Category Archives: Torah Commentary

In the Beginning, In God’s Image

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Rabbi Akiva says: “‘Love your fellow as yourself'” (Leviticus 19:18), is the greatest principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says, “‘When God created man, He made him in the image of God’ (Genesis 5:1) is the greatest principle in the Torah. You should not say: Because I have been dishonored, let my fellow be dishonored along with me…”

Rabbi Tanhuma explained: “If you do so, know whom you are dishonoring – ‘He made him in the image of God.'”

— Midrash Genesis Rabbah 24

In this classic Midrash, Rabbis Akiba and Ben Azzai are doing what Talmudic rabbis do best: playing a lively game of spiritual oneupsmanship. The question at hand: what is the central value of Torah?  According to Akiba it is the famous verse from Leviticus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Ben Azzai counters with the insight from this week’s Torah portion: humanity was created in God’s image.

Rabbi Tanhuma’s final statement reinforces the weakness of Akiba’s claim: though it is certainly praiseworthy to love your fellow as yourself, this might imply that you only need to treat your fellow as well (or as badly) as you yourself are treated. Ben Azzai points out that if we truly understand that all people are made in the image of God, we must accept that any time we shame, insult or abuse another, we do the same to God.

In a sense, Ben Azzai raises the moral stakes of the equation. As the saying (often misattributed to Dostoevsky) goes: “where there is no God, all is permitted.” This drives home the radical imperative made clear in the very first chapter of Genesis: if all people are made in the divine image, all people are of infinite worth; all people are deserving of dignity, respect and fair treatment.

The Torah thus begins with this foundational principle, which has both interpersonal/ethical as well as global/moral implications. As we start Torah anew yet again, we return to its central question: how can we find the wherewithal to treat everyone we meet as a fellow child of God? How can we, as Americans, as Jews, as global citizens find dignity and respect for all who dwell on earth?

Is Life a Choice?

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From this week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim/Vayelech:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life – if you and your offspring would live… (Deuteronomy 31:19)

What does it mean to “choose life?” After all, isn’t life-force a voluntary reflex?  In Genesis 2:7 we read that “(the Lord God) blew in his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”  We know from contemporary science that neurons from our brain send out electrical impulses that are carried by our nervous system to the rest of our body. Even while we sleep at night, our hearts continue to beat, circulating our blood which enable our bodies to function. In what way could life possibly be a “choice?”

While physical life is certainly involuntary, living the life of the spirit is a choice we make every day, every minute, every second of our lives.

For me, one of the most profound examples of this teaching can be found in the classic “Man’s Search for Meaning,” by Victor Frankl:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

My Father, the Wandering Aramean…

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In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, God instructs the Israelites, upon entering the Promised Land, to offer up the first fruits of their harvest. They are then to recite a short narrative of their history, beginning with their earliest ancestors and ending with their own arrival at the land.

This narrative, made famous by its central place in the Passover Haggadah, begins thus:

My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation…” (Deuteronomy 26:5)

The opening words of this passage have been the subject of considerable controversy for centuries. According to most commentators, the “wandering father” is identified as Jacob. This would certainly fit neatly into the Biblical narrative, as Jacob did indeed go down to Egypt with his sons during a period of famine.

In the traditional Passover Haggadah, however, the Rabbis translate the Hebrew “My father was a wandering Aramean” (“arami oved avi“) very differently.  By changing the vocalization of the Hebrew “oved” (“wandering”) to “ibed” (“destroyed”), they render the text to mean: “An Aramean sought to destroy my father.” (The Haggadah identifies this would-be murderer as Laban who, by threatening Jacob, “sought to uproot us all.”)

So which is it?

In true Jewish fashion, the debate rages on. Among the classical commentators, Rashi supports the Haggadah’s reading, while others, including Ibn Ezra adhere to the conventional interpretation. Rashbam accepts the “wandering Aramean” interpretation as well, but identifies the wanderer as Abraham rather than Jacob.

