Lech Lecha/Why Circumcise

Such a tardy poster, am I. Even this is a couple weeks old, but I figure better late than never since I have had a lot of requests for it. Comments welcome.

A friend’s father was born in the Ukraine in the nineteen-forties. After his birth, a mohel traveled over a hundred war torn miles, primarily on foot, to perform his brit milah. When his son was born in the nineteen-seventies, the Soviet regime prohibited circumcision, like the Greeks, Romans, Spaniards and Nazis before them. When the family arrived in the United States during the first big wave of Soviet Jewish emigration, the first thing they did, before finding work or a place to settle, was ensure that their three year old son was circumcised and entered into the brit.

At a bris I recently attended someone was enquiring why we, as modern and enlightened Jews, continue the seemingly antiquated body modification ritual of circumcision. After all the requisite jokes and innuendos, as well as citing virtues both medical and aesthetic, consensus was reached that we undoubtedly should continue, yet the general reasoning offered was intellectually unsatisfying. Reason aside, the suggestion of overturning the rite of circumcision struck me on a visceral level; this wasn’t a public admission of working on Saturday or a taste for Prosciutto, this was anarchy.

Many educated Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries contended that circumcision was a vestige of clannishness that isolated us from enlightened society, so this person was far from the first Jew in history to question the validity of this act. Personally, I was used to fielding questions regarding the barbarity of circumcision from non-Jews. Since answering, “Because God told us to,” does not hold much weight in a secular argument, I typically reverted to touting the medical benefits, with the World Health Organization now in my corner, as well as religious freedom of expression. Arguing the point of circumcision is sanitation or a reduction in sexually transmitted diseases is like claiming the origin of kashrut is a precautionary measure against trichinosis and bad oysters. It may be a fortuitous side-affect that makes us say, “See how smart and prescient we are!” but it certainly misses the point. If we are not backed up by the central idea of the Torah, that God and Jews are connected through a covenantal relationship, our cultural markers, both real and imagined, will fizzle out completely in a few generations. Circumcision is about the covenant between us and God and, without honoring our side of the bargain, there is no covenant. Without a covenant, no Jews.

Throughout our history, circumcision has been a mark of the Jewish will to survive, its discontinuation a signal of assimilation. During the Babylonian exile, circumcision, Shabbat and Passover became the central rituals of Judaism as you can observe these in the home, without a Temple, without a high priest, heck, without even a rabbi. Unlike Shabbat, circumcision is not an innovation of Judaism. It was prevalent in the ancient Near East and performed by the majority of neighboring tribes, excluding the Philistines. It is still practiced by diverse cultures throughout the world. Muslims do it, Coptic Christians do it, even some Pacific Islanders and isolated Aborigines do it. There are three central anthropological approaches to the rite of circumcision: predominantly, as a sexual male rite of passage from childhood into adulthood; second, for those with a psychoanalytical bent, as an expression of the fear of castration; or, in our case, as a rite of child initiation, the initial male experience which a newborn undergoes. Shifting the practice away from adolescence – the predominant practice in Abraham’s time – and into infancy reposits the emphasis from sexual to spiritual.

Judaism does not neglect ascribing sexual meaning to act of circumcision. In his Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides states that one of the goals of circumcision is to limit sexual intercourse, to weaken the organ as far as possible and thus cause man to be moderate. What’s a plus for Maimonides is a minus for those with different priorities. I had an acting teacher, not Jewish, who was still harboring resentment against his parents forty-some years later for circumcising him and potentially reducing his coital pleasure. Scientific research supports both sides of the debate, with most stating little or no effect on enjoyment. Having read my share of Philip Roth, I am really not too concerned about the satisfaction or the sexual repleteness of the Jewish male.

Circumcision functions to perfect man’s moral shortcomings not, as Maimonides suggests, by physically counteracting excessive lust but by acting as a mnemonic device, a spiritual prophylactic. Like the mezuzah, tallit and tefillin, obeying one commandment functions as a synecdoche of all the miztvot. The rabbis assert that circumcision is a reminder of self-control at the very root of sin and tell a midrash of King David at the bathhouse, stripped of all religious accoutrements but guarded from sinning by the seal of God’s covenant in his flesh; circumcision as a last minute warning before leaping into sexual sin. Although Rashi claims that Joseph was on the verge of succumbing to Mrs. Potiphar until the image of Jacob appeared before him, I like to think the sign of the covenant was his buzz kill.

Sexual abandon implies abandonment of morals, not just inhibitions. Sexual urges unchecked, or played outside of the contained environment of a healthy relationship, produce loss of self-control. In a culture that rarely leaves anything to the imagination, the control symbolized by circumcision might feel overly restricting or unfairly limiting. Let’s face it, Judaism is all about control, regulating the divide between the sacred and the profane. Not ignoring the yatzer ha’ra – or we would have a celibate class – but channeling it purposefully. Sometimes we feel the fences may be too high or, in the case of the fundamentalist strains of our religion, lack adequate ingress and egress or fail to provide healthy ventilation, but they are there to create boundaries and order in the universe. The commandment to circumcise and the promise that the covenant will continue through Isaac’s progeny follows the blessing of Ishamael to be a wild ass of a man. The inheritors of God’s law are different, not wild, but tame and lawful. We are to evolve beyond our natural state and submit to a higher ideal than survival and base urges.

