This week’s Torah parsha is a favorite of mine simply for the “hidden scroll” of two verses within it. Rashi through Talmud tells us the inverted nuns that bookmark these verses show that it isn’t in the correct place, that it is a wandering text – just as our ancestors were wandering, as the Mishkan wandered, as we ourselves are still wandering. Our Sages teach in the World to Come, the World we are Making, this verse will return to it’s rightful place.
But until then here it lives. Disjointed. Set apart.
And in verse 10:36 “When it rested,” the final letter heh is traditionally vocalized as masculine to refer to the Ark. But in the Torah to Come we will read instead “when she rested,” recognizing the heh, knowing the Shekinah too is in this text – a diaspora within a diaspora. And in the World to Come, the verse too will travel and the Aron HaKodesh will be seen beyond gender, and l’Shem yichud will finally be home.
׆ וַיְהִ֛י בִּנְסֹ֥עַ הָאָרֹ֖ן וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֑ה קוּמָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֗ה וְיָפֻ֙צוּ֙ אֹֽיְבֶ֔יךָ וְיָנֻ֥סוּ מְשַׂנְאֶ֖יךָ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ׃ When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O LORD! May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You! {וּבְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ ׆ {פ And when it halted, he would say: Return, O LORD, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands!
I dreamed I was a jellyfish Ascending through ozones. Water poured from my eyes, Leaked from my pores, And every sinus popped Over and over And over and
Through each rarer blue The lightning grew supple like the water like the aurora like
the Chayot running and returning and dancing on pin heads Pins And Needles and
Mní Wichóni “Water is Life” – Lakota phrase and Protest Anthem from Standing Rock
Water is omnipresent on our blue planet. Even in dry places, its limited presence is felt and longed for. It is, literally, life. Without it, we die. Three days without water will kill most humans.
When I think of water, I remember refreshing pools in hot southern summers and my fingers pruny. I flash back to massive thunderstorms, lightning bugs blinking while I ran barefoot in the downpour. I reminisce about my first Seattle rain, an almost imperceptible mist – worlds removed from the rain of my childhood. I even recall a longstanding in-joke from an episode of Star Trek where silicon aliens call humans “Ugly bags of mostly water.” You too must have water memories. Summer camp swimming. A log ride at the fair. A glorious waterfall.
Torah also is full of water, both the miraculous and the every day. From Miriam’s traveling well to the stationary cistern Yaakov met Rachel at, to Avraham’s wells that Yitzchak redug. From Moshe parting the Yam Suf to Aaron turning the great Nile red. The copper kiyyor the koahnim washed at, the continuing cycle of the mikveh, the Tashlich ceremony. Even HaShem /is/ water in Jeremiah’s g-d metaphor of mekor mayyim chayyim – Source of Living Water. And at the very beginning, at the moment just after b’reshit bara elohim, the water is already fully present with the ruach elohim hovering over – its creation already in place. Our poetry, our prophets, our daily rituals – all are full of water.
And yet, this very source of life is under constant threat. Despite covering 70% of this globe, potable water is much rarer and 880 million people lack access to clean drinking water. The modern ease of access has made many of us unaware how precious this resource is. Just as eco-kashrut holds focus beyond the method of slaughter to the holistic life of the animal, we must now take a long difficult look at Earth’s water health.
Eco Kashrut was a term coined by Reb Zalman to describe the outgrowth from the movements of the 60s and 70s concerned with environmental and ethical issues. The Jewish recognition and re-embracing of kashrut as something beyond kosher food, as a “kosher” approach towards ethically engaging with the world, has been growing since that time. Many Jews are now more concerned about the food they eat beyond it simply meeting kashrut requirements. And many Jews are now more and more concerned about the environment and our human impact on it.
Water is the life force of our planet – is both our environment and what we ingest, is literally part of our internal structure. In the same way Torah is the life force of Jews – the environment which we create in our communities and the sustenance we take in, the very understanding we swim in. Water is both internal and external, much like how g-d is both immanent and transcendent, surrounding light and inner light. We are water; we are surrounded by water.
To truly be aware of eco-kashrut as a force in our lives, we must focus on water health and water ways. We must ask questions from the small to the large. Are you hydrated? How can I save water in my house? What are the local laws protecting waterways and the animals therein? If they exist but are lacking, how can I help strengthen them? Is there a local beach clean up? Can I connect and volunteer with Native populations that historically have nurtured this natural resource? What about rain barrels? The list of ways we can help the water health around us is vast and there are many levels of engagement.
Eco-kashrut can not simply be about what we ingest. It must also be about our ways of being in the world. Just as – despite modern American slang – kosher is about far more than food, being Eco Kosher must extend beyond the healthy lives of chickens and our compost piles, beyond limiting plastic and meatless Mondays, and into the very aquifers and rivers that create our landscapes.
And as we learn more about water, it will deepen our connection to Judaism and its ancient earth-connected metaphors. How many beautiful new understandings will bloom and flow from a reconnection with this source of life? Having read even just a bit about water ways for this presentation changed my perceptions of the water metaphor and allowed my imagination to re-envison a symbol I was ambivalent about.
I playfully envisioned The Waters as 4 worlds:
Olamot:
Assiyah
Yetzirah
Beriyah
Atzilut
Element:
[earth]
{water}
(air)
<fire>
Water:
Stagnant Water
Running Water
Snow and Ice
Moisture
Assiyah – Stagnant water. Like earth, this water is stationary, unmoving. This is Torah that is rock like, Tzur Yisrael, steady, solid, immovable. But unlike earth which promotes growth, stagnant water is often a danger to living creatures.
Yetzirah – The most water of water, running water. This water forms the majority of our water symbols and is what we think of when we say the word water. This is the Torah of 70s faces, of overlapping midrashim, the Torah of fluidity. These are the rivers and lakes and aquifers that water our land.
Beriyah – Like Binah on the left side, Beriyah is a universe of separation. To separate water from it’s natural symbolic state, but still be perceivable as water is ice or snow. The concept has moved high enough that it’s frozen, creating a boundary between each individual section of ice/water. This is a Torah of boundaries and borders. I think of Hillel versus Shammai, that they are both eternally separate and yet, both are the living words of g-d..
Atzilut – The highest most rarefied water, moisture. Something almost imperceivable as water with our vision and yet our bodies sense the humidity – the air’s moisture. I think of the sod/hidden/mystic levels of Torah. Often imperceivable to our eyes and still – according to our sages – there in the text, still saturating the words of Torah, still sensed by many of us with a more mystic bent.
I even dreamed of a great sea of Torah Water, each Jewish soul-spark a drop. I saw the smooth sailing of communal connection and reeled at the vast storms of sinat chinam. I saw how our waves of movements/denominations crash against each other and against the ideologies of the world, how our waves are formed through high wind or immovable earth. I saw the sprays of foam at the leading edge, those Jews so invested in forward motion that they briefly become air. And each wave was curving and crashing towards the Shores of Moshiach.
We come from water. Are made by water. The lessons water can teach us are the very lessons we need most now – Flexibility. Fluidity. Life sustaining. Water is the very metaphor we need in these rapidly changing times, especially when even something as “eternal” as water is at risk through drought, pollution, and global warming. True Torah is the living water – HaShem it’s Source – and to pollute the Earth’s water is a poisoning of ourselves, our planet, and our Torah.
eish zarah 