By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Matot-Masei 5783 (2023)
We've heard it over and over, like the opening of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Depending on where we look around us, we see either beauty or devastation, despair or hope. Now is exactly the time that Torah, and our spiritual calendar, call us to begin seeing it all so that we can begin healing it. We need to see where we've been to know where we're going.
Matot-Masei 5783 (2023)
We've heard it over and over, like the opening of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Depending on where we look around us, we see either beauty or devastation, despair or hope. Now is exactly the time that Torah, and our spiritual calendar, call us to begin seeing it all so that we can begin healing it. We need to see where we've been to know where we're going.
Where We've Been, Where We Are
Menahem Mendl of Kotzk (the Kotzker Rebbe, 1787-1859) famously asked, "Where is God? Wherever you let God in." The Kotzker knew that authentic spirituality doesn't hold itself aloof from our world of lived experience, but rather uses our world of lived experience – whatever it may be – as an invitation and portal to spiritual life. In this way, Jewish spirituality is coextensive with our humanity. Whatever we do, wherever we go, whatever the circumstances, that is each moment's spiritual clarion call.
Menahem Mendl of Kotzk (the Kotzker Rebbe, 1787-1859) famously asked, "Where is God? Wherever you let God in." The Kotzker knew that authentic spirituality doesn't hold itself aloof from our world of lived experience, but rather uses our world of lived experience – whatever it may be – as an invitation and portal to spiritual life. In this way, Jewish spirituality is coextensive with our humanity. Whatever we do, wherever we go, whatever the circumstances, that is each moment's spiritual clarion call.
If so, then spirituality is less about selective awareness than expansive awareness. it's less about narrowing our focus to what most pleases or eases us (especially about ourselves), and more about training ourselves to see it all, hold it all, and live rightly and well amidst it all.
This week’s double portion of Torah (Matot-Masei) proves the point.
As the Book of Numbers ends, and with it a 40-year journey to the Land of Promise (we'll get to that next week as we begin the Book of Deuteronomy), Torah's focus seems anything but high and lofty. Torah unfurls laws about making and breaking vows, records violent wars of conquest and their booty, recounts with mind numbing detail 40 years of stop-and-start destinations, lays out future settlement patterns, and directs the creation of sanctuary cities for anyone who kills by accident.
Not exactly warm and fuzzy. But through the Kotzker's eyes, we might see Torah showing us that spirituality and community are exactly the invitations and opportunities of daily life – in all its lofty highs, painful lows and ho-hum in-betweens.
Zoom out just a bit, and we can see in this Torah portion both ancient sexism in treating male and female vows differently, and first efforts to uplift human agency (Num. 30:4-16). We can see pre-Israelite violence and xenophobia (Num. 31:1-17), and efforts to temper our violent impulses (Num. 31:26-30). We can see selfish freeloading on others, and wise practicality to treat differently situated people differently (Num. 32:1-9). We can see impatient journeys delayed by repeated stops, and also made possible by them (Num. 33:1-37).
So I don't understand Torah to celebrate war, sexism, xenophobia and the rest. Rather, I hear Torah saying, in effect, "This world is broken: there's war, sexism, xenophobia and the rest. There's no denying reality: you need to see things as they are. But don't stop there: make them better. Start with a clear vision of exactly where you've been, both individually and in community, and then make yourselves better going forward."
Put another way, we must see where we've been to know where we're going.
Perhaps that's why Torah expends so much ink recounting all the stops from Egypt to the Land of Promise (Num. 33:1-37). Maybe that's why Torah doesn't clean up the messy stuff of where we've been. And, pointedly, maybe that's why this Torah portion comes now.
Where We're Going
This week’s double portion of Torah (Matot-Masei) proves the point.
As the Book of Numbers ends, and with it a 40-year journey to the Land of Promise (we'll get to that next week as we begin the Book of Deuteronomy), Torah's focus seems anything but high and lofty. Torah unfurls laws about making and breaking vows, records violent wars of conquest and their booty, recounts with mind numbing detail 40 years of stop-and-start destinations, lays out future settlement patterns, and directs the creation of sanctuary cities for anyone who kills by accident.
Not exactly warm and fuzzy. But through the Kotzker's eyes, we might see Torah showing us that spirituality and community are exactly the invitations and opportunities of daily life – in all its lofty highs, painful lows and ho-hum in-betweens.
Zoom out just a bit, and we can see in this Torah portion both ancient sexism in treating male and female vows differently, and first efforts to uplift human agency (Num. 30:4-16). We can see pre-Israelite violence and xenophobia (Num. 31:1-17), and efforts to temper our violent impulses (Num. 31:26-30). We can see selfish freeloading on others, and wise practicality to treat differently situated people differently (Num. 32:1-9). We can see impatient journeys delayed by repeated stops, and also made possible by them (Num. 33:1-37).
So I don't understand Torah to celebrate war, sexism, xenophobia and the rest. Rather, I hear Torah saying, in effect, "This world is broken: there's war, sexism, xenophobia and the rest. There's no denying reality: you need to see things as they are. But don't stop there: make them better. Start with a clear vision of exactly where you've been, both individually and in community, and then make yourselves better going forward."
Put another way, we must see where we've been to know where we're going.
