PunkTorah

Independent Jewish Spirituality

What’s That String Sticking Out Of Your Pants? (Parshah Shelach Lecha)

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450px-Tzitzit

There’s this urge when you become religious to buy every piece of Judaica possible.

It’s a process that starts with simple jewelry, of course with chamsas and magen david on them. Then we move onto goofy tee shirts that say “matzah baller” or “I don’t roll on the Shabbos”. Eventually you start buying real Judaica, like mezuzot and hanukkiahs. Suddenly you’ve maxed out your credit card when you realize how insanely expensive shipping anything from Israel is.

If you’re a certain kind of person, you buy a tallit katan, a shirt that you wear underneath your clothes, like Jewish Magic Underwear. And then you have this awkward moment of being the person at the Reform synagogue wearing tzitzit while people look at you like you got lost while walking to Chabad.

I mention this because this week’s Torah portion commands tzitzit, the fringes that go on prayer shawls.

It’s a straight forward mitzvah: you attach fringes to a four cornered garment, and wear it. The mitzvah isn’t that intensive. Frankly, it’s more complicated to buy tzitzit than it is to observe the mitzvah.

Religion is like that. It’s this thing you get caught up in. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s good that religion isn’t just davvening or charity. Maybe it’s a good thing that even shopping can be made holy…as strange as that is to say.

http://punktorah.org/shelach-lecha/
http://punktorah.org/parshah-shelach-lecha-wsleigh-bells/

Forbidden Talmud: Hookers and Rabbis (NSFW)

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Forbidden Talmud showcases the NSFW (Not Safe For Work) Talmudic texts that they “forgot” to teach you in Yeshiva. This week, the story of hookers, rabbis and tzitzit.

It was taught: R. Nathan said, There is not a single precept in the Torah, even the lightest, whose reward is not enjoyed in this world; and as to its reward in the future world I know not how great it is.

Go and learn this from the precept of tzitzit (fringes). Once a man, who was very scrupulous about the precept of tzitzit, heard of a certain harlot in one of the towns by the sea who accepted four hundred gold [denars] for her hire. He sent her four hundred gold [denars] and appointed a day with her. When the day arrived he came and waited at her door, and her maid came and told her, ‘That man who sent you four hundred gold [denars] is here and waiting at the door’; to which she replied ‘Let him come in’. When he came in she prepared for him seven beds, six of silver and one of gold; and between one bed and the other there were steps of silver, but the last were of gold. She then went up to the top bed and lay down upon it naked.

He too went up after her in his desire to sit naked with her, when all of a sudden the four fringes [of his garment] struck him across the face; whereupon he slipped off and sat upon the ground. She also slipped off and sat upon the ground and said, ‘By the Roman Capitol, I will not leave you alone until you tell me what blemish you saw in me.

‘By the Temple’, he replied, ‘never have I seen a woman as beautiful as you are; but there is one precept which the Lord our God has commanded us, it is called tzitzit, and with regard to it the expression ‘I am the Lord your God’ is twice written, signifying, I am He who will exact punishment in the future, and I am He who will give reward in the future. Now [the tzitzit] appeared to me as four witnesses [testifying against me]’.

She said, ‘I will not leave you until you tell me your name, the name of your town, the name of your teacher, the name of your school in which you study the Torah’. He wrote all this down and handed it to her. Thereupon she arose and divided her estate into three parts; one third for the government, one third to be distributed among the poor, and one third she took with her in her hand; the bed clothes, however, she retained.

She then came to the Beth Hamidrash of R. Hiyya, and said to him, ‘Master, give instructions about me that they make me a proselyte’. ‘My daughter’, he replied; ‘perhaps you have set your eyes on one of the disciples?’ She thereupon took out the script and handed it to him. ‘Go’, said he ‘and enjoy your acquisition’. Those very bed-clothes which she had spread for him for an illicit purpose she now spread out for him lawfully. This is the reward [of the precept] in this world; and as for its reward in the future world I know not how great it is. Talmud Menachot 44a

Why as this text not taught?

It would appear that the attitude towards sexuality, and possibly even towards prostitution was more open in some ways during the Talmudic era than it is today. While not condoning the man’s behavior, Rabbi Hiyya does not appear shocked; on the contrary, he is prepared to accept the former prostitute as a convert and to reward his student by sanctifying their marriage. During the time period between the end of the Talmudic era and current time, Jewish attitudes towards sexuality became far more conservative, particularly under the influence of Christianity in countries in which Jews were living. This text simply does not align with the attitudes towards sexuality that are often promulgated in Jewish schools.

What is the lesson to be learned and why should this text be taught?

The Torah is, in the words of Deuteronomy, “not in heaven.” It is meant for the real world with all of its challenges and temptations. This text teaches us important lessons: in the world of the Rabbis not all behavior was pure; that those whose behavior strays can find their way back (or, in the case of the prostitute, can find their way in) to a more upright life; that the symbolic actions we use to remind us to be holy (kippah, tzitzit, etc.) have value.

