February 24th: Terumah
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Last week, we wrestled with the fact that, though holy and morally significant, our ancient texts are not always up to the standards we consider moral today. The subject arose from the various kinds of slavery allowed/prescribed in the Bible. In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), slaves are mentioned twice. In the Remember the Sabbath commandment (#4), slaves are among those who are to rest on the seventh day. In the Do Not Covet commandment (#10), slaves are among our neighbors’ “possessions” we are not supposed to covet. In Exodus 21, we learn about the various rules for debt slavery and women sold into marriages. There are later Torah passages about third-party injuries to slaves, the obligatory redemption of Hebrew slaves owned by Gentiles, and the fact that Hebrews are allowed to own Gentiles as slaves permanently.
In other words, despite the dramatic and morally powerful release of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, slavery was a practice allowed and regulated (though possibly mitigated) by the Torah and Talmud. What are we to make of this grievous unjustness?!
As I explained last week, though we can see many profound teachings in the Torah, it is a document that reflects its time and place and the social mores of the people involved. So many of the principles that emerge from the Torah were in a more primitive form—beginning as seedlings and taking centuries to grow into the great moral standards we cherish today.
I also mentioned the possibility of incremental improvement—that given firmly entrenched social mores, progressive moral forces are often limited in how much improvement they can muster. Is total liberation the only acceptable solution, or are small improvements worthwhile?
Though our faith believes in an All-Powerful Deity—Adon Olam!, the Tradition seems very aware of the limitations of human thinking and human society. Take the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. Neither comports with modern science, but does that make them false or rather over-simplified summaries suitable for ancient shepherds unacquainted with astrophysics? A similar ancient accommodation is the Temple cult in which the Lord God is worshipped with animal sacrifices. The Prophets and Psalmists are quite clear that God needs neither meat nor blood, and, as Isaiah notes (40.16), if God did need such things, the Divine appetite could never be sated with the resources available to us. “Lebanon is not fuel enough, nor all its beasts enough for sacrifice.” What God wants—according to many Prophets and Psalmists—is our attention, our piety, and our moral obedience. Why would God establish the sacrificial cult—the preparation of which begins in this week’s Torah portion? “Let them build for me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 25.8) Rabbi Moses Maimonides explains that sacrificing animals is what the ancients understood as religion, and God wanted to give them religious practices they would recognize as such—making sure, of course, that these Hebrew sacrificial services were dedicated to the One God. Now, some 2000 years after the destruction of the Temple and the sacrificial cult, most modern Jews feel fine about prayers instead of animal sacrifices. The ancients got close to God using spiritual tools suitable for their time and culture, and we can get just as close to God, accessing the Divine in ways that better fit our modern spirits. Same God; same Judaism; same goals; just different Jewish techniques.
One of the problems with ancient texts is that some people read them literally and use them to justify less-than-honorable actions. This can be seen in the various Bible-based justifications for the chattel slavery practiced in the Americas up until the Civil War. “Since the Bible allows Hebrews to own non-Hebrew slaves in perpetuity,” so the logic goes, “Then it is okay for Whites to own non-Whites as slaves in perpetuity.” Some people read the Bible this way, while others read it as a demand for freedom and human liberation. Thus were religionists sharply divided in their approaches to slavery and abolition—a split found in both Judaism and Christianity. As you may know, one of the most prominent defenders of the Confederacy was the Jewish Judah P. Benjamin, who served as U.S. Senator from Louisiana before secession and later as Vice-President (and other cabinet positions) in the Confederacy.
Several years ago, our congregation was treated to a reading of a play by our own Gil Aberg. Gil, a longtime and beloved member who passed away last year, wrote the play about a fictional Passover Seder in England. The hosts are the Rothschild family, and one of the guests is Judah P. Benjamin, importuning the wealthy Rothschilds to give financial assistance to the struggling Confederacy. That his appeal takes place at a Seder makes the whole situation terribly ironic. One minute, they decry slavery in Egypt. The next minute, he defends slavery in America. It is quite a play, pulling the audience into the conflict of Biblical principles and self-interested interpretations. I would love to get a copy of the play and have it presented again.
There is also the moral quandary—one that is quite personal for me—of Jews serving in the Confederate Army. Jews were a very small percentage of the Southern population and an even smaller percentage of those who owed slaves, but the fact is that Jews participated in pretty much every aspect of life in the ante-bellum American South. Thus did my great-great grandfather, Joseph Greenwald, find himself serving in the Confederate Army. To my knowledge, neither he nor his brother nor his wife’s parents were slave-owners, but these German immigrants felt the need to join in the effort to “defend the South.” One explanation is that they were “48ers,” refugees from the failed German Revolution of 1848 who had fled by the thousands to the United States. These former revolutionaries were regarded with suspicion by more established Americans and thus worked very hard to fit in and be accepted. This relative insecurity and the pressure to “be a real American” led many 48ers—both Gentile and Jewish, both in the North and in the South—to join the armies and fight for their new countries.
We may look askance at such “fitting in” behaviors—especially in the pro-slavery South, but I think they point to the problems individuals face when they search for survival strategies in less than perfect places. How much do you give in to local attitudes and mores? How negotiable are your faith’s moral or ritual principles? When faced with social or legal injustice, what are your options? Is change possible, and how much should you risk for such change? We like to think that we are all heroic and would always stand up to oppression, but, when real evil is deeply entrenched, what are our realistic possibilities, and what risks are worth taking?
Our Tradition represents the voices of real people facing real challenges in a variety of times and places. We do not need to agree with their responses, but we can study their lives and try to learn.