I am a fan of words because I see them as, simultaneously, the signals which cement meaning and fix it in place, and open it up for interpretation. Somehow and magically, words tell us what to know and what we don't know. The Tanach, the written Jewish bible uses words in such a perfect combination that often, we can find significantly deeper possibilities by looking not at what the word means but what the word might be telling us.
For years, I have enjoyed pointing out to students that when the biblical text refers to the Children of Israel as slaves, it calls them "avadim", as the root a-v-d refers to work. But God wants them released from bondage so that "וְיַֽעַבְדֵ֔נִי" v'ya'avdeinu, that he may worship me, even though the root is the same as that of "slave." Prayer is called "avodah sheb'lev" work that is in the heart. Sacrificial rites are called "the avodah." We left serving one master not for some myth of absolute freedom, but so that we could move from one form of Avodah, work, into a higher form of Avodah, worship. Same word! Different subtlety of meaning. The context is important -- the avodah we had in Egypt is not the same as what we have in the service of Hashem.
In Exodus 11:1, God explains to Moses what will happen after the 10th plague. God assures Moses that Par'oh will let the Hebrew slaves go, completely and without qualification. The phrase God uses is
אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֕ן יְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶתְכֶ֖ם מִזֶּ֑ה כְּשַׁ֨לְּח֔וֹ כָּלָ֕ה גָּרֵ֛שׁ יְגָרֵ֥שׁ אֶתְכֶ֖ם מִזֶּֽה
after this, he will send you from here -- [and] when he sends you it will be completely, surely he will cast you out from here.
That's my translation, using the material from sefaria.org, informed by the Rashi commentary which reads
"Onkelos renders it by גמירא, taking כלה in sense of כליל entirely; i. e. he will send all of you away."
Rashi's comment is on the word "כָּלָ֕ה " kallah. He shows how the Aramaic translation connects it to the word k'lil, completely. That word appears in some form or another 15 times in the entire of Tanach with approximately 6 of those instances being in the 5 books of Moses. It means "completely" in places like Exodus 28:31, describing the pure, complete blue of the priest's robe. In Leviticus 6:15 it points to the completely burned offering. In fact, the form Kallah appears 22 times in Tanach, pointing to totality (or complete togetherness, as in Gen 18:21). The Even-Shoshan concordance has yet another entry for the same letters connecting to 206 other uses in various forms (with meanings like "totally lost," "destroyed" and "completed"). The word, it seems, really does point to the absolute nature of the expulsion from Egypt. This, of course, begs the question of "if the meaning is so clear, why did Rashi have to point it out? What other meaning could he be alluding to and discounting, that he needed to clarify it?"
Words allow us more. The text does not say that when Par'oh sends them out, he will "send" (sh-l-ch) the people -- it says that when he sends the people, he will surely chase them out (g-r-sh). That root appears 47 times in Tanach, referring to separation, or removal by force. One way in which it appears is in the discussion of a g'rusha, a divorced woman (check Lev 21:7, 21:14, 22:13, Num 30:10). Now, the root also appears in a variety of cases where the meaning has nothing to do with divorce, so why would it be significant that the word is used in Ex 11:1?
The structure of the phrase is one reason. The quoted section of verse reads, literally
אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֕ן after this
יְשַׁלַּ֥ח he will send
אֶתְכֶ֖ם you (pl)
מִזֶּ֑ה from this
and then כְּשַׁ֨לְּח֔וֹ. K'shalcho. The prefix kaf here means "When" as in "when he sends you" so that it is followed by kallah -- when he sends you, completely you will surely be chased out.
כְּשַׁ֨לְּח֔וֹ when he sends,
כָּלָ֕ה completely
גָּרֵ֛שׁ יְגָרֵ֥שׁ surely he will chase
אֶתְכֶ֖ם you (pl)
מִזֶּֽה from this.
It is true that Par'oh sent the people out, but did he chase them out? More accurately, he chased them to try and get them back! So seeing the word "g-r-sh" as a simple "chase" doesn't fully capture the event.
