Missed Opportunities, Hearts and Roses, & B’Ha’alot’kha

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about last week.

About how I missed an important opportunity.

Over a year ago, I made a big deal in my ordination speech of addressing the sexism, the homophobia, the Jewish triumphalist attitudes of the Torah.

I didn’t want to miss that opportunity of facing the flaws of the Torah straight on.

Because so often we want to deny the bad and only focus on how great we are.

How spiritual, how deep, how loving.

I don’t like pretending that religion—mine included—is all hearts and roses.

And last week, as I searched for inspiration upon entering the holiday of Shavuot, I found little, if any, inspiration in the Torah reading.

Especially, as I pointed out, in the story of the sotah, the woman accused of cheating on her husband.

But I missed something.

I missed that sometimes things aren’t as they seem.

That within this sexist attitude of blaming the woman and putting her to a test of loyalty to her husband, that perhaps this “test” was in fact an effort at protection.

Because, whether she was innocent or guilty, her thigh wouldn’t sag, nor would her belly distend, just from drinking some cursed water!

Correct?

(I mean, unless you believe in spells, which I’m not saying I do or I don’t.)

In other words, this story put a hypothetically jealous husband in a position where he would have to hold back a potentially violent rage.

And the woman would be protected from his violence by having to present herself before the priest.

Then, she would walk away physically unharmed (though most likely humiliated, which isn’t nothing).

But it was progressive for its time.

This week, we end the Torah portion with Miriam, Moses’ sister, taking the sole blame for gossiping about Moses’ wife—because she is a Cushite woman, not an Israelite.

She alone breaks out in a rash, and is put in isolation outside the camp until she heals—even though her brother Aaron is equally guilty!

So this seems like true and pure sexism, unlike perhaps the example from last week.

It’s a good thing, at least, that God does not look favorably upon the gossip—perhaps gossip in general—nor upon their prejudice against the non-Israelite woman married to Moses.

And the Torah makes a point of saying that the Israelites could not break camp until Miriam was back in the fold.

There’s something else that’s been on my mind.

Which is, the “perfect” rescue of the four Israeli hostages a couple of weeks ago.

How “perfect” could it have been when almost 300 Palestinians were killed in the process, not to mention the Israeli commander who headed the mission?!

So much joy—alongside so much pain.

At times, it’s true; the Torah teaches us not to care about the lives of our “enemies.”

But there are other times, like in this week’s parsha, when we are taught that, even speaking against someone not officially a part of our tribe is despicable.

Not only is intermarriage between the tribes permissible; it should not become a subject of judgmental talk, according to this version of the God of our Bible.

This week on This American Life, I heard the update on the developing story of Yousef and his family.

For some reason, it hit me hard this time.

Who knows why, when I’ve been hearing the same information for eight months.

It’s not new that Gazans literally have no escape from the bombing and the starvation.

That there is literally no exit—

—except if you can come up with tens of thousands of dollars—in cash—for your family to maybe be allowed into Egypt!

(All top secret, not to piss anybody off.)

So how is it…

How is it the case that so many people are walking around unable to see—unable to feel anything for all the lives being lost (whether they’re hostages or Palestinians!) and all these people being starved—where a bag of flour costs 200 American dollars?

Where is our collective conscience?

Yes: religion is misused and abused.

For exclusivity, for hatred, for triumphalism.

But we can choose to use religion in different ways, just as we choose to listen to, or open ourselves, to certain pieces of information and not others.

Because religion also teaches us to open our hearts.

To love.

Isn’t it enough already?

Enough suffering for the hostages and their families?

Enough suffering for Gazans and their families?

Do we need any sort of test (of loyalty, perhaps, to an idea or a group?) in order to stop the violence?

Let us—all of us—not miss an important opportunity to stop looking at Israeli families, or Jewish families, or Palestinian families as separate from each other.

Let us—all of us—not miss the opportunity to see everyone as part of the human family.

Let us not choose to include some, and put others outside our camp to suffer alone.

And say Amen.