While packing up our apartment last week I found these handwritten notes which are my father’s notes from the speech he delivered at my bar mitzvah. I don’t remember much of the speech itself because, as I remember it, my father was so overcome by emotion, he was not able to make it through most of the speech. These are notes of a speech that was never delivered in full.
That part does not surprise me. My father was a very eloquent public speaker and a much sought after teacher, but at major family milestones, such as my bar mitzvah, he was overcome by the emotions of the moment and was silenced by the power of those emotions.
What does surprise me is that my bar mitzvah was on Parashat Tetzaveh, in March, and these notes are for a d’var Torah for Parashat Baha’alothca.
My father’s d’var Torah compares two moments that tested Moshe’s leadership. The sin of the golden calf, back in Parashat Ki Tissa, and the complaining inspired by a lust for meat as described in Bamidbar Chapter 11 in Parashat Baha’alotcha. Moshe’s response to the sin of the golden calf was perhaps his finest moment as our leader. He responded with decisive and focused anger when he saw the physical manifestation of avodah zarah – the worship of a graven image. And yet he also boldly confronted God on our behalf when God shared the intention of wiping us out and starting over with Moshe alone, going so far as to say, מְחֵ֣נִי נָ֔א מִֽסִּפְרְךָ֖ אֲשֶׁ֥ר כָּתָֽבְתָּ׃ erase me, God, from your book that you have written, if you will not forgive the people. (Our rabbis noted that Moshe’s name is indeed “erased” from Parashat Tetzaveh, which probably was the inspiration for my father’s research comparing Moshe’s response to these two leadership challenges).
Here, in Parashat Baha’alotcha, Moshe’s response is so very different in reaction to a rebellion that seems so mild:
וְהָֽאסַפְסֻף֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּקִרְבּ֔וֹ הִתְאַוּ֖וּ תַּאֲוָ֑ה וַיָּשֻׁ֣בוּ וַיִּבְכּ֗וּ גַּ֚ם בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ מִ֥י יַאֲכִלֵ֖נוּ בָּשָֽׂר׃
The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat!
They pine, with false nostalgia for the indulgent diet of Egypt and they speak with disgust about the bland mann upon which they subsided in the desert.
Here, Moshe’s response is altogether different from the decisive heroic intervention after the golden calf. In our parasha Moshe turns to God in self-pity and asks:
לָמָ֤ה הֲרֵעֹ֙תָ֙ לְעַבְדֶּ֔ךָ
Why have you treated me in such a bad way to place the burden of these people upon me?
הֶאָנֹכִ֣י הָרִ֗יתִי אֵ֚ת כׇּל־הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה אִם־אָנֹכִ֖י יְלִדְתִּ֑יהוּ כִּֽי־תֹאמַ֨ר אֵלַ֜י שָׂאֵ֣הוּ בְחֵיקֶ֗ךָ כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשָּׂ֤א הָאֹמֵן֙ אֶת־הַיֹּנֵ֔ק עַ֚ל הָֽאֲדָמָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֖עְתָּ לַאֲבֹתָֽיו׃
“Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant,’ to the land that You have promised on oath to their fathers?”
Where does this come from? Why does the very same Moshe who leapt into the breach when we worshiped the golden calf feel so overwhelmed by a simple request for meat?
My father, a psychoanalyst like my mother, suggested that Moshe’s different reactions came from the different causes of these two rebellions. The worship of the golden calf represented avodah zarah, idol worship, based on a primitive fear of Moshe’s death. Out of that fear, we imagined that power resides in the idol and that power can be comforting when we are afraid. (If this seems foreign to you, just think of the way that we sublimate our own fear of death through imagining that symbols have power when they represent things which appear to us to have permanence and endurance…for example the two flags that are standing erect behind me).
Moshe knew he could teach against idol worship if given the chance. And so he begged God for the opportunity to continue to teach us.
The rebellion of meat, known to our tradition as the “burial place of those who lusted” Kivrot Ha’Ta’avah, represented a form of paganism that exemplified a cultural system, a manner of living that was characterized by unlimited indulgence. If the allure of the golden calf can be confronted by a teacher, pagan commitment to indulgence can only be confronted by parenting.
Moshe did not know if he was capable of parenting an entire nation. (I remember when Noam became a teenager when Yonatan was 2, and I had the recognition that we would be blessed with the responsibility of parenting a teenager, without interruption, for the next 16 years and Baruch Hashem).
Moshe was confident in his ability as a teacher but he experienced despair at the prospect of being a parent, of having to carry an infant and nurse it and bring it to every step of a long journey.
Moshe’s despair leads to a recognition.
According to Rabbi Joseph Solovetichik, at the moment that the Iraelites indulgently asked for meat, Moshe received a premonition that he would not succeed in ushering the Israelites to Eretz Yisrael. The decree was not sealed until Parashat Shelach (next week), but already at this early moment, the veil fell from before Moshe’s eyes (the asimon dropped) and the scope of what would be necessary to bring the Israelites to Eretz Yisrael loomed before Moshe and he sensed that he would not personally complete the journey.
But if Moshe despairs when he recognizes just how much parenting will be needed to carry the Iraelites through the desert, he also comes to an understanding that is not unlike the moment when he confronted God and demanded forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf. Moshe was willing to be erased from God’s book out of his love for his people. And, out of that same love for his people, Moshe realizes that if the trip to Eretz Yisrael takes longer than his lifetime, then he needs to focus on the success of the mission and not his own role in promoting that mission.
