Sukkos & the Talmud’s Story of Bilga: How to See People Differently

If we can really internalize the message of Suka, we are going to see people differently. And I'd like to start off sharing with you the last Mishna in the trackctate in Gumar and the Talmud in the track date of Suka. So the entire trackctate of Suka is about the holiday of Sukus. How to build the suka, the dimensions of the suka, the lulra, the water libration celebration which took place on sukus. But the last Mishna talks about the order of the shifts of kohanim. In the times of the bas mikdash there were kohanim serving and they would take turns. They would have shifts and their shift lasted one week and every single week they would tag team and one shift would enter the courtyard where the mizbeck where the altar was to begin service the next shift would leave. The Mishna tells us that they would enter on the north side of the misbayak of the altar. So if you're facing the altar as you enter the courtyard, that would be the the right side. They would enter on the north. They would grab themselves. They would grab themselves some of the showbread there. um the shift that was leaving would leave on the south side of the misbeh of the altar which means over a week's time they're circling the altar effectively um from right to left there's a tradition by the way just put this in parenthesis but the tradition is that when we turn around in shul Friday night to face the back of the shul for at the last stanza of as we face the Shabas Queen, there's a tradition to turn from right to left and do a full circle, not just turn and then turn back. Uh kind of mimicking the kohanim that would go around the misbehanim that did not have the luxury of being allowed to enter through the north and then leave through the south. They would have to enter through the south and exit through the south side of the altar. And that was considered to be a punishment. They had to fight against the current of people leaving. This family was punished. This family was ostracized for the rest of their history. It was known as the Bilga family. Believe it or not, their last name was Bila. The patriarch of the family was Bila. And the Mishna says that they were punished in three ways, this family. Number one, they had to enter the south while everybody was exiting through the south. Number two, there were certain rings that were on the floor of the altar that would hold down the animals to make it easier to slaughter and she their rings were sealed and they did not have access to their rings, which means they had to figure out how to hold a cow down or borrow rings from somebody else. Number three, they didn't have access to their lockers. There was a locker room and they lost access to their lockers. They had to carry their deodorant and stuff on their own. No, I'm kidding. They had such but they had to carry their own stuff and and and they lost that amenity. So the Talmud says, "Well, why did they get punished? Like what did they do wrong? What did the Bila family do wrong?" And the answer is nothing. But their daughter did something wrong. They had a 12-year-old daughter. She was rambunctious. Her name was Miriam. The Talmud says that Miriam, the daughter of Bilgum, became a heretic. She became a what's called a co-fair. She denied her faith. She had left the f and she went to marry a Greek soldier. And again, this is historically speaking around the time of Kaneka where the Greeks were in power and um oppressing us. So she literally married into not not only did she marry out of the fold but she married into the enemy which was real commentary on on her level of heresy because the Greeks were not enemies to Jewish existence. They were en or at least not enemies to to the physical existence of Jews. because they were enemies to the spiritual existence of Jews. They didn't try killing out the Jews. They tried getting the Jews to assimilate. And you you know you you can believe in Judaism and study the Torah, but do it as a culture. You don't have to make it so godly. You don't have to be so meticulous with commandments as if it's something sacred, as if it's like unchangeable. If it makes sense and it's meaningful to you, go for it. And if it isn't, consider changing it. That was the Greek philosophy. That's what they were trying to fight for in Khan. And we said, "No, we're going to be so fanatic and stubborn in our relationship with God that we're even going to not use available oil because we deem it as impure." Right? That's that was the whole miracle. Technically speaking, you could use any oil in the in the B mikdash if pure oil is unavailable. You technically could, but we were going to be fanatic because we're going to prove a point that we actually believe in this stuff. Miriam, the daughter of Bila, who was a family of Kohanim, did not believe in this stuff. And she not only married out of the fold, but she married the enemy who was an enemy to the spiritual existence of Jewish people. It gets worse. Don't worry. The the Gomorrah says that the Talmud says that when the Greeks came to the basiktas to ransack it and start trying to put pigs on the altar and and start doing what they did to defile all the oil, she came with them. The Gomorrah then says she took her sandal off. She hits it on the altar and she says, I'm going to say it in the original text and I'll translate it. She takes her sandal off. She hits it on the altar. She says, "Lucas. Lucas." Lucas is a Greek word for wolf. Wolf. Wolf. She's calling the altar a wolf. until when will you consume the money of the people of Israel yet you don't stand for them at times of difficulty that's at this point the sages saw like okay something's wrong with this family and punished the family but she accused