Then we recall that the kaf, however, can also be used as a prefix meaning "like" which would turn the word k'shalcho into "like when he sends".
Then the next word is kallah. As stated above, kallah means "completely" when spelled with a kamatz under the kaf. But the text is written without vowels, so the word could also be seen as a form with a patach under the kaf (and many would not hear a difference in pronunciation). The word kallah with a patach means "bride." It appears 34 times in various forms referring to a woman who is engaged or married*. Interestingly, when discussing a woman who is divorced, the text speaks of her as having been "sent out" (see Deut 24:1,3) with the same sh-l-ch word. Putting it all together (a word referring to a divorcee, a bride and a sending out) we might see the verse very differently.
This would turn the second phrase into
כְּשַׁ֨לְּח֔וֹ like when he sends
כָּלָ֕ה a bride
גָּרֵ֛שׁ יְגָרֵ֥שׁ surely he will divorce
אֶתְכֶ֖ם you (pl)
מִזֶּֽה from this.
It is important to remember that God spoke of the Children of Israel as his bride! (Jer 2:2). The notion of a divine marriage and divorce is an essential aspect to understanding the relationship between God and his people.
Now, not only can we understand what Rashi was clarifying, but we can see how the words have that same dual identity as the example I gave way above. The word "avodah" means worship, but only in the context of Hashem. The Hebrew in Egypt did NOT worship Par'oh -- their avodah was servitude. Same word, but different meanings. If we looked at Ex. 11:1 as about a divorce, it would seem that our relationship with Par'oh was on par with what our relationship with Hashem was going to me -- a marriage. But Rashi comes in and says that, no, this cannot be the case. Same words, but specifically different meanings. He cites Onkelos and says "the kallah word here is NOT about marriage, but about totality -- don't think it is about a bride, even though the other words lend themselves towards that reading!"
Though the language that describes our roles and relationships in Egypt is similar to the words used to connect us to Hashem, it is important to see that the context points to qualitatively different experiences.
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*though I have been told that, strictly speaking, it means 'daughter-in-law' and became "wife" because of the idea that the father, agreeing to match for his son gets the son a wife and himself a daughter-in-law in one fell swoop
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Friday, March 8, 2019
Erasing Hate
Welcome to Adar.
On the Jewish calendar (a solar-adjusted lunar one) this month is known as Adar (strictly speaking, as this is a leap year, the new month is Adar II after the insertion of a leap month, known as Adar I). Adar has within it the festival of Purim -- a celebration of victory over evil as the Jews in Persia, led by Esther and her uncle Mordechai rebelled against the murderous decree of Haman the Aggagite.
As part of our commemoration, the sages, in Talmudic tractate Ta'anit, page 29B write, "Mishenichnas Adar, Marbin B'simcha" ( משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה), once the month of Adar begins, we increase in our joy. However, there is no real manifestation liturgically of that increase of joy. There are no particular observances which reflect this status of joy. Hold on to that -- I'll circle back in a moment.
There is another aspect to this month in that it includes the holiday of Purim. Haman, the local bad guy was, as stated, an Agaggite -- from the family of Agag. This was the remnant of the nation of Amalek whom Saul did not kill off when given the chance (I Sam 15). Jews are commanded to blot out the memory of Amalek in Exodus 17:14 (מָחֹה אֶמְחֶה אֶת זֵכֶר) and, again, in Deut 25:19. In each year, on the Sabbath before Purim (therefore, in the month of Adar) we read a portion from Deuteronomy in order to steel ourselves in our resolve to get rid of Amalek, the same Amalek who drove our persecution and existential crisis recorded in the story of Purim. On Purim, when we read the Megillah, the story of the event, we make noise when Haman's name is mentioned so as to "blot out" the name of Amalek as per those verses. As to what exactly Amalek is, these days, there are a variety of opinions, some of which point to the external and some to the internal. A simple search reveals plenty of voices on the matter.
So we increase our erasing, not our joy! Is there a way to understand the rabbinic edict to increase something by seeing it as something beyond simple joy? I think so.
