Timeless Torah

Don’t let the title fool you. This article has nothing to do with the snowy slopes of America’s ski resorts. Nor are we talking of the slippery slopes and mountainous peaks of the recent stock market swings. Instead, what we have in mind is sex, deceit, apparent incest, execution and inspiring courage in the face of public censure. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take place in Washington (where there is little courage) but in this week’s Biblical reading.

Judah, the leader among Jacob’s sons, has three sons and one daughter in law. Er, the oldest of the three is married to Tamar the beautiful. Unwilling to mar the figure of his wife, Er, (to use the Biblical phraseology) “wastes his seed and spills it out on the ground.” At a time when the fledgling Jewish nation needed every additional constituent, this act is considered so grievous that G-d caused Er to die.

Onan, the second of the three children, is expected to marry his brother’s childless widow and thus carry on the dead man’s name. Unfortunately, following in his older brother’s footsteps he too refuses to impregnate Tamar and is struck down.

With two husbands buried one after another, Judah views his daughter in law as the Black Widow. Thus, when she demands that in accordance with tradition, she be given son number three to wed, her father in law stalls for time. “Too young,” he explains. “Ask me again in a couple of years.”

However with the passing of time, Tamar realizes that Judah does not intend to have her marry his youngest. And so she plans her attack. Disguising herself as a prostitute complete with a seductive veil that masks her identity, she entices her father in law. From that union she becomes pregnant and three months later is sentenced to be burnt at the stake for obviously playing the harlot. But before the execution takes place she sends to Judah his personal effects that she has from that fateful evening.

Judah, true to the logo on his tribal banner, becomes the courageous lion, and publicly confesses that instead of Tamar being the loose woman she is accused of being, her intentions were only to carry on the family name.

It’s a great story. It has all the elements of drama, intrigue and spice to tempt any Hollywood producer. “But what,” you ask, “does this all have to do with slopes?”
In the narrative, Judah is described as “going up to Timna” which is where he meets the girl sitting at the crossroads. The commentary Rashi, whom we have met before, wonders at the term, “going up..”, since in the Book of Judges it mentions Samson the Strong as “going down to Timna”. To which Rashi replies, “Timna is on the slope of a hill.” No one just goes there. Either you are on your way up or on your way down.

This cryptic short explanation provided by Rashi is more than a travel brochure on the best way to travel to Timna. Rashi is making a serious statement. In life, one does not stay static. You either progress or regress. Timna, if you will, is more than a specific point on a map, it is every point on the map. And in this journey called life, there are no two parallel points on the slope of human development. Every move is either a step up or a step down from its predecessor.

This is also the lesson implicit in the laws of Chanukah. One who kindles a single flame on the first night of the festival observes the mitzvah of kindling the menorah in the most optimal manner possible. But to light that same solitary flame on the following night, when one is obligated to kindle two lights, is not only a failure to increase one’s performance, but a decline in relation to yesterday’s achievement.

All of life is lived on a slippery slope.