to move forward without knowing why?

I often struggle with “why is this person acting in such a way?” “Why are they making these decisions?”

It’s really not very fruitful to focus on that because we won’t always know why. They may not know why.

But we CAN ask ourselves “how are they acting and how is it impacting me?” And “how can I navigate these actions and behaviors and their impact on me?” THOSE questions are much more productive! Especially when we start recognizing the patterns.

And. We can do this with ourselves. I struggle to figure out “why” I’m acting a certain way. I tend to over analyze and overthink it. Sometimes it’s helpful, but more often “how am I acting?” Is more fruitful of an analysis.

This is what I am sitting with in the story of the red heifer.

What are your thoughts?

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 5 Tamuz, 5782

This mornings Torah thought begins with a morning blessing taken from a traditional Jewish Siddur (prayer book):

“Lord our God, make the teachings of Your Torah pleasant in our mouths, and in the mouths of Your entire people, the House of Israel; and may we, our children, and the children of Your entire people the House of Israel, all be knowers of Your Name and students of Your Torah for its own sake. Blessed are You, Lord, who teaches the Torah to His people Israel.”

This is my blessing for us as we dig into todays Torah portion!

We left yesterday talking about the Red heifer – one of God’s suprarational commands.

Today we are going back to more purity laws; around touching a dead body. It Is interesting this is next, given immediately after, in todays portion, we read about Miriam’s passing (spoiler alert!)

So we left off yesterdays portion, and will pick it up with God telling Moses that anyone who touches a dead body will become ritually impure for 7 days.

God tells Moses that on day 3 and 7, we should ritually purify ourselves with the ashes of the red cow to become ritually pure. If we do NOT do this, we will not become ritually pure.

God makes it clear this process is crucial, because if it is not performed, even if he immersed in the ritual pool, his ritual impurity remains.

We move now to the man that dies in a tent.

• Anyone who enters the tent and anything in the tent will be ritually impure for 7 days
• Any open vessel which has no seal becomes ritually impure
• Anyone who is in an open field and touches a person killed by the swift or a corpse or a human bone or grave will be ritually impure for seven days.

The midrash has something interesting to say about this:

God blamed Adam for introducing death into the world, saying, “On the day you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17) What could you compare this to?

To a man who wished to divorce his wife. Before he goes into his home, he writes out a divorce document and he has it ready in his hand. He then looks for a way to hand it to her.

He says, “May I have a drink of water, please?”

She gives him the water. When he takes the glass from her, he says, “Here is your divorce.”

What have I done wrong?” she asks.

“Get out of my house, he retorts. “You have served me a warm drink”

“It seems” she says, “that you already knew that I was going to serve you a warm drink. You had already prepared a bill of divorce and brought it with you!”

That is what Adam told God. “Master of the Universe! The Torah predated the world by two thousand years, and in the Torah it is written, “This is the law regarding a man that dies in a tent.” If You hadn’t already decreed death for mankind, You wouldn’t have written this in the Torah.”

So basically the midrash is telling us that a husband or wife setting their spouse up for divorce when they had every intention of divorcing them is like Adam blaming God for death. When In reality God didn’t decree death for humans; it was a choice we made. There was no recognition of the choice.

In the divorce example, the husband made a choice to give his wife a divorce. And then? He gaslights her into believing she caused the divorce because of the drink she served him.

That is NOT how Hashem works!

What are your thoughts?

Let’s get back to the Torah! What do we do with the impure person?

We take the ashes of the burned purification offerings (of the red heifer) and place them in a vessel filled with spring water.

Todays portion picks up here:

A ritually pure person should take hyssop, dip it into the water, sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, and the people who were in the tent. And anyone who touched the bone, the killed person, the corpse or the grave.

The ritually pure person should sprinkle the ash water on the ritually impure person on the 3rd and 7th day.

On the 7th day, he will become ritually pure. But first, he should immerse himself and wash in the water of the mikveh and he will become ritually pure in the evening.

If a person becomes ritually impure and does not purify himself and goes into the sanctuary? Their soul will be cut off from the congregation.

This is an eternal suprarational law: one who Carrie’s the sprinkling waters should immerse his clothes in the ritual pool and one who comes into contact with the sprinkling waters will only be ritually impure until the evening.

Anyone a ritually impure person touches becomes ritually impure. Anyone touching him will be ritually impure until the evening.

Remember; we are talking about RITUAL impurity. For the purposes of entering the sanctuary.

Before we close the portion by talking about Miriam’s death (spoiler alert!) I wanted to focus back on the red heifer. It didn’t make sense at the time; but Hashem also has the process foundational for the future. We may not see the why? Hashem asks us to do something – Maybe it’s going through a difficulty in our life? maybe is the need to confront someone or something that is working against our community? But regardless, we can trust the process to work out, if we focus on the “how?” How does Hashem want me to navigate? What am I called to do? Even if it doesn’t make sense?

