by JRosemary » January 11th, 2007, 12:34 pm
Hi John!
Just an aside--I've pm'd a couple of people about this, but I suppose I should just put something on the board.
As a favor to me, if you're writing in response to one of my posts, would you mind not using the Name, even in transliteration? I prefer not to copy, paste or type it in this medium, and that makes it difficult for me to quote you.
As far as I know, there's nothing wrong or blasphemous about even saying the name--despite that extremely funny scene from Life of Brian--but it's become a Jewish tradition not to say it. Even when we read it in the text, we say 'Adonai,' which means 'Lord,' instead of the Name. In fact, most translations of the Bible still replace the Name with 'Lord.' Traditionally, we're also extremely careful about writing the Name. Some Jews carry this quite far, which is why you'll sometimes see 'G-d' instead of 'God.'
(I tried to start writing 'G-d' instead of God for a while. Not because I thought it necessary--saying 'God' isn't the same as saying God's personal Name, after all. But I like 'G-d' because it makes me take more notice of what I'm writing and Who I'm writing about. I still do it on occasion.)
So this is a long-winded explanation of why I'm asking this of you and of anyone else I might end up in dialogue with, lol.
Regarding Numbers--that's not a problem the Torah has alone. It's shared by Acts. Look at Acts 5: 1-11. Why on earth should that nice couple be struck dead just because they didn't want to give their entire property to the early church? Especially when very few churches operate as communes these days!
(Apparently the author of Luke-Acts really liked the whole commune idea--see Acts 4:32. Maybe that's how the early church functioned in Jerusalem--but Paul's diasporic assemblies were certainly not communes. Paul has to deal with the disparities between rich and poor in his congregations and he has to really keep after people to make donations to the Jerusalem poor. So I'd say that Paul didn't think much of the church-as-commune idea.)
Now you can read Acts differently--you can say that maybe Ananias and Sapphira didn't really drop dead. Maybe the author is just trying to point out that there's no life outside the church--an idea that I don't like much better, but that's beside the point.
You can do the same kind of thing with that passage in Numbers--one thing it does is make you understand how important even the ritual law, like Shabbat observance, is! Jews have always wrestled with the ritual observances--Paul is a prime example of that wrestling--but I believe there really is something to them. I don't think Judaism would have survived without them--they're so much a part of what binds us together. But that's not to say we can't argue ad nauseum over how much or how little to observe.
Moreover, the kids in our pews know that they're not ancient Jews--they're taught the difference between life as it's portrayed in the Torah and life now. And we never read the Torah in isolation--we read it in light of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, like the Prophets, and in light of the rabbinic commentaries, like the Talmud.
By reading the rabbinic commentaries, for example, we know that God wept for the Egyptian dead during the Exodus, for they were also His children. That doesn't let God off the hook, but it does give us a fuller picture of Him.
On the same note, Christian children understand that it's not desirable to see someone struck dead--even if that someone didn't give his whole property over to the church and then pretended that he did.
Don't underestimate children--I've found that kids are quite willing and often quite able to grapple with the hard passages. Let them read that passage in Numbers and get angry with God because it's so unfair! Let them read Acts and have the same reaction! Then show them all the glorious passages, in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, that teach us love, compassion and righteousness. Kids should understand as early as possible what a mixed bag Scripture is.
Incidentally, I've found the same thing with kids when teaching American History. Kids can handle the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And if kids can handle it, adults certainly can. And, as it happens, the Etz Hayim copy of the Torah is meant for the average person in the pews of Conservative synagogues--not scholars.
Now getting back to the Torah, which, admittedly, allows execution for very slight offenses: did you know that if the Sanhedrin executed more than one person in any 70 year period it was considered bloodthirsty? So in day-to-day practice, the rules of the Torah were very lightly applied.
I'll conclude with this: there are problematic passages in all scriptures. The way to deal with these passages is to confront them and grapple with them--not to shut them away or prevent our children from seeing them.
~Rose
