Our Information as Commodity: Gossip and False Intimacy (Gossip Part 1)

We live in an age where speech has as instantaneous global reach and our private information is being peddled in the public square. The intimacy of face to face conversation has become rare, for we do most of our “speech” in front of screens instead of faces. With speech so deeply transformed and information so disembodied a discussion of the ethics of speech is most necessary: how do we sensitize ourselves to use speech and information wisely?

These questions of speech and intimacy are explored in a short story at the end of Parshat Beha’lotcha: Miriam and Aaron “speak” about Moses behind his back. God reprimands Aaron and Miriam for speaking about Moshe, inflicting Miriam with leprosy. Moshe prays for her to be healed, but Miriam is still forced out of the camp for seven days.

This episode leaves many questions for the reader to explore: Why is only Miriam punished? What exactly were these siblings saying about their brother? Why leprosy, and what is it about gossip that its retribution is banishment?

Norman Rockwell, The Gossips (1948)

Following this story and other biblical verses, Judaism developed a rich discussion about ethical speech. Two terms are used in this discussion: Lashon haRa, malicious speech, or literally “evil tongue”, this term put an emphasis on the intent of the speech: such speech is unethical because its purpose is simply to harm others. The other term in Hebrew holds a different nuance: Rechilut, gossip, which evokes the Hebrew word for peddler – rochel. As the Yerushalmi Talmud notes: “You should not be like a peddler who peddles one person's goods to the other, and the other person's goods to the first” (Peah 4b). In this image, what makes gossip unethical is that it is the peddling of information, turning it from its organic context where it bears a controlled meaning, to a commodity which can be used and interpreted (“sold”) by others for their own interests.

Tractates about gossip can often become a moralistic exercise in finger-wagging. But the Talmud in Tractate Arakhin invests an effort in the definitions of Lashon haRa not in order to prohibit all speech, but rather in order to sensitize the learner to the dynamics of social interactions. This deeper awareness in turn would engender a more careful approach to the use of speech and information about others. We’ll look at three highlights from this discussion, in an attempt to glean some useful insights:

1 - What constitutes Lashon haRa?

Rabbah said: For example [to say]’There is heating in the house of So-and-so.’

Said Abaye: What does such talk do? It is merely giving information! Rather Lashon haRa is only when one utters those words in a malicious fashion: ‘Where else should there be heating if not in the house of So-and-so? There is always meat and fish…’.

Rabbah said: Whatsoever is said in the presence of the person concerned is not considered Lashon hara. Said Abaye to him: But [saying something in their presence about them] is even worse: rudeness and Lashon haRa! Rabbah answered: I hold with R. Yosi, for R. Yosi said: I have never said a word and had to look behind my back.

Rabbah son of R. Huna said: Whatever is said in the presence of three is not considered Lashon haRa. (Talmud Bavli Arakhin 15b-16B)

For Abaye, information must be used with a malicious intent to be problematic, no matter the context – Lashon haRa. For Rabbah, it is not the intent, but the simple fact of talking about people behind their back, the peddling in people’s information with impunity - Rechilut. The key for Rabbah is the absence of the other. Looking at the text of the Biblical story of Miriam and Aaron’s gossip, we can see how the theme of the bond of two versus three is stressed:

“Miriam spoke, and Aaron, against Moshe …Suddenly the Lord called to Moshe, Aaron, and Miriam: “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three of them went out. The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!” The two of them came forward. (Numbers 12)

In the choreography of the scene, the Torah shows how the exclusion of the third person here, Moshe, is at the root of the problem. Rabbah son of Rav Huna (quoted above - similar name, different guy), takes Rabbah’s idea one step further, with a splendid Talmudic counter-intuitive statement: That which is said among more than two people is not Lashon haRa. Why? For Rabbah the issue at the heart of Lashon haRa is one of intimacy. When two people are gossiping, a powerful intimacy is created – one that cannot occur in a crowd. Gossip is essentially the creation of an “us” and a “them”, a “normal” and a “not normal”. Two people gossiping about a third person, creates an intimate bond. However, this intimacy is a false intimacy – it is a relationship that is rooted in the disgrace of another, in the flouting of boundaries of privacy and respect  which are inherent to an ethical society.

