University of Michigan Crossed a Dangerous Line with Jewish Students
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GOOD MORNING! One day, a man and his young son went grocery shopping, but as soon as they walked in the child began to throw a temper tantrum. As they went down the aisles the child screamed, threw items in and out of the cart, and was generally disruptive. Despite the scene his son was causing, the father was cool, calm, and collected; slowly and soothingly alternating between, “Don’t worry Donald, it’ll be alright,” “Control yourself Donald, we’re almost finished,” and “We’ll be home soon Donald.”
A nearby mother was very impressed with the father’s self-control and wanted to express her admiration for such calm parenting. “Sir, I’m amazed that you are able to be so calm! It’s not every day I see such patient and gracious parenting.” She bent down to the boy and said, “What’s wrong Donald? Maybe I can help.”
The father interrupted her, “You misunderstood; my son’s name is Henry. My name is Donald.”
This week’s Torah portion has some remarkable lessons on self-control and controlling personalities. We find a few seemingly distinct and unrelated laws next to one another, which our sages tell us are, in fact, directly connected. The Torah begins with the obligation of giving terumah to members of the priestly caste; “All the sacred gifts that the Israelites present to the Cohen shall become his property. The gifts remain the property of the owner until he gives them to the Cohen. Once they are given to the Cohen they become his property” (Numbers 5:9-10).
The great medieval commentator Rashi (ad loc) explains that while the gifts ultimately belong to the Cohanim (plural for Cohen) – unlike the IRS – they are not entitled to seize their gifts; they must wait until the owner gives it to them.
The very next section in the Torah reading relates the laws of a sotah – a suspected adulteress (see Numbers 5:11-30). There are some general misconceptions regarding these laws so I will give it a bit of elaboration. The entire concept of a sotah begins when a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful and cautions her in front of witnesses to not go into a situation of seclusion with her suspected paramour.
If it is established through witnesses that she ignored his exhortation and went into seclusion with this person then she may become subject to a ritual that involves her drinking the “waters of a sotah” (a concoction of water prepared by a Cohen from a bit of dirt from the Temple compound, a bitter herb, and the rubbed-off dried ink of the text of the Torah’s description of the sotah ritual, which also includes God’s ineffable name).
If the woman denies that she was unfaithful in seclusion she may voluntarily participate in the sotah ritual and drink the waters. If she is in fact guilty of being unfaithful, she and her paramour will suffer a very public and very gruesome death – a punishment meted out by heaven. (If she is innocent, she will be blessed with healthy children.)
However, instead of initiating the sotah ritual she may, of course, simply choose to dissolve her marriage and forfeit the financial support promised her. The husband is compelled to grant her a divorce and she suffers no other penalty.
Thus, the sotah ritual is not intended to punish the woman if she is guilty. Rather, its real purpose is to absolve her if she is innocent, and preserve love and trust in her marriage. In other words, the entire point of the sotah ritual is to restore her relationship with her a husband – who has every reason to be suspicious of his wife’s fidelity since she secluded herself with another man even after being cautioned not to do so.
The sotahritual can be publicly demeaning, even if she is innocent. Her willingness to go through the process to prove her fidelity is a sign of true love and commitment to her husband. After her exoneration, her husband’s jealousy will dissipate and he will see what she was willing to endure to be with him. This entire process allows husband and wife to resume their marriage in trust, love, and renewed commitment to one another.
The Talmudic maxim associated with the sotah law is, “So high is the value of peace between a man and his wife that the Torah commands that the ineffable name of the Almighty may be written and erased into the [sotah] water.”
Rashi (in his commentary on 5:12) quotes the sages who ask; why was the section of sotah laws juxtaposed to the laws of giving the terumah to a Cohen? To teach us that someone who withholds the gifts he rightfully owes to the Cohen will ultimately be compelled to turn to the Cohen to perform the sotah ritual on his wife.