Beyond the fancy hermeneutics, however, I’m struck by the two spiritual models suggested by these respective translations. One highlights our wanderings, identifying our peoplehood with our collective seeeking – our desire to journey toward a better and more blessed future. The second model suggests we are essentially a hunted and hated people, forever on the run from those who would seek our destruction.

These two readings illuminate a critical question that inform our collective Jewish self-understanding to this very day.  Centuries later, the question remains: with which narrative will we identify?  The narrative in which we are the perpetual victim or the spiritual seeker? Does our story forever pit us against an eternal enemy – or does it ultimately celebrate our sacred purpose and the promise of blessing?

Amalek and 9/11: Remember to Forget!

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From this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei:

Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!  (Deuteronomy 25:19)

Now this is odd: in this commandment regarding the Israelites’ arch-enemy, the Amalekites, the Torah commands us to never “forget” to “blot out their memory.”  What could it possibly mean to “remember to forget” your enemies?

While this imperative might at first seem confusing or contradictory, I’ve come to believe it offers us a profound insight into the spiritual effects of remembrance in the wake of trauma.

I often use the psychological model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as an example. As is well known, one the primary symptoms of PTSD is the persistent, painful reliving of a past trauma. In one form of PTSD therapy, known as “exposure therapy,” the patient regularly discusses the trauma with the therapist in a therapeutically controlled environment:

In exposure therapy your goal is to have less fear about your memories. It is based on the idea that people learn to fear thoughts, feelings, and situations that remind them of a past traumatic event.

By talking about your trauma repeatedly with a therapist, you’ll learn to get control of your thoughts and feelings about the trauma. You’ll learn that you do not have to be afraid of your memories. This may be hard at first. It might seem strange to think about stressful things on purpose. But you’ll feel less overwhelmed over time. (From the National Center for PTSD)

As I read this description, it occurs to me that our regular reading and discussion of the Amalekites’ attack represents a kind of “spiritual exposure therapy.”  I strongly believe that the goal of this regular remembrance is not to wallow in our victimization or to fire up feelings of revenge, but precisely the opposite: by telling the story, we seek to “blot out” or liberate ourselves from the painful, crippling impact of these memories. In a sense, this commandment bids us to eradicate the aspects of our collective traumatic past that ultimately serve to keep us enslaved and imprisoned.

In the end, the ritual re-telling of these stories is not only the key to our healing but to the healing of the world itself. In their most exalted form, the acts of listening, learning and remembering are important steps toward developing empathy for other individuals and cultures.

I’m particularly mindful of this teaching as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches. Here are the questions I’ll be asking this weekend: How will we choose to remember this collective trauma?  Will our remembrance only serve to allow our fear, anger and pain to rule over us? Or will it lead us toward a path of healing, empathy and a more hopeful future for our world?

Is The Bible Destroying Creation?

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From this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Shoftim:

When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy (“bal tashchit”) its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you in the city? Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed.” (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

It’s a tribute to the subversive creativity of Talmudic tradition that the Rabbis could take a text such as this – coming from a litany of Biblical laws concerning warfare – and transform it into Jewish tradition’s foundational environmental commandment.

Indeed, the sages of the Talmud would eventually apply the term bal tashchit (“do not destroy”) to apply to issues far transcending concern over fruit-bearing trees during wartime.  The concept “bal tashchit” eventually became a Jewish legal term referring to the destruction of natural resources on a wide scale, ranging from the wanton killing of animals (Talmud Hullin 7b) to the wasting of fuel (Talmud Shabbat 67b).

Since the Jewish imperative to care for the environment is Biblically based, it might come as a surprise to learn that many in the environmental movement blame Biblical tradition for promoting the exploitation of the earth’s natural resources.  I still remember well when Time Magazine promoted environmental concerns by choosing Earth as “Planet of the Year”  in 1989.  In its cover story, Time made the following pointed observation:

Humanity’s current predatory relationship with nature reflects a man-centered world view that has evolved over the ages. Almost every society has had its myths about the earth and its origins. The ancient Chinese depicted Chaos as an enormous egg whose parts separated into earth and sky, yin and yang. The Greeks believed Gaia, the earth, was created immediately after Chaos and gave birth to the gods. In many pagan societies, the earth was seen as a mother, a fertile giver of life. Nature — the soil, forest, sea — was endowed with divinity, and mortals were subordinate to it.