The game of in and out, two and three, becomes clearer when leprosy is considered by the Talmud as the retribution for gossip:

2 - R. Samuel ben Elnadav asked of R. Hanina[…]: Wherein is the leper different that the Torah said: “He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his dwelling be?“ Because he [by his gossip] separated a husband from his wife, a man from his neighbor, therefore the Torah said: ‘He shall dwell alone’. (Talmud Bavli Arakhin 15b-16B)

Gossip is an act of separation and banishment from the normal, splitting up other people’s intimacy and creating a new intimacy with yourself at the center. Gossip is so satisfying because it creates a new intimacy and bond. The punishment of leprosy reverses this act: it is not the target of our gossip who is scaly and contagiously disgusting – it is we who bear the sign of shame. We tried to forge a false intimacy, and are instead banished ourselves from relationship. Ouch.

Thankfully, our Talmudic discussion ends with a redemptive outlet:

3 - R. Hama b. Hanina said: What is the remedy for gossipers? If they are scholars, let them engage in the Torah, as it is said: “The healing for a tongue is the tree of life”. (Talmud Bavli Arakhin 15b-16B)

Learning and scholarship are the reversal of gossip because learning is also about peddling information, taking information out of one context and placing it in a new context where it will thrive and grow in value. However the goal of disseminating scholarship is see the infinite possibility in creation, not to maliciously see the limitations in those that surround us. It is about creating bonds of presence, not in order to push others out, but in order to create a world where intimacy is valued and relationships can be based on trust and mutual respect.As our ability to peddle in information – our own and others – becomes so greatly available to us, we must sensitize ourselves to the delicate nature of intimacy, and use our ability to spread information in a way that creates a tree of life.

These ideas were germinated by a comment my teacher, Moshe Halbertal, made seven years ago about gossip and false intimacy. My havruta overheard the comment, and “gossiped” it to me. For a year we peddled in this information, studying about gossip (and occasionally partaking in it too). These ideas are the joint outcome of these discussions.

For those who are interested, I’ve appended the verses themselves:

Miriam and Aaron Gossiping | Numbers Chapter 12

Now Miriam spoke, and Aaron, against Moses, on account of the Cushite wife that he had taken-in-marriage, for a Cushite wife had he taken. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” The Lord heard it.  2Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more so than any other human on the face of the earth.  3Suddenly the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three of them went out.  4The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!” The two of them came forward; 5and He said, “Hear these My words: When a prophet of the Lord arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. 6Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. 7With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the Lord. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!” 8Still incensed with them, the Lord departed. 9As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there was Miriam stricken with snow-white scales (tzaraat)! When Aaron turned toward Miriam, he saw that she was stricken with scales. 10And Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. 11Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away.”  12So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, pray heal her!” 13But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of camp for seven days, and then let her be readmitted.”  14So Miriam was shut out of camp seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted. 15After that the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.

א וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה, עַל-אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח:  כִּי-אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית, לָקָח.  ב וַיֹּאמְרוּ, הֲרַק אַךְ-בְּמֹשֶׁה דִּבֶּר ה’--הֲלֹא, גַּם-בָּנוּ דִבֵּר; וַיִּשְׁמַע, ה’.  ג וְהָאִישׁ מֹשֶׁה, עָנָו מְאֹד--מִכֹּל, הָאָדָם, אֲשֶׁר, עַל-פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה. ד וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ פִּתְאֹם, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל-אַהֲרֹן וְאֶל-מִרְיָם, צְאוּ שְׁלָשְׁתְּכֶם, אֶל-אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד; וַיֵּצְאוּ, שְׁלָשְׁתָּם.  ה וַיֵּרֶד ה’ בְּעַמּוּד עָנָן, וַיַּעֲמֹד פֶּתַח הָאֹהֶל; וַיִּקְרָא אַהֲרֹן וּמִרְיָם, וַיֵּצְאוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם.  ו וַיֹּאמֶר, שִׁמְעוּ-נָא דְבָרָי; אִם-יִהְיֶה, נְבִיאֲכֶם--ה’ בַּמַּרְאָה אֵלָיו אֶתְוַדָּע, בַּחֲלוֹם אֲדַבֶּר-בּוֹ.  ז לֹא-כֵן, עַבְדִּי מֹשֶׁה:  בְּכָל-בֵּיתִי, נֶאֱמָן הוּא.  ח פֶּה אֶל-פֶּה אֲדַבֶּר-בּוֹ, וּמַרְאֶה וְלֹא בְחִידֹת, וּתְמֻנַת ה’, יַבִּיט; וּמַדּוּעַ לֹא יְרֵאתֶם, לְדַבֵּר בְּעַבְדִּי בְמֹשֶׁה.  ט וַיִּחַר-אַף ה’ בָּם, וַיֵּלַךְ.  י וְהֶעָנָן, סָר מֵעַל הָאֹהֶל, וְהִנֵּה מִרְיָם, מְצֹרַעַת כַּשָּׁלֶג; וַיִּפֶן אַהֲרֹן אֶל-מִרְיָם, וְהִנֵּה מְצֹרָעַת.  יא וַיֹּאמֶר אַהֲרֹן, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה:  בִּי אֲדֹנִי--אַל-נָא תָשֵׁת עָלֵינוּ חַטָּאת, אֲשֶׁר נוֹאַלְנוּ וַאֲשֶׁר חָטָאנוּ.  יב אַל-נָא תְהִי, כַּמֵּת, אֲשֶׁר בְּצֵאתוֹ מֵרֶחֶם אִמּוֹ, וַיֵּאָכֵל חֲצִי בְשָׂרוֹ.  יג וַיִּצְעַק מֹשֶׁה, אֶל-ה’ לֵאמֹר:  אֵל, נָא רְפָא נָא לָהּ.  יד וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, וְאָבִיהָ יָרֹק יָרַק בְּפָנֶיהָ--הֲלֹא תִכָּלֵם, שִׁבְעַת יָמִים; תִּסָּגֵר שִׁבְעַת יָמִים, מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה, וְאַחַר, תֵּאָסֵף.  טווַתִּסָּגֵר מִרְיָם מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה, שִׁבְעַת יָמִים; וְהָעָם לֹא נָסַע, עַד-הֵאָסֵף מִרְיָם.  טז וְאַחַר נָסְעוּ הָעָם, מֵחֲצֵרוֹת; וַיַּחֲנוּ, בְּמִדְבַּר פָּארָן.

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Beha’lotcha | Text and the City

A Palace built on Boats: Seeking Unity amid Diversity

Open up the book of “Standard Sermons for the holiday of Shavuot”, and you’ll undoubtedly find a sermon along the following lines:

Exodus 19, the chapter which describes the giving of the Torah at Sinai, opens with a beautiful – and rare - image of Jewish unity: “Israel encamped there opposite the mountain” (Exodus 19:2).

Noticing the singular form of the Hebrew וַיִחַן Rashi expounds:

and Israel encamped there:  as one person with one heart

ויחן שם ישראל:  כאיש אחד בלב אחד

Torah can only be revealed where unity exists. Truth can only be revealed in loving community. We must become like one person, with one heart, in order to regain the power of Sinai and the existence of Divine truth among us.

Hearkening back to this mythical unity, the sermon will ask us to set aside our differences in order to be subsumed by the corporate identity which is the Jewish people.

This is a moving message, but I find myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat whenever I am asked to suspend difference in favor of sweet smelling unity.

I was thinking of this discomfort the other day when a Bronfman alumna shared the following story:

This weekend, an old friend asked to meet me for a drink.  After a few, he told me why he'd called me: his mother had casually mentioned that her mother and her mother's parents were Jewish.  He was, needless to say, shocked, having been raised a Christian. When he found out what matrilineal descent meant, he felt violated by the Jewish people who were "making' him be Jewish." While he knew that this wasn't personal or malicious, my friend felt he had lost his autonomy. He asked me if he's suddenly a bad Jew. He asked if he could still celebrate Christmas. He asked if he could still eat bacon.  Drinks were on me that night.  

Her story reminded me of the often overlooked fact that when the Israelites received the Ten Commandments, they didn’t openly embrace the close encounter with God, rather they ran the other way: “And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightenings, and the voice of the shofar, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off.” (Exodus 20:14). Rashi describes this “rush to the exit” at Sinai: “They recoiled backwards twelve miles… and the ministering angels came and tried to push them back…”

What made the Israelites run far away from God at Sinai? What makes our young friend so livid at the discovery of his ancestral identity? Why did many of us feel a deep discomfort at discussions of Jewish unity? Perhaps there is a shared theme to these very disparate discomforts.

At the core of all these experiences is a deep loss of autonomy, without recognizing the individual’s right to define themselves on their own terms. A pervading paternalism is insinuated: I know better than you the meaning of your own life.

