By Anna Minsky
The following speech was read on March 28th at a progressive New York City synagogue, a guest sermon by one of the congregants. In the Jewish tradition, each week we read one part (a “parsha”) of the Torah (the first five books of the bible) aloud in Hebrew. Then someone, often a Rabbi, offers “words of Torah” (dvar Torah or drash). At this synagogue at least, the idea is to use the text as a jumping off point. There is no presumption that the text is true or just, only that it is worth discussing. The terms haShem (literally, the name) and The One are used here in lieu of “G-d” to convey that such a thing is too big to be known or personified.
Shabat shalom.
Obligation. Honor. Reckoning. Redemption. These are all words that have both a moral meaning a money meaning.
Today’s Torah reading comes from Parshat Tzav. Tzav means oblige. It has the same root as mitzvah. s/ Tzav is an absolutely *riveting* passage that goes back over how to perform five different ritual offerings that were already described in last week’s parsha, but this time with more attention to the role of the priest. But seriously, Parshat Tzav must be important because it is a list of instructions and Torah means instruction. The ritual for each offering begins with, zot torat ha: now this is the torah of… And, more-or-less, the description of each offering is punctuated with, kadosh kedushim hu: it is a holiest holy portion, referring to the part of the offering that goes to the priest.
So, this is the Torah of Obligation. What do we owe to haShem and what do we owe to each other? In the text, we owe a shlamim offering. It could be from the herd or the flock or a goat. We owe a minhah offering. It must be grain, with salt, oil, and frankincense, but no leavening. And, significantly, we are told the exact amount to bring each morning and evening, and we are instructed that the priests get to eat a part of it. These two offerings and the olah offering are considered obligatory. In contrast, the last two offerings, the hattat and asham, are accrued based on your behavior. More about those later.
In late temple times the instructions in the Torah about obligations to The One likely shaped the local economy more than obligations to the state. Roman authorities were content with minimal tribute, and their local governors were mostly unstable. Meanwhile, the Torah had already been entrenched for centuries. There was even a sacred currency that could be used for offerings and tithes. People likely took the Torah instructions seriously, but paid a priest to make offerings, rather than literally bringing a tenth of an efa of grain in the morning and another tenth of an efa in the evening. They saw their relationship with haShem as transactional.
Kadosh kedushim hu. It is a holiest holy portion.
Now this is the Torah of Honor. So, what do you think? Is it impure to owe money? Is it a sin not to repay a debt?
It is no secret that cartels and bullies use debt as a pretext for violence and cruelty. For example, in 2014 credit agencies downgraded Puerto Rico’s bonds, forcing them to pay off their debts by reducing services and pensions, that is by reducing care for the people who live there. There is no honor in paying off a debt if it is a cause for neglect. But also families and friends use debt as a pretext for companionship. I am in the debt of this community for creating a meal train when I was sick, and that’s a good thing because it makes me want to sign up for a meal train for someone else. The difference between cruelty and connection has to do with who keeps the ledger. If we think of money as a thing that can be hoarded that might prompt us to be cruel. But if we think of money only as an abstraction, that might prompt us to use it to coordinate care.
Kadosh kedushim hu. It is a holiest holy portion.
Now, this is the Torah of Reckoning. Is it possible that one origin of money was in temple ledgers? For example, the temple might record that Linda hadn’t brought a shlamim offering. Perhaps, also, Carol wants some of Linda’s saplings to plant a vineyard. She could say to Linda, give me a few saplings, and I will promise to bring a shlamim offering to the temple on your behalf. Linda could then bring that promissory note to the temple, and they could record that the obligation of the shlamim offering had been switched from Linda to Carol. All of a sudden, we essentially have paper money, and what makes it possible is the ledger that is being maintained by the temple. So the verses about how a shlamim offering could be from the herd, the flock, or a goat could be interpreted as important material information about exchange values that allow for the coordinated distribution of resources within a community of friends and neighbors. Although we no longer make offerings at the temple, Parshat Tzav is still relevant because we still coordinate the distribution of resources. And to give an honest reckoning, we do it badly.
Thinking about our relationships with The One and among ourselves as something transactional might feel yucky, but I would offer that we can reject the fake morality pedaled by banks that it is honorable to “honor” a debt incurred to a usurer. We *can* organize transactions around caring.
Kadosh kedushim hu. It is a holiest holy portion.
And finally, this is the Torah of Redemption. I am going to spend the remainder of this drash talking about Democratic Public Finance, an idea I’ve been learning about from the Money on the Left editorial collective. Today is the perfect day to talk about it, not just because of Parshat Tzav, *but also* because today is No Kings Day, *and also* the state budget is due on Wednesday.
I think we’re all on the same page that when the President claims the unilateral right not to spend funds that Congress has appropriated, that is King behavior and we won’t stand for it. But I also want you to think about this unitary executive theory of money, not as a departure from, but a continuation of the austerity framework of our much-too-powerful governor, Kathy Hochul, who says that we can’t “afford” to invest in renewable energy. Just as we shouldn’t let the president be the arbiter of when money can be spent, so too, we should not let the banks, traders, and hedge fund managers be the arbiters.
Under the current regime corporate banks, and not democratically elected local governments, have the power to create credit. What kind of democracy is that? Kathy Hochul claims that money is a scarce private resource, but Democratic Public Finance thinks of money as just a way to coordinate the distribution of resources and capacities. If there is enough food in New York City to feed every person in New York City, then it is simply not the case that we can’t afford to feed everyone. If there are enough people to shovel the snow, then it is simply not the case that we can’t afford to have the sidewalks passable for people in wheelchairs. If it is physically possible to build solar and wind farms and a pipeline to bring hydropower from Quebec, how can we afford *not* to do these things? All we, as a multiracial small-d democratic city and state, have to do is ask what we wish to accomplish together and then take control of the ledger to credit the people who step up to do the accomplishing. For example, one way to do this would be to issue literal credits that could be redeemed to pay taxes or obtain food from state-run groceries.
Another idea from democratic public finance is to borrow money from people rather than banks. Instead of donating money to centrist democrats to defeat MAGA, we could invest our money in arts programs, libraries, and parks in New York City, Cincinnati, Seattle and Tulsa, expanding blue cities so that people can live in them free from cars and guns, and organize together to take back their state legislatures.
These are policy ideas we could advocate for. If you are interested in taking some smaller first steps together, I am always looking for study partners, and maybe we could consider writing a joint letter to the mayor or governor, or starting some inventive crediting systems within our own community, perhaps for kids or teen assistants.
I said I would return to the hattat and asham offerings. These are offerings you would make if you needed purification or to atone for a sin. The implication is that you had incurred some debt for impurity or, perhaps, cruelty. It is not wrong to have a debt, but it is wrong to usurp the ledger. The premise of Parshat Tzav is that haShem controls the ledger, but post-temple, I think that we all should control the ledger, democratically.
What’s more, while it might seem like Parshat Tzav is just instructions for the priests, let’s not forget Parshat Yitro, where we read v’atem t’hiyuli mamlechet cohanim: we should be a *nation* of priests.
On top of Parshat Tzav, no kings, and an impending state budget deadline, today we observe Shabbat haGadol, the last shabbat before Pesach, the holiday of redemption. To redeem is literally to acquire something by paying off a debt, perhaps by making a hattat or asham offering.
But I say redemption is meaningless if we are not a nation of priests, if we do not wield the ledger to distribute our labor and resources to care for one another.
Kadosh kedushim hu. It is a holiest holy portion.
Good Shabbos.
* The featured image above features an ancient silver Shekel of Tyre from the Second Temple period dated 64/3 BC.
Published by