What are your thoughts?

Ok; let’s close out todays portion.

Keep in mind, commentary tells us there is a 40 year gap between the event of the red heifer and the death of Miriam. That is an important factor.

The Torah tells us (Numbers 20:1) that the entire next generation of Israel (all the OJs – Original Jews had passed on) arrived in the desert of sin in the first month and the people settled in Kadesh.

Miriam died there. And was buried there.

Just sit there for a moment. That’s a big deal.

And then we learn in verse 2:

The congregation had no water, so they hanged up against Moses and Aaron, and the people quarreled with Moses.

What??? Moses and Aaron just lost a sister!!

Some questions before moving forward:

Why does this story immediately follow the red heifer? Why is there no water? Is that connected with Miriam’s death?

We have a few writings to chew on regarding all of this:

Rabbi Rochamim Shealtiel Jacob Ninio wrote this:

“Why does the story of Miriam’s death follow straight after the laws of the Red Heifer? To teach you that just as sacrifices bring atonement, the death of the righteous also brings atonement. She died through a “kiss” from God’s mouth, like the great saints, and not through the angel of death, the way of ordinary people. Why, then, does the verse not state “by God’s mouth” as it does with Moses and Aaron? Because it is not respectful to speak of God kissing a woman (Babylonian Talmud, Mo’ed Katan 28a).

The leaders of the generation did not feel the need to publicly grieve Miriam’s passing at all, or to eulogize her, because she was, after all, a woman. Had any religious instruction emanated from her that there was now a need to make a big deal? Instruction was given to Israel by Moses and Aaron! Even the well that had disappeared when Miriam died would, without doubt, return in the merit of Moses and Aaron.

To counteract this faulty line of reasoning, the Torah makes a point of mourning her passing; explicitly, “Miriam died there.” In fact, she died through a “Divine kiss,” just like her brothers indicating that she was on par with them spiritually. And her passing made an immediate impression, “the congregation had no water” (V. 2) water being a metaphor for Torah. Suddenly, even the great scholars could not understand the Torah properly, because the Divine Presence had removed itself from Israel. This was to teach everyone- including the leaders of that generation who had not mourned for her–how righteous she had been. It was due to her merit that the Divine Presence had rested over Israel, and this message soon became very clear to the Sages.” (End quote)

That is interesting commentary coming from a 19th century Rabbi! Miriam has a special place in the Torah. And yet the people of the time didn’t recognize it. They were a new generation that forgot or didn’t really appreciate the past. How relatable is that???????

Next, Rabbi Shneur Zalman writes about the connection to the lack of water:

“From here we learn that throughout the forty years they had the well in Miriam’s merit (Rashi, 11th century). There were three siblings, Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Miriam was the moon, Moses the sun, and Aaron the right arm. At first Miriam died – the moon departed and the well disappeared.

Then, the right arm broke. Afterwards, the sun was gathered in and it was darkened. Happy is the generation in which Moses, Aaron, and Miriam existed in the world! (Zohar). A few have the custom to draw water every Saturday night from wells or springs because the well of Miriam passes through all the wells after the conclusion of each Sabbath. Whoever finds it and drinks from It will be healed from all his Illnesses.” (end quote)

Interesting thoughts around Miriam’s death. But I think there’s more.

I feel the connection to the red heifer is God’s honoring the preparation of the people for Miriam’s death. It was connected to water. The red heifer was meant to have ashes placed in water to purify the drinker. Miriam seems to be seen in these Torah portions, connected to water. When Miriam left. So too did the water.

She was a source. And even though she challenged Moses in the desert, and got a disease because of it; she was STILL honored in the end by Hashem. This is another example of Hashem’s grace and mercy in the Torah. We get it wrong so often that the Torah is about a harsh God judging His people. But this is a story of redemption work. Miriam was redeemed from her challenge to Moses. We can learn God forgives us. He takes care of us. And He honors us: especially when we engage with the mitzvahs! But even when we don’t!

Let’s close out the portion today. The people are grumbling about a lack of water. The new generation of Jews seem to be repeating the talking points of their parents. The question I have is whether they really believed what they were saying to Moses, or whether they were saying that and fighting Moses because that’s the family system they grew up in? I’m curious as to how God is going to deal with this!

And we are left with that exact cliffhanger.

Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly and went to the entrance of the Tent of meeting, and they fell on their faces.

The portion today closes; “Then the glory of God appeared to them.”

Stay tuned until tomorrow when we see what God does! Is God going to respond in Anger? I’m Mercy? He must be growing tired of all our insolence! We lack trust that He is going to work it all out for our good.

What are YOUR thoughts?