NUM48 See [[NUM42]] Numbers 6:8 holy SACKS 221

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NUM103 See [[EXOD78]] Exodus 4:7 leprous SACKS 178-9

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NUM138 "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who shall know it?" said Jeremiah (17:9). One of the blessings and curses of human nature is that we use our power of reason not always and only to act rationally, but also to rationalise and make excuses for the things we do, even when we know we should not have done them. That, perhaps, is one of the lessons the Torah wishes us to draw from the story of the spies. Had they recalled what God had done to Egypt, the mightiest empire of the ancient world, they would not have said [this verse]. But they were in the group of fear. Strong emotion – – fear especially--distorts our perception. It activates the amygdala, the source of our most primal reactions, causing it to override the prefrontal cortex that allows us to think rationally about the consequences of our decisions. Tzitzit, with their thread of blue, remind us of heaven, and that is what we most need if we are consistently to act in accordance with the better angels of our nature.

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NUM194 [Experiments show] that what makes the difference to the way we behave is not simply what we believe, but rather the fact of being reminded of it. In one test, conducted by Brandon Randolph-Seng and Michael Nielsen, participants were exposed to words flashed for less than 100 milliseconds, that is, long enough to be detected by the brain but not long enough for conscious awareness. They were then given a test in which they had the opportunity to cheat. Those who had been shown words relating to God were significantly less likely to do so than people who had been shown neutral words. The same result was yielded by another test in which, beforehand, some of the participants were asked to recall the Ten Commandments while others were asked to remember the last ten books they had read. Merely being reminded of the Ten Commandments reduced the tendency to cheat. Another researcher, Deepak Malhotra, surveyed the willingness of Christians to give to online charitable appeals. The response was 300% greater if the appeal was made on a Sunday then on any other day of the week. Clearly the participants did not change their minds about religious belief or the importance of charitable giving between weekdays and Sundays. It was simply that on Sundays they were more likely to have thought about God. A similar test was carried out among Muslims in Morocco, where it was found that people were more likely to give generously to charity if they lived in a place where they could hear the call to prayer from a local minaret. [Ara] Norenzayan's [author of Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 13-54)] conclusion is that "religion is more in the situation than in the person," or, to put it another way, what makes the difference to our behavior is less what we believe than the phenomenon of being reminded, even subconsciously, of what we believe. That is precisely the psychology behind the mitzvah of tzizit in Parashat Shelah [this verse]. The Talmud (Menahot 44a) tells the story of a man who, in a moment of moral weakness, decided to pay a visit to a certain courtesan. He was in the course of removing his clothes when he saw the tzitzit and immediately froze. The courtesan asked him what was the matter, and he told her about the tzitzit, saying that the four fringes had become accusing witnesses against him for the sin he was about to commit. The woman was so impressed by the power of this simple command that she converted to Judaism.

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NUM210 The monumental untruth of their claim – Egypt, where the Israelites were slaves and cried out to God to be saved, was not "a land flowing with milk and honey" – – is what finally made Moses angry. What is going on here? The sages defined it in one of their most famous statements: Any dispute for the sake of Heaven will have enduring value, but every dispute not for the sake of Heaven will not have enduring value. What is an example of a dispute for the sake of Heaven? The dispute between Hillel and Shammai. What is an example of one not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korah and all his company (Mishna Avot 5:21). The rabbis did not conclude from the Korah rebellion that argument is wrong, that leaders are entitled to unquestioning obedience, that the supreme value in Judaism should be – – as it is in some faiths – – submission. To the contrary: argument is the lifeblood of Judaism, so long as it is rightly motivated and essentially constructive in its aims. Judaism is a unique phenomenon: a civilisation all of whose canonical texts are anthologies of argument. In Tanakh, the heroes of faith – Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Job – argue with God. Midrash is founded on the premise that there are "seventy faces" – – seventy legitimate interpretations--of Torah. The Mishna is largely constructed on the model of "Rabbi X says this, Rabbi Y says that." The Talmud, far from resolving these arguments, usually deepens them considerably. Argument in Judaism is a holy activity, the ongoing internal dialogue of the Jewish people as it reflects on the terms of its destiny and the demands of its faith. What then made the argument of Korah and his co-conspirators different from that of the schools of Hillel and Shammai? Rabbenu Yona offered a simple explanation: an argument for the sake of Heaven is one that is about truth. An argument not for the sake of Heaven is about power. The difference is immense. If I argue for the sake of truth, then if I win, I win. But if I lose, I also win, because being defeated by the truth is the only defeat that is also a victory. I am enlarged. I learned something I did not know before. In a contest for power, if I lose, I lose. But if I win, I also lose, because in diminishing my opponents I have diminished myself. Moses could not have had a more decisive vindication than a miracle for which he asked and was granted: that the ground open up and swallow his opponents. Yet not only did this not end the argument, it diminished the respect in which Moses was held: "The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 'You have killed the Lord's people,' they said." (Numbers 17:41). That Moses needed to resort to force was itself a sign that he had been dragged down to the level of the rebels. That is what happens when power, not truth, is at stake.

