Unimaginable Things

Moses's challenge to imagine Jewish unity in Parashat Beha'alotecha

(Evyatar Banai’s Free Imagination.)

Moses was the greatest prophet of all time, and somethings were beyond even him. One of those things was a menorah. In this week’s parashah, we learn about how God instructs the Israelites to build this sacred lamp:

וְזֶ֨ה מַעֲשֵׂ֤ה הַמְּנֹרָה֙ מִקְשָׁ֣ה זָהָ֔ב עַד־יְרֵכָ֥הּ עַד־פִּרְחָ֖הּ מִקְשָׁ֣ה הִ֑וא כַּמַּרְאֶ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר הֶרְאָ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־מֹשֶׁ֔ה כֵּ֥ן עָשָׂ֖ה אֶת־הַמְּנֹרָֽה׃ {פ}

Now this is how the lampstand was made: it was hammered work of gold, hammered from base to petal. According to the pattern that GOD had shown Moses, so was the lampstand made. (Numbers 8:4)

According to the Ein Ya’akov, a collection of aggadot (legends) from the Talmud, this lampstand was something that Moses could not imagine:

R. Akiva says: This is one of the three things which Moses could not visualize until they were pointed out to him by the L–rd. Likewise, (Leviticus 11:29) “And this shall be unclean for you from among all the things that swarm upon the earth.” (Likewise,) (Numbers 8:4) “And this is the work of the menorah.” Others say: He was likewise perplexed as to slaughtering, viz. (Numbers 29:38) “And this is what you shall do upon the altar.”

Moses had an incredible mind and spirit, but he could not conceive of how to construct the menorah until he received clear, Divine instruction. Why was the menorah so difficult to imagine? Because it is not easy to create something with a single base, and several individual candle sticks from a single piece of gold.

The Hebrew in this verse adds additional texture to the challenge: The Hebrew words that are used for the two components of the menorah (in English, “base” and “petal”) are yerech, hip, and perach, flower. They are to be hammered/forged through something hard — mikshah — into one, single unit that brings light into the world.

To summarize: Moses needs to instruct the Jewish people to build something that can bring beauty and light into the world with a shared hip. It must be forged through something hard.

I am one of many rabbis throughout history to draw a parallel between the menorah and the Jewish people. Here is the strongest of those parallels: it is increasingly difficult to imagine a Jewish people joined at the hip that shares its unique lights in concert.

This isn’t the first epoch in Jewish history where unity is a stretch to imagine. During the Second Temple Period, there was an extended, bloody civil war between the Hasmoneans and the Pharisees. Those conflicts made us vulnerable to external attack, and yet, we still couldn’t get ourselves back together. We lost the Temple and our sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

Fast forward to the first half of the twentieth century and we see Philosopher Hannah Arendt describes the disunity of the Jewish people and its consequences in the first section of her masterpiece, The Origins of Totalitarianism:

It is therefore more than accidental that the catastrophic defeats of the peoples of Europe began with the catastrophe of the Jewish people. It was particularly easy to begin the dissolution of the precarious European balance of power with the elimination of the Jews, and particularly difficult to understand that more was involved in this elimination than an unusually cruel nationalism or an ill-timed revival of ‘old prejudices.’ When the catastrophe came, the fate of the Jewish people was considered a ‘special case’ whose history follows exceptional laws, and whose destiny was therefore of no general relevance. This breakdown of European solidarity was at once reflected in the breakdown of Jewish solidarity all over Europe. When the persecution of German Jews began, Jews of other European countries discovered that German Jews constituted an exception whose fate could bear no resemblance to their own. Similarly, the collapse of German Jewry was preceded by its split into innumerable factions, each of which believed and hoped that its basic human rights would be protected by special privileges – the privilege of having been a veteran of World War I, the child of a veteran, the proud son of a father killed in action. It looked as though the annihilation of all individuals of Jewish origin was being preceded by the bloodless destruction and self-dissolution of the Jewish people, as though the Jewish people had owed its existence exclusively to other peoples and their hatred. (22)

We now find ourselves again at a sectarian crossroads analogous to the Second Temple period, and once again consumed by the individualistic impulses Arendt describes in Europe. Like Moses, many in the Jewish community are finding it more and more difficult to imagine us with a common bond and base, wanting to retain the ability to bring our unique light and beauty to the world without affirming a foundation or an underlying connection.

Maybe the lesson we can learn from Ein Ya’akov is that in order to imagine something this difficult, you need to see it to believe it. Maybe some of us can get there with a Divine vision. Maybe others of us need to see it done by our fellow Jews in order to create it ourselves. Often we can only begin to imagine something once we see the blueprints or the model.

What we do know is that if we cannot imagine, and begin to create a future with a common base, we will resign ourselves to be burnt, broken, and bereft of support. Arendt alerts us to the dangers of disunity, but does not articulate a clear, positive vision for what we could create together. I think it is the job of rabbis and Jewish leaders to lay out the blueprints for what is possible at this moment — a structure that allows the diversity of the Jewish people to shine through a common base and mission.

We in Maine have drawn up those blueprints and have been building it for a decade. For those of you in Maine or who can get to Maine, I’d encourage you to see what the Jewish people can do when united through a common commitment to Torah and community. You will see energy, light, care, and connection that will give you hope. Maybe that is the greatest gift that a people can give to the world, if we can only imagine ourselves as capable and worthy.

You can learn more and find out how to register here:

https://jewishlife.colby.edu/maine-conference-for-jewish-life/

Shabbat Shalom!