I am no Pastor Dan, nor a rabbi, but I figured that the dKos community needed an "Old School" commentary this week. This week, specifically tomorrow, looks to have potential for ill wind. As we speak, specific Israeli shuls are being used on Shabbat to discuss a Sunday storming of the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif. The aim is to end the fragile ceasefire and prevent the pullout from Gaza. If they can violate the day of peace in this way, I can do Torah commentary on dKos.
Feel free to flame away at me, but be respectful of the material.
Update [2005-4-9 15:11:12 by Ptolemy]: Israeli soldiers have shot dead three boys retrieving a soccer ball at the Gaza-Egypt border.
Update [2005-4-9 18:9:53 by Ptolemy]: Well, the palestinian militants have fired rockets into settlements, but haven't harmed anyone. Their follow-up statement seems to imply that this was their intention, and Islamic Jihad maintains that the ceasefire is valid for now.
No word on the massing of Kahanist militants at Temple Mount, but it's early Sunday AM over there.
The Torah portion for the week is from Leviticus. It specifies a lot of things about cleanliness, and as such, it offends a lot of modern people. However, if you take a second look at it ... it's a tract on Ob/Gyn policy, maternity leave, public health policy, sanitation, and dermatology.
God first tells Moses about childbirth policy. Women are "unclean" for a certain period of time after birth. This seems patently offensive on its surface. However, if you consider that the unclean are not expected to carry out their community duties for public health reasons ... these guidelines also establish minimum maternity leave in our day and age, which hardly anyone lives up to.
A woman gets seven days of alone time with her newborn son, and two weeks with her daughter. She isn't expected to do anything except tend to her health and that of the child. This dwarves the 2-4 days of hospital time we provide.
At the end of 7 days, the friends and family come for a bris of a newborn son. I acknowledge the discomfort a portion of DKos has with circumcision. Now, it's out there, and I don't want a flamewar about it. That's it. Note that God does not ask Moses to wait a year or two weeks or whatever. The community can celebrate a girl's birth at the convenience of the family. But, with a bris, it's "let's get this out of the way after mom has had a week." It's a balance between mother and child discomfort.
Then, God establishes that the mother is still in a state of "purification" for 1-2 months. Again, pretty blunt and scary language. But, again, this is much more leave than most mothers get now from society. And how many husbands are doing 100% of the household chores for two months?
Instead of looking at these laws as signs of disrespect for women, we should seek to set aside this much time for the health and bonding of women and babies. This is not making up into down, or twisting the passage's meaning. It's what the passage clearly states, if you understand the pretext of all of the terms.
Next, there's a lot of yammering about animal sacrifices. We don't have a Temple, and so these passages are moot, right? Not at all.
First of all, it serves as a reminder as to what a headache having a Temple Mount would be. All of these flights coming into Jerusalem all of the time, with sheep and pigeons on board. Oy. You don't want to retake the Temple Mount. God gave it to the Muslims ... he's no longer interested in pigeons for lunch. Use the airfare for other purposes.
Second, use the airfare for other purposes. Jews don't burn sheep or pigeons, but they do give money to shul or to Tzedekah. At the end of their maternity leave, women are exhorted to sacrifice something. And God makes clear that it is to be in accordance with their means. Wealthy women sacrifice a sheep and a pigeon, and poor women sacrifice two pigeons. So, this is the perfect time to give time or money to a cause, just before re-entering the regular cycles of work and family responsibilities. And it can be dedicated in the name of the baby ... their first act of giving back to the community. Imagine mothers bringing their babies to the soup kitchen, to assist with the line and introduce their kids to the world.
Third, Temple Priests were the doctors of the ancient Hebrews. They got paid by taking a piece of the animal sacrifices. And they didn't get paid for 1-2 months after childbirth. Imagine if insurance companies and ob/gyns operated on that schedule. Actually, imagine if the insurance companies did, because they don't get around to paying Ob/Gyns for 1-2 months anyway. So, imagine if hospitals gave moms a little time before sending the bill, and then gave the actual health care workers their cut immediately. Nice concept, huh?