Circumcision is Abraham and his descendant’s role in the covenant that enables the promise of fertility, of continuation to this very day. The Hebrew term “orlah/foreskin” represents an obstacle to the proper functioning of an organ: Moses calls his stutter the foreskin on his lips, the Israelites in the desert are asked to remove the foreskin of their hearts, Jeremiah’s audience is unable to receive his prophetic message because of the foreskin on their ears. If circumcision and continuation are inextricably linked then, symbolically, the male foreskin is an impediment to God’s plan for us to be a nation apart, to be partners in God’s work. The act obtains its value not from the physical operation but the meaning and feeling behind it.

Other than diminished sexual pleasure, detractors argue for leaving the body how it is. Asked, “If circumcision is so beloved of God, why was the mark of circumcision not given to Adam at his creation?” Rabbi Judah responded, “Almost everything that was created during the six days of creation needs finishing – even man.” A Roman governor asked Rabbi Akiva why Jews are circumcised. He replied that the works of humans are more beautiful than those of God, and compared the respective beauty of loaves of bread to ears of grain, woven garments to stalks of flax. God gives us the raw materials, it is up to us to make something of them. We are partners with God in creation, entrusted with perfecting the world in which God created us. The world was created in seven days, on the eighth day we take over.

When God appears to Abraham in a vision and promises him the land he asks, “O Lord God, how shall I know I am to possess it?” God answers by requesting a series of sacrifices that mirror a royal land-grant treaty. In it, the sacrifices are cut in two – the first brit in this parsha. Cutting animals in Mesopotamian sources warned that the violator of the treaty would be sliced in half, as criminals were. More metaphorically, those who violate a promise are cut in two emotionally: the half that broke the promise and the half that wishes they never did. By not cutting in good faith, one is cut off from the covenant, the land and the people.

In the covenant with Noah God asks nothing of man. With Abraham going forth, humanity is now ready for a reciprocal partnership and God needs a piece of us to make the covenant manifest. It has to be something dramatic and permanent, but something we ultimately do not need to function properly and healthily. Unlike body modification rituals in other cultures, with tattooing on the lower end of the pain scale on a litany of initiation rites too gruesome even to mention, the emphasis is not on proving faith by withstanding pain. Religious debates and medical studies disagree as to the degree of pain felt by a newborn, pain is an unfortunate side-affect, not the central part of the experience. There is no Talmudic objection should parents wish for a local anesthetic, although it is usually not required as a mohel’s extensive training focuses on exactness, speed and minimizing pain. It is heartbreaking listening to cries during routine shots, yet most parents do not hesitate to vaccinate their children since the pain of a needle is much less than the pain of tuberculosis. If I ever have a son I am sure I will be a bloody wreck at his bris, despite anecdotal evidence of babies who barely peep. Like hundreds of generations before me, I will steel myself knowing this spiritual vaccination is the portal through which my child joins an everlasting covenant.

On the subject of children, the birth of Isaac, through whom God’s part in the pact manifests, is foretold in conjunction with the commandment for circumcision. Although Isaac himself has not yet appeared, let’s flash forward to the akedah. The ambiguity of Abraham’s struggle between religious faith and parental love is a topic for next week; today, I am going to propose that Abraham was testing God as much as God was testing him. In Lech Lecha, God promises to make him a mighty nation through this son, in Vayera God sets the ultimate trial because showing is stronger than telling. The outcome of the sacrifice of Isaac is the proof in the covenantal pudding that God is not going to exact an additional price in worship, other than the one to which both parties agreed. To a certain extent, Jewish circumcision replaces the cult of human sacrifice. When your son's foreskin is removed, you should be thanking God that this is all the sacrifice that is demanded.

I think part of what makes circumcision’s detractors vehement is the involvement of blood. Despite our culture’s predilection for violent entertainment and our willingness to go under the knife merely for cosmetic purposes, the notion that blood is the key element in a holy act is anathema to the modern age – it sounds a bit like voodoo. With all our technological and medical progress, we like to dismiss anything that taps into our primal nature as outmoded, a connection which we fancy we have outgrown, as if something primitive holds no truth, or that its truth is somehow embarrassing. An atheist can view blood from merely a scientific perspective, but for those who believe that there is more to life than the syntax of things know in their hearts that the blood in our veins does more than just carry around oxygen and nutrients and remove waste. For the poets and the pious, blood is the ultimate mystical substance and most religious systems acknowledge this. From the sacrifices and Temple purification rituals we no longer perform to family purity laws and not consuming animal blood that we still practice, these rites focus on blood, the essence of life. Even Christianity which, borrowing our bible, overturned all of these practices, recognized the crucial mystical power of blood rituals and placed the Eucharist and the blood of Christ at the center of their faith. The metaphysical importance of blood is summed up simply by Joss Whedon, “It has always got to be blood. Blood is life. It’s what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you not dead.” Blood brothers, blood oath, signing in blood – these put your heart where your mouth is, open your soul, and seal an unbreakable deal.

