Numbers - 3002-3242 - Mattoth - 3301-3613 Massey- Cycle 2

What does it mean to be a Jew? Is it enough to go to temple on Shabbat? Or …maybe just Yom Kippur? What about if we hate the Palestinians? Does that make us Jewish? What if we have a Jewish mother? If we belong to a congregation? If we had a bar or a bat mitzvah? If we were circumsized? Now, there’s the covenant. But oh…don’t the Muslims get circumcised as well? And what about women? I know. What if we don’t accept Jesus Christ as the son of God? Process of elimination. If we’re not Christian, we’re Jewish. Maybe if we can name relatives in New York. Or tell a few stories from Torah, quote well respected rabbis. Maybe we are super‐Jewish if we are rabbis. Maybe super Jews debate mishnah for years and centuries and/or join committees and do fundraisers. Do we have to be alive to be Jewish? Do we have to attach ourselves to the right abstractions, to the right causes, to the right colleges?

In Mattot it is clear. A Jew might take part in the above. But we are not defined by any of it.

A Jew, in body, is defined by the vow to God and the offering up. A Jew rises (kom) to the vow made. A Jew therefore is beyond body and is the action of offering. And though the word ki (30:3) can be translated as if…it can also mean because. No one is let off the hook here. We are Jews because we make vows and because they push us to rise beyond our earthly excuses and self imposed limitations. And as we witness our vows we become the experience itself.

So, how do we make a vow? Journey by journey. Camp after camp. Read Massay and you can feel it. We can begin by opening to the intricate webs of divine connection. Somewhere in our genes we have prayed to the sparks in the trees, the grass, the wind. We have danced with gods and goddesses of rivers and oceans, spun filaments of spirits betoch (in the midst of) hearts, webs that bring us to primal fear and ecstasy, reflections of the one whole, the thunder that flows through us. All vows are born in one moment (now) no matter the words, no matter the abstractions we repeat over and over again. They push out from whispers of great yearning pounded into the armor of time. They slip beyond emotions that might attempt to slow us down. This is not idol worship. Repeat. This is not idol worship. This is the inhale and exhale of our breath reaching for the Shechinah. These are the clusters of vibrations coming to oneness…and the clusters of bodies, the levels of tribes, of officers, of stops along the way, of heart light pulsing in and out…beyond the veil of life and death.

And as we change, merge, connect and disconnect, as the feminine and earthly in us bleed, swell and remerge, the vows must continue. They must rise into the funnel of the constant and celestial, purify themselves within the fence of self restraint (Rabbi Akiba). We only want to offer up the most sacred of ourselves. The impurities get burned away (31:25). We offer up more. The impurities get burned away. We thin the offerings to the purest core. We heighten the balance, God to man and man to God.

But how do we satisfy vows to man? How…with those who don’t share our experience? Isn’t God in man, even in those who cannot be our witnesses? Even in Balam and Balak? How do we make the vows and rise up to them, Israelite to Moabite? Jew to Palestinian?

What I find so interesting is that the verses describing our attack on the Moabites(31:2‐19) begin with the word nikom (vengeance, enemy) The root word is the same as that for rising up (kom). Vengeance on earth is in direct relation to our offerings. Therefore, vengeance is not about killing. It is an act of balance. Our one vow to God forces us to open our eyes to the fact that any aggression in Torah is a way to express the obliteration of the yetzer harah. It is not about war. So then how do we rise to our vows, Jew to Palestinian? We let our self‐offering to God be in the forefront, be the force that moves our hands and guides our tongues and creates the funnel of our vision. We see that in order to march forward with light we do not kill the man who is evil. We kill the evil within the man and within ourselves. We place down our swords. We cherish the light saved and offer a portion to the priest as a terumah, as an elevated gift.

And what about Jew to Jew? Here, there is inherent balance. The objective is to manifest it. Gad and Reuben want to stay in Ya’azer and Gilead because of their livestock (32:1). The request is practical. The problem has to do with the expansion of the Israelites as they head for the Promised Land. The issue is quickly resolved. Gad and Reuben can remain if they send forces to help their people on the march towards Messianic Consciousness. The inherent balance can be seen in lines 32:29 and 32:30. The second perfectly balances the first; negative to positive. Here, as above, God is in all men.

So what is a Jew? Can a Jew be a Christian? Yes. Can a Jew be a non kosher non temple member non blood–born non Hebrew speaking non bar mitzvah? Can a Jew be someone who does not define him or herself by the Holocaust, by Zionism, by the cultural music and food?

A Jew is anyone who reaches for divine consciousness by being the offering. Of course, this process is magnified if one guards oneself from specs of darkness, if one studies Torah, if one prays and opens one’s heart to the mysticism of each Hebrew letter, if one helps others. This process is magnified if we remember past and future journeys, mark the stops on our one journey, dive into the continuum as we write the rules, as we keep the vows, as we create our leaders, as we witness, as we drink water or suffer from drought…as we get moving down Mt Sinai. This process is magnified if we remember that the matot are tribes of human souls and more, filament after filament, growing, merging, flowering like on the mateh (the staff) in Korach. The process is magnified in the pauses…that sacred Shabbat…that rest our heads and hearts. Look at the vow of Jacob (Genesis 32:10), of Hannah (Samuel I, 1:11). Look at our vows. It is within us all to build a high place and then…in the fulfillment…to sacrifice on that high place (Rabbi Nathan).

So may we each, deep inside, reflect the matot, the tribes… and the millions of faces of God. May we uphold the vow to create the vows and may we be the fulfillment. May we offer our inner light to the divine and bless others so we may have the strength to remain on the continuum of radiance. May we understand that there isn’t any free ticket to being Jewish and that the grasping of flat ideals and words in the holy name of God only causes flat, violent, officious and heartless actions, And if others intentionally or not cause an imbalance may we work to manifest the balance. And may we do this through forgiveness, compassion, kindness and the honoring of each other. May we cling to the purity of our vow. And may the love of God inhale and exhale through our hearts.