If you look at exactly what we are to increase, the word in Hebrew ("b'simcha", in joy) is written בשמחה -- bet-shin-mem-chet-hey. If we don't look at the root word as שמח (sin-mem-chet), happiness, and recognize that there were no vowel points in the written texts, we may be able to see the word as something else. The "bet" and "s(h)in" letters in Hebrew serve as prefixes, meaning something along the likes of "in" and "that which". As such, the word becomes "In that which מחה (mem-chet-hey)".
מחה? Where did I see that word before? Oh yeah -- Ex. 17:14. The word means "erase/blot out" in structure of a command (you shall erase). If we look at the word as this structure, it means "in that through which you must erase". משנכנס אדר מרבין בְּ שֶׁ מָחֹה Once the month of Adar begins, we must increase our attention to and our work to eliminate all of that which is related to Amalek. While we have to be aware of evil at all times, it is the time of the year when we become even more attuned to it and must rise up and defeat it, wherever it is found.
There is hatred and evil all around us. Now, in the midst of our joy, even a we want to celebrate our victories, we must be mindful of the fact that we are still outnumbered and surrounded. We must embrace the light and rebel against the forces (in and out) that would see us divided and conquered.
On the Jewish calendar (a solar-adjusted lunar one) this month is known as Adar (strictly speaking, as this is a leap year, the new month is Adar II after the insertion of a leap month, known as Adar I). Adar has within it the festival of Purim -- a celebration of victory over evil as the Jews in Persia, led by Esther and her uncle Mordechai rebelled against the murderous decree of Haman the Aggagite.
As part of our commemoration, the sages, in Talmudic tractate Ta'anit, page 29B write, "Mishenichnas Adar, Marbin B'simcha" ( משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה), once the month of Adar begins, we increase in our joy. However, there is no real manifestation liturgically of that increase of joy. There are no particular observances which reflect this status of joy. Hold on to that -- I'll circle back in a moment.
There is another aspect to this month in that it includes the holiday of Purim. Haman, the local bad guy was, as stated, an Agaggite -- from the family of Agag. This was the remnant of the nation of Amalek whom Saul did not kill off when given the chance (I Sam 15). Jews are commanded to blot out the memory of Amalek in Exodus 17:14 (מָחֹה אֶמְחֶה אֶת זֵכֶר) and, again, in Deut 25:19. In each year, on the Sabbath before Purim (therefore, in the month of Adar) we read a portion from Deuteronomy in order to steel ourselves in our resolve to get rid of Amalek, the same Amalek who drove our persecution and existential crisis recorded in the story of Purim. On Purim, when we read the Megillah, the story of the event, we make noise when Haman's name is mentioned so as to "blot out" the name of Amalek as per those verses. As to what exactly Amalek is, these days, there are a variety of opinions, some of which point to the external and some to the internal. A simple search reveals plenty of voices on the matter.
So we increase our erasing, not our joy! Is there a way to understand the rabbinic edict to increase something by seeing it as something beyond simple joy? I think so.
If you look at exactly what we are to increase, the word in Hebrew ("b'simcha", in joy) is written בשמחה -- bet-shin-mem-chet-hey. If we don't look at the root word as שמח (sin-mem-chet), happiness, and recognize that there were no vowel points in the written texts, we may be able to see the word as something else. The "bet" and "s(h)in" letters in Hebrew serve as prefixes, meaning something along the likes of "in" and "that which". As such, the word becomes "In that which מחה (mem-chet-hey)".
מחה? Where did I see that word before? Oh yeah -- Ex. 17:14. The word means "erase/blot out" in structure of a command (you shall erase). If we look at the word as this structure, it means "in that through which you must erase". משנכנס אדר מרבין בְּ שֶׁ מָחֹה Once the month of Adar begins, we must increase our attention to and our work to eliminate all of that which is related to Amalek. While we have to be aware of evil at all times, it is the time of the year when we become even more attuned to it and must rise up and defeat it, wherever it is found.
