Naso -- 5774

“To err is human,” Alexander Pope wrote.  We all make mistakes.

“When men or women individually commit any wrong toward a fellow human being, thus breaking faith with God, and they realize their guilt, they shall confess the wrong that they have done.  They shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one-fifth to it, giving it to the one who was wronged” (Numbers 5:6-7).

When mistakes happen between people, the fabric of their relationship is ripped.  The relationship is diminished, even if only a little bit.  It is harder to trust, enjoy, and love each other.

In Parshat Naso (an uncomfortable Torah portion, generally), we find recognition that human relationships take work – especially when one person has harmed another.  Bygones are never bygones.  Rather, we need to take proactive steps to mend the fabric of a relationship.  First, we must own up to what we’ve done, acknowledging that we know what we did was harmful.  It’s hard to trust someone who doesn’t even understand that he or she hurt us.

“I’m sorry” is not enough.  We also need to make restitution – we need to try to make up for what we’ve done in some way.  If we don’t square our accounts with another person, then we don’t truly care about them.

But we must go even further.  The Torah, in this passage contemplating stolen funds, advocates a cash payment over and above the returned money.  It’s a way to demonstrate that someone else’s loss is real, that their pain must be accounted for.  It is through this additional step that true balance is restored.

You might think this restitution is for the victim – whom it surely benefits.  Why, then, does the Torah require it be paid to the priest in cases when the victim is deceased?  “If that party [is deceased and] has no kin to whom restitution can be made, the amount repaid shall go to God for the priest” (Numbers 5:8).  Because when we owe an emotional debt, we need to pay it.  We need to clear our conscience by performing an affirmative act.  Only then can we move on healthfully.

“To err is human,” Alexander Pope wrote, “to forgive, divine.”  Judaism agrees entirely with the first part of the statement, but only partially with the second.  Forgiveness comes not only from God, and not only from the human beings we’ve harmed, but also from -- and to -- ourselves.

Bamidbar -- 5774

Parashat Bamidbar, the opening portion of the Book of Numbers, recounts a survey of the Israelites:  “Take a census of the whole Israelite company by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head.  You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (1:2-3).

Numbers are generally very important for military and other purposes.  Through most of Jewish history, however, our numbers haven’t mattered.

Our numbers didn’t matter in Israel’s War of Independence, when the Jews of the nascent State beat the odds to secure its borders.  All throughout our history, we have been a comparatively small group of people making an exceptional impact on humanity.  The Jewish nation is great in spite of our numbers, not because of them.

Some like to tout the extraordinary high percentage of Jewish Nobel prize winners.  We look to the statistics as proof of our worth, even superiority.

The numbers may help us feel good, but they don’t actually matter.  The significance of the Jewish people does not reside in the force of our numbers, but rather the force of our ideals:  social justice, compassion, reverence, humility, community.

“Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).

B'chukotai -- 5774

B’chukotai spells it out clearly:  obey God, and God “will grant your rains in their season so that the earth may yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit … You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land” (Leviticus 26:4-5).  Disobey, and God “will wreak misery upon you – consumption and fever … and your foes shall dominate you.  …  Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit” (Leviticus 26:16-17,20).  The dichotomy could not be starker.  In this week’s parsha, God is the God of the natural world.  What’s more, the land’s health – and our own – is inextricably linked with following God’s laws.

Contemporary, liberal Jews don’t generally hold that God visits natural disaster on rule-breakers.  Earthquakes, tsunamis and outbreaks of disease aren’t punishments.

But we can sense that something in our environment is shifting and, scientists tell us, human beings are responsible.  It can’t be right to throw nature off balance by taking more than can be sustained, destroying habitat, and by failing to clean up after ourselves.  It’s not healthy to satiate every immediate whim and fail to think of future generations.  There are too many of us consuming too much.

According to a report issued by the government last week, the climate has already begun to change.  (Explore the report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program at www.globalchange.gov.)

I fear a world that has too many mega-storms and not enough bees.  I worry for the refugees displaced by both flooding and drought.  I despair for civilization in general, and my son in particular.  Last week and this week, we’ve been given wake-up calls.

To learn more about Judaism and the Environment, and a religious response to climate change in Arizona, visit:

• The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) deepens and broadens the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning.  www.coejl.org.
• Arizona Interfaith Power & Light mobilizes people of faith in Arizona to reduce the causes of global climate change through education, advocacy, action and prayer.   www.azipl.org.

Emor - 5774

Parshat Emor outlines the “fixed times” of the year – the sacred festivals of the Jewish people.  It tells us to count the seven weeks of seven days between Pesach and Shavuot.  This is the Counting of the Omer, the season in which we currently find ourselves.

The counting concludes with “an offering of new grain to YHVH” (Leviticus 23:16).  God is, after all, the source of the bounty.  Then, seven verses later, we are taught that “when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger:  I YHVH am your God” (Leviticus 23:22).

A share of our produce goes to God; another share goes to the poor and the stranger.

A widow once told me that her husband’s motto had been “never take everything.”  In grocery stores, he always left a box or two of an item behind because the next customer might need it more than he.  It’s a virtue that’s basic and profound, but seemingly forgotten: leave something for someone else.

American restaurants serve portions that would feed a family elsewhere.  We tear up the earth to extract oil and metal, and tear down the rainforest to graze cattle.  We speak so loudly on our cell phones that others can’t converse.  We don’t let other drivers merge into our lane.  We expect others’ schedules to conform to our own, and curse them when they don’t.

Whether it’s a product at a store, the earth’s resources, space on the bus or someone else’s time, be considerate enough not to drain all the stock.  Instead, leave enough for others to have a share, and for the supply to be replenished.  In the words of Bernard Etzine, “never take everything.”