Rabbi Judah Loew (1526-1609), also known as the maharal, in his well-known work Gur Aryeh (which is primarily a commentary on Rashi) asks two fascinating questions:
A careful reading of Rashi illuminates the reasoning: Rashi doesn’t say that the man refuses to give the Cohen the priestly gifts, rather Rashi says that the man withholds the gifts from the Cohen. This is a critical point. Essentially, a landowner has the obligation to distribute the priestly gifts to the Cohen. Thus, someone who withholds them is trying to exert a measure of influence over the Cohen; to make him come and beg for something that, in reality, he is entitled to receive and it is something for which he should not have to beg. Why would someone behave in such a manner?
Once when I was in synagogue I remember seeing a needy person approach someone to ask for a few dollars. The man pulled out a five-dollar bill from his pocket and asked if the beggar had change. He nodded in the affirmative and asked him how much change he wanted. The man said, “Give me five singles.” The beggar gave him five singles, at which point the man handed him back two.
I wondered to myself why hadn’t the man just asked for three dollars in change? Why did he need to get five singles back and then hand him two dollars? I then realized that’s how a controlling personality behaves; he wanted to be in control of the entire transaction of giving charity. He wanted to take back his five singles so that he could be the one doing the act of charity. Even though the end result was the same (either way the beggar ended up with two dollars), he needed to feel like a giver by emphasizing that he was giving two dollars and not just receiving three dollars in change.
This is how a person with a controlling personality acts and this is why the landowner is withholding the gifts from the Cohanim even though he is obligated to give it to them. Making the Cohen come to him to ask for what is rightfully his is done to send a clear message about who is in charge. The Torah juxtaposes these two sections to teach us that they are interrelated. A controlling person doesn’t just behave this way in business, he behaves like this in all aspects of his life including his personal life.
The reason a woman would go into seclusion – even after being warned by her husband not to – is a reaction to the controlling personality of her husband. How does she do this? By demonstrating her independence. She is rebelling against his overbearing and controlling personality. In other words, she is communicating to her husband, “You’re not the boss of me!”
This also explains why the Torah begins with “any man’s wife goes astray;” the Torah is explaining the root cause of her disloyalty. Even if she never sinned by being intimate with another man, ignoring her husband’s warning was a message she was intentionally sending to her husband. Obviously, this was already a fractured relationship and one in which each party was vying for some sort of control.
Moses’ brother Aaron was the prototypical Cohen – according to our sages he made it his life’s mission to mend rifts between friends, and in particular between husbands and wives. In fact, when he died the Torah says that all the women mourned him as well (which it doesn’t say when Moses died). The sages teach that it was because Aaron had focused on making sure that there was harmony in the home. This is why a controlling personality needs a Cohen to mend the fissures of the relationship.
This week's portion includes further job instructions to the Levites and Moses is instructed to purify the camp in preparation for the dedication of the Mishkan, the Portable Sanctuary.
Then four laws relating to the Cohanim are given: 1) Restitution for stolen property where the owner is deceased and has no next of kin goes to the Cohanim. 2) If a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful, he brings her to the Cohanim for the Sotah clarification ceremony. 3) If a person chooses to withdraw from the material world and consecrate himself exclusively to the service of the Almighty by becoming a nazir (vowing not to drink wine or eat grape products, come in contact with dead bodies, or cut his hair), he must come to the Cohen at the completion of the vow. 4) The Cohanim were instructed to bless the people with this Priestly Blessing: “May the Lord bless you and guard over you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up His Countenance upon you and give you peace.”
The Mishkan is erected and dedicated on the first of Nissan in the second year after the Exodus. The leaders of each tribe jointly give wagons and oxen to transport the Mishkan. During each of the twelve days of dedication, successively each tribal prince gives gifts of gold and silver vessels, sacrificial animals, and meal offerings. Every prince gives exactly the same gifts as every other prince.
If you’re the one yelling, you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.
- Taylor Swift
Dedicated in Loving Memory of
Aryeh Leib ben Anna
