Different Parts of the Same Body
We can draw a theme from parashas Bamidbar through the beginning of Beha'alosekha.
In Beha'alosekha, Moshe and Aharon count the Jewish People "according to their families, by their father's household" (1:2), divided by sheivet. Sheivet is defined patrilineally. Membership in the Jewish People as a whole is matrilineal, though. Why? We also find this asymetry in a law mentioned later in that parashah -- pidyon haben. While the father's oldest child gets twice the inheritance of his other children, when it comes to the sanctity of the firstborn, and the need to redeem it, it's the mother's firstborn that is holy.
We see a hint to the difference in a verse, "These are the children of Moshe and Aharon; the children of Aharon are..." The medrash explains that Aharon's children are the children of Moshe, their mentor, as well. (Unlike Moshe's own children, who did not follow their father as their mentor.) Fatherhood is captured by formal education. In fact, the mitzvah of chinukh, formal education, falls only on the father.
Mothers inherently teach, whether they wish to or not. They are the ones home, setting the tone that the children grow up within, the attitudes they absorb preconsciously. Deeper than formal education, the exchange of ideas, this is the exchange of culture, ideals, and values. In fact, a command to provide this education, which would necessitate formal and procedural "teaching" in order to fulfill this mitzvah, would get in the way of the true transmission of the instinctive culture.
The difference is summed up by Shelomo haMelekh: "Shema beni mussar avikha, ve'al titosh toras imekha -- Listen, my son, to what your father gives over, and do not abandon your mother's Torah." It's no coincidence that Chazal tell us "Do not read 'toras imekha' but 'toras umaskha' -- the Torah of your nation." Torah as orakh chaim, as the way the people live.
I analyze this aspect of things in more detail in Mesukim Midevash for Bamidbar. There are two aspects to Oral Torah which affects our understanding of the decline of generations in light of our progress to the messianic era, as well as explaining the need for mussar and the other derakhim that emerged in the late 18th and 19th centuries. I also wrote on this topic earlier, in an entry titled "The Fall of Mimeticism and Forks on the Hashkafic Road".
But here I want to look at what it says about the nature of the shevatim. We all share common values, which is why Jewishness is matrilineal. Our roles, our assigned duties, are those of our sheivet, and since this can be formally taught, it's patrilineal.
Parashas Naso continues this count down into the families of Leviim, and describing their duties.
In his Shabbos morning derashah, R' Ron Yitzchak Eisenman (the rav of my shul), repeated an interesting point he found in a seifer titled Yalqut Shemu'el by R' Shmuel Fine, a rav in Detroit in the 1930s. Among the coverings of the utensils of the Mishkan named when speaking of the duties of the Leviim to carry them form place to place were ones made of the leather of techashim. Tachash is the same kind of leather used in the top layer of the Mishkan's roof. The word "tachash" is difficult to translate. Some, following a comment in Yechezqeil that Hashem made us shoes of tachash leather in the desert, identify it with an aquatic animal, since Bedouins use that to make their shoes. Others translate it as a "unicorn". The Targum Unqelus defines it as "sasgona", which the gemara (Shabbos 28a) tells us is an animal that rejoices (sas) in its many colors (gona). The Tankhuma (Terumah 6) says it has six (sheish - sas) colors. Chazal also say the tachash was created once, just for the Mishkan, which would fit the unicorn or the sasgona. (See Rabbi Nosson Slifkin’s Mysterious Creatures pp. 74-79 for a complete inquiry into the identity of the Tachash.)
The Yalqut Shemu'el asks why the animal used must be one that is sas, rejoices, in his colors. The sasgona is not only a single creature of diverse colors; it takes joy in its diversity! This is a key ingredient to building the Mishkan and in fact of building any qehillah. We shouldn't merely tolerate Jews of other stripes, we should rejoice in their existence. Yahadus is stronger because we have Modern Orthodox Jews who take that Judaism to the streets, Yeshivish ones who are constantly raising the bar on the standards of Torah study, the chassidim who breathed life into America's kashrus industry, the Zionists who secured for us a homeland and the anti-Zionists who insure we don't worship it as an end in itself. Within the four amos of halakhah we need multiple expressions.
