Volume 30 Issue 15 28 May 2021 17 Sivan 5781

From the Head of Jewish Life

Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Being inspired

Socrates: The gift you possess… is not a skill but an inspiration. There is a divinity moving you like the force contained in the stone Euripides calls a magnet. This stone not only attracts iron rings but also imbues them with the power of attracting other rings. Sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another, forming quite a long chain – and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone. This is like how the Muse first of all inspires men herself, and from these inspired ones is suspended a chain of other people who take inspiration…

This week’s parashah, BeHa’alotkha (“When you raise up”), introduces the “seventy elders”, enlisted to assist Moshe, with the following words:

Gather for Me seventy elders, bring them to the Tent of Meeting, taking their place there with you…I will draw from the spirit that is on you and put it upon them…
And, when the spirit rested upon them, they experienced inspiration, in the moment.

The elders are moved by the spirit of Moshe, but only momentarily.

In contrast, we soon read of two individuals, Eldad and Medad, who are not at the Tent of Meeting with Moshe, “yet, the spirit rested upon them and they became inspired”. When Yehoshua, Moshe’s deputy, seeks to restrain them, Moshe replies, “Would that the Lord put His spirit upon all the people”.

Unlike the seventy elders, these two individuals are not deriving their spirited state from Moshe but, through their own being, directly from God. Accordingly, they are themselves inspired and this state is not momentary, if and when the spirit moves them.

Inspired living informs one’s being and is not a magnetic force being exerted from a source without. Moshe’s calling upon all to be like Eldad and Medad is reflective of the statement of God to Moshe: “And you, remain here with Me”, in an ongoing inspired, dedicated state.

As parents and educators, we strive to encourage and guide our children and students to live inspired lives.

But, can anyone but a Moshe remain atop the “mountain”?

The story of Eldad and Medad, who attain and maintain their inspired being within the Israelite camp, not in the Tent of Meeting or upon Mount Sinai, suggests that we each can live inspired lives.