Shemini 5775 - English

Parashat Shemini – The Center of the Torah

One of the most interesting times in our history as a people, the era of the Second Temple, had among its main actors the ‘Sofrim’, which in a way were the predecessors of our sages at a point in time when power shifted from priests to rabbis.  

Even though today, when we speak of a “Sofer” we mean a scribe, translating the word sofer is slightly more complicated than that.   Buried within the root of this word is the idea ‘sefer’ which means book, but also ‘sipur’ (tale), and more curious still, the Spanish word for figure or number ‘cifra’, comes from the same Semitic root (sefar).  The Sefer Yetzirah, one of the foundational texts of the Kabbalah, starts off precisely with a reference to this linguistic relationship between book, tale, and figure.  

The Talmud, in the Kidushin 30a treaty, teaches us that these ancient Sofrim were called this way, not because they were scribes, but because they used to count all the letters in the Torah.  Through this exercise of counting letters, they discovered that our Parashah is located in the middle of the Torah.  Out of the 304.805 letters in the Torah, the middle letter is found in this Parashah.  The same thing happens if we search for the middle word among the 79.847 words in the Torah, but to find the middle verse, we have to wait for the following Parashah.   

In actuality, the ancient Sofrim were obviously not very good at counting (or they had a slightly different version of the text), because today –with the help of computers- we have found that their conclusions were not accurate.  Even by Talmudic times, there were already some Rabbis that questioned their math.  

Even so, though I’m aware that their conclusions were not technically precise, I still consider fascinating what the Sofrim found to be the middle word of the Torah.  The complete verse says:   

“Then Moses inquired about the goat of sin offering, and it had already been burned! He was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, and said,” (Lev. 10:16)

The Sofrim find the middle of the Torah in the word ‘inquired’, which could also be translated as ‘questioned’ or ‘demanded’, since in Hebrew it says ‘darosh darash’.  The Hebrew root ‘d.r.sh.’ that we find in this verse is the same used in other words such as Midrash or Derashah (sermon).  In the center of the Torah is the word that refers to the most important activity the Jews do with the biblical text, which is interpreting it.  

We often hear that the Jewish people are ‘the people of the book’, and we are proud of this, as if giving us this name had been a Jewish invention.  You may be surprised to learn that it was the Muslims who gifted us with this nickname.  It appears for the first time in the third chapter of the Quran.  Paraphrasing Marc-Alain Ouaknin (The Burnt Book, 1999), the Jewish people are not the people of the book, but the people who are called (or condemned) to interpret that book, to understand it, explain it, and expand its horizon of meaning.  

In response to those that believe that the Jewish tradition is a static reflection of an ancient text, the sages teach that Judaism is precisely the opposite.  It is the constant and dedicated exercise of interpretation and creativity regarding that text, which then ceases to be ancient and transforms into eternal.  

It is very common for somebody to come and say that something we do (or don’t do) is ‘wrong’ because the Torah says otherwise.  It is important to understand that while other religions clung to the literal meaning of the text when establishing their practices and traditions, the Jews have always worked on the text in its various interpretations to build a meaning that is different from the literal one.  Only as an example, in our synagogues we begin counting the Omer from the second day of Pesach.  This year, this coincided with a Saturday night, but many other years it has not.  Since the Torah text says ‘the day after the Shabbat’, in ancient times some proposed that the counting of the Omer should always begin on a Saturday night.  However, last year and next year, Pesach fell and will fall on some other day of the week, and we shall start counting the Omer on the second night, not on a Saturday night.  Why do we do it this way?  We do it this way because our people have a way of understanding this verse in a non-literal fashion; because the words of the living God take on a special dynamism in the Jewish tradition, and what the text literally says is not always what it means in a Judaic sense.  

In a similar way, our sages separated from the literal meaning of the text in order to abolish the death penalty, to be a little less repressive with the ‘rebel sons’, and to have a more amiable attitude towards foreigners.  Thus, the liberal traditions have understood that this interpretative creativity is the tool to build a more inclusive Judaism, respectful or our differences, more modern and dynamic.  If we were the people that blindly obey the letter of the book, we would still be stoning rebel sons, performing sacrifices and beginning the count of the Omer on a Saturday night.  

But in our essence, in the symbolic middle of the vital text for our civilization, lies the idea of a constant interpretation, of a reading that is not a slave to the words, but that releases them and provides them with infinite horizons of meaning.  

‘Darosh, darash’, to inquire, to question, to interpret; this is the meaning of the word in the middle of our Torah, in the heart of our sacred text, perhaps not because it is exactly at its center, but because in this word we find the essence of Judaism.  

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Guido Cohen

Asociación Israelita Montefiore

Bogotá, Colombia