Tzav: hearing, action, and motion, and a lesson from Bnei Brak

This week's Torah portion (Leviticus chapters 6 through 8), known in Hebrew as Tzav (Command Aharon and his sons the Kohanim), is an elegant reworking of the commands associated with the Temple offerings, presented this time through the perspective of the Kohanim, the priests who actually performed the offering service throughout the day.

I'd like to focus on two rather cryptic verses towards the end of the portion. Most of the ideas in this shiur (lesson) come from my dear friend Yedidyah.

Leviticus verses 8:23-24 state as follows:

וַיִּשְׁחָ֓ט ׀ וַיִּקַּ֤ח מֹשֶׁה֙ מִדָּמ֔וֹ וַיִּתֵּ֛ן עַל־תְּנ֥וּךְ אֹֽזֶן־אַהֲרֹ֖ן הַיְמָנִ֑ית וְעַל־בֹּ֤הֶן יָדוֹ֙ הַיְמָנִ֔ית וְעַל־בֹּ֥הֶן רַגְל֖וֹ הַיְמָנִֽית׃

וַיַּקְרֵ֞ב אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י אַהֲרֹ֗ן וַיִּתֵּ֨ן מֹשֶׁ֤ה מִן־הַדָּם֙ עַל־תְּנ֤וּךְ אׇזְנָם֙ הַיְמָנִ֔ית וְעַל־בֹּ֤הֶן יָדָם֙ הַיְמָנִ֔ית וְעַל־בֹּ֥הֶן רַגְלָ֖ם הַיְמָנִ֑ית ...׃

And he slaughtered (the ram) and Moshe took some of its blood and placed it on Aharon's right earlobe, and on his right thumb and on his right big toe.

And he drew the sons of Aharon closer and Moshe took some more of the blood and placed it on each of their right earlobes, and on on each of their right thumbs and on on each of their right big toes...

Rav Shalom Bahbout of Rome, Naples, and Venice, once explained that the the earlobe, the thumb, and the big toe encapsulate the extremities of the person, the outline of the person, the whole person. My friend Yedidyah expanded on this: the Kohanim, and by extension, the Jewish people and humanity as a whole, is being invited to participate in its entirety in three key dimensions of life:

• To listen, as represented by the earlobe.

• To act, as represented by the thumb.

• To move, as represented by the big toe.

Listening: the mark of a leader

Yedidyah pointed out that a true leader needs to be able to listen and distinguish between different voices. In Exodus 32:17, when Moshe and Yehoshua came down from Mount Sinai and heard sounds of shouting in the camp, Yehoshua's immediate assumption was that war had broken out. "(I hear) sounds of war in the camp", he said. But Moshe was more discerning in his listening. Paraphrasing his words based on Rashi, Moshe said: "This is not the voice of the mighty proclaiming victory, nor the the voice of the weak calling out to flee! Instead I hear sounds of blasphemy and villification, which distress the soul of whover hears them!"

Moshe's greater sensitivity to the sounds of the human voice, to the variety of human emotions, enabled him to respond to the situation more effectively. A leader needs to know first of all how to listen, how to process what they are hearing, and how to tailor action to meet the different human needs that they encounter.

Action: power and discretion

An article in Smithsonian Magazine explains how the opposing thumb provided primates as long as two million years ago with the flexibility to enable them to perform subtle and complex actions that would simply not be possible with five identical fingers. That same flexibility of action today enables humans to perform an astoundingly wide range of actions. The blood placed on the thumb of Aharon and his sons is an invitation to dedicate the power of those actions to follow the mitzvot (commandments) of G-d, and act for the good.

Motion: human choice

In Jewish tradition angels are simply extensions of G-d, each one performing a single task with which they are charged. For example, Raphael, meaning healer of G-d, came to heal Avraham from the pain of his circumcision; Michael, meaning who is like G-d?!, came to give news to Sarah, a woman of 90, that she would have a child. Gavriel, mighty one of G-d, came to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gemorrah in whose total environs not even 10 righteous people could be found. This idea that angels have a single dedicated task is represented by the idea that an angel has a single foot and hence is incapable of motion in the conceptual sense. When we recite the Kedushah prayer in synagogue, echoing the words of Isaiah chapter 6 ("Holy, holy, holy...!), we keep our feet close together as if they are one, thereby emulating the angels that Isaiah saw in his vision.

In contrast, humans are beings that move. We have two feet and can make choices and decisions in life, which will lead us in one direction or another. We are never still. Once again, the blood placed on the big toe of Aharon and his sons is an invitation to dedicate our choices to act for the good. "Choose life!" says G-d through Moshe to the Jewish people, and by extension, to all of humanity, in Deuteronomy 30:19. The same concept has echoed throughout Jewish history, and in a more mundane way, we can hear echoes of it in the song Lechaim from the musical Fiddler on the roof, presented in an earlier blog.

Putting it into practice

A recent article in the Times of Israel shows how the principles of listening, acting, and moving can be put into practice. Haim Uzan is just a regular Chareidi guy living in Bnei Brak, a mainly religious city near Tel Aviv. Last Thursday evening, tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of protestors against the proposed judicial overhaul in Israel, decided to hold one of their regular protests on the highway which abuts Bnei Brak. Fearing the possibility of tension and possibly worse between the mainly secular protesters and the religious community in the town, Haim got into action. He organised what can only be described as a huge street party. Courtesy of the local religious radio station, joyous music was played from every shop and public PA system, thereby drowning out any potential speeches by the activists inciting against the religious. Now I won't get into the pros and cons of the various arguments, Israel is a complex society. Suffice it to say that the spirit of what these huge crowds were hearing was one of friendship and outreach rather than division.

Second, Haim organised for tables to be laid on all the streets close to the demonstration and for cholent to be served. Cholent is a slow cooking stew of meat and vegatables (there are also vegetarian versions!) that is served on the Jewish Sabbath. It is particularly appropriate for the Sabbath because even though it has already been cooked prior to the Sabbath as per Torah requirements, it can be kept hot throughout the Sabbath without drying out. In Chareidi towns like Bnei Brak, Thursday night is when Chareidi young men hang out in Cholent houses, the closest equivalent of a pub, eat cholent and chat. Due to the protest on Thursday night, all the Cholent houses were closed, so Haim gathered all the cholent and served it in disposable plates and cutlery to the demonstrators. People started chatting over cholent, forgot their differences, and got to know each other, something which rarely happens in Israel due to the religious-secular divide.

An interesting extension of this idea of the importance of listening can be derived from the semantics of two verbs in German. The German verb corresponding to "to listen" is hören. The German verb corresponding to "to belong" is gehören. By listening to each other, we learn to belong, and to understand each other at a deeper level.

Haim listened to the different voices, recognised the potential dangers, and turned what could have been an awkward confontation into an opportunity for dialog. He enabled a situation where groups of outwardly very different Jews, very different socialogically, religiously, and with very different outlooks, to become a community where everyone felt they belonged. Haim is now planning a WhatsApp group to build on the success of Thursday night.