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NUM214 (Continued from [[EXOD1008]] Exodus 33:8 gaze SACKS 145-6) Moses issued a detailed reckoning to avoid coming under suspicion that he had personally appropriated some of the donated money. Note the emphasis that the accounting was undertaken not by Moses but "by the Levites under the direction of Itamar," in other words, by independent auditors [Exodus 38:21]. There is no hint of these accusations in the text itself, but the midrash may be based on the remark Moses made during the Korah rebellion [this verse]. Accusations of corruption and personal enrichment have often been leveled against leaders, with or without justification. We might think that since God sees all we do, this is enough to safeguard against wrongdoing. Yet Judaism does not say this. The Talmud records a scene at the deathbed of R. Yohanan b. Zakkai, as the master lay surrounded by his disciples: "They said to him, "Our master, bless us." He said to them, "May it be God's will that the fear of heaven will be as much upon you as the fear of flesh and blood." His disciples asked, "Is that all?" He replied, "Would that you obtained no less than such fear! You can see for yourselves the truth of what I say: when a man is about to commit a transgression, he says, I hope no man will see me." (Berakhot 28b) When humans commit a sin they worry that other people might see them. They forget that God certainly sees them. Temptation befuddles the brain, and no one should believe he is immune to it.

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NUM231 See [[NUM210]] Numbers 16:13 honey SACKS 241-2

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NUM258 The Torah does not hide anyone's sin. It is fearlessly honest about the greatest of the great. Bad things happen when we try to hide people's sins. That is why there have been so many recent scandals in the world of religious Jews, some sexual, some financial, some of other kinds. When religious people hide the truth they do so from the highest of motives. They seek to prevent hillul Hashem. The result, inevitably, is a greater hillul Hashem. Such sanctimony, denying the shortcomings of even the greatest, leads to consequences that are ugly and evil and turn decent people away from religion. The Torah does not hide people's sins. Neither may we.

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NUM336 Law is about universals, principles that apply in all places and times: Do not murder. Do not rob. Do not steal. Do not lie. Yet there are important features of the moral life that are not universal at all. They have to do with specific circumstances and the way we respond to them. What is it to be a good husband or wife, a good parent, a good teacher, a good friend? What is it to be a great leader, or follower, or a member of a team? When is it right to praise, and when is it appropriate to say, "You could have done better"? There are aspects of the moral life that cannot be reduced to rules of conduct, because what matters is not only what we do, but the way in which we do it: with humility or gentleness or sensitivity or tact. Morality is about persons, and no two persons are alike. When Moses asked God to appoint a successor, he began his request with the words, "Lord, God of the spirits of all flesh" [this verse]. On this the rabbis commented: what Moses was saying was that because each person is different, he asked God to appoint a leader who would relate to each individual as an individual, knowing that what is helpful to one person may be harmful to another (Sifrei Zuta, Midrash Tanhuma, and Rashi to Numbers ad loc). This ability to judge the right response to the right person at the right time is a feature not only of leadership, but of human goodness in general.

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NUM361 [W]e cannot tell in advance how humans will react. How then can we create an orderly society without taking away people's freedom? The answer is the act of promising. When I promise to do something, I am freely placing myself under an obligation to do something in the future. If I am the kind of person who is known to keep his word, I have removed one element of unpredictability from the human world. You can rely on me, since I have given my word. When I promise, I voluntarily bind myself. It is this ability of humans to voluntarily commit themselves to do or refrain from doing certain ask that generates order in the relations between human beings without the use of coercive force. [Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 243-4)]. "When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said" [this verse]. It is no accident that this, the second verse of Parashat Matot, is stated shortly before the Israelites approach the Promised Land. The institution of promising, of which vows and oaths to God are a supreme example, is essential to the existence of a free society. Freedom depends on people keeping their word. ... If trust breaks down, social relationships break down. Society will then depend on law enforcement agencies or some other use of force. When force is widely used, society is no longer free. The only way free human beings can form collaborative and cooperative relationships without recourse to force is by the use of verbal undertakings honored by those who make them. Freedom needs trust. Trust needs people to keep their word, and keeping your word means treating words as holy, vows and oaths as sacrosanct. Only under very special and precisely formulated circumstances can you be released from your undertakings. That is why, as the Israelites approached the Holy Land where they were to create a free society, they had to be reminded of the sacred character of vows and oaths. The temptation to break your word when it is to your advantage to do so can sometimes be overwhelming. That is why belief in God -- a God who oversees all we think, say, and do and who holds us accountable to our commitments--is so fundamental. Although it sounds strange to us now, the father of toleration and liberalism, John Locke, held that citizenship should not be extended to atheists because not believing in God, they should not be trusted to honor their word. (John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). So the appearance of laws about vows and oaths at the end of the book of Numbers, as the Israelites are approaching the land, is no accident, and the moral is still relevant today. A free society depends on trust. Trust depends on keeping your word. That is how humans imitate God -- by using language to create. Words create moral obligations, and moral obligations, undertaken responsibly and honored faithfully, create the possibility of a free society.

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