A final objection brought up by the provocateur behind this drash was that the exclusion of women was another indication of circumcision’s obsoleteness and, with this, the topic of female circumcision was broached. Frankly, I find the lack of female circumcision in Judaism an expression of divine kindness rather than exclusion. Unlike the male counterpart which, as surgical procedures go, is quite minor and definitely outpatient, female circumcision is excruciating, without any medical benefits and destroys sexual pleasure.

I am sure patriarchy has something to do with this omission, though perhaps not inasmuch that women do not count but in the sense that women do not require a visible sign of the covenant, whether because of the old chestnut that we are closer to God or, staying in the home, we are not in a position necessary to prove it to outsiders. The tangential inclusion via God blessing Sarah so that she shall give rise to nations implies that women enter a covenant through childbirth – a far more bloody affair than circumcision. This would exclude women unable or uninterested in having children and, although childbirth was one of the most spiritual and certainly the most primal experience I have undergone, I can not subscribe to the idea of women as vessels who are only fulfilled and tied to God through their reproductive capacity.

For those who find matrilineal descent or that we all stood at Sinai is not enough, or find the notion that women were keepers of hearth and home anachronistic or offensive, I think creating equality by doing away with male circumcision is not the answer, but rather creating a meaningful ritual that emulates the power, mystery and sentiment of the brit milah, the ultimate expression of our faith in God. When our daughter was born, it was of paramount importance that we held a brit bat for her – not just a naming or a simchat bat, since our joy was not a substitute for entering our child into a covenant, for committing her to the faith of Sarah and Abraham and into a relationship with God.

Mishpatim 007

The Torah related mischief I was up to last week:

In the interest of full disclosure, I spoke on Mishpatim a couple years ago. When Paul told me last week he had a cancellation I had a difficult time refusing him since, when I had his job, he was my get out of jail free speaker and I owe him big time. I will admit that I considered giving the same talk verbatim; probably 75% of you weren’t here that day and the remaining quarter have either completely forgotten it or were in a Kiddush club induced haze at the time. Although two years is a millisecond compared to the eternity of the Torah, I continue to change and, one can only hope, evolve. Major lifecycle events are obvious catalysts for personal change. But time’s arrow works in more subtle ways, as small things – books, movies, conversations, epiphanies during sleepless nights – also have great affect.

Sometimes one of these ideas or incidents gets stuck on shuffle repeat in my mind. As I mentioned last time around, once Moses ascends Mt. Sinai the Torah undergoes a major genre switch, like changing the channel from HBO to CSPAN. So, do not worry, I plan on addressing the dry legal stuff, but first allow me to wax anecdotal.

I live in, officially, the most diverse ZIP code in the United States. (Obviously, outside the eruv.) Sure, a big factor in our move was that we wanted a relatively affordable house with a yard in a lakefront neighborhood, but we also value heterogeneity. I want my kids playing with children from diverse backgrounds. This does not detract from our Jewish identity, but enhances it. As a diaspora people, the local flavors and philosophies absorbed throughout history meld with our values to create our rich cultural Jewish heritage. Living in an insular community does not make the world a smaller place, it just narrows our view of it.

The downside to living in East Rogers is that it is a shlep to my very few friends who stay home with their children and, although I have not been called shy since I was ten, I typically am not one to initiate friendships, call me old-fashioned, but I need someone else to make the first move. I had heard the myth of the neighborhood park as watering hole and my husband, no doubt feeling I was in need of some socialization last summer, frequently suggested that I go to the park and meet some other stay-at-home moms.

One afternoon, as the barrage of missiles on Northern Israel was winding down, we went over to Pottawatomie Park, a block from our house, to play and meet Daddy after work. I was pushing Yelena on a swing and a tall woman wearing a headscarf was pushing a cute little girl in a lavender dress a couple swings down. She was friendly and spoke to me, typical maternal chitchat. She asked my daughter’s name and, when I asked her in return, she told me, “Maryam. It’s Arabic for Miriam.” I almost said, “I know. My Hebrew name’s Miriam,” but I stopped myself and just smiled. Although we continued to talk, I froze.

I had known immediately from her hijab that she was Arabic. I dance to Arabic music and I have Arab and Muslim friends – friendships which do not contradict my commitment to Israel, thank you very much – admittedly, both my friends and the dance form are pretty secular. In the park, I was wearing an ancient concert t-shirt, basketball shorts and sandals. Compared to Britney Spears or some of the bat mitzvah girls, I was dressed rather modestly. Practicing tzniut, I was certainly not. Yet this woman in a headscarf was willing to overlook that and initiate conversation, which was more than any of the frum women at Indian Boundary Park ever did. Here we were, two first time mothers waiting for our husbands to come home from work, probably both a little lonely and hungry for adult contact. She was friendly and articulate. If she had been, say, Asian or African-American I doubt I would have refused her overtures. I could justify my reticence by the politically charged times and my desire not to get into it, but if it were that simple I would not still reflect on it. Was I upset that I, never one for self-censoring, hesitated from outing myself as a Jew? Warmer, but what I think still bothers me about my behavior was my assumption regarding how she would react She stepped outside her cultural boundaries in search of a universal connection whereas I simply shut down.