The Judeo-Christian tradition introduced a radically different concept. The earth was the creation of a monotheistic God, who, after shaping it, ordered its inhabitants, in the words of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” The idea of dominion could be interpreted as an invitation to use nature as a convenience.

Ouch.

In fairness, it should be said that the key word phrase in the above is “could be interpreted as.” We might say it is not Biblical tradition per se, but rather a corrupt misinterpretation of the Bible (specifically the oft-quoted Genesis 1:28) we might blame for introducing this “radical new concept.”

If Genesis 1 teaches us anything at all, it is that creation is the sacred product of a divine process. In this context, God does not simply hand the earth over to humanity so that we may run roughshod over creation as we see fit.  In this regard, the Torah’s use of the term “dominion” (“kivshuha“) clearly denotes mastery as responsibility, not exploitation.

This point is powerfully driven home by the interpretation of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who commented on the Deuteronomy verse above by saying that humanity’s careless waste of God’s creation is nothing short of idolatry:

Yea, “Do not destroy anything” is the first and most general call of God… If you should now raise your hand to play a childish game, to indulge in senseless rage, wishing to destroy that which you should only use, wishing to exterminate that which you should only master, if you should regard the beings beneath you as objects without rights, not perceiving God Who created them, and therefore desire that they feel the might of your presumptuous mood, instead of using them only as the means of wise human activity – then God’s call proclaims to you, “Do not destroy anything!

Only if you use the things around you for wise human purposes, sanctified by the word of My teaching, only then do you have the right over them which I have given you as a human. However, if you destroy, if you ruin, at that moment you are not a human but an animal and have no right to the things around you. I lent them to you for wise use only; never forget that I lent them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against My world, you commit murder and robbery against My property, you sin against Me!”  This is what God calls unto you, and with this call does God represent the greatest and the smallest against you and grants the smallest as also the greatest a right against your presumptuousness…

…In truth, there is no one nearer to idolatry than one who can disregard the fact that creation and its creatures are the property of God, who presumes also to have the right, having the might, to destroy them according to a presumptuous act of will. Yes, that one is already serving the most powerful idols – anger, pride, and above all, ego, which in its passion regards itself as the master of things. (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb, 56:397-398)

As Rabbi Hirsh would have it, it is not Western religious tradition, but rather the idolatrous twisting of this tradition that has led humanity to its “current predatory relationship with nature.” If we do indeed “use nature as a convenience,” it is not the Torah, but rather own “anger, pride, and ego” upon which we must ultimately lay blame.

“As Long as There are Slaughterhouses, There Will be Battlefields”

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When the Lord enlarges your territory, as (God) has promised you, and say. “I shall eat some meat.” for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish. (Deuteronomy 12:20)

Though the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut allow for meat-eating, Jewish tradition is generally ambivalent about humanity’s carnivorous inclinations. To wit, the verse above from this week’s Torah portion Parashat Re’eh: note that it does not command but rather permits the consumption of meat.

According to Jewish law, the meat referred to in the verse above is known as b’sar ta’avah, “meat of lust.”  By all indications, the Rabbis did not consider meat-eating to be a necessity for life; it was, rather an accommodation to our “lesser angels.”  Orthodox rabbi and Torah scholar, Rabbi J. David Bleich puts it well: “Jewish tradition does not command carnivorous behavior.” Likewise, noted Torah commentator Nehama Leibowitz comments on the above Torah verse by pointing out that the Torah grants permission to eat meat rather grudgingly. She concludes that while humanity has been granted dominion over the animal world, we may not treat them with wanton disregard – and that God allows a “barely tolerated dispensation” to slaughter animals for our consumption. (“Studies on Bereshit,” p. 77)

It’s particularly noteworthy that Adam and Eve, the world’s first humans who lived in an idealized Edenic world, were in fact vegetarians. (Genesis 1:29) It was not until after the Great Flood that God told Noah and his descendents that they would be allowed to eat meat:

Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these.  (Genesis 9:3)

Even here, however, God makes it clear that animals cannot be eaten along with their blood (a commandment that is repeated in this week’s portion.) Later in the Torah, more explicit dietary rules will be commanded through Moses.

