Yom Kippur 5770

May your eyes be opened and your heart softened.
May your prayers be heard and your sins forgiven.
May your days be blessed and your name written in the Book of Life.

Nature and Nature's God

Humans Are an Essential Part of the Ecosystem

Researchers are just figuring out what has been obvious to everyone who takes the Biblical account of creation seriously, whether literally or metaphorically: humans are an essential part of the global ecosystem.

Transhumance Helps Vulture Conservation

ScienceDaily (2009-09-23) -- Researchers in Spain have shown for the first time the close space-time relationship between the presence of the griffon vulture and transhumant sheep farming in mountain passes. Transhumance -- the seasonal movement of people with their livestock -- has fallen in some parts of Spain by up to 80 percent over the past four years. The scientists say that traditional livestock farming practices are crucial for the preservation of mountain ecosystems.

Gods of Nature

Large geological structures have a way of profoundly inculcating themselves into one's imagination. Mighty rivers, high mountains, harsh deserts, wide seas. They become the dominant reference point for navigation, rivalry, and recreation. If you have lived near such a creature for an extended period, you probably know just what I mean. I grew up within a few miles of the Mississippi River, and although I moved away twenty years ago, it's still there in the back of my mind. It influences the analogies I employ, the color scheme I chose for my house, and even my dreams. I have lived at the foot of the Rocky Mountains for almost twelve years now, and I always know which way is west. If I can see the mountains, then I can find my way. They have a mystical kind of presence. It's easy to see how people come to ascribe divine attributes to such things.

The Death & Resurrection of All Mankind

God said Adam would die "in the day" that he ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but we know that he actually lived more than 900 years longer. Did God lie to him?

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he came under the Law's power to condemn. He sentenced himself, and all mankind, to death in that moment. By one man's sin, we are condemned. Fortunately, by another Man's righteousness, we are absolved. "Go," therefore, "and sin no more."

See also: "One Day Is As a Thousand Years"

Life Doesn't Get Easier

Why doesn't life get easier with practice?

Because life is not lived for its own sake. It is preparation for something greater. When a man trains his body, he does not do so only to make his training easier. He trains in preparation for some contest. When a bodybuilding contestant can easily lift 100 lbs, it would do him little good to continue with the same exercise, weight, and repetitions. If he is to improve his strength, he increases the weight or the reps or both. He works another muscle group. When life gets harder every year, don't despair. Instead, bear up and realize that the harder you train now, the greater the contest and the prize that God has in store for you later.

Love Her or Leave Her Alone: Captive War Brides in Torah

When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her. 

Deuteronomy 21:10-14

The practice of taking captive women as concubines has long been frowned upon in western cultures, and for good reason. As with marrying more than one woman, marrying a prisoner of war is a complicated and difficult proposition. A man of weak character can't pull it off, and a man of poor character can't do it well. On the other hand, difficult doesn't mean sinful or impossible. In fact, in the context of the ancient near east--probably in other contexts as well--marriage was one of the best options available. It is better than killing her with the rest of her people or leaving her to be abused or enslaved by some other nation. At least as a concubine to an Israelite, she would be brought into the religion of Yahweh and enjoy the rights accorded to all wives by Torah.

Allowing a man to take such a woman back to his home also recognizes and helps to stem the harsh reality of rape in war. This law says that a man is not allowed to simply take whatever woman he wants, but knowing that he can still have her after following the proper procedure (and being reminded of that fact every year when reading Ki Tetzei, Deuteronomy 21:19-25:19, in the congregation) can serve to temper his immediate lusts. Chances are very good that after the thirty days of mourning have passed, he will have realized what a crazy idea it is to bring a pagan woman into his house, and he will allow her to leave. If not, then he would be required to begin her education in Torah and her conversion to belief in the True God before he could consummate the marriage. (See Leviticus 19:19, Deuteronomy 7:3, and Deuteronomy 22:9-11.)

If he changes his mind and allows her to leave, she will no longer be a prisoner of war but a free woman with all the rights of a stranger in Israel. Those rights were considerable indeed, especially in light of what she might face in some other land.