The mishpatim of this parsha are not theoretical legislation, externally imposed from outside the narrative, they are an integral part of the story of the Jewish people. The Exodus was not just the escape from the arbitrary and unjust institution of slavery, but the constant exodus into a righteous way of life. The litany of laws, the sefer ha’brit, do not merely delineate parameters for a just and equitable society, to avoid and resolve sticky situations. We follow these rules to become holier.

Interspersed among legislation regarding slavery, lest the Israelites repeat the mistakes of their Egyptian captors, and criminal and civil law, there is a subset of laws describing how to treat marginalized members of society: the widow and orphan, the stranger, and one’s personal enemy. All the laws in Mishpatim deal with how we are to conduct ourselves in order not to be bad, but these rules offer specific instructions in how to be good. Some mitzot are the bare minimum, following them diligently is a bit like being a B student, you care enough to do the work but are not willing to put forth extra effort. Some commandments are straightforward: don’t eat pig, don’t plow the corners of your field, don’t gather wood on Shabbat. Other commandments are abstract and require improvisation.

The most comprehensible of these four laws is the injunction not to abuse a widow or orphan. Orphans, and widows back in the unfortunate days when women were not socially independent, are alone in the world and lack status and power. Outside the umbrella of a family unit, they are unprotected and defenseless. They may appear to have no one to notice or avenge their maltreatment, but God assures us that although the orphan and the widow may be without the protection of man they are under the protection of God. In wronging them one wrongs God as well. Mistreating someone vulnerable, like a child or the sick, is vile and inexcusable. Yet it is not sufficient to refrain from abusing the widow and the orphan, one must actively help them. Abravanel states that whoever sees a person afflicted and does not help them is accounted an afflictor, those who have the power to protest or take action and do not are an accessory to a crime.

Unless you are completely heartless, the orphan and the widow are inherently sympathetic characters. But what about those with whom we do not naturally empathize, people we simply do not like or those who are strange to us? Rabbi Elezer the Great points out that thirty-six times the Torah directs us in the treatment of the stranger. This mitzvot is phrased both positively and negatively, addressing the message to the optimist and pessimist alike. Thirty-six times is more than any other mitzvot, including all the laws on kashrut. Yet how much more do many Jews obsess over hecshures than consider the welfare of the stranger? Now, I am not advocating eating traffe, I am suggesting that we are more inclined to follow these commandments because they are explicit. Putting ourselves in the position of the stranger, walking the proverbial mile in another’s moccasins, requires personal adjustment, a lot more demanding mentally and emotionally than minding a checklist of what not to eat.

These commandments remind us that the Israelites’ experience of slavery forms the core of our moral obligations to other people, Jews and non-Jews alike. We were strangers in the land of Egypt and we know the feelings of the stranger. Jews have all too often felt the pain of being far from home and having no champion. Nachama Leibowtiz suggests that the Torah reiterates this commandment so often to prevent us from acting out on any feelings of humiliation over our bondage and exile, thus mistreating others because we have been mistreated. As former slaves we must empathize with those who are now in a tight place, rather than feel claustrophobia and shame in identification with them. God redeemed us from slavery and we learn holiness from God’s example; we have responsibility toward all victims.

This mitzvot is also a preventative measure against xenophobia and prejudice. Many commentators employ this directive to ensure fair conduct toward converts. In a lawsuit between a convert and a born Israelite, one is not to assume wrong on account of idolatrous origins. The Talmud states that, “Should a proselyte come to study Torah do not say to him, ‘The mouth that has consumed forbidden meats… has the audacity to study Torah given from the mouth of the Almighty.’” Converts to Judaism are likened to newborn children, at conversion their souls are renewed as perfect. Reading the Torah and prophetic writings, we see that the Israelites have participated in their fair share of idol worship as well, but God does not hold that perpetually against them.

Through showing compassion to those who are displaced on any scale we merit the compassion of God. How Jews treat the stranger has far reaching implications, from the personal to the political, from the smallest gesture to public policy. This mitzvah goes further and encourages us to reserve judgment on things that we find unfamiliar, not just people, but ideas or experiences we find strange or threatening. We are to give the benefit of the doubt, to imaginatively put ourselves in the position of others. As long as we do not violate other mitzvot, we can follow this most frequently repeated commandment and keep an open mind.

It is difficult to keep an open mind toward someone who has wronged you or with whom you do not see eye to eye. Inserted in the middle of the section dealing with the proper administration of justice are two incongruous mitzvot that spell out how to behave toward one’s enemy. Just as we are prohibited from perverting justice for the needy, Cassuto implores us not to pervert justice against one’s enemy. As with the orphan and the stranger, avoiding evil alone is not enough; doing good demands we lend an enemy a helping hand. These mitzvot direct a person to return an enemy’s animal that has gone astray and, if the animal of an enemy is struggling under its burden, to help release it. On one level, these laws ensure that an animal, an innocent party, does not suffer for the wrongs of its owner. Back in my days of apartment dwelling, my horrid downstairs neighbors played the crappiest garage music late at night, but when their locked-out cat showed up at our doorstep mewing, I still returned him to his owners.