It might be said that one of the lessons God learns from the Noah story is that humankind has, if you pardon the expression, a taste for blood. Some posit that this new permission to eat meat was a kind of divine compromise – allowing humanity to satiate its bestial, carnivorous desire, while at the same time restricting our blood lust so that it will never again run amok à la the generation of Noah.

At the end of the day, however, it’s worth asking: can we even conceive of such a thing as “restricted blood lust?” If Torah considers vegetarianism the ideal, could it be that b’sar ta’avah really just little more than an oxymoron at the end of the day?

Noted vegetarian Leo Tolstoy famously stated,

As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields. A vegetarian diet is the acid test of humanitarianism.

A more contemporary writer, Jonathan Safran Foer, has become an eloquent advocate for the socio-ethical imperatives of vegetarianism. Click above and below to hear him discuss these ideas as explored in his latest book, “Eating Animals.”

Deuteronomist Theology: A Katrina Test Case

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In almost every portion of Deuteronomy we read an impassioned expression of a unique theology. Boiled down to its barest essence, it can summed up as follows: “You’re about to enter the Land. Just follow my laws and you’ll be fine. But break them (particularly the ones about serving other gods) and you’ll be very, very, very sorry.”

This week’s portion, Parashat Eikev, is no exception:

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Eternal you God and serving God with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your grain and wine and oil – I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle – and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the Eternal’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Eternal is assigning to you. (Deuteronomy 11:13-17)

I know that many regard the theology of Deuteronomy, with its image of a threatening God and its simplistic “play by my rules and no one gets hurt” message to be painfully primitive –  even morally problematic. To a certain extent I would certainly agree. However I would also add that Deuternomomistic Theology can not so easily be dismissed.

Let’s use a very recent incident: namely, Hurricane Katrina – as an example.

Following this tragic disaster, it wasn’t long before religious fundamentalists piously proclaimed Katrina to be “God’s judgement” upon the “moral sins” of New Orleans (or in some cases, America at large).  This literalist interpretation of the Bible; this victim-blaming for moralistic/political purposes represents the theology at its very worst – and I have no trouble saying so.

However, while this theological approach might fall short as a way to explain random natural disasters, it does serve an important purpose in a different regard: it provides an important reminder of collective responsibility.

After all, beyond all the nasty divine threats in Deuteronomy, there is a more profound underlying message: in society, our choices matter. Regardless of what we believe about God, we cannot ignore the message that our collective actions have very real consequences for ourselves and our world.

So, for example, while many of us refuse to accept that Katrina was a punishment for homosexuality, et al, we cannot deny that much of this tragedy was indeed a result of human failure: for example, the failure of our government to heed reports recommending the repair of decrepit levees, the failure of local, state and national agencies to respond to the disaster promptly and properly, the failure of agencies to keep their promises to aid in rebuilding efforts, etc.

At the end of the day, Deuteronomy’s theology is rooted in the concept of covenant – and more specifically, covenental responsibility. Even if we don’t agree with the literal terms of this covenant as understood by its ancient Near Eastern author, we can still uphold the its essential ideal:

Unless we take our collective responsibility to one another and our world seriously, we may well “perish from the good land” upon which we live.

The Shema: A Parsing

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Listen Israel, “YHVH is our God, YHVH is One!” (Deuternomy, 6:4)

Listen Israel:  The most central prayer in Jewish tradition is not a prayer at all. Prayers by definition are directed to God. These words are directed collectively inward. They indicate that we are about to read a statement of faith, of purpose, a sacred mission statement, if you will.

