Every child is fascinated by the problem of the caterpillar and the butterfly. But most of us, forget these things and become absorbed in matters of consequence. Scientists form one group of individuals in whom childish traits persist: for the adult scientist still wonders about the problem of the caterpillar and the butterfly. He has never grown out of that exasperating period of childhood characterized by the eternal, “Why?”

Perhaps creative genius is simply the persistence of childishness into adulthood in certain individuals: The persistence of curiosity to make scientists and philosophers, Torah Scholars and Servants of God; of wonder to make poets and painters, rabbis and “prayors”. Of imagination, of dream stuff, in all these various categories, though it may be wiser not to pursue the childish analogy too far.

Which is exactly what happens in this week’s portion; The Children of Israel took the analogy of childishness too far. Moses even complains to God, “Did I conceive this entire people or did I give birth to it, that You say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a suckling, to the Land that You swore to its forefathers?” (Numbers 11:12) Rashi compares them to, “A child escaping from school.”

I can’t imagine watching the Clouds of Glory signal the camp to move without a sense of childish wonder. I can’t imagine eating Manna without a child’s excitement. I can’t imagine studying Torah without the fascination that made me treat my father as the original Google with my incessant insistence on “Why?”

However, childish wonder does not mean that we must act as children. We cannot eat at God’s table laden with treats only to complain about what’s missing. How can someone who maintains childish wonder when studying Torah simply accept ideas as a child being told what to do, without asking “Why?” Should that spirit of a child be expressed as belief in spiritual super heroes who are angelic since birth? Are we not taking that childish wonder a little too far?

Perhaps the people looked to Moshe with that same childish wonder. He went up to heaven and spent 40 days and nights with God. Wow! He is beyond us! He brought Manna. He brought water from a rock. He can do anything. He became their father and mother.

So, God instructed Moshe to appoint the Seventy Elders and He emanated Moshe’s spirit on to them and they began to prophecy. They experienced that Moshe was not some kind of super hero; he was what all of them could be. He too shared the childish wonder over God’s words and miracles, but as an adult on a serious search.

Perhaps we can read the name of the portion, Behaalotecha, as “When you grow up!” or, “Grow Up! Why Doncha?”

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“The history of philosophy is more the history of a sharply inquisitive cast of mind than the history of a sharply defined discipline. The traditional image of it as a sort of meditative science of pure thought, strangely cut off from other subjects, is largely a trick of the historical light.” (Anthony Gottlieb; “The Dream of Reason”)

The French novelist, Michel Houllebecq, in his dialogues with Bernard Henri Levy reports that he has “given up classifying it (philosophy) alongside rational certainty and placed it next to interpretations and narratives.”

I spend quite a bit of time teaching Hashkafa, Jewish philosophy, and its application to prayer, mitzvot, relationships, and even current events. I offer my lessons authoritatively, quoting primary sources, and basing major decisions on sharply defined principles. Have I fallen into what Gottlieb describes as “a trick of historical light”? Can I really claim rational certainty? Is Houllebecq correct that philosophy is either “rational certainty,” or “interpretation and narrative”? Must it be one or the other?

Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law, spoke with certainty when he said, “Now I know that God is greater than all powers,” and when he stepped forward to suggest a legal system for Israel. Yet, Rashi describes his certainty as a result of his personal narrative: “Yitro explored numerous religions before he came to Israel.”

His convictions began as interpretation and narrative, evolved into rational certainty, and then, he stepped away.

The Ten Statements begin with narrative, “I am God, your Lord, Who took you out of Egypt;” a narrative that introduces absolute truth. The Children of Israel began their journey as actors in a narrative, “Sippur Yetziat Mitzraim,” the story of leaving Egypt, and moved on to the certainty of Sinai, and then, they stepped away. Ours is a long narrative of “Ratzo vaShav,” moving with certainty closer to God, and then pulling back.

The laws of Pesach Sheini, the Second Pesach, are presented only after the law was sought as part of the narrative of people desperate for the chance to make up for a lost opportunity. God waited for us to begin the narrative before He taught these laws to Moshe.

For me, Torah is the certainty, and prayer, the narrative. The two feed each other; prayer offers an opportunity to apply truth to our lives, and Torah guides the narrative. It is not one or the other; it is both.

This week’s portion that ends with Moshe’s prayer in a narrative, begins with a law that guides the narrative: Aaron is granted the Mitzvah of the Menorah, hinting, according to the Ramban, to the Chanukah dedication of the Beit Hamikdash.

