Parashat B’ha’alotkha
Beyond Fear:
Social Justice As A Sacred Communal Obligation
Parashat
B’ha’alotkha reminds us of the risks and dangers of true social action but also
of its triumphs when attempted through mutual solidarity.
By Nina Wouk
The following article is reprinted with permission from SocialAction.com.
In an article entitled "Gemilut Hasadim [Doing Acts of
Lovingkindness] is Not Social Action," Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf claims that
many synagogue social action committees concern themselves not with their
stated purpose, but with tzedakah (charity) projects, such as tutoring
and stocking food pantries.
While these are worthy activities, the Torah repeatedly
shows that social action demands more: It means attempting "profoundly
controversial, deeply political, even world-historical" changes, in both
the Jewish community and the larger society, which would ideally make such
palliatives unnecessary.
The impulse to social action is rooted in our most sacred
obligations. But carrying out that impulse can be daunting. Rabbi Wolf suspects
that fear of splitting congregations, and of losing donations, is behind the
unwillingness to "take up arms against poverty and injustice."
Social action does carry risks, as parashat B’ha’alotkharepeatedly points
out. Yet it shows how a dedicated, mutually responsible group can come to grips
with those risks by consciously confronting them.
Facing a fear begins with naming it. Where we might be
likely to hold a community discussion, our ancestors often used ritual to
articulate both problems and solutions. In B’ha’alotkha, the adult men of the
tribe of Levi are formally assigned the ritual functions which the people as a
whole forfeited by worshipping the golden calf. Their initiation requires that
they be treated like sacrificial animals: representatives of the tribes lay
their hands on the heads of the Levi'im, thus symbolically transferring
responsibility. Next, each Levi, in lieu of being offered on the altar, is
lifted up in front of it.
By becoming sacrifices, the Levi'im graphically state their
awareness that giving one's life to a sacred cause is dangerous. This remains
true today: human rights and refugee workers, investigators of corrupt
governments, organizers of opposition political parties in many countries, and
organizers for unpopular causes in the United States take ill-paying jobs, live
in dangerous areas, risk prison, face and sometimes meet death.
However, the initiation of the Levi'im is more than a
collection of individual sacrifices; it symbolizes the entire tribe's
commitment to a shared purpose. Further, this tribe has faced fear before, and
demonstrated willingness to stand and fight together. Because they know they
can count on each other, the people can count on them for effective, consistent
action.
Parashat B’ha’alotkha also illustrates how dedication to
social action can bring more intimate losses, such as separation from family
and from many members of the society that stands to benefit. Putting oneself
forward politically, whether as a professional or as a volunteer, also invites
public scrutiny of one's private life. This is an easy channel for the
resentment of people who don't relish the discomfort of change, even for the
better, or who doubt the authority of those who undertake leadership.
Moses, the person most responsible for carrying out God's
plan to restructure society, is the Torah's prime example of one who encounters
these losses. He essentially gives up his personal life after encountering God
at the Burning Bush, when he returns to Egypt. Throughout the rest of the
Torah, he is never shown interacting with his wife or children, only with his
brother, Aaron, his sister Miriam, and his father-in-law, Yitro.
Further, having become intimate with the Eternal, Moses find
his frame of reference shifted to the seventh generation, far beyond that of
the Israelites who feel keenly their lack of control over where their next meal
is coming from. He prays for the multitude, but no longer shares or understands
their fears and frustrations.
Finally, in Parashat B’ha’alotkha, he finds his most
intimate relationships become public issues and he loses, albeit temporarily,
the trust of both his siblings.
Yitro leaves for Midian after spending two years at the
Israelite camp. According to a midrash, Moses is left both socially bereft and
professionally unsupported. Yitro had been Moses' interpreter, the experienced
leader, who understood ordinary people when Moses no longer did.
To make Moses' job possible again, God appoints, and
inspires, 70 assistants, leaders of the people who can interpret and apply the
laws Moses receives. According to another midrash, all of these leaders had
been overseers in Egypt, where they willingly took blame, and beatings, for
failure to meet quotas rather than make impossible demands of those under them.
As in the case of the Levi'im, a reliable group makes it possible to realized
shared social ideals.
However some personal pain is inevitable, and impossible to
share. According to an illuminating rabbinic midrash, the wives of Moses' 70
assistants dressed up to celebrate their husbands' new honor, but Moses' own
wife Tzipporah remained plainly clothed. When Miriam asked her why, she replied
that it wouldn't make any difference how she dressed, because Moses hadn't
touched her in years.
Miriam tactfully called Aaron to a family conference just
outside Moses' tent, where Moses and no one else would overhear her saying that
if the 70 assistants could remain sexually active, Moses had no excuse for
neglecting Tzipporah.
Aaron agreed. Moses, overhearing, knew that he was not
master of his own time; rather he had to remain on call day and night. But he
held his tongue. The reason the Torah gives is his humility, which also serves
to protect his privacy.
In this case, no ritual exists to name or resolve the
problem. Thus God personally overreacts on Moses' behalf, striking Miriam with tzara'at
(leprosy), which forces her exile from the camp.
Perhaps this excessive intervention is deliberate, a
desperate means to reunite the Israelites, even in opposition to God. If so, it
works: Aaron, Moses and the people immediately join together, focusing their
many separate fears on God's anger at Miriam. Aaron appeals to Moses, Moses
prays for Miriam, and the people refuse to move camp until she can rejoin them.
This is the beginning of a renewed solidarity among the threatened family, and
between the family and the people.
B’ha’alotkhamakes no attempt to minimize fear and the inevitable risks of
social action. Further, it reminds us that the Source of our obligations does
not always act in ways that we find benign or even reasonable.
Yet it also depicts the continued triumph of mutual
solidarity. When the group consciously and in unity names and confronts its
fears, its members can carry out their responsibilities. In accordance with the
Torah's profound knowledge of human psychology, shared confrontation of fear
works even when the threat is inaccurately identified.
Parashat B’ha’alotkha, with its emphasis on sacrifice,
reminds us, when we form social action committees and organizations, how
serious is the responsibility involved. It was left to later generations to
articulate the proportionate greatness of the reward. Another evolving staple
of Jewish belief is that our ancestors' lives prefigure ours: if the untrained
generation of the desert overcame the fears that might have deterred them, so
can we.
Acknowledging these stories as our own, we can proceed with
a clear understanding of both the risks we may face, and the means to move
beyond fear in carrying out the sacred imperative of social justice.
Nina Wouk is an accountant who spends most of her free
time serving on three ritual committees.