On a higher level, these mitzvot have the potential to initiate a transformation in behavior. Sometimes the smallest gesture triggers a change of heart. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out that the Aramaic translation of “you shall surely release his burden” is “you shall let go of the hate you have in your heart toward him.” The physical act of releasing the beast’s burden leads to the psychological act of letting go the burden of animosity. Temporarily uniting in a common purpose with someone you dislike shows there is potential for cooperation on other issues and a chance at reconciliation, like Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe in L.A. Confidential.

As the proverb goes, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread, if thirsty, give him water to drink.” These two commandments acknowledge the difficulty of “not hating your brother in your heart,” but give direction in how to overcome a grudge and open one’s mind. Jews do not have two codes of behavior: one for our friend and one for our enemy; one for the Jew and one for the stranger. Ethical behavior is the application of consistent standards to all equally and equitably.

I wish I had a satisfying resolution to my story, that Yelena and Maryam stack blocks together in an idyllic vision of the daughters of Isaac and Ishmael, while their mothers sip tea – perhaps peaceably debating centuries of contention or politely avoiding the subject altogether. I have seen Maryam and her mother at a distance a few times since then and have always felt a twinge of something, maybe regret, a multi-layered regret conflating so many personal and political emotions. I guess the true test of my following these mitzvot is what I do if Yelena and Maryam ever find themselves sitting next to each other on the swings.

Vayera

I spend a lot of time thinking about parenting. I imagine you do, too. Even if you don’t have children of your own we all have parents. Whether they met or fell short of our emotional and spiritual needs, they packed our emotional baggage and programmed the patterns that dictate how we live and love. Some of us are luckier than others but, like Tolstoy, I am not so interested in the happy fortunate few because they do not appear in today’s parsha.

Commentaries on Vayera often focus on the charms of hospitality, obedience to God and those terribly naughty people who are not us, rather than examine the dysfunctional dynamics of families who might be us. These stories are sugar-coated when taught in Hebrew school because they are pretty scary in a Grimm fairy tale kind of way: replete with violence, adult situations and explicit sexual material they plunge the deep waters underneath the family romance. There’s a Philip Larkin poem, which I cannot quote fully here due to its use of a particular epithet, about how mum and dad mess you up. The verse continues, “They may not mean to but they do/They fill you with the faults they had/And add some extra just for you.” Throughout this parsha there is a disconnect between parents and children, husbands and wives. Parental mishigos runs the gamut – they love too much and they love too little, they are unable to see when those nearest and dearest need their outstretched hand.

After Abraham haggles with God, it is determined that Lot and his family are the only decent people in all of Sodom and Gomorrah. If Lot is the guy worth saving, is it any wonder the whole place is burned by sulfurous fire? In a previous episode, Lot abandoned Abraham’s westward spiritual journey to go east, to the fertile plains, and chooses to settle in Sodom. The Zohar claims this land was well-watered everywhere and possessed all the luxuries of the world, yet its inhabitants were unwilling to share them with others. Even if he maintains a shadow of his uncle’s righteousness, Lot becomes spoiled by the easy life. Along with its pride and refusal to strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, Ezekiel claims that the iniquity of Sodom lay in its fullness of bread and abundance of idleness. This is the curse of over-privileged children: with everything handed to them, they never learn how to work; never having to struggle, they can neither grasp the difference between right and wrong nor develop a sense of compassion, the ability to see through another’s eyes.

Lot is lacking in regard, the ability to see and understand what really matters. Throughout millennia, Jews have suffered the fate of Lot, having to pick up and go, leaving behind homes, luxuries and livelihoods. It is our regard for family and God that has sustained us through this long history of exile, carrying within us what matters most. Lot is blind to this, even after being nearly trampled by his neighbors, he dilly-dallies until a divine messenger takes him by the hand and tugs him away.

Lot’s lack of regard is illustrated by two graphic incidents involving his youngest daughters: his voluntary offering of them to pacify the depraved townspeople and their incestuous acts with him following the calcification of their mother. As a woman and a mother, I am totally repulsed by the multitude of commentators who consider prostituting his daughters in lieu of his guests as good hospitality. Yes, offering strangers a safe house is the right thing to do and Miss Manners certainly frowns on handing the company over to a rapacious mob, but Lot seriously bastardizes the concept of women and children first. Even in a culture that undervalues women it is the natural order to put one’s own life on the line to protect one’s family, in fact, it is the primal role of the male in a patriarchal society. What use is a male lion that does not protect his pride from predators? Yet, unprompted, Lot immediately offers to exchange his daughters, treating them as a commodity to barter. He does not even attempt to negotiate or dissuade the Sodomites, let alone try to hide his guests, defend his homestead á la John Wayne or, the mark of an truly exemplary host, offer himself up instead.

