Less than two weeks ago Jehan Jabar, an elementary school teacher in Tayibeh, an Arab city in central Israel, (not to be confused with Taybeh – in the West Bank where the brewery is), recorded a video of herself leading her students in a simple call and response song as part of their Hebrew language instruction. She plays the darbuka drum and leads her students singing “Geshem Geshem Mitatef. Geshem, Geshem Eizeh Kef, Li Kanu Me’il Hadahsh, V’HaYom Oto Ilbash” Rain drops dripping down. Rain drops, how fun! They bought me a new coat (presumably a rain caot) and I will wear it today.
The poem, if you will, is an Israeli classic, but the darbuka adds a new element and gives the song a catchy beat. The teacher made the recording to share with a colleague in order to receive professional feedback but the video ended up on YouTube and the novelty of this song being taught in this way swept the Israeli music and media scenes and the video has been watched millions of times online and spawned hundreds of parody videos and spoofs. An Israeli musician lead a full concert hall in singing Geshem Geshem. The song was parodied on late-night television. An entire unit of the IDF recorded themselves singing the song in a break-room banging on their desks in place of a darbuka drum. Of course I learned about the whole phenomenon from the Washington Post which published a story on Wednesday about this episode.
It’s a very catchy song. I have a strong temptation, in the spirit of Purim, to lead you all right now in a chorus of Geshem Geshem…but I won’t because, as you could probably imagine, the song has elicited a controversy. I’ll explain the controversy soon, but first want to say something about the parasha.
There is a surprising and unexpected pivot at the beginning of Parashat Terumah.
“Speak to the Children of Israel,” Moshe is told:
דַבֵר֙ אֶל־בְנֵ֣י יִשְראֵ֔ל וְיִקחו־לִ֖י תְרומָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָל־אִיש֙ אֲשֶ֣ר יִדְבֶ֣נו לִב֔ו תִקח֖ו אֶת־תְרומָתִֽי׃
“And you shall bring gifts for me from each individual, whatever his heart so moves him to give.”
The Torah then describes the nature of the gifts that are to be collected, all manner of precious and semiprecious materials.
וְזֹאת֙ הַתְרומָ֔ה אֲשֶ֥ר תִקח֖ו מֵאִתָ֑ם זָהָ֥ב וָכֶ֖סֶף ונְחֹֽשֶת׃ ד ותְכֵ֧לֶת וְאַרגָמָ֛ן וְתולַ֥עַת שָנִ֖י וְשֵ֥ש וְעִזִֽים׃ ה וְעֹר֨ת אֵילִ֧ם מְאָדָמִ֛ים וְעֹר֥ת תְחָשִ֖ים וַעֲצֵ֥י שִטִֽים׃ שֶ֖מֶן לַמָאֹ֑ר בְשָמִים֙ לְשֶ֣מֶן הַמִשְחָ֔ה וְלִקטֹ֖רת הַסַמִֽים׃ אַבְנֵי־שֹ֕הַם וְאַבְנֵ֖י מִלֻאִ֑ים לָאֵפֹ֖ד וְלַחֹֽשֶן׃
This would have been expected. Think of what our Israelite ancestors witnessed in Egypt. They knew that worship required temples and that endowing a proper temple required investment of money and gold and fine materials. Service of God requires sacrifice. Service of God requires service. They knew that they had been taken out of Egypt with a religious and not just a political goal. So this was probably expected and unsurprising.
But then the Torah says something else:
וְעָ֥שו לִ֖י מִקדָ֑ש וְשָכַנְתִ֖י בְתוכָֽם׃
“Make a mikdash for me and I will dwell in their midst.”
The mikdash is not a home for God. The mikdash is not in fulfillment of a need that God has for a home or something that was built for God’s benefit. The midkash was for our own benefit. The collections, the volunteerism, the donations, are all in the service of the giver. They transform the community into a dwelling place for God. As sophisticated monotheists and mature religious thinkers, we understand that God does not live in a house. That is a metaphor. But God dwelling in a community is also a metaphor, just a more subtle and significant one.
God dwelling in our midst is, among other things, a metaphor for a community that mirrors God’s attributes and is suffused by human beings, treating one another in ways that echo God’s own ways of being known to us. It is a community infused with vitality and energy and the promotion of health. It is a community in which people treat each other with compassion and kindness. It is a community where God consciousness is cultivated and reinforced and shared among men and women who study Torah and share their unique Torah insights with others and perform mitzvot with deliberate and meticulous attention.