Arnie Samlan is a rabbi, Jewish educator, social worker and Scratch DJ Academy grad. A regional director of The Jewish Education Project in NY, he is also founder of a new venture, Jewish Connectivity, which works to link Jews and Jewish texts to one another to re-ignite Jewish life and creativity (Twitter: JewishConnectiv)

Spies, Tzitzit and the Death Penalty (Parshat Shelach Lecha)

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In Shelach Lecha, this week’s parshah, Moses sends twelve spies, one from each tribe, on a recon mission to the Promised Land. He wants them to find out about the lay of the land and its inhabitants. When the spies return, the first ten tell everyone that the land is “flowing with milk and honey,” just as G-d promised, but, they tell everyone that the inhabitants are fierce, possibly the descendants of giants, and that the Israelites couldn’t possibly defeat them. The spies say, “…We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Num. 13:33). The spies here give us a resounding truth: if we are not confident in ourselves, if we see ourselves “as grasshoppers,” inevitably, others will see us that way as well. It’s like Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

I think it’s useful to read this parshah with the thought in mind of the Nation of Israel being like one person. In her childhood, Israel was enslaved in Egypt. Then, G-d freed her, and brought her out of Egypt “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” In her adolescence, she travels through the desert, and grumbles and rebels against G-d, as we saw in Behaalosecha. This week, we get some of Israel’s sort of teenage angst in that she compares herself to other nations, finds herself lacking and inferior, and feels to weak and unimpressive to challenge them. So, G-d decides that Israel is still too immature to inherit the Promised Land, and gives her 40 years of wandering as an opportunity to develop the maturity and self-confidence that come with time and experience. If we now switch back to the Israel-as-a-nation view, we notice that the generation that does get to enter the Promised Land is the generation that was not born in slavery (plus Caleb and Joshua, the other two spies who gave a truthful report and who tried to bolster the Israelites’ spirits). This suggests that the generation that was enslaved in Egypt had some part of their spirit broken that cannot be repaired; they do not have the strength and confidence to be a free people.

What happens next is that Israel rebels, climbs up a mountain in an attempt to rush into the Holy Land despite the fact that G-d told them they wouldn’t enter it (still sounding very much like rebellious teenagers), and they get trounced by the Amalekites and the Canaanites, “even unto Hormah [a place of utter destruction]” (14:45). And when they are in this state, afraid, angry, sad, frustrated, burying their dead and caring for their wounded, G-d asks Moses to tell them about challah, and about tzitzit—things that their children will be commanded to do once they enter the Promised Land. I think this was G-d’s way of trying to get them to look towards the future, rather than focus on their depressing present, and to think about how their children would someday connect to G-d and live holy lives.

Just before the commandment for tzitzit (fringes), the parshah relates an episode in which a sabbath-breaker is stoned to death by the community, as commanded by G-d through Moses. Right after offering this negative example of behavior, the Torah gives us a tool to help us avoid it—fringes to remind us to fulfill the mitzvot every day. Am I uncomfortable with the idea of stoning sabbath-breakers to death? Of course! ….And I’m in good company. The Rabbis throughout the ages were constantly softening and/or effectively deleting many of the harsh death penalties laid out in Mosaic law, often by making the legal and evidential requirements for such a penalty almost impossible to meet. The thing to take away, I think, is to remember why tallitot exist: as a reminder to keep us from “going astray” (15:39). The Rabbis tell us that the blue thread (tekhelet) of the tzitzit resembles the sea, that the sea resembles the heavens, and that the heavens resemble the Throne of Glory. Every time we look at our tzitzit, or perhaps just every time we look at the sea, or into the sky, we should remember who we are, why we do what we do, and Who it was that made us that way.

Guest post by Michelle Bak.

The Importance of Fringes

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Tzitzit, used by Creative Commons permission. Photo by 'AngerBoy'

(Originally posted here by our friend Ketzirah)

In the  traditional morning prayer service, it is a common practice to gather the fringes (tzitzit) of the prayer shawl into your left hand while saying the  Shema — the central statement of faith.  This practice came to mind after I read what I felt to be a poorly informed, fear-based blog post about Kohenet on Jewschool.  If you read this site, you know that Kohenet is my one of my spiritual homes and I spent 3.5 years in that program  earning the right to call myself a Kohenet.  Actually, if you read this site you probably know a lot more about the program than the author of that blog post.  But, I honestly don’ t wish to put any more energy there.

What I want to do is remind everyone that  fringes are sacred in Judaism.

“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them that they should make fringes on the wings of their garments throughout their generations, and they should put upon the fringe of the wing a thread of blue.  They will be fringes for you, and you will look at them and remember the desires of the Eternal your God, and you will not turn aside after your hearts or your eyes that you seek to feed.  Thus shall your remember my desires and be holy to the Infinite.  I, Adonai, am the Infinite who led you out of Egypt to be infinite to you. I, the Infinite, am your God.” (Num 15:38-41, as found in the Kohenet Siddur)

Fringes remind us of what is important in life.  What is the fringe also depends on your perspective.  To me, someone who is Orthodox is on the fringe.  The majority of Jews are not Orthodox.  When I see someone who is Orthodox, I feel as though they are my tzitzit.  I felt the same when I once attended Yom Kippur services at a Secular Humanist synagogue.  They are fringes on the other side.  There, I just wanted to feel a little more G!d(dess) in the experience and I was reminded of how much I treasure my own sense of spiritual connection.

Every religion has its fringes.  Every movement has its fringes. Every  art form has its fringes. Jews don’t, or shouldn’t, cut of their fringes.  They are sacred.  We gather them in with our left hand (the receptive hand) while we recite our most sacred statement of faith.  We gather them in with love because they are us, and they are there to teach us something.  They are there to offer us an opportunity. They are there to remind us what is sacred in life.

As we enter the  Days of Awe, I invite you to look more kindly on the fringes you encounter.  See them as the “thread of blue.”  Bless them for being the tzitzit of life and helping you connect more fully to the Infinite — however you experience it.

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