Abraham makes a similar selfish blunder twice. Sojourning in foreign lands, he omits his marital status and reports that Sarah is his sister in order to avoid possible endangerment to himself. With Pharaoh, Abraham offers no excuse for putting Sarah in a position that might compromise her fidelity and safety or question the paternity of any future offspring. When Avimelech indignantly cries, “You have done to me things that ought not to be done. What was your purpose in doing this?” Abraham tries to vindicate his error by claiming, “I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place.” He blames his behavior on the place in which he finds himself, justifying his lack of consideration for a loved one on circumstance, as if love and morality were conditional. Many commentators try to clear our patriarch of lying, pulling a Chinatown defense that she sort of is his sister, but Ramban states that Abraham sinned, his actions were unequivocally wrong.

We will never know if Abraham’s potential sacrifice of Sarah’s virtue had any repercussions on their relationship, although I wonder when Sarah says that God has brought her laughter that her life alone with Abraham was devoid of laughter, her lack not simply barrenness but something else missing. The Torah is explicit regarding the detrimental effects of Lot’s action on his daughters. A new bathroom book recently made its way into our house: How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career. I couldn’t help but think of Lot while reading the advice on family, “Ignore your kids. Specifically, dads, ignore your daughters. Nothing will ruin your life like surfing online one day and coming across a gonzo movie starring your little girl. Preparing for that moment, however, takes a lifetime of inattention. It’s best if you stay emotionally distant and start the verbal abuse at a very early age.”

Lot’s lifetime of inattention comes home to roost after he heads to the hills, to mix metaphors, where his daughters violate the ultimate taboo. Although they claim “there is not a man on earth to consort with us,” they did have a layover in Zoar. Later sources report that all the towns of the plain were destroyed and therefore their aim was true. Bereshit Rabbah even alleges that God left the wine in the cave as a divine endorsement of the daughters’ seduction. If God supported this violation of the Noahide laws, then I imagine God would have attached a note to the wine, “By the way, you aren’t the last people on earth. Skip that whole incest thing.” Regardless of what they naively believe, the daughters have a twisted and incomplete sense of morality. They know enough that they must get their father drunk, not that they ought not have sex with him. But I do doubt these stunted women had the power to make a grown man drink wine. At some point, a father should know when to say no. Although Lot does not remember when they lay down or when they rose, he got blindingly drunk two nights in a row. I am reminded of the commercial, “I learned it from watching you.”

Then there is Lot’s wife. The Talmud instructs any who see her to give praise and thanks. Is this because she is a monument to the miracles that God performs, or a memorial that a wicked place that is no more? Viewing her metamorphosis as a mere punishment, a sign that in looking back Lot’s wife shared the sins of Sodom, is an oversimplification implying that she was all bad. The Sanhedrin declared that the people of Sodom do not have a portion in world to come. Targun Yerushalmi states that Lot’s wife will remain a pillar of salt until the time the dead are brought back to life. Although she does not escape she is exempt from the decree of eternal damnation.

Attributing her backwards glance to her willingness to leave physically but not spiritually ignores that she left behind two daughters. I imagine Lot’s wife looks back not longing for hedonism but longing to see her other children behind her, escaping their doom. Perhaps she wonders if she had been a better parent would they have heeded the call to flee. There is the possibility that she chooses her destiny, unable to live with the knowledge that she failed her children. She cannot bear the thought that she won’t see them again or – like Orpheus glancing back at Eurydice – that they might think she no longer loves them in their fallen condition. Witnessing divine destruction is bound to have a transformative effect and, as we know from our Ovid, we transform into our essence – in this case, a preservative. A mother’s role is to care for her family and preserve traditions. Now she will forever be a guidepost reminding others to mind their children, to look forward to their futures as well as to the past. She is eternally stuck until the olam haba as a memorial to her ineffective love.

Hagar also loves ineffectively. Full of pride, she is unable to think of a way out of her predicaments, to stop her blubbering and grow up. She is boastful when pregnant and responds to harshness by running away, like a child rather than one with child. Cast out into the wilderness with Ishmael, she runs out of the supplies with which she was provided and is unable to clear her head enough to forage although water is right in front of her. Fatalistic, she lacks the maternal strengths of resourcefulness and maintaining clarity in life-threatening situations. She is unable to see the well for her tears. Until God literally makes her open her eyes, Hagar would allow herself and her child to die rather than take him by the hand and make her hand strong in his.

Sarah does provide a strong hand and a keen eye in her son’s life and destiny, pushing potential rivalry off the scene. Sarah conceived Ishmael’s conception, but the bond between them is more fairy tale step-parent than surrogate mother. Ishmael is a constant reminder of the sexual past between her husband and another woman. Even if it’s a thing of the past, as long as he is around Abraham has a connection to his baby momma. Sarah’s protective instincts are further aroused when she sees Ishmael and Isaac playing together. Rashi suggests this play had a sexual element to it whereas others believe that Ishmael was just a big bully and not a suitable playmate for Isaac. Another reading is that Ishmael was playing at being Isaac, acting as Abraham’s rightful heir. Even in make believe Sarah will not let this happen.

Sarah is the crucial player in the continuance of the covenant. Even if Abraham has parental feelings for Ishmael, God is clear that it is through Sarah that the promise of numerous offspring and everlasting covenant shall continue. God has a radical feminist moment: women are not interchangeable vessels. Maternity is as important as paternity.