YHVH is our God: “YHVH” is God’s ineffable name, the unpronounceable, unknowable proper name of the God that in ancient times, the Israelite nation claimed as its own.

Indeed, in the theological marketplace of the ancient Near East, every nation had its own national god.  In its original context, then: “Listen, Israel, there may be many gods from which to choose, out there, but YHVH is our god.”

ADONAI is One!: Some choose to translate the word“echad” (“one”) as “alone.” This suggests an imperative: the Israelites must worship YHVH as God and no other.

Others understand this phrase as a statement of theological chutzpah. According to this reading, “YHVH is One”  means that there actually is none else: “You know those other deities the nations call “gods?” Well they’re not actually gods at all. At the end of the day, Israel’s god is the only God there is.”

Religious exceptionalism? Some might choose read these words that way. But on a much deeper level, the words “YHVH is One” express a profoundly universal world view. Our sacred mission statement is a reminder that while we live in a universe of diversity and multiplicity, this variety is ultimately part of a much larger sublime Unity that moves through us all.

Parsed thus:

Listen! Amidst the raucous, cacophony that resounds throughout our world, we may yet discern one Voice ever calling to us.  This voice goes by many names; we call it YHVH. Let us attune ourselves to it with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.,.

The Forty Two Journeys: Are We There Yet?

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Parashat Mase’ei, the final portion of the book of Numbers, begins with a detailed itinerary that reviews the forty two individual journeys made by the Israelites’ as they traveled from Ramses/Egypt to their final encampment in Moab, at the Jordan River.

The Ba’al Shem Tov famously interpreted this portion thus:

Whatever happened to the people as a whole will happen to each individual. All the forty-two journeys of the children of Israel will occur to each person between the time he is born and the time he dies.

According to this teaching, the waters of the Sea of Reeds symbolize birth and the waters of the River Jordan represent death – that is to say, the promise or hope that lies beyond. In between, each of us experience forty two phases during the journey of our lives that gradually move us from the “constraints” of the material world to (ideally) a deeper sense of spiritual enlightenment or “liberation.”

Why specifically forty two? While math was never my strong subject – and I’m not typically tempted by gematria – this number does appear to be laden with symbolic significance in Jewish tradition.

Of course, any number divisible by seven (the days of creation) is automatically noteworthy.  Jewish mystical tradition holds that forty two was actually the number with which God created the world itself.  According to the Talmud, God’s full, ineffable name has forty two letters (Kiddushin 71a).  (And if you’re a fan of Douglas Adam’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you’ll surely know that forty two is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, as determined by the super computer, Deep Thought…)

If you are intrigued by the notion of the forty two stages of life, you might want to check out this interesting take by Rabbi Simon Jacobson (Chabad), who uses each stop mentioned in this week’s portion to chart out a series of forty two “psycho-spiritual” journeys that lead us from birth to death.  But whether or not you you choose to ascribe deeper significance to the number forty two, I believe  it is extraordinarily powerful to understand our own lives as a series of – often arduous and challenging – passages that invariably lead us to that final place of “crossing over.”

How will you choose to chart your “spiritual itinerary?”

War Against the Midianites: What Greater Blasphemy?

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Following last week’s depiction of the Israelites’ apostasy with the Midianites, this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Mattot, contains an exceedingly brutal coda:

Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites; then you shall be gathered to your kin.” Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Let men be picked out from among you for a campaign, and let them fall upon Midian to wreak the Lord’s vengeance on Midian. You shall dispatch on the campaign a thousand from every one of the tribes of Israel.” (Numbers 31:1-4)

Thereupon, twelve thousand Israelites set upon the Midian nation, kill every male and take the women and children captive.  The Israelites also kill five Midianite kings, seize the Midianites’ wealth and destroy their towns and encampments by fire.

When the Israelites present their spoil to Moses and the leaders of Israel, Moses is enraged that they did not put the Midianite women to the sword (since they were the ones who “induced the Israelites to trespass against the Lord.” 31:16) Moses then demands that the Israelites kill all the male children as well as every woman “who has known a man carnally.” All virgin Midian women, however, may be spared.

