Leviticus 16 mandates establishment of a holy day on the 10th day of the 7th month as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) for sins:

And it shall be a statute for ever unto you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger that sojourneth among you: for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before Jehovah.

Why? Why do we need a special day for atonement? Why wait a year? Why do we have to wait for a certain day to atone for our sins? Why not just whenever they happen?

While I believe that we should try to avoid making any sins instead of avoiding them, I find wisdom in this practice. It recognized two important aspect of human behavior. One, it is hard for us to forgive (others and ourselves) while something is fresh and salient in our minds. Second, the mere fact that there is a known process – a day each year when everybody knows that atonement is practiced makes it easier for people to forgive and to approach people they hurt. The routine, the knowledge of the procedure, helps people overcome their feelings of anger, frustration and revenge as well as shame and fear of openly discussing hurtful issues.

For a religion, it makes sense to wait a year, but I think that in our interpersonal lives, we can use a “day of atonement” every once in a while. If our families, co-workers and other people close to us know that every once in a while (in a predicted manner), there is a day that is devoted to reflecting on what we did wrong and on forgiving others, it facilitates not only important communication, but also an openness to discuss, forgive and most importantly, grow as human beings.

While I think each and every one of us should find the process and frequency that fits his or her own taste and preferences, I recommend at least considering setting up public times of atonement. It could be once a year. It could be more frequent than that. Make sure that everyone around you knows that once in a while, there is a time that allows putting past grievances behind us.

Elad

Leviticus 11, 44:

For I am Jehovah your God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am holy

Role modeling at it best.

We can all be like god. We should all be like god.

However, we are not automatically like god. It requires sanctification.

For some of us, that sanctification can come through work. For others, through creation of art or through pure thought. Others still will find it in their family and friends. In the end, it is all about connecting with other in the most human way possible.

Because underneath all the cynicism, witticism and skepticism we all know what holy is and we all aspire to it. And we can all reach it. It is around us in the people we know and interact with everyday. If you treat these relationship as holy, they will be holy. And you be holy.

It’s worth it.

Elad

“And he hath filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship”

One of the very basic aspirations human beings have is that of mastery. To not only be good at what we do, but to actually be great at it. To have that feeling, that moment, where what we do takes over us, consumes us, makes us feel a part of something greater. Like we are filled with the spirit of god.

Some will call it flow. Some will call it joy or happiness. Some will call it Art.

Six months before he was assassinated, on October 26, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, this is part of what he said:

If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.

When we are masters of our trade, we are much more than that. We have an impact. We connect not only with the most inner parts of ourselves, but also with something greater. That is why I love the quote above from Exodus 35, hidden in a long shopping list Moses demands from the people of Israel. It highlights, that great workmanship is not only about what we actually do, but about what we are – our wisdom, understanding and knowledge.

And you know what? When we see mastery, or at least an attempt at one, we recognize it, we connect with it, we appreciate it. Be it the graceful moves of a supreme athlete, the calmness and kindness of a customer service representative, the breathtaking music of an amazing singer or the well crafted arguments of the lawyer in court. We appreciate it. We value it. We carve for it.

I too sometimes see what I do as just that, something I do. Every time I act like that I am passing on an opportunity to try and master it. Because to be a master of something does not means actually being the best. It is about trying to be best. It is about putting all our effort in it. It is about connecting with ourselves, with what we do and with others.

I don’t know what it is that you do. I hope you are trying to treat it as a master. I wish for you to treat it as a master and to actually be one. I wish for all of us that you will be a master.

Elad

In Exodus 34, Moses again goes up Mount Sinai to re-write the Ten Commandments. While there, god passes him and Moses cries out:

Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth, keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

These lines really troubled me. Why does the iniquity of the fathers passed downward to their children, and two more generations down? Where is the justice in that? Should actions of people who were born a hundred years in front of us really doom us today? Aren’t many problems in our world are the result of an attempt to “revenge” on past transgressions? There are some disputes that have been going on for years, where the disputants can’t really explain what really stated it, besides the fact that it exists. When you think about free choice, liberty and other concepts I mentioned here in this blog that I think are in the stories of the bible, these particular verses do not seem to be in line with the messages of many other stories.