The description of the Ark’s movements is a description of the law applying to the narrative as it moves forward.

The people who stopped believing in the forward movement of the narrative and began to pine for what they once had in Egypt, lost their connection to the Ark as Law/Certainty and their role in the narrative.

The Torah is absolute. Yet, it applies to every step of the narrative, our story, our lives, our moments, our accomplishments and failures. Halachah is the application of the certainty of Torah to the narrative of life.

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There is a complex in Switzerland known as CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where something called the Large Hadron Collider has been sputtering into operation. Its purpose is to discover whether a hypothetical particle called the Higgs boson (called by some, “The God Particle) exists. There is far-fetched, yet widespread apprehension that a black hole created there could swallow the entire universe. If you are reading this you can be certain that either they have yet to create a Higgs boson, or that a particle with less mass than a second generation quark has not swallowed our planet. Not yet. (John Olson – Strange Matter)

The $9 billion machine has been riddled with problems. Bad electrical connections caused a quench that damaged 53 of the magnets. One of the physicists working there has been accused of having links to Al Qaeda. People have begun to wonder if all the delays and complications aren’t owing to a more preordained cause. A pair of CERN physicists have somewhat whimsically suggested that the reason for building the collider might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple back through time and stop the collider before it could make a Higgs boson.

Anxious people think strange things. As scientists attempt to discover the nature of physical reality, people who do not understand what they are doing, nor, why, are so lost that they begin to worry about strange and unlikely possibilities. People who do not understand consider the Promethean goal of the collider to be no less ambitious than Victor Frankenstein. We are frightened by what we do not comprehend. We cannot grasp something that seems so beyond our ken.

It must have been challenging to experience the exodus, the Splitting of the Sea, eating Manna, drinking magical water from Miriam’s Well, living inside the protection of the Clouds of Glory. We know how frightened the Children of Israel were at Revelation.

They were safe as long as they lived within a self-contained world. Once they began to move toward crossing over into the Land, with all the trumpets, movement, Clouds, and the Ark, they realized that their self-contained world was on its last legs. They began to focus on the fact that something far beyond their understanding was happening. The movement of the Ark was their Large Hadron Collider. They were confused. They were anxious. They simply wanted to kvetch.

They faced a challenge equal to, if not greater than, Revelation: They would have to use everything they learned and experienced to live a “normal” life. Some rose to the occasion. Many simply went along. A group of opportunists began to kvetch, and watched their misery speed through the camp faster than a particle beam.

If only they had blamed Moses or God for something! As my dear and honored friend Rav Moshe Stepansky points out in his comments to The Blame Game: 1.When one assigns blame (whether fairly or not) one activates the psychological mechanism of closure that allows you to move on with your life.

2.Even while assigning blame to someone else, one is still applying a cognitive process of cause and effect. This cognitive process may open oneself up to reflect inwardly and contemplate whether there is personal culpability -stirrings of T’shuvah.

3.Conversely,if one just hangs out and gripes about the situation without assigning blame, one gets mired in inaction and very well may fall into despair.

4.Inaction and despair team up to create a warped view of reality.

Moses had nurtured these people from their spiritual birth into adults ready to step into a new world, a new life, unimaginable heights. He could deal with blame. He could not deal with kvetching.

God responded with the appointment of the Seventy Elders and the “Slav.” I suspect that the 70 was a clue for some, and the “Slav,” a response to others.

To Be Continued…

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Is anything touchier in Judaism than the issue of authority?

Orthodoxy, which once lived off a dynamic mix of communal and family traditions, rabbinic debates, and spontaneously emerging practices, has in the last century hardened its stance, subordinating all of life to the dictates of “rabbinic authorities.”

Reform Judaism, for its part, makes a big deal of having overcome classical authority, discarding the Bible’s legal system in favor of the spiritual and moral inspiration to be found in the prophets.

This week’s Torah reading addresses the question of authority head on—and through the person of Moses himself. The answers are unlikely to please either camp.

For Moses, the Israelites are both a nation and a religion, couriers of both a constitutional regime and a unique spiritual, philosophical outlook. Both have their origins in God, but the pathways of understanding them could not be more different.

In politics, Moses affirms his place as the undisputed ruler, lawmaker, judge, and military commander. Every challenge to his political authority is rebuffed with overwhelming, often miraculous force—whether it’s the Levites he enlists to help destroy the Golden Calf and kill a few thousand celebrants or the careful deployment of earthquakes to swallow up the rebellious Korah and his followers. This week, approached by well-meaning Israelites who were impure during Passover and hence unable to bring sacrifices, Moses consults with God alone to issue a ruling, allowing them a Paschal do-over.

