Rabbi Breit's Blog

This week’s torah portion, Nasso, teaches us about jealousy. Torat Ha’Knaot, literally "the Torah of Jealousies", is twenty verses of instruction on how a jealous man can confront his wife of her suspected infidelity. The rules of the ensuing ritual, sotah, seem almost witch-like and arcane. Under priestly supervision, the wife must drink water mixed with ink and curses that will cause her some sort of physical harm if she has in fact been unfaithful. But if the inky curses have no effect on her, she is proclaimed innocent. In this ritual and beyond, our parsha is a meditation on jealousy — on avoiding it and confronting it.

In our parsha Moses divides up the Levitical sacred honor and duty of transporting the mishkan, the tabernacle. And each Levite is given his assignment by name. There is no room worry for whose task is whose, who is not doing enough or who is taking on what is not theirs to take. There is no option to pick your own, bigger or more important role; each was assigned by God. The assignment is very clear and specific, leaving little room for jealousy or resentment.

And then later, each Nasi, tribal leader, brings an inaugural sacrifice on behalf of his tribe for the mishkan.  Each Nasi’s sacrifice is identical down the last detail. A student of Torah can’t help but imagine while reading that these two key elements of the people’s stewardship and participation in the mishkan were meant to forestall jealousy.

It doesn’t require projecting much of our own feeling into a text that insists on radical equity, clear and immutable assignments, and describes an entire ritual to face jealousies that cannot be proved or unproven, to understand that the Torah recognizes and acknowledges the lasting impact of jealousy on our psyche and our community and is shaped around it.

But there is only so much rigging of the world system you can do to prevent jealousy. Even in a world that is prescriptively fair and ordered, such as this world of Numbers, things happen. And it’s unfortunately often the people closest to us — spouses, dear friends, family members — who bear the brunt of that green eyed monster, the feeling that something is missing in your life or not as good as it ought to be, the suspicion that something isn’t fair and that another person's greed or laziness or disloyalty is to blame. Maybe you feel you don’t have what you should and you believe it's because someone else has ruined it.

And how much more visceral of a feeling of jealousies that befall us in our world, where responsibilities are not so clear, where equity is not a guiding principle. We know who to blame when a particular beam of the tabernacle goes missing; his name is on it. But who is the one to blame for the war in Israel? Who is the one to blame for inflation? Who is the one to blame for crime? And we certainly don’t live in a world with equal distribution. Even in our own congregation there is vast discrepancy in the wealth each of us has to offer. These things are not in our control.

So what can we learn from Nasso on jealousy? We can learn that we must do our best to set up equal participation in our ritual ife. We must do our best to give clear and fair assignments of responsiblity. And, beyond that, when that fails, we learn  from sotah --the bizarre poison ink water ritual of assuaging a husband's jeaousy towards his wife. On one the hand, we can learn that god’s divine justice is true, that the karmic righting of a the wrongs that provoke jealousy will come. But I prefer a different lesson. For me sotah, and Nasso, teach that sometimes you really need a ritual to come to terms with what makes you sick with envy. You can't avoid it and you can't unfeel it. And you cannot have what others have. But you can confess your jealousy to someone who matters. You can say it out loud: I am jealous and I don't want to be any more. And maybe the person you’re jealous of says: I know you’re jealous and I will help you not to be. And, if you're lucky, maybe a teacher or a rabbi you trust says: and may it be so, and it is so.

Shabbat shalom.