There is hatred and evil all around us. Now, in the midst of our joy, even a we want to celebrate our victories, we must be mindful of the fact that we are still outnumbered and surrounded. We must embrace the light and rebel against the forces (in and out) that would see us divided and conquered.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Having a ball
I think that a vast percentage of adults has, to some degree, Peter Pan Syndrome. No, not that we want to be buses or wear little hats (though both are nice goals) but that we don't want to grow up. What's so bad about growing up, you might ask. It would be a foolish question but I'm not here to judge you and your dumb questions.
You persist. "Growing up is awesome" you say. "You can stay up til, like whenever," you insist (and why must you put the word "like" in there?), "and you can eat what you want and do all sorts of cool things."
All very true. In some ways, growing up is crazy fun. And forget about the bills, the responsibilities, the job, the expanding waistline and the bodily failures and, eventually, the children who overuse the word "like." Being an adult has some serious perks. So why the PPS? It's the pressure. No, not the kind of pressure you are thinking of (unless you have read my mind, in which case, my apologies, I just always wondered about that...).
Today was a snow day -- the kind of day that kids look forward to and I, as a teacher, dread. I fall behind in curriculum, and, as I define myself by my role in school, I am forced to sit at home (after waking to shovel and go to shul) as a big ol' nothing. In an effort to pass the time without doing anything substantially productive (heaven forfend) I started watching videos. I enjoy youtube videos about sports -- best plays. Worst plays. Mediocre plays. Then I started watching about fans. I really like watching baseball players interact with fans. These guys make a boat load of money but are, effectively, playing a game. They are big boys who should be humble about the opportunity that they have and should be enjoying themselves, while ensuring that the paying public is having a good time. Then I saw a video about sportsmanship and a bunch of it had to do with how fans act.
I have been to a few games in my lifetime. My dad used to take us to Mets games back when the Mets were bad (which doesn't narrow things down, true). But they were bad at Shea, not Citi field. So, let's say, the late 70's and early 80's. I then started buying my own seats as I got older. A game or two a year. Loge...mezzanine...bleachers...even field level, back when they used to sell those. Whatever. I have even gone as a guest of a friend or another who has wicked good seats. The wife and I went once on tickets provided by her job (her job had co-opted her on a day when we were planning to go so they paid her back with exceptional seats for a game that the Mets lost in one hour and change). I have seen the Mets lose more often than win, but I have also seen thrilling moments and had a few drinks to make it all the less memorable. It is usually a win/win affair, as long as neither of those "wins" is related to the Mets' playing baseball.
I have, as of yet, never gotten a foul ball.
So I watched these videos and the recurring theme was the chivalry displayed when an adult got a ball and (un)ceremoniously handed it off to some child. Some of these children had tried to get the ball and failed because they were out flanked by the adult. Others were just sitting there, being children. Some were crying, others, not so much crying. But the adult handed that ball off.
So here's the thing. I can't do that.
If being an adult includes some sort of expectation that, given the chance, I am going to be perfectly reasonable and give up a ball so some kid WHO DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE PLAY gets a freebie, I just can't do it. I can't be that adult who does the adult thing. I want a ball. Me. I don't want the 13 seconds of obligatory applause the fans give the guy who gives up his prized possession. I don't want the momentary praise from the TV announcers, or even the relative immortality of a short segment on the local news or (dare I dream) a youtube video. I want that ball. Sure, I can buy one, but this one would be from an actual game. I know, it has no practical value. It has no actual use or resale potential. It is a ball and I have no reason to want it, have it, or do anything else with it other than give it to a child to instill a love of decency and baseball in the next generation.
But I want the ball. I don't want the guilt, shame or negative attention. I just want to hold that ball and be able to be all cool about it and humble-brag. I want the story and the version in which I keep it and can show people is much more interesting than the one where I give it away (heck, I can make that one up and tell it already; there is no way to check on its truth value).
So, no, I don't want to be an adult because I'm still a kid in so many ways and the pressure to live up to the expectations set by other mature, responsible and (ugh) nice adults is not appealing to me. While I'm lying in bed with a bad back, bad knees, failing hearing, a receding hairline and a prostate that is announcing its discontent, I want to hold on to that ball because it is my "get out of adulthood free" card.
