Numbers Cycle 7 Mattoth

Mattoth 

Please note: There is nothing here that is mine alone. Everything you read (except for current events) is from rabbinic teachers, from scholars and modern rabbis like Heschel, Levinas and Kook. Contact me if you need exact sources.

Yesterday, a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over the Ukraine. At the same time Israeli troops were marching into Gaza. And the whole world marched on or (shall we say) tiptoed closer and closer to Tisha b’Av.

I really don’t think this is a time for tiptoeing anymore though. The era of tiptoeing has passed on. This has been a grieving truth for many. Now we are in an era of action.  Now, may our tears lead us to a very real and physical transformation. This is what Mattot is about, tears, vows, decision making and hard and fast transformation.

Because, you see as we drive to our country clubs or to our offices or to our temples to pray and contemplate, as we get into our construction hard hats or our hip hop dance outfits…as we beg on the streets for a dollar or as we beg the mortgage company to wait one more month…as we continue with our day to day life with all its bothersome and joyous facts… there's one thing we have all been shocked into realizing:

 It is no longer possible for two countries to wage a separate war.

 Or let me re-frame that: It is no longer possible without getting everyone else in the world hatefully anxiously grievously entangled. It is no longer possible without getting everyone from the child in Calcutta to the director in Hollywood…. implicitly, intimately, and physically involved. This is more than economic. This is tangible. Gone are the days of personal and distinct freedom. Gone are the words: This is your war. Gone are the jokes about pretending to dig a hole in the sand to get through the earth and to come out at China. China is right here. The Ukraine is right here. Israel is right here.  Let me announce this as loud as a vow if you didn’t hear the thunder of that plane crash in your heart:

 Today's global connection goes beyond our wallets. Today's global connection is now and forever in our bones.

 How has this happened? How have we done this?

We all know the answer: technology. We have transformed ourselves through the fire of our technology without realizing the exponential spectrum of the consequences. Or maybe we did realize it. These consequences can be amazing or horrific. They are there though. The consequences are louder than the crash. They are the child with AIDs in Africa who won’t be cured and therefore won’t get the scholarship to study teaching and won’t help the next child or the next. They are the lovers on their way to Bali who won’t give birth to the poet who might have influenced the next president of the United States. They are the nun in Australia who won’t be able to support the girl set on serving God and feeding thousands of the starving. This slaughter of innocent people reaches its claw-like nails into millions. 

In Torah this week the Midianites are killed.  Then, we are ordered to cleanse everything in contact with the dead. I jump to say that this cleansing includes ourselves. I somewhat agree with Nachmanides in that the cleansing shows us how to perform kashrut. I believe though that the cleansing is so juxtaposed to the killing that it's about the kashrut of ourselves...our very bodies.. on a deeper level.  This is how we are ordered to carry out this cleansing:

All things that came from fire must be passed through fire and purified as well as sprinkled with the water of purification (Numbers 21:23). 

 So, let's focus back on the Malaysian jet 17, the Gaza, the violence in Israel since 1948. We don’t have a choice. Our world has been shaped by the fire of technology. Now we must be brave and move through that same fire for purification, and transformation.

How do we do this? Oh our very God knows. We use technology for love. We use our planes to drop food. We send a virus of kindness through the tiny ephemeral molecular voices of our computer. We act. We take responsibility. We learn and plan our vacation in places that need our help or get out of our houses and lobby in Washington. Nothing is too big to take on anymore. Everything is small and within reach. We do more than simply breathe. We go that extra mile. We give the dollar to the beggar. We call our Senator. We adopt a child. We kiss a child. We laugh. We step forward.  We protect our inheritance…our countries, our homes, our children…. and also act for our people…the people of the world…that is, if we ever want to really move with any surety and speed. We’ve been trying to tiptoe in God’s ways.  But God doesn’t tiptoe.

Only Death tiptoes, knowingly and mockingly, reaching for our shocked cold souls in its tenderizing embrace.

 God walks.  And there on the horizon in the radiant blue and tongue of the flame we can see Him. It’s all right. We don't need to be scared.  This is a New Era.  God is with us. He is waiting for us to walk…yes walk…through that fire to the amazing ecstasy and life of his mitzvoth and his Holiness.