Numbers Cycle Four Mattot 30:2 to 32:42

Mattot

In Mattot we are served a lengthy narrative on vows. The words used most often are bind, vow, establish, annul and silent. Men seem to be in control of women here. Then God orders an attack and all-out destruction of the Midianites led by Pinchas. Moses does not spare the women and (sexually mature) children. In anger, he insists that they are killed as well. The things taken…the booty… must be purified by fire if they can come through fire. This includes gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead and anything that can. Those seven things (including the esoteric unknown anything-that-can) then get purified by water. What can’t pass through fire must be purified by water alone (Numbers 31:2).

Once again (as we experienced in Pinchas) in order to learn and grow from this parsha…we need to pass through fire ourselves. We need to become the anything-that-can. Or let’s put it this way…we can either be like the hard metals that can survive the fire and then receive that absolute purification…or we can receive the second-best alternative. What does it take to be a metal passing through fire? Well certainly we want to be strong, flexible, durable, and solid. We want our molecules to be closely bound. We want to have the power to reflect.

We also need to look closely at fire itself. What we see in our mind might not be Torah-fire. In short, there are many vibrations, hues of red and gold, degrees of heat, behaviors of the sparks. Fire (in the Zohar) is the pillar of radiance that attaches us to God. The rabbis in Yoma 21b report on 6 types: There’s that which devours but does not lap up. There’s that which laps up but does not devour. There’s that which both devours and laps up. And there’s that which devours moist as well as dry matter. There’s the fire that pushes other fire away. And finally, there’s the fire that devours fire. Torah itself is referred to as black fire on white fire. If this is so, then the teachings of our sages (Talmud) can be seen as a fire born from within itself. Ezekiel himself compares Israel with the process of refining metals. The house of Israel has become dross unto Me. All of them…silver, bronze, tin, iron and lead have become dross. (Ezekiel 22:18).

To allow our human-selves to be able to pass through that radiance, that fever, that heat, that element that melts away our dross…to pass through all vibrations…certainly determines our ability to cling to Hashem and to be purified (Zohar). Are we silver? Are we tin, lead, gold? How much of our human dross has melted away on our journey? That’s what we need to ask ourselves. How might we rise out of our dross given our dangerous exhausting and exhilarating journey? How do we do this? In my opinion, on a very real level we work on our vessel, our boundaries, our self restraint, the words we speak. As Everett Fox says human words, not only divine words, were seen as having effects in the real world. Our words create the vessel of our reality and in that way, all words, at some level, help to create a vow, even if it’s one that seems quotidian and simple. The vow, in other words, if it is solid and kept, can strengthen us so that we can pass through all fire. During that passage, we become our vow.

Now, given the parsha, let’s raise ourselves up (like sparks) to the metaphor. One question is this. Is it really men who are controlling the women? Or, is the level and flow of the radiance (the masculine) determining the size and framework of the vessels (the feminine)? Is Moses really demanding that women and children be killed? Or is the highest human pulse from God creating a vessel that can keep darkness from continually re-birthing?

Like with the parsha Pinchas, it’s difficult creating a metaphor of people because we are people. It feels insensitive. But Torah- people are there for that reason…to be the metaphor…to drag us through the fire so we, the living breathing Torah scholars of today… can be purified and healed by these human symbols of joy/pain.

Of course, the one thing we need to watch out for is the other side of fire…that created by human sacrifice and Moloch. We get plenty of warnings about that in Leviticus. William Blake, the English poet, shows this duality in his poem Tigre Tigre. Tigre tigre burning bright in the forests of the night. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?

So, the vow walks a fine edge. And that’s why we need time on it. The fire we pass through with our vow can become an enclosed furnace like the one Abraham is thrown into. Or it can be that which can cause us to be pure but not stripped, protective but not vengeful, holy as God is holy.

How to apply this to today? Become the vow. See Torah as the fire we are stepping through. Watch as your dross melts away. See it. Know it is there and move beyond. Show compassion and kindness in your words. Create a world through words of love that become the vessel of your very body. Create a world of God. Know what you are. Say it. Keep the vow.