This week we learn about the ritual of the red or brown heifer,
Depending on translation.
The grinding up of the ashes of a consumed cow,
Such that it would be used to prepare people for temple service and temple activities,
Making people ready and capable of engaging in sacred ritual.
There's this very queer experience of the ashes of the red heifer that the person who was contaminated becomes pure,
But the person who was pure and handling the water of lustration – the ashes mixed with water that are used to purify others – becomes himself impure and has to go out and commit his own ritual of purification.
A mystical,
Magical,
Strange outcome.
To which our sages were asked,
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was asked by a non-Jew,
This all looks like a kind of witchcraft,
Among other things pointing out the delicate and dangerous boundary between magic and the mystic.
Religion,
The cult,
The occult,
Witchcraft,
And magic have a lot in common.
There is an overlapping Venn diagram,
But faith and spirit are,
Again,
Other things.
When we look at art and creativity in the same vein,
Oftentimes,
At least from the outside,
The production of a Jackson Pollock or Jimi Hendrix seems like a kind of witchcraft.
The ability to play a guitar behind your head with your teeth.
Hendrix didn't do both at the same time.
But it all seems so mysterious,
The capacity of a drummer,
Until you start taking drumming lessons,
Which I started now.
Even I think one sees that with athletes.
The ability of a boxer,
A soccer player,
A baseball player to do what they do at such a high level seems improbable,
Kind of mystery,
Kind of mystery religion.
Maybe once you start doing it,
It seems a little bit more approachable,
And then you get to the phase where you understand how it's done,
But can't imagine doing it.
Arts,
However,
Is not always magic.
It's not always mystery.
There's a great book I'm reading by David Galinson called Old Masters and Young Geniuses about the creative life cycles.
For many artists like Cézanne,
Like I think Robert Frost,
A lot of work went into the work,
A lot of time and years and crafting went in.
It wasn't just a brilliant searing insight at the height of passion or psychedelic experience,
But a lot of smithing of each individual word.
Among the metaphors we use for artists that you've heard me use,
Prophet,
Heretic,
Is the bard,
The bard and the gesture of ancient times.
This week in the parasha,
In the Torah reading,
We hear about the song of the well,
And it's one of the few places we hear a word which may have been intended to mean a bard,
A moshlim,
Often translated as the bard's reciting,
Chapter 21,
Verse 27 of the book of Numbers.
Since this word is rarely used,
And certainly not used in that root in this case,
Our sages in Talmud ask what this word could mean.
They always like to do a little etymology,
Sometimes in ways that we would linguistically understand,
Sometimes in fanciful ways.
So Samuel ben Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan,
The moshlim are those who speak in parables,
Mashal,
Just as Jesus did.
The ability for myth,
Metaphor,
And simile to convey to us things that are too deep,
Too profound,
Too frightening to understand,
Just in the way that art can,
Comedy can.
Speaking in parables and paradox is a moshel,
A bard.
But a moshel also is the same root as to rule.
A moshel,
I think,
Is in common parlance now a governor,
Typically.
So they also understood it as someone who rules their wicked inclination,
And someone who calculates the account of the world.
Those are the works of the artist,
To speak in parable,
Not direct voice,
But often to illustrate things that defy words and would be less effective if done as argument or debate.
But just a painting can convey to us the horrors of war in the way that a politician cannot.
But also an artist has to rule their inclinations,
Has to be devoted,
Disciplined.
Artists who drank too much alcohol,
Philandered too much,
Produced less,
Had limited lifespans in their creativity.
You do have to take care of hygiene and self-care.
And what the artist does is also to consider the account of the world,
To view the world as it is,
To consider the world as it could be,
And to produce a facsimile of a world one would like to see,
To induce vision and share vision for others.
And then I want to talk about those who have preceded us in the arts making.
This is a Parsha,
A Torah reading of a lot of death.
In short succession,
Miriam,
Then Aaron die.
And when they die,
When Miriam dies,
The well disappears,
The people go thirsty.
And when Aaron dies,
Sarah Sage's peace departs.
For Aaron was a peacemaker.
They breathed their last and the people mourned them,
Wailing and gnashing.
And there's a beautiful Midrash,
We call fan fiction among the rabbis,
Of Aaron's death.
Like a scene in the show The Shield,
Three people go up to the mountain,
But only two come back.
Moses and Eliezer go up with Aaron.
And then only Moses and Eliezer return from Hor-hahar,
Which might be translated as the hill of hills,
Or Hill's Hill.
People look around,
Aaron is not with them,
And they say,
Where is he?
He's dead.
But no one can understand it because Aaron,
Like an aging relative,
Recently was at a funeral for someone over 100,
Seems impervious to death.
In various scenes,
We see him standing in the way of plague,
Being a firebreak between the sick and the dying,
The dead and the living.
So he was a man,
According to the crowd,
That withstood the angel of death and restrained the angel of death.
So they had to show everyone that Aaron had died,
And everyone was in grave mourning.
Those who precede us,
The ancestors,
The artists in whose legacy we stand,
The giants on whose shoulders we rest,
They inspire us to this day,
Just as Aaron and Miriam inspired the people and gave them gifts that only they could contain.
Originally an artist locally,
Walter Fieldsa died.
I did not know him,
But I know people who knew him were his neighbors.
He was a muralist.
You can see his stuff downtown.
As far as I can tell,
He was an incredibly beautiful person.
He used to host a party every year.
Something like a burning man in his house,
People would just camp out on his yard for several days,
And he would feed them at his house.
So much sacrifice and gift,
Just to ensure that people had a beautiful experience each year.
I can't imagine being that generous.
I feel a little inspired by Walter Fieldsa today.
I've been inspired by John Coltrane.
I've been inspired by the band Rush,
As you know.
So many artists and great humans and other sages and rabbis have been my mentors,
And you can take a moment during the day to think of who's been your mentor and the moral and creative lessons they've taught you,
And why they seem impervious to death.
So what's the connection between the Red Heifer,
Where we started today,
And Miriam's death,
And Aaron's death?
What's the connection between Aaron's death and Miriam's death,
And the way the priestly garments are held,
Which is also in this week's parashah or nearby?
Rabbi Ami says in the Talmud that they are all linked to inform you that as the Red Heifer gave atonement,
So the death of the righteous gave atonement,
As the priest's vestments gave atonement,
So the death of the righteous procure atonement.
I wish long lives on everyone,
And long creative careers,
Whether you're in a hair salon or a sculpture gallery,
Wherever you find yourself,
I wish you all the longest.
But know that legacy also matters,
That what we do in this life can endure,
Not just our paintings,
But to quote John Quincy Adams,
The effect of each person on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
People like Walter Fields,
People like Aaron and Moses and Miriam,
Can have shockingly long reverberations in the lives of the living,
And those who exist today.
Take some time to think about those who have influenced you,
Whether you've known them or only read of them,
Like a James Baldwin or a Cormac McCarthy,
Consider your influences and the ways in which people and their art have inspired you.