Whenever people start talking about the need for “more unity”, I feel like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The insinuation is usually: “everyone should be united – around my understanding of (fill in the blank): Judaism/politics/human rights etc.” It is the turning of Sinai into the Tower of Babylon, a time when “the entire land was one language and few words” (Genesis 11:1).

But I am equally uninterested in the opposite, the anti-Tower of Babel, where everyone walks off to their separate ways. Is there a way to talk about unity and solidarity without overriding diversity?

In a midrash, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai offers such an image. He moves from your standard “unity metaphors” into an image that creates room for individuals and communities independent standing:

רבי שמעון בן יוחי אומר משל לאחד שהביא שתי ספינות וקשרם בהוגנים ובעשתות והעמידן בלב הים ובנה עליהם פלטרין. כל זמן שהספינות קשורות זו בזו פלטרין קיימים פרשו ספינות אין פלטרין קיימים (ספרי דברים שמו)

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: This is like a person who brought two ships and anchored them together and placed them in the middle of the sea and built upon them a palace. As long as the ships are tied to each other – the palace exists. Once the ships separate from each other – the palaces cannot exist. (Sifre on Deuteronomy, #346)

A Palace Built on Boats: The Taj Lake Palace in Udaipor

How different this vision is from the tower of Babel. Both attempt to build towers in the sky, but the latter is built as a second floor upon a foundation of diversity. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai talks about two boats, but I imagine this palace being built upon many boats. Each person, or each group, is valued here as an independent entity, with their own boundaries, their own conceptions of truth. This is the way God created the world, full of diverse human beings with independent minds, a myriad of languages and opinions.

And yet, each boat is asked to give up some of the freedom that an autonomous boat was built for, and tie themselves alongside the others. Why would we do such a thing?

Perhaps because we realize that life is not solid ground but rather a rocky ocean; that one boat alone in the vast ocean is too vulnerable. Perhaps because we are tired with life in the marina – full of fancy big boats, each with their own agenda, but without the cumulative power of the collective. Perhaps because while we yearn to live our own truth and are wary of being subsumed, we also realize that life receives meaning when it transcends the day to day and tries to build a palace in the sky.

There is something deeply tolerant about this vision of unity. The inherent paradox of tolerance is that despite the fact that I think you are wrong, I seek to empower you. Tolerance is the opposite of paternalism: I respect you on your own terms – because I believe enabling your opinion is crucial for my own ability to arrive at the truth. Perhaps our floating boats building a palace in the middle of the ocean are disparate truths which are willing to be tied to each other in order to allow for the creation of a larger palace.

This image allows us to return to revelation at Sinai with fresh eyes. While some hold that the revelation at Sinai was in one divine voice, given to a people unified with one heart, a famous midrash disagrees, claiming that the revelation at Sinai was a multi-vocal (pluralistic) experience, in which each person was recognized as an individual, experiencing not only a personally relevant revelation, but also hearing their own version of the Torah:

א"ר לוי נראה להם הקב"ה כאיקונין הזו שיש לה פנים מכל מקום, אלף בני אדם מביטין בה והיא מבטת בכולם. כך הקב"ה כשהיה מדבר כל אחד ואחד מישראל היה אומר עמי הדבר מדבר, אנכי י"י אלהיכם אין כת' כאן, אלא אנכי י"י אלהיך. א"ר יוסי בר' חנינא ולפי כוחן של כל אחד ואחד היה הדיבר מדבר עמו. ואל תתמה על הדבר הזה, שהיה המן יורד לישראל כל אחד ואחד היה טועמו לפי כוחו, התינוקות לפי כוחן, והבחורים לפי כוחן, הזקנים לפי כוחן. (פסיקתא דרב כהנא פסקא יב)

R. Levi said: The Holy One appeared to them as though He were a statue with faces on every side, a thousand people looking at her and she is looking at them all. So, too, when the Holy One spoke, each and every person in Israel could say, "The Divine word is addressing me." Note that scripture does not say, "I am the Lord your God" (אלהיכם), but "I am the Lord thy God" (אלהיך). Moreover, said R. Yosi ben R Hanina: The divine word spoke to each and every person according to their particular power. And do not wonder at this, for when the manna came down for Israel, each and every person tasted it in keeping with his own power... (Pesikta DeRav Kahana, 3rd Century Midrash, Land of Israel; Piska 12 pg 249)

If God is a God who holds many truths (“These and those are the words of the living God”), and the Torah was revealed in many voices, than a vision for Jewish unity must be one that takes into account people’s individual truths, accepted on their own terms. And yet, the plurality of Judaism (or of American public discourse, for example) should not be a moment where we simply give up on a vision of the wider collective, and allow each boat to sail independently off to sea. This Shavuot, I pray we can build a community where our independent boats are recognized in their diversity, yet anchored together in service of a grander vision, a palace of truth we can build together in a world that is a stormy ocean. 

