绿帽社

When my friend Eleanor鈥檚 mother passed away several years ago, the email from her husband providing the shiv鈥檃h details included the following request:

There is no need to bring anything, just you. Eleanor has been with her family for the past few weeks, and has been surrounded by fatty quiches, sugary deserts, and an abundance of ham鈥攏one of which she eats. So, if you are constitutionally incapable of coming without bringing something, she鈥檇 prefer fruits, vegetables, breads, and soups, but absolutely no need to bring anything. Really. You will be the perfect comfort.

Comfort food. Whether it鈥檚 chicken soup or chocolate chip cookies, the concept is basic: certain foods provide us with emotional gratification. Beyond that, though, this message raises some essential questions鈥攓uestions about offerings. When we go to help someone鈥攊n times of mourning, illness, or just a basic potluck pitch-in鈥攄o we give them what we need to give, or what they need of us? How are we to know, if we are not explicitly told, what will please, comfort, or help someone else the most? And the religious corollary to this line of thinking: do our answers change when it comes to bringing an offering to please or comfort not our friends, but God?

I remembered that email from Eleanor鈥檚 husband as I reencountered Parashat Pinehas this week. 鈥淭he Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command the Israelite people and say to them: Be punctilious in presenting to Me at stated times the offerings of food due Me, as gifts of pleasing odor to Me鈥� (Num. 28:1鈥�2). What God commands of us鈥攊n varying iterations for the daily offering, Shabbat, new months, and festivals鈥攊s a well-balanced meal. Some protein (the burnt offering, be it lamb, bull, or some combination thereof); a carbohydrate (the grain offering, prepared with a little olive oil); and a beverage (the libation offering). Abravanel notes that the tamid, the daily offering, consists of the most basic staples of the Israelite diet. This basic meal, offered twice a day, includes 鈥済ifts of pleasing odor (re鈥檃ch nichochi) to Me.鈥�

Bible scholars consider this a 鈥渓inguistic fossil,鈥� a throwback to an ancient Near Eastern theology that held that gods needed food and created humans to attend to their domestic needs. We do not read the verse so literally; we understand that the sacrificial cult outlined in Numbers 28 and 29 (and Leviticus and elsewhere) is about worshipping God, not literally feeding God. Nonetheless, we see in even symbolic terms that God requires a very specific menu of comfort food.

In a world without a Temple, what might we offer God that brings the pleasing odor, the re鈥檃ch nichoach? The midrash plays with the phrase, turning re鈥檃ch nichoach into nachat ru鈥檃ch, or what in Yiddish would be referred to as shepping nachas (deriving great pleasure).

There is a pleasurable disposition (nachat ru鈥檃ch) before God because God has given a command and God鈥檚 will has been done. So the expression is used when an (expensive) bull is offered, and also when a head of small cattle or bird is offered, in order to teach the lesson that he who offers much and he who offers little is alike before God, for God neither eats nor drinks (i.e., is not placated by receiving more rather than less) . . . The Holy One, blessed be He, said: 鈥淢y children! It is not because I eat or drink that I told you to offer sacrifices, but on account of the aroma which should remind you that you must be sweet and pleasing (nochim) to Me like a pleasing aroma (nichoach).鈥� (Sifre Numbers 143 and Numbers Rabbah 21:19, as cited in The JPS Commentary to Numbers by Jacob Milgrom)

Over time, the four cubits of halakhah replaced the sacrifices, a connection we feel explicitly as we read these chapters. It is after all the minhah (grain offering) that becomes in the mishnah (Berakhot 4:1) the afternoon prayer of the same name. What might we offer that would be sweet and pleasing to our Lord? Halakhah guides us, but raises more questions than it answers as we navigate our relationship to that rabbinic inheritance as individuals and as a community. Is tzedakah given to 绿帽社 causes or worldly ones? How do we create a 绿帽社 family that honors its members of other faiths? Does God prefer white lies or brutal honesty? Prayer three times every day or only when we are so moved?

The penultimate sentence of the parashah, which concludes the instructions for the offerings according to the calendar, is wonderfully prescient and may be the key to unraveling these questions as we read this week. 鈥淎ll these you shall offer to the Lord at the stated times, in addition to your votive and freewill offerings, be they burnt offerings, grain offerings, libations, or offerings of well-being鈥� (Num. 29:39). What a surprise! All of those other offerings鈥攖he two chapters鈥� worth that God wants鈥攁re in addition (濒鈥檝补诲) to the ones we want and are moved to offer.

Wouldn鈥檛 we expect the reverse? That first we do what we have to do, and then what we want? Eat your vegetables first, and then dessert? Do your homework first, and then go play? In reality, we humans tend to consider what we want and need first. Only with great will, discipline, and a sense of self-sacrifice do we place the needs of others, and God, before our own. When we do it, we derive our own nachat ru鈥檃ch (satisfaction of spirit). Sometimes, anyway. From the tension between these two bookend verses鈥攖he opening wherein God states God鈥檚 needs, and the closing where our own religious needs, which might be quite different鈥攖he spiritual mystery lies.

Like us, God finds comfort in certain offerings more than others. Nachat ru鈥檃ch is not easy to conjure in another being, be it divine or human. Professor and former JTS Chancellor Ismar Schorsch ,

We do not perform God鈥檚 will to please God. The religious life is its own reward. We pray daily not because we are commanded, but because of the inner contentment that it brings. What was once external and imposed has at last been internalized by us into a source of self-fulfillment . . . Worship effects no change in God, but it can surely transform our lives by exposing us to God鈥檚 presence. (cited in Canon Without Closure, 565)

If we are successful in living a religious life that becomes its own reward, then the email from Eleanor鈥檚 husband comes to feel just right: bringing just ourselves will be the perfect comfort for God and for one another.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Torah Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z鈥漧) Hassenfeld.