Thinking more about it, I changed my mind. I think it is important to read these lines about the guilt carried on for generations, together with the sentences that come just before them. Iniquity and transgression and sin are forgiven. Which means that the responsibility is passed on, not the blame. Each and every one of us is not blamed from the transgression of our forefathers and at the same time each and every one of us has a responsibility to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Yes, we have liberty, free choice, and ability to distinguish between good and bad. However, we are also, at the same time, part of a community that is intertwined and connected in more ways than we can imagine. What we have, what we are, who we are, are all part because of what we do, chose, and decide. At the same time, part of who and what we are is the community we live in, the culture we adopt, the history and past that allowed us to arrive to this moment. We can’t disregard that. We can’t disconnect from that. While we don’t have to agree, accept, or take for granted anything from history, we have a responsibility to respect it, learn from it and incorporate it, wisely to our daily choices.

The bible tells us that god forgives, but does not forget. So should we.

Elad

I once saw a TV show where the issue of diets was discussed. For some reason, the advice that was given stuck with me: “You don’t let your enemies into your house”. Meaning, don’t even buy those cookies and ice-creams and whatnot, because as soon as they will come into your house, you can forget about the diet. It is just too hard to resist. This is actually backed up by research that shows that our willpower is a depleting recourse and that we suffer from decision fatigue (and see also: Stanford marshmallow experiment). That is why I was surprised to find the same advice in Exodus 33.

In Exodus 32, we learned a lesson about conflict management. Moses helped god rethink his anger by helping him to stop, reflect and think about the other side. Exodus 33 is all about god being proactive in managing temptations. God tells Moses that he will send the people of Israel to the Promised Land and make all the arrangements for their arrival (getting rid of some people who were, unfortunately, living there). However, god says that he will not continue to be present in their encampment. Why? Because god is afraid not be able to show self-control:

And Jehovah said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people; if I go up into the midst of thee for one moment, I shall consume thee…

Yes. I know. It is a little arrogant of me to compare my ice-cream fascination with god’s need to smite the people of Israel of the face of the planet. But, well… when you think about it, it is just the same process. Additionally, When you think about it from a religious point of view this could be baffling. Is it really possible that the almighty god is unable show self-control? However, if you are like me, looking for the lesson in the story, you understand that this is another early lesson in basic human psychology. Or maybe it is just the first dietary advice. After all to consume also means to eat (even though this interpretation is not really possible in the original Hebrew).

So, when you really need to show self-control, do you rely on your willpower or do you make sure to create an environment free of temptations?

Elad

Exodus 32 is an amazing story of conflict management. Many times, when we are in a conflict, we respond from out gut feelings or our emotions. Somebody hurt us, or made us angry, and we just react. Many times, we regret this later.

God is angry with the people of Israel. He is almost on the way to do something that he may regret later – consume them:

And Jehovah said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

And here comes Moses. He helps god do what we should all do when something like this happens to us. Stop. Reflect. Think about the other person and your relationship with him or her. Respond out of thinking and not out of feeling:

And Moses besought Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, that thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, saying, For evil did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fiercz wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

Next time you find yourself in a situation where you are full of emotions and going to act out on them, try to look for your own Moses. That person that will help you with the process: Stop. Reflect. Think about the other side. React out of thinking and out of feeling.

And Jehovah repented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people.

Elad

In Exodus 32 we are told that as Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people of Israel feared that he will not return and asked his brother, Aaron, to create a tangible God for them, one which they can see and worship. I talked about this story in my e-book as the reason why I think the ban of creating idols is actually about the relationship between human beings. This is what I wrote:

If you believe that man is divine, that each man is a God in himself, because he was created in the likeness and image of God, than it is wrong to worship or idolize any other form. Not because of the fact that by creating an idol you try to imitate God and not because there is only one God, but because it lessens us as humans. Why do you think God and Moses were so angry when they saw that the Israelites made a Golden Calf?

And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf: and they said, These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt (Exodus, 32, 4)

After all, they did not say there was a different God. They just wanted something real, tangible, to represent the God that saved them. But think about it – a man, who was created in the likeness of God, who is divine by itself, the peak of creation, should worship a statute? And of a calf? The ban on idols was not in place to protect the Israelites from worshiping other gods, but it is there to remind them of the importance of their humanity. We should look for divinity in other people.