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Bamidbar / Shavuot | Text and the City

Shake off the Dust: Big Dreams on Dusty Roads

This week’s parasha, Behar Bachukotai, outlines an ambitious social vision. It is an over-achieving package of legislation whose purpose is to hold up those who fall out of financial grace through a series of communal supports: sabbatical year remission of land, loan cancellation, redeeming of land by relatives and a global return of property to original owners every fifty years at the Jubilee year. It also prohibits interest to poor lenders, basically a commandment to give interest free loans to poorer compatriots:

Now when your brother sinks down in poverty And his hand falters beside you, Then shall you strengthen him As though a sojourner and resident-settler, And he is to live beside you. Do not take from him biting-interest or profit, But hold your God in awe, So that your brother may live beside you! (Leviticus 25:35-36)

וְכִי-יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ וּמָטָה יָדוֹ עִמָּךְ וְהֶחֱזַקְתָּ בּוֹ גֵּר וְתוֹשָׁב  וָחַי עִמָּךְ. אַל-תִּקַּח מֵאִתּוֹ נֶשֶׁךְ וְתַרְבִּית וְיָרֵאתָ מֵאֱלֹהֶיךָ; וְחֵי אָחִיךָ, עִמָּךְ.  (ויקרא כה:לה-לו)

This vision is so ambitious, that the rest of the history of halakha describes how subsequent generations ended up rolling back these laws. First the jubilee year was relegated to messianic times, then the Shmitta cancellation of loans was revamped. Finally – in modern times – the prohibition on interest was dispensed for institutions, allowing financial institutions to “halakhically take interest”.

It is the story of what happens when grand visions meet the dusty roads of reality. Depending on who you are talking to, this chapter of Jewish legal history is either the sad tale of how a daring prophetic vision was ground to mincemeat by cynical lawyer-Rabbis seeking to protect their community’s financial interests, or – conversely - the tale of how an ancient, outdated idea was revolutionized by courageous halakhic innovators to streamline Jewish values for a new generation.

On this dramatic backdrop I’d like to discuss a minor Rabbinic text, which discusses how our minor day to day negotiations might be connected to the grander visions. The Tosefta (Avodah Zara 1:3) describes four actions that are not only prohibited in themselves, but that even their “dust” is considered problematic. Two of these four refer to commandments in our parsha: Not only is it prohibited to give a loan with interest, it is also prohibited to sell a loan to someone else. Not only is it prohibited to grow fruits on the sabbatical year, it is also prohibited to purchase fruits from a non-Jewish farmer who is outside the sabbatical system. And thus says the Tosefta:

ארבע אבקות הן: אבק רבית, אבק שביעית, אבק עבודת כוכבים, אבק לשון הרע.  אבק של רבית: לא ישא אדם ויתן בהלואתו של חברו מפני אבק רבית.  אבק שביעית: לא ישא אדם ויתן עם העובד כוכבים בפירות מפני אבק שביעית.  אבק עבודת כוכבים: לא ישא אדם ויתן עם העובד כוכבים ביום אידו מפני אבק עבודת כוכבים.  אבק לשון הרע: לא ישא אדם ויתן בטובתו של חברו מפני אבק לשון הרע.

There are four “dusts”: the dust of interest, the dust of Shmita (the sabbatical year) the dust of idolatry and the dust of the evil tongue (gossip). The dust of interest – one should not converse/negotiate in the loan of their friend, because of the “dust of interest”. […] The dust of gossip – one should not converse in the good aspects of one’s fellow – because of the dust of the evil tongue.

What ties these four acts together? I’d suggest that the willingness to let go of profit (ban on interest), to relinquish one’s grasp on your property (sabbatical year), the push back against social pressures (idolatry) and the creation of an ethic of daily speech (gossip) – are the most far-reaching agendas of the Torah. And it is precisely in such far-reaching visions that one must avoid not only the act itself, but even the almost invisible auxiliary aspects of them: their dust.

