Parashat Behalotcha - When bringing up from
This week’s parasha deals with a few different issues: the building of the menorah in the temple; the command to celebrate Pesach; the special stand of the non-Israelis among the Israelis; and the prohibition of evil gossip.
Two different issues are more than interesting:
1. The leading of the people: Moses is complaining to god that the people of Israel are not behaving. At one point he asks for help: to lead the people is a very tough job, so it is wise for Moses to ask for others to share with him. God is sometimes socialist, or at least believes in equality and justice, so he orders Moses to get 70 leaders from the nation to help him. It is not clear how exactly they were chosen, but Moses took the 70 out of camp and taught them few things about leadership and hadracha.
While they were away two guys – Eldad and Meidad - decided to try a bit of leadership. They had a discussion about it, but did it inside camp without any permeation from god or Moses.
Joshua, Moses’ advisor, saw the two of them and told Moses. What do you think Moses answered? Was he angry with Eldad and Meidad?
Not at all! Moses replayed to Joshua: I wish all of Israeli’s were the same, studying about leadership and discussing what and how shall it be done: is the democratic role the best? Or maybe just one man leading?
This is to teach us all about pluralism: the torah as we all know has 70 faces. We are more then welcome to read it our way, and to interoperate it in a modern up to date version. And yes to critique it as well.
2. The other issue is the stand of the foreigner. In only one very short paragraph the people of Israel are told how to behave to those who are not Jews. When they are celebrating Pesach, they must have non-Jews at their chag table. Not only that but the law upon Israel is the same for non-Jews and all of the residents of the land of Israel. This is a very important declaration showing the high moral values expected from the people of Israel. Thousands of years before globalisation became the ruling theme, before people travelled so easily from place to place, it was already important to keep human rights. Especially now, both in Israel and here, we must remember to respect the foreigners, those who came to live in another country, in many cases for better easier life. So many of them are foreign workers, legal and illegal, suffering poor conditions and poor treatment by society and authority.
We in HD are the first to try and change this! |
