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minor liturgical oddities

During Pesach I've finally noticed two things I'm a little curious about.

First, there are many brachot that we say before performing mitzvot. They all follow a formula: "blessed...who commanded [*] us...". What's odd is that the final few words are sometimes verbs ("to kindle lights") and sometimes nouns ("about counting the omer"). Why the difference? Why l'hadlik but al s'firat? If most of the bracha is standardized, why didn't the rabbis standardize on one more piece, either "to" (infinitive verb) or "about" (al noun-phrase)?

[*] Or "commands us"? Is that a reversing vav? I've seen both translations.

Second, a few paragraphs after we say the sh'ma we say mi chamocha. That phrase appears twice but is slightly altered the second time: mi chamocha ba'elim..., mi kamocha nedar.... Back when I didn't really know anything about Hebrew grammar I just surrounded this question with a "weird grammar stuff" field. But now I know that they are both the same phrase: "who is like". So why does the first have a dageish (changing kaf to chaf) and the other not? What I noticed recently is that in one of the two, the words are joined by a "hyphen" (I'm not sure if that's what Hebrew calls that mark). Presumably they're like that in the siddur because they're like that in the torah. If one were chanting this from torah trope, the joined words would be treated as one -- one trope symbol rather than two, and you'd run 'em togther a little. Chaf is one of the "beged kefet" letters, letters that get or drop a dageish depending on where they are in the word (or, more precisely, the kinds of syllables that preceed and follow them in the word). I'm a little fuzzy on the rule, but I suspect that "michamocha" and "mi kamocha" trigger this rule differently. It all makes me wonder why the torah (well, the Masorites who added vowels and punctuation to the torah) did it this way in this case -- is there some deeper meaning that argues against consistency?

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There is a legend about the dagesh in "Mi chamocha."

As you know, "Mi chamocha" is the song which the Israelites sang just as they were going to cross the Sea of Reeds, fleeing from Pharoah's army.

The story is that, as they were standing on the shore, pinned against the sea, they could go no further, and started singing. As they started singing, they began walking into the sea.

They walked into deeper and deeper water, and, at exactly the point where they were about to sing the second "chamocha", the water was up to their mouths. The water filled their mouths and the sound came out as "K" instead of "kh".

And, at exactly that second, the sea split, so they could continue onwards to the wilderness, and continue singing.

Thanks; I hadn't heard that story before.

I love how our tradition has so many midrashim, some of which are contradictory (this one doesn't track with Nachshom ben Aminadav), but eileh v'eileh -- these and these are the words of the living God (though I sometimes think that should be "living words of God" :-) ).

Every time I read "Mi chamocha," I hear it to the tune of "My Sharona." I've got this mental image now of the Israelites boogying across the Sea of Reeds to that song, with Moses carrying two giant boom boxes like they were stone tablets.

If I wasn't going to die from the heart, lung and stomach before...

*laugh* Yeah, if yours is a religion where thoughts (and not just actions) can affect things, you may be in for some divine ribbing in the afterlife. :-)

You mean like:

"You have heard that the law of Moses says, `Do not commit adultery.' But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye--even if it is your good eye -- causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand--even if it is your stronger hand -- causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." (Matt 5:21-22, NIV)

Yeah.

I believe that Jesus was pointing out that it's impossible for humans to live up to the law and the prophets. We can't make it on our own, and we wind up like Aaron's brothers if we try -- or like Moses, getting banned from the Promised Land for banging a stick on a rock.

And then my theology gets complicated....

BTW: No one ever pays attention to what's next:

"So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God."

Were there lines waiting to give sacrifices to God at the Temple? I get the idea that this is far more serious than leaving church before the collection's picked up. Getting out of line to make one's sacrifice strikes me as a serious hardship. I think Jesus was making a point that's lost on most Christians.

(Matt 5:21-22, NIV)

This business about whacking off body parts that might cause you to err is in contrast to the idea of treating one's body well because we're made by God in God's image. Any idea how Jesus reconciled that? (I assume he was speaking rhetorically, not literally, but even so, he comes off sounding harsher, not more loving, at least to me.)

I believe that Jesus was pointing out that it's impossible for humans to live up to the law and the prophets.

I thought that was Paul's spin, but Jesus was a practicing Jew who knew that people had been living by the law for a good 1300 years. There are certainly valid rants about people going through the motions who don't actually acknowledge God's authority, but that's a little different from saying that following the law given by God is either impossible or not good enough. Clearly I'm missing something, about either Jesus' teaching or historical context. (Please don't read this response as being argumentative; I'm trying to reconcile what you're saying with what I know from Judaism and running into some glitches that I hope you can help me sort out.)