the altar of being a scam at least seemingly the altar the msbayak is supposed to be a source of blessing. That's where we bring corbanis. That's where we bring sacrifices. A corban means sacrifice. But the word corban comes from the word kairo to come close to God. This is the source of blessing where we come close to God. And that should be a source of protection. And she's accusing it of it being a scam. People are just spending money burning offerings and we're not getting anywhere. You're you're scamming people. Because of this, her entire family was punished and um lost certain privileges, the ones we had discussed earlier in the bas. Now the Talmud asks that that doesn't seem fair. What did the family do wrong? Come on. And the answer is there's two parts to this answer. Number one, um, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Now, that doesn't mean her family had that attitude to that degree. Maybe she exacerbated it, but where did it come from? Like, what were their conversations at their shabas table? What were their conversations like on Yamu? Were they skeptical? Were they cynical? Were they sharing that skepticism? The Talmud seems to be putting a little bit of blame on the family. The Talmud then says, "Okay, blame the family. Agree or disagree, but fine." But there was an entire Bilga shift and people that were associated with them that were also punished that uh didn't that weren't involved in raising her. The Gomorrah answers, the Talmud answers, and I'll say it in Hebrew and I'll translate it. Woe is to the wicked. Wo is to his neighbor. And good is for the righteous and goodest to his neighbor. Be careful who you hang around because the presumption is that those who were hanging around Miriam, the daughter of Bila, Miriam Basila, also would have been influenced. And that's why the entire Bila clan, even those who were not directly related or at least in the same household, were punished. Now, several questions come to mind here. Question number one, um there there's obviously stuff we can learn from from this story, which is why the Talmud's telling it to us. So, we can learn about education, we can learn about child rearing, we can there's a lot we can learn here. We can learn about faith. But why do we have to shame Miriam, the daughter of Bila, to drive this story? Imagine that Tom would told us this story but didn't mention Miriam, the daughter of Bila's name. I I don't think anybody of any of us would have asked what oh what was her name? I think we would have been okay with just knowing that this is a story to learn from without having to shame the family and the girl. By the way, you know how old was Miriam, the daughter of Dao was at this point? This is important to know. She was 12. She was I mean, you hear this all the time, 12-year-olds taking over the household, taking over the family, but this is to like a whole another degree. We could have learned the lessons we need seemingly without knowing her name. The Torah is very strict when it comes to lash and har when it comes to speaking negatively about people or or really negatively about things about places about not just people. Think about the spies who were punished. the 10 spies, 10 evil spies that Moshe had sent who were punished because they spoke negatively about the land of Israel, about a geographical location. Why are we calling out somebody by name, a human being, a 12-year-old? Think about think about um Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge, and they messed up catastrophically. They changed history forever. They got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. They changed existence as we know it and introduced an internalization of hyper sensitivity toward negativity. But do we know what fruit they ate from? The Torah doesn't say. And the in the Talmud itself, there's like seven different opinions and speculations as to what that fruit could be. We know it wasn't an apple and the movies got it wrong, but other than that, it's not really clear what it was. Some say it was a fig. Some say it was grapes. Some say it was wheat. Rashi tells us over there that why doesn't it say what type of fruit it was? Because what did the fruit do wrong? What did the tree do wrong? Why embarrass fruit? Why embarrass a tree? Wait a minute. We're not okay with embarrassing land. We're not okay with embarrassing fruit or trees, but we're okay of shaming this 12-year-old girl and her family. I'm not saying we shouldn't learn the story. There's a lot to learn from here, but why mention her name? That's question number one. Question number two and this is more of a fundamental uh issue here. Where we learn this Mishna from this section of Talmud from is from the track date of Suka. This does not seem to be consistent with the message of Suka on any level because what does a suka represent? Why do we sit in the suka? Because it represents God's embrace. God embraced us in the desert with the clouds of glory with the divine presence. It represents closeness to God. It represents deep connection to God. Um, commentaries wonder, you know, if it represents like the clouds of glory in the desert, it's part of like the Exodus of Egypt, shouldn't Sukus and Pesak coincide? Why is Sukus in the fall? There's a lot of answers that commentaries get into, but one of the answers is Sukus comes right after Yum Kipper. After we're forgiven, we're now embraced. Embraced by God. When we sit in the suka, God is embracing us because the suka represents closeness. The suka represents connection. The very opening Mishna inracted suka is about how tall a suka is allowed to be or not allowed to be. The maximum height for a suka is the same as a khanora and same as an auv 20 amo 20 cubits 20 increments of about 18 in each but