Justice or Mercy?
Is Torah civil justice according to the strict letter of the law, or is it according to a sensitive understanding of the people involved?
Could it possibly be both? Could it be that the judges of smaller groups, who would know the parties in dispute, would always try to find an accommodation, a compromise between them?
But as a case escalated, the judges would become more removed, and thus more strict with the application of law itself?
If this is right, does it mean that, practically, a person starts with the option of a mediation solution that is based on the individuals? And that if one or both are dissatisfied, they can appeal all the way up to the top judges, who would really only consider the strict letter of the law?
Is this by design or accident? And does the fact that Yisro devised the solution somehow add to, or detract from, its wisdom?
Breaking Bread?
And Yitro, Moshe’s father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for G-d: and Aharon came, and all the elders of Yisra᾽el, to eat bread with Moshe’s father in law before God.
Should we learn anything from this example about whether or not it is meritorious to share meals with non-Jews? Why or Why not?
Curious Clouds?
Clouds are not mentioned in Creation. They are not mentioned until after the Flood. And from then, not until the Exodus.
What do clouds represent in the text?
And the LORD said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.”
Is the cloud a “crutch”, a halfway-physical manifestation to ween the people off our human instinct to only accept the existence of things we can physically sense?
When G-d talks to Moses, He does it from inside the cloud. But even that buffer seems insufficient for others: when the elders prophecy, don’t they do it from a spirit that Moses lends them from his access to the cloud?
When Moses dies, the cloud disappears. Is this because nobody else could handle the proximity to G-d’s voice? The only time G-d in the cloud speaks to anyone else, he criticizes Aharon and Miriam for speaking ill of Moses’ wife – and the result is that Miriam is stricken with a spiritual illness. Nobody but Moses could handle the proximity to G-d’s voice.
The LORD said to Moses: Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come at any time into the Shrine behind the curtain, in front of the cover that is upon the ark, lest he die; for I appear in the cloud over the cover.
Even the incense cloud in the tabernacle is seemingly used to protect the priests from the proximity to G-d:
… He shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, so that the cloud from the incense screens the cover that is over [the Ark of] the Pact, lest he die.
Why a cloud? Is it a metaphor for G-d: we know it is there, but we cannot really see, touch, smell, or hear it? Isn’t a cloud neither solid not liquid; is perceptible but indistinct?
Might a cloud even constitute a promise, like clouds can promise rain? Does not the first cloud, after the Flood, contain a promise? And so does the cloud in the Exodus and the wilderness: a repeated promise of G-d’s intention to protect the people? Indeed, when G-d at one point wants to destroy the people and start over, Moses reminds Him of this specific attribute of the cloud: a promise of G-d’s power and protection:
Moses said to the LORD, “When the Egyptians, from whose midst You brought up this people in Your might, hear the news, they will tell it to the inhabitants of that land. Now they have heard that You, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; that You, O LORD, appear in plain sight when Your cloud rests over them and when You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. If then You slay this people to a man, the nations who have heard Your fame will say, ‘It must be because the LORD was powerless to bring that people into the land He had promised them on oath that He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ (Num. 14)
But then why does the text tell us not to study clouds?
You shall not practice divination or cloud-gazing. (Lev. 19:26 (Cloud gazing is a method of scrying using clouds in the sky.)
Why not do it? Could it be because the cloud is meant to be heard and not seen? G-d’s words are here to interact with our souls, to make us closer to G-d. But cloud-gazing is trying to see G-d in nature, where He is not found. Is not the spiritual value we derive in Judaism from listening, not by seeing? So our relationship with the divine cloud in the wilderness was paradoxically never about what we could see?
Does that explain why this verse mentions seeing clouds?
Those nations that you are about to dispossess do indeed resort to cloud-gazers and augurs; to you, however, the LORD your God has not assigned the like. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself [Moses]; him you shall heed.
Why Phrase It This way?
Do not ascend My altar by steps, that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it. (Ex. 20:23)
The text does not say “build a ramp.” Why does it say “do not ascend by steps?
The Torah did not have to mention nakedness in order to have us build the ramp instead of using steps! Indeed, the priests wore clothing that blocked exposure in any case?
What are some explanations? Perhaps…
1: Aiming for elevation is inherently anti-animalistic. Judaism consciously de-emphasizes our animal parts when we are trying to grow a relationship with our Creator?
2: Is the Torah telling us that the way we choose to present ourselves is more important than the underlying “reality” of our bodies?
3: The first person who builds an altar in the Torah is Noah. He is also the first person to offer an “olah” – an elevation offering (sharing the same root word as “ascending” the altar). Noah is also the first person whose nakedness is exposed (the root word is shared with Adam and Eve after eating the fruit, but the same word used for the ramp, “ervah,” is first found with Noah). Are these all connected? Does it suggest that powerful/elevated men are particularly susceptible to exposing their animalistic personal weaknesses?
Might this also explain why, on the “highest” day of Yom Kippur, we read of forbidden sexual relations?