I still stand by these words. I also think the molten gold calf is a great metaphor that is as strong today as it was when it was written. It is about putting tangible things like money (gold) and possessions over intangible things like ideas, hope, faith and relationships. Yes, it is easier to deal with what we see, to manage we can measure and to focus on the tangible. But easy is not a guarantee of important or meaningful. We all have golden calves in our lives that we constantly worship, sometimes without even being aware of it. Like the children of Israel, our intentions are usually good – they felt scared when their leader did not come back from the mountain. Being scared and having good intentions are not excuses for giving up so easily and for replacing the things that are important with the things that are easy.

I ask you this: what is your golden calf? Isn’t it time you replaced it with something that has a true meaning?

Elad

Exodus 31 is the last chapter describing the long set of instructions God gives Moses regarding the sanctuary he wished built, the attire of the priests and the different rules of worship. At the end of this long exchange, just before he God sends Moses back to down to the anxiously waiting people of Israel, we read about one final reminder:

Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily ye shall keep my sabbaths: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am Jehovah who sanctifieth you.  Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that profaneth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Jehovah: whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.  It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

While I already wrote about the generalization of the idea of the Sabbath, I do like the way it was used here and I think it deserves another reminder. The verse I put in bold puts it very nicely. By stopping, or not doing anything, the children of Israel actually keep their covenant with their God.

And that raises a good question for all of us. What do we need to stop doing? How can we strengthen the relationships around us by not doing certain things? How do we strengthen ourselves by stopping?

In a recent article on Vanity Fair titled California and Bust, Michael Lewis interviews Dr. Peter Whybrow, a British neuroscientist at U.C.L.A.. Here is a short part of this amazing article:

The human brain evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in an environment defined by scarcity. It was not designed, at least originally, for an environment of extreme abundance. “Human beings are wandering around with brains that are fabulously limited,” he says cheerfully. “We’ve got the core of the average lizard.” Wrapped around this reptilian core, he explains, is a mammalian layer (associated with maternal concern and social interaction), and around that is wrapped a third layer, which enables feats of memory and the capacity for abstract thought. “The only problem,” he says, “is our passions are still driven by the lizard core. We are set up to acquire as much as we can of things we perceive as scarce, particularly sex, safety, and food.” Even a person on a diet who sensibly avoids coming face-to-face with a piece of chocolate cake will find it hard to control himself if the chocolate cake somehow finds him…. “What we’re doing is minimizing the use of the part of the brain that lizards don’t have,” says Whybrow. “We’ve created physiological dysfunction. We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of the society. The $5 million you get paid at Goldman Sachs if you do whatever they ask you to do—that is the chocolate cake upgraded.”

Don’t you think it is worthwhile to stop once in a while? Reconsider? Think about long-term consequences? About what we really need?

I know what you must think: “The passage from the bible is not about that. It is about keeping a holy day. It is about not doing any work. It is not about self-regulation”.

I politely disagree. I don’t think the point is a certain day and its holiness. I think the point is about relationships we have with ourselves and with other people. Maintaining relationship is hard work. And like any hard work, it requires, from time to time, to step back to stop and think. By frequently stopping everything you are actually giving that relationship the respect it deserves.

So, what do you need to stop? More importantly, what are you waiting for?

Elad

Exodus 26-29 continues the detailed instruction for the sanctuary god asks Moses to build in the desert. After the instructions for the structure are finished, there are more instructions about the proper attire, Aaron (Moses’s brother) and his sons, who are to become the priests, should wear. Very detailed instructions.  And if you survive all these instructions (it can get quite boarding, I have to admit) you get to two very interesting verses:

And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.

And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am Jehovah their God

I just love the sound of this word: dwell. I had to look it up in the dictionary:

Dwell

verb (used without object)
1. to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.
2.  to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.
3.  to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing (often followed by on  or upon ): to dwell on a particular point in an argument.
4.  (of a moving tool or machine part) to be motionless for a certain interval during operation.

