bamidbar: borders require police
sholem aleixem,
Hello again friends! It has been a little while. I hope this newsletter finds you [screeching noises]. Over the course of my Vayikra-hiatus I have gotten a new job, worked two jobs for a month, and moved into the woods for a bit. My cat is delighted by all the creatures to watch through the windows. I'm enjoying making jokes about retiring to the country for my nerves. And we're all excited to be starting Bamidbar, I assume.
Here are some scattered thoughts.
It's census time in Torah:
Raise [count] the heads of all the congregation of the children of Israel
The Mei Shiloach has a lovely teaching on this, which skips a crucial part.
“Raise” signifies importance. By means of counting the numbers of each tribe, every individual will know his special importance [...] This is the meaning of “and the number of the children of Israel,” [Hoshea, 2:1] that each and every one will be absolutely necessary. The greatness of God is seen in the entire community of Israel as a whole, and if just one member of that community is missing then the mixture will be deficient.
Beautiful, right? But we're missing a piece of the pasuk:
Raise [count] the heads of all the congregation of the children of Israel ... by the house of their fathers
Moshe is not only counting and acknowledging each individuals' important but also organizing them within patriarchy, within tribes. This isn't lost on our sages -- the Berditchever claims that this is the Torah complimenting the Jews on their marital virtue compared to the gentiles.
That particular tribalism aside, there are some practical issues here, that speak to something deeper. In particular, how do we know which tribe someone belongs to? The Torah says it's by father, but even if we accept that as reasonable (and it itsn't!) there are plenty of edge cases to worry about. What if someone gets adopted, for example. What if paternity is disputed (even though the Berditchever says it is impossible!) What happens with converts. What happens if your father dies. The Torah answers some of these questions. I'm sure the Rabbis answer others. But those answers are all by fiat. Those answers all presuppose that we must maintain these borders at all cost.
The fact remains: there are lots of people standing on the borders of these tribal boundaries.
Does counting by tribe truly raise people up?
the Organizing Authority says: the image of each human is made up of a mosaic of many small parts. surely we can remove one or two parts without damaging the whole!
There's a violence inherent to the system any separatist project. As baedan writes regarding a feminist version of this (emphasis mine):
It is worth focusing on [feminist separatism] because of the specific tragedy that its history shows [...] through its willful and vitriolic exclusion of transgendered women and others. [...] Those who draw these [separatist] lines will always draw them through the bodies of others.
One recent answer to these critiques has been the introduction of the concept not-men. Most attempts at defining this category are extremely clumsy. At times it is used to mean not-cismen, or to explicitly say that faggots are not welcome at certain meetings. At others it simply means women plus trans people. Some feminists have even said that the category at times includes ‘emasculated men of color.’ Usually it is just postmodern shorthand for women. As with any other categories, it only functions if it has a firm border, and this border will always be policed. At every step of the way, it is ceaselessly problematic. The least problematic definitions of it (such as the one in “Undoing Sex”) are so vague as to not have any practical application. And it is always in the practical applications that these theories enact their violences. The prospect of a political body of largely cisgendered women determining which genderqueer or transfeminine individuals are not-men enough to participate in their groups is quite nauseating. This categorical policing mirrors all the others. Meet the new binary, same as the old binary.
(it's winter in 2020. i'm dancing with my khaverte in the parking lot behind the old mill. big arms, wild legs. masked and anonymous.)
When I talk about this people often challenge me: "What, are you seriously arguing against closed affinity groups?"
No, not quite.
Groups defined by a shared purpose can raise our heads up. Those places can make our bodies big and free.
Groups defined by shared identity lower our heads. They force us to curl our bodies up smaller and smaller so that we can fit within their narrow borders. They rip pieces of our mosaics off and tell us it is kindness.
Somebody came to the Baal Shem Tov and asked: how does one begin to serve haShem? And the Baal Shem Tov, who was standing at the time on top of a high cliff, said “cazeh - like this” and he threw himself off the cliff. And as he was falling speedy with quickness and more speed he shatters into a million pieces. And the student who was with the Baal Shem Tov haKadosh was terrified, and he ran down the mountain to see what had become of his master in his effort to show him what spiritual work actually is. And he saw there that the Baal Shem Tov was shattered and splintered into a million pieces. But as he gazed a little bit closer, he came to see that each and every shattered part of the Baal Shem Tov was the totality of the Baal Shem Tov. - R Joey Rosenfeld
Remove a piece of me, and you are removing all of me. All of me still remains! But all of me is also lost.
Good shabbos, chag shavuos sameach. Let's receive haShem's Torah as one, and as ourselves.
ada