In law, then, there is no authority but Moses. In matters of the spirit, however, Moses’ message seems dramatically different. Indeed, this week’s reading also includes what may be the most important incident in the whole Bible addressing the issue of spiritual authority: the story of Eldad and Medad.

Earlier in the Torah, God tells Moses that the spirit of prophecy will not descend solely on him but on the “seventy elders” as well. Yet now, when Moses attempts to assemble them at the Tabernacle, two of the elders rebuff his call, instead choosing to “prophesy in the camp.” When Joshua asks Moses whether they should be imprisoned for their insubordination, Moses’ response is stunning:

Do you envy for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them!

We don’t know what, exactly, prophecy was, or what its equivalent is today. But clearly, according to Moses, the central spiritual truths can come from anyone, anywhere. And so, throughout the Bible, we discover prophets emerging from all walks of life, requiring no official recognition of their qualifications. To the contrary, their importance often lies in their defiance of the conventionally accepted authority of both kings and priests.

Nor do we know the contents of Eldad and Medad’s prophecy. What they said was presumably important, but more important was their right to say it—on their own, without the approval of any other human being. Not only does Moses refuse to punish Eldad and Medad, he holds them out as an example, a model.  

Why the distinction between political and spiritual authority?

Human beings need law to survive. We need courts and police, we need coercion to enforce a minimal standard of behavior. The talmudic rabbis caution Jews to pray for the welfare of the state, for without it, “man would eat his neighbor alive.” Laws, moreover, must be fair and right if we want to create the conditions in which humanity can thrive. And so, God Himself gives such laws through His servant Moses.

But where our spiritual lives are concerned, authority takes a very different form.

Legal and political authority implies deference to an authority. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, all they had was self-abnegation in the face of tyranny—authority at its disfigured extreme. The result was a band of sniveling, whining, scarcely-human ex-slaves who kept looking back longingly at the “flesh pots” of Egypt, chafing at the challenge to create a new world, eventually dying in the desert because of their inability to muster the resolve needed to enter the Promised Land.

The whole purpose of the Exodus was to make men out of these mice, a task ultimately left to the next generation. For this they needed laws—laws grounded in God’s morality, laws that could make them not only into free individuals but also into a great nation. But to see the point of the Bible as beginning and ending in law is dramatically to distort the text. Why, if the only real issue were law, would we need all those prophecies, psalms, proverbs, and stories?

Moses’ dramatic democratization of spiritual truth should not be confused with relativism. The point is not that everyone has his own wisdom and his own truth, but that real wisdom and real truth can emerge from anyone.

The aim of that wisdom and truth is to enable humans to go beyond the minimal conditions of survival, beyond law, even beyond freedom. The aim is holiness: an apprehension of what it means to have been created in the image of God.

This duality is the key to understanding the religious whirlwind that began with the Bible and took flight with the ancient rabbinic tradition, where legend and law, aggadah and halakhah, danced together like twin stars spinning around each other in a galactic gravitational fit, generating a swirling sea of opinion, ruling, storytelling, and perception. The same rabbis who transformed biblical law into a vast array of precedent and living legal discourse also taught that the wise person is “one who learns from every man.”

This spiritual tussle lay at the heart of ancient Judaism. What is left of it today?

David Hazony is author of The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life, recently published by Scribner.

David Hazony’s first book, “The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life,” was published by Scribner in September 2010. An American-born writer based in Jerusalem, his writings have appeared in The New Republic, CNN.com, the Forward, Commentary, Moment, The Jewish Chronicle, The New York Sun, Policy Review, the Jerusalem Post, and others. He is a contributing editor at The Forward, and blogs regularly at Contentions, the blog of Commentary Magazine. From 2004-2007, Hazony served as editor-in-chief of Azure, the quarterly journal of Jewish public thought published by the Shalem Center. A doctoral student in Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University, he has focused his research on the thought of Eliezer Berkovits, including two major essays on his thought, and editing two volumes of Berkovits’ writings. Hazony also translated Emuna Elon’s novel “If You Awaken Love,” which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in 2007.

When his sister Miriam was struck with leprosy, Moses turned and cried out, “G-d, please heal her, please.” The Hebrew word “Naw” is a cry from deep within. It is said twice in the five words used by Moses. It is Moses at his most vulnerable and most human.

When I read this phrase, I see Moses with tears streaming down his face and his body trembling

with fear. Will his plea be answered in the affirmative? What if it is not? What else can he do, being powerless before The Almighty.

