Shabbat Hazon - D'varim

Deuteronomy 1:1−3:22

By Rabbi Shira Milgrom for ReformJudaism.org

Deuteronomy: Becoming the Master Storytellers

The Passover Haggadah famously distinguishes between the wise and wicked children by the singular choice of the wise child to identify with the story: "It is because of what the Eternal did for us [me] when I came out of Egypt." At the very core of the Jewish enterprise is the willingness to take the story of our people as our own personal story.

The decision to frame the people's narrative as our very own is the way the Book of Deuteronomy opens. The Torah speaks through the voice of Moses: "The Eternal our God spoke to us at Horeb" (Deuteronomy 1:6); "We set out from Horeb" (1:19); "When we reached Kadesh-barnea (1:20), and so on. Were we to read the text on its surface (p'shat) level, we would have a problem here. We already learned that the people who stood at Horeb (Sinai) perished in the desert. Those who escaped from Egypt, who stood at Mt. Sinai, who traveled to Kadesh-barnea, who complained day and night, and who finally decided to go back to Egypt following the doom and gloom testimony of ten of the twelve scouts—that generation died out in the desert (1:34-36). To whom is Moses speaking? Presumably, he is speaking to the next generation. This generation did not stand at Sinai; they were not at Kadesh-barnea. The Book of Deuteronomy has taken the fantastic leap into Jewish storytelling: Yes! We did stand at Horeb. Yes! We were at Kadesh-barnea! Yes, yes, yes! This story is ours.

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Mas-ei

Numbers 33:1-36:13

Death, Thou Shalt Die

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Richard A. Block

The end of the wilderness sojourn of the wandering Israelites approaches as the Book of Numbers reaches its conclusion. In Parashat Mas-ei, the Torah looks backward and ahead. Summarizing forty years of marches and encampments since the Exodus from Egypt requires almost a full chapter. This travelogue is detailed, but without elaboration. Moses's version of the events that transpired in those places and his attempt to distill their lessons will be the main endeavor of Deuteronomy. Here, only the death of Aaron at the ripe age of one hundred and twenty-three years is mentioned.

The bulk of the portion anticipates the Israelites' entry to the land of Canaan and lays out initial steps to be taken as they establish their national home in that land of promise. This includes defining the land's outer boundaries and apportioning it among the ancestral tribes, except for the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who had elected to settle east of the Jordan River, and the landless Levites, for whom special provision was to be made. The latter were assigned forty-eight towns and the surrounding pastures to be carved out of the other tribes' allotments in proportion to their relative sizes.

The Torah turns next to a core aspect of criminal law: homicide. Six of the Levite towns were to be designated as "cities of refuge to which a manslayer who has killed a person unintentionally may flee" and therein find protection from "the blood-avenger . . . so that the manslayer may not die unless he has stood trial before the assembly" (Numbers 35:11-12). The Torah is well aware that not every killing is premeditated and it recognizes a moral and legal distinction between murder-taking a life with intent or reckless disregard of the consequences of one's actions, and manslaughter-a death resulting from an accident or negligence.

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Mattot

Numbers 30:2-32:42

“There Is Safety in Numbers”: Reception History and Cities of Refuge

D'var Torah By: Dr. Kristine Garroway
In Numbers 35:9-15, God commands the people to create cities of refuge in the Promised Land. The notion behind the cities of refuge-where one could claim asylum or sanctuary-is a construct that has found itself reinterpreted throughout the ages. What follows below is a brief exploration into the way the biblical text has been (re)interpreted from the Rabbinic period up until the present day. Examining the way a text has been received and interpreted is called "reception history," which is a form of higher criticism.

In the biblical text, the cities of refuge act as a sanctuary for one who had committed murder (rotzei-ach), but who had done so unintentionally ( makeih-nefesh bish'gagah). The issue here is blood vengeance. Numbers 35:16-21 explains that a person committing murder should be put to death (as murder violates the sixth commandment). Furthermore, a member of the family of one who was intentionally murdered has the right to act as the executioner. The kinsman carrying out this duty is called the go-eil hadam, the blood-avenger. However, if the murder happened by accident, then the murderer is allowed a trial, and the assembly shall decide whether or not the manslayer should die (Numbers 35:22-24). If the assembly finds in the person's favor, the manslayer shall live in one of the cities of refuge until the High Priest dies.1 At this point the man is free to return to his home (Numbers 35:28). If the manslayer sets foot outside the city before then, he opens himself up to the retribution exacted by the blood-avenger.2 So ends the biblical law.

The Rabbis had much to say about the cities of refuge. Of particular concern to them was how a person running from the blood-avenger would be able to find one of the cities. According to B'midbar Rabbah 23:13, God told Moses to set up road signs inscribed with the word "manslayer" that would point the person in the correct direction. So too, R. Avin stated every mile along the way there would be a station with a person pointing toward the city of refuge.3In case this was not enough, the roads leading to the cities of refuge should be extra wide, 16 cubits, not the regular 4 cubits. 4 The Rabbis were also interested in what a city of refuge would look like: a mid-size city, near water and markets, of a decent size population, and free of traps, nooses, and weapons.5

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Pinhas

Numbers 25:10-30:1

Evolving Justice

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Lisa Edwards for ReformJudaism.com

I was recently called to jury service in Los Angeles. As imperfect as this complicated, human system of law may be, the jury selection made me proud to be an American, especially as the judge instructed the potential jurors about the meaning of “presumed innocent.”

At the beginning of jury selection, when the judge in the courtroom asked the thirty-four potential jurors how many of us thought the defendant was probably guilty, a majority raised their hands. He told us this is a common answer and understandable, but explained that in the United States every judge, every jury, must learn to presume innocence. Of course, we can easily find reminders of the difficulty of presuming innocence—from Guantanamo Bay to political scandals to the halls of justice everywhere—especially when fear and anxiety play a role.

I can’t help but think of our right to a fair trial, "a jury of our peers," and a presumption of innocence as we open our Torah scrolls this week to Parsahat Pinchas. The parashah is named for the grandson of Aaron who, in a short narrative at the very end of Parashat Balak, took the law into his own hands by running a spear through the Israelite Zimri and his Midianite paramour, Cozbi, for their public display of affection (Numbers 25:5-9).

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