Category: basics

Mishpatim: Something to Notice

People of holiness shall you be to Me: you shall not eat flesh of an animal that was torn in the field [t’reifah]; to the dog shall you throw it. — Exodus/Shemot 22:30

The Hebrew “treif” — Yiddish, “trayf” — comes from the verb taraf (tav-reish-feh), “to prey, devour,” and came to mean, more generally, “unfit to eat” or unkosher.

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The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Mishpatim: A Path to Follow

This portion’s many rules/laws [mishpatim] are followed by powerful narrative (chapter 24) which includes the people’s famous utterance — “we will do and we will listen [or hearken/heed/obey]!” — and an episode in which a group of Israelites “beheld God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus/Shemot 24:3, 7, 11).

There is a great deal of commentary on “na’aseh v’nishma,” which is variously translated as “we will do and we will obey” (Stone*) or “we will do and we will hearken/listen,” (Fox*) or “we will do and we will heed” (Alter*). Some of the earliest can be found in Shabbat 88a-b in the Babylonian Talmud*:

R. Eleazar said: When the Israelites gave precedence to ‘we will do’ over “we will hearken,’ a Heavenly Voice went forth and exclaimed to them, Who revealed to My children this secret, which is employed by the Ministering Angels, as it is written, Bless the Lord, ye angels of his. Ye might in strength, that fulfill his word. That hearken unto the voice of his word [Ps. 103:20] first they fulfill and then they hearken?

Some other places to explore paths leading from this verse are: Schwartz’s Tree of Souls,* Reform Judaism magazine’s piece on “Healing the World,” R. Jill Jacobs’ article “Do First, Understand Later” on My Jewish Learning.

For another path, consider a contemporary midrash with many notes on the “lunch with God” episode, Exodus/Shemot 24:9-11, see “One Woman’s Conclusion.”

* For complete citations and more details on Torah commentaries and other works — including a link to the Babylonian Talmud in PDF — please see Source Materials.

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The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Yitro: Something to Notice

“All the people witnessed the thunder [roim et ha-kolot ]…” (Exodus/Shemot 20:15)

The odd phrasing, that the people “roim et ha-kolot” — “saw the voices,” has been noted by many commentators through the centuries. Here’s some traditional commentary and visual midrash on this verse.

Marc-Alain Ouaknin has written about this verse in two of his books, which I recommend — although not as Torah commentary in the usual sense of the term. He notes in The Burnt Book that Hebrew, using an alphabet, rather than pictograms as other ancient cultures did, meant that people who saw alphabetic writing, representing sound instead of ideas/concepts, “saw the voices.”

The following is from Mysteries of the Alphabet:

The transformation of proto-Sinaitic into proto-Hebraic… is the result of several complex factors, one of which is particularly important. The discovery of monotheism, and the revelation and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, introduced a new and important psychological element that may have produced a profound cultural change.

The second of the Ten Commandments states: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heavens or above or that it is in the earth beneath…” This prohibition on the image forced the Semites, who still wrote their language in a pictographic writing, to rid themselves of images. The birth of the modern alphabet created from abstract characters is linked to the revelation and the giving of the law. In his book Naissance et renaissance de l’ecriture (Birth and rebirth of writing), Gerard Pommier wrote: “To make the jump from the hieroglyphic to the consonant, from polytheism to monotheism, a frontier had to be crossed. An Exodus was necessary…

The Hebrews left Egypt and received the tablets of the law in Sinai, the law that enabled them to create a social structure, the law of which one of the consequences was the birth of a nonpictographic alphabet….

–Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Mysteries of the Alphabet: the Origins of Writing. Ouaknin, Marc-Alain. Translated from the French by Josephine Bacon. NY: Abbeville, 1999. p.46-47.

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The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Yitro: Language and Translation

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of your God YHVH: you shall not do any work–you [atah], your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. Continue reading Yitro: Language and Translation

Yitro: A Path to Follow

This portion begins with one of the three clear mentions of Zipporah, daughter of Yitro (Jethro), wife of Moses, mother of Gershom and Eliezer, and sister to six unnamed women mentioned in Exodus/Shemot 2:16. The other two clear references to Zipporah occur in the portion Shemot (chapter two, as noted above, and 4:24-26); Moses’ “cushite wife,” who may or may not be Zipporah, is mentioned in Numbers/Bamidbar 12, at the end of the portion Behaalotekha.

See Drawing Back: Zipporah’s View for a midrash incorporating the Shemot/Exodus references to Zipporah and family. There are other pieces about Zipporah in All the Women Followed Her,* where this midrash was originally published.

See also Yitro, For Something Completely Different

*See Source Materials for full citation and more references.

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The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.

Beshalach: A Path to Follow

In a recent dvar Torah, Mimi Feigelson discusses what she calls “bracketed reading,” a technique focusing on first and last words of a passage under consideration, and applies it to the books of the Torah:

There is an extreme form of this method that I’ve developed and that is to look at the last words of a corpus of writing and ask, ‘Why has the author left us here / lead us to here?’ If you do this with exercise when looking at the five chumashim you will find that God leaves us exactly where we need to be at that moment:

The last two words of Breishit/Genesis are “ba’aron b’Mitzrayim/in a coffin in Egypt.” The entire book of B’reishit, from creation through the establishment of the household of our patriarchs and matriarchs is to lead us to the most constricted, limited, confined place – a coffin in Egypt.

The last two words of Sh’mot/Exodus is “b’chol mas’e’hem /on all of their journeys.” The book of Sh’mot constitutes our journey out of Mitzrayim and toward establishing our identity as we journey through the dessert.

The book of Vayikra/Leviticus ends with “b’har Sinai/at Mount Sinai.” The book of Vayikra teaches us the content of our covenant with God, what standing at Mount Sinai really meant.

The book of Bamidbar/Numbers concludes with “Yarden Yericho / Jordan Jericho” – this book brings us to the border of the Land of Israel. We are not there yet, but we have almost made it, we can see it from afar.

And the last book in the chumash brings us to “kol Yisrael/all of Israel” – it is here that we have all come together, finally united.

One path to follow in reading Beshalach is to consider the last words of the portion (Shemot/Exodus 17:16) — midor dor [generation to generation] — to see where they have left us and where they lead. The final words, alone, might be interpreted in one light, in terms of this portion and its connection to the Passover seder. Another path is suggested by considering the entire verse or paragraph (about eternal war with Amalek).

Reb Mimi’s dvar Torah, “To be a Temporary Resident of Mitzrayim,” was written for parashat Bo (last week’s portion). (Here’s the original posting, through the WayBack Machine.) The remainder centers around a teaching of R. Mordechai Joseph Leiner, the Ishbitzer Rebbe, who is also known by the title of his Torah commentary, Mei HaShiloach [Living Waters] (see Commentators page for more information). Avivah Zornberg often quotes the Ishbitzer Rebbe, and noticing those citations presents another path to follow. The original dvar torah can be found

Finally, I learned with Reb Mimi when she was offering a course on Mei HaShiloach and other Hasidic teachers at Drisha Institute. I recommend both teacher and institute — additional “paths” to follow, should the opportunity arise.

More on Reb Mimi at Schechter in Jerusalem and at Jewish Women’s Archives

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The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.