The Desire of Our Eyes

Our Haftorah reading today tells the story of Shimshon, Samson. An angel appears to his mother who is barren and announces to her that she will have a son. He is to be a lifelong nazir (nazirite). Her husband is doubtful and asks to see the angle who upon her prompting reappears and confirms her story.

Many times people draw connections between Samson and Yochannan the Immerser (John the Baptist). In his birth story, the angel appears to the husband, but he doubts and is struck mute. The angel tells him that while his wife has been barren she will have a son. Yochannan is born and is consecrated to God for his lifetime as a nazir.

But I don’t want to talk about that today. Instead I would like to contrast Samson with Yeshua. Samson is dedicated to God by his parents but he is impulsive and lustful. He flies into rages, goes on killing rampages, and is a womanizer. (Samson liked the shiksas!) He violates his nazirite vows. He drinks honey from the carcass of a lion and has drinking parties with his buddies.

The Talmud says that Samson was blinded because he followed his own eyes. He says to his parents that he wants a Philistine woman because “she is pleasing to my eyes”. This is, say our sages, an example of middah keneged middah, measure for measure. Samson follows the lust of his eyes and therefore loses those eyes. Perhaps a fitting and poetic punishment.

Yeshua was also born after an angelic announcement and dedicated to lifelong service of Hashem. He was intended to be a redeemer just as Samson was. Samson was to redeem Israel from the Philistines, Yeshua the whole world from its sins. In contrast to Samson, however, he kept his eyes on Hashem, not his own desires. In the John 5 he says “I tell you that the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; whatever the Father does, the Son does too.” And in the Garden, just before his arrest, he tells God that he desires life but will do his Father’s will.

We are to be like Yeshua, not Samson. We are to keep our eyes upon God not upon our own desires. The Torah helps us to curb these desires, to know what is holy. It places boundaries on our behavior. We live in a society today where everyone follows his or her own desires. This is good to some extent, but it leads to people applauding greed, lust, envy, and the like.

Keeping our eyes upon Hashem takes work. We have to be attentive to our own impulses and recognize them for what they are. We have to cultivate a habit of awareness of God’s presence in our daily lives. Today is Day 46 of the Counting of the Omer. Its theme is Netzach of Malchut, Endurance of Divine Presence. This speaks to the need for us to practice God’s presence throughout our lives! The mitzvoth help us towards that goal. And kavannah, inner focus and attention, is key. We cannot experience God’s presence by rushing into things, or doing the mitzvot by rote.

The Torah tells us that Samson had seven locks of hair. These are called in Hebrew, machlefot; plaits or braids. (They could have been dreadlocks, which would be really cool since I am a Reggae music fan!) We have our own braids, our own machlefot. They are not made of hair but threads. They are our tzit-tzit. They remind us of the Torah and its commandments and how we are to behave. There is a story told, most likely apocryphal, about a man who saves money and goes to the most expensive prostitute in town. As he is undressing he looks upon his tzit-tzit and realizes what he knew all along, that this was a great sin he was about to commit. He tells her that he cannot and explains why. She is so impressed that she quits her profession and converts to Judaism. This story is told by the Rabbis to remind us the importance of our tzit-tzit as reminders to keep our eyes on God. In fact, we recite in our liturgy the words of the Shema, that we will look upon them and not follow the desires of our eyes!

Let us not be like Samson, chasing after every desire of our eyes.

Let us be like Yeshua, who kept his eyes on Hashem.

May we look upon our own machlefot, our tzit-tzit, and remember that there are boundaries to our behavior, regardless of our desires.

May we pray for Yeshua to empower us to live a life of a nazir; dedicated to God.

Shabbat Shalom!

  

Parshat Baha'alotecha: The Two Miryams

In our parsha this week we have the story of the rebellion of Miryam and Aaron. They spoke out against Moses and his Cushite wife. Why was Miryam the only one afflicted with tzaraat when they both spoke out? Our rabbis say it is because she was the chief instigator, Aaron only tagged along at her prompting. It was like a thief who steals food from a garden and then hands it to someone standing outside of the garden. Only the thief is pursued.