This is why Moshe is not threatened when Eldad and Medad, later in Parashat Baha’lotcha circulated among the people and prophesied. Yehoshua wants Moshe to silence them. Moshe is not bothered:
הַֽמְקַנֵּ֥א אַתָּ֖ה לִ֑י
Our rabbis say that the content of Eldad and Medad’s prophecy was that Moshe would die and it would be Yehoshua who would bring us into Eretz Yisrael. Their prophecy was true, and we understand why Yehoshua was so alarmed to hear it.
“Are you jealous on my behalf”, Moshe asks?
But Moshe’s hard realization in our parasha pushes him to understand that, all along, he cared for his people and he cared for the mission he was assigned. It was of existential importance that the mission succeed, even if that mission would take longer than Moshe’s lifetime.
Sefas Emes, the great 19th century Hassidic teacher, adds another facet to the transformation in Parashat Bahalotcha. In response to Moshe’s weary despair, God instructs him to gather seventy elders to share the burden of guiding and teaching the people. This proto-Sanhedrin is invested with God’s spirit and, in time, is the conduit for the transmission of Torah from generation to generation.
Sefas Emes notes that the Torah uses grammatically contradictory phrasing for describing this proto-Sanhedrin. They are שִׁבְעִ֥ים אִישׁ֙ מִזִּקְנֵ֣י הָעָ֔ם seventy “ish” from the elders of the people. Instead of referring to the seventy elders in the plural form “anashim” they are referred to in the singular form “ish.” These are seventy elders who speak as one. Sefas Emes explains that this exemplifies the way of Torah sh’Ba’al Peh, the oral Torah. Because Moshe dictated the written Torah, word for word, from God, Moshe shared that Torah with us in one singular voice. But the voice of the Sanhedrin is composed of different opinions and contains conflict and compromise and those diverse and discordant voices somehow form a harmony and out of many voices one voice emerges.
This is a crucial turning point in Jewish history. The paradigm of one teacher for the community was replaced by a paradigm in which attaining a common communal agenda and a common religious orientation emerges from a broad and open discussion. That’s the paradigm by which Jewish life thrives today and it goes all the way back to this moment of crisis midway through the career of Moshe himself.
Ten years ago I told you a joke about a new rabbi who, in the excitement and business of moving to a new community, somehow managed to show up on his first Shabbat morning at his new shul without having prepared a sermon. He walked to shul on Shabbat morning hoping to think of something to say during Shacharit or during the haftara, but people kept approaching him to welcome him to the community and to congratulate him until he found himself on the bimah, the eyes of the entire congregation upon him, and no sermon. And at that moment, just behind the pulpit where he was standing he saw a stack of papers. And he looked a bit more closely and realized that the stack of papers were the collected sermons of the prior rabbi and on top of that stack of papers was the last sermon delivered by the prior rabbi. So he picked it up and read it. And the congregation loved the drasha! Dozens of people rushed up, slapping him on the back and shaking his hand as he walked down from the bimah. The new rabbi could not believe his luck.
The same thing happened the following week. He was so busy arranging the books on his office bookcase and meeting members of the community he somehow found himself, once again, standing in front of the congregation with no prepared remarks. He looked down, and there, right on top of the box of papers was the next sermon that had been left behind. So he read it. And the congregation loved it and dozens of people rushed up to congratulate him and to shake his hand.
The third week, the new rabbi didn’t even pretend to plan to write a sermon. He walked up to the bimah and picked a sermon from the top of the pile behind the bimah and read it. This went on for 10 months.
After ten months the president of the shul came to speak to the rabbi and she said to him, “your predecessor’s drashot got better over time but yours seem to be getting worse.”
After ten years here, I know why the old rabbi’s drashot got better. He had come to know and love his community, just as I have come to know and love this community. And this morning, in my final opportunity to teach this congregation as your rabbi, I want to share some of what I have come to know:
The choice between Orthodoxy and inclusion is a false dichotomy and a shul can become more open and welcoming even as it reinforces its allegiance to Torah and Mitzvot and strengthens its ties to Orthodox Judaism.
People who disagree about everything important can gather around a Shabbat table and form strong friendships that can become the foundation of a community.
It is possible, with sustained effort, to get a room full of Jews to stop talking for a few minutes so that they can sing at Se’udah Shlishit and when they do, the room is filled with gorgeous harmony and the sound of souls yearning for intimacy with God.
Halakhah does not have to build walls of exclusion, but can be the common denominator that allows Jews who believe and practice Judaism in very different ways to find a religious home within the same community.
Weekday tefilah is a daily opportunity for men, women, and children to find support and community and friendship and the chance for experiencing transcendence.
And, your success as a community is not dependent on your rabbi, but is the direct outcome of your strengths as a community. This should be an obvious insight. Even when our rabbi was none other than Moshe Rabbeinu, we did not succeed as a community. But obvious insights can sometimes be obscured and nothing can distort the importance of rabbinic leadership more than the rabbinic search process.
A good search process is a soul-searching process for a community. For every question that was asked of a candidate, there is a question that a community has to face: Where are you marching? If you know the answer to that question then you know that a journey worth taking is a journey worth taking even if the duration of that journey is longer than the timeframe of any individual leader. What impact do you want to make on the world? If you know the answer to that question, you know that the size of a community is a poor proxy for its impact. There are large communities that represent nothing much at all, and there are small congregations that exemplify ideas and values that change the world.
This community has had a profound impact on my life and on the life of my family. This congregation has had a profound impact on the Jewish People. With God’s help, and with your commitment, dedication, and hard work, your positive impact on the world will continue and expand long into the future. I look forward to hearing all about it.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 