His reaction is one of a brother who loves his sister. She enabled him to be raised by his mother, convincing Pharaoh’s daughter to let a Hebrew woman be the au pair for the baby the princess saved from the Nile. His reaction is one of a brother whose sister is a partner in leading the Jewish people. Both personal and professional ties come together in an anguished scream.

What I see in this response is not only pain, but also gratitude. His sister saved him 80 years ago. Yet, part of his anguish was not from any immediate response to her friendship and counsel now, but probably also his recognition of her caring many decades ago.

There are people in our lives who have been around us for a long time. The question, “What have you done for me lately,” is a valid one. Long time friends can’t just sit on ceremony and hearken back to something they did many decades ago. If they have ignored you, or worse, wronged you, your affection will certainly not be as intense as it once was. It may also dissipate.

What Moses teaches us is to constantly remember and appreciate all that someone has done for us, no matter when. Although that will make us vulnerable to tears and sadness, perhaps vulnerable to our most human self, it also makes us open to the joy of gratitude.

How do you know if someone gives you a message from G-d, or if someone gives you a message that is not so much from G-d? If someone comes and says ‘listen, I want you to know, you have to change from top to bottom’, do you know what kind of person this is? They have a knife in their hand and like a little butcher, they are cutting off this part of you and this part of you. ‘Now you are ready to be a real good Jew’. How does it sound to you?

Now listen to this. G-d says to Moshe tell Aaron to kindle the light, which means to mamesh put fire into the hearts of every Jew. So Rashi says “Vayaas Keyn – Aaron Melamed Shelo Shina’. And Aaron did so – he didn’t change anything which G-d told him to do. But let me ask you friends, isn’t it obvious that if he would have changed G-d’s words, he would not have been the high priest?

There are thousands of explanations for this, but let’s see what the holy Alexanderer says.

Aaron Hakohen never changed a Jew; he just put fire into them.

Do you know how holy that is? If you have a real fire of G-d inside of you, you can utilize everything you have in the service of G-d just by the way you are.

Sometimes we tell our children change here, change there. Become better here, become better there. It’s only because we don’t know the secret of how to put a little fire into their hearts. Nebech, sometimes we butcher them around. 

I want to bless you and me, we should be privileged to be able to put the Torah into somebody’s heart where they completely receive it on the inside. Let it be clear to us, it can only come from the real fire of G-d which is deep inside.

Almost forty percent of the cases in the Central African Republic’s court system are witchcraft prosecutions. Most of the accused are Pygmies who are known for bewitching each other. Do you have an infected toe? You can accuse your neighbor of hexing you because he doesn’t like you. Did bad weather ruin your day with the kids? Blame someone with whom you recently had an argument for casting a spell on you. A bird crashed into your windshield? Blame an enemy! You can accuse him of shape shifting and he will have to face trial.

The sole foreign non-governmental organization, an Italian group called COOPI that exists to promote human rights, favors keeping these laws on the books: “If people thought witches could hex with impunity, mobs would simply seize the alleged offenders, bring them to a pit, and bury them alive – the only known effective way of dealing with a witch. “If we do not apply laws against the Practice of Charlatanism and Sorcery, we will apply lex talionis,” that is, the rule of an eye for an eye, as preached in the Bible. (The Atlantic Monthly – June 2010 – “Hex Appeal” page 19)

Everyone can play the blame game. The uneducated blame witchcraft, and the educated blame the blamer’s behavior on the Bible.

It may sound bizarre, but is it really? I have often heard from people who consulted a Kabbalist that they were told they could blame their problems on an Evil Eye. Then, of course, there are the people who blame their parents, a spouse, the community, the world – everyone except themselves.

Yet, is it preferable to sit at home, and complain and kvetch without blaming anyone or to go out and blame?

“The people took to seeking complaints.” (Numbers 11:1) “Moses heard the people weeping in their family groups, each one at the entrance of his tent.” (Verse 10) This is the first time that the Children of Israel complain without blame. They sat at home and cried. They didn’t blame Moses. And, this is the first time that Moses responds to a complaint by complaining, “Why have You done evil to Your servant? Why have I not found favor in Your eyes, that You place the burden of this entire people upon me?” (Verse 11)

So, I must repeat my question; “Is it preferable to sit at home, and complain and kvetch without blaming anyone or to go out and blame?”