What were they speaking out against? The standard understanding is that the Cushite woman was from Cush, south of Egypt. But another interpretation states that “Cushite” can mean simply a beautiful woman. One midrash says that Miryam spoke out against Moses (along with Aaron) because he was abstaining from relations with his beautiful (Cushite) wife, Zipporah. Her concern was that by doing so Moses was keeping her from bearing more children.

This is similar to another midrash about the birth of Moses. According to this text, since Pharaoh had commanded that the Hebrew baby boys be killed Moses’ father divorced his wife so as to not have any more children.  Miryam, a young girl at the time, reproached her father. She said, “Father, Pharaoh has eliminated half of the children, but you have killed all of the children.” For female babies could still be born but they could not because he left his wife. He heeds his daughter’s rebuke, returns to his wife, and thus Moses was born.

Miryam is thus depicted by the rabbis as being concerned with life, the life of her people.

It is fitting, therefore, that the Talmud tells us that Miryam was the source of life giving water in the parched desert of the wilderness. It says that Israel merited the Pillar of Cloud due to the righteousness of Aaron, the Manna due to the righteousness of Moses, and the Water from the Rock due to the righteousness of Miryam.  Aaron’s merit warranted the Pillar of Cloud because the Torah tells us that immediately after his death the king of Arad attacked Israel; the logic being that he did so because he saw that God’s protection (the cloud) had been withdrawn. Moses’ merit warranted the Manna, because the Torah tells us that they ate it until they reached the Promised Land, which they did immediately after Moses’ death. Miryam’s merit warranted the Water because the Torah tells us that immediately after her death they had no water.

In fact, a midrash tells us that the rock that Moses struck after the crossing of the Red Sea was the same rock as the one he was supposed to speak to but instead struck near the end of their wanderings in the desert. This Rock was referred to as Miryam’s Well, and it rolled along with Israel throughout the forty years in the desert and supplied water whenever commanded. Miryam was a prophet, a leader of our people, and a giver of life.

There was another Miryam, born centuries later. While not a prophet or a leader, she was a giver of life. She gave us, through her merit, the Source of Life, Yeshua ha-Mashiach. She gave us living water for Yeshua, himself, was The Living Water. When he was speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, he said to her “If you know who was asking you would ask him and he would give you living water and you would never thirst again.” Later, while visiting the Temple during Sukkot, he declares plainly, “I am the Living Water, let anyone who is thirsty and come and drink!” Rav Shaul (Paul) explicitly connects Yeshua to Miryam’s Well in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says that the rock that accompanied Israel in the desert was the pre-incarnate Yeshua! It is his midrash on the midrash!

We can be like the two Miryams. We can be sources of life giving water. Living Water. In the same passage where Yeshua talks with the Samaritan woman he says “The water that I will give them [who ask for it] will become a spring of living water welling up to eternal life.” And at the Temple during Sukkot he says “Whoever believes in me will have fonts of living water gushing forth from within them.” You see, it’s not just about us receiving the living water, but us then becoming a source of the living water to those around us!

But what does “believe” mean? We are trained to think of this word as meaning intellectual assent. But its more correct meaning comes from the Hebrew word, emunah, which means faithfulness or a faithful abiding. We become wells of living water not through intellectual assent but by faithfully abiding in Yeshua and Torah! We can be like the two Miryams by living a life of regular and consistently drinking from the springs of living water and thus become life-giving springs of living water to those around us! And we do this not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of those who live around us! We drink of the sake of others!

We sang this song this morning, a song based on Psalm 36. It says, “How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

We drink from God’s “river of delights” (such a beautiful image!) and thus become fountains of life from the The Fountain of Life!

May we be like the two Miryams.

May we be fonts of living water; refreshing and life-giving to those around us.

May we live a life of emunah, faithfully and consistently drinking from The Well, so that we may tap into Him who is the Source of Life!

Shabbat Shalom.