Rosh Hodesh Blessing for the Month of Tamuz

With the beginning of the month of Tammuz, we find ourselves facing the saddest period in the Jewish sacred calendar. Ahead of us lies the 17th of Tammuz, a date that reverberates with a sense of rupture in our collective memory: shattered tablets, breached walls. And three weeks beyond that, the 9th of Av, a date associated with even deeper devastation: both Temples destroyed, Jerusalem laid waste.

Two pivotal biblical narratives accompany us as we enter this period – narratives that point to two threats that are with us whenever we find ourselves facing uncertain terrain. Which is to say, dual dangers that are with us now, dual dangers that are with us always.

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At the beginning of last week’s Torah reading, Parashat Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:1-15:41), we encounter the Israelites in a moment of intense vulnerability and self-doubt. The people have been wandering in the wilderness for over a year. What lies ahead is unknown. These ex-slaves – still strangers to their own new-found freedom – have been commanded to follow a God they cannot see to a land they cannot imagine. It is not difficult to understand why they slip so easily, again and again, from faith into raw fear.

Moses is commanded by God to send men to “scout out the land of Canaan” and he selects twelves spies, a leader from each tribe. The spies spend forty days scouting the land. When they return, they go to Moses and Aaron and, before the entire community, they make their report. It begins on a positive note. “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey.” But soon their message becomes more equivocal. “The people who inhabit the country are extremely powerful and the cities are fortified and very large.”

At this point things begin to unravel. Caleb steps forward, offering words of encouragement and trying to stem the tide of panic rising among the people. But the other spies take on an even more ominous tone. Their message turns from one that is tinged with fear to one that predicts certain failure. “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” And then, reaching fever pitch, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its inhabitants. All the people that we saw in it are giants. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”

This statement captures the attention of an extraordinarily poignant commentary from Midrash Tanchuma. “The Blessed Holy One said to the scouts: “You don’t know what you have just let your mouths utter. I am ready to put up with your saying, ‘We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves.’ But I do take offense at your asserting, ‘And so we must have looked to them.’ Could you possibly know how I made you appear in their eyes? How do you know but that in their eyes you were like angels?’”

In this brief imagined exchange between God and the scouts, the midrash underscores the insidious nature of self-doubt, the way we can mistake it for truth, the way it can itself become “a land that devours its inhabitants.” The midrash becomes an invitation and an imperative — to open up space between our inner experience and outer reality, to open up space to hear the divine voice speaking to us, saying: I understand that you are afraid. I understand that you feel small. But leave room for the possibility that your fear is not the whole story. How do you know but that in their eyes you were like angels?

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Our Torah reading this week begins with another well-known narrative, the story of the rebellion of Korach — the most serious rebellion against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Korach and his followers rise up against Moses and Aaron, saying: “You have gone too far! For all the community is holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?”

Korach’s uprising is ultimately a failure, and he and his followers are destroyed in a dramatic display of divine vengeance. But the original protest is preserved, and part of what makes it unsettling is that it seems so darn . . . attractive. The whole community is holy. That sounds nice. It sounds reasonable, even compelling, to our democratic, egalitarian ears.

But read closely, Korach’s message reveals a big problem tucked into a little word – the word “is.” All the community is holy. Martin Buber points out that Korach speaks in the present tense, treating holiness as a given rather than a goal, an assumption rather than an aspiration. This would suggest that we can do anything – and still be holy. But the Torah of Moses is Kedoshim tehiyu. “You shall become holy.” The divine command to be holy is addressed to us in the future tense. We are not there yet, and as soon as we think we are, we are in trouble.

Similarly, for Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Korach’s “slogan” is dangerous because he offers a vision of religious life that is comforting but ultimately leads to spiritual complacency and self-congratulation. Moses, in contrast, offers a vision of religious life that is arduous, but leads to spiritual responsibility and sacred aspiration. In Leibowitz’s words, “Man is not intrinsically holy; his holiness is not already existing and realized in him. It is rather incumbent upon him to achieve it. But the task is eternal. It can never be fulfilled except through a never-ending effort.”

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In between these two dramatic stories – the story of the spies and the story of Korach, a rebellion rooted in radical self-doubt and a rebellion rooted in false unity and complacency – sits the mitzvah of tzitzit, the commandment to wear fringes on the corners of our garments.

Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the LORD and observe them . . . so you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.” (Numbers 15:38-40)

According to Rashi and other commentators, the word tzitzit is related to the Hebrew word metzitz, or “to peer,” as in the verse from Song of Songs, “metzitz min hacharakim” – “peering through the latticework.” Read through this associative lens, the tzitzit become latticework through which we and God are peering at each other, like lovers longing to see and be seen.

The tzitzit lack the grand drama of the stories of Korach and the spies. Perhaps that is precisely part of their power, part of the message they can hold for us in these times. They are a quiet, daily, ritual reminder: We are not grasshoppers. And we are not already holy. We are human beings, summoned to expand our field of vision and remember that we stand — each of us and all of us — before a loving God.

In moments when we are blinded by complacency or self-congratulation, we are commanded to open our eyes and ask ourselves, “What actions can I take to bring more holiness into my own life and into the world?” And in those moments when self-doubt clouds or constricts our vision, we are asked to look up and open ourselves to the possibility that we may be like angels in the eyes of an Other.

At Sinai, God may appear in thunder and lightning, but on most days, we and the Holy One are peering at each other through the cracks, both of us longing to see and be seen.

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