The Hebrew word is also interesting as it connects with the idea of Shekhinah:

hekhinah (alternative transliterations Shekinah, Shechinah, Shekina, Shechina, Schechinah, שכינה) is the English spelling of a grammatically feminine Hebrew language word that means the dwelling or settling, and is used to denote the dwelling or settling presence of God (cf. divine presence), especially in the Temple in Jerusalem.

And this reminded me of the song by Joan Osborne – “What If God Was One Of Us”:

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

For those of you who need a reminder, this is a secular bible blog. I do not necessarily believe in god. I do have to wonder: what would happen if it was a known fact that god was “dwelling among us”. Not some entity in the sky or heaven or wherever. But instead here; all the time; as part of us; as part of our relationships and interactions. Can that idea, by itself, make a change?

I once learned that one of the main questions to assess whether what you are doing is moral or right is to ask yourself – what would happen if everybody knew? What would happen if it would be in the first page of the paper tomorrow? Or the more Jewish version: what would your mother say? This is not about acting according to the latest polls (the way some of our leaders do). It is a test to see whether something is right regardless of it being out in the open.

What would happen if we did an exercise? Just like John Rawls suggested, we would imagine we were beyond a veil of ignorance. Beyond that veil, we could assume that god dwells among us. We don’t have to believe that he actually does (I don’t). However, in this thought experiment, so we can assume that. Would that change our behavior? Would that influence our decisions, big and small, at least to a certain extent? Would that make us more aware of our surroundings and our fellow human beings? Would that be like a constant first page of a newspaper?

So what is stopping us from changing our behaviors right now? The assumption does not have to be correct for our behaviors to change. The veil of ignorance or even the dwelling of god do not have to exist to make those things right and true. I am not one to call for big changes in human behavior. I do, however, believe in the power of small changes. Of compounded interest over time. If the thought of an ever present first page newspaper can influence us to think not only of ourselves, but about the community we live in, I am all for it.

Something is dwelling among us. Some may call it god. Some may call it community. It doesn’t matter. It is time to attend to it and act on the reminder it tries to provide us.

Elad

Exodus 25 is one of those chapters when you read it and feel like saying “to much information!”

God is instructing Moses on how to build him a sanctuary, a place where he can communicate with the people. The instructions take up the entire chapter and some of them are really interesting. Like the instructions to use “sealskins” or “tehashim” (in Hebrew). Apparently, there are a lot of arguments about what exactly does that mean, but according to one interpretation it talks about using the skin of dolphins. Or more accurately, tanned dolphin leather.

Seth Godin writes in his blog about this requirement asking:

Why create an impossible mission like that? Why encourage people who might travel 100 miles over their entire lifetime to undertake a quest to find, capture, kill, skin and eventually tan a dolphin?

His answer – it is about the journey:

The acquisition of the leather is irrelevant. It was the quest that mattered. Having a community-based quest means that there’s less room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution. Having a mission not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion. And motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.

For Godin, this kind of quest means an action toward a goal that might be improbable, but is still better than the option of doing nothing:

Don’t choose your dreams based on what is certain to happen, choose them based on what’s likely to cause the change you want to occur around you.

I find that point of view compelling. However, I am more interested in the general assignment. The question of whether it was indeed Dolphin skin is irrelevant. For me the entire assignment with the long list of specific instructions is about putting an effort into creating the right environment.

We have already seen that God is able to communicate just fine without a sanctuary. He can appear in dreams (and sometimes in person), and according to the stories, he has tendency to appear in burning things. So why go through all this trouble? Because our environments matter. Because it we put in effort to create a supporting atmosphere that respects the trade we are engaging in and supports it. Because surroundings make a difference.

There is a criminological theory called Broken Windows Theory. Simply put it states:

Monitoring and maintaining urban environments in a well-ordered condition may prevent further vandalism as well as an escalation into more serious crime.

I believe this is true not only to urban environments but to all types of environments. We constantly interact with our surroundings in unconscious ways that determines our behavior and attitudes. Shouldn’t we put some thought and effort into designing them? Too many times we try to create change by using rules or incentives when what we should do is create a supporting environment that enables the right behaviors.

Exodus 25 is about that. You need to look beyond the gold and silver and Dolphin skin and see that the essence of the story is about creating a setting where worship becomes meaningful. Where there is respect for communication and for self-reflection.

How are your environments affecting you? What are you going to do about it?

Elad