On topics maternal, there is a midrashic tradition fixated on Sarah’s breasts. To prove that Isaac is not some foundling Abraham and Sarah are passing off as their own, or to share God given bounty, Sarah nurses all the noblewomen’s babies at Isaac’s weaning feast with, and I quote, “milk pouring out like two jets of water.” In The Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison describes mother’s milk as a thread of light. Here, too, milk is not just nutrition but an outpouring of love. After waiting nearly a century, Sarah is overflowing with laughter and with milk, is it any wonder she is overzealous in protecting her son? Someone has to be, since Abraham is not.

Isaac is the archetype of the submissive son, living his life overshadowed by his father. A parent seeking to dominate his child is in danger of sacrificing him to parental hopes and plans. There is a Hasidic saying that if your son has a talent to be a baker, don’t ask him to be a doctor; we have seen Dead Poets Society, we know the ending for unbendingly plotting a child’s life. Isaac’s independence is crippled, partly by an overprotective mother but more by a father who values him only inasmuch as he is the fulfillment of God’s promise or a tool for doing God’s will.

Contrary to Rav Zimmerman, when God says to Abraham kill me a son, Abe does not say, “Man, you must be putting me on.” He impassively agrees. All the tractates and midrash, novels and songs have not reconciled me to this story, nor will they ever, as the akedah is purposefully ambiguous. The story, like Abraham’s hand, remains suspended. We will never know if Abraham would have gone through with it, whether his faith overruled his fatherly love, whether he trusted God would come through with the promise of making him a mighty nation through this son, whether he was testing God as much as God was testing him. I am a mother, not a prophet, so if I am to share an iota of Abraham’s faith and obedience I have to believe that God set this trial because showing is stronger than telling. Cue Leonard Cohen, “You who build these altars now/to sacrifice these children/you musn’t do this anymore.” Thus, the binding of Isaac was proof that God is a different kind of god, a moral god who would never exact a price in worship, other than looking out for those we love and accepting the guidance of God’s hand.

Bereshit

Here's the drash from Saturday. Stupid blogger doesn't cut and paste italics, so please ignore anything that should be italicized.

As a reward for coordinating the d’vrei Torah for the Rose Crown Minyan these past few years, I decided to take the plum parshat Bereshit for myself this time around. Too late, I realized that this kick-back is less like having first draft pick and more like directing Hamlet. Performing for an audience that arrives with preconceptions set in school or dozens of previous performances with which to compare, my Hamlet is pretty much fated to be mediocre at best. Plus, there is the question of what to cut, since a four hour drash would warrant the co-chairs stripping me of my duties. Unlike dazzling with mere competence in discussing the Titus Andronicus parsha of, say, Tazria, the stories in Bereshit form the firmament beneath our culture and our consciousness, underpinning not just Judaism but the foundations of Western culture as well. The Torah opens with a wide lens, an establishing shot encompassing all of humanity, before zooming in on the family romance of the people Israel. In this prehistory, the Torah is not concerned with individual characters so much as with the archetypes of mankind, the essential problems of being human.

When the world was created, God looked upon Creation and declared everything made in the previous six days very good. By the end of the parsha, God sees how great man’s wickedness has become and how every plan devised by man’s mind was all evil, all the time. The work of God was very good, yet the imaginings of man were very wicked: herein lies the paradox of being made in God’s image.

On the sixth day, God first makes the creatures of the earth and declares the feat jolly good. Later that day in a separate act of creation God continues on to make animals with really big heads and opposable thumbs. God does not say that this culminating creation is good. Creation as a whole is very good, humans in and of themselves are not. Of this omission, Ramban says that if man desires to take the good path and be righteous he is free to do so, if the evil one and be wicked he is free to do so. The Creator does not preordain man to be good or bad. We are singled out from the beasties beneath us with the good of our species placed in our own hands. In a drash way back I quoted the fundamental question, “Why do we have to have evil?” from the movie Time Bandits. The Supreme Being’s answer of, “Ah, I think it has something to do with free will,” bears repeating. With free will there comes responsibility and the opportunity to make our own good. Or our own evil.

Since my daughter was born in August I have spent a lot of time thinking about evil. Nursing a newborn, I made the startling discovery that book reading is an activity requiring one or both hands, hands now otherwise occupied. I would like to say that I spend this sedentary time pondering the nature of evil as I lovingly gaze upon my daughter’s innocent visage, like a Renaissance Madonna. Truthfully, evil is on my mind as I have taken Yelena’s frequent feedings as an opportunity to watch a lot Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I have consumed so much Buffy that my husband doubted this d’var Torah would get written.) Buffy does spend a considerable amount of time standing against vampires, demons and the forces of darkness, but the true appeal of the show lies not in watching Buffy kick the butt of the monster of the week, but in watching Buffy and the Scooby Gang choose between shades of gray and wrestle their yetzer ha-ra and yetzer ha-tov. It is a bit angst-ridden, but so is the business of our everyday, non-super hero lives.

We did not start out in this difficult place where tilling the soil of options was a way of life. A garden is self-contained, requiring minimal effort to maintain harmony and keep nature, human nature, at bay. In Eden there was only one true choice to make: whether to follow or disobey the sole injunction of God, to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. This tree, and the subsequent expulsion from the garden, bends under the weight of the allegorizing heaped upon it, but what interests me here is that tasting its fruit unlocks the garden gates so the essence of what it means to be human comes rushing in.