So for all you kids at home, baseball is a good an honorable sport. I'm an unapologetic jerk so stop looking at me like that. This ball is mine.
You persist. "Growing up is awesome" you say. "You can stay up til, like whenever," you insist (and why must you put the word "like" in there?), "and you can eat what you want and do all sorts of cool things."
All very true. In some ways, growing up is crazy fun. And forget about the bills, the responsibilities, the job, the expanding waistline and the bodily failures and, eventually, the children who overuse the word "like." Being an adult has some serious perks. So why the PPS? It's the pressure. No, not the kind of pressure you are thinking of (unless you have read my mind, in which case, my apologies, I just always wondered about that...).
Today was a snow day -- the kind of day that kids look forward to and I, as a teacher, dread. I fall behind in curriculum, and, as I define myself by my role in school, I am forced to sit at home (after waking to shovel and go to shul) as a big ol' nothing. In an effort to pass the time without doing anything substantially productive (heaven forfend) I started watching videos. I enjoy youtube videos about sports -- best plays. Worst plays. Mediocre plays. Then I started watching about fans. I really like watching baseball players interact with fans. These guys make a boat load of money but are, effectively, playing a game. They are big boys who should be humble about the opportunity that they have and should be enjoying themselves, while ensuring that the paying public is having a good time. Then I saw a video about sportsmanship and a bunch of it had to do with how fans act.
I have been to a few games in my lifetime. My dad used to take us to Mets games back when the Mets were bad (which doesn't narrow things down, true). But they were bad at Shea, not Citi field. So, let's say, the late 70's and early 80's. I then started buying my own seats as I got older. A game or two a year. Loge...mezzanine...bleachers...even field level, back when they used to sell those. Whatever. I have even gone as a guest of a friend or another who has wicked good seats. The wife and I went once on tickets provided by her job (her job had co-opted her on a day when we were planning to go so they paid her back with exceptional seats for a game that the Mets lost in one hour and change). I have seen the Mets lose more often than win, but I have also seen thrilling moments and had a few drinks to make it all the less memorable. It is usually a win/win affair, as long as neither of those "wins" is related to the Mets' playing baseball.
I have, as of yet, never gotten a foul ball.
So I watched these videos and the recurring theme was the chivalry displayed when an adult got a ball and (un)ceremoniously handed it off to some child. Some of these children had tried to get the ball and failed because they were out flanked by the adult. Others were just sitting there, being children. Some were crying, others, not so much crying. But the adult handed that ball off.
So here's the thing. I can't do that.
If being an adult includes some sort of expectation that, given the chance, I am going to be perfectly reasonable and give up a ball so some kid WHO DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE PLAY gets a freebie, I just can't do it. I can't be that adult who does the adult thing. I want a ball. Me. I don't want the 13 seconds of obligatory applause the fans give the guy who gives up his prized possession. I don't want the momentary praise from the TV announcers, or even the relative immortality of a short segment on the local news or (dare I dream) a youtube video. I want that ball. Sure, I can buy one, but this one would be from an actual game. I know, it has no practical value. It has no actual use or resale potential. It is a ball and I have no reason to want it, have it, or do anything else with it other than give it to a child to instill a love of decency and baseball in the next generation.
But I want the ball. I don't want the guilt, shame or negative attention. I just want to hold that ball and be able to be all cool about it and humble-brag. I want the story and the version in which I keep it and can show people is much more interesting than the one where I give it away (heck, I can make that one up and tell it already; there is no way to check on its truth value).
So, no, I don't want to be an adult because I'm still a kid in so many ways and the pressure to live up to the expectations set by other mature, responsible and (ugh) nice adults is not appealing to me. While I'm lying in bed with a bad back, bad knees, failing hearing, a receding hairline and a prostate that is announcing its discontent, I want to hold on to that ball because it is my "get out of adulthood free" card.
So for all you kids at home, baseball is a good an honorable sport. I'm an unapologetic jerk so stop looking at me like that. This ball is mine.
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