Happy Rosh - may we see blessings this year
David Seidenberg
Why do the wicked thrive? A short drash (published with Earth Etudes).
Rashi expresses surprise when the spies come back from the land of Israel in just forty days. After all, he points out at Number 13:25, the land is as big as 400 by 400 parsa’ot, and it should have taken many times longer to make their way through all the land from sea to river and north to south. Rather, God enabled the spies to jump the path – to be led along miraculous shortcuts that would “shorten the way”.
Shortening the path is normally something that happens to rebbes and Chasidim in Chasidic stories, so that they can arrive some place special to perform righteous acts that will redeem the world. Since the spies, except Caleb and Joshua, are seen as wicked, talking badly about the land, why would they merit having their path shortened? If anything, they deserved to have obstacles block their path.
The reason, Rashi explains, is that God knew they would destroy the will of the people and ruin the chance to enter the land. And God knew that God would have to decree that the Israelites wander in the desert one year for each day that the spies wandered in the land. God shortened their path so that the desert exile could be shortened.
In a time when the wicked seem to prosper, fomenting wars and destruction, tearing down democracy, undoing laws that protect the earth and her species, stowing immigrants in prisons and concentration camps that violate human rights, let this teaching be a lesson for what is happening. Perhaps the way of the wicked is being speeded so that they can be ushered off the world stage sooner, before it is too late to undo their damage.
As the psalm for Shabbat (92:8) says, Bif’roach r’sha’im k’mo eisev, yatsitsu kol po’alei aven, l’hishamdam adei ad – “When the wicked bloom like grass, the workers of iniquity blossom, is it to destroy them forever.” So may it be, may harm and hurt and destruction and hate be swept away.
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A Poem responding to the war and what is happening in Gaza City
Intro: Ratzo v'shov ("running and returning") refers to the chariot in Ezekiel's vision, held aloft by four animal angels (chayot), that hovers as it comes forward and backward. In Ezekiel, each animal angel has four wings. In Isaiah, each angel (this time burning angels, seraphim) has six wings. Ofanim, and k'ruvim are other species of angel. And "rachfanim" is the Hebrew word for drones. Other references and verses are listed below.
Ratzo v’shov – even numbers
for Rosh Hashanah and Tishrei, 5786
Its eight wings – half Ezekiel’s four by four
whirring whirling spinning wings
And for the chayot, just one to E’s four – ha’adam, the human
a face behind a screen behind a network behind a cam
Missing: shor nesher aryeh, ox eagle lion.
Did you know nesher might have meant vulture? people say that.
it’s a vulture cleans up after death
This bird with eightwings kills, if that’s what adam wants.
It hovers, shifting forward, tipping to fly backward, ratzo v’shov
Its chariot, aka payload: gun, bomb, missile, burning coals from between the wheels
also microphone, also sometimes megaphone, to shout out, “holy holy holy”
just kidding. to shout “flee for your lives”, or not, to keep silence
but the whirring sound, m’rachefet, always buzzing, always with, always feared.
a sound, shattering doorframes, a house, fire-filled,, rubble
The mission: every-one-all videoed, from its eye; hundreds, thousands,
ten of thousands of footage hours, much even more than the numbered dead
even some clips make it on the news
a building or person getting its second of fame
before eish mit’lakachat, flaming obliteration.
There once was a people
They believed in angels, chayot, ofanim, k’ruvim,
Running returning, wheels within wheels,
Seraphim, bright-burning, wings full of eyes,
ruach lifting, chariots teleporting behind before,
levitating right left,
the spirit of the chayot in the wheels, and the chayot were the spirit,
and thrones, as big as a planet’s orbit.
We traded in our angels, got better models, quadcopters, rachfanim, drones
and six extra wings for ourselves,
we use two to fly away from reality, two to cover our eyes,
and two to hide our feet even from ourselves—
so we can’t know where we’re going.
We can’t know, not even on our holy days, about to come upon us.
There once was a people, Hashem,,
You knew them
~ Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org ~ Ratzo v’shov (“Running and returning”, Ezek 1:14)
other refs.: four…lion, Ezek 1:6-10; eish, Ezek 1:4; sound…house, Isa 6:4; burning, Ezek 1:13, Isa 6:6; holy, Isa 6:3; m’rachefet, Gen 1:2; full of eyes, Ezek 10:12, Rev 4:8; ruach…throne, Ezek 1:19-26; six…feet, Isa 6:2; chayot – animal angels, ofanim – wheel angels, k’ruvim – “cherubs”, seraphim – burning angels (Ezek 1, 10; Isa 6)