TorahParsha

Is religion necessarily constant?

for Parshat B'Haalotcha

i

The cloud of God rests upon the Tent of God.

The people encamp around the Tent, around the cloud.

When the cloud lifts up, the people follow it.

They follow the cloud until it rests down to the ground again,

and the people reunite with it again.

ii

The cloud rests and rises up,

rests and rises up,

throughout the forty years in the Desert.

And the people follow the cloud all the way to the Land.

iii

The people do not come to the Land by encamping steadily around the cloud.

They do not come to the Land by resting steadily with God.

They come to the Land in the continual process

of being apart from God’s cloud

and reuniting with it,

of parting and reuniting,

over and over for forty years.

In this cycle, they arrive.

*

They come to the Land in the continual process

of being apart from God

and reuniting with Him,

of parting from Him and reuniting,

over and over for forty years.

In this cycle, they arrive.

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Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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Numbers 9:15-23

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God’s loners

 

for Parshat Naso

 

i

It is just before Moses finishes

building God’s Tent,

God’s home among the people.

*

God tells Moes:

let the ones who are sick

with the sickness of impurity

leave the camp.

(When they are pure again

they will return

and bring sacrifices

in God’s Tent.)

*

God tells Moses:

a jealous husband

can come with his wife

to God’s Tent 

to face her.

*

God tells Moses:

a person may become a nazir,

a holy monastic—

not a priest

not a prophet,

but one set apart.

And the nazir must comes to God’s Tent

when his time as a nazir ends.

ii

Before Moses finishes building  

God’s Tent,

God mentions these lonely ones

—the sick and alone

—the jealous, alone from their spouses

—the seeker, alone with God—

who all come to the Tent.

*

You might think:

this Tent,

this nation’s home for God,

has no place in it

for people who do not fit in the nation.

Before the Tent is finished,

God says:

even these outsiders

have a place in My Home,

even they

have a home with Me.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

Numbers 5:1-6:21

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Sinai is Like Babel (A Question for Shavuot)

 

Both the people of Babel and Israel in the Desert stop at a particular place along a journey. They encounter their pinnacle there – the Tower of Babel; Mount Sinai. In both instances, God descends to see. In both instances, a great building project: the Tower; the Mishkan – the Dwelling Place of God. As they move on, both people break into groups: into separate nations from Babel; into separate tribes from Sinai.

Why would God orchestrate Sinai after Babel?

 

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Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Abe

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When You Have Self-Doubt

for Parshat B'chukotai 

 

The book of Leviticus, the book of God’s presence in the Mishkan, closes with the tithing of animals to offer to God.

Specifically, Leviticus closes with this law: Whether the animal of the flock you have tithed is desirable or undesirable, is fair or not, it does not matter. Either way, you have selected it. Either way, you may not replace it with another. If you do replace it with another, that other, too, becomes holy.

To say: You have begun a process that will not accept your rejection of what you have achieved.

Perhaps a life of God bears impossible expectations. But the closing  point of Leviticus—the book of God’s presence—says something different. That point says this: if you dwell in God’s system, even if you fall short (and who does not fall short?)—still you arrive at holiness.

 

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Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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