The rabbis have a lot to say about Aaron's sons Nadav and Avihu (I assume that's who you're referring to here). While they disagree on specifics, everyone seems to fault them, rather than saying that they faced an impossible task. They were presumptuous (trying to take Aaron's role away from him), or arrogant, or drunk, depending on who you ask, but all of those interpretations agree that serving God wasn't their highest priority when they brought the offering and got killed.

(Hmm. I wonder what commentary the rabbis offer on Kayin's rejected sacrifice, right before he killed Hevel?)

or like Moses, getting banned from the Promised Land for banging a stick on a rock.

As you might imagine, there's a lot of commentary on that too. :-) The text tells us that Moshe's sin was not sanctifying God; interpretations vary, but one common one is that by hitting the rock instead of speaking to it, he raised the possibility in people's minds that he, not God, had caused the water to flow. Clearly merely speaking couldn't do that, which is why God told him to do that. The people needed a miracle; instead Moshe gave them ambiguity.

And then my theology gets complicated....

If your theology hasn't gotten complicated, you haven't spent enough time thinking about it. :-)

Were there lines waiting to give sacrifices to God at the Temple? I get the idea that this is far more serious than leaving church before the collection's picked up. Getting out of line to make one's sacrifice strikes me as a serious hardship. I think Jesus was making a point that's lost on most Christians.

Making sacrifices was very important, and some of them were commanded at specific times. So Jesus was saying that it is better to delay (or, I infer, even miss) a sacrifice and reconcile with someone you've wronged than to make the sacrifice but leave ill will unaddressed. The rabbis, too, place a high value on reconcilliation; a major motif in the high-holy-day prayers is that for transgressions against other people, God won't forgive you until you've made things right with those people. While all mitzvot are important, sometimes you may have to set one aside to do another; of course it's better if you can manage to do both.

This business about whacking off body parts that might cause you to err is in contrast to the idea of treating one's body well because we're made by God in God's image. Any idea how Jesus reconciled that?

First, there's this problem in Christianity of the less-stable males among us occasionally whacking off a body part. It's almost never the hand or eye -- it's more like a really bad circumcision. Like the verse about "hating your mother and father" (which has also caused problems, more with cults and the people susceptible to them) my interpretation (and most others) is that this is exaggeration for emphasis. In other words, don't cut off your hand (or whatever): place a higher priority on controlling your thoughts. Don't hate your parents, but love God so much your love for your parents is like hatred in comparison.

I thought that was Paul's spin, but Jesus was a practicing Jew who knew that people had been living by the law for a good 1300 years.

Saul was a practicing Jew, too -- and quite a bit better educated than the Jewish fishermen, terrorist, tax collector, skeptic, and mama's boys he had for disciples. Getting hit by a lightning bolt will make you re-evaluate your life. Trust me, when I was 6 and I stuck the two bare wires in the wall socket, trying to set off the bomb I'd just made, I re-evaluated my life, too! The bomb didn't go off (explosive ingredients would have helped), but I disticntly remember wondering if I would be able to let go of the electrified wires. I was able to. I didn't see and hear Jesus, and scabs didn't form over my corneas, either. The name change from Bob to Rob was a couple years later, also.

There's a lot of stuff that Jesus said and did that didn't make sense unless viewed from Paul's perspective. Like the concept of One God with three persons, it's something forced on one by a need for a consistent worldview. Of course, so's quantum mechanics.

As we've discussed in the past, I have some serious questions about God and the first 5 books of the Bible. Nadav and Avihu and Moshe are just the start of it. I understand -- God's smarter than we are, so I'll just shut up and trust He knows what He's doing. But if some day God condescends to explain stuff, I'll listen intently.

Speaking of frameworks that make sense, it's occurred to me that if God were attempting to breed for more spiritual beings, killing off folks to concentrate the genes for spirituality, then the so-called "Old Testament" makes a lot of sense until you get to what I call "the New Testament." I'm pretty sure that one will be considered heresy and get me run out of church.

God won't forgive you until you've made things right with those people.

I'm not sure a lot of Christians follow up on that one. Sometimes, I fear it's like "What a friend I have in Jesus, I can screw anyone over I want and be forgiven." I tend to believe in Universal Salvation, but there are times I cherish the thought of seeing folks get the royal smite. Then I remember that I'm top of the list for one of those lightning bolts and apologize and shut up.

I may be depressed, but at least it keeps me from being more of a jerk than I already am.

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