The tachash is not only identified with the sasgona, but also the unicorn. A kosher animal that had one horn, one qeren. "Keren" also means pride or power. As we say in Shemoneh Esrei "The sprout of David should sprout soon, and he will lift his qeren for your redemption." The tachash is not simply a plurality, it's a union of disparate parts, a synergy to make one greater force, one inseparable being.
We must learn to look at other forms of Torah observance as "different parts of the same body". Not to be tolerated despite their differences, but loved because of them. All come from the same toras imekha, the same basic worldview, values and aspirations. We differ, as did the shevarim, in mussar avikha, in the formal layer of education after that, where we learn our roles and where we fit in that greater mission.
This was the message Hashem gave Aharon in the beginning of parashas Beha'alosekha. Chazal write that when the heads of the shevatim brought their qorbanos (listed at the end of Naso), Aharon, whose role included being the head of Levi, was pained at not being able to participate. Hashem comforted him by pointing to the story of Chanukah. The chanukas habayis, the consecration of the Beis haMiqdash, by Aharon's descendents the Chashmona'im, was greater than the offerings of the nesi'im. Why?
Each of the nesi'im brought what was physically the same offering. However, each offering was distinct in intent. The Ramban itemizes the allusions each nasi could find in the same offering that relate to his particular tribe, to his particular ancestor. The offerings were colored by mussar avikha, by each sheivet's particularist role.
Aharon is then told, "When you cause the menorah [flames] to go up, toward the face of the menorah its lamps should burn." The menorah has one central trunk, from which emerge six branches. The flame atop each branch must point toward the middle. Each branch is a different wisdom, a different skill-set. They all emerge from the same basic Torah, from the mother-taught values that define our Jewishness. It is Aharon's job to remind us that they also must be channeled back toward that central core.
We all work toward a common goal. Knowing that each of us are unique, bringing unique thoughts and abilities, unique perspective and educational background, leads us not only to realize the full value of our own part in the greater whole (no man is "just another brick in the wall") but to treasure the contributions of others because they are so different than our own, and bringing something to the whole that we can't.
In Beha'alosekha, Moshe and Aharon count the Jewish People "according to their families, by their father's household" (1:2), divided by sheivet. Sheivet is defined patrilineally. Membership in the Jewish People as a whole is matrilineal, though. Why? We also find this asymetry in a law mentioned later in that parashah -- pidyon haben. While the father's oldest child gets twice the inheritance of his other children, when it comes to the sanctity of the firstborn, and the need to redeem it, it's the mother's firstborn that is holy.
We see a hint to the difference in a verse, "These are the children of Moshe and Aharon; the children of Aharon are..." The medrash explains that Aharon's children are the children of Moshe, their mentor, as well. (Unlike Moshe's own children, who did not follow their father as their mentor.) Fatherhood is captured by formal education. In fact, the mitzvah of chinukh, formal education, falls only on the father.
Mothers inherently teach, whether they wish to or not. They are the ones home, setting the tone that the children grow up within, the attitudes they absorb preconsciously. Deeper than formal education, the exchange of ideas, this is the exchange of culture, ideals, and values. In fact, a command to provide this education, which would necessitate formal and procedural "teaching" in order to fulfill this mitzvah, would get in the way of the true transmission of the instinctive culture.
The difference is summed up by Shelomo haMelekh: "Shema beni mussar avikha, ve'al titosh toras imekha -- Listen, my son, to what your father gives over, and do not abandon your mother's Torah." It's no coincidence that Chazal tell us "Do not read 'toras imekha' but 'toras umaskha' -- the Torah of your nation." Torah as orakh chaim, as the way the people live.
I analyze this aspect of things in more detail in Mesukim Midevash for Bamidbar. There are two aspects to Oral Torah which affects our understanding of the decline of generations in light of our progress to the messianic era, as well as explaining the need for mussar and the other derakhim that emerged in the late 18th and 19th centuries. I also wrote on this topic earlier, in an entry titled "The Fall of Mimeticism and Forks on the Hashkafic Road".