After childbirth, God changes the topic to dermatology. In short, He details which skin lesions require medical attention and which require isolation and which are harmless. Again, when lesions require more study or isolation, the patient isn't expected to go to work or perform community duties. Very few lesions require expiation ... and thus, the priest/doctor is doing the work free of charge, unless the patient feels obligated to give an offering. And EVERYONE is informed about the rules regarding lesions, so that everyone knows when someone needs to go to the doctor. We don't get public service announcements about dermatology. But think of all of the STDs and cancers that could be treated early if we did.
Finally, the passage deals with blights and stains on clothing. Some clothing lesions require the article to be destroyed, and others merely require washing. We don't usually get clothing infections nowadays, but I've seen some people who have skin conditions because they don't or can't regularly wash their clothes. Again, clothing assessment and disposal is done free of charge. And diseased clothing is DESTROYED ... it isn't "donated" to the less well-off or thrown in a pile near the town. This is how we improve the general welfare.
So, even the "old school" texts can teach us a thing or two, albeit on a more pragmatic level.
The reading from the prophets is more of a story. It details two works of the Prophet Elisha, who was the disciple of Elijah (the guy who gets the extra cup of wine on Passover).
Elisha is staying in the Gilgal region, and a guy comes from another region with some bread and grain. He wants to give Elisha 20 loaves of bread and fresh grain, much more than can be eaten before it spoils. He's trying to curry favor with Elisha, to get in good with the Lord. However, Gilgal is currently suffering a famine ... so much so that Elisha has had to help the people gather potentially poisonous wild herbs and roots and extensively boil them for food.
Elisha tells the guy with the bread and grain to give the food to all the people of Gilgal. The guy is hesistant, because there are 100 people in need of food. But the 20 loaves of bread and the grain he brings feed the 100 people and there's some left over as well.
SO, when you are unsure whether there's enough social security money or medicare money, that's no reason to let one person have all the remaining money. If the community is given resources in a time of need, the community will figure out how to split it up. If one man is fed well, there will be waste and continued hunger.
The second story concerns an ancient Syrian (an Aramean) who had an Israelite slave girl. The slave told her master, a great general named Naaman, to go to Elisha to be cured of a skin lesion. Naaman went to the Aramean king, who sent him with much wealth and goods as payment. The king of Israel was despondent, because he figured that this was an impossible task. He believed that Naaman was sent with wealth and goods and an impossible task in order to provide the Arameans with a pretext for war. And all this might have been true. But the Israelite king was wise. He did not pre-emptively attack Naaman or the people of Aramea. He trusted that God would provide a solution through Elisha.
And Elisha took up the case. He told Naaman to take repeated baths in the Jordan River. Naaman was irritated. He wanted to know why Elisha didn't just use magic to heal him. He wanted to know why he couldn't just take baths at home. Of course, the implication is that Naaman did not take regular baths at home.
Sure enough, Naaman eventually complied, after his slaves cajoled him into it. And he was cured. He promised to worship God in gratitude, but he cautioned Elisha that he was still going to go to the temples of the Arameans and bow low there, in keeping with his culture and his ruler. This was good enough for God, and Elisha told him to go in peace.
So, here we are, 24 hours or less before my distant kinsmen storm a mosque. It is not a shul, and the people there bow low to the ground, but it is God they worship. They pray for health restored and for health to be restored. They pray for peace, although some inside may scheme to war. Truly, peace between the Palestinians and Israelis may seem impossible, but it is also as simple as a sick man taking a bath. And the impossibility of peace does not prove the inevitability of war, nor does it justify it. It is wrong enough to attack a neighbor based on imagined threat, but it is far worse to attack him in his house of worship. If a bath and a praise of God from an enemy general are good enough, then are not a ceasefire and a praise of God from a neighbor more than enough?
Besides, if they take the Temple Mount, we're all going to have to start buying tickets to deliver sheep and pigeons ... and that money is better spent providing bread and grain in the places we have settled all over the world.