taylweaver | Hearing Torah, thinking Torah, writing Torah

Migraine update: It lasted until the evening, and then I got it to go away - mostly - but I still fell asleep halfway through dinner, and ended up going to bed around eleven.

The upside to this: I woke up at 7 AM - after a full night's sleep. I suppose I could have gotten out of bed, but I stayed in bed til nine - at which point it got silly, so i got up... and made it to shul for Torah reading!

Interesting parsha too - in the middle of a bunch of boring ones. (Yes, yes, I know. Some of you find the building of the mishkan very intersting... not so much my thing.)It was a two-Torah week. I wnt to call it the week of the colorful cows - golden calf and red heiffer. An interesting mix. I also noticed a lot of interesting word play - for example, the fact that the ray of light from Moshe's head is described as a "keren" - also the word used for horn (hence the whole "Jews have horns" thing), but I realized that it is, more specifically, the word used for the horn of a cow - as in, the kind of horn we are not allowed to use for a shofar. So that was an interesting connection, considering the context in which the ray of light happened. There was other word play as well. the word for cow and some other word having to do with wrongdoing that was spelled with a peh and a resh - but ended with an ayin. And the fact that this is the week where the firstborn lose their status - due to the golden calf - and so there are rules about how to redeem firstborn humans and animals from temple service - which is now carried out by the levites. Interestingly, how do you redeem a treif animal? "ve'arafto." You break its neck. This was also an interesting juxtaposition with a phrase that repeats an insane amount of times this week: "am k'sheh oref" - normally translated as "stiff-necked people" I never realized it gets said so many times - God says it because he is angry. Moshe says it as an excuse. God tells Moshe to tell the people that's what he thinks of them...

Anyway, so it;s a running thene throughout the incident. It got me thinking about stubbornness, and how so many people were stubborn this week = God was stubborn about his expectations, B;nei Yisrael was stubborn about holding to the familiar - idol worship = and about getting their way from Aharon - the one non-stubborn charater - which comes actoss as a weakness - and Moshe is stubborn in defending the people, to the point of telling God to erase him from the Torah.

And ultimately, this parsha is also about compromise. Because God has to give b'nei Yisrael something tangible and meet them halfway - which he does with the cloud that they then bow to or toward. They need that manifestation, even if they shouldn't go as far as the idol. And God also compromises with Moshe - by erasing him from just one parsha and therefore only mostly forgiving the people.

Anyway, so it was interesting. And if I had to give a d'var Torah on it, my message would be: try to understand where the other person is coming from. Try to meet them halfway.

And soeaking of Torah, a thank you to

margavriel for letting me try out his safrut tools and see how writing Torah letters is similar to calligraphy in some ways and different in others. A skill I might try to learn some day because it is fascinating to me - I guess both language and writing are of interest, then - but not any time soon.