But here I want to look at what it says about the nature of the shevatim. We all share common values, which is why Jewishness is matrilineal. Our roles, our assigned duties, are those of our sheivet, and since this can be formally taught, it's patrilineal.
Parashas Naso continues this count down into the families of Leviim, and describing their duties.
In his Shabbos morning derashah, R' Ron Yitzchak Eisenman (the rav of my shul), repeated an interesting point he found in a seifer titled Yalqut Shemu'el by R' Shmuel Fine, a rav in Detroit in the 1930s. Among the coverings of the utensils of the Mishkan named when speaking of the duties of the Leviim to carry them form place to place were ones made of the leather of techashim. Tachash is the same kind of leather used in the top layer of the Mishkan's roof. The word "tachash" is difficult to translate. Some, following a comment in Yechezqeil that Hashem made us shoes of tachash leather in the desert, identify it with an aquatic animal, since Bedouins use that to make their shoes. Others translate it as a "unicorn". The Targum Unqelus defines it as "sasgona", which the gemara (Shabbos 28a) tells us is an animal that rejoices (sas) in its many colors (gona). The Tankhuma (Terumah 6) says it has six (sheish - sas) colors. Chazal also say the tachash was created once, just for the Mishkan, which would fit the unicorn or the sasgona. (See Rabbi Nosson Slifkin’s Mysterious Creatures pp. 74-79 for a complete inquiry into the identity of the Tachash.)
The Yalqut Shemu'el asks why the animal used must be one that is sas, rejoices, in his colors. The sasgona is not only a single creature of diverse colors; it takes joy in its diversity! This is a key ingredient to building the Mishkan and in fact of building any qehillah. We shouldn't merely tolerate Jews of other stripes, we should rejoice in their existence. Yahadus is stronger because we have Modern Orthodox Jews who take that Judaism to the streets, Yeshivish ones who are constantly raising the bar on the standards of Torah study, the chassidim who breathed life into America's kashrus industry, the Zionists who secured for us a homeland and the anti-Zionists who insure we don't worship it as an end in itself. Within the four amos of halakhah we need multiple expressions.
The tachash is not only identified with the sasgona, but also the unicorn. A kosher animal that had one horn, one qeren. "Keren" also means pride or power. As we say in Shemoneh Esrei "The sprout of David should sprout soon, and he will lift his qeren for your redemption." The tachash is not simply a plurality, it's a union of disparate parts, a synergy to make one greater force, one inseparable being.
We must learn to look at other forms of Torah observance as "different parts of the same body". Not to be tolerated despite their differences, but loved because of them. All come from the same toras imekha, the same basic worldview, values and aspirations. We differ, as did the shevarim, in mussar avikha, in the formal layer of education after that, where we learn our roles and where we fit in that greater mission.
This was the message Hashem gave Aharon in the beginning of parashas Beha'alosekha. Chazal write that when the heads of the shevatim brought their qorbanos (listed at the end of Naso), Aharon, whose role included being the head of Levi, was pained at not being able to participate. Hashem comforted him by pointing to the story of Chanukah. The chanukas habayis, the consecration of the Beis haMiqdash, by Aharon's descendents the Chashmona'im, was greater than the offerings of the nesi'im. Why?
Each of the nesi'im brought what was physically the same offering. However, each offering was distinct in intent. The Ramban itemizes the allusions each nasi could find in the same offering that relate to his particular tribe, to his particular ancestor. The offerings were colored by mussar avikha, by each sheivet's particularist role.
Aharon is then told, "When you cause the menorah [flames] to go up, toward the face of the menorah its lamps should burn." The menorah has one central trunk, from which emerge six branches. The flame atop each branch must point toward the middle. Each branch is a different wisdom, a different skill-set. They all emerge from the same basic Torah, from the mother-taught values that define our Jewishness. It is Aharon's job to remind us that they also must be channeled back toward that central core.
We all work toward a common goal. Knowing that each of us are unique, bringing unique thoughts and abilities, unique perspective and educational background, leads us not only to realize the full value of our own part in the greater whole (no man is "just another brick in the wall") but to treasure the contributions of others because they are so different than our own, and bringing something to the whole that we can't.
posted by micha @ 6/15/2005 11:54:00 PM