Christianity posits this fall from our initial God-given state of grace as the Original Sin, the act that brought evil into this world. But the fruit is not the portal that is also a key that let evil into the world, like Pandora’s box. It is the vehicle through which we can ascend to grace by our own merit. This knowledge may get in the way of easy living, yet it makes life worth living, saving the unexamined life for the olam haba. In creating humankind, God breathed the nishmat hayyim, the breath of life, into our nostrils, animating us and making us distinct from all other life on earth. By taking the fruit into our own mouths we complete God’s work in making us fully realized autonomous beings.

Eve and Adam’s action predates sin for, like a child younger than thirteen, how could they have committed evil before they knew what evil was? Refraining from snacking on the fruit of knowledge would have made Adam and Eve obedient and allowed them to live the life of leisure, but would it have made them good? Rabbinic tradition viewed the serpent as the evil inclination embodied, persuading Eve that resistance is futile, that to not eat from the tree would go against nature. I am going to side with the snake. Being made in God’s image we are compelled to eat the fruit, to make us more like our Maker. Once we disobey and the fruit of knowledge is tasted, God says “man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad.” Possessing moral discrimination we are one step closer to our likeness of God, even if it gets us expelled from the garden. Given the menu, we ordered from the tree of knowledge, chancing immorality, over the Edenic bliss promised by the tree of immortality.

This is the act that made us fully human, propelling our kind out of the garden of innocence into the increasingly rough terrain of knowledge and accountability. Knowing may not make life easier – take university-educated Hamlet agonizing over his place in this mortal coil – but knowing evil does not mean being evil. To know both good and evil implies a constant state of flux, of movement between two poles, a ceaseless deliberation. But knowing evil is not just having a point of contrast to good, like black stripes in a design making the whites look whiter.

The Talmud instructs us to hold the yetzer ha-ra off with the left hand and draw him nigh with the right, moral push and pull, a tug-of-war within ourselves implying that the yetzer ha-ra is an essential part of our being. A midrash asks, “Can the evil impulse be good?” answering that without this impulse no man would build a house, take a wife or beget children. When we initiate we imitate our Creator, and any innovation or act of creation requires an impetus. Sometime a spark may come from a less than pure motive, but it is how the action is governed by our conscience that determines morality. Pirkei Avot teaches that he who masters the urge to sin is strong; a penitent is certainly stronger, and wiser, than one who was never tempted in the first place. Buffy feels the pull of the dark and is attracted to it; not only is she a stronger slayer for her mastery of it but from the experience of understanding its temptations. There is more to this than simply you can’t have one without the other – it is like Saul Below wrote in the opening paragraph of The Adventures of Augie March, “There is no finesse or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing you hold down the adjoining.” Ignorance of evil is not bliss, it is not equivalent to good. Without knowledge of evil there can be no choosing good, no intentionality.

For the generation after Eden the temptation to evil is no longer external, incarnate in a serpent, but digested, internalized. Once our primogenitors yield to temptation and gain cognizance, they know enough to be very afraid. Their newfound knowledge of right and wrong makes them feel shamed, stripped naked before the God whose edict they violated. They want to flee, to hide from themselves. They feel remorse, recognizing the difference between the yetzer ha-ra and the yetzer ha-tov. Their eldest son does not.

Cain does not deliberate with his evil impulse, he does not let his desires marinate, so it devours him. Whereas his brother offers a sacrifice with a full heart, Cain only goes through the outward motions, he skims the surface of meaning. God offers Cain another chance, warning him that “sin couches at the door, its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” Cain has an opportunity to repent and mend his ways but, according to Rashi, Cain is not concerned with remedying what was certainly in his power to remedy. Rather than taking the time and effort to study and make up the test, Cain chooses to get angry, to bypass his knowledge of good and evil and proceed with his rank offense that, in the words of Shakespeare, “smells to heaven and hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, a brother’s murder.”

Cain refuses to account for his initial error of empty sacrifice, an offering echoing Claudius’ “Words without thoughts to heaven never go.” Rather than digging through his soul and nipping its poison in the bud, he allows his yetzer ha-ra to spread like a weed. He refuses to face the demon at the threshold, thus delivering himself to the demon’s desire. In his work entitled Good and Evil, Buber writes that the intensification of Cain’s indecision is a decision to evil. In the vortex of his indecision, Cain strikes out at the point of greatest provocation and least resistance, his brother.

Unlike Claudius who, faced with the mirror of his crime in The Mousetrap, wrangles with his conscience and debates repentance, the first murderer strikes out at God as well and disclaims responsibility by asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” a question that implies its answer. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai claims with this Cain says, “You are God. You have created man. It is your task to watch him, not mine.” Cain tries to pass the buck to an omniscient God, asking if God’s inquiry after Abel’s whereabouts is merely rhetorical, then why did God not step in and prevent this murder? Where is God in the hour of evil? By asking this question Cain acknowledges a moral authority, that there is someone to whom man must answer. God’s failure to answer this question probably has something to do with freewill.