This week’s portion is, in many ways, a challenging one. We note the role of the Levites, thus underscoring the importance of the Levitical priesthood and in Numbers 9 the curious ritual of the second Passover. We see again the cloud and the Tabernacle and find ourselves in a challenging situation in chapter 11 when Moses, overwhelmed by the demands of leadership and the complaints of the frustrated people that he is so depressed that he calls on God that he cannot do the job any longer, it is too much and that “If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg you, and let me see no more of my wretchedness” (11.15). A comment notes that the Masorites may have changed the text from “their” wretchedness, perhaps another inkling to the tradition’s celebration of Moses as an example of humility.
However, I ask you to look at the verses that follow this passage. Moses’ cry is met with a response by God that he should gather seventy elders. This echoes another passage in Exodus. In a moment of crisis, despair and self-doubt, the advice is to gather the people who have been there, who have lived experience and seek their counsel so that the burden of leadership may be shared. Let me suggest that this passage speaks volumes to our own experience. Life experience counts for much in Torah. Do we live in a society that discounts it? Do we trade off the wisdom of history for the temporal thrill of the now? How many elders report that as they age, they become invisible, their experience discounted?
I consider the lesson of the seventy to be a message for us and our times. It goes to the growing reality that we often forget the lessons of history and in doing so, as philosophers have pointed out, are thus doomed to repeat it. How seriously is history taught in our schools? How seriously is Jewish history taught in our synagogues? We are living some of that now as have seen so many of our college aged young people unprepared to meet the charges and challenges of antisemitism on campuses. Are we sending them out without any serious historical knowledge other than miracles stories? Are we, as a society, immune to catch phrases and innuendos from leaders that hearken back to moments in time when those phrases and attitudes were used against us?
When you study the portion this Shabbat, ask yourself about the value of knowing our history and thus, each of our histories. Each of us contains within us a book of lived experience. How can we, do we celebrate that history?
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Richard F Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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