Biblical Financial Reform

At the end of this week’s Torah portion, Naso (Numbers 4:21 – 7:89), there is a section that seems laboriously repetitive and utterly redundant. I am referring to Chapter 7, which deals with the inaugural offerings of the tribal leaders of the Israelites. These 12 tribal leaders were foremen during the days of the Egyptian enslavement, and willingly accepted beatings from the Egyptian taskmasters rather than punish their fellow Israelites for not meeting their quotas of bricks. As a reward, they were honored to bring these inaugural offerings upon the dedication of the Tabernacle (the mishkan).

The section starts with the detailed offering of Nahshon Ben Aminadab, the leader of the tribe of Judah:

The one who presented his offering on the first day was Nahshon son of Aminadab of the tribe of Judah. His offering was: one silver bowl weighing 130 shekels and one silver basin of 70 shekels by the sanctuary weight, both filled with choice flour with oil mixed in, for a grain offering; one gold ladle of 10 shekels, filled with incense; one bull of the herd, one ram, and one lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering; one goat for a purification offering; and for his sacrifice of peace offering: two oxen, five rams, five he-goats and five yearling lambs. That was the offering of Nahshon son of Aminadab.

726 Redundant Words

The Torah then recounts the inaugural offerings of the second leader, Netanel son of Zuar (from the tribe of Issachar) – and it was the exact same offering! These six verses are repeated word for word. And then the third leader, Eliab son of Helon – and, again, it was the exact same offering, and all the verses are repeated once more! And on and on it goes, with the Torah repeating these verses for all 12 tribal leaders.

And the question is: Since all their offerings were identical, why couldn’t the Torah -- after recounting the first offering-- simply tell us the rest of the leaders of the tribes brought the same offerings! This would have condensed a very long chapter into a few sentences. Moreover, it would have saved 726 words (since the inaugural offerings for each tribal leader contains approximately 66 words, and this is repeated extraneously 11 times: 66 * 11 = 726).

This redundancy is perplexing, given that one of the most important literary techniques of the Torah is brevity. It is well-known that the Torah uses words sparingly, and does not waste words, certainly when they don't add any value. So why this useless repetition that is seemingly devoid of any meaning?

The CEO of McDonald's Meets the Pope

In order to answer this question, let's first remind ourselves of a famous joke.

The CEO of McDonald's gets an audience with the Pope. He says, "I'd like to give $100 million to the church, and all we ask in return is that for one year, you change the line in the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily Big Mac.' "

The Pope says, "I really can't."

So the CEO says, "I can double it to 200 million dollars, and that's as far as I can go."

The Pope says, "Let me talk this over with my cardinals and get back to you."

He then gathers his cardinals and addresses them in a convocation:

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is we're going to receive a 200 million dollars from McDonald's for one year. The bad news is we blew our deal with Burger King."

There is a grain of truth contained in this joke. Organized religion and money can be a dangerous mix. It is tempting for religious officials to justify violations of the law, perhaps even dishonest behavior, in the name of serving God. We know too well that often there is corruption where organized religion deals with large sums of money. This is true not just with religious officials but with leaders and politicians in general: The scandals where politicians have stolen money, embezzled, and commingled money of others with their own money, are too numerous to count.

In the case of the Israelites’ tribal leaders, there was danger that they will use these offerings to collect or take money from their constituents, and then illegally use it for the inaugural offerings. In order to show that there was a complete and detailed accounting of where the money came from and where it went, the Torah needs to recount all the offerings for each and every tribal leader. We need this detailed accounting to remove suspicion that the leaders took advantage of handling all the gold, silver, incense and high-priced animals for their own enrichment. The leaders of the community must be above any suspicion of personal aggrandizement.

Another example of this idea is the rule that family that prepared the incense for the Temple services would never let their relatives wear perfume, lest some suspect them of using Temple incense for their personal benefit.

These days everyone is talking about financial reform and accountability. The Senate and the House are considering financial reform bills that would increase accountability and prevent greed, fraud, and manipulation by greedy corporations and speculators. The idea contained in this week’s parasha is – in some ways – a Biblical version of the ideas behind financial reform.