Why are donations required for God to dwell in a community? Do we need to donate money for metaphors? Do we need to donate our time and talent on behalf of metaphors? Actually we do. Very much so! This is not the first time I’ve said this, and I suspect it will not be the last time I say this. Everything we invest in, every project or relationship that we care about or commitment that we make, the more we put in, the more we will get out of that project, relationship, or commitment.
There is no relationship, not with a colleague, not with a neighbor, and certainly not with a relative, that is improved through a policy of benign neglect. Some relationships are toxic and need to be severed, but hopefully the majority of our relationships with other people are life enhancing and positive. And so, the more we invest in those relationships, the more sustaining they will be to us and for us in return.
Creating a community in which God’s presence dwells requires hundreds of people to make thousands of decisions to invest in our relationships with other people. We need to turn off our phones when eating dinner with another person. When we ask “how are you doing?” we need to be clear that there is more than one acceptable answer they can give us. We aren’t always “fine thank you” and other people in our lives need to know that we will care about them and support them no matter what. When we choose to exercise leadership within this community, by identifying a gap between the current reality and our vision of what could be, our God-given talents and our ideals and our energy then leave the realm of the potential and are actualized in programs, initiatives, social-capital, and a community that more greatly reflects God’s very presence.
Hearing the haftarah after also hearing the regular Torah portion is a deeper experience. Reciting Mussaf with the congregation after also reciting Shacharit with he congregation that same morning is a different and more transformative experience. The more one invests in any project, the more rewarding it will be. Our donations, our terumot to the mikdash, brought God’s presence, not to a home that God doesn’t need, but brought God’s presence to our midst where it is so very needed.
On Thursday, Sayed Kashua, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, also from Tayibeh wrote about the episode in his weekly column for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Kashua, who currently lives in Urbana where he teaches Hebrew literature at the University of Illinois, is among the most famous living Hebrew writers. In addition to his column, he has published books and written popular television shows.
Kashua, poignantly describes watching the video of Jabar teaching Hebrew to her students and feeling extreme frustration that the Arabic accent that she is transmitting to her students will condemn them to stigmatization that he himself receives, even as a great Hebrew writer, whenever he speaks Hebrew.
And, Geshem Geshem was discussed on the floor of the Knesset this week by Likkud member Yehudah Glick. Glick noted the phenomenon of Geshem Geshem and noted that some of the parody videos seemed to be making fun of Jabar and laughing at her rather than laughing with her and celebrating her creativity as a teacher. Glick praised Jabar for teaching her students Hebrew and rightly understands that learning a foreign language is inherently an act of understanding and peace and deserves praise.
Yehuda Glick is someone I’ve criticized before, so I’m eager to take advantage of the chance to say that I think he is entirely correct about the point he made in the Knesset this week. And I think he is correct in precisely the way that the Torah portion pivots away from collecting gifts in a transactional way and in the service of the one who receives them, towards terumot being a way to create community that benefits the givers themselves.
Kashua, in this column, presents the study of Hebrew as an instrumental activity. One learns the language to gain access to better jobs and education and government services. That one’s accent would lead to stigmatization is therefore the ultimate betrayal: The vanquished has learned the language of the victor, and still it doesn’t work
But the paradigm of terumah as delineated in our Torah portion are not transactional and are not instrumental. Giving freely of oneself is a way to transform a community. In this paradigm our volunteerism and our gifts create their own reality. No investment of time in any relationship can be truly wasted. No investment of resources in any endeavor can truly be wasted since the act of donating itself transforms ourselves and transforms our surroundings.
Glick is correct that Jabar deserves praise and not mockery. Her song can be enjoyed and shared in a respectful way too without mocking; her accent or the incongruity of someone who doesn’t match the profile of a stereotypical musician celebrity. And he is also correct that Kashua’s pessimism is misplaced in this instance. A classroom of students with a loving and creative teacher, who teaches them Hebrew is an unmitigated good in the world. And I think some of us sharing and watching the video and singing along are doing so to celebrate the hope inherent in Jabar’s teaching. Not every investment earns a return in the short term and on a transactional instrumental level. But every investment that is a free willed terumah transforms the one who gives and transforms the community.
וְעָ֥שו לִ֖י מִקדָ֑ש וְשָכַנְתִ֖י בְתוכָֽם׃
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 