Perhaps that's why Torah expends so much ink recounting all the stops from Egypt to the Land of Promise (Num. 33:1-37). Maybe that's why Torah doesn't clean up the messy stuff of where we've been. And, pointedly, maybe that's why this Torah portion comes now.
Where We're Going
On the Jewish spiritual calendar, we've begun the Three Weeks leading down to Tisha b'Av, the lowest day of the Jewish year that marks an uncanny confluence of Jewish calamities. Tisha b'Av is tradition's start date for the razing of the First Temple (586 BCE) and Second Temple (70 CE), Rome's murderous end to the Bar Kokhba revolt and exile from Israel (135 CE), the bloody First Crusade (1096), expulsions from Europe (England 1290, France 1306, Spain 1492), and three German events keyed to the Holocaust (1914 entrance into World War I, 1941 approval of the Final Solution, 1942 mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto).
No wonder most rabbis prefer to take the day off on Tisha b'Av: it's too much.
When it’s too much, narrowing focus can be natural, healthy and even necessary. Think back to the pandemic's deepest darkest days: how many of us retreated to Netflix, baking, exercise or building furniture to host squirrel tea parties? Consider how we tend to choose our news sources (and friends) based on what we want to see and hear. (Political sociologists call it homophily, a big word for "birds of a feather flock together.") Narrowcasting is a comforting habit, and a tried and true survival tool.
But if we narrowcast all the time, there’s no chance to see the whole, challenge our vision, build our capacity, or inspire wise response. When we narrowcast, by definition we block out what we don't want to see and engage only a carefully curated part of the world. And when we narrowcast ourselves, we tend not to see hurtful parts of ourselves that can hide in plain sight and impact us and others deeply.
That's why these Three Weeks call us to begin gently shifting our vision from narrowcasting to broadcasting. Judaism wisely understands that, over the course of the year, we tend to get set in our ways, rest on our laurels, seek ease and shut out the rest. Torah begins pressing us to see the bigger picture, and eventually tradition at Tisha b'Av throws at us "too much" – so much that our hearts might break.
And that, friends, is the point.
Because from that depth – from letting our hearts feel brittle and then break – immediately Judaism flips the script and lifts us, week by week, until we soar into and through the High Holy Days. After all, the spiritual masters (and singer Carly Simon) teach us that there's more room in a broken heart.
Put another way, the descent is for the sake of ascent – in Hebrew, ירידה צורך עליה / yeridah tzorekh aliyah.
That’s why the call of this Torah portion, and the call of these Three Weeks, is to begin shifting from narrowcast to broadcast, not to strategically see less but to courageously see more. We need to see it all – what eases us and what displeases us, what comforts and what chides, and especially what time and conditioning have taught us not to see. We need to soften our hearts, and even let them break a bit, to make room for what's to come.
Only then can we build momentum to ascend. Only then can we truly begin the upcoming journey of teshuvah (return, repentance) that is our High Holy Day destination and spiritual birthright. Only then can we use where we've been to shape where we're going. Only then can we see the widest possible vision of what the world still can be. Only then can we repair this broken world (tikkun olam). Only then can descent be for the sake of ascent.
When it’s too much, narrowing focus can be natural, healthy and even necessary. Think back to the pandemic's deepest darkest days: how many of us retreated to Netflix, baking, exercise or building furniture to host squirrel tea parties? Consider how we tend to choose our news sources (and friends) based on what we want to see and hear. (Political sociologists call it homophily, a big word for "birds of a feather flock together.") Narrowcasting is a comforting habit, and a tried and true survival tool.
But if we narrowcast all the time, there’s no chance to see the whole, challenge our vision, build our capacity, or inspire wise response. When we narrowcast, by definition we block out what we don't want to see and engage only a carefully curated part of the world. And when we narrowcast ourselves, we tend not to see hurtful parts of ourselves that can hide in plain sight and impact us and others deeply.
That's why these Three Weeks call us to begin gently shifting our vision from narrowcasting to broadcasting. Judaism wisely understands that, over the course of the year, we tend to get set in our ways, rest on our laurels, seek ease and shut out the rest. Torah begins pressing us to see the bigger picture, and eventually tradition at Tisha b'Av throws at us "too much" – so much that our hearts might break.
And that, friends, is the point.
Because from that depth – from letting our hearts feel brittle and then break – immediately Judaism flips the script and lifts us, week by week, until we soar into and through the High Holy Days. After all, the spiritual masters (and singer Carly Simon) teach us that there's more room in a broken heart.
Put another way, the descent is for the sake of ascent – in Hebrew, ירידה צורך עליה / yeridah tzorekh aliyah.
That’s why the call of this Torah portion, and the call of these Three Weeks, is to begin shifting from narrowcast to broadcast, not to strategically see less but to courageously see more. We need to see it all – what eases us and what displeases us, what comforts and what chides, and especially what time and conditioning have taught us not to see. We need to soften our hearts, and even let them break a bit, to make room for what's to come.
Only then can we build momentum to ascend. Only then can we truly begin the upcoming journey of teshuvah (return, repentance) that is our High Holy Day destination and spiritual birthright. Only then can we use where we've been to shape where we're going. Only then can we see the widest possible vision of what the world still can be. Only then can we repair this broken world (tikkun olam). Only then can descent be for the sake of ascent.
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