The Tosefta wants of us to be so committed to this vision, that even the dust of the act is repugnant in our eyes. What someone else barely notices, a thin film coating the act – should be enough for us to pull back from it.

This sounds like an almost impossible demand, on the boundary of a zealotry, and obsessive-compulsive concern for the ramifications of our actions that creates hollowed human beings, afraid of acting in the world. The metaphor of dust would be very fitting for such a view: like dust, sin becomes an infinitesimally small, almost invisible particle, whose existence requires of us to back away from the world to a dust-free zone, pending an asthma attack of biblical proportions.

However, I would suggest that the metaphor of dust serves to make the exact opposite statement: that these actions are simultaneously undesirable and yet completely normal.

This “tolerance” towards the dust of life, appears in the mishna, in the following statement:

A person should not enter the Temple Mount with his walking stick, his coat or the dust on his feet. And he shouldn’t make of it a shortcut…

לא יכנס להר הבית במקלו, ובמנעלו, ובפונדתו, ובאבק שעל רגליו, ולא יעשנו קפנדריא  (משנה ברכות ט:ח)

Dust is in itself not an improper part of life – it is what happens when we journey, when we do not “sit in the house of the lord all my days”. We want people to be on journeys from the “holy center” to the pathways of life, and back again. And yet upon entering the holy – to leave the dust at the door.

The Talmud says as much about gossip, when it admits: “the dust of gossip - a person cannot save themselves from doing each day” (Talmud Bavli Yevamot 165a). This statement could be one of the eternal weakness – and therefor damnation – of human kind. But the Talmud is not apologizing here – it is stating a fact: if the Torah is to be given to humans, free agents who are walking the paths of the world, certain conclusions will follow. We are asked to take up a delicate dance: labeling questionable actions as dust on the one hand, while recognizing that the journey of life will necessarily require of us to roll around in that dust from time to time. It is only such an open-eyed perspective that can bring about the big revolutions that the Torah seeks to see in the world.

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Behar Bechukotai | Text and the City

Bread in the Temple: What is it to you?

In God’s house, a golden table is set with bowls and spoons. 12 loaves of bread are arranged upon it. Granted, it’s existence might make the sanctuary feel like a little doll house.  It is one of the strangest details of our tradition: Lechem haPanim, the Bread of the Internal. It’s history is full of potent legends: The Talmud tells us that it never went stale, that even the tiniest piece of it was satiating, that the table had to have bread on it, or the world would stop turning. 

Our Parsha, Emor, describes how it was arranged:

And you shall take choice flour and bake it into twelve loaves …. And you shall place them in two rows, six to a row, six to a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. … Sabbath day after Sabbath day they shall be laid out before the Lord perpetually on behalf of the Israelites, an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’, and they shall eat it in a holy place, for it is holy of holies for him from the Lord’s fire offerings, an everlasting statute. (Leviticus 24:7)

ה וְלָקַחְתָּ סֹלֶת וְאָפִיתָ אֹתָהּ, שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה חַלּוֹת; שְׁנֵי, עֶשְׂרֹנִים, יִהְיֶה, הַחַלָּה הָאֶחָת.  ו וְשַׂמְתָּ אוֹתָם שְׁתַּיִם מַעֲרָכוֹת, שֵׁשׁ הַמַּעֲרָכֶת, עַל הַשֻּׁלְחָן הַטָּהֹר, לִפְנֵי ה’....  ח בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, יַעַרְכֶנּוּ לִפְנֵי ה’ תָּמִיד:  מֵאֵת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, בְּרִית עוֹלָם.  ט וְהָיְתָה לְאַהֲרֹן וּלְבָנָיו, וַאֲכָלֻהוּ בְּמָקוֹם קָדֹשׁ:  כִּי קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים הוּא לוֹ, מֵאִשֵּׁי ה’--חָק-עוֹלָם. (ויקרא כד:ז)

Bible scholars note that all Mesopotamian temples had bread, and the Hebrew Temple was no exception. But while in pagan temples new bread was placed before the deity before each meal, only to be summarily burnt to symbolize the Gods having eaten their dinner, the Hebrew temple transmuted this “Divine food” into food for the priests, and supplanted the basic time unit from “meal to meal” to “Shabbat to Shabbat”.