To be continued…

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“In man the most precise function that the hand is capable of is to place the tip of the thumb in opposition to the tip of the index finger, so they make maximum contact. In this position small objects can be manipulated with an unlimited potential for fine pressure adjustments or minute directional corrections. This is the hallmark of mankind. No non-human species can do it.” (John Napier – The Roots of Mankind)

This extra inch of the human thumb transforms the grasping power of the primate hand into the cast repertoire of the gripping precision of the human hand.

This week’s portion, Beha’alotecha, has a number of powerful lessons about the difference between grasping and gripping:

Moses and the Children of Israel are ready to cross into the Land of Canaan. They are just days away. Moses invites his father-in-law, Yitro, to join them, but he refused. He grabbed onto God and the Covenant with Israel, but he did not grip. He let go. He lacked the dexterity to make their future his own.

The Children of Israel were changing. All was ready and prepared for them to enter the Land. But, they were uncomfortable with their new lives. They began to complain about the Manna and lack of bread. They had grabbed onto God, but they did not grip. They, too, let go of their opportunity to achieve a new stage.

A powerful prayer experience offers the same choice. We can grab the chance and then run, or, we can grip carefully, by reifying the insights of the prayer and changing. The difference between the animal and the human is the ability ti grip, and make it truly our own.

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The “Futurist,” Ray Kurzweil is a man who plans to live forever. He is a wildly successful inventor: In the ‘70s he developed the first computer capable of reading different fonts, and in the ‘80s he created one of the first speech-recognition programs. He now takes up to 210 vitamin pills a day and receives intravenous anti-aging treatments once a week. His goal is to survive to the “singularity,” defined as the moment when computers become intelligent enough to take charge of their own destinies. At that point Kurzweil intends to download his personality and “live” on as information.

Kurzweil reminds me of “Death and the Powers: A Robot Pageant,” an opera in development at MIT’s Media Lab. Simon Powers, an aging inventor, downloads his “essence” into his living room in order to achieve immortality and watch over his family.

It all sounds farfetched to me. Please understand; ‘downloading a personality or essence’ is not what seems so unlikely, although I don’t believe Kurzweil will live long enough for such a computer, nor will Powers ever download his personality into his living room, even if he has all of MIT behind him!

Moses is the Eternal Man. He downloaded his spiritual essence into the Children of Israel. “There is one person in each generation with a spark of Moses in his soul,” teaches the Zohar. In this week’s portion, Behaalotecha, God “downloads” Moses’ prophetic spirit into the Seventy Elders, transforming them all into prophets for one day.

Rabbi Shlomo HaLevi Alkabetz teaches that a true Rebbi shares a spark with, or, shall we say, “downloads part of his essence into,” his students.

Torah is all about downloading: The Torah’s wisdom is never just knowledge. When we study Torah we have an opportunity to upload its spiritual essence into our soul. The Torah “downloaded” its essence into every Mitzvah, and we have an opportunity to “upload” when we observe the Mitzvot.

We may live a longer physical life with Kurzweil’s vitamin program, but we have our own regimen, Torah. We have a choice each time we study, pray, or observe a Mitzvah, whether to simply perform a function or to “upload” the Infinite life that is available.

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We were close to Israel’s border with Lebanon when we heard a frightening sound. The soldier with us rushed us into a bomb shelter. The sound was a katushya rocket. “The noise is the worst part!” said the soldier. There is a long, scary, whistling sound that haunts you until the rocket lands. This one happened to be a dud.

Sound is effective, and sound, or sound making, is one of the ideas in this week’s portion. God commanded Moses to make trumpets that would summon the people and send messages through the camp. I think of them whenever I hear the Shabbat siren in Israel.

I find it interesting that God makes a point with Elijah that He is not in the shivaree, but in the small voice: (See Beeps, Pwets, and Pons) “11. And He said: ‘Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.’ And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12. and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” (Kings I, Chapter 19)

God was in the “still small voice,” not in the wind, earthquake or fire. What happened to the Trumpets and the loud noise?

We find both the trumpets and the still, small, voice in our High Holiday prayers: “The great shofar will be sounded and a still, thin sound will be heard.” (Unetaneh Tokef) What happens after a shockingly loud noise? There is silence. Only in that silence will we be able to hear the still, small voice, in which we can truly find God.

Perhaps the trumpets were not only an announcement; they were also intended for us to pay attention to what we could hear in the silence that followed.

We have recently been awaked by winds, earthquakes, oil spills, and volcanos. The trumpets were sounded and we focused on the loud noises. Perhaps the lesson of Moshe’s trumpets was that we must learn to pay attention to the “still, small voice,” that speaks to us in all of our life experiences.

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