from the elbow to the the tip of the finger 20 of those 20 amus and the gmorra says why does it have to be that tall but no taller why can't it be taller and the reason is Because the Torah tells us that we have to know that we're in a suka. We have to know that we're in a suka. We have to sense the suka. We have to feel the embrace of God. And if it's higher than 20 cubits, you're not going to notice it. It's just too tall. It's above. It's not just above eye level. It's above like if you're looking straight. I was teaching this idea once at the labs and they were doing all these mathematical equations on me. So some people can verify this mathematically, but if you're looking straight, how high are you going to see like from the peripheral vision? About 20 amas. Higher than 20, you're not going to notice that there's a roof over you. And the main part of the suka is the that's part of the embrace of God. We have to feel that embrace. So suka is about the embrace of God is about connection. The story of Miriam the daughter of Bila seems to be about disconnection. And not only is it mentioned in the track date of track date suka, it's like the grand finale, the final Mishna of trackctate suka. It doesn't seem to fit here. These are our questions today. And what I'd like to share with you is a paradigm shift in how we see people. Because here's the rule. This is true psychologically. Like there's research that backs this up. This is true spiritually, which means there are ancient texts that back this up. Psychologically, there is no such thing as a perfect problem. It does not exist. Doesn't exist. It can't. Perfect problems can't exist. Maybe it's almost perfect. Like maybe know somebody who's who's anxious. You're not perfectly anxious 100% of the time. You're either less anxious some of the time or you're not fully anxious all the time. But if you were fully anxious all the time, you'd be dead. God forbid. Same with marriage. There's no such thing as a perfectly bad marriage. Otherwise, they wouldn't be married. They would have murdered each other or divorced. Um I I'm not saying it's not difficult. I'm not saying it's not challenging. I'm just saying that there is a part it can't exist. Something can't exist in perfect negativity. The wayic texts describe this is that kipa can't exist independently. Kipa the negative force that hides God and that makes us experience life on a very um surface external level. an animal soul level can't exist without holiness, without kaduca, without without God. I mean, nothing can exist without God. And the same is with kipa, which means the kipa isn't perfect. It can't perfectly hide God. It can't be perfectly void and absent of God. There has to be something good in there. And it's the same with the story of Bila, of Miriam, the daughter of Bila. There has to be something redeemable here. Number one, because it exists. It happened. Number two, why are the sages telling us about this? Why are they speaking lash? Well, sages don't speak. They must be trying to tell us something good. Maybe we missed it. Maybe we didn't fully see it. Maybe we need to read the Mishna again from a fresh pair of lenses, from a fresh pair of eyes, and look at the proper way to see Dogga. Sorry, Miriam, the daughter of Dogga. Here's how we see Miriam, the daughter of Bila. Miriam, the daughter of Bila, again leaves her faith. Not only Mary's out of the fold intentionally, but Mary's a Greek soldier who is of the enemy people and they are theological enemies, which means she seems to really monopoly. And she not only embraces the Greek culture and Greek family life which was diametrically antithetical to Judaism and her faith, but she comes back with them to help ransack the Ba Mikdash when they were coming to defile all the oil and put their pig on the altar and everything. She's with them and she's not only rebelling like in past tense, she's rebelling in present tense. She's literally like there with them. Like why was she there? Why was she near them as what what compelled her to come? She was part of the story of Hanukkah as we know it. And what does she do? She takes her sandal off and she smacks the MBA and she says, "Lucas, Lucas, wolf, wolf, how long are you going to consume the wealth of Israel and not stand by them in their time of distress?" That's what she had said. In other words, she's complaining to God. God, I've left my faith. I've married out. I've joined a people who are trying to get rid of you and I've embraced that and I came back in full vengeance. And there's a part of me that's still wondering, "How dare you not take care of my people? Why aren't you taking care of my people? She's expressing love for her people. She's expressing a part of herself that she cannot run away from. No matter how hard she tries, that nishama, that soul, she can't. Her hitting the sandal on the altar and complaining was an act of care, an act of belief, an act of faith, very meaningful from somebody whom we would have presumed to have none of that. There's an there's a letter penned by Sigman Freud, father of psychology. Sigman Freud was um apparently did not consider himself by any means to be a believer in Judaism. He considered himself to be uh and and he writes in this letter that I've tried so hard throughout my lifetime to isolate myself from my Judaism and my Jewish culture and my Jewish faith. I'm par paraphrasing, not quoting. He says, "I'm trying so hard to run away from it. It's not working. I feel so Jewish. I don't know why. And it's beyond what I can explain in the paradigm of psychology." He had no explanation for it. There is only one explanation for it. That's the nishama. About a year ago, I was teaching at the at the labs in Liverour, Livermore National