As a modern reader, one is left slightly flustered when facing these remnants of pagan anthropomorphism. Even Maimonides, the great re-interpreter of the anthropomorphic Torah into rational terms, gave up: “I do not know the purpose of the table with the bread upon it continually, and up to this day I have not been able to assign any reason to this commandment.” (Guide for the Perplexed, III:45).

Thankfully, the gates of interpretation have not closed. Hasidic interpreters play a game: they take strange texts and ask: מהו בעבודה? – What is this in avodah, what relevance and meaning can be given to this teaching in informing our service? How can this idea inform my desire to live a life of meaning? Put differently: What is this to you?

Here then is a fun game to play at your next (Shabbat) dinner party: Why the bread? Why the table? What is the significance of this holy eating? What’s the deal with it always being fresh? Why could the table never be without bread? And why is it called Bread of the Panim – meaning, simultaneously – bread of the Face, Bread of the Inside, Internal bread, Bread of the Presence… What is this in Avodah?

Here’s my take:

“As long as the temple existed, the altar atoned for a person. Now, each person’s table atones for them” says the Talmud (Menachot 97). The Talmud here is prescribing a surprising role to eating, and to the home. Redemption happens not despite eating, but through it. The temple is not inherited by the synagogue, but by the home – your dining room table, to be specific. Nowhere is the connection between our tables and the Temple more pronounced then on Shabbat, with meals the focal point of the day (not synagogue…). Obviously, Hallah takes the place of the Lechem haPanim (indeed, Kabbalists would use 12 loaves of challah on Shabbat, just like in the Temple).

Reb Tzadok haCohen of Lublin, the late Hassidic master (died 1900), extrapolates:

The Lechem haPanim was renewed each Shabbat, because the essence of eating in holiness is achieved on Shabbat, as they said in the Talmud and the Midrash and the Zohar: “By keeping Shabbat one is immediately redeemed” – in other words through holy eating everything is rectified, becoming as it was before the brokenness [of the eating from the fruit in Eden] and the harm of the snake. And this is the meaning of “immediately redeemed”. (Pri Tzadik Tu Bishvat)

לחם הפנים בשבת מתחדש, כי עיקר אכילה בקדושה הוא בשבת וזה שאמרו בגמרא (שבת קי"ח ב) ומדרש (שמות רבה כ"ה, י"ב) וזוה"ק (תיקון כ"א) דעל ידי שמירת שבת נגאלין מיד שמתקנים הכל שיהיה כמו קודם קלקול ופגם הנחש ...וזהו מיד נגאלין.

Reb Tzadok’s Shabbat eating is an eating that pervades the entire body. Like the purifying waters of the mikveh, the food rushes through the entire organism, redefining it, bringing it fresh life, resetting our body to the “manufacturer’s settings”. Meir Shalev, in his novel Four Meals describes such an experience:

I couldn’t imagine that food could give such profound and poignant pleasure. Not only my tongue and my palate, but also my throat and my guts and my fingertips sprouted tiny taste buds. The smell filled my nose, saliva flooded my mouth, and even though I was still a child, I knew I would never forget the meal I was eating.  (Meir Shalev, Four Meals, pg. 18)

Reb Tzadok’s Shabbat eating is an eating that is able to “reset” the world, a return to the world of divine and human expectations as they were in Eden, before human weakness was manifested  by the snake. Shabbat eating allows us to return to ourselves the way we imagined ourselves, to our highest aspirations for ourselves. Lechem haPanim is indeed “Show bread” – the bread that shows an ideal image of the world, of ourselves. As we eat it on Friday night, we can again imagine ourselves as our highest selves, and immediately we are redeemed.

And one more thing: Why did the Bread of the Internal never go stale? I know only one kind of bread that doesn’t go stale – wonderbread, the height of the artificial. Indeed, artificial dreams, like artificial bread, seem to stay fresh and shiny. Real bread, like deep dreams and aspirations, become stale ever so quickly, as we become jaded and cynical. Hence the image of an “Internal Bread” that will never go stale is so necessary. On Shabbat we are invited to reach back to the “Bread of the Inside”, that place inside that never goes stale, where dreams are “as warm as when they were baked.” And this is perhaps why the bread can never be taken off the golden table of our psyche: if we were ever to live in a world where the ever-fresh bread did not exist, our life too would become as stale as week old bread.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mishael

Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Emor | Text and the City