A few examples of how some commentators deal with a text that essentially glorifies genocidal holy war:

First there’s the “abject apologetic approach,” a good example of which may be found in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s commentary for CLAL:

The Bible’s troubling ethics of warfare can perhaps be best explained in terms of monotheism’s struggle to survive. After all, it was long a minority movement with a different theology and ethical system than the rest of the world. It developed and expanded because it had one small corner in the world where it grew undisturbed. Had the Hebrews continued to reside amid the pagan, child sacrificing Canaanites, monotheism itself almost certainly would have died.

Then there’s the “use scholarship to deny it ever actually happened, thus avoiding the essential moral problem approach:”

(The) account of Moses’ war against Midian contains a verifiable historical nucleus, even though the quantitative data are not to be taken literally: The amount of spoil is beyond credulity, and one can doubt the the Midianites were annihilated while the Israelites suffered no causalities. …Indeed, if this account of Israel’s victory over the Midianites were not in the Pentateuch, it would have to be invented. (Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary, p. 491)

There’s the technique I call “spiritualizing the text” (i.e., taking these words out of the context of ancient Near Eastern tribal warfare and turning them into metaphors for inner spiritual growth). Rabbi Shefa Gold is among the more eloquent practitioners of this approach:

Moses grew up with two identities: Egyptian prince, and child of Hebrew slaves. When he left Egypt, for all intents and purposes he himself became a Midianite. Moses married Tzippora, a Midianite woman. And his father-in-law Yitro became his teacher. The Midianite tribe became his family. Legend has it that he lived there as a shepherd for 40 years, learning and growing into his calling as prophet…

Whenever we try to reject a part of ourselves, that part becomes our shadow. The shadow is the part of us that is hidden from the light of consciousness. In that moment when blind fury unfolds into hatred against the other, we can be sent from the Lesser Jihad, from the battle in the world, to the Greater Jihad – the battle within. We are jarred into the realization that the external battle is only a dim reflection of the inner battle that has been raging all along. Once exposed, the shadow can be healed.

Only when we acknowledge the warring tribes within us, can we begin to make peace, first in ourselves and then in the world. A moment of tragic cruelty, illuminated by the light of humility and wisdom, becomes a hard-earned blessing. In that moment, our identity expands from tribal to universal. In that moment, our tribal identity becomes transparent. The structure of that identity still gives us meaning and comfort, but we can also see right through it and celebrate the many tribes that constitute the human family, all of us interconnected, bound to each other through our shared humanity.

The moment when Moses’ cruelty is unmasked, and we see a man at war with himself, is a moment of blessing. The moment when Moses’ violent turmoil is revealed, we see a man who has rejected a part of himself. This is a moment of blessing. In this moment the spiritual work of healing begins.

And if none of those work for you, there’s the “complete rejection of the text as hopelessly archaic, morally bankrupt, and unredeemable on any level” approach. Check out what the venerable Thomas Paine had to say about Numbers 31:

Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers; one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in the hands of an executioner; let any daughter put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? It is in vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will have her course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is a false religion…

People in general do not know what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty? (from “The Age of Reason Pt. II”)

Beyond the various interpretive pedgogies, I’m struck by a few lingering questions from this episode:

– How do we square Moses’ bloodthirsty command, with the fact (as Rabbi Shefa points out) that Moses himself was married to a Midianite – and was in fact mentored by his father in law, the High Priest of Midian? (Exodus 18:13-27)

– What do we make of the way Moses interprets God’s simple and rather general command (“Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites…”)?

– What do we make of the second part of the command (“…then you shall be gathered to your kin”)? Could the brutality of Moses’ instructions reflect the anger and frustration he experiences before his preordained death? (Not to let God off the hook here for a second…)

– Should we consider it notable that the Torah never mentions whether or not the Israelites actually carried out Moses final command?

Feel free to weigh in.