uh Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories was giving a class there and there was a fellow there in pushing um semi-retired and he's scientists. He considers himself to be an atheist. He had left uh his Jewish or claims to have left or tried to leave his Jewish faith and culture many many decades ago and has not engaged in a long time. Do you come to these classes? And he says to me once after class, I have a question for you. Yeah. How's Judaism doing in America? He's checking it. He hasn't had a lot of Jewish exposure, especially living in Liverour, California. not really engaging. I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "Well, are there more people joining the fold than there are leaving?" He says, "I've left the fold." Or he considers himself to have left the fold, although he's showing up to a class, right? Nobody's forcing him to be there. And um the food's not that good. No, I'm kidding. Um he says, "I've left the fold. my siblings have left the fold and I don't really know anybody other than you that's engaging. Is is this sustainable? Is Judaism going to continue? So I said to him, I I don't have any data for you, like statistical data, but we do live in a time where Judaism is more accessible than it ever has been in the history of of the world. Maybe since the giving of the Torah, there were more yeshivas and diverse yeshivas than there ever has been. There's more uh female seminaries and diverse female seminaries for different types of people, different personalities and different cultures and backgrounds than there ever has been. There are more English translations of ancient texts and and diverse translations, not just English, than there ever has been. There's more learning opportunities online and in person in Kabad houses and other outreach centers throughout the world than there ever has been. It's more accessible than ever has been that Scott suggests some level of interest. I thought that would have been a satisfactory answer, but he looks at me and goes, "Why?" Said, "What do you mean why?" Said, "Why would anybody want this?" Again, he wants this. He's showing up, right? The proof's in the pudding. Why would anybody want this? So, I said to him, I think that's a great question. If you're a student in Columbia University, again, this was a year ago, which was a year after October 7th, and I I'm sure not much has changed on Columbia University. If you're a student on Columbia University, it might be easier not to be openly Jewish and not to embrace your Judaism so you can just go to class and get your grades and not be stopped by by by other students and have to lock yourself in a classroom out of fear. it might be easier. So why are they embracing Judaism? Why are they risking themselves, their grades, their lives, everything so they can go to a pes or so they can go to a Friday night service or so they can go put on or whatever it is? Why are they risking themselves wearing a yam in public? Why? Same question, right? It's easier not to. And I said to him, I I think what you're describing is how I like to describe the soul. I think we both believe in the same thing just in different language. And this is the story of Miriam, the daughter of Bila. She not only ran away and divorced herself of her faith, she embraced a faith that was diametrically antithetical to everything she was raised with, antithetical to her soul. And she came back with a vengeance to fight for her new beliefs, to fight against her old beliefs. And she couldn't hold back. And she looks at the bispayak and hits it and is angry at it. Like God, why aren't you protecting the Jewish people? Like come on. And it makes me wonder this. This is the tough question to ask ourselves like to ask ourselves this honestly and I think it's a good question to ask for Kipper. When we see somebody doing something that they shouldn't be, that's disappointing and we feel let down by somebody to ask ourselves the question, are we looking at the whole version of them? We're looking at them honestly. We're seeing what upsets us and that might be very real. I'm not discounting that. But is that everything? What are we proud of? Because the problem can't exist in perfection. And if we can't find what we are proud of, we have to look harder. In this teaching, the lab succeeded doing it with Miriam, the daughter of Bila. Perky says he should judge every single person favorably. These points out that if you translate it literally, it doesn't say every single person. It says, it says the whole person. Look at the full person, not just the version of them that we choose to get fired up about. Look at the full person. It's very difficult. But one of the ways we're inspired to do this is actually by living by by sitting in the suka. Because one of the things the suka teaches us is that despite our differences, despite the diversity, there are parts of us that are so similar. Every single one of us can be sitting in the same suka and we might think differently. We might be raised differently. We might have different passions. We might do things differently. We might tell ourselves we have different beliefs. But why are we all in that suka? There's one thing embracing us all equally. We could be in the suko with Moha Rabenu. Miriam, the daughter of Vilga could be with in the circle with moisture raum and they're going to have the same thing in common that soul. And that soul's going to challenge us to look past all of the things that might be frustrating us and all the garbage and say, "Well, what do we see? What is here that can be redeemed and that we would be proud to see more of?" This is I think an important meditation to go into sukus with and to go into yum kipper with. But, uh, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.